The Hardest to Kill

Chapter 1: A Battle with Ylisse

"Alright, you scum! Up, now! Today's the day!"

The captain's mustache quivered as he bellowed into the tent, rousing all eight of its inhabitants with a start. Those closest to the flap fought the urge to wipe the stray spittle from their faces as their commandant continued to spew orders at them. With trained precision and promptness, the eight soldiers paired off, each helping their partner slide into the armor plates emblazoned with the national crest of Plegia: the six eyes of their patron deity.

As Captain Faralan stalked away to rouse other tents, one soldier whispered into his co-lancer's ear as she slid the plates over his chest, "So… What's today?"

"Are you serious?" She pulled the straps perhaps a little tighter than necessary to punctuate the incredulity of her hissed response. "The Ylissean Exalt's execution? You managed to forget that? I swear, you'd forget your shield if it weren't strapped to your damn arm." With that, she finished strapping him up. "Seriously though, you need to be on your game today. This Ylissean league is not to be taken lightly, not since they sided with Ferox."

Turning and noticing her eyes narrowed in thought, he replied, "Is it going to bother you? I mean, technically some of them will be your countrymen, right?"

She blinked, then looked at him. "No, I… It's fine. They're my countrymen only in the sense that they look like me." It was true that she didn't exactly look the part for a typical Plegian. Unlike Walker, with his pale skin, dark blue-teal hair, and grey eyes, her skin was a caramel color, with dark hair and green eyes; in short, she stood out in a crowd among her peers. "Ferox is where I was born, but Plegia raised me, and the comrades I have in this army are worth more than shared skin tone any day."

He breathed a sigh of relief; when his co-lancer was on edge, he found he couldn't help but be as well. "I've got your back, Carlisle. Don't worry."

"The fact that I have to count on you is what makes me worry, Walker," Carlisle replied, smirking inwardly. Walker looked a little stung, taking a bite out of some stale bread he had saved from the march to the battlefield. "I'll take the javelins today, you take the steel lance," she said, already strapping the javelin quiver to her back without waiting for a reply.

"What a relief, I'll be taking the brunt of their swords, then-" Walker began to retort, but was cut off by the blast of a lookout's horn that even from this distance managed to shake his ribs.

Captain Faralan's voice boomed across their section of camp. "Ylisseans sighted north of the temple, heading southbound! Prepare to engage!" As the eight filed out of the tent wordlessly, they fell in line with the other nearby tents, marching toward the battlefield and forming ranks. The lookout's eyesight must have been stellar, because from where Walker stood he could see only a vaguely different-colored blur on the horizon, distorted by the heat waves of the already-baking desert sand.

Meanwhile, the sun shone brightly into the bleary eyes of the Plegian soldiers, causing a collective squint. Walker slowly pulled his helmet on, already lamenting how the insulating metal trapped the heat against his head. Beside him, Carlisle grimaced as she did the same.

He took note of the general mood around him; it felt quiet, but not like a peaceful spring morning's quiet. It was somewhere between the silence before a predator pounces and the calm before a massive storm. Behind him, he heard whispered, "I heard that the Ylisseans absolutely trounced the detachment in the north. No word of any survivors yet. There's word they've even got a manakete-"

"SILENCE!" bellowed the now-armored Faralan. His mustache shook with a mixture of nerves and excitement, his axe wrapped in his gauntleted fingers. "Wyvern riders, you're with me today. They have a few pegasus knights, but with the vast majority of their air unit captured already, we will have the edge in the air today. We will be making use of that edge, especially considering the sandy terrain. We were born and raised in these sands, but those pampered easterners had no such experience."

"Despite that they must have done well in the north, seeing as they're here now…" someone muttered.

The captain cleared his throat, making way for a man in a thick, red armor shell to approach. He looked like he had seen his share of battles, and Walker could see several thin scars on his face. "General Campari," someone muttered, and Walker recalled the many stories he had heard about Campari the Ox in the last war that Ylisse's previous Exalt had waged on Plegia. His presence carried a certain weight, and the soldiers stood a little taller as the general looked at them.

The general held his weapon aloft as he spoke. "Now then, for those in the lancer corps, you will bear your nation's honor today. While those in the wyvern unit come around and box them in, you will be the wall against which they break. They will be caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object, and so they will be crushed by our might! Your might! The might of Plegia!" The soldiers cried out in assent, clattering their shields and weapons and stomping on the ground. "And now we will see a show of that might! Behold, here approaches our king, His Highness Gangrel!" The soldiers cheered all the louder as the sharply dressed king stood at the top of the steps to the temple and beamed down at them. Above him, the soldiers got their first glimpse at the captive Exalt as she was led up the stone spire.

Between the eastern morning sun and the distance, Walker could not make out Ylisse's ruler very well. Her robes had been left on, but weeks of captivity had left them noticeably tattered. She looked worn, but her head was held high.

Gangrel's commanding, clear voice drew the eyes of every soldier. "Good people! Warriors of Plegia! Welcome! Welcome, one and all!" the king called, gesturing to the army before him. "Your anticipation electrifies the air!" And he spoke truly, as Walker felt the soldiers on all sides of him bristle with energy.

With a furious wave of his hand, Gangrel proceeded. "We ALL remember the crimes of Ylisse! Would you have their witch-queen answer for them?" The soldiers cheered their assent. The Exalt closed her eyes. "Here?" Gangrel called over the cheers, "Today? NOW?" The cheering grew to a crescendo as the soldiers once more beat their weapons together in bloodlust. "YEEEEEEEEEEEES!" The king cried, the soldiers reaching near delirium, caught up in the moment. "Finally, we will have JUSTICE!" It took a sharp rap of the captain's axe handle against the ground to keep everyone in their place at this point.

The king of Plegia pointed his gloved hand at the Exalt. "EXECUTIONER!" Walker could have sworn he saw the Exalt give a tiny flinch at the word. "If you would be so kind…" The soldiers of Plegia fell silent. The executioner, a Plegian fighter decked in the fur armor of a traditional warrior of the western forested region, raised his axe solemnly.

Suddenly, a voice rang out, splitting the morning air: "FLAVIA!" In that instant, a glint of sunlight flew from the pillars on the west side of the temple over to the execution spire, and in the time it took Walker to register that an axe had been thrown, the executioner was already clutching his chest, stumbling, and toppling off the side of the spire, hitting the ground with a sickening crack. "EVERYONE! NOW!" the same voice rang out, and suddenly that distant blur was not so distant. Or perhaps that wasn't quite right…

"An advance party! They snuck up in the night! To arms, NOW!" Faralan cried, scrambling over to his wyvern and climbing on, closely followed by the rest of the wyvern unit. Meanwhile, Walker and the others in the lancer corps rushed to form east-west ranks to intercept the Shepherds. Before the first of the bogged-down cavalry had fought their way out of the sand, the wyvern riders had swooped down, cleaving with their axes and taking a few infantrymen out. One man was lifted by Faralan's wyvern's hindlimbs, taken up fifty feet or so, and dropped onto his fellow Ylisseans, flattening a few more of them. However, the response from the archers and mages was prompt, and soon arrows, fire bolts, and blades of wind magic were flying through the air. One wyvern's wings were perforated by a volley of arrows, veering off into the ground and crashing into the bloodstained sand.

Meanwhile, the lancer corps stood their ground, glaring from their phalanx as the cavalry broke free of the desert sand and onto the harder packed ground southwest of the temple. As the charge approached, a volley of javelins was launched from behind the front line, catching a few riders and slowing more than a few horses. Still, the Ylissean cavalry hit the front line, testing the might of the Plegian formation and, at a few points, finding it wanting. From there, formations shifted, and the Plegians backed up, attempting to reorganize for another impact. The surprise of the Ylissean assault had certainly caught Plegia's army off-guard.

That was when another variable was thrown into the equation. "WAR MONKS!" someone screamed, "FROM THE SOUTHWEST!" The north-facing phalanx was thrown into disarray as soldiers turned to look at the source of the scream: a young dark mage kept crying to the infantry before an axe was buried in his throat. As he fell, a woman in monk robes with blonde, but bloodstained, hair grimaced as she pulled the axe from the wound.

The lieutenant called from the front line of the phalanx, "Back line! Engage the priests!" Immediately, Walker and the rest of his tentmates, as well as a few other tents' worth of soldiers, detached from the phalanx and ran to engage the priests before they could get to the Ylissean cavalry and begin healing. Plegian healers were limited, as most Plegian mages were gifted mainly in the dark arts, but the eastern nation had no such shortage. Therefore, stopping that resource from reaching the rest of the enemy's forces took top priority.

Unfortunately, that meant lancers taking on axe-wielders, meaning they were at a weapon disadvantage. That didn't seem to sway Carlisle, however, as she hurled a javelin at one of the healers, catching him in the chest and sending him sprawling out onto the sandy ground. Another war monk found his way to Walker, taking a wide swing at his head. Walker ducked, taking a sweep at the monk's legs with the back of his lance, but the monk recovered quickly and dodged the swipe, following up with a kick to Walker's chest, knocking him back a few feet and onto a knee. "Down!" he heard his co-lancer's voice call, so he hesitated in getting up long enough for her to hurl a javelin at the monk. Seeing the throw coming, the monk raised his axe and blocked the small spear with its wide blade. However, that left him open for the follow-up from Walker, who lunged with his lance, stabbing into the healer's abdomen. He gasped, doubling over and attempting a swing, but the superior length of Walker's weapon kept the distance safe. Walker twisted the lance slightly as he pulled out, feeling some skin tear on the way out. Before he could think about it, and deliberately not looking at the man's face, he kicked the healer in the chest, knocking him onto his back, then immediately plunged the lance into his chest.

"Brother Herel!" the monk woman cried, storming over to the pair and taking a wild swing with her axe. Her fury was evident, each swing coming with a burning rage that Walker's slower weapon couldn't hope to keep up with as the woman closed the gap. He tried futilely to take steps back, but the woman pressed, swinging closer and closer. Carlisle stood helplessly, waiting for a chance to throw but terrified of hitting her co-lancer.

Walker yelped, "A little help, Carlisle?!" Finally, she grasped the javelin as if it were a longer lance and charged, relieving Walker of his backward trajectory and helping push back against the wildly fighting woman.

As she was pressed back between the onslaught of the two lancers, she closed her eyes for a moment and muttered, "Gods forgive me," then ducked under the jabs of both her opponents and took an expert swing at Walker's legs. As the armor on the side of his thighs was less sound than the front, the axe glided through the limited protection with ease, digging deeply into his leg. With a scream, he was dropped to a knee, before dropping to the ground completely not long after, holding his leg and attempting to stem the rapid bleeding.

"Walker!" Carlisle cried, looking at him for a moment before turning back to her opponent. She engaged the monk with a new fury, meeting her eyes with a fiery rage in her face. Meanwhile, the monk looked calmer than ever, and looked at the Plegian soldier with pity and sorrow.

Holding off the assault of the lancer, she uttered, "I am truly sorry. My emotions got the best of me." With that, she deftly knocked the javelin from Carlisle's hands, and turning the axe in her hands, hit her squarely in the head, dropping her like a rock.

Walker writhed on the ground; he had never known pain like this in his life. He felt the blood pour from the wound and watched the parched sand drink it up like a sponge. Not long after that, he felt the pain grow even worse, as if the wound was moving on its own. A million tiny needles stabbed into his leg as the flesh pulled together, and the pain was so intense that, coupled with the loss of blood, he felt his dizzy head hit the sand, and then there was nothing.

Sand.

Heat. Hot. Helmet. Helmet hot. Pull off the helmet. Better. Cooler.

Move leg. Right leg, check. Left leg, ouch, but surprisingly, check.

Stand up? Kneel, breathe, breathe, when did kneeling get so hard?

Stand. Woozy. That's a lot of blood. Is that mine? Look down. Yes, that's mine.

Suddenly everything rushed back to Walker. "Carlisle!" he cried, seeing her crumpled form not far from him. He stumbled over, almost falling once, and fell to his knees beside her, checking her head. The helmet was dented, but not penetrated. She had been knocked out, but left alive and breathing, and his leg had been healed. Had the monk woman healed him? Why? She had seemed so intent on killing them before. What changed?

Carlisle was not waking up, even as he shook her shoulders lightly to try to get a response. He looked over to the battlefield for the first time since he woke up.

Utter chaos. At some point the pegasus knights of Ylisse must have been released, because the conflict in the air was raging as wyvern and pegasus clashed and swooped over one another in an intricate dance of death. The Plegian dark mage regiment had started working into the cavalry, but the Shepherds were dropping the mages like flies. One of the mages on the Ylissean side looked awfully familiar, though…

"That's… one of ours," Walker said out loud as the mage in question let loose a blast of dark lightning that, even from this distance, he could tell had literally popped the eyes from another dark mage's skull.

Aaaaand that was all he needed. Walker bent over and vomited into the sand, recognizing a couple hastily chewed bread bits from this morning. Willing himself to stay conscious, Walker cautiously stood, taking a few tentative steps toward the battle. He had lost a lot of blood, but he still had the strength to stand, and with this much going in Ylisse's favor, his comrades needed his help. His… comrades…

He looked behind him briefly, and saw a smattering of bloodstained priests, skewered by Plegian lances, as well as just as many if not more of his fellow soldiers lying in different positions on the ground. The blonde woman was nowhere to be seen. "She must have made her way to the Shepherds," he muttered, cursing his inferior skills. That's just one more resource for the Shepherds, and with most of the main force tied up with Feroxi soldiers, the temple regiment was running out of good news. "Damn."

Figuring that Carlisle was safer here than nearer to the conflict, he left her there after staking up a small banner for shade to prevent her overheating and shuffled off toward the heat of the battle. As he moved, he recalled the small vial of vulnerary he kept in his pouch; mercifully, it had not broken from the axe swing. He took a grateful swig and immediately felt a significant measure of power return to his body. The tips of his fingers tingled with newfound energy.

As he walked with a new spring in his step, he realized his lance had been left behind. However, he passed a fallen Ylissean cavalier, whose sword lay on the ground beside him. "That's more like it," he muttered, taking up the sword and testing its balance. "I'm sorry," he added to the prone cavalier as he stood and took a few swings as he stalked toward the clashing armies.

He heard a crash behind him as a pegasus knight hit the ground, mount-first. The arrows in the pegasus were indicative of its fate; however, the rider had survived the fall. She quickly dismounted and, seeing the momentarily surprised Walker, screamed a war cry and charged, ripping out a thin rapier and lunging.

"Your! General! Is! Dead! Just! Give! Up!" the borderline-hysterical woman cried, punctuating each word with a blow and keeping Walker on the defensive with her longer blade. General Campari was dead? That explained the disorganization on the Plegian side, Walker noted, then with his wider blade decided to test for strength and press forward. In the rider's panic at being grounded, she was easily cowed and allowed herself to be pushed back. Her thin blade was not enough to stop Walker's mighty swings without a great deal more focus than she was showing, and as a result he quickly overpowered her. With a brutal swing downward, he hit the rapier from her hand, earning a brief yelp from her. His training took over, and without a moment's hesitation his blade entered and left her throat. The panic in her eyes increased tenfold as the ability to breathe left her, and she clamored forward, grabbing Walker's chestplate with pleading eyes as the life slowly drained from her. Not long after, she dropped to the ground, faintly gurgling. Walker fought the urge to vomit again, instead turning and running for the temple to attempt to rally with the other soldiers.

However, it was too late for that. As he neared the temple steps, he heard a familiar voice cry out in pain. He looked up and over his shoulder to see Captain Faralan, an arrow through his chest, plummeting toward the ground. As the dead commanding officer fell from his mount with a faint whump into the sand, most of the remaining soldiers laid down their arms. To Walker's surprise, once the Plegians had surrendered, the Ylisseans stopped their attack immediately. He too dropped his sword and awaited his fate. The dark mage from before commanded him to his knees, and he obliged. In the distance, he could see a large, ornately decorated pegasus and its rider flying up to the top of the spire to collect the Exalt.

Then, just when Walker was trying to work out how to apologize for fighting on the opposite side, there was a scream, and the pegasus's rider was falling back to the earth, just below the spire. As she fell, Walker could see a long arrow sticking in one end of her chest and out the other. Suddenly, Gangrel was standing among the corpses in the courtyard, grinning ear to ear as a squad of archers emerged seemingly from nowhere.

These were no ordinary soldiers, though. They seemed almost… dead. As if they were barely held together at all. But then they gave the impression of being impossibly strong at the same time. The way they moved, the miasmic purple vapor that escaped from every orifice of their bodies, everything seemed just a little bit out of place. They looked wrong.

Suddenly, the air was filled with arrows as every pegasus knight still in the sky was riddled with them, sent plummeting to the ground. Walker heard King Gangrel's gleeful laughter as they fell, and closer by a young man in - was that a Plegian cloak? - shook his head and repeated, "No no no no-" over and over, eyes darting wildly back and forth as if looking for a solution. Gangrel slowly began strutting down the stairs, smirking as he approached the Ylissean prince.

"I believe this is what they call a reversal of fortunes." His smirk shifted to a full grin. "Now… grovel before me. Plead! BEG for your worthless lives!" His eyes were wide, greedily drinking in the sight of his defeated and trapped enemies.

However, the prince stood firm, gripping his sword all the more tightly. His eyes narrowed in venomous determination, he barked, "I'd give up my life before I'd beg for it from you!"

Gangrel, unimpressed, cackled and spat back, "Oh, now THAT is a good line. A fitting epitaph for your tombstone, perhaps?" He turned, walking toward the spire and looking over his shoulder mockingly at the prince. "But it's not just your life in the balance. The Exalt still stands upon the block." He gestured to the company of archers. "And I have a dozen bows trained on her. All it would take is one word from me…"

The prince finally looked away from the king, and instead looked to the Exalt, eyes widening with fear as he realized the precarious position he had been thrust into. "Emm!" It struck Walker to hear the distant, elegant Exalt referred to on such familiar terms. "Hold on, I'm-"

Gangrel interrupted the prince with a stomp onto a fallen rider's head. "ARCHERS! If this Ylissean pup so much as twitches, let fly your arrows!" Walker looked again at the silver-haired man in the Plegian coat, at this point his head whipping around, the way out not evident to him.

The prince started toward King Gangrel, muttering, "I… I'll kill you!" but was promptly held back by the silver-haired man, who gripped his shoulder in a panic, shaking his head.

The king, however, was all for it, stepping up to the prince and barking at his face, spittle flying, "Go ahead! I welcome it. Just know you were responsible for Big Sister's bloody demise!" He looked past the frothing prince, who by some miracle stood still for now, at the rest of the Ylissean forces. "And what of the rest of you? Eh?" He spread his arms out wide. "Who wants the honor of killing the Exalt?" He waited a moment. "No one? Bah!" He turned back to the prince, with a mock grimace. "Your merry band isn't quite so headstrong anymore, is it?" Nearby, a pegasus knight that had survived her fall groaned. The king walked over and kicked her squarely in the chest, earning a pained yelp. "Pathetic," he said, voice dripping with glee.

The prince reached out toward the fallen knight. "Damn you!" he said to the king, eyebrows furrowed in growing fury. A few of the undead archers growled in response, but did not shoot.

The king paused, turning to the prince. "Now, now, my boy - no one needs die today. Not you. Not the Exalt. Not your friends." As if to show his sincerity, he picked up the rider he had kicked in the chest, hoisting her onto her feet, and pushed her toward the Ylissean army, where she fell into the hands of a waiting dismounted cavalier. "Just lay down your sword, and give me the Fire Emblem."

Walker had heard that term before. The Fire Emblem. It was said to be the undoing of the Grimleal's patron god, many centuries before. When spoken of in the army, it was always in hushed tones, as if afraid the mention of the item would bring its burning vengeance crashing down anew. But why did Gangrel want it? Was this the real purpose of the execution?

The prince closed his eyes for a moment. "...I…" he began, but was interrupted by the silver-haired man.

"Chrom! You can't trust him!" he cried with a hint of desperation, gripping the prince's shoulder all the tighter.

The prince whirled around, facing the man. "Of COURSE I can't trust him! I'm not an idiot!" He looked down somewhat, and shouted at the ground, "But if I just say no, he'll kill her!" More quietly, but just loud enough for Walker to hear, he muttered, "The gods are cruel, damn them! My sister or my duty… A problem with no right answer, yet I must choose?" Above the scene, Walker noticed the Exalt raise her hand and open her mouth briefly, as if to say something, but she then decided against it.

The silver-haired man trembled, eyes closed. A few seconds later, his fist clenched, and he looked his leader in the eye. "I know it's hard to admit, Chrom, but-" his fist clenched even tighter, the nails digging into his palms, "it's the only choice. Compared to the lives of thousands, one person, any one person, is-"

The prince looked ready to punch the tactician in the face. "DON'T! Just… Don't say it." The king clearing his throat drew the attention of both of them.

"What's this?" Gangrel asked in mock concern. "You'll let your sister and ruler die, all to save some old family trinket? Oh, so delicious! I can't WAIT to hear what your people have to say about it." Walker grimaced, considering just how important the Emblem must be to make a man consider dooming his own sister. He felt a pit of guilt in his stomach in spite of himself. What would he do himself, thrust in a corner like that? Walker chanced another glance at the Exalt, and saw her shaking her head slowly, eyes closed. Meanwhile, Gangrel was borderline prancing around, declaring in the style of a news crier, "THE EXALT IS DEAD! LONG LIVE HER MURDERER! Your halidom will collapse before you could even begin your rule."

Prince Chrom took a step forward, flexing his sword arm. "We'll see, when the time comes," he spat with determination. "But first, I'll see you dead." Gangrel's hand drifted toward the Levin sword strapped to his waist, and the prince raised his sword, pointing it at the Plegian king.

A cry came from above. "No, wait!" Exalt Emmeryn called, her palm outstretched as if to stop her brother from dozens of feet above them.

Gangrel whirled around and, in something between a hiss and a scream, declared, "SILENCE!" The prince looked up at his sister and muttered his nickname for her under his breath.

Emmeryn's voice was gentle, yet somehow, impossibly, every person could hear her perfectly. Was it magically magnified? She spoke levelly. "King Gangrel, is there no hope you will listen to reason?"

The king was less composed. His face was twisted in disgust as he replied, "You mean listen to more of your sanctimonious babble?! I think not." He glanced around at the archers, and continued, "No, all I want to hear now is the thunk of arrows, and a splat as you hit the ground. Take one, long, last look from your perch. You do so enjoy looking down on people…" His face shifted into a maniacal grin. "Then prepare to meet the ground, and your maker!" He turned to Prince Chrom and gave him a knowing look. "That is, unless someone were to give me the Emblem… now!" Exalt Emmeryn looked back and forth between the king and her brother, her mouth hanging open but no words forthcoming. She looked at a loss.

Walker had never been party to surrender negotiations before, but he wondered if they were always so dire. There was no way out for Ylisse now, he noted as he looked at an archer who moaned faintly, waiting for the order to fire.

Suddenly, the prince had shaken his tactician's hand off his shoulder. "ALL RIGHT!" he cried, then spoke in a more composed manner. "All right. Emm," he glanced at her, then turned back to Gangrel, "I know you won't approve, but this is my final decision. Maybe someday we'll face a crisis where maybe the Emblem would've helped, but I know for a fact that Ylisse needs you, today! The people need their Exalt…" he turned briefly to a young woman in a yellow cleric's dress nearby, "And we need our sister. If those dark days should come, we'll face them together."

Exalt Emmeryn looked at her brother, hand covering her mouth. After a moment, she lowered her hand, and curled it into a fist at her side. Though she spoke more quietly than ever, not a sound escaped anyone's ears. "Chrom… Th-thank you… I know now what I must do…"

"Emm, what are you-" Prince Chrom began, but with a touch on the arm from the tactician he closed his mouth for the moment.

The Exalt's voice took on a harder, clearer tone. "Plegians! I ask that you hear the truth of my words!" she said, raising both of her arms. The king looked on in shock, mouth agape. She gestured to the fields of the dead and the wounded that lay beyond the courtyard. "War will win you nothing but sadness and pain, both inside your borders and out." Walker thought of Carlisle, forced to stand against her own countrymen, wounded and left in the sand. He instantly felt sorry to have left her there. He thought of the pegasus rider he had killed. A hint of nausea returned on remembering the look in her eyes.

"Free yourselves from this hatred!" the Exalt continued. "From this cycle of pain and vengeance. Do what you must… As I will do." She took a step toward the edge of the spire. Walker realized what she must have meant, and found himself holding his breath. Gangrel, meanwhile, grinned in anticipation of what he could see she intended to do. Emmeryn's volume increased even more: "See now that one selfless act has the power to change the world!"

Prince Chrom, too, had realized her intention, and broke free of his tactician's grip and went sprinting after the spire. A few archers turned their bows toward the prince, but the king held up his hand, holding their fire. "Emm, no! No!" the prince screamed as he sprinted toward the spire, but it was too late.

She allowed gravity to take her, facing down with her hands folded in front of her as she fell. One second of emptiness, and then-

Thump.

Silence fell across the courtyard, seemingly for minutes on end. Walker allowed himself to breathe, but the breaths were shaky, and his hands trembled as he knelt. Then two sounds began at the same time. The yellow-clad cleric began sobbing and screaming the Exalt's name, and the Plegian king threw his head back and began cackling at the top of his lungs.

"Oh, gods…" the tactician said quietly, but the prince was much more volatile than his advisor.

"DAMN YOU, GANGREL!" he bellowed, getting up and starting toward the king, sword in hand. However, he was stopped by a few warning shots fired by the undead archers. He managed to regain enough composure to stop for the moment.

The king finally finished laughing, and glared at the prince, eyes aglow with glee. "Well now! How disgustingly noble. And so lovely a fall! Here I thought death to be an ugly thing," he said, gesturing casually at the growing pool of blood that surrounded the Exalt. "I've never seen one fall so gracefully, in fact… and I've seen many fall." He sighed, satisfied. "So ends Emmeryn, Ylisse's most exalted."

"Gangrel! You die today!" Prince Chrom declared, readying his sword.

Things began to move very quickly from there. Walker heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and then there were Feroxi warriors, barking orders and sheltering the Ylisseans as the archers opened fire on them, taking out a few of their soldiers but not stopping the bulk of them from escaping. Walker saw the prince being led out by the tactician, pushing him forward and forcing him away from the king. The Ylisseans, in their rush to escape, didn't bother doing anything with their surrendered prisoners from Plegia, so Walker stood, a little dazed, and absentmindedly picked up the Ylissean sword he had slain the rider with.

The archer company moved to pursue the Shepherds, stalking past the Plegians left behind. One of them stopped, looked at Walker, and, on seeing the Eyes of Grima on his chest plate, gave something between a grunt and a snarl and moved on its way. Walker wondered if that crest was the only thing that kept the undead from killing him as well.

Unsure of what to do, he looked at his king, who was currently bent over one of the fallen Feroxi. He approached cautiously, and saw the king pull out his Levin sword and point it at the soldier.

"I will ask once. What route are they using to escape?" Gangrel asked. After a few moments of silence, he stabbed the sword down into the man's thigh, letting loose some electricity as well. Over the man's screams he said, "I'm not repeating the question! Tell me! Now!"

"Go to hell!" the soldier responded. The king stabbed his other leg, earning a fresh scream, and twisted the zig-zagging blade in the wound.

"I can do this all day! I'll have one of my clerics heal you up and we'll start again!" True to his word, he motioned for a nearby woman to join him. He grabbed her wrist and pointed the staff at his legs, and a light shone and healed the wounds. The man cried out once again as the skin knit itself shut. He threatened with the blade again, raising it high.

"No! No! Please! The Midmire! The Midmire!" the soldier wept, shriveling in terror. "They're heading north through the Midmire," he repeated.

The king stooped down and grabbed his chin, raising his face and forcing eye contact. "Are you quite sure?" The man nodded furiously. "Thank you very much. You may go now," the king said, not looking away as he stabbed the man through the throat and electrified him senseless.

He then stood up and motioned to a surviving wyvern rider. "You there! Get the message to General Mustafa, stationed in the Midmire. The Ylisseans are coming, and he will stop them. Those are his orders, you have yours. Go!" The soldier sprinted off to his wounded mount, and forced the beast to take wing unsteadily. The king paused, taking a breath and looking around. After a few moments, he noticed Walker standing there, awaiting orders.

"You there! Is that your blood or Ylissean blood on your face?" Walker had not noticed that his face was caked in now-dry blood.

"It's Ylissean. A pegasus knight, Your Highness," he said a little numbly.

The king gestured at the sword in his hand. "Did you do it with that sword? With an Ylissean sword?" The lancer nodded. "Bwa hahahah! How lovely! Tell you what, I like that look in your eye. I'm going to give you a great honor. Collect her luminosity's body and see to it that it's delivered to my quarters by tonight. I think we will put her on display, after perhaps a little… modification."

Walker saluted his king, saying, "Yes, Your Highness," and began numbly walking toward the body. The king left the courtyard, talking quietly with the woman in black who accompanied him to the battlefield.

Walker reached the body, boots squelching a little in the blood. She lay face-down, her robes widely billowed out. Not sure how to proceed, he awkwardly reached toward her shoulder, and tried to lift it, only to find it strangely difficult. It almost seemed pinned to the ground.

Puzzled, he lifted the robes to see what the issue was, and his breath caught. Her shoulder was indeed pinned, stabbed by an arrow point. The same arrow that he had seen sticking out of the pegasus knight captain's chest. He looked down, and his suspicions were confirmed: she had landed squarely on top of the fallen knight. Most of the pool of blood was seeping from not the Exalt, but the knight beneath her. With a little force, he dislodged the arrow from Emmeryn's shoulder, and successfully flipped her onto her back. The pegasus knight's body was somewhat crushed from the fall, and looked like she died in great pain, but the Exalt herself looked at peace. Her eyes were closed, mouth just slightly ajar. The way she lay, it was almost as if she were sleeping rather than dead, especially the way her breathing was slow and deep and-

Wait. Breathing. That's not right.

Walker dropped to his knees, instinctively falling between the Exalt's body and the door the king had left through to cut off that line of sight. He pressed his ear to her chest, and when it lightly pushed his head up, his suspicions were confirmed.

She was alive.

"Oh, shit."

A/N: Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. From here on, there will be very little recounting of in-game events directly. I'm always open to and appreciative of criticism, as I always want to be doing my best possible work. See you all next chapter!