//------------------------------// // The Patrol // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// FFMS010 I left Sawbones and the Cakes to their arguments with the depressed civilian, and turned away to report to my knight and commander, following the Princess's relayed instructions. Apparently that begrudged concession back there was sufficient to our plans to permit them to go forward, regardless of the rather sketchy nature of the current state of cooperation. The Castellan wasn't even fully out of his cell yet! The Major-General pulled me aside as I turned about to leave, and he followed me out of ear-shot of the ongoing, rather emotional argument in the stockade cell. The Castellan might have conceded the main point, but he was going down swinging. Or just throwing a fit, it's sometimes hard to tell with adult civilians. "There was some mention of your army needing several companies of New Equestrian militia for local guides and scouts and such. I have to warn you – our militia is not at all well-suited to or equipped for such matters. The militia of my duchy are hidebound, insular, and many have never set foot outside of the province." I turned to look skeptically at the old retired Imperial. But the Princess whispered to me to pay close attention, so I held my peace and listened. "Which is not to say that there are no options for you and us. Not every resource marches under a provincial pennant. Go to my mansion, before you leave, and ask of my groundskeeper the old guidon. Tell her 'the gate is open, and the patrol is called to the woods'. Can you repeat that for me?" He stared intently at me. "'The gate is open, the patrol is called to the woods'," I repeated. "What exactly am I summoning with this fell ritual? My masters tell me, never summon anything bigger than your head. Wait, no, that was 'never summon anything you can't send back to the pit'." "No devils or imps here, child of tartarus. Merely a society dedicated to maintaining borders, and preserving the peace in places sometimes lacking in it." I narrowed my eyes at the old rogue, whom I had clearly been underestimating. "And maybe occasionally slipping cargo over those borders without paying ducal taxes and levies and suchlike?" "Oh, such a cynical generation we've raised! Go with the Eternal Princess, jenny." "Take care, Monsieur Major-General." I followed his directions down a nearby farmlane as the sun raced for the western horizon. I was running behind schedule, but both I and the Princess felt that his prompt was something important. The Major-General's mansion was on the outside of New Coltington, comfortably close for a retired pony with occasional business with the Castellan and the numerous militia officers who by and large ran that castle-town and its economy when they weren't being militia officers, which was almost all of the time. His hard-bitten old grounds-keeper kept the gatehouse outside of his cute little cottage, she looked more like a retired Imperial than that kind-faced old stallion possibly could have. "That's the Major-General's mansion? I pictured something larger, something… with a second floor." "That is all he needs," she growled at me with a throat full of gravel and an evil look in her eyes. "We keep the actual mansion mothballed over there, behind that line of poplars. This is the rear-gate. What do you need, little bloodmage?" "The Major-General sent me for a guidon, and to tell you that 'the gate is open, and the patrol is called to the woods'. Which sounds like something from an Equestrian foal's tale, so I hope it means something to you other than that, or else I just wasted a half-hour in a day that has none to spare." The old non-com – and I have seen enough of those to know one when I was glared at by one – slammed the gatehouse door in my face, and I could hear rustling behind the fancifully-painted and lacquered door. The top half of the door wrenched open again, and a spear was thrust over the lower half's door-sill, butt first. "Here, damn you, grab this," her voice demanded of me from out of my line of sight, inside the gatehouse. I grabbed the spear-butt in my mouth, and pulled it out into the orange light of the sunset. Wrapped around the blunted blade of the spear was a faded pennant, something grey and black and yellow. "Fly this as you're moving eastwards. It should be signal enough for the Patrol to agree to meet." "The Patrol…?" "Oh, Celestia's beard, don't call them that to their faces. They hate being named. Just let them call themselves whatever it is this season. More use in a hoof-full of those rangers than an entire regiment of what this province laughingly calls militia, you'll see. And they're probably the only ponies this side of the river knows what the Tartarus is going on anymore. Madness and despair, everywhere." She slammed the half-door again in my face, and I could hear the muttering inside of the gatehouse as the sunset threw a bloody light across that locked gateway. I caught up with Octavius as he waited, impatiently, outside of the Brigadier's tent in the castral compound. He glared at me. "Why again am I waiting on my own apprentice, Feufollet?" "I came bearing New Equestrian gifts. Here, you want to carry it?" He eyed my spear and its rolled pennant. "No, you go ahead and hold onto that. If I go carrying it around, people are going to make more jokes about who's the knight and who's the apprentice in this preposterous relationship. Where have you been, anyways?" "Don't you ever listen to the Princess, sir?" "Harumph." He really was too young of a pony to be so deliberately crusty. I'm pretty sure it was a put-on to try and keep his underlings from running all over him. He wasn't the only one who hadn't understood how he had gotten a cohort command, but in the end, he was the only skeptic whose opinion mattered on the subject. So far his imposter's syndrome hadn't caused any problems in the field, but I still worried. Octavius entered the command tent, and I stood next to the ceremonial guard at the entrance, within earshot. One was a ranker from the Tonnerre regiment, and the other was Hyssop, slumming it as a tent-guard. Or maybe… I eyed her in speculation. Then I looked at the ranker, and realized she was one of my secret inductees. Nothing but Company and the Brigadier in hearing distance. And I had missed the beginning of the conversation. "The orders will be coming in the morning? Really? Am I in charge here, or are you? And what's with these secret orders that always precede the official ones by a half-day or day?" "Brigadier, we've been keeping this quiet to preserve our options, and to keep the secret fresh. But have you talked with the regiments from Verdebaie?" "What, those remote-communication devices you used at Lait Blanc? The bulky headset things? You've gotten some range on them?" "Well, let's say, we've had some developmental breakthroughs. And the communication system is flexible, not particularly visible to the equine eye, and… not usable outside of the Company." "What, not at all? What is this, some dark magic or voodoo?" "Maybe a little bit. Hey, jenny, get your flank in here. Leave the pennant, foal." I fumbled the spear into the field-grip of Hyssop, and stumbled into the command tent. "Yes, sir?" "Where is the Right-Division right now?" I consulted the Princess, who was amusing herself with some sort of silly pantomime with an imaginary chalkboard and a game of hangmare. And a good deal of information quickly laid out before my minds-eye. "Halfway between its last camp and the one-march castral ground west of Rantoul. They're on a forced night-march. Once they reach Rantoul, Middle-Division will displace and follow the Reserve on the Rantoul-New Coltington Road." "So what, she could have been coached before you came in here." "Jenny, what's the situation in our front tonight?" "Six sections of the aerial cohort screening or on deep penetration patrol tonight. Elements of Section 1-4 are nearly in contact with the regiments of the Army of the Housa dug in, in front of Cleves. Sections 1-21 and 1-33 are skirmishing with a ghoul pack north of Dover and a White Rose screening force just to the east of Dover, respectively. Sections 1-2 and 1-6 along with Witches 3a are vectoring on the latter skirmish, intent on sealing the conflict before they can report to their superiors. Site of clash is too far from nearest company of Vallee du Pierre by a factor of three, judged not worth the deployment exposure-" "That's enough, Feufollet, thank you." Octavius turned to the appalled, fascinated Brigadier. "Not every Company pony can do what she just did there. For many, it's just a notion, a guide. But for some like Feufollet, it's a connection with bandwidth." "Not quite real-time," I interjected. "But if you concentrate, you can get something close. And we're almost there, boss. Actual contact with the White Rose, and not just some damn plains-savages set loose in civilized country like over to the west. We need to get closer to the front, fast." "And that's what I'm talking about. General Knochehart has ordered the eastward push, the rest of the army is executing it. They won't be in touch until tomorrow evening at the earliest, and the actual orders, physical orders, won't arrive until tomorrow morning. But since we know, we can shift our posture, and be in the best place to anticipate the push forward when it comes. And we need more information. Badly. Our recon elements are heavily armed eggshells – mobile, deadly, but easily broken, and we can't replace them. We can't have the aerial sections fighting their own battles, not for long. We'll blind ourselves." While Octavius was arguing his case to the commander of the Division, I was arguing with the Princess, and whatever pegasus hothead was on the other end of the line. Ghoul-hunting was a foolish waste of wingpower, they couldn't report contacts back to their own command. That live rebel force, on the other hoof, was a serious problem. "So, I agree, we need to start moving elements eastward. But that clearly isn't the whole of this conversation. You've dropped one tartarus of a petard on my withers here. What am I supposed to do with it?" "Hyssop! Come in here. The corporal here-" "Sergeant, sir." "What?" "I got that promotion, you daft plothole. You got drunk at the celebration, don't you remember?" "Huh. Clearly not. Right! The sergeant here is now in charge of the two sections assigned as 'guards' for your command staff. She's also one of the ponies who's shown some capacity for the 'princess radio', as the fillies call it. Insofar as you can, route urgent messages through Hyssop, up to the General and her staff, down to the individual regiments. Each regiment still has its pair of Company sections, assigned fortuitously as standard-guards and fire-brigades. They can relay messages when it's urgent. We'd prefer to not mention this capacity at the regiment level until things really go to smash at the tactical level, but that is probably coming soon. We need you prepared more than we need the colonels, don't you agree?" And from there on in, it was just a matter of chest-thumping and preservation of pride and position. We got the orders we wanted, and Octavius relayed the heads-up to his sergeants while we were still talking to the Brigadier. By the time we got out of that tent, it was the second hour of the night, and the whole of the Third Cohort was awaiting the two of us to join them for the march eastwards. The Third Cohort was somewhat reduced from its winter roster. Like all the rest of the cohorts, it had contributed its moiety to the staffing of the Army of the North. Nearly a third of the cohort was now on detached duty, attached to various regiments and brigades throughout the Army. The remaining core representing the striking-power of Octavius's command. Objectively speaking, it was smaller than a militia battalion, tiny by regimental standards. But the professionalism and savagery of a Company cohort could not be underestimated. We marched quietly through the darkened streets of New Coltington. I had offered to screen us in a darkness, or alternatively, to play up our march with imps and corpselights and other flamboyant displays. Octavius grimaced and told me to just keep close, and to hold on to my damned pennant. At his mention, I unfurled the flag, and looked at the device. A sable tree, over an or sunburst, on a cendrée field. Whole thing had looked black when rolled up, and I had no idea if anypony could even see the device in the dead of night like this. I mean, most of the Company could see in the dark, but it wasn't exactly a skill common among the civilians, you know? As we passed out of town, the true darkness closed in around the cohort. Long miles between New Coltington and the supposed heights around High Earth, it would take us the entire balance of the night at a regular march to cover that ground. Two sections of the van were sent out in advance to cover the fore, in case of ambushes or other surprises. The aerial ponies had been back and forth over this stretch of Road again and again in the last few days, but I still felt vulnerable walking on my own four hooves like this. It didn't feel right to not be in the air over an advance. My witches-gig was stored along with the rest of the supplies in the hoof-full of carts rolling along in the middle of the cohort's formation. A reminder from the Princess put the spur to me, and I galloped forward, pennant streaming, to join the vanguard. If I was supposed to be 'showing the flag', best to do so from the very fore of the advance. I could hear Octavius yelp, but apparently the Princess finally got through his thick skull, and he didn't call me back. And so it was, an hour and a half out of New Coltington, we spotted a cluster of ponies waiting in the darkness at a small farm-lane crossroads, just the other side of the drainage ditches on either side of the Road. Maybe a section each, with two ponies standing by the verge of the Road itself, on this side of the farm-lane to the left. The two sections of the van separated, and turned to face each cluster of unknown ponies to the north and south, with the corporal of the vanguard and myself standing in the middle of the deployment, my pennant waving in the night breeze. My princess whispered in my ear, I have no idea how she knew what to say, or why. "Greetings in a dark wood, traveler!" I barked. "How fare ye in this murk?" "Well enough, though I know ye not, stranger. Whence cometh that banner in thine fetlock?" "Given me by mine new-met nuncle, who instructeth mine self to say, thus, 'the gate is open, the patrol is called to the woods'. More than this, I stand ignorant." "Stand forth, and be illuminated." The speaker's companion struck a light, and lit a torch overhead. It immediately ruined the night-sight of every pony watching, and more than a few Company armsponies cursed the light. Standing in the flickering light were my vanguard, and two dozen cloaked earth-ponies, not obviously armed. Some had burdens upon their backs, and all had full saddle-bags, but none of them looked directly at the torch. They had obviously done this before. "What is your name, donkey, that you would call upon us in the name of the General." "Call me Feufollet, for that is my name. I am a magus of the Black Company, and like that august agency, am in the employ of the Bride of Tambelon, seconded to this, her Imperial Army of the North. We're here to fight your battles for you, pony. What is your name?" "I have no battles to fight, for I am no soldier, nor am I sovereign, or really, anypony but a simple tinker and seller of wares. But those who care to know the trade-routes of the river-valley, know to ask the news of me and mine. They call me Night Watch." We had much to talk about, but the rest of the cohort quickly caught up with the vanguard and our new-met friends from the Patrol. And it was a long march still to High Earth. And so we walked through the dark, the pennant furled once again, and hidden away from the sight of pony and donkey alike.