A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 89  The Wounded - Part 4

Only in those moments of true quiet did the pain properly return. His body screamed at him. His leg felt like it was on fire. And his mind replayed images of his battle with the Hobgoblin over and over, reminding him of his defeat.

… n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

…

The next day, the first thing Beam tried when he awoke was standing up – he did not succeed. A yellowish fluid leaked from his wound as he tried, and he was forced back down onto his back again.

Another day of Battle, Beam said to himself. And that was exactly what it turned out to be. Like the day before, he put all his time into that one pursuit, for there was nothing else he could do. He experimented relentlessly whilst Dominus was away, and then once he returned, he made him bear the full brunt of his tactics.

The culmination of that day's work was settled into one game. This time, Beam played a whole army of spearmen, with only two cavalry troops.

As he sent his army streaming forward, he once more allowed Dominus' archers to fire upon him, sacrificing 5 units in the process because of the dice rolls. It was particularly unlucky, but Beam didn't falter and he continued sending his army marching forth, whilst keeping his cavalry units jogging at the very back.

This time, when Dominus sent his own four cavalry units to counter, Beam sent one cavalry unit of his own to each side to slow their advance.

Dominus merely allowed one of his units to meet him, before sending the other to flank the cavalry unit, destroying it. That happened on each side, and Beam's plan crumbled – a step back from yesterday.

On the third day, Beam followed much the same routine. He woke up, tested his leg, noted that the swelling had finally started to go down. His wound even looked like it was starting to seal up, thanks to the stitching and thanks to the honey that he kept applying to it every night.

He dared to feel hopeful about that, wondering whether he should cut the stitches out yet, so that it could heal by itself. He ended up deciding against it, opting instead to hobble around the clearing to get some blood into his legs.

Each step was wrought with pain and he could hardly put any weight on his injured leg – but it was progress. Two days ago with the swelling, he hadn't even been able to stand. Dominus came back to see him wandering like that and the old knight shook his head.

"Easy now," he told him. "Eagerness is one thing, but if you push it too hard too soon, you might stop it from ever recovering properly."

Dominus would have scolded him more harshly, but he knew it was because of his own tests that Beam was pushing himself and so he held off, letting the boy at least try to address the problem himself, whilst also keeping a watchful eye on him to make sure he didn't do anything rash.

On that day, Beam again dedicated all his time to Battle, desperately searching for a road to progress through it. Then, in the evening, just before bed, he got up to hobble around again, hoping that on some level he was doing his body good by allowing it movement.

It was not until the fifth day did things begin to shift their momentum.

Five days of being basically bed ridden, playing the same game of strategy for hours on end. It was eating away at Beam at this point and his temper was worse than it normally might be.

Seeing that his leg had not improved all that much from the day before, Beam finally got impatient. With his knife, he cut out the stitches and once more he got up from his bed to hobble around the clearing, daring to put more weight on it than he had in the previous days.

Dominus was out again as Beam performed his tasks. It was only a crow that sat in watch, seeing the angry scowl on Beam's face as he forced himself to march around the fire, willing his body to recover.

As well as his leg, his mind was filled with the frustrations of stagnation in his Battle progress. There had been that hint that something had been about to change a few days before, but since then he'd had nothing, and there was nothing to distract him from that fact.

He lay in the hut that Dominus had vacated for him whilst he was injured, and in his free time he could do nothing but curse his own incompetence, his own lack of ability. He cursed himself again and again, as though that self-hatred would bring him some measure of progress.

The crow cawed, seeing his irritation, as though mocking him. Beam glared at it, but the crow did not move to fly away.

Beam continued his forced march, gritting his teeth against the pain, forcing his leg to once more move as it used to. Fluid leaked from the wound. Not blood, but something yellowish. Something he was beginning to see quite frequently as the swelling went down.

"You're angry," Dominus noted upon his return, seeing that Beam was still walking in circles, forcing more effort onto his wounded leg. Dominus then noted the crow. "Mm, the crow sees it too."

Beam said nothing, only continuing to walk. His anger was such that his irritation made him want to bite at nothing. He didn't want to say something he might regret.

"Those birds feed on it, you know," Dominus said, as he lay the body of a rabbit that he had caught down on a flat rock and began to skin it. "Or so they say. They're minions of the Dark God Ingolsol. They look for potential, they do, and just before it's about to bloom, they come to feed on the bitterness and look to break a man."