//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14: The Last Full Measure [Part 2] 
// Story: Pride Goeth 
// by Zurock 
//------------------------------//

	It was quite a stunning sight: huge and hefty heckhounds hurled again and again over the parapet.  Certainly none were more stunned by it than the heckhounds themselves, who couldn't believe that such a measly little pony could fling them off time and time again.
But Crumble Pie did.  Hound after hound she tossed or kicked away, picturing them as nothing more than bothersome boulders which needed to be removed from the worksite.  Their claws didn't concern her in the least, and nor did their fire.  If shredded skin and a torched tail were the cost of doing business then she wouldn't hesitate to pay.

She bucked another heckhound square in the snout and then took advantage of his momentary imbalance, rushing him over the wall's edge.  There wasn't the time for her to shake the dust from her hooves before two more hounds came vaulting over the parapet onto the wall.  One of them she blasted off right away with another powerful buck, but the other entered into a short brawl with her.  Like all the heckhounds, he expected fear to do most of his work for him and so he swung at the pony with flagrant but aimless aggression.  His carelessness left him entirely unready for her hard skull, which she not-so-cordially introduced to his jaw.
Squeezing herself under the whining, blubbering heckhound, she hoisted him up, faced the edge, and waited a moment.  Like clockwork another hound appeared on the parapet.  What followed was an avalanche of heckhounds as the pony launched one into the other and the two fell down upon several more who had been on their way up.

Crumble Pie, hoping that her lucky attack had earned her a few safe seconds, stretched her aching neck about while taking stock of Stony Nook.

On the wall to the south, Mayor Desk Job had chosen to stay and defend.  Her close brush with fire earlier had finally taught her the value of water conservation, and she was doing her utmost to pass the lesson onto other townsponies.  Buckets were being spent more carefully everywhere the mayor went.

Elsewhere, at the riverbank, Scrolldozer was trying to aid the overworked pegasi.  There were too many empty buckets for them to refill, and so while they wore buckets like suits of plate armor and streaked through the river to fill them, Scrolldozer used his magic to dip as many extra buckets as he could into the running water.  He tried to float the full buckets up onto the wall also but, for a pony of his particular special talent, levitating a wooden bucket of sloshing water wasn't quite the same simple thing as floating a solid and backbreakingly heavy stone.  The buckets meandered and wobbled, splashing and spilling now and again.
His distraction didn't help matters.  Every time he plunged a bucket into the water, he looked anxiously to the far side of the river, eyes open for any sign.

Lastly, Crumble Pie noted that pressure had eased across the entire wall.  Fewer heckhounds were attacking other portions of it; probably because more of them were attacking her position, she reasoned.  The slight reprieve had given some courage to the other townsponies.

By strange coincidence, the small shift in resources had brought the battle to a sort of careful equilibrium.  More buckets, more bravery, and less heckhounds meant that a stalemate had formed along the whole wall.
Except for at the gray mare's linchpin position.
The stalemate would last only for as long as she could stay on her hooves.

Or until – and if – the raincloud came together.

Before her, more sharp scratches started to climb the wall.  Growls and howls accompanied them.
Crumble Pie took a step back, popped the last few cracks out of her neck, and flexed some fresh bucks into her hips.


Down by the riverside, behind the long row of Stony Nook buildings, the raincloud was most certainly not coming together.
No amount of percussive love or cantankerous verbal encouragement by Hailstone had beat it into working shape.  To the point of breathless exasperation she had pounded and hollered at it, and still the countless leaks underneath hadn't stopped dribbling mead.  The cloud stayed a pure white mesh of fraying fuzz with occasional dark splotches; something like an anemic cow who was constantly draining themselves through their incontinent udder.

Mrs. Totaler shook the final bottle of mead, peppering its last few drops over the top of the cloud.  Then, ever a calm professional even in such a crisis, she slid the empty bottle back properly into the case it had come from.
"Ain't looking too murky; I hesitate to say it's soaking in," she worried aloud.  It looked like the drenched earth beneath the cloud had drunken more mead than the lightweight puffball itself had.
"It just needs to hold"—Hailstone clobbered the cloud some more—"enough to be a stable raincloud.  Then"—the abuse went on—"it'll take on plain river water!"
"I've talked to a lot of pegasi over the years; never actually learned from'em anything about clouds and rain and so forth," said Mrs. Totaler.  Fearing the answer, she asked, "So... is this one stable?"
After one last elbow drop to the cloud's plushy top, Hailstone floated back and looked over her pathetic, sickly handiwork.
"Only one way to find out," she moaned.
She snatched one of the cloud's many flimsy edges and dragged it out over the river.  Gently she pushed the cloud down into the water, though even the lazy current threatened to run away with such a loose and weak patchwork of cloud-threads.  When the very top of the cloud began to take on a dim, promising gray, the pegasus yanked it back up.
The whole of the cloud had turned dark and stormy.

But immediately from the bottom began to gush a torrent of water.

It wasn't any proper rainfall, but a waterfall.  Shivers ran rampant across the cloud as it harshly vomited out the river water it had taken on.  Little cloudy goosebumps covered it, and on each stood up a little hair of fluff.  The healthy, thundery color drained away fast, vanishing entirely as the last streams of regurgitated water quickly petered out.  It became again a pale and sickly cloud, save for all the original dark splotches where genuine rainwater had already soaked in.
"No, come on!" Hailstone screamed, and she shoved it back into the river.
This time she stomped on it; she angrily swished it about; she tried to drown it.  Some puffs of cloud tore free and floated away, drifting until they swiftly dissolved into the water.
But again, once removed from the river the cloud hardly gagged before it spewed out its load and returned to its ugly, slapdash self.
"Come on, for the love of Celestia!"
Once more the cloud was thrown into the river, and once more it came out and spilled everything.
Hailstone lifted the cloud higher and swooped beneath it, heedless of the runoff which slapped her face and wings, and she started to thump some frustrated adjustments into the cloud's underbelly.
"Please, please, please!"

Mrs. Totaler nibbled a nervous hoof as she watched the pegasus work, and her ears tracked closely all the other sounds she heard from across town: growls, splashes, snaps of fire, heavy thuds.  Somewhere, Crumble Pie gave a painful shout.  Then there was the crack of a hard buck.





For another time Prideheart collapsed.  He could not stand himself up even with a conscious effort to keep weight off of his ruined leg.  All he had were his screams, which he directed at Kerby—challenging the hound, begging him, daring him, bargaining him—anything to draw the monster away from Bookworm.
But Kerby didn't tarry, not by one toe.  All the vengeance against Prideheart he had ever lusted after lay not in hurting the stallion himself.
The wonderful cruelty had the evil hound licking his chops.

Bookworm scrambled to locate her improvised club; the explosive charge had been dropped somewhere in the prior scuffle.  She unfortunately spotted it laying on the ground on the other side of Kerby, unreachable.
Going without, the filly puffed herself up and fearlessly charged the heckhound, and she was deflected by a paw which raked her cheek hard.

Prideheart rose, took one step, and crumpled again from the agony.

Bookworm got to her hooves, wobbling and dizzy.  The soreness coming from her cheek wasn't a surprise because of the forceful slap, but the feverish throbbing was a sensation new to her.  She patted the cheek with her hoof and was disturbed by the unfamiliar warmth.  When she pulled her hoof away she saw the sole was stained sticky and red.
A silent shock hit her in the chest.  From her eyes the imaginative glitter twinkled away, like turning a page and finding the story interrupted by some loose and unrelated parchment which had been inserted where it didn't belong.  Like music broken by a deceitful change in tempo; like a moment broken by a sudden hiccup; like clarity broken by a world of new confusion.  She had many times cried over bumps and bruises like any young foal, but never in her life had she taken a cut so deep that there wasn't even any pain.
A low chortle of fiendish delight came from Kerby.  He shook his claws to throw off some of the droplets they had caught.  There was plenty more blood to spill.
He advanced a step.
And Bookworm, in automatic response, quiet and shivering, immediately teetered a frightened step back.
Fear so tantalizing was the perfect appetizer for the salivating hound.  He moaned in hungry pleasure.  There were no more delays for theatrics.  He prowled closer.

Falling beneath the blackest horizon of desperation, Prideheart again stood up.  He managed three steps before tumbling in pain, learning just that much more about his new infirmity.

Encroached upon by the newly-terrifying heckhound, Bookworm stumbled backwards, too afraid to turn away.  Her clunky hoofs clacked together as she sidled left and right only to be outmaneuvered by the larger, swifter hound.  Everywhere she tried to stagger, he was in the way first, surrounding her in a cage of his fearsome fangs.
Kerby used his presence to push her up against the cliff over the river just to see if she would try to jump, confident in his ability to catch her falling tail.  Her immobilizing fear left him only a little disappointed; a spice of broken hopes really brought out the best in a meal.  He swung a paw to try to encourage a leap out of her.
Only through a lucky flinch did she stumble out of the way, and she shrieked as the whipping claws came within hairs of tearing off her braided mane.  Staying low, whimpering, and holding her hooves to her eyes, it was the first time in her life that she had ever wanted to a close a book before the story had ended.
She wouldn't jump, though.  Kerby accepted it.  He took one large step back and peeked at his horns, adoring the satisfying glint coming from their sharp tips.  Then he stiffened his neck, aimed, and thrusted.

One horn impaled Prideheart, who in a broken gallop leapt into the way.
The wind picked up his ravaged cloak, and the horn pierced deep into the center of the hero's cutie mark: a golden shield, heart-shaped and daylight-sparkling.  It took the attack for the little filly.

The stallion's ceaseless interference infuriated Kerby all over again; such impudence he would never have tolerated from any of his heckhound inferiors, let alone a little pony.  His ravenous vengeance happily forgot all about Bookworm.
Pushing with a paw, he angrily ripped his horn from the pony's bleeding flank.  He went instead to bore it into something Prideheart might more sorely miss: his good eye.
But the stallion, even with one leg unresponsive and a hip now frozen by pain, managed to throw himself high above the strike.  He came down atop the thrusting horn, driving Kerby's head towards the ground.
Angled so oddly and caught under Prideheart's weight, the horn crashed against the hard earth.

There was a loud, crisp snap.

The abrupt noise was so remarkable that Kerby immediately threw off and disregarded the pony.  The hound backed away, and frantically he twisted his head about, trying to peer up at his poor horn.
Its smooth shaft still had plenty of Prideheart's blood streaked across it, but that proof of ruthlessness held no savory luster once Kerby saw the horn's blunted tip.  It was cracked and jagged, missing an inch or two.  Something lightly bumped the heckhound's toe, and he looked down to see that the broken-off horn tip had rolled into him.
The fire in his eyes flashed like an ignited plume of sawdust.  His growl rumbled like quaking earth ready to swallow a city.  His fangs glistened like the speartips of a battle-ready battalion marching in the rain.
There wasn't anything the enfeebled Prideheart could have done to have stopped the heckhound's jaws from clamping over his neck and flailing him about like a ragged chew toy.  The monster violently beat the pony against the earth in retaliation, smashing him on his every side: head, tail, wounded flank, busted leg, and all.
After far too many slams and slices, Kerby finally became clearheaded enough to have a thought even a little more nuanced than blind rage.  He spit out the limp, savaged pony and looked about for Bookworm, and he spotted her fleeing away from the cliff edge.
Quickly Kerby scanned the brutalized Prideheart: wounds upon wounds, now coated in dirt; crippled by pain; soaked in red-tinged sweat.  To kill the defenseless pony outright would have been oh-so-satisfying, but the heckhound still had a desire vengefully wicked enough to let the pony live, for a few more minutes at least.
He turned about and followed Bookworm.

"Where are you going?" the monster called in his kinder, crueler voice.  "Come back and defeat me, little hero!"
Bookworm stumbled to a stop, though not because of the hound's taunt.  She snatched from the ground the explosive charge she had earlier dropped, but her plan didn't extend beyond retrieving it.  In panic and dread she merely faced the heckhound and hugged the bomb.
Kerby walked towards her in no great haste, recognizing that she was quivering too badly to run away again.  His each step closer worsened her shudders and she clutched the explosive ever tighter.  The heckhound, in his head, busied himself deciding which part of her tiny little pony body would be the most scrumptiously evil to devour first in front of Prideheart.
The filly, practically hiding herself behind the small bomb, began to fondle it nervously, and she shouted, "M-Miss Crumble Pie taught me how to use t-these!  I'll-... I'll blow us both up!"
"Oh ho ho ho!" came Kerby's most pleased, sadistic smile.  This was even better than the cliff edge.  He didn't slow.  "Go right ahead!  I'm waiting!"
Bookworm's hooves fiddled and fumbled, slipping constantly, but slowly she stripped the many safeties from the controls, just as she had been taught.
"I-... I-... I'll do it...  I will..."
"Mhmm.  Come on then.  Let's see that fire, my little pony."
Paw by paw, he neared.
A trembling hoof at last tickled the tiny switch which, once flicked, would arm the charge.  Bookworm desperately squeezed the bomb.
"I-, I mean it!  D-Don't come any closer..."

He came closer.

And the filly, closing her eyes and swallowing her breath, let the bomb go.
It plopped harmlessly down onto the ground, still inactive.

"Well... don't feel too badly about it," Kerby said softly to the frightened, crying filly.  It was almost genuine enough to comfort her in her deathly fright, being cruel with its overt sympathy.  "After all," he said, and suddenly his voice turned, "there's nothing wrong with eating your meat raw!"
He lunged, jaws open.

And he was seized, stopped short from digging his fangs into the filly by no more than one stride.

The abrupt catch jerked the heckhound; the unusually strong grip had snared one of his hind legs, and he felt a pull on it, trying to draw him back.  Right away he knew who had interrupted him and he was more intensely incensed than he had ever remembered being in all his insufferable years in Tartarus.
But when he leered ferociously back at his leg, he surprisingly found that he was not being held back by any set of hooves.  Prideheart wasn't anywhere near him.

Instead, shackled around his lifted leg was a shimmering aura of sickly gold; a glittering illumination whose every shine was infected by a wash of pale green.
The same diseased glow was pouring out of Prideheart's shattered horn.

Back at the cliff edge, exactly where Kerby had left him smashed and battered, Prideheart was barely standing again.  His ruined leg dangled, curled against his body, and his damaged hip tremored wildly from trying to hold some of his weight.  Moreover, he was racked by wave upon wave of unending, excruciating pain.  It flattened his lungs in his chest, sealing out air, and it tensed all the muscles in his body until they were ready to snap his bones from the tightness.  The constricting agony squeezed streams of sweat from every one of his pores and crushed the pupil of his good eye into a pinprick.
It was the same as it had been for forty years, ever since he had been poisoned by black dragon fire: every second of using his cursed magic was like bearing a massive load a thousand miles with a broken back.
But he ignored the pain of his body, he cast away his disdain of magic, and he held onto the huge heckhound's leg.

Anything to protect Bookworm.

Kerby screamed furiously as he tore into the earth with his paws, trying to claw his way to the filly and snapping at her with his jaws.  All of his outrageous might pulled against against the magical hold on his leg.
Prideheart held through the thunder of pain which smeared his vision.  He held through the dying of his ears as the hound's enraged bellowing turned from volcanic eruptions into water-muffled murmurs.  He held as the inferno of his dragon-wound raged through his body and ripped at his insides, threatening to tear him in half.
Atop his glowing horn-stump the grotesque pustules flared with ugly light.  They shined from within with an awful green that flashed brighter for every painful throb they pulsed with.  One suddenly popped, and the sallow slime which spilled out of it had streaks of red.  The bloody pus oozed down the cracks of his horn, along the rim of his dead eye, and down his clenched snout.
But still he held, and still he pulled.

And against the enormous heckhound's incredible strength, he managed to drag the monster back a single step.

Kerby's anger was earsplitting.  It soared over the Pearl Peaks.
No more revenge by proxy!
No more slow, delectable vengeance!
No more mercy for the sake of suffering!

The heckhound whipped around – easy enough to do since the magic was pulling him in that direction – and he faced all of his immeasurable ire at the stallion.
Prideheart let go of his magical grip.  Through it thankfully stopped the infinite booms of pain, the powerful echoes lingered like always.  He was still all but blind and deaf, ready to be knocked down by stiff breeze.

Kerby, blistering with so much rage that even his dimmed eye burned white hot, slammed down his paws and readied a charge.
"I'LL BURY YOUR CHARRED BONES IN THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE UNDERWORLD!!"

Prideheart, drunkenly wobbling left and right, only vaguely able to squint in the direction of the heckhound, and wheezing from the tiny gulps of air his burning lungs could handle, responded in kind.
"Stand... down... pup!"

In an instant the huge monster leapt to his top speed, blazing a beam straight for Prideheart.  Jets of fiery steam shot from his nose.  Columns of dust trailed behind him.  His screaming howls piled on top of each other, flowing ferociously before him like an avalanche.
The pony heard and saw little of it.  A dull ringing, some warbled grunting; perhaps growing louder?  His fogged sight showed him only an insane mix of worldly colors spilled on top of each other, with no distinction whatsoever between them.

Then an unclear shape in red appeared, front and center.
He fixed all of his strained attention on it.
It grew.
The stuffy churning in his ears thickened, like a boneless noise flowing towards him.
He primed his one good foreleg.

And, guessing the moment entirely, he did exactly as he had done twice before while battling other heckhounds.

He stood up on his hind legs and let Kerby crash into him, and then he rolled and bucked with every little push of strength he could find tucked away in his devastated body.

He saw nothing clearly, but he felt the tackle dead to his center twist his already ruined leg, infuriating its pain.
He heard nothing sharply, but felt the awful pop in his wounded hip as his buck connected with something solid.
And as his roll followed through, this time he didn't even bother to try and stick a landing.  His inert form flopped onto the hard earth with a dead thud, landing on his side.
The only part of himself he lifted was one ear.


...

...

Splash!  Fizzle!


A sound distorted, but distinct enough to understand.

Prideheart let even that little bit of strength drain from his ear, and it folded down limp.


There was darkness for a time; somehow he couldn't measure how long.  But it was the first night in his mind where he wasn't tortured by a shadow lord.  The silence was sweet and cold.


A new sensation appeared.  Just faintly he felt it on top of the pain which still echoed widely through his body.
Something was pushing on his ribs.
His ears twitched and tuned to the sound.

"Mister!  Mister, get up!"
"Bookworm..."

Prideheart opened his eyes, but there was nothing to see.  His dead eye was facing skywards and his good eye was to the ground, and what's more, his vision was withered anyway.
The little hooves still shook him desperately.

"Get up, mister!  Please!"
"You must go, Bookworm...  Return to Stony Nook..."
"Okay!  We'll go back!  But first you have to get up!"

Even through the cotton stuffing his ears he could hear her voice breaking with tears.

"Your father...  Go...," he said.
"Not without you!  A hero doesn't-!  A hero-!  Just... please get up!"

The upset pushes actually grew strong and frantic enough to agitate Prideheart's many wounds.
He made no complaints.  Rather, he tightened his belly in preparation and then groaned horsely as he worked to slide his two good legs under himself.  He lifted his neck, but almost immediately a terrible stiffness took hold of his spine and left him quavering uncontrollably.
Bookworm skirted quickly around him and helped push him up.  She was rather careless because of her dismay, forcing yet more pain into the stallion's wounds, but again he was perfectly placid about it.  When at last he had risen to his hooves, she cautiously stepped out from under him and watched, ready to catch him if needs be.
He swayed, feeling out a balance between his strengthless legs.  Eventually after several moments he came to a slow stop and stood idle.

"There.  I stand," he said.  "Now, Bookworm...  Go."
"Al-Alright.  L-Let's go."
The filly waited for him to move first.

"Bookworm," Prideheart sighed.
He tried to find her in his vision, flopping and spinning his neck awkwardly until he saw a splotch which was colored differently from the ground.  He lowered his head, too far and too fast, and accidentally knocked his nose against her temple; he turned and rested his cheek upon her head instead.  Below, he felt her willingly hold him up in that fashion despite the film of sticky blood and gross sweat his cheek was smearing upon her.  It brought a small smile to his weak lips.
"There can be no waiting for me," he said.  "You must go ahead."
"But mister-!"
Heaving, he interrupted, "Twenty-four infernal hounds at Stony Nook; three here; and therefore three of which we have no account.  Another way behind Stony Nook they could be seeking.  A fast warning to them you must bring, before it becomes too late."
"B-But-!  But-!"
"A hero is needed for this, courageous Bookworm, and too slow am I.  Will you go?"
This time however, his sugary-sweet appeal to her beloved weakness fell on completely deaf ears.  He simply felt the shaking of her head as she sobbed.

Riding her sorrow through his cheek for a few moments, Prideheart quietly and somberly thought.
At last, quite sure and in a wholesome voice, he said, "Go now ahead, and behind I will follow as fast I can.  I promise I will meet you there."
She sniffled.
"... You promise?"
"Yes."
"... O-Okay..."
Slowly she disengaged; he nearly folded over once her support was gone, but managed to lift his head and steady himself again.
"... I'll see you back at Stony Nook?" she wanted to make absolutely sure.
"Verily."  After a moment's hesitation, he added, "It is a super promise."

It was just enough for the scared, reluctant filly.  She turned away and, one eye always behind her, she honestly tried to get a trot going but couldn't find the speed.
When she reached the big step to the next terrace, Prideheart called after her again one final time.

"Bookworm...  Your father...  Be more forgiving..."
"...?"
"Of a father's mistakes, be forgiving.  Many stories you love; he loves but one.  It is only a happy ending he wants."
"O-Okay, mister.  I'll try," she promised him again.
"... Thank you..."

With that, Prideheart started to chase her with speed so gentle that a tortoise would complain.  The aching slowness of his pace was broken only by the sudden bounce of his body every time he skipped using his ruined leg.
Bookworm looked back and forth between his limping hobble and the rocky descent before her until finally she bit her tongue and climbed down.  Easily she sprung along the rocks, hoping that her friend would have just as easy a time without her help.  At the bottom she raced away from the rise just so that she could see over it and spot him again.
He was still there.  And he was still shambling, interrupted only by sudden, regular dips.
But Prideheart wasn't focusing on his legs.  He gave all his stamina to his good eye.  Intently he focused on the blurry dot which was shrinking to the distorted sound of fading clops.  Every now and again the dot disappeared for a moment before just as suddenly reappearing; another terrace descended.  He kept his legs working minimally, inching his way forward, since no doubt the filly was galloping with her head turned back to watch him.

But once the dot seemed so far distant that he was confident she didn't have a clear look at him, he only falsely bounced body now and again as if he were still walking.
He ceased moving forward.

The faraway clops vanished.  The tiny dot blended into the messy, blotted landscape.  Soon enough there weren't any shifting colors which his bleary vision could make out to indicate movement, and he stopped his pathetic simulation of walking.
He waited as many extra minutes as his weakness could allow before he killed all the strength he was loaning his legs and he again fell over onto his side, this time with his good eye up.

It broke his heart.
To have knowingly sent Bookworm away with a promise that was already broken before he had made it, it broke his heart.

But he loved her so much more than he loved any promise to her.

And though her heart would surely also be broken once the truth caught up with her, maybe the painful mistake would be enough to help her always remember the lessons she had learned.


No darkness came this time even though Prideheart closed his eyes.
All his hurts had grown indistinct from one another, resting on top of him like a heavy blanket of pain.  Eventually his nerves got tired of screaming and everything dulled.  Other tiny sensations came back.  In particular, a distracting tickle danced upon his eyelid; a playful warmth.
He opened his eye and the vast blue of the unbroken sky filled it, but in the far corner of his vision was the shimmering sparkle of the sun.
Prideheart could scarcely tell if what he heard was his actual voice dribbling weakly into the dirt or if it was his clouded mind calling out to the quietly shining star.


All these many years past, but still I know not if I have forgiveness for you...

So many lives risked in Canterlot, because of vanity!

Yet...
More I understand now.
When the moment for leadership came upon me, desired or not, I was not without graver mistakes of my own.

Did you forget us...?  Is that why you never followed...?
Or...
As I cowered and ran from my errors, so did you...?

Hear this, please, if you can:
The Dryponies...  I lost them far in darkness, but they can yet be found.
If ever they go beyond the pale...; if any harm more they bring to others...

Blame them not...

I will bear all the fault for their misdirected evils...
I will take responsibility...

I will shield them.


The prayer, spoken aloud or not, echoed in his head as time dissolved and darkness came again.

Until, quite clearly even to his dulled ears, there was a howl.
Then two more.

Opening his eyes, the hero got his legs under himself and this time, with tremendously painful effort, he managed to stand again on his own.
Teetering and swaying, he turned to face the direction the sounds were coming from.





Scrolldozer filled bucket after bucket like they were the beating of his frantic heart.  It was all he could do to keep himself from breaking down in absolute panic.  Downriver he could see Hailstone continuing to fight with the uncooperative cloud, and on the wall he could hear constant ferocious snarls mixed with Crumble Pie's evermore strained and frequent cries.
The terrified monotony was almost enough to render him deaf to the voice which came over the river but, once he heard it, it was like a brilliant sunbeam breaking clearly through a storm.

"Dad!  Dad!"
"Bookworm!!"

Buckets dropped and splashed into the current or spilled onto the ground.  The father almost blindly charged into the river in an ill-considered thought to streak across it, stopping himself just before tumbling into the water.
The frantic filly was galloping eastwards, heading along the far side of the river towards the bridge.  All the while she continued to desperately call for her father, shaking the tears from her eyes.
At first Scrolldozer followed her in parallel, galloping along his side of the river.  He was singleminded enough to nearly crash into Mrs. Totaler, and when he at last turned aside so that he could race to the bridge he almost ripped a building straight out of the ground rather than go around it.  Out onto the main road he spilled, and his fast hooves fumbled him all the way to bridge just as Bookworm came running over.
He caught her in his embrace, and she caught his unending shower of kisses.  He kissed her head again and again until all the smooches and tears were ruffling and matting her mane.

"Dad!"
"I love you, Bookworm!  I love you, I love you—!"
"Dad, please!"
"—I was so afraid, baby—!"
"Dad!"
"—You're safe now, you're safe—!"
"Dad, stop!"
"—Please never leave again!  Please!"

Bookworm's voice alone gave the father a sudden kick in the chest.

"Dad, you're not listening!"

Right away he released his grip, set her down, rested his hooves on her shoulders, and looked his wet eyes right into hers.
"I'm listening," he gasped.  "I am.  I'm listening.  What is it, Bookworm?  What is it?"
The filly glared, wanting to judge his sincerity as always, but before long she was too upset to care.  She threw her face back into his chest and started to sob, and her rambling scarcely navigated the sniffles and pants which attacked her.
"T-There were some h-heckhounds, and m-my f-friend, he-, he-, he-...  And-, and-, and the heckhounds, they-, they-!"
Scrolldozer, earnestly paying attention, at last noticed the cuts and blood on his daughter's cheek.  Right away he looked about and saw that there was no sign of the cloaked pony who had gone to find her.  Together with her disjointed story, it troubled him deeply.
He gently stroked her cheek to see how bad her injury was (though Home Remedy would know better), and meanwhile he asked her, "... There were other hounds out there?"
"Y-Yeah," Bookworm sniffed.  "They-, they-...  I'm supposed to w-warn you that s-some heckhounds might be c-coming and-...  I m-mean, I heard some h-howling behind me j-just a bit ago and, and-!"
Surprising her, the father roped her with his leg and practically carried her with him.  They ran up along the river until they could see past the northern row of the buildings.

Three heckhounds came blazing by, tearing around the wide river bend, making straight for the stone bridge.

Scrolldozer quickly scanned up the river.
Hailstone still was angrily fussing with her cloud, though it appeared noticeably darker than before.  In the air a few pegasi could be seen scrambling about with buckets, ignorant of the incoming hounds.  Crumble Pie shouted again, in pain.
Everypony was too preoccupied.
He looked back at the bridge.  The explosive charges Crumble Pie had meant to rig the bridge with sat in a pile, unarmed; the job had been forgotten in the panic before the battle, and now there was no time.

Bookworm shuddered in her father's hold.

"Wait here," Scrolldozer said suddenly.
The filly blinked at the heretofore unknown brand authority his voice had gained.  It wasn't the voice of the pleading father who had scolded her many times before.

The three heckhounds charged up together onto the big stone bridge but came to a short stop when they saw, to their surprise, that the other end of the bridge had a lone pony barring the way.
Scrolldozer's hooves bounced nervously against the stone, but he stood his ground.  He cleared his throat.
"Excuse me, sirs!" he called to the hounds.  "I have to warn you against crossing the bridge!  It's in dire need of repairs!"
The odd demand had the hounds exchanging confused glances.  Not only was it the politest 'halt!' they had ever heard, but even beasts from the tortured underworld of Tartarus had an easy time seeing the sturdy, immaculate condition the bridge was in.  An army of rampaging heckhounds wouldn't have collapsed it with all their thundering weight.
Together the three hounds turned back towards the pony.  They brought forward their ears, and their hungry growls, and their glistening, bared teeth.  Shoulder-to-shoulder, they started to stalk across the bridge.
"Well," Scrolldozer shrugged as they reached the center, "can't say I didn't warn you."

Muscular light surged from the father's horn.  Great arms of color enveloped the whole bridge.  From end to end the stones shook, and the more the pony ground his teeth, the heavier the quake which filtered into the bridge.  Pebbles broke free and plopped into the river below.
The alarmed heckhounds stopped, then slowly started to back up.
But it was too late.  Scrolldozer's powerful magic began to rip whole stones out of the mortar, shredding the bridge.  The whole of the center collapsed apart.  Down showered the heavy stones and sprays of crumbling mortar, and the three whining heckhounds fell amidst it all.  Water splashed up as the river licked its lips, and it burped three plumes of smoke.

Stepping back from the broken bridge-end, Scrolldozer let out his fright through an exhausted sigh, and he wiped the lake of sweat from his forehead.  That may have been the largest mass of stones he had ever handled in his whole life.
When he turned around he found Bookworm standing at the base of the destroyed bridge, her still-teary eyes agog at him.  He couldn't tell for certain what she was seeing which made her stare like that, himself hardly recognizing the fact that he had just stood alone against three heckhounds to protect her.
The brave hero came down from the bridge, embraced her, and kissed her again.
Just one kiss, this time.

In the middle of their hug, from afar came a puny clap of thunder.  Distinctly Hailstone shouted something energetic and triumphant.  The father and daughter looked up to see the pegasus pushing into the sky a dark and stormy raincloud.
Beneath it water was pouring steadily in a normal, rainbow-inscribed sun shower.
The first heckhound didn't see it coming; the sudden bombardment fell over him and he started to smoke like a snuffed campfire.  In his terror he scrambled backwards and tripped right over the edge of the wall.  The other heckhounds heard his distinctive yelping as raindrops pierced him like falling knives, and the particular horribleness of his cry was something truly unique to listen to; they all instantly recognized it.  Tails folded, frothing dried up like arid lakebeds, and some of the heckhounds simply chose not to wait around for such a terrible fate; they turned and fled right away.  Of the ones who froze in fear, some caught bucketfuls of water from opportunist townsponies.  Others threw themselves from the wall when they saw the menacing raincloud flying their way.
After driving every heckhound from the wall, Hailstone gave chase to the fleeing pack.  She caught as many of them in the rain as she could while scaring them down the road.

Crumble Pie, locked in battle with a fierce heckhound in one instant, but then in the next suddenly standing alone with her scrapes and burns soothingly wet (with a hint of mead?), walked up to the parapet and looked out.
Every last heckhound was on the run.  Some were shriveled and shrunken, others not, but every one of them scampered away like puppies hiding from a window-shaking thunderstorm.
"We did it..."
"Crumble Pie...?" Mayor Desk Job came up near to her.  "Are you alright?"
"We did it!"
The strong, suffocating hug was a sure surprise for the mayor.  The two kisses to the cheek were also.
"We did it, we did it, we did it!" Crumble Pie only laughed and wept at the same time, repeating herself over and over again.  She swung the mayor about in her hug until finally she spun too hard and landed on the floor, taking the mayor down with her.
All across the wall, the happy townsponies started to cheer.

Scrolldozer squeezed.
"I love you, Bookworm."
"Dad...  My friend-...  T-The heckhounds, they-...  He-, he was supposed to be following me, and-..."
"... I'll go look for him," the father decided.  It was the least he could do.  However, he put his hooves on his daughters cheeks and looked her so close that his fresh tears mingled with hers.  "But I need you to stay here.  Please."
"But-"
"Please, Bookworm!"  He kissed her again.  "Please, please, please promise me you'll stay here where it's safe."
The filly had her default answer ready to go – the same grumpy and defiant answer she'd often used against him before – but this time, for some reason, it just wouldn't come out of her.
"... Okay," she replied at last, honest, open, and still tearful.  "I promise-"
Her breathed halted.  She looked down.  When she came back up, she changed her words.
"I'll stay here, Dad.  I will," she said, sadly but sincerely.
Again Scrolldozer kissed her, and he repeated, "I love you, Bookworm."
"I love you, Dad."





Hailstone flew in small circles, signaling her find to the others like a vulture.  Scrolldozer and Dr. Remedy tracked her from a distance, galloping along the river and eventually climbing terrace after terrace.  The pegasus landed near them when they at last caught up.

There before them laid Prideheart.
His cloak had been ripped off, nearly torn in two, and that was besides all the extra rips it had found.  It rested in a folded crumple at his side.  Broken bits of the clasp which had kept it anchored about his neck were spread everywhere.  The crystal leaf had been turned into a sparkling powder and spread into the wind.
The pony himself, naked, had all his wounds visible.  The new heckhounds who had stormed through had been plenty generous with their burns, cuts, and bites.  The earth under the pony's stiff body had taken on a reddened hue.

Dr. Remedy responded to the sight immediately and exactly as any professional of her caliber would have.  Before the others could blink she was at his side.
Scrolldozer and Hailstone waited quietly as the doctor tended to the fallen pony with her hooves first, then with her stethoscope.  The pegasus had a watchful eye out for any other diabolical heckhounds which might have been looking to ambush them, but Scrolldozer trusted his daughter's count enough to feel completely safe.  He noticed instead the abandoned explosive charge which sat on the ground a short distance away.
"Hailstone," he tapped his friend and gestured towards the bomb.  "Maybe you should take that charge to the old quarry.  Bookworm said there was some kind of crack there that all these things came from; she was on her way there to bury it."
"You think that'll work to stop them from coming back?" Hailstone asked.
"I don't know.  Maybe at least it'll hold them until whatever help Princess Celestia sends gets here and does something more permanent."
The pegasus hummed and then agreed.  She scooted over, recovered the charge, and draped it over herself.
"Be careful, Hailstone," Scrolldozer said.  "Bookworm said they're not dangerous once they're wet but-"
"Hey, they can't fly, right?" the confidant pegasus smirked.  "I'll be down-boom-back before you know it!"
She took off, flocking west.

Scrolldozer turned back to watch Dr. Remedy work, but he couldn't pay much attention to her.  His eyes wouldn't leave alone Prideheart's innumerable frightening wounds.


That could have been Bookworm.


"Doctor," he called, and he glanced back at the many terraces he had just climbed, "I know you're better qualified to judge this than I am, but maybe we shouldn't risk moving him over such rough terrain?  He looks really banged up, and we don't want to make it worse.  I don't know if we could safely carry—"
"Scrolldozer."
"—him down all those rocks.  I mean, maybe I shouldn't have sent Hailstone off.  I can run back and get some pegasi—"
"Scrolldozer."
"—to fly him to Stony Nook.  Don't you think that would be better for-"
"Scrolldozer!"

Home Remedy finally succeeded in nabbing the father's attention.
Slowly and without a word, the doctor stepped over to the mangled cloak and picked it up in her teeth.  Returning to Prideheart, she cast the cloak into the air like a bedsheet.  Because of its torn shape it drifted down with some twists and turns, but it landed and largely covered the fallen pony in his entirety, from his resting face to his curled tail.

The doctor lowered and shook her head.