//------------------------------// // Performance Review // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS029 When I stomped over to the main gates, I was under the impression that some damn fool messenger from our liaison had jumped the usual protocols and come directly to the compound. Dior Enfant had settled into her role as the Company liaison, and eventually figured out she was in a supporting role, not our actual employer. We'd seen less and less of her as the young jenny had started circulating through the province as an asset-handler, increasingly hooves-on as our scouts by necessity had pulled back in the terrible conditions. She had come a long way from that jumped-up teenaged buffoon the Marklaird had left holding the bag when it had pissed off to do whatever it was legates did when they weren't hiring mercenary companies and setting them loose on the countryside with vague instructions. Speaking of which, the little black leather-wrapped horror was sitting patiently in front of the gate-guard. It was impossible to see any sort of expression on that matte-black expanse of animal-hide which passed for a muzzle, but its posture conveyed a sort of louche amusement. "Physician! Greetings to you on this most wonderful of mornings!" It was sleeting outside the gates, and so dark as to not be truly describable as daylight. It was only day by courtesy of the sand-glasses. I exchanged glances with the ponies on guard. "Did the outer posts bring our employer in?" "No sign of them, Bones." "Go get your relief, and then go check on the posts." Our employer, who was notably unaccompanied by the usual cloud of functionaries and aides, waved a foreleg at me. "Tut-tut, dear physician, I have done nothing to your road-guard. I did not wish to draw them out of their cozy, dry closes merely to escort my august personage to your front door." The laird's voice changed, as it always did, sending the usual shivers down my spine. The new voice was too similar to that of my apprentice, and I looked down at my side to make sure nothing had happened to Rye Daughter. "Oh, my, and what is this? Are you collecting samples? How do, dearie? Don't you smell… fresh." The warlock had disappeared as soon as I'd taken my eyes off of it, and it was now lurkng to my left, peering under my barrel at the cringing caribou fawn. Its voice was now that of an avuncular, if fey, uncle. The sort your parents never left you alone with when you were growing up. "Apprenticeship program. Needed a surgical assistant. Starting small, somepony needs to do the laundry." "And you found the time to recruit on my dime, again. Oh, yes, I heard the stories of your raid on the sadlers in Tonnarre. So fierce! Did you need a spare source of leather for your harnesses?" The horror would have an interest in tanning, wouldn't it? The voice, this time, a pitch-perfect copy of the salespony who had "sold" me our oxen carters. "My apologies if my actions caused your time to be wasted by complaints or petitions." "And yet, you continue to waste my time by discussing it further. Enough of that. Your Captain! I have come to discuss our plans, and your performance in their completion. In short, this is a performance review." Now dry as dust, lifted I think from one of the laird's older lackeys. So I led it into the base, and to the Lieutenant. What else could I do? The Marklaird theoretically paid us, not that anypony had seen a denier since Tonnarre. We found her in her office, a nook next to operations with a couple of unfinished log-tables and an equally uncomfortable-looking chair, and an expensive oil lamp. She was doing the usual endless paperwork which is the lot of Company upper management. "Captain, my Captain! You've lost considerable weight! And height! And gender. And species." The little monster turned on me in a pique, and bellowed in a thundering lumberjack's basso profundo, "Where is my griffin!" "Ser Legate, you know this pony, this is our Lieutenant. I know for a fact that you were closeted up with her and the Captain for days planning the campaign. She's currently in charge of the Company until the Captain recovers from his injuries. We're not exactly sure what happened, but he seems to have suffered some sort of stroke or aneurysm, not anything I've ever seen before. A couple weeks into the campaign, out of nowhere. I can show you him later. He seems to be suffering atypical aphasia and loss of cognitive function." "I turn my back on you lot for a few days, and you go and break your commander! No wonder you have not delivered on his promises! I was Promised. A. Rebel. Free. Province. By. Winter!" A petulant foal now, screeching for her confiscated dollie. "Ser Legate," started the Lieutenant, getting up and gesturing to the operations room. "Let us show you our progress. It is not yet winter, nor is the province exactly crawling with the White Rose. You find us rather camp-bound at the moment, and I can only applaud your willingness to travel in such conditions." The Marklaird allowed itself to be guided to the neighboring operations centre, with its sand-table and racks of scrolls, records, and map-hangers. It was mostly quiet as the Lieutenant pointed out the salient points of the province and the campaign, and what little intelligence we still had up to date given the terrible weather. "The campaign season was a week shorter than we had hoped, with the early rains. The unexpected turn of the season caught both sides unprepared, and we've had influenza throughout the province. They seem to have weathered it worse than we have; they're barely posting the main highways, although they're posting them in force. We think they're concentrating in expectation that a conventional force might be staging to sweep them from the province entirely. If this were a conventional campaign, that very well might have been the case, although I hardly would have endorsed such a push with all the fields croup-deep in muck and runoff. And we have no such conventional force nearby, as no doubt you know. I've had some teams out trying to raise the organized militias of the neighboring provinces, but they're lance-shy from last year's debacle." "The cowards broke and ran after the repulse at Menomenie. With barely any losses to speak of! The regulars were shattered, and the militias ran! Militias!" "The militias are still there, intact, armed, and organized," I interrupted. "Where are the regular regiments? Two mutinied and we've been killing them left and right here in the province. The others are scattered, deserters or dead, or folded into some of the militias, or sitting in some distant depot somewhere we can't find. Cowardice that preserves a formation is just another synonym for competent leadership." The Marklaird let loose a mulish whinny. "Is that what has been happening here, the preservation of forces? Are you endorsing cowardice, physician? Is that this Company's discipline?" "That is my discipline. I'm the pony that has to stitch together the shattered remnants left in the wake of brave and gallant officers. You're damn right we avoid bravery and gallantry whenever we possibly can." "A Company of assassins and sneak-thieves?" A judgmental justice of the peace, quavering with self-righteousness and tenuous authority. "A Company of successful sneak-thieves and excellent assassins. Tartarus-fire, we once rode with the original Assassins, the term was invented by our foremothers! We've made sure that no surplus grain or foodstuffs will be shipped south into the Riverlands for the next campaign season, and we've savaged the White Rose throughout the province. The only thing being exported to the south are hungry mouths and whipped ponies." "But I did not ask for whipped ponies and economic anarchy! I wanted. my. province!" The petulant foal again. Somehow I had taken over the argument from the Lieutenant. Another one of her gypsy tricks, leaving me to argue with our unreasonable employer. I thought we had agreed to not sell our lances to faceless ponies? "You will have your province, or at least, your empress will have her province again. But not this morning, and possibly not until the spring campaign. We might be able to put together some operations once the ground turns solid again, but winter campaigns can be hard in the best of conditions, and I've been told the winters are terrible this far north in Tambelon. The seeds have been sown, the rebel regiments are by all reports falling to pieces as we speak. They've had nothing but defeat, terror, and grief from the civilians since high summer. Disease and desertion will leave them skeletons of their former selves by spring. You might even see us operate in the open fields, if the conditions are right. I hate to see the Company act like a proper army, but sometimes it can't be avoided." The little leather-wrapped gimp was silent, and unmoving. I frowned suddenly as I realized what I had never quite noticed before, not on a conscious level. The Marklaird was always so animated, so full of quirks and twitches. I had never noticed that it didn't move like it was breathing under those leather wraps. They were tight enough, I didn't think it was possible it was only breathing slightly and the bulk was hiding the movement. There was no movement. Even the most awful of monsters had to breathe. What was... The Marklaird broke its stillness, and barked in a high-pitched male voice, "Fine! I don't need the entire province, although my mistress certainly wants it sooner rather than later. That doesn't mean I'm happy. Not my mistress, me, the Marklaird, your actual employer. The Bride is my mistress, but I pay you out of my own funds, my authority, mine! And I need something here." It fell silent again. The Lieutenant stepped forward, and placated our employer. "Of course, Ser Legate. As soon as conditions allow. Please, we need details, directions, explanations, if only enough to allow us to give you what you need. We currently cannot take the entire province to give you whatever it is within it. You will have to trust us with enough, if only just enough, to meet whatever deadline you're not telling us about." So the Marklaird gave us those details. And we called in the cohort commanders, and started to lay out objectives. And the cohort commanders began to make plans. We had a castle to storm.