The air wreaked of rotten flesh and rigor mortis. Thousands of corpses provided a blanket for the grass hills bearing uniforms of green, black and red. Flies buzzed their little wings joining the maggots in feast. The moonlight gave a turquoise hue to the surrounding fog and trees. Afar from this massacre stood a stallion trying to process what he is perceiving. After he had taken in what layed before him, he swiftly darted the direction he came.
The stallion ran out from the woodland through a small village. Which turned into a city and then finally meeting castle gates as he ran. Flags with spades hung from posts painted black and green. The gates stood 50 feet above the ground entirely forged from stainless steel and iron. Two towers stood on either sides of the gate.
"Halt! Who goes there!" Demanded a guard.
"I am the royal messenger you turd. You know who I am and this is really important so let me in!"
"Okay! Okay! don't bite my head off Lazarus. I was just having some fun... " The guard looked up and hit his spear on the ground three times signaling another guard. The gate descended as sounds of chains raddled and wood creaked. Lazarus dashed through the entrance into the castle and headed from the Prince's quarters.
"Spam, spam, spam... seriously who is writing all this spam Debra!"the prince asked.
"I'm just the royal accountant sir." Debra replied.
~KNOCK~KNOCK~KNOCK~KNOCK~KNOCK~KNOCK~
"I'm coming, I'm coming."
The Prince opened the door to find the messenger. The Prince has a dark green mane, eyes and jet black fur coat and is a unicorn. A emerald crown rests on his head with blue rubies engraved on each side and a dark blue collar wrapped around his neck. A spade outlined with neon green was his cutie mark. Him and his brother weren't to big on high class atire and only wore a crown to show for his role in this castle.
"Oh great, more spam?"
"No, this is serious! The entire Division you sent to the eastern front has been wiped out."
"Debra could you excuse us for a moment?" asked the prince in a happy yet dull tone
"Thanks dear..." he said as she exited the room.
"What do you mean"
"I mean, everyone is dead. A massacre. Bloodshed. Vendetta. Must I draw a picture?"
The Prince contemplated while seemly staring at nothing on the floor.
"Vendetta." he repeated to himself.
"Nothing stands between us and the Eastern front. What are we to do?" Lazarus question hysterically.
"Get a hold of my brother. I'm going to need some help"
Lazarus immediately began his trek and sprinted out of the castle. The Prince, Jacob, just stood their trying to soak in everything that he just heard. This was something that almost never happened considering how well trained his soilders are. The Raven Empire wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for their large numbers.
Jacob went and gathered all his high ranking officers and officials up at his meeting room. After His brother, Capstan, arrived he informed collection of officers, allies and officials of the tragedy. They seemed to take it pretty well, at least from what Jake could see. Capstan looked almost just like Jacob only he had a blue mane,eyes and wore a green collar ad blue crown. After all they were twins. Only he had a neon blue outline of a diamond on his flank rather than a spade.
"So how are we going to approach this?" Asked Capstan.
"Well... we can't just send another Division like we already did, that would be plain stupid and we cant afford to lose another division." Jacob Stated.
"Maybe we can fortify the living shit out of the eastern front, I'm not talking about giant forts but small pill boxes trenches and barriers and such, to gives us the upper hand. W got the money and resources for it." blurted out one of the Field Marshals.
"Throw in some artillery and archers rather than all infantry and mages" Blurted out another.
"One problem though, that could take a week at east to finish." Said Jacob.
"Unless you have any other ideas that's just the risk we are going to have to take." said the same Field Marshal.
The Prince just thought for a minute as the silence pierced everyone else's thoughts.
"How many stallion are trained and ready for battle?"
"Exactly 28,000 are ready for combat sire." said a random officer.
"How many did we lose at hay hills?"
"Estimated at about 15,000 we're lost sire" said the same officer.
"Capstan, what do you think?" asked Jacob
"Well" He looked around at the other officers expressions. "I think it's pretty good plan."
"That settles it then. Gather Engineers and resources, I'll have my royal accountant take care of money problems. Capstan? Hello!"
"Huh? Oh sorry I tend to daydream..."
"Yeah I know, now do your job as Prince of the Diamond Kingdom."
"goh! -cough cough- that smells horrid and now my hooves are all dirty." said a worker as he dragged the corpses to a wagon.
"Your mom smells horrid" said his partner
"Shut up bonehead. Can't believe I have to do this. This is work for wretched excuses of equine like you."
"Aww is mister pretty pony a yellow belly" taunted the other worker.
The stallion growled and then tackled his partner and began to fight. Just as soon as the brawl started it ended at the sound of laughter. The two stopped where they were to see a eavesdropping worker laughing at the whole scene.
"what's s funny" scowled the first worker.
"Oh nothing, I just love a good ounce of your guys' stupidity in the morning. It feels me with great deals of joy." he said as he threw a corpse into a wagon.
"I still think it's total bull I have to do this kinda soul wrenching work."
"oh boo-hoo community service is what you get for your tax fraud. You should be grateful you didn't get a few years imprisoned at the dungeon, you ungrateful sack of shit."
"I ought-ah-
"WHY ARE YOU RATS JUST SITTING AROUND? YOU CAN HAVE YOUR PILLOW TALK AFTER YOU HAVE FINISHED YOUR HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE!"A guard interrupted who came out of virtually nowhere. They all sighed and continued dragging corpses to wagons. Hundreds of convicts were sent to work.Workers were clearing the dead bodies laying bricks forming pill boxes and walls with trenches full of spikes at the bottom and putting grass-like tarps over them. They about 1/5 of the way threw by the end of first day.
It was real quiet to. Scouts have been set out to find anything further out east deeper in the timberland but found nothing. This was odd because from what Jacob and Capstan have learned about the Raven Empire is when they attack they constantly send brigades after brigades of soilders for weeks on out. The division was last heard from two days earlier before a messenger was sent out to check up on things.
It was all confusing Jacob for he was still considerably young and hasn't experienced everything there is to experience.Everything he delt with was either simple or short lived. That will all soon change.
Long after the completion of the fortification, in all directions at that, still no sign of Raven soilders. Forthalia would have sent soilders in pursuit of the Raven Empire's location but they already have in the past could never find it and were usually to busy with battle to even do so most of the time.
Weeks began to pass which soon turned into months and eventually a year had passed since the massacre. The Raven Empire was slowly being forgotten especially since a new problem had arised. A new disease has started to spread and has killed a few hundred civilians and hundreds still getting infected.
"So what do know about this pathogen? Any tell tale signs of it?" Jacob asked as he sat at his throne.
"Well, victims get yellow spots around their neck that ich is the first stage, then the victim will have a stroke, then it will basically shut down the brain starting from the neck on up, in simple terms those ar the effects." Doctor Huephs replied.
"Has you're team found an antidote yet?"
"Well, we... were having some difficulties but were working day in day out trying to find one."
"Thank you, Dr. Huephs for your time that's all I needed to know."Jacob replied. Dr. Huephs bowed and walked out of the chamber. Soon after Lazarus walked in.
"What do you have for me today?"sighed Jacob.
"Don't worry, it's good news. Your brother wishes you to meet someone at his castle tomorrow for dinner. It's a really big deal of some sort."
"Who am I meeting exactly?"
"Beats me... just be there around seven"
The prince rolled his eyes as the messenger happily trotted out of the chamber.
Jacob stepped out of his carriage making his way into his brothers palace. Capstan's castle walls are made of various stones, minerals and so on. His Castle was on the side of the other side of the mountains that split the kingdom of Forthalia into two. This mountain played a big role in the idea of splitting ownership fifty-fifty. Much like Jacob's Castle it was decorated with black and blue flags on poles and off of the walls. It was a breathe taking sight, both of their castle's were.
When he finally reached the entrance he saw Capstan and a strange mare standing next to him. She had a white fur coat and a red mane with white highlights. Her eyes were cyan blue and she had red gems as a cutie mark. How convenient...
"Good evening Jacob, I'd like you to meet Scarlet. She is my fiance." he said with a great smile.
Jacob looked at her with a frown as she did him. The silence went on for a good fifteen seconds before Capstan broke it.
"Okay then! Shall we continue to the dining room?"
...
"I'll take that as a yes." Capstan answered awkwardly. Jacob made his way into the dinning room before he could finish.
"So um, any luck with the antidote, my scientists haven't been so lucky." Capstan asked trying to break the silence.
"No not really, it isn't to bad right now but I still want this thing gone before It gets to be to much trouble."
"One of my top scientists have found certain solutions involving vinegar and basalt that affect it, so they've been playing around with that. Ah, here we are!" Capstan pulled out a chair for Scarlet next to the of the table and she gave him a kiss on his cheek and then he pushed her in. Jacob sat across from her and Capstan took a seat at the end of the table in between the two of them. Servants quickly came out from the kitchen with bottles of scotch in their mouth and poured some in everypony's glass.
"The wedding is this Saturday, I want you to be the best stallion obviously. Now.." He raised his glass "Salud."
"To what?" Jacob asked
"Anything."
Jacob shrugged and raised his glass as did scarlet. "Salud" they both said.
"So we've been dating for quite some time, six months to be exact and at the gran theater I finally asked her to be my wife." Capstan said as he smiled at her and she smiled back.
"We met at a garden party and the rest from there."
CLANK
The servants had brought the main dish catching Capstan by surprise. The chefs had cooked up a bundle of soups, salads and other things but the main dish was spaghetti. Capstan hired some of the best chefs Jacob had ever experienced. Whenever he was invited for a meal he almost never turned it down. Jacob had always admired how good Capstan was when it came to the details such as.
Jacob dug into his meal the second it was laid before him. Scarlet began to eat while Capstan dug into a bag laying beside him and pulled out a letter.
"Here, right as he was gonna hand it to Jake he jerked his hand back, whoah! wrong letter" He said with an awkward laugh that quickly drooped down to something unhappy.
"eh... and here we are. This is the letter." He said this time with an actual smile.
"What is this?"
"It's an invitation to the wedding."
The letter was blue and sealed with wax with a diamond engraved on it. He ripped it open and pulled out the invitation.
"Come early." Capstan said breaking Jacob's thoughts. "Don't worry about dressing up either, just come as casual."
Darkness filled the room equally as much as the silence did. Just as Jacob was about to sleep that silence was broken. Awaking to this sound He quickly illuminated the room with his to find a stranger in his room. an armed stranger. Jacob quickly reached for the knife under his pillow.
The stranger lunged at Jacob thrust both of his knifes. Right when he about to stab the prince, Jacob rolled aside from the bed causing the assassin to crash into the wall. While the assassin was recovering Jacob attempted to stab him but failed as he caught his hoof midway. Jacob swiftly bucked the assassin in the chest causing him to hit the wall breaking a bookshelf in the process. Jacob went to stab again only to miss as the assassin ducked his head then used it like a battering ram on Jacobs chest. Jacob attempted to move around the assassin succeeding halfway causing both of them to get hurt in the process. Jacob used the bed to help him up and stared at the assassin as he stared at him.
"Show yourself!" demanded Jacob. The assassin wouldn't risk his identity obviously so he wore a mask. Suddenly the door opened.
"Is everything al- . . . . " said a guard as he soaked in what he was seeing.
The assassin then ran past the guard shoving him out of the way in the process. The assassin ran into two other guards that were coming to see what the commotion was about but they quickly grabbed him.
"Where do you think your going?" said one of the guards as he removed the mask off the guy. The other guard and Jacob soon caught up.
"Sire, you're gonna wanna see this." The guard pointed to the Raven Empire emblem on his flank.
"I'll arrange for more guards on duty and to be on high alert, and get me Lazarus. Capstan must of this" Jacob demanded
