Raven magpie fly away, Scarecrow keep at bay~
Wheat n' barley dance and sway, Harvest king, come to play~
------
When Gloom saw Prey running out of the mist, the first thing the thestral felt was plunging relief. He swayed on his hooves for a second, so strong was the surge of relief at seeing the last unaccounted for member of his unit still alive.
"Prey?" He exclaimed.
Crimson's head whipped up from examining the soaked, unconscious form of Scenic, Gloom having somehow managed to keep both himself and the Earth pony from drowning in the speeding river current. Although how he'd managed it, Gloom would never know.
"Prey! Oh thank Luna."
That feeling of relief changed as Gloom realised Prey wasn't slowing, and as he fully emerged from the mist, the lamb's expression became clearer.
"Prey-?"
"It's coming, the reaper king." Small stones clattered as Prey skidded to a stop, "It's here!"
Gloom didn't even have it left in him to be surprised that anything further could go wrong, "How, how did it find...?"
"With you shouting out your position of course," Prey spat in accusation. His glare was hot, "I shouldn't have come back. I should never have cared."
"We need to get out of here right now." Crimson said grabbing Scenic around his chest and with a heave, lifted the Earth pony, armour and all, onto his back. With the borrowed strength of the magical necklace, Crimson didn't more than grunt as the weight settled.
Gloom stared in worry at the unconscious Scenic, still dripping water, "Can you fly him up out-?"
"Up and out is where the reaper king is waiting," Crimson interrupted, shaking his head, "And if I get caught in the air by its magic aura again..."
"Then-"
"Up the beach," Prey hissed, jabbing a hoof ahead, "Our only hope is that the ravine levels out up the beach."
Prey didn't wait to see if they listened to his warning, he was already moving. He shouldn't have come back. Why had he?
They couldn't hide, the reaper king had its foul magic to scan for them. Nor could they fight back. They were in no condition to do so, and had no hope of winning.
The only option left was to flee and pray they could ran fast and far enough.
Slipping over spray drenched boulders, the mist hindering their vision, they cantered, ran, or tripped as fast as they could down the beach.
The reaper king was coming. They needed to get out and back up into the forest before it trapped them like rats down here.
Even if the warlock could track them through the forest, as long as they could keep moving and stay just ahead, they had a chance. A slim chance, but a chance. It was one of the rules of war, one which Prey had learned through harsh experience. Never stop moving, never back yourself into a corner, and always have an escape route.
Not following this rule was how they'd ended up in this mess in the first place.
They shouldn't have stopped and hidden with Shimmer in that cave. It had been a fatal mistake, Prey had feared that all along, and it'd cost that Mimic masquerading as Shimmer his life in the end.
'Why did the Mimic try to distract the reaper king? Why didn't it just run and leave us?' None of it made sense. Shimmer had acted as a distraction for Crimson right at the end. But why?
Prey didn't know the answer. He didn't know a lot right now.
Prey was tired. He was so tired. The energy from the two seeds he'd eaten did not help the leaden drag in his limbs, or the raspiness in the back of his throat as he hurried.
If he just had the time to prepare an area with enough runes, he could beat the reaper king and the warlock. Twenty-four hours alone, and he could do it.
'But no, you spent the time making bone rot mines instead didn't you?' Prey berated himself.
If he had the materials, the energy, the time-! But he didn't. Instead here he was, running for his life, terrified, likely to die, and being hunted.
'Why did I step out to warn Gloom and Crimson? Why didn't I just split off like I meant to?' Another question Prey didn't know the answer to. He should've run. He'd meant to, but he somehow hadn't.
He hadn't wanted to run again and leave Crimson behind.
'Zoma'Grika, foolish, sloppy, Glom'die, sentimental, crybaby.' He should know better. He did know better. The Resistance had taught him better.
The river seemed to be slowing, or the turbid rushing of water was getting weaker at least. Prey tried to pick up his pace. On either side of him, Gloom and Crimson did the same as the boulder beach began to broaden, Scenic's head lolling up and down on Crimson's back.
Was it getting lighter? A brightening from above? It was hard to tell in the grey mist, but if it was, it might mean the ravine walls were receding.
*.........ump*......thump*...Thump*
Prey slipped on a smooth stone as his head whipped around and stared up, even if he knew he wouldn't see anything through the mist.
Crimson's wings, which he was using to keep Scenic on his back, began to bristle all by themselves. Gloom's ears had gone back and his slit pupil's shrank to razor blade edges. But they didn't stop, slow, or speak.
*Thump*, *Thump*
It was coming from somewhere up on their left, on the other side of the river, reverberating thuds as the reaper king swung itself forwards on its huge upper arms.
*Ka-thump, Ka-Thump*
It sounded like it was gaining speed, it was right alongside them now.
*Ka-Thump,Ka-Thump,Ka-Thump*
It was going to outrun them. The noise was pulling ahead, their efforts for speed useless.
"Turn! The ravine wall's getting lower on our right." Gloom rasped, voice desperate.
Prey kicked off the cracked boulder he was on to change direction, doing as Gloom had said and making for the right. His spiked heart was thumping in his throat.
Then, from on the left side of the ravine, the pounding run of the reaper king ceased. A silent breath. There was no time to celebrate, for it was immediately replaced by the almighty din of collapsing rock and tumbling earth crashing into the river.
Crimson faltered for a fraction of a second in his run, "It...fell?"
"No. It jumped." Prey whispered as realisation dawned.
Behind them, came the sound of a huge fountain of water surging onto the stone, as something large heaved itself out of the river.
"Wha's...What was that?" Scenic blearily asked, as he chose this exact moment to return to semi-consciousness.
"Stay still Scenic!"
"Wh-wha's happen-Sir? Gloom?"
"I said stay still, that's the reaper king we're running from!"
More loud sounds of splashing and sloshing behind them in the mist, mixed with the grating shifting of stones as the reaper king climbed from the river.
"We need out of the ravine right now!" Prey squeaked, throwing his caution about twisting a leg to the winds and just flat out sprinting.
"What! What's happening? Let me down I'll run on my own." Prey heard Scenic struggling in fear, huge boulders looming all around them as they raced through the maze of mist.
It wasn't just Prey's imagination, the mist was getting lighter in tones of grey. The ravine was opening up, they just had to find a way out in time. The right hoof wall of the ravine was right alongside them now as they raced, but there was no sign of it getting low enough to climb.
Why wasn't there a way out, a path down that animals came to drink from? Something, anything. There had to be, Prey was running over splattered bird droppings.
No.
Oh no. No no no!
The ravine wall was curving back towards the left, the sound of the river getting closer again. The beach was narrowing back to a point and they still hadn't found a way out. The reaper king was behind them, they had to get out-
Crawling invisible insects suddenly washed over Prey's face and squirmed in his ears. The reaper king had just used its foul scanning magic again to locate them!
In the mist behind them Prey heard the crunching of rocks and then a huge groaning of stone.
"It's no good, we'll have to fly out." Gloom grunted.
"We can't, its magic will-"
"Dodge left!" Prey screamed.
Without question, Crimson and Gloom followed Prey in diving to the left. If they'd hesitated for even half a moment, the enormous boulder which sailed out of the mist would've crushed them.
*Kra-CAAck*
The impact pelted them all with flying bits of rock and nearly knocked them from their hooves. A flying pebble cracked across Prey's jaw with bruising force and he yelped at the sudden shock of pain.
"Ponyfeathers!" Scenic yelled in fear from atop Crimson's back as he saw the size of the boulder which'd just missed them.
'It's become a mobile siege weapon!' Prey thought, gasping for breath.
Prey's ear twitched, "Right!" He yelled at the same time as Scenic unhelpfully shouted, "Dodge!"
Another boulder hurtled out of the mist, spinning end over end. It hit to their left with another deafening smash of stone on stone. It didn't bounce or ricochet, it sunk exactly where it landed so heavy and large was it.
"That's it! We're flying, magic be damned." Gloom exclaimed.
The rattling whirlwind inhale started up behind them in the mist, like a hungry gale as the reaper king began to suck in all the ambient magic in the area.
"We're not flying." Gloom immediately changed his mind, "Run!"
'Are you blind? What does it look like I'm doing?!' But they were running out of beach and were almost back at the river already, and there was still no sign of a way out and the reaper king was just about to use its magic again and Prey didn't want to die and he could tastebloodinhismouthand-
"Here!" Crimson suddenly shouted jerking to a stop.
'Wha-?' Prey almost fell as he tried to turn as sharply as Crimson had, cleft hooves skittering for purchase on stone.
Gloom's wings flared against the air as he teetered off balance on only two legs as he also sought to stop, "W-?"
"An exit." Crimson shouted. "Way out!" Scenic whinnied.
Prey saw it. In the ravine wall lay a sudden split, a missing triangular wedge of stone. A crack fromed the wedges peak, zig-zagging up the ravine's face and was lost in the grey mist above.
The opening formed a jagged tunnel sloping steeply upwards, but it wasn't a cave because up at the other end, grey light coming through. It was a way out, and too low and narrow for the reaper king to ever follow them through!
Crimson was already tipping Scenic off of his back as it was too narrow for anything but single file, all the while gesturing frantically at them two, "Go!"
Prey hadn't waited to be asked. He'd dashed headlong up the rocky tunnel the moment he'd spotted the exit.
The world closed above him, his harsh panting echoing back to him. Prey legs burning as he tried to power along up the steep tunnel as fast as he could, hooves sinking into a mess of sharp rock shards as he struggled upwards. He gasped for breath, and he felt water trickling underneath the loose stones every time his hooves sunk into the sharp gravel.
He could see the lopsided grey wedge of light above him getting closer. He pushed his legs harder, breath sawing in the back of his throat.
There was only one goal. 'Get out before the reaper king uses its gathered magic.'
Prey staggered out of the tunnel, and almost immediately slipped on a mist dampened moss. There was the trickle and splash of of water into a small pool very close by, and once Prey had managed to regain his footing, he saw he was actually in a tiny rock grotto.
It was an open pocket of space, about ten hooves deep. Moss and wet vines trailed all over the water smoothed stone walls and dripped into the pool by his hoof. Tiny natural milky crystals speckled the walls. Centuries of erosion had dug out this grotto, and the tunnel he'd just climbed up from was where the water had cut a drain.
In another time, in another place, the appearance of such a grotto within this dark forest might've been breath taking.
All Prey saw was the open top of the grotto and the shapes of trees above. The way out back into the forest. Even with all its dangers, Prey couldn't think of a more beautiful sight in that moment.
Sliding shale and stones, and Gloom kicked his way up out of the tunnel into the grotto. He slipped on the wet moss and fell into the shallow pool with a splash of cold water which hit Prey in the face before he could turn away.
Gloom's exclamation of pain as he landed on his stitched up flank was ignored by Prey.
It was all secondary to the sounds of scrabbling echoing up the tunnel, along with the heavy muffled crunch of the reaper king swinging its way over.
'-oh mother oh Celestia oh Tarturas-', From the hole, Scenic's helmeted head popped up, panting and eyes wide in his ashen face. Gloom locked ankles with Scenic and hurriedly pulled him up, and they both slipped and fell into the pool again with a splash and clatter of armour. Scenic frantically struggled to get up, his thoughts a panicking mess.
"It's coming after us!"
"Not possible, it can't fit up the tunnel." Gloom protested, muddy and dripping
"It's-" Traces of orange light spilled up the tunnel. Prey's heart nearly jumped from his throat and out of his mouth. The reaper king had reached the other end of the tunnel and was crouching down to look up the other end! But there were only three of them up here.
'Where's Crimson?'
Prey dashed to the hole and was promptly knocked over as Crimson shot out of the steep tunnel like a cork from a bottle. Crimson almost seemed to flow like water as he contorted his body for purchase on the moss and jumped to the side and out of the line of sight from the hole.
Not a moment too soon. The skin crawling sensation of the reaper king's auraless telekinesis swarmed past Prey as it grasped at Crimson's tail, half a breath too late.
"Stay back from the hole! It'll try to grab you." Crimson exclaimed, in case it hadn't been blindingly obvious.
Below, there was a scraping crunch as the reaper king's enormous clawed hands tore at the entrance down on its end. However the slanted tunnel of rock was at least twenty-five hooves in length. As far as the golem's long arms could reach, there was no way for it to reach up this far.
Prey felt light headed so intense was his relief. They'd escaped the ravine in the nick of time.
"Still alive." He sagged against the damp, vine strewn wall. Just for a moment. Then, he could start climbing out of the grotto. All of them could. The warlock was still hunting them, they were still trapped in the forest, and the reaper king would climb out of the ravine eventually, but for the moment, they were still alive. Still alive!
The orange light was still shining up the tunnel's hole. The reaper king had stopped tearing at the entrance and gone quiet. And then came the deafening rattle of inhaled air, vines on the walls swaying as the air was sucked down the hole.
But that didn't affect them, the grotto was open to the air, it wasn't a cave so they couldn't suffocate. And if the warlock had some other kind of ranged magic aside from telekinesis, surely they would've used it by now instead of inaccurately launching boulders at them on the beach-
In one long stretched second, in that tiniest seesaw time between when the reaper king switched from inhaling to exhaling, there was a tiny pause.
In that sliver of time, no more than the shaving off a second, Prey knew.
It wasn't a thought, or a connection, or putting the pieces together. It was a flash of remembering something he'd known all along. He hadn't forgotten, but he hadn't realised what it meant either. Until now.
The dell Fallen Leaf had lead them to through the mist. The dead forest creatures sprawled in the water. Rotting flesh. Dried, bloody froth leaking from the boar's cracked lips and nostrils. Blinded white eyes. Poisoned.
Later, Prey didn't know why he shouted the warning. He could've taken that precious second instead to try and get out of the grotto. He'd been about to abandon them all back down in the ravine anyways.
Prey would later rationalise he'd done it because his best chance of survival lay with help from the others. That he did it for his own benefit.
Perhaps he even really did, because Prey never risked his life for anyone but himself.
In that moment before the milky white cloud of poison rolled up the tunnel and billowed out into the grotto, Prey screamed out his warning even as he dived onto the moss; "Poison! Cover eyes, block nose, hold breath. If you breathe, only sacrifice your throat!"
The last thing he heard and saw before he pressed his own floppy ears over his eyes like a makeshift blindfold, was a hollow whooshing followed by a burning wash of billowing white. Then there was only the blackness of his own eyelids, and the thudding of blood in his ears.
Prey squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could manage. Blackness. He could see nothing. The warmth of blood running under the skin of his ears pressed up to his face, his mouth and nose buried in the crook of one leg. Wet moss and slimy mud under his belly. He couldn't see or couldn't feel it, but he was surrounded by poison.
He couldn't breathe, he just had to hold his breath and wait.
But his heart was pounding and already his mind was trying to trick him into believing his lungs were burning. 'Don't breathe. Don't breathe. Don't breathe.'
Perhaps the cloud of poison had passed them by? Floated out up into the forest? The grotto was open after all.
There was no way to tell.
He couldn't feel anything different in the air, it was just as cold and damp as before. His fur was standing on end, but he couldn't actually tell anything.
He was trapped in his own dark little bundle of fear of his own making. It was just him, he hadn't a clue if the others had managed to heed his warning. He could only lie on the grotto floor, holding his breath, and covering his eyes.
How long could the poison linger in the air? How long could he hold his breath?
'Thirty-three...thirty-four... thirty-five...'
Prey wanted to breathe. It was like being submerged in the river all over again. Prey needed to breathe.
'Sixty-three...sixty-four-"
Someone rolled into Prey, thrashing about. Prey curled tighter into a ball, all his thoughts consumed with breathing and not breathing.
His eyes were squeezed so tight shut they were hurting. And then they began to sting, and then burn.
It felt like just smoke in his eyes at first, or an eyelash, then suddenly it became sand, then burning sand. A whimper of fear and pain built in the back of Prey's throat.
He clenched his eyes as tightly shut as he could, driving his ears tighter against his face to try and make a seal. And then a needle was being driven into the corners of his eyes as tears began to steam. And he needed to breathe!
He had to breathe! Muffled, he heard a gurgled scream of agony from somewhere. He hardly even registered it because; 'AirAirAirAirAir!'
'-hurts hurts breathe pain hurt-'
'-don't need to breathe, don't need to breathe, don't-breathe! AgghHHhHAA-'
Shuddering mental walls, crumbling as they were undermined by the all consuming need; '-I am the master of my body. I am the master. I control me, not my instincts-'
But everyone has to breathe. It was the truth every drowning victim learned at the end. Eventually, you had to open your mouth and breathe.
With a cry of frustration and despair, Prey gasped.
Prey tasted numbness on his tongue, and then his throat was burnt dry and then scoured open with with a broken glass bottle.
Prey screamed through gritted teeth, digging his face even harder into the crook of his leg. He couldn't open his eyes, he couldn't be blind as well!
Then he began coughing and choking. His throat was cracking open, it was so dry and it burned. it hurt, it hurt and he couldn't breathe again because his throat was closing over and it burned.
And every time he breathed he sucked in another gasp of burning poison.
'Burning, need water. Water!' The slain animals in the glen had all dragged themselves to the water, desperate to make the burning stop.
'The pool of water,' Prey's mind screamed in pain at him, 'Get the water.'
Prey heard splashing, coughing and chokes of pain. Someone else had realised the same thing as him. Still blind, with his eyes squeezed shut, coughing and whimpering, Prey pushed himself across the pulverised moss to the pool of water and plunged his face it.
Prey sucked in water, and got a mouth full of mud to go along with it, but he gulped it down heedlessly. It didn't help, his throat was still dry agony. He had to breathe, and drink, and breathe, and drink-
No! Prey turned his head and puked out the water. Then he shoved his face back into the pool, took anther gulp, swirled it around his mouth and then spat it out to the side, water dribbling down his chin as he did so again and again.
Gulp, rinse, puke, repeat.
His gut hurt, his throat hurt, his eyes hurt, but with each repetition he washed more traces of the poison from his savaged throat. He swallowed mud, he swallowed water, the pool began to run low as everyone desperately did the same, until Prey couldn't do it anymore.
He lay on his side, rasping, throat a tight ball of pain, and weakly panted for air.
It slowly dawned on Prey through the grey tinted pain of his mind that he was breathing. Badly, with his throat swollen half shut, each breath like a wire scourer, but breathing nonetheless.
The cloud of poison must've dissipated into the air, carried out of the open grotto and into the misty forest above.
Slowly, jerkily, Prey rolled onto his back, still trapped in the dark behind his own eyes. He felt utterly sick. And his throat hurt. Slowly, he cracked open swollen eyes, just a tiny sliver.
His eyes felt peeled raw the moment the cool air hit them, and fresh tears immediately started to flow. But there was no fresh burn of poison. He squinted, desperately hoping his already less than perfect eyesight hadn't been further destroyed.
Grey mist, the edges of the grotto's top above him. It was all blurry, but he had no way of telling if it was just the pain or if it was permanent damage. He whimpered again, just for good measure, and then sat up.
His head swam with the action, and he was sure he was going to be sick again. The thought of stomach acid coming up his ravaged throat at that moment was...horrifying. He'd likely choke to death.
But he hadn't breathed in even once through his nose. Only his mouth. It was only his throat that'd been destroyed, he could now still breathe through his nose.
'How long?' Prey muzzily wondered, 'How long was that? The poison couldn't have lingered in the air for more than two or three minutes... Was that really only three minutes?'
But Prey knew how pain could obliterate time, make it's passage inconsequential.
He blinked raw eyes, face screwed up as he tried to clear his swimming vision. He looked towards the tunnel through which the poison cloud had billowed. The orange light was gone. The reaper king had left.
'Left to find a way out of the ravine and come up here to make sure of its kills.' Prey realised in fear. It never ended, it just, never, stopped. The warlock would just keep coming and coming and coming and coming. They would never stop.
Prey finally turned his stinging eyes on the others. He'd been hearing three different ragged sets of breathing even as he lay, each distinctly different in the way it caught and the tone of its painful hitch.
Gloom, Scenic, and Crimson.
Gloom was lying with his hooves under him, wings wrapped around his head so Prey couldn't see his face. Mud and pulverised moss were smeared all across his body and armour.
Scenic lay on his side, half in the remains of the pool, now nothing but mud, his helmet thrown off. He moaned with every inhale of breath. His face looked horrible. His eye were swollen up alarmingly in their sockets, and the skin under his eyes where the tears had run was blistered, like he'd been crying acid instead of salt water.
'The poison was washed away in concentrated form in the tears.' Prey's mind automatically analysed. Actually, because they'd held their breath for the first minute, they'd likely each only gotten a diluted dose, the poison having already half drifted out of the open grotto by that point.
But even with their eyes tightly closed, traces of the poison cloud had still managed to creep in.
Very, very gently Prey used just the very tip of his hoof to lightly brush at his own tear ducts.
He choked as it felt like his hoof peeled his cheek open to the muscle, so raw was it. Prey's hooves hovered just in front of his face, desperate to touch and find out the damage, but just as desperate not to cause himself that pain again.
'Don't touch, don't think about it. What about Crimson?' Yes, what about the person Prey owed? What about the pony who'd thrown them all to the wolves with the Wolfing Wood?
Prey painfully turned his head to see. Crimson was slumped against the grotto wall, the only one of them who wasn't lying on the floor. He looked...Much like Scenic. Muddy, filthy, face swollen, cracked bleeding lips, and blistered tear tracks. But not quite as bad at the Earth pony, like Crimson had been able to better protect his eyes. He was sitting upright, at the very least.
Around Crimson's neck, the twinkling jade necklace sat glittering. Prey wondered if it had anything to do with Crimson's relatively good condition. Relatively meaning 'probably not blind for life'.
"...uys'." Prey tried to speak, and then clutched at his throat and moaned.
It hurt to breathe, but it hurt even more to speak. But Prey had to speak. He had to get them moving. They had to leave the grotto before the reaper king climbed its way out of the ravine and came up here.
His chest throbbed. That was his lungs.
Each time he swallowed was raw agony, and the more he tried not to think about swallowing the harder it became. Prey tried to speak again, "Cr'mson? 'Loom? ...Any'ne?"
No response. Scenic and Gloom's thoughts were a hazy, incoherent mess. Prey forced himself to try raising his voice, "Cr'mson? 'Loom? ...Any'ne? Poison's gone, floated out...Op'n your 'eyes."
Prey forced himself to stand up. He was so drained and miserable and battered, but he somehow made his legs obey him. 'I can still move. I can't speak but I can move and walk. The poison didn't ruin my body. So stop sitting around and do something you idiot before the reaper king comes to kill us all.'
Prey stiffly scooped up a hoof full of gritty mud, and threw it on Gloom's wings, currently spread over the thestral's head. Gloom twitched.
"G'it' up." Prey wheezed.
"G'it up. Can't stay 'ere." He tiredly scooped up more mud and began weakly tossing it at the others, the effort of walking over to them almost too much to face right now.
"G'it up!"
Slowly, jerkily, Crimson pushed himself off from the stone wall, caught vines trailing in his feathers.
" 'rey...?" Crimson croaked. His swollen eyes cracked open, and Prey saw the whites had turned red with burst blood vessels, with the familiar bright, golden yellow of his eyes gone cloudy and unfocused. But he focused on Prey, so he could still see.
"Yes Crimson. 'S me," Prey waved a limp hoof, "C'mon. We got to...'go. C'n't stay 'ere. 'Eaper king 'iz coming."
"...'eaper king?" Crimson mumbled, standing upright now but swaying.
Prey screwed his face up in pain as he tried to get the words out clearly, "The reaper kin'g iz' coming. Got to es'ape right now."
One of Gloom's wings withdrew from over his head, revealing the thestral's screwed up face to the world. His face and eyes looked worse than Crimson's, but better than Scenic's. His cracked and bleeding lips were pulled back from his teeth, and the fangs he usually so carefully hid in others company were fully bared in pain.
"W'at...?" Gloom rasped, squinting around and trying to get his bearings.
'-where am I? Where are we? The...cave thingy...my throat, it hurts-'
"Up." Crimson walked over with stilted steps, and started pulling the sprawled thestral up. His magic necklace let of a flash of green, and Crimson hauled Gloom up to his hooves in one go. They both staggered.
"S'rry." Crimson mumbled, trying to steady Gloom.
" 'm okay. Okay... 'm 'kay." Gloom tried to say, definitely not okay. None of them were okay. All of their breathing was ragged and pained, and worryingly, sounded like it might stop at any moment.
Gloom took a deep, rattling breath, teeth bared against the pain it caused him. " 'M okay. He'lp 'Enic. Scenic. Fly 'im out." And then he broke off into a full on hacking cough.
In alarm Crimson tried to support Gloom, but there was nothing he could do. It was agonising to listen to, because Prey knew exactly how much that coughing would hurt. When it finished, Gloom's streaming eyes were squeezed shut and he could only breathe in ragged pants.
"...'nc." Gloom couldn't speak anymore, he could only shakily point at Scenic, then at Gloom, then up at the forest above them.
Crimson knew there was nothing he could do. He moved over to Scenic, half in the pool of mud. "G'it up Sc'nic, get up'."
A moan of pain was all the response Crimson got, but he wasn't asking for permission. With the jade magic necklace empowering him, Crimson was the one in the best, or rather, the least bad shape here. He stooped and scooped up Scenic like the Earth pony weighed no more than a foal. Then, spreading his wings, he began to beat them rapidly until he was ascending out of the grotto.
Prey shielded his watering eyes, even the kicked up breeze too much. When next he looked up, he saw Crimson crouching at the edge of the grotto to jump back in, having lain Scenic off to the side somewhere. But Gloom snapped a wing open to halted him.
"...'ic....'ere."
Words failed Gloom. In frustration, he resorted to shaking his head and pointing at Crimson to stay up there. He was trying to tell Crimson to; '-watch the forest and Scenic, I can fly up myself-'
And then Gloom turned to where Prey stood, drooping against the grotto's crystal studded wall, and beckoned him hurriedly over. His intention was clear.
'-I may not be able to carry Scenic, but I can still carry a little lamb-'
Eyes half swollen shut, Prey stared blankly up at Gloom. The thestral who was supposed to be his Sargent, someone who he'd worked more closely with than anyone in over sixty years. In just the last few hours alone, they'd been through so much. Shared so many trials, survived so much danger. Despite everything Prey might think about the alicorn whom Gloom served, he knew Gloom was a good person inside. Crimson too. They'd fought together. They'd bled together.
But willingly take Gloom's hoof? Let the thestral carry him out to safety?
Gloom could go to Hell. No one was ever touching Prey.
Prey turned around to the wall and wrapped his hooves in the trailing vines, thorns ignored. He painfully began to climb out of the grotto himself, without Gloom's help.
Gloom didn't get angry, but perhaps that was just because he couldn't right then. He only seemed sadly disappointed, like he'd just realised something; '-so even under these circumstances he won't....-'
Gloom opened his wings and flew himself out. It wasn't far. The grotto was only about ten hooves deep. Prey felt air buffet his back as Gloom ascended past, but he didn't turn his head. He could climb out himself.
And he did, shying back from Crimson's hoof when the pegasus lent over to pull him up.
The familiar pine needle strewn forest floor touched Prey's hooves, the mist and dark tree canopy grimly welcoming him back with wide open forelegs and glinting teeth.
Prey's legs, which had been wobbling badly already, abruptly folded and he sat down on ground, brown pine needles sticking to his mud smeared wool. Even that short climb left Prey gasping for breath, feeling like his swollen cracked throat was only giving his lungs half as much air as he needed.
'I can't keep this up,' Prey thought, 'We can't keep this up. Each survival saps our strength further, drives us closer and closer to the edge.'
They were going to fail, and fail soon. The warlock was going to win.
'The next attack will be our last.' Prey thought, wearily raising his head to look at the others.
In each of their faces, even the only half conscious Scenic whom Crimson was supporting, he saw they'd realised the same truth too. It was like looking up into the faces of three corpses.
Drawn skin over pale flesh set in exhaustion. Sunken cheeks, blistered tear tracks, swollen eyes, mud, dirt, and grime streaked. Small cuts, scabs, and bruises of every variety. Lips peeled and bleeding. Those with longer manes had them hanging lank, filthy and matted, plastered to foreheads.
Desperate, spent, and defeated.
Gloom's ravaged throat wouldn't allow him to speak, but he could point. And he waveringly pointed out into the forest, the unspoken message was the same as if it'd been said. They were leaving. Running away. Fleeing. Or whatever you wanted to call it, but they were getting out of this grotto and out of this forest.
It was too much, the warlock's dark creations were too strong. They'd lost. They did not have what it took to do whatever it takes.
Would they even be able to make it out of the forest with their lives? Maybe. Maybe not. There is a price to pay for winning, and an even steeper one for losing.
They could still move and still walk, or in Crimson's case even more than that, but fly? Gallop? While barely able to breathe, frozen, exhausted, and soaked?
No.
They were beaten. They'd lost.
'-again and again and again, I failed again-', Gloom thought in despair, but all he managed to force out was:
"...'...'eed to go'."
Crimson held Scenic to his side with a wing, pulling the Earth pony's foreleg over his neck, and Prey got back to his hooves on his second try.
Gloom limpingly led the way into the shadowy mist.
It was slowly getting darker under the trees. Evening was here. Night would be following. They needed to be out of the forest before then.
'If we can't, I doubt we'll be leaving at all.' Prey thought. His breath sawed in his throat, burning and hurting, but all he was doing was limping along at a walking pace. If he was forced into trying to run though...
The reaper king was still out there somewhere, finding a place to climb out of the ravine and take up following their trail again. The kindersnatches too. Plus whatever the warlock had done with all the captured townspeople of Alfalfa Dale. Prey didn't want to think about what new dark horror the warlock was getting ready to inflict on them.
Unbidden, that old foal's rhyme rose in the back of Prey's head. If it wouldn't have caused him agony, and he wasn't being hunted through a forest actively trying to kill him, Prey would've let out a bark of laughter, 'Of course that comes to mind right now, just like in all those half-a-bit creepy campfire stories.'
Prey wasn't laughing though.
'~Raven magpie fly away, Scarecrow, keep at bay.'
'Wheat n' barley dance and sway, Harvest king, come to play~'
'~Straw the barn n' reap the hay, Sickle slice, fell and dice.'
'For winter's bite comes cold as fright, Hungry wolves, in the night~'
'~For farmer knows to plant and grow, Fallow fields, barren rows.'
'Summer passes at its height, Reaper king, laughs delight~'
And Prey still wasn't laughing.
It wasn't funny, because this was real. The pain, the agony, the fear, it was all so terribly, terribly real. It wasn't just some scary story round the campfire. Or even a surreal memory.
And it wasn't funny, nor was anyone laughing. Except the warlock. Prey's breath came faster, burning his aching throat. Somewhere out there, the warlock was laughing at him. Because Prey was stuck with these ponies who couldn't do what it took, and the warlock was free do do whatever they wanted, and now they were laughing at him!
Prey limped along in the deepening gloom, throat a choked ball of pain, and phantom mocking laughter ringing in his memories, the cruel laughter of the Resistance. They were laughing. They were laughing at him. They always laughed at the runt lamb crybaby. They never stopped laughing, even after all these years.
There was only one warning, half a second in length, and it was only Prey that noticed. Even Crimson, with his special talent, couldn't scent anything but their own myriad hurts and blood.
There was no tell-tale gurgle. All Prey felt was a sudden painful tingle in his hooves mid step.
His head jerked up and his swollen red eyes widened.
"Kinder-Gack!" Prey choked out the warning.
Kindersnatches swarmed out of the darkening gloom from the right, and the silencing spell over them popped like a bubble.
Rushing noise. Gurgling, the thrash of whipping thorn branches and trampling roots cut into existence at deafening volumes.
As Prey futilely turned to flee, knowing he didn't have the strength to outrun them, he caught a wild glimpse of bobbing animal bone charms dangling from sticks jammed into gaps between woven wicker. The warlock's spell anchors. But Prey was too slow, a kindersnatch stretched out its thorny tendrils to grab him.
A squiggle line of green light danced before Prey's vision. As Prey fell back, the thorn tendrils kept flying at Prey, and then past him. The severed limbs tumbled to the dirt, no longer attached to the kindersnatch.
"Wa'ch out!"
Crimson, reliable warrior outcast Crimson, bared his wing blades edged with green light, barring the kindersnatches way. Scenic's foreleg had been thrown off, and now Crimson stood before the oncoming rush of kindersnatches to protect the rest of them.
Gloom reached for the staggering Scenic, Prey pushed himself back to his hooves, Crimson drew back his wingblade and shrewdly lined up his first slash to take off the legs of the foremost kindersnatch. The wave of wicker rushed onto them and split around Crimson.
Prey threw himself under a thorny whip which blurred in a *whiiish* above his head. He rolled through the pine needles. Dirt- kindersnatches- tree canopy- dirt- kindersnatch legs- tree canopy- dirt- roots- tree trunk.
'-Aar--_RAga-hhH_hIiIiei---IeiI-_iEArgh-'
" 'imson 'elp us!"
Rasping gurgles everywhere.
More kindersnatches tried to snatch Prey as he scrambled up behind the tree, air catching in his burning throat and muscles like water.
The world was all a blur, plunged into a mess of noise and fighting. Why couldn't the warlock just leave them alone!?
Prey tried throwing hoofulls of pine needles and dirt, but kindersnatches didn't have external eyes. Prey ran round and around the trees as he was chased, desperate, hurting, and knowing that at any second, his weak body would prove too slow and he'd be caught.
Prey leapt over an exposed pine root and a kindersnatch appeared from nowhere, lurching in front of him. His eyes widened, he couldn't turn aside or the kindersnatch behind him would get him!
Prey slipped passed by the skin of his teeth. Somehow. He scrounged the energy from somewhere to lengthen his stride and slip passed just before the wicker monster could fully block his path. He ducked around the main body, but the kindersnatch's grasping tendrils were still reaching after him.
With a stupid sort of twisting skip, Prey managed to pull in his hind legs and avoid getting snagged at the last second, but it cost him his momentum.
Out of the corner of his right eye, Prey saw a flash of slicing green light. Without stopping to properly look or think, Prey threw himself to the right without any sort of plan.
There wasn't time to think or see if Crimson could help, Prey just acted.
He rolled across the dirt, feeling pain and his skinned face burning, seeing sharp kindersnatch legs stabbing down around him. A cloud of mouldy pine needles was kicked up into Prey's face as he rolled past. He spat, trying to see.
Crimson's wing blade slashed at a kindersnatch, and green light extended the blow past the actual blade's length. The kindersnatch reeled back, missing a number of tendrils and a leg.
Even now, Crimson wasn't using killing blows. He placed his hooves precisely, controlled the space around himself, and kept moving forwards. Poisoned, injured, and weakened, yet the jade necklace made up for Crimson's failing body and allowed him to fight as if at normal peak condition.
But how long could the strengthening magic of the necklace last before it drained Crimson dry again? It could not be long.
Prey got up, fell back down, ducked left then gasped and immediately changed that to ducking right as a gurgling kindersnatch appeared from around a tree trunk from that side.
Above the wicker casket heads of a gaggle of kindersnatches, he saw leathery wings beating the air, mist plumes billowing in response. Prey couldn't see what Gloom was doing or if he was getting surrounded, nor did he have time to look.
'I have to hide, I have to hide, I have to hide!'
Prey cast about wildly and found he somehow had a second to breathe. Had he broken out of the swarm? Had he somehow been missed in all the noise and chaos?
Then he realised the kindersnatches were grouping up on Crimson, trying to overwhelm what the warlock had identified as the biggest threat with numbers.
'Or stall us until their reaper king arrives.'
'-GghhHG-ARr_-HiIIiIS--'
But not all of them were. Raw eye's streaming, Prey twisted, and saw Scenic trying to hold off a kindersnatch. Somehow, the Earth pony had not only succeeded in not immediately dying, but had even somehow gotten one of the kindersnatches to chase him between a split trunk pine tree and gotten it jammed.
That wasn't doing anything to deter the second kindersnatch from attempting to either catch Scenic, or flay him alive.
The stallion was utterly on his last legs. He was backed up to a tree, bucking wildly behind him at the kindersnatch to keep it at bay. Some of his kicks managed to strike the kindersnatches upper body, briefly knocking it back, some of kindersnatches heavy whip blows were being landed right back, loudly smacking against armour.
But the difference was clear. Each blind kick was likely to be Scenic's last, each buck a desperate, exhausted effort.
Sweating, panting through a ragged throat, Prey cast about. But there was nothing to use, and for these brief few seconds he was unmarked by any kindersnatch. Now was the best time to flee.
'And so Scenic goes the same way as Lilly Blossom went.'
Scenic didn't deserve this death. But life isn't fair.
Sides heaving, Scenic gathered all his energy bucked again, and by pure chance this one buck hit a weak point in the kindersnatch's wicker. With a crunch Scenic's hooves punched the wicker casket, and kicked the victim imprisoned inside.
The slavering gurgle emitted from the kindersnatch seemed to turn into a wet cough and it lurched about wildly. Scenic seemed even more terrified that he'd actually hit something because he broke into more frantic blind kicking.
Prey saw his chance. He bowled into the kindersnatch's two rear root legs as hard as he could. Prey was a runt, but it was enough when combined with the Earth pony's wild batterings. The top heavy kindersnatch overbalanced and tumbled down.
Prey scrambled away from the downed kindersnatch, the thing's legs were still stabbing and clawing, its tendrils still flailing about at bone cracking speeds. It was down, but it was only temporary.
The kindersnatch succeeded in rolling itself onto its back, gurgling viciously, and Prey saw the section of splintered and broken wicker exposed. He caught the briefest glimpse of broken skin and hairless withered grey flesh through the hole.
Scenic reared up above the downed kindersnatch, front hooves pawing the air, ready to crash down on the exposed weakness.
In a moment, the kindersnatch would get back up, but Scenic continued to balance in the air, hooves ready to smash down, blistered face all twisted up.
'-I, I can't-'
"Do' i't." Prey gasped, horrified that Scenic was hesitating. The fool!
"Do' 'it Scen'c!"
"N-no." Scenic gasped, and fell backwards. He crashed to the ground spreadeagled, chest heaving and didn't get back up.
But the kindersnatch did, rocking back to its multi-root legs.
Scenic weakly raised his head, then let it fall back as the kindersnatch loomed up above him. His chest was heaving, and through half blind eyes Scenic stared up as the kindersnatch filled his vision. The Earth pony wasn't even able to raise a foreleg to cover his face. Scenic let his swollen eyes slide shut.
Prey heard the slap of wind in leathery sails, and Gloom came powering out of the shadows in a flying jump. A broken branch was clasped in his jaws, and in a move so smooth it could only be complete luck, swooped over the kindersnatch's head with a downbeat of his wings, and plunged the splintered end in through the broken gap of wicker.
Half of the kindersnatch's limbs and legs abruptly went limb, and the kindersnatch fell over as its remaining legs failed to support it.
Gloom landed clumsily, only able to refold one wing. His legs were streaked with his own blood in the darkening light, mixed blackly with mud. And he seemed to be screaming through teeth still clenched around the splintered branch; "NNNnnnngggggh!"
Gloom spat out the branch, "-nnnnnggGGHH!" He finished in a hoarse exhale of pain.
Then he began coughing and trying to breathe.
"S'r?" Scenic croaked.
Prey staggered up next to the prone Earth pony and glared down at him through red rimmed eyes and utter contempt. "You 'diot." Prey gurgled.
Scenic chest was still erratically heaving in and out, but he had this stupid hopeless grin on his face despite all odds. "Couldn't 'do i't."
"Fool. 'You were de'd." Prey sneered.
"Didn' do it. In 'da' end, I couldn' kill." Prey saw a serene expression of utter relief underneath all the grime, blood, and pain. "I'm not a kill'r."
Gloom staggered up behind Scenic, and dragged the Earth pony up into a sitting posture, "Git' up. Up! Up Sc'nic." Gloom wheezed, jaw clenched, "Pl's... 'git up!"
"Leav' me sir. 'eave me." Scenic weakly protested.
"No. G'it up!" Gloom heaved, tendons standing out in his neck. Prey stepped back, seeing kindersnatches bearing down on them. If Gloom didn't leave Scenic, then both stallions would die.
But Gloom would never leave a Guard behind. He'd sacrificed too much, lost too many people to the warlock already. '-it's not happening again!-'
Green light flashed from the rear of the approaching rush of kindersnatches. It danced above their casket bodies, dancing and swirling and cutting its way through.
And Gloom and Scenic saw hope. Hope to live a few more seconds.
A squiggle of green light traced through the foremost charging kindersnatches legs. There was a pause, then the kindersnatches legs parted and it tumbled down, sliding forwards, tendrils thrashing up a cloud of rotting pine needles.
Crimson vaulted over its face down body, landing in a crouch with his wings spread low. His red squinting eyes met Prey's for a brief moment, and Prey saw in them rapidly approaching exhaustion, along with rising fear as Crimson felt that moment rushing upon him.
Crimson had once again come to their rescue, bought another moment of survival, but he couldn't keep this up. He would fail soon.
But despite his exhaustion, despite the necklace draining the magic from his muscles, Crimson stood straightened up once again and bared his wing blades.
Gloom raised himself back to his hooves and took a wobbling step forwards to stand beside Crimson, "Stand toge'th'r," He coughed, "Fight togeth'r."
Idiocy. Heroics. Suicide.
A last stand was just that, the last thing you ever did.
Surrounded by kindersnatches, injured, tired beyond all belief, there wasn't really much choice. Gloom would not leave Scenic behind, and nor would Crimson. So they stood and fought.
For a minute. Then two.
Prey did what he could, throwing dirt and sticks at the kindersnatches, trying to croak out warnings to Gloom and Crimson when a kindersnatch snuck around, and even burned off a kindersnatch's tendril at one point with a desperate rune. For ten or maybe even twenty seconds afterwards, all Prey could see and hear was grey fog as the world drained away around him.
When he came to himself, he was astonished to realise he was still alive. Crimson was doing almost all the work, his wing blades and necklace making him the most capable.
Scenic was...still almost completely unable to stand. And it was too much.
They broke and lost. It was inevitable.
The number of kindersnatches the warlock was throwing at them were simply too great. From the very first moment, Prey had known they weren't going to win. That if they fought, they would end up dead on the cold forest floor. But still he tried. He fought, because he was terrified and didn't want to die.
A gurgling kindersnatch, bigger than the rest of the foul pack, broke past Gloom and Crimson and made straight for Scenic where he leaned against a tree, standing about all the stallion was able to do. The Earth pony couldn't more than turn his head away to guard it as the kindersnatch barrelled towards him.
"Scen'c!"
Crimson tried to rush after the large kindersnatch, but he was growing slow. Too slow to stop it in time.
And then, wonder of wonders, horror of horrors, the kindersnatch did stop. It stopped going after Scenic, turned, and went after Prey instead.
Prey looked up at the massive kindersnatch, not as large as the reaper king or the scarecrow, but that didn't matter because it was about to kill him. Prey ran. He was so slow. He was so tired. His legs were weighed down by leaden weights.
Prey thought he heard of the pounding blood in his ears the cracked voice of Gloom calling to Crimson, " 'elp Prey. Go!"
It was going to catch him. Prey couldn't outrun it. He could hardly breathe, he panted but couldn't get enough air. The gurgling was right behind him! Reaching out with those thorny arms to grab and tear him.
For five seconds, desperation lent Prey enough strength to somehow speed up.
But then he couldn't, he just couldn't keep it up. His body slowed back down without his control and the gurgling reeled him in. He was so tired and sore and he couldn't run forever and it just wasn't fair!
Prey started to choke on sobs, but his half blinded eyes couldn't find anywhere in the trees to run or hide.
He was going to be caught.
He was going to lose.
He was going to die.
Everything narrowed down to that. He was going to die. Blackness danced around the edge of his streaming eyes. There was a dull roaring in his head.
He was going to be caught.
He was going to lose.
He was going to die.
'No. No. nO!'
The kindersnatch was going to catch him any second. It was going to tear him apart at the seams. It was going to squeeze him like a doll until his stuffing burst out. And then the warlock was going to sow him back together as some twisted scarecrow-
In the depths of Prey's subconsciousness, more felt than thought, rusted bars bent and eyeless heads turned towards the bright surface above.
'If I die, so does eVerYOne ElsE!'
A huge gust of air blew over the back of Prey's head, the silk ribbon streaming out in front of him for a moment and in his periphery he saw a dance of green light.
Gurgle.
*Snick* *Slick*
A thump followed by a heavy patter, like rope hitting the dirt.
Prey stumbled to a halt, throat cracked, panting, gasping, and turned. Crimson stood, legs braced over the cut down kindersnatch, and heaved for breath. The kindersnatch had been de-legged and armed. Crimson had not gone for the kill again, and the kindersnatch rocked about on the forest floor still trying to attack them.
Prey couldn't see any other pursuers emerging from the mist behind the pegasus. Had they really escaped?
Crimson managed to lift his eyes to look at Prey as he gasped and heaved. He had blood dripping from an ugly cut on his forehead. He tried to speak, and then promptly fell over sideways.
"Cr'msn." Prey didn't rush over, he couldn't. He hobbled.
"No more...pursu'rs?" Prey managed to rasp out, throat feeling like he'd swallowed a razor blade.
Crimson couldn't get a word out, only shake his head.
"Gloom an' Scen'c?" Prey tried next, having to speak up over the disarmed kindersnatch's gurgling.
Again, Crimson could only miserably shake his head. There was blood leaking from his cracked lips he was panting so hard.
Prey's heart did...nothing. It did nothing. It was grey. "They're- *Cough*-They're de'd?" He managed blankly.
Crimson gave his head another quick shake. He hesitated, but then kept on shaking it. He gulped, and managed to rasp out, "Don' know."
Prey sat down. It was that or fall down, "So they're not de'd?"
Crimson shook his head yet again, "Don'...th'nk so. Didn't see. Got spl't up. Gloom took Scen'c an' ran. I th'nk." He repeated.
With a super equine effort, Prey struggled back to his hooves, fighting through everything his body did to make him want to stay down. To stay here was to die. The effort made his head swim with dizziness though.
"We hav' to go Cr'mson," Prey forced out. He limply indicated the disabled kindersnatch, "Warlock know's we're her'e."
"Cou'd-" *cough* "-Could...k'll it?" Crimson suggested weakly, eyes looking away.
"W'll you?" Prey challenged, raising his chin, "Or you tellin' me to?"
Crimson squeezed his swollen eyes shut, "I...I...no-"
"-Dos'n't matter anyway," Prey broke him off, "K'll it. Don't k'll it. Warlock still k'nows we're 'ere."
Crimson's body slumped down even further. He closed his eyes, still trying to breathe properly.
"Stan' up Cr'mson." Prey told him, although it came out more as a hesitant suggestion. Could Crimson even stand up?
Crimson struggled, somehow got his hooves under him, and did. Prey didn't know what it cost him, but Crimson did it and stood again.
Wordlessly, Prey lead the way as he began to limp off between the ever darkening trees and shadows. Crimson followed, stumbling after him into the mist.
---
Prey's head was throbbing. He was sick to his stomach from regurgitating poison and muddy water. His body was weak too. The energy from the two seeds he'd eaten earlier had worn off and left him even weaker than before. It felt like he was walking on a lake's surface, bouncy and wobbly, yet solid at the same time, like he might fall through at any moment. He knew that was his muscles were not so slowly failing.
But why wasn't the warlock chasing them? Prey didn't know for sure, but he had a guess mixed with a dreadful feeling.
If he'd been in the warlock's place, he would've sent the kidnersnatches after Gloom and Scenic, whereas Crimson, who'd proved multiple times he could deal with kindersnatches, would require the reaper king to finish him off. Once the golem got out of the ravine, that is.
Prey stumbled over a bare patch of nothing, his legs only ever one step away from giving up. He himself also felt like giving up. It felt hopeless. He didn't have the energy to create enough runes to deal with the reaper king when it inevitably came. Not that he had close to the time needed either.
It could be hours or mere minutes before the reaper king was upon him and Crimson. Running away felt so pointless, but he kept placing one hoof in front of the other.
'Have to keep going. Have to put some distance between us.'
He could hear Crimson shuffling along behind him. Gone was the pegasus's almost silent warrior's gait. Prey didn't have the energy to turn and look.
If they ran into a monster right now, they were utterly done for. Both of them were too weak to achieve anything more than a shambling run while this injured, hungry, and thirsty. Prey tried not to think about it.
Or about whatever had happened to Scenic and Gloom.
'Gloom...and even Scenic. I, I don't...How do I feel about that?'
Was it an hour, or only ten minutes before he and Crimson had to stop? Crimson stood, resting all of his weight against a sloping pine tree, wings sloppily draped over his back.
Prey slumped into the crook of a jumble of hard tree roots. They felt almost pillow soft. Breathing was such an effort. He was hungry, and cold. His eyes were raw, and he desperately wanted to shut them, but he knew if he did he probably wouldn't open them again.
'That's probably the reason why Crimson hasn't lain down yet.' Prey thought distractedly. He was so tired. He was even having trouble thinking, but he could still remember how he'd very nearly made a huge mistake back there with that kindersnatch.
Prey held his hoof before his eyes. It trembled, although whether tiredness or fear even he couldn't properly tell. 'I'm taking everyone with me? What was I thinking?'
He continued staring blearily at his hoof. It wasn't coming into focus properly, still blurry at the edges. Not with the clarity he was used to. 'My eyes are permanently damaged, then?' Prey thought.
It was stupid considering what he'd just survived, but the realisation still made him feel cold inside.
"Pr'y?"
Prey blinked. He'd lost a couple of seconds there. Had he fallen asleep?
"Pr'ey?" Crimson repeated.
With a lot of effort, Prey turned his head to look at Crimson. The pegasus was basically asleep on his hooves, still leaning heavily against the tree.
"You r'dy to move?" Crimson coughed.
It took Prey a second longer than it should've done to process even that simple statement.
"No cho'ice." He shrugged wearily, climbing up. He swayed.
Crimson still lent against the tree. "Giv' me...fiv' seconds."
Prey sadly examined him and their chances in the darkening forest, "Take....ten."
Ten seconds. Prey tried to come up with a plan during those ten seconds. It was just him and Crimson, the two most capable out of the original four ISND. Or five, if you counted Lilly, but she was gone now.
Unless Crimson wasn't really Crimson but another Mimic like Shimmer had been.
'Does it even matter if he is?' Prey asked himself. Even if Crimson had never really been Crimson, Prey still owed him. But if he was indeed a Mimic, Prey would...
Prey didn't know what. He was too tired to think right now. But he had to think, because he needed some way out of this.
Ten seconds were up, and Prey still hadn't thought of any plan. Giving up was not a plan.
Prey belatedly realised Crimson had come up to stand alongside him. He met Prey's eyes with an exhausted gaze. He spoke through a cracked throat, "Pr'y I'm...lost. Ev'ryth'ng has failed, all our pl'ans. Nothin's worked. My best ef'forts w'ren't good enough. I'm...lost. Even 'dis-"
Crimson flicked the jade necklace twinging around his neck.
"-Not en'ough. Me, not en'ough. My best eff'rts, not en'ough. My ideas, not en'ough. Not en'ough. Never en'ough."
Prey felt his bruised stomach churn as Crimson looked at him with a mixture of defeat, resignation, smouldering anger, and fading hope.
"But you' Pr'y?... You c'n think of som'thin'. I know you c'n. You alw'ys do. Som'thin' cruel. Som'thin' evil... A pl'an that'll work."
Crimson broke off to cough horribly, face screwing up in pain until the coughing passed, "I saw it. Those tr'ps you made. You don' ne'd me to lead, you ne'd me to follow your pl'ans. I've jus' be'en holdin' you' back, I see 'dat now."
Crimson took a ragged breath, "So, c'n you'...? Make a pl'n, an' I'll do whatev'r you need me to?"
"You ov'r estimate me." Prey said tiredly. "I hav' no plan. Nothin' to stop reaper k'ng in time.....Wa'it....."
Prey paused. He paused for a long time. The forest leaned in to listen and held its breath.
"I... do hav' a pl'an actually."
---
The white capped Ridgeback peaks glittered like glass in the last rays of the setting sun. On one side lay the prosperous realm of Equestria. On the other, the wild border lands, dark greens fading to black in the waning light.
If someone had been there standing high enough up on the Ridgeback to look out, down the rolling slopes and out onto the sea of the great pine forest, perhaps they might've appreciated the rugged natural beauty sprawling on towards the horizon. What lay beyond the great pine forest? What undiscovered lands? What secrets waiting to be found?
The last caws of crows. The stiff wind. The cold of coming night. The deepening ever blue of the night sky, the rich fading into purple velvet as exquisitely bright crystal gems began to speckle the heavens.
Such a person, if they'd stood up there, would've been rewarded with the silence of the mountain night and a star field that had never looked closer.
But never let the beauty fool you. Nature is cruel in a way that Ponykind, with its tamed weather and cultivated lands, can never understand.
Nature. Does. Not. Care.
And it never will.
---
Prey and Crimson had spoken but briefly.
"The reaper k'ng is com'ng. It'z' only a matt'r of time. I hav' a pl'an, but only you' can do it Cr'mson."
"What do I hav' to do Pr'y?"
"Leav' me."
"Bu-....Okay."
"Leav' me an' go into baloth terr'tory."
"Tell me what I mus' do."
------<-<-<-{O}->->->------
They met again in the fresh darkness of night, halfway between where the now desecrated stone circle lay, and the invisible border of the baloth's territory.
The stone circle to the East, the baloth's vast territory to the West. The ravine to the North, and the warlock and reaper king somewhere to the South.
Surrounded.
Odds dictated they should've died ten times over. The forest was cruel and hungry. In the state they were in, a monster should've gotten at least one of them, what with them splitting up like that in the face of the coming night.
Or the reaper king should've found them. Or the remaining kindersnatches which could occasionally be heard off somewhere in the distant trees. Or they should've simply fallen unconscious from exhaustion.
The odds had not been in their favour. There were so many basic points upon which this plan could fail before it even began, and even then, the end result was as likely to mean their deaths as their survival.
What if the baloth was on the other side of its vast territory? What if the reaper king had some other ability it had not yet displayed? What if the warlock was cautious? What if? What if, if, if, if if if!?
Always "What if"?
What if Gossamer had been stronger all those years ago?
The world was full of 'what if's?
Prey was hiding behind a bush in the dark, almost comatose with exhaustion. When the reflective yellow of Crimson's eyes had glimmered in the dark ahead, he'd almost jumped out of his wool.
"Pr'y?...Pre'y?....Pr'y?..." Crimson was quietly calling out over and over as he plodded along.
Prey had to swallow a few times before he could get his throat to work enough to croak out, "Here Cr'mson."
"Wher'e?" Crimson asked, casting about.
Prey didn't have the strength to get up. Biting his lip at the pain in his side, he weakly raised a hoof from behind the bush, "Her'e."
Crimson stumbled over, "I did as' you' said. K'lled a bird for bl'ood." He said, voice projecting bone weariness.
'Good. Will it be enough though?' Prey thought. He swallowed drily again and gestured Crimson closer so he did not have to raise his voice even slightly. They were in enough danger as it was already.
"Here," Prey whispered, pushing a hoof full of stringy, half crushed mushroom caps towards Crimson, "Eat 'em. Will help wi'd the tiredness."
It couldn't be seen in the dark, but the button mushroom caps would've been a dark, glossy brown in the daylight.
"These s'fe?" Crimson mumbled, not even waiting for a reply before chewing and painfully swallowing them.
Prey gave a small shrug, "No. Mildly poisones's. But w'll giv' you som' energy."
Crimson briefly paused, then put the rest of them in his mouth and ate them anyway. "Wha' about you'?"
"Alr'edy ate all I can safely eat." Prey shook his head, then winced and clutched at his lower half, "Didn' help much."
Those mushrooms were probably the only reason Prey was still conscious right now. They were nowhere near as strong as the black seeds he'd eaten earlier, but he had none of those left. If only Crimson had brought back more of them with him from the Wolfing Wood.
'If if if all over again.'
Prey closed his eyes and leaned back into the bush, the prickly branches supporting him and tried not to whimper while he waited for Crimson to finish. His guts were really hurting right now.
And his conscience. Oh how that was mercilessly savaging him right now.
'Gloom said do whatever it takes. I'm merely doing that.'
But Prey had never agreed to that. Just because Gloom had said it, didn't make it okay for Prey to actually do. And since when did anyone else ever tell Prey what to do?
'Never. I belong to no one.'
And he knew when Gloom had made that statement, he could never have envisioned Prey's actions.
No. Prey's choices, and the black bubbling pitch of guilt they brought, belonged to him and him alone.
Prey tried to force his tired mind to think about something else. Like the lethal danger they were in here in the forest at night. Actually, that didn't help in the slightest.
Crimson swallowed the last stringy mushroom, "Now what Pr'y?" He managed, slowly flexing his legs as the effects of the mushrooms must've began to manifest.
Prey knew the energy the mushroom caps gifted didn't actually help. They just tricked your body into thinking it wasn't as tired as it actually was. And then made you sick.
"Now try an' surv've the night." Prey groaned, getting up, his insides twinging unpleasantly. He couldn't see more than six yards in the dark. It would be up to Crimson for that, he was the eyes, and Prey would be their ears.
"Jus' need to wait. Hold ou't until...until.... u-until........."
Prey stuttered to a halt. His cracked checks shrieked as his eyes went wide. He did whimper now, because he as their ears heard it.
..............thump........thump......thump*......thump*...*thump*...*Thump*...
'No....No it's too soon! We needed time for the baloth to come!'
But plans never survive first contact with the enemy, and nature did not care what you needed.
"Pr'y?" Crimson asked cautiously, staring at the end of Prey's ribbon, which was trembling as if in a wind. There was no wind.
"Tim' to run!"
And they ran, or hobbled, or stumbled, or fell and got up again in the dark, but they run they did, fleeing into the forest as the reaper king closed in.
---<-<O>->---
It was now.