A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1013 - The Counterattack - Part 12

1013: The Counterattack – Part 12

1013: The Counterattack – Part 12

“OLIVER!” Blackthorn shouted all of a sudden, warning him of an impending danger, but Oliver had kept Ingolsol’s awareness about him throughout the duration of the climb.

There was no better time to use it.

He rolled over to the side of the ladder, clutching it with one arm and one leg, and he allowed the thrown spear to thunder into the wood beside him.

He barely gave it any acknowledgement, and continued higher.

The Verna spears were not designed to be thrown.

They were much too weighty for that.

More spears were cast his way, but few came quite as close as that one had.

He ascended higher, and soon they could reach him no longer, and the problems began with those at the top of the ladder.

An arrow came thundering down towards him without a shred of warning.

He could not even see the man that had sent it.

Nevertheless, Ingolsol’s awareness gave him enough of a warning to put his sword in the way of the attempt.

He deflected it off the side, knowing that to dodge it would be to leave Blackthorn in its path, given that she was barely a rung below him.

“Arrows,” Oliver muttered, half as a warning for Blackthorn, and half as an acknowledgement for himself.

He knew there to be five men at the top of the tower, with one of them being General Khan.

He didn’t know how many had bows, but he doubted that it would be a lot of them.

The tower did not seem like the sort of thing that was meant to be defended from the top.

Another arrow came his way, just as he began to near the top.

It was harder to react to this time, but he’d known the man was there.

He’d seen him through Ingolsol’s eyes, and he’d expected the arrow from other means than just his vision.

Once more, he deflected it.

“Yadish, withdraw,” General Khan said, his voice as level as it had been for the entirety of the battle, quite the contrast to his panicking attendant, who was still fumbling for another arrow to thread into his bow.

“General…” Yadish said, unsure.

He wasn’t much of a fighter himself.

He hadn’t crossed through the Second Boundary.

His skill was as a scribe and a messenger.

It was the other golden-armour-clad men that were meant to be tasked with defence, but at an order from General Khan, none of them had moved.

It was only Yadish who had been unable to keep himself from action.

General Khan stared his attendant down with his pale blue eyes, which made such a contrast to his dark tanned skin.

Eventually, Yadish was forced to withdraw, unable to stand up to the General when he asserted himself – especially not when he did so with glaive in hand, and a firm look in his eye.

A hand grabbed for the top of the platform a moment later, followed by a cautious head.

A pair of determined eyes scanned the area around the platform, pausing for a moment, seeming uncertain.

Then, he squinted, meeting the gaze of the General, and the young man’s lips curved into a smile, and he dragged himself up the final way.

“General Khan, I presume?” Oliver said.

“It is I,” the General replied, speaking the Stormfront tongue with fluency, though his words were enunciated with the same exotic twang of the Verna language.

“Polite,” Oliver noted.

“Then I will be quick, and polite the same.

I’ve come for your head.

You might wish to struggle to retain it – but the end result will be the same.”

General Khan paused long enough to allow another to ascend to the top of the ladder – a pale-skinned woman, with a long braid of black hair, and a face as well sculpted in its expressionlessness as a doll’s.

“I do not think so,” General Khan replied, unmoved.

“Blackthorn,” Oliver said, giving the order.

He needn’t have said it.

The girl was already rocketed off her backfoot, throwing herself at the nearest gold-armoured man, thrusting her sword towards his neck.

The man parried barely in time, and the two weapons let loose a metallic clang.

By the bell of that clang, Oliver rushed forward himself.

“Ingolsol, Claudia, bless my blade,” he said.

He knew not whether they could, given how exhausted they were, but he took power from the words anyway.

He drank in all that he was.

He recalled all his victories, from Talon, to the Hobgoblin, to the Boulder Crab.

He imagined what it was like to face great strength, and he prepared himself mentally to overcome it.

When the glaive raised to block him, he was not surprised.

He’d felt from General Khan the aura of a man that was at least of the Fourth Boundary.

Even for Oliver, those men could not be defeated so easily.

The block did not surprise him, but the weight of their weapons as they crossed did.

Oliver’s sword came down with all the force of his charging steps.

He’d swung in the style of overwhelm, trusting Dominus’ curved blade to hold up beneath the abuse.

And yet… General Khan’s glaive did not budge even an inch.

Quite the opposite, it was Oliver who felt himself step back from the recoil.

“What?” He said, his voice quiet.

In so many years, he’d never felt such a difference in strength.

It was as though he was fighting Dminus again, a wall so insurmountable that he couldn’t even imagine a way over it.

But that was impossible.

There was no chance of this foreign General being a mightier fighter than the famed Dominus Patrick.

No chance at all.

So then why did his guard not budge?

Oliver struck again.

He slid his foot across the smooth wooden planks of the platform, keeping his eyes firmly pinned on his foe.

There was a trick here, or else he’d made a mistake.

Blackthorn was engaged in combat with two of the golden-armoured men, but Oliver couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“You are missing too many puzzle pieces,” Khan said calmly.

“Though you are my foe, I do not delight in seeing youthful potential snuffed out.”