A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

It didn't make sense to Jok. It went against all the experience that he'd gathered. How, against such crushing weight, could a boy of that strength not be crushed?

The Yarmdon commander had realized it a time ago – it was not the boy's strength that was holding him up. It was something else. An unbelievable resilience. It was as though they were trying to cut at and grasp the wind. The more force they sent at him, and the harder they tried, the more difficult it became.

"Gorm would end him in a single swing… but still, this is… this is unnerving," Jok said with a shudder. It was as though he was battling a ghost rather than a man.

In the gloom of uncertainty, there wavered a few dots left of dying light. In the void of the unknown, a will was born, a hope, shared by many. A hope for a solution to an impossible problem. The hope for the strength to overcome a crushing and pressing obstacle, that was their hope.

Through the course of their lives, they had not been strangers to such moments. Those moments where the world transformed itself into a quagmire, where the very ground beneath their feet disappeared, and they sank deeper and deeper into the problems that assailed them. When the world was nothing but muddy and murky, when their hearts could summon no cause or direction.

Those moments, they suffered them alone, or they suffered them with family. It was rare that a whole village suffered together, that it shouldered a burden of that magnitude together. None of them had truly been placed on even footing like that before. In one way or another, their fellow man might have held advantage of disadvantage, lightening the load they felt, or perhaps even increasing it. Enjoy exclusive content from m-v l'-NovelFire

But this rock, this crushing boulder, it sought to flatten them all equally. It was not simply strength that could shift it – or at least, not their level of strength. Nor was it careful planning, or a honed intellect. They couldn't even rely on luck, and believe that, chances being what they were, the odds of victory weren't too bad at all. No, all was against them.

To plough forward with a murky and uncertain heart. To move one's feet simply because standing in place was no longer tolerable. To shuffle about madly in the unknown. That was what the villagers of Solgrim were forced into. From the moment the Yarmdon descended upon the village, they'd already lost.

Their planning hadn't been adequate, they should have done this, and they should have done that. They should have been prepared for such an invasion, and prepared for the possibility that the soldiers might lose. Those were the only sorts of thoughts that their minds could conjure up, thoughts that were pure lamentations, as they cursed their lack of foresight.

They cursed their leaders too. That Elder that had betrayed them, and then themselves for trusting them. The heads of the various merchant households, for not being of any use in the time of crisis. Not a single one of them had stepped forward to lead.

They'd been drowning in the void of despair just as deeply as the rest of them, perhaps even more so, for their positions being what they were, as men and women that lived relatively comfortably, to have been brought so low was a shocking thing.

Now they were rendered just as weak as they had been the moment that they'd come into the world. Animated, and unsure. This was unfamiliar territory to them. This weight that hung in the air, these dangerous men that they had to compete with. They'd closed the distance now enough to make out shapes. It wore on their hearts to see them – to see their first Yarmdon up close.

They were terrifying.

Lombard felt the shift in the air. Gorm noticed it too.

The giant sniffed, as he halted his axe for just a moment. He looked out across the battlefield, at the disorganised stream of bodies, as the villagers charged out of their village towards the east.

A grin spread across his face. "Hah… That's more like it. That's more like it! Waiting to die like pathetic lambs, spit on that. A MAN SHOULD DIE WITH A SWORD IN HAND!" He bellowed, before taking a look at Lombard again.

"Maybe if they'd come earlier, this might have gone differently, eh?" His smile showed his blackened teeth. "But Jok's already seen them coming."

His words rang true. Lombard had sensed that. He was fumbling about in the same darkness that the villagers were, looking for that same spark, that same puzzle piece that he needed to shift the overwhelming problem. But he did so without giving into despair. He'd been plunged into the dark waters many times before. He knew that all one needed to do was continue swimming – that was all one could do.

"A special little village, this has been," Gorm said, nodding in acknowledgement. "You Southerners have finally left your mark. Let's get this over with, whilst the taste is still sweet in my mouth."

In an instant, his battle axe went from resting against his shoulder, to snaking towards Lombard's side in a staggeringly strong blow. That was the quickest the giant had moved in their entire fight. Lombard's eyes widened like a cat's as he attempted to follow the movement.

His body was beyond exhausted by now. Parrying even a single one of Gorm's blows was enough to shake a man's skeleton like a sapling tree in the wind. Pairing as many as Lombard had? That was a recipe for disaster. But he had no choice. The giant Gorm was far too quick for him.

It was all Lombard could do to hold on, and buy time.

Once more Gorm's axe hammered home into Lombard's blade. Sparks flew, and Lombard grunted from exertion, as he desperately tried to slow the force of the attack. His elbow bent at an odd angle. His tired muscles were too exhausted to stabilise the joint properly. Barely, just barely, that ringing blade managed to miss his flesh.