Difficult Castle

High Voice rested uneasily, there was no true sleep to be had in the days of compression with so many other ponies. Bronze plate pressed against fur, against plate, against fur, each jostle of the great war machine shifting each pony against each other like water in a tankard. He had luckily gained a position at the back against the wall.

I could not decide, throughout the entire horrible journey, whether or not I was glad to be mushed against the wall, rather than the rotting stink of the Romane soldiers around me. It wasn’t all bad though.

“Fur?” He questioned, to her immediate groan of annoyance. Bleu Fur was his ‘mentor’, which was the kindest way of saying that the company had assigned the youngest member of their unit to the second youngest member of their unit, and hoped they would just sort it out between themselves. “How much longer are we-”

“For the twenty-ninth time.” She grumbled. “We’re getting close. Two days. You can see the blasted sunlight the same as I can. We’re almost there. It shouldn’t be much longer.” She was shoved up against his emancipated form, despite being an earth pony, High Voice was barely eye level to her.

She hated me. Though, it was easy to not take that so personally. I learned as we grew that Bleu simply hated everything, it was whether or not she hated you more or less than what was currently going on that truly mattered.

Two days. Two rotations of the sun through the sky. The ponies inside could only make out the paltry escort around them in the day over the sounds of the churning of the great wheels of the machine they were packed inside. A statue, an ‘offering’.

The city of Trot stood right in the middle of our battle plan. They were aligned with the Sun Witch, not enough to turn down gifts from the enemy, but surely enough to resist should we try to march through their lands. So Lion’s Heart developed a coy strategy, one lacking honor, but the barbaric nature of the soldiers I once looked up to was long made clear to me. Would it work, that was the real question.

Outside, as if on cue with the slow beat of boiling breath bouncing within the chamber, the war machine came to a halt. Mumbles shifted throughout the interior, and Bleu preemptively jabbed Voice in the side with her wing to make sure he stayed quiet.

I always tolerated her physicality, but for this specifically, she wasn’t the only pony urging the company to be silent. I still remember the way my heart started to beat, surging when I realized the great moment of ‘we are here.’ That the lack of discipline would give us away, that we would all be slaughtered, helpless inside the machine because some buffoon simply wouldn’t shut up.

All around, officers and veterans shushed and smacked chattering soldiers upside the head. Quieting the cramped chamber to only the sounds of breathing, until the clear and vibrant voice of their Princess sounded. “Great ponies of Trot!” She boomed, rattling the chamber and filling High Voice’s chest with pride. Pride to be here, pride to be a solider, purpose to serve his Princess. “We come bearing gifts!” She announced, her formal address swapping on a dime to something bearing levity.

High Voice could clearly picture the deep black fur of his Princess, her expressive pose while he listened to her voice sell their ruse. “The Romane army is aware of the delicate politics of this war, yes! But we are all still ponies. We do not seek necessary quarrels. We are not here to pillage or raid your lands, we simply seek to pass through, to march on the center of this land and dethrone my blasphemous sister and her will to steal the night sky from all the ponies of Equestria!”

Another jab from Bleu rattled him out of his imagination induced dopey grin. High Voice sent her a glower, and she simply waggled her eyebrows at him, her amber slit eyes quietly laughing at an old joke. “To this end, in hopes of furthering my true goal of peace, we offer you this grand statue in honor of the great Dawn Shield, a worthy opponent felled in battle by mine own blade. From the finest craftsmares of Ponepeii, we give this to you, ponies of Trot! So that the steady beat of this war might finally draw closer to peace!”

Because that was what it was all for. I had thought, end the war, unite all ponies, no more petty squabbles when we show Equestria what happens when chaos takes reign over justice and honor. Yet I was just a colt with a sword, I did not understand and often find myself now wishing I never did.

Long breaths of air hung over them. Shifting tension and morale. Ponies from all over the lands they’d conquered, all waiting for something to change. Then, like a bomb going off, something did. Far away, the thick, reverberating sound of chain crashing against magically enhanced stone churned away. Trot’s great drawbridge was opening.

Several excited whispers echoed back and forth through the collected soldiers, ‘they’re opening the gates!’ and ‘I can’t believe that worked!’ bounced for nary a few moments before the leaders got control again. There was more conversation from outside, conversation High Voice desperately strained to hear as the moments passed by.

They were just ponies too. Rowdy and bored. Exhausted from two days cramped inside of the great war machine we had created to fool the ponies of Trot to their own deaths. Yet despite the universal eagerness, all of us on the tips of our hooves, there was no excitement to be had. Each pony strained desperately to gain some kind of information as each beat of the heart raced passed us. Trapped in this strange limbo of time moving so slowly despite nothing to focus on but the time itself.

All at once, the great wheels spun, shifting them forwards with the weight of their creation, first over soil, then over the moat, the enormous weight of their statue held aloft from the deadly drop by impossible earth pony ingenuity. There was cheering, but not from the inside, the carts of food and drink had been found, and they were finally inside. Weeks of planning a siege had led to this plan, and it was hours away from working.

On the inside, it was simply more waiting. While ponies grumbled and passed back hard bread, High Voice returned to trying to sleep, but it simply wouldn’t come to him. Meditation, but with no thoughts uninterrupted by the impeding energy of an incoming battle filling the secret chamber, making it even more cramped.

“Fur.”

She growled in his ear.

Most other ponies, and entirely intentionally on her part, would assume that was the lead up to her biting them, I’d grown to realize it was simply her way of pretending she didn’t want to talk when she desperately needed to. I recommended her favorite game, hoof wrestling, and we passed the time like all of the other soldiers, just with a few more pains on my part.

The energy inside the secret compartment shifted. The whispering picked up to regular volume as officers started giving instructions and ponies began to rise and stretch. Final checks, and High Voice pulled on the loose straps of his hoof-me-down armor, his parrying dagger, a gift given as a joke to the tiny colt. Beside him, Bleu checked her own daggers, sharpening her wing talons against her blades.

There is still no way to describe the process of war. Like boiling water, it does not simply go from cool to boiling. There are so many pieces, so many moments, so much waiting without waiting. When the trapdoor opened, and it was finally time for battle, I still waited minutes before I exited, those minutes felt like seconds with my heart in my throat, the madness of being in a battle, without being a part of it, driving adrenaline like arrows into my limbs.

Then, High Voice hit stone, Bleu directly behind him. In the cover of their Princess’ starless night, a battle raged. Bleu’s lithe figure moved, and Voice trailed behind her, desperate to keep pace with her longer stride as they leapt down from the great war machine onto the perfectly carved flagstones of Trot’s inner sanctum. They had breached the walls, and all around them quiet battles raged. All of this ignored by the single minded focus of staying with his friend.

They followed the curve of a hill, Bleu’s eyes latched to something he couldn’t see, until they came behind a clump of soldiers forming a shield wall against the first waking enemies of Trot’s defenders trying to come down the hill. She flared her wings, ignoring the street, and diving through a window to the interior wall slammed against the uncoordinated troops trying to form a defensive line.

She often left my behind. Different from our first encounter, where she simply left me to die. It was only that she expected me to keep up despite not having her dexterity, or wings for that matter, but I digress. I simply found the door to that same structure, rushing in to find her locked in combat with groggy, unarmored soldiers.

High Voice felt a battle cry rising at his lips as he surged forwards, “For Nightmare Moon!” He screamed, his overtly feminine voice pitching off the walls and distracting one of the enemies that turned to face him. The same unfortunate mare took a pair of kicks to the head as Bleu pounced onto her; High Voice ducked around the scrap to block the blow aimed at Bleu’s flank, then as one, Bleu and Voice switched places, dodging both counter attacks and finishing their opponents with the flourish of teamwork.

Before I could even think to strategize, Bleu Fur had already rushed off up the ramp, a wild smile on her face. I could do nothing but huff in heated breaths and chase after her.

Two more surprise encounters passed in a blur of adrenaline as they cut through the interior walls. With nothing but torchlight to guide him, High Voice followed the thrashing gray tail and the curve of the solid stone wall until they pushed through into moonlight. On the other side of the street, Bleu curved in a wide gallop, headbutting one of the reinforcements, sending the mare toppling over and sliding across the stone with the force of her fall.

High Voice once again took up Bleu’s flank, like the spear and the shield, she dove around reach, stabbed with her daggers, blinded with her wing talons, kicked with her hooves. High Voice dove left and right, his tiny form nearly invisible in the dark and chaos, parrying blades, finishing downed opponents, slowly getting surrounded by the wave of reinforcements until the distraction finally proved fruitful for time. The shield wall finally broke through the strained defenders, shoving up the ramp and into the disorganized troop Bleu was still busy brutalizing. The wild roar of incoming soldiers tore eyes away from the scrabbling, and the reinforcements retreated before they could be swallowed by the stampede.

Bleu and I were swept up. I know I roared with the call of violence echoed over our troops, but I could not hear my voice, could not feel my hooves, not the scuffs I had taken or the bruises that would surely develop later, it was simply war running through my blood.

The stampede met another blockade of metal and fur, crashing into it with the force of a tidal wave. Immediately both lines broke, and each pony took up finding another to skewer or knock down. High Voice lost sight of Bleu, surrounded by momentum and the roar of metal and violence. Like a dagger, he worked, ending fights, finding allies to fight with and pulling injured away from combat. Each heaving breath joining with the blood throbbing in his limbs. Everywhere he turned there was fighting, every moment was occupied with swinging or throwing himself to the cobblestones to avoid being sliced or skewered.

Surrounded by metal and death, High Voice fought until the enemy fell and his company moved on.

It was all we could do. All we had to do. Fight. It’d thought those words thinking they were brave, that they were simple poetry to what we had become. I wish I could see the nuance of that now.

The bastion city of Trot echoed with battle cries and screams of the dying. Steel against steel as a backdrop against the roar of fires that had started, High Voice’s hooves burned with exertion, the battalion he had gotten swept into had long since moved deeper towards the central keep, seeking out more violence he would be shoved into.

Another charge breathed another beat of the wild song of war; surging around the keep, caught adrift like sand in a river, High Voice flowed with the will of the surrounding herd, battling higher and higher up the flagstone hill, weaving between the structural innards, finding and clearing out choke points, breaking lines, retreating and regrouping for counter attacks.

I, of course, had little to no idea what I was doing. No battle company truly does, once the fighting starts. Even the commanding officers could do little more than steer the rampaging herd of metal and hooves while we fought, and fought, and fought, and fought.

It was only hours later when the sun was forcing its way into the sky did the sounds of battle begin to dim. When High Voice felt himself still standing without an enemy to fight or a direction to be pulled in, he knew that they had won. The colt stood in some plaza, its name completely unknown to him, the water from the hoof carved fountain still flowing, surrounded by bodies.

And he tried to believe they had won.

How such energy and violence could so suddenly and simply be over without warning is still a sensation that will always slip away from my tongue without any real words to make sense of it. What it was we had won, I had not known. Aimless without the roar of battle, and dissatisfied with the weight resting in my stomach, I sought out allies. To surround myself in the surety of camaraderie.

In the place where the fight began, High Voice met with his company. They had gotten into the supplies the ponies of Trot had used to celebrate not more than the night previous. Drink and food flowed as easily as the celebrations of victory, soldiers so quick to start festivities even while small battles still raged over the great bastion city of Trot. He found Bleu, already red faced, tankard in hoof, laughing over the simple stories of violence she had just experienced.

“I thought you were dead.” He called to her jokingly, never believing a mare born for war like her could ever truly die. He bumped her with his unassuming weight to sending her stumbling only a step to the side before she turned around and punched him in the jaw.

Yes. This was our normal greeting after a battle… and in general, now that I consider it further.

She laughed as High Voice reeled, “Looks like you’re still alive runt!” She called back, grabbing him over the shoulder with her webbed wing and dragging him to wherever the drink was. All around them, a slowly growing party raged, surging with excitement, laughing with the same energy they had carried into battle, only simply turned towards laughter instead of death.

This, I had thought, is what we had won. While the weight in my gut was replaced with ale and rowdy company: this, I thought, is what we were fighting for.