“Much was underestimated in those weeks, and much was paid because of it.”
- Journal of Princess Luna
When Luna got back to the hilltop, the Sun had nearly set, and the extra cook fires she had ordered were lighting up the hillside for nearly a mile on either side of the road. The effect, she hoped, would be quite intimidating for the ponies holed up in Cotton’s estate. They had stood resolute so far, but surely a few of them would get more nervous as the hour of the battle drew nearer. With any luck, there might be some deserters come the next dawn, and any pony who surrendered was one less who might have to die.
Lieutenant Heart met them at the camp’s edge, and wordlessly led Luna on into the heart of the encampment, where her command tent had been set up. Inside, a thin supper of stew had been prepared, and her officers had come together for a last council.
The officers all arose and snapped her quick salutes as she entered, which was enough to bring a little comfort into Luna’s heart. That was, at least, until she noticed that Two-Tone was in among them, at a seat all his own. The unkempt unicorn had offered his own awkward salute, and now settled back into his seat to begin shuffling some papers around as if he deserved to be there.
“Captain Brow!” she said, glowering at him from the tent flap. “What is this civilian doing in our council? Was he not able to find rations in his own area of the camp?”
The captain shook his head, a gesture of defeat. “I told him that this meeting was for officers only, but he insisted that as the leader of the militia, he deserved a seat at the table. Would you have us escort him out by force?”
Luna did consider it, but why make a scene? And perhaps it would come in handy for her to be able to give him the orders directly. The long and short of it of course was that she wanted the militia as far away from the fight as she could get them, and Two-Tone would just have to be fine with that. She waved Brow back to his position, then walked over to her seat at the head of the tent, just in behind the fire pit.
“The negotiations were a failure,” she announced to the group, doing her best not to look defeated. “This means that tomorrow morning we will be advancing on Southoofton and executing the decree forcibly. During this meeting we will draw up the assignment for each of the units.”
The officers all had their quills out, ready to take notes. On a wooden frame that stood by her seat, Captain Brow unfolded a newly-drawn map of the area, incorporating everything that their scouts had seen over the course of the day. On the table in front of her rested her bowl of stew, but Luna wanted to get the briefing done first.
“The Cottonseed estate is the town’s only strongpoint,” she said, indicating the rough square on the map. “It is lightly fortified, but is in a narrow valley with poor sightlines. The river to the north is passable, but its banks do still present some obstacles. Nonetheless, given our numbers we should have no problem surrounding the estate.”
“Like a nut in a vise,” Two-Tone murmured from his table. “I like the way that you think, Your Majesty. We will grind them to dust between our advances, yes?”
“No,” she said sternly. “We are not going to attack.”
The unicorn sat up straight, his eyes wide. “What? But how do you intend to wipe out their resistance without an attack? What are our spears and blades for if not to impress upon that rabble the urgency of our cause?”
“We are not here to put them all to the blade, civilian,” she said, hoping the emphasis would wipe the eager grin off of his face. “We are here to execute the order that all of the harvest is to be turned over to my authority. If any of the townsfolk wish to fight back, then we will have to respond. But we will not be drawing first on any of them. I want these farmers to know that if this fight starts, it was them that started it.”
The words hung in the air in the tent. The officers were all nodding along in agreement. None of them wanted to be here either, but they would do what they had to do. If any fight started it would not be by their hooves.
Eventually, it was Captain Brow that spoke next. “So what is your plan then, my queen?”
“You, Captain, are going to lead the collection agents. You’ll have our best stallions along with you, but no more than a dozen. You will, after all, be right in the thick of things if it does get hot. Weapons sheathed and tempers cool, though. You’re only there to take the grain, not to hurt anypony. The rest of us encircle the property, but only in support. Not a single one of us draws a weapon until I say so. Understood?”
Of course it was all understood, easy as pie. All except for the civilian among them.
“With respect, my queen, I must strenuously object,” he said, rising from his seat and tugging on his coat to straighten its ragged lapels across his shoulders in an attempt to look more professional. “You wish to send Captain Brow and his hoof-picked elites into the heart of these rebels’ trap. When they arrive, weapons sheathed, do you honestly believe that these earth pony cretins will not leap at the opportunity to cut them down at once?”
He sauntered up to her desk, indicating the map with a free hoof. “Why take the risk at all? Instead, we can strike by surprise during the night, when the rebels will be asleep awaiting combat on the morrow. My unicorns can sneak under the cover of darkness, and take out their commanders. These rebels’ paltry resistance will surely dissolve without them. It is all done in a matter of hours, with no risk to any of our forces. We can be on the road to the next town by noon.”
There was a fresh silence in the tent. Luna guessed that the officers were wondering what her response to this insubordination would be, so she left them no time to wonder. She calmly walked to the map and put her face right up to his self-satisfied muzzle.
“May I remind you we are here to collect grain, civilian, and not to assassinate anypony who stands in our way? They will have sentries. If your infiltration is detected, you will have touched off a full-scale battle!” She wanted to grab a log from the fire pit and knock some sense into him with it, but at least the chagrin that appeared on his face was something.
“True,” he said ruefully. “But I still believe that you are giving this rebel group far too much credit. At least let my unicorns stand ready at the gates. We’ll not hesitate to come to the Captain’s aid should the battle commence.”
“You’ll stand where I tell you to,” she said, at the end of her rope. “And keep your weapons stowed until ordered otherwise. Now get out of my sight! Lieutenant Swift will be around later tonight with the battle plans.”
It looked for a moment as if he wanted to say more, and if he had then Luna would indeed have found something to clobber him with. But finally it seemed like he got the message.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he said, offering a contrite bow. After a second he made his way to the exit, and as soon as he was gone it seemed as though the whole room let out a collective sigh.
“Those fools will be the death of us all yet,” Brow said from the tent flap, shaking his head. “You realize that this is only the first town? Are we really willing to have this same conversation at every stop along the road?”
“Maybe we ought to let them stand at the front,” Heart said. “If they got themselves killed it would save us a lot of trouble.”
Luna immediately waved off the suggestion. “As much as I wish they were gone, they are still civilians, just like the townsfolk. I will not let them fall, even if I must watch over them myself. Now, I assume the rest of it is fairly self-explanatory?” There were nods all around. “Good. Swift, I want the irregulars in the rear. As far from the action as we can get them. Are you prepared to have the same argument I just did?”
He chuckled. “You kid, but that’s been my whole trip so far. If I’d known that this was what being an officer was going to be like, I’d have stayed up in the mountains.” That was actually enough to get a grin out of the whole assembled group.
Luna gave them all a resolute nod. “I know that a situation like this isn’t what any of you were expecting when you joined the Guard. And I’m fully aware that none of you will relish what we’ll have to do tomorrow, especially if it really does come down to a fight. But know that whatever does wind up happening, I’ll stand with you. We commence at dawn. Everypony get some rest.”
As evening turned to night over Cotton’s estate, the temperature dropped, just enough to remind those present that summer was long gone, and now even autumn was on its way out. It wouldn’t be long now until frost started nipping the grass at night, accompanied by, hopefully, a little snow. That obviously wouldn’t help anything right now, but come the spring it would at least provide some water.
Sycamore was up on the wall, doing her best to feel confident with the sickle that hung from a loop in her belt. To the north, she could see the fires of the Guard encampment spread out on the hillside, like fireflies scattered across the night. She could barely fathom the number of ponies that must be out there, nor of course could she begin to imagine what would happen come morning, when the queen’s forces began their assault.
She had been working in one of the bins when the dark purple alicorn had visited Cotton up at the house, and had only caught a glimpse of her and her bodyguard as they were making their way out through the gate. Even so, she had been able to sense the tension that was filling the grounds in the queen’s wake, and knew that whatever conversation had been had, it couldn’t have gone well. The fact that Linseed had ordered the perimeter guard doubled only reinforced that feeling. He was situated up on the estate’s front balcony, sitting with a spyglass scanning the horizon, his crossbow at the ready.
Now that the wall had been built up a bit, by the light of the lanterns Sycamore could see a fair distance over the banks of the river, on into the barren countryside. At this time of year, that countryside should have been dotted with piles of straw, lit up by the festivities of the harvest season drawing to its close. Seeing it all she couldn’t help but sigh.
Fern was on guard next to her, the scythe from their barn propped up on the barricade. He came over and put a leg across her shoulders, the warmth of his body helping to ward off the night’s chill a bit.
“Can you believe that it’s come to this?” he asked, speaking more to the night than to her. “If an army comes over the hill tomorrow morning, are we actually going to draw these blades and fight them?”
The sickle hanging from her belt loop felt like a lead weight, too heavy for her to lift. She had used it for its intended purpose often enough, and it cut grain and grass easily, with barely an effort. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it would take to use it on somepony else.
“I don’t know,” she said, the weight of the situation pressing down on her. “This whole season has been one unbelievable circumstance after another. Would you have believed two years ago that we’d still have no rain now? Would you have believed that somehow the whole town would wind up joined around Cotton’s hoof in the end? Every time we wondered how things could get any worse, and now here we are, looking the worst square in the eye.”
“I know I wouldn’t have believed that you would meet and fall in love with a pony who had stepped out of a fairy tale,” Fern said, whistling a low note as he gazed up at the sky.
Unexpectedly, the thought of Wind brought a smile to Sycamore’s face. For the past few days she had tried to avoid thinking of the pegasus if at all possible, because every time she remembered him it made tears gather in her eyes. But now, thinking of the life that he had returned to, school and adulthood, calm and peaceful, was enough to almost make her laugh.
“It’s hard to say, but I think it was probably a good thing Wind left when he did,” she said, though her tone betrayed her words. “He would never have understood any of this anyway, and I would have hated for him to get caught up in this fight.”
“Things might have been a little brighter at least.”
“Even Wind couldn’t have brightened up times like this.” She didn’t know where Cloudsdale was in the sky exactly, but she had a spot to look at: the spot where two nights ago she had seen Wind’s rainbow, eerily hanging in the night sky, illuminated only by the Moon and the stars. “He has a future up in Cloudsdale, a life to fit into, and a family that needed him. We’ll just have to settle for the brightness that he gave us in his time.”
Fern didn’t answer that, and so she kept on gazing up at the heavens. It was a clear night, though with the lights of the estate behind her the stars were hard to see. But Sycamore wasn’t afraid. The lights of the fires on the hillside had been stationary, and the night was quiet too, save for the light whisper of the breeze and the occasional owl’s hoot.
“So,” Fern said again, “what are we going to do? It’s not a matter of if the army shows up anymore. It’s when. And I think we ought to have a good idea of what we intend to do when it does happen.”
She shifted her body out from underneath his leg, taking a step off to the side so that she could look him in the eyes. “Fern, we ain’t never had a real choice this whole year. Every day, we did what we had to do. Because there was nothing else to do. Nothing else that didn’t end with us in a worse position than where we were already. This is no different. We didn’t ask for any of this, we’ve just had to deal with it. And come tomorrow, we’ll deal with whatever we have to again, and the same the day after. And on, until we finally find a way out of this mess.”
“Sure,” he replied, dipping his head down in agreement. “But don’t you think this is different? I’ll tell you I don’t want to stand on this wall and slice open another pony standing on the other side. That’s not what we’re here for; that’s not who we are. I don’t doubt that Cotton and Linseed would relish the opportunity, but I won’t.” His voice cracked as he finished up that sentence, and suddenly to Sycamore he seemed much more the young stallion that he was, barely into maturity, fear plain in his eyes. “I won’t,” he said again, softly.
She came back over and caressed him, supporting his shoulder against her ribs while stroking his mane. In truth, she almost wanted to join in with him, at least for a moment, but the situation demanded they stay resolute. “Come on, Fern. I know that feeling too. But this is what we’ve got, and it’s all we’ve got now. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but whatever it is, we’re still going to be doing it together, and we just have to believe that as long as we can hold to that we’ll get through this just fine. Can you at least do that for me?”
He sniffed for a moment, collecting himself, then drew a deep breath and stood up straight again. “Thanks. We’ll look after Pa too. Come on, let’s do a sweep of the wall to see how everypony else is faring.”
She was just turning to go with him when something small and fast-moving whistled past her ear, coming so close that she could feel the wake of its passage. She turned to look after it, and was able to see it embed itself in the wall of the house with a light twang. The arrow looked crude, but it only took Sycamore a second to realize what it meant, and only another second for a stone to hit the bottom of her gut.
Linseed had also been paying attention, and he wasted no time. “TO THE WALLS!” he shouted into the night, instantly rousing every pony on guard. “SOUND THE ALARMS! THE ESTATE IS UNDER ATTACK!”
From the blackness beyond the riverbed, Sycamore heard them coming, what sounded like a whole mob of attackers with their hooves thundering in the dirt. She barely had time to grab her sickle and crouch low before another pair of arrows whistled by, both missing.
Fern had the scythe ready now too. His eyes were wide, his breath coming in quick gasps, but Sycamore had no time to give him another pep talk, as in that instant the mob of unicorns finally came into the light of the lanterns, screaming bloody murder and waving their weapons before them. The battle was on.
Luna’s sleep was troubled, bits and pieces of dreams flowing through her mind whenever she closed her eyes. Canterlot being swallowed by billowing clouds of dust. Herself flying in a great storm that was all lightning and wind but no rain. Celestia standing encircled by fire, the tip of her horn blazing as hot and as bright as the Sun itself. And over all of them Pensive and Two-Tone were laughing at her, but with Discord’s laugh instead of their own. When something shook her awake, she had her sword out in an instant, ready and willing to use it on whatever was out there.
Swift, who was the only other pony standing in the tent, drew back in alarm, his hooves reflexively reaching for his own spear. “It’s just me,” he said earnestly. “Sorry to have woken you.”
It took a moment for her vision to settle, then everything became clear, and she realized what was going on. With a sigh, she slid the sword back into its scabbard. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little on edge. What news is there to report?”
She saw him take a deep breath, and right away she knew that it had something to do with the irregulars. It had to be something important for him to have woken her, and with those unicorns it would never be good news. She steeled herself, but nowhere near enough to deal with what his reply was.
“The irregulars have attacked the estate,” he said, shame clear in his voice. “I would normally have had somepony keep watch over them, but we all needed to rest in preparation for the battle tomorrow, and I thought that surely sentry duty was one thing I could trust them to do. Instead, they managed to sneak away. One of the other companies just alerted us to it.”
Any dimness from her lack of sleep parted from Luna’s eyes right away, replaced by the clarity that only a boiling rage could bring. “Those fools!” she cried, her voice echoing like a thunderclap. “Those blind, stubborn, idiot fools! They’ll only get themselves killed, but first they’ll destroy everything that we came here to save!”
Jumping up off of the ground, Luna quickly grabbed her scabbard with her magic and ran out into the night.
It was still dark, very early in the morning likely, but right away she could hear the sounds of the battle drifting in over the breeze. It was too far away to be much except for a general din, but the sounds of metal-on-metal collisions and war cries echoing through the night were very distinctive. The Guard camp too was in a state of chaos, everypony rousing themselves and running about, all aware that they should be doing something, but for the moment only grabbing weapons and getting into their armour.
Luna took to the skies right away, lighting up her horn as a beacon that everypony in the camp would see. “Pegasi, to me!” she bellowed, in a voice magically amplified to carry over the whole plain. “Companies to your muster points, then march to the river!”
From up in the sky she could see out to where the estate sat in its valley, and it was blazing with light. Enough so that she could see the ponies scrambling about, grappling on the walls, taking cover behind anything they could find. If Two-Tone had tried for his sneak attack, it clearly hadn’t worked.
It took an agonizing minute for her pegasus scouts and officers to assemble. They were lightly armed, but they were professionals, and most importantly they could move fast. As soon as they were together, she took off for the battle, leading them all in a tight V-formation. There wasn’t any wind to contend with, so they were free to make the most of their speed, and it was only a few minutes before the full battle was laid out before them.
The unicorns had attacked across the river, and were now at the wall, grappling with the defenders. It was mostly up-close fighting; only a few of the attackers had ranged weapons and it was just the one pony in the estate with his crossbow.
Seeing everything up close only made Luna angrier. All of her preparation, all of her caution, all of her effort to avoid just this outcome. It had all been squandered, and now down below ponies were dying, fighting each other in this senseless battle for the meager pickings of the harvest.
“We’re going in hot,” she said, making preparations for their dive. “Self-defence only, and nonlethal if possible. If we have to, side with the earth ponies. Two-Tone and his thugs are the rebels as far as I’m concerned.” There were no objections, and so Luna led the charge, coming down with speed on the outside of the estate’s fortifications.
They landed with a great rush of wind, caught in their wings as they came down, enough to push the next rank of the irregulars back from the wall, and also to stun the defenders behind them for a moment. Luna had her sword out, the silver sheen of its edge reflecting the electric crackle of the magic in her eyes. “Cease this attack at once!” she yelled to the assembled crowd.
For an instant, it looked like maybe she had intimidated them, but then Two-Tone appeared at the front, his frayed coat hanging loosely from his shoulders. A streak of dried blood ran down his neck.
“Your Majesty,” he said, looking confused. “See what I told you before? The rebels are disorganized and ill-prepared. We need only to press the attack and overwhelm them with ease.” There was a shout of support from the front rank that stood alongside him, their haphazard equipment looking almost comical if not for their bloodthirsty expressions.
“I will not tolerate insubordination,” she answered, summoning enough magic to burn an electric arc into the ground, a blackened ring about ten feet in front of the irregulars. “If you do not cease this provocation, then you shall be the true rebels, and it shall be you that is put to the blade!”
There was another moment of uncertainty, and then Two-Tone nodded. “You never understood,” he said, the confusion in his voice switching over to loathing and certainty. “You never realized what needed to happen to set things right.” With a sneer he levelled a hoof at her. “It is you who must stand aside, Queen Luna! Stand with us, stand with Equestria, or else stand with these rebel scum and die with them.”
Even though the pegasus was hovering just to her left, this time Luna knew that Swift wasn’t going to stop her. Luna could end this stallion’s miserable existence with enough magic to stop his heart, burn his hair, and leave nothing behind but a smoking pile of bones. And she knew that whatever her duties to Equestria, this pony deserved it. Swift was even giving her a nod, and motioning for the other pegasi to get ready to fight.
But in that instant a crimson rose blossomed from the base of Swift’s skull, the spot where a bolt fired from inside the estate had found its mark. He had time to turn to her, eyes filled with surprise, before collapsing face-first into the dust.
A silence settled over the wall. Then Two-Tone broke it.
“FOR EQUESTRIA!” he yelled, and the unicorns surged forward again, plunging the ground in front of the walls into a furious melee.
When Celestia released her hold on the magic, darkness once again reigned over the old citadel. For her, time had blended into a continuous stream over the course of the past few days, the Sun and the Moon racing each other across the sky, their comings and goings marking the time, but passing by the old alicorn unheeded. Celestia had eyes only for the diagrams in front of her, as she methodically worked through the dozens of weavings required for her spell to function. Her only sleep came as the darkness fully overtook her vision, and she could no longer think clearly. Then, she settled down on the roof for a few hours, before rising once again and getting right back into her practice. As to food and drink, there would be plenty of time for that once Equestria’s fate no longer hung in the balance.
Now, with the last form complete, she was finally ready to handle the real thing. A spell this complex would likely take more than four hours from start to finish, and in that time she could tolerate no distractions. Given the fragility of the magic she would be working with, even an unexpected breeze ruffling the feathers on her wings would be enough to shatter her concentration. Starting all over again would be an hour or two more that she could ill afford.
To the north, far away on the edge of the horizon, she could see a dense collection of lights. She could almost have mistaken them for stars, given how they twinkled. But of course she knew that these lights were far too low on the horizon, and in a second she realized what it must be. Luna had formed an army, and come south. Maybe Pensive had somehow managed to get his law passed, or maybe her sister had had no choice but to press for the harvest to be taken somehow. Regardless, it meant that conflict would be coming soon. Maybe as soon as the next dawn. With luck, she could still be done in time to prevent it.
Celestia focused within herself, steadying her breathing and closing her eyes. First she blocked out the light outside, then by concentrating on her breathing she forgot about the sounds. This was an old trick that she had first learned here in the forest, near to this very spot, and it would prove essential in this moment.
As she continued to count her breaths, she willed her magic into her mind, this time allowing Star Swirl’s and Solaris’s magic too. The whirling tempest that was the King’s might almost shattered her concentration, but Star Swirl held it fast. Subconsciously, Celestia’s magic lifted her up off of the tower’s roof, then formed a bright yellow shell all around her. The magic protected her from all light and sound, and even the touch of the air, so that now she was floating in a dark void, alone with her thoughts, her power, and the two consciousnesses she had taken from the forest.
She called up a memory of the Swirl diagram, lines and loops crossing over themselves in myriad complexity, and focused for now on the first rank. The magic that she would need was out there, like shimmering pools of raw power floating alongside her. She could pull threads of it out, weaving them together into the first intermediate products and then leaving them aside as she moved on to the next step.
Thankfully, Star Swirl needed no instructions on how to help. His azure magic was striped with black where it mixed with Solaris’s, but every time that she reached out into the darkness to form a new thread, his magic was there to support her, wrapping each thread in a protective coating to prevent it from unraveling. It freed up Celestia to focus on the weaving itself, which was plenty enough complexity to occupy all of her attention. Even so, thread by thread, the spell started coming together.
As soon as the unicorns attacked, Luna’s world became a whirling mass of confusion, flying bolts and blades from inside the estate at her back, and the charge of Two-Tone’s unicorns pressing hard from the front. Two more of her pegasi were cut down almost immediately, their bodies trampled in the dust as the attackers ploughed forward without regard, focusing as much on the walls as they did on the Guard.
Luna had her sword out already and with it and her magic she was able to hold her ground, stunning some of her opponents with spells, or else incapacitating them with deft pommel-blows to the skull. Her blade might not have been seeing any use, yet even so every blow was a cut to her own heart. Each fallen pony was another one of her subjects that she had failed.
She had to get out. She could maybe hold her own down at the base of the wall, clearing the attackers out until only Two-Tone stood before her, if that fool would even stand against her all on his own, but she realized it would be a pointless exercise. Right now she needed to get out of this senseless slaughter, find someplace safe and take stock of the situation.
In a spare moment, she flicked her eyes to either side, and realized that in the press of the attack the rest of her guards had been cut off. She couldn’t even catch a glimpse of them to either side. Her heart shuddered to think of what might have happened to them, after they had followed her into this death trap, but she knew that she had no time to fight her way over. They were professionals after all, and could hopefully find the time to withdraw safely and rendezvous with the rest of the army. From here she was going to be on her own.
Luna wrenched a hammer away from the unicorn in front of her with a light twist of her magic, before knocking him off his hooves with a swift kick to the chest. Having bought some space she took off, into the air and over the wall, out of the reach of the ponies that held it now.
Getting her bearings, she could see that any semblance of order in the fight had completely evaporated. Having overcome the wall in several places, the unicorns were now pouring into the estate, and the defenders were falling back into Cotton’s fields in ragged bands. The empty fields of the property were dotted with dozens of running skirmishes, as the attackers fanned out in pursuit, chasing individual earth ponies into the small hills and gullies that covered the landscape.
The only organized defense appeared to be at the estate house. There Cotton had barricaded the doors and stood in front of them wielding a massive ax and bellowing out curses like an enraged bear, and the earth ponies were rallying to him. The pony with the crossbow was still up on the balcony, firing indiscriminately at a variety of targets. Including, it seemed, at her.
He was a decent shot, too, and Luna had to take a quick dive to avoid one of his quarrels. Spying a steep-sided gully that ran between two hills, she dove into it, pressing herself against its side as soon as she got down. It was actually a little quiet here, and that gave Luna an opportunity to steady her racing heart. But it also gave an opportunity for the first pangs of grief to hit home.
For Swift and all the rest of her pegasi, dead or in danger because they had followed her reckless charge. For all of the ponies up above, fighting and dying because she hadn’t found a way to settle their dispute in time. And, she realized, for all Equestria. This was only the first town, only the first instance of what would be the entire autumn, as protests turned to riots, blades were drawn and fires lit, and everything dissolved into the madness that had clearly taken Two-Tone and Cotton both.
It had been her and Celestia’s jobs to make sure that didn’t happen. But wherever her sister was, she hadn’t done anything to help, and all of Luna’s efforts had only made the problem worse.
Her heart ached inside her, but the soldier part of her mind demanded that she stand up and keep going. The battle had been joined, there was no stopping it now. No point trying to save any lives now that both sides of the fight considered her their enemy. But there was always something worth doing. What was the main objective now?
The emptiness in Swift’s eyes as he died was still in her vision, but Luna forced it away, achieving mental clarity with an effort. The objective hadn’t changed, it was the stored grain in the bins on the estate’s far side. Nopony was minding after it right now, and there was still the chance that Two-Tone decided to try fire. If she could secure the grain until the rest of the army arrived, then they would at least be able to load it up and move on.
She took a deep breath, then peeked up over the gully’s edge to get her bearings. She couldn’t see much over the hills, but luckily the bins were in sight, a long row of stooped wooden sheds, dark and deserted. The distance from her hiding spot to them was several hundred yards, and the ground was mostly flat, dotted only by the occasional tool shed or thicket of gnarled, bone-dry trees. Luckily for her, though, it was also dark, so if she moved quietly she would be virtually undetectable. Her childhood experiences back in Eridian were again going to prove useful here. Picking one of the small sheds, maybe fifty yards away, she made her move.
With her wings to aid her, Luna barely even kicked up any dirt, and in thirty seconds she was pressed up against the side of the little building, scanning ahead for threats and picking out her next destination.
Here, the sounds of the battle were closer, but still far enough away to be mostly indistinct. And the countryside in front of her was still empty.
Luna was about to move again when she heard something. It might have been a sneeze or a cough or just a loud exhalation, but it had been somepony, and it had come from behind the door at her back. Instantly she lifted the latch with her magic and stepped over the threshold, sword extended and at the ready.
The space inside the shed was tiny, crowded with fence posts, spools of wire, and other farming implements. Yet wedged in among all of that were two earth ponies, a mare and a stallion, both right on the cusp of maturity. It looked like it had been him who had coughed, and now his eyes were wide and quivering, fixated on the point of her sword. The mare too looked terrified, but she did also have a sharp sickle on her belt.
“Please put down the weapon, child,” she said, doing her best not to sound cold and knowing that she was failing miserably. Neither of them looked particularly dangerous, and were probably hiding in here rather than waiting in ambush. Maybe she had actually found two ponies on this estate who weren’t trying to kill her. And that meant that maybe she could avoid having to harm them as well.
The young mare undid the sickle from its loop, moving deliberately, never taking her eyes off of Luna. When she tossed it into one of the room’s far corners, Luna let her own blade drop.
“Peace,” the Queen said with a small sense of relief. “I have no quarrel with you if you have none with me. Who are you children, and what are you doing in this wretched fight?”
Though there was no longer a sword between them, the fear in the young stallion’s eyes had only relaxed a little bit. “I’m Fern,” he said in a trembling voice, “and this here is Sycamore, my sister. We were, uh, up on the wall when this whole thing started.”
Sycamore picked up the narrative right away. “We were going to fight, alongside the rest of the town. There was nothing else to do. But when the attack came…it was all so fast.” There was almost a quiver in her eyes, in her whole body really. When Sycamore started again, her voice was shaking. “There was so much blood, flying arrows all around. Ponies left and right dropping. We couldn’t stand it. So we ran to find some shelter.”
Fern shuddered. “It must be over, though, right? You’re just here to clean up the stragglers? To take us prisoner, probably.” It didn’t look like he thought that would be a bad thing to have happen.
Kneeling down as best as she could in the cramped space, Luna reached out a hoof, gently placing it on Fern’s shoulder. He recoiled for a second, then settled down. “I’m sorry,” Luna said. “This ordeal isn’t over yet. But as long as the two of you are with me, I promise that nothing will happen to either of you.”
“Wait, you’re the Queen, aren’t you?” Sycamore blurted out, and she jerked back as if from a poisonous spider. “I saw you this afternoon. Shouldn’t you be commanding the attack? What are you doing here?”
Luna had to sigh. It was a question with a lot of weight behind it, much more than young Sycamore could have guessed. She had been asking it of herself for nearly a week now, ever since Celestia had disappeared and left her to deal with this crisis on her own. And even now she truly had no answer for it.
“I’m trying to stop this situation from getting any worse,” she said, as resolute as she could. “This attack had nothing to do with me, and it happened against my orders. But I still want to do my best to try putting things right. And if the two of you want to survive, then your best bet is to come with me. This is a fine shelter, but it’s no guarantee that you’ll make it through.”
Fern gulped, and pushed himself unsteadily up onto his knees. “Please,” he said, voice cracking as he spoke. “I just want to see the Sun rise again. I never knew that it was going to be anything like this. We’ll surely come with you, if it means we make it through this in one piece.” He looked over at Sycamore, and his sister voiced no objection to that.
Luna nodded once. “Then Sycamore, you can pick up that sickle again. I hope you won’t have to use it, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’m heading for the bins on the far side of the estate. We’ll secure them, and when the Guard arrives, which should happen in half an hour or so, they’ll be able to quell the situation. And don’t worry,” she said, seeing the worry in their expressions as soon as she mentioned the Guard. “I promise that nothing will happen to either of you. You are my subjects just as much as they are, and it’s my duty to make sure that nothing can hurt you. Now come on. It’s only a few hundred yards more.”
A wavering look passed between them, but Fern and Sycamore seemed to agree with the course of action, and they both got to their hooves. Now that they were standing, Luna could see that Fern had a streak of dried blood across the left side of his body, the product of a light nick from earlier in the night. It looked like it had healed, but maybe that accounted for some of his unsteadiness. “Are you doing okay, son?”
He flashed her an unsteady grin. “I don’t believe that I’ve had a single worse day in my whole life. But I can stand, don’t worry.” He was doing an admirable job of putting up a bold front, so Luna gave him an affirming pat on the shoulder.
“Okay, I hope that the two of you can move silent and quick,” she said, listening on the inside of the door to be sure that nopony was on the other side waiting to ambush them. “Follow after me, keep quiet, and don’t miss a step.” Getting a single nod from each of them, Luna silently opened the door and ran off into the night. Unfortunately now she couldn’t use her wings to assist her, or else she would leave Fern and Sycamore far behind.
A quick look back revealed that the two of them were keeping the pace just fine, though. Fern stumbled once over a bump in the ground, but righted himself quickly. As she had planned, the group made quick dashes between the small points of cover on their way over to the bins, and the structures loomed larger in front of them every time that they stopped.
There was a row of twelve of them, each as big as a large shed, several hundred square feet, and enough to hold more than a hundred sacks of seed. Luna wondered if maybe Cotton had stationed guards inside some of them, to ambush any attackers, but Sycamore told her that wasn’t the case.
“We barely had enough ponies to keep the walls protected,” the young earth pony said at their last stop. “Plus that strategy sounds a little advanced for Cotton to have come up with. He’s not really the tactical type.”
Taking a look back the other way, Luna could see that the fight in front of the estate house seemed to have died down, though it was far enough away now that she couldn’t tell which side had come out on top. By the time that the rest of the Guard did show up, it might just be a matter of mopping up the survivors and securing the grain. Yet even so she knew that they had to be careful. Letting her guard down was what had gotten her into this mess to start with.
“Stay behind me,” she told the others cautiously, “and if you do see anything then give me a shout. Sycamore, do you know if all of the bins are full?”
“Hardly,” the young mare replied. “At most half-full. But I think those two,” she indicated the end of the row that was nearest to the estate house, “are completely empty. So long as nothing got moved after this afternoon, and I can’t imagine how anypony would have had the time.”
Luna still gave the structures a quick look. With the chaos of the battle behind them, and now mostly quiet, the silence in this area of the estate was a little unnerving. A few of the bins had their doors open, probably left there hastily as preparations for the fight had started, and now they swayed slowly in the almost imperceptible breeze. Beyond them, the doorways were only rectangles of sheer blackness, danger potentially lurking therein. Yet Luna had to know that the grain was safe.
“Wait here,” she said to the others, motioning them to lie low. “Stay quiet, unless something happens. Then yell. I’ll only be gone a moment.” She drew her sword again, and started warily making her way over. She still couldn’t risk any light, so would have to rely on quick instincts if anypony did try to get the drop on her. Inside the bin ahead, everything seemed still, and for the first time the dusty smell of the grain made it to her nostrils. Another step, over the threshold, and Luna decided that she could risk some light now.
In a single second, she lit up her horn and took the final few steps through the doorway, taking in the whole interior at once. A pile of sacks peculiarly leaning against a wall in the far corner made her momentarily start, but otherwise there was nopony else in the bin. Just about sixty sacks of harvested grain, enough to feed a few families for the winter, maybe. Not much, but more than she had getting into the town. If all of the other bins had this much, then at least that would be something.
Then she heard Sycamore shout, and Luna was back outside in an instant. She left her light on, the better to assess whatever new danger this was, so the area outside of the bins was lit up in a soft purple brilliance as soon as she stepped outside, enough to make Sycamore, Fern, and the single newcomer squint. But Luna’s heart dropped as soon as she took in the scene. Fern was standing only a couple of paces to her left, alone but terrified once again. And Sycamore was in front of him, with Two-Tone standing behind her, a devilish grin upon his face and a knife held tight to the earth pony’s throat.
“Not a step more, Luna!” he cried, pressing the metal up against the young mare’s skin. “And none of the fancy business either. If I see a single spark, this young lady here gets what’s coming to her first.”
“Why are you doing this?” Fern asked in a quivering shout. “If you want our grain, it’s over there. But let my sister go!”
Two-Tone spat over Sycamore’s shoulder, a lump of blood and spittle. Though most of his body wasn’t visible, Luna could spy a deep gash beneath his left ear, not bleeding but not looking healthy either. “There’s still an enemy here to deal with,” Two-Tone sneered, a look of madness in his eyes, “and she’s already tried to kill me twice. I think that I’ll appreciate this insurance. Once the rest of my force arrives, we’ll secure the grain, so that the Guard can inventory it in the morning.”
Luna almost gasped. Even now, this fool still thought that he was doing what was right for Equestria. He probably assumed that there would be a medal waiting for him once the Guard got back to Canterlot.
“It’s over,” she said, keeping her voice even. Sycamore’s wide-open eyes were on her, but she kept her gaze firmly on Two-Tone. “You and your unicorns have killed innocents, against my direct orders. The Guard is on its way, and when they get here your force will be arrested, and you will be thrown into the dungeons, to join Senator Prose and everypony else who worked to start this pointless fight.”
His grin didn’t waver. “You’re wrong. We are the only ones willing to do what is necessary to protect innocent unicorn lives. When they make it through this winter, they’ll know who to thank. We only need to wait for the rest of my force to get here.”
He was interrupted then by a stout, gravelly twang that came from over the hilltop. “How much of a force do you have left, you stinking city slicker?” With a tromp from his big hooves, Cotton strode into the light, with Linseed tight by his side and perhaps a dozen other earth ponies behind him. Not one of them hadn’t sustained some sort of injury, but in Cotton’s case the cuts and bruises seemed relatively minor, and he was still hefting his broad ax. Even Linseed still had a bolt loaded and ready in his crossbow, and of course he had it aimed right at Two-Tone’s head.
“Face it, you ragged vermin,” the farmer said. “This fight is over. Your kind are all either dead or beating for the hills. And you’ll be next if you don’t give up your hold on that poor young mare.”
“And you’ll definitely let me live then?” Two-Tone replied, a frantic edge in his voice as he backed away, keeping all of them in his vision. “Not a step more, I said!” A drop of blood oozed out from Sycamore’s skin, drawn forth from a whisper-cut of the blade. “Don’t think I won’t do it!”
Luna quickly scanned the scene, hoping to find a way out. There were maybe thirty paces of separation between Two-Tone and the rest of the group, more than enough distance for his knife to hit home before any attack could get to him, unless maybe Linseed risked taking the shot.
Sycamore’s pleading eyes were on her, full of fear, but also a damnation that stung Luna to her core. Not even twenty minutes ago she had promised that no harm would come to her two charges, yet now, once again, she was faced with the possibility of breaking that promise, and there seemed to be no way out.
Then, without any warning, the Sun peeked over the far horizon, and the estate was suddenly lit up in brilliant golden light.
In the midst of that sunlight a single pony was framed, wings stretched wide as if to catch the light behind her, and horn radiant as the dawn itself. Indeed, it was a fair question whether it was Celestia or the Sun which was providing more of the illumination for this dawn. The alicorn’s entire body was lit up as with radiant flame, a halo of pure magic that lifted her heart and her mind far into the sky, beyond mortality and into the great expanse of the space beyond.
Surveying the scene that the light brought to her eyes, though, Celestia’s heart couldn’t help but sink back to Earth at least a little. Bodies were littered around the estate, many fallen in the fields, by the house, and on the walls. Their blood still ran fresh, bright as fire in the sunlight, all the more pronounced against the dead brown of the ground. They were the ones that she had been too late to save, but she would make sure that they were properly remembered. Now was the time to stop the slaughter, and bring her plan to its final fruition.
“Equestria!” she shouted out into the sky, feeling the attention not just of the ponies on the field below, with their faces upturned and their forelegs shielding their eyes from her glare, but also the attention of the whole land. For every unicorn, pegasus and earth pony in Equestria was bound to her through her spell now, so they would all hear her, even if most of them could only see a bright flare in the eastern sky.
“The Sun is rising!” she declared. “Hope comes again. Though yesterday our fellowship was splintered, today our nation is reborn in a new form, a stronger union, an unbreakable harmony. No longer shall we fight each other for the simple necessities of life, today we shall work together as one nation, so that tomorrow we can all arise with reassurance that we will indeed see tomorrow again!
“Three hundred years ago, the return of the Sun’s light brought hope and determination to end Discord’s darkness. In that time, our divisions almost ended Equestria before it had a chance to start again. But it was together that we saw the way to that bright dawn. Today, I have brought a new unity, a bond to remind us that we are all sealed to each other, surviving and thriving, not as earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, but together! As Equestrians! And on this morning, you may look upon yourselves, and indeed even upon me, and see the marks that serve as reminders of this seal. We all have our part to play, if we wish to see the next dawn. I bid thee come with me, into a new Equestria, better and bolder than ever was before!”
Her heart soared into that final declaration, and on the field before her she could see the signs of her magic doing its work, as the new cutie marks appeared on each of the ponies there. Even Luna, who had a lovely crescent Moon to match her own rising Sun. The ponies down in the fields were looking about with wonder, processing what they had heard with what they were seeing, and Celestia willed the sombre setting to lift, and for the magic to bring them all together.
Instead, though, she found it growing dark, the very Sun behind her suddenly occluded in swirling mists. For an instant, confusion was replaced by rage. Had she lost control of Solaris’s magic? Then she realized what was happening, and the first raindrop that struck her head brought with it a peal of laughter, pent-up emotions all erupting forth. All at once the sky over Southoofton was filled with rain clouds, and a gentle shower began to fall. The drought was over.