Armor's Game

by OTCPony

The Battle of the Recinante Cliffs

Colonel Morning Star crouched at the very edge of the Recinante Cliffs. Before him, the path of the Great Trunk Road, barely wide enough for two carts to pass, zigzagged down the cliffs into Froud Valley below. To his right the sun was sinking behind the distant Forest of Leota. He checked his watch. Five minutes to go before last light and step-off.

He took a deep breath and turned. Behind him, in a column of half-companies, were the nine hundred and seventy eight ponies left in his battalion. Their shakos were battered from field wear and their red and blue coats were faded from so long under the southern sun. There was now not a single regiment in the Army that had not taken casualties, not since Maneden. These ponies had seen friends die. They had marched hundreds of miles from home, and now they were to be the vanguard of an incredibly perilous operation.

Morning Star knew there were ponies before him who did not want to fight.

He took another breath. Everything now rested on him. If the Royal Fillydelphias wouldn’t go, the whole of 4th Brigade wouldn’t go. Tall, broad and dark, he had the look of a leader. He’d led them well enough from Canterlot to here. He was dimly aware that the fate of the entire campaign might rest on what he said now.

“Soldiers!” he declared. “Tonight we will embark on one of the most important operations of this war! You know why we are here. Without this road, we will never be able to advance into the Changeling Kingdom. The fate of the war hinges upon what we do tonight!”

He cast his eyes over his battalion. “I know there are those of you who wonder why we are here, why we do not go home now that the Lynxes are free. Remember this: the Changelings attacked our country without provocation. They attacked the Lynxes without provocation. And in the Valley below us, there was once a thriving civilisation that they destroyed! Given time, they will surely come back to attack again, and I will not allow that to happen. Nor will I allow the Changelings to escape justice for what they have done!

“Our army has three victories behind it! In Equestria, when they speak of Valneigh, they speak of the Royal Artillery! When they speak of Maneden, they speak of the 2nd Division! When they speak of Tailwald Wood, they speak of the Imperial Crystal Hussars!

“When they speak of the Recinante Cliffs, they will speak of the Royal Fillydelphias!”

His battalion was stirring now. Excitement showed on their faces.

“If you would see our country safe, if you would see justice done, if you would see glory, forever undimmed, added to our colours, then...” He drew his sword. “Follow me.”

***

The path down the cliffs was, as Morning Star had feared, in a state. It had not been properly maintained since the Changeling conquest of the Felinia over a year ago, and the march up of the Changeling army, followed by its panicked retreat back down, had done nothing to improve it. He was constantly sliding his hoof in front of him, hunting in the darkness for potholes that could turn a fetlock.

Behind him filed his battalion, marching silently in route step. Any sound set the nerves jangling. Every so often there was a splash and a hiss or a curse as a hoof slid into a deep puddle in the middle of the road. The metalled surface was better than the packed mud of the roads of the Lynx territories, but it was still nothing compared to the magically-fused stone surfaces of Equestrian roads.

Breath roaring in his ears and coming in clouds before him, Morning Star reached the bottom of another stage of descent. He knew the path wasn’t that steep, but the darkness and the risk of discovery or injury made him think that every step would be his last. Heart pounding, he allowed himself a brief moment of rest on the landing. One more stretch to go, he thought. He took a deep breath and moved on.

That moment he took to relax cost him. He had let his guard down and his back right leg slid on the edge of the road. He staggered and his heart shot into his mouth, barely dragging himself back on to the road. A stream of dislodged pebbles clattered down the cliff, and from below came the sound of buzzing.

Morning Star spun to see the horrified faces of the front rank of his Light Company. There’s a Changeling picket below us!

The buzzing became more intense – agitated, decisive. Morning Star knew he had to act now.

“1st Platoon, with me!” he hissed. “I want any Pegasus in the rest of the Light Company to drop down behind those Changelings!”

There was an explosion of whispering throughout the formation as the order was spread. Morning Star hoped that it had reached everypony, because he didn’t have any time to wait.

“Ready? Three, two, one, GO!”

Star swept around, sword in hoof and galloped down the path, hoping that his ponies were following him. Any trip or stumble would mean disaster. He swept around the turn of the road and saw a mass of ice blue compound eyes staring right at him.

For Morning Star, the entire war shrank to a tunnel in front of him. He brought his sword down in a cut one; a devastating slash on to the first Changeling’s left shoulder. It cut down to the sternum in a jet of ichor. He wrenched the blade free and slashed it up in a cut four across the next Changeling’s chest.

He didn’t notice the ponies behind him clashing into the picket with the points of their spears. He barely noticed Pegasi in bright uniforms diving from the path above to get behind the Changelings. He just kept cutting and cutting his way through a mass of black, shiny bodies and fountains of gore.

A misjudged downward cut seven to the head foundered as it caught the Changeling’s crooked horn. Morning Star back away from the hissing drone, slaver dripping from its fangs, wings beating a-blur. He struck again with a messy, panicked cut five across the neck that took its head half off. The Changeling’s corpse toppled off the road down the cliffs.

He turned to see the last Changeling, an officer in purple helmet and breastplate, buzzing furiously. For a moment Morning Star thought he saw hatred in those soulless compound eyes.

He slashed his sword in a wide cut six across the officer’s chest, but with a shriek of steel on steel, the blade slid off its breastplate. Now Morning Star was stuck with his blade uselessly off to the right, the Changeling officer ready to run him through with its horn or rend him with its jagged legs.

In a shower of gore, a triangular spear point erupted from the Changeling’s head. Ichor running from its mouth and one of its eyes destroyed, it sank to the ground, twitching its last.

The Fillydelphia Sergeant yanked his pike from the ruin of the Changeling’s skull. “You okay, sir?”

Breathing heavily, sweat soaking his uniform, Morning Star lowered his sword. “Yes, thank you Sergeant. How are we?”

“No casualties, sir.”

Morning Star looked around. There were only twelve Changelings lying dead on the path. It had felt like hundreds. Intellectually he knew that they couldn’t have been fighting for more than thirty seconds. It had felt like a lifetime.

“The Changelings, Corporal?” he asked.

“Didn’t see any get away, sir,” said a Pegasus Corporal.

“We must assume one did. Get the rest of the battalion moving and formed up at the base of the cliffs!”

The Pegasus spread his wings and rocketed back to the top of the cliffs. At 11:36 that night, four thousand ponies of the 4th Brigade began the scrambling descent of Recinante Cliffs.

***

Brigadier General Dame Tungsten von Lance was first down the cliffs at midnight, at the head of 2nd Battalion, 3rd (Vanhoover Fusiliers) Regiment of Hoof. Beneath her cocked hat was a fierce red mane almost the same colour as her jacket. On a pale flank was a cutie mark of a dark grey spear.

On the dark grassy plains ahead, crouching beneath the starry skies, Morning Star’s Royal Fillydelphias held the line, the Grenadier and Light Companies refused on the flanks to form an impenetrable wall of spears, anchored on the cliffs. All was silent.

“A brilliant coup, Colonel Star,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Morning Star. “A lot still to do, though.”

“Agreed.” Her eyes flicked over to the left, where a 12-pounder gun was being lowered down the cliffs by a block and tackle.

The battalion guns would have been useless even at this range, so Lance had decided not to bring them. Instead, she had liaised with the Royal Artillery to acquire two 12-pounders, which the Engineers were lowering down the cliff face now. And to operate them she had elicited the services of the finest battery in the Army.

Major Inkie Pie’s heart was in her mouth as the gun creaked down the cliff face. It was perfectly fine, she told herself. Those ropes were rated for three times the cannon’s weight and they’d tested the pulley mechanism multiple times without problems. But one outlying spur of rock; one careless soldier... It was times like these she wished she could be more like Maud.

Inkie breathed a sigh of relief as the gun settled down on the grass. She seized a loose end of rope between her teeth and yanked the harness’ knot loose.

“Take this to the left flank,” she ordered Lieutenant Star Wing. “Position for oblique shots, and watch your ammo state!”

***

The copse was pitch-dark. Lieutenant Colonel Brigandine could barely see his sword in front of his face as he crept slowly through the woods, right hoof searching slowly across the ground for anything that might trip his ponies. The eight hundred and eighty-two surviving ponies of 3rd Battalion, 5th (Royal Shetlanders) Regiment of Hoof filed slowly behind him in column, silent but for the occasional rustle of equipment or a muttered curse as a kilt snagged on a branch.

It wasn’t the most practical garment for fighting, Brigandine had to admit, or even for campaigning: they’d had to issue trousers for wear during nights lest the soldiers freeze where they slept. Yet neither Brigandine nor any other Shetlander would think for a moment of surrendering the kilt. Their ancestors had fought in the belted plaid against the Braytish for decades before allying with Azure Blueblood’s army to fight in the Princesses’ name, and not one of them would think of giving up that tradition.

Brigandine raised his sword and the noise behind him faded as his battalion slid to a halt. Before him through the trees he could see the battlefield. Off to his right, he knew, was the rest of the brigade assembling into line. Far off to his left, across the plain beneath star-strewn skies, he could see the faint glow of sentries’ fires from the Changeling camp.

“Good enough position for yous, Lieutenant?” he asked, his voice thick with Shetland brogue.

Lieutenant Star Wing, breathing heavily, spat the bricole from his muzzle. On his right sleeve he wore a gold-fringed, blood-red Wound Stripe. “Couldn’t ask for a better one, sir. Could have done without the forest, though.”

“Cracking. Get that wee cannon of yours set up then.”

As Star Wing and his crew manhandled the gun into position, not without a fair bit of cursing, Brigandine crouched and frowned out across the plain. He was acutely aware of the responsibility on his shoulders: his battalion in this copse secured the entire brigade’s left flank. If the Changelings came up the middle to take the brigade head on, he needed to be ready to rush out and take the Changeling flank. In that case, he’d have the support of the entire brigade, but if they went for the copse and tried to turn the flank, he’d be on his own.

Brigandine’s second-in-command, Major Trocair, crouched next to him. “Sir, if yon Changelings come at us right from the south, Star Wing willnae be able tae move his gun in time tae support us.”

“Aye, and we’ll no be able to deploy tae line quickly, no’ with these trees,” muttered Brigandine. “We’ll have tae charge them, and it’s no gonna be pretty.”

“Aye, sir,” whispered Trocair. “But if needs be, we’ll dae that.”

***

Light was beginning to creep through the walls of Lord Pupa’s tent as he paced the floor. Would today be the day Shining Armor moved, he wondered? The Equestrians had been sat atop the cliffs for days, with the only movements being Pegasi flying far above his camp. He was confident that he would not see movement for a few hours: unlike Changelings, Queen Chrysalis had assured him, ponies needed something called “sleep”, so he had stood most of the legion down during the night. Action would come at mid-morning at the earliest.

The tent’s membranous flap pushed open and an officer resplendent in shining purple armour entered. “My Lord, a messenger from our picket on the road!”

Consternation poured from the officer, and fear suddenly flooded from Pupa. Why would the watch picket need to send a drone now?

The drone, his claws shining with morning dew, pushed into the tent. Pupa immediately grasped what was wrong from his pheromones. “The ponies have descended.”

“Yes, My Lord!” gasped the drone. “They overcame our picket and are formed in line! At least three battalions! They’ve already brought down two guns!”

“Are they moving?”

“No, My Lord.”

Pupa hissed and paced the tent furiously. He’d expected far more warning than this!

“We should destroy the road immediately,” said the officer. “Then we can overcome them with their support and escape route cut off.”

“If they have not yet moved, that means they are uncertain of our dispositions,” said Pupa. “If we open fire they will identify our gun positions and will be able to destroy them. If we call for reinforcements, the ponies will have time to storm our camp and consolidate before they arrive. We must fight them now to clear the plain before we can do anything else.”

***

As the sky to the east turned pink with this rising sun, Morning Star shivered. His heart was thundering and, try as he might to conceal it, his legs were shaking. No matter how many battles he saw, it was always the same. I was writing a poem when the order to move came through, he thought absurdly. I’d much rather be back up there doing that.

Nearly a thousand yards directly ahead of him was the Changeling camp, becoming clearer by the moment. A thick wall of rammed earth fronted by a ditch surrounded a field of tents, he knew. He was almost directly aligned with the dark wooden gate. Then he saw light shine through the gate. His hoof went for his binoculars.

“They’re moving!” cried somepony.

Morning Star frowned through his binoculars. A Changeling formation five files across marched out of the gate. Then every Changeling in it turned to its right, presenting a formation sixteen ranks deep. It marched off to form the right of the Changeling line. It was followed by another, then another, and another...

A great dark line of centuries snaked out of the gate onto the plain. It was a striking sight, and made Morning Star think that his ponies needed to brush up on their own drill. Eventually, 4,400 Changelings in fifty-five centuries arrayed five ranks deep faced less than four thousand ponies of the 4th Brigade across the plain. Black thunderclouds, he saw were starting to mass in the skies in the south, behind the Changeling camp. It was as if the Twentieth Legion was bringing the very forces of nature marching with them.

Morning Star took a deep breath and looked either side of him. The brigade was arrayed in a line only two ranks deep. Tungsten von Lance had been given broad discretion in her orders from Shining Armor, and it had been he who had suggested two ranks to spread the line and prevent the Changelings from overcoming their flanks. If the line broke, it was on his head.

If he survived, that is.

***

Lord Pupa marched in the centre of his legion. The Twentieth Legion was one of the finest formations the Hive possessed, but it had been held back as an experienced reserve during the conquest of the Lynx Territories. When the scale of the pony threat had become clear, it had been the first to be retrained in Lord Cocoon’s new volley firing tactics, and true to its reputation, it had taken to them excellently.

Marching in perfect step, his legion had reached a hundred and fifty yards from the pony line. He could make out details now: the cocked hats of officers among the rows of shakos; the colours of facings amid the red jackets; a nervous pony pawing at the ground; and the fact that rather than the standard three ranks, the ponies were deployed only two ranks deep...

That almost gave him pause. Why would the ponies sacrifice a solid formation? Pupa couldn’t think of any advantage to be gained from it. Their firing drills were based on platoon firing to ensure a continuous barrage, and this did nothing to enhance it.

So be it then. He would march his legion to sixty yards before firing. They would advance firing volleys until twenty yards, when they would charge. The greater mass of his deeper ranks would be impossible for the weak pony line to resist. The ponies were tired from the march and in need of sleep. They were outnumbered and poorly deployed. The day would be his.

***

The single line of shining black chitin was more detailed now. Morning Star could see the blue eyes; crooked horns; membranous wings; the occasional helmet of an officer; the dawn light creeping through the holes in their legs.

The whole line marched as one, their hive nature not letting a single leg fall out of step. Keeping a formation that long in lockstep was by itself impressive: it was so difficult to maintain control marching a line of ponies over distance that the drill book required them to be formed into column instead. They looked so much more disciplined, so much better trained...

Morning Star crushed the thought. He knew his ponies were among the best trained in the Army, and they had beaten Changelings before and would do so again.

His eyes flicked to his right to see the Ensign next to him, gripping the regimental colour so tight his hooves were white. He could not have been more than nineteen, and he was swallowing repeatedly.

“Just keep it together, chaps,” said Morning Star with forced calm. “Waiting’s the hardest part. It’ll all be fine when the ball opens.”

4th Brigade’s line was silent, but from the Changeling line came the ceaseless, coordinated pounding of thousands of claws marching as one. It was like a thousand drums being beaten endlessly. The very ground seemed to be shaking. Morning Star found himself counting. One hundred and five yards, one hundred and four, three... two... one...

Thrown forward twenty yards in front of the Equestrian line were four hundred ponies from the battalions’ Light Companies in skirmish order. They leapt up from their hiding places in the grass and with a crackle of fire, sent a cloud of accurate shots into the front ranks of the Twentieth Legion. Officers and file-closers fell hissing in pain as they were pelted with accurate fire. The perfect Changeling line suddenly slowed and distorted as drones tried to struggle on over the bodies of the dead, keep going without officers, or drag the wounded back to safety.

I’ve never seen Changelings do that before, thought Morning Star, as the skirmishers raced back to the Equestrian line, pairs covering each other with more accurate fire.

***

Shining Armor lay atop the Recinante Cliffs, peering down at the battlefield through his binoculars. The once-perfect black line of the Twentieth Legion was now ragged and was making desultory fire against the Light Companies, but the skirmishers moved like quicksilver before them, diving into cover before leaping up to plant more accurate shots on to the Legion.

The Field Marshal’s heart was thundering. His mouth was dry. He’d given Tungsten von Lance broad discretion, but this was almost too much for him. She was bringing a weak line into almost knife-fighting range against a numerically-superior opponent that could bring far greater mass against her ponies if it came to a melee, and most of her ponies hadn’t even fired yet!

The Changelings redressed their ranks and kept marching. At sixty yards, the entire line halted. The horns of the Changelings in the front two ranks of each century glowed and fired, and then the two ranks behind them raced to the front and fired as well, the fifth rank holding position as a reserve. The green storms of shot crashing into the pony line looked like foam rushing up the shore in a strong tide.

This they kept doing, horns glowing, crackling and discharging, more drones racing through the ranks to replace those at the front. Shining Armor had seen a clockwork automaton during a deployment to Mareope once, and the Changelings moved exactly like that. And still the 4th Brigade had not engaged.

What’s she waiting for?!

***

A jet of fire struck the drum a battalion drummer was holding. It exploded into splinters and the drummer recoiled screaming. Wooden shrapnel tore into Morning Star’s side. With a yell of pain he dropped his sword and fell to his knees.

“Sir!” cried a Sergeant. He dropped next to his commander. “MEDICS! Get a medic!”

“Forget me!” snarled Morning Star, clutching a hoof to his side. “Hold your damned positions!”

A fresh order raced out from Tungsten von Lance’s position in the middle of the line “GO PRONE! GO PRONE!”

“GO PRONE!” gasped Morning Star, as the half of his battalion to his right threw itself down into the grass. The rest of the battalion lay down as well, and the entire brigade sank into cover, bursts of Changeling magic snapping past over their heads.

It came too late for some. With a groan and a clatter of equipment one front-ranker dropped his spear and knelt over it for a moment before collapsing, unmoving, to the ground.

The Changelings kept firing, surging, volleying forward. They were closer than fifty yards now. He could see every vein in their wings; the individual lenses in their compound eyes...

Teeth gritted in pain, he looked to his right. There, standing alone amid the storm of fire, furiously waving her cocked hat, was Brigadier General Tungsten von Lance.

Grimacing as pain shot through his side, blood still spilling over his hoof, Morning Star staggered up. “UP, CHAPS!” he roared. “UP, FILLYDELPHIAS! NOW’S OUR TIME!”

All along the line, thousands of ponies leapt to their hooves. At that moment, Lieutenant Star Wing and Major Inkie Pie put portfires to the touchholes of their guns.

Billowing clouds of smoke and thunderous roars erupted from each flank as the cannon fired. The position of each gun was perfect: they were at oblique angles to the entire Changeling line, and roundshot scythed through nearly every rank in the flank centuries, sending limbs, heads and tattered scraps of torn, burnt flesh skywards in great jets of ichor. Its flanks in tatters, the Twentieth Legion ground to a halt.

Leaning heavily to one side, Morning Star bellowed out the commands for what he knew was coming. “FRONT RANK! MAKE READY... PRESENT!”

The front rank levelled its spears as the Changelings began to move again. They had but a few more yards to go. Forty-four, forty-three, two, one...

“FIRE!” screamed Tungsten von Lance.

A tidal wave of fire erupted from the Equestrian line, beginning in the centre and spreading to the flanks. The battalions fired as one, not as platoons, for Lance and Morning Star had reasoned that a massive explosion of fire at close range would do far more to make use of their limited numbers than continuous fire at a distance. And by reducing their depth to two ranks, 4th Brigade had also increased the number of spears it could bring to the engagement by thirty percent.

Before the vision of the front-rankers even cleared, the second-rankers, who had been instructed to keep their eyes shut during firing, were preparing themselves. Then the command bellowed out from the centre again. “REAR RANK! MAKE READY! PRESENT! FIRE!”

Another storm of two thousand shots crashed into the Changeling ranks. From Shining Armor’s position, it looked like a sheet of light sweeping the Changelings from the field: drones went down like wheat before the reaper. Officers, made conspicuous by the helmets, fell with multiple wounds, usually from pony soldiers who had their own views on officers regardless of race. In the front rank, Lord Pupa’s foreleg was shattered by a hit, and then he was struck in the flank as he fell. Two pairs of claws seized him and he was dragged back into the ragged Changeling ranks.

“Pull back to the camp!” he gasped. “Don’t fire on the road!”

Amid the horror, his drones did not hear him. All they cared about now was surviving.

***

“FIRE!” bellowed Star Wing.

A double-shotted load of canister and ball blasted from the copse, creating another heap of corpses on the Changeling flank. Next to Star Wing Brigandine grinned. “Well, Lieutenant, I think that’s good enough for us.”

“I sure hope so, sir. We’re out of canister.”

“More fun for us then!” He drew his sword, a massive thing with a great broad blade and a huge basket to protect the hoof. “SHELTAND FOREVER!”

“SHETLAND FOREVER!” thundered the battalion.

The battalion column surged out of the woods in a tide of red and tartan, and nearly a thousand whooping, screaming Shetlanders, fighting like their ancestors of old, fell upon the Changeling flank, swords and spears whirling. Behind them, Star Wing and his crew dragged their gun.

The difficulty in lowering the guns down the cliffs meant that they had only been able to take ten rounds with them per gun. They had expended their only two canister rounds already, and now they depended on the Shetlanders, and on Major Inkie Pie’s flank, the Appleloosans, to clear the flanks of infantry so they could carry out their next mission: suppressing the Changeling guns in the camp.

Atop the wall of the Twentieth Legion’s camp, a terrified Changeling gunner watched his legion disintegrate in front of him. Thousands of Changelings were galloping away from the battle as the ponies descended on them in a spearpoint charge. The Twentieth Legion, one of the finest formations in the Hive, had broken in fifteen minutes.

He didn’t expect to survive the day, or even the next hour, but he knew he had one final order to carry out.

“Open fire on the road!” he snapped. “Bring it down!”

With brilliant flashes and a roar like dragons, his six cannon opened fire. Roundshot crashed into the cliffs, sending great streams of shattered rock cascading down, but it would take dozens more rounds for them to seriously damage the road, and they had just given away their positions.

“Aim for the muzzle flash!” cried Star Wing. “Fire for effect!”

Atop the cliffs, Shining Armor hissed as he saw the guns fire and heard the cliffs shatter beneath him. But then Star Wing and Inkie Pie returned fire. They fired over the heads of thousands of fleeing Changelings, smashing the walls of the camp to so many splinters and clods of earth. Gun barrels were blasted into the air as roundshot struck. Fires started as powder stores ignited. Even outnumbered three to one, the Equestrian gunners were superior, for the Changelings had discharged their loads all at once, and now they were still trying to remove the massive, heavy breeches of their ancient guns while the pony gunners were already thrusting fresh rounds down their barrels.

Shining Armor stood and watched with a grim smile as the now-ragged red line of the 4th Brigade pursued the tide of Changelings as they galloped past their burning camp and fled south. Above the thunderclouds opened at last and the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.

***

“How did this happen?”

The distant sounds of the battle below were irrelevant to Private Twist Turn. He winced as the surgeon gently unwrapped the makeshift bandage around his hoof.

“I was cleaning my spear,” he grunted. “Trying to get the carbon off the point. Bucker went off in my hooves.”

Surgeon-Captain Snowheart frowned at the wound on Twist Turn’s left leg. The flesh was torn and burned and it wept blood. “Well, the good news is, this is treatable and you will be perfectly fine. However, we will have to send you back home to Equestria for it.”

The black-maned Earth Pony groaned and leaned back, staring at the tarp of the medical tent. He could hear the rain drumming on it. “Brilliant.”

“You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“But what about my unit? My buddies?”

“It can’t be helped. Don’t worry; we’ll handle all the necessary paperwork.”

Twist Turn sighed. With his right hoof, he awkwardly opened a pocket in his jacket and pulled out a couple of letters. “Before I go, can you get these to the mail service? For my family?”

Snowheart smiled and took the letters. “Of course. I can get a scribe for you as well if you need help writing another?”

“Thank you. That would be very nice.”

Twist Turn grimaced in pain as Snowheart wrapped a fresh dressing around his wound. He’d got away with it. He’d risked court-martial and imprisonment for shooting himself in the hoof, but as he’d suspected, the medics were sympathetic. Nevertheless, it still hurt like Tartarus.

Blueblood better pay big.

Comments

[OTCPony]

This one's based on the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759, where James Wolfe led four thousand men up a cliff face in the middle of the night to take the French garrison by surprise. Incidentally, the victory was part of the same Annus Mirabilis as the Battle of Minden. Here of course, they go down the cliffs rather than up, but the effect is still there.

Morning Star's actions here are to a degree based on those of Colonel William Howe, who led the first contingent of men up the cliffs to drive off a French picket and seize the heights.

Part of my inspiration for this chapter was an epic poem I found written about the battle. It's an absolutely amazing read and I strongly encourage you all to take a look:

http://myweb.dal.ca/jc538753/plainsofabraham/images/Plains%20of%20Abraham%20-%20Part%203.pdf

[soronos]

Once again plot armor and the idiot ball prevails. The changelings and their general are idiots and the ponies are perfect. As well written as this is, the utter predictability of the battles is getting a little dull.