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Notes: Be warned that this chapter and the next are very solidly at a PG-13/T rating. (edited 10/7/07) (3/29/2008: FIXED FOR SCENE BREAKS, EFF YOU FANFIC NET)
3. Rosemary
For days there had been nothing but sun and wind as he galloped across the plains upon his faithful old chestnut, through an endless sea of grasses. The men at Bulgar had told him that the Lorca were heading north for the summer, and if he hurried he might be able to catch up to them before autumn arrived.
The heady scent of unfamiliar flowers and sun-dried grass permeated the air. The last time he had been in Sacae had been at winter's end, when the flowers had not yet bloomed and other green things not begun to grow, so long ago that it was but a distant wisp of a memory, overshadowed by all that had happened afterwards. And though it had been three years now since he had last worn his armor, he felt disorientingly light and vulnerable as he rode on, dressed only in civilian garb. His mount could feel it too, and every now and then pranced and kicked as if he were a colt once more, and not the venerable old warhorse he had become.
Suddenly, he thought he felt a pair of eyes trained intently on him, and he whirled around, no longer mounted. A mere shadow, but he knew -- that damn cat...
"Kent?"
Doubt rushed suddenly into his heart, aching and full. People changed. What if she had changed? What if he had changed?
A tight, warm embrace, arms flung about his neck, and wetness upon his chest. "It's you. It's really you..."
He clutched at her, burying his nose in her hair, uncaring of the audience they had attracted. Yes, he tried to say. It's me. I'm free now. I will never leave your side, ever again.
But the words would not come, and then they were alone, hiding together in the long grasses, their horses grazing some distance away. She said something, and laughed, and he too laughed, then blushed, for her belt had come loose, and he was suddenly all too aware of the curve of her breast and her carelessly sprawled legs, and the softness of her lips against his own... Lazy summer days, making love under the vast blue sky, as if they were the only living souls left in the world.
The horses screamed.
And then he was running, a dead child in his arms, gray and small and still, and the great cat padding silently behind him -- he was reminded of the way his tabby had enjoyed toying with the mice or little birds she had caught --
Blood. Screaming. Darkness.
He woke with a faint, uncomfortable sense of yearning and disquiet lingering mixed within him.
"You're awake."
Kent looked up to see the warrior known as the Red Hawk, one of the few men of the clan with whom he had grown comfortable enough over the years to consider a friend. They had fought together at Bulgar. There had been others, too, but they had fallen.
The look on the warrior's face wiped the haze from Kent's mind. "What happened?"
"The boy's been found."
Kent leapt to his feet, recognizing the solemn tone of the other man's voice for what it meant. "Lyn. Does she know?"
The Red Hawk shook his head. "She is tending to the Young Wolf."
"Ah," said Kent. The Young Wolf. It was strange to hear Rath referred to in such a way; neither of them were so young, anymore, and from what Kent had heard, Rath had never truly been one of the Kutolah, even after he had returned to the tribe. And then he had disappeared, leaving behind a wife and daughter, it was said. Where had he been all this time? The man had been hovering at the brink of death for a few days now, with Lyn constantly at his side. It was a wonder he had managed to survive for so long; he had apparently gone without food for days before their scouts had found him, dragging himself along through sheer willpower. Kent was reminded for a moment of the first war, so many years ago, when Rath had been wounded grievously and yet had said nothing at all until Lyn had finally noticed, some days later, when it was already almost too late.
Kent realized that the Hawk was waiting for him. "Show me the body," he said, shaking himself out of his memories.
The man said nothing, but led him outside. The sky was cloudy and gray as they walked over to where a handful of their people waited.
Not even the worst horrors Kent had witnessed during that first war and all his years as a knight, nor all his years living out on the plains, could have prepared him for the sight that awaited him.
"The mountain cat," he muttered, fists clenching at his side, as he bent down to examine the body, and nearly gagged from the smell. The boy's face was mauled and nearly unrecognizable; guts spilled out from a deep wound in his belly, and his legs were chewed and half eaten.
"Mountain cat?" said the Red Hawk, frowning beside him.
"Lyn saw one a few days ago," Kent replied curtly.
"Certainly this is not the work of men," said the Hawk, sneering. "Even bandits are not so savage."
"That cat is dangerous. It's hungry. Starving." Just like us, thought Kent, but did not say aloud. He had already forgone two meals, so that those who needed the nutrition, like Lyn and Rath, might have it. Lyn, oh Lyn, poor, strong Lyn... Already he was feeling faint and nauseous, but whether from lack of food or from the suffocating stink of decay, he could not tell.
If we kill the cat, came a sudden, wild thought, we will have meat to last a few more days, and one less danger to worry over. We could do it. With us are some of the best hunters in the land.
But somehow, he could only feel disgusted with himself.
"The cat did not kill him," said a young woman with odd, bulging eyes, as she crouched down beside him. Kent recognized, with a start, the dead boy's older sister. "He was dead before the cat found him."
"How do you know?" Kent demanded.
Her reply was sharp and bitter. "The cat would have broken his neck."
And it was true. Of all the things that could have been left intact...
"Then how --"
The girl stood and straightened. "I meant to inform you earlier. I found these, just this morning, by the stream." She held up the limp, lifeless bodies of two small birds.
"Poison!" hissed the Hawk, and Kent recalled suddenly the story Lyn had told him, only once, long ago. The truth of what had happened to her people. And, he remembered, the Red Hawk had been one of the few who had survived.
"Stay calm!" said Kent. "We cannot be certain of this yet. Nor what this means if it is indeed true."
"There is no question. It could be nothing else. It means they are here. They are ready. They mean to slaughter us like animals, just as they did last time!"
There was no question of who he meant by they: to those who had survived the massacre twenty years ago, there was little difference between the bandits from that time and the soldiers of Bern who had come invading and slaughtering their people now.
"We do not know how long the stream has been poisoned. They must have realized our presence only after they caught him." And then killed him, and left his body to be torn apart by beasts. But how could they have done such a thing? The knights of Bern were proud and strong, but even so they had always been honorable. But perhaps their honor had fled long ago. What men of honor could have sowed the seeds of mistrust among the peaceful tribes of Sacaen, bought the loyalty of honest men with gold and promises of power, turning friends against friends, family against family?
There was no honor left in this world.
"At any rate," he said then, "you must go tell the others. Tell them they must not touch the water. And if anyone has drunk from the stream in the past few days, watch to see if they sicken."
The Hawk nodded sharply and left, along with the others who had been watching their exchange. But the girl who had been the dead boy's sister did not move.
"Won't you tell the chief?"
For a while Kent was silent.
"Yes," he said at last. "I will go tell her."
o-o-o
She dreamed of Eliwood, sickly and pale.
"Eliwood? Eliwood, what's wrong?"
The man looked up. There were lines on his face that had not been there the last time she had seen him, but that had been years ago now. "Lyndis, is that you?"
"It's me," she said. "What's going on? What happened, Eliwood? You don't look like yourself."
"I suppose we've gotten old," he said wryly. "Old, and helpless."
"Eliwood! Wh--" She broke off as she realized he was weeping.
"I loved Ninian more than my life," he said, "but I loved Hector too. And now they are both dead."
"No," she murmured, stepping back. "No, that can't be!" Not Hector, proud and fierce and strong. She had always thought he would be the last of them to go.
"Perhaps I will go to meet them, soon," said Eliwood, his voice like a sigh in the dark, vast void that surrounded them.
"No, Eliwood, you can't!"
He looked at her sadly. "I am ill, Lyn. Even before news of his death reached me... I have been ill for a long time, now. There is nothing I can do."
"But Eliwood, what of your son? What of Hector's daughter? You can't -- You must --"
"Roy..." Eliwood smiled faintly. "Lyn, if you meet him... Tell him that I am proud of him."
"Eliwood!"
But it was too late. He had been fading away from the start, and now he was gone completely, not even the merest trace of a misty shadow lingering behind. A cold fear clutched at her heart. She heard the light rustling of silk, and whirled around.
"Ninian. Florina. Oh, Florina..." She choked on her words. "It's not fair, it's not fair..."
Her vision blurred, and she blinked. Where Ninian and Florina had been, now stood two skeletons, rotting flesh hanging off their bones. The one on the right held out a limp gray bundle and slowly began to unwrap it.
"No! No, no, no --"
She screamed.
Silence. Sweat and tears trickling down her face, the low dark ceiling of the cave, and the soft murmuring of voices.
"-- fell asleep -- didn't want to wake her up --"
"What are you --"
"-- brewing medicine."
"... For Rath?"
"Not for the Young Wolf. For --"
She closed her eyes, trying to calm the pounding of her heart.
"Lyn? Lyn. Lyn." She opened her eyes again to Kent's face, hovering worriedly over her own. He was unshaven, and there were shadows under his eyes, but it was him. She sat up, flung her arms around his neck, and sobbed into his chest.
"Hector's dead," she said. "And Eliwood's dying. Everyone's dying."
She did not realize until a moment after the words had left her mouth that she had spoken in Lycian. She did not know if Kent had noticed, but he was rocking her back and forth in his arms, rubbing her back gently, murmuring into her ear. She was reminded, suddenly, of the way her father had always calmed the horses when they had been frightened or uneasy, and at that, a small, choked laugh escaped her lips. Kent pulled back, looking at her in surprise.
"Thank you," she said. "For everything."
He took her hands and squeezed them.
"It's ready," announced the other voice Lyn had heard, shattering the moment, and she looked up to see a scarred arm holding out a cup of some dark, nasty-smelling potion.
"Wait --" said Kent, frowning.
"Don't worry," replied the other woman -- Mina, Lyn remembered, whose husband and son had both died at Bulgar -- as she walked off. "I used the water from our stores."
Lyn wiped away her tears and sipped obediently at the bitter drink, a concoction of herbs the women of the tribe had gathered and carefully saved up, but as the implications behind Mina's words hit her at last, she felt a chill run down her back. "Kent, did something happen?"
She knew from the grim look on his face then that what he had to tell her was nothing pleasant, but to her surprise, after a brief surge of fury, the anger fled, leaving only a weary sadness.
"We have no way to test the water to know for sure," said Kent. "But with this and the cat, it's no longer safe for us here. Not that it was ever safe for us to begin with," he added after a moment, echoing her own thoughts.
"We don't need to worry about the cat," she said quietly, vaguely recollecting a deeply entrenched memory from her childhood. "It's only trying to survive. Just like we are. We're running out too, aren't we?"
He did not reply. "Some of the horses might have drunk from the stream. Some of our people, as well."
A low moan behind her interrupted them. Lyn was reminded that it had been while watching over a feverish Rath that she had fallen asleep. He had been lying beside them all along, and she felt a pang of guilt as she wondered if they had disturbed him.
"Take it easy," she said, rushing over to Rath's side, Kent close behind. "You're safe now. You're with us."
But Rath shook his head. "I heard," he rasped out. "I was too late."
Lyn grabbed for the bowl of heated water at his side, then froze, uncertain.
"That was from the stores," said Kent, and she unfroze, and held the bowl to Rath's lips.
"I saw their scouts," Rath continued, a moment later, voice still hoarse from disuse. He paused, as if calculating something. "The army should arrive in less than a week."
"Take it easy," Lyn repeated, though her voice was now audibly strained. Kent placed a hand on her shoulder.
Less than a week.
o-o-o
"We will fight," she said, later that night, when all the others were asleep. "That has not changed. We have no other choice."
"That will be suicide," said Kent. "No food, no water -- they will not have the strength to put up any fight. We've already lost one of our number. Rath is in no condition to help. And you..."
"But what else can we do? We have nowhere left to run. This is what we all agreed upon. We all knew things would come to this, sooner or later. We all made the decision. Together."
"I don't know. Damn it, I don't know!"
"At least we have the advantage of terrain."
"What use is terrain against an army of wyvern riders?"
"We have archers."
"And when we run out of arrows, as we are bound to?"
"We can buy some time, at least, for the others to escape. Perhaps they will be able to make it into Lycia after all."
"And we should be escaping with them. What can we hope to achieve, making one desperate last stand here?"
"I can't just run away! I can't. Our people... I am their chief. I have to protect them."
"But how can we protect anyone... by throwing our lives away? Lyn... you... Our..."
They fell silent.
"I'm sorry," said Kent.
"No," she whispered. "We've had this argument so many times already, haven't we?"
"I wish there were some other way."
"I wish Mark were here."
Silence again, and then she said, softly, "I told them to kill the weakest of the horses tomorrow morning."
"I see," he said, voice low and muffled.
"Do you remember?" she said, some time later. "The day we first met."
"How could I forget?" he murmured.
"You and Sain and Mark and I... against all of those bandits. We really made a good team, didn't we?"
"Mm."
"And now Sain's off in Ilia, probably fighting against Bern too. And Mark... I never saw him again, after he disappeared. He didn't even say good-bye, just left without a word to anyone. Just like Rath would have, if I hadn't caught him just as he was slipping away. Why does everyone leave? Why did everything have to change? I was so happy, when Florina and Hector were married, yet... And now they're dead. Both of them. Everyone's dead, or dying, and I can't do a thing."
Kent silently took her hand in his, and she was thankful that he did not ask how she knew.
"Last we heard, Lord Hector was leading the Lycian Army against Bern, was he not?" he said gently. "I am sure he died fighting at the front lines. A warrior's death, just as he would have wanted."
"You're right," Lyn replied, managing a small smile. "That Hector... he never would have been content with a peaceful death. But still..."
Kent opened his mouth to reply, but something caught his notice, and he turned his head to the entrance of the cave.
"What is it?" she asked, tensing.
"Listen."
"Oh." Her eyes widened. "Could it be..."
They looked at each other, then got up and ran to the entrance, hand in hand.
"It's raining," said Lyn, wonderingly. "The blessings of Father Sky..."
For some time they stood silently there together, watching the rain trail down from the sky. Then they turned and woke up the others, and laughed and danced as they collected the rainwater in what containers they had left.
The irony is, of course, that Hector did not in fact die fighting. (His death is the most upsetting scene for me in FE6.) We do know from Hector's B support with Eliwood in FE7 that dreams can have semi-prophetic qualities in the FE universe, just like in practically every other fantasy universe out there... the first portion of Lyn's dream may therefore have been an actual empathic connection of sorts with Eliwood, or just a regular dream brought on by her own worries and fears. I'm leaving it ambiguous. Cough.