//------------------------------// // Part Three // Story: Tavern Tactics // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// “I’m joinin’ either way,” growled Rockhoof when no one answered him. The others stared past him. Both pegasi stifled giggles behind their hooves. Even Star Swirl went red under his beard and long locks of mane. “Where’s Meadowbrook?” said Mistmane. Rockhoof nodded over to the bar, where the fiddler finally found a tune. Clapping and heavy steps broke out. “Making a spectacle o’ herself,” he muttered. “What a fine dancer she is,” was all Star Swirl could say with a straight face. Stygian watched the hem of that dress flounce, and goodness did it flounce. He thought he’d seen the limit of what a dress could do at a hoedown in the Hayseed Swamp shacks, but Meadowbrook danced as though every limb had its own beat and all of them were trying to outdo the others. Her beehive bobbed so much some of the stallions unwise enough to join her were coming away with hooves covering their noses. Ever aware, Stygian glanced at Mistmane. The mare’s lips were thin and tight. “So,” said Flash, overflowing with nonchalance. “I suppose your friend and you settled your differences, Rocky.” “None can say I begrudge a young lass her right to enjoy herself,” said Rockhoof coldly. “Indeed. And the right to enjoy several other stallions, by the look of it.” “I woulda beaten that iron blowhard in another minute. She’s got no right, breaking up a perfectly healthy mudslinging.” Flash Magnus placed his helmet on his seat, eyes wide and cheeks cracking. “Yes, shameful. I don’t suppose that fiddler takes requests.” “Away with yer, then! If you must make fools of us.” “Sah, yes, sah!” Grinning, Flash threw off a salute and flung himself into the flouncing fray. Soon, laughter from him and her shook the floorboards again. For a while, the others simply looked up or craned on their stools to watch the flail of limbs. When it came to dancing, Flash was every inch the rival of someone like Meadowbrook. “Don’t be so dour, Rockhoof.” Mistmane reached across and patted him on the forelimb kindly. “I think it’s splendid to see ponies live in the moment. There’s a beautiful dignity in young joy.” “We’re warring, Mistmane! Our friends all over need us to be strong.” “They’d also want us to be happy, and to enjoy our time while we can. Where will they be tomorrow? Who knows? But today, we thrive in the here and now.” “Anyway,” said Somnambula calmly, “we have seen you in the mead halls.” “That’s different,” Rockhoof said, but his voice had lost the argument. Somnambula giggled. “Singing loudly, dancing and drinking, playing bad music, enjoying nights in between days of fighting, and yet you say they are totally different. What a riddle you tell, indeed!” “I said that’s different.” Stygian rustled the edge of the map, the better to indicate that anything not involving the map could wait. “I think it would be best to exercise caution, yes. Meadowbrook’s running low on healing herbs. Unless this town has an apothecary…?” Sadly, Mistmane shook her head. “Then we can’t afford any more injuries,” he finished. “All right,” said Star Swirl witheringly, and opposite him, Somnambula’s eyes flashed a warning, “then tell us, my dear, what you would have us do next, since the cities are supposed to be a feint.” The others watched as the pegasus folded up her forelimbs and glanced up, down, this way, that way, almost any way but at the narrowed eyes of Star Swirl. This was her brain on full power. They knew better than to interrupt its keen workings. Stygian felt something nudge his elbow. When he checked, a saddlebag that hadn’t been there before now floated between him and Mistmane. Suspicion prodded him into glancing from it to her horn; both glowed brightly. Only a trained unicorn could see the magic, but Star Swirl was too busy withering Somnambula to notice. She cut out both glows. Puzzled, Stygian rummaged around inside the saddlebag. He tried not to make too much rustling. Quite apart from interrupting Somnambula’s thought process, he didn’t want to interrupt their current lack of interest in him either. Perhaps he could surprise them with his insights… “Sirens,” Somnambula murmured. “We know their power comes from other ponies, but it starts with their song.” “Does it?” trilled Star Swirl. “An inspired observation! Do go on!” Mistmane shot him a warning look. Suddenly, his withering look itself withered. “Songs, songs, songs,” murmured Somnambula under her breath. “’Tis another kind of enchantment,” said Rockhoof. He nodded sagely. “Earth ponies ken about the power of song. Legends tell of Orange Nature, whose beautiful voice could summon the birdies and the beasties to do her bidding. She helped fend off the Crystal Pony Army just by calling the bears to tear them apart and the crows to go for their eyes.” “Sounds familiar?” Mistmane’s brow creased. “Ah yes. That does sound familiar. My parents told stories about a singing pony like that too.” “Hm?” said Somnambula. “Ghostsong the Sensitive.” “The ancient songwriter?” said Stygian. He’d read a few of Mistmane’s scrolls on their travels. From master to student, she granted him a nod. “Ghostsong wrote many of the world’s most beautiful poems. They said she could do more. She could sing so beautifully that anyone who heard her would fall to their knees crying, because she showed them that life was as precious and fragile as the petals of the cherry blossom. Emperors and warlords surrendered if they knew she was coming. She was a great force for peace in the ancient world.” “All right,” sighed Star Swirl in his best “I’m putting up with this” voice, “supposing this is true. What do these legends have to do with the sirens?” Over at the bar, Meadowbrook and Flash Magnus tackled between them a river dance that definitely had some raging rapids in it. The other patrons clapped along heartily. Laughter made several shameless bids for freedom. Stygian took the opportunity to stop rummaging. He’d found what he’d wanted. “And then there are these, sir,” he said. Even addressing the group, he kept talking as though Star Swirl were alone. “The clues we found along the way.” “The clues?” repeated Star Swirl. “Oh. Well, young colt?” Stygian laid them down carefully on the table. All heads not currently engaged in river-dancing came closer; Rockhoof’s stool creaked under the shifting weight. “Pieces from the Harp of Crux Matterhorn,” said Stygian. The gilded chunks of cedarwood rattled on the table. “Skin from the Drum of Warmonger.” He briefly held up the tatters. “And –” he began. “Snapped-off reeds from the Bagpipes of Sleeping Hill the Giant.” Rockhoof’s jaw tightened. “Defiled.” On his behalf, Mistmane’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “It wasn’t your fault, Rockhoof. None of us knew. You did everything you could, even when all the ponies were fighting around you…” The others waited for him to grind his teeth. That had been a bad day. The sirens had attacked another town, but this time the seven heroes had ambushed them. Ah! Those sirens! They’d been too quick. The party had split up. Rockhoof and Meadowbrook chased one siren. Flash Magnus and Somnambula chased another. If only Stygian had seen the ploy for what it was. But he hadn’t, and the sirens had led the group on a three-way chase all over the town, and had given them the slip. Stygian himself had chased after the leader, along with Star Swirl and Mistmane. The three unicorns had reached the bridge and had galloped right into the rising ambush of sea serpents. How sirens had recruited sea serpents, no one had figured out. What kind of bargain, after all, could make several hundred feet of scaly rage swim upstream, right into fresh water, and patiently wait for three unicorns to cross a bridge at the precise moment those unicorns couldn’t afford a vicious distraction? Mistmane thought it might have been coincidence; the poor serpents must have strayed from home and gotten scared and panicky. Star Swirl insisted they’d been cursed slaves, but Stygian doubted it. After the Snake Island fiasco, Star Swirl had taught him the tricks. So by then Stygian could tell whether or not someone was cursed by looking for a tiny green light deep in their eyes. For an eye bigger than his head, such a glow would have been obvious, though it hadn’t made his nightmares thereafter any nicer. Only when the sirens had escaped and the seven heroes had regrouped did they find the castle archives ransacked. Rockhoof fled to the vaults, and they’d followed, and found… Here and now, Stygian stared at the broken reeds. Priceless heirlooms, reduced to pieces. A hoof tapped the pieces one by one. Somnambula withdrew it. “Why?” she asked. “Not this again,” growled Rockhoof. “We ken why they done it! Those vandals will ruin whate’er they cannae control! Music, free and wild as the north wind!” “We’re sure they’re not weak to music?” said Stygian. “I’m afraid we’ve tried that already,” said Mistmane. “At Clarinet Cove. If they were weak before then, they weren’t thereafter. Their magic simply overpowers the sound.” “They fear it, though,” murmured Somnambula. “That clarinet music frightened them.” “Yes. Once, during hoedown season. After that, I’m afraid it was useless.” “We should have kept up the barrage! It would have broken through!” “Tell that to the ponies at the hoedown. They had enough problems, rebuilding their poor homes…” Stygian wondered when the other attempts had happened. Possibly whilst he was seeking Rockhoof off the northeast coast of Equestria. Goodness, he lost track so easily; how long had the war been going on now? A few years, at least. So many battles blurred in his memory. “Then perhaps those instruments were part of a broader legend?” said Somnambula, still looking for a chink in the armour. Groaning, Mistmane shook her head. “None that I’m aware of, and I’ve studied magical artefacts intensively.” “As have I,” said Star Swirl. “I tell you: These are not targets!” He nodded to the ruined pieces between them. “They’re merely acts of destruction. Perhaps the sirens feared rival music, long ago when they were young, but no longer. Certainly not now, never when faced with it.” “Except for –” Somnambula began. “A fluke. Such a tactic has never really availed us in this war, however we tried it. Not even your Sacred Silent Cobra Charmer had any effect on them.” Gaze unflappable, Somnambula calmly replied, “That is not true. I am sure it would have worked.” Star Swirl harrumphed. Nervously, Stygian glanced across at Somnambula. The Cobra Charmer had been used once, the only time he’d ever seen music deployed against the sirens, simply because it was a magical item. Alas, he remembered it well! Somnambula had been on fire that day – he shuddered at the mere memory of the charm spell, and the way she’d swayed and played it, and how… elegant she’d suddenly looked, as though, just for a moment, she’d become a sinuous goddess… and of all the stallions in all the world, he swore she’d whispered into his lowly ear, “Yes… yes… yes…” …well, um, it had, it had definitely… worked on him, all right. He’d needed an hour in a cold bath afterwards. Rockhoof and Star Swirl had been unexpectedly red in the face too; Flash Magnus alone had received enough military training to resist the charm. A warrior pegasus learned magic resistance early on in his career, else he wouldn’t enjoy a long one. The sirens? For a while, the charm had slowed them down. It stopped them dead. Meadowbrook had packed the parasitic pollen, ready to weaken the sirens. Mistmane had prepared to cast the grains, boosted by her own Anti-Magic Mist-Maker. Once drained by both pollen and mist, the sirens would’ve been finally helpless. If it hadn’t been for the ponies… But the ponies of the Smokey Mountains barely liked each other, even before the sirens invaded. Both sides threw pumpkins and catapulted stones at one another. Sirens and heroes in the middle of the valley? Those were minor distractions. The first pumpkin had smashed over Meadowbrook’s pollen bag, the second over her head; the hail of stones forced Mistmane to break off and erect a barrier. Worse, when the ponies came down from their two mountains and stampeded into each other, Somnambula’s Cobra Charmer was knocked away during the riot and stamped into shards. After that, the sirens – no longer stunned – fed well. Then they fled to the next site. Later, the heroes had still tried two more attempts at musical magic. By then, the sirens glowed with power. They’d easily resisted both attempts. They’d easily overpowered the music, using their own siren songs. Another tactic, foiled. At the time, Stygian had expected keen disappointment to burst out of Somnambula like harsh whirlwinds of sand: some cursing of the skies, some drooping of her ears, perhaps, or at least a flutter of her eyelashes as she blinked the tears away. It never happened. If anything, every night since, she’d planned more and frowned harder and thought longer and glanced around all the more, searching for clues in her own head. Here and now, Stygian watched her frowning concentration, himself entranced. How had she not sighed like Mistmane, nor slumped like Meadowbrook? Even the other stallions had yelled their rage and drowned their sorrow at the time. But not she. No setback ever knocked Somnambula down. Beside him, Mistmane idly examined one of the snapped-off reeds. Star Swirl swept the rest aside to search the map for landmarks. Rockhoof stood and waited for the next thought to turn up. No one was getting anywhere. Well, now seemed a decent enough time. Stygian’s dry throat cried out. “Excuse me.” He scraped his chair back. “I’m buying another orange squash. I won’t be long.” No one noticed. A flash of anger was cut off deep in Stygian’s head. “I don’t suppose I could acquire beverages for anyone else? Sirs? My ladies?” Only Mistmane looked at him, and she hummed with pity. “Oh, I doubt they have saké here. Could you bring me a fine whisky, please?” “Right you are, my lady!” On a meagre spit of happiness, Stygian saluted and hurried off, away from the table. At least Mistmane giggled behind a hoof; he’d long since learned she liked being doted upon by “polite young gentlecolts”. Still no one else had looked up. What exactly would he have to do to get their attention!? Copy Meadowbrook?