In the Company of Night

by Mitch H

The Griffin, Intestate

SBMS047

The Captain died in his sleep the night after the destruction of the ghoul-pits. I was off-site overseeing the quarantined wounded; he was found by the foal whose turn it was to keep an eye on the impaired griffin. When I finally was able to leave quarantine with the surviving wounded, the body had already begun to decompose, so we'll never exactly know the cause of his death. It could have been another stroke or aneurysm, it could have been from complications due to his ongoing sleep apnea, or a sudden onset of the flu or some other camp disease.

Gilbert Griffin had been a member of the Black Company for over fifty years, having joined as a young griffin during our mostly uneventful service with the griffish Tetrarchs of D'Neshraa. In the eighth year of his service, the Tetrarchs used us to satisfy their treaty obligations with the Imperators of New Roam, with whom D'Neshraa maintained a profitable trade across a set of world-portals. The D'Neshraans owed military service to the multi-world Novaromani Imperium, and instead of forming up units of the Tetrarchs' own, restive subjects, and shipping them through the portals to their lord and master, they hired a cheaper band of mercenaries to do the job the Company had been doing keeping order in their homeland, and sent us in the stead of their unreliable militias. The Tetrarchs had learned to their chagrin that service under the legions' standards unfitted veterans for the subservient life.

Gilbert was given his sergeancy as part of the preparations for service as a legionary auxiliary on the part of the Company. His service was distinguished if not flashy throughout the Company's ten years with the Legions, and he survived many more aggressive and ambitious non-coms who sought renown and promotion with recklessness and bravado. The turn-over of the griffins in the Company in those campaigns was harsh; many came with the Company into Sarayburnu to fight the Imperator's fraternal wars. Few left with the Company when we fell on the wrong side of a succession dispute, and withdrew through another portal into Miklagard and eventual service with the Prince of Holmgaroir.

Gilbert became the cohort commander of the aerial cohort in Miklagard, and again served with distinction and caution. He was passed over twice for the Lieutenancy, as we went through a period where the office seemed cursed. They did not pass him over a third time, and his name was retired, he was henceforth known as first the Lieutenant, and after the previous Captain Hols Kuunis was betrayed and murdered in a routine meeting with quarreling princelings disputing the Iste of Vladimir, the Captain. His fame as a griffin among ponies eventually spread back to his homeland, and henceforth we collected a trickle of D'Neshrari youngbloods looking to fly with their famed Black Prince. The Captain loathed this reputation of his, and he made it a special project to disillusion his fledglings of their dreams of glory and to break their brethren-killing bravado. The Company's griffins are notable for their discipline, their caution, and their respect for authority. Their behavior always surprises those who think they know the tribal character of the Griffin. He was our Captain for twenty-four years.

We put his corpse upon the pyre, sent his ashes to his ancestors, and his name to the Annals.

The Lieutenant became our new Captain with a perfunctory vote. A rather more contested vote split between the cohort commanders for the office of the Lieutenancy. The aerial cohort, under-strength as it was, put Tickle Me out of the running despite my vote in her favor. The commander of second cohort took a plurality, and became the new Lieutenant. The new Lieutenant was another earth pony mare, her pale yellow coat a rather sickly contrast to the new Captain's purple.

I sat in on a full meeting of the Company leadership, thinking of the alchemy texts in my chest, and the array of failed potions, half-made concoctions and dead ends I would have to dispose of. Some of them weren't the sort of thing I could simply dump in the leaching fields. There was an application of infused aqua regia which could be used for denaturing problematic substances…

"The death of a Captain dissolves all contracts!" insisted the new commander of second cohort, a unicorn named Fuller Falchion. "We could simply march for the nearest portal, and get out while the getting's good. They're all liches, or necromancers, or a Tartarean-blend of both. There's no good sides here, just necromantic rebels and dead things so old their thefts have acquired legitimacy by outliving all the original owners!"

"Mercenaries are always two contracts away from being judged a band of bandits. We can't blow off two employers inside of a year. The Black Company's name will be horseapples for the next century," gloomed Mad Jack. Gilbert had been his oldest friend. The old mule was showing every last one of his seventy-one winters.

I tuned out from the argument, and day-dreamed of new concoctions, trying to mentally file away the neurological cure-alls I had been chasing. Not as hard as I could have. There was always some other problem, some other project taking up my time. I barely spent any time with my alembics and the texts in the previous month or two. Well, well.

So much of what I'd been pursuing with could be used for other purposes, repurposed. Aqua regia and jiwe busara were the foundations upon which many mansions could be construct-

"Sawbones! We asked you a question! Is our contract with the Marklaird or the Bride?" demanded the new Lieutenant.

"I don't have the physical contract, that sort of thing gets archived in the Annals after it's no longer in effect. I can get you our contract with the Hidden Council if you're in a historical mood. I don' t know – wouldn't Broken Sigil have it with the rest of our active records in operations?" We all turned on a new victim.

He hemmed and hawed. And blushed. And admitted that there was no physical contract.

"How the Tartarus did Gilbert drag us into this shithole without a written contract?" demanded Gibblets.

The new Captain rubbed her forehead, as if she was rueing having not been born a unicorn, who could turn back time and draw up a replacement for the late Captain's foolish word. "We all know that he wasn't himself in his last half-year. Personality changes, emotional surges. He decided that he just… liked the Marklaird. I guess it was something the Spirit made him do?"

"I've talked to the Spirit about our direct employer. She loathes it, is quite fierce on the subject. Was quite encouraging of our little gambit in Benoit." Half the table looked confused at my slip. "Never mind that, try to forget I said anything. The more you know, the more you might betray if you're put to the question."

"Well, that's the question, then, isn't it? Is the Marklaird our employer, direct or otherwise, or are we in the employ of the Bride of Tambelon?" asked Smooth Draw, the commander of the third cohort. "It seems obvious that we need to be contracted to the actual imperatrix, and not the hapless, treacherous underling who apparently is in coventry with every authority from here to the southern wastes."

"The Cap- Gilbert always told me it was a contract with the Bride, with the Marklaird acting in her name. It seemed a fine point at the time, but the distinction became obvious after his illness. I always thought we'd be able to clarify it with, with Gilbert." They all stared at me, expecting more, some further point or clarification. I just didn't have it in me to say anything else.

I had other things to do, damnit.

They turned away from me, and Broken Sigil started saying something foolish about forgery.

"Fine!" I barked, startling the rest of the conference. "You know what? The authorities in this country all think we're bandittos and vikings and- and - Reivers! Well, damn them, let's hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats! Tartarus, we've already got the banner! We go into the Riverlands, booming, and we make enough of a stink that they have to bring us into the fold. Seize a fortress, claim a territory, declare direct war on the White Rose! Tell everyone we're operating on the orders of the duly appointed representative of the Bride. Nobody loves the Marklaird, we can blame everything on imaginary orders from that creepy little gimp!"

"We dive into the rottenest, most vile, most ghoul-ravaged guts of the Riverlands, and put down anything we find shambling! Set the heart of that rotten oak on FIRE! And build ourselves a tree-fort in the burned-out hollow."

"Let's make ourselves a desert, and call it peace!"

Author's Note:

Never make a major decision when you're hurting, Sawbones.

Comments

[Minalkra]

... Sawbones is usually more calm about these sorts of things. Why the sudden onset of bloodlust?

[Dorath]

7616551 Partly pain from loosing the old Captain, but I think there is more going on ...

[totallynotabrony]

100,000
cdn.meme.am/images/300x/6668228.jpg

[Mitch H]

7616551 Pain and guilt. Sawbones has mentioned his grandparents, but no father, and he was apprenticed young to a rare old bastard who had difficulty distinguishing an apprentice from a slave-for-life. The old captain saved him from that, gave him a place and family.

And instead of saving his father-surrogate, he was off playing with zombies and macking on the aristocracy. He's feeling guilty all right.

[Arkonfleight]

>Gilbert
Salutes
He was the very model of a mercenary Commander.