//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: The War and What Came After // by NorsePony //------------------------------// The People continued their campaign for the hills, moving rapidly east along the line of the hills and retaking Wind, High Meadow, Big Rock, Weeping Valley, Smalltree, and a dozen others, many of which had not belonged to the People for several lifetimes, before winter bore down on them at last. After that first victory, at Snowfall, Ghost and her commanders had devised better tactics, and had improved them battle by battle. With each village, the Others’ defenses had grown stronger, for the People were advancing toward the heart of the Others’ earth and the villages were older and older yet. The Others were builders, not warriors: given enough time, the Others would make even a single tent into a fortress.         When the Other’s villages were only a lifetime old, the People had still been able to assault the gate and engage the Others up close. As they had marched on to older villages, the villages grew a second wall enclosing the fields. The People would have been slaughtered in the space between the walls if they had assaulted the gates, and so all the thousands of warriors had stood idle for a day and a night as Ghost conferred with Ember and the commanders. They were fortunate, and the Others trusted their walls, so none of the flying Others had passed over the sprawling camp in the next valley. As the sun had set on the restless camp, a decision had still not been reached in the commanders’ tent. Discouraged, they prepared to adjourn and hope that luck would favor them through another day of deliberation, when suddenly Ghost remembered burning the bodies in Snowfall. Since then, the Others’ pyres had been lit by flint and steel, on the pretense that the Others did not deserve Ano’s touch. In truth, it was because Ghost would be the one to call Ano to light the pyres, and she feared to be reminded of Ano’s powerlessness here in the Other’s earth. But the memory had come to the forefront of her mind, sparkling with insight, and she had understood intuitively how the attack could be carried out, as though Ano himself had planted the knowledge in her.         Her lips had compressed into a thin line. She had not enjoyed the implications of the plan, but she spoke the idea. The commanders were excited by the possibilities. Only Ember looked as reluctant as Ghost felt, regarding Ghost from under her lashes as though her friend might disappear simply by giving voice to it.         The next morning, the army had approached the village of Seahill, so named because of the broad, gently rolling hilltop it was founded on. The soil was fertile, but the location left the village without any natural defenses, so the Others had surrounded it with walls. The People had marched toward the part of the outer wall furthest from the main gate, hearing the alarms rise up inside the walls—the hilltop offered them no cover, so they advanced in the open. Flying Others rose from the village, to scout or harry, but the warriors with the keenest eyes shot them down as they closed on the army. When the People came within range of the wall, the order to fire rang out and a volley was fired by a hundred warriors. The dense wooden plugs bounced and splintered and fell from the thick stone wall, leaving it unharmed, and Ghost imagined she could feel the relief from the puzzled defenders. It will not last. She shouted a signal, and reached for Ano along with a group of warriors chosen for their sensitivity to the god. They invited Ano to release all of the fire in the plugs, all at once. It was difficult to touch the plugs at that range, like seeing through murky water, though in the forest it would have been as simple as breathing. Still, they each accomplished it, and the detonation flattened the dying autumn grass outside the wall and threw great chunks of stone and masonry inward to batter down parts of the interior wall and crush some nearby buildings. An order rang out, and the army advanced toward the inner wall to repeat the performance. Panicked shouts floated to their ears as the defenders realized that they had underestimated the People’s weapons.         With that new tactic in the army’s teeth, allowing the Others’ stone walls to assist with their own breach and to reduce many of the buildings near the breach which would have sheltered defenders, the double-walled villages had been trivial to reduce and retake, and the army had continued marching. Ano had grown more distant at each new village as the earth became more firmly of the Others, but though it became harder to lead him to the plugs, Ghost and most of the sensitives were able to do it, village after village. Ghost had taken to resting after the initial breach, letting her commanders oversee the details of the assault as she recovered from the spiritual fatigue of feeling Ano so dimly. Accustomed as she had become to the god’s nearness and willingness, that feeling of distance was, to her, like losing a close friend, and it pained her each time.         As the defenses of the Others’ villages had grown more elaborate, the army had begun taking losses. Deaths were fortunately few, but the healers’ area of the army’s camp grew as wounded were moved there after each battle. Each evening, after camp was made, Ember brought Ghost with her as she walked among the wounded, holding Noa to her so that her antlers glowed a brilliant green. She did not act to heal any warriors, because the army’s healers were the best the People had to offer, and most could coax Noa to knit flesh better than even Ember could. Ember’s goal on these nightly excursions was the wounds of the spirit, not the body. She and Ghost would stop for a moment with each new casualty to exchange a few quiet words of reassurance. It was not the words that were important as much as the fact that the commander of the army and her most trusted friend, both of whom were the People’s chosen of the gods, had come to say them personally. As the green light from Ember’s antlers played over their faces and the commander of the army paid respect to their bravery, one could almost see their urgency to return to health. On subsequent visits, Ember or Ghost had merely to nod familiarly to each warrior, and that urgency rose back into their faces.         In the last month of autumn, with the winds of winter already breathing down their necks, the People had finally encountered the oldest villages in the hills, which had been taken in the Others’ first push to seize the earth. The Others had rebuilt the villages as fortresses, for the People had been powerful then, and furious, and the Others had had lifetimes upon lifetimes to reinforce and improve the defenses since. The People’s army had moved quickly, but word of their advance had reached the Others at last, and the high walls were crowded with armored forms standing ready. The army made camp in sight of the city so that the commanders could decide upon a strategy.         The commanders had chosen to attack just before dawn the next morning and to approach from the east, so that the sun’s glare would give the flying Others no advantage. The defenders had scattered from the walls the People approached, but not fast enough, and bodies and blood flew with the stone and masonry to crash into the interior wall. This deep into the Other’s earth, Ano’s presence was as dim as a candle on the horizon, and only a bare few warriors could bring him strongly enough to detonate the plugs at the walls. Thankfully, Ano’s growing distance had never interfered with firing the weapons, as near and rich with the touch of the gods as they were. The army spent some time reducing the first wall, demolishing hundreds of yards so that the Others would not be able to stand on what remained and kill warriors with magic or sling. After the first wall, Ghost was fatigued, but her work was far from over. She advanced in the van to within range of the inner wall, shots ringing out around her as her warriors returned fire at the slits in the inner wall’s towers. Horned Others lurked beyond the slits, and a few were powerful enough to send killing light past the ruined outer wall to scorch and slay in the moments before the vanguard reached their weapons’ range. The inner walls were lower but thicker than the outer, and Ghost steeled herself and reached for Ano again, knowing that a volley would be required for each of the towers and that a single volley would not break through the stout wall.         As the dust of the shattered inner wall had cleared at last, many hundreds of defenders could be seen, heavy-shouldered walking ones on the ground, armored and with bared steel clenched in their teeth, the dangerous horned ones in the upper windows of big stone buildings and in hastily-built wooden towers, giving them the height to look down on the whole army to fling deadly light, and a cloud of flying ones lifting into the air roaring a battle cry, many carrying heavy stones and slings to kill from above where the People could not fight back. Ghost took a deep breath, her head swimming with fatigue so that she felt as though she were drifting above her body.         The commander of the vanguard, the First of Swampreed, threw his head back and shouted the order to fire just as the rising sun crested the hill behind the army. The warriors knew their business, and Ghost’s innards were jostled painfully by the near-simultaneous blast from a thousand tubes aimed high. Ghost reached for Ano with a sensation unpleasantly like stretching her soul, and time seemed to slow down for her. She had an endless moment to admire the plugs, moving at a walking pace, as they pushed their way through flesh with a delicate puff of blood. The sun’s rays struck red-tinted rainbows from those clouds of fatal mist, and Ghost was lost in the beauty of the sight for a moment as the dead and dying Others hung like statues in the air. She blinked. Oh, yes. My duty. Straining herself almost to the breaking point, she led Ano to touch her portion of the thousand wooden plugs. The tail of her eye caught the red-glowing antlers of the three other sensitives engaged in the same task just before time resumed its normal pace. The vanguard was outside the ruined gap in the outer wall, but the heat of the thousand midair explosions singed Ghost’s eyes before she could blink them closed, and hot air buffeted her roughly, almost knocking her to the ground. The wind passed, the heat ended, and she opened her eyes on a scene of devastation.         The wooden towers that had bristled with horned Others were smashed into splinters. The towers beyond the range of the initial blast had become great torches, and horned ones flung themselves away from the flames to fall and land with a wet crunch far below. The thick stone walls of the buildings did not burn, but the thatch roofs and the furnishings inside lit like kindling in the wash of irresistible heat, sending horned ones with red eyes and charred coats spilling from the upper windows to roll in agony on the ground. The mass of winged ones had been erased by the blast, the few which remained lying broken and burnt where they had been thrown against stone walls or groups of Others. The heavy muscles of the earth ponies had been nothing against the force unleashed by Ano, and the whole group of them had become not much more than a charred smear.         Screams came faintly to Ghost’s ears, attenuated by her distance from her body. The effort of bridging the gap between Ano and the plugs had left her empty of will. It was all she could do to stand, and she hoped that one of the warriors near her would push her into motion when the vanguard moved.         A flutter of wings could be heard, like a flock of crows startled into flight, and the Others’ second wave hove into view, a solid wall of defenders filling the streets and the sky, hurrying from the other side of the fortress-village toward the invaders. Ghost’s heart sank and her legs threatened to give out, but with some untapped reserve of strength she had not known she possessed, she stayed upright and reached across the miles for Ano even as the First of Swampreed shouted the order to fire once again. * * *         Night had fallen when Ghost awoke in her own tent with Ember and one of the army’s healers sitting beside her bedroll. Ember smiled and leaned forward to touch her antlers to Ghost’s. Ghost was vaguely embarrassed by the worry in Ember’s eyes. “You awaken sooner than Greenbriar expected,” Ember said, with a nod to the healer. “I am glad. How do you feel? Are you well?”         Ghost took inventory of her body, staring unfocused at the peak of the tent above her. “I feel well, but weak,” she admitted at last. She hesitated. “There is a hollowness in me somehow.”         Ember and Greenbriar exchanged a worried glance, but Ember put a smile in place before looking back down at Ghost. Her lips parted to say something reassuring, but she was interrupted by a deep, liquid growl which filled the tent. Ember went taut, head swiveling to find the source of the noise, but relaxed when she saw Greenbriar’s smirk.         “The fearsome Ghost seems to be hungry,” the healer said, amusement in her eyes. Ember’s eyes held only relief.         With the words said, Ghost realized it was true—she was hungrier than she could ever recall being, hungrier even than her time of starvation during her panicked flight from the destruction of her village so long ago. “Yes,” was all she said.         Greenbriar nodded. “Wait here,” she said. As though I could walk away even if I chose to. Greenbriar left to retrieve food, leaving Ember and Ghost alone.         Ember smoothed a wrinkle in the blanket she lay on. “Ano?”         Ghost nodded. Ember had felt the god’s distance too. She was one of the most recent to leave the line of sensitives in the vanguard. “He is . . . It is like trying to throw a spear across the forest, and the forest gets wider with each passing day. We are so very far from where the gods have power.”         “Can we continue?” She did not say is this the end, and Ghost was grateful for that.         “We are nearly at the end of the hills. There are but two more captured villages, and then the entirety of the hills belong once more to the People. Then we travel north to reach our first target on the plains. Surely the gods will be able to reclaim the hills before long. That will make it easier.”         Ember nodded, and smiled in relief. Neither of them mentioned the profound unholiness of the earth the Others had held, nor their doubts whether the gods would ever be able to reclaim it. Two dead fortress-villages and two weeks of hard marching later, the army came down out of the hills just ahead of the heavy snow, and there was a great celebration there on the plains between the hills and the crag at the center of the earth, for they had swept the hills clean of the Others, a feat none of the People would have considered possible before the gods’ weapons. Ember and Ghost missed most of the festivities, cloistered as they were in Ghost’s tent as the weakened and feverish doe nibbled hard cakes soaked in broth between bouts of sleeping as though dead.         The army camped there, amid the dead grass of the plains, for five precious days—days which had grown more precious now that the Others had learned of the People’s assault—letting the supply train reach them from the forest and letting the wounded heal. Ghost insisted she was well enough to travel, but her fever remained, and Ember and the healers pressed her back down into her bedroll, eyeing her protruding ribs and feeling her weak resistance. The healers plied their art on Ghost. They grew more dour with each failed attempt to make Noa touch Ghost’s feverish body. Some—not all—could reach her, but the god’s distance and the difficulty of the task caused each healer to give up in the end. Finally, they informed Ember, who had waited anxiously by Ghost’s bedroll during each of the dozens of attempts, that Ghost would simply have to be allowed to heal naturally. Ember’s brows lowered at that, but she said nothing. Ember waited. With each sunset, her expression grew darker, and during her brief walks outside Ghost's tent, she stalked around the camp like a thunderstorm. On the third day, Ghost at last slept normally, without the tossing and moaning that had marked her unconsciousness until then. Seeing that the worst had passed, Ember bared her teeth in a snarl and her antlers filled the tent with green light as she seized Noa and forced the god to the task of repairing Ghost’s body. Greenbriar, who was in attendance again that day, put a hoof up to her that was not quite a command to stop. “Our finest healers could not enlist Noa’s help in this place. What can you do, young warrior?” Ember cut a look at the healer. “None of you were angry enough.” Her antlers flared brilliantly green, making Greenbriar wince away. In an hour, Ghost’s nose and eyes had lost any signs of fever, and her muscles had begun to press against her skin with their accustomed youthful hardness. Ember released the god when Ghost woke and complained of being too hungry to bear, and nearly collapsed across Ghost’s body as soon as the god had left her. She murmured, for Ghost’s ears alone, “It seems I too can throw a spear across the forest, when there is need enough.” Greenbriar put her head through the tent flap to send another healer to bring double helpings of food for both of them, and bent to poke and prod at the two does until she was satisfied that neither of them had been harmed by the process. They ate, and slept, and the following day Ghost was able to leave her bedroll and walk carefully about the camp, which lifted the army’s morale scarcely less than it lifted hers.         There was another celebration that night in honor of the return of the army’s god-warrior, a name which amused and horrified Ghost in approximately equal measure. She leaned close to Ember’s ear and whispered, “Later, you must tell me the tales that spawned that name.” Ember’s reply was an impish smile and a wink, leading Ghost to decide that at least some of the tales had been her doing. Ghost and Ember ate to repletion, then rested as warriors competed in contests of skill and tale-telling. On the fifth day, Ghost awoke feeling fully recovered, and after the healers had poked and prodded and satisfied themselves that she was correct in that, she ordered that the camp be struck immediately and that the army begin the march north toward the first of the mighty cities of the Others, constructions so alien that the People had no word to name them.