The Sparrow in the Storm

by The 24th Pegasus

2-9

There wasn’t much to the training field in Camp Stratopolis; apart from some training dummies stuffed with dry grasses and leaves and a simple shack that held a few dozen blunt iron training swords, its only notable feature was the wide expanse of churned up mud. Thousands of pegasi had stomped and trampled what was once a small grassy clearing into a quagmire of brown muck through countless days of intense training. They had watered the ground with their sweat and sometimes their blood, but it was on that field where the raw recruits honed their skills into the disciplined killing machines the Legion was known for, and where veterans would keep their talents sharp when they weren’t putting them to use against their former comrades.

Unfortunately for Sparrow, she found herself becoming a little too familiar with that mud in the more up close and personal way.

But she was determined that today would be different. As she and Chinook left the camp behind to join the rest of the century of raw recruits on the field, the young unicorn was already running through a list of scenarios in her mind in an attempt to avoid embarrassing herself when it was her turn to fight in front of the pegasi. Though training with the other recruits wasn’t as difficult as her previous sparring sessions with Typhoon, the opponents she faced never held anything back, unlike the old mare’s measured and patient approach to training a novice. With Tern insisting that she learn how to fight like the other pegasi with sword in mouth to make the fights fair, Sparrow found herself constantly on the back hoof as she struggled to keep up with her nimble opponents as they danced around her with the use of their wings. And it didn’t help that Tern continued to find ways to pick on her by pairing her up against more skilled adversaries she was always certain to lose to. But this time would be different.

“You’ve got a little pep in your step today,” Chinook observed, a wry smile clinging to his muzzle. “Feeling good about your chances?”

“You bet,” Sparrow said, and her tail swished a few times with her confident strides. “I’ve got a new strategy I’m gonna try out.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Not lose. I figure I’ll stick to that plan, see what happens.”

Chinook chuckled at that, and he lightly punched Sparrow’s shoulder with the crest of his wing. “Bold strategy. Think you can pull it off?”

Sparrow shrugged mid-stride. “I’ve got a lot of experience with losing, so I figure at this point I know what to watch out for. I just need to not do what made me lose the last few times and then I’ll win.”

Chinook snickered again, and Sparrow struggled to keep a straight face under her bravado. “Right, right. Of course. And what’re you gonna do if Tern makes you fight Drifter? He’s bigger and faster than you. I’m pretty sure if he flapped his wings he’d blow you away.”

Sparrow’s steps faltered as she imagined that scenario, and her gaze fell on the stallion in question out ahead of them as he stood among several of the other recruits gathered about the field. Though she had never spoken with the stallion before, she and the rest of the recruits knew he was the best of their number. Large for a pegasus (though according to Typhoon, not as large as another pegasus she knew), Drifter had lived up to his name and blown into Stratopolis a month back to join with Legate Winds’ legion. According to Chinook, Drifter used to be what the pegasi called a ‘Storm Shepherd,’ a pegasus who used their cloud magic to redirect or disperse wild storms that threatened settlements on the frontier. Unlike the more controlled weather in Everfree and Equestria proper, storms posed a dangerous threat to settlements on the frontier, and many places were prone to tornados. Storm shepherds had to be fast and strong to contend with the raw power of unchecked nature on the frontier, and though Drifter hadn’t come from a military family, his strength and speed lent him well to becoming a dangerous soldier.

Of course, imagining all the ways Drifter could crush her on the field wasn’t exactly great for the small amount of confidence Sparrow had managed to amass, so she awkwardly cleared her throat and tried to push those images away. “We’ll, uh, burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“That’s not how that saying goes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Uh huh.”

By the time they reached the rest of their century, the two young warriors didn’t have much time to mingle and chat before somepony let out a shrill whistle. Eyes and ears turned skyward, and upon spotting Centurion Tern flying over to them, the assembled recruits hastily formed themselves into ranks ten wide by eight deep. As Sparrow and Chinook shifted to find their appropriate positions in their rank, the unicorn only had a second to realize that Tern wasn’t flying alone.

Despite the discipline and professionalism that had been drilled into them through their training, the assembled recruits couldn’t help but whisper in surprise as Tern alighted with his companions. But even Sparrow knew that the whispers weren’t for Legate Winds at Tern’s right, but for Typhoon at his left. Sparrow found herself sharing in their surprise as the old mare’s eyes scanned over the recruits, and she found herself whispering to Chinook, “What’s she doing here?”

“Why are you asking me?” Chinook whispered back. “You know her better than me.”

“I haven’t exactly seen her a whole lot since I started training with you guys…”

“Milites!” Tern shouted, and the whispers were immediately silenced by the blade of his voice. “At attention! Today we have guests, and I want you lot on your best behavior! The Legate and the Commander have requested to observe today’s singles combat to assess your capabilities when your life is on the line. Personally, I feel that many of you have a long way to go until you prove yourselves capable of fighting as a unit, let alone by yourselves, but today that will be their decision to make.”

Sparrow certainly didn’t fail to notice how Tern’s eyes drifted toward her as he said that, and she quietly clenched her teeth as she did her best to stare straight ahead at attention like a statue.

“War does not wait until everypony is ready,” Tern continued, “and the longer we wait, the longer the wound of treason festers in Dry Fens. Evidently, the Legate and the Commander have laid out their plans, and they want to know how many competent replacements they can count on to fill the gaps in our lines. Prove yourselves today, and glory on the field of battle will be yours sooner than you think.”

After a moment to let those words sink in, Tern dismissively waved his wing to put his recruits at ease. As the ponies of the century relaxed their posture, the centurion turned aside to Typhoon and Winds as if to see if they had anything more they wanted to add, but both soldiers shook their heads. Nodding, Tern spread his wings and pointed out to his sides with his wingtips. “Circle up, ponies. Shrill Shrike, Copper Field, I want you two to start. First to score a hit to the neck wins.”

As the milites spread out into a circle and Shrill Shrike and Copper Field fetched training swords and cantered to the middle of the ring, Sparrow and Chinook shuffled off to the side. “I thought for sure he was going to send me out first,” Sparrow whispered to her friend. “Start the day off with a bit of Sparrow pummeling.”

“He wants to put on a show for the Legate and the Commander,” Chinook said, and as Shrike and Field squared up and touched their right wings together in sportsmareship, he added, “Shrike and Field aren’t the best fighters, but they’re fast. You’ve seen them practice before. It’ll look really dramatic.”

Sparrow scoffed and glanced aside at Typhoon’s stoic expression as the two mares in the ring let fly at each other in a flurry of feathers and feints. “If Tern thinks he’s gonna fool Typhoon by putting two flashy mares against each other in the ring, then he’s dumber than I thought. She’s old enough to be his mom. She’s seen thousands of soldiers in her life. Two wide swinging cuckoos aren’t gonna convince her they’re up to snuff.”

Chinook snickered and gave Sparrow a light shove with a wing. “I remember you losing to Shrike bad yesterday.”

“Listen, it’s really hard to see where her sword is when every time she moves it’s like an explosion of feathers,” Sparrow grumbled.

Their attention drifted back to the fight before them, and despite her earlier observation, Sparrow tried to focus all her energy into watching how the two combatants moved to see if she could glean anything about fighting a pegasus that could help her win when Tern inevitably called her name. She watched how the two mares jumped and dived, relying on their wings for mobility as much if not more than their hooves as they circled around each other. Sometimes they would jump up and strike down, twisting their back into putting more speed and power behind their swings, and other times they would lunge low at their opponent’s legs. They used their hooves to lend power to their swings or abruptly pivot their stance, but the more they fought, the more Sparrow felt her eyes drawing back to their wings. They moved quickly and in unpredictable ways, but they never lied. And as more fighters cycled in and out of the ring, Sparrow started feeling more confident about what she saw.

After several rounds of fighters, Sparrow started to wonder whether she’d even get the chance to put what she learned to the test. There were roughly eighty recruits in Tern’s century, which meant forty fights, but at the rate at which they went, she wondered if she’d get the chance to have her turn before dinner. She started rocking on her hooves as her nerves started to agitate her, and when Chinook limped back to her after his turn in the ring, he gave her a concerned look. “You alright, Sparrow?”

“Yeah. Fine,” Sparrow said, and she anxiously eyed the ring as Tern helped Chinook’s opponent climb back to her hooves, dazed and dizzy after the hard hit Chinook had rung her bell with at the end of their lengthy and close-run fight. “How much longer is he gonna make me wait?”

Evidently, Sparrow wasn’t the only one impatient to see how the lone unicorn in the century fared in the wing. Before Tern could call the next match, Typhoon stepped forward. “Centurion, I want to see what Sparrow is capable of.”

Sparrow’s heart jumped into her throat in excitement and anticipation, but also a little bit of dread, and a few sparks of magic escaped off the grooves of her horn. But Tern was far less enamored with the idea, to Sparrow’s surprise, and after giving the unicorn a glance, he stepped closer to Typhoon and Legate Winds. “I’m not sure she’s ready,” he muttered to them, and though the noise of the pegasi gathered around the ring drowned out his words, Sparrow still managed to pick them out. “She’s lagging far behind the rest of the century.”

Typhoon’s ruby red eyes flitted over to Sparrow, though her words remained directed at the centurion. “I’m inclined to believe otherwise. I want to see her fight.”

Tern looked to Winds, but the legate nodded in agreement. “Do as the Commander asks,” he said. “When she asked you to train the unicorn, I hope she was not asking for something beyond your abilities.”

The centurion’s jaw set, and after a moment, he gave the two a curt bob of his head. “She was not,” he said. “But some things you just can’t teach a horn.”

Then he turned back to the ring and raised his voice. “Sparrow! Drifter! You two are next.”

Sparrow’s fury at being doubted combined with her worry that those doubts might be founded culminated in a single word as Drifter stepped out of the ring opposite her to take a sword in his jaws. “Fuck.”

Chinook, for his part, gave Sparrow a worried clap on the back. “Good luck,” he said as she anxiously stepped into the ring. “You’re gonna need it…” he muttered after she was gone.

Gulping, Sparrow took several breaths as she trotted out to the center of the ring, her magic fetching a training sword and running a rag across the handle to clean it off before setting it between her teeth. The blade was warm to the touch from not only sitting out in the sun, but the heat of repeated impacts and the sweat and exertion of the pegasi who had used it before her. It was good, solid metal, heavier than a normal sword, and it tilted her head a bit to the side as she held it, but it felt so inadequate when she looked up and saw Drifter standing over her. Sparrow was used to having a slight height advantage over the other pegasi thanks to her lanky unicorn legs; she did not have such an advantage over Drifter as his shadow fell on her.

As the other pegasi had done, Drifter held out his wing for Sparrow to touch, even though she didn’t have one to match. “Sorry,” was all he said, though the intent of the apology was clear.

Sparrow momentarily popped the sword out of her mouth and held it in her magic so she could answer. “Yeah, me too,” Sparrow said, and she bumped her shoulder into Drifter’s wing for lack of one to match it with. Then she took two steps back and widened her stance while her opponent casually did the same. “It’s gonna suck being the first to lose to me.” Her magic flipped on an old legionary helmet to protect her head, and she stuck the grip back into her teeth and locked it down into the gap behind her incisors.

Drifter gave her the courtesy to set herself, and then he was on her. Two flaps of his wings sent him careening across the ring like a ballista bolt, shocking Sparrow with the speed at which the big stallion moved. Still, two flaps was double what smaller pegasi like Shrill Shrike needed to get up to speed, and when they flapped backwards toward his flanks instead of down at the ground, Sparrow knew he was charging forward, not up or two the side. With that warning, she had enough time to skirt to the side, using her sword to redirect Drifter’s and push it away rather than try and block it in a test of strength that she knew she would lose. The dull iron sang at the blow, tickling Sparrow’s teeth as it vibrated, and she quickly scampered away to try and reset her hooves before Drifter could round on her again.

Unfortunately, Drifter’s speed left her little time to do that either. He bounced off Sparrow’s deflection and whirled around in the opposite direction, and a couple more flaps of his wings reset his momentum. This time when he charged, he charged on hoof, taking a slower but surer approach toward his quarry. His last step was more of a bound as he jumped into the air, trying to use his weight and the arch of his back to strike downward at Sparrow. Sparrow made to dodge to the side again, hoping to capitalize on such a maneuver to maybe take a quick spin and strike at his neck to end the bout in one blow, but when Drifter’s sword hit the dirt, he instead lashed out with his right wing, catching Sparrow in the cheek and knocking her off balance. His sword lashed up from the dirt in an upwards arc at her neck, and when Sparrow reared back to try and dodge it, it hooked her under the forelegs and sent her skyward with a crushing blow.

Dirt and sky swirled around her for a split second, and then the young mare landed hard on her back and gasped at the smack of her spine into the ground. Thankfully, the pegasi who had dueled before her had churned it up into a muddy, sponge-like mess that absorbed the worst of the impact, but it still took her a second to get back to her hooves. And when she did, Drifter was on her again, sword slicing through the air.

There was no time to dodge; even if Sparrow tried, she knew that she would only end up on the dirt again, and Drifter wasn’t using his wings, so she figured he was holding back to try and tag her neck the moment she fell again. That left only blocking his sword, so she took the only avenue open to her. The impact of his sword against hers rattled her teeth and strained her neck as she tried to keep her head upright and force away his attacks, and when he struck her again, she felt the pressure painful twist at the corners of her jaw as the blow tried to wrench the sword out of her grip.

“Fight back!”

Sparrow didn’t know who shouted it; in the heat of combat, the only thing she could focus on was Drifter as she tried not to let the bigger stallion overpower her. But the voice was right; she couldn’t afford to keep wearing herself out absorbing or dodging blows with Drifter. She needed to get some swings in and buy herself some space. If he respected the arc of her blade, then she could keep him honest and not let him close the gap and overpower her so quickly.

When Drifter swung next, she borrowed some of his momentum from blocking the swing to bounce backwards and away from another blow. As her hooves dug into the dirt, Sparrow coiled her legs and lunged forward, swinging at Drifter’s neck in a desperate hope to get a lucky hit. It was not to be, as Drifter blocked it with his own weapon, but the movement was clumsy, as if he hadn’t been expecting Sparrow’s riposte. Sparrow pressed the advantage for all she could, knowing that she only had this one opportunity to try and tag Drifter’s neck before he adjusted, and worked quickly to get inside of the larger stallion’s guard. She made short attacks under and around his sword, trying to find some way to get past his block, and once she felt she might have scored a lucky hit—and in that moment, she thought it was over.

Whether Centurion Tern didn’t see it or refused to acknowledge the slightest glancing of taps to Drifter’s neck, or if it didn’t happen in the first place and Sparrow had merely felt Drifter’s shoulder at the edge of her sword, she didn’t know. But the pause almost doomed her as Drifter swung back hard, and too late she tried to duck under his sword. The metal instead slammed against the side of her skull, exploding the world into a ringing white scream, and Sparrow seemingly lost all feeling in her body as she staggered across the dirt.

When the world stopped ringing, Sparrow felt somepony holding her upright at the edge of the ring as her senses slowly trickled back to her. To her surprise, it was Typhoon’s voice that she heard in her ear when the pony holding her asked, “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Sparrow groaned, and she forced herself back to her shaking hooves as her stomach did flips in her barrel. She felt something hot and wet dribbling down the side of her face; it took her a second to realize it was blood, and she wondered how much worse it would have been if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet. “I-I’ve got this.”

“Do you?” Typhoon asked her, and when Sparrow looked back, it took her a second before the two blurry Typhoons merged into one. “You look hopelessly outmatched out there.”

“I can get him,” Sparrow insisted. “It’s just hard fighting six limbs with four. Especially because he’s so big.”

Typhoon shrugged, and then she gestured to Sparrow’s forehead. “And you have something he doesn’t. Use it.”

“I thought you wanted me to learn how to be a legionary?” Sparrow asked, and she glanced back at Drifter, who patiently watched her from the other end of the ring as the surrounding pegasi cheered and hollered for the fight to go on.

“Fighting like a legionary is not the same as fighting like a pegasus,” Typhoon told her. “The basics are the same—hoofwork, movement, and tactics. Those are important. That’s what I wanted you to learn. But nopony here can teach you how to fight with your horn. Only you can do that. Do you understand?”

After a second, Sparrow nodded. “I think I do,” she said, and her magic grabbed onto her sword as it lay half-buried in the mud, blade first. When she hefted it out of the mud, she didn’t put it back in her mouth, but kept it roughly a tail’s length in front of her muzzle, and she pointed the tip square at Drifter’s neck.

Drifter narrowed his eyes as he watched Sparrow adopt her new stance, and after a moment to think, he cautiously took wing and closed the distance between him and Sparrow at a measured pace. When he was halfway across the ring, Sparrow galloped forward and thrusted her sword skyward, forcing her opponent to flutter away from it, only to immediately have to go on the defensive as Sparrow’s sword twisted and flicked around him as she spurred it on with her magic. The pink glow danced around the grip of the blade, spinning it in ways that Drifter struggled to block or dodge, unaffixed as it was to any point in space.

All his maneuvering sapped Drifter of energy and altitude, so he quickly shifted strategies. After parrying a blow from Sparrow’s floating sword, he lunged at her, falling out of the sky to try and get to her unimpeded. But again, by watching his wings, Sparrow saw it coming, and she dived forward to escape from underneath his trajectory, barely slipping under his blade as he hit the ground behind her. Though the move made her drop her sword, she quickly located it as it tumbled out of the air and seized it again, putting it back between her and Drifter once more as the pegasus leaped at her from the ground. Iron rang and Sparrow felt the feedback in her horn like a sharp jolt of electricity, but she managed to hold on and tried to scurry back to her hooves as quickly as she could while she slowed down Drifter’s attack.

Still, the world had not completely settled from Drifter’s hit to her head, and she slipped as she stood up again, falling to her flanks as her balance failed her. The mistake was costly, as in a moment, Drifter was over her, and after a punch of his wing to her nose to send her sprawling on her back, Sparrow felt metal under her chin.

“Game over,” Drifter said around the handle of his sword. “You lose.”

“Yeah, well… so did you,” Sparrow said. Drifter blinked and then looked up at her horn, which was still aglow, and when it flashed a little brighter, he winced as he felt Sparrow twist the sword, rubbing the dull tip of the blunted iron into his skin just behind his jaw.

After a moment, Drifter grunted and stepped back, then offered Sparrow his hoof to stand up. Sparrow gratefully took it and managed to get back to her hooves, then looked around at the suddenly quiet ring of pegasi surrounding them. Confused looks stared back at her, and after a moment, the other legionaries started muttering among themselves, wondering who won.

But that was settled for them when Typhoon shrugged and stepped forward. “I suppose we’ll call it a draw, then,” she said, and though her expression remained neutral when she looked back at Sparrow, Sparrow didn’t miss the quick wink the older mare offered her.

Though perhaps it was said best when she heard Chinook call out from the crowd, “Hey, Sparrow, your strategy worked!”