Honour Bound

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Corporal Honour Bound’s adrenaline was still up. Ebonshield had just sliced her brother's left eye to shreds, and Honour knew he was screaming, but it was muddled and distant.

All she could hear was her shallow breathing and racing heartbeat.

There was blood spattered across the sand in a jagged line, with more pouring from the gaping wound in Marcos' face, but that didn’t seem to faze her, either. Honour was just holding up a foreleg under her barrel, with her javelin tucked dutifully under that shoulder and its lethal tip pointing at the howling batpony who was frantically trying to staunch the flow of his vital essences.

Lying on the ground, partially wrapped up in his black cloak, hissing and howling, Honour only saw one of the Changelings she skewered during the invasion.

In place of Marcos' screams, she heard its insectoid shrieking. She saw it thrashing in its death throes. And she smelled the green abdominal fluids oozing from its carapace, stinking of urine and stomach bile. They were soaking into the plush Canterlot Palace carpet, turning its royal blue threads a sickly black.

Honour remembered frantically wrestling over whether she should try to administer a coup-de-grace.

But that wasn’t here, and that wasn’t now.

The corporal tried to raise her weapon back out of striking position.

It was a struggle.

She shut her eyes, and took deep breaths. The lifelike memory of the Changeling attack faded, and Honour heard a new voice carry over Marcos' moans.

"¡Ay-ay-ay! What a mess jou all have made in here!"

It was Ignacio, the Balladeer of Ghosts.

Waving his forehoof in front of him as if to dispel the remnants of the smoke-bomb cloud, he appeared between the curtains of his little wooden pulpit. "My lungs burn from the stink of ash and sulphur! And what is all this groaning and moaning?"

Brusquely knocking down his ramp with a swift swipe of his crutch, he hobbled his way down to the gallery floor, then sat on his haunches with his support under one foreleg, leering blindly down at Honour’s group.

Surprisingly, it was the injured Marcos who found the words to answer him first, raising his head up from the sand, both forehooves and a wing covering his horrific wound. "¡Balladeero de Phantasmas! Een the name of the Moon, bless me weeth yourr prrobidence, and rrestore me, that ay may leebe to fayght ourr enemies wance more!"

Ignacio sat up and sniffled, appearing to ponder the words, and Marcos dropped his head back down again, looking up at Ebonshield with a bloody, one-eyed grin. "Hhwhat a pointless theeng you habe done, my seester. You should habe keeled me! Ay weel emerrge from thees injurry unscathed, to challenge jou again."

But Ignacio shook his head.

"No."

Marcos rose up suddenly, enraged. Pausing only briefly to choke up a mouthful of mixed blood, saliva, and snot, he raved at the Balladeer of Ghosts. "Hwhat do you mean, 'no'? Ay am a Starr, and ay habe the rayght to healing of eenjuries frrom combat! Thees ees the law!"

Ignacio shook his head again, swaying the long red fringe-strips on his black mask to and fro. "No, Marcos. I am required to heal those who train in the Grand Hall and those who fight to defend our people..." He grumbled. "... Anything else, I do at my discretion. So, no, I will not restore jour sight at this time -- not until someone orders me to."

Marcos struggled to pull one forehoof off of his wound, in order to shake it angrily at Ignacio. "AY am orderring you to! A seexth of the Meteoros, of the Starrs! And ay am blinded and bleeding to death!"

The crotchety old Balladeer sniffed and tried to straighten up his back. "Jou do not order me, Marcos. And if jour sister had taken my advice, jou would be dead already, instead of merely dying."

With a sigh, he slumped back down again. "But, since she has foolishly spared jour life, I suppose I should at least stop the rest of it from running out."

Then he turned to look behind him at the musicians who even now were still cowering at the edge of the gallery, holding hoofkerchiefs to their muzzles and rubbing soot from their eyes. "¡Oye! Fetch me my bridge so that I can get down there and give him what he deserves!"

In response to his beckoning, a few of the Rock-phase ponies hesitantly stepped forward, wary of any remaining fumes. They made it to the edge in fairly short order, and then hoof-handled down Ignacio's plank to span the gap across the trench, between the raised gallery and the lower sand-pit floor. With a huff, the old batpony mage shuffled his way down the bridge, leaning on his crutch. The quaternion parted down the middle to allow him room to get to Marcos, whose breathing had grown shallow and pained.

Honour still hadn't quite figured out how Ignacio seemed to be able to 'see' so much when he wasn’t just blind, but wearing a mask as well. The Balladeer of Ghosts managed to come to a stop right in front of Ebonshield's brother, then he cleared his throat and began to mumble out a tune. It didn’t sound as gentle as the one he sang to the sergeant when she was injured last time down here, nor was it as strong as the one he used to heal the batpony who lost the sparring match at a distance, earlier. Nonetheless, Marcos relaxed at the sound of it, and within a few moments, the bleeding appeared to have stopped. The wound still looked appallingly bad, though.

Just as the victim of Ebonshield's mutilating attack closed his eyes and dozed to sleep, numb to any remaining pain, Ignacio suddenly swatted his forehead with the padded butt of his crutch. Marcos started up, fully awake and consumed by a mixture of shock and fury.

Ignacio just pointed the tip of his cane at the now-healed batpony. "That was for interrupting my nap with jour nonsense." Then he swiftly swung the device to one side, barely missing Ebonshield's chest as she dodged backwards. "And that was for disregarding my advice, Pureza! Do not come crying to me when Carmen asks me to heal his eye fully, and then when he returns to challenge you again!"

But the sergeant only scoffed. "If this happens as you suggest, then at least we will know where she stands."

Ignacio grumbled dismissively, and while Honour pondered her words -- ‘what did she mean by knowing where Carmen stood? Stood on what?’ -- they were interrupted by another voice, this time coming from the entrance to the Grand Hall, and without any discernible batpony accent.

"By all of the Great Mother's glittering stars, what has happened here?!"

Standing at the top of the main staircase was a young-looking, blueish-grey batpony mare dressed in flowing white robes, flanked by two more ponies dressed like the Reverend Mother Superior's attendants on their last visit, completely covered in white robes with tall, pointed white hoods. This new batpony sounded almost like she was from Canterlot, but her garb marked her for one of the priestly 'Lunar-phase' caste.

Ebonshield hissed as she lowered her muzzle. "Bow now, everypony but the Great Lord!"

Doing as she said, Honour bowed her head, and so did Sparkshower and Glamerspear -- the latter with a small grumble. Even Marcos struggled to turn over, coming to a rest on his belly with his head down low. Ignacio, the corporal noted, once again did nothing. Anonymous also remained standing, but he looked uncomfortable doing so.

The Lunar-phase batpony priestess began to make her way down the stairs, gracefully clip-clopping down them, still flanked by her hooded attendants. She must have flown in for none of them to have heard her coming down the hall or entering the room in the first place.

With an ashen face, she surveyed the Grand Hall. "Forgive my outburst, but this is the scene of a massacre! I see knocked-out Meteors up in the gallery and down in the trenches, and their Sixth lying wounded in the sandpit, itself covered in blood!" Pausing halfway down the steps, she looked over at Honour’s group. "Stellar Seven, what is the meaning of all this?"

The sergeant raised her head up to speak. "Reverend Sister, Marcos the Meteoric Sixth and his battle-siblings attacked our group, threatening us all with death if I did not agree to be executed by them. In the course of the battle which ensued, they were defeated. There are also two more to be found, I suspect, in the chambers of the Stellar initiates."

As Ebonshield cocked a proud eyebrow at her young students, the batpony priestess’ amber eyes went wide, and her jaw hung open. "You defeated all these in a direct confrontation? At more than two-to-one odds?" Gaping, she shook her head. "...This fight will long be remembered in the annals of your Temple, Stellar Seven. I'm sure that your Master Draxon would have saluted you, if he were still with us."

‘Wait -- 'still with us'?’

‘He's dead?’

‘Who's above Ebonshield in the batpony assassin's guild, then?’

A question for later, she supposed.

The Reverend Sister composed herself and turned to one of her white-hooded escorts. "Brother Louis, you must go immediately and summon a platoon of Righteous Hatcheteers!"

The hooded colt nodded and quickly hustled back up the stairs. Once he reached the entryway, Honour could hear him start to repeatedly call out something in the batpony tongue.

"¡Hachadores! ¡Hachadores al Gran Salón!"

Even with the little she’d heard of the batpony tongue, it wasn’t hard to figure out what he was saying.

Meanwhile, the Reverend Sister flapped her wings and fluttered delicately over to the sandpit, accompanied by her remaining escort. "This is appalling! O Honorable Balladeer of Ghosts, I trust you have already attended to the medical needs of everyone present?"

Ignacio glanced blindly around the hall. "Only Marcos received any open wounds. I have closed the injuries, but I have not restored him completely."

Sniffing the air, he turned and pointed with his crutch at the Meteor that the Royal Engineer knocked out with Honour’s help. "That one over there will need to rest for some time, I think. And jou must support his neck and be gentle in hauling him away, or else his situation will become dire."

Well, their VIP had administered a pretty forceful pair of blows to the back of the batpony's thin leather helmet. Even with armor, that was a potentially lethal strike zone for ordinary ponies; no surprise it was so for these ones as well. But, again, how did a blind batpony sorcerer know that just from apparently sniffing the air?

‘Maybe I should take a look at Glamerspear's book myself; see if I can figure anything out.’

The Reverend Sister nodded to Ignacio. "Thank you, O Balladeer. Great Mother bless you for your diligence."

The Reverend Sister next bowed towards the Royal Engineer, and the corporal noticed that the priestess’ cloak was more open at the front than the one worn by Sergeant Ebonshield. In-between the parted fabric and underneath her neck, Honour saw what looked like a considerable amount of blue-grey tuft.

"O Great Lord of Equestria, on behalf of the entire Rookery and all of the Great Mother's Children, I apologize for this intrusion into the safety of Your Lordship's person. I trust that Your Lordship is not seriously harmed?"

Anonymous hesitantly pulled his helmet up off his face, resting it on his brow. "Uhm, thank you, Reverend Sister. And yes, I'm fine now."

She lifted her head again, and her ample tuft was now on full display. For being a fairly slender mare, she could give Sparkshower a run for her bits with that voluptuous frontal plumage. It put her soothing vocal tone in a different, grating, light.

"It overjoys me to hear Your Lordship say that."

The way she emphasized 'overjoys' made Honour wonder about just what Carmen meant in sending, as her representative, this twenty-something, nubile young mare with a prominent tuft and a honeyed tongue.

Sighing, the Reverend Sister looked around once more at the scene of carnage. "Please, all of you, be at ease in the warmth of the Great Mother."

Ebonshield nodded to Honour, and that was her cue to exit her bow. The corporal’s neck was almost starting to hurt from having to look up like that.

"Great Lord, I have been sent here by the Reverend Mother Superior. Her Reverence has been in conference all evening, but when it became known that you had joined us tonight in the Rookery to practice your martial arts, I was sent here to extend an invitation for you to join Her Reverence for refreshments at your discretion, when your exercise and any other business was complete."

Glancing over at Marcos, who eyed her warily back with his mangled face, she sighed. "Now I wish only that the Reverend Mother's meetings had ended earlier, or that I had come here at a less leisurely pace. Great Mother willing, I might have prevented this confrontation."

There was the sound of hoofsteps from up by the entrance, and more black-cloaked batponies began to filter in, stepping down the stairs and fanning out around the gallery with purpose.

‘Black cloaks for warriors, and white cloaks for priests; pretty universally boring outfits.’

Only the 'Rock-phase' tradesponies had any kind of style, along with the 'Dust-phase' laborers to a lesser degree. Honour wondered what the 'Shadow-phase' outcasts had to wear...

The Reverend Sister pointed a forehoof out from underneath her cloak at Ebonshield's brother as she called out to the soldiers behind her. "Hatcheteers, place the Meteoric Sixth and all of these other Meteors under arrest. The charges are breaching the Edict of Blood, violating the Treaty of Canterlot, and disturbing the Mother's Peace."

As half a dozen Hatcheteers gaped at his injury while surrounding him, Marcos didn’t waste the moment. "Ay was only carrrying out the hweell of the Motherr!"

Most of the Hatcheteers leveled their spears down at him, while two of their number pulled out ropes and moved in to bind his wings flat against his flanks.

The Lunar-phase Reverend Sister stepped over to the defeated warrior. "That's enough, Marcos. Be silent. The Reverend Mother Superior will investigate this incident and decide your fate."

She turned and addressed the Hatcheteers. "Have caution and bring a stretcher for the one over there, but take the rest to the Catacombs immediately! The training of the Royal Engineer of Equestria must not be disturbed any further!"

She spoke with a surprisingly firm authority, for being so young. The sense of priestly superiority must be drilled into the Lunars from an early age.

In a matter of minutes, what passed for the ponice among the batponies had the whole scene cleared; those who weren't knocked out had their wings bound and were escorted out, while the unconscious ones were hog-tied and hauled away on Hatcheteer backs. The one their VIP knocked out was carefully strapped into a stretcher strung between two officers. In the interim, the white-hooded second Brother who was sent off to fetch the cops returned to sit at the Reverend Sister's side.

Appearing relieved when the Stars were all gone, the young mare bowed once more to Honour’s VIP. "I assure Your Lordship that Marcos will be punished severely for his transgressions. Please, allow me to interrupt these exercises no further."

Rolling her shoulders to open the front of her cloak wide, she stuck out her tuft even further. "Would Your Lordship be inconvenienced if we were to retire to the gallery and watch the proceedings?"

‘Oh, come on!’

So far, it was pretty obvious that the number-one threat to the Royal Engineer's life was these batponies themselves. Why in Equestria would he want one of them spying on him while he trained? And the Reverend Mother Superior couldn’t possibly expect to influence their VIP just by sending a silly young mare to flash some tuft at him. He wasn’t that kind of colt; he had his head screwed on straight.

Anonymous shrugged. "You can stay and watch, if you'd like."

‘What!?’

Before Honour could say anything, he continued. "...But to be honest, I think we're done here. We were just wrapping up when Marcos and his crew interrupted us."

The Reverend Sister beamed a smile that might've seemed genuine when she first walked in. Now it just looked fake to Corporal Bound.

"Oh, magnificent! Did Your Lordship have any other business to conduct first? Otherwise, I would be happy to escort you to meet the Reverend Mother Superior."

The Royal Engineer looked around. "No other business tonight, no. Since we're down here, I thought about dropping by to say 'hello' to Mister Esautomatico at the Guild of Blacksmiths, but that's just a brief visit we can do on the way out."

Sergeant Ebonshield nodded. "Yes, of course, Great Lord. I remembered to bring a small gift to represent your continued friendship."

The Reverend Sister continued her smile. "That sounds excellent. In the Lunar Sanctuary, we can ensure that Your Lordship is suitably freshened after these exercises as well, so as to meet the Honorable Guildmaster with due decorum. Are you ready to leave? Shall I conduct you there presently?"

Anonymous pointed up at his equipment in the gallery. "Let me collect my things first, and then we'll all follow you out. How about everybody else? The fight was pretty intense, there's no need to rush out if someone needs a moment."

He looked around to get confirmation from the four of them, but the sergeant looked warily over at the Reverend Sister. Before Honour could ask Ebonshield what's wrong, the Lunar spoke out, bowing her head.

"Oh, no, Great Lord. I apologize that this was not made clear earlier, but the Lunar Sanctuary is a hallowed place, unfit for the hooves of unclean ponies. Your retinue will have to await you outside, or elsewhere within the Rookery."

‘Seriously?’

The Reverend Sister rose up with an apologetic look on her face, but that sure wasn't much of an apology. Especially since there was no way the Royal Engineer would have known about the rule beforehoof. Anonymous stiffened, and nopony else seemed to want to reply, so Honour decided to take the lead.

"Reverend Sister?"

The Lunar turned to her, wearing a pleasant smile. "Yes, Corporal Bound?"

‘So she even knows our names.’ This was definitely not some 'last-minute' invitation. Carmen must have been planning to do this the next time they all came down here again.

Intending to one-up the Reverend Sister’s formal tongue, she stuck to Canterlot Palace Military Office VIP Section regulation verbiage as well. "You realize that the Royal Engineer was just attacked inside the Rookery? Surely you understand that much as His Lordship wishes to accept the Reverend Mother Superior's invitation, His Lordship might also be reluctant to give up his escort so soon after such an assault?"

The Reverend Sister licked her lips, then extended her wings to indicate her comrades. "Of course, Corporal. That is why we are here, present as escorts and guides. I assure you that no proper Child of the League would dare attack a true Lunar such as myself or my Brothers. You witnessed how Marcos put up no further resistance to my commands? Quarrelsome stars are not admitted within Lunar Sanctuaries, and a fight on hallowed grounds is absolutely unthinkable."

Ebonshield cleared her throat piped up with a sly smile. "However, such a thing is not unheard of."

There was a momentary flash of outrage in the Reverend Sister's eyes, and Honour was left wondering just what the Sergeant meant by that. It almost sounded like she'd had a hoof in whatever she was referencing.

Still, the diplomatic priestess recovered quickly. "The Stellar Seven is correct. Despite the ban and the severe consequences for doing so, there have, in our recorded history, been occasions where the peace of a Sanctuary was violated. I must stress that such occurrences are exceedingly rare, the last one being years ago."

Honour glanced up at the Royal Engineer, and he didn’t look very enthusiastic.

The Reverend Sister must have picked up on it, too, because she changed tack. "However, given the circumstances and the fact that three of Your Lordship's retinue are merely honorary Stars, perhaps some accommodation could be made. I'm sure the Reverend Mother Superior would understand completely your desire to keep one of your bodyguards with you at all times in the Rookery, particularly in light of this deplorable incident."

‘Damn straight he does.’

Anonymous nodded. "That's very accommodating of you, Reverend Sister. Corporal, why don't you accompany me, then?"

‘Oh, buck.’

‘Well, this is what I wanted, isn't it?’

‘The Royal Engineer fulfills his diplomatic objectives while still being escorted?’

Still, Honour thought, being honest, Glamerspear and Sparkshower were both more capable combatants than she was. Feeling a bit hoist by her own petard, she nonetheless nodded.

"Yes, sir."

The Royal Engineer turned to the rest of the quaternion. "I suppose the three of you should wait here for us to return? Unless there's some other business you wanted to conduct yourself, Sergeant?"

Ebonshield nodded. "I should like to have a few moments in private to deal with my initiates." She glanced over at Carto and Águila. "I believe with this excellent display of skill and resourcefulness, they have proven that they are initiates no longer."

If they looked happy before, when she slyly called them out in front of the Reverend Sister, now the foal and filly were absolutely beaming with pride.

Ignacio piped up next. "And if jou are going to crawl alone with jour initiates into that maze of tunnels in order to conduct jour strange Stellar ceremonies..." He waved one forehoof with what seemed like disgust, then licked his lips. "...Ehhhh... This means that the unicornio will remain here, and I am eager to hear if she has come up with an answer to the question I posed her earlier." The Balladeer grinned and, perhaps sensing Glamerspear's hesitation, even chuckled.

That just left Sparkshower without something to do. Honour nodded in her direction. "Specialist, stick with Glamerspear and keep out of trouble while we're in conference with the Reverend Mother Superior. Stay here in the Grand Hall, understand?"

Both of them jumped to attention in reply.

"Yes, Corporal!"
"Yes, Corporal!"

It was good that they remembered to show some professionalism in front of the batpony priestess. Despite having failed to take The Watchtower, effectively losing to the Royal Guard, Honour got the sense that most of these 'Children of the League of Stars' really looked down their muzzles at them.

'Prisoners of the Sun.'

'Surface-born.'

And the way they said 'Equestrians' like they were some kind of scum. It didn't sit right with her.

And here was their effective leader, the chief priestess of the religious caste, sending a plumed floozy to try to recruit the Royal Engineer as an ally. Maybe Anonymous choosing Honour as escort wasn't such a bad idea after all. If physical attacks really were rare inside the Lunar Sanctuary, then she was probably the best choice to defend her VIP's honor and integrity against what was sure to be a relentless sales pitch from Sergeant Ebonshield's mother, Carmen.

She looked up at Anonymous. "Ready when you are, sir."

He gave the corporal a small smile, then turned to the Reverend Sister while still wearing it. Honour got the sense that the one she received was genuine, while it was just a front he put on for the Lunar.

"Lead the way, Reverend Sister."

She bowed, and her escorts turned first to make the way clear.

‘Time to see what these batpony Lunars are all about.’

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