A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The Poison Water Style became something else too, as though it had been preordained, all that time ago, from the first second he picked up a sword. It was as though everything he did had purpose. Now, even his martial arts style adapted to that which was around him, to his newfound reach – and it did so easily, just as water did not need to think of how to act the second its volume grew larger.

The people buoyed Beam's might bravely. He smashed through shield after shield, with sheer brute strength, crushing many a man under the force of his blows. And then the villagers would rush after him, seizing on the tiniest of gaps, recklessly, almost stupidly… But for it, more lives than they could imagine were saved.

They built up an impossible momentum that only seemed to increase with each step that they took towards the centre, as more and more people drove themselves into the gap, wedging it apart, and dismantling the structure of the Shield Square.

It was more than obvious to Jok now: if he waited for Beam to reach him, then he would die. Such was what his impossible steps pointed to. With every fresh man that was slain, the villagers under him only grew stronger, their morale heightened, as though they were the most devout believers in a holy crusade.

Even when they witnessed the lives of their comrades sniffed out so easily, as another axe beheaded yet another woman, they did not allow that to slow their intensity. It only reinvigorated them, as they branded their enemy villains.

The Yarmdon took on the mantle of true evil in the villager's souls. Everything wrong in the world was cast onto that enemy. Their hatred grew stronger and stronger, but it did not overwhelm their instinct for heroism. They truly believed in their cause, more than they'd believed in anything in their entire lives.

All doubt was gone. All reasoning was gone. It was simply action, it was simply the moment. It was simply living.

With every villager that charged in, another hero was born.

A sheppard managed to force his way past the broad shoulders of a Yarmdon shield bearer, so that he might make it all the way to Beam's side.

A short and timid man, he was. Timid enough that even his own sheep had him spooked at times. The knife in his hand was a foreign entity – he'd never swung it in anger. But when that Yarmdon axe came his way, he did not hesitate. His bravery and his fixation on that blinding light in front of him lent him a baser degree of martial skill that his fear would have otherwise cancelled out.

He dodged that axe without hesitation – the villagers were not in search of death. They were in search of victory. They did all they could to cling to life, without taking a single step back in the process.

The Yarmdon man's eyes widened as he felt his axe sweep through nothing but thin air. He attempted to slow it, to change its course, but down in front of him, that little rabbit of a man, half his size, with that pudgy face, and those puppy-like eyes – he wore the face of the grim reaper.

The man had to jump just for his dagger to reach the Yarmdon's chin, but reach it did. It cut up through the soft flesh, past his beard, and it pinned his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"Fu—" Was all the Yarmdon man managed to splutter. He had been the elite amongst the elite, given a place on Gorm's ranging mission, then given a place closer to the centre of the shield square, closer to their Commander, indicating his rank as a more trusted soldier and bodyguard. And it was a man so impossibly far from being his equal that slew him.

That cruel world that the Stormfront villagers battled against with every winter, with every failed crop and with every failed hunt – for the first time in their lives, it worked truly for them. It was as though the wind itself was on their side. They reached heights in that moment of battle that they could never have dreamed of in their entire lives.

If the sages could have described fate in a single scene, then it would have been that battle. Everything together, all at once, in a blinding display of momentum that would have toppled even a mountain.

"TO HELL WITH THAT!" Jok roared. He had five men with him now, as he charged forward. He had reached into the depths of despair more than once, and he had grown from it. That boy was not the only one who could evolve, who could change. "IF YOU GROW THE LEADER'S MANTLE, THEN I'LL GROW MY SWORD ARM!"

Bravely, he called the provocations outwards. The pressure of the moment pounded on him. The pressure of all the lives under his command. The pressure of the enemy bearing down upon them. The pressure of that boy.

That pressure that would have toppled lesser men, Jok could feel it making him stronger. Sweat ran down his brow as he attempted to put everything together, all that he'd encountered, all that he'd learned over these many years.

All he needed was just one advantage, just one evolution – he was so close. He could feel it. The warrior's metal that he had seen in Gorm, the same metal he had seen in Kursak… And then the way the boy had fought, bringing them all low.

He hit upon an image in his head, as he brought them together. Gorm the Bear, Kursak the Ox, Beam the Wolf… And Jok, the Dragon.

With that image in his head, he arrived in front of Beam, at the head of that charge. Beam swung, and the last of the men was brought low under his sword. The wall between the two commanders was finally removed.

Jok felt strength in his hands, he felt hardness in his eyes. If he concentrated, he might even have sworn that wings would sprout from his back. He wanted that strength, the strength of a dragon, the strength to bring low all the mighty. That strength lent his blade power.

He swung it, and it was as though the air was cutting in two. Light danced around his wrist, ran up his body, and into his eyes.

Beam's eyes widened as he took it in. 'The Third Boundary…' he realized. He began to swing his sword as well, to answer the challenge of that Commander, only a little older than he. He could see the dragon in his eyes, the fury that came with his near-defeat, and he could feel all the strength of his desire, and the strength of the Third Boundary with it.

Jok's lips curled into a dragon's smile, as he too recognized the transformation. New power ran through every fibre of his being, new potentials. They'd been broken once again. His worldview had been perfectly shattered. He understood it now, why it was this boy, and none before him that had forced him to grow.

It was his own competence that held him back, his own shrewdness. His understanding had been so vast that none had been able to eclipse it so thoroughly before. His Goddess only granted power to those that sacrificed their very reality up to her, or so Jok understood. Discover hidden tales at m,v l'e|m-p| y r

He wanted victory so badly, that he would have sacrificed more than just his reality – he would have given up body and soul for it. And now his sword slashed so violently it might have burst into flame. Now his men were afflicted by his aura, and they too rose up stronger.

His sword flashed by Beam's and sliced towards his shoulder, just as Beam's own blade passed Jok's.

There was a pause, a perfect stillness, as all the components of that mighty battle came to a halt, as they regarded the two pivots that held it all together.

And then Jok's head fell from his shoulders, and the world came crashing down with it.

The head of that great Tiger, so full of promise, slipped from the neck, followed by a stream of blood. The light slowly began to fade with it. But on that face, the mask of one who had managed to conquer his own limits, even in his final moments, there was betrayed no hint of dissatisfaction.

He had tasted it towards the end, that perfect power. He'd pushed all he could, beyond the very limits of his own existence. It was that boy that forced him that far, and that boy that still managed to best him in the end.

To him, Jok dipped his head, and he said his final words.

"In another life, Great Leader, allow me to offer you my sword…"

Words said to himself, for none could hear them, but that did nothing to reduce their intensity. There was a loyalty in them that spanned across many thousands of lifetimes, a crushing will that would be felt even in dimensions unknown, amongst people unaware, in actions unimagined. The First Dragon of the Yarmdon, and the Young Tiger of that planet's history, breathed his last.

Beam clutched his shoulder where Jok's blade had reached him, feeling the heat of the attack. He grit his teeth against the pain. Rather than steel, it was as though he'd been scorched by flames.