We Sail For Celestia

Harmony Bay lay under a blanket of rain, dampening spirits as well as the campfires of the defenders in their trenches and laagers. The garrison was well-trained and decently led, with plenty of ammunition and food to last months. The city could hold out- the only question was, could it hold out long enough for help to arrive?

Nopony knew how well the Kirin would fare against the heavily fortified outer perimeter of the city's defences. The soldiers were not even confident that they could successfully attack the city themselves, but the Kirin were an unknown quantity. Perhaps they had been trained to excel in siege warfare. Perhaps they had special equipment, special training, special weapons. Maybe there was some fundamental flaw in the defences which had been overlooked, something that the budget cuts might have caused. Or maybe the city would shrug off the attacks and hurl the invaders back into the sea from whence they came.

That seemed unlikely. All a citizen had to do was look out into the harbour to see why. The Northern Fleet was still stationary, and had been since its ultimately pointless foray against the Kirin blockade. It was demoralising, both for the civilians and the soldiers who were preparing to fight and die to save the city. The Navy, sitting there, unmoving, doing nothing to contribute to the safety of Harmony Bay. Never mind that another attack on the Kirin fleet might well see the Northern Fleet rendered utterly impotent, with thousands of sailors dying just to see the city opened up without the Kirin Army even needing to fire a shot in anger against its defences. Everything was now part of a great strategic dance; if the fleet remained, the Kirin Navy could not simply sail in and take control. If the forts remained, the Kirin Army would be prevented from doing the same. The Kirin Navy could not accurately fire upon the ships, for they could not get line of sight with the Northern Fleet without sailing into the harbour under the coastal guns. But if the Kirin Army could push far enough forward to gain control of some of the hills that surrounded the city, and could place their artillery observers upon them, they would be able to call down fire unencumbered by any protection that the geography may have offered Admiral Strongbow's vessels.

That lack of direct observation, however, did not prevent the Kirin Navy from firing; merely from firing accurately enough to hit the ships of the Northern Fleet. But there were other tempting targets.

Greenwood was on shore leave when it first happened. A most ignominious place to be found, for he was in the whorehouse, getting a good riding from a particularly domineering plum-purple earth pony mare who was more than happy to first remove his money, then his trousers, from his possession, though he would only get one of the two back at the end of the session. All of a sudden, the whole room shook, wooden floors and walls creaking most unexpectedly.

"Told you I'd make the earth move for you, didn't I honey?" the whore smiled. Greenwood didn't much like the sound of whatever it was that had shaken the building, but he wasn't going to waste his money by leaving unfulfilled, though the second bang and rumble came only moments after he had satisfied himself.

"Keep the noise down!" the whore barked, banging on the wall to the next room.

"I don't think that's coming from next door..." Greenwood grunted. "Get off me, I have to get up." She complied and removed herself from atop him.

"You'll have to give yourself a few minutes if you want to get it up again, honey," she remarked with a smirk that was quickly wiped from her face when the room's window suddenly blew in. She squealed and rolled aside, tumbling from the bed with a thud. Greenwood scrambled to his feet and shot to the window, peering out, naked and alarmed.

"Shit...son of a bitch...!" he swore, grasping desperately for his clothes. Oh, for one carefree lay...!

"What was that? What's going on?" the prostitute asked him from the floor of her room, her tight corset a wholly inadequate protection against the kind of predations that were being unleashed upon the city.

"We're being shelled," Greenwood shouted. "Get downstairs, the basement if there is one. Get the other girls down there too if you can."

"O-ok...!" she squeaked nervously, grabbing at her undergarments and pulling them on before scurrying from the room. Greenwood peered out across the rooftops of Harmony Bay. It was already getting dark thanks to the clouds and rain, though it was only just past noon. The squall driving in was bathing the city in an awful grey pall, punctuated only by the burning sulfurous orbs of the streetside gas lamps and the rather more homely lights of the houses. Even the brightly-lit whorehouse had seemed a little more subdued under such conditions than it usually did.

Greenwood rushed downstairs once he was fully dressed, passing half-naked mares and stallions trying to button up their jackets and don their peaked officers' hats. The Defiant would be waiting for him in the harbour, and he had to report to Captain Oakheart. Could the Kirin fleet be trying to push into the harbour? Had the city defences failed, and the Kirin Army were suddenly upon them?

Outside, the street was empty save for sailors and labourers rushing to and fro, Yaks with their big fur-lined coats and burly pony stevedores trying to find safe shelter in a protected basement or public bunker. There were a few of those, designed for protection against airship raids or events just such as this. Greenwood set course for the harbour, but he had only made it a few hundred yards when a shrieking roar filled his ears, followed by a loud explosion not far away. He flung himself to the ground and felt himself being dusted with debris from the blast. When he rose again he could see a column of smoke rising from the rear yard of one of the nearby workshops. That only held his attentions for a few moments before another shell landed about a hundred yards down the street ahead of him, churning up the cobbles and casting aside a pair of unfortunate Yaks like two ragdolls.

The shells, he could determine from the sound and angle, were coming not from the landward side of town, but out to sea, beyond Fat Colt Island, possibly. That meant that unless the Kirin had somehow managed to land artillery units somewhere along the forbidding sea-crags, the firing was coming from their navy, who seemed to be indiscriminately shelling the town. Greenwood dropped to the wet ground again as another shell whizzed in and burst nearby, annihilating the top two floors of a store and tossing debris all across the rooftops nearby.

"Can't hit us so you're going after the civilians, eh? Sick animals!" he raged to the silent grey sky, in the absence of anything more tangible to direct his fury against. He scrambled to his feet again, uniform soaked through both from the rain and the slick cobbles he had just been lying on. The shelling was blind and deadly, for the Kirin gunners could not see what they were firing at, merely aiming at the general coordinates of the city and not caring what, or whom, they hit. It was a tactic of terror, not of war, and it enraged Greenwood. The Kirin, though foreign to him, were at least understood to be a civilised race with a concept of honour. Their navy seemed not to operate under the same principles.

The shells coming in were heavy, judging by the sound they made passing overhead, like ripping canvas or a speeding locomotive tearing through the leaden skies. The main batteries of a capital ship, ten or twelve inches in muzzle diameter, firing rounds as heavy as a cow. They were meant to pulverise another ship, pound its guns and crew into pulp, shatter its armour. Not for demolishing houses and slaughtering innocent civilians. Greenwood scrambled onward down the street as another shell roared in, crushing half of a store with its explosive payload.

He could see the Defiant ahead. Not far to go to reach it, but with the Kirin firing blind and indiscriminately, there was no guarantee the destroyer would mean safety. A shell could find an actual military target and kill him there just as easily as it could kill him in the street, but at least he would be at his post. An honourable death it would be. Killed in action, it would read on the certificate, and on the telegram sent home to his father. He wondered what his father was doing right now; overseeing the gardeners as they made sure the flowerbeds were ready for winter, perhaps. The chill came much later down there than it did up here in the sun-forsaken northlands. He thought of his brother. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he alive? Was he cold? Was he scared?

"Incoming!"

"Heads down!" Greenshield shouted, ducking below the parapet as shells began raining down around them. The Kirin assault had begun with a heavy bombardment of the forward Equestrian positions at the mouth of the valley, pummelling the chapel and its protective earthworks, bringing down part of the steeple and killing the spotters who had been reporting minute-by-minute on the approach of the Kirin infantry, who were massing out of sight of the Equestrians in the frontline, just over a low ridge and a string of smaller hillocks.

The rear Equestrian positions deeper in the valley had been spared the initial barrage, which had been concentrated on the frontlines. Greenshield had been able to watch from the heights above the tunnel as shell after shell had smashed into the chapel's trenches and the surrounding land, blowing holes in the earth and, no doubt, killing many ponies. Only once the assault itself actually began did the Kirin turn their artillery fire on the Equestrian's rear, to prevent reinforcements moving up easily without taking casualties. The enemy had not bothered with an excessively long preparatory bombardment; just long enough to let the defenders know they were coming, followed by a rapidly-launched assault. Now they were shelling the rear positions to cover their advance.

Shells whistled in and smashed into the ridge as Greenshield ducked low in the trench, the rest of his machine-gun section doing the same. Snow and rock fragments fell like a volcanic ashfall all around them as the explosions churned up the earth and clawed at the defences like a wild beast. The mortar fire at Calico Bridge had been one thing, but this was quite another. The Kirin had heavy howitzers and guns in place, hurling their high-explosive shells for miles, guided by unseen observers, linked to the batteries by field telephone, or perhaps radio. Up here in the mountains, reception was excellent, the radio net crystal clear, but the radios themselves were expensive, vulnerable to damage, and could be jammed or otherwise interfered with, as had been the case in Harmony Bay- though nopony yet had figured out the cause of the interference which had sent the Defiant home on its vital mission to relay the news of the impending attack.

Greenshield's position was linked by field telephone to the fortress in their rear, and with the frontline. Located in Major Blitz's dugout, the telephone performed the same function as a civilian device would have done in the comfort of a drawing room or lounge, but was of a rather more rugged construction, designed to withstand the rigours of army life. Field phones were a vital link in the communications chain, connecting positions within defensive lines or linking artillery batteries to their observers, but despite their ruggedness, the wires that had to be run between each position to feed the signals were vulnerable to shellfire unless buried, something that was difficult to do in the rocky terrain of the mountains.

None of that mattered to him at the moment, for all he could think of was death. With shells pounding the ground everywhere, the whole world seemed to have become a cacophony, a deadly symphony of unending noise and violent shaking, heaving the earth beneath his feet as the bombardment continued. He felt certain it must cause a landslide, an avalanche, if it wasn't already- for how could the mountains themselves withstand such fury?

The bombardment swept across the trenches in a wide curve of red, leaping flame, hurling columns of dust and smoke into the clear, eggshell-blue sky. Ponies sank lower into their funk-holes and clung desperately to the solid earth, like a drowning sailor clinging to any piece of driftwood or debris he could find after a shipwreck. It was their only salvation; that and prayer to Celestia that she would deliver them from the torment of the hellish pounding that the Kirin were unleashing on them. It seemed that they had reserved their heaviest firepower for the rear lines, or perhaps that was just an illusion created by the ceaseless sound and movement. In lulls between the shelling he could hear ponies moaning and whimpering. He assumed it came from others, but perhaps it was himself; he could scarcely hear himself think, nor even string two cohesive words together in his mind. His head was numb, the concussive waves from each explosion shivering through his brain like an earthquake. His helmet did nothing to drown out the noise, nor cushion the blow.

Snow trickled down upon him from the lip of the trench, dirt from leaking sandbags, shattered fragments of rock thrown up by the explosions. A glance at his watch might tell him how long this hell had been going on, but he found it a physical effort just to roll up his sleeve slightly and lower his eyes to look. He felt like a plague victim, drained of all of his energy, though he had spent most of the morning sitting in the trench doing very little. The altitude did not help- though it was nowhere near as high as the truly vertiginous peaks to be found elsewhere in Equestria, the Yakfrost Pass was high enough to create a slight oxygen deficit in every pony who found themselves there. The only benefit to that would be that it would be even worse for the Kirin, slogging uphill with burning legs, pounding hearts and gasping lungs, staggering under the weight of their packs and guns and helmets.

Glancing down the trench, Greenshield could see Major Blitz in his dugout, trying to speak into the field phone over the endless roar of the bombardment. The Major had one hand cupped over his mouth and the other over his ear, holding the handset and trying to make himself understood. He hardly seemed bothered by the shelling at all; indeed, but for his uniform, he might have been trying to make a collect call on the platform of a busy station or the lobby of a crowded theatre. The faces of the other ponies cowering in the trench painted a picture of misery. Fear, physical pain, mental torture. Nothing good could come of war.

Yet war it was, and war never ended until the politicians decreed it. The Kirin were certainly showing no signs of backing down. Their rapid assault had seen them sweep through the battered trenches around the chapel, before launching themselves upon the small farmstead that was their next target, in the shadow of the hills. The civilian inhabitants had long since been cleared out, and the farm was occupied only by soldiers, who gave a good account of themselves against the charging horde before being forced to pull back through sheer weight of numbers. Desultory artillery fire supported their retreat from the high hills, but most of the Equestrian guns were being silenced by accurate Kirin shelling that kept their crews under cover. Only the turreted guns of the protected positions could freely engage, and they did so, lobbing shells down onto the Kirin and blowing holes in their ranks, but failing to stop them pressing forward.

With renewed energy, supported by additional troops from the reserve, the Kirin advanced upon the far more forbidding obstacles that lay in their path. The fortified tunnel and the defences of the first ridge, complete with the sunken bunker complex atop its peak, presented a challenge unlike a simple piece of flat ground. A charge would soon run out of steam if its component soldiers could not keep up with the physical demands, which was why fresh troops had been moved into the attack. The Kirin waited in the lee of the boulders and slopes, out of sight of the defenders and protected from shellfire, while they were reinforced. The barrage of the Equestrian lines ceased all at once, and a sudden silence reigned.

Then, they charged. With a cry and the sounding of trumpets and trench whistles, the Kirin surged forward. Machine guns sprang into action in a dozen places, peppering the ridge with gunfire, supporting the advance, while mortars set up behind rocks and in shell craters began to replace the action of the heavy artillery, launching bombs in elegant arcs to strike the pony lines as the Kirin pushed up the slopes.

The defenders had to shake themselves from their artillery-induced stupor. Greenshield slowly shook his head, trying to dispel the fog that seemed to have enveloped him. It was not too long ago- perhaps a century or so- since cannons had fired solid shot and nothing else. Even fifty years ago, after high-explosive rounds had been invented, their potential was limited by the technology- poor range, poor accuracy. But the development of artillery had been most rapid of all in the past four decades, pushing from smoothbore guns designed to cut through a packed infantry formation to the rifled, highly accurate, highly powerful models that the Kirin were deploying, and that the Equestrians had within their own ranks. A multitude of different types of ammunition had been produced, the guns were acquiring longer ranges and higher calibres all the time, and that was in response to the changing tactics of the infantry. Gone were the ranks who stood in a line for volley fire against a similarly-arrayed enemy, and in had come small-unit tactics, the use of cover, close fire support from artillery, individual aimed fire, and defence in depth. The modern military world was a far cry from the single-shot, muzzle loaded muskets that Greenshield's great grandfather had fought with. Most soldiers now had five or ten-round bolt-action rifles, but there was also the self-loading rifle, the submachine gun, and perhaps most importantly of all, the heavy machine gun.

"Stand to!" Greenshield shouted, managing to rouse himself, and standing, gripping his rifle firmly. "Stand to!"

The gun crew leaped to it, suddenly startled into action by his shouts, pulled from their shellshocked fug. The gun was undamaged by the bombardment, but dirt and snow had to be cleared away from it. Easy Peeler took hold of the ammunition belt, while Acorn Hope grasped the handles, racked the bolt, and prepared to fire. The Kirin had a literal mountain to climb to take the ridge; some drove straight for the tunnel, which was heavily fortified with wire, sandbagged emplacements, machine guns and field guns firing over open sights. Trenches were dug in around it and over the top, which was where Greenshield was, on the ridgeline directly over the tunnel. Other, more adventurous Kirin were starting the long slog up to the high ridge to their left, where the turreted artillery was firing down on them.

Hold fire...wait until you see the whites of their eyes!" Greenshield urged his gunner. Captain Fine Feather moved along the line, encouraging the ponies of her company to stand firm in the face of the enemy. The Kirin were coming, and they would be ready for them.

As the Kirin crossed the relatively flat ground of the dirt track, the machine guns opened fire. With little cover, the first companies out were cut down with disturbing ease by the fire from in front of the tunnel. Snipers perched high up in the rocks and cliffside picked off the Kirin officers in their dark uniforms that marked them out from the khaki of the rank-and-file infantry. Other units were much luckier, finding plentiful cover among the boulders and natural landforms. The ridge was bulbous and bulging, rising toward the high ground where the turret and bunker complex sat, and there were innumerable folds, draws and depressions that could conceal and protect advancing soldiers.

Greenshield peered out carefully as Acorn Hope readied the gun, standing by to fire as soon as the Kirin lunged forward onto the ridge ahead of them. He could see little, but hear plenty of gunfire from down below, as the defenders around the tunnel mouth opened up with rifle and shell. A few mortar rounds landed nearby, but they seemed of little consequence after the heavy bombardment from artillery they had just undergone. A glance to his left and right revealed the trench's parapet lined with rifle barrels, most with bayonets already fixed, despite no order to do so being given; such was the Equestrian way. Ponies were ready to fight, despite the battering they had just taken. He had no idea of casualties incurred by the bombardment, but there had not been any in his immediate vicinity, at least. Now, however, they had to face down the same vicious assault which had burst through the first two lines of defence.

The Kirin swept forward, driving up toward the ridge on both flanks, attacking the tunnel and also trying to scale the heights to take out the bunkers. It was hard, hot work, despite the snow and the crisp winter chill in the air. Once the Kirin reached the lip of the ridge, where they were out of sight and in defilade from the defenders' machine guns, they rested, for to press on blindly would see them, exhausted, trying to cross the open ground into the teeth of the pony guns. They needed their muscles not to be burning from the climb.

Well aware of the potential for defilade, the Equestrians had constructed several sap trenches on the higher ground which protruded from the main line. These offered a spot for marksponies and a machine gun to sweep the front of the ridgeline, to the dismay of the Kirin soldiers who thought they were safe. At least a dozen went tumbling down the hill before they figured out what was happening and managed to get some rifle fire on the flanking positions. Down below, the tunnel entrance was under siege, with several companies of Kirin desperately pressing forward, using every scrap of cover possible, and creating their own, with hurled smoke grenades that burst into life, obscuring the vision of the gunners. Some of their squads carried light machine guns, hefty devices with flat, drum-shaped magazines for one strong Kirin to carry, which they set up on bipods in clefts in the rocks, supporting the rest of their unit as they moved in.

All at once, smoke popped along the ridgeline, some from thrown grenades, some from smoke rounds fired by the Kirin mortar teams. This was it. Here they come. There was a loud and building roar from beyond the smoke, accompanied by a round of angry chants, like a sports crowd heckling their opponent. Shrill trench whistles followed, and then the roar burst like a summer storm.

"Open fire!" Greenshield shouted. Acorn swung the gun around in the direction his sergeant was pointing, and opened fire. Acorn let loose with a quick burst to test the gun before holding down the trigger and then hosing down the billowing smoke clouds as Easy Peeler fed him ammunition. Other machine guns along the line joined in the chorus, and suddenly the Kirin were upon them.

The Kirin emerged from the smoke not as their normal selves, but as demons, shrouded in flame and smoke, eyes ablaze with dark fury. The firing from the Equestrian lines, initially a hurricane, suddenly slackened as ponies stared in dismay. What was this? The Kirin no longer looked like Kirin, but more like Changelings, with jet-black bodies beneath their khaki uniforms. Gone was their individuality, the vibrant manes and coats, replaced instead by something straight from a nightmare.

"Don't stop, don't think, just shoot!" Major Blitz could be heard yelling. Acorn Hope obliged, working the machine gun mechanically along the ranks of advancing demons. Rifle fire crackled from both sides. Many of the Kirin assault troops were armed with submachine guns, and they swept the trench parapet with gunfire as they charged. Their short-barrelled, side-loaded weapons sprayed bullets at a scary rate, and even more disconcertingly, the Kirin had bayonets fitted to them, stubby daggers attached to the underside of the barrel. The officers had their swords drawn and pistols in hand, while the rest of the Kirin carried their ten-round rifle, with a much more substantial bayonet affixed.

Though the ponies had been startled and rattled, their firing was accurate, and the Kirin's terrifying appearance did not give them much extra protection from gunfire. They stumbled, fell, screamed in rage and in anguish as they died, but the smoke and the shock had done their work, and within moments the Kirin had covered the bare ground and were upon the trenches.

"Gentlecolts, prepare to defend yourselves!" Major Blitz shouted, his hefty semi-automatic pistol and sabre in hand. "Fix bayonets! Send these bastards to Tartarus!" Greenshield gripped his rifle, his bayonet already fixed and ready. If the machine guns couldn't stop them, what chance did they have in close combat against these devils?

The Kirin leaped into the trench, some being cut down immediately. With feral roars, they set about their prey, swinging and spinning and stabbing. One Kirin loosed his submachine gun and cleared out an entire section of trench, killing eight ponies before being put down by several rifle rounds. In another section, a Kirin smashed in the skull of a lieutenant with an entrenching tool before a squad closed in on him. Her other hand held a grenade, and she took another half-dozen ponies with her as it exploded.

Greenshield could see none of this carnage, but he could hear it. The trenches had been constructed in a zig-zag pattern, so that no enemy could simply fire along their entire length. All he could see was what was happening around him. Acorn Hope kept the machine gun firing as the rest of the crew prepared to defend the gun. Three Kirin jumped down, all snarling fangs and fearful bayonets. Rifles were not ideal in such close quarters, and the Equestrian long bayonet made them even more unwieldy, but if an accurate shot could be taken, it would still kill. Greenshield raised his gun and fired, winging one of the Kirin who was trying to bayonet another pony. She managed to finish the Kirin off by stabbing her bayonet deep into his gut.

More Kirin jumped into the fray. One of them had a shotgun and a rictus snarl of hatred upon his face. With one shot, he felled two ponies, their blood splattering on the walls of the trench. A unicorn managed to throw up a shield to protect himself from the Kirin's next shot, and he turned his attention on the machine gun crew instead.

Before he even knew what was happening, Greenshield was running. A cry in his lungs rose to a savage roar as he charged straight at the Kirin. In the split second it took for him to work the pump-action of his shotgun, Greenshield's bayonet had plunged deep into his chest, shoving the Kirin bodily to the ground with a supreme effort. Blood coated his bayonet when he pulled it free from between the Kirin's ribs, the fire fading from his form, his eyes draining back to their normal pale green as he stared lifelessly at the sky, his heart punctured by Greenshield's blade.

There were three Kirin ahead of him, but Captain Fine Feather hosed them down with her submachine gun, spitting death and bullets and felling all three. Like the one Greenshield had charged, they too faded back to their regular, pony-like forms upon death. There were shambolic cries from the next trench section, where gunfire echoed, along with the crump of grenades coming from their left flank.

"Stay here, Sergeant," Fine Feather ordered. "You're in command of this section for now. I'm going to see what the situation is farther down."

"Yes ma'am...!" Greenshield nodded, his rifle clutched in his hands, which, he only now noticed, were shaking, almost uncontrollably, as the adrenaline rush which had carried him toward the barrel of his foe's shotgun began to wear off slightly, though the thrill and terror of battle ensured he was not going to crash entirely just yet. Fine Feather led half a dozen rifleponies around the corner toward the next trench section, leaving Greenshield to continue to supervise most of the rest of the command platoon.

With the trench section cleared, the attentions of Greenshield and his gun crew could return, mostly, to threats from the outside. More Kirin were still rushing forward. Greenshield shouted orders for two ponies to watch each end of the trench section in case the enemy achieved a breakthrough farther down the line, and peered out toward the smoke. The Kirin were still making it across the open ground, but some were taking up firing positions out there, picking off anypony who dared to peek over the parapet. His machine gun crew would be a prime target.

"Sweep that sector!" he ordered Acorn Hope. "Make them keep their heads down." Acorn nodded and played the gun across the snow-clad hillside, kicking up dirt and puffs of disturbed flakes. The Kirin who were hunkered down were, Greenshield noticed, not the burning demons. They all seemed to be the ones charging the trenches, while their ordinary brethren maintained a disciplined rifle fire from the open ground.

More grenades exploded violently in the next trench section, and the staccato chatter of submachine guns could be clearly heard, as well as shouts and screams. Clearly, the Kirin were making progress in some areas. They had not been repulsed entirely quite yet. Casualties were mounting all along the line, on both sides- that much was clear from the bodies of the Kirin dead strewn like fallen leaves on the snowfield. The question was, when would the breaking point be reached? Who would crack first? Would the Kirin lose their nerves or run out of reserves, or would the Equestrian line snap?

Heavy fire continued to be poured down from the heights, the turreted guns blasting away, heavy shells landing among the advancing Kirin as they climbed the slopes. A second wave went in, capturing small sections of trench and sweeping away the ponies, only to be forced out in turn by counter-charges and sent scurrying back over the snow to the relative safety of their own line, now firmly established at the lip of the ridge with machine guns in support. The long-range artillery from the Equestrian fort pummelled the Kirin's lines of communication and supply, knocking out several wheeled ammunition carts and killing soldiers, but it was not enough to halt their determined push.

Eventually, however, they simply ran out of steam. Casualties were mounting on both flanks, despite the Kirin's best efforts. They had been repulsed from the trenches and held at the ridgeline. That was enough, for now. With the loud trill of whistles echoing along the line, the Kirin began to pull back, leaving their dead behind, dragging their wounded with them. Rifle and machine-gun fire pursued them the whole way until they were out of sight below the ridge. The Kirin artillery opened up again, hammering the Equestrian positions. They were gone for now, but they would most assuredly come again.