Bloodwood

The relentless bray of several different chainsaws washed through the forest as the party advanced, their path a ravished line of tree trunks and scattered sawdust behind them. Whatever couldn’t be easily maneuvered around was cut at the stump and felled away from the path to make room for the two wagons they had been left with. The Clydesdale pullers had turned for home back at the end of the old trail, leaving the crew of twenty to finish the move alone. The two remaining wagons were now loaded down with precarious stacks of food, water, and equipment, each pulled by a grumbling team of four. Behind the two wagons, an additional four stallions were tethered to a massive milling machine of iron and steel, not quite as wide as the wagons, but over twice as long, the belt-drive system and boiler stacked up on top. It was, unfortunately for the four pulling it, the heaviest of their convoy.

Shayne and Lance flanked the group, the least laden of all of them as they walked along near the back. Occasionally, a grumble or two would arise about the unladen guards, though a second voice would pitch in to add that they weren’t being paid to haul machinery, and that would silence them for a while.

“Timber!” a hoarse voice shouted over the dying rumble of a chainsaw as it throttled down, his voice casually tired, and informal. The stallion had lost count of how many times he’d said the word that afternoon. Stepping back from the crackling tree that was no wider than a pony’s head, Blazer flipped the ignition switch on the saw and let it fall sideways across his chest in the assisted harness, then reached up and pulled his earmuffs down around his neck. The gnarled tree swayed for a moment, then split at the base to make an almost gracious descent towards the forest floor. It hit with a thud and the crackle of a hundred snapping branches, then was still.

“Alright!” Rusty shouted back over the convoy, raising a hoof to gesture forward in an arcing wave. “Keep it goin!’ We got another two miles to go and only two hours of daylight!” The large stallion grunted, then climbed slowly over the fallen tree and took up walking once more, hooffalls slow and heavy. Even the foreman hadn’t gotten out of the labor; the large earth pony was loaded down with gear and bags galore, looking more like a pack mule than a pony.

Crunch scrambled over the log after Rusty, staggering a little as the weight of the spare chainsaw tied to his saddlebags threatened to pull him over. “We should break into the biome in under a mile,” he mumbled, trotting up to walk beside Rusty, fumbling in his saddlebags with a wing in order to retrieve a map. “I assume to set up camp you’re going to want to get a mile or two in, right?”

Rusty nodded, peering through the trees ahead, the gloom of the coming evening even darker than normal through the thick forest canopy. “No point in settin’ up on the fringes. You just gotta walk further every day to go to work once ya clear the surroundin’ area. Granted, you can always move camp, but that takes time. Time’s money. Besides, the idea isn’t to strip-log an area. We wanna take crowded growth trees, have as little negative impact on the region as possible and leave most of the canopy intact.”

“Hey, Rusty,” Blazer called, falling in on the other side of the stallion, his back dusted a golden brown from what had to have been the sawdust of a dozen or more trees. “This forest is getting thicker, fast.” He glanced briefly out ahead, then raised a hoof to fan it out over the thick rows of trees. “I mean, before we could kinda wiggle the wagons around between them, but it’s getting to the point where we gotta cut every ten or so feet.” The other stallion on clearing duty, the brown one with the dangerous beard, revved up his chainsaw about twenty feet ahead before augering the saw into the base of a large sapling. “Speaking of which,” Blazer muttered, nodding out ahead before picking up his pace a little.

“Yeah,” Rusty rumbled after him, a little bit of a muse in his voice. “Canopy’s gettin’ thicker as well. Ain’t seen a forest this thick since... shit.” He reached up to scratch his head, looking over at Crunch with a raised eyebrow. “Back when I was a buck—cleared a patch of rainforest in Zebrica for some military operation. Now that was tight. And back then we didn’t have chainsaws. All hoof-work, two-pony saws. Hate to say, we might be a bit spoiled these days.”

“Hey Brick!” Blazer called over the rumble of a chainsaw as he hopped a freshly-fallen tree. “Move on ahead and I’ll take care of this next one!”

Crunch frowned at Rusty. “You worked out in the jungle?”

“Sure did. It was shit.” He stopped for a moment to fish out his pack of cigarettes and the lighter. Taking a moment to get one in his mouth and lit, the stallion took a puff, then continued on. “Bugs everywhere, everythin’ was always wet, trees were massive, wagons would get stuck in the mud. Really ain’t worth tryin’ to log in there. Wood’s all too spongy, but every now and then, we came across a real nice ironwood and we’d mill it up. Really dense—makes for good knife handles and whatnot. Kitchen cabinets and shit.” With a grunt, he heaved himself over another tree trunk, then motioned for two stallions with a forehoof and pointed to the log. “Move it for the wagons.” Grumbling, he turned back to Crunch. “Anyways, it was one of my first labor jobs. They were hiring any dumbass that would take the job, no background needed. Thought it would be cool to get out of Equestria, see the world. Heh... all I got to see was a ten mile stretch of shitty forest.”

Crunch nodded along to the story, biting his lip a little as they trotted along, glancing between Rusty and the map held out in his wing. “Oh, well that’s... underwhelming.”

“You know what a square mile of rainforest looks like after you’ve logged it?” he asked with a sudden look to the other stallion.

Hesitating for a second, Crunch shrugged his shoulders, then shook his head. “No.”

“It looks like shit. It looks like some giant came along havin’ a bad day and ripped all the trees right outta the ground, scattered ‘em all over the place, left big ugly tracks in the mud. Then the rains come, and without all those roots to hold the soil together, it washes out, turns into a fuckin’ bog.” He shot Crunch a crooked smirk, then huffed. “We turn nice, quiet forests into warzones.”

“So... why do you do it, then?” Crunch asked with a frown. “I mean, if you don’t like it.”

Rusty glanced over. “I never said I didn’t like it. I love what I do—ain’t no better smell than mixed gasoline and sawdust in the mornin.’” He shrugged his shoulders. “Because, someone’s gotta do it. Just like there’s gotta be someone to... sit at a desk and file paperwork, or stand behind a counter and sell merchandise. If I don’t do it, someone else will. I mean, you got those treehuggers out there that’re all for saving the trees,” he droned on. “Like there ain’t plenty of fuckin’ trees. Yeah, they get in the way, mess up operations, but I don’t hate ‘em, cause they just don’t understand that if ya’ stop the loggers, the price of wood goes up, and if the price of wood goes up, then everyone wants to go out an’ cut wood to make some bits, and then they really got their work cut out for ‘em. Supply and demand will always determine what happens and there ain’t a damn thing you can do to change that. Granted, I’ll give ya’ credit for tryin’. Would it be nice if we could keep all the forests intact? ‘Course it would! Is it ever gonna happen? Shit no. We build everything outta wood. It’s all ab—”

“Hey Rusty!” Blazer called from up ahead. “You’re gonna have to see this!”

Blinking away his rant, the auburn stallion huffed, then doubled his pace through the trees, heading towards the two stallions up ahead, who had since stopped any forward progress. “What is it this time? I swear if it’s another fuckin’ snake, I’m gonna feed it to ya.’”

Blazer whistled and leaned up against a gnarled tree. “I don’t think we’re getting any further with those wagons, Rusty.”

“Well why the hell not?” Rusty spit out the remains of his cigarette, eyes falling on the brown stallion who was simply sitting beside one of the trees, looking out at nothing, his body alight from the left side with golden rays of sunlight. Rusty slowed to a stop beside Blazer, then gaped a little. Shaking his head, he shook his bags off, then weaved between the last couple trees to come to a stop beside Brick.

“Our wagons ain’t exactly very... vertical, Rusty,” Blazer muttered, moseying up beside him.

The chasm that stretched out before them was an almighty scar in the forest floor, narrow at both ends, but absolutely massive in the middle, like a jagged oval if you squeezed both ends down to a fine point. From the northeast to the Southwest, a winding canyon continued off in either direction, disappearing into the thick growth of the Everfree. The walls were steep, tan stone, surprisingly smooth on the face despite the ragged nature of the chasm itself. Tendrils of dark gray stone snaked their way through the tan, similar in appearance to mixed sandstone, but different in structure. Fifteen feet down from the edge, a greenish-yellow tree canopy hovered, obstructing any view of the ground below, or how steep the wall of the depression really was. Further towards the center, the trees extended the lower they seemed to go, forming a gentle, winding V through the center of the depression. There was no forest floor to be seen, anywhere, even near the cliff face.

Blazer leaned up against Rusty and raised a forehoof to brush at a speck of sawdust on his other shoulder. “That’s a big hole.”

Rusty grumbled, then shoved him off and stepped up to the edge to peer down. “They didn’t tell me we’d have to scale a fuckin’ wall!”

“What’s all the fuss about gu—” Crunch skidded to a stop just short of the ledge, the chainsaw strapped to his flank swinging forward a few inches to stagger the stallion forward an extra foot. With a little yipe, the pegasus stepped back away from the edge, then peered out and down at the top of the tree canopy below, raising a forehoof to shield his eyes from the evening sun. “Oh...” Immediately, he reached back for the map, frantically unfolding it as he ran his hoof over the markered line. “This map is topographically inaccurate! This is more of a... a bowl here, not a canyon!” He peered over the map with a daunted look about him. “Maybe it's a glacier trail, or... a runoff central, or maybe a—”

“Crunch,” Rusty drawled. “If you’re about to tell me we gotta go down there, I swear by Celestia—”

The pegasus quickly went back to the map, then gave a bouncy nod and leaned forward to peer over the edge. “I mean, that’s it down there, those look like the trees, which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it, considering the fact that this depression likely sees most of the runoff from the surrounding forest and streams and has supports its own ecosystem through physical separation from the rest of the—”

“Do you know—” Rusty cut in impatiently, “—if there’s an easy way down there?” He glanced to the others, which were lining up in the treeline now, tentatively stepping up to the edge.

“How am I supposed to know?” Glaring at the map for a second or two more, Crunch huffed, then stuffed it away in his saddlepack. “The map isn’t even right—some pegasus probably sketched it out in a notebook thirty years ago while flying over the darn place... with the sun in his eyes! On paper this was just a blue line!” He reached over, and undid the straps that held the chainsaw to his flank, dropping it to the ground beside him. The pegasus stepped forward, gave his shoulders a little shake, then hopped right off the edge as his wings extended.

The rustle of branches filled the air as Ratchet pushed forward, a pulling harness dangling around his shoulders. “What’s the...” His eyes drifted out over the expanse, then widened with an almost comical lift from his eyebrows. “Holy shit. Who put that hole there?”

Rusty snorted, then sat back. “That hole’s where we gotta go.”

“I don’t think there’s any way down!” shouted the hovering orange pegasus in the distance. He dropped down briefly, skimming over the treetops for a second before leveling out to point at the stone wall. “There’s a split here in the rock that maybe a pony could climb down. No way you’re getting any gear down it, though!” He hovered back up to a few feet above the rim, looking out over the party that had since gathered near the edge. “Want me to scout down one of the canyons or something? See if there’s an easy way down?”

Rusty shook his head, then waved Crunch back with a forehoof. “Shit, no. That’s miles through uncut forest.” Raising a hoof to scratch the back of his head, the stallion breathed a long sigh, then turned to look back over the others. Instead, his eyes fell on a freshly-cut tree. Perking his ears, Rusty stood, then shouldered past two of the others to give the log a good kick. “Hey, Ratch...”

The stallion in question appeared beside him after a moment or two. “Figured something out?”

He nodded. “You wouldn’t happen to remember that rig we built two years ago to haul our gear outta that sinkhole, would you?”

Ratchet blinked, then cocked his head. After a moment, he grinned.

The sun had been long gone for more than an hour by the time they stepped back to observe their hard work. Two crackling fires burned nearby, the flickering orange glow from both providing more than enough light to observe the medieval construction.

It was a safety inspector’s worst nightmare, a ghastly machine built of rope and wood and the determination of twenty loggers working for their paychecks. Two large trees had been felled for the main beams of the makeshift elevator, propped up diagonally by the cuttings of another log so that they hung out precariously over open space below. Cross bracings had been applied to keep them steady, nailed into place at five foot intervals. At the opposite end, about fifteen feet away from the chasm’s edge, where the tree trunks rested against the ground, they’d been tied and spiked to the stumps they were cut from in order to keep them in place. Only one wagon remained, sitting unattended a short distance away. The other one had been unloaded and disassembled for key components of the lift. Two wagon wheels sat a few feet away, their bearings and steel bands stripped for use in the twin pulleys mounted on either jutting shaft. The deck of the wagon itself had been attached to rope and hung below the device, dangling out in the open air just a few inches away from the ledge. The other two wheels had been mounted on either side of a log a foot and a half in length to serve as a rope spool for the pulley system, then mounted to the remaining two bearings on an improvised A-frame that had been screwed to the wagon deck. Two large handles had been affixed to either side; the idea was simple—two ponies worked in tandem to lift and lower the platform, and it was all tied up nicely with a few block-and-tackles.

“You know,” Crunch mused, peering at the looming contraption. “I’m not undermining your determination and improvisation skills here... but are you sure that’s safe?”

Rusty reached out and roughed his hoof through the orange pegasus’ mane with something that resembled a playful growl. “Why don’t you be the first to test it, birdbrain. If it breaks, you can just fly away.”

Ducking away from the hoof, the orange stallion bit his lip, then took a half step towards the lift. “How many pegasi do we have in the group, anyways?”

“Counting you?” Rusty frowned, then raised one hoof and pointed out over a few heads. “Uh, four total. Pegasi aren’t too common in the loggin’ business. Mostly use ‘em for scoutin’ and trimmin’ high branches. Those light bones of yours ain’t too good for the kinda work we do.” He stepped away from Crunch, then grasped a lantern from the deck of the other wagon and started towards the lift. “Okay, here’s the deal!” he called over the camp, immediately quieting the slew of voices. “I know you’re all tired! But we’re almost there! Now, I’m gonna take a crew of three down to scout while the rest of you start bringin’ our supplies down the lift. Rach, I want you to supervise that!”

Rusty sat back and pulled open the door on the lantern, then produced his lighter and lit the wick. “I’m takin’ the featherhead with me, so that means I’ll need two more of you who aren’t afraid of the dark.”

Immediately, a large, gray stallion, almost as large as Rusty himself, stepped forward and brushed his long, raggedy-looking mane away from his face; the gray-blue strands stayed up for about a second before falling right back down to where they’d been.

“Tidal,” Rusty said with a small nod, motioning the stallion towards the improvised lift.

A green unicorn stepped forward as well, but a moment later, A purple-gray hoof grasped him by the shoulder and pulled him back. Shayne stepped out in his place, shrugging her shoulders at the unicorn in a sorry-not-sorry gesture.

“Ah, Miss Shayne,” Rusty drawled, sitting back on his rump as she approached. “How nice of you to join us.”

The batpony passed him by, then hopped onto the suspended platform, setting it swinging as she casually leaned against the rope spool. “It’s probably dark and scary down there,” she hummed. “Figure I’ll tag along to protect you from the monsters.”

The other three followed her lead, first Tidal, then Crunch and Rusty. After a moment of contemplation, Rusty waved two more over as well, simply to work the crank and carry the platform back up to the top again.

“You know, Shayne,” Rusty drawled, leaning casually up against the rail as they began to descend, the wooden platform creaking under the strain of their combined weight, “if you’re scared, you can always just give me that gun an’ fly your pretty flank back up there to that ledge.”

The batmare’s ears flicked, and she slowly turned to face him, eyes glinting as a grin crossed her face. “Sorry, stud, but you’ve already got one.”

Tidal blinked, then leaned over and gave Rusty a small shoulder nudge. “I like her.”

“No you don’t,” he growled back.

That didn’t stop Tidal from eyeing Shayne, of course. With a final warning look towards the gray stallion, Rusty produced a cigarette and made quick work of lighting it. The pulleys creaked and groaned, and the lift went ever lower, occasionally bumping against the adjacent stone wall with a soft, grating rasp. In no time at all, there came the scratching of tree branches against the bottom of the platform and the distinct crack of breaking limbs as the combined weight of the gutted wagon and six ponies broke through the foliage. What little moonlight shone off the rocky cliff face was quickly fading, swallowed by the tops of the trees, and after a moment, the only source of light was Rusty’s lantern and the little orange tip of his cigarette. Branches studded with green-yellow leaves, and deep red buds pressed in on all sides, turning the platform into a momentary prison cell as the branches they’d passed whipped closed in their wake.

Idly, Tidal reached out and snatched a leaf from one of the branches, holding it up in front of the lantern to peer at the thick veins running through the center. “Hey Rusty, don’t these kinda look like oak leaves to you?”

Raising the lantern up near his face, Rusty leaned in to peer at the seized leaf, then frowned. “Yeah, but they’re veinier than my—”

“Holy sh—I-I mean, look!” Crunch said suddenly, giving Rusty a good thump on the flank as they broke free from the encasing foliage.

What spanned out below was darkness—darkness so thick that you could reach out and touch it. A thick, stale scent hung in the air, moist and distinct like rotting leaves mold; it was a stagnant scent. A short ways to the right, a massive black tree trunk could be made out in the wan light from the lantern. Apart from that single trunk, there was no semblance that anything but blackness existed below the foliage. The lift creaked and the ropes groaned as the spool unwound, and down they went, silence momentarily blanketed over the group. Leaning against the railing, Shayne dug in her bag and pulled out a metal flashlight to grasp with her wing, then flicked the switch and sent the yellow beam cascading off into the darkness. The flashlight, while managing to throw further than the lantern, still didn’t light anything more than thick, black tree trunks and spindly branches.

Shayne leaned towards the edge and shone the light down the trunk of the closest tree, slowing a little as it widened near the base. “Found the bottom.” She cast the light upwards, towards the massive canopy above. “I don’t know much about trees... but these are some big trees.” She glanced over at Rusty, then gestured to the lantern. “Why do you use those old things?”

“Batteries are expensive, heavy, and they don’t last as long,” he gruffed distractedly, eyes still swimming out through the darkness. “Besides, we can burn used oil in the lanterns. We keep flashlights locked away for emergencies.”

Tidal gave the leaf a little toss, then watched it spiral away in the perfectly still air. “This is spooky,” he said, a softening chuckle in his voice. “Doesn’t even feel like we’re outside. No echoes, no wind.”

The lift bumped against the forest floor, jostling the six ponies on board. Now, without the creaking of the winch, it really was dead silent. Rusty was the first to break it. The large stallion grunted, then stepped off the platform, touching down on the forest floor with a sound somewhere between a crunch and a thud as last season’s leaves compressed underhoof. He inhaled a deep breath through his cigarette, the orange tip glowing like a blowtorch as it audibly crackled in the silence.

“Send the lift back up,” he muttered as the others stepped off after him, leaving just the two working the winch. “Tell ‘em to have lanterns ready. It’s dark down here.”

“Dark is an understatement,” Shayne said with a snort, shining the flashlight around in a slow circle until it came to rest on the wall behind the lift. “I’m nocturnal, and even this is dark enough to give me the creeps. The trees just... suck up all the sound—makes everything feel claustrophobic.” Her ears flicked towards the squeak of the pulley, and she tracked the lift with her light for a moment as it began to rise.

Rusty glanced over at her. “Ever been in the woods after a good snowstorm? Kinda reminds me of that.”

The four fell into silence once more, and that silence was permeating. Every brush of a hoof against the ground or the jangling of the belt on someone’s saddlepack might as well have been a gunshot. From far above, the rustling, scratching sound dared to break the quiet scene as the lift ascended back through the canopy.

“You know...” Crunch mused after a second or two, glancing around at the others in the circle of light provided by Rusty’s lantern. “For the entirety of this trip, I don’t think I’ve ever been in complete silence.” He glanced around, then breathed a tentative chuckle. “I can’t even hear any insects. There is literally no sound but us.”

Tidal returned that tentative chuckle, then took a few steps towards the edge of the light. “Awh fuck, you’re right, now I can hear my tinnitus.” He worked his jaw to the left and right, forcing out a yawn. “This is spook-city.”

Rolling his eyes at the two, Rusty snatched up the lantern and started away from the stone cliff face, making his way towards the nearest, massive tree trunk. “Come on, Tidal. I’d expect Crunch to be scared—he ain’t used to this shit, but you’ve been out in dark, spooky forests before.” He set the lantern down on a root protruding from the massive black-barked trunk, then leaned forward to rap on the bark with a forehoof. The sound that emanated was thick and wet, almost meaty in some strange sense, like an old boot on glue-down linoleum. “Well it’s definitely a heavy wood. It’s gonna be a bitch to haul outta’ here.”

“...Not even bugs,” Crunch added after a second.

Rusty pulled himself away from the tree and started deeper into the woods, then motioned with a hoof for the others to follow. “Come on, let’s find a place to set up camp for the night—the ground here’s too uneven.”

The other three exchanged looks, then Crunch shrugged at Tidal and they all started off. Shayne wound up in back, the flashlight held in her wing steadily swaying from side to side as the mare peered off through the trees. Of the four, she was easily the most tense, wings drawn in close to her sides, hoofsteps slow and stiff. The mare’s fuzzy ears were perked straight up, swiveling about seemingly at random.

From behind came the rustle of branches, then the shouts of the other members of the crew. The light of another lantern suddenly appeared, and although it was no brighter than Rusty’s, just below the canopy, it looked like a yellow moon in the sky, shining brilliantly in the distance.

“Say, Rusty,” Tidal muttered after a moment, throwing a brief glance over his shoulder as he peered at the descending ball of light in the distance. “Aren’t these old-growth trees?” The auburn stallion’s pace seemed to falter for a second, though he didn't turn. “These look like old-growth trees.” Tidal repeated. “I mean, I bet you if we cut these things down, you’d be able to count over two-hundred rings.”

Shayne’s flashlight cast its beam on the back of Rusty’s head.

“Yeah.” Rusty hesitated, glancing briefly at the blinding light before turning his head away. “We’ve got paperwork that says we can. Don’t ask me how; it’s a bunch of political bullshit I don’t understand.”

Crunch blinked, then hopped forward a step or two. “I could take a look at that if you wanted, Rusty. I mean, heh, it’s what you hired me for.”

Rusty tensed. “Yeah, maybe later. Let’s get this camp figured out first.”

The trunk of a massive tree to the right creaked, and all four looked, but Shayne jumped. She stood tense now, jaw clenched, flashlight trembling in the grasp of her wing.

Crunch's gaze fell on the trembling beam, and his eyes traced their way up the mare’s wing and to her face. “Are... you okay?”

“Yep, never better,” she muttered, still gazing at the tree before her. She started forward, glancing around before motioning them forward. Rusty opened his mouth, likely to protest the gesture, but a quick look from Crunch silenced him. “Cities are always the loudest, you know. Factories, construction sites... the second is forests. Forests are incredibly loud. There is always something moving, or chirping, or rustling in the bushes. Forests are nearly deafening if you listen close.”

Shayne looked back over her shoulder to eye them, the flashlight no longer trembling in her grasp. “This one isn’t.” She bit the corner of her lip, thinking, then looked out ahead once more, slowing to a stop, the beam of her flashlight slowly swinging down until it was pointed at the damp ground below. “I am incredibly uncomfortable.”

“Need me to protect you from the monsters?” Rusty said with a roll of his eyes.

“What monsters? There’s nothing here.” Shayne huffed and sat back on her haunches. She ran a hoof through her mane, then gave the side of her head a good thump. “I’m fine. You deaf idiots have been listening to chainsaws all your life. You have no idea how weird this is for me.”

“Hey, Rusty!” a voice called through the trees, quiet and distant. “Where are we moving this shit!?”

“Shit?” Tidal muttered, looking back over his shoulder. “Did we really come that far?”

Rusty gave Shayne one last look, then glanced back towards the gentle glow of the other lantern. “Just hold tight! Keep bringin’ it down. We’ll find a clearing to set up in!” He glanced towards the others, then nodded off through the trees.

“Come on.”