Shadows in the North - A Sundering of Equestria Tale

Chapter Two

It was, by now, getting dark. The two stallions had been walking for some hours now, following Defiant Arc’s directions, which he drew from a tattered map and a tiny compass. They had long since left the relative comfort of the gulley. According to the Centurion, there was a waypoint with supplies and a place to sleep less than a mile north of them, but as the minutes ticked by, Colonel Staid began to doubt the veracity of this belief more and more.

Not that the old stallion doubted that Defiant Arc was trying to get them to safety. Staid had seen many soldiers during his long career in the Imperial military, and he’d come to realise that the most motivating force a solider possessed was not belief in a cause or loyalty to his commander, but how hungry he was, and where the next meal was coming from.

Therefore, Staid thought to himself, as he, the Colonel, was the sole supplier of food in their current situation, he had (for the time being) the upper hoof in their association. The tactical advantage was negligible, he knew, but the long-term strategic implications were high.

This is what Colonel Staid reminded himself of as he and Defiant Arc trudged onwards through the unrelenting sleet-storm. It helped assuage his fears that the Royal Guardspony would suddenly snap and turn on him.

“How much further?” Staid asked, raising his voice so that he could be heard above the storm.

“Not much more to go!” Defiant Arc shouted back, staring angrily at the raggedy map. After a few seconds, he turned it upside down. “A left up here!”

Staid glanced around. Every direction seemed to contain nothing but icy, storm-ravaged wasteland. He was beginning to doubt that his decision to work with the Equestrian was a sensible one.

His plan was rooted in basic military strategy, describable simply as ‘in multitudine virtutis’; or, in Equestrian, ‘strength in numbers’. It had come as quite a shock to Staid to see his task force of several thousand ponies overrun in mere minutes by hordes of shadow-creatures that erupted from the very ground. Numbers hadn’t saved them then – but Staid was not daunted. Numbers had only failed them because the enemy had superiority in that respect, he told himself. Where one is inferior in numbers, one must become superior in other respects. Moreover, one must also seek to diffuse the advantage of the enemy.

Ten thousand shadow-ponies had overwhelmed his force of but a few thousand in minutes because they were able to bring their superior numbers to bear. If ten thousand shadow-creatures were to fight two ponies, they would be unable to bring their full numbers to bear. Ideally, it would be a two-versus-two fight – which was a fight Staid was confident they could win – but admittedly was also one that would have to be repeated five thousand times. ‘Strength in numbers’; their strength, their enemies’ numbers.

At least, in theory.

“How much further now?” Staid asked, as innocently as he dared.

Defiant Arc growled. “Less than a mile!” he snapped.

After another hour, and at long last, the sun finally dropped over the horizon. The temperature immediately and discernibly dropped. Staid heard the Centurion mutter some exclamation concerning the Princess Celestia (whom, Staid recalled, was worshipped in Equestria as some kind of sun-deity) before lighting up his horn. It was clear to the Colonel that Defiant Arc intended to carry on the freezing march through the night.

“Centurion,” Staid began, his voice raw and croaky from the cold, “Don’t you think that it might be a good idea to make camp for the night?”

“No!” Defiant Arc barked, glaring at the Imperial, “We keep going! The waypoint is just ahead!”

Staid sighed. He was going to have to be more aggressive in his approach.

“Centurion,” he began again, “We have been wandering around for the best part of the day. All this time you have been declaring that your beloved waypoint is less than a mile away – and yet we have encountered nothing. I think it might be time to give up for today, and hope that the storm relents for tom-”

“Shut up!”

Staid was not an easy stallion to rile, but the freezing-cold weather and the loss of his soldiers had been slowly wearing away at his nerves. “Centurion-!” he began.

“No, be quiet!” Defiant Arc said, “Listen!”

The Colonel fell silent. His ears weren’t what they used to be – in fact, one of them was missing the top half – but after a few seconds of strenuous listening, he was certain that he could hear a distant thunderous sound, separate from the roar of the sleet-storm. It sounded vaguely like artillery-fire, but there was something slightly odd about it.

“There’s a battle going on around here,” Staid said, peering through the snow-filled darkness to try to determine the location of the sound’s source, “Another shadow-pony ambush, do you think?”

“Yeah, probably,” Defiant Arc said, as he too peered through his snowy surroundings. Just then, another explosion sounded and both stallions caught sight of the blast as it flashed in the night air. The Centurion sniffed. “Gunpowder. Equestrians don’t use gunpowder. Is that your lot?”

“I’m not sure,” said Staid, making a move in the direction of the battle, “Let’s… Centurion? Where are you going?”

“Away,” Defiant Arc stated, throwing a slight glare in the Colonel’s direction, “You've found your friends. I have a waypoint to reach.”

Somewhat surprised by his acquaintance’s reaction, Staid said, “But Centurion, I'm not even sure that is the Imperial Army. And if, by some lucky happenstance, it turns out to be just that, surely it would be folly to run from a source of heat and food in this weather?”

“I’d rather die in the snow than be the Empire’s prisoner,” Defiant Arc said flatly. He turned away and began to walk off.

Staid was at a loss at what to do. This pony was not acting logically. He began to formulate a response, when the situation unexpectedly and dramatically changed. The Colonel was the first to notice them; he spotted the sinister dark shapes approaching them out of the corner of his eye.

“Centurion!” he shouted, “Shadow-ponies! And they’ve spotted us!”

Defiant Arc spun back around, sword drawn. True to the Colonel’s word, a mass of black silhouettes was flowing across the ground towards them. There were too many, and moving too quickly, for either pony to count.

Both knew that running would not be an option.

While Staid hurriedly tried to pull his posable gun-arm out of one of his many saddle-bags, Defiant Arc rushed forwards, sword levitating by his side.

“Out of the way, you Old Billy!” the Centurion shouted as he charged, briefly mystifying Staid with his obscure reference. This momentary hesitation was apparently sufficient cause for Defiant Arc to shove the Imperial aside and bring his sword down on the first shadow-pony to erupt from the ground.

Defiant Arc grinned as he heard the sound of shattering glass, and the rearing pony-shape dissipated without a sound. His smile immediately disappeared as three more shadows took on three-dimensional forms.

“How did you kill it?!” Staid shouted, finally managing to pull his pistol free of his saddle-bags. “Did you use magic?”

The shout attracted the attention of the three shadow-ponies; Defiant Arc took this opportunity to cut through two of them with a single sweep, before jumping backwards to avoid the surviving one’s retaliatory swipe.

“Their hearts!” the Centurion called out, “Smash their hearts!”

With another enthusiastic cry, Defiant Arc stabbed forwards into the dark shape, again hearing the satisfying sound of breaking glass.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more shapes burst up from the ground, and dived aside just in time to block their group-pounce. The Centurion got back on his hooves and at once found himself swiping at the creature’s shadowy hoof-blades – disrupting their outline, so they couldn’t hit him.

There was a gunshot, followed by a shattering of glass, and one of the shadow-ponies immediately burst apart. A second later, another gunshot ensured another creature followed suit.

“Shoot for their hearts,” Staid muttered, as he took aim again. All of a sudden, he noticed another group of shapes flow across the ground, heading this time in his direction. He switched targets.

Defiant Arc meanwhile had cut down another two of the shadow-ponies, but more seemed to be appearing every second. He smashed apart one creature the moment it erupted from the ground with a forceful downward strike, only for it to be replaced the next second with two more.

Panting a little with the effort of sustained combat, the Centurion backed away. He glanced back at the Colonel; Staid was further away than he had been earlier, moving steadily backwards from the encroaching shadow-things, all while firing shot after shot into the small but ever-growing crowd. Defiant Arc gave his own group of attackers a casual swipe with his sword, killing none but briefly disrupting them all, before turning and running towards Colonel Staid.

Defiant Arc crashed into the crowd attacking Staid, catching the shadow-creatures by surprise. With a series of swift, flashy and (the Centurion couldn’t help admitting) extremely well-placed swipes, he dispatched most of his attackers within a few seconds. The snowy ground became covered in tiny shards of crystal.

Inevitably, seconds later, more shapes emerged from the ground. They were relentless.

“Excellent work, Centurion!” Staid exclaimed encouragingly, as, increasingly surrounded, the two of them were forced closer until they were essentially back-to-back. “That’s the kind of fighting skill I’ve come to expect-” he ducked under a blow, and fired point-blank into the creature’s heart, dissipating it “-come to expect from the Royal Guard of Equestria!”

Defiant Arc didn’t acknowledge the compliment as he stabbed out at the closest shadow-pony, before turning to swipe at three more that were getting too close. “We’re surrounded!” he shouted, “You’re a colonel, you know tactics – what do we do?”

“Si nulla est perfugium, oportet stare!” Staid said matter-of-factly. He reloaded his gun and immediately emptied all ten shots into the ten closest shadow-creatures. “We fight until I run out of bullets, and you die from exhaustion.”

“What?!” The Centurion swiped at two of his attackers to disrupt them, before bringing his blade around to his right and slashing through the hearts of two more.

“Meanwhile,” Staid said impartially as he fired a shot at a perfect ninety-degree angle from the direction he was facing, destroying another foe, with barely a glance, “We can hope for a miracle.”

As if merely saying the words was sufficient to bring one about, there was an unexpected roar from Defiant Arc’s right. It was not the roar of the wind, and nor was it the roar of a great beast – although it sounded exceptionally close to the latter. Both ponies, along with their attackers, briefly paused in their battle and glanced in the direction of the sound.

Rumbling through the sleet-storm towards them, ground shaking in its wake, was an enormous, fume-belching machine. It vaguely resembled a traditional wooden wagon – its lower half was square, and it rode forwards on four wagon-like iron wheels, with metal reinforcements on its sides that reminded the two ponies of a cart’s side-struts – but its upper half was a solid metal dome, with a beak-like protrusion at the front and, most notably, several smoking cannon barrels jutting out from its sides. Several shadow-creatures were clinging to its sides, trying to break through the machine’s tough metal exterior with their barbed hooves.

The thundering machine was heading right for them, and didn’t seem to have any intention of turning.

“Out of the way!” Staid commanded, quite unnecessarily. Defiant Arc cut a short path for the two of them through the crowd of surprised shadow-ponies, most of whom had turned their attention to the much more enticing mechanical monster. The two ponies broke free of their erstwhile attackers – all of whom were now entirely focused on the moving machine – and, once they were at a reasonable distance, turned back to watch.

The armoured vehicle continued straight ahead, ploughing directly through the mass of shadow-creatures. Only a few were crushed under its unrelenting wheels; most began to swarm over it, attacking and clawing at every inch of the machine, apparently with futility.

“What in Celestia’s name is that thing?” Defiant Arc muttered. Staid had an inkling of what it might be, having heard descriptions of such vehicles after the close-fought Battle of the Nine Hills some years before, but resolved to remain silent on the matter for the time being.

Staid was about to wonder aloud whether there were any crew left alive inside, when one of the cannons abruptly fired, followed in turn by its fellows, each one firing after a small delay. The Colonel and Defiant Arc dived to the ground as one cannonball ploughed into a nearby snowdrift and exploded, flinging ice and razor-sharp shards of metal high into the air. Glancing up, head under his fore-hooves, Staid noted that the ensuing detonations of the other cannonballs blasted apart a significant number of the malignant shadow-ponies – much to their advantage.

“Idiots!” Defiant Arc exclaimed, glaring at the armour-clad vehicle, “They’re going to run straight into that snowbank!”

The Centurion was right. The smoke-belching machine continued on its rumbling path until it drove deep into the snowbank Defiant Arc had pointed out, when it came to a slow and grinding halt. Staid noticed that the machine’s wheels were still trying to turn, to push the vehicle forwards, even though the only result was a squeal of iron as the wheels scratched and scraped the icy ground.

What did the driver think they were doing?

“It’s time to go,” Defiant Arc said, standing up, “Before those shadow-ponies notice us again.”

Staid went to follow, but only after a moment of hesitation. There were too many shadow-creatures swarming over the machine now; if there was anybody left inside, attempting to rescue them would be suicide.

At that moment, a hatch on the top of the vehicle flipped open and something burst out of it. Whatever it was, it was clearly winged; it spread them as it leapt into the sky, and began to soar roughly in the direction of the two ponies. At first, Defiant Arc thought it was a pegasus, but the shape was wrong, and what would an Equestrian be doing in such an infernal machine? Colonel Staid meanwhile briefly thought it to be a Lepidomare – or ‘moth-pony’, as some called them – but he quickly exonerated himself of this idea, since it was well known that there were no Lepidomares in Equestria.

The winged shape bore down on the two watching ponies with great speed. Defiant Arc was about to raise his sword to strike at it, when the shape yelled out, “Get down! She’s gonna blow!”

The figure landed on the ground hard, casting a huge cloud of sleet around them. Neither Staid nor Defiant Arc could see who or what this thing was, thanks to the darkness and the snow, and were unable to find out further as the figure immediately grabbed them and, with surprising strength, shoved them face-first into the ground.

“Are you deaf? I said get down!”

The newcomer dived into the relative cover of the sleet-strewn ground too, just as the first of the explosions went off. A huge cloud of fire and grape-shot burst out of the side of the immobile vehicle, incinerating the shadow-ponies that had been trying to pry it open. Seconds later, the top half of the machine detonated, causing a gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud of fire and smoke to blast upwards into the night sky.

After several moments of agonising heat and pressure, the impact of the explosions subsided. Defiant Arc tried to raise his head – to see who this mystery winged figure was, and whether there were any shadow-ponies left – but found it immediately shoved back into the snow by an unusually strong forelimb.

“Idiot!” the figure exclaimed, voice somewhat muffled by the ground they were pressed against, “That was just the explosives I set up! The engine hasn’t even gone y-”

Then the engine went. The force of the explosion was greater than the previous two by far, and the very ground beneath them shook as though it was going to split in half. The light of the fireball almost blinded the two stallions, even through their closed eyelids.

Even after the immense heat had subsided, the three survivors kept their heads pressed to the ground, protected under their forelimbs, as shrapnel and wreckage rained down all around them. Fortunately, they were only bombarded by smaller pieces, leaving the two ponies with nothing worse than several small burns, which were quickly counteracted by the freezing-cold temperatures. Only when all that could be heard was the crackling of the flames and the sounds of hot metal pinging as it cooled in the snow did the newcomer let up and allow the two stallions to get back on their hooves.

When Defiant Arc finally got up, he found himself unable to look away from the scene of utter devastation that lay before him. The armour-clad vehicle was now a blazing pile of twisted metal and flaming wreckage. The heat radiating from it was still immense, but nowhere near as inhospitable as it had been during the explosions. And, as he thought of the explosions, the Centurion noticed that the land around the machine was scorched black and utterly bare; it was so hot, the sleet landing on it was melting instantly. All that remained of the shadow-ponies were the occasional lump of twisted, melted crystal lying in melting pools of snow.

As per some strange quirk of the laws of nature, a single flaming wheel rolled out of the wreckage and away into the night.

Defiant Arc was so caught up in this scene that he had completely forgotten about the newcomer, until he heard Colonel Staid speak to them.

“Our thanks, madam. It seems we owe you our lives.”

“Don’t mention it,” came the reply, in a discernibly feminine tone, “No, seriously, don’t. I didn’t even notice you there, at the start.”  Defiant Arc turned around, expecting a pegasus. “I was just aiming for the largest group of them, so thanks for bunching them up for m-”

“A griffon!” the Centurion exclaimed, drawing his sword at once.

The griffon – for it was indeed a griffon; a half-eagle, half-lion hybrid – was dressed in an extremely thick winter coat, under which could just about be seen the brightly-coloured uniform of a Griffon Kingdoms soldier. A pair of soot-stained goggles was pushed back up the griffon’s red-feathered head, above her astonishingly green eyes. Several tool belts were wrapped around her torso and just above her hips, every loop filled with some tool or pouch or small device, some of quite extraordinary design. A long metal tube strapped to her back could just be seen poking over her shoulder.

Defiant Arc didn’t spend much time noticing this however, instead choosing to swing the sword around until its tip was touching the newcomer’s throat.

The griffon was too startled to even react. She glared down her beak at the Equestrian. “What in the Twelve Kingdoms do you think you’re doing?” she exclaimed.

“Centurion, please, put down the sword,” Colonel Staid said, in a calming voice, “This lady is not our enemy! She saved our lives, and it’s thanks to her that our shadow-pony foes were defeated.”

“‘Lady’?” Defiant Arc said derisively, not lowering his sword, “How can you even tell? Yeah, she might have saved our lives just now, but you heard her – it was by accident. The moment our backs are turned she’ll slit our throats; that’s what these filthy Griffons are like!”

“Woah, speciesist much?” the griffon exclaimed. Despite that flippant remark, she was making an effort to move as little as possible; with that sword at her throat, even the slightest movement might result in a lot of blood being lost.

“Centurion, please,” Staid said, trying to interpose himself between the two of them, “Do you remember the agreement you made with me? We help one another, and do not kill one another, at least until we reach safety.” He paused. “Look around you. We are still in the frozen wastelands of the north, who knows how far away from civilisation? More of those shadow-ponies could appear at any time, and every extra pair of hooves – my apologies, claws – is an invaluable asset. Please, Centurion, lower your sword.”

Slowly, Defiant Arc levitated his weapon away from the Griffon’s throat and returned it to its sheath at his side. “Fine,” he said, “But if you try anything, feather-freak, then it’s off with your beaky head. We’re at war, you know.”

Staid reflected that the World Empire and Old Equestria were at war too (not to mention the World Empire and the Griffon Kingdoms) but there had been significantly less tension between their local representatives. The Colonel allowed Defiant Arc to walk off by himself, towards the still-burning wreck of the once-impressive machine, and decided to introduce himself.

“My apologies, madam,” he said, although the griffon’s eyes were still following the exiting Equestria, “Methinks the Centurion has been consuming a little too much propaganda. My name is Colonel Staid, by the way, of the World Empire’s Equestrian Expeditionary Force.”

“Major Léa LeFeather,” the griffon replied, switching her gaze back to the old stallion, “Of the Royal Engineers. Of the Griffon Kingdoms, obviously.” She held out her claw and Staid shook it. They both smiled reassuringly, if a little nervously on LeFeather’s part. “What’s the deal with you two?”

As briefly and concisely as he could, Staid recounted the ambush of his troops by the shadow-ponies, his stand-off and agreement with Defiant Arc, and their day’s aimless journey through the wasteland towards the Centurion’s ‘waypoint’. “I take it you and your troops were ambushed in a similar way?”

LeFeather nodded. “We were only a scouting group, in a clawful of Carts, a little way away from here,” she said, “We didn’t stand a chance. I thought a nice big explosion ought to kill them all, or at least most of them, so I rigged mine to blow up and told my crew to run for it – I really hope they made through, but…” She hesitated, and changed the subject. “You know what I mean by Carts, right?”

“Cannonade Carts,” Staid said, as though he was reading from a textbook, “Armoured battle vehicles, equipped with gunpowder cannons. A little primitive by Imperial standards, but-”

LeFeather snorted. “If you’d ever worked on one of those things, you wouldn’t call them primitive,” she said, “I heard you Imperials run everything on steam.”

“What’s wrong with steam?” Staid said somewhat defensively, “Your Carts are fuelled by explosions. And those wheels are certainly primitive. Not all battles take place on cobbled streets, you know.”

“Oh? And I suppose those ‘tracks’ or whatever you call them on your Landships are better, then? Maybe if I wanted my shiny Cart covered in mud-”

“Maybe a few extra layers of mud might give your Carts some thicker protection! I saw your Cart just now – half of it’s made of wood!”

“At least you can actually sit inside a Cart! I’ve seen inside your Landships – armour eight feet thick! You can’t even turn sideways in one!”

“You don’t need to turn sideways in a Landship! The guns are at the front! It’s not a boat!”

The two of them paused. Around them, the icy night winds continued to howl.

The griffon suddenly burst out in laughter. “Look at us two, standing around in the cold, arguing about whose Carts are best,” she said, “I’m an engineer, and I get my feathers in a ruffle over these things. I’m sorry, Colonel.

“My apologies too, Major,” Staid said, somewhat sheepishly, “Landships are, you might say, the pride of the Empire. Defending them was an instinctive reaction.”

A little way away, Defiant Arc, who was standing by the still-flaming wreckage of the destroyed Cannonade Cart, shouted out, “Are we going to get some sleep or what?”

“I think we’d better; it’s getting colder every minute,” Colonel Staid said, “We’ll make camp close to the wreckage. It’ll be warmer there.”

The two of them began to walk over to Defiant Arc, who was sweeping his own personal area of ground clean of metal shards and debris. “Just so you know,” said LeFeather, “I’d take a Cannonade Cart over a Landship any day of the week. Way more comfortable.”

“Landships are more practical.”

Any possible continuation of that conversation was cut short by a sudden brief explosion, as a small part of the wrecked Cart detonated, sending a single lump of twisted metal flying through the air. It landed with a heavy thump a few metres away from Defiant Arc, who jumped away from it in surprise.

“Maybe we shouldn't camp too close,” the Major observed.