>>132887"Mhmm" He nods. "Back in the summer of 732. May 6th. A new Firelord was crowned in down in the dragon lands. 'Quarrier' he was called, or at least that is the name survivors understood."
He moves his hoof around, over the ground. If he were over a fire, one could imagine that he were manipulating magic, to make the image appear in the flames. No such flames nor magic exists, but he moves his hooves all the same, as if to conjure forth his story into pictures.
"Now, skirmishes against dragons had gone on for centuries or longer, in the forests and swamps further south. The dragons could always be chased back to their caves and mountain tops. But 'the Quarrier'... he had it in mind to launch a crusade against ponykind. An organized horde, striking far into Pony lands. And that is what he did. They went to the Badlands first. Gathered up their forces. Then they flew out into the forests, burning cottages, villages, farm houses. In the swamps, in the grass lands above..."
He shakes his head
"Not many ponies got away. Of course those settlers always knew they were on lands disputed with the dragons. But this... They didn't stop there. They came to the fortress monestary of Saint George outside Hayseed. That was contingent of well trained dragon slayers. Well equipped, and experienced too. But they didn't have the forces to hold it... The dragons surrounded it, and left some of their forces behind. They kept on, down the river, scorching anything in their path. They were headed straight towards Baltimare. The main contingent of the Royal Guard was aware of the threat. They went to meet the horde south of the city... They didn't know what they were getting into. But it gave the town time to go on high alert. To seek shelter, or start to. There were three forts at that time. Fort Flash Magnus, as it was called back then, was the only true fortress. Built to withstand repeated bombardment from naval cannons. What remained of the garrison took up there. Flash Prance had been just a Sargent in the garrison before then, the second in command. But the lieutenant colonel was killed in battle. So Flash Prance took command.
Fort Hoebuck, inside the town... it wasn't really built to withstand a siege. More like a customs house with strong stone walls to protect a garrison there in the event of a rebellion, than a proper fort built to withstand bombardment from the sea. Half of its structure was wood at the time. So when a hundred towns ponies and part of the garrison held up there, it didn't go well... The wooden customs house was burned down quickly. The stone walls were never pierced, but the ceiling over the courtyard was normally open, and was only hastily covered up.... that, the dragons burned through. Fort Prance... or Fort Magnus, was built on a sandbar alluvial deposit at the end of the river, surrounded by water on three sides. Every side has strong stone walls. And attacking from above was more risky because of how many cannons could be turned on the walls. So for three full weeks, Flash Prance, his garrison, and ponies from the town holed up in this fortress. In this building, in the walls, and below. Flash Prance himself took flight to fight the dragons with shield and halberd, and he directed cannons more than once, battering the dragons back, and returning slash with slash, fire with fire. At the end of second week, the flow of fresh water in the river started to lessen, and brine seeped into what water they could scrounge. Flash Prance did not worry, and instead undertook to evacuate the civilians in the storage rooms under the fort late at night, risking himself for a diversion, while civilians were taken across in rafts across the river at midnight, and later taken to the smaller Fort Keriskai at the mouth of the harbor. With fewer ponies, the water held out longer, and so Flash Prance held out longer."
He looks down, and sighs
"But it could not last. As the Dragons did with the fortress monastery of Saint George, so too did they come to realize they could do with Fort Magnus. The Quarrier would leave some of his forces at Fort Magnus, at the mouth of the Delemare, and send the reminder to attack the last pony holdouts on the peninsula and at Fort Keriskai. As the dragons came in, the ponies went east to water. Fort Magnus, and to lesser extent, even Hoebuck, slowed down and distracted the dragons long enough to let the ponies escape to the water. And so that is where they waited. Waiting for the Equestrian Navy to arrive with reinforcements from the North. Quarrier knew this, and was intent on wiping out the remaining ponies in Horseshoe Bay before rescue came.
But Flash Prance knew this too. When Quarrier left his rearguard, Flash Prance did something that would have made no sense to the dragon lord. The weak left his walls to challenge the strong. Flash Prance lead most of his garrison in a head-long attack against the dragon forces, attacking them, and forcing the Dragon Lord to focus all of his forces to stop him. Witnesses on the walls of Fort Keriskai could see the fires over the mud flats, and could hear the howls crying late into the night.
When the horde finally came to Fort Kerinskai after no short delay, the townsponies had long since secreted themselves away, and the fort held, for what attacked it was but a shadow of that dark cloud that fell upon Baltimare three weeks before. Only a few days passed before the frigates of the royal navy and the Wonderbolts vanguard came and dispersed what was left, giving chase to the remainder. They found Fort Magnus blackened and charred stone melted, but surrounded by dead dragons. And when they opened the doors to the inner most storage rooms, they found thirteen ponies, mostly servants, the craftsponies and the surgeon, but a couple members of the guard as well, still shaking, and still alive in the twenty-seventh day after the siege began. All could recount how Flash Prance had saved all of their lives that night, rushing into the fire..."