Shadows in the North - A Sundering of Equestria Tale

Chapter Three

The leaders of the New Lunar Republic had deliberately adopted the night-time as their symbol – the symbol of freedom, of revolution – to contrast with the day-symbols of the hated loyalists and their dreaded Solar Tyrant. The Republic’s revolutionary armies didn’t have an official uniform as such, but their commanders did expect them all to wear dark clothes, to create and reinforce a common bond between them. Or at least, that’s what Star-Strike had been told.

As a member of the Nightstrider Brigades (and not just a member, she reminded herself; a Captain) Star-Strike was supposed to be closer to the night than the ordinary revolutionaries; to be one with the darkness. Nightstriders were trained to fight and operate after the sun went down, and to shun the day. They were a living symbol of the Republic. The night-time was supposed to be her element, when she could perform her best, and when her opponents were at their weakest. The sunlight was her enemy; the night, her ally.

But as the young Captain Star-Strike struggled to do something as simple as walk forwards through the freezing-cold night-time air of the Equestrian north, she found herself wishing more and more that she could have been trained to operate on some sunny beach in Horseshoe Bay, where it was much, much warmer. Her padded cloth armour (as much as something filled with wool could be considered armour) was designed with mobility in mind, not keeping out the cold. Star-Strike could swear she could feel her exposed wings freezing up; she didn’t dare look at them, for fear they were covered in icicles.

Slowly, the young mare came to a stop. Her lungs felt like they were freezing up from the inside.

Breathing deeply, Star-Strike quickly put such dreamy thoughts of warm beaches out of her mind. She was a warrior of the revolution! She forcibly reminded herself of the sacrifices others had made in the name of freedom: Honorary Councillor Luna, renouncing her claim to the throne and her own family ties in an attempt to stop her mad sister; General Tawleed, who gave her life fighting the Discordians to allow General Trots and his troops to escape at the Battle of Fillydelphia; and of course, General Nightstrider himself, who allowed himself to be captured and sacrificed himself to defeat the Loyalist commander at the Siege of Manehatten.

They had given so much for the cause, and here she was, ready to give up in the face of a little cold weather. Teeth chattering, Star-Strike continued to march onwards, while the stiff leather straps connected to the wooden sled she was dragging along once again began to dig into her chest. In an attempt to raise her spirits, she began to sing under her breath.

“Do you hear the ponies sing?

Singing the song of angry mares?

It is the music of a country

Which from tyranny shall be spared!

When the beating of your heart-”

There was a stirring from the sled behind her, and Star-Strike cut her song short. She might have been trained to move at night, but her companion certainly hadn’t. The poor mare wasn’t even a soldier – just some Earth pony civilian she’d found wandering the icy wastes on her lonesome, just like she had been. She hadn’t the heart to leave her behind and, since neither of them knew where they were or where the nearest outpost of civilisation was, the two of them had decided to strike out in a random direction together.

“Captain?” said a sleepy voice from under a make-shift cover of cloth sacks and stacked, ice-covered wooden crates, “Wh- what are you doing? Why are we moving?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Star-Strike replied, barely turning her head around as she struggled onwards, “Go back to sleep, Butterscotch.”

There was a renewed stirring from the sled; Star-Strike knew without turning around that Butterscotch was climbing out of her improvised ‘bed’ and was about to begin walking alongside her. Sure enough, the sled suddenly lightened and, moments later, a caramel-coloured mare appeared trotting alongside the revolutionary.

“Get back on the sled,” Star-Strike said wearily, barely able to lift her head, “You’re a civilian, you’re not… not trained to… at night…” Without warning the mare suddenly dropped down, eyes closed. Butterscotch caught her before she hit the floor.

“Don’t overwork yourself,” the other mare said kindly, helping Star-Strike to her hooves, “We agreed we were going to get some sleep. Did you only pretend that’s what you were doing?”

“No, no…” Star-Strike muttered, barely able to keep her eyes open, “There was a ‘splosion…”

“An explosion?”

Star-Strike managed to lift her head up and point with a single hoof at a distant cloud of dust, still hanging in the air above where the explosion had taken place less than an hour before. It was still just about visible in the pale moonlight; more discernible though was the dull red glow at the dust-cloud’s base. Something there was still burning.

“Happened just after sunset-” The Captain yawned. “Big explosion… You were asleep, thought there might be other ponies…”

“Come on, get some rest now,” Butterscotch said with a kind-hearted smile. Ignoring the tired soldier’s protests, Butterscotch got Star-Strike out of the leather sled-straps and led her back to the tent-like pile of sacks and boxes she’d been using as a bed. “Now get in.”

“What about you?” Star-Strike asked a little blearily, “Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you…” A puzzled, yet still sleepy, expression crossed her face. “You’re not wearing anything… Aren’t… aren’t you cold?”

“Not at all,” Butterscotch said dismissively, “Now come on, go to bed.”

Without another word of protest, Star-Strike clambered onto the sled and, within moments, was dead asleep.

After pausing for a few seconds to make sure the pegasus was asleep, Butterscotch walked back around to the front of the sled and slipped into the sled harness. Lowering her head and fixing her gaze on the distant red glow, the Earth pony began to march forwards, dragging the sled behind her. She moved with surprising ease, given her small stature and her lack of protective winter clothing.

Butterscotch’s stomach rumbled quietly. It had been doing so for over a week now. Not for the first time, she forced herself to ignore it.

*

The next morning, Léa LeFeather was the first to wake. The flames from the previous night had died down, and now the wreckage of her once impressive Cannonade Cart was gently smouldering in the morning light. The falling snow had let up too, leaving their icy surroundings as clear as she could hope for.

The Major slowly got up, stretching her freezing-cold muscles and shaking the excess snow out of her feathers. She snapped her beak a couple of times and adjusted her thick winter uniform – she hated sleeping in her day-clothes. What she’d give for a hot shower right about now…

The Imperial – Colonel Staid – was still asleep. He was wrapped up in his gigantic fur coat (although fur of what, Léa had no idea) and surrounded by his mass of baggage, which he’d built up like a little fort around himself earlier in the night to keep off the wind. He’d offered to make it bigger to try and cover the other two, but Léa had confessed that her feathers and thick winter uniform would keep her warm (which, since she hadn’t yet got frostbite, assumed must be true, although it certainly didn’t feel like it) and Defiant Arc had flat-out refused the Colonel’s proposal.

Ah yes, Defiant Arc. The Centurion was still sleeping too, but his slumbering form was surrounded by a thinly-glowing blue veil. According to the Equestrian, who had explained what he was doing before he’d gone to sleep late last night, this was a spell to make sure “that filthy griffon keeps its claws to itself”; apparently, anybody touching the veil would suffer a painful magical shock, which would also wake up the sleeping Defiant Arc (who would then, in the Centurion’s own words, ‘cut off that filthy griffon’s head’).

Léa rolled her eyes at the memory. Sadly, this was exactly what she’d come to expect from ponies (or rather, she quickly corrected herself, Equestrians). The Griffon Kingdoms and Equestria had been rivals since time immemorial and, in ancient times, had fought uncountable numbers of wars – mostly to the detriment of the Griffons. It was no wonder that an Equestrian would react so harshly to her, especially now that they were once again embroiled in war.

To be honest though, the Major admitted, she wasn’t exactly thrilled to be travelling with an Equestrian herself. The Imperial was alright, for a pony, but the sooner they got to this mythical waypoint and left the Centurion, the better.

Yawning silently, LeFeather walked as quietly as she could past the two sleeping ponies and towards the still-warm wreckage. She had been thinking that perhaps there might still be something salvageable in there, maybe in one of the lockboxes, if they hadn’t been blasted ap-

The Major suddenly caught her rear paw on something and tripped. There was a click noise, and the zip-zip of a rapidly-moving wire, as LeFeather fell face-first into the ground. There was a small bang and LeFeather heard the two ponies jump to their hooves, startled by the sudden noise.

Oh right. Staid’s tripwire. She’d forgotten about that.

“Whuh?! What was-?” Defiant Arc let out a sleepy, snorting laugh. “Ha! Typical stupid griffon, setting off our own tripwire!”

“Centurion, please keep your opinions to yourself!” Staid poked his head out of Fort Saddlebag and yawned. “Major, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Léa said as she got up, annoyed that she’d humiliated herself in front of the Equestrian, “What’s for breakfast?”

“I have lots of Imperial ration bars,” Staid said, as he began to rummage through his cast-off saddlebags, dismantling his furry igloo in the process, “How about another round of soup? Once I find the saucepan, I can get started-”

“Ugh,” Defiant Arc said, turning up his nose, “Don’t you have anything else apart from those disgusting gray slabs?”

Staid glanced up at him, face expressionless. “Do you know of an alternative?” he asked flatly.

The Centurion had no response to that, instead turning away from the Colonel and beginning to levitate his golden armour onto himself, which he had taken off (with some reluctance) before going to sleep. The Major was mildly surprised to discover that Royal Guardsponies didn’t sleep in their shiny golden panoply.

“What is that stuff made of, by the way?” Léa asked, dusting herself off, “I forgot to ask last night.”

“Reconstituted vegetable matter, mostly,” Staid said. Léa raised her eyebrow. “And, well, do you understand the concept of mass processing in the Griffon Kingdoms?”

“No, what’s that?”

While the Colonel explained to LeFeather exactly how the World Empire went about extracting protein from ground up fly larvae, Defiant Arc began eyeing some of the surrounding piles of snow with a hungry look in his eye.

“So, it’s basically like eating maggots?” LeFeather asked uncertainly.

Staid sighed. “No, Major, it’s not,” he said, “They just use the protein from them, and other key nutrients. If you ground up ordinary meat and extracted the same chemicals, it would be exactly the same stuff.” From behind Léa, the Centurion was making involuntary gagging noises. “Just because the protein happens to be from maggots, you both seem so reluctant to-”

“Oh, I’m not refusing,” LeFeather said, “Go ahead and make your soup.” Staid seemed to cheer up at that, and obliged. When the griffon saw Defiant Arc glaring at her with a disgusted look on his face, she added, “What? I’m not a herbivore. And some parents feed their kids maggots. Weird parents, certainly not mine, but maggots are edible. And don’t you Equestrians think we griffons eat ponies? Be glad it’s not that.”

The Colonel didn’t comment on this. “Do you want some too, Centurion?” he asked, as he rummaged through his saddlebags.

“Since the only other choice is starving to death,” he muttered bitterly, “I’ll eat your Imperial poison.”

“Very good,” Staid commented neutrally, “It’s important we keep our strength up. Those shadow-ponies might be back at any time.”

“Or something else might show up,” Léa said forebodingly.

“What do you mean by that, Major?” the Colonel asked, as he dragged a tin saucepan out of the pile of baggage that surrounded him.

“I mean, why were they all shadow-ponies?” Léa asked, a little grumpily, “Why not shadow-griffons?”

Defiant Arc smirked, clearly deriving some sense of superiority from the fact that their enemies had taken the shape of his species, and not that of any other. Staid merely said, “I’d consider that a mystery, Major. One I hope we shan’t need to solve.”

*

Unable to find anything salvageable in the wreckage of her Cannonade Cart, Major LeFeather told the two ponies that she wanted to go back to the place where the shadow-ponies had ambushed her fellow griffons, in the hope of finding something useful, or even some survivors. Although Léa even admitted to herself that the latter would be highly unlikely, she still wanted to go back.

The Colonel, to Léa’s relief, was all for it. Defiant Arc, however, was initially quite happy to send the griffon off by herself, but when the Colonel reminded him how dangerous it would be for one of them to be alone when shadow-ponies were on the prow, and thus that they needed to go with her, the Centurion (who, the Major was aware, knew full well how dangerous it was) went back to insisting they follow his tattered map to his beloved ‘waypoint’. After a bit of quick-thinking, all it took was an off-claw mention by Léa that some food supplies might have survived for the Centurion to grudgingly accompany them.

Colonel Staid had frowned at that, apparently disliking the implied objection to his rations, but didn’t appear to be particularly angry about it.

The battlefield, when the three of them arrived, was as desolate and empty of life as they’d expected. A grand total of four ruined Cannonade Carts were dotted about the snowy ground, one of them still burning. Chunks of twisted metal, blackened shrapnel and fired shot were everywhere. In a few places a scattering of glass shards could be seen; the remnants of the clawful of shadow-ponies that the griffons had managed to destroy. Everything was covered in a thin layer of snow.

“Where are the bodies?” Defiant Arc said. He was the first to speak since they’d arrived. “There should be dead griffons all over the place.”

LeFeather clamped her beak shut and didn’t say anything. She couldn’t trust herself to speak after a comment like that. She instead settled on glaring at the ground.

“The shadow-ponies must have carried them off,” Staid said, his voice coming from somewhat closer to LeFeather than she’d expected, “Another mystery. Major, do you want to see if there’s anything salvageable here? The Centurion and I will keep watch. More shadow-ponies might appear at any time.”

“I won’t be watching for shadow-ponies,” Defiant Arc muttered loudly, “I’ll be watching her. Who knows what kind of crazy griffon weapon she might pull out of one of these wrecks, and turn on us?”

“Please, Centurion, there’s no need to be so paranoid,” Staid said.

“Whatever,” he said darkly, “You stand watch here, if you like. I’m going for a walk.”

And with that, Defiant Arc went trotting off, eyes staring off angrily into the middle-distance. In a few seconds, the Equestrian had disappeared behind one of the ruined Carts. Staid looked like he was about to protest, to call him back, but Léa stopped him.

“Let him wander off,” she said, “He clearly doesn’t like being around me.”

The Colonel frowned. “I had heard that Equestrians can be hostile to foreign species,” he said, “But this behaviour is simply intolerable. We need to work together if we’re going to survive. If this was the World Empire, the Centurion would have violated at least five different clauses of the Interspecies Harmonisation Act!”

“But this isn’t the Empire, is it?” Léa reminded him, briefly wondering what kind of country could introduce laws that could actually stop species hating one another (if such a thing was even possible), “Now, if you don’t mind, climb on top of that mound and keep an eye out for shadows.”

“Of course, Major,” Staid said as he turned away, “I apologise for the outburst.”

Personally, Léa thought the outburst was perfectly justified, but she had other things to focus on for the time being. She took a deep breath and turned her attention to the nearest smoking wreck.

As the griffon picked through the lumps of charred wood and jagged spikes of twisted metal, she tried to imagine the possible devices she could construct with the things she found, changing her mind every time she found something new, or discovered that the thing she had found was actually broken or useless. By the end of her search through the first fire-gutted Cart, she had in her collection a few useable cogs and springs that had somehow survived being melted into tiny brass puddles, a large number of screws and bolts (most still stuck inside whatever piece of wood or metal they’d been hammered into), and a mostly-functioning steering system. The second Cannonade Cart had been utterly smashed, as though something huge (maybe a falling tree, if Léa had had to guess, as unlikely as that seemed) had crashed down upon it from above. The wheels were still intact and could theoretically be hooked up to the first Cart’s steering mechanism – but without any way to power them, they’d just be left with an ordinary wooden wagon, albeit a very elaborately-constructed one with rudimentary suspension. There were a couple of undamaged clockwork parts too, which she duly collected.

At this point Léa realised that she was trying to find all the right parts to reconstruct a working Cart and stopped herself. Such a thing was impossible in her situation; to build a working Cannonade Cart required a whole team of specialists from a number of fields (mechanists, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, clockmakers – not to mention all the skilled labourers to put the thing together) to work for days to create the necessary parts and make sure they fit, and several further weeks in which to hammer and weld the Cart together. And that wasn’t even taking into account the fuel and gunpowder necessary to power the fuel-pump engine and arm the cannons; the two things most likely to have gone up in flames.

The third wreck the griffon examined sadly confirmed this view. It was totally destroyed. From the appearance of the remains of the Cart’s metal shell, it looked as though the shadow-ponies had peeled the exterior apart with their claws, before climbing inside and trashing everything. Léa shuddered at the memory of those same dark claws stabbing through the armoured hide of her own Cart – before she’d blown it up and melted them all.

She chuckled at that.

The final ruined Cart was the one that was still burning. On closer inspection though, Léa discovered that the stuff on fire was actually the oil for the oil lamps, which had spilled from a broken crate and had pooled in a metal dish (which had previously been part of the front ‘beak’ of the Cart, but had apparently been torn off in the fight). That, Léa thought, explained why it was still burning; Cart fuel burned itself up pretty quickly (not to mention explosively). Other than that, though, there was very little sign of fire damage. Climbing carefully past the flaming oil-dish, the griffon looked into the rear end of the Cart, and what she saw made her gasp.

It was a fuel-pump engine! And it looked like it was in one piece! How was this possible? Fuel-pump engines were famous for blowing up if left untended for too long, or if damaged in any way, or even if looked at funny. As a device that took in extremely-flammable liquid, exploded it, and turned it into motion, this was to be expected. Léa took a closer look.

After a few moments of examination, the Major thought she had discovered why. Some clever griffon engineer had rigged up the engine with a kind of emergency fuel-release system; a blackened valve attached the engine’s side led, via a series of thick rubber tubes, to a robust-looking metal canister with a clockwork pump mechanism bolted on top. It looked like a simpler version of the clockwork device that regulated the fuel-pump engine itself – but simple was often the best. Léa unscrewed the canister’s lid and looked inside; as she’d hoped, it was filled to the brim with precious, precious fuel.

Now that was true griffon ingenuity! She’d like to see a pony come up with something so clever! Or Equestrian – knowing the World Empire, some Imperial boffin had probably come up with a similar device for… channelling steam, or something.

But, species aside; this was perfect! A working engine! Léa beamed, her eyes glowing with engineering glee. All she had to do was hook it up to the steering system and the wheels from the other Carts (the engine was already mounted on a perfect, unburnt base) and she would have– oh wait, the engine’s regulator was broken.

The griffon’s heart plummeted. The clockwork regulator was necessary to ensure that the fuel was pumped into the engine at regular intervals, and at precisely when the internal compression chamber (where the explosions happened) was open and ready to receive a new injection of fuel. If the timing was off by even a millisecond, either the engine would stutter and shut down due to a lack of fuel, or it would blow up due to excess. Without a regulator, the fuel-pump engine was worse than useless.

Already certain that she didn't have the necessary components, Major LeFeather nevertheless looked inside her bag of cogs and springs. As she had expected, she didn’t have the right pieces.

Léa looked down glumly at the disparate clockwork parts in her claws. Some gears and a ratchet wouldn’t be enough to repair the broken regulator. She began fiddling with them absent-mindedly. Clockwork regulators were very complex pieces of machinery, requiring not only a strengthened version of the time-keeping mechanism found in watches (proudly invented by griffons, the Major thought glumly, as though it really mattered), but also a delicate mechanism known as a Kipfilet Plunger (named after the inventor, naturally) that allowed the small clockwork device to operate the much larger fuel-pump. Both parts were broken.

Slotting the spare gears onto a large spring – just to give her claws something to do – Léa had another look at the broken regulator. The brass arm that pushed in the pump was still there, attached at one end to the engine, but the Kipfilet Plunger itself was in tiny chunks spread across the Cart floor. The Major pulled a small clockwork mechanism from one of her pockets (one she’d built herself, designed to be put in a watch) and began trying to attach it to the gear-filled spring.

It was surprising, Léa reflected glumly, how slow the clockwork regulators were. They had to be, of course, since speed and strength were anathema to one another in the world of clockwork. She began to wind up the purposeless device in her claws. That was the reason Cannonade Carts were so slow; the output of the fuel-pump engine was limited by the speed of the regulator. Fewer internal explosions meant less speed. If only there was some way to make the mechanism faster while maintaining its strength-

The Major’s thoughts were interrupted when the amalgamation of clock-pieces she had been winding up suddenly sprung and jabbed a sharpened gear into her palm. She winced and immediately put the wounded extremity to her mouth – but then looked down at the thing she had created. The nameless device had launched a gear into her claw with such force – far more than an ordinary spring mechanism should be capable of….

Léa looked at the gears. She looked at the spring they were mounted on. She looked at how the gears on the spring connected to the gears in the watch. Finally, she looked up at the damaged regulator. Slowly, she reached into her pockets with her wounded claw and removed a small file and few other delicate tools. Her eyes were gleaming with the implications of what she had discovered.

Yes, it should… it should be possible… It would be difficult, and would need the expertise of a master clockmaker – which, to be fair, she was…

“Major!” Staid called out suddenly, from his post on the snowy mound, “You’ve been sitting in that one Cart for almost half-an-hour now. Are you all right?”

“Colonel, I think….” Léa called back, not daring to look away from the mechanism in her claws, “I think I’ve just invented something!”