The Light Brigade

[warcode]

The camp ponies were restless.

Winter woke to the faint sound of jingling harness, head jerking up too quickly from the cushion of his forearm. He was breathing hard, chest heaving. Despite the coolness of the night air sweat had broken out on his skin underneath the armor. He lifted his head higher and his nostrils flared, scenting, but there was nothing out of place on the wind. Metal. Sweat. Weapon-oil. Other ponies and their riders, and the slumbering masses of the infantry ranks. Beneath that, the now familiar smell of pine forest. He could hear the barely there footsteps of the sentries and the heavier stamping of other ponies, their armor and harness clinking softly.

His rider muttered something in his sleep, head pillowed on Winter's side, and two of his four arms groped blindly to pat at Winter's flank to soothe. He was a veteran campaigner and didn't share some of the other cavalry riders' nervousness over sleeping with their beasts; warmth was warmth and he told them often enough that you were more likely to get your head shot off by keeping a loaded pistol under the pillow. A properly trained war pony was smart enough not to make the mistake of crushing their rider accidentally-- although with the way some of the younger officers chose to emphasize blind aggression over discipline in their mounts, it was no surprise that they'd rather keep their distance except in the heat of battle.

Winter's rider was old-fashioned. In his opinion a war pony, even a king stallion like Winter, ought to be as well-mannered as a lady's palfrey and disciplined enough to carry a child on his back safely. Winter had been vicious once, wild and untrainable, fit only for the slave arenas where feral ponies were pitted against each other, or criminals, or other dangerous animals for sport, but he'd been taken away from that for the war effort and given over to the capable hands of the cavalry trainers. It had taken time and a great number of false starts, since he hadn't begun as a yearling, but he respected the bit and the whip now. At least, in the proper hands.

Winter's rider didn't stir further, his long three-fingered hands still spread warmly on Winter's hip, and Winter felt a momentary surge of guilt for disturbing him. He didn't remember any details of his dream (for which he was profoundly grateful), but the unease and panic that clung to him like cobwebs could only mean he'd been dreaming about his life Before, and he was lucky that he'd jolted himself awake before causing enough fuss to catch a sentry's attention. The worst of his nightmares had woken the stables in the past.

The war ponies scattered around him snored on in their shallow foxholes, curled up snugly around their riders or their own equipment. There was a rope corral full of pack ponies further back, too nervous or unreliable to be left without hobbles and sentries, all pressed tightly against each other and occasionally making small noises as they stepped on each other's feet and jostled each other. At the training stables they were let loose in the pastures to cling to each other or fight or fuck as they liked, the males all gelded or kept infertile by supplements in their feed, and cheerfully spent their days enforcing their pecking order through brute force until they were out on the field in unfamiliar terrain where they all turned into terrified foals again and clustered together like ducklings, snorting and shying at every noise or shadow. Military pack ponies had only the most rudimentary training and some were brought in so freshly captured that the lines of their brands were still red and raw. They fought their handlers, they fought the harness, they fought other ponies and it was both demoralizing and annoying to watch their terrified struggles and escape attempts. Freedom, as far as Winter could tell, was merely the grim promise of starvation, disease and depredation out in the wastelands. Winter had no memory of his life Before but the howling of wolves in the distance was still enough to make his stomach contract and his heart start to hammer, every instinct preparing him to fight or flee.

If there were any wolves in this valley they were keeping their distance; the legion crawled loudly and inefficiently along the poorly maintained road through the forest like a crippled and particularly contrary snake. Conflicting reports of enemy movements had them following winding forks that often as not led to dead ends in uncleared forest, and they were hampered at the front by their heavy armor unit's ability to break through the underbrush. Teams of heavy draft ponies hauled tanks and guns and walkers through the mud and swamps, and even cavalry ponies like Winter were hitched to the harness occasionally, straining to pull out whatever "all-terrain" vehicle had gotten stuck while the engineers and drivers stood and shouted at each other in Vecian. No pony's mouth could shape the guttural words that made up the Veci language but Winter had learned plenty of the phrases by sheer exposure, among them the word for ponyshit, which his rider had plenty of occasion to use.

A bird called off in the distance. Winter twitched and his rider mumbled something, shifting against him until his groping hand found the chin strap of Winter's halter and pulled on it rather than shaking it as a punishment, forcing his head back down to his forearm.

"Curya." 'Easy' or 'steady' in the Command Language that all ponies were taught, and Winter snorted. Another master would have snapped at him. Kriak Antwodir, newly promoted Third Sword of the Empress's Sun Legion, Light Cavalry, did not find restive ponies enough of a problem to snap about. His hand left the halter and moved to Winter's bowed neck, stroking lightly, ignoring every caution the training masters had ever given him about Winter's vicious reputation. Ponies were not horses, he had told them, to bite the hands that fed them. Ponies were intelligent, if someone gave them the opportunity to be.