A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 691 The Blaze Forward - Part 12

"Ahoy!" Verdant called out, noticing him first, giving him the shout.

Oliver raised his hand in return and continued his dragging, soon closing the gap between them.

"This is far further than we agreed upon my Lord," Verdant said. "You need not make concessions on our behalf. The distance that we'd already planned was more than far enough to keep us in the right."

"I know," Oliver said, letting the body flop and grabbing a handful of snow to wash his hands off. "But I had a bit of a head start, and the Gocks are the most troublesome of the minor creatures, I think, so I ended up pulling them a bit further. How was the road here? And difficulties?"

"I slew a Gock," Blackthorn announced proudly.

"It was so dreadfully cute..." Pauline bemoaned behind her.

"She was remarkably quick in reacting to it," Verdant said. "It would seem to be a class of monster that the Lady does particularly well against."@@@@

"Well done," Oliver praised. "As long as no one's injured, I'll be going straight off again. See you later."

"As you wish, my Lord," Verdant said, "you've already taken more than enough time with us. Rest assured, we shall be fine. Karesh has already been speaking quite enthusiastically about how he'll deal with anything in our way."

He darted aimlessly through the trees, without any real direction in mind, though he made sure to keep the position of the main path somewhere in the back of his mind, so that he wouldn't end up getting foolishly lost.

Soon enough, something must have caught his scent, for he heard a noise that sounded like a loud cough rise up into the air, and then a chorus of other coughs that joined it.

Within moments, he heard the rustling in the trees, and he slowed. They had him surrounded in an instant – a pack of five Gorebeasts.

"Now this is something of a problem, gentlemen," he said to them. "Given the look in your eyes, I'm going to have to kill the lot of you, aren't I? But then we agreed with the gamekeeper that I wouldn't kill more than two..."

Of course, the Gorebeasts made no attempts to understand his words. They circled him at a wild pace, using that single giant front leg that it had, with its dagger-like claws, to quickly change direction, as they dodged through the trees. Discover stories at My Virtual Library Empire

As he pondered what to do, the first came lunging in to snap at him, driven by the allure of his wide-open back.

Of course, Oliver's sword dealt with it in an instant. He stepped off to the side, selecting the blow as perfectly as he could, neatly drawing a line along the Gorebeast's throat, doing his very best to keep the rest of the body intact. The creature went crashing into the snow, digging a trench into it, as the snow attempted to slow the body down.

"See?" He said, waving his sword at the Gorebeasts. They eyed him nervously now, seeing the golden specks in his eyes. "I've got what I wanted. You can clear off now, if you so wish."

Nervous though they were, as soon as he presented his back to another one of them, its instincts drove it to what by now should have been plain to see as madness. It dove at his back, attempting to rake at him with the claws of its front leg.