Foreword
My life took a turn for the peculiar towards the end of 2009, when a pretty, dark skinned girl walked into the library where I was working at the time. This in itself wasn't unusual, of course, given my place of employment was one of the many libraries servicing the tertiary student community (you'll forgive me if I'm not specific, given the events I will soon relate), and because of the time of year most of the girls were sporting a healthy summer glow and were conspicuously underdressed. She, however, was a true head turner, and I was sure I'd never seen her before. I would have remembered.
What was unusual was the way she approached me. Most library patrons dither before asking for help, erroneously believing that the library staff at the front desk have something better to do than help them (as a pet peeve of mine, allow me to set the record straight: if a staff member is at the front desk, then they are there to help you. Staff with other things to do will be out the back. But I am digressing), but she quite simply walked up to me and asked me for help finding a book. I gave her good directions; she told me she'd looked but couldn't find it. I knew this wasn't true, as I had watched her walk in the door and waltz right up to me. But my id (and her smile) was well and truly in control at this point, and such trivialities mean little to one's hindbrain. I told her thickly I'd help her look.
The library was nearly empty; it was the late shift and the holiday period. She led me into the stacks, the dull murmur of conversation deadening as we proceeded further from the stairs. She drew close, and told me she wanted to see me after work. How could I refuse?
Truth be told, I felt rather stupid as I watched her depart. A REAL MAN, naturally, would have ravished her then and there; I had wanted to, of course, but as a naturally rather timid creature I had held back my urges. A familiar regret pierced me; but, inevitably, I found myself perched on the stone wall out the back in the balmy summer evening, waiting for her. The male mind, sadly, works in pornographic channels, and all hope was not lost. Yet.
The encounter was even less thrilling than I could have imagined. She pressed something into my hand, kissed me on my cheek, but otherwise seemed rather wistful. I watched her walk away from me; my mind told me to chase after her, but truth be told, the conviction was no longer there - my heart, and my hips, knew that was a lost cause. It was a good few minutes before I looked at what she had given me.
This is how I found myself in the airport, waiting for a flight to Djakarta, of all places. Her gift to me had been a flight itinerary, in my name, and a brochure for a hotel in the city centre (once again, I ask you to allow me my anonymity). The more sane among you may wonder why I got on that flight. Me too, frankly; I think I had convinced myself I deserved a holiday, and here was one for free. Poor silly boy.
I won't dwell too much on Djakarta itself; I found it hot, crowded, bright, and generally obnoxious, and I spent a lot of time wishing I had been given a ticket to, say, Norway or Mongolia instead. Perhaps someone with less interest in solitude and more in noise and nightlife would enjoy it, but I don't care to speculate.
My 'benefactors', of course, wanted something from me, and after a few lazy days largely spent at the hotel, I received a phone call. I was told to meet this mysterious voice at a certain address; the note of command in his tone was undeniable, and, rather like a man who had been hypnotised, I found myself in a rather dubious area of the city after dark. I'm a soft thing, it must be said, and every time I passed one of the denizens of that area without incident it was hard to suppress a sigh of relief. But despite the fact I was, rather obviously, a lonely quivering tourist, I went unmolested and found myself at the mysterious locality I had been sent to.
I recount this now with some levity - the meeting, on reflection, seemed tailored to pique the interest of one with an affinity for the pulpy stories of the 20th century - but at the time I had felt a palpable menace. The house was, it transpired, an opium den, filled with the cloying scent of that particular drug, and men and women slept restlessly about my feet on filthy mats. I wouldn't have realised the purpose of the place if it hadn't been for the paraphenalia they used to smoke their chosen narcotic, which I dimly recognised from the pages of Tintin and the Blue Lotus, of all places.
One man still stood, straight and steady even as my head reeled from the overwhelming fumes. He was bony and old and dressed traditionally, as these people always are in the canon. Wordlessly, he drew me into a back room; I complied without resistance, numbed by the atmosphere. Nothing seemed quite real, though I do remember his blackened gummy smile as he told me, in thickly accented English, I'd been chosen. For what, I asked, naturally enough. He grinned again - I was growing very well disposed to him now - and pressed a strange old book into my hands. I looked at it, but didn't consider this a satisfactory answer. I asked him what it was, and he told me a book, grinning wider than ever. I thought this was very funny.
Suddenly, though, there was a crash from the front room. A raid, he exclaimed, and bundled me, with appalling strength, out a window I would otherwise have thought too small for egress. I hit the dirt shortly before he did, and the breath was knocked out of me; he dragged me to my feet, and we ran. I was none too fit then and my comfortable numbness had turned to violent nausea, and in the darkness and confusion I had lost my new friend. Weeping, I leaned against a wall and bought up my dinner, turned horrifically acrid in my belly, and gasped for breath, barely aware that I still held the book. Strange hands grasped me from the darkness.
I won't recount those next few days in full, if only because I remember so little of them. If that first night had been dreamlike, those subsequent days had been a nightmare. I was half rested at best, and I knew the terrors of both being hunted and unconditional trust; the heat and claustrophobia of concealment, being passed between hard-eyed 'friends', bizarre measures to hide my features, occasional glimpses of dark figures in the shadows. But I soon found myself at the airport, clean and washed and packed, gazing bewilderedly at my new digital camera, filled with pictures of myself at the beach, dancing, laughing. In a couple I caught glimpses of the girl who had started me on this weird path; when I saw her I thought that I would probably do it all again. My fascination with these pictures gave me a distraction from my cargo, which was fortunate as I'm sure I would have sweated, fidgeted and otherwise seemed suspicious (the Indonesian authorities are rather intolerant of drug traffickers, as you are surely aware, and I wouldn't have wanted to have been interrogated. The story was too strange for truth, whatever the platitude may tell you). I slept gratefully on the plane.
The book was big, heavy, rotten and black with mould, Indonesia not having the best climate for preservation of paper and associated materials; it was a miracle I got it through customs, really. It appeared to be a bound manuscript; the ink, where it was legible, was irregular and stained, written in turgid Victorian prose, apparently with a quill. It opened with a bizarre dedication:
To my Princess Celestia;
Warmth of my heart
Which then devolved into a poem too cringeworthy to record. This was followed by 'translator's notes' which, while largely unreadable, bandied about terms like 'Equestria' and other horsey vernacular with abandon. This is to say nothing of the contents, which included illustrations of what appeared to be riderless horses in war panoply, among other things. These pictures used an awful lot of red ink.
But it held some odd fascination for me, and I spent long hours poring over it, recording my thoughts in ledgers and attempting to recreate events, based on later pages, that were bitten by mould and decay. It seemed a fairly exciting story, reminiscent of the biographical Icelandic sagas, but very little of it made sense to me at the time. Later, in 2010, I was compelled by my circumstances to put away that weird text, and whatever hold it had over me was broken. I put it aside and out of my mind, as best I was able.
You can all probably guess what event drew me to pick that book up again. Once again, I'll avoid speculation as to how a mass produced toy line and it's attendant merchandising came to reflect what I had found in that strange black book, but there it was; and the whole thing has been very helpful in allowing me to grasp a few things the original translator either took for granted or recorded on a page now illegible (including that great revelation, the nature of the protagonist).
For my part, in addition to recreating parts of the tale when necessary, I have also replaced terms that, in the original, were presumably transliterated Equestrian with their more familiar English variants, as well as occasionally adding my own comments to the reader. Some might hanker for a text that I have not tampered with, but the memories of those paranoiac days I spent in Djakarta compell me to keep the original work itself a closely guarded secret. I will tell you I no longer have it with me, but no more than that; you will have to make do with this history presented under the guise of fiction. Frankly the though of sharing this much gives me chills, and in the corner of my eye I can still, sometimes, see those shadowy figures in pursuit. Of course, when I look, there is nothing there. But, then, it hardly seems right to clasp that secret so closely when I have so many times stated my committment to openness and honesty, and I must trust that the anonymity of the Internet will protect me; after all, who would believe such a strange story?
lrdr
Jan. 2012
Sword and Pony: Red Eye I
By lrdr
Pace ERB, HRH, REH, FL
It had been so sudden; the great gout of bright cold light had struck the dragon in the face as it had looked into the fortress' highest tower. The beast reared back, it's shriek of agony shaking the very stone. A shiver ran through the assembled troops as, very slowly, it tilted backwards, it's massive claws rending the keep's stonework as whatever fragmented instinct remained in the creature's bleeding, cold-blackened brain compelled it to hold on, not to fall from those lofty heights.
But it fell.
As it tumbled out of sight, it seemed to turn it's head to look at him, who stood there at the head of the quivering army, seemingly unmoved by the spectacle. But the dragon's face had become an abyss, eloquent with nothingness: it gazed back.
The traitor legions were the first to break. They, after all, had put all their stock in the creature; they had seen first hand the annihilation it had wrought on their homes, their loved ones, and even their own flesh. When that great shadow had passed over them, when the grass had withered beneath their feet from that horrifying heat, they had known which was to be the winning side. But; they were wrong.
And so a cry went up - we are lost! - they turned and ran.
Others there, who had been loyal from the start, had seen more than this. They had seen the old laws smashed, and the tribes united by cold bronze and dripping iron. They had seen the dragon marshalled, and turned against their foes, and grow fat and strong from the conquests made by that stony figurehead. He had turned to them and was howling to them that all was not lost, that the way was open.
It was true. Before it's destruction, the dragon had torn the fortress wide open. If they had struck then, even without the monster at their head, they could have swarmed over the ruined walls and butchered the cowering defenders (and they were cowering). The conquest would have been complete, the last bastion of their enemies fallen. But panic is like a worm, that crawls from belly to belly, emptying them all of courage. Falteringly, as they wavered between their loyalty and their madness, they ran.
He bellowed again, inarticulate, enraged, afraid. The panic-worm had not passed through him, but the frustration of one whose prize has been snatched from him crushed his heart. He ran too, eventually, as the victory cry went up from the keep. That, and a softer, crueller sound, clear as a bell to him; the witch-queen's laughter. His gut hollowing, he fled, down the treacherous mountain path that had bought him there.
Flesh streaked red from a thousand little skids and falls, he eventually found his way to the valley, rolling and grassy, a paradise compared to the flinty wilderness he had fled from. Exhaustion had stripped the panic from him, and he knew he must find his wife so he could tell her goodbye. He would die soon; he would not get his army back, he would not storm those halls again. His lands would fall. His power was broken forever. It hardly mattered.
He forced himself to keep his pace, though his legs felt as tight and empty as his belly had at the beginning of his headlong rush. His breath came in ragged bursts, and a thick rope of saliva ran from his open, wheezing mouth. Yet, he ran on, westwards, to where they had encamped, where the wives and children of his soldiers waited for their conquering heroes. The thought that they were to be disappointed seemed very funny to him, for reasons he couldn't articulate. He picked up his pace.
When he arrived, the camp was in a disarray, as feminine shrieks and male shouts pierced the air. Wives, whores and progeny were hauled away by their panicking fathers, brothers and lovers, expecting the inevitable retributive force any moment now, paranoid in their terror, all surprised it hadn't already come. The plunder they had taken from the vanquished lay worthless in the churned up mud, their blankets, tents, and the bags they had carried these things in suddenly their most prized possessions. Naturally every food source had been stripped bare.
The stink of fear was so heavy in the air that he didn't even bother to try and rally them again. His failure was absolute. As he approached, he slowed his pace to a more dignified trot and lifted his head up high so that they wouldn't know his weakness. It didn't matter; they didn't even notice his approach. As he made his way to his tent he struck out indiscriminately at those who blocked his passage; he became just another bully. The afflicted didn't even realise they got their bruises from their once glorious leader, and most just assumed they had fallen, or perhaps run into something, in their flight.
His tent was located centrally, and was the finest of them all (he wasn't obliged to carry it himself, after all). Gold thread, gems, all the finery imaginable to him. He hated it, loving only bronze and iron, but he had been assured that great leaders preferred such things. Once he had retorted that the greatest leader did not; it hadn't seemed like hubris at the time.
His wife was inside, with his two firmest friends, both looking rather sheepish. He turned a baleful eye at them before collapsing against his sweetheart.
Get your weapons, he told her (you might assume that she was some soft thing, bred for beauty and the easy life, a rich prize to be paraded around. Not so - she was just as scruffy and vicious as him, and perhaps even more so, given her intolerance of his wandering affections and her ruthless discouragements of the same. She had a predator's beauty, glorying in efficiency and compact strength. These were the things he most admired). She got them.
The largest of his two friends, covered with criss-crossed burn marks across his limbs - he was known as 'Black Leg' for this very reason - began to speak. We will die here, he said.
No, He replied. Not here. Where are your wives?
Gone, said the other, who was small and shaggy. He was called, simply, Swift.
We wouldn't leave you, Black Leg added.
You did, He returned, quietly.
Swift: We came back.
Black Leg: We stand and fall with you.
We have fallen already.
Swift and Black Leg looked at each other. No, said the first. But soon, the other finished.
Drink, said his wife, who had armed herself. He obeyed immediately, the fruit of long practice. She took his ragged finery from him, washed him with a little water, dressed the worst of his little wounds.
Black Leg gave him back his armour, helped him strap it on.
Swift gave him back his weapons, helped him wear them.
I am hungry, He told them.
We have fruit, She replied. He ate. When he looked at them, she told him that they had eaten, which was true.
Where, then, Black Leg asked.
There is a good narrow pass further to the north, Swift replied. We will take some of them with us.
That is good, She said. He agreed.
They abandoned the tent to whatever scavengers might want it and the booty, enough to make a king envious, left inside. It was worth nothing. They had food, water, and weapons of good cold iron with them, and woolen blankets to keep out the evening's cold, leaving their conquest with precisely as much as they had owned when it begun. The camp was all but abandoned now; only a few of the more far sighted had remained to search out a few trinkets for their homecoming. Some sobriety had returned to them by now, and they started and hid when they saw the little party leave that great tent. Even the bravest of them waited a few minutes after that, before they began to tear the gems from the lonely canvas, let alone plunder the insides. For their part, the group made a good steady pace northwards, but not too fast, for they were all exhausted. They didn't see many others on the way - freedom, and the majority of the tattered hordes, lay southwards.
They arrived at the pass just before nightfall, pushed into it as far as they could in the dimming light, til the stone was faded to a hollow black against the stars. The three friends wrapped themselves in their blankets and slept, then; She kept watch, but quickly succumbed to sleep herself. She knew it didn't matter; their enemies would wait for the morning, and if they were robbed of their prize by some animal or other, then no matter. It would be quicker that way.
He had strange, bloodshot eyes, a striking light grey, which gave an impression almost like the whites and iris had switched places. From this he had been given the name Red Eye by his father, who was strong and brave but a little dull. His cutie mark was a red hornblade, which had pleased his parents, predicting correctly that he would become a great warrior. His wife was called Spearshaft, and her cutie mark was a spear, appropriately enough (her parents had thought that she would grow to be a weaponsmith. They were a little disappointed). He was of the Red Tongues, and she was a Tusk, which made their marriage unusual, given that these tribes dispised each other. They were both of the steppes ponies, perhaps the cruellest and most violent ponies of a cruel and violent age.
This was long before Celestia, long before Luna or Nightmare Moon, long before Equestria's discovery, long before Canterlot or Ponyville or Manehatten, long before Discord or Starswirl the Bearded, long before the sun had to be dragged from it's hiding place below the horizon. No, it is a long, and probably best, forgotten epoch that birthed these few and their bloody battles. For, like humanity, ponykind had to drag itself up from the barbarity that nature demands, had to construct their safe little enclaves just as we did. That took time, and in their prehistoric dawn they were just as vicious as we were. Perhaps worse.
Take the time to learn a little about the ponies of that shining age. The unicorns then, as they do even now, formed the nobility of that land, at least in their own minds. Their magic was crude, primal, destructive, quickly forgotten due to the truth of universal illiteracy, and they were greatly feared; they knew this well. The pegasi thought of themselves as great warriors, and they certainly fought a lot - there isn't much to eat up in the clouds, so best to get it from the earth ponies, who found it difficult to defend themselves against dropped spears and rocks, and of whom there were two basic sorts. The first were those kept as pets by the unicorns; these stayed in one place and grew food for their masters, having been foolish enough to develop a rudimentary agriculture. They tended to stay near the mountains and dig out caves to store their grains and cut grasses, since then the pegasi would have to land to take it, which in turn offered some slim chance of defence against them (although since the unicorns did not allow them proper weapons, this was an even more meagre hope than you might assume). The other type were free, and inevitably nomadic. Both kinds were very poor.
The group, as led by Red Eye, were of this latter type. They hailed from the great steppes-tundra, a region with an unusual history and culture. It had originally been inhabited by small, tough, shaggy ponies, not unlike Swift in aspect, though even shorter at the withers. They survived on those freezing plains thanks to their thick coats and indifference to hunger. Eventually, smooth coated ponies had come, outcasts and outlaws from both the sedentary settlements and the nomads, and they had killed most of the shaggy ones and interbred with the rest. Those whose bloodline remained unmixed were generally of a significantly larger size and eventually became a sort of noble caste. However, they had far more difficulty with the cold than those older denizens (or their 'lower class' descendants) had done, and with typical Earth Pony ingenuity, had developed the art of curing leathers and furs (and, commensurately, the art of preying on the various other creatures that lived on the tundra). The other ponies, although well accustomed to the violence of their epoch, were nevertheless vegetarians and unaccustomed to the taking of trophies (unlike we humans) and so found this practice unbearably revolting. Several wars of annihilation were fought against the 'skin-thieves' when the news of this custom had spread. The steppes-dwellers had simply dispersed stealthily, waited for the cold and the general barrenness of the land to take it's toll, and then crushed the invaders when they had grown sufficiently weak and inattentive. Even the pegasi rarely braved those lands any more, although of course they justify themselves by saying there is nothing there worth taking. This is, admittedly, true.
As their numbers grew, the steppes ponies eventually separated into tribal groups, the two largest of which were the Red Tongues and the Tusks. These names come from the prosthetic bronze teeth the steppes ponies tend to wear - the tussocks that grow there are tough enough to lacerate the gums and some protection is warranted, not to mention the fact they are easier to chew with sharpened 'teeth'. These devices have naturally become favoured weapons as well, and the Tusks like adding protuberances that can be used to gore opponents (the Red Tongues and most other tribes agree that this is rather redundant when wearing a hornblade, which of course they all do), while the Red Tongues prefer using them to tear their enemy's throats and hocks apart. The various tribes, as a rule, hate each other very much, and spend most of their time raiding each other. This suited the other ponies very well, and eventually enthusiasm for the 'wars' petered out.
This was, of course, all before Red Eye and Spearshaft came along.
Red Eye was generally regarded as the most promising warrior of the Red Tongues, despite his comparatively low birth (he was shaggier than Black Leg, but not nearly so much as Swift), and the patriarch of his extended group had promised his daughter to him. This would have been a great honour if Red Eye had actually liked her, which he didn't. The Red Tongues tended to keep their mares soft and weak, reserving them for 'mare's work', which generally (and predictably) involved a lot of cooking and sewing.
The Tusks, however, had among their number a strange, nameless, cult which encouraged mares to become warriors, elevated virginity, and disdained stallions, the novelty of which never failed to frighten the other tribes. This made the cultists some of their most feared, and fearsome, fighters. Red Eye had heard of them, of course, and in particular he had heard of Magna, who was regarded as the most terrifying of the lot. Red Eye decided he wanted her as his wife instead of the chief's milksop daughter, and under the guise of a more general raid on the Tusks, had taken Black Leg (Hammerhoof, then; this was before his accident) and Swift to go and collect her. This sort of thing was common back then.
They arrived on the third night. Wasting no time, they cut the throats of the sentries, and set the camp alight using the sentry-fires. Black Leg and Swift, lurking in the darkness, had thrown a lot of spears to give the impression of a larger raid, while Red Eye struck at the cult's encampment (they tended to keep away from the main group, for obvious reasons). They, like the other Tusks, were groggy from sleep, confused, and generally an easy target. Spearshaft was the only one who was fully alert, and was attempting to gain control of her fellows, when Red Eye had attacked her.
He'd hurled a spear through one of the other cultists, and howled to give the impression of a more potent attacking force; a simple, but effective ruse. On seeing their comrade die, and hearing the racket, the mares had fled, leaving Spearshaft more or less by herself. Red Eye struck her from behind and dragged her away while she was still stunned, assuming by her demeanour that she was Magna. Black Leg and Swift, making as much noise as they could, retreated, drawing the largest part of the retaliatory force with them (they separated in the darkness and easily escaped their pursuers). Red Eye made a clean getaway, for his part, as the reeling Spearshaft made a surprisingly compliant kidnapee.
Eventually she'd collapsed (he'd hit her quite hard) in a muddy gully some distance from the camp, and he'd taken the opportunity to rest as well. She awoke with a start just before the dawn. There was a short conversation:
I am a Red Tongue. My name is Red Eye. You are going to be my wife.
No.
You don't understand. I am telling you.
I do. I don't care. No.
A wife should not cross her husband.
My kind do not marry. I would not marry you if we did. No.
It is good to marry.
Stallions are arrogant things. I hate them.
She then attacked him, despite her head wound. He would later be greatly impressed by her ferocity (he would have been impressed at the time, but defending yourself from a zealot is distracting stuff). If she had been properly armed, she would easily have killed him in that first assault, but he had divested her of her hornblade and mouthpiece. As it was, she tore open his withers with her teeth and bought her hooves against his fetlocks in such a way as to shatter them, an attack which he barely avoided - although he gained a nasty gash where her hooves scored his foreleg. The ensuing fight was brutal and confused, and both gained many new bruises and scrapes. As it happened, Red Eye, using his greater weight, had borne her down eventually, and they had lain there, heaving for breath, for a good long while, when Spearshaft, impressed by his strength and perseverance (and perhaps a little over-emotional), indicated beyond doubt she didn't mind stallions so much after all. They sated themselves for the first time there in the mud.
In the late morning, when they awoke and after they had treated their wounds as best they were able, they decided together to return to the Red Tongue camp, since the Tusks would kill him on sight, and then her when they found out what had happened in the gully; her former cult was intolerant of these things. Keeping low and ignoring their injuries as best they could, they avoided the Tusk patrols sent to look for them and found their way back to the Red Tongue encampment on the evening of the fifth day. Black Leg and Swift had arrived ahead of them, and were delaying the formation of a war party that would have avenged Red Eye; the other ponies were ignorant of the purpose of the raid, and so had interpreted his delay as having died at the hands of the Tusks. The chieftain, a large, powerful, but aging pony, upset at the loss of his future son-in-law, was present, intending to lead the retaliatory attack. Red Eye had been hoping to avoid that confrontation until he had fully recovered.
Red Eye explained himself fully to the chieftain, who, while he shared the disdain Red Eye had towards his daughter, nevertheless took the rejection as an afront against him, personally - the marriage having been largely his idea. A fight was inevitable. The chieftain had noted Red Eye's wounds, and was enraged; this combination of anger and overconfidence is a poor one in a fight against an experienced, merciless opponent, and the chieftain was quickly disembowelled by means of Red Eye's hornblade (although that wound did not kill him - Red Eye, affectionate towards the old stallion, had bitten through his throat to end his suffering sooner). Red Eye's wounds were not added to by the chief.
Spearshaft goaded Red Eye into declaring himself the new chieftain, which he did not need much encouragement to do. The Red Tongues were happy to follow him as he was their strongest warrior and was high born enough. His first order was to Spearshaft, and it was that they be married immediately - if a mare's father was not available to marry her, then a leader could take his place. She agreed, and took the first step on the road to the unification of the steppes-ponies, although she didn't know it at the time. If she had, she would have been even more eager, as she had the same peculiar hunger for conquest that Red Eye did. They were very happy together, once they got to know each other.
Those of you interested in this history will have to be satisfied with the following summary of what happened after that; Black Leg was married to the old chief's daughter, which suited them both very well, and the Tusks were bought together with the Red Tongues largely due to Spearshaft's knowledge of the various weaknesses and fractures of their leaders. Spearshaft, as one of the cultists, was to some degree isolated from her old tribe and was not sentimental about betraying them in this way. Having bought the Tusks to heel, Red Eye had Swift married to their highest-born mare, both as a favour to his friend, who was attracted to her, and to remind the Tusks of their place; Swift being of low birth, as you know. Red Eye's mystique was greatly enhanced by all this, despite it mostly being Spearshaft's doing, and bringing the smaller tribes under their banner was a relatively simple manner; if they didn't come willingly, he simply killed their leaders and then asked the new ones. This tended to work quite well.
After that, encouraged by Spearshaft, he began raids on unicorn settlements in more pleasant lands. The unicorns, being what they are, didn't take this threat seriously until a great number of their serfs had been killed or kidnapped and their fields burned. Suddenly hungry, they attempted to turn on Red Eye and his armies, who simply resorted to guerilla tactics to demoralise and weaken these hastily-organised rival forces. Spearshaft, meanwhile, had approached the earth pony serfs, who were delighted to put one over on their overlords. When the unicorns retreated to specially constructed fortresses among the mountains in an attempt to simply ignore the threat, many of them ended up in their beds with their throats slit. After that, aside from a few holdovers (like the witch-queen from the start of the story), the unicorns either drove away their serfs and turned to an ascetic lifestyle, typically starving to death in the process, or remonstrated with Red Eye and joined forces with him. They and their former slaves formed the core of the traitor legions. Red Eye installed puppet governments and ignored his provinces; he liked conquest, not rulership. They paid their taxes, provided soldiers, and otherwise did what they pleased.
The pegasi could not help but notice the gradual loss of their preferred food sources, and they began harrassing Red Eye's fortifications in ever greater numbers. Red Eye and his men were efficient at inflicting pegasus casualties thanks to clever tactics (not to mention unicorn magic), and came out the better in a number of engagements, but ultimately they had no real answer to these consummate skirmishers. If the pegasi had any real means of holding ground, the steppes-ponies might have been driven back. Fortunately for them, though, the fliers had no real option but to retreat from any earth pony counterattack, being unable to stand against the steppes-ponies superior numbers and brutality, and they never became much more than a significant nuisance. One, however, that enraged Red Eye greatly; he decided that the only real solution to the problem was the systematic annihilation of their settlements in the clouds. Advised by a particularly conniving Unicorn named Hellhorn, he came to the conclusion that the best way to do this would be by means of dragon. Eventually he took Hellhorn, Spearshaft, Black Leg and Swift with him to find one. Black Leg got his new name on this quest.
Soon enough, they did; a very intelligent, but small, female with red scales and golden crests. Her greed was appealed to, and a very large amount of plunder sourced from the more lush of the conquered unicorn settlements was donated to her. Red Eye now had a very grateful, and very large - ne was technically very rich - dragon at his behest. She quickly became the symbol of his power, the consequences of which you have seen.
The pegasi really didn't have a chance against the monster (typical anti-dragon strategy involved giving them all the gems you had in exchange for them leaving you alone. Fortunately dragons were not, and are not, particularly interested in ponies, so this was a rare occurence) and their homes were incinerated without much resistance. Some attempted to join the traitor legions - Red Eye, still irritated about their attacks, had these supplicants executed without ceremony - and most of the rest joined forces with the remaining unicorns, ensconsing themselves in their fortresses. Red Eye, using the dragon to tear down walls and annihilate any fleeing defenders (subtle as always), decimated these citadels now he had the means. The survivors of these attacks eventually made their way to the witch-queen's keep, the largest and strongest of those castles. With that, we have returned to the start of the story.
As such, we have also arrived back at that cold and windy pass, where the rather pathetic remnants of those once great legions had drifted into an uneasy sleep. The sun had risen, and warmed their sore bones as they woke to a still, gentle dawn. They all knew that today was the day they would die. This seemed a light thing to them, though, and they woke, ate, drank, talked briefly.
How will they come?
They will have to hunt for us, from the ground. By scent, probably.
We'll need to conceal ourselves from the pegasi above. Deal with the trackers first, if we can.
Good.
Caves?
A hidden trail above the forest. Conceal ourselves beneath the treeline.
Good.
The path led upwards, sloping more steeply as it made it's snaky way northwards. Eventually it curved it's way up around a mountainside, leaving the pass behind; below this, like coral in the dawn, a patch of scrubby forest clung to the mountainside. It was some hours journey, but they were a small party, made hard from their travails. Swift led the way, as he was an experienced scout himself; he, or one of his subordinates, had learned of the secret path. Red Eye came next, then Spearshaft, and then Black Leg. They were wary of the sky; although they assumed hunters, it was also possible that search parties would be up among the clouds.
They reached the forest without much incident. The secret path had been well concealed by roots and scrub, and was initially hard to track; they had to follow the peak's curvature for a little while before the path opened out again, making their direction clear once more. Swift had seemed relieved he had found the correct spot. The forest, such as it was, offered them sufficient cover from above, and they rolled in mud and cut tussocks and dead leaves to break their silhouettes, make them all the harder to see. They also found a good spot, a place where the hillside sloped up between two cliff faces, and a good thick canopy atop, not too far above their heads. Against Earth Ponies or even Unicorns they could hold this place almost indefinitely; against pegasi, perhaps not. They settled in to wait.
It was almost evening before they came, and the shadows were deep. At their head there were two strange, bipedal creatures, with spindly legs, long heads and glinting fangs; Diamond Dogs. Behind them, with choke chains about their throats, two earth ponies. These bore long crimson strips along their hides and their heads hung low, eyes dull. Behind them, perhaps fifty pegasi, well armed, and in among them, the witch queen, who held the prisoner's chains. She swaggered. The pegasi were afoot and clearly uncomfortable.
Smell strong! Up, up, one of the Diamond Dogs cried, pointing.
Back, then, commanded an authoritarian Pegasus. Prisoners first.
The queen jerked cruelly on the chains before releasing them. They stumbled as they moved towards the slope, which raised a laugh, and they slowly made their way up the incline. These, Red Eye reflected, had probably been looters who had seen them leave the camp. Traitors, although it was hard to think of them like that when they were used callously to check for traps. The pegasi waited below to see what would happen, which was nothing.
The same authoritarian Pegasus ordered a group of his soldiers to fly up, while the others would move back to the tree line (at the base of the slope a clearing had been formed, presumably by the same rockfall that created the pathway up). About eight dragged themselves heavily into the air, ungraceful in their armour, and made their way upwards. The steppes-ponies above them tensed.
The low-slung canopy prevented the pegasi from making their landing in any but the most precarious positions along the cliff's edge. One looked with contempt towards the prisoners; he, a white stallion, was the first to die; Spearshaft had hurled one of the steppes-pony's short, heavy throwing spears through his neck, where his helm met his gorget. If the cast hedn't killed him, the fall did. A cry went up from the pegasi when the limp body of their friend struck the rocks below; vengeance! The terrified prisoners, for their part, plunged into the forest, where they died of their wounds soon after.
Another pegasus perished when, panicking, she tried to escape upwards, but she had ventured below the canopy. Black Leg disembowelled her as she tried to extricate herself from the branches she inevtiably flew into. One other was killed by Red Eye himself; a well-hurled spear pierced his back as he tried to reach the safety of the foliage below. Swift's spear had been aimed at the pegasus leader, who had reacted fast enough to save his own skin.
This last was now bellowing orders; get up there, get up there! You, up the path, you, get above them!
The largest part of the hunters obeyed the first order, while a smaller group made their way upwards. Red Eye grinned, as this was an old trick. He broke cover as Spearshaft threw more javelins into the group of rising ponies-at-arms. Two spears sheared off their armour, but two more pegasi dropped back to the earth. Swift, too, made his first kill, as one of his spears passed clear through the back of a pony below him, who shrieked hatefully at Swift before he died. The second part of the ruse would now begin, as the grounded pegasi would take to the air and pelt the exposed Earth Ponies with their spears.
Black Leg, however, had not been located, and he stood up abruptly as the pegasi had begun to lift themselves from the soil. Bellowing, he struck with his hind legs at a long, pin-like rock, which listed drunkenly towards the pass. A second buck bought it down, taking with it the loose soil and brittle roots it had held in place, all on top of the ascending pegasi's heads. Some lay under the pile, necks limp and eyes bulging; others, their mouths crimsoned, coughed and fluttered weakly; and others, dusty and scored along their hides, emerged from the pile otherwise unhurt. Red Eye and the others laughed for joy as they crashed back into the vegetation amid a hail of inexpertly cast spears.
They stayed together, as they knew that this would certainly be their last stand. They had not killed the trackers, so a stealthy escape was not an option. Yet, they smiled at each other as they tightened their hornblades and wore their fangs. Red Eye, sentimental as always, thought Spearshaft had never been so beautiful. Her camouflage was cracked and hanging from her coat in raggedy chunks. He found a clear spot on her muzzle and kissed it tenderly. Then he embraced his friends, and Spearshaft kissed them all on their noses, below their hornblades. They grinned and were ready.
The pegasi had lost about ten of their number; they were wary, unsure of themselves below the enclosing verdure, but the element of surprise was lost for good now. They would have the heads of their enemies; it was inevitable. It was their right. They had spread out to be sure of their kill; the Diamond Dogs, again at the head of the pack, jabbered excitedly and jerked at their chains.
The earth ponies were found clustered in a little gully; great heavy beeches cicled their position and would make surrounding them difficult.
Take the warlord and his little slut alive, the unicorn mare ordered.
The pegasus leader turned to glare at her, but thought better of it. He pointed at five pegasi he didn't particularly like, repeated the witch's orders. They approached cautiously, hornblades down, ready for the killing strike. The earth ponies let them come, their own hornblades low and prepared. Red Eye, who was at their head, made the first kill; he feinted at the leading pegaus, a broad-backed blue stallion, who twisted around to defend himself, lifting his jaw for a retaliatory bite. Lurching suddenly backwards, Red Eye bought his blade across the stallion's throat, and the latter went down choking. Two more came at Black Leg; Swift, with characteristic viciousness, dodged his own adversary and went to the aid of his friend, lashing out at the distracted pegasi. One stumbled and fell under the hail of blows from Swift's bronzed hooves, then had his head crushed against a rock. Black Leg tore at the dead stallion's companion with his iron fangs, but this other had danced back when her friend had been slain. She bled, but only a little. Spearshaft had been attacked by a hungry looking pegasi stallion, his eyes glittering. He leapt at her, trying to bear her down; her hornblade scored deeply along his ribs, but it was not a killing blow, and he dragged her to the ground. Red Eye charged to her aid, and the stallion stood up to meet this new threat. His last mistake; Spearshaft, suddenly free, twisted beneath him, bought her blade up into his gut, and with a toss of her head, eviscerated him. Red Eye crashed into the screaming stallion, pushing the now slack weight off of Spearshaft. She stood back up, blackened with gore. Swift and Black Leg were harrassing the two remaining pegasi, who were giving ground to avoid the steppes-pony's strikes.
Charge, the pegasus leader said.
Ten more, charging at full tilt, struck the combatants, pushing them backwards into the little gully, while the others advanced more slowly. The initial attack had separated them, left them little hope of meeting the chargee effectively. The earth ponies were pressed up against the beeches that had once defended them, and the pegasi filled the new gap.
Swift had been bought down by two big stallions, and two more had pushed Black Leg back when he tried to go to his friend's aid. Even so, still more rushed to forward to add their weight. Swift, desperate, tore at his tormentor's flanks and limbs with his fangs, but they had crushed his small body with their hooves and pierced his flesh with their hornblades. He died, ribs crushed and belly opened, but gave them wounds they would not forget quickly - one whey faced pegasus dragged one of his legs behind him; Swift had bitten clear through the bone, and his hoof hung from a mere shred of flesh. This one collapsed, mewling, and would not get up again.
Black Leg was still on his feet, though his legs buckled under the strain of a big stallion on his back, and another slashing at his eyes with his teeth (pegasi did not craft mouthpieces akin to the steppes-pony's; although some filed their incisors to frightening sharpness). Blood ran in rivers down his muzzle, but his own bites had torn flesh from the stallion's cheek and crest. Suddenly though, the one on his back leapt forward, simultaneously kicking hard through Black Leg's hind limbs. He screamed and toppled, one leg shattered at the cannon, the other torn and bleeding where his adversary's hoof and scraped it savagely. He tried to drag himself out from under the heavy stallion, but the other struck brutally at his head with his forehooves. Shortly after that Black Leg felt, absent-mindedly, teeth close in his throat, and what little breath he had left him.
Red Eye and Spearshaft had been forced apart from their friends by the charge, and fought desperately together against the horde. Red Eye, the larger, lashed out with his hooves, while Spearshaft thrust savagely at their enemies with her hornblade. The pegasi in the front tried to push back, to gain a little room to dodge, but their fellows behind them forced them forward; they were anxious to bloody the two earth ponies. Spearshaft, lunging forward, managed to drive her hornblade up through a pegasi's jaw, killing him instantly. He collapsed, and another stallion was thrust forward, tripping over the corpse. Red Eye reduced his skull to jelly.
The pegasus leader had flown up to about head height to get a better look at what was happening. He was disgusted. Get back, you fools, he cried. Back, back!
Falteringly, the press loosened, and the wounded pegasi suddenly had the room they needed; they were absorbed into the throng, and unbloodied warriors took their place. The earth ponies breathed raggedly and drew themselves up for the second attack, which was not long in coming. More disciplined now, the pegasi advanced steadily, in a looser formation. Red Eye struck first, bringing up his hooves against a nimble pegasus who, dodging, lessened the blow to a bruised barrel, and then attempted to pass under Red Eye's guard for a jab to the ribs. Red Eye stepped backwards, and the pegasi advanced.
Spearshaft was defending herself from two big mares. She tore at one with her tusks (she still preferred her old tribe's mouthpieces) and thrust at the other with her hooves, but they pressed forward and her blows were weakened by their proximity. Eventually, they forced her up against the tree line, despite the bruises and cuts she had inflicted. She bit at one, attempting to blind her, but the other leapt under her blow, grasping her about the neck, and the attack went wild. The other had room to turn and bucked at Spearshaft's legs, already quivering under the weight of the pegasi. One snapped cleanly at the elbow; Spearshaft shrieked and went down, landing on top of the mare who held her. Desperate, she ripped at the mare's flesh, but the wounds were superficial, and more pegasi piled on, anxious to take part in the victory over the earth pony warrioress. She was soon unable to move.
Red Eye had not seen his wife go down. He was too busy trying to get away from the hooves that hammered him from all directions. His head drooped and his flanks were wet with sweat and blood where the pegasi's hobnailed shoes had pierced him. With a sudden surge of power, he rushed at what he believed to be the weakest point in the line, but a pegasus who had reared up to strike at him arrested his charge, and, eyes wide, they both went crashing to the earth. Red Eye attempted to scramble to his feet but another pegasi had hooked his forelegs around his and pressed down savagely, locking them in place. Red Eye tried to kick himself upwards with his back hooves, but another pegasi kicked them out from under him. Two more ungentle hooves pressed against his neck, and his head struck the ground sharply.
In the sudden, humming stillness, he could sense the crowd draw back; a murmur of hooves, and the silence of drawn in breath. She appeared, the witch queen, gloating over him. He noticed a strange spiral of silver around her horn glittering in the mottled half-light. It curved back, caprine, around her ears, in a delicate spiral. He found his gaze return to it when he tried to look elsewhere, just like sudden, stealthy movement might draw his attention. He also noticed her breath came in misty gusts, though it was a warm spring day. She laughed, suddenly, her head back, and he caught a good look at her in her triumph. So, for the first time, he knew defeat. It seemed a hollow fear.
Just as suddenly she bought her head back down, and his eyes flicked back up to that strange, silver embellishment. It slithered abruptly around her horn, and for an instant he knew terror; true, freezing fear, like a coward knows. Then, that strange light again, the same light that started all this, and all was calm, black and silent.
