It's taken months of nagging, but finally Vossler has allowed her to come along. The desert is cold here at night, but it's the only time the convoys come. She's been situated behind this rock crevice, the furthest from any danger, and she knows it. Vossler has three with him on the other side of the ridge and another two are mere paces away. The intelligence was good, Vossler had said, and there would be two wagons with supplies for the Archadian troops stationed on the southern end of Rabanastre.
She's trained months for this. Though some deposed Princesses would sit idly by and let men lay down their lives in resistance, she will not be a figurehead. Dalmasca is hers the same as it is Vossler's, the same as it is to the other men out here in the desert tonight. The way of it tonight is not all out battle. Vossler and his men fight with short swords while the two across from her wait for the first strike with a few hand bombs. She's trained with a broadsword for months now, and she no longer needs both hands to hold it up. But tonight, she has a dagger.
Vossler has instructed her to kill any who seek to escape in this direction, but she knows he's only done so to make her feel included. Whoever is not killed by the bombs will be killed by Vossler and his three. She hears the howling of a desert wolf in the distance and then a gunshot. The Archadians are well-armed, but Ashe knows that they have the element of surprise.
She's studied battle strategy in books, though her father had never thought to include her in war meetings. She had nursemaids sneak tomes from the palace library for her perusal, and once she turned fourteen or so she was able to charm the guards that stood in front of the war room doors. But she supposes this is different. No cavalry on chocobo with bows, no infantry, no lines and flanking and the like. This is not an army, but a reckless band of people unified only by their love for country and the desire to see it freed.
Would her father be proud of her? Would Rasler? Could they see her crouching behind a crack in the rock wall, dagger shaking in her fist? She hears the sound of wheel against sand, a churning hiss, and she sees the quick light of the hand bomb being lit by the two men across the way. Her chest aches as the pace of her heart speeds up until her hands shake.
"Bombs first," she whispers. "Bombs, then Vossler. Secure this position."
The hand bomb lands with an awful crash on the first wagon, and the dark night is now alight with the flash of the explosion and then the orange and hot white of the fire. The screams are painful, but she tells herself that the Archadians killed her father and her husband and that this is what is right. It is right for these supplies to be burnt and the soldiers who would transport the supplies to die or Dalmasca cannot be free.
The second bomb is aloft, and this is Vossler's cue. She hears the short swords clang against Archadian metalwork and much more shouting, much more pain being inflicted against the conqueror of her lands. The two men with the bombs unsheathe their own weapons and charge in to dispatch those Vossler cannot reach.
She remains useless, her dagger at the ready. The sound of metal and of men and the scent of burnt cornmeal is all she knows until there is shuffling in the sands a few steps away. Peeking around the corner, she spies one of the men trudging through the sands in her direction. Ashe doesn't realize it until he comes close that the bomb that hit his wagon has left his arm hanging, only the fine Archadian armor plate holding his limb to his body.
"Bombs," she whispers with tears in her eyes. "Bombs, then Vossler. Secure this position." In the background, Vossler and the others are still slaying and this one has gone unnoticed except by her.
"Secure this position," she tells herself as the man falls to his knees in the sand dune. He uses his good hand to pull off his helmet, and he coughs hard enough to knock himself onto his side. The helmet rolls briefly, then halts in the sand at her feet. She hears the man moan, his trembling hand reaching for the arm that is no longer a part of him.
Ashe approaches slowly, sheathing her dagger upon seeing his face. He's young, too young. Younger than she is, and he's crying. She kneels down beside him, unable to look away as he moves onto his back with a pained sob. She watches his fingers run along the metal plate at his shoulder, blood that's nearly black in the night coating his glove.
There's no textbook for this, she realizes. Her lower lip is trembling. "I'm sorry," she tells him, and his eyes are glassy as he looks up at her. The Empire killed your father and your husband, exact your revenge, she tells herself. The young man reaches for her, bloodied glove staining her cheek with crimson.
"Kill him," Vossler's voice interrupts beside her. "He would do the same to you."
She sees the young man, the boy, shake his head slightly. The Archadian army is the strongest in the world, she reminds herself. Those in their ranks would see all the world crushed beneath their boot.
"He is just one of many who would keep your people starved," Vossler tells her with a comforting hand to her shoulder. "He would make children lose parents, would rob women of their dignity."
"I haven't the strength for this," Ashe whispers.
"You must," Vossler says, placing his short sword in her hand and bending her fingers around the handle. "You must if you wish for Dalmasca to be free."
She remembers hunting for sport with her father. She remembers the gleam off of Rasler's armor as he set off for Nalbina. The man is already in pain, and it would be mercy to take him from it. She should never have made Vossler bring her along. The boy's eyes plead with her – to bring him to hospital, to let him be healed. She knows the loss of a brother, the loss of a husband, the loss of a parent and even in Archades she knows they mourn those who fall.
Vossler moves her arm, resting the tip of the sword where there is room between the metal plate. "As Queen, you must show no fear."
"I must feel nothing?" she asks, unable to contain the sob that comes out. She is barely eighteen, and she must be impassive.
"By the morrow, you will have forgotten his face."
Vossler nudges her, and the blade enters the young man below his ribs. He gasps, and his lips are bloodied in moments. Vossler releases her. "Again. It is not yet enough to put him out of his misery."
This time she controls the sword as it stabs him a second time, and the gurgling rattle that emerges from the dying boy's throat will not be forgotten, no matter what Vossler claims. She pulls the blade out and drops it in the sand, unable to look Vossler in the eye. He lets her walk back to their temporary camp at the trade outpost on her own, and neither of them speak of this night again.