In the East
By N00813
Spike stands in a hollow in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by the smell of blood and cooking flesh. Vines threaten to strangle him, and thorns stretch out to try and rip at him. The ground is wet and muddy, covered with decaying vegetation and the ruined corpses of animals.
His stomach rumbles and he feels some drool spill over his jaw as he watches and smells the meat charring amidst the fire. Fear rushes through him. This has never happened before.
The black dragon in front of him looks at him oddly, and Spike glares at it, more to forget the rich scent of meat than to intimidate the much larger being.
It is the kidnapper. It ripped him away from Twilight, from everything he’d ever known. Anger and hate spills into his blood as it matches his gaze, eye-for-eye. He hates it even more so for having killed the creature now blackening over the fire it created.
Spike considers running into the jungle. It is dark and dank, good for hiding in. With his small frame, he is sure he can find a good place. A snake hisses by, and Spike leaps backwards. The black dragon lets a chuckle escape from its elongated maw, a rough sound much like the deep rumbling of thunder. Spike shoots it another glare, but his stomach rumbles too, betraying him. It sounds pathetic and small next to the black dragon’s laugh.
A cooked piece of meat flies through the air, landing a short ways in front of him on a platter of decaying leaves. The black dragon’s eyes glimmer as Spike carefully walks forwards, wary of any trap. Disease will not bother him. His body runs hot enough to burn bacteria. No, it is the unexpected act of ‘kindness’ that puts him on edge.
For the hundredth time, he ponders why the black dragon wants him alive. He’s never seen it before, not even in the dusty, corroded images that spring to mind when he thinks about the Migration.
He thinks about kicking the meat away, just out of spite, and also because he wants those unfamiliar instincts and feelings to disappear. Yet the meat is good. He should eat it – nutrition and good food is hard to come by – but memories stop him. What would Twilight think? Her face swims in his mind, the disappointment in her eyes more painful than any angry shout.
Then his stomach rumbles, and he inhales. The smell overwhelms him – it is wonderful – and he rips it into shreds before stuffing it in his mouth. The meat settles well in his stomach. He grins, and then realises he is grinning. He forces a scowl, and turns away from it.
The black dragon chuckles again.
As the sky brightens, their surroundings change from humid swamp to dry desert. Spike hangs above the sands, caged in the claws of the black dragon. For miles all around, he can see nothing but sand. Dry air whips his scales and worms its way into his mouth, until they feel as cracked as the earth below must be. The heavy, cloying dampness of the jungle feels like heaven in comparison.
The black dragon looks down past Spike, and adjusts its wings. They descend. Spike watches the dry sand rush closer and closer, until he is hanging just a metre above it as the black dragon levels out. Sand and loose grit blow outwards as they rocket along the ground.
They come to a cliff-face. There is a hole in it, right in the middle. There are no handholds down or up, and the fall looks lethal. When they land, Spike instantly moves as far away from the black dragon as he deems safe.
At the precipice, Spike contemplates the sun. It hangs in the distance, glowing pale orange as the Princess drives it towards the ground. How is the Princess? Is she alright? Is Twilight alright? When will they come for him? Their faces swim in his memory.
For a moment, the succulent, rich scent of meat, as he remembers it, becomes as foul as ash. He almost throws up.
He’s betrayed them. What would happen to him if they ever find out? Would he be put in prison? Banished? Both? He looks down at his claws, flexing the fingers. The white points at the tips taunt him with their sharpness.
He turns towards the black dragon, and snarls. The sound is quiet, but feral and primal. The black dragon’s amber eyes regard him coolly. In them, the threat is clear. Spike’s hackles lower automatically, and he looks over the precipice again.
There is that voice, urging him to throw all his caution into the wind and take a leap. He knows the folly of following it. From this height, massive boulders look like grains of sand. And if he ever tries, the black dragon can still catch him. He won’t escape that way.
He collapses despondently onto the cave’s stone floor. For a moment, laughter rings in his ears. High-pitched and infused with joy, he recalls a pink face swirling amidst the smell of sugar. For a moment, he smiles. Sugarcube Corner appears in his mind’s eye, full of ponies grinning and tasty pastry. His friends are all there, also grinning, and he feels his face involuntarily mimic theirs as well.
It’s over all too soon. When he looks up, all he can see is rock, sand, and a black dragon. The laughter, the image and his smile evaporate into the still air like the mirages they are.
They stay there for the night. Spike tries everything. He kicks his legs, paces, and even bites one of his own fingers – but the siren song of sleep is too strong. He stumbles. As he lies prone on the ground, the last thought of the day is spent in contemplation of the distant stars.
Spike sits in his cage of claws, watching the landscape go past. The mighty wings of the black dragon above tear through the air, whipping up a gale that smashes into him. Were it not for the black dragon, he would have long since lost his grip and fallen.
He ponders whether to talk to it. It has not spoken since they first met, about a dozen days ago, when it had smashed through the walls of the library and snatched him from his little cot. It had flown the entire night in silence, ignoring Spike’s feeble breaths of fire and shrill yells for help. By the third day, Spike had learnt the futility of shouting. But there is no harm in trying, right? He is at its mercy – at any moment, it could simply drop him, and he’d turn from a young dragon into a red smear.
Spike shivers involuntarily. A cold feeling sets within him, like he’s eaten one too many scoops of ice cream. It is not exactly unwelcome, but it is uncomfortable, sitting on his heart like a worm on an apple. He looks down, between the claws that trap him and keep him safe, and he sees the world pass by. Perhaps silence is safer. It has not killed him yet.
The coast looms closer. The thin white line of surf separates safe, solid land and the vast blue of the untamed ocean.
Spike stands on the edge.
The seawater retreats from his clawed toes, leaving wet sand behind. The water regroups into a formless mass that, as it rushes forwards, curls over itself. Spike watches on, fascinated. He doesn’t move back as the water looms over him. It smashes into him, leaving him spluttering, trying to shake the itch of salt out of his scales.
By his side, the black dragon’s rumbling chuckles echo over the deserted beach. Spike turns to glare at him, but the next wave hits, and he’s sent stumbling. The black dragon shakes its head. It is still lying at the end of a massive skid mark, in a shallow valley of sand. Spike cannot fault it for doing so. After all, he’d never thought flying across the Eastern Sea was possible.
It occurs to him then; this is the perfect chance to escape. The black dragon is exhausted from the flight, and if he can get far enough, he could find shelter in some nice pony’s home –
No. This isn’t Equestria anymore.
He kicks at the sand, a growl forming deep within his throat, and his hands clench into fists. Hot anger bubbles through him, leaving behind a cold, dawning emptiness. He knows this feeling well, even though he cannot name it.
But it is a chance. It is a chance – nothing more, nothing less.
Spike takes a deep breath, like he’s about to dive into the deep, and then he turns to look inland. The jungle faces him, with all of its knotted vines, murderous animals and baking heat. He shoots a glance at the black dragon. Then, he makes his decision.
The dragon doesn’t do anything more than growl half-heartedly as it watches him go. Spike stops walking. What if it’s a trap? The jungle is alive with danger, but he is free there – or he could go back to the relative safety of the black dragon. Spike still can’t figure out why he was kidnapped, but threats, pleas and questions have yielded nothing from his kidnapper.
Spike walks forwards, straight into the jungle. The howl of the black dragon behind him is soon stifled by the foliage.
He cannot remember much of what happens in between. It’s all a blur of running, ducking and absolute terror. Only the smell of blood stays, freshly etched, in his mind.
Spike stands in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by bodies and the smell of fresh blood. There is so much of it; some splatters drip down from the bark of nearby trees, whilst the rest turns the muddy ground into a reddish swamp. The disgusting lukewarm mix lap against his ankle.
The black dragon is in front of him. Just before, there had been a group of creatures in its place. One of their heads rolls towards him. It has been severed roughly from the body, and Spike can still see trails of flesh leading down from the neck. The face of a dead stallion looks back at him, fixed in a grimace. The stallion will be scowling until the flesh rots from the bone.
Spike cannot hold it anymore. He vomits, and the green-yellow liquid splashes down next to his clawed feet. He was stupid. Kindness from strangers – what a fool he was. He remembers Twilight’s globe. The memory carries him away, into the library and back to normalcy, and he can almost ignore the stench of viscera wafting up his nostrils. His eyes sting.
He should have known that there was a way the black dragon could find him. Why carry someone across the sea, only to lose him? How had the black dragon found him in Ponyville at all?
He retches again, but there is nothing more to spill out. The black dragon shakes its head, laughing its thunder of a laugh, and plucks him out of the muck. Spike’s claws swing loosely, covered in blood and mud, vomit and tears. He simply hangs on as the black dragon wraps its claws around him, and then, with a mighty shove of leathery wings, they are above the jungle.
Spike looks back. The nameless place where he stood, just a few minutes ago, is now hidden by the branches and leaves of nameless trees. Only a small column of smoke rises out from the smothering green, like a lonely beacon. He sags in the black dragon’s claws.
Several sunrises later, the soldiers come. Only, they are not soldiers.
It is sunset, Spike judges from the orange tint in the sky. The black dragon is beside him. They are both walking. It is not a good idea to waste energy when there is no need.
The only warning Spike gets is the glint of metal in the sky, before a pegasus swoops in, its hoof clad in some weapon. He ducks, instinctively, but then realises that the pegasus is not going for him. Then he sees the rest of them.
They are all armoured, but they are not wearing the same armour. He knows instantly that they are not Guards. Several of them are carrying weapons that resemble crossed wooden sticks infused with mechanisms of iron and steel, and Spike knows instantly that they are more dangerous than they appear on first glance.
The black dragon bellows, and Spike makes a choice. He rushes towards the dragon, his kidnapper. There is a mutual understanding there – the black dragon has had many chances to kill him before. It wants him alive. The soldiers-that-aren’t, however, could be just like the ones in the jungle.
As Spike hides in the shadow of the beast, he can hear the horrible screams of the dying, and sizzle of burning flesh, and the cries of rage and despair. He curls up into a little ball. The sounds are gone, all too soon, but the stench – of fried meat, spilled blood and death – remains in him, even as they slink away.
Dinner can’t come soon enough.
Spike is exhausted and filthy. He can feel the grime rubbing in between the scales, scouring the soft leathery skin beneath. The black dragon is just as dirty – after the short tangle with the group of not-soldiers, blood and dirt cake its claws.
He knows that there is a name for those. They are warriors, but not to a country or a ruler. They fight for themselves. Perhaps the ones in the jungle, a few days ago or a week ago, were the same. Twilight has once called them ‘mercenaries’.
The black dragon tosses a slab of meat. It is rich and undercooked; enough to bring out the flavour, but not too much as to burn the valuable food. He tears into it, cramming chunks of it into his mouth. In the back of his head, he can feel the disapproving gaze of a yellow pegasus from over the sea. He stops, and pauses to look at his bloody hands. Gemstones are rare out here, he reminds himself. Grass just gives him the barest of nutrients. It is the way it is – he is a dragon, and he can’t change that fact. He can only live with it.
The black dragon’s amber gaze suddenly feels a lot heavier, as if it is pressing into him. Spike slowly picks up the chunks of fallen meat, and eats. He knows dragonfire is clean, but the meat suddenly tastes like it is full of soot.
That taste of ash is quickly forgotten.
Time blurs as it passes. Spike doesn’t know when or where it happens, but it happens all the same.
This time, there is no warning. A crossbow bolt whistles out of the treeline. Spike dodges. The bolt smashes into the ground a hair away from him. He curses his short legs as he rushes for the safety of the big black dragon.
Spike winces as he sees a particularly hefty round crunch into the black dragon’s scales, cracking it. The bolt stops, having lost most of its energy on impact, and Spike grins internally as he recalls one of Twilight’s lectures. It’s gone when a hail of bolts whisper out of the tree, and he dives under the black dragon’s frame with a bolt pinning the ground between his legs. They crack against the black dragon.
From his position, he can’t see much but the shifting muscles under the scale-bound torso of his kidnapper. A roar is accompanied by heat. Through the gap in between the black dragon’s torso and the ground, he can see the trees burning around them, like the tips of matchsticks. Thick draconic blood trickles down from overhead.
As with before, the fight is over both too quickly and far too slowly. He blinks as he crawls out from beneath the black dragon. A drop of blood lands on his head, trickling down the head-fin and painting it blood-black. Shaking, he looks up.
The black dragon’s scales are pockmarked with cracks, and a carpet of metal bolts is at its feet. Its throat is nicked by a swung blade. Blood bubbles out of the small wound, trickling down the scales like a miniature brook. Spike diverts his attention away after the black dragon meets his stare with its own, but even as he looks at the heat-blackened ground and the glow of burning trees reflected in the discarded crossbow bolts, the smell of blood doesn’t leave.
There are heavy footfalls behind him, and Spike turns to see the black dragon hobble towards… towards wherever it wants to go. Spike watches. Soon, he is alone in the fading light, with only the dying fires of burning trees left to guide his way. The moon hangs alone, shining weakly overhead. It will not help him tonight.
Spike follows the trail of blood that the black dragon leaves.
They raid a village.
Spike is fully aware of the hostility they will face. Perhaps it is why the black dragon is being hunted. It needs healing, however, and there are gems in the nearby pony town. Spike knows from experience that gems are, in essence, trapped magic. The healing process has taken a toll out of the black dragon, and it is a debt that can lead to its death.
The townsfolk hide in their houses. Spike trails along, looking at the stone surrounding him on either side. The black dragon simply snarls as it stomps its way through the village’s central street, and when his ears stop ringing, Spike can hear quiet sobs coming from the houses that begin to look like tombs.
Spike isn’t stupid. He knows what they are about to do. He wishes he doesn’t have to, but he recognises the symptoms. He’s a growing dragon. The last gems he’d eaten had been dug up in Equestria, and although his body is adapting to the shortage, he knows it cannot last. A rabbit may eat less, but it still has to eat.
The village militia show up. Spike can smell their fear. Some of them have even lost control of their bodies. Even when he averts his eyes, he cannot close his nose. He knows the pattern now; hide behind the black dragon and ignore the screams.
They pass a shop with a sign. It depicts a folded scroll, sealed with red wax. Spike stares at it, trying to think, and then it clicks – his dragonfire teleportation! He grins, and makes for the door. The black dragon stops, craning its neck around, and the tension in the street grows ten times thicker.
“Paper!” Spike screams. His voice is hoarse from disuse.
The postal office’s window opens, and a piece of paper slowly flutters down. Spike grabs it, before he realises that he has nothing to write with – not even information. He doesn’t even know where he is. No matter. The Princess must have an ability to trace it, or something.
Spike asks for ink. An entire ink bottle pops out of that same window, and falls to the earth. Miraculously, it doesn’t shatter. Spike wets a claw in black in, writes his name on the paper, and tries to remember the physical mnemonic that activates the magic. It’s wonky, but he’s sure it’s right. Grinning, Spike blows flame onto the paper.
Even as the militia shout in surprise, Spike watches the letter turn into sparkling dust… and then dissolve into ashes. They fall around his feet, taunting him. He’s just as surprised. The spell failed! Then he remembers the spell’s limiters.
It’s too far away. He doubts he can send even a grain of dust to the Princess. With that, he crumples. His last hopes waft away, grey ashes that disappear into a grey sky.
Suddenly, he’s tired. He just wants to go home. He’s sick of the killing, the fighting. Maybe even death would be better.
But Twilight’s face swims into his mind, a sweet, innocent grin on her face, and he pushes himself to his feet. He’d do anything to find her. They’d never leave each other, he knew. She would find him.
With that, Spike shoots a glare at the dragon. He surprises even himself when he notices how much venom is behind it.
When they find the rock farm, the black dragon goes for the barn. The militia pull the hysterical family back from the farmhouse. Spike looks at them out of the corner of an eye, spotting a mother and a father and two sisters. The youngest, he guesses, is only Apple Bloom’s age.
With a crash and a hail of splinters, the barn door bursts open. Spike’s head whips around, and his eyes instantly focus on the piles of gems. In the blink of an eye, his brain shoves his worries away, and he takes a step forwards before he’s even conscious of what he’s doing.
He comes back to himself as he looks away, and his eyes inadvertently focus on the family again. The siblings are distraught, mouths agape as they behold the destruction. The mother and father weep into one another’s necks, whilst one of the militia-ponies stands nearby as a comforting presence.
Spike mutters a quiet “Sorry” and picks up the first gem. It’s a ruby, and it glints blood-red in the murky sunlight.
Some time later, Spike collapses in the middle of a forest clearing, amidst time-worn evergreens and the gurgling of brookwater. In the haze of post-consumption bliss, the memory of the farm’s destruction is just a blemish in the back of Spike’s mind. He feels a twitch beneath his scales.
Then, it turns into discomfort. Itches spark beneath his scales, and Spike resists the urge to claw them off. He remembers a purple face staring down at him, blurred with time – but that same face holds him still, even as he feels his muscles begin to bundle together.
It takes four hours of scratching, groaning and rubbing before the itch wears off, and Spike looks down at his new form. Gorging himself on the gems had done wonders for his physique. The agonising itches as his muscles grew themselves beneath his shifting scales are quickly forgotten as Spike gives himself a quick once-over. A pond nearby provides a chance to see his own reflection.
The black dragon looms behind him, ready for anything. Spike ignores it, for once. Even it can’t dampen his spirits.
The still water depicts a dragon. Purple scales cover his back, and green belly-scales line his body from neck to abdomen. The green spikes atop his head, once so oversized compared to his body, now look sharp and lethal. He raises a clawed hand to brush at them. They are still soft, however. The nose has been stretched into a proper snout, and sharp teeth jut out of the newly made gums. His eyes have stayed pretty much the same size throughout his transformation – but compared to the rest of his body, they seem much more beady, set under an overhang of scales.
Spike stares at himself. He raises a claw, and the reflection does so as well. The dragon is him.
The black dragon coughs a huff. Spike has heard that often enough to recognise the annoyance wrapped around the breaths. He pulls back from the pond, stumbling as he does so. The black dragon simply looks at him coolly, before walking off.
Spike looks down at himself. He is still growing, but by no means is he able to take down another band of mercenaries. He doubts he can even hunt for himself. He is far away from home, far away from help, and his only source of safety is his kidnapper – however ironic that may be.
Spike follows the black dragon’s footsteps. In minutes, ancient, ingrained instincts catch up to his brain, and he lopes along as if he has been in that body since his birth.
The next time they fight, Spike does not hide.
The memory of the rock farm pushes to the forefront of his mind. That will not happen again.
This time, the mercenaries are not as well trained. They wear hodgepodge armour, cobbled together from what appears to be scrap metal as well as leather. Two at the back fling steel bolts at him, whilst the bigger ones lead the charge.
Spike dodges under the swing of a sword, summoning fire in his maw. With one of their own in the way, the mercs with their crossbows can only focus on the black dragon. Spike knows that he should care – his source of safety is in danger – but under the rush of blood pounding in his head and the brilliant, burning sharpness of everything he can see, he can’t find anything more than an iota of disappointment. There is only excitement, bloodlust, and in the darkest corner of his mind, a little hint of fear.
He shreds his opponent’s armour with a flick of the wrist, the claws going through leather, flesh and bone, before hopping back and roasting his target alive with a burst of green flame. There are screams, of rage, fear and defiance, but Spike already knows that it is futile. His opponent will die.
Another of the close-combat mercenaries rounds on him from the side with a scream. Spike realises too late that he’s overreached, but he twists around, claws at the ready. It’s too late. A dagger plunges into, and down the length of his upper forearm with enough force to drag him down with it. Twin bursts of fire, one green and one deep orange, burn the attacker into a crisp.
Spike roars in agony as the adrenaline wears off. He crumples onto the dirt, watching as his life-blood spills out onto the hungry soil. In the distance, he can spot the great black dragon, roaring with anger, burning the last two mercenaries alive.
Spike lies in the middle of a clearing that stinks of blood, surrounded by bodies and ash, and closes his eyes. He is tired. He looks at the wound, still pouring his blood into the dirt, and the sight stirs his stomach. Nausea almost overwhelms him. Instead, he turns to the sky, letting the pale sunlight wash his bloody body.
There’s a shadow. Spike cannot be bothered to open his eyes once more. Why does it matter who it is? He’ll die, anyways. The dagger has cut into a major vessel, and even though his body is stringing the rent flesh together, he knows that it can’t last. He’s lost too much blood.
A sound like gargling, a retch, and Spike feels something warm on his chest. Even in his death throes, nature can’t stop to give him some space. He blinks his eyes open, blearily trying to glare at the one responsible.
Instead, he finds a pile of gems on his chest. They are covered in saliva; the magical, flammable type that allows fire to spread from a dragon’s inner flame to the outside world. These gems… will give him enough energy to rejuvenate.
The only thing is: Spike isn’t sure he wants to rejuvenate. It certainly feels easier to simply slip away. Why fight? Why pick yourself up, only to face a stronger enemy, fall, and suffer once more? Death is at least merciful, even if the source of it isn’t.
As he closes his eyes, a sunbeam falls on his face. Spots appear in his eyes, and he remembers Twilight’s face, drawn and pale with sorrow, and Celestia’s. He looks at the gems again.
One more go, he thinks, wrapping a claw around the largest one. It dissolves easily in his mouth. Spike groans as his wounds burn, his inner fire flaring into an inferno. The tissue is stitching together, but not fast enough for his taste. He eats another ruby, feeling the jolt of energy run through him. It is nowhere near as much as he’d expected, though.
The black dragon looks on as he picks another one to consume.
Spike isn’t sure how long it has been since he was kidnapped. It only feels like a month, but all the days have blurred together. It could have been ten or twenty times that, or only a couple of weeks. The days are getting shorter, though, and everything is colder now.
His body is strong now, capable of holding its own against the bolt of a regular crossbow. The scales will crack and the muscle underneath will bruise, but he will not suffer a mortal wound like he had before. This he knows from experience. But he is nowhere near the size of the black dragon. He will have no chance by himself.
Staying alive is only half the battle. He has to find a way of getting back. The mercenaries come at them like termites out of woodwork, and Spike knows that he will fall eventually, even if it is under the weight of all the bodies he has eviscerated.
He pushes the bloody thoughts out of his mind. It was just business. Nothing personal. Looking down at his claws, Spike can see the gullies in the claw tips, where blood runs down to help bleed out his opponent. They are stained red; the blood has worked itself into the tissue.
He cannot hold a quill now. He has attempted to hold a stick in the same manner has he would once have held a quill, but the thin rod of wood had simply snapped once he began to apply pressure.
There is an odd buzzing in his head, too, like a bee that keeps hovering around his ear-fins. Fuzziness covers his brain like a soft blanket, only felt when he’s actively searching for it. Whenever he tries to concentrate, the buzzing gets louder, until it is like an entire hive has moved into his head. He shakes it, but the buzzing only disappears when he doesn’t notice it. Which means that it is there all the time when he does.
In the earliest mornings and the deepest nights, he’d often tried to justify what he’d done. He couldn’t. It was an entirely selfish enterprise, driven only by his desire to go home. A noble intention, yes, but the way he went about doing it? Spike racks his brain for a proper word, before giving up.
He looks at the black dragon, sleeping in the clearing. It reminds him of something, something that had happened a long time ago. Spike curls up, in the exact same way the black dragon does, and goes to sleep.
Surrounded by the glitter of gold and gems, Spike tries to remember through the fog in his mind. All he gets are vague, murky, blurred images and sounds distorted as if he is underwater. Glimpses of a past life, snatched away before they can be fully formed.
There are shouts from outside, but they seem as hazy as the walls of the room at that moment. Only the gold is crystal-clear and bright, as radiant as a princess’s smile. He huffs. Remembering is difficult, so he stops trying for the moment.
The black dragon sticks its head into a nearby pile of gems and begins to guzzle them down. Spike watches on, dazed, before coming back to what is left of his senses and starts to cram some blood-red rubies into his maw.
He barely gets through half the pile before reinforcements show up. They are heavily armed and armoured, covered in enchanted steel to protect the fragile flesh beneath. Many have metal shields bolted to their breastplates, swung out in front to conceal half of their faces. These are real soldiers, real guards. Not all are ponies, though.
Two jets of flame blast out of the vault. The guards’ shields glow, a thin blue shell surrounding each one. In the sudden, thick calm as the superheated air spreads over the ceiling, the black dragon and Spike both run for the exit.
They make it out of the city, but not without cost. The chunks torn from his chest and back were already scabbing over by the time they were out in the sands. The black dragon had lost an eye. That did not heal.
They do not sleep. This, in itself, is worrying.
The black dragon shoulders its way through the dark forest. Short bursts of orange flame from its mouth cast their shadows in sharp relief. Something is wrong, Spike knows, but he knows not what it is. He can only follow.
As Spike muscles through the charred remnants of trees, he thinks back to the city. There was a picture at the bulletin board on their way in. It showed a picture of a black dragon and a purple one – like them. There was something about it, he knew. It was important.
He was on the poster as well, and that was the important bit. Why, though? Spike racks his brain, only to crash into the fuzziness surrounding it, and physically almost crashes into a tree. He shakes the mystery away, to puzzle over later.
They reach the border of the forest. A mountain looms over them. Twin trails of ice and snow carve their way from the bottom of the mountain to the peak. It is almost as if the mountain is crying.
By the time he clambers to the top, the black dragon is already waiting patiently in front of a cave.
They deposit their stolen loads inside the cave on the mountaintop. Gold is piled upon gold, metres high, whilst gems shore up the rear of the cave. By the looks of it, Spike guesses that the cave has had a previous occupant. Scratches are seen at the mouth, on the walls and the stone floor, but they are covered in a thin layer of dust.
For a moment, Spike recalls a forest, a green dragon, panic and then relief. He shakes his head. Old memories, to be thought about later. The gold takes centre position.
The sun has barely risen before shouts drift by in the wind. The black dragon’s remaining eye widens, and then sets. Spike can sense the resignation running through it. Something is wrong, he knows.
His tongue is too thick to form Equestrian words anymore. With the draconic language, he asks what the black dragon thinks. Again, the language comes instinctively to him. It hums on his tongue like electricity.
The black dragon simply responds with an order: “Stay and be safe.” Instantly, Spike knows that it is female. The words, the pattern, the tone all fit.
So Spike stays at the back of the cave, watching as golden forms appear at the mouth in the slivers of light that reach past the black dragon’s body.
There are shouts, massive heat, screams, roars, flashes of brilliant light like the rainbow.
And then silence.
And the familiar scent of blood.
In the Sky
By N00813
Spike stands amidst gold and viscera in a cave that reeks of blood.
The black dragon lies dying on the ground. Her jaw is cut down to the bone, and her chest drilled out with precise blasts of magic. Ice crystals grow on her chest like tumours, dyed black and blood-red. Her remaining eye dims. Spike can tell she is fighting simply to stay conscious.
He kneels beside her. She was his kidnapper, but now she can do nothing but lie down and bleed out on the cold stone. All the gems in the golden halls of the City of Sands can do nothing now. There is nothing more to fear from her, he knows. This is the end of her line.
She looks at him. Even dying, her amber eyes seem to glow, almost as if there is a fire inside them.
Spike touches her face, running his claws down the side of a gash. It leads from the bottom of her eye to the tip of her snout, and appears to have been slit open by a thin, razor-sharp blade. Blood pours from it like a red river, staining his claws and scales. He ignores the stickiness as he caresses her scaly cheek.
Her eyes gleam, golden fire raging inside them. When Spike notices, he yelps, and tries to pull back – but cannot. It is like his claw has been attached to the dragon’s face by invisible ropes, and despite all his efforts, he cannot move his arm away. But she does not complain. Spike only watches as his arm adopts an amber sheen. He tries to shake his arm loose, but it is again for naught.
Out of her mouth flies a flickering flame, orange-gold like her fire and her eyes. It drifts, slowly, into the air and towards him. The size of a lantern flame, the fire twirls and twists, unsupported. Even the blowing wind does not have an effect. Spike instantly knows it is magical in nature. Like a fire many times its size, it lights up the entire cave, and the gold and gems burn various shades of orange, yellow and blood-red.
His mouth hangs open and his eyes cross as the flame flutters ever closer to his snout, and then, like a hornet, it dives down his throat. Spike’s eyes roll back in his head as he writhes on the ground. The inside of him feels like a furnace, and his muscles and scales feel as if they will melt or burn. His mind goes black for a moment, and when Spike begins to panic, memories fill his head. They are not his memories. He sees black claws moving, slashing, orange fire burning. The primal joy of taking to the sky under a sweep of his mighty black wings. Hunger, pain, sorrow, anger, fear. The smell of roasted flesh, crisp snow, and blood.
Plans, glimpses of lines and maps. The sea, so wide even from so high up. Green forest, crunching downwards under his weight. The all-consuming darkness, even as howls emanate from the very trees themselves.
Violence. Bloodshed. Murder. Death.
Spike sees a century’s worth of it all. For a second, the taste of blood fills his mouth. He gargles before spitting onto the ground. A black splatter appears on the stone, and Spike scrapes a claw against it, watching it cling onto the scales. The taste hasn’t disappeared – if anything’s it’s gotten stronger. Spike raises an arm to wipe his mouth clean of that smell, that taste of not-home. It isn’t him. It’s foreign. His lower forearm comes away glistening with blood.
He notices more blood on his chest and belly. It drips from the spaces between the scales, covering the gloss in a layer of old viscera, like rust painted on metal. Just looking at it brings back the ghost of the shocking, blazing pain, and Spike winces, turning to look at anything for a distraction.
His eyes settle on the corpse of the black dragon. She’s perfectly still now, as if she is sleeping, but Spike knows that she will never awake again. He brings a finger up, and traces the black dragon’s cheek wound. The black dragon. He never even got her name.
For some reason, she seems smaller than before. Spike turns around, before settling down next to the corpse. It is not an illusion. Either the black dragon has shrunk, or he has grown. The latter is far more likely.
There’s a cold feeling settling in his gut, and Spike searches around for the right word to describe it, before breaking through the fuzziness of his mind with a single word. Dread. He holds on to that word, as if the word itself will protect him from… from what he dreads. He doesn’t even know that.
It’s foolish and illogical, he knows. Someone once told him that. The name eludes him, but a face – a lavender pony, female, a unicorn – manages to claw its way up. Words can only do so much. But right now, they are all he has.
A glint of gold catches his eye. It’s the armour of one of the soldiers or mercenaries that the black dragon had died to protect him from. One of them, at the back, is still relatively untouched. Spike fixes the destination in his mind, and stumbles out of the cave mouth, blinking rapidly as white fills his vision. They are soldiers, he can see with a glance. They all wear the same golden armour, and they are all ponies.
The first step is always the hardest. He underestimates the length of his new gait, and crashes headfirst into the snow. It’s thick enough, there at the peak of the mountain, to prevent more damage to his sore body. Spike lays there for a while, fighting a tired battle in his head.
Should he even bother to get up? Around him, there is that scent – horrifyingly familiar and normal – of blood and cooked flesh. It’s been so long, and they haven’t showed up yet.
Who are ‘they’? Spike racks his brain. Again, only that purple pony’s face shows up in his mind. The fuzziness in his head is almost palpable, always present now. It smothers his thought like an ever-present hunger. Spike snarls into the snow, but at this height, there is no one to share his frustrations with. Not even birds roost this high up. He is the only thing alive at the peak.
Perhaps he could just stay here and sleep, so that he can wake up when they find him. It would be a lot easier.
Spike opens an eye, and sees the charred face of a pony looking back at him. It’s a stallion. Once, he might have been quite the handsome fellow. Spike can only guess, since one half of him has been baked and blackened by the black dragon’s flame whilst the other looks unblemished. Frozen trickles of molten golden metal decorate his still chest and stomach, and Spike catches the mix of steel and blood that makes his head spin. The fuzziness swamps him, overwhelms his senses, and Spike lashes out with a claw.
The body is sent spinning further into the snow. It’s halfway to the edge of the lip that juts out of the cave mouth before it stops rolling. One of the stallion’s legs folds awkwardly over his golden armour. The joint is clearly shattered.
Spike growls as he leaps forwards. As he smashes into the snow, it sweeps out like a frozen ripple. He pulls back a claw and smashes a fist into the guard. It is like punching stone. His anger bubbles and overflows, and he releases a jet of flame. The soldier’s skin chars and his flesh burns like coal under the heat. By the time Spike stops, there is nothing left but charcoal beneath half-molten gold armour.
His anger disappears, as if it has been stolen by the cold winds that constantly blow around the peak. Spike stares at his claws. One of the knuckles is covered by a cracked scale that leaks blood down a claw, staining the white point red. He looks back at the corpse of the black dragon, and sees a scale on her nose tug off and spin into the sky.
Spike scrambles over and places a claw over the gap. The feeling of sand beneath his claws makes him yank it back, and he yelps as he finds black ash in between the scales. He shakes the claw, and the ash disperses into the wind.
Spike looks back at the corpse, and he sees what he has done.
The black dragon’s flesh turns to ash before his very eyes. What used to be proud, glossy black scales are now as dull and as solid as flakes of dust. Like char on wood, it sloughs off her body in particles as fine as silt. Spike makes to reach for her, like he can stop this from happening, but he stops his claw an inch away from her skin. He’ll just make it worse.
Spike only watches as the body of the black dragon, his kidnapper and protector, becomes wisps of dust. In what both seems like ages and seconds, black ashes rise from the stone at their own accord, flicking about in the air as they drift towards the cave mouth. He glances at the corpse, now nothing more than a skeleton, before crawling outside himself. The dust curls over his back, and he watches them fly from the top of his vision towards the grim red sky painted by the setting sun.
When the flow becomes a trickle, Spike knows it is done. All that remains of the black dragon is its skeleton. As Spike takes in the sun, inexorably driving towards the ground, he bumps a claw against one of the dozen or so soldier’s corpses dotting the lip outside his cave.
His cave. It’s a new concept. Something to realise. Something for another night.
Spike looks back at the cave, where a skeleton and a king’s hoard of gold and gems awaits him. Then he looks out, over the world laid out before him. Beyond the blood-washed snow on the lip, a forest surrounds a tiny village. In comparison to the immense, palpable darkness of the wild, the lights in the village are short-lasting and frail. Soon, all the lights dim, and then the only lights are from the distant stars and the distant moon, raised by a distant princess, hanging high above him.
Spike coughs out a small ball of green flame, and waits until it catches on the flesh of another soldier’s corpse. In the green light, the golden armour is almost the sickly shade of vomit. Spike ignores that, and goes for the soldier furthest from the cave mouth.
The corpse this time is of a pegasus mare. Her neck is bent in such a way that Spike knows the bones lining her back have been shattered. He pulls her from the cave mouth, towards the glimmering green flame, and sets her corpse down when he deems the light level necessary. Blood trails behind her body, thin and black in the otherworldly light.
Spike rolls the corpse over clumsily and flicks away the forelegs that spring automatically, even in death, towards her chest. They reveal a logo; a circle made from the forms of two seemingly identical ponies, which surrounds a stylised image of the sun and the moon. Spike looks at it for a moment, his face twisting into a scowl.
It’s been too long.
He spots the bindings holding the armour securely to her body, and claws at them. They bend, but the metal is stronger than it looks. Spike growls, and as flaming spittle collects in his mouth, he wraps his jaws around the connector. The teeth scrape against the mare’s flesh and the pungent taste of blood and smoked flesh once again fills his mouth, but he pushes the thought away. It’s nothing special.
With a creak and the short shriek of twisting metal, the buckle turns into putty. Spike rips the armour off and throws it into his pile. If someone comes by, they won’t be able to steal it, and any visitors will know that this is where the soldiers have found him. He hopes that it will be enough.
He knows, deep down, that it won’t.
Spike tries to spit out the little glob of pony blood in his mouth. He can’t. The blood has seeped into the spaces between his teeth, coating them in the sweet-salty scent that seems designed to coax his primal instincts into life.
He looks at the mare again. Her body is supple, her musculature lining her sky-blue coat. A wound in her side is pouring blood like a miniature brook. The taste of it sets off tingles in his nostrils.
He turns his head away to the sky. It’s black and dotted with distant stars, and he knows that none of them will help. So, he begins chewing on the next set of armour. By the time he’s finished, fifteen naked bodies lie in the bloody snow, and golden armour plating is splayed out across the floor of the cave.
The weak, pink light of the rising sun casts the dead and the gold in a fragile cover of cosiness.
Spike is just going to close his eyes when he hears an odd coughing sound, and a low, trilling screech. His muscles ache with tiredness, both emotional and physical, but the black dragon’s lessons have stuck well. There may very well be enemies around the corner. He half-lids his eyes, hoping that it gives the impression that he is sleeping. The lull is strong, but Spike hopes his will is stronger.
It isn’t. The image of a brown-feathered vulture alighting on top of the mare’s body is the last thing he sees before his eyelids crash shut.
Nature has shredded the flesh from bone.
The smell of blood tickles his nose as Spike wakes up from a black slumber. For a moment, his heart races and his blood thunders in his ears as a sharp, primal clarity crystallises in his mind. But it’s gone when he squints at the snow outside the cave mouth. The slush, infused with the blood of two species and churned by violence, has frozen overnight into waves of translucent ice. It ranges in colour from the palest pink of the sunrise to the deepest crimson of gore. Bones lie in haphazard piles amidst the solidified crests and troughs, stripped clean of meat and marrow. A pony skull stares back at him, and Spike imagines reproach in its dead glare.
Gold clatters against itself as he shifts on top of the pile. His pile. His hoard. And all of it paid for by death and blood.
He turns his head to look at the black dragon’s skeleton. The grey bone still looks fresh, like one of the pony bones scattered in the snow outside the cave mouth. Yet Spike cannot smell any hint of life at all. Despite their appearance, they are as dead as the rock beneath his claws.
His stomach growls as he pushes himself out of the cave. It’s a deep rumble of thunder that seems to resonate through his entire body, and is followed by the dull kneading of hunger in his gut. That’s enough to push his still-tired limbs into action. When a gold bar slips beneath his claws and his tail lashes out to keep his balance, it meets momentary resistance. The rumble and clatter of a skeleton falling to pieces sounds weak and soft next to the growl of annoyance in his throat.
Spike glances backwards, and sees the black dragon’s skull grin its dead grin as it sits in front of a pile of bone. He hisses, shakes his head, and steps out of the cave. It would have happened sooner or later, he thinks. Still, he pounds a fist into the ice, crushing a frozen pink crest beneath his scales. Shards of ice fly outwards like exploding bone.
Bones are all that’s left of the soldiers, and all that’s left of the black dragon. Spike casts the cave behind him one last look, taking in the gold, the gems, and the bones. Was it all worth it?
Before the fuzziness in his head and the growling of his stomach can overwhelm him, he rushes to the edge of the lip and looks downwards. The base of the mountain dives impossibly far down, shrouded in cloud. In the setting sun, the wispy strands of white are dyed inferno-orange.
By the time he reaches the base, his claws stiff from the clamber, only a sliver of blood-red sun remains in the sky.
The hunt is a complete failure.
Spike’s stomach churns as hunger pangs stab into him. He watches the pig scramble away into the underbrush, its stubby tail flicking as if mockingly waving him goodbye. Too slow. Always too slow. A growl escapes his throat, and his fire collects at the back of it. No. He won’t burn down the forest just to take out his frustrations. That would just be a waste of energy. He tightens his throat, and the fire retreats.
Spike slumps against a tree. It’s a thin pine, young and pliable. It bends backwards under his weight. The air is lightly sprinkled with the scent of animals and the stink of utter fear. He almost laughs at the irony of it, but a well-timed stab of hunger chokes it into a cough. So much for being the apex predator in this little corner of the forest. He can’t even catch a squirrel to save his life – literally.
He considers retreating back up the mountain to make do with his dwindling stack of gems, but a glance at the snow-capped peak and the twin tear-tracks of ice that run down the slope tells him not to bother. He’ll run out of energy halfway up without food, and there, he’ll freeze to death.
Spike sighs, and collapses onto the ground. The scent of earthworm-churned mud and decaying leaves trickles into his nostrils. The dirt is damp and gives way easily beneath his claws. His tail stills and settles on top of the layer of leaves that paper over bare soil. Deep down, he knows that his scales will be covered in layers of dirt and grime when he gets back up, but right then he doesn’t really care.
Perhaps tomorrow, he thinks.
As his eyes threaten to close, the sky beyond the thick veil of black leaves brightens perceptibly, and a mirthless chuckle sounds in his mind. Too late for sleep. Tomorrow has come.
He still can’t find any motivation to move, to search for prey. Last night’s attempt had ended with nothing but dirt in his claws and exhaustion in his muscles. Sleep’s call turns his muscles into mush, and Spike approaches the precipice of the abyss as his eye half-lids.
Odd. Again, he has no word for it. It is like sleep, but being awake – not wide awake, just barely – at the same time. Spike has learnt a long time ago to trust his instincts, however, so he does not attempt to fight back.
He waits. He will know what to do when the time comes to pass.
The boar is unaware of him.
Spike’s body is unnaturally still, even as his hunger-addled mind drives his heart into an ancient battle-march. Blood pounds in his ears, every heartbeat the sound of a warhammer driven into flesh. His muscles tighten beneath his scales, and his breaths slow until they are as light as the breeze caressing a leaf.
The boar’s ears flicker towards him. The primal instincts etched into Spike’s brain hold him steady and still, mindless of the hunger building up inside. Every pulse of his heart seems to shake his body as his vision clears and everything gets a little bit sharper. The life-blood coursing through his veins are raging rivers, threatening to rip his body into pieces. The beats of dull hunger in his stomach vanish almost instantly.
The boar’s ears flick forwards and away, and Spike lunges.
It’s faster than it knows. His claws part the flesh as if it is water. Crimson blood spills out, black in the dim light, but the boar stumbles onwards. The smell tells Spike that its struggle to survive is in vain. It scrambles at first, taking three bounding steps before it falls onto its belly. Blood pours out of its hindlegs like sweet, spicy rivers as it crawls forwards, grasping at the decaying forest floor with its forelegs as it tries to pull itself forwards.
Spike ambles after it. There is no need to hurry now. Somewhere, deep inside his brain, he recognises that his mouth is hanging open and his lips drawn back to expose needle-sharp teeth. Spit collects at the base of his tongue, in sync with the all-encompassing beat of his heart and the symphony of blood playing in his veins.
The boar has stopped moving now, its legs twitching and its breathing rapid as Spike bears down on it. It tries to snort, but the sound only travels halfway up its throat before hitting by Spike’s claw. It looks up, eyes wide and pleading, and Spike returns its gaze as he rends it open, neck to stomach.
There’s no scream. No sound but the violent thrashing of three limbs and the soft splutter of collapsing blood vessels. The boar’s eyes dim as its life-blood coats his chest and claws. The scent drives his heart into overdrive once more, and he whips his head around, searching for anything that would dare to take his prey.
He looks up and sees a lone brown bird circling overhead. It’s just a speck in the sky, far enough away to dodge a jet of dragonfire. It won’t bother him or his kill.
Spike looks down at the boar’s mutilated body, and for a moment, a spark of something ignites in him. Then, a wave of hunger explodes from his stomach and smashes into his brain, and everything is lost in red.
Spike looks back down from his current perch, halfway up the mountain. The day’s hunt has been good. A trail of footprints, coloured stark blood-red against the pure white of new snow, is evidence for that. He smiles near-automatically, but it falters slightly as he turns forwards.
Three figures look down at him from the flattish platform above. They’re on the snaking path that wraps all around the mountain, many times, every loop closer to the peak and his hoard. He snarls and puts on a burst of speed, all exhaustion forgotten as his heart starts singing the battle-song.
They leap backwards as he crests the edge of the path, and Spike feels a cold numbness settle in a corner of his mind whilst another corner burns with wild anger that quickly spreads through his muscles. The hot anger summons fire from deep inside his throat. The cold part of his brain is disregards everything but the immediate situation in front of him.
Three figures. Two bird-cats and one unicorn. All are wearing mismatching armour and drawing weapons. The unicorn raises a piece of metal, and the magical discharge tickles Spike’s snout. As he shifts the fire into his mouth, one of the bird-cats raises a long black rod to its shoulder. The cold corner of his mind turns into ice. Instincts rush into the forefront. Spike jinks his head down.
A thunderclap sounds next to his ears and pain explodes in his back, like someone has driven a molten spear directly into his spine. It’s quickly quenched by the haze of red and the drums of battle roaring through his blood. His scream becomes a full-throated roar. Fire jets out of his mouth, lighting the surrounding snow in shimmering green.
Another sharp stab of pain drills into his chest, and he splutters. The fire goes out. As Spike coughs, his eyes tearing and his chest pounding with a dull, formless pain, the blurry figure of a pony charges towards him with the glimmer of steel.
He throws himself against the mountain slope on instinct. The soft snow takes him in for a claw-length, just deep enough for the sword to score his scales. Pain racks his back and his chest, and his vision grows even redder. Blood-red, the cold corner of his mind notes.
He sees one of the bird-cats raise its weapon, and he makes his decision. Spike charges forwards, ignoring the pony, his head low and eyes burning as hot as his fire. Even ten metres away, he can smell their fear. It’s as thick as sap.
Two blasts of thunder, and two more lightning-hot spots appear on his back and side. With a roar, the pain fades away. An errant lash of his tail makes contact with something, but he can’t tell whether it’s rock or flesh or steel. All he can see and all he can smell is blood.
The two bird-cats unfurl their wings. Like prey, they will attempt escape. Spike knows how to prey on birds. He unleashes a jet of fire over their heads. The smell of burning feather and flesh fills his nostrils, but he’s not done yet. He has to make sure.
Despite the patchiness of its feathers, one of them still attempts to flap them, trailing smoke. Spike closes in, claws flashing as they rip through the air. It does something and its weapon flashes as bright as the sun for a split-second. Heat crackles past Spike’s face, parallel to the line of his jaw. That’s the last thing it ever does. Spike’s claws tear three massive gouges in its chest and stomach, almost ripping it in half.
He turns his head, and sees the second bird-cat’s weapon flash in his face.
Pain rips along his snout, a white-hot line that burns from the tip to the end of his jaw. For a moment, all he can see is white, and burning pain engulfs him for a brief moment. Blood – his own – runs into his mouth, and rains down onto the churned white snow.
He lashes out. There’s a spot of token resistance, and then his claws sink into the recognisable toughness of flesh. Warmth spurts up around his fingers, and despite the stinging line running up his jaw, he smiles.
It’s gone a moment later, when a shockingly cold blade slips into his side. At first, there’s no pain. Just wickedly thin needle of freezing ice where it shouldn’t be. And then the pain catches and burns. He’s consumed before he even knows it.
Twisting around with a speed that surprises even his attacker, Spike rips the shield away with a wrench of his claws. It tumbles down the mountain slope. That look of fear on the pony’s face… it’s as sweet as honey, and his blood roars as the pony yanks the blade out. As blood gushes out, his vision reddens and blackens, and on instinct, he wheezes a jet of flame.
The pony’s armour glows, and as the smell of singed flesh trickles into Spike’s nostrils, a flash of light catches his eye. He throws himself back, and when he lands, the torn muscle in his side screams. The steady splatter of blood hitting snow is drowned out by the thunderous heartbeat in his head.
For a moment, he locks eyes with the pony. The blade in between them glows softly, and the crimson blood running from the tip down to the half-point glistens in the light. It humbles him, to see his life-blood decorating the weapon. It angers him, too.
Spike breathes in, opening his flame ducts. The pony charge forwards. There’s no time to think.
Green flame bathes the red-pink snow in otherworldly light. The roar of dragonfire almost manages to drown out a scream.
Spike slumps forwards, his legs useless sacks of meat. In front of his eyes, the pony’s blade lies fallen in the snow. Its owner is nowhere to be seen.
He regards the field of blood and slush around him. How much of that is his blood? He looks up, towards the mountain’s peak. The tiny black slash of the cave mouth seems impossibly far away. He turns his head, grimacing as some of the snow scrapes against his jaw and the wound on it. The hole in his side is so thin he can barely see it, but blood gushes from it. His whole belly has probably been painted red by his own fluids.
He shuffles until he feels the comfortably cold mountain resting against his uninjured side, and then pushes himself upwards. Snow falls in sheets over his body, but even that is unable to quench the sudden inferno of blinding, burning pain screaming out of his side. He collapses, gritting his teeth. No tears, no screams. That won’t help him now.
The blade catches his eye as he lies on the snow. The glowing steel and the gold-etched, jewel-encrusted hilt are like fireflies in the night. He reaches out, batting the thing towards him. One of his fingers brushes against the edge of the blade. A spark of pain forces him to stop. When he looks at his finger, a thin red line is drawn across it, ruler-straight. A bead of blood trickles downwards.
A snarl catches deep in his throat, and Spike settles for wrapping his claw around the hilt instead. A flare of magic burns in his hand, as bright as the sun and about as hot, whilst some unyielding, unseen force has curled around his claw. Scales crackle and snow sizzles. He grits his teeth, even as screams threaten to escape from his throat. But it’s no use. There’s a small explosion of brilliant white light, and Spike finally roars, his eyes screaming at him behind closed lids.
Spike clings to consciousness like a hatchling does to its mother. It’s his only hope. Falling asleep on the mountainside, far from his gems and their magic, he’ll be dead by dawn. As he slips the now-dulled hilt of the weapon between his teeth, he pushes himself upwards. His burnt claw sinks into two feet of bloody slush. Pain lances up his forearm and hot, pulsing flames radiate from the hole in his side. Biting down on the thing between his teeth keeps the pain at bay long enough for him to pull himself an arm’s length up the slope.
The cave mouth at the peak seems impossibly far away. Behind it, purple twilight darkens into black night, and a single six-pointed star sparkles past the very tip of the mountain. Somehow, it seems important. He blinks at the sight, before a curl of agony wraps around his brain and his vision shrinks into a tunnel edged with red mist.
It would be a long climb, and a longer fall.
He hears them before he sees them. They sound half a hundred strong, and they march with all the subtlety of a dragon. Spike shoots a glance down over the edge of the rock lip outside his cave. Below him, a veritable river of cold steel armour winds slowly and inexorably up the path.
He sighs, and glances back at his hoard. Gold sits in a pile, flattened over time by the weight of his body. Gems sparkle at the back. Acceptable levels. He had taken more from nearby farms some time before. Perhaps that was why they hunted him. The familiar fuzziness coats his brain with a softness rivalling fresh snowfall, and feels as warm as his fire.
The black dragon’s skull sits off to the side. He can’t recall it ever having shifted from that spot. It is as if it has always been by that golden chalice and in the crook of that curved blade.
He turns back to look down upon his hunters. Fools. They have trespassed upon his domain, unknowing of its dangers and the dangers of its occupant. He will show them their mistakes, as he has done to the uncountable numbers before them. All the same, all the same.
He slides and scrabbles around the slope. On the third turn up the mountain, there’s a tell-tale shift of the ice beneath his claws. He freezes, and waits for them to march underneath. From his height, they look like little beetles crawling around in the dirt, trying to clamber up into his fresh kill. All the same.
He props himself up against harder ground, and scrapes at the snow and ice beneath him until there’s a crack. A burst of flame later and the ground underneath his hindclaws falls away with a rumble that rivals thunder in noise.
He crawls upwards, ripping huge gouges into the ice with his foreclaws. Once on stable ground, he turns to look.
The collapse has only buried the latter half of the group in snow and ice. A white mound is now present where they used to be. Blocks of ice stick up through the snow like broken pillars. Some are the width of his leg.
Some stay to remain with their fallen, but the others continue up the mountain path. With satisfaction, he notes that they move quicker than before. Fewer bodies to coordinate and more fear for fuel. And fear is more treacherous than ice.
He takes a breath, and when the last glittering ant in the marching band disappears around the curve of the mountain, plunges downwards. Snow tumbles alongside him, rolling and roiling. Ice and a dragon crash into the stragglers like a tidal wave.
A flick of his claw later, one of them lies choking in a pool of blood pouring out of its throat. He charges forwards, claws gleaming red in the noonday light. The next two have barely turned their heads before he’s on them, shredding armour and flesh alike with a flurry of swipes.
A flash of steel in the corner of his eye. He jerks sideways, and a crossbow bolt punches into the scales layered over his shoulder. The long scar beneath his eye, stretching from snout tip to ear-fin, sings with a familiar ghostly pain as blood hammers in his ears and fire collects in his mouth. He barely registers the bolt ricocheting off into the wind.
He lets loose with a torrent of dragonfire. Inside chinks of armour, around legs and frosting fur, snow instantly vaporises into steam. He can just about hear screams under the roar of fire. All the same, all the same.
He backpedals instinctively as a burly pony swipes at him with a spear, its fur singed and flames curling on its mane. The spear whistles through air instead of flesh, and he snaps the steel tip off with a careless offhand blow. Its wielder tries to backpedal, but stumbles in the slush of blood and mud where days-long layers of snow have just been. He rips its throat out and sends the pony corpse tumbling down the mountain.
A quick glance tells of about two dozen barely-breathing bodies lying in the bloody mud. He looks up and around, and sees nothing but him and them. The rest of the group haven’t doubled back.
He doesn’t take any chances. Ripping out every throat he can find, he sends twenty bleeding corpses rolling down the mountain, their red blood painting the snow with stark streaks of red. The vultures and groundworms will feast happily tonight.
He clambers up the mountain until the earth-shaking rumble of stamping boots winds closer, and closer, and closer.
All the same.
He stands in the midst of blood, snow and steel. Fallen weapons half-sunk in the snow lie on the mountain path, their wielders’ bones scattered amongst them. Even with last night’s layer of fresh snow, the stench of blood is as strong as the day it was spilt. With the meat from all the fallen bodies, he hadn’t gone hunting. Hadn’t needed to.
He hadn’t seen it, but he knew the mountain had wept red tears instead of snow-grey that day. Yesterday? A moon before? A winter? Three? Ten?
He prods a spear with the tip of a claw. At least that thing in front of him is solid and tangible. The weapon rolls out of its rut, spinning a few times before coming to a stop against a piece of grey bone. The marrow had been taken by the vultures. A spark of anger smokes in his gut, but he shakes the feeling off into the omnipresent wind. It wasn’t worth the bones gouging holes in his throat.
Pieces of bone lie amongst pieces of steel, the remnants of yet another group. The latest to cross him. For a short moment, confusion sparks in his mind, as well as anger, but the latter emotion is quickly extinguished when there is nothing for it to feed on. Only whispering befuddlement is left, as cold as the snow around him, and even that lasts for only a few heartbeats.
Now, all he can see is blood and flesh. There’s nothing left for him here. He turns and heads up the mountain, but even then, the smell of blood follows him. Looking downwards, he finds a trail of red clawprints gouged into the snow from his own feet.
The stars are colder tonight. The twilight star is gone now, but it’ll be back. Just like them, it’ll always be back. And just like him, it’ll always be there, waiting.
The thought flits through his head like a fox through a forest. For some reason, there’s a heaviness settling in his chest, a dense lump of rock that’s colder than the constant snow and steel around him. Before he knows it, it’s gone. There is nothing left but him, the blood, and the slaughter. And he finds that he feels… nothing at all.
Nothing.
He blinks, and pulls himself into his cave. A dragon’s bones are scattered amongst the riches, amidst the pile of gold he’s amassed. Warmth settles in him as he settles amongst his hoard. With a full belly and surrounded by wealth, he barely registers his tail slapping against something and the resulting clatter of bones. His eyes slam shut before the skulls stop rolling , and he falls into darkness.
The scar along his snout screams with long-forgotten pain, and his eyes flicker with just the faintest hint of recognition. But it’s gone all too soon, and he wonders what he remembers – and why it’s so important.
The electric smell of magic, lots and lots of magic, tingles and numbs the end of his snout. It is time, he thinks. They’ve come.
Above him, the sun hangs high, an impartial observer. A blanket of clouds try to shield it from view. Just like every morning. He ambles to the edge and looks downwards. A lone brown figure pounds along the mountain path, mist swirling about it.
He knows of illusions. Trickery always makes fights more tedious. He sighs, and watches. There are none of the typical signs. There is only one coming up to face him.
A tickle of magic deep inside his snout warns him that this is no one to be trifled with. The figure is much more than it appears.
It’ll be some time before the battle, he knows, but pre-fight jitters are already coursing through him as he flexes his claws on his pile. He’s been through more clashes than he can remember. They’re all blurs of blood and pain and screams in his memories. The wait – the calm before the storm – never changes.
Lose, and die. Another flare of magic washes over him, and his snout-scar sings yet again. He grimaces. It hurts far more than it ought to.
He breathes in. The cold mountain air, though crisp as it is every morning, now carries with it a promise of blood. A promise of death.
END
Author's Note
Valar morghulis.
This story is the sister story to 'Schemering Sintel'. That can be found on my profile page.
The writing style is inspired by the story 'KOKOMO'.
Editors untamedwaters and Animus are credited with helping to improve this story.
