Hinterlands

by Rambling Writer


13 - The Massacre of Grayvale

One week earlier…

Artemis had worked with the Royal Guard several times before. Some bounty hunters might sneer at her for taking an “easy” route, but when the Guard called on bounty hunters for help (wilderness tracking and navigation, in her case), the ponies they were tracking were more dangerous than the average. It was a simple arrangement: Artemis was placed as a tracker and guide in a squad of guardsponies. They gave her protection and she led them to their target. When the pony was captured, Artemis got a small portion, typically twenty percent or so, of the bounty (which was usually so large than twenty percent was still above average). The guards hunted down and jailed a dangerous pony down with minimal fuss, loss of life, or financial cost, while Artemis got paid well (enough). Easy. She was plenty used to guards by now.

But even after leading this particular anti-necromancy squad through the Frozen North for over a week, they made Artemis’s skin crawl and made her coat stand on end and made her shiver all the way down to the tips of her feathers. There was just something a little bit off about them. Maybe it was the odd mobile pumping machines with pilot lights two of them carried. Maybe it was the way all of their weapons were silver-plated. Maybe it was the way every single one of them had magical incendiaries built into their armor to annihilate their bodies upon death.

Maybe it was the way they kept on insisting she wear the incendiaries as well.

“Call me crazy,” Artemis had said the day before they set out, “but I don’t feel comfortable walking around with arcane firebombs strapped to my back.”

“Then maybe,” Staff Sergeant Singing Sword had said, “you shouldn’t hunt necromancers.”

Artemis had stared at Sword, but couldn’t hope to match his glare. It hadn’t been long before she’d had to turn away. “I’m not wearing them,” she’d said, painfully aware of how pathetic she’d sounded.

“I won’t force you,” Sword had said, “but these are necromancers. Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. Or even the end.”

Artemis kept turning those words over in her head as she and the squad crunched down the snowy, forested path towards the base of the mountain. They weren’t far from a town called Grayvale, which frightened whispers claimed was home (guinea pig farm, more like) to the two necromancers they were looking for, a master and an apprentice. And although it was probably just her own scared mind, the wind had a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. She fell back a few steps to the first pony behind her and cleared her throat. “Um. Sword? You know those… firebombs in your armor?”

Sword didn’t take his eyes from the path. “Having second thoughts about not wearing them?”

“H-how-”

“It’s in the way you walk. You’re nervous. More nervous than you’ve been in the past week.”

“…Yeah.” You never knew just how cold the water was until you jumped in, and Artemis had only now truly realized just what the consequences could be. A tiny bit late, maybe, but wings crossed? “I was… hoping maybe-”

“We don’t have any. They’re not worth carrying spares. And we can’t calibrate them out here, anyway.”

“Oh. Bummer?” Artemis forced a smile, which rapidly shrivelled and died under Sword’s silent gaze. It wasn’t a glare or angry, but it felt very judgmental. And Artemis found it hard to blame him for being so. The arquebus bumping at her side felt very small and very skinny.

Artemis pulled her head forward and examined the ground, looking for any tracks still around. It’d snowed heavily yesterday morning, so there was only one set, a single pony running full-tilt away from the town. Artemis frowned. One set. What could happen to let only one pony run? They’d almost reached Grayvale, so-

“Oh, that’s real nice…”

Artemis looked up, and immediately her stomach churned. In the distance, the forest expanded out into a clearing at the base of a cliff, vague shapes of houses already visible. But it was what was immediately in front of the squad that grabbed their attention. A pegasus had been strung up between trees on either side, limply dangling several yards above the path from ropes bound around her front hooves. Her eyes had been gouged out and her head hung above what remained of her chest; disgustingly, it’d been hacked open — the edges ragged and still damp with blood — and all the organs had been removed, leaving only a hollow cavity behind. Her wings were uneven and rough, most of the feathers having been forcibly ripped out.

Initially, Artemis fought to keep her reaction down, to stay professional. Behind her, a couple of the guards started retching. Well, if they could do it… Artemis doubled over and gagged. It was one of the most revolting things she’d seen in her life. It almost looked like the mare had been eaten. Images of that happening to her flashed through her mind; she vomited.

Singing Sword, however, simply squinted at the body like it was a Hearth’s Warming ornament in the wrong place. “Damn shame,” he muttered, “but we’re on the right track.” He stomped on the ground. “Squad! Form up!”

Artemis suddenly found herself as part of a ring encircling Sword. He paced back and forth, his head high. “Stallions, mares,” he said. “We’ve come a long way. We have a duty to Equestria. And we will not stop until that duty is fulfilled. Two necromancers, dead or incapacitated. And if we can’t kill them, we’ll make those snivelling scumbags wish they were dead! Am I right?”

The entire squad (sans Artemis) stomped as one. “Sir, yes, sir!”

“I should hope the good ponies of Equestria’s finest have stronger voices than that! Am I right?

Stomp, stomp.Sir, yes, sir!

“Mmhmm. Alright, ponies, brea-”

Turn back now.

The entire squad fell silent. They spun around, looking for the source of the voice, before somepony pointed up. The dead pegasus had raised her head, fully exposing her mangled eye sockets, and was leering at them with a patchwork of bloodstained teeth. “Flee,” she rasped in a deathly cold, high-pitched voice. “Or you shall be my master’s servants for ETERNITY!

Artemis nearly ran right then and there. Sword just clicked his tongue and waved the squad back. “Ash!” he yelled. An earth pony, one of the two with the pumps, stepped up.

And suddenly he was spraying fire like a dragon.

Artemis yelped and staggered back, throwing up a leg in a futile attempt to ward of some of the heat. Crimson flames, with shades of viridian and sapphire twisted in, engulfed the pony, so bright the body couldn’t even be seen inside them. The flames abruptly went dark; Artemis blinked blindness away to see that the pony’s body was gone, burned to ash.

“If that wasn’t a sign,” bellowed Sword, “I don’t know what is! Circe is here, maybe Amanita with her! Look sharp and don’t let your guard down!”

As before, Artemis headed to the front to lead the squad into Grayvale, but a unicorn gently pushed her back. “Before, you were tracking Circe,” the unicorn said, “but now, you’d just be taking point.”

Artemis knew enough military lingo to know what that meant, and she dropped back without complaint. As she walked, she suddenly became aware of the silence in the forest. No animals. No birds. No wind. Even the squad’s own hoofsteps seemed muted. Or maybe they’d just started stepping quietly. Artemis swallowed, adjusted her arquebus harness, and kept walking.

She’d had an idea for what to do in Grayvale that boiled down to “talk to ponies”, but if the necromancers were so blatant as to… do that, things weren’t looking good. Her apprehension built with every step and her throat turned dry. As the houses sharpened, Artemis could see that the first few weren’t much of houses. They were closer to ruins.

When they finally reached the town border, Artemis began wondering if there was anypony left in Grayvale at all. It looked like a war had happened here. Buildings had been wrecked and debris was strewn about the street. One of the closest houses looked about to collapse in on itself. In numerous places, the snow was stained red with blood, although there were disturbingly few bodies. One of those was a dead pony sitting against a wall. His hooves had been ripped off, leaving bloody remains of feet behind. His throat had been sliced open. On the wall beside him, probably painted in his blood, was a complex geometric design, filled with lines and runes that made Artemis’s head hurt. Actually, physically hurt. When she stopped looking, the pain went away. But not looking at the sigil meant looking at everything else. Even the cliff on the far side of town rippled and looked like something had tried to tear it apart.

The pain didn’t seem to bother the squad. “Ehwaz,” barked Sword. He pointed at the sigil. “What does that mean?”

A unicorn trotted up to the sigil and examined it. Artemis tried looking away and was confronted with a stallion pinned to a wall by a spear through his trunk. She shuddered and closed her eyes.

When Ehwaz turned back, one of his eyes was bloodshot and the pupil on the other seemed to be dripping down into the iris. “Bad news, sir,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “It’s an advanced focusing stave. For phylactery creation. And… it’s been used.”

“Son of a…” whispered Sword. “Don’t tell me she got the whole town…”

“She… might have.”

“Stars above… Not good. We’re going to the town square, stat.”

The squad almost moved on without Artemis before somepony gently nudged her. She followed in the others’ wake, unwilling to look at the carnage around her and unable to look away. Every building had some kind of structural damage. Bloody, disfigured bodies lay in the streets, far too few for a town of this size, yet nopony came out to meet them. Whenever they passed a body, Ash or the other flame pony would incinerate it. Remains of everyday objects — bottles, chairs, ropes, clothes, food — were scattered around. More sigils were painted on the walls; not as complex as the first, yet clearly magical in some way. The place was almost silent, without even the wind. Artemis seriously considered asking if she could just wait outside the town limits; after all, she’d gotten them here. But she had to see this through, no matter what it took.

Bodies were strewn about the town square, one at each cardinal direction. Buildings had their windows smashed and large holes punctured their front walls. In the middle of the square, a dead unicorn mare was bound to a pole, forced onto a rearing position by her mane being tied around the same pole. She’d tried to escape; a thin red line stood out against her coat where her mane connected with her scalp. Her horn had been roughly hacked away. Dried blood matted her coat beneath a hole in her chest where (Artemis heaved) her heart had probably been removed. Runes and sigils were delicately, almost artistically carved all over her legs, her body, her face. Her eyes were horrifically bloodshot.

And she was watching them.

She didn’t make a noise as the squad approached, just watched them with eyes that burned with a feeble blue fire. As they fanned out around the square, she turned her head to keep them in view. Her gaze seemed to linger on Artemis, who was glad when Sword gave the order and Ash incinerated her. For all its power, her arquebus now felt like nothing more than a metal pipe.

The squad spread out and surveyed some of the surrounding buildings. Not wanting to be alone, Artemis found herself sticking close to a unicorn (the same unicorn who’d pushed her back). She expected an objection, but never got one. After a minute or so, they reconvened. “They’re gone, aren’t they?” somepony asked. “Repaired their phylacteries and left.”

“Celestia, I hope not,” said Sword. He leaned back and groaned. “We were so close…”

Artemis raised a hoof. “Excuse me. Does anypony know how recently these ponies died?”

“Give me a sec,” said the unicorn quickly. She raced inside a building. There was a pause, then she raced back out. “Twelve to thirteen hours, I think. At least, for the bodies in there.”

“So whatever Circe and Amanita did,” said Artemis, “it probably happened sometime last night, right?”

“We’d have to get more times of death on the bodies,” said Sword thoughtfully, “but let’s say that’s the case. What then?”

“But ever since the snowfall yesterday morning,” continued Artemis, “only one pony left town by the way we came in. And that was supposed to be the only path into and out of town, right?”

“Riiiiight,” said Sword, slowly grinning. “Not great, but I’d rather take one than none.” He turned to Ehwaz. “Just to recap: Circe was an earth pony and Amanita was a unicorn, right?”

“Right,” responded Ehwaz.

“So one or the other could still be in here. Or both, if we’re lucky.” Sword banged his spear on the ground and turned to the squad. “Ponies! We’re not taking any chances! We need to search this town as quickly as possible, so I say we split up into two groups. The usual lines. My team will search the northern half of town, Anvil’s the southern half. Any objections?”

Various negatory mutters came from the squad.

“Remember: burn every body you find. If somepony looks alive, test them for thralldom. If they won’t let you, explain your mission. If they still won’t let you… Well, you know what to do.”

The ponies nodded in solemn silence. An hour ago, Artemis would’ve balked at such a hardline stance. Now she figured that was the best they could do.

The squad split up into two groups of four. Artemis froze, not sure which group to join, before the unicorn she’d been sticking to waved her over. “Hardened Anvil,” the unicorn said, clapping a leg across her chest. “Ash Cloud, Barded Courser, Altostratus.” She pointed at an earth pony with a pumping machine, a unicorn, and a pegasus in turn. “Just keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.”

If there was anything out of the ordinary in a messed-up situation like this, Artemis couldn’t see it. The ponies wandered through the snowbound apparently without any real purpose. Ash torched every single body they found. Every now and then, one of the dead ponies wasn’t staying still, but watched them. It didn’t seem to bother the squad, but Artemis felt ready to put her eyes out if it meant she wouldn’t have to see them anymore.

They zigged and zagged across town without incident, but suddenly Anvil put a hoof up and they stopped. She pointed at a building with rough symbols scrawled all over its walls. “Is it just me, or does that have more staves on it than the others?”

“No, I think so, too,” said Ash. He flipped a switch on his machine and the pumps sped up. “Should we investigate it?”

“Unfortunately,” said Anvil. “I’ll take point.” She hefted her spear and everypony immediately fell in line behind her, even Artemis. Anvil’s horn glowed briefly for a moment and she frowned, but nothing else. “No magical traps inside, I don’t think, but watch my back.”

They inched for the door. Artemis flexed her wings. They reached the door without incident. Anvil prodded it open with her spear. Nothing happened. She illuminated her horn and looked inside. “Seems clear. Advancing.” She took a few steps inside.

Snap.

A tripwire broke; a board swung down from the ceiling and hit Anvil in the neck. FfKRT. Her hooves went to her throat as her light vanished and she collapsed, wheezing. Courser raced forward and lit his horn. “Oh, stars above! I need help!” He dropped down and began wrestling with something Artemis couldn’t see. Ash crouched down and they began exchanging a panicked back-and-forth. Artemis shuffled over to get a better look and clapped a hoof to her mouth.

A bear trap was firmly crushing Anvil’s neck and lower jaw with its steel teeth. An artery must’ve been punctured, because blood was spitting out at an alarming rate.

Courser was already working feverishly. “Okay, uh, Ash, hold her steady, a-and I’ll-”

“Courser, I think sh-”

“No! I can save her! Listen, h-hold on, Anvil, you, you’re gonna be fine.”

“Courser-”

“Ash, please just let me try!”

“…What do you need me to do?”

“Alright, I’m gonna, I’m gonna push these parts down, right here, and then you pull the trap apart, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Three… two… one…”

Artemis couldn’t see what they did, but the bear trap came loose. Another torrent of blood came from Anvil’s neck. Courser tossed the trap away and lightly slapped Anvil on the cheek. “Anvil? Anvil, can you hear me? Please don’t-”

Anvil moaned weakly. Her eyes fluttered.

“Okay,” Courser said, grinning, “she’s still alive.” His horn started glowing and he held out a hoof. “Somepony get me the-”

Click-click.

Everypony froze, then suddenly Ash was dragging Artemis away from the body. Two seconds later, it was consumed with bright blue flame. The snow in a three-foot radius melted rapidly and Artemis felt parts of her coat on her face crisp. Another two seconds later, the fire was gone. So was Anvil’s body. Her armor was slightly warped and still glowing with heat.

Courser’s rear legs gave out and he collapsed onto his rump into the snow. “She…” he whispered. “I was… almost…” He blinked a few times. His eyes were wet. Then he took a deep breath and stood up again. “Remember this spot,” he said flatly. “We’ll need to retrieve Anvil’s armor later. I am-” His breath hitched. “As her second, I am taking command.”

The two remaining guards saluted. “Yes, sir.”

Courser swallowed, lit his horn, and slowly edged forward. He tapped forward with his spear, checking for more tripwires. None. After a moment, he said, “Come in. It’s… It’s safe…”

Not exactly reassured, and keeping her arquebus up just in case, Artemis followed the guards into the building. It looked like the remains of a bar, with lots of open spaces. And right in the middle of it all was a massive pile of bodies, taller than her. Ponies of every tribe and color were in the pile, their limbs spilling out awkwardly. By now, Artemis couldn’t even bring herself to be disgusted. They were chasing a necromancer. This was what necromancers did.

“Sir?” Ash hefted the flamethrower. “Should I-?”

“Wait…” Courser held up a hoof. “This… This was deliberate. Necromancers know we burn bodies on sight and we already ran into one trap. I’m not convinced there isn’t something beneath the pile. Remove them and destroy them, one by one.”

The ponies began removing the bodies from the pile and arranging them in neat rows for destruction, even Artemis. She cringed whenever she approached a body, but she swallowed her bile. And as the stack diminished, the barrels the bodies had been hiding were revealed.

“Some kind of fertilizer,” said Ash, carefully replacing a lid. “Very flammable. If we’d burned the pile, this entire building would’ve exploded.”

“Not a bad trap,” Courser said, sounding a bit reluctant to admit that. “If we’d followed SOP, then-” His eyes widened. “Oh, Celestia… If there are others- Alto, find Sword and tell her about this right now!”

“Siryessir!” yelled Altostratus, and she was gone before she’d finished the word.

“Sonuva sonuva sonuva…” mumbled Courser. He paced back and forth as Ash kept burning the bodies. “Don’t die, Sword… please…”

As Artemis watched the slowly-diminishing pile, a quiet feeling of dread came over her. The town had been too quiet. And now, she suddenly knew why it was too quiet. “Courser?” she asked. “Um… I’m sorry if this is obvious, but where are all the thralls? Somepony had to set all this up, right? And if only one pony left the town-”

“I’ve been thinking that myself,” said Courser. “They might’ve stayed off the trail, but a necromancer willing to do… this wouldn’t bother with that.” He tapped his hoof on the ground. “They’re still here, and they’re up to something. Which means-”

Altostratus zipped inside. “Sword needs help,” she said breathlessly. “Mountain. North. Thralls. Horde. Digging something up. Mine.”

“Son of a dog!” yelled Courser. “Alto, back her up. Ash, Artemis, you’re with me.”

“I’m going with Alto,” Artemis said half a second after Altostratus had gone. “Sword needs help now.” And she wanted to be able to do something. She’d been wandering through Grayvale and wanted to benefit the expedition in some way besides just being the guide.

“If you want,” said Courser. “Go!”

Soon, Artemis had caught up with Altostratus’s slipstream. It was easy to see where they were going: the cliff on the edge of town, covered with dozens of thralls. A few were working on something halfway up — removing rocks from a mine, it looked like? — but most of them were diving down a path at the four guards that made up Sword’s group, fighting at the base of the path. The guards were slicing through thralls with far more ease than the weapons should’ve given. Maybe it had something to do with their silver. But for every one they cut down, five more took its place. Even as she watched, an earth pony was pulled down and swamped.

Altostratus looked behind her, saw Artemis, and nodded. “Thanks for the help! You do a quick flyover, see the situation, take a potshot if you want, I’m going down to help the others! Good?”

“Good!”

Altostratus dropped like a stone, decapitating two thralls before she’d even landed.

Artemis swallowed and circled over the cliff, readying her arquebus. It was unreal, the way they moved. Too in sync, too samey from step to step. But she did her best to ignore that. There were… five or six thralls at the top, and-

One of them, a pegasus mare who was missing an eye, suddenly looked up and screeched. Before Artemis could react, the mare was shooting at her, a large paring knife at the ready. Artemis spun in midair, but the mare spun, too. As they passed each other, the mare stuck out her blade and sliced Artemis’s throat open through sheer momentum.

A wheezing Artemis managed to halt her spin and take aim. The mare, however, recovered quickly. She flared her wings, came to a stop, and drove at Artemis again. She was going straight. Good. Easy target. Artemis chomped on the trigger bit.

BANG.

In spite of the horrendous conditions, her aim was true. The bullet drove through the mare’s good eye and half of her head blew apart. Bits of blood-soaked bone and gray matter flew through the air, tracing some kind of appalling thread. It was the perfect shot, one in a million.

And yet the mare didn’t stop.

She tackled Artemis and then they were falling down the cliffside. The mare plunged her blade into Artemis’s side, over and over and over, gouging and digging. Artemis screamed weakly, blood gurgling up her throat.

She was dead before she hit the ground.


Wake.

Artemis’s eyes opened. Her legs gathered her hooves beneath her and stood her up.

Her mind was not her own. Her thoughts were encased in steel. Her limbs refused to move under her control. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t want to scream. Every single fiber of her being, from the largest actions to the simplest thoughts, was being puppeted by some outside force. Her memories were slowly being leached away so she would be gone. Artemis didn’t mind. It was better this way.

Her eyes saw that she was standing on top of the cliff in a ritual circle, one that’d brought her back. Numerous disfigured ponies — old thralls, weak — were lying around, discarded like the broken, useless tools they were. An earth mare was sitting on the outside, smirking up at her. Artemis immediately knew who it was: Circe, her new master. Circe was no ordinary pony. She had an indomitable strength of will that no others could hope to match. She was to be respected, obeyed, simple as that. Artemis didn’t know why that was and didn’t want to know. Circe was the center of the universe, and Artemis would be willing to kill anypony who said otherwise. Provided Circe said it was okay, at any rate.

“ ’Ello,” said Circe. It was layered with magic into a harsh, discordant sound, not like any voice Artemis’s ears had heard before. It grated on her thoughts. It twisted her very soul. Centipedes were crawling into her mind through that voice. It wore away at her free will like acid. It was the most beautiful thing Artemis’s ears had ever heard and her mind wanted to never disobey it.

“Gotta make this quick, ’fore your mem’ries’re gone. What’s your name?” Circe asked in that horrible, wonderful voice.

Artemis didn’t think about obeying. It was just something she did, something that was right with the universe. “Artemis, ma’am,” said her voice. Her breath wheezed and gurgled both from her mouth and out of the hole in her neck. It was a horrid thing, ugly and wrong. Not like Circe’s. Not like the master’s.

“We’ll ’ave t’do somethin’ ’bout that voice o’ yours, Arty,” Circe said, almost jovially. “Mebbe you can be a stupid mute in p’lite comp’ny.”

“A fine idea, ma’am,” said Artemis’s voice. Because it was. It had to be. All of Circe’s ideas were fine. More than fine; spectacular, even.

“ ’Course it is. You better be good; ’ad t’drain all the remainin’ thralls t’get ’nough energy for you.” Circe smudged the circle, allowing Artemis to walk free. But she wouldn’t walk free. She was Circe’s. She would definitely be good. “ ’Oo’re you? ’Oo were the guards?”

It took Artemis a few moments to remember it. Her old life, her fake life, already seemed so far away. Good. “I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am. I was leading an anti-necromancer squad to you and your apprentice-” Pain immediately lanced through Artemis’s mind. Discussing the apprentice was bad. Circe did not like hearing about the apprentice. For now, though, it couldn’t be helped. “-following reports of necromancy up here and the posting of a bounty. Your posters are in my bags.”

“Boun’y hun’er…” Circe smiled and nodded. “Yeah, that’ll work. Gotta get rid o’ mine, but we can keep ’ers. Is there any reason I can’t jus’ say I’m a boun’y hun’er an’ have ponies trust me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Artemis’s voice eventually. “Bounty hunters are licensed by Equestria and you need to carry a license with you. You don’t have one. A license looks like this.” Her hoof rummaged around in her saddlebags and pulled out her license parchment.

Circe frowned as she read it. That was not good. Circe was wonderful; she should never have to frown. “Dagnabbit,” she muttered. “Was hopin’…” Her eyes skimmed the parchment.

“You may notice,” Artemis’s voice said, unprompted, “that it simply identifies the bearer and the pony of that name as a bounty hunter. It does not otherwise describe appearance.” It seemed an especially important fact for Circe to know.

“It don’t?” Circe looked over the parchment again, then smirked. “Whaddya know. It don’t. Now, you ain’t Artemis anymore. I am. You… You’re Gale.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gale’s voice said. She’d liked her old name, once. But if the master wanted it, then it was no longer hers. Who was she to complain?

Artemis peered at Gale’s side and tutted. “Why can’t I ever get intact ponies? Still, you’re all I got right now. I’ll make do. You got a wing par’lyzed, Gale. Keep it down so nopony else sees.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Search the ’ouses for somethin’ for me t’wear, Gale. And bags for you. You’re gonna be carryin’ my stuff.”

Of course. It was abhorrent that Circe do labor. “What’ll we be doing, ma’am?”

“I lost my soul jar to my cur of an appren’ice.. We’re gettin’ it back.” Artemis grinned. “Jus’ two boun’y hun’ers, chasin’ a necromancer. Ain’t that swell?”

Gale’s head nodded. Her body turned and headed down the path for town. She had a most important mission to fulfill and she couldn’t let Artemis down. The apprentice would pay.