The Storms of War

D+93

“ah.... hah... Hah... HATCHOO!”

I rubbed my muzzle again, sniffling. The damn cold froze every breath I took, and no matter how tightly I wrapped my wings and jacket around myself, the cold decided to find every crack and crevice and squeeze in against my poor pelt. Like most of the company, exposure to so much stress had prevented us from growing our winter coats, and as a result, the winter gear we had been issued was not sufficient to stop three of us from freezing to death so far. The rest of us envied them. THEIR long march was over.

For the past week or so, we had been marching north from Saint Feathersburg, heading across the Reign river, and had entered Gryphany proper. The evergreen forests around here used to be hunting grounds, but the Gryphon army had scoured it clean ages ago, and now not a single mindless deer was to be seen. It was a actually rather peaceful out here, with the fresh snow making everything look clean and new, a fresh start that lifted my mood. I was aware that the rest of my platoon looked on me when I wasn’t looking at them, and that some of them whispered, but I was doing much better. Whiskey and Beer had done much to dull the pain I was feeling, and I smiled and joked more.

“Alright... Hey! We're digging in here!”

I looked around. Captain Rock Solid was nodding at me and Blaze. “Start digging foxholes here, forward scouts reported that they can see Talonskrach. We are about half a mile out, so this is where we hold the line” he said, before moving away. I looked across at Blaze and shrugged, pulling out my Entrenching Device, Mark Two, Non-Collapsable. It was a fancy way of saying shovel.

Propping my rifle up against a tree, I got to work scraping snow off of the ground with her and exposing the partially frozen ground underneath. Luckily, we were not far enough north that we would be hacking through a crust, but the top soil was still frozen from all of the plant material embedded in it. It was a few minutes before Blaze spoke.

“So... you hear that Chineigh is pushing hard on the other side of Gryphany? Cause I heard on the radio that Empress Ming Chow has her soldiers sweeping the land clear everywhere she goes.”

I nodded. It had been welcome news that she had succeeded in breaking the Gryphon advances on her side, and had successfully stalled the Neighponeese at the same time. Her casualties were horrendous, but her soldiers were just as fanatical as the Neighponeese, as well trained as the Gryphons, a bit worse equipped than us, and there sure were a lot of them. Personally, I thought the numbers she was throwing out, that she was fielding over seventy million soldiers, was a bit inflated, but even if she was fielding only a quarter of that it was more than the Gryphons could bring to bear, being fought on two fronts. Our navy had smashed the Neighponeese at the Battle of Coral Bay, and they were in full retreat from us.

“Yeah, that means if we can take Talonskrach, we will have made a breach in their defensive line. We take Skrach, and from there it is what... a seventy mile march to Birdlin? Two small towns and then their capitol?”

From behind me a voice said “That's right, Corporal. You two doing okay?”

I turned and nodded respectfully, refusing to salute the Major when we didn’t know if there were other snipers around. I smiled tightly, before asking “Do you need anything, Major?”

She shook her head. “Just making sure you are ready to go when we attack. Once we take this town, I am gonna put in to command to have us relieved. I've had just about enough of hurry up and wait, and with the fact that the war is gonna be over before Hearth's Warming Eve, I wanna spend it back in Equestria with my folks. What about you, wanna get back home too?”

I shook my head. “Naw, I've seen Equestria. Grew up there. That's why I came here, but I wish someone had told me there was a war going on.”

Blaze snorted. “Same here Ma'am. I just wanna do my job, kill some beaks, and get back in on piece.”

The major nodded, turning away. “Well, if you two need anything, let me know. Dig out another six inches in that foxhole, then tuck in for a bit. Mess Cook will be bringing food around at some point. We wont be attacking until tomorrow regardless.”

With that, she left and Blaze and I finished excavating the hole in the ground, wishing we could pop out in Chineigh on the other side, but instead settling for curling up at the bottom and huddling together under a blanket. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, my head on her shoulder.

I awoke a few hours later to the smell of soup and the feeling of a warm metal cup being pushed into my hands. Blinking and yawning, I bit back a muffled curse at the cold. It was dark out now, and I found that Blaze had rigged the blanket over a frame on the top of our foxhole. We were a bit far out on the line, at the left edge, and by the looks of it we were mimiking the trap-door spider.

I smiled up at the cook, nodding and offering him a ciggarett in exchange for his services, which he gladly accepted.

When he left, I pulled the blanket frame back over us, and cozied up to Blaze in the bottom of the pit. There was a glow inside from a portable heater she had set up, and I looked at her. “So... what's the first thing you are gonna do when you get back?” I asked, taking a bite of my soup.

She shrugged, chewing through a half-cooked carrot as she thought. “Probably gonna see if I can get back into college. I hear the crown is gonna offer incentives to soldiers to go to college, and someday get a commission. But I really just wanna go back to working iron in a foundry. My daddy was a blacksmith, Furnace Blaze. He makes antique weapons, and his brother is the forgemaster for the Royal Guard weapons. He actually repaired Prince Shining Armors sword back when the prince was only a lieutenant in the guard.”

I looked up at her. “Nice... So why were you working in a foundry then?”

She grinned. “Same reason anyone works a crappy job. They need money, and the foundry needed warm bodies to stare at the machines all day. I managed a line of workers who would make sure the metal came out right, mostly it was sheets of metal to make things like roofing and tanks.”

I chuckled. “I guess we have something in common then... I worked a factory line too, in Cloudsdale. Line Manager, Factory Fifteen, Supervisor Grade Three Temporary Steel Wing. My boss was a friend ofo my dads and got me a job I technically wanst qualified for, even though I did it pretty well. He took care of me, but my job was to watch machiens and people and make sure they didn’t mess up!”

She laughed, before covering her mouth and snorting, trying to keep quiet. I found myself grinning, amused by the circumstances.

“What are the odds! Both of us from oppisite ends of Equestria, and both of us went from doing similar shitty jobs to doing EXACTLY THE SAME shitty job!” she said. I just smiled as I took another bite of my soup, and she opened her mouth to continue.

I never did find out what happened, as the roof caved in over us. The blanket and frame fell around us, and the heater went out as it was smothered, filling the hole in the ground with smoke. Some idiot must have stepped on our foxhole, and I swore loudly.

Blaze and I both pulled away at fabric, as I said “Dammit! Watch were you're going!”

That is when we pulled away the fabric, and I was face to face with a feathered head and a beak.

Time slowed to a crawl as the Gryphon squawked, and I shouted, my arms pinned by the fabric, Blaze still struggling between the gryphon and the blanket and frame, pinned to the side of the hole. I slammed my head forward, dazing the featherhead before thrashing, shouting “HELP! HE-AUGH!”

The gryphon cut my second call for assistance short by slashing across my face with his talons, ripping the right side open in a lance of absolute agony. A muffled shot rang out and Blaze screamed, cursing a blue streak as she finally said “Get your fucking gun! GET YOUR FUCKING GUN!”

Two arms wrapped around the gryphon from behind, and he screeched as he was pulled back into an embrace that many stallions would have longed for, but in this case involved enough pressure that I heard a nasty crack from his ribs. Fumbling, I grabbed my Colt Revolver, and lunged forward, tackling him out of Blaze's arms and pinning him to the side of the hole, the revolver against his head.

A moment later, a second shot rang out and my gun was smoking, having plastered his brains across the snow a few feet away, and I slumped over his body, panting. The My right eye was blinded by blood, and the cold air caused the fresh wounds to throb. The thing that grabbed my attention, however, was when I turned around to see Blaze grimacing, holding her left leg which was covered in blood.

I didn’t even get a chance to call for a medic before the world exploded around us, the wrath of the gods raining upon is in the form of a mortar that exploded a few feet away and turned my world dark.

I blinked awake slowly. There was a thundering sound all around, and a moment later the sounds of screaming and laughing. Looking around, I spotted Orange Blaze next to me, looking pale in the hole we were both in. There was a bright flash of light, and something hot streaked past my cheek, snapping me out of my daze. We were under fire!”

Blaze was still covered in blood, and I screamed “MEDIC! MEDIC!” at the top of my lungs as I cralwed over to her. She looked up at me, but here eyes seemed glazed in the dim light of the early morning, and the flashes of light did nothing to improve the outlook. I reached down to her leg, putting pressure on it like we had been taught, my mind unusually clear at the moment. For now, the only thing I could focus on was saving my best friend. She wimpered as I pressed both palms over it. “Shh, you're fine! Look at me!” I commanded, looking into her eyes.

She drew back her teeth, hissing. “Dammit dammit dammit Dammit DAMMIT! I cant see a damn thing!” she said, her eyes staring vacantly. “Where are you? Did we get buried?”

I snapped my fingers in front of her eyes. “Blaze! Look at me! Come on!” I said, the first tentrils of panic welling up inside of me. Her eyes remained fixed straight ahead, and a second later my heart nearly stopped as a figure slid into the hole next to us. It started when I saw that it was a medic, the red cross on his helmet signifying that he was the one I wanted. Without a word, he pulled me away from her leg, and cut off the fabric, sprinkling a clotting agent on it. I handed over the morphene from my aid kit, and he jammed the syrette into her good leg, putting the used dispensor into her collar for future reference, and I looked at him. “Is she gonna be okay doc?”

He looked at me. “Yeah! It didn’t hit the artery or she would already have bled out. She's in shock though!”

I shotued above the din of explosions, “She cant see! She cant see anything!”

He nodded. “I said she is in shock! That can happen! We're gonna get her to an aid station once this shit stops!” he hollered, checking her bandaging and then hopping out of the hole, running off towards another screaming voice. I pulled Blaze close and whispered “I'm gonna get you out of here! Blaze! I’m gonna make sure you get home! Just stay with me!”

I held her close as they shelled us for another twenty minutes. Dawn crept over the horizon as the last shell fell, and I still held Blaze until a wagon came by to pick her and some other wounded up.

I just stared as she was taken away, one more of my friends claimed by the war.

The night before the attack on Talonskrach was one of the worst nights that 17th platoon faced. Their company was fine, but the seventeenth themselves had the misfortune of digging their foxholes in the direct path of an area that was pre-sighted for 102mm Howitzers. The next day, however, proved to be both the turning point of the war, and the end of it. Folliwng the Battle of Talonskrach, the gryphons surrenderd, and the wortorn survivors were sent home, leaving the fresh troops to occupy the now subdued country.

Corporal Orange Blaze was discharged following her injury, and walked with a limp the rest of her life, but managed to return to a more or less normal semblence of life, still slightly haunted by the war. Major Maple Leaf suffered a single shrapnle wound, but was not required to get any serious medical aid. Corporal Steel Wing suffered a disfiguring scar, but refused to be removed from the line, insisting that he be allowed to take part in the most pivotal land battle in the war, and was granted the request, although that meant that shoddy first aid resulted in permanent scars on his face.

“It was, without a doubt, the last time we had to prove ourselves. But dammit, we did our jobs and we did them well. I just wish I could have seen Bristlebeaks face when he heard that he was gonna lose. Chineigh from one side, Neighpan abandoning him, and us on his door step... wish we had gotten to seize that city too. But not a mare or stallion walked off that battlefield unchanged.”

-Major Maple Leaf