Chapter 99

Deserter

The Aphorora bar was home to many who did not want for company, as well as those who did. It was sparsely lit, mostly by hanging, colour-shifting smart lights, and even during daylight hours it only saw slight illumination from a single north-facing strip spanning the entrance wall. There was a circular bar in the centre, recently polished to a finish from a long-felled sequoia during the Galbadian era, which gave the bartenders a whole view of the interior and the upstairs seating.

It was a Friday evening. Not that this made a difference to the mood of people in Timber City right now, just days after achieving their long-awaited independence. Every night was currently party night in this city, and unlike Redwood, the capital had seen only minimal fighting. The re-interred Francesca DiMarco had been waving to her people from an open-top bus, Cassandra Elderwood and her Forest protection detail ever watchful, and what few Esthari sympathisers remained were swiftly identified and charged for death threats and disruption of the peace.

While Ballad wanted to be the grey man, here in the Aphorora, it was somewhat difficult with the ongoing celebrations. Some of the local punters were eyeing him, but were in too good a mood to mutter about someone drinking alone on the beginning of a weekend. Ballad had grown too restless to stay in his motel room. That was somewhere he would put off returning to until the last possible moment, for he was sleeping as little as his body would allow.

In his nightmares, Ballad was always back in the Garden of Jadis, trapped by Tiamat's balefire. The mangled cadavers of his Garlands were piled where the statue was supposed to be, every single one of them. While their skin had burnt almost to the bone, he knew each of them by the weapons they still grasped, a deliberate act by the beast who had killed them. Atop the mound of bodies was Sleipnir, snorting contemptuously, the eight-legged warhorse almost seeming like he was exhaling the smoke. And astride him, wearing Odin's pale armour, was Reinhardt.

'Son of Vinzer!' Reinhardt would roar. 'I am now the Destroyer of Garland! Not one of your Troopers remains alive! Know that they all died with a weapon in hand, and they await you in Valhalla!'

Son of Vinzer, Ballad reflected. No one in this pub could learn that! That he was the son of the dictator who had oppressed these proud patriots for far longer than the Esthari had. That would only sour many a cheer in here, not to mention draw much unwanted attention.

Ballad knew he would have been declared AWOL by now, and desertion was still punishable by death in his own country. Though he could not bear the shame of returning to Garden, and to Headmaster Biggs. The Garlands had died in his absence. He had heard the words of Siegfried and Nadia from his infirmary bed, and he knew they too had perished by the tributes pouring from their social media profiles. After that, Ballad had switched off his phone, resolving to go dark indefinitely. Until the liberation of Balamb were underway, and his nemesis took to Sleipnir's saddle again.

One of the four plasma screens had just been switched to mainstream news. The familiar drone shot of Battleship Island was displayed, along with the same headline and top-down view of paparazzi straining to get past Faculty members blocking the gangplank.

Sorceress Tyris Still in Coma, the newsflash said. Ballad instantly looked away. Tyris had become a Descendant of Hyne, like her mother before her. While a Sorceress needed a Knight, and he was devoted to her, Ballad was even less inclined to seek out Battleship Island than he was Galbadia Garden. How could he presume to be a Sorceress' Knight when he could not even avenge the men and women of his own regiment? He would love Tyris until his dying breath, he knew, but he could not see her again. Not as long as Reinhardt lived.

When he ordered another beer, one of the Timbarians were overtly staring at him. Ballad briefly took in his features in a broad, sweeping view of the bar, taking in everyone and everything while appearing to be disinterested in anything other than his own drink and the path back to his table. The men were wearing toolbelts, which was not uncommon here, as many of the daytime patrons worked at the nearby TV station. And snippets of conversation Ballad caught told him as much.

Ballad had to assume the worst. That the middle-aged techie had been a lifelong employee at the TV station, and he had been there during his father's famous speech. Ballad resembled his father, with the dark hair and broad face, and the premature silver at his temples. The techie was gradually putting two and two together, gesturing towards Ballad with his head and speaking lowly to his colleagues.

It was time to move on. Ballad calmly drained his bottle of lager and moved abruptly for the exit. He walked through the city centre, through the square that was now host to another of one of Francesca DiMarco's heavily attended speeches, receiving a few hard stares as he muscled his way through the din. Today, the beloved DiMarco was promising the swift demolition of the Esthari ceruleum trains, deemed a blight to the urban air with their heavy smog, and the Timbarians were all too eager to volunteer their labour.

Back on his firm motel bed, far too early, Ballad cracked open one of the bottles he had bought from a Balambi bazaar down the same street. He thought about Siegfried and Nadia again. About all the Garlands. They had been interred at the Tomb of the Unknown King a couple of days ago. Ballad could have attended, but Biggs would have doubtless been there, and he would have been taken into military police custody. Being the only person in the Galbadian military junctioned with a GF, Ballad could have easily resisted arrest and escaped, but such actions only would have tarnished the ceremony.

It was soon after their passing, but Ballad wanted to visit the graves. The Galbadians would probably have eyes on them, anticipating this move, but if they really wanted to find him, they did not have to look very hard. Ballad had been hiding in plain sight. Biggs had not actioned bringing him in because he knew Ballad would turn himself in eventually; his honour dictated it. He needed to mentally prepare for facing Reinhardt again, because there would not be another chance.

Ballad had bought a ticket for the sleeper train to Galbadia. It was a recently restored continental-wide line, going through the Lollapalooza to the Dingo. From there, Ballad would get the high-speed train right for Galbadia City, then the slower coastal line east down the Gotland. In all, the journey would take him around twenty-four hours.

He stayed in his shared cabin only long enough to sink the remaining beer bottles from the bazaar, making plain that he was disinterested in speaking to any roommates. The sports news and reruns of old movies on the few free channels did not work to distract him. World news only interested him so far as seeing if Tyris had awakened; she had not, and the big story today was the Archmaester of the Temple of Hyne being allowed amnesty to leave the blockaded Nanchuket Island and pay his respects. Good luck trying to get onto Battleship Island, old man, he thought. Ballad found himself at the train's narrow bar all too early; it was open twenty-four seven on the night line, and Ballad staggered back to his cabin just as the train cleared the Lolla in the early hours of the morning.

He had a dull headache as he woke, at least an hour earlier than anyone in his cabin, parting the blinds to stare out into the Dingo. The desert was not very different no matter which way one looked into it. He had spent much time here on desert training exercises, before and after he had gotten his maroon Garland beret, and he knew its geography as well as any. Some hundred miles or so in was a permanent settlement of the Dingese tribespeople, formerly a big trading centre between Timber and Galbadia. With the liberation of Timber, the merchants would be eagerly awaiting more commerce.

As they were near the edge, the three foreboding towers of the prison were not visible, Ballad envisioned they stood in a triangle at its centre. They would be crammed with Esthari POWs now, likely full to capacity. And as a deserter, he could very well become their cellmates. Ballad winced, and his head pounded more potently. Not a pleasant thought.

He did not plan to spend long in Galbadia City and would be taking the first train to the Gotland. It was in the latter hours of the day when he reached the capital, his first hometown, though with the time of year it was still light. Unusually, the sky was cloudless; in fact, he had seen evidence of the strange breaking of the weather in northern Galbadia. The dark grey pall which typically veiled the skies over the north had moved for the first time in hundreds of years; it was heading west, over the canyons, toward the eastern continent.

Ballad smiled as soon as he realised. It must be the doing of Tyris! he thought. She might still be in a coma, but she would be familiarising herself with the aethereal plane. As a master of thunder and lightning, the first thing she would do as a Sorceress was send those black clouds to Ultimecia's doorstep. And may they dampen the hearts and minds of the Esthari for as long as they had the Galbadians!

The last train of the night was the one Ballad wanted. Another sleeper train, which would reach the farthest settlement down the Gotland around the time most of its population would be waking itself for school or work. And for Ballad, another night in another bar.

Ballad trekked along the coastal path all the way from Galbadia's eastern-most town to the Tomb. It took three hours, but it helped to banish his hangover. As did a pack of ravenous thrustaevises and a singular, brain-dead geezard. There was no rush. He would only make this pilgrimage once; there would be no more Garlands to inter here.

I will be the last, Ballad knew.

He passed by the cordoned off area housing the diggers, which would now be on standby. A single warden eyed him from a security booth, who probably lived on-site. From his wispy hair and the thrustaevis-deterring bolt-action rifle on hooks behind him, Ballad immediately took him for a First Sorceress War veteran. He snapped the old-timer a salute, though the warden's face was unchanging, and he did not return it. Perhaps he had once been a Carver, the counterpart to the Esthari Mage Mashers.

After six decades of high-profile burials here – the custom starting during the First Sorceress War – the sprawling rows of shining white headstones now covered an area almost as vast as the Earth Shrine itself. The sheer number of graves were testament to four decades of global war out of six. The reason this location had been chosen, a thousand miles from the capital, had been simply because of the weather. Far fewer people would have made a pilgrimage to the sparsely populated Great Plains, which was effectively one huge, sodden peat bog. And even the thought of burying high-profile figures there was a blasphemy in itself. Thanks to Tyris, central Galbadia could thrive in the coming generations, and what remained of the south might even get independence.

The tombstones nearer the shrine's entrance were those of the highest regard. Vinzer Deling and his entire cabinet – all murdered on the same night – had a row to themselves. Ballad did not even glance at the headstone of his father, and the underserved epitaph upon it. The lies were already seared into his mind. So many Garlands had fallen at Jericho that there were two new rows on the far side, facing south. Ballad stopped before each one, the earth beneath his boots not quite settled. After the third, he stopped trying to prevent the post-traumatic flashes returning. As soon as he saw the names of his Troopers, Ballad's just pictured their charred and broken bodies, and Reinhardt's gravelly laughter, interspersed with the nickers of Sleipnir. The Destroyer of Garland.

At the end were Siegfried and Nadia. That they were both at the end, closest to the Monterosa Gulf, said to him they had died going after Reinhardt. Together. Biggs knew how close they had been; how close all three of them had been. Wrought with sorrow, he collapsed to his knees. You should have waited for me!

The unmistakeable dual-rotor sound of a gunship approached. When Ballad saw it, he knew it was one of Garden's. Biggs had been alerted by the cemetery's warden and was coming for his wayward Garland. Still, how had the Headmaster gotten here so fast? Garden must be docked off the side of the cliff! Ballad looked towards the nearby structure. He would hide for a few minutes, just to collect himself. He knew Biggs would land far from the gravestones, so as not to desecrate the ground, and would approach on foot.

Ballad darted for the Tomb's forecourt. It was rare for the blobras and armadodos to venture outside, and with no errant monsters in the vicinity, he hid behind the entrance pillars. Peering around, he marked Biggs by his top-heavy gait. He could see the Headmaster was wearing a suit, as he exited the long gunship with several 'roided-up Garden Faculty members. Barking a single order, they all started marching straight for him. It would take them several minutes.

'Ballad!'

So focused on the Headmaster, Ballad flinched at the excited voice. He recognised it. The twins, Liu and Zhang, were strolling down the entrance steps to the shrine. Like him, they had been instrumental to the liberation of Dollet, though he had only seen them once since then. Wearing fighting gis, they were dirty, bloodied and had torn clothing, looking far worse than Ballad had when he had accomplished his own trial here.

'What are you guys doing here?' he asked them.

Of course, it was Zhang who answered.

'Brothers used too much power,' Zhang shrugged dismissively. 'They had to return here, and they made us earn them back.'

'Earn them back?' Ballad asked.

'Yeah,' Zhang said. 'Seeing how they were just given to us.' He looked to his twin, who stood with his arms folded. 'But we did, didn't we, bro?'

'Sure did,' Liu responded.

'We didn't need no map!' Zhang gloated. 'No GPS! Didn't need to buy any hints, either!' He whistled. 'Nothin' too it, really. Sacred made us play cat and mouse, but we cornered both of 'em in the end!'

Ballad smirked. Sacred had been much the same with he, Sieg and Nadia. He still struggled to accept the image of the large, potty-mouthed minotaur running away from much smaller foes. Sacred, it seemed, would never learn.

'We shut Sacred in that stone coffin and got Minotaur to tap out!' Zhang went on. 'A guillotine and an ankle lock! He was screaming!' He chortled. 'Though not as loudly as Sacred was in the dark!'

Liu smiled lightly. 'They're ours, now.'

Ballad looked back towards the graves. Biggs was almost halfway to him. The Headmaster knew Ballad would achieve nothing by entering the shrine; although he could theoretically use the waterways to escape, they fed into the ocean with only sheer cavern walls in the miles between. There was no other way out of the forecourt than to scale the walls, though with just half a dozen men Biggs would be covering a vast area. If Ballad wanted to, he could incapacitate one and sneak away. Yet he knew he was not going to do this, and so did Biggs. That's why he had so few Faculty with him.

It's only Raymond Biggs, Ballad thought. And I won't have him say I scurried like a geezard!

The twin's had only just noticed the incomers.

'That's Headmaster Biggs!' Zhang exclaimed, then looked at Ballad. 'Wait, why's he after you?'

Ballad's eyes were fixed on his commander. Reluctantly, he stepped into plain sight, sidestepping into the middle of the pillared archway.

'Because I'm AWOL.' Ballad said flatly. 'There are no other Garlands left. Reinhardt killed them all.'

'Shit!' Zhang said.

For once, Liu had more to say than his brother. 'I'm sorry,' he said softly. 'They went the same way as White SeeD, then.'

'Yeah!' Zhang added suddenly. 'Vlahos got Raiden and our sister, too! The ship was destroyed!'

Biggs was within earshot now. His Faculty all had pistols holstered at their waists, but they were meant for any monsters that assailed them. There were no sudden thrustaevis shrieks, though; the old warden must be very passionate about his duty to his fallen comrades in arms, and the beasts would know this as a danger zone. The Headmaster himself carried nothing. Remembering the twins from their brief stay at Galbadia Garden, he nodded to each of them. 'I'm sorry for your loss,' he said.

'Uh, thanks,' Zhang said awkwardly, scratching his matted hair. Liu just nodded once.

'You guys are a day early,' the Headmaster remarked. 'Thought you'd pass the time sparring with the 'dodos?'

Zhang gave his signature titter. 'Armadodos don't make for good sparring partners,' he said. 'And you can't fist a blobra without wasting magic! We were aiming just a little higher up the intelligence ladder. But now that I think about it, Sacred ain't much higher,' he trailed off.

Biggs looked to Ballad. 'Is that why you're here, Trooper?' he demanded. 'The service?' If so, famous as he was, it pains me you would place the Autumn Knight over any one of your own Troopers. Especially Siegfried and Nadia.'

As he spoke, his head had nodded towards the most notorious row of headstones. The Caraway family crest was unmistakable, and to its right were the graves of the four Garlands who had died defending their Commander-in-Chief. Above the headstones to its left were a crucible, a circle with a thunderbolt through it and a torama head facing Balamb, marking the graves of Seifer, Raijin and Xu respectively. Sorceress Quistis had been buried at the end, though for want of a distinguishing feature and how little the public knew about her, the sculptors had carved the head of her Save the Queen above it.

At the end was a new headstone, topped with a Balambi glyph, which Ballad knew represented autumn. The hole itself was waiting to be filled with the mound of earth at its side. Nida is dead, too? He had thought Nida wanted no part of the war anymore, but he had evidently taken to the field one final time.

Reluctantly, he returned Biggs' stare. 'This Garland is reporting for duty, sir,' he said.

'Is that so?' Biggs responded. As his eyes bored through him, his last Garland did not look away. 'For your tardiness,' Biggs eventually said, 'you'll be forfeiting your paycheck this month!'

A couple of the Faculty shuffled nervously at this, as the custom was now only used in extreme cases. Each and every Galbadian had had heard the pains of their serving fathers and grandfathers having their pay cut for minor infractions, especially during wartime. It was why many of them had grown up in poverty.

'Let me return to Garden, sir!' Ballad pleaded. 'I don't want to be here when SeeD arrive!'

Biggs nodded, then said, 'Thanks for savin' us a wild chocobo chase, Trooper.'

'But, Ballad!' Zhang blurted. 'Why? Don't you wanna see Tyris?'

'No,' Ballad said firmly. He started walking towards Biggs' gunship. 'Tell Tyris not to come after me.'