Marrow White ambled up the hill. Silent, like mist, he crouched through the susurrating grass and gazed down toward the shadow shrouded field below. The night was moonless, and cooking fires, now burning low, could
clearly be seen just a few hundred yards away. The air was tinged with wood smoke and night-blooming jasmine and whipped through the tall grass.
"The elements conspire in our favor. We will be upon them before they have an opportunity to react," said Dulcet Bell, now at his side. She spoke in quiet, measured tones; but true to her name, each word was delivered with an icy musicality.
"I estimate two or three dozen. A few likely remain awake keeping watch, what little good it will do them," said Marrow. He flicked his forelegs, one then the other, to activate the pair of hinged blades he wore. Two mechanical clinks indicated they were locked into place. They bowed outward like twin crescent moons.
Dulcet cantered evenly in practiced ritual as arcane updrafts encircled the pair. The cruel blades on either side of Marrow began to glow softly for a moment. "Voidsong guide you. May our enemies die twice before they hit the ground."
* * *
"Doing alright, Flicker?" came a reassuring baritone voice from Flick's right. A gray stallion, a middle-aged veteran, sat down next to him.
"Oh, uh, yes. Just eager to see the dawn arrive, Dart," said Flickering Flame. "It's my first watch on my first patrol. I never really appreciated just how long the night could be. Does...does that feeling ever go away?"
Darting Needle took in a deep breath and thought for a moment. "No. No, it never truly goes away. But you learn how to manage it."
"You don't seem bothered."
"You learn little tricks for putting your mind at ease. Don't be fooled by the self-assured dispositions of the others. Everyone feels uneasy during their night watch. Everyone becomes very superstitious, jumping at shadows and hearing threatening sounds all about them."
"How do you put it out of your mind?"
He laughed. "I sing!"
Flicker couldn't help but grin a bit, the firelight catching the glint of the ebony youth's toothy smile.
"I come here to keep you company, and you mock me," said Dart, shaking his head with feigned indigence.
Flicker shook his head. "Not at all. It's just, well, I'll admit I never took you for the musical sort," he said.
"Old farm songs from my home village. As children, we'd sing as we did our chores to pass the time. Many of the songs are structured as little games." He looked off wistfully, as those approaching old age often do, wondering where the time had gone and reliving all of those childhood years in an instant in his mind before coming back to the present. "But you're a city pony, I believe? Might be a foreign custom then."
"Oh, we definitely had music. My parents are poor craftspeople by trade. Hardworking. I grew up in a neighborhood filled with people eager to find a way out. To move up and the like. Lots of street performers, aspiring musicians, singers..." A rustling of grass caught Flicker's attention and he jerked his head about. Dart did the same, his ears flattening.
"Probably nothing," he said after a few moments of quiet. "Keen hearing, Flicker. I'm impressed."
Flicker beamed with pride. "I feel much better, Dart. Thank you."
"Not at all. And the dawn will arrive before you know it." Dart stood to leave, when his eyes caught the flash of something in the dark only a few yards away. "That's odd, I-"
His words were cut short, as a pair of crescent blades whipped across his flesh, spilling his vital lifeblood into the sand. Flicker turned to see a bone-white stallion looming over him. With professional indifference, the stallion lashed out and separated the youth's head from his shoulders with a single stroke.
* * *
Marrow rushed throughout the camp, following the curling of the wind. He gave himself, body and mind, over to the rhythms of the night. His surefooted gallops never rose above the ambient sounds. He was a specter, slipping between shadows like a knife. It was a dance, and he executed it with practiced confidence. The ponies keeping watch heard little, even as Marrow's blades cut a bloody swath through them, reflecting the crimson light of the dying fires along their mirror surfaces. Each watchpony crumpled to the ground one after the other.
A few dozen yards away, Dulcet conjured forth snaking ribbons of fire that tore into the camp, igniting the tents and wagons with supernatural precision. Marrow stepped away as the blaze roared about, consuming the tents and the dying screams of their inhabitants. The column of flame illuminated the ghostly form of Marrow as he walked toward his companion.
"None escaped?" she asked.
"No. And the heat of the fire will consume the evidence to ash," he said. "Our master's sorceries will knit the blackened bones of the fallen together, and they will fight alongside us soon. And even on this moonless night, there are none for miles to see the flames."
The chestnut mare glanced up into the pitch-night sky. "Oh, but there is a moon, Marrow - The Null Moon. And she has reached her zenith, perfectly positioned to receive our offering."
The thick, occult smoke rose like an obsidian tower over the pyre.
"The Qliphoth stirs," Dulcet continued. "How I long for it to open." She bowed her head in supplication.
"So I trust the rules are clear then," Loch-and-Key, a sturdily-built, dusky blue unicorn mare, said as she removed the magic inhibitor from her sister's horn.
"Crystal," Stella Nautica, a small lilac unicorn, responded bluntly, as her sister guided her into the processing room of the coastal prison.
"No more traficking illegal cargo," Loch said as she turned and shut the heavy steel door behind her, leaving the two ponies alone.
"I think doing an end run around of aristocratic monopolies is hardly immoral..."
Loch's eyes narrowed. "No more 'borrowing' ships from the merchants' private navy."
"I gave them all back, and it isn't like they were being used at the time..." Stella said meekly.
"And no illegally parking your rickety pirate ship in the harbor."
"I'm a corsair. Not a pirate. And the Everlight is not rickety. It's streamlined, eschewing modern luxuries in favor of practical essentials. It's a prime example of economy of form, and furthermore-"
"Sis. Please. I'm begging you. If it was up to the landed families in this city, you'd be in a pit so deep and dark in this facility that you'd never see the light of day again," she sighed. "And I'd never see you again."
"I know. And I do appreciate everything you've done for me. It can't be easy for your career in the royal navy to have a sister who is, well..."
"A pirate? Freebooter? Privateer? Troublemaker?"
"I note the conspicuous absence of the term 'corsair' from your litany of synonyms, which I may've mentioned is my preferred title, but yes, all of that."
Loch opened a nearby storage container and removed some garments, tools, a coin purse, and a thin saber. She handed the items to Stella. "Well, save some of your thanks for The Duchess."
Stella packed away her things. "Duchess Radiance herself commuted my sentence?"
"Did you think I did it all on my own? I'm a well-respected officer, but I don't have quite that kind of weight to throw around. No, evidently your tendency to pick on her political enemies, and them alone, has made you fairly popular with her. Which brings us to the final condition of your release."
"Y-yes?" Stella said, growing a bit anxious.
"Radiance is embattled. The military stands with her, at least right now, but the situation is very volatile. The landed families in this city vehemently oppose her reformist tendencies, and they'd love to see her replaced with a more traditional, and pliant, head of state."
"Politics is exhausting..." Stella said.
"In any case," Loch continued, "your no-strings-attached lifestyle has made you an unlikely but appealing new recruit for our little organization."
"Your organization?"
"The Hand of the Duchess, a small group of loyalists within the military and intelligentsia who support The Duchess both overtly and, well, covertly," Loch said. "You look a bit pale. I thought you'd be excited."
"I hear the sound of strings being attached," Stella sighed.
"You're free to come and go as you please. There's no parole period, no official monitoring of your activities," Loch said reassuringly.
"What assurance do you all have that I'll comply if there's no enforced accountability? No threat of punishment?"
"Oh, there's a punishment, alright," Loch said smirking. "The full, scorching hell of sister-promise-breaker guilt."
"Ugh, ok. Fine. Anything but that. What am I supposed to do?"
"Patrols have been disappearing. Several officers have gone missing. Radiance thinks it's something bigger than internal political opposition to land reform and improving prospects for artisans and laborers."
"An actor external to the city?" Stella asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine, but she suspects a wider conspiracy. So long as the military remains loyal to The Duchess, a coup is out of the question. Eroding morale and eliminating the most loyal members of the officer class
could certainly change the landscape a bit, and she doesn't think the aristocrats have the means to achieve that themselves. They have a small private navy and marine corp, but that's only large enough for escorting merchant ships."
"I'll look into it, but I admit I don't know where to start." Stella said.
"You could try talking to your," Loch paused and acquired an exasperated expression "your corsair friends. You can go places easily that we can't. We've tried the official channels."
Stella grinned brightly. "I'll see what I can do." She turned to head out of the prison but paused and looked back at her sister. "With everything going on, are you sure you'll be ok here?"
Loch shrugged. "As ok as any of us, I suppose. But I won't sugarcoat it, things are really bad right now."
"I'll do whatever I can, sis. I promise," Stella said softly.
"I know." Loch bumped her head affectionately against Stella's. "You were always the resourceful one."
Stella turned and left and headed into the busy streets of the city of Diadem.
