"This is ridiculous, you can't expect us to let you do this!"
Marina watched with a smile as the other stallions struggled to hold themselves together. With Chevron, one of the Riverfork council members that Spectra stored away in the hive, they were more disjointed than ever. The hunter-drone masquerading as Chevron offered little help, simply sitting with a puzzled look on his face as if he was in deep deliberation with himself.
Gentry, she remembered him. Princess Spectra had targeted him as an important figure they could control during her first hunt. He was as skilled a politician as the true Chevron, and he could've possed as a real threat if his daughter hadn't been compromised by another drone.
Marina let the Marblestop leaders take the reigns, resigning herself to watch from the sidelines. She wondered where Spectra was right now, whether she had been killed by Majesta or had already taken her place as the heir to the hive. Either way, as a lieutenant, Marina still had a duty to the hive.
"Your markets are overrun, merchants have no space, and the limitations on Marblestop engineering prevent us from refining your architecture to fix all its problems." The governor of Marblestop, Seiris, waved a hoof out at the doors of the meeting hall. He gestured to the outside world. "Only we know how to make a town like this rich."
Gentry wore a grim face as he turned to Reiter and his father, Cedar Pine. They had managed to gather all the council members here under the guise of an emergency meeting.
"You lied to us? We put you where you are, and you lied to us?"
"You promised to make Riverfork rich, Gentry," Cedar dismissed the stallion's anger. "It's been almost a year since Marblestop fell to ruins. Barges from the north are being laden with goods to trade with us, but you've barely changed the town ever since then. I run a carriage service, Gentry. If there's no space for ponies to come here, then there's no way for me to earn the money you promised."
"Promises are just words," Chevron bellowed, using his low voice to his advantage in the large chamber. "Your words are no better than ours, why should we believe your Marblestop architects can do anything for us?"
The challenge came as a ploy. He may have sounded arrogant, but the Espera simply smiled at the opportunity to respond and state her case more strongly.
"Dragon fire cannot burn marble, for one thing," she said. "On top of that, our home village is very much standing, despite everything that has happened to it. We've sent spies as merchants from other villages, and they all report that there are still ponies living in Marblestop, debt-slaves who survived the Changeling attacked somehow. We build things to last."
Another council member scoffed. "Or those were Changelings, who attacked your spies and took their form."
Again, the Espera mocked the Riverfork council with her knowing smirk. "Spycraft is a rare and intricate skill, council member Skimmer. I have ways to tell when a Changeling is among my followers."
Marina doubted the true efficacy of her claim, but that was an interesting fact she needed to be aware of. Both sides threw words back and forth. Cedar and Reiter had bought the guards, ensuring the meeting would last the whole day if it needed to. Seizing control by violence was too simple, too risky of incurring an uprising later. It was an option, of course, but Seiris and Marina both agreed they wanted to execute this peacefully.
Finally, Chevron placed his second cue. "So you'd have us serve you?"
Seiris laughed, it was in a way that showed genuine emotion without leaving a trace of magic in the air. "You won't be impoverished if that's what you mean. No, I'd rather think you'd make a terrible waiter."
Chevron scowled back, but he listened. His authority held the others in line just long enough for Seiris to continue.
"Commander Iridi should take charge of the militia, of course, but I don't expect to run Riverfork alone. My fellow ponies are brilliant crafters, but we don't sow many crops, and merchants still know your names more readily than they do the exiled governor of Marblestop."
"You'd use us for our connections," Gentry grumbled and crossed his hooves.
"Isn't that what you already do to each other? The difference is, as long as you let my cabinet make the calls, your advice can buy you all the wealth and power that follow you in your dreams."
Gentry rose from his seat. "We don't threaten each other with locked doors and guards."
"Then, by all means, council member," Seris gestured to the door, "leave your council. But don't expect to be allowed back in."
As she goaded the council member, the door cracked open, and a single file line of militia guards entered the room and marched around along the sides of the walls. They encircled the council room with twenty armed guards, each wearing thick linen robes of Marblestop fashion and brandishing gleaming spears made from river-iron.
"This isn't a threat, but a demonstration," Seiris tried convincing the council, "of the security we can offer Riverfork. Marblestop's militia is better trained and better equipped. If we combined our skills with the increasingly overpopulated streets of this town, we would have a true army. One with good leaders, clear logistics, and a single identity to fight for. No other city, on the river or beyond, can boast that."
Gentry stood up before Seiris could say any more and turned to his fellow Riverforkers. "I won't be coerced at spear-point. If any of you have any sense, you'll leave with me. Marblestop died under their watch. Changelings could never have done that to our great town."
"It was a village back then," Chevron replied, glancing over at the others members. "Now we're bigger, and I don't think the Changelings haven't noticed either."
In a huff Gentry descended from his seat and stormed by the Marblestop guards. His hooves clomped along the floor until he reached Voxa.
"You're not as powerful as you think you are," he whispered in her ear. "After this, you better retreat, go back to your temple, because I'll have plans for you."
She scowled and shoved the stallion back. "As if I'd be scared of a pitiful pony like you. Go on and run. You'll never lay a hoof on me."
Gentry stepped back and glanced around at all the soldiers, each one tightening his hooves around his spear. When it came to a mare, especially one that looked like Voxa, there was no doubt each guard would spring at a chance to save her. Without another word, he trotted around Seiris and Voxa and exit the hall.
"He just might be the bravest one of us," Chevron mused and then turned his head to the other council members. "Nevertheless, I like living. Perhaps we should give their proposition more consideration."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With or without political power, each council member was still a wealthy member of Riverfork's merchant or banking class. Gentry's homestead, situated on a small mound just outside of the town, had the resources to become a fortification. Riverfork guards, loyal Riverfork guards, encircled his house. They placed barricades around his home, and checkpoints along the stone path that stretched to his front door.
"Dunno if he'll want to see me," Lunti told Marina.
They stood a safe distance away, watching the coming and going of guards from a copse of trees by the road. Sneaking in wasn't the option to go for. Even if they could kidnap and replace a few guards, it was too risky. The wrong step, name, or passcode could expose them. So it was fortunate that Lunti, this Lunti, was another one of Spectra's drones.
"You might have done your job too well," Marina said. "You separated Lunti from every friend and family she had. But Gentry is her father. Fathers are willing to forgive a lot for their daughters."
"Alright, Lieutenant," Lunti sighed, reluctantly stepping out onto the road, "if I die, it's on you."
Lunti approached the stone path cautiously. Though Gentry was her father, he had kept her out of the public eye for a long time. Even so, a few guards recognized her beige coat and magenta mane as soon as she approached.
"What're you doing here, miss?" One of the guards hurriedly swung open the gates of the first barricade.
"I have the right to see my father," she answered. "Rumours about Marblestop's treachery are all over the streets of the markets. He'll need my help if he wants to keep his control."
"You?" The guard almost cracked a smile, but a scowl from Lunti stopped him short.
"Yes, me," she snapped. "I built myself up without him, and now he'll need the friends I've made. Ironmarsh mercenaries, for example."
The guard looked back to his two comrades at the post. They both returned looks of equal confusion and shrugged. After seconds of hesitation, the guard relented and moved out of the way, leaving the gate open for Lunti to pass.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gentry couldn't believe his luck when she told him. He wanted to yell at her, she was still his daughter and had a lot to answer for, but this was a start.
"How in Equestria did you get Ironmarsh mercenaries?"
Almost a year ago, Riverfork lost Marblestop as its main source of iron ore. Since then, without their homeland, even Marblestop smiths had to resort to buying ore from Ironmarsh whenever traders sailed into town. With their rich iron sources, it wasn't hard for ponies to find quality arms and armour for mercenary business.
"The question is whether you're ready to use them," Lunti replied, tentatively stepping into her father's study, where he could see the main road from its window. "You'll be throwing Riverfork into a civil war. You could turn it to ruins like Marblestop."
"Everything this town is, I made happen," he growled, barely looking away from his window. "I don't trust those ponies. They'll use us up and throw everything we own into reclaiming their land, I know it."
"Didn't stop the council from agreeing to cooperate with them," Lunti reminded him. "Word's already spreading-"
"Yes, I know what ponies are saying about me!" Gentry snapped his neck around and barked at his daughter. "And now my daughter, who sold her dignity away to my largest political rival, thinks she can save everything I've tried to build."
Lunti stepped back, tripping over her hooves. She checked her back, making sure she fell into the door to the study and slammed it shut. "If you built it up so well, how come Marblestop makes it seem like they can do so much better?"
Gentry bought the bait and closed in on his daughter. "You don't know how hard it's been to-"
The hunter-drone flashed his teeth at Gentry. The Changeling almost burst out of his skin, searing away flesh with a green surge of magic. The ivory-white fangs in his jaws, each hooked and sharp like a crescent moon, dug into the stunned father's neck.
He gurgled, more and more crimson ink spilling onto the hardwood floor. The pine bookcases and smooth, lacquered desk that made Gentry look like a learned pony painted themselves into horror poems. Splatters of rust-red paint plastered the room with the scene of a hunter-drone's success.
"Wish I could let you know how annoying you are," the drone muttered, licking his carapace clean of blood. "Your daughter would've left you, even if I wasn't the one playing the role. Who wants to listen to a pony who sticks his hoof into everyone's business before retreating into some unlit office?"
The hunter-drone kicked Gentry's flaccid head hanging from his body by a thread. "Boring old stallion. Riverfork should thank Princess Spectra for putting me here so I could free them from you."
Marina called out to the hunter-drone, sending clicks and croaks in the Changeling's native speech that pitched too high for ponies to hear. "Stop taunting a corpse. I'm flying overhead as a falcon and I can hear you muttering."
"Alright," he obeyed, "job's done."
"One job anyway," Marina said. "Just smelled another one fly by."
The drone stretched out his wings into feathered appendages, taking the likeness of an eagle. "What else is there?"
The grin in Marina's voice was unmistakable. "Someone better."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carrier passed the fields of apple trees and wheat on the soaring wings of an owl. Fires raged below him, surrounded by dancers wrapped in white robes. Hastily hung strings crossed over the streets while dangling bright orange flowers. Their colour cast the town into a state of permanent sunset, but he was certain Princess Halfwing would disagree with its beauty, at least while she remained in her new form.
Under the sound of chanting and festive money-spending, he barely noticed the flipper-flapping sound of feathers gaining on him from above. Once he heard it, however, he didn't stop to look back.
"So, this is it then?"
"Ha!" Marina, talons sharp and long, slashed Carrier across his wing, sending him spiralling. "Says the drone who was looking for me."
"Did I say that?" He twisted his head and eyed Marina above him.
He winced but managed to find his balance. A generous thing, considering the kind of bird Marina had taken shape as. He wanted to beat himself over the head for lowering his guard just to observe Riverfork. If she wanted to, her talons could have snapped his neck and that would be the end of Princess Halfwing's orders to him.
A second pair of talons came up and clutched him. "Yes, it's written all over your scent."
Carrier coughed up his lungs at the vice that clamped his body shut. Another drone, covered in Marina and Princess Spectra's scent, dragged him through the air toward a windmill atop a hill. It was one of the few places in Riverfork's flat, fertile land with enough elevation for one. Without any grain to harvest until the end of summer, the mill was one of the most secluded places at this time.
Carrier landed, still tight in the drone's talons. "I could crush you if I turned into a bear, you know."
"You could," mused the drone, "but you haven't."
Marina landed, flashing her body with magic and returning to her pony form. "You're here, so I can only assume your princess is finished with the dragon. And that makes me wonder why you're back here so soon. Thought she had plans for Marblestop."
"So, you attack me to find out?" Carrier compressed his chest and stretched out of the drone's grip, slithering out in the form of a snake and growing up into a ram. "You could've asked."
She laughed, Marina, expanding her form into a manticore. "I know Princess Halfwing has her plans. You being here proves she's planning to take Riverfork for herself. But everything I've done is to satisfy my princess, not yours."
Carrier growled. "Do you think Princess Majesta hasn't killed Spectra by now?"
"Do you think she could kill Princess Halfwing?"
"Of course not," Carrier bayed, "she's too strong as a dragon."
"Then we're in the same position, you and I," Marina said. "I don't believe Spectra would have let her guard down around Majesta, and with the captain by her side, our pack would be too much of a threat."
"If you're so loyal to your princess, then you should listen to me. Princess Spectra can benefit from this as well. I'm not here to do anything to Riverfork, I've only been ordered to find and kill Princess Tenacity."
Marina gave Carrier some space after she processed the news. She eyed him carefully, testing the air with her nose. With her manticore form, she roared into laughter, her large, venomous scorpion tail mockingly pointing at Halfwing's captain. Somehow, the look of disbelief was able to come across in the face of her monstrous form.
"You? How did she expect you to do that? Ha!" Marina shrunk her size, returning to her pony form as she approached her drone's side. "The two of us caught you off guard and brought you down. I could have killed you with one swoop. What do you think Princess Tenacity could do to you?"
The other drone took on the form of a burly, cart-pulling stallion. "You let the title of 'captain' go to your head, whelp."
"That doesn't change the fact that Tenacity's here in Riverfork. Princess Halfwing smelled her here when she took her dragon form." Carrier stood his ground, still lowering his ram horns. "You might have the town now, but are you certain you can stop Tenacity from disrupting your control here?"
"Honestly? No. But you sound serious, so let me tell you this: you can't do it, she'll dominate you. You're asking drones to kill a princess, so you should know that that's what happens."
"With your position now, it doesn't have to be drones. You could help us," Carrier said.
Marina went silent. From where they stood, by the windmill, they could see it all alive with light. Marina didn't actually know how much power she had. For drones, making decisions strained their minds. They relied on their captains and princess to lead them. She wasn't sure how much influence she had, and she wasn't sure how to go about directing the forces.
"Think about it, she's a dragon now. A dragon! You know how strong that makes her, nothing can stand in her way. We're the only ones who even know about river-iron. If she attacked Spectra right now, do you think you'd be able to save your princess? Would any drone be able to?"
That grim truth connected something inside Marina. Being in the same pack, the other drone sensed it too. A gut reaction, some visceral disgust at even imagining being unable to protect Princess Spectra. It took a sizeable portion of restraint not to lash out Carrier that moment.
Princess Spectra couldn't afford more enemies. She hated admitting Carrier was right, but even in hiding, it was possible Tenacity had the power to sway drones back into her pack. And Spectra couldn't afford to divide her attention. Halfwing's dragon form would need every last drone in Spectra's pack to take down.
"I won't betray my princess for you," Marina scowled. "But for Princess Spectra, Tenacity has to die."
"So you see it my way now."
"Yes, but we do it ourselves. I haven't picked up Tenacity's scent before, she's probably out in the distant farms. That said, I don't think I could convince any pony in the Marblestop leadership to make executing an innocent farmer their first decree as the new leaders of Riverfork."
"Lieutenant," said the drone, "should I return to the council as Chevron? With his influence, it may be possible."
"Perhaps, but it'll be a tarnish on the record," Marina advised. "To turn the civilian ponies into complacent cattle, the leadership has to be seen as flawless. Killing Tenacity with pony troops will only make them question the new government the way we questioned the old system."
"I was planning on flying the skies myself if you refused to help," Carrier informed them both. "We can eliminate any of the nearby farms, we would've smelled Tenacity by now. Between the three of us, the outer farms won't be hard to cover."
"She'll hear us if we call to each other," Marina reminded him.
"She won't run away," Carrier said. "She had four drones with her when she left. Once she senses us she's going to be preparing for a fight. So, before we start, maybe I should be asking you one last thing."
Marina raised a brow. "What's that?"
"Do you have any more spears?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The doctor hummed while he worked, stitching up the farmer's eye. A pretty bad fall, the stallion had a fragment of bone dislodged in his skull, healing back into an irregular shape. The only solution was to break the bone again and reposition it, letting it heal properly this time.
"Should've come to me first thing," he scolded the other farmers. "Could've done without the bone-breaking step if I had seen to it when it happened. Though, not sure if anything could've fixed the eye."
Tenacity nodded, her pony form wearing a face of deep concern for her fellow farmer. A lie. She just couldn't stand her drone walking into trees and tables that were just outside his view. The eye was fine, or it would be once the doctor left. With the bone back to its original position, the hunter-drone needed to simply transform. The process deconstructed their bodies at the smallest level, reconstituting organs and skin.
It was the cripples who couldn't overcome their body's trauma. Halfwing. The memory of her sister put a scowl in Tenacity, but she covered it up well with her disguise.
"How much do we owe the Medicine Guild for the surgery?" she asked him.
"Normally, I'd go back to town and the guild drafts up a charge of a few hundred silver coins," the doctor answered while sanitizing and keeping his tools. "But the strangest thing happened this morning before I took the carriage here. A messenger came from the council announced a new fund had been set up to pay for 'extraneous injuries or accidents.'"
"What does that mean?"
"Means the Riverfork treasury has already paid for the procedure." The doctor secured his bag onto his saddle with a couple of hooks and delivered a courteous nod to Tenacity and the other drones. "Good luck with the rest of your harvests. If you'll excuse me, it's late and I'll have to see if I can't find a carriage returning to town now. Have a good evening, all."
As soon as the front door closed behind the doctor, Tenacity dropped the act. "You all smell that owl circling the farm, right?" She waved a hoof at her recovering drone. "Hurry up and transform into something useful. If one of my sisters are coming, I'm going to need time to feed."
"What's the plan?" asked the young captain Lieu.
"Spread my scent around, make them think I'm here for as long as you can."
Lieu barked at the other hunter-drones. "The barn, get it open and go as bulls." Even under the threat of a battle, the captain was unnerved. Directing hunting initiatives for Princess Tenacity without tipping off the other Changelings in Riverfork was hard, everything was unpredictable. Preparing a defence, compared to that, was just a matter of execution.
"Don't follow me down. I need you to finish things up here and then find me a ship." Tenacity pulled off the key hanging by the back door and left her drones to work. Behind the homestead was the locked cellar door where she stored her loyal drones' bounty.
As she opened the door, a waft of stuffed, damp, hot air unpacked itself from the basement. The odour wasn't by accident. On its breeze, Tenacity could smell the mix of horror from her many different meals. They all moaned against the light from her horn. Cramped piles of chained-up ponies shifted to get a breath of outside air before Tenacity found their heads sticking out. She let them dance on the border of their fears, even if she could already pick out the best morsels with her nose.
"Come on then," she peered behind a box of waste where a father hid with two daughters. Lost among the rest of the ponies, they were the first ones locked up here, the original farmers. A thin, orange ray from the access hatch cast the nearing dusk onto their faces.
She usually left the farmers for her drones, but they had the strongest magic out of the whole larder. Inside them, flickers of hope added flavour and power to their magic, more than what Tenacity could drain from pure fear. She imagined it had something to do with wanting their home back.
She snapped the cuffs around one of the daughters with a burst from her horn and then pulled the filly to her, locking her down by the neck with one hoof. "I don't have all night, and I guarantee if you try to fight back, none of us will live to see tomorrow."
The little filly, nevertheless, screamed as she always did when Tenacity aimed her horn at the girl. All it ever did was make it harder to feed, but Tenacity pulled harder, gorging herself on the magic. There was no time left to torture the emotions out of them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Her pack's doing something." Carrier soared over the barn to take a third look. With the vision and hearing of an owl, spotting them was no trouble. But they looked like they were simply spreading fertilizer from the barn into the fields. There were four hunter-drones, one of them a lieutenant who gained the position of captain after Tenacity's last captain died.
Carrier tried to single her out by scent, but all the drones seemed about the same. He suspected the compost had something to do with it. But where Tenacity hid among all that stench was the major problem.
"Can't find her?" Marina and her drone swooped past Carrier as falcons, watching the farm with piercing eyes.
He flapped harder, but the owl form excelled in silence while falcons outpaced him in pure speed. "They've been setting up the field for the past hour. But, I definitely can still smell Tenacity down there."
"Us as well," Marina added. "It'll take days to fully cover up her scent. But at this rate, it'll also take us days just to figure out where on that field she's hiding."
The drones working as bulls made that point clear. The barn and homestead weren't the only places to hide. This far from Riverfork, the farms focused on growing wide tracts of rye, wheat, barley, and some corn. Each field was at least a few acres. On top of that, copses of trees separated sections of the fields.
"She could be anywhere down there as a snake or a cat and we'd never find her." Carrier's hooting turned increasingly agitated. Tenacity was arrogantly confident if she had planned all along to hide on a farm because of its natural scents. Changelings were unrivalled hunters, whatever his rank, he refused to be thrown off his prey by piles of compost.
He angled his wings and flew closer to the ground, scanning with his ears rather than his nose. The constant shuffling of the hunter-drones disrupted the surrounding sounds too, but there was an unmistakable groan building up on side of the farm. There were ponies and lots of them, all stuffed somewhere inside the homestead.
"If you had to fight for your life, how'd you prepare for it?" he called back to Marina.
She looked down and matched his level. "Get anything to give me a fighting chance, I suppose."
"Tenacity probably has the same idea. Sounds like a whole larder down there."
Marina cawed an order and her hunter-drone dove down to begin harassing the other Changelings. With sharp talons he raked at their eyes and necks, drawing aggravated moos that turned to violent hisses when he came a little too close. All four drones turned on him, taking the form of birds as well to get back at the falcon.
"He'll draw them away," Marina confirmed before landing on the roof of the house. "The two of us will have to be enough. If Tenacity's pack joined the fight too soon, none of us stands a chance of getting back to town alive."
Carrier expelled his feathers in a burst of magic and fluttered down on the chitinous wings of his Changeling self. Magic already started building up in his horn.
"Easy there," Marina cautioned him, choosing the body of a large, spotted jungle cat once she landed on the roof. "You wouldn't want to be one of those drones who shoot it out too soon."
"So full of jokes, you sound like a groundskeeper," he replied, strolling toward the pained moans of ponies. The cellar door was wide open and Carrier could tell that there was no light inside. Even with sensitive eyes, it was possible to hide in the darkest corners of a cellar.
Marina didn't follow immediately behind Carrier. "I smell her, but I'm still not sure where."
She cased the house, pacing around it and using her senses to try and pinpoint where Tenacity's scent was coming from. Nowhere was it stronger or weaker. Tenacity changed forms again, shredding off her skin and layering on new cords of muscle. Her snout expanded, snapping bones and expanding the skull to widen the nasal space.
She had the nose of a massive bear, one so large she could stand on her hind legs and peer above the single-floor homestead. Her sense of smell spread for miles, so far that she could still pick up the smoke coming from Riverfork. And then two scents hit her at the same time.
The first was Tenacity, coming from everywhere. The whole field smelled like the princess, as strong as if a hundred of her stood in the field. Marina's eyes looked onto where her drone harried the bulls. One of them had turned into a bat to try and fight him off, but the others continued spreading their fertilizer. That was the mask.
Any scent from Tenacity coming from beyond the farm would get caught up and mixed with the fertilizer. Eating magic couldn't have produced that kind of waste, but it was possible to secrete a slime or paste to mix into the regular fertilizer.
Marina would've turned to warn Carrier that Princess Tenacity was likely already gone, if not for the second scent. It was similar to Tenacity's but grew stronger by the second on the winds of the river, sailing in from a northern ship. Princess Spectra's presence immediately sharpened Marina's attention and triggered an urge to get rid of the other princesses' drones.
"Quit giving her time, Tenacity must've sensed us by now. She has to be in there." Carrier hissed at Marina. "I need your help in case she has a spell prepared."
Marina flayed off her excess muscle and returned to her jungle cat. "Right, I'll have your back." She picked her intentions carefully. Carrier was too focused on Tenacity to sense that Marina was hiding something, as long as it wasn't an outright lie.
With Princess Spectra nearing Riverfork, helping Carrier was counter-productive. Tenacity was gone, but she couldn't have run far away without her pack. Carrier would only get in the way of the hunt now. She kept a close eye on his back as they entered the cellar. The cellar was lightless but both Changelings were used to the dark.
Marina recoiled. Even for her, the room was gruesome. Countless bodies drained of magic hung plastered to the wall with green slime. In the caves of the hive, worker-drones had the ability to make acidic slime that ate away at the cavern walls. Marina sniffed the air. Apparently, Tenacity had figured out how to do the same during her time in Riverfork.
"Where is she?" Carrier fired a shot of magic into a pile of slime-covered bodies. He flung them back, but they never got up. Marina questioned if Tenacity even left them alive.
She shook her head. The poor hunter-drone still thought Tenacity was still on the farm. All Marina could do was raise her paw and give Carrier a merciful death. Her claws raked across the brittle chitinous carapace, and Carrier threw himself onto the ground.
He shot a bolt of magic, widely missing Marina. "What was that?"
Marina smelled the rush of adrenaline in Carrier's ichor. His aura smelled of surprise, but even he would catch on quick. She pressed her advantage and roared, slashing him once more across the eye. Before Carrier could send a second blast, she was on top of him, untransformed as a Changeling and driving her horn into his back.
"You think you can find Tenacity alone?" Carrier grit his teeth through the pain and twisted his body around, letting Marina's horn rip up his carapace just so he could face and blast her back into a wall plastered with slime and bodies.
The ponies clung on her, though just barely. Their last gasps for life were shortened when she pulled them from the walls and flung them onto Carrier. The hunter-drone ducked a few, but he was already weary from his injuries. The bodies crumpled him, throwing him on the ground with their weight.
Marina pounced on top of him, determined not to let a whelp like him get the better of her a second time. She stabbed holes into his chest and peeled back his black chitin, exposing the soft, watery flesh underneath. Carrier spasmed, but stopped resisting altogether.
His limp body leaked ichor across the floor. If he were any other creature, that'd be the end of that. But with Changelings, there was only one way to make sure. Marina plunged her fangs into his chest, tearing and slashing until she tasted his heart bursting into pieces.
Time was not on her side, though, and the satisfaction of the kill would have to wait. Marina turned into a falcon and shot out of the basement, leaving the ponies in their squalor to die. Tenacity was the only goal now, and there was no chance a princess of the hive would go down without the orders of another princess.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Riverfork's lights loomed into view on the black horizon. Summer nights on the river were still warm and humid, so it surprised Spectra that the citizens of the town could be revelling in the heat. She whistled to one of her drones for a spyglass, another useful tool ponies built for exploring on their ships.
It looked like decorations had been hastily thrown up on the roofs of the houses. Spectra watched for a while as her ship neared the docks. The celebration was nothing compared to the Autumn Fire Festival. But it still looked like a huge party. Lines of stallions danced around on the streets, carrying torches and bellowing chants to the wind.
Most of her pack ignored the sounds. Each hunter-drone, from her captains to her pawns, had ample experience living among ponies. But the youngest drones were her own children, born in a groundskeeper's nest in a farming village of Citrus Hills. Festivals were not something they knew very well.
"Those lights," Windcatcher came up to the helm, "is there something special about today?"
Spectra shook her head. "Not that I know of. But smell the air, past all the smoke. Do you smell the emotions?"
It only took one long draw of breath for her child to get the full dose of what she wanted him to feel. A spike of pleasure rushed through the young hunter-drone's ichor. Joy, brotherhood, excitement and relief, the sensations of the ponies were so strong that their aura carried across the river to their ship.
"We should feed on whatever we can before we head for the hive," he said with a grin.
"Maybe after summer, " Spectra smirked, "then Riverfork will have a festival worth going to. Right now, we have to deal with the other scent."
Windcatcher buzzed his wings, uncomfortable that he wasn't sure what his mother was talking about. Spectra waved away his confused look and kept to herself. He was her son, but he was still a hunter-drone, and she didn't want him to see what she was feeling.
Spectra didn't need him to understand, only to follow her orders. Even if she did tell him that she smelled Tenacity, he wouldn't have picked it up. He may have been mutated, but he was still young and inexperienced. Some scents were too overpowering to filter out of his head.
But Tenacity was imprinted in Spectra's mind. It was the same smell as their birthing pit. It smelled like dust, heavy and damp like pest-infested still water. She turned to the rest of the pack. Her very first captain kept the other drones in order while they pretended to work like normal sailors. The rooms and beds on the ship were so cramped, the hunter-drones were at risk of breaking out into fights with each other. Without control, her little piece of the hive would crumble into the tides of the river.
So she kept her composure, even though she was sure Tenacity had died. Out of all her sisters, Tenacity was the one she tolerated. On occasion, they could even be a team. But after getting this close to going back home, an old obstacle popping back up boiled Spectra's blood. When the planks under her hooves started to splinter from the magic seething out of her, she reeled back her emotions.
Riverfork was still her town. It seemed bigger than when she left it, but some of her drones were still in there, doing their job. She took a deep breath, and the smells calmed her. Spectra smiled.
"We're having a guest, captain!" Spectra descended from the helm, holding up her head like the conquerer she wanted to be. Even while wrapped up in his duties, her captain stopped giving orders to his hunter-drones and immediately attended her.
"Who is it, Princess?" he said with a bow.
"See if there aren't a few remaining glasses of wine. It's time to welcome an old lieutenant of yours."