Chapter Twenty Two
Counterstrike
Canterlot, Equestria
Markus uncovered his eyes, removing his hand from them and looking down on the body of Otto Erholt, engineer and responsible for the Altdorf Second Artillery. Markus had just lost his second officer and the twenty gun battery with the emperor’s army had lost its commander. He extended two fingers and the wide, fearful eyes were closed for the last time.
Raising himself on to his feet the priest turned and signalled to one of his bodyguard to cater for the late officer. With a heavy head he strode through the crowd of soldiers, both stallions and men, towards another corpse. This one though was neither a pony nor human, it was barely even a griffon anymore. The withered husk of the revenant was being awarded a wide berth by the soldiers, at his command someone had dragged it away from the bodies of their friends and comrades, leaving it slumped face down on the ground besides the barrack’s latrines.
He looked the body over. It had all the hallmarks of a revenant from his home world. Neither mortal nor immortal, it existed somewhere in between living and dead, a product of malign and evil magic corrupting the natural process of life. He could see shards of metal protruded from broken skin and after making the sign of the holy hammer positioned himself to get a better look at the creature’s broken rib cage. Enough of the steel mesh and bars had been rent apart and melted by the Hammer of Judgement for him to see into the chest cavity somewhat.
There was barely any light to see by and with a shouted command he ordered a unicorn, a panicked Trottingham stallion discernable only by his accent, to cast a spell and illuminate the corpse. With a moment’s hesitation the pony assented and a pale blue light crept into the cavity, casting an eerie glow. With a few minutes working Markus finished pulling aside and extracting enough tissue and metal to perform something akin to an autopsy. Under the light the dead tissue looked to be undergoing necrosis for at least a few days, fresh by revenant standards though. With the aid of a knife he cut away at a metal canister, the replacement heart. This though, this was hallmark revenant. It glowed with a deep azure just as Markus touched it, what little magic remained being repulsed at his touch. Wrapping it in cloth and with a few muttered prayers he placed it back in the chest for the time being. Cleansing the dark magic could wait.
“You” he called to the unicorn, his voice curt to hide his disgust at the corruption nearby. “Send for the princesses. These things are assassins; they have high value targets not common soldiers so just get our fastest flier to the castle. Have Willhelm and Kurt on guard by the entrance, they are our best defence if another comes.”
“Yes sir.” The unicorn scampered off towards the mass of troops.
Markus paced before the corpse working his mind to figure out what was going on and how best to respond. A pale yellow shield rose to envelop the barracks, no doubt the work of a unicorn. It was also pretty much useless, nothing short of an experienced and powerful mage with specific training could fight a magical entity such as a Revenant.
He continued to rifle through his brain planning out the next steps until the two princesses flashed into existence before him. The crack of sound that burst forth caused a number of soldiers to jump, their heads snapping around but finding comfort at the sudden arrival of the princesses.
Celestia strode up to him; he was just by coincidence stood in front of the revenant, his broad armoured body concealing the corpse.
“Markus, what happened? Guardspony Cirrus came to me a moment ago saying there were assassins in Canterlot and that soldiers had died.” She had a curiously blank expression, a wild departure from the very real emotions she usually wore. Markus shrugged it off though, she was millennia’s old and had probably mastered self-control in her first century. She would have seen countless subjects die in her time; it was not unreasonable to Markus to presume she could turn off her emotions when a cool head was required.
“Revenants, monsters of Chaos, princesses these are the assassins the guard spoke of. They are a very serious foe in the Old World, sent out as a vanguard of a Chaos host to eliminate key figures and sow fear in the populace.” Markus stepped aside to reveal the body of the griffon.
The two alicorn’s reactions were curious to the priest. Luna stared with interest, cocking her head to one side before wincing in disgust as her eyes traced over the chest cavity and twisted metal protrusions. Celestia only sighed; with a burst of magic she pulled the body towards her inspecting it closely, distaste evident on the princess’ features. Her sister stood beside her and they began firing off spells in rapid succession, their magic causing the griffon to glow sky blue.
Once they were done they shared a look of worry and turned as one towards Markus.
Luna spoke first. “I don’t like this Markus, this is some serious magic. I am picking up magic never seen before by myself and some serious necromancy and technomancy. I mean I doubt I could create something like this, not that I would ever want to do this to something even an enemy.”
“Not an enemy” gasped Celestia in shock. “Gideon, oh Gideon my poor griffon what did they do to you?” The white alicorn rested a hoof on the beak of her former agent. “That’s why they haven’t been reporting back. Oh heavens, Gordon and Henrietta, they may have shared this fate.”
Sparing her sister a sympathetic look Luna the darker princess stepped beside the other alicorn to address the priest. “What happened here Markus?” she asked.
“I was attacked on the way back from the palace by the Revenant. I managed to make my way back to camp and retrieve a weapon capable of killing it. Engineer Erholt, a Halberdier and a unicorn were killed and there were two injuries. We have to act fast princesses. Revenants travel in threes, that means there should be two more out there after our officers, maybe even both of you. I would not be worried though, summon your armour and you should be more than a match for them, it is the mortals in mundane armour who are truly in peril.”
At his advice the pair instantly lit up their horns and called their respective armour to them. They were already creating a gathering among the soldiers, the guardsponies looking up at the armoured forms of their princesses with reverence.
Luna looked around at the assembled soldiers through the faceless helm she wore. “We need to move fast, get key figures into protection and scour the city.”
“Agreed” echoed Markus with a nod. “Revenants move fast, they attack their target on sight once they confirm it. Targets will likely be myself and my officers who were present at the Everfree; the wizards, myself, von Grunberg and Count’s Champion Manhelm. Of the ponies I would expect any ponies with ties to the leadership. So Captain’s Armor and Nightshade, possibly Forlorn Wind since he was present at the battle and probably the Element Bearers.”
The two alicorns soaked up the wealth of information, a sense of urgency and electricity was in the air. Behind the three leaders Willhelm Rekthofen and Kurt Bohemond began firing off defensive spells, superseding the unicorn guard’s previous casting.
“We need a briefing on their abilities Markus, my sister and I shall then proceed directly to find and retrieve prime targets, I would ask some aid as well from yourself and the wizards should we find any of these Revenants during the search of the city.”
“Of course, of course. Revenants exist on the boundary of life and death, these Tzeentch marked ones are particularly dangerous. They are as fast as any creature they were created from, much stronger and almost immune to normal attacks. They themselves are magical in nature with a strong resistance to magic in turn; yours and the Light wizards are an apt counter through strength alone. Revenants are stupid being mostly brain dead and slaves to the order from the Valkyrie who unleashed them. They can be trapped or ambushed easily if the Valkyrie is letting them work autonomously. We have to move now, they are probably already moving against other officers. One more thing, this is definitely Chrysalis work as you probably know. This means her power is growing.” Markus fixed the two princesses with a determined stare.
“Thank you Markus. Let us go Celestia. I shall find Nightshade, you find Armor. I will not have my generals die before they are even formerly instated.”
With that the sisters bid farewell and teleported into the night. Markus looked around, pondering his own actions. A thought flashed across his mind, ‘Where the hell is Pieter?’
Foal Mountains, Equestria
Luna reappeared outside Captain Nightshade’s home, accelerating from standing to a full gallop almost instantly. Her sabatons crunched against the gravel as she rushed the last few metres. Nightshade lived on the outskirts of Canterlot by the forest of the Foal Mountains. His house was modest by nobility’s standards (although he was a thestral in fairness), just a two storey cottage of mottled grey stone with a thatched roof.
To her horror the top window had been smashed, the shutters left in splinters. She flapped her wings, ascending at speed towards the broken frame. Luna braced herself and tucked in her hooves and wings just as she passed the window frame. A rear hoof connected with the wooden frame, smashing it from the brick but she soared in heedless, devastation waited for her.
The room was splattered with blood. Furniture was torn, their stuffing left to cover the floor like snow. Between the upturned desk, smashed bookcase and broken bed, Luna deduced she was in a bedroom. There was the body of a mare, thestral, left crumpled in the corner in a pool of blood. Luna quickly straightened the mare’s body out, leaving what was left of a bed sheet over her while she ran out into the hallway.
Luna was on her guard, her heart pounding in her chest. Belatedly she remembered the life signs spell, casting it immediately and scanning around for the tell-tale blue mark of life. Her heart almost faltered, there was nothing, but Nightshade had two foals. With a renewed fury and a nagging worry about Markus’ revelation that these Revenants were not really alive as such Luna scoured the house.
She began on the top floor but nothing appeared out of place and the foal’s rooms were untouched. Still dashing as fast as she could in her plate armour in a cottage built for regular sized ponies, Luna went for the stairs to see a blood smear on the wall from where a pony had slammed into it at speed. The stairs thundered with noise under her weight but the sight of clumps of tail hair by the door had Luna panicked.
In a moment she put the pieces together.
‘Nightshade and Shimmer are ambushed in their bedroom. Shimmer dies and Nightshade makes for an escape after failing to fight off the Revenant. He’s wounded and flies straight into the wall in his haste. He makes it to the door and then . . . .”
Luna turned on the spot.
‘Then the Revenant caught him.’
There against the cracked door lay Captain Nightshade. He was slumped with his back to the door sat almost like a human and wearing just his leg and body armour. What remained of his tail was a scraggly mess, soaked in his blood. The thestral’s front was likewise coated with the glistening liquid which dripped from his slit throat.
All Luna could do was sit and stare at her fallen captain, one of her first friends since her return to life as a princess. A minute later she still sat looking at the body when the rage came to her. She had not felt such anger since Canterbury and strode forward to her deceased friend with fire in her eyes.
Looking over the body she found a glimmer of hope. He was dead to be sure but on his leg blade there was the unmistakeable sign of dried blood, a quick test revealed it was griffon blood.
‘Well done Nightshade, your death may not go unanswered just yet.’ She allowed herself a smile at the thought and quickly got to work.
Heamomancy was something of a taboo subject in Equestria, the practice of blood magic, with its ties to necromancy. However Luna, fuelled by her anger, had no time for such petty opinions and began her tracking spell. It was a complicated casting, but well within her capability, and before long the spell went off and her vision went a shade of crimson. In her armour she could feel her heart’s steady beat and almost taste the strange iron tang of blood on her lips, such was the effects of the spell.
“Right” She said striding towards the door and her prey. At the doorway she faltered, turning to look back on the Nightshade’s body. “Captain, I will find your foals and they will be safe. But first I have an assassin to kill.” With that she walked into the night, taking wing and following the spell under her starry sky.
Her target was little more than a strange tingling sensation and the urge to head west towards Ponyville. Luna scowled at the thought of the monster heading for the Elements but Nightshade appeared to only have been dead for an hour or so giving her plenty of time to catch the Revenant on its three hour long flight to the town.
Calling on her reserves of magic she lit up her horn once more and with a quick calculation teleported ahead halfway between her position and Ponyville.
Instantly in the moment it took for the brief flash of her teleport to wane she felt the spell reacting to the Revenant’s proximity. The tingling sensation from before grew to a fever pitch akin to the sound of a hundred hearts beating. She threw her head around feeling the direction to where the assassin was.
With a flutter she found the beast, two miles back East and moving at speed in her direction. Snarling in disgust she set off to meet it.
On her way she went over what she knew of the aberration. They were strong, fast incredibly tough and had a measure of resistance to magic, although by Markus’ estimates it was nowhere near enough to challenge her. ‘Good’ she thought, somewhat happy that she could reliably deal with the creature without risk.
Before long she could make out the griffon as it flew, merely a shade of black in the dark of night. But the night was her domain and she easily picked it out and advanced, dispelling her tracking incantation with no small sigh of relief to have the eerie sound of thumping hearts removed from her head.
Merely a hundred metres away from her target she erupted into a charge, screaming obscenities and conjuring her old blade. An obsidian coloured blade appeared before her, a double ended length of metal with an azure aura around it flashed into existence. It had no grip or sheath; Luna had no need of such things, just a strip of metal that flat out ignored armour, gliding straight through as if it was never there. How it would fare against a Revenant though was anyone’s guess.
“Stop foul beast!” she cried drawing up and hovering in the griffon’s path. The Revenant did indeed stop, twisting its head around as if confused. The metal beak was clicking and hissing away under its breath muttering something incomprehensible. Its two glowing blue orbs which served as eyes seemed to flare as they alighted on Luna and she brought her sword into guard.
With a hiss of frustration the Revenant charged directly at Luna, throwing its claws around to bring two swipes down on her neck.
Luna parried with her blade, shearing the ends of the griffon’s steel talons clean off. The monster recoiled from her counter briefly before flinging itself at her again with what was left of its talons. With a twist of her weapon she swiped it below the outstretched limbs before tearing up through both arms sending them twirling away into the night, clotted blood almost like dust sprayed everywhere much to her disgust.
Yelling a curse at the wretched thing before her she finally had the time and concentration to fire off a spell. Reaching out with her mind she touched upon her enemy’s warped consciousness. Little of the former griffon remained, a shade of the agent’s mind clung on, besieged and tortured by the malevolent forces that corrupted the body and mind. Just maintaining a presence and holding the Revenant in place was disturbingly uncomfortable.
She resolved to finish this beast. Luna teleported the both of them to the ground, removing both wings with a swipe of her blade and turning her attention back on the Revenant’s mind. The process of gleaming some information was long and hard, every ounce of the corrupted mind resisted her with a fervour she had not felt since her fall to the nightmare. All around her there was a blue over glow from the sheer scale of magic she was pouring into her assault. Little by little names came to her; Markus, Pieter, Willhelm, Nightshade, Armor, Cadence and the Element Bearers all came through just as the priest had estimated. Content with her work she striped away at the Revenant’s brain until the fire in its eyes began to flicker. Like quenching a candle flame the struggling griffon died, the tormented soul within finally freed.
‘These things are truly detestable. I hope my sister reached Captain Armor in time, the loss of my generals would be beyond damaging for Equestria.’ She lifted the corpse into the air, immolating it in moments and scattering the ashes to the wind. ‘I need to gather the Elements, but first there are two lost foals to account for.’
With a flash of brilliant azure light she teleported once more.
Canterlot, Equestria
Markus had his men hard at work. All of the Greatswords, the Pistoliers and the Halberdiers were committed to searching the city alongside the Trottingham guards, the night guard and half of the day guard from the palace were called up from their sleep. The entire camp was being redeployed to give better sight lines and Markus had moved into the pony’s officer barracks which was in the process of being barricaded and reinforced. By the time his Soldiers of Sigmar were done it would look like Castle Reiksguard.
He had one worry at this point, Pieter. The fool was absent without reason and the time was only an hour from midnight. He should be more worried than he was, he was worried to be sure but if something were to have happened he would have found out by now. Pieter was an Altdorf resident; he stuck to the main streets and was wise enough to know that certain men see a drunken officer as a challenge rather than a threat to be wary of. If Pieter had encountered the Revenant word would have reached him by now, they may be assassins but the vile things were hardly subtle in claiming a name given to them.
As if the man was waiting for his cue Pieter strolled through the gates with his friend, the Trottingham captain in tow. The pair staggered in with worry etched onto their drunken expressions. This was why Markus never drank to excess, fools.
“Captain!” he roared, causing the inebriated pair to start and look towards him. They must have seen the look on his face because they both seemed to sober up instantly. If anything Forlorn seemed more anxious than Pieter, strange since he was beyond his ability to reprimand. Markus would have been amused if he was anywhere close to the mood.
The rest of the soldiers, such that were left, gave the duo a wide birth. Three were dead and two wounded, they were not in the mood.
“Do you two have any idea of the events that transpired?” he snarled, pointing to the splatter of blood upon the stone paving slabs. “Otto is dead. Guardspony Silver Streak is dead. Trooper Berthold is dead. They gave their lives to save mine and buy me the time I needed to kill the Revenant. Here I find you sauntering back to camp, drunk!”
Markus swept around and strode off. He had done all he could for the purposes of the search. The two idiots could sleep on their actions. It may not have been fair on them, especially Forlorn, they were officers and had no idea that Revenants were coming especially in this world, they were entirely within their rights to spend their time off duty at a pub. But soldiers had died and an example needed to be set. More than that of all the men who had to die it was Otto Markus bemoaned the loss of the most. He was the only one among them who could make use of and write down the knowledge and understand the technology of the Equestrians. Gathering information discreetly was no longer possible.
Pieter looked across at Forlorn both of them looking shocked and horrified in equal measure although for different reasons.
“Silver Streak’s gone?” stammered Forlorn, his already dilated pupils widening yet further as his ears plastered themselves to the sides of his head.
“Revenants?” gasped Pieter, covering his mouth in shock.
The pair looked to each other nervously before sighing and looking around.
“This really was not how I expected our return to go” said Pieter, still with a slight slur to his speech. The long walk back and the stern talk from Markus had gone a long way to sobering them up after an eventful night out.
“Yeah” Forlorn exhaled deeply, the fact the both of them had seen guards gallop past down another street made sense now. “And with good news too. . . Fuck, I can’t believe Silver Streak’s gone, damn good guard. What the heck is a Revenant Pieter?”
“Erm, the, er assassins, hunters, half mortal, half . . . well undead I guess. Take a living being, break their will with torture and replace half the insides with metal, then turn their limbs into blades, take away the eyes. Erm, gods above how did those things get here? You fill them up with evil magic then you give them a name. They will hunt the person to the ends of the world. Damned creatures they are, nothing short of a holy weapon or righteous magic will kill them before they kill you. I am sorry to hear that, a friend?”
At that Forlorn turned away and spat on the ground with a snarl. “By the moon no, he and his friends used to torment me when we were foals. Backed off once we were in the guard and I got a good chance to pay him back. Still though, wasn’t a bad guy really once he grew up, good guard if a bit stupid but, well, yeah just a pony I knew really . . . .”
“Urgh, Markus would have been so happy to hear about the nobles though. Sweet Shallya I cannot believe I barged into that private meeting.” Pieter laughed weakly and ran his hands through his hair.
“By the sun, I’m glad we stopped drinking after that mate. Didn’t know you were such a good orator though, I mean you were well and truly drunk but all that stuff about knightly virtue and the aristocratic responsibility was amazing.”
“I know right, I did not expect it either but hey I am a noble too, it is supposed to be a product of ‘superior’ breeding” he said with contempt. Pieter put down his hands after making gestures that went straight over Forlorn’s dazed head. “You feeling okay my friend?” he asked laying a hand on the pegasus’ shoulder.
His fellow captain just shrugged it off and shook his head lazily a few times. “No, no, just got this cracking headache.”
“Ha, get a glass of water and go to bed. Leave another on the bed side table. Trust me on that.”
With those words the captains ambled off to the officer’s rooms.
In the day and night that followed the third and final Revenant went unseen. A systematic search of Canterlot yielded nothing and no more casualties were reported but the city was still on high alert. Captain Nightshade’s death stunned the city causing a very real atmosphere of panic for a time.
Then the media networks printed stories of the fallen soldiers, Nightshade, his wife and their orphaned children brought under Luna’s protection all came to the fore. Before long the panic turned to anger and the anger spread.
That day the Equestrian Army swelled once more. The shining regiments of the Crystal Empire arrived from the north, led by an entirely unharmed Shining Armor. Princess Luna escorted the Element Bearers to Canterlot Castle and within hours Ferrus Animus and his band of mercenaries joined the main army.
But one final surprise was in store. At the gates of the castle a crowd gathered, at least a thousand nobles presented themselves to the princesses. The confused diarchs appeared from a balcony expecting some form of petition or protest. Instead a lone figure walked ahead of the array of elaborately dressed ponies. Fancypants bowed low and with a burst of magic brought an old sword from a sheath at his flank, offering it up to the princesses. The crowd did the same, sinking to their knees and with the few who had them presenting their ancestral weapons. The nobility finally stepped up to match the commitment of the rest of Equestria.