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Chapter 106: Godly Retribution
As the sun cast long, jagged shadows over the rocky promenades of the Germinas Mountains, Meliadoul Tengille crouched low upon her clifftop perch, staring down at the little camp being set up on the narrow plateau beneath her. She chewed mechanically at a bit of dried fruit as she absorbed the camp's layout, her eyes raking the cluster of tents ringing the stolen Templar caravan. One blonde head had too much red in it, and on closer inspection it was a woman anyways: Agrias Oaks, former Lioness, who had betrayed her Princess for reasons unknown. There was a blonde man in more casual clothes, but the pistol on his hip told her that was Mustadio Bunansa (yet another heretic from Goug).
Then she saw him: a broad-shouldered blonde man popping his tent into place. He wore a mishmash of armor, and had weapons slung on either hip. Wiegraf's gold-washed sword hung on his left side, but worse were the golden gauntlets he wore on either hand. She knew those gauntlets well: an old Ydoran design, which Izlude had so-carefully modified when he'd found his talent for hand-to-hand combat was better than his swordsmanship. The thief's green eyes had a distant, far-away look, as though he were not even fully present in this world. Now she knew: those were what a murderer's eyes looked like.
She'd found him. She'd found Ramza Beoulve.
It was hard to fight the hot flash of giddiness she felt then. For all her confidence, for all her zeal, for all her relish at having her father's trust in her (she felt Quan's sword at her hip, felt the weight of the Stone against her stomach), she'd known it was a long shot. Like her father said, there were many paths Ramza might to reach Limberry Castle (if that was even where he chose to go looking for Gemini). Meliadoul believed God and the Saint were on her side, but as Confessor Funeral had said, God helped those who helped themselves. So: think like Ramza Beoulve. A heretic who believes himself righteous, who has bested a Cardinal in his stronghold and broken the much-feared strength of the Khamja, and who is wanted by every power, great and small, across Ivalice.
She'd left her father's side, and hurried to Mullonde's grand library. She spent the evening tudying map after map of Ivalice and trying to imagine which way a heretic Beoulve might travel. His brothers were allies of the Church, and would never help a heretic, so she did not need to look too closely at Gallione. Delita was a Brave, so she could trust him to hold Zeltennia even against his old friend. That left Fovoham and Lesalia as the only paths over land into Limberry, and Melia studied map after map until she found what she was looking for: an old road that would take a traveler through Lesalia and then along the border of Limberry and Zeltennia, right along the Finnath river, and then out of the Germinas mountains into the fertile Limberrian heartlands.
She gathered the last of her things and rushed to Mullonde's heavily-guarded harbor in the pre-dawn darkness, found a trading ship found for Bervenia and ordered the captain to make no stops between here and there by her authority as a Templar charged with a sacred purpose. The journey still took the better part of the week, and Melia fought against her nausea at the rolling of the sea, and paced every corner of the ship like a feral thing, and spent her nights on the deck practicing sword strikes and training her magic to be ready for the task.
She should have felt some shred of reverence when they sailed into the solid, blocky port in Bervenia—this was the humble village where Saint Ajora himself had been born centuries ago, where he had performed his miracles and where he gathered his first Disciples, now carefully preserved by the Church as a site of pilgrimage for the faithful—but her head was too full of her brother and his killers, and anyways this city was a pitiful place, permitted to exist only because it threatened neither Duke Goltanna nor Duke Larg. So in spite of the holiness that should be permeating the decrepit old huts and shacks, she disembarked the ship almost before the gangplank was settled and found merchants who could tell her the supplies she needed. She brushed past thin lines of impoverished pilgrims eager for a glimpse of the old, crumbling well where a newborn Saint was supposed to have performed his first miraculous prophecy, pulling along the heavily-laden pack chocobo she'd requisitioned from the local Templars.
It was a stubborn, straggling road she took: Ivalice was a bloody place now, and for all her capability Melia did not desire to tangle needlessly with the greedy, the violent, or the desperate. So every time she spied travelers in the distance, she slowed her step, eyeing them warily for any sign of danger. But though she did not approach anyone unprepared, nor did she shy from approaching those she encountered: her one real advantage over the murderous heretic she hunted was that her righteous cause was recognized by all Ivalice, where he would be forced to skulk in the shadows.
So she rode stiffly through tattered bands of refugees, and the dregs of the small armies that a dozen Limberry nobles had raised to try and press their claim to the Marquis' empty seat. She was always courteous, and always terse: she hunted a heretic, and would ask for news off her quarry, but she would not pause on other business, even for a moment.
But the things she saw stayed with her. The desperation in the eyes of men, women, and children, fleeing from one battlefront to another in search of some safe harbor. The desperation in the eyes of the soldiers advancing towards one tidepool of conflict or another, pretending that these piddling battles might make a difference in the larger tide of bloodshed drowning Ivalice. She'd seen such desperation in the eyes of the pilgrims at Bervenia, too: everyone looking for some reason, some purpose, something to make all this chaos, heartache, and hurt worthwhile.
She felt that desperation in herself. The Saint had judged the world most fearsomely, in days long past: the Church had devoted themselves to spreading His teachings across the world, so that such dark days might never trouble the world again. But she did not see the light of God in her Kingdom. Sometimes, she did not even feel itself, swallowed up by yawning gap left behind by Izlude's death
But now? Now the desperation was gone, and the darkness with it. After days spent roaming the treacherous trails of the Germinas mountains, spying on the few travelers who crossed her way, she'd found him. The band matched the reports she'd seen exactly. Her instincts had been correct.
The Saint had led her to this place. The Saint would see justice served.
Deep breaths, Meliadoul, don't get sloppy. Remember the admiration the Confessor himself holds for this man: remember that, however wicked his ways, his accomplishments speak for themselves. He stole past the Gryphon Knights and slew the Cardinal of Lionel: even if his way was eased by treachery, he broke the Grand Duke's Khamja. God may be on your side, but He helps those who help themselves.
Carefully, then, from her lofty perch. She had freeclimbed up this high, to leave no mark of her ascent and to make sure no one could easily discover her. Freeclimbing was more Izlude's passion than hers, but it had ever been a good way to escape their father's restless eye when they accompanied him on one of his assignments, scrabbling off castle walls and cliff faces and Melia's eyes began to sting at the memories so she blinked away the tears, focused again on the group below her, this coterie of killers with her brother's blood on their hands.
Darkness settled in over the camp. The moon was a waning smile in the sky above, casting dull, misty light unevenly through the shadowed mountains all around. The woman with the red-gold hair stood vigil, moving in ever-changing patterns through the thicket of the tents, her eyes raking the surroundings for any sign of danger.
Wary, these murderous beasts. But all their instincts would not protect them from the judgment of God.
Melia fished the climbing robe from her back, unused in her ascent, and secured it to the large, heavy boulder a little ways back on her clifftop perch, clipping the other end on the harness she wore over her armor. She hesitated for a moment with her hand on the Stone bundled beneath her chestplate, afraid that if she fell, she would deliver another divine treasure into the heretic's hands-
She would not fall.
She took a deep breath, watched the woman taking a long, curving arc towards the cliff where Melia hid. Wait for it. Wait for it, Melia...wait for it...
The woman turned, taking a long arc that left her back to the cliff. Melia sprinted in the opposite direction, towards the cliff's far edge. The robe slithered behind her, and Melia measured her steps as she ran, marking them to the length of her rope, ready-
Now! The cliff's edge approached, and Melia juked left just as the rope reached its end, pulling tight without pulling her back, and when Melia ran she was running, not parallel to the cliff, but down it as a diagonal, swinging along the cliffface as though she were running through the air, the roaring of the passing wind muffled by the hood pulled tight against her scalp. Her heart pounded, metal was on her tongue, unbelieving fear squeezed at her heart (you can't do this, you'll die, you'll fail-)
But she and Izlude had done this little trick more times than once. And so what if Izlude had been better than her? That didn't mean she couldn't-
At the nadir of her descent, the robe beginning to pull hard against her harness, and in one fluid motion Melia flicked the clasp loose. Still perhaps ten feet to the ground, and Melia kicked off the cliff faceas hard as she could, gasped in excitement, reached out with her other hand and turned her fall into a springing somersault, giddy with triumph. She could track wanted men across a kingdom, she could run down mountains, she could do this, she could-
A blue-armored shadow carved its way out of the thicket of tents, a naked, rune-laden sword gleaming in its hands.
Melia gasped, turned her somersault into a leaping lunge that carried her just beneath the blade's hungry edge, rolled again and sprang back to her feet. Her hand scrabbled for Quan's sword, still sheathed at her side, and Agrias Oaks moved after her with the weight of an avalanche in every step. She swung her blade again, and Melia jerked desperately, bracing the flat of her blade with her gravel-scratched hand.
Clang! The force of the impact sent stunning shockwaves down her forearms, and the palm of Melia's bracing hand burned as the flat of the blade bit deep into her skin. But already Agrias' blade was beginning to glow, the terrible light of a Mage Knight's building burst, and Melia scrambled backwards as it threatened to explode with incinerating force-
Stopped shying backwards. Put both hands on the hilt of her sword. She was a Swordbreaker, a servant of the Saint. If she could not cut through a heretic's blast, what good was she?
Agrias swung her sword. Melia kept her poise, a deep breath through the nose as she flexed her field, imagining it as a web of light before her, to catch the burning brightness Agrias was hammering at her from her blade, to shatter it as she might stone or metal, and she had never done this in earnest before, never faced a Mage Knight's killing blow, but she was Meliadoul Tengille, and if she could not best this woman she would never best Ramza Beoulve.
Foom!
The explosion hammered towards her, a column of light like Ajora's judgment in miniature, and the web of light Meliadoul imagined flickered as she swung her own sword in turn, trying to catch that light, dissolve that light, the heat of it was so immense, the power of it was so immense, it felt as though she were catching a falling mountain and holding it back-
No. Catching a falling mountain and breaking it in her grasp.
She flexed her will, and her magic flexed with her, found the places where the fevered magic fed in feedback loops to such explosive results, and shattered it. Before her, a section of the light sizzled into nothingness, like water evaporating when poured on hot coals. And Melia lunged into that gap, and swung her sword.
Agrias Oaks was not ready for her. Clumsily, so clumsily, she jerked her blade between her body and Melia's lethal slash. And Melia's magic, already flexed and ready, reshaped itself again—not to cut through magic, but to shatter steel. True, Agrias wielded a proper, rune-girded Ydoran blade, and such things were not easily broken...but Melia's will was stronger than steel, and she had Quan's sword in her hand.
Skreesh! as the blade in Agria's hands screamed and shattered before Melia's attack, and Agrias' eye were wide with disbelief as Melia wound back and headbutted her with all the force she could gather. Agrias' eyes rolled back, and she crumpled to the ground at Melia's feet, among the twisted shards of her broken sword.
A moment's bright, brilliant triumph, even as her forehead pounded. Agrias Oaks, whatever the quality of the company she kept, was a Lioness of repute. But she was no match for Meliadoul Tengille. No one was. Not even-
Ramza Beoulve.
She had memorized him, as she watched him from her clifftop perch. She had carved hair color, outline, and movement into her memory. Even in the ghostly light of the moon above, she could see him for who he was: wild-haired, a weapon belt in hand with no weapon drawn and a woman's wiry frame emerging from the tent just beyond him. Her brother's killer, just a few easy steps away.
"There you are, murderer!" she howled, and hurtled towards him with wild exultation. The Saint had delivered, he was in her grasp, his blood would be on her sword, Izlude would be avenged-!
The red-haired woman behind Ramza shoved him down, and sprang over him. As Melia swung her sword, she thrust out both hands, and the air between them shimmered. Melia's searching magic poured into those outthrust hands like water pouring down an open drain, and she felt her legs go weak.
Radia Gaffgarion! Vampire Knight!
Instead of fighting against the draining weight of that field, Melia lunged into it, swinging her blade. Radia gasped in surprise and twisted backwards, too slow: the tip of Melia's sword cut across her upper arm, and Melia rushed after her, forcing quivering legs to keep moving as though they felt no weakness.
Strong hands grabbed at her ankles, yanked her down. She screamed in rage, kicked out with booted feet once, twice, thrice, felt something give a fleshy crack on her third kick, and a high cry of pain. The hands slackened their grip, and she twisted free, turned her twist into a tackle towards Radia (her sword now drawn), and caught her around the middle, knocking her to the ground.
Behind her was Ramza, scrambling to his feet just as fast as Melia scrambled towards hers. She leapt after him, slashing her sword wildly: he stumbled between her strikes, gasping for air. Each time he was a little slower, each time the blade cut a little closer, until at last he twisted too far to dodge her slash, tripped over an unseen rock, tumbled to the earth, she had him, she had him-!
A shimmer of golden light unfruled in front of her, caught her blade like cobwebs and held it fast. She screamed in rage, flexed her magic and shattered the ward, lunged towards Ramza again as he crawled away from her. Then a flicker of white, from the corner of her gaze, and she ducked back as a strong arm hammered into the air where she'd been mere moments before. She rebounded off her duck, drove her blade forwards in a lunging strike, straight into the figure's chest.
Felt the blade shudder in her hands, as though she'd tried to stab a boulder. She staggered, her hands aching from the rebound, barely dodged a leg that whipped through the air like a farmer's scythe.
"Wait!" cried a young man's voice, and in spite of herself, Melia hesitated, just for a moment. That voice was not her brother's—too rough, too wry—but there was something there that sounded just a little like him.
The white-clad figure in front of her tackled her to the ground, and the back of her head thudded painfully against the earth. Dazed, she looked up to see the red-headed woman standing above her, her red-bladed sword in hand. She'd been at Melia's back, ready to cut into her. Why hadn't she-?
She flailed against her captor, remembering where she was, remembering the monsters that surrounded her. But she might as well have tried to break the earth with her bare hands. The figure in front of her (and now she was close enough to see it was a dark-skinned girl, younger and smaller than she was, how could she be so strong?) had a grip as irresistible as iron, and as heavy. Desperately, Melia felt for her magic, wondered if she could break that grip-
"I wouldn't," the red-heaed woman said softly, as the tip of her blade rested just above her forehead.
"Do it!" Melia snarled, but her heart was breaking. She had fallen into the clutches of the monsters who had killed her brother. She had not struck down a single one. She had failed her father. She had failed her Church. She had failed-
"You're Izlude's sister." It was the same too-young voice that had cried out for the others to wait. He intruded upon her vision, silhouetted by the moonlight far above. She could not make out his face.
Trapped. Surrounded. Failed.
"You killed him," she whispered, and hated the tears in his voice.
"We didn't." He looked up. "Ramza, please-"
"I know." His voice was high, and yet there was strange depth to it, like the lower chords hidden in a symphony. She hadn't thought a monster's voice could sound like that. "Radia-"
The red-headed woman sighed, and placed the tip of her sword against Melia's head. No, no, Melia did not want to die here, she didn't...she...
She was so tired. It felt like all the strength in her was draining away, just as it had before, like working your body too hard with too little water on a too-hot day. Trembling eyelids fought to stay open, as Melia realized what was happening. The Vampire Knight was draining her strength. They weren't even going to kill her.
"Izlude..." she whispered, half a prayer, half an apology, half a plea, and sank away into the dark.