The Heros Of Canterealm

Horseshoe Port was a city where one couldn’t take a walk about the town without seeing obvious signs of poverty and strife. There were sick in the streets clothed in muddy tunics, beggars and murders were not uncommon by any means. Of course this was only in the lower town. If you lived in the merchant district or higher you could at least make your way through the streets and only have to deal with one or two beggars a day.

The second largest port town in all of Canterealm it was a hotspot for many who came to seek their fortunes. Only one of two things could happen, you’d become rich or you’d be ruined there was no in between. If you made a bad investment in shipping you could lose everything if you made a good one you could find yourself wealthy with Spices and teas from the Gryphon lands across the sea to the far west.

Pirates would often loot trade ships out at sea to the south then come up here from the north to spend and trade their ill gotten gains on Mare’s, Wine and song. In short the lower town was a filthy cesspit of corruption and sorrow while the upper town was the high life for those who could afford it.

With the amount of starving peasants in the city one would think that theft would be a common trade among the desperate but this was not so. In Horseshoe port you had two choices as a thief. Be Damn good or hang by your neck in the harbor or market as a warning. Some pirates joined the petty thieves in the gallows but there were far more hungry bread thieves swinging than there were sea rats.

The reason was simple. Many of the pirates that came here were protected by the wealthy and powerful corrupt and for important reason. If one needs their competition in the trade market to...go away than you need to relieve them of their assets to bankrupt them. When you know this the reason for Pirates walking free in the town becomes rather clear rather quickly.

It was in one tavern of exceptional Ill repute that a pony mare in tatty black clothes and cloak, green eyes, teal coat and blond mane found herself drinking a cheap wine with a piece of stale bread and a wedge of cheese. Concealed beneath her cloak she kept a dagger with an Onix pommel matching the black stone embedded in the front of her skull beneath a small unusable horn.

On her back equally as useless were a pair of stubby wings though a mare of twenty one her wings looked better on a Pegasus foal than her. The common term for her  misfortune was Sickguin or sick blood. A horn but no magic, wings but no flight. Ponies like her were seen by many as the puss of society. It was better to pretend to be a useless Unicorn than what she was and so that’s what she did.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see a rowdy and clearly drunk stallion talking with two of his fellow marauders. They were glancing in her direction occasionally, disturbing smiles on their faces.

“Bloody pirate scum! If they think me a harlot they will wish they hadn’t come to this tavern!”

As she had suspected one of them made his way over towards her taking a seat on the dirty pillow across from her at the table. With a semi toothy smile he leaned forward on one of his forelegs and spoke to her.

“How much would It cost for a stallion to spend a night with you?”

“I’m not interested.”

“I’m being polite now why not take me up on my offer before I act otherwise?”

“If you think you scare me you're sadly mistaken. You’ve been sitting here less than a minute and you’ve already proven you haven't the brains Solaris gave a beetle.”

The stallion prepared to strike at her but found himself stopped by a knife at his throat. He had failed to notice that the mare in front of him had activated her Dueling Crystal and snuck a knife under the table to his his gut in anticipation that he would get violent. Swallowing he felt the dagger press against his throat a little harder. The other two stallions stood up making their way towards her swords sliding from their sheaths.

Out the side of her eye the mare saw the gems in their circulets light up and a glow appear around their sword handles. She knew now a fight was inevitable. In a quick motion she dragged her blade across the neck of her hostage splattering the wall with the sanguine liquid from his veins. Their comrade dead the remaining two pirates pulled out their swords and ran at her.

The cloaked mare flung the dagger at the nearest attacker and before he could react it buried itself in his left breast. Flipping over her table landing in front of her stab victim she kicked his front legs out from under him pulling the dagger out of his chest with her Dueling Crystal’s enchantment and drove it into the back of his neck for good measure. “If he looks dead do it double.”

Pulling the bloody blade out of the dead pirates neck she swung it across the chest of the remaining stallion who had been startled backwards leaving a deep gash in his chest then bringing it back she drove it into his side before finishing the job by flipping him onto his back with a kick and stabbing through his throat till the knife hit the planks below.

The astonished and terrified bar patrons ran out screaming and hollering while the mare simply cut a piece of clothing off one of her victims to wipe the blood off her blade so it shined again.

“Bloody Tartarus Emerald look what ye done this time! Ye know how long it’s gonna take to get the blood stains out of the hardwood?”

“Leave them in it adds to the rustic feel of the place, makes it feel...Lived in”

“Solaris dammit girl you know how hard this is gonna be to explain to the guard? I’m gonna hafta rack me brain on this one to keep up our deal! Sometimes I think you're more trouble than yer worth!”

“We both know that’s not true. How else could a tavern keeper have such a fat purse of Bits? You’d be in the stocks for not paying your taxes if it wasn’t for me.”

Emerald had long ago learned that everypony had a pressure point that she could use against them. This ponies was his greed.

“I’ve always hated Tamaters even when they weren’t rotten.”

“Well you’ll be eating them night and day if you sack me.”

“Fine I get the bloody point! But they find out the truth and there’ll be the Cerberus to pay!”

“Than they can’t find out.”

“ Ah shit.”

/l---)O(---/l\

An hour later saw Emerald Gaze sitting in her room in the tavern’s attic. A quill clenched in her teeth she scribbled it’s tip across the parchment. The novel she was writing had been the focus of her effort for the past year and writer's block had been a horrid hindrance. On the front cover of the book was her suitonyme Raven Quill a writer of some renown but not enough to keep her fed. She didn’t write because it was profitable she wrote because it was the only way she could escape from her own life.

Crime was what paid her way a writer could scribble from here till the end of time and still die a pauper but a skilled thief at least had some breathing room and she was the best thief in the port. Her arrangement with Tankard Chucker who owned the tavern she lived in at the moment meant she always had an alibi when the guards came knocking. In return she split her theft profits with him and got room and board.

She spat the quill out of her mouth and licked her lips before looking out the window. It was pouring rain today and lightning could be seen out towards the sea. The winds howled with enough force she was sure that any birds in the area had hunkered down for the night. A shame that likely meant no birdsong in the morning.

Resting her head on the table she gazed out the window with a bored expression. No thieving tonight the weather would make it hard to scale the buildings and that meant getting in would be difficult. Too hard to be worth the effort at least. Besides everypony would likely be sleeping lightly waking every few hours from a lightning strike.

A house with awake residents was a house hard to rob. She picked up the quill again in her teeth and continued to write in the books blank pages. It was going to be a long night at this rate. Her focus was disturbed rather suddenly by her door being kicked in and two guards and their lieutenant forcing their way into her room Halberds pointed at her.

Instinctively she reached for her dagger but quickly found herself in pain when the guard Lieutenant shot her with a beam from his horn knocking her to the floor. When she opened her eye’s she could see the tavern keeper in the doorway a devilish smile on his face. Nopony had to look any further than his fat coin purse to see why. One of the guards snapped a pair of shackles around her fetlocks before snatching the dagger off the floor and placing a no use charm on it’s gem pomel. The stallion who sold her out gave a loud chuckle.

“What? Ye honestly think I would risk my neck for a Sickguin? Ha! I’d sooner take an arrow for a serf! Yer more trouble than yer worth lass I’d say I’m sorry but I honestly ain't. I can’t believe you were dumb enough to trust me!”

“Trust you! Don’t flatter yourself! I knew you were slicker than a snake in oil but I over estimated your Intelligence! Believe me I had no Idea it was possible for somepony to be as stupid as you are!”

“Yer the one going to the Gallows you little shit!”

“You’ve been hiding a fugitive of the law for bribes! You honestly think your not going to join me?”

Having finished her sentence and wiping the smile from the tavern keeper's face a click could be heard as shackles were placed around the forehooves of the stallion. The sinking feeling in his chest grew even stronger when he saw his Bit purse being levitated out of his reach.

“Oi we had a deal!”

“She was right sad to say. You really are as dumb as you look. It appears the Hangcolt will be getting eight Horseshoes instead of four but don’t worry mister Tankard we’ll see to it you're given your last rights. Seize the mares book over there I want it for evidence. Who knows It could help us convict her of further crimes.”

“I’d sooner go to Tartarus than let you touch that book!”

Lunging forward the thief threw her chained whooves around the neck of the stallion who had shackled her. He was no hostage his neck was snapped in seconds. Grabbing her dagger in her teeth from the corpse in her grasp she made for the window where her book lay. The remaining guard thrust at her with his Halberd but she heaved the body in the way letting the corpse take the blow.

Thanks to the power of his thrust and a little bit of luck her shackles chains broke when the Halberd struck them as the weapon dug into the dead body. Once the spear end was in the dead stallions body deep enough she threw the body to the side of the floor and grabbed her knife off the corpse with her teeth. The body landed on the floor with a thud pulling the weapon out of the guards grasp with it. Before the Lieutenant could go for the attack she swung her head towards the window spitting out the dagger in the process.

The glass shattered and in the blink of an eye she was out the window her novel in progress tucked under her cloak. Now on the clay tile roof of the tavern she bolted across the thieves highway. She was without her climbing shoes so she had to be careful with her steps. As she had suspected guards that had been watching the exits began yelling commands in surprise as they saw her scamper across the roof.

She couldn’t get caught this was her one and only chance at escape. If they caught her again there would be no Gallows this time. She had killed a guard that was a kill on sight sentence. Should she be caught she’d be dead without trial even if it would have been fixed from the beginning

“Stop chasing her and fire your crossbows! She murdered a guard kill her! Hollered the Lieutenant out the broken window.

“I have no blade, no coin and I’m a fugitive in the heart of a city that has walls guarded in and out! The gods must hate my guts with the passion of a vengeful lover!”

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop she chanced a glance behind her towards the ground. She was outrunning them but they were preparing to fire their crossbows. If she didn’t lose them fast she was going to be plucked off the roof by a bolt.

Making an adrenaline based decision she jumped off the roof she was on to the ground doing her best to take the fall with the grace she could muster. When her front hooves hit the ground she rolled to the side going with the impact to lose as much energy from the fall as possible before coming to a stop.

In the end where she stopped was decided for her when her side slammed into the wall of a building. Normally an impact like that would have put a pony out of commission but her blood was pumping with chemicals and her mind was being run by instinct. She couldn’t process pain now but she surely would later.

With wind Howling and rain pouring she galoped down the cobblestone streets looking for a place to hide. If she could lose the guards than she had a chance of escaping with the storm to help her remain hidden. They were still giving chase but they had split up not knowing which street she had taken after jumping. She had the advantage for the moment.

Taking turns at streets and alleyways she soon heard the voices and yells of her pursuers grow fainter until the storm was all she could hear. After taking several more turns for good measure she found herself near the local bathhouse of the upper district. A plan in mind as she crept into the building and much to her delight made it to the changing room.

“Even though I steal for a living I feel like an ass for making somepony walk home in this weather naked. Still I’d rather get out of this city without being in a burlap sack bound for the bone orchard.”

Finding a merchant ladies tunic of the proper size she quickly donned it and gave herself a quick glance. “Draws too much attention I look too important.” As fast as she could seeing as how the tunics owner might leave the bath at any moment she began ripping the blue cloth till it was rather tattered then proceeded to smear water and grime from her old clothes onto them. Even taking care to conceal the broken shackles on her hooves with torn fabric.

Last she hid her old clothing in the bottom of a dustbin as well as using some of it’s foul contents such as rotten tomatoes and apples to make herself smell bad. The less ponies wanted to be in her personal space and the poorer off she looked the less likely she was to be Identified as anything more than a common beggar.

Satisfied with her wretched smell and worse off appearance she made a break for the doors and back out into the rain. She had to disappear yet again from yet another town and find somewhere else to rob blind in hopes that one day she could finally find somewhere she was able to stay for good.

“I’m so sick of running! Why can I never just walk? Why can I never be left alone and content for just once in my life! Mother Why did you have to save me from my fall off the casting cloud? I’m a failure as a Pegasus and a failure in life! You should have let me fall!”

There were so many things Bitter Thyme had lost count of in her life on the run. How many fake names she had used, How many ponies she’d robbed, How many times she’d found herself wanting to do away with her life but lacking the determination to do so, How many times she had wept for the loss of her mother.

But out of all the things Bitter Thyme had lost track of there was one thing she always remembered. How many days she had spent in exile waiting for a chance to get revenge that her mother’s soul could be at peace. Today was another one gone by...Day four thousand and twenty four.

As the mare kept running through the streets towards the gate she felt water in her eyes. Salt water not the water from the sky. Her mother was the only pony to ever show her kindness and she had paid for it by drinking Hemlock.“I’m going to avenge her even if it takes from now till the end of time!”