In the Company of Night

by Mitch H

I Spy With My Little Eye

SBMS073

When the Little Ridings convoy pulled into the Plateau Palisades, we found the marshaling-yards already crowded with a sizable contingent of merchant and tinker wagons collecting for the expected caravan downcountry. It was more of a formality here in the autumn than it had been back in the early summer, but random undead in the gorges were still a threat, and sensible merchants didn't borrow trouble; they knew the difference between chasing risk and courting death.

We left the former commander of Little Ridings settling into her temporary role as train-master, negotiating with the merchants and tinkers their placement in tomorrow's train, and telling off the carters whose wagons contained materials to be stored in the Palisades over to the unloading docks. My cart was included in that group, and Rye Daughter and I helped Charleyhorse shift our wagonload of produce and hay into the commissary pantries. It was enough to build up a mighty appetite.

Stomper found us as Rye had sunk into a calorie coma, and I was picking my teeth with a bit of straw. She hadn't been kidding about kicking Carrot Cake downcountry and out of training. He stood sheepishly behind her, his kit sitting in a duffel on his narrow back under a folded caparison, which was the full extent of his barding. As Stomper yapped at me, my eyes drew across the Company banner-lance, which was sitting neglected at the fore of the mess hall, unused since the last induction ceremony. The modern Company barely brought out the banner except for ceremonial purposes, we weren't exactly a charge-with-the-standard-held-high-in-the-fore sort of outfit. We hadn't been even back in Bitter Ambrosia's day, when that was the bloody, futile custom.

"Tartarus-fire, Stomper, you win. I need somepony to kip the standard down to Dance Hall, anyways. All it's doing up here is gathering dust and just waiting until Charleyhorse trips and spills a pot of stew over it. Cake, you think you can hump that little alicorn-damned tree downcountry without dragging it in the dust on the way?"

His green, anxious eyes widened at the sudden honor. "Sir, yes sir! I'll do my best!"

"Don't call me sir, I work for a living. Rye, wake up! We have a great deal to do, and I have an early start tomorrow." She grumbled sleepily, but got up as I pushed Carrot Cake over to the pikestaff, and showed him how to roll the banner around the staff and carry it without trailing behind him. He followed us back to the recovery wards, where I pointed him to a spare cot, and Rye and I put together a load of antiseptic and other supplies to be chucked into a light cart for the expanded infirmary downcountry.

In the morning, I quickly went through the list of recovering armsponies in the wards, and divided the malingerers into classes. The more-damaged ones got assigned to the Palisades guard, and I discovered that Octavius's rank had elevated him to command of the Palisades by his mere presence. I told him to go let Stomper know she was back to training full-time, and relished the petty revenge for her having dumped her problem student on my hooves. The rest of the goldbrickers got volunteered to be the standard's honour guard for the march downcountry, and I had them suit up appropriately.

When we went out to the marshaling yards, the new trainmaster was struggling, apparently having let her skills get fuzzy and green while she was rusticating up at Little Ridings. I rolled my eyes at Fiddlestrings, but left the problem in her hooves. They can't improve if you're always helping them. I spent my time playing drill sergeant with the goldbrickers. I looked at Carrot Cake, and realized he was under-dressed for his new temporary role. I went over to my kit, and grabbed my chamfron and peytral. They looked no more ludicrous on him than they had on me, but at least he had the height for the peytral, which didn't threaten to drag in the dust like it did on my frame.

"There, it'll do until you can buy something that actually fits. Assuming we ever get paid again."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Just don't get blood all over ‘em."

I noticed a plump, dirty-grey mare standing idly among the tinker-carts eyeing Carrot Cake as he unrolled the standard and hoisted it above his head to demonstrate to me that he could carry in style. I guess even scrawny orange colts can get the mares once they're in uniform.

Once the earth-pony corporal got her train ready to move, I gave the gold-brick honour guard the cadence, and we marched forward in the van, Carrot Cake with the banner held high in the morning breeze, the goldbrickers in formation, and yours truly in the traces of my supply-cart. Rye Daughter stood beside the gate, fuming at me for not letting her come with. The rest of the convoy, with the merchants and tinkers in the fore, rolled out of the Palisades, and made our way down the Road into the gorges. The dingy, plump earth pony who had been staring at Carrot Cake fell beside my cart by the sheer luck of the draw, and she continued to stare at the recruit with the Company standard in the van as we rolled over the lip of the plateau. She didn't respond to any of my conversational cues; it would be a long trot if she was going to be like that.

At least the cliffside graffiti was gone – I had mentioned it to Bad Apple, and she had obligingly burnt the cliff surface until the rock had scorched or cracked away, and at most you could see a bit of white-wash here and there that might have said "Pepin live" if you squinted hard under all of the char. The Company was no longer dropping off emergency supplies for the hamlets along the Road; the way was clear for tinkers and merchants, and some of the hamlets were starting to accumulate enough to pay their own freight. I saw a tinker drop out of the convoy to haggle with the does of Gustavbank, and smiled at the return of normal business.

Cheaper for the Company that way, anyways.

About half-way through the walled hamlets southeast of Guilliame's Ravin, I noticed that the tinker-mare's dingy colors were starting to run in her sweat – just a bit. Sloppy work, and she was a strong, pastel blue under that coat-treatment. Might be able to sell it as just "road dirt", but it was clear she was dying her mane as well, which showed signs of a deliberately rough trim-back, probably to kill a distinctive curl to it. I didn't say anything, but resolved to keep an eye on her if she kept on with us all the way to Dance Hall.

She did, staring at Carrot Cake's flank the entire time, in between side-glances that to my eyes looked like a trained observer evaluating the conditions of the duchy as we went. I don't know if she was using a put-on obsession with the lanky colt as a cover for her spying, or if there was something about him that was distracting her, but her alleged job as a ‘tinker' certainly wasn't occupying her time. She barely looked at the market-fairs being opened up for her fellow merchants and tinkers at Guillaime's Ravin and a half-dozen of the hamlets strung out along the bottomlands, except to assess the state and fitness of the townsfolk and farmers streaming in to meet the travelling salesponies.

As spies went, she wasn't the greatest. I had made her definitively by the time we reached Mondovi, and she had to peel out along with the remainder of the civilians, most of them Mondovan locals, among whom she stood out like a giraffe at a buffalo tribal council. I left her to try and do her job shorn of all protective coloration, and cheerfully followed the Company standard as Carrot Cake carried it through the main gates at the head of the march.

Author's Note:

Well, obviously she's a spy, Sawbones. The only question is who's she spying for?

Comments

[Dorath]

The only question is who's she spying for?

The obvious options are: One of the other Legates, the Bride herself, or the White Rose.

Less obvious, if this reality's version of Celestia is really on the ball, she could be a spy for Equestria itself, sent to keep an eye on Luna's only remaining armed forces as her exile nears its end.

[xoid]

Blue, chubby, obsessed with Carrot Cake? Have we just been introduced to Cup Cake?