A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 90  The Wounded - Part 5

Beam glanced at the bird as he walked. There was something about its look that made him believe Dominus' words. The crow cawed again, then flew away, as though it knew just what they were talking about.

"Clever birds," Dominus murmured. "Cleverer than people, some of them. Rest boy, you're pushing yourself too much too early."

"I'm so weak," Beam complained grimly, not looking like he was going to stop any time soon. "I need to get back on my feet soon. There's so much to be done. But even then, my strategy isn't anywhere near where it's meant to be."

Dominus smiled. "Ah, you are going to struggle so much, boy."

That got the attention of the irritable Beam as he narrowed his eyes and spoke with far more anger than he normally might. "What do you mean?"

"This? A mere few days of inactivity? A mere few weeks of lagging progress? If this angers you so, and leaves you so bitter, your soul will burn away to darkness long before you've achieved anything worthwhile," Dominus said, his hands covered in red from his butchery work.

"But this… This is more important than all that – there's no time! I could manage if I wasn't making progress, but having no time is what makes it unbearable. I have to improve faster. I have to get so much stronger. This just isn't enough." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Greedy," Dominus tutted. "There is always no time. No matter where you stand, no matter your circumstances, if your impatience is thus, there is always no time. The same pain will continue to haunt you until you harden your heart. Progress is laced with suffering – that is its very ingredient. You need not react so strongly to it."

Beam could tell that there was wisdom in the words, but he couldn't apply it. It did nothing to soothe the prickly emotions he was feeling. All he wanted to do was push harder, to go further, to punish himself into progressing faster. In that moment, he felt that he'd endure any amount of suffering, if only he could make a little progress.

"She won't let you force it," Dominus said, seeing the look on his face. "Anger won't make progress flow faster. Well, to a degree it might – to the degree that it makes you more willing to practise, so that you can supply the river of progress with the water it needs. But alas, the river will flow where it will, according to the path it will, and you have no control over that direction. You must exercise patience and trust that it will get there eventually."

"Besides," Dominus murmured. "Progress is no longer the problem for you – there's something else you must fight again."

"How can I have trust so close to such an important deadline? Before this, I had nothing. I had no shot at progress. I was just going to spend the rest of my life rotting in a village, doing nothing at all. Passing these tests are the only shot I have at achieving something significant – I can't just lie back and do nothing as they get closer and closer. I'm not ready," Beam said.

"I'm glad that you're taking them seriously, but things will merely go as they might. All you can do is all you can do. Beyond that, there is no use worrying, for things will fall where they might," Dominus said. "Come, sit, we'll cook this rabbit and let us play once more, mm? I have a feeling the progress in your strategy might begin to flow more freely starting today."

Begrudgingly, Beam sat down next to his master, his leg throbbing from his wound, and once again they drew out the Battle board and once again Beam played his master.

In the first game, he lost spectacularly, which did nothing to improve his mood.

But in the second that they played, merely motivated by bitterness, Beam tried something new. He kept his army at a distance and did not bother to engage Dominus at all, merely letting the old knight come to him. Dominus sent his archers and Beam responded in kind, carefully giving a balanced response to each and every one of Dominus' moves.

And then what started with bitterness ended up being his best result yet. From that balance, Beam managed to come within only two dice rolls of beating Dominus. The old knight had merely two spear units remaining – a far cry from the usual crushing victories that he tended to deliver.

"Huh…? I don't get it. Why'd it suddenly get better?" Beam asked, too bemused to really enjoy the result. In his head, he merely chalked it up to luck.

"Mm, why not play another, and we shall see?" Dominus said, offering him an uncharacteristic opportunity to play more than he normally would.

And again, they played, reaching exactly the same result. Beam tried a slightly different strategy this time – and it led him to that 2 unit defeat more comfortably than the last game. In fact, it was so close to just being a one unit loss that Beam could hardly believe it.

He glanced up at Dominus, unsure of what to think. The old knight certainly would never allow him a victory – he'd never go easy on him. That would be counterproductive for his training. That could only mean, somehow, after all these days of trying, there had started to be a glimmer of true progress.

"Such is the whimsical will of the Goddess of progress, boy," Dominus said to him with a smile.

"How did you know that today would be the day?" Beam asked.

Dominus merely shrugged. "After so long following the river, I've begun to get the shallowest sense of its intentions."

…

…

On the sixth day, Beam arose again, and pushed his leg even harder than the day before. There was only the slightest bit more movement in it, but he treated it roughly, as though trying to shock it into movement.

Again, he played Dominus in strategy and again it seemed as though he was getting closer to the victory. Even better than yesterday – even though it came down to quite a bit of luck – Beam managed to get Dominus down to his very last piece. He did that early in the morning.

But no matter how hard he tried, in the subsequent games, that 1 unit barrier seemed to be impassable. Still, there was hope now, for he'd finally made progress, and he wasn't feeling quite so despondent. But with so many things that needed to get done, even with strategy not being quite so hopeless, Beam was still feeling the pressure.

And so, on the seventh day, when he got up, as he did his usual morning routine of marching around the campsite, putting more pressure on his leg, he did so whilst eyeing the stones.

After a few laps of putting an increasing amount of pressure on his leg, he attempted to hop on it – to put his full weight on it all at once. He winced in pain and fell over from the effort.

"Not quite there yet," he said to himself bitterly. But he was still looking at the stones.

He walked back to the hut as though to avoid them, but he simply couldn't help himself and he backtracked walking right in front of the first of them. "Surely… Surely this is fine, right?" He murmured to himself as he put a hand on the cold first stone.

"Pah, if the first stone is difficult, then I'm in for a rough time," he said, firing himself up as he rolled it to him. He hefted it to his lap and winced, before barely managing to get it to his chest.

"No good…" he murmured bitterly. That one lift there had taken a significant amount of effort. Far more than the first stone should. After all, he was meant to be lifting the fifth stone for 10 lifts in just over a week. He was so far away from such a goal at this point.

He felt his anger bubbling up again at that realization and his impatience kicked in. He hefted the stone up once more, ignoring his pain, making his weak leg bear a little more of the force. And then he lifted.

Again and again he went, until his leg was once more leaking that strange fluid – such a thing hadn't happened in a couple of days now, since the wound had scabbed over, so from that fluid Beam recognized that he was likely pushing himself too far. But still, he didn't want to stop. He lifted it again and again until a sheen of sweat formed on his forehead, and then he moved on to the second stone.

He gulped, eyeing what would normally be the easiest of warm-up weights for him. He had to fire himself up with a significant amount of anger before he even dared to attempt it. And once he did, the attempt was pitiful.

It moved so slowly it was as though his strength had been reduced to that of a toddler. And his injured leg burned so thoroughly it felt as though the muscle was threatening to be torn from the bone.

"No good," he muttered, dropping it back down. He was out of breath from the effort, but still he didn't want to stand around doing nothing.

"I have to slowly start getting back into everything," he told himself. He'd rested for nearly a week now and the build of energy and emotion was driving him mad. Even if it wasn't optimal, even if it was likely better to do nothing at all, Beam couldn't help himself.

Then he dared to try a run.

"Gah…" That was even worse than the stones. He lumbered with all his weight basically on one leg as though he was a corpse soldier. It was a pretty horrific sight, but Beam didn't want to stop there. He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to run around the campsite some more.

It didn't take long for him to reach his limit and he lowered himself to the ground, leaning his back against a tree as he got his breath back. "C'mon…" He pleaded, tapping his leg. "Don't fail me now. We've got to get going again. There's not enough time."

He clenched his fist, thinking of how far he planned to push himself tomorrow

Chapter 11 – The Unshakeable

On the eighth day was when Beam had had enough. There had been no more progress in strategy yet – in fact, there had been a slight regression, with him continually losing, with Dominus having two pieces remaining. And now, he was determined to at least do something.