Twilight ran into the castle after me. As she passed the door, I threw my weight against it, slamming it shut with my wounded shoulder. It wasn’t enough to stop the growling, though; not even the breath-sucking pain from the impact could tear my mind away from it. I slowly slid down the door as the sound reverberated within the hollow room, within my chest, hoping that by sheer force of will it would stop.
I just wasn’t expecting so many.
As my breathing slowed, I began to calm down. I reminded myself that we were safe. Just before Twilight and I ran back into the castle, I severed one of the last ropes, and Twilight’s magic released the other. It was the only point of entry across the seemingly bottomless moat that spanned across the castle’s perimeter. It would be a long time before the wolves would be able to find a way across, if they even could.
I opened my eyes, having not realized they were closed, and saw Applejack staring wide-eyed at me. Fluttershy was hovering anxiously over Twilight, who appeared to be recovering just as well as me. Our eyes met for a hesitant second before I broke away.
Applejack was the first to speak, and her anxious voice seemed to boom in the vacuum of noise left from the wolves’ howling. “Hunter? What was that?”
A weak cough cleared my throat. I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t you dare,” Twilight said warily. I could feel her frightened eyes digging into me. “Don’t you dare tell them everything is fine after what we saw.”
“Everything is fine,” I assured her, casting a glare in hopes she wouldn’t make the situation any worse. “They’re out there, and we’re in here. There’s no way for them to cross now that the bridge is cut.”
“The bridge is what now?”
I released an exasperated sigh, suddenly feeling like I was cornered. I glanced to Fluttershy for some sort of support, but her eyes mirrored the same worry within her friends. Looking away, I took in a deep breath through my nose and slowly let it go before turning to Applejack.
“The wolves followed us,” I explained carefully. “The bridge is the only way into the castle, and I cut it down so that they couldn’t come any closer. We’re safe; I promise.” She didn’t seem convinced. None of them did. Hell, even I was struggling to believe myself at this point.
I shook the thoughts out of my hand and extended my good hand to Applejack. She eyed it warily, but as I gave a coercing nod to it, she reluctantly grabbed it and helped me to my feet.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I grunted as I stood up. My vision grew hazy, but with a shake of my head and a couple of forceful blinks, it slowly began to correct itself. “But it’s the best chance we have. I’ve spent weeks here. I know the castle grounds like the back of my hand.” I shot a look at Twilight. “We’re safe.”
“For now,” she pointed out. She glanced around the room, taking in the small details around her. Her eyes lingered on the empty pedestal further back in the room. “I still think we should have gone back to Ponyville. We would have been better off there rather than waiting for something bad to happen to us here.”
“If we went to Ponyville, then we’d be in the same position we’re in now,” I countered. “Only difference now is the wolves aren’t tearing Ponyville apart to get to me anymore.”
Twilight released a sigh and closed her eyes. “You’re right,” she admitted. “The situation is just…” She cut herself off with a shake of her head and massaged her temples with a hoof. “Never mind. You said you had a plan, right?” She looked up to me with almost desperate eyes. “What do we do now?”
I looked between her and her friends, all looking to me expectantly. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out, I began to limp further into the castle. “Come on,” I called after them. “If it’ll make you girls feel any better, I have something of a safe room we can stay in.”
They trailed behind me as I led them through the maze of corridors. Even though I had prevented the wolves from following us into the castle, their baleful howls still managed to chase us down, reminding us how close they were. Beneath it was a silence that we didn’t dare break, a looming tension that chipped away at my confidence with every passing second.
It wasn’t long until we found ourselves at the base of the tower. As I silently began my ascent, the girls began to murmur behind me again. I tried not to focus on it. I tried not to focus on anything as I closed my eyes and traced my fingers along the old, familiar stone walls. Reminiscing did little to help, though, especially when the “better times” I was trying to hide myself into were hardly better.
I paused at the top of the stairs, greeted by two heavy, wooden doors, still closed from my last departure with the foals. I couldn’t help but notice how similar this situation was to the last time I had brought company to this room. Hopefully, this night wouldn’t end in a similar fate; though the knot in my stomach seemed to believe otherwise. I placed my hands on the handles, took in a deep breath to clear my mind, and push the doors open.
The throne room was exactly how I had left it. Something swelled within me at the sight. Though the ancient columns and high ceiling and fractured throne had lost their sense of wonder over the weeks I had spent in this very room, their familiarity brought with them an all too welcome sense of comfort. As I stepped into the room, I didn’t hear the girls follow in after me. Old habits settled in, and I found myself drifting towards the broken windows.
The moon was still shining brightly in the night sky, slowly making its descent towards the western horizon. Much like the sun during the day, the moon in this world seemed to rise and fall to mark the passage of time. At the time when I had noticed the trend so many weeks ago, it felt like just another small detail that alienated me from my home, but eventually, I grew used to it as another celestial clock, slowly ticking away the minutes until the sun would rise. From where it was now, we probably had another four hours until it set, four hours until the sun would rise and hopefully chase away our problems with the rest of the darkness that surrounded us.
A grey fog suddenly obscured the moon, breaking my train of thought. Taking a step away from the window, I found that it was just the condensation from my breath spreading across the glass. With a sigh, I massaged around my eyes, careful not to agitate the wounds around my right.
The girls had found their way into the throne room, but they looked around it with a certain unease, as though they had stepped into a tomb. I tried not to dwell on the idea as I walked to the throne. Every “plan” I had made in case they found me a month ago ended with a last stand in this very room, but now I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
The throne was exactly as I had left it. My last two spears rested near-vertically against its back. They weren’t the best I’ve made; I wasn’t even certain if they’d be useful against wooden wolves. At the foot of the throne rested the old bucket I stole, still filled with grimy water from the last time I cleaned my wounds, and a familiar bottle I had nearly forgotten about.
I paused just before the old potion bottle and reached down to pick it up. It was nearly empty, just as I remembered, and as I lightly shook the bottle by its neck, I could have sworn I felt something semi-solid swash around inside. With a frown, I wrestled the cork open and took a quick whiff, only to gag and slap it back on. By the smell of it, it had become more poison than potion during my absence.
I dropped it back on the ground before turning and sitting on the throne. The ancient cushions had never felt more welcoming. I closed my eyes and breathed in that familiar, musty scent I had grown to know as safety, and when I opened them again, the girls were standing in front of me.
“Um, make yourselves at home, I guess,” I said, gesturing to the room. “We’re going to be here for a while, probably until sunrise.”
“What are we supposed to do until then?” Twilight asked.
I sighed and gave her a shrug. “I don’t know, rest or something. I’m tired, and I can’t keep running around like we have been or I’m gonna collapse.”
She shuffled uncomfortably on her hooves, but Applejack was the first to speak up. “Ah ain’t a fan of it either, Twilight, but we’re a little tight on options.”
“It just doesn’t feel right,” Twilight complained. “Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are still out there… somewhere. What if the Princess doesn’t get to them in time? What if… What if something happens to them?”
“Don’t say that!” Fluttershy interjected. She launched herself into the air, her wings fluttering frantically to keep her suspended. “They’re going to be okay! Princess Luna is going to find them, or… or we can find them, just like we always do!”
“I don’t wanna be that guy, but I don’t think there’s much we can do,” I pointed out. “We have just about every timberwolf in the forest outside the castle waiting for us to make a move. We’re safe if we stay here, but we’d be helpless if we tried to leave.” I paused for a moment, a thought slowly forming as I studied her. “Actually, the only way you could lose them…”
“What is it?” Twilight pressed.
“The only way you could cross without them getting to you is if you have a good pair of wings.” I glanced at the unicorn and added with a shrug, “Or if you’re good with magic.”
“That doesn’t help us much though, does it?” Applejack asked me. “Ah mean, Ah suppose Twilight could use her magic to help me around, too, but you? You’d be up a creek. Ah don’t reckon Fluttershy could carry you, and, well…” Her voice trailed as she looked to Twilight. “We all know how well your magic mixes with him now.”
“Hey, I already said I need some rest,” I reminded her. “I’m staying, one way or another, but if you three want to go back out there… Well, I’ve been on my own in this castle before. I can hold out another night.”
Fluttershy was quick to protest. “Hunter, no! We said we would take care of you if you came back to the forest with us. We’re not going to abandon you!” She looked to her other friends for support, but neither of them could look her in the eye. “Right, girls?”
“I don’t think we can do both, Fluttershy,” Twilight sighed in defeat. “If we’re going to do something… we’ll have to choose: stay here with Hunter, or go out and look for our friends.”
Fluttershy made a sound close to a squeak. Her large, teal eyes seemed to grow bigger as her face scrunched and her lips quivered.
Twilight’s expression seemed to melt. “Fluttershy…”
Before she could get another word out, the pegasus turned and darted out of the room, leaving behind a glistening trail of teardrops to the stairwell. I tried to stand up after her, but the throne seemed to pull me back in, luring my body in with a false sense of comfort after watching that display. Applejack came up to Twilight and rested a hoof on her shoulder. She whispered something to her friend, and with a determined nod, Twilight chased after the runaway mare, leaving me and the farmer to ourselves.
“You’ll… have to forgive her for that,” she finally said after a long pause. “Being here is a little hard on her. Hard on all of us, really. If she’s anything like me, Ah’d reckon her thoughts are with her friends right now, and, well…” She looked around the throne room; the pillars, the windows, the throne where I sat. “Well, this room, in particular, ain’t too helpful.”
I shook my head. “I don’t… I don’t get it. Why?”
For a moment, a faint smile flashed across her face. “Well, it was in the room we all became the best of friends, Fluttershy, Twilight, and me. Even Pinkie, Rainbow, and Rarity, too.” She studied my face, gave a humorless snort, and tipped her hat. “Right. It’s just rotten luck and bad coincidence is all. She’ll pull through. Fluttershy’s a lot tougher than she looks, y’know. Why, she stood up to a full-grown dragon by herself once when me and our friends were in danger. You won’t hear her braggin’ ‘bout it, though. So, I guess the burden’s left on me.”
A dying chuckle escaped her. She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head as the smile faded once more. Taking off her hat, she sat down and let out a sigh.
“It was the darndest thing, how we all met,” she explained. “Really makes me wonder if some things just happen by luck or if they’re just meant to be. It was the Summer Sun Celebration, a little over a couple years ago now. We have it every solstice, and that year, Princess Celestia herself was gonna be gracing Ponyville with her presence. Could you believe it?” she asked with a smile. “Ponyville of all places. She had to have known.
“Anyways, Ah was in charge of preparing the food. Got the whole family involved tryin’ to make enough for everypony, and that was when Twilight first showed up. She was part of the committee overseein’ the preparation of the festivities, but all that busywork didn’t stop her from takin’ the time to get to know the whole family. Why, she even stayed for the family brunch! Ah never would have guessed we’d become the best of friends after…”
<><><>
My eyes slowly fluttered open. Applejack was gone. I must have dozed somewhere in the middle of her story. I hoped she didn’t take it personally. All the events of tonight seemed to crash over me at once, and I couldn’t hold back my fatigue any longer. Maybe I could convince her to tell it to me again and pick up with whatever it was that happened in the town hall with that pony named Nightmare.
As I scanned around the room, I noticed I was alone. Did the others end up leaving me after all? I supposed I couldn’t blame them; after all, I was the one that tossed the idea out there. Nevertheless, it was jarring to wake up to an empty room again.
With a grunt, I tried to get back to my feet. My body was stiff, though, and a throbbing pain still blanketed me. While I was thankful for the chance to rest, it appeared to not have done as much good as I would have liked. I bit back a hiss as I put all my weight on my legs. My right knee was shaking, agitating the torn calf beneath it. I carefully reached back behind the throne and grabbed one of the makeshift spears, putting my weight against it like a poor crutch. The shaking stopped, but the pain still remained.
I took a strained step forward, and then another, and something caught my eye off to the right: a bright pink tail, peeking out from behind one of the columns. I took in a breath, hoping to build up some strength, and hobbled over to her.
Fluttershy was staring out of a broken window, her forelegs resting against its sill. Her ear flicked in my direction when I got to the column next to her, and she turned her head in time to see me collapse against it. She looked at me with her big, teal eyes and gave me a small but hopeful smile.
“I thought you were going to leave,” I said, offering a half-smile of my own.
Her grin faded away as she glanced in another direction. “I… I wanted to,” she admitted. “I still do. I’m so worried about my friends; I feel like I could just—” She cut herself off as the soft features of her face contorted to a pained scrunch, lasting for only a moment before she sighed her tension away. “But… I made a promise to you, too. We said we wouldn’t let anything happen to you if you came with us, and now you’re stuck here in this castle and… hurt.”
I realized she wasn’t looking me in the eyes, but rather at the claw marks that raked down the side of my face. I tilted my head to the side to try to hide it. She noticed and quickly threw her attention to the stone floor where her hoof was tracing circles.
“This is yours, isn’t it?”
I turned back to Fluttershy and found the bottle she held carefully in her hooves. I didn’t realize she had it next to her this whole time.
“You gave some of it to me one morning, a long time ago, right?” she continued. I opened my mouth to answer but resigned to a sharp nod as my face burned from embarrassment. “I… I was hurt really badly when you gave it to me, wasn’t I?”
A heavy sigh escaped me. My shoulders sagged, trying to drag me down to the floor where I could hide away between the cracks in the stone. “Fluttershy, I… I’m really sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking. I just grabbed the first thing I could, and then you… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But you made me better,” she said, and I could hear her hopeful smile coming back. “With this potion, right? I was thinking, maybe while you’re here… It might be a while before we get back to Nurse Redheart, so maybe you should…”
My eyes flicked back to her. I didn’t even hear her take flight, but she was hovering close to me, holding the potion out with outstretched hooves. I reached out with a hand and took it, studying it as I gave it another experimental stir. My concerns from before started to rise again.
With a shake of my head, I handed it back to her. “I’m not sure if Zecora made that potion to last as long as it has. I think I’ll have better luck waiting until we get back to Ponyville, but… Why don’t you hold on to it for me? Just as a last resort.”
She gingerly accepted it, looking between it and me. Eventually, her soft voice spoke.
“You know I'm not mad at you for that day, right?”
I was thrown off guard. My words got caught in my throat, more than I could make sense of. I coughed to the side to clear it and offered a weak nod. “I… yeah.”
“I mean it,” she insisted. “I don’t blame you for it. You were scared.”
“Fluttershy, I don’t think this is a good time to—”
I nearly jumped as her forelegs wrapped around my torso. Her head rested on my left shoulder, but I didn’t wince; I didn’t dare move.
“I never knew why you acted so differently around me,” she said quietly. “I always noticed you were so open around the others, but you always closed yourself whenever I joined.”
“I… I never meant anything by it. I didn’t mean to—”
“To hurt me,” she finished. “You told me in my home tonight, and I finally understood. I forgave you for when we first met, but you never forgave yourself. I just wanted to let you know, you’re my friend, Hunter.” Her hooves wrapped a little more tightly around me. “And I’m glad you are.”
I was stunned. Somehow, my arm managed to reach up and wrap around her, just beneath her beating wings. My chin fell into the crook of her neck, and my eyes screwed tightly shut. A shudder coursed through my body as I squeezed back, and a whisper slipped through my lips. “Thank you.”
Our brief moment was destined to be just that, though. The silent air was suddenly filled with a deep, creaking groan, accentuated by a sharp, distant crack, and before we could even guess what could have made it, there was a heavy crash. The wolves broke their silence with a fresh chorus of hungry howls with unsettling vigor.
Fluttershy and I separated, glancing to the windows before turning to each other with equal fright in our eyes.
“Where are your friends?”
“Th-They should be somewhere around the castle,” she explained. “Twilight wanted to make sure we would be safe.”
I was already hobbling to the stairs with my unsteady crutch. “Well, we better find them then, before…” My words trailed, and I hesitated, pausing for only a moment before shaking the thoughts out of my mind and pressing on. We are safe, I lied to myself once more.
Fluttershy was by my side by the time I reached the stairs. She put herself beneath my right arm as she hovered, trying to take some of the weight off of it. During our descent, I heard rapid hoofbeats below, quickly growing louder. Twilight and Applejack nearly crashed into us halfway down the stairs.
“You heard it, too?” Twilight panted.
We nodded, and Fluttershy asked, “What was it?”
“A tree,” Applejack said urgently. “And a big one, at that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hunter, Ah live on a farm next to the largest orchard in all of Ponyville,” she reminded me. “Me and my family have had our fair share of some nasty storms and then some, and Ah reckon Ah know what a tree sounds like when it falls.”
Within the cramped stone walls of the stairwell, the howls only seemed louder, like the wolves were right on top of us. A dark inkling of a thought squirmed in the back of my mind. Maybe it wasn’t just an illusion.
Twilight climbed past us, pausing only to look back. “You said it’s safe up there, right? You said you had a plan?” Beneath the intensity there was a certain desperation in her voice as she spoke, in her eyes as she looked at me, that unsettled me in my core.
I gave her a stern nod. “Yeah; I have a plan, but we need to get back up there.”
Twilight and Applejack raced ahead as Fluttershy helped me back up the stairs. I closed my eyes, trying to focus on each step to keep my mind off the wolves lurking somewhere below. As we reentered the throne room, I removed my arm from Fluttershy and staggered a few steps forward, trying to run through my old escape plan in my head.
“Alright, first thing’s first, we need to close those doors and find some way to lock them.”
No later than I had said it did the door seem to slam shut on their own will. Twilight gave me a determined nod, and Applejack began searching through the rubble of the ruined room.
“What did ya have in mind for a lock, Hunter?”
“Use that spear behind the throne,” I said, motioning to the back of the room. “We can break it and wedge the pieces between the handles. That should buy us some time.”
Twilight seemed quick to interrupt. “No time for that. I have a better idea. Go ahead to the next step.”
I turned around to protest, but when I did, I saw the unicorn concentrating on the doors. Bright purple runes flared in a circular pattern over the door. After a few seconds, they began to fade, and Twilight turned back to me expectantly. I gave a scrutinizing look between her and the door. “Is that going to hold?”
She gave an incredulous snort. “Better than a couple pieces of wood.”
I opened my mouth to snark back but resigned to shake my head. “Whatever. Applejack, can you tie a knot?”
“Under different circumstances, Ah’d be insulted you’d have to ask!” she called back from the other side of the room.
I pointed to a half-broken column next to a window. “There should be a pile of vines I tangled into a rope over there. You and Fluttershy tie one of the ends to that pillar, and make sure it’s tight.”
“Are you seriously planning what I think you’re planning?” Twilight asked as she trotted up to me. “You know the timberwolves are still out there, right? We don’t know how spread out they are; we could lower ourselves right on top of them.”
“Which is what you’re going to fix,” I said sternly. “I need you to come up with some kind of… I don’t know, a spell of some sort.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of spell are we talking about?”
“Something bright,” I explained. “Bright enough for the Princess to see if she’s still in the woods somewhere.”
“But Hunter, anything like that would give us away to the timberwolves, too,” she frowned. “They would know exactly where we are.”
“That’s what I’m betting on. Once they know we’re up here, they’re going to be racing up those stairs and trying to break down that door you just locked.”
“Which would give us enough time to climb down and escape whichever way they used to cross the moat,” she finished. She hummed in thought for a second before looking up to me. “That could work. What makes you think they would all come up, though? They might only send a few.”
An emotionless snort escaped me. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m a little popular tonight,” I reminded her as I hobbled to Applejack and Fluttershy. “They all seem to want a bite out of me. They’ll come.”
Twilight didn’t say anything else by the time I met up with the others. Applejack gave the vines one last, securing tug against the pillar before turning to me.
“Alright, Hunter, that’s about as tight as it’ll get,” she said. “What now?”
I turned around. Twilight was standing next to a broken window, her hooves resting on the sill as she looked to me. Our eyes connected. She was waiting on a cue. Taking in a deep breath, I broke off and glanced over the throne room, soaking in every last detail. The last spear was still resting by the throne. I leaned slightly against the one I was using for a crutch. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a little more security.
“At the bottom of this tower is a courtyard,” I explained as I hobbled back to the throne. “And at the far end of that is a side entrance to a large ballroom that leads back to the main foyer.” I picked up the extra spear and tucked it under my arm before turning back to the girls. “Twilight’s going to cast a spell that’ll catch the timberwolves’ eyes, and while they’re busy trying to break down a locked door, we climb out the window, make our way back out the front doors, and slip back into the forest however they came across.”
Applejack seemed to mull over the details in her head as I returned. “Not bad,” she offered. “It’s the best we have, and it sounds like you thought it through, at least.”
“Well, I had to tweak my original plan, but having a few extra hands definitely helped.” My eyes flicked back to Twilight and I gave her a nod as I moved to the window next to her.
She returned the gesture, took in a deep breath, and closed her eyes in concentration. The tip of her horn began to glow. “Alright, everypony, close your eyes!”
A brilliant white light erupted from her horn, flooding the room and escaping out the window. I blinked the afterimage away and watched as it trailed into the sky, where it burst brightly enough to light the castle grounds beneath us. Far below, several pairs of glowing yellow eyes basked up at the light. Their dark, twisted bodies froze at the light’s exposure, and as it faded, their collective gaze snapped to our tower. The howling started again, and I saw them beginning to run inside just before the shadows swallowed the castle grounds once more.
“Did it… Did it work?” Fluttershy asked anxiously.
“Oh, yeah,” I replied shakily. “Definitely.” I put the second spear down and reached a hand out to Applejack and the makeshift rope. “Come on. Let’s get this part over with.”
The mare picked up the rope by her teeth and trotted towards me and the window. All the while, Fluttershy took to the air and hovered closely by her friend.
“How much time do you think we have before they find their way up here?” she asked.
As if to answer her question, a heavy thump rang out from the other side of the door, followed by a series of mad, muffled barking. Fluttershy gave a frightened squeak in response.
Applejack spat out the rope and adjusted her witch hat. “Well, let’s not overstay our welcome, shall we?” She twisted herself around on her forelegs before the window, and with a powerful buck, the glass in the pane shattered, sending shards out to the courtyard far below. I helped her move the pile of rope to the newly made hole and tossed it out.
Twilight trotted up to the window with us and looked down to where the rope disappeared. “So, who’s going first?” she asked.
My fingers tapped along the sill for a moment. “Well, as Dad used to say, thanks for volunteering, Twilight.”
She gave me an unamused look. After inspecting the rope and glancing once more out the window, she finally spoke. “I think I have a better idea.” Before anyone could ask, she vanished with a sharp pop and a shower of sparks, only to reappear down at the base of the tower next to the end of the rope.
I rolled my eyes. “Showoff.”
Applejack picked up the rope, giving it an experimental tug before climbing through the window. “You said you tested this before, right?”
I hesitated. “I mean, mostly.” She froze on the other side of the window, and her foreleg clamped on the edge of the sill. The mare shot me a look demanding to explain. “Hey, hey, I spent, like, four days making that rope out of all the vines I could get my hands on around here,” I assured her. “It’ll hold, trust me.”
Her hoof carefully retracted from the sill and clamped tightly along the rope. She took in a shaky breath and shook her head. “Oh, Ah hope you’re right.”
As she began her descent, the wolves on the other side of the door grew louder and louder. They must have all been packed in that tight staircase by now. Twilight’s spell was holding. With each crash, the purple runes would light up. I could only hope it would last long enough for my plan to work.
Fluttershy was next through the window. Rather than taking the rope, she allowed her wings to carry her. “I can go with you if you’d like,” she offered as she hovered on the other side. “I mean, if you need help, I can fly next to you, just in case. I’ll catch you if you slip.”
I picked up the rope and gave it an experimental tug against the pillar and looked down to the courtyard. Applejack had just touched down. She looked up and gave me a hearty wave. I wasn’t sure if it was the height or my fatigue, but suddenly I became very uneasy.
“Yeah,” I nodded to Fluttershy. “I think I’d like that.”
I grabbed my spears, fastened them to the belt loops on the back of my waist, and carefully crawled through the window. My body was quick to protest the strain of supporting myself with my arms. I tried to prop my feet against the outer wall, but the rubber of my shoes was well worn, and I couldn't get any traction. My footing slipped, and true to her word, Fluttershy swooped in behind me to slow my rapid descent. My heart was barely beating faster than her wings when my grip tightened back around the rope. Fluttershy kept her forelegs wrapped beneath the pits of my arms, trying to alleviate some of my weight.
My feet hit the ground, and I staggered back a few steps. Fluttershy collapsed next to me, panting from the exertion. I placed a hand over my own beating heart to calm it down and took a few seconds to reorient myself with my surroundings.
Four structures lined the perimeter of the courtyard, enclosing it in a rectangular shape. A colonnade spanned the length of the far and side walls, but the wall of the tower behind us was bare. The structure to our right eclipsed the moon, leaving over half of the area in shadows. A tall, ornate fountain lay directly in the center, bone-dry from over a thousand years of disuse.
The structure to our left was large, probably rising to at least half the height of the tower we had just escaped. Five tall, stained-glass windows lined its wall. I had been in the building only once before, just to peek inside to see what was there, and now what was once an uninteresting, empty space had become our best chance of escape.
“Whenever you’re ready, Hunter,” Applejack offered. “But if it means anything, Ah’d rather not stay out in the open like this for much longer.”
I gave her a nod and led the way. As we darted across the courtyard, my eyes scanned the shadows for any unwanted pairs of eyes. The entire plan could fall apart if we were attacked here. Once we reached the other side, I took a sharp turn to the building on our left, and a single wooden door barred our passage into it.
Rusty hinges creaked and groaned as I pulled it open. Once the others ran inside, I quickly slammed it shut behind us.
We were inside the ballroom. It was large and longer than it was wide, but Ponyville's town hall could have easily fit in it. The stained-glass windows distorted the moonlight that came in, coloring the cavernous room in eerie shades of blues and purples. There was a strong musk from air that hadn’t been disturbed in a long time, and it only made the empty room all the more unnerving.
Far on the other side of the room was the only other exit, and we didn’t waste our time. I sprinted after the girls as they galloped across. Our footsteps echoed heavily beneath the high ceilings, nearly masking an ominous rumble. The mares heard it, too. We came to a sliding stop over the old marble floors, but the sound continued. My blood froze. It sounded like it was coming from beneath us.
A small crack formed on the floor between me and the mares and quickly grew, snaking across the floor in a destructive path. Beneath me, the floor lurched a few inches downward.
"Everypony, run!" Twilight screamed.
Nobody needed to be told twice. We bolted to the other side of the room where the exit awaited. The air was filled with the sound of crashing rock as the ground crumbled all around us. I didn't dare look back; I was falling behind enough as it was.
The doors weren’t much further away, but the cave-in wasn’t showing any signs of relenting. I could feel the floor crumbling beneath my heels with each strike of my foot, and no amount of adrenaline could seem to carry me any faster. Applejack and Fluttershy were far ahead, and Twilight was just barely ahead of me. Until she no longer was.
I must have blinked and missed it. One moment she was there, and the next she wasn’t. A fresh cavity in the ground and a shrill scream was all that was left of her. I barely had enough time to skim around the hole as I ran, but as I did, I heard a faint pop somewhere beneath.
Another pop and a shower of sparks burst in the air before me as I passed, depositing a purple unicorn directly in my path. There wasn't enough time for my brain to make sense of it, and by the time we collided, it was too late.
Her side caught my knee mid-stride, and I tripped over her body. The force knocked her over as well, and I heard her try to take in a sharp breath as the wind was sucked out of her lungs. We sprawled across the floor, coming to a sliding halt. Our shocked eyes met for a short second, and the floor gave way beneath us.
Thankfully, the fall wasn’t long, though we both spent it screaming in fear. I fell against my back gasping for breath on a pile of rubble ten feet below the ballroom. It was another room, maybe a cellar after a quick glance, but the ride wasn’t over yet. The ground sank beneath me once more, before I so much as had the chance to stand. I tucked my body in and covered my head, but the impact was just as jarring as the last.
The rumbling slowly died down. The darkness was overwhelming, and the settling dust seemed to reach down my throat with each hesitant breath. I didn’t dare move for fear of causing another collapse.
“Twilight?! Hunter?!” Applejack’s voice shouted from above. “Ah can’t see you! Where are you? Are y’all okay?”
Twilight’s voice coughed somewhere to the right of me. “I… I’m fine. We fell through a couple of floors, but I think we’re okay now. Hunter?”
A light sparked in the air, banishing the darkness in a purple glow. A thick haze of dust obscured the shapes around me. I rolled over and tried to sit up, but my body was quick to protest. “I— Ach! I’m alive, I think.” Some of the dust found its way into my lungs again, and I tried to hack it back up. “I’ve been a lot better, though,” I groaned.
I craned my neck up as the dust had finally settled to see Applejack and Fluttershy. They were both still safe and sound on the ballroom floor, peering over the edge to get a better view.
Applejack shook her head. "That's it; I'm going down there. Fluttershy, come on. Let’s see if you can pick Hunter up and out of that mess."
“Applejack, wait.” A fit of coughs interrupted Twilight as she called back. Applejack looked like she was about to jump, only to stumble for a moment before clambering back to the edge. “You and Fluttershy need to get out of here while you can,” Twilight continued. “Digging us out is going to take too much time. The timberwolves are bound to have heard that crash. They’ll be right on top of us if you try, literally.”
“But what about you?” Fluttershy demanded. “We can’t leave you behind!”
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I scanned around the room we fell into. Most of it was buried beneath mounds of rubble. Bookshelves ran across the walls; mostly empty, but a few still possessed a handful of dusty books and scrolls. Up ahead, I could make out the shape of a doorway, but beyond that was black as pitch.
“I think I see an exit,” I shouted back. “Not sure where it goes, but… well, it might lead back up.”
“We’ll be fine,” Twilight assured them. “Hunter and I are more than capable of fending for ourselves.”
It was at that moment I realized what was being implied. “Actually, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra pair of hands,” I grunted.
I could feel Twilight shooting me a look. “There’s no need to drag us all down here,” she reasoned. “Right now, nopony else knows we’re even at this castle. Applejack and Fluttershy have the best chance of going back to Ponyville and getting us some help.” She cast a glance to the doorway I had found. “You may know this castle, but you need me to light the way, and the longer we argue about this, the sooner the wolves will get here.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but one last puff of dust found its way inside again. With a fit of coughs and a swear, I waved her off. “Fine, whatever,” I spat. I looked up to the others and gave them a nod. “Get out of here before our company catches up.”
The farmer didn’t seem convinced, but she didn’t have a choice, either. “Alright, Sugarcube,” she said to Fluttershy. “No sense in waiting here. Let’s see if we can find the Princess and get her here.” Fluttershy cast a nervous glance back down the pit before giving her a hesitant nod. Before they disappeared, Applejack called out one last time, “Good luck, you two! We’ll be waiting for you.”
Up above, a door creaked and slammed shut, and Twilight and I were left alone.
The rubble shifted next to me as Twilight tried to keep her balance on her descent to solid ground. She paused next to me and held out a hoof. I eyed it for a moment, only to shift away and scramble to my feet on my own. My body felt like it had gone through a round in a boxing ring, and my head wasn’t much better off.
As I rose to my feet, I heard wood clatter against stone behind me. I nearly jumped, thinking our time was already up as I turned around, only to find one of the spears I had brought shattered against the rubble. The other laid whole next to where I had landed. With a disgruntled sigh, I reached back and picked them up, thankful at least one of them managed to survive the drop at least.
“So… Hunter,” Twilight tried carefully. “I don’t suppose you know where we are.”
I shook my head as I looked around once more. “I knew the castle had a basement, but I didn’t know it went two floors down,” I admitted with a grunt. After a few shaky steps on loose stone, I hopped off the pile onto sweet, solid ground.
Twilight stepped down next to me, and her light lazily followed. Without looking, I knew her attention was drawn to the same thing as me: that dark, empty doorway.
“Come on,” I whispered, almost to urge myself forward. Using the spear as an unsteady crutch, I crept towards the exit, pausing at the edge of the doorway. The sight of the hallway was enough to suck the breath out of my lungs. It was impossible to tell how far it stretched; for all I knew, it could have gone on for an eternity. Only the first few feet were clearly visible before darkness swallowed the corridor.
Twilight poked her head inside and hesitated. Her small spark of light drifted forward, illuminating the path ahead with its eerie purple glow. The unicorn took a few steps into the hall, and the light lazily followed.
Behind us, the wolves filled the air with a sickening chorus of howls. With a swear under my breath, I shuffled into the hallway after Twilight. Whatever lied ahead couldn’t have been worse than what we were leaving behind. As I passed through the doorway, I saw its two doors swung out into the hallway. Twilight and I traded a look, and we both moved to seal it shut. The rusty hinges wailed as they moved against their will, and the doors shuddered as they closed for the first time in centuries. Twilight took a step back and inspected it.
“Do you see a way to lock it?”
I gave the doors a once over, saw the handles, and frowned. Unless we found the key nearby, it wasn’t going to be easy. But the broken shards of my spear weighed heavily in my left hand. I blinked and offered them to the mare.
With a disbelieving snort and a shake of her head, the pieces began to glow in my hand and lifted on their own will.
“If we had time for anything else,” she stated with a huff. They floated towards the handles and jammed themselves in between.
I turned back to the hallway as she worked. Even with the light of her spell, it didn’t look any less intimidating. It stretched on, further than her light could reach. Something about it seemed to sap away at the knot in my twisting gut. My fingers danced across the cold head of the hatchet on my left, eventually gripping it in a vice.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a shaky step forward.
“Alright. Let’s get this over with.”