Chapter Text
Falling too fast to prepare for this, tripping in the world could be dangerous, everybody circling, it's vulturous, negative, nepotist...
There was no way, Inigo thought, that this day could possibly get any worse.
And then, like someone had cast a particularly nasty hex in his direction, it promptly got worse.
Getting woken out of a sound sleep by a downpour of “epic” proportions (so called by Owain) hadn’t been bad enough. They no sooner had time to complain of their rude awakening before they were attacked by an admittedly small pack of Risen. The undead creatures were no match for their little band of four, but in the chaos their food, already running low, had been trampled and destroyed.
And, five hours later, it was still raining.
Inigo was tired, hungry, cold, and wet, and Ylisstol was still maddeningly far away. So surely, aside from perhaps the sudden appearance of Grima himself, he could only go uphill from here.
The boy let out a sigh, sending a wisp of blue-black fringe fluttering out of his face. In another world, he thought, the forest they trudged through might have been beautiful, but his keen eyes only saw death, destruction, and hazards. Winter would be setting in soon, and a thick carpet of wet brown leaves slipped under foot. The trees were not yet bare enough, though, to allow any good visibility, making another ambush all too likely.
The scent of decay hung thick in the air, but Inigo was far too used to filtering that out. He didn’t think the stink of death had ever left his nostrils since the Fell Dragon had risen from his thousand-year sleep. One by one, every authority figure in his life had fallen before Grima’s might. His parents, his aunt and uncle, friends’ parents that might as well have been aunts and uncles... until, eventually, there was no one left but a scared band of a dozen teenagers fighting against impossible odds for the fate of the very world.
He sighed again, earning a side-eye from the boy beside him. “Quit the sighin’, will ya? Yer making me depressed,” Brady said, stepping over a puddle.
“Oh, Naga forbid that,” Inigo muttered in reply, rolling his eyes before he returned to scanning the trees. Ahead, the broadsword strapped to Owain’s back glinted dully silver in the stormy light. Inigo shot a glance over his shoulder, double-checking that the final member of their group was still behind him. Indeed, the last Taguel in the world treaded almost noiselessly over the ground, his rabbit-like ears twitching at every sound. Inigo met Yarne’s eyes and gave a short nod.
When he looked back, Owain had stopped, one hand held up for silence. His other went to the hilt of his sword, not yet drawing it but still making Inigo’s drop to the grip of his own katana.
After a moment’s pause, Owain turned back to the rest. “Yarne?” he murmured, nodding to the north. “You hear anything?”
The Taguel perked up, sniffing and looking in the direction Owain had gestured. Yarne’s superior senses had gotten them out of more than their share of sticky situations in the past, and even if the Taguel could probably catch wind of an enemy before the three humans, Inigo still found himself straining to hear some sign of Risen.
A high pitched squeak from Yarne broke the tense silence. “Yes,” he breathed. “L-lots of them.”
Inigo cursed under his breath. “Risen, I’m sure.”
“It does seem we are having such accursed luck that Risen would be our most likely opponents,” Owain said, drawing his sword with a theatrical flourish. “In days to come, the bards shall tell of Owain Dark’s Most Terrible Day. Nay, ‘terrible’ does not do justice to the suffering we have endured so far. Owain Dark’s Most Abhorrent Day? Owain Dark’s Most Ghastly Day? Owain Dark’s—”
“Owain,” Inigo snapped. “Shut up and move.”
Seeming to flush a little bit through the rain, Owain shot him a glare, cleared his throat, and said, “Right.”
Gradually, the shuffling moans of Grima’s undead servants grew loud enough for their entire party to hear, and no matter which direction they took nothing made the sound dissipate. The trees, on the other hand, were beginning to thin, to Inigo’s chagrin. Open ground might make it easier to see the Risen and get an estimate of their numbers, but it would also make it easier for the Risen to see them.
Despite his reservations, the woods cleared, a long plain stretching out ahead of the group. Inigo looked over the open ground in an instant, eyes widening as his grip on his sword tightened. “Knights!” he called, all pretense of stealth abandoned. “Risen knights!” A dozen of them fanned out across the field, all mounted on sickly looking, Risen horses. This wasn’t the group of stragglers they’d met earlier—this was a group that outmatched them in every way.
Owain, too, had sized up the situation as quickly as Inigo, and though it seemed to pain him to say it, he let out a cry of, “Run for it!”
Their one and only saving grace was the fact that Risen horses, like their human-esque counterparts, were not as quick as their living cousins. As Inigo’s lungs began to burn, he could only think that if they had been fighting flesh and blood they would have all been skewered by now.
Not that the alternative of being run down by dead people really held that much more appeal.
It felt like a small eternity passed before they came across a great chasm, spanned only by a flimsy wood-and-rope bridge. They were forced to pull up, and Owain, huffing, was the first to speak.
“Infernal Risen!” he cried. “Have we lost them yet?”
Inigo shot a glance backward. “I hate to tell you, but they’re right on our tail...”
“What?” Yarne cried. “Y-you’re kidding! I can’t run another step... Ahh, it’s all over... I guess this is extinction.”
Brady rolled his eyes. “Would you can it already? We need to keep movin’! If we don’t deliver Argent and Sable to Ylisse, this entire world’s hosed!”
Automatically, Inigo reached for his pocket where the two gemstones they had risked so much for had spent the last several days, even though he knew he had passed them off to Brady. Two little stones that would help save the world. If they could get them to Ylisstol, if their friends succeeded in getting the other three and the legendary Fire Emblem, if they all managed to make it to Mount Prism to perform the Awakening...
If anyone could pull it off, he told himself firmly, it was Lucina. The Princess—Exalt, technically, although she refused to officially take up the title—was the glue that held their entire group together. Without her, their world would have been long lost.
Irritating as her perfectionism might be at times, Inigo thought, there was no woman he would have been prouder to call his sister.
“Blast!” Owain said, abruptly jerking Inigo from his introspection. “More Risen up ahead!” His voice dropped. “Heh, a pincer attack. Clever.”
“Here,” Inigo said. “The bridge up ahead.” He paused. “But if the Risen box us in...”
“Never mind that,” Owain interrupted. “Brady, Yarne, go! Inigo and I will hold this side of the bridge while you secure the other!”
“You got it!” Brady said, already heading for the flimsy bridge at a jog.
“B-but I’m afraid of heights,” they heard Yarne say as he followed.
Inigo drew his katana, reveling in the lightweight sword as he made for the near side of the bridge. Unlike Owain, who fought like an overly loud tornado with a heavy, double-bladed broadsword, Inigo favored a weapon that was as quick and nimble as himself. He had occasionally dwelled on the fact that they had ended up as the mirror images of their fathers—while Inigo’s father Chrom had used the legendary sword Falchion, a weapon even larger and more unwieldy than Owain’s sword, Owain’s father had fought in the blindingly fast offensive style Inigo used. Inigo wished he could have learned more from Lon’qu before he had passed.
Yet again, Owain pulled him back to the present. “They’re here, Inigo. Stay vigilant!”
“Don’t worry,” Inigo assured him with a grim smile. “I’m not letting a single one of those Risen get across.” Not while I still draw breath, he added silently, before wondering just how much longer that would be.
It was then he fully realized that the Risen that had been chasing them had paused their advance, not encroaching on the chokepoint Owain and Inigo held. Inigo risked a glance backward and felt his stomach drop.
“ Hey!” Brady yelled just as he did. “Owain! Inigo! You need to get down here, now! We got a whole army of dead flesh marchin’ in from the west!”
That would be what the Risen were waiting for.
“We’d better cross the bridge,” he told Owain absently, trying to recalculate their plans on the fly. He was no tactician, though, and everything was coming up empty. He glanced over at the other boy when the only response he got was an uncharacteristic quiet. “Owain?”
“If we cross the bridge now, those Risen are gonna follow us,” Owain said. “Right?”
“Right. Almost definitely.”
“That’s if we’re lucky. If we’re unlucky, they’ll rip us to shreds the second we turn around.”
“True,” Inigo said. “We’ll have to back our way across.”
“But that’ll take too long, especially if we have to hold them off as we go,” Owain pointed out. “Brady doesn’t even have a weapon. How are you, me, and Yarne going to protect him once we’re surrounded?”
“The odds are not good, I agree, but...” Inigo swallowed hard and looked out at the Risen again. “We have to try.”
“No,” Owain said. “I’ve got a better idea.”
The other boy’s voice was tight in a way that instantly put Inigo on guard. “Uh... okay?”
“I’ll hold off the Risen while you cross. Once you make it to the other side, cut down the bridge.”
“And strand you here?” Inigo cried. “Are you crazy? No, never mind, I know the answer to that, but what are you thinking?”
“Just shut up and go!” Owain yelled, his voice betraying him with a crack. “We don’t have time to argue about this! Do you want me to die, or do you want all of us to die?”
Inigo’s throat worked wordlessly, and Owain continued with a sigh.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to shout. But you know what’s at stake here!”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
Inigo glanced over again. “And you’re sure there’s no way we can fight and survive this together?”
After a heavy pause, Owain answered, “I’m sure.”
Looking out at the still unmoving Risen, Inigo let out a sigh and made up his mind. “All right.”
“I’m sorry to make you do this, Inigo,” Owain continued, oblivious. “But... I’m glad I got to spend my last moments with you. Now cross that bridge and go! The fate of the world is in your hands!”
Inigo only cracked another grim smile.
“Um. Inigo. This is the part where you go.”
“Sorry, Owain. I can’t do it.”
For a moment, Owain’s serious expression cracked into offense. “What? But my epic speech!”
Ignoring him, Inigo turned back to look over the bridge. “Brady! Yarne!” he bellowed. “Go on without us!”
With two quick, sharp motions, his katana sliced through the ropes holding the bridge.
“Inigo, you idiot!” Owain cried, covering over the confused words of Yarne and Brady from the other side. “We didn’t both have to die!”
“I’m not the one being an idiot!” Inigo shouting, rounding on him. Owain blinked. “Maybe your plan is the best way to get the Gemstones back to Ylisse, but what am I supposed to tell Lucina and the others? ‘Oops, sorry! Owain sacrificed himself!’ Your parents died for you, Owain! They died for all of us! We’re two of the last three people in the entire world that still carry the Mark of Naga, in case you’ve forgotten! So I don’t care how smart you think it sounds, you’re not throwing your life away!”
Inigo’s chest heaved with his outburst, while Owain shot an automatic glance down at his arm, where he bore the royal Brand of the Exalt. Inigo had no such luxury, with his own Brand gracing his right eye, opposite where his sister had hers.
“But if I don’t do this, the world is gonna...” Owain started softly, before trailing off.
“Stop,” Inigo said. “We can save the world together. Don’t you want to be there to see it? I’m not leaving the Gemstones or my friends behind, Owain. You want to fight? We’ll fight. Both of us. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not taking no for an answer.”
After a moment, Owain chuckled. “Heh. All right, fine. I suppose I was too legendary to die anyway. Very well, then. Let’s crush these Risen and head home to Ylisse!”
“Now you’re talking!”
He didn’t stop to look back at Yarne and Brady, just pushed forward.
If he was going to die, he was going out in a blaze of glory. Too bad there weren’t any girls around to appreciate it.