This section details unofficial strategies that may help with completion of the chapter. This may not work for everybody.
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Your goal is to reach the Arrive point promptly, collect the treasure in the houses, recruit Zihark, and ideally avoid too much fighting with the Vigilantes. Not losing anyone to the Black Knight is a good idea, too.
The thieves will head for the center house (Elwind) by default, and reach it on the second turn if unimpeded. It may be worth blocking the path but not taking the house; the thieves will hang around waiting for the blocking unit to get out of the way rather than looking for the other homes. Be warned that there's going to be quite a collision around the center house if you decide to contest it, with multiple Cavaliers, Armor Knights, and Mages incoming. You might have gotten a Ward staff earlier; this is definitely a time to break it out on Rhys or Mist, especially if you send low-Resistance units like Boyd or Kieran into the area. As usual, Titania is probably the safest person to send in to block the path to the center house, although others can still do it.
Don't be too worried about sparing the Vigilantes; they're not worth that much bonus XP kept alive ultimately. In particular, the Axe vigilantes near the southern house are difficult to spare, as they can harry your backline healers and mages.
It may be worth sending someone through the central area near where the Black Knight pops out once you understand the trigger and know how long to give them. In particular, sending Lethe or Mordecai (or both) will let you recruit Zihark without killing the lower Myrmidon Vigilantes. Note that if you put a laguz within Zihark's range, he will "recruit himself" on enemy phase by running over and talking, but if you do this, the Vigilante next to him will run over and attack Zihark, and probably die horribly. This may still be a sacrifice worth making. The other option is to have Lethe run over and talk to him on the same turn that Ike is ready to Arrive, saving the Vigilantes from themselves by ending the map before the Enemy Phase starts. Don't forget to send a beorc this way too in order to visit the Northern home (Killer Lance) - the homes won't offer treasure to laguz.
When approaching Mackoya, consider moving just into the farthest edge of his range. This will cause him to take out his bow for a shot, but also leave him exposed to range-1 attacks without the possibility of a counter on the next player phase. Range-2 chipping isn't great against him anyway since his Resistance is quite high, making Soren and Ilyana not great at poking him, and Rolf probably isn't very trained up. If he has a bow out, then you can go wild with a Poleax and the Regal Sword to take him down reasonably fast. Once he's down, it's time to rush to the Arrive point; don't forget that units like Boyd and Lethe can Shove / Smite Ike along if he needs to get there faster, and a unit like Titania or Marcia can ride ahead to take down the guarding Knight.
If you'd like, you can bait and fight Jill's companions for a little extra battle experience with units that stayed near the starting zone. This won't matter that much in the long term, though. You probably don't want to fight Jill herself unless you're just fishing to see her dialogue lines when fighting Lethe in an exploratory run or the like, since killing her will remove her from the next map. Even if you don't plan on using her, her equipment is handy.