Knights of Night - Chosen of the Moon

by vadram

Chapter 4: Shock... (M)

Chapter 4: Shock...

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Luna gathered the vanguard, a thousand Royal Guard pegasi soldiers, and lead them south.

Marching there will take them two weeks, and only a week by air, but if they were to stand any fighting chance they would have to have at least two days of rest, so almost three weeks have passed since the first Guard left for the castle and the vanguard reached the southern area.

Luna had no idea what to expect. With intelligence three weeks old, barely one battalion under her command, all of which were pegasi, no unicorn artillery, no medical support, reinforcements almost a week away, and going against an army of whose numbers were unknown, race was unknown, abilities were unknown, tactics and strategies were unknown, going against such a force with such little information was foolish at best, suicidal at worst.

But Luna had little real choice in the matter. The enemy invaded their country, and had to be stopped before they advance to far, or at least delayed until the rest of the Royal Guard arrived.

Luna and the vanguard slowed down during the last day so they would use the cover of darkness when they attacked, they also flew low so that the enemy would not spot them too early, but something felt odd. The Great Forest should have been visible by now, but neither Luna nor any of the pegasi that flew beside her saw nothing. They flew all through the night but still no army, and no forest.

When Celestia finally rose the sun, they were shocked by what they saw.

Around them, stretching as far as the eye could see was a vast wasteland. Luna flew higher to get a better view of the area. Everything that was not solid stone was gone, the entire forest was gone, all the outposts and settlements were gone, everything was gone, only a few scattered mountains pierced the flat landscape.

“What has happened here?” Luna asked herself, unable to comprehend what had happened to everything.

“Guards! Groups of fours! Fan out and search for... anything! Be back in two days!”

“You heard the lady,” a commander repeated her order. “Teams of four, back in two. Move out!”

The Royal Guard pegasi compiled and flew in every direction in search for anything that would provide even the smallest hint of what had happened. Two days later all teams but one returned, and none of them had anything to report.

“Which team is missing?” Luna asked an officer.

“Thirty two my lady,” the officer replayed. “They headed that way,” he pointed towards the horizon.

Luna did not waste a moment. As soon as she saw where the pony was pointing she immediately took off and flew in that direction.

“You three, with me,” the officer picked three of the closest soldiers and headed after the princess.

Luna flew for a full day and night, but saw nothing along the way, just flat, windswept, cracked ground. She hovered in place at dawn and looked around for a place where the team could have gone off two, the only thing for miles a small cliff, so she headed towards it.

A small crack was visible in its side and Luna flew down to investigate. She lit up her horn and struggled to move through the narrow tunnel. It was narrow enough that her large frame made it hard for her to move, but wide enough that it would not pose a problem for an average size pegasus, even one wearing armor. Thankfully the tunnel was short, barely a few feet long and led to a large cave. Three Royal Guard pegasi followed her closely.

Upon entering the cave she let a little more magic flow into her horn, and illuminated the entire room.

“One, two, three, four, five... eleven, twelve,” Luna quickly counted.

Twelve golden-armored pegasi, with blue manes and white coats lay dead on the cave floor, on top of two dozen more Royal Guard ponies whose armor did not bear the colour altering enchantments. Luna walked past them and headed to the truly odd thing in the room, a door.

In the other end of the room stood a reinforced wooden door, scratch marks, magical burn marks as well as swords cuts covered it, there were even small green blood patches were visible, some of which were still fresh and wet. She grabbed the iron ring that served as the door’s handle, and pulled. The door did not budge, so she took a step back and grabbed the entire thing in her magical aura and pulled it out of the cave wall, frame and all.

No sooner as she did, that a high pitch cry could be heard as well as a shout and Luna was forced to drop it and move out of the way as a pony charged her and tried to cut her head off. The princess dodged the attack and quickly caught the assailant in her magical aura. The three Royal Guards that came with her reacted as fast as they could and surrounded the captive.

Luna and the Guards took a closer look at the pony. She was a young unicorn mare, wearing an unenchanted Royal Guard suit of armor two sizes too big for her. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, twitching violently, and darting from one pony to another. Her breathing was shallow, her entire body was shaking violently and was covered in sweat. The pony was constantly struggling to break free from Luna’s grip, screaming for her life.

The princess drained the air from the ponies prison causing her to pass out, before giving her to the Guards, who tied her up and placed an inhibitor ring on her horn.

The mare had been silenced, yet the high pitch cry was still echoing through the cave. Luna entered the small chamber from where the mare came from. She looked around and saw that it was a small armory, there was probably a Royal Guard camp outside the cave. Inside a suit of armor, wrapped in blue capes a little foal was crying.

His coat was blue like the night sky, his mane was even darker, his eyes were golden like the armor that he struggled to get out off, and his horn was nothing more than a little bump on his forehead. Luna took the little foal out of his shell, and held him close as she got the feeling that something did not seem right.