"Oliver Patrick, do you acknowledge these Trials and agree to their undertaking?" General Tevar's voice rang out loud in the cold night. The students were already shivering, despite wearing their thick coats and having access to warm drinks.
These were his enemies – Oliver made sure to look around at them. They were those who had greeted him with hostility, merely on name alone. And again, most of them came looking for his blood. He saw Blackthorne amongst them, dressed as warmly as the rest, her face unreadable.
Oliver had to hide his smile. This was what the nobility called a Trial? There was no Trial that they could set him that could equal the horrors of the battlefield that Francis had created. There was no pain that could match the responsibility that came with shouldering hundreds of lives. This was the sort of struggle that Oliver had endured nearly daily in his young life as a slave.
This was the suffering that had powered him through the Second Boundary faster than all else. What was there even to prepare for? This was who he was. Dominus had once declared that he'd met no man able to endure suffering as capably as Beam. Oliver dared to believe that. He gave his answer, and then became Beam again, for the strength and resilience of his peasant self.
"I do," he said firmly, making sure that his voice was calm, and level, dignified against all who would expect him to feel fear.
General Tevar nodded, and this time Oliver knew that he had not imagined it. There was approval there.
"Remove your upper layers and bear the skin of your back, then, we will begin the trial now, whilst the clock hovers around eight, and acknowledge that there should be twelve hours of Trial before dawn," Tevar said.
Oliver did as he was bid. He removed that blue jacket, with the golden hexagonal stitches that he'd grown so fond of. Pointedly, he took the pin of Lord Blackwell as well – he knew that would be what the other students eyed, more than anything else. He handed all he had to Verdant, grateful for the priest. Even one half-ally meant much, in a sea of unfriendly faces.
And then he removed his shirt, and there was once more a murmur through the crowd as they saw the bandages that graced his back.
"Unwind them, if you would, Verdant," Oliver said. The priest looked to General Tevar, as though half-expecting him to say that he could leave the bandages on, but the General did not interrupt, he merely continued to observe with a grim expression on his face.
Verdant had said earlier that the scars on Oliver's back told the truth of his battle with the Yarmdon far more than rumour had. As the bandages were unveiled, bit by bit, Oliver eyed the reaction of all those that he could see, and he found that there was truth in those statements. Some of the students could not even look. There were men amongst them who turned away.
And then the fresh wounds were unveiled, those still bloody, those that had not healed quite yet, to complement the scars. They spoke of the battle with the Yarmdon with incredible veracity. The murmurs had died out now, and silence reigned. There was the body of an individual that had lived a hard life.
If the Ministers had seen those scars, they would not have wondered how a child of a mere fifteen years could have broken through the Second Boundary when he did.
Had they been wiser, and more knowledgeable in the boundaries, they might have even seen what Dominus had seen – the impossible struggle Beam had had to overcome merely for his progress to be registered, as the Curse of Ingolsol gobbled up everything that he strived to achieve. Without the Curse, he likely has broken through that Second barrier even younger.
Even before the suffering that life had laid out for him, Dominus had seen that his talents rivalled that of Arthur.
General Tevar did not try to hide his curiosity. He stood in front of Oliver at first, seeing the scars on his chest. He acknowledged them with narrowed eyes, and then walked to the back, not bothering to hide what he was doing.
Then he spoke in a softer tone, so that only those in the crowd closest to him could hear.
"What was Gorm's mistake?" He asked. There was a second question hidden in there. How could a man of Gorm's might fall before the force of Lombard, and an unknown boy. How could a man of the Fourth Boundary, with his renowned history, and his many victories, lose?
"He sensed more than he could see," Oliver said, speaking of Francis, and the change in the Yarmdon's fighting style when they felt the mage's presence. They'd grown more reckless then, as Gorm allowed his men to be blooded.
The Yarmdon Commander had sensed that Jok was about to break through to the Third Boundary, and had dared to allow him to do that, knowing that they needed all the strength they could to match whatever darkness could follow.
General Tevar nodded at that. He knew the details of the battle with the Yarmdon, even if he was not one to speak of it publically. His reaction betrayed that understanding.
"Sergeant – see that you avoid the still closing wounds as you strike with your whip," General Tevar said, more loudly, as he walked back to the front.
"Yes, General," the sergeant said, saluting.
"Approach the stocks, boy. Stay still until the deed is done," Tevar said.
Oliver did as he was told. The wood was dry as he ran his neck through it. He realized that the stocks must have been stored somewhere indoors, for the whole world was moist by now. An odd thing to notice, before the pain of the whip.
There were no further commands. Oliver heard the settling of feet, as the sergeant set himself up, a few strides away, and uncoiled the whip in his hands. The first blow came as a surprise, as it nicked the back of his shoulder. Oliver had expected more words from Tevar, in the ceremonious fashion that he had shown up until now, but there was none of that.