Upon the cold and misty moor
A sea of clansteed blood did pour
The banners from our chequy gowns
Crossed starkly over Canter’s Crowns
Below the grey and joyless skies
Our bonnie Prince with twinkling eyes
Did lead the clans from down the heath
And drew his claymore out his sheath
That hung upon his haunch

Before him stood the Royal Guard
Their might the prince did disregard
A Lioness came forth and roared
And so they came with spear and sword
The legions of the Sun’s Princess
Did conquer, slaughter and supress
From Estangar to Fimmur Isle
No true clansteed would dare to smile
At what befell DeStaunch
~Galdrish Poem by Halberd Forhoot, Galdrish War Poet and Regionalist Advocate

The Battle of DeStaunch Moor is one of the most widely-documented instances of the Third Age of Magic in the wake of the Civil War. It is also one of the bloodies chapters of Equestrian history and a red mark on the Royal Guard records.
It occurred thirty-two years after the end of the Equestrian Civil War when Princess Celestia was catatonic after the banishment of her sister and the deaths of so many who argued for and against it. She had locked herself in her palace and would not take any part in the affairs of the realm for fear of causing further chaos.
After many years of ineffective and incompetent provisional government, manipulated and warped by corrupt entrepreneurs, independent military powers and even cult leaders, a mare among the Royal Guard gained power in Canterlot and began a vigorous reacquisition of Royal Equestria’s authority over the nobility, gentry, peasantry and all others under their domain.
Her name was Dandy Lion. Throughout her unofficial ‘reign’, she only possessed the title of Captain-General of the Royal Guard but all in Canterlot knew she held true power unless the Princess deemed otherwise.
And Dandy Lion was not the Princess, though her loyalty to her and the realm was absolute.
She was not a Celestine fundamentalist who believed that the Princess’s word was law and those that defied it were to be destroyed.
She was, however, a pony who believed that the peace and unity of a war-torn Equestria, from which a new age of harmony and discovery could surface, was worth any cost, and Celestia was a figurehead ponies would be glad to support to the end.
To her, the ends justified the means and she ruled through force of arms, driving out the other influencers of the provisional government and often eradicating them outright.
At first, this received wholehearted support from all of Equestria as she hunted down greedy plutocrats and crime lords, deranged factionalists and any others profiting and prospering off the lasting ravages of civil conflict and the desperation of the common pony.
But as Dandy Lion expanded outwards, her enemies grew in number and her methods by which she dealt with them grew in death toll. One of the most famous of which is the Battle of DeStaunch Moor, near Estangar, Northern Galderland.
For there are few battles in Equestrian history where everything went quite so wrong for one side and was quite so capitalised by the other.

Galderland was an old unicorn kingdom and its denizens, the Galdrish, liked to claim the eldest. Though they had sworn fealty to Princess Platinum and her realm, the rise of the alicorns and their influence had largely escaped them. Many were staunch traditionalists, followers of the oldest unicorn religion of Thaubism which treated spells as sacred rituals only to be cast with permission and blessing from clerics and not a mundane utility. To this end, they acted more like an Earth Pony domain than unicorn. Over time, of course Equestria’s influences had spread and the southern part of Galderland, known as the Galdrish Riverland, had opened their doors to Equestrian culture, trade, commerce, religion and customs, building cities over their towns and practicing magic in commonplace. But to the north, in the Galdrish Moorlands, the old ways were still held true and guarded sternly. The Moorland horses recognised no official ruler and built no cities, instead functioning as clans in charge of stone castles with varying levels of authority depending on how many served under them and how far they could extend their reach.
And when a clan chief went to war, he brought all his family and they brought all their supporters who in turn would bring their supporters down to the lowliest. A clansteed was never too old or too young to take to battle. The system was patriarchal and no mare was permitted on the field of battle until after the fighting had ceased. Blood feuds were common and had no limit to how petty the cause or how serious the escalation.
Yet they were united in one aspect; the contempt for the Riverland pony and the hatred of the Equestrian crown.
They had never bent the knee beside Galderland’s monarch, Princess Bismuth and her Callune Circle, before Princess Platinum. They were never even consulted, a slight that pricked them across every generation. Any attempt for Equestria to openly command or control them would be treated by every clan with pride as nothing less than a declaration of war.
This was the clan system, ancient and unbending.
And this system, Dandy Lion had decided, was a threat to Equestrian peace.

She did not act upon her suspicions until a stallion gave her cause to do so.
This stallion went by the name of Prince Gildebairn Alcaline Selkie.
He claimed to be a scion of the line of King Pewter (Father of Queen Lye), and thus the rightful heir to the throne of Galderland which he declared no longer under the chattel of the alicorn crown of Canterlot.
Gildebairn’s lineage is difficult to properly determine. His father was Archduke Lithio of Cryne-Minor, a noble with a fine history but not a lot of actual power and money while his mother was Hydrochloria Selkie, mare of a once-great Moorland clan who had gone into voluntary exile in the last few years of Laurelore’s reign for unknown reasons, their history long burnt.
It is possible he was related to King Pewter and Queen Lye. Just how he was related and how legitimate is unknown but he carried the trademark twinkling eyes, chalk-white coat, red-and-blue streaked mane and confident stride that was said to have marked the Galdrish Kings of old and which Queen Lye had possessed but Bismuth had not. This made Galdrish regionalists very eager to scratch the long-dead Bismuth’s name off the royal family tree and chart down Gildebairn in her place.
He was an eloquent speaker and made many influential friends. He took out loans from every bank in Cryne and neighbouring Calcary and travelled to Galderland to marshal an army with which he could carve out Galdrish independence and afterward conquer the north of Equestria and whatever he would extend his hoof over afterward.
Moorland horses loved the idea of fighting Equestria in itself and conquering it was an ambition few could resist. Soon, whole towns lent him their swords, namely the twin cities of Estangar and Astandar, sentinels of the moorland borders. The prince used Estangar as an HQ and Astandar as a supply depot and from there, spread out until he had a kingdom to call his own.
While the Civil War dragged out a sorry conclusion, Prince Gildebairn took advantage of the lawless times to harry the Riverlands and disrupt Equestrian trade, gathering the strength of more and more clans along the way until he struck directly at Equestrian Royal Guardposts and even besieged Fort Galvan, the centre-point for Equestrian governance in northern Galderland. He took it over, driving out the Equestrian Grand Commander Thisby, but he found he could not hold it if the Royal Guard were to pitch a siege and soon, he heard talk of the Lioness of Canterlot, having purged the enemies of the crown in the mainland and striding north to put an end to the Galdrish pretender.
So it was that he abandoned the castle and agreed to meet the Royal Guard assembly in pitched battle.
Both factions called their banners and the Prince of Gildebairn would see his cause, and all those who fought for it, put to the test.

So came the clans from Estangar and Astandar, from Fangos and Fossar and the Breakstone Isles; Thaubist zealots and acolytes of their branches among the schools of Shuddity and Tiverity, and among the other southern faiths of Mirianism, Agneism, Monilism and Megaphobia; the noble fathers, brothers, sons and grandsons of the Forwarns and the Fordwines; the Andlangs and the Argles; the Coalmouses and the Cheens; the Crumples, the Scathes, the Bossies and the Wolderthreshes; the Forleses, the Kleiders, the Lastfarthings and the Lingerlongs. Steeds of fourteen major moorland clans fighting and fearing for their sovereignty and unique way of life that had remained unchanged since before the unicorns were casting spells.
A force of seven-thousand moorlanders were called to stand under the Prince’s banner their on the moors.
It was indeed a mighty host and one that had, in fraction, already defeated Grand Commander Thisby’s Royal Guard divisions three times in a row.
What let it down here, at all times and in all places, was its leadership.

Prince Gildebairn, though by birth, a Galdrish-Steed, had been raised on the island of Cryne as a prince and was a firm believer in the divine right of kings. While his ponies were willing to fight to the death under him, obeying his orders was another matter and he did not take well to the clans doing as they pleased between the battles he set out for them and the clans in turn resented this dressed-up royal who appeared to them much more like a hated Equestrian than a beloved stallion of Galderland.
In the last two battles, both of them victories for the prince, the clans had dispersed and departed home once the royal guard retreated and did not stay for the prince’s post-victory speeches and announcements. Gildebairn had decided that the clans would have to be placed under the immediate leadership of his close attendants and gave them leave to order and command their divisions of the army as they saw fit and punish any dissenter with corporal punishment.
The five stallions in charge had been with the prince since the beginning;
Sir Drooper Saxifrage, the military secretary, around seventy years old, suffering advanced debility and loss of memory and had not seen a military engagement in fifty-six years.
Sir Gomeral Forwarn, the commander of the chargers, obese, aged, frequently intoxicated and described as a stallion of the most limited capacities.
Sir Shankforth Gully-Whumper, the quartermaster-general, described as a throwback Calcarian martinet whose vanity was superseded only by his lack of wisdom.
Castanilius and Gentilius Crumple, commanding the troops in the centre and left flank, brothers from the noble shire of Amassar, though sons of the mighty moorland clan of Crumple, both their mother and respective wives were foreigners from Calcary and Cryne, and they were therefore treated with suspicion and derision by the true-blooded Galdrish
And leading them, Prince Gildebairn Alcaline Selkie, the pretender to the throne of independent Galderland and commander-in-chief of the Alcaline movement. His last military experience was ten days attendance at a siege in Susitania at the age of thirteen.

Of these four, Sir Shankforth Gully-Whumper receives the most blame for how things went wrong behind the Alcaline lines.
For a long while, he had served as the Prince’s chief military advisor and was not happy to be stuck running baggage trains and ammunition caches. Arrogantly, he dismissed these tasks to his subordinate officers who already had their own commands and tasks, slowing down the supply process significantly.
One pony among them is believed to have possessed the credentials and insight to lead the army to victory but unfortunately not enough to lead the prince himself.
Lord Gedwimmer of Fimmur, who commanded the right flank of the Alcaline troops, was not someone who had served the Prince in person long and was already a Galdrish partisan leader long before Prince Gildebairn landed back in the Galderlands. He was also a stallion who was firmly against monarchism and he was open in his wish to not replace Celestia’s inefficient rule with that of another young royal putting on airs. Gedwimmer and the Prince did not get along and his place as a General was disputed by the Prince’s inner circle. He had overseen two of the previous battles and reduced Grand Commander Thisby’s Royal Guard to a panic-stricken rout twice in succession. But here, his bluntness and uncompromising attitude clashed too far with both the prince and the clan chiefs and left the army confused as to who to obey.
Prince Gildebairn had also bought ponies of Cryne and nearby Calcary to serve in elite picquets of spell-caster infantry, his own private guard of elegant lancers and magic tridents, blessed before battle by Ovine priests. These also were not popular with the Thaubist zealots and Galdrish regionalists and the two forces refused to work together. Many of these irregulars were depended on to direct the movement of the artillery but, as tension rose more and more among the ranks and the Prince fell out with his fellow commanders, they were called to serve as interpreters, messengers and heralds, and kept closer and closer to the Prince who feared for his safety among the harsh, brutish clansteeds.
Needless to say, the Prince’s own open overconfidence was certainly the death knell to the Alcaline movement. All of his previous victories had struck at hilly or mountainous areas where the moorland horses were best suited and the Royal Guard were not.
Here, at what was to be his most important battle yet, he chose to combat Dandy Lion’s oncoming march at the end of DeStaunch Moor, five miles southeast of the highland castle of Estangar in northern Galderland.
DeStaunch Moor was flat, treeless, devoid of shelter and ideal for the employment of the Equestrian artillery, armoured charges and pegasus swarming. The one obstacle was a short walled enclosure between the lines facing out towards the Alcaline force which Gedwimmer advised pulled down to avoid the Royal Guard using this point as a safe spot for their firing lines but Gully-Whumper ignored this idea entirely.
The commonly-held belief was that Prince Gildebairn and Gully-Whumper were determined to make a show of force and glorious victory to unite the bickering factions in the Alcaline assembly. This, unfortunately for them, would end in precisely the opposite.

Gedwimmer, however, was also not blameless in the sad state of affairs. The day before he had recommended a night-raid on Dandy Lion’s camp, that he had confirmed was pitched before the forests three miles south of the moor and were apparently celebrating the birthday of one of her officers, Major-General Cockshaw, with alcohol. He saw this as an ideal opportunity to strike and ensure the enemy that would meet them on the moors would be a scarred one.
Communications went sour as Gedwimmer’s brusque attitude and demands to the equally prickly clan leaders ended in argument. He would also send messengers to the prince and his retinue who would tell those messengers to ask Gedwimmer why he was not speaking to them himself, ending in more confusion, wasted time and rising tempers. Gedwimmer was also suspicious that the roads would be blocked by Equestrian sentries and attempted to navigate the moors off-track but heavy rain and thunder made this impossible as it was too wet to trek, too dark and misty to see and too loud to hear anypony else’s order. Confounded, Gedwimmer ordered the raid to pull back to the field but had to waste time getting his orders out to the other raid leaders and, as it turned out, Gully-Whumper himself who had assembled his own raiding party and caught up with them on the moor, narrowly avoiding killing each other in the darkness and arguing violently over what to do now.
So it was that eight-tenths of the Alcaline army had spent the entire night awake and were exhausted in the cold, rainy afternoon on the grey-skied moor. Many of the clan chiefs and commanders reported that sizable fractions of their forces were missing, leaving the battlefield to sleep. In total, only around five-thousand of the seven-thousand promised clansteeds had attended the battle as arranged.
One officer that had gotten lost in the failed raid and had not returned was the unnamed officer in charge of the supplies Gully-Whumper was meant to have been overseeing, Gully-Whumper himself having given Sir Drooper Saxifrage the role and Saxifrage depositing the duty on somepony else who he had now forgotten the name of entirely. As a result, most of the ammunition for their Tunnabrick Cannons were the wrong sizes of cannonball and their great Vavuum Cannon which the Prince had bought for a sizable amount from Susitania had no ammunition at all or even proper firing tools. Their artillery was next to useless and their placement on the wet incline left of the Prince made trajectory unstable. Many of their weapons had also not arrived and the clans were forced to improvise with antiquated swords and shields and even household tools.
Worse still, Gully-Whumper had met with a Stirropean merchant at the harbour at Sprat not far from Estangar and sold everything in one of his stockhouses for the Vavuum Cannon and commissioning the fine Alcaline silk banners. But he misread the documents and instead of selling treasures and plunder from the previous victories, he had sold almost the entirety of the army provisions, meaning a large portion of the Alcaline Army, likely no less than sixty-percent, had gone for more than half-a-week without any proper food.
The Alcaline Army, originally intended to depict a magnificent portrait of Galdrish spirit and proud defiance against Equestria’s Princess, was a shambling mass of fatigued, half-starved misfits unwilling to work with each other and certain to break ranks and surge one way or the other the minute things turned awry.

At the eleventh hour, Dandy Lion’s army arrived, having left Thisby’s guard behind the battle lines spread far along the border and now marching with a fresh force of eight-thousand Royal Guard under twenty battalions, four of which were themselves Galdrish; Guard from the northern prairies and creeks around Vanhoover and volunteer regiments from Starlingar, Loftsburg, Daningram and Ansolabehere, ponies, cattle, deer and goats-at-arms. Several younger, smaller moorland clans, reformist and cooperative with Equestria and hated and scorned by the older clans for it, also joined Dandy Lions armies. Clans such as the Fronds and the Guyles, the Buffs and the Blackrobins, the Hispids, the Gurnards, the Comfreys and the Pegs. The Moorland Loyalist Battalion was led by Duke Dirklynn Blackrobin of High Ruddock, a keen and taciturn lord whose forefathers had warred bitterly with the Forwarns since the time either was formed. He knew that if Gildebairn carved out a kingdom of his own in Galderland, his princess-loyal clan would be stripped of all authority and his enemies among the Forwarns would be allowed to do as they pleased to the Blackrobins for as long as either lasted. His own wife had been kidnapped, raped and murdered in a Forwarn raid by the son of Sir Gomeral. Sir Gomeral in turn was looking to avenge his son who’d been hunted down and tortured to death by the Duke and his brothers-in-law among the Guyle clan. To them, whoever called themselves rulers of Galderland was irrelevant, Prince Gildebairn’s war was a clan war, a civil war, and ironically the young stallion calling himself the True King of Galderland had more Galdrish in arms against him than for him.
Even more ironically, according to memoirs of his retinue, the Prince truly believed the ponies of mainland Equestria would not fight him in the first place. He was vehement in his theory that Celestia was regarded as an abomination and a usurper both in mainland Equestria and on the borders in Galderland and that Canterlot would welcome him once Galderland was free. He believed Thaub, the oldest and boldest of the old unicorn deities was on his side and that no matter what advantage the Royal Guard of Equestria appeared to possess, they would break and panic at his might.

At DeStaunch, come the twelfth hour, he was proven dreadfully wrong.
As Dandy Lion arrived, bedecked in simple but effective armour of cobalt-steel alloy, boiled sap-leather and a cloak of the Royal Equestrian colours trimmed with autumn-red plume, passed by, helmless, to inspect the troop formation and artillery. At the sight of her, the Prince called suddenly for his own artillery to fire.
With the Crynish engineers away, the untrained Moorlander sappers panicked at the Prince’s shouts and cross-communications and fired out of range and over-elevated, doing nothing more than churning up the ground several feet before the Royal Guard lines.
At this, Dandy Lion gave an unimpressed glare and calmly ordered the Equestrian artillery batteries to open fire.
Ten Tunnabrik Three-Pounder Canister-Shot Cannons and six Dropsy Lightweight Mortars, operated by engineers trained diligently by the Vanhoover College of Military Engineering, let fly with the brunt of their firepower straight into the packed clansteed formations which Gully-Whumper had placed tightly across the moor.
The casualties the Alcalines suffered weren’t high but the damage to morale was far more costly. For a good half-hour, the Equestrian cannons bombarded the left and centre of the Alcaline forces. General Gedwimmer shouted for aid over the din, demanding that the Prince give orders damn soon but the Prince on the hill was shocked at the sight of his first real proximal battle and completely unable to make any decision. After thirty shots of cannon and mortar and two-hundred and eighty Alcalines blasted to pieces, the artillery fire subsided. The Alcaline cannons had not even reached the Equestrian side of the moors while the Equestrian cannons had sprayed the second line of the clansteeds in the crimson goo that was once the first line.
At the thirteenth hour, the Prince still had not advanced. He hoped by standing still, he could draw the Equestrians forward to lure them into the artillery lines but when told his cannons already had no means to even fire properly, he ordered an advance.
Yet even this simple, long-awaited order ended in failure. He sent his most trusted messengers, friends from Calcary who happened to know less than a dozen words of Galdrish between them and so could not communicate to the clan chiefs without interpreters. Clan chiefs whose interpreters were present were still left befuddled as, by unfortunate coincidence, Old Calcarian tongue has no official word for cardinal directions (Forward, Backwards, Left and Right replaced by White, Black, Slate and Marble respectively) and traditionally do not acknowledge compass points, preferring only to use the direction of the sun which was out of sight on that foggy, rainy day, and national dialect (West, for instance translated to ‘Where King Irontongue Trod’, and north translated to ‘Where So Few Ships Sail’, obviously incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with this custom as the Galdrish were.) Taking matters into their own hands, several clans in the centre division under Master-Colonel Castanilius Crumple surged forward. This also did not escape disarray. Lord Gentilius Crumple commanded the left flank which was made up of the Forwarn clan, the largest clan in Estangar, who for a hundred generations had always led the charge in battles against the Equestrian crown. Seeing another advance in their place spurred them into charging ahead of their cue and confusing the centre even more who drew back a moment and some Forwarn clansteeds even fought with them mid-charge. The Forwarns were stubborn and proud and the lesser clans were not capable of stealing from them the glory of first-blood.
The Equestrian Royal Guard, on the other hoof, most certainly were.
There was another matter the Alcalines had not yet considered; their own cannons were empty but the Equestrian cannons were not.

Dandy Lion’s forces bombarded the Alcaline troops both left and centre throughout their five-hundred-yard trek through wet, muddy grass. Hundreds died in droves, among them many commanding officers and clan leaders whose deaths would cause their clansteeds to either panic and flee or go mad with grief and charge blindly forward, mostly the former.
The Forwarns never made it to the left flank before they broke and fled and the centre soon followed. To the right flank, however, General Gedwimmer managed to be heard and ordered a steady trek over more solid ground still smoking from the artillery and to charge once the Royal Guard lines were in clear sight. They still suffered greatly from the artillery but the smoke and churned-up earth masked their movements enough for them to reach the Equestrian lines.
Here was where the fighting was fiercest. The Royal Guard opened fire with their bows, then their crossbows, then their tridents fired beams of magic that burnt and seared and left along the ground streaks of embers or electricity. But the division under General Gedwimmer; the Fimmur Brigade, Clan Scathe and the Argles of Astandar smashed against the shield wall. Spears, swords, pikes and pitchforks cut and thrust wildly. At the sight of battle met at last, Prince Gildebairn sought to press the advantage and sent his reserve under his uncle, Pagophilius Selkie, to reinforce and make use of the fact that the Equestrian cannons couldn’t fire beyond the thick fighting.
Pagophilius advanced, hoping to come to the aid of his own son, Faltar Silke, who was with the right flank in their advance and was apparently undergoing a panic attack a foot away from the clash.
And here, Dandy Lion played her trump card.

The Galderland Loyalist battalions had been placed in the enclosure not far from the battle, behind a narrow stone wall, which Sir Stackforth Gully-Whumper had not seen fit to pull down or watch.
As the reserve charged, the Advance Guard under General O’Hwayne, a mighty Shirish veteran known as ‘The Green Giant’, led his advance guard to fire over the walls and the melee fighters counter-attack the surge on the left-side of the Equestrian armies from the rear.
Exactly what Gully-Whumper said would never happen.
In the confusion, O’Hwayne ordered the Galderland Loyalists to give battle-cries of the enemy clans which confused the enemy, believing their own reinforcements were there to kill them while the clansteeds loyal to the Equestrian Royal Guard wore bands of blue and pink around their upper-legs to determine friend from foe at close-range. The crossbows and tridents from behind the wall, meanwhile fired on the actual Alcaline Reserve coming up from behind. Madness reigned on the moor as Pagophilius and Faltar Silke fled in a panic, Chief Tippsekeye Scathe was wounded and carried off the battlefield and Commander Begargle Argle was captured.

As a last resort, Prince Gildebairn gave the order for his charge to set forth against the Equestrian centre and make an attempt to slay Dandy Lion herself. To his horror, he was told that Sir Gomeral Forwarn had abandoned his own command to join his clan in the left flank and had been routed and retreated. Out of options, he sent forth his Crynish Brigade in their place, placing the Lord-Colonel Deustus Magaloss in command of the leaderless charge. Unfortunately, again, he could not speak Galdrish and the charge only half-heartedly followed him vaguely obeying his cries and gesticulations. What was more, the Crynish were heavily and intricately armoured and so could not effectively charge forward and so the reserve had no organisation in its march. The Equestrian artillery fired several rounds before Dandy Lion called the order for her own charge to meet them head on. Waves of pegasus and a battalion of ferocious Wilderbeasts under Grand-Commandant Husk, one of Dandy Lion’s most loyal and fearsome attendants, fell upon the Alcaline charge. The Crynean Brigade were shocked to near-consciousness with lightning blasts and then held down and smashed to pieces by the Wilderbeasts. At the sight of the vicious cross-breeds going through these heavily-armoured elite troops, the remnants of the Alcaline charge broke and fled.
Here at last, the Alcaline army knew their prince was beaten and General Gedwimmer ordered a total withdrawal, joined by the Crumple Brothers and . Some regiments retreated in good order while others were scattered in shapeless droves. Prince Gildebairn staggered around and begged his troops to stand by him and keep fighting but to no avail. His pleas fell on deaf ears and the dreams and ambitions of their one true king now meant less to the moorland clans than that of the Princess and Royal Council in Canterlot so many miles away.
At the fourteenth hour, he was led away from the battle in a haggard stupor by Sir Drooper Saxifrage and Sir Stackforth Gully-Whumper, the two ponies most responsible for his defeat. As he took off, a clan chief was heard to yell ‘Run! You run! You cowardly Crynish bastard!”
The Alcaline forces separated on the road into their regional groups and made prime target for Royal Guard fliers and sky-chariots as well as aerial artillery that blasted away at them all through their retreat. They were ordered to give no quarter and none was given. From that point on, every pony who had fled from DeStaunch was a wanted pony, dead or alive.
Thus in one hour and ten minutes, the power and the glory of the Galdrish Moorland Clans, that for a thousand years had struck terror into the hearts of the unicorn kingdoms and Celestia’s northern viceroys, was reduced to piles upon piles of twitching, broken corpses.

The Alcaline casualties of this most hellish battle are estimated up to three-thousand of their five-thousand strong army. It is likely that a good percentage, perhaps as much as one-thousand, were killed in the retreat. Grand Chief Virdan Forwarn of Pulth, leader of the largest of the clans of Estangar, was lanced through the chest by his enemies in the Blackrobin clan, possibly by Duke Dirklynn himself, and died in his illegitimate son’s forehooves. His brother and nephew also died there at DeStaunch while another brother died of wounds on the road. Chief Dwine Fordwine of Castle Dwine was blown apart by a Tunnabrik Shot while charging forward. Lord Eficax Crumple was knocked down in his charge and run through by Lieutenant-Colonel Bambusius Buff the Bluff. And Lieutenant-Colonel Boscaccio of the Crynish Picquets took multiple gaping wounds holding the line (It’s mentioned that one of the Wilderbeasts took a great bite out of the side of his neck) and was carried off the battlefield to die on the road some time later.
Dandy Lion’s official listings which she was meticulous with throughout her career, list the prisoners-of-war to include around two-hundred-and-fifty Alcanines and another one-hundred-and-twenty ponies from foreign units. Adding to this were a hundred and fifty Alcalines under Earl Croakhammer of Gewgaw after a brief engagement at Sprat where Loyalist Galders, led by Lord Yackertie and Ensign ‘Comfy’ Cardamine, ambushed the Earl who was on his way to inform Prince Gildebairn that he’d procured him and his escort a ship to safety. It was there Lord Lastfarthing was also captured, hoping to inform the prince of the ambush itself. Lord Sharlie ‘The Deranged’ Cheen and Lord-Justice Cromorne were also captured.
In striking contrast to the Alcaline losses, the Equestrian Royal Guard losses were reported as no more than fifty-one killed in action and around three-hundred wounded, seventy-four dying of their wounds, including three killed by a malfunctioning Tunnabrik Cannon that was repaired before the end of the battle. The only high-ranking Royal Guard officer killed was Sir Conical Frond, serving as a Captain of Elite Skirmishers in Grazeley’s 4^th Regiment of Hoof, the regiment who had suffered the most losses with seventeen killed in action. Lieutenant-Colonel Grazeley himself lost a forehoof, nearly lost a left-foreleg and was nearly blinded after taking four strikes to the face with a sword. Sir Conical Frond had apparently leapt forward to save Grazeley’s life and struck down multiple clansteeds before being hewn from under the shoulder to below his ribs by a moorland broadsword. As Grazeley cradled him, he heard his last breaths come right as the Alcalines retreated in full, dying at last knowing that Dandy Lion’s army had prevailed. A number of others officers were also wounded but none are confirmed to have died.

At the sight of the Prince’s retreat, Dandy Lion ordered Major-General Pigling-Bland to call for a general ceasefire.
The Royal Guard reassembled before their field of victory as the smoke cleared. As the regiments of hoof under Lieutenant-Colonel Grazeley and Colonel Erised had suffered the most casualties, they were ordered to halt as Major Senecio’s Northern Fusiliers mustered behind them, brought their dead or wounded behind enemy lines and speared any downed clansteed lingering on the field wounded, dazed or unconscious. Afterward, the Second Line marched over the battlefield and dealt finishing blows to any enemy that remained alive, if only barely, on the moor while pegasi scoured the field for their fallen brothers and sisters-in-arms. At last, Major-General Cockshaw’s wife, a powerful mage by the name of LaSapphorie, cast a far-reaching wave of life-drain that finished any remaining.
On the field of DeStaunch, for every one corpse among the Royal Guard, there were at least twenty-four corpses among the Alcaline force. Few was a guard among the front line who had not killed a clansteed. In fact, every guard and officer among Grazeley’s 4^thRegiment of Hoof had killed at least three each.
As silence reigned on the battlefield, the Royal Guard shouldered their lances, sheathed their blades, rested their shields and gave three cheers for Dandy Lion as she cantered across their lines with a proud smile.
She then took her flask of mountain-water and ordered those present to draw their flasks and commemorate the field with a sluice from their flasks in thanks to Celestia and in memory of their fallen comrades. Those wounded were given sedatives and then treated by the medics in reserve, their friends in their regiments wishing them well or saying goodbye to those who did not expect to survive. Each wounded was told that they had won, in no small part thanks to their efforts. The Royal Guard were permitted to disperse and they rested on the battlefield, dressed any light injuries of theirs, gathered their breath and thanked Laurelore for their survival and triumph.
Thus in one hour and eight-minutes did the Battle of DeStaunch end as swiftly and bloodily as a lance through the heart of Estangar’s child.
From the other side of the moor, Prince Gildebairn’s advisors urged their leader’s instructions for reassembly but all he could do was beg to be taken away from the battlefield and put on a boat to safety, shell-shocked and certain that his enemies were all around him.

At the second-and-half hour, as the clouds broke, the winds died down and the sun shone, the Royal Guard was ordered at last take off their armour. They set up makeshift tables from leftover tenting-equipment, propped their furrowed, march-worn hooves on their bedclothes or submerged them in bowls of warm-water and herbs and ate lunch together. All memoirs of the occasion state that in three months no guard had eaten quite so well.
The Canterlot historian, Dr Buckleberry Brandywine, who witnessed the event, wrote...
“It was quite a feast, I could see that clearly. The regiments who had suffered no casualties volunteered to honour their battle-scared comrades by setting the table and bringing out the provisions. Dandy Lion turned out the larders and showed just what she’d been gathering from the surrendered towns and villages on the road. There, the Royal Guard, who last year had been forced to sate their hunger on straw soaked in grease in the Canterlot Guardhouses, dined here on the moors on rolled bread and green salads of lettuce and cucumbers, on onions and tomatoes, on yellow and white cheeses, eggs and mushrooms, carrots and radishes, pickles and beans, hot fish stew and shrimp and crab patés, on apples and plums, grapes and cherries, fruit cake and spiced biscuits, honeycomb and cream, and even four little bonbons in a paper bag tied up with yellow ribbon; each guard given a pink, teal, yellow and white sweet of fondant sugar-crème, denoting the colours of the Equestrian flag. There was plenty of spring-water and fruit juice to go around and barrels of cider and beer and rum and brandy and tobacco for pipes any of them smoked. As Dandy Lion addressed them, they were given three different kinds of beverage. When she arrived, they toasted her coming with sparkling Jovianne, a dark-purple wine that commemorates a victory over a hated foe, served in a circular glass. When she ordered a moment of remembrance for the fallen and read out posthumous titles, rewards and compensations for their families, they were given a tall cup of Mimorna, a strange East-Stirropean liquor of dates and currants, thick and dark, strong but fine, the kind that eases digestion and settles the mind, heart and bowels. At last, when she brought forth thanks from Canterlot and read out a list of those richly rewarded and exonerated for their efforts, they raised a cheer with a large tankard of Funtle Foon, a frothy, malty cider of pears and peaches mixed with thick cream, honey and spices that leaves foam all over your top-lip.
They must have thought they were living like kings, perhaps they were indeed. They laughed and jested and sang and danced. They invited me to join them once, twice and thrice.
But I could not. I could not take a bite there at that fine table while lying not-a-mile from them were two-thousand corpses they’d scattered across the moor. I could not fathom how any of these ponies had any appetite to spare knowing what they’d seen, what they’d done. Perhaps they were used to it, aye, but I scarce imagine ponies of any sort having that hard a heart and hard a stomach.”
Dandy Lion ate with the other senior officers but outside on a small table next to the troops, keeping an eye on both parties. She was informed of any report or happenstance and immediately gave necessary orders without pausing. As per her usual manner, she drank only one cup of every beverage offered and did not overindulge, keeping a clear head for what was to be the most pivotal part of making sure the Alcaline Rebellion could not reoccur.
DeStaunch was a most bloody business. But bloodier still was what would come next.

As some portion of the Alcaline force guarding the prince fled to Fimmur, Lord Mertyn ‘The Wolf’ Cheen met them with fresh weapons and supplies but instead of aiding them, turned on them, harrying them on the roads, blocking shortcuts and sending messages to Dandy Lion’s host to let them know which Alcaline leaders were in charge of the survivors and where they were going. It is believed Mertyn the Wolf did this out of rage upon receiving his orders from Prince Gildebairn to hold the line for them instead of escorting them home, not wishing to have his clan serve as equine shields for an army defeated by their own incompetence. Whether he was justified or not depends on who one asks. Around a hundred of the retreating clansteeds were killed by Cheen’s defectors and the Prince himself suffered a lance-wound to the hind leg.
Despite this heavy setback, the Alcalines were not immediately defeated. Many of the Clans of Estangar were ready to continue the campaign and claim vengeance and, ironically, since many of the companies had fled before-battle and slept through the conflict, clan chiefs found their numbers bolstered by their return. However, they were told to disperse and wait by Prince Gildebairn who promised to return with Stirropean support. To confuse his pursuers, the Prince’s attendants spread word that Gildebairn had already escaped in a ship bound for Boargundy and was to return with a fleet of both Prench and Farman knights. While that was going on, the Estangar chiefs, led by Sir Gomeral Forwarn, agreed to rendezvous at Stang Gully to prepare for the next stage of the conflict where they would marshal the remains of the warhost, seize Fort Galvan, muster the clans that had not partaken in the battle on pain of death and dishonour and strike at Dandy Lion’s camp. However, this did not go as planned. Forwarn received no messages from any of the chiefs or commanders he sent word to and after a week, Dandy Lion had sent Grand Commander Thisby to occupy Fort Galvan with enough fresh guard and supplies to hold it indefinitely. The same day, many of the neutral clans surrendered, one of them, Lord Taverey Tigness and his sons, were in charge of defensive Pylon Towers that shot enemies with beams of destructive magic. In order to prove his loyalty and, perhaps, avoid further conflict, Taverey Tigness wrote to every Tower-Mage in the nearby city of Astandar and ordered them to attend a meeting to discuss the upcoming affairs and, upon their arrival, had their throats cut and their power-crystals for the pylon towers overridden. The retreating clansteeds approached their villages and towns only to be struck down in droves, the towers they hoped would protect them instead the instruments of their doom. Elsewhere, the clans that did attend the rebel coalition only came in hoof-fulls, bare hundreds at a time, no-where near enough to even reach the walls of Fort Galvan, much less break them. Many of the steeds they brought would disperse to find food and rest, still not having found sufficient respite in the prelude to the conflict. If the Alcaline forces needed a sign that their cause was lost, it was this; the strongest clans in Estangar making such a weak show of remaining strength, a pithy six-hundred . The rebel forces marched to the Fort they did not yet know was taken and were fired upon by cannons, bolts, arrows and spells. A further one-hundred-and-eighty were killed on the spot and the rest fled.
Dandy Lion then sent a proclamation that any clansteed who remained on the moors or in the neighbouring settlements were sentenced to death and a sum of a hundred bits would be paid for every severed head of a clansteed complete with the sword and tassel denoting their loyalty, and living clansteed prisoners were worth three times as much.
Three days after the battle at Destaunch and one day after the failed siege of Fort Galvan, the Royal Guard under Dandy Lion descended upon Estangar, rounding up every known clansteed and dragging them into the town square where, one after the other, they were publicly pierced by magical tridents, once upon the cutie mark, once in the heart and once in the head just below where a unicorn would have their horn. Afterward, a search went out for the unknown clansteeds. The intricate patterns upon their clothes and often around their cutie marks were used by the Royal Guard platoons for reference as they broke into every house and searched for Alcaline memorabilia. Any family that possessed signs that ponies they had kept house for had fought for the pretender prince at DeStaunch were imprisoned and charged with abetting traitors, regardless of age or gender.
What was worse for the clans was that, overnight, Dandy Lion had placed pegasus scouts hidden in the low clouds with crystalline scopes to spot the friends and families watching over or gathering up the dead clansteeds and making notes of their names and faces.
These ponies, thought they had not fought at DeStaunch and already lost those close to them that did, were also penalised, to imprisoned, face a military trial of Equestrian officers (Many of them understanding very little of what was said at their own trial) and more than seventy-percent were hanged for the simple crime of not dissuading or discouraging those close to them to commit treason. Mares, foals, cripples and seniors, those who could not fight at DeStaunch faced the same fate as those that did.

After five days respite, Dandy Lion ordered the Wilderbeasts to head down the road from Estangar further north and slaughter any armed clansteed not among the known Equestrian allies as well as any confirmed accomplices. This they accomplished with speed and pleasure and within hours, there was not a road of of Estangar where would not have to tread over at least fifty mutilated carcasses.
She then marshalled every regiment that had not sustained casualties and placed them under the fearsome Lieutenant-Colonel D’Eathmasque, now promoted to Master-Colonel. This brigade was given provisions for eight days and sent across the wilderness to waylay and put down any roaming bands of clansteeds fleeing Equestrian justice. With the rest of her host, Dandy Lion marched to Estangar to accept the surrender of its local government while the Green Giant headed to Astandar for the same purpose. One clause she insisted on was that if eighty-nine-thousand, six-hundred-and-twenty bits were not paid out of the twin city treasuries to Dandy Lion’s purse immediately, she would have the Wilderbeasts tear the cities and their denizens apart.
It was paid in full, the councillors asking her what need had she of it.
Dandy Lion replied that she had no need and the sum was to fulfil a promise she’d made at the start of the campaign.
One-hundred-and-twenty bits were paid to every wounded Royal Guard.
And five-hundred bits were paid to the families of Royal Guard killed in the line of duty.
Twenty-seven-thousand, one-hundred-and-twenty bits for the two-hundred-and-twenty-six surviving wounded.
Sixty-two-thousand, five-hundred bits for the families of the one-hundred-and-twenty-five Royal Guard killed in battle or dead from wounds.
This move cemented Dandy Lion’s reputation as that of an unwavering protector and saviour among the Royal Guard and a hero to the Equestrians back home who saw them safe and looked-after even half-a-country away.
It also bankrupted the two cities of Estangar and Astandar whose councillors sent messages to Prince Gildebairn and his retainers asking for the loans they’d lent him for the campaign repaid. When shooed off with insults and threats, the twin-city government promptly turned against the prince and handed over any and all information about where he and his comrades were. Dandy Lion had pegasi and Wilderbeast watch all ports and harbours and unicorn sloops patrol the shores, waiting for the pretender to show himself. All the while in Estangar, Dandy Lion took control of what had, weeks before, called itself free Galderland and set about disestablishing any aspect of their society that had given them the means to strike against Equestria. To this end, she penalised the moorland clans and their various social customs, removing any privileges and forced them to comply with the same standards as citizens of Equestria or have their entire clan slaughtered wholesale.
While many Galderland-orientated histories portray this as an act of genocide and cultural persecution upon all Galdrish, a large number of Riverland Galdrish supported this wholeheartedly. To them, the Moorlanders had it too easy too long. They were vestiges of the past that constantly threatened the ponies of the towns and farms with banditry, raiding, raping and extortion as well as often defacing graves and holy sites among Mirian and Harmonist communities. They disrupted peace and commerce for little more than a past-time and believed this made them heroes. And when the prince had mounted his revolution, the Riverlanders were treated as the lowest caste in his movement, the Moorlanders all too eager to take everything they possessed before marching over the borders to do the same in Equestria, and all with the prince’s full support who saw Galderland as a kingdom united under him, knowing nothing of its social tensions.
Though they were both Galdrish, the Moorland and the Riverlands were two different worlds and Dandy Lion found that the Riverland ponies held the Moorlanders in more contempt and scorn than her own Equestrians did. And this came in handy.
She could now pass laws against the Moorland clans and their ways with impunity. Clans who had shown loyalty to her and to Equestria were compensated for their levelled authority with sizable incomes and estates as well as permission to call themselves Thanes, represent themselves at Equestrian government meetings and keep all artefacts of their histories intact.
All major clan chiefs who’d supported Prince Gildebairn, however, were stripped of their rank and title, honours and deeds, estates and attendants, condemned and attainted and sentenced to die, their heirs left penniless and powerless, blackmarked under the new laws in Galderland and unwelcome at most social gatherings. Neutral clan chiefs were ordered to come to Fort Galvan to surrender their arms and then journey to Canterlot to swear fealty to the Princess. All captured Alcaline lords and their allies, among them Sir Gomeral Forwarn, Lord Tippsekey Scathe, Duke McGargle Argle, Earl Croakhammer of Gewgaw, Lord Lastfarthing of Penieless, Sharlie ‘The Deranged’ Cheen and Lord-Justice Cromorne were all sent to Canterlot for public hanging. Sir Drooper Saxifrage was found dead of ill health in his room at a tavern not far from Penieless while Sir Stackforth Gully-Whumper’s head was brought by to Fort Galvan by a group of highwayhorses who had cornered him on the road and killed him in a scuffle before they knew who he was. Pagophilius and Faltar Selkie fled to Calcary but they were cornered by their war creditors and were sentenced to thirteen years in debtor’s prison and, upon hearing that they were to be transferred to Canterlot after they had cleared their sentence, father and son committed suicide together via immolation in their single, windowless cell.
One clan chief, Lord Nardon Shriven, came to pledge fealty to Dandy Lion and Celestia after his father had died of his wounds at DeStaunch, bringing Dandy Lion the head of his father’s exhumed corpse and all eighty-nine clansteeds who had flocked to him after the battle now clapped in chains and imprisoned, while the son of the lord who had led them into battle was rewarded with a sizable income and estates.
The Prince’s allies from Calcary and Cryne came by ship to Sprat to surrender in person, hoping to spare their own lands from what the Moorlands had suffered and mend their financial trouble with the prince no longer able to pay his staggering debts. Deustus Magaloss of the Crynish Brigade offered to use his connections in the Crynish Palatine Council to quell any thought of continuing their support for Prince Gildebairn if he and his surviving troops were pardoned and if they were allowed to properly bury their dead, among them Lieutenant-Colonel Boscaccio, his brother-in-law and a distant Crynish royal. Dandy Lion allowed it but Magaloss and half his troops were still kept at Fort Galvan as hostages until the Prince was located.
Dandy Lion emptied the prisons in Fort Galvan, which had previously housed Equestrian sympathisers, pardoned them and settled them in the villages between the moors and rivers. In their place were crammed the thousands of Alcalines captured and held prisoner, not important enough to make for public executions and not meagre enough to be let off with fines. Many of them soon wished they’d died on the fields of DeStaunch as Dandy Lion and her officers ordered no means of warmth, food, water or even medical supplies to be spent on the traitorous clansteeds. She had chosen to set an example. Rebels and barbarians were vermin. When loose; sought out and exterminated. When captured; caged, broken and forgotten.
She left their fates to the bureaucrats who would occupy their days idly stamping warrants for either death, prolonged imprisonment, convict service or any combination of the three.
Dandy Lion hoped to solve the acute lack of prison space by ensuring mortality rate was high. She could not contain them in the Galdrish cities for fear that their presence would incite support for the rebels again. So the clansteeds were removed of all trappings and thrown into the dark, stony cells infested with the vermin that they now shared a title with in the eyes of Royal Equestria. Many of them were suffering gaping wounds or serious illness. Guards checked on them once every two days and rarely carried out more than a head-count. No food, clothing or medicine was to be taken into the cells on pain of removal of eyes and forehooves.
Two days later, Dandy Lion received reports from her watchers on the coasts. Two ships had been stopped and searched. In one were the Brothers Crumple, Gentilius and Castanilius; both dead in their cabin. Castanilius had died of gangrene from the wounds he sustained at DeStaunch and Gentilius, who blamed himself for how the battle went so badly, lay down beside his brother and cut his own fetlocks. In the other ship was General Gedwimmer; alive.
He was brought to Dandy Lion in person and was said to have not shown a shred of fear. He spoke bitterly of what was being done to the Alcalines who had been unfortunate enough to survive DeStaunch but believed that Dandy Lion was only half to blame. After all, he had given the order for a night-raid, ordering his troops to kill sleeping ponies, unarmed and unarmoured. He was well aware of the savagery with which the Moorlanders dealt with defeated foes and understood that the Galdrish were not united in this matter. He treated Dandy Lion, according to reports, with little respect but sufficient courtesy. He had asked to be exiled and was on a boat to begin such a journey. Dandy Lion demanded compensation in exchange for his life and Gedwimmer replied Fimmur was hers to occupy but every clansteed who’d fought with him at Culloden was dead and their families already fleeing. When asked for the Prince’s whereabouts, he replied he had not spoken with Gildebairn since the retreat but he gave one piece of crucial information. Prince Gildebairn was by now utterly paranoid and was likely nowhere near the Moorlands. The Moorlanders had turned against him, Estangar and Astandar had turned against him, the Crynish and Calcarians had turned against him, his retinue were dead, dying or missing and if he hadn’t gotten out of Galderland after a week since DeStaunch, he wasn’t getting out now. He advised Dandy Lion to look closer to the Equestrian border, the last place any Royal Guard would look for a pretender on the run.
Dandy Lion conceded to this and permitted Gedwimmer to leave Galderland unharmed. Gedwimmer would start a new life in Farmany where the Grand Chancellor would be impressed by his exploits and honesty, sympathetic to his plight, and gave him knighthood and then a baronetcy at Compter-Pongkt, West Furingia.

Two weeks and four days afterward, with millions of clansteeds and their families dead in their wake, Dandy Lion’s Royal Guard chanced upon a run-down farm near West Garrongrange, sixty-miles from the Equestrian border. There, leaning against the broken fence, was a young, bedraggled stallion in tattered regional clothing, suffering from alcoholism and dysentery, begging for coins on the road in a slurred, semi-aware drone that was unmistakeably Equestrian possessed a heavy Galdrish accent mixed with a touch of Crynish.
It was indeed the object of the single largest horse-hunt in Equestrian history; Prince Gildebairn Alcaline Selkie.
Arrested on the spot, showing almost relief at the news, he was carted to the gates of Fort Galvan, watched by a significant but smaller-than-expected crowd of Riverland Galdrish, his hooves tied to pegs in the ground, stood as steadily as he could manage and faced a squad of magically-imbued bolts. Dandy Lion, however, called them off, drew a compact bolter and fired a shard of metal-marble alloy, point-blank, into the Prince’s neck, separating his spinal column and killing him within five seconds.
His body and those of his executed followers were taken to the gates of Callune Wold that marks the border between Galderland and Equestria and there, their bodies were separated from their heads and forehooves, eyes, tongue, mane, tail and genitals removed and placed in great glass jars that were left out to catch the sun. As summer arrived, the jars became hot and humid and the dead flesh inside melted into sludge which was then, once fully decomposed, mixed into pig-feed.
All done on Dandy Lion’s orders to dissuade any further dissent in Galderland or any other vassal state that saw or heard of such a dismal end.

Even with the Prince dead, Dandy Lion wished there to be no chance of any more Galdrish in the rivers or the moors rising up against the Equestrian crown. Two months after the bloody Battle of DeStaunch, she left Galderland and headed back to Canterlot. She left behind her, to finish the destruction of the rebels in every possible source, an immense concentration of Equestrian and Riverland Galdrish Royal Guard, all the Loyalist Moorland Clans and any surrendered or defected chief clinging to their remaining power and desperate to avoid the fate of those who bore the brunt of the fearsome statesmare’s wrath.
Dandy Lion herself received from Canterlot, a tumultuous welcome; from the royal council and government, a raise in salary of two million bits a year and three castles to call her own; from Sexton Mellody, a choral work ‘Oh Ye Equestrian Lioness’, from the Equestrian public, her name for a bright-red many-petalled flower, ‘Dandy-Lion’s Dancing Mane’; from the Moorland clans, her name for a gnarled black-headed parasitic weed, ‘Cold Dandillyn’s Heart’.
Month after month, the Moorland Legion of Resolution would patrol and scour the range of northern Galderland to wear down the once-untamed Moorland clans until there was no memory among them of any good coming out of rebelling against Equestria.
The Moorlands never recovered and the wild clans and their past glories have never once assembled as a horde against Equestria or any other sovereign nation. None who ever raised a blade against Celestia’s crown kept it after DeStaunch.
Systematically, Dandy Lion eliminated all the things that allowed the clans to strike out against others. The patterns they wore were checked by the patrols and those confirmed to have belonged to rebellious clans were made illegal. Thaubist chapels in the Moorlands were taxed heavily and monitored. Moorlanders were not permitted to carry any weapons but that of a wooden stave or a hunting bow and anypony singing a song based on the chants the Alcalines sung before and after battle was removed of teeth and tongue.
Ruling a clan in the Moorlands no longer counted for anything and thus the power they had over Galderland diminished until they were nothing more than local bureaucrats with fine histories that they were not allowed to talk about. As the clan chiefs now were forced to operate under Equestrian government practices, they had to pay their clansteeds for working on their land and so many chiefs evicted their clansteeds to save on their meagre coin. Clansteeds who, in ages past, would raise their blades against their lords or plunder out a living up and down the moors or raise their banners against the princess in Canterlot who thought to call them her servants, now wandered their former homes as unwanted outcasts, leaving for pastures new or dying in the shades of their old world with not even a name to mark their cold bones.
Dandy Lion had not only defeated a pretender to Equestria and Galderland’s throne. She had utterly ruined a once-proud and ancient race of horses in the name of safeguarding the security and sovereignty of a state several centuries younger.

After Dandy Lion’s death and Princess Celestia’s return to power, the Battle of DeStaunch became infamous in historical texts and schools. Many literary and theatrical portrayals have been made, few very accurately depicting the truth behind the conflict.
One of the most commonly brought up is Boldaircorey, an epic poem by Halberd Forhoot, a hardline Galdrish patriot who depicted the battle as a wanton slaughter of Galdrish defenders and citizens at the hooves of villainous Canterlot nobles, the Prince Gildebairn a heroic liberator who was cruelly deceived and outmanoeuvred by an army that fought with cannon and spell while his own clansteeds fought with sword and shield. A feature film was made based on this poem called Heart of Bright Stone, directed by and starring the controversial anti-unicorn actor Malty Glib. In this film, among many liberties taken in regards to historical accuracy, the main protagonist, Boldair Forwarn (The name of the illegitimate son of Clan Chief Virdan Forwarn) is captured by the Royal Guard on a spy mission and seduces Dandy Lion in her tent but refuses her wish to serve as her consort in her conquest of Galderland. Both text and film place much focus on the Royal Guard the clansteeds slew in battle against the odds (The film counts at least a hundred-and-sixty kills, more than twice that in reality) and finish by vehemently declaring that despite the slaughter and the loss of their prince, Galderland never bent the knee to Princess Celestia.
Of course, the truth is that it didn’t need to. Prince Gildebairn was never the legitimate ruler of Galderland.
Commonly in Galdrish-biased works, the Royal Guard army is depicted as entirely made up of Canterlot-ponies with very obvious upper-class accents and mannerisms and bringing weapons that the clans could not hope to match instead of facing the prince’s army fairly and honestly.
The truth behind this is that the Royal Guard army was a mix of many different species, classes, religions and dialects and that more than a fifth of the army and at least half the officers were full-blooded Galdrish. What’s more, the Prince had contemporary weapons and artillery that could have matched that of the Royal Guard’s...it’s just that they forgot to bring the weapons and didn’t know how to use the artillery. Facts twisted to hide the incompetence of Prince Gildebairn and his retinue.
Although some depictions can easily bend the other way. Dandy The Lioness, an Equestrian feature film made in Trottingham starring Hobela Garron as Dandy Lion, depicts the battle fairly accurately but seriously downplays the Equestrian war crimes that followed while somewhat exaggerating the effect and savagery of the prince’s victories before DeStaunch (More controversially, Gedwimmer, played by Pierce Bronzeson is depicted as being strongly against the war with Equestria and the killing of its citizens and sympathisers. While he bickered with the Prince on many subjects, war with Equestria was not one of them. He was already leading anti-Equestrian raids and skirmishes long before he joined the Prince’s army)
Regardless of how it is portrayed, it struck in history then as it did today.
And this was exactly what Dandy Lion wanted.
DeStaunch and all the blood that flowed from it, was a demonstration.
Whatever enemy she struck, she would destroy.

7316027
Very nice! The start sort of reminds me of what happened to the Imperium of man after the Emperor was crippled, while the battle reminds me of how Napoleon fell. And the organization of the Royal Guard, sounds like the Austro-Hungarian Army.

But, that also shows something: It often isn't the leader of the country but the officers who do the important decisions.

Also, you showed my belief: While specialist units are often a critical point in battles, it is the regular soldier who is the true hero of any battle, doing the real work. Just look at the Imperial Guard in Warhammer.

The Space Marines might take the glory in their last-minute attacks, but the simple humans, A Farmer, a Shopkeeper, a Factory Worker, Fathers, Sons, and Brothers, nothing more than mere humans fighting against the tides of Chaos and Xenos over and over again. They are the true heroes. It is something to behold, how they stand bravery, while only having normal armor and weapons.

7316070
Well, the primary reference, by which I mean the template, is the Battle of Culloden that marked the end of the Jacobite Rebellion under 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. The armies of the British government, under the Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (Youngest son of King George II) smashed the armies of the pretender of Scotland, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Grandson of the exiled King James II) and then set about making sure the highland clans would never threaten British rule ever again.

When officers can't work together, nothing good will ever come out of it.

Well, yeah, but they also committed atrocities.
The common soldier is behind everything in war, and that includes the bloody parts.

And the end is based off what I think of Braveheart and other historical-fictions with those kinds of 'artistic liberties'.
I mean, I don't mind changes or liberties taken in historical fiction. I'm doing one myself after all.
But, that's not Mel Gibson's que to make thinly-veiled anti-English propaganda.

7316558
I see, great work!

Indeed.

Sadly.

Agreed