The Long Haul
The door shivered, but did not crack. Epaulette narrowed his eyes and focused his magic. So many enchantments had been weaved into the wood purely to delay the inevitable. The battering ram next to him swung back on its hinges, the hydraulic pumps screaming to bear the weight. The machine billowed smoke as the cranks turned back for another revolution and heaved the ram into the door. Another resounding boom, and Epaulette felt the door quiver and then go still, as if bracing for the next round. He sighed and stepped back, letting a fresh team of unicorns take his place. Grim Tidings still sat where Epaulette had left him: on the third stair up to the citadel gates, in front of the carcass of a dead drake, leaning on his mighty warhammer with his cheek against the shaft like it was a walking stick. Beady yellow eyes peered at the unicorn from under his dented and blood-stained helm. Were it not for his rune-etched armor and oversized weapon, the mighty minotaur would’ve looked like he was relaxing on a summer afternoon.
“Getting tired already?” Grim asked. “You know we still have the Stormguard to deal with, and they will not surrender.”
Epaulette coughed blood.
Grim raised an eyebrow. “You should get that looked at.”
Epaulette waved his companion off and clutched his silver spear a little tighter. His armor was hot and battered and weighed heavily on his flanks, and his sweaty mane was incredibly uncomfortable. But he didn’t leave. “There’s no time.”
Grim rolled his shoulders. “If you say so.”
Another tremendous bang. Epaulette shivered this time. The minotaur assault squad behind the ram cheered their tired unicorn allies on as they struggled to cut the knot of spells laid on the door. The dread magic holding it shut would break sooner or later, but he was worried their best magic users would be exhausted before the final battle.
“You know,” Grim muttered, “I never thought we’d actually get this far.”
“You got us this far,” said Epaulette. “We were only along for the ride.”
They fell into silence, looking over the burning city while the ram did its work. The outer districts still raged with the sounds of battle, minotaurs bellowing as they grappled with monsters dredged from the refuse piles of creation. Griffons wheeled between airships, raining fire down on the citadel that loomed behind Epaulette and Grim while wrestling with what was left of the enemy air force. There were fewer friendly galleons in the air than Epaulette would have liked, and the Ashland’s dry, volcanic air made their wooden hulls vulnerable. He flinched as another of their number burst into flame from the horrid breath of the drakes. Carcarath had summoned most of his brood to battle, and they gave no quarter.
“I wonder if this is what the old heroes felt like,” Grim muttered, “watching the ones they brought to their destiny falling like flies.”
“We’re winning, though,” said Epaulette. “Once the air battle is over, Carcarath will have no choice but to fight, and then Hammer Strike will have nothing left to throw at us.”
Girm snorted. “Carcarath has already fled back to the Dragon Marches. There’s no other reason we wouldn’t have seen him yet. A true dragon will never sacrifice himself for a fool. We’re only fighting those of his children who are too proud to know when they’re beaten.” He stamped his warhammer on the stone steps. “Just like Hammer Strike.”
“Someone needed to take him down,” Epaulette murmured. “Decapolis would never spare the resources to help outsiders, and no dragon would face Carcarath willingly.” He met Grim’s stern glare with eyes full of hope. “But you did. Without you none of this would be possible. You stopped Hammer Strike before he could threaten the rest of the land, perhaps even the rest of the world.”
Grim snorted and shifted uncomfortably in his armor. “Stop talking like that. We’re not done yet; I still have to turn Hammer Strike’s skull to paste. I’m here because no other minotaur had the gumption to protect what’s ours by right.” He sighed and leaned heavily on his warhammer, ignoring the shrieks of the drakes, the clashing of steel and the screams of the dying. “Assaulting White Heorot’s Forge itself? What kind of a world is it where we make our sacred sites battlefields?”
“What’s done is done,” said Epaulette. “Nothing stays sheltered forever. Hammer Strike forced us to attack here because he knew the other minotaurs would be reluctant. You were the only one who could have led us here.”
“And now I’m the only one who can finish it. By the Sun, I can’t wait until this is over.”
Epaulette flinched at the growl in Grim’s voice. Another bang from the door, and Epaulette heard the crack over the rest of the noise. “We’re almost in,” he gasped, and coughed up more blood. His heart raced and his horn glowed with anticipation. Hammer Strike had to be quivering in his armor. The only thing left between him and justice was the Stormguard, who were sworn to protect the Forge from all invaders. They held no real loyalty to Hammer Strike, but they’d die to a minotaur to fulfill their duty. They’d kept the great doors sealed even in the face of all the evidence that the supposed true king was false and their cause was lost.
Grim shifted again. “Is it wrong that I enjoyed it, sometimes? That I felt such a rush of triumph when I crushed a dragon’s head or watched my foes fall in the dust?”
“You’re a minotaur, aren’t you? It’s in your nature. There’s nothing wrong that. ”
Grim didn’t look satisfied with that answer. He spat on the ground. “You ponies, always so understanding. That’s going to get you all killed one of these days.”
Epaulette tossed his head back, intimating a blasé shrug. “I understood what had to be done. That’s why I’m here.”
Grim gave a grudging grunt of approval. “That’s true. So far from home and the umbrella of the Princesses.” He looked up at the sun, which hung large and gloomy in the afternoon sky. The ash from the fires and volcanoes turned its light a baleful red, highlighting the carnage that enveloped the city. “I wonder if they look favorably on this chaos.”
Epaulette smirked. “Doubtful. We’re a long way from Equestria. You knew you’d never have gotten support for this outside of your own kin.”
“But you found it in your heart to care for the plight of minotaurs and monsters,” Grim reminded him. “And you proved that ponies are a force to be reckoned with. I doubt anyone save the griffons knows that you are more than a bunch of peace-loving pansies.”
Epaulette smiled. “We are peace-loving pansies. But we’re peace-loving pansies who know how to keep that peace.”
“With fire and steel?”
There was a long pause. “With friendship.”
“Your ‘friendship’ did not bring us here,” Grim grumbled over the noise of another crashing boom from the door. The airships above brought down the last of the drakes and moved on to the enchanted stone walls of the citadel. Cannon shot bounced off the battlements. Griffons swarmed the windows with grappling hooks, trying to pry open the armored coverings the defenders put in place, firing and stabbing into the gaps as the Stormguard plugged the holes in their defenses. Grim stood up, hefting his warhammer. “According to some, it was destiny that guided us all.”
“You still believe that? Here, at the very end?” Epaulette shook his head as he stood, magically lifting his faithful silver spear. “You made peace with every faction in the Iron Kingdom. You brought together minotaurs that would otherwise be at each other’s throats. And you welcomed griffons and ponies into your fold.”
“Out of necessity.”
“Maybe so. But friendship can have strange beginnings. What will keep you going when necessity is no more?” Epaulette felt another crack in the door. A visible shudder of excitement overcame them all, but the unicorn kept talking to Grim. “When destiny is fulfilled and we’re left with the question of what to do next? What do you think has kept me at your side for so long? I don’t just believe in you and your destiny, Grim.”
The ram’s head shattered the citadel doors with a horrendous crash. The feeling of the defensive magic being broken was a scream in Epaulette’s mind. He watched lightning arc out of the hole the ram made, lashing the shields of the minotaurs and unicorns before sputtering and failing. A few more knocks and they’d be through.
Epaulette spoke as he watched the troops gather for the last push. “I believe in everyone who came here to stop a tyrant. I believe in everypony who traveled halfway across the world against the advice of those they left behind because they knew it was the right thing to do. I believe in the bonds that keep us together, and I believe that they’ll stay strong even when so-called ‘necessity’ is gone. Because you know we’ll still need each other after this, Grim. Necessity pulled us together, but it isn’t what really made you let me stay, what made you do all this. Don’t stop believing in yourself now.”
Grim looked down at his hammer and the drying dragon’s blood that still smoked on its spiked head. He turned back to Epaulette and his large hand came down on Epaulette’s pauldron. The unicorn sagged under the weight.
“If there was ever a creature who I could call friend, you are he,” the minotaur grumbled. “Apparently, I have kept you around because I need someone to talk sense into me now and again. I apologize for being so unsteady in my faith.”
“They say this is a place where the gods touched the earth,” Epaulette said with a smile. “It’s okay to be a little shaken.”
“Not in front of the troops,” Grim muttered. “If we’re tearing down the work of White Heorot, then I must let them know someone still believes in what we are doing.”
“That’s it,” said Epaulette as the ram continued to work on the door. From the gap came the sound of spells being cast and minotaurs lowing their defiance.
Above it all came a sound neither of them wanted to hear on the battlefield. It was a noise like an exploding volcano or a thundering earthquake, elemental and primal in its nature. It tapered off into a trumpeting roar that shook the very ground beneath their hooves. Epaulette’s whole body trembled as he felt a swell of magic the likes of which he’d never experienced before, bringing with it a rush of instinctive terror. Immediately thereafter came a tremendous noise like a hurricane, and a shadow blotted out the sun as it passed over them, heading straight for the citadel. The griffons and airships did their best to scatter, but the titanic form that smashed through their formations easily brushed aside those that weren’t able to flee. Epaulette fell to the ground as the horrible roar came again, beating on his eardrums as heavily as the ram beat on the citadel’s gate.
“Carcarath!” he heard Grim challenge the dragon over the cacophony.
The dragon’s horrible shadow descended on the tapering rectangular tip of the citadel’s highest tower, the ancient statue of White Heorot at the very top crushed to dust by the sheer weight of the beast. Massive wings flared out as a serpentine tail coiled around the tower and ancient, cracked talons gouged massive rifts in the solid rock, securing the monster’s hold. A long neck covered in tattered red scales uncoiled, revealing the old dragon’s great head wreathed in smoke, bristling with horns. Carcarath fixed his gaze upon the invading army and opened his maw. From behind twin rows of wickedly sharp fangs came a fiery glow as pure and bright as the sun, almost matching the glow of the Forge behind him. A column of fire burst from his mouth, more terrible than any of the Ashland’s volcanoes as it scorched the sky in front of the citadel. The heat alone made Epaulette’s armor feel like an oven, and he threw up a magic shield to ward it off.
The dragon’s arrival brought every fight in the city to a standstill and drew every eye in the Forge upward. Epaulette’s previous bravery was forgotten as the dragon’s baleful gaze turned downward, and Epaulette shook in his armor, his spear dropping to the ground as he cowered on his belly. Even from here, hundreds of feet away, the dragon’s head was far too large for his liking.
“I have come for the murderers of my children. To crush the pride of young races who know naught of what they struggle for, to wipe this land clean of your brazen insults against my kind. A dragon does not flee. A dragon does not forget, and he does not forgive.”
Grim held his warhammer tight, staring up at the gaze of the dragon and presenting his horns—still dirty with the gore of combat—to the titan. “Looks like someone has forgotten his place in the world!” he shouted back, needing no magic to amplify to his formidable voice. “They call me Grim Tidings for a reason, dragon! You were a fool to come back here! Now you will die like Hammer Strike!”
“I am not here for the petty squabbles of your kind, cow! You may do what you want with that fool. But Heorot’s Forge is mine. Do you think you may claim its treasures without my leave? My brood has lived in this place for centuries beyond count. I will not give you land where the blood of my children stains the ground!”
“Your greed and stubborn pride will be the death of you!” Grim roared, spreading his arms and brazenly puffing out his chest. “The Forge belongs to those who built it, not the hoarders who stole it! The Stormguard may have suffered your presence, but I will not! Touch of the gods or no, this place will be cleansed of the arrogance of creatures like you!”
The dragon laughed with the sound of colliding avalanches. “Then come, cow! Come and burn in the fires of the earth! Come and see if you can match the dragonslayers of old!”
Carcarath abandoned the top of the tower, moving to the mountains behind the citadel, disappearing into the glow of the Forge itself. They heard one final roar, the bellow of an old creature determined to conquer or die, daring them all to face him.
“Dragons,” Grim spat, “they will always find a pile of gold to perish on! He has lived for long enough that he wants me to be his end? So be it!” He charged up the stairs to the gate, pointing at the ram and raising his warhammer. The congregated warriors fixed their gazes on him. “Let the world see the strength of minotaurs this day! Let ponies and griffons and all the races of this world see how we deal with those who would lash us to a crown and a throne, make us slaves of our own traditions, or think they can cow us with divine retribution! You have fought with me for freedom! Freedom from fear and the threat of a king who doesn’t understand us! From the stubborn pride of those who forget the true meaning of the old ways! Fight with me again and regain the pride of all minotaurs! We will conquer this day, and if the gods will it not, then let them come and fight us themselves!”
The embattled army cheered, and the ram powered up for one final blow.
Epaulette managed to crawl back up the stairs, gripping his spear in his magic once again. Grim looked down at him with a familiar gleam in his eye, one the unicorn hadn’t seen since they first met in the woods, a day that seemed so long ago.
“They will sing of this day, my friend, and you will write the songs! The day a false king and a greedy dragon was slain and minotaurs found themselves again. Should I fall I want you to tell my story. You always were better at talking than I was.”
“Somepony had to talk down that troll,” Epaulette said through chattering teeth. “And arbitrate the council. And clean up all your bawdy drinking songs. I’m a pony of many talents, what can I say?”
Grim laughed. The ram pulled back for the final blow.
“You know,” Epaulette muttered, “after today, they’re going to have to change your name to Good Tidings.”
“What makes you say that?” the minotaur asked, bracing.
Epaulette shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
The ram pushed forward with another hiss of pneumatics and billowed smoke. The gate gave way this time, shattering inward. In that instant before the final clash, time seemed to slow, and Epaulette saw everything. Past the wreckage were the packed ranks of the Stormguard, stubbornly resolute. Behind them Epaulette knew Hammer Strike and Carcarath waited, and the long uncertain future that lay beyond the day of battle, along with all the trials and tribulations of life. Epaulette knew those long days that outlived victory were coming, and the minotaurs would need friendship in peace far more than they did in war, when the need for heroism was over and the steady grind of just living brought its own troubles. That was when the true legacy of a hero would be forged, and he hoped he’d live to see it and make sure the world remembered his friend as they should. But for now, the needs of the day called them as it always had.
He prepared a fireball spell and lifted his spear, leading the charge alongside Grim as they hurtled towards destiny.