Author's Note
While the prior story retold the plot of The Tower of the Elephant in order to introduce the character of Roanan (and to pay homage to Howard) this story is original with the caveat that it uses a ponified, borrowed main character in a world soaked with the blood of many an author.
Part 1
Long before the coming of the alicorns and the founding of Equestria, Equilonia was a mighty nation, civilized and strong, with many subject states paying her tribute, an empire in all but name. It was on the day of the birth of the new prince that a black-maned mare from the barbaric north, a giant among ponykind, first crossed the border from the savage north in search of loot and war. A she-wolf of Cimmareia, where Roanan stepped, wise ponies made way. Her blood sang to her of battles to be fought, her bones ached to carry the weight of axe and shield into combat.
Roanan was no simple savage. Cimmareia was a poor land, a place of mists and gloomy forests where dead gods scowled with dour meins upon the ponies scraping a meager living from the hard rock, but it was a land that birthed many a hard-sinewed bravo. Those with ambition and imagination would seek to exploit what opportunities may be at hoof in the soft lands of the south or the wild icy madness of the far north. Roanan had already been more of battle and death than many a chieftan, all before her twentieth year, and yet the war-hunger in her breast was not satisfied.
______
Captain Ironshoe looked at the requisition forms he was sending up the chain, asking for more weapons, more recruits, and more stores so he could press his momentary advantage against the Jackish tribes that crowded Equilonia's northern border. There was an opportunity now; a blood feud between the Mac Muir and the Brun Bruin tribes. One blood-crazed mule had murdered another and so thousands must fight one another and die; such is the life of a Jack. Ironshoe had no hopes for any response, not realistically. This outpost was a dead-end; his dreams for glory doomed when his father fell from grace at court. His troops were the castoffs and leavings of better connected officers, and though he did his best to train them, they would eventually fall to the bloody axe of a maddened Jack raider.
"Captain! We have a visitor!" Ironshoe was astounded.
"By all means! Prepare the imperial suite for our guest and summon the chef!" The corporal chuckled at his commander's humor; of all the prick officers he'd had the misfortune to serve under, this one was the least prickish. "What manner of madpony would visit this pile of pustular pigshit?" The dark tan pony absently ran a hoof through his blue mane. His tail was cropped short, victim of a Jackish waraxe when he was serving his lieutenantcy, and he kept it that way as a reminder.
"A Cimmareian, by the gods!" laughed the corporal.
"No wonder! Cimmareia makes this place look like a garden spot! Let me put my maps up, corp." He rolled up a few sketches he had of the frontier and stuffed them in his hooflocker, and stood up to his full, intimidating height.
The mare who entered topped him by half a head. She was a dark blue roan with a black, square cut mane and blue eyes that were almost molten. Her body was sheathed in bands of muscle that rippled like a panther's when she moved. She was covered with numerous small scars, some of them recent, and on her flank she bore the cutie mark of a bloody sword.
He recovered his aplomb quickly. "Well met, stranger. I am Captain Ironshoe. Welcome to Fort Pigshit!" He grinned and put out a hoof.
She did not laugh nor crack a smile, though he thought he saw a glimmer in those burning blue flames. She did, however, meet his hoof with hers. "I am Roanan. In Cimmareia, even our pigshit piles are in more defensible places than this bundle of kindling." Then she did crack a smile, but only a small one.
"Indeed, I look forward to the day when I may lead my valiant troops against a Cimmarean pig farmer and conquer a proper pile of pigshit, but for now, this must do." Roanan laughed at that.
"You are more entertaining than other Equilonean officers I have met. But most of them were dead, after all." Then she roared at her own joke and especially the look on Ironshoe's face, her laugh like a lion facing down a pack of jackals.
"Well Roanan, allow me to offer you what hospitality I may. You can have a meal with the troops and there is an empty sergeant's room with a lock on the door. All stallions here, I'm afraid, though it looks to me that... well, they'd be madder than Stirrupian sand lice to try anything. Now, sit with me for a bit and enjoy some of this fine brandy," he held out a skein of rotgut, "and tell me about what you've seen on the trail."
She sat on a bench with him and took a mighty pull of the harsh stuff, relishing the burning running down her throat. "Ah! My thanks; this brandy is horrible! I traveled from the north, down the sea road. Normally I would have taken to the swamps but Donkan Mac Muir has slain Blue Brun Bruin after the Jackish knave cheated in a drinking contest, and so now the road is clear of large bands of reavers, at least until the blood debt is settled. I was able to whet my blade a few times, however, on those Jacks foolish enough to come against me."
Ironshoe slammed his hoof down on the small table. "Damn! I knew it! If I could mount an expedition with a decent force, I could take the old fortress at the rivermouth. It is made of good stone and commands the bridge. Fifty ponies with bows in there could fight off a thousand Jacks if they were supplied by the sea! The Jacks, if they even thought to defend it, would at best be armed with spears, and they could not survive a siege. But I have only a hundred-odd castoffs from the lowest ranked outfits. Old swaybacks, colts with lips still wet from their matron's teats, the best ones I have are the cripples; at least they have seen battle!"
"That corporal who brought me in here from the gatehouse, Jaghoof, he seems likely enough." Roanan took another swig and passed the foul liquor to the captain.
"He is at that, for all that he has a glass eye and he's an insubordinate bastard who couldn't keep straight with any other officer. But I don't mind him, and he's hoofy with bow, spear and sword, that one. I'd rate him my master of arms if I could, but there's sergeants senior to him who aren't worth a sack of assholes and anyway, I need him to clerk for me. Sergeant Stoutshanks does well enough for a pony with three legs and no imagination; he's the best of a bad bunch at any rate, not a sadist or an idiot."
"Captain, I was wondering..." her face and voice softened and she smiled at him, seeming to warm up a bit. "Maybe I don't need to stay in that sergeant's room. It's been a while since I've taken a stallion, and I find I can talk to you. You might even survive the experience." He looked at her again. Under the dirt and grime of the road, while she'd never be pretty, and scars aside, she was a handsome mare with high cheekbones, fascinating eyes and a glossy mane. Not an ounce of fat on her body; she'd probably buck him to death given half a chance. He'd never been attracted to muscular females, but there was something about this one; he found that he could talk to her too. But...
"Roanan, if I was not the Captain of these ponies, in this, the plothole of Equilonia, I would be delighted. You are, however, the only mare within a hundred miles who isn't a Jenny, and we have a pretty severe morale problem as it is. If the Captain were to cover the only available mare... I must respectfully decline your tempting offer." He bowed his head to her, in his heart truly regretting the necessity.
Her eyes narrowed. "Not many stallions would dare refuse me. Tell me, if your command were surrounded, heavily outnumbered and on death ground, what would you do?"
"Attack!" he cried, without hesitation. She smiled.
"You, Captain, are a good leader. I could serve under you, and not in the capacity we were talking about earlier. Take me on as your mistress-at-arms at the rate of sergeant, and I'll train your ponies to kill Jacks. Then we can go take your castle. Tell me, how many Jacks have you slain?"
He thought about it for a moment. "Six I know are dead, and four that probably died of their wounds. That doesn't count the ones I crippled who were slain by others. Call it ten then."
"I have slain that many and three hundred more, Ironshoe. Do you believe me?"
It seemed a ridiculous boast, but something in her eyes made him hesitate to name it so. "I want to believe you, but I find it difficult. Perhaps Cimmareans are not good with arithmetic?"
"We count ears well enough." Her grin was savage and he smiled back.
"Very well. Defeat Corporal Jaghoof with staves and I will rate you at Sergeant and make you my mistress-at-arms. After that, we shall see what you can make of this band of misfits. Tomorrow?" He pulled at the grisly skein, grimacing at the bite of the alcohol.
"Tomorrow." She put out her hoof and he met it with his.
_______
Deep within the swamp to the north, a black unicorn, or something like it, chanted foul syllables under a crescent moon. She cackled as shadows seemed to gather before her, her twisted horn dancing with crimson and green. She reached into a bag and drew forth the still-beating heart of a Jack chieftan and cast it into the midst of the wrenching darkness that sought to warp the eye that followed it. "Yoth! Aghtrach! Kshnthyr! Maeg!" Her horn blazed and the darkness solidified. It rose before her, a pile of rotting vegetation twice the height of a pony with four stout legs, a gaping maw and eyes that seemed doorways into madness. It roared and a nauseating stench rolled across the scene. The unicornoid witch gibbered and capered. "My son! My son!"
_______
Corporal Jaghoof whirled his staff, warming up his forelegs. From what he was told, the odds were running three to one, against him. Looking at his opponent, he thought that highly optimistic. In the daylight, with the grime of the road washed off, she was an exceptionally healthy looking specimen of marehood, just half again as large as any mare he'd ever seen, and broad in comparison. Her forelegs were more heavily muscled than his rear legs were. He swallowed and planned his fight. Perhaps with that heavy musculature, she'll be slow, but from the near-perfect balance of her stance, he highly doubted it. This one was a slayer to be reckoned with. That left only one arrow in his quiver; trickery.
She saluted him and he returned the gesture, settling into what he hoped looked like an imperfect defensive rearing stance, one that would encourage her to attack low on the right side. The remainder of the garrison watched intently. She did strike low on the right, attacking with the staff in her mouth to have greater mobility, gods she's fast! his staff defense deliberately weak, allowing the strike through, but he leaned back just enough so that the wind of the strike tickled the coat of his rear leg as he riposted straight at her chin. She danced back though, not off balance as he'd hoped, either suspicious of his defense or just unreasonably quick. Or both, he thought glumly. Better go with Plan B.
He danced to the right, near the carts, fending off two lightning strikes that numbed his hooves. She saw that he had moved too close to one of the carts, and thought that he'd made a mistake; now he could only dodge to the left, or perhaps he intended to duck under the cart, though that would be a losing tactic. She rose up on her hind legs to close with her staff in her forelegs, intending to wear him down with her greater strength and endurance.
His hoof plunged into the hay in the cart and emerged with a glass vial, which he immediately threw to break at her feet. Treachery! she thought, her legs going out from under her as the oil slicked the cobblestoned courtyard. There was a great shout from the stallions of the garrison as Jaghoof leaped, his staff striking to take her solidly on her skull, but even stunned, she rolled with the strike and it glanced off.
She let go of the staff with her left hoof and whipped it around with her right to take him in the legs when he leaped past her, catching him a fell blow to the ankle. He went down with a grimace, rising as she did, shaking her head. He took a properly balanced posture, readying himself for a grim stand. She stepped in and her staff was a whirling blur. He blocked a dozen attacks successfully before one snuck through, then another and another, striking him on the upper forelegs and the shins, the pain causing him to slow.
Her blood was now warmed up. With a great cry, she redoubled the strength and speed of her attacks and his eyes went wide with dismay, as three strikes in a row took him in the shoulders and a last one creased his brow, sending him senseless to the ground.
Jaghoof came to when a pail of water was thrown in his face. He moaned, his head feeling split wide open, his shoulders and shins aching and by all useless little gods that ankle! Roanan reached a hoof down to lift him and he did his best to grin but he feared he looked like he was displaying a death-mask rictus. "Well struck, Roanan."
She grinned back at him. "Well done, yourself! You secreted that oil there last night, did you not?"
"Yes I did, sergeant. Congratulations."
"You did very well indeed, Jaghoof. That was the best fight I've had in almost a year. Just one thing though." She gestured at her eye. His hoof flew up and felt the empty socket.
"Shit! Nopony move!"
_______
Ioan Mac Farry watched from the top of the stone house. Why his father bade him to do so, he did not know. Jacks were not meant for the stone houses, not even these that stood like mountains. Jacks were not made to kill ponies from a distance with rocks or spears; one had to look into the eyes of one's opponent when they were dying to be able to eat their soul when you ate their heart. Nothing was as good as the astonishment on a pony's face as he realizes that today is the day, and Ioan Mac Farry is my slayer.
There was a shape moving in the edge of the woods near the bridge. Or two shapes. Perhaps an adult and a foal, looking at the relative sizes of the two. He called down to his eight brothers in the cruelly accented Jackish tongue, and they went forward to investigate. The light of magic sizzled, killing several of his brothers, but worse, illuminating the nightmare shape that bit the head off of Arran Mac Farry and started chewing.
Ioan shrieked and threw himself from the tower at the sight.
Their twelve dead buried with honor under a pile of stone, their wounds bound, the company continued up the road. "Roanan, walk with me!" Captain Ironshoe walked at the front with his clerk and his mistress-at-arms, the Cimmareian warmare who had transformed his command from a band of misfits and outcasts to an effective fighting force. "Tell me, how do you think the lads did today?"
"Very well indeed, for their first battle. Had that been just the vanguard, and fighting like the southern Jacks we know, we would have slain the remainder with no further losses, I should think. However, Onager Whytebruin is no mere Jack warleader. He did you honor this day, and he has given me cause to wonder about what other surprises there may be in the savage lands northward."
The captain nodded. "I wonder though, what was meant by the laughter when I spoke of taking the tower. He said there would be no Jacks there. What if there is something else?" He pursed his lips thoughftully.
______
The witch rummaged through rotten boxes, cleared shelves of tomes that disintegrated to shreds and dust when they struck the floor of the tower library. "It is here, my son! Here somewhere!" The horrific, hulking pile of stinking vegetation did not move, and made no sound. It waited patiently while its mistress searched.
"Ha! Ah ha!" Her hoof struck an iron ring set in the floor, under a pile of rotten old cloth. Her horn glowed and the stuff burned, leaving behind piles of ash, which she cleared away with a breeze, summoned by a thought. She grinned, capered madly, danced and sang nonsense syllables. Then she stopped, and reached down to pull the ring, and lift the stone out of the floor to which it was attached. It would not budge. She grunted, and her horn glowed.
The ring sat there inert.
"What? Star iron? No! Nooooo!!!!" The witch howled in frustration, then she looked at her nightmarish summoning. "My son! Come here, and raise this stone for your poor old mother!"
The creature did as it was bid, shuffling towards the cleared space, leaving behind a trail of damp, fetid filth as it did. But when it reached for the ring, it paused, then backed away as though repulsed.
"My child, raise this stone!" The vegetative mass again reached forward, but this time it cried out in a horrible roar snatching its limb back as though it were burned.
"You cannot touch the star iron, my son, you are a creature of magic!" She keened her frustration, then bent over and put her hoof to it once more. She grunted and pulled, but the stone would not budge. "Ah! It is too heavy for me to raise!" She swore horrible and dark oaths in tongues that were never meant to be spoken by ponykind. There must be a way! There must!
______
The troop reached the river mouth, where the high hills had been cut into by an ancient deluge, carving a rough path to the sea. Numerous cataracts and falls made the river unfordable, but somepony, perhaps an Equilonean king of old, had built a stout stone bridge, the south end of which was guarded by a high tower, the name of which has been long forgotten as this territory had fallen to the ebb and flow of barbarian invasions.
In the tower window above, a single candle burned. "What? So there is a resident in the tower? And one the Jacks did not or could not slay out of hand? What sort of pony might that be?" the Captain asked Roanan, half in wonder and half with worry.
"We will learn nothing standing here, Captain Ironshoe." The Cimmarean started to trudge up the winding path that, if the tower was defended by bowponies, would become a deathtrap for any foe foolish enough to dare a direct assault. The Captain looked back to his command and motioned them forward. The company advanced amid a clattering of armor and weapons.
They marched straight to the tower, with no sign of anypony save the mysterious occupant who burned a candle in the high window. Night was coming on as they reached the portcullis and found it raised, the door open and nopony in sight. Roanan felt a shiver of superstition climb her back, but steeled herself. She feared nothing but the nameless dread felt by all barbarians at the thought of unwholesome sorceries and dark summonings.
Ironhoof held her back from the gate, sending the scout in instead. The small pony, a Neighmedian who was an escaped slave, was not blamed for not realizing the force of Jacks they encountered was merely the vanguard of a much larger force. The thought of Jacks using screening forces was both novel and worrisome to the Captain; he hoped it wouldn't catch on.
The scout, who's name was Clipperhoof, crept cautiously inside, watching for traps and pitfalls. He was through the gatehouse and into the inner bailey when he signaled back to the Captain to bring in the rest. Ironhoof nodded at Roanan and with her at the lead, the main body entered, leaving two of the wounded ponies to guard the gates. The leaders looked up at the stair leading to the main keep. At the top, that gate too was yawning open. The scout scaled the steps with caution and quietly entered the hall of the tower. It was dark, so he lit a torch, and searched for any dangers that could imperil the unit; the place was bare, stripped of all things of value, a stone chamber with a hearth and nothing more.
"No sign of our host yet. He must be in the rooms above; let us go make ourselves known." The captain assigned one noncom to return to the gatehouse with a team to get the portcullis down and called on Sergeant Roughcoat to accompany him, Roanan and Jaghoof to the second level.
There were stairs along the circular interior wall that went up to a closed door. Faint light could be seen under the jam. The Captain looked at Roanan and shrugged. Then he knocked.
A soft feminine voice sounded from behind the door. "Visitors? How wonderful! Please come in!" Roanan's blue eyes narrowed to slits as Ironshoe opened the door. The speaker was revealed to be a unicorn with an alabaster coat and a golden mane, lovely and delicate, her movements full of grace and upon her serene features a smile of welcome under green, sparkling eyes. "My name is Wisdom Warmlight. I am sure you have many questions."
"Well, yes ma'am, I sort of do. I'm Captain Ironshoe, these are Roanan and Jaghoof, members of my unit, and what in the name of all the unnamed gods of kitchens and privies are you doing up here in this land of howling savages? The Captain looked at her, plainly astonished. Roanan grunted. Unicorns...
The unicorn nodded. "The savages are easily misled and frightened by magic, Captain Ironshoe, so I am in no danger. Any who are about would shun the tower, having seen terrible beasts and mighty spells being cast by dreadful sorcerers." She smiled and giggled prettily as the rank and file soldiers stared, enthralled. Captain Ironshoe himself was having a difficult time focusing on the interrogation.
"That's all very well, ma'am, but where are you from and why are you here?" He swallowed hard as he could not help gazing upon the gentle curve of her supple neck, the soft, creaminess of her pure, impossibly white coat, the flowing spun-gold softness of her immaculate mane.
"Captain, Roanan, Jaghoof, I am a seeker of knowledge, sent here from the Academy at Tureign to look for an artifact lost ten thousand moons ago. It is only under this moon that we have been able to locate it, and it is right here in this room! Imagine my frustration when I was unable to obtain it due to the type of protection guarding it. Fortune has smiled upon me, however, and brought you here, and I beg your aid in one small deed. Once I have gathered the relic, a small thing of value only to scholars such as inhabit the Academy, I assure you, I will be on my way and you may have this wonderful old tower all you yourself."
Jaghoof spoke first. "That would explain why the Jacks were laughing about us coming to the tower, if they thought there was a sorcerer here, performing dark magic." Roanan nodded, but was still suspicious of this unicorn.
"Well, Mage Warmlight, what is this service you require?" The Captain was smiling openly now, utterly charmed.
"Upon the floor, you see there, that iron ring? It is made of starmetal, and my magic cannot touch it." She sighed. "It is also quite beyond my ability to lift with my own strength. Surely yon brawny Cimmarean could raise the stone with one hoof."
"Roanan, would you please?" The Captain did not look at her while he spoke, he gazed at the enthralling enchantress.
"Sir, are you sure this is wise?" He nodded, a grin on his face. Roanan sighed. Stallions! She walked to the ring, and as she did, the mage followed closely, blessing all with her generous smile. Of the stallions, only Jaghoof didn't appear to be smitten. He looked at Roanan, and smiled broadly. Stallions! She grasped the ring in one hoof and pulled. The stone was set firmly, perhaps cemented, but there was a grinding sound and it popped free, leaving her holding the heavy ring and perhaps a hundred pound block of stone. The unicorn moved quickly to grab the contents of the hole, her black hoof and matted coat a blur... wait a minute!
Roanan looked in horror at the apparition before her and gagged as a terrible smell filled her nostrils. The fantastically beautiful unicorn was gone, replaced instead by a foul nag, black and grey with a matted coat, scrawny neck, a twisted black horn and crazed eyes, mismatched with one brown and one green. She looked like what might result if a Jack bred with a unicorn, and the spawn of such a union had been raised in Stirrupya among the nameless dark gods and demons. She leered at Roanan with yellow teeth as she placed what seemed to be a piece of tin carved with runes on a rawhide strip around her neck. "Thank you." Her once dulcet tones were a cruel rasp.
Roanan released her hold on the iron ring and the stone dropped to the floor, and all was as it was. The beautiful unicorn was wearing a small silver bell on a silver chain, smiling at her with earnest thanks. Chrome! "Ironshoe, Jaghoof! It's a glamour! She's not..." The unicorn frowned, then looked at the ring, comprehension dawning on its false features.
"Oh, the starmetal opened your eyes! Well, no matter, you have served your purpose." Roanan found herself paralyzed, her heart filled with a foul and polluted ice as a black glow shone from the unicorn's horn, the illusion falling away. The soldiers recoiled from the suddenly hideous nag. A wretched stench filled the room; how could we have missed it? wondered Roanan. It was as though they were in the midst of a foetid bog.
Captain Ironshoe recovered first and drew his blade with great speed, whipping it across the witch's neck. It bounced off like he had struck an iron statue. "Oh, yes, thank you Roanan, for this little bauble." She grinned hideously. "You could strike me all day with your weapons and not a one would scratch me. I don't even have to kill you, and you have been of service to me... but my son has to eat. Come meet our guests, my child!" she called, as swords and spears bounded off her flesh.
There was another staircase that led to the tower roof. Ronan shuddered as the door at the top of the stairs opened and the nauseating stench redoubled in strength. Several of the soldiers vomited, and they were fortunate as they were not looking at the freakish caricature of a pony as it shambled down the stairs, leaving behind a foul, damp trail as it did so. Soldiers screamed as they saw doom descend upon them. Several ran for the door, only to find it bound by the witch's puissant magics, and banged on it uselessly, wailing in desperation. Others were made of sterner stuff, and having made no impression on the witch, focused their attention on the abomination that stepped off the staircase and into the room.
A grey pony with a white mane charged the thing, his eyes wide with terror, his sword swinging to bury itself in the enormous monster's neck. The creature made no sound as it grasped the pony with its forward appendages, lifted him from the ground and twisted, shattering his spine like a shoot of rotten bamboo. It threw the broken pony into the crowd of soldiers now backing away, looking desperately for any means of escape; several were bowled over. Roanan still could not move move or speak, only watch in horror as it pushed forward, trapping Sergeant Roughcoat against the wall with an outstretched limb. His muffled screech could be heard as it covered his head with the pad of damp, moudly vegetation that should have been a hoof, and leaned into him. There was a sickening popping sound that filled the room over the moans and cries of the terrified ponies as his skull shattered. The creature pulled back, Roughcoat's headless corpse sliding down a wall covered with blood, brain and bone. It turned pits that may have been eyes in the mad imaginings of some drug-crazed lunatic towards the survivors.
The thing waded into the gathered soldiers, taking two of them and smashing them together and tossing their broken forms aside like dolls. One soldier ran for the staircase, up and out onto the roof. His cry as threw himself from the battlements was one as of victory. Another took his blade and slit his own throat, rather than join his brother who was lifted up to the mouth of the thing, his head engulfed by the black maw, and pulled off by a single motion. The nightmare chewed on bone and brain and cast about for others to slay as the door was beaten on both sides; soldiers frantic for entry on the one side and those desperate for exit on the other.
Only Captain Ironshoe and Corporal Jaghoof remained capable of coherent thought and movement. The officer leaped at the thing, his mighty sword shearing off shards of vegetation as he danced in and out of the abomination's reach. Jaghoof leaped for the unicornoid, but instead of attacking with his sword, he leaped bodily upon her and bore her down to the floor. The ice in Roanan's heart faded and she found she could move, albeit sluggishly.
She drew her blade and moved forward as though through cold water, to where the Captain was fencing with the thing out of a nightmare. He slipped on the blood-slicked stones and the thing reared up to catch him up in an awful bear hug. With every step she gained surer movement and when she reached the thing, her sword carved chunks out of its back as it tried to smother Ironshoe. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black flash; the witch had turned her spell on Jaghoof and he was pinned against the wall.
The horror released the Captain to deal with this new threat. It turned on Roanan and reared to crush her, Ironshoe sprawled and dazed on the floor. He cried out to her, "It has a heartbeat! The heart, Roanan!" Then the thing flew at her, coming down from almost twice her height, a wall of black and green filth. She threw the point of her blade upward in a stop-thrust, aimed at the center of its chest, and it rode the blade down to get at her, mindless in its rage.
The sword seemed to strike something less yielding than the surrounding vegetable matter as the creature fell upon her, and she twisted the blade just before it crushed her. Black ichor erupted from the chest and it released a nauseating gasp of air as it roared its death-howl, momentum carrying it down upon her. At that moment before it smashed Roanan to the floor, the spell binding the vegetation broke, and she was covered in a deluge of rotting garbage that clothed her and the floor and clung to the black blood that flowed down her arms from the heart impaled upon her sword.
"NOOO! MY SON!" The witch shrieked in rage, and dropped Jaghoof, who slid down the floor to lay still. The Captain recovered himself enough to run into her and clasped her around the waist. Her horn glowed black as she prepared herself to deal with this next minor annoyance. Roanan dropped her sword.
She bent and picked up the stone with the starmetal ring and rushed at the witch. Roanan held it in two hooves, with the ring on the striking face as though a hammer. The witch realized her peril at the last instant, her mismatched eyes going wide as the stone came down upon her. "NO!" The starmetal broke her shield and the stone broke her head, neck, and forelegs with a great crunching sound as it was propelled downward by all the force of the Cimmarean's rage and hatred. The stone itself shattered and all was still and quiet except for the moans of the wounded and the cries of the mad. The door flew apart under the sustained assault and Sergeant Stoutshanks burst into the room at the head of a squad, astonished by the evidence of violence and foul magic. He helped his Captain extricate himself from the crushed corpse of some dark pony and watched as Roanan, covered in filth and blood, leaned over Jaghoof.
She looked down upon him as he took shallow breaths, blood running from his muzzle. "She crushed me, Roanan, but I am avenged. You were magnificent. May the gods always smile on you." She reached her hoof down to stroke his face and he weakly turned to kiss it, then coughed, more blood leaking.
"When I am in my cups, and I sing in the taverns of great warriors I have fought with and known, the name of Jaghoof will always be given the greatest honor." Her molten blue eyes were filled with pain as she bent forward to kiss him. Then he was gone.
______
When dawn came, the dead were laid to rest under a stone in the courtyard, and ponies stood to remember their comrades and honor their deeds. Except for Jaghoof. Roanan had taken his body to the top of the tower, and here she built a bier and lit it under him, and stood there in silence as the flames consumed him, his spirit flying with the sparks that flew up high over the river and down into the sea. Ironshoe and Clipperhoof stood by, off to the side. Clipperhoof's eyes shown with moisture and Ironshoe turned, in astonishment. He wiped away the tears, saying "She will not cry, so I will cry for her."
Three days later, as they set about cleaning and repairing the fortification, a lookout spied a ship coming up the shore, a galley flying the red and gold standard of Equilonia, which also now streamed from the tower roof. There were cheers and shouts of huzzah by all except for Roanan, who had been in a brown study since the death of Jaghoof.
The Captain, a piece of tin bound to his breast, touched his friend on the shoulder. "Thank you. None of this would have been possible without you, Roanan." She grunted, then the lookout cried again.
"A Jackish host, from the south!" The Captain and Roanan both ran to the south wall to espy hundreds of Jack warriors marching, followed by a hundred more Jacks in chains, led by the grisly standard of a Jack's head on a long pole. Onager Whytebruin had returned, true to his promise. He stopped on the side of the road, looked at the tower flying the Equilonian standard and saluted them. Even from here, you could hear the echoes of his great laugh. His troop marched on towards the bridge.
Roanan looked at her Captain, a ring of iron on a thick cord around her neck, and smiled for the first time in three days. "You have done well, my Captain. I shall sing of you in the mead halls as well, but my blood will not let me stand guard in a fortress, as you well know.
"Come with me to Equilonia! There will be honors, rewards, position! You shall be my right hoof, Roanan! There is none I admire or esteem more than you!" She smiled again and shook her head. "No, but thank you. My honors and rewards I shall take with my own hoof, but the north calls to me now." She looked out at the column now crossing the bridge. "Farewell, my friend." Then she was down the stairs, out the gate, and in pursuit of the the host of Onager Whytebruin.
Clipperhoof looked at the Captain. Ironshoe shook his head. "You're madder than she! Go ahead, be off with you!" The scout smiled and bounded down after the barbarian.
A time would come when Roanan would return to Equilonia, and there she would fight alongside General Ironshoe, and slay a tyrant, ripping the crown from the head of that wicked pony to set it upon her head with her own hoof. But that is a story for another day.
Author's Note
There! I hope you enjoyed it. I did borrow a few elements from the Conan The Barbarian movie (the first one) which I hope you don't mind. Please give me feedback! If you downvote this, please tell me why; it will help me improve as a writer! And may the gods smile upon you all in battle!
