The Wolves of Equestria

by FenrisianBrony

Delusion

The blades whipped through the air, before clashing with Luna’s own weapon, her sword leaping out in a blinding flash, the sound ringing around the room.

“Have you lost mind, Wolf?!” Luna roared as I reared back again, spinning my axes and driving her back a step.

My jaw was still preventing me from forming coherent words, and I was done talking to traitors, my only reply coming in the form of a roar. I wondered how long it would take for the Lunar Knights to come into the room, but for now, Luna was my only focus.

“I do not know what you are doing,” Luna flapped her wings once, propelling herself backwards across the room, opening the gap between us and buffeting me with the powerful winds, before readying her sword properly. “But if it is a fight you want, traitor, then it is a fight I shall give you. Come at me, son of the north, come and face your demise.”

Not taking my eyes off of Luna, I lashed out at one of the support struts with my back leg, the entrance rumbling and collapsing as the weak ceiling caved in, buying me a few more precious moments before the Lunar Knights arrived.

“That would have been clever,” Luna commended as the pair of us started circling each other. “But your mistake is thinking that I need my guards to deal with you.”

With an almost avian screech, Luna dived at me, her sword clashing against my axes once again, her speed far beyond my own. She was like a blur, her horn glowing as she spun and wove around my blows, seeming to turn into smoke whenever I came close to hitting her.

I swung one of my axes around, hoping to catch her off guard, but it was easily stopped by her sword, Luna coming face to face with me, her lips pulled back into a snarl that mirrored my own. Bringing my other axe around, I swung at Luna’s neck, only to find it cutting through smoke as Luna disappeared, reappearing behind me, and bringing her sword down across my back, her aim perfect to cause as much damage as she could from her current position.

My armour held, but the blow still stung, and I knew that the bruises from that strike alone would be immense. I was used to that sort of pain though, and spun around, catching Luna off guard, clearly not expecting me to recover so quickly. She managed to backpedal enough that the fatal blow missed her, but the tip of my axe still opened up a long cut across her cheek, a single drop of blood dripping into her mouth.

With a scream of rage, her horn pulsed, flinging me across the room and forcing me to slam into the wall, leaving a small indent there as I fell to my knees, glaring up at Luna. Everything else fell away as I looked at my quarry, tunnel vision setting in, and by the looks of things, Luna was experiencing the same thing.

Like things possessed we leapt at each other again, all sense of self-preservation or moderation cast aside in the name of sheer, unveiled brutality. This was no longer a contest of endurance, it was now simply a sprint to beat the other one into oblivion. If I had been a unicorn, I never would have matched the Warmistress’s strength, and for the first time in a long time, I found myself thankful that I was an Earth Pony, providing me with the strength to even come close to that of the Warmistress. Even so, I could feel her beginning to wear me down, bringing her superior strength to bear with every blow.

Blades hammered off armour, the sound reverberating around the room and drawing tiny sparks that illuminated the dark gloom. Both of us were roaring now, wordless war cries as we laid into one another, cuts opening up all along our bodies.

I could no longer keep track of the blows we were now raining down on each other, primal instinct taking over, allowing me to react without thinking. I thought with all the strength I possessed, my muscles screaming as they stretched to their breaking point, while Luna fought with the fury and passion befitting her status as a near-goddess, her sword moving like lightning through the air, always striking out at me, and covering me in small cuts that refused to stop bleeding. Not a single thrust of hers was wasted, and with cold calculations and a precision I could never hope to achieve, she began to gain the upper hoof once more. At some point in the fight, one of us had hit the ground with enough strength to create a hole in the floor, but I simply factored it in as another obstacle to avoid, another stepping stone on my path to honouring the Empress and smiting the heretic down.

“He’s attacking the Warmistress! Stop him!” a voice called, and I turned my head to see a squad of Lunar Knights.

It was all the opening Luna needed. Lashing out, I felt her hoof slam into my chest plate, her horn glowing as she imbued magic into the blow. A spider wed of cracks covered the front of my armour as I staggered backwards, teetering on the edge of the hole, before the ground collapsed beneath me.

I had a sickening feeling of weightlessness as I fell, my stomach lurching into my mouth, before I crashed into the floor below. My armoured bulk smashed through the floor and I fell for a second time, before finally coming to a halt, coughing as I lay on my back, a thin shimmer of light shining down on me from the Warmistress’s quarters. I could hear shouting going on above me, and I strained my ears focus in on what they were saying.

“My Warmistress, are you hurt?” I didn’t recognise the voice, but it must have been one of the Lunar Knights that had interrupted our fight.

“Only my pride, captain,” Luna snapped. “Spread out and find Hoarfrost, if he is still alive, I want him brought before me in chains. If he is not, then I want his corpse. Find him captain, everything else is a secondary concern.”

Groaning, I forced myself to get to my hooves, pain shooting through my back and chest. The fact that I could move told me that my back wasn’t broken, but Luna’s punch had certainly broken more than one of my ribs. I didn’t recognise the passageway I was in, but I had to keep moving, there was only one way left open to me now. If I could rally the wolves, I might be able to salvage this, but to do that, I had to get to the surface.

Luna stood in her quarters, glaring at the hole in the floor, her eyes bright with fire. It had been four hours since Hoarfrost had tried to kill her, and since then her Knights had been combing the den for the traitor. For now, she had ordered that only those of her own Legion were to know about the attempt on her life, but she knew how rumours were. It wouldn’t be long before rumours became stories, and stories lead to panic. She would have to address her force soon enough, to tell them the truth, but another issue was staying her hoof.

“You are sure that it was him?” Luna asked, turning and looking at Scorpan and Raptus, both ponies having been brought to her only moments before.

“Yes, Warmistress,” Raptus nodded. “Our companies had finally found a way out of the uncharted depths of the den, and we were heading back to regroup with you when he came at us. He slew Drake in an instant, before causing a cave in and running off, ranting about how he was going to have your life as well. One of my own Legionnaires managed to hit him with a crossbow bolt, but we believe all it did was break his jaw. We would have got here sooner, but the cave-in was vast, and it took us time to dig through it. Many were lost beneath the rubble, I am sad to say.”

“Yes, but are you sure it was him?” Luna pressed. “It was not another Wolf? I need to know if this is the madness of one, or the betrayal of many.”

“With all due respect, Warmistress, I like to think that I know the Wolf Lord quite well,” Scorpan nodded, before pausing. “Sorry, knew the Wolf Lord. It was most certainly him, and he was alone. He did not say anything to indicate that the rest of his Great Company was involved. To think that he was capable of such a thing…it brokers disbelief.”

“Thank you for bringing this new information to light,” Luna nodded, looking at one of her guards. “Have the rest of the Arctic Wolves sent to the surface, along with four other companies. Keep them under close guard, but do not give them cause to believe that they are under scrutiny.”

“As for you two,” Luna turned back to Scorpan and Raptus. “Go to the surface also, take those you trust and begin to search for him. He has not been found in the depths, but he may have gotten to the surface. If he is in league with anypony else, then he will run to them. I would like him alive if possible, but if not… I will leave the details of the plan up to the pair of you. Captain Scorpan, you have overall command,” Luna passed a small coin to Scorpan, bearing her cutie mark, “if you need the assistance of any of my Legion, present them this, and they will follow your orders as if spoken from my own lips.”

“You honour me, Warmistress,” Scorpan bowed deeply, taking the token. “I will do my upmost to bring Hoarfrost back to you, so that you may dispense judgement as you see fit.”

With that, Scorpan and Raptus headed out of Luna’s chambers, leaving the Warmistress to brood once more, the one remaining guard in the room clearing his throat and approaching her.

“My Warmistress, are you sure that you are unharmed?”

“Do you not trust me when I say that I am not hurt?” Luna asked, looking back at the Knight with a small smile.

“No,” the guard retorted, a smile of his own spreading across his lips. “Not since that incident with the Griffons at…”

“You have made your point,” Luna cut him off sharply. “And besides, there were ten griffons that day, Hoarfrost attacked me on his own. It will take more than one pony to cause me serious harm.”

“And yet when we broke through the cave in, you had not yet brought the rebellious dog to heel,” the Lunar Knight pointed out.

“I admit that Hoarfrost’s attack was…unexpected,” Luna sighed. “I did not foresee him lashing out in quite the manner that he did, and to my shame, it caught me off guard.”

“It happens to the best of us,” the Knight murmured. “You may be elevated beyond mere mortals, but you still can make mistakes, Warmistress.”

“My sister modelled me in her image,” Luna shook her head. “She is perfect in every way, a warrior without equal, a tactician without peer. She would not have allowed such an attack to catch her unawares.”

“And yet here you stand, and she does not,” the Knight pointed out. “We all make mistakes, Luna, you are no exception. You live, and that is all that matters. The traitor, Hoarfrost will be brought to your justice soon enough.”

“Yes, Luna murmured, her eyes looking into the hole in her floor. “But this will be my justice, not my sisters.”

I groaned as I lay between two rocks, working myself into position as I looked up at the sun above me. It hadn’t been easy to get to the surface while avoiding the Knights that were looking for me, but I had eventually done it, the natural light burning my eyes after so long underground.

The journey had not been easy by any stretch of the imagination, the fall from Luna’s chambers having done more damage than I thought, dislocating my back left leg. I hadn’t been able to fix it while I was underground, not while the noise of my groans would be easily heard through the miles of tunnels, but now I had the opportunity to set the limb properly.

Biting down on what remained of the handle of the axe, I twisted my back, the rocks holding me still as my back leg slid back into position. I howled in pain, before spitting out the handle and testing my leg. It was still sore, but I could manage to walk on it for now. Whether or not I could fight on it was another problem entirely.

I grabbed another bit of the ration packs that I had managed to steal on my way to the surface, finishing one and throwing the used package to lie with the other ones. If I hadn’t found them, there was no way I could have survived up here for the past few days, and certainly no way I could have moved the heavy rocks into position to help reset my leg.

Now that my stomach had finished rumbling and my leg was fixed once more, my mind began to whirl as I tried to formulate a plan, glancing over at the canyon floor below where the rest of my Great Company was now stationed. I had managed to get to a vantage point in the crest of one of the small mountains, keeping me away from prying eyes that might report back to the Warmistress. I had no idea how far her treachery went, or what she had told my Legionnaires, and so I had to be careful Three days was easily enough to sway the mind if the story came from the lips of the Warmistress herself, and countless other traitors, and even if they hadn’t told anypony yet and were trying to keep the incident quiet, rumours would have undoubtedly spread. The number of ponies I could trust entirely had plummeted drastically today, from thousands of Legionnaires loyal to the Empress, to three ponies.

Summit, the pair of us remaining good friends since training, even if we didn’t get to see each other all too often, my father, though if he was still recovering he would not be much use, and finally, Gale. If I couldn’t trust my own wife, then things were even more far gone than I already knew them to be.

There were others that I could probably confide in as well, the members of the Wolf Guard for example, but they were not as sure a bet as the other three, and I started to formulate a plan. My mind was still reeling from everything, making it hard for me to get my thoughts straight, but even in that state every plan revolved around talking, and with my shattered jaw, that was next to impossible.

I can help.

The voice was inside my head, but unlike the other ones I had head, this one was instantly familiar, and I dropped to my knees, bowing my head.

E-Empress? I thought back, the experience being wholly strange to me, to speak without speaking.

Of course, my little pony, the voice conveyed warmth as it continued, before I felt my jaw twisting and moving of its own accord. It was painful, but I kept my cries silent.

“You…fixed my jaw?” I asked when the pain stopped, opening and closing my mouth just to be sure it was fully mended, before turning to try and find the Empress. “My Empress, your sister…some of the Legions…they…”

I know, the Empress cut in. I have plans, Hoarfrost, as do you. We must both now see them to fruition. Go now, make your Empress proud.

The fact that the Empress herself knew my name and supported me filled me with hope that things weren’t quite as dark as they had first seemed, especially as she seemed to know more about what was going on here than I thought. Heading down the mountain, carefully sticking to the shadows, I barely noticed the light surrounding my still healing jaw, the same light that had preceded the healing of my leg after Grafters daemon weapon had sliced it open.

Author's Note:

So slightly shorter than normal chapter, but I had to break it down, otherwise the next chapter would have been incredibly short. We're fast approaching the end now, just two more chapters to go.

Comments

[iowaforever]

I know, the Empress cut in. I have plans, Hoarfrost, as do you. We must both now see them to fruition. Go now, make your Empress proud.

I'm confused; does Celestia know of the traitors, because in the original story she didn't exactly know until Luna turned into Nightmare Moon

[FenrisianBrony]

6445036
That wasn't the Empress. Hoarfrost just thinks it was the Empress. Daemons and tricky bastards after all

[iowaforever]

6445060 Oooh... Well then

[Bronyhood of steel]

kind of hoping hoarfrost dies