Chapter Four – Destruction of Hrym

Things were worse in the villages of the Hrym region than I pictured. I realized that Gustave said that several villages had been destroyed, but I wasn't expecting the damage to be so… violent. There had been no rain recently, it seemed, because the streets were still covered red with blood. The villages had been all but abandoned. Bodies still lay on the ground, flies swarming around them like moths to a lamp. The Knights of Seiros were the ones moving the bodies for burial now.

"Goddess…" Sylvain breathed as we surveyed the damage in the latest village we visited. The methods used to murder these people were similar to the other villages. Almost all of them had their throats sliced clean, but likely after a struggle that probably killed them first. The sight was gruesome.

I held my breath and approached one of the bodies, balancing on the balls of my feet as I bent down to examine him. I made my way around to each of the victims, looking for some sort of connection between these murders. If this was an uprising, who was it against?

A wave of dizziness rushed over me. I put a hand to the ground, trying to steady myself, but I dropped from the balls of my feet to my knees.

"Professor?" Felix grabbed my arm and hoisted me back up to my feet. I pressed a hand to my forehead, wobbling against him. "Hey, Professor. Look at me."

I blinked a couple of times, and two Felixes merged into one. "I'm all right," I assured him. "I'm used to seeing the dead but not so… decayed. I think I was just holding my breath too long. I was afraid that smell would get to me first."

Sylvain rushed over to us and put one hand on my arm. "You okay, Professor?"

"Fine. What did you notice about the victims?" I asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"I mean, aside from the absolute carnage?" Sylvain shuddered before glancing around at the bloody scene surrounding us. "Given the clothes they're wearing, I would say that all the victims are clerics of some sort—maybe priests or even just really devout followers of the church. It's been similar in all the villages. So, if that's the case, we might have something bigger on our hands."

Felix's brows furrowed. He shot me a glance, as if checking to make sure I wouldn't pass out on him, before responding to Sylvain. "How do you know? None of them are in robes or anything." He pointed down the road to one of the bodies. It was a man, late fifties probably, dressed in the dull colors of the commoners of Fódlan. "That guy definitely is not."

"Normally I would agree. But these murders were spread out in separate villages over the course of several days. If we assume that this is one of the last villages attacked based on a direct path from a distinct starting point, it's obvious that survivors from other attacks fled here and warned the others." Sylvain gestured for us to follow him. The smell of the bodies as we approached almost made me gag. "Look at the belts. Gold buckles."

"It sounds like a conspiracy at best. But then again…" Felix looked disgusted, but I was willing to bet it was more because he was about to agree with Sylvain than the smell. "It wouldn't have just been some angry commoners. They would've taken the buckles."

Sometimes it was easy to forget that beneath Sylvain's sarcastic and provocative façade was an intelligent young man. The theory made sense in my opinion. It made sense for some resentment to be held against the church, especially in Hrym.

"We need to focus on preventing future attacks, anyway. The Knights of Seiros say that this attack happened about eleven days ago. The reports indicate that previous attacks were about every other day. The knights have taken up residence in every village in Hrym territory, but unfortunately, that means they're spread thin. Given the number of soldiers allocated," I said, trying to quickly do the math in my head, "that's only two or three soldiers to guard an entire village against an enemy with unknown numbers."

"And if they're targeting the church, taking down a Knight of Seiros would be a treat…" Felix looked down the road in the direction of a knight in shining armor. "What if this was all part of the plan?"

I didn't respond. I hated to admit it, but after the war, the numbers in the church's army were low. They had yet to recover, partially because of the casualties having been mostly young men and women. The older soldiers retired or took more administrative roles, like Gustave and Alois essentially running the Knights of Seiros from Oghma. Both Catherine and Shamir left the Knights of Seiros and with them, most of their direct subordinates. That left relatively inexperienced or new knights to fill up the ranks.

Still, we had been in Hrym for about a week now without any indication of a future attack being planned. Gustave might have been correct when he said the situation here was under control. Hrym was essentially a military state now. Without a leader to rule it, and given the inability to manage themselves, the Knights of Seiros now took authority over the villages.

I didn't like the idea of it. Every time the church gained any ounce of strength over the people, I thought about Edelgard. She might have been my enemy—and Dimitri's, too—but that didn't mean all her ideals were wrong. In fact, maybe her ideals were right… but to need to kill innocent bystanders to achieve her goals seemed…

Anyway, as the archbishop of the Church of Seiros, I officially had ultimate control over the dispatch of the Knights of Seiros. Neither Gustave nor Alois could overrule me, despite being the highest commanding officers in the army. Thus, although Gustave was justified in sending the knights to Hrym, I could remove them if I saw fit. And then the villagers would be left to their own devices again.

It disgusted me that this, too, felt wrong. What was there to do about Hrym? Assign a new viscount? Even if we could, that order would have to come from Dimitri, and I doubted he wanted to do it. Allow the people to select a leader? Knowing the typical operations of humans, it was safe to assume each village had a leader of sorts already. What would make it different now?

What they really needed, it seemed, was financial restitution. But considering Fódlan could not even afford to open schools… supporting a once-traitorous region would be unlikely to be a concern of taxpayers.

Felix, Sylvain, and I returned to camp at a base in one of the unscathed villages without much of a plan for what came next. I could see the disappointment on Felix's face that he had not yet had to fight anyone, and I had a feeling Sylvain was annoyed that he had no stories to tell Dimitri about protecting me from some monstrous fiend who wanted my head.

"What do you think?" I asked, dropping onto one of the bunks assigned to us. The knights tried to assign me a private tent for being the archbishop, but I wouldn't allow it. And tents here were shared by men and women alike, meaning that once again I found myself rooming with my two former students.

"This was a waste. All we got to do was smell dead bodies." Felix sniffed, as if the smell still lingered beneath his nose. "A motive is no good if there's nothing left to prevent."

"But we still haven't caught anyone," I pointed out.

"Doesn't matter. They made their point, scared everyone, maybe knocked the clergy down a peg or two. And like you said, it's been eleven days since their last attack. We could be wasting our time and resources staying here if nothing happens, and even if it does, the Knights of Seiros are here."

Another person walked into the tent, forcing Felix's words to cease. It wasn't necessarily that our conversation was private, but we had learned the hard way to watch what we said around those we weren't sure we could trust. The three of us pretended to preoccupy ourselves with mundane tasks. I folded the laundry that would be dirty again in a few hours; Felix sharpened his sword (unnecessarily, it seemed, at this point); Sylvain lay down on the bunk beside mine and was probably daydreaming about girls.

After about fifteen minutes, the knight left the tent, and the three of us resumed our conversation.

"So, what are you trying to say?" I asked Felix.

"Just that there's no reason for us to stay anymore. But—" he added quickly before Sylvain or I could get a word in. "You're the archbishop. If it is important to you to catch the fiends who would dare desecrate the name of the Church of Seiros, then you have the power to order divine punishment."

I had a feeling he was making a jab at Rhea. He knew I found the idea of divine punishment wrong. Sure, as a mercenary, I used to push law and order to the side to be the blade of justice and punish those who did wrong. But to murder in the name of the church conflicted me. Sothis had sided with me in the name of revenge before. And yet…

My vision blurred again. Felix became two again, and Sylvain beside him formed a painting of shifting pastels. My arm might as well have been lead as I raised it to my forehead, pressing against my face as if that would set things right.

One of the two of them—I couldn't tell who was who anymore—caught me as my knees buckled again. It took only another moment for everything to regain clarity. I pushed myself away from Sylvain and turned from them.

"Professor, you need to lay down." Sylvain stepped towards me, and I held an arm up to stop him. "Right now."

I felt this way once before. When, I could not recall. But this was no simple dizzy spell from holding my breath too long.

"Let's depart for home tomorrow," I suggested, ignoring Sylvain's suggestion. "Felix is right. This is a waste of time, and the Knights of Seiros can handle things. Besides, if we make it back soon, I bet Claude will still be in town."

Seeing Claude would be nice, but he was just a cover for the fact that I missed my family.

"Fine. Now take a nap, Professor," Felix demanded.

Before I could stop him this time, Sylvain grabbed my shoulders and pushed me down onto the bunk. He threw a blanket at me and then glared. "I don't want to have to tell His Majesty that you passed out on my watch."

I could only imagine what Dimitri would say. How embarrassing…

"If you insist. Wake me if anything happens," I told them, laying down and rolling onto my side.

"That won't be necessary. Sleep well, Your Grace," Sylvain mocked. I listened as the tarp flapped with their exit, and then I closed my eyes when their footsteps eventually retreated.


As it turned out, it was necessary to wake me.

Was it a sign that the day we decided our presence was no longer needed was the day the dastards roused themselves for their next attack?

In any case, Felix got his wish. He was practically grinning when he come to wake me. I must have fallen into a deep sleep because it took him shaking me awake to finally get me to stir. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but Felix left me no time to wake up before explaining the situation.

"It has not been eleven days since the last attack. It has been eleven days since the last reported attack."

I rubbed my eyes some more to clear the fog in my vision, as if that would help me understand Felix more. "What are you talking about?"

"They messed up. This group of rogues. It turns out they slaughtered the Knights of Seiros guarding the villages in the surrounding area, which is why we haven't heard anything. One escaped from the last attack yesterday and made his way here—we know where the rogues are heading next," Felix clarified, and with those words, I woke up entirely. I stood up from my bunk and began searching for my armor and shoes. "What are you doing?"

"Getting ready. We need to go."

I nearly fell over trying to get my boots on. This was what we had been waiting for. A real battle.

"Sylvain and I think you should stay here. I just came in here to explain the situation and let you know where we were going." Felix flinched when I turned my head like a whip in his direction. "Professor, you almost passed out twice yesterday."

"I'm fine." I grabbed the Sword of the Creator from my bedside and pointed it at Felix. He stared at me, the blade just inches from his throat. "Are you going to stop me?"

He clicked his tongue and turned, leaving the tent without another word. I hurried to finish putting on my armor, sliding my cloak on last before hurrying outside.

There was an air of panic at the camp. Knights rushed back and forth gathering weapons and materials, and there were whispers echoing around us. If these rogues—these people leading the uprising—truly hated the church, then it was likely they would stop at nothing to wipe out the Knights of Seiros if we approached them.

The knights knew it, too. Even as we all rode on horseback to the village suspected of being the next target, I sensed some hesitance from those surrounding me. I remembered this feeling from back at the academy when my students expressed hesitation in one of our first battles together. All I wanted to do was protect them. And now, these knights… perhaps it was the first time for many of these youngsters that they would look death in the eyes.

When we arrived at the suspected site for the next attack, we found the village already burning. Voices screamed into the night. The smell of burning flesh hung in the air, and some of the knights around me began to vomit as soon as they dismounted their horses.

I swung my leg over the side of my horse and jumped down, the Sword of the Creator in my grip before my feet even touched the ground. Felix and Sylvain were by my side in seconds, and we three looked at the orange tinted darkness and formulated silent plans in our heads.

"This is a rescue first and foremost," I said.

We and the knights charged into the village. I could hear the clanging of metal already, the grunts of men and women whose armor had been pierced, maybe even the slicing of throats. I splashed through a puddle of blood, but nothing registered in my mind to make me hesitate.

A young woman stood over a middle-aged man. I noticed the sparkle of a gold belt buckle gleaming against the light of the flames. The girl must have noticed me out of the corner of her eye because she yanked a dagger out of a small sheath and slit the throat of the man without first toying with him, as the other bodies seemed to indicate happened first. I heard his last breath—strained, guttural, choked.

I thought the woman would come for me next. She stood and looked me over, her gaze lingering on the Sword of the Creator in my hand. And then, as quickly as this all began, she turned and ran. I chased after her, turning the corner so sharply that my ankle gave out, but I kept going through the pain.

She vanished. I stopped my pursuit, spinning slowly around to search for possible routes she could have taken. The flames poured out of windows, smoke so thick in the air now that I could barely see five feet in front of me. I looked down at my sleeve, flapping quietly in the breeze that only made the flames worse, and considered my options for a moment.

I used the Sword of the Creator to rip my sleeve off my cloak and wrapped the fabric around my nose and mouth. The smoke would still get to me, I was sure, but at least this might slow the process down.

The pursuit began again. I ran through one of two openings between flames, leading me to an alleyway between some of the burning villagers' homes. The houses were almost completely engulfed in flames. Fire shot out of roofs, out of windows, through holes where the flame completely disintegrated the wooden beams. It reminded me of the Valley of Torment.

"The Sword of the Creator…" a voice somewhere in the smoke in front of me said. I could make out a figure approaching me. "Green hair…" No, two figures. "Green eyes…" Three or four?

I grasped the Sword of the Creator in both my hands, lifting it in front of me as my eyes spotted a whole crowd breaking through the smoke. There had to be a dozen people. They were ordinary looking folk, perhaps just regular villagers who had enough and wanted change. What was it that Dimitri said to me once? Were we to destroy what we found unacceptable or accept it?

These people, it seemed, sought to destroy it.

"The archbishop herself came to fight." A man, large and burly, not unlike my father, stepped to the forefront of the group of a dozen. He touched the tip of my sword with his own, and I swung at him. He dodged, stepping back with a burst of deep laughter. "Her Majesty the Queen. The ruler of church and state. What a corrupt world in which we live."

I wanted to tell them that I was nothing more than a figurehead on both fronts, but something told me these were not people who wanted political discussions as negotiations. There was no choice.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit again. But I shook it off, blinking it away like the grogginess from my nap.

The Sword of the Creator glowed red, and I launched its extension towards the group. The battle began. I parried attacks from all sides, hitting away gleaming swords with my metal vambrace while simultaneously whipping the Sword of the Creator around me. I had never been good at dancing, but this reminded me a bit of my first dance with Claude at the Officers' Academy. Back and forth, back and forth, one step to the right, back to the left.

My sword pierced the skin of one and then two, but I could tell I would never keep this up. My skin burned where one of the enemy's swords grazed my leg, and the smoke stung my eyes.

My heel hit the body of one of the men I had gotten, and I stumbled backwards onto the ground. The Sword of the Creator fell out of my hands and clattered four feet away.

The large man, who must have been the leader, held his hand up, and the others ceased their assault. He walked towards me, stepping over the body and standing directly in front of me. Like me, he also had a piece of cloth over his face, so the only part of him I could see was his eyes. Brown, I thought. It was hard to tell in the light of the flames.

"You're outmatched. You've always been outmatched. The Church of Seiros will fall, and we will be free from their control," he whispered to me.

He held his sword above my abdomen, and I closed my eyes as he forced the blade down. But the bite of steel never touched me. There was an explosion somewhere above me, and when I opened my eyes, the orange light of fire was replaced with a purple cloud, and the man who stood over me had flown back into the crowd of his followers.

Another ball of purple magic shot from behind me to the group, and the explosion this time was deafening. Bodies erupted into the air, falling back like rain into heaps on the ground.

I sat up and looked behind me. There stood a man cloaked in dark garments with his arm outstretched in the direction he shot the magic. The skin of his face looked stretched and gray, as if he was deathly ill. He lowered his hand and looked down at me.

"We need you alive," he told me.

I furrowed my brow, about to ask what he meant, when he disappeared altogether.

Pushing myself to my feet, I turned my attention back to the enemy in front of me. They were all dead. Every single body burned with dark welts on their exposed skin that crackled and ate the flesh. Whatever and whoever that was… that had been dark magic.

But who…

I didn't have the luxury of time to think about it. I returned to the main street of the village and continued my work, freeing trapped villagers and crossing blades with remnants of the uprising. But I couldn't help but feel like someone was watching me now.

And suddenly I remembered—remembered when I last felt this way, this dizziness and this uncertainty.

Remire.


Author's Note: At long last. I wish I had more time to write during the week, but alas. Enjoy, and please consider leaving a comment/review. It is greatly appreciated.