19 March, Y.C. 970
Castle Blackacre
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” shrugged Gaston. “Because that’s the best projection we can do, and there’ve been six of us locked up in that room for the better part of a day now. Think like them, be like them; that’s what they’d do. It’s the only thing that fits what’s actually happening on the ground, the only —”
“I believe you,” said Beatrix with a wave of her hoof.
A pause.
“Sorry. It’s late.”
“Don’t worry about it,” mumbled Taylor absently. They were all being a bit snippy at each other. Certainly the hour didn’t help, but there was a more oppressive feel to the room than usual.
They were holed up in the main study, a largish chamber off the throne room. Like the great hall, it had a map of the region; this one was vertical, hanging off a wall hook whose original purpose was long forgotten. Unlike the big one, though, it forewent markings of troop positions for a set of red rings, not dissimilar to topographic markings, centered on the five main Canterlot camps.
“It’s the only sensible thing for them to do,” huffed Gaston. “We’re dug in too far. They can try to press, but we’ll just collapse around them, re-form once they’ve bubbled out. They tried that on the west side last week. Pushed in, halfway from the Ridge.”
“Yeah? And how’d that work out.”
“Seemed to be going well until they ran into an ursa.” He grinned. “They ran pretty quick there.”
“As I recall, we lost that ursa.”
“And a half-dozen timberwolves in pursuit,” he added, slightly miffed. “They lost hundreds, and you can bet they won’t be pushing back any time soon.”
“Which is good,” said Beatrix, “but we can’t afford those losses in the first place. Don’t care how many they took with them. Especially the ursas. We’ve got, what, five left?”
“Four majors and a peck of minors,” chimed in Taylor.
“That’s not acceptable.”
Gaston snorted. “Tell that to the Princess.”
Her glare could cut through the reinforced steel they had over the windows in the room. “Maybe you’d like to tell her yourself, next time she drops in.”
The Princess. She snorted. Last time she was here… well, she wasn’t even here, was she? It must have been an illusion. Had to have been. That was the only way she could get in and out without anypony noticing. The alicorn was magically talented, there was no denying that, but why bother teleporting when a projection would do, and at no risk to her own precious little hooves?
Besides, that wasn’t going to happen any more. Not with the protection fields up. And even if she punched through, there would be a hundred different alarms before she could flap a royal wing. No, the only way the Princess was getting here would be along with her troops the old-fashioned way: straight through the lines, covered in mud, and over every last body of Blackacre’s defenders.
“Run it by me one more time,” she said after a moment, sitting back in the chair. The first time around, Gaston had made markings on the map. The second, he gestured at them. This time, though, he gave no sign of getting up from his own chair. Why would he? They already knew it all. It… it just needed one more round of coverage.
“It’s straight out of the good General’s book,” he started, skipping most of the introductory bits. “He wrote the book on guerrilla warfare. At least, the chapter. Chapter… what, eight?”
“Nine,” chorused Beatrix and Taylor.
“Whatever. Pacification, do it either through conversion or by wiping them out. We’re getting plenty of propaganda, but it’s all recruit this, join up that. Nothing aimed at us. So we can strike that.”
“I feel left out,” sniped Beatrix.
“So, only solution is to just get rid of us. Or at least enough of us so that it doesn’t matter any more.”
“So why not just shoot us all,” offered Taylor, in an entirely bored tone. They were running the paces, and he for one had had enough of it. “Keeps it simple.”
“Underground. Can’t shoot what you can’t see. So they’ll smoke us out.”
“By the book.”
“By the book,” he agreed. “That’s all Pommel’s good for.”
“And we can’t counter it,” interjected Beatrix. “Not enough party cannon or flyers.”
“No, but we can redirect.”
“By…” she started, then shook her head. “By dumping magic. That we could use to defend, or hide. And with who knows what consequences.”
“If we channel it right, we don’t need to do anything other than set up the redirect. If they use magic, this’ll just channel it back down to the soil.”
“And what will happen then?”
“No clue,” he said, shaking his head. “It’ll burn, but it’ll be a slow burn. It’ll draw the power straight into the land.”
“There’s a reason you don’t ground magic willy-nilly,” said Beatrix, doing her best to play devil’s advocate. “Trees are bad enough. Already some of them are doing… weird things. Growing buds in the middle of winter. Shaking. One of them started bleeding, washed the watchpony straight out. And you want to do that… to the ground.”
“Not as strong. We’re not redirecting to shield; we’re just redirecting.”
“So we’ll still burn.” She snorted. “Somehow I don’t have confidence in this plan of yours.”
“We’ll burn, but not as much, and not as long. They’ll need a lot more than they think they do.”
“And the more they use, the more magic you redirect.”
“Right.”
Beatrix rubbed her temple.
“Look, I’m not quite sure I understand what consequences this will have. But I don’t think anyone does. Nopony has ever tried this on such a large scale before. Certainly not outside of controlled conditions.”
“That’s right.”
“Speaking of which — have we even done a controlled test?”
Gaston shook his head. “We just don’t know enough about what they’ll use to do it. And we don’t have the magic to spare. Something like this, we go big or go home.”
“Go big or no home,” corrected Taylor, eyes closed.
“Right.”
A pause.
“I wouldn’t be suggesting this if it wasn’t the only choice we had left.”
“It’s not much of a choice.”
“No, it’s not, but it’s all we have.” He sighed. “They’re on a war footing now, and all we can hope is that they trip themselves up.”
“Trip themselves up,” she echoed.
For a long while, none of them said anything. Off in a corner, a handful of embers glowed a friendly warm color. In the distance, every so often, they could imagine they heard something. When they had realized that artillery wasn’t getting them anywhere, the front got a lot quieter — but it had also gotten closer.
At this rate, they wouldn’t make it to the summer solstice.
“If this works,” started Beatrix quietly, “and I stress that if; if this works, we’ll be putting more magic into the ground than the entire Dragon Skirmishes, combined. And we have no idea what will happen.”
“The ground won’t like it, but it’ll keep us alive.”
“Won’t like it?” She snorted. “We’ll be lucky if boulders don’t sprout legs and eat us alive.”
“I’d be fine with that,” shrugged Gaston. “As long as they remember who’s on their side.”
She stared at him for a moment, blinked twice — and then laughed.
It was reckless, dangerous, simply ridiculous beyond comprehension. Nopony had ever tried something like this before, and they were doing it for the first time. Not only were they banking everything on a long shot, but they were banking it on a long shot that would only even make sense if the Princess took a certain very specific set of actions. They had had some success in predicting Canterlot’s actions before, but something like this required assumptions, implied deploying weapons that had never been used against ponies before. Implied….
“Do it,” said Beatrix firmly. It was clear that more discussion wasn’t going to generate answers; the important ones wouldn’t — couldn’t — be answered until after all was said and done. Besides, they were tired, and they would soon have quite a bit of work to do. Getting everything ready by the equinox wasn’t going to happen, but with a bit of luck the snowmelt would delay things by enough. The more time the better, for madness of this variety.
“We’ve got nothing left to lose.”