//------------------------------// // The Investigation // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS163 As soon as the news of the attack on the road to Dover came across the 'radio, I put out my own call for a ride up there. I had been doing nothing but kicking my hooves in frustration down in the siege-camp castra, waiting on news or casualties that never came. It had been deader than the Marklaird for more than a week, as mixed Company and regimental patrols quartered and re-quartered the wastelands south of Dover, searching for our AWOL comrades. The Beau had refused to come out of his stone conch-shell, and I for one didn't blame him. We had made sure to pass a note explaining the nature of the possible threat from the missing Obscured Blade, and the lich had taken that warning to his still, dead heart. All of which meant that as soon as I was able to winkle a chariot ride out of the siege-camp, I leapt with all four hooves, saddle-bags full of medical supplies and my head full of half-flanked guesswork about what exactly had happened up on that farm-lane. The flight between the siege-camp outside of Braystown and that unnamed plot of land west of Dover wasn't a particularly long one, as these go, but it was long enough for me to wind myself up pretty tightly. I leapt out of the chariot before the pegasi had quite brought it to a stop, and hit the ground running, guidance from the Princess directing me to the triage-station they had improvised on the grassy verge between that bloody farm-lane and a much-trampled field of barley. The smoke from the burning dead and destroyed undead was hugging the ground in a slight inversion layer, and the darkening skies and damp, slight wind suggested that we were about to catch a soaker. I looked around at the dozen or so wounded, and ran back to the chariot, which was just then settling to the ground behind Long Haul and his wingmare. I dug around in the back of the chariot and pulled out the broken-down tent somepony had stored back there. I had ridden up from the siege-camp on that lumpy damn thing, but now I was thankful for its bulk. I yelled for hooves to help with getting that tent set up, and asked Long Haul to direct who-ever showed up on how to get that thing put together. Then I got to work. Whomever had patched up these casualties had done a rather shoddy job of it, and I had to undo a lot of nonsense before I could get back to patching them back together properly. So I was in a bit of a mood when Feufollet sidled up to me under the jerking, unsteady tent some prisoners had managed to half-put-together over our heads. I was still hooves-deep in a pony's gored, scored flank when my understudy finally overcame whatever was keeping her silent. "I'm sorry I didn't pay close enough attention in your first-aid demonstrations," she apologized. Well, an apology is always a good way to start, isn't it? I grunted. "They were Rennet regimentals. I thought I ought to blade them into the Company, given the nature of the fighting. Better Company for a few minutes at the end, than ghouls for eternity, right?" She smiled or grimaced, angrily, uncertainly. "That's where you're wrong, jenny. When the ghouls rise, that isn't the pony. That's the meat that the pony used to wear. When you bring a dying pony into the Company, that, that is eternity. Haven't you been listening? We're the stars in her mane, so she says, so I've seen." "Yeah. Yeah, I've seen. But I… wanted to do something for them." "Well, this certainly was something. We'll have to hold a little ceremony for the survivors. How can we keep the lid on this metastatic expansion of the Company if every armspony with a blade and a hope for the future thinks they can add ponies willy-nilly? This is not the way, Feufollet. This can't go on. We're the Company, not a… fraternal organization, not a secret society. We're not here to evangelize the righteousness of the faith. We have a very specific purpose." "And what exactly is that purpose, Master? Obscured Blade says that purpose is to return to Equestria and put the Mistress on the throne, bring forth Eternal Night." I bit off the thread on my stitching, and spat the excess onto the ground. My victim continued moaning out her pain, only at a lower volume. I patted her shoulder, and went on to the next, thinking. "Our purpose is to continue our long-standing and proud tradition of existence to our membership and to the Spirit who is the soul of the Company. Anything else is a matter for debate, consensus, and then the Captain's decision. If the Company doesn't like the Captain's decisions, they can organize a no-confidence vote. Was this attack somepony's no-confidence vote?" She looked stricken, and even more uncertain. "Master Sawbones, I don't know. There was no warning, but there was also nopony behind it, not that I can tell. If this was Obscured Blade, where is he? Why aren't his followers all over us? We were pretty knocked around by the ghouls, we would have been easy pickings." I reached back into my saddlebags, and got out the antiseptic, and started carefully washing out the next victim's mud-packed wounds. I'd need more quickly, I hadn't brought enough for the numbers I had here. "He might be still unwilling to raise his hoof directly against fellow Company. He could have been behind the ghoul mass wave, and then fell back when you all came to the rescue. How many exactly? Are you sure they were thralled?" She showed me the thralling needles they had pulled from the destroyed enemy, and described the size and numbers of the undead. Mud-daubed, White Rose barding. Clearly more of the same from the series of ambuscades we had bulled through in the tail end of the campaign to the south. "Damn, that means we can't be sure it wasn't just a wayward battalion of White Rose undead that just happened – happened! upon the column of work-release prisoners our very own pocket White Rose was escorting out to the work-camps. As unlikely as that sounds, it isn't completely impossible. Do we know if there were any attacks in the area beforehoof?" "We don't have enough ponies here, those still on their hooves have to keep a guard, organize the prisoners. Cherie's flitting about here somewhere, trying to turn the prisoners up sweet." She eyed the rather pale-looking earth ponies who were filing away, their task done, the tent up and steady. The pegasi chivvied them over to help finish up the burning of the dead, as a light misting rain started falling. "These were the worst of the worst, the ones convinced we were all diables out of Tartarus, and Cherie herself the head malefice. Look at them now. I'm afraid they might start fawning on her." "Well, that's good, isn't it?" I started in the stitches on this one, ignoring the squeals of pain. "Except she and the Nightmare were snickering back and forth between each other, just before the attack. Like they had a secret, they were about to put something over on somepony. At the time, I thought they were just celebrating this goofy little trick about teasing some would-be rebels with polearm-style scythes, only to place them with a co-op that had the new rotary reapers. But what if…" "They knew there was a loose battalion of undead on this road?" I thought as I stitched and knotted, stitched and knotted. "Doesn't sound like our Cherie, does it? Ponies died, here. Ponies were likely to have died, any way it would have shook out, but this way, if she knew, it would have been on her ears. You think Cherie's capable of it?" "I don't know what that filly is capable of! She burns entire ships to the ground, she's an unholy terror on the battlefield, she loves fire too much to be any more innocent than the rest of us. I don't know!" The very-young jenny paused, and sat down in the increasingly trod-down grass under our hooves. "…I don't know." "Well, all we can do is ask. And for the record, this is totally something that the Nightmare would do. And likewise, something that she'd maneuver our Cherie into, without explaining the details of the 'prank'. You must have faith in our Nightmare, but you can never exactly trust her. She's our Nightmare, but she's also Obscured Blade's Nightmare. She's… ecumenical that way. She's everything to everypony in the Company. Which is why-" I paused, and considered my words carefully. "Which is why we have to be cautious in how we bring recruits into the Company, and how. With every new pony, the Nightmare changes a little bit, I think. The Company makes her the Nightmare, as much as the Nightmare makes the Company. And there's many of us, and just the one of her. Unless we do something really, really stupid like that one time in Dance Hall. Remember that?" Feufollet, looking even more pale than usual, nodded silently. "I think, I think that Obscured Blade and his cronies are lurking somewhere nearby, with some fragment of the Nightmare carried carefully between their ears, in their minds. No 'filly' for them, no 'Princess'. They're strictly 'Nightmare' ponies. But they still are, in the end, Nightmare ponies. As Company as you or I. They are our brothers, whatever else changes." I tied off the stitches on my latest victim, and moved on to the next. The last! I hurried my work, seeing the end of the task. "Now, I've called up the rest of the witches' coven, and they should be arriving in an hour or two. We need to back-track this mess, and see if we can't find something. I'll talk to Cherie, and look to see if I can find out just how deep her complicity in this 'coincidence' runs. I want you to talk to the Nightmare, and try to get her to admit something, if there's anything to admit. You've always had a better relationship with the old battle-axe than I. We've had our fights over the years, and I'm afraid she'll try and pick another one to avoid admitting anything, and distract me with accusations, some founded, some not so much." The little jenny nodded, and with that, we were done. I went to find Cherie in the cooling damp of the evening. It felt more like spring again, than the height of summer. I found her with a large collection of prisoners and some rather battered-looking Rennet regimentals, huddled under the trees to the south of the road, trying to stay dry. She was muttering to herself, and as I came into earshot, it sounded like she was calculating the carrying capacity of a… work camp? "I don't think all of these ponies will fit under the tents intended for two dozen work-release prisoners, pouliche." "Oh. Monsieur. Uh, hello." This was easily the least enthusiastic greeting I had ever received from our little thestral. Guilty conscience? "I was trying to figure out if we could squeeze some of them under the eaves of that barn." "Barns are generally full of things the farmers need. These are sturdy Western ponies you've got here, a little summer rain won't make them melt. Come over here, we need to talk. Privately." She nodded, seeming to know what we had to talk about. Eyes all around us followed her as I walked across the lane to the far side of the smouldering corpse-pyre. She put up a good front for the prisoners, looking confident and her usual cheery self. But I could tell, even if these religion-addled fanatics couldn't. She turned around as soon as the still-smouldering and somewhat loud pyre was between us and the prisoners, and said, flat out, "I didn't know there would be an ambush here. I swear to the Princess. I swear to the alicorns. I swear to whatever thing you want me to swear on. It was going to be a series of pranks, I swear! Rotary reapers, heavy work, some pig-slopping, tricks to keep them running about and out of breath. This is supposed to be pacified country!" She started tearing up, her bright green eyes glittering in the gathering darkness beside the glow of the embers. "How did you chose this path, this farm-lane?" "I don't know, I think I put out a call on the princess radio, and the Mistress made some suggestions, she had some scouts who had noticed the rotary reapers, that the returnees were filtering back in fastest over this way." "The Nightmare suggested this route? This exact route?" "Maybe? I don't remember. Yes, I think so. She said we'd have all sorts of fun and games. Oh, Monsieur, you don't think-" "We can't be sure. But it might be. Did she encourage you to accompany the column?" "Not originally. She thought it ought to be something that the guards could handle on their own. But it sounded like so much fun, the pranking and the tricks. I had to come along!" Cherie paused, considering. "I think she grinned, after I said we'd come along. This- this big, toothy smile. You know how she can get. Like something evil had occurred to her, some nasty new trick to pull on an opponent of the Company. What is going on, Monsieur?" "I think maybe… the Nightmare is divided in herself, in her intentions. I think maybe your intentions are as important to her as… certain others' intentions. And your presence maybe short-circuited somebody's plans. Broke them up before they could really get going. I think maybe we need to increase the guard on your other work-details, and whomever is still back in the prisoners' cages. I don't think this is over." And it wasn't.