Blaze looked out into the night sky, the stars punching white, shining holes in the sky. Crickets cried, and the wind whistled, it was a clear night. He craned his neck as he gazed upon the landscape around him. The tall grasses of the green plains were sway in the wind, the trees parroting their movements. He noticed the rolling hills in the distance, and the formidable mountains behind them.
Mountains that he would have to cross in order to reach his destination.
“Are you going to ogle at the scenery all night or are you going to eat your dinner, Capitaine?” a young stallion’s voice asked him.
He turned back to see his companion plopped on his haunches and grinning widely at him, a crackling fire burning only a few feet from him.
Blaze returned a smirk at his old friend. The yellow unicorn gestured to the steaming pot of vegetables hanging over the flames, seemingly prepared to eat. The brown earth pony nodded in response and moved to join his partner by the fire.
Both of the young stallions sat in silence for a moment, staring into the inferno in front of them. The unicorn opened his mouth to speak but then quickly restrained himself. There was nothing to do but listen to the calm and peaceful sounds of the night while awaiting their meal.
An awkward moment indeed.
Blaze, in an attempt to break his trance that the fire had captured him in, looked to the surrounding area once again. The silver moonlight shined off his face and the clearing outside of the forest of which they had made camp, was uneventful.
“I heard that enlistments are down and desertions are up. Things must be pretty bad for the regulars.” Thunder Coy said, trying to break the ice.
Blaze scoffed.
“You shouldn’t send regulars to do a Hoof Guard’s job,” Blaze replied, an air of arrogance in his tone.
Coy looked away from the cooking pot and at him with confusion.
“But Capitaine, what we’re doing isn’t a Hoof Guard’s job.”
He nodded in affirmation.
Of course, this wasn’t like anything in his job description. Never in his time as an officer had he received such a bizarre request from his superiors. A Hoof Guard was an elite, a shock troop, they weren’t build for missions like this. But, being a good soldier, he thought it better than to question his orders.
“Aye, looks like our dinner is ready,” Coy announced, his yellow horn now covered in a blue glow.
Blaze watched his friend telekinetically grab hold of the pot and lifted it away from the fire. Coy popped the lid and watched the steam escape from its prison of sizzling food. Both young ponies felt their mouths begin to water and their stomachs moaned in agony as they smelled the delicious aroma. Coy dispersed the food into two plates, that Blaze raised his eyebrow in curiosity.
Proper eating plates.
Not a usual item for a soldier to carry with him into the field, whereas a sturdy metal pan would do just as well, even if it was cold.
The young lieutenant preparing the feast must have sensed his friend’s interest, explaining the break in the norm to him.
“Command wanted us to pose as civilians remember? Why else would they tell us to ditch our uniforms? I thought the plates would be a nice touch,” Coy explained, still facing away from the brown pony.
Blaze rolled his green eyes in disdain.
“Yet they tell us to bring our army muskets with us…and flintlock pistols…and officer sabers,” he deadpanned.
“Of course, two walking arsenals wouldn’t be conspicuous at all.”
The sarcasm oozed from his comment.
The other pony laughed at the thought as he finished mixing the carrots with the lettuce and white rice, dicing them up with dual wooden spoons expertly held in his magic.
“Since when does the army use logic?”
They both chuckled at that.
“And besides chap, we can just tell the Equis that we are explorers. Actually, that’s sort of true to some extent,” he finished with a smile.
Blaze shifted uncomfortably as he adjusted his flank and flicked his tail.
“Hmm…I guess you’re right. But I still don’t see why we need so many weapons.”
The unicorn shrugged.
“The army gave them to us to defend ourselves on our journey.”
“Defend against what?”
“You know Capitaine. Bandits, wild animals…Equi scouts.”
After they had filled themselves up with steamed vegetables, they both stacked their muskets together by crossing the bayonets and digging the stocks into the soft soil below. They kept them close to their blankets in case of an emergency. Coy levitated a chunk of dirt he pulled out of the ground and used it to douse the fire. Blaze took inventory of the supplies, making sure it was enough for the journey over the mountains and into Equi territory.
As they both climbed into their respective, makeshift beds, Blaze remembered one thing. He drew his flintlock pistol and set it to half cock and stuffed it under his pillow, a habit that he had developed from his time in the army…mainly from paranoia. He also kept his saber lying next to him, flat on the ground, just in case the enemy needed to find out how many he could kill before he went down.
He had played out this scenario many times in his head, should an intruder try to off him in his sleep. The brown earth pony would quick draw his pistol and discharge it into the face of the closest target. If he couldn’t get to his musket, then he would snatch up his thin curved sword, and figure out how well the remaining enemies could fence.
If they didn’t shoot him first, that was.
He heard a click next to him and found Coy setting his own pistol to half cock and looked up towards Blaze. Coy chuckled as he slipped the weapon under his own pillow.
“Looks like I’m picking up habits from you, old friend,” Coy said with a smirk, unsheathing his saber and laying it on the ground.
Blaze smiled as he let his head drop into the welcoming soft pillow, ready for sleep to take him.
Both veterans awaited the morning and with it, their uncertain futures.
They had already been moving for over an hour now, and it seemed like they were finally making progress towards the mountain range. Of course, there was still the forest beforehand as well but from Blaze’s eyes, it didn’t look too bad. The weather was a little hot today, which reminded him heavily of the scarred southlands of his home country.
He looked to Thunder, and watched the young lieutenant take a drink from his canteen.
“How much ammunition have we got again?” Coy asked, the spring sun making him sweat as midday drew closer.
Blaze looked to the sky as he thought for a second.
“Hmm…if I remember correctly, we’ve got forty paper cartridges for each of the two pistols we both carry and eighty paper cartridges for our muskets. I personally like our sabers the best, they never run out of cartridges,” he pointed out with a smirk.
They both laughed heartily.
“With your obsession with fencing Capitaine, that is totally a line that I expected from you.”
As they turned their attention back to the road, the two young ponies could see that they were less than a mile from the forest up ahead. The sweltering heat only got worse the closer they got to midday, much to Blaze’s disapproval.
He really hated hot weather.
As they reached the forest, they sighed in relief as the shade from the trees blocked out the sun. There was no path in the thicket of oaks and brush, so they had to make their way around the trees and bushes. The temperature plummeted in the forest as the hissing of wild animals and insects became audible.
“On your guard lieutenant.”
Both drew sabers, a metallic slide cutting through the noise of the forest.
They both moved cautiously as Blaze gripped his saber in his hoof, while Coy had his wrapped in his blue magical aura. Both ponies kept their heads on a swivel, ready for any adversary that would try to take them on. They slashed at stray branches and any other vegetation that got in their way. Getting through the thick forest was rough business, and two young stallions were becoming drained.
“Jeez Capitaine. How much more of this?” Coy asked as he hacked away at another branch that he almost bumped into with his horn.
After an hour or so of mindless hacking, they finally reached the end of the forest. When they looked up, they saw that they had made it to the base of the mountain. The rocky and snow-capped mountain offered both of them shade from the sun, even though they could still feel the heat. Both of them were thankful for the shade. As they both sheathed their sabers, they frowned at the prospect of getting past one obstacle, only to come across another immediately.
“Do you see a trail anywhere? Cause I am not scaling that beast,” Blaze remarked, gazing up at the towering mass in front of him.
Coy glanced from side to side and turned to Blaze.
“We can try trotting alongside it until we find one.”
“Don’t have much of a choice,” Blaze deadpanned.
And so they moved parallel to the mountain, desperately trying to locate a usable trail. They were small and large rocks hampering their progress, Coy tripping a couple times on the unruly landscape. Wild mountain goats could be seen, as if looking out at the world from steep slopes. They crossed a small stream in which the ponies stopped to refill their canteens with fresh water. While crossing the stream, they avoided a hungry bear that was hunting for fish.
They continued on for a few more miles before they finally stumbled upon exactly what they were looking for, a dirt trail that led up the mountain.
“Well, it’s not even midday yet. Might as well press on. We’ll stop to eat in the afternoon,” Blaze said to his friend, who only nodded in response.
They trudged up the right side of the mountain for hours, following the curving dirt trail that was still peppered with small rocks. The beginning of the trip up the mountain was uneventful for the most part, other than Blaze tripping over a rock, only to have Coy catch him with his magic from behind. The two friends talked and joked the entire time, desperately trying to pass the time and keep their minds off how tired they were. Soon, they had reached an area where the path had widened to more than few feet and complemented a tree that was sticking up on the border of it. The mountain’s shadow was still cast over them, blocking Celestia’s sun from their view.
“This looks like a good spot for lunch. I need to rest my legs as well, these rocks hurt,” Blaze commented, wincing as he took a look at one of his back hooves.
Coy hummed in agreement as they sat down to set up a temporary resting place. They both dropped their packs onto the side of the trail, hidden behind a few rocks. They did the same with the muskets, taking them off their backs and stacking them near the packs. The yellow unicorn reached into his and pulled out a few sandwiches that were packed into bags and handed two to Blaze and kept two for himself. They both sat on top of the rocks as they ate and looked back out at the plains below and distant mountains further away that made up their homeland.
Blaze swore that he could see their campsite from the night before from here, past the seemingly tiny forest below. Amazing how that forest felt so large when they actually went through it, only to see how small it was from up there. He turned his attention to the towering mountain behind him, realizing that he and his partner weren’t even a quarter of the way up the thing yet.
As he turned to Coy to say something, he heard snare drums and fifes from far away. Thunder Coy pointed away from them, at an angle towards the bottom left side of the mountain. In the distance, he saw a large formation of ponies marching in column formation, heading into the heart of his homeland.
They were far but not far enough not to see the gold-painted helmets of enemy Hoof Guards, marching along to a fife and drum tune that was, as much as Blaze hated to admit it, very catchy. Pegasi scouts were dotting the skies, covering the advance of the column. Some of those pegasi started making a pass over the mountain that divided the border between the two countries.
“Dammit! Equi pegasi! Take cover behind the rocks and make sure your musket is loaded,” the brown earth pony ordered as they both hopped over the rocks and leaned against them, sandwiches still held in their mouths.
Both listened intensely as they heard the wing beats of the airborne ponies. The soldiers heard the crunching of hooves hitting rocks as three of the pegasi landed in the clearing where they were eating just a few seconds ago.
“Hmm…weird. I could have sworn that I saw something over here. Then again, I was high up,” one pegasus, a young mare, said.
“What do ya think ya saw?” a stallion asked her.
Blaze could have sworn that the crunching of the rocks was getting closer. He looked down at the musket he had primed to fire and then looked to Coy, who nodded in affirmation, a loaded musket in his hooves as he well. He gave a quick smile at the intelligence of his friend, using magic would most certainly give away their position. Both ponies were doing their best to breathe as slowly and quietly as possible.
“I thought I saw two ponies around this area. It must have been more mountain goats that got scared off by us is all.”
“Thought you saw Karalian scouts?” the male voice said again.
“Well maybe we should scour this area a little bit, just to be sure,” another female voice remarked, her high-pitched making her voice sound even younger than the other two.
Soon, the beating wings of a fourth pony was heard from above, making Blaze and Coy tense, ready to open fire at the first sign of being discovered.
“Hey, you three, did you find anypony or is Flitter Stone imagining things again?” he called out.
The three pegasi looked to each other, hoping that they could come up with an answer.
“Well?” the airborne pony demanded.
The scouts struggled to come up with a confident answer.
“No sergeant! We’re on our way back up!” the younger mare confirmed.
“I swear to Luna, great job making us look like idiots again Flitter,” the male voice whispered to his teammate with disdain.
“You three hurry up! We need to get back with the army! Many of the scouts at the front think they’ve finally spotted that large enemy force that retreated across the border. General Armor thinks that it’s time to give those Karalians a licking that they won’t soon forget!” the sergeant yelled from far away.
The sounds of the three scouts taking off and flying with their sergeant made Blaze and Coy let out a sigh of relief. Still sitting there after a minute, they wouldn’t dare to move now, at least not for some time.
“Did you hear that Capitaine? They’ve found Commander Splitscreen’s colts! Those Equis will probably outnumber him three to one!” Coy cried out, trying to keep his voice down.
Blaze glanced at him while stroking his musket, uninterested.
“Three to one? Good odds for any Karalian. The Commander will be fine, the Equis may have numbers on us but our Republican troops are better trained and more experienced.”
Coy frowned.
“I hope you’re right.”
Blaze took a bite out of his sandwich, and spoke again, his voice muffled.
“Still, I think we shouldn’t risk any more movement today and camp without a fire tonight, cause those scouts will see be able to spot us, at least for another day. How much food do we have left?”
“Enough for a week, maybe more if we skip meals.”
“Good. We’ll be able to get off this mountain by then. After that, we can either live off the land or steal from the Equestrians.”
