CHAPTER 6 :
THE ATONEMENT
Pelleas stared blankly at the water reflections as his group stopped by the sea, at a point located three hours northwest of Fort Rigwald. The surroundings – the forest, the waterfront, the cliffs – made it a peculiar area where to rest before the Daein army began the siege of Fort Rigwald. As a Spirit Charmer, he could use his magical ability to sense whatever magical threats abound. He thinks of what his life was back in Renais, in a mountain cabin, when he didn't fight the armies of Grado at every turn. He would use a water-powered mill to grind the materials he needed in his arcane research. But he also reminisces how it was when he first went in Daein: cold, dry, windy…
But also why he was sent to Daein in the first place: because he was to atone his wrongs about being locked up in his town's library for too long. He survived the trip to Daein, both ways, and then got to the Frelia/Grado border. Renais didn't mean much to him anymore, for he made such a long trip and Renais was defeated in battle. As his home country was in ruins, he didn't think of himself as a person to whom to turn to in order to save the kingdom. A scout began his report: "Pardon me for disturbing your meditations, Lord Pelleas, but our team reports that Princess Tana is held prisoner in the deeper cells of Fort Rigwald." Pelleas then asked him if he knows who lead the defense of Fort Rigwald or anything about that person.
Scout warnd Lord Pelleas, "My Lord, expect a lot of undead laguz in the castle. If we're really unlucky, then expect Zombie Dragon Laguz as you approach the garrison leader. Or Tana's cell."
Within the reinforced walls of Fort Rigwald, however, a Soldier emits sheer doubts about the very purpose of her mission. Also, a Soldier delivers his intelligence report to his commander.
The Soldier said, "Reporting in! We'll soon be under attack!... Looks like Daein troops. Their commander is… Lord Pelleas!"
A Knight nearby responded, "The Daein army has no idea that we are aware of their every move! What does that group of vagabonds think they are capable of? I don't care who is the enemy commander, or how talented he is. He's just a mercenary with delusions of grandeur. We have nothing to fear."
Izuka pitched in, "We'll show them what real war is like!"
The Knight began his rant: "A Daein noble leads this rabble? This whole thing sneaks. My step-brother and her husband lived in Renais… What is this emperor thinking, starting this war?"
Izuka warned the Knight, "I heard you. Talking about not fighting? The punishment for treason is harsh. You'll burn at the stake."
The Knight continued his rant, "But it's not just me! Even General Duessel is opposed to this war!"
Izuka asked, "You'd side with that washed-up coward? And who is your commanding officer? Is it Duessel? Come on, out with it!"
The Knight answered, reluctantly, "You… you are, Izuka."
Izuka said, "That's right. So that should make clear whose orders you follow. You got that? If you do, then shut up and get into formation. No one cares about your lives!"
Amelia interrupted Izuka at this very moment. "Wait a minute! That's an horrible thing to say!", she said.
Izuka asked her, "Who are you supposed to be? Your name! Out with it!"
Amelia answered, "I'm Amelia. I have been assigned to this fort today. I am a soldier of Grado, not a slave attached to the fort!"
Izuka shouted, "What is it now? You're a girl? You've got a lot of nerve talking like that to your commander. Looks like you will have to be thrown in the same cell as Princess Tana!"
Two Knights bring Amelia into the same dungeon cell as Princess Tana is imprisoned, not knowing that the occupants of the cell almost suffocate without having to throw an extra person in it. In the deepest confines of the castle, the Knights see suffocating prisoners in every single cell, some of them capable of fighting, others are civilians. Obviously, the civilian prisoners are placed all the way in the back of the cells, in front of the weapons themselves. And the soldiers are foremost in the cells, but with a wall of civilians unable to use these weapons, they cannot fight their way out of the cells.
Franz approached Fort Rigwald with care, "This is Fort Rigwald. It had stood unconquered for generations. Its defenses are legendary. It is the jewel of Grado's fortifications, and its walls have never been breached."
Pelleas then told him, "And if we don't capture it, any attack on the capital will be pointless. Do we have the power to capture it?"
Franz advised his commanding officer, Pelleas, "It's a daunting task. The enemy is evenly matched, numbers-wise, but they have the advantage of terrain. Oh and if we could capture the cellars first… we would have thousands of prisoners ready to fight, almost as many as the ones we got from the lord-mayor of Onrac when we departed Onrac."
Pelleas asked Franz, "But what about in morale?"
Franz suspected, "Do you suspect the soldiers may be unwilling to fight?"
Pelleas told everyone that anything is possible. This is the emperor's war, but the hearts of men are not so swift to change. For example, General Duessel, one of the Imperial Three. Duessel's sympathies are certain to remain with Renais – and to their cause. Because the Duessel as he had come to know is one who supported King Ramon of Crimea in his efforts to achieve a fully integrated society, when Ramon was still alive. He has no love of war… if only Elincia or Ephraim was here...
Franz gave some more advice, "Those unwilling to fight for Grado are most likely in the dungeons. Capture the dungeons first and we'll see how we will capture this place."
Three hours later, outside the castle, Lord Pelleas began casting a spell, whose path made a hole in the ground large enough for two men, side-by-side, to get through it and continue the digging. It was digging into loamy soil; his men were actually digging for the cellars while the lot of his forces defended the battering ram who would force the inner gate, since the outer wall has no gate, only a portcullis.
As they dug closer to the walls, Pelleas himself hears the cries of suffocating prisoners, crammed 20-30 in a single cell. Fort Rigwald held about six thousand prisoners, both common-law and military. If the Daein estimations are correct, this castle averages twenty-four criminals per cell, which is about five times the average number of prisoners per cell recorded in Onrac before his departure. As Grado does not care about criminals of all kinds running rampant in its own lands, it wouldn't care any more about the fate of those who actually are arrested.
A prisoner on the other side of the wall requested to have the cell's door opened. However, that call wasn't heard much by Pelleas himself, as he was on the other side of the walls, still digging through them. Izuka didn't fear that the Daein army would rescue any of the 6,000 prisoners because he thinks all the Daeins would die before they fully breach the wall, leading all 6,000 to certain deaths.
In the inner court of the fortress, the second-in-command of Lord Pelleas ordered that someone cast an Elthunder spell on the barbed wire that stands between them and the inner gate. Because people may be hiding behind the barbed wire.
The Mage asked, "How many people would we make unable to fight if we fired an Elthunder on the barbed wire?"
His superior, a General, answered, "The enemy soldiers are tightly packed behind the barbed wire; the electrical current will get through the metallic armors of every one of them."
The electrical current is so intense it made the barbed wire melt. However, only an Archer, equipped with steel arrows, got hit behind the barbed wire. It did not have the effect his superior expected, so he was ordered to fire another shot, killing a Knight in the process and wounding several others around him. As the barbed wire melt, other soldiers poured out of the gates and the Daein army had no choice but to charge through them in order to get in position to batter the gate down.
As for the digging, Pelleas had to use his magic to be able to remove a few blocks of stone and then be able to remove the stone blocks. There was more soil to be cleared before the Daein sappers could get to the second stone wall. While they were digging to get to the second wall, here is what the sappers found:
The Fighter warned his lord, "My Lord, I found a treasure map! Surely they were pirate prisoners held here and they hid the secret to their treasure in here." Pelleas ordered him to stow that treasure map in the supply convoy as soon as they can free civilian prisoners.
The stone blocks removed, the sapping crews put some wood beams along the way to prevent the land on top of them from collapsing under the weight of their battle comrades. As magic blew some stones away, the people in front of the stones complained they got hit by solid rocks.
The first prisoner, surprised, asked to another prisoner, "What is this? Why did Grado resort to making the cell walls collapse on us? Is the Emperor heartless enough to kill us all this way?" The second prisoner then answered, "This isn't Grado… this is the Daein army! They are no better than Grado!"
Pelleas ordered the prisoners to get behind them, as they will open the cells and crush the cell door open. As for the civilians, they were to get away from here. Fighters swung their axes at the door lock; it took several blows to force the door open. The guards got quickly to the site of the break-in, and saw the horror of Daein soldiers digging a hole large enough for two people to get side-by-side through it. And… an untransformed cat laguz, well alive, was shoved by a beorc prisoner escaping his cell.
The first prisoner, shocked, wondered, "What's this? A tail? Sub-humans should learn not to be arrested at the same time as we humans are!"
Pelleas then told the prisoners in the cell, "We came here to rescue you! All able-bodied prisoners, grab weapons and fight!"
At the main gate, Daein soldiers battered the gate under the cover of shields large enough to fit to fully-trained Generals. Under arrows, they got support from behind, as they rained down fire and arrows on the enemy archers, successfully deflecting their fire away from the men manning the battering ram. On the other side of the ram…
The Warrior in charge of the gate ordered the gate be braced. "The Daein army must not get through!", he shouted.
It was to no avail; the gate bracing didn't work so well and, after a determined effort, the gate partly fell apart, as the upper portion remained intact. And the helepolis (a siege tower) was brought up to the outer wall, letting the Daein soldiers entrenched in it going through the walls and kill everyone else not hit by the arrows and magic. Then whoever could retreat to the inner walls did so through the dungeon. Luckily for them, the Daein army didn't capture the entire prison just yet, as Pelleas' men are still fighting the dungeon guards for the control of the cell keys. A Fighter soon discovered that the cell keys were in a chest hidden in the middle of the dungeon itself. Amelia and Tana were freed. Tana sought her pegasus; the fighter who found out that the keys were in a chest located in the middle of the dungeon had a map of the prisons at hand, where everything was; the stairs, the guard room, and even the stables, for the mounts of the prisoners were kept somewhere else in the dungeon if the prisoners were freed alive.
Tana asked one of the Daein soldiers, "You there! Where are the mounts of the prisoners? My pegasus was a gift of House Crimea; Queen Crimea's grand-mother was a famed Begnion falcoknight before she got married with the Crimean royal family. House Crimea had five pegasi when Elincia's grandmother…"
Pelleas answered, "Only two of these animals survived. Elincia rides one of those two, you have the second one, right?"
The Fighter gave Tana the answer she was looking for, "The horses and pegasus are next to the elevator."
The elevator was manned by guards and serves one purpose: to make the mounts go up or down and it was located next to where the drawbridge is, though not directly underneath it. Too busy securing the stables and the keys, the Daein army passed up a chance to kill more defenders from the outer walls as several of their men are undergoing their promotion process, the most notable of them being Amelia. She undertakes her Generalization while Monks fire their Light and Shine shots, and kill a few of Pelleas' soldiers, Fighters and archers.
Fortunately for the enemy, some of their men also get co change classes and Amelia provokes one of these newly promoted people in a personal duel. That person just had his Sacerdoce as he killed an archer.
Pelleas ordered, "Leave Amelia alone. It is her duel, she will fight that Bishop because the enemy Bishop wanted her to."
Amelia taunted the newly promoted Bishop, "Your Grace, this is for imprisoning perfectly innocent people! And also because you acted as a spy against us!"
As she taunted the Bishop, she ran her lance through the Bishop's body. However, Generals are often known to fight sluggishly, and so do Bishops. That man couldn't cast his spell fast enough to even hit his escapee foe, and then died.
With the number of casualties the Daein group suffered, it was time for what's left of the Daein army to go for the throne room. Unfortunately, as Pelleas' men let the beorc from the outer wall go while his group was still in the dungeon, they will have to fight laguz before they get to their target.
"Fire!", Pelleas ordered. At that command, the fire spells burnt the undead, riled-up Feral Ones to a critical point where the ashes burn on the floor. The beorc soldiers had a hard fight against a few laguz that remained; one of the laguz slaves of the previous castellan has finally transformed and ate the eyes of a laguz, making it more imprecise. A Myrmidon with a Laguzslayer stabbed a Tiger in the back, the same enemy whose eyes were eaten. The flying laguz then reverted back to its humanoid form. At the other side of the staircase… The General asked who is this prisoner.
The raven laguz wondered if his/her execution moved up in the schedule. "Wait. You're not a Grado soldier. Who are you?", he/she asked.
The General answered that he was Eurytos, from Daein. "And who are you?", Eurytos asked.
The raven laguz said that it was an odd question for an executioner. "My name is Vika. Until recently, I was one of Kilvas' top researchers in arcane matters.", she answered.
Eurytos asked her, "Why were you locked there?"
Vika pleaded, "Not now, please! We still have an enemy to defeat!"
The enemy went back at their quarters and so did the army under Pelleas' command, because everyone grew tired. Tana got out of a corpse-infested Fort Rigwald with her steed finally recovered. Her flying mount was easy to recognize since there only was one pegasus among the beasts in the dungeon's stables. Within Pelleas' personal tent, Vika stands ready to tell them what happened to her.
Vika began telling her story. "Lord Pelleas, here is what happened. It all started ten years ago. I went out at sea searching for a special source of arcane energy. Then, a storm blew out at sea and I fell ill. Upon reaching the land, I was kidnapped by laguz slave traders and auctioned off. Unlike Rafiel, the competition between the bidders was nowhere near as intense and Senator Numida earned an easy victory. Because of repeated insubordination, I was sold yet again, but to another noble on Magvel, I think his name is Lyon. As far as I can remember, Numida made no money out of me, nor that he lost it, Lyon purchased me for exactly the same amount as Numida did."
Pelleas told her, "That does not account for what Grado did to you. It only tells me that you were brought into slavery because of your magic."
Vika was allowed to go on. "I arrived at Grado Keep long before Vigarde attacked Renais in the first in the first place. I knew I had a lot to learn about beorc. When I still was in Kilvas, I was once considered in the bids leading up to the position of the official mage of House Kilvas as the favorite, but I was defeated by someone I never knew of. After that day onwards, everyone, even people in my own village, looked down on me, but the same could not be said of the Grado court. I was the main feature of half the magic shows at the court, a beorc starred the other half. At that time, rumors flew that Lyon, the crown prince of Grado, was to engage me, but some strange courses of action thwarted his plans. Vigarde… urgh!" She is afflicted with a violent seizure. "It hurts! Get a healer to me!"
Pelleas, puzzled becaused of Vika's story, asked, "You mean that Grado suddenly changed its attitude towards laguz? If, at one point, you earned the respect of Vigarde, then why His Majesty suddenly hates laguz?"
Vika also pleaded Pelleas, "I conjure you, Lord Pelleas, I want you as my magic tutor. Only we can defeat the enemy commander. If not for you, I would be killed about now."
Pelleas told everyone that the army resumes battle tomorrow. As battle resumed, Vika transforms into a large-sized crow (granted, she is not as strong, wide or tall as Naesala, but still…) and alerts Tana of troops on the rooftop. Both of them avoided arrows as they picked on the eyes of beorc archers stationed on the fortress' rooftop. However, a hole has been pierced on the rooftop of the castle, due to magic cast the day before. Of course, Vika's superior vision (and hearing, though nowhere near as sensitive as Janaff or Ulki in those regards) allowed her to avoid arrows; Tana cut the bowstring of an archer's bow before going back up, because a Sniper targeted her.
Pelleas still battled Izuka's lackeys in the castle's main staircase, as did Amelia. All doors were locked; however, archer fire made Amelia go after the archers who went up just so they could fire arrows and kill Daein soldiers. One of them just undertook his Sniping (the process under which veteran archers promote and gain new abilities) and, at close quarters, the other Archer got killed. On the rooftop… a Swordmaster ordered to throw the boiling oil!
The boiling oil made some burns on Vika but she was not any more affected than if a Fire spell was cast at her. As for the fight against the Swordmaster, Tana used all the speed her mount could give her to avoid the sword. But both Vika and the beorc Falcoknight descended upon the Swordmaster, who just had the time to make a cut on Vika's body before dying. That cut meant that she untransformed, since her power exhausted. And she fell to the floor below, breaking the glass roof of the great hall.
Gheb, as she saw Vika fall through the roof, "Who is the worm that broke the glass roof? I shall crush him!"
The horror came: an untransformed Vika came through the roof as though she was an untransformed undead raven laguz. Then Gheb, Izuka's second-in-command, approached her with his axe, about to swing at it and she got up. And then, she was insulted.
Gheb taunted Vika, "Wretched sub-human zombie! You were worthless from the very beginning! I should never have worked with you to start with!"
Vika told him, "I show no sign of putrefaction! Come on out to fight me, if you dare!"
Gheb started swinging his axe around and Vika moved back as she began casting her spell. Since Gheb focused his battling on physical combat, he couldn't resist her spell much. Dark energy pierced his skin, wounding him to the point of not being able to fight. However, before she finished casting her second spell, Gheb cut her skin again. It is an untransformed Vika, full of weapon-inflicted cuts, that finally killed Gheb by using another Carreau spell on him.
Gheb screamed, in total disbelief: "Th-That's not poss…"
There were five Generals blocking the way to Izuka's room, which stood between Vika and Pelleas. However, she didn't have the strength to force the door, because she was severely wounded. Some of Pelleas' men were slaughtered while the first of these five Generals was killed. The magic could kill two of these and weaken the other two remaining, leaving an Halberdier to kill the fourth one and a Warrior to kill the last one. And then came the time for the door to be knocked down.
Izuka cursed the corpses between Pelleas and him, "All these useless curs! I will have to kill you myself!"
Pelleas ordered everyone else to back off. It was clear that a Carreau spell was not of much effect against one of Izuka's magical might. This is why he switched to another spell level, Verrine, since it was more suited for a magic fight of that level. He began to cast Verrine, but Izuka hit him with a Fenrir spell, hurting him somewhat. As he moved out of his spot, Pelleas finally cast his spell and hit Izuka as well.
On the rooftop, however, Tana was out of the sight of the soldier on the rooftop and the last Grado man standing threw a bucket of boiling oil on where Vika stood. She painstackingly evaded the boiling oil directed at her but some of the boiling oil got on the door that leads to the room where Izuka and Pelleas fight, burning the wooden joint.
After a couple of spells that were hit at each other… both men are exhausted and took so many hits that they couldn't cast any more spell without risking killing both men at once. And so, Vika could transform and rake her talons at Izuka, only to untransform right afterwards, because Tana stabbed the person who threw boiling oil at the raven laguz in the back. He then fell in the same hole by which Vika got on the floor.
An exhausted Pelleas spoke to Vika, "It… was… about time… you'd come…Vika…"
These exhausted people were brought to the camp, where healers tended to their wounds. However, everyone else still alive made the capture of Fort Rigwald a reality, for the casualties count on both sides were in the thousands. A few hours later, they could rest from what happened in the fortress. Eurytos then reported to Lord Pelleas that the rest of the enemy troops have been routed. Afterwards, Pelleas asks Eurytos to bring Vika to him, as he has a question he needs to be answered.
Vika asked, "What do you want?"
Pelleas asked her why Grado has invaded Renais. Vika cannot answer that question. She said that this war began on the emperor's orders and she does not have the slightest idea what he is after.
Pelleas asked, "Then tell me this: where is General Duessel?"
Vika answered, "In the capital. The general has been opposed to this war since the very beginning. He's been pleading for days now, but the emperor ignores him. They say some question the general's loyalty. He is jeopardizing his standing - and his life - by being so vocal."