“We knew we were taking this path,” Rainbow Dash remarked, as she slowly flew next to the trail carved into the canyon wall. “We knew that this path was narrow and twisty.” It was built mostly following a natural ledge, but it had been improved with tunnels through some of the rock formations, and rickety wooden platforms that sometimes stretched for hundreds of yards. “Why did we pick up two large creatures just before taking it?”
Fluttershy blushed, from her perch atop Sergeant Macintosh’s back. “I’m sorry, Rainbow, but Macintosh and I share a special bond. I couldn’t leave him behind!”
“Yeah yeah, so you’re in love, whatever,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. “That doesn’t mean he automatically gets to join the party.”
Fluttershy cringed. “No, I mean – it’s not that I don’t love him, although I don’t know if he’d even be…” her voice trailed off into a squeak, and then she shook her head, and explained. “He’s my companion!”
Twilight Sparkle glanced at her. “Your animal companion?”
Fluttershy nodded. “My bonded mount. It’s one of the mysteries of nature – we can pick a horse, a riding dog, or a pony as a companion, to share in our power and be joined with us, forever.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight replied. “Even if ponies were animals, which we’re not, why would an oracle of nature get a version of the power that’s so clearly tied to a civilized concept like the domestication of riding animals?”
“It’s a mystery!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily, doing a loop in midair.
Twilight took a deep breath, and managed to ignore the pun. “And he’s okay with this,” she asked instead, glancing at the large pony, who indeed didn’t seem to have any trouble carrying Fluttershy, and for that matter most of their camping gear.
“Eeyup,” Mac replied.
“Just don’t think about it too hard, sugarcube,” Applejack said, her ears flat against her head. “I’m sure tryin’ not to.”
“Fine,” Rainbow Dash said. “Fine! That just leaves the 900 pound elephant in the room.” She glared right at Rarity.
“Oh!” Rarity said, her eyes going wide. “Sparky is not an elephant! He is a sleek, efficient killing machine, and most certainly not 900 pounds.” She stopped and let her skeletal fire drake catch up with her, and nuzzled its cheekbone. “Don’t listen to that uncouth griffon, Sparky. Mommy loves you, yes she does!”
“He’s covered in evil slime,” Rainbow Dash said, deadpan. “Which you just got all over your face.”
Rarity sniffed. “Prestidigitation is a cantrip,” she said, using said cantrip to clean off her face. “And it’s not ‘evil slime’, it’s self-healing necrotic fluid.”
“Neck-rotting what now?” Applejack asked.
“It means ‘evil slime’,” Rainbow Dash explained, folding her arms.
“What it means,” Rarity said, firmly, “is that I don’t have to worry about Sparky being taken from me by something as simple as a wildfire, or some brutish fighter’s mace. Even if he falls in battle, the ‘evil slime’ will bring him back to me.”
“That couldn’t be cheap,” Twilight Sparkle said, glancing back at her with concern. “How did you convince Thul to animate Sparky for you?”
“We came to an arrangement,” Rarity said, pouting. “I don’t wish to discuss it any further.”
Everypony stared at her. “You didn’t,” Rainbow Dash said.
“NO, Rainbow Dash, I most certainly did not!” Rarity snapped.
“She totally did,” Rainbow Dash whispered to Twilight.
“Nnng!” Rarity growled, gritting her teeth.
Despite the path being clearly meant for pony-sized creatures, there weren’t any chokepoints so small that Sparky and Macintosh couldn’t squeeze through. This is a good thing, since between the rapids, waterfalls, cliffs, and rockfalls, the bottom of this section of Ghastly Gorge was not navigable, by foot or by boat.
The path was well hidden, however. Most of it was quite difficult to spot from the top of the gorge, thanks to the sheer nature of the cliffs and the depth to which they sank. The lack of direct sunlight left them in shadow for those stretches which weren’t passing through tunnels or screened by scrubby dry vegetation. They passed by a looming zebra fortress, and were overflown by several flame drake patrols, with no sign that they had been spotted.
As nightfall neared, they started looking for somewhere to sleep. An obvious place presented itself – a series of small caves carved into the side of the gorge, in an area where the slope was significantly less steep, albeit covered in gravel.
“Well, this is convenient,” Applejack said, stopping short and letting the rest of the party pile up behind her, while she peered carefully at the caves. “I reckon I should sneak up and give ‘em a once over, just in case they’re not as innocent as they look.”
“This looks innocent to you?” Rainbow Dash asked, incredulously. “Because to me it screams ‘quarray eels’.”
“Those are a myth,” Twilight said. “If anything, we’d run into Purple Worms. Or Tatzylwyrms.”
“Or diamond gnolls, maybe,” Applejack said. “Either way, I’d better take a peek.”
Rainbow Dash landed and crouched down, staring nervously at the caves. “Okay, but if you get your head bitten off –“
“Then sell my stuff and get me resurrected,” Applejack finished for her, then went in.
The rogue silently padded across the gravelly slope and vanished into one of the caves, and a few seconds later, there was a loud ”Baaaaaaaah,” and she came flying right back out, slipping on the gravel until she spread her wings and took to the air.
“Ow,” she said, circling slowly to land back near the party, rubbing a large bruise on her shoulder.
“So they saw you,” Rainbow Dash asked, as a chorus of answering ‘Baaaaaah’s came from the surrounding caves.
“Probably heard your whinin’ and wailing and were waitin’ for me,” Applejack said with a scowl.
“Actually, if those are goats, they probably hunt by scent.” Twilight said, readying her weapon. She’d swapped out her old flail for a long-handled hammer with a spear point and a hook on the back-side for prying apart armor.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that we can talk to them, and try to work something out?” Rarity asked.
From every cave, giant dire goats emerged, with blood in their eyes. There was no sign of equipment or sapience, just angry, territorial beasts.
As it turned out, animals whose tactics rely on knocking down opponents so that they tumble to the bottom of a cliff fare very poorly against flyers. With ‘Sparky’ blocking the edge of the trail to protect Twilight, Rarity, and Mac, the four flying warriors were able to take out the goats, eventually, using crossbow bolts, thrown rocks, and Applejack’s magic dagger which, somewhat to her surprise, pulled itself out of the goat’s skull she sank it into on her first throw and returned to her mouth to be thrown again. The goats were too stubborn to run away even after it was obvious that there was literally nothing they could do, and soon enough they were nothing but a pile of goat carcasses at the bottom of the ravine, leaving a bunch of empty caves.
One of them was large enough for the party to set up camp in. As everypony was laying out their bedrolls, Rainbow Dash flew down and grabbed a goat carcass, dragging it into the entrance.
“Is that supposed to be some sort of camoflauge?” Twilight asked, wrinkling her nose at the grisly sight.
Rainbow shrugged. “I was thinking ‘midnight snack’, but sure, let’s go with that.”
The night did not pass uneventfully. Sparky was left on guard with orders to wake the party with his tail if anything approached the cave, and that didn’t happen, but Pinkie Pie and Sergeant Macintosh awake to the sound of wings, a thump as a large creature landed, and then a rough gnollish voice.
“Woooah, Cinder. Don’t start eating until we figure out what killed them. This could be a trap.” There was the sound of metal-shod boots tromping across gravel, and then, “Huh. This looks like an arrow wound. Or maybe from a crossbow?”
Pinkie quickly woke up the rest of the party, and quickly explained. “We’ve got to stop her!”
“I hate fighting at night,” Twilight complained, giving a forlorn look at the armor that she wouldn’t be able to wear. “But Pinkie’s right. If she flies off she’ll be back with reinforcements. At the very least, the rest of the army will be alerted to our progress.”
“How should we do this?” Applejack asked. “I could sneak up…”
“No time, let’s just charge,” Rainbow hissed.
Twilight nodded. “I agree. Rarity, send Sparky in first to draw fire. Everyone else, hit them hard and fast. Let’s go!”
Sparky burst from the cave mouth, charging at the drake and sinking his skeletal fangs into its neck. This effectively distracted the drake, as it retaliated in kind, and the two drakes curled around each other in a frenzied melee. Rarity, for her part, stood in the cave entrance and blew a cloud of green dust off of one of her hooves, which swirled through the air to envelop the drake-rider, outlining her in glittering sparkles and – from the way that she immediately cried out and reached up to claw at her eyes – blinding her as well.
Twilight was next out of the cave, her lucerne hammer held in her magic as she skidded down the gravel slope – and lost her balance, rolling head over hooves to sprawl in an ignominious heap at the base of the goat pile. Macintosh fared a little better, managing to keep his feet, although his attempt at a jab with his rack-mounted lance failed to find a target. But between Applejack’s much more successful airborne approach, and some supporting fire from Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, they managed to take down the rider before she could set off a firework flare, let alone get back to her mount to flee.
Meanwhile, Sparky was losing against the living drake, but a fearsome charge from Sergeant Macintosh skewered the unfortunate creature lengthwise, and with a final ear-piercing shriek, it fell still.
“Well, this sucks,” Rainbow Dash scowled, hovering in midair with nothing to fight. “I didn’t get to do anything.”
Twilight picked herself up, and rolled her eyes. “Well, if you want to be useful, see if you can find us somewhere else to spend the rest of the night. If a pile of dead goats attracted attention, I don’t want to think about what a dead flame drake is going to do.”
“Can we make it look like an accident?” Fluttershy asked. “Or an animal attack?”
“With a wound like that?” Twilight asked, gesturing at the massive lance wound.
“I suppose we can try,” Rarity replied. “I haven’t ever worked my trade on a creature this large, but I’ve certainly made wounds worse than this one look presentable for an open casket.” She pulled a fearsome assortment of knives and clamps and other tools of torture from her bags. “Prepare to watch a master at work. Bwa ha ha ha ha!”
Most of the party declined to watch. Pinkie Pie found it fascinating, though.
The base of the canyon was navigable in that part of the gorge, and the party found another place to conceal a campsite a few hundred feet away. A flight of four flame drakes with riders did eventually arrive to investigate their missing companion, only to find a pair of corpses seemingly killed by the teeth and claws of a large creature – from the scorch marks on the gnoll, possibly a wild drake. “We’d better tell the outposts to be on the lookout for an aerial attack,” one of them eventually concluded. “Wild drakes can be dangerous.”
“You don’t think it’s that crazy wizard, do you?” another asked.
“Not likely. He’s not shy with the death spells, and I don’t see the signs.”
With that, they took off to report back to their masters.