• Published 28th Aug 2016
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In the Company of Night - Mitch H



The Black Company claims to not remember Nightmare Moon, but they fly her banner under alien skies far from Equestria. And the stars are moving slowly towards their prophesied alignment...

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Nearsighted Pony's Bluff

SBMS015

They finally were able to spare pegasi to ferry the remnants of our expedition back home late that night, really, more like the next morning. Midnight was long past as we coasted behind tired ponies in the dappled darkness underneath the clouds. The waning moon was high in the heavens, passing through gaps in the partial cloud cover. The hamlets and market-towns of Rennet lit our way below, like topaz flecks strung out haphazardly on a mostly-bare heirloom necklace, the more precious gems sold long ago by improvident or wastrel ancestors.

The pegasi who came to hitch themselves up to our chariots had muttered something about the ball in play, and we passed more than one flight of griffins and pegasi dashing here and there on the way into the forward base. Over at least one market-town, a brace of ponies were slowly circling something on the outskirts of that town, no real indication of what exactly, but I knew the general outlines of the operation which had been in planning. Apparently something had advanced the time-table. We were all over the skies of Rennet that night. There was a bright orange glow in the distance, away from our line of flight - something large burning fiercely in the night.

I haven't dwelt before in these pages on the world in darkness seen with night's-eyes, because it seemed somehow natural, and simple, and not really worth the ink to discuss. But I felt the difference that night, far overhead of a chaos in which I had no hoof in the planning. Well, that's not exactly true, I had sat in on the general discussions, but this… this wasn't what had been discussed, and everything changes once you start pinning assignments and timetables and marching ponies out on roadnets you had no real control or dominance over. Rennet was enemy country, and there were armed, barded columns rushing here and there through the night, on errands only they and their commanders wot of.

As we spiraled into the landing-meadow in front of the compound, I got a good night-vision view of the much-trampled farm lanes around our hiding-place, and the widening trails leading from our hidden base to roads and lanes throughout the neighborhood. If it weren't for our witches-coven, we would be discovered on the first sunny morning; only glamours could hide the hoofprints of hundreds of armed ponies marching forth on their various missions of arson, terrorism, and judicious execution.

Once we touched down in the meadow, I buttonholed my orderlies, and instructed them to take our jenny patient into the infirmary and check on Octavius and the rest of the malingerers, then to report back to the chariots, where we would rendezvous once I touched base with operations and figured out where they needed us. Too much traffic on the roads, too many opportunities for trouble. We'd probably be needed before the sun rose, but the alicorns only knew if we could possibly get to where we'd be needed before then. Not nearly enough darkness left in the night.

At that thought I felt a nasty shiver down my spine. Right!

There were no officers in the operations room, just a sergeant, a tired-looking griffin courier curled in the corner, and the sand-table of our area of operations, littered with little flags and shiny quartz baubles, glowing variously and at steady rates.

The story the sand-table told was worse than what I had seen in the flight from the border. There were flags and baubles on most of the priority targets we had identified, and a number of the secondary targets as well. It was no wonder that the base was empty and cathedral-echoing in the darkness!. The Company had left its compound like a discarded chrysalis, and there were nearly a dozen columns scattering throughout the central districts of the province, some of them so far from the base they'd have to go to ground in some secondary blind far from the forward base. The Captain had gambled wildly, and put every marker the Company had to its name on the roads.

“Sergeant, explain to me what I'm looking at. Because it looks like we've got a dozen vexellations and all of our armed ponies scattered to Tartarus and gone across half of the province, and few of them within supporting range of each other. This is more than night-couriers could keep in contact!"

The sergeant, a colorless unicorn without the sand for command or the fire for battle-leadership, who would always be someone's adjutant or lackey, looked at me steadily through his lamp-mirrored spectacles, not giving an inch to my irritability. “The rebel stripped the central districts of all mobile elements in the course of the diversionary effort against the border posts. Our scouts observed the movements, and the Captain decided to proceed with the aggressive option of our contingency planning. We're hitting the six major granaries tonight, and shutting down four mills in the hands of rebel sympathizers. The other columns are centrally located reaction forces in case of local resistance beyond the occasional bailiff or heroic militia-pony." He pointed to the various flags in turn, and once my alarm over the sheer complexity of the deployment faded, I recognized the pattern. It wasn't really different than the discussed plans – they were simply all being implemented in the same night. Yeah, “simply".

“As for communications, the Crow had a clever idea, and provided these charms," he waved a hoof over the glowing crystals, “which are entangled with bit and bridle apparatuses being worn by pegasi flying cab rank over their assigned columns. It's a deadpony switch – they can communicate simple messages by squeezing and relaxing their jaws on the bit and send messages via horse code; if something goes absolutely pearshaped, they let it drop entirely, and the charm on this side goes glaringly bright. There – that one. The Lau Crosse column has completed its mission. They're on the way back."

He grabbed a pair of calipers and measured the distance between the successful column and the base on the major roads in between, and frowned. “Hrm, not a problem for them, unless the vehicles they seized are somehow inferior or damaged. Lau Crosse will not need to use a blind." He waved at the griffin snoozing in the corner. “Only if I have anything positive to say will I use one of our couriers. We're stretched too thin. The aerial cohort was amusing itself earlier tonight emplacing the scare-crows at various crossroads. Thanks for the materials, by the way. They came in handy."

I frowned in dismay, uncertain what to think of the fruits of that particular request. We had had a section of griffins tag along on our border-raids, and they had left each little battlefield with saddlebags bulging with…proof of activity. I rather hoped that someone had cleaned off the trophies, or else every other byway and highway in the central districts was going to stink of rot and dried blood.

“There goes Beloit. Hrm, that's the pattern for multiple hangings. I guess they weren't able to recruit in Beloit. Shame." He measured again, made a notation. “This column won't be able to make the forward base before dawn. Good thing there is a prepared blind on that road. I'll have to awake Wilhelm here in a moment. Right, what do you need from me?" He turned from his sand-table toy, and gave me his full attention; I had graduated from audience to entertain to problem to be solved in his mind.

“One, has there been any wounded so far? Two, where are my oxen, and the ambulances? Three, where should I stage myself and my orderlies to retrieve any trauma cases in a rapid manner? The chariots are still loaded out in the meadow, we can probably wake the pegasi who were drawing them; when I left them they were bunked out inside the chariots and catching some sleep."

“Believe it or not, but nopony has reported any serious trauma cases so far. Until someone encounters something, the best place to keep your ponies is right here, parked in the meadows. Trade me one of your resting pegasi to replace Wilhelm, whom I'm going to have to send out once we're done here. Oh, and your oxen volunteered with the carter corps, they're out with various columns, and once they find something to haul, they'll be pulling loads of requisitioned supplies back here along with the rest of the carters. They were quite eager, as demonstrative as I've ever seen cattle. You wouldn't have any idea what's the story there?"

“Some idea, I think, but it's their story. I may have one of them tell it, when we have time after the campaign season is over. Assuming any of us are alive come winter."

“Sawbones, really, don't be defeatist. This campaign is going swimmingly. At the rate we're going, we might beat the snows." Broken Sigil's spectacle-lenses glowed demonically in the lamplight; there was something in his bloodless cheer at the prospect of ruthless and one-sided slaughter that was more terrible than the actual dismemberment of dozens of caribou helplessly entangled in their own broken formation on the blood-slick cobblestones of a crowded high street. “I will send word if there is a position I need to send you and your ponies before dawn breaks. Even after dawn breaks, we may have to rush you out, depending on the emergency, and damn the operational security. After tonight, they'll know the fox is inside the chicken-coop."

I walked back out to the chariots. Hyssop and Boardwalk were sleeping next to the charioteers on the chariot benches. I picked a pony at random, and woke the unfortunate, telling her that the operations sergeant needed another runner, and to go catch a nap indoors until they had to send her out.

I stole her chariot-bench, and fell asleep. Nopony woke me up before dawn, so if there were any catastrophes, they apparently weren't anything that could be solved by an aerially delivered zebra surgeon.

I dreamt of abyssal sea-beds, of claws scrabbling across the sands and corals, and a great weight I dragged behind myself in the watery dark.

Author's Note:

I almost called this "The Widow in the White City", but really, Broken Sigil's not nearly as bad as Kurtz's fiancee in the Heart of Darkness, so, no. And you have to make allowances for ponies like Broken Sigil, he's got a bureaucrat's heart, and the Company isn't nearly big enough for the sort of organization that allows somepony like Broken to thrive.

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