Chapter 3
It occurred to me, as I trudged up yet another Faust-damned hill, that battles seem to involve far too much walking, and more often than not it was mainly uphill. Of course, fighting was generally involved in battle, but first one must get there and for most of us that was via our own four hooves. Our going was quite slow, and I tripped more than a few times over rocks and pits along the way, but the risk of a twisted ankle paled in comparison to the volley of fire I was certain that we were about to be subjected to. Now, I’m certain most ponies reading this know exactly what happened, as what Hive Marshal Chela pulled next is precisely the thing that makes armchair generals randier than Yours Truly in a Prench bordello, but to add some perspective from the point of view of just one unhappy individual caught up in all of this, and for the benefit of those whose interests are rather more benign than the subject of ponies and Changelings killing each other, I’ll simply explain what I saw.
For the most part, I merely saw the armoured flanks of the mare in front of me and the hill rising above. My terror was such that I could not enjoy the callipgean display before me (having had the great fortune to be situated behind a mare who filled out her crupper [the part of a suit of armour that covers the flanks] quite nicely), as my eyes were fixed upon the summit of the hill. I fully expected to see the vast, dark mass of the Changeling horde slither over the ridge once more and force us back down the hill with the crushing weight of sheer numbers. Yet they did not, and that only worsened my anxiety about this whole mad venture.
“The bugs will be just behind the ridge, sir,” said Square Basher to Frostbite over the noise of the entire battalion advancing. “They’ll be waiting for us, so they’ll likely get the first volley off. We’ll take casualties, but our ponies will stand -- by Luna, I’ll make sure they’ll stand, sir. They might have artillery, but our pegasi will rush in and take out their crews, so don’t worry. Then we’ll fire by platoons, the entire division, sir. We can reliably out-pace their rate of fire, so as long as we can keep it up we’ll kill more of them than they will of us. When it looks like they’re about to break, we’ll charge down the slope and finish them off with bayonets and swords. Job done. It’s that simple, sir.”
If only it really was that simple, thought I, as I heard the Sergeant Major’s little lecture on the delicate art of military tactics. To me, however, it merely highlighted the madness of what we were about to do; of course, I had endured it before, most notably in the bloody assault on Virion Hive where the army charged head-first into heavily defended breaches, but for me at least, experience could never take away the sting and shock of it all.
The sound of bugles and drums urged us forwards, merging with the general noise of the marching hoofsteps of thousands of ponies and the clatter of armour and equipment. Above us, the pegasi flew close by in a tight formation, such that I could probably greatly annoy one by throwing a stone up in the air if the mood took me. From what I gathered, the light companies had been sent forwards to scout ahead, but had encountered some heavy resistance from the enemy, who didn’t much appreciate having their dastardly plans spied upon, and had beaten them back. In hindsight, that should have been a warning of what was to come.
I had caught glimpses of the aerial battle ahead, watching the tiny dark specks and glints of silver and gold against the clear blue sky dance and weave in a sort of dark imitation of Wonderbolt airshows. A few of these dots would clash in mid-air, tussle this way and that in what I knew to be a desperate fight to the death but from down here appeared terribly abstract and inconsequential. It went on as we continued marching, until the squadrons drifted back in dribs and drabs to the relative safety that the bulk of the division had offered, but as my thoughts were straying to more immediate, personal problems, I simply didn’t consider how we would be going over that ridge without much of a clear idea of what lay behind it. It was safe to assume, however, that there would be a lot of Changelings.
“The heavy pegasi companies will cover our backs, sir,” said Square Basher, as Frostbite watched the battered light companies limp back over our heads. “And failing that, we always have the square. I’ve drilled our ponies enough times so they’ll do it perfectly in their sleep, so don’t you worry, sir. No flying enemy will dive on a tightly-packed square unless they want a bayonet in their necks.”
Captain Frostbite nodded but remained silent for a good, long moment, and then said, “How many battles have you seen?”
“I’ve been with the Night Guards since the beginning: Black Venom Pass, Fort Nowhere, and Virion Hive. So has the Commissar, sir, and we’d have lost those battles without him.”
“You give me too much credit,” I said, wanting to put an end to that nonsense before it started giving Frostbite here too high expectations of what I could do in this fight. “If I brought victory, it was only by helping other ponies to become heroes.”
I was reminded of how Auntie ‘Tia had long given up on insisting on her lack of divinity as zealots only took her modesty as further proof of their theory. Perhaps it was best to let these things slide, I considered, but then ponies would come to their own conclusions anyway, and I’d still rather try and steer the narrative in whatever way that I could.
The conversation mercifully fizzled out, and a terrible tension settled in the air again, thickening it like flour in soup until I felt as though I was wading through chest-deep slime. My limbs burned with the exertion of walking uphill, especially after a full morning’s march without much of a break. Yet I could not tear my eyes off the top of those damned hills, waiting for the hail of Changeling artillery and musket fire to repulse our advance, until my vision began to swim with vertigo and I had to force myself to stare instead at the ground just in front of my forehooves. That helped to settle my nerves a little, by focusing on the mechanical process of placing one hoof in front of the other, and avoiding falling into pits along the way.
It worked so well that I barely noticed when the halt order was given. We had finally reached the summit, sergeants barked out the orders for earth ponies to load muskets and unicorns to charge horns, and then… nothing. Hush descended, save for quiet murmurings and the snorts and stamps of impatient ponies, and the rattle and jostle of weapons and equipment being adjusted. My hooves itched; the Changelings should have fired their muskets already, bought illicitly on some sort of black market from Faust-knows what arms dealers to the south, at the first sight of our lines crawling over the ridge, and I had braced myself to hear the sharp, firecracker noise of distant fire and the screams and cries of the wounded and dying. Yet there was only the quiet, confused murmurings all along the lines, followed by the sharp barks of sergeants and corporals telling them to be quiet.
“What’s going on?” asked Frostbite. He didn’t wait for a reply, and slipped forwards between the ranks of ponies to the front. Square Basher immediately went after him, forcing her larger frame through the tight formation, and I reluctantly followed in her wake as genuine curiosity had briefly overridden my sense of self-preservation.
We emerged out at the very front of the line, and I instantly felt very exposed without a veritable wall of armoured ponies in the way. The other side of the hill sloped away before us, which led to a series of further gullies, valleys, and hills in an undulating, broken landscape that swept away into bland, dull flatlands further along. I could make out Natalensis Hive roughly where these flatlands began, and as General Market Garden had said, it was not a fortified walled city like Virion Hive, but a vast, sprawling urban mess that looked rather like a stain of grease on cloth from where we stood. Still, it looked like it could one day be a rather nice place to visit in happier times, and I could make out a few interesting buildings that could become tourist attractions.
Standing at its summit, even I could see why Market Garden coveted this high ground so greatly; from here, one had a commanding and uninterrupted view of the city and the lands surrounding it for miles all around. Natalensis Hive might have been ‘undefendable’ according to the esteemed General, but from up here it was impossible for any army to advance on the city from the south without being spotted and, I assumed, subjected to murderous artillery fire. I had the misfortune to be situated on the tallest of the hills, the one numbered ‘70’ on the maps, which the two players situated across the metaphorical chessboard had decided was the key to winning this battle.
What I could not see from this lofty vantage point, however, were the Changelings. The entire reverse slope and fields beyond were empty, save for withered old shrubs, desiccated cacti, and a vast assortment of rocks of varying sizes and shapes. I looked up, wondering if the enemy had discovered that even higher ground than our meagre little hill called the sky, but the only formations that I could make out were our own directly overhead and what, from my perspective on the ground, looked like a swarm of midges out in the distance. It was impossible to judge distance and numbers, but our pegasi scouts had apparently been chased out of the skies by an overwhelming force, from what I could gather, and trying to assemble the picture of what had happened in my head I would assume that the enemy then retreated to safer distance as the division arrived in force atop the hill.
“The Changelings have all gone, sir,” said Cannon Fodder, quite unhelpfully.
“Where in Equestria did they all go?” asked Frostbite. He pointed at the Changelings buzzing around in the distance. “That can’t be all of them.”
I looked up and down our line, and saw the other frontline earth pony and unicorn companies in a similar state of confusion. Above, our heavy pegasi formed into standard V-formations and circled over our heads, while the light companies surged onwards on trails of white vapour. I could only wonder what the generals further back were discussing when the reports came filtering back that the Changelings had simply disappeared.
“They must be here somewhere,” answered Cannon Fodder with a vague shrug.
The itching in the frogs of my forehooves that had always alerted me to something awry refused to abate, despite the clear absence of any obvious threat; it made absolutely no sense for them to abandon this strategically vital land without a fight, unless it was a trap. My gaze drifted back to the slope descending away before us, positively littered with rocks. When it finally came to me, I was more perplexed that seemingly nopony else had figured it out, or perhaps they had and had decided, likely due to the rigid discipline and chain of command of the Equestrian Army, to keep it to themselves.
“The rocks,” I said, hushed just in case they might overhear me. Frostbite and Square Basher stared at me with blank, gormless expressions, as did Cannon Fodder, but that was usual for him. “They’ve changed into the rocks. I’ve known them to disguise themselves as books before.”
The shock of the realisation of something both horrible and obvious swept over Captain Frostbite’s face as though a veil had been draped over it. He almost seemed to recoil from it, as though the thought itself was a sharp spear thrust in his direction. “What do we do?” he blurted out, though he kept enough of his self-control to keep his voice relatively quiet despite the obvious fear in it.
“Pass the word along-” I stopped; it would take too long, and that meant more opportunity for somepony else to do something stupid. Where this inkling came from I’m still not sure, most likely the same instincts that allowed me to win games of cards rather than anything honed by two years at the front, but I would wager the larger of my summer houses that Chela expected Market Garden to march us over what she would assume is open land and take Natalensis Hive seemingly undefended, only for the swarm of Changelings to reveal themselves and rip us all to pieces.
[General Market Garden’s post-war memoirs state that she had detected that this was a trap and thus ignored the advice of her generals to march on to the city, which in her book she describes merely as a secondary objective to taking the hills and destroying Chela’s war-swarm. However, as with most officially published memoirs of generals, it is wise to take this with some scepticism.]
“Open fire on the rocks,” I said, and I even felt a little embarrassed saying that out loud. However, if I was right we might yet live, and if I was wrong I’d simply look a little foolish.
Both Captain Frostbite and Company Sergeant Major Square Basher looked at me as though they were wondering if I’d poured brandy on my cereal instead of milk that morning, but they apparently decided to humour me. We pulled back behind the line, out of the way of our own muskets, and I watched the proceedings with my heart hammering away in my chest.
“Company!” Square Basher’s voice called out sharply, though as with all NCOs her pronunciation sounded a little slurred. “Make ready!”
The soldiers were a little slow in following through with the order, for there was nothing obvious to shoot at, but their instinct to obey orders prompted them to follow through. A hundred or so muskets were cocked and readied.
“Present!” roared Square Basher, and those hundred muskets were levelled at nothing in particular.
“Sir!” A pimple-faced unicorn in the uniform of an ensign weaved his way between the troops at a brisk jog, and almost collided with me when he tried to stop and salute at the same time but got his hooves mixed up. He gasped for breath, apparently having galloped much of the way, but still managed to spit out part of his message at least. “Colonel Sunshine Smiles sends his regards and wishes to know what Captain Frostbite’s intentions are with-”
“Fire!”
There was an almighty crackling roar as the company’s muskets fired. I watched, straining my eyes to see through the resulting cloud of filthy white smoke that obscured the front rank of the company and everything beyond. The queer stillness returned, and I held my breath as the smoke that stung my eyes and nostrils began to clear with an agonising slowness on the languid breeze, hoping to see merely an empty field of rocks marked with wasted musket balls.
Though my view was obscured by the smoke, the entirety of the field sloping away from us flashed green momentarily, and then faded. I heard them before I saw them fully. The air was filled suddenly with an immense droning sound that I was all too familiar with, high-pitched and warbling with myriad tones and intensities, and which seized my heart with an icy claw and squeezed for all that it was worth. Of all the times to be right, for once, it had to be this. Before the smoke could clear completely, the sky above became black with the vastness of the Changeling swarm leaping into the air on buzzing wings as one, inspiring raw terror to grip me. Below them, perhaps a score lay on the ground, dead or dying from the volley of musket fire.
A second volley crashed out, once more obscuring my view with smoke. The enemy’s formation was so vast and yet so densely-packed that it was impossible for anypony to miss even with these infamously inaccurate weapons. Shouts of alarm rippled through the entire Equestrian line, followed by yet more cracks of disciplined musket fire and magic. I saw through the clearing smoke that a few drones were struck, and thus fell from the skies into a ruined heap.
I expected the swarm to immediately charge us, and overwhelm our thin line of grey and gold to force us back down that hill we’d just spent all morning marching up. In spite of the initial shock, the famed discipline of the Equestrian soldier suppressed all such feelings of surprise and fear; with their unique combination of honest encouragement and dire threats, the NCOs maintained order and the murderous, laborious work of loading and firing proceeded. Yet the swarm continued to surge up on buzzing wings, and as I stood there and followed their path heavenwards, I realised that their true target was not us poor ground-bound ponies, but the squadrons of pegasi above.
We could only watch in helpless futility as the entire swarm, in defiance of all previous behaviour we had come to expect from them, charged straight, en masse, into the isolated and separated squadrons of pegasi and griffons above. This supposed military genius, Hive Marshal Chela, and her apparent skill in improvisation was revealed in all of its hideous glory, and the mystery of how she had beaten back our eastward advance was no longer a point of speculation for me. Now, in an one-on-one fight, your average pegasus soldier will usually out-fight an average Changeling drone, for as far as I could understand it the wings of the latter were not suited for the sort of prolonged physical activity associated with an aerial brawl. The problem now, however, was that war is never only a matter of equitable fights between lone individuals; this vast swarm, looking now like a dark mass of nightmare-stuff swirling like a tempest, devoured our smaller formations one by one.
[It is generally accepted by historians that Hive Marshal Chela had expected the Equestrians to march directly down the slope and over the disguised drones for an ambush, and that her decision to place her entire force in the skies to quickly achieve aerial dominance was an improvisation on her part after Blueblood spoiled her trap.]
It was horrible to watch, and there was nothing anypony on the ground could do to stop it lest we accidentally hit our own ponies. The light companies were mauled, and though the heavy pegasi and griffons did their best to fend off the swarm, the sheer numbers of the Changelings were winning out. In the vast skybound brawl I could make out individual fighters frantically tearing through the skies, alone or in formation, then clash with another in a mad flurry of wingblades, bayonets, fangs, and beaks, until they pulled apart to repeat the process or one dropped like a stone.
The order came for us to form squares, to guard against the enemy’s now-obvious mastery of the skies. Frostbite’s company executed the drill with parade ground perfection, despite the rocky terrain, and what was a long, shallow line a few ponies deep folded inwards at three points, as though on hinges, to form as close to a geometrically perfect square as equinely possible. As ever, I found myself simply standing and watching as all of this happened around me; I stood in the centre of this small, tight island of armour tipped with bayonets and muskets with Frostbite and Square Basher, as the aerial battle continued to rage overhead.
The tide in the air had clearly turned against us, and so our pegasi, in accordance with the drill manuals, landed and took shelter in the hollow centres of each of these squares. The battered and bloodied ponies, with scratched and dented armour and their bodies marred with cuts and bruises, descended into the relative safety offered by the ground infantry with a haste that could have been mistaken for falling. Indeed, one of the grislier sights of this battle, often overlooked, is how the dead and severely wounded fell from the skies like a morbid hail, and often directly on top of their comrades. I became nauseated at the sight of an earth pony crawling out from under the broken remains of a pegasus, whose body was ruined beyond recognition by the impact.
The hollow inside our square rapidly filled with these wounded, desperate pegasi. I will never forget the haunted, vacant expressions on their faces for as long as I’ll live; with pale skin often streaked with blood, mouths gaping open as they gasped for breath, and eyes wide and staring but focused on nothing in particular. Few were in any sort of formation, and our little square had collected a variety of light and heavy pegasi from various companies and even regiments -- Night Guards, Solar Guards, Prism Guards, Crystal Guards, and even the odd griffon from the PGL -- all huddled alike behind the earth ponies brandishing muskets and bayonets skywards.
“Night Guards!” bellowed Square Basher. Our entire square braced at the sound of her voice. “Here you will stand! By Luna, you misbegotten ingrates are going to earn your pay today! Prepare to defend against airborne attacks!”
It was hard to move in the centre of the square, so filled with pegasi it was that I had to squeeze and push my way around the densely-packed ponies. I tripped over a few of the wounded and dying on the ground, where they had been left, crying out in pain or shivering in a world that was slowly growing dark for them, to either slowly expire or somehow, against the odds, make it through.
Captain Frostbite was somewhere in the centre of this, and I found him staring in dumbfounded horror at what was going on around him. The other ponies, mainly those pegasi who had made it into the safety of the square, seemed to be ignoring him as he stood there like a statue. He didn’t notice me approaching, and all but jumped out of his hide when I tapped him on the shoulder.
“S-sorry, sir,” he stammered out. “What am I supposed to do?”
I arched an eyebrow; how in blazes was I to know either? “First, never say that out loud,” I said, improvising a military pep-talk. “You’re an officer, and these ponies depend on you knowing exactly what to do. If you don’t know then at least pretend that you do, and your Sergeant Major will help you along the way. Second, we’re in a bit of a jam at the moment, so in the absence of any orders and with no avenue of retreat we must stand here and fight.”
Far be it from me not to immediately leap to ‘run away’ from an obvious threat, but those same gambler’s instincts told me that doing so when the enemy had full control of the skies was tantamount to suicide. Our best bet, as it had been since the very first time a clan of earth ponies met a clan of pegasi and had a disagreement over who owned a scrap of land, was to band together in this tight square and fend them off with sharp, pointy sticks.
Frostbite nodded his head, but was apparently incapable of saying anything else. I would wager that he had never seen anything like this before on the northern frontier.
“Do you know how to use that?” I asked, pointing towards the flintlock pistol still safely held in its holster on Frostbite’s belt.
“Yes, I think so.”
I hadn’t a clue, of course, despite having inherited a few duelling pistols from my late father, which served merely as interesting conversation starters in the drawing room. “The soldiers will appreciate it if it looks like you’re taking part in all of this.”
And likewise Yours Truly, I thought to myself as I left him to fiddle about with his silly contraption. By now our pegasi had surrendered the skies, as far as I could tell, and were huddling with the rest of us in the squares. In ours, at least, I saw that those who were still capable of fighting brandished their short carbines and pistols and joined in with the earth ponies. Four bristling walls of muskets and bayonets would make our formation a difficult nut for the enemy to crack, or so the theory went; theories were all well and good in the debate halls of the Academy, but being tested out here was another matter entirely.
With our surviving pegasi safely in the squares, a small break in the fighting emerged. What was happening beyond our own square I had no way of knowing at the time, but I imagined that the rest of the division was in much the same sorry state as we were. The air tasted of blood and burnt powder, and was filled with the sonorous droning of thousands of Changeling wings. I couldn’t bear to look up, but nevertheless I forced myself to and withered at the sight of the entire swarm hovering directly above us and just out of effective musket range. The sky was full of drones, more spread out this time so as to minimise the effect of musket fire and magic, but nevertheless the sight was a daunting one. I dared to rear up to peer over the huddled masses of ponies around us, and saw other formations of Night Guards likewise perched precariously atop the summit of this ridge, bunched up into the familiar squares as we were.
Despite seeing our comrades merely a short gallop away, it was hard not to feel terribly isolated and exposed out here. Not having a clear idea of what was going on elsewhere certainly did not help, and my nerves were most terribly frayed as a result. It looked as though everything that I had feared had come to pass, and all we could do was stand there and wait for the inevitable. Of course, as history records, it was about to get much worse for me.
“Here they come,” said Cannon Fodder with the same resigned air as an irate passenger watching his train pull into the station ten minutes late.
I looked up again, following his blank and unimpressed stare, and immediately wished that I hadn’t. The Changelings, who had thus far been content to keep their activities to the skies above, gathered into large, tightly packed groups that were spread out amidst the vast expanse of pale blue, like spots on a dalmatian, and then plunged down upon our tiny, isolated square in a series of waves.
Captain Frostbite was still fumbling with his pistol, and when he too directed his attention back to the battle developing around him he almost dropped the thing as he was messing around with the ramrod. His ears and tail dropped, as did his jaw, and he even took an involuntary step back right into a pegasus clutching a broken wing who hissed and swore at him. It was to no avail though; our new officer had become transfixed at his first sight of a war-swarm heading straight for him, and, if I must be honest, I almost envied him for his commoner status allowing him the luxury of expressing the fear he felt.
Still, it would not do, so I laid a friendly hoof on his shoulder. “Say something to your ponies,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be grand, but just something to encourage them and let them know you’re still in charge.”
He hesitated, then nodded his head dumbly. “Night Guards!” he shouted, though his voice cracked. The soldiers stiffened their backs and pricked their ears, and I heard the sound of hooves tightening around muskets. “Everypony is counting on us holding the Changelings here! There can be no retreat!”
As far as inspirational speeches in battle go, it was hardly Princess Celestia’s address to the loyalists before the final siege of Canterlot at the end of the Nightmare Heresy, but it was quick and snappy and therefore did the job admirably. In the heat of battle, there was hardly any time for the sort of flowery speeches ponies like to imagine take place, for the enemy are not exactly about to stand back and let that sort of thing happen regardless of dramatic effect. Indeed, at that moment, they were still tearing down on us at a terrifying speed, insectoid wings buzzing with a dolorous, heavy droning noise that still haunts my nightmares.
“Wait for my order,” said Frostbite. Apparently taking some measure of confidence from his own little speech, he now seemed more assured of himself and his ponies.
I, however, had decided to huddle up to the densest clump of earth ponies that I could find, which happened to be on one of the corners of the square. There, I could only gape uselessly at the fragment of the black swarm peeling away from the main horde to dive at our own tiny, isolated island. The infantry square was supposed to be impenetrable to aerial attack, but that was before some damned bastard invented the musket; they had only to open up a gap in this densely-packed formation bristling with steel and it would be swept away into bloody ruin by fang and bayonet. This was the end, I thought, and not for the first time in my life, but there was little else I could do except stand there trembling and wait for the finish.
There was a crackle of distant musket fire, muffled by the wind. I could not help but shudder when I heard it, expecting to feel that same fiery pain again or the nothingness of oblivion. Instead I heard a few cries, and saw a number fall near our square, either dead or wounded from the fusilade, but it was not enough.
“Present!” shouted Frostbite above the drone of wings. He pushed his way through the packed mob of pegasi in the centre to the point where it looked like the Changelings were aiming towards; some sort of transformation seemed to be taking place within him, and whatever it was that the ponies who selected him for leading the company saw had finally come out to the fore.
Yet courage could only do so much. The enemy were closer now, the droning of their wings ever louder. They burst through the musket smoke -- the swarm coalescing into the point of a great spear that would puncture our wall of steel, and near enough that I could see glistening fangs and frantically buzzing wings.
“Fire!” screamed Frostbite. The volley crashed out like a single, ragged bark of thunder, and the resulting smoke blew back in my face to sting my eyes and nostrils. Blinking away the tears, I saw through the white smoke the foremost drones, the tip of this spear, simply drop from the sky like stones. A split-second of momentary confusion, for in the densely-packed swarm those drones who escaped our volley collided in mid-air with the dead and the wounded, and the swarm itself seemed to flinch and recoil like a beast that had been pricked.
“Bayonets!”
In a series of fluid, mechanical motions, bayonets were rammed into the still-smoking muzzles of the muskets and thrust skywards. And not a moment too soon either, as the diving swarm recovered from the shock and collided with our square with a heavy crash. I could make out flailing hooves and glints of steel and chitin in the ensuing mess. Stinking ichor sprayed as drones were impaled upon this bristling wall of hideously sharp bayonets. Chilling shrieks of agony filled the air. To follow my own advice and give the impression that I was actually participating, I fired a couple of shots over the ponies’ heads into this oncoming horde, and while I have no idea if I actually hit any of them, there were so many so packed together it was practically impossible for me to miss.
The corner of the square that had borne the brunt of the assault bowed inwards slightly under the weight of bodies smashing into it, but the earth ponies, standing shoulder-to-shoulder like the phalanxes of old, still held. The swarm then surged over and around our packed formation, like a running stream over a rock. I ducked under them, hoping to use the armoured bodies all around me as cover, as they swept on overhead. Those drones who lingered too close were slashed and skewered with bayonets, showering us with their green blood and pelting us with their twitching, writhing bodies. One fell directly in front of me, neck opened with a precise slice to the jugular that still pumped ichor, and landed on a pegasus frantically trying to reload his short carbine, pinning him to the ground and spilling his powder. I seized the horrid, still-squirming thing in my magic and tossed it out beyond our formation.
“Stand, damn you!” Square Basher’s powerful voice cut through the awful din of battle.
The incessant, indescribably mad noise of clashing steel, musket fire, buzzing wings, and screams was too much for me to bear. The sight of so much blood and bodies, all packed into space no larger than a tennis court, limbs twisted into unnatural angles and so much flesh violated by the cold, mechanical means of modern war, had transfixed me with its horror. There was nowhere I could look without observing a scene of appalling and senseless suffering.
I stood there in something of a daze, being jostled and shoved as ponies moved within this formation to meet the next wave. Newspapers would later report on my stoic, implacable demeanour in the face of overwhelming odds and how the common soldiery around me drew great strength and courage from my example, but really I was simply so overwhelmed by everything that I had fallen into some sort of dull stupor, apparently incapable of speech or doing much else besides standing around and gawking dumbly at the carnage unfolding all around.
The Changelings rushed past us. They swirled once more into a swarm, looking like a vast flock of starlings as they did so. A great, triumphant yell rose up from the Night Guards, along with jeers and heathenish insults about the lineage of the enemy. Bayonets and hooves were thrust and shaken in the direction of the re-organising swarm. I knew what was coming next, for the enemy would not be deterred even by whatever horrendous losses they had suffered by battering against the solid brick wall that was an earth pony square. The moment of respite, however, allowed my head to clear somewhat and for me to take stock of the situation, such as it was. Our square had held firm, mercifully, and judging by what appeared to be an embankment of Changeling corpses piled up all around the outer perimeter, it would appear that the enemy had suffered the worst of it for now.
Not that this would dissuade them. I lost how count of how many times they hurled themselves against our tiny equine fortress on that bloody first day, but if asked I usually say five or six times (if I bother to answer at all, that is; many younger aristocrats these days seem to think that such things are appropriate conversation starters at parties). The outcome, however, was the same each time, and that bank of dead and dying drones piled up around our square grew higher and higher as the day wore on, until we probably could have used them for cover if the Changelings decided to use artillery.
It was around the third or fourth time this happened that Captain Frostbite, clearly terribly distressed by the abject slaughter he was witnessing, screamed, “Why won’t they just stop!”
I wished that I had an answer for him, but it would appear, at least from what I could infer during the long, tense moments between each assault where I could do nothing except ponder my fate, that Hive Marshal Chela really, really wanted to push us from this hill right now and was getting rather impatient with our dogged refusal not to. So impatient, in fact, that they apparently didn’t think to bring up some artillery or grenadiers.
[The Changelings, lacking the sort of heavy industrial base as Equestrian cities such as Manehattan and Trottingham, could not afford to replace lost materiel and so tended to use what little artillery they could manufacture or buy sparingly. Furthermore, some Purestrains considered artillery to be at odds with the traditional Changeling doctrines of deception and mass swarm tactics, being difficult to conceal and useless when the swarm closed into close range.]
The day wore on, the enemy dead continued to pile up around the square, and our wounded continued to suffer or expire, until the evening began to descend and the Changelings, likely as exhausted as we were, gave up on their futile attempts to crush our square. We watched, bloodied but unbroken, as the enemy settled down for the night in a series of makeshift encampments all around our tiny formation.
It was then as the fighting finally stopped that we received the orders to dig in. A unicorn who looked almost dead on his hooves, likely about to suffer a bout of magical exhaustion very soon, had teleported just outside of our formation, hurled a rock with a note tied to it over the heads of the bewildered earth ponies, and then vanished out of existence with another flash of magic. The note, which had bounced off of a pegasus’ helmet, was as succinct as it was bland and unhelpful:
“Entrench and hold position for forty-eight hours. Do not retreat.”
The most obvious and direct way back down the hill was flanked on both sides by large mobs of Changelings and guarded from above by hovering drones, almost daring us to run through the gauntlet. Likewise, we were prevented from regrouping with the rest of the battalion by another horde of drones camped in the way. After a full day of fighting, our ponies were utterly drained, both physically and emotionally, by the ordeal we had gone through. For our gallant efforts, all that we had to look forward to now was an awful night, exposed up on the hill, and pray that we would make it through to the morning.
What followed, however, was one of the more unusual events of the war that I had witnessed. The sun was setting below the horizon, casting all with an orange-red tone and giving the entire morbid scene a more ethereal, otherworldly feeling that I found profoundly unsettling, as though everything was tinted with blood. We had moved the wounded together and laid them out, while piling up the dead, both ours and the Changelings’, as far away as we dared to. I was with Captain Frostbite and Sergeant Major Square Basher as they were going through the arrangements for the night. Here, our tight square had loosened its formation somewhat, and the platoons of earth ponies, joined by those pegasi who could still fight, had adopted a rough hexagonal shape that could, in theory, snap back together the instant a Changeling so much sneezed in our direction. A small work detail was organised to start digging trenches, but few ponies were in a fit state for heavy manual labour.
Cannon Fodder had been gracious enough to somehow find both the time and the means to brew tea and had passed it around the assembled officers in the centre. It had been a bloody awful day, all told, and the night was only going to be worse, so I was immensely grateful for this one simple luxury.
“We’ll all have to huddle together for the night,” said Frostbite. “It’s going to get real cold in a minute. We had to do this out on patrol up in the northern frontier, so all of you need to get over any prudishness you have about getting close to one another. We’ll also need eyes on the bugs at all times, so I’ll leave it up to the platoon commanders to organise watches in their sectors. Just keep them spread out so nopony gets too tired-”
“Sir!” A young Ensign came galloping over, panting with excitement. “Changelings, sir, with a white flag.”
“It’s a bit premature for them to start asking for surrender now,” I said, partly to myself, but it slipped out. Nevertheless, it provoked a few polite chuckles. “Very well, let’s see what they want.”
We followed the Ensign and squeezed our way around the soldiers to the very front of the formation. The enemy were quite a distance away, far enough that it was impossible to make out individual drones among the masses, but standing about a dozen yards away from us in No Mare’s Land were five of them. One stood at the front, apparently an officer or whatever equivalent they used, with a bodyguard of four, one of whom carried a long stick with a stained white rag tied to the end. The bodies of their fellows littering the ground around them, the results of their futile attempts to break our squares, can’t have escaped their notice, but the officer drone seemed to be deliberately ignoring them.
“Hello, Tin Cans!” he shouted across the gulf between us, cheerily enough. ['Tin Cans’ or ‘Cans’ were the most common nicknames Changeling drones had for Equestrian soldiers, in reference to the heavy plate armour commonly worn. Bayonets, swords, spears, and so on were sometimes referred to as ‘can-openers’.] “Hive Marshal Chela has a proposal for you! You have many wounded-” He stopped, and though it was difficult to follow eye movements with those damned compound eyes of theirs, I got the worrying impression that he was staring directly at me. “By the Hives, it’s the Black Prince!”
Perfect, thought I, that’s all I needed right then and there; now the Changelings knew exactly where I was, and as they were under the peculiar misapprehension that I was somehow integral to the Equestrian war effort far in advance of my celebrity and status as a prince of the realm, I, and by extension the poor ponies saddled with me, would be singled out for special attention. I said nothing, but felt terribly aware of being stared at.
The Changeling officer gave a curt bow, and I wondered if I was being mocked. “As I was saying, Hive Marshal Chela is willing to offer a temporary truce to allow you to evacuate your wounded back to your camp below the hill.”
It was another trap, that much seemed all too obvious. Yet it was most unusual for the enemy to even attempt negotiating with us, and I struggled to think of what they might possibly gain from all of this. When I realised nopony else was speaking because they expected me to take the lead, yet again, I shouted back, “What’s the catch?”
“No catch!” The Changeling officer took a cautious step forward, and I could see that he wore some sort of new armour that I hadn’t seen before, which consisted of a dark blue-purple breastplate and helm with a glossy sheen and texture that seemed organic, looking much like an extension of his natural chitin. The helmet swept back to cover much of the neck, and the cheek guards extended down past his jaw to end in a series of sharp spikes so as to resemble the mandibles of a large beetle. His breastplate in fact consisted of four overlapping plates, and as I could not see the same sort of straps and buckles that one would expect to see securing armour to one’s person, I had to conclude that it was somehow affixed directly to the Changeling’s already-tough chitin. I could make out what I took to be some sort of rank insignia -- the stylised green flame on the left side of his chest above a series of three pips, and on the right side of his helmet was a grey triangle that was much taller than its base was wide, symbolising the Hive itself. “Shall we come closer so we don’t have to shout? I’d prefer it if we conversed like civilised creatures!”
I looked at Captain Frostbite, who then slowly nodded his head. “But if he tries anything we’ll put enough holes in him that we can use his chitin as a colander.”
Taking that as an affirmation, I waved the curious Changeling officer and his entourage over. They seemed almost relieved as they crossed the distance, though I heard the sound of muskets and bayonets being readied just behind me. Square Basher growled like a timberwolf, and tightened her hoof around the shaft of her sergeants’ halberd. I made a mental note to dive to the ground should those Changelings do anything untowards, as it simply would not do to have survived this long only to be felled by a musket ball forged in Manehattan.
It was unusual and disquieting to be this close to a Changeling without them trying to kill me, even after Odonata’s capture and those lengthy conversations with her. These drones seemed to be quite ordinary as far as their lot go, and aside from the new armour on the officer, there was very little to differentiate them from any one of the hundreds of other such drones that have tried to kill me in my long and unfortunate career. Still, the officer approached with an easy-going confidence reflected in a deceptively-warm smile and a relaxed gait, though his bodyguard seemed as wary of us as we were of them. He stopped at a respectable distance, but the others hung back a little and looked ready to bolt. It was then that I noticed that they were all unarmed, though that term rarely applied to creatures with sharp fangs and who could transform parts of themselves into sharp and pointy objects at will.
“I am Captain Lacewing,” said the officer, holding out his hoof for me to shake. Despite everything, automatic decorum overrode good sense and I accepted it; the hoof felt uncomfortably cold to the touch. “I offer myself as a hostage for the duration, while you evacuate your wounded. It wouldn’t be too much to ask to allow us to do the same, either, I shouldn’t think.”
“Thank you,” I said, subconsciously wiping my hoof on the ground. The strange drone didn’t seem to notice the rude gesture, or pretended not to. “But why?”
Lacewing made a knowing smirk and nodded his head. “Ah, yes, you must be used to the other sorts of Purestrains after all these years,” he explained.
I looked him up and down, taking in that fearsome, intimidating armour with its peculiar, arcane symbolism, and realised that he was more-or-less about as tall as I was. “You’re a little small to be a Purestrain,” I said.
“We Changelings are nothing if not adaptable; we change, after all. We are not all the same in shape and size or power, but we are all devoted to serving Queen and Hive. Anyway, Hive Marshal Chela wants a clean war, with none of this ugliness that has ruined it before.”
I looked past him to see the bodies filling the fields and wondered if the Changelings had a peculiar definition of ‘clean’ compared to standard Ponish; there was nothing clean about the lifeless, mutilated corpses that surrounded us, nor in the flies that swarmed around their bodies, nor in the ultimate tragedy of lives cut short for the hubris of officers and generals, supposedly in service to a higher cause that somehow made it all worthwhile. However, it was somewhat refreshing to see that Equestria did not hold a monopoly on officers whose grasp on reality was limper than a wet sock. Unless, however, it was another ploy.
“I’m sure you having the opportunity to take a good look at our forces and disposition has nothing to do with it,” I said.
Captain Lacewing chuckled, and it was a good-natured sort as though I had told a mildly-amusing anecdote. “Looks like I owe my sergeant five horns. Was it that transparent?”
[Horns were the Changeling currency at the time. Being based on the love standard, the exchange rate to Equestrian bits varied considerably according to the amount of love held within Queen Chrysalis’ vault. It is believed by some historians and economists that having currency tied to a food source contributed to a kleptocratic system, which necessitated continual expansion and conquest of pony tribes that inevitably prompted the Changelings to attack Equestria.]
“Like Canterlot spring water.”
“I hope to visit Canterlot very soon,” he said, wistfully looking in a direction that approximated north. “I have a cousin there who says it’s lovely this time of year.”
The implications of that little statement took a little while to sink in, but when it did I dismissed it as a further attempt to disarm me. His apparent friendliness, seeming much like the ideal of a charming, pleasant officer and gentlecolt that all ponies who hold a Princesses’ commission aspire to, seemed almost genuine, but one could never let one’s guard down around their sort. Not that I let my guard down around any creature, changeling or pony. Yet more than that, it simply seemed so thoroughly alien coming from a race that I associated with bestial cunning, total conformity, and callous morals that it was more thoroughly disturbing than if he simply stuck to that familiar old stereotype. That would have made it a lot easier to tell him where he could stick that dubious offer.
“You’re being very trusting of us,” I said, at length. “Who’s to say we’ll let you go?”
“Oh, you most certainly will.” There was a sly glint in Lacewing’s compound eyes. “You’re the Black Prince! You’d never stoop so low as to harm a willing hostage.”
Not in front of other ponies, that is, but he had me there. However, he seemed to pick up from whatever subtle social cues I was subconsciously displaying that I was seriously considering it, and he quickly added, “That would be dishonourable of you.” He rolled the word ‘dishonourable’ around his forked tongue as though luxuriating on a particularly fine vintage of love, or however their kind enjoyed that emotion, drawing special attention to it.
I hated making important decisions, or rather the prospect of being held accountable for them, so I found it best to try and spread the responsibility around as much as possible; if things went well I could still claim credit, and if they went poorly there was always a convenient scapegoat ready and waiting. Fortunately, I had Captain Frostbite and Square Basher with me, and so I asked them for their thoughts on the matter.
“I don’t like it, sir,” said Square Basher, as Frostbite was still apparently too stunned to respond. “Can’t trust a bug as far as I can throw ‘em, but some of our colts and fillies won’t survive the night without proper medical treatment. Just what I think, sir.”
That prompted Frostbite into finally forming an opinion. “Fine, but you’ll run him through the moment the bugs try anything, eh?”
“Hives, we wouldn’t dream of it!” proclaimed Captain Lacewing, as though he had been gravely insulted.
Nevertheless, that was that settled. We took our hostages, one willing and the others looking about as nervous as the slathering beasts possibly could, as far away from our formation as we dared to without leaving ourselves too exposed. As this was apparently my responsibility, I accompanied them and the guard of five rather confused earth ponies to a spot a dozen yards by our furthest picquet line, while Frostbite went about organising the evacuation of our wounded, mostly pegasi, back down to the main camp at the base of the hill. We watched them depart together, those who were still capable flew and the rest were carried on stretchers on hoof, in this thoroughly surreal moment of calm, sense, and order in a world where all of that felt less and less relevant as this damned war dragged on. This grim, morbid procession of ponies whose lives would be changed forever by today marched on by, past the formations of Changelings that flanked our line of retreat. I waited for the inevitable betrayal, but to my continued surprise the enemy simply let them be, and the column of wounded and their carers slipped through this corridor usncathed.
Perhaps, I thought, there was some tiny glimmer of honour left, and inexplicably it was found in the Changelings. Of course it makes sense now, with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of what would come later, but it is impossible for me to overstate just how utterly shocking it was that an enemy we had known to be so thoroughly void of scruples and morals to behave in such a manner approaching chivalry, even if it gave them the dubious advantage of allowing a few select individuals to view our meagre defences.
I belatedly realised that I could have earned a spot amongst those lucky ponies, but it was too late for that now.
Nevertheless, the Changelings had unexpectedly kept up their side of the bargain, so therefore it was our turn. Captain Lacewing, who had hitherto remained in silent contemplation with his drones despite his earlier talkative behaviour, seemed to pick on the cognitive dissonance tugging at my brain, and flashed one of his odd grins. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll go back to killing each other tomorrow morning.”
He bade us a good night, and I reciprocated out of mere politeness. With a tug on the brim of his helmet and another smile that, despite the presence of fangs, was warm, he turned on his hooves and led his grateful bodyguards away and back across the gulf to his own lines, where no doubt they had been just as anxious about his return as we were about the fate of our own wounded. I returned to that meeting with a relieved Captain Frostbite, the centre of our formation now cleared of our troublesome wounded ponies, with a peculiarly bittersweet sensation in my breast.
Decades later, I still wonder what happened to Captain Lacewing.
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Interesting.
Ah, the good old myth of a clean war. As if there is such a thing. Or as if changeling victory wouldn't mean millions enslaved or worse.
You know, this would be a perfect chance for the changelings to insert a few of their own amongst the wounded. I imagine there are methods to detect disguises but the medics might be too preoccupied with healing and allow some to get past any cordon in effect. Its certainly what I would do in Lacewing or Chela's shoes. They don't even have to attack the camp, even discretely sabotaging some supplies or lingering as spies would be enough to make such an endeavor worth it.
Fun chapter, keep it up.
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Yeah, they were probably inserted when the pegasi retreated in disorder but they'd do more good in the main camp than trapped in a square.
Oh boy, if that statement doesn't just lick at the imagination.
By the Emperor I love this story. It's one of the reasons I use this sight. I wonder if we'll start seeing the dawn of Equestrian tanks by the end of it?
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Engineer: Behold! My masterpiece is ready for deployment!
Twilight: It is a fine invention, my good sir. But may I ask why you chose to name it the M1 Applejack?
Engineer: Because it's strong, it's durable, and it's stubborn as all Tartarus!
Applejack:...I'm gonna start bucking you and I'm not sure when I'm gonna stop.
Infiltration is the easy explanation why they made the offer, but I'm putting some money on psychological warfare allowing the most crippled to walk away from the battle
kindpng.com/picc/m/716-7160746_emperor-palpatine-png-background-image-star-wars-battlefront.png May the Emperor (not to be confused with star wars lol) bless you.
Blessed Ye
I'm guessing Lacewing was probably executed for fraternization with the enemy. I doubt Chrysalis would be one to adhere to any concepts of honor, she'd probably see his actions as the first possible signs of dissent elements in her hive and will try to squash any attempts at it.
What Lacewing said about change was good and all but Chrysalis, as we know in the show, refuses to change even when presented with a better option. This gives me credence that she probably had Lacewing killed.
Unless the changelings infiltrated the wounded or something, the deal pretty much favored the Equestrians more than the Changelings.
Thank you for the chapter! What a tense battle! General Market really stepped in the trap without being able to send reinforcements to her troops. She probably can't even move her artillery near enough to Nip at the Changeling camps... Good thing Blueblood caught the first ruse, something else to add to his legend! "He can smell a Changeling Trap from miles away!"
I can't help but think how this is all deception within deception with this Hive Marshall. Like _Checkmate_ and terrycloth suggested, they might have used this to infiltrate the main camp but by this point in the war, there must be protocol to check the wounded and returning soldiers for infiltration.
However, the Changeling disguising themselves as pony cadavers that are now right next to them seem plausible. A "false" Changeling corpses would only get stabbed to check if it's really dead but a Pony corpse would probably receive some respect from it's comrades.
Absolutely lived the world building done in this chapter. The effects of falling flyers into the ranks. Teleporting unicorns to rapidly deliver messages. The Square being the ancient Earth Pony tactic against Pegasus and it being a standard formation to these days but how muskets or grenades are making it obsolete. How the Changelings have names for the ponies and an economy with currency as well. What a fine attention to details. Keep adding MLP elements to the story, it's help lot with the crossover aspect.
I keep thinking of how thet could upgrade the Square but fighting so many ennemy that can fly make it almost impossible to perfectly defend against 3D maneuvering. They did well but... the immediate improvement would be to have bayonets that doesn't cover the barrels so they could shoot at the same time. Upgrading to shoot more than once will be a game changer against tight swarms. Throwing grenades into the swarm seem like a good way to have it thrown back at you unless it's perfectly timed but without cover your side will be subjected to shrapnel as well. Smoke cover wouldn't help in this case since it would prevent the ponies from seeing the oncoming attacks and the Changelings are fanatics enough to charge in anyway.
Say... what happened to the "flamethrower" Pony specialist we saw from the first (second?) story? A big, tightly packed target like that seems like a perfect opportunity, if they shoot from the side of the square rather than directly into the charge where burning Changeling would crash into the square. I don't want to criticize this story too much but it lost a bit of it's WH40K connection over time and we are lacking elements like the flammers, volkit weapons (magic? Magic weapons?), or even power weapons (magic weapons?). There was also the strange ruins discovered under Fort Nowhere? That plot seems to be dead for now...
Digging trenches to remove vectors of attacks but I don't know how deep they could dig on a rocky hill like this. And they are tired as hell. The next best thing would be to pile the bodies to make a defensive wall while adding sandbags, ans barb wire to it to make it even more dangerous to brush against. A forest of tall wooden pikes fanning like hedgehog back could help deter a flying swarm. Of course all those are impossible to apply in this situation but I could see them be applied by the ponies when they have the ressources and have time to fortify.
I can't trust Captain Lacewing at all without thinking there is some kind of triple play behind his every moves, like everything they did was a way to exploit Pony psychology. But his design with the armor is a good call back to that MLP episode where we saw Chrysalis flanked with two such armored drones or the whole bunch in To Where and Back Again.
But the change in tactics and new Changeling emerging is great to keep things fresh! I hope we will see more new tricks from then like the coordinated group transformation led by Pharynx in To Change a Changeling.
Perhaps I was too harsh when I said the story was loosing it's touch with the WH40K side, there are plenty of details and general feels that are from WH40K present within.
Now that was an interesting chapter. Honour among changelings? This lacewing fella has my interest but alas, it sounds like we won't see him again. I eagerly await to see what all happens.
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Probably. This setting is probably the only time formation based armies in a firearm era are better than the alternative since its easier to keep track of who is a friendly. A chaotic skirmish with soldiers fighting independently, such as in the skies above, is where infiltration tactics would excel the most for a race that can (almost) instantly don the enemies' uniform.
i love this story.. With over 200 ive read on this site. This is really one of my favorites.
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gotta say your right we don't see magic combat as much it seems but to be fair i expect new doctrine to phase out that with muskets since it takes a few weeks or so to train in musket fire wile it takes a certain aptitude of magic level and training to perform magic volleys if i recall. as for the necron reference it was just that, a reference, he said in his memoirs about how it would bite him in the ass years later so it's unlikely we will ever see mention of it again in this story unless the author writes about this famed battle of ponyville
Celestia calls out of Garden's bullshit.
Note that the Princess is very aware of Blueblood's status as unrreliable narrator, yet she doesn't doubt who deserves the credit for spotting the trap.
Maybe Changelings are just an form of Abponies after all?
Huh, interesting read here. Rather like. Ceasefires to collect wounded have been fairly common in wars throughout history. Generally they're for both sides to do so; then again the Changelings may not consider the drones worth it.
It does seem a prime opportunity for the Changelings to slide infiltrators in. The trap at least has worked to some degree; we see the Night Guards seem to be fully isolated in pockets or pinned down, andw hile Blueblood's batallion has held we don't know the state of the rest of them.
For heavy Changeling casualties the advance has been stopped cold and there seem to be lots of small pockets and isolated units and they haev no maneuverability. With the Changelings having aerial supremacy, they can pin down the division and overrun pockets at will.
Presuming they are fully pinned and isolated and cut off, they're not in a great place unless the units can reform or reinforcements come. At some point the pockets will run out of ammunition or exhaustion will kick in as will morale as each group breaks.
"See, we're not such bad guys after all. We can be honorable and chivalrous just like you! Nothing nefarious. Let's all share a pot of tea to celebrate making it through the day, I've got a special blend here in my bag that I- NOW!"
11217540
You are probably right that as modernization and change of doctrines magic place in combat will change but I don't think it will be phased out simply shifting to specialized roles even more.
Unicorn magic is something that are part of themselves, so a the base every Unicorn is going to still be taught how to shoot magic beam since it's an integrated self reloading weapon that will regenerate it's own ammunition. They will still be thought how to fight with telekinesis held weapons because a Unicorn will still have the reflex to pick something with their magic.
An Earth Pony could be equipped with a flamethrower but a Unicorn that can do Pyro magic doesn't have to carry that heavy equipment and can protect itself from the fire. Teleporters might see less use as communication devices will be invented and improved but Teleporting is too much of useful skill to let go. Specialized magic skills that has an utility like purify water, creating illusion or transmutation of matter will always be valued because when machines fails or you are separated from them, reliable skills like those are worth the weight in gold in a platoon.
Powerful mages that can perform intricate magic or complex spells might take the equivalent of the Psykers units in WH40K that can change a battlefield with their spells.
As for magic items, we know that they exist in MLP canon so it make sense that magic weapons and war oriented items will make a resurgence at some point. There are unicorns who can make them, so they will think of it. We might even see a standardization of it at some point and a production line will be established for some magic items and weapons. They will still be rare and will be reserved for elites troops or special agents but they are bound to appear since it represents an advantage Equestria has over the ennemy. Ok yes, other nations have shown that they can make magic items as well, as seen in the canon show and the movie, so it's not out of question that the Changeling could pull something too but other nations will eventually take a look at what Equestria is doing and emulate them on that front as well.
For the Pegasus, it was mentioned that Cloudsdale is trying to think of new ways to apply their weather control technology (their natural magic) to warfare so we will see innovation from them too and probably specialized units and vehicles as well.
I don't expect magic to be phased out or replaced, I think it's role will change but ordinary magic will still has it's place on the battlefield, it's too integrated into their very beings.
11219237
Lacewing didn’t really seem to fancy the idea of honor.
11221103
Perhaps, but he certainly understood how to use it to manipulate the Equestrians.
It's sort of a win win letting them evacuate wounded. Changlings get to plant spies or sabeteurs. The ponies get their wounded out. As a bonus the changlings have less enemies to fight the next day as some able bodies had to carry the wounded home.
And here I was expecting the changelings to spirit Blueblood away right here while he was their hostage.
Though there may still be opportunities for them to do that during a future instance of truce...
11236021
I point to General Braxton Bragg (US Civil War). He had a fairly good record against the Mexican army & the Seminole Indians (Florida). He won the battle of Chickamauga (one of the South's most important victories) but took more than 3,000 more casualties than the Union's forces. His failure to press the victory led to the South's failure to capture the city -a decisive setback that eventually led to his being removed from command. Historians consider Jefferson Davis subsequently listening to his advice to be an important cause of the South losing the war.
On the other hand, he did improve the conscription process & the POW system.
Glad I finally got around to this. Wonderful work in building up tension for whatever goes wrong. The hints I've seen in Estee's Discord give me some idea, but I've been trying to ignore them as best I can. Looking forward to more, especially how Blueblood ends up captured. Something tells me he'll only reinforce the legend of the Black Prince once he's behind enemy lines.