Mending Light

by Kiromancer

87 - Strategies

Time stood still.

Every breath, every beat of my heart in my throat, sounded loud enough to alert everypony in a mile radius that we were here. I didn’t move, my eyes watching Merri and Star ahead of me as they quietly motioned back and forth. Behind me, Mint and Icicle waited. The tension grew as we did nothing.

There was nothing coming, whatever shapes Merri had spotted had ducked out of sight. We didn’t know who or what was down there, but they weren’t foolish enough to charge straight in. That only meant that it probably wasn’t the whole mercenary crew, but even a scouting force finding us would be just as bad in some ways.

Then, I heard a noise behind me. A long, low tweet, followed by a soft warbling noise. I turned along with Merri and Star to investigate, only to find Mint whistling, one hoof raised to her mouth to indicate silence. We waited. A moment later, a second bird responded from closer to the gate. Tweet, tweet, and another long tweet. If I hadn’t seen Mint whistling, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but Mint grinned.

“It’s somepony in the Guard. I’ll give the all clear and step-out, wait until we know it’s alright.” She stepped past me, making another series of bird impressions, then moved past Merri and Star and cautiously stepped into the open, “Sergeant Mint Creme, reporting.”

The response was immediate, as a familiar orange mare popped around the corner, a wide grin on her face, “Sarge!”

Mint blinked, once, then broken into a smile as well, but she kept her voice low, “Blaze. Get in here, quick. We need to stay out of sight until we can move.”

She nodded, then turned and looked back, “Hold on. I’ll get the others.”

Blaze hadn’t been available when Mint came to back me up. She’d already been deployed to Pasture because she knew the area, and knew the ponies in the town. She was Dusky’s friend, and Ivory’s too, I’d wager. She wasn’t alone, though, and other guards might not be so ready to believe why we were there.

I tensed, still unsure if we were out of danger just yet, and hoping Mint would be able to talk our way out of this if any other guards were present.

Nodding professionally, my sister glanced down, considering. “Others? Who else is with you?”

Blaze nodded eagerly, grinning. “There’s me, Sergeant Reed, Dusky, and Ivory!”

Mint cringed, then let out a soft laugh that became a sigh and looked back towards me with a smirk, waving a hoof forward. “Explains the preliminary caution, then.”

The sudden swell of anticipation in my chest buoyed me up out of all of my fears and doubts. Dusky. She was here. She’d succeeded. We’d held out and found them, and now, we could be away and out of this war zone. I stepped out from around the corner of the building, feeling my emotions overtake me. “Dusky?”

I heard Merri snicker as I walked past, and blushed slightly as she whispered rather loudly, “Go get her, loverboy~.”

Dusky stepped around the wall, coming into the yard with an odd look at Blaze before turning her full attention on me. “Night—”

I’d already leaped up, my wings propelling me into Dusky to wrap my hooves around her tight, tears of relief streaming down my face. “Missed you, Dusky… Love you.”

She returned the hug, just as tightly as I held her, nuzzling against my neck. “I missed you too. Did you have much trouble getting here?”

I frowned, reluctantly breaking the hug, but still staying close. “Nothing getting here… plenty of trouble after that, though. That… that matters less now, though. You found Ivory?”

She nodded, “And some other company. Blaze, and her commander, Sergeant Feather Reed. How many did you bring?”

“Myself, Mint, Merri, Star, and Icicle. Not as many as I’d have liked, but these are the only ponies I could trust to come.”

She raised an eyebrow at me when I mentioned Icicle, tilting her head to spot our weather bureau co-worker walking alongside Merri. “If there’s a good reason why he’s here, then alright.”

Merri grinned, “I vouched for him, Dusky.”

Dusky looked at me again, and all I could do was shrug, not really sure how much more explanation I could offer than that. She breathed out the faintest of sighs and nodded. “Alright.”

Mint walked closer, eyeing the other two ponies following up behind Dusky. “Sergeant Reed, hm?”

I recognized Ivory, though she somehow looked even more tired than she’d been after staying up for nights without rest, researching rituals to eliminate the Banshee. The other pony, who was unmistakably Sergeant Reed, had a golden yellow coat that almost matched her armor. With her reddish mane, she almost looked like my sister, Sun, though quite a bit more athletic. She was keeping her emotions close to the chest, and it was hard to tell if she was friend or foe from her stoic expression. Only the fact that she’d arrived with Dusky and the others pointed to the fact that I could trust her.

She and Ivory walked up side by side, though Ivory stopped next to Dusky. I turned to give her a gentle smile, and she cordially dipped her head. She seemed grateful, but clearly on edge. I could hardly blame her for that, though, considering everything we’d been through already, I was sure she'd had it far worse.

Feather Reed saluted, “Sergeant Creme. I wasn’t aware you’d been assigned to this… problem.”

Mint shook her head. “I haven’t. Not officially, at least. That’s my brother, and the mare you’ve been working alongside is my sister-in-law, and I’m not the type to stay behind and let anypony in my family get hurt. You’re here more officially, yes?”

Reed nodded, “Sent to investigate the veracity and the threat presented by the legend of the Necromancer of Pasture. Findings are… inconclusive.” She glanced back and gave Ivory a long, curious look.

Ivory glanced away, but she was just as stone-faced as Reed was.

I tried to figure that out for a moment, but more pressing issues were at hand. “Listen, we’ve been scouting Pasture, spying on the mercenaries’ movements, and on the Mayor, and we need to move. We were just getting ready to leave.”

Suddenly looking back up at me, Ivory narrowed her eye, “Why the hurry? What did you find out?”

“This mansion, this forest, this whole area, Mayor Prideful is ordering those mercenaries to burn it all down to find you. That camel and his fighters could be here any moment now.” The words all rushed out of my mouth, and watching the expression on Ivory’s face sink, my ears lowered. “I’m… sorry.”

Ivory cringed as if struck. “Burn the mansion? He can’t… he wouldn’t?”

Merri spoke up from behind, “We heard it ourselves. Him and Moss, but the Mayor’s the one who ordered it.”

Ivory slumped, and Dusky turned to offer her support. “I know it’s hard to leave it behind, but we still need to get you out of here.”

“I can’t, Dusky. I can’t. If that’s what Prideful ordered, if he’s ready to go that far… I need to stay. I need to find a way to end all this bloodshed. Nopony else should get hurt because of me.”

“That’s… you can’t do that, Ivory. It’s not just Prideful Policy anymore, he has a whole mercenary camp hired on to hunt you down. Moss has ponies all the way out to Iron Shoe looking for you.” Dusky’s face dropped as she pleaded with her friend. “Staying here is… it’s crazy!”

I knew the look on Dusky’s face. She’d looked at me like that, more than once. Don’t be a hero.

Ivory nodded. “I know. Yet… I don’t think there’s any choice left for me now.”

After a moment, Dusky sighed, looking over the whole group of us gathered there in the mansion’s courtyard. “No… we’ll find another option. We just need a plan.”

---

Now with our party ballooned in size from five to nine ponies, we journeyed into the mansion proper for the very first time. Once inside the long abandoned manor, Ivory led us to a secret passage that led down to a large room, filled with several cots and stacks of carefully placed boxes. The dust here wasn’t nearly as thick, and it was easy to see that Ivory had long prepared for needing just such a space.

Dusky wanted us all inside to talk over our next move, but agreed with Merri that somepony needed to keep watch, especially knowing the manor was on the target list. With that, Merri and Icicle headed out to keep watch, while the rest of us set about unpacking some dining room furniture to serve as our new headquarters.

“If the problem is that he won’t stop until you’re gone, what if we make a show of you taking the highway out?” Sergeant Reed sat with her forehooves folded in front of her, looking down thoughtfully. “There would still be some danger, but far less than fighting until only one of you is left standing. If his opponent is gone, continuing with this war would only make him look like a fool.”

Across from her, sitting between Dusky and Blaze, Ivory sighed. “Pasture trusts him too much. He could keep sending mercenaries to chase me to the ends of Equestria and they would accept it.”

“Or worse.” Blaze leaned forward, looking around the table at each of us. “He’d spin it as a trick, that there’s no way Ivory would give up her power over us. She’s just rebuilding her army, hiding a bit farther back until they let down their guard. Believe me, I… I used to buy into that schlock.”

With the last sentence, she turned to Ivory and dipped her ears back apologetically, but Ivory only responded with a light smile and a nod.

Sitting between Blaze and Reed was Starshadow. She frowned, tapping a hoof quietly on the table. “He is adept at politics, I will give him that. I do not think that engaging him will have the result you desire. Even if we bring him down, Pasture will see him as a martyr, and you, a villain. It is then likely that the Equestrian Guard will have to step in and I doubt there is anything Sergeant Reed could say to quell that momentum.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, she’s right.” Mint sighed to my left, her face telling me exactly where she wanted to shove Prideful’s 'momentum' at that particular moment. “No matter the intention, a large-scale battle always looks bad. A crisis force will be sent to respond.”

“Then running really is the best way to keep suffering to a minimum?” I looked about the table, not wanting to sound like a coward, but also not wanting to get into a fight we knew we couldn’t win. We were nine ponies facing a fully armed mercenary outfit, plus civilians who didn’t understand that they were being duped.

With a sad shake of her head, Ivory dashed my hopes of getting out of Pasture by nightfall. “If I simply disappear, nothing will change. He’ll see ghosts and shadows around every corner.”

To my right, Dusky suddenly perked up, a moment of inspiration clearly breaking across her face. “What if we let him win?”

“Dusky, you… uh, feeling okay there?” Blaze nearly poked Dusky, as if she’d suddenly vanish, clearly not real. “I thought I just heard you suggest letting him win.”

“I did.” Dusky turned to Ivory, the wheels in motion behind her eyes. “What are the chances we can create a zombie that looks like you?”

“It would take some time, but the necessary spells are not terribly complicated. It will take more effort to mask the smell.” Ivory blinked, stopping a moment to stare at Dusky incredulously. “Are we… faking my death?”

Dusky nodded. “Think about it. If he believes he has thoroughly won, to the point that he has found a corpse, then he cannot pursue this any further. He would never undermine his own victory, so he’d have to let his vendetta go, hopefully becoming a better mayor in the process.”

“We would need to make it believable,” Star lifted her hoof off the table, considering. “A stallion like him would not accept a kill that seemed too easy. If he suspects anything at all, we run into the same trickery problem.”

Blaze leaned forward, nodding, “We could pretend to attack Pasture. Let him believe everything bad he’s said is true. He’d take to it like a bass on a crankbait.”

Sergeant Reed shot her a grim look. “No. We can’t endanger civilians.”

Blaze raised an eyebrow, letting her head tilt a bit as she leaned back. “I said ‘pretend’.”

Dusky turned to shake her head at Blaze, “She’s right. Fighting is chaotic, even if Ivory keeps her zombies in check, the mercenaries and townsfolk will be in a frenzy. Accidental collateral is almost a certainty.”

Mint leaned back, then got a sudden grin, raising her hoof up over her head towards the ceiling. “Then why not here? We know they’ll be here sooner or later, so why don’t we take advantage of that?”

With a blink, Dusky stopped, then looked down for a moment. A small smile broke over her face as well, as I could see things clicking into place for her. “That’s… perfect. We draw them in, stage a battle and let them push the zombies back. When the body double goes down and we’re certain the mercenaries have confirmed their ‘kill’, we retreat into the safe room and disappear into the wilderness.”

Comments

[platogkrone]

It's a testament to the good-quality realistic writing of this story that I can't tell if this will work or not.

[Yami Vizzini]

That’s one hurdle crossed....