A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2100: King of the Land - Part 5

"I am not the same creatures as they," Oliver said. "I have already sinned. I am already tainted. I gave the High King and Lord Blake the dark colours that they have brushed me with... And yet... I refuse to lose. If it be corruption that won them their game for them, then I will be corrupt. I will draw upon the darkest powers that are necessary to strike them down. I will not allow all this to be in vain. If I am to do it, I will go all the way."

"Good," Ingolsol said. "Grasp their hearts, and crush them. Say the words, and force them to kneel to you. They are naught before the God of Power."

"...Do not be shortsighted, Oliver," Claudia warned. "There is a reason that Dominus trusted that his honour might carry him towards justice. In clouding the waters, you dim the light of justice that ought to shine through."

"Where is this justice, Claudia?" Oliver said. "Power is justice. The strength to bring down the axe. The might to overwhelm, and subdue. That is justice."

He said it firmly, grasping at his own conclusion, and blocking out any replies that the Fragments might send his way. He needed certainty. It didn’t matter what the direction of that certainty was. There were certain things that he knew, and he could trust in. He knew how to train men, to make a strong unit. He knew how to fight, and win battles. He could do both now, with his Winged Unit. He would bring the hammer down on them with a relentlessness. He would make them suffer, for all that he asked of them. Then, there would be no foe that could threaten to break them, no battle that could overwhelm them. Two thousand men with the might of twenty thousand, and the swiftness to be anywhere at once – he believed in that possibility.

He followed the stream deeper into the forest. The clouds were retreating their way from the moon, and as the trees thinned, the light of the stars shone down below. A beautiful, and increasingly clear spring night, with just the right amount of coolness. He’d been gone a while, and Blackthorn would surely have words for him, but he did not fret. The fatigue of the battle was a forgotten thing. He pushed it away, in search of a solution. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

There was a black torrent that was the Stormfront. A stagnation allowed, damaging what they all drew from in order to nourish themselves. Corrupting and tainting all that they were. Oliver could feel it just as strongly as a physical entity. Increasingly, it did seem that it was such an entity that he was at war with, rather than just the High King himself, or even Lord Blake. For those were mortal men, and Oliver did not think that they were truly strong enough to have defeated all those great men that they had before him. Nor did he think they were strong enough to resist the natural and just laws of the battlefield that Oliver had the most acute sense for, and that had suggested, rather strongly, that this campaign should already have been over a time ago.

Here in the forest, under the light of the sky, all was pure. Even as Oliver’s mood was dark with rage, and he felt the increasing desire to lash out at all around him, he could not fail to be affected by the immaculate sense of the nature that existed next to him.

The low hanging branches of the trees, as they sprouted their spring leaves, and grew their buds that would soon blossom. The clearness of the water in the stream, and the occasional splash from it, as a fish breached the surface of the water. The hoot of an owl, then the panicked fluttering of the wings of a ground dwelling bird as Oliver drew nearer.

For all his dark stomping, the forest did not seem angry with him. It reduced Oliver’s rage to a degree. It made him feel a small thing. The sounds of the forest, the weight of the darkness, the brightness of the skies. For how strong he had grown, alone like this at night, he was still very much a defenceless boy. He could battle away the strongest of monsters, and yet it still felt like the forest was far more powerful than he.

He muttered to it, as he followed the stream deeper. "When an animal dies here, it decays... it becomes nourishment. In our Kingdom, and our monarchy, there has been a deadness sat for decades – and none have used it. The body of the High King, would your roots be able to make use of all that he is, poison though he is?"

The trees came to an abrupt end. They had thickened enough that their foliage had become something of a wall, making it impossible to see ahead. Oliver had mindlessly barrelled through, intent on following the stream for a little longer. At least long enough to find some sort of answer that he could be half-content with, so he could finally allow himself the privilege of sleep.

Stepping past those trees, and pushing past their branches was like clambering over the wall of one garden, and heading into the next, so sudden was the change of scenery. The shingle covered shore of a river burst into view. A broad river it was too, rushing over rocks with a mighty roar. Littered with enough boulders that one could dare to think that they might be able to use them as stepping stones to cross. From the way the water sat more still on the further side a great distance away, however, Oliver had a sneaking suspicion that it was deceptively deep.

The water sparkled in the moonlight, and the stars lent themselves to a rippling mirror of a canvas.

"Beautiful..." Oliver said, the word leaving him before he knew what to do about it. "This might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been..."

His eyes followed the river further down, watching it disappear round a meander. Then they tracked the opposite shore, where the banks rose up into a high overhanging cliff, and trees clung there with gnarled roots, sticking through and breaking apart the high rock.