Chapter 2: Returning Fire

The gunners’ front rank fired off their second volley. Despite heavy casualties, the undead refused to relent. For every single dragon slain, five more were scrapping to take their place. Any living creature would have been suffocated between the mass of frenzied bodies, but this was of no consequence for a foe like this.

With wave after wave hurled at the Paladins, there was nowhere left to go but up. From the top of the dune, the undead took flight, baring their teeth as they lunged for the gunners.

“Mages!” Cried Far Seer. “Shield up, now!”

They were too slow. Far Seer’s voice wasn’t as loud as Stellar’s. Between the ill-timed gun volley and the savage roar of the undead, the order wasn’t clearly heard. He tried to cast his own spell, but it wasn’t enough. His magic was too weak, barely slowing the rain of dragon fire as it set his gunners alight.

“Down, sir!” A pony to his right tackled him, hitting the ground just as a fireball struck a mortar mid-loading. With a bright flash, the gunpowder exploded, blasting the crew apart in a shower of twisted metal and gore. Their death was swift, but others were not so lucky. Countless soldiers were engulfed by a firestorm, screaming in agony as the flesh burned from their bones.

When the barrier finally went up, Far Seer raced to his soldiers’ aid. Casting a spell of clear sight, he climbed to his hooves and galloped into the thick smoke, searching for survivors. Only then did he grasp the full extent of the damage. Hundreds of ponies and nearly two dozen yak were dead, many scorched beyond recognition.

The sight shook him to his core. He had never seen such carnage, not even during the Empire’s siege. He felt his stomach heave, but he resisted throwing up. He had to keep his cool, for the sake of his underlings.

“Every creature, regroup!” He called. The gunners scrambled to reform ranks, though there was little order amongst the sea of dragon fire. From trembling hooves to thousand-yard stares, he knew the attack had shaken them. The dragons’ relentless assault didn’t help. Without a way to restore morale, Far Seer knew they were all as good as dead.

His epiphany arrived in style; a streak of blue feathers zipping overhead. Wing Commander Gale Force had returned, firing shot after shot into the airborne undead.

With a spark of his horn, Far Seer brought a surge of magic flowing into the atmosphere. It took most of his remaining magic, but he managed to transform a light breeze into a raging gale. With the force of the wind, he blew the smoke back over the dragons, burying the dead under a fresh blanket of sand.

“The Wonderbolts are back!” He announced. “Against the odds, they have survived, just like us. Follow the lead of Celestia’s chosen and show those undead mongrels what real firepower looks like!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” the gunners replied with a resounding cheer. Once the smoke had cleared, they regained formation, guns ready to blast the fliers back to Tartarus.

But this time, the horde was not alone: the bloat dragons had finally caught up. Four humongous beasts lurched toward them, floating to a slow stop directly over the shielded gunners. Then, one by one, they unleashed blasts of fire so powerful, they shook the ground upon impact.

Yet the barrier held strong.

Safe behind the magic shield, it was Artillery Master Yoko’s time to shine. “Big gun batteries listen up!” she bellowed. “Dragons think Pony guns hurt? We show dragons real Yak firepower!” Like a well-oiled machine, the Yak teams sprang into action, the artillery barrels all swabbed, loaded, and ready to fire in quick succession.

“Bombardier Yaxoff,” Yoko asked. “How high should Yak aim?”

Bombardier Yaxoff peered through her telescope, adjusting its focus with her free hoof. “Two o’clock up, Master Yoko.”

“Alright every Yak, you hear?” Unlike Far Seer, Yoko’s voice was louder than the pony’s gunfire. “Cannons and mortars, two o’clock up!”

As her cannon’s barrel was raised into position, Yoko took it upon herself to light the torch that would unleash her weapon’s explosive wrath upon the dragons. Such a simple device: little more than a rag on a stick, doused in alcohol and lit with a spark from Yoko’s hooves. But every time she saw it burst into flames, her heart started thumping twice as hard. It was a delightful irony, the herald of the undead’s end being the very fire they used against her.

“Cannon positioned and ready, Master Yoko,” Yaxoff said, rubbing her hooves together in anticipation.

A bloat dragon floated into position, and Yoko looked it dead in the eye. Then, she took a deep breath, and yelled, “All guns, open fire!” Grinning from ear to ear, she lit the fuse and took a step back.

The cannon unleashed its fury, snapping back as the heavy iron ball tore through the undead’s belly, shattering its ribs on impact. The monster’s roar of pain was music to Yoko’s ears, the grand crescendo to the symphony of war. But there was no time to celebrate. The dragon didn’t fall, and instead, turned its attention to the artillery.

“Heads up, every Yak!” Yoko exclaimed. “Big dragon wants round two with Yak guns.”

Of course, her crew were already preparing the next shot. By the time the bloat dragon swung itself to face Yoko's crew, the gunpowder was packed and ready to receive its ammunition. The dragon tried to attack first, breathing a long jet of fire toward the artillery. But the barrier refused to give, and what's more, it was now in the perfect position for a kill.

Grabbing her torch again, Yoko waited for the breath attack to sputter out. Just as the last flames died against the barrier, Yoko lit the fuse, locking eyes with the monster above. For the second time that day, the cannon roared to life, shooting its ten-kilogram ball straight into the dragon's face. Upon impact, the dragon's head exploded like a gore-filled balloon, showering both ponies and dragons alike in its remains.

Yoko didn’t care. She wiped the guts from her top knot with the back of her hoof, allowing the texture to become just another part of the battle’s grand experience. From the ringing in her ears, the acidic smell of burning gunpowder, it gave her a rush like no other.

Leaking gas in its death throes, the bloat dragon drifted downward. Gale Force led the Wonderbolts around it, giving it one good shove to redirect its trajectory away from the Equestrian army. This was the turning point of the battle, though it took a lot more blasting to down the other bloat dragons. Once they were dealt with, however, the foot troops met a swift end from the full force of allied guns. From the moment Stellar drew first blood, to when the final undead dragon was beheaded, the battle took just over ninety minutes.

Though the Equestrian army was overwhelmingly the victor, Stellar Shine didn’t join in with the celebrations. Throughout the long march back to Klugestown, he couldn't help but think there was something off about this battle. Commander Gale's report reinforced this idea, as the Wonderbolts only discovered three necromancers among the dragon horde – all of which were killed with little resistance.

That night, he wrote a letter to Twilight Sparkle, expressing his concerns. He would commune with his Paladins in the morning, with intent to review the battle and the surveillance reports from the Lunar Guard spies around Klugestown. As he sat at his desk, he thought back to the siege of his homeland. He’d learnt the hard way how easy it was to get complacent.

This battle had been far too easy. The enemy was testing him, measuring the strength of Equestrian forces. What they planned to do with this information, he didn’t know. But suffice to say, the war of the dragon flame had only just begun.

Under starlight, Night Twister ventured out onto the battlefield. The broken bodies of dragons littered the dunes, with the vibrant robes of dead necromancers sticking out like a sore hoof.

He smiled. He knew these troops were doomed from the start. The only surprise was how many necromancers agreed to orchestrate the token offensive in the first place. He hadn’t told them that it was a feint, of course. Nopony was that desperate. He supposed he was lucky; the neophytes were too stupid to question their victory chances. Not against a foe with such heavy firepower, at least.

“Quite the mess you've made,” Crystal Rose trotted up to Night Twister.

“Why, whatever do you mean?” Twister smirked, waving a hoof in dismissal. “This was always going to be the outcome. Don't you remember the plan we discussed so thoroughly?”

“Don't play coy with me, Twister,” Crystal sneered, weaving her magic around the dragon corpses like a thread. “You know as well as I do what kind of victory Lord Torch desires. Swift, decisive, and efficient. Why do you bother wasting necromancy like this?”

“Because, my darling,” Night Twister levitated a dragon’s corpse in his magic, manipulating it like some macabre puppet. “You can't rush in blindly into battle and expect to win!” He spoke with a mocking tone, using the dragon to throw a limp slap across Rose's cheek. “It's the application of force that matters.”

“Oh, come off it,” Rose snapped back, shoving the dragon away. “Unlike you, I haven't forgotten our purpose here. I require no childish lectures.”

Night Twister rolled his eyes. “Then you should know the Equestrian armies aren't stupid. They won't go down without a fight, so we might as well test their strength and judge our troop's effectiveness. It means we waste less in future.”

“And what do you have to show for it?” Crystal snarled, her eyes glowing as purple static crackled across her horn. “You throw an entire company's worth of dragons to certain destruction, without so much as denting the pony army? You're being more than cautious, darling. You are being cowardly!”

Night Twister snorted and let out a harsh chuckle. “You speak of control while losing your temper?” Stomping his hoof, magic shot through the remains of his army, resurrecting every fallen dragon in less than ten seconds. “How hypocritical. I knew this attack would fail, and lo and behold, it did. Not only are these foolish necromancers replaceable, through their deaths, we've gained a tactical advantage. You know why?” Twister looked Crystal dead in the eye, not bothering to wait for a response. “Because now we know what it takes to stall them. If this token resistance can keep their best troops occupied? Griffonstone will be ours in no time. Which, in case you have forgotten, is our greatest potential asset.”

Crystal held Twister's gaze for a moment, then turned away in a huff, shooting her residual magic through a dead necromancer. “Fine. What's done is done. But now, it's my turn to take control. With this next attack, I'll grind those ponies to dust beneath the might of Lord Torch's army – just like you should have done from the start.”

“Be my guest,” Night Twister replied, gesturing back to his shambling horde. “They're all yours.”

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