Chapter 18: The Valkyries
...while the Bursting Blade has been carefully preserved by the nobility of Ivalice, the history of the Draining Blade is far more elusive. The Draining Blade is at once a more difficult and more attainable art. Unlike the Bursting Blade, it requires little in the way of equipment, since it takes advantage of the natural magical field every living soul possesses. However, the Bursting Blade merely amplifies a user's magical powers for destructive ends. The Draining Blade requires careful training to use your innate magic in unconventional ways, co-opting an opponent's magical field and absorbing and redirecting their power. Practiced Vampire Knights can exhaust enemies from afar and even absorb and reflect enemy magical attacks, but sadly the art is largely confined to single lines of master-student relationships...
-Alazlam Durai, "Sword Arts of Ivalice"
She caught the arrow.
Ramza loosed it one fluid move, hoping to end this fight before it began, to make it through the Plateau without blood on his hands. Miluda spun like a dancer, caught it and redirected it in one fluid motion, and he could see his arrow coming back towards him, designed to choke and blind and make easy targets of any who inhaled its soporific smoke. Ramza had always used it to win without killing, but they were surrounded by women with every cause to hate and hurt.
Another choice that conspired to catastrophe. Like trusting Argus, or leaving helpless captives in the hands of the Hokuten, to be beaten and tortured for information.
They were already tired enough. They had left the Beoulve Manor and ridden through the night, resting only for a few hours here and there. Delita wanted to urge their birds to charging speed, but there was no chance of relief mounts, so they proceeded at an easy trot, and every delay made Delita more of an anxious, angry wreck.
Across the rolling plains, with the mountains looming larger and larger, eating sparingly from their packs, napping for a few short hours here and there, riding through the Limberry lines with Argus' bitter grace.
So here they were, tired, hungry, and facing Ramza's mistake. A woman who hated them, with all that remained of her army. An arrow that would leave them gasping and blind for sharp weapons to tear them apart.
And then fire exploded into the world.
A long stream of white flames burst up from his right, obliterating the arrow and racing towards Miluda. She threw herself to one side, and the fires blasted this way and that, sweeping across the plateau, sending the women upon it scampering for cover. Ramza's head jerked to his right, and he found Reis, her arms spread wide to either side, her chest puffed up, her mouth open and exhaling that terrible blaze. The shadow of colossal wings seemed to stretch out behind her.
Ramza had seen magic before, but not like this.
He forced his gaze away as Beowulf and Delita shouted and urged their birds up the hill, under the cover of the flames. He started to follow, but then one section of the flames along the ridge of the plateau parted down the middle, like a cascade of water divided by a boulder. Two women burst through, wreathed in shimmering force that shed fire around them. Miluda and her red-haired lieutenant.
"Ramza!" Reis called from behind him, breathless and panting. "Don't let them touch you!"
"Don't-" For a surreal moment, Ramza was bewildered. He almost laughed. Did Reis understand how fighting worked? The whole point was to make sure the enemy didn't touch you. That usually meant death.
But then the pieces clicked together: how the red-haired woman had drained the very strength from Argus' arms, and how the two women had just cut their way through a wall of fire. This was some art or magic Ramza didn't know, something that could hurt him if he let them get close.
And how to avoid it, without letting them get to Reis?
He found out the question was moot when Reis burst past him atop her bird. She spread her arms wide and gestured downwards, and both she and her mount burst into the air in a rush of a wind and a terrified squawk. Again, Ramza got the fleeting impression of vast, leathery wings. Both Miluda and her lieutenant craned their heads to stare at the woman above them, and Ramza seized the moment. He urged his mount past them, leading it off the winding path so its taloned feet scrabbled for purchase on the hillside.
He felt an impact against the birds flank, and his mount gave a whimpering shriek. The chocobo slumped forwards as red blood poured down its side and flowed down the slope. It staggered on a few more steps, then slumped over just as it reached the plateau with a feeble wailing cry that left Ramza feeling sick inside. He stopped to run a hand over its head, tried to think of what to do, and...
And there was a towering woman moving from the corner of his vision, her axe already swinging.
Ramza threw himself backwards, and the axe whisked by overhead, stirring his hair. He stumbled away as the axe came sweeping through the air again, the long-haired woman in front of him, face set in a firm grimace, broad shoulders flexing with every terrible swing.
He ducked away, frantically looking every which way. Reis was standing over her chocobo, which was crumpled to the ground with its leg twisted beneath it. Beowulf was still atop his purple bird, dodging between javelins flung after him by a smiling woman. Behind him, a woman lay bleeding upon the ground, clutching a bow in her dying hands. Closer to Ramza, Delita and a one-eyed woman were a frenzied storm of clashing blades, with a bloody chocobo at Delita's back.
Just a flash, a glimpse of the chaos and the madness. Then his eyes were back on the colossal woman in front of him, and the executioner's axe she swung with such terrible strength.
So Ramza lunged forwards, beneath the swinging axe. He saw the woman's eyes flash wide, and then his shoulder slammed against her chest, knocking her backwards and sending aching bolts down to the tips of his fingers. He ducked back and grabbed at her axe just beneath its head, trying to wrest it from her powerful grip. She was gasping, wheezing him, fighting him, pulling at that axe so its razor's edge jerked closer and closer to his head.
From the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Miluda and her red-haired lieutenant had crested the slope, and were turning their staggering climb into a stumbling charge, straight towards him. Ramza's heart leapt into his throat and made it hard to breathe.
He twisted back towards the axe-wielding woman, slammed into her again, knocked her backwards with a kick to her stomach and then danced away. His hand flashed to the sword at his waist, and closed on nothing but air.
Because the sword was with his chocobo, of course. Where he'd left it.
He cursed under his breath, his eyes on the three women in front of him: the woman with the axe rising to her feet, Miluda and her lieutenant closing in. He was unarmed and surrounded by warriors with every reason to kill him.
Then, all at once, there was a purple bird in the thick of them.
It was oddly comical: the giant squawking bird plunging into their midst, catching every one of them off-guard. Ramza jerked backwards and fell: across from him, he saw the red-headed woman do the same. The woman with the axe swore and dropped her weapon. Only Miluda kept her feet, jabbing at Violet and dodging between Beowulf's flailing slashes. A javelin whizzed past Violet's head and bit into the earth near Ramza's right foot. He could have prodded the weapon with his toe.
"Gotcha!" Beowulf cried, and his other sword lashed out like a snake, and suddenly there was blood on the axe-wielding woman's chest. She fell to her knees.
"NO!" shouted Miluda, driving towards Beowulf as Violet charged off in the direction from which the javelin had come.
A moment's strange, empty calm. Ramza sat flat on his ass, staring as Miluda chased the bird that chased the woman with the javelins. Delita and the one-eyed woman continued their clanging, clashing interchange. And the red-headed was rising with her sword in hand, moving towards Ramza.
The moment was over. This was a fight for his life.
Ramza scrambled to his feet, charged to the side and grabbed his sword from his fallen chocobo. He turned, raised his sword defensively, then remembered Reis' warning and threw himself backwards. His feet caught on the flank of his dead bird: he fell again, and rolled to the side as the red-headed woman's sword slashed into the dirt where his head had been. He sprang upright and...
And what? What could he do that didn't leave this woman dead?
She came at him again. Ramza moved towards her, because he didn't know what else to do. Again, he tripped over the bird, this time its scabby orange feet. He pulled himself along its still-warm bulk. He could hear her closing in.
He slashed, and his sword tore through flesh and leather. He grabbed the bag from the chocobo's side, tumbled away in a cloud of bloody feathers, fumbled inside the bag and tried to find his way through the tight bundles of cloth until-
There.
He hurled one of the arrows towards the woman's face, and slapped his chest at the same time. The runes flickered to life, and his head swam dizzily. Sleep-deprived, and he'd used the runes too recently, but they worked: as choking white fog enveloped both of them he could still breathe. He moved forwards and knocked the blade from her hands as she choked and gasped. Then he threw her over his shoulders, carried her from the cloud, and hurled her to the ground.
She hit hard, gasped harder. Her eyes stared up at him, but there was very little pain or fear there. It was a strange sort of dawning disbelief.
"You're-" she broke off coughing, and tried again. "You're not...you're really-"
Ramza stared down at her. She stared up at him. There was something he could see in her eyes, something he almost understood. What was he seeing? What...
"Ramza!" cried Delita.
Ramza turned just in time to see the blade threshing towards him. He lifted his own sword, and the blades clashed together with such terrible force that Ramza's arm went numb. He stumbled backwards, barely able to parry as Miluda rushed after him, a frenzy of slashing steel. Her glaring eyes transfixed him.
"Bastard!" she howled. "Beoulve!"
She was just as fast and just as strong as she had been in the Desert, but now there was an awful fury that whetted each blade. Something more than death hung on the edge of her sword: something like oblivion, something like hell, something like vengeance. She didn't seem human anymore. She was something terrible and righteous, like Ajora punishing the sinful world by suffusing it in cataclysmic catastrophe.
The blade did not slash: the blade was a hurricane, threatening to engulf him. She did not walk: she thundered, like a storm given flesh. He was face-to-face with a force of nature, and that force of nature wanted him dead. And Ramza was weak, Ramza was tried, and Ramza knew that she wasn't wrong to hate him, because she had put her trust in him and the people she cared for had been destroyed as a result.
He parried, but only just. He dodged, but only just. His arm was numb. His feet tripped over themselves. He felt gangly, and clumsy, and wrong.
She stabbed towards him. He struck at the outthrust blade, and she slammed forwards, drove an elbow into his throat. He gasped, his vision going black around the edges, almost didn't see her twisting so she could thrust her sword into his unguarded belly. Ramza kicked out, caught her legs, and they fell to the ground in a heap of flailing limbs.
He pulled away from her. She lifted her blade. Ramza lifted his metal-edged greaves up in a cross-guard, caught the blade and his arms shuddered and he felt his bones shake and his knees sank into the dirt as he struggled for breath. He tried to rise, and-
And Miluda shimmered, like heat on stone. And suddenly it felt as though Ramza's body had fallen asleep, legs and arms and brains, and his chest felt tight and he could barely see and there was Miluda, towering above him, sword rising for the killing blow, and Ramza could not will himself to stand.
Thhkt.
It was the sound of sharp metal tearing through flesh, clothes, leather, and armor. It was the sound of a blow that killed. It was the sound of death by the sword.
It was just sound. Ramza felt no pain. He didn't feel anything, except flecks of something warm and wet splashing across his face.
He blinked up at Miluda. She looked different than she had a moment before. It took Ramza a few seconds to understand why. To see the sharp, bloody swordpoint protruding from her chest. To see Delita standing behind her, his eyes wide, his mouth open, his face pale.
Miluda slumped forwards, falling to her knees and gasping as Delita's sword slipped from her back. Her blood dripped from its point and into the dust. She lifted her hands to the wound, then stared up at Ramza. Her mouth opened, then closed. She fell to one side with an uneven thumph, and rolled onto her back, wheezing. Blood began to pool beneath her.
Ramza stared at her. His mind felt just as sluggish as his body, every though weak and distant. He couldn't quite understand what he was seeing.
Miluda's eyes flickered towards Delita. "K-kill..." she started. "Kill for them...all you like...they'll never...you and...and your sister..."
Her eyelids were fluttering. Her face was very pale.
"...oulve..." she whispered.
And then her eyes snapped open, blazing with rage, spearing Ramza and dispelling his mental stupor in one fierce sharp shock.
"When the world is done with you, Beoulve, you'll pray for the mercy of a death this quick!" she roared, as blood trickled from her lips. "You'll pay, Beoulve, you and all your monstrous kin, and-"
She took in a deep breath, her eyes blazing brighter. Then all at once the fire was gone, and she exhaled a rattling sigh. Her body went slack.
Ramza stared at her body. He lifted his eyes to Delita, still standing behind her, looking not at Miluda or at Ramza but at his bloody sword.
Somewhere far away, Ramza could hear other voices. Reis and Beowulf.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine. I'm fine."
"Your chocobo..."
"It was my fault. I hadn't used that spell before, I didn't think-"
"I'm just glad you're safe."
"What about you, Wulfie?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"I'm not...LOOK OUT!"
Ramza jerked upright, then stumbled back to his knees, his legs still prickling with numbing needles, unable to bear his weight. The red-headed woman was staggering towards them, but she had no sword in her hand. She was coughing and wheezing, rocking from side to side with every step. She tripped to a halt just a few feet away, staring down at her dead captain. Her narrow face was devoid of emotion.
She turned away, and limped past Delita. Ramza's head turned upon a creaking, reluctant neck to follow her path. Beowulf and Reis stood in Radia's path. Beowulf reached towards his sheathed sword.
"No!" Ramza cried, and his voice sounded far louder than it should have. It took him a moment to realize that Delita had shouted, too.
The red-headed woman kept moving, either unseeing or uncaring for the danger in front of her. Beowulf hesitated, and then Reis grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his sword. The Valkyrie staggered past without looking at them.
Ramza turned his head back to Delita. Delita's eyes flickered towards him, but he did not quite meet Ramza's gaze.
"She wasn't..." he started. "She didn't have to be...why..."
His bloody sword slipped from his hand, and clattered to the ground. Ramza pushed his hands against the ground, but they too felt asleep, weak and noodly, unable to bear his weight. He turned his head slowly from side to side to see the fallen women, and lifted his head to watch the red-headed woman, still staggering on as the wind howled.
We won, Ramza thought, and almost felt like crying.