A Game of Chess

"Wake up!" shouted Dusk. "It's daybreak, and we should be moving before the sun rises completely."

Checkmate's eyes opened, slowly. That last night of sleep had been wretched, as he'd awoken several times throughout it. He hadn't quite been able to shake the thought that Deun and his soldiers would attack them at any given moment, regardless of whether or not Dusk watched to ensure their safety. In fact, he wasn't able to remove the thought that they'd been followed at all, instead having a creeping sense of paranoia throughout the entirety of the night.

Then, Checkmate's eyes met those of a new pony, a pegasus. Her coat was red, cherry-colored, and her mane was almost raven. The mark on her side appeared to be nonexistent, although a closer look showed that the coat around that area was a slightly darker red-orange, but he didn't quite understand what it meant. In addition to this, she carried, sheathed to her sides, two daggers, shorter than the one wielded by Rolan.

Dusk, on the other hoof, had his sides so badly scarred that his mark could not be seen beneath the burn marks and discolored lines.

"Hi," said the new arrival, although her voice was neither friendly nor kind. "My name is Valice, and I've been... forcefully recruited -" she paused, and cast a glare over at Dusk "- to help you on your quest."

Twilight cast Dusk a look of annoyance. "'Forcefully recruited'?"

"Yes," replied the mercenary. "This mare was stalking us throughout the rest of yesterday's trek through the desert. I thought that she could, perhaps, be an assassin, so I decided to take her along so that I could keep an eye on her."

"And you're sure she won't jus' fly away?" Applejack asked, skeptically. "Ah mean, Ah've known Rainbow here for awhile, an' I ain't sure that Ah'd trust her in this position."

"Hey!" shouted the cyan pegasus, indignant, "I'll have you know that I am very trustworthy! Now, I'm not too sure about you, here, Val-whatever-it-is. I'd bet you anything that she's just some spy!"

"Huh," Valice mused, running her hoof through her mane, "that's not actually too far from the truth, actually. Oh, and my name is 'Valice', not 'Val-whatever-it-is'. Learn it before you start accusing me of anything."

"Ah!" Rarity exclaimed. "What arrogance!"

"You're not exactly a princess yourself," quipped the pegasus. "Although I guess that I should expect such a thing from a pony who obviously uses too many tacky products in order to make herself seem better than she actually is."

Rarity flushed, but stepped away without saying anything else.

"This is going to be absolutely wonderful, isn't it?" Checkmate muttered, deadpan. "I can tell already."

Valice smirked at this. "Certainly," she replied, obviously feeling pretty good about herself.

"Oh, we should throw both of you parties!" Pinkie exclaimed, flying up from nowhere and startling the new pegasus, "I mean, I never got the chance to throw Dusk one andnowthatwe'realltogetherweshouldtryandallhaveagoodtimesothatwecan -"

"Pinkie! Quiet!" shouted Rainbow, and she turned towards Valice with fire in her eyes. "Listen here, Valice. You may think you're some hotshot, but I'm the best flier in all of Equestria, and I bet you anything I'm the faster of us two. Now, unlike the others, I'm not about to trust you for one minute, got it?"

Scootaloo poked her head up. "That goes double for me!" she exclaimed. "Anypony who Rainbow Dash doesn't trust, I won't either, especially one who's been following us all over the place like some crazy stalker."

"They have a good point, Dusk," Twilight said, eyeing the new arrival cautiously. "If she followed us all throughout yesterday's walk through the desert, do you really think that we can trust her at all?"

"No," the answer was so blunt that Valice visibly flinched, "but I am not bringing her with us because I trust her. I'm bringing her along because I don't trust her, just to make sure that she doesn't try anything when I don't have my eyes trained on her."

Valice rolled her eyes. "Sheesh," she muttered, "it's nice to know that everypony cares so much for me."

Rainbow didn't take her eyes off the new pegasus. "Yeah, of course we care," she replied, her voice thick with sarcasm. "We're obviously going to be so worried about a pony who's been tailing us for days. Yeah, of course we're gonna care about every little thing you say."

"Why does everypony here feel the need to use sarcasm at every possible opportunity?" Dusk asked Twilight. "Certainly, I partake in it from time to time, but this desert is so full of dry wit that I'm surprised we aren't all dying from dehydration."

Valice, Checkmate, Rainbow, and Twilight all answered at the same time. "It's fun," they said, glanced at each other, and then looked in opposite directions.

Dusk chuckled at this, but quickly resumed a straight face. "Very well," he said. "That's as good a reason as any."

The red pegasus allowed herself a small smirk. "Indeed," she said, and looked over at Checkmate. "You were right earlier; This is going to be a very fun little adventure, indeed."

"Filled with sarcasm, and an annoying, probably dangerous pegasus," muttered Rainbow. "My favorite."

"Could ya'll stop that?" Applejack said, annoyed. "Soon, Ah'm not gonna be able to tell yer sarcasm from yer sincerity."

Rarity flipped her mane, having regained her composure. "I agree with Applejack," she said, although she looked somewhat rueful to admit that. "Can we keep this journey as... earnest as possible? The last thing that I need is for Sweetie Belle to start developing your levels of snide commentary."

"You're right, Rarity," replied Sweetie, laying on the sarcasm as thick as possible as if to taunt her sister. "Sarcasm is the single worst possible thing EVER."

The other ponies of the group, excluding Rarity (who flushed at this) and Dusk, immediately burst out into laughter at this, enjoying their mirth and the young filly's defiance.

Dusk rolled his eyes, as the others stood up and calmed down. "Now that we've accomplished absolutely nothing," he said, his voice completely flat, "shall we be off? As I said earlier, back when you all weren't wasting our time: we've much ground to cover, and we've no idea when we could be attacked, be it by some desert creature, or by Deun's army."

Checkmate stopped. "How did you know Deun was out to attack us?" he asked.

Dusk's eyes met Checkmate's. "That," he enunciated, slowly, "is nothing concern yourself with. What I know, why I was out here, and how I know everything that I do is not necessary to this quest. All that matters, now, is finishing off Wendigo before he can cause any more harm to the world."

At that moment, Valice stopped. "Wendigo..." she breathed. "You mean the enemy of love? The beast who rules over Darkfrost with a hoof of iron? That's what your quest is?! To... No, that's completely impossible."

"How so?" asked Twilight.

Valice shook her head. "Nothing can kill Wendigo. Not magic, not physical attacks... You're wasting your time with this."

Checkmate drew the Glacius. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. "This is a sword that can cut through the flesh of windigoes. And now, I'm going to grab its twin, and I'm going to stop Wendigo, regardless of what hell follows."

Valice stared at him. "Just... who are you?" she asked.

The earth pony looked away. "My name," he said, "is Checkmate Vigarde."

"Ch-Checkmate...?!" gasped the pegasus. "Wait... you're the stallion who escaped from Darkfrost eight years ago, and that sword... it really is the Glacius...?"

That's right, said Khaza, as she appeared before the pegasus.

Valice jumped in shock, but quickly regained her composure. "Okay, fine," she said. "You can fight windigoes, and you can kill 'em, but what does it matter if Wendigo is as strong as everypony knows him to be?"

"Then I help him," replied Dusk, drawing the blade at his side. "I trust you've heard of Constellation?"

Valice's eyes widened. "Another legendary weapon..." she breathed. "Where did you...?"

"I told you, didn't I?" asked Dusk. "My name is Dusk, and I believe that you can piece the rest together from there."

Khaza stepped towards her. "Don't you see?" she asked. "Regardless of how impossible this all seems, we can stop Wendigo, and that's just what we plan on doing. I'll kill the bastard myself if I have to."

The red pegasus looked between all of the ponies before her. "Fine," she repeated. "Fine, I get it. I get that you're qualified, but still, what can you do?"

"Whatever it takes," replied Dusk, and he began to walk away. "Come on," he said, glancing back at the group. "We've already wasted ten minutes that we could use to get closer to Solace. We might not have much time to get there, so let's hurry."

Without any more words, the group began to step across the sand, faster than they had the day prior, and began on the long trek towards Solace once more. Once again, as if due to some miracle, the group encountered no monsters, instead seeing only peaceful wildlife and the occasional gold vulture circling a bloody carcass. No, their journey may as well have been perfectly charted out, with several of them having minor conversations as the walk went on, and introducing themselves to the new addition to their group.

In fact, it was almost perfect how easily they dodged any - and all - possible threats. It was suspicious, as well, because, theoretically, the desert should have had many more jadetails, several antlions (even if they required large areas to live and therefore weren't especially common), and several hundred more gold vultures that should have posed them threats, but there simply... weren't.

Then, after several hours of walking and talking, the group came upon a large field of sand that had several rock spikes sticking upwards and into the sky. Littered around these spikes were several animal pieces. Jade-colored claws, tails, and carapace shards covered the sand, and golden feathers rested around the bases of the spikes. However, the corpses themselves were completely missing from the scene.

"Oh, Chronos," breathed Checkmate, horrified at the gore that rested before him.

"Who could have done such a thing...?" whispered Fluttershy, tears in her eyes. "These animals were all... killed so brutally..."

Dusk rushed over, looking at the edge of one of the tails. "The cut is mostly clean," he said, "and based on how the wound was formed, it appears to be from either a dagger, or possibly even a short-sword..."

Checkmate's blood ran cold. Deun used a short-sword, and with all these corpses laying around...

"That's strange, though," said Twilight, although she seemed rather unnerved. "I mean, the tails, claws, and feathers are sitting here, but where are the remaining parts of the jadetails and gold vultures?"

"I think that this can answer that," Dusk said, although his face had gone pale. "Take a look at this."

Checkmate and Twilight ran over to him, with the rest staying behind and looking over the carnage blankly, and the two looked at the wound in a jadetails's claw that Dusk was showing them. The injury started off looking like a normal dagger cut, clean and simple, but seemed to devolve into an almost barbaric tearing of flesh as it reached the other side of the scorpion's claw.

"A windigo would not do this," Dusk said. "They wouldn't go this far to gain prey, considering that they feed primarily on hatred and anger, with only a bit of physical sustenance required. No, this isn't the work of Deun, and this doesn't appear to be the work of a sleipnir, either." Dusk looked up and met their eyes, "However, there is one creature that has claws like daggers, and tears its victims' flesh apart, although I doubt you'll like the implications of what I'm about to say..."

"Really?" asked Checkmate. "What could possibly be worse than Deun, at this point?"

Dusk let out a sigh. "It looks as though we've trespassed onto the land of an antlion."

Checkmate didn't even blink at this revelation. "Of course we have," he muttered. "By this point I'm beginning to think that fate just enjoys giving us as much bad luck as possible..."

"It makes sense, though..." Twilight murmured. "We haven't seen any monsters recently because they're all terrified of the antlion, and that's why so few creatures attacked us!"

Dusk looked to them. "We just have to watch our step throughout this place," he said, "and watch the skies, as well. Antlion larvae dwell beneath the surface, and adults live in the skies, flying about. Just proceed with caution, and we should be alright."

A decent idea, came a cold voice, but I'm afraid that option is no longer available to you.

The air before them began to converge, as Dusk, Checkmate, and Twilight were sent flying back into the other members of their group. Out of the air, a new windigo stepped. He was tall, roughly the size of Luna, but he walked with such stride and dignity that one would suspect him to be the taller of the two.

"Greetings again, Checkmate Vigarde," the windigo said, in a voice that was higher pitched than Dusk's, yet deeper than Checkmate's, as he stepped towards them. "I trust that you've been enjoying the Desert of Death?"

Rainbow stepped up beside the earth pony stallion. "Check, who is this guy?"

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure," said the windigo. "My name is Deun, general of Wendigo's army. And, I'm afraid, your little adventure ends here."

"G-General Deun...?" breathed Twlight. "This is the guy who's been following us throughout this entire place?"

"In a matter of speaking," replied Deun, coldly. "Checkmate Vigarde, enemy of all windigoes, and traitor to Wendigo's nation of Darkfrost... it is my job to kill you, and ensure that you do not continue on this journey to endanger our prosperity."

"Prosperity?" asked Dusk, stepping towards him. "Truly, you might as well become a comedian, Deun. It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

Deun stared at Dusk for just a moment. "You have more scars than the last time we met, Dusk, although that sword at your side is still quite dangerous. I cannot risk any of you escaping, or, worse, threatening Darkfrost and the windigoes who live within it."

"As if you can stop us," Rainbow said, smirking. "The last time I checked, there are thirteen of us -" she grimaced at this, as it appeared to be fate's way of mocking them "- and only one of you. And, as far as I know, you aren't immune to magic like Wendigo is!"

"You're right," admitted Deun. "I'm not immune to magic. However -" He stamped his hooves into the ground, as six new windigoes emerged from the air, surrounding the group "- there is far from being only one windigo here. Only about half of you are even a minor threat to me, but I had to be cautious on this matter. Surrender now and I'll try to convince Wendigo to make your deaths quick and painless."

Dusk grimaced. "You always were one to be prepared, but I suspected you to be the last one who would support Wendigo, seeing how much you cared for the windigoes. Why change your stance?"

Deun's eyes flashed. "Why I'm doing this is for myself to know, not for any of you," he said. "However, it doesn't matter either way, as I've no intentions to tell you of my reasoning, not even as you go towards your deaths."

The general drew a short-sword, then, with a silver blade, and pointed it towards them. "Now, make your choice," he said, his voice cold. "Will you surrender, or shall Wendigo kill you slowly and painfully?"