He was almost shocked at how easy it had been to get inside Oliver's guard. If nothing else, the boy's lack of a reaction to a man bearing down on his weapon was extraordinary. Even the hardest of veterans would flinch when death came looming so close, and yet Oliver stood still, meeting his gaze, but not moving.
It was not until the sword had just about made contact with his arms that he disappeared.
"What!?" Firyr gasped. He hadn't been able to follow it. One moment, he'd been about to bite straight through flesh, and the next, he was striking at nothing but empty air.
All of a sudden, an impact hit him hard in the side, rocking him up off his feet. Another followed it, this time lifting him off the ground entirely.
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Firyr just barely managed to twist his neck around to see his attack before he fell. There was Oliver Patrick, as calm as ever, his arm extended, having just completed a vicious uppercut with his right hand, burying it just beneath Firyr's ribs.
He collapsed in the snow, too shocked to process what had just occurred. His anger demanded that he get to his feet immediately, but the groan from his mouth suggested otherwise. He spasmed on the floor, surprised at the shock wave that had run through his organs. The sudden urge to vomit assailed him, and the tiny amount of food that Greeves had given him left his mouth.
He cringed bitterly. That was a terrible fate for a slave. That was the last thing he wanted during a beating – to part with the contents of his already half-empty stomach. He glared at the pool of vomit as he shuddered.
Oliver was beside him a second later, helping him to his feet, and apologising, a genuine look of concern on his face. "Ah, apologies… I went too far. You aren't well rested enough to properly receive such blows."
Somehow, that made it seem even more ridiculous to Firyr. Even as a slave, he'd seen his share of Stormfront nobles. They were just like the Syndran ones in their treatment of the lowly. They did not even want to see slaves within their vision, much less be near them. And here, that boy had reached down to lift him up without hesitation, with nothing but sincerity in his eyes.
There seemed to be no ulterior motive – simply genuine concern.
Firyr couldn't help himself. As bad as his stomach now felt, had to laugh. It came as a choking rumble at first, and they built up into a great bellow. He allowed Oliver to lift him all the way to his feet, laughing all the while. Some of the other slaves too were smiling with them. It was too ridiculous not to.
"As I said," Oliver continued, realising his hold on Firyr, and taking back the sword that the man had offered to him. "You will be paid to serve me. You'll have all the freedom that a soldier normally might. I know a man does not wish to live his life in servitude, and you shall not have to. You will have the freedom to own property, and begin families, and you will have the coin to feed them.
Men, if you fight for me you will gain your paths to your new lives. There is hope to be had."
He said that honestly, for in their position, Oliver could not have hoped for any better. If someone had rescued him from the depths of slavery and offered him such a proposition, he might have been similarly distrustful. But had it turned out to be true? He would have been elated. There were two things there: freedom, and progress. He'd had to fight for both of those himself.
It had almost been more of a struggle to find a job as an ex-slave than it had been to escape slavery itself.
Firyr wiped the tear from his eye as his laughter finally subsided. "Oliver Patrick," he said. "I like it. Is a good name - and I've finally found it. A Commander who is stronger than I. If you make good on your promise, then you will find a good soldier in me.
Should you increase my pay, as you say, I would have no qualms beating the rest of these men into shape. I'll make them the finest soldiers you've ever seen."
Oliver eyed the man, seeing the shine on his bald head. All of the slaves had been kept bald, to keep them free from the spread of lice. "So too shall you have the freedom to grow hair once more," he said, smiling.
The man laughed again. "That freedom escaped me before slavery – it was the Gods that took that one away from me."
"Unfortunate," Oliver said, before turning serious once again, and addressing the rest of the men. "I understand your reluctance to immediately trust what I am saying, but as the days pass, you should understand my sincerity. I will have you fed, housed and clothed on top of your pay. In time, you will come to defend the very village that you stand in, so I ask that you get acquainted with it."
Oliver had been given more than enough time to accomplish what he needed to do in Solgrim. He greeted all the slaves as he intended to, but there was only so much distance that could be breached between men in one day.
Before he left, he'd overseen the removal of their shackles by the village blacksmith – someone who Oliver was sure would be becoming increasingly valuable in the months to come – and the villagers had gathered to see it happen.
He'd kept no secrets from them. He informed them in a loud voice of what they'd done in freeing the slaves, a fact that served two purposes. The first of which was that it helped to garner more trust from the slaves themselves, after all, there were hundreds of people being made to witness their freeing. And two, he'd demonstrated his trust in the villagers.
Whilst he knew how shady it might have seemed to be buying slaves, he trusted that the villagers would trust him, and they'd responded to that expectation.