• 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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Where Griffins Dare

SBMS036

I put away the materials I had been examining into a special, unmarked storage section of the Annals chest, throwing the relevant lever, and closing the chest, locking it away under my sole control. I still had not appointed an annalist-understudy, and until we resolved the issue with the Captain being out of commission and the Lieutenant holding de facto control of the Company, I could not actually appoint one in the eyes of the spellwork on the chest. In fact, the other night's spectacular dream-vision might be a sign that the Company's deep magic might be under the impression that I was the current commander of the Company.

Well, magic. It wasn't exactly clever, for the most part. It took shortcuts, did things that observers might not expect of a sentient being, could surprise, but magic didn't think. It was merely intent and purpose unfolding in time. Thinking minds could ride magic like a carrier wave, and magic could manifest ghosts, phantasms, and other relics of thinking minds torn free of the meat which birthed them, but the magic itself was as much stuff as the merely physical faeces of the mundane world. It was the subtle dance of magic upon living meat which made minds.

Why yes, I had found the books in the chest to start translating the Feresi alchemical texts. There was a lot of theoretical gassing about in the introductory material those old alchemists insisted on using as prefaces. A messenger from the operations room arrived to remind me of the final conference before the great raid this evening, and my obligatory attendance thereof.

We had knocked out the back wall of the operations room, which had been previously a cozy little room with space for only a half-dozen ponies. The Marklaird took up far too much space, despite its slight stature, and the planning for its pet project had drawn in a lot of personnel who never would have fit in the old operations room. The sandtable still sat at the edge of the new conference space, flags and sundry devices marking out the current state of the province.

Waves of freezing rain and thaws had made a mess of the roads throughout the province, even the Bride's Roads being in places impassable under the sheets of ice and intermittent flooding. This had actually been an advantage to the Company, despite the burden it put on our half-soaked, half-frozen flyers. They were still vastly more mobile than the straggling rebel regiments, more than half of which had simply dissolved on the retreat. Some of those would find their way south to Menomenie and the enemy concentration still holding on around the extension of the Bride's Road that arrowed south-west into the Riverlands, but the rest had probably either died on the road or gone home. We were keeping an eye on the caribou heartlands in the northwestern districts, but aside from the short regiment still dug in around Benoit, there was no signs of any serious rally point in that direction.

And we were proposing to do something about Benoit.

We were under instructions to limit communication of the full purposes of the Company's direct employer in this phase of the campaign, and only I, the Lieutenant, Broken Sigil, and the sergeant in command of the griffin commando formed out of the aerial cohort were fully read into the Marklaird's version of the plan. For the cohort commanders and their subordinates, this was simply another airmobile assault, luring the Benoit light regiment out of their castra with a diversionary attack on Radspur Keep.

The rest of the rebel troops which had been posted in Benoit had left, some of them moving south along with the rest of the retreating White Rose, some of them just fading into the countryside. As far as we could tell from our observation posts, it looked like the caribou had had their very own little civil war, and the victors - or losers - had pulled up stakes and fled south. The remaining under-ponied regiment had to be the most stubborn of die-hards.

So, we were going to see if we couldn't get them to throw themselves on our lances by seizing the castle in their rear, and luring them to attack us in advantageous defensive positions. And that's all the ponies who will be holding the road to Radspur Keep needed to know. The Marklaird would have gone spare if we simply told the entire command structure the actual plan. It had a hateful and antagonistic relationship with transparency and openness.

As before, we were building a covered close nearby the road leading up out of the Benoit flatlands into the high wooded foothills among which Radspur Keep lurked. Nothing fancy, but the goal was to keep our ponies from getting sick or dying of exposure while we ferried in the rest of the force to hold the road. We had, in point of fact, already started the process a good many days ago, ever since the charioteer corps had recovered from the big militia airlift. The close was constructed, and we were fairly certain the rebel had not noticed the air traffic. They never seemed to notice our goings and comings, no matter how blatant we got. We had been far too paranoid in the early days of the campaign, but then, we had needed to find their observational tolerances, and hadn't been willing to take chances on their aerial paranoia.
The Lieutenant had asked me to accompany the assault team operating against the Keep proper. The Marklaird was leading this vexellation, and she had said that I was the Company pony which the legate was most willing to tolerate and listen to, no matter the situation. This was almost ludicrous on its face, as I did nothing but talk back to and borderline-mock our employer, but that little gimp's enormous ego supplied where logic failed, and it almost relished my feeble presence on this preposterous commando raid. Actually in command of the raid was Gerlach, said sergeant in command of the griffin commando. While the Captain had been in command, we had not bothered to separate the pegasi from the griffins among the aerial sections, but it made some tactical sense in practice. The two species had very different combat styles, and the heavy chasseur tactics of the griffins did not necessarily mesh well with the slashing hussar styling of the lighter, smaller pegasi.

Our plan was to assault the pass-side towers of the Keep, while the final flight of the charioteer corps fixed the attention of the enemy towards the road leading into the lowlands below the Keep. We would go over the walls rather than assaulting the gates, an obvious choice for an almost entirely aerial commando. I would be catching a piggyback ride like a foal until we took the first tower or wall.

I met the griffins and the Marklaird in a corner of the marshaling yard, the rest of the field cluttered with chariots, their cargo, and the charioteers busy loading up. The charioteers and their pony cargo would deploy directly onto the road, all surprise expended in that movement. The sections already in place on the ground would break cover and reinforce the air assault as they approached. I myself was feeling unduly burdened with heavy barding which I had once upon a time trained with, but hadn't worn in… by the alicorns, it had to have been years. My lance was more familiar in my hooves, but still I felt very much out of place in my hide. Gerlach and his griffins looked desperately tired, but I knew they had it in them to pull off one more mission.

The Marklaird not-so-kindly took me in its hooves, and helped me into a straddling position on the back of its witch-kite. It spun around and around as it caught a breeze, and the griffins rose around us like a feline flock of barded and heavily armed lion-eagles, waiting for the Marklaird to lead the flight forward. It found the direction, and the spinning ceased, and we rocketed off like a flare had been shoved up its leather-bound plothole. The griffins trailed behind us like a flock of geese, and behind them, the chariots laboring into the air.

Trailing behind us like a battle-cry, was the Marklaird's girlish shriek,

"Tally-ho!"


Our (mostly) unburdened advantage allowed us to vastly outpace the chariots, and we quickly left them behind. It was part of the plan that we would circle around over the ridgeline which defined the northwestern fringe of the province, and thus give time for the chariots to attract the attention of the enemy before we approached the Keep. I'm not sure how well this plan worked out in practice, the rebel was generally, appallingly lax in keeping track of our aerial movements, as I had said. It was possible that the fools didn't notice either arm of the pincers, but in the event, we approached the castle unmolested, the ridge-ward turrets not even posted as far as I could see, gripping tightly to the frame of that unnerving construct I was riding far, far, far above the wooded slopes below.

I still couldn't stand air travel. Hated it, hated it, hated it. I think I nearly broke the wrapping on my lance-shaft from the pressure of my grip on it.

We descended at a bowel-loosening velocity, stooping onto our targeted tower before anypony could react, and I leapt off that damn kite, and rolled across the flagstones until I impacted the inner wall of the turret. Empty, suspiciously empty. There should have been activity.

The griffins descended like night onto twilight, sweeping the ridgeside walls. The caribou had completely abandoned the constructed purpose of the keep, to hold the border against the northwestern barbarians and nomads. If they kept any watch at all these days, it was southwards facing their own town. It was almost as if they thought they had no reason to face an attack for whatever reason.

Finally, a disturbance which was not caused by the commando - the inner donjon of the keep suddenly belched forth a tumult of half-armed caribou, dashing about in a panic, running for the filthy stairs leading up to the walls. Which we held in force, or would have, by the time they reached the top. Some caribou with more sense, began flinging javelins at my griffins, not hitting anything, mind you, but it was a more effective response than simply stampeding up the killzones which we were about to make of the accessways to the walls and outer towers. There were murderholes and tunnels below, leading from the gates on either side of the keep to the inner quarter and the donjon itself, but we had totally bypassed all that noise by coming over the walls. This ancient design was totally obsoleted as soon as armed flyers arrived on the military scene. Even occupying the old deathtrap had been a strategic error of the first water.

Soon enough, the stairwells with their dried bloodstains were coated again with fresh blood, and were full of freshly dead and dying caribou. The survivors were backing into the sally ports of the donjon under bombardment by the Marklaird, who was flinging around its black fire magic again. I yelled at it across the inner keep, trying to remind it of the probable flammability of the donjon interior which was our target, but I don't know if it heard me or not. It had a distressing tendency to go beserker in combat conditions, no doubt this was why it had chosen to employ mercenaries for this sort of thing rather than try to accomplish delicate things itself. Speaking of which…

"Sergeant, we need to get the ‘laird to back off and let us handle things. It's about to burn down the entire donjon!" I grinned in irony, and Gerlach did his best to keep an answering grin from his beak.

Several griffins surrounded the cackling, flaring warlock's airframe, their wings spread as they tried to herd it away from the now-burning donjon gates. They had to dodge several times as it almost set them on fire, but finally, it floated back towards my tower.

"My lord! We can access the inner keep by its solarium, we don't need to go through that gate you were trying to burn through! Please, give me a lift, and we can finish this!"

It bellowed in a heavy-lunged masculine voice, and grabbed me up, my legs flailing beneath me at the paving-stones far below. It was a short trip, if terrifying. I was dropped onto the glass roof of the solarium, which did not hold up my weight. I had been prepared, though, and curled enough to take the broken glass on my barding and hoofguards, protecting my barrel and crotch.

The impact on the plants below, however, hurt like the dickens. I wobbled erect, my lance waving drunkenly around me as I stood in a planter full of crushed tomato plants and blueberry bushes. Nopony in evidence, and then the trashed and blood-stained solarium was full of griffins swirling around me, securing each familiar entrance like the professionals they were, and making as much of a redundant mess as the could. The Marklaird left its kite perched precariously on the edge of the broken glass above, and dropped down from its frame with an odd sort of tumbler's grace.

We advanced into the donjon, the griffins clearing each level below us as we searched the ones above. The Marklaird found the library before me, and keened its victory in a reedy spinster's soprano. I rushed to see what it had found. We were alone for the moment.

It tore through the shelves, checking scroll after scroll in the old-style cubbyholes, ignoring the many more modern codexes lining the shelves around us. I didn't dare ask it what it was looking for; I eyed the disarray of the library around us, display cases shattered, books all over the floors, and as it discovered the scrolls it was looking for were not in the organized shelves, it got down on its knees and started sorting through the trampled scrolls laying here and there across the floor.

A great deal of thumping broke out on the floor below us, and some screaming. A griffin burst in the door as the Marklaird sat on its haunches, scratching its featureless head with its forearm in puzzlement.

"Sawbones, My Lord! They're making a push to clear us out of the donjon. We can keep them down, but the lower floors are on fire. I do not think we can fight both the fire and the caribou. We must prepare soon to retreat, and let the fools roast themselves in their own keep, just like Jbayel!"

"Excepting that the Company didn't let themselves get stupidly incinerated in the donjon of Jbayel, yes, corporal, just like Jbayel. My Lord, perhaps we could pack up what we can, here, and fall back to the outer walls?"

"Not here, not here! Maybe my source was wrong? No, impossible! That spell was impossible to defend against! They had been here! Maybe the White Rose removed them since then! Impossible, we would be feeling the results even now, if they fell into powered, knowing hooves!"

The Marklaird barely paid attention to those around it under the best of conditions, but under current stresses? I was not positive it was aware that it was not alone in the library. But then its magic reached out around it, and a black-green-purple haze surrounded what seemed like every single piece of paper or parchment in the library, and it bundled up the lot in a big, floating ball. The Marklaird trotted out of the library, leaving me and the corporal to follow the warlock behind in an awkward approximation of an entourage. I stepped on a half-collapsed device of twigs and twine sitting beside the library exit on our way out of that chamber.

A fireball of immense proportions caught the Marklaird and its loot from the right side of the corridor, perhaps a flare from the fires below?

Griffins scrambled past in the sudden smoke and flames, and the Marklaird was tumbled about as it tried to stomp out the smoldering mess which was the former contents of the library. In the chaos, everypony got out of the donjon, but it was cursing its luck while I rode the back of the griffin corporal across to the Company-held walls of Radspur Keep.


The caribou survivors of Radspur Keep fled into the treeline, and we let them go. I trotted down the road towards Benoit and the Company defensive line being built on the wooded slopes below, my griffin escort flying above me. The Company's troops were quick to dig in when it suited their purposes, and they had already cleared brush in a killing-zone and were in the process of ditching out a rampart and abatis-pit.
I greeted Yew Wall as she came into view, commanding the defensive position under construction.

"Any sign of a reaction force yet? We've managed to burn the Keep quite convincingly. It went up like a Roamish Candle."

"Aren't you supposed to be foalsitting our employer?"

"She, or he, or it, or whatever - it met a reversal it wasn't expecting, and left in a huff. I'll have to catch a ride with somepony on the way home, if we don't all get rolled over by a pike charge."

"Well, you're certainly dressed for the occasion for a change. You look like a colt wearing his father's old guard-barding."

"How long are we going to sit up here if they decide to cut their losses and follow the rest of the rebel southwards?"

"Damn if I know, Sawbones. Wait, you know something. Why do you know something? What do you know?"

"That's need to know, commander. And at the moment, you don't need to know."

"Fine, be that way. Tell you what, if we're still here by tomorrow afternoon and nopony sights antlers, we can call it a campaign. Don't you think?"

Author's Note:

I'm so, so sorry. But both Sawbones and I are aware of the first law of heist movie irony, which is that the plan which is explained to an untrustworthy partner on-screen is a dummy-plan, and designed to fail. Only revealed plans can be allowed to flower unto fruition by almighty Narrative.

I tried to seed some hints here and there. And I just edited a bit to drop a better clue at the end, hope that feels more fair later.

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