//------------------------------// // Travelling Weather // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS084 The fallout from the attack on Trollbridge and my mistake would have to wait. The new Lieutenant and the Captain were presented a run of brilliant late-autumn days, warm and clear, and of necessity the Company ran to the ticks of a clock swiftly winding down. Columns with honeypot charms spread out across the Deep Mines range, constructing at the mouth of each holler, palisade traps. Wooden pens with open gates, and high posts slotted to take the honeypot charms when construction was complete. Several skirmishes were fought to protect the construction crews, but few injuries arose from the fighting, as the Company was now expert in the care and handling of wildling ghouls. Mostly the late autumn campaign was an exercise in crowd control, luring roving bands and singletons into the enclosures and trapping them there where the absent Major Gorefyre could quickly and easily collect her charges when the 93rd Rear Support Battalion returned from their initial delivery run. Assuming that the late legate hadn't ambushed the 93rd on the road. Although the band of ghouls making the assault on Trollbridge showed no signs of being those enthralled undead sent off with the Major and her ponies. Odds were good that the two forces had passed each other in the wastelands without ever crossing each others' trails. Aside from tending to the few wounded ponies produced by the low-intensity fighting, I had little official business to keep me busy. I began to set up an industrial still operation, and sent up an order to the Palisades for cracked corn and milled rye, enough to feed a mash. I asked around the Company for any moonshiners, but I think they thought I was playing military garda and nopony would admit to having any experience in running a bootleg still. I gave up and sent another request up to the Palisades for a brewmaster or master distiller if any were available. I had books on the subject, and of course, the alchemy tomes. But really, all I needed was pure aqua vitae, and somepony I didn't have to train to run the blasted stills without getting themselves blown up. It wasn't as if we needed anything drinkable – it was probably better if it wasn't, ponies looking to get plastered wouldn't raid my antiseptic supplies that way. The woodlands surrounding Mondovi had been trampled flat in the summer's fighting, and almost everything of medical or medicinal value had been destroyed out to a range beyond comfortable walking distance. The irony here was that the Deep Mines we were fighting to clear for further mining were the probable origins of the blue and white vitriol I had purchased so dearly the winter before. I could probably dig up my own supply if I wanted to distract a section or two of armsponies for my own amusement, mucking about in the abandoned delvings. In the end, I didn't indulge myself, but I can't say I didn't think about making an expedition of it. After about a week of good weather, Octavius, Stomper and the rest of the knights up at the Palisades decided it was time to bring the foal- no, the apprentices down to the main facility at Dance Hall. They had been kept separate from the Company proper for far too many weeks. They made a convoy of it, and I was expecting my milled grain supplies to arrive with Rye Daughter and the rest of them. They were leaving the oxen and a cadre of recovering wounded and guards up at the Palisades, as the granges of central Pepin still hadn't gotten up a militia leadership willing to take over the fortress on the lip of the plateau. I couldn't figure out the hold-up there, but it was well out of my bailiwick, and as I understand it, leadership had decided to leave the problem of organizing that region to its proper owner and sovereign, the Duc. His control was still somewhat limited, as he was stuck behind the Deep Mines range, and a solitary, insecure road that wound its way between the Pepin Front and those detached hills along the river. Progress was being made, but in that region you could still be found by opportunistic bands of shamblers if your luck wasn't in. Octavius's convoy was late arriving that afternoon, so late that afternoon had faded into twilight by the time the signals-array on the northern watch-tower reported the train's approach. Exasperated, I trotted out to meet them by the northern gate. The northern gate had been elaborated into a modest bastion, with a palisade thrown up across the fields back to hook into the northern walls of Mondovi proper. If the local supply of lumber hadn't run out, I suspect that Mad Jack would have completed the circuit on the other side of Mondovi extending across to the eastern end of the embankment at Trollbridge. There were plans in place to send out long-range logging parties once the Deep Mines were satisfactorily cleared, but that was mostly just completism at work. And the destruction of Trollbridge had thrown most of our further expansion plans into chaos. The train still hadn't reached the gate by the time I got there, and instead of making the guard open up the sally port for my sake, I just waited for the main gate to open for the convoy. Stomper and Dodger were in the van, along with a pair of armsponies. Cherie circled over the convoy, with Throat Kicker flying behind her. She waved cheerfully at me as she passed overhead. Behind the van came carters hauling the remainder of my medical supplies from the Palisades, and behind them cartloads of milled grain for the distillery, and yeah, other ponies' supplies, but who cares about that? Rye Daughter was taller again, another hoof at least. Her antlers were coming in nicely, and with her new height, extended well over my crest when we stood together. Caribou have considerably more sexual dimorphism than zebra or ponies, but at the rate Rye was growing, she was going to be on the high end of the doe range. She was going to be a big mare before she finished her adult growth. "Boss, what the hay happened to your face? Something blow up on the stills? And why are you wearing a darkvision amulet this time of day?" "That's a long story, liebchen. Short version is, there was a bit of an accident, and you'll see a couple hoofs-full of ponies with permanent thestral eye from now on, and we'll all be a little short-furred until we grow our coats back. You probably don't want to know the details." She gave me a dubious look, and waved a hoof at me. "You know somepony's going to talk, and we'll hear about it. Jungle telegraph will report all in whole." "And probably more than actually happened. Let's see what the gossips tell you, and we'll evaluate the efficiency of the rumor net. I'll bet you, damn, I have no idea what you might want these days, but I'll put up something you want, against your promise to sit and tell me everything you've been up to, that the rumor version is utter horseapples." "Boss, you can get that without making silly bets. How about help with your new distillery, against, I don't know, permission to join in with Dodger's crew when they start their advanced training?" "Is that permission, or forgiveness for what you've already been doing on your own hook? Stomper keeps me up to date, and if she didn't, Gibblets certainly would." As we talked beside the gate, Otonashi, the Crow and Octavius walked past, with – a bedraggled pony in chains? Under all the bruises, streaked bad dye-jobs, and black eyes, I recognized our absent spy, who was supposed to still be out with the voyageurs somewhere west of Rime. "Octavius! What the tartarus is this? Where'd you find her?" "I didn't find her, she found Guilliame's Ravin. And she's why we're so late. She got caught red-hoofed being shifty, and they beat the applesauce out of her. We wasted almost an hour arguing with the Ravin's guards about whether we were obliged to take her or not. I finally gave up when they started getting ready to string her up on their front gate. I think she qualifies as 'Sawbones' Problem' once we get situated, don't you?" "Sweetheart, you really stepped in it. We were going to leave you free to play spook, so long as you didn't mess with us, but damn if you didn't scare the locals. You never scare the locals, especially not when they're as traumatized as they are in this province. Hey, Otonashi, Crow, can you put this knucklehead somewhere secure when we get to the Hall? I'm afraid to admit that we haven't built any dungeons, there hasn't really been any call for it, what with all the undead and a notable lack of living rebels. I don't know, maybe Broken Sigil knows of a broom closet somewhere we can lock her in until I can get my horseapples together." The Bride's Road was terribly crowded with the carts and wagons and ponies on hoof. I could almost sympathize with the Bride's recent outrage over our vandalism against her grand roadway. Re-extending the roadway on the southern verge of the Road along the ramparts was yet another engineering project crying out for attention. Meanwhile, we suffered and limited traffic to single-file columns inside of the fortified region. The torches were being lit, and the sound of the ravelin drawbridge rising in the distance greeted us as we reached the main gates of Dance Hall. I had slipped some IOUs to the musician-ponies of Mondovi in lieu of cash, and as they spotted our convoy approaching the gate, they struck up a tune for our foals returning to a home they were seeing for the first time. The band played something nostalgic and sentimental about voyageurs leaving for some distant town, as our ponies came home. Plus one prisoner.