CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE FIRST BATTLE

Meanwhile, King Edgar organized the Narshans, Moblizens, his own Figaroan men, and Returners from the four corners of the Empire into rank and file. They were preparing to issue forth from the gates of strong-walled Narsha to meet the imperial troops. The Narshan men were big and broad-shouldered, with the soot of the mines darkening their faces. They were clad in dark mail and great broadswords hung on their belts. Their huge arms were more fit for hammer and pickax, but woe to the man who fell under their mighty strokes.

Next beside the mountain-men stood the swift-footed Moblizens—plains-dwellers—who ran upon the veldts of the Eastern Continent, and whose far-shadowing ash spears even the nimble gazelle could not outrun. These stood clad in yellow and tan armor, like the color of their fair sunlit plains—a proud and dark-complexioned race.

Next stood the Returners, the crafty forest-people, called rogues and highwaymen by the Empire, but generous and stouthearted men. Dark green was their armor, and though ragged and travel-worn in appearance, their bowmen were the dread and terror of imperial convoys.

Last were the king's own mounted men, trained horsemen, clad in dark red armor. On each of their shields and on the high-running royal standard was the crest of Figaro, the bear and leopard rampant. Their great warhorses neighed and chomped their bits expectantly.

King Edgar, godlike in girth, inferior to none in war and in counsel, ranged throughout the hosts of freemen on his proud horse, commanding and giving heart. Truly like a god of war he seemed in his shining armor, his double-edged sword girt to his side, the round disc of his shield hung on his broad back.

King Edgar spoke in a commanding voice: "Men of Narsha, men of Mobliz, and you Returners from every province and nation, remember your strength and warcraft! Now is the time to beat back the dark destruction, not only from Narsha, but from the free world. If we stand, Narsha stands. But if we fall, the world falls—for it is no secret that the Emperor seeks the woman Terra, once called his iron scepter, and the Esper of this mountain, by which he hopes to gain immortality.

"Ever war and domination is dear to the Emperor's heart, he who leaves the fighting to other men and takes a double share of the plunder. Do not, therefore, shrink back from the strong encounter—grim and terrible as war must be—but think of that which we defend: the soft arms of your wives and your children whom you dandle on the knee. A man fighting to defend his home is worth two fighting to conquer!"

With that, the king gave a great war cry, which rang out thunderously; and all his men joined his cry, shaking their spears and beating their shields; so that, though not seeing the Narshans, all the imperial soldiers to a man quailed in his heart.

The gates of strong-founded Narsha opened, and there issued forth the furious Returners. Like a dam, whose waters have built up after the heavy rains have swelled the river to a mighty flood, and finally, groaning, the floodgates burst open and release the terrible torrent, which sweeps away whole cities—so the Returners issued out of the gates.

But the imperialists, with their long spears, were ready to meet them. Led by General Leo, preeminent among warriors, they ran towards the Narshans.

First to kill his man was the valiant King Edgar of the red shining armor. Edgar, mounted on his charging steed, balanced his ash spear and cast it. It struck Darius of Albrook, who stood a head above the other imperialists and was certainly not the least of them for girth. Edgar's spear struck him in the eye before he could raise his shield, shoring all the way through and out of the back of his head, knocking off his helmet. Darius, seeming to hear the fatal call of that train which takes men yonder, fell thunderously to the ground, his armor clattering about him, and his ghost passed out with his expiring breath to the place where spirits wait for the judgment to come at the world's end.

Next General Leo let go his spear far-flying and struck Caspian, Edgar's own right-hand man, and well skilled in fighting. The spear struck his shield and penetrated it—so mightily had it been thrown, and so strongly made in the forges of Vector, the Emperor's capital—and passing also through his breastplate and between his ribs deep into his breast. Caspian fell clattering off his charging horse and gave up the ghost, joining those others that rose above the heads of the fighting men—grim effervescence.

But Kefka stayed back far from the fighting, urging the imperial bowmen to aim for King Edgar. But the arrows bounced ineffectively off the king's shining shield, so Kefka had his archers aim for Edgar's horse. The imperial bowmen struck down his great horse, which neighed pitifully as the darts struck his flanks and fell, throwing King Edgar to the ground thunderously.

"Kill him! Kill him!" cried Kefka urgently, seeing Edgar lying in the snow far from his men. And surely the imperialists would have stripped the life from Edgar, had not his own men rode in faster and formed a protective circle around their fallen king. Thereupon Kefka stormed and raged furiously.

Then the king rose to his feet and, finding Kefka easily in the throng on account of his pomp and false splendor, took up a throwing spear, balanced it, and cast it at him. It was a wonder, unless some god was behind Edgar's arm, how far and how true the spear shot. Surely it would have struck the life out of Kefka then and forestalled many of the world's woes, but with a shriek Kefka grabbed his attendant boy and shielded himself with his body. The spear tore through the attendant's young flesh—for which Edgar grieved in his heart—and smote the hand that held him. Kefka screamed and turned pale at the sight of his own blood and that of the dead boy at his feet, whom he kicked. Nursing his wounded hand, Kefka rebuked General Leo, who had come back from the front lines carrying a dead soldier in his arms.

"False friend to the Empire, Leo, you who are foolishly called General, what are you doing back from the fighting so soon? Have these rebels and whoresons frightened you out of your senses? Look here: my favorite boy is dead and I am wounded on account of that wicked King Edgar, whom you could have killed if you were as great a man as the men say."

"Silence, coward!" said General Leo. "You who hang back far from the fighting, where men win glory, and spit your venom at so great a man as this King Edgar is, and then whimper like a child when you incur a king's wrath!

"Go back to Vector if you have no heart for war, and fill the Emperor's ear with your evil counsels, since all men know that wealth and feasts and the legs of other men's wives are dearer to your heart. As for me, I go to lay my youngest son's body aside from the fighting, lest the greed of men take away his armor and so dishonor him."

Thus, heavy-hearted, General Leo went away to lay to rest the spirit-fled body of his son, and Kefka glared after him, long cherishing the rebuke he had got.

All this time, Terra looked on from the tower with great sorrow in her heart. She wept to see the grim ebullition of blue spirits ever rising from the flashing steel and the red snow—war, that great boiling pot of carnage giving off the souls of men. And yet, being better taught by Reason, she knew the hard necessity of war, that the flesh with its canons of pleasure and pain is no judge of good and evil, and that far more evil would be laid upon the world's neck if Justice had no champions. Even so, Terra's heart grieved for the men—more so, perhaps, because she was now to raise her hand against them.

"Try to destroy the magitek tanks," said Banon, close at hand. With her also were Locke and Celes.

Terra felt a peal of thunder from the darkening summit shake the mountain. On top of her fear of the mountain's growing wrath, her headache was now worse than ever. Covering her head, closing her eyes, plugging her ears—none of these had any effect. Now that it really mattered, Terra was powerless. She was conscious of the others waiting for her. She was more conscious of her incompetence.

Nevertheless, she tried. The ringing in her ears was rending, and all her efforts to concentrate only intensified the pain in her head. But she knew she must do this—do this or die in the attempt. Summoning all her will, and scorning the pain, Terra raised her hand and extended her mind in fiery wrath upon the magitek tanks. What actually happened she had not expected.

Terra had not had a nightmare in a long time, but nothing, not even the greatest throes of terror as she writhed in fever and madness, was as terrible as this. For a moment all the world, every edge and corner, became piercingly clear. Her headache was shorn away in an instant, and behind it she found—to her great undoing—the Dread Approach of Her-Whom-She-Dare-Not-Meet. All the time, from her landing to her entering Narsha, every moment that Terra had felt the oppressing weight upon her mind, whether it had been in the exercise of her powers or in gazing upon terrible Mt. Narsha, her headache had been a disguise for Her Coming. She was near now.

And then all at once the world was torn from her. Terra looked and her vision raced to the very summit of the mountain, into the very presence of the Esper. The tempest raged in furious anger and smote earth and sky with lightning. There, as if she were at its feet, was the frozen Esper, the great icebound bird with fanning, prismatic wings and rending claws, and above all else the terrible eyes, and within them the growing light which was burning out her mind. Then, when the fearsome glow of its eyes had reach its height, and her terror had overstepped the bounds of human suffering, the Esper let forth a cosmic and world-ending screech. Terra screamed in unspeakable agony, she was separated from everyone and everything by infinity, light turned to darkness, and all became as nothing.