Gylen, First Prince of Baron, was not a veteran of war. But he had trained for it. He had readied for it. He had heard stories of it. He had studied it.
None of that prepared him for the reality of it. The reality of an army on the move.
The night was dark, in more ways than one. Tomorrow, battle would be joined. Tomorrow, men would fight. Tomorrow, men would die. And yet despite that, despite the chaos and blood that its end would herald, still the night seemed oddly...peaceful. Good thing, too; the anticipation was killing him.
Gylen was required to do the rounds the same as any soldier, but everyone he passed gave way as they would not to a man of lesser rank. The wings of a red dragon, spread as if in flight upon the shoulders of his armor, told all who saw that he was the heir to the kingdom of Baron. It was an...interesting thought, that one day he would be king. He felt that he could do a better job of it than most, but he was old enough to admit that the idea was unnerving. That much power...could he handle it?
He nodded to Velerin as he passed the north corner of the camp. The dragoon nodded back. Despite his obvious youth, for some reason Kain had seen fit to make the lieutenant his second in command. It had been a humbling moment; Gylen had expected the position himself, even if it would only be honorary. On the other hand, Velerin did have a number of scars on him. A few battles would make any man a veteran, whatever his age. Perhaps he deserved it. Kain did have a reputation for promoting people based purely on merit, not on rank. Gylen recognized the sense in the system, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. As a soldier, he was bound to accept Velerin’s orders, despite the fact that he outranked the dragoon several times over. It wasn’t easy to do so. He did anyway.
He took another look at the hourglass as he went by. It was nearly down to the bottom. Good. Not long before he could turn in, get some rest, and try to quiet the jitters he had in his stomach. A warrior ought not to get jitters.
A noise in the underbrush caught his attention, but turned out only to be a small animal. Just like so many other noises that night. The process was getting tedious, but Gylen supposed it was necessary; if even one of those noises was an enemy scout, this whole expedition could be for nothing. If only someone else could do it instead. Sentry duty seemed almost beneath his position. But his father had commanded it, so it was done. As things ought to be.
Half an hour brought him to the east corner, where another, synchronous hourglass was set up. This one was empty. His shift was over. A few minutes to find and wake the next man, and he went back to the tent he and his father shared.
Cecil was still up, which was surprising. It was almost midnight. Gylen knew enough about fighting to understand that lack of sleep sometimes made the difference between victory and defeat. But the Baronian King hadn’t even taken off his armor, despite the fact that two sentry shifts had gone by.
Cecil looked up as his son entered the tent. "Shift’s over?" he asked casually.
"Yes," Gylen said formally. Casualness was not an attitude one adopted with the King. At least, not in his mind. He knew Cecil himself didn’t care, but it still felt wrong. Perhaps he was too sensitive; he’d been told such on more than one occasion.
For once, Cecil didn’t comment. He had something else on his mind.
An occupied sheath was cradled in his hands, sparkling gold hilt protruding, with a pommel made of solid diamond. Gylen wondered what kind of a sword would be crowned by so simple and yet so spectacular a hilt. Maybe it was ceremonial...but he’d never seen it before. It wasn’t the sword his father was going to use, that he was sure of; that sword was brilliant white, silver hilted and with an obsidian pommel, with words engraved on the blade. It certainly wasn’t this one.
"What sword is that?" Gylen asked. "I’ve never seen it before."
"Yours," Cecil said. "Perhaps."
"I already have a sword," Gylen reminded him.
"I know that. Here," Cecil held the sword towards his son. "Put it in place of your old one and come with me. Don’t draw it yet."
He left the tent before Gylen could question him. Gylen began to draw out his old sword, with the intent of replacing it in the sheath...but that would require him to draw the other one, and he had been told not to. Instead he detached his sheath completely from his crossbelt and replaced it with the new one, still wondering what the point of all this was. The gold hilt might be impressive, but gold was heavy and he was probably better off with the simple sword he owned now.
New sword now in place on his back, he left the tent. Cecil beckoned from a few yards off, then led him to the edge of camp. A word with the guard, and then they were in the woods. His father seemed to have some destination in mind, but Gylen had no idea what it was.
Perhaps it wasn’t any particular destination. Maybe he just wanted to get away from the camp. Because when they stopped, there was nothing nearby but trees and a few large rocks. Cecil sat down on one of them. Gylen didn’t. One did not sit down in the presence of the King without permission, although Gylen knew that this was another thing his father did not particularly care about.
Cecil pointed to him. "Before I show you this, there’s something I want you to know. I never intended to give that to you. I was hoping it would never be necessary. But since we have to fight, I want you to go into it with the best equipment possible. You see this rock?" he patted the one he was sitting on.
"I see it," Gylen replied, though he was somewhat confused.
Cecil got up. "Draw the sword."
Gylen reached back and pulled. It came out with a ringing sound, totally unlike the hiss of steel. He brought it down in front of him...and gasped.
Where metal ought to have been, instead there was pure crystal. It wasn’t quite shaped like a normal sword, but instead had multiple facets that reflected the light into beams that shifted and swirled as the sword moved, some contained within the blade, others escaping into the night, so it seemed to shine like the sun, a star held in his fist. Even in this pitch-black darkness, it was a spectacular sight; Gylen wasn’t sure how it could gather up that much light, channel it so precisely. Absently, he noted that instead of being heavy, it was lighter than a feather. But he was far too enraptured by the glory of the sword to register the thought.
"Wow," was all he could say.
"I’m glad you like it," Cecil told him. "Now take it, and smash the rock I was just sitting on."
Gylen moved to obey the order, then stopped. "I can’t. It’ll break. It’s too beautiful to break."
"Beauty can be seductive," Cecil said. "It’s dangerous to make decisions based on that alone. But this time, it doesn’t matter. It won’t break."
Gylen swung with all his strength, and the rock split right down the middle. He brought it up in front of him and stared in wonder. It hadn’t even been chipped. The facets still reflected the light perfectly.
"Holy shit," he whispered, forgetting for a moment that one did not use such language in front of a king. He looked up. "This is...for me? Shouldn’t you be the one to use it?"
"No. I am a Paladin, Gylen, and I use the blade I received on Mount Ordeals. It’s a decision I made a long time ago; the only time I ever used this one was on the Lunar Moon."
"Lunar Moon?" he asked.
"I see you haven’t made much of a study of history," Cecil said with a faint smile. "In my youth, before the First Crystal War, there were two moons. The Lunar moon was named such because a people lived there: the Lunarians. Your grandfather was one of them. They forged this blade, and the armor that went with it."
"Armor..." Gylen murmured. Armor made of this material, that had just split a rock so effortlessly...it would be impenetrable. A thought struck him. "Went? You don't have it anymore?" he asked.
"It’s gone now," Cecil said. "I used to use it, but it was destroyed, impossible as that is. That stuff once broke the teeth of a Behemoth."
Gylen just shook his head. It was unbelievable.
"Remember something, Gylen," Cecil told him. "What you hold is quite possibly the most powerful weapon this world has ever seen. You’ll become known for it, and feared because of it. But for every enemy that runs away at the sight of it, there will be ten more who would try all the harder to kill you, and that light will draw them like a beacon. What you have to learn is when to use the sword, and when to put it away."
"I understand," Gylen said seriously.
Cecil looked at him, and his eyes were hard. "No, I don’t think you do," he said. "You have to look beyond the words themselves. No," he raised a hand when Gylen opened his mouth, "I’m not going to explain it to you. There are some things you can only learn by experience. Battle, for instance. I remember what it was like for me, the day before my first battle. I feared death, of course, but mostly what I felt was excitement. The latter was gone before the fight was halfway done."
Gylen couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
"Anyway," Cecil continued, "I think that’s enough for tonight. Get some rest. Tomorrow will be...a big day."
That, Gylen thought, had to be the understatement of the century.
"What happened to the Lunarians?" he asked suddenly.
Cecil had turned to go back, but stopped. "They...left," was all he said. Gylen could see pain in his eyes.
It wasn’t quite dawn when they set out the next morning. Birds twittered in the background. The first hints of gray light flickered across the shadows. The army moved as silently as it could, although some contingents, those equipped with some of the noisier of Cid’s and Corvin’s contraptions, had to follow some distance behind. They would join in once things started.
Gylen and Cecil were both mounted on chocobos, at the head of the host. Prince Edward of Damcyan was with them, and Kain, with Velerin a step back. The dragoons were just behind, spread out in a V formation, like migrating birds. The Baronian regulars held the rear, and the archers and, for the first time, engineers marched in the pocket. The new cavalry was deployed to each flank. The Damcyan units were serving as patrol groups and scouts. To the extreme rear were a number of unique machines, most of which Gylen couldn’t fathom any use for. The only one he recognized was a ballista, a huge wooden frame that anchored a massive crossbow that could fire bolts the size of whole trees at distances of a thousand yards, or be configured to do the same with half-ton rocks. In this case, it was using rocks. Gylen didn’t like to think of what would happen if one of those things misfired and hit him.
The cavalry was somewhat strange to see as part of an army, but Gylen had seen men on chocobos before, so it was nothing special. The flickering shadows made them look dark and mysterious, though.
A whispered command went out. Suddenly, small groups of twenty to thirty men broke off and headed into the woods, each group headed by a Dragoon. The rest of the host slowed and stopped. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Kain was using his spear instead of his sword. Gylen had asked him about that, but the dragoon had just muttered something about his father under his breath before changing the subject. Edward wore a sword, which didn’t surprise Gylen, although anyone who had known the man twenty years beforehand would have been shocked. Instead of full plate armor, the prince of Damcyan wore a mail shirt under loose clothing. Cecil, of course, wore the arms of a Paladin. Gylen tried to imagine what he would have looked like in that strange, impossibly strong crystal, but couldn’t. Velerin was clad in the standard arms of the Dragoons, although his was tinted red instead of blue to indicate his position. Gylen himself had simple plate armor, the only excess being in the dragonwings on the shoulders. The crystal sword - his sword, he thought with excitement - was still in its sheath, undrawn. That condition wouldn’t last long.
Not long at all.
A horn blasted. He watched the scene play itself out in his mind; the flanking groups suddenly bursting out from the trees, driving into the center of the enemy force. The would meet in the middle and form a hedgehog. And then....
Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Gylen began to get nervous - surely the signal ought to have been made by now. A minute and a half...three horns blew at once from somewhere ahead.
The cavalry split off and surged ahead, wielding long pikes, longer than normal so as to reach past the head of the beast being ridden. The rest of the army followed in their wake, and archers armed with longbows cleared out a path for them while those armed with crossbows and the new rotorbows spread to the flanks, where they dug deep holes into the enemy troops. The cavalry crashed into the backs of traitors whose attention, up to this point, had been riveted on the contingent holed up in their midst.
Cecil and his comrades drew their weapons. Gylen held up the spectacular weapon high above his head, just to look at it. Beams of light reflected internally before escaping, so bright one could see it from a mile off. Gylen lowered his blade, and charged.
Men surrounded him, both their own and the enemy, cavalry and otherwise. Gylen felt a rush of adrenaline run through him as he joined the melee, searching for his first opponent...and finding him. Dead eyes stared at him, although the body was still alive. This man was not himself. This man was not thinking. This man was still the enemy.
Plain steel rose to meet solid crystal. Anyone looking would have predicted the shattering of the crystal, brittle as it seemed. But it was steel that shattered, and Gylen’s blade continued on to split his opponents skull, the way he had split the rock last night.
Blood spurted. Excitement in battle died instantly. Gylen could see the man’s brain inside his skull. It had been cut in two. Half of his head was hanging to one side, and his flesh tore from the strain until his voicebox was visible. Gylen gagged at the sight. What had he just done? He had never killed anyone before. Never. A human being was no lifeless rock.
He couldn’t think. But he had to think. You thought, you killed, or you died. That was the way battle worked. But the reality was sickening.
Gylen was jarred out of his paralysis when a sword smacked against his helmet, denting it and dazing him. He turned to face another opponent, this one bleeding from an already-inflicted wound on his leg. Here was his choice, again. Kill or be killed. A day ago he would have made the choice without thought, never would have realized there was a choice to be made. But now...it was all he could do to raise his sword to this man, and kill him. Blood slipped free of his blade like water, left it clean, but even so, what had seemed last night as a thing of beauty was now a vision of death.
He had learned a mental trick once, when he had broken a bone and had to wait hours before someone found him. He had taken the pain, the urge to cry out, and stuffed it in a bottle inside his head. And then he had corked the bottle. The pain had still been there, but it hadn’t touched him. He did it again, now, but this time with the urge to run away from this, the urge to vomit, or do worse. He took the pity, the disgust, and corked it up. And although he felt every emotion as he dug his way into the raging horde, they were totally separate from the part of his mind that controlled his hands and feet, that made him use his sword. And he fought. He fought, and killed. One man after another went down before him, although he himself certainly didn’t come through unscathed. An arrow had struck him in the shoulder, punching through his armor. One of his leg pieces had broken, and a bloody gash stretched down his shin. A massive dent in the side of his armor dug into his kidney sharply. Each new pain went into the bottle with the rest of it.
And eventually, they won. He heard roars in the distance as the bulk of the enemy troops took off in their airships, fleeing the field in two directions. He saw a dark shape rise up in flight, following one group of ships; Bahamut. The second group had no one to follow it.
His father walked up to him, blood smearing his shining blade of Light. If Gylen had ever believed battle to be clean, that belief had been destroyed in the last hour. But the stain on that sword drove it home.
There was pain on Cecil’s face. Gylen had seen it before, but never understood it. Now he understood.
"Your first battle, Gylen," Cecil said tonelessly. "Remember it. Remember what war is."
As his father turned away, Gylen finally lost all vestige of self-control. The bottle shattered. He retched until his boots came up.