The Sparrow in the Storm

by The 24th Pegasus

2-12

For a town that had come to mean so much for both sides, and whose fields had seen so much death and misery, Dry Fens was about as uninteresting and unremarkable a settlement in the Equestrian Frontier as any other town not important enough to have its name take up space on a map. Had two legions of dissatisfied soldiers not made it the focal point of their ideological struggle, it would have persisted in obscurity, not even worth a footnote in the annals of history.

As Sparrow got a closer look at the town, she was certain that its inhabitants would have preferred that reality over the one they got.

Though she had observed both the damage to and the fortification of Dry Fens from afar, as the defenders of the town led her and Chinook into its perimeter, Sparrow found herself struck by the misery that had been inscrutable at a distance. The first thing she noticed was that the town stunk. The bloated bodies of the dead baking under the sun in the fields that surrounded it had been hard enough to stomach, but once she stepped between the buildings, a foul, almost saccharine stench of sickness seemed to waft over her. It emanated from dark shadows behind dark windows, but even out in the streets, ragged and gaunt ponies clung to polearms, hatchets, and crossbows with shaky limbs and bloodshot eyes. Most of them were earth ponies and unicorns—inhabitants of the town taking up arms to defend it, judging by their look, though Sparrow couldn’t tell if they had done so willingly or been coerced into it by the soldiers around her. Which, she noticed, seemed less impaired by malnourishment and sickness than their ground-bound cousins. Evidently it was the trained soldiers that were in the best condition; whether that was from maintained rations that came at the expense of the villagers, stricter hygiene practiced by the Legion, or a combination of both, it was clear that the legionaries holding the town still possessed the strength to defend it.

Chinook noticed it too, and though he kept a wary guard up against the legionaries surrounding them, his curiosity got the better of him. “What’s spreading here?” he asked the lanky mare escorting them. “Dysentery? Camp fever?”

The questions coming from a soldier of the Lost Legion made their escort bristle. “That is none of your business,” she spat, glaring daggers at him. “I’m not going to yap with a spy.”

“We’re messengers,” Sparrow insisted, and she slid between the mare and Chinook to try and intercept her ire. “If you don’t want to tell us anything, that’s fine. I just want to talk to your legate on Typhoon’s behalf. Then we can be out of your mane.” When the soldier’s eyes narrowed at her, Sparrow cracked an awkward, unsure smile. “But, uh, we can break the ice, though. My name’s Sparrow,” she said, and she paused to offer the soldier her hoof.

The soldier regarded it for a moment, scrutinizing it like it was a trap. There was also something else in her eyes, a peculiar furrowing of her brow at the name. “You have a pegasus name?” she finally asked, and her attention shifted back to Sparrow’s mismatched eyes with a cock of her head.

“Don’t you?” Sparrow quipped back.

That earned a tiny snort of amusement from the legionary, and she took Sparrow’s hoof in the feathers of her bladed wing for a shake, causing Sparrow to flinch as the featherknife at the tip glided past her fetlock. “Crane,” she said, giving Sparrow a curt nod.

“Sparrow and Crane? An odd flock if ever there was one,” Chinook mused from their side, and though Crane glared in her direction, it was the stallion behind her that abruptly seized her wrath.

“Her full name is Whooping Crane,” he told them, grinning when Crane bared her teeth at him. “We call her Whoop.”

“Shut it, Thermal!” Crane hissed at him, and then she frowned sharply at the two interlopers. “If you call me Whoop, it wouldn’t matter if you were Typhoon’s granddaughter, I’ll kill you.”

Sparrow held up a placating hoof, but she couldn’t help a little chuckle. “If I was her granddaughter I think I’d have less horn and more feathers… and I wouldn’t be wearing scraps for armor,” she said, and her magic tugged on the red cloth that hung from the quarter plate cuirass that offered a limited amount of protection to her neck and chest.

“Hmmph. Right.” At that, Crane beckoned with her head, and the group started moving again, deeper into Dry Fens. “But you must mean something to her if you’re traveling with her. So what are you, then? I don’t see why she would tie herself to the ground to foalsit a lost filly.”

“I’m not lost, and I’m not a filly, I’m sixteen,” Sparrow protested, and the downward curve on her muzzle sharpened when Crane snickered at the rebuke. “And we’re traveling together because I’m her squire.”

“Squire?” Crane glanced back at Sparrow and arched an eyebrow. “She’s the Commander of the Equestrian Legion, not some unicorn knight. Pegasi don’t squire.”

“Well, I’m following her around and she’s teaching me how to fight,” Sparrow said with a shrug. “What else would you call it?”

After a moment, Crane simply shrugged her shoulders mid-stride. “Squire it is, then. So, what makes you special enough to squire for one of the finest soldiers Cirra has ever known?”

This time it was Sparrow’s turn to give a shrug and an unsure sigh. “I… don’t know,” she admitted, earning a few confused looks from the pegasi around her. “She didn’t want to when I first met her in Boiling Springs. Even when I helped her find a wizard she was looking for she didn’t want anything to do with me. Then I attacked her with a sword and might have broken her nose with a rock…”

Crane gave her an incredulous look, actually pausing in shock, while Thermal looked mortified. But Chinook let an impressed whistle slip past his lips. “You drew blood on Typhoon?” he asked, and he patted Sparrow on the back. “Either she’s getting older than she looks or you’re some kind of prodigy. No wonder she took an interest in you after that!”

“If she’d actually been trying to fight back I don’t think I’d have gotten that lucky. But I guess that’s the luckiest nose I’ve ever broken in a fight,” Sparrow joked. “Lucky enough that she took me with her when she left Boiling Springs and has been trying to train me along the way. Though she mostly beats my flank around, at least I finally got some real Legion training the past few days.”

It took Sparrow a second to realize she made a mistake, but unfortunately by then, the defenders of Dry Fens were bristling, any curiosity or lightening of the atmosphere dashed away in a storm of hatred and mistrust. “So you went from studying under the Legion’s last mother to insulting its legacy?” Crane spat with an accusatory growl.

“No, I—!”

“Quiet!” the mare snapped, and the sharp edge to her voice made Sparrow flinch and her ears droop. “The only thing those traitors out there can teach you is how to ruin everything Hurricane and Typhoon stood for in the name of old Cirra. They’re no legionaries, they’re scourge that infests the Frontier while hiding behind the legacy of ponies better than them!”

Chinook raised his wings, the blades on their edges gleaming, and the pegasi surrounding him and Sparrow drew their weapons as the stallion snarled. “We don’t occupy towns and use the villagers as sick and starving pony shields!” he shouted at them. “You can’t beat us in the field, so you’re going to hide here until everypony who lives here is dead, is that it?”

“One more word out of your mouth, colt, and you can join the rest of your comrades in the fields under the sun!”

“Stop!” Sparrow shouted, and she hoisted the canvas-wrapped sword into the air to catch everypony’s attention. When she had it, she glowered at Chinook, then at Crane. “We’re here because Typhoon has a message for your legate. I can’t give it to him if we’re dead!”

Tense silence held over the group for several seconds, and the commotion had drawn the eyes of more than just the few pegasi escorting the interlopers into the town. Shadows watched from darkened windows and a few armored bodies in the street cast their eyes at the scene unfolding before them. At her side, Sparrow felt Chinook lightly brush against her shoulder as if to protect her, even though there would be nothing he could do should blades sing for blood.

Finally, Crane lowered her wings, and the rest of her squad did the same, though the tension remained in the air. “I would really like to know what Typhoon sees in Lost Winds’ band of murderers,” the armored mare said, “and I suppose I won’t find out if you’re dead.” Then she nodded to Thermal. “The colt sounds like one of the Lost Legion’s brainwashed idiots. He’s not worth the legate’s time.”

Chinook’s wings raised up again and he bared his teeth. “If you think I’ll just lay over and die—!”

“We take prisoners, colt,” Crane snapped at him. “You might not get much more than grass to eat, but it’s better than what you show our wounded. Consider yourself lucky.”

“No, he stays with me,” Sparrow insisted, and this time she stepped in front of Chinook, meeting Crane’s glare. “We came together so we’ll go together.”

“You have a relationship with Typhoon, and you have her sword. Your friend does not. You’re the only one worth the legate’s time. I won’t see it wasted by a pony who does nothing but swallow Lost Winds’ bullshit.” She waved her wing, and the rest of her companions stepped forward, wing blades ready should Chinook lash out at them. “He can wait here while you pass Typhoon’s message along, and so long as he doesn’t do anything stupid, he won’t be hurt.” She turned her head aside at Chinook. “I hope that was simple enough for you to understand, colt.”

The fiery young soldier bared his teeth, but his gaze drifted to Sparrow. “Sparrow?” he asked, a little bit of worry creeping into her name.

Sparrow looked to Crane, and when Crane nodded at her, she passed that assurance back to her friend. “Just… don’t start any fights, okay? I’m not leaving without you.”

Reluctantly, Chinook lowered his guard and tucked his wings back against his sides. “Alright, fine. But if you don’t come get me, I’ll come get you.”

Thermal let out a bark of laughter and shepherded Chinook away with an outstretched wing. “Yeah, right. You so much as preen a feather without asking us first and somepony’ll put an arrow in you.” Then he saluted Crane. “We’ll take him to the edge of town, Whoop. Sit him ten paces in front of Sure Shot just in case.”

As they led him away, Sparrow could only look on and frown. She wanted to protest, but knew there was no point. She could only hope that Crane was telling the truth, and that Chinook wouldn’t try something stupid. She didn’t want to see him dead because he was concerned for her, even if he had pulled his sword on her on the road to Dry Fens not all that long ago.

Crane had little sympathy, and after she finished grousing to herself over her nickname, she started walking again. “Come on, let’s not dawdle. I’ve got a very busy day planned of sitting on a cloud and sticking my sword through any more idiots the Lost Legion sends my way.”

“Sorry to interrupt it, then…” Sparrow muttered, falling in behind the pegasus. Hopefully, if the legate was actually receptive to Typhoon’s message, then there wouldn’t be a need for that anymore.

Their conversation soured, Sparrow didn’t put any effort into attempting to resurrect it, instead shifting her attention to thinking about how she was going to word Typhoon’s offer to meet into something convincing for the defending legion’s legate. She knew that if she failed to secure the legate’s interest, a lot of ponies were going to die very soon. If there was no peace, then the Lost Legion would descend on Dry Fens with several newly trained and equipped centuries of legionaries, and though the defenses of the town were formidable, it was clear the sickness spreading here was sapping the defenders’ strength. Negotiations now were the last chance the defenders had to secure peace from a position of power; wait too long, and with the Lost Legion on the ascendancy and Dry Fens on the decline, and the disparity would be far too much to overcome for peace with honor.

As she thought, she took the time to look around Dry Fens and see if she could find any more evidence of the state of the defenders’ forces to add to her argument. Though the town was just a couple of dirt streets that intersected at a central point, there was a lot of activity going on as the centerpiece of the legion’s defense, and there were details that Sparrow hadn’t been able to notice when she first surveyed the town from afar. The thatching pulled off of the roofs to stop the Lost Legion from setting fires to the buildings had been repurposed into sleeping mats for the defenders and cots for the sick and wounded; given that it was the middle of the day, there were much, much more of the latter than the former. Villagers and medics shuffled between moaning wounded warriors, bringing water and scraps of food to try and help them fight off sickness and survive their injuries. Even still, it seemed like a losing battle. Sparrow saw several ponies chewing on the dried-out thatching for want of something to eat, and gaunt, pockmarked, and skeletal bodies of ponies suffering from camp fever stared out into the streets as they shivered in their sickness.

In the center of the town, the defenders at least looked like they had a stronger position to hold. Numerous bastions and watch posts of shaped clouds hovered over the city in endless vigil, and supplies had been neatly arranged and clustered around the small bell post in the center of the clearing. The defenders had pitched a few tents around those supplies, and given their size, they were likely command tents or enclosed infirmaries. There weren’t many sleeping tents like the besieging legion in Camp Stratopolis had, but when Sparrow looked up, she saw several broad strokes of cloud that didn’t seem to move with the winds pushing the rest of the white fluff around. The defending pegasi had likely pitched their camp in the sky, isolating them from the disease spreading in Dry Fens, while the earth pony and unicorn defenders had to sleep in the husks of their homes.

Crane shot Sparrow a glance as she realized the unicorn’s mismatched eyes were wandering over the town and huffed to herself. “I should have put a blindfold on you,” she grumbled, and she flicked Sparrow’s nose with a wingtip to get her attention as she broke off toward one of the tents. “I hope you realize you’re only leaving here if the legate agrees to it. You’ve seen too much that you could tell those traitors in the woods.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sparrow said with a shrug, her eyes wandering over a line of hungry villagers and soldiers clutching bowls as they waited to get what meager rations they had left. At the very least, they had access to all the water they wanted, as she saw a pair of legionaries pulling off pieces of a captured cloud and using a touch of pegasus magic to condense it into water in wooden cups. “But if I don’t come back, Typhoon will come looking for me. And if she has to come here, Lost Winds will follow with his army.”

“Then we’ll be ready to meet them,” Crane said, and she gave a quick flick of her wing to the pair of sentries standing guard outside of the tent before stepping inside. Sparrow followed her, grimacing at the hostile glances the sentries spared her before she could slip into the shadows within.

The tent was surprisingly warm inside with a little brazier burning in one corner, and the sweet smell of smoke masked another one that danced at the tip of Sparrow’s nose. As Sparrow’s eyes adjusted to the flickering light, her first thought was how similar this tent looked to Legate Winds’ tent in Camp Stratopolis. The far end held a sleeping quarters and some simple possessions, and a table covered with maps and papers filled the rest of the tent. The difference here was the presence of a crude chair at the opposite end of the table and a aging stallion sitting in it, hunched over a scroll as he strained to read in the darkness. When he lifted his head to see who had entered, the firelight lit the contours of his cheeks and muzzle, and though the flesh was thinning and the bones pushed against the skin, Sparrow suddenly froze in place, her right foreleg still held in the air mid-stride.

“Sir, we found this mare wandering near Dry Fens with another soldier of Lost’s Legion,” Crane informed the legate. “She claims she has a message from Commander Typhoon, and she has the Commander’s sword with her for proof.”

Then, turning to Sparrow, she gestured to the table. “Why don’t you show Legate Singing Sparrow what you’ve got?”

Comments

[RoboRed]

That conversation very nearly got out of salvageable control.

[CopperTop]

Oh, snap! I might have to reread a chapter or two to be sure; but I think Sparrow just found her pops again. Oof...