The War and What Came After

by NorsePony

Chapter 3

A week later, Ember and Ghost stood before the gathered elders and the head scout of the training camp’s small corps of warriors. It had been a week of trial and error, waking early and retiring late to test and refine the weapons. The initial test had proved to be enormously wasteful—only a nibble of moss was necessary to propel objects from their rapidly-improving tubes with killing force. At first, the projectiles had been stones, but they had soon learned that the shape of the stone had even more effect upon the accuracy of this weapon than it did upon a sling throw. While they were fretting over the difficulty of finding enough round stones to make the weapon useful, Ember had hit upon the idea of using Noa’s power to shape and shrink bits of wood into dense, hard, smooth little cones that would fly true and be easy to create in great quantities. Finally, they had been ready to come before the elders and the grizzled old warrior to demonstrate the fruits of their labor.

The elders waited patiently, having long recognized the burgeoning power in the two determined young does, but the scout shifted and fidgeted. Ember ignored his impatience as she used a long straight pole held in her teeth to tamp down a wad of moss and a cone-shaped plug of wood into the bottom of the wooden tube hanging at Ghost’s side. Finished, she slid her pole into the spear harness she wore and stepped back.

Ghost faced the elders with a courteous bow. “I thank you for your consideration, elders. I bring before the People a new weapon. A weapon created by divine inspiration and blessed by the gods. A weapon which the Others will be unable to stand against.”

The elders murmured and leaned forward. The scout snorted. Ghost ignored it. He would be convinced soon enough. She turned to face a sling target made in the approximate shape of one of the Others, which had been moved to the edge of the camp for the demonstration. “Attend the target, there,” she told her audience. Once their attention had shifted, she opened herself to Ano and bade him release the fire in the moss wadded in the tube.

A tongue of pure white flame licked from the open end of the tube with a thump that Ghost’s audience felt in their hooves, but the noise was swallowed in the same instant by a much louder detonation as the target burst apart into straw and flinders.

The elders flinched away with little cries, but the scout’s widened eyes narrowed again. “A trick, not a demonstration. A spear is the weapon of a warrior, not an . . . exploding target.”

Ghost’s eyes flicked to him. “Long Eye, let us test your spear against the gods. Cast at a tree, if that is foe enough for a warrior.” Her voice was mild, but the scout’s back stiffened at the challenge in her words.

The People’s spears were carried point-first in their harnesses, and Long Eye was an expert, drawing and casting away from the exploded target with a single fluid whip of his neck. The spear arced away, humming as it split the air. But as fast as it was, Ghost was faster. She wore a spear harness of her own, its loops adjusted to hold one of the tubes securely on each side. She had fired the left tube at the sling target, and now she spun and bent her knees to bring the right tube in line with the spear’s path; her antlers glowed a brilliant red and there was a dual detonation as the tube belched flame and the spear’s haft burst midair into a cloud of shattered wood.

All present were silent as the echo faded swiftly into the distance.

One of the elders cleared his throat with a nervous exhalation. At the sound, Ghost turned to face her audience, looking from face to face, noting their surprise and the hints of fear which showed around the edges of their expressions. She was careful not to smile as she bowed.

The same elder cleared his throat again. “Ghost, the power of your . . . device is obvious. For what reason do you bring it to us?” The other elders murmured agreement, seeming to hope that Ghost had not meant her earlier words.

Ghost stood erect, unbowed, as though she was one of Noa’s trees herself. “You know my story. You know I am sworn to see the Others swept from the People’s land. The gods have granted me inspiration, understanding, and knowledge, and from those, power flows. I will share this power with all of the People, and then, I will see the Others destroyed.”

The elders hesitated, but Long Eye had been sucking on his lip thoughtfully after the initial shock had worn off, and now he spoke with a firm voice. “Elders, I believe Ghost offers us an opportunity we cannot waste. We hold the Others back from the forest, but we lose ground in the hills.” He nodded at Ghost as he said it, not needing to name Snowfall for its loss to be on the minds of all assembled. “And it has been lifetimes since the People last recovered any such losses. With this weapon, I believe we could do what Ghost says, if we are brave enough to seize the advantage.”

Taking her cue, Ghost stepped forward determinedly, gaze fixed on the eldest of the elders, the god-touched elder who had begun her training. “We have fought since the days of our great-grandsires’ great-grandsires to cleanse the People’s land of the Others’ taint.” Her eyes grew flinty as she quoted his words back at him. Some among the elders looked away from her uncomfortably. “Now, in this moment, we have the chance to finish that fight.”

The elders exchanged searching glances with one another, and finally, the god-touched elder nodded to her. “We must eat what the gods have grown for us.” His voice was firm enough that the defeated slump to his shoulders was almost unnoticeable.

* * *

The next week was a flurry of activity for Ghost and Ember. Trainees who were strong with Noa were given to Ember, to be taught the technique of opening a thin, straight branch into the wide hollow tube which was the weapon. It was simple enough to describe, but required a firm control of the god; a matter of moving all the wood in the branch outward, forming a strong, smooth-sided tube, and once taught, most of the trainees could make it happen. In comparison, shaping chunks of wood into the dense little cone-shaped projectiles was a trivial exercise.

Meanwhile, Ghost was given the Ano-oriented trainees. First, she taught her way of inviting the god to her aid, which proved so successful that a shaman was made to sit near the training to extinguish any sudden wildfires. On a whim, Ghost pulled aside one of the camp’s defenders, a doe who had never demonstrated any affinity for the gods, and had her antlers glowing red in scarcely an hour of quiet instruction. The elders exchanged weighted glances over that success, but let her add all the camp’s defenders to her rolls. Ghost moved on to the rigorous training at loading and firing, and of hitting what one fired at, the latter of which occupied most of the week’s days from sunup to sundown.

At the end of the week, the warriors under Ghost’s tutelage were hitting more than missing, and Ember’s warriors had a stockpile of tubes, harnesses, and straight rods to load the tubes, and a plentiful supply of the dense wooden cones.

Ghost’s smile reflected her deep satisfaction as she looked around at the waiting ranks of warriors, then at the elders. The elders had grown less apprehensive about the prospect of using the weapons in battle as they began to see the results of the training, but worry still showed on many of their faces. Ghost ignored it, as usual, and bowed her head to them. “Elders, we are prepared. It is time for the test we agreed upon.”

They bowed to her in a slow rustle of graying coats and wrinkled flesh. The eldest spoke. “It is time. I think ill of this new future, but the gods have laid these gifts before us, so we must take them up.” He raised his voice to carry throughout the small camp. “Ghost, warrior of the People. You will lead these warriors in an ambush, to test the effectiveness of the new weapons in combat.”

Ghost dipped her antlers in formal salute, and turned to her forty warriors. An auspicious number. Her voice rolled over them, carrying effortlessly. “We travel north, to the edge of the forest. The Others patrol between their armed camps, and we will fall upon a patrol when it is too far away from either of the nearest camps to receive help.” The assembled deer shifted and murmured in a swift current of worry. Ghost’s ears went up, swiveling attentively as she gauged their fear, but she smiled confidently. “You fear the past, my warriors. It is true that the Others’ patrols were mighty, once. You have heard the tales of their strength in the days when the People and the Others met as equals in battle.” Her smile widened to bare her teeth. “But that was long ago. We were driven into the forest, and in the centuries of our exile, the Others have grown soft and weak. Now the gods have given us great power, and their softness will fall before us!”

The murmurs had ebbed to silence as she spoke and the edge of fear had gone with them, and now the assembled warriors burst out in cheers and war cries grown brittle for lack of use. They will not be so for much longer, thought Ghost.

The forest’s edge was two days north of the gods’ camp, even at the great speed the People could manage along their hidden trails through the dense undergrowth. They moved quietly and with growing anticipation as they neared their destination. The forest’s edge was separated from the first rising of the northern hills by a strip of rough grassland less than a mile wide. The Others patrolled to reassure themselves that the People could not surge north out of the forest and attack their villages in the hills. The warriors moved east along the forest’s edge, toward the towering crag that marked the center of the earth, until they found a place where the patrols’ road—really a dusty path where the grass had been tramped down—snaked between the forest and a steep-sided hillock. The patrols covered the forest’s edge several times a day, so the warriors knew they had not long to wait. They loaded their weapons with moss and tamped down a conical plug snug against the moss, then dispersed to conceal themselves amidst the trees and bushes of the forest, still and patient, eyes scanning the patrol road.

The sun had crept only a short distance across the sky when the patrol came into view. The still, silent warriors stilled further, becoming indistinguishable from the woods around them. Ghost counted the approaching Others. Two fours, standard for a daylight patrol such as this. Two horned ones, two with wings, and a full four of the weak but disturbingly deerlike earth ponies, clanking under the weight of their metal armor. Her warriors understood that the horned ones were the most dangerous, with their magic—Ghost liked thinking in the Others’ ugly language even less than speaking it—that had nothing to do with the gods. The winged ones were only slightly less fearsome, as they could attack from any angle. The walking ones could safely be left for last.

The Others were talking amongst themselves in their guttural tongue, talk of flowers and crops and petty gossip from their villages, making Ghost’s lip curl at their confidence and their lack of attention. They believed they were safe while the sun was shining. We will teach them otherwise. The patrol approached the ambush spot the warriors had arranged, where the road squeezed around the hillock and drew closest to the forest, and Ghost tensed. The weight of the loaded tubes in her harness excited her.

Ghost was screened from the Others’ sight by layers of light foliage, which the wooden plug would travel straight through, so she had no need to step out of concealment to fire. She bent her knees, bringing her tubes to bear on the horned one at the end of the patrol’s line. She held her breath. The patrol reached the spot.

Her antlers flared red—

The tube jerked back in her harness—

A wash of heat struck the side of her face—

The Other’s headless body collapsed. Blood gushed, staining the dirt of the road.

The rest of the patrol stopped and turned, some to look toward the noise from the forest, others to see what the sodden thump from behind had been. Fools. In the moment they stopped, a dozen pairs of hidden antlers flared red, and a dozen tubes spat fire. Three plugs struck the second horned one, throwing him to slam against the hillock with a wet sound, already dead. One of the flying ones and three of the walkers also died in the initial volley.

The second flyer was fast and lucky, and launched herself straight up as plugs hummed past her, avoiding everything but a glancing blow which shattered one of her rear hooves. She flew like a mad thing, climbing fast in an erratic weave as warriors fired up at her. She avoided every shot, and when the shooting had stopped, she swiftly doubled back, looking down on the forest. From directly above, the warriors’ concealment was useless, and her eyes lit with a bloodthirsty gleam as she drew her long knives.

Ghost had seen the flying Others in action before, watched them slay great warriors with their speed and agility, slashing them to ribbons as they flew past. But the forest was her place, not theirs. Ghost stood and yelled in the Others’ tongue, hoping her voice would carry to her foe’s ears and goad her into stupidity. “Face me, pony! Let us discover whether your ‘Fire of Friendship’ is more powerful than my antlers!”

The pegasus bared her teeth at Ghost and dove, her knives glittering in the sun. She stooped, diving faster and faster, blurring toward Ghost. Ghost readied her antlers to stab, knowing she must provide a convincing performance. She waited one heartbeat and a second as the flying one grew larger. She heard Ember hold her breath, and at that moment, Ghost threw herself flat, pressing her nose into the forest’s moist loam. Her coat rippled in the blast of air from the Other’s passage, and Ghost turned her head, listening to the guttural jeering at Ghost’s cowardice and watching the flying one pull up to break through the canopy back into clear air. But Ghost had other plans for her. Her antlers flared red as she called Ano to her, showing him the branches and leaves around the fast-moving enemy.

White fire blossomed in the canopy, and high, thin screams filled the space between the trees for a terrible moment before cutting off abruptly. Ghost’s antlers continued glowing red, and the fire sucked itself out of the air, absorbed into the green summer leaves without a trace. The People’s earth was the People’s no longer, but the forest was still rich with power. The dead pony had forgotten that truth, and had paid the price so many Others had paid before her.

The walking one who was the last member of the patrol had turned and fled while Ghost was luring the flying one. He had scrabbled up the hillock in panic, wanting only to get as far from the forest’s edge as possible. It did not save him. Two blasts rang out, fired by two of Ghost’s most promising sharpshooters, and the Other’s body rolled and slid down the steep side of the hillock to add its blood to the thirsty red dirt of the road.

With the patrol dead, the warriors came out of hiding, murmuring to each other in stunned tones. Ember stood near Ghost and whispered, “And now, what?”

Ghost answered at full volume, speaking to all the warriors. “The gods’ gift is true. The People have been granted the power to reclaim our earth. The proof lies dead in the road, but they are only the first! All of the People’s warriors will carry the gods’ weapons to slay the Others and drive them before us out of the earth, and the earth shall be the People’s once more. We will regain our glory, our dignity, and our rightful place as the chosen of the gods!”

As the warriors’ cheers washed over her, Ghost smiled at Ember and saw that the other doe’s eyes showed as much excitement as she felt.

* * *

The triumphant warriors returned to the gods’ camp and told their tale to the elders by firelight, over a feast, as was appropriate for tales of victory and tales of the gods—and this was both. The elders exchanged weighted glances and nodded to one another as though dark suspicions had been confirmed.

When the tales and feasting ended and the People of the camp started for their tents, Ghost and Ember fell in together, for their tents were close to one another. “Well done,” Ember said.

Ghost glanced at her and then away, finding the darkened trees around them of sudden and intense interest. “I know.”

Ember grinned at her friend’s reticence. “I should not have waited to compliment you. If I had not, perhaps you would not be so stuffed with the compliments of others that you cannot accept mine.”

Ghost’s wayward gaze snapped back to Ember’s face, eyes wide with something resembling panic. “No! I— that is—” Ghost scowled at herself and forced her mouth under control. “Thank you. I had felt the lack, because your compliment is the only one which matters, coming as it does from a place of knowledge.”

Ember giggled. “You are a warrior of action, not words, my friend. But from time to time, you make a good attack.”

Before Ghost could gather her thoughts to reply to that, the eldest elder intercepted the two does, stepping from between two tents into their path. Ghost and Ember bowed respectfully, but the elder tossed his head impatiently, waving away the courtesies. “Ghost of the People. The elders of the gods’ camp have conferred, and we have decided. The weapons you offer the People are truly of the gods. Therefore, the gods have chosen you to act through. For what purpose…” He trailed off, his eyes going distant for a moment. Then he shook himself and continued in a firm voice. “For what purpose, we do not know. But the People obey the gods’ wills. Therefore, we will use our authority as elders of the gods’ camp to call every available warrior of the People to this place—” He swallowed. “—that you may lead them to war against the Others.”

Comments

[NorsePony]

2659862 Thanks a bunch! : )

[Seether00]

Crude firearms aside, what hope do the deer folk have against a nation lead by beings which can control the Sun and the Moon?

The odds are not good.

[NorsePony]

2660443 Aw, thanks. : ) I shall try not to disappoint.

[Tetrominon]

2659958
What can they do against pony cunning when faced head-on? They can't possibly fight all their battles from behind cover. The title's kind of a giveaway -- there is going to be a proper war -- but I'm still interested to see how it plays out.

[NorsePony]

2665419 2665426 Thanks! I'm happy you're enjoying it. : )

[Lady Grey]

I was not horrendously impressed by the last chapter. It was rather blah. It lost the energy that that you had in the first. I've been thinking about it and your style has a sort of classical epic feel to it or a mythic vibe, but chapter 2 sort of looses that because the way they discover the cannon isn't really very 'mythic'. You lost that feel and you didn't replace it with say, really interesting characters. Your characters remained Odysseus or Dido or Thisbe: they are legendary and fun but not particularly deep. Archetypal is I believe the word. Anyway, point is that the last chapter felt rather Blah. But THIS chapter pulled back in the legend of it and worked well. It was more about the events rather than the characters and that worked excellently. You have made me excited again.

First blood! Let's get this going!

It's still really weird when you use the words "doe" and "antlers" together.