Just-In-Case Note: Remember the intro to the game? It does say they use gunpowder.
Terra was impressed at Celes' sudden transformation. She had not even attempted to defend herself from Cyan, and yet now, as she rattled off military details to Banon and to Narshes' elders, she became more and more animated. Something about Celes seemed familiar to Terra, but she couldn't place it. She could also tell, somehow, that the woman could use magic as she could. The fugitive general seemed to avoid making eye contact with her. An Imperial General and a magic user...Doe she know what the Empire did to me? Does she know about my past? She was impressed by Locke as well. It was clear he hated the Empire - his actions said it, and on the rare occasions when he spoke about it directly, he had been rather blunt - but he had gone out of his way twice now to help former Imperial soldiers. Why did he hate the Empire so? Perhaps Edgar could tell her; she had never thought to any of her new friends about any of the others. Edgar...Maybe Locke really was like Edgar? Perhaps he had helped her and Celes because they were women? Maybe it was Sabin she should ask. She lost herself in her thoughts, something she did frequently, since the freedom to think had been returned to her.
Presently Celes finished her brief outline of the resources the Empire was likely bringing to bear on Narshe. The previous sly smile returned to Banon's face. "Well, as I was saying earlier, before we fled from the Empire, I gave orders for my best militia to meet here. You probably haven't seen them, but by last count we have around seven hundred within three hours of here."
Narshe's Marshal nodded, too thankful for the added manpower to feel annoyed at the subterfuge. "We have around two thousand militiamen fit enough to fight."
Celes was surprised. "Only two thousand? But Narshe is the largest city for hundreds of miles! It may be diffuse, but there are at least a quarter of a million people within fifty miles of this house!"
"General...we are remote, and had no enemies before the Empire, aside from bandits. We had no need of a large army."
Celes looked stunned and thoughtful as Edgar stepped up to the table. "Does Narshe have any war machinery or siege engines? I would be happy to see to them."
The Marshal stood up and walked to the window. He seemed agitated. "Yes, we have machinery, and we have a good supply of firearms and ammunition, and I certainly welcome what help the Returners can provide. But what can any of this avail us against the Empire's Magitek? Two hundred of our best men rallied before the mines to stop the-" he glanced at Terra, as did several other Narshe officials "-the Empire, but they were cut down like rabbits, by only three people!"
This snapped Celes out of her reverie. "Yes, Magitek overwhelmed you, because you didn't know how to fight it. I can tell you how."
Banon had a green banner flown over Narshe's tallest buildings - a prearranged signal to Returner observers watching the city that Narshe had finally aligned itself with them. The city Elder ordered the evacuation of much of the outlying parts of the city, while the Marshal set to sound muster. The heads of the militia battalions went with the Returners to view the slope that led to the Esper.
Before he headed to see to Narshe's war engines, Edgar, after deliberation, decided to speak to Celes, for Locke's sake. She seemed sincere enough to Edgar in her conversion. He could be...obsessive about protecting people, and an Imperial general with a notorious reputation was the last person Locke needed to obsess about. And, in fairness to the lovely Celes, Edgar thought with a smile, she shouldn't mistake Locke's obsession for something else. He found her walking alone, deep in thought.
"General Chere!" She turned to look at him. "I never had the honor of meeting in you person while our countries were allied." She fell into step with him and shook her head.
"It's just Celes now, and I have no country," she said, her vehemence surprising Edgar.
"Yes, well..." He sighed. "Look, Locke has a... a complicated past. I wouldn't take this personally, but I doubt that he's really been charmed by you."
Celes eyed him icily. "I may no longer be a general, but I am still a soldier. I follow orders, not emotions."
"Your reputation is accurate. You really are heartless!" He walked away, back toward Narshe.
Behind them, Terra was walking dejectedly. Two hundred men, just before the mines! And how many had fought in Narshe itself? How many innocent people had she killed? Sabin caught up with her.
"Terra...what's wrong?"
"Nothing." She had no idea how to talk to someone else about her past. "It's...it's the Empire. Even with that woman's help, can we really hope to hold them off?"
Sabin nodded. "Ah, yes. Imperial invincibility. Imperial greatness. Terra, behind its banners and its armies, the Empire is made up of people. Evil in some cases, perhaps, and more than a little crazy, yes, but they are still just people. The Emperor may seem untouchable in his dominion, but he is still just a man, telling other men what to do, and only men obey him, not the world itself, whatever his magical aspirations. And you yourself prove that even those he tries hardest to control and enslave can slip away from him." The thought did not visibly comfort her.
Sabin chuckled, and Terra looked up at him curiously. "Maybe you don't believe me? Let me demonstrate. Consider my brother. Could one find a nobler and more regal man anywhere on this earth?" Terra smiled slightly. "And yet he is as subject to the same laws of the world - hunger, heat, rejection by women like General Chere there-" Terra laughed despite herself, as she saw Edgar walking away from Celes with an unhappy expression- "as any other man. His worldy power cannot even suffice to, say, stop an object in motion. Observe."
With that, he reached down into a snow drift and fashioned the snow into a ball, which he threw at the retreating Figaran king. It hit him in the back of the head, causing him to yelp in surprise, spin around and curse. Terra laughed aloud. From somewhere behind her she could hear Gau cackle. Sabin grinned. "I stand corrected. His royal head halted that snowball admirably. Now, if you will excuse me, I feel that our chastised royalty may need assistance in town." He patted her on the shoulder and went after his brother.
Terra smiled as he walked off, but gradually returned to her thoughts as she walked along. How easily those two got along with each other, even after so many years apart, she reflected. Did she have a family somewhere? Did someone, somewhere, think of her with love? After a moment Celes fell back and walked beside her. "So, you too have the gift of magic?" asked Celes. "Isn't it nice..."
Terra looked at Celes, hoping some spark of memory would present itself. "Can you use magic also? I thought I sensed something in you."
"Yes. When I was still a baby, I was infused with magic artificially, and raised to be a Mage Knight."
"Is that what happened to me? Do you know what they did to me?"
Celes shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know exactly. I had seen you before, but..." She wanted to go on, to say something to this woman in apology for the life taken from her, and for her part in it, but she couldn't think of anything to say, and Terra did not press the issue. They walked in silence for several moments.
"Celes...can people like us ever be loved?"
Celes stared at her in surprise and discomfort. "What are you talking about?" she said hastily, and hurried forward, in a brown study.
The chosen hill, located about a mile from the easternmost reaches of Narshe, met with the approval of those Returners with a military disposition. At its wide base it rose fairly sharply before shallowing out, and large, rocky debris was scattered across its face. It rounded out and was nearly level at the crest, except for a sharp rise where a jutting rock led steeply up to where the Esper had been placed. Behind and to the sides were other, more inaccessible foothills. The terrain in general appeared as if it would work to the Returners' advantage, slowing the unwieldy Magitek armor and offering cover for Narshe's gunmen. The Narshe militia, being relatively small and having ample supply of ingredients for gunpowder at hand, brandished firearms to a man. The Imperial army, hailing from the resource-poor southern continent, had focused most of its research and production on costly Magitek weaponry rather than on reliable and effective firearms. This, combined with a certain disregard for the life of the common soldier, led many Imperial tacticians to favor human waves supported by Magitek armor.
Kefka Palazzo, being wilier and more flexible than most Imperial officers, did incorporate gunpowder into his strategy. His particular temperament, however, predisposed him to heavy use of Magitek, and he used his firearm troops merely to skirmish and discourage open maneuver against his flanks. His preference was to concentrate his armor and blast a hole in the enemy line, which he would then attack with sword-armed heavy infantry while the armor, split into two groups, attacked to either side of the gap. In more recent times, much to the distress of those he commanded, he was more and more prone to less coordinated maneuvers, and he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching massive but unfocused attacks carried out by his entire front line. Thus far, he had reserved such spectacles for weakened and disorganized enemies, but his carelessness and the resultant casualties had increased each time.
These trends were well known to Celes Chere, and she hoped to be able to use both the terrain and Kefka's own foibles against the Empire, as she explained to the others. Putting aside the uncomfortable notions she had been force to consider during the walk to the hill, she took stock of the battlefield. Standing near the top of the hill, she turned and spoke to the assembled Returners and Narshe militia leaders. "A weakness of older Magitek armor is its limited vertical flexibility, something that was not considered very important when the armor was first developed. If you are positioned here-" she gestured to a spot near the crest of the hill- "armor climbing the hill will not be able to bring its Magitek to bear until around here." She indicated a spot some two hundred yards away.
Cyan, who approved of her advice but still doubted her interest in and loyalty to the Returner cause, spoke up. "The armor we faced in Doma was able to fire at much greater angles."
She nodded. "That was a new model. Some was also being sent to the western army, but...subversive elements-" she raised an eyebrow and glanced at Locke- "managed to sabotage the ship it was on as it sat in port in South Figaro."
"But with the strategy you've outlined, we would have no men left to defend Narshe itself," pointed out a Narshe corporal.
"That's unavoidable. We have to draw Kefka out here. If there's fighting in the city-"
Banon interrupted her. "Then the Empire will see the city destroyed," he said, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. Celes' new-found resolve seemed to ebb somewhat. He went on. "Not even Kefka will send his troops in to sack a city the size of Narshe if he knows an army exists outside of it." He looked at Celes without visible emotion. "The Empire learned this the hard way in Maranda."
Narshe mustered around two and a half thousand competent militiamen for battle, as well as almost a thousand other troops; who, deemed unsuitable for front line combat by reason of injury or age or inexperience, were equipped with what weapons remained and left to guard the inner city, should the Empire decide to send men to harass its civilians in an attempt to drive the main army to some act of desperation.
Some eight hundred Returners had gathered by the time Kefka's army neared the hill that evening. Of those, around five hundred were Banon's best fighters; veterans from the occupied lands in the southern continent who had fought against the Empire, first for their own countries and kings, and then for the Returners. They assembled, all dressed in the brown uniform and light armor the Returners favored. It was simply a variation on common southern military wear, from which style even the Empire's heavier infantry armor was ultimately derived.
The remaining three hundred Returners were irregular fighters, and, together with those from Narshe and the surrounding area who were skilled in hunting and tracking, they were to serve as something of a bait, to assure that Kefka focused his attention away from the city from the very beginning, and were also to harass and whittle away at the Imperials as they approached Narshe's army.
The mood in Narshe itself was fatalistic but defiant. Rumors of Imperial expansion had circulated even before the unsuccessful nighttime raid three and a half weeks ago, but the sudden attack and the fall of South Figaro had brought quite close to home what had seemed only the affair of distant and strange lands. Though few in Narshe had stated openly that war was inevitable, a collective dark brooding had long anticipated the conflict.
Those on the outskirts of the city moved inward, and the children, elderly and infirm were relocated to the shelter of old mine tunnels that had in the past been prepared against such an occasion. The remaining citizens - men and women both, much to the concern of some of Narshe's more traditional elements - prepared to fight any fires that might start, and many of those from the inner city stood guard over their homes holding their rusted swords and old, crude personal firearms.
Though most had felt a sense of impending trouble in the three weeks since the attack, the city was still shocked by the announcement that war had so suddenly come to Narshe, that the Empire's army was less than a day away. All the city felt a sudden and intense antipathy toward Vector. They cared little for the troubles of the more southern realms, but had not Narshe made clear its desire for peace? Its desire to simply be left alone, and its willingness to cooperate with whomever held power to the south? And yet, rather than attempt to negotiate, the Emperor had simply attacked; first in small measure, and now with an entire army.
The fall of southern Figaro through treachery had made a great impression on the city's leaders, and thus, in certain overestimation of the Empire's espionage capabilities, they were tight-lipped about military detail. As a result, more rumor spread throughout town. Many had seen the returners marching east of town, and it was said that a Returner army had come to help them fight Kefka. First some, than many claimed to have seen the Imperial general Celes Chere walking cloaked through the city, accompanied by some disreputable lout. Clearly, they said, the Empire had already infiltrated the city. Even wilder were the claims that this scoundrel was, in fact, the moderately well-known Locke Cole, who was certainly working for the Returners and had already captured the General, and that the battle was as good as won.
Still, by nightfall both the Empire's army and Narshe's own were visible from town as they made camp, and the city fell into a light, uneasy sleep to distant yelling and isolated gunfire.