Chapter 3

Cordelia wasted no words and rocketed across the divide. Haura ran forward unthinkingly as if she too could lift into the air. "Sumia, take me to him!" she yelled upwards, ready to fly by dangling from her arm, if need be.

"Sumia, take Miriel!"

Chrom's voice stopped Haura in her tracks and the tactician spun on the spot. Sumia stared between them nervously as she descended to the ground.

"Come on." Miriel said in her tight voice as she stepped forward. Sumia threw one more uneasy glance before tugging Miriel onto the pegasus and taking off.

Haura stared at Chrom with a wild look in her eyes. "Why didn't you let me go?" she demanded.

"Haura..."

"Oh, I know! I don't care that I don't have a tome. I don't care that I can't fight on a pegasus with a sword." she growled and stabbed her sword into the ground, mimicking his posture. "By the gods, Chrom, you charge ahead all battle, doing whatever you like, and when I need to help him, you tell me to not go?"

"Calm down, Haura!" Chrom shouted. He looked stricken at the panic in Haura's eyes. "Consider what you're saying. You snapped me back to my senses earlier; don't lose your own now."

Haura was taken aback for a moment before a bitter expression settled on her face. "Did I really? My words of caution hardly ever reach you. You have not stopped looking to the sky this entire time." she said, half to herself and half to Chrom.

"...Is this what this is about? By the gods, I wish that I could stop thinking about it and stop seeing it again and again!" Chrom croaked and his voice cracked at the end. Haura's guilt crashed down like a wave and her face lost its hardness. Chrom approached Haura so they were but a hand width apart and Haura's vision was filled Chrom's distressed face. "No matter how fast I ran...The only reason I haven't lost my head completely is because of you and the Shepards. So damned if I let you charge into an ambush with nothing but your anger."

The expression on his face, hovering on that fine line of tenderness and suffering, was too much and Haura had to look away.

Chrom retreated a couple steps back. The space between them grew larger. Her mind rationalized her emotions- they were both suffering from failed confidence, from the emotional destruction of the day, from a war they no longer knew how to fight-, but that hardly stopped her from feeling them, from making her hands clench, her stomach roil, and her teeth grit. She no longer knew who to blame, herself or Chrom or Gangrel or even Naga.

"Haura, you know he'll be fine..."

"I just... need one moment." she managed and her artificial calm tone granted Chrom some measure of relief. "You should go on ahead with Virion. I will rejoin you when my head clears."

Chrom nodded and closed the distance between them again to clap a hand on her shoulder. "We've..." he looked as if he was trying to give one of those charismatic rally speeches, the ones that normally lifted the army's spirits. But she could see that he had not the heart to weave pretty lies at the moment. Chrom shook his head and dropped his hand. "I'll see you soon."

Haura managed a tight smile that did not reach her eyes, "I'm sorry. Stay focused." she advised half-heartedly. And then he was gone with Virion running after him. The archer shot her a pitying look as he glanced back, but Haura quickly averted her eyes. And now she was all alone.

Frederick had often lectured during sparring practice that showing emotion to an enemy soldier was the quickest way to lose composure and suffer defeat. Laughing, Chrom had claimed Frederick only smiled when his axe came down. Haura had seen that rare smile, soft, when Frederick watched over his charges, but he never displayed much more than his cool demeanour in the training arena or on the battlefield. However, she had not seen him much after Emmeryn's death and she wondered if he had cried in the rain.

What was more likely was he kept moving forward, determined to keep Chrom out of Gangrel's reach, to fulfill his duty with the unflappable strength he possessed in his heart and body.

"Suppress it." The Frederick in her mind urged. Knighthood and honor carried him above all else. He was Chrom's knight. She was his tactician. They were their duties first and foremost in war. She had already resolved to choke down her emotions with the lingering remains of the lollypop earlier that day. She needed that deceit until she could be sure they would live to see the next sunrise and, commitment solidified, she moved forward.

Haura tugged her sword out of the ground, cleaned the grime off with the edge of her coat, and sheathed it. She rubbed away the rain from her eyes with her pale, damp forearm. Then, she started running after Chrom and Virion's retreating backs.

They were on the battlefield. Distraction, be it her own emotions or her commander's, always culminated in mistake and further pain. The unusually high number of near casualties today had proven so much. As Haura ran, she pondered that thought. Nowi had been with them only for two battles now and Haura could believe that she got carried away and reckless in her fight. But between Frederick, Lon'qu, and Sully, all seasoned and wary warriors, Haura hardly thought even a silent wyvern rider would startle them, let alone enough to surround one of their own.

"You would think Cordelia or Sumia would come give us a status update." Haura muttered out loud. It had been more than several minutes and Haura did not think Gangrel's army or even a large bulk of reinforcements could have made it past the Feroxi lines-

Unless more had always been there.

Haura skidded to a stop as she saw Chrom and Virion marching towards the fort. To their right were more crumbling old forts, ones that they had assumed were abandoned. They were nothing like normal Plegian forts, with most of the walls gone and no real watchtowers. In the rain, they had not even really realized the difference between rock formation and building. But Haura saw now the crevices and the shadows that could easily hide the reinforcements from their view. Haura remembered there had been those same crumbling structures at the entrance of the ravines and if the enemy had been hiding there all along, that was how Lon'qu was surrounded and that was why neither pegasus knights could spare the other to fly back. This is what she got for being careless on enemy territory!

"Chrom, they're hiding in the forts!" Haura yelled but she was too far away. As she started sprinting faster, pulling her sword out, Chrom and Virion stepped right into range by the fort. A cavalier materialized from the shadows and charged for them.

Virion danced out of the way as Chrom's sword hits his opponent's with an ugly clang. The swords screeched apart as the horse reared to trample on Chrom. He hit the ground in an evasive tumble backwards. Behind him, Virion released his arrow. It pierced through the space where Chrom had just been standing, to plant itself in the cavalier's shoulder. He let out a groan of pain. The recoil jerked his arm and he tugged a hard right on his horse's reins. Chrom sprang up to thrust into the cavalier. Their blades locked again as the enemy's momentum added torque his sword, breaking Chrom's line of attack. The horse spun in on itself and reared up to charge again. Chrom quickly dodged to the side, skidding in the swampwater, readying his counterattack-

Then, Chrom realized he was not the cavalier's target.

"Virion!" Chrom yelled as he leapt forward to draw attention, to attack, but the cavalier rushed onward. Virion grimaced but fired his nocked arrow unflinchingly. His horse took the next arrow between the plates of its armor, screaming and snorting, but still did not stop.

"Back off!" Haura yelled and she skidded to Virion's side in a spray of mud, catching the blade with her own. The weight behind the sword swing and her uneven landing made Haura's knees buckle and she was knocked to the ground.

"Over here!" Chrom's angry voice rang out from behind the cavalier and this time his swing ripped through the soldier's back. The cavalier gasped and died falling forwards across the horse. The horse, crazy with blood and a fresh arrow wound, bolted with its master's corpse into the gloom before either of them could capture it.

"My deepest thanks, milady," Virion said and, although he still used the full force of his lofty tone, the pitch of his voice had risen half an octave. He pulled her up from the ground, bent down to kiss her hand, and realized it, like most of Haura, was covered in mud. "Do forgive me, but- ah," he began, looking quite perplexed. Haura let out a breathy laugh and slapped him on the shoulder, leaving a brown handprint on those white sleeves.

"No thanks is needed. I'm glad I just got here in time." She said with a wan smile. Then, she turned to Chrom with a frown, "This was their trap. They've been lying in wait in those forts the whole time."

Chrom pieced together what she had figured out immediately and scowled. "If they had not, they would have never gotten the jump on us."

Haura looked at the dilapidated masonry where the soldiers must have crouched in the damp rain in secret for hours. It was a tactic that depended a lot on the dedication of the individual soldiers.

"Anyway, we're close. Let's send up the signal for Gaius-"

As she continued to stare absentmindedly over Chrom's shoulder, the wet stones of the fort glimmered in the rain. Or was that-? She blinked away the rain that had blown into her eyes.

"Haura, are you listening-" Chrom glanced over his own shoulder to the forts.

She was not mistaken.

"Watch out!" Haura shouted. She shoved him to the side and Chrom saw Haura's wide eyes clearly in that breath of a moment, trembling with fear. Her sword was already out, ready to shield her, but the amount of force she needed to knock him over overbalanced her and she slipped in the muck. The javelin, meant for him, caught her shoulder, breaking through the armor underneath her coat, and she was knocked back by impact, slamming into the mud on her back. The fall knocked the wind out of her lungs.

"I'm...okay." she rasped when her voice returned to her and she struggled to rise but Chrom barely heard her words. The flutter of her robes as she fell looked white and green to Chrom. Her hair in its wet, clumped state seemed to glisten like gold. And her face was Emm's in death.

He screamed and lunged knight was too far but if he just moved a little faster before the second spear could reach Haura-

Captain! A white pegasus swooped down from the skies and blocked Chrom's path, nearly knocking him over. Sumia let out a war cry and her lance broke the knight's armor in a loud crack. The knight stumbled back but readied his throwing arm and Sumia had to back up a little for the speed of another strike. Before the knight could throw the spear, Chrom dashed in and deflected the weapon with Falchion. Sumia lunged forward to drive her lance through the knight. The soldier fell backwards, but Sumia and Chrom were already hurrying to Haura's side. Virion had pulled her onto drier ground and held the javelin lodged in her side in place to prevent the wound from opening up more.

She could not feel her right hand anymore. Her shoulder engulfed her body in pain. Haura sobbed as another wave of pain swept over her. Cursing, Virion fed her elixir in between her gasps and babbling. Several times, she choked and coughed and the pain rippled through her body as she shifted. It hurt so badly, she just wanted it to stop, oh gods-

With her face tilted up to the rain, the world became a wash of dull colors. Haura tried to raise her left arm to grab the spear towering above her but Virion's strong fingers had gently pushed her back down. Her mind felt hazy.

Another hot flash of pain. She believed that this was the end. Her sword arm- by Naga, she hoped they did not cut it off- would be useless. Her tactics had failed them. Her eyes filled with more tears as her heart beat irregularly and too loud in her ears.

Virion was saying something, but Haura could not hear his words. Her thoughts scattered each time she tried to form them. She whimpered in pain. Chrom and Sumia's face swum above her. Her left hand, gloveless and pale and smooth, groped for someone to cling on. Warm, rough fingers, sticky with sweat and blood, seized hers. The last words she did not know she had fell from her lips. "Chrom… everyone… forgive me."

xx

They only heard the complete story much later, of how Tharja had sent up a flare and how Cordelia, with Maribelle, had flown over and through enemy lines at breakneck speeds to reach the others. On the way, Cordelia had seen the motionless group of Shepards huddling. When they touched down to see the problem, they were hailed as a miracle.

Chrom, Sumia, and Virion had rushed to the fort. Instead of a battle, however, they found Gaius and Tharja with a dead commander and numerous Plegian soldiers laying down their arms. The general had apparently used his last words to ask for the lives of his men and ceasefires were rallied all across the battlefield.

The unexpected surprises had not ended there. The younger sister of the knight that speared her shoulder had appeared in front of Chrom as they were loading into the carriages and asked for her brother's javelin. "Something to show Ma. So she knows to mourn him as a hero who was loyal to his end." She said, with her eyes cast downwards and her fists clenched. She was Lissa's age, but with none of the cheerful levity. She stood in full armor, a proud soldier, even without her wyvern or axe. Had she been in the vanguard, Chrom would have not hesitated to cut her down, regardless of her youth.

She might have known he was the one who killed his brother. Or perhaps she had only heard the proud rumor that Ylisse's tactician had been downed by a javelin and knew better than anyone of the lazy afternoons they practiced throwing axes and lances in their training grounds. How many of her comrades and friends had died at their hands for a king they did not love? And if this young soldier tried to throw her lot in with the deserters in hopes for peace, she surely would be cut down as a traitor to Gangrel.

The Plegian wvyern rider looked up as Chrom continued to stay silent. Her face must look like his, Chrom realized, from the sullen eyes, dulled with anger towards her sibling's murderer, to the thin mouth, set in resolve but without direction.

He granted her request.