Chapter 13: "Just Like You"
...like the Nanten, the armed forces of Limberry were decimated by the constant fighting of the 50 Years' War, having to hold their territory against a powerful army that occupied nearly a third of their traditional territory for decades. Unlike the Nanten, however, their armies never fully recovered. Limberry was neither as prosperous or populous as the other regions of Gallione, and what efforts had been made to reconstitute their forces were undone by a number of a rebellions, including the conflict with the Death Corps and Miluda Folles' famous charge through their ranks...
-Alazlam Durai, "The War of the Lions"
Smoke in the air, thick and cloying from countless small fires. The armies of Gallione and Limberry were stretched across the Plains. Hundreds of men. Perhaps thousands. And again, Ramza felt the strange disconnect. He had never seen so many soldiers assembled in one place, or felt the stunning weight of their collective purpose.
How could his brothers command still more men? How could his father have led such armies into even more terrible battles? But the truth was, it didn't feel quite as daunting as it once had. The past few weeks had given Ramza a taste for audacity. He could dream a little bigger than he once had.
Still, he didn't want that weight on his shoulders, and he was glad that he was not in command here.
"Ramza!" Delita called from farther down the hill. Ramza shaded his eyes against the setting sun and saw his friend striding towards him.
"How is he?" Ramza asked.
Delita snorted. "He's pissing off the Viscount again."
Ramza chuckled. The Special Limberry Liaison and his escort had set out from Daravon's estate and met the incoming wave of soldiers from Limberry. This had immediately degenerated into an authoritative disaster, because the field commander of the Limberry forces, once Viscount Maronne, did not want to take orders from a squire, much less a Thadolfas. If the Viscount had not been a rather vain and inexperienced young woman, the soldiers of Limberry might have followed her lead. As it was, every maneuver and every night's camp devolved into a lurching, stumbling mess as the confused Limberry soldiers tried to figure out who they were supposed to obey.
"It's a little better, though," Delita said. "They don't want to embarrass themselves in front of the Hokuten, so they're trying to present a united front. They've at least agreed that Argus will distribute the Limberry reserve units to reinforce their line."
"Well, that's something," Ramza said. "Where's Beowulf?"
"Some of the soldiers were going to have a melee," Delita said. "Everyone throws in 50 gil. Winner takes the pot."
"Of course," Ramza sighed.
Delita sat down in the grass. Ramza kept staring out over the tents.
"What's the plan?" Ramza asked.
"Units are going to spread out," Delita said. "Sweep south. Kill or capture every soldier of the Death Corps we can find."
"A net across all Gallione," Ramza said.
"Looks like."
Delita fished a blade of grass from the ground next to him and put to his lips. The low buzzing filled the air.
"It's big," Ramza said.
"I know," Delita said. "You ready?"
"I think so," Ramza said.
"You look it." Ramza looked down to his friend, who was looking up at him with appraising eyes. "Doing the impossible agrees with you," Delita said.
"It's not impossible," Ramza said.
"No," Delita said, smiling. "I guess it's not."
That thought carried Ramza through the evening, and stayed with him even as he awoke the next morning, and joined Argus at the commanders' tent. A lot of men and women would die today and in days to come. Ramza couldn't help that. What he could do was make sure that he saved as many people as he could. He checked his armor. He checked his sword. He examined the arrows with their bundled packs of cloth, and he fingered the runes he'd inscribed onto his chest with the little stones that were supposed to quietly absorb ambient magical energy for emergency use.
Then he was off and moving. The Special Limberry Liaison needed his escort, after all.
They rode together atop seven chocobos: Argus in the lead, with the others flared back around him in a loose v-shape. Solid lines of soldiers were sweeping throughout southern Gallione, surrounding, besieging, killing, and capturing. Wherever those units were having trouble, Argus and his men rode in—to provide support, to assess the situation, and to take the front lines themselves.
On the third day, they had pushed so far south that they had left the Mandalia Plains behind. Their duty for the day was reconnaissance: interrogated soldiers had indicated that there was a main storehouse somewhere in the coastal marshes, a place where battered bands of Death Corps troops retreated to rearm and resupply, and where their wounded were cared for. But sending an army into the swamps would have been a waste of time, effort, and manpower. The lines of soldiers continued their sweep, encircling the main routes out of the bog so no one could escape. The Special Limberry Liaison and his escort searched for this storehouse, riding over old docks, past low shacks where fishermen and hunters had once plied their trade, and a dozen other places. They found traces of soldiers—old firepits, trash and abandoned latrines—but nothing of the soldiers themselves.
The swamps stank, and the thick humidity left Ramza's armor creaking and squeaking against his chafed skin. He wasn't alone, either: they were, every one of them, in a foul mood, trying to find some way to get comfortable and muttering curses to themselves as they failed. Things rustled in the underbrush or slithered through the mire, and if you escape your own sweaty reek you found only the rotting muddy fog of the place waiting for you. The whole place boiled with quiet hostility.
And just like that—stinking, sweating, swearing—their birds wound down a path, and they came face-to-face with Miluda Folles.
She wasn't alone: she and two other women stood upon a narrow wooden pontoon bridge leading out to a blocky structure of mud, brick, and wooden slats in the middle of a pond. One of Miluda's allies wore leather armor with her red hair tied back in a ponytail. The other wore heavy knight's gear with her blonde hair cut boyishly short. Their swords were drawn, and they faced the oncoming soldiers with nothing but fury in their eyes.
Fury, and a moment's shock on Miluda's face.
Argus had an arrow nocked and trained before Ramza had quite begun to think. Ramza raised his voice to shout a warning, and the red-headed woman slashed her sword. The air between her and Argus shimmered like heat off stone walls, and Argus slumped in his saddle, his bow trembling in his hands.
"W-what?" stuttered Argus, blinking wearily.
From the corner of his eye, Ramza saw the woman fall to one to knee, with Miluda resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Ramza hesitated, looking between them—between Argus, turning his head slowly from side to side, and Miluda and her soldiers. He remembered the last thing she'd said to him. Her insistence that they were foes by birth.
He raised both hands, and shouted, "Peace!"
"Ramza!" hissed Argus, though his voice was weak, but Ramza still had his certainty. He dismounted his chocobo, and walked forward his hands upraised.
"Come no closer, Beoulve!" Miluda shouted, when Ramza was some twenty feet away.
"If you insist, Folles," Ramza said, coming to a stop.
"Your friend just tried to kill me," Miluda said.
"Your friend beat his Marquis to a pulp," Ramza replied.
"And that's justice?" she asked.
"No," Ramza said. "Neither is killing him. None of this is just."
There was the squishing sound of feet in the mud. Ramza turned his head slightly and saw that Delita had also dismounted, and was approaching with his hands in the air.
"What do you want, Beoulve?" she asked.
"We were sent to find a Death Corps base," Ramza said. He jerked his head towards the building in the distance. "I take it that's the place?"
Miluda said nothing, but Ramza saw her grip tighten on her blade.
"You could kill me," Ramza said. "But I'm not alone." He jerked his head back towards the men on their birds. "One of them will get away. You know they will. They'll let the others know where you are."
"They won't catch us," the blonde woman whispered.
"They will," Delita said. "You know they will."
"We'll kill every one of them," the blonde woman said.
"If you kill ten of them for every one of you who falls," Delita said. "You'll still lose. And somehow I don't think the wounded will be killing ten soldiers apiece. Do you?"
"What do you want, Beoulve?" Miluda repeated, her face impassive. "Do you think I'll surrender to you? You've already told me what happens to the people who do. How exactly did you find out where we were?"
Ramza felt a sudden dryness in his throat, at odds with the sticky heat of the swamp. He hadn't asked. He hadn't even stopped to think. But he knew, didn't he? How else did you interrogate a man? And how many of those that had been interrogated were men and women that Ramza had captured?
Precarious again, fragile again, clinging to a thread of white in a world of murky grey. No justice on any side, right? He'd said so himself.
"I want you to surrender," Ramza said. "But not to me."
Miluda studied him, her mouth twisted to one side. "No?"
"No," Ramza said. "If you ride north. If you fortify beyond the Lenalian Mountains. You can sue for fair terms."
"Ramza!" Argus shouted. He was off his chocobo now, stumbling towards him as though his body had fallen asleep. Ramza's eyes flickered to the red-haired woman still on her knees at Miluda's side. What had she done to him? What magic was that?
"Emilie, no!" barked Miluda. The woman had advanced a single step, her blade pointing towards Ramza
"If you want to fight, feel free," Beowulf called. Violet was strolling forwards, and Beowulf had both his swords drawn atop his bird's back. His face was still mottled with bruises from the melee days past. "You won't make it out alive."
"No one is fighting!" Ramza shouted, though his stomach lurched as though he had taken a plunge from a tall place. He kept his hands in the air. "I've spoken with my brothers," Ramza said. "I've spoken with the Prince. Once you're out of the south, they have no reason to risk their troops in the north. They'll let you surrender with fair terms."
"But it will be a surrender, Beoulve!" Miluda shouted. "They will go right back to taking everything from us."
"You insolent cur!" spat Argus. "You defy the natural order, and you call it justice."
"What order?" Miluda demanded. "The order where you steal from our pockets and take the food from our mouths? The order where the men and women who won you your kingdom suffer because you will not bear your burden?"
"We bear the burden of leadership!" Argus roared. "This is God's will, whore. And when you refuse to serve, you are as useful as a cow who can no longer be milked. No!" He shook his head. "No, that's not fair. The cow does not believe itself the equal of the farmer. The cow can still be useful in death."
"Argus, enough!" Delita growled.
"You would side with her," Argus hissed.
"ENOUGH!" Ramza said, louder still. He contorted his face into a glare, tried to pretend at a ferocity he did not feel.
"We're human," whispered Miluda. "Just like you."
"You're nothing like me," Argus snarled.
Everything was spinning, and Ramza could feel it, like water trickling through his fingers. Soon there would be nothing left but the need for violence. Nothing left but injustice.
"Argus," Ramza said. "She saved the Marquis just as much as we did."
"Curs like her took him!" Argus yelled. "Took him and killed...so many, Ramza!"
Ramza hesitated, just for a moment. He knew how cruel he was about to be, but he saw no other way to make his point.
"Argus," Ramza said. "That's like saying every noble is like your grandfather."
He saw the pain and shock in Argus' face, eyes wide with just the faintest hint of tears. Before that pain could turn to anger, Ramza pressed, "She saved the Marquis. She and her brother. We can't hate them for that."
Argus closed his eyes. "What would you have me do, Ramza?" he asked, his voice soft. "Let them go?"
"Yes," Ramza said. "We can't beat them. Not like this."
"Hold on," Lambert said, riding his own bird forwards with Rauffe and the other men of the Hokuten at his side. "Ramza, you can't make this call."
"I know," Ramza said. "He can." He nodded at Argus.
Argus said nothing for a long time. Ramza felt his heart straining. He felt as though he were standing on a swaying rope that was about to snap beneath his weight.
"Argus," Ramza said, as the silence stretched. "Please. They don't have to kill anyone. We don't have to kill anyone. Just tell them where to go. Where we aren't."
"Surrender's not an option," said Emilie.
"Maybe not," Delita said. "But it might be, if terms are fair enough. Pardons. Amnesty. Maybe even some laws passed that address your concerns. And the fortified the north is, the more likely it'll be that they have to deal with you with words instead of swords."
"Everyone lives," Ramza said. "Argus. Please."
"Alright," Argus whispered. "Alright." He opened his eyes, and Ramza saw the faintest trace of tears still on his face. He turned away at once and said, "Let me...let me look at my maps."
Lambert came closer, his eyes flickering between Miluda, Ramza, and the other Hokuten. "Ramza," he said quietly. "This isn't a good idea."
"Why not?" Ramza asked. "I don't feel like dying today. I don't feel like killing today. Do you?"
"I..." Lambert shook his head. "You're setting policy."
"I'm not," Ramza said. "I'm choosing who to fight. We all do that, don't we?"
"If you'd like a fight," Emilie said. "I'd be happy to oblige you."
"No one's fighting unless I'm involved," Beowulf said.
"No one's fighting anyone," Ramza said.
"Why are you doing this?" asked the red-headed woman. She was on her feet again, though she seemed a bit unsteady, and watched him with intense dark eyes.
"I'm trying not to kill anyone," Ramza said.
"Why?" she asked.
"I don't think any of you deserve to die," Ramza replied. He hesitated, then he looked to Miluda. "And...and I don't think we have to be enemies. You're human, just like me."
Miluda pursed her lips. The group hung in uneasy silence.
"North," Argus called, walking forwards. "Well. East first, until she hit the Lenalian river. Then you'll ride north along it until you hit the Siedge Swamplands. When you leave the Siedge, head north towards the Lenalian Plateau. Whatever you do, do not go towards Gariland. We're using it as a staging area, and I can't speak for the movements of the soldiers there."
"You don't have anyone on the river?" Emilie asked in disbelief.
"No one," affirmed Argus. "We didn't know the are well enough, and we know none of the Corps operates near it."
"How can I trust you?" Miluda asked, her deep voice level.
Ramza turned back to face her, shrugging. "I want what's just," Ramza said.
"Beoulve," she repeated, shaking her head.
The rope felt so close to breaking.
"Alright," Miluda said. "Ride out of here."
"You're not giving the orders, you sow," Argus spat.
Ramza held up a forestalling hand.
"We're going north," Ramza said. "Well camp in an hour, and we'll report what we've seen by midday tomorrow. You have to be on the move by then."
"And if we're not?" Miluda asked.
"You know," Delita said.
Miluda nodded slowly. "Alright," she said, sheathing her sword.
Ramza felt weak with relief. He turned back to where he'd left his bird.
"Beoulve!" she shouted. Ramza looked over his shoulder. "If this is a trap," she said. "I'll kill you. I'll kill your family. I won't stop hunting you. Not to the very ends of the earth."
"It's not a trap," Ramza said.
Miluda shrugged, and headed back down the pontoon bridge, supporting the red-headed woman. Emilie spat on the ground, then turned to follow.
The group rode at once. No one spoke until they made camp an hour later.
"I want guards posted throughout the night!" Argus shouted. "Everyone sleep light. I don't want us getting ambushed."
"They won't ambush us," Ramza said.
"Just like they didn't ambush me?" Argus asked. Again, the pain in his eyes.
"Argus," Ramza said, taking him by the shoulders. "I'm sorry."
Argus shook his head. "You can't trust them, Ramza," he said. "They're monsters."
"They're not," Ramza protested.
"They are," Argus whispered. "I've seen what they do. Destroying the natural order. Opposing God's will. They'd burn Ivalice to the ground, and you would rather let the flames smolder."
"Then why did you listen to me?" Ramza asked.
Argus smiled slightly. "Like you said," Argus replied. "I believe in repaying my debts."
It was like the Marquis had said, wasn't it? The will of God, rewarding him for his pursuit of justice. Even a man who didn't believe in his cause still gave him the tools he needed to try and serve it.
"Thank you," Ramza whispered, and he slept that night with a deep, profound relief.