A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The tides of progress were an elusive thing, after all. As simple as it might have seemed to a man looking at it for the first time, when they saw how Oliver extended his advantage, with feint after feint, growing his lead all the way to two steps, that was a mistaken interpretation.

It was as simple as the idea that work would lead to progress. There was a correlation, but they were not one and the same. On a strategy board, reckless advancing would leave troops overextended and vulnerable to extreme tactics.

The same was true of the gaining of initiative in one one-on-one combat – take too much of it, too quickly, with not enough sense for the game, and you would be playing with fire. Rather than making your position stronger, you would be revealing weaknesses for the enemy to exploit.

"Complicated…" Talon acknowledged, as he mulled it over in his head. "Sword, is it..? What fool dared to plant the notion that it required less intellect than the path of the General?"

Riddled with wounds, Talon was forced to see for himself the boundaries that a man of the Sword could overturn. Pure brute strength could be used against its user, just as it could be used to augment what had already been learned.

A realization came to him, suddenly, and alarmly. A realization that defied all the logic that he'd gained over the course of his long career. 'I can't win.'

That realization came with a shiver that shook even the Fragment within him. He was a creature of Claudia, after all, though he had dealt with other Gods, as he tried to extend his Command over his men. His Fragment could not understand that fact. In terms of progress, the boy in front of him defied all logic.

They could feel his aura, and they thought they had seen his strength, but like the relentlessness of the very ocean itself, he lapped at them, breaking them down, bit by bit.

He embodied progress, and its spirit, more than any human that Talon had ever met. It wasn't merely the fact that he had progressed so quickly – if Talon had met with a forty-year-old man, instead of a boy, he would have still thought the same thing. It was the way that he breached the hard-set boundaries of Progress, so fundamental to their being.

A fledgling of the Third Boundary, and Talon was a veteran of the Fourth. There should have been no competition. And indeed, the first instant that their blades had crossed, there hadn't been much. There'd been a spark, when there ought not to have been a spark, but that was it.

Now Talon had allowed that spark to spread, and he found himself surrounded, all of a sudden, by a ring of fire. A disaster that he'd allowed to awaken.

He didn't understand the boy in front of him, or the conclusion that he'd reached, but he knew he had to trust it regardless. Attacking General that he was, Talon was forced to take a step back.

Ingolsol purred, a tiger stalking his prey. He could see weakness, as he looked through the same eyes as Oliver. Talon could feel that predatory sense in which he was being regarded, as though he was nothing more than a lump of meat, and it enraged him.

"SOLDIERS!" Talon shouted, giving in to his own good sense. "CRUSH THE ENEMY – NOW AND COMPLETELY."

He put into that order all the Command he could muster. He spoke through Varsharn, who he'd gotten to know rather well. His Command was the red-hot and furious Command of the War Goddess, tainted by the good-willed hopes of the Fragment that had brought him into the realm of the heavens – that was Claudia. It hit a man like the roar of a bear, natural and violent.

It incited in him the most animalistic of instincts.

All of a sudden, a wave of intensity fluttered over the snowy Fort. The stability that had arisen – as naturally arises, eventually, in all things – was vanquished. One side was granted a burst of strength incomparable to what Talon had given them earlier. This was the full force of what he was.

All those years of experience, and he thrust it upon those men that he barely knew, demanding that they obey and that they bring him victory. It was the same impetuousness typical of Kings.

Oliver took a step forward, just as Talon took a step back. Talon knew he had to return to his men. There was a gap forming between him and Oliver, but he wasn't overwhelmed yet. The longer Oliver fought for, Talon had a feeling the stronger he would become. He needed to stage his retreat before that, and reunite with his men.

"There comes the stench of fear from you," Oliver said, beginning to smell that sulphuric scent, ever so slightly. If not for Ingolsol's senses, he'd never have picked it up.

The General's eyes flashed with rage at the accusation. Talon was quite certain that he didn't feel the slightest shred of something so useless, especially not against an opponent like thi—'Wait…' Talon thought, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, and his hands sweating, as nervous shivers ran down his back. 'Is this..?'

He hadn't felt the feeling in so long that he'd forgotten. He'd been convinced that the boy was lying, but no one's eyes ever grew so excited over a lie.

Talon stood motionless. He'd had the feeling when he first crossed swords with Oliver, that he did so meeting a hero. Putting down a Tiger of the sort that any of the past Stormfront legends would have celebrated. Now Talon realized that such an impression ought to have been mistaken, for what glared down at him now, surrounded by an aura of darkness, was the mantle of a monster.

Ingolsol lounged on his throne, feeling a depth of feeling that a Dark God of his sort should never have felt. He hadn't been so stirred in the longest of times. He felt like he was growing younger every second that he watched. It was an emotion that he had to share with someone.