//------------------------------//
// Landmark 
// Story: Blackacre 
// by Princess Woona 
//------------------------------//

18 June, Y.C. 970
Canterburg Forest

It was the second day of their patrol, though it felt like more. This was nothing less than their third overflight of the marked path, and Donner was starting to recognize it even without the use of the map. Which was just as well; there wasn’t much by way of wind, but at cruising speed unfolding one of those got mighty tricky.
Trees skimmed by. Their first trip had been a high-altitude flight, Saddle to Foal, just to figure out the lay of the land and see if there was anything that Saddle’s own patrols had missed. After a quick pit stop at the boot camp and a pleasant conversation with a hulking minotaur about the ponies heading up the company in question, they had said their goodbyes and turned around.
The trip back had been a mid-level overflight, looking specifically at topography. Tracing the faint markers of a road, was there a chance they could have gotten lost? Followed the wrong path? The minotaur had assured them that their scouts were good, if green; they weren’t any more likely to stray than a seasoned officer. The route wasn’t in the greatest of shape, but judging from the air it looked plain enough.
So, after eight painstaking hours of mid-level overflight, they had arrived back in Saddle and called it a night. Today, the plan had been to take things low, somewhere around tree level. Sure it was riskier, but in fourteen hours of overflight they hadn’t seen so much as a leaf rustle. Plus, how else were they going to get eyes on the ground?
Speaking of which….
Donner gave a quick whistle to get Gun’s attention and gestured down towards a clearing coming up on their left. She nodded; they had spotted it on the second overflight. In a few minutes they touched down, taking the landing at a fast canter to stretch out legs that yearned for something, anything to do other than sit tucked up as the wings did all the work.
“Nice place,” he mused, eyeballing the clearing. A small brook wound along one side, a grassy knoll rose over another… it was pretty much exactly what it had looked like from the air.
“I’ll take it,” she said, trotting over to the brook. “Hey look! Fish!”
And so they spent the next ten minutes or so eating a late lunch and throwing crumbs at fish. They had a half tank of hay slurry each, but Gun had insisted they use one of the blank requisitions at the officer’s mess. The kitchen staff had looked at them funny, but it was perhaps the best decision they had made yet. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten real food. And alfalfa? Fresh alfalfa? Forget it; this was fantastic.
All good things had to come to an end, though, and so did the last remnants of the sandwich.
“Should probably get going,” he muttered, throwing the last of the crumbs in the brook.
“Yeah,” agreed Gun, stretching to her feet. “We’re what, halfway there?”
“Little less, I think,” said Donner. “Long way to go.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
For a moment, the two of them stood next to the water, idly watching as the little forest stream burbled to itself.
He wondered what she was thinking about. She had never acted like this before… but, then again, he had never seen her in a situation like this. So… peaceful, almost. So unlike her. He considered asking her about it, but something made him hold back.
Off in the distance, a bird whistled. A few moments later, another bird call, as if in response. Well, now or never. He opened his mouth —
“We should go.”
In a moment she was in the air, skimming lightly over the grass.
“You coming?”
He smiled at himself. Perfect timing, as usual.
“Sure thing.”
He joined her, and they gave the field a last overflight before turning back to the east to follow the road. They brushed the trees for a moment or two before settling into a flight pattern.
“You know,” said Donner, “that’s a nice field back there.”
“Sure is,” agreed Gun, angling slightly closer so they could carry on a decent conversation. “Could set up shop there. Little house in the corner.”
“Little house?” he laughed. “Pegged you for the kind of pony who lives in a tree or something.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. Besides, you see the flat part in the back? Perfect for a house. Not even a little one, either. Lots of room.”
“Oh, yeah,” he nodded. “Big flat place up and over the hill a bit. Soil looked darker, too. Probably more solid.”
“Probably.”
A pause.
“You know, it’s a little strange,” she said, lost in thought. “Hills like that, that’s dirt. Not bedrock.”
“Right. And?”
“Well,” she mused, “Awfully weird that there’s a flat patch of bedrock just over the top of a dirt hill.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then, as one, they angled back to the west, each instinctively flying low over the leafy canopy, scanning the ground below for anything resembling a threat. Whereas a minute ago the silence had been comforting, now it was anything but.
In a minute they were back at the field, circling it slowly from perhaps a dozen feet up. They couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary… save for an oddly discolored portion of the field, just over the crest of the hill from the brook.
Gun brought them in to a combat landing; while before they had taken their time, now they were down in a moment, fully alert, wings at the ready for the slightest hint of motion.
“There it is,” he said, entirely unnecessarily.
She bent down and sniffed at the grass. It looked normal enough… no, it looked too normal. Too regular. And underneath it… not bedrock, not close. Just soil, like the rest of the hill. Just… darker.
Off in the distance, a bird whistled, but the silence closed back in the moment the warbling notes faded away.
“Look at this,” she said, fluffing away a patch of fresh-looking clover. Under the perfectly spherical white and magenta flowers was a glint of metal.
“A knife,” she declared, brushing away the clover’s tiny gnarled roots. “This… look, it’s overgrown.”
“But not tarnished,” he said, pulling it up. “It’s brand new.”
Another bird tweeted.
“Brand new and covered in growth.” Donner shook his head. “How…?”
“Magic,” said Gun, wedging the knife into her harness and looking around warily. “This knife is brand new… standard issue. It wasn’t there for long, and then somepony covered over the ground. This is all fresh growth, magicked growth.”
“Makes you wonder what else was on the ground.”
A third bird whistled, closer this time. Donner and Gun glanced at each other.
“I think we found the company.”
“I think we need to go.”
A fourth snipped of birdsong, closer still.
“Right now!”
The ground erupted into fire — but too late; they were already in air. Wings pumped, grasping for altitude; they bobbed and weaved, dodging tight beams that lanced through the air far too close for comfort.
Neither of them said a word to the other, but they moved in unison, the semi-random pattern of evasive maneuvers bringing them closer and closer to a western bearing. Saddle was a long ways away, but if they could break out of the immediate airspace and get altitude advantage, they should be fine.
The lances were fewer and scattered now; Donner risked a glance back. On the field below he could make out a half-dozen unicorns, still braced against the ground in a firing position, though they were mostly out of range at this point. Around the edges of the clearing, he thought he saw shadows moving. So that’s how they got close: timberwolves.
Or worse.
“Below!” shouted Gun, still evading. He looked down and nearly forgot to flap: the menacing black wedges below were griffons, a full wing of them!
“The hell did those come from!” he demanded, as much to himself as to Gun. He hadn’t seen this many griffons in the rest of the war, put together. They looked to be big ones, too, full-grown males. Between claws and a vicious hooked beak, they were frightening enough; add in light armor and assorted weapons, and they were one-beast fighting machines. A single griffon would be a problem for even a full wing of combat pegasi, never mind six of them against only two ponies.
On the other hoof, though, the griffons seemed to be skimming the treeline, giving no indication of a chase. Eagles tended to swoop down on prey and carry it off; like their kin, griffons were unbeatable in dive speeds or low-altitude combat, especially against ground forces. Take them to altitude or give them a high-speed aerial target and they didn’t fare well at all; to a pair of maneuverable scout ponies climbing fast, they didn’t pose too much of a threat.
That didn’t mean they weren’t terrifying.
“C’mon,” shouted Gun from a ways ahead. “Quit staring and move! We’re still in range!”
He poured on the speed as best he could. She was right; though the lances were few and far between, even at this range a stray hit could still pack a punch. After a few moments of frantic flapping, though, the rounds stopped, and they leveled out.
“We clear?” she asked.
“Looks like it,” he said, glancing down. “They’re pacing us, but don’t look to be climbing.”
“Right,” she nodded. “Let’s break high and get the hell —”
A hail of glowing hot light lanced through the air where Gun used to be. He shouted something incoherent but it was too late; she was a hundred feet down and falling fast.
Donner broke into a dive after her: she was in free fall, one wing trailing smoke and an unnerving smell of burnt meat. She might have been at terminal velocity, but he was powering down as fast as he could, faster, faster —
The field below him burst into light and his harness burst into flame. He broke off to one side, narrowly missing a second barrage; below him, Gun was getting farther and farther away, but he couldn’t do anything with the smoke in his face and searing his skin. Clawing frantically he finally managed to get to the master quick release tab. With a solid pull, the whole assembly broke loose, and he shook it off with a tight aileron turn.
Shielded for a few precious seconds by the smoke from the falling harness, he took a moment to gather his wits about him. Looking down, he realized that not only was Gun still falling, and had given no sign of regaining control, but the griffons had started pumping for altitude on an intercept course.
He didn’t have to think about the dive; it came naturally. Gun was in trouble, and he only had a few seconds to make up the difference. On the one hoof, without little things like supplies or equipment or armor, he was incredibly maneuverable; there was nothing but his pale blue coat between him and the sky. On the other hoof, though, he had lost precious seconds, and it didn’t look like he was fast enough.
Beams lanced past him, and a portion of his mind realized that even a glancing blow would be deadly: he had no protection whatsoever. Didn’t matter; he had to be faster. Almost there; he could see her staring back up at him —
A chestnut streak slammed into Gun, tackling her to a side just in time to reveal a trio of griffons way closer than they should be.
Donner jerked to a side, spinning in between two of the griffons, razor claws missing him by inches. He whipped his head to try and see Gun, but the griffon was already a mile away, pastel mass solidly wrapped up in the griffin’s arms and legs.
For a brief moment he considered speeding after her —
The rest of the griffon wing came about, hot on his tail like bloodhounds to a scent.
There was no rationalization here, no tactical retreat, no carefully calculated withdrawal. Five very large, very dangerous apex predators were a hair’s breadth away, and Donner did the only thing an aerial equine in that situation could do: he ran.
In an instant he was at top speed, wings pumping faster than the air could fill them back up again. Ponies might get off safe if they were at altitude, but here the griffons were hot on his tail; their wings might not be designed for fast climbing, but they made up the difference with rage.
Donner fought the urge to peel off in an Immelmare turn to dive past them. For anypony else, anything else behind him, it would work: unarmed pegasi were about as maneuverable as they got. With griffons, though… they were baiting him. Trying to slip him up, have him try to evade, have him try to dive for cover.
No, he thought, pumping his wings harder than he had ever thought possible, legs tucked up so close into his ribcage he could feel his hooves rattle at the wind. The only advantage he had was climbing speed, and if it took him two thousand feet to do it….
He risked a glance back. The griffons were still on his tail, if slightly farther now; the field was a barely-visible speck down below. He couldn’t even see the griffon who took Gun….
Almost as if at a sign, the griffons broke off. Donner shot forward a little more, slowing cautiously. One of them darted forward; he jerked backwards. He could see fangs flash as they laughed.
Sticking around did not seem like the brightest idea, so he took right back off, heading almost straight up, making sure they weren’t following. After a bit he leveled off; not only was he out of breath, but at this altitude breathing was hard in the first place. He set a course due west and settled into a cruise; without the compass or maps that had been in his gear, he had to eyeball it. Not that it mattered; Saddle Lake was big enough and hard to miss.
Far below, he couldn’t even make out the field, much less Gun… wherever she was.
If only he had been faster.