"To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time"

-Chapter 6: The Sea of Aegis-

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Caesar watched with a frown as, once again, the oncoming Tinto forces attempted to push around to the east. It would be a perfectly valid move, he supposed – trying to get behind the bulk of the forces and drive them into the very mountains that blocked most of Tinto's maneuvers now – if Albert's Harmonians hadn't held the position they were attempting to break through. As it was, the Tintos were slaughtered with unnerving efficiency, the first ranks cut down by lightning magic, the second by ranks of polearms as they stumbled over the felled corpses of their comrades.

Yet they kept pushing toward the jaws of death, rather than locking with the Grasslanders to the west or the Zexens to the north. Their shorter swords and less ruthless – more honest, one might say – style of combat left fewer casualties among the ranks of the Tinto.

Why didn't they retreat? The mountains were at their back, yes, but there was a broad pass there. He wouldn't pursue if they ran for their lives. As it stood, they were going to be slaughtered.

He pulled out his binoculars and watched the progress of one particular soldier, a young man who looked as though he wanted to turn back. Pushed forward by the ranks behind him, he was cut down by one of the Zexens.

Maybe that sort of watching wasn't the best idea. Instead, he swung his binoculars up to look at Albert, standing on the bluff opposite his and staring fixedly down at the battle below. Caesar could wish for his detachment. As he watched, Albert leaned over and said something to his second-in-command, an alarmingly thin man with an eminently forgettable name. The thin man nodded furiously and said something back with a peculiar drop of his head that made it quite clear that his words were flattering. Caesar couldn't help but frown; it was a bad idea to surround oneself with sycophants. Still, though he and Albert might have come to something of an understanding, he'd be damned if he'd mention it to him. Maybe Apple could say something.

He put the binoculars back into his belt and turned to his own second. "The opportunity to see Harmonian efficiency firsthand is charming, isn't it?"

Apple shrugged. "I think we can find it here in a greater degree than anywhere else, though."

"You think it's the influence of my dear brother?" He turned back to the battlefield. "Wouldn't surprise me."

Tinto was continuing its insane push forward. It didn't look as though they would be able to go on much longer; the front lines of the force were all but destroyed. Caesar didn't really care to watch.

Instead, he looked up at the sky. An odd dot caught his eye, coming from the northeast. He pulled out his binoculars to see an odd-looking bird floating along, drifting toward the battlefield.

"Apple, are you seeing this bird?" he asked.

Her voice held a bit of rare scorn. "No, Caesar; I'm watching the battle."

"It's just..." he said, then dropped it. It had by this point reached the battlefield – it must have been faster than it looked – and circled above the Harmonians two times. Then it dived, only to pull up in front of Albert. He looked up, then held out a hand for the bird to alight on. Once it had settled down, he pulled something from its leg and launched it skyward again. It flipped its long tail, then flew off the way it had come.

"A messenger," Caesar muttered, and focused on his brother as he read the paper he had taken from the bird. It was impossible to make out Albert's expression at this distance, even with the binoculars, but his head snapped up and he turned to his second sharply. The second took the message from him, read it over, and said something. Albert sat extraordinarily still for a moment, then turned to an attendant, who saluted and rode off.

A minute later, the distinctive sound of Harmonian bugles cut the air.

"Shit." Caesar turned to Apple. "Any idea what that means?"

Her brow furrowed in concentration for a moment. "I think...No...I'm not sure."

"Helpful," Caesar said, then looked back at the battlefield. "Shit!"

The Harmonian forces were pulling back. Not retreating, no; this was very controlled. It looked more as though they were going to defend to the northeast. This opened an enormous gap for the Tinto forces to push through, to get behind the Zexens, and if they did...

"What the fuck is he doing?" Caesar spat. It probably had something to do with the message he had received, but...

Caesar turned to his aide. "Have the Zexen forces pull back to the northwest."

"You can't. That'll put our backs against the cliff face," Apple pointed out.

"I know it will." Caesar scowled as Apple shrugged and the aide rode off. Even without the Harmonians, they had a slight numerical advantage – about five thousand to four – but if Tinto got behind them...

So Caesar leaned forward in his saddle, willing the Zexens to a faster retreat, and Tinto to a slower advance.

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"What the hell was that about?" Caesar spat. Albert looked up from his conference with his thin second and a man with a vaguely scholarly air about him.

"That's wasn't my doing," he said.

"No? What part of it wasn't...We could have won that battle!"

Rather than explaining, of course, Albert felt the need to correct his brother. "We did win that battle."

"There was no we about it." Caesar snorted out a laugh. "You seemed to have very little part in it. And do you have any idea how many people we lost? Do you have any idea how many people we could have lost?"

Albert frowned and slid ungracefully off his horse. Caesar did the same with slightly more decorum.

"Lord Silverberg..." the thin man began in a surprisingly deep voice. Albert waved him off.

"Let's take a walk, Caesar," Albert said. Caesar toyed with refusing, just to spite him, to express that he couldn't shake of the death of the scores of men who even now he could see being buried, just against the cliff wall to his right, but Albert's sycophant clearly was against this little stroll. So he went.

They only ended up going a few hundred feet, far enough to be out of earshot but not far enough for Caesar to have lost his anger, before Albert turned to him.

"Here," his brother said, and shoved the paper Caesar had seen earlier into his hand with considerable force. This snapped Caesar out of his own rage to see that Albert was as angry as he'd ever known him to be: pale, stiff-lipped, and with jerky movements. Maybe his claim denying that the loss was his fault wasn't so utterly false.

So Caesar looked down at the letter, written on a strip of light paper much wider than it was long. It bore the official seal of Harmonia, and the paper itself was rich and flecked with something that glittered as it caught the sunlight.

He flipped it over to see a brief message, written in a scrawling shorthand he never would have expected –

Fr eyes of Albert Sberg only; prevent Tinto frcs from gng n of Alma Kinan trty at all costs, statim. When done, frtfy 42.9043x21.1002.Don't assist G.&Z. frcs, unless nec. to convince still allies. - Sasarai

Caesar stared down at this a moment. "Well," he said. "Well."

"Yeah."

"I would have expected Sasarai to have better spelling."

"It's to save room, genius."

"I know. I was trying to make a joke."

"Frankly, Caesar, I don't think that this is the best time for a joke."

"I think it's always a good time for a joke, Albert, because if I don't laugh, I'm probably gonna cry, but really, that's neither here nor there. Isn't showing this to me – vaguely – you know – treasonous?"

"Vaguely, yes."

"Why'd you show it to me, then?"

Albert frowned. "God only knows," he spat. "You don't seem to be appreciating the gesture much." He started walking again, farther away from the massed generals, and Caesar had to scurry a bit to keep up with his brother's impressive stride.

"Oh – I appreciate it. Trust me, I do. It's just taking a moment for it to..." Caesar cleared his throat. "Sink in." He looked down again at that last sentence. "Did you know?"

"Did I know what."

Caesar scowled at his brother's back. Albert hadn't just lost five hundred more men than he should have; no reason for him to be so snappish. "Did you know that Sasarai had this in mind."

"No!" Albert said, and stopped suddenly to turn to Caesar. "He used me. He used me. I thought – that...that the armies would be directly under my command, that he didn't even pay attention when I asked...I thought I was coming to help you! But he must have asked me in there with the intent that I would...Dammit!"

Caesar, for his part, was torn between outrage for his manipulated brother and satisfaction that Albert finally felt what he had been inflicting upon others for years innumerable. He settled on the former after a bit of debate, if only for that coming to help you comment. "That's just – it's low."

"It is low," Albert agreed, and seemed quite calmed by his brother's solidarity. He shook his head. "If I had thought...that it would be this, I never would have come here."

"Well, at least we had the opportunity to catch up on old times," Caesar said with false cheer. Then, seriously: "What if you were to disobey the order?"

Albert shook his head. "No."

He reflected. "Yeah. Stupid suggestion. Sorry." Then he looked down at the message once again. "What does this mean? These numbers..."

"They're coordinates," Albert said, much in the way one might say That's the ground, dear. "It's a common tool for denoting positions."

"Not here."

"Well, it is in Harmonia."

"Okay. What position do they commonly denote?"

"These ones?" Albert frowned down at the paper. "Do you have a map?"

"I do, though I must note that it's not commonly denoted into – "

"Could I have it, please?"

Caesar reached into his belt pouch and pulled out his map. "A good strategist always carries maps around with him."

"A good strategist knows when to shut his filthy, bile-spewing face," Albert replied mildly, taking the thing from Caesar's hands.

"I can't even begin to express how intimidating you are," Caesar comment. Albert waved him off, though, staring intently down at the map.

"The forty line is about here," he said, tracing a finger across the map, "and the twenty here. So they meet..."

"In the middle of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere," Caesar declared. "Sasarai is off his rocker."

"Entirely possible," Albert agreed absently. "But I'll be damned if it isn't vaguely..."

Caesar took a second look, and inwardly agreed that, indeed, it was more than vaguely familiar. "Yeah..." He looked up at his brother, and somehow, he understood. "That's the ceremonial site."

"Of course..." Albert breathed. "I should have known. So..."

"Sasarai is after the True Wind Rune," Caesar said.

"Or Tinto is, and he's trying to defend it from them," Albert replied, and ran a hand through his hair. "God...Is it – "

"My Lords Silverberg!" someone behind them cried. Caesar turned to see an aide from his camp riding over, flanked by two soldiers, each both riding and leading a horse. "This area isn't secure. You should come in."

Caesar looked at Albert, who looked exasperated, but shrugged. The soldiers reached the elder first, and he was offered a hand up. Albert took it and hauled himself ungracefully into the saddle. The second soldier approached Caesar and offered him a hand. Caesar waved it off, though with a muttered thanks, and started to pull himself into the saddle.

As though on cue, a heavy crossbow bolt thudded into the ground near Caesar. His horse shied and tried to run; Caesar could only maintain his grip for a moment before he fell hard onto the ground, all breath knocked from him. Then it was a confusion of cries and stomping legs until Caesar realized that a second arrow had landed on the other side of his horse, which now was running towards him, and all he could do was sort of grunt feebly and try to roll to the side –

Then someone had grabbed the reins of his horse and pulled it away from its mad dash –

And someone was riding over on a horse terrified, and Albert was just calling out to find out what was going on when he stopped and cried out and turned enough to let Caesar see the arrow that protruded from his back.

Slowly, Albert slipped from his horse, and fell against one of the knights, and when Caesar regained his feet, he could see the paleness of Albert's face and the pool of crimson spreading grimly where it shouldn't have been.

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In response to the responses to Albert's plan: It's MAGICAL, dammit. WIZARDS DID IT. Um, no; anyway. The actual plan is not, indeed, to, you know, kazaam the entire army into the heart of Tinto, but rather to use a small – very small – force whose progress into Tinto will be concealed until they take the Presidential palace. Sort of a chess move; take the king, and the game's over. It's how they do it in Harmonia. Duh. But the force would take all their supplies with them, travel by night, et cetera, et cetera – you know, the regular Suikoden battles rather than the army battles.

Let it be known that I shoot cute guys for kicks.