You will note that, thus far, Ramza is not a major character. Indeed, this is quite intentional. The idea is to slowly make Ramza more and more central as he becomes more of a leader. POVs and character focus before then will be on characters with powerful personalities (Delita, Agrias, etc.). This is really an experiment in writing style; tell me if you like it or not in your reviews.
Chapter Five: A Fateful Rainy NightOrbonne Monastery was not the grandest of holy sites, at least not in the modern sense. Its old stones held history and age in its architecture and style, and the very air of the place was thick with old, musty secrets. Thus it was that it felt so at home to the monastery's solitary headmaster, Simon, and his enchanting guest of many years, whom he loved as a daughter, the Princess Ovelia.
The princess was indeed an enchanting vision of youthful loveliness and grace. Still south of her twenty-first year, she held herself with the full maturity of a future queen and the nobility of the highest order. Though uncrowned and dressed in humble priestly garments, as befit one retired to the monastery, she seemed to make these simple robes as rich and stately as the finest of Oriental silks.
The princess quietly prayed for the peace of her war-torn nation, for the peace of all Ivalice, for she was a kind-hearted woman who believed that she had a sworn, divine duty to nurture and protect her people.
But such idealism alone could not save a nation. That was why Agrias Oaks, Holy Knight of God, stood patiently at the princess' side. Where Ovelia possessed the charisma and drive, Agrias offered the strength and force necessary to bring about those dreams.
"Princess, let us go," said Agrias. "We must leave now before Goltanna sends his men to abduct you."
"Is Gallione any safer than here, Agrias?" Ovelia asked quietly, ending her prayers. "I came here to escape the coming war between Princes Larg and Goltanna, yet to go to Larg's domain is to invite the war."
"The Hokuten will protect you, princess, and so will I," Agrias replied solemnly. "Now come, the mercenary escort has arrived."
As Agrias conveyed the princess to the monastery's foyer, Simon noticed the disdainful wrinkling of her brow. Curious as to Agrias' dismay, the monk inquired, "What burdens leaden your heart, Lady Knight?"
"Naught but my faith in the Hokuten's wisdom," was her curt reply. "Mercenaries, Father Simon. Mercenaries! They saddle the honor of the princess' protection to mere rabble." It was clear that the stony-faced knight was furious at what she perceived to be a grave breach of chivalry and knightly responsibility.
"But Lady Agrias," placated the monk calmly, "you know as well as any that these mercenaries are, by far, the best in all Ivalice. It is said that their leader boasts the strength of a hundred Hokuten or a hundred Nanten. Indeed, I have heard that this Gaff Gafgarion is so skilled with a blade that he even fought toe to toe with the great Cidolfas Orlandu."
Agrias sneered all the more at this claim. "When criminals and thieves like Gafgarion stand on par with honorable men like the Thunder God, I question not only the wisdom but also the sanity of the men who take them to hire. But enough talk, for the knaves in question approach."
The Holy Knight held her icy demeanor as a warrior would a shield against the arrows of an enemy. Following that metaphor, her cold, blue-eyed gaze was, then, her sword and it sought to pierce the character of the unscrupulous mercenaries that approached.
She obviously harbored no love for the itinerant warriors, for they were the epitome of lawlessness and distrust. Unallied with any nation or any knighthood, they were hirelings and sellswords who lay their loyalties to the clink of coin alone. Such a shallow life was inconceivable to Agrias.
The mercenary captain, Gaff Gafgarion was known to her in particular. A veteran of many battles, he was once a knight expelled for his brutal tactics and lack of honor. He fought for many different kings during the Hundred Years' War and served with the Hokuten as well as the Death Corps during the peasants' insurrection.
Gafgarion himself was an imposing figure, fully worthy of his reputation—uncouth in his unwashed armor, he had the appearance of a grizzled soldier. He was comfortable with the heavy, battle-darkened plate and the heavier blade at his side. In his mid-fifties, he was yet hale and strong of arm, with experience that younger warriors could only dream of.
To think that such a dastardly barbarian was Ovelia's protector rankled within proud Agrias' heart.
What surprised her, however, was Gafgarion's companion, a young blonde only a little over twenty. He was not particularly tall or broad of shoulder like Gafgarion nor was he anywhere near as comfortable in his armor. Indeed, he seemed out of place, confused, even naive as he looked around the foyer with awe. He seemed a child. The contrast between this innocent young man and the battle-hardened mercenary was striking to Agrias.
"You must be our employer," said Gafgarion gruffly, ignoring protocol and etiquette. He bowed rakishly, mockingly to the princess. "Rest assured, m'lady, we will see you to Igros without delay."
He was about to clasp the princess' shoulder, but Agrias's gauntleted fingers wrapped around his wrist with an iron-like grip. A deadly glare entered her ice-blue eyes. "You will show the princess the respect due her station, mercenary," she growled.
"You must be Agrias Oaks," the mercenary drawled. "I've heard of you. The Golden Paladin, they call you. I have to say, you're a bit skinner than I thought you'd be. But you're pretty enough to do your family name justice, I suppose."
"You, ruffian, will keep a civil tongue in your head, lest I cut it out with your own blade."
Gafgarion guffawed uproariously. "I'd like to see you try, girl. You're a skilled fighter, so the tales go, but I can tell you right now: draw steel on me, and you won't live to see the morning."
The blonde man that accompanied Gafgarion looked startled and alarmed by the sudden threat of violence in the air. Agrias noticed that he made to intervene, but Ovelia beat him to it.
"Enough, both of you," said the princess with her full authority. "Agrias, we must not be so hostile. And you, Captain Gafgarion, will pay Lady Oaks and myself the respect we are due. We cannot have infighting amongst ourselves, for we already have enough enemies at our gates."
As if on some horrible and ironic cue, the clapping of chocobo talons scratched at the monastery's flagstones. Outside the great doors, standing in the rain of the evening, were seven Nanten Knights—the elite of Zeltennia.
Agrias, eyes widening in alarm, gently escorted the princess back into the monastery. "Hide, princess," she begged. "Simon, do not let her leave the sanctuary of this place. I will protect her from these knaves—with my life, if need be," she said solemnly.
"You mean 'we,' Oaks," interrupted Gafgarion. "Just because you don't like me doesn't mean you can't count on me—I'm getting a nice sum for this job, after all."
Agrias only huffed scornfully at this declaration. Her attention turned to the uneasy young man. "And you? I can at least trust in Gafgarion's greed. What of your loyalties? You look like you're about ready to run away at the first sign of fighting."
The young man staggered at the mention of running away. Suddenly, he straightened and firmed his jaw. "You can count on me to protect the princess," he said with solemnity equal to Agrias' own vow. The Holy Knight was not expecting such a reply from a mercenary.
"Very well then," she said. "Beyond those doors is our enemy. Let us meet them as true warriors would."
Boldly, the Golden Paladin led the two mercenaries into the impromptu battlefield. There, the seven Nanten waited. "Lady Agrias Oaks of the Royal Guard," announced the Nanten commander, "we are here to parley for Princess Ovelia. Prince Goltanna of Zeltennia wishes to speak with his blood relative."
Agrias countered, "You must be joking! The princess is closest to Prince Larg by blood; crossing into his realm is tantamount to war—do you wish to set the spark that will enwrap our nations in bloodshed, you fool?"
In unison, the Nanten drew their weapons: swords, axes, and lances. "If you wish to turn this into a war, then war it will be," the leader said quietly. "Holy Knight! Prepare yourself!"
Raising her own sword, Agrias cried, "For the White Lion!"
Gafgarion shoved his young companion ahead. "Come on, Ramza—we've got a job to do."
"Er…yes." The young man drew his sword uncertainly.
And then battle was engaged.
Agrias won the initial passes, her sword plowing through the wooden haft of an axe and slicing deep into the shoulder of a Nanten Knight. She raised her thick gauntlet high, turning aside a lancer's pike; her return thrust buried itself to the hilt in the man's belly. With a powerful kick, she shoved the slain lancer off her sword's tip. Then she surveyed the mercenaries at their bloodwork.
Gafgarion proved worth of his terrible reputation. Like a demon, he barreled into two knights, hacking the arm off one and slugging the other across the temple with his fist. Then he grabbed the slain knight's sword and plunged both this blade and his own into his other foe's chest. Lacking the finesse of a knight, Gafgarion made up for his lack of honor with ruthlessness.
But what surprised Agrias was the young man, Ramza. He seemed very inexperienced and unconfident, but even as terror and uncertainty flooded his wide, childlike eyes, his hands and feet moved with the puissant skill of a master swordsman. The surety he lacked in his soul was surmounted by the adroitness of his sword-arm. The three Nanten he crossed blades with soon found those blades in pieces.
Though the young man, Ramza, had his foes at his mercy, and by rights, should have slain them then and there as befits a warrior, he strangely sheathed his blade and waved them off. "Go on," he begged them with empathy. "You're beaten. Go on—leave!"
The Nanten, however, were a proud breed. Retreat was beneath them, especially after so complete a defeat. They drew knives from their belts and, with war cries, struck at the young man. But Ramza was no longer there. He had slipped to their flanks. With horror etched onto his smooth features, the young man's arms moved of their own accord, slicing open the belly of one of the knights.
"I beg you again," said Ramza quietly, "leave." This time, the remaining Nanten did retreat. Ramza let out an audible sigh.
Victory was in the hands of the soldiers of the White Lion.
Agrias was about to call the men to regroup when a cry echoed from within the monastery. "Princess!" the Holy Knight whispered with wide eyes. She ran into Orbonne and found Simon lying wounded from a blow to the face. Though she worried for the frail monk's health, she set aside her concerns and focused on Ovelia. She burst through a door leading to the pond in the back of the monastery.
There, she beheld a kidnapping. A young man with brown hair and plated armor bearing the Black Lion of Zeltennia on its tabard had the princess tied over his shoulder. Throwing Ovelia on the back of a chocobo, he made ready to ride.
"Wait!" Agrias demanded, her sword drawn. "Stop, Nanten!"
The young man, seated in his saddle, laughed. "Nanten, am I? If you say so. Don't bother trying to catch me, woman. By the time you get to your mount, I'll be long gone. If you want to blame someone for this, blame yourself or God." With an imperious gesture, he kicked his chocobo into a full run, disappearing over the next hillock.
"It can't be…" whispered Ramza from behind her. Agrias turned, startled, for she did not hear his approach. But Ramza was staring out over the hillock. "Delita…you're alive…but why are you working for Goltanna?"
The Holy Knight immediately grabbed the young man by the collar, shaking him roughly. "You know that man? Tell me everything you know, mercenary!"
But Ramza did not seem entirely conscious of her. He was dazed, shocked to near-silence at what he saw. His face, already pale, turned almost stark white. The best he could do was murmur, "Delita…is alive."
"I don't have time for this," Agrias grumbled. "Mercenary, pull yourself together and tell me what's going on."
She words were thick with command and was used to being obeyed. It proved enough to bring Ramza out of his stupor. "I knew that man once," Ramza said quietly. "I thought he died. I can't tell you much, really—he should have died…."
Agrias only scowled in disgust; the young man was rambling, was barely cognizant. It angered her fiercely, but she knew that her fury was born from her own inability to protect the princess. She had failed her duty, but she would be damned a hundred times over if she did not try to rectify her mistakes.
Gruffly shoving Ramza to the side, the Holy Knight marched back into the monastery while saying to Gafgarion, "Get to your mounts; we leave tonight. We're going after them."
Admittedly, Agrias had spent little of her life outside the training academies, churches, and royal courts of the elite classes. Her studies as a Holy Knight kept her on the fringe of what some of her grittier subordinates would call the "real world." She was more than aware of her lack of information concerning the woof and weave of the underworld or even the simple threads of a peasant's life.
Yet she made up for her sheltered education with an apt and flexible mind. Thus it was that she deduced the next stage of the kidnapping. The kidnapper, Delita, was clearly an unscrupulous and cunning adversary, for he struck a churchman from behind without a moment's hesitation. Doubtless deception and traps would be his weapon of choice to throw off any possible pursuit.
Agrias was more than aware of this—indeed, she was expecting resistance to her efforts. But the tactician within her knew that the fastest way out of the Orbonne region, notorious for its difficult riding and rock-strewn fields, would be by the main highway—a highway leading through the crossroads of Dorter.
It was to the trade city that the Holy Knight pressed her chocobo. It was to the trade city that she urged the mercenaries onward. They had to be swift, lest the kidnapper Delita leave Dorter before them. If he did, it would be next to impossible to locate him, for while all the southern roads led into Dorter, dozens led out. Fortunately, Delita did not have much of a lead on them; Agrias, Ramza, and Gafgarion reached the trade city by noontime of the next day, after a hard ride through the rainy night.
The Holy Knight made a brief, yet complete, survey of her "troops." The mercenary captain was, of course, quite hale and alert, for his advanced age belied his rock-like constitution and the years and years of heavy marching he had done all his life. Indeed, it was readily apparent that he was in better shape after a day's ride than she was. Agrias absently rubbed at aching eyelids.
Ramza, on the other hand, looked like a wreck. His pale face was wan, the thin frame suddenly emaciated, the bulky dark leather armor hanging loosely from his small shoulders. To Agrias, a seasoned fighter, he looked like a green warrior out on his first tour—and even worse, one that was already succumbing to shellshock. She briefly wondered why Gafgarion kept him around.
The three unlikely companions rode their mounts up one of Dorter's main roads, one leading out onto the northern highway. It was on this strangely empty path that she saw a knight dressed in the colors of the church speaking to a ruffian. The sight was truly strange, for no knight of the cloth would degrade himself with a conversation with such an obvious scoundrel.
But it was this very knight's words that astonished Agrias. "Five hundred gold pieces for the heads of the mercenaries and the Holy Knight's," said the knight. "Make sure they don't leave this city alive, or we'll have you branded for heretics and excommunicated from the church!"
"Fine, fine," his shady partner said without much care. "We'll tie them down for you, no problem. Let's see the cash up front, though, all right, sire?" He said the last word with such unmasked contempt that the knight scowled. Yet a purse exchanged hands regardless.
The knight heard the clicking of chocobo talons on the flagstones and saw the party's approach. "Here they are—remember, none are to leave here alive!" With that, the knight ducked into an alley and disappeared.
The ruffian turned to appraise his targets…but his eyes widened and his jaw slackened in horror. "Gafgarion!" he cried, recognizing the infamous mercenary. "Shit, this almost isn't worth five hundred! Come on out, boys!" With a whistle, four other hit men appeared out of virtually every crack and crevice on the street.
Agrias sneered at the paltry filth laid out before her. With the pride of a lioness, she said derisively, "This is supposed to stop us?" Yet her bravado held a hint of confusion and concern—the knight who hired this rabble had mentioned the church's involvement in killing her—or more specifically, killing those who wanted to rescue Princess Ovelia.
A horrible possibility crossed her mind: could the church, not Goltana, be responsible for the princess' kidnapping?
Agrias found Ramza looking at her with childlike concern, for he had noticed the quiet undertones in her voice and saw the well-hidden horror in her face. She forced her visage into its usual stoniness; her pride would not let her acknowledge that some cowardly mercenary had managed to read her so well.
"Gafgarion, can I trust you to fight until the princess is rescued?" she asked suddenly, changing the focus of her attention.
The mercenary captain only nodded. "Of course. Remember, the contract said full payment at the end of service—not before." With that, he drew steel and kicked his mount into a charge. Agrias and, lastly, Ramza also threw themselves into powerful runs.
Battle was joined, with Gafgarion at the lead. True to his terrible reputation, the vicious fighter tore through his foes like a demon unleashed. Though a lucky thief's blade tore out the throat of his mount, Gafgarion was surprisingly nimble in his winter years and recovered quickly from the fall. His retaliatory blow gutted the thief in question.
Agrias, too, lost her mount early in the fight; one of her enemies carried a crossbow, which he put to immediate use. The Holy Knight dealt with the archer with a well-thrown knife she carried in her boot. But her victory was short-lived, for two of the surviving thieves pushed her back into a wall and one, apparently skilled in brawling, knocked her blade from her hand.
Though a skilled warrior with a variety of weapons, Agrias was, much to her chagrin, helpless in a fistfight. Her arms were strong, yes, but while she could overpower most men in terms of brute strength, she lacked the height and weight necessary to attain victory from pugilism and wrestling. The thieves must have realized this, for they threw their strongest blows into her belly and face. Then they threw her, dazed, onto the ground, where they pinned down her arms and legs. One drew a knife and made ready to cut open her throat.
Agrias would have preferred a nobler end, but she was resolved to meet God as an honorable servant. She raised her eyes defiantly, staring into her would-be killer's face with all the pride of a queen, daring him to slit her throat. But the knifeman's expression turned to one of surprise and horror as his weapon hand was sliced clean from his wrist. He fell back, grasping at the bleeding stump, only to be kicked in the head by a hard leather boot. The other thief stood, drawing a pair of short swords.
Ramza barreled into him, shoving the thief into a wall. With a surprisingly powerful punch for his gawky frame, the young mercenary cuffed his opponent across the face with the iron hilt of his sword. That was enough to knock the thief unconscious. Ramza then turned to the man he maimed. "Take your friend and leave," he implored. "I don't want to have to hurt you further; go." The thief needed no second mentioning; he grabbed his unconscious comrade and hobbled away.
Ramza sheathed his blade and picked up Agrias'. He extended a hand to her, a gesture of friendship and an offer to help up. But the proud knight slapped his hand away and took her sword.
"I don't understand you," she said coldly. "Why did you let them go? And not just them—but the Nanten, too? Are you truly that foolish to leave a sworn enemy at your back, you idiot?" She stormed off toward Gafgarion, not caring that her hard words left a pained expression on Ramza's countenance.
"Why do you keep him around?" Agrias demanded of the mercenary captain, jerking a thumb at Ramza. "He is clearly not a warrior. His propensity for mercy is admirable, but it will surely get us killed."
Gafgarion only shrugged in answer. "The boy's got potential, lady knight," he replied. The Holy Knight only laughed scornfully. But the mercenary captain persisted, "Think about it—he can disarm and completely defeat his opponents without killing them. He has skill, to be sure, but he's holding back. Think of what he could do if he didn't hesitate to kill. Think of how dangerous he can be then."
And Agrias did think and it was enough to stop her derisive laughter.