Wiping a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, Sunstone opened his eyes into a squint.
Six left.
There were still six more.
The battlefield was cluttered with the dead, ponies and griffons in equal profusion. Lances and barding fallen from the lifeless hooves of his brothers-in-arms lay tangled with the skeletal machinery of griffon technology, as though still at war even in death. Discharged cannon, burst and backfired from unicorn sabotage, smoldered beside catapults still loaded with barbed chain nets.
In the cold, wan light of pre-dawn, the imperial soldiers’ avian features took on a harsh, pointed appearance, augmented by the spiny armor they wore in their feathers. He had a moment to rise to all four hooves again, his deep chest heaving. Then they were on him again, halberds gripped in their talons.
Sunstone’s horn glowed with brazen light, and the stallion’s broken longsword rose from the blood-swamped earth to a guard. They fought with the same darting formation that had nearly won the day against the whole Fourth Solar Legion last night. The first griffon charged past him in a distracting blur. It was easy to parry, but left him open to the second. By the time the third was charging in, the first had already leveled his halberd to attack from the flank.
The pony’s drilled stance helped him sidestep the debris as he circled his opponents. The flock rushed past the lone unicorn paladin in a chain of furious blows from every direction. He had to keep moving. Keep moving.
His brothers had fallen to the onslaught all night. Unicorns’ blades were snatched from the air where they hovered, outmuscled by the griffon’s dexterous talons. Ponies’ lances were parried aside by the queerly-shaped griffon polearms. Pegasi were assaulted from every direction, the griffons’ agility offsetting the powerful armor of the legionnaires.
A thousand equestrian soldiers in a single night!
Stars!
If anyone had suspected the Leonavian Empire was capable of this kind of surgical strike in a single eight-hour window, maybe Celestia wouldn’t have spurned her sister’s offer of allegiance.
Sparks flew in front of his face. The flock changed tactics as they began to tire along with him. One or two let their guard down, baiting Sunstone to try opportunistic thrusts, but he wasn’t going to fall for the trick.
They whirled around him furiously, but he wouldn’t give them an easy target. Instead, he let them settle into a rhythm, then broke into an unexpected charge, throwing a lone griffon aside and painting the ground with his blood. The fallen griffon screamed with a single spasm, then lay contorted on the ground.
The other imperials paused, hovering on flapping eagle wings, shocked at their companion’s death.
Sunstone flicked the blood from his weapon.
Five left.
There were still five more.
This was an endurance test, and Sunstone was conserving his energy. Didn’t parry when a dodge would do. Let his armored barding do its job. Sat back into it, moved his legs while the armor carried his weight. Didn’t think about stances or forms; the point of drilling was to make it instinctive so he could concentrate on the tactics his avian opponents were using.
He was alone in this battle; no help was coming.
But the griffons were alone, too, and the stakes were higher for them. Without any sort of support network this deep in Equestria, they would wander the Everfree Forest until Celestia’s patrols found them or the timberwolves finished them off.
And with the sunrise, Celestia would be able to see what had happened, and her response would be instant and merciless.
He had seen it before. The golden alicorn magic would bring her here from Canterlot; barded in gems and precious metals infused with the most powerful enchantment her cabal of smiths could dream up; wielding a lance of alloyed gold, the Solar Crest pouring light across the battlefield; her horn alight with the dawn’s glow, vaporizing griffons with the heat of summer.
She and her guard would clear the sky, and another whole legion would reinforce him against these five. Unicorn healers would comb the piles of the dead, searching for survivors.
Surviving until dawn had been hopeless before, but as he watched a young griffon stumble in his rush, he felt a spark of hope light some yet-unburned fuel in his soul. The other griffons rushed in to cover their comrade, but it was a sloppy and uncertain defense, and their grizzled leader threw out a talon with a shout of warning. Sunstone surged forward in an intimidating bull rush, scattering the birds. But the youth he had singled out stumbled backward into a pile of debris, and a broken lance blossomed from his chest. He closed his eyes and cried out with a quiet, wet scream, then slid limply down to the ground.
Four left.
There were still four more.
And their counterassault was fueled by the rage and loss of their entire army. He whirled his broken blade against their lance-strikes. Sparks flew from his horn with each blow from the griffons’ weapons, his magic struggling to match their strength. He felt his body finally failing him, and his vision darkened. He knew this would be the end.
But then the light came.
Like a harbinger of judgment, the sun rose low beside him, red and hot. His heightened battle senses made him aware of the way of the sun felt against his bloody flank. The day had arrived.
These remnants of the Leonavian Empire could not abide the fury of Celestia’s wrath. He settled to his haunches, almost collapsing, while the griffons recoiled from the shafts filtering in through the smoke. Wordlessly, they threw up a guarded stance, their halberds lifted to the air. Back to back, their heads flicked from side to side, searching the sky in silence. While Sunstone’s chest heaved in overexertion, the armored plumes of his foes clicked together in their nervousness.
But the moment stretched, the only sound from the croaking of the heartless stormcrows. And as the sun rose higher, Sunstone felt his eyes widen. He slowly hefted himself back to his hooves. The griffons moved back into their formation. A wily glint shone in their eyes as they glanced from the sunrise to the lone unicorn. They lowered their lances menacingly as Sunstone slowly backed away.
He was still alone.
The dawn had broken. Celestia’s gaze was on him. But she was not there.
She was not there.
The griffons flicked their wings in their eagerness, and the lead griffon thrust his halberd to probe his defense. They were taking it slowly now. They would wear him down, even take shifts on him while the more exhausted lancers settled by the sidelines to watch. His death would almost be boring for them.
Celestia was not there. There would be no reinforcements.
He was alone.
As he parried thrust after thrust, he felt his sword grow heavy. Suddenly, a pain erupted like a fiery brand between his eyes. His sword fell to the ground beside him, the steel clattering against a stone. The hope he had clung to had died with the cold dawn, and after the long, exhausting fight, his magic was spent.
The lead griffon buzzed toward him with a casual smile while the second geared up for her charge.
No.
With brute strength, the unicorn reared on his hind legs and struck the halberd aside with an armored horseshoe. The other hoof struck the griffon squarely in the center of his forehead, where the armor was weak. The soldier’s beady eyes rolled back in unconsciousness.
The griffon just charging in pulled away in surprise, wings flapping awkwardly, but she was already moving; too late for her. Sunstone shifted his weight and bucked the lead griffon into his comrade’s path. A light shove would have just knocked her off-balance. But Sunstone was no lightweight. The two went tumbling away, polearms and armored plumes scattering across the battlefield.
Sunstone didn’t wait to see the reaction of the other two griffon halberdiers. He sprinted toward the shelter of the Everfree Forest. In the thickening woods, the griffons’ agility would be useless, and they would have no way of tracking him from the air. A javelin struck a tree near his neck, and another, but he knew that they were only driving him away, letting him go. He paused and looked back before entering the thickest copse in sight.
The sun was up, above the distant crags of Rambling Rock Ridge. Light shone on the quarry where the Legion had been cutting stone; it filtered through the smoke pouring from the grounded griffon dirigibles; it glowed against the timeless Alicorn ruins. The sun had risen. But he was alone.
He ducked into the cover of the trees as javelins clattered near his hooves.
Alone.