Feathered Hearts - Continuation and Chronicles

Gilda remained in a daze as she landed on the plateau that fronted the entrance to the abandoned Changeling Hive complex, which she only then realized looked very much like a large inferno anthill from the outside when stripped of its vegetation. Its newly-scorched and now-barren surface was bumpy with hints of multiple entrance and exit points studded throughout the complex, even though all but the largest one was collapsed.

I wonder if the Changelings who once lived here got besieged? And when they were unable to escape, they died defending it, and that’s why they couldn’t destroy it? the thought suddenly crossed her mind, which she found grasping for some distraction after all the intense and unlikely sex she’d just experienced. And I wonder if that’s the fate that awaits us in turn?

She didn’t know, but whatever the reason, she found herself grateful to them for leaving it behind, providing her nearly two centuries of soldiers a ready-made redoubt that could hopefully hold against a much larger army.

It’s going to have to, she decided as she received the salutes of Giraldi and Imlay on top of the plateau, with the latter having stayed behind to supervise the emplacement of his final fire team and the recovery of the Marine mobile force.

“It’s very good to see you, Centurion. We lost sight of you and the Starshina after the human heavy arrows slew that dragon and worried you’d drowned in the lake,” Giraldi told her after she’d returned the respect. He was all business, but Gilda could see the relief in his eyes at her return. “You appear to be unwounded.”

“Only because—” Still distracted, she just caught herself from saying that she’d been healed of the singes and slashes she’d suffered because of the sex she’d just had with Karin Kazal, with their mutual magic somehow combining to do the job as effectively as any healer.

She took a deep breath to try to drive the lingering and still-compelling memories away, forcing her mind to focus. If nothing else, she could admit that she felt well and truly sated for the first time in days, but with battle still upon them, she also couldn’t step back and assimilate the intense experience as she sensed she needed to. “Only because of the Starshina, here. He saved me from the dragon and then healed me from the fight with the flyers.” She turned to him and bared her throat. That’s true enough, right?

“I see…” Giraldi gave her an odd look at her hesitation; she got the impression that he sensed there was something she wasn’t saying. “Then I thank you as well, Karin Kazal.” He bared his throat to the Starshina in turn, to which the ibex buck gave his usual tilt-headed salute that presented the side of his antlers. Gilda was starting to guess they did it to symbolically show a more vulnerable face of them, much like griffons bared throats for the same reason.

“As do I,” Miles Fortuna said somewhat grudgingly. “The Knights say you fought honorably and proved invaluable in holding the line. Your attacks against the flyers also helped prevent an airdrop of Cloven soldiers on the opposite side of the bridge.”

It was only then that Karin Kazal spoke. “Then I would hope you are satisfied that I am an ibex of my word, Senior Scimitar,” he allowed some of his old attitude to enter his voice. “I said I would help, and I have. And I would be remiss to not say that the Centurion saved me in turn when I had no power left.” He turned to her and presented his horns, whose magical touch she could still keenly feel.

“You earned it for saving my life, Starshina.” Gilda just stopped herself from saying that he’d earned her. “And know that after all that happened, you have my trust now.” She found she had to say as much, deciding that if it was within her power, she would let him go after the war was over. Sex aside, how could I not? At this point, his service to the Kingdom already far outweighs his crimes…

“Thank the Ancestors you’re back, Centurion.” Fortrakt’s voice was heard over the radio from where he continued to orbit overhead. “I wanted to go look for you, but Giraldi told me not to,” he said in a slightly accusing tone.

Gilda nodded, feeling her cheeks warm at Fortrakt’s stubborn loyalty and bravery, relieved he hadn’t gone looking for them given what he could have found. Do I dare tell him or Marco? Do I dare tell ANYCREATURE what really happened out there?

She still didn’t know, but Gilda took some small solace in the fact that Karin Kazal was probably asking himself the exact same questions as he stood beside and slightly behind her. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother, given it was just a one-time thing—a mutual reward for saving each other that we both enjoyed but also agreed will never happen again.

She was surprised to feel a moment of pain at the thought, but as the distinct sound of a firing bowcaster rang out from the upper slope, she stuffed it as firmly out of her mind as she could.

Win the battle and save all our lives first, worry about the rest later! she ordered herself sharply. “I appreciate the thought, cub, but it was the right decision. The Cloven have proven that they’ll concentrate against any isolated forces they see outside the hill. Especially human ones,” she said somewhat ruefully.

“We figured that out too late, sir. But in fairness, our tactics seem to have worked well so far,” Imlay answered this time. “We’ve blunted and bloodied them pretty badly even before they’ve been able to assault the hill itself. Judging from what the Ravens and my returning Marines said, we’ve taken out at least several hundred ground soldiers and gutted their flyer formations. In fact, it looks like we hurt them badly enough that they’re having to gather more force before they hit the hill directly.”

“And where are they now?” she asked as several more distinctive twangs rang out along with visible bolts of magical energy lancing downslope, followed by the sharp crack! of Lance Corporal Henderson’s “EMR”. What does that stand for again? ‘Enhanced-something-rifle’?

“Probing, as you can hear,” Giraldi replied with a nod upslope. “I’ve authorized our bowcasters and human cannons to fire on any Cloven they see, with priority given to those larger flyers and mages. The Ravens say they have special feeder crystals that are effective against Magus shields, but they only have a limited supply of them.”

“I see. And where are the main Cloven columns?” Gilda asked.

“Halted a third of a league out along the lakeshore paths around the north and south sides of the lake,” Miles Fortuna replied. “I’ve ordered my surviving soldiers to shadow them but not engage them. We already lost two dead in the woods in the earlier battle.”

That gave Gilda pause. “Please tell me that they won’t be—”

“They will not be corrupted. For we are always equipped with countermeasures to prevent capture, Centurion,” the Senior Scimitar anticipated her question. “Our warriors have small crystals implanted inside our heads. They activate when our heartbeat stops and destroy the mind within. Other variants exist that incinerate our bodies entirely; we can also manually trigger them if needed. Never mind how.”

“She speaks true,” Karin Kazal admitted. “It’s why the Capricorn Conclave never recovers bodies or knowledge from captured Ravens. I regret we did not take similar measures on my side, however. And on that subject, I would be remiss to point out that at least two of my former team of eight remain unaccounted for…” he trailed off ominously.

“Then you are saying that there could be two corrupted Adepts out there?” Miles Fortuna paraphrased in some disgust. “How unsurprisingly sloppy, Starshina. And is there anything else you haven’t told us?”

“That the Cloven would reemerge after well over a millennium could hardly be a contingency planned for during their operation, Senior Scimitar. Still, the presence of additional hostile adepts does pose a potential threat. Are there any more magical tricks or artifacts they might be able to use against us, Starshina?” Giraldi asked more calmly, stepping between Miles Fortuna and Karin Kazal when it looked like the Ibex buck was about to get in the former’s face.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Though he looked like he wanted to snarl at or outright insult his Raven rival, the Starshina held his tongue; Gilda judged it because he half-thought she might be right. “They each had an enhanced anchor point crystal in their possession. But even if they still have them, the same rules apply to those as applied to the ones we used—they have to get them to a desired destination first and activating one takes several minutes, during which time any incoming forces are extremely vulnerable,” he pointed out.

“Then we’ll have to act quickly if they’re used against us. Can you detect their activation?” Gilda asked.

“As we are attuned to them, yes, at greater range than you can. But given the difficulties in emplacing them, I do not see that they would be useful here. With the help of Decanus Nydia, we have already emplaced anti-teleport fields over and inside the hill to prevent any corrupted Cloven from entering that way,” he recited.

“Regardless, be assured that if ibexian magic is used or another summoning gem is activated, I or my surviving comrades will sense them. We will alert you instantly, but I ask that I be allowed to deal with any possessed Adepts if possible. For I feel it is my duty as their commander and comrade to grant them release from the corruption of the Cloven.”

“If possible, then fine.” Gilda decided she owed him that much as another round of bowcaster bolts and bullets were fired from upslope. “How are the dragons?”

“Wounded and being treated by the Decanus and the ibex doe,” Giraldi replied. “I told Nydia to concentrate on healing Orange Crush’s wings and Emerald Inferno’s hide to get them back in action, though the latter seems inconsolable right now after witnessing what became of her sire. Worse, Red Hot is badly wounded and out of the fight. And with respect, I would avoid Obsidian Ire for now, sir,” Giraldi finished with a raised eyeridge. “Needless to say, she is not pleased with you.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Despite the implicit threat, Gilda smiled. She couldn’t help it—for her arrogance and attitude, she rather liked the large female for reminding her of herself as a teen. And just like Rainbow or Tara, she’s really good in a fight, too…

“If I may, Centurion…” A new voice was heard; Gilda looked up to see the smallest of the dragon females approach the group, causing heads to turn towards her.

“Rose Ruby, is it?” She noted the pink-hued drakina stood a full head smaller than Imlay, leaving Gilda guessing that she was still an immature adolescent, barely a quarter-century old.

“Yes,” she said in an accented voice that almost sounded demure, leaving Gilda wondering if she was somehow the dragon version of Fluttershy. “I just wanted you to know that despite whatever Obsidian Ire may say, she does respect you. She wouldn’t obey your orders if she didn’t.”

“All well and good, except that she didn’t obey them before,” Gilda said pointedly with a glance at Giraldi. “I told her to withdraw, and she failed to.”

“Because she didn’t respect you then,” Rose Ruby replied in an unperturbed tone, the scythe mounted on her back nearly as large as she was. “But she does now, after seeing you risk your life to save our clan sisters, fighting the flyer swarms alongside her and braving the attack of one of our clan’s corrupted adults. She is proud like all of us, but not so much that she doesn’t understand we can’t beat the Cloven or win back our lands alone,” the small dragon female said with certainty.

“Pride is not helpful when it leads to lost battles or needless casualties, young drakina. Will she obey orders now?” Giraldi asked, leaving Gilda ruefully reflecting that her own pride and inability to apologize was what had kept her away from Rainbow for so many years.

“I swear by our Ancient Dragon Lords themselves that she will. And as for Emerald Inferno, she will need time but will be fit to fight again later. Be assured that I will stand in her stead for now.” She stood to passable upright attention before Gilda and then gave the curious dragon double-fisted salute, starting with her talons held up to either side of her before bringing them in to bang against her scaled chest.

“I see.” Returning the salute, Gilda wondered again how much use the small drakina would really be, being anything but imposing physically and wielding a weapon that she couldn’t fathom would actually be useful. But she also didn’t want to hurt her feelings, recognizing that she was trying to be a brave and mighty warrior like her clan sisters were. “Then I would order you to—”

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a sudden flash of light that resolved into a half-rotted ibex doe with badly cracked antlers and two freshly killed Ravens, recognizable from their gray fur dye and ripped open throats from which blood still dripped. Though visibly wounded and hobbled under the control of a parasite, they already had their repeaters and scimitars leveled and pointed at her group; Gilda barely had enough time to register their presence and recognize that they had her entire command team dead to rights, able to take them all out at once.

Her life flashing before her eyes again in that instant as an enchanted scimitar began to swing for her throat in a slash that she knew would penetrate her armor as if it wasn’t there, she found her newest regret was that she had not been able to tell Marco what had happened or make amends, hoping only that she could somehow do so in the afterlife.

But she’d barely formed the thought before a blue-hued ibex shield materialized in front of her, blocking the stream of bolts that detonated hard against the barrier, causing it to progressively weaken. One or two more shots might have penetrated, but then the repeater-armed Raven tiercel was cut down by a whirling blur of pink and gleaming steel before he could fire while the second had her scimitar parried barely an uncia from her head by the aura-generated blades of Karin Kazal.

Shouts of alarm were heard around them as he used his magical construct to go blade to blade with his former rival in a rapid exchange of blows. He flung the Raven female back from Gilda with what sounded like an Ibexian curse, blocking slash after slash while the diminutive drakina turned her scythe on the Ibex doe next.

To Gilda’s surprise, she moved the unwieldy weapon with blinding speed in a wide and whistling arc to neatly cleave the shield in two before splitting the corrupted adept’s head open in the same stroke, causing both her barrier and half-created constructs to flicker out while the dead doe fell to the floor of the plateau.

By that time, the Starshina had defeated his former rival by teleporting behind and decapitating her with a whirling slash of his own. He moved with his constructs as if he was holding them in his hooves and then reared up to bring one of his two blades down vertically to spear the separated head, impaling the parasite within.

From beginning to end, it took less than three seconds, leaving Gilda and the rest of them agape, only belatedly going for their weapons now that there were no longer targets. “By the Ancestors…” she heard Fortrakt from overhead, who had just started to swoop down on the invading group but arrived too late to assist.

“Holy shit…” one of the Marines said from a Talon trench as a triumphant Rose Ruby took a ready stance with her scythe held over her head, watching for additional intruders. “That dragon girl is a fucking reaper!”

Despite her incredible feat—clearly, size wasn’t everything; not even with dragons! —Gilda rounded hard on a shocked Miles Fortuna, who had been so stunned she’d only been able to get her scimitar halfway out of its sheath before the ambush was defeated. “Dammit to the Crows, I thought you said that your warriors couldn’t be corrupted, Senior Scimitar! And what happened to the anti-teleport fields, Starshina?” she snarled at each in turn, feeling her gaze only belatedly turn pink as her emotions and energy surged.

“I… I…” the Raven leader stared down at her former teammates in disbelief, having to sit down heavily. “I don’t understand…”

“I don’t know how they...” Karin Kazal said forlornly as he stared down at the doe, then fell to his knees again. “Mishka…” He then recited what sounded like a prayer and began to cry.

She was about to berate them both again when blue flares from surviving Ravens shot up from north and south of the hill, indicating an imminent assault from Cloven columns. “We’d better get to cover. That was clearly intended as a decapitation strike in advance of an attack, sir!” Imlay pointed out; his rifle still raised at the fallen Ravens.

Gilda felt like crying herself in that instant to see yet more soldiers under her command fall, but there was no time. “Crows take it… Take positions, everyone! Human cannons and bowcasters will fire at more distant targets while crossbows and spears are to be reserved for Cloven attacking up the slopes!”

“Wilco, sir! Marines! Into the trenches!” Imlay ordered as he ran to the one overseeing the center of the hill himself, where Stavrou and his partner had emplaced their heavy ‘fifty’, leaving Gilda impressed at how quickly he’d shaken off the close call given she was still trembling.

How many battles has he gone through already to accept the chance of death so easily? she couldn’t help but wonder as she continued to give orders, somewhat amazed at how readily she was able to give them now, even as her body continued to shake from an unspent adrenaline rush that had accompanied yet another near-death experience.

But she grounded herself by resorting to her old pastime of insults. And thankfully, she had at least one ready-made target for them. “Obsidian Ire and Orange Crush! Stop enjoying your own vapors and get your smoke-stained snouts out here! We need you to help wipe out the flyers and attack grounded concentrations of Cloven!” she ordered them to an angry hiss from what she assumed was the black-scaled Obsidian Ire.

The dig was in reference to the fact that dragons could get drunk on their own heat and brimfire-infused breath in high enough concentrations. In fact, there was an entire underground industry in the Kingdom centered around inhaling their collected smoke through imported Saddle Arabian hookahs.

“With a name like Orange Crush, she’d almost have to be…” one of the Marines muttered over the human radio to snickers.

Gilda didn’t know what he meant, and she didn’t care. “Decurion! Defend the skylights and backstop the Wind Knights to protect the upper slopes from flyer swarms! Rose Ruby! Watch the backs of the Talons and humans and deal with any teleportations or airdrops onto the plateau!” She waited for acknowledgements to be received before turning her attention on the ibex buck, who for the second time had been forced to witness the death of his own comrades.

“Starshina! Reinforce the anti-teleport wards and stay out here to provide magical cover to the trenches! Deal with any mages that come near! And by all the crows, pull yourself together!” She shook the ibex buck hard from where he was kneeling, but her eyes softened at the look he gave her.

“I’m truly sorry, Karin. But there is no time. Fight now, mourn later!” she told him, squeezing his shoulder and letting him see at least a brief moment of pity in her eyes she would never have offered him or any of his kind before.

He seemed to take some solace from her touch, closing his orange eyes tightly for a moment before opening them. “By your command…” he finally managed, and his horns ignited to lay what she assumed was a fresh suppression field over the area before he stood back up, his gaze turning steely again. “I will protect the plateau. But I suggest leaving your Decanus and my comrade inside the caves in case they somehow teleport within them.”

“Granted. See to it, Decanus Nydia and Serzhánt Polina! Defend the infirmary and be alert to possible teleports despite the suppression fields!” She shouted into the radio, hoping she pronounced the ibexian rank right.

“If any happen, alert us immediately and keep them away from the civilians! Senior Scimitar! Pull your remaining sky griffon Ravens inside to clear the corridors if they appear within them! Fortis Knights! Backstop the defense! If we retreat, you’ll have to keep the cave entrance open long enough to get everyone inside! And then I’ll collapse the entrance after!”

They were mostly orders she’d already given before, but as Gauntlet training had emphasized time and time again, it never hurt to repeat instructions. “I’ll be taking flight with the Wind Knights to observe the battle from above and concentrate additional force where needed. Optio Giraldi! Command the ground battle in my stead!”

“By your command!” He thumped his chest and flew slightly uphill to a dug-out perch over the cave entrance where a heavy repeater was emplaced, giving him a good view of the battlefield while defended by a single Raven.

“Excellent. Good luck, everycreature! Fight hard and fight well! And as the humans say, give these evil creatures hell!” she proclaimed to a laugh and cheer from the Marines as the two dragon females emerged to give her a growl and glower, to which she only smiled sweetly and ordered them on her wing.

With the drakina pair flanking her, she took flight right up the middle of the hill to join her airborne force orbiting further up, flying low and keeping carefully between bowcaster emplacements. They had already opened up with the distinctive sharp twanging sounds she wasn’t quite sure how to categorize, though they tended to be overwhelmed by the cannon-like cracks of Marine rifles.

Pink-hued bolts of pure magical energy lanced out along with human bullets to strike down still distant-targets as fresh flyer swarms appeared out over the lake, closing quickly. Despite their losses, the cloud of them was thicker than ever, leaving Gilda reasoning that their small size made them easy to replace as well as quick to grow in a Cloven factory, given how little organic material they actually required.

She thus ordered them thinned out first. They were hard to pick off individually, but the bowcasters started firing different-hued bolts that burst among them with spreading electrical eruptions not unlike Karin Kazal’s lightning flak spell, which he opened up with as well using greater magic power than before.

His horns nearly fully healed, and his aura at least partially recharged through means she didn’t understand, but that she instinctively knew had to do with their earlier lovemaking, he used it to good effect, targeting concentrations of flyers as she likewise ordered her Wind Knights to load proximal explosive bolts for their single-shot crossbows. She’d made sure to obtain a few such bolts for herself this time, though they only had a limited number; she had just three in her quiver and the one currently notched in her bow.

After a few rounds had punched holes in the flyer formations, she ordered the bowcasters to cease fire and concentrate their efforts on the ground forces that were now halfway to the hill. Once they had obeyed, she ordered her force to strike with Obsidian Ire and a partially healed Orange Crush on the flanks. It was an improvised tactic, one she’d come up with to allow the dragons to safely strafe the Cloven to the sides with violet and orange flame while not endangering the griffons beside them.

With her sky griffons safely between them and back in their conic spoiling assault formation, she flew high and then plunged her force straight through the largest remaining concentration of Cloven to drop another two score of razorbat forms into the lake before they could react, diving and swooping out of the way while the belatedly fired spikes chased after them but didn’t hit them.

Gathering speed from their dive and then using the momentum to arc upward hard for another pass, she noted the cracks of human cannon fire from the trenches as the Cloven reached the base of the hill and hit the line of spears emplaced there.

Though they tried to charge right through them, splintering and in some cases running with them impaled in their bodies, they were still slowed up and bunched up by the obstacles, which was by design. It made them easy targets for the human ‘fifty’ and single-shot Talon crossbows that opened up on them, mowing them down as swiftly and as surely as Rose Ruby’s scythe would a stand of grain.

But she couldn’t spare it more than a brief look before noting that some of the flyer swarms seemed to be parting around the hill. The flanking forces had several carrier forms, leaving her wondering where they were going to land.

The answer occurred to her quickly as she grabbed for one of her paired Raven gems. “Decurion Gletscher! Carrier forms are circling around to the rear! Be alert for a combat drop on top of or behind the hill! If they make it down, kill them quickly!” she warned him.

“By your command! Guardsgriffons! On me and load incendiary bolts!” he ordered his remaining thirteen effectives, leaving her hoping that he would do as well against the Cloven ground forces as he had against their flyers.

“Give them Tartarus, cub! Bowcasters and Lance Corporal Henderson! Target those large carrier forms!” she further ordered over a second gem, leaving her wondering if there was any way to combine the advantages of the paired gems which seemed immune to magical interference with the human radios that could broadcast to everycreature at once.

“By your command!” She heard their chorused acknowledgement as the three available bowcasters turned upwards. But the first kill went not to a magical bolt but a human bullet as there was suddenly a much louder boom than before that came from Henderson’s position and made a carrier form all but explode, sending it and the two porkupikes it was carrying plummeting. It was even louder than her “EMR”, leaving Gilda wondering if the female Marine had yet another weapon available.

Whatever its nature, they succeeded in dropping half of the carriers before they disappeared out of sight on the other side of the hill. “Centurion! They’ve dropped on the back of the hive with porkupikes in support. They’re pinning down the rear Talon Turma and keeping us at bay with heavy spikes while they advance up the hill! Request permission to circle around and engage them from the rear!”

It took her but a moment to visualize the situation and realize the danger of splitting her force. “Denied! You don’t have dragon support and you’ll be swarmed by flyers if you do that! Order them to don filter masks and tell Rose Ruby to ignite the brush back there and take out the porkupikes! Then swoop in to finish them off!”

“By your command!” he said obediently, relaying the orders through the human radio given that Rose Ruby didn’t have a paired gem.

“Centurion!” This time it was Karan Kazal’s voice she heard over what she assumed was the borrowed gem of the Senior Scimitar, given it was hers that vibrated. “I just sensed the activation of one of our enhanced Adept summon spell crystals… from deep inside the hive!” he warned her, causing her guts to clench.

“What? How?” she asked him. “How could they have gotten one there?”

“I know not! But we must assume the worst! We have minutes to act before the summoning process is complete! I know roughly where it occurred, but the Senior Scimitar and I will need human support to find and kill them quickly!” he said over the sound of Marine cannons, which another glance told her were leaving heaps of Cloven soldier forms piled at the bottom of the hill. But the Cloven themselves were starting to claw their way uphill, though that meant that they had to contend with crossbow fire and the explosive gems strewn over the slope.

“Granted! Tell Imlay to secure the civilians and assign you his reserve fire team! And by all the crows of the Kingdom, find and kill whoever activated that spell, now!” she ordered as she shredded another flyer, mildly amazed that she could give orders and fight at the same time.

The pink in her vision told her the cider was active within her again, but either because she was so intensely focused on her task or because she’d finally and quite fully relieved her sensual urges earlier, it did nothing except heighten her senses and enhance her reaction times to near super-griffon levels of ability again, finding herself dodging spikes and shredding flyer forms with ease.

Her thoughts flowed quickly, too. A day ago, I was wondering if I was worthy of my post, promised the chance to ease into my new rank and responsibilities. And now here I am commanding two centuries of soldiers belonging to no less than three races in battle against a mutual foe! she marveled. She might have wondered about what it all meant and how it had already changed her for better and for worse, but there was no time.

No time for anything except survival, either outside of the hive or within it! Ancestors preserve them… She was deathly afraid for Marco and the others hiding inside the old structure, with the Cloven apparently having transported themselves inside using a borrowed ibexian adept gem. But in the middle of flying and fighting the Cloven, there was nothing she could do for them as they conducted a second pass through the Cloven flyer formations, who were starting to spread out more to protect themselves from immolation and being taken out by explosive bolts.

So far, she guessed they had taken out around a third of them with the loss of only one soldier from repeatedly spearing through their formations at maximum speed, as that simply wasn’t enough time for the flyer forms to take aim. She was readying a third pass when the gem paired with the one belonging to Miles Fortuna buzzed.

“Centurion! Beg to report!” Gilda held her breath as the Senior Scimitar began to speak. “We found the source of the summoning spell! It was activated in one of the large lower chambers to transport in over two hundred Cloven and corrupted, including the final ibex adept, but… they’re all dead!”

“Dead?” she said in confusion as she made another weaving pass at a thinning flyer swarm, though there were still at least two centuries of them in the air. They were starting to ignore her and trying to support the ground attack by peppering her forward trenches and weapons emplacements with spikes, but to her relief, they were not having much luck given they had to fire them from a hover which left them easy targets from both above and below. “From what?”

“We don’t know! As near as we can tell, they were already annihilated on arrival! They’ve got everything from blade wounds to what look like animal injuries! Judging by the bite and claw marks, it looks like they were torn apart by creatures ranging from timberwolves to tigerhawks!”

Despite the danger she was in, the thought gave Gilda pause. Then a mixed pack of animals attacked them in their marshal area but DIDN’T fight each other? How? Why? And with blade wounds mixed in? Her mind swam with the sheer unlikeliness of it. “Are the civilians and wounded inside the infirmary safe?”

“They are. No breaches,” she said to Gilda’s great relief. “I’m keeping my Ravens present here now, and your mate is currently standing guard with us at the chamber entrance,” she added in a note of annoyance. “We told him to stay inside, but he’s rather persistent and—” There was a fumbling sound on the other end.

“Gilda? We’ve got this. Everyone’s safe. Nothing’s getting in here, so just kill the goddamn things!” Marco told her after she gathered that he had grabbed the gem right out of the Raven’s grasp. “But if we survive this, I’m gonna want you bad, girlfriend.”

The pink in her vision intensified at the thought. “And you can have me,” she promised him, trying not to feel a fresh pang of guilt and pain. She resolved then that she would tell him what happened with the Starshina when the time came, praying he would be accepting of it. “But until then, obey the Senior Scimitar’s orders!”

“You got it, girlfriend!” he promised, the title causing yet another stab of guilt to shoot through her; she could only imagine what Karin Kazal was thinking on the other end to hear it.

Live first, admit infidelity and make love to Marco later! she reminded herself, trying not to think about how she’d broken that rule badly once already and infuriatingly, still found she didn’t regret it so much as not being with him and her other human friends first.

She tried for a moment to focus some ire on the Starshina for depriving her of that chance, only to once again find that she couldn’t. Just as before, her thoughts ran into a two-pronged mental barricade of both knowing that she badly needed it, and that he had more than earned her.

Ancestors above, how am I supposed to hate Karin Kazal? He’s saved me at least three times today! She shook her head at the thought as she ordered her force to head back to the hive, judging they’d done as much damage as they could out there without risking the Cloven turning on them with their entire force.

She’d lost another Wind Knight dead into the lake with another two wounded from spikes and slashes, but her hit-and-fly tactics supported by the two dragons had proven effective. As Rose Ruby had promised, Obsidian Ire had obeyed orders instantly this time and Orange Crush had killed her share of Cloven as well.

They’d each taken a couple more spikes but were ignoring their injuries, though she noticed Obsidian Ire had two holes punched in her broad webbed wings and watched as Orange Crush sealed a wound on her side with her own fiery breath without so much as a grunt of pain.

Gilda could only marvel at the sight of it, starting to understand how tough the two drakinas really were. To say nothing of their stamina! she further marveled. Dragonfire was not inexhaustible, she knew from Gauntlet briefings. But she also knew they could recharge it quickly by the simple act of breathing as long as their body’s mineral needs were met, which they could satisfy by eating rocks or especially crystals. And indeed, when they dove free again, Orange Crush grabbed at one of her pouches to pull out what looked like a diamond to eat, taking a large bite out of it with a loud crunch before stowing the remainder.

The brief respite gave her a chance to glance back at the hive. She could see the Cloven attack had made it halfway up the hill, but the Cloven soldiers were being struck down swiftly from combined crossbow and cannon fire as well as the detonation of the occasional strewn gem.

Porkupikes tried to provide their own base of fire for the charging soldier forms from the bottom of the hill, but their stationary positions made them easy targets for bowcasters and human rifles, and they typically got only a few shots off before they were struck down.

Despite their losses, both they and the surviving razorbats scored the occasional hit as she heard casualty calls go out, promptly followed by one of the two Ibex retrieving them. Worse, one of her bowcasters was down, she realized as she saw the Ibex doe scamper upslope to retrieve the wounded earth griffon, and there weren’t any other trained soldiers available who could take it over.

Still, as the minutes passed, she judged they were winning the fight given Cloven casualties far exceeded theirs, both in the sky and on the ground. Giraldi was skillfully shifting forces and directing fire in the form of the Raven heavy repeaters, using them to cut down concentrations of Cloven when they occasionally tried to focus their efforts on one side of the hill or the other. In the end, they simply could not enter or even approach the trench line where their superior strength and spiked bodies could tell.

The carnage among their ranks was bad enough, in fact, that the charging Cloven soldier forms were being slowed down by simply having to fight through the fallen and occasionally outright tumbling forms of their slain brethren, resulting in their advance being halted two-thirds of the way up the hill.

At one point, an additional group of carrier forms tried to swoop down on the plateau with maws open and spikes stitching the area, but another pair of massive booms from Henderson’s position cut two of them down in sequence while three others fell to bowcasters, with only one making it all the way down. And it didn’t last long before a hail of heavy repeater fire from the hillside shredded it and the pair of soldier forms it was carrying quickly.

With the battle for the main cave entrance apparently in wing, that only left the action on the rear of the hill unaccounted for. She could see a massive pall of smoke rising behind the abandoned hive but couldn’t hear much combat from that direction. “Decurion Gletscher! Report!” she ordered him.

Gilda was given some momentary pause when he didn’t immediately reply, leaving her praying he hadn’t been struck down. “Centurion!” His harried voice was finally heard. “We’ve eliminated the force they landed to the rear thanks mostly to Rose Ruby! Ancestors, she’s amazing with that scythe!” he said in the same wonderment Gilda had felt upon seeing her in action for the first time. “She’s so fast that they can’t touch her! She burned the hill beneath them and then wiped out the survivors almost by herself!”

“Now you know why she stayed behind, Centurion—to be your final and best line of defense,” Obsidian Ire said smugly from Gilda’s left to overhear it. “She’s not the biggest or oldest of us, but she’s easily the swiftest and the most lethal of our warriors. Be very thankful that the Cloven could not kill and corrupt her when they first invaded our lands, or we would stand little chance.”

Gilda gave the large drakina a look as she searched for a fresh concentration of airborne Cloven to attack. “I thought you were just keeping her out of the way because she was too young and small to fight effectively.”

“Do not judge a stone by its surface, Centurion,” Orange Crush reminded her from the right in a tone of pure pride. “For sometimes the most magnificent of gems lie within.”

“Point taken…” Gilda muttered as the remainder of the Cloven assault force was cut down, leaving over a millennium of soldiers and flyers strewn about the hill. She was starting to wonder about their crossbow ammunition reserves when the attack abruptly halted and the Cloven withdrew, apparently on the order of their Overlord. They scampered back down the hill and quickly retreated out of sight into the woods, chased by the occasional rifle bullet and bowcaster bolt.

Even after they had disappeared, a few more shots rang out. ”Cease fire!” She heard Imlay call over the radio. “Marines, safe and service your weapons! And replenish ammo from storage gems! Stavrou! What’s the status of the fifty?” she called out as Gilda banked back towards the hill.

“Fifteen hundred rounds expended,” he reported. “Barrel’s so hot it’s nearly glowing and it might be getting fouled. I had three jams in the past two canisters.”

“Then cool and clean it as best you can,” he ordered as Giraldi called to Gilda next just as she came in for a landing.

“Centurion! Beg to report,” he said as she skidded to a halt before him, only furling her wings when she confirmed the plateau was safe.

He saluted her and she saluted him back. “Proceed.”

“I am pleased to say we smashed the attack with the loss of what I conservatively estimate to be at least six centuries of Cloven ground soldiers and Ancestors only know how many flyers. Unfortunately, we suffered nearly a Turma’s worth of casualties of our own and crossbow bolts are beginning to run low. Six Talons are dead and sixteen are wounded, as is one of the Ravens. All dead have had their minds destroyed.”

Gilda closed her eyes. She didn’t realize that they’d been hit that hard, given she’d only lost one dead and three wounded, wondering if she’d ever get used to the griffons under her command dying. “And the Marines?”

“One more wounded, ma’am… er, sir.” Imlay caught himself again to a smirk from the Ravens. “But he’s fit for further action.”

“Make that two!” a slightly frantic Ebon Umbreon called out as he landed before them, holding a helmetless and bleeding Henderson in his arms with multiple spikes sticking out of her shoulder and arm. “By the Ancestors, she was utterly unflinching before enemy fire, even when the flyers closed in! I was trying to defend her, and she shot two of them right off my back!” he said, staring down at her in wonder.

“You’re welcome, Ebon. But I’m afraid I’m out of the fight, Centurion…” Henderson apologized with a cough that brought up blood. “I did my best. And my rifles are still up there…” she told them, to which Gilda dispatched one of her Wind Knights to bring them back. But not before Imlay warned him not to touch the triggers or ‘barrels’, the latter of which he said were the long tubes whose bare metal would likely be very hot.

“You did fine, Lance Corporal,” Imlay told her, grasping her hand and squeezing it with his own. “Well done, Marine.”

“Seconded,” Gilda told her with a bared throat. “You’ve done your part, so get yourself fixed up. And if Chris is awake, tell him how many more kills he needs to catch up to you now,” she further suggested with a sly smile.

“He’ll hate that,” Henderson said in a weak voice and grin. “But it’ll give him motivation, too…”

Gilda grinned back. “I’m sure it will. But for now, your battle is done, Lance Corporal. So if you would be so kind as to take her to the infirmary, Shadow Decurion…?”

“By your command,” he said solemnly, still staring down at the human eagless in his arms as he flew into the caves with her.

Gilda had barely started to wonder if he might be smitten with her when a new voice broke in. “Centurion?” She looked up to see Shadow Decanus Acuti Surculus approaching, carrying the male Marine who had been paired with him to provide close defense, wearing both his bowcaster and human rifle slung around his body. “I regret to report there is one more human casualty…”

He laid a PFC Gilda didn’t know the name of down on the ground. She didn’t see anything immediately wrong with him until his head lolled to reveal a single flyer spike gruesomely impaling his eye, having punched right through the goggles he wore.

“Ah, fuck,” Imlay said with a grimace, his fingers going to the side of his head to tap something. “Sorry, buddy. Squad, this is Imlay. We lost PFC Jenkins.”

Sounds of shock and dismay were heard followed by curses and angry growls as the Marines swore to avenge their fallen comrade. “When did it happen?” Gilda asked, staring down at what she was certain was her latest failure of leadership.

“Halfway through the battle when their flyers tried to swarm the hill. I didn’t know he was down until after the attack was repulsed and I realized his cannon had stopped firing.”

“But we still heard cannon fire from that position later,” Giraldi noted solemnly.

“That was me,” the subdued Raven tiercel admitted after a brief pause as he glanced at the human weapon. “When he fell, I picked it up, as my bowcaster is not effective at close range. I learned how to aim and fire it from observing him. I will say it was harder than it looked and difficult to keep stable, to say nothing of rather painful on the ears. But it was also very powerful and effective when its cannonballs found their mark. I may also report that griffon talons are not a good fit for the trigger or quiver release button, but I managed. I do not think they would need much modification to be more easily used by us.”

“I see…” Gilda felt the loss of the male Marine keenly. So finally, a human falls. At least the Cloven can’t possess him since they already destroyed his brain, she noted somewhat wanly to see the formerly red-hot spike deeply buried in his skull. Feeling like she should say something, she did so, hoping it wasn’t offensive to whatever gods or concept of the afterlife humans had.

“Rest, Marine. And thank you for your service to the Kingdom. You fought to the death at our side, so know that you die with our gratitude and honor. May your Ancestors guide your soul to the stars.”

To her relief, Imlay didn’t seem to take offense, and neither did the other Marines listening in. She thought she heard a prayer or two over the radio as the Corporal reached down to close his fellow human’s good eye.

”Semper Fidelis,” he surprised her by saying an Aeric phrase. “Always faithful. And you were, Marine.” He squeezed his own eyes shut once tightly, then opened them again, suddenly all business once more. “I’ll bring out someone from our reserve fire team to replace him on the upper slope. And thank you for returning his body and weapon, Shadow Decanus.” Imlay nodded at the Raven, who bared his throat. “I’ll need the rifle back, though. You’ll understand that I can’t let you keep it.”

“Nor would I, in your place,” he granted as he carefully pulled the human weapon off his shoulder and laid it down at Imlay’s feet. He did so as the Corporal called forth another Marine to take the place of PFC Jenkins; PFC Anderson emerged from the hive at a run less than a minute later and gaped at his fallen comrade, uttering a single word. “Fuck.”

“Still think this is fun, PFC?” Imlay asked him acidly as he placed an empty storage gem on the fallen Marine and activated it, causing the dead human to be enveloped in a magical aura and then disappear.

When the process was complete, the now-glowing gem fell to the ground with a mild clatter. “It’s so we can return his body to his family,” he said to the quizzical looks he received, picking up and stowing the crystal inside one of his interior pockets. “It’s our way. And as for you, PFC, you’ll be taking his place in a foxhole further upslope with the Shadow Decanus here. Protect him from close-range attacks while he snipes them. And kindly try not to take a flyer spike through the eye.”

“Yes, Corporal,” the young Marine said with far less attitude than before as Henderson’s three weapons were delivered downslope—she indeed had a third rifle available, and this one looked like the most powerful of all, with a long barrel and thick quiver.

Gilda might have asked about it but found she couldn’t as Imlay ordered another Marine to take over the EMR, stowing the largest rifle in a second storage gem. She could only stand there dazed and despondent for a moment, feeling the crushing weight of command falling on her anew.

Ancestors above, how many more must die under my orders? She thought again that for as many dead as she had already suffered, she wasn’t worthy of her post. But then she shoved it as hard aside as she could, deciding that she needed to clear her head while she had the chance. At least it puts things in perspective. What happened with Karin Kazal doesn’t even begin to compare to the guilt I feel over this. Still…

Thinking of him and what had happened, she decided it was time to go see Marco directly and spill the story, letting him know while she still had the chance. May the Ancestors guide me, she invoked the ritual prayer for one of the few times in her life, having always prided herself on taking responsibility for her actions while not relying on the Grace of the Gods to help her.

“While I have a chance, I’m going below to check on the civilians and wounded. The Optio is in charge until I return. Reset our defenses and summon me immediately if the Cloven attack again,” she directed shortly.

“By your command.” Giraldi saluted and bared his throat. “But Centurion?”

“What?” she asked as she returned the respect, her voice clipped and emotions raw.

“I just wanted to say—very well done, sir. You have led us superbly and fought from the forefront as a Centurion should. I would only ask that you do not blame yourself for our fallen. Casualties are inevitable in such battles as these, and they are not a reflection of your leadership. Only the brutal ruthlessness of our foe.”

“She’s right, sir,” Imlay offered, leaving Gilda guessing that he sensed her guilt, if not all its sources. “If you won’t take it from him, then take it from someone who’s seen far too many dead and been under the command of way too many officers whose inexperience and idiocy got them killed—you’ve led us well. Know that neither me nor my Marines blame you for this.” For a moment, his eyes looked far too old for his youthful face.

Despite his words, she looked away. “Maybe that will mean more to me later, Corporal. But by the crows, it sure doesn’t make things better now.” She bared her throat to him only briefly before turning on her heel and departing, seeking solace in a place she knew she would find none.

As Gilda walked down the broad carved hallway to their makeshift infirmary alone with her dark and brooding thoughts, she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that shadows were following her, and hundreds of eyes were on her the whole way there.

It was undeniably disconcerting but still a completely illogical feeling given nocreature else was present in the old hive except for her civilians and soldiers, so she judged it a trick of the light from the few hastily mounted firegems in the hallways. They were there to provide just enough illumination to navigate the hive’s darkened interior, with the side corridors protected by Raven-laid traps and the occasional pair of human or griffon sentries after the failed intrusion attempt.

And we still have no idea how all the Cloven ended up dead on arrival. They had to have been slain in their assembly area before the summon spell was activated, so maybe there’s something helping us out there? She didn’t have any other explanation than that, but also understood how badly the battle could have ended if the Cloven had been able to attack them from within the former hive. Thank you, whoever you are…

Answering a challenge from the final pair of guards outside the infirmary, which she judged was the former private quarters of the Changeling Queen from the remnants of artwork and multicolored swirls of chitin on the walls, she passed through it to see her injured soldiers and the Marines being treated by a harried Chief Jacobs. He did so alongside an overtaxed and exhausted looking Nydia, who was only able to triage the worst of the wounds in hopes of holding them over long enough for rescue or for herself to regain enough power to start healing in earnest.

Nevertheless, she came to attention and saluted upon seeing her Centurion, asking if she was needed outside or if there was any more she could do. “Your place is here, Decanus,” Gilda told her, putting a set of talons on her vest-covered chest. “The ibex are serving well in your stead. And lest you think you aren’t helping enough, know that for all you’ve done for us, I’ll be putting you in for a citation and promotion when we make it to Aricia.” IF we do…

Nydia bared her throat back, asking how long they had before the next attack. “Not known. So steal a few minutes of rest and meditation while you can.” Gilda advised her, to which Nydia nodded and took a meditative stance, letting the ibex doe take over her healing duties.

To her surprise, the civilian griffon named Gabriella was helping as well. She busied herself by tending wounds and providing food and water at the direction of Chief Jacobs, trying to offer encouragement and a comforting wing to each soldier she tended. She caught Gilda’s eye as she entered and bared her throat at her in lieu of a salute, to which Gilda responded in kind.

“By the Ancestors above, I have to do something,” she explained when Gilda asked why she was there. “I can’t stand seeing suffering. Or standing by while there are creatures in need. The cubs are taken care of right now, so I…” Her voice trailed off as she began to cry again, turning her face away to hide her shame.

Recognizing that she was trying very hard to be both brave and helpful, Gilda’s heart melted as she took the other eagless into an embrace. She let the other female cry into her neck for a minute, her squawking sobs muted by the feathers she buried her beak in. It was an act of comfort that Gilda would never have performed just a month or two earlier, and very possibly not even a week before. But now?

But now, she didn’t hesitate, willing to do whatever it took to keep up the flagging morale of her forces and civilian charges in the face of the losses they’d already suffered. Finally, the gray-feathered eagless pushed back from her with an apology and bared throat. “Th-thank you, Centurion. I needed that.”

“It’s alright. You’re a brave and noble griffon, Gabriella Cunaria,” Gilda told her and meant it. “You would have to be to have protected and taken care of all those cubs.”

She sniffled again. “I don’t care if I die at this point. But Ancestors above, please save them…” she pleaded with Gilda as much as the Ancestors themselves, nodding back to the room that contained the cubs.

“Ancestors willing, we will,” Gilda promised her, at which point Chief Jacobs summoned Gabby, asking her to help him attend a fresh casualty. Many of the wounded were sleeping surprisingly soundly despite their injuries, she noted, with most of them marked with a black M on their foreheads.

“It means I gave them morphine,” he explained shortly as he wrapped a Talon’s wounded foreleg with a bandage after stitching the wound shut; Gilda took some comfort in the fact that just like her, the tiercel couldn’t watch as it happened. “It’s a powerful painkiller. But it’s not without drawbacks. It also dulls your wits and reflexes. Once you have it, you’re out of the fight, and it can be addictive if repeatedly given,” he warned her, causing Gilda to grimace, remembering how bad her own cider withdrawal symptoms had been.

But now there’s more cider in me. So will I have to suffer those same symptoms again when it subsides after the battle? she suddenly worried, but then decided that of all her concerns at that moment, that was the least important just then.

After greeting each of her wounded soldiers in turn to praise them for their performance and the massive cost to the Cloven they’d exacted, she decided she’d put off seeing Marco long enough. Passing a final pair of Raven sentries, she headed for the inner sanctum of the former Queen’s still-solid bedchambers, where they’d been keeping the cubs and other civilians.

It was soundproofed outside of the short hall leading to it, and when she entered it, she heard a surprising sound—laughter. As she got closer, she realized it was coming from both griffon cubs and pony foals. Though the carefully carved chamber no longer had furniture, there were still carve-outs for closets and some stands for what were likely tables or beds, which were now being availed of by the mothers and the human guards.

Entering the room, she stopped short at the sight of Marco playing with the foals and cubs as Tara, Guerrero and Brennan watched, laughing and egging him on despite the news of the dead Marine that she had to assume had reached them.

It was a simple game of chase they were playing under the watchful eyes of the two mothers. They seemed almost amused at the antics of the upright human, who had stripped off his armor and weapons for the purpose, leaving them in the possession of Tara.

Marco grunted as he dodged to the left, almost falling as three cubs and a foal chased after him. He took a quick look behind him, eyes widening as he saw two more cubs moving to bracket him. He barely escaped them with a quick jump to the right. But he didn’t see another shadow sneaking in front of him, watching and waiting its chance. When Marco turned away, it arched its back, a soft growl escaping its throat.

And then it jumped right at him before he realized his mistake, landing squarely on his back.

The human gasped, losing his balance. He forced his hands up to defend himself as the cub clawed at him, but the rest of the cubs soon joined in, grabbing onto his legs as they began to speak.

“Don’t let him up!” the female cub said in Aeric as she held onto Marco’s left leg.

“Pin him! Pin him!” one of the other male cubs called out from where he had latched onto Marco’s right.

But the third and oldest of the group, who looked to be no more than ten and was trying to drag Marco down, declared: “He’s not giving up! Pile on him!”

Seeing an opportunity, she trilled sharply, getting the cubs’ attention. With an evil grin, she wriggled her talons against her side. The male cub clawing at Marco took a moment to understand, but when he did, his smile widened. And when he duplicated the gesture by moving his talons to Marco’s sides, the human’s brown eyes enlarged.

“Oh, nononono!” Marco pleaded.

Gilda smirked. Too late! she thought as the cubs began to tickle him, causing Tara and the Marines to snicker as Marco burst out laughing. Now really trying to fight the cubs off, he briefly succeeded, but that only earned him more attackers as the cubs holding his legs jumped up to assist their friend while the foals took over holding him down.

They finally succeeded in toppling him and then continued their assault, quickly determining what his most ticklish spots were and then attacking them mercilessly.

“Okay, I give, I give!” Marco exclaimed, laughing as he bared his neck. The cubs and foals desisted after a few seconds, raising their right forelegs in victory.

“We beat the giant! We beat the giant!” The cubs did celebratory aerial somersaults while the pony foals pinwheeled their hooves in triumph.

Marco sat up, a small smile on his face as he watched the griffons and pony younglings jump up and down excitedly. He patted his shirt in a similar motion to when griffons wanted to dust themselves off, Gilda noted, before extending his right fist to them. The cubs immediately returned the gesture before they continued celebrating, running around him in circles as he slowly got back on his feet. They even followed him as he walked towards Gilda and the Marines until the two mothers called them back.

“You think you know a guy,” Brennan declared loudly when Marco was in earshot. “Reckon Flip-boy’s got enough jack-off material to last him until the fucking end of the world, with a phone full of women with big fucking titties and baby-bare pussy. And then it turns out that he’s just a pedo-fag tail-chaser.”

In response, Marco rolled his eyes, raising a fist with his longest finger pointing upwards. It must have been a rude gesture because when the cubs started copying it, he began to shake his head, telling them in Equestrian not to do it. The Marines just laughed as he failed to stop them from raising their two claws with the gesture, though the befuddled foals couldn’t do anything except raise a talon-less hoof.

Shaking his head, Marco grabbed a few clean bowls and scooped up water from a small basin they’d set up—Fortrakt had filled some borrowed storage gems with water from the Bale well, she was happy to see—and offered them to the cubs. They took it, and after a few sips they seemingly lost interest in Marco as they began to chase each other under the watchful gazes of the two mothers, who only occasionally called out to them.

“That’s our Rico. Remember the good old days?” Guerrero asked; he was uninjured but had been part of the reserve fire team stationed inside the hive, now guarding the infirmary. “We all thought Rico was just a weird-ass perv who did nothing but stare at pony ass, thumping his hips on the table when one went past him?”

That caught Gilda’s attention. “Is that true?” she asked with a half-hearted glower at Marco.

“Yes, sir,” Guerrero replied with a conspiratorial smile. “Every word.”

“Don’t believe a thing they say, Gilda,” Marco interjected, approaching her and getting down long enough to give her a hug. She quickly returned it, relieved to have his scent in her nose again. “It’s nonsense. All of it.” She imagined he would have used a stronger word if not for the presence of the cubs and foals, given at least one of the latter spoke Equish.

“Fuck it is,” Guerrero replied. His remark earned a reproachful look from Tara, who reminded him that there were ‘kids’ present. “Sorry, Miss Fields. But no, really. Rico here is the Mare Chaser. That’s the title he earned.”

“No, I didn’t!” Marco said in response to Gilda’s glare. “You guys just started calling me that when—”

“Hey, hey!” Guerrero cut him off. “Who’s telling the story here, huh?”

Marco rolled his eyes as Gilda shifted slightly, focusing on Guerrero. Mare Chaser? In her Equestrian experience, it was always the mares who did the chasing. Then again, Gilda hadn’t heard more than a few snippets of what had happened during the stay of Marco and his friends in Equestria.

To that point, all she knew was that he had apparently embarrassed the Ambassador in front of Prince Blueblood by speaking out of turn and failing to follow proper etiquette rules, and that he had to deal with Dana’s obnoxious and insulting presence the whole time.

Then there was the fact that Imlay had told Marco to his face that “he still didn’t know when to shut up” after his time in Equestria, which implied that his muzzle had gotten him in repeated trouble there even outside offending the Prince. “Okay. So what happened?” Gilda asked, just glad to have a respite from her brooding thoughts and an excuse not to pull Marco aside just then.

“It was back in Baltimare,” Guerrero began. “Which is a completely stupid name, but I won’t go on about it.”

“I think your grievance with Equestrian city names being similar to American city names is far more interesting,” Marco interrupted as he passed out snacks of fruit to the cubs next, which they ate eagerly; Tara also took a piece as one of the younger cubs laid his head in her lap. “Why don’t we talk about that, instead?”

“Nah, next time,” Guerrero replied. “Now, this was a week before we left Equestria. We were all billeted in this one area near the Baltimare port… what was that shit called again?”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Horseshoe Bay.”

Brennan laughed despite his visible pain; as he lacked a black M on his forehead, it was clear he hadn’t taken the ‘more-feen’ either. “Of course, Flip-Boy would know the name. He got laid there.”

“Did he, now?” Gilda turned her probing gaze on him again.

“No, he didn’t.” Marco rolled his eyes.

Don’t be bashful, Rico. You’re a legend for what happened there,” Guerrero teased, turning back to Gilda. “So yeah, we were there for a couple days before our chartered airship departed for the Kingdom, given leave to visit bars and whatnot. So we pop into this one pub, and guess who we see?” He motioned towards Marco.

“The Mare Chaser himself, talking to this one filly who looked like she had been drinking heavily. Rico was probably drunk too because the next thing we know, he was on his knees.” Guerrero then motioned with his hands as if both were cupping something.

“Oh, great. So not only are we getting bullshit, but now we have to watch it get shit out, too.” Marco groaned before taking a sip from his own bowl, leaving Gilda glad that the cubs still playing around him didn’t understand Equish.

“Marco, mind your mouth,” Tara reminded him, sitting on a storage barrel.

“Yes, Mom,” he groused, but Guerrero paid him no mind.

“You should have seen him, Centurion. He grabbed that pony ass and ate out her pussy like there was no tomorrow! You should have heard him lap her up. It was like he was eating nachos with sour cream dip.”

Marco coughed, spitting out some of the water he was drinking, earning a loud laugh from the Marines.

“Nachos with sour cream dip?” he echoed incredulously when he finally stopped coughing. “Seriously, Guerrero? That image is shit. I’m glad you’re not a writer.”

Gilda felt a blush creep on her cheeks as she looked at Marco. She didn’t know what nachos were, but sour cream definitely gave her a crude image. “Okay. So were you really with a mare before me?” she asked him menacingly, feeling her ire rise at just the idea of it.

“No!” Marco exclaimed immediately with a shake of his head, but then paused. “Okay, the bar part is true, and yes, I may have been drunk enough that my hand wandered somewhere inappropriate on this mare I was chatting with—honestly, that detail’s a little fuzzy—but I didn’t, as so eloquently put, go down to my knees and… well, whatever.”

“You keep saying no,” Brennan replied, “but all I hear is—” he spoke in another accent, “—I solemnly swear, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

“Mare in this case, dog,” Guerrero added with a slightly forced grin; Gilda couldn’t help but wonder if they were teasing Marco to distract from news of their comrade’s death. “Mare Chaser. Rico always getting some alien pussy—no offense, Centurion! But hey, give him time, and I even bet he’ll start humping those weird ass alien zombies. Who knows? Maybe he’ll even end this war before we can kill them all.”

“You know, they’re right, Marco. So maybe we ought to call you Kirk,” Tara teased next, though her smile seemed a bit forced as well; Gilda couldn’t tell if it was because of the news of Jenkins’ death or the fact that she was still in considerable pain. “You know, peace through booty calls. Then again, you seem to cause more strife than anything else.”

“Et tu, Tara? Screw you guys. I’m going home,” Marco declared in an odd voice, walking away with his nose in the air to play with the cubs again. The Marines jeered even louder, laughing when Marco repeated that same gesture with his hand, not even deeming it worthy to face them as he walked away.

Once he was out of hearing range, Gilda turned to Tara. “Okay, seriously—is any of that true?”

Tara gave her a smile. “I doubt it, but I don’t know for sure, Gilda. All I do know is that a day before we left Equestria—we were flying from Baltimare to Loondon with a stop in Manehattan—he went missing. Made quite a few people nervous. And furious, too, in the case of Goldberg. They ended up sending the off-duty Marines out looking for him.”

“Yep. I was one of them. And you know where my buddies finally found him?” Guerrero asked.

“Where?” Gilda prompted.

“Exiting some pony’s house, having messed-up hair and kissing a mare goodbye,” Guerrero replied with a grin.

“Just kissing?” Brennan snickered, his wounds patched up with bandages and his arm in a sling, though he had what appeared to be Chris’s pistol holstered at his hip. “I heard they actually saw him banging that mare. They thought his moans were of distress. Must have been fucking weird when they went in, guns at the ready.”

“Oh, please. If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable. You guys didn’t even have your guns while on leave!” Marco answered as he passed them on the way back to the infirmary, but the Marines just talked over him.

“Nah, dog, I heard it was three mares,” Guerrero corrected, ignoring him.

“Three? I heard it was four mares in heat who were sick of their stallion neglecting them! And that they tried to get naughty with the Marines that came in to get him,” Brennan rejoined with a smirk.

“I heard they did. Rico gave them such a taste for men that they gave everyone blow jobs on the spot.” Guerrero insisted.

“Just blow jobs? I heard they all got pony pussy.”

Gilda blinked as the two kept correcting each other with even more detail, which made the story of Marco’s discovery getting more improbable every second, punctuated with snickers that slowly gave way to exuberant laughter. After a few more seconds of listening, she realized that either they didn’t know the whole story, or that as ponies put it, her hind leg was being severely pulled.

Catching Tara’s gaze, who visibly rolled her eyes, she left them to their increasingly tall tales (Marco apparently slept with Celestia and Luna at once as well!) and followed her mate’s steps back into the infirmary until she saw him chatting with Nydia. He pointed towards the staff Gilda had found inside the Shelter, and the two began conversing. It looked like Marco was asking a few questions, and Nydia herself looked a little too eager to answer. Then, to Gilda’s surprise, the mage began to blush.

Her eyes narrowed as suddenly, the stories of him bedding three mares actually seemed a bit more plausible. She wanted to talk more to Nydia, But all her jealousy receded in an instant as she pulled Marco aside and asked to speak to him privately, mentally steeling herself as she did so.

But privacy was not to be found just then unless they wanted to find an unused chamber or hallway, which was a bad idea if the Cloven were finding ways to teleport in. So she settled for halfway down the short corridor from the infirmary located in the former Queen’s outer suite to her bedchambers where the cubs now played, which she knew was soundproofed from the outside. If this was the Queen’s chambers, what did it look like while occupied?

She didn’t know, but it wasn’t the time to wonder. “Hey, Gilds. So is it true about Jenkins?” Marco asked her, to which she nodded solemnly and looked away.

“Aw, hell,” he said, then made another series of crossing motions over his chest. It was the third time she’d seen him do it, and given the second occasion was when they’d encountered the overturned cart with dead griffons and ponies around it, she decided it was most likely some form of religious gesture. “Didn’t know him that well, but he seemed like a good kid.”

“Guerrero and Brennan seemed to be taking it okay,” she noted somewhat wanly.

“I think teasing me was just their way of dealing with it,” he guessed. “They were trying not to think about it. That’s why I didn’t push back too hard, even if what they were spewing was complete and total bullshit. If it takes their minds off it, that’s fine with me. Ditto for playing with the cubs. At least they more or less trust us now.”

“And I’m glad,” she said, then took a deep breath, finding she preferred facing the Cloven to what honor required her to do. “But Marco? I came down here because there’s something I need to tell you. And I didn’t want to chance either of us dying before I did.”

“Oh?” he said, then offered her an easygoing smile. “I thought that we’d already said pretty much everything that needed to be said the other night, girlfriend.”

She felt another stab of pain at the title. “It’s not that. It’s something that happened right after the initial battle, when we were using mounted Marines to rescue the dragons. Something that hit me completely out of the blue...”