It was already warm outside by the time the sun had risen, though thanks to a lack of pores, it meant Skalos didn’t sweat. He felt sore from the battle still, having rammed through a minotaur and struck his shoulder against its shin. There was a little bruising there, though it was already easing thanks to his attentive wife’s ministrations. He hadn’t needed any of Zecora’s ointment, but even though she was exhausted and ready to collapse, she had noticed his little wound and taken care of it. The thought made him smile briefly, a flash of warmth provided by still having her in spite of all the dark of yesterday.
Luna’s damnation was a double-edged sword, one meant to torture the Fallen for hundreds of years with life trapped in Tartarus. That had been hell, but a comfortable hell from time to time, one that allowed him to make friends and determined him to be better. It had forced each of the Fallen into acknowledging and regretting the blood of their kin that they had spilt. The imprisonment had been the torture of the mind, forcing it to change and recognize its faults and incompetence in seeking selfish preservation. It was a healthy torture, a growing pain, as he described it.
Now, the second feature of their curse was revealed as they began to defend Equestria. They had been given over seventeen hundred years of time together, meaning that almost everypony knew everypony else. The Fallen had become one collective of individuals who shared almost all of their history together. They had come to know each and every Fallen by name and appearance, and many had hundreds of close friends. Now that they were waging war, even a number as small as two hundred and twenty-four hurt. He knew many of the Fallen who had died by name, and there were many he knew much better.
Garish’s death stung the most, though. Skalos had always disagreed with the stallion, his easygoing attitude and relative aloofness to serious topics chafing with Skalos’ natural tendencies. Yet the soldier had represented something special for the Fallen as somepony who had both come to terms with his past and was prepared for the future. His and Adant’s marriage had been something of contention back when Skalos had been a Grim, as all marriages were targeted as irreverent of their sins back then. Now, though, a much wiser, more mature Skalos had been steered correct by Ray and he saw their marriage as what it truly was: a beautiful union between two soldiers in the face of their greatest adversary, Luna’s curse.
Now that he had Zecora, he understood why they had gone through with it years ago, when they had been ostracized by half of the Fallen. He also could guess at how much pain Adant was in now that her other half had been ripped away from her. Memory of the sight of Garish’s corpse made Skalos freeze momentarily out of sorrow, knowing well there was only one option for such a mutilated body. The funeral wouldn’t be open casket as there wasn’t really a face to see, and the stallion was almost cut in half as well, two minotaurs striking him down. He hadn’t seen it himself, but Terrabet had. The death was instant, at least, which he hoped could provide some comfort to Adant.
She and other soldiers in mourning were set aside in the camp, separated so they could mourn while the rest of the army set about its tasks. Adant hadn’t been the only one to lose their spouse in yesterday’s battle. Skalos felt cold at the fact that so many ponies had lost their beloved already, killed in combat. It was a risk he faced constantly, and he feared he would leave Zecora in a similar condition as Adant when he died. They had plans for their future, plans that hinged on them both living through this. Biting his lip, he forced those thoughts away before he could question his resolve to stand by Ray’s side. He and Zecora would talk later, when she was rested.
It was only after he realized that his legs had stopped moving that he saw he was in front of the general’s command tent. Taking a breath, he pushed through the tent flap, glancing around at the insides. Harbor was the only one here, though considering it was sunrise and many of the other generals hadn’t retired to their tents until a few hours ago, he didn’t think much of it. The haste in which the tent had been set up was evident, with crates haphazardly stacked on one side of the tent while the table occupied the other half. Nodding in acknowledgement to Harbor- who looked half-dead while slowly chewing some bread- he took a seat on a singular crate placed close to the table.
The papers that had been littering the table last night were now neatly stacked to one side while a map that was still unfinished took up the other half. It detailed everything the Fallen had scouted out so far, from the coastline to where they now stood down to the empty, flat plains beyond the hills. It was a surprisingly detailed map, showing their original camp, the site of the first battle and the mine, and even the huge valley they had come across. Kraven had aptly named it the Great Valley, of course, his genius ending when it came to creativity. Nevertheless, he appreciated the fact that they did have a map, even if it was only of territory that was safe.
“So, how did you sleep,” he absently asked, his eyes darting over to a paper that seemed out of place.
“Didn’t,” Harbor mumbled around a bite of bread. “Figured if Ray could survive a night without sleep, losing a friend, marching twelve miles, fighting a battle, having a friend killed, and comforting his newly widowed friend, I can suck it up for one night and help figure out what next.”
“Awfully selfless of you,” Skalos noted, picking up the paper and squinting at the hundreds of words jotted down on it. “This is your’s, I’m guessing.”
“Yep, three and a half plans of where we go from here,” Harbor sighed.
“How do you have half a plan,” Skalos questioned with a light chuckle, reading over the lines.
“I know where we could go, but I don’t know what to do once we got there,” the stallion answered, drawing Skalos’ gaze. “I was taking a little snack break to mull over possibilities before you showed up. Honestly, I expected you to be much later. You must’ve gotten only four hours of sleep or something.”
“Two,” Skalos replied with a smirk. “I couldn’t fall asleep until I knew Zecora was able to finally rest. She finished up her work about two hours ago.”
“Six of them didn’t make it,” Harbor sadly pointed out. “How’s she handling it?”
“I don’t know, there wasn’t much talk,” Skalos answered truthfully. “She saw me bruising, grabbed ointment, took care of it, and passed out after a kiss goodnight. I’ll check with her later today, but unless somepony stabs themselves I’m not waking her up. She isn’t built for war, not like us.”
“Ain’t the damnedest,” Harbor muttered, shaking his head slowly. “Can’t believe she managed to sneak her way into this war with both you and Ray tryna keep her out. Luna, you have one strong mare by your side.”
“Thanks,” Skalos nodded, smiling slightly as he set the paper down. “We’ll deal with your plans once the rest arrive, which may take a bit. I do have to ask, though, what are the scouts reporting?”
“Enemy’s about five miles to our northwest for about four hours now,” Harbor shrugged indifferently. “It seems they’re too scared of remaining within reasonable striking distance of us, and with Ray’s aggressive tendencies, I don’t blame ‘em.”
“Do you agree with the battle,” Skalos questioned genuinely. “Do you think he made the right choice by having us march straight into an overwhelming battle?”
“Look at the results, Skalos,” he replied, pointing a hoof to the papers. “Two hundred and twenty-four Fallen for over seventeen thousand minotaurs. Let me repeat, seventeen thousand. Not hundreds, no, thousands. We killed as many minotaurs as there were Fallen in this army to begin with. Even if we had killed only a tenth of that, we could consider it a major victory, but this is a whole new class of victory and domination never seen in warfare before. I mean, I can’t even wrap my head around how many minotaurs we killed, especially for such a low cost. We barely lost over one percent of our soldiers for an entire army and a huge chunk of another one.”
“But do you agree with it,” Skalos pressed.
“Agree with it,” Harbor exclaimed, laughing slightly. “After an ingenious wallop like that, I might not ever question Ray again!” Pausing momentarily, he pointed a hoof at Skalos and stated, “Don’t quote me on that.”
Chuckling, Skalos held up both hooves and replied, “Alright, fair enough. I guess I haven’t been focusing on what we took, just what we lost. I was never really a math pony anyways. That’s why we have Kraven.”
The two shared a chuckle at the joke for a few moments, before the tent fell silent again. Harbor took another bite of his bread, finishing it off while Skalos sat thinking about the stallion and general he shared the tent with. They had known each other for many, many years before either of them were generals, or even captains. He had been as much a brother to Skalos as his real brother had been, though he still couldn’t tell if he was an older or younger brother. Sometimes it fluctuated, but they knew virtually everything about each other, everything but one major detail.
“Harbor, why did you take my name,” he found himself asking. When the stallion stiffened, looking up at Skalos, he mumbled, “We probably don’t have long before life separates us, one way or another, so I want to know why you changed your name to what mine was before ‘Skalos’.”
“Fair enough,” Harbor sighed, rubbing a hoof against the back of his head, looking slightly embarrassed. Finally, he muttered, “Harbor Point might be the best name I’ve ever heard. The point at which the harbor sits, a position on which there is safety from passing storms and welcome to newcomers. A hub of trade, both economic and cultural. Many of Equestria’s most important cities are harbors, and they all serve as places where ponies can live, work, and love. Harbor Point: the place in which a pony can be sheltered while also reaching out to those around them.”
“So you liked it,” Skalos summarized with a small smile.
“Well, I’ve liked it for a long time, but do you remember the first day in the Harkening,” Harbor questioned, frowning slightly. Skalos’ smile fell as the dark day came back into mind, the first day of their damnation after they were shown mortal mercy. Almost three hundred of their brothers and sisters had killed themselves that day, a mass suicide more horrifying the than anything he had witnessed. Three hundred ponies choose to throw themselves on their spears, and their new home had been christened in shamed blood and tears of sorrow.
“I see you do,” the general muttered quietly, grim. “On that day, after Brook Tree threw himself off that building, I was going to fall on my own sword. I don’t know why, but for some reason you walked there just as I was about to, surrounded by others in a pool of their own blood. You looked at me from across the street and grumbled, ‘You really wanna die like that?’ You said the one thing that I needed to hear that day, waking me up from my depression.”
“Then we spent the rest of the day saying the exact same thing to other ponies,” Skalos mumbled, remembering the moment. Smiling strangely, he stated, “So you changed your name to mine because I saved your life?”
“I know for an amazing stallion such as yourself saving a life is no big deal, but it was my life you saved, my life you resurrected in me,” Harbor pointed out. “Those six words sparked a need for change, beyond just being the cowardly colt that ran away from battles and switched sides to try and stay alive. My name was Tandem Dander before I changed it, and now I barely remember it. Because, on that day, you let him die and saved my life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here, as a general. I might have become like Kater or Hammer, a depressed, wandering soldier without a purpose or skill.”
“I sparked the fire, Harbor, but you used it to set your heart alight,” Skalos insisted, reaching out a hoof and pressing it on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s because of your renewed actions, the potential in you that you used that you’re one of five generals. If it means anything to you, you’ve earned your name more than I did.”
“Thank you, Skalos,” Harbor smiled, reaching out his other hoof and pressing it against Skalos’ shoulder. “We’ll make it through this war. Thanks to you, me, Kraven, Yarem, Pelios, and Ray. The Fallen will save Equestria and we’ll be ponies again. I know we will, one day.”
Grinning, Skalos replied, “You better not go chasing tail once we’re back in our pony forms.”
“General Skalos saying something vulgar,” the voice of Pelios suddenly questioned from the tent flap as he and the two remaining Fallen generals entered. “I don’t believe it. Quick, Kraven, put it on record.”
“Already on it, General Pelios,” the studious stallion confirmed, rushing to an empty parchment on the table and jotting it down while the others chuckled. “I’m certain our lordling would be very interested in this particular testament against your stoic purity, Skalos.”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” the address Fallen replied with false stiffness. “I was merely giving General Harbor an order before my authority is removed after we’ve won this war.”
“Yes, priorities,” Yarem chuckled, sitting on the ground in front of the table, looking over the map. “Have you been chatting all night or did you just arrive here as well?”
“I was here all night,” Harbor informed the other three. “Skalos arrived about half an hour ago. We withheld from discussing matters of interest before the rest of you arrived. Now that you’re here, we can begin picking apart the results of yesterday’s battle and what we do next.”
“And what about Ray,” Pelios asked, the humor leaving as his brow furrowed. “Is he alright? I noticed he had a gash on his back last night, but it was hard to tell how bad it was thanks to him being covered in blood. Is Zecora seeing him right now?”
“No, he’s resting, but once both he and Zecora have rested, I’ll have her tend to him,” Skalos offered. “We’re going to let our poor general rest, because Luna bless him, but his selflessness will be the death of him. He suffered a great deal these past few days, some of which we haven’t even begun unraveling.”
“Yes, the mysterious ordeal with this ‘Spectre’ entity of his,” Kraven mumbled, rubbing his chin with a hoof.
“And the death of Garish will certainly have him drained emotionally, the stress of so many important decisions being made on the march, the physical marching, and fighting in an actual, prolonged battle all had him on his last straw last night,” Pelios pointed out sadly. “Poor stallion had to go through Tartarus yesterday, over and over. How did he not crack under the pressure?”
“Because Twilight chose the perfect human for this job,” Skalos answered frankly. “I trained Ray for over a year, most of it in private, and every day he kept growing, learning, and trying. It’s what he’s doing now, learning to wage war and save lives. We all heard him yesterday, talking of having to make the choice that killed Fallen. Even we haven’t been brave enough to discuss that, ultimately, we doom some of us whenever we choose to fight. Yet Ray is smarter than beating around the bush and forced honesty, forced us to get past the bitter taste of our comrades’ fates and made us make a choice that is, by far, the most complete and insane victory in Equestrian history.”
“Two hundred and twenty-four Fallen for over seventeen thousand minotaurs, and we kept the field of battle,” Harbor summarized for the three generals. Skalos gauged their shocked reactions for the final tally.
“And the Matriarch and her spiderlings prevented a complete collapse of our archers with that little web trick, also allowing us to fall back to this camp,” Pelios pointed out. “I think it’s about time we began weighing the spiderlings into our discussions as well, because without them, our major victories wouldn’t be possible.”
“True, and what unique properties they give us,” Kraven noted with a curious smile. “We won the battle and then defended the victory because the Matriarch simply spun a web in front of my archers. Imagine that you’re a soldier charging archers, knowing it’ll be a slaughter when you arrive, only to get stuck in a web and picked off by said archers and made into food for giant spiders. Almost a cruel twist of karma, isn’t it?”
“Yes, curious and disturbing in equal measure,” Yarem muttered, before looking up from the parchment that had Harbor’s plans scrawled on it. “Shall we get down to today’s business? It seems that General Harbor has a very well thought out series of ideas for what we could do with the sunlight we have and recovering the energy of our army. I agree with option two, Harbor. Well done.”
“Plan two,” Kraven questioned before carefully taking the plans from Yarem.
“It calls for the army to retreat back to its proposed position, about a mile behind us and in front of the Big Face,” Harbor explained to the generals who weren’t analyzing it. “I figured that we wouldn’t be able to stage a march over too much a distance so quickly after a crushing victory and draining endeavor. However, we need to have a settled down position that still serves to keep the remaining minotaur army in sight. We’d be able to transport the bodies and burn them off the top of the Big Face, letting their ashes drift free. Those who are wounded will be able to fall back too, meaning the entirety of the army would be able to be repositioned before the sun begins to set.”
“To put it simply, agreed,” Kraven shrugged, setting the paper down with a nod. “We’ll move the ballistas and other equipment first, then work division by division, allotting an hour and a half for each army to move their soldiers to the camp. We’ll end with the command tent. The spiderlings can assist since they won’t be needed for anything else and we’ll want to move quickly. I’m guessing many of our soldiers will be exhausted even by minimal movement after what we put them through yesterday. We just need to wait for our lordling to approve it.”
“Well, not necessarily,” Pelios suggested with a quirk of his head. “I mean, if we’re all in agreement on this, then I don’t think we need to worry about Ray’s approval. Besides, Celestia knows how long the lad will be sleeping before he wakes.”
“We’re not going to do anything without Ray’s approval,” Yarem insisted with a frown. “What if he takes it wrong, or the soldiers take it wrong. He might worry that after he went authoritarian on us yesterday, we’re moving to take control over the army instead of him. We need to keep him comfortable with us as his generals, which means seeking his approval when moving his army.”
“I’m certain Ray won’t mind,” Kraven voiced. “He’s smarter than to fear us. We’re all friends, he’ll know it was just us taking the initiative and not taking control. There isn’t any problem with us moving the army in a way he would approve while he gets much needed rest.”
“We can’t just assume that, though,” Harbor finally said. “I wrote the plans for Ray to pick one he liked, or use pieces of it to make one of his own. I don’t want to encourage what looks like rebelliousness from his generals, just present my ideas. The responsible thing to do would be to wait for our general to give the order.”
“Skalos, thoughts,” Yarem demanded with a frown.
“I don’t want to say which side I take, but there is someone else we can consult for decisive advice on this matter, if it is this pressing,” Skalos finally said, looking around at the other four generals. “The Matriarch knows Ray and his will far better than any of us ever could because she sees, hears, and knows him as if she were him. It’s a strange, otherworldly connection they have, but I know that whatever side the Matriarch agrees with, Ray would agree with as well. Besides, she’s probably overheard all of this and already is on her way right now to tell us what we should do.”
“Indeed, very well predicted,” the Matriarch’s whispery, piercing voice spoke from above, a shadow suddenly casting the tent into darkness. Pelios cursed under his breath in surprise, causing Skalos to smirk slightly as he moved to the tent flap and stepped outside. Looming over the camp, the Matriarch peered down with her intrigued, benevolent eight eyes. “General Skalos, it’s a pleasure to be called upon.”
“Thank you for being prepared, World Weaver,” Skalos nodded in gratitude, before proceeding. “What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“Ray would approve, easily,” the Matriarch declared with satisfaction. “In fact, I believe it was his intent to move the camp back to its originally proposed position last night, but exhausted his energy before he could give the order. However, before you carry out the plan, I would recommend that Ray’s tent should be the last to be moved. He only finally took to sleeping under two hours ago.”
“Two hours ago,” Pelios questioned, confused. “Didn’t we insist on him retiring to his quarters some five hours ago? What did he spend three hours doing?”
“Mourning,” the Matriarch muttered sadly, causing a silence to fall on the five generals. Without another word, the Matriarch turned and began chittering, speaking to her children.
Solemnly, Skalos led the generals back into the tent, giving all four a long look. Taking a breath, he whispered, “That’s one more objective for us today, my friends. The Fallen will need Ray now to recover its strength from its losses. However, Ray will need us to help overcome the terrible toll the deaths of our brothers and sisters weighs on him. As much as Ray is our general and we are his most trusted advisors and commanders, we’re also the closest friends he has in the Tauran plains. We must be ready to help the young man deal with death. We must comfort our lordling when he is weak. Only when we embrace his weaknesses will he become strong enough to overcome them.”