In order to clear the forum by eleven, general Sparrowshot surmised he’d need to arrive around nine. Senator Giesu said there wouldn’t be any resistance. But senators rarely concerned themselves with the details of their own plans. Giesu had more than likely forgotten about the company of honor guards permanently stationed at the senate building.
Focus, he thought to himself. Speaking out wouldn’t have changed anything, aside from making the senator angry. It was Giesu’s job to look at the big picture, the same way it was Sparrowshot’s job to convince those guards to come to his side, or at least surrender peacefully.
One of his legionaries flicked the release clasp off his scabbard. “No swords,” Sparrowshot said, loud enough for his whole group to hear. “If we do this right, we won’t need them.”
I’m part of a coup, he thought. The legionaries spread out as they ascended the stairs leading to the massive front door. Ten-meter tall columns sprouted from the floor in rows four deep, lining the entirety of the structure’s front side. The legionaries wove through them like ghosts. I’m part of a coup. The thought made his heart race with fear and excitement. He hoped he was on the right side.
A few unlucky aides and random passerby found themselves in the way of the advancing legionaries. They were quickly bound and gagged. Sprarrowshot took a moment to reorganize his troops, then gave the motion to enter.
Through that door, it was a straight shot to the main senatorial chamber. Whatever was going to happen, it would happen in that room.
“There’s supposed to be honor guards at this door,” one of Sparrowshot’s underlings reported. “They must have known we were coming and pulled back.”
Sparrowshot pursed his lips. “Keep a squad out here. Have them prop the door open. If we need to run, we’ll go out the way we came in.”
Inside, they passed through a corridor of high vaulted ceilings flanked by more columns. Torchlight mingled with streams of light pouring from openings in the upper portion of the wall, creating a dizzying double-decker effect of natural and artificial light.
Sparrowshot rubbed his eyes. Still no honor guards. Nopony at all, for that matter. He wished he’d stopped to interrogate the aides they’d found outside. But if he stopped his team now, there was a chance whatever was waiting for them might come out and find them first. Better to be aggressive.
With Sparrowshot leading the way, the group of black-clad legionnaires inched open the doors to the senatorial chambers.
“Shields,” Sparrowshot whispered. They formed up in two rows with their shields facing out. They stepped forward in sync.
Inside was dead silent. Three raised rows of seats formed a horseshoe around a small center forum. Sparrowshot’s eyes darted around, searching for threats. He felt like an invader.
“General,” boomed a voice from the gallery.
Sparrowshot whirled around. Three old senators in brilliant purple robes stood atop the gallery. They gazed down on him with undisguised disdain.
“This chamber is off-limits to you,” one old senator said. “Leave at once.”
Sparrowshot vaguely recognized the senators as members of Giesu’s rival party. He cleared his throat and announced, “The senators of Derecho have been found guilty by third party—”
“I can’t hear you behind your shield,” another old senator droned. “Are you that terrified of a couple old birds?”
Sparrowshot glanced around the room again, then stepped out from the formation. He gestured for his troops to close ranks behind him.
“The senators of Derecho have been found guilty of crimes against the republic. All senators are to be stripped of their titles and privileges, effective immediately. Surrender yourselves, and you will receive all the rights afforded to a prisoner of your former status.”
“Sparrowshot, right?” The oldest of the old senators, an ancient stallion with more skin than muscle, whose front legs were supported by metal braces, stepped forward. “You made notable contributions to general Romulus’s previous two campaigns.”
They knew his name? The general swallowed a lump in his throat. “That’s me, yes.”
“You’re not young, and you’re not stupid. You know what this is.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“It’s a coup.”
“And whose side are you on?”
A pause. “The right side.”
The old stallion let out a booming baritone laugh. “Perhaps I was too generous in my assessment.”
Something flashed in the corner of the room. Sparrowshot whirled around just as a squad of honor guards rose from their hiding places among the senate benches. Sparrowshot cursed and squeezed back into formation.
He counted twenty honor guards circling around the dome, with another ten circling around the senators. They were decked out in brilliant bronze armor. Their shields were painted with howling wolves and ships battering each other beneath beneath stormy waves.
“Chamber’s off-limits,” the honor guard captain, a massive pegasus with broad sweeping wings and a plumed helmet, announced. “You’re trespassing. Leave now or we’ll take you by force.”
The thought of violence made Sparrowshot’s blood run cold. It couldn’t end that way. He had to keep this peaceable. He had orders.
“We’re all brothers here,” Sparrowshot implored. “No one needs to die.”
“If you would raise your sword against the senate, then you’re no brother of mine.”
One of Sparrowshot’s guards—the one who’d been a little too eager to pull out his sword earlier—undid the catch on his scabbard. Gravity pulled the blade down, just a few inches.
The sound it made echoed through the silent room like nails on cloudstone.
The honor guards descended on Sparrowshot and his troops.
The assassin Giesu hired was named Golf Leaf. Her name came from her summergold mane and tail. She’d never thought of herself as particularly pretty, but when she grew out her mane she noticed more ponies looked at her. The attention felt nice. She liked being noticed.
She brushed the top of her shaved head with a hoof. She couldn’t afford vanity right now. For today at least, she needed to remain unseen.
The old senator Claptrap moved into position directly below her. The old fool had declined an escort. It wouldn’t have mattered in the end, but it made her job that much easier.
Three more steps. Then two. Then one. Gold Leaf leapt from the rafters, hooves together, wings out and perpendicular with the ground to guide her fall without slowing her down. A pegasi-shaped hammer coming down on a weak, rusty nail.
No need for knives here. The impact alone broke the old senator’s spine, paralyzing him instantly. He twitched on the ground, his cloudy eyes flickering back and forth. A feeble flame at the bottom of a burnt wick.
Gold Leaf stretched and checked her list. Eleven more to go. She’d dealt with the younger and more able bodied senators first. These last dozen were all old. Most of them didn’t bother with bodyguards. They saw it as weakness.
Good. This work grew tiresome, and she still had much more ahead of her before the day was out.
As LeBaine floated the cup of tea to his lips, he felt the faint pinch of a headache coming on. It floated around for a moment like a bird looking for a place to land, then settled just behind his eyes and a little way up.
Magical exhaustion, he thought. No time for that.
He picked up a second cup of tea and started off towards the administrative wing of Romulus’s estate. He and his staff had spent the last few days coordinating the herculean administrative task of readying Giesu’s estate to handle the impending transfer of power. The senator had made it clear that, for optics purposes, the seat of the new government had to be Romulus’s estate.
He’d take a long vacation once all this was over. He’d earned it ten times over already.
A commotion ahead of him caught his attention. The senator, along with a dozen armed guards, barreled around the corner. There was blood everywhere—on the senator’s face, on his cloak, on the guards’ swords. The hope of a nice vacation vanished right before his eyes.
LeBaine stepped out of the way. The guards bowled him over anyway. The ceramic mugs—his favorites—shattered. Shockberry tea—also his favorite—splashed all over the floor.
“Wait!” the senator wheezed. He turned around and fixed LeBaine with a mortifying stare. His eyes were shrunken to pinpoints. He looked insane. “I need you.”
LeBaine eyed the blood. “Another nosebleed?”
Giesu let out a laugh. “I need you to run outside and deliver a message to the estate guard commander.”
That sounded serious. LeBaine hopped to his hooves. “What is it?”
“Tell him to ground all non-essential flights for the remainder of the day. Anyone in the air who’s not ours gets an arrow.”
LeBaine’s blood ran cold. No one had ever ordered Derecho’s skies to be cleared before. Pegasi detested grounding as much as they detested being told what to do in general. “Sir, I think I’m misunderstanding you—”
“No you’re not. No one flies but us. Go now.” He started off down the hall, his guard a shadow close behind.
They rounded a corner, and then LeBaine was alone again. He blinked slowly, looking first at the shattered remnants of his favorite ceramic mugs, and the small puddles of tea growing cold on the cloudstone.
He took off down the hall.
By the time LeBaine found the guard commander outside and breathlessly relayed the message, his immaculately coiffed mane had started to peel apart in the middle. The headache doubled in intensity, then doubled again.
“No one? As on, no one?” the guard commander asked. “Are you certain that’s what the senator said?”
“No one but our ponies.” LeBaine pressed his mane to his head and willed it to stick.
The guard commander put a hoof on LeBaine’s shoulder. “Do you know what’s going to happen if we enforce that?” LeBaine nodded. The guard commander’s grip got tighter. “Tell me exactly what you think is going to happen.”
“Err. General hunkering down.”
The guard commander shook his head. “Panic. Ponies are gonna take their families and try to fly down to the ground. Then we’ll have to stop them, because no one is allowed to be in the air but us.”
“Yes, that’s the—”
The grip on LeBaine’s arm tightened like a vice. “We’re not going to ask them politely. We’re going to stop them.” In a deadly serious voice, he said, “Tell me again what the senator said. Relay his orders exactly as you were told.”
For all his education and highborne elbow-rubbing as a senator’s aide, LeBaine was no politician. He saw the fear in the guard commander’s eyes, felt his heart pounding in his chest. He knew there was some message painted in invisible ink beneath the commander’s words. But whether it was ignorance or fear or both, he couldn’t interpret it.
“No one flies but us,” LeBaine stammered. “No one.”
The guard commander stared through him with a gaze that screamed, please. Then the mask dropped, and he resumed a neutral, soldierly pose. The grip on LeBaine’s shoulder relaxed.
“Understood,” he said. “Tell the senator I’ll carry out his orders.” Then he turned, sighed, and started off towards the gate.
Now alone, LeBaine looked up at the tiny shapes of pegasi swirling above the city. The whole place felt ready to explode, like a thunderhead swollen until it could expand no further.
Suddenly, from a few blocks away, a cloud of pegasi rose into the air like panicked birds. Some of them jerked mid-flight and fell like stones. The sound of metal clattering against metal filled the air.
The guard commander unfurled his wings. The brightly-colored plumage quivered, feeling the air.
A tsunami of soldiers surged around the corner. Armor and swords flashed in the sun. Screams echoed down the streets. Blood and feathers and whizzing arrows filled the air.
Run, reform, break. Run, reform, break. Combat felt like dreaming. Sparrowshot moved in slow motion while whirling shapes shot past at lightning speed. He heard the voices of his legionaries, and his own voice, as distant echoes floating up from the ground, passing him by like lost spirits.
The sky cleared for a split second. That was the tell. “Reform!” Sparrowshot called. The survivors turned on their hooves. The front row placed their shields on the ground. The other rows put their shields up, forming a tortoise shell of armor around the ponies.
The next volley of arrows bounced off the shields, sounding like snapping twigs. Before the volley had even finished, Sparrowshot called out, “Break!” and the tortoise shell broke apart into its individual components.
A late arrows whizzed past Sparrowshot and went through the ground. He let out a hiss and cursed himself. It just as easily could have been him or one of his friends catching that arrow. He should have held formation a little longer. Mistakes like that were going to get everyone killed if he wasn’t careful.
“Run!” he shouted. The group picked up their shields and resumed their gallop.
Run. Reform. Break. Run. Reform. Break. His wings twitched. It took all his years of discipline and training not to take off. Up was a hundred senatorial honor guards. Up was death.
They came to a wide open thoroughfare. The lead ponies slowed up, unsure of where to go. A few civilians on the other side of the street froze.
“Right!” Sparrowshot shouted, never once breaking stride. “Go right!”
The group surged forward again. More arrows came down. The civilians screamed and took flight. Sparrowshot didn’t have the energy to stop them. His whole mind was focused on the streets ahead. With the city moving the way it was, it was impossible to tell from street level where exactly he was headed. For all he knew, he was leading his ponies in circles.
But then they rounded a corner and the gleaming cloudstone pillars of Romulus’s estate came into view.
A shot of elation spurred Sparrowshot’s weary legs to move faster. A cheer went up through the beleaguered survivors. The estate was right there. He could see the guards at the gate, their eyes wide with surprise.
The arrows stopped falling. The tell. All the joy turned to ash in Sparrowshot’s mouth.
“Reform!” he called. But barely half the band heard it and turned around in time. The tortoise shell sprung leaks.
This time, it wasn’t arrows that fell on their shields, but a hundred murderous honor guards.
The formation collapsed. Bodies flew everywhere. Something smashed into Sparrowshot’s head, sending him sprawling. He sucked wind for a second, then willed his body to fall into the clouds.
In the haze, the sound from above was muffled. Flashes of light from the honor guards’ brilliant armor diffused away into nothing. A thought flashed into his mind—he could stay down here for a few more minutes. See how things played out above. No one would know.
Sickening shame filled his heart. He couldn’t give up so close to the end. He thought, This is it, I’m going to die, but the thought didn’t bother him the way he thought it would. It was simply one more task to complete. The last task on a long checklist.
He counted to three, picked a bright blob of light hoping it was an honor guard, pumped his wings, and launched himself at it sword-first.
When all was said and done, after the estate garrison swooped in and drove the honor guards off, after the living had been counted, after a detail had been sent down to the ground to find the remains of the ponies who’d died and fallen through the clouds—after all that, only fifteen of Sparrowshot’s original fifty legionaries remained. Despite the certainty of his earlier premonition, Sparrowshot somehow survived.
With the costly knowledge they’d gained from the first failed assault, a second assault was thrown together and sent out. They approached from the air this time, diving through the ceiling just as the honor guards had dove on them an hour prior. They achieved a decisive, though not less costly, success. Sixty legionaries, along with every last honor guard, died. The battle lasted all of ten minutes.
Sparrowshot flew back to Romulus’s estate to give a report on the second battle to his commanding officer, a withered old pegasus stallion named Fleet. Fleet listened dutifully as Sparrowshot relayed the details of the battle.
“Very good,” Fleet said once Sparrowshot was done. “We have something new for you.”
Sparrowshot’s weary heart plummeted. “Sir, my ponies can’t take a second battle.”
“It’s an easy job. No fighting. We need someone to take Giesu to the senate.”
“Oh. Understood. Will we be flying over the city or under it?”
The general pursed his cracked lips. “You’ll be taking the streets.”
“The streets? That’s too dangerous.”
“The senator wants to be seen. He thinks it will be a powerful symbol.”
“He’ll get mauled out there. Is that powerful enough?”
“It’s not your call. Have your ponies be ready to move out in twenty minutes.”
Sparrowshot felt every miniscule bit of wear and tear in his legs like hot needles. His head ached. Everything hurt. Once again, the impulse to sneak off to some quiet corner of the castle and disappear for a few hours reared its ugly head.
“Yes sir,” Sparrowshot said, “I’ll get it done.”
“Oh, one more thing. There’s been some kind of rumor circulating around that general Romulus was assassinated.”
Sparrowshot stopped dead in his tracks. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “What?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not true. But the fact that such a rumor exists at all is worrying. Try to keep your ponies squared away.”
The odd sinking feeling didn’t go away, despite Fleet’s assuring words. “I’ll do that,” Sparrowshot said. He turned to leave, but paused. “Sir? Who’s second in command after Romulus?”
“General Hightower, from the second legion. I know what you mean, though. If anything were to happen, we’d be taking orders from senator Giesu.”
“Is that... are we okay with that?”
The old general’s glower deepened. “I don’t like what that question implies.”
“Sorry, sir. I don’t mean to imply anything. I’m just anxious.”
“I know. We’re small pieces in a big game. General Romulus is committed to this path. He’s trying to save Derecho, and it’s our job to help him do it. If that means taking orders from senator Giesu here and there, then so be it.” Fleet’s wrinkled face softened. “If senator Giesu tells you to chase your tail and do the splits, what will you say?”
Sparrowshot let out a tired laugh. “Yes, sir.”