At the peak of the Great War, Equestria has nearly collapsed as their lines falter under the pressure of Chrysalis' 1015 Summer offensive. As the changelings made their mad dash towards Cloudsdale, the relatively small group of ponies that made up the Equestrian Mountaineers' Corps defy the orders of the High Command and dig in to defend the vital Ruby Mountain Railroad that they were dug in on.

Through the winter and spring of 1015-1016, the Mountaineers' Corps endure the most cruel struggle of the war, besieged in the frigid heights of the Ruby Mountain Pass on and beneath Dragon Mountain in a desperate struggle to keep the bugs cut off from the supplies they desperately need to deliver the coup de grâce to Equestria.

This story is basically my way of practicing my creative writing through a setting I enjoy, the Hearts of Iron IV mod Equestria at War. The events of this are loosely based off of a game I played with some friends that had some cursed "roleplay" that I had some good ideas from.

I hope for this to be the first in a short series of stories I have beating around in my head that I desperately want to put to paper.

Huge thank you to all those who work on EaW, as well as the people in the discord server who help me sort out some of the details concerning the lore of the mod I might be too dense to figure out myself.