Lesson #6: Wielding Power
"Bog terrain—wet and messy—impassible, but-for a dry strip down the center," Eliwood took the lay of the land as he had learned from watching Mark in battles prior. "Pascall's Keep sits due north from the throughway, with a wall of knight-forts and heavy cavalry in between. River pirates move throughout the bog; they will attack the moment they see a chance to plunder. To the west; woodlands and a mercenary fort. They fly Pascall's banner. To the east; mountains and a monastery of light mages. Also flying Pascall's banner. No passable route through the mountains by land, and a squadron of pegasus knights holds the peak."
"Ilian mercenaries in The Beast's employ?" There was no foe Lyn hated facing more. She had heard enough tales from Florina of why Ilians turned to mercenary work to feel for them, and nothing was more dangerous than feeling for the enemy.
"Safe to assume," Eliwood nodded. "Also safe to assume they saw us before we saw them and are prepared for our approach."
"There's also a small village south of the monastery," Hector noted. "If it is plundered during the fighting The Fang will think Sonia's slanders true; we'll need men at the gate to ward off looters."
"Much to do and more that can go wrong," Mark knew how he would proceed. But as of late, he had taken to letting the lords plan the battles with the skills he had taught them and intervening only when they stumbled or missed a vital detail. Each had their own unique approach to planning. And while any one of them alone would have gotten the company killed with the schemes they concocted, what one would miss the other two would usually pick-up on. "How would you have us move?"
"Their cavalry will charge down the center strip," that much was obvious to Eliwood. "The throughway is narrow; they won't be able to break upon us more than three horsemen abreast. That's where we'll deploy our heavy armor. We can halt the bulk of their forces with but a few of our own, and leave the rest of the company free to clear the field."
"The monastery will send light mages westward to reinforce the cavalry; we can't reach them before the cavalry breaks, and our armor is useless against their spells." Hector voiced his concerns. "We'll need more than knights and shields to hold the lines against them."
"…can't reach them by LAND…" Lyn saw another way. "A high-level fighter who can shrug off shinings and fly over the bog could hit the monastery as the mages deploy and take them down before they ever join the cavalry on the front."
"…Florina?" Eliwood questioned.
"…Florina…" Lyn nodded.
"If Florina hits the monastery, who defends the village?" Hector dissented.
"Florina could warn the village on the way to the monastery," Lyn offered.
"Florina is going to stop a bandit raid AND sack a monastery before mages join the front?" Hector wasn't buying it.
"…We could send Fiora…" Eliwood floated the idea.
"She's not strong enough to hold her own against an entire pack of bandits," Hector scoffed.
"…No…but she wears elysian armor and deflects magic just as well as Florina. Better even," Lyn brought the pieces of the plan together. We send Florina and Fiora out together to clear the bog; Fiora breaks north to hit the monastery. Florina breaks south to guard the village…"
"…Armor holds the center, and light infantry moves wes to take the mercenary fort," Eliwood added the finishing touch. "Lyndis; the west watch is yours. Take Erk, Serra, Guy, Matthew, Dorcas, and Bartre."
"You and Hector in the center then?"
"Aye; we'll command from the front. And Mark…will watch from the caravans and do nothing unless the battle starts going poorly…." it wasn't a command, so much as an observation of Mark's conduct in every battle since the Port of Badon.
"Good?" the trio looked to Mark for his word of approval.
"…what about the pegasus knights on the mountain?" Mark said in his you missed something important voice.
"…oh those…" Eliwood wracked his brain. "…they can hit us anywhere…"
"…that they can…" Mark challenged the lords to plan around it.
"If they hit the center its nothing our main force can't handle," Hector reasoned. "If they hit west, Dorcas and Bartre stop them. If they hit the village…Florina...and if they hit the monastery…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…Shit…" Hector saw the hole in the plan. "We can't send Fiora alone. She needs back-up."
"…Heath?" Lyn suggested.
"Still too green," the new recruit was showing tremendous growth. But Eliwood wouldn't risk him on the front lines yet.
"No one else is getting over the mountain or through the bog…unless Fiora or Florina carries them…" Hector didn't see how that could work.
"Pair Rebecca with Fiora and fly her to the monastery," Lyn found the answer. "She out-ranges any spell with her longbow…"
"…and if the pegasus knights think to target the monastery, they'll think otherwise when hey see what she can do with it," Hector caught on. "That covers all bases."
"A sound plan," Mark approved. "Make it work."
"This might be our greatest strategy yet," Eliwood beamed.
"You three haven't had a GREAT strategy yet," Mark played the naysayer.
"Excuse me!" Hector protested. "But not once since you started letting us plan have we had to change strategy because the plan didn't work."
"My point exactly," Mark countered. "Remember the seafaring battle en route to Valor?"
"…Aye…that's not the kind of thing one forgets…" Hector had never been so certain he was going to die. The Dravos had been outmanned three ships to one with a breached hull. Mark had ordered all hands to formation on the captain's deck and meant to repel the invaders there, but when the ship took a hit at ramming speed and started taking on water there was nothing to be done but send the best of their manpower below deck to plug the breach. The effort proved futile, as the breach widened and more foes boarded. Mark realized quickly enough that they could send all hands below and keep the ship afloat or put all hands on deck and repel the boarders, but could not do both. It seemed to all their options were limited to be routed or be drowned.
"And you remember how the day was won?"
"THAT was a great plan," Lyn recalled. When all seemed lost Mark had given the decisive command; Take Their Ship. Every trainee and privateer formed up and rushed starboard, overrunning The Black Diamond and slaying its crew. The Dravos sunk with its boarders. Fargus took the helm (and the booty) of his new prize. And, having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, they completed the journey to Valor on a pirated Black Fang frigate.
"No plan is so well laid that it cannot be disrupted by change of circumstances or execution errors or plain dumb luck," Mark cautioned. "Good strategy is making a plan that wins a battle. GREAT strategy is keeping control of the field after the plan that was suppose to win the battle falls apart."
"…Its like you WANT our strategy to fail…" Eliwood sighed.
I want to see how you handle yourselves when it does.
Mark first realized the battle wasn't going to go anything like the lords planned when the cavalry broke west.
Huh…that's different…
It certainly wasn't the obvious move. And none of the Black Fang commanders Mark had seen fielded thus far had chosen anything other than the obvious moves.
Eliwood and Hector's central deployment—the bulk of their army—was now decidedly useless. Lyn's battalion fell back, in danger of being completely overrun. Eliwood and Hector barked out panicked commands and attempted to reposition around the active fighting, turning tail on Pascall's Keep and marching south by east around the bog to meet Lyn's pursuers.
That was when the river pirates struck….westward to Pascall's keep and south down the throughway. Not against the village Florina had flown out to defend—unassailed and without a foe to be fought—but against Eliwood and Hector's forces, to take them in the rear unawares as they made their retreat.
The assault caught the commanding lordlings in a state of confusion; their need to reach Lyn before the cavalry broke upon her clashing with their need to cover their rear. Neither had any inkling how to divide their manpower between the two tasks. In their confusion they hesitated. And in their hesitation the damage was done.
Whatever tactician commands The Fang is doing as fine a job controlling the field as if I myself were leading their men. Mark marveled.
Florina saw the task she had been assigned was now pointless and that her strength was needed elsewhere; hastily she disembarked to cover Hector's men (Eliwood and Hector having finally worked out that Hector and Oswin would hold the throughway while Eliwood and Marcus led a charge to reinforce Lyn). But no sooner did she make the attempt than a volley of ballista fire told her the skies between her assigned post and the active fighting were unfit for flight. So it was that the lordling's greatest asset was locked out of combat as the fighting intensified.
Whatever tactician commands The Fang is controlling the field EXACTLY as I myself would do so if I were leading their men, admiration turned to suspicion as Mark saw the opposing army execute a maneuver he had thought unknown to all but himself and the woman who had taught it to him. A pair of pegasus knights with rescue staves teleported each other across the battlefield in rotating alternations—blinking through the zone of danger around Fiora and Florina's airspace—near instantaneously crossing the distance from their mountain perch to Eliwood's break-away (and punctuating their arrival by teleporting every mage in the monastery Fiora was suppose to be clearing to Eliwood's position).
That's Robin's Rush. The only other strategist who knows it is…ohhhhhh, Seven Hells…
Mark knew what was going on. And knew that the lords were in WAY over their heads. His sword came out, his thoron blasted a hole through a column of horsemen, and his order to regroup carried across the Fallows.
After that the battle stabilized. Mark's students were treated to a rare glimpse of something they almost never got to see; the grandmaster fighting seriously. He held back almost the entirety of his power when he sparred against them; this much was known to everyone who had ever seen him draw his sword. And Lyn—who had known the man for over two years now and fought countless battles by his side—could count on one hand the number of times she had actually seen him draw his sword with intent to kill.
Watching the grandmaster perform his craft was like watching poetry in motion. He didn't even fight—he just moved. The swing of a blade was as a steady stride to him; the bolting of destructive magic as drawing breath. The flare of his Ignis turned clashes into routs, and soldiers in his midst fought as they had never fought before when he released his rallying cry.
"…This is bad…" Mark's soldiers were surprised to find panic in his voice when the last foe was felled and his sword was sheathed. "…This is very, very bad…"
"I am deeply sorry we failed to finish the fight without your intervention," Eliwood apologized for what he thought was troubling him. "The Fang used tactics we had never faced before. We did not know…"
"…the fact that you can tell the difference means you're improving. You did nothing wrong; this was not a foe you should have been facing in my steed. The fault is mine for not realizing it sooner."
"You're nervous," Lyn heard it in his voice. She had always known Mark to be a man of supreme confidence; nothing ever unnerved him. "Why are you nervous?"
"…because I think I know who gave the Black Fang that strategy, and if she followed me here, then Nergal is no longer at the top of our threat list," Mark let that sink in. His attention settled upon a new face that had not been with the company when the battle began; a woman shorter than Fiora and taller than Florina, darker of hair and lighter of mood, and too familiar with them in her affections to be a first-time acquaintance.
"You were one of the pegasus knights fighting alongside Pascall's men, weren't you?" Mark questioned.
"Switched sides when I saw these two fighting for you," the woman draped her arms around "Florina and Fiora. I'm…"
"…Who hired you?" Mark at this moment could not have cared less for her introduction.
"You can trust her Mark; Farina's our sister!" Florina chirped.
"A gold-digger and a flake, but I'll vouch for her," Fiora shifted uncomfortably beneath the woman's arm.
"Trust is not why I am asking," Mark spoke in a tone that said the matter would not be dropped until he received an answer that satisfied him. "Who hired you?" he repeated.
"A little boy paid us 20,000 a head to sit the peaks; 50,000 for the two who said they could use magic staves," Farina gave him his answer. "He acted like a child and kept saying that we had to do good or Mother would be angry. But he was absurdly strong. And wearing robes kind of like yours…"
"…Morgan…" She dares use the boy against me? "…Robin, you hateful bitch…"
"I'm confused; who are we fighting now?" Hector asked the obvious question.
"A grandmaster of the Outrealm Order. My old…partner…" They don't need to know more than that. Not yet, anyway. "Very old, and very powerful. I cannot imagine a more dangerous foe."
"How is she more dangerous than NERGAL?" Eliwood couldn't believe it. He had seen the sorcerer rip souls from their body and drink them.
"Besides the fact that she's stronger, smarter, and knows every technique I could possibly hope to use against her?" Mark rattled off the list of things that made a pissed-off Robin the most horrifying opponent he had ever known. "You know that thing Nergal is trying to do where he summons a dragon, consumes its spirit, and fuses its essence with his own to increase his power? She already did it."
And Heaven knows that fel monstrosity was no ordinary dragon.
"These are the Fallow Fens?" the girl in the company of the Four Fangs asked curiously.
"Just over these hills milady," Lloyd Reed was nothing if not ever the gentleman. Ursula had protested when he had offered to escort the amnesiac girl, but Lloyd had refused to leave her helpless by the side of the road. Short and petite and pink of hair with pigtails held together by silky lace; she was the very visage of helplessness and innocence. Highwaymen would have had their way with her for sure if he had left her unattended.
"We'll camp here for the night," Linus chose a concealment in the brush that sheltered them from cloying eyes and left them with a hawkeyed view of he road leading to their position. "I'll take the first watch. You should get some rest."
"Unnecessary," the girl made to continue down the road on her own. "Thank you for your time and your companionship; you've broken up the tedium of this chore better than I had hoped. I require no further assistance to reach Pascall's Keep."
"We never said we were heading to Pascall's Keep," Lloyd narrowed his eyes, and moved his sword-hand to the hilt of his scabbard. "You said you had no memory of…"
"The girl has played you for a fool, Lloyd," Ursula smirked and snapped her fingers. A wall of fire appeared to bar the deceiver's path, and Jaffar appeared behind her with a dagger to her throat.
"Who are you?" the Angel of Death demanded.
"Put those flames away before you hurt yourself," the girl spoke to Ursula without the slightest hint of concern for the dagger pressed to her throat.
"…He'll kill you…" Lloyd warned.
"I'd say he has a better chance than the hag on the horse, but I'd be lying," the girl taunted.
"Insolent whelp!" Ursula struck her with a spell—or attempted to—but The girl simply backhanded her thunderbolt into a hillside (Lloyd and Linus backed away).
"You have 5 seconds to point that knife away from me, then I hit you so hard I knock you into another timeline," the girl told Jaffar plainly.
Jaffar briefly considered the merits of her threat, then sheathed his dagger and released her.
The girl continued on her way, walking through Ursula's wall of fire unbothered.
"DON'T YOU DARE TURN YOUR BACK ON ME!" Ursula summoned a flame javelin and ran the girl down with her makeshift lance.
The girl caught it bear-handed, pulled on it with enough force to throw Ursula off her horse, and cut her falling form from hip to shoulder with a blade of fel magic in one fluid motion.
"…I never liked this one…" the girl coldly regarded the valkyrie bleeding to death at her feet before addressing the remaining 3 Fangs. "You are not capable of stopping me and will only die in the attempt. GO! You will not be warned a second time."
The Brothers Reed had never heard an apocalypse-heralding dragon roar before, but they suddenly imagined it would sound much like the girl standing before them shouting GO!
They were quick to flee.
Jaffar followed, but not before noting that something about the girl with the dragon voice reminded him of the man who had bested him on Valor.
"Mottthhhherrr!" Morgan's cry found the girl still leering coldly over Ursula's death throes. "I…"
"The attack was unsuccessful?" she didn't need to hear it from him.
"…My strategy wasn't good enough…" Morgan pouted.
"Of course it wasn't. Your opponent was That Man. The battle proceeded thusly..." Robin could have told him as much before he ever hired his pegasus knights or conspired with the Lord of the Fens. "...low-level initiates marched forth to meet you in the field. They fought. They struggled. You all but won. Then when their defeat seemed most certain, he took to the field and crushed your army. The battle would have been over before it began had he simply taken to the field at the outset. But he would sooner see students do the work of a master."
"You were watching?" Morgan asked, puzzled.
"There was no need. I have watched him all my life," Robin sighed. "Your father and I were always equal but opposite in all things. Do you know what the greatest difference between us was?"
"He left and you stayed?" Morgan ventured a guess.
"Mark believes the duty of the strong is to raise the weak. I believe the duty of the strong is to rule them. He will wield his true power only as a last resort when he sees that those whom he has raised are not strong enough to achieve his aims, whereas I do not hesitate to wield power as my first."
Robin drew her REAL sword—a sinister black parody of Falchion forged from the horn of the fel dragon—and plunged it through Ursula's squirming form. Ursula squirmed no more.
"Mark will always err on the side of restraining power, whereas I will always err on the side of celebrating it," Robin wiped the blood from Grimslayer. "Let this be your first lesson in the error of his ways."
