A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He grabbed the man by the back of his dirty fur coat and began to drag him towards the edge of the forest, ignoring the blood that ran the length of his arm. This was why he'd worn these raggedy commoner clothes, after all. He'd expected this to be a bloody affair. He wanted nothing less.

He did not have to drag the man far. Calmly, he tossed him out into the snow, where the soldiers could see him. He acknowledged their startled reactions just for a second, those veteran faces so tight with tension from the assault, and how they thawed like breaking ice when they saw the corpse – and then he plunged back into the forest to snatch that last man that the archer had spoken of.

It did not take long to find him. Indeed, the disturbed snow had been swept clean by spruce bows and if he hadn't known what to look for, he would have passed it entirely. Only because he knew to find a thick tree in the direction that the scout had pointed did he notice the odd sweeping lines atop the snow, as though the wind had been blowing particularly low.

Of course, the wind didn't shoot arrows.

He'd pretended to be observing the strange lines in the snow, turning his back to the tree, just to give the archer an opportune moment to unload his bow. Of course, the man took it, having no reason to suspect that he might be getting tricked. The second the arrow blasted into the snow, Oliver was climbing the tree.

This one he didn't bother to question. He didn't even bother to face off against him. The tree's branches allowed him to get directly under the man long before he had an arrow back in his bowstring. Oliver grabbed him by the leg and sent him falling to the floor.

Even with the thick snow, he landed with a scream. His leg had been extended too straight and at the moment of impact, was forced the other way. The knee gave out and so too did the man.

He raised his hatchet up at Oliver as he came close, despite his screams of pain. Oliver ignored the threat, and pointedly kicked the man in the face, disarming him with a swift and deliberate motion. These men weren't really brawlers, after all. He'd have gotten more fight out of a soldier. Continue reading stories on My Virtual Library Empire

He hauled the man back outside the treeline without killing him, giving him another kick to quiet him down so that he could shout back to Northman.

"THE ARCHERS ARE DEALT WITH," he said, cupping his hands to his mouth so that his voice would carry far enough.

The soldiers seemed hesitant at first, looking to Northman for their orders. It seemed to be more the curiosity of the captive that Oliver had seized that urged them to leave their hiding places and bravely showing themselves to the tree line again.

Oliver's squadron soon caught up with him, ahead of the rest, now that they'd stopped hiding in the snow.

"Who's this one?" Rofus asked, giving the man a casual boot in the jaw to quiet him as he arrived. The others seemed almost jealous that he was the one to deliver the punishment.

"One of the archers," Oliver said.

"Are you sure you've got them all?" Rofus said, looking nervously towards the trees. "They could have a whole bloody army in there and we'd not know the first thing about it."

"Go and check," Oliver offered. "We're right next to the trees. If it'll set you at ease, go and see the undisturbed snow yourself, but I'm quite certain there was only too."

Rofus hesitated, seeming almost as though he was about to do just that. Then he turned to one of the other men. "Why don't you check, Amberlan?"

"Me? Why do I have to check? I haven't got a shield or nothin'. Besides, I'm bigger than you – a bigger target for arrows. Worse for moving through the woods," Amberlan complained.

"Now, don't you be acting insubordinate in front of a noble? That's an order from your sergeant that is, get to it, give those woods a good old scout. You as well, Gamrod," Rofus said.

"You shouldn't be a sergeant at all," Gamrod said, irritated. "You just use it to make your bloody life more convenient. I'm going to say I trust Ser Patrick and stay here. He's the boss, ain't he, not you."

Gamrod gave Oliver a look that seemed to be begging for backup. "You can do what you want," he said with a shrug. "But I can tell you that I wouldn't be standing with my back towards the woods unless I was confident there wasn't another man pointing a bow at me."

There came a reluctant nod from Rofus at that. "I suppose not," he said. "Oy, Amberlan. Come back. We were only joking."

The oafish man had already been making his way back into the trees, raising up a spruce bow to create room for himself and frowning at the snow that was dumped on his head. He didn't seem particularly pleased that his efforts had been in vain.

"How did you know, by the way?" Rofus said, ever so casually. He managed to say it as though he couldn't care less, as though it was merely passing conversation, but he didn't do a very good job at hiding the hunger in their eyes. None of them did. "Before the arrows even started firing, you stopped and started moving. What tipped you off?"

"The same thing that tells you you're hungry," Oliver said. "The same thing that tells you that you need a piss in the middle of the night."

It was the answer that they were expecting and a good amount of silence followed it, but it was still a line that a soldier could understand. Rofus' brooding look broke into his usual smile, and a good few of the men mirrored him, sharing chuckles.