Songs Of The Frost

Darkness swallowed them before the great door at their backs was even shut. The both of them gasped for breath, a moment of respite after escaping the horror that was just outside the ancient stone chamber.

“Are you okay, Octavia?” Lyra managed to say through heavy breathing.

“I… I think so… that one nearly got me there.”

Suddenly, a thunderous hammering shook the great door, and the groan of stressed metal filled the corridor, attacking the mare’s ears. The two of them turned around to face the sight, seeing the massive frame shake, dust flying from its ancient recesses.

“They’re still trying to come after us!” Octavia yelled out.

“I noticed!”

“Well, what do we do?!”

Lyra looked to her left, and then her right.

It’s too dark, I need light. She thought. Focusing her concentration to her horn, she quickly conjured a simple light spell, the darkness fell away.

“We need to barricade the door!” Lyra shouted as the door slammed again, followed by the ominous sound of the beast’s roar. “And fast!”

“Do you see anything we can use?!”

Lyra looked to her right again, her eyes ran up the frame of the doors when they stopped at the site of a metal frame jutting out the side, that looked perfect for holding a beam.

And if there was a frame to hold a beam, than that means-

“Lyra, come here!”

Lyra did a one-eighty, and ran over to Octavia at the other side of the great doors. Sure enough, there was such a beam, enormous in size and standing vertically, applied to the stone on a swivel that could be lifted and brought down into place.

“Let’s hope it hasn’t rusted into place.” Octavia made a note of, “Can you bring it down with magic?”

Without acknowledging, Lyra concentrated her focus on the device the metal bar enveloped in her amber colored aura as she concentrated her energy to her horn. However, as much as she tried, the beam was not budging.

Octavia looked at her, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s too heavy! We’ll need to bring it down manually!”

The door slammed again, the noise clawing at their ears, reminding them of their imminent demise.

“I got an idea!” Octavia closed the distance between her and the beam. “Hoist me up!”

No time to argue, Lyra, got on her hind legs and clasped her front two legs together as a place for Octavia to place her hooves. The earth pony urgently climbed her friend before latching herself onto the beam, and shimmied up as quickly as she could.

Grasping what she was trying to accomplish, Lyra used a levitation spell that wasn’t enough to lift her friend on it’s own, but provided her an ample push as she ascended.

The door slammed once more, rattling more than it did before. Lyra flinched a cold pit of dread knotting her stomach, but she didn’t let go of her light or levitation spells.

“Octavia!”

“I’m almost there!”

 The beast roared again, and with the roar, came another blow to the door. Lyra felt her hairs standing on end, as if they wanted to get off and run away.

Another slam to the door and Lyra heard an unmistakable ping sound, like that of a lock mechanism’s springing off. Octavia was nearly up the beam and still climbing when the two of them heard the sound of metal creaking. Sure enough the beam began to lean towards the door, in Octavia’s direction.

“It’s free! The beam is coming down!” Octavia called out to Lyra in excitement, but as those words sank in, she found herself at a loss for shouting any more words of joyous victory, her body beginning to tremble.

Since the beam was falling, so was she.

“Uh… Lyra?”

“Uh… hang on!” Lyra took sharp breaths as the beam began to pick up some speed. With no time for options, she rushed to the spot where the beam would reach it’s true tipping point and stood up on her back legs, forelegs wide open.

“Jump!”

“Are you crazy?”

“For the love of Celestia, JUMP!”

The earth pony shut her eyes. She sprang from the bar, screaming as she fell. And with the grace of a boulder, Octavia crashed into Lyra, and the both of them fell back down a small stone staircase.

The beam slammed into place.

The two came to a stop in a tangled mess, Lyra splayed out overtop of her friend. Everything was sore, and their eyelids were suddenly feeling a lot heavier than they were a few seconds ago.

The banging on the doors continued, but the two of them made no other reactions than to cover their ears. The loose door rattled against the beam, causing flashes of light from the outside and then disappear as soon as it came.

This went on for several minutes as the agitated beast tried doing it even faster. But nothing seemed to work. Causing it to roar all the louder.

“Oh sod off!” Octavia yelled back.

When the banging finally stopped, both the girls sighed in relief. The two turned their heads to face one another.

“By the gods…” Octavia spoke just above a mumble, “how did we survive that?”

The unicorn did her best to shrug, “I… I don’t know.”  That was when Lyra felt a chuckle creep up her throat. Soon enough, Octavia was chuckling with her, which only caused her to turn that chuckle into a throaty laugh. In their laughing fit, Lyra rolled off her friend. She could feel her tendon’s complain with every laugh but she didn’t care, she needed this.

But just as their laughing slowed, Lyra picked up a sound coming from the outside, it wasn’t coming from the doors this time however, rather, it was from the wall to the left. It was a thumping-sound, with an addition of what sounded most like large claws scraping on stone. The keep shook with each step and the two mares went stiff as their laughter left them.

Soon enough the thumping and scraping went from the walls to the ceiling, a moment later that thumping was replaced by powerful and rapid clawing; there was no mistake, the beast was digging.

“Oh c’mon…”

Soon enough, a few stones fell from the ceiling,crashing the ground off to Octavia’s right, light and cold sharp wind poured in from the newly formed crevice in the ceiling. The beast then gripped that hole and proceeded to tear away all the more as dust and more rocks fell. Not waiting to watch what was happening, Lyra quickly scrambled to her hooves. Despite the pain, she lifted Octavia to her own, and retrieved her spear from the stone floor. Another glance at the ceiling, and she realized it was almost big enough by now for their foe to slip his head in. And with another scrape from the beast’s claws, it was.

They wasted no time now before bolting down the hallway, passing statues too worn by age to recognize. As they did, the creature rammed the rest of his way through the ceiling, large chunks of stone slamming against the floor beneath in a deafening noise, followed by the thud of the great beast as it touched down on the stone floor. Lyra dared to take a look back. The beast, the wyvern, standing as tall as the great doors, had already turned to pursue them.

“It’s coming!”

“You think?!”

The two found it in themselves to run even faster than they already were. They were rapidly approaching a junction that had the chamber split into three paths.

“Which way?!” Octavia yelled desperately. “Which way do we go?!”

“Middle!” Lyra yelled back, she had no reason to chose that one over the others, but it was better than not choosing at all.

The girls soon entered a hall with immense wooden doors on both sides.  and columns holding up the high ceiling. Worn tapestries like rags were either hanging by by a few threads or had fallen down, threatening to trip them up.

A stroke of genius came over her, and Lyra enveloped the tapestry beneath them in her magic, once they were over it, she looked back, and lifted the tapestry off the ground. When the wyvern was closer enough, she threw it over the monster, watching as it quickly got it’s claws caught up in the drapery.

“That should give us a few seconds!”

The two of them continued their breakneck speed down the hall. The doors disappeared and the hall broadened out more. Tapestries in more sizes were appearing and statues of what appeared to be giant birds zipped over them. Something about the design of the room gave Lyra a reason to fear the worst, as the light  from her horn cut through the darkness ahead, she saw a flight of stairs and…a throne…

It was a dead end.

They were trapped.

And the wyvern was still coming.

Another roar attacked the girl’s ears, this one causing Lyra’s stomach to twist and turn in ways she never thought possible. She turned around slowly to face her pursuer, it was close enough now for Lyra to hear its ragged breathing loud and clear. With every thud of its feet, Lyra could feel her heart hammer in her chest, counting down to her demise.

Lyra’s trance was broken by the sound of a sword being unsheathed, she jolted her head to her left, seeing Octavia with her blade out and ready.

“Octavia, are you crazy?!”

“What choice do we have?!” She managed to say with the hilt in her mouth. “Flight failed, so now, we fight.”

Lyra felt herself swallowing, pulling her spear out as she attempted to steel herself for the imminent battle, driving her hoof-boots into the stone beneath, doing her best to force her body into not moving a muscle unless she wanted it to, despite every urge to bolt off to somewhere, anywhere, just not here..

A few moments passed, and the wyvern entered into the light, presenting its set of large teeth like swords dripping with lustful malice. Next to appear was the tail, hanging overhead like that of a scorpion, the barb was half the size of a pony with ugly hairs protruding all over its surface. Wings, riddled with holes from past battles. And though the chamber was massive, the beast still managed to look bigger now than it did outside.

When their enemy had fully entered into the light, he stopped, looking over both of the ponies, observing his prey before springing in for the kill. Neither of the girls uttered a noise, leaving only the faint sound of the blizzard outside and the wyvern's ragged breathing to fill the hall with their eerie and unpleasant sounds.

Lyra and Octavia didn’t dare move a muscle, hoping to buy as much time as possible before they would have to fight. But the more they waited, the more the monster seemed to be sizing them up; evaluating the threat. The more the unicorn watched the wyvern, the more she felt her legs shake uncontrollably.  When he breathed in, she bit on her lip, when he breathed out, she bit even harder. She dared not to take her eyes off of him, and she dared not to look into those soulless pits that were called eyes.

A flash of movement was all the warning she received as the wyvern lunged. It’s tail launching forward at Lyra with incredible speed. She jumped to the right, avoiding the barb by inches. Using magic, she launched her spear at the barb, striking it square and center. As the beast roared in pain, she pulled the spear out, an venom gushed out from the cavity spilling all over the stone. The beast yanked back his tail, out of the light.

Octavia used this moment to charge at the wyvern’s and slash his wide jaw, blood drew from the wound, but he wasn’t phased. He took his clawed wing and sent Octavia hurtling through the air and slamming hard against the wall.

As tempted as Lyra was to react to Octavia’s scream, she dared not keep her attention away from the monster. With her spear between her teeth, she charged at the monster,  who responded by opening his mouth to devour her.

But Lyra had other plans.

He tried to take a bite just a moment too soon, and Lyra hurdled over his nose and landed in the top of his head. She acted faster than she ever had before, leaning over the right side of the wyvern’s head, she angled the spear just right before jerking her head and driving it into his eye.

The beast screamed in a manner he never had screamed before, shaking his head violently in response, Lyra tumbled off and fell the short distance to the floor. With the all the complaining her body was already giving her, she wanted to do nothing else now but curl up into fetal position and sleep until it all went away. Knowing she couldn't, she opened her eyes, she found the wyvern’s right clawed-wing coming down to grab her.

She quickly braced her limbs as the claws began to close, as the monster aimed to crush her in a vice-grip. She hardly had the strength to fight, but the remaining dregs of adrenaline fueled her aching limbs. Her body doing everything it could to delay death just a little longer.

Giving up on that tactic, the beast let go his grip, and Lyra took a precious second to breathe, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments. But when she opened them up again, she looked up at the sight of the beast’s tail, arced up for a moment, before swinging down towards her.

She never had time to react.

The tail crashed down on Lyra like a sack of anvils, knocking the wind out of her. She tried to do something, roll out of the way, get up, anything, that was when her left front leg gave out on her and she fell right back down. She screamed as her leg went aflame from the inside, she screamed louder than she ever had before, and probably ever would.

Her last breath gave out and she dared to look again. The tail rose for another strike.

She looked away, grinding her teeth, feeling the tears she had held back finally well up. Was this it? Bloody, beaten, scared - was this how she would go? Not this way, she had hoped. But when it all boiled down, what choice did she have?

She closed her eyes and tried to think of a happier time, as the hammer of death descended upon her.