Hayden stepped outside into a ruin of the griffon military unit. Corpses were spread around them in two rings—the first, facing inward, with weapons all nearby. The second facing away, without their weapons.
The Blackwings killed the ones attacking, then they killed the ones running away.
Princess Luna stopped beside her, staring at the dead. Then she looked to the side, where the Blackwings had gathered. Not all of them stood in ranks—there were still scouts watching the city, and a few remained in the air to make sure they weren’t ambushed.
Sideswipe stepped up to Hayden, saluting her before the princess. “Three more rifles are non-responsive, ma’am.”
“Casualties?”
“Two injuries, both from crossbow bolts that made it through gaps in the armor. Neither seriously.”
“Good work.” Hayden turned to the princess. “Do you know what these birds were doing here in Icefalls? Before they tried to target you?”
The princess was still looking at the dead. But for all she stared, she lacked any of the disturbed panic that birds like Skylark had shown around Hayden. She was callous to the corpses.
“Yes,” she said. “They were trying to discover where we’re keeping our civilians.” She walked over to one, turning the bird over with a hoof and drawing his bloody knife. She cut away the satchel the griffon was carrying, lifting it up towards Hayden. She winced at the smell—one she’d known from a lifetime of city pools and water parks.
“They were… going to hold them for ransom? Hostages to make us surrender?”
“I don’t think so.” The princess dropped the corpse and its cargo with contempt. “The Grand Fleet has enough mouths to feed. They only want strong slaves—our stallions and brave mares of the city watch. But slaughtering our population would destroy our will to fight more effectively than any siege could do in months.”
Hayden shuddered. For a few moments she warred with the same despair that had overcome the princess. The pressing weight of inevitability on them. There were traitors in the Equestrian army, and that might keep the fleet from arriving in time. Now they had an enemy determined to bypass their defenses and just kill the people she was trying to protect.
Hayden thought back to her final plan. Her weatherponies waiting in reserve, saving their strength for one last, desperate act. The defense that would surely level the city if she used it.
Not yet. We need to last until Avalon gets here. Just one more night.
“I don’t think they’ll be able to get in. Our citizens are safe where they are.” At least until the air runs out.
Luna was wise enough not to ask where those citizens actually were. “Your soldiers are this effective?”
“These are,” Hayden said, loudly enough that all the Blackwings would hear her. “The best and bravest of Icefalls. We have less equipment than we have ponies to use it, though.” She advanced, lowering her voice to a whisper as she held up the satchel. “We need your help to survive this siege a little longer, Princess. Avalon will be here tomorrow—we can finally fix my mistake, get rid of every parasite living in these bats. You can’t give up now, when we’re so close to winning this.”
Luna walked past her, over to where Sideswipe stood at the head of one formation. He had the good sense to salute her this time. Luna returned the gesture haltingly—it wasn’t the typical pony way of doing things.
“Your name?” she asked.
“Second Lieutenant Sideswipe.”
“Would you die for Icefalls, Sideswipe?”
“Without hesitation,” he answered. “We all would. Right, ponies?”
If Hayden wasn’t watching, she might’ve thought the resulting shout came from a thousand ponies, and not just a few dozen. “YES, SIR!”
Princess Luna faced her again. “Then I will as well. Wherever these ponies get their courage, I’d like to borrow some.” She took to the air, horn faintly glowing. “I am going to prepare a spell. I believe I can buy us one more night.” She vanished in a flash of light, leaving Hayden alone with her troops.
“Don’t worry about the dead,” Hayden said, taking off. “I’ll send a cleanup crew. Back to the fortress, fast as you can!”
Sideswipe took up her order, and soon they were on their way.
Hayden tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep until night came. The new bunk her soldiers found for her was comfortable enough, but not so much that she could ignore the danger her ponies were in. Icefalls might be invaded at any moment. If the griffons were waiting to hear back from their infiltrators, they would eventually discover their failure and resume the attack.
One thing Hayden didn’t do was show her satchel of damning evidence to any of the ponies in her administration. They didn’t need proof of how much they were loathed by their fellows, not now.
Instead, she locked the satchel tight, and entrusted one of the Blackwings to deliver it to the secret hangar, where it could accompany Nightbreeze out of Icefalls.
Then darkness came, and the war-drums started beating again.
Hayden rushed to the roof, ready to watch the death of all she had built for one more night. Only her city would have far less to defend itself with this time. Avalon might return with his cure but find no one was alive to treat.
“I think that’s the princess up there!” called Lodestone, pointing out the window with one hoof. Hayden followed his eyes, and sure enough there she was. A speck of power, glowing in the darkness. Then came the explosion. Illumination flowed out from around her, like the light of a thousand harvest moons hammered until they were solid. They curved up and around the city, spreading until they met the city walls. The stars and black of the sky vanished behind them all, so bright to Hayden’s bat eyes that the city seemed almost in daylight.
Something touched down on the roof above them. A few moments later the security doors opened, and Luna staggered in. She looked like a sponge wrung dry, and her horn sparked every few moments. But the shield above the city remained. “That will last until sunrise,” she promised. “Until Avalon arrives.”
“Why didn’t we do that sooner, Princess?” Lodestone asked, just barely on the edge of disrespect. “A hundred ponies died last night.”
The princess glanced once at Hayden. But she didn’t actually ask to be saved. “Because I will not be able to repeat that,” she said. “And it has done nothing to weaken the enemy. When morning comes, so will they, filled with rage and not disadvantaged by the dark.”
“Oh,” said somepony else.
“Of course, Princess. Forgive me.” Lodestone lowered his head to her. Then he turned to Hayden. “What happens tomorrow?”
“We get Avalon,” she said. “He brings… a powerful magic. Probably not enough to win this war, but hopefully enough to help.”
Outside, the first of the griffon ships had reached the barrier. A few tried to keep going right through it, and smashed up against it. It sounded like they’d struck a gigantic rock crystal, reverberating through the city with the force. Most of the others slowed to a stop outside it. Hayden couldn’t see through the shield very clearly, except that the birds looked to be leaving their ships, and some had started hammering at the barrier. More looked to be landing on it, maybe just to strain it with their weight.
But it didn’t bow, didn’t distort even when whole ships smashed into it and were crushed to kindling by their own inertia. That really will last until sunrise, won’t it?
“We’re going to take the princess at her word,” Hayden announced. “No time to repair the guns we lost… but we can reposition what we have. I want a reduced watch on the city, facing inward. Blackwings and I took care of one team, but there could be others.” She lowered her voice to a growl. “They’re trying to find our citizens. Let’s make sure they don’t succeed. Princess, do you need anything? That spell looks… hard.”
She nodded, swaying on her hooves. “Somewhere to lie down. And I will be nearly helpless when it finally falls. I shall take until tomorrow night to recover. I must be protected until then.”
Hayden considered that a moment. “Slipstream, get a Blackwing team to get the princess into a shelter. Make sure nopony recognizes her.”
To her surprise, the princess didn’t argue. She only nodded, and slumped into a sitting position against the wall. She didn’t look like she would be flying, wherever they went.
They used their night well. While the army outside battered futilely against the barrier, Icefalls repaired as much as they could. They moved around a few of the remaining guns, repositioning them so the city would be more evenly defended. Hayden’s generals had already done their best to transfer soldiers around, but now they had plenty of time, taking ponies from units that had suffered the most and shuffling them into the reserve, while ponies who had sat around defending the undiscovered shelters were moved out to the wall.
“I want our remaining Spellfire rounds all loaded and ready to go the instant the barrier falls,” Hayden ordered. “Those ships outside—they’re as close as we’re ever going to get. Hopefully close enough that some of the flames will leap from ship to ship. Every crew is permitted to fire with no regard for powder. I don’t know that we’ll get another chance after tomorrow. Just save enough to destroy the gun.”
Hayden found herself on the roof of the command tower as the final hours of the night waned away. Her work crews withdrew back to their shelters, ponies rushed out of the barracks and back towards the wall. And birds kept battering at the barrier.
“Do you think we have a chance, High Marshal?”
She didn’t turn around, didn’t look away from the wall. “Using my title, Edge? You’re that worried?”
He settled in beside her, shifting uncomfortably in his gold armor. “I wouldn’t be if they’d given us a decade. We could’ve built our own fleet in that much time. Their Grand Fleet would be firewood.”
She nodded. “They didn’t give us a decade. But even if the Stonebeaks hadn’t come, Equestria would have. At least we aren’t shooting at ponies out there.”
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m not sure we won’t be in a few more weeks. I’ve flown Seaddle to Icefalls on my own wings. They could be here twice over. They’re not. Not even a messenger.”
“Maybe the messengers couldn’t make it through the Stonebeaks’ blockade,” Hayden suggested. But it sounded hollow even to her.
“Maybe,” Honed Edge replied. “And if you believe that, then you probably think Celestia took the whole army away from us by accident, too. That she just forgot to send supply shipments.”
There were cracks forming on the barrier over their heads. Hayden could see them lancing across the sky, starting from the places that these birds had been focused on. It sounded like a massive sheet of ice was breaking open. It’s time for more blood.
“We have to survive,” Hayden said, turning back towards the stairs. “Princess Luna is positive her sister is coming. She was so sure that Celestia wouldn’t leave her to die. We just have to hope she’s right.”
“Nothing but praise for the moon,” Edge said. “But I don’t think she can see her sister clearly. Might be she’s an immortal… but I know what it’s like to be the younger brother. It’s natural to think the ones you love can’t do anything wrong. That they always know better. Even when all the evidence says otherwise.”
There was a sudden roar from above them. Something shot across the sky, something that was brilliant orange and left a trail all the way down. She could see the birds scattering from around it as it came down, trailing a line of billowing white smoke.
The barrier exploded. Huge chunks of light began to tumble down from where it had cracked, dissolving to wisps of fog on their way down. Thank God for that. But Luna would’ve known if she was about to crush the whole city with magic.
Right outside, so close they were practically in spitting distance from her cannons, were some of the greatest ships of the Stonebeak fleet, hiding behind the protection of a shield that was no longer there.
Icefall’s guns had just received their signal. The morning erupted with the roar of a dozen cannons.