The steel stretched on into the night for miles and miles, unending lines of silver across a gray countryside. No trains had come along the tracks since the last one arrived in Saraneighvo, and it was unlikely that any were going to any time soon. The lines were deathly still and silent, and a thin coating of ice was beginning to creep over their disused surfaces.

Rainbow Dash groaned as she chomped into the fabric bit she had made for herself to stop her teeth from chattering. Hers and Twilight’s progress along the lines towards Stalliongrad had been painfully slow and incredibly cold. They had been walking for a full day and had only covered little more than ten miles. Now, their journey was taking them into the second night since their escape from Saraneighvo, and so far they had seen little more than snow and boulders against a turbulent gray sky.

Her sides shaking, Rainbow fluttered her wings underneath the heavy winter jacket she wore to try and reflect more of her body heat against her coat. Even through the coarse fabric, her feathers were screaming that it was thirty below, and the temperature would only continue to drop as night pressed its deadly kiss across the land. The water in her canteen had frozen over long ago and her food was beginning to run out. If they didn’t find civilization soon, they were going to freeze to death in the unrelenting Stalliongradi cold.

There was a rustling in a grove of dead bushes to her left, and Rainbow spun in place just in time to see a purple tail disappear into the undergrowth. Grumbling, the prismatic mare marched over to the brambles and kicked them apart, pulling Twilight out by the tail. The unicorn struggled before Rainbow managed to hurl her over her shoulder with a final tug.

Scrambling to her hooves, the pegasus glowered at her companion. “Will you give it a rest, Twilight?! You’ve been doing this all day! What is it this time?”

Sneezing, Twilight stood up and shook the snow off of her coat. “Didn’t you see the pegasi, Rainbow?” Raising a hoof to the sky, she pointed a wedge of pegasi soaring high above the earth in the direction of Saraneighvo. “They could be more Black Cloaks looking for us! I’m just being cautious!”

Rainbow Dash smacked her hoof against her face with such force that Twilight wondered whether or not she broke her nose. “For the love of Celestia, Twilight, calm down! I’m pretty sure the only Black Cloaks trying to kill us were those ones back in Saraneighvo, because they seemed pretty crazy to me. Besides, being discovered and taken someplace warm and full of food would be pretty preferable to wandering in this frozen wasteland. Tartarus, I’d even be happy if Discord himself came and teleported us out of here!”

“Well, excuse me for being more than a little worried!” Twilight exclaimed. “Do you know how much trouble we’d be in if we were caught? Then I’d have to explain the whole thing to Princess Celestia!” Clutching her chest to forestall an imminent panic attack, she began to mime one of her letters. “‘Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that not all guards are really nice like my brother. Sometimes they may give you free drinks, but other times they'll follow you to an inn and burn the whole thing down because they think you’re a rebel insurgent. If you would be so kind as to have Spike send me a copy of A Beginner's Guide to Running from Stalliongradi Authority, I'd very much appreciate it. Not that I'm running from the Black Cloaks or anything, I just need it for that research project I'm working on. Your faithful student who most definitely still does not have a criminal record, Twilight Sparkle.’”

Rainbow snorted and shook her head. “I’m sure the Princess is more concerned about you getting home in one piece than which side of the law you’ve been stepping on,” she offered. “Besides, you know that you did nothing wrong, so I’m sure that’s all that matters. We just need to get out of this Tartarus-hole and someplace warm. Trust me, you might think it’s cold, but it sucks to be a pegasus right now. Especially one that can’t fly,” she added as her frozen wings rippled underneath her winter coat.

Twilight giggled softly and shook her head. “Alright, Rainbow, let’s see what we can do about shelter. Hopefully there should be an alcove or something we can hide for the night.”

They walked on for another mile, but as the temperature dropped and their breathing became more ragged, they still had not seen anything other than flat ice. They were both thirsty and hungry, yet there was nothing to sustain them as they struggled to climb the shallow incline of a small hill. Their energy was just about spent, and if they squinted they could still see the fires of distant Saraneighvo behind them.

Rainbow Dash felt her hoof slip out from under her on a particularly firm patch of ice, and she collapsed face first on the edge of the hill crest, her legs splayed out uselessly on either side. Her breathing had become little more than a panting wheeze and her whole body violently shook. The cold had sapped the last of her strength, and she couldn’t even make a noise from where she lay.

Luckily, Twilight had heard her companion collapse into the snow and turned around from the hill crest to trot back down to her. “Rainbow! Rainbow Dash, are you alright?” Searching through her saddlebags, she looked for anything to wrap the pegasus in and help ward off hypothermia, but she found nothing. Undeterred, she placed the bags on the ground and stripped off her outermost coat. Clenching the fabric between her teeth, she bent over and curled it around Rainbow’s body and nudged her friend to her hooves.

“T-thanks, T-T-T-Twi,” she chittered through the numbness in her face. “D-damn hollow p-p-p-pegasus bones. Hold n-no heat whatsoever.”

Shivering herself, Twilight let Rainbow lean against her shoulder as they walked up the hill. “Don’t worry, Rainbow, everything will be alright. See?”

The two wanderers crested the hill to find a rough wooden lodge built off towards the side of the rail lines. There were gaps in the boards and the door was slightly ajar, but the presence of a chimney hinted towards the possibility of building a fire within, away from the blistering winds and numbing cold. It was a marvelous prospect, and Twilight couldn’t get to the door fast enough.

Applying a little bit of magical force, she was able to break open the rusted lock and usher Rainbow Dash inside. The pegasus immediately stumbled against one of the walls but managed to guide her hooves towards a simple chair placed in front of a brick fireplace. Twilight followed, shutting the door behind her and lowering a bar across the frame to keep it closed. Trying to shake off the cold and the numbness that clung to her hooves, Twilight found her way into what she supposed was the kitchen.

She almost squealed with joy to accompany the celebratory growls her empty stomach provided her as she opened the pantry. Several cans of food greeted her as she peered within, and she only had to brush a few cobwebs off of the nearest to take it out. They were still sealed, and each one was stamped with an expiration date of 1450 A.S. A little past its expiry, but she wasn’t about to complain. Food was food, and canned food was fairly safe, even given its age.

Returning victoriously with several cans of food like a Spurtan from battle, Twilight strode into the kitchen and deposited her spoils of war across the table. The noise was enough to draw Rainbow Dash’s attention away from the fireplace, where she had her wingtip nestled amongst a pile of wood. Without further delay, the pegasus hopped to her hooves and took shivering steps towards the table where Twilight was working on getting the cans open.

“You found f-food?” the pegasus stumbled over her chattering teeth. Twilight nodded and passed Rainbow an opened can, which the pegasus immediately dove her muzzle into.

“It was in a pantry in the back. Obviously at some point this little shack was home to somepony, but whoever it was is long gone now.” She glanced over to the pile of wood Rainbow had been messing with. “Were you trying to get that fire started with your wing? Like Imperator Cyclone?”

“Disthn wuhrk,” the pegasus muttered around a mouthful of canned beets. Swallowing, she pounded her chest with a hoof and licked her lips. “That’s good. Yeah, anyway, it didn’t work. Don’t know why though.”

“Maybe you just weren’t doing it right,” Twilight suggested as her horn came to life. She grasped hold of a stray rock with her Arcana and chipped it against the brick of the fireplace, producing the spark that she needed to get the tinder to light. Within a few minutes she had a roaring fire that dispelled the stagnant cold air that had filled the shack and began to circulate warmth throughout the desolate structure.

After stuffing their stomachs with reasonably decent fare, the two ponies each found a seat in front of the fire and sat there, absorbing its warmth. Luck had kept them alive another day, and there was a faint glimmer of a chance that they could make it to Stalliongrad by the end of the week.

They sat in silence for the better part of the hour, simply enjoying the warmth of the fire. Soon enough, however, Twilight found boredom beginning to creep over her, and she instinctively reached for Hurricane’s journal. Flipping open to her bookmark, the mare slouched into a more comfortable position and propped the book open with her forelegs.

“So, Rainbow, ready to get back to reading?”

A loud and protracted snore reached her ears, and Twilight turned to find Rainbow passed out in her chair. Her mouth hung open as she snored, blowing a strand of orange hair back and forth across her face. Her wings twitched slightly in her sleep, undoubtedly the result of another of her Wonderbolts dreams.

Smiling, Twilight draped a blanket across Rainbow with her magic and turned back to the fire. She considered taking after her friend’s example and bunkering down for the night, but found that she couldn’t. The open book stared up at her expectantly.

She sighed and held the book in front of her with her hooves. It was late at night, but here was a good story she hadn’t finished yet waiting for her. Habits from late nights of study fought their way to the front of her brain, and before she knew it, she was already two paragraphs into the next section of Hurricane’s work.

The sun rose on a world already bustling with activity. Ponies had been up for the past two hours, making final preparations and checking their gear. The Unionist camp was abuzz with the muted thrill of adrenaline and anticipation, and not a soldier found the restraint to sit still, even if no words were shared between compatriots. A hallowed silence filled the still air, and not a soul dared to break it.

The siege crews had left an hour before to prepare their engines, and the occasional thwack of tightening cords or the dull boom of massive wooden doors being loaded shut provided the only noise across the hushed hillside. Nopony paid it any mind, and friends whispered quietly among themselves of family and loved ones, wives and children. Pictures were shared, drinks were had and prayers were made in little knots across the camp.

Smart Cookie found himself on the outside of all the soldierly dynamics, struggling to keep his helmet balanced on his head. He had gone to see Jade earlier that day and tell her that he was staying to help fight. The mare was incredulous at first and tried to dissuade him, but the Representative remained resolute, if a bit frightened. Eventually, Jade released an exasperated breath and waved to her generals to find him armor and a weapon to use. Then she disappeared back into her tent, presumably to make peace with her gods and to find the strength to lead thousands of ponies to their deaths.

It took all of two minutes for the generals’ aides to find Smart Cookie equipment from a pile of discarded gear at the edge of camp. The first thing the Representative did upon receiving his gear was try to wash the bloodstains off of the iron. The aides informed him that the sword and armor had belonged to a soldier felled in battle by an arrow before he even had the chance to fight. The thought was very discomforting, and had left the orange stallion fidgeting outside of the muster point all morning.

There was a sharp whistle from the end of the clearing, and Smart Cookie along with the rest of the soldiers snapped their necks towards its source. The early dawn light just barely made the silhouette of a tall pony walking out of her tent visible. Seeing that she had her soldiers’ attention, Commander Jade took slow and deliberate steps towards a raised podium at the edge of the clearing. Nopony dared to speak or move until she surmounted the wooden steps and called out to them.

“Come!” her voice rang out, loud and clear against the stillness of the morning. “Come closer, and let us pray together.”

Smart Cookie found himself shuffling closer towards the tall mare, his armor clanking unnaturally around his body as he did so. A swarm of soldiers engulfed him, propelling him towards the front of the crowd. Even as thousands of ponies tried to gather in one small clearing, a small knot of open space around Smart Cookie left him able to move freely. Instead of comforting, however, it served only as a reminder of how much of an outsider he was to the Crystal Ponies.

Jade regarded her soldiers silently as she waited for them to assemble. Hers was an impressive figure, clad in beautiful and striking iron armor accentuated by highlights of cyan paint. The metal extended across her chest and down her back and sides, encasing her soft coat in an iron shell. A helmet of iron, diamond, and cyan adorned her head, with a hole cut out of the metal for her horn to protrude from. Even that appendage was protected by a sharp blade that ran the length of the horn. Her crystalline wings shuffled at her sides, rattling the rigid blades that ran along their crests. Unlike Cirran wingblades, however, these were straight pieces of iron hinged at several points to provide some movement. Smart Cookie doubted that, for as impressive as they looked, they were flexible or comfortable to fly in.

As the muttering came to a standstill and the crowd became silent, Jade coughed quietly to herself and took two steps forward. Now was the pivotal moment, and her soldiers seemed to lean with her as she placed one hoof on the edge of the podium and gently rocked it back and forth. Her eyes darted across the ground as she muttered a few lines to herself, but when she looked up again, they were determined with an impressive fire.

“The snow glistens on the ground with the brilliance of the sun, reflected for all to see no matter where they look. Some may find this annoying. The glare can be straining to the eyes and painful to look at. Why should a pony pay such inconveniences any mind?” Her voice started out wavering, but began to harden with layers of steel and resolve that Smart Cookie found impressive as she turned out more words. “In a way, we are like the snow. Some may find our struggle for unity and peace pointless or silly, saying behind our backs that our efforts might better be spent elsewhere. They shun us, not understanding, nor wanting to understand what it is that we go through for them.

“In a way, we ourselves regard our fight like the glare of the snow. The hardships we have suffered through, the battles we have fought, the friends we have lost, all make us question whether or not this cause is actually worth it. Believe me when I say that I, more than most, have questioned whether or not this cause is worth it.” She paused to gauge her listeners’ reactions and, finding them pleasing, swallowed and carried on. “The weight of thousands of deaths presses on my mind daily. It is not something that is easily pacified. Believe me when I say that I worry for each and every one of you, each and every day. I know that today, just like any other day, I may be sending you to your deaths. You know this too, but for some reason or other have decided to stick with me. I cannot thank you enough for that.

“We are like the snow, but I refuse to take that in a negative way. We, like the snow, are bright and shining; we are a brilliant example of hope in its darkest hours, of a resolve and tenacity that dares stand up to the shadows of our past and scream unto the heavens, ‘No more! No more will I take your cruelty! You may have tarnished my name, driven salt into my fields, killed my family and raped my countryside, but no more! You, warlords, who have ruined the name of the Crystal Ponies for so many years! You, cowards who would hide behind force and fear to better yourselves at the expense of others! I call out to you and damn you, not alone, but with the voices of thousands and thousands of ponies who will take it no more! Separate we were weak, but together and united, we are stronger than any of your threats, more powerful than your finest steel, mightier than your tallest walls! Today, the hammer of justice swings down upon you, and today, you will feel its blows! Abandon your fiendish ways, barbarians, and you might yet find some mercy in our hearts!’

“And are we merciful ponies?” Jade nodded her head emphatically, drawing several soldiers around Smart Cookie to do the same with her enthusiasm. “Yes we are! Does that make us weak like the warlords proclaim? No it doesn’t! It simply means that we are more pony than they are. Emotions make us strong, not weak. Emotions make us brave, not cowardly. Emotions make us more than we are, and let us never forget that.

“And so we are like the snow, letting the world see our brilliance, no matter where they may look. Some may find us crude, others may see us as hopeless, but I see what they cannot. I see the beauty in the snow, I see the art in the land, I see thousands of wondrous ponies who have put aside their lives to become soldiers and fight for something greater than themselves. Now, together, who is willing to show Halite that we are more than a nuisance to his eyes?!”

The cheering of tens of thousands of Crystal Ponies filled the camp and nearly split Smart Cookie’s head in two. Despite the noise, however, the earth pony felt alive and energetic, ready to throw himself to the blade if need be. Jade’s words were powerful, and they were strongly felt by all present. It was a beautiful sight, and for the first time in a long time, Smart Cookie felt like he was finally part of something bigger than himself.

Jade smiled, tilting her head downwards and nodding. “I knew you would be up to the task! Let us show Warlord Halite what we’re made of! Find your company leaders and assemble for the march! We move out in little more than an hour.”

As one, the cheering soldiers split off into enthusiastic packs, following the shouts and commands of their superiors. In a few short minutes, the entire clearing had been emptied, and the brilliant sheen of thousands of crystalline coats moving into the fields around the camp danced across the rough canvas tents. Smart Cookie started in a few directions before ultimately stopping in the middle of the clearing, unsure of whom to follow or which way to go.

“Representative?” asked a soft voice from behind him. Clanking in his foreign armor, the earth pony turned and almost plowed headfirst into Jade’s armored chest. Leaning back slightly, Smart Cookie craned his neck upwards to find the alicorn’s eyes.

“Great speech,” he began, slightly lifting off his hooves as he spoke. “I thought I was a good speechwriter, but that was impressive. How long did it take you to come up with that?”

Jade laughed and shook her head, although the actions were surprisingly lacking in merriment. “You thought that was planned?”

Smart Cookie lilted as he searched for words. “But… surely you…”

“Hush,” the mare ordered, which Smart Cookie instantly obeyed. “I’ve learned that the best speeches are ones driven by emotion, not thought. Sure, it takes a level of intellect to order your words, but all of that you just heard? I came up with that on the spot.”

“So did you mean all those things that you said?”

“Of course I did,” Jade answered, beginning to walk towards the southeastern corner of the camp. “I don’t say things that I don’t mean. And,” she said, stopping abruptly to face the Representative, “I mean what I said earlier. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t your fight, and I don’t want to see you hurt. You can still back out now if you want.”

Smart Cookie swallowed hard before looking Jade in the eyes. “I’m certain, Jade. Believe me, I asked myself if I really wanted to do this hundreds of times throughout the night. Each and every time, no matter my reasoning, I chose to stay.”

Walking farther away, Smart Cookie stood at the top of a small incline where he had a clear view of Onyx Ridge. The wind blew across his shoulders, and instinctively he reached to steady his hat, only to find an iron helmet in its place. He shifted again at the unfamiliar weight of the armor and glanced at the sword he had never touched hanging against his flank. He questioned whether he had the resolve to use it. The reluctant answer was no different from before.

“Ever since this damnable blizzard started, I’ve longed for the simpler days,” Smart Cookie began. “In those days, the only thing I had to worry about was Puddinghead dragging me to yet another party. I didn’t have to deal with intertribal hatreds and tensions. I didn’t have to deal with famine and trying to hold the nation together. Things were just so much easier.”

He shook his head, his shoulders sagging visibly by his sides. “In a way I envy you, I guess. Last night, I saw what it meant to have a cause you believe in. I saw Crystal Ponies coming together around the campfire, not as fellow soldiers, but as brothers in arms. They believed in your cause, and it became their cause in effect. Then I thought on what I supposed was to be my own cause. To find a land where we can leave everything behind, including this blizzard? Does such a land even really exist?” He shrugged his shoulders and turned to face Jade. “Do we even deserve it? It may sound silly, but I’m almost positive that this blizzard is the result of hatred among all our races. Do we really deserve a second chance to redeem ourselves after what we’ve done to each other?”

Jade blinked, but remained silent.

Smart Cookie’s hoof traced a small pattern in the muddy snow covering the trodden ground. “I don’t know the answer to that, but ultimately, it’s not my place to decide. But seeing you all, and the struggles you’ve gone through to unite your race, and the struggle you have yet to finish to do so… perhaps I’m staying because I want to learn how to be a better pony. I always prided myself on being neat, punctual, succinct, and popular with the Low Valleys, but that doesn’t make me a good pony. That just makes me a good politician. But I see better hearts than mine in the lowest of soldiers in this camp, and it makes me question myself. Am I really a good pony?” He sighed, looking over his shoulder towards the distant west. “I don’t know. By the end of today, however, I do know that I’ll find the answer. I’ve been living in the shadow of my career for too long. It’s time to see what I actually look like under the sun.”

As the orange earth pony walked away, Jade only blinked and looked on. There was nothing more Smart Cookie could add, and anything she could say would only detract from the sacred moment the two had shared.

Mica yawned and scratched at the coarse hairs that decorated his chin. He hated patrol, hated when Feldspar got away with ‘managing the tables’ instead of going on patrol, and especially hated when his friend ‘forgot’ to get him a spot at the tables as well instead of letting him get stuck with watching the prisoners for the umpteenth time this week. One of these days, Feldspar would be the one stuck watching a bunch of lousy bags of skin and lice rot in their cages instead of him.

Speaking of the worthless piles of flesh, one of them groaned in its cage. The offending noise was quickly silenced with the sharp clash of a hoof against the iron bars and a threatening growl, and Mica returned to walking up and down the length of the pens. Damn slaves. They couldn’t let him have some time to rage about his assignments in peace and quiet, could they?

A few heavy flakes of snow landed on Mica’s nose, and the warrior scattered them with an angry sneeze and a curse. He grabbed his war axe and raised it to the sky, as if damning the snow gods for their endless storm, before sliding the axe back across his flank with a smooth and practiced motion. The iron head of the weapon clinked against his crystal flesh, and he fussed with the handle for a few more seconds to arrange it in a way that wouldn’t bring it into contact with his body. At least the fleshies didn’t have to worry about their hides clinking and clanking with anything they carried.

Wait. Pause. Reverse. Rewind. Mica quickly backtrotted several cages along his route to one of the centermost. A rather familiar figure was lying in the shadows, breathing heavily under his armor. His breathing was ragged and labored, and the interior of the cage was covered in blood. A discarded scabbard lay by his side, and it was all too obvious that it was missing its blade.

“Feldspar!” Mica shouted, rushing to the cage and peering in. There was his friend alright, seemingly unconscious against the back of the iron bars. It must have been that damn green mare who did this. He knew she was trouble from the moment he laid eyes on her, and this was her cage after all.

“Hang on, buddy, I’m going to get you out of there!” he exclaimed, reaching for the latch on the door. Surprisingly, the padlock was still in place, and there was no way that the unicorn would have been able to pick it with her freaky magic with the Dark Stone on her horn. The only explanation was that Feldspar had been lured too close, and the prisoner had somehow managed to grab his key, subdue him, and lock him in her own cage.

Several powerful bucks to the cage lock shattered the frigid metal in two, and Mica kicked the door aside and ran in. Feldspar was struggling to sit up against the back of the cage, apparently having regained consciousness at the sound of Mica trying to bash the door in. He grunted briefly, then rubbed at his head.

“Feldspar, you idiot,” Mica cursed, taking a look around the cage. “How in the name of Tartarus did you manage to get yourself trapped in here?”

Feldspar grunted and tried stumbling to his hooves, only to collapse against the back wall again. Mica noticed that he even had the mare’s shackle around his neck. “M-mare was… awfully tricky,” he muttered. Suddenly he gritted his teeth and stuck a hoof towards his head, where the edge of his helmet was covered in blood. “Think she done somethin’ to my head. Think ya could take the helmet off for me?”

Mica rolled his eyes and trotted closer to his friend. “Only this once, you lousy oaf, but you got to learn better to… to take… care… of…” his words trailed off as he felt his hoof slide completely through Feldspar’s helmet and bump against some invisible object protruding from his skull.

With a powerful kick, Feldspar sent Mica reeling into the side of the cage. Grunting from the impact, Mica moved to stand just as he saw a void ring land between his hooves. Frightened, he glanced up to where the stallion was advancing.

Instead of seeing Feldspar, however, the stallion’s coat and colors seemed to wash away in a stream of mist and cloud, dissipating into the air around him. The pony that occupied the spot where the Crystal warrior was just moments prior was instead a light green unicorn mare, her horn already glowing with an aura of Arcana.

“How?! But—!”

Mica’s words were sharply cut off by a powerful sleep spell that struck him square in the face. The Crystal warrior twitched once or twice before his limbs went limp and a quiet snore resounded from his throat. Lifting the stallion with her magic, Clover levitated the incapacitated barbarian to the back of her cage, where she hoped the shadows would hide him for at least a little longer.

“Yeah! Woohoo! That was AWESOME!!” Diadem cheered from the adjacent cage, already hopping up and down on her stubby legs. The faint glow from her horn faded, and the illusions of the blood and scabbard in Clover’s cage reverted to water and a stick.

“Hush, darling,” Platinum whispered from Clover’s other side. “We don’t want to let any of the shiny ponies know about what just happened. Can you be quiet for me?”

Diadem placed her hooves to her mouth and nodded her head vigorously. Smiling, Clover turned to the shackle around her neck and blasted the iron hinge holding the void crystals together with a burst of magic. The metal glowed red hot and melted, causing the shackle to fall into two pieces on the ground in front of her. Clover then trotted out of her cage and placed her freed horn against the lock on Platinum’s cage. A singular pulse of magic was all it took to shatter the lock and allow the Princess’ door to swing wide open.

Platinum trotted towards the front of her cage and waited while Clover broke apart her shackle, trying to shake the dirt and grime out of her coat in the meantime. She readied a quick cleaning spell, but the void ring on her horn reminded her of its presence, and she collapsed, gritting her teeth in pain.

“Ungh… Clover, dear, do you think you could get this cursed thing off of my horn?”

Clover shook her head and moved to help the Princess up. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I can’t. I only got mine off because that warrior accidentally pulled it off. If I touch yours, it will cripple me again. We have to find tongs or something to get it off.” Checking both ways to see that the prison block was still empty of soldiers, Clover trotted towards Greenleaf’s cage with Platinum close behind.

Greenleaf looked up at Clover and smiled. “Ha! I knew that would work. Good thing these barbarians aren’t half as smart as they are strong. If our luck holds up, getting out of here should be a breeze.”

Clover readied a spell to break Greenleaf’s lock, but he stopped her with a wave of his hoof. “Not now. We’re going to have to fight at some point if we’re going to get out of here. It’s hard to hide a hundred tired and worn out prisoners in the shadows. No, we’ll need weapons first and foremost.”

“So what do you want us to do?” Clover asked, turning to glance at Platinum. “I don’t even know where the armory is.”

Greenleaf pointed towards Clover’s cage, where the sleeping form of the Crystal warrior lay still. “Take his sword, first of all, and don’t be afraid to wield it with your Arcana. Trust me, the dexterity really helps. Then, make your way deeper into the fort. The armory should be located next to the castle. Get about, say, a dozen swords or spears and bring them back here. That’s really all we’ll need; we don’t have many others in fighting shape.”

Clover gulped and looked towards the terrifying black castle that stuck out of the ground like a shard of onyx. “Right. We’ll try to be back soon, but I don’t know how many guards we’ll run into. Platinum and I may have to take it slow at some points.”

Greenleaf nodded in understanding. “Right, right. Don’t let yourselves get caught. They won’t be as tolerant of you now as they were when you were in your cages.”

After that particularly reassuring statement, Clover and Platinum turned to leave. They were just about to round a corner into the shadows when they heard Diadem call out in her tiny voice behind them:

“Stay safe, please! I know you can do it!”

Then they twisted into an alleyway, and the cages were left behind them in the dim early morning glow.

The sun had risen to about halfway to its zenith, shedding faint gray light through the thick clouds that covered the sky. Vultures and crows called out to each other, filling the air with their damnable cawing and screeching. They had seen the movement of the siege engines, and to them it meant only one thing; lunch was about to be served.

Smart Cookie felt the ground shake underneath him with every step as tens of thousands of hooves stomped the same rhythm into the dirt at once. He was marching alongside Jade, as the Princess—no, Commander—had ordered that if he was going to fight for the Union, she wanted him somewhere close by. As such, the estranged earth pony found himself in the presence of the finest soldiers in Jade’s army, the generals who had served with her father since the beginning of his crusade.

The army engulfed the top of a hill in its march on Onyx Ridge, and from his vantage point Smart Cookie could see ponies begin to scramble about on its walls and several signal flags being changed from the tallest watchtowers. They were only half a mile away at this point, as the morning fog had masked much of their approach, but with the coming of daylight that cover had abandoned them, leaving the army out in the open to Onyx Ridge’s catapults and siege weapons.

But instead of ripping the Unionists to shreds as they marched, the massive weapons along the walls remained entirely silent. It was an eerie feeling to know that he was being watched and at any moment could be killed, but not be able to know when exactly that moment would come.

“Why aren’t they firing?” he shouted over his shoulder and the thunderous stomping of the army to Jade. The mare raised an eyebrow and lowered her neck to bring her ear closer to Smart Cookie, and the earth pony shouted his question again.

“Halite is an arrogant bastard!” Jade yelled back at him. “He’s going to want to talk about his might before he actually shows it to try and get us to back off! But we’re not going to, because we know he’s weak! Just last month we crushed the largest army he could muster, and now he’s only got about fifteen thousand of his most loyal troops hiding behind those walls! I say we rip them asunder and end this right now!”

All too quickly, the ranks of the army came to a stop in front of the massive gates of Onyx Ridge. The iron constructions were barely fifty feet away, the same distance as a good horseshoe kick from where Smart Cookie was standing. But there was no sound, with the only exception being the collective lungs of thousands of Crystal Ponies in close quarters.

Commander Jade turned to one of her generals, a small stallion with a determined face. “General, I want the catapults aimed at their artillery. As soon as they send their first shots off, take them apart. If you miss after the first volley, pull back behind the hill to where they can’t shoot ours and focus on the gate. If we lose our siege engines, we’re stuck in the open. We’ll be slaughtered if that happens.”

The general nodded and withdrew into the crowd of soldiers behind him, barking off orders as he did so. Smart Cookie looked over his tail to see several messengers scatter towards the rear of the Union lines with the messages of their officer. Before he could watch them scramble to the siege weapons, however, a thunderous voice echoed across the entire clearing.

“Warlord Halite, present yourself immediately!” Jade declared in a volume that seemed physically impossible to reach. “I, Commander Jade of the Crystal Union, have business to conduct with you!”

There was an unbearable delay as Smart Cookie craned his neck towards the tops of the walls. He could make out the sharp points of numerous weapons bristling along the crenellations, as well as the shining bodies of the Crystal barbarians behind them. The barbarians were glaring at the Unionists below, and several were slamming their mighty weapons against the onyx stone to try and intimidate their opponents. Just as quickly as it started, however, it ended when a gray pony stuck his head out over the walls, his heavy black armor seeming to blend in with the onyx stone he stood atop.

“I know who you are, Jade!” warlord Halite spat back at the mare. “What business do we have to discuss here? I’ll tell you what, there is none!” Jade glared back at the warlord and spread her wings, but Halite shouted her down before she could speak. “You think that we are going to surrender? Just because you have more ponies does not mean that you have the advantage. I have the walls, I have the artillery, and it should be you who is surrendering today!”

“And why is that, Halite? Do you not understand what it means to be attacker and defender?” Jade taunted back, although Smart Cookie noticed that her hoofing had spread into a more balanced and ready stance. All around her, her soldiers copied her actions, and Smart Cookie clumsily adopted the combat stance as well.

Halite waved his hoof in front of his face as if he were trying to brush away the stupidity of the question addressed to him. “Every one of your soldiers are dead, Jade. What do you think my catapults have been doing while we’ve been talking? Sitting still and collecting snow?” He pointed with his hooves to either side, where the catapults had finished rotating and were angled at a dangerously steep angle. “I’m offering you one more chance to surrender now, or your soldiers die by the thousands, Jade. Just how much are you willing to stake on this pathetic dream of yours?”

Jade drew her sword and raised it to the sky, each and every follower doing the same. “I have already staked my life on it, Halite! I damn well hope you are ready to stake yours!”

Halite smiled.

Jade growled.

Smart Cookie cringed.

And the world exploded into flying stone, screaming bodies, and diving pegasi.

Clover gulped and leaned around the corner, her breathing uneven and her shoulders shaky as she watched the group of Crystal Ponies standing in the open ahead of her. Her legs were sore from crouching for so long, and she nervously glanced at the sky again. The sun was continuing its ascent, and every minute that she and Platinum wasted, the streets became a little bit brighter.

“Are they gone yet?” Platinum whispered across her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the length of the alleyway they had just snuck down. Beads of sweat adorned her neck, accompanied by the occasional wince as the void ring found some pocket of her mana that it had yet to consume.

“Not yet,” Clover whispered back. She bent down and lowered her head to the ground, slithering her neck around the corner like a snake. The three barbarians were still laughing and punching each other in the face as some sort of friendly gesture. Clover rolled her eyes as the largest one toppled the smallest to a round of raucous laughter. Stallions. She would never understand them.

Across the dirt road was a stack of crates lying in the shadow of a rather large building. It was only thirty feet away—Clover figured she could cross that distance in two seconds at a quiet trot—but the crossing was in full sight of the three barbarians. There was no way that she could get across without being spotted. She groaned and tapped her skull, trying to think of what she needed to do for an invisibility spell. Star Swirl had taught her one once, some very long time ago, but the lesson itself was dusty in her mind. How she wished she would have had more time to prepare before leaving for this mission with Platinum. She could have learned so many useful spells in that time.

Just as she began to prepare her leylines to order the mana into what she hoped was the correct pattern for the spell, she heard shouting from the group of barbarians. Gasping in alarm, Clover stumbled backwards and pressed herself flat against the wall. “Get down!” she hissed to Platinum, even as she felt her own knees buckling under her.

The thundering of hooves was getting closer, and Clover could see little pebbles shaking in the dust and snow around her. Her Arcana wrapped around the hilt of the sword and held it by her side, but she whimpered quietly as she did so. Sure, she had taken on one surprised warrior alone, but three charging Crystal barbarians? She stood a snowball’s chance in Tartarus of fighting them off.

The terrifying, pounding hooves came closer towards the alley, and Clover gritted her teeth, ready to spring forward and fight them off if need be. At least she would give Platinum time to get away. But just before she jumped, she saw the trio rush completely past the alleyway.

Confused, Clover lowered the sword and inched closer towards the corner, swallowing hard to steady her breaths. Just then, dozens of other soldiers rushed past her in the same direction as the three she just saw. Yelping quietly, she scrambled back into the shadows against a quivering Princess Platinum.

“Where are they all going?” the white mare whispered, leaning slightly to her side to look around Clover’s trembling body. A cloud of kicked up dust and snow met her face head-on and the Princess recoiled, spluttering and coughing at the foul grime that assaulted her nostrils.

The two unicorns lay pressed against the wall for several minutes as what seemed like the entirety of Onyx Ridge’s garrison rushed past them. They both knew that if any of the soldiers so much as glanced in their direction, they would be killed instantly.

But no soldiers looked to the side, and soon the streets were empty. Slowly rising to their hooves, Clover and Platinum stole cautious steps out into the open, looking up and down the streets but seeing nopony. There seemed to be a lot of shouting coming from the north end of Onyx Ridge, but at this distance it was so faint it seemed only like a dull roar.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” Clover muttered. Checking the streets one last time, she began to sprint towards cover on the far side. “Come on, Princess. Hopefully it’ll be a little easier to reach the armory now.”

Galloping between crates and boxes that formed cover of all sorts, Clover and Platinum made their way deeper into the heart of Onyx Ridge. Several times they thought they heard soldiers, but cautious approaches always revealed that it was simply their imagination. Onyx Ridge seemed deserted—a curious implication, given its size, but at this point it didn’t seem too far from the truth.

Ten minutes of galloping and hiding brought them to the base of the black castle in the center of Onyx Ridge, and in that time they had still seen nopony else. Whatever it was that called the attention of the warriors to the north of the fortress, it must have required the focus of the entire garrison. Clover shuddered to think what it could be that demanded the concerted efforts of twenty thousand soldiers.

“There! The armory!” Platinum whispered, bringing Clover’s thoughts back to the present. Just off to the side of the castle stood a low-lying brick and mortar building with a heavy door swinging wide open. Inside, several swords and spears glinted in the dim gray of the late morning light. Hundreds of hoofprints left the snow and mud churned up in front of the entrance, and several barrels and crates had been knocked over.

“It looks like a tornado hit this place,” said Clover as she walked into the doorway. Inside, the disarray seemed even worse. Weapons were scattered across the floor and several racks were upturned. There must have been a mad rush to grab swords and gear before every warrior relocated to the north. Onyx Ridge was preparing for an assault of some kind; that much was certain.

Clover began to rummage through the piles of equipment, brushing aside swords, spears, and war axes of all kinds until she found what she was looking for. Using her Arcana, Clover levitated a pair of tongs into the air and turned towards Platinum. The princess still had yet to recover from her sprint throughout the camp and was panting heavily. Hopefully, the removal of the void ring would take care of that.

“Hold still,” Clover commanded, placing the tongs around the ring on Platinum’s horn. “This might hurt just a little bit.”

Platinum looked up, her eyes filled with worry. “What do you mean it might HURT?!!”

The void ring crackled with mana as Clover wrenched it loose from Platinum’s horn. The crystals were intent on devouring as much mana as they could on their way out, and the Princess’ horn strobed with uncontrolled Arcana as the mana was pulled free. After a brief struggle, Clover managed to tear the ring away from Platinum and fling it over her shoulder, where it clinked and clattered across the piles of swords laying in the corner of the room. The white mare instantly collapsed and began rubbing her horn, but her moans were no longer of pain, but of relief.

“Ooooh… That’s divine…” Platinum hummed to herself, finding her returning strength sufficient to clamber to her hooves. She turned to Clover and, smiling, threw herself into a heartfelt embrace with her companion. “Thank you for getting that horrid thing off! Thank you, thank you!”

The strength of Platinum’s hug nearly crushed Clover’s ribs and left her gasping for breath. “I… you’re… welcome,” she wheezed. “Please…”

Platinum released her friend, letting Clover fall to the ground on her flanks. “Sorry. Right then, Clover darling, let’s get going, shall we?” Collecting several swords in her recharging Arcana, Platinum left the armory and began to trot back towards the prison block. Clover gathered several weapons of her own and, along with the tongs, followed her princess away from the castle.

The walk back to the prison cells was considerably quicker than the walk to the armory now that the soldiers were cleared from the streets. Sidling up next to Platinum, Clover deposited her weapons at the foot of Greenleaf’s cell and leaned in to shatter the lock.

“Ha! I knew you had it in you, Clover,” Greenleaf praised from the back of his cage. “Bust open these locks and melt off the void shackles, and we’ll be good to go.”

Two burst of Arcana later, and Greenleaf was stretching his legs outside of his cage. He sighed in pleasure as he cracked his back and shook out each of his hooves in turn. “Ah, that’s better. That’s the life. Been months since I even stepped out of that filthy iron cage. Quick, let’s work on getting the rest of our compatriots out of here.”

Clover nodded and turned to work on Diadem’s cage. “Platinum, take my tongs and try and get that ring off of Greenleaf’s horn. I’ll open the locks and send any unicorns to you.”

Diadem began bouncing up and down in front of Clover as she worked, the chains fixing her leg to the bars rattling with each hop. “You did it! You did it, you did it! You guys are so awesome! I want to be just like you when I grow up!”

Her excitement caused Clover to chuckle, and she popped the lock without too much trouble. Walking into Diadem’s cage, she bent down and focused her Arcana on the chain around her leg. “I know you’ll be a wonderful mare when you grow up, Diadem. I’m just happy to give you that chance.” The chain shattered with a light tinkling, and Diadem immediately bounced out of her cage and hopped over to where Platinum stood with the tongs, still working on Greenleaf’s horn. “Now, let’s see about—”

A thunderous voice interrupted her, and Clover spun towards the north where she heard it echoing. “Warlord Halite, present yourself immediately! I, Commander Jade of the Crystal Union, have business to conduct with you!”

Clover backpedaled from the intensity of the summons. Her mind’s encyclopedia sifted through the millions of pages of its contents until she found the information she was looking for. “The Crystal Union is still around? I thought that they had been wiped out years ago.”

Greenleaf looked towards the northern wall and winced as Platinum finally wrenched the ring around his poisoned horn. “They’re around, alright. I used to do scouting for them before I…” his voice trailed off, and he gestured around him. “Before this. Commander Jade’s a fine leader. Halite’s got to be quaking in his armored hide right now.”

Clover raised an eyebrow as she went to open the lock of an earth pony mare. “Really? How big of an army has Jade got?”

“I reckon it’s somewhere upwards of sixty thousand,” Greenleaf supposed. “Halite used to have that many soldiers here in Onyx Ridge or in the neighboring countryside, but he sent them off a long time ago to try and rout her army. Seeing as how she got here first, I’d say that force is no more. No wonder there’s only been a skeleton crew stationing this fortress.”

Again, Jade’s voice rang out over the fortress. “And why is that, Halite? Do you not understand what it means to be attacker and defender?” She appeared to be challenging something Halite had said, but without context it was impossible to figure out. Instead, Clover focused on getting the rest of the prisoners out of their cages—a monumental task, considering how many there were.

“So I assume we’re not going to be leaving by the front gate,” Platinum supposed as she tugged on Diadem’s void ring. Greenleaf simply laughed and shook his head.

“Well, that was the original plan, actually, because there’s no other way out of Onyx Ridge without two hundred feet of rope.” He picked up a sword from the ground and made a few swings with his neck. “We’re going to have to find another solution then.”

Clover finished melting the latch on a void shackle and set another unicorn free before moving on to the next one. “What about the Union, though? You think they can help us get out of here?”

“Only if they can get through those gates,” Greenleaf countered. “And they’re mighty hard to get through from the outside. I bet they can shrug off catapult fire like it’s nothing.”

Jade’s voice echoed across the fortress one last time in a peak of defiant rage. “I have already staked my life on it, Halite! I damn well hope you are ready to stake yours!”

Then the shouting began, and the ground shook as catapults exchanged fire. The prisoners all huddled together close to the ground as shots began to fall inside Onyx Ridge, skewering towers and buildings a short distance inside the walls. There was a tremendous clang as stone bounced off of iron, but the sound of iron falling to pieces was distinctly lacking.

Clover looked up again to where the towers over the main gate were just barely visible. Then she saw catapults lining the east and west walls of Onyx Ridge, silent and unmanned. A sly smile crept across her face.

Greenleaf saw it, then saw what she was looking at, then let the same expression shape his own muzzle. “Right. Let’s get the rest of the prisoners free, and see whether or not we can give the Union a little bit of inside help.”

Diadem began bouncing in circles around Greenleaf and Platinum while they worked. “Oh boy! A battle! I always wanted to be a mighty warrior like my brother one day!”

Clover simply laughed and shattered yet another lock. Halite was about to get a rather rude wakeup call from the ponies he had abused for so long.

“Get down! Here comes another volley!”

Smart Cookie flung himself against the ground, grunting in pain as the impact forced the air out of his lungs. Several-ton boulders landed all around him, launching plumes of dirt, snow, and blood into the air. As soon as the volley from Onyx Ridge ended, the Unionist catapults fired their rounds at the walls of the fortress. The Unionist boulders were even larger, and each one found some mark on the walls. Thousands of shards of onyx rock came flying off of the fortress, raining down death on any pony below. Scrambling backwards, Smart Cookie found his hoofing and managed to scurry away from the worst of the stone rain. The screams redoubled around him as several shards weighing almost a hundred pounds each skewered several Crystal Ponies by his sides.

“Keep firing!” Jade shouted over the roar of the siege. Her face was covered in dirt and Crystal blood, and strands of her mane had forced their way out from under her helmet and across her eyes. “I want those catapults taken down! Don’t tell me that we don’t have the angle needed on them!”

Smart Cookie scrambled over to the mare, his knees shaking the most they had ever shook in his life. As smaller rocks from Onyx Ridge’s half-sized catapults landed around him, he had to resist the urge to grab onto Jade’s legs and begin bawling like a foal.

“Look out!” somepony shouted, pointing his hoof towards the sky. “Here they come again!!”

“Right!” Jade screamed back. “This is it! Everypony brace yourselves!”

Smart Cookie ducked low and held his sword to the side as he spotted the figures in glinting armor streaking across the sky. With a murderous roar, almost a hundred pegasi ripped through the Union’s lines, scattering blood, guts, and armor across the battlefield. Each pegasus found a target and killed it as they passed at frightening speed, and aside from a few torn feathers, Smart Cookie couldn’t tell if they had even wounded one of the flying warriors. When the group passed and retreated into the smoky cloud cover, he pressed his side against Jade’s and shouted up to her.

“Just what the hay are Cirrans doing here?! And why are they attacking us, not Halite?!”

Jade grunted and shoved Smart Cookie to the ground, narrowly dodging a ballista round in the process. Pulling the earth pony to his hooves, she began to sprint along the front lines towards a siege tower. “They ain’t part of the Legion, I can tell you that! They’ve been harassing our supply lines for months now! Red armor and loose command structure, they’re deserters for sure!” Stopping at the side of the siege tower, she screamed a few words to the frightened sergeant and got him to order the tower to advance on the walls. “For some reason, perhaps that very reason, they’ve allied themselves with Halite and his bastards!”

Another wave of Unionist artillery slammed itself against the walls, tearing large gashes out of the top and ripping apart several of Halite’s catapults. The siege engineers had adjusted their aim to fire on the top of the tower, and the effects were devastating. In addition to the ruined catapults, the stone boulders ripped down several of the walkways and towers, sending dozens of barbarians plummeting to their deaths, screaming. Another of the stones slammed against the gates, but other than putting a dent in its construction it did little against the massive bars of iron.

“How’re we going to get through that?!” Smart Cookie shouted to Jade. The armored mare simply through Smart Cookie onto the siege tower and fluttered up after him, pointing to a hole in the side of the wall. “If we can’t batter down the gates, we’ll take the control rooms and raise them that way! Good thing Halite didn’t have enough onyx to build solid walls! We’ve got an interior we can access—assuming the tower can get there is all.” Kicking open a door, Jade ran in and flew up the central shaft of the tower, gesturing for Smart Cookie to follow on the ladder.

Smart Cookie gulped and clambered up after her, struggling to ascend with the unnatural weight of the iron pressing down on his shoulders. The siege tower shook violently, almost flinging him off of the ladder when he was near the top, but Jade bent down and hauled him up by his mane.

“Commander!” shouted an out-of-breath private. “Major Malachite’s tower! Look!”

Smart Cookie and Jade both leaned over the railing and saw the foremost tower advance on Onyx Ridge’s walls. As it approached, all the remaining catapults on Onyx Ridge’s northern wall turned and aligned with the tower, their crew loading the massive rounds into their baskets and winching back the arm. At the command of some unseen barbarian officer, all the catapults released at once, piercing the siege tower from several different angles with their hefty stones.

The result was absolutely devastating. The tower shook twice and then collapsed in a violent explosion of wood and splinters. It listed heavily to the side as it fell, raining fire and wooden planks down on all below, until the bulk of the engine snapped in two and fell directly on top of a company of Crystal Ponies. The screaming and dismay was difficult to make out above the roar of the battle, but it was there alright.

“Buck!” Jade shouted, turning back to the rest of the ponies on the tower. “When this thing hits the wall, I want everypony through that hole in seconds! The longer we wait, the more time they—”

“Incoming!” Smart Cookie screamed, knocking Jade to the floor of the tower with his shoulder. Fifteen pegasi screeched by overhead, their wingblades tearing horrid and ragged holes through the cluster of soldiers on deck. Several Crystal Ponies tried swinging their swords at the pegasi as they passed, but the flying soldiers were too fast and nimble for any of them to connect. Just like before, the group of Cirrans banked hard and rose into the cloud cover when they had finished their attack, effectively concealing their movement.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed one soldier, clutching his chest to try and slow his heart. “That’s great, just bucking great, man! Now what the buck are we supposed to do?! We’re in some real fruity shit now, man!”

“Hang on!” Jade retorted, spreading her wings to gather her soldiers attention. “Just another hundred feet and we’re at the walls! Just a little more!”

Unfortunately, the spreading of her wings also caught the attention of the nearest catapult. Shouting, the barbarians manning it heaved and struggled, managing to turn the weapon around and lower it towards the tower. The arm was levered back, and two of the largest barbarians managed to haul a boulder into the basket.

“Game over man, game over!” shouted another Union soldier. “What’re we going to do now?! What’re we—”

His voice was cut off by the sudden explosion of the catapult as a massive ballista round skewered the construction, launching the weapon off of the walls and down to the bloody ground below. Jade, Smart Cookie, and the rest of the soldiers on deck huddled under the shrapnel and splinters of the destroyed catapult as they landed all around them.

“What was that?!” Smart Cookie exclaimed, rising to his hooves alongside. Jade. The Commander squinted, but soon her face broadened in a smile.

“Looks like we’ve got some inside help!” She shouted. With a mighty thud, the siege tower connected with the hole in the side of Onyx Ridge’s wall and latched on. Kicking down the boarding gate, Jade stood aside as her cheering soldiers rushed inside and began to attack the nearest barbarians they could see. Then she turned tail and followed them, Smart Cookie right behind her.

“Let’s show Halite how little his fortress can do for him now!”

“Boom! Hahaha! Load another one! Don’t give them any reprieve!”

Clover wiped the sweat off of her brow with a hoof before returning to the stack of ballista bolts and fitting another one to the body of the machine. Her, Platinum, Greenleaf, and the other prisoners had commandeered one of the ballistae on the west wall and had managed to rotate it almost completely around to fire on the siege weapons fixed to the north wall. With Diadem’s keen eye and surprisingly accurate aim, they had just shorn one catapult completely off of its mounted position on the wall and were moving on to the next target.

“Whew!” Platinum grunted as she used her powerful Arcana to winch back the cord on the ballista while Clover loaded the next round with her own magic. Despite the physical exertion, she seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to strike back at the ponies who had so badly disgraced her the past few days. “Where’s that Halite fellow? Put a shot straight through his skull for me!”

Diadem scrunched her face and squinted with one eye down the length of the ballista shot Clover had loaded. “Uh, Halite’s the big mean one, right? Not the mean one, but the big mean one, like, the mean mean one who’s mean… yeah, I don’t see that one, but I see another catapult!” Sticking her tongue to the side, the filly made the appropriate mental calculations and began to give directions to the stallions moving the weapon. “Alright, a little right… a little more… now down, left, down again… there!” Hopping up and down in the seat meant for a pony twice her size, Diadem looked absolutely ridiculous behind the gunner’s station, but she was surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) enthusiastic about being in control of such an awesome machine.

“Alright! Winch back, stand clear, and FIRE!!”

With a tremendous thwack of its drawstring, the ballista released its next round at Greenleaf’s command. The oversized arrow cut its way across the fortress and slammed straight into the back of the next catapult, tearing the throwing arm from the assembly and braining one of the stallions in its crew. Clover winced at the gore and glanced towards Diadem, but apparently the filly had been too excited about the successful hit to notice the particularly gruesome way that her aim had just killed another pony.

“Ha! We’re showing them!” Greenleaf laughed, shaking the sweaty hairs of his mane from his face. “I haven’t felt this alive in ages! Halite, your reputation ain’t worth shi—” He stopped, glancing over his shoulder at the filly watching him intently, and swallowed the last letter of his curse. “Ahem. Worth crap.”

Clover sniggered and went to grab the next round with her Arcana. “Watch it, Greenleaf, don’t forget we’ve got a child here!”

Diadem spun in the seat, her face filled with an adorable pout. “Hey! I’m not a child! I’m ten!”

“With aim like that you might as well be twenty-five,” Greenleaf muttered, turning to find another target. Suddenly his face blanched, and he scrambled to grab his sword. “Incoming barbarians, twelve o’clock! Get your flanks in gear and plug the gap!”

Several of the prisoners grabbed their weapons and rushed forward to stand by Greenleaf’s side, forming a phalanx of death between the advancing Crystal barbarians and the commandeered ballista. Even then, it was only a hoofful of poorly equipped prisoners against fifty incoming barbarians.

Platinum bit her lip as she wrenched back the drawstring of the ballista. She could see the incoming barbarians over Greenleaf’s shoulders, and she knew they were going to get slaughtered. Latching the massive cable into place, she turned towards Diadem. “Aim it at the walkway. We need to take out those mean ponies before they get to Greenleaf.”

Diadem’s head bobbed up and down, and she looked down the round Clover finished loading into the assembly. “Alrighty then. Um, go down, then waaaaay to the left… now up a little bit… no that’s too far… good!”

“Right!” Platinum shouted, wrapping her hooves around the control lever. “Have at you!”

With a loud click, the lever slid into the firing position and released the cable on the ballista. Again the cord snapped forward, launching its deadly missile at the advancing ponies. Clover barely had time to shield the little filly’s eyes from the gore before the missile turned fifty charging ponies into red slush across the walkway.

Platinum gritted her teeth and worked on pulling the cable back, trying to shrug off the wanton death she just witnessed. Across the northern wall, several more Crystal Ponies had emerged, but these ones were different. They were covered in iron and cyan armor, and they immediately attacked the barbarians nearest to them as they stormed out of the stair tower. Most surprising of all, however, was the massive mare leading them, a pony with both a unicorn’s horn and a pegasus’ wings. Hacking away with her sword and swinging her wings, the mare fought her way through reams of Crystal barbarians as she advanced towards the three towers above the massive iron gates.

“You see her?!” Greenleaf exclaimed, pointing to the mare. “That’s Commander Jade! Damn, I never thought I’d see the day. I always met with her generals when I scouted for her, but never the mare herself. How’s about we give her a little help taking those towers?”

“Right!” Platinum called back. “Diadem, see that big green mare over there?” Seeing the little filly nod, Platinum pulled the priming lever on the ballista into place and pointed towards a knot of barbarians. “Don’t let any of the mean ponies get to her or her followers. She’s our friend.”

“Okie dokie!” Diadem chirped back, and Platinum felt the need to suppress a motherly shake of her head. The little filly’s cheery demeanor was just too out of place for the battle raging around them.

The ballista was aimed and another round was fired, tearing a chunk of the walkway off and taking several barbarians with it. Commander Jade skidded to a halt in front of the sudden gash that opened up in front of her and glanced towards the rogue ballista, confusion illuminating her face.

Diadem waved back at her.

Jade shook her head like she was trying to clear a daydream, incredulity clearly plastered across her features. She looked like she wanted to fly over and make sure that she wasn’t insane, but attacking barbarians forced her to bring her attention back to the fight. Hacking apart several warriors and sending their bodies tumbling down from the walls, Jade and her entourage of Crystal Ponies, plus one earth pony that Platinum noticed, advanced into the first gatehouse.

“Heehee! She saw me, she saw me!” Diadem sang as she bounced in her seat. “I’m getting to know sooooo many cool ponies! Clover the Clever, Princess Platinum, and now Commander Jade? Oooh, when do I get to meet Commander Hurricane and Chancellor Puddinghead?”

Clover laughed and fitted yet another bolt to the ballista. “Only three left! Make them count!”

Greenleaf surveyed the remaining stockpile and pointed to four armed unicorn stallions. “You, go and find some more rounds for this thing! Our lives may very well depend on it!” Nodding, the nominated group galloped away, breaking down the door of the nearest watchtower and sprinting inside.

Platinum levered back the cable and slotted it again, but collapsed shortly thereafter. The strain was starting to become too much for her, even though she was very gifted in terms of magical strength. “Ungh… Clover, darling, you think we could switch? I can’t… keep this up for much longer.”

“Sure,” Clover called back, walking over to Platinum’s side and letting the mare rest against her shoulders. “Take all the time you need. We’re almost d—”

Diadem’s sudden panicked shrieking cut off her words. Before Clover could even turn to see what was wrong, three sizeable stones slammed themselves into the masonry around the ballista. Catapults and ballistae on the eastern wall had turned completely around to return fire on the rogue ballista the prisoners had captured, and their volleys were relentless. Stones and bolts of all sizes began to descend on their position.

“Diadem, run!!” Clover shouted over her shoulder, pushing Platinum towards Greenleaf, who immediately took up her weight. The frightened filly clambered over the body of the ballista and launched herself towards Platinum, her hooves outstretched as she flew towards the green mare.

No sooner had her hooves left the ballista did a massive stone slam into the nose of the machine, ripping the wood apart and tearing a gaping hole in the onyx walkway where the prisoners were assembled. The taut cable that Platinum had exhausted herself wrenching back into position broke free, and it snapped across the walkway with such force that it decapitated three unlucky prisoners before cleaving several crenellations in two.

The terrible rain of stone wasn’t over yet, though, and more ballista rounds and catapulted boulders smashed into the walkway around them. Clover heard the horrible groaning of strained stone, and she felt the floor buckle beneath her. Looking down, she saw massive cracks rip across the polished, black surface of the walkway, spouting plumes of dust and black gravel into the air. With a sickening lurch, the section of the walkway Clover and Diadem lay on angled downwards several degrees, and Clover felt her hooves dangle over the edge.

“Hang on!” Greenleaf shouted, grabbing a spear from a nearby earth pony and thrusting it towards Clover. “Just hang on!”

Clover heard the distinctive whoosh of more catapults being launched, and she knew where they were aimed. With a forlorn glance, she looked towards Platinum’s fearful and pleading eyes and mouthed an apology.

Pulling Diadem close to her side, Clover shut her eyes and released a deep breath as the first of the stones slammed into the wall beneath her.

Jade kicked her hooves out in front of her as a massive ballista bolt shredded the onyx walkway only a few feet ahead of her. The shaft of wood cleaved the crenellations on both sides of the wall in two as it took out the legs of several barbarians, sending the limbless bodies tumbling off the side, shrieking in agony. Whirling about, she flared her wings in preparation to streak across the fortress and take out the offending artillery piece.

She quickly located the culprit along the western wall, and took two steps forward to take flight. Suddenly, she stopped in shock. There in the engineer’s seat was a little filly that looked no more than ten or eleven. Not only that, but the filly was smiling and waving at her. Around her, several tired and dirty unicorns worked on loading another round into the ballista. They were devoid of armor or the crystalline sheen of the Crystal Ponies, so she knew that they weren’t on Halite’s side. Then realization clicked. They must have been the crew that took out the catapult that almost killed her and her soldiers.

She laughed and turned quickly to block the sword swing of a barbarian with her bladed wing. Halite’s prisoners were biting back at him! Their aid would help accelerate the fall of the fortress immensely.

“Come on!” She shouted to the soldiers following her. “Let’s take down the first gate! On me!” With a righteous fury, she batted aside several barbarians and entered the first gatehouse.

Smart Cookie stumbled in after her, hyperventilating and tripping over his own hooves as the adrenaline guided his limbs instead of his brain. There was fighting all around him, ponies cutting each other apart on their swords of steel and iron. He scrambled closer to Jade’s side and nervously clutched his sword between his trembling jaws. This was a bad idea, a bad, bad idea!

The interior of the gatehouse was simply a large stone box with windows on both ends and huge winches in the center meant for raising the several ton gate below. There were ten or fifteen barbarians in the room, and each one found a different Union soldier to engage. Smart Cookie found himself scrambling along the walls and around fighting bodies as he tried to get away from the worst of the melee.

Eventually, he found himself at the north end of the room looking out over the Union army below. Multiple siege towers had affixed themselves to the walls, their occupants struggling to reach a hole either too high or too low on the wall to enter. He could see the carnage of several destroyed towers lying outside, as well as piles of bodies of dead soldiers. He estimated that Jade’s army had lost about a quarter of its strength in the attack as they just sat outside waiting for the gates to open. As long as she had troops inside Onyx Ridge, however, Jade wasn’t going to let up on the attack, no matter how many dead it would cost her.

Deciding to stop gawking at the carnage outside and do something useful, Smart Cookie examined the massive gate winch for any clues as to how it worked. There were massive wheels and valves of all sizes, as well as several levers affixed to large gears. Huge chains descended into the floor, and massive counterweights hung from the roof of the south wall. Taking a guess, Smart Cookie began to kick open levers and tug on valves to try and produce some effect.

With a thunderous groan, the entire gatehouse shook as Smart Cookie opened the last of the levers. There was a hiss of rattling chains, and he could see an absolutely enormous block of onyx plummet past the south windows. Chains inside the gatehouse clanked as they were taken up by the large wheels, and there was a chorus of loud cheering outside as the first of the iron gates lifted. As if on some unheard cue, the remaining barbarians in the room withdrew out the eastern door and began to rush towards the central gatehouse.

“Yes!” Jade exclaimed, bucking an unlucky pony out of the northern window. “Keep at it! Two more to go, and Onyx Ridge falls!”

Smart Cookie cheered and followed Jade and her soldiers out towards the next gatehouse. Halite’s warriors were in chaos and disarray, struggling to respond to the multiple breaches to the walls and repel the soldiers assaulting the gatehouses. The second gatehouse was stormed and taken in a matter of minutes, and the middle gate was raised without too much incident. The army outside was pressing against the last gate, abandoning caution and worry about what were to happen if one of the gates were to suddenly drop down in their rush to try and get inside.

“One more!” Jade called out, rallying her troops around her. “We’re coming for you, Halite!”

The last gatehouse was considerably better defended than the first two, as Halite had caught wind of what was happening and had arranged an appropriate response. Speaking of Halite, Smart Cookie caught a glimpse of the gray Crystal stallion in his black armor inside of the last gatehouse. The warlord knew that Onyx Ridge was lost if Jade took the last gate, and he was determined to not let that happen.

With a ferocious war cry, Jade and her soldiers plunged into the depths of the third gatehouse and began to take apart the defenders. There were more than in the previous houses, and there was almost no room to move inside. Bodies pressed against bodies in a deadly melee, and the floor soon became slippery with blood.

A yell astonishingly close to Smart Cookie’s ear caused him to jump to the side, and he felt the slash of an axe pass dangerously close to his chin. He turned to see a rather large barbarian advance upon him, murderous blood rage filling his eyes. With a monstrous roar, the stallion ripped his axe out of the cloven floor tiles and swung it at Smart Cookie again.

The Representative barely managed to dodge that attack, and attempted to swing back with his sword. The iron weapon clanged against the barbarian’s neck armor but did no damage, and the massive pony head-butted Smart Cookie back towards the northern wall. The orange stallion felt his shoulders dangle over the railing as the cold wind flew into his eyes and blinded him. He lurched forward just in time to avoid having his head removed like a chicken under the assailant’s powerful axe.

Again Smart Cookie swung at the barbarian, and again his strike proved ineffectual. With a shake of his head, the barbarian grabbed onto the blade of Smart Cookie’s sword with his teeth and yanked it out of the Representative’s grasp. Shouting in dismay, Smart Cookie watched as the piece of iron was flung out of the window and towards the ground below.

The barbarian lowered his guard to laugh at the earth pony’s helplessness, and in that time Smart Cookie decided to throw all his chips into the pot and side with the stupidest plan he had ever come up with. He didn’t run away. He didn’t dance around the stallion. He didn’t even call for help.

Smart Cookie charged into the monster that was almost twice his size with his shoulder and sent the brute stumbling backwards.

The barbarian was shocked that such a little pony would try such a foolhardy action, but Smart Cookie didn’t give him much time to think. Instead, he pivoted on his forehooves and delivered a powerful buck to the exposed stallion’s chest.

Smart Cookie had always been an avid horseshoe player and had learned how to play by kicking the shoes towards the target rather than by tossing them with his mouth. Years of practice had given him exceptionally good strength and aim, and the buck sent the barbarian reeling back towards the window. The brute’s back collided with the sill, and he teetered dangerously close to the edge, limbs flailing on either side for balance.

One last nudge was all it took to send the behemoth over the edge and falling to his death.

“The winch, Smart Cookie, the winch!” Jade shouted across the room to the earth pony as she finished off yet another soldier. “Let the army through!”

Smart Cookie turned from the window and breathlessly began slamming levers down on the gate system. The wheels began to turn and the walls shook as the counterweight descended and began to raise the last of the iron gates.

“No!!” Shouted a loud voice from behind Smart Cookie, and a figure kicked him to the side and began to reverse the levers. Regaining his hoofing, Smart Cookie saw warlord Halite trying to break apart the chain holding the gate up. Growling, Smart Cookie kicked him away and sent the larger stallion tumbling through the eastern doorway. Jade saw the action and brushed aside Crystal Ponies, barbarian and unionist alike, to get to the warlord.

“Halite, you can’t escape! This will be the end of you!”

With a loud thud, the counterweight hit the ground and left the last gate fully open. Cheering and shouting began to fill the atmosphere, and Smart Cookie looked out the south window to see the Union pouring into Onyx Ridge, fanning out to hunt down every last barbarian who dared hide or fight between the buildings.

Abandoning the sight altogether, Smart Cookie ran out the east door to find Jade and Halite. He didn’t have to look hard. The two ponies were exchanging blows mere yards away from the gatehouse while their respective underlings cut each other to ribbons around them. Smart Cookie lowered his helmet and began to charge towards Halite when the first of the stones hit.

A volley of stones was launched from the catapults on the eastern wall, peppering the onyx walkway and slamming against the roofs of the gatehouses. Dismayed, Smart Cookie looked towards the western wall and the allies he hoped were still there. Instead, he only saw the collapsing section of walkway were the friendly ballista had once stood take its crew down to the ground below.

“Jade, they’re trying to destroy the gatehouses!” Smart Cookie screamed over the carnage. He knew that if the winches were destroyed, the several ton gates would come slamming down, never to open up again. Luckily, there were already several thousand Union soldiers within Onyx Ridge at this point, with hundreds flowing in every second. If they could get just a few thousand more in, the fort would fall.

Jade was too preoccupied with her fight against Halite to notice. Again, Smart Cookie heard the whooshing of catapults and ballistae firing on their position, and he lowered his head against the crenellations to brace for the impact. The stones tore through the wall, leaving the walkway teetering and twisting along the last of the supporting wall.

Another large stone was coming in, this one aimed at the very center of the collapsing segment of the wall. Hugging the crenellation tighter, Smart Cookie called out in dismay.

Then the stone hit, sending two hundred yards of Onyx Ridge’s northern wall collapsing to the ground below.

Streak Wing and his closest Legates flew hundreds of feet over the burning walls of Onyx Ridge. Halite was performing poorly. Typical of a Crystal warlord. He had expected the assault to take all day at the least before it was repelled. Instead, it had taken barely more than an hour for the walls to be breached. Onyx Ridge was lost, and Halite had nopony else to blame but his own stupidity.

“Look!” one of the pegasi shouted, pointing with a hoof to the north wall of the fortress. Streak Wing spiraled downwards to take a closer look. Cracking, straining, groaning, the onyx walls of the fortress shattered into thousands of several-ton chunks as they absolutely collapsed from top to bottom. The Union’s siege engines had been effective, and they certainly were resilient. He had lost too many soldiers trying to take them down, and in the end he had only toppled two catapults and silenced one tower. One hundred pegasi were more than a match for five times that number in Crystal soldiers, but they were still only one hundred pegasi.

They flew through a cloud of smoke to mask their movements, descending on the other side of the fortress to find more targets to strafe. Eyes focused dead ahead, Streak Wing called over his shoulder to the Legate closest behind him.

“Hey, Sleetstop! How many survivors we got left?”

“Forty-two, sir,” the Legate called back. “We lost several trying to take down the catapults. More on the general cuts through their lines. We should pull out now if we want to have any left for the attack on Cloudsdale.”

Streak Wing sighed and nodded. “Right then. Eagle Tail, go and round up the last of our survivors. We meet at camp, then fly east.”

Silence.

Streak Wing and the other Legates turned to the space in their formation where Eagle Tail was supposed to be, only to find it empty. They spread out in a circle, confusion on all their faces.

“What the hell?!” Streak Wing called out. “Where the hell did he go?!”

“He was just here a second ago, sir,” Sleetstop called back. “I swear I was just looking at him before we flew through the cloud cover! Where could he have go—?”

His words were cut off with a thud as a shadowy figure shot out of the clouds below and propelled him into the sky. The other Legates scattered, their wingblades rattling in flight.

“What was that?!” Streak Wing shouted, looking around him. “Where did it come from?!”

“Sir!” shouted one of the Legates, pointing off to the side. Sleetstop’s body was tumbling out of the sky several hundred feet away, blood spraying from a cut in his neck. The body fell to the ground with a sickening crunch audible from even so far away.

“Shit!” Streak Wing exclaimed. “Form up! Whoever it is, don’t let them catch you!”

There was a shout from behind him, and Streak Wing turned just in time to see the last two of his Legates get tackled out of the sky. Their screams were cut short with the drawing of blades, and Streak Wing was just able to see a black and a yellow coat disappear into the clouds below.

“Buck!” he shouted, beginning to dive after them. “Damn it, I knew it was too much to hope that you’d stay dead!!”

He plunged through the clouds, but they were so thick it was impossible to see. All around him the world was gray, laden with ice and smoke and ash. He coughed several times as he tried to gather his bearings and see through the impermeable thickness of the stratus.

He looked up just in time to brace himself against the charge of a black pegasus clad in onyx armor, wingblades aimed for his throat.

Author's Notes:

With this chapter, we are now halfway through Snow and Shadows. All I can say is that if you think it's been a wild ride so far, expect more in the coming chapters.

I uploaded this chapter on my laptop, so thus I didn't have the list of music I listened to when writing each part. Therefore I tried to do my best to recall what music went where, but I think it's fairly accurate. I also linked two of the songs to youtuberepeater.com instead of just youtube, because the scenes they accompany were much much longer than the songs themselves, and I tried to spare you the trouble of going back to the tab you opened and resetting the song.

As always, feedback on the chapter and how the music worked out for you is encouraged. See you all next week with another chapter!