//------------------------------// // Chapter 35: On Cursed Land, She Makes Her Stand // Story: Fools and Drunks // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// Grey Hoof descended upon them. He seemed more than a stallion; more even than a Wraith. He was a solid mass of darkness, from which even more darkness radiated. Ebon energies emanated from his brow like a horn, and planes of shadow spread out from his shoulders like nightmare wings. His dark mane streamed back from him, trailing impossibly far: within it winked the many hateful yellow eyes of the Curse. With the coming of the Master-Wraith came a wave of cold and fearful suffocation. It washed over Glittershell, and she trembled and curled up into a ball as its vile energies licked obscenely at her from all directions. She saw a brief image of a cruelly twisted crystalline tower, from whose vertices winked more of the hateful yellow eyes, and she feared greatly, without knowing why, that those eyes might become fixed upon herself. Then came a clear ringing chime and a flash of blue light, and in that radiance Glittershell beheld Zecora, striking the base of her staff against the ground; a warm and scent of clean air rushed forth from the Zebra, to dispel the Master-Wraith's chill suffocation. Briefly, Glittershell saw in her mind the image of the Crystal Tree, which was as benign and cheering as the crystal spire of winking yellow eyes had been malign and terryfing. Grey Hoof fell upon Zecora as a Pony-shaped darker core within a wider zone of shifting shadows. He reared, and although Zecora was tall, Grey Hoof somehow swelled so that he towered over her as if she were but a little filly. He struck out with his forehooves, each hoof blazng with ebon light, and the zone of shade around him lashed out with his motions, concentrating and forming itself into cruel shadow spears. Zecora wielded her staff, blocking and parrying the blows. As she did so, her sacred blue radiance formed a field, which flared with power as it deflected and dispersed Grey Hoof's strikes. Stymied, the Master-Wraith snarled and circled her, attacking from different angles. Zecora pivoted, and continue to parry his strikes, moving with a clear economy of effort, something Glittershell recognized from dance lessons. At times, in the flashes of light, Glittershell could clearly see her face: the Zebra seeming calm, despite the desperate duel she was fighting against such a dreadful foe. Grey Hoof changed his tactics, attempting rushes against Apple Bloom and the three fallen Ponies. Zecora anticipated these attacks, meeting each with graceful sidesteps and quick motions of her shining staff: blocking, parrying, and sometimes jabbing in a counter-strike. When she jabbed, the blue light of her power formed into a spike, stabbing into the substance of the Wraith. When that happened, Grey Hoof roared and flinched back, ectoplasm seeping from the wounds Zecora's light pierced into the substance of his ethereal form. A living equine would have fallen from such injuries; even the undead Grey Hoof was clearly harmed by them. He could not penetrate Zecora's defense. While all this happened, Glittershell struggled back onto her hooves, assisted by Snips, who let her use him as a prop on which to rise. The normally-sturdy short blue stallion uncharacteristically trembled under the weight of his best friend. "Unnf," Snips grunted. "Yer puttin' on ... some pounds, Snailsy." He grinned at Glittershell. Glittershell grinned back. Snips' smile was a rush of warmth in what was right now otherwise a very cold and hostile world. "Too much food," replied Glittershell, winking broadly. "I'm stuffed! I cannot eat another bite!" As she said this, she suddenl realized how very hungry she was: she did not remember ever having been hungrier in her whole life. Snips blinked in confusion; then chuckled as he got the joke. "Oh yes, pal-o'-mine, I'm full -- of this stinky old town!" They both laughed. Glittershell looked around, and saw Ermine Lightning, still down but now right-side-up, trying gamely to get to her hooves "We should help her," Glittershell said, indicating the young moonshiner. Snips nodded. Wobbling on unsteady legs, they made their way to their downed companion. Every breath was painful; every step required an effort of will. Every part of her body cried out for rest -- for sleep. It would be so easy to just sink back down on her belly and close her weary eyes ... But no. If she did that, here, she would be helpless. She might never wake again -- not alive. Besides -- she looked ahead at Ermine and to her side at Snips, both of whom appeared to be at least as exhausted as herself -- her friends were counting on her. She could not let them down. They reached Ermine. She looked sadly up at Glittershell. "Ah'm ... sorry ..." she wheezed, in a labored breathy manner shockingly unlike her normal frentic tone. "Ah warn't ... fast enough. She was ... faster'n lightning. Faster'n ... me." The last came out wonderingly, as if it were something she hadn't thought possible, before now. "Ah ... couldn't protect ... you." "You don't ... have to," said Glittershell, reaching down under Ermie's left foreleg to help her stand. "I'm grateful you ... helped ... they would've ... got me ... but you don't have to ... help me." Ermine sighed. She looked dreamily into Glittershell's eyes, and said "But Ah'm ... s'posed to ... you're mah ... cutie-colt." Ermie paid little attention to Snips, who, as she said this, got under her right side and lifted her simply by standing up beneath her. "I think you ... deserve to know this," Glittershell said very earnestly to Ermine. "Miss Ermine ... I really appreciate your help and ... and I do like you ... as a friend ... but I'm not your coltfriend." The effort of composing and speaking such a long and rather polite declaration fair winded her, and she staggered a bit. Ermine's big violet eyes welled with incipent tears. "You ... you don't like me?" she asked tremulously. "No!" said Glittershell. "I mean yes, I do like you, but I'm not ... I just met you yesterday!" "Then you could like me that way?" Ermine asked, raising her head and ears hopefully. "I ... I ... um, it's hard to explain ..." "Ahem," interjected Applebloom, sounding irritated. Glittershell glanced up to see the Cutie Mark Crusader, splattered with various unpleasant fluids from her fights with the thralls, but otherwise apparently unheard, looking at him. No, glaring at him in disbelief would be a more accurate description of the expression on her yellow-coated red-haired face. ""Ah hate to break up this sweet lil' ol' Hearts and Hooves Day romantic play," she said in a decidedly sarcastic tone, "but, as you two lovebirds may have forgotten?" She pointed a hoof at Zecora and Grey Hoof. As they watched, the Zebra sidestepped a spear of ebon energy to counter with a bolt of blue radiance from her staff. The bolt struck Grey Hoof directly in the chest, rocking the Master-Wraith staggering back, to fall down almost to his heels. Shrieking with inequine rage, the demonic Pony leaped back up to resume the fight. "Oh ..." said Glittershell. "Yes." She turned back toward Ermine, who gaped in horrified fascination at the epic battle between Good and Evil. "Maybe later?" asked Glittershell. Ermine nodded wordlessly. "Good," said Apple Bloom. "Now, Ah got an idea how we kin get out'a this town. She reached into her saddle-bags; withdrew a length of rope. "Ah reckon this'll reach the top of the wall with somethin' to spare." She took the mace she been fighting with, and tied it to the end. "Ah'm gonna buck this up there," she pointed to the top of the gate, and you two Unicorns kin wedge it into place with yer horns. See?" Glittershell and Snips thought a bit. "Oh, like a puppet!" realized Snips. A moment later, Glittershell got it too. "Or a grappling-hook!" she added. "Yes!" cried Apple Bloom with relief. "Ex-act-lee like that! Then we all climb the rope an' holler fer Zecora an' get the Tar-tar-us out ta this Light-fersaken place!" Hope ignited in the young Ponies' hearts. They half- ran, half-stumbled to the town gate, and prepared to take their first shot at it. Apple Bloom gripped the rope end in her mouth, while Snips and Glittershell stood at the ready to catch it in their auras as soon as Bloomie kicked the end with the mace high enough for them to catch and properly position without wasting a lot of magic first lofting it. A really strong and skilled Unicorn, such as Rarity Belle, could have done all this without Apple Bloom's help, but such a Unicorn wasn't here. Snips and Glittershell, exhausted as they were from their repeated encounters with the Wraiths, were all that were available. The first try, Apple Bloom bucked it short and high, and both Unicorns flubbed the catch. "I am sorry," Glittershell said. "I am usually very good at catching." "Never you mind," Apple Bloom said calmly. "Ah messed that one up too. Let's try it again. " The second buck was right on target: over and above the top of the gate. Snips clutched at it but pulled too hard; he sent the mace flipping back over the gate. Snips quickly let go of it, but the metal head was already about to tumble down on the near side of the gate, spoiling the try. Glittershell desperately stretched out with her own aura and just managed to catch the mace, before it fell back down. Immediately, sweat started from her brow, and her whole form tensed with the effort of telekinesis. Normally, this would have been easy, but she felt as if her magic had been utterly drained. With a supreme push, she shoved the mace over the top of the gate. "Good!" cried Apple Bloom. "Now, feel 'round and see if y'all kin wedge the mace in a projecting beam -- mebbe wrap the rope 'round it. We'll need to get it lodged good and firm to hold our weight." The Unicorns reached out again with their auras. Blind levitation was a common game of technique among Unicorns; one at which Glittershell did well. Now, the game was in deadly earnest, and Glittershell could not let her exhaustion stand in the way of winning. On the other side of the gate, the mace wobbled back and forth. Snips bore most of the weight, while Glittershell provided guidance. At one point they panicked, and the mace went skittering up almost to the brink of the gate top, before the two Unicorns caught it. "We better not mess up like that again!" gasped Snips, face pale with fear. He glanced back at the battle between Zecora and Grey Hoof, and the others followed his gaze. Grey Hoof was maneuvering; withdrawing and darting back in, clearly hoping to get around Zecora and strike at the four young Ponies she was protecting. Each time he tried, Zecora sidestepped and blocked him with swift motions of her staff, interposing her blessed blue energies into the path of the Wraith. So far, Zecora's defense was proving successful -- but she was plainly tiring. Her sides were heaving, her coat sweat-lathered. Looking at her, it occurred to Glittershell that the Zebra could keep up her fight only for so long. Snips and Glittershell reached out telekinetically and worked Apple Bloom's makeshift grapnel with a will, probing for a lodgement as if their very lives depended upon it -- because they very likely did. They rattled and jabbed and hooked with the mace, until they were rewarded by solid resistance to Apple Bloom's tug on the rope. "We done it!" crowed Snips. "Now let's climb this thing and get the heck outta here!" "Yeah!" agreed Glittershell. Seeing Ermine's unsteadiness, Glittershell reached out and grabbed her, hoisting her onto her own back. Ermine eeped. "Sorry," said Glittershell. "Ah'm ... not complainin'," squeaked Ermine. "Jist took by s'prise." She hugged Glittershell's neck and barrel -- the better, Glittershell told herself, to hang on. Though the happy little sigh Ermine emitted as she did so was certainly unnecessary, and more than a little bit embarrassing. "Zecora!" shouted Apple Bloom. "We've got a way out! Come out with us!" Glittershell saw that Zecora was very hard-pressed. Somehow, the Master-Wraith had swollen to billow over the Zebra like a dark thundercloud, from which superior position he rained down hoof-strikes like lightning-bolts upon Zecora. The shaman, for her part, fought back with her staff, parrying these attacks, but was clearly now on the complete defensive. As they watched, Grey Hoof launched a furious attack that Zecora, now obviously on her last legs, struggled to meet. She could spare no motion to make a fighting retreat; a moment's inattention and she would be doomed. Then, as Apple Bloom stood frozen in an agony of indecision, Grey Hoof somehow gathered up the shadow-stuff streaming from his mane, making himself in some way denser, and struck a mighty blow. Zecora blocked instead of side-stepping, and with a flash of combined blue and un-light the Master-Wraith smote her staff asunder! The Wraith's hoof continued through to strike the Zebra on the side of her head. Zecora made a brief cry; then fell, stunned, and bleeding from her head. Grey Hoof shouted in triumph: a terrifying sound that partook of both rumble and shriek, in some manner utterly impossible for any normal equine throat to emit. Glittershell could find no adequate term to describe this vocalization: it was more like the cry of some great predatory beast than of a Pony. The sound was physically painful; Glittershell instinctively folded back her ears, and saw that her companions did the same. As they all watched in horror, Grey Hoof shrunk back down to his normal stature, and bent over his victim. "You were are a worthy foe, both brave and a wielder of real power," he told her in a more normal voice. " You shall become my mightiest thrall." Grey Hoof reached toward her with one hoof, plainly, about to either slay her on the spot, or make her an unwilling guest at his macabre celebration. Zecora's doom seemed certain.