Chapter 1
Version: 3
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The army of Tobat was an intimidating sight to behold. A line of sturdy men ready with spears pointed skyward. Their armor was polished bronze plate and every soldier had a spare sword at his hip. The red banners of the Empire fluttered in gusts of wind that cut across the fields. Meanwhile, the kingdom of Holdstrong looked like a bunch of farmers. They may have stood in orderly lines too, but their equipment was mixed. The drafted soldiers came from varying levels of wealth. Most were dressed in cheap mismatched leathers. Some came from middle class families and wore respectable chainmail. Only the middle formations of the army were regulars that had quality full plate. The blue banners of the small kingdom waved just like the Empire's own.
The sun was rising ever higher in the sky while the two armies stared at each other over the five kilometers (three miles) of empty space. Occasionally a commander on horseback rode past his block of troops, looking for anything out of place. They never found any. Holdstrong was severely outnumbered. From overhead it was obvious this battle would end in their massacre. The Tobat Empire had at least five times as many troops. All better equipped and clearly better trained. Yet the battle did not start. Both sides were waiting, though for a different event. Tobat was waiting for high noon or Holdstrong's official surrender. Holdstrong was waiting... for Her.
Behind the lines of the Holdstrong army was a fort made of wood surrounded by a low palisade. It wasn't an impressive defense, but it was certainly more than the crude tents pitched behind Tobat's forces. Suddenly, with no fanfare, the main doors were pushed aside. From within the fort came an equine accompanied by a blonde man in a plain robe carrying a staff. Strangely, the man was not riding or leading the horse. Instead, the horse seemed to be leading the man. Though the pace it set was painfully slow.
The equine had a long silver mane and chestnut fur that faded to white down by her dark hooves. Yet there was something off about the horse's proportions. Her legs were too thick, in a way that did not suggest muscle or fat, and her muzzle was too short. Her head seemed rounder than usual and her eyes were large and expressive. Though she was just taller than the average man she was also clearly not a normal equine. The wrongness about her was even more evident when she passed what were undeniably typical horses. She was something else.
Sumvari eyed the soldiers on either side of her who were arranged in such orderly columns. The mare felt her face tense in anxiety. Not fear. She had long ago forgotten how to feel that. No, she felt... sad. The horse felt such regret for what she was going to have to do. She was prepared to make one last plea, Sumvari always tried until the bitter end to avoid tragedy, but humans... were stubborn creatures. Proud and foolish. Oh how she hated this. Hated her destiny to commit yet another genocide. Unfortunately she saw no other way. She never could avoid it. This had become a simple inevitability of her existence.
The horse Sumvari and her human companion stepped beyond the front line of the army of Holdstrong. She led the way a few meters into the vast empty field before finally coming to a stop. The mare eyed the sun overhead. She really couldn't delay any longer. High noon must have been less than an hour away. She glanced back at the man who had been with her since the fort. He in return eyed the staff in his hand. There was nothing remarkable about it. Even a commoner could have told you it was magical, but weak.
"Are you sure-" he began to ask.
"Just do it," Sumvari ordered a bit angrily.
The man hesitated for another moment before nodding. Then he began to cast a spell. A blue glow illuminated his robes until he concentrated it on the staff. Then there was a pop. Only the wooden stick glowed.
"It is ready," he said. Strangely, his words were amplified and broadcast outward to the whole field.
"Thank you," Sumvari quickly replied, which was also heard by everyone.
The soldiers of Tobat shifted noticeably, even from this distance. They hadn't expected this. Was this how Holdstrong intended to surrender?
Sumvari cleared her throat. She stood tall and projected confidence and strength. Inside she was numb. "My name is Sumvari and I am not native to your world," she began. There was more movement amongst the Tobat army, but none of it was notable. "No doubt you have heard rumors about me even in your little empire," she continued. "I have no personal stake in this war between nations. I am merely a traveler passing through. However, even an outsider like me can see who is right and who is wrong in this conflict.
"On one side is the humble kingdom of Holdstrong. A simple people who have treated me kindly. On the other is the aggressive and ever expanding Empire of Tobat. You are stronger in every measurable category. More land, more weapons, more people. You are also an arrogant nation. You have so much and yet you want more. Holdstrong truly stands no chance. Its people could never hope to resist you. So their king has come to me for help." Sumvari paused to take a breath and measure the reaction to her words. Everyone seemed to be listening, if only because they were confused why there was a talking horse on the battlefield.
"I detest war. I hate to see people die. I believe that life is a precious thing. But if I don't fight you here and now it isn't just Holdstrong that will suffer. No, I've seen your type. You'll continue to expand. Continue to conquer. What you have will never be enough. Stopping you here and now is too important. All I have to do is kill one army and an entire possible future of war will vanish. So I shall. However, I must try, even though I already know what your answer will be.
"Please go home. Turn away and leave. There does not have to be a single death today. No one has to die. Please don't force me to kill you. Go home and live. There is nothing to be gained here."
With that she waited. And waited. And waited. No one turned around and left. The formations of the Tobat army remained exactly where they were. Standing at attention and ready to begin the attack. Sumvari was not surprised, but she did shiver with distress. Not one soldier broke rank. Nothing. Surely the rumors had reached Tobat. They were a huge nation. That must have meant they had a developed information network. They had to know about her powers. Like usual, they probably just dismissed them. It was a hard thing to convince a grizzled war vet that a talking horse from another universe with the power to literally wipe nations off the map had appeared in the country next door. Diplomacy was a waste of time, as expected. Only a demonstration would have any effect.
Sumvari estimated the position of the sun again. High noon must have been only a few minutes away. There was no more time. She turned to the mage who was still with her. "That's enough. Thank you."
The man ended the glow on his staff with a tired groan. He wiped some sweat from his forehead. "What now?"
The horse looked at the ground. The grass was patchy. It wasn't yellow, but it clearly wasn't healthy. "Now? I kill them all."
The man gulped.
Sumvari sighed. "Go back to the fort and tie down anything you don't want falling off the shelves. I'll try... to make this quick."
The man bowed then made a hasty retreat back through the blocks of poorly equipped Holdstrong troops. Sumvari watched him go and her posture noticeably sagged. Once he was out of sight she faced the Tobat forces again. Still there. Unmoved. But the commanders on horseback seemed to be talking to each other. They were probably about to give the order. It was now or never.
The mare closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the clear sky. Her whole body trembled. A single sob managed to escape her lips. She had to do this. She didn't want to. Sumvari shook her head and exhaled loudly. She hardened her resolve. What she was about to do was... more right than it was wrong. That was the excuse she always used.
The horse took a step forward. She paused in that pose for a moment, foot extended. Then she took another step. And another. The golden brown equine was soon making her way across a five kilometer (three mile) no man's land. The Tobat army ignored it.
The field was as much patches of grass as it was patches of bare dirt. It was uneven with regular dips and hills. With some dedicated work this land could have been a nice open space for crops, assuming the soil wasn't too nutrient poor. Even that could be treated with proper fertilizer. There were no trees. No boulders. Just a blank territory. It was the border between the heavily militarized Empire of Tobat and the old geezer among nations known as Holdstrong. Today it would become the site of the largest mass murder in this world's history.
The next fall of Sumvari's hoof was a bit heavier than the previous ones. The bare earth where it had landed shifted ever so slightly. Then a ring of dirt began to bulge around the hard surface of her foot as it expanded. Without breaking stride the mare seemed to be growing taller. Of course no one from either army noticed a thing yet.
The horse kept coming. Twisting left and right only to avoid the worst mounds and holes in the field. She was aiming for a tent on the distant horizon. The General's tent. With every footfall she grew larger. Sumvari's legs were longer. Her shoulders wider. Her eyes higher. She was already twice her original size. Soon she would be as big as a barn. When she was, a number of soldiers started to question their eyes. Every time a hoof landed the earth compacted. Cracks went through the soil. Grass was flattened as though something heavy had been left there for a while. The Holdstrong troops gaped at her back as their savior continued her advance and her growth accelerated.
Sumvari's height continued to soar. From two stories to three. Her steps didn't quite leave craters, just depressions. The landscape did not yet quake with her every movement. The air did not rush to get out of her way. But everyone noticed her now. Men who had trained for years blinked in disbelief. What were they looking at? Few of them had not seen spellcraft before. Magic could do incredible things. From weak spells that let you send telepathic messages over short distances to monstrous rituals that could bring back the recently deceased. Yet this magic was somehow different. And so much more terrifying.
Sumvari was a horse. A strangely proportioned one, but anyone who quickly glanced in her direction would immediately see a horse. Yet she was huge now and still growing. Her body wasn't covered in flames. She wasn't shooting lightning. She wasn't chanting some long ritual formula or turning invisible or anything spectacular. She was just walking. Walking and getting bigger. She was so casual about it. Like nothing was happening at all. The disconnect was too much. An illusion. It had to be. What they were seeing was simply impossible. Not even a sage could do something so incredible so effortlessly.
Meanwhile, the mare now surpassed five stories. Just high enough that the tallest trees would graze her chin. A single hoof was twice as wide as a man was tall. Now her every footfall left what could be called a crater. Now dirt lurched upward whenever she took a step. Now the ground trembled. The wind higher up brushed through her mane and made it wave like its own national banner. Yet she still did not stop.
Six stories. Seven. Eight. Nine.
The Tobat army began to shift uncomfortably. Something was very wrong. Still too small and too far away to really feel the quiver in the soil her canter produced, but no one could overlook her. This scare tactic would not work on Tobat! This was stupid. It was close enough to high noon. A commander rode out in front of his regiment and waved his arm. He shouted the order to march. The soldiers in clean bronze did so. One foot in front of the other. They entered the field and began to approach the still expanding horse.
Sumvari had to slow from a trot to moving only one hoof at a time. She didn't want to reach the enemy lines until she was large enough. Speaking of which, she was surprised the Tobat army still had the nerve to advance. She was only about halfway across the battlefield, but she was the size of a keep at this point. The bottom of her hooves alone were larger than most peasant homes and a trail of holes were being left in her wake. Denial was annoying.
It didn't matter though. Sumvari kept moving forward and growing. The craters got bigger and bigger. Ever wider and ever deeper. The air displaced as the now towering horse trudged forward and produced a whooshing sound. Her perspective of the world continued to rise. Humans were barely the size of dolls to her. But it wasn't quite enough. She knew from experience she had a little more to go.
The marching army grew slower and slower. Their confidence had begun to wane once they felt the tremors. Each time a hoof landed there was a buzz that vibrated their armor. And the feeling was getting stronger and stronger. They had to crane their necks further and further to see the horse's head way above them. Some men began to shake. Some began to sweat and had to adjust their grip on their weapons. Others kept looking around, their armor clicking as they turned from one fellow to another. Fear. It was hard to feel anything else when you were advancing toward a set of hooves bigger than most buildings and that were repeatedly crashing into the ground.
The main battle formation that still hadn't moved experienced a similar phenomenon. Even the commanding officers had no encouraging words for their rapidly demoralizing troops. This technique by Holdstrong was actually very effective. Their only hope was that the illusion was about to break. Surely such a huge and complex hallucination spell could not be maintained for long.
Sumvari peaked at 100 meters (330 ft) tall.
The mightiest trees would barely reach her knees. Her hooves were as wide as a city block. Her head loomed well above the greatest towers of this primitive world. She was a living mountain. A monument of flesh and bone. The regiment that had marched out to meet her early had frozen. They were thoroughly engulfed by her shadow now and struggling to stay on their feet whenever she took a step. They merely stood there stupidly gaping up at her as she positioned herself in front of them with a final footfall. If she had been holding something in her mouth and let go it would have fallen on top of the first men in the line. They finally understood how insignificant they were.
Sumvari was big enough, but she didn't feel ready. She never would of course and she still had to explain herself. Carefully, the mare's head swooped down until her nose hung above the regiment of about 1,000 soldiers arranged in a neat rectangular formation of 40x25.
"I'm sorry little ones," she spoke quietly, knowing how loud she was for the humans at this scale. "Your leaders only understand numbers. If I allow you to turn back now and go home, your emperor will not give up. He will see that there were no casualties and insist on trying again. To prevent future suffering and war I must kill as many of you as possible. I must send your emperor a casualty report of nearly 100% if I am to convince him to back off. He must be confronted with a guarantee of failure before he will give up on his ambitions.
"I'm sorry little ones. I am truly sorry. But I can only allow a few of you to live. You had your chance to end this day without bloodshed, but you refused. I realize that the offer wasn't entirely fair, that you didn't understand the magnitude of the threat being made, but it no longer matters. I am sorry little ones. Please forgive me."
With that the enormous equine muzzle withdrew into the sky once again. It was soon replaced with the underside of one of her vast hooves.
The square block of troops immediately began to break up. Weapons were dropped. Men fled as clumps of dirt rained down on them from above, shaken loose from Sumvari's foot as she hesitated. Death hung over their heads and it was every man for himself. The commander of the first regiment barked orders as his mount reared in its own panic. The knight's words were easily lost in the screaming crowd. These were not soldiers anymore. They were merely victims. The first to die. There was nothing he could have shouted that would have calmed them. Even if he had had the time to try.
It was like a bomb went off.
The men who had escaped the landing zone were literally thrown into the air as the ground beneath their feet bulged from the shockwave. A surge of dirt and vaporized blood shot out in all directions. Twisted bits of bodies, armor, and weapons rolled or skidded across the churned earth. There were cries of pain and terror everywhere.
The main army was nothing more than a collection of staring eyes. No one could breathe correctly after witnessing something so awful. It was clearly not an illusion. Almost a quarter of the initial assault unit had simply disappeared. Just. Like. That.
Around Sumvari's hoof there was chaos. Men stumbled to their feet like drunks from a tavern and hopelessly fled. An archer raised his crossbow, but he couldn't tilt his head or his weapon far back enough to see anything but more leg. He fired anyway, then fell on his back. The arrow didn't even penetrate the huge equine's fur.
That is when the other hoof rose into the sky.
The humans were like scurrying ants. No organization. No thought. Just raw survival instinct. Oh how Sumvari pitied them. It was true they were the enemy who had intended to massacre and enslave innocent people. But they were also mere soldiers following orders. How many families were about to lose their fathers today? How many wives would lose their husbands? How many would lose a friend?
The densest collection of Tobat troops was a little to Sumvari's left, seeing as her right hoof had already crushed so many on that side. So she aimed for the tightest spot and dropped her other foot. The effect was much the same as the first. Humans nearby who had not been caught underneath it were thrown to the ground. Her hard hoof had dug into the soil and the landscape deformed noticeably even to her eyes so high above them. She could barely make out the screaming. Now half the regiment was gone. The rest could not even be called a unit. It was just a bunch of lone men sprinting as fast and hard as they could while in full armor. Had anyone bothered to hold on to his spear?
Sumvari waited for several seconds as the dots that were human beings spread out in an arc in front of her. A few of them took a moment to turn back and fire an arrow or a pitiful spell. The arrows bounced off her hoof or were caught in her fur while the lighting bolts and fire balls fizzled against her. They couldn't even make her bleed. The huge horse was extended a bit so she brought her rear hooves forward to keep her balance. This simple correction to her posture stole what courage the men who had tried to retaliate had and sent them running again. Sumvari berated herself for wavering, for letting them scatter. She had to hurry if she was to ensure the death count was as high as possible. She couldn't spend all day hunting people down one by one. There were thousands still left to crush.
Sumvari lifted her right hoof and stretched it to roughly a one o'clock position. Maybe two o'clock. Then she drove her foot into the ground and ended another batch of humans, though not nearly as many as those first stomps had. Yet again those nearby were knocked down, quickly wobbled back up, then started running from the crash site. However, that wouldn't work this time. Sumvari swiped her hoof left. Without lifting it.
A wave of soil built up and curved and broke and crumbled as it attempted to resist the unmeasurable strength driving through it. There was so much earth that it acted like water rising and cresting before coming apart and tumbling over as an ever growing avalanche. Countless soldiers were caught in the wall of blending dirt and vanished, likely pulverized beyond recognition as anything but hamburger. The roar was the worst part. The earsplitting sound of the earth being ripped open as death raced toward them far faster than any human even with magical enhancements could dream of running. To Sumvari, the action was no more difficult than gently brushing the ground. Like anyone might do if they found something buried in the sand at the beach. Yet the movement had left a gouge in the once level field. A ravine. A canyon. With the occasional bit of armor or blood peeking from the walls. She also left a steep hill of dirt at the end.
Less than 200 soldiers from the original thousand were left. They could only be called the stragglers. A handful of men floundering about in the open. The main army of Tobat stood in stunned silence. What they had witnessed was surely the act of a god. Not just any god. The Goddess of War. So many lives snuffed out like it was absolutely nothing. She had been so lazy about it too. Slow and careless. As though her judgment was so unavoidable there was no need to rush. She must have seen their attempts to flee as amusing or pathetic.
Their awe snapped to attention when she began moving toward them, the rest of the army. A hoof landed and bits of debris went airborne. Their armor vibrated. Then the other hoof hovered over the trench and landed closer to them than the prior. Again their armor vibrated as they watched the ground swell from the enormous mass crashing into it. The survivors scattered about out there tried to dodge the falling pillars. Some of them failed.
Sumvari paid little attention to where her hooves were landing. There were so few left after that swipe she felt no need to pursue them. However, she still managed to crush one here and there. She was expecting the rest of Tobat to break ranks and run any moment. And she was correct. She was one step away when the troops arranged in such nice columns and square formations could no longer stand at attention and wait for an order that would either be retreat or something else pointless.
The only way to describe it was a total rout. Chaos.
Weapons quickly littered the ground as men ditched whatever weight they could to improve their chances of escape. Some even tossed aside their helmets or scrambled to pull at the straps holding on their breastplates. There was crying and shoving. People fell and were trampled by their fellow soldiers. The flag bearers even abandoned the bright red banners that drew far too much attention. To Sumvari, it was heartbreaking. Thousands of men, hardened warriors, had lost their minds. They may have only looked like a carpet of insignificant smudges from so high up, but every tiny squirming form was a human being. A life. And she had to kill them.
Hell. That was what was falling from the sky. The fist of a wrath filled goddess or the wild fury of an arch demon. Hooves crashed into the ground seemingly at random. The landscape buckled with every stomp. The earthquakes were constant, sudden, and so massive no one could run properly. This wasn't even running. Every man was bumbling into each other as they stumbled for some point in the distance they each pretended would save them if they could just reach it. Meanwhile, everyone was cast in an oppressive shadow while indiscriminate death struck all around them. Amidst it all was the truly humbling mistake of falling into a crater where a hoof had landed previously. They were lined with... meat and blood and twisted metal.
Bits of mud showered the army as those great legs tore into the earth then retreated almost as quickly to find another group to obliterate. Retaliation attacks were impossible. Any that were attempted did nothing. All four of her titanic hooves danced atop the expanding cloud of men as they fled. No one could fully appreciate the horror that was unfolding except the one committing it. The once barren fields were soon riddled with enormous holes. The screaming quieted with every second as the number of throats left to make a sound dwindled and dwindled.
But there was one true task left to complete. The General of the Tobat forces and his bodyguards had deserted their tent and mounted their steeds. The command post that had been established at the very back of the army provided these soldiers much more time to escape and maybe even the speed to do so. Or so they thought.
Sumvari felt guilty for the deaths of the regular rank and file, but she had little sympathy for their leaders. They were the ones who made such a massacre a necessity. It was their fault so many had to die. They could have given the order to retreat or to simply stand down. Yet they threw caution to the wind. They ignored the stories of her power. They ignored her pleas for a peaceful resolution. And so they would pay.
A dozen knights whipped their horses furiously. The sound of chaos behind them was punctuated with regular blasts. The General of the Tobat army had the look of a man who had challenged Hell itself to a staring contest. And lost badly. He was sweating hard and unable to close his mouth as he struggled to catch his breath. His armor clicked endlessly and he bounced in his saddle. There was no thought in his head more complex than "run". His friends and guards did not look much different as the group raced between the supply wagons.
This far from the intended front line were the boys and girls too young to fight. They had no armor and only small weapons to fend off thieves or the occasional wild animal. Their job was to manage the horses and mules that pulled the cargo such a large force needed on a long march. Food and water and spare weapons were piled into carts if it hadn't been offloaded already. There were crates and bags everywhere as the various wagons had been parked in columns not unlike the main army's formations. There were tents and campsites pitched here and there as well where most of the support staff were currently gathered. These souls could only gape dumbly as the leader of the army flashed by them without giving a single order. Following him on the horizon was a horse of such massive proportions that none of these noncombatants could do anything but watch. This wasn't happening. Right? The Tobat army wasn't being trampled into the dust by... that thing. None of this was real.
That impossible thing was coming toward them.
A hoof that seemed as large as a castle crashed down on a loose group of soldiers furthest ahead in the retreat. The support staff close enough to see this were trapped in a horrified stupor. An entire company had just died. The soil beneath their feet quivered and everyone looked up. Their necks craned as far back as they could to see the face of this living mountain. Yet she wasn't even paying them attention. Her own eyes were trained further ahead. She was killing hundreds of people with every step and didn't seem to notice.
Her left front leg rose high above them before coming down again somewhere amongst the supply wagons. Mules kicked, horses neighed, people screamed. Bits of wood and other unidentifiable wreckage went flying. That's when everyone took off. No plan. No idea where to go. Movement. That's all they had. That was the only thing they could do. They could run.
The General and his men grit their teeth and gave the only order they could. "Get out of the way!" The teenagers in their path dove for cover as the squad thundered past them, yet their horses' clacking hooves were nothing compared to the explosions that were getting louder and louder. One of his knights looked over his shoulder. Sumvari loomed right behind them. They might as well been trying to outrun a tsunami. One of her feet came down closer than any of the others, though it must have still been the equivalent of several city blocks away. Their mounts made various noises of distress at the sheer sound of the impact. The General dared to glance back himself. That middle-aged war veteran who had walked battlefields his entire life was white with terror.
Another step and the towering equine goddess was on top of them casting a shadow over everything.
The General violently smacked his horse with his whip as hard and fast as he could. It whinnied in protest as it dodged carts, boxes, and bags that had been left out by the support staff.
They were in its shadow. They were about to die. At any moment he was going to die. Not like this! NOT LIKE THIS!! He was a General of the most powerful nation in the world! He was a conqueror! A victor! Only a champion, a knight in the most heavily enchanted armor on the continent could kill him! His death was meant to create a legacy! A legend and song not to be forgotten for 100 years! He couldn't die here! NOT TO THIS--
Sumvari's hoof slammed into the ground and the squad was no more.
The massive equine paused there for a moment, looking down at her hoof. She had killed again. She had killed a lot of people again. Her eyes flicked to the various items so neatly arranged around her that were meant to keep an army fed and healthy. It was all so small and fragile to her. Maybe Holdstrong, her kind hosts, could make use of it. A glimpse backward showed confusion and panic were still driving the humans to flee in every direction. To her the tragedy was that she would have to go back. There were yet still too many who remained alive. So Sumvari turned around and began leaving a new trail of holes. The carpet of humans was spreading and thinning with every second. The hunt was still on. It was going to be a long day.