Armor's Game

by OTCPony

Prologue

“We should head back to the Empire.”

Ensign Shielded Blitz looked contemptuously at the Earth Pony. “I’m not going back with nothing to tell the prince.”

Sergeant Brawny Boulder shivered slightly in the cooling twilight. “Our orders were to track the Diamond Dogs, sir. We can’t track something when there’s no trail.”

The Unicorn officer gave a dismissive whinny. “We’re barely two days behind them, and the weather hasn’t been bad enough to disguise their trail. Spread out and search again. Report back to me in fifteen minutes.”

Boulder groaned and exchanged glances with Corporal Tumbledown. This was pointless. The patrol had crouched in this nameless gully in the Crystal Mountains for over an hour while Blitz had tried to find the Diamond Dogs’ scent. The snowflakes had billowed around them, and the arctic wind had whistled through their green uniforms and chilled them to the bone.

“The weather’s starting to turn, sir. The Dogs’ll be down in their holes by now, and if we don’t start back we could have a two-week hike ahead of us.”

“Then you can tell Shining Armor that we stopped chasing a band of savages because you’re afraid of the snow.” Blitz rested his hoof on his sword hilt. “I won’t tell you again. Spread out and search.”

Boulder knew it was pointless to continue arguing. The Ensign was the over-bred third son of some millionaire in Canterlot. With no prospect of inheritance, he’d bought a commission in the Royal Guard and had jumped at the opportunity to serve in the Crystal Empire. He hadn’t even been here six weeks.

The Sergeant sighed and turned to the four shining Crystal Ponies shivering behind them. The new recruits were as young as Blitz, and though eager to please, were no more experienced. “Okay, boys, you heard the Ensign. Pair off and spread out.”

Boulder paired with Lance Corporal Snow Spur and set off up the hill. They took the route that Blitz had swept earlier, just in case. With patches of ice or unsteady rock piles everywhere, every step was a risk.

Four days ago, a Diamond Dog raiding party had been spotted near a farm on the edge of the Crystal Empire. Eager to learn more of their movements and give his newly-minted troops experience, Prince Shining Armor had asked for volunteers to track the party, and Shielded Blitz had saddled six of his men with the job. At only twenty-two, Blitz was far too young to be leading patrols, but Shining Armor needed every officer he could get and could not afford to discourage others from northern service by refusing him. Boulder and Tumbledown would have to keep him safe.

“Buck!” Snow Spur cursed suddenly as his hoof slipped on a patch of snow. Weighed down by his pack and spear, he struggled to regain his balance. Boulder smiled. Even though they had been separated from pony civilisation for a thousand years, the Crystal Ponies still cursed as well as any Royal Guard recruit he’d ever met.

Still swearing, the Lance Corporal recovered his balance. Then, as he stared fuming at the ground, he frowned. “Sergeant...”

“What is it, Lance Corporal?”

“This snow, sir, this... this isn’t right. Look...”

Boulder saw it as Spur pointed with his spear. A perfectly straight line of ruffled, disturbed snow stretched from where they stood up the hill. It hadn’t been obvious from the valley floor, but from where they stood now it was as clear as Celestia’s day. How in Tartarus had Blitz missed that?!

“The Diamond Dogs,” said Boulder. “They must have come up here and concealed the tracks with their tails.”

“Must’ve been in a hurry too, Sergeant. Look, they could have contoured around the hill and stuck to the rock and not left any tracks, but they went straight up through the snow and covered it badly.”

“They might know we’re after them,” said Boulder grimly. He looked up to the top of the hill. It was an insignificant mound compared to the mighty snow-capped peaks of marble and quartz that surrounded it, but it could still conceal an ambush on the reverse slope, just waiting for the patrol to come over the crest.

Boulder and Spur trotted carefully back down the hill to Blitz. The Sergeant diplomatically declined to tell the Ensign that he’d missed it when he’d performed his own search earlier. Blitz, however, couldn’t have been happier. He took his sword hilt in his right hoof and drew it with a flourish.

“Spur, get the boys. We’re going after these mutts.”

“Sir, it would be better if you and I reconnoitred first. We don’t know their numbers remember?”

“Do a gang of mongrels frighten you, Brawny? Couple of shots and we’ll send those fleabags running.”

The patrol assembled, the stallions crawled up the hill. Boulder and Tumbledown had at least managed to convince Blitz to make a stealthy approach. Clutching his spontoon near the point to minimise the amount that would show when he brought his leg up to crest the hill, Boulder dragged himself along, feeling the snow melt beneath him and soak through his uniform. A chill filled him, but it has nothing to do with the cold.

Blitz led the way, snowflakes blowing around him with ever-increasing intensity. He still clutched his sword despite Boulder and Tumbledown’s pleas that he sheathe it. It waved ahead of him as he climbed, and Boulder nearly put his head in his hooves as he saw it stick over the crest before its owner. He again glanced at Tumbledown, and he was just waiting for a magical blast to take Blitz’s head off when the Ensign spluttered.

“Oh, Spirits...” he choked. Gazing down over the crest, he sounded ready to vomit.

Boulder crawled as quickly as he could over to Blitz. The Unicorn’s coat was snow white, but even in the growing darkness, he looked like he’d gone even paler. His eyes were wide and his jaw hung limp. He looked like a filly about to make her first dissection in a biology lesson.

Boulder turned to see what had so shocked Blitz, and came face to face with a Diamond Dog. Its furry snout was not even a foot from his face. The jagged yellow teeth that stuck over its lips spoke of a lifetime of devouring whatever meats it could get its paws on. Dirt matted its fur and a stink of meat and mud poured from it.

Boulder reached for his spontoon, ready to plunge it between the creature’s wild yellow eyes, but he suddenly stopped. The Dog lay quite still, and the pupils of its eyes, which should have been red, were clouded over. He squinted. Almost invisible in the twilight, dark liquid trickled from the side of the Dog’s mouth. It was dead.

He got to his feet, seized his gasping Ensign under his sword leg, and pulled him up. Blitz looked impossibly young at that moment, barely a boy out of his expensive grammar school. Boulder looked around. Two dozen Diamond Dogs lay in a crescent formation right behind the crest of the hill, ready to ambush and surround the patrol at close range. They all lay there, immobile.

The rest of the patrol joined them. One of the Crystal Ponies, Private Blizzard Diamond, sank to his knees and voided his stomach contents on to the ground. Tumbledown slowly staggered up to Boulder. The two of them had been taught in training what it was to kill in defence of Equestria and what it would feel like, but they had never had to do it before, nor had they ever seen corpses.

“What did this to them?” whispered the Corporal.

“I’ve heard stories, Corp,” sobbed Diamond as Snow Spur tried to comfort him. “There’s things out here. Not just Diamond Dogs. Fluffy Ponies and Goats and worse...”

Blitz took several calming breaths and scrubbed his face with his hooves. “Okay... Okay...”

“Sir?”

“Uh, Sergeant, yes, um... Search the bodies. Yes, we need to know what killed them.”

“Spur, get a brew on for Private Diamond,” ordered Tumbledown.

The stallions pulled flashlights from their belts and bent over the corpses. With every body he examined, Boulder felt more and more uneasy. Each Diamond Dog looked like it had been struck in the back as it lay in wait, with the exception of two that had been hit in the side and front as they rolled over to confront their attackers. Some had been hit multiple times. It hadn’t been a bludgeon that had killed them, though. The yawning, bloody holes in their backs were too large for that, but they were also too wide to have been caused by a spear point. Nor were they anything like the deep, ragged burns caused by the magical blasts fired by those spears.

As the night darkened and the snow swirling around them got thicker, Boulder felt something trickle into his veins. He hadn’t been scared when Blitz had ordered this patrol, and in a dozen training missions and weekend hikes through these mountains, he had never once felt fear, only marvelling at the savage splendour of this beautiful, unforgiving terrain. But now he was terrified. It was a terror unlike anything he had felt in his entire life.

Then from somewhere on the mountain behind them, something roared.

Blitz collapsed over a Dog’s corpse, screaming as a huge dark stain blossomed on his right flank. Boulder knew at once what had happened: The things that had killed the Diamond Dogs had returned to inspect their kills, and Shielded Blitz, with his sword and cocked hat marking him out as an officer, had been an obvious target.

“FIRING LINE!” Boulder roared. “SKIRMISH ORDER, FIRING BY FILES! WATCH AND SHOOT!”

The patrol rapidly spread out, but even as they moved, more roars sounded from the mountain above. Huge yellow flashes accompanied them. Around them, great dark plumes or dirt and rock sprayed up as the ground was struck. Boulder saw Tumbledown collapse screaming, both hooves clutched to his eyes as blood poured down his face: a jet of shattered rock had struck him square in the face.

Boulder dropped to a knee and brought the butt of his spontoon into his shoulder. He aimed for the flashes on the mountain and concentrated. A bright burst of magical energy shot from the spontoon’s elaborate point. The coruscating pulse struck the mountain, but it was dozens of feet short of the firing line.

He willed his weapon to be ready to fire again. It was all a matter of concentration, to focus one’s magic into the weapon, but even skilled Unicorns struggled to make their weapons ready in less than twenty seconds. For nearly half a minute, he would be defenceless.

Behind him, Tumbledown and Blitz had stopped screaming. Whatever it was on the mountain was still firing at them, and their skirmish line was ragged. He looked around to see Blizzard Diamond and Snow Spur lying motionless over to each other, and the other two Crystal Pony Privates, Boreal Tundra and Gold Aurora, had blindly fired off their spears and were cowering behind a rock, sobbing. And the enemy was still firing...

Whatever was out here, Boulder had to let Shining Armor and Princess Cadance know. If he could just get one of the Diamond Dog bodies over his back, that would be his proof. But first he had to get Tundra and Aurora out of here.

He waved his hoof at the two crying Privates. “Tundra! Tundra! I need you to lay down some cover fire while...”

He felt something hard and fast strike him in the flank. He coughed as a wave of pain exploded through him. He had got into a fight with a Mule once in a bar in Dodge Junction, and its kick had felt just like this. He slumped over and his head struck a rock. Boulder saw a burst of stars, and then blackness.

He didn’t know when he came to, but it had taken an enormous effort to force his eyes open. It was still dark and the snowflakes still fell over the mountains, and he felt colder than he had ever felt before in his life. Something sticky crusted his left side, and he felt impossibly thirsty.

Turning his head seemed to use as much energy as scaling a cliff. He saw Boreal Tundra, his coat dull now and his eyes vacant, lying behind his rock.

“Private...” he croaked. “Tundra, Tundra, speak to me...”

He heard a sudden flurry of activity behind him. Something was talking in a language he did not recognise yet at once sounded strangely familiar. Then something stepped over him.

His first thought was that it was a Diamond Dog: it walked on two legs and clutched something in its forelimbs. But then he realised its legs were too long, its movements were too graceful, and looking up at its head silhouetted against the stormy sky, the shape of its face was all wrong.

No... No, that’s impossible...

These creatures were a myth. Only the most paranoid fools or crazy cranks believed that they had ever existed. He had to be hallucinating as he bled out.

Yet as he stared up at the human, the human stared back, and it spoke.

It was that same language that was at the same time alien and familiar. Three other humans, each cradling the same long sticks in their arms, joined it. A lilting sound filled the air, and Boulder realised that they were laughing.

Four humans massacred a dozen Diamond Dogs and seven pony soldiers...

The human raised its stick, and the Sergeant suddenly realised that a long, straight blade was attached to its end. The other end was oddly shaped, almost triangular, but smoothly curved.

When he’d joined the Royal Guard, Boulder had never really thought he would die in the line of duty, but he had always imagined that if he had to, it would be defending Canterlot Castle to the last, standing alone against some implacable enemy with a cry of “For Celestia!” on his lips, not on some unknown hillside in the farthest north. Yet before he could make any plea or defiant cry, the human brought his weapon plunging down into Brawny Boulder’s neck.

The bite of the bayonet was icy cold.

Comments

[VunderGuy]

Dude... this prologue and story need WAY more likes.

[Profesionalac]

Agreed.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Ensign is a naval rank not an army one.

[NAH223445566]

Si venís por la etiqueta de humano, lee este, el de Lyra, 6 capítulo antes del epílogo y el epílogo.