A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Beam grabbed it, merely to test his luck. Of course, he didn't expect it to be open. Sure enough, the door didn't move, as though someone had nailed it shut. His eyes darted to the windows instead. The wooden shutters had been closed tightly too, but they certainly seemed to offer more hope of entry than that thick door.

With his newly gauntleted fist, Judas had followed his gaze. A smug smile crossed his face, as he drew back his fist, without even being given the order to do so.

A loud bang resounded, as the armour of his hand collided with the centre of a wooden shutter. A crack ran through it – yet it didn't fall from its frame just yet. Another fist followed it, breaking it straight through.

"There ya go, all open," Judas said smugly. He reached his hand inside, and flicked open the latch, so that he might push the rest of the debris out of the window frame. It fell inside with a crash that seemed to echo too loudly inside of that ominous house.

"And now what?" The sergeant remarked. He, like everyone else, had been looking at Judas somewhat wryly. The man was clearly used to breaking into houses. There hadn't been an ounce of hesitation before he went to punching through the window.

"Get someone to crawl in and open the door from the inside. We'd usually get Brem to do that – seems to be able to get into all the tight spaces he does… But given that Brem isn't here," he trailed off, looking towards Beam.

"Didn't we just agree that this was dangerous? And we're already splitting up?" Nila pointed out.

"I can't say we have much choice. Unless you've got any other way past that door," Judas said.

"But there could be anything waiting inside. I don't know much about fighting, but going in through that tight space, you're leaving yourself too open, aren't you?" She continued.

"I'll go," Beam said firmly. "We don't have much time. We're going to have to take some risks."

He put his hands up on the window frame, and kicked against the wall as he hauled himself up. Nila glanced after him, the anxiousness written clearly on her face. The soldiers were similarly stiff. Their hands tightly gripped their swords, and their heartbeats were palpable. At any moment, they expected something to jump out to seize their young commander.

The window wasn't even wide enough to accommodate the full width of Beam's shoulders. He had to twist his body, and go through at an awkward diagonal. He couldn't make out any of the house's inside as he struggled, for his body blocked the light from the torch. Even his heart was beating wildly now.

After a moment of struggle, most of his torso was across the threshold, and he allowed gravity to take care of the rest, as his legs kicked behind him, urging him faster through the gap.

He began to fall. With one hand still awkwardly placed on the window's ledge, he managed to direct himself in a forward roll, as he headed towards where he assumed the floor to be. He landed heavily, nearly winding himself, but he was back on his feet a moment later, his hand towards his sword, as his eyes scanned the shadows, searching for movement.

"You alright in there, boy?" Came the sergeant's voice, tense with fear, as he held a torch through the window, finally filling the room with some amount of light.

It was the same room that Beam recalled, with those dark wood floorboards, that dusty old rug in the centre of it all, those strange skulls on the wall, and a messy desk filled with all sorts of papers.

Beam took the torch, and spared the rest of the room another glance, to confirm that nothing was moving, then he turned his attention to the door.

It was thoroughly bolted shut – through three different bolts, one at the top, one at the bottom, and one in the middle. That fact made Beam more wary. It meant that someone was inside – they had to be. But where?

He hurriedly opened all three of them, though they were stiff and took some forcing. As soon as they were freed, Judas' shoulder forced the heavy door inwards, and Beam was once more reunited with his comrades, feeling something akin to relief.

No one spoke now. Even without orders, they were consciously trying to move as quietly as they could, as though afraid of waking something.

Beam took his torch, and crossed the room, towards where the Elder had made him sit, that time Beam had needed to visit him. He could have sworn somewhere in his memory there were crystals of some sort, but as he searched the desk, he could find nothing of that description now.

There was merely a mountain of paperwork, seeming to be ledgers of some sort, accounting for the various debts that the Elder owed.

He brushed them aside with a frown. There didn't seem to be anything interesting among them.

He then began to search the desk's drawers instead. The top one – empty. The middle one – empty. And then the bottom one was empty all the same.

"This has been cleared out," Beam noted with a frown.

The sergeant was looking in the fireplace, raking through the ashes with his hand. "These are stone cold. It hasn't been lit in days. And look at these – paper ashes."

The ashes from paper didn't crumble in the same way that ashes from wood did. Instead, they sat in thicker flakes, making a mess of the fireplace.

"More than suspicious, do you not think?" The sergeant said, as he dusted off his hands.

Beam nodded. The place had been cleared out in a hurry, it certainly seemed. But why? Just what was the old man hiding.

"This is the creepiest fuckin' place," Judas murmured, looking at the skull of a deer on the wall. Its horns had been painted black. "By the way, how's the door locked from the inside when no one's here?"