A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 13: The Price of Power - Part 7

Beam soon found those words to be true, though he had not heard them.

His breathing was catching up to him, and by the time he finally made it to the banks of the river, he was thoroughly out of breath. "And that should have been the easiest part too…" he realized in horror, being downhill as it was. Now he had the rushing waters of the mountain river to cross, before transitioning to the other side, and its increasingly more rocky terrain, that looked more like a rock climbing course than a running one.

But he was at the river now, and now that his eyes and his mind had started looking for ways forward, they found it hard to stop. The river was far too wide to cross in a leap. And its waters were too fast for him to attempt to swim through, or even run wade through. Yet, nature had smiled on him, for there were three boulders, roughly zigzagging in a way that allowed one to at least think of crossing.

From the bank to the first boulder, an old rotting log offered a bridge. Beam grabbed onto it without thinking too hard, and swung with his legs kicking to get across to the first boulder. Just in time, it seemed, for the rotting log split in half, and he saw it crash into the waters behind him.

Instead of fear though, seeing that he had just escaped the same fate, he felt a huge burst of adrenaline. "This is so much fun," he said aloud.

Luckily, the next two boulders were within reach without the need for any bridges.

The second was taller, with a flat side, so that it rose up higher than Beam was.

Looking at the water beneath him, Beam realized that he would be betting it all on the top of the rock not being slippery… If not, he was going to get very cold and very wet and the least.

"Damn it!" He said, the irritation at being so slow taking over the fear, and he leapt, arms outstretched, his fingers searching for the top of the rock.

His body crashed into the side of the boulder ungracefully as he managed to get a handhold, and it was with considerable effort that he managed to pull himself up.

But as he stood on the top of that tall rock, in the middle of that rushing river, the feeling was worth it. Even out of breath, even with his body trembling with exhaustion, there was such an overwhelming exhalation that came with standing on that perch, seeing the water rush its way around him.

More importantly though, he could see the other side, and he could see that the last few steps were far easier than the first. Gracefully, he landed on the third boulder, and then, with a long jump, he landed on the opposite shore of the river.

"…Now comes the hard part," he murmured to himself, finally being greeted by the rocky cliff face of the opposite side of the ravine.

"Yep. No way I'm climbing that," he said. Up close, it was even more intimidating. It started off with a gentle muddy slope that got steeper and steeper, until, towards the middle, it was a complete sheer rocky cliff face, and then beyond that, it went beyond simply being vertical – the cliff curved out the other way into a muddy overhang supported by the roots of the forest's trees.

So, rather than going in an exact straight line – since Dominus had said nothing about that – he went along the bank of the river looking for a better spot. And immediately, he was rewarded for doing so.

He grinned to himself. He would have felt incredibly stupid if he'd struggled all the way up the cliff for no reason at all. For, as soon as he turned the corner of the river's meander, behind a wall of trees and shrubbery, there was a path up not too dissimilar from the way he had come down on the other side.

Of course, it wasn't what he could call easy, but it was a far cry from a sheer cliff face. It was at least manageable. Looking at it, he even dared to hope that it might be easier going up than it had been coming down.

Watching this, Dominus grunted in acknowledgement. "And he's not stupid either," he murmured to himself, taking mental notes. Beam was not aware of it, but the pathfinding skill that he had demonstrated was not necessarily common. There were many more men that would have been unable to make a decision as to which way to go, ending up at something completely impassable instead.

Though, Beam had made it look almost easy. Dominus had been barking at him about speed, more in an attempt to make him deal with pressure than anything else, but the hardest part of this little course was certainly the pathfinding necessary. It was a skill hard to teach. One that required intuition.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves though," Dominus told himself, "it's not like the pathfinding instinct solves everything… though I suppose it's a good skill to have."

As Dominus muttered to himself, stroking his chin, Beam made it to the top of the other side. He went through the trees into the forest on the other side of the ravine, exactly where Dominus had pointed and waved over, signifying that he had completed it.

Dominus motioned with his hand for the boy to come back, and he started scrambling down the same way he had come up. Even from a distance, Dominus could see how exhausted he was. But now, after nearly half an hour of practice, he was getting a feel for gravity and for the pathfinding and it took him far less energy to do what had required all his concentration before.

"He's got many talents, like you did, Arthur," Dominus murmured to himself. "To think he'd have been born into peasantry… To think he would have been afflicted with Ingolsol's curse. He might have flown high indeed if only he was protected a little longer."

Along such a train of thought, Dominus made a stark realization. "And yet, now the boy is progressing again," he mused. "He has a vast base of suffering to build off… if the balance within him remains perfect, he'd be able to build up an astonishing level of strength. But I suppose, in the end, such a thing is unlikely. As much as he struggles, it is impossible to walk such a road."