Myths and Birthrights
By Tundara
Book Two: Duty and Dreams
Chapter Twenty: The War of the Summer Sun; Fleur de Lis
Fleur woke with a sharp gasp out of troubled dreams. Her heart thumped against her chest, racing as she had done through gilded halls beneath mosaic ceilings torn open to reveal a star studded sky. Reliving the night Athena was hurtled towards Ioka was almost becoming normal.
Stretching out the kinks of sleeping on hard earth, Fleur spared a few motes of aether to clean her coat of the dust accumulated on the road the past few days. It was all she could do to assuage her vanity before she set about girding herself for battle.
Sadly, this too was becoming normal. The barding she wore for the duel appeared along with Aegis, Pallas, and Altanairis. Gems once more bright, the tiara settled comfortably on Fleur’s brow, while shield and spear were set on her left flank. Compared to the trio of divine artifacts, her barding was haggard, torn in a couple places, and had blood on it from the duel.
She probably didn’t need the armour, but it felt good having its weight on her back. Any armourer worth his salt would have balked at the chainmail in particular. But, it was all Fleur possessed, and she wasn’t about to attempt sneaking across a plains covered in soldiers into a city of griffons unprotected.
Everypony else were also preparing for the day to come. Like Fleur, the guards donned their armour and checked their weapons. Soarin and Rainbow simply stretched, while Applejack made breakfast with Pinkie. The Elements of Harmony were accustomed to days such as this, and they never before bothered with swords, spears, shields, or barding. Not when they’d faced mad gods, dragons, or hordes of changelings.
Fleur’s respect for the famed heroines of Equestria only deepened.
Little was said during all this time. Each pony retreated deep into their own thoughts, making peace with their gods just in case. Before eating the guards bent their knees, offering prayers to Twilight and Luna.
Breakfast was a hurried affair, spoons clanking against tin bowls, food shoved into mouths with no regard for manners. As dirt was being kicked over the cooking fire the first echoes of cannon fire reached their camp.
An uncomfortable knot twisted in Fleur’s stomach. She pressed her lips tightly together, and turned to Rainbow. “This plan is most dangerous, non?”
“Ha! Just how I like it,” Rainbow responded, stretching out her wings and legs. She quickly sobered, bravado melting way as she contemplated the armies out on the field.
The griffons and their battle-slaves had repositioned in the night a little further to the west, wedging the zebras between the Southstone’s lowest walls near the mountain base and the open fields. For reasons Fleur had difficulty understanding, the griffons had forgone the advantage of flight and instead landed to form ranks. To the left, out of the zebras’ sight behind a long hillock, waited a contingent of heavy cataphracts. Something seemed off, the griffon army seeming smaller than it had the night before. Ancient trebuchets and onagers already began their bombardment. Their shots fell short, crashing down into the bare ground between the armies.
With their far greater numbers, it was possible for the zebras to maintain their siege while facing down the griffons, effectively dividing themselves into two armies. All through the night they’d bombarded the city’s lowest walls and magical defenses. Rank upon rank of soldiers marched in ordered lines to a distant drumbeat as they formed a long bulwark that stretched almost a mile across. Behind them cannons spoke in deep, punctuating booms. Smoke trails leapt skyward, arcing high into the golden glow of dawn before falling with an unearthly scream into the front ranks of the advancing griffons.
Ares would be thrilled by such a spectacle, Fleur thought, and then violently shook her head.
The battlefield was his favourite temple, and war his sermons. Gleefully he’d watch both armies searching for somepony of merit. His favour was capricious and cruel, though something all ponies of Gaea sought once they’d donned their armour, sharpened their swords, and faced each other beneath a blood soaked sun.
But, his name was not alone on the lips of desperate stallions and doomed mares. With his came his rival, Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom. Generals and commanders in particular sought her favour so they may see through the deceptions and tactics of the enemy while keeping their own hidden.
An electric chill tingled up Fleur’s spine. Her heart began to race. This was all so familiar. In a daze she stumbled a few steps towards the armies.
“Hey, you okay?” Rainbow asked catching up to Fleur.
Fleur did not answer.
Her mind was elsewhere, visiting other places and times.
Ares was the God of Slaughter, but Athena had been the Goddess of Tactics and Strategies.
The tingle along Fleur’s spine grew, and began to coalesce in her withers.
And then she heard the prayers. Griffon and zebras alike began to pray to any who was listening for protection. Ghostly whispers only, the prayers undirected and coarse in their offerings.
“Je peux les entendre,” Fleur breathed, the words cold in her mouth. “They seek guidance and protection.”
She could see now the so-called ‘dragons’ hidden behind the front ranks of spears as clearly as if she stood amongst their number. After her time on the Bellerophon, Fleur was well acquainted with the effectiveness of cannons, but she’d never thought to see them so small. What mad genius would have thought to miniaturize the lethal things and make them small enough to be held and operated by a single zebra?
The pull grew, and before Fleur knew it she was in a partial cantor. Behind her she made out Rainbow yelling for the others. Her steps slowed, the force drawing her towards the eminent battle now causing her to turn around.
Soarin glowed a soft blue, as did Twilight’s guards. A sliver of Athena’s memories sparkled in the depths of Fleur’s mind. Solemn words rose on a haunting tide from the sliver.
“Soarin, I grant you the swiftness of the diving falcon, and the might of the raging bear.”
Through her burst a sudden surge of primal energies. They swirled across the surface of her skin and then sank deeper enfusing muscle, bone, and soul. Only to turn again in search of release. Fleur grunted and collapsed to her knees as the pressure built. She had no idea how to guide or release the magic, to set it to its purpose. Trapped inside her it continued to grow until she was certain it had to burst from her like water breaking an overfilled barrel.
And then, as quick as it built, the flooding aether receded. Fleur trembled, weak and disoriented, the ground wobbly beneath her, and for a second she had a spike of fear that she was about to fall off the disc. This too passed.
Voices warbled together around her, asking if she was alright.
“Oui,” Fleur said, her voice strained. She repeated herself with a cracked smile, pushing herself back up and straightening her shoulders. “I do not know what just happened.”
“You had wings!” Pinkie enthusiastically said, bouncing up and over the others. “Big, sparkly crystally rainbow wings!”
Fleur blinked a couple times, unsure how to respond. She glanced over her shoulders, but saw no wings, crystal or otherwise.
“She is telling the truth,” Applejack said, her tone far more restrained and worried. “You sure you are alright? This kind o’ thing, on top of what happened during that darn awful duel, ain’t good. Celestia’s mane, take it from somepony whose been through a few magical calamities and such, this is troubling.”
“I…” Fleur’s voice trailed off.
It was stupid to claim she was fine. Of course that was a lie. She was terrified, completely out of her depth, and knew what was happening could only destroy everything she’d held dear. Whether she survived or not was immateriel.
Athena was gone, but not so her power, evidently.
Standing up straighter, as if she were a guardsmare at inspection, Fleur said, “It will be as Faust has seen. I will…” She struggled for a moment for the word she needed. “Survive.”
Applejack stared at Fleur a few seconds longer, then shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re staying put here. Hate for you to have another episode anywhere down there. Soarin and Rainbow can get Pinkie and me in and out of that place quicker than lassoing a sleeping unicorn.”
Stung, Fleur couldn’t help but mutely nod.
“Still think this is a bad idea,” Soarin muttered to Applejack just loud enough to be heard by the others. “If something goes wrong—”
“That’s why they’re staying put,” Applejack tilted her head towards Fleur and the four members of the Twilight Guard. “You and Rainbow can’t carry everypony, and there ain’t no way were sneaking across that on hoof.” With a stab of her hoof Applejack indicated the soldier covered fields.
“Come on Soarin, you’re not afraid I am going to outfly you or something?” Rainbow grinned wide as a wildcat who just saw a fat mouse.
Soarin scoffed in return.
It was the wisest choice having the slower, less experienced non-fliers stay behind. The Elements of Harmony were in their, well, element. They’d faced mad-gods and armies before, and despite the minor hiccup at Cadence’s wedding, had always come out unscathed from their encounters.
Though, if Fleur was being honest, how much of that had to do with some combination of skill, luck, and Faust herself secretly looking out for the group?
Skill the three mares had, that was without doubt.
But luck was fickle, and as for Faust… Well, she’d recently died and reincarnated. Who knew if her blessings could be relied upon anymore.
Worry gnawed at Fleur, sending her stomach in to a tumble of doubts.
She took to pacing, strutting the length of the low rise, watching as the armies continued their slow advances. The Elements went through their final preparations, and still Fleur could come up with no better plans. She was certain that Athena would have seen the flaws obscured to her, and wished the goddess would return, give them the guidance they so sorely required. But Athena was well and truly dead, what remained of her essence gone, scattered, or fused in some ephemeral manner to Fleur herself. Maybe if she could access those scraps of power as she’d done, ever so briefly in the duel, then Fleur would have found the answers she sought.
Scouring her brain, she tried to figure out what it was that had called on those residual scraps of Athena’s power. Something about the battle called to Athena’s remnants like the song of a forlorn lover. A sad song pulled from strained cords of a lonely violin. It danced in her breast, caressed by the gentle morning breeze that blew away the dew. In a few hours that same breeze would carry the heady mixture of metallic tang and sorrows unabated.
“The griffons march to their deaths,” she sighed, and shook her head.
Even after the Elements departed she continued to pace and worry and hope for salvation that wasn’t coming.
Rainbow and Soarin had waited until the front ranks of the armies became locked together. With both sides preoccupied with each other, a pair of pegasi could slip past undetected.
At least, that was the theory.
She tracked them until a flurry of commotion of the western flanks of the armies yanked away her attention. A large force of griffon cataphracts flowed from between two low hills in a deadly wave of sparkling steel and flapping banners. Unused to charging on the ground rather than from the air, their gate was uneven, with cracks appearing in their ranks before the first volley of fire erupted from the zebra hoof-cannoneers tore through armour and flesh. Hundreds died or were maimed. Onward they charged undaunted towards their doom. In a rippling wave they impacted against the spear-zebras. The zebras held their ground, for a moment at least.
Several points of black flame burst amongst their line, consuming dozens of lives each, and forming a sudden hole through which the cataphracts could surge. Even miles away Fleur could taste the corruptive nature of the magic. Foul, sulphuric winds coalesced in her nostrils and made her horn ache in sympathy of those who’d died so cruelly.
“The griffons have brought their magi,” said Captain Scabbard, the Royal Guardspony coming to stand beside Fleur. There was a hint a displeasure in the captain’s tone and the corner of her eyes. Like the other royal guards, she’d donned her armour and plum coloured heraldry.
None of them were at all pleased that the Elements had gone off on their own, a sour cloud hanging over the small unit.
A pang of understanding clenched in Fleur’s chest. Snorting, she scuffed a hoof against the dry packed earth. Tension rolled up her legs, and then was released in a gutteral shy. They’d been utterly superfluous except for the brief time on Marelantis. On a disc home to gods and demons, what use were a few common ponies?
Battles of such scope were rarely quick, or decided in the opening moments. The cataphracts having made a hole drove deeper into the zebras. Behind them rushed the common peasant soldier into the gap left behind their initial charge. Quickly, they were becoming trapped, bogged down by so many bodies.
For a short while the western flank dangled on a sword’s edge, able to tip towards either side at the slightest push. The heavy cataphracts continued to be bogged down. A few of the griffons near the trailing edge attempted to fly and use their greatest advantage to harry the land bound zebras, only to be hurled from the sky by short gouts of flame peppered with lead pellets tearing through soft flesh. Unarmoured wings were torn apart, and the screaming griffons crashed back to the ground. Forced to fight on the ground, the zebras far superior numbers began to build momentum.
Fleur took a few steps towards the growing slaughter.
The noise was incredible, even a mile distant from the battle. A tremendous din of raised voices, steel meeting steel, hooves trampling the earth, dying screams mixed with frenzied shouts, and all to the beating of the zebrican drums. The tempo of the drums changed, and the zebrican lines reformed in response.
Slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, the zebrican spear-zebras enfolded the bogged down cataphracts. Their heavier armour proved the griffons undoing as they were surrounded, unable to run for any period without succumbing to exhaustion, and flying impossible with the zebras new weapons keeping the skies empty. In the space of a half hour the pride of the griffon army was torn apart.
What had been a battle had become a slaughter and the fields a charnel house.
Defiant, the griffons continued the fight long after any other army would have been broken. They were a predatory race. Instincts long dormant surged with the thick smell of blood drifting over the battlefield.
Fleur could remain on the sidelines no longer. Before she was aware of what she was doing, she was half-way down the hillside in a full gallop flanked by Twilight’s guards.
At their approach a unit of zebras marching to reinforce the flanks halted at a barked command. The officers leading the two hundred zebras shared confused looks as the five ponies charged towards them. As the gap closed they ordered the soldiers to form ranks. More confusion rippled among the soldiers, but they reacted as they’d been trained.
Slowing to a quick trot as she approached, Fleur called out, “I need to speak with the general! It is a matter of utmost urgency!”
Again the officers looked at each other, uncertain about these approaching ponies. For a moment Fleur worried that they would order their soldiers to attack with those powerful new weapons. Sunlight flashed off brass muzzles pointed in her direction. Having seen first hoof the effects of a cannon, she could imagine the damage even a smaller version could cause.
At a command the soldiers shouldered their portable cannons, and a pair stepped out of line to join the officer in charge of the unit. With pair of soldiers as escorts, Fleur and the small group of guards were guided across the battlefield.
Down in the field the barks from the zebrican artillery was so much greater, as were the yells, screams, and general cacophony of battle. Keeping a quick pace, Fleur hurried her escorts towards the tents and scaffolding towers. As they neared a chorus of horns sounded from high above. Slowing, Fleur whipped her head upwards in time to see griffons, thousands of them, thousands and thousands, emerge on the edge of the clouds. Shining steel cuirasses gleamed in the sun as the griffons leapt towards the heart of the zebrican army. Too many to count, every griffon from the remaining airies descended in a shrieking silvery stream. In a cascading torrent of spears and claws they descended into the very heart of their enemy to the cries of their war-horns.
Drums beat with frenzied urgency to counter the sudden appearance of the griffon reinforcements. Breaking into five wedges, the griffons raked through the unguarded flanks and rear of the zebras. Here and there they were met by uncoordinated hoof-cannon fire. Hundreds of griffons fell, but more zebras were driven to the ground never to rise. The griffons to the west, so close to utter collapse, began to rally, throaty cheers rising from tired throats as a rush of renewed energy invigorated weary bodies.
At the trailing edge of the griffons a pair of blue-pink and orange dots dove towards the earth, chased and chasing several griffons. Down, down, down they spiraled. A griffon came close to Rainbow, and then spun away. Little lines crackled around the barrier protecting Southstone Spires as the griffon passed through it.
Fleur broke into a gallop.
She lost sight of the Elements of Harmony as they plunged into the ranks of soldiers near the cliff faces beneath the city’s lower ward.
“Please, merciful Faust, let them be safe,” Fleur prayed, wondering what use her prayers could be in the midst of such wanton cruelty and carnage.
Worry for her own safety clenched her chest as one of the wedges of griffons flew towards her. The core of the zebra army was in disarray, the supply and logistics harried, the cannons silenced by flashing talons. Zebras abandoned positions in a rout that threatened to spill over to the entire army. Griffons swooped towards the small group of colourful ponies in the midst of the chaos.
Fleur fumbled with Aegis’ straps as the griffon’s shadow fell over her. Cursing her fumbling aura, she freed the shield too late. Talons reached for her throat, a hungry glint in the griffon’s black eyes. A burst of azure magic beside Fleur struck the griffon square in the side and hurled it aside. Crashing hard, the griffon rolled a few times before coming to a limp stop.
“Go! We’ll hold them here,” Captain Scabbard shouted moments before a griffon slammed into her side. Protective spells flashed, and a heavy bang of a hoof-cannon went off almost in Fleur’s ear. The griffon on the captain was tossed away in a spray of blood and viscera. Getting back to her hooves as she fended off another griffon, the captain again shouted, “Go!”
Nodding thanks to the guards, Fleur spun and dashed deeper into the bedlam, leaving the four guards and two zebras to fend off a dozen griffons. The flashes and pops of spells were punctuated by the deeper bangs of the zebras hoof-cannons.
Wildly, Fleur flung herself through the maelstrom of battle. Here, a zebra sat in a daze, one foreleg missing below the knee. There, a griffon tried to pull himself out of a shallow crater, back legs limp and wings mangled. Above, a small cluster of griffon spun and dived with outstretched talons into a mass of white tents. They emerged moments later with a couple flailing zebras in their grip. Only to be struck from the sky by a lashing whip of ruby flames. A Dahkrit strode through the carnage, robes whipping about her legs, with her ifrit by her side. Sculpting fire as she went, the Dahkrit and her spirit-companion created a pocket within which the zebras began to rally. Fleur hardly slowed, intent on finding the command post for the zebrican general.
Ahead a sphere free of griffons was visible. Any that attempted approach was struck down by flame or hoof-cannon. A scaffold stood next to a large tent, around which a dozen drums had been placed. At the drums zebras beat frantic messages, conveying the general’s orders to the soldiers out in the field.
With Aegis held tight by her side, Fleur galloped across the battlefield. Thrice the shield intercepted swooping griffons. Talons scraped across the artifact’s aurichalcum face and with a shove the griffons were sent sprawling into the dirt. Fleur paid them little attention, focused on reaching the command post.
She needed to end the battle. Somehow.
No ideas came to mind. Even if she convinced the zebrican general to halt his advance, the griffons were not likely to co-operate. Especially now the tide had turned in their favour.
What could she say? Assuming they would even listen.
Pushing aside hopelessness, Fleur breathlessly slowed to a cantor as she reached the command post. A double ring of elite hoof-cannoneers warily watched her approach. In sequence the front row fired at a group of griffons that drew too near, and then fell back to reload while the rank behind took their place. Even without the hoof-cannons, it was unlikely the griffons could have approached the small hillock on which the post was situated. A very powerful ward tingled against Fleur’s horn and skin as mounted the final few steps. Were she more experienced, maybe she’d have known the ward’s properties, and how it was keeping the small area secure when so many griffons flew only a few hundred yards away.
The source of the spell was evident before Fleur pushed her way into the tent. The air fairly stank of dark, corruptive powers that could only belong to Algol.
Lounging on a cushion, Algol grinned at Fleur’s entrance, popped a berry into her mouth, and loudly chewed.
Next to Algol sat another pony that was both familiar, and unknown. Chains wrapped around herwhite wings and midsection. Her fiery mane was lanky and unkempt. A sprinkle of hope flickered in her sharp features at Fleur’s arrival. Something about the mare made Fleur’s gaze slip from her, and ignore her presence. Hope faded into forlorn resignation, her head sinking to stare at the space between her hooves.
Like iron filings to a magnet, Fleur was drawn towards the commotion at the center of the tent.
Several zebras stood around a large table holding a map of the battlefield, complete with little figurines for the armies. Aides took notes before running out of the tent to relay orders. Others flew in to update the map, using long handles sticks to push figurines around the map.
“Have the Twelfth and Thirteenth continue to advance on the city,” the zebra with the most ornate and decorated armour was saying. Beads of sweat trickled down a brow pinched tight with unearing concentration. “Stars damn the griffons. Abandon the field hospital and eastern batteries. The Seventh and Forty-Second are to re-organise to their south, then march back north. We’ll sweep the field clear yet. Where is Lord Halphamet and his dahkrit?”
“The Empress' Hoof carves his way towards the city still,” supplied and aide.
The general took this with a slight nod. “Good. He will manage the eastern flank. What of—?”
Just then another aide burst into the tent, and gasped, “The Sixteenth is collapsing! The cataphracts are breaking through into the center!”
Nodding stoically at the information, and began issuing a new series of orders while figurines were furiously moved. Stepping closer, Fleur noted that, according to the map, the griffons and their battle-slaves had made a hole in the center of the encirclement, and headed to join with the griffons running amok in the center of the field.
While spectacular and devastating, the appearance and charge of the reserve cataphracts into the very heart of the zebrican army had failed to break their enemy. All the zebras needed do was turn their western flank around, and the griffons would be completely encircled, again. It was a matter of who could react faster, issue the proper orders, and have their armies respond. From how the griffons were more intent on sowing personal chaos and carnage, Fleur doubted it would be they who managed to reorganise first.
Unless the chaos was a feint.
She went right up to the map, eyes flickering over its surface, taking stock of the disposition of all the forces of both armies.
Her heart sank. The griffons had lain waste to much of the zebrican artillery and logistics before slamming into the unprepared flanks of the western units. Several units were utterly destroyed, the figurines toppled on the map, leaving the rest in three large pockets engaged by three of the wedges that had emerged from the clouds as well as the remnants of the griffons initial charge. In contrast, the western side of the zebrican army had come off light. They’d fended off the southernmost wedge, and stalled the griffons momentum in the north. All while maintaining their siege.
If any additional reinforcements had come from the city in that crucial half-hour following the sweeping arrival of the griffons into the core of the zebrican army… But they hadn’t, and Fleur could find no reason as to why.
Then the answer struck her with such force her knees almost gave out beneath her.
“It seems rather greasy grey, doesn’t it,” Algol stated, making Fleur jump. “He can see it, of course. A third of his army will be dead before the remainder can properly re-organise. It is already too late. None of which matters. Something far worse approaches.” A manic smile gleamed in Algol’s unsettling eyes. The pegasus beside raised her head a little, chains rattling. “She is coming. Glorious, brilliant crimson and white! Both armies are doomed. Ah, it will be a golden to behold!”
Fleur ignored the Demonstar. She needed to focus on ending the battle as quickly as possible.
“General,” she said, starting around the table, only to be intercepted by a pair of aides. “I must speak with you!”
This caught the general’s attention. His head whipped in her direction, eyes narrowed. He took in Fleur’s armoured appearance and the spear and shield floating at her side with a snort. “And who are you to barge into my tent in the middle of a battle and demand my attention?”
Squaring her shoulders, Fleur made a very slight bow and introduced herself. The general frowned at ‘Ambassador of Prance’.
“A guest of the Empress,” he half-turned back to his maps. “What reason are you here at this crucial hour?”
“General, you need to signal a retreat!”
“Retreat? Hardly. The Empress demands we assault Southstone and put an end to the griffons aspirations now and forever. There will never be another resurgence of their rule over the disc.”
“Resurgence? Rule? Are you mad? The griffons have been crumbling for centuries!”
“And we will kick out the final, rotten supports.”
Incensed, Fleur stomped a hoof. “Thousands are dying!”
“Oh, is that all? You ponies have such weak constitutions for these matters. It is no wonder you never were able to take the fight to the griffons in their homelands.” The general dismissed Fleur with a snap of his tail, his attention refocused on the maps as he growled, “Remove her, and should she try to re-enter, have her arrested as a spy. I do not know how you got this far, but this is a matter for professionals, not some coddled foreigner.”
Fleur’s mouth fell agape as the aides began to push her back towards the exit. Over the general’s shoulder Algol sat grinning wide. Couldn’t he see that the griffons had already won? They’d destroyed any chance of the zebras withdrawing back to Zebrica without massive losses from starvation and dehydration. They’d have to leave all their wounded behind, and every moment without calling a retreat only further increased casualties. This was neither leadership nor wisdom, it was utter foolhardiness.
She dug in her hooves, body tense with anger at the abject stupidity before her. No matter how brilliantly he maneuvered his forces, the facts were unchangeable. The zebras had lost the moment the griffons descended into the middle of their support structure.
He had to be made to see the folly of pursuing the battle.
At the surface of Athena’s lingering memories drifted the solution, but not without cost. Taking all the residual strands of Athena into herself fully, bonding them to the core of her soul, and unleashing her majesty would sway the general. Athena had done it many times on Gaea, directing the choices of kings, princesses, prophets, and priests with her presence alone.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Fleur tentatively reached towards the remnants of Athena.
“They will never see you as a mare again. You are doomed forever to be an object. Even those who call you a friend or lover today will find you a to be an idol of worship tomorrow. It is the way of ponies to put the powerful on pedestals, and then demand the objects of their adoration be forever perfect and pristine,” said Algol from her cushion.
Fleur hesitated, unable to fully reject her old life. If she embraced Athena’s power, she knew what would happen to her. She knew there would be no going back. It would become part of her, for good or ill, forevermore. And forever it would perhaps be.
She was not ready to discard her mortality.
As she hovered in indecision, there was a silent bang and a cascading gust of light washed over the tent. Algol tensed, ears perked, and a wide grin began to blossom.
A page came rushing into the tent, ignoring the faceoff between pony and zebras. “Lord Halphamet reports; the filly-goddess Talona is secured and being brought here under escort.”
The general gave a relieved nod. “Signal a fighting withdrawal to the south. We leave this post and will link up with the Thirteenth as they protect the rear.”
Algol’s sharp laughter broke from the corner, drowning out the general’s orders. “It is time, it is time! This battle no longer matters. She is nearly here, armoured in fiery crimson. Just a push more. One little push and it will be done.”
Fleur tensed, rounded on the fallen star, and was taken aback by the chained mare next to her. Where before her gaze had slipped from the mare, now it held fast. The bindings holding back the memories of her encounter with Algol and Sirius in the Golden Palace were shattered by the tempest of power inherited from Athena.
In the pause as memories crashed over Fleur, Algol lashed out across Sirius’ throat with a wing coated in razor thin black aether. The Firestar’s eyes went large, her last, plaintive gaze locked with Fleur. Thick, hot blood poured down Sirius’ neck and chest. Eyes rolling in her head, Sirius collapsed, but not before Algol scooped up a large globule of blood and spread it along the edges of her wings.
Pallas and Aegis flew up beside Fleur as the zebras made a space between the ponies.
“Algol! Why?! She is your sister!” Fleur demanded, her voice cracking in the tent. She could hear the zebras shouting, making demands and orders, but ignored them. All her attention was focused fully on Algol.
Algol laughed, and continued to soak her wings in Sirius’ blood. Weakly, Sirius dragged her hooves across the rugs, a bubbly gasp rattling in her open throat.
“She is tied to Hope itself, so pink and pure, and through her I can take yours away. And you are too weak to stop me,” Algol raised her soaked pinions from the spreading pool of Sirius’ blood and dragged them across her cheeks. A black glow leaked around her eyes. “Call Her Name,” Algol intonned, her voice oddly soft around a core of aetheric energy as it was carried to some distant place.
“What are you doing?” Fleur demanded, aghast at anypony being able to murder another so callously.
“And She will pour Her flame into your vessel, and nothing will be beyond your grasp. The alicorns abandon you.”
“The alicorns?” Fleur repeated, and then it struck her. Algol was no longer speaking to her. Whatever ritual she performed, the intended recipient was somepony else. Fleur stood frozen, uncertain what to do. She raised Pallas, the spear trembling in her aura. “Stop this! Stop this, or I will.”
“But, She will not. All you need do is call out to Her. Save your friends. Save your world. Or, see it all burn. It will be your decision alone. If you but call Her name.”
The darkness drained from Algol’s eyes, and the Demonstar grinned wider still. Fleur started to demand an answer again, but a subtle shift snared the words in her throat. The ground underhoof shuddered. The sky overhead crackled with a hundred interlaced fingers of lightning. The light coming through the flaps in the tent went dim and ruddy. An icy hoof dragged itself up Fleur’s spine and made her heart clench in deepest dread.
“What have you done!” Fleur demanded. Strength filled steel taught legs and voice, billowing the flaps of the tent and making the zebras cower around her, hooves plastered over their ears. Athena’s residual magic poured from Fleur’s withers into a pair of crystalline wings.
“What indeed,” Algol’s grin was wickedness incarnate, her confidence unbowed in the face of Fleur’s blossoming power. “Only gave a young mare already so red the little nudge required. You have a decision to make. What will you do? Strike me down? Little point now.”
A growl issued from deep in Fleur’s throat. Underhoof the ground shook from a charge, but whose? Screams and confusion gripped the tent, paes flying in and out carrying impossible reports of a black tidal wave cascading down the mountainside. Fleur remained fixed on Algol, Pallas raised for a killing stroke she was incapable of making.
Algol cocked an ear, and raised the tip of a bloody wing. “Listen now. Listen. You are too late!”
A primal roar of unbridled fury echoed from Southstone and silenced the battlefield with a single word, “Talona!” The clouds responded with lightning and thunder, and the disc recoiled at the rage in that unnatural cry.
Fleur’s ears twisted towards the battlecry.
“Talona?” Fleur whispered, the name like honey on her tongue, lingering fragments of dreamlike memories conjuring images of the dark coated filly from the remnants of Athena’s past.
The crystal wings at her side grew more solid, opaque surface tinkling like chimes as they moved.
She could feel Talona nearby, and Hades atop the mountain. She was unable to explain how she knew, only that she did. But it was something else that gripped her attention and held it fast. Something dark and sinister and wrong. It was the same crawling sensation exuded by Amon, but a thousand times more potent.
“You better hurry, or she will kill her. I wonder what will happen? Has an alicorn ever been killed before finding her raison d’etre?” Triumphant madness gleamed in Algol’s cold eyes.
The use of Prench was like a slap across Fleur’s face. Chased by Algol’s cruel laughter Fleur dashed from the tent. Her hooves churned up the hard sunbaked earth, carrying her at an impossible speed. Crystal wings spread wide, and with a kick Fleur launched herself skyward.
Griffons attempted to impede her, and they were cast out of her way like leaves caught in a gale. She could see now the cause of her dread. In the distance, at the base of the mountain, undead swarmed over zebra and griffon alike. Smoky black shades cleared the skies, and horrors lumbered into neat formations of soldiers. At the head of the undead horde strode a figure shrouded in a pillar of flame.
Even with her divine sight Fleur only barely recognised Sweetie Belle at the heart of the flames. The filly towered over the undead about her by a good head, enlarged by the abyssal energies crackling from mane and tale into the billowing plume of blue-green fire. Cancerous nodules bulged on her horn, and a thick ichor oozed from eyes consumed by shadows.
Around the apocalyptic pony were heaped a pile of bodies. Before her shuddered the diminutive dark form of Talona, a continuous scream tearing from the filly’s terrified throat.
Tucking her wings tight, Fleur dived.
Overhead, Sweetie raised a sword wreathed in the same flames that poured from her body, and brought it down in a thunderous blow.