I was there the day we turned the tide.
It began three years ago, when the self-proclaimed Emperor Sombra broke free of his prison. The yaks and caribou fell before the world realized what was happening, and then he set his sights on the greatest prize of all: Equestria.
They might not have been ready for his return, but they weren’t going to give up without a fight. The war had dragged on for three years of bloody stalemate as the dark emperor slowly ground Celestia’s forces down. The ponies of Equestria fought with unparallelled bravery and ferocity, but Sombra’s dark powers seemed to have provided him with an unending army of monsters and mind-controlled slave soldiers.
For too long, the rest of the world left Equestria to fight on their own. The ponies seemed to have the war well in hoof, and why should any of them risk their lives? Sombra wasn’t attacking their homes, so it wasn’t their problem.
It had taken me far too long to convince the Council to intervene. Nobody wanted to go to war, especially a war thousands of miles away. I’d done a few subtle things, as much as I could get away with while Freeport was still technically neutral, and had some of my allies carefully build up public opinion in favor of getting involved. Freeport and Equestria had their share of messy history, but at the end of the day everyone agreed we’d much rather have Celestia for a neighbor than Emperor Sombra the would-be world conquerer.
Our first target was obvious. The siege of Manehattan had been dragging on since the start of the war, with Sombra slowly tightening his grip and choking off the tenuous supply lines to the city. It was time to change that. Strumming’s scouting reports just confirmed my first instinct.
I stood on the prow of the FAS Eternal Flame, getting a good look at the rapidly approaching shore. Sombra’s army had left most of the land around the city as a blasted wasteland, stripped of almost all life by years of brutal combat and constant foraging. The city itself lay half in ruins, but the Equestrian flag still flew proudly over every one of the towers in the city center.
The ship’s captain, a zebra named Kibwe, stepped up to my side and politely cleared his throat. “Archon, signal from the Rising Tide. Sombra’s forces have seen our approach and have begun repositioning to hold the beaches.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off the enemy. “They’d have to be blind not to see us. It doesn’t matter. There’s no fortifications worth speaking of, and they won’t be able to move enough heavy weapons to stop us from landing.”
“It could be an ugly fight to claim the shore.” Captain Kibwe cautioned. “Without a secure harbor we’ll have a hard time unloading the bulk of our forces.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I could feel a confident smirk working its way across my lips. “Don’t worry about that, Captain. My magi and the clans will be more than enough to secure the beaches. Signal the Hammercuda and let Magus Doo know the advance force will be in for a warm reception.” I thought it over for a second, then my grin widened as I added, “And move the ship in close enough for me and my forces to disembark.”
That earned me a raised eyebrow from the captain. Conventional wisdom said that a commander should stay away from the fighting, somewhere that gave them a good view of the battlefield. That way they could get a good look at the big picture and wouldn’t have any combat distracting them from generalship. However, I had enough brains to realize that I was a lot more useful as a battle mage than playing at being a general. Better to leave the army and navy in the hands of someone with experience running one.
The Eternal Flame lumbered towards the shore. My flagship was a big lumbering beast of a ship, partly because flagships are supposed to be the biggest and scariest ships in the fleet and partly for much practical considerations. Some of the cargo I’d brought along was big and heavy.
The ships’ ballistae opened up as soon as we were in range, giving the enemy a taste of what was to come. For a moment I was tempted to join in, but at this range I wouldn’t be doing much more than saturation bombardment. Better to save my power until I could use it to accomplish something more meaningful.
I saw my first opportunity when Sombra sent a squad of fliers after us. Most of them were enslaved pegasi and gryphons, but an enscrolled wyvern was leading the charge. I was reasonably confident that the archers could handle the ponies, but normal arrows would bounce right off a wyvern’s thick hide. Our ballistae might be able to take it down, but those heavy weapons usually had a hard time tracking a fast-moving target.
Good thing I was there.
I opened up with a globe of pure darkness to scatter and disorient the incoming enemy squadron. That slowed the pegasi enough for my archers to get a good volley in, and all the light I’d stolen away was the perfect building block for my next spell. A net of pure light wrapped around the incoming wyvern, leaving it hanging helplessly in the air. Ballistae might not be great at hitting a fast-moving target, but they were fine at hitting something completely motionless.
Without their heavy backup, the rest of the fliers went down pretty quickly. I had hoped to take some of them alive, but between the arrows and the fall it didn’t work out. Perhaps that was for the best—getting the mind-control crowns off Sombra’s slaves didn’t magically restore their minds. Months of treatment might be able to sort them out, but that was a long-term solution. In the short term, they were still fanatically loyal to Sombra and would fight to the death. I didn’t like idea of killing mind-controlled slaves, but in the middle of a big chaotic battle we didn’t have any better way to stop them from killing us.
After our arrows saw off the first wave, the second set of fliers tried to stay high enough to be safe. Our ships sent out their own fliers to keep them tied up—a mish-mash of clanners, some gryphon mercenaries, and a few Free Minds. That was enough to keep them off the ships, especially since the enemy already had a hard time doing much from high altitude.
The rest of Sombra’s forces tried to support his airborne troops as we drew closer to the shore. They hadn’t managed to drag many heavy weapons to the beaches to actually threaten the ships, so all we really had to worry about was arrows and bolts. The ships had enough armor for those to just bounce off, and the crew had enough cover to be reasonably safe. Much more than the archers sitting out in the open on the beaches.
Just when I’d started feeling reasonably confident we’d make it to the shore without serious opposition, I spotted something way more dangerous than archers: a unicorn with a big crystal crown on his head. If that wasn’t a big enough clue, his horn lit up and launched a bolt of fire that punched a pony-sized hole through my sails. Thankfully my sailors had done a good job keeping them damp enough that they didn’t immediately catch fire, but I didn’t want to push my luck by letting him get a second shot.
I opened up with a fireball to get his attention. He chose the most obvious defense against pyromancy considering our location, snatching up water from the nearby ocean to quench the flames. That would’ve been a good idea against an ordinary fire-flinger, but I was way more than that. I sent a follow up spell while his water shield was blocking his line of sight, sending an intense blast of arctic cold into his defenses. The water shield immediately froze solid, falling onto its wielder with a satisfyingly lethal crunch.
The rest of Sombra’s soldiers groaned and clenched their heads for a couple seconds after the magus’ death. From what the Equestrians had said, the ponies with the big crystal crowns had some sort of leadership and coordination role over the mind-controlled thralls. Whenever one of the leaders went down it caused some sort of psychic feedback that the slaves needed a bit to recover from. It usually lasted less than a minute, depending on how many other leaders were around, but I’d take whatever opening I could get. “Get to the shore and put hooves on the ground before they recover!”
Either the ship set a speed record or Sombra’s leaders were spread too thin, because his thralls still hadn’t recovered when we hit the shore. I was briefly tempted to cut loose on them for a dramatic entrance, but that would’ve been a waste. Thralls with no free will wouldn’t be intimidated, and big flashy spells would wear me out a lot faster than smarter precision strikes with a lot less to show for my efforts.
So I did what any smart leader does when dealing with a situation they can’t be bothered to handle personally. I delegated.
Thirty tons of steel came barreling out of the ship’s cargo hold as a pair of four meter tall war golems headed straight for the enemy lines. Sombra’s slave soldiers might have been mindless thralls, but for a second I could swear I saw fear in their eyes. The golems slammed into them like trains, scattering enemy soldiers and tearing gaping holes in the front line. I followed in their wake as more of my soldiers disembarked to take advantage of the opening I’d created.
Similar scenes played out across the shore as the graduates from my academy joined the fray, though none of them had golems quite as massive as mine. We hadn’t really standardized any designs yet, so many of the magi had come up with their own customized designs. Kukri had a small pack of pony-sized golems, each of which was specialized for a different task. I’d occasionally poked fun at her for making such small golems, but they were quite a bit nimbler than my giants and still quite capable of wreaking devastation. Not to mention she had more than me. While my golems punched a huge hole in Sombra’s lines, Kukri’s darted around shoring up weak spots and exploiting opportunities.
That was part of why I hadn’t standardized golem designs. We were still experimenting, and letting some of my academy students and junior magi play around with different concepts and designs was producing all sorts of useful data. I would’ve preferred a bit more time to test them out before we took them into a warzone, but when an ancient evil overlord is trying to conquer the world sometimes you have to make do with a prototype. I wasn’t going to sit back and let the ponies of Manehattan starve to death because I wanted to give the junior magi more time to iron out the kinks in a lab. Besides, actually taking them out into the field was a better test than anything we could do in a controlled environment.
So far, the results were looking promising. My own golems were swatting aside Sombra’s soldiers without even breaking stride, while enemy swords and spears just bounced off their thick metallic bodies. My giant golems were huge targets, but so far the enemy hadn’t brought any weapons to bear that were remotely heavy enough to hurt them. It was only a matter of time before that happened; they were too big and obvious to be overlooked.
That was fine. My golems could handle the heaviest firepower Sombra’s army had much better than the ordinary rank and file. Not to mention I was right there with them. With any luck, one of Sombra’s top magi or generals would try to deal with the golems personally, and run right into me. I did have a score to settle with Heritor Azurite, and the EIS had told me that he was in command of Sombra’s forces in Manehattan. Of course, I couldn’t rule out that they’d made that up just to draw me into the war a little bit quicker. Honesty might be one of those virtues most Equestrians aspire to, but when you’re fighting a desperate war for survival morals start getting flexible.
Any normal army would’ve broken in the face of how much force I’d brought to bear, but Sombra’s army was a long way from normal. Thralls didn’t have enough free will to worry about things like morale or their own personal survival. While we made good progress at first, the chaos could only last for so long. Eventually the officers started to bring the thralls back into line and organize a proper defense. They couldn’t stop my huge golems, but my golems could only be in one place at a time. The thralls shifted focus, avoiding conflict with me and focusing their attention on the soldiers.
Thralls don’t make very good soldiers. No free will meant no initiative or creativity, and while they felt no fear, that was a double-edged sword. It kept them from fleeing for their lives, but it also denied them that razor edge focus that comes from a life-and-death situation. Sombra’s mind control helmets could flood their body with adrenaline, but that was a poor substitute. Not to mention most of the thralls were untrained civilians he’d captured and pressed into service.
However, Sombra did have one critical advantage: numbers. It would take hours or even days to finish unloading all my troops, and all I had right now was an advanced force securing the beachhead. While each one of Freeport’s battle-hardened mercs were worth five thralls, Sombra had more than that before accounting for the occasional monster within his ranks.
Then I saw the heavy weapons. Most of Sombra’s artillery had been focused on Manehattan as part of the siege, but he was finally getting the catapults into position. Things would get ugly fast if those things opened up on the beaches. The enemy would kill as many of their own as mine, but I doubt Sombra cared about losing a few thralls to deny me a beachhead.
The fleet could always pull out and land somewhere safer, but that would mean giving up on Manehattan. Sombra would go all-out to try and break the city before help arrived, and it would mean losing Freeport’s first battle in the war. Not exactly the grand entry I’d had in mind. We needed a quick and big victory to help shore up Equestria’s morale, and to help convince all the doubters back home that I’d made the right move getting involved. An embarrassing reversal was the exact opposite of that.
I would have to knock them out before they could get a shot off. It was a lot longer than I liked to teleport, and I’d be stuck all by myself in the middle of the enemy forces. But the alternative was letting them pound my soldiers with impunity, and that just wasn’t an option. I’d taken bigger risks and gotten away with—
A warhorn bellowing out from the heavens stopped that thought in its tracks. A squadron of pegasi shot down from the clouds a second later in a classic wedge formation. Even from this distance, I recognized the blue uniform and yellow lightning bolt of the Wonderbolts. They’d been stunt fliers in better times; now, they were one of the best air units Equestria had to offer.
While they knocked out the catapults, I heard something far louder than a warhorn. Thousands of ponies shouted as they charged out of Manehattan to join the battle. Most of the survivors looked like they hadn’t had a decent meal in months. In any sane war they would’ve given up a long time ago, but there was nothing sane about this. They’d held out for more than two years living on grass, rats, and what few supplies we’d managed to smuggle through Sombra’s blockade. They’d suffered through too much to see the liberation fail now.
Faced with attack on two new fronts, Sombra’s army crumbled. Whoever was pulling the puppets’ strings couldn’t deal with that many attacks at once, and before long the army’s cohesion fell apart completely. Probably because Heritor Azurite or whoever it was decided that saving their own worthless life was more important than controlling the army.
I can’t say how long it took us to mop up. The entire battle became a huge chaotic mess once Sombra’s army started crumbling, and I couldn’t do much beyond smash through anything wearing the colors of the Crystal Empire.
Then, so suddenly I could scarcely believe it, we were through. I knocked aside one of Sombra’s thralls, and instead of finding more of them I found myself facing Equestrians. A purple-maned unicorn mare who probably would’ve been beautiful if she hadn’t been skin and bones flung herself at me, latching on and hugging me for all she was worth. “Thank you! Oh, thank you!”
The same scene played out all over the battle line as my soldiers met up with the survivors of Manehattan. I wasn’t sure what to say to any of them, so I went with the most obvious thing I could think of. “We brought plenty of food and—”
Before I could say anything else, the mare kissed me full on the lips. I probably shouldn’t have been so shocked. After two years of siege and starvation, the prospect of a hot meal and warm bed would seem like heaven.
With the battle winding down, I got to work taking care of all the refugees. Manehattan had been the more heavily populated city in Equestria before the war. Now ... well, I knew they’d tried to evacuate as many citizens as they could before Sombra’s army closed in. I wanted to believe that was the only reason there were so few ponies left for us to help. I also knew that was probably far too optimistic.
I was making sure all the survivors were getting whatever they needed when one of the Wonderbolts landed in front me, snapping off a quick salute with a prosthetic steel wing. “Colonel Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt Squadron, Equestria Air Command.” She pulled off her helmet and smirked at me. “Looks like we pulled your butts out of the fire.”
I responded in kind. “Sorry, I thought you were the ones surrounded by the enemy before Freeport got here to save the day.”
Colonel Dash snorted. “They were gonna push you back into the sea before we showed up.” She didn’t say anything else for a while, her eyes lingering on the steady column of refugees getting food, fresh clothes, and whatever else they needed. When she spoke once more, her smile had vanished and she sounded completely serious. “Thanks for the assist. We’d been holding out for as long as possible, but I don’t know how much longer Manehattan could’ve lasted. I’m amazed they held out as long as they did.”
I nodded gravely. “Celestia always said ponies were a lot stronger than they realized.”
The colonel grunted, her eyes lingering on a couple of mares dressed in the ragged remnants of silk dresses. “Guess she was right. Then again, when I was a kid I wanted to fly with the Wonderbolts and beat up monsters. Guess that means I’m living the dream, right?” She laughed humorlessly, her eyes drifting down to her prosthetic wing. She slowly flexed it a few times. “Still getting used to this thing. Not quite as fast as I used to be, but that’s still faster than anything Sombra can put in the sky.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “What happened?”
“I was part of the team that took out Heritor Malachite.” She shot me a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “He got my wing, I got his head. Fair trade.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t get it. The normal soldiers are mind-controlled, but the Heritors joined up with him willingly. Why would anypony do that?”
“Greed, ambition, or maybe they’re just stupid and evil,” I answered. “There are always gonna be a couple bad apples who figure that joining up with the local evil overlord is the right move. Being in charge of the slaves is better than being one.”
“Yeah, if you’re a total jerk,” Colonel Dash grumbled. “I still can’t believe Heritor Azurite got away from us. How he manages to move that giant palace of his so fast...”
That got my attention real fast. “So you’re sure it was Azurite commanding here?”
My former apprentice was close enough to hear that, and Kukri’s ears perked up as she trotted over. “Azurite. Isn’t he the one who—”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to deal with the can of worms that would get opened up if Kukri finished that sentence. It was ... personal.
When Sombra first returned, before he’d gotten his huge army of thralls to launch the invasion of Equestria itself, Princess Cadenza had been put in charge of stopping him. Naturally, she’d turned to the Archmagus of the Northern March for help. Scarlet Runeseeker. My mother. As evidenced by the fact that Sombra had marched on to Equestria itself, Cadenza’s expedition to the Crystal Empire hadn’t gone well. Details on what exactly had happened were sparse, but rumor had it that the stallion who became Heritor Azurite was part of the expedition. If that was true, he was the only known survivor.
I had no idea why Celestia had picked Cadenza to head the expedition, beyond the fact that she was royalty. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder if my mother would’ve done a better job if she’d been in command. I suppose it was at least good news that I’d run into Cadenza during the whole Zebrica debacle and we’d managed to at least somewhat clear the air. Or maybe it wasn’t good news. It would’ve been a lot easier to deal with her death and everything else that had happened if I could’ve just blamed my mother’s death on a stupid unqualified brat who didn’t deserve to be a princess.
Then again, even veteran archmagi make mistakes. When my father led one of the early attempts to break the siege of Manehattan, he’d found Azurite on the battlefield and...
“Any idea which way Azurite went?” The words left my mouth without first stopping to consult my brain.
“North.” Colonel Dash shrugged. “Probably trying to get back to King Evil Crystalface. Not that it’s gonna do him much good.” Kukri shot a curious look her way, so she explained, “Sombra’s the kinda evil overlord who starts killing minions whenever things don’t go his way. When we beat Heritor Fulgurite at Fillydelphia, the next time we saw his army they were carrying the Heritor’s head on one of their banners.”
What a shock. “Well if Sombra kills him off for us, so much the better.”
“If,” Kukri stressed.
“I’m not gonna count on him doing us any favors.” the colonel agreed. “If Sombra was fair and consistent he wouldn’t be an evil overlord. Azurite was one of his first Heritors, he might let the guy off with a warning.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t want him getting away.”
“Me either.” I started pulling a plan together. “You said he has some sort of mobile palace? What’s the deal with that, and how fast does it move?”
“It’s more like a fortress than a palace,” Colonel Dash explained. “Made entirely out of crystal, ‘cause that’s Sombra’s thing. He uses a hundred yak thralls to move the whole fortress around. It looks as ridiculous as it sounds, but we haven’t been able to crack it yet. He’s got ice trolls defending the thing, and since he can move it around it’s hard to get any siege weapons in position. Maybe if we could get Celestia to go after him, but she’s usually busy dealing with Sombra...”
“I guess it’s up to us, then.” I started taking a mental inventory of what we’d need to knock out a mobile fortress. It wouldn’t be an easy job; from what the colonel said, it moved too fast for us to catch up with it while towing artillery. We could still set up an ambush or try to catch it with my fleet, but if Azurite had half a brain he’d stay away from the coast, and getting ahead of him with artillery would be even harder than catching up to him. Taking out a mobile fortress without any siege equipment would almost certainly get ugly.
The colonel grimaced and nodded. “I took a couple cracks at that thing during the siege, when we were trying to break the lines long enough to get supplies in and civilians out. Obviously, it didn’t work out. Azurite has it sealed up tight. No way in unless you can fit through an arrow slit, and nothing sort of sustained bombardment with heavy siege weapons is going to break through those gates.”
“This one has a plan,” Kukri piped up. “If the mobility is the problem, why not just take out the yaks pulling it? Or else sabotage the roads. Something that huge would almost certainly bog down if it had to cross a muddy field instead of a well-maintained road.”
Colonel Dash nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, they had to clear out a lot of rubble whenever they wanted to use the fortress against us in the city. Only problem I see is that we’d have to use the same roads to catch up with them. Going after the bearers could also work. Azurite keeps plenty of spares around so he can swap them out when they get tired, but it’d still slow them down a bit more.”
“It’s a start.” I frowned and finally figured out how to word my own proposal. “What would be better is if we could stop him from trying to run completely. Can you think of anything that would make Azurite turn around? Some objective we could threaten that might force him to stop running and face us?”
She thought it over for a minute, then shrugged. “Not much. The siege was the most important thing Sombra had going on here, and you guys already busted that up pretty good. Plus it’d have to be something huge to make him turn around when he’s running for it. The whole reason Azurite is Sombra’s oldest Heritor is his keen sense of self-preservation.” She paused a second, and a grin slowly spread across her lips. “Actually, maybe I’ve got something. Like I said, Sombra might want him dead just for losing this battle. You can bet Azurite knows this too, and he’ll be on the lookout for anything he can use to soften the blow.”
I could follow the logic from there. “So if we give him a chance to redeem himself in Sombra’s eyes, he’ll jump on it. Even if he smells a trap, he’ll probably take a chance as long as he thinks he has a shot of turning it around. Better to take a chance against us in battle than go back to Sombra empty-hooved and die for sure.”
Kukri grinned and nodded. “This one thinks the plan could work. The only question is what bait we use for the trap.”
Colonel Dash leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “I’ve got an idea...”
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I grumbled as Heritor Azurite’s mobile fortress slowly rumbled towards us. “This is the worst plan I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve had to listen to dozens of Strumming’s ideas.”
“I resemble that remark,” Strumming grumbled just loud enough for me to hear. “Though I guess I should be honored you brought me along. Unless I’m just here to be the expendable one.” None of us said anything, and she shot a playful glare my way. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’m here in case you need somepony to heroically sacrifice herself?”
“Chillax,” Colonel Dash murmured from her hiding place. “This is totally gonna work.”
“I hope you’re right.” Mostly because we would all end up dead if she was wrong. Or worse, wearing mind control helmets.
We’d gone for a small team. Bringing Kukri along had been an obvious choice, and Strumming did have a knack for sneaky off-the-wall solutions. The colonel had insisted on joining up, and since it was her plan it would’ve been hard to cut her out. Besides, she knew the local area and Heritor Azurite’s capabilities a lot better than we did, and if she’d been part of the team to take out Heritor Malachite she was obviously good enough to pull her weight.
Going with just a small team was … nostalgic. Almost like my old youthful mercenary days before I’d become the archon. All the responsibilities that came with running my own nation left me rather short on freetime to go off on dangerous adventures.
Azurite’s ridiculously huge mobile fortress was already visible up ahead. One of the downsides of making something that massive was that it was easy to spot from miles away. Just like the colonel had said, it was being dragged along by a ton of enthralled yaks. It was still managing to move along at a surprisingly good pace despite the fact that the road had been turned to mud by some weather ponies. Either the the fortress’ treads were a lot better at moving through rough terrain than we’d anticipated or there was magic involved, not that it took a genius to guess that the massive mobile crystal fortress was a bit magical.
While I couldn’t say much for Azurite’s taste, he had done a reasonably good job of making his ridiculously impractical home base marginally effective. Rather than a lavish palace with huge soaring spires, it was a squat, ugly little thing dotted with arrow slits and four very basic towers sporting functional machicolations. The only entrance was a proper gatehouse, complete with a portcullis. Unsurprisingly the entire thing had been made out of deep blue crystal, though something a bit harder than Azurite’s namesake gem.
It also had plenty of magical fortification to go with the good engineering. The whole construct was dimensionally anchored, so I couldn’t just teleport past the defenses to open it up from the inside. There were also all the standard spells to make it tougher and harder to break, not to mention cutting down on the natural brittleness of crystals. Even if we could’ve brought some heavy artillery to bear on the thing, it would’ve taken a long time to actually batter down the walls.
Credit where it was due, as ridiculous and impractical as the whole idea of a mobile crystal palace was, they’d at least done a good job of actually building one. Even if we took away the mobility, actually sieging it down would be a tough job. Mindless thralls wouldn’t care about slowly starving to death with no hope of relief, and Azurite almost certainly had a few nasty surprises waiting for anyone who attacked him.
That was why I didn’t plan to try and batter down his fortress. Much better to try a sneaky plan … as long as I didn’t wind up making one that was too clever by half.
I took a quick mental inventory. My armor was in good condition and freshly polished. Both my golems had been fully repaired from the damage they’d taken storming the beaches. I had my runestones made and charged, and I’d triple-checked that all the runes were properly crafted. Kukri, Colonel Dash, and Strumming were all ready to go. Kukri’s golems looked fine too. The colonel’s equipment looked good from what I knew of Wonderbolt gear. Strumming ... she was probably fine.
Four ponies to storm a fortress. Nowhere near enough, but the colonel’s plan wouldn’t work if I had an army at my back. Strumming was pretty certain it would work despite our low numbers, which was almost certainly a warning sign that there was a huge problem with this plan.
Oh well. Time to see how horribly this would go wrong.
I stepped out into the open, letting everyone in Azurite’s fortress get a good look at me, then copied an old spell I’d learned from Celestia that made my voice loud enough to rattle windows. “Heritor Azurite! I am Archon Sunset Shimmer of Freeport! You killed my parents! Prepare to die!”
He didn’t come out right away, but I hadn’t expected him to immediately respond. A trap needs a bit more bait to really work. I had a pretty good guess of what would do the job. “Is this the greatest of Sombra’s generals? A coward who hides behind his walls whenever someone comes to challenge him? I’m sure everyone in Canterlot will laugh when they learn how weak and pathetic the great Heritor Azurite really is.”
That got a response. Most would-be evil overlords hate the idea of being laughed at. It really pops the insane egotistical bubble they live in. The gates slammed open, and a dozen heavily armed and armored ice trolls marched out. Each of the huge brutes stood almost as tall as one of my golems, and while it was hard to tell exactly how ugly their faces were under the crystal plate armor, they still smelled just as nasty as any other trolls. Most of them were carrying huge scythes, swords, and axes with hooked and barbed blades that were probably supposed to be scary. The biggest of the trolls wasn’t armed at all, instead holding a massive skull-topped banner that went on in great detail about every single one of the Heritor’s supposed accomplishments.
Finally, the Heritor himself exited. His massive set of spike-and-skull covered crystalline armor somehow allowed him to look even taller than all the ice trolls he’d picked out as bodyguards. Azurite’s ordinary unicorn-sized head looked comically small inside the suit, almost completely lost between the two ridiculously oversized shoulderpads that probably blocked at least half his line of sight—not to mention the spikes were so long and poorly placed that there was a considerable risk he’d put out one his own eyes if he moved too quickly.
Heritor Azurite glowered down at me, grinning evilly. “So, I killed your parents? Considering how many weaklings I’ve destroyed, you’ll really need to narrow it down a bit.” He paused, then his grin widened as he removed one of the skulls from his banner. “Wait are you ... well well well. Archmagus Runeseeker’s little girl, all grown up. I can see the family resemblance. Don’t worry, after I kill you I’ll put your skull right next to mommy’s.” He nodded to another skull on the banner. “That’s what I did when your daddy came after me.”
I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait. “You talk a big game for someone running away with his tail tucked between his legs after I destroyed his army.”
“Where’s your army now?” he scoffed. “Did you leave them all behind just so you could catch me? A stupid little filly ruling a little city on the edge of nowhere who dropped everything just so she could avenge mommy. Do you have any idea how outclassed you are? I sit at the right hoof of Emperor Sombra himself. Whole provinces tremble at the sound of my name. You think you’ve won? It's only a matter of time until we re-establish the siege, and your minor victory is completely forgotten.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll pull a whole new army outta your ass ... assuming Sombra doesn’t lop your head off for being a total failure.”
Azurite’s eyes widened, and his voice turned shrill. “I am one of his greatest servants! I have served him since his return! You are a fool if you think he would turn against me just because you managed to insignificantly delay our inevitable triumph.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he never punishes minions who fail him.” I conjured up an icy chair and flopped into it, making myself comfortable. “Go ahead. Go back to the Crystal Empire and tell him how bad you bucked up. I’ll just wait until you come back, or I see your head on top of one of his banners.”
Azurite’s teeth clenched, and I knew I had him. “How about I show him your head instead?!” His horn lit up, and I had more than enough warning time to teleport out of the way before a beam of pure darkness slammed into my icy throne and shattered it into a million pieces.
Azurite glared at me, his entire body trembling with rage. He whirled to his minions. “Kill her! Tear her to pieces! Bring me her head!” His ice trolls wasted no time following his commands, readying their weapons and advancing menacingly.
The ice trolls were big enough to be a problem for me, if not for one rather important factor. “You’re sending ice trolls against a pyromancer? I knew you were stupid, but ... wow.” I chucked a couple fireballs at the brutes to get things started. Their crystal armor blocked the worst of my attack, but between the shaggy hair covering their bodies and the thick layer of oily blubber ice trolls had to protect them against the cold, it didn’t take much. Two of the trolls dropped to the ground, slowly roasting inside their own armor.
Azurite’s eyes widened, and his voice rose a couple octaves. “You think you’ve won? I have not yet begun to show my true power!” As his trolls closed in on me he fired off a huge burst of razor-sharp black crystal shards. The shards themselves were magically inert, which left out most of the traditional options for defending against them. Unfortunately for him, I’d learned a few spells from Celestia. Once more I blinked out of existence, teleporting out of the way of his attack. The shards passed right through where I’d been, continuing on to take one of his trolls in the back and kill it with satisfying thoroughness.
Azurite scoffed and signalled his minions to close in on me while he worked on a new spell. I flash-fried the first of his trolls, but that heavy crystal armor made it tricky to take them down without a lot of power or precision. As they started closing in on me I teleported away, but it took way longer and instead of the usual lightspeed blink it felt like I was slowly crawling through molasses. When I finally reappeared a few seconds later, my tail was missing its last couple centimeters.
The smirk on Azurite’s lips confirmed my fears. He was throwing up some sort of dimensional anchor spell to keep me from doing any more teleporting. Next time I tried, I’d probably lose something a lot more important than a bit of hair.
Of course, that cut down my options for getting away from all the trolls. I managed to down another two before they closed in on me again, but after that there weren’t many viable tactics. My armor was good, but I didn’t want to test my luck against a trolls’ weapons. Even if my armor held up to a hit from one of those huge swords, it would probably break half my ribs just from blunt force trauma. I instead blocked with a force dome, but holding back all those huge troll weapons had me sweating in less than half a dozen hits.
“Foolish little girl,” Azurite scoffed. “You might be good, but you can’t beat me all by yourself. That’s a lesson your parents learned. Oh, wait—they didn’t learn anything, because they died! Just like you’re going to.”
“Who said I came all by myself?” My golems barreled into the trolls to take the immediate pressure off of me, followed shortly by my living allies. Kukri’s smaller golems didn’t have the raw hitting power to trade blows with the trolls like mine, but they were small and quick enough for the others to attack from the rear and flanks while one kept the troll’s attention. Strumming stayed up high, darting for a troll’s face and putting a flechette perfectly through the helmet’s eye slit. By comparison, Colonel Dash’s tactics weren’t too subtle, but slamming into a troll at just shy of the speed of sound was undeniably effective.
Azurite’s jaw dropped as his trolls started to fall. “It doesn’t matter—none of this matters! I don’t need any of my minions to crush you like a bug!” He charged towards me, lifting up one of his massively armored hooves to stomp me flat.
I wasn’t going to let him try that, so I exploited the most obvious weakness of that huge suit of armor. A quick blast of ice at the ground sent his crystal-covered hooves sliding out from underneath him, and the massive Heritor went tumbling to the ground. A second after he hit his body dissolved into living shadow, flickering away from me.
“You running away now?” I shot out, using the opening to put a firebolt through the head of a troll who was giving Strumming a bit of a hard time. “I think I’ll take your fortress for myself. And we’ll laugh at you all the way to Canterlot.”
Azurite’s body reformed. “Funny, your mother said the same thing.” He grinned. “A few minutes later, she was begging me for mercy.”
My teeth clenched. “Shut your filthy mouth!” I chucked a couple wild, unfocused fireballs at him, drawing on my anger to power the spells.
Azurite smirked and swatted my attacks aside. “Oh, did I hurt your little feelings? Would you like to know how daddy died? Maybe you’ll like that one better. By the time I was done with him, he was asking me to send him to join his wife.”
I snarled in wordless rage, hurling a huge ice spear at him. Once again he knocked the attack aside with barely any effort. Then he counterattacked, his shadow separating from himself and rushing in to wrap itself around my hooves, yanking me to the ground. “Dammit!”
Azurite smirked, his shadow hauling me up by the hooves until I was dangling upside down in front of him. “How terribly disappointing. Your parents lasted a lot longer, and didn’t fall for such obvious bait. You really are a stupid little girl, aren’t you?”
“Nope.” My horn lit up and unleashed a blinding flash of light right into his eyes. Azurite groaned and staggered back blindly, his shadow construct torn asunder by beams of pure light. I managed to land reasonably well, but my rune pouch burst open and scattered its contents across the ground.
By the time I was back on my hooves, Azurite seemed to have recovered from the worst of my light blast. “Enough! I’m done playing with you, girl! You’re not the only one who knows how to play with golems!” His fortress shuddered, and four large chunks of it dropped off, reforming themselves into four vaguely equine-shaped effigies of pure crystal. “My master has given me gifts you couldn’t begin to comprehend!”
“Oh yeah, I definitely couldn’t understand golems.” I took a moment to concentrate on my own golems, redirecting them from the struggle against the trolls to deal with their crystal counterparts.
“I still have you outnumbered two to one!” Azurite scoffed.
“Quality over quantity.” I sent an extra pulse of energy to my golems as Azurite’s closed in, making mine smarter, faster, and stronger. The two golems feinted to the sides, then came back to the center to both strike at the same target, shattering it under the combined strike. From there, one of my golems followed up by using its halberd to hook an enemy by the leg and pull it down, and the second followed up with a hammer strike that cracked the crystal mockery’s torso in half.
Azurite’s jaw dropped. “How did you…?” Golems were supposed to have only rudimentary intelligence, capable of only the most basic combat maneuvers and pre-programmed instructions. Mine were several steps beyond that, as I’d demonstrated by channeling a spell through one of them. A sonic pulse shot out of the golem’s fist, slamming into its crystal enemy and reducing it to a pile of blue powder.
I smirked as my golems quickly finished the last of his off. “Is that it?”
Azurite’s jaw had almost hit the ground at just how severe the mismatch was, but he rallied quickly. His eyes went wide. “Fine! I don’t need the golems! I don’t need the trolls! I’ll kill you all by myself!” His horn … didn’t so much light up as suck in all the nearby light around itself. A voice wailed in the distance, slowly growing louder as more and more energy started swirling around him. I knew enough about the nastier side of magic to realize what he was up to: he was tapping into all the dark energy his years of serving Sombra had produced. That could power some extremely powerful spells.
When he opened his eyes they were bright green, with red irises and purple energy whirling around them. “It’s all over, little girl.”
“Yeah, it is.” I took a deep breath and readied up my own spells. “For you.”
I opened up with a tightly focused beam of white-hot flame. Azurite managed to block it, but before he could even think about countering, I fired a burst of pure cold so intense it left an icy trail in the air. I followed that up with a burst of blightfire that withered the grass beneath his hooves, and then sent ice spikes erupting out from the ground aimed at his stomach.
It was everything Azurite could do just to keep up with me. As it was, several of my attacks took chunks out of his crystal armor, slowly whittling down his defenses. The negative energy he’d gathered up could do all sorts of nasty things, but it wasn’t really suited to defensive spells. Dark magic was used to kill, destroy, and dominate.
That’s why I kept up the offensive, hammering away at him with spell after spell so quickly he couldn’t do anything but try to hold me back. He couldn’t hope to match the pace I set unless he’d managed to replicate the synergy of my personal evocation spellcasting style, and that involved taking forces that should have been on opposite ends of the elemental spectrum and putting them in perfect balance so that each spell flowed naturally from the next. Despite years of training from me, Kukri had never managed to replicate it. I wasn’t even sure if Celestia could copy this particular trick. The only two ponies who’d ever managed it had died over eight hundred years ago, and I’d made a lot of improvements on the work of Sunbeam and Midnight Sparkle.
In time, I broke his defenses completely. A shadowy blade cut a chunk out of his shoulderplates, and then a burst of multicolored light shattered one of his greaves. He staggered back in shock, his eyes wide. “No, you can’t—”
“Watch me!” I fired two beams at him, one of pure anima and the other pure anti-anima. The two shot forward, twisting and spiraling around each other until finally merging right as they slammed into his chest. The resulting explosion hit me like a sledgehammer, and I barely managed to stay on my hooves. And I was a lot further away from it than Azurite.
When the dust cleared, the first thing I saw was the shattered remnants of Azurite’s huge set of crystalline armor. The Heritor himself lay several meters past that, his body covered in hundreds of cuts from his armor shattering. One of the spikes from his shoulderpads had lodged itself in his right eye socket, and a steady flow of blood and other fluids trailed down his face.
Outside the armor, he didn’t look impressive at all. In fact, he looked ... ordinary. If I’d passed him on the street I wouldn’t have given him a second glance. Just another small, insignificant little stallion in a big uncaring world. Maybe that was why he’d thrown his lot in with Sombra: it was the only way he’d ever be more than a nobody.
Somehow, he was still alive. The battered stallion hauled himself to his hooves, snarling. “I will not be defeated by some mewling little girl! I am Heritor Azurite! Favored of Emperor Sombra, the ruler of the World! Now I will show you my full power!” His scream gradually rose higher and higher as he dug deeper into the well of dark magic that he’d been using for this entire fight. However, between how much he’d already used and the extent of his injuries, he’d pushed his luck too far.
I felt the air around us tremble as his power started spiraling out of control, the very magic tearing him apart. His ravaged body could no longer contain the forces he was trying to wield, and his body cracked open as dark magic spilled out him. Soon the flesh of his face began burning away, revealing the skull underneath. His scream grew higher and even more horrible, somehow continuing even as his tongue and throat burned away. From there, things got even nastier.
I’m not going to say that he didn’t deserve a nasty death for everything he’d done, but I had my limits. I fired off a quick blast of raw force to finish him off. The blast sent him flying through the air, still howling in agony despite the fact that he didn’t have vocal cords anymore. When he slammed into the wall of his fortress it sent a huge crack up the crystalline structure, and when his body exploded a few seconds later the entire structure slowly came tumbling down.
The silence after Heritor Azurite fell was deafening. If any of his trolls or other minions were still alive, all the fight had gone out of them. No surprise, when he couldn’t order any of his mindless minions around anymore, and the ones like the trolls who served him willingly seemed to regret their decision after seeing their dark master defeated. Personally, I was just glad I’d taken him down. I hadn’t been that close to my birth parents, but ... it felt right, that I’d been the one to finish off their killer.
The others trotted over to me, and Strumming whistled appreciatively. “Nice one, boss-mare.”
Kurki settled in next to me and nodded gravely, her eyes on the remnants of Azurite’s fortress. “Vengeance.”
I let out a slow breath, trying to get a hold of everything going through my head. It was still hard to believe I’d actually pulled it off. “I’m just glad we got him.”
“Darn right we did.” Colonel Dash grinned and slapped me on the back. “Wait until everypony else hears about this. We took out Sombra’s best general! This one’s gonna be in the history books! A hundred years from now, when kids are learning about this war in school, they’ll talk about this. This is the day we started winning the war!”