A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Beam punched him in frustration, his fist making contact with the merchant's nose and sending him clattering into the wall. Judas hurried over to him in alarm, but Greeves held his hand up for him to stop, as he staggered back to his feet, clutching his battered face. But the anger had still not faded from his eyes.

"You don't get it boy," he said quietly, as Beam stood there, breathing heavily. "I'll tell you what I believe in – why I've killed as much as I have. I believe in me. ME! Fucking me. Yeah, you talk of slavery and that?

Where do you think I crawled up from? Mm? You think you can stay a pure little uncut gem whilst going through that, eh? Naw. Naw. Fuck that.

The weak get trampled on, that's just how it goes."

"I managed," Beam said. He already knew that Greeves had guessed he was a slave.

But Greeves shook his head. "Nah. You didn't. No fucker without a sea of darkness has eyes like yours. You have the same belief as me, and yet you stand there, judging me? If you were in the same position, you'd have done the same fucking thing.

My little way out of slavery, do you know what that was? Do you know what that golden opportunity that the gods shone light on looked like? It looked like that," he said, pointing at the knife Beam was clutching. "A knife to my master's neck. He begged me for his death, just like I did to you. Only, my choice was weightier.

I knew it was either kill him as he asked me to, or waste away the rest of my life as a slave. You fucking know what I did."

Beam grit his teeth.

"If you were in that same position, would you not have slid that blade across his throat too? The fucker was begging me for it. He got overwhelmed by the weight of his own darkness. Begged his bastard slave to end his life. Would you run away from that?"

"No…" Beam said quietly. "I wouldn't have."

"Hah. There you go then. You're just as capable of the same evils as me," Greeves said.

"Yet I have not yet committed them," Beam said.

"No, but if you wish to climb higher, then I bet you you're gonna need to. You wanna get strong? What happens when some washed up knight challenges you? Could you cut him down without remorse? No? Then your hesitation will get you killed," Greeves said.

"Maybe you've got a point. But I still can't agree with you preying on the weak," Beam said.

Greeves let out a long sigh at that. "Fuck, my nose hurts," he complained, as he pulled his knocked over chair back upright and sat back down on it. Beam calmed down a little too, as he saw Greeves' anger fade. Finally, Greeves spoke again. "Y'know, watching you, that's about the only part I've fallen to regretting."

"What do you mean?" Beam asked.

"Well, y'know, as you were fighting that thing, I saw it dancing about – yer own darkness. Your own rage. Your own self-belief. All the same shit I've had bubbling inside of me," Greeves said. Beam started to speak, but Greeves held up a hand to pause him. "Nah, I'm not saying we're exactly alike.

Just that I could see a bit of myself in you. And you know, I've been getting pissed off with stagnation. Five years I've been sat in this same village. Aye, I'm top dog here – but that was never the goal. I wanted to be a city dog. I wanted to make even nobles kneel."

Beam remained silent as Greeves collected his thoughts before continuing.

"See, devouring the weak, I thought that was the only way to feed myself and get strong… But it hasn't made me any stronger. It's not quality nutrition. Aye, it gets me coin, but it doesn't nourish me. Doesn't make me sleep well. Despite what you might think, I'm not a purebred evil bastard. It's not like I don't think about what I've done.

I just thought it was necessary – thought that was just how it goes… But now I'm thinking, maybe it should be the strong that I devour, eh?"

"The strong?" Beam repeated with a raised eyebrow. "That's what you got from it?"

"C'mon now, spare me your scorn. For a devil like me, that's a big insight. In fact, you should be applauding me. I've made up my mind to slowly phase myself away from all this low level business. I'm gonna challenge me a proper merchant. I'm gonna sink my teeth into them, and I'm gonna devour them," Greeves said.

Beam sighed. "I don't know how you think this makes up for what you've done."

"Pah, fuck all that. If you judge me so harshly, you should just come find me to cut me down. If you don't have the balls to do it, then I'm out, running free. N' I figure, if I challenge one of these dirty merchants – some bastards even more rotten than I am – and I eat them up, doesn't that make me something of a hero, mm? Don't I sort of pay for my sins?" Greeves said.

Beam looked at Judas. "Is he serious?"

Judas shrugged, a thoroughly confused look on his face, but he said nothing, apparently daring not to.

"What? You looking down on that too? Hah, you're hard to please kid. I thought, given your age, you'd be able to relate to that kind of delusion, y'know? Doesn't every kid wanna be a hero? See to me, the difference between a hero and a villain is just a matter of timing," Greeves flashed a grin.

"Well, what do you say, do you want in?"

"In on what, even?" Beam said.

Greeves shrugged. "In on whatever. I'm serious about it, you know. I want to see just how far I can go before I get any older. And when the time comes, when I've got the enemy cornered, might be I'll send our little lad here in to strike the heroic blow, what do you think?"