Chapter 2: Gariland's Finest
Gariland has been a city of education since the days of the Ydoran Empire. When Ivalice was a rebellious frontier squirming beneath Ydoran boots, Gariland served as a frontier academy, a place where young men and women could get a proper Ydoran education even in the midst of barbarism. Even after the Fall, it retained many of the techniques and secrets of the Ydorans. Gariland has always been surrounded by powerful neighbor,s but rulers have all stripes know to value its neutrality. How else to guarantee the quality of its students? Whether they be healers, mages, scholars, or soldiers, a Gariland education is a mark of respect and talent throughout Ivalice. I see no reason this should ever cease to be the case.
-Alazlam Durai, "Commencement Speech to the University of Gariland"
Metal clashed and clanged. Blunt iron blurred, parried, and slashed. A moment latter, a red-headed young man hit the dusty earth, his sword slipping from his numb fingers.
"And that is the fourth match to Cadet Heiral," said Master Instructor Bodan Daravon, glancing from the fallen cadet to Delita, standing stout and confident a few feet from his fallen opponent. Delita bowed with a little flourish from his training sword, spurring aggravated mumbling from the senior cadets scattered around the borders of the dusty rectangular training ground.
Delita stepped forward and extended one leather-armored arm, offering a helping hand to the fallen cadet. The cadet spat to one side and scrabbled to his feet, refusing to look at Delita.
"Cadet Madoc," Daravon said, calm and reasonable. "Conduct unbecoming a cadet is grounds for a demerit. Please treat your opponent with the dignity becoming your station.
Madoc stiffened, glared at Daravon, then turned around and grasped Delita's hand as though he trying to crush it. Delita smiled and tightened his hand in turn. Madoc flinched, jerked his hand away, and stomped into the crowd of cadets.
"And who," Daravon began. "Wants the honor of being Cadet Heiral's fifth opponent?"
Ugly murmurs from the crowd, but no one stepped forward to volunteer themselves. Daravon's thick eyebrows arched above his wild beard. "Shall I select someone for the honor?" he asked.
"No need," called a brash voice. A figure stepped out of the crowd. He was tall and gangly, his tan face pocked and pitted with acne. His light brown hair was a little greasy and wild, but he was grinning confidently beneath a prominent cliff of a nose. He carried a full-size training sword in each hand.
"Wulfie," Daravon said, with a slight smile.
"Dad!" Beowulf shouted, glaring at Daravon as snickers rippled through the senior cadets. "Don't call me that!"
"If I recall," Daravon continued, unperturbed. "You are supposed to be in Instructor Collins' seminar on supply line management."
Beowulf scowled. "You don't need supply lines on the front lines."
"You do, actually," Daravon replied. "Which you would probably understand better if you had taken the course. Besides, even if I were inclined to overlook your truancy—for which, by the way, you will be assigned to latrine duty-"
"Dad!" Beowulf shouted, as chuckles sounded from all around.
"-you are not a member of the senior class, and cannot participate," Daravon finished. He looked around, then said, "But perhaps Cadet Beoulve can take your place."
Ramza sighed from his place near the rear of the group, near the chocobo stables. He pulled his hand from the neck of the bird he'd been petting, and stepped forwards. "Sir?" he said.
"Are you up to the task, Cadet?" asked Daravon.
"Doubtful, sir," Ramza said.
"A most appalling lack of confidence," Daravon grunted.
"But a most acute ability to recognize a pattern, sir."
Daravon's lips twitched into a half-smile. "Try your hand at breaking it, Cadet."
"Yes, sir," Ramza said, taking one of the sheathed training swords at Daravon's feet and drawing it.
"Good luck," muttered Beowulf.
"Thanks," Ramza said, facing Delita. His golden hair had grown out considerably in the two years since he'd joined the Academy, and he kept it tied back in a ponytail, an imitation of his father's. Where Delita was wearing leather armor wherever possible, Ramza wore a blue tunic with leather guards at his shins, forearms, and chest. He was rather proud of the greaves on his forearms: he had crafted them himself in their leatherworking course, and carefully concealed ridges of light metal. They were heavier than they looked, as many of his classmates had learned, both in trying them on and in fighting him.
"Begin," Daravon said, and Delita dashed towards Ramza.
Ramza was by no means a poor swordsman, but anyone watching could see that Delita was the better of the two. There was a spark and fluidity to his movements. In slashing, his sword was graceful, a dancer's sweeping hand, not the clumsy club some of their fellow cadets tried to make of it. In stabbing, the sword had the delicacy and precision of a needle threading through clothes. It was all Ramza could do to fend the blade off.
And when Ramza tried to disrupt Delita, and take the offensive, Delita seemed hardly to notice. He seemed to move with Ramza, not exactly anticipating his movements but responding with such ease that he never seemed off-guard. Ramza was driven across the dusty training ground, back towards the lines of their fellow cadets. Delita got faster and faster with every step, until the dull training blade was a grey blur and Ramza's parries had been reduced to so much desperate flailing.
A twisting slash, and Ramza's blade flew from his hand.
Delita smiled slightly, his guard lowered. Then his eyes flashed wide, because Ramza was lunging towards him, and he tried to twist his blade so strike Ramza and Ramza swung his greave in front of it, caught the blunt sword along the metallic edge of his leather gauntlet. The blade caught firm (though Ramza felt the impact echoing up to his shoulder, making his bone feel hollow), and Ramza grabbed Delita around the wrist, and twisted the blade from his grip.
With the sword, Delita was a terror: without it, he was almost clumsy, fumbling as he tried to keep Ramza's striking hands off of him. Ramza danced circles around him, slipped around him and grasped Delita beneath the shoulders and behind the head. He wrestled him to the ground, pinned him so he was gasping against the dust.
"Yield!" Delita grated. "Y-yield!"
Ramza rose, grinning and shaking out his numb arms. Delita laughed in turn, pushed himself up from the dust and hugged his friend. "Cheating bastard!" he shouted.
"True and true!" Ramza said.
"Hey!" shouted Cadet Madoc from the crowd, and Ramza and Delita turned to face him. "He did cheat!"
"Did he?" Daravon inquired, turning slightly.
Madoc glared between them. "He was disarmed!" he growled "Ramza lost!"
"I see," Daravon said. "So all battles are lost the moment you lose a single weapon. Is this correct?"
Cadet Madoc flushed. "That's not-"
"Cadet Beoulve's maneuver would likely have been suicide against a proper blade, at least without Ydoran materials in his greaves," Daravon continued, turning a dismissive glance towards Ramza. Ramza's momentary triumphant warmth faded to dim embers. "But we were not fighting with proper blades. Ramza understood the rules of combat: you are not truly defeated until your enemy has broken your means to fight. And sword or no, Delita did not defeat Ramza."
"I wish!" Delita said, laughing.
"Well, perhaps next time," Daravon said. "Now, I am interested to see how long a streak our young Beoulve can manage. Particularly given his brother Zalbaag set the last record. So..."
He trailed off and looked over the students' heads, frowning slightly. A man had appeared at the far end of the training grounds: a man in a sky-blue cloak. With every chance flutter of the ambient wind, a vague white emblem showed on his back. The White Lion of the Hokuten.
"But we shall have to wait until next time," Daraon said. "For now, return to your rooms." His eyes flickered to Beowulf. "Or to class, as the case may be."
"Sure thing, Dad," Beowulf said. The cadets ringing Delita and Ramza began to scatter, and Daravon moved towards the knight. Ramza and Delita remained where they were standing.
"You think Zal sent him?" Delita asked.
"Who else?" Ramza said.
"Could be Dycedarg."
"He's not Knight-Commander anymore."
"Yeah, that'll slow him down," Delita said. "Dycedarg always worries about red tape."
"Can we leave?" Beowulf asked, eyes flickering between his friends and his father's back.
"You do eventually have to go to class, Beowulf," Ramza said.
"We'll see."
The three of them headed inside, winding their way through wooden hallways as they made for for Ramza and Delita's shared dorm room.
"Hokuten, though," Ramza said. "Strange, isn't it? All the Orders are supposed to keep out of Gariland, except for emergencies."
"Well," Delita said. "You could call the Death Corps an emergency."
Ramza glanced at his friend. Delita was not looking at anything in particular: his eyes had that far-off look they sometimes got when he was thinking intently about something. "You think it qualifies?"
"Don't you?" Delita asked. "How many soldiers have been discharged from the Hokuten ranks? How many remain to keep the peace? Never mind that any soldier who feels jilted by their discharge can now sign on with Wiegraf's rebels."
"He's right," Beowulf said. "Another convoy got hit last night on the way to Igros. No survivors."
"Interesting," Delita said. "How many is that now?"
"About one a week for the last three weeks," Beowulf said.
Delita said nothing for a little while. Ramza continued to study his friend, but said absently to Beowulf, "You worried about Reis?"
Beowulf chuckled. "Nah. She's tougher than I am."
"That's not exactly difficult," Delita said, still not looking at either of them. They reached their small dorm room, with cots against each small and a large desk they could share against a stately window. Delita took the chair: Ramza took a seat at the foot of his bed, while Beowulf flopped down on Delita's.
"Delita," Ramza said. "What are you thinking?"
"The Corps' attacks seem regular, don't they?" Delita asked. "Like they're looking for someone. Hitting convoys between here and Igros..."
"Yes?" Ramza prompted.
"Well, the Hokuten can't handle the Corps by themselves," Delita said. "That's obvious. And all the other kingdoms have their own problems to deal with. Unrest abounds. I doubt Barinten will send his Khamja, and Goltanna's not going to authorize the Nanten to aid Larg."
"Are things really that bad between them?" Ramza asked.
"You haven't heard?" Delita said, glancing at Ramza. "They had an argument at Orinus' birthday, after the King collapsed."
"Why?" Ramza asked.
"No one's sure. But it is interesting how everyone who stands before the Queen seems to take ill, isn't it?"
"They do?" Beowulf said.
"Do you pay any attention to politics, Wulfie?" Delita asked.
Beowulf flushed. "Don't have to be a prick about it, Del."
"Right after then-Prince Ondoria married then-Baroness Louveria, old King Denamda took strangely ill. It was right after he'd fought the Romandans, and their whole kingdom was riddled with plague, so no one thought anything of it. But there are rumors..."
"They're just that, Del," Ramza said. "Rumors."
Delita sighed. "You're always so trusting, Ramza."
Ramza shook his head and said, "Go on, Del."
"Well, there's one part of Ivalice that's doing alright," Delita continued. "And it's the last place the Corpse Bridge saw action, before they were so conveniently discharged without pay."
"That isn't right," Ramza said.
"No, it isn't," Delita agreed. "But we don't have enough gil for every problem, Ramza. Either the soldiers get paid, or the orphanages get cleared out, or we can't pay our share of the reparations and Ordallia could invade again. It's all bad choices."
Ramza sighed. "Yes. I know."
He did, though he loathed the notion of it. It made his skin itch. How could men fight for their country and find themselves treated so cruelly? Worse still: how could treating men so cruelly be the righteous choice? And when treated so cruelly, how could such men turn to such awfully savagery? Exactly how many convoys had been killed? How many men and women of every station? How did you resolve such a knotty problem?
He was glad such responsibilities were not his. Zalbaag and Dycedarg seemed far more able to solve such problems than Ramza.
"One place," Ramza said, to distract himself from his worried thoughts. "Wait. Limberry?"
Delita nodded. The pieces clicked together in Ramza's head. Limberry, yes. Low population, a pratical wasteland, abutting neatly against the deserts and mountains that protected Bethla Garrison, perpetual battleground for Ivalice and Ordallia. But every piece of arable land was fertile in the extreme, and it had a habit of producing powerful warriors. The invasion of Limberry was a relatively-recent event in the 50 Years' War, and the Marquis and the Corpse Brigade had driven back the Ordallian army on their own. Under Elmdor's leadership, their forces were strong yet.
"Yes," Ramza said. "Yes, I...that makes sense."
"But if we are to provide a compelling illusion of strength," Delita continued. "We'll need reinforcements, won't we?"
Ramza studied Delita. "What do you mean?"
Delita smiled slightly. There was a knock upon their door, and Ramza turned where he sat to find Daravon standing in the doorway, glaring at his son. Ramza and Delita rose to their feet at once: Beowulf did not rise from his sprawling languor on Delita's bed.
"Wulfie," Daravon said.
Beowulf cocked his head back on his neck. "Hey, Dad," he said.
"Two days of latrine duty," Daravon said.
"Whatever," Beowulf said.
"Instructor," Delita said, bowing slightly. "What can we do for you?"
A weak smile fuddled its way through Darvon's silver beard. "For me?" Daravon said. "Nothing. For Ivalice..."
"Yes sir?" Ramza prompted.
"There will be no exit exams for the Senior Cadets this year," Daravon said. "Per the request of Queen Louveria and with the full support of King Ondoria and Prince Larg, the Senior Cadets will execute their exit exams in the form of active duty in support of the Hokuten against the Death Corps."
Reinforcements? Ramza's head swiveled to stare at Delita.
"Is something the matter, Cadet Beoulve?" Daravon asked.
"Sir," Ramza said, flushing in embarrassment as he turned back to face his Instructor. "No, sir."
"Good," Daravon said. "Per the request of Knight-Commander Zalbaag, you and Cadet Heiral will be acting as guards at Igros, to free up some much-needed manpower for operations across Gallione. You will guarantee the safety of the townspeople and the Prince. Do you understand your mission?"
"Yes sir," Delita and Ramza said together.
"Good," Daravon said. "You leave tomorrow." He paused, then added, "You are two of the finest cadets to serve at this Academy in some time. I look forward to your matriculation, and to what you will accomplish in the future."
Ramza felt his cheeks aching up into a smile. A similar bewildered joy was on Delita's face. Daravon smiled in turn, and left the room.
"What about me!" Beowulf shouted at his father's departing back, but got no answer.
Ramza turned to face Delita. Their smiles slowly faded.
"Reinforcements," Ramza said.
"Right," Delita said. "Seems like the Marquis is coming to visit after all."