A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 949: The Frontline - Part 1

"That can't be," Lasha said, her eyebrows furrowing by the slightest amount. "If I do not perform here, my father will hold it over me forever. My mother will force me to consider one of the marriages that she has proposed. I have too much to lose to be calm."

"…Then you're doing a remarkable job at containing it," Oliver said.

"I'm here, riding, when I should be in the carriage. I'm making trouble," Lasha said. "Even as I recognize it, I cannot help myself. I can't say that I'm hiding it well."

Oliver had to smile. "Causing trouble? By riding? What a Princess you are, holding yourself to such standards. If it's such a sin for a nobleman to be out on horseback, then I would be in the same boat as you, but no one seems to mind. Even if they did, I cannot imagine I would listen, unless they were to provide some adequate reasoning for why I should go inside."

The girl gave the smallest little chuckle at that. From someone like Blackthorn, though, that was as good as making her cry with laughter. "I think I will go and see the new soldiers after all," she decided. "If one of us is to make trouble, it seems better to be you, than me. My troubles seem to be more troublesome than yours."

"By all means, my Lady," Oliver said.

He turned to look over his shoulder, watching as she made awkward conversation with some of the Blackthorn men, and gave a wry smile. "I suppose she'll be fine," he said to himself.

Over the course of their days marching, Oliver had only just begun to get used to being surrounded by so many thousands of men. It was a suffocating experience, but also a rather enjoyable one, in a twisted sort of sense.

Though he didn't have the opportunity to speak to many of the soldiers apart from his own, there was a sense of camaraderie in the fact that all these men were heading in the same direction. Oliver imagined it must have been what it felt like to be on a pilgrimage, travelling with other pilgrims.

If they were to be pilgrims, then the castles lining the Pendragon border with the Verna were definitely the holy lands. They'd travelled a good few days through Pendragon territory, and Oliver noted with distinct satisfaction that none of the guardsmen had been able to hold him back once.

They'd needed to simply open the gate, and stand to the side, looking both disgruntled and awestruck to have so many men passing through.

When they finally made it to Asebalian lands, they'd been treated to a finer reception. Carts had been sent with supplies to see them overstocked and fed whilst they marched through the territory. The Queen was doing all she could to assist them, even in the most minor of ways.

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As they marched all that distance, though, they still had not encountered the few thousand men that Queen Asabel had promised to send their way. Only now that they made it to the first of the border castles did they begin to catch sight of them, flying the flag of the golden Pendragon, with Asabel's personal mark of a thorny white rose at its feet.

Next to it, there was the sigil of the Blackthorns – the large broad-shouldered hunting hound with its spiked collar.

There were thousands upon thousands. Lombard informed him that there were five thousand in total. After the negotiations in the Capital, in front of the High King, more negotiations had gone on behind the scenes, and five thousand was the number that they had settled on.

With so many men, there was no way that they could all fit into the border castle. It was built for a garrison of a thousand at best. All those that couldn't fit inside had set up tents beyond the walls, giving the castle an appearance that was very much like that of major cities and towns, with the peasantry building their houses beyond the walled defences that the nobility had constructed.

"So many…" Oliver heard Pauline say. "With such numbers, there's no doubt that we will win, is there?"

"I'm not sure that's true," Kaya responded gently. "There's only ten thousand of us here, if we include what we've brought. The enemy is said to number far more than that."