The body of an ancient unicorn hit the floor with a ‘thump’. She smirked triumphantly, raising her head higher and looking at the pony from the full height of her shape. And to think that those frail old fools called themselves the most powerful in all the land!
Each of them was so sure, so confident as to take her on one on one. Brave, perhaps, but how very typical of the unicorns: believing in the vastness of their powers, thinking themselves capable of defeating her by themselves. But the King’s nourishing love had given her powers beyond their wildest dreams; she couldn’t even remember the last time she felt so strong. Even the mightiest of those ‘Keepers’ had proven to be not much more than a nuisance, unprepared and surprised as they were.
But there was not enough time to properly bask in her victory. She lowered her head, pointing the tip of her horn at the defeated pony. It came aglow with a vibrant, pulsing green that sharply outlined its edges, and projected a twisted lightning-like beam of the same colour. There was a groan; the pony shivered and, slowly and unsteadily, got up.
“What... urgh, what is your bidding, Your Majesty?” said the mage, looking at her with bleary, unfocused eyes, green slowly draining from their irises.
‘Perfect!’ she thought, giggling deviously. ‘The magic is already in full effect.’ Out loud, however, she said: “You’re tired, but I still need you. Stay alert, watch for the enemy and be ready to cast your spell, just as planned.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty. I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep last night, it must’ve got to me...”
“I understand. Stay vigilant,” she said with a solemn face, letting it melt into a content smirk only after she turned around and walked out of the door. It was time to visit the last few unsubjugated ponies on their secluded postings.
She turned a corner and almost bumped into the guard captain, who smartly stepped aside to avoid collision. Even in thralldom, he seemed to have retained his reflexes. Two royal bodyguards in their showy, impractical suits of armour were following behind him.
“It’s good that we’ve found you, Your Majesty. I’ve been tasked by His Majesty King Silver t’ bring to you your escort,” the bulky unicorn said, standing to attention. “He’s staying within th’ throne room with our recruits, and believes you’d be in safer in the bodyguards’ company.”
She relaxed, realizing none of the three were out of her control. They would not have been a challenge, but the last thing she wanted was even more annoying hitches in her plan.
“Thank you, captain. You may go back and give my thanks to my husband. You two, follow me.”
As she resumed her trot down a series of galleries and corridors towards her next servant-to-be, she thought that the bodyguards might actually come in useful in case the others wouldn’t go down peacefully.
She doubted any of the unicorns would be able to remove her enchantments—after all, the spells she had used were the pinnacle of her ability, resilient and elegant at the same time. They took up only a miniscule amount of her magic in exchange for lasting and effective control. There were drawbacks, regrettably—the enchantments exerted their effect through confusion and suggestion, deceiving the victim into following her orders rather than forcing a complete mental override the older and more primitive magics induced; her newer spells lulled the weakened mind into accepting its lies as the truth, which meant that should the actual truth have made itself known, the victim could become aware of the deception and combat the spell. In the event of that, however much she loathed to resort to such crude methods, the only cure was to bend the subject to her will through brute magical force. However, to her, the risk was well worth the tradeoff—complete mental domination required a great deal more effort than these spells, which meant she could effortlessly charm scores of ponies.
But even with all the finesse and effectiveness of her refined enchantments, she could not subjugate everypony on such short notice, which had been proven once again by the speed her first thralls had shaken the spells off with. Even with all the might her feeding had given her, she was not yet strong enough. She hated to admit it to herself, but to take the castle, she had to get rid of the surplus ponies. She was certain that, with a carefully planned ambush, her subjects could subdue them, then store them and feed upon them; she’d even set it up conveniently close to the temporary storage. But apparently, she was not going to win so easily.
When she was contacted by her field commander, informing her of the staggering losses and requesting her guidance, she could do nothing but call off the attack. She could not allow her army to be destroyed on the eve of the windigoes’ arrival, and should she have ordered them to continue, it would have been a very costly victory at best. She would need more than a few dozen of her kind to stand against the encroaching hateful beasts. She would have to find another way.
Until then, she still had three wizards to welcome into her servitude. Her plans were not so fragile as to fall apart after a single complication. Even if those stubborn foals were to defy her again, she would still have the castle with all its defenses, of which she had been so graciously informed by the guard captain, as well as all the delicious love the ponies hiding in the cellars could offer. She could easily keep the bothersome guards out while feasting alongside her subjects.
‘But it would not go so far,’ she mused as she finally approached her quarry’s location at the other side of the keep. If the commander’s report was any evidence, her minions had come close to defeating the ponies. They would not be able to do anything, even breach the prisoner storage in the deepest reaches of the caverns. She had made sure they departed poorly prepared for staying outside. Their complete defeat was a matter of time; her subjects would only have to wait for their meager supplies to run out, a day at most.
She trotted up to the door, the smirk that had split her face dissolving into a neutral expression. Planning any further actions concerning that wayward group of ponies would have to wait. It was time to welcome a new subject into the realm of Queen Chrysalis.
~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~
Rain accumulated in the myriad cracks and grooves in the rocky overhang above the entrance, coalescing into large drops that splashed onto the stones below at regular intervals. The monotonous sound didn’t do much to improve Star Swirl’s spirits as he sat on the chilly rock floor, looking out onto the clearing past the three unicorns standing guard just far enough inside to avoid the drops.
A healer by the name of Lily Petal was standing beside him, casting one last spell. He could feel the pain in his left hoof gradually subside and disappear, replaced by mellowness and warmth.
“Thanks.” He smiled at her, and she smiled in turn, wearily but brightly.
“Welcome. Got to dash!” She turned and cantered deeper into the tunnel.
He kept on smiling as he watched her, appreciating the good looks of his temporary doctor, but she quickly disappeared in the gloom, and the gravity of the situation set back in. While the pain was gone thanks to the lovely mare’s magic, he could remember it all too clearly, and even the thought of it made him wince. However, he couldn’t resist feeling a certain measure of pride, which, along with a couple pain-relieving spells, put him into the state of short-lived obliviousness that had just ended.
Back during the battle, when he stopped mid-field to prevent the changelings from abducting a guard and decided to stay and cover Opal Beam’s charge from afar, he didn’t realize how foolish it was to remain in the open away from everypony. His second spell never reached its intended target: displaying a degree of tactical acumen, the monsters still remaining airborne practically fell onto his back when the guards were far enough away. Their mistake consisted in the fact that Star Swirl’s spell had already been sufficiently charged, and when they pounced, his concentration was broken, the spell unraveled and the destabilized magic swept them away. It didn’t disable them, however, and Star Swirl was immediately up against half a dozen changelings on top of being disoriented by the malfunctioning spell.
While he was able and lucky enough to take out two of them, the others overwhelmed him and tried to immobilize him with some sort of sticky greenish goo. Acting quickly, Star Swirl managed to hastily conjure a burst of fire despite being held down by his attackers. As the would-be captors scattered, shrieking and trying to put out the magical flames, he seized the opportunity and made for the mine. With some help from Dawn Gleam’s fireballs, he reached its safety despite the injuries he had sustained at the monsters’ hooves.
He made it just in time to witness the changelings’ counterattack against Opal Beam’s ponies. Horrified, Star Swirl watched the monsters impact against his friends’ hastily erected magic barriers and break through one, and then Comet Trail dashed back to the mine entrance as fast as she could, shouting for healers. Star Swirl insisted on accompanying them back, but was ushered inside by Lieutenant Moonlight.
It was not easy for him to watch the squad enter the mines, despondently carrying the survivors not able to stand, but seeing Meteor Shower brought in on a pair of cloaks tied together, stained with mud and blood and with his destroyed side hastily dressed, was downright chilling. Part of Star Swirl’s mind blamed himself for the spearpony’s terrible injury—perhaps his magic could’ve prevented it, had he not committed his foalish mistake.
Snapping out of the grim thoughts, Star Swirl looked away from the outside and into the darkness of the tunnel. Farther down its length, somepony had lit a few of the old lanterns along the supports, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of the gloom. He could hear unsettling, faint moans coming from a wounded pony further in. Although he tried to go away from the sight of suffering and despair and closer to the fresher air outside, he couldn't entirely escape their sounds.
The wounded there were a lot of. Practically everypony had sustained some sort of damage, but the ones who got into the mines first and the rear squads had the worst of it. The vanguard was at roughly half strength after the changelings revealed their infiltration of the unicorns’ ranks and ambushed the unsuspecting ponies, injuring many before they were driven off. The rear guard... of twenty-four guardsponies and mages making up the original four squads, only three could be restored to a reasonably good condition. They had borne the brunt of the monsters’ attack, and by the time Opal Beam’s unicorns broke through their swarm, every single pony had been overwhelmed, most were unconscious or unable to fight back, and some had been abducted. The group Star Swirl stopped wasn’t the only one: there were four unicorns missing, three guards and a healer. That was not counting the fifth squad, which simply disappeared without a trace.
Star Swirl raised his hoof to his head. Of course! They had to be changelings in disguise as well! However, this raised the question of where the real guards had gone, both these and the ones that the changelings impersonated in the mine. And how did nopony notice their friends and comrades being replaced by lookalike monsters? Nopony joined or left them while on the march, which meant those changelings had been with them in the castle even before they set out. What if there were more of them still inside?
He shook his head. This was a waking nightmare. In the morning, he had been planning to celebrate the successful end of his research with his friends. As he sat there at the mouth of the cave, he was only hoping to see the next dawn. Changelings... he’d heard the infrequent rumors of strange creatures like that, but to think that they had suddenly come in force to wreak such horror upon them was nigh-impossible.
He could feel creeping panic appear at the far outskirts of his mind. Contrary to what his sense of self-preservation was suggesting, fighting the monsters was preferable to this: while more immediately threatening, the battle filled him with instinctive determination and a feeling of adventure born of his and Opal Beam’s foolhardy foalhood escapades, and now he was slipping into an abyss of dark thoughts, fear and uncertainty pulling him ever deeper in, sapping his will and making his mind work against itself.
Salvation came in form of Iron Vein, the pony who weathered the sudden battle the best of all, appearing in the pool of light from a lantern.
“Holding up all right? Did you get your hoof mended?” the giant stallion asked as he approached, and Star Swirl gave an affirmative nod to both questions.
“Good, because Lieutenant wants you in the old storage cave. She needs every officer there, and every mage as well, seeing how few of you are left.”
Regrettably, it made sense. Wizards, unarmoured and often frail, were easy targets for the barbed hooves and fangs of the monsters. Most of them had been disabled before they could cast a single spell; it was as if the changelings knew who to go after. Having been there with everypony during the preparations, they probably did. Of all wizards who had left with the guards, only four were well enough to fight—Star Swirl, Dawn Gleam the Younger, his apprentice Sunflower and Nightshade the Alacritous, brother of Lieutenant Moonlight.
“They’re trying to make a plan of action,” Iron Vein continued, striding past towards the entrance. “Seeing as the original one for what to do after the battle was along the lines of ‘cheer and go home’. Seriously, what was the King thinking? That’s what advisors are for.”
He walked up to one of the ponies on the watch and tapped her on the shoulder: “Go and rest up. I’ll replace you.” The mare nodded her thanks and turned about to head inside. Star Swirl got up to do the same as she passed by, adjusting what was left of his cape, which was missing its hood and a considerable portion of the tail end. Walking side by side, they moved into the circle of lamplight at the fork of the tunnel.
“Hey, you’re Star Swirl, aren’t you? The apprentice wizard? The healer filly told me you shot down the bugs that tried to carry me off,” the mare said gruffly after looking at him in the light. “Guess I should thank you. Who knows what they were doing that for.” She smiled. “Good job, colt.”
“Er, thanks.” The unexpected praise felt good after all the depressing thoughts. The corners of his lips rose.
“At least some of you made it. Shows that not all mages are squishy, eh?” She chuckled and poked his side with a hoof, but winced as she did so. “Ow. Shouldn'ta done that. Healers can only do so much.”
They rounded a bend in the tunnel and emerged into a spacious cave. It was dry and well-lit by magical lanterns hanging from beams that supported the ceiling. A pile of decayed remains of old crates and barrels took up the farthest corner, while the rest of the available space was full of ponies. Many of them—disconcertingly many, Star Swirl thought—were lying on the floor in rows atop their cloaks and capes, and several, looking particularly unwell, had been laid on top of the better-preserved scavenged planks. The three remaining healers, Lily Petal among them, bustled busily among the wounded, applying bandages, some of which looked like they were made from cloaks. All three were looking tired, but nevertheless continued their work. All other ponies tried to stand aside to let them pass.
There seemed to be about as many of those who could still stand and wear armour as those on the floor. They were keeping to the right side, away from the makeshift hospital. The unicorns clustered together around lanterns, talking or sharing some of the few rations that had been brought along. A mix of worried talk and whimpers and moans of the wounded filled the air.
“Hey, Feldspar! How's that leg o'yours?” the guard mare called out to a stallion lying close to the tunnel's opening with his hindleg tied to a plank, clearly broken. As he stirred, she glanced back at Star Swirl and waved a hoof, then trotted off towards the injured pony. He continued on into the cave, looking for the officers.
This proved to be an easy task. Further inside, at the far right of the cave, there was an old table with a lantern on top surrounded by a group of unicorns, the faces of the ones in the back illuminated by the magical glow. Among them were Lieutenant Moonlight and Opal Beam, both helmetless. Most of the ones with their backs to him were armoured, but three silhouettes outlined in the lantern's light wore capes a lot like Star Swirl's. That meant all the wizards were already there, except for himself. As he hurried towards them, he could hear the council’s words over the hubbub of the other ponies.
“You know perfectly well that we cannot stay here, Morningstar!” exclaimed a well-articulated stallion's voice, which Star Swirl instantly recognized as belonging to Keeper Nightshade. “The conditions in this place are completely inadequate for the treatment of the wounded!”
“Yeah. Thanks for reminding, but we know that. We also have no other choice,” grumbled the one addressed by the Keeper, a heavily-built old pony sitting slumped against the rocky wall. His neck was wrapped in deeply bloodstained cloth, and both of his front legs had planks affixed to them, holding them straight. “Half the force can’t even walk without assistance. All the healers can do is keep them stable.”
As Star Swirl approached them, Nightshade stepped closer to the table and put his front hooves onto it with a wooden ‘thump’.
“This is precisely my point, sergeant! There are no supplies here to support us for anywhere longer than a day, and there is no need to mention the absolute absence of medicine. Our medical ponies simply cannot cure so many serious injuries. You have been in the guard long enough to know this no worse than I. They are capable of suppressing pain and stopping bleedings, and the strongest and most taxing healing magics can knit flesh and mend bones, but as the splints on your legs show, they cannot simply go and restore everypony. With that in mind, their work does become a lot easier if they can utilize various medicinal herbs and other supplies.”
“Which,” Morningstar picked up immediately, “we have completely run out of just trying to save everypony. Believe me, I’ve noticed. This is no time for lectures, Keeper. Where, do you think, are we going to get them?”
“In the castle, of course! The medical storeroom was completely stocked during my most recent inspection. There’s enough to ensure rapid convalescence for everypony. It is imperative that we head back as soon as possible!”
The wizard emphasized this by thumping the table once again, then stepped back, staring at the disagreeing guardspony. The others were quiet, watching them argue. Star Swirl stepped into the circle of light beside Nightshade, but all the attention was on the two speakers.
“And how exactly do you plan on accomplishing that? Do you want to trot back up the mountain carrying all the wounded ponies who can’t move on their own, through the woods and open ground, both of which are perfect for getting ambushed by those creatures? We’d be unable to fight back. Those things’ll flatten us in no time if they are any good, and bad fighters wouldn’t have taken out my entire squad.”
He nodded towards the rows of injured guardsponies, then glared back at the stallion. “This is war, Keeper. This is my world. Let me handle it.”
“Do not forget your station, Sergeant,” growled Lieutenant Moonlight, coming to her brother’s defense. “You are not the commanding officer here. I respect your service record and your experience, but I won’t tolerate insubordination, especially at this time.”
“Fine, fine,” Morningstar grumbled. “But you can’t ignore this. We can’t make it there with so many wounded.”
“And we cannot stay here, either. We have no rations and no medical supplies. We have to do something!” Nightshade added.
The lieutenant raised her hoof, demanding silence. “Don’t start it again. Both of you are right.”
She paused, looking at each of the assembled unicorns in turn. “We need to decide what to do next. We can’t stay here—while this place is defensible, we don’t have enough food to last even a day, and worse still, as Sergeant Morningstar noted, our healers are already tired and completely out of supplies. But we can’t leave easily either. If those... changelings’ performance says anything about their knowledge of tactics, they’re bound to be ready for us to come out again.
“First of all, I want each of you to report the state of your squads.”
Each officer proceeded to present a tally of their gurardsponies, their state and ability to fight. The end result was not very optimistic—out of every six ponies, at least one had been crippled, and numerous guards had sustained serious injuries and blood loss that rendered them unable to participate in combat even after the healers’ best efforts. Only the toughest and luckiest ones had made it through the battle with minor cuts and bruises.
“I’ve already accounted for Oak Leaf’s ponies,” she paused, glancing aside towards a motionless mare with a heavily bandaged head, a sergeant’s helm lying by her side. “This puts us at thirty able-bodied fighters, excluding the wizards. I understand that you four are the only ones that can still fight?”
“Correct, Lieutenant,” responded Dawn Gleam grimly. Sunflower seemed to shuffle away at the word ‘fight’, and Moonlight silently mouthed ‘not four, three’ while Morningstar grumbled something unintelligible.
“Now, as we can all see, our situation is difficult. We need to act, and quickly, because the longer we wait, the worse it will get. Do you have any suggestions?”
After a short pause, Opal Beam laid a hoof on the table. “Yes. We definitely can’t stay here, but we can leave. Just not all of us.”
“Hmm. Do you mean to propose sending out a smaller party?” the lieutenant interrupted in a thoughtful voice, and he responded with a nod. “I’ve been thinking the same. We will never get the wounded past those monsters, but if a strong team pushes through to the castle, they might make it. We can’t simply leave the wounded behind, either, so the rest would stay here to protect them. We wouldn’t even need many ponies to hold this cave, we’d only have to block the entrance.”
“You’ve seen what those monstrosities did to us, and we were at full strength. How do you expect a smaller group to break through that horde?” Morningstar said in response to this.
“We weren’t at full strength at any point, Sergeant,” replied Moonlight. “In the mine, nearly half of our ponies turned out to be enemies in disguise. You and the other three squads in the back got attacked by the bulk of their force, far more numerous than yours. Then, Sergeant Opal Beam’s ponies held at least twice their number off until I could aid them, and afterwards broke the monsters’ swarm with teamwork and a lot of covering fire from Keeper Dawn Gleam. If anything, they’ve shown that they’re afraid to engage us head-on, that one on one we’re stronger than them, and that if we don’t let them overwhelm us, we can win even if outnumbered.”
“We’re also better in terms of equipment and skills,” Opal Beam added. “They can fly, but they can’t attack us at range. And if you haven’t noticed, quite a lot of the monsters lying out there had been brought down by Dawn Gleam’s magic.” Hearing Opal Beam's remark, the Keeper smirked.
“Yes, ranged attacks proved to be effective,” the lieutenant nodded in assent. “If used correctly, these advantages could mean the whole difference.”
“Well, maybe this plan does have a chance to work,” conceded the old sergeant. “But what are we going to do if that group does reach the castle? There’s only about a dozen guards left there with Steel Hammer, then the mages... others aren’t worth much in a fight. And we’d need some way to get the rest of us to safety, quickly.”
“In a hoof-to-hoof scuffle, perhaps, but we unicorns are first and foremost a race of magic,” stated Nightshade with pride. “Our mages have been beating back pegasus armies for generations. This enemy will fare no better. If even the Circle alone combines its powers, we can obliterate these fiends before they can so much as think of a response. I cannot fathom why King Silver did not let us create a solution to this problem instead of ordering this operation.”
Everypony seemed to think this over, falling silent. The background noise of other guardsponies’ conversation filled the pause as the officers and Keepers looked at each other, while Star Swirl simply observed, not even sure why his presence was necessary: he couldn’t think of anything better than what actual guard officers could suggest.
After a while, Opal Beam spoke up once again, with a hint of uncertainty:
“We’ll need to leave a strong defense if we’re going to attempt this, Lieutenant. Those things are very good at using numbers to their advantage, and we don’t have many ponies to spare. What are we going to do?”
“Oh, I believe we can answer that,” Dawn Gleam spoke ahead of her, taking a step closer to the table and urging his apprentice to do the same. She did so without raising her gaze off the floor.
“Sunflower is amazingly good at magical barriers, as you probably know. She could seal the entrance with one. No monster would be able to get in.” The filly nodded in agreement.
Moonlight looked at the two of them sternly. “She didn’t do any such thing when it could have helped us on the battlefield. What if she panics again?”
“I won’t, ma’am,” said Sunflower, quietly but without any wavering.
“I’m not about to trust my ponies’ lives to something I’m not sure will work. I want a demonstration,” she said, staring at both of them.
“As you say, ma’am,” squeaked the young apprentice.
“Very well, then. Cast your barrier across the entrance.”
Sunflower turned towards the mouth of the tunnel leading into the cave and concentrated, closing her eyes. Her horn briefly shone with magic, emitting a few sparks from its tip, and a wavering wall of sky-blue cut across the tunnel’s breadth with a soft crackle. She opened her eyes again, smiling with an expression of subdued triumph.
“Good. But if it’s attacked, will it hold?”, the Lieutenant said curtly.
“It will. Her barriers are unusually resilient.” Dawn Gleam looked at the young mare with pride.
“I’d rather test this myself.”
Moonlight stepped away from the table and walked around the sergeants to stand beside the apprentice. She then lowered her head so that her horn was parallel to the floor and pointed at the barrier and suddenly broke into a run. A haze of sparks surrounded her horn as she charged down the length of the cave, ponies stepping aside to make way. She leapt just before colliding with the barrier, throwing her front hooves forwards, and cast the spell she had been powering up at the moment of impact; there was a low pulsing sound, and Star Swirl felt like a blast of wind hit him in the face. The lieutenant rebounded from the barrier and flew a short way backwards before kicking her legs out and skidding to a halt on the floor. There was no apparent effect on the shield or on Sunflower.
Moonlight shook her purple mane out of her eyes as she trotted back to the table, accompanied by the rank and file guardsponies’ puzzled glances.
“Not bad,” she commented to Sunflower, who beamed at what, in the circumstances, was undoubtedly praise. To the others, she said: “I’m not a monster swarm, but that spell was strong. If she can hold it, she’s good enough.”
“If I may,” said Dawn Gleam before she turned away. “If Sunflower’d be staying here, so would I. She feels a lot more... secure with me around, and truth be told, the inverse is true as well.”
“We would need a strong team to reach the castle, Keeper,” the lieutenant responded in a level voice.
“But you also want a strong defense, and what could be better than a Keeper to hold the enemy back? You’ve seen what I can do with combat spells in the open. Imagine this on tightly packed enemies in that tunnel,” he added, a barely noticeable glint in his eyes hinting that he wouldn’t have minded to find out.
Moonlight met his gaze, held it for a few moments, then nodded, as if receiving the message.
“Very well, then, you may stay.”
She proceeded to take her place among the officers and, raising her hoof, said: “Who is in favour of this plan?”
A thoughtful silence descended on the assembled ponies once again, broken after a while by Sergeant Morningstar’s voice, slow and laden with consideration.
“Moonlight, are you sure you’re ready to bet so much on this? If something goes wrong, it’d mean the end of us. Maybe the end of the Kingdom.”
“I cannot think of anything else. And all things considered, this is the most solid plan I see right now.”
“But... what if those changeling things are already in the castle? We had infiltrators with us the entire time, after all.”
The silence came back, colder and heavier than before. Just like when he thought of this earlier, Star Swirl’s mind did not quite want to realize the possible implications, and he was sure some of the others present felt the same way.
“Then we’ll have to kick them out or die trying,” Moonlight responded severely. “Doing nothing would certainly doom us, while this course of action could possibly succeed. In any case, the Unicorn tribe is not about to go down quietly.”
“Then so be it. Aye.”
The venerable sergeant raised one of his broken legs slightly. Opal Beam’s hoof also rose up into the air, followed by both of the Keepers’ and Star Swirl’s, who couldn’t see any other options either. Looking at them, the other sergeants lifted their hooves one by one.
“Then it’s settled. Now, we have to decide who will stay and who will go. I will lead the outgoing team, and Sergeant Morningstar will be in charge of the defense. I will need you, Nightrunner, as well as Star Swirl, in my party for magical support, seeing as Dawn Gleam stays with his apprentice. Sergeants, return to your squads and get them ready; I need to re-evaluate their state personally.” Lieutenant Moonlight’s voice was calm and authoritative, one of a pony who knew exactly what she was doing, even in a situation as dire as this.
The officers—those who were mobile, at least—left the table and trotted off, fulfilling their commander’s order. Moonlight turned her gaze to the wizards.
“Star Swirl, Sunflower, Keepers, help them out. The faster we begin, the better.”
Star Swirl began to walk away when Opal Beam turned around and called out: “Star, go fetch Iron Vein! I’ll get the others.”
As he entered the tunnel outside, considerably gloomier than the cave he was leaving behind, his mind was plagued by the visions of what could befall them had the changelings already taken the castle. He found himself hoping dearly that this was not the case.