Blood and Thunder Prologue: Hoofbeats

Blood and Thunder

Prologue: Hoofbeats

 

        One morning in mid-August, in the cool hours before dawn, the settler ponies of the small frontier town of Appaloosa slumbered anxiously, dark rumors haunting their dreams. An invasion was coming. In distant Canterlot, for reasons unknown to the inhabitants of Appaloosa, the leader of Equestria had declared war on her sister. Appaloosa was a simple agrarian village, with little actual ties to the elite of Canterlot back east that gave them a foundation grant several generations ago, and then threw them to the wolves, figuratively, and sometimes literally, speaking. These simple folk had it hard enough tending to their orchards, fending off raids from wild Buffalo tribes and the occasional assaults from Feral Griffons. Now, on top of all of this, they ran the risk of getting swept up in a Civil War they knew next to nothing about between a nation that had all but abandoned them and some tenebrous entity calling itself “The New Lunar Republic”, not knowing which side, if any, would be sympathetic to their plight.

 

        The town may only have had a small number of Pegasi residents, but they jumped at the chance to do aerial scouting missions to provide the town with some semblance of an early warning system. Scouts had brought word to Sherriff Silverstar that a huge mass of bodies was gathering near the base of the nearby mountains. They estimated that the army of the so-called “New Lunar Republic” was only a few days away, marching steadily westward, and the townspeople were deeply fearful.

 

        Farmers from Appaloosa frequently rode out on the plains in search of grazing lands for their sheep herds and suitable lands for expanding their orchards. More often than not, these projects were overseen by Braeburn Apple of the famous Apple family farmers. From a young age, Braeburn had experience dealing with the Buffalo tribes. Braeburn quickly picked up an important practical truth about frontier life—that there was no such thing as “the Buffalo,” that tribes could be substantially and sometimes violently different from one another, and that each group must be dealt with separately, on its own terms. Thankfully, there seemed to be a bit more groups that was willing to do trade with them as there were fierce warrior tribes that raided the settler’s livestock.  The Appaloosans did their best to keep on friendly terms with the Buffalo, but they were no fools, and actively recruited volunteers to their militia, led by Sherriff Silverstar and Braeburn (as an unofficial tribal ambassador).

 

 

        Appaloosa was a hodgepodge of adobe houses and thatch roof cottages, set among rustling cornfields and apple orchards irrigated by a muddy acequia that seeped from the Gallinas River. The town lay at the feet of the Sangre de Sol- The Blood of the Sun Mountains- the magnificent southernmost peaks of the Drackenridge mountain line, which rose more than 12,000 feet over the prickly plain. Set on the eastern periphery of the wild and dangerous Buffalo lands, the village was a spore-speck of civilization. Appaloosa was a minimum five-day ride from the nearest thing resembling another Equestrian city in the territory, Mareheim. Its only tie to the larger world was the Blue Bead Trail, which passed along the outskirts of town- the same road the Republic army would surely be marching in on.

 

        To the east, the prairie seemed to stretch out forever, to the Staked Plains of Cowpenhagen and the realm of the civilized (if you could call them that) Griffon kingdom to the north, and eventually, if one kept on going, to the land of Equestria, where a diabolic Civil War seemed to be brewing.

August was always a pleasant month in this part of the Wild Lands. The nights were cool, the mornings golden. Days were hot and dry, the sleepy afternoons frequently doused by thunderstorms that rumbled in from the west. Gardens swelled with vegetables. Flocks grew fat on the grass that greened in the foothills from the new moisture of the monsoonal rains. The people of the Western lands, especially in rural outposts like Appaloosa, led a defensive, medieval sort of existence, clinging to old religious folkways.

 

        They labored in the safety of their coyote fences and mud walls, raising apples and corn, beans and squash, and tending sheep as their forebears had in the shadows of the ancient mountains. It was a simple life, a life full of the wild, untamed beauty of nature. By all outward appearances, things seemed as they always did in this favored season, and yet Braeburn knew deep in his heart that when the Republic arrived, their world would change utterly. It may have been a hard life, but it was this sort of natural life, this natural beauty, which Braeburn vowed to protect with all of his might. “The worst part of it all is the danged uncertainty.” he said to Silverstar. “I got family all over Equestria. We keep in touch every now and again, but if this war business is as serious as it sounds, who knows when I’ll get to hear word of their safety? T’aint fair.” Though Braeburn said no word of it, Silverstar knew that he was thinking of Applejack, and the rest of the Apple family back in Ponyville. With such a close proximity to Canterlot, Ponyville was in the thick of a potential political upheaval. Silverstar thought best not to mention it, and left Braeburn with a simple pat on the shoulder.  Surveying the landscape with a stern eye, auburn mane lifting in the slight wind, Braeburn went home that night with a grave feeling weighing down on his heart.

       

        The settlers had heard from their priests rumors of all sorts of atrocities, that the New Lunar Republic would outlaw worshiping Celestia, that the soldiers would rape the women in the village and burn the letters "NLR" on their cheeks with branding irons. The villagers even debated among themselves the merits of torching their own church to Celestia to prevent the Republic from using it as a supply depot or a barracks. With such talk going around town, sleep came heavy that night, if indeed it came at all.

 

        Early on the morning of August 12th the fitful quiet of Appaloosa was punctured by the sound of hoofbeats. By the time the villagers heard the sound and discerned its menace, it was already too late: The invaders had cut across their fields and penetrated the town margins. To the people's surprise, however, these weren't the anticipated Equestrian invaders. This was an attack just as dreadful, but much more familiar: Griffons.

 

        The raiders came boiling out of the mountains, painted for battle. At the last moment they let out a blood-chilling war-whoop that sounded to the villagers like the call of death itself. To everyone’s surprise, the Griffons were eschewing aerial assaults, and instead many of them were mounted on foul beasts rarely seen this far west, the grey-skinned Hounds of Avarice, Diamond Dogs. The feral warriors rode bareback or on saddles made of sheepskin, and guided their mounts with reins of braided horsehair, probably taken from pony prisoners, the settlers feared. They wielded clubs and carried shields made of buckskin layers taken from a deer's hip, where the hide is thickest. Their steel-tipped arrow-heads were daubed with rattlesnake blood and prickly pear pulp mixed with powerful Poison Joke extract. A select few of them, most likely Chiefs, even wore strange, tight-fitting helmets made from the skinned heads of what appeared to be Manticores.

 

“Everypony, arm yourselves! Take positions, just like we rehearsed!” shouted Braeburn at the top of his lungs as the militia scattered to action. Under his breath, he muttered “Damn it all, where in Tarnation is Silverstar?”

 

        As if to answer his quiet question, the crack of a musket firing split the air around them, and the foremost Griffon charger fell to the ground. Looking toward the source of the sound, the nearby Appaloosa clock tower, Braeburn caught sight of a familiar mustache. But Silverstar wasn’t alone up there. Several scores of arrows streaked across the sky, scattering some of the Griffons. “Silverstar, you sly stallion.” He smiled. {Added Alliterative Appeal}

 

        Before anypony else could take up a musket or bow in defense however, the first of the Griffons had reached the animal paddocks that lined the outer corner of the small town. In mere moments, they had driven off sheep and goats by the hundreds, stolen apples by the caseload, and killed one adolescent shepherd while kidnapping another. Then, as their thundering hoofbeats beat closer to the center of the town, a brilliant, blinding flash of white light broke across the sky with a deafening crack like that of a Howitzer launch. As the light dimmed, the huddled mares and foals in the town square were greeted with an eerie emptiness. No raiding war-party was in sight, the reavers seemingly vanished without a trace. In the faint glow still remaining, the settlers caught sight of a figure lying sprawled on the ground, completely motionless. The creature appeared to be male, and had an odd, apelike shape about him; he was quite plainly a creature never before seen by any of the settlers.

As a growing crowd anxiously gathered around the…thing, Braeburn gulped and approached the slightly stirring figure. “Ugh…where am I? What’s…wh-what are you?” the thing stammered upon catching sight of Braeburn.

“Kid, I could ask you the same question.” He said with a crooked smile.