Four Years Later
It was blessedly quiet in this place, though the truck and corpses spoke of conflict that had moved on. Thorax waded through thick Badland mud, warily raising his rifle as he circled the vehicle. Acid or fire had burned away its canopy, and his search found nothing more dangerous than a corpse.
“Clear. Just a body.”
A stout ling slogged forwards, her rifle hung casually in its sheathe. “Ours or theirs?”
A diamond dog. “Theirs.”
“Fuck me, get out of the way. I’m starving.”
She hustled, high-stepping through the mud. Thorax watched with low contempt as she pressed fangs and tongue to the corpse and hissed her breath, inhaling the rotten remnants of the dog’s love. She gave a wet, phlegm-filled cough and kept drinking. Dead love would kill you faster than hunger, but at least you wouldn’t die hungry.
Rats sped from beneath the body, startled from their own meal. Not much of the dog was left.
Thorax groaned. “Come off it, Stinger. In an hour you’ll be flat on your wings barfing and we’re not going to wait this time.”
She barred her fangs. “Fuck you, we have a truck. Not all of us got a half-jar of love slime yesterday.”
“Not all of us ate ours before,” Thorax snapped.
But he had eaten nothing else all week. Thorax looked hard at the corpse, then shook his head and paced to the engine. “Equestrian make. Looks intact. Stars know why it’s here.”
Two other lings approached more slowly, eyes and guns nervously to the sky. It was a bad day when the pegasi learned to drop bombs. One dressed in the same drab gray as Thorax and Stinger, the other wore muddy black and gold.
The one in gray was old, her carapace faded and softened with age. She slipped and pitched forwards in the muck, and Thorax only smiled. Stars-damned Gossamer, who made the class say it every day: “Queen Chrysalis is always right.” And she paddled anyling who didn’t shout it.
...But then she swallowed a little gas dragging Pharynx from Baltimare, and convalesced in time to see her son shot for desertion. So Thorax groaned and helped his brother pull her out.
“How’s the leg?” Thorax asked. A fair chunk of it had been left in Baltimare.
“Fine,” Pharynx muttered, panting as they staggered to the truck. A lie – he was lagging. But they all were.
“At least we have a ride.”
“Maybe.” Pharynx raised his voice. “Stinger, get rid of that shit.”
“Yes sir, Mister Queensguard, sir!” Stinger yelled, already green at the gills and belching ominously. She shoved out the now-shriveled body as Pharynx climbed into the diver’s seat, and the rest piled behind.
The engine worked. Small miracles. And the wide tires proved a match for the mud. They rattled and bumped forwards, drawing a queasy groan from Stinger.
Distraction might help her. Thorax looked over. “Hey, Stinger, I hear you have a new one? Something about a genie?”
Pharynx’s lips drew tight, but Stinger belched and laughed with the same breath. “Oh! Oh, yeah. I heard it from a fucking infiltrator of all things.”
“Fat lot of good they did,” Gossamer sneered.
“Fuck yourself, teacher,” Stinger said without missing a beat. “So Queen Chrysalis is wandering the desert, see? Before she got us in a war with the whole fucking continent. She finds this magic lamp and rubs it, and out pops a genie. He says he’ll give her three wishes, and the first thing she says is for him to do the best thing he can for the changelings. The genie says, ‘Wish granted!’ and lops off her head, easy as that.”
Gossamer and Thorax chuckled. Pharynx did not, earning a glare from Stinger. “Got a problem, crown-lover?”
“Ease off,” Thorax said. “Who wasn’t a crown-lover when we took Trottingham? You remember the party?”
“I remember you becoming a teacher’s pet because your brother wore black.” Stinger gave a pained sigh, settling into the truck’s uncomfortable bench. “But who gives a shit? We’re all fucking dead.”
Pharynx cut in sternly. “We’re not dead. We’re going to the Equestrians so we can stay that way.”
“That’s what they say,” Gossamer said. “I think they’re just gathering up all the changelings so they can kill us nice and clean.”
“Then get out,” Pharynx grumbled.
“Fuck no.”
Always strange, to hear the old teacher swear. Gossamer went on. “It’s them or the dogs, and they don’t kill clean at all. Savages.”
The truck lurched, giving them all a jump. The motion drew fresh groans from Stinger, but she laughed out loud. “Right? Almost like we impersonated their leaders and tried to turn their capital into a new hive, because I guess fighting four races at once wasn’t enough. Fuck Queen Chrysalis. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
The truck bumped again. Noling answered, and a tiny bit of the old fear entered Stinger’s face. “Isn’t she?”
Thorax shrugged. “That’s what their broadcasts say.”
“And ours?”
The shrug remained, and a fanged smile grew on Thorax’s face. “That the invaders will be crushed, and one more good push will see us in Canterlot.”
That got a laugh from everyone, even Pharynx. Canterlot – victory. More than a city or capital. Train tunnels honeycombed its mountain, crossing and linking in the greatest rail hub the world had ever seen. Take it, and Equestria breaks apart.
Thorax closed his eyes, recalling the road-sign: “Canterlot – 16 kilometers.” They attacked, another half-million changelings died, and at the end of those months it was eighteen. “Thou shalt go no further.”
“Except...” he trailed off, long enough to attract attention. “Our broadcasts don’t say much at all. Everything’s been dark since the Black City fell.”
Ten million lings at the emphatically non-existent mercy of the dogs. Thorax shuddered.
Stinger didn’t. “Fuck ‘em.”
“Nice,” Pharynx grumbled at the same time Gossamer said, “They’re innocents.”
“Fuck you both,” Stinger said with an unsteady laugh. “All those old lings in the city, cheering and congratulating me for winning the privilege to run through our own fucking gas while machine guns use me for target practice, all for the glory of Chrysalis. And then I go home on leave and they act like I’m slacking off because I don’t want to get shot for a week, which turned into five days because I gave a Queensguard lip, and they sent me to the Diamondia Front just to make sure I don’t come back. I hope the dogs gun down every one of those fucks.”
Gossamer looked down. “You don’t mean that.”
Stinger ignored her, turning to vomit off the truck.
The talk trailed to silence, though all were too tired to feel it awkward. Stinger kept heaving – her own damn fault, eating dead love every day. Gossamer sat in stiff quiet and Pharynx drove, picking their way through what passed for the road.
A time to sleep, or at least rest. Thorax’s mind could never comply. It could not help but turn and twist with strange ideas and might-have-beens. Sometimes wicked or treasonous, but no ling could possibly still give a damn. He had a way of seeing things from all angles, and every side. It made him a peacemaker in soldiers’ quarrels, gave him a way of smelling out traps and danger.
...He could have been more than a soldier. But it was too late now, for him and every ling. Would the dogs do as they said, and wipe out the changelings like a vermin infestation? Thorax couldn’t even hate them for it. Changelings killed and enslaved all throughout their history, harvesting races to extinction before moving to the next. Could they do anything else? The ponies were letting them them surrender… what comes next?
Thorax supposed he would find out. It was out of his hooves, and that knowledge hung sideways and uncomfortable in his brain. He wondered he could have done something to stop this all, but that of course was a wild fantasy. They were orphans, him and Pharynx. Noling important, and they never could have been.
Still, he slipped into a fitful slumber, and so dreamed. There were bright colors, words of love. Warm smiles and gentle lights. The hunger was gone, even the quiet hunger all lings knew from birth to death.
He woke. Smelled mud and death, and Stinger’s pungent vomit. The truck was stopped, and nighttime darkness was all around.
Gunfire barked in the distance. Even now.
The dream abandoned mind and memory. Thorax sat up from the hard bench, groaning. Gossamer laid curled in the corner, clutching her sides and rocking in her sleep. Bile leaked from Stinger’s mouth as she dozed like the dead.
Perhaps she was. Thorax watched a moment.
And that will be you soon, Thorax.
The thought came with indifference, his expression blank as Gossamer began mumbling her son’s name. You are not likely to live much longer. But ah, despite it all you hope to escape with Pharynx. Live in peace somewhere, with just enough love to survive.
Thoughts of his brother stirred some instinct. “Pharynx?”
Response came low and groggy from the driver’s seat. “Yeah?”
“More room back here.”
“Padded seats up here.”
He made a good point. Thorax stumbled to where his brother rested, folded in the driver’s chair, and sat down by his side.
“Good driving.” Credit where it was due – any stretch of mud could have ended their ride.
Pharynx let the compliment pass. His eyelids bobbed in a drowsy, resting state between sleep and wake. But Thorax had slept longer than he had in weeks and felt antsy. His agile mind danced, perhaps fueled by that dream of a dream, and he spoke with something approaching excitement.
“I think Stinger’s wrong,” Thorax breathed. “Or at least, she’s not completely right. We don’t… deserve this. We aren’t just parasites. I think if we could do honest work and then pay ponies for love, we can live in–”
“Having big thoughts again?” Pharynx groaned, well-used to his brother’s antics. “Leave it. We’ll hit the river tomorrow and see what happens then. All else fails, we can try our hoof at infiltrating.”
Infiltration was both art and science, well outside the skills of four conscripts. But Thorax nodded. The truck clanged softly as Stinger scrambled against its wall, alive enough to spew more rotted love from her stomach to the ground.
“Do you remember that pony? In the restaurant, when they gave us the sweetened love?”
Pharynx turned a bleary, annoyed glare to his brother, though a doting smile hovered strangely beneath. “Finish the thought, then let me sleep.”
“I hope she’s well.” Thorax swallowed hard. Stars, she was pretty. “I hope she was still in the Black City when the dogs came, and they freed her. I hope she’s heading back to her family.”
“You think that when things got hungry the old lings didn’t rip out every drop of love they could, then throw her desiccated husk to the worms?”
Pharynx turned in his cramped seat to face away from Thorax. They were finished.
Stinger died that morning. The vomiting did not end – first came slime, then odd browns and liquid reds. The heaving only grew stronger. She began screaming, her abdomen pulsing violently with each breath.
She choked out something to Thorax. An apology for schoolyard problems he could not remember. Then the heaving became too fast to let her breathe, and Gossamer took her off the truck. The brothers kept driving, and did not listen to the single gunshot that followed. They stopped the truck until Gossamer returned, then went on without looking back.
Gossamer cried in her corner. Thorax did not, and somehow he felt angry at her for crying.
The road got better. Even grass and Badlands lizards could be seen. While the land behind them had been the scene of desperate fighting against the dogs, here they were closer to Equestria. Cross the river to the ponies’ side, and they were safe. Maybe.
Other lings had the same idea. Hundreds or thousands clustered by the river, filling the air with a buzz of shouts and arguments. Mud-covered nymphs clung to their mothers and cried, or else chased each other around, insanely playing at soldier. Someling carried a pegasus body in a cart, offering servings of dead love for outrageous fees.
Thorax could smell the corpse from here – sweet like new honey, and it had now been two days since he’d eaten. He stared to the pony’s closed eyes, then looked away.
Stars, it was tempting. Eat and die, but you wouldn’t die hungry.
He looked to Pharynx. Saw his brother stay motionless in the driver’s seat even after they stopped, half-dozing.
Thorax smiled, and pushed the dead love from his mind. They would live, or at least try to.
“I’ll take a look around.”
“We’ll go together,” Pharynx said, his expression at once becoming alert. “Lings are here for a reason. There’s bound to be boats, we can barter our way on.”
“What do we have to offer?”
“Bullets.” Pharynx winced as he stood, moving gingerly with the bad leg. He slung the rifle low around his neck, its barrel pointing forwards. Not quite a threat, but ready for violence.
Thorax did the same. Pharynx look at him, wearing that strange smile again before it vanished. “Leave the threatening to me.”
“Fuck that,” Thorax said. “If there’s a boat, we’re getting on.”
He raised his voice as they stepped out of the truck. “Gossamer! Time to move.”
No answer. He turned to the rear, letting out a low groan. “Oh, stop crying. Stinger knew what dead love does and she still–”
Soldiers; thirty of them. Changelings in mixed gray and black, armed and laden with heavy saddlebags. One was even hitched to a large Waspberg machine gun, while the fellow next to her staggered under thick boxes of its ammunition.
They were wary, with rifles held much the same as the brothers.
“No food here,” Pharynx called. The machine-gunner shrugged.
Gossamer had slipped out of the truck, now listening and nodding as a mud-splattered ling spoke to her. The stranger raised his head and beckoned the brothers over, with one missing fang giving him a nymph-like snaggle tooth.
An iconic look for an iconic ling. He had colonel’s epaulets that looked as though they’d been polished today, wire spectacles, and a peaked hat even though any sensible ling wore a helmet. But that was Colonel Klak, the nearest thing the war had to a hero. Just like how he looked in the posters.
He still had a jaunt; an energy in the nod he gave Pharynx, a gleam in the bright blue eyes. Good for him.
“You boys hear about the treaty?”
“Please tell me they let us fucking surrender,” Thorax grumbled.
You weren’t supposed to talk to an officer like that, but Klak took it in stride. His gaze fell on the black of Pharynx’s uniform, and the words went mostly to him. “No, between the ponies and Diamondia. That side of the river is to be, hm, ‘administered’ by Equestria. This side, to the dogs.
Pharynx nodded to the crowd. “Sounds like a good reason to get across. Can we wade it?”
“Think all these lings would be here if you could?” Klak pointed, wings twitching behind him. “Those of us that can fly are long gone. I hear there are cobbled ferries going back and forth for the rest, but lings are arriving faster than can cross. And the dogs, you know, they–”
“We know,” Pharynx said quietly. Thorax shrugged.
Klak gave a nod. “I’m taking everyling willing to help others live through this. We’ll make a corridor, hold as long as we can. I think the dogs will at least think twice once we start shooting. No one wants to be the last kill of the war.”
“No shit,” Thorax spat. “Me neither. Gossamer, Pharynx, let’s find a boat.”
Klak gave a hard grunt, gesturing with his head towards the muddy plains. “Come on, lad. Your people need you.”
Thorax’s hoof shoved out, catching Klak hard on the shoulder. The officer stumbled back, though waved off the machine-gunner who made to step forwards.
“I don’t have a people.” Anger boiled out in Thorax’s sneer. “All you fucking old lings wanted me to die so you could rule Canterlot, now want me to die here to keep you safe.”
“I’ll be out there with you,” Klak said. Patient, strong. Maybe the same tone he used to talk Chrysalis into recruiting deserters instead of killing them, which had seemed so gracious at the time. “Just give me a day. Us old folk ruined things, yes, so then do it for the nymphs.”
“I’m nineteen,” Thorax said. Snappish, sarcastic. Even Pharynx looked at him oddly. “I’ve been at this for three years, because a fucking Queensguard came to my class and said ‘Good news, Chrysalis is generously giving old nymphs a chance to enlist and share the glory. And oh, by the way, you don’t have a choice.’”
He turned to the river. They could shoot him in the back. Whatever. “You’re not getting a day, or another fucking minute. Pharynx, Gossamer?”
“Right.” Pharynx turned as well, though the word caught in his throat.
“I’m staying,” Gossamer said quietly.
“Aw, fuck.” Thorax looked to find the worn ling staring to the ground. Her wide-holed hooves had taken a few steps to stand with Colonel Klak.
“Come off it, teacher, you’ve done your bit. You ain’t like the other old lings.”
“Aren’t I?” She looked at him, milky blue eyes suddenly bright in the sun. Queen Chrysalis is always right.
Gossamer went on softly. “I remember that day. You, Stinger, the others… sixteen years old, and off to war. Always ready with our own excuses, ‘I’m too old,’ until suddenly I wasn’t anymore.”
A pained smile, aimed at Thorax. “You were so kind, back then. I remember bringing a pony to class, and all you wanted to do was talk to her.”
“Fucking stop,” Thorax growled, cringing from the memory. Tears rimmed his eyes for the first time in months, yet he barred his fangs. “Don’t dare apologize. It’s too late for that.”
Gossamer shrugged passively, returning her eyes to the ground. “Of course.”
Thorax hissed, boiling over once more. “Come off it, and come with us. You think you’ll make any damn difference here? The hounds see every changeling that escapes as one more to murder them in their beds. They think they’ll fight this war again if they don’t end it all, and stars help me, I don’t know if they’re wrong. They’re not going to hesitate. They’ll gun down you, Klak and all these other bastards and keep on going.”
Most of the bastards were looking away. A few shrugged at his words, and the machine-gunner even nodded.
“Maybe,” Gossamer said. She slung the rifle over her crooked back, then walked off with Klak and the others.
Thorax gave her no more thought. “Let’s go, Pharynx.”
The brother followed mutely as they entered the stinking crowd. Buzzing, chattering, hissing. Faint odors of fetid love slime, and Thorax gazed in vain for its source.
“You smell that?”
“No,” Pharynx mumbled. Then, “Damn, Thorax. I thought I was the mean one.”
Thorax kept looking, but found nothing before the smell was gone.
He sighed. Pharynx was right, of course. He was always the tough and violent one, protecting shy, sensitive Thorax. Bullying him, too, in crude efforts to toughen him up. Always reminding him not to make friends with the slaves, or share his rations with anyling.
“Yeah, well,” Thorax said. Couldn’t think of anything else.
“Did you mean what you said back there?” Pharynx pressed. “About us just starting a new war if we live? Come on, you know that’s not true. You said it yourself last night, talking about us living decently and working for love.”
Thorax spat to the side. A fight had started over the love-corpse. Shells whistled and burst in the distance.
“Us.” Thorax gestured between him and Pharynx. “You and me. I think other soldiers could do it, too. But these lings, these parasites, who waited and cheered until the war came to them? Soon as they get comfortable, they’ll remember it’s much easier to kidnap ponies for their love. They’ll try to be smart like Chrysalis, and get the rest of us killed.”
“Not if they have a good leader.”
Thorax stopped, finally looking at his brother. Pharynx broke into a trembling smile.
“Like who?”
“You.”
“Don’t joke, I’m a soldier.” But Thorax laughed, now recalling a sweet ghost of the nighttime dream. Warm words and lights...
Pharynx moved on past. “Aye, and you just said soldiers are the only lings left with brains to live decently. So if you take charge and make the rest do it, maybe shoot the first kidnapper, the rest will learn really damn quick.”
“Turning my own words against me?” Thorax followed, chuckling. The smile hurt after so long without. “But whether we even have leaders will be up to the Equestrians. For all we know, they’ll keep us in zoos.”
Pharynx paused long enough for Thorax to come alongside, then gripped his neck in a tight, brief embrace. “Let’s find out together.”
There were no boats.
There used to be. Thorax could see them on the other shore of the wide river, beached and abandoned. Indignant lings in makeshift shelters told him how the owners charged for each crossing, then spooked when a few artillery shells hit the river and left them on the wrong side. A few strong changelings managed to swim the distance and get a boat working long enough to bring their friends and families across, then departed as well. A pair of winged changeling soldiers had taken bribes to bring the boats back, then flew over the river and the woods beyond.
Cannon fire could be heard from the muddy plains. Gunshots, and the clatter of a Waspberg machine gun.
Odd colors rose like flowers along the far shore; blue and yellow faces, though always muted by wide khaki helmets. Equestrian soldiers, made careless and curious by the miserable flea circus on the changeling side. Thorax could shoot them from here, but of course that was out of the question. Old lings waved to the ponies, some pointing to the boats in vain. Whenever eyes met, the unicorn soldier would clutch their rifle in magic and crouch lower. Somewhere behind them, earth ponies at howitzers and pegasi with lances and bombs stood ready for their call.
Thorax was even more careless than the ponies, standing alone on a treacherous part of the embankment. They could shoot him easily, but they did not either, having never quite learned the terror and disgust dogs and griffons felt for his kind. Changelings now raced to Equestria as begging sycophants; mosquitoes desperate for safety and blood.
Ah, but are you not a mosquito yourself? The thought came, and he smiled darkly. You think you can lead the changelings to a better way? All you know of the world is how to shoot and stab it.
One Equestrian broke the cover of shrubs and trees, stepping out to walk brazenly along the bank. Testing the apparent truce with his own life, the idiot. Of course it was an officer.
A clean uniform, too, which explained the stupidity. Some quartermaster or noble who had never lived in a trench. The overcoat and peaked hat were brown, but with blue and golden flairs that would make him the favorite of any sniper. A white unicorn with mud only at his hooves, and long blonde hair that showed he did not sleep in fear of lice.
A gilded sword of all things hung at his side, glittering in the sun. He waved to Thorax, also standing alone, and Thorax waved back. A marvel, a sign of the war’s ending, that such a pony could be alive. But the same applied to Thorax. A ling and a pony standing in plain sight of each other, neither crouching nor shooting. Like that winter truce, when they played kickball and gave back a few prisoners instead of sending them to a hive. Then Chrysalis executed the officers involved, and the truces stopped.
The pony yelled something; Thorax could not hear. He moved his hoof slowly, waving parallel to the river, keeping eye contact as though trying to send a message. He repeated the motion a little faster, and Thorax could only shrug.
Pharynx’s voice crept up, rejoining him after a failed search for food. “Who the fuck is that?”
“No idea.” Thorax said, watching lazily as the pony waved his hoof a third time with mounting frustration. “Look at his mouth. I think he shaved this morning.”
“Is that a pony thing?”
Thorax shrugged. “I think so, yeah. Sort of like polishing your chitin. You’re supposed to do it every day, but who cares?”
The pony seemed to have lost interest as well, and disappeared into the trees. Pharynx spoke, though an explosion some fifty meters away broke up the words. “We had to keep polished in the Queensguard. Got lashed if you didn’t, even when we were months at the front. Had to trade jarred love for chitin oil once just to spare my back, and if that doesn’t sum up the whole Queensguard I don’t know what does.”
“You ever meet Queen Chrysalis?”
“No,” Pharynx snapped, loud and fast.
Thorax took the hint. He blew out a cloud of smoke – lucky break, finding a cigarette in the mud – and glanced over his shoulder. “Waspberg’s dead.”
Pharynx blinked. Thorax explained. “The machine gun, the Waspberg. It stopped shooting.”
Other guns kept going. Louder than before. The brothers were no longer alone – changelings began clustering at the river’s edge, some pushed down the embankment by the crowd behind them. Chatter grew worried and shrill. Nymphs and mothers were crying. Soldiers in muddy gray fidgeted with their weapons, ignoring pleas for protection and the insults that followed. Lings beckoned to the Equestrians with no response.
Casually, flicking ash into the river, Thorax asked his brother if he thought the dogs would kill them like soldiers. Shells and guns into the packed fools, then run to the riverbank and shoot the lings who tried to swim.
Pharynx shook his head, accepting the half-smoked cigarette Thorax placed in his mouth. “There are too many of us in the Badlands for them to kill easily. I think they’ll lock us down into some kind of colony and say no one goes in or out.”
Two long puffs brought the embers down to his lips. Pharynx spat the nub to the ground. “Even so, they’ll definitely kill anyling in uniform. We should strip.”
“You think these parasites won’t sell us out?”
Pharynx grunted, and neither moved.
Low rumbling could be heard beyond the forest. The shooting behind them had stopped, ending with the bark of a single pistol.
“Gossamer might be alive,” Pharynx said. Casually, like Thorax. “She could have run back to the crowd. It’s possible. Same with Klak.”
Thorax glanced to him, said nothing. The rumble was getting loud.
Pharynx pressed, now a little less casual. “I hope so. It’s fucked, isn’t it? The good ones die trying to keep us and the rest alive?”
Thorax opened his mouth, meaning to say, ‘Don’t think about it.’ But it became lost as something huge and blue rounded from behind the forest, heaving water to each side as it sped down the river.
Some combination of river barge and gunship, wide and ugly and beautiful, with raised flag of the Equestrian navy and a blonde idiot on its deck. Lings cheered, while others watched its armored gun-turrets warily.
The cannons trained upon the crowd. The officer might be an idiot, but not the crew. Nor were the forty-odd soldiers on its deck, standing in the open yet ready to shoot. The ship pulled up past the brothers, damned luck, and extended a gangplank to the shore.
“Back, back!” An older, harder sergeant yelled. The changelings crowded the gangplank, and he shot his pistol into the air. “Damn them, fix bayonets!”
Ponies stormed from their ship, menacing the changelings back with guns and disgusted glares. Ground was given reluctantly, with changelings grasping and biting one another to be as close to their evident salvation as they could.
Last of all, the officer Thorax saw on the shore strode down the gangplank, grinning, a cigarette holder clenched flamboyantly in his teeth. The sword jangled at his side; the smile showed white, flat teeth.
The pony’s grin shrank as he looked around – brawling, filthy, begging insects. He traded a few quiet words with the unhappy sergeant, then raised his voice to address the crowd with utter self-assurance.
“Changelings! Equestria will claim you. One-hundred and twenty per trip, mothers and children first.”
Thorax swore. Pharynx chuckled.
“Damn him,” Thorax muttered darkly, glaring as the officer accepted groveling thanks from the first changeling to board. “Look at him! This is all an adventure, just like how we used to be.”
“If so, he knows nothing of war, and is the only innocent creature here.”
Thorax spat. “Or he gave orders from the rear. He has that look, I think, of sending folk to die while drinking tea and sweetened love.”
“I think he’s too young.” Pharynx waved down a hoof. “Perhaps he is sixteen and feared he would miss the war? But whatever. Don’t be an ass.”
The ship loaded far too slowly for Thorax’s liking. Equestrian bayonets enforced an orderly line, and the officer let everyling stop to give him praise. He smiled with prideful grace while the soldiers scowled, eyeing each changeling like a threat or insect.
The boat departed, returned, then left again. The officer and most of the soldiers always stayed, yet with the mob cowed now fanned out from the impromptu dock. Ponies moved in pairs, irately warding off curious changelings while pressing through the camp. Increasingly, they looked to the East – the muddy fields, the Black City. The dogs. They looked worried.
Thorax spoke first. “You don’t think the dogs hate us enough to fight the Equestrians?”
“Their president? No.” Pharynx checked the bolt and chamber of his gun. “But some captain?”
“Fuck.”
“We’ll have to fight if it comes to that.”
Thorax shook his head, fought tears. The words seeped out in a mewl more common in his younger days. “I can’t do it, Pharynx. I’m done.”
“Get to the crowd,” Pharynx instructed with calm, hidden fear. “Tell them you’re a nymph, it might work. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Pharynx began moving at a crouch, away from the river and safety.
Thorax rubbed his hoof across his eyes. Smeared mud, didn’t care. Already walking in his brother’s path.
“You shouldn’t follow me.”
“You’re all I have.”
Pharynx understood, and said nothing more. Other soldier lings were moving the same – odd, that they all had abandoned Klak yet now trod in his hoofsteps. No grand ideals, they wanted to live.
A rifle-shot. A curse, and a shout from ahead. “We’re Equestrians! Hold fire!”
More shots. Sharp cracks from dog-made guns.
Thorax froze, growled, “Fuck me, they think we’re infiltrating.”
“Are you serious!?” Panic rose in Pharynx’s voice, finally shattering his paternal air. They threw themselves down. Mud and earth, old friends, arranged in a pleasant shell-hole that let them hide beneath its lip.
Pharynx screamed to the air, “If we were infiltrating, we’d be fucking dogs!”
“Don’t tell them we’re here,” Thorax hissed.
Pharynx shook his head wildly. “Of course they know we’re here. There aren’t supposed to be any ponies on this side.”
He took a breath, steadying nerves, but the tremble remained. He eyed the edge of the hole, perhaps one meter above their heads. “I need to look. Be ready.”
If a sniper watched, Pharynx would die as soon as he poked his head. Nothing to do but come up alongside. They crawled like worms, wiggling through the mud. Breath held, they peered over the edge.
One second, then five. Neither died. They released the breath, shaking. Pharynx began pressing a wedge into the mud to rest his gun.
Broken fields. Shell holes. No dogs or ponies, but that itself held terror.
There – a few hounds, sprinting and scrambling one hole closer to the camp. A ling or pony would have crawled, but the dogs fought fearless and aggressive.
A few more sprints of movement. Always closer. On far hills behind them, Thorax swore he saw howitzers.
Pharynx trembled, yet his magic aimed the gun steady. How many – a dozen, a thousand? Sprinting forwards, shooting to cover their friends.
“Why don’t the ponies shoot back?” Pharynx snapped. That was how you survived against the dogs, make them pay for their courage.
Thorax shrugged. Aimed, and resolved to shoot.
And then in the corner of his wide vision came something tall and equine, and unnaturally clean. The officer, striding forward with his peaked hat and clattering sword. Not even crouching.
Thorax watched with indifference. Then, as long seconds passed, with growing wonder as each crack of a rifle failed to strike the pony down.
The shooting stopped. Stars, it was majestic. The pony stood before the brothers, perhaps able to see the dogs better as he shouted his challenge. “I am Prince Blueblood, Colonel of the Royal Equestrian Army, and I demand to speak with your officer!”
There came muttering. Movement. A few careless dogs poked their heads or crouched into sight.
Pharynx breathed out with a sob, still trembling. So was Thorax. To fight for life had become routine, but this! This was somehow frightening. This divine specimen, making a truce through his own absurdity… could it last?
A hound stood upright, answering the challenge. Thorax giggled – like an ad lib play, where all must grudgingly follow the loudest! But such had been the entire war.
The dog was tall, with no icon save a green line on her muddy helmet. Brown doberman eyes beheld the pony and the nose twitched, sniffing for changelings and surely finding them. A revolver was clutched in her right paw.
The voice was a bark, an order. “I am Lieutenant Abby.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Blueblood replied airily. “You shot at my men.”
The dog growled, caught somewhere between rage and befuddlement. “We fight changelings, Prince. And you are on the wrong side of the river.”
“I’m sorry,” Blueblood said, not looking sorry at all. The lieutenant stiffened at his smug expression. “We shall be on our way before nightfall.”
“Nightfall!?” It came out with an odd, girlish yip. “I can see your boat from here. You will leave now!”
The first hint of uncertainty struck the pony’s face. Perhaps now he saw dogs aiming at him, as surely as Thorax and Pharynx aimed the other way. Perhaps he finally guessed his peril.
He spoke a bit clumsily, taking one step back. “Multiple trips. For the refugees. They won’t bother you.”
Thorax saw a hound in cover to Blueblood, leaving him exposed to the brothers. He aimed. No way to know if some dog was doing the same to him.
The dog was angry. Coiled. Peering over his rifle at the prince.
Thorax swallowed. The trembling grew worse. Tried to think, and couldn’t. Pharynx breathed in rapid gasps.
Thorax prayed – there was nothing there, but he prayed. Nobody shoot. Seize our triggers and let no one shoot, although whoever shoots first has the edge...
“Ah. I thought I smelled poison.” The dog lieutenant wrinkled her nose. “I cannot stop Equestria’s suicide, but I will follow my orders. We will push to the river and dispense with any changelings there.”
Blueblood replied with wheedling speed. “Then we may both peacefully follow our orders, for mine are to send changelings we find to camp areas set up behind our lines. I shall do so and retire, and then the river and any changelings that remain are yours.”
Abby growled. She planted her legs, seething. “You cute idiot, you think you’re doing the right thing? None of them ever joined your family, did they?”
Blueblood stuttered, and she pounced. “I thought so. They got congressmen, even our president. My father. Children. For years! We dug them out with tooth and claw, suffering and bleeding to stop the fate they would make for us. We can’t do so again.”
“Equestria bled as well,” Blueblood said mildly.
The dog sneered. “But not you. Get out of our way.”
“We shoot if he nods,” Pharynx murmured. Thorax shrugged – of course the prince would yield. To do otherwise would be insane.
Blueblood did pause – pure white, and not standing quite so tall. His mouth opened, closed.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Abby’s paw closed around her pistol. “I have orders.”
“Then whine to your general,” Blueblood sighed, seemingly tired of the discussion. “And if this is now personal, look me up later and we shall settle things on the field of honor.”
Thorax stared at his savior. A duel. Such was utter madness to a soldier – this prince was mad as could be, to talk so casually of standing before the bullet. A latecomer, a time-traveler from four years ago. “Queen Chrysalis, all glory to thee.” Thorax envied – pitied – hated him.
The distraction could have been costly. Thorax righted his aim, grumbled as the exposed hound ducked from sight, and drew bead on the officer.
“Your kingdom won’t defend you,” Abby snarled. “I have three-hundred, and we are just the vanguard. I can sweep you aside and call you infiltrators.”
“But you won’t,” Blueblood said. Simple and quick. He turned away and began walking towards the river.
It was hard to judge his rival’s face. Rage, contempt, or irate bemusement. She threw up her arms – exasperation, or raising the pistol.
A shot rang from Thorax’s left. It bounced off the dog’s helmet, sent her tumbling on her back.
A few high-toned dog rifles answered, and the last intermingled with an Equestrian response. A tepid volley, the owners unsure.
Blueblood spun, making to shout something. A big, standing target. He clenched as bullets found him, had time to stare in innocent shock before falling to the mud.
A pony voice screamed, “Bastards!” The low snare drum of a Vanhoover machine gun began playing. Thorax fired, loaded. Others did so as well.
The dog lieutenant sat up. She looked with panic from left to right, seeking cover. Thorax flicked his trigger with green magic and shot her through the chest.
A voice babbled from his left. “She was about to shoot!”
“I know,” Thorax lied.
“I had to save him!” Pharynx bawled, yet his fire did not slow. “I wanted to! He didn’t deserve it.”
Neither did she, but Thorax was busy. Odd, how quickly that uncertain terror left his heart. Back to routine – load, aim, fire. The noise grew fearful as more followed the lead.
“It’s alright,” Thorax said. “Mistakes happen.”
The pony sergeant lit his horn and shot three flares into the sky. Bullets hit mud wetly, throwing up filth and water and screams. Small explosions burst along the field as soldiers hurled bombs where they thought the enemy was near.
Some of the bullets came close. Wetness and filth splashed Thorax. He ducked down, and Pharynx slipped and fell to the bottom of their hole.
Couldn’t hide long – the dogs might rush, and then they’d die. Thorax returned to the ledge, shot dead one that had grown a bit too bold. Another dashed and jumped into cover a grenade’s throw away.
“Pharynx, get up here!”
He called, did not look down. An Equestrian tried fleeing to the rear, didn’t get three steps. More dogs sped nearer, covered by their friends, and the Vanhoover fell silent.
The close dog peered, ducked back as Thorax shot.
“Pharynx, I need you!”
Pharynx said something, lost to the gunfire.
Thorax glanced down. Saw his brother at the bottom of their pit, sitting upright in the filthy water. One hoof clutched just below his shoulder. Blood pooled out, trickling through his holes, dripping to the viscous mud.
Pharynx stared back to him, crying, calling something Thorax could not hear.
Thorax looked away. He threw his last grenade, but the dog kicked it far before it went off. Another dog shot high at Thorax and sprinted to cover alongside the first.
The Vanhoover returned, scything through a small knot of dogs. The sergeant was dead, and hound machine guns were answering. No officers, no direction, the Equestrians fought in place.
Thorax chanced a second look. The water was now brackish and black. Pharynx’s eyes now more white then blue, still staring, crying, yet utterly still.
A little life of twenty-one years. Thorax fancied he saw it end; the last gasp, the twitch of the still-wet eyes. He watched longer than was safe – Pharynx, gone. Alone. Would they meet again? But no, there was no veil or judgement, not even a blackness beyond life. Pharynx, gone.
Eyes front.
“It’s alright,” Thorax called out to him. “It’s alright, and it’s not your fault. You’re a changeling. We can’t help it. I don’t think this was ever going to work. Farm, factory? We’re changelings, we feed, breed, and kill. It’s what Chrysalis said, and maybe she’s right...”
He searched blandly for a reason to fight on, found nothing. Nor was there reason to stop, and so he fell to mechanical action. Aim, fire.
Explosions to utterly dwarf grenades broke up the ground before him, sending mud and dog bodies to the air. The ponies on the boat moved with soldierly instinct, aiding their trapped comrades with naval cannons. Yet the howitzers on the ridge returned fire, and now pegasi were racing through the air. Some dropped bombs, others dropped.
A grenade hit him in the face. Lucky – he shoved it out the hole and ducked from the blast. Muddy hooves lost their purchase, sending him down to the water.
Dead love found his nose, sweet and very rotten, drawing his fangs out with an instinctive hiss. He looked left, right, down. His brother.
Thorax stumbled and leaned, touching nose to the bloody neck. He hissed inwards, tasting the delicious sweetness and foul aftertaste. He smothered that with more, sighing as sickness birthed in his stomach. But the hunger fell still, and it was wonderful.
He clambered back to the impromptu parapet, yet froze just beneath its lip.
He looked back to still, silent Pharynx, now shriveled from the feast.
That should not have been possible. Changelings cannot make love, and they certainly can’t eat each others’. Nor can they share it… can they?
The dead eyes had no answer. Thorax stared to them, his agile mind turning against every truth he’d ever learned. Dead love had once been love… if changelings could share love, make love…
A howitzer shell hit close. A howl went up from the dogs. The Vanhoover was silent once more.
Thorax peered over the lip. A dog behind cover was yelling, trying to make herself heard to friend and foe alike. Naval guns hit home, ending the racket. Another grenade came for him, but it sailed wildly. Thorax shot the thrower, missed, but another knocked the dog over. Thorax looked to see a changeling in another hole, already aiming his next shot.
Thorax did the same. No time to wonder. Aim, fire, load.
As for what happened next, romantic folk would say Thorax died bravely, facing the enemy with weapon raised. But they are fools, and know nothing at all.
