//------------------------------// // Two Crossroads // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS138 Feufollet's description of the departure of the Company was good enough for the permanent Annals; I was proud of her rapid improvement. I was looking over her contribution as the last few carts in the Company train made the crossroads at Charred Horton, and we beat eastwards towards Vallee du Pierre and six weeks of intensive training. We met the General and her staff at this crossroads; there was no drama, no confusion. They immediately swung their headquarters-carts into formation with our own headquarters section, and she began to confer with the Captain and the Lieutenant and Broken Sigil. One thing Feufollet got wrong was the exact purpose of our move through that southernmost province of the north; Valle du Pierre was in zero danger of imminent invasion by the ravening White Rose. She was three hundred miles and one utterly impassible riverine barrier distant from the nearest open road on the exploded southern flank. It was more likely that a raiding force of rebels would bound across the rushing currents of the Mother of Waters above Harmony's Root and boom cross-country for a hundred-fifty miles of blasted wasteland than they'd come up this way via the currently active theatre of war. Still, the burghers and small-holders of the soil-poor Vallee were anxious, and contributing their fair share to the mobilization, and was closest to the depots and transport hubs of Rime. She also boasted a deep if narrow lake-port in Grand Dame, which allowed the General and her staff to swiftly route militia regiments into and out of the central districts of the province via the lake's copious water transport. Militia regiments were gathering in camps outside of lake ports all up and down the great Inland Sea's western shore, hopefully training in modern field tactics and evolutions instead of those archaic garrison-games that militias across the Chain indulge in when they're looking to impress the administrative ponies paying for their equipment and fancy uniforms. The General had chosen to use the resources available to her, and tapped the Company as a training unit for her thundering herds of half-trained, half-rabble militia, however much we could cram into those ponies in the few weeks we had before the grand army of the north had to make an appearance south of Rime. Even now, we weren't at all sure where the new army would be deployed. Everything south of the great trade-city was in flux, in fog, in confusion. Nopony knew anything. The Bride was besieged in the Second Mouth! The Bride was dead! The Bride had the White Rose trapped in the Second Mouth, and was besieging them! The White Rose was raiding the southern bank of the Housa! No, the northern bank! They were in the rear of the Grand Army! They were in the rear of the Grand Army, but who cares? There's nothing there! They were marching for the gates of Rime! All worthless. So, we marched for the Vallee, and for the training-fields. The pegasi boomed ahead of us, and carried construction-ponies to help the local militia establish sketchy training-facilities and tent-camps for the influx of regiments. Not too many, mind you – corn-poor Pierre couldn't feed the entire army of the north, not for any period of time. Thus, the bulk of the army's regiments would wait in their lakeside camps, and try to remember which end of a pike went in which direction, and how to march with the damn things without tripping up your file-mates. We met the IV Hydromel straggling badly across the crossroads where the lakeside Bride's Road encountered the spur between Charred Horton and a Vallee town known as Swampbottom. It was one of the Vallee's richer districts, despite the humble name, and the modest fields around the Road approaching the crossroads were already showing winter wheat and rye emerging from their long winter dormancy. And the IV Hydromel had managed to get itself tangled up on the crossroads, with carter-ponies trying to force the passage eastwards from the lake proper, arguing with militia non-coms, while the ranks stood around looking stupid and leaning on their spears. At least one cart was turned over in the middle of the crossroads itself, as if some White Rose saboteur had deliberately blocked the vital transit point. And that was, indeed, what the ranking IV Hydromel noncom was screaming at the offending ponies. Nonsense, of course, no enemy spy is capable of making as great of a mess of your plans and dispositions as your own gormless underlings, even in the best of situations. And militia-ponies making a grand movement for the first time in a generation cannot under any circumstances be mistaken for the best of situations. Our air patrol detected the problem long before any ground element of the Company approached the blockage, of course, so our advance party was prepared for clearance by the time the mess came into view. The militia-ponies had gotten the broken-down cart out of the middle of the crossroads, and were in the process of driving the civilians back towards the little port they had came out from, at spear-point. Effective, but rather unpolitic. Fuller Falchion, who was leading his own advance party that day, boomed forward to take control of the situation, and calm down the enraged civilian carters. I had gone up front that morning to see what the militia looked like, and I trailed in the commander's wake, looking for somepony to interview from the militia, if I could cut one out of the herd. I hit the jackpot, as our old friend Lieutenant Hey You came roaring down the line of idled militia rankers, spitting nails. I watched her get her ponies moving again, and it was always nice to see a professional at work, even among great undisciplined hordes of weekend warriors. Once she was done, and things were moving once again, I hailed her. "Lieutenant Hey You! Glad to see all those lessons paid off for you! Look at you crack the whip!" "It's Captain Hey You to you, you – Zebra! How are you, you great muddy maniac! Lose an eye somewhere?" "Oh, you know, you leave something in your caparison, the laundry will lose it nine times out of ten. I still can see more with the remaining one than any of you damn militia-ponies! Your lot get the black stone this time around?" "More like they just hoofed the black stone right to us, no pretense of rigging the lottery. We had ‘experience', damn your striped hide! Clean up one stupid, bloody mercenary's mess, and suddenly you're the ‘veteran company'! They transferred us right out of our home regiment into this undisciplined bodge of a rabble. By the way, don't call me that in the rabble's hearing. As far as they're concerned, I'm Anise Liquor." "Mmm! Haven't had any ouzo in a goat's age. Your pony talent?" "Something like that. Can't carry trade-goods with me when we're on deployment, though. Sorry to disappoint you." "Can't use anise liquors in my trade, anyways. Too much sugar, messes up the antiseptic qualities. Also throws off the balance of certain alchemical potions I need high-test for." We chattered for a good hour as the battalions of the IV Hydromel and their straggling, uncontrolled supply-train clotted up the crossroads. The rest of Fuller Falchion's cohort caught up to us, and went into a temporary laager while we waited for our turn at the crossroads. The story of an army in the field – hurry up and wait, no matter how carefully you time your movements and deployments. The ponies of the Company eyed the straggling IV Hydromel, and every mare and stallion was calculating how exactly to break that militia down, and built up an honest field-regiment of the bits and pieces. The Company wasn't a training unit, but what it put its hoof to, it would do. Vehemently.