Harvest 5th 3474
Has it only been 15 days? It seems longer. It's been far too hectic for me to write before now, but in that time, we've fought the good fight and won, though as I expected, not without cost. The fight against the griffons cost us good ponies, far too many of them.
It had to be done, and the secondary plans we enacted saved more people than we lost in combat, but I still have to accept that I knowingly led ponies to their deaths. This wasn't an accident triggered by events beyond my control. These events were due to my conscious decisions. I believe that with help I managed to keep the death toll as low as possible, but I don't understand why anyone else doesn't blame me for the ones I couldn't save.
I've visited each family, told them how brave their lost one was, and how proud I was to have had them serve Maresia. It helps that even with the reinforcements from Cloudsdale, there were less than three hundred in my force. Captain Horse, my field commander, offered to take some of the load, but this was a duty I had to do myself. Eventually we agreed to do it together. I also made sure that they would not suffer financial hardship, it seems little enough, but even Alicorn power can't turn back time, or bring back the dead.
Maybe I should backwing a bit and explain exactly what we did do. First, we informed the King and the court of our unwanted guests, Luna laid out an illusion map of the whole of the north, and we pinpointed their forces, even replayed some of our Solar and Luna sights to give them superior intelligence, well information anyway. I'm afraid some of the more hidebound members of the court showed very little of the latter.
We pledged our forces to a counter-strike, and King Goldmane immediately started getting pledges of troops from other nobles, and sending out pegasi couriers to relay the call to arms to those nobles who were in their own Fifes. We agreed to return in a day to update the intelligence and advise the King. Of course we got a couple of our detractors asking why we didn't deal with it ourselves, and gave them that same reason that we'd agreed not to use our full powers except in cases where there was no other choice.
That was how things were going to be unless they wanted it to become precedent that we would crank out our full offensive powers whenever there was any kind of emergency. I think lighting up with a corona and creating neat little hoof shaped puddles of lava in the stonework helped emphasise the extent of that power.
I added that we would both be fighting alongside our troops, using only physical force, and wondered whether they'd be doing the same. It wasn't exactly fair, being super-strong and functionally indestructible means it feels like we're cheating, but it got them to be quiet.
With events in motion on a kingdom level, we started things in our own Fife. First, because we couldn't spare the air power to transport them all, we got the major part of our ground based Maresian guards ponies, earth ponies and unicorns, along with Sergeant Major Apony, loading up and moving across country towards the north-western Fifes. Since the steppes to the north west of Equestria are fairly flat, and the roads good, we added ballista and onager chariots that hadn't yet been flight enchanted.
They also towed carts, carrying both weapons and food supplies rather than buying along the way, and half the force. That was Apony's idea, it slowed the convoy slightly, but it meant that by switching ponies back and forth, and preparing nosebags of food on the carts, they could keep going day and night. Since a majority of the force was reservists, it also had the effect of giving them a workout in endurance and in formation drilling.
It was Luna's force, but she was needed in too many other places to travel with them the whole way. That's why I wanted her to have the best possible field commander to get them into shape. She was smoking back and forth the whole time, making visits to check on things in between her other duties.
I held back every pegasus, including the few who would join Luna's force to provide air cover, because I needed them everywhere. I had the core of trained pegasi from the Maresian guards, and called in every pegasi who'd worked on Search and Rescue or could be spared from other duties, and it still wasn't enough.
Fortunately, while the three cloud cities are not a part of Maresia, they are my responsibility as co-manager of the ecology management program. More importantly, a lot of the council members that ran the day-to-day operation were old friends from before I became an Alicorn, and had worked with me when we built the cities. So I managed to get a large number of volunteers, enough that we ran out of armour.
The first part of my plan didn't require it, using every flying chariot and cart we could beg, borrow or steal to evacuate the villages to the north of Canterlot, except for a few brave goats and ponies who stayed to maintain an illusion of normalcy if the griffons sent any long range scouts, and prepare locations for the army that would soon arrive. With the best will in the world, sheep really aren't suited for fighting, so we had to separate the sheep from the goats.
While the pegasi were rescuing the non-combatants, I was working with Sergeant Major Apony's protégé, Horse, who I mentioned earlier. A slate grey pegasi, his name comes from the fact that he's almost as big as the mythical 'horses' from which pony-kind is said to have descended.
I have a lot of time for this pony, and not because of his appearance, though I have to admit he's rather easy on the eyes, and he has an impressive wingspan. He may be young, the son of an artisan from Shirefield, but he has already demonstrated intelligence, and more importantly common sense.
He distinguished himself in the roving forces we used to keep order during implementation of the environmental plan, and quickly became one of the leaders of the Maresian guards. He took the original tactical ideas for aerial combat I threw at him based on my own experiences, and galloped, or rather flew with them.
I couldn't spend as much time with him as I wanted, because I was working with Shirefield and Trottingham's artisans to put together the tools our new tactics would require, and the extra armour, both for the pegasi and the ground pounders who'd be supporting them. When we ran low on raw materials, I cheated outrageously, transmuting, and in a few cases outright conjuring the needed materials.
I know what any unicorn will say, manifested materials only last a few hours, and the denser the material, the less time it lasts. Fortunately, Alicorn power bumps the duration a few levels, and I only needed them to last a few weeks.
On the downside it was impossible to enchant them with the standard illusion spells, adding more magic would have risked destabilising the conjured materials. Anyway, every unicorn was too busy just putting them and the other weapons together to bother with non-essentials. Part of the reason we could get the other tools ready in the few days we had was that for the most part we were modifying existing gear.
I should explain the traditional tactics for facing off against griffons, so the innovations Horse and I came up with make sense. These standard tactics involve massed blocks of slingers interspersed with spears. Not having the numbers of pegasi in a regular force to match them in the air, it's not even attempted. After all pegasi are for scouting and shock troop tactics, not real fighting, goes the standard canter.
The idea is to bring the griffons down by breaking their wings and smash them on the ground. Of course, this requires a four or five to one advantage on the pony side, and that the griffons are willing to engage (which they usually do, their warrior posing makes refusing a battle like cowardice). However, even if they do, they can always fly above effective range of slingers and drop rocks and other kinds of unpleasantness.
While our aerial tactics relied somewhat on my Sight to pre-position our force, they offered a chance to fight the griffons on their home cloud. We would create artificial cloudbanks to take cover in, to be able to spring a surprise attack from their flanks. To make sure they took the bait, we had a few pegasi, our fastest, detailed to act like conventional scouts and flee at the first sign of trouble, and lead them onto the conventional formation.
Normally, a single pegasus versus a griffon is a losing proposition (unless it was someone like myself or Horse). Pegasi have speed and manoeuvrability, they have the size, strength and toughness advantage. This was another reason cited that even trying to fight them in the air was a foalish idea.
However even before the armour was ready, Horse had our pegasi practicing formation manoeuvres and acting as two pegasi wing-pony teams, the idea being that if a single pegasi couldn't take a griffon one on one, a pair could split their attention and wear them down, using their superior speed and manoeuvrability to strike and pull away before they could counter-attack.
Of course it still needed a two to one pony-power advantage, but he spotted what all those earlier theorists had missed, that out superior speed could allow us to swarm them locally, especially since they tend to fight as individual warriors, and our new artillery would allow us to split up any formations. Add to that the ability to create cloudbanks for cover wherever we needed them, and you had a force that could finally match a griffon attack wing in the air.
For our rump of conventional forces, I designed a couple of new tricks, shafts to extend the spears, attached with a simple ring and split pin arrangement, a saddle shield that covered the entire back up to the neck, and a variation on the chariot mounted ballista that fired a sheaf of arrows and could be cranked up to a high angle. Our heavy use of flying chariots for mobility, and some amazingly hard work by the artisans in Shirefield and Trottingham meant we could carry more equipment, and I took ruthless advantage of it.
The idea that was that our sheaf ballista teams would be scattered through the main force, covered by the longer spears, and with ponies protected from falling rocks by the saddle armour. While normally a set of overlapping plates, they were designed to lock together when struck from above, and angled to make the rocks slide off to the sides.
It was a lot of innovations to comprehend, but Horse was as tireless as a statue, and demonstrated his leadership abilities, in getting the pegasi of the Maresian guard to understand the tactics he'd developed and use them. The fact that a lot of the pegasi in question were female had nothing to do with it, I'm sure. Both the core force, which had the illusion armour, and the volunteers, which didn't, ran over sixty percent female.
There was a lot of whining and complaints from that, and the fact that I had Horse represent me at the Council of Captains when we arrived at the rally point. Prejudice still runs deep, and a lot of them were dismissive of a 'jumped up pegasus', especially when his contributions to the battle plan threw accepted tactics for griffon fighting out with last years hay.
Although I spent as much time as possible practicing manoeuvres with and providing griffon-fighting tips for our flyers, I felt it better to leave actual command to Horse, while I kept our intelligence going. I couldn't create illusion maps to represent my Sight the way Luna could, but I invented a map table where the units were represented by little carved figures, and moved them about as situations changed.
One captain, a red unicorn called Rust, who clearly thought himself a wit, and was at least half right, called the new formation 'mare-ines'. He suggested that the only use the female pegasi would be was afterward the battle, for relaxation. He was also the one making the nastiest comments about Horse. However, I 'just happened' to be in the command pavilion, updating the situation map, and took the opportunity to wink in just to the side and behind him, suppressing any flare.
When I asked him to please continue his illuminating observations on the fitness of my commander and troops, and how females weren't able to fight, with my mouth about two hooves from his ear, I swear he jumped a pony-length straight up. I then informed him that I took his comments as a direct insult to me, as I backed by commander's decisions to the brow, and demanded satisfaction.
He blustered that he wasn't going to fight a female, I offered him the alternative of facing my commander, so he could back up his invidious comments about Captain Horse with his horn. Once again he tried to evade by falling back on the fact that Captain Horse couldn't fight him, because he wasn't a noble, for all that he was my force's commander. So I made Horse take to his knees and knighted him on the spot. A Duchess can do that you know.
Rust quickly rusted after that, making a forced apology. He looked to be one of the old style 'fight from a command tent somewhere on the other side of a hill from the battle' commanders, occasionally waving a mouth-blade about in an impressive manner and trying not to injure himself in the process. He was _not_ up to doing anything more than taking a beating from some-pony as well trained and tough as Horse.
Then I let Horse lay it out for them but stood by to provide moral support. Our force would be detached ahead of them, apart from the surface to air ballista units who would be mixed in with the regular slingers. Maresia's forces were taking the gamble, and it was our ponies that would take it on the chin if our tactics didn't work.
By comparison, the regular forces were no worse off than if we hadn't attempted it at all. Any damage we could inflict on the griffons would mean an easier time for them. Then I let Horse get on with it, reminding the assembled captains that he spoke with my voice in these matters.
Came the day of the fight, we had a few extra bodies on the ground. With their families safe in Maresia, some of the goats had hitched a ride to come help. I fitted them with spare armour and long-spears and used them to thicken the defences around the ballista units. Once again, there was muttering, from some of the other units, but I made sure to visit my teams, as did Horse, and give any particularly loud mutterers a pointed look. Having a horn to look down helps with that.
The ambush itself went perfectly. The griffon forces followed our 'fleeing' scouts in, and then swooped away to collect rocks to drop on us. There must have been at least five hundred of them, armoured up and with wings war painted. They were following their flock chiefs, 'captains' who could command the obedience of a particular group. There were scouts on the main force's flanks the whole time, but they were looking down, just as we'd expected, not up at the partial overcast.
They returned, massing at the edge of the range for our slingers to come in for an attack run, and that's when the ballista units uncovered and threw their first salvo. They were caught completely unprepared, the bolts spread, but they twice the range of a pony thrown sling-stone. They sleeted through the formation with much of their original force, and took down dozens of griffons right there.
They did what any force would do, withdrew and scattered, most of them dropping their rocks, and that's when I flashed from the command tent where I'd been making last minute updates to the maps, and up above the cloud cover where our pegasus forces were waiting. I lead one formation, he led the other on the opposite side, and we dived through the cloud cover, echelon upon echelon of pegasi, hoof blades out.
I'd noticed in my own fights that griffon armour tended to be heaviest on the chest, with lighter, or sometimes no armour on their neck, saddle or withers. It makes sense as their aggressive attitude to combat means they spend most of their time going face to face with an enemy. But it also meant that our ambush could attack their lightly armoured spine and wing roots, rather than going head to head.
We sliced through the edges of the dispersed formation, cutting off about 50 griffons on each side from the main force and rained hoof blades upon them. Each pony only got single pass, but even with out force disparity, there were three ponies for every defender. We chopped them out of the air, almost before they realised there was a threat.
At the bottom our two forces merged below them, flying through each other in a manoeuvre we'd practiced endlessly. We were in an inferior tactical position, inviting them to dive on us the same way we had them, but I extended my power and Solar flared the entire formation back up above them. Our trailing flying ballista chariots had concentrated on hitting them in the rear, forcing them forward, and back into range of the main force ballistae, which had a volley in the air even as I flashed us away.
From there it stopped being about mass manoeuvres, and dissolved into a mass of small scale flying brawls, where individual squadrons and even elements had tactical control. However, they had all been briefed on what tactics to use, drawing griffons into range of ballista and slinger fire where they were out numbered, tag teaming where they weren't.
Horse and his command staff, a half dozen of the toughest pegasi we had acted as a roving fire brigade, hitting any spots where it looked like we were suffering, while I was moving around, hitting my… let's be honest and call it an execution list. Punishment implies the possibility of them learning something, and the only thing I wanted them to learn was whether their ancestors would accept them.
I hated it. While I've tangled with griffons many times, it's never gone to the death. What's more this wasn't brawling, this was assassination, killing them as quickly as possible, often without them even seeing me coming. But I did it, not so much for revenge on behalf of the beings they'd taken, but to make sure they would never do it again. I'm eternally grateful that I managed to get Luna to stay with her own force.
It sounds like we were having it all our own way, but pegasi bodies were falling out of the melee as well as griffons. We'd planned for that, pegasi that lost their wing-mates withdrew to holding sector MGG7, where they reformed around a flight of four sheaf ballistae that were acting as both reserve and covering the direct path of retreat.
Most often, they'd find another singleton and form a new element then dive right back in. How can I praise their courage and dedication more? Their first fight, most of them, some with only the week or so of training, but they kept on going back into that grindstone of a battle.
Fortunately, the High Captain the King had sent had at least something between his ears besides a horn, and started detaching spear-pony units to capture griffons that were grounded rather than dead, and bring in injured pegasi.
The griffons fought magnificently, but they fought as warriors, not soldiers, with no thought for group tactics or any pre-organised doctrine. They took two-thirds casualties and lost every flock chief before they started to surrender. When they did, it was a fairly rapid affair; they dived down and landed under pegasi guard. By that time I was finished with my list, and working the edges of the battle.
By any standards it was one of the most 'glorious victories' in recent history, and the most smashing defeat ponies had ever handed a griffon force. Indeed that was the idea, to not just defeat them, but crush them so thoroughly that for the next couple of generations any griffon who was there will break out in a cold sweat at the very thought of raiding Equestria.
Of course, I'd also hoped to engender the opposite reaction in our ponies. Griffons are something of a pooka to most ponies, with those campfire tales I talked about, and I hoped to show them that griffons could be fought and defeated with the right tactics.
The battle accomplished my goals, but I'm unable to take much joy from the fact. Of the two hundred and thirty two pegasi who went in, we lost fifty-seven, and another thirty-five were crippled. I did what I could for the injured ones from behind the scenes, extending the earth pony part of my magic out far enough to promote healing and turn permanently crippling injuries into ones that would heal. Some of the worst cases were evacuated by flying cart to healing halls at Canterlot and Ponyville.
It wasn't just pegasi, we lost at least two ballista teams. One dived on a group of griffon that still had their stones and was on an attack run on the ground forces. It ended up under the fight, with griffon salients diving in from two directions. Hawkeye, the earth pony in charge, realised they were doomed and cut the traces, allowing the pegasi to fly free and trusting to earth pony toughness and unicorn levitation magic for the on-board team to weather the fall.
It would have worked, but the chariot was intercepted before it could reach the ground. I arrived too late to stop them being swarmed, but I made sure none of those griffon returned to the main battle. I could list a dozen, nay, a hundred stories of courage like it, and it has had one effect. No-pony in future will use the term 'mare-ine' with anything but respect.
After all they'd endured, I didn't want to ask more of them, but our work wasn't done. The fight happened in the morning, so my brave pegasi had the whole day to rest, while I made a map of Griffindor with some very specific targets. Horse helped me plan the best route, and create detailed instructions. I think it helped him recover from the battle.
He fought like a champion, but he was just as devastated as I was at our losses, and feeling just as responsible. I hope I made him see that the overall strategy, and therefore the responsibility was mine, and it was his brilliant leadership and training that kept so may of our ponies alive.
But at dusk we split our pegasi into six teams, with each team spilt between flying carts and escorts. I called in Luna, citing her affinity for the night, and together we started winking the teams to the points on our map. They swept across Griffindor in a single night, and extracted every enslaved pony, sheep, goat, and even a few cows that had been kidnapped from the Taurun.
Our forces were concentrated, while the griffons were disorganised and of course their best fighters were grounded back at the battlefield, In most cases there wasn't even a fight, and in the few cases where there was one, it proved to be brief. Since Luna was overseeing the process, and passing her sights to me, we kept on winking the teams across the country, which meant they were even outrunning the few messengers that got sent from the first targets.
We had to stage the evacuees at the battlefield, the temporary housing in Maresia wouldn't have handled them as well, so the entire army got a good look at exactly what had been going on, and so did the griffons. The attitude the next morning was even less merciful towards the remaining griffons than it had been the day before.
I'd had a chance to wink away and go consult with the king, and suggest a course of action. I didn't want a massacre of the defeated griffons, and not just because it would mean further casualties of our own. Our heralds basically told them that they were under sentence of death for invading us, but that it wasn't being carried out at that time.
Instead they would be escorted to the official border and released, but if any of them were found violating our border again it would be instant death without trial. I added the fact that our rescue of all our own people, and the way we mouse trapped them demonstrated that we _would_ know if they tried anything like this again.
Luna still has her own battle to fight, but I'm confident she will be able to resolve things with far less bloodshed, and hopefully without casualties. I'm glad, because I don't want her to have to suffer the guilt a commanding officer feels for the troops, the people she couldn't protect.
For myself, I'm tired of warfare. It was fun to design cool toys and theories on how to win, entirely another thing to carry them out. I intend to do my best to see that we never have another major battle in my lifetime, and since I'm immortal, that's going to be a long time.
Authors Notes: Once again this has taken far too long, but it's a long post for this fic. It was also some hard subject matter to write about, at least convincingly, and the amount of cross-checking and revision required means the time required goes up exponentially with the length rather than linearly.
I've also got a LARP downtime to write, I'm gm-ing a D&D 3.5 campaign, and I'm trying to organise a character on Canterlot forums, so I've been a bit busy, and it's even spilled over into my lunches. So, sorry for the delay. Hopefully the next one will be much shorter and less fraught. Another chapter of Training Tails is almost ready, but is being hit by the same time constraints.