Chapter Text
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All was quiet on the imperial meadow. It had been a long day of forced marching, and now the merchants and mercenaries slept on down cots as all the Bearers slept in chains on the hard ground. All the Bearers, that was, but him; he kept watch over the sorry band even as two other guards kept watch over him. No matter how useful he might be as a fighter, he would never be trusted alone with such valuable merchandise, and nor would he be allowed to forget that, but for the indulgence of his so-called master, he would be chained up along with the rest, beaten and whipped along with the rest, perhaps sold with the rest to someone who would not be so indulgent. It made his skin crawl to know he was keeping the Bearers in just as surely as he was keeping threats out, but nonetheless, he kept watch.
And so was he the first to see. At first, it was only a hint of motion in the grass; it could as easily have been a wild hound as any real threat. Still, he stood and unsheathed his sword. Behind him, he heard the other guards do the same. He scanned the horizon, kept his ears open, but neither saw nor heard anything more. Then, all at once, he sensed a surge of aether. He leapt backwards just in time to evade a powerful bolt of lightning. The screams behind him let him know the other guards had not been so fortunate. He grimaced, shot a ball of fire into the sky, and shouted the alarm even as the enemy fell upon them.
He counted a scant half dozen enemies emerging from the tall grass and charging at them, but with two men down and the rest only just pulling themselves from slumber, the bandits would have more than enough of an advantage to seize the camp--and all the Bearers with it. The only worse thing for a Bearer than being held by an Imperial was to be captured by bandits. To make matters worse, more than half of the Bearers in the camp were women and children, who would suffer even more than the rest if they fell into enemy hands. He couldn't allow that. He would hold these attackers off, alone if he had to.
He shot a Fira spell at the nearest bandit, knocking her off her feet, then shifted, moving instantaneously to the next enemy, whom he struck with a burning blade. The man screamed and fell, but already he was shifting towards his next target. This one met his blade with two of his own, halting his momentum. He jumped back before the bandit could capitalize on the opening, and readied another Fira spell in his palm.
"That's an impressive flame you've got there, kid," the bandit said. He caught the Fira spell with a slash of his blades, dissipating it harmlessly. What he failed to catch was the second spell, fired at point-blank range after a shift forward. He staggered to the side, but managed to bring his blades up in time to block a slash from the boy's sword. In the light of the embers left behind by the fire magic, he could just make out out the brand on the boy's face before he leapt away once more. "Listen, kid, Branded or Dominant or whatever you are, we're on the same side here. If you'd just slow down—"
But the boy was gone, vanished in a crimson flash to rush to the aid of the guards fending off the aggressors on the other side of the camp. The two wounded attackers staggered to their feet, the one who had taken the burning blade already using a potion on his wounds. "That one's gonna be tough, Cid," he said.
"He is. I'd rather not have to kill him, but with the way things are going..."
On the other side of the camp, the Branded boy and one of the three surviving guards were pressing three of his best Cursebreakers onto the back foot. Cid swore, and shot a salvo of electricity towards them. The boy turned and stared down the onslaught, then summoned a wall of fire to catch the magic. "Shit," Cid whispered. The boy slashed his sword, and with each slash, more and more of the flames rushed towards them with a power much greater than that of the spell he had absorbed. Cid managed to dodge most of them, but Gav was not so lucky, and fell once more to the ground. Before Cid could even think to check on him, the boy was back again, the remnants of his crimson flash clinging to him even as he blew Cid away with another Fire spell.
"Have it your way," Cid said, drawing on more of Ramuh's power as the boy rushed forward again. He called the Eikon's staff into his hand and drove it into the ground, releasing a shock wave all around him. For the first time, he managed to hit the boy, who staggered and fell to his knees. Before he could recover, Cid rushed at him, tackling him onto his back and holding a sword to his throat. The boy glared at him, the fire in his eyes almost as fierce as that which had come from his hands. "Are you ready to listen now?" Cid asked.
"I won't let you hurt them," the boy said in response.
"I'm not going to—" he began, but then cursed as he realized the kid was beginning to sprout wings. He jumped away and avoided the initial outburst, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the rivers of flame that followed, striking him and all the rest of his men. He felt as if the very air in his lungs was burning. With shaking hands, he reached for a high potion. Thank the divines for Charon, he thought as he got to his feet once more. The boy was fighting alone now; evidently, Cid had distracted him long enough for the Cole and the others to take down the remaining guards, and one of the merchants, as well. The other was currently cowering behind the Bearers. They were defended in turn by the boy, who stood before them all, prepared to take on all comers. Powerful as he was, though, the fight so far had taken plenty out of him. He was panting, and his sword quivered even as he held it at the ready. Cid looked around, and saw all five of his men singed, but whole and ready to keep fighting. They could win this fight, he knew.
Cid sheathed his swords. The boy didn't relax his stance, which proved he had at least some smarts. Now to see if he'd listen to reason. "You put up quite a fight, kid," he said with a laugh. "And unlike your late allies over there, it seems you're doing it for the right reasons. You're fighting to protect, aren't you? Well, that's what we're doing, too. Our merry band exists to free Bearers, to give them a life worth living. Dominants, too, though I'm the only one of those around at the moment."
"What are you waiting for?" the merchant demanded. "Kill him!" But the boy didn't move. He was finally listening.
"We came here to free all of the Bearers in this shipment, you very much included. Of course, if you don't want to come along, that's fine. We'll let you leave peacefully. But if you insist on protecting that merchant and his 'investment,' I'm afraid we'll have to kill you to get to him." Cid shrugged. "Personally, I'd rather avoid that. So why don't you just stand aside for now, and we can discuss next steps afterwards?"
The boy seemed to be considering his words. "I've certainly never encountered bandits like you before."
Cid feigned injury. "Bandits, he calls us! Kid, we're only bandits if you think the Branded are property, not people."
"And if you think the opposite?"
Cid grinned. "Then we're freedom fighters."
The boy's stance was still fighting ready, but his eyes had softened. "You'll keep them safe?"
Cid nodded. "You have my word."
Suddenly, one of the Bearers screamed. The six combatants each raised their weapons to the ready, seeking the threat, but it was the Bearers who spotted it first. They scattered, rushing to seek shelter behind Cid and his men. Where their group had stood, only the merchant remained, holding a little girl with one arm and a knife with the other. She was weeping, and already blood was beginning to seep from a laceration at her throat. The boy stood frozen just feet away from them, his eyes fixed on the knife. "You Bearer bastard!" the merchant shouted. "I said kill him! Kill all of them, or I kill her!"
The boy's jaw set, and he resumed his fighting stance. Cid cursed and drew his weapons. He saw the Cursebreakers readying their weapons and magic on either side of him. "I'm sorry, the kid said, and then shifted into crimson light once again. Cid braced for impact, but none came. Instead, he heard the strangled scream of a dying man.
It was the merchant.
Cid saw now that the kid had shifted backwards, must have grabbed the dagger and pulled it away from the girl before plunging his sword into the man's chest. The girl fell to her knees, sobbing but unharmed, and the merchant fell to the floor as the boy pulled his sword from his chest.
As Cid relaxed his stance, a Bearer woman ran out from behind him to pull the weeping girl into her arms. Cid remembered Mid at that age, fresh from the loss of her parents and still suspicious of him, but all too ready to be held through her tears.
The boy stood over the body of the merchant. The man had been a coward, a snake, a cheat, and yet, looking upon the corpse, the boy felt a strange emptiness. He jumped when a hand fell onto his shoulder, but when he looked, he saw only Ramuh's Dominant. He relaxed with some effort. "This is the second time I've killed a man who claimed to own me," he said.
"The second?" the Dominant asked. "Most Bearers wouldn't survive even a first."
The boy remembered a late night summons, a pair of seeking hands, and the stench of burning flesh and seeping excrement as he set the man's groin aflame. "It took him a long time to die," the boy said. "By the time he did, I had already been sold." Infection was inevitable for burn wounds in such a sensitive location, but inevitable in this case thankfully did not imply quick.
"You were lucky."
The boy smiled. A mob from the dead man's household had, in fact, come to Pleuret's to demand his head for the murder. The man had handed him a sword and told the mob they could have his head if they could tear it from his shoulders. Beaten and scarred, he had emerged the victor from that encounter, but Pleuret's games had only grown grislier from there. "I would hardly call it luck," he said, staring still at the corpse of the pitiful merchant, perhaps the least awful of all the people who held him captive. "I wish I could have killed all of them," he said, and realized only then that it was true.
The hand left his shoulder. "We need to be getting out of here. It isn't safe to stay this close to the capitol," the Dominant said.
"Very well," the boy said, and turned finally away from the body.
"My name's Cid," the Dominant said as he moved to follow the train of Bearers, taking up the position of rear guard. "And yours, I take it, is Clive Rosfield."
The boy flinched to hear the name, then cursed himself for reacting at all. "You mistake me."
"I don't believe so. Unless you mean to say there are others running about and using the Phoenix's magic?"
"It isn't an Eikon's magic," he insisted. "It's only regular Bearer magic that I've trained to use in battle."
"Does that line actually work for you? These Imperials must be stupider than I thought," Cid said. "Me though, I'm the Dominant of Ramuh. I can tell the difference between an Eikon and a firecracker."
The boy shook his head. "You're wrong. I'm no Dominant, and I'm certainly no Clive."
"No? Well, who are you, then?"
He took a deep breath. No one had asked his name in years, and most of the Imperials would have had his tongue out for even trying to speak it. For a moment, he thought he might have forgotten it altogether. Then, with relief, he remembered: "Joshua."
"Joshua Rosfield. The brother, then." Joshua, who found his eyes suddenly wet, could only nod in acknowledgment. "As I said, you're free to go if you choose. But I hope you'll accompany us at least until we can get your charges to safety."
Joshua looked towards the column of Bearers, at the little girl with a little blood at her neck, asleep now in the arms of the woman who had held her hand the whole way out of Oriflamme. "Alright," he said, and kept walking.