Metro: Retribution

by RF and AG

Chapter 17: Welcome to The Gryphon Empire

        A rather forceful knock on the door aroused me out of a rather blissful sleep, one that I would normally be all too willing to cling on to. The only thing that kept me from falling asleep was the rushed voice that was coming from the pony that was knocking.

“Artyom! Hurry up and get dressed! We are getting ready to enter the port!” Shining’s voice sounded a little rushed, meaning this was indeed happening and not just a joke.

“Чёрт побери,” I muttered as I hauled myself out of my bed with almost a tumble. We must have made great time overnight. Admiral Galleon had told us that we would most likely reach port around midday, not this early in the morning. The cursory glance out of the small window in my room confirmed that the sun was hardly in the sky, so it must have still been morning, which my watch somewhat confirmed, but I wasn’t completely sure if it was indeed six fifty.

With a little bit of a spring in my step, I moved around the room to gather each piece of my equipment, all the while trying to drag my armour onto my body. I was more than used to having to rush into my armour like I was doing, which gave me the upper hand in not falling face first on the floor as I hopped around pulling my boot on. Sure, I could have sat down but that was only an option because ‘hindsight is always twenty twenty.’

I think the moment Shining heard me thumping around in my room, he left to gather his stuff or prepare his ponies … who knew really? But, either way, I was certain he wasn’t on the other side of the door. That being a good thing since I nearly busted it down the moment my armour was on. There was a moment of hesitation to my movements, a brief moment in which I contemplated the reasoning as to why I was in such an incredulous rush that I just missed running through a door.

No good reasons came to mind at first, but when the first one did, it was the only answer I cared for. I was in such a rush because there was no room for errors in this plan; no room for me or any of those ponies to fuck up. Despite Shining’s word that the Gryphons would be more accepting of seeing such a unique person as I, there was still a large amount of doubt in the back of my mind. A nagging voice that told me to stick to the plan and not deviate for even a moment. Of course, I had it a little easier than the others who had to actually carry me.

It wasn’t a long run till I was at the stairs to take me up to the deck. In fact, I don’t think it could be called a run since I only had to take seven quick strides. That put me right at the bottom of the stairs, and only a few moments until I could get my first, and possibly only, glimpse at the gryphon port city.

The steps were taken in groups of two, leaving me right in front of the doors in a meagre few seconds. As my hand started to grasp to pull open the door, the weight of the action decreased dramatically and in that split second I knew what was about to happen. Even with the fraction of warning that I felt, I only had time for my eyes to widen in realization.

With a sudden exertion of force, Shining barrelled through the door with his own moment, slamming into me in that fraction of a second. We were lucky the stairs weren’t that long, for both of us were sent flying down them, slamming into each other as well as the wooden platforms, all the way down. The moment we collided with the floor, the wind was pushed momentarily from my lungs, forcing me to cough briefly. A second cough emanated from the white Prince, as he must have had his breath knocked out of him as well.

“Ну ты и идиот...” I mumbled out loud before pushing myself back up into a seated position and looking over at Shining. “Why in such rush?”

He simply groaned at first, still recovering from the tumble. Sure, it wasn’t much of a tumble but it was the complete lack of readiness that made it so bad. Who would have expected to be thrown down a set of stairs on a boat? I, for one, was not expecting it, and apparently, neither was Shining.

A few seconds passed with only the sound of the floorboards creaking under our movement to fill that time. Eventually though, Shining had brought himself back up to a standing position while I was temporarily crouching.

“I was on my way to get you and apparently you were on your way to find me … that is sure one way to start a day,” Shining said, trailing off a little at the end.

I simply nodded in agreement, a fine way to start the day indeed. I finally removed myself from the crouching position, dusting myself off as I stood. I wasn’t sure if there was actually any dust on me, but it just felt like the right thing to do after being knocked down. After the quick pat down, I started to move back towards the door that Shining had so casually barged through.

“Wait!”

I stopped in my tracks, looking back over my shoulder, hoping Shining would have a good reason for holding me up from getting some fresh air.

“You can’t go outside, we’re too close to port for that to happen. Usually a very small gryphon party will come out to direct us to a dock. We’ll have to prepare you for being moved,” he said, nodding towards the hallway I just came from. I didn’t say anything, instead looking down the hallway, remembering that, aside from Shining’s room and mine, there was also another door. That must have been another stairway down to the lower decks.

I looked at him with a puzzled expression, hopefully conveying what I was thinking without having to actually speak my mind. He would have to get used to that if he was going to work with me, many of my travelling partners had learned to read my looks. For once, I was in luck and Shining did in fact figure out what I was trying to silently tell him.

“The crew has all been called onto the top deck for inspection, though of course there will be a hoof full down below. We can easily bypass them though. There is a direct route to the cargo hold on the second deck. I’ll go a little ahead of you and make sure it is clear,” he said before trotting down the hall, opening the door and descending down the stairs.

I simply shrugged my shoulder, waited a few seconds and then proceeded to follow his path. I had to crouch a little though to actually fit down those stairs, because, for the oddest of reasons, the stairway had a lower ceiling than all of the other ones. Maybe it was due to it being a ship, or maybe the ponies were just a completely weird bunch in how they designed stuff. I was leaning a little towards the second option though.

The spiralling staircase eventually placed me on the second deck of the ship, which honestly wasn’t much to view. The reason for that was that the stairway was in a different room, go figure. At least I could hide momentarily if a pony came into the room. Which, as soon as I had thought that, happened. Fortunately, it was Shining who had appeared from the doorway.

“Come on, the stairs to the cargo deck are clear,” he said, motioning with a hoof for me to follow him. The funny thing about Shining’s plan was that despite all of the meticulous planning that he had probably invested into it, he looked over the really small things.

Such as the fact that the stairs to the cargo deck were right across from the stairs that I had descended. He had, literally, gone through all of that recon for absolutely nothing. Even if a pony had caught the briefest of glimpses of me passing in between the rooms, they wouldn’t have seen me for long enough even to decide if they were hallucinating or not. Oh well, at least he was being cautious for once.

As we moved quickly across the hallway and down the other set of stairs, a thought came to mind, one that I hoped Shining had an answer for.

“Why smuggle me if Gryphons more open with other… spec-... species?” I asked as we continued to descend down the stairs.

That question actually caused Shining to pause mid stride and hold there for a moment. I think his brain was trying to work around the fact that he had told me that and yet he was trying to smuggle me into the country. Eventually, he lowered his hoof, and continued to move down the stairs.

“Despite them being more open… you could cause some interesting backlash, especially with your gadgets and weapons. The fact that I would be escorting you could bring up some interesting conversation topics next summit,” he said, his voice giving off a little feeling of weariness. It was as if he wasn’t a hundred percent sure of his own answer.

“Huh …” I said lamely, not having anything to really add to that reply. Maybe sometimes it was just best left alone, even if I wasn’t sure that Shining was being truthful. Maybe it was one of those times that, despite all prior instances, I needed to trust him. It would be interesting to see how that would work out.

As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard a few shuffles from above or at least on the deck above this one. It didn’t explicitly sound like hoofs but I didn’t really know all the sounds that those could make, so I could probably just chalk it up to inexperience. Either way, I shrugged it off and instead looked around the massive space.

It was… well it basically was a large room with a rather surprising amount of boxes stacked around them. I walked curiously over to one that seemed to be half my height. I gave it a tentative push only to find it move with ease. They must keep these boxes after each use, if possible. It would make it easier on resources than constantly building new ones, though I didn’t expect all of them to be empty.

I mean, the room was completely full of boxes, stacked nearly to the ceiling with them. There was boxes larger than me, boxes my size, boxes half my size, and so on. I felt sorry for the pony that would have had to take inventory of the place.

“You coming or are you going to make love with the boxes?” Shining called back to me from his position far ahead.

I actually chuckled slightly at the comment, it looked like he was finally learning how to make a joke! The pony was too serious all the time and it was a little bit heartwarming to see him crack a joke, mainly because that meant I was influencing him more and more. Maybe one day he would be less of a tool and more of a decent person… pony… whatever. Though I still had to get him back for the boxing incident.

As I proceeded to walk to his position, I noticed that he was currently standing beside a box of impressive size. The front of it had been removed via… a crowbar? Shining was currently holding a crowbar in his magic, which honestly worried me. I hesitated, while staring at it but was able to breathe a sigh of relief as he let it fall from his magic. Yeah, I wouldn’t be trusting magic anytime soon.

“Alright, this is the box that we will be shipping you in. As you can see, there are multiple holes drilled into it, so that you can actually breathe. As well, it has a little bit of packing on the bottom of it, so you’re not too uncomfortable,” he said, motioning to each part.

“Did you worry about comfort last time?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“Shut up …” was all he replied.

I simply smirked at him before turning my head to look over the massive wooden box again. I reached down to my side, pulling my helmet up before slipping it on my head, securing the face mask portion in the process but still focusing my attention on the box. It would work for what we needed to do but there was a sinking in my gut nonetheless. I knew that feeling for I had felt it before, it was a feeling that said one thing and one thing only; something was going to go wrong. I looked briefly at Shining, snapping my fingers to draw his attention to me.

“Something wrong … we shoul-” I was cut off by a loud yell.

“Subdue the human!”

I spun to face the entrance way that we had originally come from, and to my surprise, the door way was completely blocked off by four armoured gryphons. Each one of them looking exactly the same, yellow hawk like legs in the front and goldish-brown lion legs in the back. I couldn’t tell anything more for all of them were wearing a silvery grey armour on every part of their body. Their wings weren’t flared out so I couldn’t see them but I figured they weren’t covered. In retrospect, I don’t know how I didn’t hear them coming down the stairs… something was up.

The armour was rather familiar in how it looked, the overlapped plates of what looked like steel along with tassels at set intervals and designs, as well as what looked like a red undershirt really made me wonder why it was so familiar. Moving to their helmets, it looked closer to a complete steel facemask with only their lower beak not concealed. That meant that ever their neck was protected by plates, while a few feathers were sticking out of the top in what looked like a mohawk.

In my short moment of assessing what the gryphon soldiers looked like, I had completely neglected the sounds from behind me, and that was a big mistake on my part. Even a Ranger can slip up, and this was one of them. As a result I was currently face down on the wooden flooring, all the while thanking my luck that I had remembered to put helmet and face mask on. I couldn’t see them because a claw or hand … whatever, was shoving the back of my head straight down with enough force to prevent me from turning it sideways. I could only assume that there was currently a gryphon or two sitting on me because it felt like my ribs were going to break, what with all the weight pushing down on me.

“What is this outrage! You have no right barging in and tackling him to the ground like that!” Shining was yelling above the commotion, trying to reason with the gryphons I figured.

“Actually, Prince Armor, we have every right to do what we are currently doing,” a second voice replied to Shining, and I could tell immediately I didn’t like whoever that was. They sounded too close to Korbut in how they spoke, and may whatever their god was help them if they tried to pull the same stunts as Korbut.

“Quintus,” Shining said with all but a sneer, “I didn’t realize that the King ordered the bordering of an Equestrian ship!”

“He didn’t, Prince Armor, we have stepped up our security detail in a major way, but this is not the place to speak about such things. Instead, may I inquire as to why you were trying to smuggle a human into The Gryphon Empire?”

“How do you know what Artyom is?” Shining said, with nothing but confusion in his voice.

“Is that what it calls itself or did you name it, Prince Armor?” Quintus said before a moment of silence came about. Whatever happened during that time was out of my sight, since all I could see was wooden floor, but Shining must have conveyed something to him for he started speaking again, “I apologize, Prince Armor, I didn’t mean to insult, but this is a rather interesting situation that we find ourselves in.”

“‘Interesting’ doesn’t begin to describe it Quintus,” Shining said before a brief pause. “Am I correct in assuming that you won’t be letting him go anytime soon?”

“Unfortunately for your ‘friend’ that is correct. At the moment he is considered an enemy of the Empire and as such will answer for his crimes,” Quintus said, much to my disbelief. What crimes had I ever committed in a land that I had never been in? That bird was a quack if you asked me.

There was a long pause before Shining spoke again, “I will be taking this up with the Emperor and Artyom will be released, Quintus.”

“If Emperor Galba deems it so, then who am I to question, Prince Armor? In fact, how about I escort you to him. We wouldn’t want your friend to be executed before you can appeal, now would we?”

With a snapping sound, I was hauled quickly from my face down position and before I could ever get a single glimpse on what ‘Quintus’ looked like, a blindfold was wrapped around my helmet. At first I didn’t care too much since I still had access to all of my weapons if need me, at least that was the truth for a few seconds.

The moment that the blindfold finished being tied, a multitude of things happened in quick succession. First of all, my hands were bound together, behind my back, by what seemed to be rope, at least based upon the feeling of it tightening against my wrists. Secondly, I felt each of my weapons being pulled from their spots, leaving me completely weaponless. That even included the shoulder straps which, based upon the two clicking sounds, were unhooked before being taken from me. I suppressed my urge to fight back, my life was in Shining’s hooves, since we couldn’t afford to cause an international debacle… or at least that was how he put it.

Whatever caused those Gryphons to subdue me had to be linked with the fact that they also knew what my weapons looked like. Of course, the deep thought could be saved for later, especially when I could get in some good name calling.

“Может сейчас преимущество у вас, курицы, но вы погодите, придёт время и вы у меня попляшите...”

“I’ve been wondering what that language was …” Quintus said, trailing off at the end. I was going to continue but his words struck a chord in me. Something was completely off here, and Quintus knew about it. Lucky for me, Shining also seemed to pick up on the slip up by Quintus.

“You know more than you are letting on, Quintus,” Shining said.

“Guards, move him to the castle dungeon and keep him separated from the rest of the prisoners. Try to be discreet, and lay off on the beatings this time, he was with a foreign Prince after all,” Quintus said, ignoring Shining’s statement.

Without a moment of hesitation, I felt arms wrap around my own bound ones as my captors began to drag me off. That also meant that they were going to drag me up a few flights of stairs … oh joy.

“Don’t worry, Artyom, I will fix this mess,” Shining called from behind me, and for once I was actually hoping that he would keep his word.

As I watched Artyom being dragged up the stairs, a thought arose in my head. He was way too calm for what had just happened, which meant he either knew a way to escape or he was actually trusting me. I had no clue which one was a scarier thought.

“Aren’t we going to leave, Prince Armor?” Quintus asked.

I turned to regard the gryphon, gazing sharply at him. He wasn’t anything special in terms of gryphons. His armour covered up the majority of his bird half, but that didn’t mean much. I had learned much from the multiple talks with the Gryphon Empire that I had attended. One of the things that I had learned was the different breeds of the important gryphons. Quintus was an eagle mix, much like the Emperor, but his feather colouration was less pure in terms of the whiteness. The brown coat of his lion half was also darker in colour, as was his beak. It could be said that Quintus just got more sun than the Emperor, but that would be a tasteless and offensive racist joke.

“I need to grab my stuff …” I said, trailing off as I was slightly lost in thought.

“No need, Prince. We will have it delivered to the royal suite as soon as possible. In the mean time, we should go meet with the Emperor while he has free time,” Quintus replied, moving towards the rear entrance of the cargo deck, the same entrance that the Gryphons used to sneak up on Artyom and I.

“Yes, let’s go see Emperor Galba and get Artyom out of the dungeons,” I said as I shifted my focus back to Quintus. “Maybe while we are walking, you can explain to me a few key points you are holding back.”

“I do not have the authority to explain to you what you so desire, Prince,” Quintus said in his trademark even voice. That gryphon could keep a steady tone no matter what he was doing, and I had to admit it was an admirable skill. “I have to say, Prince Armor, you are keeping a rather calm temperament despite your friend’s incarceration. I would think that most beings in your place would be furious by now.”

We had cleared the stairs that left the cargo deck and were about to climb the stairs up to the main deck. Just like the other side of the ship, there was a set of stairs that bypassed the other two floors and instead went straight to the cargo deck; why a pony would design a ship with such a thing, I had no clue.

“It’s taken some practice, but I have learned how to contain my emotions, a skill that few have. In fact, I am currently utilizing it to keep me from teleporting you to the bottom of the port,” I said, holding back a snarl.

“It is admirable that you are showing such great restraint,” chuckled Quintus, an obvious jab at my character.

I let my vision move from the slightly obnoxious gryphon to the rest of the ship and the docks as we departed. Most of the ponies were doing a duty of some sort while the passengers just lazed around. Those lucky guards must have won a lottery or something to be able to play the passenger role. The one thing I did notice out of everything was the lack of care that the guards gave about what had just happened. There was no chance in Tartarus that they didn’t see Artyom being dragged, or flown, off the ship so why were they so nonchalant about all of that? I would have to start a little inquiry into the Admiral’s crew and see if there was a leak in information. Of course, that was something to do when we weren't currently holed up in Ostia.

It was silent for a little bit as we moved across the recently placed bridging, allowing us to move onto one of the actual docks. I had been to Ostia before, and had seen the many splendors the place had but there was always one thing that got to me. Where did they find all of the stone to make everything? And by everything, I literally meant every single building and piece of infrastructure, minus the odd cart and stand. Sure the mountain must have provided a good portion of the stone but even then, there was far too much for, such a vast city, it to have come out of one mountain.

The dock we were standing on? Made completely out of stone, and it wasn’t a small dock either. It had to be at least a hundred meters in length if not more, and that was just one of the docks! The port city was massive and contained eight dual sided docks, so whoever thought up the plan to build this, must have been slightly crazy. I mean, Baltimare had more docks, roughly twelve, but they were made out of wood. Extremely sturdy wood mind you, but wood nonetheless.

I shook my head to get my thoughts focused, I had to stay on task and get Artyom back. If he died, my task would end, but that would be something I would never live down, whether it be from Celestia, Twilight, Cadance, or … sigh … even myself.

“Since you won’t willingly tell me anything regarding what just went down, you might as well tell me how everything else is going,” I said, not bothering to look at him, instead opting to gryphon watch instead.

“Is that an order, Prince?” Quintus said, sarcasm lacing each word.

I merely rolled my eyes at him, I knew full well that he was trying to get me to say something stupid to him or even force something upon him. The bastard was sneaky and he knew it, but at the same time, when not being a total dick, he could be your best friend and most valuable asset.

“Aside from what I can’t tell you, Prince, The Empire is doing rather well for itself, all things considered. Of course, it hasn’t been long since we last had a global meeting so nothing much has changed since then. Though I’m pretty sure your Princesses’ spy network could probably tell you more than I could,” he said, rolling his left claw at the same time.

“Don’t toss me in with that, Quintus. You know I am always straight up with you. I respect the Princesses and their word is law but I’ve never been a fan of shadow warfare,” I said, a deep frown crossing my face. “The Crystal Empire tries to stay out of that, as we are still establishing ourselves properly, even after two years.”

        He simply nodded at my response, he knew I couldn’t feed him a lie about such things. I might be a ruler and still a Captain under Celestia, but I had a personal honour code to abide by. Part of that code was to forgo ‘shadow’ acts or stuff of subterfuge … I was an honourable pony!

The moment I brought up my honour code though, I began thinking. Wasn’t what I was doing for Celestia a ‘shadow’ act? I was working behind the back of Artyom by giving reports to Celestia and trying to guide him along paths that she saw fit … great, now I felt sick just thinking of myself.

“Some Senators have been getting more and more restless lately. A little bit of it is due to the recent developments, but most just want Galba’s head. They see him unfit for rule and wish to impose a Senate oriented government, no head of the snake per say,” Quintus said, his voice dropping to hardly above a whisper.

“Really? I always knew them to be aggressive, but to be so outspoken lately? How can they think Galba is unfit?”

Quintus shook his head, “Senator Lucius is leading the ones against him. They want the nation to expand, grab land to the north as well as expand towards Zebra territories. It’s a shame that they are actually getting a rather intense backing from the people … well at least the idiots.”

  “It’s always those who do not know much …” I started, trailing off at the end. “Celestia actually had a rather large opposition for a while, way before we were born though. They often called her unfit to rule, always delegating task, so on and so forth. She patiently waited them out in the end …”

“Sounds like you are losing confidence in her, starting to question as well,” Quintus offered, yet continuing to look ahead.

“Maybe … but that is neither here nor there. For now, let us focus on getting to the palace in one piece,” I replied. I wasn’t that worried about something happening, really. Ostia was one of the safest places to live in the world, mainly due to the major military presence, but something could be said for security. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t lack any freedoms either, unlike the minotaurs who sacrificed freedoms for security.

“Well, that won’t be much of a problem since the palace is right ahead,” Quintus said, motioning his right foreleg towards the massive structure in front of me.

I was certain that, I had paid attention, I would have noticed every aspect of the roads we walked. The vendors on the side, the random people passing by, and nearly all of the stone houses that were decorated in some sort of fashion. I had also noticed the lone undercover bodyguard that was following us roughly eight meters back and to my right. Yet, somehow I had missed turning into the grand square in front of the palace.

The place was … well massive would have been the right word. The front of it was a massive open building that had to have stood over thirty meters high, if not more. The roof was of a simple triangle shape but, once more, the size of it made the thing seem marvelous. Ionic pillars lined the front of the palace, eighteen in total with at least four meters in between each one. I had studied some architecture back in post-secondary, so I knew a little bit about structures.

If the docks had captivated my attention, this palace have stolen it completely. That, of course, was just the main hall to the palace. The rest of it was built into the side of the sole mountain in the area. In fact, it was eerily similar to how Canterlot was made. Here and there you could spot towers built into the mountain, one could most likely assume that the majority of the palace was in the mountain, and they would be right.

That was another odd thing, considering the gryphons are a species that are dedicated to flight. Why would they built inside the mountain was beyond me, and I couldn’t even get a straight answer from Quintus. I swear he would purposely feed me wrong answers just to get a little laugh at my expense.

“Well, Prince Armor, shall we go see the king?” Quintus had stopped a little in front of me.

I simply looked back down to him before nodding my head. I needed to carefully plan my words out or the whole journey would be at risk. Lines were starting to connect, all I needed to do was see the whole picture and I could make something out of it… maybe Artyom could help me persuade them. That human could be an important key in his own freedom.