A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

His words came out truly like his own thoughts, for that's what they were. His mind reorganized itself, after it had resolved to struggle. It repositioned its priorities, and used what systems it could, so that it would be able to deal with the weight of what was asked of it.

Just like when lifting a heavy stone, the body immediately biased the strongest, most easily accessible muscles, so too did Beam's mind, once it committed itself to solving its problem.

His mind made it so there was practically no one there. It returned to the state it had been just a few minutes prior, that state of battlefield flow, when there was meaning in all things, when everything had the potential to become the next spark that would invite the blaze of victory.

Beam thought for a moment. "He's going to stick to the roads…" He guessed. "They're stronger one on one. They're going to want to eliminate the element of surprise. They want to see us all in one place, so they can easily deal with us."

He found himself looking around as he spoke, at the Elder's house, at the houses beyond it, and the houses that bordered the main road east.

Greeves felt like he'd won a magic lamp. Slowly, but surely, he could feel something happening. The cogs were turning. He was in the presence of genius, or what would be genius. More than just a sword, the boy seemed to possess an instinct for something else. His heart pounded as he listened.

"Get rid of the torches," Beam decided. Explore new worlds at m,v l'e-m|p y r

There were torches that lined the road into the village, and torches outside the front of many different houses. They were disorganized, and personal, with each of them belonging to different villagers, who had decided that they needed to have a light source at those particular points in the evening, but together they formed a network of light that served to light the whole village.

"What of the torches on the road in?" Nila asked. She assumed that he wanted to prevent the Yarmdon from easily being able to light fires, and indeed, that was part of his reasoning. The Yarmdon had cast their torches aside as soon as the fighting began – they had no need of them, after all, with the enemy fort being so well-lit.

Even a handful of them still carried torches now, it didn't make sense to make things easy for them. Beyond that, though, Beam felt an instinct kicking in, as his own heart beat in excitement. Amidst what should have been unimaginable suffering, weighing him down so deeply that he drowned, there still came that thrill.

He'd hit upon a sense for how this battlefield was likely to play out. He felt a ringing in his heart that came with truth, that rang out whenever one came to a conclusion that was satisfactory, that was exciting, that was full of potential. It was the potential that Beam sensed, that got his heart beating so quickly.

"Well damn it then, get these torches out!" Greeves roared. His men sprinted into action, grabbing the torch nearest them and plunging it into the wet, cold snow. There was a cough of sparks from each of them, but soon, they went out.

The man that had been speaking to Beam earlier looked around at them, unsure whether he should be joining in and helping. From the start, he'd been put into an awkward position, for he could sense that Beam wasn't truly speaking to him, but at the same time, the boy's eyes were locked firmly upon him. He was unsure what to do.

Nila felt her question from earlier grow unanswered. Normally, that might have embarrassed a person, but she was watching in fascination as she saw the cogs turning in Beam's mind. He was hardly there at all. He was already fighting, even as he stood there.

"The dark will give us the advantage," Beam said, finally, giving voice to another thought that he had. "He wants to get rid of our advantage in surprise… Like goblins… mm. Erratic, unpredictable, weak but…"

An understanding flashed over a few faces, as they began to see what he was getting at. The man in front of Beam started to feel his lips widen in a savage grin. His heart was pounding as well. It was that predatory instinct, that was what the boy was getting at. He wanted them to become the tigers in the long grass. He wanted their enemy to feel all the fear that prey felt.

One by one, those torches began to go out. A sea of darkness was left in their place. It began in the centre of the village, and then went outwards, like a strong breeze, coming closer and closer, until even the ones just metres away from the head of Jok's party went out too.

It was an unsettling sight. The villagers knew their village better than the invaders – not that there was much to know. It was the criminals, in truth, that owned it, and scarpered around it like rabbits in their own den, working through their own escape routes.

They'd been eyeing these houses for years and their inhabitants. Wherever there was gold, these men were sure to sniff it out. And now, given the order to put out the torches, there could have been no better men for the job. They dared to get dangerously close.

They moved with all the stealth that one would expect from experienced thieves, but they also had the sleight of hand as a pickpocket. Though these torches were right in front of those Yarmdon men, it was a strange thing. They didn't see the torches get put out – not exactly. Instead, they simply seemed to vanish.

There was no hand to blame the disappearance on, nor could they even hear footsteps. One moment there was light, and the next, there wasn't.

They only had a handful of torches to their name now. The men on the frontmost ranks turned to look at each other nervously, their helmets suddenly feeling heavier, and the metal masks suddenly feeling more restrictive.

They were but a few steps away from entering the village. They were within touching distance of the first house. Jok had kept them close together, all on that Eastern road, sticking to it, marching more like Stormfront soldiers than Yarmdon men.