A Commander's Oath

"Commander?" The voice sounded fearful and yet worried at the same time. The armored figure in the room turned around with a low sigh "report" the stallion said to his underling.

"We've found them my liege" suddenly the soldier paused and built up courage to continue "found them all".

At the funerals, commander Coalheart was lost in his thoughts, he wondered what could in Equestria happen to his greatest soldiers, to his 3rd lance, what could have happened to a warrior so hardened as Firemane, the knight who commanded them. It was a long and mournful day and he took a decision: 3rd lance was to be no more so their dead could be remembered as long as the 6th battalion existed, their torn and rent armors, no doubt from powerful magic, would be displayed whenever the 6th made camp.

Months later, which dragged away slowly with constant nightmares about the broken bodies and scorched coats of his soldier's, Coalheart finally found out what happened that fateful night. They captured a young colt dressed in the royal army attire who was fleeing directly from Celestia's army lines. The commander decided to take the interrogation by himself. He entered the tent where the colt was being held with a restraining iron yoke.

"Well what do we have here, a little turncoat?" said looking down into the shivering figure "are you not going to speak?".

"I…will, what do you want to know?" the young colt managed to speak under the heavy restraining device "what do you wish to know?"

Coalheart looked puzzled at the sudden cooperativeness of the prisoner but managed not to show it and replied "from the beginning kid, just start from what got you here and away from your beloved tyrant".

The interrogation went on for hours and at last the 6th battalion commander emerged from the tent with a sorrowful look in his eyes. Coalheart wandered away from the camp without his guard thinking about the last moments of life of his now lost 3rd lance. They were chosen by the tyrant herself for a single purpose: fear. She did not just destroy them utterly but tortured them with her powerful scorching magic, popping members out of their sockets, boiling the blood of those loyal soldiers and burning them from the inside out… for hours in front of her troops, witnesses to her power and ruthlessness. It was almost as he could see the smile on that deranged face of perfection as she rejoiced in the pain and misery she caused. It was then, alone in the outskirts of the Ever Free Forest that Coalheart finally shed tears for his valiant dead and spoke aloud.

"Never forget, never surrender".

fin