For a time troggles searched inside Tambelon’s walls for Nightmare Moon, until Grogar sniffed about and concluded she’d escaped from the city. Patrols were sent outside the city to search the surrounding countryside. Troggles riding stratodons flew overhead.
After several hours a stratodon returned, and the rider reported he’d sighted Nightmare Moon winging her way toward Dankendreer. When Bray conveyed this news to Grogar, the warlock snorted his contempt. “Dankendreer, eh? She’ll find no aid there. I’ve got to admit, I expected more of a fight from her. This younger generation just doesn’t have the same grit. Not like during the Wizard Wars. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was at war with both Queen Nastinka and Malaclypse the Younger? My forces outnumbered, it was a desperate situation. Did I go running off to drown my sorrows in Dankendreer? I did not! I staged a raid on the queen’s field headquarters, got the drop on her, and forced her to change sides. Heh, not that she needed a lot of forcing. Ah, what a stinka she was! What times those were!”
Bray fidgeted, shuffling his hooves. “I need to, uh, go and check on the other stratodon patrols,” he said.
“Hm? Oh, yes… Carry on!” He watched Bray hurry away, then Grogar sat down for a few moments, lost in thought — or memories of his glory days. He sighed and muttered, “Sometimes I get tired of being so old.”
During the days that followed Grogar was not seen much around the castle. He spent much of his time in the dungeon, though what — if anything — he learned from the prisoner, he kept to himself. Whatever transpired in the dungeon, it did not please him, and his servants stepped lightly in his sour presence.
On the evening of the third day, just entering into twilight, a black bank of clouds appeared on the western horizon. In Tambelon lookouts rang the bells to signal a storm warning. Troggle soldiers and pony slaves hurried about, getting the stratodons secured in their stables, closing window shutters and taking down flags and lighting storm lanterns.
They were hard pressed for time as the storm front raced toward them like someone pulling a dark blanket over the sky. A gust of hot, dry wind whipped through the city streets, sending tumbleweeds and scraps of paper dancing and whirling about. In a heartbeat the wind reversed, and a blast of cold air picked up clouds of dust, stinging the eyes of those who were still scurrying for shelter. Two more such reversals followed, and a scattering of hailstones fell across the city. Of a most peculiar sort these were: the size and shape of button squash with a glossy outer skin of ice surrounding frothy white innards. Bashing on rooftops, they sounded a chaotic drumbeat.
After a minute the hail ceased. The wind died and an eerie calm settled over the city, but outside was utter darkness. Windows were like black holes looking out into a terrible void. Then, slowly, a deep rumble began to build. Some might have compared it with the sound of an avalanche. Some, if they had ever encountered such a thing, might have compared it with a diesel locomotive. Most had never heard anything like it, but they huddled together in fear as their homes, their shops and their barracks all began to vibrate and shudder.
Few of the survivors could ever adequately describe the chaos and destruction that unfolded next. The timber stockade surrounding the city peeled away in seconds. Wooden buildings were blown apart as though built from match sticks. Mighty trees were broken and uprooted. The wind stripped paving from the streets and turned thousands of cobblestones into lethal projectiles. Troggles and ponies were hurled through the air likewise. There was no safe place above ground.
The thick stone walls of Castle Tambelon, designed to withstand the pounding of siege engines, cracked, bowed inward and began to crumble.
Bray had been in the camp headquarters — the stone building near the barracks — when the tornado struck, and he lost consciousness when the building collapsed. When he came to his senses, he found himself laying on his back, bruised and cut, in a tangle of splintered timbers. The deep roar of the storm surrounded him, and yet the wind had gone almost calm. Unable to move, he looked upward to the sky and an unforgettable sight. He stared into an enormous, rotating tunnel of clouds, eerily illuminated by constant, flickering discharges of lightning. Among the swirling debris he thought he saw a black shape, a winged shape, high up in the clouds, darting through the lightning and zipping around and around the funnel wall. He could do nothing but stare in awe as the eye of the storm shifted above him — until the second wall of the funnel hit, and he was lost in darkness and chaos once again.
After the storm passed, battered survivors began to climb out of the ruins only to find themselves in an utterly unfamiliar landscape. Few structures remained in the city and few landmarks with which to orient themselves; streets were buried under debris or completely stripped away by the wind. Moans and cries for help rose up from the piles of rubble. The relatively uninjured began digging to rescue their friends and comrades, but they were hampered by darkness, as few lanterns remained un-smashed, and all the wood in the city was wet, making even crude torches difficult to light.
Around the castle the moat’s water was mostly gone, leaving it a muddy trench clogged with broken timbers, smashed carts and barrels and other debris. Of the river monster naught was seen. Castle Tambelon, at least, had not been razed to the ground, but it was a shambles with breached walls, fallen towers and no remaining roof.
Grogar emerged completely unharmed from the castle keep. He’d been in the dungeon, safely underground, behind the iron door (which he’d learned not to leave swinging open). He even had a working lantern. He made his way to the castle wall, stood on a pile of rubble in one of the breaches, and stared out into the destruction. In the light of his lantern and the scattered glows of other lanterns and improvised torches around the city he began to comprehend the scale of the disaster. After pondering for a few minutes he called out, “Bray! Bray, are you out there? Answer me!”
Bray didn’t answer.
Grogar grunted and cast a spell. A bell jangled, his horns glowed and his voice was amplified like a megaphone. He yelled out to the city around him: “TO ARMS! TO ARMS! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK. ALL SOLDIERS WHO CAN CARRY A WEAPON, RALLY AROUND THE CASTLE KEEP!”
How many troggles simply ignored his call, he never knew. Over the minutes that followed a few began to trickle in from the city, and more emerged from the castle itself — they having weathered the disaster better than those outside its walls. Some were battered, some were unarmed or carrying only crude clubs pulled from the storm debris, and all were more-or-less shell shocked, but Grogar once again had some troops to command.
Meanwhile, however, clouds were closing in. They roiled, fused together and descended upon the city. If conditions had been hard for the survivors before, a dense, cold fog only made their situation more dire. Even those who had lanterns or sputtering torches now could barely see more than arm’s length. Navigating through the fields of rubble became impossible. Only the area around the castle courtyard and keep remained clear, but it was surrounded by a dense fog bank. Grogar and his handful of troops were cut off from any further aid.
“WTF HAPPEN??/” one of the troggles demanded.
Grogar answered, “This is no accident. This is the work of those wretched winged ponies — or one very powerful winged pony.” Then he yelled upward at the clouds, “SHOW YOURSELF! I KNOW YOU’RE UP THERE!”
Grogar and his troops were silent, scanning the clouds with their eyes, the troggles clutching their weapons tightly, waiting for any response. Just when the troggles were starting to shuffle and mutter impatiently, a loud, feminine voice filtered down from the sky to echo among the ruins: “CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE FOG OF WAR!”
Grogar yelled back, “NIGHTMARE MOON!”
A compact, gloomy cloud pushed its way past the fog, surfing over the lighter fog bank. Then the black form of Nightmare Moon popped into view over the edge and peered down at the old ram. She lounged on the cloud, grinning maniacally, and she addressed him, “You call and Nightmare Moon comes — and sorrow with her, Grogar! Sorrow and endless night!”
Grogar glared back and retorted, “You lunatic! What are you doing? What do you think all this destruction changes? I still have my prisoner locked in my dungeon. My soldiers still stand beside me, and you still don’t dare cast a single spell against me. You’ve accomplished nothing!”
“Oh? Let’s see what Sparky has to say about that!”
Grogar blinked. “Sparky?”
In answer, Nightmare Moon reared and then stamped on the cloud, and lightning bolts exploded underneath it. In blind panic the troggles scattered and scrambled for any shelter they could find. Nightmare Moon nickered with glee. “Neeheehee!! It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this. I didn’t know how much I missed it.”
Then she yelled, “ONWARD, MY DARK STEED! BORN OF THUNDERS AND HURRICANES, TYPHOONS AND TEMPESTS! STAMP YOUR LIGHTNING HOOVES AND DESTROY THEM ALL!” Flapping slowly she propelled Sparky around the keep, sending down fusillades of lightning bolts. Again and again, lightning flared, and wet stones exploded where the bolts hit. After she’d made the full circuit, she stopped to assess the damage. The courtyard was littered with weapons dropped in panic. Fires burned where lanterns had been dropped, or where lightning had struck something inflammable. Several troggles, unlucky or simply not quick enough in reaching shelter, smoldered where they lay. Nothing moved.
Moonlight spilled down into the courtyard and softly illuminated the fog bank surrounding it. Satisfied with her work, Nightmare Moon hopped off Sparky and glided to the ground. She called out in a disingenuous sing-song, “Gro-gaaar! Where have you scurried off too, I wonder?” Not waiting for a reply, she strolled toward the castle keep and her true objective.
Perhaps she would have heard some warning if her ears weren’t numb from her own lightning barrage. Or perhaps not. As it happened, a magenta bolt of magic impacted at her feet, landing so close that she felt the stunning jolt up through her legs. She shrieked and reared reflexively, then dodged as a moonlight shadow flashed across her, and she caught a glimpse of wings much bigger than her own swooping overhead. She was under attack from above!
She leapt into the air at once and flapped madly toward her storm cloud. Another magic bolt sizzled and grazed her shoulder, the shock making her miss a wingbeat and nearly tumble — but with a strained grunt she recovered and managed to stay airborne. A third bolt missed just as she dove into the concealment of her cloud.
Stung and angry — to some extent at her own carelessness — Nightmare Moon pushed her way toward the top of the cloud, like climbing through a giant cotton ball. She was sure the tornado had utterly destroyed the stratodon stables, but she hadn’t considered a patrol returning to the city so soon after the storm. Those attacks in rapid succession… There had to be multiple stratodon riders trained to fly and attack in formation. They were good shots too, by troggle standards. It made sense that only their elite (or “L33T”, in troll speak) would become flyers.
She risked poking her head up out of the cloud. Three great flying reptiles, leathery wings stretched wide, soared and circled above. Nightmare ground her teeth. She didn’t dare cast any spell while Grogar was still on the loose nearby. To attack them without magic, though… She was a strong flyer, but they had both altitude and numbers on their side.
One of the riders spotted her, and the stratodon formation swooped into another attack run. Nightmare Moon immediately dove into the cloud and was concealed from view when the magic bolts came sizzling down through it.
A minute later she popped up again. This time the stratodon riders were onto her, and they spotted her and swooped to attack immediately. Curiously, she whistled out a loud, almost ear-splitting whistle before she ducked back into the cloud. Neither the stratodons or their riders were phased in the least by it, and three magic blasts again sizzled through the cloud very near the spot where she’d ducked out of sight.
A minute later she popped up yet again, and once more the stratodons banked and swooped down to attack. This time Nightmare Moon did not duck out of sight, though. She was staring straight at her attackers with a wicked grin. The lead troggle gritted his teeth and aimed his staff weapon, but just as he was about to fire he heard a scream from behind. Twisting in his saddle, he saw a stratodon had veered away from formation. Above was the silhouette of another winged shape with a squirming mass dangling below it — and the sound of panicked, uncontrolled giggling.
The rider pulled up from his attack run, trying to break away, but he could not escape. He caught a glimpse of another black shape in the instant before it slammed into him, then he was yanked off his mount. A strong, serpent-like tail coiled around his body, and nimble limbs with long fingers and toes grasped and tickled him mercilessly. In moments he was gasping for breath between bouts of giggling and trollish cursing.
From her perch upon Sparky, Nightmare Moon watched the riderless stratodons disperse. Her night-gaunts too were flying away, each clutching a helpless troggle, bearing them off to wherever night-gaunts took their victims.
Truly, it was better not to know.
Nightmare Moon returned her attention to the courtyard and made sure no troggles had emerged from hiding or taken up arms while she was harassed from above. It seemed, though, that all resistance had been broken, and she once again hopped down from her cloud and approached the castle keep.
Stepping over fallen troggles, picking her way through the debris from the storm, she made her way inside and through the halls to the dungeon. Daintily she stepped down the stone stairwell to the iron door: tightly shut and locked, this time.
She raised a silver-clad hoof and thumped on the door. She waved her horn in front of the door and could feel the enchantments guarding it. Then she cast a cantrip, the most minor of spells: Firefly Lights. The warm glow of swirling lights appeared but then sputtered and died an instant later. The magical energy swirled indecisively, then began funneling into the door’s keyhole. She narrowed her eyes at it and muttered, “Oh, he is most surely in there.”
She turned around, facing away from the door, then grunted as she bucked with the full force of both her hind legs. Her silver sabotons slammed the iron door with such force that the hinges shattered and the slab of iron was buckled almost in half and catapulted into the dungeon darkness.
She turned around to peer into the doorway. A lantern light glowed somewhere deep within. She leaned forward and called into the dungeon, “So, here we are again, Grogar! It would have been better if you’d let me have what I wanted when I came here before.”
From his place of concealment Grogar’s gravelly voice echoed back, “You’ll fare no better this time.”
“I beg to differ. Your army is routed. It’s just you and me now, and I have no reason to leave without my prize.”
He retorted, “You fool! You can’t bring a storm cloud into this tunnel. If you come in after me, you’ll still face a magical duel that you can’t win. And I have your prize, to do with as I will. I can kill her in a heartbeat!”
Nightmare chuckled softly. “I do not think you will. If I cannot claim her, then all my plans are for naught — and I will be forced to find other pastimes to occupy my nights. I think that you, Grogar, would then become the subject of my new hobby.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in, then she added, “It does not have to be that way. Give me what I want, and I will take my leave. Then you can lick your wounds and begin rebuilding your city. Accept this offer, Grogar! It’s the best you can hope for.”
She waited for an answer. The moments of silence were marked only by dripping of water through the ruins and the crackle of fires above. At last the answer came, and Grogar’s voice had never sounded older or more tired: “So be it, you demented nag. I surrender.”
“Bring out your prisoner!” she demanded.
“Patience! She can’t stand; I’ll have to carry her.”
She waited, hearing the sound of keys clattering and a gate swinging open. Then the red glow of Grogar’s magic became visible. His ram horns were surrounded by aura, as was the black mass that floated in front of him. Despite herself, Nightmare Moon gasped and winced when she caught a look at it. This was not missed by Grogar, who sneered in dark amusement at her discomfort. Then he suggested, “I’ll take her out to the courtyard for you.”
“By all means,” she allowed, and waved him forward with a black wing. She followed, keeping a close eye on him.
They went through the keep and out into the moonlight, and Grogar laid the nemesis on the ground, where it moaned and shifted a little. Nightmare Moon’s face was stone as her eyes scanned the other alicorn, evaluating its varied and gruesome injuries. Coldly she spoke: “The hospitality you show your guests leaves much to be desired, Grogar.”
“Ah well, she was a stubborn one,” he commented casually. “Uncooperative, you know. That was her decision, not mine.”
“I cannot heal her here, not in your presence. If you would place her upon my back, I’ll carry her away and trouble you no more.”
Grogar nodded, and one of the bells on his collar jangled. His horns lit up with magic again. Nightmare Moon’s magical sense warned her a moment too late that the spell he was casting wasn’t levitation. She’d barely begun to move when a heavy iron cage slammed down over her. “NO!” she cried out while Grogar burst into gales of laughter.
Nightmare butted the bars of the cage with her helmet, then ranted, “TREACHEROUS SWINE! BACKBITER!” Grogar only laughed harder.
She glared at him until his mirth subsided. Then he addressed her, “Princess, you’re far too trusting. Now you and your comrade here will provide me with the magical power to rebuild my city, which you’ve so senselessly ruined.”
“You’ll rue this, Grogar,” she growled back at him.
Smiling broadly, he walked up to her cage, the better to gloat. “Your threats mean nothing. Ah, the irony! Your fatal flaw, Nightmare Moon, is that you’re too good.”
She backed away from the bars. “Am I?”
He reared up on his hind legs to lift his face up closer to Nightmare Moon’s level, resting his front hooves on a cross-bar. “Oh, yes! I know your kind well. Beneath your armor, inside that black hide, behind those dragon eyes, past all the bluster and threats, there still beats the soft heart of a cute little pony: idealistic, weak and naive. A little pony who wants to do the right thing. A little pony who wants to be loved. Those ridiculous sentiments will always place you under the hoof of someone like me.”
At that moment she lowered her head and lunged. Grogar jumped back, but it was not enough to save him. So great was the force of her leap that her helmeted head bent the bars of the cage two full hoof widths, and the tip of her long, slender horn came to rest in his black, withered heart.
For a moment that seemed frozen in time, he hung impaled upon the horn, eyes wide, unbelieving. He gasped one word: “How…?” Then he slumped and slid backward off her horn and collapsed. Blood gushed onto the muddy ground.
Nightmare Moon raised her head, the gore-slicked tip of her horn held high. She looked down at Grogar, whose life was already fading from his eyes, and she answered, “I guess I’m just that good.” A midnight blue aura flared to life around her horn, burning away the blood. The aura spread to the iron cage and peeled it away from her, wadded it up like a scrap of paper and tossed it aside.
She turned away from Grogar, sparing him no further thought. She moved to the other black alicorn, her nemesis, and lowered her horn to it. The midnight blue aura surrounded it with healing force. The bruises… cuts… burns… broken bones… these were mended in a matter of seconds.
The missing body parts took longer to regenerate.