XENOPHOBIA: A Tale of the Equestrian Wasteland
My warriors kept their heads low, deep in the brush, watching me.
Pigments and hut-witch talismans kept them safe from the enemy. Kept me safe. Let us track one another, without being tracked in turn. The very sort of hedge-craft our noble Caesar so often turns his muzzle up against, preferring the polished magicks of his court-wizards and soothsayers.
Yet these make us safe enough to serve Caesar, this day. I found humor in that.
Our enemies had neither safety nor hope. In their faces were every color of the world, and many more beside, painting them for the entire jungle to account. They thought themselves clever and wise and brave, and were often boisterous in saying so to one another.
Nothing they did reflected this. They foolishly trampled the undergrowth, instead of slipping around it, creating a wake that marked their passage. They chopped at it to hasten their travel, expending much energy and sweat-water, which they would not have when their battle began. Fear roiled from them like clouds of poisonous vapor.
These unnatural creatures.
In another era I would, perhaps, pity their silliness. In this one, they have chosen to serve the Destroyer of All, the Mare of the Moon. We who serve beneath the manes of Roam can spare no pity for such evil hearts.
But today, my village's duties to Roam are done. Our eyes and ears have served well, our hunting spears and lack of armor are no asset to the coming fight. I place one hoof beneath my right eye, looking to Sky-Killer. He bobs his tall-cropped mane, just a little, and darts away silently. In minutes Caesar's Third Legion will know our enemy is here, in what numbers, and in which direction they travel.
I look forward to a night of full sleep and a belly full of warm meal. Perhaps my Umyeni has been foraging for the crisp, delicious rutabegas missing from market this last year. The war drags on and takes with it every pleasant thing... with these thoughts clouding my mind, I lead my other six contubernales back through the deeper layers of jungle in single file. We are going home...
* * * * *
Hours later, our hooves strike upon the loam of our village's small yet fertile fields. Away from the jungle's humidity, the cool evening air breathes away the moisture from our skin. It would be a blessing after these days of hunting, but for the shouts and screaming from our distant huts. There are no fires, but if the enemy has found our homes... we fan out, spears at the ready, moving as quickly as we can without breaking our stealth. Surprise will be our greatest weapon --- perhaps, depending on what Equestria has sent to plague us, our only weapon.
But these are Caesar's troops. They are pulling every male child from the huts, dragging them to the central fire-circle, where they are thrown into the dust with weapons trained upon them. Mothers, sisters, fathers and brothers express both sadness and anger in equal measure, but they are prevented from retrieving their kin by unsheathed swords and loaded carbines.
Conscription. They are not taking those of age, or even those elderly still fit for battle. They are taking only the colts.
It is the Third Legion's Fourth Centuria. Their commander claims the unlikely battle-name of Hydra-Rider. I would not suggest askance, but that his manicured hooves and cultured voice speak of a pampered life in the regional capital. It is more likely he has never so much as seen the beast over which he asserts mastery.
I present myself to him, Decanus to Centurion, with deference according to his superior rank. But my blood seethes the whole time. While his soldiers batter and seize my people, I must prostrate and fawn even to be heard in his clotted ears. Finally he admits: his first orders are from Roam, to find young bodies for a new Legion. He knows nothing more than his quota, and cares less.
His second orders, once the colts are secured and taken away by half his Centuria, are to send the other half in an attack on the Equestrians I saw today. A night assault. And because his contingent is so burdened by the youth of my village, he insists on incorporating my contuberne for the battle. We will not eat or sleep this night.
* * * * *
I was not disappointed that the Centurion chose not to lead his battle contingent. I had not expected him to.
His Optio, who did not bother to introduce himself by name, peremptorily demanded that we scout ahead for his city-bred soldiers. He took no notice of my rank or experience, nor of our exhausted condition after seven days in the jungle, instead specifying our line of march and the very minute we were to arrive at ambush positions. Which, of course, my scouts were expected to prepare, as Fourth Centuria had never fought in jungle before.
They had not needed to. Equestrians had never attacked the Empire from this direction, up until now preferring the more direct routes of steel and stone. I had heard much of the rail-roads and free-ways which had linked our two powers in days of peace and trade, but had no care for them... what need had my people of trade with strange and foreign beings? We had all we needed from the jungle.
Look now how this trade, this greed for Equestrian gems, has driven us to war.
When gems were rare in our lands, they were used only for the most necessary of magics. Our needs were met through inspiration. Discovery. Distilling wisdom into potions and rune-craft. The old ways may be difficult to master, but they are our own.
All this trading made magic too easy. Glib-tongues with glittering, bejeweled contraptions and wild promises captured the fancies of our more foolish leaders. What use now the idle comforts of Roam, when blood must soak the earth to maintain them? Absent such frivolities, there need never have been conflict at all.
No pirates, seizing the over-valued coal Equestria demanded. No wound to Caesar's sense of self-importance, when Equestria attacked the pirates he himself could not disperse. No embargoes, no war for the resources both sides so desperately craved. Nightmare Moon would still have been Equestria's co-regent, but subordinate to Her elder sister, and thus controlled.
Foreign entanglements. Greed and pride. They have fulfilled prophecies, more ancient than either nation. So tonight, my village is being made to pay the price.
If any greater being stands above us in judgment, how could they consider this arrangement a just one?
We push through darkness, the lush jungle where I have lived all my life now cold and forbidding around me. Tired, I find myself blundering through thickets I should know like the marriage ring snug about my right foreleg. The Optio snarls, comments on how stupid anyone not from the cities must be, lets slip that my armor-less spears will be at the front of the line when battle begins.
Is it wrong to ponder on how I may lead these of my nation to doom, so that my tribe may survive?
I think of my young son, Zwanna. It is only seven years since his imbeleko, where his father and I showed him to the spirits of his ancestors. I hope his new Legion is blessed with better commanders. I hope his father and I will be allowed by the powers that be to weep for him, in days to come.
* * * * *
The Moon is rising, dangerously full.
But that is an appetite which can never truly be sated. Not with all the blood of Equestria, not with that of the Empire. It is truly a nightmare Moon, for it no longer bears Her Face. She walks the earth this night.
When the attack begins, the Equestrians seem unable to benefit from Her cold grey light. They think their lanterns are dim enough to escape our notice. I make the mistake of thinking the Optio dim enough not to notice our escape.
He has refused my warriors' withdrawal; my spear is in his ribcage. The Empire is no longer my nation. The Fourth Centuria must die if my village is to live, for there is nowhere left where my people can flee. We fight like only the most desperate of traitors can, fearful and hateful now of anyone who is not us.
This night, many discover the shadowed borders of Death's realm.
For Death comes to all who fight beneath the Stars.
