It was hot. That much was obvious as the oppressive sun beat down harshly on the yellow grass below. There was not so much as a single cloud in sight, and there was precious little breeze. Every now and then a small gust would sweep up, having worked the will to unleash its power on the world around it, but the hot and dry air did naught but to stir up more dust from the caking ground and rustle the half-dead grasses. This was a savage and unforgiving land, now, whereas it had once been a great plain of green and blue. That was before the rationing, and before the water had been needed for the war effort. Now near every cloud produced by Cloudsdale, and every drop of precious rain that came with it, was directed to the Empire itself, or to the Front. Here on the Appleloosa Plains used to rest a great town, where the townsfolk would tend to their great apple orchards with the help of the Buffalo tribesmen. Those days were long gone. The orchard has long since been dead, not even a single tree standing as a testament to the loving friendship they once represented. No one really knows how the Buffalo and the Settler-Ponies came to peace. For those that may have had some inkling of information, they refused to elaborate. Perhaps they did not believe the tales themselves, such things as music and pie bringing two peoples from war to coexistence, or perhaps it was something different altogether. Perhaps they were simply ashamed that it had come to this, ashamed that they had come to betray their very memories.
The invasion is what ended that peaceful coexistence, however it came to be. That was what made the Ponies low on horsepower, and low on water. The once-great reservoirs were no longer enough to supply all of Equestria with life-giving water, and when the Settler-Ponies heard that they would no longer be supplied their ration; they were forced to pick up and leave. The sudden change left the Buffalo without a source of food in the apples which they so relied on and the newfound lack of water left them thirsty. They were offered new homes in the Empire, at first, but their Chieftain refused. Some say it was because of a personal feud with the mayor of Appleloosa, others that he did not accept that the Pegasi were of such power as to refuse his entire species water. He was very much wrong, and now after generations of starvation and decline, the formerly great Buffalo people were split up into large roving warbands, scraping whatever supplies they could by any means necessary to feed their calves. This often meant border-raids on the Empire, and that could not be allowed to happen.
This was precisely why the Empire was forced to send armed patrols through this treacherous land, and precisely why a rather uncommon noise began to sound on the deathly silent plains. That noise was the sound of hundreds of horseshoes beating against the chafing land. A long and winding column of ponies appeared over a ridge, their legs moving in ragged unison and their bright red and gold uniforms stained with brown dust. Their once shining breastplates, which sat over the bright tunics, were dull and in places dented. Their faces were a bit haggard from hours of marching; their manes clung nagging-like to the backs of their necks from perspiration. On their backs sat monstrous contraptions. They appeared to be large, elongated crates made of brass, tied onto their backs with leather straps and with either long pikes sticking out of the side, which seemed to be mounted on a sort of wheel attached to the box and facing up to the sky, or another device entirely. They appeared to be long rods made of metal, with a widened and rounded compartment at its rear, all of them extending to right past their carrier’s right foreleg. Each of these boxes also had a sort of lever that stretched out in front of the pony that carried them. These levers were used to activate the gears and cogs that would either level their pikes to a proper forward angle, or launch the tiny bits of lead that sat inside those metal tubes using an odd, black powder that only Unicorns knew how to work. Behind the column was a team of four other ponies, who laboured to pull a large wagon over the rough terrain; the supplies for the soldiers. Even with the supplies running low, the wagon was incredibly heavy, and the team struggled to haul it over the cracked and crying landscape.
The only ponies who were not marching laboriously with worn-horseshoes and aching muscles were the two Pegasi, at the head of the column. They floated along but a foot or two from the ground, their uniforms immaculate and with nothing on their backs to carry but their wings, which kept them off of the dirty floor. They seemed to be debating about something in the confident and airy tones of the Pegasi gentry.
“I have encountered their…ilk before, Mr Runner,” said the taller Pegasus. He was a brightly coloured red pony, with a plain, yet stark black mane. He spoke through a thin and finely waxed moustache, and held his head high as he floated along gently. His name was Sir Equinton, and he was in command of this regiment of Earth ponies. Floating beside him was his second in command, the aforementioned ‘Mr Runner’, floating but a few inches below what Equinton was. His uniform was likewise clean, but he still had at least a few beads of sweat above his eyes, unlike hi seemingly un-pony commander.
“But, surely, sir, we must be able to come to an agreement of sorts with them? We have no other true option, other than endlessly patrolling the desert for their bands. We could be put to such better use at the Front, no?” His voice was much higher than the low tone of Equinton, and his lightly toned blue coat and brown mane was far less intimidating.
“You assume that the Buffalo want peace, Mr Runner. You do not understand their mentality. The Buffalo is a savage creature, Mr Runner, which seeks only to steal and to kill. They would take the precious food and water needed to survive from a young Filly only to feed their barbarian hordes. The Buffalo does not feel, nor does he think; he only acts on his most raw impulses. Their blood is not pure, Mr Runner, as that of a Pony is. They know only the Pike.” Came Equinton’s reply. He seemed pleased with his response, and did not notice the doubt that crossed Runner’s face. He continued along with his ranting, as he usually did during a march, on a multitude of subjects. He discussed further the state of affairs on the Equine-Buffalo border, and even touched on the subject of Earth ponies. How, while they were strong willed and wished well, were simply not fit to command themselves. That was why it was up to them, the Pegasi, he said, to rule over them and enforce The Good Princess’s Law. These were the “Natural Laws”, he said, that it was the role of the Unicorn to think, to rule, and it was the Earth Pony’s role to obey. However, neither of them could function without the help of the Pegasi. It was the Pegasi, he boasted, which kept society intact with their loyalty and policing. They kept the Earth ponies in line, and protected them from oppression, should it arise. He had only gotten about halfway through this lecture, however, when Mr Runner spoke up again.
“Sir, I…my apologies for interrupting you, sir, but…do you hear that?” He said questioningly, he began looking off into the distance, from where the noise in question seemed to be coming.
“Damn it, man! What have I told you about interrupting me for something so trivial! I hear nothing!” He said, a bit angered, as this was not the first time he had had to correct his lower’s jumpy senses.
“But, sir, please, just listen! Do you not hear it? The pounding?” His voice seemed a bit more desperate now, and he looked as if he wanted to fly up to try and spot the cause. However, his pleas seemed to work at least a tad, and Equinton seemed to quiet and listened for a short while. He heard nothing at first, besides the tromping of his own soldiers and the creaking of the supply cart, but then something else seemed to come out of it. It was…harsher, and less uniform. A repeated pounding noise coming from far off, and eventually he saw that the ground began to tremble a bit. That was when the realization came to him, and he looked up from the dirt just in time to see the brown masses appearing over the horizon, feathers decorating their heads and guttural roars breaking out amongst the brown mass.
“Buffalo…” he muttered under his breath, half in shock that they would try such a bold move as to attack head on. More often than not, they would wait behind a ridge for a column to pass through, and then charge when close. They must be getting desperate.
“Sir?!” Runner’s voice seemed strained as he looked to his commander for orders. This would be his first true battle, Equinton realised. Runner had only come to him as a replacement a few weeks ago. The brown masse was getting closer and it was but a moment before Equinton replied, but it seemed like ages. The column had since stopped with the two commanders, with no real order being given to halt marching. All of them stared widely at the charging horde, some with bewilderment, others with a grim and morbid anticipation for the upcoming battle.
“Form a line, two ranks” Equinton said simply and grimly, and it was not long before Runner was shouting out his orders to the men.
“Form battle line! Two ranks! Pikes in front, rifles behind!” His voice seemed high, and his elongated tones featured a break in his voice at one point. Then the bugle began to peal out, and the column began to trot up again. They ran past where the two officers stood, and wheeled into a lined formation in which those ponies with pikes stood in front, and those with ‘rifles’ in-between and a few feet behind. That brown mass was getting closer yet, they were nearly in range. With the wind blowing as it was, their thick and musty stench was heavy in the air.
“Front rank! Kneel!” Runner shouted in his high and drawn-out voice. He was breathing heavily now. “Pikes at the ready!” The front rank of soldiers pushed on the levers in front of them with their right foreleg, and leaned in such a way so that their hindlegs provided them a strong base to keep their footing, and their pikes lowered to head-level. “Rifles, present!” Then the rear-rank pushed their levers, and their long rifles lowered, to fire over the heads of the pike-wielders. The sun glared off of the rods, blinding their wielders.
“Line formed, sir!” He shouted once again to Equinton, even though he was flying right next to him. That was understandable, however, as the Buffalo were nearly upon them now. He could even make out specific details on their dirty, painted faces and their flimsy headgear. He could hear their guttural war cries and snorting. Equinton looked unto them with grim determination, and hatred. He spoke his order quietly, and with confidence.
“Fire”
“First platoon!” Runner cried out, his voice as high as it had ever gotten now, “Fire!” Before he was even finished shouting, a resounding crash rang out and great gusts of smoke burst out of the barrels of the rifles as the soldiers heaved on their levers to fire. The response was seen immediately as a few of the Buffalo fell in bloody messes from their charge, some with yelps of pain, others silently as their skulls were fractured instantly from the powerful metal balls.
“Reload!” Runner screamed, but it was hardly needed, as the soldiers were already working feverishly turning cranks on their sides with their mouths to reload their guns. “Faster, damn you, faster! Present!” But then he stopped. The Buffalo were very nearly on them, and when the soldiers were awaiting the order to fire, he seemed to freeze up. His legs were shaking and he lowered a few inches as he seemed to loose feeling in his wings.
“Runner!” Said Equinton, noticing his lesser weakening in such a way. Damn the Colt and his weak will! He would have him flogged after this! “Fire!” Equinton shouted out himself, and once again a thunderous crash resounded. However now it was too late. Those Buffalo which did fall did so but a few feet away, and near immediately afterwards, the others reached the Pony line and slammed into it. Not a one fell from the pikes, and most simply broke them in two with their sheer mass. Their war cries were deafening as they slammed their massive heads into their enemies, and their horns punctured weak pony flesh. The line shattered immediately as the ponies were quickly cut off and found themselves having to fend for themselves or in small groups against the much more powerful foe. It was not long before Equinton found himself and Runner surrounded by at least three of the beasts. His entire vision was clouded by what could easily have been the largest of the Buffalo in front of him. In one final spout of glory, Equinton screamed, and sped forward at the beast with his hoofs forward as if in an attempt to strangle the beast. However the Buffalo was far stronger than he, and a swipe of its massive head slammed Equinton in the ribs, and sent him flying in the other direction. He slammed into the ground, against something very hard. That was all he could tell at that point, that he had hit something hard, and then everything began to get dark. He could just barely note Runner being held to the dirt by his wings by the beasts, his mouth open in a scream, and his tears mixing with the pool of blood already collecting around him. Then, it was simply darkness.
__________
Equinton began to feel again. He opened his eyes slowly, dazed and confused. He was on the ground, laying up against something cold and hard, and- wait, that was just it. He was on the ground. As that realisation began to flood into him, his heart began beating quicker and his mind racing. His memory came flooding back. The attack, that large Buffalo that hit him, Runner…he did not want to think about that last bit. He tried to take off, but he found that he could hardly move his wings. No matter! He had to get up, that was all he knew as he thought of his entire body touching the dirty ground, wallowing in the filth as if he were some filthy Earth pony! He forced his wings to operate, despite the massive pain it caused him, and he took off but an inch from the ground. He stifled the urge to yell out in pain as his side twanged with immense pain, and looked down to realise that he must have broken a few bones. He was covered in blood, he also realised, but did not have much besides a few scrapes and bruises on the outside. He turned around in the air painfully to see that the object he had been laying on was one of his dead comrades. The hard object he had felt was the crate the soldier carried on his back, half shattered now, and he had been laying in a pool of the poor fellow’s blood. The thought was enough to make him retch dryly, and for his already weak body to feel even weaker. He turned from his dead charge to find a sight even worse. The entire column, it would seem, had suffered much the same fate. Everywhere lay the littered bodies, each one mangled and crushed, the poor fellows likely left to die in their own gore. Here and there lay body parts and the very ground seemed to be muddied with the blood. It seemed that not all of them had been lucky enough to die in the initial shock, and some seemed to have been crushed by the heavy legs of their Buffalo attackers. That was when his mind went once again to Runner.
“Runner!” Equinton shouted weakly. He was surprised at how weak he sounded, his voice came out in a whispery croak more than anything else. But he did not care about that, he needed to see if Runner was still alive. If anypony had survived. “Runner, are you there!?” Nothing. He tried again. Still no response. Then he noticed something on the ground. Another corpse, but one that seemed more mangled than any of the others. It sat alone, however, in the fact that on its back was no crushed box-device, but sat two simple, bloodied stumps. The savages had cut off his wings. His face was not even recognisable, as it would have appeared that the full weight of one of the Buffalo had slammed into his head. The result was not pretty, and this time Equinton sicked up fully. The poor, poor fellow, he thought to himself. Runner had only been a few weeks from home, now, a fresh officer from Cloudsdale. He would have signed up out of peer pressure, and out of false images of glory and flashy uniforms. Now he was…unrecognisable. His uniform was torn into rags around him, his body mangled and torn beyond all repair, and he lay in the mud and stench of his own gore. If only…
Equinton’s thoughts were turned from his dead comrade as he heard something a distance away. It sounded like…coughing? He raised his sight from his mangled comrade to find the source, and found it in the form of a wounded soldier lying on the ground. He looked to be alive, but barely. Equinton flew to where the young Colt lay, and shuttered as he saw the nature of the poor fellows pain. His left hind-leg was separated from his body, held together only by a few weak and bloody tendons of flesh. How something like that had happened to the poor fellow, he had no idea. The Buffalo must have wanted to send a message to the Empire with the brutality they used here. The Colt seemed to be clinging on to life desperately, and he was failing. The pack on his back was smashed to pieces, but it was still attached by a part of the leather strap. He seemed to take note of Equinton’s approach through his half-shut eyes, and it seemed that he wanted to try and get up, but he could not work up the effort to do so.
“At your ease, lad…” Equinton said to him. Dear Celestia, he was little more than a child! Did he even have his Cutie Mark? Equinton lowered closer to the lad, and could hear that his breathing was laboured and ragged. “Rest easy, child” Equinton was near in shock at this. He had seen others die before, but this…why did this one seem to strike him so?
“I…is there any water left, father?” The Colt said in a weak and quiet voice. The poor, pitiful thing was delusional. He thought he saw his father in Equinton’s silhouette. That struck at the officer even more. He was able to tear his eyes from the boy momentarily to look for something to comfort him with, but it was not long before he realised that the supply cart was gone. That was why they had been attacked, merely for that already weakening supply of water and food. So that was it, then. There was nothing to be done for the boy. Then he remembered his own supply. He looked to his belt and noticed that his canteen had gone un-noticed by the raiders, and pulled it out with his mouth. He stopped halfway to opening it. If he gave this child his water, he would most likely not have enough to make it back to the homeland , especially not with his wounds. However, another wracking cough from the young Colt was enough for him to make up his mind. He could at least try to comfort the boy in his last moments.
He lowered down further and rose up the Colt’s head with his hooves, and poured the water into his open mouth. There was only enough for a single drink, it had seemed a fair amount of it had spilled when he fell. The poor Colt seemed to work his mouth as if to get more, but the canteen was dry.
“I’m sorry, child…” Equinton said, his voice shaking. He did not have the heart to tell the Colt he was not his father, “There…there’s no more”
“…Oh…” Came the weak reply, he seemed detached from the situation. There was a long silence, then, as Equinton gently floated above with the young Colt leaning in his arms, the only sound being of haggard breathing. “How….l-long…until we…r-reach…Ponyville, f-father?”
“Not…not long now, child. P-please, rest, retain your strength…” Equinton felt his heart heaving as he struggled to speak, “Rest...we will be home soon…”
“Good…and…and mother will be there? Mother will be waiting for us?”
“Y…yes, son. Mother is waiting for you. She…she has been worried sick about you, you know, and she can’t wait to see you home again.” The Colt smiled at that, he did not seem to understand that he was soon to die.
“I…I didn’t…shame the f-family, did I, father?” It would be soon now. The Colt’s voice was hardly beyond a whisper, Equinton had to strain himself to hear what he was saying. A part of him wished he could not hear the boy.
“Of course you haven’t, son…” He said, his voice wavering, “We’re proud of you…I am proud of you” Then the child smiled. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but it did not come out. His eyes shut, and his breathing slowed further. Soon enough, it stopped altogether. He was dead in Equinton’s arms. Then it was silent again, and there was no one to see the tears that silently slid down his cheeks.
