A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Fire upon the boy," he ordered.

His men were listening to him now. Their responses came more quickly than before. That, or it was fear that was driving them, for every single one of them knew that the boy had slain their commander.

Bowstrings were drawn back and a vicious barrage of arrows speared towards Beam, all of them aimed with the intent to skewer him – but that only made them easier to dodge. All the Yarmdon were decent shots with the bow, and the large majority of the arrows that they'd fired were all accurate enough to hit their mark.

But that only caused the arrows to clump together in an ever-shrinking cloud. Beam merely ran off to one side, and the arrows all missed him.

Jok felt himself flush red. It was an embarrassing sight. Never before had he ordered so many arrows be fired at a single enemy. His mind had glazed over the fact that concentrated arrow fire was easier dodged.

"Spread out your shots!" Jok ordered. "Pin him down."

Even as he gave the order, he couldn't help but think they were wasting arrows. Already, they'd spent a hundred and twenty arrows, gaining nothing but soil in return, and the boy was only getting closer to them.

Even without Jok's order, the Yarmdon men had realized their folly and they spread their shots out this time, instead aiming for the area around Beam, rather than Beam himself.

Beam's eyes met Jok's as the Yarmdon commander gave the order to fire. Jok found himself paused. For a moment, the boy had felt much closer than he was, as though he was standing right in front of him. It took concentration to break that illusion, but even when it was gone, Jok could still see a pair of golden eyes in his head, peering at him, radiating bloodlust.

His hand went to his sword, as though expecting that Beam would charge in, that he would close that distance of a hundred metres within the next arrow volley, and their blades would cross.

Instead, the boy simply turned on his heel, and sprinted back towards the Stormfront encampment.

The arrows thudded into the snow after him, a hundred and twenty of them again, not a single one of them finding their mark.

In a few moments more, Beam was back inside the fort, with Tolsey having improved their defences with the bodies.

Jok was still stunned into silence. He did not even have leave to lament yet more wasted arrows. Instead, he found himself looking over his shoulder, amongst the trees. A feeling of dread threatened to grip his heart.

It was not the boy he feared. It was what the boy saw. For a moment, he'd caught a glimpse of a terribly dark presence. It was as though someone had ripped a blindfold from his eyes – and now he could see it, and feel it. That presence was all around them. It tainted the very air that they breathed in.

Just when had that begun to happen? Jok wondered. Just when had they fallen into such a trap?

He found it hard to believe that the arrows were still flying so smoothly, that the men were still walking and fighting so swiftly, with air this thick with evil.

Jok had felt the presence of a God once before, when had first received his blessing. He remembered it being a warm and euphoric sensation, a sweet relief, that a being far greater than he stood in his corner.

This felt similar in its magnitude. The same godly aura. Only, this seemed even stronger, even more overwhelming, even more dangerous. It made him sweat and look over his shoulder, expecting an apparition to be hovering behind him. But there was nothing. Nothing but his men and the cold battlefield around them.

He could not put a name to it exactly. All he knew was that it was dangerous. The most dangerous out of anyone on the battlefield, by far. Recognizing the aura, he cast his eyes to the woods. The scent seemed strong there. It came to him now in waves, like a brief flash of insight.

He saw it all over the battlefield, all around the village, like a dark circle, like a sacrificial altar marked out to the darkest of Gods. He saw dense pockets of it where the battle was the strongest.

Then he saw it clinging to that boy, like steel-plated armour, an eight-foot-tall aura of dark shadow. He shuddered, and just as soon as he saw it, it was gone, as though he'd been short of breath, and now his breathing was once more steadied.

He was returned to the reality that he knew, the scenes that he thought he understood, but even then, he could not shake the feeling of dread that clasped at his heart.

He had to fight consciously not to give the order to retreat. Then, as he wrestled with that idea, he realized that retreat wasn't an option anyway. They'd already sealed a steel wall at their back, through their taunting of Lord Blackwell's men.

"To think that here… In the middle of nowhere… We'd find something like this," Jok spat, his taste for battle turning to something bitter. They'd expected to run through this village like all the rest. Yet what was this level of resistance? Why was there such might here, in the middle of nowhere? And why had darkness chosen to settle here, of all places?

"There's no choice," Jok told himself. "We have to force our way through."

His perspective shifted to one of urgency. He wanted to rid themselves of this Stormfront problem, as soon as possible, before it was too late. He wasn't exactly sure what was coming – but he felt it now, as surely as he felt the sea calling him from the west. There was danger afoot, of the likes that he'd never felt before.

He gave the order, despite Gorm's earlier protests that they take the enemy head-on.

"Move South!" He said, for the first time giving his orders at a shout. His men shared looks, each of them asking the same question. They'd heard just as well as any what Gorm had said – whenever Gorm said anything, they were all forced to listen, given the loudness of his voice.

It was the Yarmdon way to attack from the front, to best the enemy where he was strongest, and Gorm was more Yarmdon than any.