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“Run! Go!” Chrom shoved at Robin's shoulder to push the tactician ahead of him, spinning around at the last moment to block the blade that descended at his back.
A flare of flame from behind him stopped the Risen in its tracks, and Chrom took the chance to spear the monster through the chest and rip his falchion out through its side. “Keep moving,” he panted, shoving at Robin again.
They'd been separated from the rest of their forces when the Shepherds had been ambushed. It was all Chrom's fault—he'd wanted to take his friend aside to ask advice for a personal question, and instead of waiting until they'd safely made camp he'd pulled Robin to the rear and let them fall too far behing the rest of the party.
“Chrom!” Robin threw himself back, colliding with the prince, knocking him out of the way as a spear plunged through the air. “They're circling around us.”
Chrom shifted his grip on his falchion. “Any ideas?”
Robin's dark eyes darted around wildly. “There,” he nodded toward his left, “there's a break in their ranks, we might be able to get through.”
Following Robin's gesture, Chrom shook his head. “That would take us further from the others.”
“I know,” Robin broke off as a Risen broke free of the undergrowth and charged. He had his own sword in one hand and ducked under the monster's swing, the blow glancing off his sword, and came up behind it to fire a blast of Elfire into its back.
Chrom leaped and turned a quick somersault in the air, landing both feet on the Risen's shoulders and burying his sword down through the back of its neck. “We can't hold them here.”
“We'll circle around,” Robin explained. He'd put both sword and spell tome away to retrieve another—an Arcthunder tome—which he leveled at another Risen and sent it crumbling with a blast of magic.
“How many of those are you carrying?” Chrom wondered as he stepped in front of Robin to swipe another spear out of the air.
“I like books,” Robin shrugged. He'd ducked under Chrom's arm to send a streak of lightning at the nearest Risen. “Let's go!”
He didn't need a second warning. Chrom shoved Robin in front of him again, bearing for the slight break in the Risen surrounding them. “They'll catch up pretty quickly if we try to head up the slope,” he panted as the ground beneath their feet slanted upward. “I don't think we can outrun them.”
“Just to the ridge,” the tactician glanced over his shoulder at Chrom. “We can leap over it and slide down the embankment to the dry stream bed, then follow that back around to the rest of the group. The Risen won't be able to cut us off further along.”
There wasn't time to doubt his friend's plan—and Chrom wouldn't have anyway—so the prince doggedly followed his tactician up the slope and paused just long enough to put his shoulder to a boulder and heave with all of his might. Robin noticed, luckily, and added his strength and they sent the rock crashing down onto their pursuers.
“Now?” Chrom gasped. He'd taken a hit to one leg at some point, and a stitch was growing in his side.
“Now!” Robin seized him by the wrist and leaped over the slight ridge at the side of the path. It wasn't as hard a fall as Chrom had thought, thanks to the low slope of scree from a past rockfall. He was glad Robin had grabbed onto him before they jumped, as the rough slide down the rocky incline would have torn them away from each other otherwise.
“Robin!”
“I see it.”
A large stump protruded from the scree, its jagged edges dark against the browns and grays of the stone. Chrom grit his teeth and threw himself to the side, away from his friend, then used that momentum to roll back into Robin and knock them both out of the path of the stump. He let the momentum carry for a moment, tucking Robin up against him and letting his own armor bear most of the brunt of the slide.
And then, the ground was leveling out beneath them, and they were dumped unceremoniously into the soft mud at the edge of a shallow stream. Chrom let out a groan and pushed himself up, squinting down at the little trickle of water at the base of a much wider basin. “I thought you said this was a dry stream bed?”
“Map...old map,” Robin gasped. He hadn't gotten up, and lay curled in the mud with an arm wrapped around his middle.
“Robin?” mud forgotten, Chrom was on his knee beside his friend in an instant. “Are you wounded?”
Robin shakily pulled his hand away to reveal a long, bloody tear in his tunic. “Must've...caught on something. You?”
“A few scratches.” Chrom rocked back on his heels. Up the hill he could see the Risen beginning to climb the ridge they'd jumped over, the monsters' bulk making hampering their movements. Chrom leaned down to tug one of Robin's arms over his shoulders and pull his friend to his feet.
“Leave me,” Robin complained. “You have to...have to get back.”
“No way,” Chrom replied. “I'm not leaving you here to die. You said follow the stream?”
Robin nodded. He'd slipped the Arcthunder tome back into his belt and had his free hand wrapped around his stomach. “They can't...can't attack from the sides. But from behind...”
“Got it.” Chrom hauled them forward, fighting for traction in the mud. The Risen might be faster, but at least they couldn't be flanked. They just had to run and deal with enemy when they caught up. As long as they kept running.
“Now,” Robin gasped, dropping out of Chrom's grasp and pulling his Arcthunder free. Chrom spun to deflect a blow from a Risen that lunged at them from the higher bank. Robin fired a thunderbolt into the next, the magic passing so close to Chrom's body that it raised the hairs on his arms.
“Go!” Chrom hauled Robin to his feet and force his friend ahead of him as they struggled along the stream bed. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and managed to shove Robin down and throw himself back at the same time. The axe that would have parted his arm from his shoulder, or worse, caught in his cape instead and pulled him off balance.
“Elwind!”
Whirring blades of air caught the Risen under its chest plate, lifting it up and away from Chrom.
“You brought three?” he gasped, struggling to his feet, shoving his hands under Robin's arms to pull him up.
“I really like books,” Robin panted. “Look out!”
Chrom glanced over his shoulder to see the Risen behind him rising up, axe in its upraised hands. He threw himself on top of Robin, covering the tactician's body as much as possible.
The blow never landed. Chrom risked a glance up and saw Lon'qu, both feet braced in an unfamiliar stance, the Risen speared on the long blade of his sword.
“You all right?” the swordsman asked.
“There's more,” Chrom gestured to the monsters that had followed them to the stream bed. Overheard, a pegasus gave a battlecry as Cordelia and Sumia dove on the enemy still on the mountainside. Arrows flew from one side, a twist of dark magic from the other as the Shepherds emerged from the surrounding trees to charge the Risen.
“Chrom! Robin! Oh no...Chrom!” Lissa skidded to her knees beside him, mud already staining her yellow skirt. “And Robin...are you...”
“I'm fine,” Chrom assured her with a hand on her arm. “Just a few bruises. Robin needs your care the most.”
“Right! The blood...got it!” his sister, staff in hand, began to focus her healing magic on the wound in Robin's side. “This'll just take a second, Robin.”
“Milord?” Somehow, Frederick had gotten his mare through the tangled brush of the forest in time to catch up with the rest of the Shepherds.
“I'm all right,” Chrom said, accepting Frederick's hand to pull him to his feet. “And you?”
“Minimal injuries. Luckily Sumia spotted you during her aerial reconnaissance, or we might not have arrived in time.”
Chrom nodded solemnly in agreement. His eyes flew to Sumia's trim figure as the pegasus knight spun in the air, spear upraised, deftly dodging a clumsy blow from one of the monsters she was battling.
“Milord?”
With a start, Chrom realized he'd been staring. “Yes, of course. As soon a the Risen are taken care of, we should find a safe place to camp. I think we could all use a good rest after this.”
He turned his back on Frederick, turning instead to Robin who was desperately trying to fend Lissa off as she attempted to “test” that his injuries were healed by finding the ticklish spot under his ribs. “If you figure out how many tomes he's actually carrying, let me know,” he called to his sister. “I've got a bet on eight, but Gaius said it could be as many as fifteen.”
Lissa's giggles bubbled up as the sounds of battle died out around them, nearly drowning out Robin's last mournful protest.
“I just really like books!”