As they reached the sand the next day, the line began to slow. They would not try to cross it during the day. People began to settle down for one last night at the edge, food being prepared for everyone and the wagons brought around to form a defensive circle against the outside world.

The leader of the caravan approached Celestia. "Here's your pay for getting us this far. Get us to the oasis and you get your next pay." She tossed a heavy sack with a flick of her neck. "100 a day, as agreed. Nothing bothering us yet, but I wonder if you bein' here is tilting the odds in our favor. Won't turn that away."

Celestia lifted the bag in golden energy. "Thank you, and we'll see this through, that I assure." She walked off with the money, approaching Trixie first. "Here you are." She gave Trixie her 25 a day amount, floating along in neat little piles of 25 each, two piles.

Trixie's horn began to glow as she picked them all up, forming a ring of gold around herself. "There are perks to this new life you have shown Trixie."

Celestia nodded softly but moved on, seeking out the others. "Sister, we will be civil in sharing, yes?" she asked as she closed in on her and Garou.

Luna turned an ear towards her sister. "Of course. I'm not here for the bits specifically anyway."

"That is what I thought." She looked around a moment before spotting Rockhoof talking with a mare with grand hoof gestures. "I'll give him his share when he has a moment, but here are yours." She spit the gold evenly. Only Trixie would be getting a little extra to keep her mollified. "The next pay day is at our safe arrival at the oasis."

Garou accepted his share, tucking it away in the pouch that dangled around his midsection, just ahead of his hips. "I was wondering when you had become so mercenary, to casually cut Rockhoof and my share like that."

Luna inclined an ear at that. "And yet, you came anyway?"

"I wanted to see the truth before just deciding." He sat on his haunches, panting a little, a happy canine smile on his face. "Thank you for not disappointing."

Celestia waved to Rockhoof, seperating from who he was talking to. "I am not used to being casually judged, but this is what happens when you step down from the throne. Not that princesses aren't judged, but it's a different sort."

"What's going on over here?" Rockhoof joined their gathering, noticing Luna's coins on the ground in front of her. "Is it pay day? I'll be gettin' half of that then?" He pointed to the collection of bits.

Luna pushed over her entire stack. "Nay, good friend. We spoke only to satisfy the magician." She tossed her head towards where Trixie rested in her wagon. The money she gave was replaced by Celestia promptly, all of them having an equal share. Luna set a hoof on her little pile of coins. "We will all risk equally, why should we not profit equally as well?"

Rockhoof began collecting his portion, tucking it away quickly. "It warms me heart, lass. Now then, we should get some rest. The desert's an unkind place, I'm told, and we're officially leavin' Equestria behind us come the morrow."

Garou suddenly yawned, a wide expression helped by not having the cheeks herbivores were known to have. "Sleep sounds good. For sake of argument, we should start watches."

"Aye, fine idea." Rockhoof nodded in easy agreement. "I'm not too run down. I'll take the first watch."

Luna raised a hoof. "I will take second, it's when I normally sleep least well regardless."

Celestia spread her wings. "I can take the third, unless you would like, Garou?"

He considered before nodding. "Sure, I'll take that. You get your sleep." He sank where he was, looking ready to just pass out there. Soon he was a curled canine ball, lost to the world.

It began with screaming. It was Luna's shift, but she had noticed little until the sand at the edge of the camp suddenly burst upwards. Creatures that were like dragons, though they were smaller and without wings, came scurrying free of whatever burrows they had, many wielding crude but sharp weapons as they charged towards the encampment.

Luna extended a wing towards her companion with a wave of her magic, suddenly ending their dreams in a cruel awakening. "To arms!" She launched herself forward at the enemy with a grim expression.

Celestia scrambled to her suddenly-awake hooves. "Sister... Yes, of course." Though awake, she was not all there and she stumbled towards the trouble.

Rockhoof was far faster to stir, already charging at the attackers with his shovel balanced between his hooves confidently. "I can scream just as loud," he roared right back at them. "Merchants, get away while we mop this up."

Trixie appeared with a pop on top of her wagon. She threw her hooves wide and the area was suddenly lit with streamers and whistling streaks of fireworks that exploded all around her, lending jumping light to the battlefield and chasing away the gloom of the night.

One of the kobolds jumped onto a wagon and tore through it, falling onto the startled and screaming occupants. Garou jumped into the same hole just a moment later, a shield erupting just in time to catch the tip of the attacker's spear before it could sink into delicate pony flesh. "Your fight's right here."

Luna was diving into the thick of them, bashing one aside, grabbing their sword and tossing it with a flick of magic into the throat of another. "Why do the things we fight come in such numbers?" she complained as she stormed over the battlefield.

Rockhoof's shovel came down on one kobold that held up a spear in valiant parry. Shovel met spear, and didn't stop, coming down to flatten the poor reptile into the rough dirt. "Couldn't say, but if there was only one of them, it'd hardly be a fittin' challenge, now would it?"

Strange words reached their ears. One kobold that hadn't rushed in with the others was making grand gestures as strange symbols appeared in the air around it. Rockhoof was suddenly gone, falling into a pit that hadn't been there a moment ago, created by whatever sorcery the kobold had, and it was still weaving magic, looking towards Luna.

Celestia reached the hole and grabbed for Rockhoof with her golden magic. "I'll get you out of--"

"--Duck!" he shouted from within the pit. A blade meant for Celestia missed only by shorn bits of hair as she dived to the side away from the attack. Poor Rockhoof fell to the ground, her magic ceasing to hold him up.

Garou lunged for the kobold and grabbed the thing at its throat, tossing it right out of the cloth side of the wagon with an abrupt throw of his head, following only moments later to land on the kobold with the sound of crunching insides. "What is that?" It was only outside that he could get a view of the kobold spellcaster finishing something.

A streaking mote of flame surged forward past the still advancing kobolds, rushing around the defenders to explode just behind them, heat washing back over them as the fireball blossomed to its full deadly diameter, engulfing them in a moment of singing pain.

Luna was too far into the mass of kobolds to be hit by it. Trixie was on the edge, but a sparkling shield around herself proved she had defended just in time against the spell. Celestia was the one caught most directly, already flattened on the ground from the swing she had narrowly avoided. The kobold that had attacked her screamed in much the same pain, both of them cooked in a fiery instant.

"Why--" Luna hefted up a kobold. "--do you--" She threw it into a mass of the others as if it was a bowling ball. "--keep hurting--" The abandoned weapons around her sprang up under her wrathful control. "--my sister!" They exploded outwards, seeking the chests and throats of kobolds around her in a grotesque display of her fury.

With a crack of a whip, one lashed Luna about the neck suddenly, pulling her down with strength that belied his small frame. "Die," rattled the reptilian warrior with sharp teeth on display.

Luna thrust a hoof, the kobold glowing a moment before being thrown, but not in a random direction.

Garou leaped to catch what had been tossed towards him, grabbing the kobold on the side and driving it into the ground. The warrior struggled and squirmed, but could not dislodge the wolf as he tore and shredded mercilessly.

"I'm fine," insisted Celestia, approaching the hole with wisps of smoke wafting upwards from her singed pelt. "Let's get you out of there."

The spellcasting had never stopped, a new spell forming, familiar as flames gathered around the kobold in preparation.

With a sudden thrust of a hand, the kobold willed the flame forward, but it struck something unseen. He was suddenly in a bubble of force, Garou smirking evilly.

The flames did not wash out over the shield, instead erupting there just a precious foot in front of his snout. The dome around him was filled with flames, the fireball having nowhere to go and becoming a pressure cooker inside the small space for the brief time it existed. When the bubble was banished and the smoke allowed to escape, the spellcaster's charred form collapsed to the ground.

Hot pain lanced in his back. A kobold had jumped down on Garou from atop the closest wagon and driven a primitive spear deep into his flesh. "God... damn it." He threw his head back, a semi-transparent wall of force erupting between them, cutting the spear before it faded away just as quickly. "Rotten cheater." This still left him with a bit of a spear jutting from his back and the kobold was already ripping out a small dagger to continue the fight.

Rockhoof grabbed the edge of the hole as soon as he was high enough and scrambled out onto secure ground. "Thanks. Let's get back into things." He charged forward with shovel high, swatting kobolds aside as if they were just so much as someone's abandoned dolls needing to be put away.

Trixie appeared beside Celestia. "This is getting to be a bit much." She waved a hoof with fire streaming, forcing a few to back away and give her and Celestia some room. "How many of these things are there?!"

Celestia spread her wings wide. "Let's find out." With a sudden jump, she took off straight into the air, ascending vertically before throwing out her limbs, her entire body becoming bright, as if the sun had risen in the middle of the night, forcing anyone facing her to squint. The kobolds, unused to such harsh suddenly glare, hissed in agony, covering their eyes with arms and hands.

Their numbers could be clearly seen, her light spilling out across the encampment and some distance beyond. Their numbers were not as vast as the noise and ferocity they had been attacking with implied. There was an end in sight to their struggle.

"See how you like bein' in a hole," thundered Rockhoof as he plunged his shovel into the dirt and kept on running, creating a ditch as he went and plunging a line of the enemies into it. Garou suddenly jumped onto the ditch, another corpse behind him as he created a shield that he landed on across the line Rockhoof had made, pressing down on it. He sank down on top of the kobolds, squeezing them, but there were many of them, and the force was spread out, resulting in them being discomforted, but not slain, or even really hurt. "Not try, lad, but I don't think that's gettin' much done there."

Author's Note

What, a fight that's not over in one chapter? Inconceivable!

We have two injuries on our side, possibly 3 depending on how Rockhoof took that fall. Damn spellcasters, throwing things off. Not that Luna minds being a cheating spellweaver herself as the night angel of death. See you tomorrow!

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