In the highest floor of the Varanspire, the Everchosen’s council was abuzz with chatter, boasts of kill counts and heads taken in the fall of the Auric Bastion, and casual swearings of oaths that would be forgotten before the day was out.

Spike had his spot in the assembly be his quick-built relation to the chief of the dragon-worshiping Goromandy tribe, Orgon Styrbjorn. Feigning amnesia from the death of Jinam, he settled into replacing the great beast like a fish to water.

“... and when I woke up, she was there, like a fury sent from the gods,” Spike lied, relishing in his own imagination. “Rarity brought me back to the others, and said your people needed me, but neither of us knew what your people really looked like.”

Orgon nodded. “Until the fire-rivers.”

“Exactly. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your people then. I was still new.”

“With still some way to go. At the rivers, and the wall, you’re style looks like you were trained by elfs. I’d be honored to teach you the Goromandy way.”

The roof hatches opened, and the entrance of four figures silenced all conversation. Rainbow Dash fluttered down first, while Twilight, Archaon, and Horstmann took the spiraling stairs. Archaon sat upon his throne, above the congregation, Twilight at his side.

“A mixed series of events. Great gains, many losses, and a revelation.” Archaon glanced at Twilight, and motioned her forward.

“The light that destroyed the daemons of the army was familiar to me, most likely the Elements of Harmony. Since they were successfully used, the Empire now has a potent weapon to all but eliminate daemons where they stand. As far as I know, Celestia is the only one who can use them on her own, so they can only be used in one place, at one time, but their reach is long.

“Jarl Orgon, your warriors were first hit by the Elements. What did you experience? How did it feel?”

“Like.. I couldn’t feel anything. I mean, I didn’t feel the rush of the charge, not even confusion, like my soul was being pulled out, if I had to describe that. Then, when it passed, I thought, what the faen was that rainbow dritt they threw at us?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s something I’ve never seen before. Speaking with lord Horstmann, we’ve discerned the most likely cause.”

In a flash of magical light, Twilight summoned a projection of equations and graphs to measure the Elements’ energies, detailed schematics of their geometry, and summaries of her own years of sorcerous research.

“Condense it down, perhaps?” said Horstmann. “You’re not lecturing at a university.”

“Right, right,” Twilight blushed, and dispelled most of the images, leaving only simulations of Nightmare Moon being launched to the moon on a rainbow comet, the dark power being stripped from Luna, and Discord in panic as stone encased his body.

“I’d met with Luna on several occasions before the Fall, and she said a lot about Nightmare Moon. A Nightmare Entity, one of countless Nightmare Forces she made a pact with for the power to overthrow Celestia.

“A thousand years on the moon to think about things, and stuck with the Nightmare entity, she seemed to become remorseful, and when hit by the Elements again, the Nightmare was ripped from her. When it came to Discord, who's a creature of disorder by nature, they instead petrified him. And with the Jarl’s description, their function seems to be to calm turbulence, and banish strongly Warp-aligned forces. We saw what it did to the flesh hounds, after all.”

Horstmann stepped forward. “So at this time, we cannot predict where Celestia, or Luna, and their Elements will appear. And when they do, we cannot call on our allies from the Empyrean. A waste of sacrifices.”

“And there is the intervention of the undead,” Archaon spoke up. “We have a source from within the hordes of bones. The von Carsteins mean to ally with the living, for we threaten the humans they see as cattle.”

Horstmann turned slightly, visibly confused. “My lord, my networks reach across the Empire and Sylvania. They’ve told me no news of the intentions of the vampires.”

“This one is new. Yesterday new. Vardek.”

Intrigued mutters were punctuated by the champion’s stride to the fore. The man’s skin was the color of old parchment, and gnarled like tree bark. He saluted sharply, fist over his heart.

“The Empire is amassing new forces in the town of Heffengen," said Archaon. "and I want you to break them. Take the Skaeling, your Kurgan, Arbaal, and Walach Harkon for this task. Destroying their unified armies will shatter the Empire into island city-states, to be surrounded and crushed one by one.

“The Fester Spites have faith that you can redeem yourself, and the success of their ritual lends it credence. We will see of you make good on this second chance.”

“It will be done, lord. On my life, the Southlanders will die.”

Archaon dismissed the remark with a wave of his hand. “Make no promises, no oaths. You will do, or die."

Twilight and Horstmann felt one another’s confusion. Harkon, leader of the Blood Dragons? What were vampires doing fighting alongside Chaos?

Messengers went out across the Old World, carrying the news that the Bastion had fallen, and the Empire called now for aid. The Electors all responded quickly with affirmation; but Bretonnia, Estalia, Tilea, and more were embroiled in their own battles with Beastmen, Skaven, and cult uprisings. As if all the forces of darkness had risen up as one, the Old World was ablaze with war.

Night was a beautiful sight in the hill-perched Ostermark town of Heffengen. As if one could reach up and touch the stars, the sky was a vast, glittering bowl. This day, the civilians had been evacuated, and the town itself quickly fortified with trenches and redoubts as Imperial forces gathered.

Scouts reported that the hordes of northmen were splitting up into prongs, to thrust into the Empire’s provinces. One of them was headed toward Heffengen.

Shining Armor headed the establishment of the Heffengen camp. Regiments from across the Empire martialed under the Triumvirate’s banner, but not all arrived in one piece. Despite Chrysalis’ intel on insurgent cults, sabotage had taken its toll on the rail system, stranding trains whose troops then had to march on half rations, harassed by beastman cultist ambushes. So far, only seventy percent of the requested manpower had arrived, and the enemy was nearing.

Princess Luna’s tent was built around two floors of platforming, a dark edifice with a grinning equine skull, framed by bat’s wings split among the entrance flaps. The guards raised their halberds as Shining Armor approached, and he found Luna talking with some officers about possible gun emplacements in and around the town.

“Dismissed for now. I will send for you to finish this,” said Luna.

The officers filed out past the Reiksmarshall.

Shining stood tall. “Answering your summons, princess."

Luna’s horn glowed softly, and a chair slid between Shining and the desk. Her expression was cold and devoid of any optimism. “Please, sit. What we discuss here will only be shared between us and my sister, once she returns from Ferlangen. Is that understood?”

“Yes, princess,” Shining said, and quickly seated himself.

“In these dark times, we must be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve victory, for the good of the world we live in.” Luna’s hoof idly rolled a scroll across on the desk. “The Elements of Harmony were delivered to us in a most peculiar manner. Analyzing the magical traces left on the Elements as they teleported confirmed our suspicions. They were sent by Spike’s flames. Apparently my sister's old messaging spell was never found and removed from him by the Archenemy, nor the Elfs.”

“Permission to speak, your highness.”

Luna nodded without hesitation. “Speak freely, Shining Armor. At ease.”

“So he, at least, is still on our side?”

“Celestia and I were unsure, and had his anchors to all of us broken over security concerns. We recreated ours and yours on another, more out-of-the-way object.”

Shining paused. “You've been intercepting my mail." It wasn't a question.

Luna rolled her eyes, and held out the scroll. “He seems to have sent you only one piece.”

Shining undid the copper seal of an eight-pointed star. Several places in the text were covered in erasure smudges and written over several times, as if they weren’t sure what to say.

It read: Dear Shining Armor. If the gods are merciful, then this will find you well. We’re all on different sides of a momentous occasion, and I want you to be on the right side of history. Preferably flesh and blood, and not just another statistic like the poor men and ponies who've already died in this war.

I've finally seen the truth, Shining. And I don't want you to think that I'm just another part of the fire that's burning the world down right now. I'm here. I'm alive. And I won't let anyone, especially not Celestia, say otherwise. After the End, I'm going to be a part of the solution. A solution to war. And I'll make sure the world will finally have a chance to heal properly.

The Empire can't win, big brother. They're all going to turn to ash. You'll turn to ash, too. I want you by my side to rebuild, and not just as specks and dust in the wind. So please. Please, come to me. And I'll make sure you have a place in all this, so help me Cha--... … Pinkie Promise.

Your LSBFF, Twilight Sparkle.

“She wants you to join her.” said Luna.

Shining sighed detachedly, and rolled up the parchment. “It looks like she’s going to be disappointed. If you called for me to reaffirm my loyalty, of course you have it. I didn’t get to where I am not knowing what it would take, and we’ve all seen what the enemy can do." He paused a moment to glance up into Luna's eyes. "But I ask that I be allowed to try to take her alive.”

“That would actually be preferred.” Luna nodded, and seemed to ease up a little. “Killing her would merely release her into the warp, from whence she may return in another time, place, and form.”

“Return," Shining muttered under his breath. "What if she can’t be convinced that this is madness? She’d be a prisoner forever.”

“Like you said, if that is what it takes to preserve this world.” Luna glanced at a timepiece on her desk. “The grand Theogonist is holding mass tonight. It would boost the army’s morale for the both of us to be among the common soldiery.”

“Really,” Shining chuckled. “Don’t half of them see you like a god?”

“They do,” Luna laughed. “but remember history, sir Armor. Even Sigmar prayed.”

Enticing scents were on the tip of Pinkie Pie’s muzzle, sweat, musk, and blood. Sigvald held Sliverslash off to the side, and an attendant wiped gore off the blade.

A grey-furred stallion laid on his belly, gasping in the mud. A split in his back exposed his severed spine, fatty tissue, and pooling blood that ran down the barrel. Pinkie Pie stood over him, licking her lips.

“P-please,” he hiccuped. “I can’t feel my legs. Pleas--”

“Sh-shh.” Pinkie brushed his mane from his eyes, gently lifting him up with slithering tongues. “Your war’s over. TIme to relax.”

She opened her jaws wide, and effortlessly pulled him in. Light gulps eased his journey, and she ignored his muted protests, massaging the bulging shape in her neck and enjoying the struggles as he slid down. Swallowing more forcefully as the hind hooves passed her lips, she couldn’t suppress a moan of pleasure as the weight squeezed into her stomach, pushing the gurgling sac to hang down to her knees.

“Loose another one!” barked Sigvald, waving toward the prisoner train. “Make it more challenging this time, a pegasus!”

The slaves were fresh stock, taken from local villages and captives from the Auric Bastion. Four iron collars were already empty, and another was removed from an orange pegasus mare. Her wings snapped open, ready to take advantage for freedom, but she was frozen with fear, having watched others be picked off with such frivolous ease.

“Y-you’re just going to kill us all, aren’t you?”

Sigvald spared her a look. “Perhaps not all in one go, but yes, actually. What did you think I brought you out here for?” he pointed to the sky. “Now get flying, little bird. I want to exercise my javelin arm.”

Pinkie slapped her gut, sending ripples across its girth. “And don’t worry, you’ll be in a better place afterward!”

The Mirror Guard pushed her forward, poking and prodding with boots and sword tips, demanding the fly for their lord. Still, she remained, wings folded.

“Pinkie Pie, make her fly.” Sigvald ordered.

Pinkie tsked. “Shoulda made it easy on yourself.”

The pegasus finally attempted to flee as Pinkie came at her, mouth agape. Several tongues lashed out, binding the mare’s limbs, and Pinkie launched her in a screaming orange blur. Sigvald held Sliverslash by the flat of the blade, and chucked it after the pegasus, both of them vanishing into the canopy.

The mares' scream faded with distance, and Sliverslash came sailing down, sticking cleanly into the soil more than a hundred meters away.

Then came the faint trace of laughter, that went to silence.

Sigvald’s band was silent, none wishing to stand out when a mistake had been committed in his midst, much less by the Scion of Slaanesh himself.. Wordlessly, Sigvald strode to his sword and plucked it up. His eyes met Pinkie’s, and she flinched, knowing blame would fall her.

Suddenly, the canopy rustled with a violent rush of snapping twigs. All looked up in time to see a massive boulder hurtling down at them. The Decadent Host scattered just before it splashed down, ejecting a geyser of mud.

Sigvald reunited with his host, all drawing arms for the ambush. Only a cygor or giant could hurl such a massive rock. Expectations were square on some unaligned beastman tribe.

“Get to the clearing!” Sigvald shouted.

The group broke out of the forest edge, into a muddy clearing, spreading out wide to better avoid any more projectiles.

Dim lights twinkled in the fog, on the outline of a short cottage. For acre on acre, rocks were laid in rows, most of them bulging with colored veins of ores and minerals. Coal, iron, silver, and lead; just to name a few.

It was a rock farm.

Pinkie Pie suddenly felt sick. “W-well, there’s no way that boulder could have come from here. Nopony to launch it! Maybe they’re somewhere else—”

Another massive rock came shooting over from behind the cottage, spinning high into the air and forcing the Host to break formation once again. Soil erupted from its impact, besmirching the mirror-polished armor of the Mirror Guard.

Sigvald recoiled in shock at the sight. "Those Bastards! Upstarts!" he hissed in rage and disgust.

The lobbing came smaller and faster now, forcing the Host to charge the cottage, flanking on both sides. But as they rounded it with gleaming blades raised to strike, they found no hostiles, no rock-launching war machine. Only Pinkie Pie, somehow having gotten ahead of them all, was sitting among a pile of rocks and boulders, in pain and nursing her grotesquely swollen stomach.

“Got them!” she panted, forcing a sneer-smile. Harsh belches escaped her innards as her stomach struggled to control its prisoners. “No need to trouble yourseeeeelves.”

Sigvald started quietly towards her gravid form, but paused, glanced down, and turned over a rock with his boot. He lifted an eyebrow in frank interest, scooped it up, and eyed the lustrous veins of what could only be gold streaking across its surface.

He smirked, and began idly juggling the rock into the air, and catching it with his hand. “Let me talk to one of these peasants," he said, renewing his steps towards Pinkie.

Pinkie retched one of the captives back up her throat. Opening her mouth, the head of a terrified grey mare came popping out past her teeth, gasping for fresher air and dripping with a film of syrupy drool.

Sigvald held the gold rock out to her. “You have a new master. Tell those others they’re going to make me more of these.”

Pressing the rock to her face, Sigvald pushed the mare back down Pinkie’s throat. Pinkie gagged at the intrusion, and was forced to swallow the screaming mare back.

“Look at you,” Sigvald jeered. His face wrinkled in disgust as he twisted Pinkie’s head side to side, covered in mud and drool. “Pig.” He pushed her aside. “You will not be in my sight again until you right yourself.”

The Host set about gathering the most valuable of the rock farm’s produce, and stripping the cottage for everything that wasn’t nailed down before setting it alight.

Pinkie Pie stayed behind for a bit, watching the cottage burn and slowly collapse, their lives uprooted so quickly. The struggling inside her was worn down to futile squirms now, the stale, hot air stealing their breath.

Fighting back the urge to giggle at their tickling movements, she said, “Girls, p-please stop fighting my tummy. I need to get you to safetyy-ee-hee-hee-hee!”

She trotted on the edge of sight of the party, moved ahead and quickly followed their path back to camp. A dry, earthy taste filled her mouth, and she knew the acids were already at work.

The army of Vardek Crom came into view in the early morning. Reaching back to the horizon. The central road leading to Heffengen was bordered on both sides by dense forest, making pushing organized formations through them useless. The army was a river of black-iron bodies and warriors, snaking through the trees and around hills.

Massing, the hordes began singing in the passage, blasphemies in a harsh tone that could be felt at some instinctive level, eliciting a primordial fear from before the rise of sapience. In response, the Empire chanted back their own prayers and battle hymns led by priests walking the fighting lines, censers trailing cloaks of smoke and dabbing holy water on foreheads. Swishing their halberds and pikes in an oscillating forest of arms, the combined sound reverberated like the breath of a titanic predator, patronizing the foe to charge its jaws.

Then, as the first glimpses of Morrsleib’s grey-green surface peeked over the trees, the warhorns sounded, and the Skaeling charged.

Shining Armor looked back from his tactical seat as another boulder flew overhead.

A one-stallion artillery battery was at work there, one Igneous Pie. With his own supply of basalt, he easily tossed boulders twice his size into the air, and bucked them over three hundred meters into the oncoming horde. The traceries of helstorm rockets and mortar shells followed each shot.

His map crawled with living drawings, a birds-eye view of the battlefield as formation markers shuffled, and the attackers were a great blackness careening towards the Empire’s orderly ranks and file.

The chatter of rifle fire began in earnest. Two hundred meters. Shining rubbed his throat. Enchantments to amplify his voice always left it itchy.

Front and center in the battle line, Luna decried the wicked northmen in a booming voice. Wings outspread and sheathed in silvery titanmetal, and haloed in a ring of summoned ethereal swords, she bellowed a promise of vengeance for the Auric Bastion.

The riflemen fell back between the ranks of pikes as the northmen closed, moving to positions higher on the hill to keep pouring on fire. Grenadiers pulled chemical strips from their ordnance, and lobbed them into the foe, crump detonations blunting the charge and forcing more to stumble as their legs were perforated. Throwing axes and javelins flew back in kind, cleaving helmets and splintering shields. And then they made contact.

Boar-like armored beasts rushed ahead of the Norscans, ploughing aside pike heads and careening into the Imperial line. Luna launched several blades into the creature barreling toward her. The shimmering blades pierced its hide, severing its legs and sending it into a skidding halt at Luna’s hooves.

She rested a hoof on its bloodied head and bellowed, “KNEEL, HEATHENS!”

A wave of telekinetic force locked the barbarians where they stood, twitching statues encased in a blue glow. Flanked by Lunar Guard in spiked midnight black armor, the Princess of Night advanced, radiating confidence, and the butchery began.

The engine of McDeath hummed loudly through the floor. The war galley dark and most of the crew asleep as it drifted in the River Reik’s current. The black depths of the forests curtained both sides of the river. On the prow deck, Captain Mutz took off his fine white gloves and stuffed them in his pocket.

They were too loose. He’d lost weight, and nights of sleep over the war and increasing paranormal activity on Sylvania’s borders. Ships like his were the watch on the Reik, against the undead of Sylvania and now the forces of Chaos.

He took to the searchlight, just one pass to assure himself that, at least for now, there was nothing to worry about. He was here, the war was wherever, and if he was needed to fight, the call would come, and he would answer.

At the flip of a switch, the lamp sparked to life, as a lumen crystal cast a bright yellow glow before the ship, and Mutz froze at what was revealed.

One hundred meters ahead, a section of the Reik was frozen over, and lurching columns of skeletons and nightmarish creatures marched across. He immediately lowered the light and attempted to shout, to call the crew to battle stations, but his jaw held shut.

His body wouldn’t move.

A shimmer of blue light illuminated a large, dark pony on the northern shore.

Magic… damned magic.

Surely the helmsman was under the same grip, as he heard no alarm. The ship would hit the ice bridge, the dead would swarm them, and more than a hundred men would be butchered and rise again as shambling corpses in this army of death.

As McDeath approached, the dead on the bridge parted, finishing their crossing or shuffling back to the southern side, and the bridge melted instantly behind them. Mutz could only look on in horror at the thousands of dusty grey eyes and smiling skulls staring at him as the ship passed. One of the skeletons, armored in the black and yellow of Averland, waved ecstatically.

“Averland colors, miss Moon! I knew there were holdouts!” it said. “Surely the province still carries on the war against those blasted fish-people. My boy! When you see them, say the first depth charge is on me!”

McDeath went by, the bridge was remade under the dark pony’s influence, and the dead marched again.

Mutz fell against the railing as the magic fled from him. The helmsman was already at his station bell, ringing and calling for the crew. As tired sailors and marines came up, Mutz knew they couldn’t fight that, and whatever reason they were let go be damned, he had to warn the North.

The dead were in Ostland.

Cheerilee muttered a curse unto the Skaeling for their cowardice.

The first assault failed, and the Norscans were running back to more friendly lines, with an army of raving, screaming flagellants on their heels. Vardek Crom ignored the Imperials’ celebratory cheering to draw his sword, and bellowed to his warriors to launch the second wave.

“Cheerilee, come on!” Vinyl Scratch called from the Iron daemon. The dwarf crew hastily goaded the engine to life, and Vinyl’s band mounted their stage. Cheerilee entered under the armorglass bubble and pulled up her book Liber Chaotica.

Wide-eyed behind violet sunglasses glasses, Vinyl wiped a smear of green dust from her nose, and her horn was already sparking from the effects of warpstone snuff. She clamped the power cables to her horn, feeding the energies into buzzing speakers mounted on the engine. “Are you watching, Sla’aneth?!” her voice boomed from the speakers.

The Iron Daemon lurched with huffing gusts of smoke and steam, keeping pace with the Kurgan peoples. Cheerilee turned to the passage, Wrath of Mortkin. Instruments were tuned, and Vinyl Scratch, needle-fingers on the dashboard, set the tempo with ‘A-one, two, three, four’, and Cheerilee read.

’You take our lives, but I’ll take yours too. You fire your cannons, but we’ll run you through…’

Drifting in the sky, the airship Highness Ser Armaduke and Night Queen committed to sustained fire into the oncoming hordes. Sitting along the balloons and decks, the Karaz-A-Warhawks served as the defense detail.

The Empire made the best of the brief respite as more of the enemy came surging forward into the fanatical forces of Volkmar the Grim. The Theogonist’s war altar was aglow with holy light, and pulled by a heavily armored pegasus, snow-white and musclebound, his wings much too small to lift his bulk.

Shining Armor and his life guard navigated the foot traffic. Pegasi bearing stretchers carried the wounded back into town, and ragged companies cheered the Reiksmarshall in this first victory. Luna was at the fore, her armor was dented and chipped in several places. She was smeared in blood, impossible to tell how much was her own or the enemy’s.

“Sir Armor, call up the reserves, and order a general advance.” she said, and finally turned to him. Her eyes dimly glowed, pupils slitted and predatory. “We will follow Volkmar’s mob and keep up the momentum. Those northmen coming are Kurgan, closest to their gods. Rout them, and this kraken will have an arm severed. I will take the left, from Wilhelm’s Middenland troops on. I want you on the right, Grubar’s Stirlanders on. Range the artillery for four hundred meters with a creeping barrage, ten meters per shot. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Dismissed.”

Shining saluted. “Good hunting.”

As Shining Armor hurried away, Luna turned back to her guard and the army around. “Heroes of the Empire! You have withstood the evil savagery of the northmen, and they have nothing left for you to fear. So raise high the black banners of vengeance — now is our time!”

A deafening roar of wrath and rattling arms met her. She cast her gaze to the sea of anarchy down the hill and shouldered a silver sword. “All regiments of the front, pike wall formations, advance two hundred meters. Forward, march!

And will someone kill that damnable music…

-----------------------------

The ranks of the fanatics had swelled in recent weeks, with the coming of the invasion. Doomsayers and madmen congregated with visions of the last days of a dying world. When word of a battle reaches them, a fervor bordering on insanity had them throwing themselves into the fray.

This was Volkmar’s congregation, the souls who gave themselves wholly to the war against the dark. With maces, cudgels, spiked bells and zeal, they had crushed the flank of the Skaeling, hounded them in retreat, and now met the Kurgan.

Between such hate and forlorn hope, it was wanton butchery.

The center of the Imperial reserves waded in behind the fanatics, while the left and right flanks pressed home into the Kurgan sides. These were the knights and templars in polished armor of the Empire’s nobility, and now their titles would be tested like never before. Shining Armor and his life guard formed the speartip for the Knights Panther. The Reiksmarshall cast a bright red shield-plough before himself, and charged home.

Bodies bounced off the plough, throwing them aside to be trampled and speared under the Lifeguard and knights. Momentum only carried him so far. A grotesque mutant of a troll, twin heads roaring in depthless hunger, smashed a great club against the plough, cracking the barrier. At the speed of thought, Shining reformed the magic into a circular blade, launching it into the creature in a shrieking tearing of meat from its chest.

-----------------------------

“CROM!”

If Chrysalis’ intelligence reports were correct, that was the name of the master of this army.

Luna teleported atop the head of a three-faced giant, driving her sword into its brain before it could reach up. It gurgled once, staggered a few steps, and collapsed like an ancient tree. Its massive claw falling before a staring warrior in a brazen brass helmet.

He raised his sword at her in challenge.

“Drive the spear into the heart of the beast! Everypony who can still fly, with me!”

Gathering behind her, the Lunar Guard, Knights Griffon, and pegasus troopers dove and skimmed the center of the horde. Spears skewered necks, lances took heads off shoulders, and pegasi were caught by the legs or wings, brought down to their deaths.

Luna formed a cone of sapphire light, driving straight for Vardek Crom. He did not move, holding his shield before him. He was too clear, too easy a target to skewer with her barrier. She veered left, the edge of the cone shattering against him. Some kind of anti-magic on him, she surmised.

She looped around and dove on him, bearing a pair of handleless silver blades. A telekinetic thrust threw his chosen guard away, opening a space for the Knights Griffon and Lunar Guard to land. Quickly however, the chosen rushed back, and the heart of the army became a killing ground.

Crom feinted a thrust for Luna’s chest, making her flap up and back to evade. He took up a fallen axe and quickly hurled it, sparking off her armor in another jink.

Before Crom renewed the assault with his sword, he noticed his opponent's horn glowing a sharp blue, and reflexively twisted to swing the blade in a full circle. It was the only thing that saved him.

Luna disappeared in a flash of light, and materialized near-instantly behind him. She twisted during the teleport while swinging her leg in a vicious backhoof, but just barely managed to adjust in time to tag the flat of the wicked blade and arc it upward, spanking off her helmet and sailing over her head. Eyes glowing furiously and horn still aglow, Luna telekinetically stored the force of the glancing strike in her leg as she finished her spin, and brought it crashing into the small of Crom's back.

A loud clang of metal on metal rang out. Crom's armor dented slightly under the sheer force. The man grunted and stumbled forward, but did not kneel or buckle. A blow like that would have crushed a lesser man's spine. But the King of the Kurgan was no such man.

He reversed the grip on his sword in the blink of an eye, and roared out as he leveled a vicious slash at the alicorn.

Crom stopped halfway when he saw that Luna had backed up a step out of reach. Scoffing derisively, he held his blade at ready, and faced her down.

"You won't get lucky like that again, witch," he promised, spitting at the last.

Luna began to slowly circle the man counterclockwise. She let out a derisive scoff. "You, slave of Chaos, accuse me of witchcraft?"

Though it was hidden by his helmet, Vardek's eyes twitched in anger. He advanced a step. Luna matched him, moving back. "True Warriors of Chaos trust in steel, not spell."

"Good," the alicorn retorted, her tone venomously patronizing. "At least when your masters grow restless and have you fall on your blade, the last thing you see will be what you trust."

Crom chuckled briefly, and craned his head to the sky. “Walach!”

As soon as the name was spoken, a great and terrible form rose above the chaos of the battle. Draped in ancient scales and rotting meat like rags, a skeletal reptilian abomination slithered closer. In its wake, the very dead began to convulse on the ground, grabbing fallen weapons and rising again to fight their own brothers.

On the back of the abomination rode a grey-skinned madman, shouting orders to his cadre of blood-red knights.

Vardek laughed, a harsh northern bark.

Luna bared her teeth and called for a withdrawal, teleporting above the din and telekinetically holding down the dead for her elite core to escape.

The abomination spread its wizened pinions and took off after the princess. Luna’s head throbbed, the channeling of magic beginning to take its toll. Still, there was hope here. There had to be.

As the abomination drew near, Luna launched her blades at it, severing its jaw joints into a gaping limpness. Recalling them, and in a single beat of her wings, she launched herself at the beast, eyes locked with Walach Harkon, Master of the Blood Dragons.

In eerie silence, the dead marched. Soldiers of ages past, and fresh bodies occasionally felt here and there, marched side by side as equals. Risen knights formed orderly ranks and file in the vanguard, the legendary Grave Guard. With rusted and broken swords and spears, butchers cleavers and farming scythes, the lesser undead had numbers alone to to grind down the foe.

And they were Legion.

At the head of the vanguard, Marius Leitdorf bobbed on the back of Daisy Kurt von Helboring the Second, humming Farewell Erika, an old soldier's song. Riding right behind Nightmare Moon, he was still coming to grips with his condition. He looked down at skeletal hands holding Daisy’s reins, and had phantom sensations of a tongue that was long gone.

Nightmare Moon sensed trouble in the mind of her wight, and nudged him to other thoughts with a gentle application of suggestion.

Marius pushed the thoughts from his head. This wasn’t the time to think about such trivial inconveniences like missing skin. The land was in danger, and there was a war to fight. Afterwards, he’d march on Averheim and reclaim the seat of Elector.

Besides, being dead wasn’t a disqualifying characteristic, now was it?

The army marched toward the sound of the guns, a distant, unceasing thunder, and its increasing volume told of their nearness.

Nightmare Moon saw the edge of the forest ahead, and ordered her army to fan out. Spreading wide, the dead shambled under their own mobile forest of banners bourne by unseen hands. Symbols of Sylvania, her vampiric houses and legions daubed their tapestries. The flashes of magic and gunfire lit up the sky like early morning.

Nightmare Moon felt a familiar sting in the back of her mind, something trying to push to the surface, an itch she couldn’t reach.

A princess trapped in her own body, while another was in control. Fighting to return, only to be smothered and choked by the darkness. And she was screaming.

“Marius,” the Nightmare growled. “You have command of the ground elements."

Marius simply saluted as the Nightmare took off without waiting for a reply. The bats and flying beasts flapped skyward after her. Marius drew his sword, hateful at whoever must be wielding his beloved runefang now, and whipped Helboring’s reins.

“Forth, souls of the Empire! The nation needs you again!”

Nightmare Moon spotted the two of them in the sky. The rotting skeleton of a titanic horned lizard, and that familiar, disdainful princess. It’s broken-nailed claws gripped Luna in a crushing vise, splintering armor, and bringing blood coughing through her lips.

The rider of the abomination locked eyes with the Nightmare, a crazed milky-eyed glare, before having his beast drop the princess. The past was gone from that man. He may have been handsome once, despite the wrinkles in his beastial snarl, some shred of noble breeding could be seen like a diamond in the rough.

“Walach!” the Nightmare roared, closing nearly than a kilometer’s distance in moments. She struck the beast in a thunderclap of colliding energies. The undead shuddered at the conflicting powers raging overhead.

The beast crashed down, crushing dozens under its bulk and gouging a scar in the earth. Through the dust, Harkon struck out, catching the edge of a drifting smoke-shadow. It shrieked and shied away, one of its touched tendrils burning away in green flames.

“Traitor!” it hissed, driving icicles of inky black toward his head and heart.

Harkon dodged and lobbed them off with peerless grace, his skills having been honed in a thousand battles against heroes and monsters alike. “Me, a traitor? Von Carstein sent us to die!” Another flurry of spikes missed him as he roll, the attack stabbing into the ground. “Lost on the wrong side of the Auric Bastion, surrounded by only foes, we refused to fall without a slaughter.”

The darkness cautiously avoided the blade now, much to the vampire’s delight.

“Then the Lord of War cast his eyes on us. Our bloodlust, our hate catching even His attention, and we took his offer of actual power and blood unending!” Harkon gently put a hand to his breastplate, the mark of Khorne daubed across it. “Von Carstein thinks too small.”

Harkon leapt at the darkness, blade raised to strike, but something intercepted and slammed him down.

“And you lack patience,” the Nightmare growled.

The abomination creaked and groaned, blue fire blazing in its empty eye sockets, gripping Harkon ever tighter.

The shadow coalesced into Nightmare Moon’s equine form, looking down on Harkon with disdainful indulgence. “Your knights have lost the way, Harkon. You’re no son of Aborash.”

Harkon barely had time to scream as the dragon bit down over his torso, and rent him in twain in a single yank.

---------------------------------

Army cohesion had broken down around around Luna’s battered body, both sides trying to claim her. With a desperate fervor, Grubar’s 5th Rifles charged into melee, bayonets fixed.

Walther Grubar paced his rearward firing line, occasionally stopping to fire his revolver at any enemy he found particularly ugly. “Keep up the rate! Stirland blood is like fine wine to the enemy, and if they want it, we’ll show them they can ill afford the price!” His last drum spent, Grubar drew his rapier and laid in with the rest of the regiment. “For the Princess, Fourth Company! Fury of Stirland! Fury! Fury!”

Amidst stabbing and clubbing, hands and claws grabbed at Luna, parts of her shattered armor being ripped off in the chaos.

Marius Leitdorf led the undead thrust into the Archenemy’s right, hooting and cheering for his countrymen, who looked on in utter confusion as a dead count rode into the fray. The surprise reeled the herald’s forces, pushing them back enough to surround Luna.

A stretcher was called, and the princess was carried back into town by pegasus bearers. The Nightmare following them in the shadows to make sure they made it before returning to the battle. By the time they reached the chief medical tent, Luna wasn’t moving anymore.

Or breathing.