Chapter 14 - Rally Point
Southeast of the Pinnacle
Blade had to admit, as small as it was, the combined fleet of both the Cragtooth and Teardrop forces made for a pretty impressive sight. Just over a dozen airships drifted on the wind around them; corvettes and frigates all arrayed in formation near the Seeker of Dawn, each waiting for the sun to rise. She could see griffons moving across the well-lit decks, shouting orders at one another and prepping the ships for the battle ahead. Each vessel mirrored the others as teams of soldiers drilled, made last minute checks, and otherwise prepared for the battle ahead.
Hundreds of feet below, the Cragtooth naval fleet was spread out in a similar manner, almost two dozen ships arrayed across the groaning ice. All were showing a similar flurry of activity beneath flickering lights, as various crews went to work prepping the vessels for battle.
This is it, Blade thought as she turned toward the rear of the Seeker, eying the eastern horizon. The fleet was set up to approach the pinnacle from the southeast to give their forces the cover of the sun and make it harder for the Pinnacle’s defenders to engage them. In just a few minutes, the sun is going to rise, and then the whole fleet is going to start moving.
She took a quick look again around the deck. The high-speed frigate was a model of efficiency: The few griffons that were out were clearly busy with something, be that last minute rope checks or making sure that the equipment lockers were properly stocked. There was even a single griffon going around the deck counting out the crossbow bolts and bullets in each of the ammunition bins, making sure that each one was loaded according to its position on deck and relative usefulness in battle. For a clan that was no longer empire-affiliated, she had to admit that they were doing a pretty good job at putting on the pretense of being a well-trained military force, if nothing else.
They’ve also managed to build a pretty sweet ship, she thought as she looked up towards the raised forward deck. Frost and Barnabas were sitting up near the bow, chatting about something as they both prepped for the battle ahead. Barnabas was wearing the same light armor he’d borrowed for the raid on the Behemoth, though he’d apparently dug up some dye somewhere and gone to work. The metal was painted a dark blue almost identical to his pelt, probably so it’d be much harder for attackers to figure out what was shielded and what wasn’t. There was, however, a series of distinct tally marks scratched along one side of his chest, just below his shoulder.
Probably just for intimidation, she thought. But then, I wouldn’t doubt those numbers are real.
Beside Barnabas, Frost seemed almost like an afterthought, though Blade knew that wasn’t the case. The mare was wearing nothing but a light harness of padded cloth, similar to the combat harness that Alchemy had taken to wearing, but covering more than just her chest, expanding to stretch down her back in addition to running along each of her legs. The strange design almost made it look as if she’d painted lines across her body to outline her build. Blade had already asked her about the purpose, and Frost had simply said that it was “Something she’d been working on for a while and was ready to test out.” Whatever it was, the answer had been satisfying enough.
She’s got her talents, Blade thought as Barnabas let out a loud laugh that echoed across the Seeker’s deck. I’ll trust her to them. That was part of being a team as near as she could tell; trusting them to make the right decisions and knowing when to step in. Luckily, these guys seem pretty good at that.
She gave the rest of the ship a quick look, watching as the crew went about their checks. The ship held a fairly straightforward design, with the armored gondola resting beneath the heavy envelope as was traditional. Boilers and propulsion, as well as crew quarters, took up the rear of the ship, while the center was dedicated to more crew space as well as a raised bridge that was the highest point on the gondola, giving the captain a superior view. What was lost in upward awareness was remedied both by an armored defensive position on the top of the rigid, armored envelope that could relay information down, as well as several outrigger positions along the lower sides of the airship.
From there, the bridge dropped away to the main combat deck where she was standing, a long, level space bristling with four large, armored ballista emplacements, or wing turrets. Since the Seeker was a courier frigate, the ballistas were actually a bit further back than she was used to and had a smaller firing arc in order to reduce drag, but they were still dangerous. Plus, at a quick look it appeared that the two rearward turrets had been angled ever so slightly toward the stern of the vessel, in order to protect the more vulnerable rear. When the battle started, all four turrets would be charged with protecting the Seeker’s sides.
Meanwhile, near the bow, the deck rose to make room for the two forward-facing weapons that made up the ship’s primary weapons compliment. While the rise allowed for extra forward armor, and provided an added bonus of keeping wind away from the main deck, its primary purpose was to house, shield, and store the two sixty-millimeter guns along with their ammunition supplies.
How long did they save to afford those? she wondered as one of the doors to the gun emplacements opened, a talon commander with gunnery officer’s colors on his wings striding out onto the deck. Cartridge-based weaponry was still highly cost-prohibitive, something helped along in part by how jealously the few companies that were working on it guarded their designs. Kalos had given her a quick tour of the Seeker the day before while the fleet had been in transit, and the twin heavy cannons had been one of the first things he’d shown her … Though even he wouldn’t go into the price.
“Hey.”
The call pulled her attention away from the front of the ship, and she turned to see Alchemy walking towards her. “Hey yourself,” she replied as he walked up. “You ready?”
He nodded and tapped at his combat harness with one hoof. “Yep. Even spent a few hours last night cooking up some helpful potions. Including, I might add, a very expensive universal antidote.” She cocked one eyebrow at him and he continued. “Just in case one of the shadows has a poisoned blade. Apparently it’s not their style, but Frost said that their leader resorts to it sometimes.”
Blade nodded. It was a smart preparation. “How expensive?”
“Let’s just say I might be adding a few hundred bits worth of glitter to my final bill for this job,” Alchemy said as he trotted up to the gunwale and rested his hooves on the railing. “This looks pretty amazing,” he said, staring out and then down at the rest of the fleet.
“Yeah,” Blade said, lifting her talons up onto the rail next to his hooves and letting her own eyes wander across the distant fleet. “It’s hard to believe that this all just started out as a bunch of pirates getting together and the offshoots of an ill-fated colonization attempt. Granted, that’s how a lot of countries start.”
“Really?” Alchemy asked, pulling his eyes away from the distant scene and looking at her.
She nodded. “Not entirely, but it’s close enough. Historically, if an area isn’t settled with backing from an existing form of government, you start out with a bunch of smaller, independent places that start working more and more closely together. Eventually, most of them start looking to streamline or simplify things for one reason or another, and they form a government. Kind of like what’s happening here.”
“It sounds like you know a lot about it,” Alchemy said.
She let out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m a bit of a history buff. Mostly for military history, but I spread my reading out a little bit. Don’t tell anyone though. It could ruin my reputation as a hard-headed, wandering claw.” She smiled.
“I won’t,” he said, returning her smile with a grin. “Why study it, though?”
“Perspective,” she said, shrugging. “It started out as a personal interest in military history, since I figured it’d help me with my goals. So I started reading up on wars, ancient battles, stuff like that. Not exactly hard when you’re growing up in the empire, not with our history. Of course,” she said, crossing her forelegs and resting her head on them. “You can’t learn about that stuff too deeply without digging into the politics and the history surrounding it, so I started reading into that too.”
“What was your goal in the first place?”
“Believe it or not, to be a blademaster,” she said, giving him a grin. “I decided on it pretty early on after I joined my clan’s military. It just wasn’t for me. But a blademaster?” She grinned. “Travel the world, be one of the most elite recognized fighters in the empire.”
Alchemy nodded. “How close are you? I mean,” he said, stammering. “I don’t know how you become a blademaster, but—”
She shook her head. “It’s actually kind of easy and kind of hard all in one. All you have to do is defeat three current blademasters in combat. Granted, it has to be an official challenge, and they won’t exactly go easy on you, since they’re a pretty tough bunch and don’t want that reputation getting pulled down by anyone, but still. All you have to do is beat three of them.”
“Have you …?” Alchemy’s question seemed to trail off.
“I’ve beaten two,” she said. “Bıçak ustası Silverbeak and bıçak ustası Sternshadow.”
“Still looking for a third, huh?” he asked.
“Actually, I found one,” she said. “He beat me.”
“Oh,” Alchemy said, his eyes widening a little. “Sorry.”
“For what?” she asked, looking at him. “He beat me fair and square. It just means I need to get better, that’s all. Or maybe go track down one of the blademasters he beat. Still,” she said, tapping her claws against the railing. “Honestly, it didn’t turn out that bad. That fight was … it …” She let her words trail off as her mind rolled back to that night. “It was a bad situation all around. The job I was on put me in a real difficult spot.”
“Outnumbered?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just … let’s just say it wasn’t a decision I want to make again.”
“Anything good come out of it?”
“I got this job,” she said, looking at him once more. “And so far, I think that’s turned out all right.” Especially since it gives me chance to balance things out after how that went, she thought. “Plus, it did give me a new perspective.”
“Really?” Alchemy asked. “What on?”
“More like who,” she said, her eyes sliding over towards the distant shape of the Strike of Dawn. The destroyer was far enough away that she couldn’t make out the identities of the individual griffons aboard her, but she knew Hain was one of them, checking over the final plans for the offensive and making last minute changes with Titus and Arcwing. Despite what he’d said about not wanting to be the leader of the team, that clearly didn’t apply to his itch for other commands. “Hain, actually. Before my last job and that fight … I probably wouldn’t have seen him in the same light as I do now. I’d always just gone along with what everyone else said about him, but now that I’ve had to make a similar choice …”
“What’d he do?”
She turned back towards Alchemy. There was a curious look of genuine interest on his face, a look that said there was nothing vengeful or ungrateful about the question past simple, honest curiosity.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked, looking back out towards the Strike of Dawn. “You could just ask him.”
“I tried that,” Alchemy said, his voice sounding slightly hurt. “He blew me off before I could finish asking the question.”
She nodded. It wasn’t surprising news, though she could see why he was bothered by it. “I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s not something he likes talking about. I was hoping he would have eased up a bit about it, but …” She shook her head. “I can’t blame him for not letting up on it. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to be in his place; the choice I had to make was a lot easier to make than his was, and that one was hard enough.”
She let out another sigh and then turned to take a quick look around the deck. There was no one nearby. “You really want to know?”
“Well,” he said, “not if it it’s something terrible.”
“Right,” she said, nodding. “Personally, kind of yes, kind of no. Hain was a general during the last set of regency wars in the empire.”
“That’s where—?”
“The clans basically go to organized war over who the new ruling clan and king is going to be, right,” she said, nodding. “Hain used to be a general. A brilliant one. When the last regency war broke out, his clan, which is one of the ones right near the capital, sided with the current king. Which was all well and good, but the current king started to lose. Long story short, Hain got put in a position where he was bound to obey the commands of his superior officer, commands he knew would get his entire army massacred. The griffon he was answering to refused to let the battle be determined by trial of combat, and ordered Hain to win a fight … which as near as I could tell, he knew he would win, but at the cost of decimating both sides to the point where it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“So what’d he do?” Alchemy asked. “Resign?”
“He couldn’t,” Blade said, shaking her head. “The honor laws that run the empire … They’re odd to some, and they have their place, but because of the way they work he couldn’t resign without facing stiff penalties as per his contract. Besides, it wasn’t about him, it was about the loss of life, at least as I understand it.”
“So what’d he do?”
“He … He committed the ultimate taboo in griffon society,” she said. “Moments before the battle he called his superior out and gave the order for his forces to surrender. When his superior tried to force him to comply, he killed him. The collapse of the northern flank left the entire army open to attack, and the regency war was over. The new king took the crown from the old one’s claws two days later.”
“So he turned the course of the war,” Alchemy said.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “The war was already lost. He just admitted it, turned on his superior, and violated the honor laws of the entire empire. Honor laws our whole culture has been built on.”
“So they exiled him?”
She shook her head again. “It’s more than exile, Alchemy. He had everything stripped from him—his money, his belongings … Anything that came from the empire. The only thing he kept was that knife, because he’d won it off of a minotaur mercenary while outside of the empire and therefore it wasn’t the empire’s to take. The even took his name. Hain means ‘traitor’ in our language. His own family had to expunge him from their history, and everything he’d ever contributed to the empire was either downplayed or erased. I only know who he is because of outside coverage of the event.”
“That’s insane,” Alchemy said, a look of shock etched across his face. “You can’t … for … what possibly—?”
“Trust me, the system we have in the Empire is there for a reason,” she said, cutting him off. “The reason the penalties are so high in the first place is to keep us from acting like we used to: Warlike clans always at each others throats, always betraying one another and fighting for every advantage. We were warmongers once, Alchemy. Violent, self-centered, honorless killers who went after everything and anything. And maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but you get my point. It wasn’t until King Tallcliff the First that we really banded together and found more to life than simply living and fighting. Still,” she said as she turned back to look toward the distant destroyer. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned looking over history, it’s that sometimes even the best systems aren’t perfect. We’ve got our flaws. So do our systems. That doesn’t mean I think what happened is okay, but it does mean I don’t know what I would have done about it.”
“I know it sounds harsh,” she said, turning to stare back out at the ice. “But it’s what’s kept our culture intact for over a thousand years. It wasn’t until I found myself in a similar situation that I realized exactly how trapped Hain must have felt. And I had an out, a way I could cheat and get around my employers wishes. Hain? He … he didn’t have that option. At least, not that I know of. If there had been one, he would have taken it.”
“No wonder he’s touchy about it,” Alchemy said. “I thought Hain was just his name.”
“Well, it is,” Blade said. “Or now it is. I don’t know what his original name was. It’s been wiped from the histories. Only a few griffons would even know.”
“Like the Patriarch?”
“Yeah,” Blade said, nodding. “Like Patriarch Arcwing. Trust me though, don’t ask Hain about it. He’s still holding to his punishment, as you might have noticed. I think as far as he’s concerned, that name died when he made his choice. He knew he was making it.”
“It still sounds harsh,” Alchemy said. “I mean really harsh. Can he even communicate with his family?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “An exile isn’t allowed to set foot inside the empire, or send messages through it unless it’s through an intermediary, and even then his family would lose honor if they were found to have accepted such.”
“That’s … horrible.”
“It could have been less so,” she said, still staring out at the ice. “Part of it was just because of how big a deal it was and how he did it. For example, if I walked away from this job without cashing in on one of my outs, I’d lose any claim at becoming a blademaster, no matter how good I was, and lose all credibility in the empire. I’d have to report to a disciplinary council. I doubt I’d be exiled, but breaking contract like that would be grounds for pulling my eligibility as a wandering claw.”
“Can they enforce that?”
She nodded. “Inside the empire? Sure. And if word gets out that you’re not a trustworthy griffon, well … it’s not easy to get hired. Don’t take it wrong, there’s balances built into the system. Basically, damage I do on my job is the responsibility of my employer as long as I act within my contract. My last job, the one in Equestria, for example. I broke a bunch of laws holding up my contract. But Equestria recognizes that I was doing such under orders from my contract holder. Every nation acknowledges them differently, but by default, most of the punishments for what I was doing fell on my employers, since I was under contract.”
“So you got off completely free?”
“What?” she threw her head back and laughed. “Are you kidding? You heard how I wrecked that train, right?”
“Well, yeah, you’re right. I didn’t think that one through.”
“Relax,” she said, giving his shoulder a light punch. “Our laws are weird. I get that. Anyway, the punishment for stuff like that in Equestria, since they do seem to frown on the system, is deportation for a set number of years.”
“They kick you out?” he asked, surprised.
“Hey, those rulers of yours can only take so much. Besides, I think it’s a way for them to keep there from being too many griffons taking advantage of that fact. You still have to appear before the courts and get your sentencing and what-not.”
“Oh,” Alchemy said. “So how long are you supposed to stay out for?”
She flashed him a grin, spreading her wings in pride. “I don’t know. I got my new contract before the sentencing ever happened, so I broke out and got to work.” She held her grin for a moment and then joined in as Alchemy began laughing.
“Really?” he asked. “You mean they were chasing you because you didn’t stick around for a sentencing hearing? That would have deported you?”
“Hey, I was busy!” she said, still grinning. “Who knew how long that was going to take? I had a job to do. And deporting is back to your home country, so they would have sent me right back to the empire, which would have made getting here take even longer and the trail could have gone cold.”
“Except you were after a unicorn on the Ocean,” Alchemy pointed out.
“Well, in my defence I didn’t know that at the time,” she said. “I spent a day or two covertly tracking leads and learning what I could about the Ocean—plus laying low—before I made my move.”
“You still had to hijack a train though.”
“Well, that was plan B,” she said, smirking. “Plan A fell through.”
“The way you say that makes me keep wondering when you’re planning on that happening here.” He grinned as she shot a glare at him.
“Pretty uppity for a respectable alchemist,” she said, shaking her head. Alchemy just grinned.
For a minute they were both silent, each of them watching the distant fleet as the early light of morning began to slowly brighten, the thin clouds overhead changing from cold, silvery-grey to a warmer, pinker fluff that looked a bit like cotton candy.
“Any minute now,” Blade said, turning and looking back at the eastern horizon.
“I heard someone telling your cousin that the weather’s looking pretty rough today,” Alchemy said.
“High winds?”
He shook his head, his off-white mane almost bouncing back and forth. “No. Heavy snow.”
“That’ll make the battle a little interesting,” she said, tapping one set of talons together. “Still, that’s probably to our advantage.”
“Yeah.” The deck was quiet again for a moment. Then Alchemy spoke up.
“Could I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Do you really think what you’re getting paid is enough to be trying to stop a cult from bringing back some ancient evil king?” She glanced down at him. The inquiry looked serious enough.
“Honestly …” she said, twisting her head again to make sure no one was around and lowering her voice. “I’m not convinced the cult isn’t just deluding itself.”
“What?” he said, his eyes widening. “But you told—”
“I know,” she said, wrapping her talons around his muzzle until he stopped speaking quite so loud. “I told the griffons and Titus that’s what the cult’s plan was and pointed out that their belief was probably based on something. But that doesn’t mean they’re right. I mean, I know there’s a lot of lost history out there, but I’ve never heard of this guy. You?”
“Only in bits and pieces from various cultists here and there,” Alchemy said. “None of it’s very nice.”
“Yeah, well, my client didn’t mention anything about an insane, evil unicorn mega-evil either. For all we know, the cult’s just sitting up in their tower clapping their hooves together over something they think is a key. But …” She ruffled her wings slightly. “Frost did say they were getting pretty active, and, I mean, this is their big head honcho or whatever, so I guess it’s possible. Mare in the moon, right?”
“And if not?”
She gave another shrug. “Then we get our claws, hooves, or whatever on the key later today and we go get paid.”
“And if it is?”
She felt a small shiver run down her spine. Sure, her client had never said that it was a key to King Sombra’s prison … but it had been pointed out to her that it was a key. “Keys are for locks,” she said, quietly.
“What?” Alchemy asked, though she got the feeling it was at the nature of the comment rather than any lack of understanding.
“If it is,” she said, pulling her thoughts together as the tip of the sun appeared on the horizon, its bright rays turning the ice into a brilliant, pink mirror. “And if they know how to open it, then I guess we’d better hurry and stop them before they open it. I mean, who wants to beat up some ancient unicorn king on this paycheck, right?” Her chuckle sounded a little hollow in her ears.
“You think we could?” Alchemy asked.
This time she did grin. “Alchemy,” she said as a flash of light from the side of the Seeker caught the corner of her eye. She turned to see signal lights flashing all up and down the fleet. “Are you kidding? We’ve got an army. Plus us, and we’re pretty capable. I don’t think one evil unicorn is going to make a difference, even if he is all bad and tough.”
Alchemy nodded. Out by the destroyer, a smaller corvette had drifted up to one side, taking on a few passengers. Titus and some of her senior captains, getting ferried back down to their ships. The pirate fleet was already starting to move. It was going to hit the Pinnacle’s defenders first, before the Teardrop fleet arrived. A lone griffon took to their air, flying towards the Seeker. Hain, on his way back.
“Thanks for telling me about Hain,” Alchemy said as they watched.
“Don’t mention it,” Blade said, watching as the signals ceased and the fleet began to break up, each airship shifting position and picking up speed as they moved to their assigned place. “Seriously, don’t. If he knew I’d told you, I could honestly see him wanting to quit. If you let it slip, tell him you read a book or something.”
“Got it.”
“Good.” She rapped her talons against the rail and then looked towards the bow as the Seeker began to move. “Won’t be long now. A few hours.” Alchemy nodded.
She peered off at the horizon, her eyes narrowing as the airship began to pick up speed. Hain dropped down in the middle of the deck, a determined, almost proud look on his face. He gave them each a quick look. “You ready?”
“Ready,” Blade said, nodding. She turned and looked toward the distant northern horizon once more as the Seeker began to pick up speed, its propellers humming. The rising sun was bathing both ocean and sky in a pinkish-orange glow that made it look as if the distant horizon truly was a meeting place of ice and sky in one continuous mass. She grinned.
The fleet was on its way.
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And so... it begins.
Finally, Hain's backstory. Poor bugger, ordered into a no-win situation like that. And 'Hain' means traitor? Now I don't want to call him that, it feels like I'm insulting him.
I wonder, is there a way for him to regain what he has lost? Or is he forever branded traitor for one choice in an otherwise honourable career?
Winter.....Is.....Coming......
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/22/0b/b4/220bb4ae9c6348f64fe9a133dc146e49.jpg
I feel bad for Hain. That is a real hard choice he had to make. Either lose everyone to a war that's already lost, or lose everything.... What a choice save your own skin or save everyone's.......
6195772
How many chapters, I wonder?
6196974 6198145 6197290 6198566
I want to say things, but all I will say is ... soon! Definitely got some close-looking eyes here!
6199594
If you like that so far ...
6200060
Eh, I'd disagree, but I'm not inclined to pursue the debate here. It's not the place for it. So agree to disagree?
6200081
Yeah ... that was my bad. Luckily a pre-reader caught it early.
6204604
No, unfortunately. He's exiled for good. No chance of making amends. It's harsh, like Blade said, but such a dedicated system keeps their culture going.
Additionally, I think those who were still confused as to why Blade didn't just "dump her contract" in the last book and why she was so divided over it have a new understanding of how serious that is. When it comes to one's contracts, the Griffon Empire plays for total keeps. Loss of honor is a huge deal.
6204709
A lot more of who he is, and why he's so sensitive about things even all these years later suddenly comes into focus, doesn't it?
6205173
It's definitely a wonder how an empire based off of HONOR! is still up and running. (Maybe a scarred boy and his uncle could make a home there.) By this time I'd expect half of the upper council to be replaced with changeling infiltrators all pulling the strings, or a much more dishonorable group plays them for fools and massacres a legion or two of them. Does give a reasonable explanation on why Blade didn't just up and leave over that stupid contract in Rise.
Obviously her not paying much heed to Sombrero coming back is worrying.
Now I feel bad for Hain. No wonder he doesn't want to talk about his past. At the same time, though, I understand why the griffins are so strict about honor, considering how they used to be warmongers. No griffin will try to backstab another griffin with these consequences.
I bet that Sombra's going to be freed just when they think they've won.
You know, your version of the Griffon Empire sounds a lot like the Canon version if the Idol of Boreas had either never been lost, or never discovered in the first place.
Also, they never actually stated that the Vault was in or under the Pinnacle, right? That's gonna be an awkward moment.
I don’t think one evil unicorn is going to make a difference, even if he is all bad and tough
i know you have no idea of who your talking about but...c'mon this is SOMBRA the evil unicorn that made the crystal empire disapear! (he did do that and im not having a blonde moment right?)
6207782 Sombrero is Sombra, I presume?
The internet has spoiled me. I can't not read that in the voice of Tristan.
6207782 Avatar?