First, I'd like to thank my reviewers and the kind words. Hopefully I will be able to fulfill your expectations in any of my future tale spinning.
To answer a question posed by one reviewer: the reason this story is labelled tragedy is more to with the fact of Mark's villain status as opposed to being outright killed. Think of it this way, how do you think the surviving members of Eliwood's Elite would feel after finally discovering that Mark has turned evil? Part of the reason I'm writing this story is because I thought it would make interesting character reaction and how'd they take on their former friend/commander who saved Elibe once before. Think of Mark as having a Darth Revan complex to him.
Just alittle heads up, this is the part of the story where Mark's world is turned upside down. Now unto the story. I still don't own Fire Emblem or any of its characters. If I did, there sure as hell wouldn't be an easy mode.
Conquest of Elibe: chapter 2
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
The Hollow Men
- T.S. Eliot
Within the thralls of agony, the tactician violently thrashed and groaned during his entire venom-induced coma. The racking sensation of the serpent's poison caused every nerve and synapse to cry out even in sleep, resulting in grotesque muscle spasms during his comatosity. In his current condition, the most severe fever seemed like nothing more than a minor head cold. Every sort of pain and ailment accompanied with a violent reaction to a foreign entity in one's bloodstream were his to reap.
He dreamt of many things during his comatose. Partially because as of late he's had many dreamless nights and very little time to sort out his personal issues, partially because it was one of the few things his subconscious could do to alleviate the torment he was enduring at the present.
It was humid dusk in Bern. Their army had completed their objective of securing the Shrine of Seals and toppling Linus's forces. After the grueling battle, the members of Eliwood's Elite were unwinding and generally making merriment back at their less than stellar camp so many have grown accustomed to referring to as "home." The three lords were carrying on their usual conversation, which seemed to inevitably end with Lyn and Hector arguing over something petty and Eliwood acting as the mediator between the two parties. Wil was catching hell from Rebecca for trying to sneak off with a pre-dinner snack. Wallace was regaling tales of the battle he's been with the rapt interest of those listening (Nino in particular). Fiora and Kent were off to the side of the camp "discussing" more of their ideas regarding battle strategy and troop conduct. Guy and Karel were dueling, with Karel attempting to teach his engrossed pupil the obligue feint technique of long forgotten eastern swordmasters. Sain...well... was being Sain and attempting to woo Serra. How he could stand her and vice versa was something that would forever evade Mark's understanding. For the most part, the group was living the commaraderie often forged by those who spent day in and out in the crucible of war.
Athos made an impromptu apperance proceeding the fighting. Everyone within the camp knew of the how preoccupied he was with the preparation for their inevitable confrontation with Nergal, though the Archsage did decide linger, if only for a little, with that band of misfists known as Eliwood's Elite.
The strategist found it odd that Athos would request to speak him in the absence of the lords. On his way to the meet the Archsage, the tactician's mind mediated on the possible affairs that this meeting would regard. When he saw the oldened sage in plain site, he found that Athos was standing on hilltop overlooking the scenery. Despite facing the opposite direction as Mark, he was already aware of the tacitician's presence as he approached.
"I've spoken with both Pent and Hawkeye on the status and success of this group. So being, they tell me many things about you, tactician."
"Hopefully nothing bad."
Still staring out unto the world before him as though in deep thought. The Archsage responded after a few moments of silence
"What they tell me is that you're quite personable with those serving under you, yet somehow you try to stay your distance when it is possible."
Trying to sound respectful, the tactician responded to this claim with:
"I try indifference for a reason. If I were to become too attached to any member of this band it could ultimately effect my judgment and practicality as the staff officer. As someone whose dedicated his life to the unravelling of magic codices, you can see where I'm coming from when I say the one thing antithetical to reason is emotion, Venerable Archsage."
"Well said, but your demeanor is not why I have truly called you here...merely a facet of it."
"Then why have you called me here? Surely my tactical prowess is not unsatisfactory."
Still with his back turned to the tactician and facing the down below, the archsage took these words into consideration as trying to avoid a touchy subject.
"Tell me, son of wisdom, when this conflict is resolved what do you plan to do?"
Now this question caught Mark off guard. Not only did he himself not indepthly consider what he'd do once his contract expired, but he was humbled, almost flattered that the Living Legend, a man who's fought against the fiercest denizens of the draconic race and lived a thousand years to witness civilizations rise and fall, had taken a personal interest in him, a fledgling tactician of very little consequence.
Trying to regain his mental composure and seem as less stricken as possible. He answered Atho's inquiry with any nonchalantless he could muster.
"I suppose what I will do is go back to mercenary work as a tactician for hire doing odd jobs here and there. I have no delusion that my role in this whole affair will be marginalized. Even so, I also hold no doubts that anything I do in the future will be nearly as important or grandiose as what I am doing right now."
This is when the Archsage finally turned to face the strategist face-to-face with a serious look upon his haggard features. The same sort of severity a general exhibits when he's addressing his troops right before a crucial battle.
"Superb Mind, no Mark, whatever happens, whatever ambition may overtake you in days to come, you most swear to me that you will learn the lessons of Nergal's folly, in addition to every other tyrant in history, and not forget the sanctity of life."
If Athos's question didn't completely throw Mark for a loop, this pleading surely did. Why was Athos coming from this angle? Had Mark done something to indicate he had the propensity to abuse his powers, or rather, what was it something the archsage was portenting to? The tacitican finally responded, barely able to keep himself from cluttering his speech.
"Why are you asking this of me. Have I failed your expectations somehow?"
The Archsage stood there examining the tactician as though searching for any sort of abnormalities in the Mark's behavior. When his scrutiny yielded no results, the Archsage resumed his speech in a less severe tone.
"Because, son of wisdom, in you is a talent that only manifests itself once in a millennia, your mind. As an onlooker, I have witness the fall of many...consumed by their own talents and hubris. Infact, one of the reason we're fighting right now is because of that"
Mark, finally starting to grasp the gravity behind the Archsage's words, knew where this dialogue was headed.
"I believe your fears are missplaced, if I'd be so bold to say, Master Athos. I'm not a sorceror of supernatural ability or a strong-armed warlord. What sort of threat could I present to the world if I'm barely able to hold my own in a fight?"
"Very true. Your never learned the way of the sword and your spellcasting is less than refined, but that is not where my worry lies. Of all the things Providence deemed to give us mortals, nothing is neither as creative nor destructive as the mind. Why would one need to fight when they already possess the knowledge to topple kingdoms, turn former friends on eachother, and embroil a continent in war?"
"Athos...I understand."
"Then you finally comprehend what it is I'm asking...why I ask of it. Now, tactician, make your oath not just for our sake, but for your own!"
In hopes he could avert Mark from becoming the thing Nergal has regressed to, a once virtuous man who became obsessed with the power alotted to him, Athos had implored Mark to stay the course, as though he already knew the actions Mark would take twenty years from then. The Archsage always seemed to have a grasp of things far exceeding normal human foresight or understanding. For any who could of witnessed the conversation and possessed divination, they would be in awe of how eerily foreshadowing Athos's request was(1).
When the tactician finally awoke, he found himself sweating profusely and became painfully aware of the blisters around the wound. Blotches of dead skin had formed over a portions of his body, not only that, but when he had attempted to speak he unvoluntarily started bleeding out the mouth, indicating that it would be wise not to talk for awhile. Everytime he attempted to move, even slightly, he further suffered the affliction caused by the poison-coated arrow. Even lying prone on the ground was a fight between passing back into unconsciousness and crying out like an infant. For the sake of his pride(not to mention manhood), he determined he would not do the former and he sure as hell didn't want do the first out of fear of being unable to react to anybody wishing him harm.
He wasn't in the same place he had been he was struck by the arrow. His current local, which he hadn't ventured, changed from that old cliffside road to the inside of some abandoned shack. For that matter, how exactly long had he been unconscious, a few hours, days, maybe even a week or two? Untop of all that, who had brought him here in the first place? Much to his dismay, someone had relieved him his travelling cloak, along with all his other possesions, and had replaced them with tattered and generic looking clothing unfit for a pauper.
With these questions looming in his head the door to the shack opened and closed. Someone had just entered, but Mark was too exhausted, in addition to not wanting to invoke anymore pain, to turn to see who it was.
The time exceeded a more than prolonged silence until someone spoke.
"So glad you're finally awake," tauntedly jabbed this new person in a harsh tone.
Still unable to see who it was, Mark said nothing in return.
"Too good to reply to me, eh? You got alot of nerve, prick, considering I'm the one who saved your worthless life by having the company healer administer the antidote when you were still passed out."
Now that he had thought about it, it was odd he was still alive. From cursory knowledge gained from an almanac, viper toxins were fatal; often causing organ failure and muscle death, resulting in the demise of anyone unlucky enough to be infected by the concoction. Indeed, this person had given him some sort of remedy to hinder further progession of the venom, but not enough to spare him the symptoms following. For the time being, he would be glad he's alive at all. Though thankful to this person to a degree, the tactician highly doubted he had given the antidote out of the kindness of his heart.
Suspecting there was some sort of ulterior motive behind this action, he tried to speak to only find himself vomiting blood on the floor.
"Perhaps alchemists of this era should consider an antitoxin which stops internal bleeding," he bitterly thought to himself.
"Hmmph, well in any case, you don't have to worry about dying. Though, where you're going you sure as hell will wish you did," added the stranger.
With confirmation that this person had ill-intentions toward him, Mark forced his head upright to face his savior and the man who was about to condemn him to a fate worse than the grave. What sight greeted the strategist could have only been worse if he was face-to-face with a resurrected Nergal. Standing off to side of the room, was a man enclosed in decorative blue armor with a graphic sigil of a gryphon clutching a bundle spears in one claw and a skull in the other adorned upon his cuirass. This man was an Etrurian officer of some sort, and judging from his wroth countinance, he was less than pleased with his captive.
"One of our scouts subdued you and brought you before me. According to his account, you had murdered three of our soldiers and were about to flee the scene. Did you honestly believe you could elude our justice?
With these charges cast at him, the tactician said nothing. What could of he had said? Outright lie by contending he had not been the one who slaughtered the patrol. Try to explain that the soldiers were assaulting an innocent man and his daughter? No, such a case would of fallen on deaf ears. Why waste his breath when this man would undoubtably hear none of it? Mark continued to maintain his silence, knowing full well that any word would equally damn him.
Provoked by this assailant's defiance in speaking, the Etrurian officer marched across the room and kicked the strategist in his abdominal. Mark let out a surprised grunt at this sudden action and flipped over on his back clutching his stomach. He looked up in fear of being smited a second time and beheld that this man was looking down on him with the utmost hatred. This officer hated the tactician with every fiber of his being for what Mark had done. In his mind, the tactician was on par with the most vile cowards, oathbreakers, embezzlers, and every other social undesirable.
Though it seemed like it he was about to strike Mark a second time, he regained his composure and said:
"I suggest you get some rest,"
Trying to prevent himself from wretching anymore blood, Mark could only force out a barely audible "Why?"
"Because we'll be marching to the piers with all the other captured scum, yourself included. You'll need whatever strength your thin frame can muster."
With these words spoken, the man began to walk out of the shack but turned around and said:
"Course', it doesn't matter to me whether you're rested or not, you'll be in for the same hell. I'll tell my soldiers to give you 'preferential treatment,'" Mark noticed that he put great tense in the last part.
After the etrurian's exist, Mark let himself drift into slumber, assured that no harm could befall him(or at least death) in the interim between the present and that predetermined time.
It had been scarcely three hours before he felt the sharp prodding of spearhead in his back rousing him out of his sleep. The tactician didn't need further persuading to get him, for he knew the most likely outcome if he were too slow in his compliance. Still feeling the ache of the toxin, though notably better from a few hours ago, he forced himself into a standing postion. As he was trying to gain his equilibrium, the assigned escort struck the back of his head knocking him to the floor.
"You really aught to watch your step, wouldn't want you to trip now," the footsoldier said, not even attempting to hide his enjoyment.
Resentment rising in him, he once again gained his footing and was promptly forced outside the building into the great outdoors. After walking a little distance he arrived at a nearby city named Helispunt, currently under the occupation of this foreign army. On the outskirts on the city was a plethora of captured enemy combatants, whom had opposed the Etrurian occupation. Some were the little of what remained of the Western Isle's militia, along with the more organized resistance, among them were brigands looking to take advantage of the confusion, mercenaries hired to bolster the Caledonian resistance, and even some civilians who had little to do with anything but were nonetheless caught up as innocent bystanders. All had stood up in the face of aggressive expansionism, all had fallen, and all the rest were now under the watchful vigil of amoral Etrurian guardsmen.
Being forced into one of the rows, Mark brooded on whether he were to be unceremoniously executed with these mundanes and lowlifes, and having his body tossed into some unmarked mass grave, history forgetting his very existence, one of the nameless casualities sacrificed upon the altar of hegemony. Recalling the etrurian's mention of a march, he determined this was an most unlikely end result, though somewhat still unsure. In the wake of these thoughts, he was abruptly commanded to stand along with the rest of the prisoners. Now began the event later historians would name as the Helispunt Death March(2).
What atrocities Mark would witness during this march of the damned would shape his outlook and future actions. En route to the collective destination of the prisoners, Mark saw first hand the magnitude and destruction the Etrurian invasion brought to the Isles. War ravaged villages, farms ransacked, desecrated cathedrals, burned cities, destroyed villages, once fertile valleys now scorched graveyards littered with the corpses of the condemned. Innocent children who had lost their parents and homes as a result of the Subjugation Wars(3), were now on the side of the roads begging for food and water and crying for their now dead mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and family members. The tactician saw on their many of them were malnoursished, hideously disfigured, and utter defeat had overtaken their once youthful vistages, replaced with hopelessness and despair. All afflictions a child should never have to bare in a just and moral world. In this war, just as many tears of the orphaned stained the soil as the blood of the slain.
Anybody who couldn't make the trip who fell down due to exhaustion were executed, anybody who lagged behind the rest were executed, anybody who tried to help up those who collapsed were executed, and some were just executed at the thrill of watchmen. Soldiers merciless impaled or bludgeoned to those who resisted. One form of the enjoyment for Etrurian calvary was to ride up to the side of the road, aside the marching prisoners, and stick out their swords to see how many of the prisoners they could behead in one sitting. Stopping for anything was equivalent to a death sentence at the hands of these merciless monsters in soldier's clothing, whom would plunge their weapons in those foolish to hold up the line. In the minds of these jailers, these captives were not even people deserving humans rights, and therefore, fair game for whatever demented sport the etrurians had in mind.
With these visions forever burned into his mind, Mark's righteous anger grew to become absolute loathing of these men. Malice, which went deeper than humanity, and rivaled that of Formiitis's hatred of the Sacred Stones, was all he could feel. The arrogance and utter disregard for human life was overwhelmning, and yet, he had always known such things happened in war. Being aware of such atrocities and seeing them with your own eyes, and to even live through it, were things altogether different. In the end, Mark's realism was insufficient to prepare him for the stark reality before his very eyes.
Enduring more abuses, rapes, murders, and braving the roughly forty-five mile march without any sustenance or rest, the prisoner caravan arrived at their destinition with a not so negligible amount of casualities on the way. Their location was that of a makeshift port currently in use by the etrurian expeditionary forces to ship in troops and much valued supplies for the war effort. Given a meager amount of stale bread and fetid water, the prisoners ate this as though it was their last meal prior to execution. Waiting in that port in for the next few days with little rein to anything, not even talking amongst captives, was excruciating enough, but nothing in comparison to the second portion of the journey to Fort Severe.
Waiting for a few days, the ship to carry to their abyssmal and final destination. Being forced into the hull, the hostages were chained together in strings from starboard to portside facing the vessel's aft. Sitting in that dark ship hull was by far the worst portion of the trip. There weren't any appointed places to relieve one's self and no one was allowed to move around, so naturally one would be forced do so in their place. The overpowering smell wafting in the air was torture in itself. So much so that the tactician could hardly get any sleep between the odor and rocking of the ship often resulting in vertigo of many passangers. The unsanitary conditions, joined with lack of nourishment and rest, would later cause many of the enfeebled to die of either infection or pathogens.
An enternity passed and the voyage went. Mother Nature seemed incline to making the journey more of an unpleasant by throwing typhoons in the vessel's directions. Enthralled by the aspect of being able to move about and vacate this hellhole, the defeated became the rejoicers and let out a collective woop at being freed from this god-forsaken hull. Their happiness would serve to prove how temporary human satifaction was. Once they evacuated the ship and set foot on the beach head they were immediately cuffed with shackles, reminding them that they were still enslaved.
They saw looming in the distance Fort Severe, a fortress which served with the duel purpose of a prison, an architectual reminder to Etruria's supremacy and ambitions. To those standing on the beach head, all it seemed like was a harbinger of their doomed and life of forced servitude here on out.
-Takes in death breath-
Finally chapter two is completed! For some reason that seemed harder to write than the first one. My condolences if there of those out there who feel is it of lesser quality than the first, but between school, work, personal life, and my own exercise regiment, I don't have much time to work on these projects. Even though I work part time, my supervisor thought it would be a good idea to assign me eleven hour work shifts four days a week. Nothing against working, it's what seperates us from the bums, but you could say it makes any sort of leisure nonexistent except on the weekends.
For those of you who feel this story was excessive and coming off as dreary in portraying soldier bruality, I do not do it for the sake of doing it. I'm not some wishy-washy hippie who hates the military and everything it stands for. I felt like that it would take something drastic - real drastic to alter Mark's outlook. And Mark's world is only starting too plummet. Hopefully, the violence was able to compensate for the lack of explicit fighting scenes.
(1) I don't mean to have Athos as coming off as a simpering oldman just as byproduct of the subject he and tactician are scratching. There were worse ways he could of came off, which I am thankful I avoided.
(2) Helispunt Death March is an allusion to the historical Bataan Death March circa World War 2. I didn't make up these human rights violations in my own mind.
(3) I'm not sure if "Subjugation Wars" is canon to refer to Etruria's invasion of the Western Isles, but I saw the name in another fanfiction called Hammer of the Terrascars, so I'll borrow the name for my own use. Props to Servant of GOD if it's his original theme. By the way, you guys really out to read his stuff if you haven't. Truly the standard for tactician-centric fanfics.