Waning Crescent

Nothing more was said in what took for the entire cohort to descend completely. The pathway into the brushwood didn't get any easier, nor difficult, always filled with those treacherous stones, and fake steps that threatened to toss the unwary into the blackness, that was ever closing by. Strange, had thought Adorjan for a moment. That even though the rock wall were an indicator of how close they were to the ground, it couldn't be seen remotely. Everything was covered in shades. Like if there weren't really anything down there. An unforgiving darkness that devours the land…

     Adorjan shook his head. Nonsense! Sure, it was creepy down here, but nothing else to be scared about. Dreadful places have he seen in his service with the Royal Guard, and this one was no exception. Soon this will only be another sour experience, he though, just that… Another day far from pretty.

     The road continued. The sun that had threatened to lower completely for a while finally set behind the hills, its mighty splendor slowly fading behind the mantle of the earth. In perfect succession the night began to take over, tainting the land with its characteristic colors, and the moon rose by the power of the sky, that by these extensions didn't obey the will of the Princesses, bringing a horned vision above their heads. Everything then were casted under a light of blue and silver, even the ponies that vegan to venture into the depths of the nothingness.

     Adorjan made halt after the stony slope ended and waited for the rest of the troop to get down there. It didn't take long before their steps had guided them under the shadow of the tallest trees, and before they know it they had already into what could be considered as a narrow glade, below a vaulted ceiling of tangled branches. The moon was still visible, though, but the stars and the rest of the light had faded into a world of obscureness that nothing else could breach. Just that horned moon above, hanging like a bowl ready for nightmares to be poured in.

     The land below wasn't any better, all plugged into an unnatural mist that lurked the ground, preventing curious eyes to wonder farther than one's knees. Around, everything that wasn't a brushwood, majorly constituted of brambles or dry shrubberies, was covered in a shadow so thick that only the light of the moon could breach through, tainting the ethereal substance around them with a spectral radiance. There were no animals in the night, nor the flapping of wings, or the whisper of crickets. Everything was silent, and still. Too peaceful to be reassuring.

     Adorjan walked ahead of his colts as they spread through, his breath pushing more steam into the ghostly light of the night queen from his nostrils. On the edges of the road figures and forms crawled with an unknown animation, giving the imagination a fertile ground to wonder. He tried to spy on the verge of the road, but couldn't see nothing beyond a couple of feet away. Everything was so concealed under its mantle of black that not even his eyes were capable of recon what was in front of him, just those strange forms and suppositions of movement. A trick of shadows, he calmed himself, dismissing the increasing sensation of paranoia that had started to stalk below his thoughts. How are we supposed to be able to find Pusher in this place?

"Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it" Shining Armor suddenly spoke behind him. Adorjan immediately jumped around an readied his horn for battle, taken by surprise. "Hey calm down its me!" Shining took a step back, instinctively rising his guard as well. "I just wanted to know how are you doing, thats all."

     Adorjan took a second, but dropped his stance after that. "Its nothing" he sighed, loosening the expression on his face as well. "This place is getting on my good side, thats all."

"I know you there…" he took out his helmet and scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Seems like the warnings of the mare weren't all jiverish. This place is sickening."

"…And we haven't even entered yet" he turned to the troop, that had already been displayed in the forest gap. "Okay lads, lets get to work! We still have to find the entrance to this hellish place, so split up. Unicorns, make groups of five, provide illumination. Don't spread too far, pegasus, use your muskets to provide cover, and the rest of you if you got a shield you better hold on to it, 'cause this is gonna be a long night…"

     The troop got to it at the instant, and started to wander deeper into the woods. Adorjan oversaw the movements of the guards for a moment before turning to Shining at his side, the stallion already  clad into his armor again and fastening the straps of his broad shield to his foreleg.

"Shall we move, colonel?" he said when he was ready.

     Adorjan nodded and both began to wander, the two of them directing the light beams of their horns from one direction to another. Around them the searching parties communicated their findings to one another, and the flickering of their personal spotlights were being interrupted by the presence of branches and tree trunks, that revealed anything amidst them but how abrupt was the layer of the place, aside from one or another boulder from where one could get an advantageous view of the terrain… Or spy on them without being noticed.

"Anything of interest?" Adrojan asked out loud, but only to get what few negatives he could understand, much to his discontent. Oh, patience, why did you have to be so futile? "Come on, boys, if no one finds that damn gate we're not going to get out of here any sooner!" Affirmatives came from every group, that more than being heard, could be seen through the night because of the separate shines across the trees.

"No luck here either" said Shining too as he scanned his section of the forest. "I don't think we're gonna learn anything without a panoramic view of the place."

"Hmm…" Adorjan casted his sight to the heights, where the only thing that could break through was the haunting presence of the moon. "Well, good luck with calling an air recon."

"It was just an idea" he shrugged. "No harm done there."

"No" he sighed as he continued moving. "At least it could be worse."

Shining stopped. "What do you mean?"

Adorjan didn't turn to speak, nor did he stop. "Well, because I'm no cartographer or geologist, but normally the presence of such large boulders would announce the existence of a cli-"

     According to his words suddenly the ground gave way beneath his hooves, and the mist swallowed his figure in less than a second. Adorjan realized too late that the truth of his supposition had been nothing less that accurate to their situation as his gravity center pulled the rest of his body inevitably towards the void, covering him in ethereal whiteness. Behind his fall he could hear the worry screams of Shining Armor, but couldn't listen too long the calling, for before he could know he had hit the ground again and was rolling uncontrollably through a keen slope, hitting everything in his path and dragging dirt, dead leaves, and who knows what else along as they got stuck in his armor plates.

     Adorjan rolled and rolled uncontrollably until he stopped doing it, finally reached the bottom of the precipice. The world was spinning around his eyes, and every muscle of his body ached like if he had passed through a meat grinder. Far worse, he could feel all the filth that had entered through his plates and now was scraping his skin with every movement he made. He could hear the screams of his colts, calling for him, but somehow he didn't care. At least not as much as checking himself for anything worse than scratches and bruises.

     Luckily there wasn't such thing.

"Colonel!" he heard Shining Armor. "Answer me! Are you alright!?"

Adorjan stood up, and had to cough filth and dirt to answer. "I'm fine, my prince" he responded to the light in the heights. "Just a little trip, that's all!"

"Good, I'm glad to hear that" the light flickered for a moment, perhaps as a sign of Shining's head turning briefly. "Hold it there, we're coming to get you."

"Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere" Adorjan muttered as he turned around and began to wander, his horn lighted once again, turning into every direction his eyes rolled to. From left to right, but the front. "Damn forest… Damn mist… If it were for me you could all go bu-" when suddenly, just as he had fallen off that glade, something stomped against him. "Agh, 'Tia dammit!" he immediately stepped back, tottering as his head rung inside his helmet like a bell. "What the hay is wrong with this place!? You putrid, stinking-"

     Adorjan abrutply paused his cursing, for he had backed away enough to identify whatever was that he had stumbled upon, and in a minute he had already forgot the incident. For a moment such was his impression that he even dismissed the arousing voices at his back.

"Colonel!" exclaimed Shining Armor as he lead the way to the rest of the troop. "Colonel, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, my prince…" he responded, still bemused. "Form to advance."

"What?" Shining winced, confused.

"You heard…" he insisted. "Battle stations."

      Shining stepped beside him, and was about to ask further when he saw it too and paused. In fact, more or less at the same time, all the troop caught with their eyes the same vision that had met Adorjan's moments ago and went equally dumbstruck.

     Now there could be a million different explanations to that sight, but beginning to truly describe the arch was a task that required for one to step aside its macabre majesty that it really was. Thirty feet tall, the marble columns that held the bone white fascia were half swallowed by vines and other climbing plants, partially hiding the repulse with which its makers should have done it, for placed in the rock were bas-relief of figures of age so old that their shapes were almost unrecognizable. A mayhem of composition that surely a long time ago should be more terrible than it ought now, and of insinuations so horrid that both caused terror and grief to begin to understand half of the things they meant to represent.

     Standing at the top of the structure, crowning two swirls of chaotically crafted visions, was the embodied sight of a majestic and intimidating bust, the shape of what surely couldn't be no other than a demon, for what its horns suggested, with arms wide opened and surrounded by a sea of nerve-racking skulls as they all smiled forward, reveling in the destruction and death around him. But for the spectators not only the presence of the dreadful creature was enough to awe them. It were the shapes and composition of those craniums what made the vision so terribly strong. Some resembled lesser animals, such as canines or magnified rodents, but most of them were terribly accurate to equine physiology… And just too many resembled to pony shape.

     Surrounded with the forest and the dreary mist that opened gate stood like a vision even grimmer than the prospect of what would it keep in the land beyond it. An undying will of those who had lost their souls to the darkness that awaited, and even if half of those guardscolts had tasted a piece of Tartarus, somehow the feeling of dread that staring into the structure caused suggested that Tartarus itself wouldn't be such a bad place after all.

"Holy Celestia protect us…" Shining Armor mumbled as he blinked for the first time ever since he had set eyes in that architectonic horror. "Holy Luna guard our night."

"…May we never go astray from your sun" continued Adorjan, not any better. "And keep us from the darkness' blight."