January 3rd, 2000
Near the Changeling border.
The wind chilled air and the stale gray overcast shadowed the land beneath it. Everything was still, except for the occasional clanging of metal and the rumbling of hooves in the distance. The walls were tall and gray, like an intimidating giant pining for an adversary to challenge it. The four corners of the fortress encased the town of Sonza, and all of the ponies within it.
Western Karalia always seemed a bit gloomy this time of year, the sun only making marginal appearances when the clouds broke. The small ponies of Karalia did not mind the state of their homeland, however, they wouldn’t complain if they had gotten a bit more sun like the Equestrians did.
A small, brown earth pony stood on the edge of the western wall, and scanning the landscape below him, binoculars in hoof. He huffed; the rolling green hills that swallowed the sight from his emerald eyes would be covered in black today. The young officer had heard about the changelings making a move to capitalize on Karalia’s scattered defenses, but he wasn’t expecting them to arrive so quickly.
“Blast it all. I don’t even know what happened.”
A massive earthquake and the reporting of strange occurrences on the outskirts of the border had thrown the public into a panic. The public order had gone from tame to rowdy and unpredictable in such a short amount of time. He didn’t even think that something like that was possible. Only two days and chaos had spread through the country like a super virus. Karalia’s armies had to split to keep the public order in many different areas of the country.
After all, the talk of possible rebellion was not something humorous to Karalian ears. All that was probably just a rumor from the more extremist ponies out there trying to push their own agendas. He prayed to Luna that was the case.
Blaze snorted at the thought.
He knew that Karalia’s strength lay in its cohesion and this panic had taken that away with such ease.
“A scattered Karalian Army is a foal without its mother…of course they would attack now.”
He jumped down from the ledge and tried to find a comfortable position leaning on the wall despite his armor. He hated how restrictive it was but dared not to complain when he remembered how many times it had saved his life.
His moderately plated armor was painted black, with sky blue bands circling the ankles of all of his legs. The black Stahlhelm on his head had a single blood-red stripe flowing the entire length down the front of his helmet diagonally, letting the enemy know that they were fighting an officer.
The young soldier smirked at that fact. Karalians were not very subtle ponies when it came to combat. A loud, confrontational, and tiny Karalian preferred to fight an enemy out in the open, to test the enemy’s power and brains. The changelings, however, were the embodiment of subtlety. It was their nature. He guessed that these clashing cultural aspects may have helped fuel the rivalry between the two.
His two pila throwing spears and his shield were leaning against the wall, waiting to be used. The Karalian saber he received when he graduated from the Officer Academy was resting in its sheath, which was clipped to his right hip.
“They always seem so surprised when they realize that they’re fighting a left-hooved pony.”
As the thoughts of the coming assault ran through his mind, he could see a moving sea of black washing over the hills.
One of his hooves twitched.
They were here.
“LT!”
He dropped his binoculars and turned to face one of the second lieutenants under his command.
Flaretail had been part of his cohort for over a year. The dark gray pegasus mare was trotting up to him, a light smile on her face. Her dark blue mane was divided by gray streaks, complimenting her purple eyes.
“What is it?”
“Those archers in Cobalt managed to get their hooves on a few ballistae and also got their arrows fire-tipped. Bugs hate that shit!” she reported with glee.
Blaze Silverglow nodded in approval. He knew first-hand the wonderful effect of flames on a changeling.
“And look at that, they’re coming!” Flaretail added, leaning over the fortress wall.
The stomping of hooves from behind them caught both of the Karalian ponies’ attention. Silverglow recognized his other second lieutenant immediately, leading the Fourth Cohort up to the fortress walls.
A small, yellow unicorn was leading them, trotting up the steps with large shields on their backs. The ponies were arranged in ranks of five, wearing nearly the same armor as their officers, minus the blood stripes. All of them followed the small unicorn stallion to the top, halting in front of Blaze and Flaretail.
The Twelfth Flexible Infantry Battalion or Black Clover Battalion was mostly made up of earth ponies and a few pegasi and unicorns like Flaretail and Thunder Coy. Most of the other pegasi went into the Karalian Pegacav and the unicorns were typically reserved for artillery and archer duty with their sister battalion, the Sixty-Eighth Cobalt Battalion.
The cohort was forty ponies strong, including the three officers. The ‘Earlies’ or Early Legionaries were at the front, were they would either become experienced or die. The moderately experienced troops were in the center and the hardened veterans made up the rear.
Cohorts were expected to be organized this way, to create new veterans while preserving the older ones. Karalians felt it necessary to use up their more ‘expendable’ forces first before committing their more ‘valuable’ troops.
When he noticed the familiar faces of his troops, he could sense the uneasiness about them. It was obvious and he could feel it permeate throughout his own body as well. A subtle sense of dread beckoned to him but he brushed it off like a fly on his shoulder.
“Hi Coy Coy!” Flaretail greeted as she waved to the other second lieutenant.
She hovered above the unicorn, patting him on the head.
“Did you get all of them? And are the civilians evacuating?” she asked.
The unicorn shook his head up and down, causing his blond mane to bounce and cover his blue eyes. Still unable to see, he sniffed Flaretail’s hoof for a second before licking it.
Blaze smirked and trotted up to his oldest friend and hugged the silent unicorn for a second. Thunder Coy had been with him since the Academy, and the two had been inseparable since. The fact that only he could read Coy’s sign language may have had a hand in that.
“Good job, Coy.”
As he released Thunder Coy, he heard the whistle of arrows overhead. All of the ponies gazed up to see specks of orange zooming overhead in an arc. He could already hear the loud and obnoxious cranking of the ballistae preparing to fire. Just then, several other cohorts of ponies were rushing up the stairs to the wall.
“Only us and the Cobalt Battalion? What happened to the Auxilia units? Did they retreat or did Dicer order them to protect our flanks?”
Looking down onto plains and hills outside, Blaze could see what he had feared. He sighed, scanning row after row of changeling invaders. In the sky above them, he could see that changelings had already deployed their cavalry element. His eyes were mesmerized by the sheer force at which the enemy had arrived. His stomach churned as his heart sank.
“How many ruddy changelings showed up?”
He felt a hoof tap him on the shoulder.
When he turned to see who it was, a second volley of flaming arrows were launched from within the walls.
He noticed that Flaretail’s face had tightened up. She nodded at her superior as her gazed turned to the Fourth Cohort. Silverglow nodded back to her, trotting towards his ponies. Thunder Coy moved out of his way, giving the first lieutenant a clear path to the rest of his troops.
Every single one of these ponies was at least two years older than him; some even had him by a decade. When he reached them, he couldn’t pick out a single smile in their formation. In the back of his mind, he had known that morale had dropped considerably since the earthquake. They all probably had homes, family, and friends in other units that they were worried about.
Taking a deep breath, he knew he couldn’t blame them.
He cleared his throat, knowing that all eyes would be on him for the next few minutes. He could hear the stomping bug-hooves of the changeling army inching ever closer. He silently prayed to Luna that he would have enough time to complete his speech.
“Things seem pretty shitty, don’t they? Bloody earthquake, and bloody changelings right after it. Normally we’d have a full army to take on the changelings, but instead, it’s up to fifteen hundred Karalians to stall for time while our main forces regroup and the civilians escape. Less than half of a Legion should be more than enough for the enemy. A thousand of those Karalians are us. The Black Clovers. I’ve known for a while that you are much more than just soldiers. I’ve never since any better ponies than you, not at the Academy, not in another unit, not anywhere. You are unlike any other ponies I’ve met, you are so much more. Unique in more ways than one.”
Silverglow swallowed as he took a quick breath. He could hear the screeching of changelings being hit with projectiles and the sounds of Karalian ballistae releasing fresh bolts.
“You’re my family, every last one of you. I love you all, but you knew that already, didn’t you?” he nodded in confirmation.
He noticed that the other cohorts were forming up for battle on the wall. The other officers were taking charge of their own troops, lining them in ranks of five to guard the walls. Ponies poured in from the rest of Black Clover Battalion, organizing and readying themselves for the upcoming fight.
“Today we stand alone, against a changeling force numbering in the tens of thousands. From what our scouts could gather, we are outnumbered by at least twelve to one,” he pointed out slowly pacing back and forth, facing his troops.
Arrows from the Cobalt Battalion continued to fall onto the approaching changelings. He could hear the hisses and cries of individual enemies being struck by the flaming projectiles.
Blaze glanced at the invaders and smirked back at his troops.
“Looks like the enemy will need reinforcements.”
Not a single peep from his troops, not even a smile. They stared at him, a few of them stopping to cough.
“Dammit, that usually works.”
“I know that we all have loved ones that we worried about. I hope my mother makes it out of Karmaden in time. If you need any motivation to fight, it should be for them. What will happen if you are unable to protect them? Have you given that any thought? That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To protect what we love?”
He saw a few pairs of eyes widen with interest, following their pacing commander to and fro.
“Better.”
“If we do not fight here and stop these changelings, who will? Who here is going to stand up and tell these cheese-leg bastards, no?! No! They will not take our homes! No! They will not farm our families for their own needs! No! They will not take our country from us!”
He huffed as he took a breath to gather himself.
“If for some reason, they do succeed. If for some reason, they completely destroy Karalia…then they will pay the price in changeling blood first! For every enemy hoof that steps onto our land, I want a bug head mounted on this wall! Show them that even though we are few and scattered, we’re still the same Karalians that slaughtered their ancestors by the thousands and pushed them back for over two hundred years!”
A few of the ponies nodded in agreement and he could see some of them tighten the grip on their pila.
“Getting there.”
“Remind them why they fear us! Show them that Karalian ponies never were and never will be pushovers! Stay together and stay with me! Help each other out if you can and cause the enemy as much grief as you can! Be that annoying tick that doesn’t leave them alone! And whoever gets a kill count of at least ten changelings gets a bottle of my finest wine!”
A few of the ponies in the formation chuckled, and he saw many of the Karalians crack smiles.
“Good.”
“Now, every time we storm into battle, nerves may get to you. For the veterans, you already know what I’m talking about. Fear may try to make a home in your heart. Enemy intimidation will try to get under your skin. But while you’re hacking away changeling limbs and you suddenly find yourself on the moon, the beautiful Princess Luna holding you in her wings and showering you with kisses…then fear not! You are in Paradise and you’re already dead!”
Ponies in the cohort burst out in laughter and smiles, lightening the mood of the entire unit. The lieutenant turned around and noticed that Flaretail and Thunder Coy were smirking as well.
“That should do it.”
Blaze unsheathed his saber and lifted it to the sky.
“To me Black Clovers! Karaliana!”
The entire Fourth Cohort cheered and started banging their pila against their shields.
“Karaliana!” they all replied.
He trotted back over to the wall and snatched up his own shield and pila, hooking his right hoof into the shield’s grip. He yanked both his pila out of the shield grip and kept one in his free hoof, dropping the other on the ground next to him.
“Field Commander Dicer!” an officer from another called out.
An aged unicorn stallion trotted down the west wall in front of the Black Clovers assembled there, inspecting their battle lines. His personal bodyguards consisted of two pegasi majors, which were hovering above him at all times.
The seasoned gray unicorn appeared to be in his fifties, a white beard dropping from his chin. His tired lemon eyes scanned the ranks of his battalion, every soldier frozen in place once they saw the officer’s blood stripe on his helmet.
As Blaze caught sight of him, he rejoined his cohort. He took with the front rank with the less experienced troops, while Thunder Coy took the third rank and Flaretail joined the last rank with the hardened veterans.
“Black Clovers!” Commander Dicer bellowed as he stopped in front his troops, back to the advancing changelings.
“It does my heart good to see that my soldiers arrived here ready for a fight!”
All of the Karalian ponies rattled their pila against their shields in response.
“For three decades I have fought this changeling menace, slaughtered dozens of them by my own hooves and I have never lost! No matter the circumstances, I don’t plan on starting now! If I didn’t have my Black Clovers by my side, I may have been apprehensive about today, but to my good fortune, you are here!”
Once again, his Black Clovers continued banging their spears against their shields.
“Captains and lieutenants take command of your cohorts, answer only to me! Keep your formations tight, your pila ready to be thrown, and for Luna’s sake…don’t get separated from each other! Karaliana!”
The entire western wall erupted into cheers as a fresh volley of flaming arrows and ballista bolts soared over their heads and towards the field below them.
“Karaliana!” the entire battalion shouted in unison.
The changeling ocean had advanced within a half mile, their cavalry squadrons circling in the sky, slowly forming into wedges. The infantry picked up their pace from a walk into a trot, their own cavalry shadowing their movements.
“It’s only a matter of time now,” Dicer remarked, staring down the approaching enemy.
He noticed something shoot up from within the enemy, casting a lime-green trail as it gained altitude. His trained and experienced eyes knew immediately what was coming next. The changelings always did this, and, to his knowledge, it never worked.
Typical.
“Bug bolts!” a captain cried out.
Arrows tipped with a green sludge flew through the air and began to arc down, approaching the defenders on the wall.
“Form testudo!” Blaze yelled.
He knelt down and held his rectangular shield up at an angle, allowing the soldier behind him to drop her shield on top of his. The motion was mimicked by the rest of the soldiers, the front rank forming a wall and the rest forming a roof with their shields.
The rest of the defenders followed suit and brought their shields to bear, overlapping each other in their own testudos. Some bug bolts bounced off of the shields while others stuck to them, thanks to the green gunk that covered the arrows.
Once the last of the bug bolts had fallen, a volley of flaming arrows from the Cobalt Battalion further back answered the changelings’ fire. Unlike the unsuccessful bug bolt volley, some of the arrows found their targets, dozens of changelings dropping from the first few ranks as a result.
Despite the continuous barrage and the ineffectiveness of the bug bolts, the invaders pressed on, hoping that vastly superior numbers would win the day.
Silverglow watched on as the enemy advanced at a moderate pace as his troops behind him were busy plucking the sticky changeling arrows off of their shields. He recalled seeing a changeling taking a flaming arrow to the chest and also managed to catch a large ballista bolt tear through a changeling and even punch through the body of its comrade behind it, killing both of them.
He had to admit, despite the excellent job that the Cobalt ponies were doing with the barrages; it wasn’t going to be enough to stop the attack. The flaming arrows were thinning out the first few ranks of changelings and even striking beyond that, which lightened the feeling of dread in his chest.
“The first wave probably won’t be that bad then.”
Every time bug bolts were fired, testudo was called, the Karalians returned fire, and the changelings continued their push. Blaze had lost track of how long this went on. From his estimates, it could have been hours, but he knew that his mind liked messing with him.
“Ready pila!” Commander Dicer called out.
The brown earth pony snapped himself out of his thoughts and re-adjusted the throwing spear in his left hoof, preparing to arch back and toss it. He knew that his troops behind him were also doing the same.
He gazed down the walls and scanned for potential targets. Plenty of enemies were in range and he also saw that the changeling air cavalry was lingering back in reserve for some strange reason.
The enemy was a lot closer now.
He could see the effect of Cobalt’s barrages, the fields below strewn with the bodies of changelings, arrows and bolts sticking out of them. Small fires burned through the low grasses, causing some of the enemy to hiss in annoyance as they took care to march around the flames.
“They had to have taken at least a few hundred casualties by now,” Blaze thought, trying to reassure himself.
“Wait for the volley!” Dicer ordered, his sword raised to the sky.
A few seconds of silence passed before the snapping of bows and ballista filled the defenders’ ears as a rain of projectiles fell onto the enemy once more.
“Now! Launch pila!”
Blaze threw his spear as far as he could, aiming for the center of a changeling formation that was dangerously close to the wall. He could see the other pila from his soldiers trailing his.
Following the arrows and ballista bolts, the throwing spears came crashing down onto the enemy, causing the depleted first wave of changelings to turn tail and run.
“First wave routed! Yes!” Flaretail cheered from the rear rank.
To the Karalians’ dismay, the second wave held strong and the rest of the enemy forces were unfazed by the routing first wave. They had hoped that the breaking frontline unit would cause havoc and lower the enemy’s morale, but to no avail. Also, the second wave easily recovered the distance lost by the retreating changelings.
“Ready pila!”
Blaze noticed that a regiment of elite, Queen’s Hard Shell Guard made up the fourth wave of changelings. He could recognize them easily; they were the only changelings that wore blue-painted helmets. They were probably the hammer blow forces after the first three waves had soaked up the Karalian arrows and tired out the legionaries. He really hoped that the evacuation would be complete before he had to fight them.
He had faced them before and they nearly killed him. Despite killing dozens of changelings himself, he was only able to best two Queen’s Guard in the past. The third overtook him and was about to chomp down on his jugular before Thunder Coy and Flaretail saved his life.
That was one memory he wished his brain didn’t keep. Also, he had lost count of how many times his friends had gotten him out of trouble.
“Launch pila!”
He chucked his second and final pila at the fresher incoming wave of changelings. He smirked when he saw the hail of throwing spears descending into the enemy ranks, followed by more arrows and bolts from Cobalt.
He cursed under his breath.
The projectiles were doing good damage and where disrupting the enemy’s formations but the impact wasn’t going to be enough. Enemy casualties were heavy already but the sheer size of the enemy army made that note futile.
A resonating clanging of metal against the stone walls broke him out of his train of thought.
“Grappling hooks!” another officer warned.
Officers from many of the cohorts drew their swords and began to slice apart the ropes that held the grappling hooks in place. However, fresh volleys of bug bolts forced them to stop and retreat back into the testudo formations.
The changeling cavalry finally made their move.
Charging from the sky, several thousand changelings armed with spears pined toward the fort, aiming to attack the defenders from above and give the infantry the chance to climb their ropes without interference.
They swarmed forward, dozens of black wedge formations dotting the sky, growing in size from the eyes of the defenders as they drew closer. The spears dropped, tips pointing straight at the fortress as the cavalry picked up even more speed.
Cobalt Battalion opened fire on this new enemy threat but the volume of incoming cavalry was too great to have an effect. They were moving fast, hoping to reach the defenders before the next arrow volley.
To the young lieutenant’s dismay, he could see that the changelings had brought a lot more air cavalry than they normally would.
“Balls.”
“Brace!” Dicer boomed, other officers echoing his command.
The flying wedges slammed into the first cohorts on the wall, the Fourth included.
“Shields up!”
Blaze drew his saber and leaned into his shield, feeling the vibrations of the metal making contact with a spear tip. He pushed the shield forward violently, bashing the changeling on the other side in the face. He exposed the entire left side of his body, lunging at the recovering enemy with his sword.
As the blade broke the changeling’s exoskeleton, he tightened his control on the hoof-grip of his blade, ramming it in farther. The changeling cried out in shock, not even realizing that it had been stabbed in the side. As the Karalian retracted the blade and brought his shield back up to deflect another incoming spear, the stricken changeling fell to the floor squirming in agony.
Green gunk was now covering his sword, much to Blaze chagrin. The substance had a tendency to effect the blade’s movement and speed.
A second changeling soared in at a bad angle, but the changeling didn’t react in time to correct the mistake. Blaze noticed an opening in the changeling’s posture and brought his sword down with a diagonal slash. The blade tore through its collar bone as it passed by, crashing into a group of Karalians ready to finish it off.
He stayed with the first rank of soldiers, their shield wall doing its best to hold back the enemy. As the second rank was ordered to do, they had their swords drawn to stab any changeling that tried to jump over the shield wall.
The sounds of spears banging against shields and the grunts and screams of combat filled his ears, reminding him of past battles he had fought. He hoped that most of those terrible sounds of death were coming from changeling throats.
A spear went through the foreleg of the pony next to him in the first rank and embedded itself into the ground. The stallion cried out as his leg was now pinned to the ground. A second changeling spear stuck him in the chest, bringing him down. Another pony from the second rank moved up to fill in his spot.
Several spears hit Blaze’s shield at once, causing the small pony to tumble backwards and drop his shield. Two of his soldiers helped him up and a pony from the second rank moved up to close the gap he had made.
Back here, he could see the battle much more clearly. He took a peek at the situation in front of him.
With all of the ponies occupied defending from the enemy cavalry in tight formations, the infantry were able to climb up the grappling hook ropes with little to no resistance.
That split second nearly cost him his life, if it wasn’t for his peripherals. He parried a spear with his sword, knocking the attacker off-balance. The changeling crashed into the middle of the cohort, about to be gutted by the Karalians inside.
It was now that he realized that he couldn’t find his shield. Without it, he was extremely vulnerable, even with the other shields around him.
It was common knowledge that a Karalian soldier without a shield had a very short life expectancy.
He had to get it back.
“Open up and let me through!” he yelled to the first rank.
A middle-aged stallion turned around and looked at him like he was crazy.
“But sir, there’s too many damn spears out there! You’ll look like a changeling yourself if we did that!”
“I need to get my shield!”
“LT’s fucking mental!” a mare yelled, bashing her shield against an enemy.
“Fine! Then maybe we could push our line to the wall. We’ll cut some of those enemy ropes and I can get my shield. Better?”
Blaze turned around to give the order to the rest of the cohort and noticed Flaretail hovering above the rear rank, slitting a changeling’s throat with her sword. She let the body drop before she acknowledged him.
“We’re pushing to the wall!”
“I’ll relay!” she responded.
He looked to his ponies and the ponies that had heard him talking looked back to him. The feeling of synergy between the unit was flowing through all of them as they could all read what they were about to do.
“First rank, push!” he yelled to the ponies at the front.
“You heard him, let’s go!” Flaretail shouted.
Thunder Coy stomped his hooves in agreement while hacking a changeling in half with his floating sword that was glowing with his light blue magic.
The Karalians grunted and pressed as hard as they could with their shields, advancing to the wall and taking stabs at changelings if they had the chance. The weight of the changeling cavalry was great but it was not consistent. This gave the ponies an advantage in strength, allowing them keep moving forward despite the pressure and clattering of spears and bug bolts against their shields.
It was not long before they reached Blaze’s shield, which was only a few feet ahead of where the cohort originally was. Still, they pushed their way to the wall, hoping to stop the enemy’s infantry units from scaling it. If they could stop the infantry from climbing into the fort, then the changeling cavalry would be stranded on the walls without support.
“It’s a good thing that the enemy is too stupid to use siege equipment. Or perhaps they didn’t have time to bring any because of their ingenious lighting strike offensive? Doesn’t matter anyway.”
He picked up his shield, the feel of having his foreleg hooked into it reassuring him.
The cohort behind the Fourth had taken its original position as Blaze’s cohort advanced.
Changeling cavalry groups had broken from their wedges and were now trying to attack in an unorganized frenzy. They slipped in between cohorts, trying to pierce the Karalians’ large, rectangular shields with their spears. Some the changelings lost heart and began to fly away, but the majority stayed behind, trying their best to occupy their enemy until the infantry arrived.
When they had reached the wall, they found that a few other cohorts had the same idea.
As Blaze left the shield wall to cut a rope, he found a changeling on the other side of it, almost all the way up the stone wall. The changeling hissed unnaturally at him as it continued to climb up to meet him. The hiss made a cold chill go down Blaze’s back, making him shiver momentarily. He cringed and bashed the changeling in the face with his shield.
“Not today,” he whispered as he watched the changeling fall to the ground, landing on its comrades.
A spear took a stab at his head, reminding him that the battle was still going on. He ducked under the spear tip before it could connect and batted the spear away. He plunged his sword into the owner’s chest before they could react and followed up with slash coming down their shoulder and out of the opposite hip.
Another changeling fell next to him, probably killed by one of his ponies. He could see that more and more of the cavalry were pulling back and also that the flaming arrows and ballistae were doing their jobs quite well. The grass on the field below them had a few larger fires now, which disrupted the enemy’s advance.
He knew that if he could just cut these ropes, he could buy the civilians a lot of time and maybe even give his own troops some time to escape.
Also, he wouldn’t have to fight Chrysalis’s elite guard either.
“The evacuation is complete! All forces are ordered to retreat in an orderly fashion!”
Blaze turned around as he finished slicing another rope.
“Who in the moon said that?”
He noticed a courier pony wearing armor that was a lighter version of his own charging up frantically and yelling like his life depended on it.
“Retreat now! We need to regroup with the rest of the Second Legion! Pull back now! Cobalt will provide cover fire!” the courier explained.
Silverglow then looked around to notice that at least half of the enemy cavalry had retreated already. He nodded to the courier and turned to Flaretail, who was hovering over the courier.
“I’ll relay it!” she said, reading his mind.
A young mare screamed as an unarmed changeling sunk its fangs into her foreleg. Blaze trotted forward and stabbed the changeling from behind while two other Karalians finished it off by slashing it simultaneously.
“Pick her up!” he ordered as the two stallions nodded and dragged the wailing mare into the formation.
The thud of bug bolts hitting the walls, shields, and ground were resonating all around them and other cohorts.
“Form testudo!” Blaze ordered.
“It’s time to retreat anyways.”
The ponies of the Fourth Cohort then brought up their shields and overlapped them, making a mock tortoise shell for the entire cohort. Slowly, they started marching backwards, still facing the enemy as they retreated. A few enemies tested their spears against the testudo with no effect, so they flew off to fight elsewhere.
Blaze galloped up to meet them, after finishing off a straggling changeling with a quick swipe at its throat. He hopped over the dozens of dead changelings that he and his cohort had killed and a few Karalian bodies as well. He frowned at the sight, hoping that none of those belonged to his ponies.
He could see his troops staring at him as they moved, pining for him to catch up. It would be only a few seconds before he reached them and they would all withdraw with the rest of the battalion. He heard the whistle of bug bolts, so he turned around briefly to deflect a couple of them with his shield.
Getting home to Karmaden and checking on his mother would probably be his first priority, if he had the time. Then, the entire army would probably come together to rid the changelings of their lives, once and for all.
“I hope that the army is actually going to be able to come together. We won’t be able to handle the bugs all split up like this.”
Pain jolted throughout his body as his shoulder seared as if it was on fire. He cried out in surprise as an unknown force knocked him to the ground, his shoulder burning with immense paroxysm. His mind shut down as the pure feeling of agony coursed throughout his entire body. There was no time to react, or even think about what just happened.
“Wha-”
His head slammed onto the stone floor of the wall and knocked him out cold.
“Blaze!” Flaretail cried out worriedly, being the first to react.
The ponies of the Fourth Cohort were appalled as they watched their lieutenant get hit. For a second they just stood there, frozen in shock. During that moment of silence, confusion set in. Silverglow had just been cut down, the tail-end of a changeling cavalry spear sticking out of the back of his right shoulder.
Flaretail left the formation with all haste and flew over to the unconscious body of the small brown earth pony, and tried to pick him up. Being a small pony herself, and exhausted from all of the fighting, she wasn’t able to move him herself.
“Come and help me pick him up dammit!” she barked at the soldiers.
Two stallions left the testudo to assist Flaretail with carrying their leader, dodging bug bolts all the while. Once they got to the lieutenant, all three of them team lifted him back to the testudo formation.
“Pull back! I’ll take command for now!” Flaretail yelled to the ponies as she reentered the formation.
They continued to retreat, pulling back to the stairs as their shields continued to deflect bug bolts. The missiles fired from Cobalt Battalion rocketed over their heads, convincing the remaining, unsupported changeling cavalry to pull out of the western wall.
“I’m coughing up our territory to changelings and running from them in battle…I don’t care if this is part of the plan, shame will be mine forever,” Commander Dicer lamented from within his own testudo formation.
The entire battalion was pulling out of the soon-to-be empty Sonza fort-town. A lingering feeling of dismay amongst the Karalians blanketed over the mood of the moment. They were abandoning Karalian territory to the changelings. This had not been done in the entire two hundred years that they had been fighting.
Thunder Coy whimpered as the other soldiers were still reeling from what they had just witnessed. Many argued with each over whether their lieutenant was still alive or not. They wondered why the lieutenant didn’t sling his shield across his back like he normally would in that situation.
“Did you see who threw that spear?” a stallion asked.
“It wasn’t one of ours,” another pony replied.
“Is LT dead?” a mare asked with a concerned tone.
Flaretail sighed as she watched one the soldiers carry the bitten mare on his back and another doing the same for Blaze.
“I sure hope not…”
________________________________________
Morning light seeped through the blinds, ushering in the warm radiance of the Equestrian sun. It kissed Blaze’s face, causing his eyes to flutter. He groaned as a residual sting emanated from his shoulder, attempting to discourage him from making any further movements. As he came to, he lifted his head off his pillow and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Blinking a few times, he scanned his surroundings and tried to ascertain where he was.
It was a small room.
The walls were a pasty white and the ambience of the early glow of the sun made him feel warm and at peace. He noticed that there was a wall to his right, from which the light entered from its window. There was a bed across the room from him. From what he could see, the older stallion was already staring at him.
The stallion’s piercing red eyes unsettled the lieutenant for a split second, nearly making him shiver. Judging from the height and body type of the green stallion, he could see that he was a fellow Karalian.
“Definitely not from my cohort though,” he thought.
The green stallion blinked.
“I was wondering when you were going to come to,” the stallion said with a deep baritone voice.
Blaze coughed.
“Are you a Black Clover?” he asked.
The other earth pony shook his head.
“No. I was with the Thirty-eighth Portelance Battalion up near Keplo.”
Blaze’s eyes shot out in disbelief. He had heard that name many times before.
“Portelance? You’re an Urban?!”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
The brown earth pony was lost in thought. Urban Legionaries were the most elite ponies in the entire Karalian Army. He knew that they were especially potent when fighting in cities, hence their name. Not very many Karalians get an opportunity to serve with them.
“Wait…Keplo? You can’t be serious. Did the enemy really push that far?” he asked with concern, already knowing the answer.
The older stallion frowned in disappointment.
“The city was in complete panic there. Most of our units were miles away from each other. We didn’t last very long,” the Urban said solemnly.
Silverglow’s heart sunk.
“Blasphemy!”
Keplo was a port city that was at least a hundred miles from the changeling border. Changelings haven’t pushed that far in the entirety of Karalian history. Suggesting that the enemy had finally crossed into Karalia was unheard of. For so long, the ponies of Karalia had been convinced that to suffer defeat against the changelings was impossible.
“What about Karmaden?”
The Urban soldier shook his head and stared downcast at his bed. He readjusted his injured foreleg to cover the bandage around his waist.
“Bugs burned it to the ground. Solana, Versay, Varvoka, Aubrey, Sonza, Kalinigrad, Fort Grenzer, Rubinelle...all of them under the enemy. Any and all Karalian honor is lost. Yes, we should all be ashamed of ourselves but I’m angrier at the enemy. The least they could have done was kill us. At least then we’d still have our honor, but no, the bastards denied us of that too,” he said, malice and hostility seething from his lips.
Blaze froze as his mind went blank. His stomach churned as his lips quivered. Suddenly, he felt nauseous. Emotion overtook his entire being as he could feel his eyes begin to water.
“Wha-fuck! No! Ruddy! Bloody! Impossi-fuck!”
He couldn’t accept it.
He wouldn’t.
His home…gone?
“Are you alright?”
His thoughts turned to his mother. Surely, she would have to have gotten out in time. She probably would have headed to the capital.
“If the capital is still there…”
Karalia was gone.
It was simply too much for his head to handle.
All expression drained from Blaze’s face, and his body went cold.
His unresponsive mind burst into a flurry of thought, trying to understand what was being told to him. He couldn’t compute anything. It was all too much too soon. He cursed himself for his curiosity. Surely, this would have been one of those rare occasions where ignorance really was bliss.
The older soldier’s face dropped as he realized what was going on.
“Oh…”
Blaze looked up and took a deep breath, wiping his tears away from his eyes. He tried desperately to regain his composure and even managed to sit up straight.
“No it’s…alright. Tell me more please.”
The Urban gave him a sympathetic and skeptical look. The elite soldier gazed out of the window, biting his lip. He turned back to the young officer and sighed in preparation.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he lied.
The elite nodded.
“Alright then. I don’t really know how to say this so I’ll just say it. You’re or rather we’re in Equestria.”
The overloaded young lieutenant fell back onto his pillow, covering his ears and face with his blankets. He didn’t want the Urban Legionary to see the tears fall from his cheeks so they soaked his covers instead.
His shoulder ached harshly but he didn’t care. He had learned enough already.
In his Equestrian hospital, the small Karalian stallion wallowed in misery, discomfiture, and disorientation. Within his own personal turbulence, he realized that he didn’t even know if his cohort had made it. This only made him worse; it felt as if it was one thing after another with no end in sight.
He whimpered as moisture continued to fall from his eyes.
"Revenge."