Once upon a time, in the land of Equestria · 12:32am Oct 26th, 2016
There was less than a hundred hooves between him and the enemy line, but there was an eternity in the distance.
The noise was deafening and the smell rancid. A thousand warriors around him, all stamping armoured hooves and clattering spears against their armour and shields in time to a hundred different war chants from each contingent, each clashing against the other and descending into discordant random noise. He couldn't press his ears harder against his head if he tried.
The heat was unbearable, the leather and half plate was heavy and sweltering, the chaffing caused him to grit his jaw as his pelt stung as hairs were pulled when he moved or his skin scratched where his partial chain pulled at it. The sun, red and angry hung overhead where it had done so for nearly two days now, and the heat was killing them. It was killing the enemy too, but there was nothing either force could do about it, whatever potentate-of-the-hour was currently claiming a divine right to rule by virtue of throwing the sun around was clearly having trouble holding onto that title. Why else would they risk leaving the damn thing up there and condemning himself and everyone else to die? He hoped whoever was fighting for control of the sun damn well hurried up with the matter.
"Thank the fires and ashen ones its winter." a warrior to his right grunted. He didn't know his name, he was older than him but he looked new, fresh, a new recruit to the Deskatoi's army like him he supposed. Probably had a family too, and was told to join or be made a slave and his wife and foals alongside him, which was the little greedy despot's usual policy when another village was brought under his domain and put to the torch. Poor bastard's family were probably made slaves anyway, and the Deskatoi put him on the front lines to die sooner rather than later before he could find out as his horde marched onward and ever onward. He should know, he was there. "I wouldn't want to be growing crops right now."
"You aren't a farmer anymore fresh blood." a voice called from behind him. Sounded like Deck, bastard owed him five gold pieces.
"I know." said the older pony to his right, a sombre note to his voice. To the stallion's credit he kept looking ahead.
"Look on the bright side," said another voice, again behind him, he set his jaw and twisted the spear in his grip, pressing down, "If we don't win here, we'll all starve and it wont matter anyway, and sides, s'why we got you green horns out front, leaves more for the rest of us after we take care of this jumped up runt in front of us. Ain't that right, Little Blue Mudder?"
He didn't answer the pony, a veteran of the 2nd horde, some overconfident bastard with delusions of grandeur who found his promotion to the Hakatoi at the back ranks of the company as if he had been made a general by the Deskatoi himself. Even though he only had two battles under his belt, the first one of which was when he and everyone else in this particular company had hit his town. Somehow the weasly little bastard had heard the front ranks talking amongst themselves even in the midst of all this noise, he had been listening, or else he had spotted his mane tuft and dirty blue cloak from the back ranks and was waiting for a chance to needle one of the trophies of his 'conquest'.
"I said, isn't that right, Little. Blue. Mudder?" More heads where turning nearby, looking at who was speaking and following gazes.That's what the Deskatoi did, put people with good reason to hate eachother in the same ranks, ensuring they would never trust eachother, and if they knifed eachother in the night, all the better for it. Hating eachother more than they hated their conqueror and master and keep the threats away from the one man's who's word and law was the only thing keeping them safe at night. From eachother. He bared his teeth, surely no one here would raise a hoof to stop him if he killed the little shit when they got back tonight? He would fight and win this war by himself for the chance to get that filth under his hooves. No one would blame them, no one would take the opportunity to hang him out to dry before the Deskatoi right?
He froze then, eyeing the old pony next to him who was staring resolutely ahead, and the fear crawled up the back of his neck as apprehension dawned. He recalled killing a young stallion, white with a grey mane, during one of the last raids they had made before joining the field here to make good on the challenge of this would be king. He recalled an older red stallion yelling out in anguish, over the fire and anarchy of the Havoc that was loosed upon the unsuspecting town by their captain. Full slaughter, full plundering, full Havoc as called by the captain when he lost himself to his bloodlust and invited them all to come along. It was his first real fight, and he was young, foolish, angry and glory-hungry enough to believe if nothing else he could find glory and a venting of his anger on these unsuspecting tribals. The fact this was the same evil perpetrated on him was lost on him in the fury of the fighting, and the young stallion had charged him.
He looked at the pony on his right, what if this was that same anguished father from before? What if he recognised him? What if he was contemplating doing to him what he was thinking of doing to Far Flyer three ranks behind them? Was he being held back by the same fears? Did he simply not care anymore? Some of the older soldiers got that way he learned, but he wasn't a veteran. He looked ahead at the enemy, trying to put the thoughts out of his head, he couldn't worry about that. He was in the front rank of the front company of the Deskatoi's horde, he had to focus on surviving or all the worrying in the world would be for nought.
"Can you not hear me you deaf little shit!? I said-"
"My name is Lightning Heart you bucking lanky, limp limbed, donkey fondling, dickless, pig rutter!" Lightning roared without looking back, "And if you had half the balls to deny any of those facts, you'd be here in the front with the rest of us!"
The unexpected challenge elicited a roar of approval and jeers from the ponies around him and a round of laughter from the Ikatri and Hakatoi veterans of the second and third ranks. Lightning flushed with anger, he had been keeping his mouth shut and his head down his entire time in the army. He heard what happened to new fresh-bloods who acted above their station, they got their heads kicked in and if they survived, they were sent off to the slave gangs or worse. But he figured if he survived this battle, it wouldn't matter, he'd be blooded and put to the Ikatri rank and some other poor bastard could take his place with the Henidi. And if he didn't? Well, then he'd have to answer to the gods and it wouldn't matter anyway.
Notably, Far Flyer didn't respond as the noise of pre-battle boasting and threats continue to ring out. Lightning kept his gaze forward, even if out of the corner of his eye he noticed the red pony beside him look at him keenly, his steely gaze calculating. He guessed there was no doubt about it now, the pony recognised him, he could only hope he kept his vengeance for after the battle and not contribute to the enemy's attempts to kill him. He took a shuddering breath and looked around, The forest of spears swayed in the breeze as a cold wind blew in from the east, the body of the army spread as far as he could see to his left all along the ground and up the side of a gentle incline and down the other side. To his right he saw the next two companies spread out further down the hill, their ranks shimmering in the pitiless sun.
All the snow and frost and ice had melted beneath its gaze these past two days, he looked down at the soggy ground, it was going to be hard to charge in this mess. And why where they positioned along the hill and up and down it? Who chose this position, the Deskatoi or the enemy king? This was madness! No, no, he couldn't be thinking about that, he had to focus on the challenge ahead. He steadied his breathing and checked the besagew on his armour. Why the hell did he listen to Deck? This thing all but ensured he couldn't his his left fore leg! The oversized piece of metal dragged him down on his left side as the straps made him carry the load on his withers, it was designed to help protect the front of the body and the entire left side, the logic begin the soldier would position behind it and thrust with his right hoof, all the Henidi had them. But it was only good if you were literally face to face with the enemy and not a spear's distance as was intended! He had to loosen it up and drop it when needed, he was going to die otherwise.
The enemy, he realised was remarkably more uniform than the Deskatoi's forces. The entire front ranks as far as Lightning could see from East to West were made up entirely of Earth Ponies like himself. Each of them with plain blue and white chequered tower shields, thick constructions of wood and rimmed in Iron and pocked with large iron rivets in a patterns of five and three. The armour was much less uniform, he saw, some looked like they had seen alot of use, some appeared rusted and dug out of some sacrificial bog or another, other's looked gleaming and new, like some princeling's prized heirloom, but all of them where piecemeal like the Deskatoi's were. He guessed the enemy king couldn't afford to make all his little toy soldiers equally as pretty as their uniform weapons and shields.
A brief feeling of anger flashed across Lightning's face as a thought struck him. Why were only Earth Ponies in the front ranks of the enemy? Were they all to be sent to die first? The Second ranks all appeared to be Unicorns, and the third rank earth ponies again with long pikes. Their companies were smaller and more tightly packed than the Deskatoi's, but contained no less ponies, and Lightning counted at least six ranks in each company, with the same rank layout as the first three ranks. What? Was it race based? Did the enemy king send the the lowest caste out front and if they happen to survive often enough they got put behind the privileged Unicorn caste, who got to be the enemy's Ikatri by virtue of their mother popping them out with a horn on their head? At least the Deskatoi gave everypony the same chance! You live, you get promoted, you die, you deserved to, race be damned. He regarded the enemy with a sneering scorn, pressed into service he may have been, but he was a free pony among free ponies, these slave-things born into their lowliness were beneath him.
And how on earth did the enemy king get so many unicorns in the first place? Assuming they lived long enough to get their first magical surge as foals, most either died or were so magically weak it didn’t do much damage in the first place. Why would he risk some late bloomer having a surge mid battle and blowing a hole in his lines? The more he thought about it the stranger and stranger the enemy seemed to him. The Earth ponies were resting their shields before them, peering over the top at the enemy and were utterly silent, it was eeire. No boasting, shouting, challenges or insults, nothing. Just a grim implacability.
The more he thought about it, the less he relished the upcoming battle. He looked around him, left and right was the raucous ranks of the front lines of the Deskatoi’s armies, all chomping at the bit for the fight to come, none of them seemed the least bit worried. If anything the enemy’s stoic disregard for them seemed to infuriate them. He looked back at the Ikattri rank, the ‘blooded’ from raids and skirmishes with some small tribes the Deskatoi’s roving empire crushed under his hooves were all jocaling, and laughing and goading on the Henedi in front of them to prove their bravery and show their worth. Utterly unfazed by the sight before them, armour and weapons glittering with trophies stolen from their defeated foes. The Hakatoi behind them were less raucous, still smiling and joking but more muted than the fresher troops in front of them. He saw the same feeling in their eyes that he felt: apprehension.
The veterans were wary of this coming fight, he looked back at the enemy and realised he had never heard of the Deskatoi coming up against an army that could match his horde. Sure he had heard plenty of tall tales in the camps after too much drink was had and there wasn’t enough coin to go around to visit a whore, it left the soldiers with little to do other than to fight or lie.
But he felt it, this was different, his first real battle would be the first proper battle the Deskatoi had probably faced in his entire conquest. And that did not instil in him any of the confidence he had been feeling earlier. Lightning was a good fighter, or so he had always believed, he was the finest in his village and won every contest come festival tide, and always won every fight he had been in. He had been eager and ready to prove his mettle with the village stallions when the next raid was due and had spent his entire life training for the purpose.
The Deskatoi put paid to those ambitions, his village was lost and he had been knocked senseless and captured, a spear thrust into his hooves and shoved to the front ranks. Another nameless and faceless hunk of meat in the anonymity of a battle line, no battle glory for him, only the horror of desperately surviving long enough to the marginal safety of the veteran ranks. And all his shattered pride and the rage that burned from it, rage he had planned to direct towards the enemy, paled in the face of that same enemy’s implacable determination to see him dead.
Lightning had no idea what war was, not really, to him the world was the village and the few rival tribes nearby, battle was the clash of gangs of ponies in a valley or a hillside. This… he had no idea what this was, and he feared he was about to find out.
“I shouldn’t be here…” he muttered to himself, “I am going to die here, there is no way out.” He felt himself starting to panic, the eternal noonday sun and the sweat and discomfort of his armour getting to him. The land was skewed, who thought this was a good place to have a battle!? The ground was soggy and finding one’s footing was hard. The armour felt heavier and heavier, he found it hard to breath and he felt his vision blurring and he contemplating just bolting for it.
Then a hoof held him up by the wither.
“Calm.” Came the voice of the older stallion, Lightning looked up at him, eyes wide with alarm, “You’ll do neither of us any good like that.”
The red stallion’s face was unreadable, what little of it he could make out through the helm, but he sounded genuine. He couldn’t be, he had to know, didn’t he? Did he not care? Lightning turned and looked forward, closing his eyes and waiting for his heart to stop racing. He put the thought from his mind, whatever the truth of the matter, the old stallion was right.
He kept his eyes on the enemy and waited with dread for the final call to march. He looked up, reassured there was no pegasi in the air. That was good,t he Deskatoi’s reputation for utterly annihilating the pegasi raids on his camps was well deserved, indeed for a good portion of the battle most of his ranged troops specialise in destroying aerial combatents.
A horn was sounded, and then another, and then another. Each closer than the last until at last, the Hakatoi of his squadron sounded the coral horn and the first ranks moved forward. He was almost caught off guard as the Ikatri behind him nearly ran into him and he was forced into step. The entire front of the army moved forward and looking down to the south, Lightning Heart noticed the far ranks of his army seemed to be ahead of them and seemed to be closing around on the flanks of the enemy. Did they outnumber them? Perhaps this won’t be so bad as he thought, perhaps they could rout them after a short battle, he could survive that.
Bolstered by the faulty logic he nonetheless steeled himself and walked on, he quietly allowed the besagew to fall by the wayside. He felt relax with the loss of weight and felt he could better make use out of his spear now. He never trained with shields before, it was hardly going to be much benefit to him now if it just hampered his ability to fight.
The company walked at first towards the enemy, still they didn’t move. Their archers doing nothing, that worried him more than anything else. Then the company began to canter as the distance closed, Lightning hurried along, the spear grasped in the crook of his foreleg under the shoulder, holding it in place as his pace quickened. The horn sounded and the entire company, and the line of the army along with them, broke out into a trot and then a full gallop. The discordant noise of the army’s shouts and boasts rising into a wave of a full battlecry that almost drowned out the thunderous noise of the stampeding hooves.
They got closer and closer to the enemy’s lines and his heart began to race in tandum with the hooffalls beneath him and the sound of the distant wardrums from the back of the company.
And just as the Deskatoi’s forces clashed with the lines of the enemy king, Lightning Heart had just enough time to register something was terribly, terribly wrong. The enemy soldiers bunched up, the shields locking together as rows of spears jutted out from between them. And, just as he realised to his horror he was stampeding towards his own death, that the constriction of the battle line forced him in place and giving him no option but to run headlong into the enemy spears rather than hitting the shield and having a chance of surviving, another horror came upon them.
A sudden black cloud emerged like a flock of angry birds from behind the shields. Small, short throwing spears of blackened metal flew just over the forward ranks heads and crashed into the Deskatoi’s soldiers. Lightning just managed to register the blood curdling screams of pain and shock as countless soldiers were struck by the projectiles. The Ikatri immediately behind him had fallen and ensnared Lightning’s hooves and he fell.
The next few minutes passed by in a blur of darkness, confusion and flailing armoured hooves. All Lightning could make out in the maelstrom of his personal hell as he fell face first into the muddy ground was the blood on his face the weight of the soldiers around him, the pain of the hooves stepping into his back and flank, the terror and shouting of everypony around him.
His vision blurred as a tremendous force kicked the back of his head and everything was a black, colourless blur. He panicked, he panicked when more ponies fells around him, when something cut the flesh of his flank, slicing through the leather padding, when something disgusting and foul smelling filled his nostrils making him want to retch and upturn his stomach. He flailed, but found his rear legs were still trapped beneath the dead weight fo the warrior behind him. He struggled and managed to pull his legs out from under the mangled mess of the dead stallion when the next horror befell him.
A brief, whistling noise was all the indication he had that the long, barbed arrow shaft sank into the yielding earth beside him. His head whipped around and he looked at it in confusion for the moment he had before the screaming and dying began in earnest once more as a shower of arrows fell upon the Deskatoi’s forces and soldier after soldier fell screaming to the ground. Lightning flailed and pried a shield from a dead pony’s hooves and hurriedly held it above him as he struggled to pull back from the front. He called out in fear and shock when two shafts hit the shield, one of them punching straight through and he stared up at the accusing point of the arrowhead that was inches away from ending his life.
And as things were made worse, a spear shaft suddenly punched into the flesh of the dying soldier next to him and Lightning was made aware of his initial worry. The enemy soldier behind the tower shield withdrew his weapon and stabbed at the ground beside Lightning, he could just make out one of the eyes of the soldier between the gap in the shield wall.
He kicked and flailed and scrambled to get back up off the ground which was now slick with body fluids and trodden mud, frustrating his efforts at survival. He felt himself being pulled up and back to his hooves, he didn’t see the pony who lifted him back up because he was still too rattled and confused by those hard, desperate moments of chaos. He was barely a foot away from the enemy when they suddenly smacked their weapons against their shields in unison.
“HAROO!”
The roar hit them as if it were a physical force, and many a warrior flinched in surprise.
Then the enemy repeated the movement and stepped forward.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump. The rising and falling of hooves, the clash of spear on metal rimmed shield, the thump of the tower shields colliding with the earth. Each step a conquest, a gain on the Deskatoi, each shout a triumph, each clash of the spear a challenge.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
“HAROO! HARRO! HAROO!”
The effect was near immediate. While the Deskatoi’s companies did not break, they hurriedly retreated in face of the advancing enemy ranks, if they charged then and there, they would have broken them, they would have likely fled back to the safety of the rear echelons. But they didn’t. Instead they did the most bizarre thing Lightning could imagine. Whistles sounded, long and shrill and the front ranks of the enemy lifted their shields to the sides and leaned, allowing fresh troops to rush ahead of them and hurriedly set up a new front line of shield wall and spear points. The newer, fresher troops as eeirely silent as the now tired and bloodied troops had been at the start, who were now resting behind the front lines of the first companies of the enemy’s host.
Only then did Lightning fully, truly realise how completely and utterly screwed he was. What enemy casualties he had seen, whatever wounded or dead they had managed to inflict on the enemy, was covered up by this fresh blood that had just taken their place. The forward movements allowed the front ranks to cover their dead, and allowed them to be recovered from the field.
They hadn’t so much as made a dent in the enemy’s armour, meanwhile dozens and dozens of ponies from Lightning’s own company lay strewn about the battlefield, dead and dying. Pock marked with bloody wounds and reduced to pincushions with throwing spears and arrows. Up and down the lines it was a similar story, companies being butchered on the unyielding shield walls of the enemy, ruined by a sudden rain of throwing spears, and then decimated again by the unrelenting spears of the enemy and a rain of arrows. Pushed back enough for the enemy to refresh their troops and recover their dead and all with nothing to show for it.
The horn call sounded again as the remnants of his company formed up, and the Ikatri and Hakatoi forced the bloody Henedis back into line. Lightning was let go by the red stallion from earlier who handed him his spear without a second word, he breath a word of thanks but was pretty sure it only came out as fear ridden incoherent blather. Something bumped into his side and he turned to see the smiling face of Far Flyer. The cock sure, arrogant Pegasus, his teeth a rotten assortment of yellows and greys, an unsightly portion of which were mishappen or missing laughed in his face.
“A difference from running down hut dwelling savages like yourself, init? Ya little blue mudder.” A flash of anger must have showed across his face because Far Flyer laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “Oh come on, wise up. You’re blooded now you is. Why don’t you focus that anger where it’s most useful, ne?”
He goaded gesturing with the spear in his one remaining wing. The enemy were standing there waiting for the attack, and looking around, Lightning saw despite the casualties, the lines were forming up again. Two short bursts of horns ringing down the line ordering the return to ranks and, despite seeing more combat in the past five minutes than he had ever expected to see in his entire life, he realised to his horror this was far from over. He looked to his feet and pulled a basegew from the corpse of some mud covered corpse below him.
He stopped when he saw the face of Deck beneath it, wide eyed, slack jawed and very, very dead. He froze there for a moment, looking down, unable to think, when the horn blared again and he was jarred back to reality, he hurriedly hoofed the basegew into place, loose enough to give him mobility, but allowing him to shield himself.
He readied himself as the lines formed up and began marching forward again, he put all thoughts out of his head about what might be going on down the lines from him. This was his battle, here and now, he just had to maintain his cool and fight on. Or he would never survive. The horn blew one final time and the war drums behind them beat a steady rhythm and the army marched forward again. This time there would not be the shock and awe of before, no surprise wave of short spears breaking their charge, and no rain of arrows to ensure disintegration.
He was with the Ikatri and Hakatoi now, and he knew better, as did every bloodied Henedi fighting among them. They wouldn’t get such easy kills again.
He stepped forward
--=--
It was an hour later and his legs felt like they were dropping off.
“HAROO!”
It was unending, relentless and he couldn’t tell how much longer he could hold on.
“HAROO!”
He lost count of the amount of pushes they have had on the enemy, and more than once he feared his shield would break and an arrow or throwing spear would claim his life. None did.
“HAROO!”
And still the enemy had yet to break. The whistle blew again but this time, before they could charge the changing front ranks, another wave of short spears and arrows rained from the sky keeping the Deskatoi troops at bay. The enemy changed ranks again, they had to be getting tired, they simply had to be. But not as tired as he himself was, he realised, he had never been able to get off the front lines and was about to drop dead from sheer exhaustion.
Except for one time when he had managed to position some unwitting Henedi in front of him, he had been at the forefront of each and every attempt made to break through the enemy lines. These weren’t charges anymore, but deliberate grinding, brutal battles of attrition, shield on shield and spears trying to get at the ponies behind the other end. He had managed to kill three stallions that way. Three, yet he could not imagine the kill counts of the enemy troops, surely each enemy stallion now had at least five kills each.
He tried not to think about the dead he had to trample underfoot as he fought on.
The enemy line only came close to breaking once, and in response to that, the centre had folded, retreating back from the enemy line. The realization had made made his spirits rise. They had to be doing something if the enemy’s centre was failing to hold. The other companies seemed to realise this as well and were beginning to push ever harder.
More and more the enemy was pushed back, and more and more it seemed to Lightning that the moment of victory was, if not near at hoof, then at least within reach. He grinned savagely at the thought. His fear from before still ran through him, but the excitement of it overrode it, he was enjoying this all far too much and he found to his surprise he looked forward to the next push, as exhausted as he was.
Then the horn blew and he got ready to advance aga-
Then it blew again. Then twice more. Then up and down the Deskatoi’s line the company horns blared wildly. And lightning looked around, confused, wondering what was wrong. He couldn’t see any of the rest of his line past the enemy, who now blocked his sight to the south of the hillside and the north.
Then it hit him.
The enemy blocked his line of sight north and south because the enemy now surrounded them. The Deskatoi companies that were swarming around the enemy’s southern flanks were nowhere to be seen, he could not pick out their banners and colours even as high up the hillside as he was. The enemy seemed not the least bit disconcerted if the deskatoi were down there at all. That meant… oh fire and ashes, that meant-!
“HAROO!”
Another rain of arrows, Lightning got his shield up in time to withstand the iron rain. Overhead he saw the Deskatoi’s aerial archers raining death on the enemy. The pegasi were not supposed to be airborn at this portion of the battle, they were supposed to be reserved for the rout, why in Tartarus was the Deskatoi using them now!?
The flights of pegasi loosed arrows after arrows at the enemy down below and, like they had before, the enemy came together in closer ranks, shield to shield. The unicorns who had been throwing the spears in the mid ranks placing their tower shields above their cohorts, and the earth ponies behind them did the same. A roof of steel over the enemy company reducing the Deskatoi’s barrage ineffective apart from a few fortunate hits.
As before, every time they had began turtling behind their shields, the front ranks advanced. And again shields met shield as the Deskatoi forces tried to press the advantage. Lightning desperately tried to jam his spear into the small gap between the tower shields above and the front ranks below. All he needed was to kill one of them for a shield to fall and give them all wider access to the enemy inside.
Then he heard the three shrill whistle blasts and the rush of air as the sound of strained wood and rope being loosed briefly cut through the din of combat. He didn’t notice until the felled pegasi had landed amidst his company, crushing one of the soldier nearby. They had been netted, the enemy king had wanted the Deskatoi to use his pegasi early and was firing nets and catching ropes to ensare the flying ponies and bring them down to earth. Flight after flight of arrows was loosed soon after to scatter and bring down the remaining pegasi, the harm inflicted on the ground forces was just a bonus.
Without the aerial support the enemy advanced and spears pushed through the shields, catching many a stallion unawares, and the screaming and the dying began again.
Only this time the enemy did not let up, they advanced. The advanced harder and faster than the Deskatoi soldiers could compensate, and on all sides. The trap was sprung, they were to be grounded down.
And then shouts of alarm ran down the line, Lightning risked a glance up, he saw more pegasi. Was the Deskatoi sending them out again. Then the bottom of his stomach fell out when he saw the truth of it.
They were not the Deskatoi’s pegasi. Iron death rained down on the Deskatoi’s forces. Banner bearers, horn blowers, drummers and anything that looked like an officer was pinned by the enemy’s flyers. And yet more arrows and spears peppered them as the spears and shield walls of the enemy advanced on them, more and more. Lightning pushed off, he was not the only one as more and more of the line disengaged as the companies struggled to make sense of the confusion, with none to guide them.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
The dying continued. A few brave souls charged the enemy lines in desperation but were swiftly cut down, more and more ponies to the right and to the left of him died and the enemy still advanced relentlessly. The space tightened, soldiers were crushed against eachother, and the only way out was to retreat. Lightning realised that, but there was nothing that could be done about it, he was stuck where he was. He had lost sight of the older red pony, had he died? Where was Far Flyer? He looked around him and realised in the confusion of combat, he had somehow mixed in with the soldiers of other companies, he didn’t know any of the faces, some of them were even cursing in regional dialects he didn’t understand.
‘This is not good.’ He thought to himself. ‘Sooner or later these idiots are going to realise they only have one option and then,’ he paused as he thought, staring at the enemy in horror.
‘And then the real killing begins.’
No sooner had he thought that then some of the stallions around him began turning and trying to push through the ranks behind them. He shouted at them, but it was all for nought. The panic was starting.
“HAROO!”
Stomp, clash, thump.
It was that final advanced that turned the trickle into a flood, that final thrusting of spears into flesh and hide and steel that caused the morale to break. Ponies began attacking one another in their desperation to flee and it rippled along the lines, with those furthest to the back being the slowest to realise what was going on. And, Lightning realised, the slowest to move and allow a proper retreat. By the time the back ranks broke, it will be beyond repair. The battle was lost.
It proceeded almost exactly as Lightning expected, a full panic had spread across the entire army. And within moments, more had died in the crush and stampede and the advancing trap of the enemy than had died in the previous half hour of battle. By some miracle the back ranks had broken and fled, because the centre of the crush of soldiers suddenly dissipated as they fled the field.
Lightning thrusted his spear at the oncoming wall of wood and iron that was the enemy’s front rank and managed to break through a weakened shield. He heard the soldier behind it scream in pain but did not dawdle on the victory. It had bought him precious seconds to get away. He pushed his way back through the throng of ponies, his worries and fears forgotten, it was over and he was determined not to die here, the Deskatoi be damned. It was this rush to the collapsing centre that saved his life, as the outer ranks began to be ruthlessly cut down by the enemy, unable to escape their grasp.
He pushed past slower ponies and leaped over one that had fallen before him and was presumably crushed in the stampede of hooves behind him. He didn’t care, his weapon and shield forgotten in his mad rush to flee the field the ground was kicked up and mud got into his face. He hurried rubbed it out of his eyes so he could see as the rounded the hillside. He chanced a look behind him. He was now far away from the back ranks of the enemy, but he could see the enemy troops breaking ranks and pursuing.
He looked around him to see soldiers around him desperately galloping for all they were worth, some occasionally felled by a sudden barrage of arrows from above and entire companies worth of ponies reeling and changing course to avoid the deadly shower. He didn’t realise the full import of that until they had crested around the bend of the hillside and saw the full extent of the enemy king’s plans.
The camp was set ablaze and he saw enemy pegasi raiding it and terrorizing the camp followers, but more than that he saw the eight companies of enemy pegasi lined up on the valley below them. The enemy king had pegasi and he had used them to surround the enemy. The Deskatoi’s scouts would not have been able to outrun the enemy’s pegasi to forewarn of the attack, and while the battle ground on, the enemy king positioned his pegasi behind the Deskatoi, ready and waiting for the trap to spring. He had known about the Deskatoi’s reputation for neutralising pegasi formations and had prepared accordingly, almost nopony used pegasi as groundpounders, but this king had, just long enough to get them into position. And it had worked flawlessly.
Hundreds of arrows rushed up to meet the fleeing ponies and many were cut down as the arrows peppered the hillside, and more rained down from the pegasi directly above. Lightning Heart tripped over a fallen pony before him and went tumbling down the hill, hitting his head on a protruding rock. His helmet was knocked clear and dazed, confused and bloody he weakly tried to raise his head to see what was going on around him. Ponies were sparser now, fleeing in every direction, the crush was gone as complete anarchy took over the army, clusters only invited more arrows, and the rest were being brought to heel by the advancing spearponies.
He tried to push himself up but found he was too weak to move. His vision blurred and darkened, the ringing in his head was deafening, he could barely hear the roar of the disintegrating battle. He barely heard the enemy soldier who had walked right up to him. He looked up just in time to see an armoured hoof crash into his skull and everything went black.
--=--
He woke up hours later, lying on his side darkness all around. His head pounding like war drums and everything ached and hurt. He moved his legs and found them restrained, unable to move. He shifted, lifting his head to look around.
It took him a while to make sense of what he was seeing, it was dark, everything was just shapes and orange light. It was firelight he realised, from the camp fires raging all around them. And the hundreds of enemy soldiers drinking and toasting to their victory.
He was in a wooden cage. One of dozens, each one crammed full of captured Deskatoi soldiers like him, all of whom appeared dejected and defeated. Rubbing wounds and warily watching the victorious enemies like beaten dogs, afraid of when the next blow might be struck.
Lightning’s head was too crowded to have such concerns, he was still trying to make sense of everything that happened. Captured? They were captured? Why did the enemy king bother? He had them dead to rights. He certainly knew the Deskatoi planned on doing away with all of his enemies if they had lost that battle. What became of the Deskatoi anyway? Had he even survived?
The more he looked around the more and more questions came to him. He saw a few pretty mares walking through the camp, laughing at the calls from the soldiers. He recognised them, weren’t they in the camp with them? Yes, the pink one with the flower mark, she was a slave. The other with the broom, wasn’t she a whore? The last one he was sure was somepony’s wife. She looked happy enough despite the likelihood her husband was probably dead on the battlefield.
Yet there they were happily walking through the enemy’s camp, seemingly unafraid. The enemy must have claimed them, them and all the other camp followers, the slaves, the servants and tradesponies who kept the mobile army fed, watered and clothed. Everypony who didn’t have a spear in their hand and looted and burned the rest.
He let his head fall down ontot he ground. It felt wet with dew, and it was dark meaning whatever issue was keeping the sun in the sky was resolved and night had returned to the world at last. He closed his eyes, letting the exhaustion overtake him again, this time planning on real sleep. He was too exhausted for much else.
“This one.”
Somepony kicked him and he grunted and rolled with the pain as he opened his bleary eye, unaware of how much time had passed, but he saw the redness of the early dawn peeking out over the horizon. He looked up at a spear wielding soldier and another one who wore a full face helm of blackened steel with reddish tufts poking from the top he guessed to be his mane. A white cloak that looked pristine. The rest of his body was obscured by a hauberk of mail but he knew he was a blue pony like him from what little he could see of his neck and chin.
“Get up,” said the common soldier, “And follow the knight.”
Night? But it was already day time.
“Undo his fetters.” The knight said, his voice oddly familiar but at the same time strangely accented. “He won’t be going anywhere.
The soldier cut the ropes tieing his legs together and he gingerly stretched them. The flank that had been cut much earlier was aching something awful and it hurt to move his left back leg. He hobbled to his hooves and looked between the two of them. The other prisoners huddled out of their way in the cage, Lightning would be getting no help from them. He kept his head low and nodded, not daring to risk eye contact.
The knight led him out of the cage and the soldier deftly locked it once more standing guard as Lightning left them behind. The camp fires were extinguished and most of the soldiers seemed to have retired to the tents, with the occasional soldier patrolling through the well ordered tent city. Lightning eyed everything. The tents, like the soldiers arms and armour appeared uniform, and the camp itself seemed surrounded by a wooden barricade for defence. The knight said nothing as he led him to his destination, occasionally looking back to make sure he was still there.
They arrived at a large tent at the centre of the camp, guarded by a quartet of soldiers. The knight spoke with them quickly before the one in charge nodded and let them through, he opened the flap and gestured with his head for Lightning to go through.
Lightning pushed on past the entrance to the tent, warily eyeing everything within. It was spacious, and he spotted several furnishes and comforts that he wouldn’t dream of anypony having, much less in a tent on the edge of a battlefield. There were several chests, a dresser and multiple stools or chairs around a finely carved wooden desk behind which sat a rather simple looking stallion in a high backed chair.
The brown stallion looked up at Lightning from his work, smiling lightly and putting down the quill. He wore an odd contraption on his face across the bridge of his nose. A small frame of metal with two slivers of glass. Why would anypony risk willing wearing shards of glass so close to their eyes?
“Ah, so you’re the pony I’ve been told about.” The commander said, pushing himself up on the table and gesturing to one of the stools. “Please, sit. There’s no need to be afraid.”
Lightning nervously looked around for any hidden blades he hadn’t noticed before accepting the commander’s offer. He sat on the stool and looked back up at the pony, his blue eyes studying him from under a dark mane. He reached out suddenly and Lightning flinched.
“Water?” he asked. Lightning looked at the grey amphora at the side of the desk. Only just now realising how dry his throat was. He didn’t trust himself to speak and simply nodded. The commander poured two cups for both of them and handed one to Lightning. He tasted it gingerly, the cool liquid flowing down his throat felt heavenly and tasted even better. He hurriedly downed the last of it. Before letting in a grateful gasp of air. The commander snorted in amusement. “You know, if you don’t take the time to savour it, you won’t really quench your thirst.”
Lightning didn’t know how to respond to that given his circumstance, so he opted to just blink and stare at the commander. Waiting to find out what this was all about.
“I… What is…” Lightning coughed, when it became clear the commander wasn’t going to begin proceedings. “Why am I… allowed here?”
“Indeed? Yes well, I do suppose it would seem odd to you uncivilized savages to have a conqueror who doesn’t immediately slughter all the stallions and children and steal all the mares.” The commander chuckled. Lightning did not, the commander sighed. “Right, sorry, old joke among the civilized lands, but I forget that is actual reality for your southerners. Living between the desert to the south and the endless monster infested forests to your north.”
“Do you want to know why we are letting you live, Lightning Heart?” the commander asked.
“How… How do you know my name?” Lightnign asked, the commander smiled.
“A little bird told me. Isn’t that right, Sir Dreadful?” the knight from before opened the tent flap with a blue, feathered wing and entered into the tent. He didn’t respond. The commander gestured to the pony with a hoof. “Dreadful here is my top pony. Not the highest ranking, to be sure, but he is my most trusted right hand stallion.”
“You honour me, majesty.” Lightning looked at the knight.
“How… how did you know my name?” he asked, fearful of the knight. The Pegasus simply looked at Lightning but did not reply.
“Don’t bother, you are no more likely to make him crack than I am, and I have known him for years.” The commander chuckled. “But suffice it to say, Dreadful here knows a great many things, and he has never been wrong. And the things he doesn’t know, he can damn well compensate for.”
“And… why does he know me?” he asked the commander, although, he supposed it was the king now. He didn’t look very kingly. But then, he didn’t really know what a king ought to look like, he never saw the Deskatoi in person to compare him too. He just assumed they’d be aloof, distant, almost godlike in their mystique. Instead he saw a pony, a pony who smiled and laughed. He did not know what to make of it.
“Well hopefully we should find out, you see Lightning, I have a proposal.” The king said, rolling up the scroll before him and hoofing it to Dreadful, who accepted it with a wing and carried it to his side. “To Captain Shining Spear if you’d be so kind, Dreadful.”
“What proposal?” Lightning asked.
“You will fight in my army or you will never leave this camp alive.” The king said easily, bidding the knight his leave. The words stunned Lightning, and it took him a second to register.
“But… why… Why now?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why kill us now? Why didn’t you have done with it earlier? You have our slaves, our wives, our possessions, what else do you want?”
“Ah, I see your confusion. You see, Lightning, the fact of the matter is, I am not a barbarian.”
“… But you are giving us the same choice the Deskatoi did, and wasn’t he a barbarian?”
“Ah yes, that is what he calls himself, but the context is different you see.” The king said. “Had you been a soldier of a civilized lord, I would have had no qualms releasing you to go back to your fields. After all, I’d need ponies tilling the fields I now owned if I was to make any use of them, now don’t I?”
“But?”
“But the fact of the matter is you are a Borderlander. A barbarian. If I were to release my prisoners and return home happily, what would you do?” the king asked. Lightning didn’t really understand the question.
“What?”
“What. Would you. Do?” the king pressed, hooves crossed before him as he studied Lightning’s expression.
“I… I’d go home.” Lightning answered.
“Indeed?” the king asked, “And where is home? Who is there to welcome you?”
“I… There’s…” he had no answer to that. The king’s expression turned sad as he leaned back.
“Alright, so you have no home. If I were to set you free, what would you do?”
“I’d… Find another village. I’d make a home.”
“A fine answer, a practical solution. Tell me, where would you look for such a home?” Lightning paused, thinking back over the Deskatoi’s conquests, his had been among the last tribes to stand in the way of his conquests, the rest were swept up into the horde or broken and ruined beneath it. He swallowed.
“I’d head north.” He said honestly, “Try to fit in with the northerners.”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.” The king said, leaning forward again, “And would all of you do that? All at the same time?”
“I’d… imagine most of us would.”
“How noble. Truly inspiring. Tell me, how would you rband survive the way there?” the king asked. “It is the dead of winter, the weather being the fickle creature it is, crops are hard to grow at the best of times. How would you feed yourselves on the march north?”
Lightning had no answer.
“Scoured the land? Scrounge what you could from the forests? Eat what you can from the trees and the grass and hope it sustains you all long enough to find shelter?”
Again Lightning had no answer, looking down and off to the side.
“Now, tell me this.” The king said at last. “What would you and your merry band of freed prisoners do when, at the first village you arrive at, starving and freezing and desperate, turns you away?”
Lightning met his unwavering gaze, his expression as like stone. His blue eyes pinned him to the stool. He knew the answer, he didn’t want to say it, he didn’t want to admit it. And the king knew it.
“If were to let you go, you would become raiders. You’d have to. You’d threaten the lives of my ponies and become a headache for me and my vassals. I cannot have that.
“But-”
“Save it, I have been on campaigns since I was at my father’s knees. This is a rule as iron fast and as sure as mountains. Survival will trump everything else. I know the Deskatoi’s rampage through your lands have ruined it, and I know the harshness of this world will force even the good among you to turn foul. So I will offer you this proposal once again. Join my army, or die.”
“But then we’re still just slaves.” Lightning protested. “Its no different than under the Deskatoi.”
The king snorted.
“We all must serve, boy. Do you think even I am free?” the king asked. “The only other option, is to carry you as prisoners to Greenfell keep and toss you into the lightless dungeons till the end of days. A waste of time, effort and resources. You will not be slaves, you will instead be professional soldiers under my knights. Until such a time as your service has warranted release.”
“Then we’re still just fodder for your wars,” Lightning growled.
“How many of my ponies did you manage to kill?” the king asked, Lightning blinked. “Yes, you noticed didn’t you? For all your numbers and ferocity, your dead outnumbers ours many times over. And what dead we suffered were recovered quickly and easily. What exactly is it about me that strikes you as a pony who wastefully squanders the lives of his soldiers?”
Again, Lightning had no good answer to that, but his teeth ground in anger. This was his choice? Death or slavery? Was there to be no honour for him? Neither in death or freedom!? Was he only ever to know degredation? Why shouldn’t he just choose death, right here and right now?
“I’d rather die.” Lightning said.
“Would you? Why didn’t you die when you were under the Deskatoi?”
“That’s… That was different.”
“The Deskatoi had a knife to your throat at the time, that was all the difference. And the fact I am meeting you in person.”
“I will not live my life as a slave!”
“Nor would you.” The king said. “You would instead be a soldier, a person of respect and authority. A bearer of the king’s law.”
“Those mean nothing to me.”
“So honour and prestige means nothing to a southern barbarian? That is indeed news to me, something I need to ponder.” The king said airily, Lightning growled at him.
“Do not mock me.”
“YOU MOCK YOURSELF!” The king roared suddenly, slamming his hooves down on the table, causing Lightning to jump. “You have a king, in person, offering you not only freedom, but the means to better yourself more than a commoner in my own realm. With the opportunities that entails, with the possibility of distinguishing yourself, with the possibility of owning your own land. And you equate that with slavery? With your own filth ridden and mud covered existence living in fear and ignorance? You would willingly cow before a despot who burned your village but would not bend your knee to a king who offers you clemency!? If you think me weak, Lightning Heart, know that you will find more steel in me than to your liking.”
The last lines were delivered in a wicked snarl, and Lightning paused before continuing. He sat back in place, thinking and the king calmed in the quiet.
“I am asking you first only because Dreadful, in his strange manner, feels fit to bring you to my attention. I’ll be offering the same choice to all of your fellows. Know that what you decide will likely influence them as well. So what say you, Lightning Heart, do you accept my proposal?”
Lightning looked at the amphora, he gestured and the king nodded, allowing him to pour a drink for himself. He drank it slowly, thoughtfully, contemplating the cup before him.
“Its not much of a choice in the end.” He said.
“Life rarely is, I find.” The king said. The knight, Dreadful came back inside at this time, and the king nodded his thanks. Lightning didn’t turn around. He finished the water and placed the cup on the table.
“So,” He asked, “Does this mean I get a tent?”
I AM EVER VIGILANT.
god damnit... this massive blog post, when you could have spend the time+effort to write another chapter? Also, haven't read it yet, it's so long.....
4271281 To be fair I wrote most of it today, and the next chapter is half done.
I had to complete something or else go crazy. Might as well, shovel lore into the blogposts.
4271281 4271285
Whatever gets the creative juices flowing. Sometimes it's best to just get it out of your system.
4271285
Bitch you got your formula wrong.
make one shots
post one shots
aquire followers
repeat
profit
Start reading blog post
realize its a story
Start skipping ahead
keep skipping ahead
Oh sheetz, its still going
hell, I'll have to read it later.
my god, its still going
wtf
finally! comments.
4271285 Well, know that I liked it. It was pretty fucking brutal, but I liked it.
Now that is some pretty neat shit right there.
Such blog post.
Much in tents.
OK I've just finished it and I have to say that it says something when your literary equivalent of a doodle is better then some peoples real chapters.
I really didn't mind this instead of bad mondays. This is actually really interesting.
an extra 'his' is there.
the only reason I remember that "slaughter" has an 'a' in it is because you can't spell slaughter without laughter, and you can't spell laughter without an 'a'.
There are a few more typos in there but I can't seem to find them again, there was a 't he' somewhere.
So posted as a lore friendly .5 chapter... do the same thing with the of the rest of your blog chapters that correspond with the story. At the very least it will maintain continuity and will feed new material to your fan base.
...why isn't this posted as story? People need to see this. So amazing
This is good, but it really doesn't make sense as a blog post. I'd say to repost it as either a bonus chapter of Bad Mondays, a one-shot, or the start of a collection of extras.
As many before me said, this would be WAY better as a one-shot or something like it. I started reading this blog but after a while skipped to the end because I expected some kind of announcement.
Seriously, put this into a proper story formate, it will earn you oodles of new readers.^^
I kept thinking this was a dramatization of some tabletop wargaming,
This is lore? When does it fit in? Pre-discord?
4271780 Pre-Alicorn. Pre-Crystal Empire.
4271785
...so this event recounted here is older than the Meghan statue the Mistress messed with?
4271786 Yes, in fact this occurs just around the time Meghan appears on the scene but before she does anything noteworthy.
4271789
That's old.
Kinda contusion-inducing to consider an Equestria with a history this ling and unregulated.
4271793 Cant be helped, the default history we're left with by the show is Equestria as a civilization being at least a thousand years old with every implication that it was founded well before the sisters took power.
4271797 Fuck you Handyman! I've never hated and at the same time loved something like this filler. But seriously nice done, the only thing wrong with it is very well implemented "human" war tactic 'cause really only predators can think of a flanking manevers and traps in use during war. Besides the way you've described the fight was creepily similar to 300 and Polish tactics during fight in 1410. Ps. It would be nice if you explained how this little piece of lore fits in the story.
4271813 The tactics are actually Roman and Greek. The Henedi, Ikatri and Hakatoi ranks of the Deskatoi's forces was a primitivisation of the Greek phalanx formations mixed with the Roman veterancy system. Whereas the King's forces used strictly Gallic Wars era Roman tactics along with some medieval improvisation. The manoeuvre that lead to the final defeat of the Deskatoi was ripped straight out of the Battle of Cannae where Hannibal, cut off, outnumbered and lacking in provision decisively defeated a much larger army of the Roman Republic through similar tactics seen here, though the rest of the king's tactics were textbook Roman defensive posture. I thought it'd be interesting to see what that looked like... from the loser's perspective.
With that said, the feel of the era is still dark ages medievalism, which I hoped to get across with the rag tag nature of most of the soldiers involved on both sides.
As for the flanking manoeuvre, even if I did subscirbe to the predator/prey species nonsense most fimfic writers do (and I don't), the reality of war would force a prey species to adapt to such tactics being used on them over time if nothing else.
As for how the lore fits in, it is something of an origin story of sorts for a character we'll be meeting shortly in Bad Mondays and who I have shown you guys before in another blog. Specifically this one.
It also act as a segue into telling more of the Story of Meghan long before Handy becomes relevant to this world. Short of starting a whole other story that would divide my time and effort, this is the best stop gap measure feasible until I feel up to the task.
4271818 Thanks for cralification even if you don't understand that adapt means find countermeasure rather than employing the same, but it was still great. Ps do you know how the battle at Grunwald went, or do you not?
4271837 I have not studied the Teutonic wars too closely so no, sadly, I did not know about it.
4271818
Didn't he essentially turn a grassland into a giant murder box?
4271990 Amongst other things, yes, he did. It was rather spectacular.
Whew. That's a lot of words.
4271789 Wait, Meghan? As in this Meghan?
orig01.deviantart.net/e573/f/2013/111/5/a/imperium_by_equestria_prevails-d62la1u.png
orig01.deviantart.net/bca9/f/2014/341/e/9/kingdoms_of_fire_by_equestria_prevails-d88zbah.png
orig15.deviantart.net/9fd9/f/2013/207/d/4/ignis_lavat_by_equestria_prevails-d6f8c3q.png
4272103 Yes, that one exactly. Surprised you haven't cop on to that given all the hints in the story and the occasional leak by some sharp eyed commenters.
4272103
4272131
Wait, ya wot?
4272137 AAAAAAAnd this is why I generally didn't want word getting out and spoiling it for people who havent figured it out.
4272131 I have long suspected that was the case after I noticed that the gold-cloaks from Equestria prevails matched the description in the story- even down to the shoot sticks. I was waiting for it to be confirmed in the story (or for you mentioned it) because of spoiler reasons.
Edit- speaking of which.
At any rate I do hope the ponies learn of the truth so we can see their reaction. 'Oh you know that critter that was pretty much the god emperor of you ponies at one point? Well there's another one of her kind running around and he hates your guts and it's all your fault'
4272139 So this is some 'Equestria Prevails' thing? I've never even read it so I wouldn't know anyways.
4272265 Bad Mondays has always taken liberally from Equestria Prevails, I have never made a secret of that. There's nothing to read, its literally just a lot of really well done images from one guy's interpretation of Equestria.
4271818 Yeah, that was definitely textbook Roman tactics in action with the obvious exception of the pegasi, so the battle as a whole was tactically solid given the forces involved. The employment of the shields and weapons seemed a bit odd to me given pony ergonomics, but this sounds like it predates sophisticated armor so some awkwardness is going to be unavoidable if they want decent protection.
As for the pegasi, your employment of them was a bit off. There is no point in giving them bows when dropped steel darts (or even rocks) will deliver much more punch to ground targets while keeping the pegasi above the range of ground-based archers so they can attack with impunity. That means the barbarian pegasi should have been higher up and dropping shit with impunity until the "Roman" pegasi moved to engage them air-to-air with a lance charge which would have almost certainly broken the barbarian pegasi and scattered or grounded the survivors while the "Romans" started dropping shit on the barbarian army.
As for the final flanking maneuver, using the pegasi as dragoons was a dangerous gambit since it robs them of their primary advantage and reduces the size of the air force available to engage the enemy pegasi which substantially increases the risk of taking heavy losses air-to-air if the enemy turns to engage in a furball, both through the reduced chance of them breaking and the way it shifts the numbers there. Granted it's entirely possible that these barbarians don't have wingblades which would eliminate that risk since they couldn't engage in a furball without proper weapons for it, and even if they did a ragtag group like that probably wouldn't have the discipline to ignore their own safety to properly maximize the effectiveness of the unit so that risk isn't too bad all things considered. The risk to the dragoons themselves is similarly manageable since they would be engaging a routed enemy who have probably dumped their shields and weapons to free their hooves so they can run properly, so the tactic is sound overall and changes what would normally be a stupid idea (as commented on in-story) into an interesting and highly effective gambit.
As for Lightning Heart himself, I'm curious to see what you have planned for him. It seems like this predates the Mistress herself so he can't be one of her disciples, and earth ponies just don't live long enough for him to still be around in the "present" without some serious help. There are definitely plenty of ways to get around that (assuming he is actually alive as implied) so it'll be interesting to see how you go about doing it.
4272309 Re: The pegasi.
There actually is a very good reason for them to use bows and arrows despite the effectiveness of the 'drop rocks' approach. Short of using specialised caltrops, or a kind of kunai shaped piercing short spear (like those strange mini throwing spears the Roman infantry used Circa Emperor Constantine in the Third Century Crises the replaced the pilum), the bow and arrow gives the Pegasi the most bang for the buck given their technological development at the time re: The Economy of Violence.
The problem with the 'drop rocks' approach is the that simple fact: rocks. You are spending a lot of energy and time hauling up a limited number of heavy objects high up into the air, and the effectiveness, while lethal, is very limited and you cant aim for shit. And then you're out of ammo, so you need to fly back down, reload, and fly back up. Useless for consistent 'rain' or barraging the enemy with simultaneous dropping. Granted you will kill at least one unfortunate motherfucker, which is why in sieges just chucking fucking rocks at a motherfucker climbing a siege ladder was a good way to kill him and the ten or so guys behind him if you were lucky, in this situation you'd be lucky if one hit = one kill.
The next best option is flying up there with throwing spears which in this time period is done quite often, and you get more accuracy out of them, especially when you are just throwing in a downward arc, its hard to miss your target if you're not a useless ass. But again you're limited by what you can carry.
The bow and arrow quivers are a very effective weapon for aerial support, if the pegasi is strong enough they can even carry two full quivers into the air with them filled to the brim with arrows, and fire to their hearts content and do so with considerably more force than dropped rocks or thrown spears and maximises their effectiveness vis a vis their mobility. So you have plenty of ammo, more force, and more precision, which evidently played a key role in the King's pegasi once he had neutralised the barbarian pegasi, given they targeted anyone who looked like a rallying figure while also harassing the barbarians and, if you looked closely, herding the fleeing horde into a killbox set up by their compatriots when they rounded the hill.
Their need for precision and strategic showers was why the King's pegasi, when they had the advantage flew so low in the first place. The Deskatoi's pegasi flew so low when he finally lost his patience and sent them in, was because they needed to be more precise with their shots given the infuriating nature of the king's Testudo formations protecting the enemy soldiers. Hence making them easy prey for the king's snares and scatter attempts, which in turn made them easy targets for the king's dragoon pegasi after the initial shock of the king's siege weapons, which the Deskatoi was unprepared for. Unfortunately Lightning could not pay attention to everything happening above him, all he knew was that pegasi started dropping like flies around him.
The Deskatoi was wise to invest so much in anti-air tactics himself. The pegasi's versatility in war is well known and more than a few of the smaller powers in this period, if they have access to them, over-rely on them and once they are neutralised most of the Deskatoi's enemies were easy pickings up until this point. Also, most aerial combat pegasi to pegasi is actually in fact spear to spear. Most of the weapons you see in Bad Mondays, from wingblades, to hoofblades and even weapons like Jacques' rapier are very sophisticated in comparison to most weapons of this time period. So not even most civilized forces such as the King's would have had access to them. Though some do, I'll leave you to guess which one in particular.
Pony ergonomics is the single most frustrating thing with dealing with how they make war and their reliance on spear weaponry (depicted fucking everywhere) and led to some serious consequences in my thought for how ponies work (down to skeleton structure to how the interior frogs of their hooves work, but you've heard me blather about that before, both in story via Handy and in comments) so allowances are going to have to just be made for some of it.
4272280 I see, I've seen some of the guys art. Pretty fantastic stuff he makes.
eyy bb how you doin'?
4272351 Darts, not rocks. While rocks will certainly work and are obviously the cheapest solution, they are not nearly as effective as a dart built for the task so I would only expect to see them used by poorly equipped forces or after the real munitions are all expended. A dart will follow a very predictable trajectory to its target so you can employ it from standoff range without too much trouble, and WWII-style dive bombing tactics will let you improve the accuracy while minimizing exposure to return fire. Also, you really don't have to stay very high up to be safe from bows since their low projectile speeds mean they loose effectiveness very quickly when shooting at targets above them so accuracy won't be nearly as big a problem as you seem to think it is.
As for ammunition weight, your comments are frankly nonsense. War arrows have quite a bit of weight to them, and you don't need a massive dart to kill someone from above so the weights aren't going to be all that different. Also, arrows need a bow to shoot which adds weight to the complete kit, and bows and arrows are all long which make them much more awkward to carry than compact steel darts and hinder maneuverability. Frankly, this should be intuitively obvious since both projectiles are going to hit at similar speeds since the extra aerodynamic efficiency of a small metal dart is going to more or less balance out the extra bit of speed from a bow once you factor in the height and dive speed and the performance for these weapons is basically just speed and weight. Now, that's not to say that there is no way the darts wouldn't ever be bigger since increasing the size of the dart would yield a proportional increase in its performance, but without heavy armor to contend with there isn't really a need for them to be any heavier than arrows.
Moving on, you claim that the dragoons were used air-to-air, but the large shield needed to be effective in ground combat would ruin their maneuverability without offering any significant protection. Furthermore, the spears they would need in ground combat are completely unusable as aerial lances since those must be strategically weakened to allow them to break off in the enemy to avoid tearing up the pegasus carrying them with the force of the collision. That would make them extremely vulnerable in aerial combat and force them to move around the fight rather than through it so they absolutely couldn't be effective air to air.
Also, just for the record, bows are 100% useless air-to-air since arrows are much slower than pegasi (literally a tenth of what we have seen Rainbow Dash do) so pegasi will have no trouble at all avoiding incoming arrows and will be able to move through the threat envelope in about a second to attack the archers with something that is actually useful.
As for weapon availability, while I can see wingblades being out of reach for barbarians due to the need for a joint between the cuff and blade, they really aren't all that complicated so any reasonably sophisticated force should have them in some form even if they are more primitive than the more sophisticated modern versions. Hoofblades on the other hand are literally just a spike/axe/knife sticking off the front of a boot, so they are some of the oldest and most primitive weapons available to ponies and may even predate the spear.
As for spear employment, a bit of logic makes it clear that they are going to be used in straps more often than the hoof in real battles. Holding a spear in the hoof just costs you too much mobility, so the logical solution is to strap them to the sides of the saddle as a shock weapon in the charge (probably with two per pony for maximum effect). After the initial hit, combat would be more focused on close quarters work with hoofblades since they will basically crash into that by default, and the spears can be attached in such a way that they will tear free if they are twisted too much to keep them from causing problems.
4272755 They weren't using shields in the air. Thats beyond stupid and I dont think I said at any point they did. I said the aerial combat was spear to spear meaning it was a melee or a furball as you called it earlier. They would have went into the enemy with whatever weapons they had on hoof for that purpose. And as evidenced in BM when Handy claimed that glaive from the griffon knight, he noted it was shorter than most spears he had seen (both in Earth and this world) and was weighted oddly. Any spears they would have in the air would have been tailored appropriately.
And no, I dont think the wingblades are as simple as you are making them out to be, given just how long simple things such as stirrups took to get around IRL and just how long metallurgy had to come along to get effective joint movement for armour (beyond primitive hinges) I dont think its as easy to come across as you seem to think they are given a primitive wingblade likely wouldnt have the give neccessary to not completely fuck up a pegasi's manouverability. At best most wingbladed pegasi in this time period would be similar to heavy cavalry in their use given their slower speed, not because of encumberence, but because their wings are hindered, and certainly wouldn't have been used as dragoons. Just because it is possible doesn't mean they have worked it out, or that the idea has yet to come to them. To use the stirrup example, the absurdly simple invention which revolutionised mounted warfare in Europe, didn't really take root until the 5th-7th century even though primitive variations of it were in use in India nearly a thousand years before that, and even the Roman Empire didn't cop on to this very useful tool. Simplicity is a guarantee of nothing, not even for sophisticated civilizations who definitely had the technology capable of making use of such things, we're too used in our modern day for having entire classes of people dedicated to research and invention we often forget that this was not the case for almost 100% of humanity for almost 100% of human history. Blacksmiths would be spending more of their time churning out new gear and less on how to improve said gear, while that is certainly happening, it still means that shit like the wingblades are not necessarily as intuitive as perhaps blading one's hoofboots. Now with that said, there are those trying to apply simple armours to pegasi wings to prevent the arm of their wings becoming too damaged in a battle and maybe somewhere along the line an enterprising pegasus puts blades along them, but that hasn't happened yet. And as I stated in my last comment it is certainly going to be happening soon in any case.
Also I think we have a misunderstanding of what we mean by hoofblades. I meant specifically the kind we see in BM with either retractable blades or they can lower/raise as seen in EQP artwork, or even the hoofspikes of the deer who use them as punching blades, meaning its possible for the wearers to manipulate these devices. That is what I was referring to. In terms of just armoured hoofboots with blades welded to them well then yes, of course I concede your point regarding them, I just dont think they would be as widely used for the same reason most armoured gauntlets in human armours weren't bladed, its a tactical choice since at the very least, you're going to accidentally tear open the sides or legs of the pony standing next to you on a charge or mid battle, unless the blades are specifically forward facing, like modern hoofblades tend to be. (Most bladed human gauntlets tended to be bladed just above the knuckles to add a little extra to the punch.)
As for spear saddles, I can see them being used for charging offensives like that, but the reality of it is that ponies do use spears in melee, there is too much in the show and too much already established in BM canon to retcon that. Its awkward yes, but its unavoidable.
4273257 ...You just said the dragoons were fighting air-to-air which would mean they would have to have their shields with them for the ground action that followed.
As for proper air combat, that occurs in two phases. The first is a formation-against-formation lance charge which is at least vaguely similar to jousting. The lances break when the charges meet, and at that point the forces either leave the field by diving to ground level or come about to engage in the furball with wingblades. That is a chaotic brawl where pegasi dive at each other from above and behind to take wings off with wingblades and is a bloodbath which continues until one side decides to flee by diving to ground level or is annihilated. The logic and reasoning behind this is highly complex so I'm not going to try to write it up here, but if you really want to see it you can try PMing V-Pony for the in-work document. Any other method of combat is suboptimal and will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the force using it.
Moving on to wingblades, all I have to say is that I did the engineering work on this myself and I can say with 100% confidence that they are indeed fairly simple weapons. All a wingblade is is one basic hinge, a blade, and a bent piece of metal to wrap around the lower part of the wing. Here's a picture of what a wingblade actually looks like for reference:
i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/Diablo48/Wingblade/Wingblade_Top_by_D48.png
A primitive version would honestly look almost exactly the same, although the construction of the hinge would probably be a bit different and the blade would have a thicker cross section due to inferior materials. Also, wingblades are almost exclusively air-to-air weapons so the dragoons wouldn't have them.
Also, I'm not going to go into this because it is a huge subject and not really related to this discussion, but your assertion about stirrups is very very wrong. They weren't used because they weren't needed, not because they didn't know how to make them. A wingblade on the other hand is vastly superior to every other weapon in the furball and its effectiveness is not contingent on other technologies so the instant someone tries one it will spread like crazy.
Moving on to hoofblades, the folding variant does have some advantages, but to be perfectly frank you are massively overstating them along with the problems with fixed blades so I don't see any reason for blades like EQP shows to be made except for non-combat roles (although that does cover Celestia's guards so the art isn't totally unreasonable). Blades sticking off the fronts of the hooves just aren't going to cause serious problems because you don't kick the guy next to you when marching/charging, and your comparison to gauntlets is completely invalid since proper gauntlets don't appear until very late so they would have been dealing with armored opponents who are functionally immune to blades, and we humans don't need our hands to move so we can hold a weapon while charging unlike a pony.
As for spears and saddles, you have to look at this more pragmatically. A pony can't really carry a spear while moving, so free spears aren't suitable for general battlefield use. They can be used in the hoof after they detach from the saddle, but ponies just can't carry spears into battle the way humans can. That doesn't necessarily exclude them from stationary guard duty or ceremonial duties which is all we have actually seen in the show; tournaments run on their own rules which could make a held spear a viable weapon; and it certainly doesn't apply to griffons since they can fly and carry a spear in their talons, but you have to be cognizant of these things.
4274269 No the dragoons were never engaged in the ground combat, at no point did the dragoons in the story engage with the ground forces while they were organized. By the time the dragoons had flanked, the enemy pegasi were disorganized, and when engaged air-to air, the dragoons never had shields. The only interactions with ground troops was shooting at them and then, when the trap had caused them to break and rout, harassing them and maybe occasionally doing swooping kills, at no point did they engage in serious ground combat short of killing Deskatoi scout parties in the surrounding forests and hilllands.
The massed Dragoons down on the far side of the hill did little direct engagement and simply had the fleeing enemy trapped in a killbox to slow their retreat long enough for the King's ground troops to catch up in the pursuit to put the remainder to the sword or capture them. Where in the story were the pegasi said to have shields other than ground based pegasi like Far Flyer who only had one wing?
First, wow, that was good. It never ceases to amaze me how much development you have put into this world, borrowed, original, or mixed.
That said, please, especially if this lore is going to remain a thing, please post it into a side story. You could leave it unlisted and just link to it. This default layout for blogs makes it hard to read something this long, and takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it. It's like before I discovered you could change the story layout to small text, smaller line spacing, and dark themes. Black on white kills my poor eyes.
Plus, it's be nice not to have to dig through blog posts if I ever want to go back and read them again. You know, 'cause some of us are stupid and gluttons for punishment. ;)
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4274280 Rechecking it, there is no explicit mention of what the pegasi had, but there is a line near the end which seems to refer to them as "advancing spearponies" and they are previously referred to as infantry with no mention of any major differences in their equipment which will lead the reader to assume it is the same. Thus while the story does not explicitly describe their equipment, it does strongly imply that they are using the same spear and shield phalanx formation as every other infantry unit in the story.
Also, your claim that the dragoons got by with only bows is frankly absurd. Ranged weapons were never able to deliver the shock power needed to effectively break the enemy until the introduction of firearms. Even the famed English Longbows only ever held positions through extensive fortifications to keep the enemy off the archers while they did their damage, and even still it always came down to close combat pitting the archer's melee weapons and armor against tired, wounded, and demoralized enemies. These dragoons are definitely not using English Longbows here, so all that would happen is more scattering and running (and possibly attacking the archers if they only have bows), not trapping them like you said.
Also, for the record, a proper kill box is impossible without modern weapons. At an absolute minimum you need multiple machine guns with interlocking fields of fire and substantial artillery support to get the focused lethality that defines a proper kill box, but realistically you also need anti-armor weapons and air support to really lay down the pain on everything in the box.
4275636 No, when they were fighting in the air with the other pegasi, yes, they used weapons other than the bows, I wasn't claiming they were shooting eachother in the air, that really doesnt become effective until gunpowder at any rate when you can reliably shoot someone faster than they can react to it (though not by much, its still a lot more reliable than bows). I didnt specify what weapons the pegasi were using when they fought the other pegasi in the air. They could very well have been fighting with primitive hoofblades.
No, it doesn't and frankly I am not seeing why you are so insistent on it saying they do. In fact it has every implication that they do not have the spear and shield combination as the grounds troops. However ill advised my insistence on them using bows and arrows is, the fact they are utilising bows and arrows negate the possibility they are also equipped with spears and shields. How in the hell are they going to handle spears and shields and bows and arrows in mid air? Using other smaller and easier to use weapons, something that doesn't negate their bow and arrow use, makes far more sense, (and yes this goes for the Deskatoi's flying pegasi too). You're insisting on something that is just not in the story. The line at the end referring to advancing spearponies is referencing the actual spearponies you've been reading about the entire story. The King's earth ponies and unicorns immediately started running to kill or capture the Deskatoi troops and it was a groundpounder that knocked Lightning Heart out after he had hit his head on the rock.
You're point about the arrow killbox is fair, if the enemy had any degree of coherence or formation left, or hell, some leader to shout orders. The point of the killbox was for the aerial pegasi to keep the flying, panicked enemy soldiers all roughly heading in the same direction long enough for the shock of being surrounded to dawn on them, (remember, these ponies are routing, all sense and discipline has broken down, and there is nothing to rally them). The kill box was the rain of massed arrows from the grounded king's pegasi to be the 'hammer' on the anvil of the advancing spearponies that were chasing the Deskatoi troops. (Or the archers were the anvil and the spearponies in the rout were the hammer, I need to recheck my tactics) I will concede the argument on the kill box because I had named it the wrong thing, Kill box is specifically a gunpowder warfare term whereas what I am describing is rather the hammer and anvil. Contrary to conventional wisdom, archers were used as anvils all the time in such tactics but usually only in scenarios as outlined in the story, where they are cutting off a routing enemy's rout (not an organised retreat, any competent captain or general would take the opportunity to cut down a swathe of archers on their way out. Unless they WERE longbowmen, who were often as big or even stronger than most knights which the French found out to their shock, from the strains of spending a lifetime practicing the demanding rigours of the longbow, then they wouldnt have been an easy fight, but for most other kinds of archers it would have been.) but given they were already at a full route, the withering vollies from the anvil just sealed their fate and stymied them with shock long enough for them to scramble over one another to halt their flight long enough for the King's spearponies to hit them. With the onrush of the rout stopped and the crush of ponies broken up after the first vollies of arrows hit and allowed to scatter, any possible coherency of even something as simple as which direction to run, was lost again, trapping them for the kill. The only problem with this analgoy is that ideally and most of the time, the hammer in the hammer and anvil tactic was cavalry as is the case in our world (Alexander the Great was a MASTER of using this tactic), which for obvious reasons, doesn't translate well into this scenario.
4276483
True, but the same logic also applies to archers and siege weapons on the ground attempting to shoot at the pegasi.
Continuity is assumed until you state otherwise. You said the pegasi were fighting as infantry with no mention of their equipment, so the assumption of continuity says they are using more or less the same equipment as the rest of the infantry on their side. Similarly, you were talking about the dragoons before you said "spearponies", so the assumption is that you are still talking about the same group unless you say otherwise. Also, the same goes with the bows because you were talking about them in the context of pegasi shooting at ground targets, so there is no reason to assume they are being used on the ground unless explicitly stated (and this is doubly true here since bows will work better when fired in flight so the hooves are free and gravity helps the archer).
I'm going to need an example for this since that is very much contrary to everything I have ever seen and completely fails the driving principles of shock combat which rules battlefield psychology, especially in a rout. Yes archers can be used as part of the anvil force, but unless those archers are competent in close combat like the English Longbowmen were I highly doubt they would be effective without support. Also, you need to remember that contrary to popular belief, most archers were at least moderately competent in melee with at least decent armor and melee weapons, so there are good odds they could take routed enemies, especially in the time period you are referring to because routed hoplites would usually drop their shields and spears to run better (hence "return with your shield or upon it") and thus be essentially unarmed when they got to the archers.
4274269
Just because something is simple in theory doesn't mean that the application or practice will be.
To take this quote:
Whilst you're right this reminded me of a video that should help me illustrate my point.
If you could watch this video please, particularly sections 6:16-8:32, 9:10-10:00 and 10:50-11:45 (Preferably you'd watch the whole thing but not everyone has the endurance for listening middle-aged history buffs ramble)
Now the point I'm trying to get across, and I think handy will agree, is that whilst sometimes something seems blindingly simple to us and might even actually be that simple doesn't mean someone came up with the idea at the time.
As the video states there may be multitudes of complicated problems that get in the way of implementing such a seemingly simple idea, the first and foremost among them is going to be as handy mentioned a lack of dedicated R&D; say for example one genius or tinkerer type attempts the idea then even if he succeeds widespread acceptance of the new and untested design will be slow due to limited exposure and if he fails in some way (maybe even fatally) his idea will take even longer to circulate because of the connection to "that one crackpot who wen't and got himself killed/crippled/humiliated".
Furthermore there may be more physical problems, like with how past horses were smaller than they are today maybe ancient pegasus wings couldn't stand the forces involved. Additionally, as you said sometimes something isn't invented because there's already fulfilling the role well enough, perhaps similarly to how the stirrup wasn't invented because things like four-pommelled saddles kept you on the horse well enough the wingblade wasn't invented because hoofblades and small dagger-like weapons killed people well enough.
Much like the stirrup the wingblade isn't a necessity for aerial combat, it just makes it easier and even that's debatable considering you normally want to reduce the number of moving parts in a weapon to as few as possible and I can't think of a single melee weapon with any moving parts.