A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Greeves looked coldly down upon the rest.

"You lot are no allies of mine. You've got more to protect than me, and yet still you squabble. That's why the weak are always having something torn from their grasp. You've got to take what you want, and be willing to become a devil in the process," he said. Listening to him, Nila could well believe that was just what he'd done. Greeves must have felt her gaze, for he spared her a glance.

"Or you can cling to strong sentiments, like this girl, and that boy. I dunno which is stronger, nor do I care. It's the end result that matters. So, for you dogs that are still complaining, who are still clinging to excuses, I'll cut off ya escape route. Under my mansion, I have a hidden vault, with steel woven into stone walls. Those Yarmdon brutes will never find it.

There's enough room in there for yer kids, if you care for them. My girls will look after them – they've kinder hearts than me."

Nila widened her eyes in surprise at that. "Is that true..? Will they really be safe there?"

"Nine out of ten times, I'd say they survive in there. Better odds than what's going on for the rest of us, ain't it? Or can you really still complain?" Greeves said.

"What of the women?" A man asked.

Greeves spat at that. "You mistake me for a saint. My girls and your children, that's all they will hold. If you want to protect your women too, then you'd better fight."

"I'm sick of your speel, merchant," the same brutish man from earlier spoke up. Just as Rodrey's claim that he could take a Yarmdon irritated him, so too did Greeves talking down to him. "I'm finding I want your guts more than the enemy's now. But damn it, I'll take you up on your cursed offer. I'll send my boy to your vault, and I'll go and get me some Yarmdon heads in the meantime."

Greeves nodded. Nila noted the carefulness in that nod. He didn't try to rial anyone up with it. It was a nod of reassurance. The nod of a man that knew how to work emotions. Though he knew how to work emotions, as Nila had noted a leader needed to, the merchant was no leader.

He was a provocateur, albeit it an extremely effective one.

More men began to speak up, men of the hardier sort, claiming their spot on the battlefield.

"I won't be outdone by some skinny armed merchant. Watch, Daisy. The strength of a real working man, it blows the soldiers out the water."

"MERDIGARMMM!" A cry came from the battlefield nearby, like a gust of roaring wind. It chilled their hearts, and allowed the fear to return, for just a second. They remembered the enemy that they'd be facing.

"Loriel, take the kids away," Greeves ordered. "We've got to get moving, before this whole thing collapses."

But Loriel merely shook her head at his command. "I leave it to Audrey," she said, a smile that was a mix of sadness and resolve.

Greeves glanced at her, his eyes surprised for a moment. But something passed through that exchange that Nila couldn't decipher. A hidden understanding. For a moment, Greeves cast his eyes downwards, sharing in a mutual sadness. But, eventually, he nodded.

"And now I have two women fighting with me," he said, purposefully loud. "Audrey, lead them away."

A small crowd of children went with the prostitutes. They moved with obvious urgency. But even then, the children continually looked back, their faces unsure and searching, as they looked to their parents, and their friends who had not joined them.

As they went away, more parents hurriedly sent their children to join them. With quick hugs and tearful partings, they rolled the dice, daring to trust that they would hold a better chance at survival elsewhere.

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Even that thought did not make it any easier though. There was a contradiction in it, for even if they had been set to die earlier, at least they had been together. There was a sureness in that, a certainty that managed to stand up to the fear and despair. But here and now, as they dared to hope once more, that unsureness returned, along with weakness and doubt.

Soon, it was not the individual that had to make the decision, for the majority of the crowd had already done it for them. There was no resisting its pull, the pressure of conformity. Even the most hesitant of families sent their children away, a huge snaking stream of them by now, leading all the way to Greeves' house.

Nila watched them go with apprehension. She hadn't seen her mother amongst the crowd, nor her little brother. Their absence shook her.

"She's at the camp," Greeves said, guessing what she was thinking. "Or at least she was, the last I saw her. Ain't that your little brother there? Your neighbours were looking after him, weren't they?"

At Greeves' pointing, she finally looked up to see. Amongst the crowd of leaving children, where Nila had thought there was no chance he could be, she saw the face of her younger brother, desperately looking behind him, trying to get her attention, as he was led away by the hand, by a girl just slightly his elder.

She bit her lip, seeing that distraught expression on his face.

Their eyes made contact, and she clenched her fist. She got rid of all traces of fear and doubt from her face, and gave him the most resolute nod that she could. He was too far away for words, so she hoped that she might be able to get her feelings across with that.

'We won't lose,' she tried to tell him. 'We won't.'

He was getting so far away by now, that it was hard for Nila to tell, but she was sure she saw him nod back, and put on his bravest face.

She felt more relief than she had expected at that. It was only her mother that worried her now. In that camp, that sea of flames, where Greeves claimed she had stayed behind… Was it already too late?

The doubt returned again. Perhaps she should have left earlier. In the end, it had turned out that both people had been in the same place, both her mother and Beam. But then, what could she have done on her own?