The Smell of Spruce Needles
Ike drove his horse through Serenes' tunnels at a pace beyond any reason. That girl from the village, Astrid, pointed him along crossroads, too frightened to speak. Frightened by his mania or the Black Knight's – it made little difference either way.
The holes in the ceiling offered next to no light. Daytime was fading into evening and a distant thunderstorm when they reached the central hall with its upturned tree. Ike ignored the whispering leaves and galloped into the nearest tunnel. A woman with a child stumbled in the opposite direction, but their faces didn't match the sight of an otherworldly figure in a black armor slaughtering their neighbors. Ike's teeth clacked, the horse near broke its shin when he whipped it past a stray boulder in the dimness. He listened for screams. He waited for the stench of smoke, or at least a chill from the needle-covered road on a hot summer day, some sign to tell that death had raged here recently.
Nothing. He slowed his horse to a weary trot when the path narrowed, Astrid slipped from the saddle to meet with another villager coming their way, and still nothing to herald the Black Knight. The click-clack of the watermill, the click-clack of harnesses, the click-clack of black armored fingers closing around a sword hilt – it was only in his head.
Ike took the final tunnel bend, and there lay the village. Colorful shards plinked in open windows, and even their noise lacked urgency. But he loosened Ragnell from his back anyway. The gold shone rather dully. The blue light failed to manifest.
He cursed, at the lack of light, at the people darting about the village square, and twice at himself. Because, when he ordered his horse to vault a low fence that couldn't even have kept hedgehogs at bay, he was greeted not by a black armored hand smashing him to the ground but by a handful of bandits.
Of course it wasn't the Black Knight. How could he have been so stupid to believe that it would be this easy? Gods-forsaken bandits, may the dragon pest come for their bloodline and his too, just to be safe.
"Hand it over, real nice and easy," one of the bandits said and brandished his axe before an age-bent villager. "If you don't comply, we'll have to report that back to our lord, the Black Knight. You don't want him to come down here, do ya?"
The old villager clutched a loaf of bread to his chest as though he was holding his first-born. "Haven't you taken enough? Isn't it enough that the Black Knight has destroyed our land, must we give him our last crumpet of bread to?"
The bandit grinned. "How 'bout I ask him? I'm sure he'll be mighty happy to discuss the details with you in person. But we'll be cutting a reminder of politeness into you first, just to make sure."
The bandit focused too much on his victim to notice the clatter of hooves. By the time he did turn to face Ike, a golden gleam sliced through the air, and the axe alongside half the bandit's arm dropped beside the hedgehog fence.
Howling, the bandit clutched his arm stump and stumbled away from the villager. Shock and pain clouded his eyesight, and Ike wouldn't bet on the quickness of the man's smarts either. But the tip of a golden sword raised to his throat should speak a language even he could understand.
Ike leaned over the neck of his horse. "Mind repeating that bit about the Black Knight?"
The bandit spluttered curses. "Thought you lot on your shiny horses with those shiny swords had died out around these parts. Noble bastard, my arm!"
"You wanted to relay a message to the Black Knight. Wasn't that what you said? How about you instead give him a message from me?"
The bandit muttered something.
"I can't hear you. Speak up." Ike raised Ragnell another inch and forced the bandit to look up. "Where is the Black Knight?"
"Hell if I know! Look, I'm just a small fish, is what I am. I don't know anything about the Black Knight except that he won't care to go after bandits. That's his rule, the strongest survives on the trampled backs of the rest, and that's a fine rule, if you ask me."
Ike pointed Ragnell at the bandit's arm stump. "Not such a fine rule for you now, is it?"
Sweat broke out on the bandit's forehead. He needed an extra second to realize how close a deadly blade hovered away from ending his miserable life. "Look, err, good sir, I didn't mean to do those sad village folks badly. A man just has to eat, you get that, right? That's nothing to earn yourself a blade to the neck, or you'd have to do it to the whole rotten corpse of Tellius. I just meant to scare them a little. Wouldn't actually wish the Black Knight on my worst enemy, you see, good sir? But his name gets the people to open their pockets. You can bet your shiny horse that other folks use the same trick. You find all these ravaged villages along the roads, but has anyone actually seen the Black Knight in the last twenty years? It's his rumors that are chasing themselves."
"If you're bargaining for your life with that story, you've got the wrong guy," Ike said. "Today isn't your lucky day."
Fear twisted the bandit's face. His gaze wandered from the steel at his throat to Ike's face, searching for something to appeal to. Unfortunately for him, Ike was not in the best of moods. A mild understatement.
Peace wasn't doing him any favors, and he had grown sick of playing the dutiful knight. Knights died for nothing. He needed to fight, return to the clarity he had once known on blood-soaked and muddy battlefields, break through these stupid doubts he had entangled himself in since the slaughter at the Black Fang tower.
The Black Knight was the enemy he wanted, needed to fight without remorse. Then maybe the heat of a summer day brimming with spruce needle smells would stop assaulting his memories.
But everywhere Ike turned, people threw obstacles in his path. Some great divine joke was playing out around him, and he wasn't in on it. Squeezing every last bit of knowledge about the Black Knight out of the bandit wouldn't cost him much. Ragnell wouldn't rust from that bit of grimy blood. And why stop there? Someone in this rotting hole undeserving of the name Serenes had to know more about the Black Knight. One way or another, he could make them talk.
Ragnell scraped the bandit's throat when he swallowed.
Ike lowered the sword. "If you're smart about it, you can patch up your arm before you drop over from blood loss. You don't hear too much about one-armed bandits, but to grow yourself some carrots and oats, that one hand should do. Now get lost."
The bandit felt his throat, shocked to not find a blood-spouting gash in it.
"Never met a crazier man in this whole land," he muttered. Then he scrambled towards the nearest tunnel.
His fellow bandits had run off the moment they had heard Ike reach the village square, but maybe they had the decency to wait in the dimness out of sight for their comrade. Ike had heard crazier stories.
He wiped the blood from Ragnell and glared at the assortment of stone holes he had wanted to save from the Black Knight. Lichen, decay, and long years full of shadows hadn't left much to save. Some patches of mosses and a few pieces of colored resin, that was the best Tellius had to offer. The handful of rags and bare ankles posing as people brought order into the loot the bandits had dropped, hidden away from a river-bound breeze and the gods they had once believed in.
And for this lousy lot Ike had fought with Lucina. Or rather, he had tried to steal the Binding Shield from her and then stab her with the harshest words he had to offer. The gods had to be laughing their tongues off by now.
Ike took several seconds to realize that the old man with the bread hadn't crawled back into the ground and was trying to talk to him.
"Thank you, sir knight," he said. "Your coming has saved this village."
"I'm not a knight," Ike said.
"No? I could have sworn based on your looks and the sword you wield. Though of course it's true that you don't see too many knights in Tellius anymore. All killed. Those were the bountiful days, when the knights of the high circle rode across the land to break up bandit groups before they had a chance to grow. And such people they were, those knights. Men and women you wanted to follow to the ends of the continent."
Ike dismounted. If nothing else, he could at least water his horse by the well between the patches of moss. Not exactly the price he had hoped for, but he had ridden himself into this mess on his own accord. His own life to command… and what a splendid use he was making of that power.
The old man wasn't done talking and followed Ike on his heels like a lost puppy. Or rather a lost, gray-bearded geezer of a dog. Although on second glance he couldn't be that old, hardly fifty. His hair still had strands of blond, even if harsh summers and harsher winters had driven it way up his forehead.
"You must have come from far away," the old man said. "I mean no offence, but people like you are rare to find here."
Ike stopped by the well and kicked the bucket into the water below. "And what kind of people would those be?"
"People who go out of their way to save a starving village and still have the mercy to spare a bandit's life."
"I got that from a girl with a brittle sword."
"But still you are wearing the headband of Tellius. First the woman and now you… You are so much like the myths. Even the face, it reminds me of a knight from the high circle."
Ike heaved the bucket upwards by the rope. It gave off annoyed clangs when the metal hit the stone walls. "You're imagining things."
The old man chuckled. "Ah, probably. It's a little too nice a thought that real knights could again ride on Tellius' roads. I suppose the sound of trumpets and the gleam of many swords belongs to the past. I served as a soldier under a knight of the high circle, you see? A great man."
"Great men didn't stop the Black Knight from crushing Tellius."
"True, true. And their sons are left to reassemble the pieces. The knight I served under had a son. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him. But, ah, that thought is really just foolery. The Black Knight must have gotten him, like he will get us all, sooner or later. I just can't help but wish I had managed to warn Gawain sooner."
Ike froze. The bucket swayed from its rope less than an armlength from him. His horse nudged his shoulder, but he couldn't bring himself to reach for the water.
"What did you say was your name?" he asked.
"Gatrie, at your service." The old man gave a stiff bow. "Although I would have been of better service in the olden days. Women did say I was quite the handsome lad when wearing armor. Now I only get a scoff from Astrid when I tell her."
Ike placed down the bucket for his horse with mechanical movements. He didn't remember the face of the man who had raided the bacon and bread from his father's kitchen, the man who had given Ike a single guilt-ridden look in the entrance hall with the bear pelt. But this old man could have grown out of that soldier with the dusty boots.
"You really do have that face." Gatrie wistfully turned the loaf of bread in his hands. "See, some of us still hold onto the myth. The tale of a mythic sword to liberate us from the Black Knight. A lost son of Tellius returns to end this long night, that's a nice idea, don't you think?"
"You're concerning yourself too much with myths," Ike said. "Try living for yourself. Some son of a knight is just gonna come along and do what all the legends before him failed at – now that's some fantasy."
"Probably. Will you be staying in Tellius? If you will accept my advice, turn your horse elsewhere. I told the last traveler to do the same. You might live longer that way."
"You haven't left yet."
Gatrie ran a hand through his hair, and two decades ago, that gesture probably had made women swoon. "I never took myself as someone who makes the smartest decisions. Run down and with even the rats biting at each other for the last scraps, but it's still home, you see? A lot of great men have died. But there are still people I have that are worth returning to."
Gatrie looked over the village square. A group of people busy with restacking meagre bags with corn paused their work to wave at him. Astrid emerged out of the tunnel and shrieked with relief. Gatrie answered with a smile, and no second later, she clutched him in a tight embrace, half-laughing, half-crying. Like a father stroking away nightmares, he stroked her back. People worth returning to – they seemed to exist even in this forgotten hole underground.
"Yeah," Ike said, more to himself than to them. "I get that one."
He paused for a moment longer than necessary before he swung himself into the saddle. "I'll be off then. I owe someone an apology. Or several someones, I should say."
"Wait, take this with you." Gatrie struggled out of Astrid's embrace. Without pause, he broke his bread in two and held one half up to Ike. "You will need provisions. They are hard to come by around here."
Ike stared at the bread. Here was some crazy story he hadn't seen coming, not in this part of the world, or any part of it.
He felt something like a smile pluck at his lips as he flicked the reins. "Thanks, but you should keep it. Your debt towards the knight whose kitchen you searched for bread and bacon has worn off years ago."
Gatrie's eyes widened. Transfixed, he stared at Ike, his mouth half-opened to say something. Ike nodded to him and wheeled his horse around. Without a look back, he galloped out of the village, and a few minutes later the light of its lanterns disappeared within the winding mess of tunnels. A small dot on the map survived another day, and maybe that was the only knightly thing that needed to be done.
Where to now? North for starters. Wherever north was in this underground maze.
His horse was panting, and he slowed until he dismounted and lead the animal by its reins. He pushed himself forward on some dumb notion that he could sense if Lucina got herself into danger and that he would find her before she fought Validar.
From somewhere in the distance, a murmur seeped through the endless rock maze. The White River. Ike would just have to follow the sound until he reached the tunnel going under the noisy waters.
Sure enough, he soon stumbled across a section in the tunnel he recognized all too well: the gaping hole in the ground with the sharp stone spires below. The planks groaned in a draught from the depths of the cave.
And on the other side of the hole stood Cordelia. From the hand she held over her head, a red glow crept across the stone walls. Smart of her to bring a light source. She shepherded her horse over the planks, and pretended not to see Ike when she followed.
She shouldn't be here. Heat as though from a fire slapped his face, even while the chill of the dark earth still gnawed at him.
Cordelia neared Ike's side of the hole. He let her advance, one more step, two more steps. The air tightened, and an awfully familiar pulsing of energy drove the tension back into his shoulders. Cordelia lowered her hand, the ceiling disappeared in shadows. And Ike realized what exactly she used as a light source.
Between her fingers glowed a red stone. A smooth stone the size of a dove egg.
He reached for Cordelia's arm. "Where did you get that?"
She jerked backwards. The plank under her groaned. For the first time she fully looked at him, a tinge of red across her face from the glowing stone, and she had worn the same expression after she had sold Lucina to Roy. After she had almost destroyed everything and every reason worth fighting for.
Ike stepped onto the plank. It trembled under their weight. "Where did you get that?"
Cordelia pushed his hand aside. One step back, and she swayed on the narrow plank.
Forgotten was the village, forgotten was whatever resolve he had found there. Lucina would have never given away one of the stones. Not as long as she had hands to fight with.
Ike lunged for the sphere. Another block. An open hand turned into a fist. Then two, left and right, blow for blow in the dimness. Occasionally, the Lifesphere flared between Cordelia's fingers.
They had trained together too often. He knew her moves, and she knew his, and no matter how much force he put into his strikes, he only gained an inch as Cordelia retreated to the center of the narrow bridge. Whoever missed a step first would lose.
"Tell me you did it on Leif's orders. Tell me that he left you no choice!"
Fending off another blow, Cordelia shook her head.
He hadn't expected otherwise. But he had hoped.
Somewhere roared the White River, blind rage roared in Ike's head, and all the feelings of betrayal he had bottled up for the past nineteen months threatened to break free and sweep both of them from the planks and into the nothing below.
He would end her game of double-crossing. Here and now.
Ike reached over his shoulder for Ragnell. Cordelia rammed an elbow into his ribs, a bone creaked. A rush of pain blackened his sight for a second. Another attempt at Ragnell, another elbow hit, this time against his chin.
His teeth clacked, a piece broke off, and he choked on it. He couldn't tell whether his mouth filled with the taste of spruce needles or blood. Cordelia left him no opening to catch his breath and pounced.
The plank rocked like the deck of a warship. Blow for blow against the cliffs of Talys. Hit for hit against the tiny villages in Tellius who didn't earn a spot on the map.
The horror scenarios of how Cordelia had gotten her hands on the sphere, images of a black figure like death itself, of a blue-sleeved hand in the dirt, with blood dripping from the index finger, a thundering click-clack – all of it drowned in that surge of rage. And all that was left when Ike struck at Cordelia was the word traitor, repeated and rerepeated, more violent each time, like the punches they dealt each other. She had betrayed the rebellion, she had betrayed Lucina, and she had betrayed every single night they had shared during that time when the blade of a Pheraen executioner had loomed above their heads. And damn it all, he wouldn't let her get away this time.
Ike threw a punch at Cordelia's right side. She dodged, but he didn't stop there, followed the movement until his shoulder connected with something.
Cordelia muffled a pained cry, stumbled backwards. But the planks ended there. They both realized it a second too late.
Her eyes widened. It was the look of a girl on Terra's chalk-dusted waterfront who believed she would never see her home again.
All roaring of water hushed, and even the persistent conifer smell disappeared as she fell. Ike slid forward, reached down, stretched another inch even as the plank creaked…
And his hand closed around Cordelia's wrist.
"Don't—" Ike hissed when he shifted the weight on his sprained rib. "—let go."
Cordelia looked up to him through a whirl of disbelief. "Why?"
"Just—" The plank squealed. "—give me your other hand."
"I've betrayed her! I've betrayed you and Tiki, and I can't stop!"
Her wrist slipped an inch in Ike's grip.
"Yes, you're a damned traitor. And I'll continue to call you traitor." His shoulder threatened to tear itself in two. "And you'll make it through to the end so I can say it to your face one more time. So don't you dare let go."
Ike reached down with his free hand. Cordelia looked at him for a long moment, her face a crater of warring emotions some of which likely even she didn't understand. She let herself slip another inch.
Somewhere a horse whinnied.
And finally she grabbed his other hand, and he pulled her back onto the plank.
The tunnel around them heaved a sigh. Ike struggled to pull in enough air, with Cordelia sprawled partly on top of him to accommodate for the narrow bridge. Her forearm dug into his sprained rib. But he held onto her wrist all the same.
After all this time, her breath still smelled of faint caramel.
"Now I owe you again," she whispered. "Just like in Terra. Another debt I can never hope to repay."
She pushed herself away from Ike, as far as his wrenched grip on her wrist allowed. With her free hand, she shoved the Lifesphere against his chest until his fingers closed around it.
"There. Now you can let go of me."
He didn't.
Slowly, maybe because each movement still ran the risk of tripping them over the edge or maybe because he himself didn't quite know what he was doing, he pulled Cordelia along the bridge towards their horses. He loosened his grip on her in favor of the reins. In front of him stretched the tunnel leading towards Serenes, Leonster Castle and, after miles upon miles of forests, hills and ocean waves under a cracked, crooked gods' sky, Talys.
Ike paused before guiding his horse over the planks and turned to look at Cordelia. She stood next to her mare, without orders or a clue who to fight, and returned his gaze.
Gods, he hated her. Almost as much as she mattered to him.
And for a moment it was easy to imagine her with a salt-lashed breeze in her hair while a Pegasus foal nibbled at her sleeve and caused her to laugh. She would wake up to each new day not with the rattle of spears but the murmur of waves in her ears. She might even pick up her damned harp and learn to play for fun.
Ike looked at her and saw all that. His throat tightened with a pained smile or maybe just exhaustion from the fight. When Lucina had imagined to realize the dreams of all her comrades, it had to feel like that.
Then Cordelia directed her horse to follow Ike.
"I stole the sphere last night," she said. "I didn't put a hand on her. For once, I didn't taint my spear with more blood."
Ike drew in a deep breath. He thought to smell a hint of the forest from the surface.
Cordelia walked her horse next to him, and it almost brought him back to the nights during which they would sneak past Pheraen patrols, speaking in whispers or not at all. Except now they rode actual horses instead of fantasizing about stealing them from the nearest garrison.
They continued like this the rest of the way through the tunnel until night caught them at the pavilion where Ike had abandoned the others half a lifetime ago. He was equal parts anxious and desperate to follow their trail, but he couldn't manage another step even if the spruce trees had allowed a sliver of moonlight to show the way. This day had lasted for too long, and his thoughts didn't extend much farther than the desire to eat and the desire to sleep.
He was wrestling with two stones for a spark to light a campfire when Cordelia broke the silence. "Let me help," she said.
Not the kind of words he had heard often from her. He left her the stones, and after a moment a lively fire crackled in a mold beside the pavilion. If the Black Knight rode past, he would have to see the flicker past the low spruce twigs, but Ike had the feeling he wouldn't show up tonight.
They sat on opposite sides of the fire. While Cordelia roasted strips of dried meat, Ike peeled the outer layers from the edible roots he had stuffed into his saddlebag on one of his better afternoons. Every so often, she would massage her wrist. And when she did, something like a hiccup rocked her shoulders.
Ike loaded the first root slices onto the pan next to the meat. "We really pulled off one hell of a rebellion," he said. "There's no longer an executioner axe waiting for our heads, and the foods been better too when it's not stolen cold from a windowsill. We still managed to find ourselves a noble to serve. And instead of just Roy, I guess now the whole sky has gone crazy."
Cordelia poked at the meat with her knife. "Don't forget the crazy stones."
"Hard to forget with that sprained rib I took for one of them. Look at us. Those are the faces of victors, right there."
Cordelia's expression softened when she looked at him. "And we're still no closer to the homes we set out to free and change."
"Not one step."
"But it's been fun sometimes. Even with the executioner axe waiting."
"Yeah. It was fun." The Lifesphere hummed in Ike's pocket. Its heat almost singed the pain of his rib. "I just hate the part where it had to end like this."
Cordelia turned over the meat. The sizzling fat might just beat the overwhelming forest scents.
"I thought we could go back to that. Before you called me traitor. Before Lucina's empire. Back when you would lower your guard around me, at least for an hour or two, while we took turns watching the other sleep." She brushed a hand over her cheek. "Guess when I shut that throne room door, I shut the door to you too."
Ike took the knife she used for the meat and did the next turning himself. The pan rattled lively.
"You know," he said, "when I told you I never wanted to deal with you ever again… just don't listen to me, ever. I'm not the guy you call when you want words."
Cordelia shook her head. "You have no idea. What you first said to me about fighting for Talys myself, that meant something to me. It meant a lot. And then again when you swore to lead the charge against Shanna… It's not just words. With you, I was always sure you would act on it with that brute determination that made even a rebellion against an unbeatable Empire doable. I wanted to go back to that. Always."
"I'm the last person you should cling to. For purpose or otherwise."
"I know. It's just that I'm weak. Without someone to tell me where to go or where to point my spear at, I just keep going in circles."
"Then I won't tell you to go back to Talys, and I won't tell you to adopt a Pegasus foal and look after it so you two can go in circles together."
A smile, a ghost of her old defiant grin, spread on Cordelia's face. "Maybe I will. But not yet. With your lousy memory, you'd never find that pond Ares mentioned."
"Guilty as charged."
They ate side by side. The fire crackled gently and smoothed out the lines that had controlled Cordelia's face for the past year.
"Mind taking the first watch?" Ike asked.
Cordelia paused. Then a small smile. "Sure."
They didn't discuss any roads they would follow the next day. But when the sun snuck through the thicket, Ike pulled Cordelia to her feet, and they mutually directed their horses towards the lake district and the distant threat of Validar's tower. Nearby rushed the White River, and a new sensation joined the overabundance of spruce needles. The oppressive heat of a summer day was a memory now. It would snow soon.
Notes: Ehehe, I love making callbacks to things that happened a dozen or more chapters ago. So I was all too glad with the opportunity to bring back "the guest" from the beginning of Book III, aka Gatrie. There's one ghost crossed off from Ike's past, and he even managed to make amends with Cordelia! In the next chapter, a Voice will reveal a truth that offers hope to one man and despair to another. Until then, happy holidays to y'all!