Chapter 8: The Cornered Rat

If you have to choose between the fire and the frying pan, which do you choose?

This was not the first time the question had crossed Gustav's mind. In some ways, he felt like it had been with him his entire life. It had certainly been with him when he'd first seen what soldiers might do, in the name of victory and vengeance. It had been with him when he'd seen what the powerful might do, to line their pockets. It was with him now, as he stared down at the bloody Marquis Elmdor.

He looked around the dusty room. Once, the place had been lavish: crates still lined the stone walls, and broken desks rimmed the gaudy red carpet at the center of the room. His father had once brought Gustav to this trading outpost in its twilight years, looking for a rare kind of Ordallian seed that war had made exceptionally difficult to find. But trade in the Zeklaus Desert was a risky proposition at the best of times, and the 50 Years' War had driven the place to ruin.

It had always lingered in Gustav's mind, however. Its isolation. The clear view it provided of the surrounding dunes and scrub grass. A good base of operations, for rebels looking to make a stand against terrible powers.

An even better place, for bandits and thieves to hide.

After all, that was what he'd become, wasn't it? Gustav Margueriff, once a rising star among the Hokuten. Gustav Margueriff, Wiegraf's right hand. Gustav Margueriff, kidnapper and murderer of young men who were little more than children.

He kicked the bound Marquis, who groaned and folded into a fetal position as much as his tied hands would allow. Crusted blood soaked his long silver-blonde hair, and his once-fine clothes of red and black had been shredded by harsh treatment.

"You fuckin' nobles," Gustav whispered, as though his sins could be laid at the Marquis' feet.

No better than the Hokuten, was he? He remembered the captured Ordallians still. One captured knight. One squire. One woman-at-arms, an Ordallian commoner recruited to serve in the masses of soldiers needed to fight a war that had lasted five decades. The knight had earned a tent and good food, while they arranged his ransom. The squire and the soldier?

Ivalice and Ordallia had been at war for a long time. And the Hokuten weren't going to let live scapegoats go to waste.

He remembered that night. The tents stretching out for miles in every direction, just north of the Germinas Mountains with a thick blanket of stars above, fires flickering here and there. He remembered how impassive and terrible such a beautiful night seemed, when he knew what was happening beneath it.

He remembered the screams, the scratching of a bedroll against the dirt and the thick slap of flesh against flesh. He remembered the cracks of bone. He remembered that there came a time when he couldn't tell the difference between their screams and cries and whimpers anymore. When it was just a duet of human misery, never quite masked by the jeers and sadistic derision of the soldiers.

He remembered walking away, and hating himself for it.

He'd listened as long as he could. He sat in his tent with his fists clenched and his sword in his hand and imagined himself bursting in as a hero. Were these not human beings, just the same as the men and women of Ivalice? Were these not the same as your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters? How could you do this? How...

How could you just sit there, and let them?

And he had walked away, until he couldn't hear the screams. As though by not hearing them, they had never happened. As though by not hearing them, he was absolved of letting them...

He had walked into the captured knight's tent, unchallenged. The knight had looked up at him with surprise and interest.

"How can you let them do this?" Gustav had asked, in a low whisper.

The knight's heavy face fell. "What choice do I have?" he asked, in that lilting Ordallian accent. "Should I fight alone against an army? Should I risk my life for the sake of...?" He trailed off, his face darkening. He stared into Gustav's eyes. "How can you?"

For the same reason, of course. Because Gustav had never wanted to be a farmer's son, searching for rare Ordallian seeds in the vain hope it might give him some edge over the neighbors to the east. Because Gustav dreamed of glory, and tried his luck, and in the chaos of the 50 Years' War he had a better chance than most to show his skills. He had a knack for logistics. For managing supplies and breaking enemy lines and capturing enemy intelligence. It was his own planning that had led to the capture of the knight, once his squad had been slaughtered.

It was Gustav's own planning that had led to the screams of the squire and the soldier.

What matter dreams of glory, when they led to such ruin? But then, what was the choice? Was it all scrabbling in the dirt of breaking innocent men and women? What was the alternative, between the hellfire of guilt and the frying pan of pointless toil?

He tried to ease his conscience. Tried to report it to some higher-up, some commander or noble who might listen. At best, he got grudging sympathy and musings about the brutal necessities of war. At worst, he was lambasted as a traitor, a man who sympathized with the loathsome Ordallians.

No hope from above. No hope anywhere. No choice at all.

The answer to his dilemma came to him by luck, because he was part of a Hokuten detachment reinforcing the Limberry battle lines. But they were not the only unit of Gallione to join the fray. There was another, widely considered a joke by the Hokuten and their noble commanders. "Commoners playing at war!" one man had called them, laughing over his beer.

When Gustav saw them, however, they didn't seem like such a joke. The Corpse Brigade was a unit of commoners gathered from all across Gallione, carefully trained and disciplined. An Ordallian cavalry unit could not outflank them. Ordallian mages could not scare them into retreat or break their ranks. They faced their foe with a courage and idealism that had long since been lost among the other martial orders of Ivalice. They treated their captives, noble and commoner alike, with distinction.

So Gustav went in search of their commander. He went in search of Wiegraf Folles.

The man was easy to find. He and his sister might have been the commanders and recruiters of this grand company, but they did not stand on ceremony. He found them in a tent no larger than any other, drinking and laughing among a host of common soldiers and a handful of their commanding officers. They did not have the rigorous uniformity of the Hokuten: they were a ramshackle army, cobbling supplies together with whatever Ivalice could grudgingly spare them. But each man and woman wore the green cloak. Each man and woman wore the skull emblem.

"Did you lose your way, friend?" Wiegraf asked, smiling at him.

"No," Gustav said.

"No?" Wiegraf repeated, glancing wryly at his sister Miluda. "Look at this. A Hokuten comes among us willingly."

"Brave of him," Miluda said. "He should know how dirty we commoners are."

Gustav sat down without being invited. Wiegraf wordlessly handed him some of the roasted chocobo. Gustav had never cared for the taste of the bird—far too gamy—but beggars couldn't be choosers, and he ate willingly. He was surprised by how good it was: someone had seasoned it expertly, and it drifted with a slightly-sweet sauce that was a nice counterpoint to the lean mean\t.

"This is delicious," Gustav said, inhaling deeply of the smoky scent.

"His doing," Miluda said, jerking her head towards her brother. "He was always the feminine one.

Wiegraf grinned. "I learned the recipe from our mother," he said. "Our parents were innkeeps, and they had to feed their guest something."

"Were?" Gustav asked.

Wiegraf and Miluda stiffened. "Were," repeated Wiegraf.

"I'm sorry," Gustav said.

Wiegraf shrugged. "We've all lost something in this damn war. No one gets off scot-free. And we've all got to bear the burden."

"But why?" Gustav asked. He knew that the derision he'd seen among the Hokuten he'd come to hate was just the tip of the iceberg. There were commoners in every part of the army—how could you have an army without them? But few and far between were the men who were allowed to rise above their station. Gustav had once been proud to be among that few. Now...

Now he wondered if it was the worth the price of his soul.

"Is this an academic question?" Wiegraf asked.

"No," Gustav replied.

"We're Ivalicians," Miluda said, as though that were explanation enough.

"So?" Gustav asked.

"So," Wiegraf continued. "So we're of Ivalice. Just like Balbanes Beoulve, or Cid Orlandeau. Just like Duke Barinten or Prince Larg. Hell, just like the king." He leaned forwards, and there was silence at the table, everyone watching Wiegraf with rapt attention. "We've all lost something in this damn war," Wiegraf said. "But we stand to gain something too. Most nobles are people, just like you and me. Show them what we can do. What we will do, for our country. Show them that we deserve their respect. That among us is some of the best that Ivalice can offer."

Gustav was silent. His head was full of remembered screams.

"Why are you eating chocobo?" he asked.

"Trouble getting supplies," Miluda said. "And there were enough dead Ordallian birds to feed us for the night."

"I think we can do better than that," Gustav said.

"Can we?" Wiegraf asked, eyebrows arching.

"If you'll let me."

It was a minor scandal when Gustav turned in his blue cloak with its White Lion. Few and far between were the men who rose above their station, only to step down of their own volition. The officer in charge cursed him out, in fact. Called him nothing short of a traitor, an anarchist, an Ordallian sympathizer, and some more generic epithets besides.

But Gustav had seen it. The path to equality and power that did not lead through the blood-soaked mire of screaming innocents. He did not want to sell his soul.

As his first act as a member of the Corpse Brigade, he convinced Wiegraf to give him command of a hundred men, and used those men to rescue a Zeltennian viscount in a precarious position. In gratitude, the viscount gave them money and supplies.

That was how he proved his worth. He had kept his contacts in the Hokuten supply chain, and for all his hatred of the farmer's life he still knew that world well. He knew just who to flatter, pester, aggravate, and intimidate among the Hokuten staff to get them the support they needed. When that fell short of their needs, he would go directly to the farmers of Limberry, cajoling, inspiring, bribing. Reminding them that all the men and women of Ivalice must share the burden, to prove what the common people were capable of.

Within a month of his joining, the Brigade was better armed and better fed than it had ever been.

"You're something else, Gustav," Wiegraf said, as the two of them and Miluda drank the last of the wine the grateful viscount had sent their way.

"I'm not," Gustav said. "Just a farmer's son."

"And I'm just an innkeep's daughter," Miluda said.

"We're not just anything," Wiegraf grunted. "We're all human. We all end the same way."

"As corpses?" Gustav asked.

"Exactly." Wiegraf leaned forwards, bracing his jaw against his interlocked fingers. "That's all we are. Dead men living out our short time. So I gathered up a brigade of dead men, to remind everyone in Ivalice what even walking corpses can do."

"And you?" Gustav asked, glancing at Miluda.

Miluda shrugged. "My mother used to tell me stories," she said. "Before the Glabados Church and Ajora, the Ydorans worshiped many gods. One of them had a small army of female attendants, who stalked the battlefields of the world and found him fallen heroes." She allowed herself a rare smile. "I figured my Valkyries could send him some Ordallian heroes a little early."

They drank together until night turned to dawn.

The serenity of that night did not last long. The war was not going well. Even with the Romandans to the north out of the fight, the Ordallians were unrelenting. They all knew that Ivalice could not long hold. Money and supplies grew ever shorter. It was all Gustav could do to make sure anyone got fed. And rumor was that Balbanes Beoulve had caught the plague.

"We can't prove our worth to Ivalice if there's no Ivalice left," Wiegraf said.

"And we can't ask soldiers to fight if they're not even getting paid!" Gustav said.

"No one makes it out of this war unscathed," Wiegraf said. "We all have to bear the burden."

"Tell your men that," Gustav said.

"I will."

And he did. And wonder upon wonders, it worked. Gustav had never understood how that was possible. He knew that he did not have what Wiegraf had. He could not compel that level of fervor or adulation. The men under Wiegraf's command believed in him. They listened to him.

Hell, so did Gustav. Like the rest, he agreed. They asked the crown to suspend their pay, until such time as the war was won. In gratitude, the crown gave them extra weapons and supplies.

There was a war to win, after all. And Gustav intended to win it. He intended to see Wiegraf's Ivalice, whatever the cost.

Miluda and Wiegraf linked up with the Hokuten and the forces of Limberry. There were soldiers and warriors, well-suited to the work. But Gustav knew his strengths. He could not build Wiegraf's Ivalice frm the front lines.

He left his most capable lieutenants in charge of their supplies and took a group of handpicked men into the lands east of Limberry, occupied by Ordallia for several years. But there were still men and women here who chafed beneath Ordallian boots. The crops from friendly farmers mysteriously "disappeared" before the Ordallians could commandeer them for their own use. Convoys across the region were hit before they could reach the front lines. Army units preparing to sally forth found themselves short the barrels of beer they'd been hoping for, the quivers of arrows or fresh food, the swords they desperately needed. Individually, none of these things was so significant, but the cumulative effect was terrific. The Ordallian war machine felt suddenly fragile to every common soldier.

And if Gustav needed to dirty his hands a little? If a merchant had his throat slit because the prospect of the reward for selling out the culprits to these deeds was too compelling, and died gurgling at Gustav's feet? If a farmer tried to alert local patrols to their presence, and found his lands scorched and ruined? There were brutal necessities to war, after all. Gustav did not have to like them to see they were essential.

The signing of the peace accord should have been a triumph. Gustav and his band, much smaller than they'd once been, returned to Limberry, exhausted but exalted. They had played their part in the end of the war. They had made fighting Ivalice unsustainable. And he knew that the Brigade elsewhere had done just as well. Had shown themselves the equal of any of the knightly orders.

But there was too much pain in Ivalice, too much grief. Too many dead, from war and from the Choking Plague. Food shortages were endemic, with so many men and women called to fight. Money was short everywhere. He remembered those days now, staring down at the beaten Marquis. In his mind, even the brightest day was somehow overcast, greyed out. That was how all Ivalice had felt. Like the pall of the smoke of a great fire still hung heavy over them.

There was nowhere for Gustav to go. His father wouldn't see him, and Gustav would not have returned to that farm, even if he would. So he traveled with Wiegraf and Miluda, as they returned to Gallione, older and wearier than they'd been when they left.

"It's all fucked up," Gustav said, after the grey days had worn on him too much. They had returned to the Folles' long-abandoned inn, but the fact that it still had beds made it a damn sight better than most of the places Gustav had bedded down the last few months.

"50 years of war," Miluda said, handing him a glass and sinking down into the bed next to him. "What do you expect?"

"It's over, though," Gustav said.

"Is it?" Miluda asked, staring into his eyes. And his head was full of what he'd heard and seen. He remembered his eyes watering as he'd set a torch to the fields. His head was full of the squire and the soldier, screaming.

"We all have to bear the burden," Miluda said, in a passable imitation of Wiegraf's deep, strident voice. The corners of Gustav's mouth twitched.

"We did good," Miluda said. "All of us. That doesn't mean it's gonna be easy." Her fingers slipped beneath his hair, fingertips traced along his scalp. Gustav slowly leaned into the crook of her neck, breathing in the deep, earthy, sweaty scent of her.

"Is it ever?" he whispered, as they sank back against the headboard.

It never was. He knew that after the celebration at Igros, where the Crown had honored them with accolades for their service, praised them as heroes and formally discharged them with the promise that their service would never be forgotten.

It was only months later that they found out that they would also never be paid.

It was transmitted by royal decree: that the volunteer units who'd served their kingdom would have to be content with the little glow of warmth and pride they'd earned as their bellies, and the bellies of their families and friends, went empty.

And what could Gustav do? Gustav, who had alienated every Hokuten ally in his fervent faith and service to the Brigade's cause? Gustav, who had alienated his father and his friends in his hatred for the life of the farmer? Gustav, who felt like a ghost in the house of Wiegraf and Miluda?

"Say something!" Gustav demanded, slamming his hands down on the table between them.

Wiegraf sat at a table by the fireplace, his face gloomy, his fists clenched in front of him. "What is there to say?" he asked.

"We need a plan," Miluda said.

"What plan!" Wiegraf shouted. "We fought for Ivalice. What would you have me to do now? Turn my sword against it?"

"Never," Miluda said. "But what's Ivalice?"

Wiegraf stared up at her, the fire flickering behind him. Gustav stared at her, too.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"What's Ivalice?" she asked again. "It is the Crown? Is it the nobles who force us to fight their wars and think they can get away without paying us? Or is it the people, Graffy? The people who are suffering because these bastards think they can always get away with it?"

"And they can't," Gustav hissed. "They can't."

Wiegraf considered them both. "We must all share the burden," he said. "If they refuse to share it, then we must make them."

That was how it began. It wasn't hard. The whole Brigade was suffering, but the whole Brigade was seething, too. They had all known a taste of glory, of battles decided by their strength and will. More than that, they had known that their strength and will were great enough to change the course of history. When Wiegraf put out the word, they came. In ones and twos, in squads and packs, they left their homes with all they could carry, and marched north. To the frozen fortresses on the border of the Rhana Strait, which Gallione and Fovoham had abandoned just as surely as they'd abandoned the Brigade.

"Nobleman led us into this war!" Wiegraf roared, his voice carrying in the chill air, the black sunken bulk of Fort Zeakden rising high into the gray skies behind him. The Brigade stood in neat lines before him, with all the weapons they'd kept and stolen. "Nobleman fought their proxy battles, the brothers and cousins and sons of kings vied for power and they could. Not. End it."

"And when all Ivalice suffered!" he howled. "When plague took our loved ones as surely as Ordallian blades, when Limberry sat at the very edge of defeat, who saved them!"

"WE DID!" came the roar from the crowd, so fierce it shook the boards beneath Gustav's feet.

"They called to us in their hour of need with false promises on their lips," Wiegraf growled. "They praised us and would not honor us. They would have us be their tools. They think we will be ruled like sheep. Well I say, if this is how our rulers behave, then we will make new rulers!"

A howl of wordless affirmation, like wolves baying for blood.

"We were a brigade of dead men, spending our lives as best we could," Wiegraf said. "Now we are assembled once more, but I do not see dead men. I see men who will bring death to those who spit on their responsibilities and obligations. I see a whole god damn corps of men who know how to swing their blades. We are the Death Corps, and we will cut out the rotten nobles of Ivalice!"

The crowd descended into screams of bloodthirsty affirmation.

"But!" Wiegraf cried, as the crowd slowly dwindled into silence. "But we must not become them. We are not assembled here for vengeance. For too long, we have seen those who claim to be our betters force us to do sacrifice where they will not. We will be better than that. We are a Corps. We are discipline incarnate. We will hurt the nobles who betray us and those like us. We will protect the people, whatever the cost to ourselves. We will be the very instrument of justice. We will build a kingdom of the like even Saint Ajora would call a Paradise upon the earth!"

And the screams this time were triumph incarnate.

"We can base most of our soldiers and supplies here," Wiegraf said later that night, studying the map of Ivalice in the fort's war room and drawing a line along the Rhana Strait, dotted with the abandoned forts they'd already occupied. "They'd have to send an army to get rid of us, and they don't have the strength for that, right?"

"Right," Gustav affirmed. "But it's going to be hard to get supplies."

"We'll hit them two ways," Wiegraf said. "Barinten won't send his soldiers out of Riovanes, so we can hit some of the outlying farms in Fovoham. We also need units in Mandalia. We have to keep the pressure up in Gallione-"

"Leave that to me," Miluda said.

"The Valkyries won't be enough," Wiegraf said.

"Agree to disagree," Miluda said. "But I can tap a few captains with good squads."

Wiegraf nodded his approval.

"You want to open a two-front war?" Gustav asked, unable to hide the fear in his voice.

Wiegraf glanced at him. "Why not?"

"We don't have the resources," Gustav said. "The Hokuten might be exhausted, but they've got a government behind them. I know what it's like to fight something like that."

"I know you do," Wiegraf said. "That's why I'm sending you to Dorter."

Wiegraf and Gustav stared at each other. "What?" Gustav said.

"The Hokuten are weak," Wiegraf said. "If I keep the pressure up in the north and Miluda harasses them in the south, they'll have to capitulate or call for help. I'm sure his Highness Prince Larg-" and here Wiegraf sneered. "-can't bear the thought of yielding to the likes of us. He'll call for help. He'll call for supplies. And most of that will come to or from Dorter."

Pieces clicked together in Gustav's mind, as the old war machine began to tick again. He could gather information from all the corners of Ivalice. He could hurt the Hokuten while strengthening the Corps. And on territory he knew. On territory where there were men and women of Gallione, hurting just as he was, aching for justice.

Here was the path to righteousness he'd been looking for. To use the talents he'd developed during the war to take down the same men and women who abused those in their power.

He felt alive, like there was fire beneath his skin. He burned with something pure and righteous.

"I can do this," Gustav said.

"No other man could," Wiegraf agreed. "Pick the men you want. They're yours." Wiegraf clasped Gustav's hand. "We need you, Gustav."

Trusted. Honored. So Gustav picked his men, and they slipped away in the night. The wore the altered cloaks of the Death Corps: the skull emblem now wore a crown, to remind their noble foes that they could die, too.

For the first few months, it was exactly as Gustav had imagined. The people chafed beneath the harsh dictates of Prince Larg and the crown. The Corps offered them a hope they hadn't dreamed of, and supplies came in from all across Ivalice: clandestine shipments of food from Larg's political enemies, weapons from old veterans eager to see the noble fools who'd used them as cannon fooder laid low, gil from commoner merchants and peasants and anyone hoping to see justice in Gallione.

And Dorter? Dorter was a seething nest of a city where the only language readily understood was that of power and influence. It was the exact kind of city all of Gustav's experience had prepared him for. He flattered friendly merchants and appealed to their vanity and virtue. He intimidated and berated the indifferent souls who sat on the fence while the people of Ivalice suffered. And whatever merchants might have dreamed of opposing him found their supplies vanished beneath their noses, where they did not simply have their throats slit and their wealth taken from them as they looked on with desperate dying eyes.

That was how it started, if he was honest. When he killed a merchant who had taken advantage, sold secrets to noblemen in hopes of material gain. When the act was met with approval throughout Dorter. Because it was an easy way to guarantee supplies and make sure anyone sitting on the fence, unsure of the course of action, knew exactly what the Corps would do if they tried to help the nobles.

And as time went on, Gustav found that there was no one in Dorter who could oppose him.

All the old criminal syndicates went to ground. To face a hundred soldiers would have been asking much of them: to face a hundred soldiers commanded by a man who understood exactly what he was doing? Who knew how to leverage those soldiers so you felt the boot on your collective necks? He had been made for this, he had trained for this. He was good at it.

For months, Gustav watched Dorter from his rat cellar north of Dorter, and took freely from Hokuten supply chains, and became the bread basket of the Corps. For months, he poured food, and weapons, and gil, and any supplies he could lay hands on north and south, and made sure that Wiegraf and Miluda had everything they needed to build their Ivalice.

And when money got tight? When Wiegraf and Miluda needed money and weapons, and there were none to give them? He found other merchants. He found the indifferent men who'd chosen no sides and hoped they would escape the conflict unscathed. He did not earn the popular accolades he'd gained from targeting of the noblemen and their cronies, but nor did he earn the ire of Dorter. Perhaps that was part of the problem. Perhaps the indifference was something Gustav should never have known about.

Because once he knew, it was hard to forget. Especially when he saw that the Death Corps was doomed.

He tried to pretend that he didn't know. He kept stealing weapons, food, gil, and intel. He was the vanguard of the corps, gathering all the information they needed to stay alive. And he tried to ignore the larger import of the intel he gathered. He tried to ignore the certainty of the Death Corps' defeat.

But he couldn't do it. He had spent too long learning to accurately assess the logistics of armies. It was all the experience he had. The fight between the Corps and the Hokuten was not like the fight between Ivalice and Ordallia. The latter was a case of two vast nations pitting their full weight against one another. Even with the Hokuten weakened by the 50 Years' War, they were as strong as the Corpse Brigade had ever been. Not were they alone. The Nanten might have disdained them: Khamja might hide away. But Larg's sister was the Queen of all Ivalice, and Dycedarg Beoulve was one of the cagiest diplomats in all the land. The best-case scenario saw the Corps suing for favorable terms, but the best-case scenario also imagined that nobles would ever deign to parley with commoners.

And why would they, when they were winning?

Even without reinforcements, even with Gustav raiding their supply lines, the Hokuten could afford to fight far better than they could. If every man and woman of the Corps killed two Hokuten, they might still lose. And rare indeed is the man who can make his life so costly. Hell, the Corps couldn't even afford to face the Hokuten in the open. The Valkyries raided, and Wiegraf hunted any patrols that made their way to him, and it was not enough. It couldn't be enough.

The hope had always been to inspire the people. To take on recruits, and inspire a movement that would shake Ivalice. And to be sure, there were men and women who flocked to their banner, at first. Gave freely from their coffers and pockets, to make sure they could fight. But untested boys and girls did not make for effective soldiers, and as the months dragged on and they were hunted and hounded and cold and hungry, more and more were leaving. Miluda's forces were stretched thin, and many of their veteran units had been depleted in the north and the south by constant conflict.

What hope, as the cause of rebellion lost its luster, and the noose tightened around their necks?

Gustav knew it. He could see it. He took more and more from the merchants. He turned on the people of Dorter before they could turn on him. He made examples of troublesome merchants, striking at them in their homes when they thought they were safe, raiding their most valuable cargo. He was as bad as any syndicate, and he knew it, too. Because Wiegraf had offered him what looked like hope, and now Gustav knew that hope was poisoned, and once again he was caught and didn't know how to escape.

Until Dycedarg Beoulve, cagiest diplomat in all Ivalice, had approached him.

Now he held the Marquis Elmdor, ruler of the land where the Brigade had been tested and forged. That was before, of course. Before Elmdor had come to Gallione to discuss reinforcing the Hokuten. Before Gustav had taken him, and killed six boys whose only crime was that they still believed in noble ideals, and wished to see Gustav pay for the horrors he'd caused.

I didn't kill them!

No. You just ordered them killed.

What choice do I have? Should I fight alone against an army? Should I risk my life for the sake of...?

There was a thunderous explosion from above. The cellar shook, dust raining down from the corners, and shouts of alarm rose into the air. The Marquis groaned on the floor, and Gustav turned to the door, reaching for his sword.

The door burst open. The body of one of his men fell through on it, and Miluda pulled her blade from his chest. His heart froze in his chest

"Miluda-" he started, and then she was lunging towards him, and he could barely block her cutting blade.

"You would kill me?" he shrieked, over the clanging of the metal.

"After what you've done?" she whispered. "Yes."

He forced her back, and there was another thunderous explosion from above, more screams and cries. Miluda drove him back, and a moment later Wiegraf descended the staircase, his sword shining.

"Why, Gustav?" he asked, his eyes heavy.

Fire and the frying pan. Do you scrabble in the dirt, knowing your soul will break long before you back does? Or do you use your talents for men who torture and hurt?

Fire and the frying pan. Do you believe in the cause of Ivalice, and forego pay? Or do you insist on your gil, knowing how thinly stretched the whole kingdom is?

Fire and the frying pan. Do you accept the ultimate insult from the crown and country you sacrificed so much for? Or do you try to oppose the very crown and country for which you sacrificed so much?

Fire and frying pan. When Dycedarg Beoulve offers you a pardon in exchange for the assassination of the Marquis, do you compromise everything you are? Do you trust a man who would so easily betray his supposed ally? Do you seize the opportunity in the hopes of buying your way free, whatever the cost to the men and women around you?

"What choice was there?" Gustav asked.

"Every choice," Wiegraf said.

"No choice," Gustav said.

Never a choice. From birth until death.