"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" A guard bellowed into the barracks, startling awake the sleeping child gladiators. They stirred and instinctively sat up. Rye did so too, looking at the guard.
"Some dumb mule has set the arena's cooking quarters on fire, and it's spreading fast! Get your flanks off the bed and move!" The guard cracked his whip at a nearby colt, whose pained yelp was cut short by the very same guard yanking him off the bed.
The other colts hastened, for fear of physical punishment.
The guard raised his whip again, ready to lash it at whichever unlucky colt he chose to torment-
The whip clattered to the floor, the guard's face now in a mask of shock and pain. He fell forward, bleeding from his neck, the blood, black in the dim light pooling around his dead body. Grey kicked the body aside, a blood dagger in hoof.
"Bows, bows!" He reminded the colts. "Your arrows are under the bed, two dozen each! Arm yourselves, and follow me. And hasten, for any more delay will be fatal."
Rye knelt and fumbled with the bowstring, pulling it free as the yew stave fell into his outstretched hoof. He dropped the bowstring at his side, slipping a hoof under the low bed for his arrows. They clattered noisily in the linen bag as he slung the arrows on. He then scooped up his bowstring, braced the yew stave against the stone brick wall and strung his bow, taking a moment to admire the weapon as he passed the long bow to his left hoof and straightened. He saw a fellow colt, Blackhoof Fletcher grab the helmet off the dead guard and stick it on his own head, grinning as he adjusted his mane below the oversized barbute. He slid the guard's sword out of the guard's sheath before leaving. Rye hurried to follow, the press of colts trying to leave via a small doorway was almost suffocating.
The forty-strong group ran down the hallways, not before a passing patrol spotted them.
"Loose, loose! Anypony that stands in our way shall be struck down!" Grey drew his own sword with his other hoof, raising it high above his head.
Several arrows shattered and snapped on the stone wall, missing the guard by less than a hoof's width. More than four weeks without training with the warbow had not eroded the skill of these colts. The guard froze in place, shocked at the prisoners fighting back. Three more arrows buried themselves at the guard's throat, while another four slapped into his shining black breastplate. A last arrow stabbed into his eye, creating a dent at the back of his barbute. The guard dropped his spear, hooves rising to his ravaged throat, the pain like liquid fire. He vomited, a torrent of bloody puke, and fell face first into his mess, dead. Grey and the colts stepped over him, another stooping to pick up his spear and rescuing any arrows good enough to be reused. An arrow was a skillfully made, expensive projectile, of steel and varnished ash, fletched with goose feathers bound with sinew or silk. Any worth rescuing were worth the time taken.
Grey then led them down countless flights of stairs, instructing four of the colts closest to him to keep an arrow nocked. When he bucked open the oak door his instruction was proved useful, as the four colts presented their bows quickly and drew, loosing three bodkins and a broadhead, all chosen at random, at a trio of black-clad guards. The broadhead, propelled by nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of the raw power of the yew stave, crumpled upon impact, denting the breastplate and flinging the guard onto his flank. Another bodkin ended him. His other two companions had been immediately struck down by the bodkins, sent with the skill and experience of nearly eight years. The arrows had punched cleanly through the steel plate at close range, either drilling into the heart of ripping through a lung. The bodkins were re collected, along with the two swords and war axe. Rye too, itched to shoot and loot for himself a melee weapon, and so jostled his way to the front.
"Hey Rye." Grey said.
"Hey yourself."
The forty colts-turned-longbowponies gathered in the courtyard, joined by two more barracks of colts, led by Loyalist guards, all wielding the same yew bows. Some too, had guards' weapons. One even leant on what Rye made out to be a Danepony axe.
"There are two thousand of you little pups interned here, Rye." Grey said. "And the commander of this arena's garrison has only put in four hundred of his men to patrol this building."
''Then we're gonna get out easy." Rye grinned.
"Only because you've all got these." Grey gestured at Rye's warbow.
"Aye, that's a relief."
The double doors of a building, on the other side of the courtyard, was thrown open. Black armor glinting in the light of their torches, the guards filed out, until there were three hundred over of the black-armored Discordians facing the hundred and sixty strong escapees.
"Well." Grey quietly murmured.
"What do we do?" Another colt asked.
"We're obviously outnumbered." His companion hissed at him.
"Well I do know that." The colt hissed back. His companion opened his mouth, as if to reply, his words drowned out by a great shout.
"Longbowponies of Celestia! We strive to restore power to its rightful leaders!" Another Loyalist was bellowing. "To do that, we end those who have overthrown them!" He thrust his war axe in the air.
"Slay them all! Slay these traitorous beasts in the name of Celestia!"
And so the long arrows flew, the bowstrings sounding like Sombra's heartstrings. Rye nocked another arrow and drew, the sense of familiarity crashing into him. The long yew bow, tillered well, bent in a perfect half circle and sprung back to its vague 'D' shape as another arrow left his hoof, empowered by a smooth release. The arrows, dense as a healthy colt's mane, descended and struck the massed guards with a incessant sounding of steel on steel. The guards, harassed of the volley of arrows drew their own weapons and gave a ragged shout.
"For Discord!"
But longbowponies, Grey thought, were not given twenty-four arrows for nothing. They would loose every single one of their missiles, until nearly four thousand arrows either stuck into the enemy or into the ground.
And so it began, Celestia's restoration to power.