Chapter 2052: Weighty Judgents – Part 9
Again, Oliver took a risk. It was a thrust that Blackthorn’s weapon had fallen itself towards – that would be his next attack, and his quickest, based on the positioning of his blade. But Oliver allowed that thrust, he even encouraged it. He saw Blackthorn’s best possible attack, and invited it in, throwing away defence, and exposing his midsection once more entirely.
He pushed Walter forward, growing even closer to the General, leaving himself vulnerable all the while.
The thrust ca, as it had to. Blackthorn had no doubts. His instincts would not allow it of him. He knew he was being underestimated, but he tried it anyway, certain that his speed and his strength was beyond the fathoming of his enemy.
With his gauntlet, Oliver slapped the thrust of the glaive aside. His left hand had brought itself to hovering upwards, with every small step that he took forwards, as if it had been waiting there the entire ti for just that mont. Blackthorn’s eyes widened, feeling as if he had fallen into a trap, a grand strategy that had been laid out from the start.
But the gold was gone from Oliver’s eyes. Whatever creature it was that gave Oliver the will to jump into such fights, it was no longer present. Sothing else had taken over him, lending a grey look to his eyes. No longer just the overwhelming spirit of anger, but sothing far different in colour, far more honest. It was not a creature capable of planning so far ahead – it was a creature that did exactly as it might have seed. It simply found itself accidentally in the exact perfect position it had needed to be, without any conscious sort of planning.
With a slight stirring of the wind, the blade of Oliver’s sword was pointed at General Blackthorn’s exposed neck. And General Blackthorn’s glaive, in turn, was thrust all the way past him.
General Blackthorn paused, his anger swirling and swirling. That Oliver had hesitated, and not followed through. It irritated him, made him want to slap the sword aside, and try another attack. That, by all accounts, he had lost, it brought the sa anger to him. For that arrogance that Oliver had entered with to have paid off – perhaps if he had brought that anger with him all the way to the finish, it would have been even worse.
But the look that Oliver shot him, in claiming his victory, was sothing altogether more innocent. A smile, a genuinely warm one. “That was fun,” he said, aning it entirely, oblivious to the chaos that they had thrown their army into.
General Blackthorn slapped Oliver’s blade aside, and snorted. “IDIOTS!” He bellowed, dismissing the frantically moving n, and silencing all the orders, both Patrick and Blackthorn, that had been shouted, as the n gathered themselves in a circle around the two battling Generals. “WE WERE RELY WARMING UP OUR SWORD ARMS – BEGONE WITH YOU, BACK TO YOUR POSTS!”
A brief bit of hesitation, but Oliver lent his voice in agreent. “You had better do the sa, gentlen,” Oliver said.
With the two of them in agreent, the n had no choice but to acknowledge it.
“…Are you certain, General?” A Blackthorn Colonel whispered to him.
“Begone with you!” General Blackthorn bit back, swinging the shaft of his glaive vaguely in the man’s direction. Not truly with the intention of hitting him, but with the sa kind of disinterested irritation that one swats at an annoying fly with.
Verdant was there, and Captain Blackthorn too, looking at the two of them with suspicion.
“Why are you both fighting?” Captain Blackthorn asked, better placed than any to ask that sort of question of them.
“Warming up,” Oliver replied.
“Not true,” Lady Blackthorn said. “You two were genuinely fighting.”
General Blackthorn shrugged. “If you do not understand, daughter of mine, then no amount of explaining we can do could possibly make you understand.”
Captain Blackthorn drew her rapier. “And if I were to attack you in the sa fashion, father?”
“Then I would strike you down into the mud, and you would once more know your place,” General Blackthorn said.
Captain Blackthorn smiled back, no true emotion in his eyes, behind that doll’s mask of a face – but that smile, it seed, was a nacing thing. “Does that an then, father, you finally know yours? That you see as the rest of us do, why it is that Oliver Patrick is our King?”
General Blackthorn clenched his fist in reply, but he did not give in to the wave of anger that he usually might have. As if there was a fragnt of exhaustion in him. As if giving in to the Black blood once had taken a toll. His lack of reply said more than likely any spoken word would have.
In the place of a response from General Blackthorn, Verdant prodded Oliver with a question. “Your Majesty?”
“Diplomacy,” Oliver replied with a grin.
“Diplomacy,” General Blackthorn nodded, with a small degree of humour. “If it was always like this, it would be a far more straightforward affair.”
“Leave us to talk, if you would,” Oliver told them. “And tell the rest of my officers to stop standing around and gawking as they are. Jorah’s mouth has been hung open for a handful of minutes and he’s beginning to look dull.”
“If you can promise that you both won’t kill each other in the anti,” Captain Blackthorn said.
“Certainly,” Oliver said. “Now’s not a good ti for fighting, anyhow. I’m beginning to get hungry.”
General Blackthorn nodded again. “Wisdom in that. Colonel Idris, give the orders to mine and your n alike. See the rations we brought distributed, and the water along with it.”
“Very well,” Verdant said, bowing his head, seeing to understand that Oliver was in agreent.
Captain Blackthorn lingered for a second, but with a firm hand on her shoulder, Verdant dragged her away too.
“Wisdom in what you did,” Oliver said.
“Hm? In what?” General Blackthorn asked.
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