//------------------------------// // The Battle of Silvestris // Story: Armor's Game // by OTCPony //------------------------------// Splattered with mud and breath coming in clouds from his nostrils, Shining Armor strode from the dark, cold morning and into the staff tent. “Good morning, everypony.” “Good morning, sir,” chorused the staff and divisional commanders “Now,” said the Field Marshal grimly. “Before we begin let me tell you: this one is not going to be easy. I counted at least ten thousand Changelings working on their defences. Our hussar recce flights put their numbers at close to thirteen thousand. They have sixteen guns commanding the river, so we can’t just race our boats past. We can’t invest them either because that would take too many troops away from the battle with the rest of Chrysalis’ army. It’ll have to be a direct assault.” Shining Armor took a hooful of red unit icons in his magic and began arranging them on the map table. The map was dominated by the blue ribbon of the Kelpie Creek slashing from north to south, with the town of Silvestris sitting on the west bank. Rising above the town to its north was a tall, rocky hill, commanding every approach to the town and Silvestris’ bridge across the Kelpie Creek. “The Changeling fortifications are strongest to the north,” he said. “Looks like an abatis backed by earthworks. Their eastern flank is protected by the marshes on the Creek’s banks, but their fortifications aren’t as good on the western side of the hill: just looks like fascines covered with earth to make a firing position to me, but if we attack there we’ll also face enfilade fire from the town. “We’ll make our first attack from the north at first light with two divisions. Major General Neigh, so far your division has been one of our least-heavily engaged. You will lead the assault.” Neigh heard only insults. Least-heavily engaged?! I won Valneigh for you and you gave me nothing. A hundred and fifty of my foals died while you dragged your hooves at Maneden. Well I’ll show you today, Shining. That hill will be mine. “General Ember,” continued Shining Armor. “The Guards Division will operate in support, with one brigade directly behind Neigh and another in echelon on his right to fix the enemy in position. “Brigadier General Lance, the 4th Brigade will be our manoeuvre element...” *** “Okay gentlestallions, listen in.” The Brigadier Generals and battalion commanders of the 3rd Division crowded around in the morning twilight as Neigh sketched a plan in the dirt with the tip of his sword. “The Field Marshal wants us at the tip of the spear again,” said Neigh, his voice filled with quiet determination. “Just like Valneigh, just like Maneden. We didn’t fail there and we won’t fail today.” “Sir?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Brazen Petard quietly. “It’s true then? We’re taking Hayburger Hill?” “Hayburger Hill?” laughed Neigh. “Where did that come from?” “That’s what I’ve heard my boys call it sir, and frankly I agree with them: that hill will chew us up like a colt eats burgers. I don’t think that any eight thousand soldiers ever assembled anywhere can take this position.” “We are not any eight thousand soldiers,” said Neigh coldly. “We are the 3rd Division and that hill will be ours. Now...” He scratched a few lines in the dirt. “We will detach the pioneers and Grenadier Companies from each battalion to form four assault columns: one on each flank, and two in the centre, with the pioneers at their head. There’s a ditch in front on the abatis here, so the Engineers are issuing fascines to the pioneers to create a bridge. The rest of the division will be formed in line to provide supporting fire, while the 2nd Guards Brigade will be behind them in line ready to echelon through if necessary. “Once we break the fortifications, rapidly reinforcing gains will be critical. So, battalion commanders, I want you on the flank of your battalion closest to the assault column rather than in the centre. When you see that the column is through, you need to lead your battalion through behind them. That will be the signal for the Guards behind us to move up and take over providing support. “Gentlestallions, make no mistake, this will be hard. But we will take this hill, and our regiments will be remembered forever for it. Remember all we’ve done in the past, and we will add to that today.” *** Inkie Pie frowned through her binoculars at the hill. It was becoming lighter by the second and as she gazed at the hill and looked down at her map, she became ever more uneasy. The Royal Artillery had been reduced to ninety guns after Maneden, but natural wastage since then and an accident bringing a battery down the Recinante Cliffs had reduced that number to barely sixty-six. Inkie wistfully thought back to the great barrage at Maneden, when the artillery had swept the field with only a few volleys. The numbers of guns they’d had then could clear this hill in seconds, but now... “Are your guns ready, Major Pie?” Inkie lowered her binoculars to see General Sir Time Target standing next to her, shifting uneasily from hoof to hoof. “My batteries are ready, sir, as ready as you and I have come to expect of them. But I don’t think even that will be good enough for today.” “What do you mean?” “Sir, we both know what’s going to happen out there,” said Inkie seriously. “Neigh’s division is forming up in that line of trees out there, below the hill. We’ve got surprise on our side, but that’s going to disappear quickly once we open up and Neigh’s still got to get up a three-hundred-foot steep hill. When they come out, they’ll be under Changeling artillery fire in seconds from every gun they have. That’s a convex hill so they’ll get a respite about halfway up, but that’ll just give the Changelings more time to mobilise. When they crest the hill, they’ll be in range of fire from Changeling horns and short-range artillery: canister, grapeshot, thousands of little bits of metal wiping holes in their lines. They’ll be slowed by that ditch there, and the formation will start to come apart. If they get to the abatis without breaking up, there won’t be many of them left. Now maybe sir, just maybe, my batteries can break the defences. When we started this war I’d have told you we could do it without a second thought, but we lost the guns we needed for that at Maneden. And those Changelings out there, they know they’re losing this war, and they know what we’ll do to them if they lose, so they’re not going to run. If the 3rd reaches that wall they’ll have suffered casualties beyond anything we’ve seen in this war so far, but General, I do not believe those boys will reach that wall.” Time Target stared at her in silence for several moments. Then he said; “No, Inkie, nor do I. I’m not sure Shining Armor does either. I think the only pony in this army who does is Neigh. I know it’s to pull in their reserves so the 4th Brigade can hit the flank, but I don’t like it at all.” *** The Legate in command of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Legions atop Hayburger Hill was not yet worthy of a name. That was the prerogative of the Queen and her Lords alone. Still, the Lords had experienced remarkably high attrition of late, and for an ambitious Legate, there were suddenly many openings to the highest levels of power in the Hive. Had he been a pony, he would have chuckled. He’d seen the ponies’ propaganda against the Hive. Every Changeling was a mindless drone, they said, enslaved to the Hive, knowing no other existence and gladly dying for it. What nonsense! The average Changeling was no more or less ambitious or concerned with themselves than the average pony. Did they really think that just because they couldn’t speak like them that made Changelings brain-dead insects?! Did they not know, or did they say that to make Changelings easier to kill? If it was the latter, the Legate reflected, it was certainly working. He had heard the horror stories; tales of burnt hatcheries, of eggs smashed open and the larvae left to die. Well that wouldn’t happen here, he resolved. Intelligence put Shining Armor a day away. By that time his defences would be complete, and the invading murderers would smash themselves to pieces against his defences while the rest of the army swept up from Softpaw and slammed into their flank. The sun was rising from behind the distant Bone Mountains as the Legate trotted across the hill to examine his defences. The entire hilltop had been cleared of trees and it was now crowned with little more than stumps. The trunks had been used to create the abatis: a ditch had been dug around the crown of the hill and the tree trunks had been buried in the dyke with their sharpened branches facing downhill. From it the legionaries could fire down on any advancing unit with impunity. The defences to the north, the most likely direction of attack, had been completed yesterday. The full ring should be completed by the end of today. The Legate scowled across the landscape. The sun threw long shadows across the ground. What was that? He was virtually certain that those shadows in the distance hadn’t been there at sunset. His horn glowed and the captured pair of pony binoculars floated from his saddlebag up to his face. It was a struggle to focus them: they were not made for compound eyes. At last the view cleared and he saw... Guns. Dozens of them. Cannon and howitzers lined up, their barrels trained on his hilltop, with the dark shapes of ponies standing by them with portfires and ramrods ready. For that moment he didn’t wonder how they’d got there, or how his intelligence had failed. He was simply rooted to the spot, stunned, and disbelieving. Then, as his pocket watch struck 06:30, Time Target’s batteries opened fire. The Legate saw the flash before he heard anything. The neat row of batteries vanished in an explosion of light and fire as they discharged. He felt their fire next, a rumble like a giant’s roar reverberating from the guns, up the hills and through his hooves. He heard the thunder just as the projectiles struck. An incredible storm of shot and shell smashed into his beautiful abatis. Dozens of carefully-placed tree trunks were smashed to splinters; huge columns of earth were thrown into the air; and the Changeling work parties either side of him, that had gone up to check the defences for damage, had been blasted to vapour as the shells hit. Amid a hell of smoke and fire, as hundreds of panicked, surprised Changelings scurried about the hilltop, the Legate staggered back to his hooves. As others fell to the ground and cowered, he strode through the rain of shot. “GUNS RETURN FIRE! THE SIXTEENTH TO STAY ON THE SUMMIT AS A RESERVE!” he bellowed. “ALL OTHER COHORTS TO THE NORTHERN DEFENCES!” *** Inkie’s heart was in her mouth as she watched the assault columns inch slowly up the hill. From this distance they just looked like red blocks, but as her guns thundered, she raised her binoculars with a shaking hoof and she could make out individual ponies, their spears rising and falling as they marched, officers at their heads with their swords glinting, and the colours fluttering gorgeously in the breeze. She tried not to see the gaps in the formations. Her gunners had done their best to suppress the Changeling cannon with the first hurricane bombardment, but in the brief moments from when the columns stormed out of the wood line to when they disappeared below the crest of the convex hill, the Changelings had managed to get off a few, terribly effective shots. Roundshot had crashed through the columns like bowling balls gone berserk, knocking down entire files. Through her binoculars, Inkie had seen dozens of ponies vanish as shot drilled through their formations like her sister Maud through rock: pillars of red had shot into the air, along with blasted and burned limbs, weapons, heads... As the columns slowly approached the crest of the convex hill, Inkie saw them slowly slide into line. The narrower but deeper columns formed from the Grenadier Companies stayed in column for the assault, but the end companies of the wider, larger columns slid to the sides and formed up on the lead companies. Soon, the 3rd Division had formed a thin red line stretching across the hillside, broken only slightly by the assault columns between the battalions. The Guards Division’s manoeuvre was more elegant: the companies of their columns were more widely spaced, and they had a much greater distance between their battalions. The wider spaces allowed each company, the rightmost files acting as pivots, to swing round to form battalion lines that stretched down the hill. Then, with the leftmost file of each battalion holding fast, they swung round to present their own line behind the 3rd. To see so many ponies performing the manoeuvres effortlessly was a stirring site. Inkie could almost believe that they would succeed. “RAPID FIRE, TEN SECONDS!” she roared. With that order her gunners began working like demons. The sounds of individual shots disappeared and it became like the boiling of a kettle that rang in Inkie’s ears. Sweat steamed off the gunners’ coats as they delivered the final pummelling to the abatis on Hayburger Hill in a desperate effort to break the defences before Neigh’s ponies had to face them. It looked like nothing could survive the barrage: the abatis was invisible beneath a pall of smoke, the fall of shot kicked huge plumes of dirt into the air, and any other pony staring at it would bet good money on the defences being totally smashed up. But Inkie knew that it wasn’t enough. They lacked the guns to saturate the defences, and the bombardment could not be made longer lest they lose the element of surprise. The barrage was spread too thin. She wished she could do more, but that was all she could do. Then the 3rd Division crested the hill, and began their march into the teeth of the defences. “LIFT BARRAGE!” she roared. “CONCENTRATE ON SUMMIT!” The thunder of guns ceased for a moment as the gunners furiously recalibrated their guns. They could not keep up fire on the abatis for fear of dropping shot on their own troops, but they could do their best to keep the Changelings from committing reserves to their defences. But... Inkie’s heart sank as the smoke rose from the defences. The abatis was blackened and burned. The tree trunks built into it had been blasted to short, splintered points. But the ditch remained, the dyke remained, and the tree trunks still remained a formidable obstacle to anypony not carrying an axe. And thousands of Changelings swarmed behind it, their horns glowing a savage green. *** The Legate strode grimly across the, fire-swept, tree stump-strewn hilltop towards the commander of the Sixteenth Legion. I should have had these dug up, he cursed, stepping over another stump. If I try to get reserves anywhere they’ll all trip over these and that’ll be the end for us. As shot and shell crashed down on the defences behind him, and his Changelings huddled behind it, the Legate regarded the Sixteenth Legion. They were beautifully formed up, the centuries ready to move independently or race all together to block and penetration of the defences. As the commander trotted over to the Legate, it was only then that he noticed that the barrage had ceased. The first salvo of shot to land on the summit obliterated the commander of the Sixteenth Legion. He flew to pieces and a shower of brains and ichor coated the Legate. More shells began to crash down into the ranks, carrying off five officers and eighty legionaries in a few seconds. “REMAIN AT YOUR POSTS!” snapped the Legate. “WE’LL NEED YOU SOON!” That we will, he thought as the first barrage of furious firing opened up from the abatis. He looked around to see thousands of snarling, roaring, whooping ponies cresting the hill. They seemed to rise out of the earth as they stormed towards his defences. Stallions and mares wearing coats the colour of blood brandished spears as they marched towards him, while columns of huge ponies with gold on their shoulders, fronted by stallions with fierce beards bearing axes, aimed for the heart of his lines. Yes, we will indeed. *** “COME ON BOYS!” cheered Neigh. He waved his sword above his head and he trotted ahead of the division. “THE GUNS HAVE BROKEN ‘EM! WE’LL JUST WALK OVER!” The 3rd Division struggled through a cauldron of fire. Smoke and flames seemed to be everywhere, the hillside blasted like the face of the moon by the bombardment. As skirmishers covered the division’s advance, opposed by sheets of fire crashing down from the Changeling defences, the noise everywhere was deafening. To his left, Neigh saw the nearest assault column pause in front of a gully. The pioneers and Grenadiers dropped their fascines into the ditch. Behind him, he heard the battalion commanders give the order to halt. As the Grenadiers surged over their bridge across the ditch, Neigh heard the commands ring out: “MAKE READY! PRESENT! FIRE!” Storms of shots tore up the hillside and into the Changelings crowding behind the abatis. Neigh expected to see them wilt like wheat before the reaper, but the abatis was a distant target and the fire was inaccurate. Dark thoughts suddenly filled Neigh’s head. Did I get something wrong?! We planned it perfectly! Halt in front of the ditch and we’d be at the optimum distance to support the Grenadiers! Meanwhile, the assault columns before him trotted doggedly across their fascine bridges and up the steep hillside. Screaming ponies clutching bloody wounds fell out of formation by the second. When they reached twenty yards from the abatis, the columns suddenly disappeared into the ground. Neigh felt his heart drop into his stomach. He now knew why his fire had been inaccurate: they had halted too soon. The fascines that should have been used to bridge the deep ditch in front of the abatis had been cast uselessly into that gully fifty yards below the real ditch. Now he was standing here uselessly out of supporting range while the assault columns floundered in the ditch, desperately struggling to make it on to the Changeling parapet while grenades and shot rained down on them. “PUSH UP!” he roared. “ADVANCE IN SUPPORT!” But it took time for the order to be heard, for the volleys to be stopped, and for the commanders to redress their battalions. It took nearly five minutes for the 3rd Division to resume a halting advance up the hill, in which time hundreds more Grenadiers and pioneers died. *** The ditch below him was a cauldron of fire, smoke, blood and death. The Legate fired bursts from his horn at the ragged line slowly advancing up the hill, but it was the struggle in the ditch that worried him most. The ponies fought with energy unlike anything he had ever seen before. Hundreds of them fell, shot to death or blasted and burnt by grenades or impaled upon the sharp points of the abatis, but still they came, hurling themselves right to the parapet or crowding behind a single pioneer desperately hacking away at the defences with his axe. They tried everything: some strung bundles of grenades together and buried them under the abatis, hoping to blast their way through. Some great fools, who perhaps had been sportsponies back home, even tried to vault the defences. Nothing worked for the ponies. At some points the ponies had managed to bridge the ditch halfway with fascines. Some tried to struggle out of the ditch to retrieve the ones they had left behind. They suffered most: nearly every one of them was shot in the back. But at some points they did break through, and there battles with spear, claw and horn erupted, manifesting rage, fury and desperation unlike anything that had been seen in the war so far. The ponies hurled themselves repeatedly against the defences and the Changelings hurled them off time and again. A tiny part of the Legate’s mind felt admiration for the ponies. Both they and his Changelings were at that point perhaps the bravest soldiers in the world. But the rational part of his mind saw his casualties continue to mount, and as the ragged line formed up in front of the ditch and began to fire, more and more Changeling dead began to pile up behind the parapet. *** Words stuck in Shining Armor’s throat as he stared at the horrifying scene from the base of the hill. The top of Hayburger Hill looked like a smoking volcano as shells crashed down into the Changeling reserve, but what really shocked him was the crest: it appeared to be nothing less than a surging river of red breaking its banks against a thick line of black, as thousands of ponies charged forwards, were repulsed, and charged again at the Changeling defences. Each time, the attackers left dozens of bodies in their wake as they retreated. Every instinct screamed at him to call off the attack. His heart yelled at him that no breakthrough, no strategic hill, no number of dead Changelings, was worth this many casualties. But he knew that he was totally committed. This was the plan. This was his plan. He had made his intent quite clear to everypony involved and they knew what they were fighting for. To change his intent now would not just throw the entire battle into disarray, but to betray all the commanders he’d trusted. And yet, right now they could only be a quarter of the way through the fighting. The 4th Brigade had barely begun its flank march, so the 3rd Division would have to keep fighting, suffering and dying for much, much longer. After half an hour of raging combat, the 3rd Division fell back behind the crest, leaving hundreds of bodies littering the hillside. *** The 3rd Division had been reduced to a thronging, milling mass cowering behind the crest of Hayburger Hill. The occasional Changeling cannon shot landed in its midst. The faces of everypony in the division were black with smoke and dirt. Uniforms that had been immaculate at the start of the day were now torn and filthy with mud, soot and the blood of comrades. There was scarcely a Grenadier or a pioneer to be seen among them. His sword shaking in his hooves, Brazen Petard staggered over to Neigh. His eyes seemed to stare at something a million miles away. “We can’t take that again, sir.” “We have our orders!” snarled Neigh. “We will take that hill!” “There’s not enough pioneers left, sir!” stammered Petard. “Even if we got to the ditch again we’d never break the abatis!” Neigh didn’t answer. He swept away and marched up the division’s line. “PREPARE TO MOVE UP AGAIN! WE MUST TAKE THIS HILL! PREPARE TO MOVE UP!” He paused in front of a group of ponies clustered around a tattered flag. Their colours and cap badges showed the flaming grenade and two crossed swords of the Trottingham Grenadiers. One of them, a Unicorn who couldn’t be more than nineteen, huddled on the ground, shaking and weeping and clutching his spear close to him. Neigh seized him by his hoof. “Come on, boy, come on! What will you think of yourself tomorrow?!” He swept his eyes over what remained of the Trottingham Grenadiers. “TROTTINGHAM! TROTTINGHAM!” He swept his cocked hat from his head and speared it upon the point of his sword. “WITH ME! WHO WILL COME WITH ME?!” Then, raising his sword high above his head, he galloped over the crest. The Trottinghams’ colour bearer stepped forward. “LET’S GO, EVERYPONY!” *** The Legate slumped, exhausted, against a cannon. Each side of the abatis was a field of corpses, though on one side they wore red and on his side they were shiny black. The Sixteenth Legion had been demolished by the pony artillery and his line was now spread horribly thin. Those ponies had fought with an unbelievable determination. He did not know whether he could withstand another assault. Then a cheer erupted from behind the crest of the hill, and the Legate sank to his knees in disbelief as the ponies, battered, bloodied and shot ragged, charged up the hill again towards his defences. Their ranks were tattered and broken but still they charged into his torrent of shot and flame. They were led by some great fool of an Earth Pony with his hat balanced on the point of his sword. He seemed to be enchanted: every shot missed him. That was not so for the rest of the ponies. Canister and grape shot opened up from the Legate’s guns, tearing great gaps through those fine battalions. Their horns glowing ready, the Changelings lay behind the abatis. “STEADY! DON’T FIRE!” roared the Legate, galloping along the line. Not a shot was fired at the ponies, advancing closer and closer. When they got to the lip of the ditch the Legate could see the very expressions on their faces: confused, tired, scared, angry, determined... The Changelings fired, aiming low into the moving mass at their front. Nothing living could withstand that barrage. Staggered by that storm of shots, the charging line hesitated, then before that terrible fire the entire division seemed to melt away, tumbling back down the hill like a stream flowing off a mountain. “FORWARD!” roared the Legate. “AT THEM!” *** Neigh ran. He did not know whether he was at the front of his division, or behind it, or mixed in somewhere in the middle. He had lost all control with that single Changeling volley. The mighty barrage at close range had been too much for anything to hold against, and the 3rd Division had collapsed. Behind them, hundreds of Changelings surged over the defences, chasing down the 3rd Division to drive it to defeat. Stragglers were dragged down screaming by multiple Changelings and were torn to pieces by a whirl of fangs, claws and horns. And the Changelings had had time to rest while the 3rd Division had marched twice up that bloody hill. They would overtake them, and it would be a massacre. Then before him Neigh saw his division parting and coming together into lines that streamed through the gaps between the companies of the Guards Division. Guardsponies in immaculate uniforms screamed; “GET BEHIND US! QUICK!” The ragged, panicked, shattered mass of the 3rd Division disappeared behind the stately ranks of Guards. A storm of perfect, drill book-standard platoon firing tore up the hillside into the disorganised band of pursuing Changelings. Any other unit of the Equestrian Army might allow excitement to overtake it and forget its drills, with everypony firing individually at barely three rounds a minute. But the Guards were not any other unit, and in their three ranks, they kept to their platoons and waited for the commands of their officers to fire. Their fire was not a disorganised rattle of individuals but perfectly timed storms of shots that allowed each battalion to deliver close to six hundred rounds a minute. Before such astonishing fire, the attacking Changelings disintegrated. Staggering around the hillside, Neigh cared nothing for the Guards’ standard of firing. All he could see were the shattered remnants of his division. Ponies wandered around in tattered uniforms looking for the colours of their regiments, but what colours Neigh could see had been shot to pieces. Some lay on the ground shaking, crying, clutching wounds and screaming, or weeping over fallen comrades. Neigh felt a hoof on his shoulder. “Major General! Neigh! Neigh, look at me, son!” He turned, incredibly slowly, to see the mutton-chopped face of General Warding Ember, full of concern. “Neigh, keep it together! You’re the commander here! See to your division!” “General Ember,” said Neigh quietly. “I have no division.” *** The Legate wondered what name he would take when Chrysalis presented him with his Lordship. However, that honour would be scant in comparison to what he had done today. He had driven off Shining Armor! He had shattered an entire pony division! He had done what two Lords had failed to do with thousands of more troops than him! He had saved the Hive! It was only when he saw the scout buzzing up the hill, panic reeking from him, that the Legate felt the ground shaking. “What is it?!” “A new attack, sir!” gasped the scout. “On our western flank! Armor must’ve sent a brigade on a flank march! They’re charging up the hill!” The Legate stood rooted to the spot and speechless as the legionaries began to mill around him. Chattering spread across the hilltop and the exultation of victory was steadily being replaced by confusion, fear and panic. There was nothing he could do. His reserve had been blasted to pieces by the pony artillery, and what remained of his other two legions were crowded uselessly on the northern defences. To move them would be to totally disorder them. The western defences were little more than a wall of earth. There had been no time to complete them, and with a roar of “SHETLAND FOREVER!”, the first of the 4th Brigade’s assault columns vaulted over them on to the hilltop. A tidal wave of shaggy, tartan-clad Shetland Ponies crashed into the rightmost Changeling centuries in a whirl of spearpoints and gigantic broadswords. Soon after came Morning Star’s Fillydelphias, only slightly delayed because they had to march further around the hill to hit what passed as the Legate’s centre. Finally, the 3rd (Vanhoover Fusiliers) struck the Changeling left while the 7th (Appleloosans) stayed in reserve. The 4th Brigade drove the exhausted, terrified Changelings back against their northern defences, and with the Changelings distracted, the Guards Division was at last able to bring up fresh fascines, bridge the ditch and break the abatis. Sandwiched between Warding Ember and Tungsten von Lance, the Changelings were crushed to pulp. *** It did not occur to the Legate as he ran that his opposite number in the pony division he had driven off must have felt this way just half an hour ago. He was simply one of hundreds of Changelings streaming down the eastern side of the hill. It was steep, and Changelings were tumbling in their dozens as they tripped and fell. To trip was to be left behind to die, but it was their only route of escape. Before him, the Legate saw the Kelpie Creek. Over on the right was the bridge crossing the river from Silvestris. It was totally ablaze, blasted to cinders by indirect fire from the pony artillery. Dozens of Changelings were leaping off the bridge with flames licking up their backs and splashing down under the water. He did not see any rise up again. Then he felt water around his own hooves as he reached the base of the hill and sloshed through the marshes at the banks of the Kelpie Creek. If he could reach the river, he would be safe. But until then he and hundreds of other fleeing Changelings were slowed by the sucking mud, grasping weeds and hidden pools of the bogs. Suddenly to his right he heard the screeching of dying Changelings and roars of “KILL, KILL AND DESTROY!” He swept around to see hundreds of Pegasi, clad in heavily-braided, dark blue jackets and tall busbies and bearing long, cruel sabres, sweeping over the remnants of his army. Flying above the Changelings stuck in the mud, they overcame the struggling drones like a wave and slashed down on them mercilessly. Then a screaming blue-maned Hussar with a gold coat bore down on the Legate. With a single slash of his sword it was over. *** As the sun set, Shining Armor walked slowly through the remnants of the 3rd Division. Dull-eyed, hollow-cheeked ponies, just that morning so proud and confident, slowly lifted their heads as he passed. Some raised hooves in salute, which Shining Armor returned. Most were too stunned to do anything. The Changelings on Hayburger Hill had held off Neigh’s division for two hours. According to the cold strategic logic, everything had gone according to plan: the 3rd Division’s attack had sucked all the Changelings to one flank while the artillery had suppressed their reserve. That had allowed the 4th Brigade to break the lightly-held western flank and drive the Changelings from the hill. The hilltop was strewn with Changeling corpses and the Kelpie Creek was choked with dead: nearly ten thousand had fought to the last on the hill, while almost two thousand had drowned. The road to the south and to the last legions of Chrysalis’ army was wide open. But at what cost! Fifteen hundred ponies had died, and a further four thousand, five hundred had been wounded. It was the worst day of the entire war so far, and coming on the heels of the newspapers, it could not have come at a worse time. The supermajority of those casualties had been suffered by the 3rd Division. I must end this war soon, thought Shining Armor. We cannot sustain such losses. But Chrysalis won’t surrender, and she knows what I’ll do to any Changeling left behind if she retreats, so she’ll just fight all the more hard. “Sir?” A soldier – a Trottingham Grenadier, he saw from the uniform – stared at Shining Armor, disbelief in his eyes. “Sir, what happened? We... we did everything right, didn’t we sir? How did we lose so many guys?” Other ponies gathered round to hear their commander’s explanation. Shining Armor wanted to tell this poor boy that he had done well, that the casualties were worth it, that they had died for a good cause and they had helped to win the war. But the words would not come. It would never justify it. “I... I’m sorry, everypony,” said Shining Armor quietly. “It’s all my fault.” Across the field, shaking in fury, Major General Neigh stared coldly at Shining Armor and spat to Brazen Petard; “That butcher has destroyed my division!”