Durance
Harvest Bloom tugged at the straps of his armor. The steel plates never sat right, no matter how long he wore the trotting thing. They covered his back and head, but left his legs and chest unguarded. The armorers only worried about attacks from above.
Beside him, three other earth ponies sat by their crossbows and peered through the hut’s windows, searching the skies for any sign of the enemy. The hut’s inhabitants, two foals and a mare too young to be their mother, huddled beneath the wooden table that squatted in the center of their one-room home. As if that would give them any protection when the darts fell.
Bloom wondered what had happened to the foals’ parents. He wondered who the mare was: perhaps an older sister or an aunt or a kindhearted neighbor. Unpleasant thoughts, but better than wondering what would happen when the pegasi arrived.
“This is stupid,” said Forge. “It’s been, what, four hours? Five? If they were gonna come, they woulda been here by now.” Still, the hulking stallion didn’t take his eyes from the window and the dull gray clouds beyond.
“They’re coming,” said Sergeant Hibiscus. “The captain said they’d hit this village next.” Her crossbow’s head leaned against the rough windowsill, while its butt was planted firmly in the rushes that passed for a floor. The bows were huge, powerful things, longer than a pony and nearly as heavy.
“What if he’s wrong?” said Sunny Stream, glancing about as though he expected to find the captain standing behind him.
“The captain’s never wrong,” said Hibiscus. “Stay sharp. They’re coming.”
Silence returned. Bloom would have been less terrified if they were at full strength. There had been eight of them in Hibiscus’s squad when they set out from Holstallion, but the Turnip sisters had caught the flux, and Bronze had caught a pegasus dart in the lung, and Valebright had just disappeared. Deserted, probably, but who could be sure? And now there were only four. Bloom would have given anything to be back home, instead. Buttercup would be sowing the fields, now. He wondered how she fared while he was away.
“There,” said Forge. “Look, there they are!” He bit down on the handle jutting from his crossbow’s side and jerked it upwards, aiming it at the sky. Forge raised one enormous hoof over the pedal that would fire the massive weapon.
Harvest Bloom followed Forge’s gaze, but saw nothing—no, wait, that was a glint of metal in the sky. It was far away, but moving fast. So very fast. There were others nearby, at least half a dozen, flying towards the village in an orderly wedge. He raised his own crossbow, struggling with the weight. To his left, he saw Sunny do the same.
“Steady!” said Hibiscus. “Wait for the signal.” Then she clamped her mouth around the handle of her own crossbow, and there was no more talking, only the sound of their frightened breathing and the coos of that mare trying to comfort the foals.
The pegasi shot closer. Bloom saw wings, now, stretching away from their steel-clad bodies. They flew low and fast, barely higher than the thatch rooftops. That was good. If they somehow knew about the ambush, the pegasi would have flown much higher. Harvest Bloom took aim, adjusting the crossbow with his forelegs. The pegasi were over the village. Any closer and they’d be able to drop those darts. Bloom could see their faces. Where was that trotting signal?
Finally, the flaming arrow arced across the sky. Bloom stomped on the trigger. The bow’s prod snapped forward with a jolt that shook him from his teeth to his hooves. The lethal steel soared upwards, joining the storm of bolts from nearly every window and doorway in the village.
Bloom didn’t wait to see if he hit anything. He didn’t want to know. He hauled the crossbow flat and threw his weight against the built-in lever, forcing the string back, ignoring the riot of shouts from outside the hut.
“Hah!” cried Forge. “Cloudpounders never knew what hit ‘em!”
“I saw two go down,” said Hibiscus. “We’ve got this! Keep it up!”
Bloom’s crossbow was drawn back as far as it would go. He grabbed a bolt from the quiver on his flank, wrestled it into place, and rushed back to his position at the window. There was no sign of the enemy. “Err ey go?” he slurred around the crossbow. His voice was swallowed up by the pandemonium of battle.
The darts’ approach was barely audible over the din. There was only a faint whisper as they pierced the hut’s thatch roof. When they struck, though, they struck with thuds loud enough to make themselves known. The screams were even louder.
Bloom dropped the crossbow and scanned the hut. Half a dozen pegasus darts stood upright like some horrible parody of corn stalks, buried several inches in the floor. They were wicked things, with flanged steel heads and shafts of lead or bronze as long as a pony’s leg. This was the second time Bloom had seen them. One quivered in the ground barely two hooves away from his rump. The screaming went on. Bloom tried to quiet himself. It took him several seconds to realize the cries weren’t coming from him.
Forge was thrashing on the ground. Bloom rushed over and held him still. Forge was half again as heavy as Bloom, but his struggles were weak. A bronze shaft protruded from his haunch. The dart had gone right through his armor.
“Hold still!” Bloom shouted in his comrade’s ear. “You’re making it worse.”
Forge choked out something unintelligible. Bloom nodded as though he had heard. Forge calmed down enough that Bloom could begin stripping the armor around the wound. He wondered what he was doing. He didn’t know how to treat a wound like this. Behind him, Sunny and Hibiscus fought on.
Everything hurt. Lightning Launch couldn’t tell where one wound ended and the next began. He forced his eyes open. He was in a dark place with a single fuzzy point of light, illuminating a pony who swam in and out of focus. She was dabbing some sort of poultice on Lightning’s foreleg. He tried to pull away, but his leg only shifted a few inches.
“Hold still,” said the pony. Her voice was muffled by the poultice held in her mouth, but it was still the sweetest sound Lightning had ever heard.
He held his leg in place while the pony continued her work. It stung, but not much worse than he hurt already. He took a closer look at the angel treating him. Her coat was a pale pink where it peeked out from under her brown woolen cloak, heavy with pockets and pouches. The hood concealed her mane, but her blue eyes shimmered like two lapis jewels. Her touch was precise but firm, and her wings—
Something was wrong. “You’re not a pegasus,” Lightning said. His voice sounded dull in his own ears.
“That’s right,” said the earth pony.
“But how did you get in the barracks?”
“This isn’t your barracks.”
“Then where—”
“Shh. Rest.” The earth pony raised a hoof and gently closed Lightning’s eyelids. Darkness swelled and swallowed him up.
For the first time in decades, Siege Solid was frightened. The sight of a squad flying home at half strength or worse had become all too familiar, but this time, the missing ponies included her siblings. Coltsdam should have been undefended. The raid was supposed to be an easy one. Something had clearly gone wrong. As she made her way between the rows of tents and to the clearing where the squad’s three remaining ponies had landed, Siege Solid compressed her fear into a jewel of cold rage.
Only one of the ponies saluted at the centurion’s approach. The second was busy binding a puncture wound in the third’s belly, so Siege ignored the breach in decorum. “What in the name of Discord’s mad eyes happened out there?” she barked.
“An ambush, sir!” said the pony—Gale something-or-other, if Siege remembered her name. “The groundbound waited until we’d almost landed before they started shooting. There must’ve been at least fifty of ‘em. I saw Lightning Launch and Zephyr go down in the first volley.”
Siege Solid loomed forward. “Tell me you didn’t just leave,” she growled.
Gale took a half-step back. “No, sir! We regrouped, and Fealty led us back in. The plan was to punch through, grab our ponies, and get out. I don’t know if they were dead or just wounded, but either way we didn’t want to leave them behind.”
“But you did.”
“We had to. There were only three of us left, and there was no end to the trotting groundbound.”
Siege rubbed her eyes. It wasn’t this pony’s fault, she told herself. Anypony with half a brain would have flown away. The earth ponies were the ones responsible. “Lightning went down, you said?”
Gale nodded. “I saw it. Took one in the leg, and he wasn’t too far from the ground. He went down, but I’ll bet feathers to fodder he’s still alive.”
“And Fealty?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t with us when we left.”
Siege stepped towards the other two soldiers. “Tell me one of you knows what happened to my sister.”
The two shared a helpless look. “Sir,” said the wounded pegasus, “it was crazy in there. You could barely tell up from down.”
Siege wanted to kick him in the face. Instead she stomped a slate-gray hoof hard enough to hurt something in her knee. “What about the other three?”
“Zephyr got shot in the throat,” said the third pony. “No way she’s not dead. Water Dancer got caught in one of those trotting nets. I didn’t see what happened to Phalanx.” The other two nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” said Siege. “That’s one dead, two captured, and two maybe.”
“Sir,” said Gale, “I want to go back. I don’t like leaving anypony behind.”
“We’re going back, alright,” said Siege Solid. “We’re taking the whole century, this time. Now, get some rest. We move at first light. You lot will fly with third squad until we get back to strength.”
Dusk had fallen. Harvest Bloom and the rest of the squad were huddled around a small fire. Hibiscus had found a sack of beets, somewhere, and Bloom was boiling the roots along with the last of their oats. The leaves he saved for later.
“They say we won,” said Sunny Stream.
“Doesn’t feel like winning,” said Bloom.
“By hill and vale, Bloom, don’t you ever cheer up?” said Forge. He lay in a crossbow-hauling wagon that Bloom and Hibiscus had converted into a rolling bed. Forge was in no shape to walk, and the field hospital had not looked like a good place to stay, crowded as it was with blood and moaning ponies. “We got the fuckers. We won.”
“We got four of the fuckers.” Bloom looked into the pot over the fire. Its contents were reasonably close to a porridge. “How many did your friend say we lost, Sunny?” He grabbed an unfinished wooden bowl, scooped up a portion, and passed it to Forge.
“Three killed, and five were hurt bad,” said Sunny. “That’s counting Forge. Also two villagers, she said, but I don’t know if she meant injured or dead.”
Harvest Bloom nodded. “Ten of us. Eight soldiers.”
“Nine soldiers,” said Hibiscus. “Some filly went missing from Ridgeback’s squad. She’s either run off or dead under a rock somewhere, I’ll bet.” She took the next bowl from Bloom.
“Doesn’t feel like winning,” said Bloom.
“This is as good as it gets, away from a castle,” said Hibiscus. “Flying doesn’t make for fair fights. Trust me, this is a victory. If we didn’t have the captain, it’d be worse.”
Bloom passed a bowl to Sunny. “Doesn’t seem fair,” said Sunny. “We’re as brave as any of them.”
Forge laughed. “If this was fair, I’d still be making horseshoes in Holstallion. Those cloudpounders don’t like fair very much.”
“Hey, this actually tastes like food,” said Sunny. “Not bad.”
“Pegasi aren’t so bad,” said Hibiscus. “Unicorns, now, unicorns are dangerous.”
“Here we go.” Forge rolled his eyes. “Come on, Sarge, I’ve already been shot today. I don’t need another story about your war with Mustang le Fay’s hornheads on top of that.”
Hibiscus stared into the fire. “You laugh,” she said, “but that was where the captain learned how to fight. I never would’ve made it out of Tintagelding without him.” She blinked and looked up with a smile that almost reached her eyes. “And where would you colts be without me?”
“Closer to the fire, I bet,” grumbled Forge.
Sunny poked Harvest Bloom in the shoulder. “Hey. Your food’s getting cold, there.”
Bloom glanced at his untouched bowl. He still felt vaguely ill. The image of the doctor cutting the dart from Forge’s flesh wouldn’t stop playing before his eyes. Bloom couldn’t tell if he still smelled of blood, or if it was only in his head. He had no idea how Forge could be so casual only hours later. The pain was obvious in his eyes, if not in his voice. “I’m not hungry,” Bloom finally said. He pushed himself to his hooves and strode away.
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This one could be a pre-Hearth Warming Night story - part of the tri-polar cold war that finally ended with the coming of the Windigoes.
2203021
Exactly. The current plan for this setting involves Hurricane and Clover in minor roles.
Hope the new project works out, I'd love to see more of this one!
This reminds me of Equestria: Total War in a good way.
I'm glad to hear it's going somewhere to pre-Hearth Warming. It feels like history. Plus, that way I can tell myself that it's somewhere in the vague continuity of Haylander: Origins.