The Siege Of Canterlot

Ferdinand Firetail's earlier efforts had seen the walls of Canterlot rebuilt, strengthened, modernised. They had been redesigned to resist cannon fire and enhance the city's own firepower, with the three main portals, the Unicorn, Earth and Pegasus Gates, each covered by cannons from above as well as at the sides, both along the walltop and in the protrusions that jutted out from the city's protective curtain. These were the bastions, the great mounds of solid stone and masonry that guarded the approaches. Each was packed with cannons, as well as smaller defensive emplacements, firing ports and revetments. Each gate had two bastions guarding it; the Unicorn Gate had the Phoenix Bastion and the Timberwolf Bastion, the Earth Gate had the Hydra Bastion and the Manticore Bastion, and the Pegasus Gate was covered by the Dragon Bastion and the Wyvern Bastion. Each bastion was protected in turn by a single ravelin, a triangular earthwork constructed in front of the bastions to act as another layer of defence, to prevent the enemy getting an easy, clean shot on the bastion walls with artillery, and to break up an incoming attack and funnel the enemy around the sides of the ravelin and thus the bastion it protected, where they could be exposed to a hail of crossfire from both bulwarks, the curtain wall, and the ravelin itself. The Unicorn and Earth Gates were located on the southern side of the city, while the Pegasus Gate was located around to the east.

At the southeast point where the great curtain wall turned, there were two more defensive structures that protected the corner. These were the Solar Bastion and the former Lunar Bastion, long since renamed the Astral Bastion instead in a further and continued effort to expunge Princess Luna's betrayal from the historical record. They were located at a natural weak point, for where the curtain wall turned it was difficult to maintain a continuous band of supporting fire from it. The two bastions jutted out and provided mutual support for each other and also helped protect the corner of the wall, a point at which the physical construct was at its most vulnerable.

The western and northern city walls were mostly a formality, for both looked out into the abyss. The northern wall guarded a thin strip of flat land before the rocky perimeter of the edge of the plateau, and the west wall was practically on the edge of forever, located just far enough back from the precipice to avoid, it was hoped, any immediate danger in the next few centuries of undermining or collapse thanks to natural erosion or landslide. These walls were still patrolled and guarded because of the threat of airborne attack, but they had no cannons or defensive structures, for it would be impossible for an enemy to mount a ground assault from those directions. The threat to the city came largely from due south.

In front of the city wall lay the ditch, an old construction from a time when battering rams and siege engines were the main threat to the city. Celestia had long ago ordered her engineers to dig a deep moat surrounding the city, which was fed with water from the mountain streams. But the moat had been left to decay for decades, partly through lack of funding and political will, partly due to the movement to gunpowder as the primary method of siege warfare, and partly due to the fact that the city had not been attacked for a long time. When Firetail was called to enact his initial reforms, he thus ordered the moat to be fully drained and replaced with a simple ditch, with a steep and uneven counterscarp, and a scarp of smooth earth and wooden logs forming the rear face closest to the city, designed to be almost unclimbable while under direct fire from the city walls. A mound of compacted soil lay in front of the ditch, behind which lay the glacis, an open killing ground attackers would have to cross before they reached the lip of the ditch itself. Out beyond the ditch was another earthwork, a kind of second city wall, though nowhere near as grandiose, being constructed entirely of soil rather than brick and stone. This was designed as an outer breastwork for the enemy to beat itself against, and could be lined with musketponies and pikes, acting as a first line of defence.

The only spot where these defences did not quite reach Firetail's exacting standards was near the river Coltava, the mountain torrent that fed the city, providing it with fresh, clean glacial water. The Coltava divided the city in twain, separating the Old Town and the New Town, the inner and outer sections of Canterlot, from each other. It also marked a potential vulnerability, for where the river flowed, no massive city wall could be constructed. That was the city's obvious weak point, for instead of a wall there was merely a huge metal grate, secured with numerous chains and watched over by two widely spaced defensive outcroppings, the imaginatively-named Old Town Bastion and New Town Bastion, each located on opposite sides of the river. The outer works such as the earthen embankment could not be constructed right up to the riverbank, either, as the ground closer to it became waterlogged. However, one thing in the city's favour was that a small tributary of the Coltava broke away and flowed south across the plateau not too far out from the city walls, meaning that any enemy force who tried to attack the weak spot would still have to cross at least one river to reach it. If they formed up beyond the tributary, in the space between it and the mountainside, they would be an easy target for artillery and restricted in maneuverability.

All of that construction had been accomplished either centuries earlier, or in more recent years under the rennovations of Ferdinand Firetail. Now, more work was called for. At Firetail's direction, the wall and bastion positions were reinforced with timber, sandbags and grain sacks filled with soil for extra protection from gunfire. Outside the walls, abandoning all earlier attempts at avoiding panic, citizens were roped in to form construction parties, with two main aims. First, dig a network of trenches, connecting the bastions to their protective ravelins, the outer breastwork to the second line, and individual positions to each other. Second, construct a large palisade atop the breastwork, consisting of thousands of wooden stakes supported with earth, reinforced with cross-beams and tied together. This had the double purpose of constructing more protection for the defenders, and also cutting down as many trees from the vicinity as possible, thus denying their use to the enemy, and every little thing that could slow the enemy down was useful.

To the untrained eye, these measures might seem half-baked, pointless even, paling in comparison with the mighty city walls that towered over them. But Firetail knew that, if nothing else, they would buy Canterlot time, and time was something they lacked. If they could hold out until the Holy Army arrived, or until reinforcements from Stalliongrad could be summoned, then they might have a chance of survival. Each line of defences that the enemy had to break through would add to the length of the siege. That could allow them to hold out until help arrived, but in itself it could be problematic if there was a lack of supply.

Therefore, every citizen who had not been roped into the construction party was instructed to gather whatever resources they could from the plateau. Food was the most important, timber the second. Every scrap that might be of use had to be brought into the city's protective embrace, for once the enemy arrived it would be extremely difficult to send out scavenging parties, and there would certainly be no likelihood of supply from elsewhere getting through the blockade. Grain was rapidly harvested, potatoes, tomatoes, celery and fruit all gathered in. Grass was mowed and stockpiled; an advantage for a mainly herbivorous society like Equestria was that the city's occupants could subsist on the simplest things, including grass, leaves and flowers. Species such as the Griffons had notably few sieges in their history where they were on the defensive and emerged as the victors- though there were numerous accounts of their raiding parties capturing enemy sentries and gun crews and using them as sources of nutrition, rather than as sources of information.

The word of alarm was passed to the towns of the plateau, as well as those in the valley below. Naturally it also spread rapidly among the nobility of Canterlot. From the evening after the signal from the Henbane was received, the road out of town was alive with carriages and wagons as the aristrocrats, merchants and other high-borne ponies of means simply upped sticks and fled the city. Watchers on the westwall could track their progress along the valley road to the north as the endless string of lanterns, each marking a carriage or cart, headed into the distance toward the fortress-city of Vanhoover, the next safe haven.

At the same time, Canterlot received an influx of new blood- refugees from the towns of the plateau and the valley. They had nowhere else to go, nor the means to flee to the north like those of noble birth. Their only option was to run for the safety of the city. Within the day, the villages were empty and the city was full once more. Those from the valley arrived during the following morning as feverish work continued on the defences. Nopony knew how long they had. Scouts were posted on the very southern edge of the plateau and down in the valley, scanning constantly for any sign of the advancing enemy. The more warning they had, the better.

To new arrivals, the city looked like a hive of frenzied activity, like an anthill with thousands of bodies swarming all over its exterior. Ponies were digging, ponies were carrying and stacking, ponies were chopping and hammering. To Corporal Snapshot, it was awe-inspiring. Not the effort, nor the defensive works, but the city itself. Here he was, in Canterlot, for the first time in his life. He had been born in the west, been shunted around the country in his military service, but never had he visited the capital, not even as a pilgrim of grace to visit the home of the Princess. It was every bit as beautiful as he had imagined, even if it was surrounded with military scaffolding, so to speak.

Captain Oats had led her band of survivors north to the Corona Line, where they had met with General Summerstrike himself, giving him their account of the battle. The General had then ordered Oats to take her small force north with the next set of merchants' wagons to leave Fort Corona, all the way to Canterlot. He had given them orders to report to the capital and tell the military leaders there everything they knew about the enemy in person. That was why they were here now; at the time of their departure from the fort, they were the only survivors known to have encountered the enemy force. They had ridden the empty carts north, bumping over the roads and tracks all the way, for the last four days. They had scarcely stopped for rest, for the merchants had been as keen to keep ahead of the enemy advance as their passengers. Now, finally, they had arrived at the City of Sun, the House of the Princess. Even if they brought only bad tidings with them, Snapshot was glad he had been able to see Canterlot with his own eyes at least once before he died. The fact that he might well die within its walls had not yet occurred to him.