“Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?”
Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind.
His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks.
He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield.
A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra-
-----
“Alright, let’s hear it, Boots.” Sergeant Birch Nut fiddled with the enchanted helmet that rested around his horn; the stupid thing never seemed to fit right.
“Roger that, Sergeant. Okay, as of zero-seven-hundred hours this morning, our battalion's been on high alert due to repeated probing maneuvers made by griffon hostiles along the border between here, here...” he paused to adjust the map in his telekinetic grip, “...And here.”
“Yeah,” barked a voice from the rear of the transport, “We know. That’s the reason we got pulled out of chow and stuffed in a shoebox to fly all the way out to Goddess-knows-where. Get to it, Boots.”
Birch glared at the unicorn who had interrupted, boring a hole in him from six paces away.
“That’s enough, Snap. I’m sorry the BC specifically decided to ruin your day with a frag-o. Private Bootshine, please continue.” The guardspony nodded and lifted a second map in the confines of the troop carrier, highlighting a mountain range just between the borders of the Griffon Empire and the land of Equestria.
“Right. Anyway, our squad is making for this location to try and scope out whatever featherhead activity’s popping off. We’re not there to start a fight, guys - Celestia knows we’re not equipped to fight a Griffon platoon off - so watch your six and keep your heads on a swivel. That high in the mountains is beaky’s home turf. They find us, we’re gonna be sent home in a box.” Bootshine rolled up the pair of maps and stuffed them away in his saddlebags. As he finished, his green eyes - the only part of a guardspony’s hide that wasn’t enchanted to look uniform - turned to the sergeant.
“Cut-and-dry, guys. We get in, perform recon for our area, and send off a message to higher on what we find. Then we get the heck home. Bootshine, Snap, you’re with me. Rubble and Sledge, you fall under Sergeant Cliff Jumper. Don’t try to be heroes; you know how he gets.” Cliff grinned and finished attaching his saber to his side.
“Didn’t you hear, Birch? We’re all heroes. Just ask any filly in Canterlot.”
The six guardsponies checked their gear as the transport rattled in the wind, going over each other and making sure everything was in place. Snap helped Boots adjust the straps on his saddlebags while Birch moved towards the sliding doors of their flying coffin.
With a burst of magic the doors opened, giving the sergeant a full view of the Blue Mountains beneath them. If they were blue before, they sure didn’t show it: from the soldiers’ position above the foot of the mountains, everything was dirt and rock. Gemstones were hidden far beneath the rocks’ roots, but everything above ground had been burnt to cinders centuries ago by a long-forgotten dragon migration. Nothing was left to grow back.
Pegasi to his left and right fought to stabilize the transport in the howling wind as they soared for higher ground, though they had the easier job among the Flight Squad - two heavy draft fliers were anchored to the front of the armored vehicle, hauling it forward and hurtling at ever greater speeds towards their destination. In the distance, Birch could see a similar transport moving towards the same location. Another team of six pegasi hauled the elongated, enclosed chariot, and another squad of unicorn and earth pony guards waited inside for the call to hit the ground running.
“No, genius. Look. Secure it like this.” Private Snap Freeze grunted as he cinched the heavy leather buckles anchoring Bootshine’s combat load to his sides. The pair of saddlebags were packed full of medical equipment, maps and assorted gear that made Boots appear twice his actual size. Tying off a quick knot to make sure his partner’s saber would stay flush with his gear, Snap stepped back to admire his work.
“Yep. That oughta do it. How does it feel?”
“Can’t...really breathe...my hooves feel numb...” To his credit, Bootshine didn’t drop under the weight of his ruck. On the other hand, he didn’t look ready to scale a mountain.
“Rub some dirt on it. You’ll be fine.”
Birch chuckled and removed his helmet, running a hoof through his close-cropped mane as the armor’s latent magics faded and his coat reverted back to its normal tan. His two soldiers were each other’s foil as much as they were friends - quick to lash out at each other during bouts of boredom, but even faster to cooperate when given a task to complete.
Boots had just finished his training as a member of the Light Arcane Infantry not two months ago, but he’d already proven himself resourceful and adaptable under the constant pressure of garrison life this close to the border. Snap, on the other hand, had already been serving for nearly a year. Still green compared to the other guardsponies on board, but clever enough to stand side-by-side with the more experienced unicorns and outshine them whenever he saw an opportunity.
“Come on, Snap, give him a hoof with some of that crap. Can’t expect one pony to hike up a mountain carrying his own weight in gear unless you plan to roll him back down when we’re done.” Snap groaned and began transferring a few of the bundles of equipment from his friend’s packs to his own.
“Sure thing, Sarge. Don’t worry, Bootlick, mama’s ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Snap will carry all the stuff that’s too heavy for your dainty little hooves.”
“I told you to stop calling me that, you ass.”
“Tough nuts. You’re the eff-en-gee now, not me. You’ll grin and bear it. That light enough for you?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s much better. Thanks...Sugarsnap.” A chorus of snickers surrounded the red-faced private as he latched his saddlebags shut and shoved Bootshine back onto the bench.
“Oh, okay, yeah, buck you, Boots. How’d you even hear that?”
Bootshine rolled his eyes and settled back into the bench, stretching his legs out beneath him. “You leave your mail lying open on your desk, you moron. I get to read everything your marefriend has to say to her little Cheesy Freeze.”
“I swear to Celestia I will crawl down your throat and violate your soul if you say another one of those stupid nicknames out loud.”
The roar of the wind through the open bay door punctuated the otherwise silent interior of the chariot. Convinced he’d ended the argument, Snap spun around and began trotting back to his seat before the whisper reached his ears.
“...Snapple.”
“I am going to MURDER you, Boots!” The two unicorns crashed into each other and rolled to the metal floor. Boots couldn’t stop laughing; Snap was trying his best to make him. Birch tossed the two of them back into their respective seats with a lazy glimmer of magic before Snap could finish an impressive guillotine clench on his younger companion.
“Time for you two chuckleheads to sit down and shut up,” he grumbled, “We’re almost there. Try not to crash the bus while we’re in it.” In truth, he was trying not to laugh. Not that they needed to know that.
Across the chariot, Sledge and Rubble glanced at each other before turning their attention to the lounging Cliff.
“Hey...hey, Sarge. Give us our bits back; they didn’t finish the fight.” Sledge flexed his considerable bulk in agitation while he and his teammate waited on their leader’s response.
“Sorry, don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Gambling’s against regulation in the Guard, boys. Were you two gambling? I sure hope you weren’t. Schucks.” He grinned beneath the cold glare of his helmet. “Besides, I bet on Birch.”
Birch smiled in spite of himself and leaned through the open door again, relishing in the feel of the wind whistling over him. The rocky ground soared beneath him, blending into a blur of gray and brown as their team of pegasi shuttled them onwards.
The pegasus directly to his left unhooked a hoof from his support harness and pointed towards a thick outcropping of stone far below. “Sergeant! At our 10, take a look. Ground level.”
Birch levitated a pair of binoculars from his saddlebag and stretched out into the wind. The soldier’s hoof pointed him towards a large cluster of boulders that had fallen from a higher outcropping in the rock. As his lenses focused, he could just barely see a pair of thick, black feathers drift to the dust beneath the stones.
“Cliff, buckle up back there. Got a possible hosti-”
The craft groaned and tilted wickedly to the left, cutting off his order. Birch flailed his hooves and caught himself on the door before he fell out. With a grunt, he pushed himself back inside the chariot...
...And stared into the dead eyes of the pegasus he had just spoken to.
His body hung limply in the harness, wings swinging as the wind thrashed them in the chariot’s downward arc. Three tightly-grouped crossbow bolts rose from the back of the dead colt’s neck.
Oh, Goddesses...
“Shields up-!” Birch’s own magic joined with his soldiers’, raising a powerful field of energy around the chariot fast enough to stop the massive Scorpion bolt that blazed towards them from a hidden launcher. He remembered screaming as the maliciously sharp tip of the missile lodged partway through his shield, cracking it with a sound like bursting china.
----
The world around him was fire and blood and shrapnel and death. Birch was sprinting when he came to, and he screamed again in mid-stride as the pain began to sink in. His right hindleg was gouged deeply by a pair of smaller bolts that had passed clean through the muscle. The griffon above him loosed another furious burst of rounds that scattered wide to his left as he tucked and rolled out of the way.
Orange flame and energy crackled over his horn as he rose, gripping the enemy’s thick leather barding with his telekinesis and dragging the creature out of the sky with a burst of power. The griffon hit the dirt like a meteor, crushing one wing and bending the other at an awkward angle in the crash. Even with his wounds, he tried to grasp for the axe slung over his shoulder before Birch could close the gap and finish him off.
There was a quick scream, and a bubbling gasp for air. Birch trotted up to the corpse and pulled his saber free from the griffon’s tattered neck. Funny, they always seemed to forget about the telekinesis.
“Sergeant!” Snap’s voice reached him from across the battlefield where the private was weaving his way through a barrage from two more skybound griffon soldiers. They both carried brand-new repeating crossbows, launching dozens of penetrating metal bolts in quick succession under the energy of enchanted gemstones.
Birch was hurting. He was tired. He was drained from the pain dealt with the backlash from the penetrator bolt that had struck his shield...but his soldiers didn’t need him exhausted and blind with pain. He shelved away the cold ache that had begun to creep from the tip of his horn and the burning agony in his leg.
The first griffon fell lifeless to the ground, clutching the huge bolt that had speared him through the chest. The second had time to dodge Birch’s other Scorpion round he had pulled from the wreckage of their partner chariot, but fell shrieking as a flurry of ice shards sliced the flesh from his body.
“You...you okay, Snap?” Birch staggered for a few steps before gritting his teeth and standing as tall as he could manage. In the distance, he could hear another pony screaming. A pair of pegasi dodged and juked in the air above, flying circles around the larger griffon soldiers and slashing at them with blades hidden in their wingtips.
“...Never better, sergeant.” Snap Freeze was shaking as exhaustion threatened to overcome adrenaline. His armor was smeared with fresh blood. Birch tried not to think about how much of it could be his. “Thanks for the assist, by the way.”
“Think I’d leave one of mine behind?” Birch clapped his soldier around his neck, wincing softly as he put pressure on his bad leg. “Where’s Boots? Did you two send that report up?” He didn’t bother adding the fact that none of them were likely to make it home if they didn’t.
“Sent it by flame just a few minutes ago before those bastards dropped on us. They...they got Boots pretty bad, sergeant. Bolt caught one of his bottles, and...just look...”
The two guardsponies trotted behind the pile of boulders that Snap had been guarding. The same pile that Birch had spied up in the sky...what, ten minutes ago? Fifteen? He couldn’t tell. Private Bootshine was stretched out in the dust under as much cover as Snap could find, the left side of his body covered in horrible burns where his liquid flame had detonated. Four crossbow bolts were lodged deeply into his chest and belly.
“H-hey, Sergeant. Did you...did you find them?” His voice was strained and raspy, and his throat gurgled with each breath. One of the missiles had punctured a lung. Kneeling down, Birch kicked his soldier’s discarded armor to the side and started inspecting the wounds.
“Cliff’s fine, and he’s got Rubble and Sledge with him. They’re moving to our position right now, buddy.” Boots didn’t need to know about how the griffons had opened Sledge from stomach to sternum, or how Cliff had shielded Rubble with his body while the enemy poured a deluge of fire into them.
“Good, good. I was-” he coughed up pink foam, the blood already seeping into his airway. “...Was hoping they made it through alright. Never got to meet Rubble’s cousin, heh-heh. She’s supposed to be pretty cute.”
Snap jumped to his hooves and poured energy into his horn, striking a griffon out of the sky above them with icicles formed from the air. It looked like more were on their way down the mountain.
“I tell you what, Boots; we get you home and I’ll teach you all about how to wine and dine her. Hell, I’ll get the two of you tickets to the next Wonderbolts show. Got a buddy of mine on the tech team for their act.” He hated lying more than he hated airshows. “You’re gonna be fine, pal. How do you feel?”
Boots smiled beneath him, coughing lightly and cringing as his blackened flesh split with each breath.
“Can’t breathe that well, my hooves are a little numb. Snap put his shit back in my packs again, didn’t he...?” His sentence tapered off as his breaths became shorter and more painful.
“C’mon, Boots, stay with me. Relief team’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away from here and we’ll get you home. Just...just keep talking, alright? How many hooves am I holding up?”
“Just...one,” the private chuckled before wheezing and gasping for fresh air.
“Great. You’ve learned to count. Who’s the current ruler of Equestria?” The soldier in his hooves was fading fast, he hadn’t trained in healing spells, and Snap was yelling at him.
“Hrrk...it’s a...a diarchy, sergeant. Celestia and L-Luna...they share the throne.”
“You’re too smart for your own damn good, Boots. Hey, keep looking at me.” Birch gently shook his soldier’s hoof. “Focus. If you could get the hell out of here and be anything, do anything, what would you choose?”
Somewhere in his failing body, Boots found the strength to return the grip around his hoof. He drew his leader closer, choking the words out through a mouth stained with blood.
“I think I’d...want to be you...Birch.”
Look, dad! I’m just like you!
The image of his son wearing his ceremonial helmet came without warning. It had been only a few months ago, before Birch had been sent forward to the border with his troops. Hazel had surprised him in the living room of their apartment as he returned home from shift, having buckled the heavy golden helmet around his chin. The enchantments worked into the metal had turned the colt’s dark hair and mane to the stark colors of the Guard, and his smile had reached all the way to his eyes for the first time since his mother had passed.
Grunting angrily, Birch forced the picture from his mind and tried to focus on the soldier in front of him. “C’mon, Boots, y’know you can do better than-”
Boots’ eyes were distant, staring at a horizon that only he could see. The pink flecks of spittle around his mouth had already begun to dry. He had died smiling, at least. Sergeant Birch closed his soldier’s eyes for the last time and staggered to his hooves.
A griffon chanced a fly-by. It crashed to the ground with the shattered blade of a Sergeant’s saber in its chest.
Dimly, Birch could see that Snap was struggling against another enemy. Through the taste of blood and dust and ash, he could feel himself screaming as he charged. Griffon armor was designed to protect the more vital organs in the chest cavity and offered little in the way of protection below the belly. A magically-charged unicorn horn could cut through the barding and soft tissue as if it was butter. Birch did just that, bellowing in rage until Snap forced the creature’s corpse off the tip of his horn and brought him back to the waking world.
“Sarge...Sergeant Birch. SERGEANT!”
“WHAT!?” Birch rounded on the smaller unicorn, ready to stab him, bite him, kick him to death - and everything faded when he saw the tears in the Guard’s eyes.
“We need you here, Sergeant. We can take Boots home...but we need you here for a little longer. Okay?” Wiping his eyes, Snap grunted and started tugging a pair of barbs from his left foreleg.
As much as he wanted to scream and cry and hate until he died, Birch forced himself to remain with the ponies that relied on him. He wheezed softly and brushed a hoof across his face, smearing the sticky mess of blood that had poured out of the griffon.
“Yeah. Okay.”
In the distance he heard the crackle of magically-enhanced gemstones feeding power into machinery. The wind whistled as he raised his eyes towards the direction of the sound, spying a heavily-armored griffon komvsvoda with a truly massive weapon in his claws. Something hot and wet splattered across the side of his muzzle.
Snap stared at him in shock as he gasped through the hole torn in his throat.
-----
“Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?”
Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind.
His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks.
He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield.
A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra-