Chapter 13: The Battle of Ponyville
Any bard worth his salt would have taken one look at the herd of soldiers and Shetlanders milling and snorting impatiently in the Ponyville Town Hall, then started singing:
Oh, the donnybrook was brewing as they eyed each other off
And the tension only mounted when Snakey won the toss…
It would have been even odds if a rendition of The Featherbrain Championship would have relaxed everypony or set off a brawl.
The leading contenders for Most Likely to Re-Enact the Front-Bar Featherbrain Non-Title Fight were Rianblade and Mucmarfóir, who were exchanging looks; Rianblade ones of distrust, and Mucmarfóir ones of irritation.
"For buck's sake," the brown warrior grumbled, "Ah'm nay going t' have another go at t' Laird or anythin'."
"Says thee," Rianblade muttered back. It was bad enough that the madpony had hung around Ponyville – Da should've just sent him away home straight off – preferably in a coffin, in his opinion.
Actually, Rianblade had revised it after learning the swine had got his sister drunk and covered her: Mucmarfóir the Mad should've been sent awa' hame in a bucket.
It was a sentiment that was shared by some of the other Shetlanders, who were restively blowing and shuffling, while shooting looks at the pair. It was about now that two figures strode onto the stage, discussing something quietly.
Captain Stormblade and Laird Roanald apparently came to some agreement, nodded at each other, then moved to the front of the stage.
"Atten-SHUN!" somepony bellowed, and the assembled Royal and Lunar Guard snapped to attention.
"Wha' he said ye daft neddies," Roanald addressed to his fellow ponies in a sharp tone, "Now pay attention to Captain Stormblade."
"What he said," Stormblade added dryly. Some amusement was heard, but everypony's eyes and ears remained on the Captain.
"A few minutes ago we got first sight of the enemy," Stormblade began, "Scouts estimate at least sixty Muc, or Shetland boars, gathering at the edge of the Everfree Forest outside of town. There may be more but we cannot be certain.
"As well, be warned that their leader may be possessed by…" he took a breath, "by one of Them From Outside." He let this news sink in, then continued, "As such, all battlecorns are to locate and focus on dispatching the filthy thing as soon as possible."
"What happens if we can't?" asked a voice, less out of fear than clinical interest.
"We have a fallback plan in place, may the Princesses grant we do not need it. Pegasi, you'll be assigned by squads to ground support –"
Several of the Shetland pegasi shuffled their wings and grinned evilly. Muc, like all pigs, cannot fly, regardless of need or encouragement.
"– observation, or evac to the medicorns or the Ponyville Clinic. All earth ponies, you'll have the nice simple job –"
"Kill them all." Mucmarfóir couldn't have kept his silence if he tried. The three words came out in a flat, iron tone.
"What he said," Stormblade listened to a nervous titter stop dead. "These, ah, Muc, are not going to be open to surrendering. They will continue to fight to the death, and they don't care if they're killing soldiers or civilians. They've already murdered a family outside Sweetwater – ladies, please!"
The assorted cursing and cries for vengeance died down – eventually. While the stallions tended to do most of the heavy lifting in defending Equestria, mares aren't averse to fighting. Just ask Heatherhoof an Stonloch, one of the most famous warrior Lairds in Shetland history.
"Well, that's not going to happen here!" There was a round of cheering. "Everypony will be told off to three battle groups, which we'll draw abreast. The outer ones will funnel the Muc towards the inner group, who'll be making barricades from their corpses, got that?"
The laughter of assent that followed was chilling.
"Ah, jus' one wee thing," Roanald spoke up, "Yon Mucmarfóir's tae be in the centre group. For after all t' excitement when he arrived, Ze… Ze…"
"Zecora," somepony supplied.
"Thankee," Roanald went on, "Zecora mentioned that yon snouties kept repeatin' a name, an' it sounded like 'Grault'."
Rianblade watched as Mucmarfóir went very still. Grault, he mouthed silently, eyes hardening.
Roanald was also eyeing the wild brown warrior. "Aye," he said quietly, "for all know that yon Mucmarfóir an' Grault have some bad blood between 'em. Sorry lad, but thee's bait."
"Sounds fine by me," Mucmarfóir shrugged, shuffling his hooves.
They filed out into the night, Lunar Guard scouts occasionally flitting out of the starry sky to direct the three columns as they wended their way through Ponyville from the Town Hall to the outskirts closest to where Grault and his herd lurked.
The centre battle group had the shortest route, and the citizens of Ponyville who peered out of their windows to look at them quickly retreated. The grim expressions on the guardsponies made a counterpoint to the now wilder-looking Shetlanders, daubed as they were in electric blue woad that seemed to glow slightly. All, however, were armed.
Hooves were shod in steel affairs like crampons, adorned with spikes and blades to crush, stab or rip flesh. Mouths held the handles of Equestrian swords; curved blades that could pierce to the heart, or slice along a belly or throat, jutting either side like tusks.
And that was just the earth ponies. The battlecorns of the Royal and Lunar Guard knew all sorts of magical ways to 'neutralise' the foe. However, given the horn was their weak point, most preferred to hang back until the enemy was properly softened up. And the average military pegasus knows some clever aerobatics – and a blow from a wing large and strong enough to propel eighty-odd kilograms of equine through the air is generally best avoided.
Mucmarfóir and Rianblade led the way. The woad clashed horribly with his brown coat, but nopony cared. They would be the vanguard; they would draw out the snouties. Grault, for one, would want his brown nemesis dead.
The unicorns had gathered a strategic distance away from where the ground troops were massing under the half-moon and stars, Harmony Incarnate among them.
"What…" Twilight Sparkle swallowed and absently adjusted the tiara of the Element of Magic before she could continue with a tongue dry with tension. "What happens now?"
"Och, there'll be a wee bit o' baitin'," Laird Roanald responded in a matter-of-fact tone.
As if on cue a loud shout went up. They couldn't make out any words, but the challenging tone was clear enough.
"I dinna' like the way yon snouties are just millin' there," the Laird pointed with a forehoof. "Either they're too afraid o' Grault, or there's a shaman wi' em."
"Shaman?" Twilight asked nervously.
"Some o' t' Muc can do crude magic," the Laird replied, "an' they're usually the ones who lead their doin's at 't stones. Then again, there's nay standin' stones here, so they won't be much o' a threat… Nay, 'tis Grault they're afraid o' crossin'." He nodded for emphasis.
Now a strapping young Shetland colt reared up, grabbing the bottom of his kilt and lifting it. Twilight and her friends gasped, then burst into giggles of shocked embarrassment. The colt had let down, and was waggling it about while jeering obscenely at the still hidden enemy.
Now several angry squeals were heard, and movement seen beneath the shadows of the Everfree. They might not have spoken a civilised language, but the Muc knew a taunt when they heard one.
Now hooves started stamping. The tempo was slow, the strike hard and challenging.
"Come out, little piggies…"
The call started as a soft wheedling, then rose in volume over the maddening drum of dozens of ponies stamping a challenge.
"Come out and playyy…"
More angry pig sounds were heard. Now shapes could be seen. Somewhere behind them, something rumbled ominously.
"COME OUT, LIL' PIGGIES!" Even the guardsponies were getting caught up in the taunting. Calls of "Soo-eee!" and "Here pigpigpig!" were thrown in as well.
"COME OUT AND PLA–AYYY!"
The Muc broke. With shrieks of rage, roughly three dozen boar burst from the trees and barrelled towards the waiting troops. Above them, one of the Lunar Guard made a speck of light drift out of the sky, growing in brightness until the flare lit the scene in an evil red.
Howls of bloodlust rose from within the Shetland herd. "What's going on?" Twilight asked as half a dozen screaming ponies barged through the ranks to engage the Muc.
"Boarserkers," the Laird replied unhelpfully, "even yon Mucmarfóir's scared o' them."
Mucmarfóir bellowed then, followed by Rianblade. The woad on their bodies actually flickered, then began to glow with a blue tint matching that in their eyes. Then everypony charged.
What followed next appalled the gentler ponies. From the writing mass of bodies, screams of rage and pain arose, along with other wet sounds that would provide their nightmares with a soundtrack for months to come, despite Luna's best efforts.
A boar's head snapped back, held on solely by a few tendons and hide.
A pony, blood oozing around the sword in her mouth, repeatedly stabbed the face of the boar whose tusk was buried in her ribcage, snarling all the while.
A rock, aglow with magic, smashed a porcine head down its windpipe.
A pony, shrieking with insane rage, tore into Muc with iron hooves and teeth, caught in a boarserker rage.
The rest of the Muc broke to engage – and now the other two columns emerged. The boars were efficiently herded into a trap.
A pegasus dived, pulled up a screaming pony. One of the Muc refused to let go of the intestines spilling from his torn open belly.
Another pegasus released their cargo. The Muc screamed all the way down until it simply burst on impact.
Magical fire wrapped around a particularly large tusker's face. Its eyes ran down its cheeks as it screamed.
Another boarserker gouged its victim with all four hooves, teeth worrying its throat, ignoring the mortal wounds it had received before vanishing beneath several more of the feral pigs.
From within the Everfree Forest, something bellowed in rage, a clotted drowning sound. Now something loomed, a hulking parody of a boar.
"Grault!" Mucmarfóir broke off his dance engagement with a persistent boar about the same time he broke its spine. "Ah know ye're there, ye cowardly fluffy gobshite! Quit yer hidin' an' face me like a stallion!"
Another enraged bellow, wet and tearing, then the shape emerged into the red lights.
"Oh buck," Twilight gasped, causing her friends to gape at her in shock. Twilight Sparkle never swore. Then they saw why.
The Muc war-chief's red, mad eyes rolled in their sockets – in different directions. His head lolled about like an afterthought on a body that was still nominally that of a wild pig. But pigs tend not to be so… stretched… or asymmetrical… or generally resemble a sausage skin full of maggots.
The occasional extrusion of additional legs through the scabby crust that made up Its belly made Twilight's hopes sink to meet her rising gorge.
"It's almost hatched," the lavender unicorn groaned, "We have to kill It now!"
Fluttershy just whined from where she was curled in a quivering heap.
The battlecorns looked at Magic Incarnate, then eyed the misshapen monster, globes of magical fire forming at their horn-tips.
"Wait…" Twilight remembered. "Wait! No! That'll…"
The spell barrage was already on its way, the first rounds slamming into the horror.
"…just feed It," Twilight groaned.
True to her word, the energies splashed against the thing – and were absorbed into It. The abomination seemed to shrink slightly, then finally It shrugged off the remnants of Grault like an ill-fitting shirt.
Mucmarfóir, already charging to engage the brute, scrabbled desperately to stop. He ended up skidding on his rump a good ten feet, gaping stupefied at It, unaware of a strip of Grault's flesh landing on his nose like a gory moustache.
"Ladies!" Twilight wasn't as stunned. "C'mon! It's time!" she added in a determined voice.
May the Princesses have mercy on us all, she added silently.
Yep, there's a Kevin Bloody Wilson reference and one for The Warriors movie in here. Such is life, as Ned Kelly said. Then they hanged him.