Morning of the second day came without incident, a thorough surprise to Caethil and those who followed him. There had not been a single report by the lookouts; no snapping twigs, no crunching snow or distant voices. No sign that they had been found out in the least. That suited him just fine. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, they'd managed to elude whoever might be after them. The night's snowfall had certainly done its part to hide their presence, covering the ground in a blanket of fresh powder that sparkled and glinted like a million flecks of crystal in the scattered sunlight.

Their camp was torn down in short order, a hot breakfast of fresh pine tea and kettle-cooked winterberry mash filling their stomachs and warming them against the unrelenting cold. It was no cookhouse meal, but it would suffice.

An hour after sunrise they were on the march once more. They stayed in columns to mask their numbers, as well as to make it easier to travel through the snow. It had done more than simply hide their tracks overnight, now deep enough in places to nearly come up to their chests. Travel was painfully slow at times. Whitetail's forests had always been known for their rough and rugged nature, but the dense tangles of snow-heavy evergreens sometimes forced even Caethil to reconsider his route.

Ever onward. One hoof in front of the other. Always alert.

Now and then a soldier would voice his complaint, the others echoing his sentiment in colorful language and bitter agreement. Everyone was tired, everyone hated the cold, and the terrain, and the whipping branches getting caught on their antlers, and the incessantly cawing winter birds, and the fucking snow, but they kept on all the same. For all of their begrudging issues, there was not a single doubt among them that they were in the right. No one knew what imprisonment in Equestria would entail, but it couldn't be worse than being ordered by the Cervidaens to suicidally throw themselves at the fortified battle lines of the ponies.

Praxilus and his senatorial compatriots were a surprisingly talkative addition. Alyys in particular had become a favorite of the group, and quickly so. The stubborn old senator was coarse and snappy, but his long life and nearly decade of service to Whitetail's military in his youth meant that he had no small amount of stories to share and advice to pass on. Come mid-day, he'd earned an affectionate nickname: sal'nayiim -- grandfather, a title he openly scoffed at and derided the young bucks for, but Caethil could see the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth when he turned back around.

Brief stops for rest. A quick meal. Mile after mile of evergreens that drooped in the endless snowfall.

Ever onward.

Battle-Master Gilias swept low over the tree tops, trailing powdery flakes behind her with every flap of her strong wings. Gusts of freezing wind threatened to send her careening into the forests below, the harsh bite of winter pricking her skin in spite of her plumage and fur.

She'd been on lookout patrol since just after sunrise, tasked yet again with finding any sign of whitetail movements within the Whistling Wilds, a place that was nearly impossible to see into at times. Worse still, the crafty deer had become quite adept at masking their presence. Word of her presence within the Equestrian military had spread, and no longer was it assumed that a griffon flying overhead was just a passer-by from Skytalon. No, the whitetail were actively hunting her now, sometimes waiting in ambush for a chance to strike out with their throwing spears, bundles of piercing darts, or, on rare occasions, explosive pots hurled skyward. Those who didn't attack her frequently scattered in all directions to throw her off their path.

It was frustrating work. Whitetail was on the verge of collapse, yet its veteran soldiers grew smarter all the time. And if rumors of Cervidaen involvement were to be believed, the whitetail could very well be getting their supplies from their oft-maligned neighbors. She wished she could get a solid look at the northern expanses, but the area had proven to be extremely difficult to scout. Perhaps soon she could gather a strong force of pegasi to join her, and together with Victus they could--

A sharp, burning jolt stabbed into her right wing. Gilias squawked in sudden pain and brushed against the tops of trees as she struggled to stay airborne. Flashes of shining metal flitted past her on all sides, coming up from the dense canopy in a rapid succession of well-aimed projectiles.

The whitetail had seen her coming. She cursed as she quickly yanked a dart from her wing, a thin streamer of blood trailing from it and scattering wind-blown droplets against her leg.

Two more darts slammed into her chest armor, digging themselves deep into the studded leather but unable to punch through. Spinning around and using a gust of wind to carry her forward, she attempted to gain enough altitude to put her out of the reach of whoever was intent on putting an abrupt end to her mission. A trio of slashes stitched long, shallow wounds from her hind legs to just above her tail, a fourth dart catching her squarely in the place where her wing met her body. It was too much, too quickly, and Gilias braced herself as she crashed through the tree tops, her muscles shocked by pain and unable to keep her in the air. Branches whipped at her face and gashed swaths of feathers away, sending her tumbling end over end too fast to right herself.

She caught only a brief glimpse of the tree trunk looming ahead before slamming into it.

A cacophony of snapping branches and the clang of metal sounded from somewhere above and echoed through the forest. Caethil and his bucks drew their weapons in an instant and kept their ears on a swivel as patches of snow and pine needles rained down. A final thud, heavy and close, and then it was silent once more.

"What in the world was that?" Gwindihr asked, craning his neck to see above the antlers of the soldiers in front of him.

Caethil remained quiet, listening intently for any more commotion. Hearing none, he signaled for the bucks to gather around him and move forward. They cautiously formed into a defensive wall, eight across and tightly spaced, on alert for what they were convinced was a Whitetail military incursion. Had it been the opening volley of a siege weapon, or some sort of magic?

"Brother-Initiate Taaldram, you've got point," Caethil ordered just above a whisper, bringing a hoof to his eyes, then to the thicket of trees ahead.

"Sir!"

Taaldram levitated his quinn-blade before him and gave a firm stomp of his forelegs, locking the dagger-like knee blades of his armor into place. He slowly approached, stepping around a snow drift and over a fallen log. Debris littered the forest floor in a steady trail. A small outcropping of rock stuck out from the frozen earth ahead, obscuring the bottom of a large cypress tree. Taaldram could just see a tail and what looked like a lion's paw from his vantage point. Curious and nervous in equal measure, he stood atop the outcropping.

His eyes went wide. "Sir," he called back to the group, "it's a griffon! She looks wounded!"

Gilias had always had an odd relationship with pain. While other despised it, even feared it, she welcomed it. Pain let her know she was alive. And right then and there, she was very much alive. It wracked her body from beak to tail, intense pulses of fire that made her muscles spasm and her wings twitch against the rough, cold bark of whatever tree she'd smashed into. She knew she was hurt, but where, and how badly, she couldn't be sure.

For the time being, she lacked even the strength to open her eyes and find out where she had come to a stop.

There was something close, she realized in a daze. Unmistakable crunches of snow and what sounded like hooves on stone. The whitetail were coming to finish her.

"Ahndiir, sey'laisa dith naal gryfaan!"

The voice sounded so close. She tried to move, to force her body to fight back against her killers, but all she could manage was to slump over on her side and weakly stare out from half-open eyes. A whitetail buck, young and scared by the look of him, met her gaze and lifted a foreleg in surprise, a weapon floating in front of him and those damned armor-blades sticking out from the curved, crystalline plates over his knees. He briefly looked over his shoulder and called out again, getting a response from somewhere behind him. He didn't leave, but he didn't get any closer, either.

A sizable force of whitetail soldiers approached a moment later, weapons out and in a loose formation. The foremost, a middle-aged stag, said something to the others and stepped forward, being careful to stay just out of her reach.

"Fal koris ethnwyyl paar Wyyttalia?"

Gilias coughed in pain and weakly shook her head.

"I don't...speak deer," she squawked in her native tongue, the only word she recognized, Wyyttalia, being their word for Whitetail's language.

The presumed leader talked back and forth with a trio of whitetail who lacked military armor. All other eyes were on her, watching her intently, as if she was in any condition to suddenly spring up from the ground and remove their heads in one fell swoop. "If you're going to kill me, just fucking...nngh...do it already. I don't have time for this shit."

"You are Geelas, yes?" Gilias perked at the leader's question. "Do you speak Equestrian?"

"I do..." she replied. This stag spoke the pony language? It dawned on her that perhaps she shouldn't have answered, because now they knew how to interrogate her for information. Maybe she could reach for her swords, take one or two of them down with her...

"Good. That is good. You appear to be injured, Geelas of Skytalon." Caethil turned to a buck with a white and gold braid adorning his armor. "Brother-Healer, if you would assist her, please?" The soldier nodded, then pulled out a small pack from his bags. "Please, allow us to help you. I promise you we mean you no harm."

Gilias grabbed the hilt of her swords, though she doubted she could have pulled them out. "Don't you fucking touch me, tree rutter. First you shoot me down, then you offer to help? I don't believe you for a second."

"Shoot you down?" Caethil asked, cocking his head in confusion. "Is that what happened to you?" Gilias lifted a wing to show a dart lodged in her flesh, and he recoiled back in sudden realization. "Sub-commanders, we need a battle circle around myself and the griffon! Senators, I must ask you to stay at my side. Those who have been sent to find us are close by."

A murmur went through the group as they formed up, weapons out and segmented shields locked into place.

"Are you sure?" Praxilus asked.

"That is a redtail projectile, no doubt about it." Caethil cursed his luck. They were so close, but the dart was an unmistakable sign -- the hunting party from Evinwiir could be upon them at any moment. "Perhaps it is fortunate for the both of us that you happened to fall so close," he said to Gilias. "Battle-Master Geelas, do you--"

"Gilias," the griffon interrupted, still not letting her guard down.

"Gilias. My apologies. Do you happen to know where we can find the Equestrian Legion? I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to explain, but it is imperative that myself and the others make contact them as soon as possible. We wish to turn ourselves in."

"What, all of you? I've heard some heaping mounds of shit from you deerfolk in my time, but this..."

"This is no trick, I assure you. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done so already. We are not your enemy."

For a tense moment Gilias didn't move. Then, finally, she released the grip on her weapons and pushed herself up against the tree with a groan. Blood trickled down her side as she yanked the offending dart loose and hurled it into the forest.

"Fine. Not like I'm in any position to fight forty of you anyway." The medical buck cautiously approached, a length of cotton bandages and a bottle of some sort of liquid bobbing in a cloud of crackling magic. "So you're telling me you didn't try to give me half a dozen new breathing holes? What the fuck is going on here?"

"It was not us, no. Forgive me for not introducing myself. I am Brother-Commander Caethil, formerly of the 15th Capital Guard, and these are my charges. The three stags before you are senators Gwindihr, Alyys and Praxilus. We are...well, I suppose you could call us refugees. We are not pleased with how Whitetail's government has run our beloved nation into the ground. We have traveled over a full day to this location, in the hopes of locating the Legion." He ordered the medical buck to finish bandaging Gilias' wounds with all due haste. "Can you lead us to them? I fear we do not have much time."

Gilias couldn't believe what she was hearing. There had been plenty of individual deserters from Whitetail over the months since Equestria moved north, even some groups of up to ten or more, but an entire military formation?

"Look," she said, grunting in pain as a jagged slice on her right leg was seen to, "if you're just not just yanking my cock, then maybe I can help you. But I can't just take you there, the terrain is impassable if you can't fly. Do you know the area?"

"As well as can be expected," Caethil said.

"Good, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Head west until you leave the forest, then south from there until you hit a clearing between two cliffs. I'll head back to our camp and tell the others about you. You have until sunset tomorrow to get there. If you don't show up, we won't be coming back. If you try anything, I'll personally tear your little neck open with my beak. Understood?"

In a strange sort of way, Caethil considered the griffon woman to be a kindred spirit. She was clearly someone who didn't mince words, and the scars across her body spoke to her long history of conflict. She had become rather infamous throughout the Whitetail military as a murderer and a psychotic monster who ate fawns alive, yet here she sat, willing to take him on his word -- to an extent.

"I understand, Battle-Master Gilias of Skytalon. The ancestors have truly blessed us this day with your arrival."

Gilias let out a sound like an annoyed cat. "Yeah, well, they could have done so without putting a bunch of holes in my fucking armor. I assume the sons of whores who did this to me are looking for you?"

"Most likely. It could have been an unrelated patrol, but we are not taking any chances." Caethil spoke to the senators in deertongue. "The griffon can help us, but we must make haste to arrive there by nightfall on the morrow."

"And you're sure she's not leading us into a trap?" Alyys asked.

"I cannot speak with absolute certainty, but it is the best chance we have." The healer finished binding Gilias' wounds and poured a cleansing potion over the bandages, letting it soak in until they were tinted a light orange. "That should hold for now, Battle-Master, though you'll want to--"

"CAETHIL!"

A booming voice sounded from somewhere in the forest, instantly putting the group on alert with a clattering of weapons. Caethil felt his heart lurch into his throat; he knew that voice.

"How do you feel? Do you think you can fly?" he asked quickly, pulling his quinn-blade from its sheathe.

"I think so," Gilias said. She pushed herself up to all fours, spreading her wings out and giving a heavy flap to test them, puffs of snow blowing outward from the frozen ground. "I'm getting the fuck out of here. Whatever this is, I don't want any part of it. If you survive, you know where to go."

Caethil nodded. "Very well. All good haste to you, Battle-Master Gilias."

"Yeah, you too. Good luck. And, uh, thanks for not killing me."

Her wings burned and her body protested every movement she made as she leapt into the air, hovering for a moment as the Whitetail officer rallied his soldiers. Whether it was by coincidence or, as this "Caethil" had insisted, by some sort of destiny, the day had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

Gilias shielded her head with an arm as she pushed through the thick canopy, breaking into the open air once more. Whatever happened to the band of deer, Victus was going to want to know about this as soon as possible.

"Caethil, you traitorous sanaliis! Show yourself!" Brother-General Corvalix shouted into the forest, his temper flaring until he was sure he would soon melt the snow around him by sheer force of will. The arduous trek from Evinwiir had been nearly non-stop for over a day, and the redtail soldiers with him were growing weary. He hated the cold, despised the never-ending trudging through snow that come up his knees -- sometimes higher. Whitetail was a deplorable place in the winter, far removed from the moderate climes of Cervidae. What he wouldn't have given for a warm fire and a proper bed!

Instead of letting his resentment and misery sap him, he used them to his benefit. His hatred of the treasonous whitetail pushed him on, hour after hour. It was they who had pulled him into this damned place, these wilds that no one, neither redtail nor white, had any business marching through.

Let them cower in the forest, then. The snow would cover their bodies, forgotten and alone, and in the spring they would serve as food for the beasts. A fitting end.

"I grow tired of waiting, Brother-Commander. How disgusting that you claim such a title!" A heavy sound of wings on the air flew by overhead. Corvalix snarled. He knew exactly who it was. "Caethil! Caethil!"

A scout loped through the snow and saluted. "Brother-General, sir, we've located the traitors once more. They are just ahead, to the north east. They were forming a battle circle last I saw them. The griffon woman was with them, though I believe she's since departed."

"Ancestors curse her entire family to the seventh generation!" Corvalix stomped a hoof hard enough to send his knee-blade shooting out with a metallic whine. He took a long breath to calm himself. That griffon had been a thorn in their side for months, and the Griffon Empire had disavowed any knowledge of their unofficial alliance with Equestria since the very start. Now she was not only fighting against Whitetail, but helping the traitors? The very thought made his stomach turn. "Forget about the bird-beast, we will deal with her another day. Back in formation with you."

At his side, thirty of Cervidae's finest had already formed into a marching wedge, a strong formation meant to pierce through any defense. Long pikes of green crystal and cherry-red ironwood menaced from the first two rows, and flexible yet strong shields formed a solid wall of defense against arrows, darts and spears alike. To the last the soldiers were covered from the base of their antlers to their short tails by polished, glinting armor that had been marred by mud and dirty snow.

These were the Exemplars, the elite of the Cervidaen Hegemony's expansive armies. Though they had not engaged in open battle, they had seen extensive use against the weak-minded simpletons who were sure they were following Nightmare Moon's will -- a necessary deception to keep his sister's facade intact until she was ready to strike.

Now, finally, they would test their prowess against proper soldiers. Inferior though the whitetail may have been, Corvalix knew Caethil was no fool. He would fight Corvalix until his last breath, as would the misguided bucks who followed him.

Let them try. They would fall before the might of Cervidae, as all others had. Once the traitors were dealt with, the real mission could begin in earnest.

With a thrust of his foreleg he ordered the formation forward, marching at their side with golden trinkets of leadership dangling from the prongs of his antlers. He cared not if Caethil and his ilk saw him coming, and indeed, he hoped they would; a final moment to realize how futile their struggle was before being cut down would be sweeter than any wine.