Chapters
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Hayden woke to the sound of war. Cannons rumbled, ponies shouted and galloped through the halls. My city still stands.She rose from the cot, glancing over her shoulder. There were stitches in her leg, flesh ragged but clean. No infection yet.Hayden could see one of the doctors rushing over to her. Probably to demand that she go back to bed. Hayden ignored the shouts, and vanished past the guards. Her legs didn’t give out beneath her, and that would have to be enough. Icefalls depends on me.She stepped…-
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Hayden had once struggled to fly. When she was new to Equestria and still adjusting to the body Luna had imagined for her, she had tripped on her own hooves and tumbled from the air if she thought too much about her flight.Princess Luna did not have any of those weaknesses. The princess had the magic of all the tribes, and more experience than ponies got in their long lifetimes.Hayden borrowed all of that experience now, tearing through the air so fast it seemed like the world around her was stretched and…
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The destruction of Luna’s shield spell did no damage to the city.But now there were hundreds of ships, so close that even Hayden’s worst cannon crews couldn’t have missed them if they tried. Hayden watched as almost every shot scored a kill, watched as ship after ship tumbled to the ground outside the city. But some kept moving, crashing down onto the walls or tearing up houses right on the edge.Hayden winced with each crash, praying that none of her own men were down there to be crushed under the…
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Hayden stepped outside into a ruin of the griffon military unit. Corpses were spread around them in two rings—the first, facing inward, with weapons all nearby. The second facing away, without their weapons.The Blackwings killed the ones attacking, then they killed the ones running away.Princess Luna stopped beside her, staring at the dead. Then she looked to the side, where the Blackwings had gathered. Not all of them stood in ranks—there were still scouts watching the city, and a few remained in the…
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Morning dawned in flames.Hayden could see them from her tower—a dozen little fires, slowly spreading across Icefalls from every direction. She’d made many changes to the way the city was built—they wouldn’t burn down in a day, even without the fire-crews to put out the flames. But most pony structures were wood. It was only a matter of time before the entire city was ash.Hayden watched from behind her generals—listening as casualty reports continued to pour in. They estimated at least a hundred…
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Icefalls cannon crews were prepared for this moment. In a way, they couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity. The Grand Fleet’s attempt to use their sight against them would certainly work in Icefalls’s favor.Hayden saw the first explosions before she heard them. A brief flash of light, and a roar as closed containers of oil were ignited by their concussive shells. Weapons meant to ignite her city and burn its residents in their homes would now do the same to the ones who had planned on using…
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“It’s not true,” Princess Luna declared, for perhaps the hundredth time in five minutes. It was just the three of them in the Icefalls planning room, her and Hayden and Nightbreeze. Well, them and the guards waiting by the door.The charts were still here, the model updated to reflect recent changes. Only the secret drydock for the Excellus was missing. “They’re trying to trick us into letting them into the city before Celestia arrives. They want to fight us from behind our own…
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Hayden watched the Stonebeaks come. It was just one ship, as they had thought—but as they assembled before the city, an increasing number of vague outlines appeared there. They weren’t getting close to menace the city this time. Apparently there had been enough survivors of that first attack to guess what might happen to them if they got close enough for the canons.A shame. They might’ve been able to score several kills before the Stonebeaks got coordinated enough to attack. There would be no way to…
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As soon as Icefalls was in sight, they abandoned all pretense of letting the griffon scouts keep pace with them, accelerating as fast as the engines could go without overheating. Hayden watched the city approach below them, with its high walls and cannon emplacements exactly as she left them.There was no need to signal to the city below—there was only one Excellus, and no way the enemy could operate it without Hayden. Even so, she could see an escort of wary pegasi following them through the city, all…
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It didn’t take them long to see that their plan was working: they were being followed. Princess Luna took command, leaving Hayden little to do. Mostly she lingered on the bridge to operate the ship’s systems, which Luna understood but didn’t know how to control. Hayden occupied herself at one of the consoles, watching the Grand Fleet follow them through the rear cams.“I don’t understand how they can be so stupid,” she confided to Luna, after six hours had gone by. Traveling so slowly, it would…
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