A Song of Storms: Snow and Shadows

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 11: Warlords and Unity

Chapter 11: Warlords and Unity

“...and I want the patrols redoubled on the south watch. I’ve seen reports of movement coming through on that end, advancing on the towns that are under our protection. I don’t think I need to remind you how important it is that they remain secure; your stomachs should be able to do that for you.”

Swift Spear brushed aside another scroll with a wave of her hoof. Before her stood several of the Praetorian Guard’s highest commanders, each with an important and delicate article to discuss with her. It was tedious, it was boring, and worst of all, she was exceptionally good at it. She figured that was the reason more reports were coming directly to her, instead of being passed through various secretaries.

Snapping the seal on a roll of parchment, Swift unfurled the paper and laid it across her lap. Looking over the title of the scroll, she promptly groaned and spread her wings across Hurricane’s throne, where she had set up shop since his departure. The ridges of the cloudstone and iron that had gone into forging it pressed against her feathers, and she could feel every detail intimately. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

Where was she? Oh, right. The letter. Glaring at the stallion who had delivered it to her, she quickly rolled the offending parchment up and burned it with a spark from her wing. “How many times has it been now that Gilded Crescent has requested employment within my husband’s palace?”

The stallion responded in an even and flat tone. “Three so far, ma’am.”

“Three. Yes, that’s right,” Swift muttered. “Has he figured it out yet that we’re not interested in his services? Times like this, we don’t need gold leaf layered to everything. What we need is more food.”

“Ma’am, if I may,” the Praetorian asked, to which Swift nodded her head. “I believe that he is simply looking for a source of income and a steady supply of food. Not many ponies find need of his services any more, and he is most likely penniless and starving.”

“So are we,” Swift answered with grim intonation. “We have enough food for two weeks; after that, everything is gone. If hunger doesn’t take us by then, the damned cold will.” She sighed and reached for the next scroll. “With Mobius’ mercy, Hurricane might be able to find something for us out there.”

Several Praetorians exchanged glances, but Swift couldn’t read their expressions. “Alright, stallions, what is it?”

Just then the door yielded to Imperator Cyclone, scurrying away from the pegasus’ commanding demeanor. Brushing aside several Praetorians, he forced his way to the front of the throne room.

“Imperator Swift Spear, I have something that might interest you,” he began, producing a ragged and weathered book.

Swift glanced at the Guard assembled in the room. “You are dismissed. We will finish this business later.”

There was muttering amongst the Praetorian, but none of them moved. Several glanced at Cyclone, while the rest simply stared back at Swift Spear.

Standing up, Swift walked down the steps from the throne and stood nose to nose with the nearest soldier. “You are dismissed, commanders. Did you not understand me?”

The stallion blinked, but before anything could happen Cyclone walked over and punched the soldier across the muzzle. “She told you to leave, Guards.”

With that, the Praetorian filed out of the room, closing the door behind them. Cyclone watched them go, an exasperated look on his face. Lifting the book with his hooves, he fluttered over to the throne, which Swift had sat in front of.

Sighing, Swift Spear let her wings hang by her side. “Thank you. I don’t understand what’s been going on lately. They’ve been more and more insubordinate. I don’t know what it is…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Is it because Hurricane is gone? Do they not understand what he had to do? And that he was the one who wanted to do it?”

Cyclone rubbed a spot on his hoof out of existence against the stone floor. “I don’t presume to know the answer, mother. I haven’t been around much lately, but the famine is on everypony’s minds. Naturally, tensions will be high.”

Swift released a breath and wrapped her wing across her son’s shoulders. “Yes. I only hoped—I only hope—that I can keep Cirra together until your father returns. The commanders are calling for war.”

Cyclone raised an interested eyebrow. “Really? War against whom?”

“Against the earth ponies, against the unicorns, against the griffons,” Swift answered. “Against the Gods themselves. It’s idiotic, all of it. We need the other races to survive, and there’s no way in hell that we can take on the griffons like this. They destroyed us when we were at full strength. What will we do now? Bleed on them with starving warriors?”

“Perhaps we don’t need the other races to survive…” Cyclone mused. Swift Spear eyed him, but before she could speak he placed the book in front of her. “Here. Typhoon and I found this in Amber Field.”

Swift took up the book and paged through its contents. “Hmm… I don’t read the language but it looks familiar. Draconic, maybe?”

“Draconic? Really?” Cyclone questioned, looking over the book with renewed interest. “Explain to me how a unicorn gang leader knows Draconic. The wyrms haven’t crossed Snaptooth Pass for seven years.”

“Not since the thrashing your father gave them, no,” Swift Spear chuckled. “Regardless, the language is fairly common amongst unicorn mages and scholars. Perhaps he picked it up in his time in River Rock? You said that’s where his gang used to operate from.”

Cyclone put the book back into his saddlebag and snapped the cover shut. “The bastard’s probably the son of a drunken noble and an earth pony whore. There’s no way he could have learnt it on his own.”

“Hmm.”

He stood up and turned to face his mother. The blond mare mirrored his actions, and the two embraced in a short and simple hug. Separating, the two pegasi began to walk towards the throne doors.

“Typhoon will have gathered our supplies for the trip by now,” Cyclone began. “I expect we should be back in two or three days, depending on how long it takes Star Swirl to decipher the text. If something develops while we’re in River Rock, however, we may take longer.”

Swift nodded and opened the door for the two of them. “Of course. Just be careful when in River Rock. Lapis and the nobles have technically sealed their borders to the Legion, and they had every Legionnaire in the city evicted with the Diamond Guard.”

Cyclone scoffed. “Evicted? We could have shredded the entirety of their Guard with only a few thousand Legionnaires. They should be thankful we chose to leave.”

A blond wing sailed through the air and smacked Cyclone on the back of the head, causing the stallion to grumble. “Be careful what you say, Cy. There are ponies out there who could consider themselves your equal in combat. There are also many who would love to place a dagger between your ribs.”

“If there are any, I haven’t ever seen one brave enough to try,” the red pegasus countered as they entered the courtyard. Typhoon rested against a pillar on the far side, her body almost indistinguishable from the surrounding whiteness with the layer of snow that covered her fur and armor. “I should correct myself; I haven’t ever seen one brave enough to try and live.”

Swift shook her head. “I’ll have to talk to your father about this one, Cyclone. You would do well to learn from his caution.”

Cyclone stopped and looked at Swift, his head slightly cocked to the side. “If he comes back from his quest, then I will. In the meantime, I have my duties, and he has his.” He leaned closer and planted a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “See you soon, Mom.”

Swift wrapped her wings around Cyclone’s neck and felt her son return the action. “Just please be safe. I lost my entire family in the Empire. I don’t want to lose you two now.”

Releasing his wings from his mother’s back, Cyclone nodded and walked over to Typhoon. With a quick shake, the younger mare scattered the snow and ice from her fur and stretched her wings in preparation for flight.

“We’re all ready to go,” Cyclone said. Shouldering his share of the gear, the pegasus took a few steps out into the open of the courtyard and began his own series of stretches and exercises to warm his wings for the coming flight.

“Right,” Typhoon began. Taking a fluttering jump, the mare took three bounds across the snowy courtyard and caught enough air to bring her airborne. “We’ll have a steady crosswind the entire flight down. East-west direction, about thirty miles per hour, I can feel it in my feathers. I hope you’re ready for some endurance flying.”

Cyclone shook his head and flew after her, a slight smile in his face. With the exception of the blistering cold and the worsening famine, it seemed almost like the simpler days. Aligning himself to a south-southwest heading, he led the way out of Cirra and towards the Diamond Kingdom.

Swift Spear watched her two children fly away, leaving Cloudsdale behind without a second glance. She smiled softly as they went, knowing that they were at least happy in each other’s presence.

She looked the opposite direction, seeing the iron throne that Hurricane used to sit on rest under a lonely shadow. The darkness and the light from the windows mingled in just the perfect way to create the illusion that a black pegasus was sitting there, resting his forehooves on an impressive sword planted into the cloudstone before him.

With a sudden and disheartening feeling of loneliness, Swift closed the door to the throne room and retreated deeper within the palace to her own thoughts and company.

-----

Streak Wing gasped as he struggled to clamber to his hooves. The impact had hurt far more than he had anticipated, but his neck was still in one peace. Quick thinking and use of his wingblades had seen to that. Hurricane’s attack, however, had knocked the deserter out of the sky even after the successful block.

He rubbed his shoulder as he stumbled forward and picked up his axe, flexing his wings all the while to ensure that they weren’t damaged in any way. He had hit the ground and slid several dozen feet across the snow, ice, and mud to where he slammed his side against a large block of onyx that the Union catapults had shorn from the walls. Had he not have been wearing armor, the blow would have certainly shattered his shoulder and dislocated his foreleg at the very least.

Stumbling forward several steps into the open, Streak Wing looked around him. He had landed at the northeast corner of the remains of the fortress. Directly in front of him were the surging masses of Crystal Ponies pouring into Onyx Ridge. The shattered remains of several siege towers and the mountains of bodies cast a hellish look over the landscape as massive fires burned in the background, both on the wood of the towers and along the remaining walls of Onyx Ridge. The smoke and ash had turned the sky red, and everything glowed with the dull haze of war.

Several hundred feet to his left, the massive onyx slabs that had made most of the northern wall still clattered over each other as the nearly two hundred foot wall finished its collapse, strewing black boulders and rubble everywhere. It was a sickening sight to see such a mighty fortress brought down into such a pitiful state, and all due to the incompetence of one pony. Streak Wing growled as he began to limp away. Halite should have started to massacre the Union army and push Jade away before she could get up to the gates. It would have saved the warlord his neck and Streak Wing his soldiers.

“Streak Wing.”

The pegasus in question bared his teeth and turned around to see two pegasi land behind him, one black and one yellow. The two parties eyed each other down, letting the billowing smoke plume between them in place of words, before Hurricane stepped forward.

“You know how this ends,” Hurricane noted, beginning to walk to his right around the clearing. Pan Sea began to follow him, but Hurricane held a single wing aloft and stayed him. “I will finish this, Pan Sea. Alone.”

Opposite him, Streak Wing had begun to copy Hurricane’s movements, and the two began to circle each other with nothing more than twenty feet of snow and ash between them. “You were dead, Hurricane! You should have stayed dead!” he growled, settling his jaw around the handle of his axe. “Nopony survives a poisoned dagger to the chest!”

Hurricane’s brow twitched as if he found that fact amusing. “I’m a survivor, Streak Wing. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve been doing since I was twenty years old. If you wanted me dead, you should have done the deed yourself instead of relying on poison to do your work for you.”

Streak Wing scowled at Hurricane and quickened his pace. “You may have survived one encounter with me, Hurricane, but this time, I’ll make sure I cut your head from your body before I fly back to Cloudsdale!”

Hurricane spread his wings out on either side of him and crouched low, waiting for the inevitable attack he knew the former Legate would supply him. “You had an entire company of traitors with you last time, Streak Wing. Today, it’s just you and me. You and your axe versus me and my sword. Are you ready?”

“Of course I’m ready!” Streak Wing spat. “Let’s see what you can do, Hurricane! I pit my axe, Vengeance, against your Sword of Storms! Vindictam versus the Gladius Procellarum! Let’s see who comes out on top, and we can end this once and for all!”

Without any noticeable shift in his position or movements, Streak Wing suddenly lunged forward with Vindictam held over his head. He struck out with such speed that he closed the distance between Hurricane and himself in a fraction of a second. In the blink of an eye, the mighty axe was sailing towards Hurricane’s neck with frightening speed.

If Hurricane had blinked, his neck would have been split into two that instant. Instead, he spun to his right, drawing his sword in the same motion. The axe slammed into the ground with a merciless force, flinging smoldering bits of dirt and ice into the air with a hiss of steam and a thunderous blast. That was all Hurricane needed to see to tell what kind of skysteel Vindictam was made out of.

As soon as his four hooves reconnected with the ground, Hurricane launched himself at Streak Wing with speed to rival his opponent’s own. He slashed the sword towards Streak Wing’s neck, but the traitor managed to catch the blade on his wing and deflect the skysteel from the vulnerable gap between his helmet and his armor. As the motion drew Hurricane over, Streak Wing delivered a quick jab with the ball end of his axe to the black pegasus’ ribs, launching him back and into the ground behind him.

Streak Wing was quick to follow up on the counter, turning and swinging his axe at the rolling form of Hurricane. The Commander was able to duck under the slash, pivoting on his front hooves as he did so and delivering a kick to Streak Wing’s jaw. It was a powerful buck that sent a tooth flying Pan Sea’s way, but the traitorous Legate shook it off as if the blow were nothing.

Twisting and leaping out of the kick with the athleticism and grace of a dancer, Hurricane placed himself on his rear hooves and scissored his wings towards Streak Wing’s neck. The white pegasus deftly blocked one wing on his axe and the other with one of his own wings, leaving him an opening to try and hack off one of Hurricane’s wings with his remaining bladed limb. Hurricane had to disengage and spiral out of the attack to avoid losing one of his prized wings.

Seizing on the opportunity, Streak Wing lowered his shoulder and charged into Hurricane, flipping the black pegasus backwards and into a pile of onyx rubble. Hurricane cracked his neck against the black stones, causing him to cry out in pain. The noise only seemed to entice Streak Wing on, and the pegasus raised his axe over his head and brought it down towards Hurricane.

The Commander just barely managed to roll out of the way, feeling the sonic shockwave and the fiery heat as the cumulostratus axe head crushed the onyx rubble beneath it. Coiling his hind legs, Hurricane delivered three bucks in rapid succession to Streak Wing’s face, neck, and chest in descending order. The final kick was delivered with such force to the off balance pegasus that it flung the traitor a good forty feet away where he collapsed awkwardly on the ground.

Streak Wing began to scramble to his hooves, planting the end of Vindictam in the ground to support himself. He turned to face Hurricane, but the moment he did so a large brick of onyx stone plowed into his muzzle. The traitor snarled and recoiled from the attack at the exact moment that Hurricane kicked three more stones at Streak Wing. They all collided with varying levels of effect, with the worst drawing the first blood of the fight with a broken nose on Streak Wing. Cursing, the Legate quickly flapped his wings and took to the skies, circling wide left of Hurricane.

Scattering the rest of his stones, Hurricane quickly hopped off of the rubble and took to the air after the traitor. The heat and air currents from the fires burning across the battlefield gave his strokes an extra boost, and soon the two pegasi were circling high above the burning fortress of Onyx Ridge. The smoke and the ash made it difficult to see, and Hurricane found himself spiraling wide of several stratus clouds as he pursued Streak Wing.

He knew his wings were more powerful than that of the traitor’s, and Hurricane pumped them for everything his feathers were worth. Banking hard left and rolling out to his right, the Commander chased the Legate’s zigzagging pattern through the skies. He had closed the distance to about five feet when Streak Wing suddenly twisted his wings, allowing him to loop over Hurricane and deliver a powerful kick with all four hooves to his back.

Hurricane grunted from the impact and fell several dozen feet as he fought to coordinate his wings. When he did so, his ears picked up the faint sound of a slicing blade behind him. Quickly slamming his wings against his sides, Hurricane launched himself downwards at death-defying speeds, and not a moment too soon. He felt a wingblade rip through his tail, tearing a clump of hair from the already short appendage.

The ground approached all too fast, and Hurricane flared his wings sharply and changed his direction in near-instantaneity. The strain on his shoulders was incredible, and he felt like he was going to rip the limbs from their sockets in the process, but somehow he recovered and managed to spin in midair to face the direction he came from.

He turned just in time to see Streak Wing clumsily abandon the dive angle and taper out into a level flight path away from Hurricane. As soon as the Legate was even, however, he spun around and quickly located Hurricane against the fire-red sky. Pumping his wings, he began to speed towards Hurricane head on.

The two pegasi locked eyes, and Hurricane likewise lowered his shoulder and began to flap as hard as he could towards Streak Wing. He knew his acceleration was better than that of the Legate’s, and hopefully the extra speed would pay off when they finally met. A protesting realization cried out in the back of his mind with that thought. They’d meet at an incredibly high rate of speed. If they connected, it was going to be painful, and incredibly so.

Wind whipped through his mane and stung his eyes, but something more powerful than a fear of pain got Hurricane’s wings working instead of flaring to the sides to slow and break off his approach. Streak Wing was rapidly getting closer, a brighter and whiter star shooting across the horizon at deadly speeds. As menacing as it looked, Hurricane knew he was faster and stronger. And so he flew.

They met all too quickly, but only for a fleeting instant. In that instant, both pegasi struck their left wing out at each other as they passed. Just before they connected, however, Hurricane tilted his side downwards, just barely avoiding the row of razor sharp scales lining Streak Wing’s wing crest. There was a dim spark as the outermost scales of their wingblades glanced off each other without effect. The opposing air currents met with such force that they produced a shockwave of thunder and pushed each pegasus past the other at an even faster speed.

As they separated, Hurricane was suddenly buffeted by the wind tunnel Streak Wing had created behind him. The pressure and the wind shear tore several feathers from his left wing, and Hurricane rolled right to escape the force of the draft. After flying at high speed for several hundred feet farther, Hurricane angled his right wing downwards and turned around for another pass.

Opposite him, a white speck against a red sky, Hurricane could see Streak Wing do the same. So, they were going to do this again? Very well. Hurricane wasn’t Commander Maximus of Cirra for nothing. Bravery and tenacity were two of his strongest aspects. The thought of high-speed death was nothing to him now. All he knew was that Streak Wing needed to die.

Rocketing forward, Hurricane and Streak Wing approached each other even faster than before. The first pass had gotten them warmed up for the second, and both pegasi were determined to connect this time. Taking a deep breath, Hurricane gritted his teeth and braced himself as they approached head-on again.

Twisting at an angle, Hurricane raised his bladed wing towards Streak Wing’s body as they passed. Streak Wing countered by making a tiny shift to his bearing with his tail, and instead the two wings collided with each other in flight. The noise could be heard from miles.

In a hideous shriek of metal, the scales on each pegasus’ wings shattered into tiny shards of skysteel and water vapor as the heat of the impact broke the steel apart into its component cloud types. The force of the collision produced an audible boom and staggered both pegasi in flight, sending them tumbling down several feet before they recovered. Two shouts of pain were plainly heard from the ground, but neither pegasus fell out of the sky.

Hurricane looked over his shoulder to see Streak Wing staggering in flight away from him, and he knew that they weren’t finished yet. No, one more pass would do it. He looked at the tattered remains of the wingblade hanging onto his right wing. Only three scales were left at irregular intervals, clinging to the simple leather assembly bound to the crest of his wing. He bit his lip and angled his left wing downwards, putting that side of his body into attack position.

Circling around, Hurricane started his final approach to Streak Wing. Despite the pain he still felt in his right wing, he felt himself going even faster than the previous two times. Opposite him, Streak Wing was struggling to gain speed. This would be his chance, the chance to end this fight once and for all.

Pushing and straining, Hurricane felt feathers begin to tear themselves loose from his wings. The air was tightening around him, and the pressure of the skies closed on his back and wings. Forcing his forelegs ahead of him, Hurricane shut his eyes as his speed increased to two hundred miles per hour.

The impact with Streak Wing was solid and square. Metal exploded into razor shards with the impact, and a massive thunderclap from the two airstreams colliding shook the burning towers of Onyx Ridge. The two pegasi hung in the air together, bodies crushed against one another, before they tumbled out of the sky, lacking the ability to move their wings.

It was a terribly long way down.

-----

Smart Cookie coughed as he struggled to push the onyx rubble off of his body. The fall from the walls had been anything but gentle but, all things considered, he was lucky to be alive. Not many ponies walk away from a two hundred foot section of onyx wall collapsing.

Managing to free his limbs, Smart Cookie stood up on shaky hooves and looked himself over. He was still intact, which was a blessing, and apart from several nasty cuts and scrapes along his body he was relatively unscathed. Thankfully, his armor had taken the worst of the damage, and he pried the helmet off of his head, massaging his ear as he did so.

There was a huge dent in the top of the helmet, and Smart Cookie shuddered as he tossed the scrap metal aside. If he had lost his helmet during the siege, the collapsing wall would have broken his skull for sure.

“Jade?” he croaked as he scrambled down the mountain of rubble around him. His ears picked up the sounds of the army storming Onyx Ridge and the cries of the fallen, but he couldn’t distinguish Jade’s voice among them. Cradling his left side, Smart Cookie staggered down onto the ground around the pile of rubble.

More bodies than he had ever seen in his life littered the churned soil around him. All had twisted expressions of agony and pain on their faces—those that still even had faces. Limbs and remains were seemingly strewn at random in the snow and ice, and several creaking siege towers lay where they had fallen around scores of bodies. Somewhere he heard the weak voice of some wounded pony crying for help, but Smart Cookie only staggered onwards. There was nothing he could do for the wounded; he was no combat medic. The best he could do was find Jade.

His hooves tripped him up several times as he walked, and with each stumble he struggled to find balance. He was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. So thirsty. He licked his parched lips with his dry tongue and tasted only onyx dust.

Several bricks shifted position beneath him, and Smart Cookie jumped back in alarm. Something was trying to dig its way out from the rubble, and it was having difficulty emerging.

Smart Cookie’s first thoughts immediately were about Jade. Scrambling back to the shifting pile of rubble, he began to toss chunks of onyx to the side to try and help. “Don’t worry, Jade! Don’t worry! I’ll get you out of here! You’ll be… fine…”

The limb he had unearthed was gray in coloration, and it wore a spiked black horseshoe on the hoof. As soon as the hoof was free it began to push off more and more of the rubble, and Smart Cookie fell backwards and scrambled away in alarm.

“Rrraugh!!” Warlord Halite shouted as he scattered the last of the stone from atop his body with explosive force. Emerging from his hole in the rubble, the warlord stood tall and shook the last of the onyx stones and pebbles from his figure. His crystalline coat seemed to be cracked in several places and his face was covered in shiny blood and grime, but his heavy black armor was spotless. Not a single scratch marred its surface, and the metal seemed to be ringing as it recovered from the blow. A frightening rage was in Halite’s eyes, and they quickly located Smart Cookie and cut through him.

“You…” Halite hissed, advancing towards Smart Cookie. The orange stallion squeaked and shuffled backwards on his flanks, too terrified to break eye contact and run. “You!! You were the one who opened the gates!! You were the one who destroyed my fortress!!”

Smart Cookie gulped and held his forehooves in front of him in a pleading fashion. “C-Come now, Halite, I t-think you’re g-giving me too much c-credit! I did nothing to your gates, I s-swear!”

“Liar!” Halite shouted, stalking closer to Smart Cookie. His battle axe was drawn, and its iron surface glinted in the amber sunlight with a thirst for blood. “This is your fault, earth pony! I don’t know who in Tartarus you think you are to march with a foreign army and advance on Crystal Pony walls, but I swear upon my life it will be the last thing you’ll ever do!”

“Wait!” Smart Cookie cried out in vain to stop Halite’s advance. “Can’t we talk about this first?!”

“No talk,” Halite growled, raising his axe. “Only death.”

Smart Cookie tried to stand and run, but his hoof tripped on a loose collection of rocks and sent him tumbling onto his back. He could only watch in dismay as Halite advanced, aligning the blade of his axe with the Representative’s neck.

Just before he could swing it, however, a light blue aura enveloped the blade of the axe and threw Halite to the side. The Crystal Pony called out in surprise and landed roughly on his face several yards away. As he began to stand up, Commander Jade landed by Smart Cookie’s side and spread a protective wing over him.

“The only pony who deserves death here today is you, Halite,” she growled as she drew her sword with her Arcana. “You and nopony else. And I’ll be more than happy to give it to you.”

Halite sprung to his hooves and gripped his axe between powerful jaws. “I should have figured it would end like this, Jade. You and your damn army may have destroyed Onyx Ridge, but when I kill you I’ll rebuild the whole thing from scratch. You think you can achieve peace for the Crystal Ponies?! I’ll tell you a little something, child, peace is merely the absence of war. So long as strong ponies like me survive, your Union will never find peace. The Crystal Ponies are divided into wolves and sheep. Tell me, which one are you?”

“Your analogies are a waste of your breath, Halite,” Jade retorted, beginning to advance on the warlord. “The world isn’t so plainly divided. Good ponies are capable of great things, too. You may be a wolf, but I am a shepherd. I don’t rely on fear to lead.”

“Right,” Halite scoffed. “You don’t rely on fear, but you rely on awe. The only reason you have a following is because you’re special, Jade. You’re an alicorn. You’re above everypony else. How large would your army be if you were a regular Crystal Pony like me or the soldiers you claim follow you?”

“My race has nothing to do with it, Halite,” Jade insisted. “And I am a Crystal Pony like my soldiers! Horn, wings, or nothing at all, we are all the same, and it’s my destiny to make the Crystal Ponies realize that!”

“Perhaps I can help you with that,” Halite sneered, advancing towards Jade. “Horn, wings, or nothing at all, you’ll show the world today that you die like any other Crystal Pony, and I’ll show the world how pathetic your dreams of unity are!”

With a ferocious war cry, the warlord charged across the remaining distance to Jade and swung his axe at her neck. She deftly blocked it with the sword she held in her Arcana, skirting to the side of his charge as he passed. She tried to strike at his sides as he stormed by, but the warlord simply jumped away from the strike.

Twirling the sword in her magical grip, Jade jabbed and sliced at Halite’s armor, but the warlord caught every strike on his axe. Rebounding from blow after blow, Halite twisted over one jab and managed to slam the blade of his axe into Jade’s shoulder. The armor took most of the impact, but the iron crumpled under the force from the blow and caused the larger mare to stumble backwards.

Pressing his advantage, Halite began to bear down on Jade and swing the heavy axe with surprising swiftness. The iron head of the blade was a gray blur as it sailed through the air, and Jade had to work hard with her sword and her wings to block each strike. Metal crashed and clanged against metal, and Jade found herself backpedaling from the onslaught.

Flipping over a low swing from Halite, Jade somersaulted in midair with the help of her wings and slammed two hooves down on Halite’s helmet. Instead of bringing the stallion to the ground, however, the alicorn faltered and cried out in pain. Her hooves tripped in the snow and she fell to the ground, panting.

Halite smiled and placed a black horseshoe on Jade’s neck, eliciting powerful cries of agony. “Aww, poor Princess. Do the void crystals hurt you? Tut tut. You should be more careful,” he scolded, pressing the shoe harder against her neck. “Ponies with Arcana shouldn’t be fighting Crystal warlords. Haven’t you learned anything in all the years you’ve been at war with me?”

Jade struggled under Halite’s hoof, but she couldn’t find the strength to push him off. The crystals were devouring her strength, and even though her father had exposed her to the rocks years ago to demonstrate their potency, she thought that by now she would have had mana reserves greater than what the crystals could absorb. She had forgotten the first rule of the battlefield; assume nothing.

Just then, Halite’s weight suddenly disappeared, and Jade found herself able to stand and fight again. Cries of a struggle rang out, and she turned to see Halite trying to shake Smart Cookie off of his neck. The orange earth pony was hanging on for dear life, even as his hind legs flailed out behind him with each powerful buck the warlord delivered.

Spreading her hooves, Jade readied a barrage of spells aimed at Halite’s legs. Several bolts of pure mana were loosed from her horn, each one crackling with a ferocious energy. They were aimed true, and looked to hit Halite’s unprotected shins. Before they could connect, however, they were suddenly pulled away by a powerful force from the void crystals in his armor. The metal released a high-pitched ringing noise, and a dozen bolts of energy stronger than even what Star Swirl could muster were reduced to little more than rapidly fading glows on Halite’s armor.

Snarling, Halite bucked thrice more and launched Smart Cookie off his back. The flailing orange stallion soared over Jade’s head, and the mare had to duck to not get hit in the face. Pointing her sword at Halite’s heart, she galloped towards him and began to swing with all her might.

Halite stood his ground and parried her strikes effortlessly, his teeth bared around the handle of his axe as he twisted his neck back and forth with alarming speed to catch each attack. Leaning to the right, he let one of Jade’s swings bounce harmlessly off of his armor while he gained the momentum to swing at her legs. Jade tumbled backwards away from the blow and advanced again, swinging her wings in coordination with her sword.

The combined efforts of three blades aimed at his neck forced Halite to backpedal, and he hopped and dived under successive attacks to avoid getting hit. Growling, he flung himself towards Jade, axe raised over his head. He took a hit to his shoulder that drew blood, but he managed to slam the blade of his axe into the armor on Jade’s flank. The iron collapsed under the blow and the alicorn cried out in pain as Halite darted out of range of her attacks.

Catching her sword in her teeth, Jade transitioned her Arcana from holding her weapon to ripping out large chunks of onyx rubble from around her and flinging them in Halite’s direction. The warlord grunted and offered his back to the bricks, where they bounced harmlessly off of his sturdy armor. Sprinting towards him, Jade tried to soften Halite’s defense by pelting him with more stones before attempting to slice him with her sword.

Gritting his teeth, Halite twisted under several of the stones before bucking one weighing nearly fifteen pounds straight back at the mare. The stone struck Jade’s armored chest and slowed her charge just enough for Halite to scoot to the side and cut at her legs. Flaring her wings, Jade gave herself enough drag to slow down and shy away from the slice, but the axe head ripped through her upper leg all the same.

The wound wasn’t deep, but it began to spurt blood that trickled down her crystalline coat. She spun her hind legs around and managed to jab at Halite’s side, putting all the force she could muster into the attack.

The blade connected as intended, the point striking square against Halite’s armor, but it failed to pierce it. The void crystals were simply too strong and resilient, and they deflected the tip of Jade’s sword with ease. Her shock caused her to hesitate, and in that instant Halite delivered several swings at her armor. The iron managed to deflect all of them, but at the cost of winding Jade, forcing her to stumble back from Halite and recover.

Seeing this, Smart Cookie grabbed a pole of iron from the rubble-strewn ground and began to gallop towards Halite from behind. The piece of metal fit awkwardly in his mouth and was poorly balanced, but it was the best he could do since he lost his sword. Halite was standing still, watching Jade pat her chest with a hoof and begin to come at him again. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to deal a surprise blow.

As his hooves left the ground in his leap towards the warlord’s back, however, Smart Cookie saw the gray stallion widen his stance and turn his ears back towards the airborne Representative. Parrying a strike from Jade’s sword, the warlord pushed her back and galloped into the space he had created in the blink of an eye. Smart Cookie realized his leap was going to fall short, and he extended his hooves to try and catch himself on the ground. Before he could do so, Halite coiled his hind legs and struck out in Smart Cookie’s direction without looking.

The orange stallion was launched backwards, his neck suffering from whiplash with the sudden change of direction. Ahead of him, Halite instantly crouched low under Jade’s sword and kicked off of the ground, barreling straight into her chest. The two ponies went tumbling backwards, but Jade managed to kick Halite off before he could do any damage. The powerful warlord landed flat on his face and grunted in pain before rolling out of the fall and readying himself for the next onslaught.

Instead of giving it to him, however, Jade flapped her wings and took to the air, circling low and wide circles around Halite. The warlord spun in place, keeping his eyes fixated on the mare, his axe twitching in his grasp. Jade feinted in his direction several times before returning to her wide circles, trying to keep the warlord off balance.

A frustrated shout rang out from behind him, and Halite ducked just in time to avoid being clubbed in the back of the head by Smart Cookie’s improvised weapon. Shifting his attention to the orange stallion, Halite quickly struck out at the earth pony. Smart Cookie managed to deflect one swing, but the second cut straight through his shoulder armor and into his flesh. His frayed nerves barely registered the pain other than that his side was burning and that somewhere, a stallion was crying out in agony. With a powerful kick to the jaw, Halite disarmed Smart Cookie and swung his axe at his neck.

Before it could connect, a lustrous green wing intervened and deflected the weapon. Screeching with rage, Jade drew her bladed wing across Halite’s back, managing to draw some blood from the unprotected regions of his neck and shoulders. Still, all she did was unbalance the warlord, and he toppled Smart Cookie with a powerful kick before going back to tracking Jade.

The mare was still flying in low and wide circles around Halite, waiting for the opportunity to strike at him. She cut across the circle once, kicking and swinging with her sword and hooves, but Halite managed to duck under the attack and strike back, spilling blood from Jade’s unarmored stomach area. She grunted and pulled up, but the wound continued to drip blood as he flew.

“Enough of this!” Halite shouted as he raised onto his hind legs. Before Jade could even react, he flung his axe directly at her, an impressive feat when the weapon was about five feet long.

Tumbling end over end, the axe sank into Jade’s wing crest with a sickening crunch. The thin blade protecting her wings snapped like a twig, and Jade screamed in pain. Her body became rigid and she fell out of the sky like a crystal statue.

Her legs hit the ground first. Then her shoulders and neck, followed by her face. She didn’t make a sound as she slid across the dirt and ice before finally coming to a rest near Smart Cookie.

“Jade!” Smart Cookie cried, hobbling to her side. Her limbs were as stiff as the dead, and her face was locked in a twisted expression of pain. The only indication he had that she was alive was her shallow breathing and the light twitch of the afflicted wing.

“Well well well, already stiff, isn’t she?” Halite purred from where he stood. “Funny thing about pegasus wings. You snap ‘em in two, and the body goes into shock. It’s supposed to help slow a fall if it were to happen in midair, but it leaves them vulnerable on the ground until they recover.” He walked towards Jade’s side, laughing as Smart Cookie scrambled away, before wrapping his jaws around the handle of the axe and twisting. Jade whimpered softly, but she didn’t appear to be recovering from shock.

With a sharp tug, Halite ripped the greataxe from Jade’s wing and watched as the wound poured blood into the snow. Smart Cookie’s stomach churned as he saw the fragments of bone and muscle stick out of the gash in her wing, and with a sinking feeling he realized that if the blade had cut two inches deeper it would have severed the crest off entirely.

Halite looked the axe over, as if admiring the art that Jade’s blood had created on the blade. “Funny things you learn by talking with a pegasus. It’s a shame Streak Wing couldn’t watch me cut the bitch apart. I wonder where he is now.”

Just then, a cry of ringing metal pierced the sky from above. Halite and Smart Cookie looked up to see two specks separating from each other in flight as the air currents around them ripped the surrounding clouds and smoke to shreds. Halite smiled and nodded to the lighter of the two specks as it separated.

“Speak of the devil. Looks like he’s having some fun up there with another pegasus. Commander Hurricane himself, maybe? If only.” Turning back to Smart Cookie, Halite lowered his axe to Jade’s neck. “Now, would you rather I cut out her heart or her throat?”

“Stop right there, criminal scum!”

Halite and Smart Cookie both snapped their heads to the side to see a dark silhouette standing on top of a mound of rubble. Actually, Smart Cookie was the only one to see it; Halite had to stumble backwards as no less than twenty bricks of onyx rubble were propelled in his direction.

Smart Cookie rubbed his eyes and blinked in disbelief. That voice, and that hat. There was no way…

“Heya, Smart Cookie! I hope you haven’t gotten yourself in too much trouble out here!”

Chancellor Puddinghead moved with far too much spring in his step for how Smart Cookie was feeling. The brown stallion bent over and helped his companion up, a huge smile filling his face. That smile turned into disappointment as he looked at the smoldering remains of Onyx Ridge’s north wall. “Well, I guess it was too much to hope for. Seriously, I leave you for not even a day and you already tear down the wall to a huge fortress? Just think of the insurance costs!”

“You…” Halite growled as he stood up, leaning on his axe to support himself. Several cuts from Puddinghead’s shower of rocks dripped blood onto his muzzle, which had already become a dark shade of crimson. “You! How dare you, you damn fool! You want to die too?!”

Puddinghead cocked his head to the side as if it was a serious question. “Um… not really.”

Shouting in rage, Halite charged at Puddinghead, his axe flying through the air towards the Chancellor’s head. Deft as could be, however, the Chancellor darted out of the way without so much as a care in the world.

It didn’t faze Halite at all, and the warlord only continued to strike out at Puddinghead in a blind blood rage. His swings came in faster than Smart Cookie had ever seen, and each one carried enough force to cleave a mountain in two. Each one, however, missed Puddinghead by mere inches as the brown earth pony twisted and leaned around attacks. Smart Cookie blinked in amazement as he watched Halite’s frustrated attempts to cut Puddinghead apart. The Chancellor didn’t even have his eyes open!

Quickly leaning in from one dodge, Puddinghead delivered two punches to Halite’s snout before hopping over another swing of the axe and sidestepping a second. His face was incredibly concentrated, and even though his eyes weren’t open, his ears flicked back and forth and his tail twitched with frightening continuity. It was like watching a circus act, and somehow Puddinghead continued to dodge his demise.

Next to Smart Cookie, Jade moaned and her body finally went limp. The stallion’s heart stopped for a moment as he thought Jade had died on him, but he could hear her draw breaths when he placed his ear to her chest. He sighed and wiped the sweat and grime from his brow. She had just passed out. Hopefully she would wake up soon.

Halite let out another frustrated howl as Puddinghead leaned back on his hind legs until his spine was only inches from the ground, his forelegs flapping on either side as Halite’s axe split the air above his chest apart. Springing back from the physically impossible action, Puddinghead slammed both forehooves down on Halite’s nose, adding more blood to the pool staining the snow around the warlord. The axe slipped down Halite’s grasp, but he managed to catch it and swing before he lost the weapon completely. This one looked sure to hit the overextended Chancellor square in the flank.

Instead, Puddinghead leapt off of the ground with impressive vertical height before the axe could even reach him. But in place of jumping over the weapon entirely, Puddinghead landed square on the head of the axe. The handle of the weapon bent, and Halite shouted in dismay as the axe slipped out of his grasp and clattered to the ground. He tried reaching for the weapon, but a buck from Puddinghead sent him stumbling backwards.

Now that he was disarmed, Halite channeled all his fury into his hooves and began to swing maddeningly at Puddinghead. This time, however, Puddinghead chose to stay and block each attack with frightening precision, delivering quick blows to Halite’s face and neck. The warlord’s gray coat became increasingly bruised and crimson; opposite him, the simple Chancellor had nothing but a single scratch along his left foreleg as the only wound Halite had inflicted upon him.

Looking around, Smart Cookie saw Jade’s sword laying in the snow by her side. The mare had yet to recover from her shock, but her breathing was stable, so the Representative hobbled away on three limbs towards the partially buried sword. Picking it up and shaking the dirt and snow off of the blade, he turned back to the fight.

Puddinghead was busy sliding around and between Halite’s attacks like a serpent, and striking back equally as fast. His eyes were still closed, and some supernatural sense guided his limbs and body around Halite’s infuriated blows. Sliding several feet to his left mere inches off of the ground, Puddinghead spun his entire body around twice on one hoof and delivered four kicks to Halite’s jaw.

Raising on his hind legs, Smart Cookie flipped the sword around in his grasp until he was clutching onto the blade. Waiting for the two fighters to separate themselves, the Representative leaned back and hurled the weapon towards the warlord. Spitting the blood from his mouth, Smart Cookie managed to call out to Puddinghead just before the sword reached them.

Hearing Smart Cookie’s warning, Puddinghead twisted and hopped over a desperate strike from Halite and rose into the air. In a single fluent motion, Puddinghead’s teeth located the handle of the sword as it spun end over end above Halite, and his body flipped in midair to swing it at the warlord’s neck.

There was the unmistakable sound of metal tearing through flesh as well as a screech of pain, and Puddinghead landed behind Halite as blood spewed from the warlord’s lacerated neck. Taking one or two more steps, Halite slowly turned to face Puddinghead and Smart Cookie, disbelief plainly written in his eyes. His breathing was ragged and blood spurted from his neck with each exhalation.

“Im… Impossible…” he managed to say. “I… No… Not… like this…”

His front legs buckled under him, and the warlord collapsed face first into the snow and ice. The white powder quickly turned pink as it mixed with his crimson vitality, and Halite moaned slowly before the rest of his body collapsed with him. His eyes blinked twice and he stretched a foreleg towards Puddinghead.

Then it fell, a dead weight to a dead body, and Halite’s once formidable reputation became as worthless to him as a grain of salt in the ocean.

Puddinghead blinked and turned back to Smart Cookie, dropping the sword from his mouth as he did so. The Representative’s jaw was opened in shock, and he stared blankly at the dead body of Halite before rubbing his eyes and staring some more. Finally recovering the ability to speak, he rushed over to Puddinghead and began to shake him.

“How?! How in the name of Celestis did you do that?!”

Puddinghead giggled and tousled Smart Cookie’s mane. “I don’t know!” he answered with a happy chirp.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Smart Cookie protested, shaking Puddinghead harder. “You dodged every single one of his attacks! You fought like you had been training your entire life! How does the lazy Chancellor I knew do that?!”

Puddinghead shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me! I just had this little tickling in my tail, and it told me which way to move! I just listened to what it said, and the mean gray pony couldn’t hit me! I call it… Pudding Sense!”

Smart Cookie exhaled and looked at Puddinghead in disbelief before laughing and embracing the brown stallion. “Chancellor, I don’t know how you did it, but you saved my hide! Not only mine, but Princess Jade’s as well! Why, if you hadn’t shown up…”

Puddinghead blew it off with a wave of his hoof. “Meh, I couldn’t let you have all the fun without me, so I came back! That was pretty fun. Can we do it again?”

The two earth ponies looked on at the burning husk of Onyx Ridge and the cries of war that still emanated from within. Turning to face Puddinghead, Smart Cookie rested a hoof across the Chancellor’s back. “Maybe next time, Puddinghead. Trust me, it wasn’t as fun as you would think.”

Just then, Smart Cookie’s stomach growled, and Puddinghead began to smile. “Sounds like somepony is hungry. Hey, you wonder if the Crystal Ponies got any food in that crazy house of theirs?”

Then the two laughed together and sat in the snow by Jade’s side. It was the first laugh Smart Cookie had ever shared in earnest with his superior.

-----

“Hurricane! Hurricane, get up, sir! Streak Wing’s coming to!”

Hurricane groaned as he felt the rubble shift around him, struggling to breathe after having the air forced from his lungs by Streak Wing’s body. As soon as he could manage a gasping breath, he grunted in pain, a terrible burn that sent lights dancing across his vision. Placing a hoof to his chest, Hurricane could feel no less than three broken ribs under his armor.

Pan Sea was there next to him, a worried expression across his butter yellow face. Crawling to his hooves, Hurricane wheezed and checked the rest of his limbs. His legs were fine and his wings were surprisingly intact, even if he had completely ripped the wingblade assembly from his left crest.

Pushing Pan Sea aside, he took uneven steps towards Streak Wing, who had managed to stand with the aid of his axe. One of his wings hung limply by his side, and blood trickled from his lips, but his eyes were just as full of hatred as they were before the fight.

“Enough dancing!” Streak Wing shouted, spitting blood from between his chipped teeth as he did so. Readying his axe, he began to advance on Hurricane. “We finish this from the ground! Let’s see who’s stronger!”

Hurricane snarled and broke into an uneven gallop towards Streak Wing, the Sword of Storms held high above his head. With a downward stroke, he hammered away at Streak Wing and the tattered remains of his armor. Streak Wing blocked with his axe, his jaw providing a fulcrum on the handle which he supported with alternating hooves depending on which side Hurricane swung at. With a shout, Streak Wing managed to catch Hurricane’s sword under the head of the axe and strike the Commander across the snout with the opposite end of his weapon.

The blow forced Hurricane to stumble back and regroup while Streak Wing began to swing his axe at him. Hurricane knew his sword couldn’t support the weight of the greataxe, and so he was forced to hop from side to side and avoid the downward swings of the weapon.

Taking a chance, Hurricane darted to the side of the hammering greataxe and jabbed at Streak Wing’s shoulder. The impact drew blood and caused the Legate to snort in pain, but the white pegasus countered by spinning his axe across his body and slamming it into Hurricane’s side, blade first.

The impact was so harsh that it flung Hurricane across the clearing and knocked his sword from his grasp. The armor had surprisingly held firm against the strike, but it did little to soften the blow for Hurricane’s broken ribs. The pegasus slammed into the ground and slid several feet on his face into the smoldering remains of a siege tower. He shouted and stumbled away from the flames as the fire burnt off part of his coat on his face and obscuring his vision. He collapsed into the snow, letting the cold ice try and soothe the left side of his head.

Streak Wing panted, his namesake limbs hanging from his sides, the blades decorated with blood. He raised his head and growled at Hurricane as the black pegasus struggled to stand.

"Damn it, Hurricane!" he shouted. "Damn it all to hell! When I put you down, this time I'll make sure you stay down! Celeste or whichever god you struck a deal with won't be able to raise your corpse again to screw with the true Empire! I’ll split your wings from your body and let the rats feast on them! You weren’t worthy to be emperor! You’ll die today, and somepony with the guts to take back our home will lead Cirra!”

Hurricane stood up from the snow and walked over to his sword, slowly picking the weapon up from the ground. “I wasn’t worthy to be emperor? What do you know about being an emperor? What do you know about making the difficult choices? What do you know about what I had to do just to ensure that we would survive?!”

He galloped towards Streak Wing, sending his blade at him in a flurry of powerful strikes. Streak Wing struggled to keep up, backpedaling from the onslaught and trying to block each strike with the handle of his greataxe. After a particularly menacing clash, the two soldiers split apart several strides, and Streak Wing dipped into his Empatha to light his coat on fire. Taking a deep breath, Hurricane countered by drawing on his adrenaline and excitement. The power of a raging storm soon poured through his limbs, and the world seemed to slow around him.

Streak Wing charged first, a blazing torch of Cirran fury boiling the ice and snow around him. The cumulostratus steel in Vindictam greedily took up the flames, and Hurricane found himself dodging a fiery greataxe. He could feel the tongues of flame licking at his chin as he leaned away from the blow.

Spinning in midair, Hurricane launched himself behind Streak Wing faster than the eye could follow and struck at the Legate’s flank. The blade along his wing grazed across Streak Wing’s unprotected sides, but a flare of fire forced Hurricane to retreat and abandon the attack.

Trying another tactic, Hurricane darted out of range of the blasts of fire Streak Wing began sending his way and aimed his hind legs at the traitor’s body. Consumed with blind Empatha rage, Streak Wing lowered his shoulder and began to charge straight at the Commander without caution.

Taking a deep breath, Hurricane could feel sparks of electricity forcing the hairs of his bloodstained coat to stand on end. The world changed from red and orange to gray and white, and it seemed like it took hours for his hind legs to raise off of the ground. Streak Wing had all but frozen in place behind him, his limbs moving incredibly slow. Feeling his legs touch his flanks, Hurricane narrowed his eyes and kicked.

The bolt of lightning summoned by his Empatha flew true, cutting jagged arcs out of the split skies as it connected with Streak Wing’s body. There was a huge blast of light and a resounding clap of thunder, and the traitor screamed in agony as the electricity paralyzed his limbs.

Both ponies, shooter and target, collapsed to the ground at the same time.

His breathing ragged and labored, Hurricane managed to clamber back to his hooves and begin to advance on Streak Wing. The sudden discharge of Empatha was extremely draining, but he could feel the energy returning to his limbs just like how the air returns to the sky after a lightning strike. In a few seconds he was feeling energetic again, and his perception of color returned to his eyes just enough to make out the red feathers along Streak Wing’s namesakes.

The opposing Legate was slower to get up. His mane and tail were frazzled and smoldering and his breathing consisted of choking gasps, but he was still alive. The skysteel in his armor had absorbed a good portion of Hurricane’s lightning Empatha, but even the residual energy was enough to cripple his concentration and shut off his access to his own magic.

Both ponies glared at each other, but only Hurricane’s eyes were devoid of doubt.

Tightening his grip on the Sword of Storms, Hurricane quickly closed the distance to Streak Wing with his Empatha. The Legate could only stand and brace himself for Hurricane’s strikes. With each successive blow they became more and more powerful, and Hurricane began to leap into them and smash Streak Wing backwards.

“I survived Hengstead! I am not weak!”

Jab to the left, followed by an uppercut. The cry of steel on steel.

“I burnt Azoeth to the ground! I am not soft!”

Windmill strike on Vindictam from above. Sparks scattered into their eyes, blinding them.

“I escaped the counterattack that destroyed my legion! I am not slow!”

Pivot and buck to Streak Wing’s jaw, snarling. A scuffle of hooves as he was forced backwards.

“I defended Nimbus from the Gryphon Horde! I am not useless!”

Strike low at Streak Wing’s legs. The sound of flesh being ripped apart, as well as a cry of pain.

“I fought Emperor Magnus one on one in the burning palace of Nimbus! I am not a coward!”

Duck under Streak Wing’s desperate slash with his greataxe. Stab at his chest, drawing more blood.

“I survived the eruption at Feathertop where three hundred-thousand died! I am not untested!”

Hammer again at Streak Wing’s greataxe. An explosion of thunder and wind.

“I killed Legate Red Tail and stopped his coup! I am not a traitor!”

Feint with a wing, then pierce Streak Wing’s shoulder armor. Twist and elicit anguished shouting.

“I wept as my hometown was destroyed, my father and mother slain because of my own lack of foresight! I am not heartless!”

Dart out of range of Streak Wing’s axe, then lacerate his wing. Blood spatters the ground, turning white snow crimson.

“I recognized defeat and led our nation across the sea to avoid our destruction! I am not blind!”

With that, Hurricane turned and kicked Streak Wing in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards. Immediately following, he backflipped and brought his sword down on the Legate’s greataxe, which was raised over the traitor’s head in a feeble attempt to ward off the blow.

It failed.

A shockwave expanded outwards from the point of impact as the stratus charges in both weapons interacted. With a tremendous crack, the handle of Streak Wing’s greataxe completely shattered, exploding into thousands of tiny fragments. The two pieces fell out of Streak Wing’s grasp even as Hurricane’s sword continued its downwards approach. The black stallion inched it out a little farther on the way down, managing to catch the remains of the traitor’s breastplate. With the grinding of skysteel against onyx, Hurricane completely split the piece of armor in two and exposed Streak Wing’s chest.

Landing on his forehooves, Hurricane brought his hind legs underneath him and struck out at the jaw of his opponent. Streak Wing was sent backwards into the snow and ice, his face and body trailing blood the entire way. He collided against a mound of rubble, gasping for breath.

Hurricane walked over to Streak Wing and kneeled over him, holding his sword against the traitor’s neck. “My body is covered with the scars of a dying Empire, and its horrors will never leave my mind. You think I was not worthy to be Emperor? I, more than anypony else, was prepared to be the last emperor of Cirra!”

Streak Wing spat at Hurricane’s face, grinding his teeth. “Kill me then, if you are so sure of yourself. Finish your traitors like Roamulus demanded his followers to do! Kill me now!”

Hurricane took a deep breath and drew back his sword. “Do you remember your oath that you took so long ago? The oath that we all had to take? That you would stand by Cirra and her leaders until the day you died?”

“Go to hell.”

Hurricane shook his head and raised the sword. “You knew this was coming, Legate. It is in our creed. Ante Legionis nihil erat, et non erit Legionis. Before the Legion there was nothing, and after the Legion…”

The blade rang out with vengeance dealt as it bored into Streak Wing’s throat. The Legate gasped once, twice, three times, then went limp as his head lolled to the side and was still.

“After the Legion, there will be nothing.”

Hurricane stood there, breathing quietly over Streak Wing’s body. The siege was still going on behind him, but he had blocked out all the shouts and the screams of death. The world had narrowed down to him, his sword, Streak Wing, and nothing else. It was over.

The victory felt hollow.

Pulling the sword out of Streak Wing’s neck, Hurricane set it on the ground and sat there, staring off into space. He had killed Streak Wing, so he should feel happy. He had done his job to Cirra, right? Streak Wing was a traitor, and for that, he needed to die.

But something else clawed at him from within, and it had been since he had begun shouting his accomplishments back at the Legate. Why did he do that? Did he feel the need to justify his title as Emperor? Why?

Pan Sea walked over to Hurricane from the side and brushed some of the blood off of Hurricane’s body. “You did it, Commander. He’s dead now.”

Hurricane nodded and looked at the remains of the blade on his right wing. “Yes. He is.”

Pan Sea looked up at Hurricane, puzzled. “What is it, sir? Is something wrong?”

The Commander stood up and shook his head. He walked over to Streak Wing’s body and closed its eyes, spreading the white and red wings on either side of him. He looked up, and realized he was facing east. The direction of home. It was fitting that Streak Wing should die facing old Cirra.

“I can only help but wonder at what he said,” Hurricane murmured, looking down at the Legate’s face. “Is it really my fault that the Empire died? Is it really my fault that we’re but a shell of what we once were?”

Pan Sea was taken aback, and trotted up to Hurricane’s side. “No, Commander, it isn’t. You did what you had to do, sir. What more could anypony have done?”

“I don’t know, Pansy. I don’t know.” He sighed and turned to face west, looking across the burning remains of Onyx Ridge. “I don’t know if we even deserve another land to run to. We fled once before, and nopony will ever forgive me for that. If we flee again, does that make us weak? Are we too weak to face the coming storm, Pansy? Will we only keep running whenever something bad threatens us?”

“I can’t say, sir,” Pan Sea admitted. “What I do know is that you did what you had to do for Cirra to survive. There’s nothing wrong with that. Streak Wing wouldn’t have been able to save Cirra if he was emperor. Only you could do that.”

Hurricane sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe, maybe. I suppose.”

Pan Sea placed a hoof on Hurricane’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong in running, Commander. Not if it means that it saves the lives of thousands, and the lives of unborn millions. Honor means nothing if there’s nopony left to appreciate it.”

Hurricane was silent for a while before gently dipping his head. “You’re right. That’s sage advice, Pansy. Well.” He began to walk to the west, preening the blood out of his wings as he did so. “We should be going. The Crystal Ponies will be here shortly. I’d rather not get caught when I’m trying to get clean. Come on, the Narrow Strait isn’t much farther west of here.”

Pan Sea nodded and set his hooves in a line after Hurricane. The fight was finally over, and now they could get back to what they were trying to do all along—to save Cirra. With luck, in a few days’ time, they’d be safe and at home again with their families.

The setting sun beckoned them westward, with its sad, dying light, which the two pegasi followed without question.

-----

“Ack! Augh… Diadem… are you okay?”

Clover scrambled to the top of the onyx rubble littering the holding pens that until recently were home to a hundred miserable prisoners. Her head was ringing from the impact, and the blurriness to her vision was making it difficult to see.

She coughed on some more onyx dust before looking around her again. “Diadem? Diadem, where are you?!”

There was a small cough from behind her, and Clover turned to find Diadem’s aqua coat partially buried under rubble. Galloping over, Clover shoved aside the rocks with her Arcana and pulled the little filly out of the tomb of onyx. Diadem’s face and body were covered in several lacerations and scrapes from the fall, each one dripping precious blood.

“Diadem!” she shouted, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Diadem, you’re bleeding!”

The little filly coughed and smiled at Clover. “I am? Awesome! Now I’m a real warrior like my brother!” Looking over the mare’s body, Diadem’s grin became even wider. “Hey, so are you!”

Giving herself a quick look over, Clover noticed several gashes and scars across her upper torso from the fall. The pain came along with the realization, and she gritted her teeth as she plucked several spidery splinters of onyx stone from her skin. “Yes, well, being bloodstained is not usually a good thing, Diadem.”

Diadem didn’t seem to particularly notice or care. Instead, she looked at the half-destroyed remains of the western wall with a frown. “They broke my ballista.”

“I’m sure that Greenleaf will get another for you when you’re older,” Clover mused, moving out into the open and looking back up at the wall. She could see several small figures trying to scurry their way around the massive gash in the walkway and head south. Smiling, she raised a hoof and waved to them.

“Clover!” Princess Platinum shouted from her perch on the western wall. “Thank the sun you’re alive! And Diadem, too!” Turning to Greenleaf, she tugged on the elder stallion’s foreleg. “Please, sir, we have to go down there and meet up with them.”

Greenleaf shook his head and nudged her along. “We can’t do that, Platinum, it’s much too steep of a drop from here.” Turning to Clover and Diadem, he pointed towards the south. “We’re trying to get to the central tower along the southern wall! That should offer us a way out, and hopefully keep us away from the fighting! Meet up with us there, and we’ll open the tower for you once we get inside!”

“I thought you said that the north gate was the only way out of this fortress?” Clover questioned.

“It was the only feasible option at the time, in all honesty. We would have had to fight our way along an entire wall of Crystal barbarians just to get to the south tower, let alone fend them off long enough to get the ladder to the bottom set up! It would have been easier to just try and sneak out the front door disguised as purchased slaves or something, but as you can see…” he waved his hoof towards the north and the sounds of war and death coming from the raised gates, “trying to run headlong through a charging and packed army against the flow of traffic is something that I’d rather avoid.”

Clover nodded and scooped up Diadem from the ground. “Right! We’ll make our way to the tower on hoof from here! Hopefully we won’t run into too much trouble!”

“Watch out for any barbarians!” Greenleaf cautioned. “Sounds like the Union’s broken through the walls! Expect the survivors of Halite’s garrison to be in full retreat!”

Dipping her head, Clover adjusted her shoulders for Diadem to sit more comfortably and began to gallop towards the southern edge of the camp, away from the chaos at the north. She soon left the prison block behind her and began to weave between streets and buildings as she crossed the center of the fortress.

All around her was smoke and fire and ash. Row after row of wooden houses shed orange sheets of fire into the sky, giving the air an unsettling red glow. Large buildings had entire walls ripped off from catapult fire, and every few minutes the ground would shake as another finally collapsed to the stress along its wounded side. Clover grimaced as she ducked under a smoldering wooden beam lying across an alleyway. The Union sure had some powerful catapults.

Panicked screams and shouting suddenly echoed across the charred walls of the block, and Clover pressed Diadem and herself against a building as several disheveled barbarians rushed by, their tails quite literally between their legs.

“Run, ya damned bastards!” the lead one was shouting to his companions. “Regroup at th’ Castle! Maybe we can hold ‘em off there until that damned pegger gets back wit’ his comp’ny!”

His companions all voiced their agreement, and then they disappeared around the corner. Finally daring to draw a breath, Clover stepped out from the wall and began to gallop after them towards the south, although not without checking each corner.

Rounding another building, Clover nearly shrieked when she came face to face with three barbarians. Their armor was loosely hanging from its straps and their faces were covered in dirt and crystal blood. They were all panting, and their eyes were filled with primal fear that Clover had never seen from them before. She jumped and scrambled backwards before they could get any closer.

“Damn it! What in th’ name o’ Tartarus are we stopped fir?” one of the barbarians near the back called out. Looking around his companion, the pony’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Gods be damned! It’s th’ bitch from th’ ballista, ain’t it?!”

“One of them,” the pony standing in the front growled. “Cut her to ribbons and head for the south tower! We might be able to escape this onslaught yet!”

Clover didn’t wait for him to start towards her. Ripping several barrels from a stack on the right with her Arcana, she turned tail and galloped in the opposite direction as the warriors behind her cursed and took after her in pursuit. She felt Diadem’s tiny hooves tighten around her neck as the little filly struggled to hold on at the breakneck speed Clover was running.

She thought she was going to outdistance them when something sharp paralyzed her leg and toppled her to the ground, sending Diadem flailing ahead of her. Gritting her teeth and rolling onto her back, she saw a throwing spear pierced the entire way through her hind leg, the wound spurting blood along the grimy wood. She turned around and looked across her shoulder to see Diadem climb to her hooves and shake the stars out of her head.

“Run!” Clover screamed to the filly. She no longer cared about her own wellbeing, only that Diadem got away. “Run, Diadem, run!!”

Instead of fleeing, however, Diadem stood her ground against the advancing Crystal Ponies, walking up to Clover’s side and gritting her teeth. The warriors all paused and looked at her, incredulous.

“What, you gonna stand up to us three, little filly?” the lead barbarian taunted. Drawing a heavy war hammer, he began to advance of Diadem, bloodlust and menace filling his eyes.

A wall of aqua light materialized just before him, and as his face broke the barrier he screeched in pain. The fur on his muzzle was smoking and the air began to reek of burnt hair, and he immediately fell to his knees and planted his singed muzzle into the snow. The other two barbarians stepped back and drew their weapons, eyeing Diadem warily.

Clover looked up to see Diadem straining, her horn glowing and her teeth biting into her lip. The wall of light that the filly was creating stretched from side to side of the alley at a height much too tall to jump over. The surface of the wall rippled and pulsed, and a few crates caught within its range sparked and turned to charred wood.

“Incredible…” Clover whispered, watching the barbarians back away. Diadem had erected a force field of pure mana that singed whatever it touched. Clover was absolutely stunned that the filly could pull off that taxing of a spell at such a young age. It had taken her until she was eighteen to be able to erect a wall of that size, and even then, Star Swirl had been able to probe it and find the weak points where the mana was unevenly distributed. Behind the shimmering and pulsing mass of Arcana, Clover could tell that Diadem had expertly divided out the mana to each portion of the wall to strike an even balance.

“Rocks below,” one of the warriors muttered, “how did the little runt pull that off?”

The lead stallion, the one who had burnt his muzzle, stood up and glared in Clover’s direction. “Give it a minute, boys, she’ll get tired soon enough. Horns always do.”

Clover gulped and looked up to Diadem. The filly was straining and beginning to groan as she tried to keep the wall up. Her lip was bleeding as she bit harder and harder into it, and her hooves began to slide out from under her as she tried to brace herself against the snowy and slippery ground. Clover knew she could only keep it up for a few more seconds.

Just then, several other Crystal Ponies burst around the corner and impaled the barbarians on their spears, driving the bodies into the wall where they hung. One of the ponies, who was wearing cyan armor, turned to look at Clover and Diadem before nodding and continuing down the road. When they all left, Diadem’s force field fizzled out, and the filly collapsed by Clover’s side.

“You did good, Diadem,” Clover whispered as she nuzzled the filly’s side. The aqua pony managed to force a smile between pants before she laid her head back down on the icy ground. Then, Clover turned to address the issue of the spear in her leg. Bracing herself, her horn lit up as she enveloped one side of the weapon in a field of Arcana.

Somehow, between screams and groans, Clover managed to force the weapon back out of her leg and tossed it aside on the ground next to her. Ripping a piece of cloth from the body of one of the fallen soldiers, she fashioned a makeshift tourniquet and bandaged the puncture wound as best she could. Then she climbed to her hooves and gingerly tested the injured leg. It stung when she put weight on it, but at least she could move the leg enough to walk.

Leaning to the side, she was able to nudge Diadem up onto her shoulders and begin to limp towards the south again. The noise from the fighting had become even louder as the Union forced Halite’s warriors deeper into Onyx Ridge, pinning them around the castle. Clover only hoped that she could avoid any more confrontations with barbarians.

Limping along, Clover made slow progress throughout the rest of the camp. It seemed like most of the barbarians had been cleared out until she came to the large clearing that surrounded the castle. The sight was horrifying.

Thousands of Crystal Ponies were packed into the small flat area around the castle, hacking and bashing each other to pieces with their weapons. The area reeked of blood and death, and hundreds of crows and vultures circled low overhead. Bodies and limbs littered the ground, and Clover was almost certain that a river of blood two inches thick was pouring out from under the beleaguered warriors around the castle.

Grinding her teeth together, Clover slogged through the pain in her leg as she trudged her way across. She muttered every prayer she could think of to the Gods as she stumbled around the kill zone, hoping that no barbarians would spot her or Diadem. There were several close calls as Halite’s warriors fled into the buildings around her, but none considered her important enough to waste time on. Not with trained and disciplined Union soldiers on their hooves.

She wasn’t so lucky for long. As she was nearing the south tower, several Crystal barbarians ran into her as they tried to get into the building. The ponies tumbled across the ground, and as they climbed back to their hooves the barbarians turned their anger towards Clover and Diadem, who were feebly limping away.

With a shout of rage, the barbarians lowered their weapons against Clover and charged. Before they could get far, however, several arcane bolts flew down from the walls and cut them to ribbons, one by one. Looking up, Clover was able to see the outlines of several unicorns along the southern wall. She coughed on the smoke and ash and nodded, stumbling towards the base of the tower. When she got there, the door opened up, and Platinum embraced her and Diadem.

“Clover!” she called out, choking on sobs of joy. The two mares wrapped their forelegs around each other before Platinum pulled Clover in and closed the door behind her and Diadem. “I was so worried for you! I… when I saw those barbarians going after you…”

Her voice trailed off as she saw the leg Clover was holding to the side. “You’re hurt.” She unwrapped the bandage and blanched at the ugly wound, which was still oozing blood.

“It’s… nothing,” Clover lied, trying to scoot around Platinum. A huge ladder greeted her, at least several hundred rungs up to the top. She gulped and dipped her head, reaching for the first rung.

A bluish haze overtook the world, and Clover started as her hooves left the ground. Next to her, Platinum’s horn was glowing, lifting Clover and Diadem off of the ground as she began to mount the ladder. “Nothing, my royal flank!” Platinum retorted as she slowly made progress on the ladder, one rung at a time. Sweat was already beading on her forehead, and her jaw trembled around each step of the ladder with effort, but she simply swallowed her duress and continued onwards.

It took the better part of five minutes, but soon enough Platinum was able to get to the top of the ladder with Clover and Diadem safely in tow. Greenleaf leaned over the edge and was able to take their hooves and pull them onto the wall one by one. With a wheezy smile, the old unicorn patted each of them on the back as he guided them towards the opposite crenellations.

“The boys found the ladder while Platinum was helping you up,” he began, pointing to where the former prisoners were beginning to turn and descend to freedom. Taking Diadem from Clover, he held the filly in his forelegs while he waited for the line to clear up.

“Thanks,” Clover started, bowing to Greenleaf. “Thanks for everything. We wouldn’t have been able to escape without you.”

Greenleaf chuckled and shook his head. “What are you talking about? I, Diadem, and every other prisoner here wouldn’t have been able to escape without your tenacity and determination, Clover, and your ferocity, Platinum. Taking the ballista and using it to get some payback on the barbarians was brilliant as well.”

“Please, sir, you’re too kind,” Platinum interjected. “You could have gotten another pair of fresh unicorns to help you with this breakout. Surely we weren’t that important.”

“You may not think so, but you sure as Tartarus were,” Greenleaf insisted. “Seeing the great Princess Platinum lead a breakout was inspiring and great for morale. Your presence provided the last push we needed to finally organize and break free. Plus,” he winked, “it was eye-opening to see the infallible Princess brought to her knees like the rest of us. No offense, your highness.”

“Oh, none taken,” Platinum assured him. “I’ve learned a lot from this whole little… adventure.”

“Then, Gods willing, you’ll be a leader someday that understands her subjects.” Turning back to the ladder, he offered the spot to Platinum with a hoof, who nodded and began to descend.

Clover went to follow her, but Greenleaf stopped her with a hoof. His eyes told her that there was something he wanted to say, and he was trying to find the words to say it.

“Yes, Greenleaf?” Clover politely prompted.

The stallion swallowed hard and looked away. It was then that Clover noticed the tears forming in his eyes. “I’d never thought I’d see the day when I met you, Clover. You’ve grown so much… become such a beautiful mare.”

Clover was taken aback, and she raised a defensive hoof. “I… what do you mean?”

Her soft spoken words seemed to hit Greenleaf like a crushing blow to his chest. He shuffled a step closer to Clover, his shoulders tense. “I’ve waited for so long… I didn’t think I would ever get to see you.”

He looked at Clover, and it was then that she saw the color of his eyes behind his tears. Purple. The same color as her own.

“Oh… Sun and Stars…” she whispered before collapsing into Greenleaf’s outstretched forelegs. “Father! Father, I—I can’t believe it! I didn’t think I’d ever… I didn’t think you’d…”

Greenleaf ran a hoof through Clover’s mane and gently hushed his daughter. “It’s okay, Clover. It’s okay. Shush.” Placing his hoof under her chin, he raised her face to his and smiled. “I waited my entire life for this moment, waiting for the chance to get to see my daughter again. These last few years, I was beginning to give up hope. But I didn’t. Now you’re here, with me, together at last.”

It was as if the whole world dropped away from them, leaving just Clover and her father alone on the wall of a forgotten fortress in a forgotten time. They nuzzled each other, not wanting to separate from the embrace that held them together. Time itself had stopped, just for them, just for a father and daughter reunited after nearly twenty years.

“I never knew what happened to you the night mama died,” Clover sobbed into her father’s shoulder. “I was so young, but I remember. You left, and you never came back. I… I thought you abandoned me.”

Greenleaf kissed his daughter’s forehead and pressed his horn against hers. “I would never have done that to you, Clover. Not once in a million years would I have willingly subjected you to that sort of loneliness.” Sighing, he drew Clover closer to him and looked towards the east. “The night your mother died, I couldn’t stand to be in that house. I could still smell the sickness in the air, but I could also smell her perfumes. Cheap stuff that we could barely afford with the wages the Crown gave us, but she made it hers, wholly and entirely. I could never imagine her smelling any other way.”

Clover closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Sure enough, somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered that scent, one of the only things she had left of her mother. It made her smile, if only faintly.

Greenleaf held Clover’s head against his chest and drew his breaths softly. “I went out to get some air that night and to think about what happened. I walked around the city walls, and then I went further into the valley. Somewhere along the way I got ambushed by several Crystal barbarians. They were part of one of Halite’s marauders operating throughout the Diamond Kingdom. They took me captive and began to haul me back to their camp. I was stupid. I should have stayed home with you. I didn’t stop to think how you were feeling after your mother died. By the Sun, you must have only been three or four.”

“It’s okay, dad,” Clover whispered, trying to soothe her father. She was feeling sad just because he felt so distraught, but she left him the time to vent.

“They took me west… I don’t know where to, exactly, but I imagine it was on the way to Onyx Ridge. Before they could get far, though, they were slaughtered by a company of Jade’s Union. Of course, then it was still run by her father, but she was there too. Anyway, they took me in and patched me up. Then they asked if I would consider helping them out. Be a spy for them, basically. Help to set up ambushes on Halite’s supply wagons. I wanted to go home and see you, but you don’t just say ‘no’ to the ponies who saved your life.

“I must have helped them for… I don’t know, a year or so. I kept pressing to come home, but Jade’s father thought I was too valuable of an asset to lose. Funny thing about him, he was a visionary and a revolutionary, but he was definitely a hard-ass when it came to losing something valuable to his cause. So I stayed on for another few years. By that point, I had no idea if you were even still alive, or if you even wanted me back home.

“When Jade’s father died, I was all set to head back to River Rock, but Jade asked me to do one last mission and scout the mountains for Halite’s armies, and see if we could cut off their retreat with whatever forces she had left. I reluctantly agreed, and it was a horrible mistake.

“When I got captured, Halite himself beat and tortured me before dragging me all the way back to Onyx Ridge. I got locked up in a cell and left to rot. I sat there for five years, with the void poisoning rotting my horn away to nothingness. I would never have seen the light of day again… but then you came to me.”

The older stallion sadly smiled and shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it was you, after so long. But I knew those eyes, and I knew it was indeed you from that first moment. I’ve been waiting for so long just to tell you that I’m sorry. Sorry for not being with you when you needed me most, sorry that I couldn’t go back to see you, sorry for everything. I’m so sorry.”

Clover kissed her father’s cheek and leaned against him, humming. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything, dad. We’re together again. That’s all that matters.”

They embraced each other again, harder than before, when one of the prisoners raised his head above the crenellations. “You two coming or what?”

Greenleaf turned towards his daughter as they separated from their embrace and smiled. “I guess we should be going. Come on now, the Union is going to be showing up in a few minutes. I don’t feel any need to see them anymore.”

They shared a smile and began to descend the ladder, feeling elated and joyous, just as the banner on the onyx castle toppled and a cyan standard was raised in its place.

Comments

[djthomp]

Oh yeah, that's an excellent couple of fights. I think I preferred the pegasi duel between the two of them, but it's a pretty close call considering how the fight against Halite ended.

Puddinghead finally shows that he isn't worthless! I suppose I should have expected his Pudding Sense.

Diadem survived the fall! And Clover found her father, didn't see that reunion coming.

I can't wait to see the fallout of this battle and find out if any of the three groups manage to meet up before heading out again. It'll be somewhat funny if they go their separate ways without ever discovering each other at the same fight.

[RainBoomEffect]

That was a beautiful chapter. I loved the fighting, especially Puddinghead's. I guess he's related to Pinkie Pie
One thing I can't get my head around is, how do ponies climb ladders

[The 24th Pegasus]

2407994
Very... carefully...

Simple really. Put the hoof behind the rung and push down with the fetlock. Crude, but it works when you're not a pegasus that can just fly vertically.

[Riku006]

2407994 Screw guessing, he HAS to be related to Pinkie to pull that off.
That was awesome! Hurricane's epic duel, Halite's... unusual demise, Clover's reunion, just so much win!

[RoboRed]

Clover's reunion + Halo music = liquid pride.

[Bairiko]

I've already pegged all the relations I believe. All the Mane6 are descended from who they portrayed during the Hearths Warming Eve play, although Dash is probably a mix of Typhoon and Cyclone.

Exactly how I personally imagine them.

Hurricane goes ballistic, Mohammed Ali shows up, and a left field family reunion takes place and makes me sad/happy. This chapter was amazing!

[The1templar]

Damon good story dear sir, keep it up.

[Boott]

>epic fight to end all fights
>memories from Skies Long Forgotten come flooding back
> heart full reunion between father and daughter that i did not see coming

The fight was the best part for me but im surprised i didn't get more feels from the last part then i did.

But one more thing

“There’s nothing wrong in running, Commander. Not if it means that it saves the lives of thousands, and the lives of unborn millions. Honor means nothing if there’s nopony left to appreciate it.”

im going to remember that.

[Brown Books]

Oh my...
Puddinghead was woopin dat ass! Go Puddinghead! Woohoo!

Father and daughter, oh how surprising the hyped up battle atmosphere just went into a heart-warming one...too many...emotions at play here.

Keep up the good work, very excellent story and neatly tied together.

[SolidFire]

Loving the names of the weapons. Sword of Storms is amazing sounding. That battle between Streak and Hurricane was amazing. You told it and described it very well. I could see every move in my head with vivid clarity, and it had my heart racing. This is why I love books more than movies. The fight between Halite and Jade was amazing, and then Puddinghead comes and save the day with his... Pudding Sense. For the record, I said Pudding Sense towards the start of the fight, so I called it. Holy shiiiiiiiit, that battle was amazing. That lighting kick/buck is one of my favorite things. Hurricane is the greatest warrior ever, or at least one of the best. I loved how he sort of recounted the events of the Red Cloud War, accenting what he was not with a brutal strike of his sword. Holy crap, did not expect that twist towards the end. This was a great chapter through and through. I look forward to reading more!

~SolidFire

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

Streak Wing gasped as he struggled to clamber to his hooves. The impact had hurt far more than he had anticipated, but his neck was still in one peace. Quick thinking and use of his wingblades had seen to that. Hurricane’s attack, however, had knocked the deserter out of the sky even after the successful block.

Methinks you meant piece.

He rubbed his shoulder as he stumbled forward and picked up his axe, flexing his wings all the while to ensure that they weren’t damaged in any way. He had hit the ground and slid several dozen feet across the snow, ice, and mud to where he slammed his side against a large block of onyx that the Union catapults had shorn from the walls. Had he not have been wearing armor, the blow would have certainly shattered his shoulder and dislocated his foreleg at the very least.

I believe that the red highlighted word is rather redundant here and makes the sentence clunky. The yellow seems unnecessary, not to be rude but you do seem to have a tendency to want precision all the time. But in my opinion, and this is just an observation/suggestion unless the actual measurements are absolutely imperative to setting up a scene, like say...a battle lasted a week, or "five hundred of Equestria's finest..." but otherwise trying to keep track of all the numbers gets rather confusing.

I hope that this helps.

P.S. one last thing, but how is it that we get all of the dozens of different characters inner-most thoughts in what I thought was Hurricane's journal?

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

The pegasus in question bared his teeth and turned around to see two pegasi land behind him, one black and one yellow. The two parties eyed each other down, letting the billowing smoke plume between them in place of words, before Hurricane stepped forward.

This bit has me a bit confused, perhaps you could change the order of the words to something like "The two parties stared each other down, the fetid black smoke billowing up between them said more than mere words ever could."

Again, this is merely a suggestion from someone who loves the premises you've laid down, and just wants to help the story to be the absolute best that it can be.