The Siege Of Canterlot

The morning bombardment was a little more subdued than usual on the fifteenth day. The enemy were evidently feeling the loss of their cannons the night before, and when the mortar shells began raining down later that day, they came only half as frequently. While morale may not have necessarily risen in any detectable manner, it had at least been arrested from its precipitous fall. A blow had been struck; more than just a resisting the enemy attacks, this was an active step, a show of defiance. Canterlot was not going to just roll over and take it, day after day, week after week. If the siege was to drag on, then the enemy could expect more such raids, so long as the Equestrians had the troops to spare.

However, if the decline in morale had been halted overnight, then it was to resume rather rapidly that afternoon, at last for those ponies who had the watch upon the wall or the palisade defences. A morning as cloudy as the night before gave way to spells of sustained sunshine after lunch, and that was when the enemy decided to act. No attack today, however, no great struggle for the palisade wall, but rather a display.

From one of the trenches rose a figure, an apparition almost. A shimmering mass of darkness, swirling like a roiling sea, surrounded it. Whatever lay at its centre was barely discernable among the smoke and shadow. There were shouts of alarm from the walltop as they spotted it first, and stood to in case of an assault, but nothing happened. The apparition rose higher until it was visible from the wall, the palisade, and the palace, as well as most of the Old Town on its slightly higher foundations. There, it stopped, and began to speak, stunning those upon the wall into a confused silence.

"Followers of the self-proclaimed Sun Princess!" it boomed. "You have resisted us for two weeks now. Some of you have died. Some of you have been wounded. All of you have suffered. But it can end now. Do not allow yourselves to succumb to the fear and the pain that grip your hearts. Your Princess has abandoned you! She is not here in your hour of need, and what kind of leader, what kind of goddess, would leave you when you craved her aid and her presence the most? A false idol. No more and no less. Leave her thrall, abandon your worship of one who cares not for your lives. Accept the inevitable. This city will fall, one way or another, and then the rest of Equestria will follow. We shall be victorious, of that you can have no doubt, and then you shall have a new ruler. Not one who claims to be a god, nor one who does not correct others when they falsely worship them as one. Merely a monarch, a steward of this new realm of ours. Whether you accept it willingly or not, I shall be your King, and my wife shall be your Queen, and you shall obey."

The entity remained floating above the enemy lines as there was more movement down below, around the front of the enemy trench line. Several ponies emerged, Shadow Army soldiers, dragging other ponies with them onto the open ground.

"These foolish ponies still cling to their hope," the entity continued. "They fell into our clutches last night. They were offered a simple choice. Renounce the false Princess, reject the tenets of their misguided faith, and submit to their new rulers, and they would live. They refused. They refused to break the bonds of loyalty that their Princess has already broken, and so they shall suffer."

Only a few of the defenders on duty recognised the individuals being dragged, but all knew that they were fellow soldiers, captured the night before during the raid on the enemy guns. Though they were stripped of their uniforms, they retained as much of their dignity as they could, holding their heads up high, proud not to have forsaken their Princess during whatever interrogation they might have been subjected to by the Shadow Army. Naked, the two stallions and one mare were marched forward into an open space ahead of the main enemy trench lines. Pegasi sharpshooters trained heavy muskets on the enemy soldiers, though they remained out of range. it was better to be prepared just in case something happened that they could react to. The three naked soldiers were forced to their knees by their escort party. Their hands were bound behind their backs. The entity, a swirling storm, remained hovering above, and it spoke again.

"Your soldiers, our prisoners. Captured in a foolish raid ordered by your city leaders. Starswirl the Bearded cares nothing for your lives. General Hawkeye cares nothing for your lives. They fight for two reasons; to save their own skins, and to gain favour with the false Princess. You fight because you believe that, if you die, your Princess will be there for you in the next life. You believe she is the great power, the apotheosis of ponykind, a living goddess that walks amongst you. You are wrong."

Several of the enemy soldiers stood behind the captive prisoners as the entity continued to speak. "We gave these ponies the chance to recant their foolish belief in their Princess, for she is no goddess, but merely a pony like you or I. They refused. They shall be punished according to each of their crimes." The entity fell silent, watching on as the captives were set about by the enemy soldiers. Ramble was among them, trying to remain steadfast and as calm as he could under the circumstances. The mare to his left found herself impaled from behind by her own sword, taken from her after her capture and shoved bodily into her back to burst from her stomach, blood dripping as she moaned in agony. The stallion to his right was set ablaze by magic, screaming and rolling on the ground, but the flames were enchanted and could not be extinguished so easily.

The soldiers on the wall and at the palisade looked on aghast, some turning away in disgust and some firing their weapons, a pointless gesture of anger and defiance. Others, those who knew the captives personally, wept. Ramble, in the centre of the line, was left until last. A soldier with his visor down stepped up with the hammer and spikes taken from one of the dead raiders, for use to knock cannon out of action. In a ghastly display, he instead placed one against Ramble's head and gave it a mighty blow with the hammer, driving it straight into his left ear and into his brain. Ramble gave no cry or shout, but merely began to foam at the mouth. The brute repeated his display with another spike and Ramble's right ear, pounding it in hard. Ramble slumped forward to the ground, dead.

"So die three foolish ponies," the entity boasted. "If you renounce your false faith, you shall be spared. If you join us, you shall be spared. If you leave your city and come to us and lay down your arms, you shall be spared. If you continue to resist, then there shall be no salvation for you. This, I, King Sombra of the Shadowlands, decree on this day. Hear my words and heed them well."

With that, the apparition began to dissipate, returning to the ground inside the enemy camp from whence it had emerged, leaving the defenders of the city shaken at what they had heard and witnessed. General Hawkeye and Starswirl, watching from the palace, were nonplussed.

"He lies, of course," Hakweye mused, standing with her hands clasped behind her back.

"Of course," Starswirl nodded in agreement.

"At least you now finally know for certain that the King is here in person," the General added. "Presumably the Queen, too. Unless my hearing has failed me, I am sure that he said the Queen was his wife."

"He did indeed, General," Starswirl replied. "A most...unexpected development, I must admit. We had no knowledge of such a relationship between Sombra and Chrysalis so far as I am aware. Nothing in the annals suggested any kind of dynastic link between the two kingdoms. There have been no recorded marriages between a Changeling Queen and...well, anybody, until this point."

"Those records are patchy, though, are they not, Your Excellency?" Hawkeye pointed out. "Is it not possible that such marriages may well have happened before, but in secret, as this one appears to have done?"

"Yes, it is certainly possible," Starswirl admitted. "But we have no actual evidence that the Changelings even have an institution of marriage in the way we would understand it, internally at least. I imagine it was Sombra's suggestion, rather than that of the Queen, though I can see Chrysalis agreeing for political expediency, even if not for love. Ironic if true, considering that is what they feed upon."

"Indeed..." Hawkeye cared little for the domestic arrangements of her foes, merely with their military and political strengths; how many troops they had, how many reinforcements they could call upon, whether they had any other allies waiting to pounce. "To be honest, Your Excellency, I don't care if the King and Queen are fucking each other or not," she commented crudely. "What matters is that they have taken to the field together, and that they took us by surprise in doing so. We were not prepared for this, Your Excellency. Our armies were not ready to face two foes at once, on two different fronts."

"Can the city hold, General?" Starswirl asked simply.

"Yes, it can hold," Hawkeye nodded. "For how long, I do not know. Not without your shield at least. But we have our defences in place...though even as I speak, I see they are preparing once more for another attack."

Out on the field of battle, the Shadow Army and the Changelings were forming up, ready to push on both from the trenches and directly from their main camp. With no response evident to Sombra's appeal for surrender, another attack was the obvious next step for the enemy. The guns roared from the Bastions and the walls, answered with a rolling volley from the enemy cannons. Together, a heavy enemy force of both ponies and Changelings began to push forward, supported by their artillery. Hawkeye excused herself to see to the defence, leaving Starswirl to gaze out for a few more moments before returning to his feverish work. The city shield was still down, and had been for two weeks. He had still been unable to find any way to resurrect it or get the artefacts he had used to spark into life again. The combined magics of Sombra and Chrysais had done something to them- damaged them, drained them. He still could not work out what, nor how to fix things and make good on his promise.

Again the enemy came at them, and again the enemy was met with fire and fury, hurled back by dogged defending at the palisade wall as cannons thundered behind them. The attack this time was against both the Unicorn Gate and the Earth Gate, with a mixed force of ponies and Changelings attacking each location. The line held once more, stopping the enemy at the fence and inflicting heavy casualties. Accurate musketry from the Bastions helped to push back a Changeling force that tried to fly over the wall en masse, opening a large gap in the defensive line as they slaughtered dozens of Equestrian soldiers, but being forced to retreat by the hail of gunfire. Several companies of reinforcements were rushed to the scene and stabilised the line. Once more, the enemy retreated, thwarted by force of arms and force of will. They ran back to their trenches and their camp to lick their wounds. Despite Sombra's boasting and intimidation tactics, nothing they tried seemed to be working. Canterlot was holding fast.