“I shouldn’t be reduced to this…” Flint muttered, glancing over her shoulder at the Lord Regent. “Couldn’t one of my lieutenants fight instead? He’s not in my chain of command.”
Below his air-armor, Rockshanks’s face was unmoved. “In a way, he is. You supervise the dross clinging to Moonrise’s underbelly. It was your responsibility to be certain they marched with the rest of us towards salvation. Instead, we see rebellion. If the princess were here, with a small number of rebels camped on our air supply… she would likely kill all of us and wipe the slate clean. Be grateful she has entrusted ruling the city to me.”
He stepped back, and as he did the soldiers with him did the same. Five in total, each wearing air-armor accented with purple and blue. Noble colors—presumably they were his honor guard. Was the city above so stratified that they selected by tribe as well as color? “You are a stranger to the honor of Nightmare’s service, so I remind you of our laws. The strength of sword and spell alone decide this duel. Firearms or interference from other ponies forfeits the contest and demands execution.”
“Our Lord Regent is honorable,” Silver said. He focused his magic, drawing a stolen sword from the side of his armor and holding it in front of him. It was only the second time he’d held one, after yanking it from the corpse of a dead soldier a few hours earlier. “I know you aren’t, Flint. You’re as rotten as the cavern you sent the rebellion ponies to. We all know it.”
Finally it was enough. She swore under her breath, lifting the massive mace from over her shoulders and holding it in front of her. The weapon was probably as heavy as a pegasus, with wickedly sharp spikes protruding just far enough to puncture air armor or shatter the bones underneath.
So much metal would’ve been impossible for a unicorn to lift with just one leg, be they stallion or mare. But with magic, Flint handled it easily. “I do not understand why you’re so determined to die. I would’ve just shot you, but now? Now your ponies will have to watch their leader beaten until they’re a mess of blood and ichor. They’ll die in terror, instead of mercifully as I intended.”
He held the sword in a guard just in front of his face, the same way he’d seen soldiers do his whole life. That said, he didn’t actually know how to fight with one. He could swing a shovel, so long as he was swinging it to dig ditches. He could swing a pickaxe, if he was trying to widen a cavern or knock down the dirty ice that sometimes froze along Moonrise’s edges.
But a sword? He knew as little about one of these as he did about rifles. Oh buck, this is really happening. I actually have to win. This point had seemed so distant that he’d stopped worrying about it before. Why prepare for something that probably wouldn’t happen anyway?
Silver took a few steps to the side, away from the line of abandoned mining equipment and cargo carts, so that he directly blocked Flint from his companions.
He glanced over his shoulder, looking to Magpie for support. But instead of waiting right by the doors, ready to jump in and help the instant something happened—she was completely gone. Had she somehow recovered her shadowstep after all?
She abandoned me. When it was finally time to fight, she left me behind. How could she?
“Where’s that nerve?” Flint advanced on him, lifting the mace a little higher in her grip. “All that bravado, pony? But you’re really a coward under all that, aren’t you? Whatever artifact you’ve stolen to lead your… band of suicidal ponies… you’ve realized it won’t protect you from a real warrior?”
She advanced abruptly, though she only nudged forward with her body while the mace itself flew straight for his helmet.
Silver was incredibly quick with his magic, and he easily lifted the sword to block, pointing it straight at the crushing metal weapon.
Flint’s weapon pushed against his for a single moment, as the force of their magical strength met. He jerked, his real body sliding back along the dirty ground. None of his street fights had prepared him for this—unicorns just weren’t tough enough to survive out in the dirty corners of Moonrise.
The sword bent, then exploded. Metal showered out in all directions, hissing and steaming as it finally fell in the dirt at their feet. Silver lost his grip on the weapon, his little levitation spell ending with a painful stab at his horn.
The mace kept moving towards him, though no longer like a weapon swung and more like a self-guided projectile. He dodged to the side, sliding through the sand.
But just because it looked a little like something thrown didn’t mean it was. Flint’s mace changed directions with him, smashing into one of his legs.
He felt a sudden tension around his legs as the armor went rigid, harder than it ever had with Magpie. He felt the shape of what he guessed was one of the spikes, thanking the ancient Alicorns for their perfect engineering and wisdom. Maybe they hadn’t been able to hold off the end of the world, but at least they’d done something right.
There was a faint popping sound, followed instantly by an explosion of pain from his leg. Silver screamed, shoving outward with a burst of magic more powerful than any single spell he’d used before. He caught a flicker of metal as the mace went spinning up into the air, and out of sight.
Meanwhile, his helmet filled with red. A little outline of his armor appeared, with a bright red mark lined up perfectly with the total agony he felt. “Integrity failure!” said a voice in a long dead language. “Atmosphere detected. Emergency seal not required.”
He tried to rise to his hooves, but found his leg protested against even the slightest pressure. Had she broken it with one swing, or was that just the spike’s damage as it went through him?
“Pitiful,” she said. She drew her dagger from a sheath hidden between armor plates, twirling it dexterously through the air in front of her. “This is the pony who vexed me for the last decade? Downed in a single blow?”
An even glow of red light came suddenly from behind her: the Lord Regent’s honor guard were lighting the battlefield with their horns. It made Flint glow, and the blood trickling down his leg turned almost black by comparison.
There wasn’t much of it, all things considered. But within the suit, he could feel it collecting near a hoof. Stars preserve him if she’d somehow scored an artery.
“I wonder how much of your coat I can take before you die,” she said, taking another step closer. “I’ve never tried it in weather like this before. I think the cold will slow your loss of blood, and make you last longer. What do you think?”
Through the pain, Silver finally heard a distant roar of voices. His rebellion ponies, urging him on. The brave mares and stallions who had come to fight for their loved ones, knowing they probably wouldn’t come back.
“Get up!” Nidus was calling, louder than the rest. “Lead, dammit!”
He groaned, then gritted his teeth and rose. The pain was excruciating, but his leg wasn’t broken after all. He could put a little weight on it.
He couldn’t back up, not without getting too close to the hasty battle line his troops had made. Instead he retreated sideways, towards the silent tractors and empty carts.
“You have no idea who you’re fighting.” He glanced to the side, where the alien gun was still hidden in his satchel there. But as tempting as it was, he couldn’t use a firearm during a duel. It would be a demand for them to kill him.
“Of course I don’t,” Flint said, and the dagger flew suddenly at his neck.
He twitched, about to dodge fruitlessly again—but why should he? Silver Star dug his booted hooves into the sand, gritting his teeth and focusing on the dagger.
Force crashed against his mind, like a stiff blow to the side of his head. His good legs braced against the ground reflexively, as the force Flint had imbued into the dagger was turned. She might be better trained, but that didn’t make her magic stronger. The dagger stopped a meter from his neck, shivering in the air before rotating slowly around until it pointed at Flint.
For a few seconds they were locked against each other, both shaking from the force. Sweat trickled from his brow, condensing as a foggy mist against the outside of his armor. “This is… for… Moonrise.” It was the same focus he’d channeled during a hundred duels in the alleys and streets. It was the focus of one who knew he must fight or die.
He took a step forward, and the dagger moved with him. Flint slid back, her hooves digging into the sand. Not enough to save her. The dagger kept moving. Was that fear he could see on her face? For a moment his own pain seemed secondary—it was the lives of all Moonrise that depended on him.
The pressure on his mind was suddenly gone, so fast he couldn’t even process it. The dagger kept on moving, zipping forward towards the place where Flint had been. It smashed against the stone wall, snapping into two pieces. At nearly the same moment something struck him from the front—a charging pony, bolstered by magical force. How had she let go and moved so fast?
Silver screamed as he was lifted from his hooves, flying backward and smashing into the side of a cart. Lunarium bent and squealed under his lateral force, but at least it wasn’t the drill.
He dropped to the ground in front of the cart, not even managing to rise to one hoof this time. Could he reach the gun? His whole body was aching now, and his muscles barely obeyed him. How much of this could one pony survive? I need you, Polestar. Where’s that power you said I would have? Do you want me to fail?
He felt no response, not even a faint pressure to suggest another presence might be watching. He was alone.
“I told you just to get this over with!” called a voice, muffled by his helmet. The Lord Regent. “Let’s be done with this, Flint. Every moment we’re out here is another that the princess might return, and find I am not waiting for her.”
Silver’s helmet was half covered with dust, but he could still make out the little outline projected for him. Now there were half a dozen red spots, with things like “compression warning” and “systems damage detected.”
I’m going to die here. Maybe he could get to the gun, use it anyway? Had it even survived?
“Is this what you expected?” Flint said from in front of him. She selected a nearby vehicle, yanking at it with her magic until she came away with a metal rod. She turned back, bearing down on him with her makeshift club. “What did you think waited for you? Because you were the king of some hidden corner of the slums, that you were somehow an equal to Nightmare’s finest fighting mares?”
She swung rapidly, and this time his head ached far too much. He couldn’t respond as she smashed it right at his face. The alien material went instantly cloudy at the impact, but this time it didn’t deform even a millimeter. His neck and back stiffened, pulled down by the blow. “At least you have this air-armor, or this wouldn’t even be a fight. Maybe they’ll sing songs about the day General Flint saved Moonrise from the evil pony who wanted to suffocate everyone.”
She lifted the metal bar again, bent and flattened where it had hit. Between the pain and the even whiteness of his helmet, he couldn’t see her face. But he imagined she was leering at him.
Then she swung again. His helmet made the sound of crystal glass rubbing against gravel, and a few chunks came away, showering the top of his head. One good blow like that into his horn, and he’d be dead before he could blink.
“Critical damage sustained,” said the voice. “Pressure seals compromised. Critical damage—”
Silver’s eyes scanned the crowd behind Flint, desperate for any waiting help. There was none from the Lord Regent or his honor guard—they just lit the battlefield, witnesses who honored the ancient traditions despite all expectations. And from his own side—ponies hung their heads. The only mercy was that he couldn’t see their faces. They would probably be ashamed, preparing themselves for the death he had led them to.
“Oh, you’re looking for help?” She reached down, prying at the edge of his helmet with the bar. A huge opening appeared, as the not-glass crumbled away in huge chunks. Cool air rushed in, though of course that didn’t weaken him.
You sent me to die, but you still protect me from the cold? But there was no response, just as he saw no sign of Magpie from the crowd. He really had been abandoned.
“You’re right, they should see this.” Instead of swinging for him again, Flint yanked him by the collar, dragging him along the dirt until they were only meters from the watching rebellion. She held him there, forcing him to look into their faces. Silver’s magic spluttered, any resistance dying under the incredible pain.
A unicorn needed concentration to use their spells. Even if his magic was a bit stronger, that wouldn’t be enough. “You wanted him for your general? Let me show you where he’s led you, ponies!” She dropped him casually to the ground, lifting her metal rod.
Silver was a colt again. The chill of an oncoming night surrounded him, though it was still warm enough that plenty of the other scraps were still out fighting over whatever they could find.
He landed with a splatter of mud, rolling through it before smacking into the side of a building.
“Unicorns aren’t so strong without their fancy houses to hide in,” said a voice. Cider, his words slow and heavily accented. But he had the magic of earth, and that meant he could already work an adult shift. Adult shift, adult rations. He wasn’t starving like Silver Star.
His consorts—a gaggle of other street urchins, laughed and cheered, pointing at Silver. Variations on “White!” and “Shouldn’t have come down here!”
“I… had to,” he croaked, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to stand. Thin legs wobbled beneath him, and his horn sparked uselessly. “Regent… would’ve killed my brother and me. Wanted us gone.”
But if Silver thought his admission would prompt mercy, he was sorely mistaken. Rather than back off, the crowd seemed increasingly furious. There would be no mercy from them. If anything, his remark seemed to be an invitation.
Cider didn’t seem to take it well, furious eyes locking suddenly on him. “Oh yeah? Well I guess we should go do what the Lord Regent wants, huh? Starting with your brother. He’s even more pathetic than you.”
He spun around, towards the edges of distant caverns where a pair of orphans could shelter. Where his brother was hiding even now, waiting for Silver to bring back the day’s scraps.
The ponies of Moonrise were depending on him. Without him standing in their way, everyone who had stood up to fight back would die on the street. With them gone, nothing would keep Flint from freezing the others left without shelters. It would be the largest single act of murder Moonrise had ever seen.
Silver Star did then the same thing he’d discovered for his first time back in his distant childhood—he yanked himself sideways into a teleport, pulling his enemy with him. A thousand eyes opened all around them, scanning the abyss like baleful sentinels. How could anything be so… hateful?
Foam hissed and spluttered from the openings in Silver’s suit, holding his injured leg suddenly rigid as the suit sealed around him. It could do nothing similar for the helmet, that was beyond repair. But holding his breath was easier than being beaten to death, and he’d been ready for it.
Frost condensed on the edges of his shattered helmet, though as usual the cold never touched him. It wrapped around Flint as well, covering her helmet with a thin coating that spread slowly down her shoulders and back. There could be no speech in this airless place, a washed-out eternity with nothing but eyes. Maybe it was really just deep space, inconceivably far from the world they knew.
Then Flint did the one thing Silver knew never to try—she lunged at him. Her makeshift club hadn’t come with her, but she could still smack into the side of his suit. He hadn’t wanted to move, so for him there was no floor at all, and he drifted as though he were in space, no more interesting than he’d been before.
The fury he’d sensed briefly from the eyes now fled from him, as thousands of them all focused intently on Flint. She didn’t notice, or maybe she didn’t care. She clawed at him, getting her forelegs up against his neck. She wasn’t an earth pony, who could’ve crushed his lungs with a second’s effort. Whatever she was trying to do with her magic didn’t work here, not from the way her horn sparked and spluttered.
Few unicorns knew how to teleport, and apparently she wasn’t one of them.
Her suit began to glow, metal plates reflecting deep purple eyes from the deep. Silver couldn’t have said how he knew, but he watched those eyes close in. The greater darkness around them seemed less like a starfield, and more like a dim night in Moonrise, in the gloomy buildings with electric lights that only sort of worked.
Flint didn’t notice. “Out…” she said, or he thought she said. He was only feeling it through the outside of her helmet. “Of here. Now.”
He couldn’t reply. There was no air in his lungs. Besides, he couldn’t take away his offering.
In a single moment, the dull glow around her armor became a brilliant flame, hot enough that the few bits of glass left in his helmet went opaque. A second later, she started screaming. Though he was only centimeters away, none of the heat touched him. He was still frozen in the lightless void, his enemies hateful but unprovoked.
Under her helmet, Flint’s face caught fire.
He couldn’t keep watching. Even if it wasn’t too bright, even if his own suit didn’t suddenly hiss about thermal warnings, he couldn’t keep holding his breath forever. The spell he’d invoked to bring them ended in a flash, sending him spinning away from Flint as he collapsed to the ground. In the center of the clearing now, not under the digging equipment where he’d been before.
Flint’s screams suddenly echoed through the chamber, even as the awful stench of burning flesh and metal rose up from beside him. He brushed aside a few scraps of glass, forcing himself to look back at her.
Silver Star had never seen metal burn before, but he saw it now. Bright yellow flames wicked up and around her armor, which glowed blue and hurt to look at. She could only scream for a few more seconds before her voice died completely. Even as a terrible enemy who had wanted to murder innocent people, Silver could hope that she would die swiftly too.
Then ponies began to cheer. Calls went up from the roof of the building. The ponies he’d put on the gun yelled and stomped, but Silver had no eyes for them.
Slowly, his body still aching with the effort, he forced himself to stand. His left hindleg was rigid around the knee where it was broken, and white fluff squeezed out with every step. The air armor’s vain attempt to repair itself, maybe?
He passed Flint’s body, armor deforming around where she had been, oozing down onto the ground in a shape only vaguely reminiscent of a pony. He couldn’t take her helmet as a sign of victory; the way ponies usually did. Instead he glanced around, until he saw her mace still stuck into the ceiling. He yanked it down, and it shook in the air before him. But he managed, holding it as he approached the Lord Regent.
Rockshanks stared at him as he advanced, expression mostly obscured by his helmet. A grimace, though whether it was of pain or satisfaction, Silver couldn’t tell.
“I claim… her office,” Silver said, standing tall. “By trial combat.” He dropped the mace at Rockshanks’s hooves.
“That was… an unusual duel,” he said, voice somehow unmoved by the death of his general. Did he not care at all? “Yet the results are conclusive, there’s no doubt about that. I’m glad ponies in the future will have such a stark reminder of what waits for those who fail me.” He glanced once to the side, to his bodyguards. But they didn’t react, just kept up their slowly flickering red glow. It was uncomfortable this close to them.
“Your name was Silver Star, wasn’t it? As general in Flint’s place, how will you do things differently? You must’ve had some change in mind, to go to such risk. Well, here you are.”
Silver nodded, then spun slowly around to face his soldiers. It wasn’t Rockshanks’s world that was going to change now, not really. In all his life, Silver had seen him only a few times. His city was the one above, and Silver’s the one below.
He raised his voice, shouting loud enough that it echoed through the cavern. Even if the wind had still been sucking away their air, his ponies would’ve been able to hear him up on the rooftop. “The Whites and Yellows and Reds of Moonrise will live differently from today! No longer will they suffer without enough heat in their shelters, or work without food in their bellies! No more!”
Rockshanks cleared his throat, so quiet within his helmet that Silver almost didn’t hear at all. “Well that sounds like insanity. Accomplish nothing and eat away our stores? I think not.” He snapped one hoof down.
The reaction was instantaneous. Not a spell from him—but every one of his bodyguards, all acting together. Light rose, so incredibly bright that Silver dropped to one knee, shielding his eyes with the other leg. All this time it hadn’t been a light spell—they’d been preparing an attack.
There was a crack of sound like thunder, and suddenly Silver was suspended. He wasn’t suffocating, but… he couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. Red light collected around him into a crystal, like an angry ruby. It encased him perfectly, pressing up against the skin of his face, filling every opening in the shattered helmet.
He couldn’t see what his soldiers were doing, couldn’t hear them either. Yet he had been facing the regent, and he could see as the unicorn pointed, and Silver lifted suddenly into the air. They held him over themselves, like a shade against Moonrise’s constant trickling rain.
Or against machinegun fire. The rebellion ponies don’t want to hit me by mistake.
Silver wanted to scream in protest, to rage against this injustice. He was general now, not some trophy!
They won’t let you get away with this. My ponies still control the door. They can blow it open again if you don’t fix this.
He was powerless to say so. He couldn’t even hear Rockshanks through the glass as he was carried towards a nearby skytower.