Revelry sounded from the battlefield of Maneden that night. The Royal Equestrian Army had spent three days there regrouping and taking stock, and it was to continue the march south tomorrow. Its soldiers had no intention of wasting their last night of relative liberty.
Victory to the ponies of Equestria was as cider to a teenage filly taking her first drink. They had known nothing like it before. They had spent the last three nights celebrating, only to be so exhausted from the day’s work that they’d retired to their tents by ten o’clock. They resolved to make up the lost hours on this, their last night.
“CLEAR THE WAY!” roared Rainbow Dash, standing atop a makeshift platform, her cocked hat askew and a mug of cider thrust into the air.
“CLEAR THE WAY!” chorused two dozen Pegasi of the Royal Cloudsdale Greys, clustered around cookfires in the twilight. One of their squadrons had roared that during the charge, and it had become the regiment’s de facto battle cry.
A foreleg thrown over Rainbow’s shoulders, Applejack raised her own tankard. “TIMBERWOLVES!”
“TIMBERWOLVES!” thundered the light infantry.
Applejack took a swig of cider and took Rainbow’s hoof in her own. “Cornet Rainbow Dash an’ the Pegasi o’ the Royal Cloudsdale Greys have done ta the Princess C’s a great service! Wi’out them, we’d a been stuck out there fir the Changelings! Lang may both our regiments fight t’gither! To the Greys, the Princess C’s, Ponyville, and Cloudsdale!”
Dozens of ponies cheered and drank. Applejack hugged Rainbow closer. “Thanks again, Dashie.”
“We could have been told to hold back and I’d still have been there,” said Rainbow.
Applejack smiled. “Yeah, ah know.”
***
Shining Armor had no time for celebrations. He sat alone at the map table in the staff tent, staring miserably at the documents spread before him. In dry, unemotional black ink on one of the parchment sheets was his despatch. On another was the final casualty list.
Lord Cocoon had tried one last attack on his left. Warding Ember and Neigh’s divisions had hurled it off, and from then, their victory had only been a matter of time. Brigadier General Dame Brightfire’s 10th Heavy Brigade had swept around Maneden and isolated an entire cohort in the lair. From there they and the Life Guards had begun harrying the Changeling line from behind while his infantry advanced behind a massive artillery barrage.
Somehow, Cocoon had managed to pull nearly six legions off the field and into an orderly retreat before the jaws closed. It had been a truly heroic effort on the Changelings’ part, and Shining Armor almost admired it, but that had still left five legions behind to be torn to shreds. Yet a huge number had still managed to escape: the 12th Light Brigade had again failed to charge, and in dribs and drabs, most of the Changelings had managed to flee in disorder to the south.
Eleven thousand Changelings had stood their ground, and eleven thousand Changelings had died. It had been a slaughter unlike anything Shining Armor had seen before. Any pony, griffon or minotaur would have surrendered, but the hive nature of the Changelings and the expectation that they would receive no quarter had kept them in their positions even as shot and shell tore them to pieces.
And that, he thought grimly, was reflected in his own casualties. Nine hundred of his soldiers were dead. A further one thousand eight hundred were wounded, of which ten percent were beyond help and a further twenty so badly injured they would never fight again.
He had made a tour of the medical tents the evening after the battle, and had found the surgeons stripped to their shirts and red with others’ blood. He had seen the worst contradictions between dreams of military glory and the terrible reality there. One Private had lingered long, sobbing repeatedly; “I’m going to die, and Mum and Dad did love me, too!” The surgeon next to him had just shaken his head.
The boards beneath their hooves had been slick with blood and gore. Some of the injured had carried themselves as books and films had taught them soldiers should: a Sergeant had let out little more than a grunt when a surgeon sliced his shattered leg away. But others had just lain and sobbed or screamed as overwrought, tired, outnumbered medics hurried between patients.
What was it Trotto von Bitzmarck, the great statespony of the Equestrian Republic had said? “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Shining Armor had seen ponies die before and he did not doubt that he would see more ponies die in the future. He had thought very hard before going before Celestia to advocate a war, but it still seemed that nothing could justify it.
He looked over at his despatch. There, in dry, unemotional language was his report to the ponies of Equestria on the battle. They would never know the full truth of what had happened here, and nor should they.
The tent flap was pushed open and Ration Bag pushed in. “General Target is ready for you, sir.”
Shining sighed. “Thank you, Ration. Let’s see it.”
Awful as every single injury was, the army’s casualties were far from crippling. No, Shining Armor had a far more dangerous problem to deal with.
The two of them trotted quickly through the camp. They did their best to avoid the sounds of drunken revelry. Let his ponies have one last night before they marched, Shining thought. It would do no good for them to know the horrendous situation that had just befallen their artillery.
General Sir Time Target met them outside a screened-off area. It was carefully guarded by a select few soldiers. “Show me,” Shining Armor said impassively.
Target pushed through the canvas. Sitting on a large patch of grass were over one hundred guns on their limbers, and every single one had either a cracked or completely shattered barrel.
“How many?” demanded Shining Armor through gritted teeth.
“We’ve got nearly forty burst barrels, sir,” said Time Target. His voice was thick with sadness. “Every single one of them iron.”
“Iron,” hissed Shining Armor. “The stipulation was bronze! Who ordered iron guns?!”
“I’ve already sent a report back to the War Office, sir, but I remember this before the war. It was unlikely that our industry would be able to forge the requisite number of guns in time, but a bidder came forward saying he could complete the order if he was allowed to forge them from iron.”
“Iron is unpredictable,” snarled Shining Armor. “We can’t yet forge it to withstand the same pressures bronze can, and if it bursts...”
“...it shatters, sir,” completed Target. “Unlike bronze which simply cracks. Nearly every battery that suffered a burst barrel reported nearly forty percent casualties in that gun crew.”
“Spirits above,” whispered Shining Armor. He slammed his hoof against one of the useless iron barrels. “When I find out who did this, I will have them prosecuted for treason. Lieutenant General Bag, get a message back to Canterlot. I want that contractor’s name on my desk within a week.”
“Yes sir, but until then, what options do we have?”
“We have no choice,” said Shining. “We have to remove every single iron gun from service immediately.”
Target sucked in air through his teeth. “We’d lose nearly a hundred guns, sir.”
“I will not have my crews killed by their own guns. Send an urgent request back to Canterlot to begin forging more bronze guns.”
“Already done, sir,” said Target. “But the Changelings still outnumber us. Without our artillery advantage the playing field is levelled in their favour. What if Cocoon manages to reunite his legions with the Changeling army?”
“Cocoon will not return to Froud Valley,” said Shining Armor dangerously. “I’ve deployed the Imperial Crystal Hussars. They’re to contact every Lynx lair still free. The Changelings are in retreat and vulnerable and the Lynxes have been waiting for a moment like this for months. The Hussars will set the Lynx Territories ablaze.”