Roanan the Cimmarean joins forces with Equilonia to tame the savage north!
Roanan the Cimmareian aids a force of Equilonians as they fight against the Jacks of the north. Join her as she trains, leads and fights beside her soldiers against enemies, both natural and otherwise.
Note: This was originally published as a chapter of the Roanan the Cimmareian story collection, but due to low readership, I've decided to break the collection up into its component stories to try to get more folks to read it. I know this is against the rules and I hope that I'll get a pass because I'm not publishing a chapter of a story as a separate story here, the original had two short stories and I'm just publishing one on its own. And it would be weird to have one story with two short stories and all the others as one shots.
Long before the coming of the alicorns and the founding of Equestria, Equilonia was a mighty nation, civilized and strong, with many subject states paying her tribute, an empire in all but name. It was on the day of the birth of the new prince that a black-maned mare from the barbaric north, a giant among ponykind, first crossed the border from the savage north in search of loot and war. A she-wolf of Cimmareia, where Roanan stepped, wise ponies made way. Her blood sang to her of battles to be fought, her bones ached to carry the weight of axe and shield into combat.
Roanan was no simple savage. Cimmareia was a poor land, a place of mists and gloomy forests where dead gods scowled with dour meins upon the ponies scraping a meager living from the hard rock, but it was a land that birthed many a hard-sinewed bravo. Those with ambition and imagination would seek to exploit what opportunities may be at hoof in the soft lands of the south or the wild icy madness of the far north. Roanan had already been more of battle and death than many a chieftan, all before her twentieth year, and yet the war-hunger in her breast was not satisfied.
______
Captain Ironshoe looked at the requisition forms he was sending up the chain, asking for more weapons, more recruits, and more stores so he could press his momentary advantage against the Jackish tribes that crowded Equilonia's northern border. There was an opportunity now; a blood feud between the Mac Muir and the Brun Bruin tribes. One blood-crazed mule had murdered another and so thousands must fight one another and die; such is the life of a Jack. Ironshoe had no hopes for any response, not realistically. This outpost was a dead-end; his dreams for glory doomed when his father fell from grace at court. His troops were the castoffs and leavings of better connected officers, and though he did his best to train them, they would eventually fall to the bloody axe of a maddened Jack raider.
"Captain! We have a visitor!" Ironshoe was astounded.
"By all means! Prepare the imperial suite for our guest and summon the chef!" The corporal chuckled at his commander's humor; of all the prick officers he'd had the misfortune to serve under, this one was the least prickish. "What manner of madpony would visit this pile of pustular pigshit?" The dark tan pony absently ran a hoof through his blue mane. His tail was cropped short, victim of a Jackish waraxe when he was serving his lieutenantcy, and he kept it that way as a reminder.
"A Cimmareian, by the gods!" laughed the corporal.
"No wonder! Cimmareia makes this place look like a garden spot! Let me put my maps up, corp." He rolled up a few sketches he had of the frontier and stuffed them in his hooflocker, and stood up to his full, intimidating height.
The mare who entered topped him by half a head. She was a dark blue roan with a black, square cut mane and blue eyes that were almost molten. Her body was sheathed in bands of muscle that rippled like a panther's when she moved. She was covered with numerous small scars, some of them recent, and on her flank she bore the cutie mark of a bloody sword.
He recovered his aplomb quickly. "Well met, stranger. I am Captain Ironshoe. Welcome to Fort Pigshit!" He grinned and put out a hoof.
She did not laugh nor crack a smile, though he thought he saw a glimmer in those burning blue flames. She did, however, meet his hoof with hers. "I am Roanan. In Cimmareia, even our pigshit piles are in more defensible places than this bundle of kindling." Then she did crack a smile, but only a small one.
"Indeed, I look forward to the day when I may lead my valiant troops against a Cimmarean pig farmer and conquer a proper pile of pigshit, but for now, this must do." Roanan laughed at that.
"You are more entertaining than other Equilonean officers I have met. But most of them were dead, after all." Then she roared at her own joke and especially the look on Ironshoe's face, her laugh like a lion facing down a pack of jackals.
"Well Roanan, allow me to offer you what hospitality I may. You can have a meal with the troops and there is an empty sergeant's room with a lock on the door. All stallions here, I'm afraid, though it looks to me that... well, they'd be madder than Stirrupian sand lice to try anything. Now, sit with me for a bit and enjoy some of this fine brandy," he held out a skein of rotgut, "and tell me about what you've seen on the trail."
She sat on a bench with him and took a mighty pull of the harsh stuff, relishing the burning running down her throat. "Ah! My thanks; this brandy is horrible! I traveled from the north, down the sea road. Normally I would have taken to the swamps but Donkan Mac Muir has slain Blue Brun Bruin after the Jackish knave cheated in a drinking contest, and so now the road is clear of large bands of reavers, at least until the blood debt is settled. I was able to whet my blade a few times, however, on those Jacks foolish enough to come against me."
Ironshoe slammed his hoof down on the small table. "Damn! I knew it! If I could mount an expedition with a decent force, I could take the old fortress at the rivermouth. It is made of good stone and commands the bridge. Fifty ponies with bows in there could fight off a thousand Jacks if they were supplied by the sea! The Jacks, if they even thought to defend it, would at best be armed with spears, and they could not survive a siege. But I have only a hundred-odd castoffs from the lowest ranked outfits. Old swaybacks, colts with lips still wet from their matron's teats, the best ones I have are the cripples; at least they have seen battle!"
"That corporal who brought me in here from the gatehouse, Jaghoof, he seems likely enough." Roanan took another swig and passed the foul liquor to the captain.
"He is at that, for all that he has a glass eye and he's an insubordinate bastard who couldn't keep straight with any other officer. But I don't mind him, and he's hoofy with bow, spear and sword, that one. I'd rate him my master of arms if I could, but there's sergeants senior to him who aren't worth a sack of assholes and anyway, I need him to clerk for me. Sergeant Stoutshanks does well enough for a pony with three legs and no imagination; he's the best of a bad bunch at any rate, not a sadist or an idiot."
"Captain, I was wondering..." her face and voice softened and she smiled at him, seeming to warm up a bit. "Maybe I don't need to stay in that sergeant's room. It's been a while since I've taken a stallion, and I find I can talk to you. You might even survive the experience." He looked at her again. Under the dirt and grime of the road, while she'd never be pretty, and scars aside, she was a handsome mare with high cheekbones, fascinating eyes and a glossy mane. Not an ounce of fat on her body; she'd probably buck him to death given half a chance. He'd never been attracted to muscular females, but there was something about this one; he found that he could talk to her too. But...
"Roanan, if I was not the Captain of these ponies, in this, the plothole of Equilonia, I would be delighted. You are, however, the only mare within a hundred miles who isn't a Jenny, and we have a pretty severe morale problem as it is. If the Captain were to cover the only available mare... I must respectfully decline your tempting offer." He bowed his head to her, in his heart truly regretting the necessity.
Her eyes narrowed. "Not many stallions would dare refuse me. Tell me, if your command were surrounded, heavily outnumbered and on death ground, what would you do?"
"Attack!" he cried, without hesitation. She smiled.
"You, Captain, are a good leader. I could serve under you, and not in the capacity we were talking about earlier. Take me on as your mistress-at-arms at the rate of sergeant, and I'll train your ponies to kill Jacks. Then we can go take your castle. Tell me, how many Jacks have you slain?"
He thought about it for a moment. "Six I know are dead, and four that probably died of their wounds. That doesn't count the ones I crippled who were slain by others. Call it ten then."
"I have slain that many and three hundred more, Ironshoe. Do you believe me?"
It seemed a ridiculous boast, but something in her eyes made him hesitate to name it so. "I want to believe you, but I find it difficult. Perhaps Cimmareans are not good with arithmetic?"
"We count ears well enough." Her grin was savage and he smiled back.
"Very well. Defeat Corporal Jaghoof with staves and I will rate you at Sergeant and make you my mistress-at-arms. After that, we shall see what you can make of this band of misfits. Tomorrow?" He pulled at the grisly skein, grimacing at the bite of the alcohol.
"Tomorrow." She put out her hoof and he met it with his.
_______
Deep within the swamp to the north, a black unicorn, or something like it, chanted foul syllables under a crescent moon. She cackled as shadows seemed to gather before her, her twisted horn dancing with crimson and green. She reached into a bag and drew forth the still-beating heart of a Jack chieftan and cast it into the midst of the wrenching darkness that sought to warp the eye that followed it. "Yoth! Aghtrach! Kshnthyr! Maeg!" Her horn blazed and the darkness solidified. It rose before her, a pile of rotting vegetation twice the height of a pony with four stout legs, a gaping maw and eyes that seemed doorways into madness. It roared and a nauseating stench rolled across the scene. The unicornoid witch gibbered and capered. "My son! My son!"
_______
Corporal Jaghoof whirled his staff, warming up his forelegs. From what he was told, the odds were running three to one, against him. Looking at his opponent, he thought that highly optimistic. In the daylight, with the grime of the road washed off, she was an exceptionally healthy looking specimen of marehood, just half again as large as any mare he'd ever seen, and broad in comparison. Her forelegs were more heavily muscled than his rear legs were. He swallowed and planned his fight. Perhaps with that heavy musculature, she'll be slow, but from the near-perfect balance of her stance, he highly doubted it. This one was a slayer to be reckoned with. That left only one arrow in his quiver; trickery.
She saluted him and he returned the gesture, settling into what he hoped looked like an imperfect defensive rearing stance, one that would encourage her to attack low on the right side. The remainder of the garrison watched intently. She did strike low on the right, attacking with the staff in her mouth to have greater mobility, gods she's fast! his staff defense deliberately weak, allowing the strike through, but he leaned back just enough so that the wind of the strike tickled the coat of his rear leg as he riposted straight at her chin. She danced back though, not off balance as he'd hoped, either suspicious of his defense or just unreasonably quick. Or both, he thought glumly. Better go with Plan B.
He danced to the right, near the carts, fending off two lightning strikes that numbed his hooves. She saw that he had moved too close to one of the carts, and thought that he'd made a mistake; now he could only dodge to the left, or perhaps he intended to duck under the cart, though that would be a losing tactic. She rose up on her hind legs to close with her staff in her forelegs, intending to wear him down with her greater strength and endurance.
His hoof plunged into the hay in the cart and emerged with a glass vial, which he immediately threw to break at her feet. Treachery! she thought, her legs going out from under her as the oil slicked the cobblestoned courtyard. There was a great shout from the stallions of the garrison as Jaghoof leaped, his staff striking to take her solidly on her skull, but even stunned, she rolled with the strike and it glanced off.
She let go of the staff with her left hoof and whipped it around with her right to take him in the legs when he leaped past her, catching him a fell blow to the ankle. He went down with a grimace, rising as she did, shaking her head. He took a properly balanced posture, readying himself for a grim stand. She stepped in and her staff was a whirling blur. He blocked a dozen attacks successfully before one snuck through, then another and another, striking him on the upper forelegs and the shins, the pain causing him to slow.
Her blood was now warmed up. With a great cry, she redoubled the strength and speed of her attacks and his eyes went wide with dismay, as three strikes in a row took him in the shoulders and a last one creased his brow, sending him senseless to the ground.
Jaghoof came to when a pail of water was thrown in his face. He moaned, his head feeling split wide open, his shoulders and shins aching and by all useless little gods that ankle! Roanan reached a hoof down to lift him and he did his best to grin but he feared he looked like he was displaying a death-mask rictus. "Well struck, Roanan."
She grinned back at him. "Well done, yourself! You secreted that oil there last night, did you not?"
"Yes I did, sergeant. Congratulations."
"You did very well indeed, Jaghoof. That was the best fight I've had in almost a year. Just one thing though." She gestured at her eye. His hoof flew up and felt the empty socket.
"Shit! Nopony move!"
_______
Ioan Mac Farry watched from the top of the stone house. Why his father bade him to do so, he did not know. Jacks were not meant for the stone houses, not even these that stood like mountains. Jacks were not made to kill ponies from a distance with rocks or spears; one had to look into the eyes of one's opponent when they were dying to be able to eat their soul when you ate their heart. Nothing was as good as the astonishment on a pony's face as he realizes that today is the day, and Ioan Mac Farry is my slayer.
There was a shape moving in the edge of the woods near the bridge. Or two shapes. Perhaps an adult and a foal, looking at the relative sizes of the two. He called down to his eight brothers in the cruelly accented Jackish tongue, and they went forward to investigate. The light of magic sizzled, killing several of his brothers, but worse, illuminating the nightmare shape that bit the head off of Arran Mac Farry and started chewing.
Ioan shrieked and threw himself from the tower at the sight.
"Closer! Cover the pony on your left with your shield and the one on your right with your sword!" The ten recruits shuffled closer together and went down in a tangle of limbs as Roanan sighed. "Congratulations, you've set a new standard for failure! Now GET UP! Form a line and march in step! That means you call the step, got it? And who calls the step? You all do! Left forehoof first; let's see if we can march from one end of the courtyard to the other without killing ourselves! Ready! March!"
______
River Wash looked up at the giantess and swallowed. Join the army, get out of the slums, see the world, adventure, riches, mares... "Head!" Her wooden sword whipped in a direct overhead strike and he threw his sword up to parry. His sword hoof buckled and the blade went flying, and he was down for what seemed like the tenth time with yet another lump on his dome. "Do you want to die? Is that it, River Wash? The first Jack that catches you outside the fort will crush your head and lick your brains off his axe!" He moaned and nodded; it seemed like a viable alternative at the moment.
"Get up; I just tapped you, you puling infant!" He pulled himself up as she went to his side. "Now, block your head!" He threw his hoof up in a cross-block parry, as he had been taught. "Your angle is all wrong; it gives you a weak block. You need to be perpendicular to the attack on the vertical plane and slope your sword so that the attack will glance off to the right. You aren't trying to stop the attack, just direct it somewhere other than your head, got it?" She demonstrated, showing that her block was high above her head, the sword like an extension of her bent elbow. "We fight defensively against Jacks because they have no defense; they only attack. They are stupidly brave and predictable. You block their first attack and kill them before their second. You should be in a line with your fellows, so you will be directing a Jackish weapon into your mate's shield, and then cutting off the foreleg or whatever presents itself while they are recovering. But you may find yourself isolated, in which case you will need to learn how to move as well. So, don't be afraid to move your body. Keep your shield or your blade between you and your foe at all times."
She backed off. "Head!" The wooden sword whipped down. River Wash threw his block up, and leaned into it as Roanan had, so that his entire body was receiving the force of the stroke. Her sword crashed into his sloping blade and flew to his right. He blinked, then fell as she knocked the wind out of him with a blow to his ribs. "Better! But when we block our foe's strike, do we stand there congratulating ourselves? No! We attack!" She pulled up the grinning, wheezing recruit. "Again!"
Captain Ironshoe pursed his lips and watched as the rest of River Wash's squad showed something he hadn't seen before. Eagerness.
______
Jaghoof trotted past the barracks on the way to the mess hall when Roanan came around the corner suddenly. He ran into her and bounced off, falling and scattering papers in the dirt.
"Ha! Watch where you are going, corporal!" She hauled him up and then set about helping him with collecting the papers. "Bah, who fights wars with papers anyway? I suppose you could kill your foe with papercuts, though that seems more effective as an instrument of torture than a weapon."
He grinned as she deposited the notes in the crook of his foreleg. "Then I suppose that makes me the head torturer! And I can stab a hundred Jacks to death with my quill! Have at you!" He took a quill feather from his satchel and stuck it under her chin, tickling. She giggled, an incongruously feminine sound from the throat of this great slayer. The blue fires of her eyes burned as she looked at him.
"My room is here," she said motioning to the sergeant's billet with her chin. "Come with me." Her voice was the purr of a lioness.
He briefly considered fleeing for his life. She was attractive in a somewhat frightening way, but he was concerned what might happen in the throes of her passion. Hells, you only live once! "So you are not one of those warmares of legend, who only give themselves to a stallion who can best them in battle?" He grinned at her as she opened the door.
"I have no wish to be celibate, Jaghoof!" She smiled and the fires in her eyes danced as she pushed him inside. "Now, have at you!"
______
The training continued apace for two weeks, and the soldiers' confidence improved. They learned how to march together, how to maneuver, how to fight properly in formation and when alone. They learned how to communicate in the chaos of battle and most importantly, they learned to trust one another and their leaders. Even the cynical sergeants learned to take some pride in the unit, with the exception of Shorn Fetlock, a sour and cruel old beancounter, who had managed to hide in a supply room for most of his career. He experienced a "training accident" and was sent back to Equilonia in a supply cart with two broken forelegs. Morale among the other noncoms improved considerably after that incident.
"Roanan, walk with me, please." The Captain walked the perimeter of the fort with her, discussing training, morale and the state of readiness. "You have worked wonders with these ponies, even Jaghoof. Why, I saw him smiling and humming to himself this morning!" He grinned, knowing the reason for the corporal's state of morale.
"He is a good fellow, and he snores fit to frighten cave bears, so that's also in his favor." Roanan paced next to Captain Ironshoe like a caged panther. He could tell that already she was tired of the dubious comforts of Fort Pigshit, and yearned to camp in the midst of her foes. All to the better.
"It will be a new moon in four nights, and the Jacks will end their blood feud and return to their familiar haunts. Are the troops ready, Roanan?"
"Not to fight a large force of Jacks in the field, no, but they could fight small bands and take a weakly defended fort. And then hold it, after. Do we march?" Her voice was eager.
"On the morrow. I will send word south to send a ship to the river fortress and look for the standard of Equilonia. If it flies, they are to bring supplies and fresh troops and take off our wounded. If it does not, they are to return with word of our heroic deaths."
She nodded, satisfied. "And what of Fort Pigshit? We cannot spare a garrison to defend it."
"Quite. We do what I've wanted to do since I first set hoof here." He turned to her, his smile wide under his muzzle. "We burn it!"
______
As the company made it to the Sea Road, the smoke from the burning wood fort rose high into the sky. Jacks in the woods nearby looked at the pyre and wondered what clan had finally destroyed the forlorn garrison. Ironshoe's soldiers marched north, with death all around them, singing songs of blood and war.
The tower was still a half day's march from the tower when the scout came running. "Jacks! A warband, seventy or more! They are athwart the road and march south." The lightly armed pony was breathing hard as he spoke to the Captain.
"Were you seen?" Ironshoe looked to the north speculatively.
"I don't know sir, but even if not, they'll have seen my tracks by now. They'll know that one shod as I has been on the road, and no Jack!" The captain nodded and handed the scout a silver piece for a job well done. "Go scout our flanks and rear, then report back here. We will prepare a stand upon yon hillock. Sergeants, attend me!"
Five noncoms and Roanan ranged around the Captain. "Give me your ears first and then your opinions." They all nodded, happy to be given the chance to speak to the young leader. "I want two sections on the hilltop, two sections behind the ridge on either side and one in reserve. The two on the hilltop will have to hold long enough for our counterattack. They are to arm with bows, shields and short spears to enrage the Jacks and make them charge up, straight at them, and I hope they will spread out to surround the hill. When they crest, two sections with flank-mounted long spears will charge in columns and the reserve section will be committed wherever needed. They may flee if they think they are outnumbered and I want no word of our approach to any bands that may be behind them. Any comments?"
"Have Roanan command the reserve section, sir." Stoutshanks fiddled with the shield which had been bound to his stump. "They'll be the finishers that'll break 'em and lead the pursuit."
The Captain's eyebrows rose and he nodded. "Good idea." Didn't know you had it in you, old pony. Anything else?"
There were mutters about it being a sound plan, so Ironshoe stamped his foot. "That's it then. Redblade, Stonehammer, get your sections to the hilltop and sort them out. I'll join you when I get the other two sections sorted out. We have ten minutes at most, so move!"
The company trotted towards the rise, with three sections going over the top and two sections going one to each side of the hillock. Roanan's section continued down the back of the rise to take the reserve position, but she halted at the top to survey the ground. By her eye, good archers would fire four, or possibly five arrows at the Jacks before they came to grips, This crew might manage two or perhaps three. Still, that should tell for a dozen of the ill-armored marauders. She continued down the back slope to take her place at the front of the reserves, hidden behind shrubs in a gully.
"Are you ponies ready for a fight!? Are you ready to smell hot blood and see your enemy's guts spilled on the battlefield? Are you ready to stretch your foe out on the grass and watch the life leave his eyes!?" There was a growl of assent from thirty throats. Good. "Stand ready then, we'll have our chance soon." She grinned, her blood running hot under her skin. She saw Ironshoe speaking again with the scout. The scout ran to her as Ironshoe galloped to the hill.
"Roanan, I have seen no sign of Jacks to our south or our flanks. The Captain says he will signal, but if you feel the moment is right, he trusts your instincts." The barbarian nodded.
"They come!" cried somepony from the hilltop. Sixty bows sang and faint cries of pain could be heard from across the field. The waiting begins! Bring them, Chrome, bring them here so we may smite them! That was as close to a prayer as the white-socked pony goddess ever heard from Roanan, while brooding in her mountain. The song of the bowstrings was heard again, a ragged chorus this time, and high shrieks replied in counterpoint, mixed in with the savage war whoops of the bestial foe. Most of the archers got in a third shot, and as they did, death cries sounded from just over the crest, and bows were thrown down as shields and spears were raised. Then the Jacks were on them.
Roanan and the ninety others who laid in wait, watched as the tide of savage fury broke around the hillock like a wave upon a sea rock, blood and limbs flying like the foam spray, the shouts of the killing and the cries of the killed, the roar of the surf. Here, an Equilonean cried as a savage axe slashed and hacked his flesh, bit deeply into his shoulder, and forced him down under the scrum. There, a Jack's head flew high above the fray, an arc of blood describing the physics which separated it from its owner.
The wings of the mob came about the base of the hill. The villains were so focused on their prey, they did not notice the steel shod foeponies who now waited on their flanks. "Flankers!" cried the Captain from the midst of the fray and a horn blew a single defiant blast. Recruits and old ponies though they were, when the flanking sections burst from their hides, lances gleaming, throwing themselves at the Jacks with wild abandon, it looked to the savages like the royal guard had been laying in ambush for them. Jacks turned with wild eyes full of fear and despair in their hearts, and died by the dozens as spears braced on the sides of ponies with leather straps, guided by straps wrapped around shafts and held in their mouths, burst their rib cages, pinned their flanks to the ground, opened arteries and pierced their hearts.
A brutal cheer rose from the soldiers on the hill as the Jack wave rolled back from the hillock, leaving the slopes littered with the flotsam of dead and dying tribesmules. The soldiers dropped their lances and drew their swords, closing ranks in a defensive posture. The Jacks would not pull back, would not reform. They lacked the knowledge of war.
Then another horn blew, a low, mournful cry, and the Jacks drew back. What now, by Chrome!? "Wait here!" Roanan yelled to one of the corporals, and she sprinted to the top of the mount, over the bodies of forty Jacks and some eight or nine Equiloneans. She galloped next to Captain Ironhooves, who stood by Jaghoof, as both stared to the north. Her blue eyes tracked over the field, strewn with another thirty Jacks riddled with arrows, to the huddled band of thirty savages, and then behind them. They had but fought the van. The main body had arrived, three hundred strong or more, with an old and wily war chief in their center. "Chrome's puckered arsehole!" cried the barbarian.
Jaghoof looked to Roanan. "It will be as good to die here as anywhere else. At least I die in good company."
She grinned at him. "We will make such an ending as the Jacks will sing of for generations!"
The Captain looked at them, then down the hill. "Why do they stand by? They do not attack immediately; that is not their way. Perhaps they have tried us and found us too tough a nut to be worth the cracking?"
Roanan grunted. "That ancient there; I've never seen a Jack live to be grey before."
The ancient in question strode boldly forward, through his vanguard, which divided to admit him. He paused to speak with one who may have led the forward body, stopping to pat him on the neck, perhaps consoling him for his losses. It was hard for Roanan to fathom; a Jack who showed compassion to an underling? Then the elder turned and marched boldly forward. He got within bow range and kept striding.
A bow creaked, but Roanan put her hoof up, and the archer relaxed. "He comes to treat with us, by the gods!"
He was close enough now to see the scars upon his thick face, the sloped brow over black eyes gleaming like diamonds, the long brown ears, one chopped short by an axe many ages ago. His mouth was cut, leaving him with a permanent grimace. For a Jack, he was exceedingly tall, and there was indeed gray in his black mane. Talismans and pendants adorned his powerful and scarred breast and there was something about him, a form of wisdom perhaps. The thought of the Jacks being led by such a one tempted Ironshoe to order an attack, lest he become the Jack king and lead his mules to burn the whole northern border, even though that assured their destruction.
"Equilonians! And a Cimmerian! Ha! A wolf among the sheep!" His Equilonian was barbaric, but passable. He looked down at the bodies all about him. "Rams, perhaps." He gave a small nod of his head to Ironshoe. "What madness brings you north, outside of your stone houses? Did you have a sudden urge to meet death?"
The Captain looked at Roanan and shrugged. "We are soldiers, and we have our orders!"
"Well, fortune smiles on you and your orders, Equilonian. You fight passably well, and I am near late for the new moon. I do not wish to lose a hundred tribesmules to slay you when I shall need them to slay the Mac Muirs. The Whytebruins shall return this way with Donal Mac Muir's head leading us and a hundred slaves in five days time. If Onager Whytebruin finds you here," he gestured to himself with his hoof, "then shall you die. But for now, we march west. Stay on your hill, enjoy it. Bury your dead and waste their meat, and drink to their spirits as is your custom. Then march south and live, or march north and die, I do not care which. Just tell me, what do you seek so far away from your warm halls?"
The Captain only hesitated for a second. "You will find us in the tower at the river mouth, if you wish to meet us then."
"The tall stone house? Where the river meets the sea? Ha! Ha ha ha!" He chortled merrily, then cried back to his folk something in Jackish. The band laughed heartily. "Oh, Equilonean, you are most welcome to that pile of stones. Enjoy the taking of it. I assure you, you will find no Jacks there to oppose you. I'll see you in hell some day, southerner. But you, Cimmerian mare, your blood boils for battle! Why stay you with these milk-breathed colts and old, broken stallions? Come with us. You'll have a belly full of blood, slaughtering Mac Muirs. Then you can join us in the north as we raid those bastard pegasi in Hayperboria! There is rich loot there if you know where to look!"
"Whytebruin, I find that I am with ponies among whom I would not mind dying. That is not a thing to the thrown over easily, even for such a grand promise as yours." The Jack nodded.
"Well said. Well then, southron," he addressed Ironshoe, "if I find you in your stone house, I will not assail you as long as you leave us unmolested on the bridge north. We have no wish to raid in the south; our only cause here is one of vengeance." The northern Jacks must be of better stock than their southern, degenerate cousins, thought Roanan. "We will march on." He waved to the right and his warband stared moving, giving the Equilonians a wide berth, pausing only for the vanguard to grab their own dead and load them on wagons drawn by the main body. Wagons! There is no end to wonders today! The chief nodded, gave one last grin to Roanan, and then turned to join his band on their murderous journey. In ten minutes they were gone.
Corporal Jaghoof stared after the band. "Did we win?"
Ronan barked a short laugh. "We lived. That's all that matters. That was no Jack like I've ever seen or heard of."
The Captain nodded, then addressed the troops. "Gather the dead and build them a cairn. Bind your wounds and eat. Then we go north. I wonder though, why he seemed so amused that we sought the tower."
Roanan wondered too, and would have shivered as the cold wind blew, if she were capable of fear.
Their twelve dead buried with honor under a pile of stone, their wounds bound, the company continued up the road. "Roanan, walk with me!" Captain Ironshoe walked at the front with his clerk and his mistress-at-arms, the Cimmareian warmare who had transformed his command from a band of misfits and outcasts to an effective fighting force. "Tell me, how do you think the lads did today?"
"Very well indeed, for their first battle. Had that been just the vanguard, and fighting like the southern Jacks we know, we would have slain the remainder with no further losses, I should think. However, Onager Whytebruin is no mere Jack warleader. He did you honor this day, and he has given me cause to wonder about what other surprises there may be in the savage lands northward."
The captain nodded. "I wonder though, what was meant by the laughter when I spoke of taking the tower. He said there would be no Jacks there. What if there is something else?" He pursed his lips thoughftully.
______
The witch rummaged through rotten boxes, cleared shelves of tomes that disintegrated to shreds and dust when they struck the floor of the tower library. "It is here, my son! Here somewhere!" The horrific, hulking pile of stinking vegetation did not move, and made no sound. It waited patiently while its mistress searched.
"Ha! Ah ha!" Her hoof struck an iron ring set in the floor, under a pile of rotten old cloth. Her horn glowed and the stuff burned, leaving behind piles of ash, which she cleared away with a breeze, summoned by a thought. She grinned, capered madly, danced and sang nonsense syllables. Then she stopped, and reached down to pull the ring, and lift the stone out of the floor to which it was attached. It would not budge. She grunted, and her horn glowed.
The ring sat there inert.
"What? Star iron? No! Nooooo!!!!" The witch howled in frustration, then she looked at her nightmarish summoning. "My son! Come here, and raise this stone for your poor old mother!"
The creature did as it was bid, shuffling towards the cleared space, leaving behind a trail of damp, fetid filth as it did. But when it reached for the ring, it paused, then backed away as though repulsed.
"My child, raise this stone!" The vegetative mass again reached forward, but this time it cried out in a horrible roar snatching its limb back as though it were burned.
"You cannot touch the star iron, my son, you are a creature of magic!" She keened her frustration, then bent over and put her hoof to it once more. She grunted and pulled, but the stone would not budge. "Ah! It is too heavy for me to raise!" She swore horrible and dark oaths in tongues that were never meant to be spoken by ponykind. There must be a way! There must!
______
The troop reached the river mouth, where the high hills had been cut into by an ancient deluge, carving a rough path to the sea. Numerous cataracts and falls made the river unfordable, but somepony, perhaps an Equilonean king of old, had built a stout stone bridge, the south end of which was guarded by a high tower, the name of which has been long forgotten as this territory had fallen to the ebb and flow of barbarian invasions.
In the tower window above, a single candle burned. "What? So there is a resident in the tower? And one the Jacks did not or could not slay out of hand? What sort of pony might that be?" the Captain asked Roanan, half in wonder and half with worry.
"We will learn nothing standing here, Captain Ironshoe." The Cimmarean started to trudge up the winding path that, if the tower was defended by bowponies, would become a deathtrap for any foe foolish enough to dare a direct assault. The Captain looked back to his command and motioned them forward. The company advanced amid a clattering of armor and weapons.
They marched straight to the tower, with no sign of anypony save the mysterious occupant who burned a candle in the high window. Night was coming on as they reached the portcullis and found it raised, the door open and nopony in sight. Roanan felt a shiver of superstition climb her back, but steeled herself. She feared nothing but the nameless dread felt by all barbarians at the thought of unwholesome sorceries and dark summonings.
Ironhoof held her back from the gate, sending the scout in instead. The small pony, a Neighmedian who was an escaped slave, was not blamed for not realizing the force of Jacks they encountered was merely the vanguard of a much larger force. The thought of Jacks using screening forces was both novel and worrisome to the Captain; he hoped it wouldn't catch on.
The scout, who's name was Clipperhoof, crept cautiously inside, watching for traps and pitfalls. He was through the gatehouse and into the inner bailey when he signaled back to the Captain to bring in the rest. Ironhoof nodded at Roanan and with her at the lead, the main body entered, leaving two of the wounded ponies to guard the gates. The leaders looked up at the stair leading to the main keep. At the top, that gate too was yawning open. The scout scaled the steps with caution and quietly entered the hall of the tower. It was dark, so he lit a torch, and searched for any dangers that could imperil the unit; the place was bare, stripped of all things of value, a stone chamber with a hearth and nothing more.
"No sign of our host yet. He must be in the rooms above; let us go make ourselves known." The captain assigned one noncom to return to the gatehouse with a team to get the portcullis down and called on Sergeant Roughcoat to accompany him, Roanan and Jaghoof to the second level.
There were stairs along the circular interior wall that went up to a closed door. Faint light could be seen under the jam. The Captain looked at Roanan and shrugged. Then he knocked.
A soft feminine voice sounded from behind the door. "Visitors? How wonderful! Please come in!" Roanan's blue eyes narrowed to slits as Ironshoe opened the door. The speaker was revealed to be a unicorn with an alabaster coat and a golden mane, lovely and delicate, her movements full of grace and upon her serene features a smile of welcome under green, sparkling eyes. "My name is Wisdom Warmlight. I am sure you have many questions."
"Well, yes ma'am, I sort of do. I'm Captain Ironshoe, these are Roanan and Jaghoof, members of my unit, and what in the name of all the unnamed gods of kitchens and privies are you doing up here in this land of howling savages? The Captain looked at her, plainly astonished. Roanan grunted. Unicorns...
The unicorn nodded. "The savages are easily misled and frightened by magic, Captain Ironshoe, so I am in no danger. Any who are about would shun the tower, having seen terrible beasts and mighty spells being cast by dreadful sorcerers." She smiled and giggled prettily as the rank and file soldiers stared, enthralled. Captain Ironshoe himself was having a difficult time focusing on the interrogation.
"That's all very well, ma'am, but where are you from and why are you here?" He swallowed hard as he could not help gazing upon the gentle curve of her supple neck, the soft, creaminess of her pure, impossibly white coat, the flowing spun-gold softness of her immaculate mane.
"Captain, Roanan, Jaghoof, I am a seeker of knowledge, sent here from the Academy at Tureign to look for an artifact lost ten thousand moons ago. It is only under this moon that we have been able to locate it, and it is right here in this room! Imagine my frustration when I was unable to obtain it due to the type of protection guarding it. Fortune has smiled upon me, however, and brought you here, and I beg your aid in one small deed. Once I have gathered the relic, a small thing of value only to scholars such as inhabit the Academy, I assure you, I will be on my way and you may have this wonderful old tower all you yourself."
Jaghoof spoke first. "That would explain why the Jacks were laughing about us coming to the tower, if they thought there was a sorcerer here, performing dark magic." Roanan nodded, but was still suspicious of this unicorn.
"Well, Mage Warmlight, what is this service you require?" The Captain was smiling openly now, utterly charmed.
"Upon the floor, you see there, that iron ring? It is made of starmetal, and my magic cannot touch it." She sighed. "It is also quite beyond my ability to lift with my own strength. Surely yon brawny Cimmarean could raise the stone with one hoof."
"Roanan, would you please?" The Captain did not look at her while he spoke, he gazed at the enthralling enchantress.
"Sir, are you sure this is wise?" He nodded, a grin on his face. Roanan sighed. Stallions! She walked to the ring, and as she did, the mage followed closely, blessing all with her generous smile. Of the stallions, only Jaghoof didn't appear to be smitten. He looked at Roanan, and smiled broadly. Stallions! She grasped the ring in one hoof and pulled. The stone was set firmly, perhaps cemented, but there was a grinding sound and it popped free, leaving her holding the heavy ring and perhaps a hundred pound block of stone. The unicorn moved quickly to grab the contents of the hole, her black hoof and matted coat a blur... wait a minute!
Roanan looked in horror at the apparition before her and gagged as a terrible smell filled her nostrils. The fantastically beautiful unicorn was gone, replaced instead by a foul nag, black and grey with a matted coat, scrawny neck, a twisted black horn and crazed eyes, mismatched with one brown and one green. She looked like what might result if a Jack bred with a unicorn, and the spawn of such a union had been raised in Stirrupya among the nameless dark gods and demons. She leered at Roanan with yellow teeth as she placed what seemed to be a piece of tin carved with runes on a rawhide strip around her neck. "Thank you." Her once dulcet tones were a cruel rasp.
Roanan released her hold on the iron ring and the stone dropped to the floor, and all was as it was. The beautiful unicorn was wearing a small silver bell on a silver chain, smiling at her with earnest thanks. Chrome! "Ironshoe, Jaghoof! It's a glamour! She's not..." The unicorn frowned, then looked at the ring, comprehension dawning on its false features.
"Oh, the starmetal opened your eyes! Well, no matter, you have served your purpose." Roanan found herself paralyzed, her heart filled with a foul and polluted ice as a black glow shone from the unicorn's horn, the illusion falling away. The soldiers recoiled from the suddenly hideous nag. A wretched stench filled the room; how could we have missed it? wondered Roanan. It was as though they were in the midst of a foetid bog.
Captain Ironshoe recovered first and drew his blade with great speed, whipping it across the witch's neck. It bounced off like he had struck an iron statue. "Oh, yes, thank you Roanan, for this little bauble." She grinned hideously. "You could strike me all day with your weapons and not a one would scratch me. I don't even have to kill you, and you have been of service to me... but my son has to eat. Come meet our guests, my child!" she called, as swords and spears bounded off her flesh.
There was another staircase that led to the tower roof. Ronan shuddered as the door at the top of the stairs opened and the nauseating stench redoubled in strength. Several of the soldiers vomited, and they were fortunate as they were not looking at the freakish caricature of a pony as it shambled down the stairs, leaving behind a foul, damp trail as it did so. Soldiers screamed as they saw doom descend upon them. Several ran for the door, only to find it bound by the witch's puissant magics, and banged on it uselessly, wailing in desperation. Others were made of sterner stuff, and having made no impression on the witch, focused their attention on the abomination that stepped off the staircase and into the room.
A grey pony with a white mane charged the thing, his eyes wide with terror, his sword swinging to bury itself in the enormous monster's neck. The creature made no sound as it grasped the pony with its forward appendages, lifted him from the ground and twisted, shattering his spine like a shoot of rotten bamboo. It threw the broken pony into the crowd of soldiers now backing away, looking desperately for any means of escape; several were bowled over. Roanan still could not move move or speak, only watch in horror as it pushed forward, trapping Sergeant Roughcoat against the wall with an outstretched limb. His muffled screech could be heard as it covered his head with the pad of damp, moudly vegetation that should have been a hoof, and leaned into him. There was a sickening popping sound that filled the room over the moans and cries of the terrified ponies as his skull shattered. The creature pulled back, Roughcoat's headless corpse sliding down a wall covered with blood, brain and bone. It turned pits that may have been eyes in the mad imaginings of some drug-crazed lunatic towards the survivors.
The thing waded into the gathered soldiers, taking two of them and smashing them together and tossing their broken forms aside like dolls. One soldier ran for the staircase, up and out onto the roof. His cry as threw himself from the battlements was one as of victory. Another took his blade and slit his own throat, rather than join his brother who was lifted up to the mouth of the thing, his head engulfed by the black maw, and pulled off by a single motion. The nightmare chewed on bone and brain and cast about for others to slay as the door was beaten on both sides; soldiers frantic for entry on the one side and those desperate for exit on the other.
Only Captain Ironshoe and Corporal Jaghoof remained capable of coherent thought and movement. The officer leaped at the thing, his mighty sword shearing off shards of vegetation as he danced in and out of the abomination's reach. Jaghoof leaped for the unicornoid, but instead of attacking with his sword, he leaped bodily upon her and bore her down to the floor. The ice in Roanan's heart faded and she found she could move, albeit sluggishly.
She drew her blade and moved forward as though through cold water, to where the Captain was fencing with the thing out of a nightmare. He slipped on the blood-slicked stones and the thing reared up to catch him up in an awful bear hug. With every step she gained surer movement and when she reached the thing, her sword carved chunks out of its back as it tried to smother Ironshoe. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black flash; the witch had turned her spell on Jaghoof and he was pinned against the wall.
The horror released the Captain to deal with this new threat. It turned on Roanan and reared to crush her, Ironshoe sprawled and dazed on the floor. He cried out to her, "It has a heartbeat! The heart, Roanan!" Then the thing flew at her, coming down from almost twice her height, a wall of black and green filth. She threw the point of her blade upward in a stop-thrust, aimed at the center of its chest, and it rode the blade down to get at her, mindless in its rage.
The sword seemed to strike something less yielding than the surrounding vegetable matter as the creature fell upon her, and she twisted the blade just before it crushed her. Black ichor erupted from the chest and it released a nauseating gasp of air as it roared its death-howl, momentum carrying it down upon her. At that moment before it smashed Roanan to the floor, the spell binding the vegetation broke, and she was covered in a deluge of rotting garbage that clothed her and the floor and clung to the black blood that flowed down her arms from the heart impaled upon her sword.
"NOOO! MY SON!" The witch shrieked in rage, and dropped Jaghoof, who slid down the floor to lay still. The Captain recovered himself enough to run into her and clasped her around the waist. Her horn glowed black as she prepared herself to deal with this next minor annoyance. Roanan dropped her sword.
She bent and picked up the stone with the starmetal ring and rushed at the witch. Roanan held it in two hooves, with the ring on the striking face as though a hammer. The witch realized her peril at the last instant, her mismatched eyes going wide as the stone came down upon her. "NO!" The starmetal broke her shield and the stone broke her head, neck, and forelegs with a great crunching sound as it was propelled downward by all the force of the Cimmarean's rage and hatred. The stone itself shattered and all was still and quiet except for the moans of the wounded and the cries of the mad. The door flew apart under the sustained assault and Sergeant Stoutshanks burst into the room at the head of a squad, astonished by the evidence of violence and foul magic. He helped his Captain extricate himself from the crushed corpse of some dark pony and watched as Roanan, covered in filth and blood, leaned over Jaghoof.
She looked down upon him as he took shallow breaths, blood running from his muzzle. "She crushed me, Roanan, but I am avenged. You were magnificent. May the gods always smile on you." She reached her hoof down to stroke his face and he weakly turned to kiss it, then coughed, more blood leaking.
"When I am in my cups, and I sing in the taverns of great warriors I have fought with and known, the name of Jaghoof will always be given the greatest honor." Her molten blue eyes were filled with pain as she bent forward to kiss him. Then he was gone.
______
When dawn came, the dead were laid to rest under a stone in the courtyard, and ponies stood to remember their comrades and honor their deeds. Except for Jaghoof. Roanan had taken his body to the top of the tower, and here she built a bier and lit it under him, and stood there in silence as the flames consumed him, his spirit flying with the sparks that flew up high over the river and down into the sea. Ironshoe and Clipperhoof stood by, off to the side. Clipperhoof's eyes shown with moisture and Ironshoe turned, in astonishment. He wiped away the tears, saying "She will not cry, so I will cry for her."
Three days later, as they set about cleaning and repairing the fortification, a lookout spied a ship coming up the shore, a galley flying the red and gold standard of Equilonia, which also now streamed from the tower roof. There were cheers and shouts of huzzah by all except for Roanan, who had been in a brown study since the death of Jaghoof.
The Captain, a piece of tin bound to his breast, touched his friend on the shoulder. "Thank you. None of this would have been possible without you, Roanan." She grunted, then the lookout cried again.
"A Jackish host, from the south!" The Captain and Roanan both ran to the south wall to espy hundreds of Jack warriors marching, followed by a hundred more Jacks in chains, led by the grisly standard of a Jack's head on a long pole. Onager Whytebruin had returned, true to his promise. He stopped on the side of the road, looked at the tower flying the Equilonian standard and saluted them. Even from here, you could hear the echoes of his great laugh. His troop marched on towards the bridge.
Roanan looked at her Captain, a ring of iron on a thick cord around her neck, and smiled for the first time in three days. "You have done well, my Captain. I shall sing of you in the mead halls as well, but my blood will not let me stand guard in a fortress, as you well know.
"Come with me to Equilonia! There will be honors, rewards, position! You shall be my right hoof, Roanan! There is none I admire or esteem more than you!" She smiled again and shook her head. "No, but thank you. My honors and rewards I shall take with my own hoof, but the north calls to me now." She looked out at the column now crossing the bridge. "Farewell, my friend." Then she was down the stairs, out the gate, and in pursuit of the the host of Onager Whytebruin.
Clipperhoof looked at the Captain. Ironshoe shook his head. "You're madder than she! Go ahead, be off with you!" The scout smiled and bounded down after the barbarian.
A time would come when Roanan would return to Equilonia, and there she would fight alongside General Ironshoe, and slay a tyrant, ripping the crown from the head of that wicked pony to set it upon her head with her own hoof. But that is a story for another day.
