Chapter 1996: The Scale of a Foe – Part 1
Chapter 7 – The Scale of a Foe
Darkness had fallen many hours before. Still, they were waiting on the Emerson army’s arrival. Another day, they supposed – or at least Oliver did – and they would be here. Others supposed much longer, but the seriousness that Verdant had left with left Oliver with no doubts as to the speed that he would see his task accomplished with.
A building feeling in the chest from it, as it grew closer. The blossoming of doubts. The fading of that certainty.
Once more did Oliver go to bed with fear making his fingers shake, and terror threatening to overtake him as he lost consciousness.
With a start, he awoke, his eyes wide, and his consciousness still distant. The hands of restraint that would ordinarily have held back that immense fear were nowhere to be seen. He looked over, and saw Nila lying next to him, her chest rising and falling in peaceful slumber.
With a start, he backed away from her, not recognising her, nor that crop of red hair that lay sprawled over her pillow.
Fear cautiously made him pick his way from the bed, as light as could be, his heart pounding. Only when he was standing in the cold, wearing only the long shirt that was his nighttime dress, did he feel enough sense in himself to realize where it was that he truly stood.
The fear was overwhelming, but at the very least, he could recognise now his own room, and the woman that he so loved.
In the dark, however, both things still looked terrifying. A monster blossoming in his heart, in full control of the shadows, in command of all things.
When the window shutters of that grand Blackwell room rattled in the wind, Oliver jumped, ready for a panicked fight.
Another moment passed, and he breathed a sigh. Just the wind again.
His hands shaking, he looked down on them and frowned. Disgust with himself, and the state that he’d fallen into.
Several more deep breaths, and he retreated further across the cold tiles, and out towards where his clothes lay, suspended over the back of a sofa near the fire. He hadn’t had the heart to properly organise them before bed.
He pulled on a coat over his nighttime shirt, and some thin woolen trousers, and then he slid into his boots.
He stood for a second, eyeing his sword as it lay there, near to the fire, like a cat sunning itself. It was most certainly an imagined accusation that he felt from it, as he considered leaving it behind, but it was still one that he was powerless to resist. He strapped on his belt, and threaded his sword through it, and then stole his way out into the night.
How often had this happened as of late? It felt like it happened more often than it didn’t happen. How many nights had he properly slept through, all the way to dawn?
The lack of reaction from the guards in seeing him – that was evidence enough of that fact. They were not surprised to see the newly crowned King Patrick walking the corridors in the dead of night. Like him, they almost seemed to think that it suited him.
In the dark, at least, they could not see the haunted look in his eyes. The weakness that lay there, that which during the light of day he had to keep such a handle on. That which made him lurch forward like a nervous dog, fast, and erratic, but not truly purposeful.
Beating heart still thundering. Fear still there, like a voice in his head. Warning him against anything and everything. Warning him against the dancing shadows, against the hidden expressions beneath a guard’s lowered helmet. Warning him of certain betrayal, and impossible futures.
That same future – that was which he feared most of all now. Fleeting moments of confidence, that was what the grand Oliver Patrick had been reduced to. Fleeting feverish decisions, that he bet it all upon, only to question just as quickly.
The powerful motivation he’d felt had faded just as quickly. That will to grind forward and crush any foe in his way had been stolen away in the dead of night, and corrupted by something else. This terrible unfathomable weakness that seemed to make him doubt everything.
What if Verdant did not arrive on time? Could he be trusted to? How far could any man really be trusted? Of course, Verdant was loyal, but did his loyalty not make him misguided – was he not the very sort of person to make promises that he was unable to keep.
And what of the Emersons? Would they not be sick of him by now? He was a barely crowned King, and already, once more, he was asking them for the largest of all favours. Would they come forward, as they had declared they would, or would they feel the fear that one would naturally feel for a fractured cause?
They would certainly hear of Blackthorn’s lack of discipline, and that would cause doubts. Blackthorn was as much a reason that they would be willing to fight alongside Oliver as Oliver himself was.
There was too much that could go wrong. The more Oliver dwelled on it, the more the anxiety bubbled, and the more he was inclined to doubt what it was that he was doing.
There was so much that he wanted to achieve. He imagined desires whenever there was a moment of quiet, and he needed something to comfort him. If he was to be King, what would he change? The little thought that, perhaps, he might find some way to properly bring swordsmanship to the peasantry. To give them a chance at that which he had been denied.
Too lofty a goal, too far beyond his reach. It made him turn a blind eye to the problems that were already there. It made the shadows all the more frightening. It temporarily convinced him that it would be a fine future that awaited him, then left him in shock, when all was more difficult than he remembered.