FFMS007

Our new 'division' had barely been introduced to itself before we were chucked out onto the Road towards Coriolanus. Command was in a tearing hurry to interrupt whatever wickedness the White Rose were instigating down along the distant river valley, and there were long road-miles to cross in between. I was still trying to sort out which of the militia regiments we had been assigned with while everypony was busy queuing up for their position on the route-march. I knew that Cherie's Tonnerre caribou and ponies were in our new division, but apparently they had drawn the vanguard and I didn't lay eyes upon her before they had started off on the long Road to this 'New Equestria'.

II Hydromel had been back and forth on the New Equestria Road out to the first castral point twice a week for a month and a half, or so at least some rankers from that regiment assured me as I sat in my witch's-gig, waiting for a spare charioteer to take me up to replace the Crow at the end of the first shift. We had decided that aerial coverage would be the best use of our time in the initial days of the deployment – more to search for rogue ghouls and the like than actual rebels, really.

And anything to get out of sitting waiting on the side of the Road like a sack of flour short a carter to carry it towards market.

The whole of the Division was on its hooves and moving when dusk came and my charioteer reported for duty. I turned on my night-vision charm, and greeted Whirlwind as she came down for the gig.

"Aren't you supposed to be on scouting duty?"

"Just aren't that many of us left, Feufollet. Gotta rotate through the roster if we're going to all last the season. So, I'm taking my carter-pony slots early on, so when we actually start finding the White Rose, I can get my wingblades wet for a change."

I settled in the little basket, and we went gallumping into the still-bright upper air, the westering sun lighting our way as the long pony-worm wiggled its way down the metalled highway.

"You hear that your fellow frog-molester managed to miss the one undead lurking along our route? One of the alicorns-damned grifs managed to *sniff* the rotting thing out before anypony else noticed it just standing there, less than a hundred yards from the main route! Six hundred yards from the gates of the camp!"

"The Crow probably didn't have her ghoul detection charms activated that close in to the army. And how did a ghoul get that close to Rime without a thousand reports of attacks or sightings?"

"Wasn't a ghoul, jungle heliograph says revenant. Your master-annalist was out to examine the remains, they say he recognized it, had it burned and buried."

"Sawbones was out here, and he didn't visit? I'm feeling neglected." I tried pouting. I don't think I was built for it.

"Nearly thirty thousand ponies in this here grand army, little filly. Don't be expecting extra attention just because you're cute. Anyways, isn't your knight running the Company portion of this particular clusterbuck?"

"Yeah, well. Octavius. Haven't seen much of him recently. I'll probably look in on him at the end of shift. Report in, that sort of thing. How about we arc over to the east, thataway, and make a long curve in front of the column, about double-length down the road, and then back again to the west side? Should give a nice swathe if there's anything lurking out there."

Whirlwind went along with my suggestion, and we rocketed away in a long curve, as I activated all of my detection charms, as well as my 'Mark I Eyeballs' as Gibblets called them. It wasn't The Crow's fault if the undead had been a revenant. Those things didn't have enough malice for the general run of equinity to pop on a ghoul detection charm. Some revenants were raised out of a sense of outrage or vengeance, but none from a general hate for all donkeys or ponies. That got you the more exotic undead, the sort we needed to worry ourselves about.

Revenants were just… unsettling animate meat.

For the most part.

Nothing popped in the long night as we made our circuit over the weary division. The head of the column reached the first castral camping ground around an hour after dusk, and the militia of Tonnerre deployed to 'defend' the position while the second regiment in the marching-order followed in their train and began to prepare the position for the night. By the time the supply-column and the rear-guard wandered into camp at the fourth hour after dusk, the castral ground was a properly prepared castra, lightly palisaded with re-dug ditches, full of tent-shelters and well-organized. The division was slow and halting its first day on the road, but it was operating as trained. We had gotten that much right.

Not much time for sleeping after all of that, though. If the new brigadier let his ponies sleep in a bit, I don't think anypony was inclined to report him to the General. At dawn, the camp slept. Whirlwind went off to find a supply-cart with nice soft flour-sacks to nap on, and I headed towards the quarter where I ought to have found Octavius to 'report' the night's lack of news.

Of course the slugabed was still asleep, along with his command-corporal. Since I couldn't kick my own knight awake, I took my disappointment out on Corporal Sharphoof.

"Grogar damnit, filly, keep those hooves to yourself! I think you bruised a rib, ow."

"Do I look like a pony to you? Commander over there should be awake, before any of his ponies, right? Which means *you* ought to be awake to make sure he's awake to do his duty."

"Bah. Technically, you're supposed to be doing that, little miss witchy-boots."

"Not my fault the warlocks foalnapped me and made me do wicked things for the greater evil. Go, wake the boss."

"I'm awake, you heathens. Who could sleep through this racket? Dangit. Come on, jenny, let's go report to the new brigadier. Sharphoof, go see if the sergeants are awake yet, if they're not, give 'em the points."

Brigadier Eugin had clearly been up for a while when we arrived in the command tent. He was outside, and grumbling Tonnerri rankers were inside, packing up and clearly getting ready to strike the tent. He looked over as we approached, and smiled like a rock-face dropping a weathered sheet of shale into sharp, fresh gravel.

"Oh, excellent, trust the Company to be prompt! Anything to report, Miss Feufollet?"

Flustered that the huge caribou had remembered my name, I stuttered a bit, and then reported the nothing which had taken up the night.

"And the Crow should be getting into the air about now, unless something went sideways. Oh! A crew from the medical corps caught up to us early this morning, I think they're bivouacked in that ambulance the gate-guards let in a few hours ago. I guess command decided ambulances weren't going to do any good stuck back in the reserve ten miles or more from any possible casualties?"

The brigadier laughed. "Pretty much nothing in the reserve is going to be of any use to us if I'm not mistaken, and ten miles seems like a wildly optimistic estimate of how far they're going to be from us when we start getting close to the river. This deployment plan is madness, we're going to be fanned out like undefended purses of deniers strung out along a farm-lane. Well, argument for the next council of war, not for apprentices' ears, I suppose." He dismissed me to find my own spot in a supply cart.

Maybe I'll find Whirlwind. Pegasi make for warm beds.