5 - Operation Firestarter 2

C5 Operation Firestarter 2

By N00813

  Tricks’ cloak hung like a satin sheet from her back and neck.  From the outside, the garment looked like a piece of rough, machined fabric decorated with childish patterns of stars.  From the inside, it would still have looked the same.

  The unicorn who owned the cloak shifted slightly, her forelegs spreading out until she deemed herself comfortable again.  She smiled, the tinges of a memory spreading across her mind, before she blinked and the images were gone.

  The pegasus next to her – the rookie, Dust – couldn’t stop staring at the dog’s dead body.  It hadn’t moved in the thirty minutes after the dog had died.  With a glance, Tricks confirmed that the body was still nailed by the crossbow bolt in his head to the tree behind him.

  Her breaths, short, shallow and rapid, scraped Tricks’ concentration until it was razor-thin.  The little gasp the pegasus made, like she was choking down a sob, was the last straw.

  “Shut up, Dust,” Tricks muttered, half-growling.  Opposite them, in the forest at the southern end of the camp, she could see a dog start and walk deeper into the forest.  Probably his last move in the world, she thought as she turned around to face her partner.

  Dust gaped at her like she’d been struck.  Her eyes were wide and unfocused, and her breathing sounded like she’d run a marathon and then some more.

  Tricks merely shook her head.  Images flashed through her mind, once again, but she shooed them away.  “Dust is… in the middle of a crisis.”

  “No shit,” Gilda’s voice muttered.  “I can see her shivering from down here.  Hey, you know what?  Tell her to pull the bolt out of the dog’s head.  I need it, and she’s closer.”

  Tricks’ mind flashed with sadistic glee for a moment, before she nodded.  Dust would need to go through her own trial-by-fire, and this was a good warm-up to get her used to spilling blood.

  She turned her head to the pegasus, whose eyes locked onto her own, wide and pleading.  Tricks kept her gaze firmly neutral.  A life as a former showmare had done wonders for her poker face.

  “Dust, pull the bolt out of the diamond dog’s head,” Tricks said.

  Tormenting Dust felt almost as good as when she had the amulet –

  Tricks cut off that memory with a blink of her eyes, and focused her eyes once more on the camp below her position on the cliff-top.  The guards around were clearly unnerved, now – more than once, she spotted a dog’s stubby tail waving jerkily, and some of the guards were beginning to glance behind themselves from time to time.

  “Well?  Scared of getting your hooves dirty?”

  Dust rounded on her with a glare.  “Fuck you.  Do it yourself.”

  Tricks shrugged.  “You’ll get a lot bloodier after all this is over.  Might as well practice now.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, the unicorn could see Dust’s face crease with anger, before her whole face seemed to fall.  Dust then looked down to her hooves, and then at the dog’s body.  She cringed, switching her gaze back to Tricks.

  The unicorn ignored her companion’s stare.

  “How?” Dust said.  Her voice was barely a whisper of wind.

  Tricks raised an eyebrow.  “What do you mean ‘how’?  Wrap your hoof around the bolt, and rip it out!”

  Dust’s face twitched all-too-quickly with a snarl, but Tricks raised a hoof as the pegasus opened her mouth.  “The first time you cut someone’s throat, you’re going to fumble and make a mess of it.  That slows us down and causes more pain in the process.  If you freeze up in sight of blood down there, I can guarantee your enemies won’t.”

  “I’m done,” Gilda’s voice piped up, and Tricks’ ears flicked in surprise.  These new earpieces had saved her life many times before, but she could never really get used to how weird they made things…

  “Well, Dust isn’t,” Tricks replied, hissing.  The cloak would help muffle her voice, but nonetheless she didn’t dare raise her voice.  “She’s panicking over the blood!”

  “We can wait four hours until nightfall before I start shooting,” Rolk said, his voice crackling a little with the distance.  “But I don’t want to wait that long, and I’m sure none of us do.”

  “Damn right.”  Gilda’s voice sighed.

  “We’re all counting on you, Dust,” Tricks muttered, turning once more to the pegasus.

  Dust’s aquamarine hooves shook as she raised herself slowly off the ground.  Her hooves planted themselves on the bark of the tree, and she let out a little gasp as she felt slick liquid beneath the appendages.

  Tricks rolled her eyes.  “Come on!  You can do it!”

  Beneath her cloak, Tricks could see Dust squint as the pegasus’ hooves reached the neck area of the dog, planting themselves on either side as she took a breath.

  Dust coughed, her eyes widening.  Tricks swore.  Her horn lit up.  Ambient ley wound around it as she flicked through her mind for the combination of the twelve forms – there!  She held her breath, before releasing the spell into the ground.  A faint ring of light grew in size until it encompassed the two of them – oh, shit.

  A little string of light hung over the edge of the cliff.  As Tricks stared at it, a twisting coil of curling magicka just hanging in mid-air like ghostly rope, Dust coughed.

  This…  It was all Dust’s fault.  Get a grip, damn pegasus!  Before the dogs picked up that something was wrong!

  “Shit, Tricks,” Gilda muttered.  “What the fuck’s going on up there?”

  “Dust was about to cough and give our position away,” Tricks mumbled, her own face beginning to redden even as she told herself not to dare to whimper or cry.  Anger, hot and boiling, wrapped up around in her gut and stomach.

  “Dust,” she growled, voice dripping with menace.  “I don’t care if you have to lick his blood off, but get that bolt or someone so help you –”

  Dust’s own whimper, suppressed and choked, cut her off.  Images began to flash in her head: a caravan, lying broken.  A long empty path of dust in front of her hooves.  A pony, gasping out his last breaths as the image blurred – but she could still feel his windpipe in the crook of her right hoof, even now.  She glanced down at the appendage.

  “Dust,” Tricks began, before softening her voice.  It was much more difficult than she’d thought.  The pegasus turned around as well, and in that moment the two of them looked at one another.

  Dust’s colours seemed to darken into azure, and her wings seemed to have been replaced by a horn for just a nanosecond.

  Tricks blinked twice.  “Close your mouth.  You don’t want blood getting in there.  You’ll also want to do this quickly – so you can dodge any spurts.”

  Dust nodded jerkily, before refocusing her attention to the body.  With eyes squinted so much they resembled slits, and the barest hint of white teeth at the corners of her mouth, she wrapped her hoof around the crossbow bolt.

  Dust ignored the squelching as her other fore-hoof pressed down on the dog’s chest, where the armour was drenched in blood and fluid.  She grit her teeth – this was just a performance!  Nothing to be afraid of –

  She wrenched the bolt out.  The spike of silver steel glimmered in the air for a moment, tipped by dark red, before crimson liquid poured out of the wound.

  Dust yelped as she backed away from the body, one of her hooves still wrapped around the bolt.  Without support, the dog’s corpse simply began to slide downwards.  A crimson trail followed it, painted on the tree bark.

  Tricks floated the body a short distance away from the cliff-edge, before looking downwards.  One of the dogs raised a spear.

  It was time.

  “We’re done here,” Tricks said, ley wrapping around her horn once more.  This spell she was familiar with.  “Ready.”

  She could almost hear the smile in Rolk’s voice.  “Go.”