Those Thirty Days

  Keen charged across the cacti forest, noticing the occasional patch of actual dirt instead of sand. Before her, the dark cloud of the Stymphalian bandit birds were circling over their home, which she had yet to be able to see. As she dodged around another, her hoof splashed in the murk, surprising her enough to cause her to jump back. Before her, the cacti began to thin out, few of them able to grow out of the murky sludge before her. Beyond, she could see a cluster of mangroves, which probably served as the birds nesting area. Keen weighed her options of how to get there and back without being noticed. By what Lodestone had said, many ponies had tried before, but each had failed through a combination of sentinels and being to bulky to make it across the mire. Keen walked back into the cacti forest, quickly spotting what she was looking for. She had a plan, it wouldn't be fun, but entertainment wasn't a priority when it came to saving ponies lives.

  Stepping into the muck and filth once more, Keen took the half of the cloth she had wish her, laying it down in the murk before turning it over to coat it on both sides. Picking it up, she threw it over her back, drawing it over her head before spitting out the horrid flavor of the mud. She looked out, quickly plotting her course as best as she could before moving out. There were many fields of reeds farther out, but the miry murk that had once been the river that generated the marsh beyond separated her from the cover she needed. Lowering herself into the muck, she began to move out, surprised how fast the solid ground under her dropped. She had barely been able to start, and already she was having to act as if she were swimming in the sludge. Maintaining her head above the mud was already a struggle, but also making sure her covering that made her look a bit more like a cluster of filth stayed on was another matter altogether.

  The sludge, fortunately, made it a bit easier to float, but the fact it was so thick made it harder to move, especially with the amount of stealth she wished to achieve, fortunately, the sludge soon began to thin out a bit more until it was only murky water. As she moved on, she suddenly found her rear hoof caught on something, stopping her dead in her tracks. Keen took a deep breath, dipping under the surface with her eyes closed, lowering herself to whatever was holding her back. She moved her fore hooves, feeling whatever was holding her. Freezing as a chill of dread took hold of her, she shot her eyes open, only to see what she had hoped she had been imagining. Below her, the skeleton of a griffin was entangled in some underwater plants, its right foreleg's talons grasping her leg in the most horrifying way. Using her hooves carefully, she pulled away, only to watch as the skeleton arm, which she had pushed down towards the rest of the body, floated up slowly, as if to grab her once more.

  Panicking, Keen waved her hooves to get her farther away, only to bump into something else. Turning around with a growing sense of dread, she was met by the floating skeleton of a Saddle Arabian, still wearing the tattered remains of a uniform. Keen struggled away from the beast, only to notice something. The skeleton bore a sheath that was looped into a belt, but more importantly, a crossbow still stuck out proudly from it. Keen, feeling her lungs burning in her, surface briefly, only allowing her head to break the water, before going back down to retrieve the crossbow, pulling it out with her hooves as delicately as possible. Putting the bit of the crossbow in her mouth and taking the bundle of bolts that floated nearby, as she attempted to ignore the acrid taste of the near stagnant water, Keen moved on towards the murky edge of the dying river.

  Eventually she reached slightly more solid ground, though it still gave as she stepped on it. Crouching low, Keen moved to the first clump of reeds, her now extremely heavy cloth covering on top of her. Looking around, she saw the first Stymphalian bird, sitting atop a nearby mangrove tree, looking this way and that, watching out for incoming threats, though he had yet to see Keen. Keen lifted the crossbow, pressing the string between her lips as she tried to take off some of the moisture before drawing it back with an eerie creak before it reached the raised divot that held the string taught as she took out a bolt, snapping the metal tip off, and placed it in the notch that ran the length of the board. Lifting the whole apparatus slowly, she took careful aim at the creature, more specifically, its head. Pushing the metal bar on the bottom up slowly, she was surprised as the smallest pressure caused the bolt to fly forward, striking the bird right where she had been aiming, sending it into the mire below with a dazed expression.

  Keen blinked a few times, looking at the dazed bird, whose wings were stuck straight up in the most comical of poses. Keen adjusted her grip on the weapon with a shutter as she went back under, moving towards the next outcropping of reeds. When she arrived, she was surprised to find a bag floating in the water, the faint glint of metal underwater below it telling her where the pony who had once owned the items had gone. Keen quickly opened the bags, finding more bolts and the most peculiar rattle like object she had ever seen. Looking at it curiously, an idea of what it was made for came to her, and an idea of how she'd employ it for her own uses.

  Keen quickly set to work, snapping the heads off of the bolts as quickly and as silently as possible. Looking around, she confirmed the position of about seven large patches of reeds that were close enough together enough that she could make it to them in a decent amount of time. Drawing back the twine of the crossbow, placing the first bolt in the slot before setting it on the saddlebags that still floated. Taking out the rattle, she prepared for what would come.

  Lodestone dodged around yet another chick's advances. Their beaks were still bright yellow, untainted by the bronze coating they'd receive later in life, though their feathers were only slightly less sharp in comparison to their parents. Dodging them, for the most part, was rather easy, seeing as a creature the size of a pony that the mobility of a foal didn't exactly scream deadly hunter, but their one advantage was numbers. Loadstone was one pony with the stamina one pony had access to, while these little hatchlings were numerous and had near boundless energy from being in their eggs for Celestia knows how long.

  "Arg! 'top movin' aroun'!" One of the little birds whined. "Ah'm haungry!" Lodestone stepped to the side of another charging attacker. Lodestone was already sweating from the effort, taking as deep of breathes as he could while there was a space between the attacks. Lodestone eyed the three voracious, and more importantly, carnivorous Stymphalians that slowly approached him, apparently having gotten the idea in their head that they would have an easier time of catching him should they actually work as a team, a tactic that Lodestone didn't appreciate.

  As the three were about to charge him, an odd noise came from out in the marsh, causing all the Stymphalian bandit birds to take flight with looks of horror and shock. The three hatchlings waddled away from Lodestone, towards the edge of their nest, which they scrambled to get over, but found near impossible with the fact of their size and the lack of usable wings. Lodestone quickly charged over to one of the edges, jumping over it before spreading his wings to catch him into a glide, weaving between the trees. Out in the marsh, we could here the sounds of the birds squawking and squealing, the occasional splash as something hit the water below. Lodestone didn't know what to expect, but he couldn't rightly stay here knowing what would wait him if he did.

  As he broke out of the treeline, he watched as a Stymphalian bird plummeted in front of him, plunging into the water, bobbing to the surface limply, though its rising and falling chest told him that it was just dazed, or perhaps unconscious. Looking around, he watched as another was knocked out of the sky, looking as equally indisposed as his comrade who had fallen not a moment before. As he attempted to figure out what was happening, something caught his eye. A dark brown spot moved through the lighter water below, but more curiously, it was leaving one patch of reeds and moving to another.

  As he watched, the patch of dark made it into the next patch, rising up from the water revealing a pony with a crossbow, who quickly swiped at the string, drops of water flying off in so doing, before drawing back the twine and loading a blunt bolt into the slot, taking a shot at a Stymphalian that had wandered a bit too far from the group. Lodestone smiled as he recognized the pony under the brown blanket, one very dirty Keen Eye, though her brown coat only showed it slightly.

  Lodestone dove to the marshy ground, sinking quickly into the water, trudging through the muck towards the reed where Keen continued shooting down the words. Keen Eye nodded to him with a smile, taking one last shot at one of the winged bandits as the flock soared off into the distance, quite obviously abandoning their nesting area.

  "Mind telling me what exactly you just did to get those birds out of here, besides shooting them with crossbow bolts?" Lodestone asked, looking the filthy mare up and down, as if he were just seeing her for the first time. Keen chuckled lightly as she let go of the crossbow, allowing it to simply drop into the marsh without much of a care.

  "As you said, many others have tried to remove these pests. It just so happened that the equipment that all those parties had brought with them was still here, and still very much usable." Keen replied. "I had all the tools I needed to get them out of here, so it was just a matter of getting it done." Lodestone shook his head with a sigh.

  "Ah 'ssume ya lef' our stuff some'ers safe?" He asked, imitating the Stymphalian's accent with some accuracy. Keen smirked at him before turning around towards the desert.

  "Stashed under the other half of this piece of cloth next to the tallest cactus I could find." She replied. "Now come on, we got to get back home. There are some rather important matters that need to be attended to still." Lodestone nodded grimly as he followed quickly, only to trip and fall face first into the muck as his hoof caught on the reeds. "Oh, and watch your step, there are a lot of things in here that shout the fact it wasn't intended for ponies." Lodestone shook himself with a sigh before trudging on after Keen.

  "Wait," Lodestone said as he froze in place, Keen looked back to him with a raised eyebrow, "They all flew off, right?" He asked. Keen cocked her head, but nodded slowly after a short moment.

  "Except the ones I knocked out and are now floating in the marsh, yeah, they are all gone as of about a minute ago." She replied. "Why, what's the problem?"

  "They had hatchlings, three of them, and they are trapped up in a nest without the ability to fly down." Lodestone explained. "We should help them down at least, otherwise they will sit up there and die because there aren't any adults looking after them." Keen scratched her chin for a few moments. There were some problems to that plan. One, they were carnivorous so they might attack their rescuers. Two, they might be recently hatched, but Keen doubted their 'down' feathers were as fluffy as the usual conception of such feathers. Third, there was no telling what they'd do after being released.

  "Alright, I think I got a plan on how to take care of this." Keen said hopefully. The plan was solid in her head, but even the best made plans might fail.