The Twilight Guard

Previous chapters have been updated with gameplay information for those that wanted it. No full stats yet, though I may make those up for release too if that's what's wanted. Enjoy!

Chapter VI

        I trudged through the streets of Stalliongrad, heading for my objective. Head down, I was seething. Brightwing had a wing around my neck as we walked, trying to reassure me. It wasn’t working.

        Oh, I suppose I’m missing something aren’t I? Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.... It started when we were summoned to the Commander’s office once our “break” had ended.

*#@#*

        “Captain Ironside, reporting.”

        “First Spear Brightwing, reporting.”

        Slaughter smiled. “At ease, kids. Take a seat.”

        We sat.

        “As I’m sure you’re well aware, we’ve found ourselves in a state of war. I’m sending you two to the front lines.”

        That was new. “W-with who?”

        Slaughter’s eyes narrowed. “With the Wasteland, of course. They declared a state of hostility when they killed one of our own, or have you so quickly forgotten that your unit was a party of three?”

        “With respect, sir, they were just Raiders. They don’t speak or act for the locals.”

        Slaughter was clearly unhappy at being second-guessed.  “Son, they are the locals. I’m giving you command of a unit. You’re to take a local village and raise our banner there.” Now that was promising! My eyes must have lit up, because he smirked.

        “So how many Spears will I get? What toys am I bringing with?” My excitement got the better of me.

        “None and whatever your troops bring with them.” Slaughter looked satisfied with himself as I deflated.

        “No Spears? How am I commanding troops if I have no Spears?”

        Slaughter’s smirk grew as he gave me directions to a building in town where my troops were staying.

        “First Spear.” Brightwing stood up stiff and tall at the mention of her name by the Commander. “You’re to act as the Captain’s aide and steward. Stick to his side, and help him through his missions. Dismissed, both of you.”

        We saluted and left the office, following his secretary’s directions through the winding streets. We passed slaves, many of whom bowed respectfully to me, and Guardsponies saluting us. We also passed outsiders with contracts with us, who stared with fascination at the two officers walking the streets. I didn’t notice any of them. I was confused, and I was angry. I didn’t understand what my father was playing.

        Arriving at the building in question, I noticed it was a two-story brick building, mostly intact, with one intact window on the second floor. All the other windows were boarded up. As we approached the building, the second floor window exploded outwards, and a pony hit the ground, to much laughter from inside the building. The pony got up, shook the shattered glass from his coat, mane, and fur-and-leather armour, and ran back in through the front door.

        I glanced at Brightwing, who returned a look of dismay. Reaching the door, I pushed it open.

        Inside were about twenty ponies, all wearing that filthy fur and leather armour except three clad in a strange armour made of tiny, interlocking steel rings. Metal helmets were littered everywhere. Most of the ponies were standing around in a circle yelling and cheering. Approaching, we butted our way into the circle to see two of the ponies in the center. One of them, a purple unicorn with a yellow mane and a cutie mark of several pre-war bit coins, was giving an earth pony the beating of his life. The earth pony looked like he wasn’t even conscious anymore, just lying there getting stomped on. His blue coat was spattered with red, and his white mane was matted to his head with sweat and blood. Even his beard was bloodied.

        I flying-tackled the unicorn mare stomping on his face as Brightwing hauled him outside of the circle.

        “Hey! The fuck do you think you’re doing?!” the unicorn yelled, as her friends were yelling similar statements of outrage.

        “What’s the meaning of this? This is madness!”

        The unicorn spat blood. It was conduct rather unbecoming a pretty mare. “It was him calling my mother a whore is what it was..” She spat blood again. “You pegasi like to act like you’re all high and mighty, but you’d beat a bitch for talkin’ shit about your mum too.”

        I let her up, and Brightwing shook her head at me. The earth pony hadn’t made it. Looking closely, I could see why. His forehead had caved in from the force of the unicorn’s hooves.

        “Good show! That’s some damned entertainment right there!” a cheerful voice laughed from the back of the room. The other ponies parted, and a pony a slightly darker grey than me with a slightly darker brown mane stepped forward. He was wearing that ring-armour some of the others were. He met me in a hoofshake. “Hey there! You must be the junior officer who’s been placed in command. I’m Einarr, and I’m in command of this here unit. Ragnar’s Rangers, we’re called. Named after an ancestor of mine who formed this warband. I’ll take your orders, but never forget that these ponies are loyal to me, not to you. If you order something that I can’t allow my ponies to do, it ain’t getting done.”

        I was.... surprised. This pony was in good spirits considering he’d just watched one of his ponies beat another to death with her bare hooves.

        “What’s the matter, friend? You look shaken.” Einarr leaned in, looking concerned. I unconsciously glanced to the beaten corpse Brightwing had since abandoned to stand next to me, trying desperately to avoid the leering stares of the male ponies in the room.

        Einarr giggled, which was a strange sound from a deeper-voiced pony in armour. “Oh that. Well, it weeds the weak and stupid ones out. He wasn’t weak though. Good fighter. Takes one to make Goldie bleed her own blood. His crime was being stupid. Went and started talking about.... a subject that is a little bit verboten. Served his sentence though.” He chuckled at his own lame joke. A couple of the ponies around him chuckled nervously as well, as if it was expected to laugh. Einarr righted a flipped-over table and settled into a chair he shoved over to the table. He placed his elbows on the table with his hooves placed together in front of his face. “But enough about us! Who are you, friend? And why have you come here?”

        I drew myself up as big as I could and announced us with much grandeur. “I am Captain Ironside of the Twilight Guard, and this is my adjutant First Spear Brightwing. We’re to be your liaisons to command, it seems.”

        Einarr offered a respectful and pleasant nod. “Lord Einarr, commander of Ragnar’s Outcast Rangers.”

        “Outcast?”

        He smiled slyly. “I might explain that to you eventually. We’ll see if I can come to trust you. As it is, I assume you have orders for us? Otherwise why would such a noble pony in such clean armour come to commune with the savages?”

        I didn’t know what to make of this pony. Unlike Cinnamon, who was undeniably slick and hard to trust, this pony seemed very trustworthy. He was pleasant, polite, and despite commanding these very savage and unruly ponies, he not only spoke well and carried himself in a very civilised manner, he seemed to have these barbarians trained to obedience.

        Einarr got up from the table and walked over to me. “Orders.....sir?”

        I snapped out of my reverie. “Right. We’ve got orders to take a town. This is... for you I believe.” Brightwing handed Einarr the sealed envelope my father’s new secretary had given us on the way out. Odd that he had a new one already.

        Einarr gingerly took the envelope, and passed it to the brutal unicorn mare, Goldie. Goldie opened it with her magic and floated the contents over to Einarr. Taking the letter on his hoof, he held it near his face and read it very quickly. “Nice. Yeah, I can abide this.” Turning to the other ponies and crumpling the letter beneath his hoof, he announced that “We’re goin’ raiding, ponies! Gather your crap and meet at the south gates in TEN MINUTES! Take too long, and you’re getting left behind.” Turning to me, he added “You heard me. South gate, ten minutes. See you there.” He smiled at me, and winked at Brightwing before trotting up the stairs.

        Leaving, we returned to our quarters to gather our gear. I was still confused s to what I’d seen. What the hell were these ponies? I tried running my questions through Brightwing as we did one last polish of our armour and gathered our saddlebags and battle saddles, but she claimed to have formed no opinions on our warriors yet. She still had a bit of opening up to do.

        Locking up our room, we met our charges by the south gate. Einarr stood there, saddlebags on, an axe slid through a belt buckled around his chest. A helmet dangled off his shoulder, ready to be shrugged on if it was needed. He grinned from ear to ear upon seeing us.

        “Great! If you guys were late, this whole thing’d be a bit pointless, don’t you think?”

        I just nodded, and asked if we were ready to move.

        “Sure thing, boss. We’ve got another maybe minute but pretty much everyone’s here. We’re just missing one.”

        We decided to wait that last minute, during which the straggler showed up looking sheepish and avoiding Einarr.

        We moved out. We were heading south to a village called Bridlevich, which apparently was an important agricultural village that grew a significant portion of the region’s root vegetables. I could see why we were being sent to capture it. What a boon that’d be to our food supply!

        The village was a couple days’ walk from Stalliongrad, but with such a large company, I didn’t think we’d be attacked. We made camp that first night in the shade of a small group of trees growing by the side of the road. With so many ponies with us, Brightwing and I actually didn’t have to stand watch. It was nice being able to sleep. We curled up on our bedrolls that we’d placed right next to each other and slept. As my eyes closed, I noticed Einarr taking his armour off to sleep as we’d done. But when he slid the chainmail over his shoulders, I noticed a pair of wings clinging tight to his back. He shook them out, groaning as they cracked and popped from disuse, then folded back to his sides. I’d have to ask him about those. I drifted off to sleep.

*#@#*

        I was kicked awake, and I became aware of screaming and hollering. Gunfire and the clash of steel sounded all around. I shot up, and noticed Brightwing and Einarr standing nearby. Brightwing was already helping put my armour on, but I shrugged her off and finished the job myself. Einarr was armoured now too, and seeing me up he grinned and jumped laughing to the battle, axe clutched in his teeth. There were Raiders everywhere. Ragnar’s Outcast Rangers were fighting, desperately outnumbered. Brightwing and I slid on our battle saddles and started shooting. Brightwing was picking off their ranged units with her rifles, and I was blasting away their melee ponies.

        I saw Einarr swing his axe into a Raider pony’s throat, cutting right through the soft tissue and swinging into the leg of the Raider next to him. He then brought that axe up, around, and down between the wounded Raider’s eyes. I bounded over to him, and jumped over him, charging headlong into a Raider trying to bring a sharpened hoe down on Einarr’s back. My shotguns tore off most of the Raider’s head, and our bodies collided in mid-air. I found myself pinned beneath the stinking Raider corpse, unable to escape. Another Raider peeked his head over his friend’s corpse and used his magic to hover a pistol between my eyes. An axe swung through his neck, and his head rolled off, bouncing off my helmet.

        Einarr bucked the corpses off me, helped me up, and set down his axe for a moment to speak.

        “Now we’re even!” he picked up the axe again and charged back into the fray.

        The fighting was chaotic. While Brightwing and I were trying to stick to formations, drills, and training, the Rangers were flying through their enemies, everypony fighting as his/her own unit, but there was a certain perverse teamwork to their individualism. They formed up in a loose line, with a few ponies behind the line. The ponies in the first line caught the Raiders and cut them down, occasionally allowing a few to slip through the line, where the second line of ponies made mincemeat of them. They carried a motley assortment of guns and melee weapons, with most of the ponies in the second line using their guns.

        Whatever this tactic was about, it worked. The Raiders’ attack was over in less than twenty minutes. Einarr, spattered with blood, trotted over to Brightwing and myself. He looked very pleased with himself. “Ironside I’ve got some numbers for you. Goldie counts sixty-three enemy dead, and four of our own. I’ve got ponies looting the dead now.”

        “Sixty-three? They’re just Raiders! How’d they get that organised and numerous? And where the hell did they come from?”

        Einarr giggled again. “Man, you really don’t scout much do you? There’s a Raider fort over the hill. I was hoping our campfires would catch their attention and draw them out, and it did! What fun!”

        I was flabbergasted. “Fun? We nearly died while we slept!”

        He looked taken aback. “Well, yes. Fun.” He waved a hoof at his warriors, who were kicking dead raiders, piling heads, heaping usable equipment, and making a heap of the dead enemies. “Look at all the fun we’re having!”

        I just sighed, confused and annoyed at the interruption in my sleep. Without even taking my armour off, I just wiped some Raider brain from my bedroll and curled up to sleep. I felt Brightwing join me a moment later. As I drifted off again, I could hear Einarr yelling at some of his ponies, and I heard a thunk, splatter, and laughing. These barbarians would be the death of me.

*#@#*

        Waking in the morning, I saw Brightwing already up and helping cook breakfast. Turning to me and seeing me waking, she offered me a small smile, and passed me a couple of the now-warmed compressed haycakes we were issued for travel rations. I took them, thanking her, and we settled in to eat. Looking around, I surveyed the scene.

        What I saw disgusted me on one hand, and impressed me on the other. The corpses of the Raider ponies who’d attacked us in the night had been stacked into barricades about a pony’s shoulder-height tall ringing our camp. Our savage ponies leaned against them, guns at the ready, eating their own breakfast while the first-shift night sentries dozed. Einarr himself was lying unceremoniously on his stomach with his legs splayed out. Grinning, he opened his eyes and beamed at me.

        “When you grow up in our corner of the wasteland, you don’t let anything go to waste. Bullets don’t always go through a pony’s body, so we’ve learned over the years that when you’ve got a lot of corpses, you’ve got a lot of potential cover.” Seeing Brightwing’s revulsion, he released that strange giggle of his again. “For the fiercest warrior ponies since the founding of Equestria, you guys sure act soft.” Climbing to his hooves, he beat the dirt out of his armour and when he stretched, I could see his wings feebly ruffling beneath his armour.

        “Einarr. You have wings.”

        “Ironside. You ask questions. Don’t ask such questions loudly enough that my ponies can hear.”

        Not the response I’d been expecting. “Er, why do you wear armour over your wings? Wouldn’t they aid you substantially in the type of combat you engage in?”

        He lost his cheerful demeanour and a threatening darkness entered his eyes as his normally grinning face went totally deadpan. His voice lowered to a growl. “Smart ponies don’t pry.”

        Brightwing stared, and I dropped my haycake.

        He broke out into a big grin again. “We’re ready to break camp and survey the target on your command.” He trotted off with the usual bounce in his step.

        Picking up my haycake and stuffing the rest of it into my mouth, I searched Brightwing’s eyes for an answer, but she seemed just as shocked as I was. I tried asking her verbally what she thought of that display, but she just shrugged and grunted that “Everypony’s got secrets.”

        I tried to push the episode out of my head. Packing up our stuff, I found Einarr and told him that we were ready to move. Silently nodding, he turned to nopony in particular and yelled “Get moving, you lazy sons of whores! There’s sort of honest work that needs doing!” Ragnar’s Outcast Rangers roared their approval and began packing up their own possessions, before kicking down their grisly defences. In only a few minutes, we were on the road again.

        The road was as calm that day as it had been the previous day. The Rangers regaled us with a marching hymn about somepony that Einarr explained was a medieval Equestrian hero who single-handedly boarded six ships in a day, killing all the crew members. While they sang, I was left to wonder what was wrong with these ponies. I sent yet another prayer to Rainbow Dash to not let these barbarians turn on us or fuck up our mission too badly.

        Einarr trotted with us at the head of the column. “So...... how’d you sleep?” His tone was odd. Like, overly cutesy odd. It contrasted wildly with the bloody dervish we’d seen in the fray the night before.

        “Um, well enough I suppose. As I fell asleep though, I heard what sounded like another fight starting. You were yelling?”

        His eyes saddened a bit. “Ah. Yup. Sometimes ponies can’t share.”

        “Could you please elaborate?” Brightwing asked.

        Einarr shook his head, his helmet bouncing oddly on his shoulder as he did. “Splitting the plunder’s the most important job I do for the Outcast Rangers, aside from the actual negotiations and command. When I split the plunder, my word is law. However, some ponies don’t much respect the law. Some ponies think they can steal rightfully earned plunder from another member of the warband. When that happens, I have to act as judge, jury, and executioner. I judged, I decided that the thief didn’t have the right to the gun in question. As jury, I stated the sentence: hands off, take the plunder you’ve been assigned. And when he continued to argue, I acted as executioner.”

        Brightwing’s nose wrinkled. “That’s barbaric.”

        Einarr laughed loudly. “That’s command, sweetie. Your coltfriend’ll have to learn that someday.” His eyes grew dark again, and he gave me a sad smile. “But don’t you ever enjoy it. Do it, but accept the seriousness of what you’ve done. If it gets fun, you’ve got a problem.” I contemplated his words, as he always seemed to be having fun.

        We could see the village up ahead, so the Rangers quieted and we marched along in silence. When we were close enough to make out individual ponies and hear the sounds of village life, Einarr directed us into the nearby trees. All of us crouching low to stay hidden, the Rangers began drawing out their weapons, doing final checks to make sure they were smooth and loaded. Nopony wanted their weapons to jam in a firefight. Brightwing and I snuck over to Einarr.

        “Okay, so we’ve only got sixteen ponies left. See, what I was thinking is sneaking in as close as we can. See those two shacks there? I figure if I can get about half my number on the rear wall of each building, you guys could.... I dunno, do something. When you do something on the other side of the village, I could have like four ponies attack from each side of each building, and that should lay down enough fire to keep them running. If we catch them by surprise, this’ll all be a piece of cake. We may not even lose anyone.”

        I nodded. It seems we thought the same, tactically speaking. I was thinking of more or less that same plan as I had snuck over to him. “I like it, but I’ve got the rest of it. Because it’d be optimal to take the village intact, Brightwing and I will fly over the village and land on the other side. Near that shack there. We’ll give the townsfolk a chance to surrender, to accept the... new management. If they refuse, we’ll give them one last chance. If they refuse again or if they attack us, we’ll open fire and then duck behind the building. Then you guys can move in.”

        While the Rangers slowly but carefully picked their way through the long grass surrounding the village, we noticed the villagers were congregated in the village center. It seemed from all the carts and produce set up around the square that it was market day. Everypony was out buying their supplies, and there were more than a few poorly-armed guards walking about, unicorns and earth ponies in leather armour with simple firearms and knives.

        Once our ponies were in position, Brightwing and I fitted our battle saddles, glanced at each other and nodded our readiness. Then we took to the sky, landing heavily in the center of the market.

        “Attention, ponies of Bridlevich! We are officers of the Twilight Guard, and we come with a proposition: lay down your arms and surrender your village and your lives will be spared. Resist and you will not like the consequences.”

        Civilian ponies started to retreat from the marketplace as the guards readied their weapons with their teeth and magic. Good. If I could stall them until the villagers themselves got out of the way, that’d be a much better outcome than slaughtering the whole village.

        The guards started closing in on us. Most of the villagers were still standing around, looking curiously at us.

        “Ah don’t know who you are, stranger. Ah think y’all should be leavin’ now.” The speaker was the oldest of the militia guards, a unicorn stallion with a moustache and a greying mane.

        “Do you command here, friend?” Come on ponies, move! Leave the area! Don’t you see shit going down??

        He tipped an invisible hat to me. “Ah do indeed. I don’t appreciate strange soldier ponies droppin’ into mah town spewin’ threats, though.”

        “I only offer you a proposition, sir. Accept a change in management and divert food shipments to Stalliongrad, and you will gain the protection of the Twilight Guard, as well as due pay for your produce provided.”

        “And Ah reckon if y’all leave right now Ah might not have ye shot to bits.”

        Fine. If these idiots won’t flee, I’ll have to hope they scatter once the battle starts.

        “I don’t like your tone, sir. I ask one final time: Lay down your arms and save your village a grisly fate.”

        The only response was a single round firing from a revolver the unicorn produced. A round that hit me dead in the chest. I tried to stand, but my legs bailed on me and I saw the ground rise to meet my face. As the world faded, I heard Brightwing scream “NOW!” and gunfire erupted.

*#@#*

        I came to in... where was I? I shot up, only to scream in pain and drop back to a bed I had woken up in. A strong pair of hooves held me down, and I fought them until a somewhat familiar, growly voice yelled failing reassurances right into my face. I spat and fought, hurting all the more. I became aware I wasn’t wearing any of my armour. My assailant retreated, wiping my spit from her face as I reared myself back on the bed, ready for another attack. I then recognised my assailant.

        Goldie. The purple unicorn mare under Einarr’s command.

        “I fuckin’ told you it was alright! How was that not comforting? Fuck.” She magically took a cigarette from the ashtray on the table and took a drag from it, blowing the smoke at me. “You gonna fight now? I was told to be nice, but I’ll beat you back unconscious if I have to.”

        I sighed and collapsed back into the bed. I took stock of the situation. Goldie was relaxing and smoking, and I was lying on a bed in a dingy shack with my chest encased in bandages. The place was filthy, and the walls were dirty, but otherwise bare except for a metal sign nailed to the wall next to the door depicting a bubbly pink mare with a greying pink mane and with the words “Pinkie Pie is watching you.... FOREVER!!!” on it.

        Goldie sighed, mumbling something about “bitch’ll wanna know” and kicked open the door. After screaming “Veg is up!” she collapsed back into her chair, sitting oddly upright on her haunches and went back to smoking and watching me with an expression that could not have looked more bored. A moment later, the door opened again and Brightwing stepped through. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, and her mane looked like it had been plastered to her face with sweat before it had dried. She looked weary. Seeing me awake, she hovered over and gave me a small hug and a quick peck on the cheek.

        “How are you?”

        “Alive. More than I was expecting.”

        She smiled. “We didn’t think you’d make it. Luckily, the town’s doctor doesn’t care who’s in charge. Just helps injured ponies.”

        She helped me to my hooves, and I leaned heavily on her. I wasn’t quite sure how bad my injury was, but I also didn’t want to test it more than I had fighting with Goldie. The unicorn just sat there smoking as Brightwing led me out of the building.

        We exited the building into the village. The shack I’d been kept in was one of the ones that Ragnar’s Rangers had hid behind. Corpses littered the village in various conditions. I could see Rangers milling about, looting corpses and finishing off the mortally wounded.

        Walking slowly forward, we heard screaming from between two of the huts. We followed the sound to find a Ranger in the midst of raping a mare. I shoved off of Brightwing and onto the wall of one of the huts so she could deal with this. She dove forward, tackling the earth pony stallion off of the poor earth pony mare, who Brightwing shoved in my direction with her back legs. I stumbled forward and caught the mare, ushering her out from between the two buildings to try and comfort her. Brightwing struggled with the stallion until a voice boomed “ENOUGH!” from the other end of the alley.

        Einarr stepped forward and with a very stern expression, he pushed Brightwing off of the stallion and kicked the stallion in the jewels. He leaned in very close to the stallion and dragged him to his hooves then slammed him against the wall.

        “What do you think you’re doing?”

        “*groan* taking my rightful plunder.”

        Einarr’s eyes narrowed. “And when did I say ponies were plunder?”

        “We... we took a shipment of slaves in to Stalliongrad not too long ago....”

        “Those were slaves. Does that mare look like a fucking slave to you? She’s the fucking doctor you idiot!” he slammed a hoof into the stallion’s eye, crushing it. We all cringed at the stallion’s screams.

        “Now this is why we left! Shit like this!” he threw the earth pony to the ground and kicked him again. He was very worked up. “We’re supposed.... to be better.... than that!.... That’s... why we ..... LEFT!” He grunted between kicks. By the time he was done, he’d kicked the earth pony to death.

        He stood up, shook himself off and turned to Brightwing and myself, his normal cheerful demeanour returning. “Good to see you’re up, boss. Thanks for helping!” He trotted over and the two of us helped the sobbing mare to her hooves.

        “Miss, I cannot undo what was done here, but I will try to make amends. Anything he possessed is now yours.” He walked off without a word to supervise other aspects of.... what was he doing?

        Brightwing and I brought the mare to the doctor’s shack that we had just returned from. The doctor’s assistant saw her to a bed and began quietly conversing with her while Brightwing and I left them in peace. I had to see what was being done around town and get a full report from Einarr.

        We found him again counting bodies just outside of town. The corpses were being hauled out to the road and lined up along the road, with our dead on one side and theirs on the other. We’d lost six of our twenty ponies and the enemy had lost all twelve of their militia as well as some twenty innocent townsponies. Some of the townsfolk had been carved and shot mercilessly.

        “Einarr. Your report please.”

        He glanced up from the bodies. “Ah, yes. That. We lost six, they lost over thirty. Mostly innocents.”

        “Any more details please?”

        He looked irritable. “Yes, commander. When you dropped like a sack of potatoes, we charged out. Brightwing dragged you to cover, fussing over you and being generally useless while my ponies senselessly ravaged the town. The doctor survived by hiding and being found by me first while anypony my warriors didn’t cut down and/or rape fled to the hills. FUBAR.”

        His expression softened and he turned to Brightwing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. You had your commander’s interests at heart, and if you hadn’t helped him he wouldn’t have made it.” He then turned to me. “And I’m truly very sorry not only about how this fuck-up went down, but about what you had to see back there.”

        Brightwing nodded. “I’m not upset by what you’ve said. You seem very... unhappy with this.”

        Einarr laughed grimly. “Yeah, you can say that again. These were supposed to be the salvageable ones from the Rangers.” Seeing our blank looks, he began to lead us to one of the shacks in the village. Once he’d shut the three of us inside, he turned to us and sat on his haunches, his mail jingling with every step.

        “Tell me everything you know about Ragnar’s Rangers.” We didn’t respond. “Good, that’s what I thought. Ragnar’s Rangers are a powerful merc group from the far north of Equestria. Brutal ponies. The harsh landscape has always bred harsh ponies, but these guys are the cream of the crop. Only the roughest and meanest get in. Of course, with a few notable exceptions, and I hope I fit into this category of exceptions, that means that for the most part it’s a crew of psychopaths. Raping and murder are widespread wherever they’re contracted. I split off with others as a protest of this behaviour, and was exiled to the south. Ended up around these parts. Heard your commander had put out a contract to the Rangers  so....” he looked sheepish. “....I fraudulently accepted the contract on behalf of the Rangers so that the real thing wouldn’t come here. These ponies are supposed to be the ones with morals and decency. Seems I was mistaken. There don’t seem to be any of those affiliated with the Rangers.”

        “So you’re....”

        Here he was looking irritable again. “Yes, an exile and a turncloak. I’m not proud of it. Oaths are very important where I’m from. But yes, my.... annoying altruism has dragged my name through the mud. And I lied, I’m not a lord. No fancy story behind that one, I just wanted to sound cooler.”

        He surveyed us as we took in this information, and he must not have liked what he saw. Embarrassed, he stood up and began walking out until I stopped him.

        “I’m sorry to hear all of that. Truly. However, what matters now is that we get back to Stalliongrad to report our.... success here. We’ll get a new assignment, and it might just be something that doesn’t involve the blood of non-combatants and foals.”

        Einarr nodded. As we left the shack and began moving back to the doctor’s shack so I could rest up and change my bandages, the smile returned to his face and he returned the hellos of his warriors as he passed. He abruptly turned around.

        “I appreciate that you listened to me. That means something to me. So, I’m going to do something meaningful in return. With this, you won’t have to wait around in this carved-up hellhole healing. We could be back in Stalliongrad in a couple days.” He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a glass bottle of a liquid I had never before seen and that the Guard was never really able to keep very well-stocked, but that I would quickly come to love. It was a healing potion.

Einarr joins your party!

Ironside: Lvl 3

Brightwing: Lvl 3

Einarr: Lvl ?