//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: Death Rides a Pale Mare // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// Pale sat on her bed, reading through another of the guild’s collected books. In many ways, she’d gotten more of an education in the past few weeks than ever before. Pale knew her job, but academics didn’t come easily. Dense textbooks or journals written in shorthand weren’t doing her any favors. Neither was her posture. Pale sighed and got up to stretch from where she had been hunched over the book. There was barely room to turn around in her quarters, particularly as it was currently piled with books. At least she hadn’t had very many things already inside. The bed. A spare cloak or two. Pale did not need or want many things. The antique sabre she’d taken from the guardspony Halberd hung from the same peg as her other cloak, hidden behind the fabric. She’d snatched it from the scene on the spur of the moment to feign a robbery. The only other thing was a torn scrap of cloth with a brass button sewn to it. Pale kept very few things, and most of them she wore at all times. But she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of the button that had supposedly belonged to her father. It wasn’t anything valuable, perhaps not even sentimentally, but something about it attracted her like a magnet and only seemed to get stronger the longer she’d had it. Pale looked at the button for a moment before lying back down to return to her reading. The guild did not have an established history. Nopony had ever decided to write it down. Pale knew Piper had not been the first leader, and most probably not even the second or third. Clues she’d found in the reading indicated a history of at least a few hundred years. With evidence of the cyclops added, that would indicate the guild had grown in parallel with the Blight. Though, Pale supposed, with no recorded history, anything could have been possible. There was a tap on the door. As heavy as the knock was, it could only be Hammer. Pale got up and opened the door. “It’s been awhile since your blades have been rehoned,” he said. Pale nodded. “I’ve been distracted.” Hammer nodded, but didn’t pursue the subject. Maybe diving deeper into his work was his own way of coping. He tilted his head. “Come down to the forge.” Pale decided to take a break from the books and followed him. In the furnace room, Hammer stepped up to the forge and blew it hotter with his breath. Pale gave him her blades. There was a sound of hurried steps out in the corridor. Coin burst into the chamber, carrying a newspaper along with her. “Pale, there you are! I guess you weren’t affected.” “Affected by what?” Coin showed her the paper. The front page had a picture of a smiling creature that Pale realized after a moment was some variant of a changeling. Even from the black and white picture, it was easy to tell he wasn’t the standard monotone color of the average changeling. The caption read: Thorax, new changeling leader, gives exclusive interview. Queen Chrysalis nowhere to be found. “Apparently the changelings tried to kidnap Princess Twilight and her friends, but some ponies found out and stopped them,” said Coin, reading from the newspaper. “There isn’t a great explanation of the magic involved here, but apparently it turned the changelings bright colors. I just thought...since you…” She gestured. “I haven’t felt a thing,” said Pale honestly. And good riddance to Chrysalis. “Well, I suppose that answers my question.” Coin folded the newspaper and tossed it into the furnace. “Are you working on something here?” “Just a little basic blade care,” Hammer replied, beginning to work on Pale’s knives with his tools. “It’s been awhile, but I haven’t even used them that much,” said Pale. “It’s been harder to find twitchers.” Coin nodded seriously. “We have cut into their numbers, but I’m worried that they’re building up again. We can probably keep them in check, but we’ll need some way of locating them to get ahead of the Blight’s infection cycle.” Pale nodded. Like a parasprite system to see all around Equestria. How did the guild function before Piper? Was parasprite control always part of the guild’s repertoire? It would have been beneficial if there had been instructions in the notes they’d been poring through. Pale cocked her head. She thought she heard something over the sounds of Hammer’s tools. She nudged him and he looked at her, pausing his work. “What?” In the silence, the three of them all heard it. There was an echo from down in the cave, the sound of movement, many sounds incoherent from each other, but growing louder. Pale stepped out into the corridor and stared into the darkness down the tunnel that sloped deeper. The guild didn’t have any inhabited chambers beyond, and the corridor was not lit any further. Across from Hammer’s forge, Mirror stuck her head out of her room. “What is that?” She joined them, Handsome also coming out of the room. Hammer leaned around the doorframe and grabbed the lantern from his room. He held it up, throwing light down the tunnel. It was hard to tell what they were looking at. A dark-colored mass resolved into individual bodies, a line of them marching closer out of the depths of the cave. The creatures had shaggy fur, hindquarters like a goat, and an upper body that resembled a gorilla. The walked on their knuckles, claws curled under. They each had a pair of horns on their head wrapped in gold bands, to match the shine of jewelry woven into their fur. Swords and spears were carried with them, the metal worked expertly into deadly shapes. The lamplight shone in their eyes. Each of the creatures had only one. The realization hit all of them at the same time. Hammer reflexively hurled the lantern towards the cyclops. The narrow corridor prevented any maneuvering, so when the glass shattered and the oil caught fire, several of the cyclops caught with it. But with the scream of dozens of voices, the rest charged forward. A spear came flying towards the defenders. It was going to miss Pale, but Coin was right next to her. She threw a hoof out, shoving Coin to the side. The spear nicked across Pale’s foreleg. Coin may have been slow to react, but she caught the spear in her magic and tossed it to Pale, who hurled it back towards its previous owner. It penetrated into the cyclops’ chest and he fell. But he was only one, the rest kept coming. Pale’s knives were in the forge. She didn’t know if she could grab the blades before the wave of cyclops crashed over the guild. Even if she could, the cyclops were armed and outnumbered them by far. “Get back!” Pale shouted over her shoulder, taking a stance beside Hammer, who had already batted aside a few spears. He was a large target, but his scales protected him well. The two of them met the enemies head on. Blades came at Pale as if she’d disturbed a hornets’ nest. Swords, spears, daggers, and blunt objects besides. She yanked a spear out of a cyclops’ grip and reversed it, running the cyclops through before pivoting to crack another across the eye with the shaft. He went down clutching his face as she switched to the next closest enemy. Ducking a sword, Pale broke the point of the spear off in his chest. She jumped back to avoid another attack and punched a cyclops in the face. The large eye was a clear vulnerability, but that didn’t make them pushovers. She almost lost her head to another sword swing. Disarming the owner, she showed him what he should have done instead. Turning, she blocked another enemy headed towards Hammer, who was already bleeding. He was far from out of the fight, but the cyclops steel had found a way through his skin. Coin was shooting magic, but she was no offensive spellcaster. It helped keep the cyclops back, though, letting Pale take advantage. She crossed swords with a cyclops and then ducked under his blade, gouging his chest. Her speed advantage didn’t give her too much advantage from the straight shortsword she’d purloined, but at least it was light and strong. That worked against her, though, as it was knocked from her grasp by a crashing cudgel from another cyclops. Pale hit him with her hoof while he was still swinging and pulled the knife from his belt, cutting his throat. She turned. Coin was backing up, unable to hold position. Hammer was bleeding in several places. Mirror and Handsome were to the side, guarding Coin’s flank but not in a good position. Despite their dead, the cyclops kept pushing. Pale sustained a shallow cut across her chest in exchange for downing another of their number, but she too was being forced backwards. She tried to consolidate her position with the others, enforcing a line across the corridor. Hammer was the anchor and hadn’t moved, but even as Pale watched he was stabbed again before dealing with his closest foe. Cyclops surged around him, spilling into battle with Handsome. He got the first one with his knife, but another came at his side. The unarmed Mirror leaped forward, jumping in front of a sword to protect her protégé. The blade stabbed through her heart, blood spilling as she sagged forward, still shielding Handsome with her body. The cyclops on the other end of of the sword didn’t even have time to draw back before Handsome jerked forward, slamming his knife into the cyclops’ eye. His momentum carried him along with, landing on top the cyclops and throwing him directly towards another. The slash of a sword actually lifted Handsome backwards with as much force as it struck him, leaving the side of his head nothing but blood. Pale jerked him backwards by his collar, practically throwing him at Coin. “Take him!” She leapt forward again. The cyclops had gotten past the initial line of their own dead and were still pushing forwards. Hammer was surrounded now. Pale tried to fight her way through the crowd of enemies to reach him, but was hit forcefully in the gut and knocked backwards. She landed on her back and kicked her hind legs at cyclops who attacked. One swung a battle hammer at her head, which Pale jerked to the side to avoid. It instead smashed her ear to the cave floor. The pain was brief - it was only skin. Pale sprang up and buried the knife she still held in the closest cyclops. She looked to Hammer again, who batted away another cyclops, but met her eyes. There was blood running down his lips now and out of a dozen places on his body. Pale ducked another cyclops and glanced back. Coin was practically carrying Handsome away. Cyclops were noticing too. Pale engaged another cyclops, pulling the fight back towards her. What else could she do? She saw Hammer take another wound, a sword that slid under his scales and between his ribs. He jerked, his movements sluggish. His head tipped back. He stretched, reaching up to the ceiling even as cyclops converged on him. He wrapped his claws around a stalactite and ripped it loose, putting his weight on it. The falling rock crushed a cyclops under it, but Hammer lifted it again. With the last of his strength, he thrust it upward, back to the roof of the cave. With a thunderous crash, the rocks split and the ceiling came down. A hoof-sized rock bounced off Pale’s forehead. She twisted away from the fight, but another cyclops stood in her way. There was no time to run. The rocks plunged down on them all, burying Hammer, the cyclops, and Pale. The roar of tons of stone rained all around, filling the tunnel. As Pale was crushed to the floor, she saw Coin looking back, but willed her to keep going. Then, everything went dark.