Chapters “Come on and get those barrels loaded! This isn’t a union, you know! We don’t have all day!”
Two burly-looking stallions looked up from where they’d been chatting, leaning against a wagon half-loaded with steel barrels and a few random crates. One gave a grunt, then expertly spit a line of chewing tobacco from between two teeth and went back to work, the other hesitating a second longer before joining him.
The tan unicorn stallion who’d called out to them rolled his eyes, then turned back to the makeshift table in front of him and several others. “I swear—some of these workers would forget to breathe if you didn’t remind them.” His comment earned him a few dry chuckles, to which he tipped his head, the white hard hat perched atop it falling down in front of his eyes. Grasping a small stick from the earthen ground with one hoof, and righting his hat with the other, the stallion raised the stick and slapped the jagged tip of it down on a circle near one corner of the map upon the table—it had been drawn in with black magic marker. “This is your target area.”
“Yeah, you told me that in the letter.” A boxy earth pony stallion sitting directly across from him snorted a mucusy breath, then coughed. One auburn hoof patted sloppily at the breast of his reflective safety jacket, then pulled out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes. He bit one out of the pack, then re-pocketed it and produced an abused flip lighter from the same pocket to light the tip. “But I still don’t get why you’re sendin’ me an’ my crew out there to buttfuck nowhere, in the middle of the Everfree forest of all places just to cut some wood.” He took a long drag on the cigarette, then blew it out through his nose and ran a hoof through his ratty, mud-brown mane. “That spot is miles away from any path or trail.”
The tan stallion across the table gave him a thin smile, then withdrew the stick. “Because, Mr. Rusty, you’re getting paid to go out there and cut some wood.”
“Well no shit,” Rusty gruffed, leaning forward to roughly prod the circle on the map with a hoof, the table giving a light creak of protest as the earth pony leaned on it with his other. “But, I mean, the whole Celestia-damned forest is made of wood.” As if to make his point, he jabbed his right hoof towards the forest, waving it over the wide expanse of trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. “What’s in there? Oak? Aspen? Maple? You can find all that without goin’ on a fuckin’ safari.”
The tan stallion pursed his lips, then breathed a long sigh. “Mr. Rusty—”
“Rusty’s fine,” he gruffed in response.
The unicorn fired him a short look before continuing. “Mr. Rusty, I am simply a representative hired to ensure that you receive the proper briefing for your assignment. You have been provided with a sealed envelope containing the parameters of your agreement that neither I, nor you are permitted to view until this briefing has been concluded and you are on your way.” His horn flashed, and the map immediately rolled itself up and was held out to the earth pony with a casual grin from the wielder. “Perhaps it is some very fine wood.”
Rusty glared at him long and hard, then snatched the map and set it aside. “So, lemme’ confirm all this. We’re authorized for twenty ponies, including myself, to remain out there for six months? Paperwork’s filed? We’re legal?”
The unicorn pointedly held up a hoof. “Twenty two , counting the guards that we’ve taken the liberty of hiring for you. They both excel in high-pressure, combat situations and scenarios where survival is necessary.”
Rusty blinked, then glared out over the temporary camp on the edge of the forest. “This is a logging party, not a fuckin’ army. What exactly do you think we’re gonna need them for?”
“You’re going into the Everfree forest, Mr. Rusty. They have been graciously offered to you by the company I represent and I can assume, as a intelligent stallion of your trade, you would rather have them for free and not need them, rather than need them and not have them.”
The auburn stallion seemed to seethe as his narrowed eyes scanned the unicorn’s face for emotion, and after a second, the earth pony nodded and let out another puff of smoke. “Double our normal labor rate, right?”
The unicorn nodded firmly. “Of course, Mr. Rusty. We would never go back on our offer.”
“Payment bi-monthly in an account for the base price, and full payment in return for the hours invested, plus a percent value of any lumber we produce?”
“It’s what was arranged.” The stallion didn’t blink.
After a moment of hesitation, Rusty nodded, then scooped up the map and turned away. “If that’s everythin,’ then I think I’m gonna round up the gang and we’ll get movin.’” Rusty looked back over his shoulder at the representative, a shitty sort of grin creeping onto his face, smoke-stained teeth glinting ever so slightly in the soft light. “It’s a shame you won’t be comin’ with us. I was just startin’ to like you.”
The stallion raised a hoof, as if to tug at an invisible collar, then smiled his thin smile right back. “That’s quite alright. I like to consider myself an intellectual.”
“There are very few trails that penetrate the Everfree forest,” the orange pegasus stallion rattled on, his face lost in the map they’d been provided with, his voice sharp and well-articulated, his tone crisp. The wagon they were riding bounced over a rock along the trail, and he jerked, his thin glasses and gray mane falling down on his face. With a short huff, he glared forward at the pullers, then pushed his glasses up and went back to the map. “Most don’t even bother to tickle the fringes of what could be considered its confines. What few do are scarcely maintained and overgrown with foliage. What very few trails there are have been blazed out of pure necessity.” He jabbed the tip of his hoof at another line that had been magic-markered onto the map. “They cut this route about seven years ago to gain access to the ruins of the old royal castle to remove historical heirlooms and documents—big enough for wagons to get in there. It runs within sixteen miles of the area marked on our map so I think it's our best bet.”
He glanced up eagerly to the faces of five other stallions in the wagon who really didn’t seem to be paying much attention to a word he’d said. A brown stallion with a somewhat impressive beard noticed the frustrated look forming on the orange pegasus’ face, and quickly waved a hoof for him to go on.
“Yeah, keep going,” another pitched in, “it makes for a good lullaby.”
Before the orange pegasus could get in a reply over their cackling, Rusty’s auburn hoof reached back from the front of the wagon and gave him a good pat on the shoulder. “Cool it, four-eyes. I don’t pay ‘em to be interested in history.” He patted the empty seat beside him behind the hoofboard, then waved with his hoof for the other to come up.
The pegasus hesitated, then nodded, turning to scramble up over the back of the wagon, ruffling the map a little in the process. “You’re Rusty, right?”
“Sure am,” the earth pony chimed. A short chuckle left him as his eyes drifted out ahead, looking over the other wagons laden with equipment and supplies, each pulled by a Clydesdale breed from up north. “Lookit’ those beasts,” he said, motioning to one of the pullers. “If I had the bits I’d hire a whole crew of them. They pull like freight trains, lift like cranes, and probably eat like sharks.” He stifled a chuckle. “Too bad I don’t get to keep ‘em for the work—just for transport, hired by those hard-to-reach-wood-wanting fucks.”
The Clydesdale in question, pulling the wagon the two were riding on, glanced back and rolled his eyes.
Rusty shrugged at him, then looked over at the thin stallion beside him. “Your name’s Crunch, ain’t it?”
Crunch straightened the map a little, then nodded. “Yes. Cartographer, analyst, accountant. General administrative assistant.” He took a moment to glance around, looking up and down the wagon train. “Albeit a little out of my element...”
“Yeah well I needed someone to run the books. Never been good at all that shit. My old guy quit, got married, wife wanted him close to home. A damn shame.” Rusty gave him a firm nudge, then snorted. “But that’s why you get paid more than the grunts.” He leaned in close, suddenly, his voice a harsh rasp. “And don’t go tellin’ the workers that, or else they’ll wring you like a sweat rag.”
With a firm nod, Crunch swallowed hard, then leaned over to hold the map out in front of Rusty. “Anyways, uh... yeah, so we’re here.” He flared one wing to poke his longest primary feather at a small spot on the trail just into the fringes of the forest. Then, he trailed the feather upwards to a point about three-quarters of the way up the line. “This is where we’re going to break off and unload the wagons, then it’s about sixteen miles through uncut foliage to reach the site.”
Rusty nodded once, twice, then blinked and snatched the map from the pony beside him. “Shit, you fuckin’ insane?” He smacked the map with the back of his hoof. “You’re talkin’ about movin’ hundreds of gallons gasoline, chainsaws, a wood chipper, millin’ equipment, temporary structures, food, and a crew of twenty-two sixteen miles through uncut forest!”
Crunch made a scrunched sort of face, then gingerly took the map back from Rusty. “If you recall, they’re paying the labor for mobilization and demobilization stages of the operation, by payroll hour, so long as I document it. You read the full agreement, right?”
The large earth pony blinked. “Not that part...” Rusty thought for a moment, then snickered and pulled out a new cigarette. “Nevermind. Sixteen miles is just fine.”
“Hey, Rusty!”
The auburn stallion’s ears perked at the voice that sounded from just ahead. A light blue unicorn standing atop the lead wagon just visible in the distance was waving somewhat urgently for his attention.
“Yeah!?” Rusty bellowed right back, his voice dampened somewhat by the surrounding foliage and the distant buzz of two-stroke engines.
“I need to talk to you about this!”
Rusty grunted, then took a long pull on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke through his nose. “I’ll be back to play cartographer with ya’ later, four-eyes. Gotta go see what Ratchet needs.”
Crunch blinked. “Ratchet?”
“Assistant foreman. Don’t worry, kid; I’ll introduce you to the whole crew some time.” Rusty heaved himself off the edge of the moving wagon and hit the ground with a heavy thud, groaning a little as his aging bones took the weighty landing. “Damn, really gotta lose some weight,” he grunted under his breath, shaking off the aches as he straightened up.
Rusty made his way up past the wagons that were moving at a slow walk at best, each pulled by similarly-huge Clydesdale. At the very front of the group, two stallions with rig-mounted pole saws were clearing seven years of foliage from the trail to make way for the passage, while two more walked behind them to clear the fallen branches.
Ratchet was waiting atop a stack supply crates on the front wagon, though as Rusty approached, he hopped down onto a smaller stack of flour sacks near the back and motioned the auburn stallion over. Grunting, cursing like a sailor, Rusty dragged himself up onto the wagon and flopped back on what turned out to be a rather comfortable, impromptu couch of flour sacks.
“Did your friend back at camp tell you about this?” Ratchet’s horn lit up ice-blue, and he flipped open the clasp on a satchel he was wearing to produce a manila envelope.
Rusty snatched the envelope and shook out the folder within, sightlessly passing the empty envelope back to Ratchet as he flipped open the file in his lap. The wagon jostled, and the final ashes of his cigarette fell onto the first page of print. Rusty gruffed, then swiped them off and spit the butt off the back of the wagon. “You mean that business rep with the hardhat and the stick up his ass?” He snorted. “Said we weren’t supposed to see this until we moved out.”
“Yeah, well...” The frustrated edge in his voice was clear. Ratchet nodded towards the folder. “Turn a couple pages and you’ll see why.”
Rusty’s eyes snapped to the other stallion, and the two shared a concerned look. Rusty snorted once, then looked down and turned the page over.
—and is thereby your responsibility to execute.
Target area is approximately 2500 acres of dense forest commonly referred to as ‘bloodwood’ for the characteristic red appearance of the unique forestry.
The bloodwood perennial is most notable for its ironwood characteristics while maintaining a dark red hue. Such timber is almost nonexistent in today’s market due to the lack of proper conditions required to sustain it, and the approximate time it takes for a single tree to properly mature (upwards of 100 years). The market value for such timber is fluid, and often sells in auction rather than at market price, making the proclaimed ‘bloodwood’ the most valuable timber on the market. Even the excess scraps as a byproduct of milling have value as carving blanks or as potent ingredients for potionmaking and spellcasting catalysts. All known biomes of this specific forestry have either been eradicated through deforestation or protected by the Equestrian Land Act for Endangered Species and Flora, which restricts the harvest of old-growth forest. Attempts to artificially grow and nurture these unique perennials have been unsuccessful, as the intricate conditions required to harbor the bloodwood seed proves to be elusive and unattainable in fabricated settings. This, coupled with the timber’s unique beauty and inherent magical properties, is what maintains its incredibly high market value.
Rusty rubbed a hoof over his brow, then shared a somewhat startled look with Ratchet before glancing back down. A single picture had been provided, depicting a massive, sickly-looking tree with gnarled roots, so dark in color that it was hard to tell where the actual contours of the tree were. It was tall, nearly as wide as a wagon at the base, though over the course of three or four feet, it narrowed down some to a more reasonably-sized trunk that spanned upwards. The small, almost bush-like leaves on its spindly branches were dull hues of orange, red, and yellow.
Shaking his head suddenly, Rusty slapped the folder closed. “This is so fuckin’ illegal.”
“You think!?” Ratchet fired right back. “This two-thousand acres is hotter than Celestia’s goddamn sun! Did you know what you were getting us into when you signed us up for this shit?”
“No!” Rusty flipped through a few more pages, then growled and half-tossed the folder back to Ratchet. “Fuck—no wonder they’re payin’ so well!”
Ratchet snatched up the folder, then tucked it away into his satchel with a guilty look around in all directions. “Well... what do we do? Do we call it off?”
Rusty spluttered. “You’re tellin’ me you wanna look at those eighteen stallions we’ve hauled halfway into the Everfree forest on the promise that they’d be makin’ double pay than what they normally do, an’ tell ‘em that they gotta go home without a cent? We called ‘em in a week ago, Ratch! Half of ‘em quit their jobs! I’ve already bought all the food and the gas! I’m buried up to my ears with the credit union!” Rusty pulled out another cigarette and fumbled for his lighter. “Ain’t no way that’s gonna happen. We all got mouths to feed.”
Ratchet bit his lip and glanced backwards at the convoy. “But what about—”
“I don’t know!” Rusty finished lighting his cigarette and immediately took a deep pull on it, watching the tip turn to ash. Groaning out a cloud of smoke, the large stallion seemed to deflate for a moment. “We just don’t tell ‘em.”
The unicorn stared at the satchel for a second, then glanced out into the trees. “I don’t like this, Rusty. There are a million ways this could come back to fuck us. The crew will ask questions when we start cutting down trees older than their great-great-grandparents.”
“Then we cut ‘em in on it.” Rusty calmed himself with another long drag on the cigarette, closing his eyes. “But not yet. We all knew this was too good to be true somehow—we’re getting paid out the ass, Ratch.” Leaning back to peer over the edge of the wagon, Rusty looked out ahead, through the undisturbed forest, the evening sun barely casting its slanted light through the thick foliage. What light actually made its way to the forest floor seemed to glow like magma.
“Rusty spoke after a long moment of silence. “I can’t afford to not do this. Neither can they. Neither can you.”
Ratchet muttered his reply.
“I know.”
The Everfree forest, while normally shrouded in complete darkness under the cover of night, was a little less dark in one particular clearing thanks to the logging party. The wagons had been circled up in the clearing to form something of a makeshift barricade around the camp, identical canvas tents staked up wherever they would fit. And in the very center, three large fires burned in a triangle, each far enough away from the next to allow plenty of room to sit between them. One fire was never enough to fit the entire camp around, and one big fire was too hot and required too much wood to maintain. Hence, three smaller fires.
The thick scent of smoke and cooked vegetables wafted through the forest, though any wildlife that could have been attracted was kept at bay by the raucous laughter and unabridged shittalk as they settled in down for dinner.
“So, Crunch,” Rusty gruffed out, glancing over at the shorter stallion as they sidled along in the food line. “What’s your favorite flavor of beans?”
The orange pegasus blinked confusedly, then looked over at Rusty. “There’s different flavors? I honestly just thought that beans were... well, beans.”
Rusty cocked one eyebrow, then shot the stallion a sideways sort of grin. “Need to learn your food groups, kid.” He held out his tray as they passed a pot, and a green stallion who looked like he had better things to be doing slopped a ladle of black beans onto Rusty’s tray. “You know, beans. There’s all different kinds! Black, honey, baked, broiled, refried, hickory, pinto, smoked. You got your green beans, though those aren’t real beans, your lima beans, garbanzo beans, your beans beans.” Rusty reached the next pot just as Crunch received his own sloppy pile of beans, then held out his tray for a steaming pile of assorted veggies. “Oh come on,” he chimed, shooting the periwinkle mare with the ladle a lazy smirk. “Gimme’ a little bit more of that. I’m a big stallion, Ma.”
The periwinkle mare shrugged her burly shoulders, then dug in the pot for another scoop of veggies. “If it was anyone else, I’d tell you to pound sand,” she rumbled, her voice the very manifestation of a bottle of drain cleaner and ten packs of cigarettes. “But you sign my paychecks.”
Rusty chuckled as she slopped down the second scoop, then shot her a wink. “Thanks Ma.”
“Ma?” Crunch asked after they’d passed by to start towards the nearby fires, his tray held neatly against his side in the grasp of a wing.
“We call her Ma, you know, like mom. Don’t ask why—just go with it.”
Rusty picked his way towards the ring of ponies gathering around the fire pits, navigating between tents with a lackadaisical precision, humming a little tune to himself all the while. Reaching the closest fire, and the one with the least ponies around it, Rusty sat back and made himself comfortable, staring into the flames for a moment. Crunch sat as well, a foot or two away from the stallion, eyeing the food on his plate with something that resembled wariness.
There were a few others around the fire, Ratchet, for one, was sitting across from Rusty, digging into his food like veggies and beans were going out of style. A mud-brown stallion with an even darker brown mane sat to the right, boredly playing with a knife as he stared into the fire. Beside him, was a surprisingly lanky unicorn stallion with a cream coat and a cinnamon mane. He had a sharp face, gaunt eye sockets, though his body language and clean appearance really didn’t seem to suggest what his expression foretold about him.
Suddenly, Rusty reached over and gave Crunch a good pat on the back, knocking a carrot he’d placed into his mouth back onto the plate. “Anyways, that’s Ratchet!” he stated with a wave of his hoof towards the ravenous blue stallion. “Good colt. Fixes machinery and gets on your nerves sometimes, but who doesn’t?”
Ratchet looked up from his food to fire a tense look at Rusty, then rolled his eyes and went back to the tray.
“Anyways, meet Crunch everyone,” Rusty droned. He waved his hoof to the right, over the two other stallions. “The one who looks like a drug dealer’s best friend with an eating disorder and malaria is Spark. I don’t think that’s his real name, but he won’t confirm or deny that accusation.” His hoof jabbed towards the stallion with the knife. “And that’s Trailblazer. Call him Trail and he’ll whine like a bitch, so call him Blazer.”
Crunch peered at the two, then gave a short chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. “So uh... why do they call you Blazer?”
The stallion glanced up from the fire, then sheathed his knife and shot the pegasus a crooked smirk. “Why do they call you Crunch?” he shot back, his voice low and gravelly. “Is it the sound your bones make when I fell a tree on you?”
Rusty closed his eyes for a second, grinning as Crunch leaned back a little and glanced away. “Blazer. Stop fuckin’ with the kid.”
The brown stallion blinked, then looked over at Rusty and rolled his eyes. Suddenly, that twisted smirk was gone, and he let out a sharp chuckle in a tone that was much higher and much cleaner than the voice he’d just used on Crunch. “Oh c’mon Rusty, can’t you let me have some fun with the new guys?”
“I can’t have you terrorizing my new accountant! And he’s the one filling out your timecards, so you best watch out yourself.”
Crunch looked between the two with a frown on his face, then rolled his eyes and scooped up a big forkload of food and stuffed it into his mouth. “You’re all terrible.”
“But nawww,” Blazer said with a dismissive wave of his hoof towards Crunch. “They call me Blazer ‘cause I’m the fastest damn tree cutter around this camp.”
“That’s debatable,” Spark droned from beside him, not even looking up from his tray.
Blazer shot him a glare, then shrugged and continued. “I was at the front of the convoy trimming branches all day. You can thank me for how far we got this afternoon!”
An uproar of raucous laughter from the next fire over drowned out the silence for a moment, a few stallions whooping and cheering at whatever had just been said. Rusty threw a small glance over his shoulder at the group, then chuckled and went back to his food. “Anyways, Crunch here is gonna be keepin’ track of our finances, doin’ our predictions and handlin’ the manifests for what we produce, an’ helpin’ with whatever the hell else we need that ain’t too physical for him.” He reached out and gave the stallion in question another rough pat, nearly choking him on his food this time. “So I expect you all to take good care of him. He’s a different breed, but he’s still part of the same family.”
“Don’t worry, Rusty!” Ratchet chimed in, holding up his tray up to the firelight before licking what little sauce remained off the smooth surface. “We haven’t had a greenhorn die on us yet. He might get a little roughed up, but we’ll keep him safe.”
Crunch glared at Ratchet, then glanced over to Rusty with a small glower. “Yet?”
Rusty just shrugged. “Respect is earned, kid.”
The surrounding laughter and chatter ceased, as if a blanket had been thrown over the whole mess, as a long, shrill howl sounded somewhere off in the trees. The five around the fire shared short, worried looks, then glanced out into the darkness of the forest. Something moved a couple of feet away, the dark figure appearing from behind a tent, and a collective flinch traveled through the small group around the fire.
“Timberwolves,” a mare droned casually as she stepped into the firelight. Sighing dramatically, she eased back onto her rump in front of the fire, then shook her purple mane out of her eyes, flexing batlike, leathery wings before folding them neatly to her sides. “Firelight confuses them—they think it’s the rising sun.” She glanced down at her tray, then prodded at a half a carrot with the tip of a purple-gray hoof. “You ponies don’t like your meats, do you? Anyways, they won’t approach—they hate light. So don’t worry about the howls. Just pretend they’re crickets. Big, flammable crickets.”
Rusty glanced at Crunch, then Ratchet, and Ratchet glanced at Rusty, then the others, then they all looked to the new arrival.
“...That’s an interesting comparison,” Spark said in deadpan, one bushy eyebrow steadily raising.
The batpony shrugged, the scabbard of the sword strapped to her right flank catching the firelight for a second or two. She wore a harness as well, with a small pack on her breast and a powder horn beside that. On her back, what appeared to the barrel of a rifle of some sorts protruded past her neck to the left. It certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed by the others; there was hardly an eye around the fire that wasn’t looking at it.
“What would you rather I call it?” she asked with a smirk and a small waggle of one eyebrow. “The bloodcurdling howl of a bloodthirsty, sapient treemonster that’ll eat you just because it can, because it thinks it's hungry? Some lost bastard of a magical creature that formed from fallen logs that thinks it's really a living thing, maybe a lost spirit of some wolf that once roamed these forests and died long ago, swept up by background magic and given consciousness?” The batmare flicked her tail and neatly adjusted her shoulders as she lowered her eyelids and gazed at Spark. The look was almost seductive, but not quite. “Have you ever seen a timberwolf eat anyone, Bonebag? Sometimes they chew, sometimes they don’t. You’re lucky if they chew. The blood pours out from between the woven branches and broken bits of wood that makes up their stomach. It stains their belly red. In the guard we had a word for red-bellied wood wolves. We called them rotters.”
Everyone around the fire had gone silent, the batmare temporarily entrancing them with a left-field tale of terror. Spark’s eyes widened a little as he gazed at her. “...Why?”
The bat locked eyes with him, a thin grin teasing her soft features. “Because they can’t digest food. It just rots in there, rots away until there’s nothing but bones, bones that eventually mix with the wood and add to the creature’s skeleton. You usually smell them before you see them, their stretched bellies filled with rabbits and mice and little lost housecats. Maybe a pony or two. If you get close you can see the congealed black, rotten gore seeping from between the branches, full of maggots and flies... Of course, if you’re close enough to see that, it’s probably about to eat you. Remember when I said you’re lucky if they chew?”
Crunch retched and turned his head to the side.
“Fuck you,” Spark said with a snort and a glare. “You’re full of shit.”
“Am I?” Shayne shrugged, popping a carrot into her mouth, languidly chewing it. “Maybe you’ll get to see for yourself.”
A pregnant, tense silence hung in the air.
Rusty finally broke it when he raised his hoof and motioned towards the weapon on her back. “You know those things ain’t very good for cuttin’ down trees, right?”
His comment earned a shared chuckle from the others, and a collective sigh of relief as the tension broke and drifted away.
She shrugged again, then shot him a grin. “You’re getting paid to cut down trees, and I’m getting paid to make sure nothing fucks you up while you’re cutting those trees down. Don’t worry, big guy, I’m on your side.”
Rusty quirked a brow at the batpony, and she nodded curtly, stuffing a carrot into her mouth. “Where’s our other babysitter?” he asked
She swallowed, then gave her chest a thump with a forehoof and nodded towards the back of a white stallion sitting at one of the other fires. He was wearing a similar harness with a rifle mounted to his back as well. “Lance is over there.”
Rusty glanced over his shoulder briefly, then nodded. “So... how much they payin’ you to babysit us?”
“A lot.” She narrowed her eyes at him, then glanced down at her tray and neatly scooped her beans into a little pile to lift with the fork, using the end of her right wing to manipulate it. “How much are they paying you to play lumberjack?”
Rusty glared for a second, a smirk threatening to break out near the corner of his mouth. “More than they’re paying you.”
“Unlikely.” She flicked an ear, the other one swiveling some atop her head. “Name’s Shayne,” she said with a crooked grin. “And I get a bonus if all twenty of you make it out happy and alive. Trust me—your wellbeing is in my best interest.”
Crunch perked up suddenly, pointing his hoof at the rifle on the mare’s back. “That’s a new model; where’d you get it? I thought they were illegal for civilians to own.”
“They are.” Shayne smirked, then reached back with a hoof and pulled the rifle over her shoulder, earning a sideways glare from Ratchet. It wasn’t a pretty thing—it looked heavy and bulky, the long, steel barrel cut in an octagonal cylinder that gave way to a large hammer near the stock. It was fitted for use by an earth pony or pegasus, a large, iron grip in place so that the rifle could be pulled back firmly against the breast and triggered, all with a single hoof in crunch. “We’re all alone out here. I doubt Celestia’s finest are gonna march out here and arrest me for it.”
Ratchet cleared his throat suddenly, then stood, levitating his tray beside him. The blue stallion hesitated long enough to catch Rusty's eye, then locked gazes with the larger stallion and nodded off towards one of the wagons. Rusty narrowed his eyes for a second, then gave a miniscule nod and raised a hoof to stifle a cough.
“So, Shayne,” Blazer asked with a sudden, toothy grin towards the batpony as Ratchet slinked away. “What did you have in mind when you signed up to spend six months in the forest with a group of big, tough stallions?”
Rusty snorted, then heaved himself to his hooves with a long grunt and looked out towards the wagon Ratchet had motioned to just as Shayne threw a leering smirk towards Blazer. “You know,” she hissed, returning the rifle to its holster on her back as she leaned in a little closer to the fire. “I was actually thinking about how much fun it would be to tie every unsheathed dick I see into a knot.”
Blazer blinked, then leaned back and raised a hoof in front of his face—a silent gesture of submission. “A simple ‘no’ would have worked.” He lowered his hoof a little, then winked his right eye. “But hey, even you mares gotta get frisky now and then. I’d understand; don’t worry, sexy, I don’t kiss and tell.”
Shayne started at him. She didn’t blink, she didn’t glare; she just stared. “You’re lucky I’m getting paid to keep you alive.”
A little flash of light appeared a short way off in the distance as Rusty struck his lighter, a quick motion that nopony seemed to notice or care about. As quick as it had appeared, the light was gone, leaving nothing but a miniscule, orange glow produced from the tip of the lit cigarette.
“What is it, Ratch?” Rusty rumbled as he leaned up against the wagon wheel, his form hidden from the firelight by a stack of crates strapped to the deck.
The shadowed figure of the other pony shifted a little in the dark, his ears swiveling towards the collective murmur of the others around the fire pits. “Those guards.” He motioned his head towards the camp. “Do you really think they're here to protect us?”
Rusty sighed and leaned even more of his weight against the wheel, the wood giving a dull creak under the strain. “What are ya' talkin' about, Ratch?”
“I’m talking about why they’re really here, Rusty!” The stallion folded his ears, then lowered his head and glanced around before continuing in a lower voice. “What do you think those rifles are for? Timberwolves? Timberwolves are made of wood; Hell, our chainsaws would be more appropriate for dealing with them.”
“There’s more out here in the Everfree than just Timberwolves.” Rusty craned his neck to peer over one of the crates towards the camp center, then groaned and seemed to slump even more. “You really think they’re here to watch us?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
Rusty took a long draw on his cigarette, closing his eyes for the time being. “You’ve been wrong before.”
The stallion leaned back and propped one hoof up on the edge of the wagon. “Look, Rusty, I’m not saying we tie them to a tree trunk and threaten to cut them in half on the mill. I just... I don’t like it. Those guns could hit a pony from fifty yards.”
Rusty stomped a hoof in a quiet display of frustration. “If they are here to make sure we don’t talk, then we ain’t got nothin’ to worry about, cause we ain’t gonna talk.”
“That’s not a reassuring—”
The crack of a twig in the nearby bushes interrupted the two, and both stallions jerked to face the sound. Aside from darkness, and a soft sway in the branches, there was nothing.
“I’m done talkin’ about this,” Rusty growled, gnawing on his quarter-smoked cigarette as he turned away.
Ratchet bit his lip, then stood. “But—”
“I’m done! I’ll keep an eye out since you mentioned it, but talkin’ about it isn’t gonna make it any better.”
As Rusty headed back towards the fire, Ratchet sat back and leaned up against the wagon, breathing a long sigh as he looked out into the trees. Somewhere off in the distance, a timberwolf howled, and he shivered.
“Alright!” Rusty’s voice boomed across the camp, quickly pacifying the floating conversations. “I want this camp packed before the sun’s up tomorrow. Now, I ain’t tellin’ you to go to bed! You’re all big stallions and you all know to handle yourselves, but we’ve got about nineteen miles to cover tomorrow before we reach the site and there ain’t no naptime in the middle. So I’ll see you all at breakfast!”
Ratchet stood and made his way back to his tent near the edge of the clearing, absently weaving to and fro between others, almost tripping over a stake-line in the dark. The distant firelight flickering off the thick canopy above provided just enough light to make out the front of his tent. Exhaling slowly, he lifted one flap away with his hoof, then ducked his head and settled down inside, immediately sinking into the prepared bedroll with a low groan. Raising a hoof, Ratchet draped it over the top of his head and dragged it slowly down and over his face.
Out in the camp, the fires began to dim as ponies broke away one by one and headed for their tents. After about an hour, there were only six, then four, then three.
Shayne yawned and nodded her head towards a brown stallion with one hell of a beard as he stood and stretched, then headed off for his tent. Her ears perked as he trotted away, the right one swiveling to follow his path until the faint sound of a tent flap being brushed aside could be heard. Immediately, her ears swiveled back to their resting place, and the mare stood, giving a leisurely stretch before fixing her sights on the white stallion sitting some distance away at the embers of one of the other fires.
She approached him, hooves silent on the forest floor as she drew ever closer. He didn’t turn to look as she sat down beside him, but simply remained peering down at the glowing embers.
“How long do you think before they figure it out?” he asked, his barely-mumbled question cutting the silence like a knife.
“The two foremen already have,” she mumbled back. “Rusty doesn’t like it, but he seems content with just letting it go. I’d wager he’s too financially invested to back out even if he wanted to. Ratchet might be an issue.”
Lance cocked a brow and threw her a brief glance. “How do you know?”
She smirked and gave her left ear a small flick. “Batpony, remember? Right now I can hear about six different stallions snoring, and one whispering lewdly to himself about a mare named Lilly.”
He grimaced. “Remind me to never talk shit about you.” There was a short moment of silence before he spoke again. “So do you think he’ll cause problems?”
Shayne stared long and hard into the embers, the last licks of flame flickering in her eyes. “I’m not sure.”
Lance leaned back a little bit, the harness he sported creaking ever so softly as he gave his head a slow nod. “There’s a chance he’ll tell the workers. Loose ends—money talks. But if he tells the others and they have a problem with it...”
“We ditch and report back, and the company dissolves. No trail—just a rogue bunch of stallions out in the woods poaching endangered trees for profit.”
“Yeah, and you wanna know what else dissolves?” he said with a huff. “Eighty percent of our paychecks.”
“Nopony wins.”
There was another long silence before Lance spoke again, the chirping and humming of forest insects temporarily dominating the background. “Let’s hope nopony out here grows a conscience. I wouldn’t expect any of these hicks to be tree huggers, but you never know. Chainsaws, falling trees, creatures... It’s dangerous out here. Accidents can happen out in the woods.”
The two exchanged short glances, then looked back towards the fire. After a moment, Shayne spoke.
“They could. We’ll see.”
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.”
By The Murky Light of Day
No birds sang as the morning sun tried its very hardest to break through the thick canopy above. No insects hummed, or clicked, or chirped. The dense foliage clawed and chewed at the brilliant rays, reducing them to little more than a sliver of their former glory when they finally managed to punch through as little more than a wan, pink glow. What had originally appeared to be black tree trunks in the dark were actually a deep cherry in the natural light of the sun. But even now that the late morning had come, one could mistake the time for evening, or early dawn with how little light actually reached the forest floor. In the light of the sun that made its way down to the camp, a lantern that had been left out overnight could still be seen, its glow traveling a short distance to be lost in the permeating soft light. The embers of the night’s fire had long since died; not even smoke rose from the greyish-pink ashes. They had all turned in quite early.
The fire had not burned well the previous night. Fallen leaves and some cut underbrush was all that had been readily available, along with the occasional fallen limb. Most of what had been gathered had been too moist to burn, and most of the crew had been too tired to bother with anything but setting up their tents. The majority of the supplies had been left at the edge of the gorge beside the lift for the same reason that there had only been one fire, instead of the normal three. The fact that the sun was up, but none of the loggers were, was testament to how tired the crew had been the previous night, and still were.
With a canyon entering the depression, and another one leaving, the flowing water carried within wound its way through the lowest point of the gorge, which was right where camp had been struck. They had set up in the crook of the small river that snaked along through the ravine. Despite the fact that it was almost small enough to be considered a stream, the gentle gurgle of water was a constant interruption to the seemingly-perpetual silence that blanketed the forest. But more importantly, it was a water source for the camp.
The signature whine of a tent flap being unzipped was the first note struck in the waking camp. A brown stallion sniffed, grunted, then coughed and dragged himself out into the cool, moist morning air. The sound stirred another, and a second later, Spark’s cream-colored head poked out from an adjacent tent.
“Awh hell, Brick,” the cream stallion huffed, stepping out of his tent with a slow stretch and a pop from his back. “It’s hardly even morning yet. You up for a piss?”
The bearded brown stallion shook his head. “It can’t be morning...” Turning his chin up, his still-glassy eyes peered up at the tree canopy. “Lookit’ where the light’s falling.” He jabbed a hoof out, then waved it back and forth to cast a pathetic shadow on the forest floor, little more than a slightly-darker blur. “It’s gotta be... almost ten at least.”
Spark sat back and groaned. “Shiiiiiiiiiit, did we sleep in? Rusty’s gonna be bent.”
“Rusty ain’t up yet.” Brick motioned towards the stallion in question’s tent. “Think the light threw him off too.”
The voices of the two had roused the camp, perhaps a dozen or so ponies lying around awake, not wanting to get up and waiting for the sound of movement from another to do so. Now tent flaps were unzipping left and right, ponies crawling their sorry rumps out of each in different states of disarray. “Who’s on breakfast?” a drowsy voice called.
“Wasn’t it Briar?” said another.
“Piss off!” a scratchy-voiced stallion half-shouted from a still-zippered tent. “I did breakfast yesterday!”
Rusty groaned as he dragged himself out into the open air, peering about the camp with a look of mild frustration. “It was Ratchet and Tidal’s day for breakfast!” he boomed. Weaving his way through the tents, the stallion made his way to the smoldering fire pit and sat back to ready his morning cigarette. “Ratchet, Tidal!” he called. “Get on breakfast. And while they’re doin’ that, I want most of ya’ to head back to the lift and haul a load of our shit over here so we can start settin’ up the permanent buildings.” He took a slow drag on his cigarette, eyes narrowing as he peered up at the tree canopy. “...I want one of you to stay back with me. We’ll get a saw goin’ and knock down some of these trees—get some daylight down here and figure out what we’re workin’ with. Hell if I’ll have us all sleepin’ in like that again.”
Rusty stepped back as Blazer gave the starter cord a hearty tug. The small engine rumbled, but didn’t turn over. Blazer sniffed, then reached up and moved his earmuffs from his neck to his head. “Been awhile since we busted out the thirty-six incher!” he half yelled, despite the fact that the motor wasn’t running yet. Adjusting the chainsaw in the shoulder harness it was fixed to, Blazer worked a greasy switch on the side, pulled the choke, then gave the cord another good pull. Another rumble and a small puff of smoke, but nothing.
Blazer glanced back at Rusty and grinned. The blade hanging off to the side of the brown stallion was about as long as he was. The saw itself was an unsightly, heavy thing meant for throttling through thick trees. Even the strongest of ponies would be hard-pressed to lift it without a support rig. The rigs were standard enough—a harness went over the shoulders and buckled tight around the chest and haunches. A geared contraption with a sway-arm also supported itself from the shoulders, and braced against the chest, and the ungainly saw’s steel casing was fitted with an anchor point for the arm to latch onto. The arm itself could then be locked in place for the sake of providing rigid support. The idea was simple enough, and quite effective—support the weight of the machine on the user’s body, and free up their forelegs for manipulating the saw while still providing a free range of movement.
“They really do remind me of redwoods,” Rusty muttered as he peered up the length of the trunk. “Just shorter... an’ darker.”
“What!?” Blazer yelled. He gave the cord one last yank, and the engine rumbled to life with a puff of gray-blue smoke from the exhaust. He gave the trigger a good goose, then turned and gave Rusty a pleased sort of grin. “Let’s cut some wood!”
Snickering, Rusty nodded his head, then waved his hoof towards the dark trunk. “Have at it!”
Blazer revved the engine again, then hit the clutch and sent the chain spinning around the guide bar. He grasped the handle firmly in his teeth, then took the other one with a hoof, and stepped forward to plant the whirring chain against the trunk. Immediately, the engine’s pitch lowered under the sudden strain placed on it, and a thick spray of red-black bark spilled onto the leafy ground as the blade dug in.
Rusty turned away and looked back towards the camp, tilting his nose upwards. The wafting scent of eggs and potatoes on the grill was unmistakable in the air, and the stallion drew in a long, slow breath of it.
“Hey Rusty!” Ratchet shouted, his voice barely heard over the bray of the chainsaw in the background. “Come get one of these eggs! We didn’t bring enough to last, you know!”
There was a sudden commotion from Blazer’s direction as the stallion gave a surprisingly high-pitched yelp. The saw had jerked in his grasp, slamming his shoulder up against the trunk of the tree. The engine lurched, then sputtered, a thick, pulpy red mist of sawdust spewing from the trunk onto the motor housing, accompanied with a cloud of gray smoke from the blade and the scent of burning oil. With a whip-like crack, the chain broke away and snapped back, lashing across the stallion’s foreleg to produce a second, sharp cry from him. The clutch disengaged, and the motor lugged for a second, then died.
Blazer unclipped his harness supports and staggered away with a sharp gasp as Rusty spun to face him. The stallion held his left leg a few inches off the ground, then gave it a shake as it started to bleed. “Fucking shit!” He threw a glare at the saw, now quiet, hanging from the trunk of the tree; a gentle trail of white smoke wafted from the exhaust, the broken chain curled back like a claw from where it had snapped. “It bit me!” He sat back on his haunches and gestured his good foreleg flagrantly towards the offending trunk. “It’s not even notched yet!”
“What the hell did ya’ do, Blaze?” Rusty started towards the trunk, lowering his head to peer at the chainsaw wedged into it. “There ain’t no hospitals out here.”
“Oh wow, keen observation. You don’t think I know that!?” The stallion sat back with a wince, raising his forehoof to glare at the wound as more blood formed, quickly enveloping the lower part of his hoof. “No way it pinched the blade less than a foot in.” He bit his lip and shook a heavy spatter of blood onto the leaves below. “Fuck, this is gonna need stitches.”
Rusty gave him a firm pat on the back, then nodded towards the camp. “Go get into the first aid supplies an’ get yourself some breakfast. I’ll grab an extra and finish the cut.” He shot the smaller stallion that crooked smirk of his. “Operator error.”
Blazer turned away with a snort. “Fuck off, Rusty.”
The auburn stallion chuckled as he made his way up to the resilient tree, stopping only long enough to light a cigarette before he grasped the handle of the stuck saw and gave it a good yank.
It didn't move an inch.
“Shit...” Turning, the stallion ran a hoof through his already-ruffled mane, then turned away and started back for the camp. “You really managed to fuck it up, Blaze! Good thing we got a spare here—the rest are still over at the lift! Somepony bring some wedges and help me out with this!”
While Blazer busied himself with tending to the gash on his foreleg, Rusty slipped into one of the assist harnesses, buckling the straps across his chest, then attaching the support arm to the proper anchors. Over to the small pile of necessities he went and snatched the other chainsaw, then it was back to the scene of the crime for round two.
Rusty paused halfway there, the cigarette in his mouth drooping a little bit as his eyes fell on the patch of spindly saplings that had formed just below where the saw protruded from the trunk. From that spot, a thin trail of new growth, hardly more than four inches high, trailed back towards camp in a somewhat-straight line, only changing direction to tactfully weave around standing trees.
Rusty froze. One hoof tightened his grip on the saw, and he slowly turned his head to look back towards the camp. “...Blaze!”
“Yeah!?” the stallion shouted from somewhere out of sight.
Rusty rubbed his eyes, then took a long, shaky drag on his cigarette. “You still bleedin!?’” He took a few shambling steps to the side, craning his neck off in the direction of Blaze’s voice.
“What the hell do you think!? Of course I'm still bleeding! Why do you care?”
Rusty shook his head, eyes traveling all the way back back down the odd sapling trail, back to the cluster of growth at the base of the scarred tree. “Yeah, well... stop it.” The stallion shook his head a second time, then kicked and stomped at a few of the leafy-green stems that were protruding from the ground.
The chainsaw started on the first pull, and Rusty made short work of moving to the other side of the trunk to start the cut. It went as well as one could imagine, the sharpened blade cutting through the moist wood at a smooth, if not slow pace. The notch went quickly, and with the help of some wedges and blocks, a little past three quarters of the way through, a deafening crack sounded and a shudder traveled through the ground as the trunk began to lean. Rusty killed the motor and stepped back, giving a loud, sharp whistle through his teeth in warning.
It started slow as the trunk split and the moist wood snapped away from the base. All eyes in the camp turned to the leaning giant as Rusty put even more distance between himself and the splintering tree trunk. Blazer’s saw fell from the notch it had been wedged in as the weight was taken off the blade, and somewhere in the camp, a pony whooped. A vicious snapping and crackling filled the air above as the branches of the tree, entwined with hundreds others and tore free, leaves and twigs and buds falling like rain. Then, the trunk fell, almost graciously, to strike the ground with a mighty thud that shook the surrounding forest.
A ten foot shaft of brilliant, late morning sunlight cast itself down through the break in the foliage, lighting the forest floor a brilliant yellow that was blinding to the gloom-adjusted eye. Comparatively, the surrounding forest might as well have been shrouded by night.
“Hey!” sounded Tidal’s voice from camp. “You found the light switch! Where was it!?”
Shielding his eyes from the sunlight with a hoof, Rusty squinted at the base of the fallen tree, then stepped forward and placed one forehoof on the stump, peering down at the deep red wood. It was a light-crimson sort of color, and beautiful to look at; every ring was distinguished by sharp lines of a much darker red, almost black in comparison.
“Gonna make some nice cabinets with that?” Shayne seemed to blend right out of the trees as she stepped into the ragged circle of light. Rusty, having tensed at her words, narrowed his brows and shot her a sideways glare. Shayne just smirked back as she padded up, then sat herself down beside the stump, leaning over to idly trace one forehoof over the rings of the tree.
Rusty watched that hoof for a second or two, then dragged his gaze up to meet the mare’s yellow-green eyes. “Hey, I just cut it. I don’t decide what to do with it.”
“Story of my life, big guy.” The mare pushed back to her hooves, then hopped up on the trunk and gave it a good firm tap with a hind leg. “Sturdy.”
Sucking at the butt of his spent cigarette for a second, Rusty lifted a brow, then spit it to the side. “You seem better today.”
“Since when do you care?” She snorted, then sat back and shot him a forced grin. “No. No not really. I hate this place. I am very glad that I can hear you guys, and the river.” The grin remained, though it faltered for a second. “I’m fine. Drop the subject.”
He quirked a brow. “Drop the subject?”
“Yes.”
Tidal joined the party with a carefree laugh as he approached, motioning to the wide stump in which Shayne was currently standing on. “And down goes the first oak! Wait, these are oaks, right?” He blinked, then shrugged. “Anyways, hey Rusty.” His eyes snapped to Shayne. “Hey, hot stuff. What’s up?”
“Certainly not your life expectancy if you call me that again.” She didn’t even bother to turn her eyes towards him.
Rusty restrained a snicker. “I thought you were on breakfast, Tidal.”
The gray stallion nodded. “I am. I came over here to tell ya’ to come eat. The others should be showing up soon, and you’re gonna want to get those scrambled eggs before the others do.” His eyes fell on the downed tree, and he gave a low whistle. “That’s some nice wood. How many rings do you think that stump has?”
Rusty hefted the chainsaw, then nodded back towards the camp. “Don’t wanna know. Come on—let’s eat.”
Crunch checked off on another line scrawled into the notebook he held in his left wing, trotting along beside Rusty as the larger stallion circled the camp. “So, we’ve set up the dinner tent, and storage... oh, and also cleared an area for the mil saw, but they’re still trying to figure out how to get that into the gorge so we probably won’t have that until tomorrow.”
Rusty nodded his head absentmindedly as Crunch rattled off his list, eyes on the massive trunk that he’d felled earlier that day. Ponies were gathered around it now, cutting off limbs and trimming up some of the larger branches, that were, in their own right, small trees as well.
“Might I ask why we’re cutting on-site?” Crunch asked, pausing for a second to peer up at Rusty. “I mean, in most cases, aren’t the logs hauled away to a separate location to be cut?” The stallion threw a timid glance over at Rusty, who shrugged, before Crunch continued. “I mean, not to imply I know this industry. I just mean like... from what I read.”
“Usually.” Rusty leaned himself up against a smaller tree, then looked over at Crunch. “These logs are too big to haul out individually with anything short of... hell, iunno,’ a damn airship? Our deal is that we cut ‘em, mill ‘em, stack ‘em up all nice, and cover ‘em, then we provide coordinates so that a second party can come in and pick them up.” He paused to drag on his cigarette. “It’s an... unconventional approach.”
Crunch nodded slowly, then squinted a bit and glanced off through the trees. “How are they going to get them out of the gorge?”
“Pegasus teams? Maybe an airship?” Rusty shrugged. “Hell if I know. They’re not payin’ me for that part, so it ain’t my problem.” He sat back on his rump, then pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes and shook one out. He lit the end of the fresh one with the smoldering end of the old one, then spit the old one aside and immediately replaced it.
Crunch looked mildly concerned as he nodded towards the nearly-empty package. “I’ve seen you go through at least three of those since we started. How many did you bring out here?”
The large stallion let out a cackle that turned into a phlegmy cough. “Plenty. Trust me, kid, you do not wanna see me without my nicotine.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” a new voice chimed in. Rusty and Crunch both turned to the mud-brown earth pony hobbling towards them. “A year or so ago,” Blazer continued with a chuckle, “someone in camp thought it would be a good idea to prank ol’ Rusty here by hiding his cigarettes.”
Rusty shifted his weight from one side to the other as he glanced away. He huffed a cloud of smoke, then shot Blazer a sharp sort of look. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“He was a damned raggedy mess that morning. Ears folded, bags under his eyes, hackles all ruffled as he poked around the camp looking for them. You see, he knew someone had hid them, and he was trying not to give them the satisfaction of asking. That lasted ‘till about lunchtime.” He bubbled over into a chuckle while Rusty angrily sucked on his cigarette. “We gave the things back the next day ‘cause he threatened to cut everyone’s pay.” Crunch started to laugh as well, but one look from Rusty silenced the orange pegasus.
“How’s your leg doing, Blaze?” Rusty gruffed.
Blaze reached the two of them, then gingerly sat back on his haunches and lifted the bandaged appendage off the ground to wave it casually back and forth. “Hurts like a bitch. Ma stitched it up.” He shuddered. “Told me to keep off it for a while.” He set his hoof carefully back down on the forest floor, then flicked his eyes downwards and examined the undergrowth with a certain sort of unease. “Finally stopped bleeding.” He bit his lip, glanced around, then cleared his throat. “Rusty... could I talk to you alone for a moment?”
Crunch blinked, then adjusted his glasses with the tip of a wing and frowned at Rusty. Rusty looked over at Crunch, then shrugged his shoulders and nodded off towards a temporary structure that was being erected on the other side of the camp. “Go make sure those idiots are settin’ it up right.”
“But I don’t know how it’s supposed to—” Crunch locked eyes with Rusty, then cleared his throat and nodded. “Right, yeah I’ll just...” he motioned off to the side with his head, turning in that direction to leave.
Blazer waited until Crunch was out of earshot, then scooted himself a bit closer to Rusty and leaned in. “Rusty, this is gonna sound fuckin’ stupid, but I think these trees have it out for me.”
Rusty snorted and almost fumbled his cigarette. His lips caught it by the very tip, and he played an awkward game of lip-gymnastics trying to get it back to a safe position in the corner of his mouth before he spoke. “Don’t fuck with me, Blaze. What’s going on?”
Blazer glanced around a second time, then added in a low, urgent-sounding voice, “I’m serious. There isn’t a single damn breath of wind down in this gorge, but every time I walk by a tree branch, I swear I can see the fucking things move! Like... just in the corner of my eye. If I watch for it then it doesn’t happen, but I swear, any time I let my guard down I can see that shit in my peripherals. It’s scaring the shit out of me.”
Rusty sucked in a cloud of smoke, then let it spill casually out through his nostrils as he fixed Blazer with a long, pondering look. “...How much blood did you lose?”
“Oh come on, Rusty!”
“I’m serious! How much blood did you lose?”
The brown stallion huffed, then glanced away and gave his shoulders a hesitant shrug. “I don’t know... enough to fill a cup, enough to feel woozy. Shit, I don’t know, Rusty, I was bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Nodding, Rusty raised a massive hoof and set it on Blazer’s shoulder to give the stallion a few rough pats. “You already know what I’m gonna say, then. Blood loss makes your head swim.” He pointed his hoof towards camp. “Go get yourself a good drink of water from the creek and ask Ma for the leftovers from lunch, then lie down. Rest up a bit.”
Blazer opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but closed it once he met Rusty’s eyes and turned his gaze out to the forest. “Will do.”
The mud-colored pony hesitated for another moment, then stood with a slow carefulness and started towards the center of camp.
Rusty watched him go. A distant look crept into his eyes, and soon enough, he wasn’t watching Blaze, but rather, gazing blankly at a spot where he’d once been. The ash that clung to the tip of his cigarette was slowly swallowing up the white paper, growing longer and heavier.
Ratchet stood at the edge of the gorge, the afternoon sunlight bathing his light blue coat in its warmth. After just a day and a half of being under the canopy of the bloodwood forest, it was practically heaven to the stallion. Peering down at the carpet of treetops, he held onto one of the beams of the makeshift elevator for balance, a soft breeze ruffling his mane. To his right, the mill saw, which they had attempted to bring down the previous day, was being prepared by the others so that they could attempt to lower it a second time. Crunch paced around the large steel machine, checking the tie-offs and muttering to himself.
The plan was simple, simple enough at least. The wagon deck had been removed from the ropes and left at the bottom. Crunch, Tidal, and Ratchet had remained up top to secure the large piece of machinery to the ropes, and the rest of the party had stayed down on the ravine floor to ease it down. Oh, and Lance had come to provide protection, of course.
Ratchet glared over at the white stallion, who was sitting back on his haunches, observing the work of the three stallions with his rifle clasped between his hooves. The blue stallion knew what the pseudo guard was actually up here for—to make sure ponies didn’t talk about the wrong things. Call it instinct, or a hunch, but Ratchet had a bad feeling in his gut that Lance knew that he knew about the less than legal practices that were taking place. Since the very first night, Lance hadn’t let Ratchet out of his sight.
“That should do it!” Crunch said happily, stepping away from the massive saw table before looking over at Tidal. “We ready?”
Tidal nodded, then raised a hoof and pressed it against his front teeth to produce a loud, shrill whistle. A second later, the ropes went taught, creaked, and the saw half lifted, and half slid towards the edge. “Ride’s here,” he said, climbing up onto the metal deck of the saw table, Crunch doing the same. “Hop on.”
Lance started towards the metal safety hazard, though was suddenly stopped by a sharp wave of his hoof from Ratchet. “Me and Lance are gonna stay up here and watch the lift.” The blue stallion rapped against one of the logs it was constructed from with a hoof. “I don’t trust these things. If something’s up, we’ll holler.”
Tidal and Crunch both exchanged looks; Tidal shrugged and Crunch nodded in approval, grabbing onto the ropes the saw was suspended from for balance. “How are you gonna get down?” Crunch asked as they started to drop over the edge.
Ratchet raised a hoof, then wiggled it in the general direction of the ropes that were currently lowering Crunch and Tidal. “Send the lift back up.”
Crunch gave a corny half-salute, then clung a little tighter to his rope. “Seeya at the bottom.” One of the logs supporting them let out a precarious creak and Crunch’s face went a little pale, a nervous chuckle leaving him as he unconsciously flared his wings.
“Whatever you’re thinking about...” Lance called from behind, his voice slow and cautious. “Think about it a little more before you do it.”
Ratchet turned to Lance, advancing slowly on three hooves, his right foreleg supporting the rifle and keeping draw-ready. “I just wanted to talk,” Ratchet replied in a similar tone.
Lance stopped about five feet away, then sat back and grasped his rifle with both hooves. “I don’t.”
“Well I do!” Ratchet peered back over the edge to watch the progress of the saw for a moment, the pulleys continuing to squeak beside his head, then eventually turned his attention back towards Lance. “You’ve been watching me like a hawk ever since the first night. Why?”
The white kept his face in a deadpan, though his right eyebrow gave a soft twitch. It was the look of a stallion who knew something, and wanted you to know that they knew without actually saying anything. “Because you’re a very important asset to this expedition and—”
Ratchet cut him off with a frustrated wave of his hoof. “Don’t give me that shit. Come on.”
Lance sighed, slumped a little, then tightened up his grip on the rifle. “Everyone’s paycheck is riding on this going smoothly. If you run your mouth when you all get back to the land of the living, there’s not going to be anything waiting for you but a bunch of jail cells.”
“Jail cells?” Ratchet tensed.
“Yeah,” Lance repeated, “jail cells! If you blow this, you don’t think they’re gonna have some sort of backup plan to cover their asses?”
“Who is ‘they!?’”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does!”
Lance snorted. “I have my instructions and you have yours. We should follow them, or things won’t go well for any of us. We are not in control here.”
“That’s exactly my concern!” the unicorn fired back. “What makes you think they haven’t already decided to screw us all over. That’s why we should pack up, and go!”
Lance jacked the hammer on the rifle back, and the resulting click cut the air like lightning. “Your only concern should be your job.”
Ratchet’s face went a little pale. He took a deep breath, and licked his lips before speaking, his voice wavering slightly. “What are you going to do? Shoot me? Everyone down there’s gonna hear it. How do you explain that?” The tip of his horn started to glow.
The white stallion shrugged, but it was somewhat clear from his posture that he was tense as well. “Not unless I have to. But right now, you’re giving me some pretty bad vibes.”
“Rusty would know. What’re you gonna do, shoot him too? And then this whole thing would fall apart at your hooves!”
Lance grit his teeth for a second, his grip tightening on the rifle. He sidled back an inch or two as he started to raise it. “Whatever you’re thinking... you’re thinking wrong. Let’s not fuck this up. I don’t want to shoot you.”
The blue glow from Ratchet’s horn grew a little brighter as the softball-sized rock he was levitating behind Lance drifted ever closer. The white stallion noticed the change in brightness, and his eyes widened in semi-realization. Ratchet swung, and Lance turned just in time to stagger to the side and miss having his muzzle rearranged. The rock missed and Ratchet let it fall from his levitation field rather than sparing more energy to reduce its momentum; it hit the ground with a thud, then rolled to the edge of the gorge and fell towards the canopy.
“What the fuck!?” Lance blurted taking aim with the rifle at Ratchet’s midsection. Ratchet’s horn flared up again, and when the other stallion hit the trigger, an enveloping haze of blue magic held the hammer back. Lance blinked, then glanced down in confusion, and Ratchet took that moment to charge at him. The white stallion barely had time to react, but managed to pull the rifle back and instead used it to block Ratchet’s charge.
The two collided chest-to-chest, Lance staggering back a foot and a half to keep his balance white Ratchet did his best to wrap his magic around the white stallion’s neck. With a grunt and a heave, Lance shoved back at the same time that the unicorn’s magical field closed around his throat and cut off his air supply. The stallion’s eyes bugged, and he rasped a desperate word that was little more than gibberish, a hoof shooting momentarily to his neck, only to realize there was nothing to grab. Now fighting a battle against time, Lance sidestepped the unicorn as he charged, taking a few steps closer to the gorge. his gaze desperately switching between Ratchet, and the ledge he was being herded towards.
“I know a set-up when I see one!” Ratchet charged again, and again, Lance sidestepped, wheezing, face going red as he turned the butt of the rifle out to land a blow on Ratchet’s shoulder as he passed. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to break Ratchet’s concentration enough so that Lance could breathe.
The white earth pony gulped down his first breath of air. “You’ve fucking lost it!” He coughed, holding up a hoof to a glowering Ratchet who was just turning around again to face him. “You’re gonna get us all fucking killed!”
Lance braced for a second charge, but Ratchet held off. “That place is bad news! I’m not going back down there,” Ratchet growled, folding his ears, a furious glare starting to form. “We’re not doing this!”
“This doesn’t end well, unless...” Lance held out his right hoof, attempting to show compromise, though his left maintained a slightly-shaky grip on the gun. “Unless we all do our part. We don’t ask questions, and we all get a shitton of money. It’s that simple.”
Ratchet spat at the ground, and took a step forward, and Lance eased himself back a half-step. “Bullshit! I didn’t sign up to be some corporate bitch, or fall guy.” he scoffed. “You would have shot me.”
“That rock would have caved my skull in, asshole!” Lance moved both forehooves back to his rifle, sitting back on his haunches as he did so, holding his defensive posture. “You’re a liability to your whole crew.”
“I know what’s good for my crew!”
“Oh yeah!?” Lance scoffed. “Really? You want them all in jail? Because that’s what’ll happen if you fuck this up! And that’s the best-case scenario.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a warning.” Lance growled. “You just tried to kill me. I can forgive that if you promise to chill the fuck out.” He sighed. “You’ve already cut one down. One or a hundred, the penalty is the same. This is what’s happening whether you like it or not. You have two options from here, fines out the ass and mandatory jail time, or a big-ass paycheck. I know which one I want.”
Ratchet glared for a long moment, but eventually his gaze started to soften. His expression shifted from that of anger, to one of unease and trepidation.”Then I won’t be a part of it. I’ll head back. Rusty can dig his own grave!” He sighed and shook his head, looking away. “I just—”
Lance was quick. He snapped his musket back up, shouldered it, took aim, and pulled the trigger in a little under the second. If only the priming powder, which had been moistened and tainted by the swampy air of the forest, hadn’t failed to ignite.
The bitter clack that filled the air as the hammer struck, and the weapon sparked but entirely failed to discharge, was one that could have woken the dead.
Ratchet’s head snapped around, ears perking, a snarl crossing his face as Lance tilted his weapon to look down at the failed ignition. “You fuck!” he bellowed, springing to his hooves, hurling the entirety of his weight at Lance.
For a second time, Lance reared up to meet him, using the rifle as an impromptu shield. Ratchet hit with full force, and it was enough to knock Lance back onto his hind legs. The stallion panicked, and took a few steps back to maintain his balance. Ratchet growled, concentrating as hard as he could on getting his forehooves around Lance’s throat.
“I had to! Stop!” Lance wheezed, looking back over his shoulder as he swayed, starting to lose his balance. “Oh, fucking Celestia, stop!” His voice was tight, strained, and desperate as he fought to keep his balance. “I’ve worked with these guys before. They w—”
“Fucker!” was all Ratchet said, baring his teeth as he pressed both forehooves to Lance’s throat. Finally winning the battle of force, he pushed the white earth pony past his balancing point, back and over.
Directly over the edge that Lance had been standing precariously upon, his back mere inches from the sheer ledge, the ledge that Ratchet hadn’t been focusing on.
The fall was tranquil in an eerie sort of way. Ratchet pushed off of Lance, but it did little good now that the both of them were falling, the rocky cliff face racing by right beside the both of them like an oversized belt sander. Lance’s blue eyes were wide and horrified, mane whipping around his face as he gazed up at Ratchet, but below that horror was an unbridled fury, a rage directed at the pony that had most likely just killed the both of them. Ratchet gazed back with the same fury, but under that, he looked sorrowful. He had, after all, started this.
The tree canopy came rushing up to meet them much too fast. Lance fell through first, his form disappearing into the sea of green, and yellow... and red.
Ratchet followed him a half-second later.
A shrill whistle sounded from high above, muffled and barely-audible through the trees.
“Heave!” Rusty yelled, motioning to the two lines of ponies, eight on each rope. Together, all sixteen of them grunted and groaned, taking slow, deliberate steps backwards as the ropes gained tension. “Okay,” Rusty said, peering up at the tree canopy. “Now start lettin’ it down slow.” He stepped forward, just in case he’d have to hop in on either side and grab a rope. “Make sure to bring it down even. We don’t want that thing gettin’ off-kilter.”
Everyone in camp had been called out to lower the milling machine into the gorge; everyone except for Blazer, who really wasn’t in any condition to be pulling on ropes with a bandaged forehoof. Even Shayne had pitched in, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. She’d propped her rifle up against a nearby tree and taken a spot at the end of the left line, having wrapped the end of the rope twice around her left hoof so she could use the other three to pull.
After a few moments, a crackling from above and a heavy rain of leaves and twigs signaled that the machine had been lowered into the tree canopy, and a moment after that, the bottom of it appeared through the foliage.
The snap of a twig sounded from above and Rusty jerked his head up to look for it. He seemed to just barely spot whatever it was, and take a precautionary step away as it soared towards the ground and hit the forest floor with a reverberating thud about ten feet away from where the rust-colored stallion stood.
Rusty’s jaw fell open and his right hoof lifted from the ground to make a grab for the cigarettes in his breast pocket as he watched the softball-sized rock roll away down the hill.
The machine continued to lower, now about twenty or so feet off the ground, and Rusty snapped open his lighter. He had just puffed the tip of his cigarette to life and tucked the lighter away when there was a muffled shout from above. Squinting, Rusty peered up at the tree canopy and waved his cigarette smoke out of his eyes with a forheoof.
Suddenly, to the left of the elevator, the foliage broke and a thrashing blue shape tore from the leaves and out into the open. Some ponies noticed it, others didn’t even look up from the rope as the pony dropped towards the ground like a stone. He hit with a sickening, wholesome thud, like an axe being sunk into a moist tree stump.
The impact was felt more than it was heard. That’s when everyone looked. The root bed on the forest floor was stiff and unforgiving, so Ratchet bounced. The hard angle of attack ensured that he didn’t bounce up, but rather, to the side, and his form went tumbling violently down the casual slope, his form limp and broken. He came to rest against a tree trunk, hitting it nearly as hard as he had the ground.
Rusty had frozen to the spot and fallen into a stunned vigil with all the others, who’d stopped any efforts of lowering the saw table any further. “R...Ratch?” he rasped.
Ratchet did not look okay. A few of the crew had seen ponies killed by much lesser falls and tumbles. There was little doubt among them that the chances he was alive at all were less than slim.
Like a specter from above, Lance’s rifle dived in and struck the ground butt-first, directly beside the left group of ponies. It discharged, spitting a two-foot foot lighting bolt of muzzle flash into the air with a deafening crack that caused the eight ponies on the left to jump in unison. A couple scattered, and two more dropped to the ground to cover their heads from what they could only assume would be falling debris.
In total, five of them let go of the rope.
Rusty dived forward in an attempt to save it as the three ponies still hanging on were yanked right off their hooves. He missed by four feet, and instead landed on his belly with enough force to knock the air out of him, his cigarette grinding itself out in the damp leaves and breaking in two. The green unicorn holding on in the front cried out and released the rope as he was dragged into the air, and Brick, who had rooted himself to the spot just behind the other stallion cried out in pain as the rope whizzed through his hooves, wisps of friction smoke curling into the air. Shayne, who’s left hoof was still wrapped thrice around the end of the rope, slammed into the large stallion from behind like a miniature wrecking ball and bowled him right off his hooves. From above, a loud slam and a clatter reverberated through the air as one side of the saw table dropped and collided with the wall of the gorge; Shayne gave a batty squeal as she was hoisted away and up into the air, now the only one on the rope. Tidal, who had been sitting on the left side of the milling machine, had somehow managed to get a hoof around one of the hoist chains supporting the heavy mill, clinging to it for dear life as Crunch slid down the smooth metal surface, his wings outstretched and flailing as he clawed desperately for traction with his forehooves.
Wheezing for breath, tobacco scattered across his lips like grungy lipstick, Rusty dragged himself to his hooves and staggered towards the other rope, which the group had managed to hang on to, however even with a block and tackle, the weight of eight loggers wasn’t enough to combat the saw, and they were being pulled towards the cliff face. The eight from the other rope had scattered, some boldly trying to retrieve it, others simply getting out of the way as the heavy machine lurched and swung precariously above.
Rusty dived again, and this time he was able to get his hooves on the end of the other rope and wrap it around his hoof. Despite his weight, it didn’t stop the machine’s fast descent as it pulled all nine of them across the forest floor. Another pony jumped on Rusty’s back and grabbed onto his shoulders, riding him like a toboggan across the frictionless leaves that might as well have been snow for all the grip they provided.
Crunch slid right off the end of the table and crashed into Tidal’s chest, and the both of them went falling about fifteen feet to the forest floor. Somehow, Crash managed to get his wings open at about eight feet, and they caught the air and flumfed up; he had just barely started to level out when Tidal grabbed onto his hind legs and jerked them both of them right out of the sky. Tidal hit the ground first, and Crunch landed right on top of him, then the two bounced separate ways and went into leaf-frenzied rolls down the hill.
Slowly. Ever so slowly, with ponies dogpiling one after another on top of Rusty, who let out an almost comical wheeze every time another pony was added, their weight equalized with the milling table and its left side came to a stop two feet from the ground, completely vertical. All the shouting and the screaming stopped, leaving nothing in the air but the exhausted panting of a dozen or so ponies. Shayne’s batty squeal sounded from above, and the mare came plummeting back down out of the trees, leathery wings fluttering as she fell, still entwined with the rope that had yanked her up into the air like a yo-yo. She ran out of slack about five feet up and came to a forceful stop, barking in pain as her right shoulder took the brunt of her weight. Finally, her hoof unraveled from the end of the rope and she fell to the ground, landing flat on her back, wheezing as the wind was knocked out of her.
There was silence.
“Hoooooooly sheeyat!” someone shouted, completely shattering the tense silence with a four-syllable expletive that normally would have only been three.
Rusty groaned, trying to shrug the others off his back. They took the hint, and started to shift. He was just starting to calm himself down when the rope trembled violently in his hooves and a loud crack and a groan sounded from above the tree canopy.
Rusty went stiff. “Scatter!” he shouted. And scatter they did; they didn’t need to be told twice. The rope that had been taut in his hooves no more than a moment before suddenly lost any and all tension, and Rusty threw it away in horror as the heavy mill saw slammed into the earth a couple feet away. The rope snaked back towards the ground, bunching up on the forest floor, and the mill balanced on its end just long enough for Rusty to stagger away. From above came the aggressive chatter of breaking branches and the brittle snap of shattered tree limbs as the mangled remnants of their improvised lift exploded through the tree canopy, torn from its mountings by the load imbalance. The assortment of scattered and broken logs hit the ground with a deafening thunder, dusting the fleeing ponies with splintered shrapnel. And then, finally, like a majestic giant tripping over its own feet, the log mill groaned and fell over to the side, hitting the ground with a final, reverberating echo that shook the ground and the very forest itself.
One by one, the ponies who had fled returned and gathered around the wreckage, either too shocked or too breathless to speak. Shayne sat up slowly from between two logs, eyes wide as she held her right shoulder with her left hoof; she was trembling, larynx bobbing erratically up and down on the front of her neck as she undoubtedly tried to form words.
“Is anyone hurt!?” somepony in the group shouted.
“I’m good!” a cream-colored earth pony called.
“Same!”
“Me too!”
Crunch was a few feet away, patting his way desperately, but gently up the hill as he searched for his glasses. By some miracle, he actually found them. Bending them back into shape, the pegasus fitted them over his muzzle, then sighed.
Tidal laid where he’d stopped rolling, sprawled out on his back. “Fuuuuuuuck,” he croaked.
Rusty slowly picked himself up, grimacing at the marks left on his forehoof by the rope. For a second, he seemed to relax, then it hit him. “Rachet!” he bellowed, turning and nearly tripping as he sprinted across the clearing towards the immobile blue lump that was the unicorn. Skidding to a stop beside the wreck of a pony in a spray of muggy dirt and leaves, Rusty stooped over and rolled the unicorn onto his back. “Come on Ratch, tell me you’re breathin’.” He gave his face a few light smacks with the flat of his hoof, then dropped his head and pressed his ear to the flat of Ratchet’s chest.
Stunned silence filled the air as other ponies gathered around, forming a ring around Rusty and Ratchet that nopony seemed to want to break. The large, auburn earth pony remained hunched over Ratchet, eyes closed, right ear firmly pressed to his chest as he listened for sounds of life.
“Rust...” Ma rasped after a few moments, taking a slow step forward. “Don’t—”
“Yep... He’s dead,” Rusty declared. Slowly, the hulking form of an earth pony stood, then inhaled a deep, measured breath. The stallion had valediction in his eyes, and an anger in his voice. He swallowed a lump, raising a shaking hoof, then lowered it again. “Where’s that fuckin’ bat?” he croaked.
There was another short moment of silence, then the ring of ponies tentatively parted to reveal the thestral standing just on the outskirts of it. Her tufted ears were folded flat against her head, and she sat back on her haunches, eyes wide. Rusty locked eyes with her, and she locked up like a deer caught in the glare of a spotlight.
“I-I didn’t—” She glanced around at the others, then looked back to where Lance’s rifle had landed. Rusty growled, then stepped towards her, and Shayne reacted by flinching backwards and raising her right hoof towards the butt of her rifle.
He lunged at her, and the mare grasped the butt of the rifle, yanking it from the harness on her back. The mare had managed to bring it about three quarters of the way around when he slammed into her, knocking the rifle aside and sending Shayne into a backwards tumble. She landed hard on her back, then rolled head over hooves as her leathery wings flailed at the air. Any further movement was stopped by the cold, relentless trunk of a bloodwood tree as her back thudded up against it, and the mare found herself watching Rusty advance.
He reached her in less than a second, and a powerful auburn hoof slammed down on the trunk beside her head, splintering the bark. He pressed the shin of his other foreleg under her jaw, against her throat, then pushed upwards. Shayne gagged and let out a pathetic squeak as he pinned her neck, then lifted her right up and off the ground.
“Explain!” Rusty bellowed, acrid, cigarette-tainted breath spilling over Shayne’s face. “It was just the two of them up there!” He dragged Shayne up the bark of the tree until she was at eye level with him, which ensured that her hind hooves were a little over a foot off the ground.
Shayne’s hind legs kicked desperately at the air and she clawed furiously at Rusty’s foreleg with her front hooves, eyes swiveling frantically in her skull. “I...” she choked out. “Maybe they fell—”
“Bullshit!” Rusty fired right back, interrupting her and pressing down a little more on her windpipe. The batmare’s jaw dropped and a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a squeak escaped her as the thrashing intensified.
The ponies around them had started to mutter and argue. Crunch watched on in something that resembled horror, while Blazer and Tidal had moved to the immobile form of Ratchet. Spark watched with something that resembled disinterest, and everypony else was arguing about just what the hell was going on.
A periwinkle hoof settled on Rusty’s shoulder, and he glanced back with a huff to peer into Ma’s blue, and surprisingly soft eyes. “Wha’dyou want?” he huffed towards her.
“Let her go,” Ma rasped, pulling lightly on Rusty’s shoulder. The stallion resisted her for a second, then sighed and leaned back, dropping Shayne back to the forest floor. Immediately, the mare clutched at her throat and fell over onto her side, hacking, coughing.
“Tie her up,” Rusty gruffed to nopony in particular, shrugging Ma off and turning away to look over the destroyed lift. “Get that machine turned upright. Get everything back to camp.”
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.”
Blazer had been appointed assistant foreman in Ratchet’s place, not only because he had been with Rusty for nearly as long as the late unicorn had been, but also because he wasn’t good for anything other than supervising with the stitches across his knee. Crunch’s suggestion to build a scaffold, while helpful, hadn’t traveled far off the drawing board, however. They hadn’t even milled enough lumber for such a construction task, and considering the value of the wood they were cutting in the first place, Rusty had put the kibosh on any action until further notice.
There was something incredibly undignified about cutting down a century-old tree, then using it to build scaffolding. That sentiment was shared among the workers. As one had put it, “These ain’t douglas firs; t’ain’t right to use ‘em as such.” If push came to shove, then sacrifices would have to be made, however, with enough supplies to last for months, there was little urgency as far as most were concerned.
Ratchet would be buried in the forest, and life would go on.
However, they would eventually need to find a way out—the topic wasn’t being ignored. Seventeen ponies were getting to work, a bit sluggish post-lunch, but three in particular were preparing for something a little bit different.
Crunch chewed his inner lip as he rummaged through the contents of his saddlebags, hoof ruffling quite a few papers and knocking against a compass. Shayne sat beside him, managing to look both bored and frustrated at the same time. She had been allowed to don her gear once more, and her sword, however the rifle remained absent.
“This wasn’t in my job description,” the orange pegasus muttered under his breath, sparing a hoof to press his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He shook his head, then closed the flap on his bag and instead went to the other to withdraw a canteen, which he briefly examined before tucking away once more. “I’m an administrative assistant. I’m here to crunch numbers and keep records, but then if I’d wanted a desk job...” He trailed off with a tiny sigh. “Might as well make the most of it.”
“Oh I get it now,” Shayne droned, flicking one ear as she watched him trifle. “Crunch. You crunch numbers. Kind of an awkward name, isn’t it?”
Crunch looked up, pursing his lips. “Why are you coming with us again?”
Shayne just shrugged. “Guess I’m not very good at cutting down trees and Rusty wanted to give me something to do that wasn’t being tied up in my tent.”
Crunch gazed at her for a moment, opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it, and instead, snatched up a kerosene lantern and started trying to stuff it into a mostly-empty saddlepack.
“Besides,” Shayne added. “You need someone physically competent to watch your ass.” She looked away from Crunch, her eyes landing on a stallion that was approaching the both of them. He was an earth pony, taller than average, kind of sleek in frame, but boxy around the chest and firm in the shoulders. “Oh look, another one.”
The stallion stopped before the both of them, then sat back and adjusted the light blue flannel he was wearing. “Rusty told me to meet you two.” He glanced between the both of them. “I was told we were scouting the valley.” His voice was soft, smooth in a surprising sort of way. It matched his appearance, to say the least. His cream fur was thick, but well-maintained, and his long, auburn mane spilled down around his shoulders on both sides of his head; it didn’t exactly shine, but it sure was impressive, if not a little frazzled, in need of a brush and an hour of attention. He cast his blue eyes on Crunch, lifted a brow, then turned them to Shayne. “Nice sword.”
“Thanks.” She eyed him. “Nice shirt.”
“Thanks.” The stallion looked off over his shoulder. “So, what’re we scouting?”
Crunch finished attending to his bags, yanking one of the buckles tight with his teeth before turning his attention to the new arrival. “Anything. Also, maybe another way out.” He heaved his bags up, grunting as he struggled to pull them up onto his back. Eventually, he got things situated, then pointed off towards the creek with a wingtip. “All running water leads somewhere.”
The cream stallion nodded. “Water has a way of going places, doesn’t it?” He held out his hoof. “I’m Rosewood.” Crunch shook it, and he held it out to Shayne, who didn’t. Instead, he gave her a polite nod, which the bat at least returned.
Crunch led the way out of camp, down to the bend in the creek. The three stood in relative silence as he gazed down at the gurgling water, which wasn’t so much as rolling over stone than it was thick, black and crimson roots interwoven. The pegasus frowned, then nodded and started off, following the flow of the water.
It was slow-going. The foliage was thick, composed of stout ironwood trees made up of purples and reds and dark blues that grew haphazardly along the water’s edge and in between towering bloodwoods. Shorter, spindly trees filled in the gaps, with bark that resembled that of aspens, though judging by the red buds at the tips of them, they most certainly weren’t aspens. In the unimpressively gloomy light that the thick canopy above allowed to filter through, the many leaves and buds of the different plants and fauna had an eerie dimensionality to them—they cast little to no shadow, the light from above seeming to both come from everywhere, and nowhere, not a single defined line to be seen. It was like a poorly-taken photograph. In many ways it just felt off, unnatural to the senses. The light felt artificial.
The density of the trees and foliage, and even the undergrowth was entirely inconsistent. For the most part, trees encroached on all sides and made it difficult to see too far into the distance, however every now and then, one would be able to glance far off through the forest, catching brief glimpses of grand alleyways between rows of trees that seemed to stretch on for miles. The occasional patch of forestry too thick to even traverse would greet the group, and they would be forced to travel around it, rather than through.
With no clear indication of direction from the sun, had they not been following the stream, it would have been very easy to get lost.
Crunch was the first one to break the eerie silence that had been growing among the trio as they cut deeper into the bloodwood grove. He stopped eventually, sitting himself down on a patch of grass and leaves by the water’s edge in order to fish a tri-fold map of sorts from his saddlebags. “This place feels like a maze,” he grumbled, fanning the map out before him with his wings, gazing at the heavy, white parchment that he had clearly drawn upon himself—it was a rather impressive depiction of the valley, that odd oval shape with the two ends squeezed down to five points, similar in shape to an eyeball, like a double-sided teardrop that was severely lacking in symmetry. He’d already mapped out a few key points, approximately where their camp was, and where the lift had been, which was rather close to one of the sharp ends.
He took a moment to sketch, or at least try to sketch, the progress of the creek they’d been following while the other two milled about.
Rosewood strode up to the edge of the water and produced a canteen. He held it under, idly eyeing the bubbles that rose from the mouth as he traded air for water. When the bubbles stopped, he raised it, then took a sip. “Does anyone else find it odd that the water down here is nearly warm?” He looked between the other two with raised brows, before taking another sip from the canteen. “I don’t like it. Tastes swampy.”
“I don’t like anything about this place,” Shayne fired back, hardly missing a beat as she trotted up to the edge of the creek and dipped the end of her hoof. She twirled it around for a moment, then pulled back. “What’d you do to piss Rusty off enough to send you out here with me?”
Rosewood just chuckled as he topped off his canteen. Straightening up, the stallion screwed the lid back on, then used his wet hoof to brush back his mane. “I’m not much for felling trees. I do just about everything else, however. At the moment there’s a severe lack of cut trees, so I was in need of something to do.”
Shayne didn’t respond, and silence fell over them once more. It was Crunch who broke it a second time, taking a break from gnawing thoughtfully on the corner of his pen in order to speak. “How far do you suppose we’ve come?”
“Almost a quarter mile,” Shayne fired back.
Crunch looked over at her. “You’re sure of that?”
The bat rolled her eyes. “I was a royal guard for a long time. Just, trust me, I’ve been keeping track.”
Crunch nodded slowly, then went back to his map and made a small mark. “It’s hard to tell without the horizon for reference, but it feels like we’ve been on a pretty steep downhill... Right, then I guess we should, uh... continue on.” He folded the parchment up with a small sigh. “My hooves are already getting sore.”
The creek grew as they followed it, fed by smaller streams and perhaps even some natural springs as it weaved to and fro between gnarled tree trunks and the occasional boulder clutched in the mighty grasp of root clusters. Following it proved difficult, as the very thickest of the undergrowth seemed to crowd its banks, and the largest of bloodwoods loomed overhead, the stream steered and channeled by the waterlogged trunks and grasping roots. More concerning, it was starting to get darker, not only because the sun was getting lower in the sky on the other side of the canopy, but because the canopy itself was getting thicker.
Conversations of turning back were just starting to gain traction when Shayne took a mighty swing at the mat of branches ahead of them. They broke away and scattered to the ground, revealing more—a wall of leaves and gnarled branches, the bushy limbs of a very healthy bush. With a growl, the bat stepped forward and swung again, then a third time, hacking her way a couple feet into the spongy wall, gouging out a pony-sized hole.
“What’s with this fucking forest!?” she screamed, gnashing her teeth between swings as she hacked her way through a limb that was a couple inches across.
“Forget it!” Crunch called out to her. “We should head back. We aren’t prepared for this.”
Shayne kept hacking away, starting to pant from the exertion, taking what had to be days of pent up aggression out on the unsuspecting branches. She hacked, swung, snarled, slashed, then slashed one more time...
And hit nothing.
There was nothing beyond the short tunnel she’d cut in the wall of forestry. No more branches, no more leaves, and no more light.
Shayne froze, then slowly sheathed her sword. Her eyes went wide as she stepped forward, out of the gloomy excuse for daylight that was behind them, and into the nothing before them.
Crunch stepped up to the edge of the little tunnel she’d made, balking, while Rosewood peered over his shoulder, mouth going a little slack, ears perking, eyes widening. “Shayne!?” Crunch squeaked out, sitting back on his haunches and lifting a hoof to sift frantically through his saddlebags. Eventually, he found the handle of the lantern he’d packed, and yanked the thing out of his bags. Rosewood, in the meantime, just looked forward, then back, then forward, then back again.
Crunch got the lantern lit, then stepped forward with it aloft, the handle held by the primaries of his right wing,
The darkness gave way to a beach, or at least, the grove’s equivalent of a beach. What would normally be sand, was instead a thick mat of leaves and damp moss, spongy underhoof and reeking of mildew and iron. What lay beyond it could only be described as a lake. There were no waves, no moss growing on the surface, no sign of a current of any kind. The light didn’t travel very far across its surface, and whatever was on the other side of the body of water remained unseen. Judging from the curve of the bank, however, it was safe to say that it was a rather large lake.
Normally, a lake in the middle of the woods wouldn’t have been very out of the ordinary. The complete and total lack of light, however, and the morbid stillness of the air that gave its surface the glossy reflection of an untouched, indoor pool, was what set off the proverbial alarm bells.
Shayne was standing just at the water’s edge, staring out into the darkness, her eyes wide, pupils almost entirely dilated as gazed at something unseen. “This isn’t right,” she said quietly.
Crunch padded up beside her and set his lantern down on a mat of roots, then looked over his shoulder at the thick wall of moss and entwined branches that made up the ‘wall.’ “Can you see in here?”
Shayne nodded once. “Barely.”
Rosewood moved up and sat himself down on her other side, kneading his hooves at the ground before him. His ears were folded. He too looked back over his shoulder, at the ragged circle of wan reddish-yellow light that spilled into the chamber from the direction they’d come.
That’s what it was, a chamber.
“Hey, numbers guy,” Rosewood muttered, his quiet voice louder than it had any right to be in the silence.
Crunch leaned back and looked over at him behind Shayne’s head. “Yeah?”
“Where the fuck are we?”
Crunch shook his head, then looked back out over the water. They all did. “I don’t know. I... this isn’t like... this isn’t right. Rusty isn’t telling us something about this place, something that I feel like we really need to know. I have my suspicions.” His gaze snapped over to Shayne. “You’re in on it, huh?”
The batmare nodded a second time. She blinked, and it was almost audible. She didn’t take her eyes off whatever it was she was staring at. “I thought I was.”
A pregnant silence hung in the air, the awe of the ‘room’ seeming to instill it upon the trio.
Rosewood broke it after a moment or two. “Does anyone else get the feeling that we shouldn’t be here? I don’t know what it is. I’m just getting...”
“Bad vibes,” Crunch finished quietly.
Rosewood nodded. “Yeah...” He looked over at Shayne. “What’re you looking at?”
Shayne blinked, then swallowed once, hard, and finally tore her gaze away from the darkness, instead, looking down at the lamp as he pupils returned to a normal size. “I can’t see the other side, but there’s a... tree in the middle, the biggest tree I’ve ever seen. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
Another pregnant silence. Eventually Crunch responded.
“Can you try to describe it?” he asked softly, almost in a whisper.
Shayne looked away from the lantern, and back out across the cavern once more. “It’s like its own island, with roots the size of tree trunks reaching out around it, making up the base. The trunk is huge, bigger than a house, and it just goes up. I can’t see the top of it. It’s like... I don’t know, it’s fat, like it’s bulging in the middle, like it's so heavy it's sagging under its own weight. No branches down low.”
Crunch picked up his lantern, and held it aloft in his right hoof. Slowly, he unfurled his wings. “I want to see it.”
“What?” Shayne’s gaze snapped over to him. “No, that’s a bad idea.”
“I completely agree,” added Rosewood.
Crunch just shook his head, flitting his wings as he stepped forward. His right hoof came down in the water, and a perfect reflection of it slid out across the surface, until the two hoof-tips met, sending a semi-circle of tiny ripples out across the lake; they were slow, capacious ripples that rolled slowly and quietly out across the surface of the pool, until they’d traveled beyond the reach of the lantern. “Please excuse me for sounding cliche, but this could be something nopony’s ever seen before, something that’s never been documented. I want to see it so I can make a sketch of it.” He eyed Rosewood as he spoke, but then he flicked his eyes to Shayne. “You wanna know why my name is Crunch? It’s a lame name, I know, but...” He looked back out into the darkness. “It isn’t my real name. It’s a name my friends gave me in college, cause I was always crunching for tests, papers, anything. I went to classes I wasn’t even taking in my spare time just to listen to lectures and learn more stuff I’d probably never use. I got into accounting because I’m good with numbers, but really... I wanted to be good at everything. I could have gotten a job working at some desk, but I wouldn’t be learning anything out there. I came out here because I thought logging was pretty cool—it was a total whim, and I certainly wouldn’t have come out here if I knew it was going to turn out this way...” He sighed. “ But we’re here now. Look, booksmart just isn’t enough; I’m starting to learn that. I have never heard of anything like this. I need to go see it.”
“Damn kid, didn’t ask for your life story” Shayne said with a huff. “Nice aspirations though. Making me feel like an aimless failure with all your explorative studies bullshit.”
The orange pegasus sighed, rolled his eyes, and shrugged off his saddlebags. He snapped his wings out, and sprang forward, taking to the air with the whish of air through his feathers, the water below him rippling as his hind legs cast harsh and spastic shadows on the ground behind and below him.
“Wait!” Shayne shouted, unfurling her own wings, the leathery appendages fanning out to catch the stale air as she tore off after him.
“I don’t have a light!” Rosewood shouted after the both of them. He reached out a hoof to gesture in frustration after the two, then sighed and set it back down on the shore. Darkness shrouded him as he watched the flicking yellow light of Crunch’s lantern drift across the lake, drawing further and further away. “This is insane,” he added in an undertone, speaking to himself, listening to the fading voices of the other two as they bickered their way across.
The darkness swallowed the feeble light from the lantern—a directional flashlight likely would have come in handy, something with more of a throw. Rosewood tapped his hoof anxiously against a root, listening to the thump-a-thump of the impact as something appeared in the light in the distance.
Shayne had described it well. It was a massive, black, gnarled and tumorous-looking thing. It was made of wood, but it didn’t look much like a tree, not by any of their standards. It had truly formed its own island, made entirely of gnarled and twisted roots that curled around the base of the trunk and spread out into the water—each one was as large, or perhaps even larger than the already-massive bloodwood trees of the grove. It was hard to properly grasp just how large the entire thing was without something for reference, perspective and distance not entirely lining up with one another.
Of course, Shayne and Crunch served as that reference as they landed upon one of the massive roots. By the looks of it, they’d traveled a little over a hundred yards, close enough that one could make out their mane and coat colors, but far enough that facial expressions or any finer details were entirely lost. Even the roots dwarfed them. The thing itself, was more of a backdrop. It made up the majority of the center of the lake to such an extent that the lake seemed to be more of a particularly wide moat than it did an actual lake. It was hard to imagine how a tree could appear fat, but this one did.
Rosewood squinted, sitting in the gloom as he peered at the two across the water, listening to their muted voices, unable to make out individual words, their tonality muddied by distance but carried across the water like vibration down taut rope.
“Fine,” he grumbled to himself, looking back over his shoulder at the doorway they’d created, which was truly the only source of light within this section of the forest, aside from Crunch’s lantern. “Leave the earth pony alone on the shore of the haunted tree cave without a light. I don’t mind. Guess I’ll just sit here and not die.”
Another beam of light lit up across the lake, this one white and unnatural, conical rather than radiant—a flashlight. The bat was holding it, waving it about. The beam traveled much farther than the lantern light, and even glanced off a couple sections of ‘ceiling;’ of course, it was just more leaves and branches.
Crunch’s yelp of surprise carried all the way across the water, and a second later, came a clatter of metal and the delicate pop of a lantern bulb breaking. The sound was visceral, like a mason jar dropped on a tile floor.
The yellow light went out.
The white beam of light flicked about in the air. Shayne’s voice carried across the lake, calling out.
A shiver traveled up Rosewood’s spine. He swallowed once, hard, the wet sound of his throat convulsing cruelly audible in the gloom.
The pegasus’ scream broke the silence. No imaginable fear, worldy or otherwise, could justify the raw terror in Crunch’s voice—to call it his voice was a misstep, because in that moment, it wasn’t his voice, but rather, a primal screech of such a volume that Rosewood, even from far across the water, could hear the poor stallion’s vocal chords self-destructing in their feeble attempt to properly convey his distress.
Rosewood would never forget that scream. Nopony would ever be able to forget a scream like that. It was a sound that couldn’t be replicated, or even imagined. It chilled him to the bone, sent a lightning bolt of panic surging through his skull, triggering his fight or flight and heavily insisting that he perform the latter, because the former was a concept of unimaginable horror. But he didn’t move, forehooves rooted to the spot as they trembled, and he watched that white beam flick about as Shayne hopped from root to root, calling out.
Crunch screamed again, the silence between the two panic-stricken cries having only lasted long enough for the stallion to inhale enough air to scream again. It was just as long, just as loud, and just as terrible, but with more grating gargle of damaged vocal chords.
He could do nothing but listen and watch as Shayne’s white beam of light jerked about, then shrank down to a mere pinprick as the flashlight was dropped. Light shouts and a hint of a scuffle carried across the water. It went on for far too long, though Rosewood never blinked.
Eventually, that flashlight beam moved once again, shaking about spastically for a second or two before steadying, then shining in his direction.
It started moving closer.
The sound of furiously flapping bat wings filled the air, and Shayne appeared through the gloom, teeth grit around the shaft of her silver flashlight as she dragged Crunch below and somewhat behind her. The orange pegasus was flailing, very much alive as Shayne maintained a grip on his right foreleg, his lower half dragging through the water, leaving a rippling and swirling wake of red in the water behind him. Shayne’s hooves, shoulders, face, and a good portion of her chest was spattered with a deep maroon tar, or perhaps it was sap. Crunch was coated in it, more red than orange. At first, Rosewood worried that it could have been blood, but it was far too viscous, and too dark.
They had almost reached the other side when Crunch, still doing his best to scream, despite his lack of breath and shredded vocal chords, writhed out of her grasp and flopped down in the water face-first, about four feet from the bank. Shayne jerked upwards from the sudden weight imbalance, turned over in the air, then slapped down into the water as well, her flashlight landing on the shore with the business-end shining uselessly at a root.
Darkness prevailed once again, and the sound of the two thrashing in the water filled the air. With shaky hooves, Rosewood rushed over to the light and snatched it up. He steadied himself, then pointed in in their direction.
Shayne’s eyes were wild as she scrubbed her forehooves with fervor. Crunch had dragged himself to shore. He was there, physically, but Crunch was gone. A brief glance at his eyes revealed the terrifying fact that, at the moment, nopony was home. He was no longer trembling, or writhing, or screaming. He was just laying there, chin on the shore, forehooves outstretched before him. His limp, ruffled wings floated out at his sides in the water, feathers still sticky with whatever the putrid, foul-smelling red substance the two were coated in. It seemed instinct had gotten him out of the water, some ingrained fear of drowning powered by reflex rather than conscious thought having motivated him to reach the relative safety of the shore while his consciousness remained in absence.
“What happened?” Rosewood asked, his voice sounding distant. Shayne just shook her head as she continued to scrub herself. “What happened!?” he repeated, this time shouting.
“I don’t know!” she hissed back, baring her fangs. She dropped down to all fours, then splashed her way over to Crunch, grabbing him by the shoulder to finish tugging him up onto the shore. “We need to go.”
Rosewood looked over his shoulder, at the spot they’d entered from. It was smaller, not by a lot, but noticeably so. They’d walked through it standing straight up, though to exit, they would have to tuck their shoulders and duck their heads.
He almost dropped the flashlight in his attempt to grab Crunch’s other hoof and help Shayne drag him across the shore. Once Rosewood got him to the exit, Shayne went back for his saddlebags.
When she squeezed her way out through the branches and the brush, Rosewood was sitting there waiting for her, supporting the half-limp orange pegasus, who was now, at least sitting up.
“What happened to him!?” Rosewood demanded.
Shayne dropped Crunch’s bags on the ground and locked eyes with him. She was trembling, but her voice was steady and clear.
“We have to get out of here.”
Author's Note
If you like this story so far, then please, feel free to tell me so, or even recommend it to friends. A big part of motivation, when it comes to writing, is the feedback it earns. Sometimes it's nice to know you aren't just hurling your words into the void.
