Into the Storm will update this weekend... · 4:10pm Feb 1st, 2018
I'm sorry for the delay, but I had one of my worst bouts of writers' block in recent history over the third chapter of the Cloudsdale battle, unable to figure out how it was going to work--how civilians and retired veterans away from the weather factory could or would successfully fight back against the Knights and Ravens. But being down with the flu for the past few days was good for one thing; it gave me plenty of down time to think about it and I'm pleased to say I finally broke through and figured it out. The new chapter will shift focus to the other end of Cloudsdale, where the Knights have laid siege to the large Militia base that's supposed to be Cloudsdale's primary defense. This part of the battle will be from the point of yet another new perspective, and I don't think readers will be disappointed at whose it is. Particularly if you read the original Rise of Firefly.
Current chapter length now stands at well over 8,000 words, you can expect a nice meaty and action-packed chapter to compensate for the long delay. Most likely time for the new chapter to launch at this point will be Sunday morning, which has been favorable to me for getting featured and the most new likes in the past. So prereaders, stand by... I intend to finish the draft by Saturday.
A teaser? Tell you what: I'll give you one, but not of the battle itself, which I would like everyone to come in cold to so they be as surprised as the Gryphons will be. What follows is an interlude in the new chapter, and a hint of things to come...
Outpost Epsilon
Pony/Gryphon Border
September 1st, 1139AE
1340 hours
“New message from Gamma, ma’am…” Fell Flight informed me at around 1pm when our communications gems spat out a new scroll, and I knew from the look in her slitted eyes that the news was not good as she found outside policing the grounds. We’d found only a few wounded Gryphons to take into custody, as, true to Talon form, most had killed themselves rather than surrender. “Cloudsdale is under heavy attack. Initial reports state the Gryphons have sent at least a millennium of Knights against it.” she told me, clearly struggling to control her emotions.
I did not immediately answer, though I understood the implications well enough, my eyes closing in silent prayer for the civilians and forces we had there. Even in my wildest fears and fantasies, I had not actually believed the Gryphons could strike the great city so far inside Equestrian borders, and on such short notice. That they could ‘twas testament to their training, to their new Prelate’s meticulous planning… and their numbers that they had such forces to spare on such short notice even as the Knights and Talons were steadily reducing the Army and Aerial Corps border bases to nothing; both Delta and the Army base at Outpost Blue had fallen silent just in the past hour, meaning they were most likely lost…
Meaning that we were now the only border force still standing this side of Omega, which we had only fragmentary contact with was still holding on. We’d heard little from anywhere else; I took some comfort from not hearing that Fort Spur had been struck, trying not to think of the possibility that still would be or worse, had already been destroyed but word had simply not reached us.
“I see…” I told her at some length as I looked out over the canyon, lost in my own brooding thoughts, my forces now on continuous patrol and unable to do much except await the next gryphon attack. “I know how you must feel, Master Sergeant. If you need some time to yourself...” I felt compelled to add, but the lie of my own empathy tasted bitter on my tongue. For how could I know how she felt? I’d been to the city all of once whilst many soldiers under my command like Fell Flight and Blindside had their families there; I could only imagine what was going through Fell Flight’s head at this hour as both her promised command at Omega and her family at Cloudsdale were endangered, to say nothing her own life here at the Epsilon.
To that point, the Gryphons had attempted nothing more than harassment since their disastrous first attack, but were steadily closing the space in which we could operate, pressing in slowly from all sides and cutting off all possible avenues of reinforcement or escape. Patrols had spotted at least two points they appeared to be massing troops and worse, a number of Knights had been seen among them. It meant the next attempt on our base, whenever it came, would be backed by their elite soldiers, and we could be assured it would not repeat the mistakes of the first.
“How I feel is helpless, ma’am,” my second told me through clenched teeth. “Helpless to stop any of this, helpless to even fight back. Helpless just to wait for our own end and know at any other choice we make leads only to our earlier annihilation!” She brought her hoof down hard enough to crack the stone floor. “By the sun and Luna moon’s ma’am, I want to fight!”
“Steady, Master Sergeant,” First Sergeant Still Way told her, the ranking member of our three Celestial Guardsponies having levitated himself up to the watchtower to stand watch while the other two rested. “To act in anger is to play into our enemy’s hooves. We must make our decisions calmly and rationally, and with an eye on what will either buy us the most time, or cost our enemies the most.”
Fell Flight was in no mood for such advice. “So you wouldst have us sit back and wait, First Sergeant? To do nothing whilst Equestria crumbles around us and our brethren in the Army and Aerial Corps fight and die unaided by our forces?” she challenged the strangely serene stallion, one whom I’d never seen raise his voice or show even the slightest hint of temper or frustration, even though he’d encountered plenty of the latter whilst trying to train our initially recalcitrant healer team to use longbows and defensive spells.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied evenly, with an odd smile, his own bow sheathed on his back with a nearly-full quiver of arrows still present. “Just that we make our military decisions rationally, not rashly.”
Before Fell Flight could retort, another scroll materialized at that moment from one of the dragonfire gems in a puff of green smoke. “If I may, commander…?” He asked politely, and with my nod, Still Way plucked it up with his aura and unfurled it to read, smiling as he did so. “Well, then. Perchance, Master Sergeant, there is way we may satisfy both our need to fight and to help preserve our force. I believe you will both approve at what no less than Captain Sirocco has done… and find within a suggestion for what we might do,” he said almost slyly as he motioned down at the scroll, passing it to us.
Fell Flight and I read it together, our eyes going wide as we finally read some good battle news… and then thin and predatory, a toothy grin parting our lips as well as we learned what our Division commander had done. Methinks we both had the same idea when we read the dispatch, and my already-great admiration for our esteemed Captain of the Corps 5th Division only increased for her sheer audacity.
“Orders, ma’am?” Fell Flight asked eagerly.
“Summon the ready platoon and half our storm teams!” I ordered Fell Flight, who nodded eagerly as I grabbed a map marked with the growing gryphon troop concentrations, studying it. “If Gamma could do it facing much larger numbers, perchance we can too…”
Hopefully that will whet your collective appetites for future chapters. Be looking for the next installment in the story this weekend!
We were surrounded and thought all hope was lost, then the patch of cloud we had been herded to began to tremble. A hoof punched up through the surface, the cloud-miners had come.
I look forward to seeing what really happens this weekend.