Iron Kingdom Equestria

by Bitt_Player

Princess, Pendrake, Praetorians

Fluttershy lay on the train-car seat, one wing extended, allowing Victor Pendrake to examine it feather by feather. She had at first been nervous about letting him examine her, but Twilight had assured her that Victor was perfectly harmless. Having allowed him to examine her forelegs from shoulder to hoof (Victor had said he was attempting to determine if pegasus bones were different from the bones of other ponies), Fluttershy had concluded that Twilight's assessment was accurate. Indeed, Victor was treating Fluttershy as if she were made of glass, which Fluttershy did not at all mind.

Victor Pendrake's attention to detail, Fluttershy noticed, bordered on obsession. She doubted even professional fliers like Rainbow Dash paid as much heed to minute aspects of their own wings as Victor gave hers. She couldn't understand exactly what Victor was trying to do, but he seemed to be determining every detail of how each and every feather stayed in place or moved, how flexible her wings were, and dozens of bits of information she could only guess at. All the while, Victor spoke softly to himself, apparently comparing Fluttershy's wings to those of other creatures, dictating estimates and measurements to himself, and asking questions only he could comprehend.

Finally, Victor carefully set Fluttershy's feathers back into place and released her wing, moving his attention to the joint where it connected to her side. Fluttershy blushed at this. She knew Victor had already examined Rainbow Dash's wing muscles extensively, and was sure that he'd find her own unimpressive by comparison. Still, she allowed him to press his fingers into her side all around the base of her wing, apparently feeling out the shapes of the muscles and bones. Finally satisfied, Victor returned to his seat and withdrew a worn notebook from his ever-present backpack, into which he began writing quickly.

"Good, very good," Victor said, "yes, I believe I have a solid understanding of pony anatomy now. The way your wings meet the body is particularly unusual. I had thought the joint would be more like that of a griffon's, but it seems to be far more flexible. The wings themselves have a far greater capacity for fine adjustments, as well, which I believe goes a long way towards explaining the the ability to perform complex airborne maneuvers."

"Um... yay?" Fluttershy wasn't sure if Victor was addressing her or still talking to himself.

"You could put it that way, I suppose," Victor replied, "it's always delightful to learn about new people, don't you think? I have to say, Equestria represents a rare opportunity for me. An entire nation with its own people and culture, which just last week no one even knew existed! I know you all find this whole situation very distressing, but I can't help being fascinated."

"If you think we're impressive, wait until you meet the Princesses," Twilight said, looking up from her book, "Princess Celestia is amazing. Luna is, too."

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," Victor said to Twilight, "if they're the rulers of Equestria, shouldn't one of them be called a queen or empress? Why are Celestia and Luna addressed as princesses?"

Twilight blinked a few times, opened her mouth, but then closed it without saying anything. Fluttershy was surprised. She had never given much thought to the titles by which Celestia and Luna went, but she had always assumed Twilight would be able to answer any question about the royal sisters. However, Twilight seemed completely flabbergasted.

"I... they just are," Twilight said finally, "everypony has just... Always called them 'princess', they don't use any other titles."

Victor raised an eyebrow, "I see. The title must be deeply ingrained in your culture then. Tell me, how long have the princesses ruled Equestria?" Twilight's eyes lit up. Fluttershy was familiar with that look.

"I'm not sure exactly how long they've ruled, but it's been more than two thousand years," Twilight began, "they arrived in Equestria and defeated an evil being named Discord, who had been tormenting Equestria's population. Everypony was so grateful to them that they declared Celestia and Luna the eternal rulers of Equestria. They've been the royal princesses ever since."

"I see," Victor said again, adding more notes to his book, "I look forward to meeting them."

---

Never one to stand on formality, Princess Celestia had chosen to meet Twilight, her friends, and the human they brought with them in a small antechamber rather than the throne room. Celestia knew there was really no way to prevent word of Pendrake's arrival from spreading throughout Canterlot, and eventually all of Equestria, but she hoped that keeping him out of the public eye might lessen the impact of his presence. Most ponies, Celestia knew, preferred to go about their lives without world-shattering revelations. The less her citizens were reminded that Equestria now existed on a wholly alien world, the happier they would be.

"Professor Pendrake," Celestia started, deciding to get right down to business, "Twilight Sparkle tells me you know a great deal about this world. Would you please share your knowledge with us?"

Pendrake cleared his throat, looking between the assembled ponies, before saying, "the first thing you should know is that your entire nation is in the middle of a war zone."

"That... Could complicate matters," Celestia admitted. It had been centuries since she'd participated in a true war. Singular extra-normal troublemakers tended to crop up every few years, but massed armies battling against each other was something she was no longer accustomed to. "Please, elaborate if you will," Celestia prompted.

Pendrake ran a hand through his hair and said, "to your south lies my home nation, Cygnar. We're generally a peace-loving nation, though we do have our share of troublemakers. We have, however, massed one of the best-trained and best-equipped militaries on the continent, because we are surrounded by hostile powers,"

Pendrake adjusted his glasses and continued, "to your north is Khador. They are a proud nation, and their empress claims -falsely- that Khadorans are the rightful masters of the entirety of western Immoren. They invaded and conquered the small nation of Llael -which was to your east- just a few years ago, and they have attacked and occupied some of Cygnar's northern-most fortresses. They have left the neutral country Ord -which is west of here- out of their plans, but many of us suspect that Khador will invade that country sooner or later. Khador's military follows a doctrine of immense force applied to the weakest point in the enemy's defenses, and they build their military hardware large and durable."

"Khador sounds like quite an aggressive nation," Celestia commented already mentally designing improvements to Equestria's northern border defenses, "are there any other threats we should know of?"

"Several," Pendrake said ruefully, "We recently discovered that Cryx, the Nightmare Empire, have established holdings in this area. They managed to move agents from their island nation to the mainland, and seem to have built a substantial war industry here. We don't know where their base of operations is, but we suspect that it's somewhere in or near the Thornwood -a significant section of which has been replaced by Equestria. Cryxans use a corrupt form of magic known as necrotechnology, and mass-produce expendable minions using the dead bodies of their enemies."

"That's... awful," Twilight said. Celestia could see the disgust in her eyes.

"I normally try to avoid being judgmental, but the Cryx are terrible people," Pendrake agreed, "they worship the dragon Toruk, who created all other dragons on Caen by dividing his very soul. He is cruel beyond measure and wants nothing less domination of the entire world. I warn you, beware of Cryx. Destroy any Cryxans you encounter, show them no mercy, and always, always remember that if you give them the chance, Cryx will kill every pony in Equestria and turn them into mindless foot soldiers in Toruk's blasphemous army -and use their immortal souls to fuel their corrupt war machines."

Celestia was unsure how to react to this. If Pendrake's description was accurate, Cryx was a more horrific and vile a group than any she had ever heard of. She could see the horror on the faces of every pony present. Before Celestia could decide what to say, however, a Royal Guard pegasus burst into the room and bowed.

"Your majesty, pardon the interruption!" The guard said, "a military force unknown to us is assembling to the east of Canterlot, I was told to alert you immediately!"

"Describe these forces," Celestia said, switching to a more commanding tone, "what is their number and equipment, do they seem to be hostile?"

"A small force, possibly a scouting party. No more than two dozen. They are camped in simple tents. They wear red armor with golden trim. We haven't made contact with them, so we're not aware of their disposition."

Celestia watched with concern as Victor Pendrake's face turned completely white and his eyes grew wide. "Skorne! How could they be this far west?" Pendrake hissed, reaching for his throat. Celestia thought he was trying to grab something at his neck that was no longer there.

"Skorne?" Celestia said, "tell us of them."

Pendrake took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes with one hand, "I can define them in just four words," he said, putting his glasses back on and looking into Celestia's eyes, "they march to war."

"Hold on!" Rainbow Dash cut in, "look, I'm all for keeping things simple, but I think you simplified things too much there."

"I gotta agree with RD on that one," Applejack added, "who do they march to war against?"

"Who ever is in their way, or has something they want," Pendrake answered, looking worried.

Rarity brought up the next logical question, "And what, exactly, do they want?"

"Everything," Pendrake said, a hint of desperation entering his voice, "The entire skorne culture is based around domination and conquest. Everyone is their enemy, and they steal or destroy everything their enemies have just because their enemies have it. Those who resist are enslaved or killed."

"The skorne distress you, even more than the Nightmare Empire," Celestia pointed out, "you have encountered them before?"

Pendrake sighed, "some years ago, I was captured by the skorne and taken to their homeland, far to the east of here. They knew that I have a prestigious reputation as a researcher of people and culture, and they intended to force me to write essays expounding on the superiority of the skorne race, which they thought would dispirit the human nations when released to the public. I spent years toiling as their slave while learning of their culture and world-view, but I eventually escaped. I have fought them at every opportunity since then".

Celestia turned to the royal guard. "Lead us to that camp," she commanded, "I must assess this threat myself." Celestia wasn't about to let a nation of malevolent slavers invade Equestria unhindered.

---

"Praetorian swordsmen," Pendrake pronounced, looking through a telescope at the camp, which stood atop a small hill, "they wield two swords, and their armor is fairly resilient. They are the backbone of the skorne military. Praetorians are all driven by the desire for honor, and they know the only way to earn it is on the battlefield. Looks like one squad, lead by a Praetorian known as a dakar - similar to a sergeant."

Rainbow Dash landed and gave a hasty bow to Celestia, looking nervous. She handed Twilight Sparkle's binoculars back to the lavender unicorn and turned to Pendrake, saying, "there's a bunch of guys near the middle of the camp, you can't see them from the ground. They're all wearing these weird-looking masks that cover the top of their face, but not the bottom. There's seven, one has this big long thing like a whip made of blades, and the rest wear knives on their belts."

"Paingivers!" Pendrake exclaimed, reaching again for whatever once hung around his neck, "likely Bloodrunners, they're often mobilized as spies. The one with the whip will be a master tormentor -that whip is a status symbol. Only Bloodrunner master tormentors are allowed to carry them."

Cloud Breaker, the sergeant of the scouting team that had found the skorne camp, spoke up, "they seriously go around calling themselves 'Paingivers'? Sounds like a pretty nasty bunch."

"outside of the warrior caste, paingivers are the most respected members of skorne society," Pendrake explained, "Paingivers have turned the infliction of agony into an art and science, a practice spanning millenia. They are assassins, interrogators, slave-drivers, and handlers of beasts. Upon encountering a new species, paingivers first study how best to inflict agony their new subjects without debilitating them, and then learn what types of pain produce what results."

"Any new species?" Rarity said, "you're saying they would even do it to ponies?"

"That's certainly how the treated humans when they first encountered us," Pendrake said grimly, "If a paingiver gets his hands on you, he'll try to learn how to hurt you in order to make you tell him the truth, or to tell the lies he wants to hear, or to do whatever he commands just to make the pain stop." Rarity stared at Pendrake. Celestia was appalled at the idea that such cruel people even existed.

"Um, all those crazy-mean guys look like they're lining up for something," Pinkie Pie pointed out, "that's bad, right?" Everyone looked to the hillside, where a Praetorian swordsman with a banner rising from the back of his armor was shouting at the other swordsmen, who were quickly gathering into a wedge-shaped formation around the paingivers.

"They've noticed us," Pendrake said bluntly, nocking an arrow to his lucky longbow as the skorne began to march down the hillside. "The Praetorians are swift and skilled with their twin blades, but the Bloodrunners are the real threat. If one draws blood from any of us, another will likely teleport to his side and continue the attack. The master tormentor is able to strike several enemies very quickly, and will be able to move at amazing speeds. She should be eliminated immediately."

Princess Celestia stepped forward, a golden aura surrounding her horn. "I will not allow my nation to be threatened. Certainly not by slave drivers who have made torture into an art form. Guards, strike them down!"

As her squad of pegasus guards took wing, Celestia surrounded them in a luminous aura that would deflect the blows of the oncoming enemies, then took wing herself. Pendrake stood his ground as the ponies rushed forward, calmly firing his first arrow at the Praetorian dakar, who fell to the ground as the metal tip found a place between his eyes. The rest of the swordsmen continued their charge. If they hadn't closed formation to block the gap between the bloodrunners and Pendrake, Celestia would have thought the Praetorians hadn't even noticed their leader's fall. Pendrake quickly fired another arrow into the closest swordsman, then dropped his bow and drew his Orgoth sword, preparing to meet the skorne force in melee.

To Celestia's surprise, Twilight Sparkle moved next to Pendrake. The unicorn's eyes flashed briefly as her horn glowed, and a massive explosion rocked the skorne formation, throwing several Praetorians to the ground. Making a mental note to ask her student where she had learned a spell to detonate air, Celestia fired a burst of focused sunlight into the group of Bloodrunners, causing four of them to simply vanish in the all-consuming heat. Her Royal Guard pegasi fell upon the Praetorians, battering them with bone-shattering kicks and using a combination of their natural speed and Celestia's warding spell to evade retaliation.

The princess herself landed heavily behind the skorne line, directly in front of the master tormentor. She would not allow her ponies to risk being subjected to the cruelty of such an enemy. The two surviving Bloodrunners ran towards Celestia, but she augmented her hooves with arcane might and batted them away almost casually. They hit the ground hard and did not rise. Celestia hoped to convince the master tormentor that she was the paingiver's primary threat.

The master tormentor whirled her strange whip, which looked as if it was made entirely out of curved blades bolted together, and suddenly sent the razor-edged tip at Celestia with a metallic crack. The whip's blades dug into Celestia's shoulder and were immediately torn free by the master tormentor, sending waves of agony through Celestia's body. The Princess ignored the pain and shot a burst of sunlight at her enemy, but the paingiver vanished moments before being hit. Celestia suddenly realized that the master tormentor was at her side. Before the princess could react, the bladed whip wrapped around her knee and was pulled away. Celestia could feel her muscles ripping as the tormentor leaped back, apparently intending to examine the results of her assault.

Celestia clenched her teeth and focused her magic. She knew spells that would let her push her body beyond normal limits, and she allowed magic to take the place of muscle, standing her ground even though her knee no longer worked. It would heal quickly enough. The vile paingiver cocked her head inquisitively, gazing into Celestia's defiant eyes through her mask. Before the master tormentor could move forward for another strike, she was consumed with a blast of sudden heat and exploded into a cloud of ash. Startled, Celestia looked for the source of this spell, and saw Twilight staring at the ash cloud, shocked.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight cried out, noticing the winged unicorn's eyes on her, "I -I tried to use that sunlight spell you cast earlier but... I think... I think I made her explode instead."

Celestia focused more of her power into her shredded leg, hastening the restoration of the ruined limb. "I wouldn't worry about it too much," she said to Twilight comfortingly, "it came to the same result in the end. That fiend was using me as a test subject anyway."

"A test subject?" Twilight was confused, "I know Professor Pendrake said they'd experiment on ponies, but in the middle of a fight?"

"I wanted to see the extent of skorne cruelty," Celestia said, "and I certainly did. Had that paingiver wanted to kill me, she would have struck at my neck. Instead she sought to disable my legs -to see how difficult it would be to immobilize me. There is no doubt in my mind, to that tormentor, this was an experiment, not a battle." Celestia looked across the hillside, and saw that the skorne had all fallen. To her relief, she seemed to be the most seriously-injured pony present. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity had all stayed well outside the fighting, looks of fear on their faces. Pinkie's mane and tail had inexplicably lost their usual curl and become entirely straight. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were brushing their hooves on the grass, as were the Royal Guards -wiping off skorne blood. As Celestia watched, Pendrake tore a ragged strip of fabric from the Praetorian dakar's banner and began to clean his sword with it.

"We are victorious, Professor Pendrake," Celestia said, loudly enough to draw every pony's attention, "but tell me, in your expert opinion, what should we do with the tents and bodies of our enemies?" Celestia nodded to the camp atop the hill. She didn't want to draw the attention of any additional skorne by leaving evidence that their kind had been crushed by Equestrian forces. Such people, Celestia thought, might take it as a challenge.

Pendrake furrowed his brow, "that's a difficult question. It's highly unusual to see any skorne this far west. The Bloodrunners were likely sent as scouts looking for supplies or slaves. I imagine the Praetorians were present because some primus or tyrant thought his Praetorians weren't given enough opportunity to earn honor, and forced the master tormentor to bring this datha -sorry, squad- of swordsmen along so they could lay at least partial claim to any glory to be had in finding such resources. Paingivers are technically a worker caste, so soldiers of any rank have influence over them. Though most will go out of their way to cooperate with master tormentors out of respect and fear,"

Pendrake paused to sheath his sword, "if we leave the camp, or the bodies, any skorne who come looking for this group will conclude that powerful enemies -and thus honorable conquests and deaths- are to be found in this area. Although the main skorne army is engaged near Cygnar's eastern border, many tyrants and lord tyrants, maybe even dominars, will find reasons to come to this place, seeking the challenges we presented to this scouting force."

"I don't much like th' sound ah that," Applejack chimed in, "sounds t' me like more n' more of these creeps'll be comin' our way once they find out about this here business."

"That's about the size of it," Pendrake admitted, "our best bet, if it can be done, is to erase all evidence of this battle. Burn the bodies and the tents, bury the ashes or scatter them to the winds. That way any skorne who come looking for this group won't be able to find out what happened to them. With any luck, that will at least delay further skorne attacks."

Celestia turned to Twilight Sparkle. "The Professor raises an excellent point, my faithful student. Let's use our magic to cover our proverbial tracks". Twilight nodded grimly.

Comments

[FenrisPony]

Ooh, like it. Professor Pendrake is the perfect person to make contact. He's probably already writing the Ponynomicon.

After skimming it, I have some criticism, though. In the fight scene between the Paingiver and Celestia, Celestia's name is used a little too often. A simple "she" or "her" would make it more readable.

Celestia's spell list includes Sunburst and some kind of buff like Defenders Ward or Inviolable Resolve, I guess?
I just wonder what were to happen if Pinkie meets the Butcher and tries to befriend him.

I'll definitely watch this.

[Bitt_Player]

485460
Over-use of Celestia's name is the direct result of me trying to keep track of the fight in my head, since the master tormentor was also female and I didn't give her a name. In retrospect, maybe I should've. Celestia's spell list includes Sunburst, Defender's Ward, and a few other spells she hasn't cast yet. I'm glad you like my selection of Pendrake, I figured he'd be perfect for the jobs of helping the ponies understand Immoren and helping Immoren (or at least Cygnar) understand ponies. Plus he's a really cool guy in general. I'm a little divided on whether I should do another Pendrake's Report or jump right into Chapter Three. Another Pendrake's Report would delve into Equestria's military, at least as I'm presenting it, but there's also this plot advancement thing that all the good adventure fics seem to have.
And I guess at some point soon some pony's going to need to get her hooves on some warjacks. Heck, warjacks are what got me into Warmachine, I'm actually surprised at myself for not featuring any yet.

[gforce]

An excellent chapter and a good fight to boot as well, and I'm surprised that you're bringing some of the horde factions into the light already considering the location of equestria now. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the various races from pendrake's view and can't wait to see what he has to say about the legion of everblight.

[Bitt_Player]

I'm a goof for taking four days to remember to mention this, but Victor Pendrake's dialog in "Princess, Pendrake, Praetorians" contains a reference to the Guts n' Gears podcast. Anyone curious about Warmachine/Hordes should check them out. Guts n' Gears is operated by a pair of respectable guys in the UK, and frequently features various members of the Privateer Press crew.

[Ironmeadows]

Needs more Kodiaks. Khadorans love new neighbors!

[Doomunicron]

needs more cryx
not murderous cryx but manipulative cryx

[bloodwolf432]

You know, for being a peaceful nation with death (outside of age, disease, and accidents) being rare they seem to be handling themselves just fine to the sight of their leader being badly injured and multiple deaths. Especially Twilight with her vaporizing the Pain Giver.