//------------------------------// // 8 - The Commander of the Firebreak // Story: The Hollow Pony // by Type_Writer //------------------------------// The gate guards gave us some trouble upon our return to Fort Ponyville, but Zecora invoked Princess Twilight's name again, and that got them to let us in. As soon as her burning poultices had healed my wounds, we resumed my training, now with the machete as well. Zecora was careful to only let me practice its use in combat outside, and slowly, all the vertical rubble around the distillery either began to be reduced further in size, or acquired a myriad of battle scars. Whenever she left me to my own devices like that, she usually set off into central Ponyville by herself. I was always nervous whenever she did; I knew firsthoof how dangerous it was, even inside the walls, and both of us were in much greater danger by ourselves, than we would be traveling together. I did use the time to experiment with other objects besides my inkwell and our shared machete. I started to practice picking up small pebbles, and using an outward projection of force to launch them from my hoof. My aim was terrible, and my range was slightly less than simply kicking them with my hoof could attain. But it was still a useful skill, and it did not require the windup that kicking did. It was at the end of one of these solo training sessions that Zecora returned with news: she had been speaking with her old connections, and we would be joining a small caravan that was resupplying the firebreak lines with munitions and fresh gems from Fillydelphia. The caravan guards would continue accompanying us, she explained, past the edge of the free-fire zone, where the river emerged from the forest. From there, it flooded its banks, and the chaos fire bled into the swamps. When those petered out, we would find ourselves in the Everfree Delta, where her own mentor, Mage Meadowbrook, awaited. The hope was that, since she was further from the fighting and the demons, her mentor may have her own sources of reagents, as well as some relevant knowledge to help Zecora with her own alchemical exploration. Knowledge that Zecora lacked, due to her mentor having a much deeper connection to the magic of Pyromancy than Zecora herself. By the time she had finished explaining all of this, we had nearly reached the east gate, or at least we were close enough to hear the shouting. Our resident Hollow Hunter, Applejack, seemed to be having a rather one-sided argument. Behind her voice, from beyond the gate, I could hear an irregular “thump” every few seconds, like a giant stomping the earth. “-the fact that y'all set all o’ this up without even checking with me says more than enough! Reckon I oughta kick all o’ y'all out permanent-like if ya think I’m gonna keep allowing foolishness on this scale!” We turned a corner as Applejack was catching her breath, and it was by that small mercy that we managed to avoid catching her ire as well, at least for the moment. She was arguing with a hollowed pegasus wearing what seemed to be ancient Pegasopolian armor, all made of tarnished bronze and red cloth holding it all together. His helmet sat in the crook of his leg while they argued, though he seemed content to wait until Applejack’s ire burnt itself out against him. He stood before the rest of the caravan, and directly in between them and Applejack. He shielded them as a levee protected against the tide, allowing Applejack to scream and holler at him so that she did not do so against the others.  Two hollowed earth ponies, weaving gently from side to side and looking at nothing in particular, were hitched up to a string of three wagons, each hitched to the one before it. All three wagons had been overstacked with wooden pallets covered by a plain canvas sheet. From under the edge of the canvas, I could see rows upon rows of brass cylinders. Around the wagons, a half-dozen hollowed guards, as well as two other unarmed earth ponies, watched the argument with varying levels of concern. Two of the guards wore the proper armored uniforms of Equestrian soldiers, while everypony else wore either the ragged leather and chainmail of the Fort Ponyville militia, or nothing at all. I spotted Archmagus Dinky as well, standing awkwardly by the gate. She had donned a traveling cloak, and over that, a pair of brown saddlebags filled with her own supplies. At her side was her new silver sword—clearly Rockhoof had sharpened and reinforced it to both their satisfaction. She was pointedly ignoring the argument in front of her, and seemed to instead be chatting with two of the militia ponies, who were, at most, a few years older than her. Behind them, the east gate stood tall. It was well-maintained and carefully reinforced, with seams running through where the burned wood had been patched, and steel rivets driven through to keep it all sturdy. This gate was even decorated; graffiti, drawings as if by foals, and a few more professional-looking yet unofficial banners, hung across the supports and from the archway around the door, or were painted onto the door and walls themselves. Every single one of them depicted a sun, of a dozen different designs. Fitting, I thought, for the gate facing the sunset. While I was staring at all of that, Applejack had gotten her second wind. “Now! Y'all are gonna drop this foolishness, and them soldier colts are gonna haul their own danged supplies through their own damned trenches, and ya’ll are gonna stay right here and defend the home front, where y'all are most-” Finally, Zecora had heard enough. She stepped forward, interrupting Applejack with a stomp of her hoof. “Applejack, from a great distance I could hear your report. Is there a reason you are scolding my escort?” Applejack spun around, and a snarl formed as she saw us. “Zecora? Dangit, if y'all weren’t so useful I’d have already kicked ya out for being such a thorn in my side. Stay put, I gotta sort out these soldier colts first-” “I think not, for they are under my employ.” Zecora strode forward, and all of the Hollows stood up a little straighter, aside from one of the wagon-pullers. “I have cashed in more favors than I’d like to secure this convoy. I’ve told you time and time again that I work for Celestia at foreleg’s length, and to continue doing so now I require these guard’s protection and strength.” “Ah still don’t fully believe that.” Applejack snarled as she came to a stop before Zecora. “Fact, I reckon you’re losin’ your mind. You’re weakenin’ our position against that damned forest! I ain’t gonna let you send our best militiamares- Tartarus, I ain’t gonna let you send our dad gummed Archmagus out there, it’s a killin’ field! You drag ‘em out there, they ain’t comin’ back, and they ain’t like the soldiers! If Celestia needs ponies out on the front lines so bad, why don’t she just send more soldiers, instead of risking our colts?” Zecora sighed. “Applejack, I know survival in the short term is your benchmark for success, but I assure you that Celestia has already sent out her best. We will not be fighting on the front lines with them, I assure you, but to reach our destination past the trenches, we must eventually pass through.” Applejack still looked hesitant, so Zecora gently beckoned her forward with a hoof. “I see you still do not believe our plight in comparison to your own. Come back to the distillery, where I shall show you just how much Celestia has entrusted me with the task of protecting your home.” Applejack snarled and shifted her hooves, but eventually nodded. “Alright. I’ll listen, this time. But I got limits, dangit, and you’re nippin’ at the edges as it is. Better have Celestia’s own signature on some orders for me to see.” I moved to follow, but Zecora held up her hoof. “Apprentice, best for you to stay here, and talk with our Commander-in-residence. He should explain much that you need to know about the formation, in my absence.” I nodded, and Zecora led Applejack away from the gate. The argument started up again as their voices faded into the distance, and I wanted to follow her anyways, but I trusted Zecora. A heavy hoof settled on my shoulder as I watched them go. “Well, what do we have here? Zecora’s new apprentice, she said?” I turned my head, looking up at the armored pegasus stallion beside me. He seemed to be looking me over, with a distinctly crestfallen look across his face. “You’re not much to look at. Your wings are in tatters, you know that? No respectable Pegasus, even a Hollow, should let their wings fall into such disrepair. Don’t you ever preen them?” “Magnus,” Dinky said from behind us both. “Stop teasing Holly. I’ve seen for myself, she’s got the soul of a fighter in her, and Zecora saw it too. Besides, you told me yourself there’s not much point to flying these days, with those winged demons patrolling the skies.” “Sure, sure. But that’s still no excuse to at least take care of your wings a little bit. It’s a point of pride for us pegasi to have properly-preened wings.” He clapped his hoof on my shoulder, then stepped away. “Well, if you’re coming with us, then I’d better see what you can do, so I know where to place you in the formation. Do you have a weapon?” I turned to face him and nodded, before drawing my machete. As I did, I saw his eyes fall. “Oh stars, that’s barely… Of course Zecora’s been training you with that. I bet she had you chopping branches and hacking at vines too!” I nodded, and he put a hoof to his face. “Come over here. Zecora can use that old bushwhacker, but you’re going to need a proper sword if you want to defend yourself.” He trotted over to another one of the soldiers, who unfurled a roll of leather on his side. As he did, it revealed a small collection of swords of various types, held in place by loops woven through the leather. “Now, a pegasus… Normally I’d give you wingblades, but that’s clearly not going to work… Perhaps a rapier? No, you don’t have the control for that yet, I don't think… A shortsword?” He looked at me again, then shook his head. “You have more earth pony than pegasus in you, filly. Wish I had a longsword to give you; that’d be the best of both worlds, with enough heft to do some damage, but light enough to swing quickly… all taken though, they’re a common favorite. No, I’ll just have to give you one of our standard cavalry swords instead.” He pulled out a thin blade, with a simple hilt. It seemed that the blade was one-sided, with the back edge of the blade being too blunt to injure an opponent. The tip was sharp, though, and he practiced whipping it through the air a few times to make sure the weight was right, before he passed it to me. “That’s a slashing sword, or it can be mounted into an armored saddle—see that screw in the hilt? Right there—and you can charge an enemy with it to run them through. All of our basic cavalry are equipped with these, being as they’re cheap and easy to make or fix. So cheap, in fact, you can keep that; Zecora’s an old friend, and I’d much rather you be equipped for the fight ahead than worry about a tight inventory.” I nodded, and held the cavalry sword tightly in the magical grip of my hoof. Magnus walked around me once or twice, moving my foreleg or instructing me to spread my stance, before he nodded. “Alright, give me a practice swing, however you like. Just to see what I’m working with.” I reared back, whipping my hoof down and swiping with the sword, and I heard his breath catch in his throat as he cringed behind me. “Oooooh, you’ve definitely been training with that damned machete. Alright.” He paused, then motioned with his hoof. “You’re swinging the tip, using the weight of the sword to carry the momentum through. It works for a machete, because the tip is the heaviest section of the blade, but no other sword is built like that. No Equestrian sword, at least, and you’ll snap the tip off if you try. Swing the sword again, but try to pretend the blade is about half the length. That’s where you want the leading edge to impact.” I nodded, and continued to practice as he watched, for a short while. With his guidance, I just about figured out how to swing the sword without earning a wince from him, though I did lose my grip once. That made everypony jump, and all I could do was weakly apologize as I picked the sword back up to try again. That got Dinky’s attention again, though, and as I practiced swinging the sword, she trotted over with the two deeply hollowed militia ponies in tow. I paused to look them over; one was a tall colt, thin, and his embers stared into space without anything to focus on. The other was a short, squat colt who narrowed his embered eyes at me, but didn’t say anything. Neither of them fit into their armor particularly well, thanks to their unusual builds. “Hey Holly. These are a couple of my old friends from school, before… all of this. This is Snips,” she indicated the short, grumpy colt, “and that’s Snails. Snails!” Snails blinked, before looking at me. A dopey grin emerged across his face, and he greeted me with, “Hullo!” Snips, on the other hand, still looked hesitant. “We’re bringing Hollows with us? Can she handle herself?” “I’ve seen her fight. She’s still learning, but she’s a scrappy mare, I think we’ll be fine. Besides, if we have to do any fighting, then we’ve got bigger problems. The soldiers in the trench should keep us safe.” Dinky indicated them both again. “These two will be part of the escort squad keeping us safe. I know we’ve got kind of a… strained relationship with the militia, as Applejack was so helpfully demonstrating, but you can trust them.” I nodded, and Dinky gave me a smile before they stepped back to let me practice some more. Magnus had stepped away to talk with another pony by the time my teacher returned, with Applejack in tow. Zecora raised an eyebrow when she saw my new weapon, but nodded in approval, and picked up the machete for herself instead. Applejack made a beeline for me though, and I stopped swinging just in case I needed to use the sword to defend myself. Applejack got right up in my face, wrinkled and aged snout almost touching mine, and the embers of her eyes were dead level with my own. I was so close, that a wave of burnt gunpowder overcame me. Sulfur and gunsmoke caused my nose to wrinkle, and I tried to look away, only to spot a strange glow from under the collar of her armor. For a moment, curiosity overcame me, before she interrupted those thoughts with a growl. “Hollow. I don’t like you. I reckon I’m gonna kick you out of here when you get back, if the demons outside don’t do me the favor of finishing you off. But you had better danged well keep Zecora alive out there, ‘cause Hollowed as she is, I trust her, and she owes me anyhow. Ya’ll got that?” I nodded, terrified, and she snorted in my face before pulling away. She waved a hoof as she began walking away. “Bring ‘em back, Zecora. All of ‘em, or cure or no cure, I will tan your damn Hollowed hide.” Dinky sighed sadly as Applejack disappeared down the street, and Magnus let out a mirthless chuckle. “I so dearly miss Applejack whenever I’m not passing through Fort Ponyville.” “I know that she only means the best, and always has for her family and her home. But at some point, her near-sightedness has become a problem we cannot shy away from.” Zecora agreed, with a shake of her head. She turned back to Magnus, Dinky, and me. “Is everypony prepared to depart? Or is there any more knowledge we need to impart?” “Almost.” Magnus straightened up a bit, and his military stance replaced the more casual air he had worn until then. “Holly, I’m going to put you in the middle, behind the wagon. You and Zecora will gallop together, and yes, we will be galloping. It’s dangerous out there, and the faster we cross the free-fire zone, the less danger we’ll be in. I’ll be leading, the wagons will be behind me, then you and Zecora, Archmagus Dinky behind you, and then everypony else, two by two. The rest of you, listen up!” As Magnus addressed the caravan, Zecora opened up her bottomless bag, and withdrew both our sets of armor. As Magnus continued his briefing, we pulled the armor on and cinched the straps tight. One of the militia ponies gave us a confused nod when he saw that Ponyville’s banner adorned the flanks, and I was once again curious just whether Zecora was really supposed to have the armor, officially speaking. The Golden Guard that had held their spare weapons also passed me a sheath for my cavalry sword, and I fumbled with it for a moment, before Dinky helped affix it to my armor. Magnus trotted around to take his place at the front of the caravan. “Fillies and Gentlecolts, we are leaving in five! We are crossing the free-fire zone, and for those of you who are joining us for the first time, a quick summary: The full might of the Equestrian army is dug in on the single largest, deadliest, and most literal fire-fighting operation this nation has seen since the Dragon War! It will be loud, and it will be chaos, so listen closely, ‘cause we’re not going to have time to remind you out there!” “When this gate opens, you will follow me! We will cross fifty body-lengths of open ground, and this will be the most dangerous part, because there will be no cover! After fifty body-lengths, we will begin descending into the firebreak trench! After another fifty body-lengths, we will pause and take a summary of any casualties. We will not be coming back for anypony we lose, and it will be assumed that the demons have grabbed them, so watch your buddy! After that, we will move at a steady gallop down the remaining length of the trench! I will clear the way, and I will dictate if we stop! Is that understood?” The soldiers behind us barked out in unison, “Sir, yes sir!” and the militia ponies followed suit a moment later. Behind Magnus, the gate began to open, and he nodded, letting out a long, slow exhalation. “Alright. On my call!” The old gate had to be opened by retracting two giant crossbars first, and they squeaked and ground, as they had been long rusted through. When they finally clunked into place at the sides of the gate, the doors themselves began to open, and immediately, a deafening “boom” blew the loose dust off the ground as a detonation from beyond the wall shook us directly. And yet, the door was not yet fully open. The anticipation was terrible. Magnus didn’t wait for it to fully open either; as soon as the doors were wide enough for the wagon, he shouted, “Go!” and the wagons ahead of us started rattling forward. They started off slow, but began picking up speed as they passed through the doors, and before I knew it, the last one was out the door. Zecora started galloping after them, and I was only a few leg-lengths behind her as we emerged into the free-fire zone. I couldn’t see much of Equestria’s scenery before, but here, it seemed the blanket of fog that smothered the land had thinned a bit. And what I could see, until the horizon was swallowed by fog, seemed impossibly flat. For what must have been a mile to the south (our left), the ground was flat as a lakebed, without buildings, trees, or even shrubbery to break up the expanse. Some impossible force, by magic or by time, had pounded the earth flat as glass. But to the north (our right), about two hundred body-lengths away, the perfectly-smooth ground ended suddenly in a burning treeline. Even aflame, burning as if cursed, the forest stood tall, and the flames and the smoke formed a wall of fire that towered hundreds of body-lengths upwards into the sky. My eyes snapped ahead, and I was immediately reminded of anthills; great trenches ran in parallel down the length of the wall of fire, with smaller trenches connecting the frontlines to the back, and soldiers running down their earthen walls. I could see corridors, dead-ends, and choke points everywhere. Finally, at the back of the trenches, the earth had finally been allowed to rise higher than a fetlock; insead, it had been shaped into artificial hills, protecting the ponies behind it from direct attack, while great steel cannons pointed upwards into the sky. As I watched, the barrel of the nearest cannon flashed, and a moment later I was nearly flattened by the shockwave. They had been the source of the ground-shattering thumps. And then we were galloping downhill, and my vision on either side was obscured by earth held in place with sheet metal. On our right, a single-file line of soldiers galloped past us, the way we came. Shouts and the occasional report of a hoof-held firearm followed, along with the nightmarish screeching of some demon that had been denied an easy meal. At least, I hoped it had been denied an easy meal. I never saw the wagons stop; me and Zecora simply slammed into the back of them, and the soldiers behind us stumbled as we all tripped over each other. Nopony was seriously hurt, but we all had some new ichor-dark bruises as we shuffled, panting, back to our places in the formation. “Report!” barked Magnus from ahead of us. In between the deafening “booms” of the cannons, one of the Golden Guard responded. “Goldengrape got grabbed, he’s gone! Sugarshine got hit with some kind of fired spine, maybe poisonous, but she made it to the trench before she collapsed!” I felt sick. I hadn’t even seen them get hit, I was so focused on galloping and keeping up with the wagons. “Hah! One of our better runs! Alright, leave Sugarshine here, she can head back to Ponyville when she wakes up again. The rest of you, prepare to gallop again! First station is two hundred body-lengths down the trench, on my call! Three, two, one, go!” We were galloping again, and I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. * * * We paused at the first station, at least long enough for them to unhitch the backmost wagon of the line. I was more than happy for the break, because it gave me time to puke. Dinky was by my side as I did, not looking much better, but she patted my back as I heaved against the earthen wall of the trench. “That’s it, let it out. Don’t force it, just let it come.” Beside us, the other militia ponies were doing the same, as was one of the soldiers. I wasn’t even sure what I was coughing up, but it looked as black and ichorous as everything else my decaying body produced. All I could hope was that I was better off after heaving it up. Zecora sat beside us, breathing heavily, her eyes closed. She seemed to be trying to meditate, but every time one of the cannons fired it made her jump. I think it was starting to damage our hearing too, because we could hardly hear the howls of the demons as they fought and died only a few hundred body-lengths away. Eventually, I had nothing left to cough up, and my throat felt worse than it had the first time I had awoken. My stomach felt better, but I wasn’t sure if that was due to my not having a stomach any more; I was fairly sure I had left it in that pile of black ichor. I staggered back from the wall, slumping against the wagon, and tried to focus on its contents as Dinky started checking in on everypony else. One of the brass cylinders had slipped off of its pallet as they were unloading it, and was lying in the mud beside me. With shaking hooves and a curious mind, I picked it up, turning it over as I tried to figure out its purpose. “It’s a mortar shell.” I blinked, and looked up at Magnus, who looked as morose as ever. He pointed at the end. “See that little circle there? That’s the primer. A hammer strikes that, and it detonates an internal charge that separates the other end from the brass casing.” “What…?” I murmured, still not quite understanding. Magnus reached out and took the mortar shell from my hooves, wiping the mud off of it. “This is an explosive shell. We mostly use it to clear ground, because the demons usually don’t stay still long enough to accurately target. But we fire enough of these at a spot, we can know with a fair amount of certainty that there’s no enemies there.” He paused, then chuckled. “Though there was this one time that a really big, slow demon came out of the woods. That was a fun time, hitting that with direct shots. Everypony on the mortar crews got commendations for that one, though it was a real mess to clean up.” After a moment, he shook his head, and set the shell back on the wagon. “Ah, maybe you had to be there. There’s also firestopper shells, which make up most of what we’re using out here. They detonate, and a compressed ice cloud inside the shell spreads out around the impact site, dampening the ground and extinguishing any fire. We’re trying to use those to contain and fight the fire directly, but we go through them so fast…” After a moment, I looked at him. “This… it’s h-horrible.” His eyes fell, and he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s a really nasty fight, and we lose soldiers all the time. Soldiers we can’t get back, despite what Applejack says. This isn’t a fight we’re going to decisively win.” After a moment, he added, “I’m not sure it’s a fight we’re going to win at all.” “But…” I looked down the trench, at the hollowed soldiers sharpening their swords and checking their rifles. “But why... put all of this... wouldn’t… wouldn’t the weapons… a-armor… everything? Is it… all being... w-wasted?” He shook his head. “Never said that. Better to say... It’s not a fight we’re going to win with a military victory. We’re not going to plant a flag in Tartarus and call it captured. It’s more of a… fundamental fight, I think.” “Fu-fundam-mental?” This time, he nodded. “Celestia’s still coordinating all this. She’s still changing up tactics, shifting us around, so we’re never dug in too deep. But it’s all delaying tactics; I’m pretty sure she’s waiting for something to change. She’s trying to find some way for one of her agents to make a precision strike at the heart of all of this, while we distract the demons on this front. Or she’s waiting on her sorcerers and alchemists, to find out what happened to...” He waved his hooves at the both of us, then at the sky. “...To everything. Why the demons are the only thing killing us, why we’re not aging, what happened to the sky.” Eventually, I nodded. “Like… L-like Zecora.” He gently punched my shoulder “Like Zecora, exactly. You’re helping solve this, even if it doesn’t look like it right now. Even if we have to do horrible things to make it happen.” he let out a sigh. “Even if I’m not sure Luna would be willing to forgive me for everything I’ve done for this fight.” I recognized the name, even if I wasn’t sure why, the same way I had recognized Celestia’s. It was something deep, ingrained in my memory of the firmament. Like being unable to forget about the ground, or mountains, or… or the sun and moon. Suddenly, I felt sick again. “T-tell me about L-Luna-” “Later,” he said with a crestfallen look. “I’ll tell you about her at the next station. They’re almost finished unloading this wagon, and we have to start moving again. Don’t get grabbed on the way there, alright?” I nodded, shakily got to my hooves beside Zecora, with Dinky behind us. Magnus trotted back up past the lead wagons, and shouted, “Fall in, we’re moving in two! Another four hundred before our next rest!” * * * I didn’t puke this time, but then again, I was pretty sure I had already ejected everything that could be puked up at the first station. I laid in the ashen mud, watching the silhouette of a hollowed mare winding a crank-gun and firing wildly down the trench. The staccato rattle of the brass casings landing in a pile beside her blended into the sound of the crank-gun’s automatic report. The noise of the cannons behind us barely even registered any more. I couldn’t even see what she was firing at. I doubted she could either, or that she cared. Every shot she fired released a thick gout of smoke, and the cloud within the trench around her seemed even thicker than the fog that blanketed the world above. All I could see was her outline in the flashes from her gun. Yet she seemed to have found her purpose, firing wildly into the smoke of the trench, ripping apart unseen demons with every turn of the crank. My attention was pulled away from her when a shape galloped past me, splashing mud across my muzzle. “Courier! New orders for all stations, from Canterlot!” Magnus swore, taking the folded letter, while the courier saluted, then continued to gallop at full tilt down the trench. Magnus unfolded the letter as he left, skimmed it, then passed it to the station officer. “New firing solutions. She wants us to shift our cannons to 34 North, 12 East. It’s going to take the heat off of us when we leave the trenches, but the swamp’s going to be above the waterline with all of that extra water.” The station officer nodded, then started relaying the orders to the cannon crews above, while Magnus looked at me, then shook his head. “Holly. Can you stand?” Panting, I hauled myself up and out of the mud, eventually collapsing into a sitting position beside him. He looked down at me and sighed. “Good enough. So, Luna…” He went quiet for a little while, watching the sky above the trench, before continuing. “I knew her before the sun stopped. Met her a few times, formal functions and such. There was this brief time since I, uh... let’s say I got transferred from one nation to another. I got some refresher training to catch up with modern militaries, and took over command of a contingent of the Royal Guard, back when they were still called that. I met her then, but she was never interested in me so much as Stygian.” “Little squirt was… It’s complicated, but he’s a friend, or at least he was. He told me that Luna made him an offer one night, in his dreams. Said something about the Dark and one of the spells he cast. Really shook the kid, he doesn’t like to talk about the Pony of Shadows, but Luna knew. Apparently all of that would be forgiven if he joined some sort of Covenant, to fight some sort of endless war.” Flash Magnus turned his eyes back down. “Apparently… Luna was making this offer to a lot of ponies. Every species, every country, whether soldier, civilian, or even beings in government positions. And Styggie said that word was getting around, from ponies who hadn’t taken the offer. But he wouldn’t say why, or what for. I saw him only a couple more times after that—he gave everyone the only group hug I think the seven of us had ever shared all together, and that was the last we ever saw of him. He’s been missing since.” He was silent for a while, after this. Eventually, he broke the relative silence with a question. “Anypony told you about dragons yet?” I shook my head. “I’d be surprised if they had. I’ve been fighting them just about my entire life, but I think everypony outside the Golden Guard, and Celestia herself, has forgotten about them. My previous life… I fought dragons a lot, but we were always defending against them.” He patted the iron shield that he kept on his back, smiling fondly, before he shook his head, and his expression fell. “But nothing like what happened a few years after working for Celestia. The Dragons… did something to her. Stole part of her power, using this artifact, called the Bloodstone Scepter. Drained the life out of the sun, and Celestia with it.” “We reshuffled the Equestrian Military because of that, moved beyond the Royal Guard mostly defending Canterlot and the border territories. I was one of the most experienced dragon-fighters in the country, even if my knowledge was a little out of date, and I became one of the veteran members of the new Golden Guard. Together, Equestria occupied the Dragonlands, as best we could.” Something in his eyes changed. He wasn’t looking at me, or the sky, or the trenches any more. His eyes were unfocused, like he was seeing something he couldn’t unsee. “The Dragons… They were confused, at least at first. Whoever stole the magic must have gone behind Dragon Lord Ember’s back, because she had no idea what was going on. We brought her to Equestria to negotiate, but she had to leave the scepter there, and the Dragons started fighting for dominance. A new Dragon Lord took over, and he must have been behind all of it, because the country turned on us. We lost a lot of good ponies that day, and we had to go on the offensive instead of the defensive.” “Eventually, we won, if you could call it that. The Dragons just… never stopped fighting, until we’d nearly wiped them out. The rest scattered to the winds, and Celestia finally took the scepter, which was supposed to fix her, but... “ He trailed off. “Ember left, after it was clear she wasn’t going to get the Bloodstone Scepter back. Not if it was powerful enough to cripple Celestia like it had. She’s probably still out there, trying to rally the dragons and rebuild, but I don’t know if they trust her. They sure don’t trust us any more.” Eventually, he sighed, looking down. “At least the demons don’t speak. Wild beasts, twisted by magic. That’s a nice, unambiguous war. Pest control, really. They sprung up… weeks after we won the war against the dragons. Not sure we’d still be here if we hadn't already been so heavily mobilized. Burning, killing, destroying… We managed to push them back really quickly, at least.” Magnus’ eyes never moved from the mud. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Luna’s supposed offer since. I never got a visit from her, and I can’t abandon my own endless battle to join hers, even if I wanted to keep-” He cut himself off with a sharp intake of breath.  We sat there for a while, just staring at the ashen mud together. I could hear the booming of the cannons shift slightly as they changed targets, and the distant rumble of the shell’s impacts shifted to the west. Eventually, Dinky hesitantly approached us. “Commander? Holly? This wagon’s unloaded. Just the last station now, right?” That seemed to shake him out of it. “Right. Yeah. Let’s get moving.” He went off to run down a quick checklist, leaving me sitting in the mud. A moment later, the station officer reappeared, clattering down the steep ramp from talking with gunnery crews above. In between the booms of the cannons, he waved at a soldier sitting nearby, checking his short hoof-held firearm. “Hammerhead! It’s here again, I can feel it!” The soldier was deeply hollowed, but had enough of his wits left to sigh. “Your… bird d-demon, right?” A manic grin crossed the station officer’s own undead muzzle. “You can feel it too! I knew it! Come, let’s watch the sky, so we can pick it off when it comes to watch us again!” Hammerhead put his head in his hooves. “Sarge, it’s g-gone! Nopony’s seen it in… what m-must b-be weeks!” “Then that means it is biding it’s time, watching us from afar! It’s the most devious little demon I’ve ever seen, created to spy on us!” “Uugggh… F-fine…” Hammerhead groaned, before he slid his firearm into a holster over his shoulder, and followed the station officer back up the ramp. As he left, I heard him mutter under his breath, “Can’t be a sp-spy… demons d-on’t use sp-spies…” After they left, I was left by myself in my little corner of the trench, though not for long. Magnus soon returned, and shouted down the line. “Two minutes! Another four hundred body-lengths to the end of the firebreak, and then we’ll enter the swamps! Mud’s only gonna get worse from here on out, so we can move a little bit slower, but if anything swoops down, you drop like a stone into the muck!” There was a chorus of groans and grumbling, and then we were moving again. * * * We cantered into the last station, splashing mud from our hooves. It was nearly ankle-deep, and everypony was stained grayish-brown from everypony else kicking up the mud ahead of them. Only Magnus was mostly clean, as he paraded over the rest of us. “Good work in that last stretch, but we’re not out of it yet! From here on out, it’s only gonna get worse, but we’re gonna move a lot slower! This is unpatrolled territory, and while we’re ringing the dinner bell elsewhere, there’s always gonna be stragglers! Keep your eyes high, and your hooves on your weapon!” He looked over everypony in the line one last time while mud dripped down our barrels, and then nodded. “Take ten, then back in formation to depart! Zecora, Dinky, Holly, how are you holding up?" Zecora shrugged, resting against the wall as she panted slightly. Dinky's own wheezing was much louder, and more frequent. I seemed to be the outlier; as I still wasn't terribly used to breathing autonomously, my muscles were somehow both aflame, and prickling with that distinct pins-and-needles sensation. I was attempting to make up for lost time by manually sucking in air and wheezing it back out, but it was slow going, and Dinky recovered long before I did. When she caught her breath, she glanced around the station, and then approached Magnus. He seemed to have quickly busied himself, checking over several topographical maps of the area. "Commander, a word?" He nodded, while tracing a line with his hoof, before looking back up at her. Dinky pointed back down the trench where we came. "How many guards are actually assigned to these trenches? None of them are wearing the golden armor I knew from before the wars, either, it's just the ones guarding the caravans that wear that."  "That's… a bit more complex than I was hoping for." He sighed, sitting on a muddy, charred stool. He indicated that she should take a seat on another across the table while he pulled out another map. "During the Dragon war, it quickly became clear that the Equestrian guards were inadequate for warfare on the scale required. The Princesses expanded, then broke up the standing army into three divisions; air, ground, and sea. The Pillars and Elements did our own recruiting, taking up the golden armor and becoming an… honor guard, of sorts. The best of the best, and giving orders to the divisions as well as tactical and logistics advice to the princesses." He flared his wings. "I mostly worked with the air forces. That lasted until Cloudsdale fell, and wiped most of us out. After that, I was sent out to coordinate the efforts here on the ground, fighting the fires, but the rest of the Golden Guard are still out there, scattered around Equestria. If you see a pony wearing golden armor these days, they're either one of the veterans, or one of our troops; you can tell from the barding, officers like me are a little more…" He tugged at the red cloth under his own armor. "... pointlessly ostentatious." He looked back around the trench, a moment later. "As for how many troops are here… you've been counting, haven't you? Why don't you tell me?" Dinky nodded. "Something like two hundred, give or take a few dozen? They've been doing a lot of running around us, and everypony looks the same in body armor and mud. Multiply that by three for the three trenches, and the total is somewhere upwards of six hundred on this firebreak?" Magnus nodded. "It's a good count, and closer than most would guess. There's about three hundred in the back trench, less than two hundred in the middle trench, and almost nopony in the forward trench. Turnover rate was too high, and it's easier to funnel the demons down the firing lines of the trenches anyway. Call it five hundred-ish, not including the most recent casualties or soldiers Hollowing out entirely while on post." Dinky's eyes narrowed. "But there's more troops in reserve, right? Soldiers in Canterlot, Trottingham, Fillydelphia, Baltimare?" "Of course, but not many. The demons are coming from the forest, so most troops are fighting on the front lines here to keep them contained." Magnus' hoof drifted over to a map of Equestria, stopping at the coastal city on the other side of Ponyville. "And Baltimare… reports are weird from Baltimare, wildly conflicting. We're still trying to work that out exactly." "Commander." Dinky's voice was firm. "How many troops does Equestria have to resupply the front lines with? How long can they keep going like this?" Magnus didn't respond, at first. His hoof danced over the maps and several troop reports, and he was silent for a long time before he finally answered her question. "Somewhere between three thousand and five thousand troops, depending on whether some of the larger groups are still out there. Most of the navy never made it back from Celestia's scouting mission to the east ocean, and a lot of the outlying battalions have stopped reporting in. If you mean battle-ready and available to shore up the lines here… it's pretty much just the troops in Fillydelphia and Canterlot, plus everypony already here but not fighting at the front directly, which is something like two thousand." Dinky's eyes went wide, and she reeled back on her stool. "That's it?" "That's all of them that can be easily accounted for. The Dragon War was costly, and it's pretty much been attrition from Hollowing, demons, and infighting ever since. Losing Cloudsdale really hurt us, too." Magnus looked back over at Zecora, who was trying not to look like she was listening. "It's not going to last forever, kiddo. Part of why I'm escorting Zecora to Meadowbrook's personally; we can't afford to lose either of them, because we need a third-party remedy to this mess before we have to pull back too far. We're already over-extended, and I have no idea how bad it's going to truly get when all these demons that we're keeping contained finally break loose." "Okay," she swallowed. "Keep Zecora safe. Understood." "Good." Sighed Magnus. He stepped away from the table, and raised his voice. "Leaving in one minute! Forma-shun!" As we scrambled back to our places in the formation, I had just about caught my breath. But I'd mostly been occupied with listening to Dinky and Magnus; how much longer could they keep fighting, really? How long did we have, until we had to abandon Ponyville?