//------------------------------// // Chapter 30: Inspection // Story: Evening Star Also Rises // by Starscribe //------------------------------// “She’s been waiting in there for an hour,” Honed Edge whispered, peeking into the open doorway again. Evening Star followed his eyes, taking in the scene as quickly as she could. A representative from the Crown, come all the way from Harmony to inspect Hayden and her work in protecting Equestria. They hadn’t received any letters from the capital—or from anywhere else, for that matter. Aside from the messengers they sent (instructed to lie about their origin), they had been completely isolated from southern Equestria for two months now. The pony within was almost as tall as Hayden herself, a dark pegasus with bright blue eyes and obvious annoyance in her posture. She didn’t want to be kept waiting. She wore ordinary travel clothes, though they looked fine and individually styled in a way ordinary ponies couldn’t afford. So either she was sent from the capital, or she was rich enough to pretend like she was. “Has she done anything?” “Aside from wait for you, no ma’am.” Honed Edge didn’t wear armor or weapons—he was too valuable as an engineer to waste as a soldier when there was so little of the latter actually fighting yet. The fact he had been involved at all suggested serious confusion in the ranks. Icefalls army had been completely reorganized, the city watch dissolved into it, and any trace of the old Equestrian command structure erased. Apparently nopony knew what to do when something from the old world tried to dig its way back into their lives. Hayden paused, straightening her uniform. The fabric concealed the same armored cloth that had come from Avalon’s gifts. Paltry though their numbers were, the armor was light enough to wear almost all the time with little extra discomfort. There were a few sets so large that they didn’t properly fit anypony else, so Hayden would not be putting somepony else on the field at risk by wearing this one. She kept her voice at a whisper. “Have a carriage prepared and alert the wall guard we’ll be making a visit to the first tower. We’ll be doing a single cannon demonstration for her.” “Is that a good idea? Do we want Celestia to know we have those?” She shrugged. “I’m sure she knows already. We haven’t been doing anything to keep pony spies out of the city. Might as well try to look as scary as possible with what we let get out.” Hayden shoved the door open suddenly, striding as confidently as she could into the castle sitting room. Nightbreeze immediately rose to her hooves as she entered. This time, her dress was well tailored and the gems dusting it were real sapphires, not glass. “General,” she said, rising to meet her with a polite touch of the wings. Hayden had yet to enjoy anything more intimate with her, even though their friendship seemed to be mending. Certainly she wouldn’t try it in front of a diplomat. “I hope we didn’t pull you from any more important duties. I was just enjoying a conversation with Miss East Wind. She came all the way from Harmony.” “Really?” Hayden asked, though she wasn’t sure how convincing she would sound. She made her way to the diplomat, raising a hoof in greeting. To her credit, the stranger didn’t react to her with the same confusion or disdain many had for bats—but she had just been sitting in a room with Nightbreeze for a few hours. “You,” the pony said, rising to face her. There was terrible intensity in those eyes, even if they only lingered on her for a few seconds. What is happening in Harmony to make someone like this? “You’re the pony who thinks she can feed a city with half a silo of moldy grain.” “Well, East Wind, you can see for yourself. My methods may be unconventional, but that was the only choice left to me. Princess Celestia didn’t give the northern army to an experienced general and ask her to work within their abilities—she gave a few soldiers to an engineer and asked me to give her a miracle. You can see the results yourself.” The pony huffed, striding elegantly over to the open window and looking out on the city. Icefalls was not the same little town it had been a few months ago. They were still in the shadow of the mountain, but the city outside was different. Most dramatic were the smokestacks—a pair, made of the same ash-stained brick. A number of ugly, rectangular buildings had joined the otherwise charming medieval architecture, where Hayden’s crafts-ponies worked. The wall was also visible from here, with its cannon fortifications growing more secure with every passing day. “I intend to see it all,” the pony said, turning sharply back around to face her. “Princesses help you if I don’t like what I see.” They haven’t yet, Hayden thought, but she didn’t say that. “I’m sure you will, so much as you can understand it,” Hayden said instead. “Our methods are different than you may be used to. But the results speak for themselves. While you’re looking out that window, look for ponies. Tell me if any of them look hungry to you. Recall the last time Princess Celestia allowed supplies to be sent here was before she even called me to this post. That’s the first miracle right there.” “Indeed,” the pony said, staring out the window a few more seconds. “We will have to see if that miracle can stand up to scrutiny or not.” What exactly was this pony threatening? What authority did Celestia purport to have? She had already tried to take away as many soldiers as she could—ordering again would do no good. There were no supply caravans she could threaten to stop. Would she threaten to send the army, and force a confrontation between the military and the Crown? Lodestone doesn’t think they’ll do it. But the longer I can keep up the illusion of doing Equestria’s will, the longer we can act in good standing when we’re making trade contracts with the south and hiring more workers. There was only one downside to that—if they won, Hayden’s flaunting of her commission from the princess would not have made it seem like Celestia betrayed the north and left them to die—it would look like she had made a brilliant strategic maneuver, and seen the talents of some lowly engineer at the bottom of the command structure. Except to those who had actually been there, of course. They would still remember the terror of watching the army retreat, seeing their friends and neighbors join the caravan south and know that no help was coming. The north remembers. There was no sense telling her guest any of that. She would show the pony the best of what the ponies of Icefalls had done, and be damned what she thought when it was over. East Wind didn’t want to go straight to the city wall, as Evening Star had expected. Instead, their carriage and its escort of soldiers went straight out the front of the city, down the ramp towards the active farms. Earth ponies stopped and stared as they passed through the potato field, digging up one of the raw tubers and inspecting it. Hayden had not been disappointed by the combination of chemical fertilizer and earth pony magic. It wasn’t exactly a bounty to feed a nation, but their farms had kept the city from starving. Once spring came, they wouldn’t be limited by the farmland their small number of pegasus ponies could keep warm. Maybe the wealth would come then. “I never learned the details of farming,” East Wind said, as the climbed back into the carriage. “I only knew that there were reasons we did not grow out of seasons. The winter rested the soil, to stop crop yields from going down. This all-year cultivation of yours is doomed to failure.” Hayden whispered through the window on the front of the carriage to take them to the wall, before settling back in her seat. “A myth, East Wind. The gradual depletion of soil comes from…” She hesitated. Her reading had summarized much of this, and she knew it much better than she had when she arrived in Equestria. But how much would a royal diplomat understand? “The depletion of chemicals in the soil. There are… there is a magical and mechanical process to put them back.” Actually it was entirely chemical. It was one of the reasons Icefalls mined limestone. Even so, her use of the word ‘magic’ seemed to satisfy the pony. “The city lord already showed me your harvest records. Unless those were fictional, I suppose it would make no sense to argue. So much, with so few workers…” “The way we plan on doing everything, East Wind. The crown has given us few ponies to work with. Icefalls requires most of them for its mines and factories. We need them to build new fortifications, to fire bricks. Look out your window as we ride. See how many ponies you see sitting around doing nothing.” “Surely, there are plenty.” She drew back the curtains anyway. “So many city-dwellers know nothing useful to you. Their landed husbands bring in bits from tribute. They didn’t come here to work, but to live in whatever pathetic luxury the north can give them.” Hayden grinned—though she was a little surprised the stranger had mentioned the petty nobility, and not the poor. In reality, she had put them both to work. “We find work for them as well. Particularly those who have become thestrals, like myself… they understand there is nowhere else for them to fly. If Icefalls is lost, they will suffer the same fate as the poor. So they work.” The carriage came to a stop at one of the many stairwells leading onto the wall. Much of it had already been here, as Icefalls was a fortress town. But not all. The wall was well manned as they approached—not the handful of ponies who watched it to give the appearance of a little security theater, as there had been when Hayden arrived in Icefalls. Instead, she rotated as many of her soldiers through it as she could—it was a place to give them experience in realistic conditions. She had selected the first of many stations for their visit, the one they manned the best. “There can’t be much up there to see,” East Wind said, her voice just slightly annoyed as they stepped out of the carriage. “I’d rather see where they cast the spell for your fields.” “Another time, perhaps,” Hayden said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. But she had no intention on sharing the actual methods she had learned with Equestria. “I think this will be our last stop.” There were several guards already waiting to receive them. They wore the same equestrian armor, but it had been polished, all the gold leaf buffed out until only silvery metal was left behind. The cloth had been dyed a deep purple, and there were no sun patches anywhere. Otherwise, they looked more or less the same. Except for their weapons. A dozen ponies waited in front of the stairs, protecting a barricade as though an attack might come at any moment. They stood with weapons resting in front of them—mostly wood, but with a wide metal barrel and a simple firing mechanism. Rope fuse instead of a trigger, all polished and in good order. They carried bayonets as well, though none were fixed presently. Every stallion and mare among them also wore polished silvery helmets on their heads, as shiny as the metal on their buttons or their weapons. Though in actuality, only every other pony had an arquebus. Only the unicorns had their own. “This is… peculiar, General Evening Star. Most peculiar.” She followed Hayden out of the carriage, up to the line of ponies. “Those aren’t spears… and I see no shields, either. What have you done?” “Reorganized, East Wind. Entirely reorganized.” Hayden strode past her, to the sergeant standing at the front of the formation. These were not raw recruits, as were mixed in with every other group on the wall. This station was special, as evidenced by the occasional black uniform among the purple, and the strange shoulder-mounted weapons. “Sergeant.” “Ma’am!” He stiffened, saluting with a forehoof. Not the pony way—but something approximating a US military salute. Well, them and many other nations. “Identify your ponies here, Sergeant.” “219th squad, Aquarius Platoon, 2nd Company Equestrian Heavy Riflemen, ma’am!” He fumbled a little over riflemen—the word didn’t do well when ponies tried to say it. But he tried anyway. “What is it they’re carrying? They don’t look very useful against griffons.” Hayden didn’t answer. “I think it would be better to show you the larger ones, East Wind. Sergeant, if you would escort us to your cannon. My guest would like a demonstration. I think you’ll understand all of this better once you’ve seen it, East Wind.” They climbed to the top of the wall. They’d barely made it into the booth when the war drums started sounding.