Tirek closed his eyes and shook his head, panting. There was very little room in which to breathe. Albeit slowly, smoke still curled up from below, above which it was an effort to stay. Sunset’s pace had also slowed, which wasn’t helping.
‘Get a move on!’ hissed Trixie.
‘Give me a moment!’ snarled Sunset.
A moment later, Sunset resumed the climb. They’d been on the ascent for hours. Tirek’s back, neck, legs and arms ached horribly. Nonetheless, he pressed himself against the shaft’s dirty, narrow walls, slid higher and bumped into Trixie’s backside.
‘Hey!’ squeaked Trixie.
‘Well, it isn’t my fault! What are you stopping for?’
‘Quiet!’ snapped Sunset.
There was a pause.
‘We’ve reached the top,’ she breathed.
‘We have?’ Trixie’s voice quivered eagerly.
‘Listen.’
There was a dull, metallic clang. Tirek’s heart skipped a beat. Sunset stopped tapping against the grate.
‘It’s bolted shut.’
‘Get back into position! Bring out the new weapons!’ snarled Celestia, blasting a rebel with her horn. He flew backwards in the air and landed dead-centre on a pike. It went straight through. The rebel tried to speak but couldn’t, blood trickling from his mouth like drool. A sad end, to be sure. But Celestia couldn’t afford to pay respects, for three more took his place, brandishing rakes and hoes and screaming abuse.
‘Gah!’ she cried as the hoe connected with her flank. Her horn flashed and the rebels crumpled, unconscious.
‘Sister, look out!’
The warning came just in time. Celestia rolled under the blow and knocked the rebel off balance with a well-aimed kick. Luna’s horn crackled and he collapsed, clutching his chest.
The valley was overrun, but not for much longer. Celestia signalled to Fyrien on the hilltop, who nodded. The new weapons were being trundled out.
It was only a matter of time.
‘Come on! Come on! Break it!’
Sunset roared and bucked with all her might. The grate came loose and daylight spilled into the shaft.
‘Yes!’ breathed Tirek, hardly daring to believe it. ‘Yes! Yes!’
They clambered out, each of them gulping deep breaths of fresh, clean air.
‘We made it!’ said Trixie, and she laughed. ‘We actually made it!’
They were in a large meadow, complete with bridge and stream and colourful little flowers flickering in the breeze. Tirek had never seen its like before, but fell in love with it at once. After years underground, he supposed, anything above was worth falling in love with. Perhaps the other two were thinking along the same lines, for they too gazed at the sight in silence, a thoughtful crease to their faces.
And then Tirek frowned. A smell was in the air – very light, very faint, but familiar.
‘I’m going to take a closer look,’ he announced, wandering down towards the brook.
And sure enough, it was confirmed. What he’d thought to be water was, in fact, tonic. Granny Fanny’s Cold-Fire Brewed Filly-Delphian Tonic Water. A stream of it, in the middle of nowhere.
‘Well,’ he muttered to himself. ‘That’s . . . odd.’
Luna parried a clumsy blow with her horn and then, shouting, brought her hoof down on the offending rebel’s head. His eyes followed its progress and shut sharply upon impact. He keeled over, shovel and all, into the mud.
Celestia was backed up against a wall of her own soldiers, her horn flashing on and off as rebels fell to the ground in droves. Yet still they came, and Celestia was struggling to stem the flow. Luna’s insides squirmed.
‘Protect Her Highness!’ she screamed, and a row of levies moved in, roaring.
‘Gah!’ squealed Celestia as a pike raked her front. Blood flowed as she fell. Luna fought her way towards her, a horrible sinking feeling in her gut.
‘I’ve got you!’ said Luna, clambering over a lifeless body and down to where her sister lay. ‘I’ve got you!’
‘Luna . . .’ Celestia glanced down, then back, her face full of fear.
Tirek didn’t know what compelled him, only that something had. He plunged into the tonic river and drank deep, its familiar kick scratching the insides of his throat. He blinked, wondering why the water looked so strange. Then he remembered it wasn’t water. Then he forgot. He shook his head, then realised he’d slipped under. A few bubbles of air escaped his mouth. His eyes rolled.
He floated downstream.
And emerged suddenly on – a battlefield. On which both Luna and Celestia were strewn.
‘Tirek,’ said Luna, her face covered in tears. ‘Help me.’
On account of her line of work (and the occasional hospital visit), Celestia had seen a wound or two in her time and knew at once this case was hopeless. The pike had pierced her deep, and no matter what was done, magical, medical or otherwise, she was as good as dead. She felt a laugh die in her throat. The irony was overwhelming – in fact, it was all she could think about, what with Tirek’s sudden appearance from nowhere. She’d tried so hard to live – and yet here she was, dying. And he, whom she had in effect condemned to death, was alive.
‘Truly,’ she coughed, chest shuddering, ‘life’s biggest irony is it always ends in death. There you are. So far as final words go –’ She coughed again. ‘A fitting end, wouldn’t you say?’
Luna was crying.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’
‘It is done already.’
Her eyes sought Tirek’s.
‘Well, Tirek, it’s been fun. Things haven’t gone quite as planned, but – well, when did they? Still, I’ve enjoyed our time together. Remember that, won’t you?’
He nodded, face pale. She closed her eyes and sighed.
‘All in all,’ said Cadence, hiccoughing, ‘one of our stranger days. But I guess it turned out all right, no?’
Tirek grinned. Celestia grinned, a bandage round her chest. Luna grinned, snatched up a bottle of Granny Fanny’s tonic and served. All four raised their tankards, toasted and drank.
‘Mmm,’ said Celestia, wiping her mouth. ‘Fantastic.’
‘Even more so, considering its properties saved your life,’ said Tirek, chuckling. ‘I guess the black-market-magic inside isn’t so black now!’
‘Indeed not.’
There was a pause.
‘Of course,’ said Celestia eventually, ‘you cannot be allowed to roam free, Tirek. You will return to your cell in Tartarus – and no more tonic. You win, Luna.’
But Luna smiled and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Heh.’
Tirek sighed.
‘Cheer up,’ said Cadence. ‘You can help me flog the prisoners before returning! Right, Tia? Come on, it’ll be fun!’
‘No, no,’ said Celestia. ‘I’m afraid it’s straight back to clink, as they say.’
Luna frowned. ‘This is weird again. It doesn’t feel – right. All that . . . for this? Sitting here, drinking tonic? All those days just to wind up here, outside the castle, on the wall, drinking?’
Celestia chuckled.
‘True. All for nothing,’ she said. ‘And yet to me it feels like something. And isn’t that just the greatest ending?’
‘No,’ said the others in unison, and Celestia laughed with them.