Bloodwood

The mood that had overtaken the camp could best be described as somber, though that hardly did it justice. The ponies generally didn’t speak to one another, going about their work in relative silence. Occasionally, one would mutter something to the other and an acknowledging nod would be returned. Work orders and the occasional, dutiful shout could still be heard, but there were no jokes, no banter, no lewd gestures or homophobic slurs. Rusty had put his remaining crew of eighteen ponies to work in what appeared to be an attempt to keep them occupied with something that wasn’t moping, so the duration of the morning had been filled with the braying of chainsaws and the buzzing of the saw blade on the mill table, which had luckily survived the incident, at the cost of the destruction of the lift.

Blazer had been lingering around in camp for the past forty minutes or so, nurturing his bandaged hoof, sitting in the one spot in the clearing that distanced him as much as possible from the surrounding trees. He looked around somewhat often, though every once in a while his eyes would fall on the still-zippered flaps of Rusty’s tent. He would watch it for a few seconds, as if waiting for movement that wouldn’t come, then find something else to occupy his attention with. More than once he rose to his hooves and took a few steps towards the tent, though he would stop a moment later and sit back.

Eventually, the mud-brown stallion seemed to get tired of sitting in silence, either that, or he just wanted somepony to talk to, because he fixed his eyes on a mare who had returned to camp to refill on gasoline and motioned her over with a wave of his bandaged hoof.

The mare, a unicorn with an amber coat the color of fallen leaves and a cherry-colored mane, short and messy on top in a dykish sort of cut, squinted at him, then set down the chainsaw she’d been holding and gestured a hoof confusedly towards herself.

“Yeah, you, Ember!” Blaze said in a loud whisper that carried eerily well through the camp.

Nodding, Ember set aside the gas can that she’d been levitating and picked her way over to him with light, quick steps. “What do you want?” she asked in a low tone, sitting back and straightening her borderline-cliche lumberjacket. Once she’d adjusted the collar, she brushed a layer of sawdust off the blue plaid, then pushed the sleeves back up either foreleg.

Blazer nodded towards Rusty’s tent. “You ever seen him sleep in this late?”

“Rusty?” she asked, quirking a brow at him. “Fuck no. I didn't think he was capable of being asleep when the sun’s up.” She looked briefly up at the foliage layer. “Well, sorta up... Are you sure he’s even in there?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been here all morning.”

Ember huffed, then leaned over to prod at his bandaged hoof. “You’re really milking that thing, aren’t you?”

Wincing as she made contact with it, he pulled his hoof away from her with a glare. “Ma stitched it up for me and told me to keep off it. It’s right across the knee and anything too strenuous could tear it open again.” He gave Ember a pointed look, then turned his attention back to Rusty’s tent. “Should we go check on him?”

“Maybe we should let him be alone,” Ember muttered. “His friend’s dead, dude.” She looked back over her shoulder, out into the trees, then flicked her ears. “I mean, we all knew Ratchet. Shit lands close to home...” She shook her head. “We’re stuck in this damn gorge, too. What’re we supposed to do with the... y’know.” She gave an awkward shrug. “The body?”

Blazer grimaced, then quickly changed the subject. “Any luck with the lift?”

She shook her head. “We’ve only got two pegasi, Crunch and Briar. Crunch is a twiggy bitch who can’t support the weight of another pony, and Briar got his wing stomped on when we nearly dropped the saw. He can’t even move it without wincing. The only one left is that batpony, but Rusty said she was staying tied up, so...” She shook her head. “Some of the guys are down there trying to figure out a way to get back up.”

“Damn. We might finally have to use that old radio.” He let out a small laugh. “Remember that thing? Emergency radio waves or someshit? Rusty looked personally insulted when Ratchet first showed it to him.”

Ember bit her lip, then leaned in close and lowered her voice to a little more than murmur. “Rusty tried it last night. Dude, like... somepony tore its guts out. I don’t even know if it would work this far out anyways. At this point we’d be better off with two soup cans and thirty miles of string.”

Blazer balked at her for a moment, then raised his good hoof and rubbed one eye, then the other. “Something going on out here.”

“Something like what?” Ember asked, perking her ears. Sighing, she reached into her jacket and pulled out a sloppily-rolled cigarette, then pressed the tapered end of it to her lips and fumbled for a lighter.

His eyes fell on the cigarette as she lit the tip, and he hesitated a good six seconds before answering. “I’ve cut down a lot of trees. But that first one... the one that caught the blade and broke it...”

Ember exhaled a cloud of smoke through her nose and waved her forehoof in front of her in a circular motion. “Go on.”

“It just didn’t feel right, okay? Don’t ask me what I mean, because I don’t know, but...” He chewed the corner of his lip and looked away from her. “It felt like—”

Both ponies flinched as the whine of a zipper filled the air, and Rusty’s large hoof appeared from between the tent flaps. Ember broke away from Blazer immediately and started back towards where she'd left her gear, whistling a conspicuous, inconspicuous whistle.

Rusty poked his head out and cocked an eyebrow at her, then dragged himself up and out of the narrow opening, grumbling to himself. “Damn... midget tents,” he rumbled, snagging his hind leg on the flap and staggering out into the clearing. “Can't wait 'till we get the bunkhouses set up.”

Blazer pushed to his hooves and limped his way over to the groggy-looking stallion. “Morning, Rusty,” he called from a few feet away.

Rusty tensed, then looked up to peer at Blazer as he approached. “...Mornin.’” He groped the breast pocket of his reflective jacket, found his cigarettes, then bit one out of the package and fumbled for his silver lighter.

Blazer stopped a few feet short and sat back. “Sleep well?”

“No.” Rusty fixed the other stallion with a glare, narrowing his brows some. “I didn’t sleep well, Blaze. I hardly slept at all.”

The brown stallion’s eyes flicked briefly to the tent, then to Rusty, then back to the tent. Blazer opened his mouth, started to say something, then cut himself off and cleared his throat. “What’s going on here, Rusty? Did you talk to the bat last night?”

Rusty shook his head and growled out a thick cloud of smoke. “Couldn’t talk to her last night—didn’t trust myself not to kill her.” He puffed his cigarette, then tucked the lighter away. “At the very least, break her fuckin’ wings.”

Blazer blinked in reply, and Rusty shot him a firm look. Raising his bandaged hoof in defeat, the brown stallion started to turn away. “Okay, Rusty. I’ll leave you be.”

The larger stallion gave a slow nod. “Thanks.” He sighed, slumped some, then looked off down the row of tents. “I’m gonna go check on the guard.”

Blazer folded his ears. “You're not gonna break her wings, right? She’s like, one of the only ponies here who can fly.”

Rusty folded his ears some, huffed, then rolled his eyes. “Go find someone else to bug for a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah... alright.”

Shayne eyed the tent flap with something just shy of a rage in her eyes as it was unzipped from the other side. The batmare had been bound, but not gagged. Her rifle, of course, had been done away with, as for the sword and the light armor she wore. She was down to her fur, and hogtied with at least some degree of decency, if there was any to be had from being hogtied. Her four hooves had each been individually bound with rope, then tied together, front to front and back to back, before being affixed in the middle to give her at least some degree of flexibility. For good measure, a length of rope had been wound thrice around her barrel to tie her wings to her back as well.

Rusty stepped in, a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth as he hauled his lumbering frame between the flaps. He locked eyes with the bat then huffed, before turning in the confined space to zip the tent closed once more. Despite the fact that it was only canvas, the motion carried a similar finality to a police investigator closing an interrogation room door.

“This is demeaning," Shayne said, her tone sharp as she gave a small wriggle in place, glaring up at Rusty in the gloom. Despite it being some time late in the afternoon, the thick canvas of the tent, coupled with the canopy above, ensured that little more than a wan glow made its way into the claustrophobic space.

“Good.” Rusty produced his lighter and used it to light the oil lantern set off to the side, lifting the glass long enough to touch the flame to the oiled wick. He snapped the lighter shut once a warm light blossomed forth from the bulb, then tucked it away. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“I don’t know what happened.” The batmare shifted, tugging frustratedly at her bindings.

Rusty just growled, and the ash at the end of his cigarette burned bright red a moment later as he inhaled a steadying breath. “You sure about that?”

“I wasn’t there!”

Rusty lurched forward, dropping one forehoof down beside her head, his haunches resting just before her tied-up hooves, his weight looming almost entirely above her. “My foreman is dead!” Shayne flinched away. In a fair fight, perhaps the well-trained mare could have shredded him, but tied up as she was, even someone as stubborn as her would know that they were at the mercy of whomever desired to provide it. “Your friend never came down!”

Shayne gnashed her teeth, eyes swiveling in her head, looking at anything other than him before eventually, and finally, meeting Rusty’s gaze. “You know, I’d be a lot more fucking inclined to talk to you if I wasn’t tied up!”

Rusty exhaled, then leaned back, balancing on his haunches as he crossed his forehooves to his chest. He gazed down at her long and hard, before eventually dropping his right hoof to reach for her. Shayne tensed, though she relaxed a moment later as the earth pony tugged at the knot that held her forehooves and hind legs against one another. The moment it was undone, Shayne breathed a sigh of relief and rolled over onto her back, straightening her spine and immediately going into a groaning stretch.

“Oh thank fuck.” She lifted her head to fix Rusty with a look, then glanced down, back to the ropes that were still holding her forehooves together.

“That’s as much as you’re getting for now.” He puffed on his cigarette, then lifted an eyebrow. “Your friend, Lance. Where is he?”

Shayne sighed, then rolled her shoulders and slowly sat herself up. “I seriously don’t know.” Rusty’s gaze started to harden, and she quickly went on. “He never would have left his gun! I— cat’s already out of the bag now, I guess. Look, I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now; we were sent to watch you.”

Rusty just nodded. “No shit.”

“But we were also sent to protect you. We were offered a bonus, literally double what we were being initially paid, if all of you made it out in one piece, alive, unmaimed, happy campers.”

Rusty stared for a long moment, smoke curling up into the air from the tip of his cigarette, slowly turning the air in the tent foggy. “What if one of us was going to blow the whistle? You were just going to let us do it?”

Shayne opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. She closed it after a second, then looked away. “I shouldn’t be discussing this with you.”

“Well too bad. Things are fucked. One of my ponies is dead and yours is missing. Whatever plan you, or I originally had went out the fuckin’ window when that lift collapsed. Now you either start talking to me, or I can leave your batty ass here when we pack up and leave for all I care.”

Shayne seemed to ponder that for a good few moments. Sighing, she laid back and closed her eyes, shifting about uncomfortably atop the sleeping bag that she had been so generously discarded upon. Eventually, however, she spoke. “Ratchet wasn’t supposed to read those files. He opened a sealed folder marked specifically for you. We could tell he was getting squeamish, but we had no reason to kill him.” She sat back up, locking eyes with Rusty. “It was just them up there. I have no idea what happened, but I can not stress enough how little either of us wanted to kill anypony.”

After a few moments of silence, Rusty nodded. “I think I believe you.”

“You think?”

“As in, I don’t know if I should.” He ashed his cigarette, then returned it to his mouth. “You haven’t exactly given me any good reasons to trust you.” He paused. “What do you know about this operation?”

Shayne quirked an eyebrow. “What do you know?”

Rusty glowered at her for a second. “That it’s illegal as fuck. That’s about it.”

The batmare nodded, then held her forehooves out to him. “Untie me and give me a cigarette.”

Again, Rusty hesitated, but after a few moments of brooding silence, he nodded. The stallion reached forward and spent a moment untying her forehooves. The moment they were free, Shayne pulled them back, rubbing at her wrists with a small hiss of discomfort. Begrudgingly, Rusty fished out his pack of cigarettes and shook one out for her. Shayne took it with a nod of thanks, tucked it between her lips, then gazed him expectantly.

“What?” he asked with a glare.

“What do you mean what?” Shayne gestured towards his lighter.

“You wanted a cigarette; I gave you one.”

“Oh ha, very funny, asshole.”

Rusty drew out his lighter. “Start talking.”

The batmare positively scowled for a second, pulling the cigarette from her mouth for the time being. “Fuck it. I’m probably fired by now anyways. Some shady contact got ahold of us, your standard daisy-chain sort of bullshit. Wax-seal bullshit fed through a couple companies that only exist on paper and dead-end if you try to look them up. The guys you’re working for? They don’t exist.”

“Their down payment sure as fuck does,” Rusty gruffed.

Shayne rolled her eyes. “Good luck tracing it back to anything.” She fidgeted with her cigarette, passing it from one hoof to the other. “I’m in the business of taking money to do things and not asking questions. Lance and I had our instructions delivered verbally—no paper, no evidence.”

“And what were they?”

Shayne held out her cigarette, and after a brief standoff, Rusty lit it for her. The mare pulled it back, took a heavy drag on it, almost coughed, then sighed out a cloud of smoke. “Accompany a logging party off the grid. Limit outside contact as much as possible. Form detailed profiles of everybody and assess the risks, but primarily, do everything in our power to keep you guys doing your job. Keep you safe, and keep you quiet. Well-paid ponies are happy ponies, and happy ponies are quiet ponies. They didn’t seem particularly concerned about your well-being, however, as your well-being pertained to them getting what they needed, it was in their best interests to keep you satisfied, if that makes sense.”

“Unfortunately, it does.”

“Dead ponies don’t cut down trees.”

“What about the long-range emergency radio.”

The batmare glanced off to the side. “It wouldn’t have worked out here anyways.”

“So?”

She folded her ears. “We gutted it. I’m sure you can figure out why.”

Rusty sighed, and slowly nodded. “So what do you know about this place?”

“Not a damned thing.” Shayne puffed her cigarette and lowered her eyelids some. “This is a fucking hellscape that I wasn’t prepared for. If I’d known we’d be going this far into the Everfree, I think I would have passed on this particular paycheck. I was in the lunar guard for eighteen years, and in all that time we never fucked with the forest. This is not a kind place.”

Rusty removed his spent-cigarette from his mouth with one hoof, then crushed it out on the tip of the other before tucking the butt into his breast pocket. “So, how do I know you’re being honest with me?”

The bat just shrugged. “You don’t. I have no way to prove it, and as far as I can tell, you have no good reason to believe me. But you know what kind of ponies you’re dealing with. They hired me, and they hired you, and let me tell you, big guy, they don’t give a fuck about either of us. As of Ratchet’s death, they’re not paying me enough to give a fuck anymore.”

“Fantastic... So, any ideas on what happened to your friend?”

“Who, Lance? He wasn’t my friend.” She tilted her head to the side, looking off, eyes losing focus. “Well, he didn’t come down, and he lost his rifle. Think Ratchet tried to take it from him? Maybe there was a struggle.”

Rusty grunted and looked away. “I hope you’re not trying to shift the blame, especially when his rifle is the whole reason we lost the lift.”

“Look, he wouldn’t just give it up. If it, and Ratchet came down, and he didn’t, then Ratchet took it from him. If Lance wanted your friend dead, he would have just stabbed him, or shot him. Something happened up there and we won’t know what until we find Lance, if we find Lance. If he’s alive and well, and if, for some reason, if he wanted to stroll his happy ass down here, I don’t see any way of him doing that now that your medieval elevator is lying in pieces on the valley floor. Seriously, what made you think that that thing was a good idea?”

“Oh would you fuck off already?” Rusty huffed, then started to turn away.

“I would if I could!” Shayne reached down, starting to untie her hind legs, and Rusty looked back, seeming to debate whether or not he should stop her.

“You know, I lost my friend today.” He sighed, then closed his eyes. “I knew Ratchet a long time.”

For just a second, Shayne’s hardened gaze seemed to soften, and she looked up from the ropes she was untying. “I know you trusted him... I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “He seemed like the type to hold his ground.”

“He was... the stubborn fuck.”

“...Was he the type to pick a fight?”

Rusty sighed, then shook his head. “I’m done talking.” He grabbed the zipper and tugged it down. “Leave if you want. Fuck off to wherever. I’m gonna ask the crew what they wanna do.”

Shayne watched Rusty go, eyes wary, ears folded.

Rusty called for a break in work during lunch, and rather than having the crew split off and head back to whatever they were doing to pretend that a tragedy hadn’t just befallen them, they had instead been instructed to meet up in the center of camp. While death certainly wasn’t a new prospect to the working stallions and mares of logging camps, considering the inherent danger that came with the job, it was still always a bit of a shock when it happened, especially to someone so well-known, and so early in a job. Ratchet’s death had been a curse of sorts, a bad omen placed upon the party.

Either way, Ratchet’s death as an open wound that needed to be dressed. Ignoring the body that had been temporarily stored in a tent near the edge of camp wasn’t an option, especially considering the fact that it would soon start to smell, if not buried.

Twenty ponies had gathered in a ragged circle around the cold fire ring, two down from the original twenty-two. Shayne was among them, however she hung back, choosing not to butt shoulders with the others. Rusty certainly noticed her presence, as did many of the others, their gazes lingering long and hard on the de-throned bat—she hadn’t been given any of her gear back, and considering almost everyone else was wearing something, be it a saw harness or some form of protective clothing, she looked particularly naked in just her sleek, purple-grey fur.

“So... what’s the plan, Rusty?” one stallion asked, breaking the silence.

The weathered, auburn stallion glanced to him, then around at the others. “That’s what we’re here to figure out. I’m the boss, but, a boss ain’t much without his crew. Now we’re one down and we’ve all got a pretty bad taste in our mouths.”

“We ain’t stopping, are we?” a stallion asked, glancing around at the others, eyes widening in concern.

“Better not be,” another added. “I mean, we all knew Ratch, he wouldn’t want us to go and... throw away all our paychecks just cause he up and died.”

A third butted in. “I ain’t hauling our shit back out so soon.”

“How the fuck do we even get out of here, numbnuts?”

The clamor started to grow, and Rusty silenced it with a wave of his hoof and a loud clearing of his throat. “Yeah alright, that’s what I thought. I know this job’s been giving some of you the willies, an’ I just wanted to make sure the majority’s all on the same page... We stay and work.” His gaze sombered some. “We’ll bury Ratch here. Under normal circumstances, we’d do things proper, contact civilization, take ‘im home... but as far as I can see, we ain’t getting out of this hole for a while longer.” He cast his gaze to Crunch. “We don’t got any ice...”

The orange pegasus perked up, glancing around before clearing his throat to speak. “It’s uh... it’s not looking too good, Rusty. I’m thinking we should build a scaffold. There’s no way anyone’s scaling that wall.”

Rusty nodded. “Scaffold is good. We’ll get a crew on that—make it first priority.” He eyed Crunch, or more specifically, the pegasus’ half-cocked wings. “You been up top yet?”

Crunch fluffed up his wings some, glancing around, eyes widening a little as everyone else glanced at him. “I... well, no, I—” He stopped, swallowed, then looked to Rusty. “I... Rusty, could I talk to you once we’re done here?”

The older stallion glanced around. “Looks like we’re done here.” At his dismissive tone, the ring broke apart, ponies milling off every which way. Rusty remained sitting where he was as Crunch approached, trotting swiftly and gingerly across the leaf-strewn ground, head low, wings outstretched slightly for balance.

“Rusty, I don’t know if me going up there is a very good idea.”

The other stallion just huffed. “What’s wrong with you flying a rope up there, tying it to a tree, then tossing it down?”

“I don’t even know if I can get through the canopy.” Crunch kicked at the ground for a second.

Rusty just motioned rather bluntly to the hole left in the canopy by the first tree they’d cut down, the one that’d wounded Blazer. Even now, it was like a beacon, bright, nearly-blinding beams of jagged sunlight shooting down through the small hole. A particularly vigilant individual, however, might have noticed that it was just a little smaller than it had been the day before.

Crunch just looked to it and drew his wings in closer to his body. “Look, I’ve just got a really bad feeling, okay? My wings cramp up almost any time I think of even trying to fly near the canopy. I really... really don’t want to.” He leaned in a bit closer to Rusty, then lowered his voice to more of a whisper. “I was counting the rings on that stump, Rusty. One-hundred and seventy-three. That wasn’t even one of the bigger ones. I don’t want to pry, but... what the heck are we doing? I’ve read about this. Do you have any idea how much magic could be st—”

“I’ll talk to you about it later,” Rusty grumbled. “Not here.”

Crunch looked skeptical, but after a second or two, he nodded.

“Okay.”