Barlent

“Are all the ponies back on their ship?”

“Yes, Captain. Unfortunately, we've taken their coal and all their cargo, including most of their provisions. They won't be going anywhere anytime soon.” Lieutenant Torner reported.

“Even if they had all that, they wouldn't be leaving anyway.”

“What do you mean sir?”

“Read.” From his coat, Barlent pulled a torn-out page of the town newspaper, dated to several weeks ago. It took Torner a moment to react.

“Heaven and Earth save us all.” his lieutenant growled, folding up the newspaper and giving it back to the Captain. “That's it, then?”

Barlent folded his arms, and glared at the Black Army soldiers in the town. “Whatever this Timar's plan is, it had better work. We'll be lucky if Celestia doesn't fly down here herself and burn everything to a crisp.”

Their plan, however, had gone perfectly. The listening tubes installed in the cargo hold had given them a decent-enough idea of what the ponies were hiding. When Timar's ship had met them just off the coast, they'd been able to tell him they had exactly what he was after. The Horn of the Damned... Barlent still didn't know what it did, or why it was so valuable.

Now, here they were, safe at home in the port of Ariqua. It was a sad town the clung to the edge of the inhospitable Atamar desert. For being located on the edge of the southern tropics, the heat was not bad at all. But between the sea and the high mountains many dozens of miles distant, there was not a drop of water to be found. It had not rained here in three years, and last time it did, it had barely been a quarter of an inch of precipitation. Some said it was the driest place in the world. Even if it wasn't, it was still an unpleasant land; these rats only lived here because it was the lone port for a hundred miles in either direction.

In the afternoon, Timar invited Torner and he to listen in on the plan. Doctor Caballeron and Miss Pommel were both seated before that same book Pommel had won in the chess game. In front of the book was the Horn, the heart of all this trouble.

“Captain Barlent has worked hard to help get this instrument here, Doctor.” Timar spoke, as he paced around the ponies. “Would you be kind and tell him what it is?”

“The Horn of the Damned is an artifact that came out of Great Griffonia.” Caballeron said, his eyes tracking Timar around the room. “The griffons who possessed it were convinced by a story to hide the Horn as far from them as they could. They gave it to a powerful sorceress of the Akravid Realm, who agreed to bury it in an underground temple, with her own warriors frozen in stasis to guard it against intruders. With time, the spells failed, and we recovered it eleven-hundred years later.”

“Akravids?” Barlent asked, feeling a shiver go down his spine. “How did you convince them to let you dig up one of their temples?”

“Recall the saying of Kelstath, dear Captain: political power grows out of the barrel of a cannon.” Timar tapped the side of his head, and smiled. “And the Akravids do not have cannons.”

No, but they have magic, thought Barlent. Was the last truly neutral power in the known world now against Hivald too?

“I tell you these things because what we have before us is powerful, very powerful!” continued Timar, jabbing a finger in the air. “It will win us the war, and then some! Tell them Caballeron, tell them what it is!”

The stallion looked like he wanted to strangle the rat, if he had hands. “It is a weapon of the ancient world.” Timar nodded, gesturing for him to go on. “If the griffon saga is to be believed... the Horn of the Damned can summon the dead.”

It took several moments for Barlent to realize there was no punch line coming, that Caballeron was actually serious. “Impossible. No such power exists!”

“That's what the book says, Captain.” said the pony.

Torner clenched his fist, and spoke before Barlent could stop him. “You dragged us into a war with Equestria over a book's claim about some old horn? Do you have a single piece of evidence that this thing even works?”

“War? What happened?” Miss Pommel suddenly piped up.

“Now, no one has even touched this weapon in well over a thousand years-”

“You blithering imbecile, you've doomed us all!” roared Torner, drawing his sword. The Black Army soldiers instantly leveled their partisans at him, and Barlent sighed helplessly. “I ought to kill you right here! What will happen to Hivald when your master plan of playing magician fails? What misbegotten corner of Earth will still be open to us when they drive us from our homes? What will they do to us when our lines break, and they out what you've done? There won't be a Fifth Exodus, there won't be any of us left to make it!”

“Enough!” barked Timar. “Lieutenant Torner, your lack of faith disturbs me. For that, you and your Captain will accompany us to the activation. You will see the truth! Once Doctor Caballeron here figures it all out, of course.”

Torner slammed his sword back into its sheath, shaking with rage, before he stalked out of the office.

“That's quite some control you have over your officers, Captain.” remarked Timar.

“If I was ten years younger, I would have joined him.” Barlent spoke, flicking his tail. “But you can't fight the inevitable. For our tribe's sake, Timar, don't be wrong. I would not have our blood be remembered for bringing the end upon us.”

“Our blood?” asked Timar, shaking his head. “We share a common ancestor, and that's it. You border on counter-revolutionary, Captain. I am a servant of the Republic. We will deal with your kind all in good time.”

It was evening by the time Barlent saw his second-in-command again. He was staring out at the dark sea spanning the eastern horizon. “Doomed.” he said. “Magic and myths... We're all doomed.”

“Yes.” agreed Barlent. “I think we are.”

They were quiet for a long while. The next sound they heard was the clip-clop of hooves on cobbles. “Hello, Miss Pommel.” greeted the Captain. “What are you doing out here?”

“Timar let me out for air.” she said. There was no escort for her... Not that she needed any, a pony wouldn't last long in the desert here. “Mister Torner, what was that about Equestria earlier?”

“Your Princess declared war on us several weeks ago.” Torner sighed.

“Here.” Barlent took out the newspaper again, and showed it to the pony.

“The Long-Awaited Attack:” Pommel read aloud, “The Despot Celestia issues formal declaration of war after months of undeclared hostilities in Rattish waters. Not content with attempting to starve the Rattish State into submission, the alicorn tyrant- No, I won't read any more. You know very well it was you who attacked us!” the little mare stated, scowling.

“Yes, Miss Pommel, we are aware, we did the attacking.” said Barlent, retrieving his paper. “All for some silly horn and some hair-brained scheme to raise a- a- a zombie army? Is that right? Madness... It's all madness.”

“Well, he will.” Pommel said, her anger replaced by unease. “I've seen what it can do, in my dreams. When Caballeron figures out how to make it work... You'll be able to raise the dead, I guess.”

“Dreams?” scoffed the Captain. “My dear, that is not very good proof of anything.”

“We read from the Doom in the East, and I fell asleep during it. But I saw what was happening, even before he had read those parts. I saw the Winter- I saw the Horn bring those monsters to life.” Pommel looked at her hooves, shuddering. “I told Caballeron before he knew it'd happen in the account. And he told me today that the Horn needs some kind of blood ritual to awaken.”

“Great, blood magic. The only reason we're in this mess is because of blood magic, two thousand years ago! We survived the pegasi only to be exiled time and again from every home we found, and soon this one too! And now Timar's solution is blood magic, again?!” Torner yelled at the dark clouds above. “Has anyone learned anything?!”

No one spoke for a heavy moment.

“Do we deserve this?” finally asked Torner. “Has everything that's happened to our wretched people been some kind of divine punishment for an offense we made once? At least the griffons got a new home they could stay in, when their god turned on them. For us... nothing. Is that our fate?”

To that, Barlent could respond. “Pity, o Lord, the Rat, then, long by waves of danger tossed; help him by thy strong hand when he on grief’s sea may be lost. Fate, who for so long did’st frown, bring him happy times and ways; atoning sorrow hath weighed down all the sins of all his days.” Pommel and the lieutenant both looked at him. “The royal hymn,” Barlent explained, “the last part of a prayer to your Sky-lord, Torner. That's the song I learned when I was a boy, when the flags were red instead of black, and we had a baron in the manor instead of a civil production minister. You'd be shot for saying it out loud now, but I suppose it doesn't make a difference.”

“When was that written?” Miss Pommel asked.

“For our people, any century would have done.” said Torner. “All the sins of all his days... Yes, that's more fitting than our anthem now. We swore there would never be a Fifth Exodus after coming here, the vow of every king from the start to the end. There might not even be a Fifth, they might just kill us all and finish this sorry tale. But if there is to be an exodus... I would have been nothing but a poor serf in the kingdom, but I think I would rather have been a poor serf with a home than a poor wanderer without one.”

“We all would. If Hivald is to fall, most of us are going with it. The kings are gone, but the vow lives. I'm ready to die, Torner. I can accept that. But Timar, and many more, aren't. They're going to do whatever they can to prevent the inevitable.”

“Wait, hold on.” Miss Pommel interrupted, looking terribly confused. “Why do you think you're all going to die? These townsfolk have done nothing wrong, you two haven't really done anything wrong... Why would they kill you?”

“After what we've done to Cania? Do you think they won't take revenge on us?” asked Torner.

“Two wrongs don't make a right!” protested the pony. “Princess Celestia would never allow innocents to be harmed. And if we really are at war with Hivald, that'll apply to rats as well as anything else.”

“Celestia is the one who put the embargo on us in the first place.” Barlent reminded her.

“If the Princess thought your government hadn't done something to warrant that, then she wouldn't have put it on you in the first place.” said Pommel. “And governments and their subjects are very different things, Captain.”

“What are you saying?” asked Torner again.

“I'm saying what you said a few weeks ago, Lieutenant. Princess Celestia is the wisest of all beings, you said that! Would she condemn an entire nation because the actions of a few? I don't know what awful lies you've ready about the Princess, but not one is true! You don't need to do this to save your people!” The little mare was certainly obstinate in her faith in her divine Celestia's mercy. “That is what you want, right?”

“Yes, it is...” Barlent agreed wearily. “But what can we do? Timar has the Army here, and the Horn, and you ponies! Torner and I can't stop him from using it, if what you say about it is true.”

“I... I don't know.” Pommel confessed, before lowering her voice. “Caballeron has an idea. He told me. It's... a very long shot. But this Horn is evil, Captain. Pure evil, and nothing less. If your government gains its power...”

“The whole world will suffer for it.” Barlent stated. “Make no mistake of that. But are you telling me, that if the Republic falls and we are beaten, that your Princess will let my people keep their homes? There will be no retribution on them for what we have done?”

“Yes. I could not believe that Princess Celestia would ever allow innocents to suffer for crimes they did not commit.”

“You're asking us to gamble with the fate of our nation, on your word alone, for a plan we haven't even heard to stop an artifact we don't even know works?” Torner questioned.

“The Horn works. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to go and meet one of those undead monsters Timar is going to make. Maybe then you’ll wish you had listened.” Pommel put her hoof down on the street; Torner just sighed and put a hand over his eyes.

“I can't believe I'm being roped into high treason by a pony seamstress talking about children's stories!”

“I'm a designer, not a seamstress!”

“Quiet.” Barlent ordered. “We'll be taking Grimsly and some of our marines along to this 'activation' Timar mentioned. Whatever you need us to do to shut Timar down, we'll do it.”

“Treason aside,” Torner chimed in, “blood magic ruined our nation once. I'm not letting that happen again, not with a chance to stop it. If Hivald falls, so be it; at least our people will live to see a better day.” He paused, before eying the pony more closely. “We do have a chance, right?”

“Caballeron said if we play our cards right...” Pommel looked uneasy again. “We'll just have to hope, won't we?”

Author's Note

Coco takes charge, and the author tips his fedora to the Hungarian people. Oh, and the obligatory Doom (Hope?) Paul, considering how close to the end we are: