Chapter 2 : Prelude to Battle
"General! The advance units have affirmed that this is the last of their scouts."
Celes stared at the crumpled body at her feet, and nodded absently.
"Do a spread box-out search. I want no chances. The town cannot be alerted to our advances if we are to achieve the Emperor's will with the least amount of losses."
"But-"
"Why do you think we're coming from the mountains?" Celes suddenly turned her piercing green eyes to regard the officer before her, as though she knew what he was going to say, "Why do you think we're chasing their scouts? Why do you think we're sending out two full companies of advance units?
"To lower our losses. To reduce the number of widows, of orphaned children, of devastated lovers in the Empire"
Shamed, the officer bowed his way away from the General.
As the officer started shouting for his company to form up for the search, Celes returned her attention to the dead man. Barely twenty, with a light downing of hair on his chin, the young man looked dashing, by South Figaro standards. Somewhere, out there, he must have a lover. Celes turned towards the slight twinkling of lights in the distance, where the town was.
Why was she doing this? Her aim was to lower the losses for the Empire... but... what about the South Figaro militia? For a moment, Celes wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Then, the moment passed, and she turned to oversee her scouts' search.
Within a week, the efficient, well-trained foot soldiers of the Empire had cleared Mountain Kolts, with little casualties. Their forced march across the plains brought them to within sighting of the town by two days. By the time the town militia spotted the advancing army, it was much too late to stop the advance.
By then, the line of Empire men stretched the northern horizon. The roads leading away from South Figaro were cordoned off. No civilian even tried to exit town. They all knew; their only hopes lay in the militia, or escape by sea.
When all seemed lost, help came from an unexpected quarter...
"G..General. I.."
"I don't bite," a ghost of a smile lifted the corners of Celes' mouth for a fraction of a second. "what is it?"
The young officer shook his head, "A man, a suspected Returner, slipped through our lines." The officer hung his head, face burning.
There was a pregnant pause as Celes considered this, before she spoke.
"Towards, or away from, town?"
"Away, General."
Celes nodded. The Emperor's spies had long since been suspecting a liaison between Figaro and the Empire's most organized rebel faction. Now, there was abundant proof.
"He'll be going to warn those Returners hiding out here, and perhaps get help for South Figaro. Either way, we can expect him to return, either alone, or with backup, soon. South Figaro is a strategically crucial place for the Returners if they are indeed in cahoots with Figaro. They will try to infiltrate the town before we can capture it totally, and then, it would be hell to stamp them out.
"Tighten the cordons. Break the seals on our reserve grain, and bring the mastiffs out of the magical sleep from the Magitek. I don't expect we'll actually catch the Returner, but if we do,it'll be a decisive blow against the rebels' infiltration."
"Yessir."
"Go get some rest, Corporal. We're starting the assault the day after tomorrow."
After the officer went out of the tent, Celes glanced down at the parchment that held intricate details of all of South Figaro's defenses. Without this information, the Empire would surely have suffered immense losses had they attacked from sea or air. King Edgar... was a genius in his own right. With this information, the Empire would be granted an easy victory, with minimal losses. Far fewer wives and lovers would have to lament for dead kin in the Empire.
But why was this still troubling her? The dark dealings of the Empire have, lately, become too obvious to ignore. Dark rumors were coming in from Doma Castle, of poison. But here, at South Figaro, darker rumors have surfaced. The scout, Hans... his lover was Amelia? Then... did this Amelia know that it was her father who caused her lover's death? If the rumors were true here, were they true elsewhere as well?
Sighing, Celes picked up the parchment sent to the Empire months ago by one of the most respected figures in the South Figaro community to read through the details again...
"Amelia! No!"
"I must, father. You know I must!"
"You cannot. I will not let you."
The servants cringed as a vase crashed into the wall from the room overhead. A dull thump was heard, followed by a high-pitched yelp. Then sobs trailed down the stairs of the mansion. A girl's sweet voice, now driven desperate, echoed throughout the mansion, the appeal in its tones unmistakable.
"Father," Amelia's speech was punctuated with sobs. "I must go! Please, Hans is out there somewhere!"
"No!" The vehement reply of a heartbroken father drowned out a daughter's desperate pleas. "I won't allow it. I won't lose you. Not after what I've done. Not after all my efforts to bring you a better life!"
Danson Tinele held his daughter pressed to the floor, resisting her efforts to get up. With his own tears streaking down his face, Danson held on with the tenacity of a rat while his daughter struggled and yelled hysterically. His left hand reached for the rapier her daughter had been trying to steal, to go and find Hans. Such a foolish child! But she was his only daughter... She was his pride and joy. She was his flesh and blood, and she was what he lived for... He couldn't let her go out there to die! He couldn't...
His hand grasped the hilt of the ceremonial blade, and with usual swordsman efficiency, he slammed the pommel of the blade to his daughter's temple. With a small gasp, Amelia ceased to struggle, her body turned limp in his grip.
"Amelia," he sobbed, "my dear Amelia... I'm so sorry..."
Danson was the man the people of South Figaro looked up to. He had been a father figure of South Figaro, a benevolent rich man who invested heavily in the nation's interests. Danson was the closest to a mayor they had, though being under jurisdiction of Figaro Castle, South Figaro, as a free port, had no need of mayors. He was, it seemed, the very epitome of chivalry and patriotism.
Right now, he looked anything but a mayor. His usually radiant face was lined with worry-wrinkles of the developments of the past weeks. His immaculate suit was streaked with dirt from his tussle with his own daughter. His hair disheveled, and nose dripping, he looked a sorry sight as he wept. The cut across his cheek, a shallow cut inflicted by his daughter, stung unmercifully, and the blood dripped onto his shirt, making him look even worse.
With visible effort, Danson hauled himself up, and then gathered his daughter's body in his arms. He had to confine her. He couldn't risk another episode like today. Not when the Empire soldiers were coming. They were coming the day after tomorrow.
The town militia leader had already convened a meeting to discuss what new efforts should be made to stop the advance. He would have to be there. Quickly, he stumbled towards the basements in his manor. There were rooms there, empty of furniture, small enough for a person to live in solitary confinement, big enough that they wouldn't go crazy. He would put Amelia there, then go to the meeting... he had to let General Celes know of new developments. The 'rewards' promised him by the Empire was built upon that; letting the General know about new defensive developments.
Like a zombie, the richest man in South Figaro locked his own daughter in the basement without provisions and then immediately went to meeting, still dressed in his blood-splattered, dirty suit.
"G...general..."
"What is it now, officer" There was no trace of amusement in Celes' voice. The Returner they had been angling to nab on his return to South Figaro had, by some devil's twist of luck, slipped through their lines without so much as a whisper. The only thing the sentries had been able to describe him, as was a young man with a distinctive bandana. The dispatches sent to her by the Emperor were as unclear as ever. Damn those bureacrats for messing up perfectly understandable dispatches. The Emperor Gesthal she knew would have been decisive and commanding, even in dispatches, not trailing mazes through bureacratic nonsense. Furthermore, the details of defensive measures to be made by the South Figaro militia had yet to reach her from her contact in the town. All these developments connived to put the General in a rare bad-mood.
"General... I..." the officer took a deep breath, then plunged on, "We've caught deserters."
Celes snapped her head up. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she repeated the officer's words.
"Deserters."
"Y..yes, General. Knight-Lieutenant has stopped the advance and set up loyal scouts and sentries to prevent any further desertion. Also, the perpetrators have been confined in a tent, gagged and tied up, so as to prevent those things they say from influencing the rest of the war camp."
Celes looked ready to storm out of her command tent and put those few dissidents to the sword. How could they! The Empire fed them, clothed them, brought to their families prosperity with widespread trade and a system of fast transport. They were protected from bandits... all the Empire required in return was commitment in whichever trade the people of the Empire wanted to profess in. And as a soldier, desertion ranked above all else as a capital offense.
She stood up, buckled on her scabbard. Two long strides saw her to the flap of her tent. There, she hesitated.
Then she suddenly drew her rune-blade, the same one she used to kill the scout Hans, and rested its deadly tip against the base of the neck of the officer, who still stood at attention, his back to her.
"What else are you not telling me?" her voice was edged honey, the whisper of death in the wind.
Standing rigid and proud, the officer visibly gulped down a breath. Never before had he seen the General angry. Now, he knew why. Those who had usually didn't survive the encounters.
"General" his voice quaked slightly, knowing that what he was going to say would nearly be tantamount to treason. "I agree with the deserters. The Empire should stop its invasive efforts."
A heavy, leaden pause brought the tension in the command tent to an all time high.
"Explain."
As though resigned to his fate, the officer sighed, and steadied his voice.
"The deserters... were not from our Left Army. They were from the Royal Army commanded under General Leo in Doma. They... they spoke of Kefka," the officer almost spat the word out, "of how he displaced General Leo, and then poisoned everyone in Doma Castle... even those prisoners who were Empire soldiers!"
The officer turned a full 180 degrees around to face the point of the sword Celes stillheld, her hand steady as ever, at his neck. There were tears in his eyes; his mouth was a grim slash of anguish and disbelief.
"Everyone, General, even the children, even the elderly... Over a thousand people... Everyone."
Celes' didn't reply. Her face was a mask of neutrality, her eyes hard, emerald agates that sheared through all the officer's defenses with a non-emotional, distanced indifference.
The officer met her gaze and held.
For a minute, both General and Officer simply stared at each other.
"Don't speak of this to anyone, not even to your best friend. We never had this conversation. I am going to kill those deserters, and you have never protested against it."
Celes sheathed her sword and pulled open the tent flap. Just as she was going to step out, she hesitated.
"What is your name, officer?"
"W..wenn."
"Your first name."
"Justin, General. Justin Wenn."
"Go... get some sleep, Justin."
And she stepped out of the tent, striding towards the prisoners' confinement.