In the Company of Night

by Mitch H

Settling In

SBMS103

The last of the identifiable bands of undead were swept out of the deeper shafts in the Deep Mines Range in the last weeks of spring. Major Gorefyre and her sullen Imperials, all but under their own house arrest in their fortified quarters outside of the palisades, leapt at the chance to finish up their collections for the year. The Company kept large contingents of our own guards with the coffles as the Imperials whipped them out of one set of holding pens in the hollers to the north and west, and through Dance Hall to another set of holding pens to the south and east. Finally, the young necromancer was satisfied, and we saw off the 93rd with their collection of enthralled ghouls. And good riddance to the lot of them.

If only they weren't also carrying word of the Company's ruthless demolition of one of the Bride's generals. A general for whom the empress had given us a warrant against her unlife, mind you, but still and all, one of her liches, one of her original legates. And somepony who supposedly was indestructible, somepony who you could defeat, but never kill.

And yet the Walker was gone, and quite spectacularly, publicly so. Nopony knew of the destruction of her partner, but his ongoing absence from the lists would eventually be noted. The Company's notoriety was due for an explosive increase. If ponies weren't already afraid of us, they would soon have reason and more than reason to be so.

The miners started preparing to re-open the shafts. A dozen sections were put on rotation in the Range, escorting the miners, and patrolling the slopes. Just because the bands had been exterminated, didn't meant that the region was completely free of the undead scourge. Even the Pepin Front still had the occasional ghoul sighting, and the aerial cohort maintained a back-country patrol, checking in on the existing fortified homesteads, and the scattering of returning exiles opening up the abandoned acreage here and there along the valley floors.

Spring had taken the bottomlands like an explosion of life, green everywhere, flowers, birds returning – a riot of colour and buzzing, twittering tumult. The ghouls had exterminated all mammalian life in the region larger than a vole, so that the life that spring brought was mostly small and swift, little chirping things. Time and peace would draw the larger creatures into the vacuum left by the infestation, but in the meantime, it was an avian paradise. The burnt-out wastelands bloomed until you couldn't see any of the scorch marks.

The collapse of amity with the sovereignty of Rennet didn't materially affect the Company in any serious fashion. They'd already hoofed over their recruits, and most of our contracts for military supplies and goods were by necessity supplied from vendors in Hydromel and Verdebaie. Rennet's economy was still somewhat shaky from their few years under the White Rose; about the only thing they could offer us was foodstuffs, and the Company's logistics committee had discovered that the Pepin plateau farmland supplies were sufficient for our needs, putting aside the outrageous demands of our unofficial new baker and her cultivation of our ponies' collective sweet tooth.

Most refined sugar in Tambelon was made from processed sugarcane, shipped north along the riverlands from the canefields along the far southern coast. The sky-high costs of shipping through the war zone, or the long way around the fighting, had inspired farmers throughout the northlands to experiment with alternative crops. But we could do without Rennet sugarbeets for the time being.

Smaller units of White Rose scouts continued to probe the line of the upper river in the last weeks of spring. Two three-pony teams were caught and killed by Company air patrols, their boats burned. Their remains were used to mount 'trophies' above the most likely landings along our stretch of the river, in hopes of discouraging repeat visits. Word from the Duc and his guard on the upper ford was that they were probing in force at that crossing, sometimes in numbers that his ducal guard couldn't meet in the field. The officers began discussions with the Duc about placing a Company garrison within Pepin City, or perhaps a blockhouse closer to the ford. It was a bit too far from the Aerie to keep proper coverage over that locale.

Although plans were made for a raid against the nearest White Rose riverport, and proposals drawn up for deep penetration patrols into their districts along the western bank of the river, the Company was not planning to take the field in any serious way during in its third campaign season in Tambelon. We had yet to have received any orders from the Imperial forces, other than the vague 'defend the upper river, and hold the province of Pepin against all comers'.

The additional recruits and the new cohort gave the officers greater flexibility and the capacity to fully staff all of our new commitments, as limited and defensive as they were. The last of the fourth cohort was marched out of the Plateau Palisades, and took station in Dance Hall and Trollbridge, where new barracks behind a palisade were erected by the recruits and their veteran cadre. We no longer had to worry about rushing reinforcements all the way from the western bastions of Dance Hall proper to the southern gateway over the Withies.

The outer defenses were completed along the northern bank of the river, stretching up to a watchtower on the knob overlooking Mondovi, and a ditch and palisade was labouriously carved out of the shallow and rocky soil of that steep hillside. Dance Hall finally surrounded that little jewel of the black bottomlands, a complete fortification enveloping the city walls proper. Returnees had begun to drift into town, looking to exploit the newly opened possibilities inherent in the abandoned lands, the wastelands, and Brass Tones' redevelopment of the mines in the Deep Mines Range. Assuming that no further warfare burst into Pepin along the Baneway or eastwards from the river crossings, the province was poised for a rebirth as spring gave way to summer.

The form of a great winged unicorn was seen to pace along the fighting platforms and walkways of Dance Hall on certain nights, appearing under moonlight and starlight alike. Sometimes a great-winged blue alicorn, her eyes turned to follow the moon, was seen in the distance by civilians out long after they ought to have been in their beds asleep. It was the fools who crept close, to see the rumoured ghost, who encountered the Nightmare in all of her black-winged terror. Few of those terrorized by the Spirit in one of her moods were Mondovan townsponies; it was the new arrivals, the returnees and the adventurers, and drunken miners waiting their turn to ship up into the hollers to earn their pay, who spread the stories of that night-haunt who stalked the fortifications between her still and unblinking guards.

The Company had already grown used to their Spirit and her crotchets. Almost every pony had seen her in their dreams by that third summer, every pony, that is, but our soul-blind Captain. It had ceased to be a matter of raillery and good humour to poke and prod at the stolid Sicari earth-pony, and to do so now, when the Spirit walked the open night air, and was on the lips of everypony in the central districts, was good for a night's trip to the stockade. I probably would have earned multiple nights in lock-up, if I were not already locking myself into my quarters under the terms of my house-arrest.

I couldn't help but poke at the bear. It was a welcome distraction.

Comments

[The_Skraeling]

I seriously don't understand how this story doesn't have more likes. Seriously.

[Mitch H]

7750013 Thanks for reading and commenting. It helps a lot.

As for the rest of it, I've been getting about as much attention as I can expect, to be honest. First story, not in any of the big subgenres, heavily OC, not a crossover with any of the big 'fandoms'.

[Dorath]

outrageous demands of our unofficial new baker and her cultivation of our ponies' collective sweet tooth

It's a plot

[ponygrad]

Maybe the spirit is afraid to be to heavy hoofed with another Captain. Or maybe she just find it funny to keep her out of the loop

[Skulljack17]

Hey, why have a bear if you can't appreciate poking it, right?