//------------------------------// // The Draft-Notice // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS092 The jaunt up to Rennet City was too long of a jog to justify if we hadn't made more use of my time than that. So we made a virtue of necessity and I took over some of Dancing Shadow's less Dior Enfant-esque errands while I was going upcountry. We needed to send some ponies to the hidden colony forming in Hydromel, as well as some other tasks here and there along the road. To accommodate both the gravid Duchesse and several of our mares in similiarly, if more advanced conditions, we rented Brass Ring's luxurious travelling coach. Since we were already making a Company production of it all, I caved in to Rye Daughter's entreaties. The young doe was appointed care-taker to the obstetrics coach, while I marched outside in the weather with the other guards. We stopped at the Palisades for the night, and I broke into the winter uniform supplies that had mysteriously been left up on the plateau. Admittedly, the full force of winter had not yet flown downhill into the bottomlands, but when we arrived at the blockhouse, that moment was days rather than weeks away. I took a strip of hide off of the hired depot master responsible for the delay, and she promised that they would be on the next wagon downcountry. In the meantime, I drew out a requisition for the guard and Rye, so that we were properly clothed the next morning when we headed north again with the Duchesse. Little of note occurred on the Road between the Palisades and the city gates of Rennet City. I had never actually set hoof in that modest castle-town, so it was all as new to me as it was to Rye Daughter, who was as appropriately enthused as a half-foal on the cusp of adulthood ought to have been. Which is to say, she was intermittently sullen and giddy with wonder. Her hormones were definitely kicking in with a vengeance. We delivered the Duchesse into the anxious hooves of her attendants, whose righteous wrath at having been abandoned for the dubious company of the Road was generally washed away by the news of her grace's engagement and pending nuptials. The convolutions involved in joyously proclaiming this happy news while never acknowledging her pregnant state and weeks-long disappearance into the savage wilds of Pepin were, well, they weren't exactly a masterwork of misdirection and bald-faced evasion, but they did their best, bless their hearts. Speaking of attendants, I made sure to meet with the Duchesse's attending physician while I was in Rennet, and we had a long, intense conversation on the subject of proper sanitation, zebra gestation periods and obstetrics practices, and what exactly I could do with a scalpel or a pioneer's-axe if I felt that a certain university doctorate-holding physician was in any way lax or careless in her care of the Duchesse. And especially on the subject of how to handle the foaling of twins. Luckily, the Duchesse was far past that youthful period wherein a mare is capable of being impregnated without exactly being mature enough to carry to term without serious complications, and her pelvis was such that a Trojan section would not be necessary. If it had been a single birth; the presentation of twins threw all of those calculations into the river, as it were. The idea of a jenny carrying two half-zebra foals naturally was one that left me feeling anxious and uncertain. Once I was finished scaring ten years off the life of the Duchesse's attending physician, I went to the ducal receiving chambers to tear the Duchesse away from her two road-companions, with whom she had bonded over their shared trevails, to take my little caravan back on the road before the next blizzard of the season shut down even the Bride's Roads. What I found there was another awkward situation just waiting to complicate the life of the Company. Two of the Duchesse's militia-captains were meeting with her grace, and were not being particularly cordial about it. Her eyes fell upon me as her attendants let me into the hall, and silently begged my aid. How could I possibly help her? The things we do… "Yes, Your Grace? How might I aid Rennet in this wintery season?" "Sir Sawbones, I am presented with the Imperium's manpower requirements for the coming campaign season. Every activated recruiting district is required to present a fully horsed company to the recruiting officers when they arrive in the third month; Rennet lies within five such active recruiting districts. We missed the last two cycles, which is why we are hit trebly hard." "The concern among the militia is that companies raised in the last ten cycles have not returned from their deployments," interjected one of the militia-captains, a bluff, tall stallion with a slight cast in one eye. "Not even so much as a wounded pony. The Imperium has only taken our armsponies and returned nothing but form letters. It was one of the grievances of the rebel caribou; the current recruitment drive is mild and small-scale in comparison with the drafts of '08 and '09. The militia is barely back on its hooves, we don't want to pour more blood down the Bride's sluice into the Riverlands." "That sounds like a difficult situation, but I do not know how I could possibly address it from my position. Has Her Grace explained to you who I am?" They nodded. "So you know that we are but recently signed to Her Imperial Majesty's Service. I and my officers have almost no contact with the Imperial armed forces, excepting some scattered relations with supply officers and Her Imperial Majesty herself. I certainly could not interfere in recruiting campaigns." All of which was the sadly naked truth. It sounded like a rough deal, but I wasn't in the hoof. "If you are indeed properly signed to the Imperial Service, there is something you can do," said the previously-silent militia-captain, a weedy, bespectacled donkey who reminded me strongly of Broken Sigil. "Recruiting quotas can be met by volunteers sent to any active regiment or battalion. In the past, we have satisfied our quotas by raising independent regiments or battalions under provincial officers. The Major is incorrect in asserting that we have not gotten back any of our militia; the Third and Fifth Rennet returned after five years of service, much reduced, but intact as organizations." "That was nine years ago! And the other three regiments disappeared into the cauldron without a bubble!" "Something is better than nothing. And I must caution, that this practice is not exactly foolproof. The 9th Imperial that rebelled at Menomenie was originally a Pepin-raised regiment recruited along these lines. There is always the question of loyalty in specially raised regiments. We need some way to assure that the raised troops remain loyal, while not being fed into the woodchippers of the Riverlands." "Again," I repeated, "I don't see where the Black Company comes into this. We're external to the Imperial system, aside from our contract with the Empress. You surely don't intend to force five companies' worth of round-peg recruits into our square hole!" "That is, more or less, what we propose. I've been through the statutes and the recruitment drive proclamation, painstakingly so. I am, after all, in civilian life, a barrister with an active practice. The loophole is there - we can raise companies for a mercenary company in proper service to the Phalactery." "Gah, I'm a little weak on your militia organizational details. How big is a 'company' in this context? And are we talking camp-roster, muster-rolls, or lances in the field? We don't even use 'company' in the Black Company, which is obviously the size of a large regiment by your standards." "A 'company' is ninety lances, nine officers, and supports of varying numbers. Usually, the recruited companies end up being just the ninety lances, as the Imperium tends to refuse our militia officers." "And you wonder why your recruited companies never come back… my stars!" I thought it over. That was over four hundred new recruits, it would wash away the Company's discipline! "Tell me the rest of the northlands won't be trying to foist their recruits on us as well; we can only absorb so many ponies at a time. And it isn't as if we've been suffering that many losses, despite two active seasons in the field. Wait! We took in almost ninety caribou last season from the prisoners captured on the Road outside Lait Blanc, can those count against your recruiting totals?" "Highly irregular-" "Bodies are bodies, rebellious or otherwise-" "Were they technically under provincial control?" I chose to answer that last muttered exchange. "They were under the control of a provincial authority; it just happened to be a rebellious one. They were the remnants of two separate provincial White Rose regiments, couldn't they count as two companies for your recruiting-quota?" "I do not see why this could not be the case, gentlecolts," interceded the Duchesse into our impromptu military conference. "If the Black Company is willing to accept the responsibility for these 'two companies', why not lay the burden across their withers? And Sir Sawbones, would the Company be willing to take three actual volunteer militia-companies in this season?" "The caribou were fair volunteers themselves, every one. We let them out of their imprisonment and told them to take the gate and their parole or the Black. It was perhaps our earnest salesmareship which led the majority of them to swear the pike-staff, but it was definitely voluntary. We would have to send a recruiting detail to each militia-regiment, and demonstrate exactly what they were getting themselves into." I reached under my throat, and removed the glamour-charm which Otonashi had gifted me before our departure from Dance Hall. The two militia-captains recoiled in startled horror at my altered visage. "The Black Company is not simply a private military contractor. We are also a mystic brotherhood bound by fell oaths and a fey promise to our brethren. Anypony who fought under the White Rose against us and survived, can tell you what that looks like from the losing side. Only we can tell you what it means from inside. And Company membership is for life, until a promise of certain death." I put back on my semblance, and sighed. "At least we can promise that our recruits will never return to their families' front doors dead and shambling, to devour that which they loved in life. We are proof against this world's horrible half-life, half-death. When a soldier of the Company dies, she dies for good, never more to rise again." "So say we all," murmured the two pregnant Company mares sitting beside their friend the Duchesse. The Duchesse and her militia-captains were pale and quiet. Clearly they had much to think upon. "We will be returning in a week or so, once I've attended to a number of chores and errands elsewhere in the North. When I return, we can continue this conversation once you've conferred amongst yourselves. Your Grace, it was good seeing you again. Take care." And I left with my charges in tow. We had a new-founded colony to look in on, and our own recruits to collect.