A Wil and a Way
By: Vilya
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters or places. However, I do own the idea for this story.
And the idea is…suppose Wil was already gone by the time you fight the battle in Bern? What might happen then? And here you have it! Read on, valiant viewers (and reviewers, I hope!)!
Lyn knew that sound well, or at least well enough not to like it. In fact, she found she preferred the sound of the enemy's axe being sharpened on a stone to what she was hearing now. It was a shame, she mused, that she heard this particular sound far more often.
"Ah, and what a jewel you look!" Sain exclaimed. Lyn's palm found its way to her forehead with a rather loud smack. Kent looked over at her and chuckled under his breath.
"Stop annoying Florina, Sain," Lyn muttered, though she knew it was probably useless. She'd told the cavalier the same thing about fifteen times already. "And next time you do it," she added with a bit more venom, "I unpack the Mani Katti."
"Ah, but I carry a lance, fair Lyndis!" Sain said, obviously enjoying himself. "Lances are as effective against swords as any weapon can be!"
"Not when the sword's been run through your middle," Kent pointed out. Lyn smirked, glad her face was half-hidden in shadows due to the fire. On the other side of said fire, Florina shivered, both from the unexpectedly chill night and from Sain's closeness. She didn't like that at all.
"Sain, I meant it," Lyn said, her voice acquiring the edge usually associated with well-made steel weaponry. "Back off." Sain's eyes widened a bit, and he nodded wordlessly, sliding over closer to Kent and farther from Florina.
Lyn sighed again and looked away from her companions, out to the dark land beyond the small circle of light the fire made. The four of them were somewhere on the border between Sacae and Bern, though exactly where wasn't really an easy thing to tell, even with a map. Simply being near Bern made her blood boil. Someday soon, she'd get her revenge on those bandits…
"What a beautiful night," Florina said quietly, looking up into the moonless sky.
"Dark nights like this are the high time for attacks," Kent countered. "We'd best be on our guard."
"Ever one to drown the spirit, weren't you?" Sain asked rather sourly. "Honestly, Kent, you could lighten up a bit. You're a Caelin knight, for crying out loud!"
"If I were a random traveler and met the two of us in a dark alley on a night like this," Kent replied coldly, "I'd have few doubts that I was a knight, and few doubts that you were not."
"Take that back!"
"Truth hurts. And besides, neither of us are knights. Knights tend to resemble quaking walls of armor."
"Quaking?" Lyn questioned, though her voice was a distant one.
"When they walk," Sain offered, "the ground shudders."
"Oh. Well, I hope I meet them on our side, then, and not the enemy's."
"Why's that?"
"Because if I met them as enemies, they'd be the ones shuddering."
"Funny," Sain snapped. "I didn't know you were so arrogant."
"He seems to bring out your worst qualities," Kent agreed with a rare grin. Sain elbowed him as hard as he possibly could, though it barely fazed the cavalier, who was still wearing his armor.
About another hour passed with Lyn lost in her silent thoughts, Kent and Sain bickering as only the two of them could, and Florina shrinking farther and farther back from the two of them.
The night grew darker, and Kent silently stood to get more wood for their fire. There wasn't much wood around, just a few stunted trees, but those were also mostly dead and made wonderful fuel.
"Sleep should happen at some point," Lyn said, snapping suddenly out of her thoughts. "I mean…yes, we need a watch, but the rest of us should sleep."
Florina nodded tiredly in agreement, spreading a blanket over the ground and curling up on it with her arm for a pillow. Lyn smiled and rolled her eyes, then looked over at Sain.
"When Kent comes back, you two can fight out who's going to watch first," she said, going to her own sleeping blanket and lying on it, one hand wrapped around the hilt of her sword. "Good night."
"'Good night', she says," Sain grumbled, digging aimlessly in the dirt with a stick. "Bloody good night it'll be for her, too, she doesn't have to stay up all through it staring out at dark nothing because I know that'll be my job I always lose to Kent in these kinds of things…"
Kent returned in the middle of Sain's argument with himself and quietly piled the wood by the fire, adding a few logs so it didn't burn down to embers. Then, shrugging at the back of the still-grumbling Sain, Kent went to sleep.
A few hours later, Sain turned around, wondering where in the world 'that good-for-nothing-cavaliering-red-armored-lout' had gotten to, and found him there, asleep by the fire.
"I'll kill him. Someday soon." Sain would have continued this litany had an arrow not sliced through the air by his ear and landed in one of the logs by the fire. With a cry loud enough to wake both Kent and Lyn, Sain spun around as another arrow bounced off his armor.
"What?" Kent asked, grabbing his lance and standing quickly. "Sain, why are you yelling?"
"It better be good," Lyn added as she tied her sword back around her waist. "I was having a nice dream."
"Get Florina up," Sain said, dodging out of the way as another arrow streaked past him. "It's dangerous for her if there are archers about."
"Put out the fire, too," Kent said. "They'll use it like a beacon—it'll lead them right to us."
"Lead who right to us?" Lyn asked as she bent to shake Florina awake.
"Bandits of the Bern variety," Kent whispered, readying his horse and mounting it. "Florina," he addressed the still-sleepy Pegasus knight, "you need to take yourself and your mount as far away as possible."
"What?" Florina mumbled groggily as Lyn pulled her to her feet. "But why?"
"Archers are coming," Sain said, wincing as he heard yet another one chink off his armor. "A fair distance away, but gaining. Keep out of sight," he said sternly to Florina.
"Lyn…really?" she asked, looking at Lyn with frightened eyes. Lyn frowned and tried to keep the obvious indecision from her face.
"Really, Florina. Sain, Kent and I will deal with the archers in short order. You just keep yourself out of the fray—stay far away from the archers."
"O-o-okay, Lyn," Florina stammered, climbing onto her Pegasus as the fire was put out. "But what if you—"
"Don't worry about us," Kent said reassuringly. "Arrows can't get past my armor or Sain's, and Lyn's quite good at dodging arrows…as we've seen before."
Nodding sadly, Florina and her Pegasus took to the air, the young Pegasus knight biting back her concerns for her friends. Lyn watched her go, then drew the Mani Katti, holding the sword ready.
"An honor fighting with you," she said to Sain and Kent, as she'd said at the beginning of every battle they'd shared.
"Really, must you have such a grim outlook?" Sain asked, fear edging into his voice.
"Just making sure you know, because I'd hate to have your spirits haunt my sleep," Lyn said, her mischievous grin—barely visible in the dark—hiding her own apprehension.
"I'd be more worried about you haunting me if I were killed," Sain muttered so only Kent could hear. The cavaliers shared a muffled chuckle.
The three of them stood ready as the four archers and the three brigands, each holding a large axe, advanced on them, with the brigands in front and the archers behind. It was apparent that at the disappearance of the fire, the archers had lost the specific direction in which their targets lay.
"Now," Lyn whispered. Sain and Kent spurred their horses in different directions, drawing the fire of the archers with loud shouts and clangs of metal. Lyn advanced on her own, silently as a shadow, running the Mani Katti straight through one of the brigands before he even knew she was behind him. The second turned to investigate, only to fall in much the same way his companion had.
"You're that plains girl!" exclaimed the last bandit, holding his axe high. Lyn's face turned into a stone-hard glare, and she slipped her sword into its sheath, standing with her feet apart and her hand on the hilt.
The bandit swung. With a cry, Lyn rushed forward, drawing the sword in one quick stroke and slicing open the bandit from hip to shoulder. Behind her, his axe thudded into the ground, no longer supported by his arms. Ducking out of the way as his body fell, Lyn found herself facing an enemy she hadn't seen before, a mercenary judging by his choice of weapon, and he was grinning.
Lyn charged him, her sword flying, its edge glinting despite the obvious lack of light for it to be glinting in. The mercenary sneered and matched her speed blow-for-blow.
Kent had drawn the fire of two of the archers, and he thought he was doing quite well—the horse was still running, but Kent was now well behind it, and his lance split one of the archers as they passed. He regretted, as he always did, the need to kill their enemies, but it was a necessary evil.
The other archer turned to face him, but there was no way he could fire at point-blank range like that—there wasn't even enough room for him to draw the bow. He soon found Kent's sword at his neck, and he dropped his bow. Fighting off his desire to let the archer go free, Kent gave him the most painless death he possibly could.
Sain had attracted only one archer, and was racing his horse all about, trying to avoid the steady stream of arrows. In desperation, he threw his lance behind him like a javelin, and was rewarded—though it felt like a terrible thing to have as a reward—by the sound of said lance bringing down his pursuer.
The final archer hadn't been lured away by such an obvious tactic. In fact, he was watching Lyn and the mercenary in their evenly-matched duel, watching the plains girl tire, and lining up his perfect shot.
Florina, flying high above the battle, watched this with horrified eyes, and saw also that neither Sain nor Kent could possibly get to her in time. Biting her lip and petting her Pegasus's neck, she grabbed her own lance and lined up, ready to dive.
If I want to help Lyn and not be a burden, she thought to herself, drawing on an inner strength that she seldom ever found, then it has to start now. Nodding in confirmation, she aimed her lance downward and dove.
Lyn heard the rush of wind over feathers just before the mercenary whistled for reinforcements. Kent and Sain also heard the whistle, and soon became engaged in driving off more axe-wielders, striking out from the saddle with swords.
Lyn's moment of inattention cost her, and the mercenary's blade slipped past her guard and sliced into her arm, from her shoulder to her elbow. She winced—it felt like her arm was on fire. Sheathing her sword, she faced the mercenary, and he saw the fire in her eyes as she rushed forward. He couldn't even see the blade that killed him—Lyn was moving far too fast.
Whirling, remembering suddenly the noise of sudden wind, Lyn saw Florina diving at the archer who had stood behind her. "Florina! NO! Stop!" Lyn yelled, but the Pegasus knight was already within the archer's range. He pulled back on the bowstring and let fly. Lyn watched in horror as the arrow pierced Florina's shoulder.
The archer froze. He felt the fine edge of a blade pressing into his neck. "You're a bandit of Bern. Your kind killed my parents, so I am bound to kill you," Lyn's voice whispered into his ear as her eyes watched Florina slump forward onto her Pegasus. "But I thought I'd let you know that I'm killing you now because of what you just did to my best friend."
"Please, wait!" the archer said. "I…I can help you!"
"I don't want to hear your words," Lyn hissed, her anger rising. "I want to hear you scream."
"No! I'm not from Bern! I'm not a bandit! Please, you must believe me!" The sincerity of his voice broke through Lyn's fury, and she relaxed her sword a very tiny bit.
"Alright then. Explain yourself, and make it quick, or I go back to taking your head from your shoulders."
"I…I come from Pherae. Really, I do. I joined the bandits in Bern in hopes of finding the friend I knew in my childhood. When we sighted your fire, they said you were one of the survivors of the Lorca massacre, and that we were hunting you."
"You haven't given me any reason to trust you," Lyn growled. Her eyes were watching the Pegasus land, watching Florina's lance fall to the ground, out of the Pegasus knight's limp grasp.
"You have no reason to trust me," the archer admitted openly. "But as an archer, I know all there is to know about arrows. I can help your friend."
"Why would you do that for me? I want to kill you."
"Because…I was watching you fight. You don't seem like the evil they made you out to be, and neither do your companions. The Pegasus knights of Ilia would never join the side of someone evil."
"Why should I believe your words? Any bandit would say thus."
"Listen. Do you want Florina to die?" The sincerity of his words, and the momentary vision Lyn had of Florina, slumped unconscious against her mount's neck, forced her to withdraw her blade.
He sighed as he felt the sword leave his neck entirely. "Alright, archer," Lyn said. "You either save Florina or I kill you. And that's a promise. Don't think you can run from me for long." Frowning, Lyn handed him a vulnerary, the last one she had. He reached out his hand to take it, but a flying axe—a hand axe—smashed the vial, its contents spilling to the ground, wasted. The archer's eyes widened.
"My offer stands," Lyn said, turning to take on the owner of the hand axe.
Together, she, Kent and Sain finished off the reinforcements, and Kent pulled her up onto his horse to ride back to where they'd left Florina. As they rode, she filled him in on the details. Kent sincerely wanted to question Lyn's decision, but he trusted her and knew this also meant he had to trust her judgment, despite his doubts. He believed Lyn was a good judge of character, and he also knew that the archer would be quite willing to keep his life.
Sain joined them and rode alongside them, and Lyn gave him a bit of a briefer version than she had Kent. He had no qualms about voicing his opinions, but Kent spurred his horse on faster so they wouldn't really have to listen.
"Thanks," Lyn said quietly. Suddenly, despite how worried she was about Florina, Lyn felt very tired. She felt her eyes beginning to close, and she shook herself awake. She'd be no use to anyone if she fell asleep after every little battle like that.
"That reminds me," she said, though what had really sparked her thoughts was the hand axe that had taken her last vulnerary straight from her hands. "Kent, are you carrying any vulneraries?"
"No, I used my last one back in Sacae," he said, his voice taking on a regretful tone. "And Sain lost the last of his long ago, clumsy oaf…do you think Florina has any?"
"I don't know. She doesn't carry much anyway, but she might…" Lyn paused to bring herself awake again. It must have been later than she'd thought it was, she reasoned. There was no other excuse for her being this tired.
They approached the rekindled fire, and were soon surrounded by its glow. "M'lady Lyndis…" Kent began, and Lyn turned her head to the side, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "You look a bit pale…are you alright?"
"Yes, fine. You worry too much," Lyn said with a small smile. Kent stopped his horse and they both dismounted, with Sain right behind them. His chastisement had stopped a few yards back, far enough so that the archer couldn't chance to hear him.
Florina was lying on one of the blankets be the fire, another one covering her and a broken arrow beside her. The archer was nowhere to be seen. Lyn knelt by Florina worriedly while Sain and Kent searched the nearby area.
"Did you find him?" Lyn asked as they returned. The cavaliers looked at her and saw that her face seemed at peace, and they nodded to one another.
"We did not find him, m'lady," Sain said. "Shall we search for him in the morning?"
"No. I promised him his life, and he's free to take it."
"Should I take that to mean Florina's all right?" Sain asked a bit too eagerly. Lyn looked up at him, about to stop his obvious attempt, but then sighed and smiled. Let him carry on, just this once, she decided. After all, Florina couldn't hear him.
"If she isn't now, she will be. But it might be to our advantage to return to the last village we stayed in, if we can, tomorrow morning." Lyn seemed to be about to continue, but bit her lip and frowned. What is wrong with me tonight? she asked herself. I'm usually so energetic after battles…right now, I feel like all I want is a warm bed and three days to just…sleep…
"Lyndis!"
"M'lady!" Lyn's eyes snapped open again at the sounds of their voices, only this time it seemed as if more than a few seconds had gone by, because Kent was behind her, holding her up in a sitting position, and Sain was beside her, looking at her with concern.
Kent's hands shifted from her shoulders to her arms and she gasped. His touch lit her arm on fire again, and she looked down at it and wished she hadn't. A gash ran from her shoulder to just above her elbow, and it was caked with dirt and blood, which had also run all down her arm throughout the course of the battle. Her sleeve, or rather both sleeves, were torn from the shoulder down.
"That looks nasty," Sain said with distaste in his voice, the way Lyn might have talked about the Taliver Bandits.
"Well you're some great help," Kent snapped. Lyn blinked, surprised. Kent often criticized Sain for his…flaunting ways, but he never outright yelled at the man. It was unbelievable at first, but the two of them were close friends.
"Here," said a familiar voice, and the cavaliers snapped their attention upward as the archer walked into the circle of firelight, holding out a container of water. Sain and Kent looked at him, somewhere between enraged and shocked. "Hey, if you don't want it, it's no problem of mine," he said, but Sain grabbed it before he could even move to take it back.
Lyn grabbed a cloth from her pack and used the water to wash most of the blood and dirt away while the archer spoke to Kent and Sain, who were looking at him like he might make a nice late-night meal.
"I ran away from my home," he said, admitting this without hesitation. "I wanted adventure. A need for money got me in league with bandits in Bern, and thus brought me here. I received word that the village in which I stayed was attacked only a few days after I departed. Were you the ones to stop the attack?"
"Perhaps we were, and perhaps not," Kent said coldly. "How do we know you're not just using this as a ruse to get at us while we sleep? For all we know, you're a thief as well, maybe even an assassin sent to kill Lyn like you did the rest of her tribe—"
"Calm yourself, Kent," Lyn said, looking up at them with serious eyes. "This man was not in the group that murdered my people."
"Name's Wil," the archer offered, extending his hand. With her good one, Lyn shook it.
"M'lady!" Sain exclaimed. "How can you trust him! He nearly killed Florina!"
"And he repaid me for it, and more besides," Lyn said sternly. "You will treat Wil with the respect he deserves as a member of our little party."
"What?!" exclaimed both cavaliers, shock registering on their faces. "You can't be serious!" Sain went on.
"He'd have no objections if your name were, for example, Willa," Lyn said to Wil pointedly. The archer smirked, as did Kent. "And I am quite serious, Sain. Besides, an archer is an advantage, if we have to fight again. And I'll hear no arguments. Kent, Wil, the two of you continue with the watch. I'm going back to sleep. Good morning to you all." With that, Lyn walked over to her blanket and tried to get to sleep again, though with the constant burning sensation all along her arm it was a difficult task.
While Sain finally got to obtaining the rest he'd been wishing for, Kent and Wil sat silently, facing the fire. Every so often one of them would toss another branch on, or avert their eyes to scan the area.
"Who is she that can be so brave as to dive at an archer from a flying horse?" Wil asked finally, looking over at Florina.
"She's actually quite timid," Kent said, following Wil's gaze. "Afraid of men…but she'd give her life if it meant protecting Lady Lyndis. What were you doing that sparked her so?"
Wil looked down at the ground, the best attempt to hide his face that he could give. "I was lining up my bow to send an arrow through Lyndis's heart," he said, his voice holding remorse, but no shame or begging of forgiveness.
Kent was silent for a long while, letting Wil think as well as giving himself some time to consider exactly how his next set of words would go.
"You show strength in admitting this," Kent said finally, and Wil looked up. "A lesser man would have tried to lie."
"I…I wonder how many other people, good people, make mistakes like the one I almost made."
"What?"
"Killing someone who was also a good person. Who, under different circumstances, they might've become friends with…might have been their ally."
"If some people didn't make those very mistakes," Kent said, "this world would have no need of valiant adventurers, for all people would be good. And the balance simply cannot be thrown that far off. There must always be evil to counter that good."
"But we do it, too," Lyn said. The men turned to her—she was sitting up, wide awake now, watching them. "How many of those bandits tonight, or the attackers two days ago, might have had families, children, a home to return to if we hadn't killed them? How many of those people might have been our allies?
"What if I'd have killed Wil?"
Both Wil and Kent were amazingly taken aback by this, though Lyn didn't see it as anything other than what she thought of almost every day. "I dislike the idea that I may be a murderer," Kent said finally. "However, I believe that in this case it is a necessity. It is…for the good of all Lycia."
"That still doesn't justify it," Lyn whispered.
"I'd rather not dwell on it, thanks," Wil said, shuddering. "It's…rather demoralizing to realize what you're doing to someone else's family."
"If only the rulers of the Lycian League could know that…" Kent mused, but shook his head. "Wil's right. No need to speak of it. I'll continue to keep watch on my own, Lady Lyndis. Both of you should sleep."
Lyn nodded wordlessly, quite certain that now, she would be able to sleep, though she didn't know why. Wil slept also, though a bit uneasily. Kent waited a few hours, did a few things to occupy himself and set the camp right for the night, then leaned against a good-size log and closed his eyes, not asleep but not awake. If there were a threat, he'd hear it.
It was the morning sunlight that woke Lyn, and she blinked slowly, wanting to stay asleep for a few more hours at least. But she heard voices, Kent and Sain's voices—arguing again, she thought in the back of her mind—and as she tried to roll away from them, a sharp pain had her sitting bolt upright, no longer thinking about sleep.
Grimacing, she looked down at her arm, at her torn shirtsleeve and the undyed cloth, wrapped around her arm, that hadn't been there the night before. Shrugging, Lyn stood and folded up her blanket.
"Good morning!" Sain called. "And as lovely as the sun she looks!" he continued in a voice low enough that she couldn't hear it.
"She told you to stop that, Sain," Kent said, strapping his things back onto his horse. "Perhaps you'd better listen."
"Yeah," Wil said, grinning. "One of these days, she's going to hear you when you don't mean her to, and you're going to be skewered."
"Lyn wouldn't skewer him," Kent said, frowning, though he was obviously trying to conceal laughter.
"Oh?" Wil asked, playing along. "Then what would she do?"
"She'd leave her sword where it was and beat him with her fists."
They would be returning, as they'd planned, to the village they'd left the day before. No doubt that village would be surprised to see them back again. While Kent, Sain and Wil packed everything, Lyn walked slowly over to Florina's Pegasus and stroked its nose.
"Will you let me ride you?" she asked, although really she was going to ride him—her?—whether he wanted her to or not. "Well, someone has to, we've got to get Florina back to a village, but it's either me or the new archer, and I'm pretty sure you're afraid of archers…oh, listen to me," Lyn berated herself quietly. "I'm babbling on like Sain."
The Pegasus snuffed. Lyn smiled and petted it again. "I don't understand you like Florina does, but I hope that was a yes. Kent!" she called, and the cavalier turned his head her way. She gave him a little wave. "Thanks!" Kent looked genuinely perplexed, which made Lyn smile wider.
The five of them were soon off for the village they'd left only the day before, with Wil and Sain on one horse, Kent on the other, and Lyn and Florina, the former holding the latter upright with one hand and attempting to fly with the other, on the Pegasus.
"You think Lyndis is going to be able to land that thing?" Wil asked, looking up and shading his eyes with one hand. Sain only gave a grunt—it was obvious that he still didn't trust the archer. "Really?" Wil continued, undaunted. "That's an interesting opinion."
Most of the rest of the ride passed in silence; even Sain didn't grumble about his usual things—the lack of beautiful women, the lack of enemies to fight, the lack of food…Kent smiled. It was nice to have some peace and quiet.
They reached the village around mid-afternoon, and Lyn did land the Pegasus without much of a problem. Kent carried Florina, despite Sain's protests, and Wil led them to one house in particular.
"I lived here, for a while," he explained. "In fact, if that attack had come any sooner than it did, you'd have found me here. They'll let you stay."
"Thanks," Lyn said, smiling. As Kent, Sain and Florina went inside, Lyn put a hand on Wil's shoulder to stop him from following.
"Yes?" he asked.
"I mean it. It was no benefit to you to stick around, but you did anyway. I hope you do decide to stay with us. We could use a distance attacker who knows how to keep a fire going." Lyn smiled slyly, and Wil grinned back.
"Tell me," he said as they went inside, "do you often speak as though there were some information you were trying to convey through its absence and your voice tone alone?"
Lyn laughed, bringing the door closed behind her as she did so. "Only on days when the sun rises."
Well? How was it?