Chapter 15 - Surrounded

Annette expected to wake to the morning sun, the trilling of birds, and the general bustle of early risers readying themselves for the day. She certainly did not expect Mercedes' terrified face inches from her own as her friend violently rattled her from sleep.

"Annie, hurry. Wake up!" She helped the redhead into a sitting position and started throwing clothes in her direction from the wardrobe.

Annette caught the haphazard articles and slipped them on as quickly as possible, asking questions the whole time. "What is it? What's happening? Is there an emergency?"

"Yes, can't you hear them?" Mercedes asked, pointing out the window.

It was then that she noticed there was none of the typical morning noises. No birds, no servants preparing the castle. Only the sounds of shouting, screaming, and distant commotion, carried on the wind of fire and ash. One look out the window confirmed it. Fhirdiad was under attack.

Columns of smoke twisted into the air and fires blazed at their base as though the flames of hell were snatching at the town. People fled madly in all directions, chased by figures brandishing weapons. Others were part of mobs of battle, where it was impossible to tell who was on whose side.

In the castle courtyard below, the few dozen soldiers they had armed themselves, Dimitri at their head. Donned in his armor and his spear in his hand, he rallied the troops to him. Gustave and Ingrid were at his side, straightening the line of soldiers. "We'll drive back their forces, even if it means our lives!" he said, staring each of them in the eye. "More than anything else, protect the people. Help them reach the castle safely."

Annette hopped toward the door, struggling with her boots. "How many are there?"

"A small army," she said. "Dimitri already sent out riders to recall Dedue, Sylvain, and Ashe. However…"

"However, they may not get here in time," Annette finished for her. The pair raced down the hall and for the courtyard. Along the way, they ran past Dorothea dragging Bernadetta out of her room after them. "How did they even get in anyway? I thought Ingrid doubled the guards."

"She did. I fear someone let them in."

Annette gasped. "A traitor?"

"That's the most obvious. Unless they have a spy who can scale walls or turn invisible."

A traitor in their midst? But who? Certainly not someone in the castle. One of the townspeople then? She didn't know and at the moment, that didn't matter. The situation at hand called for her full attention. She and Mercedes each grabbed a horse from the collection gathered at the courtyard and, together with Dimitri, Dorothea, Bernadetta, and the rest of the contingent of fighters, rode forth to the town.

It was worse than she imagined. The scene was a chaotic mess of citizens screaming and running for their lives. They streamed past those on horseback, fleeing for the castle in a mass. A couple of blocks ahead, Fhirdiad soldiers fought a detachment of rebels.

"For Fhirdiad!" Dimitri immediately galloped ahead towards the skirmish, running a nearby rebel through the chest with his spear. He withdrew it and turned around, jamming the weapon into another rebel.

Several other enemies in the area took notice and pushed back against their opponents, turning on Dimitri instead. "It's the king! Get 'im!"

Annette shot out an arc of lightning, zapping the nearest enemy. The man flailed about, dropping his sword, then collapsed. Dorothea joined her, summoning magical energy and scattering it across the enemies in all directions.

Bernadetta managed to nock her bow and, with shaky hands, and hit one charging Ingrid. Another rebel rushed the archer and she squeaked, quickly firing another wildly before she fell off her horse. The arrow struck true and the attacker went down.

The rest of the troops circled around their king, slicing and cutting through the attackers until they were defeated or dead. Dimitri neared his horse toward an injured Fhirdiad soldier and hopped off. "What's the situation so far?"

"Sire!" he tried to salute and winced, holding his side. Mercedes climbed off her horse too, pulled his hands away, and checked the bleeding gash in his ribs. "The gate's been lost. The bastards are pushing through the town to the castle. There's no end to them and we're losing ground."

Dimitri surveyed their surroundings and directed the troops. "Ingrid and Dorothea, take some men to the west end. Gather up any you can and bring them back to the castle. We need to regroup there. Gustave and Bernadetta, the east end. Annette, Mercedes, and I'll check the front gate."

"I'll go with you, my lord," the soldier said, hissing with each movement.

"No," he said, lifting the man easily up onto his own horse. The soldier tried to protest, but Dimitri held up his hand, calming him. "You need the infirmary and I need every man I can get to survive. Wait for us at the castle and help protect the innocents we send your way."

"But sire-"

"You'll get your chance to do more fighting before the day is through," he said. "Trust me. The real battle hasn't begun yet."

Reluctantly, the soldier took the reins and headed back for the castle. Dimitri turned to the rest of the soldiers they rescued and nodded. "Those of you who are injured, make for the castle and protect the innocents inside. Everyone else, come with us. We need to evacuate the city to safety."

Before Annette rode off with Mercedes, Gustave pulled her aside. "Have you seen Felix this morning?"

She blinked in surprise. "No, why?"

"He's missing. No one's seen him in the castle."

Her heart froze and the old fear of him being kidnapped again reared its ugly head. "No I haven't. Do you think they have him?"

"I don't know what to think." His tone betrayed him. There was a note of suspicion of what was happening, but he wasn't willing to share it openly. "Keep an eye out for him. And be careful."

"I will," she said and hugged him tight. "You too."

One of the soldiers offered Dimitri a horse and he climbed atop, taking the reins while the soldier sat behind him. Taking a few select people with him, Dimitri, Annette, and Mercedes rode for the gate while the rest split off for their own designated areas.

Annette and Mercedes stayed at the head of their group, scanning the area. The immediate street, formerly lined with shops and other businesses, was a smoldering mess of ash and crude pyres marking where buildings once stood. Fighters from both sides laid strewn on the ground, alongside citizens of all ages.

Leaning over, Mercedes said, "I'm sure he's not among them."

"No," she agreed. "I know he's not." Felix was too skilled to be taken down this early in a battle. "It's just strange, isn't it? If they've gotten this far, why haven't they attacked the castle yet?"

"They're taking their time," Dimitri said, moving up beside them and nodding to a building in the distance burning brightly. "They want to ground the city to ash."

"Because they know we don't have reinforcements." She looked at him. He had the same thought as she did. "Mercie mentioned there might be a traitor who opened the gate."

"Yes, but in all the confusion, we don't know who. Other than some of our people in the thick of it, the only one unaccounted for is Felix."

She didn't appreciate that thought and shook her head. "No, he wouldn't do that."

"And no one ever suspected Tomas of anything until it was too late," he said quietly. "If Solon was able to infiltrate the monastery, couldn't they do the same here?"

"But not Felix. He's not an imposter."

Dimitri glanced at her. "Are you absolutely sure? He was kidnapped and held hostage. Is he still the same Felix?"

She wanted to say yes and refute their accusations. The nagging sensation in the back of her mind wouldn't let her. Felix had been distant in an unusual way, preoccupied whenever he wasn't with her and sometimes even while in her presence. She had been sure he was holding back a secret. Was this it? Was he hiding his planned betrayal?

"Look," Mercedes suddenly pointed ahead, where a squad of rebels were barricading a door and setting it on fire. A civilian leapt from a window and was immediately shot down by an arrow.

Dimitri drew his lance and called the soldiers to him. "Hurry! We have to stop them!" The soldiers raised their weapons high as they descended on them and Annette's worries were temporarily lost in the battle.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Anaximandros asked. He breathed deep in satisfaction. "Victory is close at hand."

Victory's one word for it. Felix surveyed the destruction all around him. It wasn't the idealized liberation he fantasized when his comrades marched through the open gates. They had quickly taken the borders of the town, beating back the king's garrison and pushing them to the castle. Some bloodshed was unavoidable, but now it was bordering on a slaughter.

Down one street, Pittacus cast a rushing blast of dark magic, ensnaring a few soldiers in the deadly vapor. They begged for mercy as the magic intensified, cutting their lives short. Nearby, soldiers fled before the onslaught and the rebels showed little mercy.

Felix grimaced at the sight. This didn't feel right and Anaximandros picked up on his unease. "Something troubling you?"

"No," he said, looking away and unfortunately at another group about to be cut down. Then he noticed there was a clear difference between the normal fighting and this group. "Hey, hey!" he called to the two swordsmen who approached their prey. The pair had cornered an unarmed family amongst some rubble and were closing in, swords prepared to strike.

Dashing over to them, Felix's sword lashed out, catching their blades just as they came down. The pair snarled at him, pure bloodlust in their eyes. The same kind he'd often seen on frenzied soldiers or desperate thieves.

They turned on him, but Felix moved faster. He struck one head-on with the pommel of his sword. The man went down hard.

"The hell's your problem?" the other swordsman yelled. He swiped at Felix, who sidestepped the attack. The fighter lunged forward and Felix kicked him in the shins, tripping him.

When the wild man flipped over, Felix pointed his sword at his throat. "Get your partner and get out of here," he said in a dangerous tone, daring the man to test him.

The swordsman seemed to consider trying, then looked at his unconscious friend and thought better of it. Inching around the rubble with the blade's tip poking his skin, he quickly grabbed his friend's arm and dragged him away.

Felix sheathed his sword and turned to the family. "My apologies," he said. The father stood in front of his wife and children, shielding them. The smallest child had her face buried in her mother's dress, but peeked out as the fighting around them died down.

Crouching to her level, Felix offered his best smile to her, hoping it eased the child. "Hey, there's nothing to worry about. You'll be safe. I promise. We're here to help you."

"Stay the hell away from her!" the father said, pushing his child further behind him. "Don't talk to her! Any of you!"

Felix was startled by the reaction and the parents sensed that. They each grabbed one of their children and pushed past Felix, running far away from him. He wanted to chase after them, have them leave the city, but decided against it. In their eyes, he was part of the invading army and they weren't likely to trust him even if he restrained those two wild men.

"Care to explain?" Anaximandros lifted his visor as he approached.

"I should be asking you that," he said, rounding on the taller man. "Did you give all of them free reign?"

"Do you really think I would order the butchering of innocent people?" Anaximandros shook his head. "Come, Felix. You know me better than that."

I thought I did. "You need to keep them on a tighter leash. We can't have that."

"War makes strange bedfellows. We don't always have the luxury of choosing allies with like-minded ideals. But you're right and those two will be punished. Their zeal may be strong, but we can't allow it to overtake us. Otherwise, we're no better than the boar king, hm?" He wrapped an arm around Felix's shoulders and took him in close. "Now tell me, the truth this time, what's troubling you?"

Felix waved his arm around the ruins and burning buildings. "It's all this. I thought we were freeing these people."

"That we are. But we can't attack the castle without taking the town. We need a foothold to assault it. Battles are never clean, after all." He smirked, causing one of his scars to touch his lips. "What did you think would happen? We'd march inside to glorious applause, maybe have a nice, neat duel with Dimitri, and that's it?"

"No. But we don't need to tear it all down. And what of the soldiers?"

"The ones who enlisted to fight for their king?"

"Not all of them blindly follow Dimitri," Felix pointed out. "Some were forcibly enlisted or don't want to be here. We can't kill people who want to surrender. It's like you said. We're better than the king, right?"

Anaximandros studied him with those cold, hard eyes as though the request was completely foreign to him. Then he nodded with a grin. "Of course. You're right. I'll pass the word along to make sure we try to do that. Sound good?"

"Yes."

Pittacus returned from her fighting and Anaximandros pushed Felix toward her. "Why don't the two of you go search for our dear king? Reports say that he left his castle and is somewhere around here. After all, let's not forget what we're fighting for."

He seemed to say this as much to Pittacus as to Felix and the swordsman understood the subtext. Don't lose your nerve now. He led his new companion along, the fighting in the distance drowned out by the music in his head. He needed to ask for it to be removed. With the song so loud, he could be easily ambushed.

Pittacus touched his shoulder and the song suddenly swelled. Strangely, he didn't mind that. It was certainly more pleasant than the dying screams and cries of battle throughout the town. "Which way should we go?" the gremory asked, her voice the only sound above the music. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder.

Felix didn't notice and pointed to the left. "Let's check the front gate. We can cut through here." He could tolerate the song a while longer. It would take time to remove and the longer they waited, the more lives were lost. He needed to end this battle now, for all of Fodlan.

Reaching the front gate was slow going. Every time Annette and her friends turned a corner, they came across a stray rebel group terrorizing innocents or a mage conjuring magical forces to trap kingdom soldiers. Dimitri's valiant nature refused to let even one of his people suffer and he charged into every scenario, Annette and Mercedes right behind him.

By the time they reached the front gate, they'd collected thirty additional troops and sent the rest away to protect the castle. Dimitri ordered a complete halt at the end of the block and peered out around a pile of rubble. To the left, the gate stood closed with a host of guards protecting it.

"We'll need to take control of the gate," Dimitri said, pulling back into cover. "If the castle is taken, that's the only escape route."

"So what's the plan?" Annette asked.

He glanced up at the rampart walls, where other rebels marched along with bows and arrows. He waved everyone to hide and they ducked behind smoldering buildings and overturned market stalls. "We take out those soldiers," he whispered, pointing to the ones on the ramparts, then at the group in front of the gate, "and those ones at the same time. Quietly. Then we disguise some of our people as them."

A swift attack without raising the alarms? "You think that'll work?"

He shrugged. "I don't see any other option. If they control the gate, they've got us trapped in here."

Annette looked up the wall. "What about outside? They could have the rest of their army out there."

"We won't know until we see for ourselves."

Next to them, Mercedes gasped and pointed a shaking finger at the corner. "Look!"

Both of them peeked out with her and to her amazement, Felix was by the gate, talking and gesturing to one of the rebel soldiers. A woman stood behind him, her face shrouded. "See?" Annette said. "I told you it wasn't Felix. He must've been captured."

"Then why is he walking freely?" Dimitri said. Only then did Annette catch that there were no chains on him. She thought maybe it was easier for them to let him walk free, but that didn't make sense. Especially since they kept him locked away and in chains when they kidnapped him.

"Is it me or does he look like he's…ordering that man around?" Mercedes asked.

Indeed, that was the case. After Felix finished talking to the soldier, he beckoned a couple of others over, pointed them to the ramparts, and they double timed it up the stairways to the top of the wall.

It went unspoken, but the feeling rippled through them. Felix was the traitor. No! Annette refused to believe it. She couldn't believe it. He wouldn't abandon them. Not like this. She turned to her friends and Mercedes' eyes pitied her. Dimitri's jaw was clenched tight and his manner darkened.

"It has to be some trick," she said. "He's being blackmailed. Or it's a spell or something." It didn't make any sense. The Felix she knew wouldn't turn against them.

"Maybe," Dimitri said, conceding the point. "Those Who Slither in the Dark have sunk to all sorts of levels. So it may be a trick. Or," and he glanced at Annette, "they might have planted a traitor in our midst to gain our trust." The name of Tomas hung heavily between them. This Felix may've been an imposter and her real Felix gone forever. Or her real Felix never existed.

The woman and Felix turned back from the gate and the rebels took up their new positions. Once they were certain the pair were gone, Dimitri stood with his lance. "We have to move now. You two, take the ramparts. I'll go for the gate."

Annette stood on wobbly knees. She replayed the recent scene in her head over and over, searching for any clue that it wasn't her Felix. Or that he was different from the past few days. Mercedes helped her stand straighter and they headed for the wall, sticking to the shadows as half of the soldiers followed them.

The redhead stumbled over her feet and Mercedes caught her. "Annie, I'm sorry, but we need you here," Mercedes whispered to her.

She shook her head of Felix and grabbed the wall for support. "Right, yeah."

Up ahead, Dimitri charged into the middle of the rebels manning the gate by himself. He managed to cut two of them down before they recovered from their stunned surprise. The closest jabbed with his sword, but Dimitri brought the tip of his spear up, throwing the sword high. The lance spun deftly in his hands and he jammed the shaft into the rebel's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

By then, the rest of the soldiers joined the fray, descending on the rebels while Annette and Mercedes quickly climbed the stairs to the ramparts with the rest. The rebels at the top had noticed the commotion and gestured frantically, calling for someone to raise the alarm.

Annette burst onto the rampart, shocking a pair of guards. The next moment, a fireball blasted them backwards and one toppled off into the fighting below.

In the distance, an archer atop one of the towers aimed quickly and fired. Annette dove behind the nearest ballistae as the arrow thunked into the side. Mercedes joined her, another arrow whizzing through her billowing hair.

From the stairwell, across the other side, the Fhirdiad soldiers were holding their own against the rebels, but they needed backup. Annette jerked her head at the tower. "Can you take care of this one?"

Mercedes nodded. "On three. One, two." Annette dashed for the stairwell, certain the archer was tracing her. However, her friend stood, held out her hand, and a jolt of electricity sizzled the archer through his bones. He dropped his bow and tilted forward, plummeting from the tower and onto the ramparts with a heavy whump!

Annette leapt through the stairwell, shouting orders behind the soldiers to move. A couple stepped aside and she lobbed fireballs into their opponents, blowing them off the ramparts and into the burning town. Their enemies defeated, the soldiers joined their comrades and drove back the remaining rebels, slaying them and preventing any alarm.

Down below, the fighting had more or less finished. Dimitri forced a couple of rebels to their knees and his men circled them, weapons at the ready lest they try to escape. They had captured the gate. They were going to win this.

Then she looked out across the field and her heart sank. For camped out in a semi-circle around the front of the castle, about two kilometers away, was a rebel army outnumbering them and itching for the king to make his next move.