Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Three Houses, all rights to the owners.
Getting to the actual mission… and some more Marianne details. Considering the pace I've set for this story, I have to give out information in a fairly consistent stream.
Hilda and Claude politely ignore how exhausted Ignatz is in the morning, and they don't comment on how Marianne's makeup can't quite hide how much more healthy she looks at the moment.
Then again, they're the only ones actually looking for signs in Marianne, so it's unlikely anyone else would have noticed unless Claude or Hilda chose to point it out.
Claude is delighted to have confirmation that his suspicions about Marianne were correct. He was already sure before, but having explicit confirmation from the source is always a plus. He's also surprised to hear exact how Marianne is feeding.
"It's not sex?" Claude murmurs in surprise when Hilda explains it. "Huh, well that explains why she's feeding so frequently. I guess her way is inefficient."
"Yeah, but better sexual assault than… you know…"
"Well that's a depressing way of putting it." Claude mutters, and rubs the back of his head in slight embarrassment. "But yeah, good point."
They can't talk for long about it in the morning. They have to exit their shared tent and pack up so the Deer can get a move on. They're heading out to a specific border village that has been ravaged by a pack of dire boar that arrived a week and a bit ago. Regular boars are already dangerous, so dire boars are a real menace.
Then again, dire animals in general are the sort of thing you need trained soldiers to deal with. Even a dire sheep is no joke if you piss it off (though thankfully dire sheep are not aggressive. If an animal is usually passive, it's dire form is not usually more aggressive). Dealing with a sounder of dire boar is usually what you'd get the town guard (if a town has one) or a mercenary company to deal with.
The dire boar are probably more dangerous than those bandits they had to deal with as their first mission. Heck, even those demonic beasts were probably less dangerous. The beasts spent as much time fighting each other as the Deer.
Claude can't believe he just thought that. The greatest threat he's dealt with to date… is a bunch of wild animals. Well, if you don't count that time he sparred with Hilda. Then the greatest threat he's dealt with is her.
Claude was fully expecting Hilda and Teach to be the ones who did most of the work for the mission, but when they arrive at the village and assess the situation, it's Lenoie who pulls more than her weight. With her knowledge of trapping she sets up some pit traps along the path the boar have smashed through the forest on their repeated visits. The traps won't deal with all the boars, but getting even a few of them out of the fight will be useful.
The fight with the boars is a dangerous one. Boars are nocturnal, and that means once again Claude is the only one who can properly see what's going on… and maybe Teach. He doesn't seem to need a light like the others. Everyone else is relying on firelight from torches either mounted beforehand or carried by one of their number.
For once, Raphael is not on the frontlines. For all his durability, a dire boar would completely maul him if he tried to stop a charge. The same goes for Hilda. She's tough, not invincible. It's Leonie who's standing out in front for the most part, and Claude and Byleth as well. They're the most agile and most able to dodge the boars, hopefully pulling their attention enough to slow them down and allow others the chance to strike.
That's not to say Claude is exactly happy about dodging giant animals twice his height as they barrel towards him at high speed. No, he hates it, but at least he has Hilda at his back to crush their sides in after he grabs their attention.
It's actually kind of disgusting. The boars have massive holes in the side of their bodies after Hilda is done with them with blood and guts all mashed together into a reddish pink paste with white bones sticking out.
Ugh…
"Two more!" Claude calls out to Hilda in warning. The pair of boars trot out of the forest towards the edge of the potato field, and Claude dances out in front of them. "Ready?"
"Yep!" Hilda shouts back. She hefts her gore-covered mordenkrad in preparation for another swing. Hilda probably can't see it because of the dim light, but Claude can see the blood and tufts of fur clinging to the hammer's face as well as a streak of blood on the left side of Hilda's face and in her hair from a particularly violent swing of her weapon that sent gore flying everywhere.
Claude draws his bow once he has the boars' attention and snaps a shot into the face of one. That's enough to anger the thing, if not to actually hurt all that much, and the creature snorts and rushes at him. The other one follows its pack member in the charge, and Claude very quickly has two angry dire boars bearing down on him.
Claude takes two steps back, then dives to the side when the boars are only a few meters away. The animals skid in the dirt as they try to stop their momentum and change direction, but that's all the opportunity Hilda needs. She storms in and whips her hammer in a quick overhead strike that tears a chunk out of the animal's side, killing it quickly, and whirls on the second one as it tries to rush her down. She catches it just in time with a swing to the side of its face, and the beast's head is knocked off and lands in the field as the body crashes into the dirt.
It's a disgusting sight. It's also a relief, because it means the boars are super dead. There's still, like, ten more of the things to deal with, but these ones are dead.
"This must have been a big sounder." Claude mutters. "There's at least twenty of them."
"How does a group this big go unnoticed?" Hilda mutters. "Giant pigs that make huge paths through forests aren't exactly subtle."
"Well it's not like Margrave Edmund has been able to deal with the reports he's been getting." Claude reminds her. "He had to know about these ones or he couldn't have sent us here."
Hilda frowns. "He should have asked for help sooner."
"You know can't. There's too much politics in his way." Claude mutters. "He can't risk getting into the debt of another house. His position is already not that strong."
"I hate politics."
"Yeah, me too."
"More incoming!" Byleth warns.
"Ugh… alright, back into position." Claude mutters. "At least we're going to eat well for the next few days."
"Assuming the Professor doesn't let the villagers keep it all."
"Don't even joke about that."
"You know he might though."
"Yeah." And Claude will be mildly disappointed if he does. Fresh meat would be great after all the rations they've been eating the last few days.
Claude sighs and prepares for more boars, and Hilda skips back to her position. This is going to be a long night, and not just because of the boars. They're going to have to deal with the corpses straight away too…
###
Someone touches Claude's shoulder, and he frantically scrambles for his dagger in response. He then comes to his senses when he sees Hilda looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You know you're super paranoid, right?"
"I think we've established that already." Claude sighs. He sits up in his bedroll and stretches. "Ugh… I think I slept funny."
"Or you pulled a muscle from how fast you just got up." Hilda says, and pokes him in the shoulder. "You're supposed to stretch before you move Claude."
Claude gives her a flat, unimpressed look. She smirks in return.
"The Professor said we're leaving in, like, ten minutes."
"Oh." Claude blinks. Then it sinks in what she said. "Wait, what? Why didn't you wake me earlier!? Did I miss breakfast?"
"Brunch actually, considering how long everyone slept in." Hilda says cheerfully. "And yes, you did miss it. We decided you were more tired than most of us considering you and the Professor let us go early while you both dealt with the last of the corpses and such."
"So we don't get to eat? Rude." Claude mutters.
"Oh shush." Hilda shoves a plate of food into his hands. It had been lying beside her. "Brunch was only half an hour ago, so the meat is still warm."
"So Teach did keep some meat." Claude smiles. "How's it taste?"
"Stringy." Hilda admits. "Regular boar meat is better."
Claude takes a bite, considers it, and nods. "Yeah. Still, meat is meat."
"You sound like Raphael."
"Hey, I like meat at the moment because I haven't had any for a bit." Claude says through a mouthful of food. "Variety is the spice of life."
"Yeah yeah." Hilda says dismissively. "So anyhow, we're heading to visit Marianne's… father?"
"Relative." Claude grunts as he tears off more meat. "Not father."
"You figured that out from snooping?"
"Yep." Claude pauses. "Haven't we been over this before?"
"Maybe?" Hilda shrugs. "Your memory is better than mine. Maybe you just thought you told me and didn't? You've known for a while, right?"
"Yeah, I have."
"So either I forgot or you never told me." Hilda shrugs. "Whatever. Either way, we're going there."
"Right." Claude nods. "Better practice my political talk."
"What? Are you expecting him to suck up to you or something?"
"Maybe?" Claude shrugs. "Honestly I have no idea. I'd say there's a forty-sixty chance I get a hint for or an outright betrothal offer."
"Ahh…" Hilda grimaces. "Yeah, that could happen, couldn't it?"
"It's happened before, it'll happen again." He says. He raises his plate. "Cheers to being nobles. I bet Leonie, Ignatz, and Raphael don't have to deal with this."
Hilda rolls her eyes and knocks her hand against the side of the plate. "Woo. Fun. Still, at least we have the money that we're not worrying about food or something."
"Yeah." Claude says quietly. Leonie probably can't say that all the time. "Grass is always greener, huh?"
"I like to think it means every position in life sucks. Some just suck more than others."
"I can agree with that."
They're both quiet for a few moments as Claude finishes his food. Then Hilda speaks up again. "Well that was depressing. Let's get going."
"Yeah." Claude puts the plate down and grabs his backpack. "I hope we can sleep in actual beds when we get there…"
###
"Everybody out! Weapons!" Byleth's voice barks from the front of the cart. Surprised and confused, the Deer pile out of the cart, grabbing and drawing their weapons as instructed. They can't immediately see the problem, but when Byleth comes rushing towards them away from the front of the cart yelling "Move, move!" they don't question it.
He leads them into the forest on the side of the road, and then instructs them to stop and keep low as they gather around him.
"What in the Goddess's name is happening here?" Lorenz huffs. "Professor, this better not be a bout of impromptu training."
"It isn't. We have company." Byleth whispers.
"He's not wrong." Claude mutters. While everyone else had kneeled down, Claude had taken the opportunity to quietly climb a tree. "Ooookay, that's quite a few of them. I didn't know highwayman gangs got that large."
"How many?" Byleth asks.
"I can see… uh… ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five… thirty? Give or take a few."
"Holy shit." Leonie mutters in disbelief. "That's crazy."
"This is what happens when your entire military is focused on protecting one specific trade route." Hilda mutters. She glances back at their cart. "So what's the plan Professor? We're not just going to let them take our stuff, are we?"
"Do you think they're going to look for us?" Ignatz asks worriedly. "Do they know who we are?"
"I don't know." Byleth says honestly. "But we have to make a decision right now. We can fight a retreating battle, baiting them into rushing us and picking them off as we go, we can follow and harass them, or we can follow without them noticing and ambush them at a later time. Hands up for the first."
Raphael holds up his hand, as does Lorenz.
"Harassment?"
Two hands again. Leonie and Ignatz.
"Ambush."
Three hands. Claude, Hilda, and Lysithea. Marianne didn't contribute to any one of the options.
"Right then. Claude, you're taking point. I'm taking the rear guard." Byleth intruscts.
Claude didn't expect that responsibility to be shoved on him so suddenly, but he doesn't hesitate. "Right. Raph, Lorenz, Hilda, you're going to have to stay in the back. You all stand out too much. Leonie, follow behind me at a dozen paces. Sith, Marianne, a dozen steps behind her. Got it everyone?"
There's a quiet corus of acknowledgements.
"Right. Stay low, stay alert. Let's move."
Claude is pretending to be confident, but his mind is racing. This is all so sudden. How did these bandits sneak up on them without being noticed? How did Byleth not notice them? He has very sharp eyes.
Maybe they were lying in wait, Claude considers. It doesn't matter now. They need to find a place to ambush these guys in return.
The bandits are currently all crowded around the cart and pulling out their various supplies to look at. Claude cringes when they open his pack and send his things scattering across the dirt. His notebook is there. His notebook! That's the most valuable thing he owns! He has secrets on a number of the students of Garreg Mach in there. That's genuinely dangerous information if it falls into the wrong hands!
Thankfully the bandits don't seem all that interested in the black, nondescript notebook lying in the dirt. They're more concerned with the pouches of money, the food stores, and what little jewelry the girls had in their bags.
Claude keeps his distance, watching from the trees. While most of the bandits are focused on the loot, there are a few that are keeping watch.
Thankfully the bandits don't seem bothered about the horses. There are a few of them keeping the animals as calm as possible. Some of the bandits actually have mounts. Maybe they were stolen from others before them?
The bandits also have a variety of members. Standard axemen, lancers, swordsmen, but also some archers, cavaliers, a single knight with cobbled-together armor, two mages, and someone Claude assumes is a healer.
That's quite the assortment, and it's also a problem. A varied enemy is harder to beat than a foe with only one strength you can plan around.
Claude's hands twitch. He wants the feeling of a bow in his hands, but now isn't the time. There are too many. He needs to think. How do you ambush a group this large? You wait for them to split up and take out one group at a time, split them up yourselves and divide and conquer if your individual strength is superior, make use of terrain (usually choke points), or wait until they're asleep. The last one will take a long time, so that's out of the question. So instead they need good terrain, because they don't have enough troops to effectively divide and conquer.
So Claude waits. He waits and watches as the bandits ransack their cart and toss everything to the dirt, ruining clothes and damaging tents and scattering hobby supplies at irrecoverable distances into the grass and dirt. Paints, beads, carving knives, thread, everything is tossed aside that the bandits don't care for.
Claude winces as a half-finished painting Ignatz was working on is considered, then dashed against a tree. "They clearly don't know good art when they see it."
To Claude's surprise, the bandits actually take the whole cart with them when they leave. That's very unusual, and implies that they have a base of operations that can be reached on a relatively accessible path.
Which, again, says a lot about the state of highway security here if the bandits can have a stable path to their base large enough to fit a cart and they haven't been discovered and disposed of yet.
At the very least it means that they can follow the path and hopefully go on ahead of the bandits though. They find the path, move ahead of the slow-moving cart, and find their base before them. Hopefully they can find a place to set up an ambush along the way too.
Claude waves Leonie over and explains this to her, and instructs her to pass the information along. He waits a minute for confirmation that everyone understands, then starts to follow the bandits. After the bandits have crested the hill, Claude gives the instruction to scavenge whatever is left of their stuff. He'll keep watch until they're done.
There isn't much they can save. Mostly just books and notes that are damaged but not ruined. Everything else is mostly destroyed or soiled. Hilda has the presence of mind to scoop up Claude's notebook, for which he is quite thankful.
When everyone is done, they fall in behind Claude again and move on with their mission. It's easy to catch up with the bandits due to the slow pace of the cart. The Deer follow them for half an hour before Claude spies the path to the bandits' hideout branching off the side of the road. It's a rough path with packed down dirt, rocks poking out of the ground, and uneven terrain, but the trees have been cleared out of the way so it's still functional.
Claude waits for the bandits to start down the path so the Deer can safely cross the road. When everyone is across safely he picks up the pace and starts to push ahead of the bandits. Leonie seems to understand what's going on and keeps everyone away from the road, walking diagonal to Claude's position rather than directly behind.
Claude watches for a good ambush location, but he isn't finding one. There's a lot of trees, but no real choke points or anything. Claude was hoping for hills, or boulders, or something, but it's just trees.
So it's probably a good thing when they come across the bandits' base. You could mistake it for a caravan resting in the woods, and Claude now understands why they've been taking the carts. The carts are functioning as makeshift houses, and there's about a dozen of them. It looks like all the chopped trees have been turned into planks and lean-toos and what looks like some attempts at small log cabins.
They've got a proper mini village being built here. A village filled with violent assholes who raid travellers, but a village nonetheless.
Claude waves everyone else up and they gather around. Some of them are shocked to see the budding village in front of them. "Okay, I think we should split into three groups and search everything. If you find trouble, just yell. Leonie, Ignatz, and Marianne, Teach, Lorenz, Raphael, and me, Hilda, and Lysithea. Don't take too long. We've probably got half an hour until the main group arrives, and we need time to plan beforehand."
Byleth nods his agreement, and the groups split up to search. Claude's team handles the cabins. That's probably where the leader stays, or at least that's Claude's assumption. It makes sense that the bandit leader would get the best spot, right?
The first thing Claude sees when he opens the first cabin door is that the building is occupied. Not by a bandit, or at least Claude doesn't think it's a bandit. There's a woman in the building. She's in a dress that was probably once lovely, but is now torn and faded from wear and tear. She recoils in shock when Hilda swings open the door, and immediately cowers when Claude aims his bow her way. She doesn't even make a noise, instead staying totally silent as they move into the room.
Claude glances at Hilda and tilts his head towards the woman. Hilda nods her understanding and approaches the lady, and starts talking in whispers as Claude and Lysithea scour the building.
Claude finds a few things of note. There's a large cache of gold and jewels inside a locked chest that Claude managed to open with his lockpicking tools, as well as some women's jewelry that probably belongs to the women in the room. There's also a nice carpet on the floor, and generally everything in the room is of decent quality (if a bit dinged and scratched).
Claude doesn't actually take anything. If they win an ambush, they can come back and get everything later anyhow. Lysithea does the same. She understands the plan. They're looking for correspondences right now, some sign that these bandits are here on orders, and potentially useful things like weapons or vulunaries.
"Claude." Hilda's voice is low, bordering on angry. He glances up to see the woman clinging to Hilda's side. "Angie, that's her name, has been stuck here a while. A year at least."
Something in Claude's stomach turns. "Not a bandit?"
Hilda shakes her head. "She used to be a merchant until the bandits killed her husband and kids. She's been forced to be the lead bandit's 'wife' so to speak."
"Ah." Claude can read between the lines. "Right. Well, she can obviously come with us for now. She should probably stick with Teach."
"Got it." Hilda nods. She leads the shaken women away to find the Professor, and Claude and Hilda move on to the next building. They find a cool sword, a brave sword by the look of it, but it's damaged and nearly broken. Brave weapons are powerful but also very fragile, requiring special training to use. One of the bandits probably tried to use it and messed up, resulting in the damage.
In about seven minutes everyone gathers in the center of the village. Some of the Deer shoot curious glances at Angie, but for the most part she's ignored. "So? What'd you find?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing useful."
"Well we didn't find anything much aside from Angie." Claude sighs. "At least we know there's no other bandits here. Now we have to set up a trap. Leonie, how long would it take you to-"
"Too long." Leonie interrupts. She knows what was going to be asked. A pit trap is too time consuming.
"Right then." Claude mutters. "Teach? I think this is more up your alley."
"This is going to be a hard fight." Byleth says bluntly. "We're outnumbered, so likely we're going to have to do a fighting retreat and chip away at their numbers. If we stay still, we will get overrun."
That doesn't reassure Claude, but Byleth didn't say they couldn't win, just that they'd have to keep moving.
"What about Angie?" Raphael asks. "She can't be near the fight, right?"
"That's right." Byleth nods. "Could I trust you to protect her while we fight? You'll have to stay in the back, along with anyone else who gets injured if Marianne isn't around."
"I can do that!" Raphael says cheerfully.
Claude silently nods. Raphael is powerful, but it will be hard for him to run away. He's a large target and easy to follow. In a straight-on fight he's invaluable, but in a retreat he's a problem.
"You're going to have to stay far away and wait for the rest of us." Byleth warns. "Wait down the path. When we fight, we'll try to draw them away into the forest behind these buildings."
Raphael nods eagerly. Angie seems cautious about the boy, but his cheerful smile is already winning her over by the time they've reached the forest edge.
"Alright everyone." Byleth says. "Here's the plan. We're going to have to work like we did with the boar. The quick ones of us are going to have to go up front and play distraction while the others hit from a range. When they get too close, fall back and repeat the process. Understood?"
Everyone nods mutely. Even Lorenz and Lysithea have no quips to offer. The fight with the boars was bad, this is going to be even more difficult. Boars are animals, predictable. Bandits aren't exactly known for their intelligence, but they're still smarter than animals.
Well, usually.
"We're going to split into two groups. Claude leads one, I take the other." Byleth says. "Claude, Hilda, Marianne, and Ignatz, and me, Lysithea, Leonie, and Lorenz."
His justification for giving them the only proper healer is "your group doesn't have me". Which is fair enough. Also, Lysithea has been learning to heal, so it's not like Byleth's group is completely without healing.
With three out of four of each of their groups having some ranged capability (Leonie having taken up the bow) the two groups take up positions on either side of the path in preparation to fire on the brigands when they walk by.
It's a longer wait than Claude expected, nearly forty five minutes in fact, but the brigands arrive eventually. Both groups pause, wait for the front part of the group to be between them, then let their projectiles fly and flee into the forest. Shouts and curses follow them as well as a few poorly-aimed arrows, but none find their mark. Claude glances at Hilda and jerks his head to the side. Hilda gets the message and drags Marianne and Ignatz in one direction while Claude splits off in the other.
The brigands that followed them split off appropriately, sending a dozen people after Hilda's group and only three after Claude.
Perfect.
After a minute of chase Claude whirls around, skids to a stop while aiming, and snaps a shot into one of his pursuers. It sinks into the man's thigh, which is good enough for him. It sends the man tumbling to the dirt, and one of his companions stumbles over him.
One of his pursuers is an archer who is drawing an arrow at him. Claude drops his own arrow upon seeing this and snaps his fingers at him, summoning his orb of darkness right in the man's face. The moment's confusion is all Claude needs to draw another arrow and sink it into the archer's neck.
With one of his companions dead and the other crippled, the last brigand tries to run. Claude sinks two arrows into their back and they go down. Claude gazes at the last man trying to crawl away for a second before shooting him in the head to end his misery.
With those three down, Claude goes to assist Hilda and the others.
###
Ignatz is fairly sure this wasn't part of the plan. Claude splitting off was his plan, but he and Marianne splitting from Hilda definately wasn't. Granted, they were getting overrun and Hilda couldn't protect them from so many foes, so it made sense to split up, but that doesn't mean he feels comfortable about it.
While Hilda stood to fight, he and Marianne kept running (as Hilda ordered them to). Judging by the shouts of "Oh Goddess!" behind them Ignatz would guess that Hilda took out a least a few of them.
That sounds like a tree being pulled being pulled out of the ground. Maybe Hilda will just take out all of them.
Of course that's too good to be true, but Ignatz can hope.
Marianne is silent as Ignatz leads her along. Her grip on his hand is surprisingly strong. A bit more surprising is when she suddenly pulls him to the side and out of the way of a fireball that roars through the spot he was just occupying.
Ignatz has never been so happy that mages can sense magic, because he's fairly sure Marianne didn't look behind them before making that dodge.
Ignatz pulls his bow out, but with his nerves he fumbles his first arrow. He's used to having someone between himself and his foes! He's never been the target! Having people charging and yelling at him is terrifying.
Marianne is quicker in her response. Her hands come up and the sickly white light of Nosferatu flashes in the air. The mage following them flinches as the tendrils of the spell dig into his flesh, but mages have always had decent resistance to magic so it's not as impactful as they hoped.
The mage isn't their only pursuer though. There's at least five more people beside them. Ignatz finally gets his act together and manages to take a shot. It's a good shot too, the mage now has an arrow through their heart.
Ignatz backpedals while shooting more arrows, but even with his accuracy not all of them find their marks. This is where fighting in a forest is a disadvantage, because sometimes random branches or tree trunks block shots that would otherwise land.
Marianne scrambles back when one of the brigands gets too close with his axe, and Ignatz hastily shoots at the man to try and protect the girl as she runs behind him. It's not a kill shot though, he only hits the man in the shoulder. The axeman turns his attention towards the small boy with burning eyes and charges with a roar. Ignatz makes another shot, but this one misses entirely in his haste.
He doesn't have time to move away. He falls to the floor to avoid a hefty swing of the man's axe, and he knows that he won't be able to avoid another. The man raises the axe high with his one good arm and-
"STOP!"
Everyone freezes. Ignatz, the axeman, the two other surviving brigands, all of them. To Ignatz it feels like someone dug their fingers into his brain and pulled. His body feels paralyzed, and judging by the stiffness of the axeman standing over him he's suffering from the exact same thing.
Ignatz can't even bring himself to speak, and blinking takes physical effort. All he can do is breath and listen to the footsteps behind him.
The footsteps in question end directly behind him, and Ignatz is nervous. What's going on? Why can this person move? Who exactly-?
Hands slip underneath his shoulders and Ignatz is pulled to his feet. The contact breaks the paralysis and he scrambles to get his legs under him and stand properly. He tries to turn his head to see who exactly it is, but one of their hands grabs the bottom of his jaw and keeps his gaze fixed forward and away from them.
"Please don't look." Even with a weird, whispering echo to her voice, Ignatz can recognize Marianne. In hindsight it makes a certain amount of sense, she was the only other person here, but what's going on? How is her voice paralyzing everyone?
Her touch also feels… strange. Warm and soft and it makes him feel a bit weak. It's a weird feeling. Maybe an inappropriate feeling? It does feel nice…
Ignatz squeezes his eyes shut for a second. Now is not the time to be thinking about that. "Wh-Wh-Whaaaa?" He can't even get words out of his mouth properly with the paralysis he's under.
"It's fine." Marianne murmurs. She doesn't sound happy, but her voice is surprisingly calm. "You can relax."
It's like she's extinguished a candle. Ignatz's muscles just… give up. He collapses backwards against her, and the only reason he doesn't collapse into the dirt is because Marianne is physically holding him up with one arm.
Ignatz can see Marianne reach out her other arm out to the brigand still standing frozen in front of them with his axe raised. The man jerks into motion, looking for all the world like a giant puppet moving stiffly on strings.
Ignatz can't see exactly what happens. His eyes are firmly fixed forwards after all. He can see the brigand walk past him, hear a muffled "Mph!", and then a minute later the brigand falls to the floor… except he doesn't look the same.
Where the brigand once had muscles, he now looks… emaciated. His flesh is taunt on his body, and his bones sharply poke against the skin. His skin is also deathly pale, and his eyes have rolled into the back of his head.
He doesn't seem to be breathing. The man is now just a pile of bones and skin lying in the dirt.
The other brigands, still frozen in place, wear visible expressions of horror… but when Marianne reaches out her hand again and whispers "you…" to one of them, he too stumbles forward like the obedient puppet he's forced to be.
One by one Marianne beckons the brigands forwards, and one by one they fall to the floor looking like someone stuck a straw into their body and sucked out their life. Soon, it's only him and Marianne left alive, surrounded by corpses sucked dry of life force.
Ignatz stares at the corpses. Marianne's voice drags his attention off them. It still has that odd, quiet echo to it that tickles his ears. "Are you hurt?"
"I-I-" His voice still isn't working properly. He needs to pull himself together. "F-Fine…"
"Good." She hooks her other hand under his other shoulder to help him stand properly. On shaky legs Ignatz manages to make himself stand again. When Marianne removes her hands he wavers, but stays upright.
He's shaken by this whole ordeal. He's had people try to kill him, and gotten closer than they ever had before, and he just saw… or rather didn't see Marianne drink the life out of four people.
He should really be considering what that means. What does that mean? Was that a spell? Can Marianne do that normally? Should he be worried?
No, that's mean of him to think. Regardless of what Marianne might be, she still got him out of certain death.
"Ignatz…"
A shiver goes down his spine on hearing his voice whispered. This is not normal, there's no way this is normal. Ignatz doesn't know anything about charm magic, but he would bet his life savings charm magic is involved right now.
Ignatz then makes the mistake of turning around, and his breath leaves his body in a rush. Marianne looks exactly the same, except there's something else. Ignatz couldn't say what it is, he doesn't exactly know. Maybe it's charm magic, it's probably charm magic, and Ignatz doesn't exactly feel comfortable with how it is encouraging him to oogle the girl in front of him.
Marianne shifts from foot to foot, unsure how to handle this. Does she wipe his memory? This is a really bad time for that. No, she can't do that now. Hilda already knows about her, as does Claude, but Ignatz is her main feeding target. Him knowing about her would mean she either has to find another main feeding target or accept having Ignatz be aware that she's feeding on him (which is embarrassing and horrifying for obvious reasons).
She can deal with this later. They need to go help Hilda. "Don't tell anyone what I am, alright? We can talk later."
"Okay." Ignatz squeaks. He knows he probably shouldn't stare, but it's impossible not to. Mentally he's trying to figure out what Marianne is. It doesn't take him long. He doesn't know a whole lot about other species, but succbi are infamous and their abilities well-known. It only takes him a minute of thought to figure it out. "Oh wow, so that's what it feels like to be under a succubus' power… that's…" Terrifying? Fascinating? Both?
On the other hand, Ignatz suddenly has a few ideas for paintings.
"In the meantime…" Marianne takes two steps forwards, looks him dead in the eyes, and lightly grabs his face. "Focus."
Ignatz can feel a physical change. The shaky, nervous feeling in his limbs is abruptly pushed into the back of his mind, his eyes feel sharp, and his fingers are steady as he picks up his bow again. It's weird to think that Marianne just ordered his body to focus and it instantly complied, bypassing his own will entirely.
Not that Ignatz thinks this is a bad idea. Considering how shaky he was, forcing him to focus is probably a good thing. He doesn't want to miss another shot because he's panicking.
Marianne puts her necklace back on, and whatever charm magic is forcing Ignatz's gaze to stay fixed on her is suddenly gone. With the addition of one piece of jewelry, she's normal Marianne again.
She turns her head away from him. "C-Can you stop staring…?"
Ignatz jumps and turns around as quickly as he can. His voice is squeaky. "I- uh- right! Okay! Let's go find Hilda!"
###
Claude finds Hilda in the middle of a clearing that he's fairly sure wasn't there before. There's also a lot of stains and bone fragments in the dirt, showing the evidence of Hilda's work. The girl herself has a few cuts and an arrow in her hip, but a concoction patches that up until they can find Marianne… and that doesn't take too long.
Something clearly happened between Marianne and Ignatz though. They each keep glancing at each other and looking away a moment later. Marianne is fiddling with her necklace and Ignatz with an arrow.
There are other priorities though, they have to meet up with the other group. Back to the makeshift village with them.
The other group finds them partway back, having disposed of their foes much quicker. Lorenz is sporting a bandage around his arm, and Leonie is limping, but it's nothing serious that healing magic can't fix.
And fix everyone Marianne does. In the meantime though, Claude can oddly smell what he thinks is the remains of a fire. Did someone get hit with a fire spell? No one seems to have any burnt clothing.
"Did someone take out the leader?" Claude asks quickly.
"I did." Byleth says flatly. "He was easy."
That almost feels like an insult considering how much difficulty the rest of them had, but Byleth rarely seems to think before he speaks, so it's probably not intended to be one.
"So then…" Claude says slowly. "What are we going to do with all these carts?"
Everyone gazes at the carts. Some are definitely still functional, but there aren't enough horses to pull that many.
"Well at least we can probably fit everything important into our cart." Lysithea offers. "We have a lot of storage space."
"That's true." Claude muses. "Do we just bring everything important to the next village and tell them about this place?"
"I guess." Hilda shrugs. "What other choice do we have?"
Well there are other choices, just none of them that Claude considers practical.
So they take half an hour to pack everything they can take into their cart while Leonie goes and fetches Raphael and Angie. Within two hours, they're on their way again.
Okay, this took a while. Hope you like it! You can tell I'm really pushing the Marianne plot line right now. Also was trying to show why succubi are considered so terrifying in this chapter.
