A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

She looked at Oliver. He was doing his best to appear innocent, but the ghost of a devious smile hovered close to his lips. He'd done something – but what?

Oliver didn't know himself, but he wouldn't let Gargon know that.

"Ah," Oliver said, feeling something, the faintest thread. It had a physical quality to it. It streamed off the pieces like shadows. His early hypothesis that these creatures contained something living once more cemented itself in his mind, for that scent was unmistakable to him. That was the scent of fear. It had been so long since he had felt it.

Before he had tried his hand at commanding armies, before he had been forced into that position, it was this sense for fear that had borne fruit for him. It was that sense for fear that had given him power of the Evolved Hobgoblin. To this day, he didn't know exactly what it was. He only knew that it had something to do with the fragment of Ingolsol in him.

It was a power that he'd forced himself to use almost as much as his sword, back when he was hunting monsters. Dominus had instilled in him the worth of understanding the skill that he'd been blessed with, even if Oliver saw it as odd. To see the fog of fear drifting from these enemy pieces, and to smell it within his nostrils, it was like the return of an old friend.

Even the implacable void in his chest seemed a little less hollow, and his head ached just a little less as he grasped for it.

The words that he had spoken all that time, words tinged with Command. He gave some now.

"Retreat," he said, his voice firm. He saw the pieces begin to move, and he felt his heart pound with an excitement that he hadn't felt in the longest time. He added to that forceful order with a quip, done in a lighter voice. "You're not meant to move half squares, are you?"

Before their eyes, the pieces that had been advancing so steadily before, they took a solid two square step back. The knights even went back as far as three squares, as they were forced to stand in line with the archers.

Oliver had said that they weren't allowed half square moves – but half the pieces that had retreated had not moved a half square.

"Professor!" Gargon spluttered, raising his hand in the air and calling attention to the situation.

"I have seen it," Professor Wyndon responded calmly. He'd been standing behind Gargon, watching. The sound of his voice so near made the lordling jump, but he quickly recovered himself.

"There's something wrong with the board, isn't there? Why did that happen? I was winning – my position was far better. Now it'll take a full turn to get back where I was," Gargon complained.

"I have the same question, Professor. Why did a full row of my pieces vibrate, but refuse to move?" Oliver asked.

"Because you're weak!" Gargon cried, annoyed that something that was so obvious to him was being brought up at the same time as something that left him completely flabbergasted.

Oliver grinned. "Fine, I suppose. I'm so weak that my pieces refuse to move. And you, Lord Gargon? Are you so much of a coward that your pieces rout mid combat, even when they're in a clearly winning position?"

The boy reddened in his fury. He was too angry to formulate a proper argument. Both of them were turned to the professor waiting for an explanation, but the man merely stood, with his eyes closed, and his hands crossed.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"Patrick, perhaps it would be better if you resign this round," the professor said.

The smile that had been so settled quickly left, as Oliver heard the professor's remark. "Resign? I do not see the point in that. Granted, I'm five pieces down, but I would have expected no less on my first game against an experienced player. Surely, being as new to this as I am, it would be better for me to play until the end, even if I were to lose."

"I suggest you resign, Patrick," the professor repeated, more forcefully this time.

"And the matter of my pieces retreating? What did he do?" Gargon said, unaware that he'd unintentionally embarrassed himself with his phrasing.

The professor merely looked at the boy, saying nothing. Then, he turned, and quite pointedly, walked away, refusing to elaborate any further.

"I suppose I will resign, then. Another win, for the good lordling, given in premature surrender. Enjoy it, Gargon, you earned it," Oliver said, as he flipped his general over, indicating his resignation.

It irritated him considerably to be told to resign like that, but to rebel against another professor would have only harmed his position. He didn't have a choice. His reputation was so poor at the moment that he could not even properly argue back, for fear of repercussions.

He turned away, irritated.

Gargon could not be happy with the proceedings either, not when Oliver had presented his victory in such a tainted manner. It had all been going so swimmingly for his as well – he'd mowed down nearly a third of Oliver's men, and looked to be able to do the same to the rest of them without too much trouble.

'What the hell was that?' He hissed to himself, scanning the many faces that surrounded the table, as though one of them held the answer. None of them would even look him in the eye. Not even Blackthorn.

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She seemed more interested in what Oliver was doing, and her eyes followed him as the boy turned away from the table and surveyed the other games that were going on, the irritation obvious on his face.

"Damn it, Verdant, what the hell was that?" Oliver said, more loudly than he'd intended.

Classes were already over for the day, and Oliver had strolled through the rest of them, not being able to cast the situation of the Command class out of his mind. He'd already explained the situation to Verdant, and the priest – incomprehensibly enough – was smiling, as though he'd just been told the most interesting fact in the world. That was it. He did not have any explanations to give.