A/N Time goes by when you're trying to think about something other than what you're thinking of. Here's another, just because. I don't own Fire Emblem or any of its parallel timeline versions.
Surrounded by the dead and dying, Adriane had never felt more alive.
It had been three days since she and the band of undead had departed the small fortress. The first day had been an uneventful trek through burned and tainted land. Yesterday, she and her army had encountered a hidden pocket of Resistance in the few forests left in Ylisse. Today they struck.
Currently she was engaged in combat, cutting down swordsman after axe wielder after mage. It was after she kicked aside a fatally wounded axe man that she felt a prickling sensation on her neck. Her instincts kicked in. Adriane turned around in time to cut down an arrow in midair. About fifty paces away, a petite girl clutched a bow to her chest. The archer wore an expression of disbelief and was shaking with fear. Still, the human managed to notch another arrow into her weapon. "Take care of her!" the commander yelled at a nearby Risen mage.
With a grunt of acquiescence, the magic user stopped dueling a human warrior and muttered a few arcane phrases. Crimson flames materialized at the undead's fingerprints and sped towards the archer, missing by mere inches. However, the spell struck a nearby building, setting it on fire. The screams of children echoed from inside. Adriane's grey eyes searched for the archer again, hoping she had been crushed by falling debris from the spell's impact. Instead, she found the girl looking at the building for a moment and then straight back at her. No longer was the archer a meek girl-child who could hardly handle a bow-her face carried a deathly glare and a shadow seemed to loom over her expression. Despite herself, a slight tremor of fear resonated within her person.
Another round of screams echoed as the flimsy structure started to come apart. Then the furious archer searching for vengeance was gone, once more a meek girl. She ran into the building for the children, and Adriane let her go. The Risen will get her and whoever she manages to save later, she reasoned. For some reason, the scene left Adriane with an unfamiliar feeling in her heart and she shook her head in perplexity.
The warrior took advantage of the Plegians' lapses in concentration and ran the mage through. It dissolved into a murky miasma, and Adriane released a sigh of frustration. Why won't they just give up? She maneuvered herself around the purple cloud of smoke, then struck at the first opening she saw.
A hit. Her blade ran deep along his side. The other human clutched the open wound with agony and dropped his sword. Too easy. She kicked his weapon aside and lazily stabbed him through the chest, taking a moment to stare into his eyes. "Ylissean scum," she spat. "You deserve this for what you've done to me. And see?" She gestured around at the carnage. "All of your efforts are in vain."
Lying there, her victim stared back. Behind the pain in his eyes was a defiance that remained despite his defeat. Adriane felt a surge of hate. Why wasn't he feeling the pain too? She twisted her sword in his chest, his peasant's tunic suddenly becoming a much more gruesome shade of red. He grunted in agony and shut his eyes, but when they reopened they carried the same rebellious mien. He grinned then, blood coating his teeth and trickling down one corner of his mouth. "You Grimleal really are… stupid. You don't… know… don't know… what it means to protect-" he spluttered a little, choking on his own blood. He continued, "Human… supposed to… one of us… why…" The handful of words took the last of him. His eyes rolled back and he slumped backwards in the dirt.
Adriane ground her teeth at the dead man before shaking her head and surveying the conflict around her. The assault was going exactly as predicted. A simple putdown. Her Risen soldiers had gathered in the village square once the enemy was routed. The corpses that weren't under her control littered the remnants of the village, evidence of the humans' futile struggle. Around her, smoke and the stench of blood hung in the air like a blanket. A suffocating one, she thought, as she coughed into her elbows. She glanced at the unperturbed expressions of the Risen and briefly envied them for their lack of discomfort. Then she thought of the price of that luxury and banished the thought, resuming her coughing.
"Commander!" a sword master Risen rasped. He hobbled towards her while pointing a gnarled finger north, towards the woods. In the distance, two figures sat atop a galloping horse. One, the rider, wore pale rose and white clothing that didn't look like any Ylissean garb Adriane had ever seen. On her side was the bright red splotch of a fresh wound, and the woman barely capable of hanging onto the reins. Her companion, the driver, had strange ornaments in her short hair and carried a bow. These were both characteristics that would have gone unnoticed if not for the fact that it was the archer from earlier.
"You," she breathed. As if she could hear her, the mounted archer glanced behind worriedly. Adriane saw red. Ylisseans escaping? "Shoot them down!" she growled. A Risen bowman raised its weapon and released an arrow towards the fleeing women.
A dark arrow stood in contrast to the rosy hues of the dawn sky. However, when the arrow had almost reached its target, the archer did something that made Adriane's eyes widen. She spun around in her seat, jarring her companion. Paying no attention to her injured passenger, the woman raised her bow and shot her own arrow. In the sky, the two shadows met. Three made it to the ground. The archer adjusted her companion behind her and dug her heels into the horse's flank.
"Allow me," croaked a withered Risen mage. She lifted a decayed lightning tome and began reciting the incantation. Just before the words could exit her lips, a dagger embedded itself into her skull. When the purple smoke cleared, a peasant woman stood in its wake, a satisfied expression on her face and in her eyes. Following the direction of her gaze, Adriane looked to see that the two women had escaped.
Today's events were steadily becoming worse. Adriane strode over to the woman, her boots making deadly crunching noises with the ground. The commander turned onto the woman and unsheathed her sword. She pointed the tip against the woman's neck, applying only the slightest amount of pressure to draw blood. "Why?" Adriane asked coldly.
An easy answer to that question would be that those two were close to the women. Relatives, maybe, though from the obvious differences in physical appearance-this woman looked nothing like those two- that was unlikely. Friends, perhaps then. But no. Something in her gut told her that the two that had slipped past her were important. Another look at the satisfaction and relief on the woman's face set off the alarm bells once more.
Insolence and silence, that's all the woman had to give her. It was fortunate that her daughter didn't take after her.
"Mommy, no!" It was little more than a tiny squeak, but the cry reverberated throughout the emptiness of the courtyard. The red glows of Risen eyes shifted towards the small girl in unison, but this did not seem to faze the child in the slightest. Adriane raised her hand to cease fire, and the child was allowed to rush past the army towards her mother. Cold logic dictated that she could use this. The child's life as blackmail for whatever information the mother could give her.
Every ounce of her training screamed to kill the little girl and her mother too right then and there. But the words of a dead man rung in her mind, and something about her as a person was curious, if there was a term for the indescribable feeling she had now.
Adriane lowered her sword just in time for the scruffy child to throw herself into her mother's arms. Terror filled the peasant woman's expression now, terror for her offspring, of losing a family member. The commander drank it in. So strange… She caught the woman's eye and held it as the little girl sobbed.
"Mommy mommy… I'm so sorry…"-a sniffle-"I know you told me to hide, but the bad lady was going to hurt you!" The child could not have been little more than four years of age, tiny thing she was. Her hair was matted down with dirt and sweat, and the edges were burnt. Come to think about it, the girl's clothing was burnt as well, handspun wool ending in ugly black frays as evidence. Throughout her body were various cuts and scrapes and burns. The daughter continued crying against the mother's shoulder. "Already lost Lily and Daddy. Not you too! Won't let them!" she was saying between sobs.
Adriane snapped, and the training took over. She suddenly stepped forward and jerked the little girl away. "No!" the mother yelled. The girl shrieked and extended her arms to her mother. At this point the commander had already sheathed her sword and pulled out a small dagger. This she pressed up against the girl' neck. Her captive ceased all resistance at the slightest touch of cold steel.
"You know what happens now," Adriane murmured with a calm that she didn't feel. Her hand on the blade shook a little. This child was no soldier, and she wasn't like her mother, who had knowingly risked her life in the name of war. This was an innocent. Ylissean, but a bystander and clean of battle. All of her training had focused on war tactics against other seasoned warriors. This wasn't… was this right? A voice inside her head screamed that no, this wasn't. This was an abomination. It was the very thing she was fight-
She could feel however, the eyes of her Risen, and that was enough to quell any personal doubts. This was for him and his cause. This was for her parents. Resolute, she steadied first her hand on the dagger and then her eyes on the woman. "Tell me what you know or she dies right now."
The peasant was suddenly a fountain of information. "Noire. That was the archer woman," she said, making wild gestures towards the forest. "The other one… I don't know her name. No one does-did. She arrived a couple of days ago, said she was headed towards Ylisstol, said something about delivering-I don't know what! But she said it was extremely important, that it would be enough to end Grima once and for all! But that's what she said," she stopped from her panicked babbling and adopted a subservient pose. Adriane watched the other clasp her hands and beg. "I don't know anything else, please, believe me. Please, don't hurt my baby. Let her go."
The commander of the Risen was human, one of them. Adriane knew that if she took too long in her course of action her hand would shake again. The dagger would slip and fall, and then what? Most likely this would set the Risen off and the mother and daughter would die gruesome deaths. The mother she didn't give two damns about. The second that woman saved the two escapees, her life was forfeit. But the child was innocent, she only wanted to keep her family, keep them from the… no. That was a dangerous train of thought. Going down that road would hinder her path to revenge.
Adriane tightened her fingers on the child. 'I must not hesitate,' she thought.
The eyes of her master were watching.
The dagger dug into the child's neck. It was not a clean cut, the wound only going a third into the supple flesh before it met resistance with the bone. Adriane unceremoniously dumped the corpse on the ground in front of her and walked to an undead mount that had been prepared for her.
She felt numb as she ascended the saddle. Her dagger had been sheathed into her belt, but evidence of her crime and hypocrisy stood a stark red on her fingers.
From behind her she could hear the mother's screams of grief. Adriane let her go on for a minute before she turned to the nearest Risen archer. "Shoot her. We have what we need."
A soft whizz followed by a quiet thump. It was the first taste of battle.