With the Saddle Arabian Army broken, King Iosef of Saddle Arabia was advised by Mountague, Ginger, and the terribly wounded Xanthos, that it was impossible to mount an effective resistance. Breeghadad was fortified, but the remainders of the Saddle Arabian forces that had retreated to it were demoralized, and many were deserting.
However, Iosef had no intentions of surrendering to the Equestrians. Ordering Ginger, Mountague and Xanthos to stand their ground, or be enslaved, he left with his retainers to the Banoji, the traditional holiday retreat of the Saddle Arabian monarchs. Technically it was a castle, but resembled more of a large manor house with a thick castle wall
Of course, this wasn’t going to be where Iosef would make his stand. In fact, he wasn’t going to make a stand. He had a ship ready to leave, with most of the Saddle Arabian treasury with him, along with a retinue of guards, slaves and servants. According to the reports of his surviving ministers, which Equestrian agents had later interrogated, he had an uncharted island hidden away from Equestrian gaze where he planned to spend the rest of his life.
Princess Alternia had no intention of letting the Saddle Arabian monarch escape, but the Equestrian army had been exhausted by the battle and so were advancing on Breeghdad much slower than she would like. As such, she ordered a flight of pegasi to go with her to Banoji to cut Iosef off.
What they found was a disaster-zone. Terrified Saddle Arabians and slaves among the toppled walls. Somehow, King Iosef’s sloop of war had been dashed against it, but there was no sign of a tsunami. Large waves, yes, but no tsunami.
The story has been unclear to Equestrian historians, until recent events in the Eastern Sea. It turns out that King Iosef tried to escape under the cover of night to go out with the tide.
But as his ship put out for sail, chanting was heard coming from the beach. Surviving slaves talk about how they recognized some of the voices as slaves left behind by Iosef, but always mention that these particular slaves were… odder, tended to be part of a small, close-knit community that were highly reclusive.
These are the words those strange slaves apparently spoke.
Speak to us, mouth of the Old Ones.
Hear our pleas, ears of our Great Gods.
Demon of the Abyss, come with your mighty host.
Shadow of his majesty,
Fiend of a thousand faces
Let us glimpse thy ever-shifting form!
We offer our service to thee.
We offer our lives to thee.
We bear gifts to satisfy your everlasting hunger.
So come and devour, oh Ist’ytal
Great devourer, oh hungry Ist’ytal
Come and devour.
Devour
DEVOUR!
Shortly after that, the accounts tell of a shadowy figure in the distance, that towered over the sloop and smashed it. Nobody could get a good look on the beast as it was night. But they did hear the screams of King Iosef and his Saddle Arabian entourage being massacred. From their screams of horror, it was abundantly clear that whatever it was, had thrown their ship into the retreat, and then began to eat them.
Given the recent events in the Eastern Sea, we’re fairly certain that this figure was Empress Tethys of Aquestria. The witnesses of the event don’t give us any clue as how she was summoned… but the summoners didn’t seem to survive the ritual. Still, we can be reasonably certain that it was her.
At the time though, it was a mystery.
In some ways, Iosef’s death was a convenience, and in others it was a headache. Alternia had wanted to capture him alive, but his death broke Saddle Arabia.
As news of his death spread throughout the country, through rumor mill and by gossiping Equestrian soldiers, Saddle Arabian soldiers just threw down their arms and went home.
After putting the entire army on alert (they were on edge after Iosef’s mysterious death), the 1st division of the Equestrian Army entered a silent, unresisting Breeghdad, watched by slave and Saddle Arabian alike. Meanwhile, the rest of the army waited outside, siege weapons at the ready. Headed by Princess Alternia, the 1st Division marched through the city and met Generals Ginger and Mountague in the Sultan’s Palace to discuss terms of surrender. A division of the army, the 1st Division, encamped around the palace and began to receive the slaves that trickled in, whilst the rest surrounded the capital.
Alternia didn’t demand unconditional surrender. She had no intention of conquering Saddle Arabia, but slavery was unacceptable.
She demanded all slaves were to be repatriated to their countries, if not settled in Equestria itself. The Saddle Arabians would have a sultan, but one selected only after a series of intellectual and physical trials, with his or her successor selected the same way. They could have an army, but their navy was to be limited to a certain size. Equestrian troops were to be garrisoned in their port towns to ensure compliance. The Saddle Arabians were also to pay reparations.
Harsh terms, but after so much death, after having put up with their barbaric practices for so long, and after having to send her army to a foreign country just to put it to rights? Alternia was fed up.
Mountague and Ginger argued with Alternia fiercely over the terms. They didn’t have much leverage, but they knew “Celestia” wanted to avoid more deaths, and so dug in to try to lessen the impact of the terms. So fiercely that the only ceasefire agreement they could agree to was for both sides not to kill each other until they could negotiate a surrender, and that slaves were free to leave their masters.
During that night, though, well… there was a complication.
Most of the slaves in Breeghdad had left for the safety and food provided by the Equestrian Army, let go by their frightened masters.
But some didn’t go to the army. Actually when I write some… I mean out of the 20-25,000 slaves, between 6,000 and 10,000 of them. To put it in perspective, Breeghdad has a population of about 100,000 Saddle Arabians (not including slaves), and Canterlot then had a population of 80,000 (being on a mountain didn’t help. It has a population of about 600,000 now).
All over the city, the slaves rendezvoused. Historians suspect that they must have been gathering in smaller groups for months, plotting and planning what happened next. Nobody knows for sure. It’s likely they began planning as early as the start of the war, or as late as the Siege of Bracken Bay.
What is known is that on that night, after fairly fruitless talks, the slaves attacked their masters.
Their wrath of being abused, beaten and tortured for so long was mainly focused on the noble district, close to the Sultan’s palace. Through the night, they passed through the mansions and houses, stabbing nobles in the throat, venting their rage and anger on their families. Saddle Arabians were driven onto the street by this mob, while being whipped by them. They set fire to their homes, looting their treasures, opening their larders and gorging themselves on food that had been denied to them.
In some ways, it was poetic justice. The masters were now the oppressed, and the slaves were now the oppressors. But… to Alternia, who bore witness to this scene after being woken up by General Eumenes, it was madness.
She mobilized the Equestrian army immediately with strict orders to restore order, and try to make the slaves stop without killing them. They were to protect lives and break up the mob.
The 1st Division was to hold their ground around the palace, and for good reason, the slaves were beginning to march on the palace.
3,000 slaves marched on the palace road to the Sultan’s Palace, where they were met by the 1,000 strong Equestrian Royal Guard and Princess Alternia herself.
Most of the Equestrian Dragoon Guard were very worried about Alternia standing in front of the crowd, but she ordered them to keep their weapons lowered.
The slaves demanded to burn the palace and Alternia… well she talked to them. So far as we know from the records of individual soldier diaries and slave recollections, she told them that destroying the palace, being the master, would make them feel better… but only for a little while. They’d have to live with the fact they had killed, that they’d destroyed that they’d become what they hated.
She then pointed to herself and told them that she’s lived with the lives she’d have to take, and sending ponies to die, and after so long, it still feels terrible.
She then offered them food, she offered them safety, and a new home, in Equestria, away from Breeghdad.
That… that offer, coupled with the sight of the grim-faced Equestrian soldiers, made that band disperse.
But all over Breeghdad, Equestrian forces had to pull apart slave and Saddle Arabian, knock out, if not outright kill those that resisted. It was a horrible, horrible night, and the fires raged throughout the day, until a combination of mages, earth pony strength, pegasi weather control, and the Saddle Arabians that joined their conquerors to save their city, finally got the blaze under control.
The next day, Alternia gave Ginger and Mountague an ultimatum. Agree to all Equestrian terms, or she’d withdraw her troops from the city.
Mountague and Ginger caved in and agreed to all Equestrian demands. The entire treaty is a bit too long for this book, but they were essentially Alternia’s initial demands. Saddle Arabia was still a monarchy, but one with far more checks and balances, with a meritocratic civil service.
And so the Equestrian Army, and the freed slaves who wanted to leave, began their withdrawal from Saddle Arabia, and their replacements began to arrive. The ten thousand garrisoning troops were primarily newly raised soldiers from Fillydelphia and Cloudsdale.
It was then that Ginger and Mountague learned that there was a reason why the Equestrian 1st army was called, The Equestrian 1st Army. There was an Equestrian 2nd Army numbering fifteen thousand ponies that was on standby as the 1st Army had fought in Saddle Arabia. Historians still agree that despite Equestrian preparation, Saddle Arabia could have won the war, but it would have taken a series of unbroken Saddle Arabian victories.
Still, the experiences of the Equestria would mean the nation would emerge from the conflict, completely changed.