-Winter-
I was being hunted.
My left wing crashed against the topmost branch of a tree, knocking it's green leafyness down and me along with it. I landed with a wet thud in the rain-soaked mud and slid through it like it was some sort of thick melting ice cream. The sludge immediately layered its icky self between the folds in my feathers and the smell was nothing like ice cream. One of winter's few remaining small and sludgy snowbanks suddenly ended my slide and my food-related thought. My stomach grumbled loudly at the dwindling image of the frozen dessert, which was probably the most random thing I could think about when I was about to die. I glanced up to see the outline of a figure quickly slashing it's way through the curtains of rain towards me. The outline of my pursuer. Looking to my left, I could make out what appeared to be a thick length of trees a couple of hundred feet away. If I could make it to them, they could provide me some cover at the most, and would slow the pegasus by making her land at the very least.
With my head spinning and my left wing protesting in pain I stood up and attempted to run toward the treeline. All I was able to pull off was an odd looking, one-sided shuffle, which most definitely made me look like some sort of drunken beggar to the pegasus. With the quickest glance back I could already make out the color of her coat and mane. I looked forward to see that the trees appeared no closer than before.
Well... Crap.
As quickly as I could, I turned around and faced the pegasus charging me head on. I could tell by her gold-embroidered armor that she was one of the elite soldiers of the Equestrian Aerial Squad. Her kinds' normally blood soaked armor gleamed from the downpour's violent washing. I drew my two silver daggers strapped across my chest and attempted to flair my wings in a last stand of ferocity, but stumbled instead as my left hind leg gave out and my left wing crumpled in agony. I let out a yelp of pain before quickly clamping my beak shut and my wings gently across the sides of my body. I realized that this wouldn't even be a fight, much less a fair one.
The pegasus was only a few dozen yards away, and her long pointy glaive was fast approaching the center of my soon-to-be disembodied heart. I lowered my head, raised my blades, and saw a large dark blur tackle the pegasus out of the sky and into the cold muddy earth below. A scream gargled out of the pegasus's throat before being quickly cut off by a silent swish of a golden short sword. My savior paused for a moment, let out a brief sigh, and sheathed his weapon. He turned to me and with a flap of his powerful wings landed a few feet from me.
"Yo, hombre, how are you holding up? Did that little devil get you?"
I let out a pained laugh and attempted to stand of all four of my legs. My left leg felt wobbly so I turned to see it bending at an odd angle. A wave of darkness washed over me, and I decided to sit down to have something to keep me from floating away. "Yeah, and I'm perfectly fine, Darius." I replied to the gryphon in a serious yet slightly sarcastic tone.
"What is it this time, another bruised rib? You know that..." He cocked his head curiously before warily eyeing my injured hind leg. His tone became more serious "Are you alright? What is it?"
"It's... " I looked to the west and listened for the sounds of battle. I heard none, so we must have won for us both to still be alive. "I should be fine as long as the battle is over and no more Equestrian soldiers come this way. I know I won't be able to fly outta here, but I may be able to suffer through walking if I had some sort of splint."
"Yeah, we whipped their butts into Tartarus today! At this rate, the war should be over in only a couple of months." Darius looked towards the treeline that I had failed to reach. The excitement in his voice faded away. "I'll be right back with a splint," he said softly. Then he was gone, his pure black coat dissipating with a flash of gold into the rain-soaked black of night. I sighed and clenched my teeth against the pain and waited.
.-*<><*><>.-*
The midday sunlight was shining down brightly through the thin branches of the trees above. I looked up at the grey boughs and wondered at the few remaining leaves that still clung tightly to the tree. A sudden cold wind ruffled my feathers and sent a small shiver down the length of my spine, and I watched as the black and shriveled leaves blew violently through the air and out of my sight. I stopped and shrugged my saddlebags further up onto my back, hoping in a vain attempt that they would give my shoulders some extra warmth. With each new week the weather just gets colder and colder. I thought sadly. This year's winter was already frigid compared to the warm wet one of last, and it was starting to worry my homeless self. The thick layer of snow that blanketed the ground crackled under my hindpaws as I continued on my way.
The trees slowly dwindled in number as I went, and eventually I left the forest behind me in exchange for the empty, snowy, and windswept plains of the lower lands. The sun was on its way down in the west when I heard the noise of a scuffle ahead of me. I stayed low and crept up the side of a small hill to my right to get a better view of what was happening up ahead. As I reached the top of the hill and peeked over, my eyes were drawn to the center of the conflict.
There, I saw a middle-aged mare in a white cloak brandishing a thin knife over a small bundle of something. To her right lying in the grass was the bloody body of a gray stallion; most likely the mare's husband or brother. I counted four other ponies wearing a ragtag mixture of ripped cloth and worn armor circling the mare in the middle. Bandits! I cursed silently in disgust. I drew a golden shortsword and a silver dagger strapped across my chest and clamped my one good wing against my side while the other hung limp. Tossing my saddlebags off my shoulders, I hastily made my way down the other side of the hill as silently as possible.
"You! What kinda goodies do you have in that bundle?" said one of the bandits who I could make out through the tall grass as either a unicorn or an earth pony.
"It's nothing you'd want! Now leave me alone!" the white-cloaked mare retorted as tears streamed down her face.
One of them jumped wildly towards the mare, shouting, "Is it gold? It's gold, isn't it?!"
His sudden outburst was met with a small slash across the muzzle. Yelping, he quickly jumped away rubbing his snout.
I decided to make my move and lunged towards the pony closest to me. I came down on his head with my short sword, hearing his skull cracking, and followed up with a second swing from my dagger for good measure. My sudden appearance left two of the remaining bandits stunned, but the last one, a unicorn, drew a set of throwing knifes and chucked them wildly in my direction before backpedalling away.
I ducked two of them and felt a third one pierce my bad wing. I cringed as the pain raced down my wing, but then I launched myself into the air driving my sword into the heart of one of the stunned ponies. By the time I pulled the sword out the second pony regained her composure and wildly slashed her longsword toward me. I back stepped, letting the sword's momentum carry the pony into a defenceless position, and then moved in and knifed her in the throat. The dagger-chucking unicorn looked at her fallen comrades and then turned tail in an attempt to run away. I yanked the dagger out of the gurgling pony's throat and chucked it into the back of the unicorn's head. With the bandits dead, I turned to see the mare's white cloak quickly turning red. She moaned slightly as I eyed a long dagger sticking out of one of her hind legs. It appeared to be one of the knife-chucking unicorn's.
"No, get away," she said as her eyes widened. "Don't touch me or my foal!"
I looked down to see a small head peek its way out of the bundle of cloth. The foal looked in my direction with its small and questioning eyes. The mare attempted to stand up with the foal and run away, but quickly tumbled back into the hard ground sending the child into a fit of tears.
"Please! I won't hurt you!" I pleaded with the mare taking a small step toward her. "You've been struck by a dagger, and that leg is probably broken. Please, let me help you; I have some supplies in my saddlebags. Just let me go get them."
"I said get away you filthy gryphon!" she shrieked as she attempted and failed to stand. This is going to be a long week. I sighed and quickly made my way up the hillside to my bags. I rummaged around in them for a dozen seconds looking for bandages, a bundle of cotton, and a few choice healing herbs. I made my way back to the mare.
I feared the worst when I found the mare motionless at the far side of the small valley. She had attempted to run away from me and had collapsed in a heap. I ran to her as fast as I could, cursing her for her stupidity and recklessness. She has a foal to think about, and if she kills herself over an insignificant thing like race... I was a few feet from her body when I saw that her sides were shakily moving. She had passed out, and was still somewhat alive. I gingerly removed the dagger and cleaned the wound as carefully as possible. I looked to the west to see the sun's last rays disappear behind the horizon. I looked around and noticed that a small snow storm was blowing its way in. I sighed, curled up around the mare and her child, and gently rested my right wing over their bodies, protecting them from the cold outside my wing.
-Wounds-
I felt warm.
I cracked open my eyes to see that a blanket of whiteness has smothered itself over my view of the world. My mind was slow to wake up and I couldn't make sense of what I saw before me. The whiteness varied in its intensity, and in some places blossomed into a pastel collection of light blues and yellows. I attempted to stretch my wings, but was shocked to feel some sort of resistance pushing my wings back down. I growled as I shoved my claws into the earth and lifted my back and my one good wing. Something eventually gave above me, and I heard a loud crunching sound.
The pastel-dotted blanket was replaced by a blinding light as I broke through what my now grumpily-awake mind understood as a large pile of snow. I closed my complaining eyes and stretched my numb and aching body letting the remaining snow that coated my body fall in small heaps around me. Then I heard the cry of a small animal, and the events of the previous day tore through my mind like a small dagger would tear through a wing. Yeah, I cringed as a bolt of pain shot down my wing, that still hurts a bit. I looked down on the small wounded mare and her foal who I took into my care to see if she'd made it through the night.
The baby was crying, which I took as a good thing, and the mare was still breathing. However, her wound turned out to be much worse than I'd originally thought. The bandage was completely soaked through with blood. It would need to be replaced soon. It did appear, though, that the wound was done bleeding for the time being. I didn't have any spare bandages on paw, and I didn't want to ruin the mare's fancy white cloak; not because it was fancy, but because she'd need it for warmth. I just need to find some more bandages. Out here... In the wilderness. That's not going to work.
My next thought was that I should just move her to someplace for help. Maybe a small village, or a quaint cabin in the woods... That wouldn't work either. Giving her up to directionless wandering and fate would kill her. She'd be completely bled out before even a hint of civilization was discovered. There had to be something else... That's when the most brilliant plan hit me.
I have the greatest ideas!
"I have the stupidest ideas..."
The plan I had envisioned in my mind was perfect; the execution of said plan, however, would most likely end up with me dead and a mare and her child frozen to the chill of Mother Winter.
I looked to the small bandit camp spread out below the hill I was hiding behind, and noted that this would most likely become an almost daily experience. I also noted the number of guard towers -which were quite numerous for such a small camp- and the several dozen bandits that roamed around inside the sagging walls of their makeshift fortress. I had seen and taken down stronger fortresses in my days in the military, but then again I had done that with several hundred other gryphons...
This was a stupid idea.
I wanted to turn back, to head home to my nice little patch of snow-covered grass. I didn't, since this bandit raid wasn't for me. It would be dark soon, and I needed to find some source of food, but more importantly, bandages and medical supplies. I couldn't return empty handed, and a day wasted is, well, a day wasted. I'd learned that when you're living off the land during winter you don't have many days to waste, if any. I sighed and started to think up some sort of plan of attack as I waited for the sky to be a little bit darker.
It was close to twilight when the clouds above decided to release a small downfall of snow from their bosoms. The snow would give me some amount of cover, so I decided to make my move. I crept towards a section of the wall that appeared to be the weakest. It was made from a large rotting log, and with a bit of elbow-grease and muscle I lifted up the log and slowly fought my way under it. The log hit the ground with a dull thud as I crept to the underside of one of the guard towers directly overhead. There was a loud and obnoxious snoring coming from above, so I knew that this would be a great place for me to figure out where to go next.
I could hear cheering and the sounds of a fight somewhere ahead to my right, so I decided to duck into the shadows of a larger tent to my left. I crept through the shadows to the edge of the tent and, staying low to the ground, peaked around the corner. A round of cheers louder than the last drew my attention to the fight just in time for me to see a larger unicorn topple into the ground with a loud smack, knocked cold. I looked away from the ponies feeling sick to my stomach. I need to move on; I had a camp to raid.
I found the "medical tent" easily enough. There was no guard outside the door, and I reckoned he was off enjoying the fights. To be safe, I went around to the back and cut a small slit along the base of the tent. I crept through the hole and was met with a small stockpile of goods. A collection of swords, spears, halberds, bows and arrows littered a corner near the front of the tent. In the corner closest to me I found an old wooden shelf laden with a scant supply of dried medicinal herbs and bandages that were kept as clean as you'd expect from bandits. I grabbed them all and dropped them into my empty saddlebags. I crept out of the tent to the rotten log and then left the camp. The sounds of their rowdy jeers and laughter pursued me as I returned to the familiar grasses of my temporary home.
.-*<><*><>.-*
I was on my third-straight night of guard duty. The castle ramparts were occasionally embraced by the colder winds of early spring, their touch brushing against me, spinning around, and then dissipating into the darkness. I didn't mind the late nights; they helped me keep a clear mind and calm any nerves that I had. Behind me, a sliver of a crescent moon hung in the sky on the horizon; its being wreathed in the black rain-engorged clouds of an approaching storm. The clear sky directly above was filled with thousands of stars shining brightly... almost bravely. Soon, their existence would be smothered out by the darkness of rain. Soon to be gone. Down below, the campfires of the enemy mirrored the heavenly lights above.
They were scattered all around the castle, as they had been for the past week. Each night I would try to count them all to keep myself entertained -and awake- but it was impossible to keep an exact estimate. My best guess was somewhere between one to two hundred. Each one had at least ten ponies camped comfortably around it. Tonight, things would be different. Tomorrow, a small portion of the gryphon army would be coming to our aid. About one hundred of us gryphons were chosen for a special mission to make sure that army arriving tomorrow would suffer as few casualties as possible.
To my side the clacking of claws on stone brought me out of my thinking. I turned to see a black gryphon with a devilish grin.
"You ready for this mission?" Darius said.
The camp we were assigned was located near the rear of the enemies' territory. The camp was located within twenty feet of the edge into the Everfree, which made the job all the easier for us. The gryphons in my squad were Buckbeak, Traps, and, of course, Darius. Buckbeak was an odd gryphon from the north who I'd never had the chance to talk to, while I'd heard that Traps was an expert at planning strategies on the fly. Darius specifically requested to be in a squad with me, which gave me faith in our mission.
We decided to land about one hundred feet away from the edge of the Everfree in a section of the forest without too much underbrush. We slowly crept our way to our target camp, Traps muttering to himself the whole way. I watched as his eyes darted around the enemy camps in the general vicinity. He's an odd fellow, I thought to myself. Still, he's one of the best in the field. After only a few minutes we reached our destination. I crept slowly forward to the left edge of the camp, while Darius did the same to the right.
I crouched low and pulled out a small dagger. I could make out three silhouettes laying around the fire with their backs to us. Two more were off to the side preparing some kind of late-night-soup-snack. My stomach ached at the thought of food. Lovely, I thought. It would be just perfect if my stomach rumbled right now... I nodded to the other gryphons in the underbrush, indicating that I saw a total of five ponies.I knew Darius was doing the same from his side of the camp. A shadow stalked unnoticed to any pony's eye into the forest. I started to head back when I heard something behind me.
I turned and came face to face with a larger black stallion coming out of the Everfree. He must have been taking a late-night bathroom break. He quickly noticed me and looked around, most likely for anyone else who could back him up. Seeing no one, he let out a loud yelp and ran to pick up his weapon from where he had laid it. I was at his throat in an instant, my knife glistening as I pulled it away. I looked back to the woods, checking to see that no one else was out there. Then I looked towards the camp. They were all still sleeping or making soup. I dragged the lifeless body of the pony into the underbrush and grouped back up with the other gryphons.
"I counted five," stated Darius, who was staring toward the enemy encampment eagerly.
"And I counted five too," I said. "There was also another who came out of the woods, but I took him out silently."
"So, that leaves about one for each of us..." Traps pondered. "Buckbeak, you'll attack from the rear. Darius and I will attack the front." He motion to me last. "You can attack from the sky immediately after we initiate the fight."
We all agreed to the plan.
"Let's go." Darius said.
The slaughter of the camps ended quickly, but the remaining night passed by slowly. The stragglers of the surprise attack either fled or grouped up in a smaller cluster that sat at the furthest point of the castle. The gryphons' superior air power easily decimated the mixture of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi. In the light of day, the full force of the attack was made visible.
I flew down at the first rays of light to fully inspect the battlefield. Large portions of the ground were soaked in blood and bodies lay strewn about. I silently crept around the whole of the castle, taking in the number of dead ponies. A tear slowly slid down my face as I stopped at one body in particular. It was that of an older foal in his teenage years. He was most liekly a cocky young youth with great ambition. Now a lifeless body among many...
A crack of lightning flashed across the sky. Fat raindrops fell from the sky, quickly extinguishing the few remaining fires as their smoke rose to the heavens above.
Author's Note
Well, this one took longer than I expected. I couldn't figure out a way to write the second half of the story, but I'm glad I finally did. Hopefully I won't take nearly this long for the next chapter.
