In the Company of Night

by Mitch H

The Burning Ships

FFMS036

That morning, I checked on the rat-hunters. The little timberlings we'd brought with us had grown since our arrival, and they were more like the size of small dogs now, than the rat-sized little beasts that had torn through the vermin that had infested the slaves' quarters in the Arsenal. They'd killed all of the cockroaches, then the bigger insects, then the mice. They were working their way through the bigger mice and rats now, the big ones that were worth dragging back to my quarters, to be drained of their blood for the magic inherent in the fluid.

Once I'd gotten the new rat-corpses set to drain over my jars, I barely had time to catch up to my own obligations. As Marsh Wisp, I was a slave like all the rest, and I had to show my face to our Arsenal overseers, to reassure them that they were still in charge, that the slaves were still properly enslaved, that labour was applied to work, that the work was under the control of the masters and the trusted journeymares, and that all was as was planned, and expected.

To be honest, I doubt any of them remembered me as a pony, as a name. But the faces were remembered, and one ought to play to those remembrances, those expectations. We were installing war-engines on the decks of a half-dozen galleys, while other teams were working on rigging the sheets and the sails, and yet others checking on the caulking and other fixtures that were required to get these new ships up to the point where they could be moved out into the lagoon for the shake-outs and the training-runs.

As we worked, the first dozen or so galleys were skittering around the lagoon, the oar-slaves and the deck-crew working out how to deal with each other, how to operate their new toys without slamming into shore or each other. They still were, as a rule, not giving heed to the nominal captains, so I've heard. But Marsh Wisp had yet to be shipped out to pull an actual, physical oar like those who had gotten onto the newly commissioned galleys, and I have to admit it was all hearsay. We, my own ponies, were still were working on the new hulls, the refurbished hulls.

And a heavy, soaking rain was making everything we did difficult. I could hear the caulking-crews cussing the way the moisture in the air was interfering with their work, although it didn't matter much one way or the other how moist the air was, when it came to installing the ballistae on the deck-mounts for me and my crew.

It was at this point that I noticed the dark shadows down-stream as they entered the lagoon, and the distant shouting. Checking into the princess-radio revealed more information from the Order ponies closer to the distant boom, and revealed the fact that they'd drawn it open, that burning and battered galleys were retreating through the gap down by the entrance to the lagoon, that a loyalist flotilla – or the remnants thereof – was retreating past the heavy, massive links of the grand boom controlled by the crews on the Braystown Shambles.

All of us continued our work, the petty physical labour involved in nailing down the machines, slotting the sheets and the levers and the connectors which all conspired together to make a war-machine a part of the galley's equipage. But I, and a number of others, were listening in on the princess-radio, and we heard the news, and saw the images. A half-dozen half-shattered galleys and dromons and lesser boats, limping back up-stream past the gap of the Shambles' boom, until that boom was drawn once more closed.

Half of the ships were on fire, lit here and there by a nasty, flaming substance which kept the whole alight despite the humidity and the rain and the riverside damp. The rest, huddled about the struck boats, their oars trembling as if the boats themselves knew not how to deal with the damage done to their compatriots.

The battered, burning galleys, seemed to be missing half of their oars, and I could not imagine how they'd managed to get back above the boom before their oar-slaves had exhausted themselves dragging their heavy, abused hulls upstream. Once the boom was pulled back across the river, several of the afflicted ships gave up the draw, and slumped against the long and heavy chain, resting against the constant current, held in place by the massive weight of the iron.

Our observers could see the rising flames above the damaged and burning ships, and the surviving crew and marines ponying the pumps laboured to bring the waters of the river up into the air to suppress the raging fires. Bad Apple had been supposed to have been assigned to that flotilla – why was she not suppressing that terrible flame with her pyromancy?

The afternoon was taken up by the effort to salvage the burning galleys, and several of the galley-crews in training came close to the burning ships trapped against the heavy iron of the Shambles boom, spraying them down with their own pumps. The flames eventually subsided, leaving the scorched, half-burnt remains to weigh down the boom as the constant current dragged it westwards.

A number of smaller tugs and boats swarmed the broken, burnt galleys, pulling the dead and the wounded from their charred hulks. I was still expected to keep to my work, lifting the bulk of the ballistae as the rest of the crew pegged the device into place, then installing all of the fittings that allowed it to operate according to the expectations of the deck-crew. I couldn't give any indication about how much I was invested in the recovery and the suppression of the fires on the distant western fringe of the bustling lagoon, where the remnants of the flotilla hung upon the defensive boom.

It was nothing but pure irony, when the officers of the loyalist army arrived upon the docks of the Arsenal in the midst of this tumult. The observers on the docks, added to the chaos of the observers of the ongoing fight against the fires on the decks and in the guts of the burning galleys, overwhelmed the princess-radio for a few brief minutes, until the Filly and the Nightmare between them straightened out the lines of communication.

The officers included among them a major from the General's staff, and a pair of lieutenant-aides, as well as the Company's Lieutenant herself, and Sawbones, whom I could see in the images transmitted, frowning at the distant fires. Also upon the docks was a number of ponies who should have been unfamiliar but due to the night-time training regimen and nightly officer-meetings, were still quite well-known. Golden Grain, and her majors Kale Harvest, Night Soil and Sour Melon, were there, standing uncomfortably in their III Verdebaie livery, in uneasy ranks behind the Lieutenant and Sawbones.

I listened in to the Arsenal masters, and the officers of the Army of the North:

"Well, that wasn't exactly what we were expecting to present to y'all," said the junior master in charge of the Arsenal's docks, one Quai Contrôleur. "I have no idea what's going on, let me see if I can't get an update."

"No, no" said Sawbones, my master and the senior Annalist. "I've gotten an update while we've been waiting. There was a battle on the middle Housa an hour or two ago. Didn't go well for our side, although it looks like they got the boats back on this side of the boom. That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Yeah, sorta," said Quai Contrôleur. "But I have to check with my donkeys. Could be more details…" He muttered a further comment under his breath, which I think nopony was supposed to have heard, namely, "Damnit, we'd just gotten those hulks operational, look at that mess." The officers of the Army of the North pretended to not hear the muttering of the junior master of the Arsenal, spoken so carelessly in their presence.

Behind the officers of the Army of the North, were fifteen hundred ponies in the liveries of the III Verdebaie. They held their spears and lances in rest formation, waiting on the command of their officer-corps. Many of their eyes contributed to the gestalt of our impression of the Arsenal donkeys and the officers of the Army of the North as the training galleys and the battered flotilla itself got the fires and the damage-control into hoof across the lagoon from the docks, along the straining chains of the great Shambles boom.

I sighed in relief as we finally got the war-machine installed on the hulk my team was working on. No matter what was going on to the western end of the lagoon, we still needed to get our own galleys up and running. The journeymares who had overseen our installation of the ballista on the foredeck of my galley cracked their whips overhead, and we moved to the rear deck to repeat the process for the secondary war-machine destined to be installed along the rear quarters of this particular hull.

Meanwhile on the distant docks, Sawbones and the officers of the Army of the North continued to discuss their plans and expectations. Nopony had warned us of the appearance of an entire regiment of regimentals to be installed within the forming fleet, as marines. But I could already feel the 'regiment' of 'militia' lurking behind Sawbones, and recognize them for whom they were. Our wayward battalions stood attention in their Verdebaie livery, all fifteen hundred of them.

I suppose it was a sort of promotion, to be deemed regimentals and marines, rather than prisoners and slaves. How many of the Order would task their brethren for their easier burden, to pretend to be loyalist marines, and not disloyal oar-slaves? But the more Order ponies installed upon our ships' decks, the less bloodshed that would be required to bring our plans to fruition.

Eventually, the burning ships were extinguished, and brought under control. When they were towed back to the docks, it was found that the oarslaves had been badly mangled, but not as badly as the crews and the marines. The whole flotilla had been caught and smashed in a fight with the suddenly-aggressive fleet of the White Rose. The enemy had raked a number of the galleys stem to stern with the sort of war-machines that my crew and others had been installing on our own, new galleys.

And as for Bad Apple and her pegasi? Bad Apple had been knocked out of the sky by some new innovation of the enemy's, and the pegasi driven away. She had been recovered, half-drowned, battered and insensate, by a dromon and another war-galley fighting to protect their fallen warlock. But one careless moment, one strike by an aerial battery, and our powerful friend had been swept from the skies, her chariot crushed like a shell beneath a pony's heavy hoof.

The survivors of the flotilla's oar-slave contingent were herded into our barracks, as the battered galleys were towed into the docks for repair. We, the Order who had claimed the slave-quarters for our own, found ourselves sharing them with an extra eight hundred or so battle-hardened slaves. Just as we'd absorbed the existing cadre of slaves into the membership of the Order. It was infuriating, but we began work again to deal with the new influx.

And two battalions of the Order, pretend-slaves all, were positioned to take over the surviving galleys now being repaired on the wet-docks. The three mangled galleys would join their brethren on the slips for further work, too battle-damaged to be serviceable.

And still, the autumn rains continued to soak us all, that foul weather which signaled that the long summer was at last, complete. The summer battle-season was complete, and the brief fall season was rushing rapidly towards the Order, no more prepared than it had been the day before.

Author's Note:

The drum-beat of the wars goes on.

BTW, I've got a Discord server running these days. Have been, for a while. Figured I ought to mention it. It's been one of the main reasons I've not been so chatty here in the author's notes.

Comments

[howard035]

8212075 I wonder if Obscured Blade has thought of it yet, if not he will eventually.

[Bookeater_otaku]

Ok at this point I am kind of disappointed that the Company didn't look into the rockets the White Rose used last campaign. Or at least had the witch coven look into them, study for counter or to manufacture and use for themselves in the future. Or maybe they did but since we have unreliable narrators, it was probably skipped.

The same with the news of a new anti-air troops warmachine. It's frustrating to not know what they are facing. But I must give credit to the ennemy, they seems creative and adaptable when confronted to the threat the flyers of the Company represent.

Kind of surprised the litchs didn't thralls entire flock of zombie birds or swarm of undeads hornets to counter the pegasus and griffon by now.