We ran through the night, following the trail left by the other carts through the wild forest. Broken plants and saplings signaled the path the rest of the rest of the survivors took. It had become so worn that patches of dirt could be seen beneath the red moonlight of the full Moon. Occasionally, whenever we crested a hill with a clear vantage, you could see Ùllahdmaiden, now aglow with horn and firelight as soldiers clad in gold searched the whole village for trickery.

We had only run for two hours before slowing to even a trot, the lights of Ùllahdmaiden all but a pinprick in the night. Occasionally we heard the howl of wolves, timber or otherwise. The smell of blood must’ve attracted their attention for miles.

The trails of a few carts and wagons veered off. If the drivers of the cart had simply gotten lost in the night we didn’t know. But we knew our odds were better with the majority of ponies.

We started to walk when the first light of dawn began to rise in the west.

And that’s when I realized why we could see so well.

A thick blanket of snow had covered the world, freezing the greening wilderness once more. The only reason we didn’t notice the dropping temperature was because our blood was pumping so loudly we didn’t notice the heat erupting from our hearts, keeping the cold at bay.

But it was so cold, it surely would take another month to thaw again, only to immediately freeze once again for Winter.

That's when we came to the camp of the survivors. They had only been five minutes ahead the whole time, judging by how early they were in building a temporary camp. There were a few missing carts, but so swift and sudden was our retreat there was hardly a chance to veer off into the night. A few had gotten lost. But most had been filled with corpses by ponies passing wounded and bodies from cart to cart. Transferring the living and replacing them with the dead, finally picking up their still living comrades from the tongues of the cart and unhitching them, letting the cart trail into the darkness.

But finally the runners had stopped. Letting the rested and healthy ponies set up a camp for a few hours to rest.

That’s when the knowledge of what happened began to be shared.

From the moment the shield went up, things had gone wrong quickly. We had protected many of the villagers from the barrage of the Unicornia Unicorns, but they had slowly pushed Tia’s shield back, forcing the shield to gradually shrink. At first, it hadn’t mattered much. Even as the shield left villagers vulnerable on their palisade wall. The Crown Unicorns charged several times up, suddenly falling into the spiked ditch. It stopped them a few times, but with the weight of their corpses it became easier to cross. They simply hadn’t expected such a simple defense of using the very shape of the earth as a tool. But eventually, the villagers were overrun as the Unicornian Commander committed to taking the village with his forces. Firelight’s bombs had gone off a few times, as they were laid in various critical locations that the Unicorns needed to take. Time was bought for the villagers to retreat further into the village to the relative safety of the still shrinking shield.

That was when Appleflower and the Mayor had made a difference. Appleflower tore into the gold clad Unicorns. Her strange Earth Pony forged armor that only she or Master Brickwork were allowed to repair, took much of the brunt of the fight. Taking many more hits than what the Unicorns expected for mere “Iron”. The giant mare didn’t even need a weapon, using her armored bulk to crush and smash like a berserker, her mouth constantly agape in a furious rant of challenges and insults.

But despite surely having the physique of an Alicorn, even Appleflower still had the constitution of a mortal. Her armor was slowly dented and peeled back from the force of the spellfire she endured, but with impossible endurance that slowly cast doubt on the idea that it was made of mere steel either. Eventually, a bolt got in through Appleflower’s left hindleg. Severally hurting the mare’s ability to both attack and move, several Earth ponies had been forced to hold her down as the village recovered their friend, hauling her away to the opposite side of the village for the eventual retreat that the Mayor had ordered.

The Mayor knew there was no hope the second the walls were over-ran. She had ordered the increasingly common villager with nothing directly to do, to start gathering carts and loading those who had been wounded.

That was when Violet had fainted. She had taken it upon herself to take on too much for what little mana she had. She fainted as she burned out.

That had forced the shield to degrade even further, as more and more of the Matrix became less noticed. Errors and mistakes piling up more and more as time continued.

The Mayor kept getting more ponies to get the wounded villagers into carts, Beginning to send the first carts, one of which had Appleflower, shouting and cursing to be let back into the fight to defend her home.

The villagers did what they could, trapping and planting bombs in their own homes, already accepting they were never going to return. That kept the Unicorns back in caution, as they became cautiously unwilling to push into the village. The traps having proven sturdy enough to severely wound or occasionally kill, despite only being made of wood.

Rugs had been placed over deep stake filled pits, knives and green saplings tensioned with tripwire at neck height, fire bombs placed inside pots with more tripwire triggers. One particularly devious trap involved placing a bomb in a hollowed out wall of a house, set to a precariously balanced cobblestone pressure plate; As soon as the bomb exploded, half a home collapsed over a corner filled with Crown Soldiers.

The mare who did that turned out to be named “Tickled Pink.”

That was when Torchwood fell down. He had been standing still for so long his knee had given out, and that was what broke his concentration. With the pain in his leg he couldn’t conjure up the concentration needed to reconjure the concentration for high magic. So he shook out his leg to get it working again and proceeded to help haul other wounded ponies to the carts.

Poor Breeze never saw it coming. The shield had begun to fray along the edges, providing a shifting opportunity for a lucky Unicorn to shoot a bolt of light, impacting Ocean Breeze and breaking his skull with a resounding crack. He died a minute later as his brains began to leak out.

That was when I tried to catch his failing section.

It was also when carts began to leave with lesser wounded villagers, there simply was no room for all of us.

I held out for holding almost half the shield by myself for almost a whole second, perfectly stable and unwavering, but it proved just so difficult that I nearly instantly crumbled.

Firelight, in a panic, grabbed hold of my section and maintained it for as long as she could. She held out for almost a second and a half.

The villagers all universally said the shield erupted into a furious gold glow.

Tia then shouted in a monstrous voice.

“You shall not touch them.”

It was said she held the shield by herself for ten whole seconds. Some said she glowed so bright, they thought it had suddenly become day. A few even dared to swear that they thought they saw great golden feathers at her sides.

Turns out my headache must’ve been worse than I thought because I recalled none of those details.

From there my memory was pretty spot on.

She collapsed. I broke out of my stupor. Torchwood ran off to help a villager lift his friend. The last of the carts began to leave. I dragged Tia as Flame Etch picked Firelight onto his withers.

I must’ve been so focused on Tia I hadn’t even realized he was there. Finally, the last of the villagers fought off the Crown Unicorns, now unprotected by the shield. They resorted to hoof and shovel, rake and pitchfork, almost powerless against the trained soldiers, just to buy time for the ponies immediately behind them to flee.

No pony else had heard what Tia had said to me. So I decided to keep it quiet for Tia’s privacy. All but the very last of us were left, the other carts now long gone. The last villagers who had been fighting had been long charred to cinders by then.

Almost a third of the villagers were just gone. Their voices silenced. Of the two thirds remaining, only five got no wounds at all. The pony with the most medical knowledge and four foals. Wounds ranged from severe burns on their torso, to minor cuts along her hoof, Star Song had bucked a soldier as he entered the house they had been hiding, buying time for the village foals to retreat.

As for myself, I got a burn along my horn that Torchwood called, mage burn. It hurt when I touched a hoof to it, but otherwise I could barely feel it. Almost all of us Unicorns had it, with only the exception of Torchwood, seeing as he only broke concentration due to his knee.

The only one of the Queensford Unicorns to die had been Ocean Breeze. Star Song was so distraught she wanted to march back to Ùllahdmaiden to weep over her husband, regardless of her pregnancy.

Appleflower had survived, but her back leg was ruined. She had been pried out of the fused portions of her armor, and her leg had to be amputated before it became gangrenous. She would be lucky to ever properly fight again.

No pony knew where the Mayor was. Only that she wasn’t here.

No pony saw Ùllahdmaiden go up in flame, nor were there any plume of smoke in the direction of the village as we watched. A few of us wanted to go back. But they also realized that even if they did go back, the weather had continued to worsen, the fair weather dropping back to freezing. The snow would have covered the land all year round at this rate. While the Earth Ponies valued their homes, they were pragmatic, they saw that going back would serve no purpose. They wouldn’t be able to grow any plants here for at least another year, most likely longer.

Tia woke up in her cart, ten minutes before sundown.

“I- What? What happened? Where are we?” she asked.

“What do you remember?” I asked, she had hit her head after all. There was no telling what she remembered.

“We- We were lining up to cast the shield spell…” she thought out loud. “And… and that’s it.” she trailed off.

“We held out for hours. But they slowly overpowered us. Y-you’d have to ask somepony else to tell you the bad news.” I admitted, surprising myself with my honesty. “I’m not the pony to ask.” I continued, not wanting to think anymore about the faces of ponies falling into silent blackness. “Do you remember anything you said?”

“I… No. No I don’t.” Tia admitted.

“I heard you held out for ten seconds by yourself by screaming “You shall not touch them.” I explained. “After that you fell and I dragged you to a cart to retreat.”

“I- I didn’t say anything did I?” Tia asked. “While…” she trailed off.

“You said somethings, but nothing you said made sense.” I went on.

Tia seemed to sigh in relief.

“Thank the Sun…” she sighed quietly.

It felt weird to hear Tia swear. Like something wasn’t quite right. Like finally understanding how foals were made. Utterly horrifying, but in such a mundane way. But something… Else was layered in her voice. However it felt like my Moon Mark was flaring up again because I found myself not understanding what exactly she was feeling. Why was she ‘relieved’? Aren’t ponies supposed to feel sad here?

I hugged Tia, trying to show that while I didn’t understand, I wanted to sympathize. She hugged me back tightly.

“I love you too Tia.” I murmured.

The thickening plot is developing nicely...

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