“Contact.”
I froze, my training taking control of my body even before my mind had given the order. My eyes darted around the area directly ahead, scanning through the undergrowth of the forest. The heavy rain pounded my head and back, plastering my mane to my forehead and neck. My breathing slowed and my knees bent, bringing me into a crouched position low to the ground. My wings slowly unfurled and rose up to a half open stance above my back, ready to be brought down and launch me forward if needed. It was dark, the sun having set nearly an hour ago, not that much light made it through the dense canopy above anyway, yet somehow the rain did. Man, natural weather always creeped me out.
The large leaves deflecting the downpour were the only movement I could see. Blinking the rain from my eyes I glanced sideways and spotted my team crouching in the shadows nearby, the two ponies I had spent every day of the last six months with. The only giveaway of their location was the slight glint of their rain soaked armour in the pale moonlight.
The team leader, a unicorn mare with a sky blue coat and multi-hued grey mane and tail looked to me, only making eye contact for long enough to know I was paying attention. She flicked her head upwards, motioning to the trees above, then made a circular motion in the air with her hoof. That was my queue. I nodded and turned to the third member of our team, a maroon coloured earth pony stallion with a brown mane and tail, his hulking frame barely hidden behind a large fern. He gave me a quick nod before making a wide sweeping motion with his hoof then bringing it down to the ground with a soft splash.
Right, let’s do this. Taking another cautionary look around me I spread my wings to their full width and pushed off with all my strength, forcing my wings to my side and launching me into the air. I beat my wings as hard as I could, the flapping sound almost completely drowned out by the rain, and in seconds I was at the height of the treetops. I landed on the nearest branch and surveyed the ground below. From my new vantage point I could now see the enemy.
Enemy? Jeez, I’ll never understand how Equestria came to this. I shook the thought from my mind, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. The enemy, a trio of griffons, were headed my way along a barely discernible path through the undergrowth about a hundred meters away. How the hay did she see them from that far away anyway? Ugh, come on, focus!
I willed my thoughts back to the approaching targets. I needed to get behind them.
Jumping from branch to branch using my wings more for balance than propulsion, I circled the group, giving a particularly wide berth and dropped down to a lower branch so I was about half way up the tree.
The sound of a stick snapping brought the griffon patrol to attention, and I readied myself for the inevitable attack. Reaching down to the dagger strapped to my armoured chest plate, I took the hilt of the blade in my mouth and brought my wings up to flight position. It tasted foul, but then so would you if you‘d spent a week strapped to the chest of a sweaty pegasus who had been deprived of even the most basic of luxuries, like a bath. The fact that the rain was almost uncomfortably warm didn’t help either.
The lion-eagle hybrids were absolutely motionless, save for the tips of their tails flicking side to side. The griffon at the front of the line reached behind him and unsheathed a long, metallic object that was affixed to his back. It looked like a pipe with a wooden handle at one end, and the opposite end flared out into a funnel shape. I gulped. We’d been briefed on these contraptions before but this was the first time I’d ever actually seen one.
They had a name, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Back at the academy we just called them blasters, because that’s what they did, just… bang, and whatever was in front of them got blasted away. The other griffons followed suit and soon were standing in a rough circle facing outwards, weapons at the ready. That was bad news, the only weapons we still had were our daggers. We had lost everything else several days ago in a surprise attack, barely making it out of camp with our lives and had spent the past week trying to fight our way back to Canterlot. This would need to be handled delicately.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only ten minutes, the rain had intensified to the point where it stung as it hit my muzzle and was almost deafening to listen to. The griffons holstered their firearms and began to move off, either satisfied that they were alone or just as sick of the damn rain as I was.
Alright, it’s go time. Just like we practiced.
During the agonisingly slow wait, I had located the other members of my team. The stallion was just up ahead behind the log of a fallen tree, and the mare was on the opposite side of a massive tree not even five meters from the targets. As soon as the griffons had passed her a light glow illuminated her horn, the same colour light appearing around the griffon’s neck. She lunged forwards wrapping her hooves around the creature’s neck and face, muffling his cries for help, and dragged him off the path back behind the tree. It happened so quickly, the only evidence that anything happened at all was the distinct lack of one griffon.
Go! I jumped off my branch, my knees sore from being still for so long, and flew directly above the remaining pair. With my training taking over, I tucked my wings in and dropped straight down. They noticed the casualty and instantly brought their weapons to the ready, but not quickly enough. Subtlety forgotten, the massive earth pony appeared with alarming speed for his size, and tackled the leading griffon, slamming him up against a tree and causing him to drop his blaster. Without leaving him time to react, I dropped onto the third griffon, both hooves striking his head and sending us sprawling to the ground. The dagger fell from my mouth and I tasted mud. A loud splashing noise accompanied by the pained screech of the griffon sounded through the rain.
Pain lanced up my front left leg and I almost cried out as I put my weight on it, causing me to stumble a bit. Damn it, I didn’t do that very well!
Having recovered from his fall, the griffon stood back up and aimed his blaster straight at me. I jumped sideways, flapping my wings to give me a boost. A split second later, fire and metal shot through the air I had just vacated, followed by a deafening crack of thunder that echoed through the trees. The ferns and bushes behind me splintered and flew apart like dandelions in the wind, and the heat of the blast singed the tip of my tail. Too close!
He pulled at a bolt on the side of his blaster, causing a golden coloured cylinder to fall to the ground. That was my chance, the main weakness of these weapons was that they needed to be reloaded after each shot. As he struggled to load another gold cartridge into the barrel, I lunged towards him.
Punching with all my strength, I heard the bone in his cheek break. Adrenaline was surging through me, the pain in my hoof forgotten, my mind went blank and focused on only one thing, kill or be killed. I laid into him, punching repeatedly until he got his back legs between us and kicked me off. I landed on my back with a heavy thud, knocking the wind out of me. Before I knew what had happened he was on top of me, talons around my throat, their vice-grip choking the life out of me. I tried to scream but my breath had left me.
I flailed my hooves in an attempt to knock him back, but I was getting weaker, my eyelids were getting heavy. He leaned closer, the skin on his cheek broken with blood seeping through the feathers and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He grinned down at me, his beak almost touching my muzzle. Stars swirled in my vision and darkness was creeping in from all around me. My lungs burned, I clenched my teeth as I struggled to breath, but to no avail. I glanced around desperately, much to my relief I saw the blade I had dropped earlier. I stretched my wing to try and draw the knife closer, my weakened muscles fumbling with the hilt before I got a solid grip on it.
In one fluid motion I brought my wing closed, grabbed the dagger, and sank it up to the handle into his neck. The pressure around my throat immediately disappeared and I heaved in a breath of air, only to have it forced from me again when the lifeless form collapsed on top of me.
Way too close! Oh well, anything you walk away from… I rolled the corpse off of me and got shakily on my hooves. The pain in my left foreleg had faded from near-agony to a throbbing ache and it was already showing a purple bruise underneath my pale fur. I lifted the leg and tested my ankle rotation, wincing as the pain came back tenfold.
That’s gonna suck. I grumbled to myself. My heart was pounding in my chest, the rhythmic beats were deafeningly loud. I tried to call out to my team, but all that escaped my throat was a gravelly cough. I tasted blood, and my head felt like it was about to burst. Looking around I noticed that the rain had eased off to a light drizzle. I was alone. The others were nowhere to be seen, and there were no other bodies nearby either.
I brought a hoof to my neck and gingerly rubbed it, wishing the pain would go away.
Oh sweet Celestia, the pain! As if all at once, the fatigue of a week without sleep, coupled with every single muscle in my body burning like it was on fire, came crashing down on me. I felt like I could die from the exhaustion. I breathed deeply, willing my heart rate to slow down enough for me to think.
An eternity later, after much wincing and gritting my teeth, I shakily started making my way back in the direction I had come from. A hollow laugh escaped my mouth.
“What’re you laughing at?” a deep voice called out from behind me. I turned to see the two other members of my team trotting towards me.
“How pathetic was that?” I replied shaking my head, “That should have been quick and clean, not a punching match in the mud.” I looked towards the crumpled body next to me. Blood was slowly forming a puddle beneath it. I couldn’t help but feel sick at the sight, the only thing keeping me from vomiting was the fact I hadn’t eaten in two days.
“Well, there wasn’t much we could do once they noticed their patrol was one short, especially since they had blasters. I had to make a call.” He sounded irritated, he always did though so I let it go.
“Yeah I know, but that was too close for comfort. I nearly died back there.” Saying that out loud, the realisation hit me like a slap to the face.
If I hadn’t managed to reach my blade… A shiver ran up my spine causing the feathers in my wings to ruffle and to stand on end. I shook my head, I wasn’t going to think about what could have happened, all that mattered was that I was alive.
“We should get out of here,” The pale blue unicorn said, “no doubt somepony heard those blasters, even over this rain. With any luck we should be in Canterlot by sunrise.”
Her eyes darted around the forest before settling back on me. “They weren’t the normal griffons we’re used to, they seemed… faster or stronger or something. I dunno, but they weren’t normal.”
I simply nodded, my throat was still sore and I didn’t feel like talking anyway. The rain had finally relented as we started down the path that the griffons had been following. I didn’t ask my team where they had gone while I was fighting for my life, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want anything to do with this whole damned war, I never did from the start. Joining the Royal Guard Academy was supposed to be a job to get me off the couch and get some nice references on my resume. I mean who would have thought that the year I chose to join, Equestria breaks into war with the neighboring kingdoms. But I guess life has a habbit of not turning out how you planned. And I had a feeling it wasn’t going to get much better any time soon.