Black Angel

by Zobeid

18 - The Citadel: Round 2

Gray skies matched the sullen mood in the camp of the resistance force, hastily assembled on and around the hillock within view of Thrognar’s citadel. The wounded were healed, and the officers held a confab in the commander’s tent. Nightmare Moon and her friends joined them.

To begin with, Chevalier called for Aide deCamp to provide a summary of their losses, their supplies, and their best estimates of the enemy’s strength. Methodically reviewing all they knew helped settle the minds of the officers, giving them something to think about other than the stinging defeat they had just suffered.

After his report was complete, thoughtful silence settled in the tent for some moments. Still, someone had to say it. Chevalier ventured, “We no longer `ave zee element of surprise in our column. Zey are all inside zee citadel!”

Faux Pas blurted, “Zis is ‘opeless! Zey are impregnable!”

Derpy blinked and looked up at Nightmare Moon, sitting by her side. “They can’t have children?”

Nightmare nosed at her and said softly, “Shush… It means they can’t be defeated.”

Souffle suggested, “We could wait… starve zem out!”

“Are you prepared to wait for years?” Nightmare asked. “They just sacked the town of Bledsoe, remember? They have all it’s provisions! No… We must assail the castle. We must crack it like an egg.”

Chevalier eyed her speculatively. “Your magic is puissant, Lady Eero. Could you not teleport into zee castle? Per-apps you could open zee drawbridge from inside. Zen we could take zee castle by storm!”

“No… The castle is warded against magical entry. I could break through the wards, but not without alerting those inside. Then I would have to fight them all within their own lair — and surely end up captured again.”

They pondered briefly, then Derpy sat upright and raised a hoof and said, “I know a plan to get us in without magic!”

Nightmare sighed. “No Derpy, we need an intelligent plan.”

“This is intelligent! I remember when I was in school my teacher Miss Cheerilee told me about it.” The others looked at her curiously. She fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable being the center of attention. “Uhhh… We’ll need a lot of wood to build it, though.”

Reconnoiter offered, “Zee grassland is not all barren. Zere is a wooded wataircourse only a few miles from here. We can fly zee timbers from zere, and construct whatevair is needed behind zee hillock, out of the troggles’ sight. So… Tell us about zis plan!”

---

The troggles stayed buttoned up in their castle. Sharp-eyed pegasus scouts reported that they seemed to be preparing for a siege. Meanwhile, work progressed rapidly on Derpy’s scheme. Pegasi and earth ponies moved timbers, unicorns positioned, shaped and joined them, and gradually the construct took form.

“Are you certain of this plan, Derpy?” asked Nightmare Moon as she gazed upon the gigantic wooden horse.

Derpy fluttered happily. “I’m sure, I’m sure! Miss Cheerilee told me it worked many years ago! We’ll hide inside, and when they take this ‘gift horse’ inside the castle, then we’ll wait until they’re all asleep, and then climb out and open the drawbridge.”

Nightmare shook her head. “Why does it worry me that this is your idea?”

Soon the gift horse was completed, and a few hardy volunteers were selected to climb inside. Derpy insisted on joining them. Tusk knelt beside her and asked, “Are you sure, Derpy? You aren’t a soldier!”

“But it was my idea! And we won’t fight, we’ll just sneak out and open the gate.”

Tusk ruffled her mane. “I’d go in your place if I could fit into that thing. I just hope you’ll be all right.”

“She should be fine,” Nightmare Moon opined. “She’s a dreamer like you. In the worst case, if she’s attacked, she should wake up and find herself back in her bed in Equestria.”

“Uh… I thought if someone died in a dream, they’d die for real.”

Nightmare Moon shook her head. “That is a myth — for the most part. It can happen, but only under exceptional circumstances.”

Despite the size of the horse, getting the volunteers into it was a tight squeeze. The door in its belly was sealed shut so neatly that from the outside it did not look like it was meant to open at all. Then a few strong earth ponies harnessed themselves and began to pull the gift horse, rolling as it did upon wheels built onto its feet. They pulled it out from behind the hillock into view of the citadel.

Once the wooden horse was positioned outside the castle, the ponies unhitched themselves and retreated, leaving their peace offering to the troggles.

There was no response from the citadel for ten minutes… thirty minutes… an hour…

Then, with a clanking noise, the drawbridge (more a gangplank, really) began to come down.

Anyone very close to the wooden horse might have heard voices: “They’re letting the bridge down to take us inside!”

“SHH!”

“SHH!”

“SHHH!”

“Quiet Derpy!”

“Not a sound!”

“SHHH!”

Peering over the hillock, Dominus Tusk, Nightmare Moon and the other pony officers watched. Deja Vu enthused, “Look, ‘Eero! Zey are taking it inside! ‘Ow can zis plan fail?”

Nightmare Moon only muttered, “Derpy will find a way.”

Slowly, slowly the horse was towed up the ramp and into the castle courtyard, and then the drawbridge was pulled up behind it.

On a vantage point atop one of the towers stood a muscular, quadrupedal figure: a grizzled gray ram with heavy, curved horns. Staring down into the courtyard, he shook his head and muttered, “I can’t believe they were foolish enough to use this ancient trick. It was already antiquated even before Tambelon was banished to this netherworld.”

Troggles gathered around the horse with their staff-weapons, laughing and jostling. When they were all in position around the inner walls of the courtyard, they began to simmer down, waiting for the signal from above. Thrognar propped his cloven hooves up on the edge of the crenel and called down, “Ready… aim… FIRE!”

Gleefully they unloaded on the wooden structure. With sound and fury, the storm of spell bolts merged, overloaded and detonated. Troggles were knocked back off their feet by the concussion, and smoke, sparks and fragments of wood blasted out in all directions.

The roar of the blast gave way to a roar of cheers. So great was the force of the explosion that the horse’s head, still mostly intact, was launched into the air and traced a smoldering arc over the walls of the castle, past the reptilian beasts of burden, and landed with a crash on the grassland beyond.

After the wooden horse head came to rest, in a few moments it began to make clunking and scuffling sounds, then a sooty mass of gray fur and feathers tumbled out. After a couple of tries, Derpy managed to get her feet under her. She blinked, wobbled, and shook her head. She muttered, “Next time I see Miss Cheerilee, I’ve gotta ask her about that last part.”

Comments

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

All I could think of was this, hilarious.