The Pacification of Crystal Valley
The Pacification of Crystal Valley
By Tundara
Cadence stood on a low rise, eyes pinched into a severe line, lips pulled back to reveal her teeth. She snapped her braided tail from side to side, wings rustling against her enchanted barding. The same shade of lavender as her eyes, Cadence’s barding had been a gift from her aunt following the Nightmare’s defeat, and was one of the finest works of the smiths craft ever produced. Flowing, interlaced feathers blossomed from lapis lazuli stones across her chest and down her flanks. Each of the stones carried a protective ward forged from a combination of Bright, Harmonic, and Dark runes. How Celestia had managed to get the Bright and Dark runes to co-operate eluded Cadence, and she’d been tutored in magic since she could walk.
Penumbra, the sword forged by her mother while lost in the depths of madness and envy, sat snug against her left side. The blade hummed with power and a thirst for violence that echoed along the strands that bound it to the young princess. Malevolence had been poured into the tempered steel, the metal, dug from Selene’s surface, heated until it was a dark purple. The only moon-steel weapon in existence, Penumbra had been crafted as the instrument of Celestia’s death, but it had rebelled against the Nightmare, and bonded to Cadence, rejecting the darkness it was meant to herald.
Today, Penumbra would herald the dawn of a new age of peace; through bloody war.
To Cadence’s right sat the Lower Crystalspine, a fragmentary spur of the greater mountains that sat in the distance behind her and marched off to the west. A river cut through the valley before her, winding through the rolling, grassy hills strewn with crystalline menhirs growing from the natural magics the permeated the land.
Beyond the river stood a horde of Diamond Dogs in loose clumps and packs. Fifty thousand of the slobbering brutes, an army that in most any other age would have been terrifying to behold.
Cadence had grown up during the War of the Sun and Moon, and had seen armies of a hundred thousand, marching under the banners of the sister goddesses, and clashing in battles that would last for days. At Moonshade Fields, Cadence had even commanded one such army, though under the Nightmare’s judging gaze, and then, again, at the disastrous Fifth Battle of Flankshire.
In comparison to the grand legions formed in the civil war, the army at Cadence’s back was a pale imitation. Two legions, that was all that had answered her call to pacify the north and end once and for all the threat posed by the Diamond Dogs.
Most Equestrians were too weary of war, decades of constant struggle having left a deep scar on the nation. In truth, Cadence was surprised so many had rallied to her banner. Cadence was, at best, viewed with suspicion by Celestia’s supporters, and as a traitor by those that had served the Nightmare. Then again, she shouldn’t have been surprised that these veterans, of all ponies, had once more picked up sword and spear for her cause.
They were the cast-offs and the reject, ponies too used to the life of a soldier to fall easily into the role of a citizen. Soldiering was all they knew from a young age, answering the call to arms at the onset of war when the Nightmare had appeared. Their marks ranged from swords to shields, anvils to towers; but no matter the form, their talents all involved war in some form.
Around her stood her closest supporters and knights, their silver armour gleaming, and their gaze fixed with the utmost determination and contempt on the horde ahead.
“So, here I am again,” Cadence muttered, lifting an armoured hoof to press at the spot where she kept, tucked away beneath her armour, the locket containing the carved reliefs of her foster parents.
As always, in times of stress and particular hardship, she looked to their memory for guidance. It seemed like only the day before that she’d lost them, ripped from their hooves while her birth mother’s cackling laughter filled the small, two room house. She could not recall their names, just their voices as they tucked her into bed and sang her to sleep, whispering sweet nothings as Cadence drifted off.
What would they have thought to see their little Cadence now, she wondered ruefully. Would they be pleased? Would they have been saddened?
“Be good.” It was the only advice Cadence could clearly recall, given as she was spirited away.
Cadence had tried to live up to those two, simple words. Even as she was surrounded by madness and evil, as all the disc seemed to darken and fall ever deeper into hatred until it was as if the world had become part of Tartarus itself.
Being good, however, wasn’t always so easy.
But, somehow, Cadence had managed.
And now she stood on the precipice of something both good and evil.
Shaking off her doubts, Cadence turned to her legions, and with a simple spell, amplified her voice so all could hear her speak.
“Friends, here we are at Tartarus’ Gate once more,” she began, marching back and forth across the hilltop. “Before us stands the enemy, drawn out of their filthy holes and warrens, and ready to retreat back into them, to disappear and return to their raiding ways. Every herd in the north that has been touched by the vile beasts across the way.
“Our sisters and daughters have been stolen and defiled. Our brothers and sons taken and gelded. All of them forced to work in the mines until they die of exhaustion or to the slave-masters whips, and then butchered and served as dinner. For twenty years they grew bolder and bolder while the Sun and Moon warred, their attention diverted to each other. Entire villages have been lost due to inaction.”
The legions stamped their hooves and screamed their outrage.
“No more, I say,” Cadence spread her majestic wings wide, and with Sol just cresting the mountains, her shadow fell across the legions. “I have heard the prayers of the lamenting mothers, and, together, we will make the dogs answer for each and every filly taken from her mother’s hooves. For every colt snatched in the night.
They think ponies as soft. They think of us as weak and cowardly; but I know better!” Cadence paused as the legions roared. “I was with you, legionaires of the 3rd Lunarius, at the final battle of Flankshire, when we faced the charnel house my aunt had set for us. I was with you, my brave sisters and brothers, as you alone escaped with honour, while the rest of the lunar legions broke and fled like cowards. I was with you, fighting for three days until we reached the boundaries of the Everfree.
“It was against you, legionaires of the 2nd Harmonious, that we fought. We were enemies then, those few, short years ago, and now we are allied by common purpose. After today, we will be sisters and brothers all, bound in blood and sweat and victory. We will avenge those taken from us. By Faust, She whom weaves the tapestry of Fate, She whom grants us our very names; we will strike the dogs down with a fury so great and loud, no being will dare challenge ponies for a thousand years!”
Cadence held Penumbra high, moonfire flashing along the blades length with a chilling hiss.
The legions roared louder still, and as their voices died away, the horns trumpeted and the onigers and scorpios began to fire.
By nightfall, not a single diamond dog would remain in the Crystal Valley.
