The Fiery Gorge

Somepony’s cough snatched Dash from her sleep. Awake and alert, she lifted her head to find it was only Twilight, having finally woken up.

Twilight sat leaning forward heavily on her front hooves with her head hung. She paused briefly as she glanced at Dash, then began coughing again.

After a few moments, her coughing died down. She wiped her mouth with her forehoof. Sitting upright, she found herself having to rest back against the wall of the cell. All her joints ached as she tipped her head back to rest on it as well.

Dash sat up as well, watching her with raised eyebrows. “You okay? I was worried for a bit that you might have gotten seriously messed up.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked, her voice raw and scratchy.

“Some crazy pony kidnapped us and tried to keep us at her cottage.” Dash tilted her head, peering at Twilight. “You alright? She gave us some sort of dizzying medicine stuff. From what she said, it sounded like she was trying to keep you completely out of it.”

“I think she did,” Twilight said. Her chest rose and fell with tiny breaths. Leaning to her side, she retched, spilling a small trail of stomach fluid in the corner of the cell. She stayed leaning, trying to catch her breath.

Dash wrinkled her nose, looking away. “Uh, I know you usually don’t eat or drink anything, but should I get you something?”

Twilight shoved against the ground, righting herself in her seat. “Water,” she said, pausing to take a breath after, “would help the taste.”

“I think I can manage that.” Dash walked over to the wall where she’d laid her saddlebags and rummaged through them. Finding her canteen, she walked over to Twilight and handed it to her. “I’ve still got a decent amount left, but try not to waste any.”

Twilight nodded, taking it from her. She slipped off the lid and held it above her mouth. Slowly as she tipped it, drops of water drizzled onto her tongue. She drank a mouthful before setting it down and extending it out towards Dash.

Dash accepted it from her, taking a drink herself before placing the cap back on and stuffing it in her saddlebags. She looked up at the hole in the ceiling, the last sliver of the moon visible through it.

“It doesn’t look like it’s all that long until the new moon,” she said. “We should be safe here for the time being. We’ll start looking again once you’re better.”

“You should just go,” Twilight said, sweat shining her coat. “Find your friends.”

Dash snorted. “And what, leave you like this? Fat chance. I’m not ditching one friend just to go looking for some others slightly sooner.”

She sat down next to her bags, digging through the food Applejack had given her. “Besides,” she said, eventually settling on a canning jar of applesauce. “If that manticore is still there, I’m going to need you to watch my back. Heck, I’d just rather have you watching my back in general.”

Twilight gave a slight nod, hearing her reasoning. She grew quiet, as she often did. She glanced around the cell, her eyes resting on the door. “These are the ruins we found each other in,” she said, staring at the melted hole through the door’s prison bars.

Dash nodded. “We can’t be all that far away from where I got separated, and this time I know which direction to go in.”

“I came to this ruin from the southwest, through the forest.” Twilight paused, catching her breath. “Going through, I never saw any place matching the one you described.”

“We weren’t near the forest. It was my first scouting run, so we tried to stay clear of danger by staying out in the open.” Dash sighed, drinking a mouthful of the applesauce. It tasted astoundingly sweet. “But I guess staying clear of danger just isn’t something you can do down here.”

Twilight’s ears flattened as she hung her head. Her eyes seemed to stare past the ground.

Dash’s brow furrowed. She straightened. “So what about you? What were you doing in the forest to the southwest? What have you been doing at all for these past seven years?”

Twilight looked up at her, then cast her eyes back toward the ground. She remained silent. Her mouth curved in a thoughtful frown. Just as Dash was beginning to think she wouldn’t get an answer, Twilight gave one.

“Searching.”

It was short. Reluctant. Having said it made Twilight look uncomfortable. Dash stored it in the back of her mind to ask about later, but for now didn’t push it, instead finishing the rest of her applesauce.

“I guess that makes two of us,” she said once she was done. “Seven years, huh? Must be pretty hard to find, whatever it is.”

Twilight nodded.

“Well, after we find my squad, how about I help look? I’ll be stuck down here and Spitfire and Soarin will probably be itching to go back to Cloudsdale. I could spend the rest of my time down here helping you find it.”

Twilight stared at Dash, stunned. Suddenly her whole body tensed up and she leaned over to her side to puke.

Dash’s lip curling slightly in disgust while Twilight retched. She reached into her saddlebag, finding the waterskin, and slid it across the floor as Twilight finished.

Twilight took it and removed the cover. “Do as you will,” she said, coughing. The corners of her lips betrayed the barest hint of a smile as she drank. “I’ve given up on trying to be rid of you.”

Dash crossed her hooves in front of her chest and huffed, but she supposed it would be the closest thing to a ‘thank you’ she would get.

Twilight stood, her legs shaking slightly, and walked over to Dash, giving the water back.

Dash took it and placed it back in her bags. She turned back to Twilight, looking at the way her legs wobbled. “You sure you’re going to be alright?”

Twilight nodded. “I’ll be fine. I believe I got rid of most of the poison,” she said, glancing back at where she’d been sitting. She turned back to Dash. “We’ve stayed here too long. We should keep moving.”

Dash nodded. She lifted her saddlebags and strung them over her back.

The two of them climbed through the hole in the cell door, Twilight’s spell having melted the lock shut. They made their way down the mossy stone corridor. The mummified body of the darkened pony from before still lay around the turn where Twilight had killed it. Its eyes were still fixed with rage. Dash tried to ignore it, but she still felt a slight chill as they walked past.

The corridor opened up and they stepped outside. Mossed-over crumbled stone and the lightless night greeted them.

“The bridge is gone,” Twilight said, staring to their side at the remains of the bridge she had destroyed.

Dash gestured for Twilight to follow her. “I know another way across.”

Dash led her to a dome-like structure with a large gap in its roof where the stone had caved in. Inside it were stairs that ran around the wall in a spiralling descent. Twilight lit her horn as she peered over the edge, staring down at the pitch darkness of the drop through the center of the stairwell.

“There’s a tunnel down here that leads out to the ground of the gap between the ruins,” Dash said, starting down the stairs. “I poked my head out the door while I was here last time and saw a matching door on the other side, but then closed it because there were darkened outside.”

Twilight followed Dash’s descent. As the faint light from the stars above faded, their hoofsteps began to echo in the stairwell. Another sentence to elongate time.

“I think this place was once some sort of barracks or something,” Dash said. She walked near the edge, peering down. “Down there is where I got my that spear I had, after I lost my Cloudsdale one while running from the manticore.” She glanced back at Twilight. “You know how to use anything besides that twig-sword you had?”

“Rapier,” Twilight said. “And no, I never formally learned how to use any other sort of weapon. I never thought I’d need to. What little I know of how to use a rapier was self-learned during the past few years I’ve had it.”

“Spitfire taught me how to use a spear, but most of what she taught me was how to abuse speed, flight, and reach to attack in a way where a darkened can’t attack back. I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work with all four hooves planted firmly on the ground.”

Twilight stared down at her hooves as she walked. There was a lull as neither of them spoke, their echoing hoofsteps filling the emptiness.

“If we wind up in combat,” Twilight said. “Will you be able to kill a darkened?”

Dash gave a shrug while she walked. “Sure, if push comes to shove.”

“Even if they’re ponies?”

Dash paused briefly mid step, then continued on. “I don’t know if I want to talk about this yet. There’s still a lot I haven’t made my mind up about—I mean, I don’t know if that’s me.”

Dash stopped. She turned around. “I want to be like you, I really do. I want to be like Spitfire and like Soarin. All my life I’ve wanted to be like them, and I knew sometimes they kill darkened. I understand it’s a mercy to kill them and that sometimes it needs to be done, I just don’t think I’m someone who can be there, standing face to face with them.”

Turning back around, Dash sighed. “I don’t think I can take a life. Even one as miserable as a darkened’s.”

“It won’t be whether to kill or not to kill, it will be to either kill or die,” Twilight said, the corners of her mouth forming a frown. “Maybe as a Wonderbolt you would have been able to avoid it, only coming down for brief day trips to scavenge supplies, but you’re stuck here now. On a long enough timeline down here, you will find yourself in such a situation. It’s the reality of life here on the surface. It will be them or it will be you.”

Dash glared back at Twilight. “You don’t think I know that? I’m not some naive filly. I know that it’s dangerous here and I know completely how easy it is to find yourself in a life-or-death situation down here. It’s not like I don’t think about it, okay? I think about it constantly—and you know what? It scares me. I’m not even afraid to admit it. The thought that any phase of the moon now I might find myself in a life-or-death situation where I have to kill somepony is terrifying.

“But you know what? Being badgered by you constantly about it, as if saying ‘Yeah, Twilight, I think I’ll be able to kill somepony now’ would actually mean anything, doesn’t help!”

Twilight blinked, her frown gone. She opened and closed her mouth, but ultimately nothing came out.

Dash huffed, turning on her heel and continuing back down the stairwell.

Twilight silently followed.

They continued on the rest of the way in mute discomfort. Occasionally Twilight would catch Dash stealing an over the shoulder glance at her, and whenever she did, Dash would jerk her attention back forwards, glaring at the walls.

As the seemingly endless way down gave way to an end, Twilight glanced around. Description of the floor level.

Dash motioned towards a door on the opposite side of the stairwell floor. “The armory is through here.”

The two of them crossed the stairwell floor to the iron door. Dash undid the metal latch and gave it a stiff shove. The hinges on it groaned and screeched miserably as it slowly swung open, leading to a larger, darker room.

Twilight peered into the dark corners of the room, staying by the door. The room looked to be a mess hall of sorts. Ten long wooden tables sat in half as many rows while weapon racks lined the walls. Another iron door mirrored the one they entered on the opposite side of the room, though unlike the one they entered it supported a heavy wooden beam, bracing it shut against the outside.

Dash stepped inside the room. “Come on. It’s safe. I made sure to lock up last time I left, so we don’t have to worry about any darkened down here.”

Twilight stepped inside, immediately heading to the walls to see the weapons. Dash closed the door and joined her, following as she strafed the walls. Each weapon rack Twilight came to, she was greeted with the orange-brown sight of rusted steel.

Twilight stopped after viewing all the weapons in the room. The only weapons there were blunt, heavily rusted short swords and spears. “Most of these wouldn’t be much better than wielding a stick,” she said.

“That still leaves them being better than a stick,” Dash said, picking up a spear off the wall. She slid it back into the loop in her saddlebag where she carried her old one. She glanced around the room. “I don’t see any twig swords.”

Twilight gave a slight shrug. “I’ll be fine without one. I would sooner rely on my magic than a rusted blade.”

“Suit yourself,” Dash said. She began walking towards the iron door opposite where they entered. “The door outside is this way.”

Leaving the hall, they entered long and winding corridor. It never branched nor opened to any room, yet every hundred or so paces there was another of the underground ruin’s thick iron doors.

Eventually they came to a much heavier iron door, with hinges as thick as an entire hoof. At it, Dash stopped and turned to Twilight.

“There’s a door like this on the other side of the valley. I’ve only ever opened this door once. What I saw was… well, I don’t know what happened to the guards that used to be here, but I’m pretty sure most of them are behind this door.”

“Darkened?” Twilight asked.

Dash gave a nod. “Around twenty. Maybe more. I shut the door after seeing how many there were. I didn’t want to stick around to have them notice me.” She craned her neck up and stared at the top of the iron door. “I have no idea what could have caused them to all turn or why they’re all out in the valley.”

“The dark is constantly moving. In a deep, narrow channel like this, it could be a cloud of it swept through before any of the guards knew what was going on. It would have turned them all dark in an instant.” The light from Twilight’s horn flickered and dimmed. “Darkness grows in places the moon fails to reach. It’s a good reason not to explore far from starlight.”

“So is it even safe to cross?”

Twilight’s lips thinned in a slight grimace. “I don’t sense the miasma being any denser than normal on the other side of this door. Still, with the new moon it would be best if we don’t linger in the valley.”

A sharp snort came from Dash. “Not like we’d have any reason to want to.” She turned to Twilight. “Maybe we should just head back and walk around this thing.”

“When I passed through here it stretched in either direction as far as I could see. I’d sooner pass through here.”

“Okay. So then what’s the plan for getting past the regiment of darkened and getting through the locked door on the other side?”

Twilight walked up to the door and slid its latch open, having to shove the iron widget with both hooves. With the door unlocked, but still closed, she faced Dash.

“Follow me and stay quiet.”

The door eased open slowly, a low groan of metal scraping against metal coming from its hinges. The outside was pitch black, the new moon robbing the crevasse of what little light usually reached its depths. With its high walls blocking the night sky, only the light of a few stars reached them.

Twilight was the first to step outside, the light from her horn dimmed to light a minimal space around her.

In the darkness around her, outside the reach of her light, the moaning of the darkened filled the crevasse. Their voices, thin and rasping, carried in them their suffering and sorrow. They were the muted cries of lost and wandering souls.

Dash joined her and closed the door behind them, closing it by its outside latch. Sliding her rusted spear out of its loop, she bit it by the middle. Her stance widened in preparation.

Out into the abyss they walked, surrounded by an unseen battalion of darkened. They took their steps slow but with lengthened stride so as to cross quickly and unheard.

They were unnoticed for but a few scarce moments. As they passed through, the moans of the darkened grew more restless, and accompanying their cries in the dark were the sounds of their shambling, of chainmail rustling and of metal plates scraping against one another.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash’s pace quickened, their hoofsteps growing louder.

Out of the dark ahead of them, a darkened stepped into the light. Its pale white eyes locked on them, its face contorting in rage just moments before Twilight killed it with a thin blade of flame, melting a hole clear through its chest and the armor it wore. The darkened dropped quietly with its strings cut.

In the darkness, however, the cries had escalated to furious howls of anger.

“Run!” Twilight shouted, breaking into a gallop.

Dash followed suit, her head whipping around with her spear at the nearby cries of the darkened. One lunged at her from the side and she shoved it back roughly with the butt of her spear.

“More light!” she shouted around the handle of her spear, barely managing to react in time to shove away another darkened on her other side with the blunted head of her spear.

The light from Twilight’s horn grew, and the visible area around them tripled in size. As its area grew, the light encompassed more than a dozen darkened. Some ambled or limped, falling behind, while others ran with nearly the same speed they did. Some ran at them with spears. Some with swords. Some with nothing other than a mindless hatred.

Most were behind them or to their sides, as the far wall of the crevasse came into sight. The iron door wasn’t far off of the direction they were running. They angled their course towards it as the few darkened ahead of them drew close.

Of the three darkened ahead, Twilight engulfed two in pillars of flame while Dash’s spear crashed against the forelegs of the third. The two engulfed in flame writhed, cooked in their own armor, while the darkened guard hit by Dash’s spear collapsed on its now broken legs.

“Get to the door,” Twilight said, her commanding tone rising clear above the senseless cries of the darkened.

Dash ran past her and reached the door, whirling to face the darkened in a lower stance.

As Twilight drew near the door, her horn glowed bright and wall of flame several carriages wide erupted behind her and encapsulating her and Dash against the wall of the crevasse near the iron door. An unfortunate darkened who was caught in it as it went up let out a shrill cry, writhing and covered in flames.

Burning, it stumbled, tripped, and fell over. Then it moved no more.

Two more enraged darkened attempted to charge through the wall of fire, meeting the same shrieking end. Beyond that, no more tried, though their disgruntled cries could be heard on the other side of the wall of flame.

Twilight turned to the iron door, her horn fading to a dimmer light as the wall of flame lit the area. The center of the door began to glow with heat. “Make sure none of them slip past,” she said to Dash without turning around, her attention fixed on the door.

Dash stepped forward, standing protectively in front of Twilight with her spear ready. For a full minute, the darkened moaned and howled on the other side of the fire. Whatever sensibilities remaining kept them from trying to cross the fire.

As a melted hole began to form in the door, Twilight’s magic grew strained. The wall of fire flickered and waned as the cries of the darkened grew ever more frustrated and impatient.

Two darkened charged through the flames. One, carrying a sword, burned up and crumpled to stillness shortly after passing through.

The other, carrying a spear, howled as it caught on fire, but neither faltered nor fell. Its flesh still burning, it charged Rainbow Dash with spear point lowered.

Dash swept its blunted spear to the side and jammed her own blunted spear into the hindquarters of its rear weight-bearing leg, causing the darkened to collapse and burn in its fire.

The hole Twilight was melting had grown large enough for a pony to easily fit through. She stepped through it, careful of its molten edges. Once inside, she turned around to look at Dash through the hole.

Dash hesitated for a brief moment before slipping her spear into the loop on her saddlebags. She stepped carefully through the hole, feeling the proximity of the melted iron through its heat on her coat. Once through, she glanced back outside, where the flaming wall still held the darkened guards at bay. The bodies of the darkened who had tried to pass through the wall of flame still burned, fire flickering across their skin. Rainbow Dash swallowed.

“I can hold the wall for a little while longer,” Twilight said, “but we should go sooner rather than later.”

Dash nodded, and the two of them walked down the dark stone corridor, leaving the flames and the cries of the darkened behind.

Like the last, the corridor contained a series of iron doors, facing out. The first they reached was unlocked, and once they had locked it behind them, Twilight allowed the glow around her horn to fade, a scarce pink glow remaining.

She leaned against a wall, breathing heavily, but before Dash could ask whether she was alright, she shoved away from the wall and righted herself.

“I’m fine,” she said, answering Dash’s concern. “The poison hasn’t completely left my system yet.”

“Well, this might be the last safe place to stop and rest if you’re actually not feeling fine.”

“It’s passing,” Twilight insisted, and began to walk down the hallway once more.

Dash shrugged, following her.

They passed two more iron doors before they reached a stairwell like the one they had gone down. Drops of water fell from above, and as they ascended the stairs the dripping grew until the sound of rain reached their ears. There became a steady shower of water falling down one side of the stairwell’s open center.

As they reached the top, the stone beneath their hooves became slicked and wet. Rain poured in through a collapsed hole in the roof above, through which only clouds could be seen.

Dash stood beneath the hole in the rain, squinting up at the black sky. “So much for starlight,” she said, flicking her damp mane out of her eyes.

Twilight put on her cloak’s hood, leaving her horn out to continue lighting their path. “The rain should make it much harder for the darkened to spot us.”