FFMS006
At the end of the sixth week of our Long Hike we delivered our weekly tranche of battered and exhausted militia unto the port of Grand Dame, to file onto their troop transports, with their wagons, carts, and necessaries, onwards down-coast to the increasingly crowded camps on the outskirts of great Rime. By this round of the endless circuit, the Company in the field had hardened like beaten steel. We were a cutting blade – whetted, narrow, sharp. We increasingly found the gaps in between, slipping between the feckless trainees who thought to use their new camp-doctrine and Company-instruction to show off in the field exercises. They had been humbled like all the rest.
I could now march and muster my phantom legion in my sleep, and had occasionally done so, according to Gibblets. We were all cross-trained in our vilest tricks; I could bring down half a company with the tanglevine gag, knock ten chamfrons from the heads of ten wary militia ponies, and even gin up the occasional small air-burst of pyrotechnic flame to keep the marks honest. We had also gotten better about mangling the trainees – Bad Apple hadn't inflicted anything worse than first-degree burns in nearly two weeks by the sixth Port Day.
Even the mud was cooperating with this new air of coherence, competence, and confidence. The long wet spring was drawing to a close, and the bottomless mires that the ponies of Vallee du Pierre laughingly referred to as 'farm-lanes' were becoming notably less bottomless. Many stretches of road actually had a certain amount of surface or even, miribile dictu, dryness to them. No dust yet, but tail curled in anticipation. Rumour has it that there's at least one set of clever donkeys plotting to dig up the road-net the Long Hike has been making its circuit around, planning to mine those lanes for the small fortune in lost horseshoes left behind by militia and Company alike. Cute story, but I strongly suspect rumour is an exaggerating mule.
It was not simply the militia who were boarding the ships southbound. This time 'round, a significant fraction of the Company's material and rear echelon were packing up to join the burgeoning grand army in the distant forward camps. The smiths, most of the farriers, baggage and construction equipment, the remnant of the construction corps, and associated hangers-on and camp-followers were all waiting their turn for the overcrowded docks and piers, to clear the port and make for the crowded lake-roads.
Notably included were a dozen wagons filled with broken-down air-carts, gigs, and chariots for the aerial cohort's inestimable contribution to the Company's mobility. It simply was more efficient to just break down those and ship them in the baggage than waste pegasi energy hauling the lot down by air, with all that wear and tear and exposure of our air advantages to every spy with eyes to see along the countryside between here and Rime. Not to mention the great city itself. It was perhaps too much to hope that the inevitable White Rose spies would not know of our aerial cohort, but perhaps we could keep their mind off the tactical and operational effectiveness of that winged portion of the Company.
Assuming that none of the White Rose in the deep south had been witness to the destruction of the flotilla at Falaises du Consueil or the fighting before Pepin City. Yeah, now that I think about it, maybe that's too much to ask?
I was watching as Cherie chatted cheerfully with Throat-Kicker among the baggage and supercargo belonging to the witches' section. Throat-Kicker had effectively attached herself to the section as a civilian dogs-body, I think mostly to keep an eye on her apprentice. Cherie had come down with her militia-regiment from distant Tonnerre, and was leaving once again as they graduated from our school of hard knocks. The two of them would be travelling together ahead of the rest of us, down into the mystery which was the great south. I have never been outside of the northlands, and the prospect was a little daunting. Pepin doesn't count, it's really part of the north by courtesy and the circumstances of the wars. This was a new thing, going south.
When Throat-Kicker and the section baggage found themselves stowed away in the small coaster hired for that portion of the Company's material and personnel (and two wayward brush-weasels corralled and returned to the flustered custody of Throat-Kicker), I offered my good travel-wishes to the two of them, and left to find my way to the section-dinner which was, well, not waiting on my arrival - they'd let me starve if I couldn't make it - but let's say rather, looming rather largely in my mind and weighing heavily upon my empty stomach.
It was sometimes hard to get my specialized diet on the road, with the carters busy just getting the food up to where we were on any given evening. I had gotten into the habit of carrying around dried sausage wrapped up securely in one of my saddlebags. But it was equally difficult to get a standard pony eatery like this one to cook up a nice blood porridge. Some donkey places know how to cater to a blood-mage, but pony places? Get shirty about animal matter other than milk and cheese in the kitchen. Sometimes I just have to settle for breakfast in the evening, lots of eggs and cheese and milk.
Looked like it'd be breakfast tonight, given the glares the staff were already giving the witches who had arrived before me.
Obscured Blade was holding forth at the table, and ears were flat right across the board. Informing everypony just how terrible they were, how much better the warlocks had been when he was young. Gibblets had that look that he gets when he's quietly coiling. Small, smug smile. I remembered that he's older than Uncle Blade, much older according to Sawbones.
My scrambled eggs and cheese arrived. I tucked in, and tried to ignore the monologue.
"This is the problem. There just isn't enough of us, not nearly as many as there were when I was a colt. And so few powerhouses! We should have five unicorns on staff as powerful as Bad Apple, or better!"
Apparently, I wasn't going to succeed in ignoring Uncle Blade. And I don't know what he's on about. He's no more powerful than I am, and most of his effectiveness in the field is from his experience, talent for indirection, and sheer bloody-eyed meanness. Uncle was vile when it came to a clash. Age and ill will had burned all indecision, compassion, and hesitation out of him long ago.
"You have, however, gotten as good as you all are going to get. It's not your fault we can't find more unicorns. We work with what we have on hoof, I suppose."
I stuffed my traitor mouth with scrambled eggs, and longed for blood sausage.
"We're ready to slaughter the rebel scum. They'll never know what hit them. Shame the general and her staff are so set on taking prisoners. I want to see how this ghoulification process works."
Old bastard would probably make me perform the experiments, since 'bloodmagery is basically necromancy with scruples anyways'. No getting his horn dirty with that dark magic, not when I'm hock-deep in gore anyways.
"Grogar damn it, boss, you're in a mood tonight. What brought this on?" asked the Crow.
He looked at the back of the tavern, away from us. Then he spoke, his muzzle still turned away. "One of our sisters died last night. Flyswitch, one of the new carters Asparagus took on in Pepin. Some stupid barroom fight with a room full of sailors."
"Flyswitch," I thought out loud. "Earth pony mare, light green, cutie mark of a blurred stick, I think?"
"Yeah. I liked her. She had moxie. Reminded me a bit of an auntie of mine." He turned around to glare at us all. "You get old enough, everypony you know has died. Then you start seeing them again, in every young alicorns-damned muzzle turned your way. Then those die on you, and it's like losing them all over again.
"This is not what we are supposed to be. This is not where we ought to be. This is not who we promised to be." With each repetition, he rapped the table sharply, my plate rattling sympathetically with each violent blow. He turned to face me directly.
"There are truths that never make it into your Annals, that survived the loss of the originals. Dedications which were preserved when the words themselves were lost in the desert. We are the promise in the dark, the blade whetted for the work. There is an usurper on a distant throne, and our Queen languishes in her millennial prison. Your Princess, our Nightmare is but a soft-hearted memory of that true sovereign. It is our duty as Her Company to break those prison walls. We waste every minute and every life we spend here on this pointless world, this meaningless war."
He drew in a great lungful of air, and bellowed in my face.
"Next year! In Equestria!" He glared around the room at the rest of us.
"Or else the Company's nothing but a proud lie!"
He stormed off, and left me to my cooling half-eaten meatless dinner, and the uncomfortable silence of a table of uneasy warlocks.