The Road Left Alone.

by Reggie

Betrayer

“Hello, my old friend...”

Reggie quickly grabbed his sword and looked around.

“Whoa whoa whoa, why so unfriendly?” said a mysterious person.

“Who are you? Show yourself!” Reggie called out.

Strange earth pony with black stripes on his body and mane made of fire blazed out infront of the griffon. The light from the mane of mysterious visitor illuminated everything around.

“Who...What are you?...” Reggie never have seen a creature like this before.

“Ha ha, I love how you guys react on me!” creature laughed. “But now, I have something to tell you.” the expression on it’s face changed to serious. “Until this moment, your journey was just like a simple walk in a park. Great dangers are waiting for you ahead. Be careful what you do and what you say, keep your friends close and remember: Once born, the light lives till the darkness.” with these words creature disappeared.

Reggie didn’t move. He was standing and thinking about creature’s words when Lightning landed next to him.

“What happened here? I saw the light.” Lightning asked.

“Hm... Nothing, I was trying to make a fireplace... How about any wolves or other beasts around?” Reggie replied after a few seconds. His ‘old friend’ left a circle of burned grass where he stood. “Who was it?” he though. “I don’t remember anyone like this guy. Damn this sorcery...”

“Nah, not at all, but Whitewood is still near. I would like if we’ll sleep for 3 hours each, to watch the situation, you know.” Lightning Reel said.

Reggie looked at him and silently nodded. “I’ll go first, you can sleep.”

Lightning smiled and put his leather armor on the ground. He has two long daggers and a bow on his back. Reggie couldn’t understand how those ponies were able to use bows, but he saw some kind of rings on his pegasus friend’s hooves. “Maybe he pulls the bowstring with it?”

Blue pegasus laid on the grass and closed his eyes. Reggie opened his bag and took the map.

“Well, the Ironclaw village you say... Eastern part of The Wilds. Two days of the way from the Steel Peak on the west edge of the Forsaken Forest. It would be much easier to made our way from Talos, but my wing... And I’m not sure if the city is clear of Red Feather soldiers. I hoped they won’t notice the most wanted public enemy of their ‘kingdom’.” he sighed.

“Wait a minute... What is to the north?” Reggie thought with a familiar feeling of suspicion. There was nothing after northern border of the Griffon Kingdoms. Although he heard some stories about wastelands and the Forbidden City. His dad told him those stories and Reggie always thought that it was just a fairy tales. “Dawn would tell us if it was the red griffons. What could it be? West... Hm...”

*******

When he raised his head, he noticed that it was already midnight. “Scratch my claw!” he mumbled.

“Hey Light, hey! Wake up, time to change.” Reggie poked pegasus at his wing.

“What... Uh... Already?”

“Get up, you lazy bastard! Argh... WOLVES! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!” the griffon screamed, pretending that he was really scared.

Lightning jumped on his hooves, trying to find his bow. “A! Who? Where?”

“Gotcha! Now go and look for terrifying angry wolves. I need some sleep.” brown griffon said and took off his chain mail.

The clouds were gone and the cold, blue moonlight spread across The Wilds. Reggie liked that time of a day. Being hunted by his own people, he got used to hide in the shadows even when he preferred a good fight. He looked at Lightning and saw him sitting near to the campfire. The pegasus ranger was reading the map as Reggie did before. “I guess we are not so different..” brown griffon whispered and closed his eye. It was a long time since he has a good sleep without any nightmares.

******

The white, heavy armored griffon was standing on the barricades. He has a large tower shield and a gold scimitar. A picture of yellow claw was painted on his armor. White griffon moved to another side of a wooden wall, giving the orders to the people below.

“Thor, bring a ladder! Drowning Stone, what are you doing?! Place spikes on the other side of the trench! Oh Celestia! Why the hell they can’t do a thing without me?”

A black unicorn ran towards him. “Captain Dawn, sir! One caravan just came to the village, but...” he stopped for a second.

“Only one? Black Bloom, what happened? Where is the first, don’t tell me that...”

“First caravan was destroyed, everyone is dead. ‘They’ attacked both. Few ponies from the second one survived. Everything they brought was a few axes and bows.” Bloom answered.

“Curse on their heads!” Dawn yelled, pushing Black Bloom from his way. He saw a broken carts on the other side of a village. Ponies and griffons were gathering around them. “Stay here and control the preparations!” captain ordered and jumped from the wall.

When he approached the carts, another griffon flew to him. “Captain, we have many injured soldiers and few traders from the caravan. The village is low on food and water, I don’t think we can stay here for one more week!”

“What about warriors? How many do we have left?” Dawn asked, looking at the ponies on the ground.

“About twenty, sir. Including griffons. Do you want to start recruiting civilians?”

“Not yet. We need them to build barricades and dig trenches. Any news from our scouting group?” captain turned to the mountains behind the village.

“No, sir. The last letter was received four days ago.” the griffon answered.

Dawn sighed. “Dismissed” he said. The scouting group was sent to the Red Mountains to check the situation around Talos and he hoped that he would be able to call reinforcements from there, but it seemed like his squad was killed or the city is under the siege as well.

“Where are you, Reggie? Only you can help us now.” white griffon looked at his armor and flew back to the barracks.

*******

“WAKE UP!”

Reggie opened his eye. It was early morning. The sun just appeared on the horizon. He yawned. “No dreams today? Heh, my mind keeps surprising me.”

“You can’t imagine how hard it is to wake you up! I thought that you learned something in your journeys...” Lightning moaned.

Reggie stood up and checked his equipment. Everything was on it’s places.

“Time to move.” he said. “I don’t know what is happening there, but i have a strange feeling that we should hurry.”

After a half of a day they were making their way to the Steel Peak. It was named so in the memories of the ancient Steel War between few griffon clans which was ended under these peaks. Made of grey, dead stone it seemed like the mountain itself was trying to tell the story of what happened here. The little valley between two mountains was the southern corner of the Griffon Kingdoms.

The eagles were flying above, but that was the only sign of life here. Both the mountains and the ground were clear of plants. Someone told that it’s a spirits of the warriors who silently guards this land from either life or death. Reggie didn’t knew if he believed in this or not.

As the reached the valley, Reggie looked up. It was his first step on griffon lands since he left it, running from his enemies.

“Feather to the wind, claw to the ground, spirit lives in skies, body rests in stone...” he whispered, closing his eye.

“What did you said?” Lightning turned to him

“Nothing” was the answer.

*******

It was very quiet in this valley. Many griffons were afraid of ghosts who, as they believed, were keeping this place from unwanted guests.

“Hurry up, we should not stay here for too long.” Reggie said to Lightning when they passed through half of the way. “Sapphire... Power... Too strong...” he heard the whispers in his head. At the first moment he thought that it was just a wind. Griffon looked around, but there were only stones and dust.

“Yea. I don’t like this place, let’s go.” Lightning pulled his dagger.

They started to move faster and the wind became stronger with every step. As they almost left the valley, Reggie heard a loud voice “Betrayer!”. Forcing himself to keep moving, he refused to think about it.

When they stepped on the normal ground of the Weastern Forsaken Forest, he turned back for a moment. The peaks were dark in the shadow of the Red Mountains. Reggie now knew why they’ve told him about dark spirits of this place.

“Have you heard anything there?” he asked his friend.

“Not at all, only wind. But I felt myself very uncomfortable anyway.” Lightning was looking at the peaks.

“Next time let’s go to Trottingham first.”

“Mhm.” Reggie nodded. “Never again.” was his only thought.

Forsaken Forest was once a home for many creatures. Nobody knew why it was abandoned. Someone told that it was because of a griffon mage who accidentally casted a powerful spell which cursed the land. Others were saying that it happened after the Steel War. But everyone, even Reggie were avoiding this strange place.

Two warriors made a camp under the slopes of the Red Mountain.

“I don’t want to be any close to the Graveyard of The Forgotten at night. We’ll move out in the morning.” he said.

“What about this Graveyard?” Lighting seemed to be curious.

“Don’t ask. I just don’t want to be there now.”

‘Righto!” the pegasus finally noticed a foggy bottomland far away to the north. Weak green light was coming from the depths of it. “I see...”

-------

“Arh! Jump down there! I’ll take something!” the brown griffon said, moving towards his room. The green stallion jumped out of the window.

“Come on!” he whispered.

“Just a moment...” Reggie took a sword and his black jacket from the chest. He sliced a line of a black cloth and used it as a bandage on his eye. “Stupid dogs...”.

Suddenly he heard voices form the corridor. “It was terrible! He flew right to the lodge, killed his father and advisor, then he ran away!” It was Tos, the leader of the Red Feather clan.

“I saw them running here, sir!”

“Find him and remember: Only alive! We are not the beasts... Not this time.” Tos ordered.

Reggie opened the window. It was much higher than if he would jump from the window used by Arh. He swooped down to the shadow of his companion.

“We got to cross this mountain ahead. It’s the lowest one of the Red Mountains.” Reggie said as they stepped into the little village. “Now be careful, Red Feather clan is looking for us.”

The door of the little tavern opened and a griffon which was wearing the armor with a picture of the yellow claw came from it.

“Reggie? Is that you? I heard what happened! They killed the king!” he said when he saw a brown griffon.

“WHAT?! No! That can’t be the truth!” Reggie was terrified by a thought that his father was dead.

“I know! Wait a second, I’ll be here in a moment!” Yellow Claw soldier dashed into the tavern.

“Ha! I knew that! Where is he?! Rik! Time to unpack our presents!”

Reggie looked at Arh.

“They betrayed you too.” Arh answered his silent question. “RUN!”

“Not this time!” Reggie grabbed the green pony and flew to the Red Mountains as fast as he could.

-------

“How far are we from the Ironclaw?” blue pegasus asked.

“If I’m not mistaken - six hours of flight and one day of walking.”

Reggie and Lightning Reel had to cross the hills and a little forest after them. “Four days... I hope it’s not too late.” Reggie thought. “ I was four days late once, don’t want to make this mistake again.”

*******

It was a hall of the village Inn, but when the threat grew, Dawn had to make a headquarters there. A little candle on the table was the only source of light in this room. Captain already checked all maps and correspondence he had.

“Who are they?” he read another response from his scouting squads.

Someone bucked the doors so hard that one of the doors crashed. Dawn turned back when the black unicorn ran to him.

“Captain! They are here! Undeads are moving towards our village, there is a whole army!!” he screamed.

“Oh no...”