17.08.590 AF
Oliver fought.
Terror had spread through Avalonia for many years. When the last emperor died, several ambitious noblemen broke from the empire to form their own kingdoms. The war for The Arcane Throne ensued, and the 'broken kingdoms', as the kingdoms formed after the dissolution of empire were called, fought each other. This was an awful time, but awful times often created opportunities. Opportunities that Oliver was determined to capitalise on.
Oliver was born the natural son of a wandering knight, a glorified name for a mercenary. He never met his father. Her mother provided for him through her shop, but little could be made in the times of war. She died when he was fifteen in a bandit raid organised by a noble in disguise to fund his army. His village was uprooted from ground and he could survive only because he went to the nearest town to replenish the goods of his mother's shop the day before. By the time, he was back, the village was no more. He still remembers his mother's charred body which he couldn't have identified if it wasn't for that blue lion pendant which she always wore.
He shifted to Ulak after this incident, and over the past fifteen years, he did all that he could to elevate himself from his previous position. When their Baron, during Hobart's Rebellion, declared for his liege, King Kenneth Riverton, a grandson of the last emperor's maternal cousin, Oliver left his home to join the war effort. He had always desired to elevate himself from his unclaimed bastard status. A knighthood seemed a fine place to start.
His thoughts drifted to his son. A strange boy of ten, fond of swordplay and words and sayings that seemed foreign to him. Oliver thought this a symptom of his mother's death by fever some years ago, a coping mechanism developed by the young lad. Saying goodbye to Walter had been a difficult thing, but a sacrifice must be made on the path to greatness. He would return to the boy as a knight and give him the life that was denied to him.
Oliver served.
Dark clouds were gathered about the field near Lior which was destined to be the location of the battle. Thousands of men lined up to throw themselves against each other in a deadly and macabre frenzy of blood and steel to decide who sat upon the arcane throne. It had been a month since Oliver first joined the host and they had marched far and wide. Oliver was lucky enough to not be located in the front line of infantrymen, fodder as they were for charging knights of the enemy. He was a few lines deep, reasonably close to the guard of King Kenneth.
The enemy's leader was Marquis Hobart of Windholm, one of the hundreds of pretenders to the arcane throne. He claimed his descent from the last emperor's great-uncle, but all he had to prove his descent was his pair of purple eyes, the eyes of the now-extinct Valonia Dynasty.
Hobart was able to muster an army of some three thousand, drawn primarily from his territory of Windholm and they did not do much to stand in the way of eight thousand strong King's army.
It was an exceptional chance of fate that would see Oliver seize his opportunity for greatness. The famous Corbyn the Crow, a legendary but aging knight of the Elite Guard of Hobart. The only surviving member of the Pretender's original guard, of particular renown for his martial ability and zealous loyalty, had managed to stab his sword into the thigh of King Kenneth Riverton. Oliver burst forward with a speed he did not know he possessed as he parried with his shield the Knight's blow that would have pierced the King's neck.
Despite his fear, he smiled as he traded blows with the ferocious elite knight. Saving the life of the King from such a dire situation would see him rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. The downed Riverton, despite his injury, in a display of the fury and grit his ancestors were renowned for, pulled free a dirk and lodged it firmly into the Crow's calf. Oliver pressed forward and the tired, injured knight fell to his sword.
Oliver smiled.
Until the blade of an unseen opponent emerged from his throat. Bloodstained the cold steel. The light in his emerald eyes faded as his lifeblood fed the grass. As darkness filled his vision, his last thoughts turned to his son and he prayed to Bellator that his son would succeed where he had failed.
Oliver breathed his last.