Luna galloped up the tunnels, heedless of any dangers that may have begun to sneak back in the wake of the army. The darkness was nearly total, but with a spell that transformed her eyes into the sharp, narrow ones of a dragon, that was little impediment to her speed. She did crash into a few walls, but not nearly as many as she would have if she tried to rely on nothing but a light spell, and her armor absorbed the impacts besides. The bruises would likely heal before she noticed them.

At each major intersection, Luna focused her will into her crown, calling upon the power of the jewel inside to aid her far-seeing spell. While she did not know the area well, she did know Blueblood well. His hair, his scent, his scar, his selfishness. Each time, she caught a perfect glimpse of him, still shining in her vision despite the dirt and betrayal. The sight of him surrounded by her own royal guards made her force her aching legs onward even faster. They were moving at a quick but steady pace, and if she sprinted, she should be able to catch them in less than an hour.

She only slowed at all when she started to feel hoofbeats ahead. It was faint, but Luna's earth pony magic was rarely mistaken about what she felt through through the earth. Thinking back to her maps, Luna carefully searched the next few tunnels for one of the secret alcoves and hidden passageways that the creatures of the deeps had fashioned out of the black stone. If she could cut them off at the next pass, she could end all of this foolishness.

One such passage was hidden on the ceiling of one of the taller sections of tunnel. Luna flapped her powerful wings up toward it and managed to squeeze her bulk inside. It was a small but smooth hole, probably bored by a magma-breathing monster of some kind. Luna recalled her decades spent training with the tiger yogis of Rajastan. Using that knowledge and a bit of magic, she stretched and contorted her limbs in distinctly un-pony ways, making good progress through the twisting tunnel. It was not long before she noticed her eye slits begin to narrow. They were adjusting to a dim, multi-hued light coming from the end of the tunnel. She thought of Lyra then, and hoped her captain would forgive her for what she was about to do.

"Alright, that's enough!" Rufus shouted at the alarm dog, covering his ears with his paws. He gave the dog a quick kick to emphasize the point. He yelped at the blow, stopping his loud, rhythmic barking. The other alarm dogs on the wall followed suit. “They got the message.”

He watched the initial pursuers go after the minotaur, or pony, or whatever it was, but when they disappeared from sight, Rufus turned his attention to the remaining guards nearby.

“We're going to keep this search quick and organized,” he said to his assembled pack, pacing back and forth in front of them. “Teams of two, with check-ins every ten minutes. Capture the intruder alive if you can, but kill her if you have to. Unicorns are the most dangerous breed of pony. Start with the farthest streets in this sector, secure them, then work your way in. Got it?”

“What will you be doing, Rufus?” one guard asked.

“Making sure the gate is secure, obviously,” he replied, a low growl coming from deep in his throat. “This could easily be a distraction. Any other useless questions?”

They answered in the negative, then formed into pairs, and began running into the city, weapons drawn. Once Rufus was sure everyone except for the two dogs in the floor above protecting the drawbridge controls was gone, he tentatively pulled out the bribes he had collected for the day.

“Have to hide these before the bosses get here,” he muttered. He took a moment to admire the gems, hoping this would finally be enough for him to buy his first servant.

He had been saving for months, determined to find a product that could do all the menial tasks at home for him. He was a soldier; he did not have time to cook, and the work was frankly beneath him. He deserved better. Rufus prayed that this whole business about executing all the pony slaves was just a bluff. Broken ponies made the best workers. Bonus if he could get a bright-plumed pegasus—with clipped wings of course—to show off to everyone he knew.

Going over to a loose stone in the wall, he pried the block out to reveal his stash. It was practically bursting with gems and coins. Pushing as hard as he could, Rufus managed to stuff the sack inside. He would have to transfer it home once this pony nonsense blew over, but for now, he managed to wedge the block back in place and sprinkle a fresh line of scent-defeating powder along its edges.

Once his lucre was hidden, Rufus brought out a map of the city and spread it out over the table. As he munched on his ration of cheese for the day, he called in each of his subordinates one by one and told them which areas to search. Also one by one, he received reports that they had found nothing. An hour passed, then another, and there was still no sign of that cursed pony. He felt like flipping the table over, or throwing it at someone, but no one was in sight.

As soon as the party of royal guards and the young Blueblood, their horns shining brightly, was about to pass the exit of the secret tunnel, Queen Luna leaped down from it. She did not so much as spread her wings to slow her descent, taking the impact of the twenty-foot fall entirely on her metal boots. The ground shook and cracked, the guards reflexively assumed defensive stances, and Blueblood screamed.

“Nightmare Moon!” he yelled. He lacked a weapon, but he went into a fighting stance anyway a fraction of a second after the guards surrounding him did.

Luna tilted her head at him. The eyes. Since she was surrounded by the light of several unicorns' spells now, she blinked, and her slitted eyes returned to her natural pony ovals. Despite that, he was still stricken still by fear. She felt the hurt of seeing that look on his handsome face even through the roiling mass of anger inside. Luna attempted to harness both emotions as she spoke.

“Whither do you go?” she demanded, meeting the wary, almost-as-fearful stares of each guard in turn. “We have not given you leave to depart.”

Captain Heartstrings stopped pointing his spear at her, and the rest of the company followed suit. He still leaned on the vertical shaft, however, in a pose from which he could quickly bring it back to bear.

“We learned that Prince Blueblood has been kept in your camp against his will,” he answered. “Because we are obviously neither needed nor wanted by your side, I made the decision to return him home.”

“Thou cannot possibly be unaware that such a decision is not within thy power.” Luna growled. “Return him to me at once.”

“He isn't yours.” Gethsemane Heartstrings tensed, lowering his stance. His soldiers, some with shaking knees, also crouched.

“This is treason,” Luna said quietly, drawing her body up higher in response to their aggression. Her neck was stiff and straight, and she thrust her chest out toward them. If she were unarmored, it would have made her completely vulnerable. In her full suit of moonsilver plate, it made her grim and defiant.

There were fourteen of them, six unicorns, four pegasi, and four earth ponies, and only one of her, and despite all her power, she would die if she killed one of them. They did not know about that curse, of course, but that made it no less dangerous. These guards were no match for her individually, but working together, there was a good chance they could subdue or kill her. Even so, she did not waver. Luna knew that this confrontation had been destined to happen since the moment she took the crown.

“Your Majesty, if I may?” Blueblood suddenly pressed forward. There was a quiver in his voice, but he managed to stand between Luna and the guards before anyone could stop him. “I'm afraid there has been some miscommunication here.”

“What?” Both the Queen and the Captain demanded to know what he meant at the same time.

“You see, I originally was there against my will, and I may have let that slip to some of the guards.” He sighed and shook his head. “Completely unintentionally, I mean. I had no idea they would plot to take me away. I was just going along with what they said. But by the time they decided to act, my wonderful time spent with you had turned me around. I wanted to stay. I tried to tell them, but...”

“You lying snake!” Captain Heartstrings spat at Blueblood's hooves, which he automatically tried to remove from the line of fire, unsuccessfully. “This was your idea!”

“All I said was that I wanted to go home.” Blueblood closed his eyes. By the time he opened them again, they were turned toward Luna, with actual tears brimming around the edges. “But now, not if that means leaving my bride.”

“You're going to stay and marry the pony you just called Nightmare Moon?” Gethsemane asked, his body frozen in place.

Blueblood walked to Luna's side slowly, then turned around to face the royal guards. He jumped slightly as he felt feathers brush his back. Luna had unfolded one of her wings and draped it protectively over him. The gesture was kind and intimate... but the look on her face was not. He gulped.

“Y-Yes.” He managed to croak, and the wing hug tightened, a little too much to be entirely comfortable.

“There,” said Luna, craning her head down to glare at Blueblood with her brow furrowed, while she kept watch on the party of guards out of the corner of her eyes. “Now there is no further reason for us to quarrel. Stand down.”

“Hello there, sergeant,” a languid voice said to Rufus from across the table. It was very nearly flung at the voice’s head.

Ludwig, the official “delegate” of the city council, stood there in his pure white robe, flanked by two armed guards whose clothing was anything but pure. Some of the bloodstains could not have been more than a day old.

“What do you want?” Rufus demanded, perhaps a little too loudly.

“Oh, I want for nothing,” Ludwig said, holding up his paws innocently. “As always, I am here on behalf of others. In this instance, I represent the Diamond Doge.”

“Th-The Dogfather?” Rufus felt his mouth start to dry. The Diamond Doge was the oldest and most powerful patrician in the entire Underdark, the closest thing the diamond dogs' loose confederation of mercantile city-states had to a leader. He had been visiting Dragon's Hoard when the city was locked down due to the advancing pony army, and he had not been in a very good mood since then. “What does he want with me?”

“Standard inquiries, I'm sure,” said Ludwig, rolling his eyes. “I highly doubt it has anything to do with the impropriety of you letting any outsider with enough money buy their way in.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Rufus said, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two burly guards next to Ludwig. They were bigger than he was, and they had better weapons, too. “And even if I did, the fact would remain that all the other gate commanders are doing the same thing.”

“I really, truly, do not care.” Ludwig turned away. “Come along.”

“I'm on guard duty,” Rufus protested. “And we're kind of in the middle of a situation. I can't abandon my post.”

“Evidently, someone thinks you already have.” Ludwig did not turn around. “Just close the gate for the day. I'm sure our brave and noble dogs of war can handle one enemy agent. Now, are you coming, or are you so tired from your duties that my associates here need to carry you?”

“No, no, I'm fine.” Rufus gulped, followed them out of the gateway, and used his keys to lock it down. He informed the gatekeepers that he was leaving, and they lowered the inner portcullis with a sharp clang that made Rufus flinch. Flanked by the enforcers, he was led to the wealthiest neighborhood in the city.

Shacks and tents gave way to obsidian apartments, rising higher as they moved down steadily wider and better-maintained streets, which in turn gave way to long fields of imported flora. Palm trees, rose bushes, and blue grasses almost grew over the path, though some of it had started to turn brown. With the water supply being rationed, even the rich had to prioritize between drinking and watering the lawns separating them from the rest of the city.

Every now and then, Rufus caught glimpses of shapes moving through the trees. They had animals down here too? His desperation to live such a luxurious life swelled up again.

The trees parted, and, though he had seen the sight several times during his time in the military, he still had to catch his breath. The houses—the mansions, the palaces—here were made out of polished stone and marble of every bright color imaginable, brought in at what must have been tremendous cost from faraway cities. The entire neighborhood was covered by a vast enchanted tarp, which radiated a white color that those who had been to the surface claimed felt just like the morning sun. Rufus would not know, but one day he vowed he would. For now, he basked in the alien but comforting glow, sniffing at the wealth of scents the patricians imported so that they would not have to smell the rest of the city. The flowers, incenses, candles, and shrubs almost made him forget why he was being brought here.

The huge iron wall with barbed wire decorated like rose vines did a good job reminding him, though. Ludwig stopped before the entrance to the mansion and hailed the private security dogs inside. The building at the end of the small rock road was not the most ostentatious in the neighborhood, but it did boast a working fountain and some elaborate columns, which evoked an ancient dignity surpassing the other houses.

The party followed the path and, once again, Rufus flinched when he heard the gate shut behind him. He was led through hallways containing vases and artifacts which he had to stop himself from trying to stuff in his coat. The carpets felt warmer and softer than his bed. Well, the marble floors were probably softer than his bed, but that was beside the point.

A cough drew Rufus out of his greedy reverie, turning his attention to the lush red couch across the room from him. Reclined on it was a corpulent old dog whose face was so thick that Rufus could not see his eyes from this distance. Next to him stood a distinguished-looking gentledog in a black tuxedo. As Rufus and his “escort” entered, the dog on the couch began to mumble something in a language he did not recognize. The dog in the suit bent down respectfully, turning his ear toward the Diamond Doge's flapping jowls.

“The Dogfather wishes to know,” he translated, “if this is the commander of the gate.”

“Tell us where Celestia is, and we'll consider surrendering.” Captain Heartstrings stared at Luna and the young Blueblood. The other guards continued to stand ready, even the guards of the night.

“My sister's location is no concern of yours,” Luna whispered.

“She is the rightful ruler of Equestria,” he responded. Before he had even finished the sentence, he was lunging forward, his back legs sending him flying forward with his spear gripped tightly in his forelegs. It was pointed toward one of the knee joints in Luna's armor. She had expected him to try to disable her rather than kill her, and having correctly anticipated his movement, Luna was able to roll to one side with liquid grace. Gethsemane's spear struck the obsidian floor with a shower of sparks. In the sudden influx of bright light, Luna saw four more spears coming toward her in the same manner. She also saw Blueblood backing well out of the way. Her expression turned fiercer.

The first two, coming toward her from the front, she deflected with a translucent hemisphere of scintillating white and blue magic, sending sparks of the same hue flying in every direction. The second two attackers rushed her from the sides, just around her shield. The stallion to her right was aiming poorly, so with a slight adjustment of the angle of her body, she absorbed the entire blow with her armor. The equal and opposite reaction he got in return sent him sprawling to the ground at her feet. Luna took advantage of the position to deliver a light jab to his helmet, which was still powerful enough to disorient and stun him for several seconds.

The mare charging from the left was angling her spear to push upward and into the plates on her belly. At the last second before impact, Luna's wing flew up, swatting the spear away and sending the guard sprawling onto her back. Luna rotated the wing and used it to conjure a small, smoky vortex that sent the attacker skidding and spinning even farther across the floor.

Just then, Luna felt the impact of four powerful lances of magical energy striking her shield, the strongest from Captain Heartstrings. She grunted viciously as she pushed back, forcing the wall of energy slowly toward them.

“Luna, above you!” Blueblood shouted to her. She flicked her head up soon enough to block the diving kick from the first pegasus, but the second slammed his foot directly into her spine. Her legs gave out from the combined force of gravity and his body, and she hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her. As she struggled for breath, Luna rolled to her back and bucked at her attacker, but he had already flown out of range. The force of the kick was still enough to generate a blast of wind and knock him off course, sending him careening into a wall.

The attack had diverted Luna's attention away from her magical shield, allowing all six unicorns to unleash attack spells at her and score several hits. Her armor absorbed the blows, but the kinetic force was enough to send her rolling and crashing across the ground. Luna bared her teeth and rose slowly to her feet. Her rear was now to a wall, so she did not have to put nearly as much energy into her barrier, but it was taking a lot of concentration to maintain. It would significantly reduce her reflexes in fending off the rest of the party, seven ponies closing in on her from both sides.

All while Blueblood watched from the sidelines. He had picked up the spear from the pegasus who had slammed into the opposite wall and was tentatively nudging him with it. The royal guard was not moving, nor breathing. A cold claw closed around her heart.

“No!” she screamed. The outburst of sound was backed by magic, but it would have given everyone in the tunnel pause even if it were not. They faltered for just a moment. She whipped her magical shield to the side, sending the bolts of magic bouncing far down the tunnel and out of the way. Luna dropped the defensive spell and focused all her energy into her legs and wings. With another shout, she rushed forward, propelling herself to the other side in a blur. She sent the unicorns scattering like bowling pins and halted before the collapsed guard. Blueblood backed away from her, but all of Luna's attention was focused on the body.

A soft verdant light began to radiate from her horn, and it created a smoky tendril that wound itself lightly around the fallen royal guard. The spell told her that his heart was still beating, but if she did not get him breathing again soon, he would die in less than a minute... and she along with him. The very curse she had created would seize and destroy her body for breaking her oath to kill no ponies, if the guards behind her did not kill her first. Luna willed the green smoke into the pegasus's airway and began working on healing his lungs.

Sudden pain threatened to break the delicate spell entirely. Before she could think to create another shield between herself and her attackers, they had closed the distance and driven four strong kicks at her sides and hind legs. Luna felt herself jostled back and forth as they struck her only seconds apart. One kick bent her knee the wrong direction and would have broken bones if not for her reinforced armor. She howled and roared, kicking blindly with her good leg, but if she put too much attention on defending herself, she would not be able to heal the unconscious guard's lungs. She redoubled her efforts on the spell, making the smoke force him to breathe and circulate his blood until she could repair him enough that he could breathe on his own.

“What is she doing to him?” a royal guard said, raising her voice above the tumult.

“It can't be good,” Captain Heartstrings shouted back. “Stop her!”

“Ye—“ Rufus started to answer the Doge, but Ludwig jammed a paw into his mouth.

“Of course, Dogfather,” Ludwig said with a bow and a smile that helped ease the displeasure on the faces of the Doge and his translator. “I have brought him as you asked. Do you wish me to stay?”

The tuxedoed dog nodded. He spoke quietly into the Diamond Doge's huge, floppy ear, then listened as another torrent of mumbling came forth.

“While the Dogfather admires his determination to better his station in life,” he said in their common language again, “he questions the wisdom of him doing so during a time such as this.”

“I am sure he regrets his actions, Dogfather,” Ludwig said, paw still in Rufus' mouth.

It took every ounce of self-control he had not to bite, or at least growl.

“He may speak now,” the translator said after listening to more of the Doge's deep, grumbling, incomprehensible speech.

Ludwig bared his teeth as he withdrew his paw, and Rufus returned the gesture.

“I don't, Dogfather,” Rufus said with a snarl, stunning everyone in the room, from the stoic guards to the dog in the expensive suit. “I'm a dog of war, not some sniveling lawyer, and I won't be treated like this another second.” He strode forward several feet, only stopping when he heard the pull of bowstrings from behind several elegant tapestries and drapes. “For your information, it was a unicorn glamoured to look like a minotaur, and minotaurs are still allowed to buy passage into the city. I did nothing wrong. In fact, I'm doing something wrong now by being strong-armed into coming here instead of leading the search myself!”

Once he was done with his tirade, Rufus felt like the floor was dropping out from under him. The guard dogs rested their paws on the hilts of their swords, and the Diamond Doge's face darkened as his companion bent down and slowly interpreted what Rufus had said.

“Be that as it may,” the Doge said through the voice of his interpreter, “the fact that there is now a pony in the city constitutes a breach of the ultimatum delivered to Equestria. After speaking with the council of your fair city, the Dogfather has convinced them to stop equivocating and take action. All pony slaves in the city are to be put to death immediately, and their heads are to adorn spikes along the walls.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Rufus demanded.

The dog in the suit bent down closer as the Doge's voice became quiet and menacing. “The Dogfather's first instinct is to have your head join them, but since he is not the ruler of this city, and because he is a generous and forgiving lord, he has persuaded the city council to give you a different task as a second chance. You are to oversee the aforementioned slaughter until it is complete. Do that, and your life will be spared.”

“What, that's it?” Rufus glared and stood his ground, despite the guard dogs inching closer to him. He gulped. “Fine, but killing civilians isn't in my job description. I expect to be compensated if you're going to use my skills for something so far beneath me.”

The translator told the Diamond Doge what Rufus said with a grave, pale face. The Doge, however, began to laugh, sending his rolls of flabby skin rippling along his body. Then he spoke softly again, and Rufus thought he caught a glint in his beady eyes.

“The Dogfather says you will be rewarded handsomely... if you do as he asks.”

The Doge extended one of his paws, pointing a huge diamond ring directly at Rufus. Somehow, he was not dead, though he could still feel the arrows pointed on him as he crossed the distance to pay his respect to the Doge.

“Yes, Dogfather,” Rufus said as he kissed the diamond, vowing that one day it would be his. “Thank you, Dogfather.”

The Diamond Doge gave him a talisman, a necklace carved from jade and adorned with diamonds in the facets, each diamond delicately etched with the family seal of the Doge. He said a few more words directly to Rufus in the old language The gentledog standing at the side of the couch did not translate them. From the look Rufus saw in the old patrician's rheumatic blue eyes, he concluded that that was for the best.

Luna felt the pressure of six unicorns uniting their efforts into a single counterspell. Her head felt heavy. She squinted and winced as she breathed more green smoke into her patient, and she watched in dismay as auras of six hues swept most of the smoke away. She saw more spears coming toward her. Though she did her best to dodge, three of them got past her defenses.

Two of the strikes were blocked by a downward slam of another spear, wielded by Blueblood. The third struck her side hard enough to create a huge dent in her mystical plate and crack her ribs. The metal point of the weapon shattered in the process, and the wooden haft splintered into useless shards, but that was a small comfort for the incredible pain pressing on her mind.

Luna heard the sounds of steel against steel, hooves striking armor and flesh, behind her. She did not know what Blueblood was thinking, trying to take on so many by himself, but if it bought her a few more seconds to complete her spell, she would not object.

“I must heal this one, lest he die,” she said hoarsely over her shoulder, tasting blood with each word. “Defend me but a few seconds more.”

He grunted and mingled the remaining energy of Luna's shield with a novice shield spell of his own. Neither spell by itself would have been enough, but together, it formed a sufficiently strong barrier against magical and physical attacks to keep most of the guards at bay. It did not completely surround them, however, so two guards were able to close in and attack Blueblood with the butts of their spears. Having apparently taken his cue from Luna, Blueblood did the same in trying to make his attacks nonlethal. He was a good warrior, but not good enough to avoid several crunching blows that made Luna wince in sympathy.

The guard she was administering began to take slow, ragged breaths. He was still unconscious, but he was stable now. The icy touch in the pit of her soul lessened slightly, and she came close to laughing with joy, despite him being an enemy. Instead of laughing, Luna focused her excited energy on whirling around and unleashing a multi-pronged spear of dark purple magic from her horn. The energy struck the guards nearest to Blueblood at the base of their hooves. They fell, screaming in agony as their hooves cracked and burned inside the superheated boots they wore. It was nothing that intensive healing spells could not cure, but it would slow them down greatly.

One of the ones to fall was a unicorn, leaving only five to begin blasting her with spells again. This time she was ready. Luna took Blueblood's flimsy but appreciated shield spell in her aura and magnified it, creating a nearly impenetrable bubble of force. A barrage of spells of fire, lightning, and pure magic of many shades were reflected from her into the walls of the cavern, creating a raging cacophony of colors which the obsidian rock dulled and absorbed.

The unicorns finally let up their attack. They were panting hard, and one of them had a scorched horn that would now be useless. Another's horn was sending out a cascade of weak sparks. It was time to finish them.

Luna smiled a wicked smile and took one step forward. The guards regrouped, the still-moving non-unicorns forming a wall around the magic casters. As soon as she went one step forward, she felt a touch at the tip of her horn, as if it had been lightly tapped with a hammer. She shook it off as a side effect of bearing the full brunt of so many spells at once and took another step forward. Then she felt a distant, hazy mix of emotions that were clearly not hers. Desperation, hope, eagerness. Lyra was calling her.

Luna's movement ceased, and at the same time, her mind began to race. If she did not leave to lead the army right away, she would be jeopardizing the lives of every slave in Dragon's Hoard even more than she already was. But if she did not finish and exile these traitors, the royal guard would surely turn against her en masse. Moreover, they might be able to recapture Blueblood and take him home. Without him as a hostage, Blueblood the Elder would be uncooperative at best, rebellious at worst.

Why could Lyra not have taken a little longer?

“It's too bad you're not long for this world,” Ludwig remarked as he strolled out of the estate with Rufus. “That was mildly interesting. Dare I ask where that sudden bout of backbone came from?”

“None of your business, whelp,” Rufus spat back. “Am I free to go, or do you politicians want to jerk me around some more?”

“No, we're quite through... for now.” With a gesture, the huge bodyguards fell in around Ludwig and followed him to another of the mansions, presumably on another errand. He called back as he strolled away, “Oh, and that was too formal a situation to mention it before, but you smell like garbage. You may want to consider a bath too.”

“I'll save the bath for after I take care of your pony problem for you.” Rufus turned on his heel and strode away, making for the central market, which was quite a distance away. There were no carts or anything to commandeer, but he had to pick up other soldiers for this little task anyway. He recruited a gang from among lower-ranked and particularly ruthless soldiers he met along the way. Just twenty of them, so as not to draw too many forces away from the search parties.

Already he missed the wealthy quarter. There were no exotic plants to smell, the only sights to see were the occasional sculpture depicting the ancestral benefactors of the city to the unwashed masses, and the crimson glow of the heating tubes was a very poor substitute for the soft light of the pseudo-sun.

Rufus idly inquired how the search was going as he pined. There had been numerous sightings of the black figure they had taken to calling “Goldeneyes”, but many of them were rumors from the lower classes and could not be trusted. More promising, given a loose definition of “promising”, were reports from slaveholders of their servants vanishing. Some of them claimed to see a black shape somewhere nearby when it happened, but none could agree on what it looked like. One said it was a diamond dog, another a minotaur, another a pony, and yet another an incorporeal shadow being. The one feature they did agree on was a pair of bright yellow eyes shining from the darkness... watching them before they disappeared into the shadows again.

“Just find her already!” Rufus told the soldiers whom he was not recruiting for his current job. “If you're not going to use your heads, you can at least use your noses!”

He turned to the dogs following him. “As for you, I want you going door to door to find everyone who owns a pony slave. Tell them that the Diamond Doge has graciously offered to buy the ponies at double the going rate, for the inconvenience. Then bring them to the indoor market. I'm going ahead to seal off the area.”

Along one of the city's central avenues, with the slave market visible in the distance, Rufus saw a sight that made him groan and scrunch up his nose—beggars. He would have to shove his way through a mob of useless roustabouts.

“Please, sir, my food rations for the week are gone, and I have a child!” a black-coated dog pleaded, pawing desperately at him with her weak, scrawny legs. The sentiment was echoed by several more of them, pressing closer and closer, getting black grime all over his uniform.

“Don't touch me!” Rufus kicked them away, sending them whimpering back to the alley they probably lived in. “I'm a defender of this great city. I am not a charity. Maybe you should be more careful with your rations next week, idiots!”

Another group of beggars swarmed him halfway down the street, then another as he neared the end. He had to draw his blade and threaten them with it just to get through, his other paw clutching the diamond necklace to keep them from grabbing it. What should have been a five minute walk ended up taking half an hour. It was somewhat jarring to see so many of the destitute in one place. If that pony army had not shown up, the city guard would have had enough resources to deal with them.

“Barking ponies!” Rufus yelled as he shoved a particularly aggressive panhandler into the wall of a building. He whined and rubbed his side as he crawled away.

Finally, he reached the market. No one was there at the moment, save for a few soldiers and guard dogs. The fountain, molded out of the ubiquitous obsidian that the city was made of, but trimmed with gold filigree, had long since been shut off. There were few stalls left, most having been requisitioned by the army to make barricades. The huge steel viewing cages were also empty—the slaves had all been moved to one of the massive, sprawling warehouses that dominated the opposite edge of the market. The only sound Rufus could hear was the rush of molten rock as it was pushed through the pipes lining the buildings. There was not even anything to smell, and in the absence of scents, Rufus finally noticed that he kind of did smell like trash.

He cursed the beggars again. Flashing the Diamond Doge's seal to his superiors in the area, he got them to start sealing off the market, only allowing in his soldiers as they dragged in ponies from all over the city. Their equine heads were bowed to the ground, and they had to be pushed into walking faster—the ones who were not being carried or dragged in unconsciousness, at least. Rufus directed them into a warehouse with the others, separate from the one holding the other species. Soon all the ponies were gathered inside and the door was slammed shut. He reached into his coat for his keyring to lock them in, but found nothing. He checked again, then a third time, then patted himself down. His keys were missing.

Sweating and laughing nervously, he began to search everywhere in the market. As the keeper of the gate, it was Rufus's most important duty to handle the keys. If anyone found out they were gone, that would be the end of his career, if not his life.

With the dual purpose of distracting his comrades from his frantic searching, and accomplishing the task given to him by the Diamond Doge, Rufus assembled all the dogs of war in the plaza and relayed what the Dogfather had said. Since he could no longer simply lock them in, burn the building down, and have the Doge pay for it, Rufus told them they had to go into the warehouse and kill each pony themselves.

The dogs gave each other long looks. None of them moved.

“You'll all be paid extra for performing this service,” Rufus said, holding aloft the Doge's necklace. “The Dogfather has given his word.”

The hounds moved reluctantly... but they moved. The twenty of them he had rounded up filed inside with their weapons drawn, while the others blocked off all of the windows and exits in case any tried to escape. Rufus saw the terrified faces of the ponies within, huddling together and shaking. With each swing of the door, the dogs drew closer, and the ponies tried to back farther away. But there was nowhere to go. The ponies, from the old workhorses too tired and broken to even think of fighting back, to the young, recently captured mares and stallions who put themselves in the way to protect the others with their own bodies, were all trapped. As the doorway finally closed, the screams began.

“Blueblood,” Luna said, spreading out her wings and casting a sparkling spell on them, “I am departing to lead the army now. Thou said thou wished to fight. If that was not another arrogant deception, then climb upon my back now and join the battle to prove it.” She cast another spell on her eyes, transforming them into vertical slits again. She could see every escape route perfectly. There was one tunnel branch that was big enough to fit both of them, but small enough that the guards could only pursue them in pairs at most.

Luna felt his weight on her back, warming her even through the thick layers of her magical armor. She shivered and beat her wings, taking her several feet off the ground. The guards rushed forward to stop her as Luna flew as fast as she could to her planned exit. They got in several kicks and spells. The strikes slowed her down, but she grit her teeth and flapped her wings harder. Carrying herself, a suit of plate armor, and an adult unicorn at anything resembling quick speed was only possible thanks to the aid of her horn and the strength and stamina of her earth pony body. Luna heard a few cries of pain from directly behind her. Blueblood had been hurt as well. As she navigated the tunnels in complete darkness to escape the guards, her heart warred between concern for him and satisfaction that he had received what he deserved for betraying her.

“Luna,” he said, his smooth voice marred only slightly by pain, “I need to tell you—“

“Be thou silent, fool,” she commanded coldly, banking hard to take a narrow passageway. She barely avoided slamming into the wall, and Blueblood must have sensed it coming too, because his legs squeezed around her body. “They can follow us by our voices.”

She saw him nod out of the corner of her eyes. He clung tighter and tighter to her as she picked up speed. Her heart was pounding, her nostrils were flaring, and blood and excitement were rushing through her like a drug. That drug was all that kept her from worry, anger, and guilt. There was a battle to fight, and if she was fast enough, she could save the innocent and deliver justice to the guilty. The clarity was intoxicating.

Once she was certain they were not following her, Luna folded her wings and connected with the ground. It barely slowed her speed, as her legs had already been wheeling through the air. At a full sprint, Luna carried herself and her betrothed back to the camp.

“Can I just explain, please?” he asked.

Luna responded with icy silence as she ran through the dark.

“I was going back to try to convince my father of your good intentions,” said Blueblood. “I only needed a good distraction, then I could get away without any problems. Then we could work out our marriage on more... equal terms. Or at least not as captor and prisoner. I didn't think you would come after me with everything else going on.”

“Dost thou think me some lovestruck filly?” Luna narrowly juked to the side to avoid colliding with a stalagmite, then resumed her speech in between panting breaths as if nothing had happened. “That I will bend my actions to a few honeyed words? I have become over-affectionate in recent nights, 'tis true, but that mistake will be rectified forthwith.” Luna ducked under a low-hanging cave entrance, lowering her body enough so that her passenger could fit through as well. “Thou art a means to an end. Thou, and this marriage, mean nothing to me beyond that. Is that clear?”

There was a short pause, where the only sound was Luna's frantic breathing, the pounding of her hooves, and the wind whipping by their ears. “Yes,” said Blueblood. “I... I'm sorry.”

Luna ignored his extra comment and re-focused her efforts on the run.

She noticed the silver fires of the camp well in advance of her companion, which reminded her to transform her eyes back to their previous shape once it was mostly a straight sprint to the guard posts.

She had forgotten how tiresome it was to always be shifting her body back and forth simply for the sake of propriety. For a moment, Luna considered not bothering and keeping the superior slitted eyes as she had centuries ago, but she had to begrudgingly admit that that would go over about as well as it had with Blueblood. It drained her of a little more magical power, but it was her only choice.

With the transformation spell, she finally remembered to take stock of her remaining magic. The fight had drained her considerably, and she had already funneled a significant chunk of her power into Lyra's special training. Her emotions remained strong, but they felt distant and dulled. That meant she possessed about half of her full strength now, she guessed, although she had not pushed herself this hard since seizing the crown from the sun's corona and becoming Queen. Perhaps she had new reserves she was yet unaware of, or so she hoped. If she stopped feeling anything, that was her signal that she would be running on reserves. Her spells would be powerful then, for a brief while, but they would also be dangerous, to her and everyone around her.

If that were not reason enough to rely less on spell-casting, there was also the simple fact that, perhaps in reaction to her dwindling magical ability, her wings and muscles were brimming with energy, eager to be used. And after the events of tonight, she was eager to oblige.

“Guards!” she called out in her new royal voice, the gently firm tone that now cost her no magical effort at all. Strangely, it felt like one of the powers she had that was intrinsically connected to the celestial bodies themselves, rather than her horn, like the ability to feel the natural, unassisted movement of the stars and moon, or to perfectly reckon the time. “Make way for the Queen!”

After barreling past the shocked sentries, Luna began commanding everyone in earshot—which was quite, quite far—to form ranks. As she herded the scrambling soldiers into their squadrons and formations, she turned to Blueblood, who had been following her in numb silence.

“Dost thou truly desire to fight?” she asked severely, stepping slightly aside to let a soldier rush past to join his formation. “Or was that another of thy lies?”

Blueblood frowned thoughtfully, then closed his eyes and sighed. “No, it wasn't,” he whispered.

“Then let this battle serve in place of thy manipulative speech,” Luna said. “Sway me with deeds, not words.” She began trotting away, glancing around to make sure her army was assembling in order. “Seek out Captain Gumball and have thyself equipped,” she called back to him as she pointed out the rendezvous point to a confused squadron. “She will assign thee a position. Good hunting.” By way of parting, she gave him a brief but withering stare.

After quickly commandeering a six-pony squadron to “escort” Blueblood to the Captain, Luna took flight and flapped her way to the largest of the tunnels. There, column after column of ponies had assembled, silver fire glistening off of their armor and weapons bright enough to beat back the shadows of the catacombs. There were still many straggling in. As she hovered in the air waiting for them, she felt another signal through her horn. Then another, and another. Then a rush of repeated, obnoxious taps. Presumably, Lyra was sending the distress signal, and was too excited to remember she was only supposed to send three signals at once.

Luna shook her head, sending back a single strong pulse that stopped the wave of signals abruptly. Message received. Whatever was happening, she no longer had time to wait.

“To Dragon's Hoard, double-time, march!” she ordered. “Stay with your squadrons, but otherwise, do not stop running until we reach the city. Quickly!”

The same ethereal wind that blew through her hair also carried her words to each individual's ear, and they were moving before she had even finished exhorting them. Her volume was loud to them, but no more so than a nearby shout. Their faces reacted with determination, even excitement in some. The Queen's face nearly matched theirs, though the excitement was closer to cold, dark fury.

Ten minutes after it began, the screaming stopped. Rufus had never heard horses die violently before, but it was a sound he would never forget. The surreptitious search for his keys was not much of a distraction, so he tried to think of the clink of all the gold coins he would get for this instead, but the horrific bleating of the little ponies’ death cries drowned it out. At least he had been clever enough not to have to do it himself. Nonetheless, he had to go in and tell them what to do with the bodies.

Where he expected to find a pile of pony bodies, Rufus found a heap of unconscious diamond dogs. He was too stunned to even register the sight before the door closed behind him. As soon as it did, he heard a fierce shout to his left.

“Hi-ya!” Something hard and black slammed into the side of his head, sending him sprawling across the floor. As he struggled to his feet, Rufus found himself facing a line of collared and chained slaves... bearing the weapons of his soldiers. He spun around, drawing his own sword just in time to swipe at the figure who had kicked him.

It was a pony—the pony, the one who had pretended to be a minotaur and tricked him—standing on her hindlegs, with her forelegs raised in some exotic martial arts stance. She was grinning as she spun out of the way of his strike. Though her cape had been sliced, and she had small cuts all over her body, she was still moving as gracefully as if she were a biped. He started to shout for help.

“Don't bother, mutt,” said the pony, whose horn was blazing with a golden aura. “No one outside hears or sees anything I don't want them to.”

Rufus snarled and rushed at her, right as the armed slaves to his rear tried to grab him. He was hopelessly outnumbered. Not every pony had a blade, but hooves could be just as deadly. But he was one of the city's chosen defenders, and he would not go down without a fight. At the very least, he had to kill “Goldeneyes” first. With a hate-filled snarl, he lunged at her again.

The black pony ran straight at him and, at the very last second before his blade would have pierced her gut, she threw herself onto her back, sending her body sliding under his legs. Before he could even stop running forward, Rufus was falling, a hoof pressing into his back and pinning him to the floor.

“Hey,” she said, peering down at him as she placed two more hooves on him. He growled and bit at the wood next to his face. As if beating him so easily were not enough, she was also stronger than him. He continued to struggle, but it was of no actual use. “You're Rufus, right? Long time, no see. From your end, anyway.”

He could see her huge smile out of the corner of his eye. Her teeth were shiny and perfectly straight. Barking ponies.

“Here's what's going to happen, Rufus,” said Goldeneyes. “You're going to go out there and tell your hounds that it's done. Once they're cleared out, I'm going to use these—”she lowered her tail down to eye level to show him the keyring dangling on it—“to go open the cages of all the slaves in the other warehouse. Then I'm going to lead them out of the city gate. You're not going to follow us.”

“Why in the earth would I do that?” Rufus said, growling and spitting in the gaps between each word.

“Think about it.” Goldeneyes pulled the keys out of his reach again, putting them into a pouch inside her cloak. “I've only been here a few hours, and your slaves are already whispering about me, your poor are already mumbling about rations, your soldiers are already getting mutinous. Imagine how much damage I could do if I had a whole day. Or a week. You can say goodbye to your dreams, mutt.”

“I'm going to be dead if I don't report back with my keyring anyway.” He sighed, then gulped. This was it. “Just kill me now.”

“Sheesh, so dramatic,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Is that all? I'll just give you the keys back when I leave then. All better! Though I may have to make a copy of the key to the drawbridge. For strategic purposes, you understand.”

Rufus paused in his useless struggling to escape the pin. “You what? You'd just give them back? I don't believe you.”

“Look over there.” The pony spy let him up enough so he could turn his head to where the diamond dog soldiers lay. They were still breathing. “I had their lives in my hooves, and I chose not to take them, just like I'm choosing not to take yours now. Like I could have taken yours the whole day. I've been watching you, following you, and I've seen you do some terrible things, things that made me want to choke the air out of your abusive, greedy lungs. But everyone deserves a second chance. Straighten yourself up, and maybe you'll die a noble warrior's death when we take this city, instead of a mass-murdering coward's slow death in Tartarus. Hey, you might even live! Wouldn't that be something?”

There was something in her melodious voice, a passion and conviction that gave Rufus several long seconds of pause. It was also pause enough to think, to connect what she was asking of him with the fact that the fire coming from her horn had been slowly dimming this whole time, and was now almost out.

“Well?” She pressed.

“Alright,” he said, injecting utter defeat into his voice. It did not take much effort. He did feel defeated... but not yet utterly so.

Goldeneyes blinked a couple times. Then she kicked his blade away, where one of the slaves picked it up in his teeth. She backed off slowly and let him stand up. As she walked away, she nodded to the armed slaves that were moving to surround him, cutting off his escape routes. That was fine. He only needed to wait.

He saw that the enemy agent had walked over to the corner and started to speak with one of the slaves, an earth pony with a deep green coat. Her feet looked like they had been crushed, and they were bleeding all over the floor. Likely a punishment for an escape attempt. Rufus scoffed as he listened to their whispered conversation.

“Emerald, we're going to go soon. Can you walk at all?”

“No,” the slave whimpered, huddling into a ball. “She-she-she broke a-all of my l-legs.”

He could hear Goldeneyes grind her teeth from across the room. “I'm going to try to heal you a little bit, at least enough so you can help some of us carry you. Okay?”

“O-Okay...”

“Give me your left foreleg,” Goldeneyes said gently. Emerald did as she asked, but slowly and shakily. She gently cradled the broken limb in her front hooves.

Whatever spell she had been casting had to be stopped to use the healing spell. Rufus found his opportunity sooner than he thought he would have. The pair of them jumped as he let loose the loudest howl he had ever uttered in his life. His captors beat him down with the blunt portions of their weapons, but they could not silence him fast enough. Soon hounds were pouring in through the doors and windows, drawing their weapons as soon as they saw the tableau before them.

“Nutbunnies!”

The fastest of the soldiers, with Luna at their head, were met by a small band of diamond dogs outside the city gate, holding up a large white flag. Luna snarled as she saw the familiar white toga of Ludwig, the “diplomat” who had brought a slave's head to try to scare her away. She commanded a halt, and in the harsh heat of the river of molten rock now flowing around the city, they waited. More and more caught up, the dogs outside the wall becoming increasingly agitated as the amount of armed, glaring ponies in view swelled exponentially.

“First,” Ludwig said, his voice dripping with faux politeness, and also quivering slightly, “you should know that if we aren't allowed back into the city unmolested, the garrison has been given the order to slaughter your precious ponies.”

Luna snorted with seething disgust in response, and he sighed and wrapped his front paws behind his back.

“Now then, on behalf of the Most Serene Diamond Doge and this city’s illustrious council, I have been sent with a proposal for you, O' Queen. We will give you all of our ponies, free and unharmed.” The dogs in the delegation around him nodded vigorously. “Then there will be peace, yes?”

Luna stared at the diamond dog, studying the forced steadiness of his eyes. They were humble and desperate, but also calculating. Were they trying to buy time with this charade? She turned to look back at her army, crowded in the branching tunnels until they disappeared behind the twists and turns.

Ruse or not, he was offering what she began this war to accomplish. She reasoned that she had disrupted their trade enough by seizing Barkstone that it was unlikely they would resume taking ponies as slaves any time soon. Could she risk more of her soldiers' lives to send the dogs a clearer message? But on the other hoof, could she leave all the other thinking, speaking, feeling beings down here to their miserable fate? As she gazed over the cloaked, chain-armored soldiers behind her, their spears shining harshly in the red light of the moat, the image flashed through her mind of that pony slave whose severed head the diamond dogs had sent to her..

No, she decided, as that pony's face mixed with features of each of the fifty-three soldiers who died to get the army here. I must end this now.

“We have a different proposal.” Luna said, facing the dogs again, her voice short, thin, and sharp, like a knife. “Surrender, release all of your captives, ponies and all other races, and never enslave another so long as you live, or we shall put you and all who oppose us to the spear. Then we shall take your children and teach them to despise your memory for the remainder of their lives.”

Luna reared back on her hind legs, grabbed the spear from a surprised soldier next to her, and planted the butt of the weapon in the earth at her feet, using it and her now-extended wings to balance herself as she continued to speak.

“Every day, we shall teach them to hate your names, to curse the evil you have wrought upon the world. Every day, we shall march them by the deep pit that will be your collective grave and have them spit upon the soil that hides your pathetic corpses from our sight.”

The light of the magma actually diminished with her words, its red glow being gradually overtaken by the soft, silvery shine emanating from Luna's regalia.

“Every day, they will feel nothing but shame and remorse for having been brought into this world by such odious monsters as you. When they dream, they will dream happily of a world in which not one of you ever existed.”

Nearly all of the light in the cavern was gone, as if absorbed by Luna's very voice. Her armor gave off the only illumination that could be seen in the darkness for a great distance.

“Or you can accept our terms, and we shall leave.” She stamped her spear against the ground as punctuation, creating a web of cracks in the obsidian floor. “Choose.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna could see that one by one, unicorn horns were sparking to life in perfect, disciplined harmony. Their illumination and warding spells brought the tunnels to light again with a brilliant, soupy, amorphous glow of nearly every color imaginable. The matching eyes underneath each radiant aura had become tired and hard, but starkly beautiful. To Luna, they looked like a field of rare gems, more precious than all the stones their canine enemies coveted so much.

“That's... quite tempting,” Ludwig said with a bored sniff. His entourage was showing much less bravado, their eyes shifting rapidly, looking for escape routes. “However, threats are a game for the weak. Contrary to what you might believe, we are not weak, so I won't bother with threats. I have only a list of facts.

“The honored council of this city has amassed an army of professional mercenaries behind these walls, and every one of them has seen more of battle than your rabble of peasants. Barkstone was a fluke, where you caught brave but poorly armed militia dogs in a cowardly surprise attack. Now you face true dogs of war, as well as griffons, minotaurs, and equines from as far away as Andalusia.” He bared his teeth in a mocking approximation of a smile. “They outnumber you at least two-to-one, as well.”

“Merely two-to-one?” Luna swept one of her wings forward, causing a few of the diamond dogs to flinch. She gestured with its pinions toward the city. “We refuse. Go back inside your walls, and let battle be joined.”

Ludwig gave a sweeping, exaggerated bow, then led his group back to the bridge. The diamond dogs were hazy and indistinct as they crossed, the massive heat in the air distorting the images of their bodies.

Luna quickly scanned the walls as she handed the spear back to the soldier she had taken it from. Sure enough, she saw a wide variety of creatures arrayed against her, all of them with fierce weapons and fiercer visages. She narrowed her eyes, watching them ready their weapons. That allowed her to find what she was looking for.

She used her wing to point again, this time at a section of the wall midway between the gate and the first guard tower.

“Form the wedge there!” Luna commanded, her deep, regal voice sounding crystal-clear to every pony in the cavern.

Most of the practice for it had taken place in increasingly fantastic and deadly dreamscapes, but the soldiers still executed the plan with quiet, grim efficiency.

An entire column of pegasus cavalry, one hundred strong, took to the air. By groups of two, they lifted fifty waiting earth ponies to carry with them. At the same instant, a huge, shimmering, cone-shaped shield appeared in front of them. The column flew forward across the moat of magma, their shield sending out showers of rainbow-colored sparks as missile weapons careened off the barrier. Some of the unicorns were sweating and grunting by the time the pegasi reached the other side, but the shield held perfectly. They had seen too many of their comrades “die” in training for it to be otherwise.

The pegasi deposited their earth pony passengers on top of the walls, then provided air support for them as they fought the rush of defenders on the walls. The shield was not powerful enough to keep out anything but arrows and rocks, so it was dropped and cast again on the next column due to cross. Some of the unicorns had to be rotated out to recuperate—the mercenaries had unleashed a hellish barrage against their magic barrier.

Luna managed to warn the unicorns of what was coming next precious seconds before it happened. The enemies armed with ranged weapons turned their sights on the unicorns providing protection for the wedge. Thanks to Luna's warning, the reserve artillery had time to form a defensive dome around their comrades before the same tidal wave of missiles struck them.

Luna also saw that the defenders clustered together in one section of the wall to concentrate their fire. Immediately she leaped up, beating her wings straight toward it with a wolfish smile on her face.

“Second wedge, form on me!” she shouted as she grabbed an earth pony soldier, hoisted him onto her back, then grabbed another underneath his forelegs. It was not far to cross, but she still had to put her entire body into each flap of her wings. She flapped even harder as she passed above the river of fire. It was hundreds of feet below her, but filling steadily from sluice gates in the chasm, and even from this distance, the heat was causing her to sweat.

Sparks flew before her eyes, drawing her attention back to the wall. Some of the enemy had seen her coming, but the unicorn artillery squadrons were working hard to keep the translucent cone of energy solid around her and the groups of pegasi carrying earth ponies at her sides. There was a presence in the cone that felt simultaneously more and less intimate than the others. There was a pony there whose dreams she had not graced. “Prince” Blueblood was protecting her.

As soon as she crossed the midway point of the moat, Luna saw many diamond dog defenders turn and run. It had to have been because of her visage, since they had not fled from the other point of assault, even as more and more strong, sturdy earth ponies were shuttled across. She could feel that her eyes were glowing white, she could still see the lunar shine of her armor, and the thought of Blueblood had likely not softened her features.

There were other diamond dogs on the wall, burly ones with thick armor, who were not so intimidated by the Queen of Equestria and the Princess of the Night flying straight toward them in all her glory. There were also minotaurs and griffons among them, who roared and shrieked challenges at her. Even a few young dragons in the bipedal adolescent stage of growth had been hired.

She told the two soldiers she was ferrying to brace themselves as she finally reached the wall. Then Luna set the first one down to her left and motioned for the one on her back to climb off to her right. Together with the first line of soldiers who had formed the wedge, they readied their weapons to charge. Instead of flying back to bring across more earth ponies, Luna joined the line herself. She bore no external weapons, but the stone of the wall cracked and splintered as she planted her feet down, letting the enemy know that she required none.

As soon as the shield around them dropped, the dragons among the enemy dashed forward to breathe fire upon them.

“Cloaks up!” Luna shouted as she swept her wings in quick, sidelong arcs, generating enough wind to send much of the fire breath to the side, some even into other defenders. They screamed as they caught fire, but so did several ponies in the line. The cloaks were enchanted to deflect some punishment, but not a full blast of dragon's breath, and some of them did not get their cloaks up in time anyway. As much as it pained her, she would have to tend to the wounded later. Now, they needed to take the wall as soon as possible.

“Charge!” came the cry from both sides, though Luna's voice drowned out all others. Minotaurs, griffons, and dogs of war dropped their ranged weapons and surged forward with blades and cudgels to give the dragons time to recover enough energy to pour out their inner flame again. She would not give them the chance.

Spears struck home to both sides of her, the infantry utilizing every trick she had taught them to maximize their reach and impact. Not only did they resist the disorganized but much, much heavier charge of the menagerie of larger races, but they pushed back. They may not have specifically faced these creatures during training, but several of the nameless horrors Luna had conjured to face them were as large or larger. Caws, barks, and roars filled the cavern, and they seem to grow even more intense as Luna herself waded into the fray.

As they all pushed, dodged, stabbed, struggled, bled, and died, Luna heard a new sound—a wild symphony of thumping coming from inside of her, so deep that it seemed to shake her bones, but seemingly audible only to her. It was, she realized, the heartbeats of her soldiers. She could feel their blood as if it coursed through her own veins. The sound caused her pain when her warriors were hurt, and some notes of the music ceased to play, but more steadily arrived, borne on the wings of more heartbeats. Soon, the pain of wounds and death was drowned out by the quick pace of hearts that swelled with excitement, that exulted in this chance to protect and avenge the innocent.

“Everypony, burst through that door at once and make for the gate!” Lyra shouted. With the weapon-bearing ponies taking the lead, the hundred slaves stampeded out of the warehouse.

“Emerald, we need to go now!” Lyra said urgently. “I'm going to carry you on my back, and it's probably going to hurt a lot. I'm sorry!”

Before Emerald could protest, she was crying and sobbing as she was hoisted onto Lyra's back. The unicorn's magic and forelegs combined to help keep her relatively still, but Lyra's awkward two-legged run still made for a bumpy ride. It was a fast one though, and they were soon stampeding right along with the rest of the herd.

Lyra alternated between yelling encouragement and direction to the others, and whispering assurances to Emerald.

“Everything is going to be okay. Luna is coming for us.”

“Who's th-that?”

“You'll see.” Lyra blinked away her tears, running with all her might. “You'll see soon. Don't worry.”

With a cry of ecstatic joy that unnerved seasoned veterans on both sides of the conflict, Luna ducked the mighty sweep of a minotaur's axe, which would have taken off her head and that of the two soldiers next to her if they had not taken a cue from her and also dodged. For a split second, their two hearts found the same rhythm as hers, before rejoining the orchestra. As the enemy tried to regain his balance from the strike, Luna flowed forward, low to the ground like a snake. In another snake-like movement, she unleashed a sudden and furious attack, jumping up with the full power of her back legs and wings working together, hard enough to send her forehoof sailing straight up into the minotaur's chin and beyond. She roared in triumph, and hundreds of ponies nearby did as well, without consciously knowing why—their hearts knew. She also heard a horrific snap after the uppercut, but just in case, she put all her weight and power into landing on his chest as he fell, crushing his ribcage. Luna stepped forward from his corpse, her head low, radiant eyes squinting.

The minotaur who rushed up to take the fallen one's place in the line hesitated for a fraction of a second at the sight. Right as he was shaking himself out of it and preparing to crush her with his enormous flanged mace, she jumped into the air, landing with her forehooves on his shoulders. He immediately reached up to try to claw her off, but he met only the scrape of her metallic armor. Luna twisted her body, now perpendicular to the ground, then jabbed a hoof into either side of the minotaur's head. His helmet was dented inward from the attack, which gave her a firm grip. Holding on tightly, she cursed, grunted, and started to let her lower body fall, using every ounce of her strength to force the enormous beast into a spine-cracking suplex. His mace swept around wildly as he found himself flying down into the second rank of defenders, killing or scattering them. Luna was on her feet again in an instant, now that she had cleared a path to the dragons.

Luna had hardly taken a step forward before all the dragons in range breathed their fire on her, and her alone. She let loose an otherworldly howl that was equal parts surprise, pain, and rage, as, without a cloak to defend herself, the magic fire scorched her armor and exposed flesh. She threw her magic into a hemisphere of solid energy, but that only prevented more fire from reaching her. The flames that were already on her body continued to burn. One of her eyes burst from the heat, and the feathers of her exposed wing turned to ash. Both would regenerate, but not any time soon.

Luna forced her burning legs to move forward during the attack, so that after the few agonizing seconds it took for it to be over, she was face to face with half a dozen fire-breathing monsters. She turned her one-eyed glare upon them as smoke rose from the blackened bones of her wing. As she closed the distance to them, the group of pony warriors by her side broke through the enemy lines, having been saved significant time and damage by the dragons' decision to focus on her instead of them. Their heartbeats were synchronized with hers, so that they all knew where every limb of the others would be, where each source of danger was. They also felt Luna's pain, and she in turn felt their anger at the ones who had caused it. In a harmonious flurry of kicks, stabs, and even some bites from Luna, the soldiers wove in and out of attacking and counterattacking, dodging claws and then stabbing precisely at the weak spots in the dragons' scales. All of the dragons were brought low in less than a minute.

As Luna stamped the life out of the last of them, she whispered into the wind, “Captain Gumball, if the first wedge is not making progress, reinforce it now. If it is, order the final wedge at a place of thy choosing.”

She chanced a brief glance back in the direction they had come. At least twenty ponies were unable to move onward, but still breathing. She did not relish the duty to inform Engineer Turner's family of his death. Though she was old, Mom could possibly find a job again, but little sister had not even found her cutie mark yet. They would receive his full five years' worth of pay, but what about after that? Would they have to sell grandpa's house?

A flash of steel shook Luna back to reality in time to turn her wide, smooth side plates into an oncoming sword, sending the blade harmlessly away from her. She swung her body around and kicked the diamond dog who was holding it cleanly off the wall, where he crashed through a nearby brick building.

“Begin shuttling across our best healers as well,” she said, amending her previous order. “We have severe burn casualties.”

More and more earth pony infantry arrived and formed ranks around her. There were limps, bloody wounds, horrible burns, and simple tired bodies, but the little ponies had slain the nearest defenders. The sight of the extensive damage to Luna's body gave them only brief pause, as she turned toward the gate and rallied them onward.

“We must lower the drawbridge!” she yelled so that only those in natural ear-shot—still quite far with her voice—could hear. “Follow your Queen!”

After heavy fighting, the army of ponies secured the gate to Dragon's Hoard. They were able to lower the bridge and defend it from the garrison and mercenaries as their reinforcements crossed. Another pitched battle took place at the gate, but it was one which heavily favored the ponies. They had spent lifetimes drilling for this moment, they had air support that vastly outnumbered the griffons and flight-capable dragons among the enemy, they had distractions in the form of two other breaches in the walls, and they had an ancient alicorn general who seemingly could not be killed.

The enemy's array of vastly different tactics did not help their situation either. The dragons were formidable, but because millenia-long lives potentially awaited them, they were quick to withdraw when the tide turned against them. The minotaurs required such a wide berth to fight effectively that they created easily exploited holes in the defenses. The griffon chevaliers—Luna had seethed when she was briefed that they dared to call themselves that—were too proud and arrogant to work as a unit with other species. The band of caribou Bearzerkers, clad in their eponymous pelts and attacking with their sharpened antlers, battled almost as fearlessly and ferociously as Luna. Once the cocktail of hallucinogens and narcotics they imbibed before battle set in, they would not stop fighting until they were dead.

There was one foe whom it wounded her to fight more than the others, though they were thankfully few in number—full-size horses from Andalusia, one of the remnants of the former Arabian empire. Most of them were taller and broader than she was, than Celestia was, even, and each had the raw strength of several earth ponies. They had short blades attached to each of their feet, and their long, dark braids were held in place by daggers, which they whipped around skillfully and to deadly effect.

Yet for all their aggression and power, they fought with more honor than the other opponents. When a pony was too wounded to fight, the horses backed away, allowing them to be pulled out of danger to await healing. They put themselves in harm's way to move the dead away from the risk of being trampled; not just their own dead, but ponies as well. When they came within range of Luna, they tried their best to get away from the smaller ponies around them and engage her in single combat, no doubt hoping to win great prestige from a contest, win or lose, with the ruler of the night itself. Throughout the wrestling, the melee at the bridge gave them a wide birth, letting each side's champions decide their contest.

Their blades were practically useless against her armor, so they had to try to overcome her with strength alone. Though she was smaller, she was just as strong, and more agile besides. It was nonetheless thrilling to lock legs with such mighty giants and rely on, to think about, nothing but the stretch and pull of her muscles as she maneuvered for position.

Those muscles screamed at her to stop, but the pounding pulse of her blood and the blood of her comrades urged her on. With more effort than she could last recall putting into a combat, she spun around, above, to the sides, behind each challenger, wrenching at their legs, pushing at their hooves, squeezing their necks, until she finally pinned them, five in a row. After defeating the last, her chest was heaving and her coat was so slick with sweat that it was starting to drip out of the gaps in her armor. Remembering how such duels had been done long ago, Luna used the horses' daggers to cut off their braided manes. Each one ceased all resistance once she had done so.

As she tossed the fifth warrior's braid to the side, she remembered a phrase she had often heard at the end of duels such as this.

“Fil-imtehaan yokram il-mar' aw yohaan, ” she said with grave sincerity. 'At the time of a test, one rises or falls,' was its literal meaning, and in her time, Arabians and other inhabitants of their empire had spoken it in duels of honor. From the fact that Zecora had spoken the language, Luna guessed that it must not be completely dead. She hoped they would recognize it.

The horses froze.

“The language of the prophets,” one towering mare gasped. “None but the most learned scholars know it.”

“Who is this we face?” said a gray stallion.

“You stand before the true Queen of Equestria,” Luna replied as she bent down to help one of the limping fallen return to his comrades. “You have proven your worth to us. Why continue to fight this hopeless battle for such a vile, unrighteous cause?”

“We have a contract and our word, which are sacred,” the Andalusian mare said. She looked around her, where the rest of her band nursed their broken bones and wounded pride. “Yet you have bested our mightiest warriors alone... I believe that we have done all we can. The letter of our agreement has been fulfilled, if not the spirit. We will return the money and quit the field.”

The Andalusians walked straight down the central boulevard without raising another weapon, heads held high. They completely ignored the exhortations of their employers to fight, pausing only briefly to fling sacks of coins at their feet. Having seen the respectful treatment of the dead and wounded by the foreign horses, and seeing that Luna did not pursue them, the ponies allowed them to go, despite the disproportionate casualties they had inflicted.

Luna found it distantly interesting that her thousand years of exile had produced so little in the way of new tactics and strategies to surprise her, though she was pleased to find that some cultures still placed value on courage and honor. Her pondering was cut short as a new wave of diamond dogs joined the fray to replace the mercenaries she had defeated.

They were by far the least interesting of her foes. These warriors were mildly more skilled than the garrison of Barkstone, but they were still weak and cowardly. After only a second to recover her breath from wrestling the Andalusian mercenaries, she set her eye upon them and charged.

Her kicks sent them flying off the bridge, howling as they plunged into the magma below, or they knocked the dogs back hard enough to cause ripples of chaos in their ranks. The weaker-willed dogs soon broke and ran for their homes, and a few more mercenary companies were now cutting their losses and withdrawing as well. She bore the brunt of every attack, and was the rallying point of every counterattack. But enough of the enemy held that it was going to be a hard slog to push into the city. Luna gradually came to realize that time was being wasted. They needed to break through, and they needed to find out where to go to find Lyra. For that, she would need a better view.

Luna could not get a clear picture of the battlefield from the street, which was piled high with makeshift barriers and the bodies of the enemy. As she withdrew a few ranks into the formation of ponies, she reluctantly reached deep into her soul and pulled out enough magic to augment her regeneration, specifically directing it toward her ruined wing. Soldiers from both sides watched in awe as her flesh reformed and sprouted fresh new feathers in less than a minute. Their awe was not diminished by her biting her lip, quivering, and kicking during the process, for the feathers that grew back were darker than the void.

The rejuvenation spell was far from perfect. As she flew straight up, she had to favor one side heavily, and the pain was excruciating. She would not be doing anything more than hovering for at least another night, and that night would not be pleasant.

Luna was all set to rely on her armor to protect her from the inevitable wave of arrows, when a magical shield formed around her. A tear slid out of the tear duct that had not been destroyed as she felt the presence of her unicorn soldiers again... and Blueblood among them. Luna shook her head and squinted down the road, looking past the missiles bouncing harmlessly off of her shield.

It did not take her long to spot any activity that was out of the ordinary. Coming down a side street in the distance, she saw a soot-colored figure running on two equine legs, using its other two legs to hold a pony on its back. Seeing Lyra alive was enough to make Luna smile by itself; the addition of hundreds of unchained slaves following Lyra broadened the smile considerably. It fell away, though, when she saw how many diamond dogs were pursuing the group, and the desperation with which the mostly unarmed rear guard fought to keep them back. They were fighting street to street, buying their fellow captives a few seconds at a time whenever they could. Luna found her heart swelling at the sight.

“Lyra!” she shouted, causing the Captain to slow down and look all around herself in confusion. “Make for the eastern gate, down the street two turns to thy left!”

Lyra recovered her composure and resumed running at full speed, following Luna's directions without hesitation. As soon as she saw Lyra on her way, Luna stopped moving her wings, grunting and finally releasing her clenched teeth. The force of her landing sent shockwaves through the ground, and might have broken her hooves if not for her armored boots. She took a moment to stretch, and to correlate what seemed to be the weakest spot from the air with the equivalent spot in the enemy line on the ground. Then she galloped forward, charging at an angle toward a group of diamond dogs whose shields had either been lost or broken. Luna did not even pause to attack them, relying on the sheer momentum of her body to carry her through. It did, though the forest of spears wielded by ponies following at her heels also encouraged them to get out of the way.

That part of the enemy formation shattered completely, and ponies from the back ranks rushed forward to fill it. Luna and upwards of a hundred of her warriors made it through before the defenders managed to close the gap. The shouting reserves and wailing wounded of the enemy she found behind the front line tried to get to their weapons in shaky terror, but Luna ignored them as well. Through a combination of surprising them, inspiring fear, and bounding over every barrier in her way, she left the field of engagement completely. A few of her brave hundred got bogged down in skirmishes, but she pressed on. She would be back to help them soon enough.

She turned a corner, and Lyra would have run straight into her if Luna had not slid out of the way just in time.

“Whoa!” Lyra's eyes went wide, and they stayed wide even after she recognized the Queen.

“What is the matter, Captain?” Luna said, already turning and motioning with her forehoof toward the gate. “Follow me! There is little time!”

“R-Right,” Lyra said, shaking her head and putting a determined expression back on her face. She turned to the pony on her back, whose head was swaying dizzily. “We're almost there, Emerald. Stay with me.”

The pony groaned in response, and Luna figured out why Lyra was carrying her—her feet had been broken. Her hooves were still cracked and dripping blood. Luna turned around completely and began running back the way she had come before anyone could see the rage and hatred on her face.

She wrapped her magical essence around those emotions as she ran, harnessing them into one enormous spell that she doubted she could even pull off completely. But total success was unnecessary. It only had to be good enough.

“Protect their rear!” she ordered the soldiers who had come with her. “I shall take the lead!”

As her soldiers rushed to the back of the disorganized column of fugitives Lyra was leading, Luna turned her full attention on the enemies in front of her. She formed a mental bubble around as many diamond dogs as she could—targeting it by species was the safest way to ensure no ponies were caught in the effect—and created an imaginary framework for the magic she was working. With every step she poured more and more energy into it, until her horn was blazing and rippling with a mixture of white and blue light. She grit her teeth to force herself not to slow down as the spell sapped her physical strength too.

When she finally unleashed her magic, the cavern shook with a deafening pop, an alien sound to most who could hear it, that was much like the aural inverse of an explosion. A brief aura of light appeared around the diamond dogs along the street, and, a second later, the ponies at the gate found themselves thrusting their spears into empty air, save for a few griffons and minotaurs who were still in the fight. Then there were hundreds of screams behind them, as the displaced enemies reappeared over the moat and fell into the molten river below.

Finding themselves completely abandoned and surrounded, the mercenaries surrendered.

Seeing a clear path back to her army, Lyra pushed her legs as hard as she could. Emerald whimpered from her back as they moved down the practically deserted street. She glanced behind her to make sure the others were okay—they were making it. All of them. Thanks to the sacrifice of a few pony soldiers taking a stand against their pursuers, every single former slave was on their way to freedom. In between feeling like her chest was going to burst from heavy breathing, Lyra felt like she was about to cry.

She actually did cry when she felt something slam into her exposed underside, but it was a cry of shock, then of pain. There was an arrow shaft sticking out of her belly. Her running slowed, and soon another arrow joined the first, closer to her neck.

Taking advantage of the fact that they would no longer need to be shooting into a swirling mass of friend and foe, diamond dog archers had taken positions on the rooftops and began raining arrows down on everyone in the street, both civilians and soldiers.

Lyra gasped as she started to fall. Her instincts told her to roll to the side, but if she did, Emerald might get hurt more. She tried to brace herself as she slammed onto the stone, driving the arrows deeper into her body. Her preparations were not enough. Lyra screamed and saw stars dancing in front of her eyes, darkness creeping around the edges of her vision.

Emerald rolled off of her back and weakly shook her. Lyra tried to tell her to get down, but her words only came out as blood. It turned out that she did not need to get down, however. Lyra realized, through an oppressive blanket of agony, that not all of the stars she was seeing were in her head. There were points of light flashing all around her, all around the escapees behind her—arrows bouncing off a barrier of magic. Then there were more stars, closer, flowing gently across her field of vision.

It was Luna's mane, a few short yards away. Seeing that gentle river of stars one last time... it was so comforting. Lyra wanted to dive in and swim forever. She just had to make sure that Emerald and the others were safe first, then she could go...

Luna's horn was sending blasts of white-hot starfire at the archers, burning them to ash and melting the stone they were standing on to slag. Lyra had never seen anything like it. The diamond dogs tried to fire back, and although Luna was outside the bubble that protected Lyra and Emerald, the arrows bounced off of her plating harmlessly. They could no more hurt her than they could hurt a star. Her body was wreathed in a blaze of white glory that had to have been brighter and hotter than the sun, yet looking at it hurt Lyra's eyes no more than staring at the moon.

And then some white unicorn with a blond mane dashed to Luna's side. Lyra waved her hoof and mumbled, trying to get him to stop blocking her view of Luna’s majesty. He responded by running toward her and casting spells. Her annoyance lessened a little because they were healing spells, and also because she could look through his legs and see Luna again.

But what she saw then was shocking—Luna's knees were quaking. The Queen, the Princess of the Night, was stumbling to the ground as her horn sparked and sputtered. She was shouting challenges and insults in several dead languages as she sank down to the earth, but impossibly hot fire still shot from her horn and drove the diamond dogs into full retreat.

Then again, I could be hallucinating this whole thing since I'm rapidly losing consciousness, was Lyra's last thought.

Lyra awoke with every part of her hurting, except the two places where she had been shot, which were tingling dully. Her eyes opened gradually; somehow her eyelids hurt too. She saw a ceiling of whitewashed stone above windows that opened into a soft light that felt almost like the sun. It was not quite the same though. Lyra flicked her ears around and heard her voice groaning, joining several other voices nearby. She tried to turn her head to see them, but a sharp shock of pain emphatically told her 'no.'

She still had a decent view though, and she could listen well. Ponies were murmuring and bustling all over hard, expensive floors. Paintings and sculptures stood over cots and blankets that held the wounded, whose cries of pain and distress were muted but noticeable. It was a diamond dog mansion turned into a field hospital.

As she was smiling at the thought, Luna entered through a grand double door of solid oak, stepping quietly toward her. The medics rushed to give the commander their reports, but she waved them off. She was coming straight for Lyra, and a deep, irrational fear gripped the wounded Captain.

Luna was still fully armored, though Lyra had gotten used to that. Combined with the fact that one side of her face was now a scorched, half-healed mess, though, it was fairly intimidating. The worst part was not that Luna's skin on that side of her body had been blackened by fire. It was that the hairs which were already growing back were also pitch-black, and the eye on that side was a slitted, dragon-like eye. The eye on the unburned side was still soft, blue, and wide, but the other one... Lyra had seen it laughing in Ponyville years before, as the voice below it declared that the night would last forever.

Lyra tried to keep her breathing normal as Luna came to a halt several feet away and gazed down at her. There was worry and compassion in her look... from both of her eyes.

“Captain Heartstrings,” she said, so quietly that the ponies in the beds next to Lyra could not hear, “there is a grave matter we must discuss, which, unfortunately, cannot wait for thee to fully heal.”

“Is Emerald alive?” Lyra met Luna's stare.

“Whom?”

“The pony I was carrying.”

“Oh.” Luna blushed slightly. “Yes, she is alive. It may be a long time before she regains use of her legs, but she will not die this day, nor will the hundreds of other slaves locked in those warehouses... thanks to thee.”

“I'm glad.” Lyra smiled, thin and sad. “Say 'hi' to her for me. So, what's this grave matter?”

“The royal guards have turned against me,” said Luna, “including thy uncle. They have escaped to the surface, where they will likely begin to foment rebellion against my rule.” Luna turned her head away, perhaps not realizing that she turned it so that Lyra could only see her 'Nightmare eye'. “In recognition and appreciation of thy momentous deeds in freeing the slaves of Dragon's Hoard, I shall not ask thee to choose between me and thy family. I give the leave to depart honorably, as soon as thou art healed. Thou canst return to thy kin, before any possible hostilities occur.”

Lyra was silent for a full minute, which made Luna squirm and lower her head, with a nervous, doubtful frown on her lips and her ears flattened to the side of her head. There... there was the Princess Luna whom Lyra knew.

“Doth my new appearance disturb thee?” Luna asked quietly.

“No, that’s not it, I’m just thinking,” Lyra said quickly. “Honestly, you’re lucky. Facial wounds are way sexier than belly wounds.” She forced out a halting laugh.

“It is because I have been fighting underground,” Luna explained anyway. “Because I was not conscious enough to direct my body’s regeneration after it was damaged in the battle, it repaired into a form more suited to this environment. That is all.”

“It’s fine, ma’am, really.” She flashed Luna a smile, and Luna slowly, timidly smiled back. Lyra could not help herself from checking Luna’s teeth—they were still normal, no fangs or anything. Luna’s smile vanished when she noticed the scrutiny, and Lyra frowned as well. She wanted to tell Luna that she had not meant to, that it was her silly subconscious fears only, but the words did not come. Instead, she changed the subject.

“But back to your other question,” she said. “In case you haven't noticed, I don't care for my family all that much.”

“Family is still family,” Luna said, literally taking a step back. “Your blood binds you all together, through light and dark.”

Lyra sighed and looked over at a healer who was carefully tending to a soldier with full-body third-degree burns. “Ponies say stuff like that a lot. Not usually that dramatically, but they do. I know how important your family is to you, too, so please don't take this the wrong way. But to me, there has to come a time in your life where you realize that some things are more important than family.

“They're not out here toppling a government based on slavery. I am. So screw 'em. I'm with you, Luna.”

“Think with care, Lyra,” Luna said, moving closer, leaning her head to loom over Lyra's bed. There were the stars again. Lyra felt the distant urge to giggle like a child. “What of Bon Bon? They could make her life very difficult.”

“She can take care of herself. She's a big pony.” Lyra frowned. “But if it wouldn't be too much of a burden, I'd like to bring her here with me, if she's willing.”

Luna turned her neck away, and tears began to drip onto the floor.

“Did I say something wrong?” Lyra asked, trying to sit up before her aching body swatted her down again.

“I am unworthy of such loyalty,” Lyra barely heard Luna whisper.

“I'll be the judge of that.” Lyra struggled to move again, but it looked like she had been cut up a lot more than she thought. She hissed and settled back down. “Oh, crap. Pretend I'm hugging you right now.”

“That will not be necessary.” Luna removed her helm, crown and all, and bent her neck down to gently drape over Lyra's. For a brief instant, Lyra panicked. She’s going to gobble me up! But Luna only brushed their cheeks together and whispered, “Get well soon, my champion. I am so proud...”

Luna withdrew from the hug in halting, awkward degrees, then stood there smiling bashfully and self-consciously for a few seconds. She coughed, averted her eyes, and turned to leave the tent at a dignified walk. The dignity was shattered, however, when stopped in her tracks, ears straight up, then dashed out of the doorway. Her wings flared out in the process—which allowed Lyra to see that one of them had black feathers now. She swallowed that irrational fear again.

“Gosh, Luna, it wasn't that awkward,” she said, but Luna was already gone. Her crown and helmet were still there by Lyra's bedside. “Must be important. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on this stuff for you. Captain Lyra's on the job...” She promptly drifted off to an exhausted sleep.

As soon as Luna left the commandeered field hospital, she heard the sounds of distant commotion more clearly—weapons clashing and voices shouting, coming from the town square. Despite the pain and lengthening of recovery time involved, she used her wings to soar above the streets—still favoring one side—to get there.

In the central plaza, a group of her warriors had rounded up twenty or thirty well-dressed, jewelry-wearing diamond dogs. They were forcing the dogs onto their knees—then cutting off their heads. There was already a bloody pile of about five of them, with the bodies they had been attached to left to bleed out into the street.

Nothing but the full, traditional Royal Canterlot Voice would do for this. “Stand down at once!” she cried, then folded her wings to begin a rapid descent. Her soldiers stopped immediately, some in the middle of their beheading strikes. Her landing sent chunks of obsidian flying yards away. Luna glared at the scene, uncertain where to begin, as the forty ponies involved formed into a line and saluted her.

Luna could clearly hear the fearful whispers of “Nightmare Moon” from some of the diamond dogs. Her ear twitched at the moniker, but she did not correct them.

“What is happening here?” Luna demanded, the slit in her left eye narrowing. The diamond dogs froze in place, too terrified to do anything but empty their bladders. “We demand an explanation!”

They were all of relatively low rank—the highest soldier involved was a sergeant—but it was Ensign Brandywine Breeze who stepped forward to explain.

“We are executing the slave merchants of this city,” she said simply, “as you did in Barkstone.”

“You are killing unarmed civilians who have surrendered!” Luna bellowed. A crowd of ponies and diamond dogs alike was starting to inch their way into the outskirts of the market.

Luna knew the fire that caught in Brandywine's eyes then. She had seen it in the mirror many times. “These 'unarmed civilians' break the legs of our earth ponies, saw off the horns of our unicorns, and clip the wings of our pegasi! Not only do they enslave us, but they mutilate us too!”

“Then let them be tried and imprisoned, not killed!”

“I don't understand, ma'am,” said Brandywine. “You killed them yourself in Barkstone. It seemed to cause you some emotional distress then, so we agreed that we would take the ugly task upon our own shoulders to spare you from it. Did we not do the right thing?” There was a desperate, pleading edge to the Ensign's question.

Luna saw the large crowd of citizens and soldiers alike that was watching from the wings of the ugly display, and it caused her to hesitate. How could she keep moral authority with one group, without losing it with the other? She swallowed bitterly.

“That will soon be decided,” she pronounced. “You are hereby ordered to stand down and submit to the judgment of our tribunal. Tomorrow, we shall judge you as we judge them.”

Luna gestured to the pile of decapitated heads, and to the lucky diamond dogs who narrowly avoided that fate. Brandywine and many of her companions gaped as if daggers had pierced their hearts, but they lowered their weapons and allowed Luna to escort them to a mansion she had re-purposed to serve as a brig.

She wanted it to serve as a holding area for suspected slave merchants, not her own soldiers. Had she trained them improperly? What had she done wrong? Doubt constantly plagued Luna's mind as she prepared to direct the annexation of the city of Dragon's Hoard, and with it, likely the rest of diamond dog territory. She did not know how, or if, to punish her soldiers. She could reprimand them only for breach of discipline, but even the moderate diamond dogs would decry a double standard. But she could not execute or imprison her own troops, especially not for doing exactly what she herself had done. And what of the merchants? Should those whose involvement in the slave trade could be proven be killed, imprisoned, exiled... perhaps even pardoned, to ease the transition?

Luna missed her sister's gifts for diplomacy and administration, but Celestia was not here, and she was not the anointed Queen. Luna had the support of the heavens, and her brave, virtuous captains. Her convictions were in tatters, but they remained alive. She had to trust that those things would be enough.

In any case, the external war with the diamond dogs was all but over. Equestria had prevailed, but had Luna?

Author's Notes:

Since I found out that 'doge' is some kind of tumblr meme, I thought I should mention that the Diamond Doge is inspired by these guys, not said meme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge