Hit

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.”