“Tell me, Blackbird, what do your hippogriff eyes see?”

Blackbird was peeping through a brass spyglass while Dim tested the very limits of his last shreds of sanity with a roving eye spell. Motte, the owner of the spyglass, had taken a look, but couldn’t see much at this distance. So everything depended on Dim and Blackbird if they were to have good intelligence. The companions had gathered atop a high ridge almost a mile away so that they might have a better understanding of what they faced.

“I see heads that I could pop,” Bailey said while peering through the scope of her fourteen millimetre rifle. “I am almost positive that this gun could hit them from this range. Should I cause a panic in the ranks?”

“Hold your fire, Bailey,” Motte commanded.

Suddenly and without warning, Dim vomited and the others scrambled away from him, crawling on their bellies. Somehow, his concentration held and he maintained the roving eye spell, though he showed signs of imminent future spewage. Motte and Munro stared at the steaming mess for a time, and then shared a glance with one another.

“How does he do that?” asked the minotaur. “Not break his spell, I mean.”

“Fuck if I know,” replied the combat engineer. “Wizard hazard, I guess.”

“Target practice.”

“What’s that, Blackbird?”

“Motte, they have earth ponies chucking rocks.”

“Say again, Bailey?”

“Chucking. Rocks.”

“Is that even dangerous?”

“Have an earth pony chuck a rock at you and find out, lame brain.”

“Save that bitchiness, Bailey. Stow it.”

“Oh, I have a lot of bitchiness. Enough to spare. Trust me. No shortage of bitchiness here. I’m laying in gravel, down in cover and I got sharp pokey bits stabbing me in my alicorn-damned teats. My asshole is itchy and I’m real fucking sick of all this treachery surrounding me. Someone has to die for my discomfort.”

“It also smells like vomit—”

“Shut your mouth, Motte.”

With a gurgling cough, Dim puked again and mucus-drenched chunks dribbled from his nose. Blackbird pulled the spyglass away from her eye and began looking around for something to wipe Dim’s face with, but there was nothing to be had. Munro crawled away on belly, trying to put some distance between himself and the twice-blessed puke puddle. Motte and Bailey soldiered on, suffering with shared stoicism—they were the same pony, afterall.

Far up in a tree above them, a faint tittering could be heard on the breeze, above the creak of gnarled, twisted branches. Blackbird returned to peering through the spyglass and beside her, Bailey’s face went grim while she kept one eye pressed against her scope. Munro—belly down in the dirt—covered his nose with his hand, what little of his face that could be seen radiated a profound misery.

“We have Motte’s mortar,” Bailey said to no one in particular. “I don’t think Motte would mind a date with Milly. He knows how to stroke her in all of the right places and make her cum on command.”

A flustered Blackbird made a strange warbling sound in her throat but said nothing.

“It’s not a bad plan. We pepper them with mortar rounds and then go in and mop up the dazed shell-shocked survivors. Of course, we also run the risk of them running out and escaping into the surrounding region. We want this fort to be their grave. It’s easier that way. Having to hunt them down would be a pain.”

“Motte speaks truth.”

“Thank you, Bailey.”

With a gasp, Dim ended his spell and then lay on the ground panting, trying to recover his senses after prolonged use of the roving eye spell. He looked dizzy, a bit sweaty, and appeared as though he would blow chunks yet again at any moment. In fact, with as frail and as weak as he was, and with the symptoms he showed at the moment, it was amazing that he was even alive. Each breath was a ragged wheeze that whistled within the cavity of his thin ribs.

In a faint, laboured voice, he spoke: “Come away. I have much that I can show you.”

Back in the barn, the very same barn where they had secured their prisoner before sending him off, Dim recovered with some tea and a smoke. In the bed of the wagon, a sheet of paper had been laid down, and an ink pen danced atop its surface, drawing out everything that Dim had seen in fine detail, recovering everything from his memory.

The fort took shape, including its gate, a run-down keep, and interesting terrain details. It was, curiously enough, of motte and bailey construction; a wooden palisade surrounding a glorified log cabin built upon a hill. Though primitive, it was effective enough as a defense, at least against ground troops. Rock-chucking earth ponies would be a major deterrent to airborne invaders. The pen continued its movements and drew tiny pegasus ponies armed with javelins, further demonstrating the keep’s formidable defenses.

Motte and Bailey studied the paper with great interest, taking note of everything.

“A few hundred,” Blackbird said.

“Say again?” Motte replied.

“A few hundred defenders.” Blackbird clarified her first statement and shook her head. “It was hard to get a good count through the spyglass. Dim kept puking and the two of you kept making wisecracks. If I had to guess, I’d say about five-hundred or so. We’re going against five-hundred or so.”

“Not to worry, but I have part of a plan.” Dim’s raspy voice was almost inaudible.

“Will you be working alone?” Bailey asked.

In response, Dim shook his head but also said, “No.”

“I would hear your plan, Dim. At least your part of it.” Blackbird’s demeanor changed, becoming solemn. She glanced around the barn, met the gaze of each of her companions in turn, and then returned her attention to Dim.

“We strike them from above and below.” Dim coughed, a hacking, whooping, raspy cough that caused his small, slight frame to have violent shudders. When he recovered, he continued, “On the far side of the keep, there is a steep embankment. I spent a lot of time looking at it. Lots of scrub and cover. I’m thinking that Motte and Bailey could tunnel in with their earth-moving magic and sunder the foundations of the fort itself, bringing the entire structure down upon its occupants. All those logs will become a funeral pyre.”

Though it took him a moment, Motte had a response: “That’s a mighty fine plan.”

His counterpart, Bailey nodded, but also asked, “We’ll be doing this at night?”

Sipping his tea, Dim had nothing to say and the whole of his body trembled while he tried to control his breathing. A rattle could be heard within his ribs, though the clove-infused cannabis was already quieting the dreadful sound. Blackbird, thoughtful, was rubbing her fuzzy chin with her thumb, and her eyes seemed distant.

When she spoke, their usual perfect clarity was restored. “We strike from above and below. Dim will do what he does best… even though I don’t like it, it will be safer for all of us if Dim works alone. Dim, if you can, find some way to cause a distraction without actually putting yourself at risk. As for me, I’ll mind the skies and I’ll cut down anypony that tries to escape by flying away. I’ll also try to pick off any dangerous targets that I can spot. Commander types and what not. Unicorns, maybe.”

“Want to drop a bomb, Blackbird?” Motte asked.

Eyes narrowed, Blackbird’s response was measured silence.

“Eerie sent a Nightmare Express mortar shell along. It’s an alchemical round and it might be kind of frowned upon by most, uh, civilised governments. It releases airborne hallucinogens and this causes mass hysteria, madness, and will no doubt cause the bandits to turn on one another with violent paranoia. I could rig it up so that you could drop it like a conventional bomb. Just plunk it right in the middle of the fort and then get the fuck out at all possible fucking speed.”

“I like this plan,” Dim wheezed with his faint, scratchy voice. “We can’t have the bandits catching wind of Motte and Bailey’s backdoor surprise. A literal assfucking without warning. Use the bomb, Blackbird. Not to be mean or cruel, but to keep Motte and Bailey safe. I’ll make a strong approach right through the front door and we’ll take those raiders by surprise.”

“Uh, Dim… won’t you be walking into the nightmare cloud?”

“I’ll be fine—”

“Dim, no.”

“Trust me, I’ll be fine and unaffected.”

Blackbird’s resolve seemed to melt like hot candle wax. “Okay, I’ll drop the bomb. Dim… can you do this without getting yourself in harm’s way?”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice improving. “I’ll send my hat to make a noble sacrifice in my stead.”

“Dim, this is no time for jokes.”

“Who said anything about making a joke?” Holding his tin cup of tea just below his chin, Dim’s expression became cold and unreadable. Unfathomable. Unknowable. “Nopony suspects a hat to come a calling… and certainly, nopony expects a hat to slay them in cold blood. With the Nightmare Express bomb, my hat will make for a most unsuspecting messenger of death.”

“By Eerie’s dainty teats, he’s fucking serious,” Bailey swore whilst her eyes rolled backwards into her head. “What a lunatic.”

“Eerie warned me that this would get weird,” Motte added. He shrugged, sighed, and his withers slumped. “We should get some rest. Especially Dim. Tonight will be a busy night. Munro, you’ll be staying here to watch our stuff. When Bombay returns, tell her that she’ll be keeping you company tonight. We might need her for recovery efforts if something goes wrong. I’m getting me some shuteye.”

“Me too,” Bailey added.

“Dim, this is the part where you should say, ‘me three’ so that we can have a laugh. It’s called humour. This is how you endear yourself to others. It works better than sneering or leering or calling them disgusting primitives.”

As Dim sipped his tea, faint red embers within his glowing pipe reflected in the smoked glass of his goggles, granting him an infernal, almost demonic presence, but Dim offered no meaningful response. The big boisterous hippogriff waited, hoping for some sign of acknowledgement from the smoking, tea-sipping unicorn, but none seemed forthcoming. After a few seconds, she gave up with a shrug and her folded wings tickled her ribs, causing her to smile.

The pen went still, fell over, and clattered atop the map, which was now finished. Dim’s use of the roving eye allowed for an extensive map to be made and revealed a great many details about the crude fort. Perhaps the most interesting of which was an enormous stack of barrels beneath a lean-to shelter.

Snatching up the map, Motte had himself a better look and his face wizened with concentration while he squinted at the tiny, accurate details. “I’d bet my left nut that those barrels are filled with gunpowder. You can’t leave that many barrels of beer in a fort of bandits, they’d all be drunk as lords. And I doubt those barrels are full of pickles. Look how they’re tucked against the wall of the keep, secure beneath a roof.”

“That’s a mighty big bang,” Bailey remarked while she snatched the map away from Motte so that she could have a better look. “Only one gate. This looks like a smithy and that’s an open air kitchen if I’ve ever seen one. I wonder what this big bin might be. Could be coal. It’s fucking cold enough for coal.”

“I would not give my flunkies coal.”

“That’s because you’re an asshole, Dim.”

“Blackbird, you have a devastating knack for stating the obvious.”

“I know I do, Bailey. It’s a gift.”

Eyes narrowing, Bailey studied the map and Motte leaned over so that he might also have a better look. Dim puffed on his pipe and the clove-infused smoke seemed to have soothed his lungs. Munro, hunkering in the wagon, was rummaging through a box of mortar shell, and while his beefy hands were steady, his red-rimmed eyes were wide with bowel-clenching fear. There was enough high-explosives to blow them and the barn into smithereens.

“I took cover behind this wagon, not knowing…” Munro’s words were little more than a calfish whimper.

“Exciting, isn't it, Munro?” Dim turned to give his valet a cool, smirky sneer. “I bet the knowledge leaves slick streaks in your britches.”

The minotaur nodded and even managed a halfhearted chuckle in reply.

“Just where did Bombay go anyhow?” Motte demanded from behind the map held up before his face.

Glancing up from the mortar shell he held in his hands, Munro replied, “She went hunting for coneys.”

Author's Notes:

War is... uncomfortable.