//------------------------------//
// Part One 
// Story: Tavern Tactics 
// by Impossible Numbers 
//------------------------------//

The stallions had gone on ahead, despite Stygian’s “ums” and “ahs”. Like Meadowbrook said, put a stallion in a one-pony town and he would soon gravitate towards the nearest tavern.

This one creaked. It looked like it had been erected overnight using woodrot and any sawdust that hadn’t collapsed yet.

Hardly anyone remained in town anyway – the stallions had seen maybe four or five ponies milling about – and the tavern only had half a dozen patrons despite this being happy hour. Not that this ever stopped Rockhoof’s singing. Rockhoof could sing for a whole troop of ponies. Any tavern with him in it automatically seemed crowded.

Now the four stallions linked forelimbs and swayed, spilling their drinks with the logistical effort involved.

“Oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh –” began Flash Magnus, leading them into another song.

“I’ll march o’er hills, I’ll fly o’er vale,
I’ll sing through wind, and grind through gale,
I’ll wear my bones, my armour torn,
I’ll weather cries of hate and scorn;
Old Tartarus I’ll face for you,
My second soul, my love so true!
My second soul, my love…”

“SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” boomed Rockhoof.

“Truuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeeee,” howled Star Swirl.

Even through the collapse of laughs and hearty backslaps, they noticed suspicious eyes watching them from the bar. The rest of the tavern held their silence, their drinks undrunk.

Stygian was the first to recover. This wasn’t his first time drinking with the “lads”, but he still insisted on a thimble full of orange squash. He’d mostly joined in to blend in; last time he’d tried cider, it had hurt his throat.

“A sterling countertenor, sir!” he said, to keep up their spirits. Alone of the group, he couldn’t hold his smile any better than he could hold his drink.

“Thank you, Stygian.” Star Swirl harrumphed, his signal that pleasantries were well and truly over. “As it happens, I used to be in the all-stallions choir of the old Canterlot University, what. In those days, you learned your C-sharps from your D-flats quick as a whip! The Old Master Dire Tonic wasn’t shy about correcting an errant tongue, oh dear me no…”

Stygian sighed, but very quietly. The bearded sorcerer was gearing up for another “Back in my day…” speech. If Stygian heard any more, his memoirs would be full of nothing but “Back in my day…” speeches.

“Yes, sir,” he began, speaking quickly, “and while we seem to have a brief respite, sir, I’ve assessed our current situation and taken the liberty of considering several new battle strategies –”

“Ouah, have yerself a pint, Stygie.” Rockhoof shoved one of his many tankards over the table. “It’ll put hairs on yer chest –”

“More hairs than usual,” added Flash cheerfully.

“Aye. Drink enough, and yer might e’en grow a chest to put them on too.”

Both he and Flash elbowed each other and threw back a quaff of cider. Some of it splashed on the floor.

Stygian smiled for their sakes, but deep down his memory added the joke to a list.

He glanced at the bar. Sitting on stools, the other patrons nursed their drinks and glared over at the party, like misers expecting thieves. Even the bar-stallion had a hoof under the counter, and while Stygian hadn’t been in many taverns in his life – his tutors had largely discouraged frivolous pursuits of any kind, up to and including smiles – he kept his ears open, and one of the things he’d learned was that a bar-stallion with a grim view of his clientele was most likely a friend of some useful club kept handily within reach. Preferably a big, no-nonsense club. With a nail in it.

There was no doubt the sirens had been through here. In a town this small, the bitter hatreds of a few dozen ponies would have made for slim pickings, but in any case, he’d learned that some towns didn’t need much excuse to start a tavern brawl. Sometimes, merely existing was enough to offend them.

It wasn’t as if his friends blended in. Star Swirl’s bells jangled on his robes whenever he moved, and he had a certain way of sitting that suggested anyone nearby was automatically a servant. Flash Magnus’ armour clanked and groaned under the rust. And Rockhoof didn’t need any fancy clothing to stand out. He projected a sort of “anti-blending-in” field with his sheer presence, and a large stallion who didn’t wash the “good, honest earth” off his coat soon had another sheer presence of his own anyway.

“Um, sirs?” Stygian began, trying not to breathe too deeply.

“Tell me, Captain Magnus,” said Star Swirl, “whence did you come upon that delightful little ditty?”

“Sang it on the campaigns to the Griffon Kingdoms, sah!” Flash Magnus ripped off a salute, half-mocking, half-earnest. “Commander Ironhead disapproved, sah, so we sang it at every chance we got, just for him.”

When he winked, Flash Magnus could make even Rockhoof blush.

“But after the first few raids, we stopped singing it out of respect, sah.”

“Why’s that?” said Star Swirl. “Sounds rather uplifting, I think.”

“Yes, sah, but it’s one thing to sing it just to rile up a stuffy old commander. It’s another to sing it when he knows his friends won’t be singing it anymore.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

Stygian wished he wasn’t sitting right next to Star Swirl. He was living proof that embarrassment was contagious.

Sometimes, the sorcerer could be so dense. Give him the fabric of space and time to mess about in, he’d run ring universes around you, but hint as to anything involving other ponies and he always, despite his best efforts and understanding, found a way to soil it.

Yet Flash Magnus’ brief frown vanished as quickly as it came. He’d gotten used to the sorcerer’s density.

“On account of all the war and so on, sah,” he said. “Not everyone gets out alive, sah.”

“Oh, I see. Yes,” said Star Swirl hurriedly. “Pardon me.”

And that was another problem with Star Swirl. In his own mind, he was never really wrong. Just mildly not-quite-correct, and then the mistake hadn’t happened and they all were supposed to move on. Stygian wondered how the bearded stallion’s tutors had treated him to get him like this. Or even if it had been the other way around.

Fortunately, Flash Magnus raised his tankard to show good spirits. “It’s a good song amongst friends, sah, but you have to pick your company with care, if you see what I mean. I’ve known it to break a stallion at many a tavern.”

“That poor stallion,” said Rockhoof.

“No, I meant –”

“Aye, I ken well what yer meant. The Mighty Helm’s seen many a good soul fall to arrow and blade, and worse things besides. Yer learn fast to get yer good cheer where yer can.”

Flash Magnus raised his tankard higher, more emphatically. “Qui dixit mihi verum, et dixit mihi doloris et mortis.”

A master of languages, Stygian raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“That’s rather grim, what,” said Star Swirl, also a master of languages but less prone to keeping his mouth shut.

The tankard hit the table. “Life in the army, sah.”

Beside him, Rockhoof looked down at a forest of tombs, the tankards being resting places of now-departed spirits. And ciders, ales, bitters, mead, and whatever else had taken his fancy.

“Time for another drink.” The stool groaned under his rising bulk.

“You’ve already had eight!” said Flash, goggling.

“Aye. Well, I had to kick off with summat, didn’t I?”

“You’re paying this time,” said Star Swirl at once.

“Ouah, you tight old scunner!”

“The rest of us would like a little insurance if things don’t go well in the next town, Rockhoof.”

“Away wi’ yer, yer old bag o’ bones! This fight’s as good as fought.”

“That,” said Star Swirl, tapping the table meaningfully, “is what you said last time.”

“And I’ll be right yet. I was just one town early sayin’ it.”

“And two towns,” Flash Magnus muttered. “And three towns, and four towns, and –”

Rockhoof rounded on him, and several hundred pounds of looming earth stallion does not round quickly. Stygian practically heard the floorboards grind under his boulder hooves.

“There a point you wanna make, Flash? Then make it, face-to-face.”

“I’m just being realistic,” said Flash Magnus, who to Stygian’s amazement looked up without so much as a flicker of a flinch. “If the sirens were that easy to defeat, we wouldn’t be here now talking about them.”

“When I get my shovel o’er their ugly fish heads –”

“Yes, Rockhoof. Only we have yet to reach that point. They know our strengths. They know how to duck and dodge our tricks. They have tactical advantages enough to kick our haunches up the river and back, as my old sergeant used to say.”

Stygian, who had some idea of how pegasi usually spoke, wondered which particular quoted words Flash Magnus was censoring here.

Calmly, Flash Magnus stood up and downed his pint before turning to Rockhoof’s cold glare. “So we can’t say this fight’s as good as fought. Otherwise we’ll end up arguing all over again at the next tavern, too.”

The trouble was that Rockhoof didn’t back down. He didn’t have the mental headspace for backing down. Backing down was somepony else’s problem.

Stygian held his breath. Surely, though, even a soldier like Flash wasn’t going to pick a fight with someone who carved valleys with his bare hooves, solely so the bards could sing about it and spread his name.

Luckily, Flash Magnus did have the mental headspace for backing down. He called it “tactical retreat”.

He sat down. “You’re right about one thing: there’s still hope left.”

“That’s what I thought,” rumbled Rockhoof, and dust rained down from the rafters. “This is only a game to me. I could knock those scunner sirens senseless all on my tod, with my legs hogtied and my eyes blindfolded. I’d knock them so far yonder, they’d become three new stars in the sky.”

“Fine, fine. I believe you. Go get your pick-me-up.”

“Well, I chust wanted it said.” Storm clouds moving away, Rockhoof tramped up to the bar. When he made his order, he was curt and sullen.

Not for the first time, Stygian wished the girls would show up. Flash Magnus was all right, but Star Swirl’s aura of burning, corona-like power made him, Stygian, feel like a foal at the grown-ups’ table. Whereas Rockhoof had a way of looming and booming that worried his sensibilities. He’d spent too much time indoors to feel really comfortable with stallions who could snap him like a twig.

Star Swirl glanced at his drink morosely. “I suppose it is time we reconsidered our approach. One moment –”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the mares to join us?” said Flash.

Ignoring him, Star Swirl lit up his horn. Thinking fast, Stygian grabbed his own thimble and yanked it off the table a second before the air popped, the world in front of him sizzled, and a gigantic map landed. Drinks rattled and rolled across the floor.

Stygian backed off a little. The map projected well beyond the table, its sides almost razor-edged.

Hums and muzzle-rubbing soon followed. Star Swirl examined the map as though reading a fascinating old tome.

“Hey!” snapped a voice from the bar.

Stygian’s heart sank at the sight of the bar-stallion. The stallion’s leg ducked under the counter, and Stygian shrank back at the thought of a solid block of wood hurtling towards him.

“What d’you think your doin’?” said the bar-stallion.

If only Star Swirl had looked mildly apologetic, or even rattled off a curt “apologies” to placate him. But Star Swirl barely treated his friends with much courtesy. A fat old nobody had no chance.

“Good sir,” he said, clipping the air with his irritation. “This concerns the fate of Equestria and all of its subjects. Kindly do not interrupt me while I’m working.”

Then he switched off the mild inconvenience and had eyes only for the map.

Stygian wondered how quickly he could bolt for the door. Part of him felt no shame in leaving his friends behind. After all, fighting was their department. But part of him kept him glued to his chair, and unfortunately it was an ancient, animal part of him that was too scared to dare move an inch, for fear of becoming a target separated from his herd.

A few of the patrons scraped stools back. Fights might be popular in these parts, especially after a siren attack.

It was Rockhoof who responded first. “Any stallion lays a hoof on him, that stallion is a dead stallion.”

One of the nearest patrons looked him up and down, or at least up and further up. “That so? And who the hay do you think you are?”

“Oh no,” murmured Stygian, the words making a dash for freedom.

Somehow, Rockhoof found enough inner matter to swell further. Spikes of rage broke out all around his body. He darkened and reddened as much as old iron.

“I am the Strength of the Mighty Helm!” he said. He didn’t bellow. He didn’t need to. Bellowing would have been a whisper next to such deep confidence. “I have cut through the rock of ages with nothing but my trusty shovel! I am Skullgrinder of Earth, Scourge of the Griffons, Slayer of Dragons. My shovel is Swordbeater! With it, I have carved valleys and raised mountains with my passing! I am Defier of Fate, Bringer of Tides, and feared from the highest heavens to the deepest seas!”

Stygian almost clapped, but that would have drawn unwanted attention to himself. The other patrons stared. Then the nearest one drew himself up, scowling harder.

Then Stygian noticed the hammer tied to the stallion’s belt. Good grief, he thought. Another warrior!

“Blethers!” said the patron, his hammer shaking. “You tell Ironsmith you can shape rock and kill dragons? You wee girl’s blouse! I am the King of Iron! I eat diamonds for breakfast, lunch, and supper. I found the titans who made the world and ground them into dust and ate their ashes and swallowed their might! I’ve seen worlds that’d make this one a speck of dust and I’ve beaten the fear of Equestria and her champion right into their bones! I am Ironsmith, Forger of Worlds, Creator of Destiny! I defy the Defier of Fate and make him eat his shovel!”

It was some of the finest nonsense Stygian had ever heard. He could tell that, despite the swelling anger and bursting pride, Rockhoof was ever so slightly impressed.

Around them, the patrons watched with an air of mild confusion, tinged with manly respect. Of course, earth stallions took a bout of boasting very seriously in some parts, overruling even a full battle and definitely overruling a mere tavern punch-up. Perhaps an understanding could be found, warrior-to-warrior?

“Is that all, ya mudlin?” Rockhoof took a deep breath, and the pressure in the room dropped so fast that Stygian’s ears hurt. “A pansy conjurer like me mate Beardy could poke his head in a dozen worlds afore you woke up to this one. But I’d conquer ’em afore you put your pink pompom slippers on!”

“Oh aye, ya gob-smiter?”

“Aye! Name your greatest feats, and no blethers, ya son of a milkmaid.”

“Ladies first, ya gardenin’ geldin’.”

“How many volcanoes you fought and won with that tinkerer’s tool you call a hammer, ya wee pictsie pony?”

“How many dragons you dug wee pretty flowers for with that ploughshare, ya daft hen?”

Stygian lay back while the insults flew. At least Rockhoof had made a good distraction. Flash Magnus ducked down to pick up his spilled drink while Star Swirl muttered and examined the map. Neither of them seemed tense anymore, not now the fight had, as it were, been put in two mouths and left to get on with it. Even the other patrons lost interest.

Hope fluttered inside Stygian’s chest. Perhaps the sirens’ effects were wearing off already. That meant they hadn’t lingered long. And that meant they might be running scared. At last, they could press home their advantage!

But as he watched Star Swirl mutter to himself, he wondered if there was still some slight, slim chance that they might miss this golden opportunity to not get their haunches kicked up the river and back…