A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

There was no doubt in Lombard's mind. The man had done it. He'd done it. After all that time, all those failures, there was finally a knight of Stormfront's kingdom that had done it.

Even in the lands that surrounded theirs, Lombard knew of no warrior that had even managed to touch fingers with the Sixth Boundary, save for Arthur, but Arthur had fallen too early to properly cross that line.

"You've done it," Lombard said. His voice could not contain his awe. It was the pinnacle of progress. It was the hope of the Kingdom. If the people in the Capital knew what had happened, there'd be months upon months of celebration.

The tide would shift in the war. Even their King would not be able to help but praise him, Dominus Patrick, the first to cross the Sixth Boundary. Scorned, as he was, rogue, as he'd become, he'd crossed the Sixth Boundary before anyone else.

And here he was, in his unveiling, the most glorious achievement in thousands of years of their history, unveiled in a muddy pit of blood, in a Northern village with a name that those from the Capital most certainly won't have heard of… here it was, amongst a scattering of villagers, by a man that all were sure was dead, until quite recently.

In the middle of nowhere, with no one to know the magnitude of his achievement, save an old comrade, by the name of Lombard. Realizing that, a flash of guilt ran through the Captain's heart, and he found himself clenching his fist as well, in a rare display of emotion.

He was far Dominus' inferior, he knew that. Far, far inferior to him. A man of the Fifth Boundary – there was a title worthy of legend, just as Arthur had been for his country. Dominus had been the only living man in their country to carry on that title, making him the greatest warrior to walk their lands, possibly ever.

And here, in his sixty-somethingth year, when most men were on the decline, he'd rubbed shoulders with Gods, and managed to snatch something impossible out of the sky.

"I have," Dominus said firmly, then he glanced at the boy. "But in doing so I have lost something important." Again he clenched his fist, and then he opened his palm, to look at the blood. To Lombard he looked more like a young Crown Prince, contemplating the future of the Kingdom, than a man of sixty, about to meet his grave. But the poison that ran through his body was undeniable.

It haunted him like a past mistake.

"The boy fought well. Beyond well," Lombard said. "I was beginning to get a glimpse of that which you saw in him. I would have given up my life, for his, if I was able… yet my failings brought us here. In the loss of the boy, we have gained something of equal import – your ascendence to the Sixth, it's in your power now, is it not? The Pandora Goblin, for the good of the kingdom—"

"No," Dominus said firmly.

"No? I know you had your differences with the King. I know better than most how he mistreated you. But this is a matter beyond personal differences. It's for the good of the country – I thought you cared for it, as much as Arthur did, in your own way. Was I wrong?" Lombard said.

"No," Dominus corrected. "I am not a fitting replacement for the boy, he has what I lacked. I pushed him towards it, but his aptitude for it was greater than mine – he knows the worth of people."

Lombard's eyes widened. "You saw the battle? Even though you were unable to make it to us in time?"

Dominus nodded slowly. "I did. But I meant not the battle, or the villagers, I meant me. Apprenticing the boy, that gave me this. All else failed. No amount of pain or self-torture, but he managed it.

He's more important than I."

At that revelation, the surprise did not leave Lombard's face. It took a moment to relax himself, before he nodded his acceptance, as he looked at the corpse. "What was it, that made him special?"

Dominus considered it a moment, locking eyes with Francis, as he stood on his tower a distance away. The mage felt a chill pass down his back. "He had the talent of Arthur," Dominus said.

"I suppose I'd—" Lombard began to nod his agreement, but Dominus was not finished yet.

"He knew suffering better than a boy his age ought to know it. That, and his talent, that would be enough. He could have moved mountains with that alone… and yet the boy is stubborn. Painfully so. I know not what cause he clings to. The boy does not even know himself.

There's a stubbornness in him that overrides his very soul. I know not what to call it. Perhaps it is a clinging to destiny, or perhaps it is merely peculiar to the boy himself."

"You praise him highly… You of all people," Lombard said, acknowledging the weight of those words. They were heavier now, spoken from a man of the Sixth Boundary, a man who knew progress better than anyone else in the known world.

"We cannot lose him," Dominus said firmly.

"Have we not already made that mistake?" Lombard said.

"In the darkest void, I found swimming the brightest fish," Dominus said, as he returned to sit beside Beam's corpse. "I spoke in order to warn you, and help you understand what will follow." With his words, he raised up his bloody hand, high up above Beam's chest, and then he flattened his fingers into a point like a blade.

"The Sixth Boundary was never a straight line. The path of swordsmanship only went so far. In order to exceed it, I had to look in the place that we as a Kingdom despise the most," Dominus continued, his hand bloody. Nila watched him with widened eyes, but more strongly than anyone, it was Francis that watched, and Francis who saw.

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