Lunatic!

6th day of Flowers Blooming
454 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

“Why are we in trees?” Wind Dancer complained. Pallas sighed.

“It was Zudah’s idea,” Pallas said.

“It’s simple,” Zudah said. “The back of our lines is an obvious target, which is why we’re here to begin with as the rear guard, right? Well, when you know somepony is going after a target, if you really want to catch them, you don’t stand around being obvious. You set a trap.”

“And we’re the trap,” Pallas said. “If they saw us, they’d try to find a way around to flank us. This way, they’re going to come right through here.”

“They could fly over us,” Wind Dancer pointed out. “And if I’m stuck in a tree like this I can’t really use my hoofbow.” It was a pegasus weapon, a bow as long as Wind Dancer’s body and designed to be used with all four hooves while she was flying. A quiver of long arrows was strapped to her flank, tipped with wide, spade-shaped arrowheads.

“If you were a thestral, you’d be able to see the sky is clear,” Zudah snorted. “And there’s enough cover from the trees to keep us hidden from above, too. It’s a perfect hiding place.”

“It’s not like there’s much chance we’re going to see any action,” Wind Dancer sighed. “You definitely overplanned this.”

“A tree is a great place to take a nap,” Zudah said, sitting back against the trunk and pulling out one of his knives, tossing it into the air with his teeth and catching it again. It was harder than it looked. Pallas had tried to replicate the trick once and ended up with a long cut in her lip that had left a lingering scar. “It’s a lot cleaner than sleeping on the ground.”

“No sleeping on guard duty,” Pallas said. She kicked Zudah lightly, not enough to dislodge him from the branch. “Luna is counting on us in case there are some surprises from the griffons.” Pallas frowned, thinking. “I have a feeling she knows something we don’t.”

“She always does,” Wind Dancer said. “It’s part of being a goddess.”

“Luna doesn’t like it when ponies call her a goddess,” Pallas mumbled.

“Says the pony that doesn’t even use the Princess’ title,” Wind Dancer countered. “You’re awfully friendly with her. Some of the troops don’t think you give her enough respect.”

“I respect the Princess a lot,” Pallas said. “She saved my life, and she helped me with my nightmares. After everything that happened… I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there.” Pallas looked up towards the stars and moon above. “I owe her everything.”

“That’s how it is for all of us,” Zudah said. “If it wasn’t for her I’d still be in the woods like a chump, and Wind Dancer would be earning her way through school one bit at a time.”

“At least it was honest work,” Wind Dancer said, sticking out her tongue. “I never had to steal cabbages from farmers.”

“We’re supposed to be working, not flirting with each other,” Pallas said.

“It’s not like we have anything to do,” Wind Dancer complained. “We’re missing all the action! Come on, Pallas. You know you want to get in there and get your hooves dirty. I mean every time there’s a fight you always end up right in the middle.”

“Maybe Luna shoved her back here so her marefriend wouldn’t get too worried,” Zudah joked, snorting with laughter.

“Luna’s marefriend or Pallas’?” Wind Dancer asked.

“What’s it matter? Same pony either way,” Zudah said. Pallas kicked him harder this time, the thestral falling from his branch and landing on another a few paces down, the branch hitting him in the belly and knocking the wind out of him.

“One more stupid word out of you two and the griffons will launch a surprise attack that mysteriously only has you as casualties!” Pallas growled.

“I don’t think we’re gonna have to falsify a report,” Zudah said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Do you hear that?”

Pallas looked up, her ears twitching as she listened to the wind. Something was crashing through the brush. No, not just something. A lot of somethings.

“They’re not flying?” Wind Dancer asked, looking at Pallas. The big thestral shook her head.

“They must know we’d see them coming. Griffons have terrible eyesight in low light conditions.” Pallas slowly spread her wings, checking her wingblades again. She’d gotten used to the heavy weight of the set she was using a long time ago, and they were scratched and scarred with use almost as badly as she was. If she’d used lighter, thinner blades, they’d have broken already.

The first wave of griffons broke through the brush, following the trail through the woods of the island, just as expected. Pallas grinned. They hadn’t really worked out a signal to begin the attack, and she didn’t have a way to make sure the rest of the rear guard knew it was time to go.

More accurately, she didn’t have a way to make sure of it except for the obvious. Pallas roared and jumped down onto a griffon passing under her, slamming into it with the tips of her blades, impaling it through the chest. It screamed loudly, somewhere between a pony’s cry of pain and a bird’s screech.

The rest of the rear guard heard the cry, and calls to battle went up across their scattered numbers as they came out of hiding to attack the raiding griffons.

“Time to have fun!” Pallas yelled, running into a charging griffon with her wings held high, spinning as the blade connected with its neck, carrying her around it as the weapon nearly severed its head, the griffon going limp and falling, skull only attached by a thin scrap of muscle and skin.

A second griffon came at Pallas’ back while she was recovering from the attack, a curved blade coming down towards her. Pallas braced herself to take the blow and roll with it when a long arrow suddenly sprouted from the warrior’s eye, the attack faltering as he fell over, twitching and spasming. Pallas looked up into the sky and gave Wind Dancer a quick salute, thanking her for the assist.

“Where are they coming from?” Zudah asked, as he dodged a wild swing from a griffon and cut at its tendons, stabbing it as it fell to the ground. “Did they have the same idea we did?”

“We’d have seen them flying if they were trying to circle around over the ocean!” Pallas yelled. She bucked a griffon away into a tree as thick as her leg, stunning him long enough for her to put her whole weight into a swing of one of her wingblades, cutting through him and felling the tree behind him. “They had to come from a boat!”

“The griffons here don’t have a boat!” Zudah protested. “That’s why they got trapped here to start with!”

“I know,” Pallas said, grunting as a long cut opened on her fetlock as she blocked an attack that would have gone into her face. “I think their reinforcements arrived early!”

“But then we’d be fighting an entire army!” Zudah screamed. He flew up and let a griffon pass under him. Three arrows hit it at almost the same time, dropping it. “We can’t take on that many!”

“Only one way to find out!” Pallas grinned. “We just have to charge through and find where they’re coming from! Maybe we can even take out the commander!”

“You’re nuts!” Zudah yelled.

“Pallas, look out!” Wind Dancer screamed. Pallas dropped to the ground on instinct at the cry, a hammer with a head as big as her ego passing through where her skull had been a moment before, slamming into a tree with enough force to splinter it.

Pallas looked up to see a bipedal creature, even bigger than she was, wearing brightly-colored leather armor and brass plates at its shoulders and chest. Its head was topped with long, straight horns the ended in wickedly sharp points.

“Minotaur!” Zudah said, fear in his voice. “Why in Tartarus is there a minotaur here?!”

“I’ve never killed a minotaur before,” Pallas said, circling it. “He looks pretty tough.” She jumped back as he swung again, the hammer slamming into the dirt. She lunged in, but he was faster than he looked, the heavy hammer not slowing him at all. As he brought it back for another swing, Pallas realized he was even faster than she was.

She brought up her wing to block his hammer. It hit the wingblade, and with a terrible snap, broke the blade and the bone of Pallas’ left wing. Pallas screamed in pain, her wing going limp and hanging awkwardly at her side.

“Get away from it!” Wind Dancer yelled, her bow twanging as she sent a barrage of arrows towards the minotaur, straps holding her bow to her back legs while she drew the string with her forehooves. The arrows were barely able to penetrate its thick flesh, apparently bothering it no more than bee stings.

Even a bee sting was a distraction, though. Pallas felt rage rising within her, the pain fading as she pushed it aside as irrelevant. She couldn’t escape with a broken wing, so she was going to have to fight and kill the minotaur. She screamed again, this time in anger instead of pain, tackling the minotaur, her blade catching it across the thigh, the steel biting deep into its flesh.

The minotaur raised its hammer as it howled in agony. Pallas swiped upwards, catching it across the wrist, the warrior’s hand falling to the ground, still clutching the hammer tightly. Pallas danced away, only really able to turn quickly in one direction, spinning to the right as she regained her balance from the high attack.

The minotaur charged, head held low, bellowing as it moved. Pallas ducked to the side, grabbing its horn with her teeth and swinging herself around with her mouth as a pivot, getting her weight onto the minotaur’s shoulders. It fell face-first into the dirt as its leg gave out, and she stabbed into the back of its neck with her wingblade, the tip snapping against the minotaur’s iron-like bones.

It shuddered and went still. Pallas breathed raggedly, almost drunk on exhaustion. Only the pain and adrenaline were keeping her on her hooves.

“Celestia’s beard,” Zudah swore. “I don’t know if I should be really impressed or yell at you for being so sloppy that you got hurt.”

“No yelling at your commanding officer,” Pallas panted. “You’ll just have to be impressed instead.”

“If they’ve got minotaurs with them, it explains how they got here,” Zudah muttered. “Their ships are faster than ours. They must have hired mercenaries and hitched a ride.”

“What are we going to do?” Wind Dancer asked.

“Our job! We don’t leave until the job is done!” Pallas snapped “We’re going to push them back all the way to their ships!”

“That’s crazy,” Zudah snorted. “We need to send runners back to tell Luna we’re under attack, and you’re too badly hurt to keep going.”

“Zudah,” Pallas said, glaring at him. “I’m never too badly hurt to kill griffons.” She punctuated that by charging into a knot of battle where griffons and the Night Guard were clashing, the ponies starting to falter against them. Pallas hit them like an oncoming storm, cutting one in half and breaking the morale of the others.

“You just going to stand there and let her do all the work?” Wind Dancer asked, hovering in place over Zudah.

“You’re all crazy,” Zudah mumbled, running forwards to join the battle.

~~~***~~~

Bianca opened her eyes and focused on Primus Pilus Quel. “Luna says the Dragoons have made landfall and are attacking the enemy’s rear ranks.” There was no sign of it yet, though it wasn’t surprising with the enemy’s full force between them and the Lunar Dragoons.

“Great,” Quel said. “Now we just have to hope she doesn’t get herself killed.” His voice dropped to a mumble. “What was she thinking, going with Hungry Ghost and his merry little band of monsters?”

“She was thinking they needed her support more than we did,” Bianca replied. “They don’t have a way to escape if things start to go badly. She wants to make sure they have as much support as she can give them. Speaking of which…”

“Yeah, I know. Time for us to earn our keep.” Quel cleared his throat. He hated using the Royal Canterlot Voice. It always made his throat sore the next day. “NIGHT GUARD, FORM RANKS AND ATTACK!”

The Night Guard’s front ranks rushed at the defending griffon lines, as arrows and bolts rained down on both sides from mages and archers.

“Are you planning on assisting?” Bianca asked, looking back to where Captain Morning Glory was watching. The pegasus’ lips were pursed and he was obviously displeased by what he was seeing. “I know you aren’t too happy with this plan, but you’re an experienced soldier. I bet Quel would be glad to have you as a helper.”

“Princess Celestia’s orders to me were to act as an aide to Princess Luna in coordinating our forces,” Morning Glory said. “It has been more difficult than you can imagine. She and her sister both have very different ideas on how this war should be waged. I am not sure it would be proper for me to take command when I do not agree with the orders I’m following, nor would it be proper for me to demand obedience from these troops, as they are not in my chain of command.”

“That’s very proper of you,” Bianca giggled.

“Propriety is the one thing I believe I can contribute. Princess Luna seems to have a dire lack of it among her own troops. She deserves respect and formality.”

“We respect her,” Bianca protested, her frown almost matching Morning Glory’s.

“But you could show it better,” Morning Glory replied. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you only know her as a battlefield commander. Here, during the war, the lines between nobility and commoner are all but obliterated. A good commander, and I do not hesitate to say Princess Luna is an excellent strategist, has strong bonds with his or her troops. While she certainly does have that, she is also one of the two sovereigns of this land. Once this is over, and the griffons have left, she will take up that burden again, and the needs of court and the rules imposed by it will take precedence over the easy comradery of the battlefield. I worry you and the other recruits she has absorbed will not easily make that change.”

“Why are you so worried about it?” Bianca asked.

“Because one way or the other, this war is almost over. Once it is, most of you will be able to return to civilian life. Those who choose to remain will have to learn how to live in the captial.” Morning Glory looked away, unable to meet Bianca’s gaze. “It will be important for Princess Luna to be treated with the proper amount of respect. Being too familiar with her in public will undermine her authority.”

“I don’t think you really understand what respect and authority mean,” Bianca smiled, reaching out to touch Morning Glory’s shoulder. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that you’re used to what Celestia wants, and what others want from her. Luna already feels cut off from other ponies. She needs us to be close to her so…” Bianca’s ear twitched, and she stopped, turning to look into the forest behind them.

“What’s wrong?” Morning Glory asked.

“Somepony’s coming,” Bianca said. Morning Glory stepped in front of her, wings spread wide. He was wearing pegasus wingblades, with sculpted, reinforced joints that made them more shield than weapon.

The running pony that Bianca had heard broke through the tree line, an earth pony with scratches across his body and an arrow deeply embedded in his flank. He ran to Morning Glory and Bianca and saluted. “Sir! Ma’am!”

“What happened?” Morning Glory asked.

“There’s been an attack to the rear. Looks like fresh troops ferried here by minotaur mercenaries.” The earth pony looked back. “I was ordered to report the action to you. The rear guard has divided into two groups under Centurion Pallas Athene’s orders. She is leading the main force to attack the minotaurs' landing zone. A secondary force has been left to defend the lines, and we’re pulling back to the tree line as we’re no longer able to maintain a wide buffer zone.”

“She’s doing what?!” Morning Glory demanded. “That’s suicide!”