Reforging a Broken Blade

by ElkinFencer10


Chapter 17 - Ghost Recon

Gilda lay awake in her barracks cot, staring at the clock on the wall. 2:48. Alright, let's see. The note said 3:47, and it'll take me probably eight minutes to get down there. That means that I need to get up and sneak out at 3:39. Great. That's almost an hour to kill. She had given up on sleep a couple hours ago; not knowing what to expect when she arrived at the meeting detailed in the mysterious note had rendered that a non-option. With a sigh, Gilda rolled over. Why did I even come back? You knew Ashnard was nuts. Hell, that's why Mom and Dad left Gryphus for Equestria in the first place. Now look at you, soul sold to a tyrant who's torturing your flight school best friend. Maybe that's why I came back? Maybe it's my destiny to save Rainbow Dash. Gilda thought for a moment before snorting. Yeah, right. Destiny. Only ponies believe that mystic crap. Just dumb luck that you were in the right place at the right time. She glanced up to check the time again - 2:53. Gilda resigned herself to staring at the clock, willing the minute hand to move faster, for the next 46 minutes.

When the second hand finally ticked up to the 12 at 3:39, Gilda quickly got up and, as quietly as she could, tip-toed out of the barracks in which she was housed. She crept through the halls of the castle, making sure to hide whenever she saw the glow of a guard's torch. When she arrived at the hallway holding the door to the dungeon in which Rainbow Dash was being kept, she took a deep breath. Alright. No sneaking around this guard. Let's hope that my rank will be enough to convince him to leave quietly. Just in case, Gilda kept her right claw rested on the dagger she kept belted to her left side. She gathered her nerves and stepped into the hallway. The guard - a new recruit fresh out of the military academy, by the look of his uniform - saluted her. "Alright, private, I'm here to relieve you. Go get some sleep," she said, keeping her voice flat and bored sounding.

"Sorry, ma'am, but I haven't received any orders from the king. Unless I get orders from the crown, I can't leave this spot until the next scheduled rotation at six," the guard said.

Gilda sighed. I was afraid of this. "Private, I don't think you heard me," Gilda said as she grabbed the guard's neck with her left hand, her voice revealing her impatience but not her anxiety. Strong arming someone wasn't anything new to her; committing treason against a mentally unstable king was. "I said, you're relieved." She looked directly into his eyes, her beak mere millimeters from his. The guard moved his mouth in an attempt to say something or shout - she wasn't sure which - but she noticed his moving his hand for his dagger. She quickly - half instinctively - drew her knife and plunged it into the left side of the guard's skull. The gryphon immediately when limp in Gilda's grasp. It was not her first kill, but killing was not something she enjoyed, either, despite the macho bravado facade she always kept.

Gilda quickly opened the door to the dungeon and threw the body down the spiral stairs. She was high enough in rank and had been serving at the castle long enough to know that there wouldn't be anyone actually in the dungeon, so she didn't worry about having the corpse alert another gryphon to her activity. This does kill my "I was investigating a possible intruder" alibi, though. Oh well. She descended the stairs, pulling the door shut behind her. The dungeon was dimly lit by only a couple of torches, but she could see Rainbow Dash's unconscious form in the corner of the room. She had been removed from the board to which she was previously restrained and was now in a huddled mass on the floor with chains on all four hooves.

"Good, you have arrived on schedule." A voice from behind Gilda startled her. She spun around to see a figure shrouded in a black cloak.

"Who are you? Are you the one who dropped that note?" Gilda asked. The figured looked too small to be a gryphon soldier, but she wasn't about to let her guard down just in case.

"Yes, that was I. I am an operative with Equestrian Military Intelligence. Beyond that, my identity is of no consequence. My mission is to rescue Rainbow Dash and return her to Wonderbolt HQ in Cloudsdale. I assume from your unaccompanied presence that you wish to aid in her escape?" The figure - a pony, obviously - remained cloaked from head to hoof, although the register of her voice at least gave away that she was female.

"Yeah, but I want you to take me with you," Gilda said.

The pony paused. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, take me with you. Let me go back to Equestria with you. Coming back here was a mistake, and I don't want to a part of this madman's army anymore," Gilda said sternly.

The cloaked pony remained silent for a moment. Finally, she said, "Very well. I shall take you to Equestria, but what becomes of you from there will be up to Princess Celestia."

"Good enough for me. I'm pretty sure Celestia won't do that to me," she said, motioning towards Rainbow Dash, "so I think I'm still better off facing her wrath than King Ashnard's. Now how do we get her out of here?"

"As you know, the dungeon is on the bottom level of the castle. In the far corner, beneath a wooden crate, there is a narrow hoof-dug tunnel leading half a kilometer beyond the castle walls," the pony explained. "She's not in any state to crawl such a distance on her own, and the pain that would accompany such an escape, given her injuries, would render it both time consuming and, in all likelihood, very loud. Because of that, I have given her a strong sedative to keep her unconscious for the next couple hours. You and I will, as gently as possible, move her through the tunnel and, once on the other side, carry her as far as we can until she regains consciousness."

"Sounds like a pain in the ass, but I don't really see a better solution. Let's get going. Eventually, someone's going to notice the lack of guard and puddle of blood in his place."

It took almost 45 minutes for Gilda and the Equestrian agent to move Rainbow Dash, but they managed to do so undetected. The tunnel opened up in the middle of a thickly wooded area, providing sufficient cover to allow the now thoroughly exhausted gryphon and pony a minute to rest. "Okay, we're right here," the pony said, pulling out a map and pointing a hoof to it. "We'll rest here for five minutes and then continue south, staying in the mountain forests to cover our trail."

After another hour of hiking with Rainbow Dash slouched over Gilda's back, the gryphon began to feel her stir. "Hey pony, hold up. I think Dash is waking up."

"Ungh, what happened?" Rainbow muttered as she lethargically shifted her weight on Gilda's back. "Where am I?"

"I sedated you so that you could be moved from Castle Gryphus. I am with Equstrian Military Intelligence. Miss Gilda and I are rescuing you. Do you feel strong enough to walk on your own? I know your experience has been a tremendous strain on both your body and your mind," the pony replied.

Rainbow Dash gingerly slid off of Gilda's back, slowly putting weight on her hooves. "Yeah, I think I can walk." She stretched a wing only to yelp and pull it back. "Can't fly, though."

"Walking'll be good enough, Dash," Gilda said.

"Let's get going, then," Rainbow Dash said. "I don't want to stay in this country any longer than I have to..."

As the two ponies began trotting south, Gilda hesitated. "Uh, Dash? Hold up a minute."

"What is it, Gilda?"

"I, uhh," Gilda started. "I just, uh. Ugh, damn it. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I was a bitch to you and your friends a few years ago in Ponyville."

Rainbow looked surprised. "Uh, yeah, me too. We both did and said some stuff we probably wish we hadn't. Don't worry about it, okay? It's in the past."

"Yeah, right," Gilda said. "Let's get going, or Ashnard will do way worse to me than he did to you."