Rōnin

Blueblood marched through the halls of the castle towards the central conference room. He was told that two diplomats waited for him, he expected them to be from the Bat Clans to either demand or offer a surrender. His armored bootsteps echoed down the hallway as he marched in a hurried fashion. Behind him were eight nobles, all wearing the edvanced plate armor of the day and carrying poleaxes with longswords at their hips. He struck the doors to the conference room and found two diplomats there, but one was a griffin and the other a Minotaur. He stopped in front of them and they bowed respectfully once he did.

“King Blueblood,” The griffin says. “I am Owl Feather, and I have come to speak on behalf of my king. This is Stonehand, he has come to speak on behalf of his. We both wish to discuss relations between our nations.”

“I see.” Blueblood says. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

“Both of our kings have come to the conclusion that you losing this war would be very bad for us, so we have come to offer our aid, in exchange for some of the conquered territory.” Stonehand says. “Mine for farmland, his for mining resources. If this agreed to you will five units of each of our warriors to fight with you against these Bat Clans.”

Blueblood thought for a minute, how much land did they want and how much could he keep. He hated giving up land, but he wasn’t so dumb as to not see that he was losing the war at that time. If he decided to give up land in exchange for help he stood a much better chance at winning, but neither did he want to give up all the land conquered.

“If I agree to this, how much land to I need to give to each of you?”

“My king wants five hundred acres of farmland.” Stonehand tells him. “And the griffins want three or four mining facilities that are rich in recourses.”

“It can be done,” Blueblood says.

“My king also wishes to know what you want to do with any enemy civilians captured.” Owl Feather inquires.

Blueblood hadn’t actually thought about it, but now that it came up he emmediately knew what to do with them. “The stallions will be enslaved for work, the mares enslaved for pleasure. If you wish to have a share then that can easily be arranged.”

“Sounds like we have a deal.” Owl Feather says.

Blueblood and the diplomats signed the necessary paperwork and the diplomats left with their copies. Blueblood left to demand Celestia’s involvement in the war for the third time that day, and when he came in he saw he quickly hide an envelope in her dress. He approached her and swiftly removed it before reading it through, the contents angered him, and who it was addressed to even more so.

“I should have guessed.” He says. “You’ve been feeding them information. No longer. Guards!”

They came into the room and awaited his orders.

“This whore has been feeding information to the enemy, if she believes herself one of them she will find out what we do to them. Take her to the dungeons, where we keep those monstrosities.”

The guards saw the letter, and emmediately placed Celestia in irons before dragging her down to The Pit, where they kept and tortured Batponies. Celestia would never forget what she witnessed down there.

Luna stood against the map table of the command tent in the middle of the camp. Her generals were with her and they were discussing their next move in the strategy. Luna was looking over the map at the locations of the legions, and looked at ponyvill where a figurine of a samurai stood, indicating that it was garrisoned mainly by samurai, namely Akira. Luna had read over the reports and had learned that he had chosen Big Mac as one of his companions, and that Fluttershy had joined the medical corps and was to be detached to Ponyvill with a squad of professionals to assist with any medical needs.

Luna looked up when a scout entered the tent. “Princess, a group of neutral warriors rides to us on what appear to be bears and carrying the flag of truce. They wish to speak with you.”

“Take me to them.” Luna says grabbing her naginata, putting on her helmet and tightening her menpo.

Luna followed the scout to the forts walls. The fort they had set up was in a league of its own concerning temporary defense. It was surrounded on all sides by three separate palisades, each getting higher as they went in and separated by spike filled trenches. Set at even intervals were towers at each wall, the innermost towers had two levels, the bottom one for a ballista and the top for archers, the ones on the first and second wall only had archer platforms. Each wall had a gate, getting progressively thicker as they went in. Luna ordered these gates to open, and when they did sure enough a group of warriors riding on the backs of bearlike creatures rode in.

The warriors were bulky, with large horns and dangerous looking weapons. The one in the lead wore a shirt of mail that came down to his knees and split down the middle use below the crotch to allow free leg movement, over that he had a vest of scaled armor. On his head was a cap of steel with eye and nose guards with cheekplates coming down from the eye guards. There was a skirt of mail that came down on all sides of his head much like that of a samurai helmet.

In his left had was a large wooden roundshield and at his hip was a straight double edged sword the likes of which she had never seen before.

In his right hand he held a broad bladed spear, on which was a white flag.

“Am I to assume you are in command here?” The man asks, receiving a nod from Luna.

“I am Jarl Ironbeard. I have come to speak on behalf of my people, the Oxen. We wish to offer our help in this war, in exchange for farmland.” He says. “My people are strong but they cannot live without food, and food is scarce where we come from.”

“I would be happy to assist you and your people Jarl Ironbeard.” Luna tells him. “What assistance can you offer me?”

“I have very good land warriors, as do you. But you lack a navy, something my people thrive with.” He tells her. “I will give you a navy and any land warriors you need that I can provide, for three hundred acres of fertile land to grow the food my people need.”

Luna thought about this. “Come with me, I must consult my generals for this decision.”

The jarl dismounted his beast and left his spear with his men. Then he followed Luna to the command tent, walking in he saw twelve generals, all of which were a good two heads smaller than he. They looked at him, then to Luna.

“Princess, who is this?” One of them asked.

“Princess?” The jarl says bowing to her. “Forgive me, I had no idea that I stood in the presence of a royal.”

“No need for bowing jarl.” Luna tells him. “You lead your people, I lead mine, we are equal. But inform my generals of your offer.”

“I offer the assistance of my people for farmland, three hundred acres to be precise. We will give you a navy, and possibly cavalry if you so need. My people are strong, it to stay that way they need food, which is scarce in my homeland.”

The generals looked stunned for a moment, then turned to one another. “This is a good opportunity, a navy will give us an edge we haven’t had for the entirety of this war, we can catch the Equestrians off guard.”

“But three hundred acres is a lot to give up.”

“Not really if you consider how much is to be conquered, and considering most of our main cities are underground we can afford to give them more.”

“A fair point, and whatever cavalry is I can guess the Equestrians don’t have it.”

“Cavalry is a unit of warriors mounted on war-beasts.” Jarl Ironbeard cuts in. “We have War-Bears that we ride, they give us speed and good contact power. A charge could easily break a line of unprepared warriors, even prepared ones can get broken up by a good charge.”

This set the generals to another few minutes of discussion. But ultimately the decision was made by Luna.

“Jarl Ironbeard, your terms are more than acceptable. I look forward to seeing your warriors in action.”