Episode 4.5: Frozen Morning
Archive did not sleep tucked away in her suite, and not just because a dozen ponies would be sleeping there. Instead she rested in one of the fortified trenches, with Ezri and Jackie beside her and many skilled scouts keeping watch.
In theory their success meant no large attack could come. In practice Archive knew not to underestimate her enemy: though it was possible she had frightened the enemy into submission, she had her doubts.
The general hadn’t been a refugee, but she had seen his face through the helmet. He hadn’t been frightened into cowering, he had been enraged. There would be a reckoning before her ponies knew peace. She didn’t know what it would be, only that it would be coming soon.
The shouts came just before dawn, jarring her awake where she had been resting on the rough pile of blankets. Most of Estel’s citizens were uncomfortable with pony customs like communal sleeping. Given the circumstances, Archive hadn’t really cared what they thought. She needed her sleep, and what people thought of her was no longer on her list of concerns.
Somepony shook her awake, way too early in the morning. Lonely Day grunted, then sat up. “W-what is it?” She blinked, wiping the sleep away from her eyes. Even with the success of her army, it had not been a restful night.
“President.” The soldier was one of her newer recruits, a larger stallion named Zach. He was one of many that wasn’t yet trained enough for anything other than physical labor and sending messages. He looked embarrassed to have intruded upon her sleeping quarters. Not all that unusual, given there were three mares in the blankets, and none of them were wearing anything.
Many of Estel’s refugees were still dealing with the nudity taboo, even though they had been reduced to going “natural” for practical reasons a long time ago. Making uniforms, particularly uniforms which respected modesty, were a waste of resources when they still had armor and weapons and bullets to make.
“What is it?” Lonely Day crawled out of bed, rising to her hooves and brushing her disheveled mane a little out of her face. She was shorter than this stallion, and looked younger too. She tried not to let her weariness show. “Why were you sent to wake me? It must be important, yes?”
“Not important enough,” Jackie groaned from in bed. “Why can’t anyone in this place get up at noon like a normal pony?”
The stallion shifted uncomfortably on his hooves, avoiding her eyes. “It’s… it’s our scouts,” he muttered. “The ones watching the enemy. They’re doing something. Started to gather on the shore. Thought you might want to see.”
“Yes.” Alex straightened, saluting him. “Thank you, private. You are dismissed.”
Her gesture seemed to snap the stallion out of his confusion, because he immediately returned the salute. “Thank you, ma’am!” He galloped off down the trench, seeming eager to get away from her.
Archive turned back, scooping the belt and holster off the ground along with the shield spell charm. There was no wearing her heavy armor if she was going to be flying.
“You think it’s a pegasus detachment?” Ezri sat up in bed, watching her. “You said…”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe they’re going to get a work crew together and try to build rafts faster than last time. Maybe they’re going to try a spell, or… maybe it’s a bunch of pegasus ponies marshaling to attack. The last one would be the most dangerous.” The last one was why she had insisted on Estel being prepared for retaliation. Though the army seemed to be built mostly of earth ponies, there were enough pegasus ponies to outnumber all her soldiers. If they attacked at once…
“You want to take this one, bug?” Jackie asked, covering her face with a pillow.
“Sure.” Ezri clambered over to her waiting armor, snapping into the open backplates. They sealed beneath her, and she turned to follow. “Let’s go take a look, Mom. Jackie still needs her beauty sleep.”
“All for you,” Jackie called after them. “You don’t like me when I don’t get enough sleep!”
“It’s true,” Ezri said, her voice distorted as it came through the amplifier on her helmet. “It’s almost as though you bats aren’t meant to be up this early.”
“We aren’t,” Alex groaned, rubbing at her tired eyes as she crested the nearest buildings. She kept well clear of Ezri as she flew—the changeling wasn’t flying in the conventional way, but was using her armor somehow. It lacked any clear apparatus, no propellers or force nozzles Alex could see. The changeling hadn’t explained how the technology worked, though clearly it did. She had a feeling Ezri could’ve flown several times faster than Alex could, or any other purely biological pony for that matter.
The scouts had been right—ponies were gathering near the shore all right.
It wasn’t just the pegasus ponies though, as she had been expecting. The camp had been largely dismantled, and not just from the dozen or so craters her mortars had made. Many of the smaller tents, the ones used by the troops, were gone. The slave pen was entirely empty.
The army itself stood in formation ten ponies abreast, a long line reaching to the shore and back, snaking through the camp in a single long formation.
At its front were the slaves, which even from a distance Archive could see were mostly cows, not deer as she had been expecting. And at the front, a dark pavilion, and the general conversing with his troops.
“What are they doing?” Ezri asked, hovering in the air beside her.
Archive wasn’t sure if the enemy could see them watching from across the river, but she didn’t much care. Her own troops would be ready. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it looks like they think they’re coming over here. They’re all facing this way, so they clearly aren’t leaving.”
“Why are the cows out front?” Ezri asked, leaning a little closer to stare. “They’ve never armed slaves. Jackie and I have been looking for ways to start some kind of slave rebellion, and we never found any easy options.
They were getting closer by the second. Alex didn't try to cross the river—she didn’t want to be seen out here with only her pistol and one changeling for protection. Yet she was now close enough to see as the first group of slaves was brought near the water, where the general and his strange priests were waiting.
“I don’t like them,” Ezri muttered, settling down beside her on the roof of a large building. The whole thing shook slightly under their weight, but nothing broke. “Those ones, there.” She pointed at the priests. “Feels like… like a changeling, almost. Worse.”
Alex didn’t say anything, a sudden, sick fear dawning on her. Fifty slaves would not be enough to teleport any large number of soldiers to the Bloodgate. But there were other ways to cross a river.
As she feared, soldiers held out the neck of the first cow as a priest cut it, catching the blood in a dark metal bowl. Alex forced herself to watch, not looking away even as revulsion bubbled in her throat.
You can’t prevent suffering everywhere, Sky said, her voice undimmed by memory. You aren’t God. Despite the words, Archive drew her pistol, feeling the words carved into the barrel.
Auspicium Melioris Ævi, it said. But her own ancient world hadn’t been much kinder to cows. They weren’t people then. It isn’t the same.
A second later, and the first priest moved back to the lake. He sprinkled in the blood, even as soldiers casually pushed the corpse into the water, kicking the beast’s body away with earth pony strength. As it drifted downstream, the blood touched the water a little further up… and it froze solid.
The ice spread a little further, a semicircle forming from the shore and expanding in either direction. It started to melt at once, but by then another priest added the blood (and magic) from a second dead slave, and the ice thickened, spreading a little further.
“Oh God,” Ezri muttered, her voice muffled. “They’re going to freeze the Hudson. But why not do it during the winter? There was already a thin layer of ice over most of it… wouldn’t that have made more sense?”
“No.” Alex straightened, flicking the cylinder with one hoof and leaving the crystal to spin freely. If she had a heavy-caliber sniper rifle, it was possible she would’ve been able to kill two of the priests before a dozen armed pegasi made it here. Her pistol, for all its power, couldn’t aim straight beyond a hundred meters or so. “They made boats, so I’m guessing these slaves have value. It was better to pay their troops to build the rafts than kill this many. Maybe they realize how horrible this is… how much it’s going to twist them.”
“If they freeze the river, their whole army could cross,” Ezri said.
Alex nodded. “Not quickly. Hooves and ice don’t get along well. But yes, they could. Might take them a day or two…”
Ezri whimpered, and the stun rifle mounted to her shoulder sprung up seemingly of its own accord, rotating slowly around. “What do we do? Jackie… I need Jackie…”
“Wait.” Alex rested a wing gently on her back—not forceful enough to stop someone wearing powered armor, but the gesture was apparently felt nonetheless. “I need you with me. We can’t separate. There are already scouts coming for us.”
“W-what?” Ezri jerked, following Alex’s gesture. Sure enough, a wing of pegasi was taking off, leaving the army behind and making straight for their building. They were all armed, though the armor was something soft like leather and their weapons were mostly spears and slings.
They weren’t in range yet, but Archive was already taking aim. Their enemy had gotten a little taste of their firearms last night. It was time to demonstrate them before the whole army. “You get the ones on the left,” Alex said. “As soon as they come into range. Don’t miss, okay? Once they fall, we fly out of here as fast as possible. Let the enemy collect their injured and their dead, and they probably won’t chase us. Probably.”
Shooting the attacking squad took almost no effort. Archive aimed Kerberos at the lead pony, then gently curved her aim as they swerved out of the way. She would never learn if they were wearing magic shields to try and keep themselves safe—Kerberos seemed to ignore those.
Ezri’s aim was not as good as hers, but her weapon was more forgiving of mistakes. She could fire faster than a single shot a second, and the weapon wouldn’t overheat on her shoulder. Soon enough, the scouts were tumbling down through the air in front of her, unconscious. “Now we’re going to run, right?”
Alex took off. Ezri followed in a blast of hot air, and together they made their way across the city. They dropped to street level right away, making it impossible for their adversaries to see the direction of their flight.
They could’ve hid in a building, been lost in the ruined city. Unfortunately, Estel would not be hiding. It existed at the center of swollen fields, fortified walls, and marching pony soldiers. Archive began regretting her failed attempt at psychological warfare. The mortars hadn’t scared their enemy away, but maybe it could’ve broken the ice bridge when they were walking across it.
A plan began forming in her mind as she flew back to Estel. A risky plan, but not an impossible one.
A few minutes later, and she was gathered in a sheltered war room near the middle of the structure—the lowest level before the floors were packed with non-combatant ponies. If the fortress fell, her war room would be the very last to be overrun. Before unarmed refugees started to die.
Her map had been moved here, updated with all the changes they had made. Armored trenches, mounted guns, traps. Little colored blocks reflected the position of her troops, their level of training and armament.
There were no blocks for the enemy. Given the size of the king’s army, the blocks wouldn’t have fit on her map.
“That’s a risky plan,” Colonel Rhodes said. He pointed with a stick held in his magic, at a handful of little blue cubes. They filled every opening a large force might’ve used to reach the fortification, two to each open street. Each one had represented a full week of magical effort to create for her most skilled unicorns. “We can’t make more mines in time. If we take them to break this ice-bridge…”
“The mines couldn’t kill the whole army even if we wait.” Jackie was up now, and extremely grumpy. She was armored though, and sipping at a glass of not-coffee. They didn’t have any of the beans, so they had to make due with tea. It was a very poor substitute. “I say we do it.”
“The plan was never to kill their army,” Rhodes said. “It’s about demoralizing them. We have magic enough to keep the fortress safe a week, right? They set up for a siege, and we wipe out a whole camp. Their troops start wondering if one of them might be next. Next time they attack, we blow another one. The longer we stall, the more ordinance we make. The more we break their will to fight. How many mines will we need to break the bridge?”
“All of them,” Alex admitted. “All six. Scouts say that we’re already seeing flooding north of the river. That means it’s frozen most of the way down. Just cracking the bridge won’t be enough—we’ll have to pulverize it so thoroughly that the Hudson can wash it away.”
“I don’t like it,” Rhodes said again. “You have to get somebody near it. Unless you’re proposing we turn our own people into kamikaze…”
“No,” she said, without hesitation. “I couldn’t ask that of any of our troops. I couldn’t do it myself, unless I was certain the blow would be decisive enough for a victory.”
“So we’d need to land our troops out there, capture… six of their men, and set off the mines without being caught in the blast ourselves. There are so many ways for that to go wrong. If we fail with even one of the mines… it might not be enough. Waste of the weapon that might’ve made the difference.”
“Yes,” Alex admitted. “I didn’t like it either. Can you think of a better idea?”
Rhodes looked across the table, to the armored representative of the weather team. “Lockwood, what about you? Couldn’t your men give us a blizzard? If you could keep them out, maybe you could bring them instead.”
“I’ll forgive your ignorance,” Lockwood grunted, his hooves folded in front of him. He seemed to wear the armor stiffly about his pegasus shoulders. “We haven’t learned to create weather out of nothing, just to move it around. Change its intensity by degrees. There are clear skies as far as anyone can see, Colonel. Nothing for us to bring.”
Alex nodded her agreement, much as it pained her to agree with Lockwood on anything. “Making weather from scratch is possible, but the energy has to come from somewhere. Most of Earth’s weather gets its energy from the Sun, or the Earth’s rotation. We’d need the energy of a whole city of pegasus ponies all trained and working together to make anything with enough punch to take out an army. Ours aren’t trained for that, so it’s a moot point.”
“And no Hail Marys are coming in from the ones who made your armor?” Rhodes asked Jackie with only a hint of hope left in his voice.
“Nothing,” Jackie grunted. “They offered a ride to your president, but nopony else. Douchebags.”
“We weren’t informed of this.” Lockwood tensed, rising to his hooves and glaring across the table at Alex. “Is this some kind of setup, Alex? Planning to have us all die for you? You damn coward!”
Silence filled the war room. Outside, panicked voices whispered, many hoofsteps moved as ponies went up or down the stairs, moving supplies or hammering in new boards over a window.
A dozen pairs of eyes all found Alex.
Archive casually set Kerberos down on the table, staring across the model at Lockwood. She left it there, eyes icy cold. “What do you think, Captain Lockwood? Are you suggesting I would’ve made arrangements to leave you behind?”
She rose to her own hooves. “My mother is upstairs. My daughter. Would you like to call me a coward again?”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” He leered. “That sounds real brave, president. Please, showcase that virtue you’re so known for. Brutally murder an inferior officer in front of the rest of the staff. That’s exactly what Estel needs before an invasion.”
Tom rose as well, turning to glare across the room at him. His horn began to glow faintly, supplementing the faint glow of magical crystals set onto the walls. “That’s over the line, Captain. This isn’t one of your debates—you’re addressing your superior officer.” He glanced down at her. “I told you appointing him was a terrible idea, Madam President. We can’t trust this asshole to tie his shoes correctly, let alone lead our weather team.” He gestured, and the armed guards standing by the door snapped to attention, raising their weapons.
“No.” Archive gestured to them with one hoof, walking around the table. “There’s no time for a shakeup in the command structure now. Lockwood’s the only one who can lead the pegasi. He can’t just be replaced.”
“You’re damn right.” He tensed, though he didn’t go for the dagger on his armor. Her weather ponies weren’t armed with anything greater—their magic was their weapon. His eyes followed Alex as she walked around to the other side of the table. “I want answers, President. My ponies won’t do a thing unless I get them.”
Rudolph was in the way, and he hastily got up, so that there were perhaps ten feet between Alex and the rebellious pegasus.
“I told them they could go to hell with their offer. If I’d wanted to save myself, I could’ve run a long time ago. Saving everypony that way would be doomed, but… hell, if I’d wanted to just save my family, it would’ve been easy. Left Estel to fend for itself, left you to be president, just how you wanted. You’ll notice I’m still here.”
She advanced, closing the distance between them. Lockwood towered over her, his body lean and strong after his months of weather practice. He had quite a bit more magic than she had sensed from him on the debate stage. She didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. Lockwood wouldn’t be the only one wondering about this. She couldn’t have her troops worried about their general running away mid-battle.
“If I thought it would protect Estel, I’d be dead already,” she whispered, leaning closer to him. Magic surged around her, darkening the lights and muffling sounds from all around. “I will fight and die beside Estel’s soldiers. I’ll give its ponies life even if that means I keep none for myself. Even you.” She turned her back on him, walking slowly back to her side of the table.
By the time she had returned to her seat, Lockwood was sitting again, staring down at the table with distress on his face.
Tom gestured again, and the soldiers returned to their resting position beside the door, apparently relieved. These “guards” were some of their newest recruits, and some of the youngest. Not useful enough to put onto the field. They would not have fared well against Lockwood in a fight, not anymore.
“I agree, the time just isn’t there. The mortars might have been able to break the bridge, but don’t have the powder for any more. By the time we tore apart enough bullets, they’d already be across.”
There were so many weapons she could build to break the bridge, if only she had known. So many spells she could cast, if only she had the unicorns and the time to prepare them. She did not. Her ponies had already been spending so much of their time just surviving. What do you want me to do, Sunset? Is your neutrality so important that you’d let ponies die?
Sunset had already answered. She had brought no weapons, no military advice, no defense spells. She had loaned no troops, and not even offered evacuation. Sunset’s principles mattered as much to her as Alex’s did. Either that, or she trusts me to work this out.
I just wish I did.
* * *
Her scouts watched as the king’s army crossed the Hudson. No new storms rose in the sky that they might direct, nor did some miracle of unexpected magic destroy the bridge and drop most of the invading army into the water.
Three hours later, and she was forced to recall all the scouts to the protection of the fortress. There would be no war on the beaches, no sieges at periodic reinforced fallback positions. Archive had considered such strategies, but been discouraged in the end by the army of ghosts in her mind.
Against such numbers, her troops could not make a significant difference. They would be surrounded and destroyed, no matter what she could prepare.
So they had prepared in other ways. The fields were burned, the wells poisoned. Main thoroughfares had been selectively clogged with rubble or traps to herd the army down two central routes to the fortress, which would send them winding through the streets and restrict the flow of reinforcements. Archive had made sure obvious camps were available, clear of traps or other dangers except for the “mines” hidden in each one.
President Alex Haggard had prepared Estel for a long siege in the proper medieval fashion. Could a building with twenty stories and every defensive spell her unicorns could cast survive a siege from an army large enough to make a moat?
I wish you were right, Stride. I wish the city really was trying to kill anypony who wasn’t a refugee. We’d have an easier time fighting if ruins were helping.
Archive descended the stairs, past dozens of armed ponies. Not the trainees this time, but their best. Her armor clanked as she walked, sheets of chrome-coated metal striking together slightly with each step. She wore all but her helmet now, which was attached to her shoulder by a strap.
She walked past both floors of the parking garage, changed now into the root-cellar that stored the food for their thousands. Below that was the workshop, its many spinning machines built into the place heaters and electrical equipment for the building had once been. She walked down to B-5, past another dozen saluting guards, and through the doors to the living heart of her fortress.
The light of magic nearly blinded her, so bright down here that no lighting spells had been needed. Here, carved into the exposed bedrock of the island, were the defensive spells that would keep her ponies alive. Every patch of wall had its spell, some only a few dozen runes long and others looping circles of thousands.
Here a perimeter alarm glowed a faint pink of peace, there a force-repulser would push back against any living creature not individually named in its matrix. A magic shield Twilight Sparkle had penned in distant Equestria would unravel teleportation that targeted within their walls, and devour the magical energy of hostile spells to feed the matrix. Other spells reinforced the ancient cinder-block walls, giving them the stability of Stygian lead and the strength of the sturdiest earth pony.
It was, so far as Archive knew, as close to an impenetrable fortress as Equestrian magic could create. The rock against which she hoped the king’s army would be shattered.
In the center of the room was a circle of standing stones, each one about four feet high. Each one was a different kind of rock, taken from somewhere else on Manhattan Island. Indiana Limestone from the Empire State, Red Marble from the Chrysler Building, and eight other irregularly shaped chunks from the wreckage of important landmarks.
Archive had wanted a piece of the statue of liberty to complete her spell, but unfortunately that monument was on the bottom of the ocean and building a diving bell to retrieve a chunk would have been a terrible waste of resources.
She’d had to settle for something else. The circle that surrounded the stones, the runes on each one, had all been worked of pure gold. A small object of gold rested on each of the stones: an intricate knife, a polished mirror, a compass, a helmet, a hammer, a book, and others.
At least one citizen of Estel stood close to each stone, sometimes more than one. Not all were unicorns, but they were all ponies. Though Archive valued the contributions of her griffons, minotaurs, and other stranger things, they could not help with this spell. Only ponies would do.
At the very center of the spell was a constantly shifting object, radiating heat and light as it floated. The object drifted faintly between the stones that contained it, changing shape like liquid as it neared them. Reflective golden metal seemed to grow brighter as it passed closer to the book, imitating that shape for a few seconds before being drawn along to the next stone in the circle, and becoming a compass instead.
All Estel’s protective spells, all the shields her individual soldiers wore and the weapons they carried, drew their power from this point.
Archive walked to the tallest of the stones, the one exactly at the back. The stone was actually an uneven chunk of paving cement taken from a large overpass, and its relic a shield. Mary was the one who sat beside it, Nancy just beside her. The filly was drawing on the ground in front of her with a lump of chalk, and had already filled all the cement she could reach with little drawings.
“Hey.” Alex embraced Mary first, feeling Nancy wrap her little hooves around her even as she did so. “Holding up okay down here?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “It hasn’t even been one day, and this is our first shift. We’re fine. Is something wrong with the Hallow?”
“No.” Archive looked up briefly at the molten gold, swimming as it was in the sea of magical energy. “I wanted to make sure, since we’re about to start drawing on it.” She looked past them, to the other ponies here. Not only the ones resting just outside the circle, but the small crowd ready to take their place at a moment’s notice. “We’re depending on all of you. Our shields and cannons are strong, thanks to you.”
A few made minor gestures in her direction, though none replied. The mood here was far too somber for that.
“The bad guys are coming?” Nancy asked in a whisper.
“Yeah,” she responded. “They’re close. Ten minutes, maybe. Most of them will probably be making camp, but… the scouts saw a small force coming this way. Probing attack, probably. Doesn’t stand a chance of getting through all this magic.”
Archive didn’t go into more detail, but she had no intention of softening the truth for Nancy either. She hadn’t made a habit of honesty for the filly just to lie now. Besides, the Hallow wouldn’t like it if she lied.
“You’ll fight?” Mary asked, ears flattened with fear. She didn’t move away from the stone, even so.
Archive nodded. “We’ll fight from out fortifications, so don’t worry. It’ll be like… like the Last Samurai, only we’re the ones with the guns.”
“They still have the bigger army.” Mary reached out, resting one hoof on her shoulder. “Stay safe, little girl. I expect to see you at dinner on time when this shift is over.”
“I will.” Alex straightened, then spared one last hug for Nancy. “You do an important work, ponies! Fight for Estel!”
Ponies shouted their agreement, raising hooves in vague salutes as she passed. These were not military ponies—yet even so, the power of their belief made the golden light glow brighter. That light shone through the rocks themselves, filling the hearts of her army. Filling their weapons, hardening their shields.
It was enough, almost, that she could hope for victory.
* * *
“Ma’am!” Lonely Day returned the salute, passing soldier after soldier in the narrow trench. All of it was within the bubble of the shield, so in theory there was no need to keep themselves out of the way of projectiles. Archive wasn’t about to take anything for granted—though the ability to collapse the burrows and blockade the building’s ground-level entrances might come in handy.
The trouble with creating a defensive spell nopony had tested before was that there was no guarantee it was going to protect them. For all she knew, it might fail the instant any real strain was placed on it. Alex had worked the numbers over and over in her head, but correct in theory did not necessarily translate to enough to keep them safe.
She made her way to the rear of the trenches, an area slightly elevated, with scavenged windows set into it to give an uninterrupted view of the two approaches to their fortress most likely to be used. There were more trenches on the rear of the building, but Archive did not anticipate using them. The park located at the center of the block was accessible by passing through any of the other buildings, but she doubted any large force would ever use it. Her own troops could surge out using postern gates and flood the courtyard if needed, while their enemy would be restricted to the trickle that came through other buildings or from the air.
Command itself had a rough wooden floor, swept clean of dirt, with even magic lights and a simple spell on the windows that would black them when viewed from the outside. Along the wall were a dozen crystals, each one labeled with positions on the building such as “roof, left AA” and “courtyard left side trenches.” Each one was about fist-sized, set into a little wire holder. None were glowing, so no new messages.
Tom Rhodes was not sitting around the small table in the center of the room, but standing near a large chalkboard, glaring at it intently.
TROOP PLACEMENT
North Trenches: 53
East Trenches: 50
Cannon North: 28
Cannon East: 31
AA Crews: 78
Courtyard Trenches: 45
Sky Battalion: 119
Roof Battlements: 83
Guards: 23
Hammer: 46
Reserve: 440
Casualties:
4 injured
0 killed
“They’re getting close.” Jackie was the only other pony in command right now—every other officer would be out with the troops.
Jackie stared through the wall, watching the mob making their way closer. They didn’t march in formation so much as in general clusters, with a few more properly armored ponies off to one side and troops with inferior equipment huddled together in a gaggle. From her initial glance, Archive could see not a single unicorn in their number. She could see no wings either, though they might be hidden further back in their ranks, or under armor.
“Shock troops.” Tom didn’t turn around, though he did point towards a pair of binoculars resting on the table with one hoof. They were a precious relic, donated by a refugee who had been doing early morning birdwatching when the Event had happened.
Archive couldn’t levitate them up to her face like Tom could, but she could grip them with a hoof, using subtle pressure and her sensitive frog to hold them near her eyes. Even still they weren’t positioned right for a pony, and she could only look through one eye. She closed the other and looked.
Earth ponies, with thick steel armor and cruel, bashing weapons. Some carried torches or oil, some wore heavy crossbows, but that was all. A quick count put their numbers at about five hundred, as the pegasi had reported from the air.
“Either they don’t expect us to put up much of a fight, or they want to demoralize us right from the beginning.”
“Either way it won’t work.” Jackie turned to face her. “The shields on this place are something else, Alex. I don’t know much about runes… but you have enough down there, I bet we could stop a nuke.”
“Not with a population as small as ours,” she answered. “Maybe if we had a whole city powering it. A whole city of friendly, hopeful, happy ponies. Not the way most people feel right before a nuclear war.”
Tom turned around, facing her. “Ground troops in numbers like these wouldn’t threaten us without the shield. We could scare them off… but we’ve been given an opportunity.”
Tom walked past her, over to the large windows. He pointed at the enemy formation, and the cloud of dust behind it. They were perhaps three blocks away. Close enough that she could hear their marching drum, booming quietly in regular rhythm. “If I was in charge over there, I’d be telling my boys that they’d only been beaten with tricks. From their perspective, they’re really just fighting a few very loud mice. When we’re forced to fight them in numbers, we’ll crumble easily. All they have to do is bloody us up and come back to camp, and their soldiers are full of confidence for tomorrow.”
Alex nodded in agreement, realizing what he meant. “If we give them a devastating defeat instead, our soldiers get a surge of confidence and they’re the ones who end up demoralized before the first real battle.”
Tom nodded. “Two ways to break an entrenched enemy, time and overwhelming force. Time isn’t on their side either, not with that many soldiers to supply and pay. It’s their wise but costly option. No matter what happens tonight, I suspect they’ll bring overwhelming force tomorrow. Either their soldiers march whispering rumors of how we’re unbeatable, or they march confident they’re going to win. It’s up to us.”
Alex strode past him to the largest crystal on the wall, the one without a label. It glowed faintly once she touched it, passing a feeble static charge through her hoof.
“All soldiers.” Her voice would be echoing from every single other communication stone in the network—to her mild annoyance, that meant it also came from the command pairs waiting here as well as the ones mounted in each field location. “All soldiers, remain in fortification. Hold your fire until my word. I repeat, hold your fire. We will let these soldiers slam against the shield before we shoot. Do not use small arms unless the shield is breached. Snipers, conserve your ammunition. Cannon crews, this will be your show. Sweep across the largest concentrations of soldiers, leave isolated targets for the snipers.”
Far away, the enemy force had stopped along with the drums. They formed up, arranging themselves in a battle line that would strike the trenches along the widest area possible. Even so, that would still put them in ranks at least five deep, a solid wall of troops. They probably intended to charge straight through the barricade, maybe even knock over the building.
Would they have been able to do it, if Estel didn’t have a shield? Archive didn’t know. She lifted another stone out of its rack, the one painted bright red, and set it down on the table in front of Jackie. “You want to translate for me?”
The bat pony frowned down at the rock, then nodded. “I’m still rusty. Going back to English has been a Godsend.”
“I have to warn them,” Archive said, looking out on the marshaled troops. “They won’t listen, but… I have to try anyway.”
“Yeah.” Jackie slipped one armored hoof out of her boot, then rested it on the rock. She met Alex’s eyes, the sign that she was ready.
A football field away, the enemy troops stood still as their officers shouted. Alex watched them through the window as she spoke. She said only a sentence at a time, waiting for Jackie to repeat it before she went on.
“Ponies of Obrican’s army, hear my voice.”
They heard Jackie’s voice, booming through the same spell that had carried the debates. This one was louder, pitch-shifting Jackie’s voice to that of the most somber stallion’s.
“You ride against the sacred city of Estel. We possess weapons you cannot imagine. Leave in peace or die in agony.”
Jackie waited a little longer. When Alex said nothing, she slipped her hoof back into the boot, tightening the straps again with a yank from her mouth. “Getting melodramatic in your old age?”
She shrugged. “They’re a medieval culture. I’m just trying to communicate in a way they’ll understand.” Archive reached sideways to her armor, securing her helmet firmly in place on her head. “Keep them on point, you two. Ring me if something happens.”
Archive turned away, galloping down the trench and out of command.
“Where are you going?” Jackie shouted from behind her, poking her head out the opening.
“To the front!” she shouted. “Put the shield to a proper test!” She was half afraid that Jackie might follow her, but to her relief the other bat only rolled her eyes and returned to her post. Alex ran until she found one of the ramps, passing nervous looking ponies as she made her way out, past the sharpened metal spikes stretching out around and in front of the shield. No two were quite alike—rusting scrap metal found and roughly shaped into an imposing defensive barrier.
The troops had been ordered never to advance forward from the trenches, except along specific routes carefully marked for them. Alex did not need the markers to know exactly where the protective shields began.
The enemy roared something in their language, a single word over and over. They stomped at the ground together, coming down on it like an anvil.
The whole island seemed to shake as their hooves came down. An unstable building across the street from them started to rumble ominously, teetering slowly to one side. Away from them, unfortunately.
Then they charged. The earth split in front of them like waves rising from the sea, dirt cresting and churning in front of them. The thunderous roar of their hooves filled her ears with noise, rattled the buildings, and drove the wave onward.
Sharpened pikes and exterior defenses were thrown aside by the onrushing tide, and only a handful of ponies were stuck. Most escaped unscathed, adding more and more of their earth pony magic to the tumult.
Yes, their enemy had magic too. Archive felt very glad she had not forgotten that.
She stood just behind the protective barrier, her armor shining silver in the late afternoon light. She turned to face Estel—all gray and rusting metal, overflowing with hope and fear, and reared up onto her hind-legs for a second. She did not need any magic for her ponies to hear her, even over the roaring earth and pounding hooves.
“Humans of Estel!” she called, tugging on the collective hearts and minds of every pony she could reach. There was no respecting space anymore, no carefully gathering the threads of her city and plucking them. Archive drew on them all. “Stand with me and be not moved!”
She turned her back on the city, facing directly into the wave of earth and broken asphalt.
Not even at her strongest could Alex have stopped something like this as an earth pony. She had never imagined an attack like this was even possible. The dirt rose up in front of her over the height of her head, frothing dirt mixed with barbed steel and chunks of stone. It got louder as it neared her, drowning out the shouts of her officers.
A few ponies, overwhelmed by their fear, ignored her orders and fired gunpowder weapons at the enemy. The guns had little effect on powerful earth ponies like these, especially when they were channeling magic together. None of them stopped charging.
Archive faced into the storm, feeling her hooves securely on the ground even as it shook. I hope you’re listening to the spells we wrote, island, she pleaded. We’re all dead otherwise.
The wave crashed down on her like water on a concrete breakwater. The shield manifested as a wave of reddish-brown magic, coalescing in the air wherever foreign magic and material coming inward was detected.
Some shields worked on brute force, like the ones her soldiers wore. Incoming momentum was canceled out completely with magical energy, converted into some other form and dissipated at enormous expense. They created a solid wall of nothing, immovable so long as the magic creating it lasted.
Instead of trying to stop things, Estel’s shield exactly reversed any force that came in upon it.
At once, the wave of earth washed backwards instead of forward. The charging army were struck completely unprepared. A few lucky ponies were close enough to hit the shield and be flung backward themselves. The vast majority were not, and so were traveling ahead at full gallop when several tons of dirt and rock and metal struck them going the opposite direction.
Archive did not look away. Ponies were lifted into the air, ponies were crushed to red jelly, ponies were impaled by the spikes they had carried along with them in the charge. They had poured so much of their earth pony magic into the attack that there was little left to protect them when that same attack came rolling down on top of them.
Where once there had been a charging army, there was now freshly turned soil spread out in a sloping hill, away from the city, littered with the dead and wounded. Less than ten feet away from her, a mangled corpse came to rest against the boundary of the shield, a corpse that had been healthy and alive only seconds before.
There was far less for Estel’s troops to do than she had initially expected. Only the ponies in back were anything close to intact, and even these had lost huge chunks of armor in the torrent. “Tell the snipers to open fire,” Archive said into her helmet. “Aim for the healthy. Don’t shoot anypony who looks hurt. Cannons, hold fire!”
It took a second for Jackie or Tom to relay the command. A second later, the periodic crack of gunfire split the air. Where the back ranks were clawing their way from the dirt, they started to drop.
Archive retreated from the front, making swift progress back to the trenches. The snipers were all located high in the fortress above them, and she was pretty sure their aim would be good enough not to hit her, but she didn’t want to take the chance. The city’s shield would do her no good against friendly fire.
By the time she had made it back to command, the sound of gunshots had been replaced with a cheer, rising from her ponies in the trenches and quickly spreading to the building behind it. She felt the joy and relief in her chest even as they shouted.
She didn’t have to look out the window to know what she would see—the last survivors fleeing. Many were bleeding from serious injuries, or sporting badly broken limbs. Where hundreds had attacked, only a score or so could make it out on their own power.
“Jackie.” Alex’s voice was somber, despite the cheering coming from Estel. “Tell them they may send unarmed men to collect the wounded. We will not hurt them.”
“Is that a good idea?” she asked. “More survivors to attack us again.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Tom said, staring at the carnage with haunted eyes. “Look at those patches of ground writhing around. There are men buried alive. We have to get them out.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jackie muttered, though she was pulling off her boot in obedience anyway. “Well, not as stupid as going right out in front, but up there for sure.”
“It’s not just the right thing.” Archive kept her voice down, easier to do as the cheers started to die down. A few taunts echoed from further away in the trenches, threats their enemy wouldn’t even understand. “Injured ponies use up food and medical supplies without being able to fight. We want as many to survive as possible. Give them my message.”
Jackie obeyed.
Alex turned away from her, facing Tom before she had even finished. “Get me the hammer and a hundred reserve with shovels. Take their arms and armor, then let them go.” She felt her face harden. “We cannot spare medical supplies, or the energy of our doctors. Leave the dead where they fell.”
From then on, the night was more gruesome than it was dangerous. Alex was not closely involved as her ponies helped free as many survivors of the “horizontal mudslide” as they could.
Another few hundred ponies arrived from the king’s army, unarmed and looking far scrawnier than the earth ponies that had seemed to shake the whole island with their charge. Once they arrived, Alex ordered her own ponies to retreat, leaving the remainder of the work for them.
When darkness finally fell, hundreds of the enemy had been slain without a single change to the chalkboard.
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That was savage... I approve.
Well damn. A shield built to stop a magically generated earth wave is quite impressive. Makes me wonder if the weak points in this shield is slow moving objects?
Dude. Your earth ponies are legitimately terrifying. Even when getting mousetrapped.
7866591
This isn't Dune. This shield repels all magic, so technically anything that has life in this new world.
7866627
Ha! I was wondering if anyone would get the reference. Thanks for making my day.
Good point on the shield.
I wonder if Archive ever considered gauss cannons. Depending on how difficult magnetising magic would be, it'd resolve the gunpowder issue, ammo would be cheap due to how small it'd be, and the frame wouldn't matter all that much, just enough to keep the spell in.
Also, as far as magic is concerned, I think that magical trebuchets would be a cool option too. Create a spell that coils up momentum on an object and then releases it - I mean, if shields can stop or redirect energy, no reason for them not to be able to store it. I'd consider a wheel with a counterweight, just like a trebuchet's mechanism, and steal the momentum into the projectiles. That way you build only one earth pony powered mechanism to push power into pellets you can then shoot at your leisure.
All the more survivors to spread rumours of how they saw the God of the Outcasts stand uncaring in front of a 500-pony wave of magic and turn it back on them too. The front line of the invaders aren't going to be very happy to have to charge Estel tomorrow...
7866810
Considering they decided to march on a city that threw unextinguishable fire on them, I heavily doubt they can be damaged morale wise. There must be something trully horrible at their backs for them to keep on going. Or the rewards of death in their holy war against Outcasts might be too great for them to care about losses.
7866638
Those are both concepts that sound good in theory, but have a lot of practical problems associated with actually using them in battle. DARPA experimented with coilgun weaponry for years before the event, but never managed to produce anything worth deploying. Magically redirecting force is possible, but it is most decidedly not a simple spell to cast, and storing force prior to redirecting it would be an order of magnitude more complicated.
In the longer term, gauss-or-magic-powered projectiles might be worth looking into, but in the short run, it's better to stick to technologies whose working principles are well-known.
7866829
I suspect they can be demoralized, it's just that they haven't taken enough hits yet. Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
7866952 Not only that, but in the first attack from Estel was a surprise attack and mostly against nonliving targets. Sure it put up a big show and was scary, but none of them were ready. They certainly weren't able to really properly apply their magic.
This time it was the enemy who used overwheleming force and magic against the forces of Estel. So not only was the enemy's own magic turned against them, but it was when they were ready. They were en masse. They are not fighting some savages who got in some lucky attacks. Furthermore, they were attacked with UNKNOWN Magic. Magic that was able to MORE than dispel their attacks, but to bring it about AGAINST them.
The fact that the survivors will now say that they had overwhelming force and magic, and it was instead drive back against them....that will be a POWERFUL story to bring back. After all that is TWICE that Estel has attacked them in ways that they were unprepared for, with things that were beyond their understanding. Even more so when now they have to wonder: What else could they be hiding? How in the world can we bring about our magic, if Estel can turn it against us?
Sheesh, these earth ponies don't mess around... and that shield is terrifying. Assuming that the army is 10,000 soldiers, then that 's about 5% of their army. Five percent of their biggest, strongest earth ponies at that.
And lockwood is still causing trouble... sheesh, what happened to that gift of kindness?
The thing powering all the magic is interesting, but how exactly does it work? It reminds me a bit of the crystal heart, but with all those stone blocks and weird golden floaty things. It seems like that wasn't described particularly well. I guess theres really not time to explain the specifics of whats going on tho, seeing as how everything is ramping up for war.
An ice causeway you can use to cross a major river with just two days of preparation? Most pre-Napoleonic-era generals would've killed to generate one of those. Such a bold sacrifice to enable moovement, though... that general must have a real beef with them.
Also, causeway: called it.
The weird thing is that despite Alex showing mircales, they're still going to carry on...
this was defiantly a savage charge and the enemy caused their own Casualties.
this was just the first battle not the war.
I think I know where this is going already...
Go ahead Alex, turn the whole city against them, every beam, every concrete wall, every passage left in the underground, are testimony to the memory and power you present and preserve!
Just remember, a few strikes the right way, can do more damage, than a thousand strikes wasted (even if every strike is a kill)
7868521
It does work a lot like the Crystal Heart.
It's powered by every 'faithfull' citizen within.
As Alex said; if she had the former population of Manhatten, and they all had faith that it would work, they could stop a Nuke with that thing.
7866619
This is why I like Starscribe's writing. He makes each of the pony tribes powerful in their own right.
Obligatory:
blog.triblive.com/chipped-ice/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/12/Trap-game.jpg
Estel keep making me think of Crystal Empire and Protoss from Starcraft with a breath of Terran/Human thinking in it with all the crystals and connections and unity and disagreements and magic and energy shields.
I'm going to call thst shield a 'kinetic shield'.
.”
They are totally going to use their wounded to fuel blood runes. Seem evil enough.
...For some reason I read this as pegasus deathmatch, I was very confused until I reread it lol
You know, I'm surprised neither of the armies thought about using unstable buildings to their advantage. Imagine being able to knock down a few buildings to block roads, or maybe crush an enemy encampment.