“Cadence!” Twilight rushed towards her sister-in-law. “Are you alright?”
Cadence looked up at the purple unicorn. Her face was covered in sweat, and she was breathing hard. She raised a hoof and held it for a moment as her breathing started to calm down. “I’m *gasp* fine, Twilight. Just a little *wheeze* out of breath.”
“Is there anything I can get you?” came a third, more timid voice. A smaller unicorn had walked up behind the two.
“Princess Cadence! Are you alright?” came another voice, as a guard joined the growing crowd around the alicorn.
“I’m-” Cadence began, only to be immediately cut off by a new arrival, a medical pony.
“Step aside, step aside, I need to check her over!” But no one seemed to be listening to him.
“There she is!” a more distant voice called.
“She saved us!”
Another pony managed to worm her way through the crowd, only to fall near Cadence’s feet. “Oh thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”
“Everyone, please…” Cadence plead, seeming to sense it would do no good even as she did.
“She’s a hero!”
“Three cheers for Princess Cadence!”
“Whoa! Careful!” Two of the guards had managed to lift Cadence onto their shoulders, though she struggled to balance. More joined in moments, and soon enough Twilight was pressed away by a surging mob of ponies who seemed intent on tossing Cadence around.
“Hip-Hip, Hooray!” Cadence was tossed in the air, then fell and was caught by the mob.
“Hip-Hip, Hooray!” Up and down she went again.
Twilight could only watch from a distance. Cadence noticed, and gave her her best apologetic look as the crowd carried her away, as if to say “Sorry, I can’t get them to stop.”
Cadence could have flown away, of course, but it was better to allow the ponies their moment of happiness if it would keep their spirits up. They would soon be needing them.
…
The next three days passed with no further signs of attack, and it was generally concluded that it had been the random fluke of a pained creature, acting alone. Cadence’s act had spread like wildfire throughout the army, and she had been swarmed by admirers for hours on end before she had finally managed to convince them that she’d prefer it if they left her alone and did their duties. Reluctantly, most had acceded to leaving the princess alone.
Passing out of the forest, the column had moved through the more flat, populated areas of the west. Or, at least, formerly populated. Twilight had known, intellectually, what all those black marks on the princesses’ map meant, but seeing it up close, for herself was still something nothing could prepare a pony for.
The towns and villages the column passed were scenes of utter horror and ruin. Old, black, dry blood had mixed with piles of ash on the ground to create the impression of a black mold infecting the earth itself. Buildings, from vast halls to tiny cottages, had been gutted and burned. Few were anything more than charred skeletons of what they had once been. Even those that had retained something of what they once were only served to remind Twilight of what had already been lost here, and what might still be lost if they failed.
But the buildings weren’t the worst part. No, that was the bodies. Bodies everywhere. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Ponies had been slaughter in ways too numerous and gruesome to count. Here a severed, rotting head was impaled on a burnt stake of wood. There a half-eaten pony bone had been jammed into the ground and left there. Twilight saw a carcass of a pony that had been ripped in two, her jaws frozen in a permanent scream, eyes rotting and covered in a disgusting black mold. An unlucky stallion looked to have been mutated to death, his flesh running like some revolting wax doll into tentacles, sores, tumors, mouths, and worse still. His eyes had somehow been preserved, which only made it worse – Twilight could still see the agony and fear as he’d died. Rotting organs were on display, ropes of intestines hung about like some sick party decorations. Hearts with chunks bitten out of them had been scattered carelessly.
Commander Dawn Spear had made the wise decision of ordering maximum pace when going through the dead towns, and forbidding any halt to rest while any part of the column was within. Guard ponies with torches were dispatched throughout each village, ordered to give what rest they could to the desecrated dead with impromptu cremation. They did their work as efficiently as they could, but even towards the army’s rear Twilight could see hundreds of bodies and parts that they had not yet been able to burn.
“There are just so many.”
Twilight wept.
…
The journey through the western half of Equestria lasted almost two weeks. During that time, whatever was left of the army’s light-heartedness utterly evaporated. Most of the former civilians acquired haunted looks and downtrodden demeanors as they looked upon the dozens of small towns and villages filled with the rotting corpses of their kin. Many had even lived in the area. Some had recently fled to Canterlot, only to be sent back to see the corpses of their friends, their neighbors, their families. The guard ponies, more trained and somewhat less surprised, nonetheless acquired looks of grim stoicism at the very best, and haunted depression at the worst. Rumor circulated that at least one pony, unable to stand the sight of his childhood home utterly destroyed, had killed himself. All the authorities denied it, but many believed it anyway. How could they not? The same thought had occurred to many of them.
Throughout it all, one pony had always seemed to be there, with an encouraging smile and an understanding shoulder to cry on – Cadence. She seemed to be everywhere at once, taking on the duty of raising the badly flagging morale in any way she could. She always seemed to find just the right words to say to a depressed pony on the verge of giving up, and many took it on themselves to find her at night, to speak to her about their troubles. She had become something of an army psychologist to the ponies, and her reputation among them continued to rise. Some saw her as a miracle-worker. Twilight would have liked to have seen her, but she knew other ponies were taking this far harder than even she was. Other ponies needed Cadence more, and so Twilight had left her be.
…
Sixteen days after leaving the Great Western Forest behind, the column’s scouts had finally reached the edge of their true target – Manehatten. Everypony was hurrying to assume their designated attack positions. The column was quickly being adjusted into a vast semi-circle. Spearponies in front, archers, magicians, and war engines behind. The noncombatents and a few selected guards would remain the rear, medical ponies already prepared to receive the inevitable flood of wounded and dying.
Twilight swallowed nervously as she assumed her position near the center of the vast semicircle. Ahead of her were twin ranks of Royal Guard armed with long spears. Applejack was somewhere to her right, but Twilight couldn’t make her out. Rainbow Dash was amongst the flocks of pegasi soaring overhead, but they were so high up that making out one particular individual was virtually impossible. Behind her, Cadance and Dawn Spear lurked, surrounded by guards. Twilight waited in nervous anticipation as ponies struggled and squirmed to get into position, wondering if this was going to be her last day alive. If it was, she vowed, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She would enter the afterlife with her head held high, safe in the knowledge that she had done all she could.
Minutes passed as ponies shifted, adjusted, and prepared themselves. There was little in the way of sound beyond that of clopping hooves; nopony had much to say right now.
Finally, a loud horn blew. Once, twice, three times. That was it, the signal to advance. Twilight swallowed nervously and began marching forward with the rest of them. Ahead loomed the first of Manehatten’s out suburbs.
The Battle of Manehatten had begun.