Chapter 4: The Storm
Izlude was still reeling from the sight of his sister, so shocked that she had suddenly appeared and brazenly challenged the same man who had slain demons, that he sat frozen in his saddle for a long, terrible moment. He shook his head from side to side, so vigorously that his neck ached in protest, and squeezed his eyes shut, vainly wishing the simple motion could unmake the scene, and the dilemma, playing out before him.
Yet, when he reluctantly let the curtain of his eyelids rise, the unfolding confrontation yet remained. And, a confrontation it would be. Though Ramza held up one hand to entreat for a truce, Meliadoul's blade never wavered and her dark green eyes blazed with fury.
"And, who are you to decide that?" Ramza retorted, though his free hand was straying towards his sword. "This is a free city, is it not? We bear you no hostility, so please let us through!"
Even from a distance, Izlude had no trouble seeing Meliadoul clench her teeth and her already livid expression harden into a glare, almost as if she thought the young noble's request to let him and his party pass through the city gates had left her rankled almost beyond thought. This, Izlude realized, was most bizarre. He had seen Melidoul in battle many times, and she acted little different from fighting foes with a real blade in her hands than she did when she was giving her little brother bruises with a wooden sword. She'd even been known to blow a kiss to a worthy opponent before delivering the death blow, her eyes dancing with emerald light and a throaty laugh more suited to a swashbuckler than a knight on her lips. Yet, now, she looked as wild and as bloodthirsty as a feral jungle cat, with all the mercy and humor thereof.
What could possibly have spun her into such a frenzy?
Then, he had a sudden, sickening presentiment that he already knew the answer.
"I am Meliadoul, and I have come to avenge my brother!" she proclaimed, confirming Izlude's worst fears.
The knight blade's jaw plummeted near to his saddle horn, and he brought up one fist to smack himself on the face.
Stupid, stupid, STUPID! he chided himself, realizing the depths of his oversight.
Clearly, his ruse at Riovanes had worked, as Meliadoul believed him to be dead. Yet, once again, Hasmalum had blindsided him. A disguised Lucavi demon Hasmalum might be, but he still wore the skin of the commander of the Church of Glabados's armed forces and spoke with his voice and authority.
And, what better scapegoat could he come up with for Izlude's death than, arguably, the single most sought after heretic in Ivalician history?
Izlude watched with horrified fascination as the subtlety of the scheme unfolded before him. Whether Hashmalum had seen through Izlude's deception, and decided not to risk Meliadoul becoming suspicious, or whether he'd believed it and used her brother's "death" as incentive, the result was the same. Either Ramza would kill Meliadoul and remove a potential threat within the Templar's ranks, or Meliadoul would kill Ramza and the Lucavi's plans would be that much closer to fruition.
Either way, Hasmalum would win...
...and, Izlude would lose.
"Brother?" Ramza spoke, clearly puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
Despite his fear, the knight blade reluctantly turned his gaze back to the young Beoulve and his sister, his very bones atremble with dread.
"Oh, so you're denying it? Izlude, whom you killed at Riovanes, was my brother! So I'm going to kill you, not for the high confessor, but for him!" Meliadoul screamed piercingly as she clutched her brother's dog tag in one fist. Even though she was too far away for Izlude to see the expression on her face, there was no mistaking the rage and anguish in her voice.
No doubt she had already seen the corpse of his decoy at the Riovanes Castle morgue, and she was obviously convinced that Sir Damien's savaged remains had been her brother's. Again, the knight blade repudiated himself for not having seen this coming. There had to have been something he could have done, some way to ensure that the truth reached Meliadoul. His more rational side tried to tell him that he could have done no such thing without putting his sister's life in danger and that, as enraged as Meliadoul was, she would not throw her life away fighting a battle she could not hope to win.
Yet, these placations were well and truly drowned out by his other side, which was near to panic with fright for the life of his only remaining family.
Forcing himself to look, he saw realization dawn on the Beoulve as he raised his hands in the air in a gesture of denial. "No, you've got it all wrong!" Ramza protested, though his words didn't even cause Meliadoul to blink. "I didn't kill Izlude! Do you have any idea what happened at Riovanes? That massacre wasn't the doing of any human! It was the work of demons! Izlude was killed by Lucavi!"
At Ramza's words, Meliadoul threw back her head and laughed bitterly, with several of her fellow Templars joining in.
"Lucavi?!" she repeated, the word causing a mirthless grin to tug at her features. "Are you saying Lucavi appeared and killed my brother?! Oh my, do you really expect me to believe that?! Can't you come up with a better lie?!"
Her split-second of mirth faded in an instant and Meliadoul's face once more contorted into a mask of fury. His sister's rage, Izlude could tell, was genuine and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not possessed by the Lucavi like the other high-ranking knights of the church. He suspected that the same held true for the Templars who were with her, since they had laughed while the disguised demons he'd met never so much as cracked a smile. The knight blade felt a little relief at that realization, but only a little. The success of his ruse proved to be a double-edge sword, and now it was about to cut the other way. With his sister convinced that Ramza had been the cause of his 'death', she was dead-set on killing the young noble.
Yet, if two Lucavi demons could not slay Ramza, then what chance did Meliadoul have?
Izlude feared he would soon find out.
Before Ramza could protest further, the female divine knight sounded the charge. Her fellow templars, in a maneuver that left Izlude stunned, streamed through the gate, abandoning the cover of the buildings to close the gap between themselves and Ramza. The knight blade struck his face again, but this time in frustration. His knight's side taking over, he quickly saw and gaped at the tactical blunder his sister had just committed. From the gate, her melee units could have formed a phalanx to bottleneck their foes while, from the rooftops, her archers and magic users could take advantage of the elevation to bombard their foes from afar. Yet, instead, she'd ordered her unit to break cover and attack, forfeiting the advantages of both cover and higher ground.
The battle savvy older sister he'd known would never have made such an egregious error.
But, that was before she'd had to bury who she thought was her younger brother.
Clearly, she had been spun up into such a fury that she wasn't thinking clearly.
Izlude wanted desperately to intervene, but he knew he had no chance of getting through to her. She was in no clear mind to listen, and he couldn't blame her. Were he in Meliadoul's place, he would have found his own claim hard to believe as well. From his hiding place, the knight blade watched in horror as his sister charged past the young Beoulve's warriors and went directly for Ramza himself, the rest of her party engaging his comrades. From his vantage point, Izlude saw, with mingled relief and apprehension, that his older sister hadn't lost all of her wits. She yet retained the wherewithal to use her divine knight skills, which she demonstrated as she swung forth her sword and conjured an arcing blade of energy at Ramza's feet. The young noble managed to leap away from the attack before it could crush his armor like a walnut, though he had been a split-second too slow to get his shield out of the way. The Spellbust Stab had only grazed the young Beoulve's shield, but even that been enough to shatter it. Surprised, but remarkably undaunted, Ramza took his sword in both hands and moved in closer, likely hoping to keep her too busy parrying to repeat the maneuver. And, perhaps, create an opening to plead his case.
Meliadoul, bringing up her own blade, met his attack with the shriek of an enraged Valkyrie and an overhand chop that had Ramza skidding to a stop. Again, Ramza did not flinch in the face of her wrath. He shifted the angle of his blade, allowing it to slide free and then unleashed a fierce riposte...
...fierce, despite the fact that he'd struck her with the flat of his blade.
The knight blade was surprised, and more than a bit relieved, that the blow had been dealt with the flat of the blade rather than the edge. Yet, Meliadoul was unmoved by the gesture and responded with a slash that, had Ramza not ducked, would have decapitated him.
With each grinding of metal and whistle of blade, Izlude felt the knot in his stomach grow tighter. He knew he should not intervene, for both his and Meliadoul's life could be in danger if he revealed himself, yet his heart hammered in his chest just as surely and loudly as Ramza's strikes banged against Meliadoul's shield. The knight blade had always been quite good at keeping his emotions in check during battle, yet his brow streamed and his hands shook as he watched Ramza and Meliadoul at each other's throats. And, even though he knew this battle was not his to fight, he felt as though he were being skewered with tempered steel himself as the gulf between his duty to his mission and his duty to his loved ones yawned wider and wider.
Distantly, the knight blade observed that Ramza was a magnificent fighter. His stance and footing, honed by many months of almost daily combat against his myriad pursuers, was immaculate, allowing him to divert Meliadoul's blade with only a modicum of effort. Between that, and being too close to Meliadoul for her to employ any more of her divine knight skills, his defense was impeccable. His offense, however, was less impressive...but only because he was holding back. Meliadoul's blade came whistling at him again and again, the shriek of the angered Valkyrie punctuating each blow. Again and again, the young Beoluve caught her blade with his own and deflected it, knocked it aside, or dodged it entirely. But, every counter blow was dealt either with the flat of his blade or his fist.
He doesn't want to kill her, Izlude realized with amazement. He's avoiding even wounding her!
The knight blade would have been impressed by the gesture if it hadn't been so clear that the chivalrous sentiment was not mutual. Each parry and dodge seemed to enrage Meliadoul all the more.
"Stand and fight, damn you!" she railed, her voice singing the ears of Beoulve and knight blade alike. "Has killing one Tingel left you too craven to fight another!?"
As Ramza dodged the divine knight's energy attacks, he cried out in frustration. "Dammit, you're the same as Izlude! You don't know anything! You don't realize that you're just puppets dancing for the Lucavi! The stones aren't just objects of faith, but have the power to work miracles! That power is different for each hand that wields it, but they're using it for evil! Wake up, Meliadoul! Vormav is deceiving you!"
At the mention of their father's name, Izlude felt a ripple of grief at his heart, wondering what his father's dispossessed spirit made of this horrific spectacle. Yet, that musing only served to drive home in Izlude's mind that Ramza was right. Meliadoul truly knew nothing of her father's soul being evicted in favor of the demon, Hashmalum, and her behavior proved it.
"Ha, do you take me for a fool?!" she spat. "Vormav is our father!"
Izlude imagined that, upon hearing that revelation, the young Beoulve had blanched as though a vampire from pagan myth had sunk fangs into his neck and drained him dry. No doubt he was wondering how he could not have seen the family resemblance. While her long, dark chestnut hair was covered by the hood of her cloak, Izlude knew, as Ramza had surely discovered, that Meliadoul shared Vormav's and Izlude's dark-green eyes, high-cheekbones, and facial structure, as well as their sharp nose. Izlude also gleaned that Ramza had also judged that, by her appearance, she was slightly older than her brother. A sad sigh parted his lips, causing the knight blade to fear that learning Meliadoul's connection to Vormav and Izlude, as well as her unwillingness to listen, had caused Ramza to decide that he had no choice but to fight. The slight sag of his shoulders said that he did not wish to harm her, but that he couldn't let himself be killed here, especially with the fate of Alma, not to mention the world itself, at stake in this game of war.
Thus resigned, the young Beoulve managed to get past Meliadoul's shield and scoured a line into her armor. The next blow, surely, would draw blood...and, perhaps, more.
At that moment, Izlude, nearly mad with fear for the lives of both combatants, could no longer restrain himself. He spurred Nelly forward and, as he drew within earshot, he shouted Meliadoul's name at the top of his lungs.
"Meliadoul, wait! I'm right-" a strange voice called out, causing Izlude to jerk his mount to a halt.
The question was his, the lips that formed it were his as well...
...but, the voice that spoke it wasn't.
"Did that come from me?" the strange voice asked, as Izlude's lips formed those very same words.
A few experimental utterances confirmed it; the knight blade no longer sounded like himself, but like a completely different person. His voice was deeper with a burr, and his tongue came to a strange, glottal stop after the vowels. The voice was not his, but he had a pretty good idea who it belonged to. Could the stone, which granted him his altered appearance, have also disguised his voice as well? Was this the voice of Damien Mitchell, as he had sounded in life? And, why hadn't the strange alteration taken hold when he was still at Riovanes, coaxing Nelly to sniff his hand? Whatever the cause, he supposed it didn't matter. If he wasn't certain before, he was now; neither Meliadoul nor Ramza, as well as either of their parties, would believe that Izlude Tingel wore Damien Mitchell's face. Izlude realized the foolishness of what he had just done; his appearance and voice had been altered by the holy stone, so much so on both counts that even if his sister saw and heard him, she would neither recognize him nor desist in attacking Ramza and his party. In fact, if his presence was detected, either party, of both, might even turn on him as well. Luckily, no one seemed to have heard him over the din of the fierce battle.
Yes, lucky, Izlude mused sourly. The sort of luck one attributes to having an arm lopped off instead of a head!
Izlude, fuming with impotent rage and chill worry curdling in his gut, turned Nelly around and rode back to the concealment of a hill. He tried vainly to force himself to calm down, all the while arguing with himself that he ought to be grateful that nobody had spied him and turned a blade in his direction. Yet, that voice was little more than a whisper against the relentless banging, clanging, shouting, and grunting of the battle. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back tears as his love's brother and his beloved sister continued their dance of death. Ramza would not kill Meliadoul, he kept on telling himself, though he could not be certain if he was trying to convince himself or merely trying to drown out the song of steel on steel.
Then, the song came to an abrupt end with a piercing scream from Ramza and a female voice that seemed to be choking on something.
Fearfully, Izlude turned in the direction of the sound and opened his eyes.
What he saw froze his blood.
Ramza, a shocked expression on his face, was staring at his blade which was buried near to the hilt in Meliadoul's stomach. Denying what he saw with all his might, Izlude nonetheless watched in frozen horror as Meliadoul slid free of Ramza's blade and sagged to the ground, redness pooling beneath her.
Izlude could barely see this through eyes now brimming with tears, but the sight was nearly enough to make him wish the holy stone had withheld its miraculous gift.
Death would have spared him the pain of seeing this.
Yet, his anguish turned into astonishment as Ramza fished two flasks out of his satchel and tipped one into Meliadoul's mouth. In the same motion, the young Beoulve emptied the second over the crimson stain on Meliadoul's abdomen.
Greater astonishments were still to come.
Meliadoul cried out in pain as the liquid made contact.
The knight blade watched, slack jawed, as the liquid on Meliadoul's stomach hissed and bubbled before evaporating, leaving unbroken skin behind.
Still coughing from the pain and her eyes wary, Meliadoul climbed to her feet and stared at the young Beoulve in mingled anger and bewilderment.
"Why did you do that?" she asked angrily. "Don't think this will make me forget my brother's death!"
"Your brother is exactly why I healed you," Ramza answered. "I've said it before and I'm saying it again; I didn't kill your brother! I can't prove it, and my tale is quite hard to swallow, but it's the truth. Think about it, you saw the bodies. Their heads crushed like melons and their flesh torn to ribbons. What human could do that? What human would do that?"
Meliadoul's gnashed teeth vanished as her lips pressed together in a thin, grim line. She was plainly not convinced, but it seemed as though a seed of doubt had taken root. Realizing that the battle was lost in any case, the divine knight was forced to admit defeat.
"Urgh, you're strong! No wonder Wiegraf lost! No matter, though. You can tell all the tales you like, but you have no proof. Next time we meet is the day you die, Ramza! Remember that!" Sheathing her sword, Meliadoul gave Ramza one last dirty look and murmured a strange phrase. A column of light erupted from beneath her feet and, when the light vanished, so too had Meliadoul. The rest of her party followed suit, teleporting away from the battlefield. After a long moment, during which he took tally of both parties and saw that nobody had been killed or seriously hurt, Izlude breathed a sigh of relief and sagged in his saddle. Beneath him, Nelly let out a soft "wark".
"Yeah, I know," Izlude replied, sensing the chocobo's mood just as surely as she'd sensed his. "I feel like I aged a year today. But, we were very lucky back there."
And, indeed, "luck" was the word for it. The knight blade had been truly amazed that Ramza would not only hold back from killing an enemy, but would heal one which had been mortally wounded. Ramza was, indeed, a great man; greater than Izlude, or even Alma, would have guessed. And, for the first time of the many that would follow, he uttered a whispered prayer that would've turned white the hair of any agent of the corrupt church.
"God bless you, Ramza Beoulve."
With the battle having ended, Ramza quickly saw to his party, looking for injuries and checking for equipment that might have been damaged by an errant Spellbust Stab or Icewolf Bite. Seeing none, he gave the order to proceed through the city, reluctantly deciding that seeking the inns and shops would be most unwise when the Templar might return in greater numbers. Once they were far enough ahead that none would spy him, the knight blade continued to follow them, their shadow once more. Having thought it too dangerous to restock their supplies in Bervenia, they put some distance between themselves and the free city and then divided to hunt, fish, and forage. Most of the group dispersed and, after a dispute between Ramza and the twins, the young Beoulve snatched up a fishing pole and headed off. Agrias, who had also stayed behind, looked more than a bit put out. She plopped onto a fallen log - rather heavily, Izlude noted - and blew out an aggravated breath that sounded quite at odds with her reputation for coldness. Lavian and Alicia promptly seated themselves on either side of the holy knight, and the three began speaking, though too softly for Izlude to hear. Whatever was said, it seemed to help Agrias's mood, for she smiled and offered no complaint when one giggling twin hugged her from before and the other from behind. After a time, the rest of the group returned with game and fish and, in Mustadio's case, an elk of remarkable size which he dragged on an improvised sled cunningly woven of stout branches, thick vines, and large leaves.
Even after it was full, Izlude's stomach complained mightily at Ramza and company's far more appealing fare.
SSSSSS
The days went by as Ramza's company and their faithful shadow continued onward to Finnath Creek. By that time, the weather had soured as an overcast sky promptly unleashed a torrent of rain. Nelly floundered in the mud and Izlude was hard pressed to keep up. Luckily, the rain ran out before his determination or his luck did. And, much to the knight blade's relief, he soon caught up with the group, all of whom were safe and sound, making camp while they dried off. After making sure he was a safe distance away, Izlude dismounted to find a spot to sleep himself. Much to his displeasure, and to Nelly's far greater displeasure, he would have to sleep without the comfort of a campfire in order to avoid being discovered. But, Izlude did not mind. Apart from his being more than capable of bedding down in the rough country when need be - so much so that he could also sleep in his armor if he had to, having done so many times after previous battles - his relief over Ramza's sparing Meliadoul was a potent balm against the pebbles and roots beneath him. His blankets, the warmth of Nelly, and his renewed conviction that, as the young Beoulve and his party were strong enough to take on and defeat two Lucavi demons, they would surely prevail, was more than enough to keep him warm.
Exhausted from following Ramza, as well as the hectic events that had ensued since his resurrection, he fell asleep quickly. Being the light sleeper that he was, the knight blade awoke early the next morning when he heard Ramza's party preparing to break camp and leave after having eaten breakfast. After they had finished packing, Ramza led his party back on the road to Zeltennia, with their shadow faithfully, though stealthily, following behind.
When they arrived at their destination the following day, some discreet questions from the less-recognizable members of Ramza's band revealed that Delita would soon be at prayer within an elegant church in the heart of the city. Surreptitiously following the group, Izlude arrived in time to see the young Beoulve direct his party to stay hidden outside while he went in, probably to meet Delita as he intended. Though Delita had been his friend, there was no mistaking the wariness in his posture as Ramza entered. A half-hour passed, though it felt more like half a year, when the knight blade noticed the arrival of another group with a far darker purpose. At their head was an elderly man that Izlude knew well, having seen him speak with his 'father' many times. It was Confessor Zalmo Rusnada, a seasoned heresy examiner of some renown, whom he guessed was here to arrest Ramza for his supposed crime of heresy. The knight blade watched as the confessor shouted orders for Ramza to come out and surrender himself. Unlike the battle with Meliadoul, Izlude had no compunction against staying out of this fight. He had no love for the vicious old man, and had at times suspected him of being a Lucavi demon in human form as well, though he was not certain of this. While he was concerned for his love's brother, Izlude had no doubt that Ramza and his friends would find Zalmo to be no challenge after having defeated two Lucavi demons as well as a seasoned combatant as his sister. As he watched, Ramza exited the church, but he was not alone. Delita was at his side, much to the surprise of both Ramza's party and the confessor's.
"You! You're the black knight, Hyral! Why are you here?" Zalmo demanded, and Izlude suspected what would surely ensue. Having seen Delita with Ramza, Zalmo surely suspected that Delita was not nearly so loyal to the church as the Black Ram lieutenant had professed. No doubt Zalmo would seek to arrest him as well, but Delita was far too cunning and powerful a quarry to allow that.
"Confessor Zalmo! Now that you've seen my face, I cannot let you live!" Turning to his friend, he whispered "Let's go, Ramza!"
"They're unknowingly part of the high confessor's plot!" the Beoulve hissed. "If you explain it well, they'd understand."
Delita scowled, clearly displeased by his friend's words, though his mouth soon curved into a mirthless grin. "Are you still that naive?" he asked incredulously. "Well, good luck!"
Izlude watched as the two friends - or, at least, temporary allies - drew their swords. Ramza called out for his party to come to their aid. Delita attracted many a wary glance, but the knights and mystics at Zalmo's side quickly turned their attention elsewhere. Ramza's party was a well-oiled fighting machine, with bullets, shuriken, and spells felling Zalmo's knights before they could get within reach, while mystics fell to sword, katana, lance, and rod. Coupled with the addition of a knight as skilled as Delita Hyral fighting at their side, Izlude suspected that Zalmo did not have long to live. And, he was soon proven right. Delita dodged a mystic's spell and, holy blade lifted high, summoned shards of ice that encased the offending magic user. The ice shattered, and so very nearly too did the mystic.
A moment later, Izlude was amazed to see the normally stoic and unreadable Delita actually grin at his friend in the midst of the battle while shouting "Just like old times, eh, Ramza?" His friend could not help but return his smile, though the knight blade could tell it was more than a little forced. Whatever light-hearted moment between the two friends there was did not last long, however. It seemed Ramza would have been content to simply force the old man to retreat, which suggested that Zalmo, for all his impassioned calls for bloodshed, was ignorant of the Lucavi's plot. Delita, however, seemed to have other plans. If Delita did, indeed, have schemes of his own, and they ran counter to those of the church, he could leave no witnesses. And, sure enough, the Black Ram lieutenant slipped through the enemy lines and, before Ramza he could stop his friend, Delita ran Zalmo through with his sword as soon as he was within striking range. The old man sagged to the turf, the grass reddening beneath him, and he rasped out one last prayer for God to punish the wicked before, perhaps by chance or by irony, his prayers ended in a death rattle. With the old confessor dead, his troops panicked and fled, throwing down their weapons so that they might run all the faster. There was no mistaking the outrage on the young Beoulve's face as Ramza, appalled, but not truly surprised, whirled on Delita. His one-time friend, and Izlude found himself wondering if that 'one-time' had come and gone, bent over the confessor's corpse and he wiped blood off his sword with Zalmo's own robe.
"Was that really necessary?!" Ramza demanded, livid at the callous display.
"Oh, come now, don't give me that look, Ramza," Delita said in a chiding tone. "You know he would have killed us both if he got the chance. If anything, you should be thanking me, at least you can rest assured the old man won't be going after you anymore."
Ramza seemed far from mollified, for his eyes narrowed and his fist tightened until the leather of his glove squealed in protest.
"Perhaps not, but others will take his place," he snarled.
"Still, one less pursuer for you," Delita countered with practiced smoothness.
That did not seem to make the young Beoulve feel any better, and the reason was hardly a secret. Undoubtedly, he suspected that he'd likely be blamed for murdering Confessor Zalmo, as well as Cardinal Draclau. And, more than that, though Draclau had been a Lucavi demon, Zalmo clearly was not. Thus, if Izlude had Ramza partially figured out, the young Beoulve saw this battle as needless and those that had died as puppets, casually thrown to their deaths by their unseen demonic puppet masters. Delita seemed to sense Ramza's ill mood, but he offered no words of comfort. Instead, he decided to guide their discussion along another path. "So, what do you plan to do next?"
Ramza looked as though he were tempted to forcibly turn the conversation back to his friend's earlier actions, but then he seemed to reconsider. Perhaps he decided that he could not afford to waste time arguing with Delita over Zalmo's death, or maybe he sensed that he would be wasting his breath trying to lecture the Black Ram lieutenant on the sanctity of life. In either case, Ramza forced himself to calm down as he answered "I had two reasons for coming here: one was to see you. The other was to see Count Orlandu."
At the mention of the count's name, Delita raised an eyebrow. "Thundergod Cid?"
Ramza nodded. "I need his cooperation to uncover the church's plot."
"How?"
"I have strong evidence that will uncover the wrong-doing."
At this, a cunning grin tugged at the corners of Delita's mouth, as though his mind's eye beheld the great board of this game of war, and one of his pieces had moved to a place most advantageous.
"Ah, the Germonik Scriptures!" he deduced.
"Yes," Ramza confirmed, though Izlude wondered if he'd been wise to do so. "When I met Olan, the count's adopted son, he promised me that, if I could provide proof, he would stop the high priest's conspiracy."
Delita brought up one gauntlet-ed finger and stroked his chin, seemingly in deep thought. "Olan, huh?"
Before Ramza could ask his friend what was percolating in his cunning mind, a young blonde woman dressed in a maroon tunic and blue cloak stepped out of the shadows and approached the pair. Upon seeing her, Ramza turned warily towards Delita.
"It's ok" the Black Ram lieutenant assured "She's one of us. Several people were sent from Murond to help us. She's one of them."
The blonde woman raised an eyebrow at these words. "Help? More like keep an eye on you," she retorted. She spoke with a deep, lilting accent that Izlude had never heard before, suggesting that she was not a native Ivalician. What country she could possibly be from, Izlude had no idea, since he never seen or heard her like before. Judging by the look of perplexity on his face, Ramza hadn't either.
Delita's typically cryptic features showed a hint of annoyance at his blonde companion's barb. "Hey, c'mon, give me a break, will you?" he hissed before turning back to Ramza and clearing his throat. "Anyway, she knows everything, she's the only one we can trust in the Goltana army."
The young woman turned to Ramza. Upon seeing the young Beoulve, and apparently finding the sight to her liking, she smirked and offered her hand. "You're the youngest Beoulve, right? I'm Balmafula Lanando. Nice to meet you."
Having seen a sampling of what Delita was willing to do to fulfill his agenda, Izlude was not surprised when Ramza hesitated. After a moment, however, Ramza warily took her hand and gave it a gentle shake. "Nice to meet you too, my lady."
Balmafula's dark eyes twinkled with delight at the young Beoulve's response to her gesture, and she let out a merry laugh. This, the knight blade noted, seemed to displease Delita, for he cleared his throat to catch the pair's attention when Balmafula's gaze lingered on his friend's face a little too long for his liking. "And, what do you want?" he demanded, his typically cool tone nowhere in evidence.
The young woman shot him an annoyed look, but seemed to remember herself a moment later. She squared her shoulders and straightened, the rigidity of her posture giving Izlude an ill presentiment. And, sure enough, his discomfiture proved justified.
"The Hokuten are moving," She answered.
Izlude's borrowed eyebrows shot clear up into his borrowed hairline. These words summoned to mind something he had heard during the journey from Riovanes, but which he'd nearly forgotten amidst the intervening travails. Though Ramza and company's supposed heresy necessitated that they keep a low profile, they did stop at certain towns long enough to hear the latest news. The continued disintegration of Ivalice's economy and the ever mounting casualties in the war had spurred many to rebellion and, though both dukes now sat on powder kegs instead of thrones, they lacked the men to fight the enemy at home as well as at their border.
For such a major troop movement to take place, it would seem that a critical point had finally been reached.
"Is Fort Besselet the target?" Delita asked, though he sounded as though he already knew the answer.
She nodded. "Count Orlandu left for the fort a while ago. Goltana is also heading there, along with your Black Ram knights."
That confirmed the knight blade's supposition. Larg and Goltana must've realized that, for both of them, it was now or never. Unless a victory, a decisive victory, happened soon, there was no telling how long the war might drag on. Or, for that matter, just how much of a kingdom would be left afterwards. This realization, Izlude imagined, would manifest in a great battle at Fort Besselet, which guarded the fertile lands of the Goltana-allied province of Limberry and, with it, the best chance of victory for either side.
A victory that would come with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men-at-arms, and ensure that the church, Lucavi allied or not, would face scant opposition.
"A little too late… the battle won't end." Delita murmured, as though agreeing with Izlude's notion, his chin nestling into the curve of his fist and his brow furrowing in deep concentration.
More than a few, even amongst the bravest, would have grimly agreed with that assessment, judging that particular battle to have been lost and that time was better spent making sure the war did not follow suit. Yet, Ramza was no ordinary man and, after all that he'd been through, the word "impossible" held little meaning for him. He shook his head defiantly, rising to his full height and his voice rose with him. "I'm not giving up!" he vowed thunderously. "I'll persuade the count before any more die."
It might have been Izlude's imagination, but he could have sworn that Delita's answering sigh held a note of regret. Before the knight blade could make sense of that, the Black Ram lieutenant seemed to decide that there was nothing he could do or say to change his friend's mind. With a smile that almost seemed benign, and likely conjured regret from both men, he offered his hand. "I guess this is good-bye, Ramza."
"Stay alive, Delita. We live in dangerous times now…" Ramza warned as he took his friend's hand, a bit less reservedly than before.
The Black Ram lieutenant smiled, though a hint of bitterness crossed his face. "Since when did we ever do otherwise? In any case, I understand. You stay alive too."
The young Beoulve nodded and took leave of his friend. His eyes flicked to one side, as though he were about to stop and say more, or as if he were about to take a backward glance. But, at the last moment, he reconsidered and continued on.
Curious about the remaining pair, and having to wait to continue his pursuit in any case, Izlude kept watch as Delita and Balmafula watched the young Beoulve depart. The blonde magician seemed to have found the exchange between the two amusing and, once Ramza was out of earshot, her gaze alighted upon Delita.
"So, you're just going to let him go?" she asked, her dark eyes narrowing.
Delita nodded. "I know what he'll do…"
Apparently, so did blonde magician. For, upon hearing these words, she regarded him with thinly veiled disgust. "You even use your friends…" she said simply, though with a clear note of distaste.
Delita shot her a glare, his incredulity surprising Izlude. "Shut up! What do you know?!" he snarled.
Balmafula, clearly unimpressed, returned his glare with equal venom. "I hate people like you," she spat.
"Just hurry up and go!" Delita ordered, eager to get the woman out of his sight. And, from the look on her face, it was clear that the feeling was mutual, and Balmafula left him without another word.
After watching Balmafula depart, Izlude realized that it was time to take his leave as well. Mounting Nelly, the knight blade left the church to continue his pursuit of Alma's brother, whom he still believed would somehow lead him to his love. How long it would be before Ramza and Hashmalum's parties met at Orbonne for the final confrontation, Izlude could not say. But, he'd vowed that he would travel from one end of the world to the other if it meant rescuing his beloved from the Lucavi's sinister machinations.
Unfortunately, that meant he now had to follow Ramza to Fort Besselat, which meant another two days of hard travel, since he'd judged that Ramza's party would journey there by the most direct route they could find. And, as if that wasn't enough, the most direct route would take them, as well as Izlude, through the Beddha Sandwaste. That had worried the knight blade, since the desert offered dangers of its own and was sorely lacking in concealment. As it turned out, however, Ramza and company had far more pressing matters to deal with than their persistent shadow. As they arrived at the crumbled remains of an outpost, they came face to face with another Knight Templar that was a passing acquaintance of Izlude's. His name was Balk Fenzol who, though a knight by vocation, was also a skilled chemist as well as a machinist, and thus shared Mustadio and Besrodio's knowledge of guns. He was clearly not a Lucavi, since there was no feigning his contempt for the crown and the nobility which Izlude recalled from his previous life. That, however, proved a small comfort. The party had arrived just in time to see the chemist knight remove a glass vial, cover his face, and empty it into the air. The harsh desert winds caught the contents of the vial, carrying it away in the form of a strange mist that caused an icy chill to run up the knight blade's spine.
It was not unlike the chill he'd felt when faced with his 'father's' transformation...and, that chill meant death.
"They're all spread?" he asked his unit, to which they nodded in answer. "Good… we've got a nice wind going on here. Should be enough to float them around the air for most of the day."
"What was that?!" Ramza demanded.
Upon hearing the young Beoulve's voice, Balk whirled and saw Ramza. The chemist knight clearly had not expected discovery, for he drew back a pace and his lower jaw sagged. "Uh-oh, didn't think I'd see you here."
"What are the Knights Templar doing here?" Ramza pressed, his sword already in his fist. "You said 'spread' ... just what the hell did you 'spread'?"
The chemist knight, who Izlude recalled, was quite fond of explaining his genius, regained his composure and grinned. "I guess I can tell you since there's nothing you can do about it now."
"Spill it! Just what the hell did you spread?!"
"This!" Balk shouted with glee as he fished out another vial and hurled it towards Ramza and his party. It struck the half buried stones of the crumbled outpost and disintegrated, releasing the same sinister green mist Balk had scattered earlier. Izlude was upwind and much too far away to be affected, but Ramza went down on his knees, hacking terribly. The knight blade, concern tugging him closer to the young Beoulve, noted that the hacking Ramza's lips were flecked with blood.
"Poison!" Ramza gagged, confirming Izlude's guess as the rest of his companions collapsed to their knees, coughing and hacking through blood flecked lips.
"So what do you think? I'll spread this to the Hokuten camp. Any soldier who inhales this will be too sick to fight!" Balk gloated, so haughtily one would think he'd resurrected all of the lost sciences from Ajora's time.
Understanding dawned on the young Beoulve as he gasped "The High Confessor doesn't want Goltana to win the war!"
"That's right! If the Hokuten cannot fight, the Nanten will open the fortress and attack with their full might. Besselet will be all but emptied, leaving us the perfect opportunity to kill both Goltana and Orlandu. Of course, plans are set to kill Larg in the confusion as well. It'll probably be easier to kill him in the chaos caused by the poison."
"What? But why?!" Ramza cried, visibly appalled by Balk's designs.
"Who cares? You should be happy, the war will finally end! From now on, we'll be the center of authority. The people want that! And that means no more of you aristocrats running the kingdom!"
Ramza shook his head fiercely, and Izlude found himself following suit. While Balk's anger towards the crown and the nobility was well founded, his solution was far worse than anything either of the dukes could devise. In order to eliminate the dukes and their closest allies, the church had stooped to setting the stage for a massacre. If was allowed to proceed, Balk's plan would exact a death toll not seen since the Fifty Years War.
Thousands upon thousands would die before the sun had set.
"No!" Ramza cried, his next words nearly lost amidst a blood frothed cough. "I won't let that happen! I'll end the war differently!"
"And just how are you going to clean up rotten Ivalice?" The chemist knight sneered "You should know that unless you clean out the rot, the same thing will happen over and over!
The young Beoulve glared at Balk. "And 'cutting' is your only solution? Not everyone is rotten, there are many who aren't! There should be other solutions besides war!"
"There are no other 'solutions'! As long as you're aristocrats, we'll always be exploited! There's no such thing as equality; one side is always being exploited and I'd rather be on the exploiting side after I overthrow you!"
"Then the same thing will repeat itself; someday, you will be overthrown by someone else!"
"You're being an idealistic hypocrite!"
"Maybe so, but I'll not allow you to carry out your mad plan!"
"Haha, I'd knew you'd say that! Get 'em, boys!"
Balk cocked his gun and took aim at the young Beoulve and, once again, Izlude feared for the life of his love's brother. Yet, it seemed luck was still with both young men. Whatever poison Ramza inhaled was not swiftly lethal, for he managed to rise to his feet. Balk's confident smirk wavered, and then turned into a snarl as the rest of Ramza's party roused themselves and charged. This, too, Balk had not expected, and it showed. While the chemist knight was a brilliant man, he had the mentality of an overlarge schoolyard bully, chronically overconfident and too often underestimating his opponents. Apparently not having enough poison left to seriously affect even a handful of people, since he already used up most of his supply for his scheme, he ordered his unit to take to the high ground and assume a defensive posture.
Such a strategy might have worked, as it gave Balk, his archers, and his black mage the advantage of elevation. But, the ruined outpost was replete with low walls that acted as blind spots, concealing Ramza and company as they worked their way around and behind Balk's line of sight. While Lavian and Alicia used their respective talents to support the rest of the attacking party, drawing on the chemist's skill set to cure the poison and heal the wounded, the attacking party leapt atop the wall to catch Balk from behind. The pair of archers flanking him died before they could even reach their quivers, and the battle was decided when Mustadio shot Balk through the heart. The chemist knight, looking positively mortified at this reversal, sagged to the sand covered stone and breathed his last. The remaining Templars, by then, were either dead or had retreated, and Ramza ordered his companions to continue on to Fort Besselat. Ramza's party, and their faithful shadow, pressed on with all the haste they could muster.
If they failed here, the Lucavi would find Ivalice waiting for them on a silver platter.
SSSSSS
When Izlude finally beheld the tall towers of Fort Besselat, he let out a scratchy sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off his brow. If he had not been impressed, and more than a bit incensed by Ramza's pace, he certainly was now. He had lost sight of the young Beoulve's party as they pressed on southward through the desert and, after losing nearly an hour trying to spot some tracks that the wind had not already erased, he finally picked up their trail again. However, as he left behind the sand and scrub brush, the sight that greeted him was even worse than he had expected.
And he had expected it to be very, very bad.
On either side of Fort Besselet, there were vast hosts of men-at-arms, thousands strong on either side. Many were mounted, many more were afoot, and banners of every knightly order and noble house that Izlude had ever even heard of snapped in the wind. Both armies had coiled like great armored serpents, poised to strike at any moment...and play right into the Lucavi's clawed hands. Glancing over his shoulder, Izlude could see ribbons of green mist fluttering on the wind, and knew it was only a matter of time before the Hokuten were crippled and the Nanten moved in to commence the massacre.
The knight blade wondered despairingly how Ramza could hope to avert such a disaster, even if he secured the aid of Count Orlandu. Then, with an ominous creaking and groaning, he had his answer.
Just in front of him was the floodgate of Besselet, brimming over with water.
And, that gate was opening.
Like the maw of an enormous beast, the two halves of the floodgate, dozens of times Izlude's own height, yawned wide. From within erupted a great torrent of water, surging out onto the dry land rumbling like a thunderstorm that had strayed too close to the earth. With each passing moment, more and more of the sun baked earth was turned to swamp, the lower ground literally devoured by the liberated lake. Relentlessly, it crashed onward, reaching towards the battlefield the battlefield with claws of foam. Every pair of eyes turned in the direction of the oncoming flood, and the battle was promptly forgotten. Both sides, all those amongst them who could move quickly enough, wheeled about and raced for the safety of higher ground, jostling and trampling each other in their headlong, panicked flight. The knight blade did likewise, whirling Nelly about and snapping the reins. At another time, he might have been impressed by the simple elegance of Ramza's solution. With the battlefield flooded, the two rival armies would see no battle, and the machinations of the corrupt church and the Lucavi would be dealt a mighty blow.
Indeed, Izlude would have been bowing to Ramza's cunning if he wasn't in danger of being swept away by the tide.
The thunder in his ears grew ever louder and, when he dared a glance back, trickles of foam teased at his cheeks like probing fingers seeking to seize him and drag him in. He urged Nelly on, but his normally indefatigable mount was nearly spent from the frantic pursuit across the sandwastes. She faltered, and the current engulfed them both...
A/N: Ok, we're going to end Izlude's pursuit right here. I prefer not to parrot parts of the game that the fans are already familiar with but it was quite necessary before we can continue with the 'main' story of Izlude's search for Alma; he will have no active role until after Alma's rescue by Ramza and company so we can finally fast-forward to post Lion War Ivalice. Once again, I would like to thank my co-writer and editor, Falchion1984 for making this sequel possible ^^