The Blueblood Papers: Royal Blood

by Raleigh


Chapter 10

The PGL arrived to very little fanfare, and it was just as well, really, because as soon as Lieutenant-Colonel Guillaume unpacked his suitcase there were problems, which, apparently nopony except me could solve. Never mind the fact that I was still quite ill, though at least able to move about under my own power for limited periods of time and speak in more-or-less complete sentences without being interrupted by another mad dash to the latrines, it appeared that I was the only pony at all interested in getting everypony to work together. As afraid as everypony was of Changeling infiltrators sowing discord and mistrust in our ranks, they needn't have bothered as we ponies are quite capable of doing that by ourselves.

Readers, particularly younger ones who are presumably used to seeing our towns and cities teeming with griffons, hippogriffs, yaks, and Faust knows what else creatures have been allowed to take residence upon sacred Equestrian soil, will probably wonder what in blazes everypony was getting upset about. By way of explanation, I can only state that it was a very different time, and the idea that the Magic of Friendship could be extended beyond the confines of our race (and whether one included other equines such as zebras and donkeys in that definition was still up for debate) was met with a considerable amount of scepticism. One only needs to examine the EEA's rather vocal condemnation of Twilight's School of Friendship in later years to get an idea of the sort of mindset that still plagued the older, more aristocratic officers. Now, imagine that arch-conservative leader of theirs with the ridiculous goatee, total lack of a sense of humour, and no sense of irony in charge of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers and one will begin to have an idea of the problems I had to sort out.

If I document each and every single little dispute that I had to settle between the PGL's arrival and getting tossed into battle then I'd be long interred in the family mausoleum before I could have a chance of finishing, so I shall describe just two of the most significant ones. The first revolved around rations; it is said that an army marches on its stomach, and the job of ensuring that each and every soldier is fed and healthy enough to fight requires a monumental effort. I had yet to even meet the Griffons, who were at the time getting themselves settled into the camp, when I, apparently now 1st Army's resident expert on Griffo-Equestrian relations, was dragged away from my rest and back to the train station.

"It's meat, sir," a snivelling lieutenant of the Logistics Corps said as he pointed at a pile of boxes still in their wagon. The ponies and mules under his command lingered around the station platform, distinctly not doing any work at all. Instead, they lounged about in the hot midday sun, looking rather like a clowder of overgrown cats on the veranda of an Appleloosan orchard house. "They won't touch it."

The sound of the train's whistle felt like a hammer to the head, and the engineer in his hickory stripe overalls and cap leaned out of the cab windows and gesticulated at the idle workers.

"Oh, come on!" he yelled above the hissing of the great steam engine. "I've got a schedule to keep!" The loggies ignored him, and, apparently out of a lack of any other method of persuasion, he simply blasted the whistle again and retreated back inside his cabin.

"Give me the manifest," I demanded, holding my hoof out. A week of the Trots had eradicated what little patience I had left for this sort of petty nonsense, and while I was at least tolerably well enough to deal with this, the illness had left me with a great feeling of nausea and bloating. How much of my foul mood had to do with being sick I can't say for certain, but I hardly think my bearing would have become that much more cheery had I been a tad more careful with the water.

The lieutenant swallowed air and then held out the clipboard for me, and I seized it in my magic. A quick glance at the paper pinned to it confirmed my suspicions, and I trotted on over to the goods wagon. The work-shy loggies scurried out of my way, but then crowded around to watch what I was doing. A few whispered to one another, and from what I could gather from little snippets I could pick up, they seemed to be rather concerned that I'd just have the whole lot of them flogged for their impertinent little strike. I was certainly tempted, if only out of spite at having been disturbed, and I would have been well within my rights to do so; many of my comrades in the Commissariat would have sent for the provosts to round up the miscreants without even leaving their office, but my deliberately cultivated reputation for being somewhat fair must have led this officer to seek me out personally.

Wooden boxes were piled up neatly in the goods wagon, and each was stamped with the symbol of the royal crest of Equestria and then a bewildering array of numbers and letters that corresponded to a system that nopony but that special breed of bureaucrats can comprehend. Nevertheless, I had picked up enough of that arcane knowledge, against my own will, of course, to identify these as containing food rations specifically for the use of Griffons. I lifted the lid of one of the boxes, revealing it to be crammed full of innocuous little brown paper packets each tied up with string. Without hesitating, I unwrapped one of the packets and then took a large bite out of its contents; the gathered crowd emitted a short, shocked gasp.

"He's eating meat!" one of them cried.

"They're scones!" I announced, turning around and holding up the griffonscone in the air, with a neat bite taken out of it. At the very least, the loggies had the very good sense to look embarrassed and mumble some half-hearted apologies, before they sheepishly sidled past me, tails and ears drooping and pointedly avoiding eye contact with me, and started doing the job that Equestrian tax bits paid them for.

I forced myself to swallow it, despite the foul taste and the pre-emptive cramping of my stomach, as spitting out the disgusting, chewy, and rock-hard lump purporting to be a delicious scone would have undermined my point somewhat. Griffonscones, if you've never tried the national dish of old Griffonstone, are an acquired taste, and it's best acquired by searing off one's taste buds with a soldering iron first. The best way I can describe the experience of eating one, or attempting to at least, is to imagine biting into an old brick that had been heavily dusted with cinnamon and talcum powder. I've heard they've gotten better in recent years, but I'm not going to take that risk.

[Griffonscones are a staple food for Griffons and formed the bulk of the PGL's food rations. They are notoriously unpalatable for ponies, but with a few tweaks to the traditional recipe, such as the addition of baking powder, they can be quite delicious. Conservatively-minded Griffons regard such adulteration to be an offense to their tradition.]

With that done I returned the manifest to the officer, who then dropped it on the floor when he attempted some sort of apologetic salute. I then hopped off the platform and wandered back into the camp while they got on with their jobs. I can't say that I entirely blame his stallions for jumping to that conclusion, as most common ponies back then had likely never even seen a Griffon before and had only hearsay to base their assumptions on. The manifest itself merely said 'PGL rations', and commoners who had only heard 'Griffons eat meat' and could barely spell 'omnivorous' would have jumped to the conclusion that the rations contained meat.

It occurred to me then that I yet to introduce myself to Lieutenant-Colonel Guillaume, the Griffon commanding this battalion of the PGL, but now that I had been dragged from the womb-like security of my cot I thought I might as well do something to make sure that this outing was not a total waste of my time. My plan to ingratiate myself with them and earn their trust would be ably assisted by the good news that their problems with their rations had been solved by Yours Truly.

I weaved through the maze of tents and small buildings, and when I was safely out of sight I tossed what remained of the half-eaten griffonscone away. One of the many stray dogs in the camp, now endemic thanks to home-sick soldiers desperate for creatures that would provide them with unconditional affection feeding them, approached the unassuming confection, gave it a sniff, then screwed up its face in disgust and kicked it away into the dirt. Even creatures that will eat excrement didn't want it. Nevertheless, much of the filth and rubbish that had accumulated in the camp had been cleared away, thank Faust, and with it the infestation of vermin that fed off the detritus and carried with them the contagion of disease was down to a much more manageable level, for the time being at least.

The Griffons' portion of the camp, by contrast, was almost spotlessly clean, though the offensive stink that permeated the entire camp was never too far behind. They had only just moved in, of course, and so hadn’t had the chance to let standards slip and the filth to build up.

I hadn't seen so many Griffons in one place since that year I spent in Griffonstone, and being rather solitary creatures who seemed to spend the majority of their lives trying to avoid one another as much as possible it was very rare that I saw even a fraction of the multitude that I saw before me. Griffons in the golden plate armour of the old Royal Guard practiced musket drill in the parade square to the gruff barking of a sergeant, going through the endless repetition of load, aim, fire, reload, and so on. Having claws instead of hooves, they appeared to be having a much easier time of it than our earth ponies and pegasi, who even with the necessary adjustments and refinements that Twilight Sparkle had worked out with the gunsmiths of Manehatten to accommodate our clumsier appendages, still often struggled to meet the required minimum rate of three rounds a minute. Above, Griffons in V-formations swooped around, engaging in mock battles with one another, with 'dead' soldiers sullenly gliding back down to earth to sit in a small squared-off area marked 'Time Out'.

A sentry pointed me towards one of the larger tents just off the parade square, where his Colonel was likely to be and was, he assured me, quite eager to meet me. I doubted that. Nevertheless, I trotted on over, skirting around the parade square where the soldiers drilled, and slipped inside the tent.

The senior PGL officer I had seen at Twilight's party sat behind a large wooden crate that served as a makeshift desk, pouring over the forms and letters that made up the bulk of a military officer’s job. Though we had attended the same party, we hadn’t had the chance to speak at the time, as my attention was otherwise occupied. The rest of the tent was just as spartan, with only a small pile of straw in the corner arranged into something like a nest for a bed. The only decoration present was a framed portrait of Princess Celestia placed in the far corner with an unlit candle as some sort of primitive, makeshift shrine. The artist, whoever he was, had managed to capture her calm, patient, and motherly demeanour in the medium of oil paints quite well, and it was quite reassuring to see her gentle smile in a Griffon’s tent of all places.

The officer looked up from his paperwork as I negotiated my way through the tent flap. In the heat of the Badlands, he had wisely left his fur pelisse behind, and instead wore a clean, crisp dress tunic, whose lustrous crimson hue had yet to fade with the sun and the constant dust. As I took off my hat and tucked it under my armpit, he smiled, or made what passed for a smile with a sharp beak, and stood up from his seat.

"Your Highness," he said, bowing his head sharply and clicking the heels of his hind paws.

It had been quite a while since I was last addressed with the proper respect that my regal title demands, common ponies apparently having forgotten their etiquette in recent years, so it was something of a pleasant surprise to be addressed so, if by a Griffon. At least they, the expatriate community that resides in the secluded areas of our realm, held onto the old ways of appropriate deference. Or this could have been a cynical gesture to appeal to my admittedly fragile sense of self-worth, wrapped up as it was with a title that, if I must be honest, was starting to feel like more of a hindrance than a boon by that point in my life. It worked, of course, as my withered and desiccated ego lapped it all up like a cat with cream.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Guillaume, I presume?” I said. He nodded and puffed out his chest; creatures seemed to like it when I bothered to remember their names, and this time I had made an effort to seek it out. “I believe I owe you a griffonscone. Forgive me, but I helped myself to one just now as they were being unloaded.”

“Ah.” The Griffon sucked air through his beak and frowned, tilting his head to one side. “Trouble with our rations again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

His eyes narrowed. “Let me guess, they thought it was meat?”

“Yes, though I managed to convince them that your scones are safe to handle.”

“I am sorry you had to deal with that, sir,” he said, the exasperation clear in his voice. “It’s a damned nuisance. One has to wonder if our ancestors had to deal with this when they fought side-by-side with ponies against Nightmare Moon’s hordes.”

I gave an easy sort of shrug, as though sorting out their little problem was not a hideous waste of my time, which could have been better spent hiding in my quarters brushing up on the latest edition of Princesses’ Regulations, albeit with a Platinum’s Secret catalogue tucked discreetly within the pages.

“It’s my job,” I said. “Sometimes ponies need a little reminder to work together every now and again.”

“Yes,” he said, “we all serve Princess Celestia.” Guillaume looked to the portrait in the corner, and made some sort of strange gesture where he placed his right claw over his breast and splayed out the talons as wide as they could go. [The Sign of the Sol Invictus, a quasi-religious gesture used by the PGL as a declaration of loyalty to me. The spread-out talons symbolise gratitude radiating like the rays of the sun from the hearts of the Griffons who were granted asylum in Equestria more than a thousand years ago.]

While such dedication to my regal aunt was admirable, in a way, I hoped that it would not slip across the dividing line between appropriate respect for the authority of our Diarchy and into the utter absence of sense, reason, and regard for the safety of oneself and others that comes with fanatical devotion to our alicorn princesses. It was as though they, these descendents of refugees, felt that they constantly had to prove their allegiance to our fair realm above and beyond that which was expected of the average subject. As I was about to find out quite soon, this apparent need was as much the result of continued doubt expressed by ponies who took Celestia’s grace and generosity for granted as it was their peculiar desire to show ‘gratitude’ for something that had happened so long ago.

Nevertheless, we had a brief chat, where I asked some general questions about how they were settling in; I didn’t care that much, to be honest, but it never hurt to at least feign interest in the well-being of others, as they seemed to like that from authority figures such as Yours Truly. His strange adoration of my Auntie ‘Tia, being a tradition peculiar to the PGL, notwithstanding, he proved to be a rather amicable chap, the likes of which I would not have been unhappy to have met at a cocktail bar in Los Pegasus. Despite the severity of the ongoing war and the rather dire situation that we found ourselves in, his calm and measured confidence, coupled with a sense of honesty about himself that other officers tended to lack, made speaking with him less of a chore than it had been with his equine counterparts.

Alas, we were not there to socialise, and he had the tedious business of overseeing the organisation of his regiment or some such boring bureaucracy to deal with anyway. I’m sure I had something else that I ought to have been getting on with too, as the Night Guards regiment would be arriving shortly, and with it the long-awaited offensive could begin at last. I was about to leave when, in accordance with a common theme of others managing to throw me off before I could escape, he touched me by the shoulder and fixed me with a determined glare.

“It is an honour, sir,” he said, his voice quivering strangely with the same reverence it had when speaking of Celestia; it was most odd and rather unsettling when applied to me of all ponies. “My ancestors fought to the last Griffon at the Princess of Blood’s side a thousand years ago. I hope to live up to that standard one day.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what he was getting at there, and I felt rather embarrassed at that odd reference to the long-dead progenitor of my regal line. “Well, let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself,” I said, hoping that it was indeed the right thing to say.

He smiled and thanked me, and I beat a hasty retreat lest I find myself signed up for a suicidal last stand. I already had one of those thus far in my career, and that was more than enough for my liking. As I trotted along back to my office, hoping to get there before Second Fiddle, who continued to peer over my shoulder and tut at everything I did like a disapproving matron, it occurred to me that once again I was to be the quiet voice of reason in a world driven mad by this war; Guillaume certainly seemed level-headed and, by the standards of the officer class, some measure of sane, but so often the memory of the glories of a distant, romanticised past can cloud one’s judgement with the desire to, as he had put it, ‘live up to that standard’.

My family’s history becomes more mired in legend the further back one delves, culminating in the mythical figure of the Princess of Blood looming over the memory of her scions and casting us all in her heroic shadow. Only Celestia and Luna can say with any degree of certainty about what really happened in Equestria’s distant and bloody past, and even then they are still subject to the same all-too-equine biases and presumptions as the rest of us mortals. I dislike ponies mentioning that ancestor of mine, as usually it is done as a reminder of how far my family has fallen since then, and applied as an exhortation for me to do better. The crimson sash had already given me an impossible standard to live up to, and I scarcely needed another.

[The event referenced by Lieutenant-Colonel Guillaume is more commonly known today as the Last Stand of the Princess’ Griffons. In the Battle of the Everfree during the Nightmare Heresy, the Princess of Blood and two hundred Griffons of the PGL defended the Castle of the Two Sisters against overwhelming numbers. This delaying action bought me time to collect the Elements of Harmony and banish Nightmare Moon. Neither the Princess of Blood nor the Griffons survived.]

The second incident was really a number of smaller incidents that merged together to create one single mess that fell squarely into my lap. Next to the PGL’s camp was that of the Prism Guard, and what began as a few minor scuffles between soldiers of the two regiments accidentally, or purposefully as might be the case, straying into one another’s ‘turf’, as I believe is the correct term in the common parlance, inevitably escalated when these groups encountered one another when on leave and frequented the bars, gambling dens, and brothels of Dodge Junction. While their own regimental commissars really should have sorted this out on their own - after all, that is what they were paid for - now that junior officers had been getting involved in this foalish spat that now apparently required my specific involvement.

“I asked for you personally,” said Colonel Fer-de-Lance when she invited me into her office to discuss this nonsense. My reputation for undue fairness had its drawbacks, it seemed, as everypony in the entire damned military wanted me to sort out their problems for them.

I slipped through the open tent flap, past the tall, scarred Prench mare, and caught a whiff of some light and floral fragrance wafting from her. Inside, it looked as though she had tried, and failed, of course, to bring a little bit of the elegance of her native land with her. It was almost funny, in a way, to imagine her orderly lugging the massive, ornate desk around with him while on campaign, along with the rather large armoire filled to bursting with extravagant uniforms. Decorative silk tapestries depicting several dour-looking ponies in the finery of the Prench court hung from the tent poles.

Fer-de-Lance followed me in and took her seat at this mahogany desk, with its carefully positioned desk mat and gilded inkpot, and invited me to sit on the cushion opposite, which I did gladly. “This is getting out of hoof,” she said. “Lieutenant Golden Tarot has challenged a Griffon officer to a duel.”

I settled back in the cushion and stroked my chin, waiting for her to continue. When it became apparent that she was waiting for my input, all I could muster was a flat, bored, and uninterested, “I see.”

“Perhaps I should have them arrested,” she continued. “That would be according to the new regulations, no? Duelling is forbidden now.”

“Yes,” I said, wondering where in blazes she was going with this. “Twilight Sparkle believes it’s more sporting to let the Changelings kill our officers instead.”

“But I do not think such a thing will help.” She waved her hoof dismissively, apparently having ignored what I had just said. “Golden Tarot is one of us; he is a stallion of the noble class, and I believe he is a cousin to your sisters’ husbands. His honour will be insulted if he is not allowed to duel an officer who has insulted him so horribly. Even if this officer is a Griffon.”

“And what did this Griffon do?” I asked. “And who is this Griffon, anyway?”

Fer-de-Lance flicked through a neatly placed stack of papers on her desk. “Lieutenant Gunther,” she said. “I think that is what it says. Griffon names are very confusing. He left a dead rat in Golden Tarot’s tent.”

I tapped my chin, affecting to look as though I had dredged up some bit of insight from the depths of experience. “What do you think caused this Lieutenant Gunther to leave a dead rat in your officer’s tent?”

She shrugged her shoulders and leaned back in her seat, tapping her hoof on the table in annoyance. “The two broke up an argument with their soldiers on a joint training exercise, and some of my ponies ended up in the infirmary. Then this barbarian puts a dead animal in his tent as an additional insult. A duel is the only correct response to this, if they were not made illegal.”

“It’s an apology,” I said, and Fer-de-Lance boggled at me.

Pardon?”

“Griffons are part-feline, after all. If Golden Tarot’s rejected the apology-rat, then Gunther would feel just as insulted. Just call for the provosts to put a stop to the duel and be done with this farce.”

“I’m afraid I cannot.” Fer-de-Lance spread out her hooves apologetically, and I felt an inward burst of irritation at being expected to do other officers’ jobs for them - it was all Luna’s fault for making me her special catspaw in the 1st Army. “The honour of a Prism Guard officer is his life, and his word is his bond. If he has sworn to duel then he must proceed, and were I to forbid it he would take it as a betrayal on my part.”

As I sat there, listening to this nonsense, I cast my mind back to helping Princess Twilight Sparkle pass her reforms, and the rather underhanded things I had to do to arrange the victory that she, and Equestria itself, needed. It was all well and good getting the required signatures on the piece of legislation that put all of her changes into practice, but it appeared that reforming the chopped-up remnants of the old Royal Guard into something resembling a modern army, free from the costly distractions caused by the egos of aristocratic officers, was where the real struggle still lay.

“You want me to do it,” I said, finally putting two and two together. “I, as somepony on the outside, turn up, break up the duel before either of them can hurt themselves, and they can both carry on thinking that honour has been satisfied because Prince Blueblood ordered them to stop it instead of an ordinary provost. Or you, either.”

“Yes,” she said. “I trust that you will not mention this conversation.”

If this seems ridiculous to you, dear reader, then I imagine that you are a pony of some reasonable level of intelligence and wit. Well done. The very concept of honour is a shackle to the aristocrat, like a price that one must pay for one’s birth into a position of privilege, in the form of a frustratingly vague set of guidelines that one ought to follow in the absence of common sense. It’s all well and good opening doors for ladies and doffing hats to strangers on the street, but when it comes to fighting and potentially dying over perceived insults then it all becomes a bit silly, frankly. The true art of nobility, I find, is to navigate one’s way around these rules, exploit them where appropriate, and find ways to weasel out of them without being seen to break them. That, apparently, was where I came in to resolving this little spat; it was very astute of her, and I imagined Fer-de-Lance was as seasoned a veteran of this as I am, though I had to wonder why she couldn’t have picked somepony else to bother.

So I agreed to do it, and at the appointed time and place I emerged onto the scene flanked by two provosts I had grabbed along the way. Golden Tarot and Gunther had agreed to fight this duel out in the Badlands, about a mile south-east from the outer confines of the camp and beyond the defensive line of trenches and fortifications. Aside from their seconds, who were their ensigns, there were no other ponies or Griffons present. It was dawn as well, with the sun creeping over the eastern edge of the vast expanse of desert, and I expect the two of them thought that this was all very dramatic and such.

I had arrived a few minutes late, affecting to look as though I had picked up this rumour of an illegal duel at the last moment and then frantically raced to put an end to it. Fortunately for them, neither had been badly injured, each having received only a few light nicks from each other’s swords; it appeared that their relative youth, being merely older teenagers the both of them, and inexperience in such things led them to be quite restrained in their duel, though had I not arrived there was still every chance it could have escalated.

The two combatants seemed almost relieved when I arrived and forced my way between them, though that sense of relief was quickly destroyed when I assigned them and their seconds latrine duty. Technically, I had been in breach of regulations in assigning officers manual labour as a punishment, instead of the more usual fine they could easily pay off, but this was about sending a message that duelling was not to be tolerated any longer, and neither was wasting my time. Furthermore, I had placed these two apparent enemies into the same punishment detail, which I hoped would allow them to bond over a mutual feeling of resentment over this injustice.

Whether or not that truly worked I’ll never really know; first because I never bothered to follow up on it, and second I would not have had the time to even if I had the inclination. It was finally happening - the Big Push, Operation Buttercup, the grand offensive, or whatever you want to call it. After months and months of anticipation, preparation, planning, and monumental logistical effort, the thing that I had been dreading for so very long was finally upon us. The arrival of the Night Guards and some pegasi from the newly raised MWC [Meteorological Warfare Corps] from Cloudsdale meant that the build-up of forces was finally complete, and the great offensive could begin. The order was given out at last, and the camp, already a hotbed of activity, positively exploded in a level of excitement that I could scarcely comprehend.

Within two weeks of receiving those orders, much of Fort Nowhere was emptied; the thousands of troops and all the necessaries that kept them fed, happy, and armed were vomited forth onto the great plains of the Badlands. Try as I might, there was no possible excuse that I could muster to remain with the small garrison left behind, who had the gall to express disappointment at missing out. Were I brave enough, I’d have happily swapped places and uniforms with any one of them. Even attempting to induce a second attack of the Trots, which I was well aware might be lethal twice in a row without so much as a rest, was doomed to failure as, despite their usual lackadaisical approach to such things, the army had managed to stamp out the worst of their sanitation problems before that intrepid little bacteria had a chance to invade my bowels once again.

And so we marched deeper into the Changeling heartlands, with each step bringing us closer and closer to the awful fight that I knew must inevitably follow. I am certain that every schoolfoal knows the particulars of the first engagement of what would later be called the Battle of Virion Hive, so ingrained as it is in popular military history, so I shan’t bore my readers too much with the minutiae of the plan and how it all went, save for how I saw things transpire.

I Corps had marched for the better part of a full day and made camp for the night. The going had been arduous, of course; we had marched all day in the blazing sun, and only stopped every now and again to make sure that the soldiers didn’t die of dehydration and exhaustion before the Changelings could have a fair go of that instead. Even as dusk fell I barely had time to eat a hasty dinner and rest my aching hooves before I was dragged in for yet another conference, this time with Major General Garnet, who commanded the Guards Division, the two Brigadiers who commanded the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the Division, a pegasus from the MWC and a number of desk-shackled staff officers.

Major-General Garnet was yet another one of Twilight Sparkle’s rising stars, being a very modern sort of major-general with a penchant for memorising a whole host of interesting but ultimately useless facts about the most obscure of topics. That was probably why he got on so well with the Princess, I imagined. Nevertheless, despite his tendency to expound upon pointless trivia, this odd personality quirk is what had allowed him to come up with, what I must admit, was a rather good plan. Of course, ‘good’ plans in war still result in a whole lot of death, dismemberment, injury, trauma, and misery for everypony involved except the planner.

“These hills here,” he said, pointing to said geological formation on the map he had pinned up to a board in his tent. “They are the key to taking Virion Hive. They form a natural defensive line from attack from the north, which just so happens to be where we’re coming from. The Changelings know we’re on our way, so they’ve done what any sensible general worth his stars would have done and dropped a war swarm right on top of it; on the reverse slopes, too, out of sight of our artillery just to make things more interesting for us. Ladies and gentlecolts, General Market Garden wants that high ground and I intend to give it to her on a silver platter. Now, this is all very interesting from a geographical standpoint, being a stratigraphic sort just like the Appleachians…”

He went on like that for a while, and that gallant little imitation of a Twilecture was still very fresh in my mind the next morning when I got to see that ridge up close. It was still very dark when I was woken from my fitful sleep, plagued with nightmares as it must always be, and the Guards Division was quickly mustered and sent out into the desert. As the sky turned from inky black-blue through the varying shades of purple and orange with the slow rising of the sun, those aforementioned heights, ridges, hills, or whatever the correct technical term is for the scrap of high ground we were about to fight, kill, and die for, were gradually illuminated.

It took a few hours of yet more marching to reach the base, where the ground, which had changed from the empty, flat plains of the northern Badlands to the more hilly and rocky terrain of the Changeling heartlands, began to slope up and up to reach a high, sharp peak, where it would slope away just as dramatically into the valley where the city lay. The last hour of the march was conducted under the cover of clouds, helpfully provided by the MWC, so my only view of them, before everything became smothered in dense grey fog, showed that the ascent was hardly an even and consistent affair. Gentle slopes suddenly became sharp cliffs and rocky crags, punctuated by the occasional ditch and cleft. The sight of it, silhouetted darkly in the dim light of late twilight, rising ahead of us, looming like some vast and grotesque monster, filled me with a quiet sense of dread - it was happening, and there was nothing that I could do to escape it.

Once the pegasi had placed the clouds over the entire division, I could only see up to about three feet in any real clarity. The soldiers marching on ahead were consumed by this endless grey fog, but those closest were still visible as ghostly silhouettes, like lost souls drifting into the eternal void of Limbo. How nopony got lost in that pea soup of a fog is a testament to the discipline and training of the ordinary Equestrian soldier, and I suppose the map-reading skills of junior officers. The hills were no longer visible, but the sight of them before they became obscured was still present in my mind, and knowing that they were still there, concealing however many thousands of Changelings behind their ragged, broken peaks, only heightened my fear. In the vague, indistinct, uniform grey I imagined I could see the hills, bigger, steeper, and rougher than they truly were.

The division came to a halt, just where I could feel the ground beneath my hooves start to slope upwards. I had very little idea of what was going on around me, but from what I could tell as messages were passed up and down the line, the sharp ‘pops’ of teleporting runners cutting through the muffled noise of an entire division trying to arrange itself in formation, everything had gone smoothly thus far. We had arrived only slightly out of position in the fog, as even our experienced weather ponies struggled here, but it was quickly sorted out.

After I had done my job, moving up and down the line and offering hollow words of encouragement to nervous soldiers, there was nothing left to do but stand there and wait as the first phase of the plan was executed. The Solar Guards had been sent forwards out of the fog as bait to lure the Changelings down from the safety of the reverse slope, down to where they would be in sight and range of our hidden muskets and artillery. That was the theory, at least, for even I, as inexperienced with strategy as I am, feared that the enemy would be somewhat suspicious of the sudden onset of a dense fog in a land known for its hot climate. [Without pegasus-controlled climate, naturally-occuring fog in the Badlands is rare but not unheard of, especially in the Changeling heartlands where the climate had been warped by Chrysalis’ malign influence.]

We waited in silence, or as near to silence as it was possible to imagine with so many ponies around; the sound of a lot of ponies trying to be completely silent is distressingly loud and chaotic. Armour clinked and rattled; ponies coughed, whispered, or merely breathed; hooves shuffled in the dirt; and a myriad other such noises echoed from all around us, each amplified and distinct in this peculiar, awkward hush. My ears twitched and shifted involuntarily at each such sound, some louder and closer than others. Somewhere, a pony broke formation to vomit, with the sound of great retching followed by a splash. His comrades jeered at him, but they were silenced with a single barked order from a sergeant.

I could sympathise entirely. While the Solar Guard was off ahead, dangled like a small treat in front of the maw of a very hungry tiger, I could only wait and allow my anxiety to build up like the bubbles in a shaken bottle of champagne. It was maddening. There was no possible way of knowing how they fared up there - if the Changelings had taken the bait, if the battalion was being massacred as we stood by unknowing, or if the enemy was still safely behind that ridge.

A cannon fired, and its roar decisively cut through the silence. I jumped, which made Major Starlit Skies snicker. Glaring at him only made him grin wider. Seconds later, another, fainter ‘thud’ could be heard as the shrapnel shell exploded in mid-air to shower its victims with a lethal hail of lead. Another cannon followed, and then another, in a small, desultory cannonade that only served to bolster the illusion; no Equestrian force, no matter how small, attacked without artillery support.

They were coming, then; the artillery would not have opened fire without a target, as Market Garden abhorred wastage. The plan was working, or so it seemed, and very soon I would be hurled into the fight once again. I was at the front, you see, standing with Major Starlit Skies behind two lines of earth ponies and unicorns. Behind us, Colonel Sunshine Smiles stood with more earth ponies in denser formations should the enemy close in for hoof-to-hoof combat, which they most certainly would. The pegasi remained at the rear to keep the cloud that concealed us where it should be, and dart in to keep the Changelings from taking to the skies and outflanking us. Even further back, Major-General Garnet was safely out of harm’s way to direct the battle. He didn’t need my offer of assistance, of course; no, my place was at the front with the stallions, and try as I might there was no getting out of this without unveiling myself as the coward I truly am.

My heart pounded in my chest, louder than the distant cannon fire seemingly muffled by the fog. The air was dense, soupy, and was thick with the stench and taste of fear and sweat and vomit; it was everywhere - in my nose, my mouth, and clogging my throat like a urine-soaked ball of cotton wool crammed down there. Each breath was laboured, like sucking air through a clogged straw. By Faust, I wanted it over with. If this was to be my end, then so be it, if it meant an end to this interminable waiting.

Just let it end.

“Sir?” said Cannon Fodder, who had been standing silently by my side. “Are you alright?”

I noticed that he was having no problems breathing, and neither did anypony else for that matter. It was just me, or rather the mounting fear within.

“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a grin. “Must be allergic to clouds.”

A cold wind blew, plucking at my coat, chilling my sweat-soaked fur, and nearly knocking my cap off. The standard of the Night Guards above fluttered. A thousand pegasi behind the line beat their wings all at once, striking up a brisk gale that blew away the cloud and provided some momentary respite from the horrid stench. As though a veil had been lifted, a curtain drawn from a window, the battlefield was revealed. Ahead was the great range of hills, and there, upon the slopes, the Changeling war swarm rushed down towards us.

Thousands of drones charged. Each second brought them closer to our line, a pitiful two ranks between me and them. They could only have been a few hundred yards away; their hooves thundered on the ground and their wings filled the air with an awful buzzing. Amidst the great mass of them, some running, others already airborne, I could already make out individual drones; snarling, slathering beats with fangs bared and tongues flickering as they bore down on us. The earth trembled, reverberating up my hooves as I stared transfixed in horror at the sight. Dear Luna, this was suicide.

They had left it too late. The Changeling swarm would be upon us soon, and we’d be washed away like a sugarcube in a cup of hot tea.

“Present!” shouted Starlit Skies, his voice surprisingly loud and sharp for a such a soft-spoken pony. He held his hoof up as though he was about to merely signal the start of a school sports day race, and peered at a quietly ticking pocket watch. The first two ranks lowered their muskets or horns. We happened to be behind an earth pony company, so I had a front row seat in seeing how these allegedly war-winning weapons would be used. It would be very interesting to see that before being ripped to shreds.

The cannons thundered behind us somewhere, one after the other in an irregular, rolling volley. Each was like the pounding of a hammer against my skull. Spears of flame and smoke screamed over our heads, piercing through the residual fog that still lingered and leaving behind the sharp, acrid tang of burnt gunpowder in its wake. The slope of the hill was a killing field; roundshot tore great, ragged wounds into the swarm, while shrapnel and mortar shells eviscerated scores at a time in murderous showers of iron and lead. Yet it was not enough, the holes torn by cannonfire were quickly healed as the dead, dying, and wounded were merely left to be trampled. The enemy’s formation dispersed, spreading out so as to minimise losses. Yet for all the fearsome power and horror of modern artillery, Bramley Apple’s battery was not enough to halt the seemingly limitless numbers of the enemy, who cared not for casualties. The swarm charged onwards to our fragile line, unimpeded by hail of shot and shell.

“Steady, lads!” The Major wiggled his nose, which settled the pair of pince-nez balanced precariously there, and peered through the lenses at the vast swarm. “Wait for my command!”

The enemy were a mere hundred yards away, and the artillery ceased firing lest they hit us. The absence of the roar of cannonfire was suden, abrupt, and disturbing - now, the drumming of thousands of hooves and the buzzing of thousands of wings had become overwhelming. Though I prayed, pleaded really, the thundering mass of Changelings showed no sign of slowing or stopping at the sight of an entire division about to open fire. Instead the snarling, hissing mass of hooves and fangs roiled like a boiling sea, and rose up like a tidal wave.

Give the order, I wanted to scream, give the bloody order, damn you!

Our troops stood firm - horns charged, muskets levelled with locks back and hooves clenched around triggers - where I had no thought but to turn and run, yet my hooves remained rooted to the ground as though glued. It was the end; nothing to do but stand and wait for it to happen - for us to be swept away in an onslaught of hooves and fangs. Major Starlit Skies gazed out thoughtfully at the oncoming horde, with no more concern than one would for a particularly tricky crossword puzzle, and then he looked at his pocket watch again. The stampeding beasts were almost upon us and nopony could possibly miss, so what in blazes was he playing at? Sixty yards and closer every second - give the order you senile old fool, give the order or I will.

I could stand it no longer, and yelled over the noise, “Give the or-”

Major Starlit Skies dropped his hoof. “Fire!