April the 8th, Year 163 of the Third Age of Equestria
In the wake of the Chaosbringer’s defeat, many places in Equestria that had once prospered and thrived were left ruined entirely, rendered unlivable by his foul magicks. Other places were doomed to a slower death.
The latter was the fate of young Swift Hoof’s home after his family’s ancestral homestead was ruined by the Chaosbringer’s storms of acid and burning hail. Try as they might to once again coax life from the barren soil, they could not restore their farm. Three generations toiled away at the sickly earth, each producing less than the previous one. It came to an end with his parents, who passed away far too early, driven to death by overwork. And Swift Hoof without even a Mark to his name, was left to fend for himself.
He somehow made his way to the capital, the great city of Everfree. There, he became a pickpocket of some renown, earning his Mark in the process: a winged horseshoe.
Through thievery he scraped together enough to feed himself and lived in such a manner until he made the error of attempting to steal from Our Lady, Princess Luna as she graced the commoners with her presence during the Winter Moon Festival. However that is a story for another time.
Know only that soon after said encounter, Swift Hoof was recruited into the Night Guard. And though his habit of sneaking extra rations from the mess hall earned him the ire of many officers, he demonstrated great alacrity in mind and action which he turned to the service of the Guard and his liege lady. More than once his rough upbringing has saved both him and his fellow guardsponies. His eyes move about constantly, searching for threats and weaknesses, noting possible traps and potential escapes, and always twinkling with well-hidden mischief.
There is none of that vitality in the pony I see before me now.
Swift Hoof’s eyes are dulled and glazed. He looks through me rather than at me when he speaks. And when he speaks, he does so haltingly. With none of his usual urgent zeal.
With great slowness, as though to form the words cut at his very being, Swift Hoof tells me the fate of his fellow guardsponies. A band of three earthponies and two unicorns led by a seasoned lieutenant had been dispatched to a village called Coltstadt. It was situated well within the kingdom’s borders, yet in such a way that it was quite isolated from any large settlements or the great cities. A few hundred ponies inhabited the village and happily earned their living nonetheless.
Reports had come in that several merchant caravans, who unerringly follow the same looping path round Equestria, had disappeared in the vicinity of Coltstadt. They are recorded leaving the village immediately before Coltstadt, but never arrived at the next village. No bandits had been sighted in the area and no other explanation could be found for their disappearance. And so it was that Swift Hoof was sent with the scouting party to determine what had happened to the village of Coltstadt.
They found the first caravan a mile away from the village proper. Carriages and wagons loaded with precious stones and fruits now rotten and ridden with flies. No bodies of the merchants were found. Not bandits then. Bandits would have eaten the fruit or at least taken the gems. They certainly would not have taken the bodies and given them proper burials. Something else was at work here. The guards kept a weather eye out as they neared Coltstadt.
A second caravan was found soon after, its goods equally untouched. No sign of a struggle was evident and there were no bodies to be found either. A third and fourth followed, still with no trace of the merchants.
The search party reached Coltstadt itself just after moonrise. They found it similarly abandoned. Only empty houses stood as proof that ponies had ever lived there at all.
Battering down the doors, the guards inspected one of the modest homes. Inside they found the table set for an evening meal, plates still bearing food that had long since gone stale. The guards began to search the rest of the village, though the lieutenant ordered them to remain within sight of each other at all times.
As he searched, Swift Hoof rounded a corner and found himself in the tiny alley between two buildings. Though it was dark, his enchanted eyes could see that the alley was filled with some nebulous material that was at once as thick as smoke and as immaterial as the faintest shadow. Swift Hoof drew in a breath to call his comrades to his side and in that instant, the shadowy mist was upon him.
The black fog coalesced and a gap in the inky substance formed, the corners curling up until it resembled a maniacal rictus grin. The hideous mouth rushed towards Swift Hoof, the air billowing around it as it moved.
Leaping back to evade, Swift Hoof stumbled on a discarded wagon wheel. He fell back and his head struck the ground. Though his helmet protected him from injury, a painful ringing filled his ears.
His hearing thus distorted, Swift Hoof was saved from the fate that befell the other guards, though he would later curse that the fall had not taken his sight as well. As it was, he was forced to bear witness to their deaths.
The others had heard the commotion and came to their brother’s aid. Noticing the ethereal creature, the lieutenant gave the order to draw arms as his horn came alight with arcane energies. The earthponies reached to their sides and each drew a gleaming silver gladius. The two other unicorns readied their own magicks, prepared to unleash volleys of fire and lightning on their foe.
But before any could move against it, the ethereal monster seemed to shrink, contracting into an ovoid shape, the empty space of its mouth turned towards the moon.
And it screamed.
It screamed a cry so harsh, the lights of the unicorns’ horns were extinguished, their concentration shattered.
It screamed so loudly the earthpony guards’ swords clattered to the dirt as they desperately covered their ears with their hooves.
Only brother Swift Hoof, his head still ringing, did not hear the unearthly noise.
With their front hooves crammed into their ears to block the creature’s shrieks, the guards were unable to flee, instead toppling bodily to the ground, twisting in pain.
One of the guards fell beside Swift Hoof and he watched in fascinated terror, unable to tear his gaze from the horrible sight.
Blood began to trickle out of the guard’s ears. His eyes rolled back until nothing but the whites remained. Froth bubbled from between his lips. And then his head split in two, parted along an invisible seam that ran down the middle of his face. Strangely, not a single drop of blood was spilt, though the red of his flesh and the white of his skull were clearly visible.
The halves of what was once a pony’s head, curled and fell limply apart, like the skin of an orange being peeled away. From the stump of his neck that remained, some thing crawled out.
Swift Hoof describes it as insect-like, with a black chitinous covering, made glossy by the blood smeared across it. Yet the motions it made, striding on its tiny, skittering legs, were sinuous and akin to a snake.
All around him, the bodies of his friends and comrades slumped over, their heads similarly mangled by the exit of these putrid creatures, each the size of a pony’s eye. The tiny horrors rushed away and disappeared from Swift Hoof’s sight, leaving him alone with the screaming monster which had gone silent again.
With tendrils made of the same shadowy mist that formed its body, it reached out, coiling around the fallen body of the lieutenant. Swift Hoof watched and realized why there was never sign of a struggle and why there were no bodies. The officer’s corpse was lifted up into the monster’s stretching jaws, passed into the empty void of its mouth, and simply disappeared. Floating weightlessly through the air, the creature approached the next body and consumed it as well, armor and all vanishing.
As he recounts what happens next, hot tears well up in Swift Hoof’s eyes. Whether they are tears of anger or grief I know not. Perhaps both. An expression of shame falls over his youthful features, making him appear years older.
Sobs choking his throat, Swift Hoof tells me of how he waited until the creature was feeding upon the last body, the one furthest from him. And then took to his feet and fled, his oaths forgotten in an instant of weakness as panic clutched his breast.
Let no pony who reads this account speak or think ill of Swift Hoof’s actions in that moment of terror. For few souls have either the bravery or foolishness to look into the face of daemons and death and feel no fear.
It is not a matter of whether or not one feels fear in times of mortal peril, but of how one ultimately presses on in spite of that fear. It is in those moments that we discover who we truly are. But if you would doubt Swift Hoof's true courage, listen well to what transpired next.
Taking shuddering breaths to recompose himself, Swift Hoof continues his story.
As he ran, he noticed that the ringing in his ears was fading and that he would soon be vulnerable to the foul daemon’s shriek. Thinking quickly, Swift Hoof found a patch of muddy earth. He shoveled the mud into his ears, packing it tightly until all he could hear was the frantic thumping of his own heartbeat.
Protected as best as he could be, Swift Hoof continued to run but the hairs at the back of his neck prickled and he knew that the daemon was close behind. Hoping to throw it off his trail, he took a twisting path through the village but found himself in a dead end alley
Before he could turn around the foul daemon appeared at the other end, trapping him inside.
Swift Hoof’s breath hitched in his throat as it drew nearer and nearer until its immaterial body completely enveloped him. Its touch did not kill him but he willed himself not to breathe, fearful what inhaling the corpus of a daemon might do to him. Such a fate could very well be worse than death.
For how long he remained there, Swift Hoof cannot say. But as his lungs burned for fresh air and his blood felt as though it were boiling in his veins, the creature withdrew, floating out of the alley and leaving Swift Hoof unharmed. He waited several moments longer and when still the daemon did not return, only then did he inhale again.
Relieved as he was to have survived, shame and guilt came over him and he collapsed against the wall of the alley. The knowledge that his brothers had died and he had been helpless to save any life but his own weighed heavy on his soul. But Swift Hoof's mental training helped push these grim thoughts aside, at least for the moment.
His priority now was to survive and to spread word of what had befallen Coltstadt. To accomplish that, he would need to escape the town and the daemon that had claimed it. As he pondered his next course of action, a wandering thought entered Swift Hoof's mind: why did the daemon not sense his presence just now?
Thinking back to when he first saw the daemon, he remembered that he had drawn a breath and as soon as he did so the creature attacked. He also remembered how the creature chased him as he fled, but suddenly took no notice of him when he stood still. He then recalled the teaching of his instructors at the Guard, who taught him that many creatures of the night did not use the dim light of the stars or the inconstant illumination of the moon to see. Instead, they depended on sound.
Moving as stealthily as he could, Swift Hoof gathered a clump of pebbles in his hoof. He stepped out of the alley and saw the daemon drifting about like a malevolent black thundercloud, blindly searching for him some distance away. He picked out the largest pebble he had and tossed it as far as he could. It landed with a tiny patter, but it was loud enough. The daemon rushed to the source of the noise and once it reached that spot, it again contracted in on itself and unleashed its bellowing scream.
Swift Hoof’s mud-filled ears did not hear it, but he had learned something valuable about how the daemon hunted. Armed with his new understanding, Swift Hoof considered what to do next.
He was a thief. He could attempt to sneak out of the village and escape to warn the Guard of this dangerous new foe. But could he trust himself not to make any noise at all? The creature had reacted to the noise of a pebble striking the earth and to the faintest gasp of a breath.
If he could not flee, then his only other option was to fight it. If he could at least wound the daemon, he would be able to slow it down, thus earning time for him to summon reinforcements. Hopefully he could do this before the creature could escape to harm other innocents.
He reached for his gladius and grasped it firmly. He mentally whispered a fervent prayer to the Lady of the Night, asking for strength enough to kill the creature and escape so that he could warn the Guard of this grave threat. But if he was fated to die this night, he prayed that he at least have strength enough that he could avenge his fallen brothers.
Swift Hoof asked and Luna answered.
His faith was rewarded as his gladius, crafted from enchanted silver, came aglow with power. The blade shimmered with the pure white of the full moon. Swift Hoof gazed upon Luna’s holy light and he was no longer afraid.
He threw the tiny pebbles in his hoof, this time in sequence so they sounded almost like fleeing footsteps. The blind creature once again surged toward the noise and its shape pulled in on itself.
Just as it was about to loose another deadly shriek, Swift Hoof leapt at the daemon, gladius held high above his head. He matched the monster’s bellow with his own warcry. A primal scream that promised vengeance and death.
His sword struck the daemon, but rather than pass through, it stuck fast as though lodged in something solid. The creature recoiled as the beams of holy light emanating from the blade burned holes into its wispy form. With a mighty heave, Swift Hoof tore the gladius free and struck again. Blue flames crackled about the daemon’s wispy body, burning away more of its foul essence.
The creature writhed in pain and attempted to flee, dispersing into a thin mist. Swift Hoof gave chase and attacked relentlessly, cutting and slashing at any part of the daemon his sword could reach. More ghostly blue flames burst into being about the daemon, searing it with their cold unlight.
Swift Hoof raised his brilliant gladius one last time and cut clean through the monster’s very core. The gaseous daemon broke into innumerable tiny parts that wriggled like maggots and shriveled up until nothing remained.
His grim work done, Swift Hoof’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion and relief. The light of his sword faded, and he sheathed it at his side. With the best possible speed, Swift Hoof rushed to the nearest Night Guard safehouse to alert them to this daemon.
After I recorded Brother Swift Hoof’s recollections, I left him to his well-earned rest and went to the Royal Archives, wondering if perhaps the collective wisdom of our forebears held any knowledge of such a daemon.
It took several nights of poring through countless texts, pages faded with age and coated in decades’ worth of dust, but at last I found my answer.
A single, solitary reference, related by a deaf earthpony monk mere minutes before his death, well over three centuries past. He was the sole survivor of his village which was said to have been laid to waste in a single night. His tale was dismissed as the delusions of a madpony, yet it reads much like Swift Hoof’s. Almost disturbingly so.
The monk describes how one summer night his humble Faustian monastery was beset by droves of villagers, screaming for refuge from some unnamed horror that stalked through their homes. As they swarmed into the monastery they immediately began blocking the doors. Hauling chairs, tables, anything they could find until a pile of furniture sealed the entrance. The monk then notes that he felt a gust of wind, despite being indoors. The villagers blanched and threw themselves on the hastily erected barricade they had just constructed, desperate to get out as they realized that the monastery’s holy ground offered no defense.
A strange shape fluttered into view and in the faint light of the monastery’s candles, the monk could just barely make out a gaping maw, lined with fangs made from shadowy wisps. The shape rippled and the monk felt his body shake and his teeth rattle at its unheard shriek.
He recalls how the villagers and his fellow monks suddenly grasped their heads, writhing and in terrible pain, reacting to the demon’s scream. Like Swift Hoof’s brothers, may Luna preserve their souls, the villagers’ heads split apart, and the same tiny skittering creatures swarmed out.
Somehow, the terrified monk managed to escape the monastery and ran. He did not stop running until he reached the next village over, almost a full week’s journey made in a single night.
Before collapsing of exhaustion and fright, the monk shared his tale with the village elder who transcribed it on his behalf.
With his final breath, the monk named the horror that destroyed his village.
He named it as “The Echoing Death”. A fitting name, for its cry is fatal to all those who hear it.
Upon Swift Hoof’s return, the commanders of the Night Guard mobilized a full century to the area around Coltstadt. Their ears protected by spells that muffle and silence sound, they searched for any more like the strange mist-daemon. So far none have been found. Brother Swift Hoof is understandably relieved.
But I fear that his relief may be premature.
For in the monk’s story, long disregarded as a myth or the ramblings of the insane, there is one additional scrap of knowledge that I have uncovered.
The monk describes how as he fled his doomed village, he encountered one of the insect-like creatures that had emerged from the ruined heads of the Echoing Death’s victims. He noted that its shell, which had appeared hard and solid at first, now looked somehow thinner, more insubstantial. He also observed a faint black mist hanging about it, very much like the mist that formed the Echoing Death’s body.
Though I pray to the Princesses, the immortal rulers and protectors of our race, that I am wrong, I fear that I now know what those strange skittering creatures are.
I surmise that the daemon’s scream is not merely the weapon by which it hunts, but also the means by which it breeds.
I fear that those are its young…
