Chapters Chapter 1: Gathering Storm
It was early morning and the commander’s room in the cloud building sat empty. Until a stallion’s head popped up out of the floor. His sky blue coat stood out against the white walls of pegasus cloud architecture. However, his mane blended in just fine. His brown eyes scanned to room to ensure a lack of witnesses as he pulled himself up out of the cloud floor. The black armor he wore stood out even more then his coat as he fully emerged. Certain that nopony knew he was here he quickly smoothed over the unrefined part of the floor to look just like the refined part.
The pegasus stallion’s attention turned to the large cloth map in the middle of the room. Like most things in the pegasus tribe, the cloth was made of the tail or mane hair of pegasi. Even the stallion’s studded armor was made of metal plates wrapped in and sewn together with pegasus cloth. An easy observation to make as pegasus cloth was one of the few things pegasi could make on their own that didn’t fall through the clouds.
If a pegasus wanted to own something other then cloth it usually needed to be set on a pegasus cloth mat. Or in the case of the cloud table before him, the cloth map had several colored stones resting on it, marking important repots on the war map itself. Of particular interest the stallion took note of three red stones on the western portion of the map that marked skirmishes. He gave even more attention to the stone in the northwest part of the map, as a black stone signifying a casualty accompanied it.
He turned his attention to a counter nearby. It too was covered in cloth. Like the map this cloth wasn’t for decoration as it had a long list of names, cutie marks and several empty boxes embroidered into it. The stallion looked over the list knowing that only a few pegasi in the tribe could read the names. Also not surprising considering that writing was a unicorn invention. Even the runic symbols the names were written in were borrowed from the unicorn tribe. Like the map the list of names had colored stones in some of the boxes to mark things. It was a simple system but it allowed even the illiterate pegasi to leave nonverbal reports.
The stallion scanned the list for the two names he knew belonged to the ponies that were on the northwest patrol. He breathed a sigh of relief as he spotted the marker stone in the health status box was of the color that meant ‘injured’. Satisfied that nopony he knew had died overnight he turned back to the map and couldn’t help but wonder. You’re just a scouting patrol. What’s worth fighting over in those mountains?
“Lieutenant, you out there?” the stallion asked.
A stallion poked his head into the doorframe and answered, “Commander Tempest? Heh, one of these days I’m going to figure out how you keep sneaking past me,” the lieutenant said.
“Shoot, if that’s all you want. All you have to do is issue the commander’s challenge, beat me and I’ll gladly show you the commander’s secrets,” Commander Tempest said.
“Not a chance sir. There’s no way I’d make a better commander then you and we both know it.”
“Any chance anypony else issued the commander’s challenge to me?”
“No sir.”
“Are you sure the rules say I can’t just retire?”
“I could always ask again. But I don’t see why the council of elders would suddenly say the rules are any different now then the last hundred times you asked. No commander has ever wanted to stand down before and you know that.”
“Fine. Oh is Lieutenant Cloudshy still at the medical cloud?” the commander asked, lowering his head in defeat.
“No sir. I think the medic just patched her up and sent her to rest at home.”
“Don’t suppose she left a report with you?”
“No she didn’t sir. But I do have a report for you,” the lieutenant said. Seeing the commander raise an eyebrow in interest the lieutenant continued, “The supply group came back this morning and it seems the earth pony tribe has shorted us on the food tribute again.”
“Hmm, that’s the third month in a row.” the commander sighed. “There’s definitely something fishy going on here. I’ll go see if I can figure out what’s going on with the earth ponies. In the meantime keep the current rationing in place.”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant answered, before returning to the front room of the command building.
Commander Tempest didn’t have long to ponder the situation before another pony came in the doorway the lieutenant had just left through. “Good morning, commander.” The mare with white coat and prismatic mane greeted him.
“Good morning, Prism. Do I even want to know why a civilian is in my office this early in the day?” Tempest asked.
“Come now. Is that any way to greet your foalhood friend? What’s got you in such a hurry?” she asked in response.
“I was just about to go see why the earth ponies aren’t giving us enough food and thus forcing us to stay on rationing.” Commander Tempest said. Then noticing something unusual about his long time friend, he added, “Speaking of rationing, you’re looking a little plump for somepony who should be on two meals a day. Where are you sneaking extra rations from?”
“I’ll have you know I’d never steal supplies like that. I’m this way because I’m pregnant.” She defended herself.
“Oh. Umm, congratulations.” The commander said. Then a stray thought forced him to ask, “Wait. You’re not married. Who’s the father?”
The situation seemed odd to Tempest. Prism was considered the most beautiful mare in the pegasus tribe. But as far as the commander knew she had only had eyes for him despite that fact that she never bothered to tell him about said feeling until he had married another, rendering her feelings moot. Also the traditions of the pegasi stressed honor and it was considered dishonorable for a mare to have a foal without marrying first and his foalhood friend didn’t seem the type to dishonor herself like that. It was equally considered dishonorable for a stallion to father a foal without marrying the mother of his child. So, all things considered, the commander was curious to hear whom it was that his long time friend had fallen for and would be marrying.
“Isn’t it obvious? You are.” Prism’s answer made the commander tilt his head aside in confusion.
“I find that highly unlikely considering that would be news to me.” Tempest responded.
“Oh commander, don’t you remember a little while ago when we went to that earth pony tavern with Storm Walker’s wing?” she asked.
“Yes, I remember I won the bet. Earth ponies make their drink way too strong. I was drunk out of my mind after only one mug. I don’t ever remember what happened after that until I woke up next to…” the commander’s voice trailed off as he realized the implications of what he was about to say. Then he remembered another detail and added, “No. You said ‘nothing happened’ when we woke up in that field.”
“Not quite commander. I said ‘nothing unwanted happened.’ And I may have used my idea of ‘unwanted’ when I said that.” Prism said, as she walked passed the dumbfounded stallion, whipping her tail gently across his side.
Commander Tempest couldn’t speak as he tried to think how her words couldn’t be true. If she was bluffing she was doing a dang good job of it. Try as he might, Tempest couldn’t find any flaws in her version of story and the timing fit too. A part of him was impressed that she had played him into a trap and a part of him was ashamed that he’d let his long time friend play him into a trap.
The commander’s stunned silence prompted Prism to continue, “What’s the matter? Did I not wait a respectable time after what happened last time? Is two years not long enough in your mind? Is not two years long enough to deny yourself happiness?”
Terrible echoes of the past rang in Tempest’s mind, voices that hunted his nightmares. When he finally managed a response all he could say was, “I could’ve saved them… if I had just turned my back on the tribe…”
“And yet you chose to protect the pegasus tribe as a whole from those dragons. You sacrificed everything good in your life to protect the tribe. That’s why nopony will ever challenge you for command of the tribe. Nopony can live up to that example.” Prism said, trying to console the emotionally wounded stallion.
“That’s just it. I’m still commander. I chose to protect the tribe over my own family, and the worst part is I know I’d make the same choice again as long as I have this title.”
“That’s no reason to deny yourself happiness. Let me make you happy again. I want to see that stallion filled with hope I use to know. Not just the one driven by duty alone that you’ve become.”
The commander couldn’t look his friend in the eye when he responded, “I won’t lie to you. It would make me happy. But I can’t protect you. How can I be a good husband if I can’t even do that?”
“You won’t have to. I can protect us .” Prism said, sliding a hoof gently over her belly to make it clear who the ‘us’ in question was.
“For all our sakes I pray you’re right. I don’t think I can take that kind of loss a second time,” the commander said. Then opening his wings he plucked the largest, healthiest feather he could find from his own wing and said, “I trust I can skip the usual question.”
“Oh commander! Of course I’ll marry you!” Prism said as if he’d asked it anyway, and way too loud for the commander’s tastes.
“Look, it’s a little busy at the moment, so I’m going to have to leave you to plan the wedding and all. This coming Sunday should be soon enough right? Try to keep it small and simple and let as few ponies in on it as you can. It’ll be hard enough to stop the whole tribe from showing up for the commander’s wedding as is.” Commander Tempest said. Then opening his saddlebag he pulled out one of his rations and added, “Here take your third ration from my allotment until the wedding. Once we’re properly married we can get you on proper full rations like the other expecting mothers.”
By now Prism had fixed the commander’s feather in her mane. She accepted the ration and practically pranced out of the room.
With his long time friend gone Commander Tempest was feeling a mix of hope and fear at the unexpected turn of events the morning had taken. With a moments pause he offered a whispered prayer in memory of his first attempt at happiness, “Celestial Pegasus rest your souls.” Then he focused his mind back to the matter at hoof.
As the commander stepped out of his office the lieutenant manning the front desk was grinning ear to ear and said, “Congratulations sir.”
“Breathe a word of this to anypony and I’ll personally have you on the next patrol into dragon territory,” the commander said, not entirely sure if he meant his threat or not.
“Not a word sir. But I don’t think that’s going to help,” the lieutenant said, pointing a hoof out the main doorway of the building. Where Prism was skipping down the street and ponies were taking notice of the stallion’s feather in her mane that was too healthy to have fallen out on its own.
* * * * * * *
Commander Tempest soon found himself at Lieutenant Cloudshy’s home. The tan-coated mare with the pink mane was lying down on a fluffy bed of clouds. And much to the commander’s dismay, she was trying to salute him with a bandage wrapped leg. “You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“You can stop apologizing while you’re at it.”
“I’m sorry.” She responded on instinct.
“Ugh, can you just tell me how you got injured lieutenant?”
“Oh, yes, sorry. We were on patrol when we saw three harpies picking flowers.” She reported, finally lying back down.
“Picking flowers?” the commander asked, with an eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“That’s what we thought too. So we showed ourselves thinking that we could scare them off without a fight. I mean if they were picking flowers, they couldn’t have been out looking for a fight, right? But we were wrong. They attacked us as soon as we showed ourselves. We killed one of them. But the strange thing is, when the other two fled they made sure to take the bags of flowers they had been gathering with them. Like they were really important or something.”
“Do you know what kind of flowers they were?”
“I think it was those yellow mountain flowers. You know, those really bitter ones that make you sick if you eat too many.”
“That makes no since. Harpies are aggressive, predatory, why would they care about flowers? And ones that can’t even be used as bait for a hungry pegasus no less,” the commander said, thinking out loud.
“I’m sorry sir. But I think that’s what I saw.”
“That’s alright lieutenant. That’s for me to worry about. You just need to worry about healing up.” With that the commander left the lieutenant’s home.
* * * * * * *
Flying through the open sky helped to clear Commander Tempest’s mind but he kept wondering why harpies would want such flowers all of a sudden. “You have a job to do,” Tempest reminded himself, as he focused his eyes on the small village less then twenty minutes of flight time ahead of him.
Technically if you drew the lines on a map, parts of pegasus territory overlapped with parts of the unicorn and earth pony territories. However, since the pegasi only laid clam to the sky while the other two tribes cared who owned the land that had never been a problem. It was even a convenience to the pegasus tribe as it meant they didn’t have to go too far to meet with either of the other pony tribes.
Idle pondering aside, Commander Tempest landed by the earth pony town hall, drawing the attention of every earth pony in line of sight. The commander couldn’t help but notice the lack of a guard by the doors of the town hall. Just like earth ponies to think walls and doors alone are adequate defenses, he thought to himself. Though he pitied the earth ponies for such foolishness, he could forgive them for thinking that way. It was the pegasi that had to fight every threat that faced them, as walls of cloud did little to stop enemy arrows or dragon’s flames. Unlike the tribes of the ground the pegasi didn’t have the luxury of hiding behind sturdy walls and waiting for the threat to pass by on its own. In the sky the pegasi had to fight frequently to keep predators away from the pegasus tribe and to keep their otherwise indefensible patch of sky safe.
Commander Tempest let himself into the earth pony building, and was greeted by a clearly startled assistant, “Oh! Hello, can I help you? I wasn’t expecting you to drop by unannounced.”
Tempest raised an eyebrow to the comment and responded, “You send my courier team home with less food then agreed upon, for the third time in a row, and you didn’t expect me to come see why the whole pegasus tribe has to starve? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.” Then the commander marched into the chancellor’s office, ignoring the assistant’s protest.
“Have you named the foal yet?” the chancellor asked.
“I think we’re going with Puddinghead, the wife really seems to…” the secretary started to answer and cut himself off when he saw the pegasus commander enter the room.
The chancellor traced the eyes of her secretary and found the commander as well. “Oh, hello commander. What bring you to our humble patch of dirt?” she asked, her nervous eyes doing an even worse job of feigning ignorance then the assistant at the front deck.
“Have my weather teams not brought rain at the request of your farmers? Have we not protected your farms from drought, flood, storm and hail? Have we not fought, bled and died defending the skies over your head so that your walls actually amount to something?” Commander Tempest almost shouted.
“You have done all those things,” the chancellor answered, unable to look the pegasus in the eyes.
“Then what part of our end of the bargain do you feel we have not live up to that you give us less food then agreed upon?”
The chancellor explained, “Forgive me commander, but do not think we are feasting while you suffer famine. We have suffered several attacks from wild animals on the ground. To protect ourselves, now half our farmers have to stand guard at any given time. So we no longer have enough ponies to work all of our fields.”
“Then why not cut back on the food you send the unicorns so you can give us what we are owed?” the commander asked.
“And anger them more then I already have?” the chancellor responded, and on seeing the look in the commander’s eyes she added, “Yes, that’s right, I cut back on what I was sending them at the same time I reduced how much food I was sending you, commander. However, unlike you the unicorns didn’t give us the benefit of the doubt and have been complaining every month. I don’t doubt that their ambassador will be here anytime now, to renew that complaint.”
“All due respect chancellor, the unicorns are even bigger cowards then you earth ponies. For all their supposed magical might they’re always hiding in their castles, playing with every little pointless thing that catches their curiosity like foals that have nothing better to do. Have they ever fought to protect you? I’ve never seen a single drop of unicorn blood on fall your behalf. What do they do that’s so valuable to you?” the commander asked.
“Raise the sun and moon comes to mind.” The chancellor countered.
“Oh? and what happens if they abandon their charge? Would not they freeze under eternal night, or wither under eternal day like the rest of us? How would that help them get more food if they did that? But us pegasi, we don’t manage the weather everywhere. What’s stopping us from deciding that helping you is a waste of our time and flying off to find someplace we can farm for ourselves?”
“Since when do pegasi know how to farm?”
“We may be warriors at heart but don’t think we can not learn. Do you really think there isn’t a weather pegasus that doesn’t know how often each type of plant on your farms should be watered? Do you really think our weather teams have not seen what you do tending your fields? If you won’t feed us then why shouldn’t we go back to looking out only for ourselves? And do you really think your farms will do better dealing with wild weather, dragons, harpies and every other terror of the skies that we currently protect you from?” Commander Tempest argued.
The earth pony chancellor considered the pegasus’ words for a moment before responding, “You make a good argument commander. But the food shortage is what it is. Seeing as you like the role of warrior far more then we earth ponies do. I propose that if you could spare some warriors to protect our most troubled farms. That should free up enough ponies to increase the next harvest. And your extra effort would certainly warrant an increased share in the bounty that would bring.”
“Between the weather teams and the fact that the harpies are at war with us, the pegasus tribe is stretched thin already. But maybe if you could offer a little incentive I might be able to find some volunteers willing to pull an extra shift to come help you defend your lands. Most of the tribe is on two meals a day after all,” the commander said, strongly hinting what would help him gather said volunteers.
“With the rationing we already in place I can’t promise anything, but I will strongly encourage them to consider giving any pegasus who helps protect their farm a little something to eat.” The chancellor said, then turned to her secretary and added, “See what you can scrounge up. Let’s send the commander home with a show of good faith to help his efforts.”
“Yes mam. Commander if you’ll follow me.” The secretary led Tempest back out to the front room and motioned for him the rest on one of the pillows there. “Wait here while I see what I can gather.” With that the secretary headed out into the village, leaving the pegasus commander waiting in the front room of the town hall.
Not long after Commander Tempest sat down, a unicorn mare in a resplendent gown, stormed into the building, much like he had, and marched past the pony at the front desk into the chancellor’s office, also much like he had. Tempest could hear the unicorn ambassador complain about getting less food then expected for the unicorn tribe. The commander couldn’t help but chuckle to himself when he heard the earth pony chancellor repeat his own argument to the unicorn almost word for word.
A few moments of arguing latter and the unicorn mare marched back out into the front room, glared at the pegasus commander and snarled, “You did this. You turned them against us didn’t you?”
Tempest responded, “Was anything she said wrong? When have the unicorns ever bled or died to protect them? I’ve never seen it. But I have seen pegasi fight to defend the source of our food.”
The unicorn mare glared at him and responded, “Fool, we unicorns shoulder the burden of the balance of all of nature. The sun, the moon, the balance of the seasons all work because of the unicorn tribe.”
“And if you were to abandon that charge you’d suffer the same as all of us,” Tempest pointed out.
The unicorn’s eyes radiated hatred as she gave her reply, “My king will hear of this. Do not think he will take this insult lightly.”
Commander Tempest was contemplating responding once more when the earth pony secretary returned. “Commander, it’s ready.” More then happy to jump at the excuse to leave Tempest got up and followed the earth pony out. Once outside the secretary motioned to a small cart and added, “It’s not much, but I should hope this shows the honesty of our efforts to live up to our obligations.”
The commander took one of the bags of food and feeling its weight guessed it to be enough to feed a pony for about a week. He then placed it at the hooves of the secretary and said, “Congratulations on the young one, make sure the kid eats well.”
The earth pony looked back somewhat bewildered and then asked, “Are you sure?”
“Even I don’t ask the youngest of the pegasus tribe to go without three meals a day. So I can not ask that the young of the earth pony tribe do so. Besides I think it’s in both our interests that your little one grows up into a big and strong farmer.” Tempest smiled.
“Thank you.” the secretary said, as he helped the pegasus commander secure the straps of the cart.
As Commander Tempest flew away he couldn’t help but feel the unicorn ambassador glaring daggers at him.
* * * * * * *
The pegasus commander landed on the clouds and brought the cart to a stop on a rug of pegasus cloth so he could take off the straps without letting it fall through the clouds. Two pegasus soldiers immediately came to aid their commander.
“Lieutenant, take the food to the storehouse and have Captain Wingright assign the extra rations accordingly. Privet, once it’s unloaded give the earth ponies their cart back.” Tempest commanded his soldiers.
As soon as the commander was free of the cart’s harness he noticed another pegasus flying at him. The mare’s armor marked her as a captain. The captain landed and quickly railed off, “There you are! Come quick!”
“Captain Storm Walker, what’s wrong?”
“We found some intruders in pegasus airspace. They surrendered without a fight but they don’t speak our language and we don’t know what to do with them. And three of them look kind of tough sir.”
Commander Tempest motioned for the captain to lead the way and she did. When they arrived at the cloud building the commander found four creatures the likes of which he’d never seen before. The creatures looked like lions except they had the head and wings of an eagle and instead of front paws they had eagle’s talons as well. The creatures seemed to come mainly in shades of golden-brown or silver-gray. The three largest of the creatures looked to have the kind of scars that came from battle while the smallest one seemed to be in pristine health.
The creatures seemed annoyed at first but when they saw the commander and noticed his helmet was more ornate then the other pegasi they seemed to relax a little and began speaking words that meant nothing to Tempest.
Tempest batted his ears, shook his head and said, “Your words mean nothing to me.” That got the creatures to quiet down but they seemed annoyed again at the clear lack of progress in communications.
“What do you think they are?” Storm Walker whispered in the commander’s ear.
Commander Tempest pointed to himself and said, “Pegasus.” He then pointed to the other three pegasi in the room and repeated the word. As soon as he finished that he repeated the gesture of pointing to himself then the other pegasi and said, “Tempest, Storm Walker, Wind Wall, Tailwind.”
The smallest of the creatures stepped forward and pointed to itself and then the others of its kind and said, “Griffin.” It then repeated the cycle of pointing while saying, “Goldwing Von Griff, Gildar Le Beak, Gold Feather, Silver Talon.”
“There you have it, they’re called griffin and I think they just gave us their names,” The commander whispered back to his captain. Then aloud he pointed again to himself and added, “Pegasus.” Then gesturing to all the pegasi in the room added, “Pegasi.”
The griffin repeated the gestures with the responses ‘griffin’ and ‘griffins’.
Commander Tempest then dug his hooves into the floor and pulled the cloud apart until the ground could be seen and said, “Ground.” He closed the hole up and flew up to the ceiling and pulled that apart until he could point to the sky and said, “Sky” He close that hole, landed back on the clouds and asked the griffins, “This pegasus sky. Why are you in pegasus sky?” the commander knew his question would be lost on them but hoped the tone of his voice and look on his face would carry its meaning anyway.
The griffin speaking for the group seemed to understand the question enough and responded with one word. The word meant nothing to Tempest and the gestures the griffin made didn’t help him guess its meaning either. The look on the commander’s face showed the attempt had failed, so the griffin tried another word, “Satchel.” This time the word was accompanied with a gesture across the griffin’s chest.
Commander Tempest asked his soldiers, “Did they have something with them there?”
Lieutenant Wind Wall responded, “The straps of their bags went across their chests like that.”
“So where are they?” the commander responded.
Wind Wall led Tempest back outside and to the next door down. Inside two more pegasi were looking through the bags sitting on a tablecloth. Once they saw the commander one of them spoke up with a very worried tone of voice, “Commander, there’s something you should see.” The soldier then pointed to the contents of the two opened bags.
Commander Tempest only needed a glance to see what the soldier was worried about. Though he wasn’t sure why anypony was surprised to find dried meat. Voicing his complete lack of surprise Tempest said, “They’re half lion and half eagle. Last I checked both of those are predators, so it stands to reason that they would be too.”
By now the commander was opening the flaps of the two unopened bags. Inside one was more dried meat. But the other had parchment and tools that looked like something a unicorn would use. Suspecting the bag of tools was the one the griffin wanted Tempest took it and a spare sheet of pegasus cloth. He then gave the soldiers one last command before leaving, “Repack the rest of their supplies and give them back to the griffins.”
On returning to the building where the griffins were being held Commander Tempest held up the bag and asked, “Satchel?”
The griffin confirmed, “Satchel.”
“Bag,” the commander said. Then he dug his hooves into the cloud floor and pulled part of it up. Tempest then spread the pegasus cloth over it to make a table. Finally he put the bag down on it and motioned for the griffin to try explaining again.
The griffin opened the bag and shuffled through it, finally pulling out one of the scrolls. Laying it on the makeshift table Goldwing smoothed it out to reveal the scroll was a partly drawn map. The griffin then traced a talon from one area through the drawn part, ending a little ways into empty space on the map.
Commander tempest recognized part of the map near where it stopped being drawn. Orienting it in his head he concluded the griffins must have come across the ocean east of pony territory, and had been heading southwest when they ran into the pegasus patrol that brought them here.
“What’s he trying to say?” one of the soldiers, who was bringing the griffins’ other bags back, asked in a whisper.
“I think he’s saying they’re adventures out exploring the world.” The commander whispered back.
“Then what should we do with them, being predators and all?” the soldier whispered back.
“Easy, we’re going to let them go. And you two are going to watch them as long as they’re in pegasus airspace.” Tempest whispered. Then turning to another pegasus he whispered, “Sorry private, but I need a visual aid.”
Private Tailwind tilted her head to the side confused by the commander’s words, until the commander struck her in the side hard enough to send her tumbling and drawing a yip of pain from her anyway. Commander Tempest immediately addressed the griffins with one word after the demonstration, “Hurt.”
Tempest then pointed to the lieutenant in the room and said, “Leave.” Lieutenant Wind Wall then gave a salute and left the room. Turning back to the griffins the commander dug his hooves into the cloud floor and pulled the clouds apart until it was wide enough a griffin could fit easily through the hole. Once the cloud modification was done he addressed the griffins saying, “You griffins leave pegasus sky. And if you hurt any pegasus you’ll know my wrath.” Tempest knew that most of his words meant nothing to the griffins but the look on their faces showed they understood the warning anyway.
The griffin who had identified himself as Goldwing reclaimed his things and then led the others in diving through the hole in the floor. With a nod the two soldiers who had brought the bags in also took flight to follow the griffins.
“Do you think it was wise to just let predators like them go?” the captain asked.
“If harpies were half that civilized we wouldn’t be at war with them. And as long as they don’t think ponies are acceptable prey I really don’t care what they do. Besides with the harpies currently at war with us we’re stretched too thin to be picking fights with anyone else anyway.” Commander Tempest answered.
With that Tempest mended the hole in the floor and then left to the streets of the pegasus tribe’s home town. He still had to see how many volunteers he could find before days end willing to help the earth ponies out with no real promise of any pay for the effort.
Chapter 2: Calm Before the Storm
It was morning and Commander Tempest now stood before a small gathering of pegasi. He sighed as he looked over the few pegasi here. Tempest knew that the volunteers would come and go in shifts but he could have sworn more then this had volunteered for the morning shift when he was asking around yesterday.
The commander was about to speak when he heard a slightly panicked cry for his name. Looking to the source he saw a scout returning with a worried look on her face. “Please be dragons,” the commander whispered, drawing a few giggles from the volunteers close enough to have heard the joke. Although, the commander was only half joking about the suicidal request to the heavens as he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with another hectic day.
The scout came sliding to a halt, short on breath. Looking the pegasus mare over Commander Tempest thought he recognized her, so he ask, “You’re stationed at the southeast outpost, over unicorn territory, right?”
The mare nodded as she replied, “Yes commander. That’s just it, the unicorn king is demanding to meet with you.”
If Commander Tempest had ever seen the unicorns field an army that news might have bothered him. But as it stood all he could be bothered to tell the scout was, “Then tell his highness that I’m busy today. But I’ll be passing by the field of a thousand hooves in about an hour, so if he’s there when I do I could manage to fit a meeting in.”
The scout saluted and took off flying, returning to deliver the message with all due haste. The commander turned his attention back to the group of volunteers. Spotting a lieutenant that was off duty among them Tempest asked, “Lieutenant, um, Raindrops was it?”
“Dewdrop,” the mare corrected.
“Right, Dewdrop, half these volunteers don’t even have any armor. Can you take them to the armory and see if we can scrounge up some of the old armor for them? Just something to give them the edge in a fight with a wild animal. Hopefully you won’t be fighting anything worse then a wild boar or something on this guard duty.”
“Yes sir. Come on ponies, you heard him, if you don’t have any armor follow me!” the lieutenant said, and then gathered to the ponies in question.
With that little stalling tactic done, the commander felt justified in waiting a little just in case anymore ponies decided to join the morning volunteers to guard the earth ponies.
* * * * * * *
The commander was leading the volunteers on the scenic rout to the earth pony tribe’s main village so he could swing by the field in his promise to the unicorn king. Much to the commander’s dismay there were still only about twenty volunteers for the morning group. Also to Commander Tempest’s dismay he spotted a colorful array of figures in field that could only mean the unicorn king had managed to make the trek to the field between unicorn and earth pony territory. A fairly impressive feat given the unicorns lack of wings, but that didn’t change the fact the Tempest had hoped that the difficulty of getting to that field in under an hour would’ve kept the unicorns home.
Commander Tempest swerved to lead the pegasi following him down to the field. He landed a few feet in front of the unicorn king. As he approached the unicorn, Tempest took notice of the three chariots nearby and couldn’t help but wonder why the king seemed to be the only unicorn not winded by the sudden and hasty journey. The chariots could’ve easily held two ponies each so shouldn’t there be more riders around, or at the very least two more riders then the commander could see?
“Ah Commander, late as always. I trust you know why we are here?” the unicorn king greeted the pegasus.
“Not really. I’ve found you unicorns have always been a hard bunch to figure out. Always talking about this or that and never doing anything.” Commander Tempest answered.
“Well then, seeing as you’ve taken one too many blows to the head to anticipate the obvious, commander, I’ll give you a little reminder. The other day my ambassador to the earth pony tribe returned with a most vexing tale to tell. Namely, that you have poisoned the minds of the earth ponies against us. They tell my ambassador there is so little food they can only give half the usual amount. Then they send you away with a cart full while they send my ambassador home with nothing to show for her efforts.”
“And what ‘efforts’ might you be speaking of? I was in the next room while your ambassador was talking with the earth ponies and I don’t recall overhearing a thing about the unicorns promising to help them in their time of need.” The pegasus commander’s response was mixed with sarcasm and honest curiosity.
The unicorn king scoffed, “Like you pegasus ruffians could offer them anything of true value. We unicorns bring them day and night. Without us they’d have no crops at all. What further efforts need I justify?”
“Oh so you plan to keep offering them the same thing that benefits you as much as it dose them? Tell me, your majesty, how do you get more food if you let the earth ponies fields freeze under eternal night or wither under eternal day? How do you not suffer under the same yourself if you inflict it on the rest of us? And how does ‘keeping doing what you’ve always done’ help them defend their lands from the attacks they find themselves in now? Do you not see these pegasi behind me? I was leading them to the earth ponies to actually fight their battles for them. So tell me, O great king, were you planing on fighting the earth ponies battles for them to earn what little food they can spare?” Commander Tempest was practically shouting as he finished his retort.
The unicorn king was clearly taken off guard by the reproach and responded to the only part of it he had a ready reflexive answer for. “Fight? Good heavens no. We unicorns are civilized creatures, we’d never stoop to such things as barbaric as that.”
Commander Tempest smiled as he replied, “And that is why the earth ponies will never value you unicorns as much as they do us pegasi. All you do for them is something you benefit from as well. While we pegasi go out of our way to earn what we ask of them. If you stop maintaining day and night you will suffer the same as they would. But we pegasi manage the sky for them, with no benefit to ourselves. After all, what do we care if it rains or snows below the clouds when we live on top of them? We pegasi only manage the weather because it helps the earth ponies. Even now these pegasi behind me are willing to risk their lives fighting for them, bleed for them and maybe even die for them. And yet in all my years I’ve never seen a drop of unicorn blood spilled for the sake of the earth ponies.”
The unicorn king was stunned by the response, although he masked his shock well. Seeing the king had no response Commander Tempest continued, “Moon Fall, Starswirl, Sun Dancer, Morning Light, do these names mean anything to you?”
The look on the king’s face said ‘no’ but, despite clearly guessing, the unicorn responded with certainty in his voice anyway, “Those are the names of unicorns.”
“Yes. But more importantly those are the names of the four unicorn adventurers my scouts have seen actually going out into the world and doing things. Usually alone and despite only pursuing their own pointless curiosities, I’ve seen those four do more good for the ponies beyond your precious castle walls then the rest of the unicorn tribe put together. If you want to earn the respect of the earth ponies then you might want to take some lessons from those four.”
Once more the unicorn king had no answer. He knew the pegasus was right. The unicorns hadn’t offered anything more in services to compete with the pegasi and if the earth ponies needed warriors over scholars then the pegasi were the better source of aid. The unicorn king knew that, logically, he was on the losing end of this argument and all he could so was growl in annoyance under his breath.
Commander Tempest saw a hint of anger in the unicorn king’s eyes and suddenly worried that maybe he’d showed the king why the truth hurts too much. Looking for something to change subjects to he spotted something curious that would do. “What’s with the filly hiding behind you?” he asked the unicorn.
The distraction worked. The unicorn king’s expression softened as he nudged the foal forward so she could be seen and the king said, “This is my daughter, Princess Platinum. By the divine right of kings she will, in time, rule the unicorn tribe in my stead. I brought her out here so she could learn about diplomacy. And… Commander, why are you rolling your eyes?”
Tempest wasn’t sure what to say. The foal in question had seen one, maybe two winters tops, so the pegasus commander couldn’t even conceive that the filly would understand enough of what was going on to get any meaning out of listening in on this argument between leaders. Finally the commander decided to play like it wasn’t a total waste for the foal to be here. He leaned down to the filly and said, “The lesson you should take away from this is: if you want something from somepony else you should bring something worth trading for it.”
Turning his focus back to the king, Tempest added, “Now that you’ve solved the mystery of your less then stellar reputation with the earth ponies I trust there’s no reason for me to linger any longer.” Commander Tempest started to leave before pausing and adding one last thought. “Oh before I go. Do you know of any use for the bitter yellow flowers that grow in the mountains to the northwest?”
“King’s blood? It’s used…” the unicorn king started to say before catching himself. With a smirk he finished, “If the knowledge of the unicorns is valuable to you. Surely you’d be willing to trade for it. Say a cart of food perhaps?”
Commander Tempest chuckled with his response, “Heh. There’s another difference between you and me. I’d never part with practical supplies just to satisfy my personal curiosity.”
With no reason to delay the volunteers to the earth ponies any longer Tempest took off and motioned for the other pegasi to follow
“Your loss, commander.” The unicorn king said, as the pegasus flew away.
* * * * * * *
Commander Tempest landed by the earth pony town hall. He then motioned for Lieutenant Dewdrop to come to his side. The commander then whispered to her, “Have you ever led a patrol before?”
“No sir, my captain has always been around when we’ve flown patrol so I’ve never had to lead one.” The lieutenant responded.
“Well congratulations, you’re the highest ranking officer here, so I’m going to leave you in charge of managing the morning volunteers.” Seeing the apprehension in the lieutenant’s eyes Commander Tempest added, “Don’t worry. I’ll get the ball rolling for you. Just try to group the most capable pegasi with the ones you think will need the most help. And whatever you do don’t let the earth ponies thin us out to less then two pegasi per team, I don’t want anypony flying patrol or standing guard without a wingpony.”
Calmed a little by the advice, Dewdrop gave a salute to her commander as she hesitantly accepted the assignment. Commander Tempest turned to address the rest of the volunteers.
“Okay, listen up, everypony! I know I said it yesterday when I was asking for volunteers, but the earth pony’s leader can only encourage, not order, the ponies you help today to give you something for your efforts. So be on your best behavior here and maybe you’ll get something. And remember, we’re here to help free up some ponypower so the earth ponies can grow more food. So even if you don’t get anything here and now. Do your best and you’ll be able to hold your head high come next harvest, knowing that you helped being an end the rationing and your friends and families won’t be going hungry because of what you did over the coming weeks.”
“Also seeing as anything aggressive that flies usually bothers us pegasi first, I’m betting that whatever is bothering the earth ponies is ground-bound. So whatever has these earth ponies in a fuss probably can’t chase you into the air and that also means they will probably be vulnerable to attack from above. And if it all else fails remember we’re pegasi, and there’s nothing in the world more dangerous then a pegasus with a cloud and the knowledge of how to kick lightning from it. So if you come across something dangerous just bring some lightning down on its head. Just for the love of the Celestial Pegasus don’t start any fires in the earth pony’s fields, we’re here to help them increase the food production.”
The commander was just about finished with his speech when he noticed the secretary to the earth pony chancellor had come out of the town hall and was now sitting patiently, listening. So the pegasus commander continued the speech, as much for earth pony behind him, as the pegasi before Commander Tempest. “Lieutenant Dewdrop here will be in charge. So the earth ponies will be working with you through her. So if you have any complaints with whatever you are assigned to do take it to her. She will then promptly tell you to grow up and act like a real pegasus, and then she will bring any complaints she deems of actual merit to me.”
Turning to the earth pony and lowering his voice Tempest added, “I trust that arrangement is acceptable. Now if you’ll excuse me there are other matters I wish to deal with.”
“It is. Thank you Commander Tempest. Now Dewdrop was it? Come inside and let’s sort out…” The earth pony secretary continued to speak with the pegasus lieutenant, but Tempest had already flown too far away to hear the rest of the conversation.
* * * * * * *
By early afternoon Commander Tempest was sitting in his office, and much to his dismay he had been stuck there most of the day listening to soldiers give their reports. At the moment the recently returned Lieutenant Dewdrop was talking his ear off reporting every seemingly pointless detail about how the morning guard duty in the earth pony tribe’s territory had gone.
Though trying to actually hear the mare’s repots, the commander was giving his primary attention to updating the marker stones on the war map to match the reports other soldiers had given him that morning. His ears perked up as they took notice of silence, apparently the Dewdrop had finished her reports.
Lieutenant Dewdrop saw concern on the commander’s face has he looked up from the war map. Fearing that she had bored him with things that didn’t merit his attention, she couldn’t help but ask, “Is something wrong?”
“When I took this job I quickly learned that there’s always something wrong somewhere. It took a little longer for me to learn that ninety percent of the problems brought to the commander will solve themselves if you just ignore them. Much like the way it sounds like you managed the morning volunteers just fine on your own. It’s that remaining percent that I actually have to do something about the worries me. Like this.” The commander answered gesturing down to the war map.
The lieutenant looked down at the war map but, knowing she wasn’t much of a war planer, she didn’t know what to infer from the stones marking the map, so she could only raise an eyebrow in confusion. Commander Tempest sighed at the mare’s reaction and continued, “These movement patterns suggest that the harpies are preparing to launch an attack in the next day or two. On top of that I still haven’t had time to investigate their sudden interest in useless flowers and…” the commander was cut off by a growl from his stomach, “…And apparently I’m starving.” He finished, blushing slightly at the thought that somepony had to see that their hero commander was in fact as mortal as any other pegasus.
“Sorry sir, I’ll just, get out of your mane then.” Dewdrop said, as her eyes shifted focus to stare through the floor and into space.
“Don’t take your poor timing the wrong way, lieutenant. You did a fine job this morning.” Tempest said, trying to cheer up Dewdrop and avoid tainting the mare’s memories of her first time in real command.
“Thank you sir.” She replied, as she left the room.
Commander Tempest studied the war map a little while longer. Until he noticed that nopony came in to take Dewdrop’s place reporting something. With the backlog of reports taken care of, the commander felt free to move ahead with his own matters. Another growl from his belly insisted as to what those matters were.
* * * * * * *
The pegasus tribe may have been under the impression that their commander was receiving two meals a day, but with the extra ration he was slipping to Prism he was only getting one. To make up for it he had put together a foraging team to go search for wild fruits or other eatable plants. With the current rationing it hadn’t been that hard to find a decent team of civilian pegasi to come, especially considering that they’d have the commander as their escort.
With two pegasi hovering over head serving as lookouts, the commander and the rest of the team were free to focus on picking apples from the grove of wild trees they had found. While the wild apples tasted sour compared to the sweet, juicy ones provided by the earth ponies, they were filling all the same. Tempest had even taken the time to give some apples to the two lookouts. No since having any member of the foraging team go home hungry, far better that all the apples in their saddlebags be for the pegasi back home.
As Commander Tempest placed another acceptably clean wild apple in his saddlebag he heard a warning cry. “Harpies!”
The commander bolted up above the foliage and headed for the pegasus who had called out. When he pulled up next to the mare all he asked was, “Where?”
“Over there, sir.” She replied, pointing above and to the southwest.
A moment of scanning the horizon latter and Tempest spotted two figures heading their way. He frowned, noticing their distance, and asked the lookout, “Were they headed this way when you first saw them?”
“No sir, they… oh they are coming this way.”
“Yeah, next time don’t shout so loud. I could’ve surprised them.” Tempest lamented. Taking his saddlebags full of apples and presenting them to the mare he added, “Here. Take these and hide in the grove.”
The lookout did as requested and with a nod from the commander the second lookout also dove for cover. Commander Tempest thrust his front right hoof into a sheath, strapped to his armor’s belt, until he felt it hit metal. He then pressed on a crud lever, causing the simple mechanism to squeeze his hoof until it firmly clipped on. Pulling his hoof free of the sheath the commander revealed the bronze sky sword now attached to his hoof. Finally he took the cloth bands attached to the base of the blade and tied them around his leg, ensuring nothing could knock the sword free of his hoof.
The blade was called a sky sword for good reason, as only pegasi preferred to use such weapons. Attaching a weapon to the end of one’s leg like that tended to encumber movement on the ground. But seeing as pegasi were winged creatures of the sky, their legs were always free to use weapons. Not to mention, with the lack of any enchantment on the blade, it could be pressed into a floor made of clouds without any trouble. Unlike on the ground were such a weapon would force the user to move about tripod style.
With his weapon ready, Commander Tempest looked up to the harpies advancing on his position. The harpies were close enough that he could finally tell what he was dealing with. Harpies were some sort of half-monkey half-bird creatures. One was readying a bow and arrow, the favored weapon of the harpies. The other had a dagger grasped in its talons, probably stolen from the earth pony or unicorn tribe given that the harpies weren’t known for making anything other then wooden bows and arrows.
Tempest had been ascending the whole time he was getting his weapon ready and yet the harpies had also flown higher, refusing to surrender their altitude advantage. With no choice but to fight from the disadvantage the pegasus commander surged forward.
The dagger-wielding harpy broke into a dive at the lone pegasus, while the harpy archer lined up behind its ally ready to fire its bow.
“Rookies, like I’ve never seen that before,” Tempest whispered to the winds, as he surged forward with a counter plan already in mind.
The harpy with the dagger surged at pegasus commander and swung the dagger wide as it veered to avoid crashing at the last second. Tempest did the one thing the harpy wasn’t expecting. He dodged back into the harpy’s path and swung his sword high.
With a last second attempt to react, the harpy’s dagger skimmed harmlessly along the side of Commander Tempest’s armor. The harpy’s body slammed into the commander’s chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and momentarily halting his skyward charge. However, the harpy’s head continued past Tempest, falling freely on its way to the ground.
Despite being showered in blood from the now headless harpy, Tempest felt something else strike his chest as if he’d just been punched or kicked. Pushing the corpse of a harpy away, he spotted a splintered wooden arrow tip protruding from the dead harpy’s chest. The harpy archer had tried to shoot him through its fallen ally, not surprisingly, the arrow had lost too much force punching through the harpy, so it had no chance to punch through the commander’s studded cloth armor. Although Tempest could feel that one of the metal plates in his armor had acquired a new dent.
The harpy archer knew that, with nothing left to distract him, there was no real chance of hitting the pegasus warrior at range anymore. And given the pegasus’ efficiency in close combat the harpy archer knew it was outclassed by the veteran pegasus, so the harpy fled.
Commander Tempest pumped his wings and chased after his foe. The harpy began firing arrows haphazardly trying to slow him, but to no avail. Dodging another arrow, Tempest surged forward and swung his sword twice. The first swing cut the string of the harpy’s bow, the second he brought down on its back, striking the base of one wing in the process.
With a wing crippled, the harpy had no chance of escape, so Commander Tempest backed off just enough to stay out of range of the razor sharp claws on harpy’s talons. The pegasus commander took the opportunity to shout a demand, “Tell me what you harpies want with those useless mountain flowers and maybe I’ll let you live.”
“Stupid pegasus. You think us featherbrains. But you know nothing. You will know nothing. Until too late.” The harpy squawked back at him, sneering as much as a beaked creature could.
“Suit yourself.” Tempest snarled. Then he dove and thrust his sky sword forward, running the harpy through.
The life faded from the harpy’s eyes and Commander Tempest broke into a hover, letting the weight of dead harpy pull the corpse free from his sword. For a moment he watched the corpse fall and the trail of blood behind it being torn into a fine red mist by the dead harpy’s wake.
Now that he was hovering the sent of the blood staining his coat, blade and armor was able to enter his nose. Tempest shook his head. “I hate the smell of blood,” he whispered to the wind, as he looked about. Spotting a cloud he flew over to it and gave it a whack to force it to start raining. The commander then hovered under the cloud allowing the rain to rinse the blood off.
But not before he was forced to remember why he hated the sent of blood. So many memories played in his mind. At the end of battle the smell of blood was always in the air, and at the end of so many battle he heard the names of those he’d called friend listed among those who’d paid the price of war.
As the crimson stains started bleeding out of his cyan coat, and off his blade and armor, the commander couldn’t help but wonder why it was that so many things in the world seemed hell-bent on forcing the pegasi to fight just for the right to exist. The pegasi had stopped expanding their borders toward the harpies once they first ran into them, and any pegasus in their right mind avoided dragons whenever possible. And yet both creatures seemed to attack the pegasi on sight.
“Commander! Are you alright?” the lookout called out, with a worried look in her eyes, as she approached her tribe’s leader.
“Relax. The blood’s not mine. If being spotted by a couple of harpy scouts who’d never fought a day in their life is the worst thing to happen to me today, then this will have been a rather calm day.” He responded.
Chapter 3: The Storm of War
Commander Tempest had awoken earlier then he would have liked this morning. Not that he would ever admit not really being a morning person to his tribe. But despite the previous day’s foraging run, his prolonged time on rationing wasn’t helping his stamina and sleep alone was a poor substitute for proper nourishment. Knowing that he had slipped one of his rations to Prism again, leaving himself with only one meal for the day, made him wish he could have slept a little longer anyway.
But the commander’s mind was too anxious over the impending signs of a big battle in the war with the harpies. And though the scout he’d run into yesterday hadn’t said what they thought they were good for, the harpy’s response had made it clear that the harpies thought the mountain flowers were good for something. Whether they were right or not was anypony’s guess. And that’s what kept Tempest’s mind running at full speed, all he could do was guess if the harpies knew something about the flowers that he didn’t.
Commander Tempest was staring down at the war map in his office when a low rumble caught his ears. “Oh shut up you just ate your only meal of the day.” Tempest snarled back at his stomach. When he heard the noise a second time he realized it wasn’t coming from him but outside.
Stepping out into the entry room he asked the pegasus at the command building’s front desk, “Lieutenant, did you just hear something? Was that thunder?”
“Yes sir I did. I think so. And it sounded like it came from the west.” The Lieutenant answered, getting up from his spot and following the commander out the front door. “There it is again, sir.” He confirmed as the two stepped outside.
The rumble repeated itself. Commander Tempest thought aloud, “It’s getting closer.” He strained his eyes and was sure he saw a speck of orange color. The same color as the mane of the fastest pegasus stationed at the western outposts. Turning to the pony at his side, Tempest added, “Lieutenant, go wake the reserve soldiers. Tell them to get ready and meet here in front of the command building. I have a bad feeling about this.”
* * * * * * *
It had only taken five minutes before the speck of color was close enough to the home of the pegasus tribe to be identified as a pegasus mare with a deep blue coat and a bright orange mane. It was also easy to see that she was rushing right for the command building of the pegasus tribe.
Commander Tempest looked to the plaza in front of the command building, to the gathering ponies before him. Some of the reserve soldiers were still trickling in. Most were here, but even among them, many had simply rushed out to the plaza with gear in mouth and were still getting dressed.
The pegasus from the western front came in hard and fast, slamming into the clouds at a shallow angle and digging a trench in the clouds as she came skiing right at Commander Tempest. The two soldiers to either side of the commander ducked away as if to avoid being in the mare’s way. However, Tempest didn’t budge and the mare ran out of momentum right in front of him.
“Commander! Harpies! Too many to fight! West outposts abandon. Crews in fighting retreat…” She reported before taking a moment to catch her breath, but otherwise remaining well composed considering how quickly she’d just crossed the miles between said outposts and the pegasus tribe’s home.
“What’s you guess on how many?” Tempest asked, with an eyebrow raised.
“All of them.” She responded, a hint of fear in her purple eyes making it clear she wasn’t joking.
“All of them?” the commander couldn’t help but ask, as he flapped his wings to hover high enough above the clouds to get a decent look west. What Tempest saw to the west was two small gray clouds, from which lightning bolts were being fired into a large gray haze.
“All of the, I’ve never seen so many before. They must have brought their whole flock or something.” The mare responded unnecessarily, as the commander’s eyes had already gone wide at the realization that the haze chasing the two small storm clouds wasn’t a haze at all but a mass of harpies.
Tempest had been expecting a large attack, but nothing like this. In his mind he was rethinking his battle plan as he settled back down on the clouds. Turning to the deep blue mare he asked, “Think you can make that blitz two more times?”
With a bit of a grin she answered, “They call me Lightning Dash for a reason.” Then with a small sigh of concern she added, “I may be a bit too tired to fight well when I get back though.”
“Get back out there and tell your teams that I want the west outpost ponies in full retreat. We’ll have a proper battle line ready for you by the time you get back. You and the others from the outposts will be assigned to the third wave, that should buy you some time to rest before I call you into battle.” Commander Tempest ordered, and with a small nod added, “Better to have the ten of you fight where you have a chance then let the nine still out there get overrun.”
With a salute and a nod Lightning Dash disappeared in an instant, as a few feet of cloud exploded from the sheer force of her takeoff. She soared off back toward the west, fast enough that she left an orange streak in her wake.
Grabbing the first pegasus he could find in full combat gear Commander Tempest started barking orders, “You, sound the alarm! I need every able-bodied soldier I can get ready to fight in ten minutes!” To another pony with only light armor and no weapons he shouted, “Get the weather teams in gear! I need a cloud line west of town! And don’t forget the snipers’ clouds!” Finally turning to his assistant from the command building the commander added, “Lieutenant, I need two of our fastest scouts to head to the north and south outposts. Have them return home wide to the west, they should get here just in time to serve as flanking attacks on the harpy forces.”
The first two pegasi scattered to fulfill their orders, but the Lieutenant stayed and asked, “What of the morning volunteers to the earth ponies? Should we recall them too?”
Tempest shook his head as he answered, “It’s a forty five minute flight to the heart of earth pony territory. Not counting that the volunteers are going to be scattered about. The harpies will be here in fifteen minutes tops, so anypony down there will need to have already noticed the thunder and decided to return on their own if they are going to get here in time to matter.”
“Right.” the Lieutenant said, as he nodded, saluted and took off to fulfill his orders.
* * * * * * *
Ten minutes latter Commander Tempest was flying the newly formed line of clouds, on which now stood rows of pegasus warriors, and backed by many weather pegasi in lighter armor meant to not encumber their movement.
Surveying the soldiers one caught his eye as out of place. Landing in front of the tan-coated mare with the pink mane, the commander couldn’t help but notice the bandages through the gaps in the mare’s armor. With a sigh Tempest asked, “Lieutenant Cloudshy, what are you doing here?”
“When I heard the alarm being raised I looked outside to see what the fuss was. When I saw all the harpies on the horizon and heard you needed every able-bodied pegasus I answered the call to arms, sir.” She answered.
“Able-bodied being the key words, lieutenant. In your condition all you’ll do is get yourself killed without taken any harpies down with you.” Tempest explained, placing his hoof on his forehead and shaking his head slowly.
“You’re wrong sir. I won’t let them reach my precious Panzee.” She answered, with a sudden flare of determination in her eyes.
“Pansy?” was all the commander could ask.
“It’s a flower, and the name of my daughter.”
“Right… flower, not the first thing that comes to mind when I hear that word.” Commander Tempest said. Then rethinking his the words of the order he had in mind he added, “That’s good that you want to protect your kid, but I need you to do it in a way that will matter. I want you to head back into town and, if it become necessary, I want you to lead and execute operation broken sky.”
The commander’s words drew hushed whispers from everypony in earshot. It was Cloudshy that put the reaction to words, “Do you really think we’ll need to abandon our homes, sir?”
The commander’s answer came in a solemn tone, “The pegasus in me says I know my soldiers and that, even badly outnumbered, we will win the day. But the realist in me, that thought as much as fought his way through the commander’s challenge, tells me that being out numbered ten to one and the possibility of an unknown surprise in store for us means there’s also a change the harpies might win. If that happens, if the battle lines fall, and the town is compromised, there’s no reason for the civilians to die along with the rest of us. Somepony needs to lead the evacuation, to make sure the pegasus tribe isn’t whipped out. You may not be healthy enough to fight out there, but I know you can do that, you can protect your daughter that way. You can be your daughter’s last line of defense.”
Cloudshy took a moment to respond, a tear became visible in her eye when she answered, “Yes, sir. I’ll protect them, all of them, you have my word.” With that she turned and flew back toward the home of the pegasi.
Raising his voice to make sure that everypony that overheard that exchange of words heard him now Tempest added, “As for the rest of you! Let’s make sure that Cloudshy has a boring day!” Noticing the colorful blur of the pegasi from the western outposts zipping by overhead, and the mass of harpies only a few minutes out behind them, the commander shouted, “Get ready, It’s show time!”
* * * * * * *
The battle had been raging for over an hour, so far the battle lines had held. Not that the massive aerial dogfight could be called a line, but pegasus warriors had managed to keep the harpy warriors from overrunning the storm cloud lines. And the pegasi kicking lightning from the storm clouds had been able to keep the harpy archery groups from advancing any further.
Lightning flashed with the frequency of falling rain from the pegasus storm clouds, volleys of arrows soared from harpy archery groups, near the storm clouds weather pegasi did their best to shift the air currents to make the arrow volleys miss their intended targets. And in the sky between all of that the harpy and pegasus warriors dove at and dodged each other and the crossfire, trying to land that one critical blow to their opponent.
Most of the harpy warriors fought with only their talons, though some did have weapons like daggers or sharpened wooden sticks that could be call spears. The armaments of the pegasus warriors were more varied, many wielded spears with metal tips, some had earth pony swords that had handles and were held in the mouth. Only s few pegasi had proper pegasus sky swords like the commander’s. Not for the lack of talent though, as the pegasus tribe did have it’s own blacksmith and even a mountaintop forge. The problem was that pegasi were creatures of the sky, so finding ones that would tolerate the art of mining for the ore needed to make the bronze weapons was all but impossible. Hence why most pegasi only did so long enough to have a decent spear-tip made, or skipped mining all together and traded for an earth pony weapon.
The state of pegasus arms was far from Commander Tempest’s mind though, as lightning flashed nearby. Then a looming shadow of a volley of arrows heading his way and backed by a harpy warrior captured the commander’s eye. Tempest brought his wings together, forcing the air to compress until it exploded. The airburst knocked him back but it also knocked the volley aside and all around the pegasus commander.
The harpy had apparently been hoping to face an injured target as it was fully unprepared when Commander Tempest surged forward, dodged its talons and impaled it with his sky sword. The dying, impaled harpy did manage to writhe in such a way as to snap the commander’s sword in two and take most of the blade down with it.
With his favorite weapon destroyed, and having met more then his quota of enemy kills to make up for how badly outnumbered the pegasi were, Tempest took this as a good excuse to back off. He flew backwards to keep the battle in view as he retreated to friendly airspace, looking to see if he needed to shuffle any troops around.
Harpies only seemed to come in shades of gray or blue, but pegasi came in every color imaginable and that eased differentiating the mess of figures darting at each other in the sky a little. Commander Tempest spotted five badly wounded pegasi, falling to their deaths. But another sight made the commander snarl, “Dang rookies, look up.” The sight in question was three more pegasi diving after their falling friends, seeming oblivious to the harpies diving at them.
Too far away to do anything about it himself Tempest turned to face the storm cloud lines, inhaled as deeply as he could and released the breath in a loud whistle while thrusting his hoof downward, repeatedly.
Five bolts of lightning converged on diving harpies. Commander Tempest breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that some of the lightning snipers had figured out his message. Hopefully he’d just saved six ponies by bringing them to the attention of the lightning snipers.
However, it was too soon for the commander to relax his mind. He knew that something bigger was wrong with the battle before him. He knew his soldiers were better then this, even the rookies that made the mistake of turning their back to the enemy had managed to survive the battle this long. How in creation did five pegasi get brought down in rapid succession?
Scanning the battle for clues a shiver ran down Tempest’s spine as he noticed that every pegasus in the air was fighting for their lives, but there were still three groups of harpies hovering in the far back that had yet to engage in battle. And judging from the banners among them it was the harpy elite guard still being held in reserve. Granted the group with the harpy queen was unlikely to engage at all, but even if the other two groups joined the battle it would be bad news for the pegasi.
No, something more was wrong with the sight before him. The pegasus commander counted four unit flags among the harpies still held back but only three groups. One of the harpy elite guard units had engaged, but had left its flag-bearer behind. As nice as it was to realize that, by itself it still didn’t explain the sudden reversal of fortunes in the battle.
Commander Tempest finally reached the pegasus forward cloud line. Landing hard he called out to the first captain he laid eyes on, “Something’s wrong! Why are our ponies falling so frequently all of a sudden?”
“Not sure why sir, but I think it started when one of the harpy elite units filtered into their regular archery units.” The Captain responded.
Commander Tempest sighed, while nice to know where the harpy elite unit had gone he’d basically already guessed as much. His ears perked up when he heard another voice call to him, “Commander! Those creatures from the other day are back! What should we do?”
Tempest looked to the panicked pegasus, who motioned to the south end of the battle. A quick look was all it took for the commander to spot three figures of golden-brown and silver-gray, of a size too big to be pony or harpy. The griffins fought with a ruthless efficiency fitting a predator, ripping out throats and crippling wings with their talons and beaks, and claws shredding any foe foolish enough to approach their lion-like hind legs.
Two more observations of the griffins came to the commander’s mind. First, it only took a moment to notice that the griffins were only fighting the harpies. Second, somewhere in the back of Tempest’s mind he couldn’t help but ask himself. Weren’t there four of them before?
Commander Tempest shook his head as he replied, “They seem to be on our side. Ignore them. And tell the our melee warriors to leave them be as well, no since letting somepony pick a fight with them out of panic.”
Tempest turned his attention back to the fight, trying to find the source of the pegasus tribe’s troubles. He spotted two more pegasi falling, long red trails being torn apart into a red mist making it plain that the ponies had already received fatal wounds. But one detail caught the commander’s eye. Both had only a single arrow protruding from them, in places that should be nothing more then nuisance injuries.
The sudden lessening of the sound of thunder to the commander’s right made him glance down the forward lightning kicker’s battle line. Tempest saw a mare fighting to stand, as if on the edge of fatigue, yet only a single enemy arrow had made it through the shifting wall of wind to strike her on the flank.
At first she seemed to be equally confused as her sudden weariness. Then her eyes went wide with fear and revelation as she shouted, “Poison! The arrows are poisoned!”
Tempest’s eyes also went wide at the thought. As far as he knew only unicorns used poison, and even then only every few generations to kill each other to settle arguments over their throne. When the heck did harpies learn to make poison? Distressing thoughts aside there was something wrong with the mare’s report, so Commander Tempest looked back to the battle to confirm his gut feeling.
As he suspected there were several pegasus warriors fighting vigorously despite having several arrows that found their marks in them. Not all of the arrows were poisoned. Tempest’s eyes searched the harpy archery groups until he found what he was looking for. In an instant he took off like a rocket, heading for the back line of storm clouds.
As soon as he was in earshot the commander began shouting new orders to the lightning snipers, “Each archery group has a few harpy snipers! Target the ones dipping their arrows before firing! They’re the ones using poison!”
As Tempest circled back toward the frontline he could see that the precision lightning strikes had moved from supporting the pegasi in the aerial dogfight to picking out targets from the harpy archery groups. He also passed several injured pegasi being ferried back toward town. Reexamining the battle he shook his head. Even with the harpy secret weapon revealed and the unexpected aid of the griffins the pegasus tribe had taken too many losses already. If the harpies fully committed the rest of their forces it would be all over.
In his mind Commander Tempest saw only one solution, so he put the plan in motion. Turning to his own flag bearer (A colt barely old enough to be called a stallion, who’s sole job was to try to stay near the commander with the commander’s flag.) Tempest commanded, “Get into the fray and warn our soldiers of the poison and to prioritize dodging the arrows!”
The young pegasus cringed at the order but after shaking off the shock of having new orders for the first time in his life the flag bearer he pulled up and away, heading for the massive dogfight between the two battle lines.
Commander Tempest came in low and fast over the pegasus front lines, merely shouting, “Borrowing!” as he ripped a regular pegasus tribe flag from the harness of a storm line unit’s flag-bearer.
Of course the pegasus tribe didn’t make useless things, so their idea of a flag was a spear with the flag tied on just below the spearhead. With the flag wrapped in his front leg Tempest pulled up and powered his wings trying to get above the bulk of the fighting as he headed toward the enemy lines.
Once he’d reached an acceptable altitude the commander did a barrel roll then thrust the flag forward. He repeated the maneuver a few more times before three pegasi came up to join him, falling into formation behind him.
“I’m glad it was you Captain Storm Walker! You’re team is just what I need!” Tempest greeted them.
“I figured it was you when I saw your flag bearer flying alone! What’s the plan?” the captain responded, with a smile.
“We have to end this, now! We’re have to take down the harpy queen!” Commander Tempest yelled over the rushing winds, as he sped up.
The three pegasi behind the commander traded grim glances and nods as they reformed into a line behind the commander. They knew those orders sounded like a suicide mission. And yet they also knew why the commander had hoped they had been the ones to join him on it, they had the best chance of pulling it off, and if they were lucky they might even live to tell the tale afterwards.
“Show time.” Commander Tempest said, just loud enough to be heard above the wind in their ears.
A few scattered arrows managed to make it to their altitude as the pegasi soared above the harpy front lines. Said front lines were far too low to hope to stop the four pegasi intruding on their airspace. However, the three groups further back now saw the intruders and two of the groups began ascending. The two harpy archery groups had started too low to be able to intercept the pegasi outright, but they would certainly have a much closer shot with their bows.
Tempest couldn’t help but frown as he saw every single harpy in the two elite guard groups dip their arrows in something before loading them in their bows. The impending volley wouldn’t just have a few poison arrows, like the ones from the front lines, all of these arrows would have poison on their tips.
The first volley was fired. Commander Tempest brought his wings together, performing his airburst move to scatter the incoming arrows. The backlash from his airburst knocked him upwards and slowed him, forcing him to fall back in formation at the back of the line.
Another volley was fired at the pegasi. Now at the front of the group, Captain Storm Walker rolled forward and brought her wings down in a mighty sweep. An unseen, vertical blade of air came off of the captain’s wings, cutting the volley in half, causing the arrows to pass to the left or right of the pegasi. Not a single arrow even came close to the winged ponies. However, like the commander, the captain’s trick had cost her speed and forced her to slip back in line behind the pegasus commander.
Yet another volley came. Now it was Private Tailwind at the front of the line and she rolled upward, flicking her tail forward. A lance of air punched a hole in the incoming volley, scattering arrows all around the pegasi, much like the way the commander’s airburst had. Like those before her, the private slipped back into formation at the back of the line.
By now the four-pony strike team had passed the two groups attempting to shoot them down and Commander Tempest yelled, “Now!” At that the pegasi dove, aimed at the final group of harpies.
The harpies didn’t flinch. Why would they? The pegasi had one archery group below them and were now diving to put two more groups beside them. They were diving into a perfect crossfire position, how could they hope to deflect that many arrows from two completely different directions, at such short range? The harpy queen screeched and all at once all three groups fired.
Lieutenant Wind Wall put herself into both a spin and a roll. As she did, Private Tailwind performed her air lance technique again, firing it through her superior officers. Lieutenant Wind Wall finished her move by bringing her wings together and the resulting airburst put the commander’s version to shame. In addition to the massive blast of air Wind Wall’s technique also produced two shockwaves of air pressure that shot out from the center of the airburst. The result scattered arrows in every direction except the ones they had been aimed in and also sent Wind Wall spiraling outward from the center of her blast-wave.
With Tailwind’s air lance thrusting him forward and punching a hole in Wind Wall’s airburst, Commander Tempest fought through the turbulence of their own creation, lowing the flag-spear and pumping his wings to surge forward at the suddenly surprised harpies below. Three pegasi shot through the harpy group, three harpies vanished, among them the queen.
Commander Tempest had impaled the harpy queen, although he felt a sharp pain in his gut from the dying harpy leader’s counter attack. Tempest saw the life fading from the harpy queen’s eyes, so he pushed her away, leaving her run through with the now bloody pegasus the flag. The pegasus commander looked to his back end to see a dagger protruding from his gut, just below were his armor ended. Yanking it free with his mouth he spat it back at the falling harpy and snarled, “You dropped this.”
Tempest finally opened his wings to pull out of the dive, pressing a hoof down on his wound to slow the bleeding. Turning his attention upward he prepared to dodge the inevitable counter attack by the multitude of enemy archers now above him. A volley of arrows rained down on him like a sudden downpour. Commander Tempest preformed another air burst. It stopped any direct hits but at this range it didn’t deflect the arrows enough and several grazed his armor as they sailed past.
Pushing his wings as hard as he could, Tempest resumed his mad dash for friendly airspace. The absence of a second volley gave the commander a moment’s respite as he saw that the harpy elite guard seemed to figure out that their queen was now dead.
The respite didn’t last as Commander Tempest finally had the time to notice the burning sensation coming from inside him and centered at his gut. “Dang, should’ve guessed the queen’s dagger would be poisoned too.” He whispered to the wind.
A friendly voice called out, “Commander!” Looking to see, Tempest saw the speaker was Lieutenant Wind Wall.
“Lieutenant! Where’re the others?” the commander asked.
“Private took a bad hit diving through the enemy formation. Captain’s helping her stay airborne. You don’t look so good yourself sir, need a hoof?” Wind Wall asked in return.
“Yes please, help me get back to our lines.” Tempest answered, feeling the poison spreading through his system and fearing he wouldn’t be able to make it back on his own. Tempest knew he was a dead pony flying, but he also knew it would be better for the pegasus tribe to see their commander limp back then to see him fall to his doom.
With the lieutenant’s help Commander Tempest made it back to the front line of storm clouds, where he collapsed the moment his hooves hit cloud. He could hear the lieutenant calling for a medic but Tempest didn’t care. It was over. The pressures of being the commander of the pegasus tribe would soon be over. The strike had worked and soon the battle would be over. Tempest had nothing left to worry about, everything was over, and it made him breathe a shallow sigh of relief.
The lead medic of the pegasus tribe came to the commander’s side, she was a mare with a bright yellow coat and silver mane. First she was asking questions, then she was ordering the lieutenant back into the field to try to find the poisoned weapon in the hope of making a cure. Tempest didn’t mind, it was good to see somepony else barking orders for once. Although he wished the poison spreading through his body didn’t hurt so much.
As Commander Tempest lay on the clouds with the medic beside him, laying out her supplies to be ready for the return of the lieutenant, three large figures approached the commander. Sounding more feminine then the one he’d spoken to earlier one of them spoke, “Commander Tempest of the pegasus tribe I presume?”
“Griffin who’s name eludes me I presume? I see you’ve learned our language rather well.”
“Gildar,” she reintroduced herself. Then continuing, “We ran into a unicorn, nice guy, called himself Starswirl. He taught us your language. We saw you strike down the enemy leader. You are a brave warrior, we can respect that.”
“Weren’t there four of you before?” Tempest asked.
“Ah, Von Griff, he is… not the fighting type. He is a map maker, so he’s hiding somewhere, drawing I think.” By now the griffin seemed to notice the way the pegasus commander’s skin was changing color around his wound, so she inquired, “You look unwell. Is something wrong?”
Tempest laughed, of all the individuals he’d expected to waste their concern on him the griffins weren’t among them, when he responded he said, “The enemy leader’s weapon was poisoned.”
The griffins looked to each other, each shrugging in turn before Gildar responded, “Poison didn’t make it into the lessons. What’s poison?”
The commander chuckled again. He was burning up inside from poison and yet here he was spending his final moment giving a griffin language lessons. Fate just refused to let him rest didn’t it? “Hmm, if a normal snake bites you, you live. If a poison snake bites you, you die.” He answered.
“Toxin!” the griffin cheered at having translated the word. “Oh, toxin.” She added grimly, proving she’d translated it properly. Then she asked, “No antidote?”
“Working on a cure but I need a clean sample first.” The medic pegasus answered.
“What about unicorns? Their magic seemed to have many uses.” Gildar asked.
“They won’t help, the unicorns have every reason to hate me right now.” Commander Tempest said.
The griffin turned her head askew and said, “Trading a leader for a leader seems like an even trade to me. No side makes it out better like that.”
Tempest smiled as he answered, “That’s were you’re wrong. Harpies are too much of a flock. But the pegasi are more then just a tribe. They are individuals. They don’t need anypony ordering them to protect everything they love. They will keep fighting to protect their homes, their families, and their friends without me. And tomorrow they will hold the commander’s challenge and choose a new commander. Having a leader is a convenience to them. But the harpies, everything is about the will of the queen to them. Without one the only thing that matters is getting a new one. See? Even now they are already fighting among themselves to determine who the next queen will be.”
The griffins joined Tempest in looking back out into the battlefield. The harpy elite guard was in full retreat and even so they were attacking each other in their traditional ways of fighting to prove whom the strangest and most vicious of them was. Most of the harpy front lines seemed to have noticed the absence and were also braking into retreat, many of them being slain by their faster, more agile pegasus opponents.
Tempest breathed a weak laugh as he noticed something different from all infighting he’d seen from the harpies in the past. The harpy elite guard was dropping like flies. Commander Tempest realized that the harpies may have been fighting each other the same way as they always had, but this time they were armed with poisoned weapons, and all of their best warriors were whipping themselves out. The harpies would never be a threat to the pegasus tribe again.
Gildar nodded her head in agreement as she observed the same. “You were truly a wise, brave and noble warrior, it has been an honor fighting beside you.” Bowing her head the griffin added, “I will see to it the stories we bring home will tell the tale of the great and noble warriors of the pegasus tribe.”
“A warrior can ask for no greater honor then that. Thank you.”
With that the griffins departed. A moment later Lieutenant Wind Wall returned, dropping a dagger on the mat the head medic had laid out for her other supplies. Between breaths Wind Wall gasped, “Couldn’t find one… use on the commander… Found queen… had extra… Will this do?”
The medic examined the dagger and noticing a button at the bottom of the handle took the dagger in her mouth, pointed the tip into a bowl and pressed the button with her tongue. A small amount of greenish-yellowish liquid poured out of a hole near the tip of the dagger’s blade. She frowned as she thought aloud, “I’d hoped there’s be more. But it will have to do.” The lead medic then separated the poison into several smaller bowls and started experimenting by adding various herbs to it.
Commander Tempest tried to sigh but it came out as a cough. Feeling his body going numb from the poison, he knew he had to forgive Wind Wall preemptively or she’d never forgive herself. Motioning for the lieutenant to come closer, he told her, “You were fast enough. Don’t blame yourself. Too much poison in my system… never had a chance.” Motioning to the other injured pegasi that had been brought to the medic Tempest added, “They have less poison… they’ll last… you’ll have saved them.”
“Don’t talk like that sir, you’ll live too.” Wind Wall responded, although the forced smile on her face showed she knew the commander’s words were true.
In his final moments Commander Tempest had defeated the harpy queen, saved the pegasus tribe, impressed griffin explorers, and saved one pony’s sprit from needless suffering. If that wasn’t going out in a blaze of glory Tempest didn’t know what was. And yet he had one more gift to give, not to the pegasus tribe, but to his own legacy.
Commander Tempest felt his heart stop, he motioned for Lieutenant Wind Wall to listen close and with his final breath he said, “Tell Prism, I always liked the name Hurricane.”
Author's Note
I meant to describe what the commander's challenge is in the story itself. But every time the topic came up it was between two characters that should already know full well what it was so it never felt right bringing it up.
Anyway if anyone wanted to know. In my mind the commander's challenge was a set of five sport style games. Two to test strength of body, two to test strength of mind and the fifth was a friendly duel, knock your opponent out of the playing field type match.
