The silence threatened to stretch on indefinitely. Clement’s mouth had gone as dry as the Saladi, his heart racing like a soaring pegasus. Or a crashing one. He’d wondered if this would happen, eventually. He’d expected to feel a lot of things, but not quite like he did now. At last, he found his voice, bringing it back from its hiding place. “Hello, Duke Blueblood.”
His father winced. “Clement…”
“Why are you here, father?”
Emmet looked at him sadly. “Would you believe me if I said ‘to see you?' No… probably not.”
“I got—” Clement’s voice abandoned him for a moment, “I got the impression you never wanted to see me again.”
“I wanted a lot of things.” The duke looked distant.
“Like Norlund? Easthill?” Clement felt bitterness rising like bile. “Power? Money?”
His father looked quietly dismayed. “Is that really what you think of me?”
“I don’t know, father. Is there anything else? Please, tell me, tell me why you sent thousands to their deaths, why it was justified. Please, tell me!” Clement became aware that he was shouting.
Emmet raised a halfhearted hoof, then let it fall. He sighed. “Go ahead, Clement. Let’s hear it all.”
“I trusted you. I looked up to you. I would have done anything for your approval; I’ve killed for it. Because, because I thought you wanted to help Equestria! To help our people!” Tears were leaking from the edges of his eyes. “But all of it was a lie. You didn’t send me and my soldiers, my brothers-in-arms, my friends, to die for anything but your selfish ambitions. The first—” his voice broke, “the first enemy I ever killed was another pony, from Canterlot.”
His father’s head bowed as if in pain.
There was no stopping the flood now. Anger and hurt poured out of him like water bursting through a dam. “I made excuses for you, I defended you, I refused to listen to anything that might break that pedestal I’d built for you; I did everything to win your favor.” His chest was shaking. He was flat-out crying, feeling his shoulders heave. “Please, father! Tell me I wasn’t wrong. Tell me you were doing what was best for us, for our homeland. Tell me you were what I always wanted you to be.”
The duke’s mouth moved silently, as he tried to find the words to speak. At last, he said slowly, “I have never lied to you, Clement. I will not do so now. I have never cared about Whitetail, or the south, or any of the rest of Equestria. I have always put Norhart first.”
“Norhart? Or Norhart’s Duke?” Clement wiped his eyes, furious with himself for losing his composure, but unable to stem the outpouring of emotion.
“Clement…” Emmet sighed wearily. “When my father inherited the dukedom, Norhart was the richest, happiest, and most influential province in the kingdom. But my father spent and spent on lavish excesses, enlarging our manor, draping tinsel and glitter over the decaying city, not caring about the duchy at large, not caring about his responsibilities. Famine struck the land, and the duke did nothing. All the money that might have bought food for our vassals was spent on tapestries and carpets. He squandered my inheritance and our province’s future.
“When the dukedom finally passed to me, the land was in chaos. Food was scarce, work impossible to find, and the ponies of Norhart saw their leaders sequestered away in luxury, uncaring and ignorant of their plight.
“I was thrust into command of a people who hated me, my family, blamed us for all their woes—and rightly so. Not long after you were born, it all came to a head at Fillydelphia. The rebellion was our greatest failure. My greatest failure. That was the day the name of Blueblood fell from glory.”
His father faltered. “And then… your mother died.”
Clement thought he’d buried that pain long ago, but there it was again, fresh as ever. “Is that it? That’s your excuse?”
Emmet shook his head. “With my Adriana gone, all I had left in the world was you, Clement. My son… my heir.” His eyes searched for something to focus on. “I couldn’t let what happened to me befall you as well. I swore I would leave you a Norhart greater than even my grandfather’s, the strongest province Equestria had seen in a hundred generations. I would build it, tend it like a garden, cultivate your future for you. And at last, as I lay upon my deathbed, I would lay it at your hooves, and die knowing you would redeem our house and bring the name of Blueblood back to greatness.”
He finally looked at Clement. “Everything I have done, I have done for you—for your birthright, to give you what my father failed to give me, to leave you peace, wealth, happiness…”
Clement felt the tears running down his cheeks. “I just… I just wanted you to love me, dad.”
“Clement…” His father laid a hoof on his shoulder. “I have always loved you. And I always will. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“But you—you’ve disowned me, banished me, you—” Clement choked back a sob.
“No, Clement.” Emmet shook his head firmly. “I… was angry, yes, but my actions were rash.”
Clement looked his father in the eye, and asked, “Why?”
The duke turned away, looking around the tent. “When I heard what you had done, I was furious. I’d spent my life preparing this for you, and you threw it all away to save Whitetail, the home of my most hated enemy. And my loyal army had followed you unquestioningly, abandoning their duke. Abandoning the house of Blueblood.”
He stared aimlessly into the air. “But when Volund refused my offer of clemency, I started thinking. He was my most loyal servant. Why would he turn his back on me… unless I was wrong?” He paused. “I realized that you hadn’t gone to spite me. And that I could not hate you, not even for betraying me. I was only angry because… because…”
“Because I’d ruined your plans,” finished Clement quietly. I see, Windstreak. Now I see.
“And then I realized that this was my fault. I tried… so hard to build your future that I was destroying your present. Equestria was falling apart around me, and it was because of me, my blindness to anything besides Norhart. The blood of hundreds of thousands is on my hooves.” The duke’s legs failed him, and he sat heavily. “The Princess was right.”
To Clement’s dismay, his father began to weep. “I’ve been a fool.”
Clement walked forward and embraced him. “Father…”
Emmet gripped him back tightly. “I can’t… I can’t make this right with a few words. I can’t give the dead back their lives. I can’t heal the scars.” He ran a hoof down the thin red line on Clement’s forehead, the mark of that battle so many weeks ago. “But I can help you save our nation from the griffons.” He smiled through his tears. “An old, stubborn stallion’s last gift.”
Clement hugged him again. “Thank you, father.”
* * *
“How many troops have you brought?” asked Volund.
Lord Helmfast, dressed in fine steel armor, looked quite nonplussed to find both Volund and Aubren in the same tent. Windstreak stifled a wry smile. Helmfast cleared his throat and said, “When we left my province, I brought about a thousand ponies with me. The duke had another fifteen hundred of his own. Lord Dalamant was to hold the western front against griffon incursions; we thought it safe to move east, so we brought everypony.”
Windstreak felt like a cat on catnip. “All of Helmfast and Norhart’s remaining forces are here with you?”
Helmfast held up a hoof. “Not all of them made it here. We originally planned to march through Norlund into Greenway and hit Easthill from the south, surprising Whitetail’s forces.”
Aubren bristled, but Windstreak quelled him with a glance. She motioned for Helmfast to continue.
“But before we even reached the crossroads, we encountered a large raiding party of griffons. We pursued them north, nearly to the edge of the Antlerwood, where they turned and fought. We slaughtered them all, but we lost over three hundred of our soldiers.” He tapped the table idly. “There weren’t that many griffons, but to find them so far north… I think it gave the duke pause. He demanded we press on to Easthill immediately, heading straight through the Capital. I think in the end we made it through the province scant days before the griffons arrived from Greenway.”
“What have you been doing all this time?” asked Aubren gruffly.
“Recuperating. Marching an army that large that far in that little time is not an easy undertaking.” Helmfast toyed with a clasp on his armor. “I suggested it might be prudent to delay the attack on Easthill until the griffons had moved further north—or to forgo it altogether. But the duke told me that we were no longer marching to meet Whitetail’s troops at all. Instead, we were going south, to Whitewall City.”
Windstreak smiled. “Coming to stand beside his son.”
Helmfast nodded, a small smile on his lips. “So it seemed to me.”
“So then…” Volund looked cautiously optimistic. “He’s forgiven Clement?”
“No,” came a deep baritone from the entrance of the tent. The flap opened to reveal two unicorns, clad in shining armor that sparkled in the endless sunlight. The Lords of Norhart entered the tent. Duke Blueblood looked at his son and shook his head. “There is nothing to forgive.”
He turned to look at the leaders of Equestria’s last armies. “Clement’s titles, rank, and name have been returned to him. And I… I will have the honor of standing at his side in battle, as we join you against the griffons, Lady Firemane.”
Volund stood. “My lord…”
“Peace, Volund.” The duke smiled. “You have done nothing wrong. You served my son as well as I could have hoped.”
Volund looked at Clement and nodded. “I’m proud to be under his command, my lord.”
Clement looked touched. “Thank you, Volund.”
Windstreak bowed courteously. “Lord Blueblood, I too must thank you. Now that you’re here, we finally have enough troops to make a difference, to challenge Shrikefeather at last.” Her eyes flared with anticipation. “The old buzzard won’t know what hit him.” She turned to the duke. “I presume you’ll be assuming command of your forces?”
“No,” said the duke firmly. “They have followed their commander through battle already, and trust his leadership. He’s seen them safely through so far. I will march with Lord Helmfast. Clement’s command is still his.”
Clement smiled at his father’s quiet praise. Windstreak clapped her hooves together. “Then this is it. The end of the war is coming, gentlecolts.” She looked up at the ceiling of the tent, as the sunlight filtered through the seams onto their faces. “May the goddess be with us.”