Armor's Game

by OTCPony

Blood and Ice

On her throne in the Crystal Palace, Princess Cadance sat in a miserable reverie. Twilight was back in Ponyville and Shining Armor was still away in Canterlot, so she had no pony to confide in, no pony that she trusted enough to tell how wretched she felt.

She and Shining Armor had pushed and pushed Celestia to agree to an army, and she and Shining Armor had convinced Luna to support them. Against every conviction she held most dear, Celestia had been forced to agree to the plan by the Privy Council’s vote. And yet the media had seized on her: after keeping Equestria peaceful and prosperous for a thousand years, Princess Celestia was now a dangerous warmonger who wanted to build an army for no good reason. Not one newspaper or radio show had even considered asking what had prompted this astonishing turnaround: the juicy scandal was enough.

The floodgates were open now. Ponies like Radical Road, once dismissed as lunatics, were now given a platform, and his ideas now had relevance for some ordinary ponies. The constitutional arrangements of the Great Charter, to which the vast majority of ponies had been duly deferential to for centuries, now seemed wholly inadequate. Radical Road was calling for a reform that fit his name: the power of the monarchy was now under threat, and had it not been for the need for the Princesses to raise the sun and moon, he would be demanding their abdication as well.

The leak had also prompted a slew of resignations, from lowly Civil Servants who wanted no part in a militaristic regime, to those at the highest levels of state. Two days ago, a servant had delivered Cadance’s usual Manehattan Telegraph with her breakfast, and it had borne the headline; SNOWY GRAPE RESIGNS.

Whether it really had been principled opposition to the army, or she had just thought she knew where the winds were blowing, Councilpony Snowy Grape had resigned as Minister of Agriculture. In her speech from the backbenches of the House of Commons, now sitting opposite the government benches, she had declared that she could “no longer serve in good conscience this government, with its arbitrary exercise, and now we see abuse, of power.”

In the week after the first press exposé, the leaks hadn’t subsided. On the day Shining Armor’s commission met, the media baron Newsprint had nailed his colours to the mast of the new opposition, running a headline in his tabloid rag Sun and Moon that read; NOW CELESTIA’S SPYING ON US. The Princess, he alleged, had ordered the Chief of Intelligence to pin down the leak, even though he had no jurisdiction in Equestria. Most ponies were shocked enough when they learnt that Celestia even had a spy service, much less one she might use on them. Radical Road and named this “yet another example of Princess Celestia’s abuse of power and utter unaccountability to, and contempt towards, the Equestrian electorate.”

Then the next day one of Newsprint’s broadsheets, The Baltimare Times, had run the headline; BRIBES FOR VOTES: HOW CELESTIA PLANS TO WIN THE VITAL BUDGET VOTE THAT WILL GIVE HER AN ARMY. A senior figure in the Treasury, possibly even the Privy Council, had leaked to him a draft budget plan that contained apple barrelling on a momentous scale: Chancellor Diamond Charm had been holding informal discussions with several MPs, promising massive earmarks for their constituencies in exchange for their support for the budget, which would of course include the new funds for the army. Radical Road had named it “a catastrophic betrayal of fiscal prudence and government integrity, and a tragic misallocation of funds when we consider the state of some of our major cities.”

Cadance did not believe that Newsprint truly supported the new movement, which had christened itself the “Parliamentarians”: the Horsetralian-born media baron was too canny for that. Nevertheless, shocking headlines and exclusive stories sold papers, and Newsprint International’s newspaper runs and radio shows had some of the highest circulations on Equus. What they wrote, thousands of ponies read, and that, Cadance imagined, was what had convinced Snowy Grape to resign. She sighed. Public confidence in the monarchy was in tatters and Parliament was rent asunder when it needed to be united. Worst of all, it was all her fault.

“Your Highness?”

Cadance looked down to see First Minister Jade Stone looking up at her, a concerned look on her face. She had a quill poised in her hoof over a sheet of parchment. “We need to discuss the arrangements for the meeting with the Ponish mayors.”

“Oh yes, sorry, Jade. I was just thinking about Snowy Grape resigning. I’m... I’m worried, that’s all.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t be, Your Highness,” said the First Minister brightly. “There was a Gallop Poll in today’s Telegraph. Sixty-six percent of ponies say they still strongly support the Princesses.”

“That’s a drop of twenty-four percent from the last poll,” said Cadance miserably. “And seventy-one percent say their trust in the Princesses’ judgements had been shaken.”

“True, but if you’re worried about a poll like that, you should see some of the governments in Mareope. They’ve bounced back after far worse ratings.”

“Mmm, all right then, back to business.” She took the sheet of parchment in her magic and examined the plans for the meeting. “No sign of our Diamond Dog friends recently?”

“It’s been surprisingly quiet, Your Highness. Perhaps they spotted the Crystal Guard’s drills and thought better of it.”

Cadance’s eyes returned to the parchment, and then her ears fluttered. A distant crackling had suddenly filled the air. It sounded like it was miles away, but even through the Palace walls, it was still audible. “What’s that?”

The throne room’s immense double doors burst open. Major Sword Bolt, his cocked hat askew and uniform rumpled, stood there breathing heavily. He looked like he had galloped up the tower. “Your Highness, we have to...”

Cadance leapt from her throne. Huge pink wings spread from her body and she flew the length of the blue crystal chamber. She sailed over the Guardspony, through several halls and up a flight of stairs before landing on the palace balcony.

The Crystal Ponies in the streets below might have looked up at the surprising appearance of their Princess on the balcony on an otherwise normal Friday, but they were all transfixed by the chaos that had erupted around them. A thin line of smoke trailed into the air from somewhere on the Empire’s Northern Marches, and suddenly a column of Guards in smart green thundered at the double up the Imperial Boulevard. The officer at their head only had time to bellow “Make way!” Anypony that didn’t move in time would be run down.

On the balcony, Cadance could see the source of the smoke, and where the crackling had come from, which now she heard as a never ending series of bangs. When the Crystal Guard had been established, Shining Armor had ordered the farms on the city’s fringe to set up beacons, so any Diamond Dog incursion could be reported, and so repulsed, quickly. One of the farmers had lit his beacon, as dozens of Diamond Dogs poured out of the Crystal Mountains on to his farmlands.

Jade Stone and Major Sword Bolt galloped on to the balcony, and skidded to a halt as they saw the devastation unfolding on the Northern Marches. The First Minister’s face was a mask of stone.

Cadance spread her wings. “Make sure our hospitals are prepared for the injured. I’m going to help.”

“Your Highness, you can’t be...!” began Sword Bolt, but his Princess was gone, a pink streak rocketing through the air towards the Northern Marches as her subjects looked up in amazement.

The blue crystal buildings below Cadance swiftly gave way to a neat patchwork of fields, dotted with tiny crystal farmhouses. The Crystal Princess glided towards one of these on the Northern Marches. As she closed she could see that the Crystal Guard’s Light Company had already arrived. A hundred ponies stood there, with a reserve of thirty skirmishers clumped behind the centre of two loose lines, exchanging fire with a force of Diamond Dogs at least twice their size. Crystal Ponies and Diamond Dogs ducked behind the walls of the farm’s fields, leaping up to take pot-shots, the Crystal Ponies with their spears, and the Diamond Dogs with bows and javelins. Cadance dimly remembered from a years-past history lesson that ponies had once used bows, but these were vastly larger than anything a pony could hold, much less draw. An arrow sailed over the fields from the farmhouse and struck a Crystal Pony officer square in the chest. He was catapulted, screaming, off his hooves, and landed several feet backwards. Six Guardsponies rushed to him.

Cadance crashed down next to them, sinking up to the tops of her hooves in the loam. They all looked around, shocked. Their expressions only became more confused when they saw the Crystal Princess. All around them, spears thundered as the Crystal Guard’s skirmishers continued firing, oblivious to her presence.

“What’s going on here?!” she demanded.

“Uh... I... Your Highness?!” stammered a Sergeant. There was wild fear in his eyes. “Uh... We... We’ve got the farm flanked on three sides, Your Highness, but we can’t get round to the north to cut off their escape route; their arrow fire is too heavy... GET DOWN!”

The Sergeant seized his Princess around the neck and forced her to the ground. An arrow as long as Cadance was tall sailed through the space where her head had been seconds before and embedded itself in the trunk of an apple tree. It was irretrievably wedged in the trunk halfway up its shaft.

“We’re... we’re waiting for the rest of the battalion to arrive, Your Highness,” stammered the Sergeant. “Then we can push through the farmhouse and force the Dogs off.”

The Sergeant’s eyes were wide with fear. He scarcely looked to be in his twenties. “What’s your name, Sergeant?” Cadance asked softly.

“Brave Blizzard, Your Highness.”

“Well, we can’t afford to wait.” She stuck her head over the dry stone wall. Across a fallow field behind another wall, dozens of Diamond Dogs surrounded the farmhouse, loosing arrow after arrow to cover the retreat of four carts, loaded down with food and gems, being dragged away towards the hills.

“By the time the battalion arrives the Dogs will be gone. Who’s in command here?”

Brave Blizzard looked down at his groaning Captain. Three medics scrambled to apply a dressing around the arrow shaft, but his green uniform was already darkened by a huge bloodstain. “It’ll be Lieutenant Snow now, Your Highness.”

“Get her, quickly!”

Blizzard instinctively saluted and raced along the skirmish line, keeping low behind the wall. Pairs of skirmishers fired over the wall, their spears roaring as they discharged their magical blasts.

“Well done, everypony!” he heard himself shouting. “Keep on ‘em!”

He found Lieutenant Sapphire Snow on the Light Company’s left flank and told her she was in command. She’d paled at that, but when he’d told her that Princess Cadance expected her in the centre, all the colour seemed to leave the blue-hued Crystal Pony’s body.

They raced back to the centre as fast as they could while still staying in cover. When they got there, Sapphire Snow slid to a halt at the sight of her Captain lying there with an arrow sticking out of him. Captain Blackstone’s breath came in short, ragged gasps, and blood trickled, red on black, from his mouth. She felt bile rise in her throat.

“Lieutenant, you have to order an assault now!”

Sapphire looked up slowly to see Princess Cadance staring at her, eyes wide and panicked. She was a lot more beautiful in person that she was in the photographs she’d seen in newspapers, she thought dimly.

“LIEUTENANT!” yelled Cadance.

Sapphire shook her head. “We don’t have the ponies for an attack, Your Highness!”

“If you don’t go now, we’ll lose the Dogs! They’ve already made off with four carts, and knowing them they’ve probably taken the family in that farmhouse as well! If we don’t make a demonstration, they’ll just keep coming back in greater numbers!”

“It’s a two hundred yard dash across an open field, and the Dogs are behind a stone wall!” squeaked Sapphire. She didn’t want to go out there. She didn’t want to have to fight those Dogs. She didn’t want to give an order that would leave the ponies she had trained with dead. There must be someone else to command! Anyone but me! “Hundreds will die!”

“Leave that to me,” said the Crystal Princess.

***

“You don’t see a battle,” their Royal Guard instructor had told them in their first week of training. “You hear it. You smell it.”

Lance Corporal Green Grass was beginning to realise the truth of that maxim. How, he’d thought when he’d first heard it, could you fail to notice your enemy, especially when he was supposed to be in a line only two hundred yards away from your own?

Even at two hundred yards, though, the Diamond Dogs were almost invisible behind their wall, the only things visible the black dots of their heads as they leapt up to take pot-shots. He could hear them, though, their savage barking, snarling and whooping. He thought he could smell them as well; the stink of meat and crusted blood from the animals they butchered and devoured like savages.

Bracing his spear in his right shoulder with his left foreleg, he fired another blast. He was temporarily deafened by the thunder as it fired, and blinded by the scintillating blast of light that soared across the field, leaving a stink of burning in the air as it travelled. Moments later he heard a howl from across the field. He was a good shot, and he knew it had found his mark.

He ducked away from the hole in the wall they were using as a loophole, letting his comrade take his place. He blinked to clear the spots from his vision, and he willed his spear to be ready to fire again, pouring his magic into its shaft from his hooves. He didn’t know what was going on in the battle now. In fact, he barely knew what was happening forty yards either side of him. He could still hear it though: the thwock of Dog longbows being loosed and the hissing of arrows and javelins; the plunk as some fell short and wedged in the ground; the hellish clatter as some bounced off the wall; and worst of all, the deep, wet thumps as some found their targets in pony flesh, soon followed by screaming and the reek of bowels reflexively emptying. Occasionally there was retching and then the stench of vomit. And pervading it all was the endless roar of spears being fired.

He felt his spear shaking in his hooves. Why the buck was he here?! He’d been a baker until three months ago, for Celestia’s sake! Vicious creatures that slaughtered and ate ponies were not even two hundred yards away! They were outnumbered two to one, and he was just sitting here! He just wanted the earth below him to open and swallow him up. Why the buck was he here?!

Then he felt his spear finally charge. “Ready!” he blurted, months of drill making his response reflexive. Aiming through the loophole, Private Ice Shine found brought his spear to bear on a Diamond Dog’s head and fired. Then he ducked away from the wall and let Green Grass take his place. I’m here for Ice, he thought, and as he moved, he saw the shining city of the Crystal Empire in the distance. And I’m here for them, for the ponies who can’t fight for themselves.

He stuck his spear through the loophole, looking for targets. He would not fire until Ice had charged his spear, so that if the Dogs tried to rush them, at least one pony in each skirmisher pair would have a weapon ready. Then he heard a new sound; a drum call rolling in from the centre. An ominous PLAN rat a PLAN rat a PLAN rat a. He felt his blood freeze. That was the call to launch a charge!

He looked around to see Ice looking as shocked as he was. Had the rest of the battalion arrived? But no, he could see it from here, still moving across the fields from the Empire in a column of companies. What was Blackstone thinking?! An assault now would be suicidal!

Green Grass suddenly felt something pass over him, like a warm wind, and in seconds he felt his spirits soar. What was he worried about? He was a Guardspony of the Crystal Empire, and he and his buddies were here to face down these Dog raiders! They were the best-trained troops in Equestria, and these savages didn’t have a hope against them!

He turned back to the loophole, and he saw to his amazement that a transparent pink veil had descended between them and the Diamond Dogs. He saw that the platoons on the flanks had been similarly shielded. He heard the Dogs’ barks and snarls turn to howls and whimpers of disappointment as their arrows and javelins bounced off the shield.

“Keep firing!” he heard Sergeant Brave Blizzard shouting as her ran up the line behind him. “Your shots will pass through; theirs won’t!”

“Ready!” cried Ice Shine. Green Grass fired, and his shot passed through the scintillating pink shield and struck a Diamond Dog that was staring dumbly at the impenetrable veil. Then from the Light Company’s centre, the flugelhorns sounded the order to charge.

With a huge roar, the entire company vaulted over the wall and galloped across the field on three legs, keeping the butts of their spears couched in their right shoulders with their left forelegs. Green Grass grinned and savoured the thrill of the charge as he galloped, not noticing the ache in his legs, or in his ears and eyes from firing so many shots. He didn’t notice his shortness of breath from the sprint or the pain in his foreleg from holding his spear. All he wanted to do was kill.

The shield advanced ahead of them, guarding them. The Diamond Dogs, already shot ragged by accurate fire from the skirmishers and demoralised by the sudden appearance of the shield, dropped their weapons in horror at the sight of the spear charge. The charge with spearpoints was a tactic almost wholly psychological in nature and effect. Soldiers who would stand for hours under fire would break and run in dread at the sight of spearpoints, for in the first case, there was great hope of survival, while in the second, in the terror of close combat, when being struck by a spear point that would pierce flesh and let out life was almost inevitable, there was very little, and hope was a great sustainer of courage.

Most of the Dogs broke and ran before the shield even reached the wall, throwing away their weapons and dropping to all fours for greater speed. The few brave Dogs that stood their ground found themselves outnumbered three to one by furious, vengeful ponies. The shield passed over the wall, and behind it the Guardsponies vaulted up, leaping over the wall and swiftly aiming their spearpoints down.

Green Grass gritted his teeth as he descended, feeling his spear shiver and a jolt go through his shoulder as the point connected. Then there was an awful tearing sound and a whimper cut short as the spear tore through the Dog’s flesh, shattered his bones and ruptured his organs. The Dog fell with three spears in him: Green Grass and another pony’s through his chest; Ice Shine’s through his head. A sour reek filled the air as the Dog’s bowels emptied.

Then they were charging again, this time at one of the last Dogs still standing. Green Grass’ spear waved in front of him, fury and the determination not to be one of those who didn’t get a kill filling his heart. The Dog stood in front of him on its hind legs, easily twice his height, slaver dripping from its yellow-toothed snout. Its grey fur was matted and darkened by years of dirt and filth. Hellish red pupils were nested in yellow, bloodshot, rolling eyes, and it brandished a club in its paw.

Green’s reach was far greater than his opponent’s, though, and he thrust his spear forward with all his strength. The triangular blade, specially designed to make wounds harder to sew closed, burst into the Dog’s stomach. He yanked it back out with a hideous ikl-wa sucking sound. Blood and a handful of intestines, which slithered out like silver worms, poured from the rent in the Dog’s body, and it sank to the ground, dead.

Then it was all over. Howling and whimpering, most of the Dogs had fled the farm and were scurrying across the fields back into the foothills of the Crystal Mountains where their prizes awaited. A few shots rang out as the skirmishers who still had charged spears fired after them, but most were out of range. Most ponies simply stopped and looked around, exhausted and dazed. The charge had not even taken thirty seconds.

In the centre of it all was Lieutenant Sapphire Snow, clutching a bloodstained sword in a foreleg that was red to the elbow. Green Grass frowned. Where was Captain Blackstone? And standing next to Lieutenant Snow was – Green blinked several times, thinking he was still half-blind from firing – Princess Cadance.

He exchanged stunned glances with Ice Shine. Had the Crystal Princess, standing there with her hair dishevelled and dirt from the charge across the field splattered up her legs, conjured the shield?

Then the rest of the battalion thundered into the farmyard and the Adjutant, Major Sun Blade was bellowing orders. “Light Company, secure the area! Medics, fall out and check for wounded! Everyone else, with me! We’re going after those mongrels!”

***

Cadance was oblivious to the Guardsponies spilling around her and giving her shocked stares. She only had eyes for one thing: a Diamond Dog lying in the dirt of the farmyard, panting and clutching a gaping wound in his stomach, his eyes screwed shut.

She sank to her knees next to him. “Medics!” she called, though she instantly knew his wounds were fatal. She closed her eyes and let magic flow into her horn. It glowed pink and the Dog’s eyes flickered open.

“Listen to me,” she said quietly. “My name is Cadance. I am the Princess of the city you attacked.”

“Pretty pony...” croaked the Dog, blood trickling from its jaws. “Pretty pony princess...”

Cadance heard somepony nearby give a disgusted whinny. She paid it no heed. “Listen to me, you’re dying. I can ease your passing, but first I must know: why are you attacking us?”

The Dog chuckled and coughed, blood spraying from his lips. “We’re running. Dogses are running, pony princess. They come in the night and take Dogses mines. The mines and the precious gemses. The precious gemses!”

He spluttered again. Cadance leaned closer to him. “Who? Who attacked you?”

The Dog grinned weakly. “We’re running, pretty pony princess, and you’d better run, too. Run south, yes! As far south as can run! ‘cause they coming, pretty pony princess!”

“Who? I must know!”

“The hairless,” whispered the Dog. “Walkses on two legs, but never on four legs like Dog or pony. And they eatses meat like Dog but leaveses like pony...”

He spluttered horribly again, blood spraying from his mouth. Cadance’s horn glowed and the Dog slipped into merciful unconsciousness.

Cadance slowly stood up. She turned to see a dozen officers and soldiers of the Light Company staring at her. Some looked shocked. Others looked terrified.

“What did he mean, Your Highness?” asked Sapphire Snow.

“I... I’m not sure.”

***

Jade Stone delivered the final butcher’s bill to Cadance that evening. Slumped on her throne in the Crystal Palace, Cadance had spent the hours since the raid walking among the injured and taking reports, and using her love magic to give courage and rest to the wounded and dying. Now, at nine in the evening, she thought that she hadn’t felt so exhausted since she’d had to repel Sombra when the Empire had first returned.

Of the farmer, Golden Beet, his wife Sugar and their two foals, there was no sign. The Crystal Constabulary had taken over the investigation and had identified blood trails in the farmhouse, which suggested the Dogs had killed them and dragged the bodies away. Major Sun Blade had been determined to recover the bodies, but the Crystal Guard had emerged from the mountains at eight o’clock, having lost the trail three hours before. The Dogs were carnivores, and Cadance didn’t even want to contemplate what state the corpses would be in now.

The Guard’s Light Company had suffered seven dead. Twenty-one were injured, five of them so badly that they would never fight again. Captain Blackstone was among the dead: the arrow had punctured his lung and he had bled out while waiting to be evacuated. Others whose injuries had looked relatively minor had suddenly gone into septic shock while in triage and had died there: some of the Dogs’ weapons had been smeared with excrement. Cadance felt tears well in her eyes. It was a filthy way to die.

Fifteen Diamond Dog bodies had been found around the farmhouse. Twenty-two wounded had been left there, but those who could have been saved had resisted treatment so ferociously that the Guards had had to spear them where they lay. Some of the Guards said that they’d seen walking wounded hobbling away with the rest of the Dog horde, and part of Cadance hoped that there was a Dog lying in some freezing mountain pass tonight, clutching desperately at a festering wound.

It had taken a while for the shock to set in. The Crystal Ponies had welcomed back their victorious troops with cheering and backslapping, offering them tea and cakes from their own larders. The Crystal Guard was blooded and had proved itself worthy of Shining Armor’s high expectations, but now the true implications of the raid seemed to have set in. Tonight the Crystal Empire was much quieter than usual, and there was scarcely a pony to be seen in the streets.

“The Agricultural Commissioner’s not happy,” said Jade Stone. “He’s had farmers from the Marches appearing in his office all day clamouring for Guard protection.”

“Can we blame them?” groaned Cadance. She looked over at Major Sun Blade, still fuming over his failure in the mountains. “What can we do about that, Major?”

“If we disperse the Guard, we run the risk of being defeated in detail if those bucking mutts come back again,” he snarled, then he remembered who he was talking to. “Uh... what I mean to say is...”

“Don’t worry, Major, you could have read my mind,” said Cadance. “But if we keep the Guard concentrated we might not respond to threats in time?”

“Exactly, Your Highness. I think for now the best thing to do is keep the Guard drilling. Make sure the ponies know their protected and hopefully make the Dogs think twice if they’re watching. It’ll also help us learn how to cut down our response time.”

“Thank you, Major. We’ll talk more about it when Silver Star gets back from the capital. See to your ponies.”

Sun Blade brought a hoof to his head in salute and trotted out of the throne room.

“One of the Dogs told me why they’d come south,” said Cadance quietly, after the door had swung shut. “He said they were under attack and that they were running.” She stared at Jade Stone. “He said we should run too.”

“Then the Prince’s theory was right?” asked the First Minister. “Could it be the same things that attacked our patrol?”

“Maybe.” Cadance stared at the floor, as if trying to divine the future from the patterns in the deep blue crystal. All she saw was her face staring back at her, tired and confused and frightened.

“When I was in Canterlot for Hearth’s Warming, I showed Princess Luna that thing we pulled out of poor Gold Aurora,” she said quietly. “She looked so shocked. I saw her show it to Celestia when I was there for Privy Council, and she looked terrified.”

“You think they know what it is, Your Highness?”

“Yes, and I know it scares them. It scares them; it scares the Diamond Dogs; and it scares me.” She stood up. “I will write to my husband when I return to my chambers. It’s better he hears this from me that from tomorrow’s papers. I want a full report prepared for Princess Celestia as well.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Jade Stone trotted from the throne room.

Cadance descended from the throne room’s dais and walked over to one of the immense windows. She stared north over the Crystal Empire, over the deserted streets and the crystal houses with their glowing, welcoming windows, and into the Crystal Mountains. Somewhere in that massive range was something that terrified two immortal god princesses and had sent a horde of savage carnivores fleeing south like a band of frightened puppies. The hairless... walkses on two legs... they eatses meat like Dog but leaveses like pony...

“What are you?” she whispered.

Comments

[NocturneD85]

man?

[Seanchow806Napoleonic]

Is it the humans they were supposed to be dead or not?

[Venlin]

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