Author's note: Again, longer chapter than expected. Again, longer delay than expected. Maybe lacking some refinement, but right now I'm just glad to have it completed. I will probably be setting this story aside for a few months to work on an original short story, but hopefully I will get back to it after that.
Also, as I am unable to send a PM about it, I would like to thank the user under the name 'rin' for the brief but very much appreciated words of encouragement. It is always fantastic to hear from people who are following this and enjoying it.
10: Valediction
He woke just as purple fires were beginning to ignite along the dark edges of his dream. The residual image of flames in the black and sense of mounting terror remained with him for fleeting seconds… then they were gone, consigned to the haunted shadow-world of his subconscious.
He shifted, realised his surroundings. There was a surreal moment when he lay between the threshold of sleep and wakefulness, a moment devoid of identity and self-awareness, before the memories of the last few weeks and months clicked back into place.
Another day.
Another day when his memories persisted. Another day of them running from Plegia.
He got slowly up from his bed and began to put on his boots and coat. The aches across his body were fainter today, but still insistent. Today they should reach the Midmire, and from there swift passage back to Ferox. That would be the best possible outcome for the day – Lucan only hoped it would come true. Plegian forces still chased them: an army equal to their own strength coming from the south, Gangrel's Risen coming from the east, close behind them. No doubt they had gained more ground again in the night.
He reached down for his sword belt, and noticed the small wash basin and mirror he kept lying on a nearby stool.
Briefly he was tempted to look at himself. To see if he might catch a fading glimpse, in the eyes of that reflection, some insight into whatever secrets lay beneath the surface of his mind.
Instead he straightened, fastening his scabbard in place. He did not want to look right now. And there were more urgent concerns today: he would be needed to oversee the breaking of camp again; some of the scouts might have returned from their long-distance rangings ahead of their main host; either Frederick or the quartermaster might have some complaint about their provisions or the state of the camp that needed to be addressed…
At least he wouldn't need to find Tharja in all the bustle of the morning. He had almost walked straight into the woman the night before, while on his way back from Chrom's tent. That had made him jolt. She at least seemed to be coping well in the new surroundings, and was more than eager to fight alongside him at the heart of the Shepherds' battles.
Lucan wasn't sure yet what to make of her. Their brief exchanges so far had been cordial, but he couldn't help feeling there was something else… Something secret, arcane even, that made her stick out in his mind like an anomaly. Thinking of Tharja evoked images of the Plegian dunes, of ancient mystics, of the desert nights they had become familiar with on their march… and of a pair of startling, black-lined eyes, flicking up to regard him with a gaze he could not hold.
He became suddenly aware of a noise outside his tent as somebody approached and began undoing the fastenings.
Lucan tensed. His first thought was Donnel or a camp messenger; possibly a scout with urgent news to report.
Instead, when the flaps parted a burly man with a grim expression stood there. He was lightly armoured, clothing lined with furs, an axe held casually in one hand.
"The West Khan requests that you and Prince Chrom join him at the head of the column today," he stated. "He wishes to show you the escape route in person."
"Oh… Uh, of course. We'll go with him."
The Feroxi man nodded once, then left.
Lucan walked over to his desk. He took the magic tome lying atop a detritus of scattered parchments and open books, then put it inside his coat.
It was happening. Today was really the day. Another march and they would be safely on their way back to Ferox.
It remained to be seen whether fate had one last challenge to throw at them before they could rest.
The late afternoon sky was a turbulent grey, occasionally weeping odd drops of rain. Ranged on their right were the vast ridges of the Midmire, rising high and steep above the marshy grime of the canyon floor, each capped with a fortress like an austere coronet. Animal bones were strewn across the wasteland like nature's own graveyard, skulls and empty ribcages lying half-buried in the earth.
"Hurry!" Basilio urged them. "There should be carriages waiting just through the ravine!" The West Khan was a dozen steps ahead, frequently casting wary looks over their surroundings. Chrom, Lucan and Frederick had joined him at the front of the army's procession; following behind them at a slight distance were the rest of the Shepherds, closely accompanied by two mixed infantry companies. Beyond them, the bulk of their forces came on at a more lumbering pace, roughly half an hour behind.
Lucan and Frederick hurried to keep pace with the restless khan, but soon Lucan was glancing back, checking to see if Chrom was still with them and finding the prince ten metres back, his steps slowing, gazing at some internal distance he could no longer trust or appraise.
Lucan felt a pang of sorrow. In the last few days his friend and captain, the energetic leader of their motley fellowship, had been reduced to torpor and doubt by the loss of his sister. Lucan himself was largely responsible for that, he knew. There would come a time soon for grieving and reconciliation, when he would have to stop skulking around his friend and fully confront his failings as their strategist… But it was not now. They were not out of danger yet; Ylisse needed its prince, and the Shepherds still needed their captain.
"Chrom, please!" he entreated.
The prince's eyes sharpened as he dragged himself out of reverie. "Rrgh… I'm… I'm coming," he said. His stride quickened once more as he hastened to catch the others.
Basilio had moved further on, now waiting for them not far from the mouth of the ravines. "Quickly!" he yelled. "We're almost…" Something caught his attention. In the shadow of the nearest gorge, unfriendly shapes were beginning to move. From behind boulders and recesses in the canyon walls they emerged, a couple at first, then half a dozen, then more… burly warriors strapped in armour harness and gripping well-used blades. They rushed into position as if following a drill, forming a tight semicircle in front of them that blocked their way into the ravines – too small to be an army, too many for the four of them to deal with.
"Damn!" Basilio growled. "Plegians! I knew it couldn't be that easy… They're right in our way! We must fight!"
But Lucan wasn't looking at the small warband in front of them anymore. He gazed skyward, towards the ominous forts overlooking the Midmire. With a mixture of despair and resigned expectancy he watched the minute forms of distant soldiers moving along the battlements or out of the gateways. With careful steps they were picking their way down the steep valley sides, following routes to the canyon floor that could have been known only to those familiar with the local landscape. A thousand insights about formations, the terrain and the infantry ranging against them flashed through his mind as he observed the foe, but ultimately one fact took precedence over all others.
Plegia's third army was real after all – and it was here to prevent their final escape.
It wasn't long before their two sides were forming up: the Plegian troops thronging in the narrow spaces in between and at the mouth of the ravines, the Shepherds and the rest of the Ylisse-Ferox vanguard organising in divisions either side of Chrom, Frederick, Basilio and Lucan. The intermittent weeping of the sky grew into a slow, gentle rain.
"Ylisseans!" a commanding voice yelled from the ranks of the Plegian front line. Soldiers parted and a massive man, hairless but for a dark beard and clad in minimal armour, moved through the ranks and walked into the open ground until he stood half way between their assembled forces.
Reluctantly, the four of them who had led the way took several steps forward, not quite meeting the Plegian in the middle ground.
"I offer you mercy!" the general called. "Surrender to me now and live!"
"Surrender?" Basilio answered with a scoff. "Sorry, I'm not familiar with the word."
The general's expression shifted – stoic and remorseful and half grimacing, as if preparing to venture into territory he would rather avoid.
"Emmeryn would not have wished for this to come to bloodshed." he said.
"Don't speak her name!" Chrom thundered, with a sudden ferocity that made Lucan start.
The general was undaunted. "Your rage is justified, Prince Chrom," he replied. "But the meaning of your sister's final sacrifice was not lost on me. I suspect many Plegians who heard her final words would say the same. If you lay down your weapons, I vow to protect you as best I can."
"How can we trust you after what your barbarous king has done?" Frederick asked."I think we shall take our chance with weapons in hand!"
Lucan had never thought to see such sorrow and wrath and disdain written in the knight's expression, but it echoed completely the sentiment in his own heart. This appeared to be a good man before them, but he was on the wrong side. They were a grieving company in an unforgiving mood, and there could be little remorse for these soldiers who opposed them in Gangrel's name.
If they would not stand aside, they would all die. Right then, Lucan would not have it any other way.
The general regarded Chrom for a long moment, seemingly hoping for the prince to say something else, to refute his lieutenant. But Chrom remained silent, face a picture of hostile resolve.
"I suspected you would say as much…" the general muttered. The rain pattered off his bald head, a drop of water running down his face and tracing the line of the scar over his eye, before falling away like a tear. "So be it, Prince Chrom. I shall endeavour to grant you a swift and dignified end."
With that the man turned and walked back to his troops.
"Help is waiting for us just on the other side," Basilio said to them. "We can't let these fools stop us now, but we need a plan. Any ideas, Lucan?"
Lucan glanced at the Plegian ranks, still taking shape against them some fifty metres away. Individual facts and statistics still flashed through his head, automatically noted and set aside. "Maybe," he said. "We can do this, but I need a moment…"
"Well, hurry! They're not going to wait 'til we're ready."
He stepped away from the others, boots splashing gently in the shallow puddles forming in the pitted ground, then stood with his head bowed and eyes closed. He was dimly aware of a raindrop edging down the bridge of his nose. Gradually he took his mind off the waiting ranks of the Shepherds and regular soldiery, and let his thoughts slip away. He tried to 'see' their foe, truly see them, using the powers of insight and vision that had been growing within him since the day he had awoken in the Ylissean countryside…
The sky and the looming ridges faded away, followed by the valley walls and the surrounding troops on either side. Then Chrom, Frederick and Basilio were gone. The ground beneath him disintegrated, and he stood alone in a featureless void.
Lastly, he himself began to fall away. The pieces of him flaked into the white nothing until there was nothing left – only a consciousness lost in emptiness, before the world around him eventually reconstructed itself once more.
Suddenly he was no longer Lucan. He stood elsewhere, surrounded by terrain that was constructed from his memory of Plegian maps, imagination and logical deduction. When he looked around him, he saw through the eyes of the Plegian general, from where he stood – or would stand – during the battle.
He glanced left and right, the unreal matter around him blurring for an instant with the movement of his head.
"I wait for them at the edge of the Midmire, standing in the gateway of a fort where I can supervise the battle. Some of my best men remain nearby…"
His vision stretched forward, passing through earth and stone until it reached the Plegian frontline at the edge of the ravines.
"I await their enraged assault, holding my ground in the ravines with the patience of a canyon spider…"
Phantoms of the Shepherds and Plegian soldiers drew deeper into the ravines, weapons clashing at every step. His vision followed them.
"I lure them further into the valleys, dividing them and preventing them from overwhelming our ranks."
He turned his gaze to the ridges high above, framed against the darkening sky. Shadowy draconian shapes appeared from beyond the ridgelines and the fortresses atop them. They descended into the ravines, charging into the ghostly Ylisseans.
"I set the wyverns upon them when it is too late to manoeuvre. They swoop freely from one valley to the next, cutting down the last of their resistance when they are at their weakest.
"This is my intention."
With a flash the unreal world around him was gone. He was Lucan again, standing in the intensifying rain as their command staff waited for his input.
He turned back to the others. "All right. I know what we have to do…"
There, in the middle of the Plegian wilderness and fighting against a reluctant enemy, they bade their final farewells to Emmeryn. As one, the Shepherds poured out all of the sadness, anger and regret of the past three days and released it in a profound and violent outburst, cutting into the foe before them while the heavens wept a tearful valediction.
"Hold positions!" Lucan yelled. "Don't let them get through!" Around him, weapons rose and fell, warriors staggered from blows and people cried out.
On three sides the Plegians were coming at them, baited into making the first move by carefully manoeuvred outriders and the fury of the inconsolable Frederick. Along with Cordelia the knight had charged out in a foray calculated to provoke their opponents, and now the core of the Shepherds weathered the resulting storm. In fleeting glimpses he saw the likes of Lon'qu and Panne weaving between the lines of infantry, landing decisive strikes before darting into obscurity again. Ricken and Virion kept back, raining death side by side. Chrom was a force of destruction in the middle of the raging squall – his expression was terrible to behold, and nothing within the reach of his sword survived long.
Lucan watched from behind their front ranks, blade in hand. Tharja had had no trouble finding her way to him. He had been deliberating over the details of their deployment, and at one point turned round to simply find the dark mage there next to him, ready to act on their agreement. Occasionally he would scoot forward and deliver a decisive strike against an opponent after Tharja had crippled them with magic.
All around, the Shepherds put an end to these hapless men, caught between the forces of duty and human compassion. But there could be no sympathy for them, unwilling as they were. The real perpetrators of Ylisse's sorrow were many leagues behind them, in pursuit but indomitable. Yet these foes were before them right now. Their troops were in mourning and needed a target for their wrath, an enemy upon which they could carve the pains of their grieving hearts. It did not matter that these Plegians were less guilty than others. What mattered was that even now, in the face of an overwhelming tragedy born from a cry for peace, these forces still stood in their way. The most faultless soul on the continent, the light and hope of her people, was dead because of a mad king's misguided ire. It was an outrage that cried to the very heavens for redress, and now the Shepherds wrought their retribution in blood while the sky itself lamented Emmeryn's passing.
By degrees the strength of the Plegian assault waned. The enemy vanguard whittled away to almost nothing, leaving only isolated survivors or the reserve forces waiting deeper in the ravines.
Lucan knew it was time. "Now! Press forward!"
It was all the prompting their troops needed. Countless skirmishes, practising tight formations and synchronised manoeuvres against overwhelming forces, had made them ever more efficient, to the point where the Shepherds could almost sense the moment of counterattack before the order came. Together they swept forth, surging over the deflected infantry before them like a tide engulfing the scattered rocks of a shoreline.
The second phase of their plan was about to begin.
They were like twined souls, dancing destruction in a rainy vale of suffering.
Lucan had told her before the fighting started that he would take the supporting role, striking at their foes where he could while directing the immediate troops and watching her back. Tharja couldn't have cared less about physical strength – it was ridiculous how many warriors were proud to be brutish morons, and as far as she was concerned there was nothing a weapon could do that magic couldn't do better – but somehow, seeing Lucan with sword in hand, dashing through the rain to dispatch an opponent with efficient and disciplined technique, was enough to send tremors through her heart.
She had never known such joy and terror before. Every thought, every nuance of emotion was doubled. Her fears were like night shadows thrown in all directions by multiple torches; she was scared for her own life, and yet that was a pale worry compared to the fear of letting Lucan down, of having to watch him die and losing him forever. But even in the midst of the visceral fight-or-die panic of the battlefield, she also felt a rush of elation – every kill was a spiteful triumph against those who would harm them, as well as a consummate expression of her deadly art. And each thrill was magnified – the craftswoman's joy at exercising her skill and the killer's celebration of death – because Lucan was at her side, sharing in her dangers and her victories. They lived or died by each other, two spirits inextricably tied by a mysterious bond, and by their companionship on the battlefield.
She gestured to a Plegian spearmen ahead of her, reaching out with the sorcerer's sense and drawing magic into the world. She watched with wicked glee as the seven circles of containment appeared, gold runic lines inscribed in the very air: two around the mage to protect from the backwash of miscasting, three within one drawing on the three realms of the aether, and one to channel their power at her target. A moment later the soldier was cut down by jagged blades of lightning. The way his body flopped like a broken doll and the smoke rolling off his blackened flesh seemed almost poetic.
And with that, their path into the middle ravine was clear.
"All right, let's go!" Lucan told her. Together they ran into the rocky valley, Tharja doing her best to avoid the larger puddles in her light shoes.
When they were about halfway through they stopped and waited, soaked by the rain and anxiously watching the valley entrances or the ridges high above. Lucan stood a few metres away and Tharja edged closer to him, trying to make it look like an aimless, restless shifting.
Minutes passed. The sounds of fighting reached them from beyond the canyon walls, but still they saw no sign of the enemy nearby.
Lucan sheathed his sword, taking out his magic tome and sheltering it from the rain. She savoured his good looks as he scanned the ridge lines above them. "The wyvern riders might not go for us after all…" he said. "I don't know if we should be glad about that."
Tharja knew what he meant. "Me neither," she said after a moment, when she'd thought of something to say. The rain was a cold nuisance and they were still at risk of losing their lives, but she couldn't be sorry to be so near to Lucan, just the two of them…
"Look out!" he warned.
She turned and followed his gaze. Beyond the ridge top a winged shape had appeared, dark against the tomb-grey of the sky. The creature let out a cry somewhere between a roar and a snarl, and then it was swooping down towards them.
Tharja pushed the fear to the back of her mind and reached out again with the sorcerer's sense. But this time she sought darker energies: the ancient spirit magics she knew so well, that continuum of power which felt like an ancestral consciousness, flowing through the universe in a purple river of life and death.
The wyvern closed in. She reached and reached, until her grasp closed around that comforting vein of darkness. There was a beautiful moment when the apprehension melted away, replaced with the vicious delight of knowing that the tables had turned drastically in her favour.
She raised an imperious hand at the approaching beast, some part of her vaguely aware that her lips were curled into a sinister sneer. She could almost see the wave of power she harnessed, coursing through the void beyond their world like a monster beneath the sea… then it was crashing through, tearing through reality and the wyvern before them, wrenching the life-force from the creature and its rider and leeching it back to her in a stream of violet magic. Tharja felt a glow of satisfaction as the soul essence was absorbed into her own.
Another wyvern appeared from the ridge top, and another was descending from the opposite side, sweeping close to the canyon wall in a steep dive. It didn't matter. They were like so much wood being thrown into a fire. All of their strength and armour wouldn't protect them from her dark magic, and every kill would renew her in a self-sustaining cycle of destruction. Again she commanded the darkness and gestured at the nearer one. Again there were pained cries as magic punctured her victims and bled their strength away to her.
There was a flash of frenetic light, and the crackling sound of furious energy. She turned to see Lucan, radiant in golden light as he launched a bolt of lightning at the other wyvern. The discharge of it made the air shake with an almighty thunderclap, and her skin crawled with the sensation of immense magic passing nearby. Neither wyvern nor rider could survive the blast.
Even through her triumphant malice, Tharja felt a jolt of alarm. He's brilliant! she gushed. Such power…
More appeared. Draconian forms borne on leathery wings, flying down from both sides of the ravine. Tharja didn't care. She and Lucan stood as one, two halves at the centre of a raging maelstrom, and together they could destroy them all…
Lucan watched, half awed and half disturbed. He had scarcely needed to worry about whether Tharja would be strong enough to match the other Shepherds. She was every bit the mage he'd thought she was. If not stronger.
An eerie shiver went through him every time she raised her hand and called upon the dark edges of the magic spectrum. He saw her cloak and hair blown by an impossible wind, heard the whistling rush like a multitude of voices, calling across a great distance with keening moans… Lucan couldn't ignore how graceful she looked, regally poised with every step and turn across the rugged ground, the ends of her wet hair tapered to spikes by the falling rain.
One by one, she dispatched the wyvern riders that flew down from the canyon heights to engage them. Few of them got close enough to attack, and any cut or scrape she might have suffered was soon erased by the soul-draining power she commanded. From time to time he struck out with his thunder magic, but he almost needn't have bothered. Tharja destroyed them all, sapping away their lives in a cycle of casting, evasion and health-leeching that had a sick rhythm to it.
Tactically, it was perfect. The rest of their forces had spread out from their initial formation, but only as far as the valley entrances, striking at the funneled enemy troops from the wide open spaces. The deployment of the wyverns had been the rub – when they would appear and where they would strike – and so he and Tharja had taken the role of counteracting them. Alone in the central ravine, they must have looked like tempting and convenient targets. Which was the whole point. They had put the Plegian general's plan out of sync when his men failed to lure them into the ravines, and now they were committed to the attack. It meant the wyverns were arriving at the wrong time, and better yet they were being drawn to the two people best suited for taking them down.
But whether the calculated gambit would pay off remained to be seen.
"Tharja!" he called as he launched another lightning bolt. "Be careful! More of them are coming!" For all their efforts to fight off the assault, their enemies were growing in number. Another group of wyverns swept down the ravine towards them, five of the creatures flying in a V-formation down the length of the valley while below them a squad of reserve infantry also advanced. More flyers still came from either side.
Lucan cast another bolt, missing his target. It was getting too much, even for them. On their own they were unlikely to survive the wave of foes coming for them now, and he prayed the contingency plan would kick in before the oncoming tide engulfed them.
"What should we do?" Tharja called back.
He hesitated for several seconds before making up his mind. "We have to fall back! They're closing the distance too quickly!"
Together they ran back in the direction of their allies, sending wayward bolts of magic behind them. Lucan glanced over his shoulder as they went. The sky was filled with roughly a dozen wyverns now, some getting dangerously close, while the infantry reserves surged forward along the canyon floor.
They weren't going to make it. Stand and fight or retreat to their allies, it made no difference. He knew it every time he looked back and saw the enemy through the cold second-sight he possessed. Too many, too strong, too experienced, too fast…
He noticed a light beginning to glow around them, faint as fading sunlight. It brightened rapidly, a golden brilliance all around them that grew until it obscured their view of the ravine and the enemies closing in on them.
When the light died away once more, their foes were gone and they were no longer in the ravine. All around them were the members of the Shepherds, and beyond that the divisions of their regular troops.
The Ylissean monk Libra stood beside them, staff in hand. He'd carried out the rescue plan just in time.
"Libra!" Lucan exclaimed. "Thank the gods. You saved us…"
The mourning priest struggled to find a smile and couldn't. Instead he inclined his head graciously. "My pleasure, Lucan."
It was Lucan's last clear memory of the battle. He only remembered the rest as freeze-frame images: standing with the rest of the Shepherds around him; watching the final wyvern reserves descend from the sky; dealing with them in the open ground where they could outnumber and surround the flyers; the final march towards the general's headquarters, finishing off any isolated resistance they met on the way; the general's pitiful last stand… After surrounding him completely the Shepherds had lain into him one by one, wearing the man down almost at leisure before Chrom himself delivered the final blow.
Lucan heard the man's dying plea of mercy for his already-slaughtered men with a nauseous mixture of disdain and sympathy. This was a sad day on both sides, but even so he did not feel half as sorry for the man's death as he should have done.
Even in victory it felt like they had suffered a defeat. Partly because no amount of killing could have brought Emmeryn back to them. And partly because Lucan felt, through the murk of his own guilt and sorrow, that by laying waste to these men in such wrathful abandon, the Shepherds had given in to the worst of themselves.
For Tharja, the ecstasy lasted until they began their retreat. After that it was nothing but fear or frustration. Fear as their enemies – her countrymen, she reminded herself – closed in on her and Lucan, and looked likely to cut off their escape. Fear too when they made their stand on the outskirts of the ravines, facing down the last of the forces opposing them. But by then the killing had lost most of its appeal for her. It was no longer just her and Lucan, fighting the enemy side by side. After they rejoined the others he was too busy managing battle strategy to pay her much attention. It was disappointing, really. Their lone stand together in the ravine had felt meaningful, but after it was over Lucan's behaviour didn't seem to acknowledge that.
Nor did her disappointment end when the battle did. Not long after the fighting was done, they were being ordered to embark onto carriages that would take them north, beyond Plegia's borders. The arrangements were made so quickly, and before Tharja could edge over to Lucan to get on a carriage with him, he was ushered into one of the vehicles at the head of the column and it set off shortly afterwards. She had no choice but to get on board another with a group of nobodies, stewing in a frustration so hot it was virtually a form of torture.
Her gaze never left the window as they began to set off. From time to time she angled her head in the hopes of getting a view of Lucan's carriage. The rest of the time she sat staring at the passing terrain, thinking about the choice she had made.
She was a rebel leaving her home, heading for a strange land and an uncertain future. One which she sincerely hoped would involve a certain someone.