//------------------------------// // 4 - Look Out Behind You // Story: The Needle // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// Tramp, tramp, tramp. That was the rhythm of the day, over and over and over. Daring and her team pushed through the blizzard, their hooves tramping against the ground as the snow swamped them. The storm was the same as it’d been the day before, almost exactly. Maybe it was just because she was tired, but the biting cold had a little more teeth to it today than it had before. But in spite of the bad night, everyone kept pace. Whenever Daring looked back, they seemed to be holding their heads a little bit higher than the previous time. She even heard Rangifera recommending eating coffee beans to Fallende. Maybe their bad attitudes had just been weariness. Awoooooooooo… Or maybe they were alert because they still heard the wolves. Because the wolves, wherever they were, were following them. Every now and then, a howl would tear through the blizzard, from a different direction each time. The team would immediately jump into an outward-facing circle, ready to face down a pack. And the pack would always fail to appear. Daring couldn’t even make out any dark shapes prowling around them in the blizzard. After a minute, the group would dissolve and set off again, a little bit more annoyed than before. In spite of the previous day’s enthusiasm, the wolves were wearing on Daring. Every so often, she’d have to stop her pace, just in case they decided to attack, but she couldn’t go out after them, because what sort of moron would wander off into a blizzard like that? It was like they were using guerilla tactics, trying to slowly reduce her to nothing so that- “How’ll we know when we reach the end of this hellhole?” Fallende asked suddenly. Daring pulled her hood up and looked behind her. “What? We’re not there yet, so-” “I know we’re not there yet, I know we won’t be there for a while,” Fallende said, rolling her eyes. “I just want to know how we’ll know when we are there. Or do you expect we’ll find signposts going, ‘end of valley here, turn around’?” “Well…” Daring didn’t know what the other side of Needle Vale looked like, did she? It could’ve been wedge-shaped, it could’ve been broad and circular. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. (Fallende’s whole body heaved as she sighed.) “When we’re heading west, I guess.” “So obvious a sign,” mumbled Fallende. “We don’t need to start checking for another few hours!” said Windrose. “I don’t-” Not wanting to deal with Fallende, Daring ignored the argument. The mere mention of “west” had flipped a switch in her mind, and she habitually looked at her compass. She’d almost put it away when she realized what she’d seen. She double-checked it, and, still seeing the problem, frowned. The needle was pointing south, unless they’d somehow gotten completely turned around and wound up on the opposite side of the valley without crossing it. She tapped the compass. The needle jiggled, then turned counter-clockwise to point north. Hmm. Must’ve gotten stuck someh- The needle did another full revolution. Her heart skipped a few beats, then Daring grinned. Finally, some concrete evidence that something was wrong with Needle Vale! None of the other expeditions had mentioned anything like this, which almost certainly meant they hadn’t encountered it. She was already closer to uncovering the secret than anyone else before! It was a shame she didn’t know how close was close. Daring stared intently at the compass. If everybody else saw it- The needle’s movement didn’t halt. It jumped around, sometimes doing full circles, sometimes twitching back and forth, sometimes sliding this way and that. “Hey! Girls!” she yelled, praying it would still be moving once everyone arrived. “Take a look at this!” She turned around and practically ran for the others. Fallende opened her mouth to say something, but Daring cut her off by shoving the compass in her face. She gave an angry look at Daring that shifted to amazement — and maybe fear? — when she saw the compass. “What in the…” she whispered. Snatching the compass from Daring, she whirled around and waved it at Windrose. “Look at this. Look! At! This!” “Hold it still!” protested Windrose. “I can’t-” “Look!” Fallende finally calmed down enough to hold the compass steady. Windrose stared at the compass. She blinked and tilted her head. “Well, that’s ominous.” “And you said there wouldn’t be any weird crap out here,” Fallende said, smirking. Hearing the ruckus even above the blizzard, Rangifera and Stalwart had gathered around as well. “Huh,” said Rangifera. “Give me a…” She shrugged off her bags and began rooting through them. “Odd,” said Stalwart. “Not unheard of, but very, very odd.” She carefully took the compass from Fallende. The compass glowed for a second, then Stalwart passed it back. “I can’t detect anything wrong with the compass itself, but that implies that there’s something wrong with the land itself, or at least the general area-” “We already knew that,” said Daring. “It’s what-” But Stalwart shook her head. “No, I mean very wrong,” she said, “more than just a storm. We ought to be looking at magically-carnivorous plants, inverted rockslides, insanity-inducing springs-” AWOOOOOOOOOO… “Or unusually aggressive wolves?” asked Fallende. “Maybe,” said Stalwart. “…Probably.” “Here we go,” said Rangifera. From her bags, she pulled out her own compass and held it out so everyone could get a look at it. Its needle pointed resolutely north. They waited, but after several long moments, nothing happened. “Huh. I wonder why nothing’s wrong with-” The needle twitched. It spun in a complete circle. Then it began behaving in the same way as Daring’s. “…with mine…” Rangifera tapped at the compass. No change in behavior. Rangifera grinned. “Heh. At least this trip won’t be a complete waste. Definitely something up with Needle Vale. What is your deal, my confounding compass…?” “Stalwart?” asked Windrose. “Should we be… worried about that? You said-” Daring saw the dark shapes come bounding out of the snowstorm, and before she’d fully registered them, she yelled, “Wolves!” Everyone froze, and then everyone scattered, caught up in the fight-or-flight instinct. Daring had shed her saddlebags for speed; maybe the others had, too. She half-ran, half-flew through the snow, wind buffeting her all around. She forced herself to land and get a good, firm grip on the- Something snarled behind her. Daring whirled around to see a wolf come lunging from the white. A quick flap took her up into the air, leaving the wolf to viciously attack the empty space where she had been. She forced herself down before the wind could carry her too far. The wolf turned around and charged at Daring again, fangs bared. But now, Daring was ready. When it tensed to jump, she flapped forward, spun, and kicked out with her rear hooves. The buck hit the wolf straight in the face; its attack became an agonized roll on the ground. Lacking any weapons, Daring pounced on the wolf and pummeled its ribcage with her hooves. Yowling, the wolf swiped at her with its claws. Daring pulled her head back and escaped with nothing more than a light scratch across her nose. Using her wings to keep herself on top and the wolf down, she kept attacking the wolf’s ribs, taking out her anger on one of the things that had caused it, hitting the wolf over and over and over… When the wolf’s growls of struggle turned to whimpers of pain, Daring knew it had had enough. She gave one last spiteful blow and pushed off of it. The wolf hastily struggled to its feet and, still whimpering, limped off into the blizzard. “Yeah, you better run!” bellowed Daring. “That should teach you something!” Absolutely pointless, speaking to a dumb animal like that, but it made her feel better. Daring turned on the spot, looking for any others that were coming for her. None… None… None… None. She pulled her hood down to give her ears better audio. Nothing close to her, but she could hear the struggles of the other members of the group through the howling winds. She picked the closest one and struggled towards it. The winds picked up, forcing her to the ground. Whoever it was, their wolf was barking loudly. The pony or reindeer was also yelling angrily at the wolf, but not running. It was… Windrose? Yeah, Daring recognized her voice. She picked up her pace as much as she could manage. Soon, Daring could make out shadows through the haze. Definitely Windrose and a wolf. They were standing their ground, staring each other down, and neither looked ready to give up and inch. The wolf was low to the ground, barking furiously. “Whoa, hey!” yelled Windrose. “Bad wolf! Bad!” Was she-? Daring blinked and squinted at the silhouette. She was. She was, honest-to-Celestia, waving a hoof scoldingly at the wolf. “We’re not attacking you! Go on and git!” She waved the wolf away, like it was an especially annoying squirrel. “Git!” The wolf, not being an especially annoying squirrel, kept barking at her. It jumped a foot forward; Windrose stepped half a foot back. “Windrose!” Daring yelled. “Run!” She started flapping, bounding through the snow like some mutant rabbit, but the wind and snow still slowed her. Windrose didn’t move, didn’t look away from the wolf. She didn’t even look like she’d heard Daring. “Now, listen,” she said sternly, and not at all hesitantly, “we can do-” The wolf leaped forward, fangs bared. Windrose yelped, reared, and put up her legs to shield her face. The wolf latched onto one of her hooves as momentum made her stumble and topple over. With the wolf clawing her, Windrose rolled onto her back- -and kept rolling, backwards-somersaulting through the snow until she was on top of the wolf. Still fending its jaws off with one hoof, Windrose jabbed it once in the neck and twice in the stomach. The wolf squealed. Windrose rolled off it and it scurried back into the storm. By now, Daring had finally reached Windrose. Coming to a stop, she stared after the wolf. “Huh.” She flicked her ears and raised an eyebrow at Windrose. “What?” Windrose said defensively. “The animals tend to be just as nuts as the weather this far north. Knowing how to fend them off is kinda defensive lesson number one.” She looked at the hoof that’d been in the wolf’s mouth. It’d gained several deep furrows from the wolf’s teeth, but it wasn’t bleeding. “Hmm. Hope that’ll buff out.” “Hey!” From behind her, Rangifera walked up out of the snowstorm, glancing between where the wolf had run off and Windrose. Her spear was floating at her side, but the end was bloodless. “Interesting strategy, my fine fighter,” said Rangifera seriously. “What made you think it’d run so quickly?” “Because they’re wolves,” said Windrose. “They’re apex predators, so they’re not used to prey fighting back. Hold off their attacks, get in a few solid hits, and they’ll run for the hills. Even I can do that.” She absently, almost unconsciously, rubbed one of her legs. “It’s… a bit tricky actually getting those hits in, though.” “Good to see you’re alright, in any case.” Rangifera wiped her face down; for the first time, Daring noticed that she had a few bloody cuts going straight down across the left side of her mouth. They’d go nicely with the scars she already had and seemed to counterbalance the one next to her eye. “Don’t worry about me,” she added, seeing Daring’s expression, “these’re shallow.” She tapped the cuts and grinned, stretching them awkwardly, but didn’t flinch. “And I just got this.” Daring pointed at the slice across her nose, already scabbing over. She pushed her hood down and ran a hoof through her sweaty mane. Her heartbeat was slowing down, but she hadn’t noticed it speeding up. Adrenaline. “If this isn’t fine, I’ll eat my hat.” Rangifera’s eyes flicked upwards. “What hat, my bareheaded brawler?” “It’s back in Vanhoover, and I’ll have you know it’s a very fine pith helmet.” “I’ll hold you to-” “Um. Hey.” Windrose stuck a hoof in the air. “I hate to interrupt the, um, hat talk, but… how’re we gonna get back to our stuff?” Daring and Rangifera looked at Windrose. Daring and Rangifera looked at each other. Daring and Rangifera looked at the snowstorm that had already obscured their tracks. “Well, poop,” said Daring. “And where’re Stalwart and Fallende?” “Double poop,” said Rangifera. “Not poop,” Daring said in a flash of inspiration. “Rangifera, do you know any spells to make you louder? If you can yell through the blizzard-” “On it.” Rangifera’s antlers glowed. “HEY!” she bellowed, far beyond her usual voice. “FALLENDE! STALWART! ARE YOU OUT THERE? IT’S RANGIFERA! DARING, WINDROSE, AND I EACH FOUGHT OFF OUR WOLVES!” For several long moments, silence. Then: “Rangifera! Is that you? It’s Stalwart!” “IT’S RANGIFERA! I’M WITH DARING AND WINDROSE!” “Thank goodness! I’ve got Fallende! If you’ll give me a moment…” Suddenly, a bright light pulsed some distance away. “Ha! Still got it! Follow the light and we can meet up!” Stalwart and Fallende weren’t far away. Stalwart had a large gash in the front of her clothes, while Fallende was ignoring a thin cut straight down her leg and panting heavily. As luck would have it, the pair was sitting with the bags everyone else had abandoned. And, in fact, luck didn’t have it. “Didn’t I tell you about the tracking spells I put on our stuff?” asked Stalwart as she rummaged through her saddlebags. “I must’ve. But I didn’t, did I? Hmm. It’s technically not standard-issue in the Guard, but so many unicorns do it, it might as well be. You stick a simple tracking spell on something important, and then you can’t lose it. Great for recon in unfamiliar territory; track your tent pole, head out, can’t get lost because you always know where- Here we go.” She levitated out a roll of bandages and some dressing. She began tending to Fallende’s wound. “I’m a mountaineer, not a fighter,” said Fallende gruffly, as if she were preempting any observations. “Stupid dog came at me from the side, and…” She snorted. “Bandage isn’t too tight, by the way. Keep it like that.” “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” said Stalwart. “Aaaaand…” She cut off the last strip of bandage and secured it with a spell. “There. How do you feel?” Fallende flexed her leg easily, then put weight on it. “This is good.” “What about you?” Daring asked Stalwart. “That cut looks pretty-” “Oh, this?” Stalwart gestured at her clothes. “This is nothing. It looks worse than it is. Clothes caught most of it.” She pulled open her coat; she had a thin cut across her chest that had already stopped bleeding. “So the only one of us to not get hurt,” Rangifera said slowly, “is Windrose, who didn’t even want to come in the first place.” She glanced at Windrose and chuckled. “Um. Yay?” Windrose smiled nervously. “It, it really wasn’t that hard, I just…” She coughed. “I’m hungry,” she said quickly. “Lunch?” Daring thought back over their trip and how long they’d been walking. It was about that time. But before she’d even finished her thought, everyone had said some form of, “Lunch.” Thankfully, in spite of the fight, everyone was far more relaxed than they had been in the morning. Maybe, like Daring, being able to punch the source of their stress had unwound them a bit. Whatever the case, lunch was only a few laughs short of jovial. Stalwart setting up her poles to keep out the storm certainly helped, even with the lack of a fire. “I have jam,” Stalwart said, waving a jar around. “Anyone else want some jam? Strawberry.” “How long will it take you to unfreeze it?” Daring asked. “About, ah, zero seconds.” Stalwart stuck a spoon in the jar and scooped out a small chunk of jam. “See?” She slowly licked the spoon down. “I’ll have some,” said Rangifera. She held out a slice of bread for Stalwart to spread on. “Why are you bringing jam out here?” “In case I get a hankering for jam.” “…Can’t argue with hankerings.” Stalwart shrugged. “Anyone else? Windrose?” Windrose was holding Daring’s still-misbehaving compass, frowning at it and tapping it. “I feel like there’s supposed to be a pattern here. Something that repeats. But I got nothing.” She shrugged and tossed the compass back to Daring. “Pass that jar over.” “Anyone got any ideas on this?” Daring asked, holding the compass up. “Stalwart, you said something about the land?” But Stalwart shook her head. “We’d be seeing far more than just the compasses, some wolves, and the weather acting up if that were the case. The land itself would be changing before our very eyes. I mean things like rivers flowing uphill. It’s not something we’d miss, especially not with an earth pony to sense any magic in the land.” She glanced meaningfully at Windrose. “Right?” “Hmm?” Windrose had a spoon hanging out of her mouth. Her face reddened and she quickly swallowed. “W-well, uh, if you mean feeling something up with the land, then I got nothing. This, this place feels ordinary to me. Nothing wrong with it. So far.” Her ears twitched as she passed the jar back to Stalwart. “Anyone else have any ideas?” asked Daring. Vague negatory murmurs. Daring sighed internally. Of course, there was no way it could be that easy. If it was, it would’ve already been found out. Still, not even a single idea… “Hey, Fallende?” asked Daring. “What about those strange reindeer you mentioned, the, um, Alver, right? Any stories about them doing something like this?” Fallende shook her head. “They couldn’t do something like this. Isn’t that compass made of iron?” “I think the needle is,” Daring said. “Why?” “Iron disrupts the Alver’s magic. They couldn’t affect the needle at all. No way they’re responsible.” “Oh, come on!” protested Stalwart. “Iron dispelling magic? That’s gotta be-” “No, no, I’ve heard this, too,” said Rangifera. “Cold iron drives them away and makes their spells unravel. For some reason. Must be a magic thing. No way they’re responsible.” “‘Cold iron’ as in chilly iron or another iron-like metal, like orichalcum?” asked Windrose. “Plain old iron, actually,” said Fallende. “For some reason, the stupid folklore uses ‘cold iron’ whenever iron’s fulfilling some mystical role when it’d be so much simpler to call it ‘iron’.” She paused. “Although, assuming they could, this would be exactly the sort of thing those scumbags would do. Sic a bunch of wolves on us and screw with our sense of direction for kicks.” “Could they do anything about the weather?” Daring asked. Her sense of discovery had been piqued. Even if this went nowhere, the different mythologies and beliefs of different cultures were fascinating (and true in some way, more often than not). “Efh.” Fallende wiggled her hoof noncommittally. “Jury’s out. None of the stories seem to agree on that. Some say yes, some say no, some say yes but not to this extent, and on and on and on.” She gestured into the distance. “Again, stupid folklore. And while we’re talking about the Alver, there’s another problem. They’re supposed to kidnap people for some reason unknown to us, but no one who’s gone in here has vanished, have they?” “Nope,” said Daring. “I asked around in the days before we left. As far as anyone could remember, everyone that went in came out with nothing.” Of course they hadn’t. Vanishings would only make this place more mysterious and attract more people, like some kind of horror story. And if things went far enough, Celestia or Luna might decide that Needle Vale was magically dangerous and spend a week glassing it. “Hmm.” Fallende shrugged noncommittally. “I’ve heard some things about them working with changelings, but changelings never come this far north.” “And no one’s left anything in here, either. At least, nothing I’ve read has mentioned that.” “Double hmm,” said Rangifera. “You know,” said Stalwart, “we’ve been spending so much time thinking about what we’ve heard that we haven’t thought about what we haven’t heard. What if somepony went into Needle Vale, found something, and just didn’t mention it? Or left something and didn’t mention it? Think about it: this is a place that’s legendary for both its strangeness and for nothing being out here. Everyone who goes in here looking for something is looking for something in general, not something specifically. So if you wanted to hide something small, an artifact or something, just map Needle Vale out, find a nice cave, shove the artifact in an out-of-the-way nook, and be on your way. No one would think to look in the cave, because what could possibly be in a cave? Plus, I’ve heard caves can get really big and mazelike — labyrinthine! What a nice word — so you wouldn’t want to go in anyway unless you knew-” “That’s not the greatest idea,” said Daring. “Once we start thinking about what might’ve happened, anything goes. You can just say, ‘Oh, maybe Princess Celestia trapped some monster here and maybe she never said anything about it and maybe-’ You get the idea. You want to get weird theories about aliens? Because that’s how you get weird theories about aliens.” “Aw.” “I definitely don’t want weird theories about aliens,” said Rangifera. “I prefer things I can hit.” “And back to square one we go,” sighed Fallende. “That’s gonna happen a lot in here, isn’t it?” “Speaking of hitting things and changing the subject,” said Stalwart, “before we hit the road again, I’d like a vague idea of how much longer we need to go. Anyone have any idea how far we’ve gone?” “About ten and a half miles,” Windrose said promptly. “Total since entering the valley, I mean, not just today.” She raised an eyebrow at the surprised glances and said, “I’ve got a good sense of distance and direction. Like most cartographers. It’s really nothing special.” “So even if Needle Vale is fifteen miles long,” said Daring, “we’re almost to the end.” Stalwart grinned. “Very nice. Very, very nice.” They sat in silence a little bit longer. Daring’s muscles still ached from the fight with the wolf, but the worst was long gone and hadn’t been that bad. Was everyone else feeling the same way? They seemed almost ready to go. Daring herself was ready, able, and a few notches short of willing. Adventure was great, but sometimes, you just needed to sit a while. This was one of those times. Windrose had definitely made the right choice in proposing lunch. “You know, I just realized something,” said Windrose. “We haven’t heard a single wolf howl in the past fifteen minutes.” They hadn’t, Daring realized. Just the muffled wind of the storm. The entire group tensed up, waiting for- But nothing came. They waited and waited. Nothing and nothing. “Oh, thank the stars,” breathed Fallende. “If those fricking things are finally gone-” “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Daring cautioned, “but wings crossed. Before we go, any jam left?”