"I am Hurricane.”
The pegasus stopped speaking long enough to take a calming breath and to remove her helmet, dropping it to the ground with a clatter of metal.
“General of Equestria's Legions and Faithful Servant of the Sun and Moon.”
She stopped speaking again, this time to spit a wad of bloody mucus from her mouth.
“And I have but one question.”
She spread her stance and lowered her head, hooves planted firmly on the forest floor, in between the bodies of pony and griffon alike, wounded by sword and spear. She gripped her own spear tightly in the pastern of her right foreleg as she spread her wings wide, sunlight glinting off iron armor and wing blade alike, both dripping blood. Behind her stood what remained of her legion, the score of unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony that still stood despite all odds, their own bodies, armor and weapons marred with nicks, gashes and blood.
"Which of you is next?”
Before her stood a mob of two hundred or more griffons; she had not the presence of mind nor the chance to count them. They wore armor of tanned and painted leather, and carried crude but nevertheless effective swords and spears of iron. Those furtherest from the front, perched in the boughs if the trees, carried bows, although they seemed not of the mind to use them yet. The flock pressed in as close as they dared, maintaining careful distance from General Hurricane.
Snorting, Hurricane turned her eyes to one side of the flock, and swept them to the other end. She suddenly took a half-step forward, and the griffons nearest her recoiled away, even if they could not move far, pressed against their brethren as they were. “Legionnaires of Equestria,” she said loudly, keeping her eyes firmly on the griffons. “You have all fought well today. You have all given everything you swore to your country, and then gave even more. Your rewards will be many when you reach the Elysian Fields, and make no mistake that we may yet join our brothers and sisters this day. But before you go, I must ask that you first send at least one of these beasts to Tartarus, that there may be one less for the rest of us to bother with.” She snapped her wings closed once and spread them again, turning to face the griffons fully in a low crouch.
“Fight hard!”
She sprung forward and flew at her enemies, so low to the ground she stirred up clouds of dust. Each one of her legionnaires charged after her without question, weapons brandished, spells surging to life, and shod hooves hammering against the earth, driving the closest griffons to panic.
“Die valiantly!”
The ponies fell onto the griffon flock like a wave against rocks. Arrows were loosed by the archers, but bounced harmlessly away as shields of magical force blinked into existence and out again moments later. With the ponies embroiled in melee with the rest of the flock, they dared not use their bows again. The removal of the archers, however, did little to change the course of the battle. Although the griffons that were first assaulted fell quickly, the rest were quick to rally and surround the Equestrians to bring their numbers to bear, for as much as it helped them. The ponies' armor protected them from the swords and clubs, and their hooves and blades broke the bones and skins of the griffons. Each was gradually separated from the others, and became the center of a focused melee from all sides, and it slowly turned the tide in favor of the flock, for a moment, but it would not be enough in the end; Hurricane more than lived up to her namesake.
Where the other ponies were merely skilled and dangerous, their General was a whirlwind of violence. Where their blades and spears cut through flesh, hers seemed to cut through the very air around her. In the end, numbers should have won out, but as more ponies fell, Hurricane's fury only seemed to grow. The more they outnumbered her, the more furious her attacks. And for one brief moment, the griffons did not see a pegasus, but an ancient spirit of war who would decide which of them would fly home, and which of them would be buried. For one fleeting moment, they faced a valkyrie.
For one fleeting moment.
“Zerstreuen!”
The voice that rang out was not at all like the Griffish that Hurricane had heard in the past. Griffons had always sounded angry to her, but this griffon? He sounded like he was in control, in command. He sounded like a General. Or, given what she knew about griffons, a king. The griffons attacking her may have agreed, for as soon as they heard the order, they ceased their assault and hurriedly backed away, outside of her range. Grateful for even a moment’s reprieve, Hurricane looked behind her to check her legionnaires. As she had hoped against, but feared was true, there was nothing to check. In the chaos, all of them had been slain. Only griffons remained around her now.
Gritting and grinding her teeth, she turned back towards the flock, in the direction the voice had come from, to see it parting slowly from back to front. Finally, those at the very front, closest to Hurricane, stepped aside and allowed another to step forward towards her. It was immediately apparent this was no mere warrior like the rest, and while he was not to griffons what an alicorn was to ponies, he stood easily a hoof’s width taller than the next tallest griffon, and carried himself proudly and powerfully. Besides the leather jerkin that his peers wore, he also worn a shirt of interlocked metal rings, the collar of which was lined with fur. Rather than a leather cap, he wore a steel helmet (that he had, judging from the style, pilfered from some other, less primitive race), and the shield strapped to his left foreleg was reinforced with iron bands. There was no mistaking the identity of this griffon. He was the chieftain that had led the rest of the flock against her.
“Hear me, pony,” he said to her, seeming to spit the last word out, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Zou art uninvited, und unvelcome in zese lands. Our lands. Zou hast made var on my griffons. I come to deliver justice unto zee.” Although a bit stilted and heavily accented, Hurricane nevertheless found his command of Equestrian impressive.
“Let us strike a bargain, then,” she replied bitterly. “Give me back my legions, and I shall depart from thine lands, and will never return.”
For several moments, the chieftain silently observed Hurricane. “As zou vishes, Heerführer,” he said darkly. “I shall send zee to meet zem!” He reared and spread his wings wide, managing a two-legged stance that only an expert warrior could hope to maintain. His sword sang as he drew it, and immediately, the blade captured Hurricane’s full attention. Unlike the swords wielded by the other griffons, this one was masterfully made, the dark iron and leather hilt contrasting sharply with the shining, steel blade. It was free of nicks and scratches, and seemed to vibrate with barely contained power, the air around the blade seemed to shudder and tremble when it moved through it. Despite how vast the world was, Hurricane knew very well that there was only one sword like this one in the possession of any griffon. That sword was called Grimm, which meant ‘wrath’, and was said to cut any foe, from the lowliest goblin to the mightiest dragon.
And if he was wielding Grimm, it meant that this griffon was Siegfried, the chieftain that commanded as much respect among griffons as Queen Platinum did among ponies, who had united far more griffons under his banner than any griffon could have dreamed, and who was far more feared than any creature that had come before him.
General Hurricane, however, was a soldier without equal; she was above fear. She did not cower before him, as perhaps he expected, but planted three of her hooves firmly on the earth, angling the point of her spear towards him with the fourth. He did not launch himself immediately into the fray, as she expected, but still balanced on two legs, slowly advanced forward and stopped a short distance away. This simple fact told her much of what she would need to know about him, but also left her with a number of questions. She had battled griffons even before this day, and found them largely predictable. She was used to analyzing them. She was not likewise accustomed to one of them analyzing her, and for a moment, was not completely certain how best to proceed. She thought for a brief moment to take to the air, but did not. Though many a pony could outmaneuver a griffon, their smaller wings and weaker muscles meant they could not hope to ever outclimb one. Siegfried would easily catch her before she could gain enough altitude or speed to outfly him. Even if that weren’t the case, there was the issues of the branches overhead getting in the way of nearly everything; a dogfight was out of the question. Fortunately, he decided the course of the duel for her and he leapt to the air and flew directly at her, giving a mighty flap of his wings towards the end of his charge so that he came from above.
Calmly, Hurricane leaned back and set the end of her spear against the earth to brace against his charge. Rather than meet the steel tip head-on, however, Siegfried angled his shield such that the spear was deflected to one side. Rather than slashing, he stabbed forward with his sword, and though Hurricane ducked under the strike, she was too close to use her wing blades effectively. Instead, she dove under him and pushed herself up, hoisting the griffon on her withers and flipping him into the air. She bucked hard with her hind legs, but he managed to bring his shield to bear, and although her hooves struck only wood, she felt the vibration of the force all through her body, spinning quickly and hefting her spear once more, she saw Siegfried steadying himself, having landed on his feet. Rather than immediately charge at Hurricane, as her experience dictated he would, he reared again, wings outstretched for balanced, and began to slowly circle around her. Hurricane turned to keep him in front of her, and she felt his eagle eyes roving over her form. After a few moments more, he did charge, loping across the ground on his hind legs as a small dragon might, shield forward and sword raised.
Hurricane analyzed his movement only for the blink on an eye, and then hurled her spear in a high arc and took to the air. She slashed at Siegfried awkwardly with her wing blades. As expected, he blocked with sword and shield and used her momentum to throw her over his shoulder. As she predicted, her spear embedded itself in the ground at that precise moment, and she grabbed it with both her front hooves as she passed, spinning around the haft and reversing direction to slam both her hind hooves into Siegfried’s face. He staggered backwards, but maintained enough of his wits to keep his shield up and sword at the ready, rather than blindly attacking the air. Hurricane pulled her spear from the ground, and Siegfried returned one foreleg to the ground, using his shield as a crutch for a few moments while his vision returned to normal. As she had earlier, Siegfried spit a wad of blood onto the ground, and then reared and began to circle her again.
They continued this deadly waltz for several minutes. Each time, Siegfried would pause momentarily, and then attack again, sometimes even managing to strike her, however ineffective his efforts were, and Hurricane would counterattack, injuring him slightly and driving him back. She realized, however far in the back of her mind, that he was not the thug the every other griffon she’d battled was. He was a true hunter; patient, analytical, and calculating. He was probing her defenses, searching for a weakness to exploit. Eventually, he would find one, for not even she was not without weaknesses, however imperceptible they were. It was no wonder, really, that he’d managed to align so many griffons behind him.
She watched him as he slowly circled around her in that two-legged stance he was so adept at, fiddling with his shield, shifting his stance around as if testing it mentally, and then seeming to discard whatever idea he’d had and shifting again. And then suddenly, he moved to action.
Unexpectedly, Siegfried threw his shield at her like a discus, and though it was easy for her to duck under and deflect it with a wing blade, it provided a momentary distraction for Siegfried to do what she earlier did not and take to wing, diving at her with impressive velocity for a creature so large. Furiously beating her own wings, Hurricane launched herself into the air as well, climbing on a collision course with him. She threw her spear at him, almost lazily, intending to use the distraction to eviscerate her enemy and bring the griffons under Equestria’s hoof once and for all.
She had not been expecting Siegfried to suddenly drop under her thrown spear, swooping so low to the ground that his wingtips touched it when he snapped skyward again. She had not been expecting him to drop Grimm and leave himself totally unarmed. She had not been expecting him to intercept her, slamming his body into hers hard to knock the breath from her lungs despite her armor. And everything happened so fast that she did not even have the chance to expect him to grab her wings, just before the carpi, until after he had already done so.
Hurricane had only a moment to realize exactly how much trouble she was in before pain burned white-hot across her face as Siegfried drove the tip of his beak into her eye. She barely had time to begin screaming before they collided with the ground and went tumbling along. With her wings still tightly gripped, Hurricane was pushed underneath the griffon, and he raked her hind legs with his lion claws. Instinct demanded that she get away from him, that she get as far away from the predator atop her before she was eaten, even though she had no hope of escape with her wings held as they were.
General Hurricane, however, was a soldier without equal; she was above instinct. She did not struggle to escape, but forced her wings rigid and, cocking her hoof back, punched Siegfried across the face as hard as she could. She struck with such force that his helmet was knocked from his head. Capitalizing on the griffon’s own pain and confusion, she looped both forelegs around his neck and thrust his head down to hers, smashing her forehead into his own eye. As he recoiled and grabbed at his face, the pegasus lashed out with her hind hooves and kicked him in the gut for all she had. Alas, her legs were too damaged, the muscles too torn for her to do more than push him weakly away, and before she could begin to get up, he was on her again. One foot pressed down on her barrel as he leaned his weight on her, while the other seized her by her head, talons digging into her flesh and forcing her to look at him.
And she looked at him with every bit of rage she felt, every ounce of hate she held not only for him, but for all the griffons who dared to raise arms against ponies. She looked at him in the eye not held shut, unflinching and unblinking, daring him to strike again. The hate in her eye was matched by his, and when he spoke to her, faces only scant inches apart, his voice was an angry growl.
"Hurricane, General of Equestria's Legions, Faithful Servant of ze Sun und Moon. I am Siegfried, King of ze Norz Vind, und I condemn zee to Hel, for as long as it can hope to hold zee. Temper zy blades in ze fires of damnation, Heerführer, und fill zine heart viz fury und discord.” He suddenly lurched forward, his beak pressed against her nose. "Come und get me, if zou dare.”
Siegfried released his grip on Hurricane’s head and stepped away from her. Hissing in pain, face streaked with tears and dirt and blood, Hurricane rolled off her back and pushed herself back to her hooves. She froze and glared sidelong at the griffon king with her good eye when she felt cold steel on the back of her neck. Once again, Siegfried had retrieved his sword, and was lining up one last strike as an executioner would.
“Zou hast fought hard, Heerführer,” he said. “Die valiantly.”
“Enjoy thy victory whilst thou can, butcher,” Hurricane snarled back, “Equestria will prevail!" In response, Siegfried raised his sword, and Hurricane’s expression twisted with even more anger.
“Vae victis!”
The sword named Grimm fell, and so too, did the pegasus named Hurricane.