The Hero's Tale

Chapter Five: Miracle at Canterlot Temple

Rings was uncomfortable. The Hippogriff had been raised in the mountains, where "hot" was when you could take off your jacket without freezing. Baharra was a whole new kind of hot, a sinking, clinging roasting heat where every gust of wind felt like it came from a hair dryer. Since he got here, Rings found himself shedding handfuls of fur, his body trying to compensate for the heat. He was helping command some of Saturn's tens of thousands of soldiers, supervising them attacking the last resistance members. Rings wasn't a master tactician, but this army was very devout and basically self-commanding, they just turned to him with reports and minor decisions. Rings used a degree of his street smarts to help them defeat what was left of the stubborn militia. They'd suffered considerable, but acceptable losses taking Baharra, and if Amira wound up getting away this would have been for nothing. The shades had given him amazing strength and healing but done nothing to help his body acclimate to the stunning heat of thirst desert city.

"Did you manage to find Gregory?" Saturn said, passing through a door, from the open desert.

"No," Rings said with a sigh. "It seems he's left the city. Did you two manage to destroy Amira?"

Saturn scowled, "No, It seems we both have had setbacks."

"I have good new though," Arano said, "Sonambula is dead, one of our traitors stabbed him right in the neck."

Rings narrowed his eyes, "Are you sure?"

"He was in a pool of his own blood," Saturn said, confidently. "How goes the taking of the city?"

"If the last report is correct, we control everything," Rings said, "There are some random attacks from street gangs and the like,"

Saturn shrugged, "Well, that's good to know." She said, "But the Sultana escaped."

"There is only one place that train could go," Arano said, "To Canterlot, and our next target is there anyway. Perhaps we rally our troops, and head there next, kill two birds with one stone."

"That's not a bad Idea Arano," Rings said with raised eyebrows. "Canterlot is isolated, and if we destroyed the railroad and pot our army on the foot road they couldn't escape without flying all the way to ponyville."

"If she tried to fly out of Canterlot our own Pegasi would pluck her out of the air," Arano said.

"Yes, For better or worse we have them cornered." Saturn said, waving to a passing battalion of Black armored soldiers near her. "I'm going to open to Door to Canterlot, rally our troops and we'll March them into the streets of Canterlot before the enemy has an attempt to regroup,"

"Are the troops rested enough to fight another fight?" Arano asked.

"It douns't matter, we'll swarm into the streets by the thousands and rested or not Celestia only controls two or three hundred soldiers, we can end the world by tonight, if Rings can find Gregory."

"He'll run to Canterlot," Rings said, "I'm sure of it, he's trying to make sense of all this and the oldest documents in Equestria are in Canterlot, he could have flown there from the wedding easily."

"Well, that's where we must go." Saturn said, slipping a ring around her saber-like horn, "Captain! Prepare for attack!"

Two large formations lined up behind their tower shields, Ready to be the spearhead of the new attack. Rings liked these soldiers, so ready to die, believing that even if they fell in the battle to come they'd return as immortals in the next world. Fanatical, perfect soldiers that would fight and die tirelessly until the end. Rings honestly wasn't sure if the dead would make it to the new world, ultimately dying in battle was a failure, perhaps they'd be consumed with the rest of the world. Rings didn't feel the need to express this to the men however, let them have their happy fantasy.