The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π
Centicores Guard the McGuffin
Admiral Biscuit

While the Wizard attempted and failed to dry himself off with his robe (which KitKat had in her saddlebags), Kitkat dried herself off the pony way.

After watching her, the Wizard tried . . . and failed. He made himself dizzy, fell over, and got his horn stuck in a tree stump.

As KitKat was tying the rope around him for the extraction attempt, she glared down at him. “You can’t even fall down right.”

“This is all your fault, I don’t know what I’m smelling. You could have said it was a slimy toad.”

“A bufogren,” she informed him. “They smell like shit. Not the good kind of shit, but the bad kind.”

“Are you some sort of shit-smell connoisseur?”

“Hang around dairy farms and pig farms, there’s a difference. And don’t ask me about a griffon aviary, the only thing worse is harpies which we didn’t have until you humans started showing up. What is it with all of you poking your phalluses anyplace pink with no thought to the consequences?”

“I’ve never stuck it in you.

The sky went dark and thunder rumbled overhead. Leaves rustled in anticipation as KitKat pressed her muzzle right up against the Wizard’s, her eyes burrowing into his very soul. For what felt like an eternity, her hot breath washed up against him before she finally spoke, her voice low and almost casual.

“If you ever put your wrinkled Wizard’s widgie in me, what will happen to you will be so unspeakable your great-grandparents will rue the day they met.”

•••

No McGuffin worth its salt was anywhere easy to access. They both knew that, and both of them were lured in by the easy sight of it there on a plinth, not unlike that jade figurine or whatever it was that Indiana Jones stole in the Wizard’s memory, or the similar but legally distinct figurine that Daring Do also stole.

KitKat was at least smart enough to recognize that there might be a weight trigger and very carefully, as the Wizard lifted with his actual (if temporary) unicorn magic, she slid an equally-weighted wedge of cheese from the emergency supply on the plinth.

And it worked.

They were not to know this, but perilously balanced above their heads was a gigantic wooden log, dimensionally similar to what the Ewoks might have used to crush an AT-ST walker, or what the Mythbusters used to crush an armored truck. In short, there would have been nothing of either of them left but a grease stain.

Well, and a fair number of grumpy trap-maintenance workers putting the log back in place.

The McGuffin would have been fine; it was magical.

They expected the balance trap and neutralized it; they failed to consider the humble periscope concealed in a knothole in a fake tree, and the attentiveness of the creature watching it.

He didn’t have a remote trigger for the log trap—an oversight which would go into his eventual after-action report—but he did have a big button and he pushed that big button and mere seconds later wave after wave of proverbial red-shirted ensigns were rushing to their action stations.

Said footsolders weren’t wearing red, of course; like most Equestrians, they weren’t wearing anything. And the wizard could have been forgiven for not knowing what they were, at a passing glance they looked much like goats.

Unlike goats, they had tusks, and their goat-like horns could swivel in any direction.

Much like the Wizard’s ears. And KitKat’s.

Although as offensive weapons, positionable horns were far superior to ears.

•••

They boiled up out of the hidden tunnels in a tide, coming from all directions. If they’d practiced their surprise attack timing, it would have been more effective and more overwhelming, but they hadn’t been running invader drills lately—upper management had been convinced of the efficacy of the log trap, and had cut back on training and personnel to cut down on monthly expenses. So as it was, KitKat and the Wizard had a ghost of a chance of an escape.

All her pondering the nuances of game theory paid off; their motive was deduced and patterns in the landscape recognized as tunnel outlets. Simple statistical models informed how many were likely to arrive, although in the grand scheme of things when it came to good old-fashioned brawling, KitKat knew that she was unlikely to be able to take more than ten of them. She didn’t know the Wizard’s limits, but did know that while he was sometimes surprisingly effective, usually he underperformed and left her disappointed. Not to mention that his skills mostly lay in offensive magic, and in their current situation a good defense and a tidy retreat to a more protected position was in order.

“What are those?”

“Yales,” KitKat said. “Follow me.”

She dug her hooves into the soil and took off at a gallop towards a tunnel that hadn’t yet disgorged any opponents; milliseconds later, the Wizard followed.

“Be ready to blast a path if we have to,” she told him, then leaned back and got her tabarzin out of its sheath. Not the easiest weapon to use on the run, but it had good reach and could be swung both ways.

As they closed the distance to the tunnel, yales began boiling forth. No more subtlety, as if they’d had any to begin with. “Heb je een tafeltje voor twee?” KitKat yelled as she charged them swinging her saddle axe.

The first two out the entrance didn’t even have time to get their horns pointed the right way before KitKat cut them down, and then she and the Wizard were beyond the immediate threat, although a great number of them were now in hot pursuit.

On one hoof, the forest provided plenty of cover, but slowed them as they dodged trees. The Wizard, especially, hadn’t quite figured out turning, and if he got his horn stuck again there was little chance of freeing him before the mob overwhelmed them.

I should have packed a ranged weapon, KitKat thought, but that was what the Wizard was supposed to be for.

And indeed, for once he was pulling his weight, acting on pure terror. He’d look back, spot one of them, and blast it with magic.

Not always the closest one, which would have been her choice, but then seeing their companions suddenly vaporized at least gave the pursuers some attempt at caution and cover, which slowed them down.

Until the fire mage showed up. Perhaps not the wisest choice in a forested area; KitKat buttonhooked around a tree just as a fireball exploded it behind her, peppering her with smouldering splinters.

This is not good.

She risked a glance over her shoulder, he was surrounded by yales, and smart enough to keep to open ground. The Wizard hadn’t spotted him yet.

I need something to take him out. His horns were alight, and she ducked down as he shot another fireball, this one singing the fur on her back. Cover, and I can get in with my axe. It didn’t have to be much, just a few seconds—

•••

As life choices went, Kukka made ones befitting of a skunk. Muddle into situations, spray stink everywhere, and waddle out of the cloud of miasma.

She had the misfortune to muddle into KitKat’s path at exactly the right moment, and for once the pony reacted first, entirely unaware that this was the same skunk which had previously gassed her.

Which was a shame, because she would have taken some satisfaction in knowing.

In her so-far uninteresting life, Kukka had never been yeeted into a cluster of yales and a fire mage, nor had she ever considered what she might do were that to happen.

Why would she? Kukka had exactly one response to everything, and she was still tumbling through the air as she raised her tail and went off.

•••

Even KitKat hadn’t known skunk stink was flammable, but it was, and the resultant explosion was more than she could have wished for. She’d intended to bean the fire mage with a rock while he was distracted by the ass-cloud, but this was good, too.

As for Kukka, physics dictated that she would fly like a rocket at least briefly, then tumble and crash back through the treetops and onto the mulchy forest floor, as luck would have it right into a scorpion’s nest.

While most creatures prefer to avoid scorpion nests, it turns out that skunks like eating them, and after her traumatic experience, Kukka was hungry.

As she chomped down on an unexpected meal of scorpions who were as surprised to see her as she was to see them, she reflected on how the day had actually gone pretty well so far, and her default plan of spraying everything worked in more situations than she’d ever envisioned.

•••

The Wizard had gotten ahead of her, but that wasn’t really an issue; KitKat was plenty fast when she wanted to be.

Some of the yales had also gotten ahead of her, focused on the Wizard instead. All of them were focused on their prey and none of them expected to be attacked from behind.

Hooves or axe, it made no difference, all fell before the mare.

As long as they could keep up this pace, and as long as they didn’t have any more mages—or fliers, or effective range weapons for that matter—she and the Wizard would win.

While she couldn’t predict the latter two circumstances, she could see by how lathered the Wizard was already that outrunning them wasn’t an option. Not for him, anyway.

“Over there.” She pointed a hoof, a patch of high ground and a clearing, a maze of rocks from some ancient geological upheaval. A cave was a possibility, a single entrance was defendable for a long time.

And there was a cave, with a proper small entrance, providing a view into the forest. The rocks would also provide cover for the yales, unfortunately, but beggars couldn’t be choosers; the Wizard was wavering on his hooves and this would give them a chance to at least take a breather.

Author's Note

Callbacks, callbacks everywhere!