The Tyranny of Discord

4The Forever Lord

When the two of us first came to you, pleading at your doorstep, I had nothing, and my brother less. We expected revilement and vituperation, as it had been with all the rest. A pair of wayward, beggar unicorns? they would say. How wonderfully karmic.

Denouncement, disconsolation, dejection: our lot, and we had come to accept it. We expected to be turned away.

Instead, we found you.

You were more than our caretaker, our protector, though that was how it started. You listened to my story, took one look at our worn hooves, our bellies swollen with hunger, our wary eyes. And our horns. And still you took us in, despite the mutterings and reproaches of many a pegasi and earth pony. You shamed them all with your kindness. You were the best of us, Mourning Star—the horns, the wings, and the hooves. You were an example of what a pony truly should be.

You were our friend.

Her eyes were dry; there would be no more time for tears. “And now you're gone,” Solace said as the rain came down upon them all.

The commotion of but a moment before—the struggling, the screaming, the shouting—all had ended. Every pony looked in stunned silence at the place where Mourning Star had stood, soaked and terrified. But now it was empty. And she was gone.

The two unicorns who had been moving toward the young mare to secure her had been flung violently into the tall grasses, driven by the force of whatever had caused her mysterious departure. They reappeared confused and haggard, shaking the befuddlement from their heads, only to join the others in staring perturbedly at the vacant space in the mud where the grey pony had once been.

Renault wasted no time. The scarred pegasus strode over to Dawn Chaser, bound and slumped in the grime with the hooves of two pegasi pressing against his back, holding him roughly; the look on his face was somewhere between disbelief and destitution. A glance from their leader and they drew away, allowing the sunset pony to rise dazedly to his hooves as Renault looked at him with eyes blue and determined.

“Whatever you believe of me, whatever it is you think I am or that I am capable of, listen to me now, and know that the words I am about to speak are the absolute truth.” Renault's red mane ran like blood from his coat, wet and clinging in the downpour. “Your friend is in grave danger, and we are the only ones that can protect her. I may know where she has gone, but that will mean little and less if we do not find her quickly. I have lost two of my best pegasi today, and a third was taken in the city before our journey began; where we are going, I will soon have need of every one. Put your distrust in me aside, if only for this, and help me help your friend.”

For a moment Dawn Chaser looked as though he were ready to spit in Renault's face, but then, slowly, his expression changed. “I don't understand this,” he said finally. “I don't understand why you're doing this to us, why any of this has happened. I don't understand why Mourning Star is important to you, what any of this has to do with her.”

“What happened to her?” Solace spoke up from beside Sojourn. “Where is she?”

“Something I still don't fully comprehend and could never hope to explain, and a long way from here,” Renault answered. “What worries me more is who may be with her. We need to find her soon.” Solace did not know what he meant by that, but she was suddenly reminded of a bloody symbol, leathery wings, and horns twisted and grotesque. She shivered.

The young pegasus contemplated the implacable white pony before him, who met his gaze and held it. “You meant what you said, about doing anything you had to in order to protect her.”

“Every word.”

Dawn Chaser looked at the unicorn next to him, nestled close to her brother on the sodden ground. “Mourning Star,” he said to her softly. “I have to help her...”

She placed a hoof upon him. “Go,” Solace said. The young unicorn brushed the dripping teal of her mane from her sandstone eyes, wide with solemn concurrence. “Bring her back, Dawn.”

The pegasus nodded. Solace's horn shimmered as she helped him remove the hempen fetters from his wings. Beholden, he stretched the appendages. “Be strong, Sola. Look after your brother.”

“Don't worry 'bout me, Dawn.” Solace moved to help Sojourn as the dark unicorn struggled to stand upright, still disoriented from the magic that had battered him moments before. He leaned against his sister gratefully. “Just find Star. Keep her safe, ya hear?”

“I will. I promise.” He nodded tacitly to Renault, who responded in kind. Black cloak billowing, the scarred pegasus turned to the unicorn mare beside him, her coat the color of fresh-fallen pine.

“The rest I leave to you, Cleome,” he said, gazing at her intently. “You're in command now.”

She looked up at him somberly. “Aye, sir. As you say.”

“Sun and moon know, this is that last thing I wanted to happen.” Renault shook his head and mane in agitation. “But there's nothing that can be done for that, now. Take the others back home, and fate willing, we'll see you there soon.”

Solace watched as he spread his powerful wings and hurtled upward into the dark, weeping air. One by one his pegasi followed him, plunging skyward. Dawn Chaser looked one last time at his two companions as he unfurled his wings; their feathers were awash, a resplendent tangle of lavender, crimson, and gold, like a drowned, sunken sunrise. And then he too was gone, up into the guttering clouds, and there were only six left below, unicorns all.

“We'd best get moving,” the pine-needle mare addressed what remained of their band. “It's a two day journey at least, and I'd rather not be caught out in the open when daylight comes.”

“More, with these two,” a soft-spoken, ultramarine stallion said, motioning to the brother and sister huddled in the mud. “I appreciate the necessity for speed, Cle, but look at them. They're exhausted.”

Isn't that a fact, Solace thought. The forced march of the past few days was beginning to leave its mark, and they hadn't stopped for food or rest since the night before. Solace's injuries still weren't completely healed, and she worried they would keep her from going much farther.

“I know that,” Cleome said restlessly. “But we can't afford to wait. We don't have the time. We need to find shelter first. Anything else is out of the question.”

“There's another option that everyone seems to be forgetting,” a gruff, gaunt stallion with a faded, blackish coat spoke up. “We carry on by ourselves.”

“And what do you suggest we do, Geraldt? Leave them here?”

“Yes.”

The final unicorn, a young chartreuse mare, snorted incredulously. “And let High Command swoop down and snatch them up after we've gone? Brilliant.”

“I didn't mean 'leave them alive',” he answered quietly.

And now we come to that, Solace thought. It was only a matter of time, I guess.

There was a brief silence. “Watch yourself, Geraldt,” Cleome said. “You heard the Commander—we're to take them back with us. This is not up for debate.”

“And why not?”

“Because Renault left me in command here, that's why. We are going to do nothing but what he asked of us. This conversation is over.”

Geraldt laughed. “You're a fool, Cleome.”

“You would murder your own kind?” the blue stallion asked. “They're horns, like us.”

“A preconception that Renault continuously instructs us is baseless and insignificant, in case you had forgotten, Stavin.”

The chartreuse mare shook her head in disbelief. “Their horns notwithstanding, I suppose their innocence is meaningless as well?”

“About as meaningful as that of the foals we killed, aye.”

“That was different,” Cleome interjected, her voice rising. “You know the Commander had-”

“His reasons? Yes.” The ragged unicorn glanced at the two siblings. “And so do we.”

“I think you've spent a little too much time with those butchers in High Command,” Stavin grunted. “You're out of your mind, Geraldt.”

“Why do you think I left to join Renault in the first place? The Commander is a pony who doesn't shy away from doing what needs to be done, even if it isn't good or easy. He has the future, possibly the very existence of Equestria on his shoulders! He has asked everything of us: our commitment, our devotion, our very lives. How many of us have died under his command? How many more?”

“As many as it takes,” Cleome said through gritted teeth.

“Exactly. I will gladly give my life for him, and for Equestria. I will not give my life for them,” he spat.

“You will do whatever I say, Geraldt. Whatever the Commander says.”

“He killed Sandalwood!” the stallion yelled, pointing an accusing hoof at Sojourn. “Him and that pegasus friend of his! And that one,” this time he motioned to Solace, “she's weak. She would only slow us down, at a time when we cannot afford it.” He spread his hooves wide, imploring his compatriots. “Stop being noble for one moment and think. We do not need them. You know it, I know it, the Commander knows it: the grey hoof is the only one that matters.” He glared derisively at Solace and Sojourn. “They're not important.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” a voice suggested.

The unicorns whirled around. A pegasus leaned casually against a spear, smiling at the group from but a few yards away. “It might be they surprise you,” he said.

Cleome raised her horn threateningly. “Who are you? Speak, quickly!”

“Why, your sovereign lord, of course.” The smile seemed etched into his features, sly and unsettling.

“High Command, perhaps? You're a long way from home, pegasus. And all alone, it would seem.”

A feeling of dread had begun creeping up Solace's spine. There was something about the pegasus that frightened her even more than Renault or any of his followers had. Something isn't right. This is bad. “Brother,” she whispered into his ear. “We gotta go, we gotta get away.” She urged him quietly, begging him to move, but he was still rattled by the force of the magic the unicorns had used against him, and he collapsed again after no more than a few paces.

The pegasus seemed altogether uninterested in them. “Of course, I could be mistaken. It's often so difficult to tell the interesting ones from the important ones. But what pony can say?" he sneered. "What say we let fate decide, hmm?” He directed his words and attention at the dark, grizzled unicorn named Geraldt. “You're wrong about a great many things; however, you were right in anticipating the deaths that are to come. Many and more, in fact.” His smile widened. “Beginning with your own.”

What Solace witnessed next she found difficult to believe. Suddenly the pegasus was behind Geraldt, and before the unicorn could so much as turn he was coughing, choking on the blood that poured from the slit in his throat where the spear had pierced it. He hadn't even died before the same befell the young mare and the blue stallion. She perished instantly, the weapon taking her through the head, but Stavin languished for a moment more, thrashing as his life ran red through the slash that spanned from ear to ear, pooling and deluding in the muck as the rain washed it away.

The pegasus watched him kick a moment longer. Then the unicorn was still, and he turned to Cleome. The expression she wore was none Solace had ever seen before—terror, and loathing, and bitter despair.

“H-how...”, the unicorn choked. “You...”

“Magic,” the pegasus mocked contemptuously. “You possess all the power in the world... and it means nothing.” He raised a hoof lazily, and suddenly the pine-needle mare found herself dragged into the air, suspended on nothing but a whim.

“Im-impossible...” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear. “You don't even have a h-”

Her last words were cut short by a sickening crunch. Solace looked away. The pegasus let the body fall unceremoniously into the mire as he moved toward the brother and sister cowering next to each other. He stopped just before them, leaning heavily on his spear now dark and slick with gore, smiling that same smile.

Solace made herself look up at him, up into his eyes. They were cold, colorless as ice, gleaming with violent disorder and disarray. “Please,” she begged. “We weren't with them. They captured us, took us from our home...”

The pegasus appeared not to have heard her. “Two?” he said to himself. “No, that won't do, that won't do at all...” He was looking at them both intently, brow furrowed, muttering under his breath as he pointed at one and then the other with his hoof. After a short time he stopped, nodding sagely as if he had just come to a certain understanding. “Huh,” he murmured.

He looked at Solace, shrugged, and thrust the spear through Sojourn's chest.

To be continued......Someday.