Hello, all! This chapter took a long time to come out - sort of like when it's hard to poop I guess. Maybe? TMI? Well, college is hectic...which is funny because every time an author I liked would say that, I'd be like, noooooo! Ahem. Thanks for waiting so long! I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors.
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After the unsuccessful attempt at negotiating some sort of peace with Plegia, the bandit problem grew steadily worse. Chrom was reluctant to recruit more soldiers to guard the borders, but there wasn't much else they could do. He didn't want to kill the rogues, but something had to be done before all of Ylisse's farmland was ruined. Lately, the attackers had been salting the earth after each raid. Plegia didn't have many valuable resources, but it had the monopoly on sea salt.
Robin was going out of his mind trying to help Chrom manage the tightening crop situation and explain to other nations that Ylisse's trade shortage was a direct result of Plegia's actions. Ylisse needed allies, and fast. The problem was, no country was willing to wage war over wheat. That, and it would seem, at face value, that bandits ought to be easily vanquished and rallying troops and supplies would cost too much without better benefits. It was aggravating – Plegia was nudging Ylisse, prodding them towards the warpath. With their fields slowly being destroyed, they would either have to pay more for imported goods or fight back.
Chrom, Robin knew, was fighting the conflicting emotions in his head. Robin knew the man wanted revenge. But the risk and rewards wouldn't balance out – for the majority, anyway. The tactician spent hours counseling the Ylissean king, as well as acting as a mouthpiece to the Ylissean officials. Robin didn't mind. As long as he could keep himself out of a sticky situation, he would play any role.
But Robin should have anticipated that his rotten luck would catch up to him, for one day, Frederick came into the throne room in a mad state of mind.
"Milord! Plegian wyvern riders assaulted the border last night - they slaughtered half the Pegasus Knights on patrol!" It was as if some great force had presented Robin with one of the scenarios he wanted to face the least and laughed in his face at the same time.
"Half? Gods, do those bastards have no conscience?" Chrom snapped. "I declare war on Plegia – something must be done about this at once!" Servants announced their intentions to gather their king's armor and scurried away. Frederick left with the breathless statement that he would rally the Shepherds at once.
Robin faced Chrom. "Are you mad? We have no allies! Ylisse cannot afford this war, Chrom. Many of your sister's knights are dead – but they cannot be resurrected. I'm warning you, this fight isn't worth the cost."
For one moment, Chrom lapsed back into rationality. "I'm afraid it's too late to retract my words. Regretting it now will only ensure our failure. If I don't stop the Mad King, I'll go mad myself."
/
Much to Robin's surprise, more people volunteered to enlist in the military than he had anticipated. He put Frederick off of his Shepherd duty in order for him to focus on training the new soldiers. If anyone could get the mass of inexperienced farmers and poor merchants into fighting condition, it was Frederick.
Meanwhile, the remaining Pegasus Knights were ordered to continue guarding the border between Ylisse and Plegia. Robin sent half of the Shepherds to defend them from anti-flying units. The Plegian attacks were getting more organized. They were using good combinations of their wyvern riders and barbarian class units. Robin also noticed that dark mages were hiding in the mix as well – some of the patrol soldiers reported getting very vivid nightmares, as well as odd and extremely painful illnesses. Some simply dropped dead.
Robin poured over maps and tactical texts, but was beginning to think that the best way to finish the war would be to assassinate Gangrel as soon as possible. Capture the king and the game was over, right? Robin laughed bitterly to himself. War was never that simple! But Plegia was not the most military-oriented country. Surely their resolve would crumble once Gangrel was dead on the floor.
The whole affair was giving him a headache.
There was a knock on the door of Robin's study. His study – the tactician had always dreamed of having a large collection of books and a sizable desk to spread his notes on. The fact that it was also located in the Ylissean palace was a blessing all on its own.
"Sir Robin?" A young messenger's voice was muffled behind the thick wooden door – which was a sign that its thickness worked to stifle distractions from the outside.
With a heavy sigh, Robin braced himself for more troublesome news. "Come in."
A young girl struggled with the door for a moment before slipping through the sliver of space she had created with her efforts. She was quite small, and very lean with short, clean cut hair. Perfect for running. But heavy lifting? Perhaps not. She wore the tunic of the royal messengers – grass green – the previous Exalt's favorite color. The girl wore a good-sized bag slung over one shoulder, stuffed with sealed scrolls and the odd wrapped parcel.
"I've a message for you, sir." The messenger foraged in her bag and with surprising speed, withdrew a parchment scroll, sealed with an unfamiliar crest. Robin took the item and placed it on his desk. He reached into the money pouch on his belt and offered a handful of silver coins to the messenger.
"But sir!" The girl protested, big eyes widened in bewilderment.
"I get the feeling you'll be working a lot harder in the near future. You might as well get paid more for it." Robin dismissed the messenger with a wave of his hand.
Turning his attention to the scroll, Robin picked up the item with some trepidation. He ran through a quick list of curse-detecting spells – ones his mother always, always made sure to use. Nothing reacted to his counter-magic, so he broke the seal and unraveled the scroll to reveal a brief block of neat script.
Dearest Robin,
It is a source of deep regret to hear that your king has declared war on our tattered nation. I had hoped our meeting would have persuaded you to keep the bloodthirsty hound off the warpath. Unfortunately, it seems that you've decided to play a game you aren't ready for. I look forward to the pleasure of being your opponent. Please do not disappoint me, as I am faced with others' failures all too often.
The scroll was left unsigned, but Robin didn't need a signature to know who had sent it. With a sigh, he tore it up and tossed it in the fireplace. When it got cold he would use it as kindling.
Robin's headache began hurting on a completely different level.
/
To Robin's horror, the fighting turned the border between Ylisse and Plegia into something out of a mapmaker's nightmare. Ylisseans had been evacuated from that area, but not all of them survived. The border patrol's forts were no longer bastions against Plegian forces, but instead pockets of unstable security in the heat of battle. Ylissean soldiers were dropping like flies from the curses cast by enemy dark mages. The enemy had a wealth of evil intent, and weren't conservative with how they channeled it.
Chrom was a mess.
Robin saw the Exalt practicing his forms each day, trying to distract himself from the guilt of sending his people to war. It was hard to watch; Robin rather liked Chrom, even though he was brash and had some maturing to do. It couldn't be helped; the wealthy man was sheltered! All the nobles knew was to use force when things didn't go their way.
None of the Shepherds got much sleep. They were some of the best soldiers in Ylisse. Frederick and Sully trained most of the new cavalry and foot soldiers, while one of the last Pegasus Knights, Cordelia, helped train a new squad of airborne forces. Sumia tried to assist, but ended up in the infirmary when she tripped and cut herself on an axe she had been delivering. In all fairness, Sumia was one of the hardest workers Robin had ever met. For someone so gentle to be able to hold her ground in battle, it took a great deal of focus to overcome her nature.
One day, Robin received yet another report enumerating the casualties on the border. It shouldn't have been a surprise. Robin had been getting them all this time. For some reason; perhaps it was the stress, or the fatigue, but he was so incredibly frustrated! The enemy seemed to know what the Ylisseans were about to do next, and the soldiers Robin commanded could never follow his formations the way he wanted them to. Yes, he was a new tactician, but he wasn't making up plans for his own health!
Finally, Robin made a decision. He was reluctant to do it, but he was going to put the Shepherds – and himself – on the front lines. If no one could do it right, then he was going to end the battle himself. The training he'd done with his new comrades made his body harder, his reflexes faster – the foolish overconfidence he'd possessed at Southtown was replaced with genuine faith in his own skills.
The only remaining questions in Robin's mind were: was he ready to lay his skin on the line for a country he hardly had connections with? Who was he doing all this for?
/
The Shepherds arrived at the Ylissean main camp, some distance away from the border war. The perimeter of the camp was warded against dark magic. Robin wasn't entirely sure how much good it would do – sure, against most curses it would be life saving. Only the most skilled sorcerers could conjure potent, long-distance magic. But Plegia had an academy dedicated to refining the dark arts. Robin had no inkling of how or to what extent the infamous academy taught the vilest spells to children, but it was obviously paying off in this war.
All of the wounded soldiers who made it somewhat alive from the border were crowded into infirmary tents. Their moans grated against Robin's ears. Lissa looked like she was going to be ill, and Maribelle wasn't faring much better. It struck Robin there and then that the Shepherds' two healers were not prepared for this magnitude of violence.
"Lissa, Maribelle," he addressed the young ladies a tad harshly. If they were going to survive, he needed them to acclimate fast. Maribelle must have been too upset to snap at him for not using their respective titles.
"Have you ever witnessed battles other than the average skirmish?"
Both of them shook their curly-haired heads.
Robin directed them to one of the medical tents. "I need a Fortify staff!" he called, and one tired cleric handed him the staff he'd asked for.
"Heal these people." Robin held the tool out between the healers, not caring who went first.
"All at once? That's preposterous! We haven't had enough training! This sort of healing magic takes years to master!" Maribelle's fair face was tinged with green. Robin couldn't quite blame her for that – the smell was awful. Ointments, open wounds, bodily fluids…ugh.
Robin made the sternest expression he could. "Then you better start learning or we're all going to die."
/
Robin allotted the Shepherds' healers three days to learn how to use a Fortify staff. It was more like two days – the last one was to be a day of rest so that their energy reserves would be ready to go on the fourth day. He checked in on them every few hours to make sure they were working – both of them, not Maribelle trying to do Lissa's work.
In his remaining time, Robin was trying to get a picture of what was happening on the battlefield. He thought it'd be easier to get information at the main camp than at the castle. He was wrong. The commanders were either dead or dying. Others were afraid to step up to lead for fear of ending up like their predecessors. They were at the point where even the promise of heaps of gold would not encourage them to come forward.
If Robin had met the soldiers a few months ago, he would have agreed with them. He'd once embraced the philosophy that his own skin was more valuable than anything else. And privately, he still clung to it. But his position as tactician relied on a ready supply of units to maneuver, as well as people to ensure that his orders were carried out.
Frederick and Sully would make the perfect morale builders, albeit their methods tended to be on the harsher side of encouraging.
/
While Robin had never considered himself religious, he was sure the war monk, Libra, was a blessing. The man was patient and calm, even amidst the confusion of war. His magical wards were the strongest of any of the available mages, and he tended to the wounded methodically without requiring excessive rest. Robin hoped Lissa and Maribelle would learn a thing or two from the war monk, especially how to keep a cool head despite the circumstances.
/
Days went by in a messy blur. Robin had never witnessed so much death in such a brief period of time. It wasn't shocking – they were at war – but the experience was unwanted.
It still bothered the tactician that he'd been put in a position in which he was responsible for others' lives when his whole life had been dedicated to serving himself. He never hurt anyone unless they were going to harm him first, and Robin certainly never wanted to kill people. Killing was messy and unpleasant; and the attention following that? Not worth it. A life of security (during peacetime) was balanced with being on the frontlines, fighting for a cause he had maybe adopted for himself.
/
Eventually, the Shepherds managed to hold their ground against the Plegian hordes. It wasn't a joyous occasion in the slightest.
No one whooped when the last Plegian ran back into the horizon. Instead, the tattered Ylissean military hauled their dead through the bloodied mud back to camp. Supper consisted of gruel and hardened bread and old cheese. No one joked that the cheese smelled better than the rotting bodies.
Robin remained in his tent, too overwhelmed to do much. He couldn't process what he'd just been through. The chaos of it all – nothing in his books or his studies could have prepared him for any of it. He'd counted on perfect obedience from his units, and it scared the living hells out of him when he saw his soldiers panic and break formation. Their fighting was sloppy, from fatigue or loss of morale, he didn't know. Blood still caked his fingernails. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. Robin couldn't get the stench of blood and shit out of his nose. Moreover, he couldn't get over the feeling that someone was watching him. Perhaps it was from being a target on the battlefield?
"Robin?" A gentle, semi-familiar voice called from outside the tent.
"Come in," Robin replied tersely. It had better be important.
Libra entered with the stealth of a thief.
"You haven't come to supper," the blonde man said. "I'm concerned."
Robin gave him a sideways look. "I'm relatively uninjured – don't you have dying patients to tend to?"
"I've taken care of who I could save." Libra said it serenely, like nothing about the whole situation bothered him. It was a skill Robin envied.
"How can you stay so calm?" Robin blurted out. "This was a disaster! I've never done any of this before – being in charge of other people's lives – that's a mad man's job!" He couldn't summon the energy to pace around.
Libra came closer, slowly, in a non-threatening manner. "I've accepted my role in the plan the gods have laid out," he began, "for a while I agonized that I was saving people with one hand and killing with the other. And when I've had to kill to save people from an excruciating end…I think that hurts the most."
"I mean no disrespect, but I don't think I share the same qualms."
Libra raised a critical brow. "Oh? Then why did you mention being in control of people's lives? It must have bothered you in some way." There was a sharp quality in Libra's gaze. He was definitely not the average, peace preaching holy man on the street. This was almost a predatory gaze.
"I don't want to be blamed for the deaths of those who didn't follow orders." Robin said after some thought. "I could care less whether they died at any other time."
The war monk seemed to evaluate him for a while. "I suspect you've got a good heart."
"Ha! You're a monk, not a jester," Robin snorted despite the exhaustion. "Sure, sure, I may not rob someone in the dead of night, but I certainly don't follow a code of chivalry."
"Hardly any knights do," Libra remarked. "But in order for you to feel any better about this, you must face the reality of what you're experiencing and why."
"Can we talk about this later?" Robin meant to say "never" but he couldn't bring himself to be that rude to the man who had saved many of the Ylissean troops.
Libra nodded with a gentle smile. "Of course. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here."
/
In the end, Robin had wound up speaking with Libra after a few days. The man had a way with words – and it was as if having a conversation with Libra had healing properties.
It wasn't miracle work – Robin couldn't forget what he'd experienced, but he wasn't as taut as a bowstring anymore. It was hard to explain, even to himself. He would cope. He had to – more bloodshed was on the horizon.
What was aggravating the tactician now was that during their battles, he had seen blurs of black darting through the air. Aversa had been right there, fighting with the Plegians. And yet, she never fired a curse at him. Not that Robin wanted to get cursed. But for all her talk, he had at least expected a face-to-face encounter.
But that wasn't Aversa's style.
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