-Legend of the Twin Swords-
By: Kratos the Judgment

Chapter 7: A Dire Strategy

When next I awoke, the sun hung low in the western sky. The rain appeared to
have let up not too long ago, seeing as the ground and my cloths were still
soaked. With some effort, I sat up and checked Rayne. She was still out, but
breathing. I shook her shoulder and she came groggily out of her stupor.

"Where am I? Are we…"

"Alive? It appears so. My cloak and a bit of luck saved us."

"Luck?"

"Rain saved us."

"Huh, I did what?"

"No," I laughed, "Rain from the sky. It put out the fires before we were both
cooked alive"

She was still rather weak, so I picked her up on my back and, slowly, trudged off
towards the others. As we walked, Rayne asked me about how my cloak had
saved us, so I told her some of the tale and about Pent as well. She seemed
intrigued by the tales of my adventures with Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn.
Eventually, she confessed the reason she had followed me instead of going with
her brother.

"After all the stories I heard from Wil and Rebecca," she started, "I just couldn't
let you go off like that. They always spoke of you as a hero. I just had to follow.
I couldn't help myself."

I didn't reply. I had no idea what to say. So I just kept walking. It was hard
going, but after a few hours, we arrived and found that Ernst and Ralts had set
up camp.

When he heard me walking up, Ralts jumped up of the ground and ran at me.
Then he stopped. "Where's Rayne?" he questioned.

Hearing this, Rayne poked her head out from behind mine. "Here, brother!" she
called.

Gently, I let her slip off my back. Ralts caught her and walked her over to the fire
he and Ernst had made. Free of my burden, I fell to my knees, exhausted.

Ernst spoke, "I'm really glad to see you. When the two of you didn't come back,
we thought the worst had happened in the fire. Come," he motioned to me, "sit
around the fire with us and tell us all about what happened.

I sat down beside the three and took off my cloak, so I could feel the fire's heat in
the coldness of the night.

Ralts looked at me and gasped with shock. "You're wounded," he said.

Feeling myself, I found that dried blood had caked on the back of my shirt. "It
must be from that piece of wood fell on me in the burning building." I took off my
shirt and twisted to examine the injury, but pain prevented me from turning very
far. "Do you have any bandages?" I asked.

Rayne reached into one of the boy's packs and pulled some bandages out. She
walked over to me, though a bit unsteady. "Let me put them on," she said
sheepishly. "After all, you got hurt protecting me."

After a moment's hesitation, I agreed and she proceeded to wrap the strip of
material around my waist. I took her a while to finish, because of the size of the
area injured, and because she had to keep reaching around my waist to catch
the spool of fabric, which she occasionally dropped in my lap. We both remained
silent throughout the entire process.

After that, I spoke of our escape from the burning village with the boys.
Eventually, I found myself telling them other tales as well. For the second time
that day, I found myself recounting stories of three years ago. Still, I could not
shake the image of that man from the back of my mind. I could not let him go like
this. There was a chance I could still catch up to him, though I had no idea which
direction he had gone. Then my stories gave me an idea.

"Where was your village?" I asked the children. "Sacae or Lycia?"

"Lycia." they replied in unison.

A sort of smile crossed my face. "Perhaps we can get Lycia involved in our hunt
then. We'll set out for Ostia in the morning. I have an idea that just might work."
In truth, I hated to leave this madman and his army out here on their own, but I
just didn't have a choice. Hector would be able to help me, I knew it.

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Kratos