There it was again. Behind the misshapen remains of the fireplace, a small whimper echoed softly. It was barely audible, and could have been easily overlooked had he not caught it the first time. He cleared enough of the debris away to peer inside. Though there was next to no light within the sheltered nook, he could make out what was inside without any great difficulty.
A filly, sobbing gently into her forelegs, lay in the hearth. Noticing the change in light, she looked up at the hole that had just appeared in the protective wall. The filly gave a frightened squeak and backed herself as far into the corner as possible.
He moved more of the debris away, enlarging the opening enough for the filly to fit through. He could see now that she was injured; a cut made its way from the top right of her forehead to right above her left brow.
“It's going to be alright, sweetheart,” he said kindly.
“Nopony is going to hurt you.”
He extended his hoof slowly into the hearth, attempting to coax her from her hiding place.
* * *
The war-mare fled the ravening beast that had decimated her scouting party. There had been five of them in total, hardened warriors all, yet whatever had ambushed them had made short work of them. It seemed to know the party's strengths and weaknesses, cutting through their impromptu defense with an ease that made her shudder. The walls still carried the echoes of pain and death. And now it was after her.
The mare shook her head in an attempt to clear it and refocus on where she was running. She was nearing Emberglow Fissure, if the rising heat in the walls was any indication. The fissure was a natural heatsink; an area where Equestria's geothermic energy came to rest before traveling through runnels to the surface.
The war-mare grinned, and nearly laughed in relief. Emberglow Fissure would hide her well; masking her body's natural heat and effectively rendering her invisible.
Like most of the creatures that stalked the unchanging tunnels of Blackmoore, the mare's vision was heat-based. The lightless underbelly of Equestria had never felt the touch of Celestia's sun, so the creatures that made their homes there had adapted alternate methods of sight.
She knew that she would be effectively blind as well in Emberglow, but she trusted her other senses to guide her. Padded hooffalls reverberated off of the stone as she made her way into an alcove near the center of the fissure.
The heat emanating from the walls meshed with the physical exertion of her retreat. The war-mare found herself nearly collapsing from exhaustion. She steadied herself, knowing that she was not yet out of danger. As she crouched to the ground and perked up her ears, she replayed that events of the past hour in her mind.
None of the scouting party had expected trouble here in the upper tunnels. The more dangerous denizens of Blackmoore took residence in the deeper reaches. This was the assumption, anyway.
Clearly, we were wrong, the mare thought dourly. She did not particularly mourn the deaths of her comrades. They had accepted the dangers inherent to patrolling the deep tunnels, and her sense of camaraderie was insignificant when compared to the pragmatism embedded within her by her people. There was no honor in dying when someone else could do it for you. As soon as the battle had taken a turn for the worse, she took the chance to flee, using the lives of her team to buy her time.
Still, it bothered her greatly that whatever had ambushed them possessed a cunning not seen in feral predators. It acted upon strategy, not instinct, and seemed to understand the commands and warnings that the party members gave each other. Nothing that they did seemed to take the creature by surprise.
The sound of approaching hoofsteps shook her from her reverie. Cursing herself for her complacency, she sprung to her feet. She gave her forelegs a slight twist, causing the blades that were attached to each foreleg to protrude from their mechanical sheathes. The creature had found her quickly.
The creature entered the alcove in measured steps, noting the wicked obsidian curves that were visible on the sides of the mare's forelegs. The blades seemed to be a natural extension of her body, and he knew that she would wield them as such.
The heat from the walls that surrounded them caused the creature's outline to dance lazily in her vision. Noting its hesitance, the mare allowed some of her natural arrogance to seep into her tone.
“You have attacked and killed envoys of His Eminence, creature. For that, you die.”
The war-mare prepared to attack, taking confidence in her own words. She also knew that surprise did not favor the creature, as it had in their first encounter.
The creature stood its ground and cocked its head slightly to the side. “I think not,” came its baritone reply.
Hearing the creature speak caused the mare to falter momentarily. Had one of her comrades escaped the creature, too? She did not recognize the voice, but it's speech did not sound broken or forced, like that of the sniveling Diamond Dogs with which her people traded from time to time. Reinforcements, perhaps?
“Who are you? Did the prince-regent send you?”
The mare stared at the creature suspiciously, his outline becoming clearer despite the heat. She could make out his equine build now, though his size confused her. Mares were normally more physically imposing than the stallions in her homeland. Stallions did not make up a large part of their military might, instead taking on the roles of scout, spy, and assassin.
The Stallion remained still. “No, he did not. I am here for my own reasons.”
The cold edge in his voice set off alarms in the war mare's head. She blinked and demanded that he explain himself, or began to at least. He was no longer in front of her, A faint scratching sound from the wall to her right caused her combat instincts to take over.
The war-mare whirled, raising her left hoofblade to deflect any potential attack coming from her exposed left side as she turned. Her right foreleg exploded in motion as she executed a stunning one-two slash diagonally toward the source of the noise. The slashes were angled perfectly, allowing no room to dodge. The stallion was dead to rights.
The stallion was not there.
The War-mare whipped her head around, scanning the room for signs of her attacker. She felt a slow anxiety building in her chest. Nervous sweat began to form on her grey coat.
“N'sschak Bro Dur."
The incantation slithered into her ears and seized her heart. The fear that had been welling up inside of her dissipated, replaced by a dark fury. The exhaustion that had plagued her vanished. The war-mare looked around the alcove, breathing heavily in an attempt to quell her sudden rage.
A small part of her psyche screamed at her, telling her that this was wrong, all wrong. She dismissed it quickly, roaring a challenge to the shifting glow of the walls.
“COWARD! WHELP! You hide in the shadows like the filth that you are! FACE ME! I will flay you slowly before ending your miserable existence! You will beg me for death!”
The war-mare accentuated the challenge by slamming her left hoofblade into the wall, parting rock as if it were only an afterthought.
Her rage far from spent, the war-mare drew breath to issue another threat. Her eyes widened as a sudden pressure at the base of her skull caused her lungs to stop working.
The unnatural rage fell from her as a chill swept through her body. The war-mare attempted to turn toward her attacker, but found that her body refused to obey her commands. The chill grew deeper within her, and she found the ground rushing up to meet her. The shout left her as a sigh.
* * *
The stallion withdrew the clawed gauntlet from the mare as she fell, watching the coppery heat pool around her body. He moved to inspect her dark leather barding more closely. A bolt of pain arced through his right flank, followed by a low throbbing ache.
He had been careless in this latest ambush. He knew that he had been skirting disaster when he attacked the scouting party head on, rather than picking them off one by one, as was his usual custom. His overconfidence had betrayed him, and perhaps a small part of him had hoped that the scouting party would prove themselves superior.
The stallion looked upon the dead mare's armour, reading the subtle enchantments embedded in the stitching. Protection against blade and claw ran along the flank and chest, and the shaped metal that protected the bottom of her hoofs carried a dwoemer that softened hoofsteps. Unfortunately, nothing useful showed itself to him. He carried similar enchantments in his equipment already.
The stallion finished his inspection, removing one of the obsidian hoofblades from the corpse as a trophy. He knew that many of the scavengers near Emberglow Fissure had taken note of the battle, and would be drawn by the smell of blood.
He placed the hoofblade that he had taken into the pack resting on his flank. The stallion looked at the corpse of the war-mare for a moment, knowing that her death brought him one step closer to freedom.
I am ever your faithful servant, Celestia, he thought wryly. A smirk found it's way on to his face as he considered the irony of his thoughts.
The filly looked up at him through the hole, eyes filled with tears.
The smirk fell from his face. He turned from the cooling body and began to make his ascent out of the fissure. Duty or no, he would not tire of making them pay any time soon.