Rarity can’t let go of the embrace. It doesn’t matter if she has a few hairs flying in her eyes and mouth. They taste of strawberry and apple. “When will you tell me your name?”
The lady brushes her hair aside. Rarity warms up as she meets her eyes. “You already know it.”
“You really shouldn’t be here,” the woman says, a tear streaming down the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, it’s for your own good that others take the plunge.”
She sends Rarity tumbling back.
⇜⇝
“Come on, move!” Trixie yelped.
Rarity fell to her knees and winced, holding tight on her wounded arm as the glow pulsed violently.
The mist rigidified, growing into a spire as a human shape slithered out from the darkness. The witch took in the faint light of the sky with squinted eyes. Her face still sagged but she already appeared younger than in the cave. The reverie didn’t last.
The witch didn’t walk. She shifted. She turned to the duo, hovering in the air with thunder streaking the sky.
Her raucous voice echoed in Rarity’s ears. “You have something that’s mine.”
Trixie sprung in front of Rarity. “My great and powerful family owns this pathetic town. I own everything here and you... don’t?” The witch raised a clawed hand. “Well, sort of. Only a good percent of it, really.”
The witch closed her fingers and Trixie tensed like a wooden stick.
“Magic,” Trixie choked with pain and glee.
The teen went flying across the roof and down its edge.
“Trixie!” Rarity cried out.
The witch lifted Rarity off her knees with a motion of her hand and dragged her to her side.
Rarity felt the dizzying cold of the mist touching her skin through her clothing. She gagged at the sight and tried to push away. The witch kept a secure distance this time.
“Where is the amethyst?” the monstrous lady barked.
“Bro– ken,” Rarity gasped as the ethereal strength choked her throat. “It exploded in my hand.”
“No,” the witch cried. “I need it! Give it back.”
Rarity’s vision blurred under the strength of the witch. Rarity clawed before her, trying to hold onto the absent hand that strangled her. The witch dropped her and Rarity hit the tin roof with a cry.
The invisible force came back, circling Rarity’s injury this time.
“What is this?” the witch rasped, lifting Rarity off the ground by her arm.
Rarity’s legs shook as she teetered off the ground. Her skin cracked and blood join the cold rain that trickled over her arm. Rarity opened an eye and saw the pulse over the brand reflect in the witch’s glaring eyes. Mangled teeth showed behind her growing grin.
“My finder spell,” she irked, boring Rarity with angry eyes. “You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t think so,” Tempest called from behind.
Rarity dropped to the ground, jerking her hand instantly to hold down the reopened gashes. Through tears, she saw Tempest, Trixie hanging limp over her shoulders. Her friend had two filled glass bottles in her hands.
The witch hadn’t turned fully that Tempest swung and shattered one bottle against the monster’s face. A short moment of silence passed and the screaming followed.
The shriek rattled Rarity’s bones and the Workers’ house structure. A great rumble cracked through the air.
Tempest grabbed Rarity by the neck and pulled her upward. Rarity ran, glancing once back to see the witch whirl in blackness exploding outward to slash, grab and rip everything around her apart. The roof split open, sending shards of metal, concrete and wood flying.
“Like old times!” Tempest yelled.
Rarity turned back and saw the empty space between the toppling roof and the next building across. Any failure would be a seven storey fall down.
“Like old times,” Rarity hissed through gritted teeth as she jumped the couple of yards distance and landed on her knees.
Rarity grabbed onto a protruding brick to not fall backwards. A wall of the Workers’ house tumbled against her landing building. The impact whooshed her forward and burning, ocre smoke swallowed the sky.
“The great Trixie would like to get off!” the teen shrilled.
A coughing fit wracked Rarity’s chest as she watched Tempest haul the teen off her shoulders and down to the bricks that made the roof of the building.
Rarity couldn’t see anything. A tinge of despair wrenched her heart. “Did the house collapse?”
“I can’t see,” Tempest shouted out as she made her way to the parapet.
Trixie dusted herself off the ground, her blouse no longer pristine nor intact. A long gash tore its back.
The teen’s cheeks puffed up and she sashayed to Tempest’s side. She took in the lack of sight in the smoke then turned to face her saviour.
“Trixie is thankful you dragged her from the metal staircase I was stuck on. Sadly, you’re now in my debt for having ripped off my clothing.” Trixie crossed her arms, staring intently at Tempest who raised a hand. Trixie huffed. “However, Trixie will gladly accept payment in the form of her necklace. Give it back.”
Tempest rolled her eyes. She set the miraculously intact bottle in her hand to the ground and went for her left pocket. Then her right pocket, and the back ones. She whacked Trixie on the head before she could say anything.
Trixie squinted, “when my parents hear about this—”
“They may not really care about a necklace,” Tempest cut as she hunched over the parapet. “This, though.”
Rarity watched Trixie gasp as she looked over the brick roof as the smoke started to clear. “She’s still there. Wait, she’s… Oh, my goddess.”
“What’s happening?” Rarity wavered.
Tempest snatched the bottle off the ground, pulled Trixie’s blouse back, tearing it off the teen’s shoulders. To her dismay.
“She’s busy.” Tempest opened the bottle. The bottleneck exhaled vapors that stung Rarity’s eyes. “Your arm, Rarity.”
“I hate this.” Rarity replied, hearing screams coming from the streets. She lifted her wounded forearm out and hid her eyes behind her hand.
Tempest ripped bits of the blouse to make a makeshift bandage. She hesitated between the bottle and the fabric.
“Oh, let me do this,” Trixie exasperated.
She pushed Tempest aside and snatched the bottle and blouse back.
Trixie washed her hands in the alcohol then tore small bands of fabric off her ruined blouse. She slid them into the bottle and shook. With a warning, she grabbed Rarity’s wrist and dunked the content over.
Coolness fogged Rarity’s mind, quickly followed by the focusing and thundering sharp pain that crawled from her arm to her brain. She yelped.
Trixie stuck her fingers in the bottom-up bottle to fetch the straps. Each time she pulled any, she wrapped it around Rarity’s forearm. Once done she discarded the bottle and ripped another, larger bands from the blouse and tied it on both ends.
“Here you go,” Trixie said, sliding the makeshift arm sling around Rarity’s neck.
“Let’s go,” Tempest hushed, walking to the nearby roof hatch.
⇜⇝
Trixie was pacing back and forth in the small room. “So, what do we do now?”
“I have no idea,” Rarity said, resting against the wall with her face hidden behind her hands. “Why did you have to tell the sheriffs we made you hostage…?”
Tempest was looking out a dirty window. She’d safely led the group to the disused mushroom farm, now an empty hangar that some people invited themselves in at night for drinking. The massive, half built underground hangar was empty when they came by and Tempest had swiftly found her way to the foreman’s office who oversaw both the courtyard outside and the former operations inside.
“The witch talked about a… finder spell?” Rarity breathed.
She looked down at her arm and moved it around. It always lit up when pointed in a specific direction. It was even sensitive to pointing up or down.
“And she talked about that gem we removed from your hand,” Trixie added. “Oh, I know! You gotta have absorbed the magic! You are. So. Cursed!”
“No she’s not, I told you.” Tempest pestered.
“What if I am?” Rarity said, holding her tears. “She said it’s a finder spell. So it’s meant to search for something, isn’t it?”
Rarity pictured the statue, the cathedral, Snips lying on the floor. she winced and sighed.
“I think she was searching for something in the place Snips was sent in.” Rarity had not a slight idea of what it could be. The cathedral had been empty of anything but metal, water and rust.
“I’m more afraid about how she got in the mine,” Tempest said. “The shafts are always manned.”
She fixed Rarity with a questioning look.
“I didn’t see any side tunnels but the one I came from, Tempest,” Rarity stated. “But… I can’t say there was none. It was too large for the safety light to show me everything. It was a church down there.”
“A church?!” Trixie exclaimed, jumping to sit next to Rarity. “Like real old religions and stuff? I heard the old priestess had so much tricks and magicking!”
Rarity smiled briefly. “No. Everything was flooded. There was just an altar and a statue.”
“Is it true she had wings?”
Rarity nodded to which Trixie squeed. The teen turned to Tempest.
“Can Trixie go back to the hole with you and some black powder to open it up and see if there’re spell books down there?”
“No.”
Trixie fussed under her breath and glanced at Rarity’s bandaged wound.
“Can I?” she asked.
“I’m not making glow for you,” Rarity quavered.
“I just want to see if the gauzes are okay. Like Red Heart told me to look…” Trixie pouted. “Trixie will ask about making it glow afterwards.”
Rarity painfully pulled her arm out of the arm sling.
“Thank you for your help,” she said.
“None taken,” Trixie replied mechanically, examining the wounds. “It smells a lot but it doesn’t look so bad. I guess it’s good news.”
“You guess?” Rarity chuckled.
“You’re the miner, you crawl nasty holes all day. I’m sure just standing out in the open rain is less nasty than a mine.”
Rarity didn’t try to argue. It depended on the mine, the ore, and depth and of course the job. She just didn’t want to engage further into rabbit holes with the bubbly teen. She sighed.
“Okay. Let’s see what it does.” Rarity sighed, pointing her arm in every direction till the glow appeared.
Trixie clapped her hands. “Awesome.”
Tempest sat next to Rarity as well. Rarity threw her a look.
“What? If we’re going to get out of your mess, we’ve got to at least understand what all…” Tempest motioned at the glowing burrows that traced Rarity’s skin under the shoddy bandages. “All this means.”
“It points North.”Tempest and Rarity looked at Trixie. “What? Your arm sparkles when you point north-ish.”
“What’s north?”
“Nothing?” Trixie replied. “I mean, the mountain is north east of Canterhigh. If we go north-north, it’s just the badlands and the forest.”
“We won’t be going north-north,” Tempest growled.
“You lost my necklace. You owe Trixie an adventure.”
“I don’t owe you nothing.”
“Just stop,” Rarity pleaded. “You both, please.” Rarity set her arm back in the sling and laid her forehead against her knee. “I’m dead. I let loose a monster in the city. People died because of me. I’m a screw-up.”
Rarity retched but swallowed back.
“We can’t go back to the mine. We’d just get arrested,” Tempest stated, glowering at Trixie. “And I won’t lead a kid and an injured friend outside the city walls.”
“You’re such a dry wit,” Trixie protested, leaning away out of Tempest’s reach.
“We don’t even know what it’s pointing at,” Rarity said.
“Must be something precious, seeing how the witch whacked those people in the street. Or at least something she really needs, I guess.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Tempest pounded her fist in her other hand.
“What’s north of Canterhigh?” Rarity asked Trixie, a cold sweat trickling down her back.
“Ah, ah!” Trixie exclaimed, glancing victoriously at Tempest.
“You can’t be serious, Rarity.”
“I don’t know. I guess? I don’t see how I can stay in Canterhigh and escape the noose.”
Tempest didn’t answer. She sat on the floor and closed her eyes.
“What do we do, Tempest?” Rarity pleaded her friend.
Tempest massaged her temples. Her eyes wrinkled with sudden anger.
“I don’t know Rarity. I don’t know, okay!” Tempest burst. “What I know for sure is that we all screwed up today. I screwed, you screwed up.” She looked at Trixie and range seeped through her gritted teeth. “And I know you’re going to die if you venture outside.”
She stood up and punched her fist in the wood of the wall, making dust fall from the ceiling. She only stopped once her knuckles bled.
Rarity frowned. She could see a fuse sticking out of Tempest’s work denim. “Tempest, you didn’t?”
Tempest looked down to Rarity and followed her stare. She sighed and pulled out two sticks of dynamite.
“Yeah, you screwed good,” Rarity guffawed, feeling tension ease up at the incongruity of the situation. Tempest, the most uptight forewoman, stole dynamite sticks. “You’re a criminal now.”
“So we head out the city!” Trixie exulted.
“I didn’t agree to this,” Tempest protested.
“Those two babies in your pocket sure did!”
“Not found, not caught.” Tempest took the sticks and stuffed them in the bottom drawer of the cracked office desk. “How would we even leave the city?”
“Well, by the door,” Trixie said. Visibly no answer was not what she expected. She rolled her eyes for stating what was definitely obvious. “My father could help.”
“Who’s your father?” Rarity asked.
“I’m Trixie Lulamoon, of course. Heiress of the Lulamoon business!” She held an arm out in a tadah motion, resting her other hand above her nascent breast. Rarity and Tempest shared a confused look. “You really don’t know me?”
“Should we?”
Trixie stomped the floor. “That’s just rude! My dad runs the Canterhigh import export under royal decree. In what hole, under which rock have you been staying your whole life?”
“Now, that’s rude,” Rarity said.
“Allow me.” Tempest got up and whacked Trixie. “Now, what are you planning?”
A hand rubbing the back of her head, Trixie still kept her glorified pose. She laughed.
“Behold, adventure!”
⇜⇝
“What’s happening here,” Rarity whispered, looking down a narrow street that gave onto a larger avenue.
People were running and the distant din hinted at a massive crowd gathering.
“Riots!” Trixie clapped her hand. “I’ve never been in one. Can we go?”
“No.” Tempest glanced the other way. The street was empty beyond garbage piles and a couple mangy rats. “We’re going to take a detour to the loading docks. Your father runs the loading docks, right?”
“Not just.” Trixie beamed with pride. “He also manages the postal service.”
“You mean the runners?” Rarity asked.
“Totally. My boyfriend is a runner?” She gasped and looked hard at Rarity and Tempest. “You don’t tell my father, anything.”
“I don’t think we want to meet…” Tempest motioned at Trixie. “The adult version of you.”
Trixie squinted. “You still want me to help you.”
“You’re our hostage.”
“I can walk away to that street and call for a sheriff. They’ll be really happy to see you.”
“Not if I…”
“Ple-ease, stop!” Rarity exploded. “Tempest, please. Just don’t antagonize her. She’s our ticket out.”
“To where, that’s what I’m thinking about. We’re going to walk the deadwoods.”
Trixie huffed, exasperated. “I’m not going to have you walk. I’m not a ruffian like you two. My father was overseeing the preparations for a caravan yesterday. I’m sure I can slip you in.” She gave a wink. “Of course, the condition is that I come with you.”
“I’m not having some high society spawn come in the deadwoods with us,” Tempest hissed.
“Well, don’t worry. I own myself, nobody wouldn’t dare lift a finger on me.”
The earth rocked and a distant racket echoed down the street. Trixie faltered, catching herself with a hand on Rarity’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” Trixie said, dusting off where she’d grabbed the arm sling. “What was—”
“Dynamite,” Tempest said. “I think those are far beyond riots. Let’s go.”
Rarity followed behind Tempest and Trixie as they zigzagged between sideways streets and shortcuts only Tempest knew. She remembered her tall friend’s nickname back in the day. Street urchin. Pain snapped along Rarity’s arm and she hunched over with a yelp.
Rarity gagged. “It hurts.”
Trixie looked down the bloodied arm sling with a contrite look. Her eyes lit up and she vanished down a perpendicular alley, only to enter an open door where Rarity could see vapor and shapes rush behind a dirty window. The sound of crashing tin plates confirmed it was a refectory kitchen.
“Good evening, fellow paupers! I, Trixie Lulamoon, require some freshly boiled towels.”
A racket and a cat’s hiss later, Trixie ran out with fuming towels in each hand. “Run!”
Tempest did, carrying Rarity in her arms.
“Never do that again,” Tempest rasped, out of breath a minute later.
“It’s fun!” Trixie bubbled, removing some bandages off Rarity’s arm before wrapping it in the towels.
They’d already gone cold to Rarity’s relief. The cool feeling on her skin soothed some of the pain.
“Are we there yet,” Trixie asked Tempest. “I don’t know this part of town.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t. We’re right by the walls, pampered brats like you don’t come to this cut-throat place.”
Trixie bit on her lips. “Fair. We do have standards.”
Tempest let out a rough grunt, “I’m going to find some rope and gap for you to shut the hell up if you tag along.”
“Let’s go, please,” Rarity asked.
They soon reached the bottom of the wall. The rempart was a dozen yards high and the rough cobblestone that made it up was glued together with rebar-jutted concrete.
“That’s one nasty construction,” Trixie remarked.
Tempest grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. Rarity followed suite, holding on her arm as she noticed cracks and snips in the wall. Some parts were visibly more recent, and the nearby houses were scarred with large slashes and burns.
“We’re there,” Tempest murmured.
They turned a low bent between two houses and face a large windowless warehouse wall that merged with the wall at a ninety degree angle.
“Oh I see,” Trixie burst. “I know this street.”
She ran off, Tempest chased after her, and Rarity hopped behind. She saw Trixie pass a small group of rain-soaked, wiry to the point of gaunt workers. The one who held the group’s cigarette dropped it as he laid eyes on Trixie.
Trixie grabbed onto the handle of a single door and slammed it open inward.
“Good evening!” Trixie burst. “I’m back!”
“T–Trixie?”
Tempest followed in.
“Sorry,” Rarity said to the still gaping workers outside.
She entered and found herself ingroup with Tempest, Trixie, and the tallest, leaning man she’d ever seen. He was taller than Tempest herself.
“Featherlight! I present to you Tempest, the grumpy old girl here.” She dodged the coming slap. “And that pale woman here is Rarity.”
Rarity glanced down a long row of elaborated carts and wagons. Those weren’t hand-pushed for sure. Many people busied themselves filling them with boxes and tightly locked trunks. Others handled repairs. Only a few foremen here and there oversaw the operations with pen and pencils scribbling over drawn spreadsheets.
“What are you doing here?” Featherlight said, agape. “People told us you were taken by some rioters. Your father even requested some of the courier to track your kidnappers down. I gotta call Jack.”
Featherlight ran to a landline screwed to the wall. He pulled up the earpiece and mouthpiece.
“Operator, please c–” Trixie put her finger on the call button.
“Now, now.” Trixie tut-tutted as she took the phone out of the really thin, giant’s hand and slammed it back on the post. She leaned forward, a hand on her hip. “What did I tell you about telling my father about my whereabouts?”
“It’s just… People are worried about you.”
“Pish! My father wasn’t worried about his heiress getting caught with dynamite.”
“And who are those two?” Featherlight scolded, pointing at Tempest and Rarity.
“My hostage takers.”
Featherlight sputtered, “Wait, what?”
“Well, long story short, I made myself hostage. Goddess, that infirmary was grim after the blast in the mine.” Trixie shuddered for less than a second then pressed a finger against Featherlight’s chest, stopping him short from replying. “Now, you’re gonna put them in one of the carriages that’s supposed to leave tonight.”
“You’re smuggling people out now.”
“I am not over,” Trixie boomed. “And you’re going to take me with them.”
“No,” Featherlight said, choking on a laugh. “No, no, no, no, and no.”
“Or I could tell my father of our little arrangement.”
Featherlight’s jaw slackened a little. “You have to look this up with”
“I’m not fielding in for your antics, Featherlight.” An old, sweaty man swivelled on his chair nearby. His hands were covered in oil. A cigarette smoldered at his lips. “You’re in with the boss’ brat. You deal with her. I see nothing.”
“Ah!” Trixie triomphed.
“Please,” Rarity said, pushing herself in the middle of the group. “We need safe passage. There is something after us.”
Featherlight didn’t answer right away. He looked back to his chief who’d already turned his back to the scene, then back to Rarity. He eyeballed the arm sling and the bandage work within.
“My…” He sighed. “Follow me.”
Featherlight pushed them in a nearby room and started opening metal cases.
“Who’s following you?” Featherlight asked. “I might as well know what’s gonna fall on me if I let you go.”
“A witc—” Rarity and Tempest muffled Trixie.
“Nothing,” Tempest growled at Trixie.
“The sheriffs,” Rarity spoke. “They’ve been insistent since the blast in the mine.”
“They’ve still got it under lockdown after the townhole collapse?” Featherlight waited for an answer. “Nevermind.”
Trixie jumped on the nearby wooden chair, pushing away Tempest’s grabbing hand. “And a witch!”
Featherlight deadpanned. “Yeah, no. Is it like the time you were convinced there was a dragon in the sewers?”
“I still and will forever maintain there was a dragon in the sewers.”
Featherlight didn’t answer. He retrieved instead a couple of tweezers, some dusty bandages and a bottle with a cloudy liquid inside. “A second.”
As he ran out, Trixie smiled. “You’re in luck. Featherlight may be the best courier of the Lulamoon company, well except for Dash, of course, but he’s also one of the runners’ physicians.”
“He’s pretty damn young for a physician,” Tempest said, raising an eyebrow. “Is he your boyfriend? Was that the arrangement the old lad was talking about?”
“Trixie doesn’t reveal her tricks.” She crossed her arms. She cackled under her breath. “Well, he’s not really a physician. More like… first aid person? He once looked, found and brought back a wounded runner from the deadwoods.”
That took Rarity aback and, from the looks of it, Tempest as well.
“Damn,” they said together.
“Damn right, indeed.”
Featherlight walked back in with a pot of boiling water. The bandages and tweezers swam in it.
“Can I,” he asked Rarity.
“Where is the north?” she asked.
Featherlight’s face twisted at the question. “Uhm…” He pointed towards the door.
Rarity pulled her arm out, making sure to never point in that direction.
“You’re such a bore, Rar,” Trixie said.
“Don’t you Rar, me,” Rarity winced as Featherlight inspected the wound, taking care to only lift the bandages ever slightly.
She could see questions rise in his mind as his traits twisted, arched and rose at the sight of the branding slowly revealing itself before his eyes. He kept them to himself.
“Thanks,” Rarity said.
“No problem.”
He dumped the contents of the pot on the ground and retrieved the tweezers after a moment. He gently started to remove the bandages.
“With what you had, Trixie, I think you did a good job.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“What can we do to repay you,” Rarity asked.
“Just tell me if Trixie got into that much trouble?” Featherlight asked as he removed the caps of the small bottle he’d retrieved from the case and dunked some of the liquid on one folded piece of boiled bandage.
“No, I dare you to tell him anything!”
“I—” Rarity winced as Featherlight tapped the soaked bandage all over her arm. “Not much really, it’s just that I’m in trouble.”
“I can see that.” Featherlight nodded, wrapping new bandages that Rarity swiftly set in her arm sling. “Whoever did that job sure took his time.”
“Hers.”
“What’s that?” Tempest interrupted the conversation.
She’d been leaning against the window giving to the loading stations. Everyone had stopped working. Instead they looked up and away down the boulevard that led to the massive portcullis and further wooden gate that locked the access to the outside.
Rarity heard a loud thump that rumbled through the walls. People yelled outside. As she watched next to Tempest the people frozen on the docks, Rarity caught a shadow that obscured the street.
Trixie rushed out, foot first to snap the door open, and ran out in the rain. Tempest, Featherlight and Rarity followed suite.
Piercing through the fog, a black shaped amassed, growing wider and ominous as it extended itself like two blankets on its side. It crawled in the sky, pushing aside rain and mist. Its edge whirled and grew in burst. Through the blackness, Rarity saw the creature’s skin throb as if hordes of worms writhed underneath.
It flew upward, its tail gripped to anchor points on buildings. It swirled, scanning for something. Its gaping maw opened to two glowing gashes that jerked independently from side to side.
It glanced down to Rarity and she ran back inside.
The sky came crashing down in a great quake. Tempest ushered Featherlight and Trixie inside as the blackness hurled down the boulevard and rammed against the portcullis, bounced and settled in a house-sized blob that lifted off the ground thanks to dozens of black tendrilling stilts.
It somersaulted into a sprawling hooded mantle that froze in the middle of the square. The witch, taller than before, took a step forward in the deafening silence of a hundred witnessing pairs of eyes hiding behind toppled cards, baxes, windows and tarps. Some men grabbed shovels, others pikes. None dared approached.
The witch sashayed to the gate, seizing its fifteen feet height.
“Told you, there was a witch,” Trixie whispered.
Featherlight didn’t answer. Nobody did. Rarity, like everyone, watched the witch. She threw her arms out.
“Sometimes it’s for your own good that others take the plunge,” her voice echoed.
She pulled the air towards her. The walls cracked as the metal gate bent backward and ripped off and out its guiding track. With a wave of her hand, the witch finally tore the portcullis out. The massive mangled thing crashed to the side, slashing through a house.
Some couriers sprung out of cover and ran in arms to the monster in a woman’s clothing.
“Fall back, you fools!” She shrieked, lifting a hand to the sky.
The earth cracked again in shards and debris around her, sending the courageous flying.
She focused back to the second gate. The wooden structure offered less resistance and splintered on itself.
The witch somersaulted again, changing back into the same black blob. It slid under the game and inflated. The walls that until then circled around the gates cracked and shattered outward.
The blob reshaped again into the same skybound mass that’d screamed over the district. Bigger, larger, its chest swole, its throat billowed and it finally wailed.
The window exploded and Rarity was thrown to the ground as her ears were robbed of sounds. The shockwave sent everything flying around her, a wrench flew by her head. Old wood cracked and blew away. People fell to their knees. Dust flew up and away, obscuring the sky and streets.
The blob stringed itself inside the wall, bursting open as it squeezed into too tight spaces.
It lasted only a couple seconds, Rarity realised. But in those few moments, the wall of Canterhigh was destroyed.
The witch jumped in the sky and rammed itself down in nearby streets. Screams, splitting stones and crumbling buildings filled Rarity’s ears as sounds came back to her.
Tempest grabbed her by the side, she helped pull up Trixie, splayed unconscious on the floor. Featherlight, his face bloodied, dragged everyone to the back of a standing cart, pushed several cranks forward and started it down the now open track to the outside.
Canterhigh was breached, and Rarity knew that once the night was in sight, the city would die.