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// Chapter 11: Living by the sword 
// Story: Kingdom in Shadows 
// by Istaran 
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By the time night fell, our airborne scouts could already see the shadowy monsters closing in on us from all sides. At first they looked set to arrive about an hour before night fall, but they slowed as they approached, obviously intending to make contact when the sun dropped. The south side was covered in dark mist, already starting to surge forward toward the walls again, though more solid forms could barely be made out amongst the vapors. The east was approached by massive, hulking behemoths that looked like living siege engines. The west was populated by their more pony-sized brethren, including quite a few with visible horns. The mountains to the north were dotted with massive fliers, with smaller shadow beasts riding in their backs or gripped in their talons. 

With our opponents that openly divided, it meant each side would present a very different defensive challenge. By approaching openly, they instilled fear in the locals, which was much to our detriment, while giving themselves the maximum amount of night time for their assault. But that gave us forewarning and the ability to deploy our own forces. 

The locals were all moved to the citadel. Their guards would be a last line of defense for the civilians, along with Prince Alexander on the roof, and null in the throne room, bearing my own disguise and one of the Sin Eaters. I split off some of my attention to use him as an avatar, hiding the truth from my own allies. He would serve as a key communication link up with Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, as well as a final guardian to help them fight off anyone who reached them. Their own powerful magics could be wielded quite effectively from within the relative safety of that room, and the shadows would have little hope of a decisive victory without incapacitating them.

In truth, I was on the front lines with a Sin Eater of my own. The sword's black crystal etching shined ominously in the final rays of sunlight, and even more ominously in the moonlight that replaced it, as Luna's light source replaced Celestia's in the sky. With a fluid manipulation of magnetics, I drew the sword from where it had been held to my back and pulled it into my hoof's grip, and spread my wings. With a powerful lunge, I was in the air, struggling slightly to compensate for the unbalanced heft of the blade. 

I flew up to meet the enemy fliers alone, as the first riffs of my son's song rang out through the air. My pegasi, lead by the griffin Bardrick, flew east to assault the behemoth's from a distance. The unicorns in my employ arrayed themselves beneath me to strike at the fliers from below, beginning by combining their might to create a whirling disk of air, like a tornado that was magically prevented from funneling downward too low, with the eye shifting to keep centered around me. Our earth ponies opened the western gates and galloped out to engage the enemy unicorns, lead from behind by the minotaur Forge Soot, who stopped to hold the gate as he beheld the combat. Meanwhile the changelings, flying undisguised, moved to deal with the mists under Wind Chaser's command. With horns and wings combined, they were able to bring their magic to bear while staying well out of the reach of the mists, and started by conjuring a powerful wind to blow back the mists. With four fronts to worry about, things quickly became complicated.





The powerful winds swirling around me buffeted the enemy, knocking shadowy earth pony-like creatures off the flyers' backs to fall to their deaths, or at least severe injuries. Some splattered into mist, like that creeping in from the south, and scattered in what little wind blew that low. Some let loose the sound of crunching bone and lay there, unmoving like more ordinary casualties, while about a fifth of them struggled to their feet and began to charge.

Stud Muffin stood at the front of the unicorn formation opposing them. By all appearances he was an earth pony, and the scrawniest anypony had ever seen. His build was much more akin to a unicorn, and for good reason. A white glow of magic shined from his forehead, where his impacted horn was hidden under the bone, and he charged forward, laying into the survivors with bucks and kicks far more powerful than his build would suggest, flitting from one foe to the next with terrifying speed. He wasn't enough to take out every survivor on his own, but what he missed were distracted by him, leaving them vulnerable to magical strikes from the other unicorns. 

The fliers themselves were dragonlike in size and shape, and cut through the swirling winds delayed but unharmed. Most charged toward me, screeching menacingly as they approached. I was still a bit off balance flying with my blade, even more so as I began to attack with it, but the blade's performance more than made up for it. Whenever it struck even a glancing blow, huge chunks of shadow were ripped off my foes and channeled through the blade, into the pommel, and up my hoof into me. Black energy wreathed me like flames, as I focused on what Istaran had suggested, keeping the energy swirling around my heart, but not in it. I wasn't perfect at it, but it was working well enough.

A wave of green magic manifested a horn on my forehead before I pointed a hoof at one of the flyers that had tried to flit past me, heading for the main citadel. A massive burst of black energy rent the air, slamming into the flyer and dropping it roughly to the ground. As it struggled to stand, a second burst smashed it flat, dissipating it into mist. The mangled remains of what appeared to be a crystal pegasus was left behind when the mist cleared, alarming me. The implications were startling, but I didn't have time to deal with them. On the bright side, the dark magic version of telekinesis seemed to affect the shadow monsters just fine. From what the unicorns were experiencing, it actually appeared to affect them more easily than ordinary telekinesis. That was good, because I really needed a way to expend all the dark energy my sword was feeding into me.

Others wielding Sin Eaters on other fronts provided me with even more of the dark energy across our link, and I stopped bothering to wield my own sword for the moment, just going all out with the bursts of telekinesis. Despite the obvious similarities, dark telekinesis acted very differently than the ordinary kind unicorns used. It couldn't be sustained easily, or do much in the way of finesse, but it did sharp bursts of force very well, which made it more effective in combat. You couldn't knit with dark TK, but you could shatter bones with far less effort. Knocking everything into the ground or buildings was causing way too much collateral damage, however, so I quickly learned to manifest two bursts at a time, crushing my foes between them instead of sending them flying from a single direction. The fact that it burned up twice as much energy was a boon in this case.

Despite my efforts, though, I could feel the darkness creeping into my heart. For the moment, it wasn't as bad as it could be. It was easy enough to steer it for now. It pushed out the concerns for what might be redeemable within my enemies, and focused me on eliminating all opposition. It resonated well with the invigorating music my son was pumping out throughout the city, putting me into an trance-like state as I tore apart the invading air force mercilessly. 

When the sky was cleared, I looked down at the unicorns below me. My loyal subjects who fought by my side. What I assume where cruel thoughts toward them started to form, only to evaporate before the thoughts could even be completed, ripped from my mind by the kingsblood. ['Clan is clan'] Deus thought into my mind. It was Istaran's motto, the creed he instilled in all those he created or employed. It was a simple way to say that he considered all his subordinates to be family, and insisted they do whatever was necessary to support and protect one another, above all else. And more than anything that meant not betraying each other, turning against one another. It was strange to think of my 'dark side' as protecting me from doing something stupidly, pointlessly evil to those I most wanted to protect. I guess that was the advantage I had; he had a name, a character, and with it a code. There was little he wouldn't do, few lows he wouldn't stoop to. But he would never betray a valid trust, or turn against his own 'clan'. And apparently that extended to Deus warping my own mind to impose those constraints as well. If I was less busy being thankful for the protection, I might be freaking out about the terrifying implications.

In the meantime, I had a battle to get back to. With one front broken, the unicorns and I were free to reinforce the others.