A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He was forced to watch, and wait, as the girl beside him gently urged him to be still, and the others murmured their agreement. He didn't hear their voices. He had no interest in them. He wanted what those two men had. He wanted to be part of that battle. He wanted their strength, to fill a hole in his heart.

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With such a thought, he half expected another voice to make a comment, as it had so often that night, with it being allowed to speak so freely, but instead, there was nothing, only emptiness, and weakness, as Beam's soul involuntarily reached out to grasp for what he once was.

He would think back on the battle later. There was no memory in all his life burned more clearly in his mind than it. Every tiny fragment of information, he'd forced himself to absorb, as he continually asked himself 'why'. But the why was not spoken in a human tongue, the why was a longing for strength.

Everything he was, it hadn't been enough. He'd tasted defeat. Even if it had been to the overwhelming heat of two mighty divine fragments, he could not abide by his defeat.

He could not predict their movements as well as he wanted to either. Watching them, he felt his own inadequacy. The thoughts he'd had in the past, the ones that would caution him against comparing himself to such beacons of power, they were gone, and the only thing left in their wake, was the hollow distance between him and the peaks that those two men stood on, so far out of reach from his own.

When Dominus' sword grew redder, and seemed to increase in size, Beam had no network inside of him to explain the sudden change. They were so far away, as Dominus decreed it, to keep their battle from afflicting any of the exhausted villagers that had collapsed near them. They were so far away, and yet Beam could swear that he could feel the heat of that blade.

Dominus had slain half the skeletal army, and it was then that he turned his attention towards the central tower. He'd pivoted his feet, and brought his weight around at the hip, as though there was an enemy right in front of him that he was slashing.

What had come was a pillar of flame, flattened and condensed into a line of roar power.

Beam would reflect on that attack, years later, and wonder why Dominus had not done such a thing at the start, why had had slown the skeletal beings so intently, as though he was gathering something, rather than merely flinging his power at Ingolsol from the beginning.

In the air, as well as the mana that he had sensed from Francis, he sensed something else, something that carried Dominus' aura, a power and energy of his own, that bound the magic to his will.

He would later come to expect that Dominus' swordsmanship had culminated in something that eclipsed mana, and wound into it something that was distinctly personal, something no others could match.

A clench of his fist proclaimed his current lack of understanding. He saw that beam of power raze its way through the stone wall of the keep, and catch Ingolsol off guard, as he widened his eyes, and hurried to escape its path.

The Dark God leapt from the tower in his flee, landing on the floor hard, as he bent his knees, and deformed the ground beneath his feet to slow his landing. Dominus was before him before Ingolsol could even think to straighten himself up.

The black sword was held out like a spear, threateningly, its sharp tip pointed straight toward's Dominus' path, hampering his approach, warning him. But Dominus did not slow. In a spattering of blood, the sword pierced him straight through the stomach, and burst out of his back.

There was no time for Ingolsol to claim victory, though, for the blade that he had sought to keep himself safe from still came his way, and its intent was true. Its path was in no way changed by the pain Dominus felt running through his torso.

His curved blade whipped through the air. There was still a hint of redness to it, from where the flames had burned so hotly earlier, and it whipped through the armour of Ingolsol's neckguard as though there was nothing there at all.

"Wa—" Came the attempted line, beseeching him to halt, but it was cut short, as Dominus cut the Dark God's head from his neck.

There was a pause, a perfect stillness. Even the lightning in the sky forgot to twitch.

"…Amusing," came Ingolsol's final murmur, before all life force was cut off from that body entirely, and the rich energy-filled blood spilt out with it.

With the severing of Ingolsol's life, the castle too began to crumble. The stone lost its integrity, as did the steel gates that had looked so strong just a few moments before. All around Dominus, there were the scenes of destruction, and the loud clattering of material returning to the earth.

Before long, it was as though the castle had never existed at all, save for the circle of frightening greenery that only continued to grow, as the soil was continually enriched by the leftover divine energy, repeating the cycle of growth of several plant lives within the span of a single moment. It only continued to grow, like a great puddle, left over by the God.

Dominus' blood ran down his stomach, and dripped into the earth to join Ingolsol, and the many other lives that had been slain on the field that day.

"Dominus…" Lombard was the first to call out to him. The warrior had not turned around to them, even after completing his final blow. The blackness in his skin only continued to flake. It was a race between his disappearing flesh, and his disappearing blood.

The old warrior ignored the question. He raised his head to look up at the sky instead. There, beyond the horizon, there crept the faintest bit of light.

Francis' dome had disappeared without their noticing, and the golden rays of the sun took their place, as they fingered their way delicately across the flat landscape, over the snow-covered grass, casting a light upon all the destruction that had happened during the dark of night.

All those bodies, all that blood, all those embers of war, the dull remains of what had been, the last time the sun had graced them with her presence.

They didn't interrupt.. Not as Dominus received the first rays of the sun. It shrouded him, the last bit of warmth that he would feel in his long life. He acknowledged it gratefully, as he felt his power begin to fade away from him.

"…Blackwell's men should reach you before the sun grows too high in the sky," Dominus said finally. Lombard had crept forward, away from the rest, despite his better instincts. He felt something ripping his heart, icy claws, of the type that he could not even allow himself to feel when his subordinates died. Dominus heard his approach, without having to look. "Tell them what has happened here."

"All of it?" Lombard asked. He knew that Dominus had a penchant for secrecy.

"All of it," he said firmly. "Give my apologies to the King – for the sake of the boy."

Lombard said nothing at that. He knew just how sore the old wound between Dominus and the King was. For the knight to finally find some reason to set that battle aside, it should have been a cause for celebration. But seeing the blood pool near Dominus' feet, Lombard was struck by the peculiar awareness that there was nothing to celebrate.

"I see a bright future," Dominus said, still gazing at the sun. He was smiling in such a way that Lombard had never seen from him before. "That day, when the Pandora Goblin failed to kill me… I wondered what the worth was in living, when even Arthur had died before me. This moment – ah, I find it isn't so bad. It was worth it, for this."

"The Stormfront will be weaker for your passing. Dreadfully weak," Lombard said. He struggled to keep the emotion out of his voice.

Dominus grinned at that. "You thought me dead all these years, old friend. You have been doing just fine in my absence. Besides, what worth is there in an old man, who can swing his sword seriously only once, before the Gods take him, hm?"

"You're the first man in history to break through the Sixth Boundary, Dominus. Our name will ring out for eternity. Just your existence would have given us peace, the threat of your presence," Lombard insisted.

"Hush," Dominus told him wearily. "Let us not talk of what has already passed. Promise me, you'll do right by the boy."

"I have promised," Lombard said.

"Do you think me cruel, for giving him my name?"

"I think you wise," Lombard said.

"He will suffer because of it," Dominus said, a twisted look on his face. "For my transgressions. But I see no other way. He must be given the opportunity to walk in the real world. Not this – these battles with Gods, and monsters. He needs to know his worth, against his fellow man, and he needs the opportunity to grow from it."

"I will do all I can for him," Lombard said. "I believe in his potential as strongly as you do."

Finally, Dominus pulled his eyes away from the sun, and afforded Lombard the full weight of his gaze. "I put my trust in you, Lombard. Tell the boy the same, when he awakes. I will be watching him. Even if the Gods refuse to let me – I will be watching."

With those words, it was as though Dominus' body decided that it had given all it had. The light finally faded from his eyes, and collapsed forward. Lombard steadied him with the shoulder of his missing arm. A tear ran down the cheek of a man that had more than once been accused of having a heart of stone.

A distance away, a weakened boy struggled from his crater, his legs lacking strength, as blood poured from him, as the world spun this way and that, and every fibre of his being felt as though it was on fire.

Above that pain, he felt a painful loss, enough to fill him with panic. He pitched from, managing a single triumphant step, on his unsteady legs, before he pitched forward face first into the frosty mud.

Tears ran down his cheeks, and he hardly knew why. His memories seemed separate from him. But his body knew, and it grieved. It felt the full hollowness of a missing heart.

He tried to crawl that distance, but as soon as he saw Dominus pitch forward, the last semblance of control left him, and he howled at the sky, the last of his strength, before collapsing fully, with his face into the dirt, losing consciousness.

The Gods must have heard his call, for a gentle wind swept by, urging the grey clouds of the night onwards, revealing the first patch of a blue sky.

The last of the clouds hung off into the distance, as the final strike of lightning rang out, followed by the booming of thunder, as the heavens went still, and the Gods acknowledged the return of the Hero Dominus Patrick.

If a man had the mind to, and been right there, just as the wind past, they might have heard the greeting of one old friend to another.

"Welcome home, Dominus," Arthur said, his smile every bit as warm as it had been in life.

VOLUME 1 – END