Coals
Hector rose out of the deep snow enough to peek down past the crest of the hill, into the valley where the village lay dark. Of course, most everything was dark for miles around, except the moonlight and the stars, which always sparkled more clearly in the frigid midwinter air. It might have been more appreciably beautiful if it didn't also mean imminent death; there wasn't a single house with a fire burning, and Lord Hector, Marquess of Ostia, knew why.
He settled back down to hunker invisibly in the snow, trying to ignore the feeling that his boots were going to freeze to his feet. "For anyone who wasn't clear, this settles it. Bandits are utter, utter–"
"Dastards," Matthew supplied.
Hector looked askance at his all-too-helpful bodyguard and spymaster. "Yeah. Sure."
Eliwood took a turn scanning the region, taking specific note of the steep hills surrounding the village on nearly every side. They were protective against many storms, almost a natural fortress against invaders, but these were undeniably smart… dastards, as Matthew had said. "How long has the village been without fire fuel?"
"Well, I got the ransom two days ago," said Hector. "They must have used up whatever they had stored by now, and with brigands blocking all three roads out of town, no one's willing to risk their lives for wood yet. I mean it, I'm going to have words with this lot."
"Largely consisting of 'argh' and 'please don't hit me again with that axe', milord?"
"Perceptive as ever, Matthew."
The Marquess of Pherae frowned. "It's a brilliant plan. I'd have commended our tactician if she came up with it… at least if it were being used for good," he admitted.
"Five hundred thousand gold or they blockade the village until it freezes to death, you mean?" Hector asked.
"Obviously it would require fine tuning," Eliwood added. "But they've chosen ground where they can easily fight off whole liberating armies from the outside, on the cliff trails to the northwest and in the forest to the east."
"Will you stop talking about how pretty their formations are and help me lift this sack? Not having the holy strength of Armads to call on at every minute slows a man down a bit," Hector grumbled, heaving a giant bag over one shoulder again. "Matthew, find the safest way down the cliff. One that won't end with me crushed underneath this thing."
"Right on it," the spymaster agreed, darting away into the night with a flip of his blood-red cloak.
"What are we doing?" Eliwood asked. "Apart from freezing solid."
"I thought we'd see to the sentry who's been creeping up behind us very slowly for the last minute or so. I mean, shame to disappoint him and all–"
The bandit, a mercenary of some repute (though none of it good) chose that moment to leap, bringing his heavy down toward Eliwood's back, as Hector was protected by the bulging sack and whatever he carried inside it. Eliwood sorely missed the superhuman abilities that Durandal had granted him, too, but with Hector's warning he was still far too fast to be caught so easily. The lord pivoted quickly, spraying snow in all directions as he parried the attack three different ways.
Startled by these counters, the mercenary was quickly forced onto the defensive, and Eliwood pressed his attack hard enough to force the bandit back toward the forest's edge. Step by step, the marquess drove his attacker away, until the mercenary had the sense to take a short leap back to give himself room for a wide sweep. Eliwood knew better than to try to block it with his light rapier, and instead rolled below the strike, to his opponent's side.
The mercenary let his sweep fall to intercept Eliwood, but the lord was quick to block, following up with a leg sweep that took the brigand off his feet. The lord was up again with a flick of his cape, rapier held in a harmless but meaningful way by the fallen outlaw's throat. "Let's be civilised about this," Eliwood suggested.
A new jab of icy cold touched him on the back of the neck, and Eliwood devoutly wished that he didn't have enough experience with such sensations to know that it was an arrowhead. "Do we have to?" the second brigand asked, sarcastically. He then vanished quickly under a bulging dark green shape as Hector smashed the sniper into the snow with his sack.
"No," the Marquess of Ostia told the prone ambusher, and turned to Eliwood. "It's really sort of insulting when they only travel in pairs. You want me to thump the other one?"
"Nonfatally, if you could," Eliwood requested. Hector frowned, shrugged, and brought it down on the first mercenary, who knew better than to try to dodge. "Do you think it's safe to leave them here?"
"What harm could they do?" Hector responded, with his typical lack of thought towards the gods of irony and narrative convention.
"Hobin!" shouted an unfamiliar voice, out of the woods. It had an unpleasant edge to it that instantly made the lords think of how intelligent bandits like these probably checked up on their sentries once in a while. "Hobin, where in freezing blazes are you?"
"Here!" the sniper-bandit shouted weakly. "Some bloody fool thinks he's a hero, and he's got an ogre with him!"
"Are you going to let them talk about you that way?" Hector asked Eliwood, who rolled his eyes and dragged his best friend away down the hill, where Matthew was carefully searching for safe footholds. The spymaster heard them coming, of course, and turned just in time to realise that he had no possible chance of escaping the royal avalanche. Concerned only with keeping as many limbs as possible, Matthew turned and leapt down the slope, sprinting so quickly that his feet didn't have time to break the diamond-dusted drifts.
Hector was considerably less elegant, particularly since he and Eliwood couldn't agree on who was dragging whom, and it wasn't long before the ice cast its decisive vote. The bigger lord slipped and hit the snow face-first, pulling his companion down as well. A heavy sack to the stomach knocked the air out of Eliwood's stomach, and by the time he could breathe again, he realised that they were still moving – in fact, still accelerating.
"If you tell anyone about this," Hector said with admirable calm as they rocketed down the hill on his smooth armor plates, "I'll invade Pherae and have you thrown in your own dungeons."
"Waahoooo!" Eliwood cheered, kneeling on the sack and looking for all the world like a child on a sled. Hector considered snapping at him for drawing more attention, but their last vestiges of stealth had the lifespan of a snowman in a blast furnace anyway. Snapping at him for having totally lost his mind, of course, was another matter…
Whumphff. The lords came to a sudden stop in a drift against one of the houses at the edge of the village, sending up a massive explosion of flakes to sparkle in the moonlight. The night returned to stillness for a moment, before Eliwood emerged, at least up to his chest, and shook a cascade of ice crystals out of his holly-red hair. "We'll have to do that again later."
"I'll get you your own cuirass," said Hector, crawling out of the heap. "Ech. You can't spit out snow."
"I'm sure if you put in a complaint they'll fix that," said Matthew, jogging up with his usual sense of timing. "Still have the sack?" With a grunt, Hector hauled the giant bag out of the snow as well, greatly decreasing the size of the drift. "Excellent. Let's get to work before they figure out where we got to."
"If the bandits are smart," said Hector, "and unluckily for us, they're showing every sign of it, then they'll think to check the trail of destruction down the hillside." The trio took a brief moment to look over the line carve through the snow and innocent bystander-obstacles.
"You actually flattened your way through a bramble?" Matthew asked.
"Did I? I'm too cold to feel it," Hector replied.
The spymaster stared at his lord just long enough to make sure he wasn't joking – but then, Hector never was. "This house is empty," he reported. "So are the other closest ones. I'd guess the villagers have gathered to save heat, which means we should see if they have a town hall or something."
"Let's split up," Hector said. "We'll cover ground faster and be harder to spot."
"Not a chance," Eliwood responded instantly. "You, alone, wandering through this innocent little rural village, trailing chaos and catastrophe in your wake?"
"I happen to be Marquess Ostia," Hector reminded him, scowling.
"With Florina's help," Eliwood countered. "Besides, I have no doubt that you're waiting for a chance to drop the sack and begin axing brigands."
"As if you can blame me."
They crept among the houses as one group anyway, with Matthew spying the way ahead, Eliwood covering them from rear attacks, and Hector in the middle, groaning under the weight of his sack. He had been impressed by Erk and Nino's work on its contents, of course, and Erk's eyes had nearly fallen out of his head when he saw that Nino had managed to make the bag itself bigger on the inside than the outside, but they could have put a little effort into not making it feel like he was carrying an elephant curled up in a piano.
"Anything yet?" he asked impatiently, after they had been carefully creeping for a winding half-mile that felt like seven leagues. "This village can't be huge; I had never even heard of it before last week."
"I'm trying to avoid their patrols, milord," said Matthew. "In case you haven't noticed, they're a bit agitated. Now, if I could have quiet…?" The spymaster was right, as usual; shouting had started in the distance shortly after their very direct descent from the hills, and hadn't stopped since. Of course, it wouldn't be long before they figured out which trail of footprints to follow.
"So, how are the people of Ostia enjoying their new marquess?" Eliwood whispered.
"Is this the time!" Hector hissed back.
"You haven't been oppressing them or anything, have you?"
"…This is going to be one of your weird little jokes again, isn't it."
"No outrageous taxes or random imprisonments?"
"No! I am the blasted pinnacle of benevolence."
"Because I've been very careful to step in all of your footprints this whole way, and I'm still freezing my pauldrons off."
There was some silence, except for the aforementioned shouting in the distance and the two lords crunching through fresh snow. Matthew, of course, barely left a mark in his path.
"…'Good King Hector' doesn't scan," said Hector, eventually.
"Well, if you're sure that's it."
"…Pauldrons are those shoulder plate things, right?" he continued.
"Yes, I think so," Eliwood agreed.
"Oh, thank Elimine."
"Why, what did you think I meant?"
"THERE THEY ARE!" roared a voice full of fury.
"Three words that never come before peace and quiet," Eliwood mused. They took off so fast that the frosted outlines of two lords and thief were left hanging in the air.
As though roused from hibernation, the bandits seemed to be everywhere now, popping up from behind every house, shed, and a strange well-fountain that dominated the centre of the valley where the village lay. Fortunately, the largest building of all wasn't too far ahead, and since it was the only one yet that had any warm glow in the windows, Matthew led them there, pausing only to lightly stab an axefighter who didn't know when to get out of the way.
"Diplomacy, milord, diplomacy!" the spymaster shouted as they approached the town hall's great doors. It was something of a code-word for him and his marquess, to subtly indicate when there were better solutions at hand than hitting everything that caused a problem. Hector sighed, making sure to look unnecessarily hassled, and hammered on the door with on gauntleted fist.
"Open up in the name of Marquess Ostia or so help me I'll eat this door!"
"Much better, milord," Matthew commended him.
"Why should we believe you?" an old voice asked from inside.
"Well," Hector offered, "maybe you can hear the sound of an army of bandits preparing to fill us with so much steel that we'll look like bloody festive decorations?" He yearned to just turn around and lay into the lot of them, even if it meant fulfilling Durban's promise that he would die on the battlefield someday… but Eliwood was brilliantly fending off three foes at once, Matthew was a marauding shadow of debilitating strikes, and someone had to talk to whatever senseless elder was on door duty.
"…All right," the man agreed, "but I'm warning you, we've got a dozen archers–"
"Yeah, yeah, open up," said the lord hurriedly. The door swung no more than a foot ajar, but it was enough for Hector to wedge it further open with his immense sack. Eliwood was busy parrying a brigand's strike so that he fell sideways on top of a myrmidon, who in turn cut the bowstring of the nearby archer, but Hector grabbed him by the scruff of his cape and hauled him inside. Matthew followed, efficiently not blocking the doorway by somersaulting over Hector's head. He darted in, slammed the door shut again, and leaned against it, which meant that the only ways for the bandits to force it open again would be to employ oxen or powerful explosives.
"There," said Hector to the old man waiting inside, astonished. "See? Marquess Ostia, as promised. And that's Eliwood, lord of Pherae, but don't feel like an idiot or anything."
"I… I… my lord marquess…"
"I do believe he's caught on, Eliwood."
"Quiet, please, Lord Hector," said Matthew, leaning against the door. "They're talking." Always up for hearing his enemies' plans, Hector did let up on the old man, instead turning to mimic his spymaster's pose. The bandits were apparently in good spirits.
"Did you hear what he said?"
"Marquess Ostia! Even if it's a lie, he's got to be a big-name general! Let's get in there and cut him down–" There was momentary pressure against the door, but it let up quickly.
"Don't be a fool. They're sure to pay the ransom now. We're rich! You lot, back to the east pass. Everyone else, stick around. No one's to let anyone out of this building!" Cheering followed.
Hector climbed to his feet and sighed again. Every time he thought the world was mostly right again, some total… dastard… seemed to show up and remind him of the absolute worst in human potential. Still, they had completed most of what they were here for. As his eyes adjusted, the lord saw that the hall was mostly one giant room on the inside, and packed with a few hundred villagers of every age and description. In the centre, a single large firebox had been riveted together, and it burned without much enthusiasm.
"Right. We'll see about that," said Hector, to no one in particular, and made his way through the huddling crowd, the giant sack still slung over one shoulder.
Eliwood stayed behind to talk to the elder. "How are your food stores holding out?"
"We're fine," the man insisted, clearly happier now that Hector was at a safer distance. "We were stocking up for winter anyway, of course. But without wood for the fire, it won't do us any good, of course. We've already started rationing furniture."
"I think," said Eliwood, "that we can help you there."
Hector marched up to the inner edge of the villagers around the fire, mostly young children who stared in awe at his heavy armor and the golden crest of Ostia that bound his cloak. Of course, being over six feet tall and carrying a Wolf Beil didn't hurt, either. Having given in long ago to the fact that he was, inescapably, good with children, the marquess knelt beside a boy and his sisters.
"It's past midnight, practically morning," said Hector, "but it's the shortest day of the year, so it's still too dark to tell. Well? What do you want for Solstice, kids?"
The children looked at each other, conferring in that silent telepathy that mostly consists of trying to force someone else to speak up first. It was something Hector got a lot of in first meetings, sometimes with seasoned diplomats and ambassadors.
"…The Fire, sir," said the older sister at last.
Hector opened the sack and looked inside. "As far as that goes," he said, "I think we have you covered." He plunged a hand in and produced a fist-sized black chunk of rock that would have bored even a fanatically obsessive geologist. "Try not to read much into this, but it's coal."
Back near the door, the elder watched with mixed feelings. "That's very generous of you, my lord," he said to Eliwood, "and clearly you've brought quite a lot, but it won't let us hold out more than a few days extra."
The lord of Pherae only grinned. "Your village hasn't been visited by many sages, has it?" Hector had given the large coal to the girl and encouraged her with a nod of his head to throw it into the fire. She was dubious, but couldn't think of what else to do, and so at last tossed the rock into the weak flames. A second later it had turned red and a small pillar of fire exploded out of the iron box, throwing the whole room into sharp shadows and red-gold light. "I say that," Eliwood went on, "because all the houses still have their roofs attached and suchlike."
If their deafening arrival hadn't already attracted attention, or the unsubtle clanking of Hector's heavy armor, then the miniature eruption had certainly woken up the last of the villagers. The marquess had an audience. "Enchanted coal, made by the royal sages of Ostia and Pherae," he declared. "That one should last for hours, so if we're really desperate, you should be able to last the whole winter with this sackful, but with luck we'll be able to have troops up here to give those bandits a good – what? What is it?"
The girl Hector had spoken to was pulling at his thick cloak, trying to get his attention in the manner of someone who really hopes that they won't succeed. "Um… I meant the Fire, milord. Sir."
"Yeah, that's what we call the big hot thing in the middle of the room, kid," said Hector, grinning uneasily. "Go warm up your brother and sister."
"She means the Winterpyre, Marquess," said the elder at last. "Outside."
Hector looked to his spymaster helplessly. "The what?"
"Uh… if I recall regional custom, the Solstice is a time when people gather for a huge bonfire to invoke holy power and call the sun back," said Matthew.
"In case you haven't noticed, there are unpleasant wind conditions out there," Hector said with a brittle smile. "They're full of arrows, for one thing. The military situation is hopeless."
"If this is an important ritual to them, the morale boost could be invaluable," the spy hinted.
"Really? Sounds kind of pagan to me. Hey, Eliwood! Do we do pagan?" he shouted.
Eliwood sighed. "It's druidic."
"Well, that I know is dark. I mean, nothing against Canas–"
"Diplomacy, milord," Matthew hissed urgently.
"…Oh. Right." Hector was suddenly aware that the whole room was staring at him and, technically, they weren't his subjects. This village was so far north that Ostia didn't bother with taxes, though they still supplied soldiers in times of trouble. "So… this form of druidism…"
"Holy is holy, Hector," Eliwood insisted, and turned to the elder. "But do you really want to waste – rather, expend so much fuel when we don't know how long we'll have to wait for help?"
"It is our only choice," the elder insisted. The room seemed to ripple as nearly every villager nodded their agreement, and while Hector didn't strictly run his nation under democratic philosophy, he wasn't about to test the 'one man, one savage beating for the insensitive outsider' principle.
"This is going to be bloody inconvenient," Hector said, in the voice that meant he had given in.
"We have an hour or more before sunrise," said the elder. "I will instruct you in the performance of the invocation."
"There aren't any big hats involved, are there?" asked Hector hopefully. "I don't do hats well."
So of course I have to wear it, thought Matthew. Having climbed the walls easily from the inside, carefully removed and replaced the glass without disturbing the windowframe, and then slipped out silently in the shadow of the roof, Matthew was in a good position to see precisely what they were up against. The bandits had concentrated their extra forces in a rough ring around the town hall, and were even building a barricade in front of the doors to prevent anyone from escaping. Intelligent, industrious brigands. It's like a Solstice present all on its own.
But the sky was getting lighter in the east in spite of the clouds that had gathered, and if they were to perform this ritual for the sake of the villagers, then they didn't have time to plan any more. His job was plain enough, but surviving it would be a slightly trickier accomplishment. The thief slipped along the roof's edge, gathering large icicles from the overhang as he went, until he had reached the corner and amassed a frozen arsenal.
A cluster of brigands had gathered near the door, ironically clustered near a fire for warmth and light. Matthew untied a pouch from his belt, opened its drawstrings, and gently tossed it out into the predawn gloom. Before it could land, he let loose with a barrage of the long icicles, a storm of frigid spears that were meant more to surprise than actually harm. Picking off a warrior's helmet with his first shot achieved that one.
"What the–" one of them began, and then the pouch hit.
Specifically, it hit the small fire they had gathered around, releasing a cloud of dust from the impact. Since the dust consisted of a few chunks of the enchanted coal ground into tiny bits, the effect was something like turning the air into a giant fist and setting it on fire. The coal dust exploded into a giant, thin fireball that knocked the nearest bandits of their feet and sleeted sparks into the snow.
The others looked up, but against the aurora-grey sky, Matthew knew his shadow couldn't make much of an impression on its own, even with the big pointy hat. He drew an intact coal stone from another pocket, struck a match on an exposed shingle, and held the two together. Thank St Elimine his gloves were thick and durable…
From the view of the bandits below, another fireball ignited above them, this one clutched in the hand of a dark figure wrapped tightly in a crimson cloak. He raised the blazing orb overhead and threw back his cloak, striking the sort of pose favoured all too much by self-assured champions of justice. "Bear no thoughts of harm against the people of this village so long as I live! I will abide no such evil, and the might of a sage is not to be trifled with!"
The brigands thought about his words very carefully for a moment. It was true, there were only a few things anyone would want to do less than fight a talented sage. Polish a mountain range while being pursued by vampire coyotes, for example. But they were also notoriously fragile, and as Matthew himself had admitted, so long as he didn't live, they could get back to treacherous, unfestive ransom.
Like a returning tide, a wave of arrows shot up toward Matthew, signalling that it was time for him to get the heck out of there. Also throwing down the coal would reveal that it was only a trick, once it failed to detonate like an actual spell, so Matthew took off toward the opposite end of the roof with it in hand, hoping that there would be deep snowbanks nearby.
Hector waited until many of the bandits had sped away in pursuit of the spymaster, then resisted his natural urge toward devastating spectacle and only pulled one of the great hall's front doors off, easily clambering around most of the makeshift barricade despite the heavy sack still on his shoulder and the mechanical torch in his other hand. Of course, this meant that yet again he couldn't lodge his axe in the vital organs of a horde of his enemies, but for some reason he kept getting the other sorts of jobs.
The remaining outlaws, mostly the slow, muscle-bound brigands that could cause so much mayhem in small, unprotected villages, were still quick to rush him, so the marquess made a direct charge for the strange fountain, as he had been told to do. For a few moments, it was just a frantic race through the deep snow, until Hector's advantage of surprise wore off and the brigands' head start won the day. He could almost feel the axes about to hack through his cloak and armor and bone…
Hector spun and dropped the sack, holding just one edge of its mouth so that it fell open toward the axe-wielders like a maw. Sooty, aching, and glad that his time in hiding had been brief, Eliwood leapt out of the magical bag, ran the first brute through with a single thrust, and blinded the next two with a pair of quickly-packed snowballs. Hector lifted the much lighter bag and got back to work.
Feeling somewhat twisted for feeling rather lighthearted, Eliwood engaged in the most serious snowfight of his entire life, using the icy projectiles to hassle and impede his many foes just enough to keep the number facing him at survivable levels. He parried one clumsy downward strike, chopped clear through the axe's wooden haft, and followed with a handful of slush to the eyes that threw the giant man off balance, leaving him prey to a leg sweep and pommel-thumping. Sometimes the brigands tried to deflect the snowballs with their mighty weapons, but that stopped being a good plan when they were left wide open to easy sword strikes.
Wondering why the fountain's pool was free of snow or ice – but only vaguely, since most of his attention was on getting the fire started and not dying – Hector scattered the half-full sack of coal around its base quickly. Apparently the most important thing was making sure that it was already burning when the sun came up, and that was minutes away at best. He spread the volatile rocks out roughly evenly and pulled the switch on the torch, which struck a flint near the top and lit the oiled wick.
He dodged the first swing by millimetres, hearing its edge slice the wind just in time to bow his head and let the heavy blade sweep over him. The next was vertical, and Hector jumped aside to avoid it, but he had no choice for the third – he leapt into the fountain and scrambled toward the middle of the piled coal, where only a maniac would follow. At last he could see his attacker. A berserker. Typical.
"I don't really want to kill you," said the berserker. "You're worth a lot more alive, and even though you'd do plenty for my reputation, the Knights of Ostia have got a long memory, know what I mean? But Red over there, he's expendable." Hector looked to Eliwood, who was not having a good time of the fight, and certainly in no place to take this one's attention away.
"The hell," said Hector, breathing heavily. He thought that about summed it up, and the icy air was rasping his throat enough without unnecessary words. The sweat on his brow was threatening to freeze there.
"Maybe a couple of the villagers, then? It's not like any of you can get away," said the berserker. "Hah. Holding hostages to a hostage. Kind of funny, don't you think?"
…The Fire, milord. Sir. The words echoed treacherously in his mind. Though the sky was still dark, the horizon was getting very light. He wasn't going to let anyone, Eliwood or peasant, get used as a tool to extort him, Marquess Ostia. Besides, Durban had said he'd die on the battlefield. More Ostians would come eventually. The village could hold out. But not with him.
"Real funny," Hector said at last. "Ho, ho, ho." He plunged the lit torch into the coals, and a wall of fire leapt up around him, under him, with enough force to send the berserker staggering backwards. Through the rising inferno, he saw Eliwood pause and stare, his mouth hanging open. Distantly, Hector noticed that his cloak was burning apart and his boots were getting hot.
Through the eastern pass through the ancient mountains, over the distant horizon, a tiny slice of pure white-gold light sparked to life. It rocketed across the miles faster than any human could imagine, between the villagers' houses, to the centre of the plaza, to the stone-dry fountain where the Marquess of Ostia burned, and kicked some ancient switch – whether divine, arcane, or simply mysterious, the villagers had never asked nor ever really cared.
As though reflected in a mirror, a twinned light burst from below Hector's feet, a blessedly cool illumination that rose into the sky to be lost in the clouds. The lord stood in the glow and exulted for a moment, not caring why it was happening as long as it meant he wasn't about to be immolated. Eliwood easily disabled his equally-startled foe and dashed through the snow, racing to the edge of the Winterpyre, calling Hector's name.
Hector, however, didn't seem interested. He was still focused on a berserker, sitting astonished in the snow that melted around the ring of fire. "You know what I think is funny?" Hector asked, in a totally normal tone of voice that nevertheless echoed off the mountains surrounding the village. "That you and all your comrades are total 'dastards', I haven't got to swing an axe in days, and I'm still not going to kill any of you." The spire of light bent and spiralled downwards like a solar river, until it formed a perfect circle around the fountain and splintered outward. Growing like the roots of a tree, but a thousand times faster, the light streams sought out the brigands and enveloped them.
"Uh… Hector?" asked Eliwood. "Are you all right?"
The lord noticed his friend. "Just a minute," he said, still calm and echoing. "I don't know how this works, but let me tell you, it's very cool."
"It's freezing is what it is," said Eliwood. "What are you talking about?"
Hector ignored him, turning back to the berserker. "Oh… and don't ever come back, now. Happy New Year." He raised his hands, and the coursing light pulsed outward in a gentle ripple that somehow still felt like it could turn the mightiest fortification into a Zen gravel garden. The wave passed over Eliwood harmlessly, and all the houses, but shoved the paralysed bandits away until the entire village had been swept clear. The Marquess of Ostia let his arms fall and an unseen tension snapped. The slow wave burst, blasting every last invader far beyond the circle of the village.
The light vanished, and Hector dropped to his knees – ouch – on the heap of cool coals. Eliwood moved to help him, but he just waved off the assistance. "If that was what they were talking about, they might have said so," Eliwood remarked.
"Huh. Yeah." Hector let out a great sigh. "That's magic is, it? Not bad." He looked up at the edge of the sun rising over the horizon. "That's pretty impressive too, mind you. The same sun as yesterday, but all fresh and polished. Whole new day, whole new year."
"…Did you take a lance shaft to the head or anything?"
The marquess climbed to his feet, reached out, and ruffled his friend's red hair, adding more soot to the grey that already tinged his hair. "Oh, quiet. You know, between the coal and the frost, you're starting to look old. Cheer up a little! Enjoy yourself, it's the Solstice! Oh, and get those people out of the hall, find Matthew, and when the Pegasus knights show up – they'll be here, they'll have seen that beacon – send for the others. I think we'll stay here for the festivities."
"There are festivities?" Eliwood repeated, blinking.
"If there weren't, there are now. Go on!" he said with a laugh.
"Absolutely, milord, sir," said Eliwood, grinning strangely. And what are you doing?"
Hector gave him a look of abject disbelief and raised his axe very meaningfully as he walked off towards the edge of the village. "Where do you think, man? There's firewood to be chopped."
The sun had set again some hours earlier, on the shortest day of the year, and Hector stood by the fountain with Florina, who had flown in that afternoon with as many of their friends as could be gathered on short notice. Through the windows of the village tavern, which glowed warmly along with every other house in sight, he could see Sain trying to ply Kent with enough mulled cider to make him sing along with the others in carolling. It wouldn't have worked, except that Fiora gave him sharp looks every time he claimed it was unknightly.
"So it wasn't really a yearly ritual after all?" Florina asked.
"Nope," Hector replied. "Any day of the year, when the villagers need protection or powerful healing. Having it on the Solstice is just a tradition, sort of like oiling a sword every few months even if it's not being used."
"Are all your analogies about weapons?"
"Some of them are about eating an entire turkey in a single meal."
"…That was certainly an interesting spectacle," she agreed. "But you didn't know what would happen when you lit the fire. Why did you do it anyway?"
Hector shifted uncomfortably, though he was wrapped thickly enough not to notice the cold. "I guess I get caught up in the season like anyone else. …You're not going to tell anyone this, right?"
"Would they believe me?" she teased.
"Oh, sure, laugh. I'm talking about the crazy idea that something that has no force, no presence, no tangible effect, nothing but a bit of light in the middle of a lot of darkness, can be more important than… well, among other things, the basic fire safety lessons everyone learns as a kid. Or common sense."
"You make it sound like dreams don't change life on an everyday basis," said Florina.
Hector stared at his wife for a moment. "…Why on earth don't you talk more around men? Speaking for us all, we could use a little more of that kind of blatant truth." Florina blushed hot enough to melt the snow falling around them for a foot in all directions. "Heh. That's a good look. Let's get back inside before we freeze; after today I'd never hear the end of it."
They walked back to the raucous inn slowly, letting the snow crunch under their feet and enjoying what warmth could be found in the cold. Florina opened the door, letting out a fraction of a debate from within ("I don't mean you shouldn't sing, Fiora, I'm just saying that a knight of Caelin shouldn't declare that he's 'going a-wassailing' until he knows what it is–") before Hector took hold of her arm and shut it again.
"Will you look at that?" Hector demanded. "I told Matthew to be careful about where he put up the decorations, but he's left an entire mistletoe garland hanging over the door. What can you say about something like that?"
Florina stared at him for a moment. The endless impacts of the fire-lit snowflakes was deafeningly silent. "…Merry Solstice and to all a good sunrise," she decided, and pulled him closer.