Thief of the Frontline

Chapter 10

"Shady!" Nightfall screamed desperately through the burning house that was filling with smoke by the second.  "Snowy!" he yelled into the black haze that now clawed at his throat and lungs.  He coughed violently before diving to the floor to take in the only available air.  He tried to control his breathing, his heart rate, the shaking of his limbs.  This was bad, very, very bad.  He looked around to try and scan his surroundings.  He was in the living room, but it no longer looked like one.  Everything was burning.  The walls, the furniture, the ceiling.  The intense glow of the flames did very little to show Nightfall what was around him.  There was so much smoke.  It seemed almost dark.  It consumed everything and left him blind.  It was a darkness that even he could not see through.

"Nightfall!" Specter's voice called from somewhere in the abyss.  "Are you over there?!"

Nightfall looked in the direction of where he thought the muffled voice was coming from.  The flames roared so loudly that it made his sensitive bat ears cry out in pain in the form of a massive headache.  He looked around again, but he still couldn't see anything.  "Where are you?" he yelled.

A door, or maybe a window, for buck sake, who even cares?  Something opened that let in a little more light.  "Over here!" Specter called from the other room.

Nightfall ran as fast as he could across the inferno that was once his home, keeping his head as close to the ground as possible.  Fiery pieces of wood fell all around him from up above as he jumped through the burning doorway.  Specter had already kicked down the door.  He landed in the middle of the kitchen.  Two of the walls were completely in blaze, but the ones opposite of them were untouched by the fire.  Nightfall coughed several times as he sat on the floor, covered in soot.

"Daddy!" Snowy yelled frantically as she ran to Nightfall.

He held her in his forelegs for only a second.  "Oh thank the moon you're alright."  He turned to his brother. "Where's Shady?!"

"I have no idea," he responded in a panicked tone.  "Upstairs maybe?"

"CRASH!!!"  Another torch flew through the only intact window in the house and landed on a nearby table, instantly setting it ablaze as the small fiery crystal at the top shot flames out in all directions.

Nightfall quickly wrapped his wings around Snowy, turning his back to the torch bomb to shield her from the blast.  The flames rushed toward him but dissipated before they could hit him full force.  They did singe his fur, but no major harm was done.  He tucked his wings back to his side and looked to Specter who was shielding his face with one of his own.  "Get her out of here," he said, pointing to Snowy.  "I have to go back for Shady."

"I'll take care of her," Specter responded.  "Be careful."

Nightfall took off as fast as he could back into the burning living room.  He held his head low, close to the floor to keep out of the smoke.  A lot of the thick, black cloud had moved into the kitchen, where Specter was now helping Snowy into an escape tunnel that they had dug long ago.  "Shady!" Nightfall yelled as he ran through the room.  He could just barely make out a set of stairs at the other end of the room.  He needed to get to the second floor to find her.

The stairs were burning just as badly as the walls around him, but this didn't matter to Nightfall.  He opened his wings and flew up the incline to the second floor where he landed.  He looked around frantically.  Either he could take a left or right.  Right, definitely right; that's where their bedroom was.  Shady was surely in there.

Nightfall took a single step in the direction where he thought she could be, but his hoof fell through the floor.  The sharp, splintery end of the broken wood scrapped along the side of his leg, puncturing the skin on his leg.  "Gah!" he yelled as pain shot through his leg.  He slowly pulled it out of the hole.  Several large, jagged pieces of wood were still lodged in him.  He pulled the biggest out first, then the others.  More pain came as he did.

He breathed heavily as blood soaked his fur and ran to the floor.  "Damn it, I really don't need this!" he thought.  He tried to take a step, but the pain coursed through his leg like venom.  He was able to hobble on three legs, but it slowed him down to much.  He needed to get to Shady, quick.  He didn't have time to deal with this.

He opened his wings again, he would have to fly, which was actually faster, but going any higher than he was would make it almost impossible to breath.  "Shady!" he yelled again through the smoke that attacked his lungs.  He coughed.  He couldn't walk, it was to slow, and he couldn't fly through all this.  The toxins could kill him.  He flew anyways, holding his breath for as long as he could.

"Shade Frost, are you in here?!" he yelled once more as he entered the bedroom, before coughing again.  He landed on three hooves, trying to gather enough air to call out again without suffocating.  "Shady!" he yelled.  He looked around.  Everything was burning here, just like downstairs.  Then, he saw her.  She was lying on the floor, under several large wooden beams that had fallen from where the ceiling had collapsed.

"Shady!" he yelled to her as he ran on all fours.  More pain shot through his leg, but it did little to slow him down.  He grabbed one of the still burning planks and threw it to the side.  Then he grabbed the one that pinned her down, it was much longer than the others and weighed much more as well.

"Hang on," he yelled, "I'm going to get you out of this.  He struggled to remove the beam.  It was stuck on another that ran vertical and extended from the floor to the ceiling.  He turned around and bucked it as hard as he could, causing it to fall over, taking the one that covered Shady with it.  He then frantically grabbed her, and dragged her to the side right before more shrapnel crashed to the ground from above.

Nightfall looked over to Shady, who still lied still on the floor.  She had a long, black burn mark that ran diagonally across her chest and she was covered in soot.  She was unconscious, not dead.  This was good, but she was barely breathing.  She had no doubt been stuck long enough that she inhaled too much smoke.

Nightfall let out another violent cough as he gasped for air, a resource that was becoming more and more scarce by the second.  He had to think fast.  He had to get Shady out if there was going to be any chance of her surviving.  They needed to find air.  Outside, that's where they would have to go, but the so called guards were waiting for them.  This is what they wanted, to either burn them out so that they could arrest them, or let them die with any evidence that they even existed.

He picked her up and held Shady close, covering her muzzle with his foreleg in a protective manner.  "Just hang in there," Nightfall said worriedly.  "Don't give up!"  He hoisted her onto his back and made a break for the door, crawling as fast as he could.  All of a sudden, the roof gave in right in front of them, blocking their only exit.

"Damn it!" Nightfall exclaimed as the debris came crashing down.  They were now surrounded by fire.  He needed to find another way out.  There was a window, maybe he could stick his and Shady's heads out of it and grab a few breaths without getting spotted.

Nightfall decided he would try this.  Anything to give him more time to figure out an escape plan.  He kicked out the wooden muntin bar that was somehow still intact.  He then peeked his head out to make sure it was clear.  Bad idea.

"There he is!" somepony called out from below.

Nightfall dove back into the house as several shots rang out, lead causing already burning wood to splinter.  He held Shady down on the floor, covering her with his own body.

As soon as they had begun, the shots ceased.  "Did we get him?" a voice called out.  "I don't know, be ready just in case," another answered.

They were now one hundred percent trapped and the smoke wasn't billowing out the roof fast enough to clear the room.  If they didn't get out soon, they would surely die of smoke inhalation.

Nightfall looked around again, desperate.  The only option left was the escape tunnel down stairs, but how was he supposed to get there?  He looked to his right, at Shady who was lying next to him.  He pulled her closer to him.  More pain shot through his leg.  He couldn't control his heavy breathing, which only caused him to take in more smoke and cough.  He couldn't die like this!  He wasn't ready!  If he did die though, at least he would die here, with her, the one he loved.

Nightfall closed his eyes, waiting to black out and never wake up again.  It never came.  Instead, he heard... snoring?  He looked over again to see not Shady, but a sleeping Twilight and a Paper Cut who wrapped his leg around her as she leaned against him.  He was back at their campsite.

Paper wore a concerned look on his face.  "Dude, are you alright?" he asked in a hushed tone.  "You had, like, one of those hardcore concentration stares going on for a moment and then you seemed startled or something."

Nightfall looked back at the campfire and then at Paper.  "Yeah, I'm fine," he finally answered.

A few quiet moments passed.  Paper tried to think of something to say, but he drew a blank.  Then, out of nowhere, he was interrupted by Nightfall furiously throwing a jar of his special fruit juice mix into the campfire, extinguishing it.  The sudden noise of glass shattering caused Twilight to wake up with a jump.  She looked over at Nightfall, who was breathing heavily through his nostrils as if he was angry at the embers that he now stared at.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" Paper asked.

Before getting up and walking off in the direction of the castle, Nightfall turned to the two ponies to his right.  "I'm fine," he snapped back. "I just don't like fires."