“Magic has always been against the rules! None of the pegasi ever tapped into it during training. If I allowed it, those that could use it would have made it their crutch instead of learning the basics. The unicorn is no different!”
Sparrow sat outside of Legate Winds’ tent and rolled her eyes as she listened to the argument unfolding inside. To say that Centurion Tern had taken her draw with Drifter poorly was an understatement. By using her magic, she had fought Tern’s best recruit to a draw, and evidently that was infuriating to the centurion, who had dragged her to the legate’s tent to argue for her punishment.
Typhoon had seen it differently, though, and she had sent Sparrow back outside while she and the Legate confronted the irate centurion. “Do you expect every unicorn bandit and outlaw you fight to hold their sword in their mouth and fight fair?” came Typhoon’s voice from beyond the canvas, and Sparrow smirked a little bit, feeling vindicated as she listened in. “Sparrow switching to her horn should not have made a difference to your recruit. Perhaps he’s lucky that he dazed her earlier in their fight; it spared him the humiliation of losing to the only unicorn in this camp.”
“They’ll have to get used to it sooner or later…” Sparrow muttered under her breath. She frowned and shifted in place, shuffling a little bit back into the shade offered by the tent as the sun lowered and the afternoon dragged on. The armor scraps Lost’s legion had offered her, heated by the sun’s glare and now caked with drying dirt from her fight, only seemed to cook her fatigued muscles and let a sweaty soreness permeate her limbs, but there was no denying that she felt on top of the world after emerging from her bout with Drifter with a draw.
If only her sensitivity to the bright daylight and the crashing of metal elsewhere in the camp would leave her splitting head alone…
“Typhoon brings up a good point. Our enemies in Dry Fens aren’t just pegasi. They’re earth ponies and unicorns, too.” That one was the Legate’s softspoken voice, and Sparrow had to strain a little harder to hear his words, like whispers on a wind. “Our soldiers need to be prepared for everything. When we each joined the Legion, and Typhoon too, I imagine, we were trained with how to deal with unicorn threats. These pegasi need to learn that art, too.”
“If you’ll pardon me being frank, sir, we don’t have access to unicorn knights like we once did,” was Tern’s retort. “That’s not something I can teach them. But they know how to fight pegasi. By extension, they know how to fight against earth ponies. Sparrow confusing Drifter by changing her tactics partway through the fight didn’t change the equation, but it broke the ground rules I had laid out to make sure my recruits kept in mind their fundamentals. I don’t need the recruits forgetting about the fundamentals when they see a flying sword. That’s what I’m concerned about.”
“Then it’s good we got that out of the way then, you agree?” said Typhoon. Tern must have given a nod of his head in the silence that followed, as without further comment, Typhoon continued. “Good. While we can’t train for fighting unicorns, hopefully this will be eye-opening for the rest of the raw recruits. Unicorns can do tricky things with swords in their magic, and if Dry Fens is being held by a patchwork of races with different levels of experience, there will be those who are far more skilled than Sparrow. That is why I’m hoping we can avoid coming to blows with them, but it is a possibility we must consider.”
There was a pause, and then, “Ma’am? Only a possibility of clashing swords with traitors?”
“That is all, Centurion. You are dismissed.”
“…Ma’am.”
Hoofsteps approached the exit of the tent, and Sparrow immediately straightened her posture into something soldierly as the centurion emerged from within. He paused next to her, and when Sparrow hazarded him a look, she was greeted with a sharp frown and cold eyes. But Tern had no word for her, only a shake of his head and a flick of his tail as he turned and walked away from her. Sparrow blinked, looking after him, and she pulled the divot of her scarred lip under her teeth as she wondered whether to follow him or not.
Her decision was made for her when Typhoon emerged from the tent after him, and the old soldier raised an eyebrow at Sparrow’s posture. “Remind me to never post you as an honor guard for something.” When Sparrow stuck her tongue out at her, Typhoon gave her head a little shake and then started walking in the opposite direction of Tern, her wing briefly touching Sparrow’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s walk.”
“Hopefully to the stream,” Sparrow said, and she gave one of her dirty legs a shake to get some of the dried mud off of it. “I’m getting sick and tired of being covered in dirt and grime today.”
“If a little mud is bothering you, then it’s a good thing you’re not a soldier out on campaign,” Typhoon teased her. “Baths are few and far between.”
“I bet you could just fly through a cloud or something. Lucky”
“Not when clouds are the army’s only source of potable water. But I'll indulge. Let's go to the stream.” Typhoon paused for a moment to let Sparrow catch up to her side, and then resumed her walk through camp. They stuck to the middle of the road through the tents, staying out of the way of the legionaries as they gathered in their eight pony contubernia and sat down to rest and do some maintenance on their equipment and gear before the evening meal. Sparrow felt eyes on her and heard whispers tickle her ears, some good and some bad, and she knew that what she had done that day was already making its rounds throughout Lost Winds’ legion.
“So, what did you hear?” Typhoon asked her, catching Sparrow off-guard. When Sparrow didn’t immediately answer as she tried to puzzle out what to tell Typhoon, the old mare gave her an expectant look.
Realizing that the question was likely more rhetorical than genuine, Sparrow decided to push aside any thoughts of bending the truth and answer her straight. “Most of it,” she said with a shrug. “The centurion is not happy that I did that. But it doesn’t sound like you or the legate are that upset about it.”
“I certainly hope not; I told you to do it,” Typhoon said, and a twitch of her wingtip against her flank told Sparrow the old mare was amused. Then she gave Sparrow a more reassuring look and a slight nod of encouragement. “The centurion is upset that you fought a pegasus to a draw using unicorn magic. He thinks it reflects poorly on his abilities as a leader and a trainer. Pegasi like him think back on Cirra and the Legion and remember tales of glory and pegasus might, and forget that when Equestria was founded, my father and I tried to integrate unicorns and earth ponies into our ranks, to varying amounts of success. I’m sure he’s a good centurion, but Tern would be better served by using what you did as a reminder to never underestimate an opponent just because they’ve never flown in the Legion.”
“Yeah, hopefully.” Then she drifted a little closer to Typhoon. “Soooo… what did you think?”
“Think about what?”
“About my fighting?” Sparrow asked, leaning forward a bit and eagerly trying to read Typhoon’s face. “I’ve improved, right?”
Typhoon’s face, however, remained stoic and unreadable, as it almost always was, and the shrug of her wings took some of the pep out of Sparrow’s steps. “You’ve improved on the fundamentals, yes. That’s important. And you displayed a good ability to improvise using your magical grip. But Tern was right to try to teach you and the rest of the other recruits how to fight without magic and only with the basics.”
“I mean, I guess,” Sparrow admitted. “But the basics never worked for me. I only fought Drifter to a draw because I threw my sword into the air and chased him with it.”
“Yes, you did,” Typhoon said, and she nodded in agreement. “It was flashy and impressive, and he didn’t know how to get around it to beat you. But flashy moves like that are only something you can afford in a controlled one against one scenario. Try to do that on the battlefield, and the moment you open your defenses up like that, the pony next to the one you’re fighting will run you through with a spear.”
“So, what would you suggest?”
“If you use your magic, keep your sword no more than a leg or two’s reach in front of you,” Typhoon advised her. “Give yourself space but don’t create a void in your defenses where you have no options if somepony gets inside of your weapon. Use the distance to keep things in front of you, and give or take ground as you need it. And if whomever you’re fighting does get in close, fight dirty. An enemy won’t expect a hoof to the nose when they try to seize an opening to get around your sword.”
Sparrow did her best to file all that away, trying to visualize the scenarios that Typhoon described to her. It was advice coming from an old soldier who had seen countless battles and who had fought against and alongside unicorns; where else would Sparrow get access to wisdom like that? “I hope I get the chance to try that out in drills tomorrow. But I doubt Tern is gonna let me.” Even though she was in Typhoon’s company, Sparrow still glanced about her surroundings before she dared to speak next. “I know he’s going to take it out on me tomorrow. Everypony knew Drifter was supposed to be our best, and I didn’t get turned into paste fighting him. Tern didn’t want any of us to use magic while fighting, and I did. I bet he’s already thinking up schemes to bust my flank in tomorrow’s drills.”
“There won’t be more drills,” Typhoon said.
Sparrow blinked and cocked her head. “There won’t?” When she realized Typhoon hadn’t stopped walking, she cantered up to the soldier’s side, and as they passed by the guards stationed at the entrance to the camp, she gave them a curious glance to see if they seemed to know something she didn’t. But they just nodded as the two mares passed by, and when they were out of earshot, she pressed Typhoon. “What do you mean? Was Tern right? We’re gonna take the fight to Dry Fens?”
Typhoon took a long breath through her nose, and her wings fidgeted at her sides. “I want to deal with the Dry Fens situation peacefully,” the old soldier said. “Violence is not going to accomplish anything. It would be like smashing two stones of the same kind and size into each other. They pulverize each other and send splinters everywhere, and the pieces are only good as gravel. That’s what would happen if Lost took his legion and assaulted Dry Fens. The survivors would splinter off into the wilderness as bandits, mercenaries, or vigilantes, and the rest would be little more than gravel to fertilize the earth.”
“Eeesh. When you put it that way…” Sparrow winced as she visualized the metaphor and found herself recoiling from visions of dead and dying pegasi scattered around the ruins of a town. “But they’re bandits and outlaws who are holding the town hostage. How are you gonna deal with them peacefully?”
“A show of force, primarily,” Typhoon said, and as the two mares wandered out into the grasses by the small stream that ran past the camp, she found a flat stone to sit down on and take some of the weight of her heavy steel armor off her frame. “I’ve had this legion running drills and scouting in force to show the ponies in Dry Fens that Legate Winds’ legion isn’t weakening, but growing in strength. I know from my scouts that the defenders of Dry Fens have been suffering from attrition as badly as the Legate’s legion is as well. When they see that the disparity between him and them has grown, and not in their favor, then I have a feeling they’ll reconsider their resistance.”
Seeing Typhoon sit down, Sparrow started stripping off her armor scraps and set them aside, then waded into the stream to let the cool water wash away the muck on her coat and the fatigue plaguing her limbs. It was such a good feeling that she shivered and sighed as she sat down in the water, letting it rise almost up to her shoulders. “That sounds good and all, but what if it doesn’t work? What if they’re desperate or itching for a fight?”
Typhoon pursed her lips, and by the way she tongued the inside of her cheek, Sparrow already knew that the mare found the alternative distasteful. “Then I hope my name and reputation is as good with them as it is here.”
Sparrow couldn’t help but snicker. “You gonna play the ‘Commander Typhoon’ card after trying to keep it a secret for so long?”
“If I have to,” Typhoon remarked with a bitter grunt. “I keep thinking back to that fight in the forest where we first met Tern. The ponies on the other side knew who I was. They were Legion once upon a time, too. Despite everything I’ve done, and everything I’ve been a part of, there are still legionaries who idolize me.” She frowned sharply at the ground as she said that, and she snatched a flat stone in her feathers before skipping it across the stream in quiet frustration. “If I can leverage my name to stop names on sticks being planted into the ground, then I’ll do it.”
“I hope it works,” Sparrow began, “but if they’ve gone bandit then I don’t think they’d respect your name all that much. Or the Legion. You think they’d really be holding a town hostage if they cared about what you would think?”
At that, Typhoon gave Sparrow a small tilt of her head and a raise of an eyebrow, and she leaned forward on her seat. “Do you think the Legate and the Centurion have been telling us the whole truth, Sparrow?”
Sparrow’s brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. “Are they not?”
“What do you think?” Typhoon pressed.
“I… maybe.” Sparrow bit her lip a little more, then shrugged in frustration. “So you’re saying that the ponies in Dry Fens aren’t bandits like they’ve been saying? But why would they lie to us?”
“I don’t think the legionaries in Dry Fens are bandits and criminals, no,” Typhoon said. “I think they’re a legion that’s taken a different path from Lost Winds’ followers, and now the two sides are at odds with each other. One took the town first and turned it into their bastion, while the other took the surrounding countryside and the resources it provides. They’ve been warring ever since, and as far as I can tell, it’s for nothing.”
“But how do you know that you’re right?” Sparrow asked her. “Are you just taking a guess? If the Legate is right…”
“Then it will be a good thing I’ve devoted my time and effort into shaping up his legion,” Typhoon said. “But here’s another thing to consider. Who were the guards in Boiling Springs afraid of?”
“The Lost Legion?” Sparrow asked, unsure where Typhoon was leading her.
“And whose legion are we with now?”
“Lost’s Legion…” As she said it, the gears clicked her head, and she hopped to her hooves in a splash of water. “Wait, Lost Wind’s legion is the Lost Legion? The one that’s been preying on the countryside? Are we helping the wrong ponies?!”
Typhoon’s response to Sparrow’s outburst was a raising of her hoof to calm the young unicorn. “The truth is not that black and white,” Typhoon said. “There is a reason why I asked Tern where and how this legion is getting its supplies when we first met him. He answered me that they were living off the land. An army seizing crops from fields and merchant wagons full of supplies from the roads without proper compensation is little different from banditry, and given what has been happening out here around Dry Fens, it would be easy for the ponies of the surrounding countryside to equate one with the other. It is a necessity they have taken to to supply themselves and deny resources to Dry Fens, and such stories would undoubtedly worry the ponies who live around here.”
Sparrow slowly sat back down in the stream, running through her memories for every story and anecdote of the Lost Legion she’d heard while living in Boiling Springs. She’d heard many tales of flights of pegasi ambushing wagons and stealing their wares or plundering fields, all while wearing armor and striking swiftly and decisively, but she’d never imagined that they were troops of an army just trying to keep themselves supplied and their bellies full while they remained locked in a bitter stalemate with another enemy. Still, Typhoon’s hypothesis and explanation didn’t make it sound any better. “That still doesn’t make things right,” she said. “It sounds like the ponies of the frontier still had lots to be worried about.”
“I never said they were wrong to be worried or angry,” Typhoon reminded her, holding up a placating hoof. “It was an explanation for what was happening out here. It needs to stop, and the best way to do that is to get these two legions to reconcile and put an end to their fighting. Maybe then they can dedicate their efforts to something more constructive, like protecting the ponies of the frontier from monsters and real bandits instead of using them to fight through their squabble.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Sparrow gave her head a little shake, letting some of the water that had crawled up her mane rain back down on the stream. “So how are you gonna convince them to stop fighting and settle their differences? How are you even going to get them to talk to each other? Are you going to go to Dry Fens and set something up?”
“If I go to Dry Fens, then Tern and Winds are going to follow with their army,” Typhoon said with a reluctant shake of her head. “They want me to themselves. Going to the other side threatens their legitimacy, and even though I’ve tried to temper their dreams of a reborn Cirra to keep the frontier safe, I can’t trust that they’d respect my wishes and not do anything rash while I was in the town. I need to be around to keep their impulses under control and remind them why they call themselves legionaries. And I can’t just send a delegation of soldiers; with things as bad as they are, I doubt the message would be received with sincerity.” Then her ruby red eyes looked directly into Sparrow’s pink and blue. “You, though…”
“Me?” Sparrow stood up once again, this time with a little more alarm. “You want me to go into Dry Fens by myself? What if they attack me?!”
“They won’t attack you,” Typhoon assured her. “They’ll remember you, and they’ll remember that you were with me. Your eyes aren’t something that anypony would forget. They’ll have questions, I’m sure, and you have my permission to answer them as truthfully as you can. But the important thing is that you get the word of whoever is in charge there that they’ll be willing to meet with me and Lost Winds at a neutral site in three days’ time.”
“And if they refuse?” Sparrow asked, an edge of worry creeping into her voice.
“Then I will come and get you if you don’t come back after two,” Typhoon said, and when Sparrow opened her mouth to protest again, she silenced her by raising her metal hoof. “I will get you if you aren’t back in two days. I will not try. I will succeed.” Then she put her hoof back down. “Do you think you can do that?”
Sparrow looked down at the water rushing past her legs, thinking it over and trying to wrestle with her misgivings. But Typhoon trusted her to do something, and that was trust she had found hard to come by so far. That was worth more than anything if she wanted to prove herself to the old soldier.
“Okay, fine,” Sparrow said, and she let out a sigh before sitting back down in the water. “Just at least let me enjoy my bath, okay? I wanna look presentable if I’m going to walk into danger by myself.”
She didn’t wait for Typhoon to answer her; with a flop backwards, the unicorn dunked herself into the stream, protecting her from responsibility and danger for as long as she could hold her breath.