“So, the Frozen North, huh?” Golden Nugget slapped a stack of fur coats on one horse. “Never liked the tales of that place. Ain’t no apples growin’ there. How can anyone live life without apples?”
The group was gathered at the main gate of Masyaf, all riding fresh horses from Sombra’s royal stables. The king himself was seated on a mighty steed called Stormchaser, and many of the city’s inhabitants had come out to wish their king and his company a safe journey.
Honeygold grinned widely as she waved back, seated atop a horse with Parisa Pie, whose parents were also there to see her off. She said something in Saddle Arabian, which Emerald could guess was something of a ‘don’t worry’ and a ‘take care’.
Emerald’s own horse was a mare called Amira, who was brown with white spots. Once again on a horse, she wondered what had happened to Foxtrot back home in Canterlot. She hoped at least that he was eating well.
“That greedy horse…” She smiled and thought of whether she should bring back a bucket of carrots for him once this was all over.
Gradually the questors began to move off towards the west, where the Coltcasus Mountains could be seen looming on the horizon like the teeth of a giant. Masyaf grew further and further away, but the group was in high spirits, which not even the scorching sun could wither. Except for one.
“Tis so hot!” Jewel Pin cried out, riding on a black horse near the rear, still carrying the pack of what remained of the Baba Yaga’s treasure. “I am hungry. Can we stop for some food?”
Posey groaned and rode alongside her. “We stop when we have to. We need to cover as much ground as we can.”
“But the sun is bad for the skin. We should find some shelter and travel again when it is cooler.”
“The day is still long, Jewel Pin.” Emerald called back from the front of the group. “We need to keep going.”
Apple Bean tossed the seamstress an apple. “Have one o’ these. It’s good for ya. It’ll help ease your hunger.”
Jewel Pin adjusted her head scarf so that it blocked out more of the sun and bit into the apple.
It was much faster going on horses than on foot, and by the time they stopped to make camp, Emerald wagered that they were already one third of the way to the mountain’s foothills, as opposed to the long trek they had taken on the way to Masyaf.
The party soon set up tents and got a fire going, upon which they roasted some vegetables and meat for dinner. Their supplies were plentiful and of good quality; Sombra had only demanded the best for his first ever journey out of Saddle Arabia. It was filling stuff too, for not even Jewel Pin wanted to ask for seconds once the meal was done.
With the stars twinkling like a carpet of diamonds above them, the questors settled down to rest for the night. Emerald had forgotten how drastic the weather changed in the desert from morning to night. It was here that she was glad they had packed so much for the Frozen North. At least they could use some as sheets to stave off the cool night air.
The following day, after another hearty breakfast of bread and cheese, the party set off as the sun began to rise back into the sky
“So those are the Coltcasus Mountains,” Sombra exclaimed, now that they were close enough to see the peaks in all their glory. “Magnificent. Absolutely breathtaking.”
“You’re breathtaking!” Parisa giggled at Sombra’s excitement.
“Yes, I suppose as king, I should be. Should I not?” He laughed along.
“You’ve never been this far out, Sombra?” Emerald asked as their horses worked their way along the coarse and rough desert sand.
“Truthfully, I have never strayed far from Masyaf.” Sombra kept his eyes on the mountain range. “My father however, has gone as far as the borders to the kingdom of Rabbhitzia. They are right at the base of the mountain range. He has told me how grand the mountains were, but to see them in person, they are a lot bigger than I had imagined.”
“Are we going to have to go over them?” Parisa shielded her eyes with one hand while gazing at the mountain peaks. “I don’t know if the horses will be very happy with that.”
“We went through some tunnels in the mountain’s interior that led past the base of it when we came this way,” Light Speckle said. “We even found a map of the passages inside.”
“I don’t know if the horses will be happy going into a mountain either,” Parisa rubbed the neck of her steed. “But they are brave animals, bred for fighting and racing. We’ll have to hope their nerve holds.”
The time passed quickly for the questors, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the small patch of paradise that encircled the exit of the Coltcasus Mountains on the Saddle Arabian side.
Posey was the first to notice something was different.
“There’s a draught blowing through,” the archer said. “It wasn’t like this before.”
“Don’t tell me tis another chort.” Spectrum tapped her scabbard. “If so, we can take it.”
“No, look,” Posey spurred her horse further ahead and pointed. “Look at that!”
The rest of the party pulled up alongside Posey and looked to where she was pointing. There was a gaping hole in the side of the mountain that seemed to lead all the way to the other side. It was almost perfectly circular in shape, but wide enough for at least two dozen men to march side by side through it. The passage was too smooth to have been carved out using conventional tools, which meant only one thing.
“So this is how Morn got his army through so quickly,” Emerald concluded. “He must have used Excalibur’s power to burn a way through.”
There were bones of cave creatures by the entrance, where plants and rock had been scorched. Nothing had stood in his way.
“For Morn to have done this is no easy feat.” Nightfall got off her horse and plucked at one of the bones, which disintegrated in her fingers. “How is he able to use the sword for so long? You said it yourself, Em. Humans are not made to use your Equestrian weapons.”
“Tis a mighty puzzle,” Emerald said, evading the question. “One that we will have to figure out another time. Right now, Morn has left us a gift; we may use his passage to get to our goal that much faster.”
“I shall not say no to that.” Sombra goaded his horse to approach the tunnel. “Come. Let us proceed to the other side.”
Taking the tunnel that Morn had carved into the mountains proved to be a much nicer process than taking the winding paths through the depths of the peaks or climbing over them. It did grow dark inside the tunnel once they strayed from the opening, but never so dark that they could not see. The hooves of their horses clip-clopped along, echoing through the space.
“Y’know, world conquerin’ aside, Ah reckon that this here tunnel could prove plenty useful for traders,” Golden Nugget suggested.
“And it helps that we don’t need to fight giant spiders or chorts again,” Speckle said.
“Giant spiders?” Parisa bobbed on her horse. “Now I’m thinking there could be giant camels too!”
“Yes, they weren’t a threat too.” Spectrum Song nudged Guard Streak, who sat in front of her on their horse. “Right, Streak?”
Guard Streak mumbled something that Spectrum seemed to take as an agreement.
“If memory serves,” Nightfall said to nobody in particular. “We should come out in a swamp on the other side. Unless Morn has done something about that as well.”
“I must say, I am not looking forward to the smell…” Jewel Pin pinched her nose in anticipation. “Tis bad for the skin.”
“Everything’s bad for your skin.” Posey slapped a hand to her forehead.
There was a hearty bout of laughter at this, and the questors’ hearts felt collectively lighter as they trotted along. They passed the time by listening to the folksy tunes that Spectrum would play on her Kievan lute, or by listening to one of Parisa’s stories, of which she claimed she knew a thousand and one. Honeygold particularly liked the one about Virtue Good, a sailor who had to fight a cyclops on a deserted island. He had eventually won after luring it off a cliff with his voice.
“That’s such an amazin’ story!” She patted Parisa’s shoulders. “Ya think there are actual cyclopes out there?”
“We’ve seen a plenty o’ strange sights,” her mother said from her horse. “Seems all your fairytale monsters are real, dear. A cyclops ain’t too far off the tree now.”
“Ah told y’all those fairytales were true!” Honeygold giggled. “Y’all wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Yes, yes, ya win, daughter dear.” Golden Nugget rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. “Though sometimes Ah wish they weren’t. Ah’d rather not have to meet another vampire. Well, unless he’s as good as your friend back home.”
“You know a vampire?” Parisa beamed at the farmgirl.
“Sure do!” Honeygold chirped. “He’s one of mah good friends. His name’s Omul Bates. He keeps the farm safe from ‘em varmints.”
“I see light at the end.” Posey pointed from the rear.
And true enough, while they had all been distracted with their conversations, light had already begun to hit them in the face. Once they were out, they found that the other end was also quite circular in nature and the plants on this side were also scorched. Morn had really blasted his way through with Excalibur.
“Nightfall, can you not invent something to keep the smell from our faces?” Jewel Pin pinched her nose and grimaced. “I hate this swamp!”
“It’s called a scarf, and it’s already been invented,” Nightfall took off the scarves they had been using to shield themselves from the sun in Saddle Arabia and draped it around her nose and mouth. “And Morn seems to have cleared a path for us through the swamp for us.”
Looking ahead, Emerald saw a swathe of trees had been cut down, forming a straight path out of the swamp, where even the waters had been pushed aside with mounds of dirt and mud, where rows and rows of human footprints could be seen going through them to the mountain.
“Well, at least we will not have to worry about more of those water worms here.” Emerald eyed their new path. At least Morn had made it easy for them to go backwards, but it made her think just what else he might have done on his way here.
“These weapons are absolutely devastating…” Sombra marveled at the grooves in the ground that split the water from the land, where the edges seemed to have hardened to stone. “Emerald, these weapons are too strong for any one human to wield.”
“I very much agree, Sombra.”
The group pushed their horses on through the marsh, following the marching footsteps out of the swamp, where they could finally remove the scarves around their mouths.
“Fresh air!” Jewel Pin raised her hands to the sky like she was trying to give it a hug. “I’m hungry.”
“We stop here for the day,” Emerald decided. The sun was already on its way down and she didn’t like the idea of traveling at night when only one of them could see in the dark.
The questors unpacked the tents and cooking tools from their caravan and soon had a merry bonfire going. Parisa had found a thin, flat stone and was using it as an oven to make flatbreads and to toast meat.
“The air is cooler on this side of the mountains,” Sombra observed as he bit into a piece of freshly baked bread. “More moist as well.”
“We are still in the more temperate regions,” Nightfall said as she checked her maps. “It will grow ever chillier as we proceed northwards.”
“Makes ya wonder how all ‘em horsemen can live in such weather.” Golden Nugget grabbed an apple from their stash of rations. “Em, ya said your empire was there as well. How’d y’all manage?”
“The Crystal Empire is kept warm and temperate by the magic of the Crystal Heart,” Emerald told him. “The rest of the land is cold and icy, but the empire itself is quite livable.”
“Maybe the horsemen have something like that too.” Nightfall twiddled with the wood under the fire. “I would gain much if I could study something that keeps the cold back.”
“Ain’t much magic in this world though,” Honeygold said thoughtfully. “Unless them Northerners have an artifact of their own?”
“If they have one, I hope they would be willing to part with it…” Emerald said to herself. She took a bite of a pickled onion, grimacing at the sharp taste. She washed it down with some water and leaned back on the rock she was using as a seat. The stars were obscured by a thin blanket of cloud, but they could still see the moon shining through. Emerald wondered about the people they had left behind at Canterlot, and how they might be doing now. She hadn’t made friends with everyone in the castle, but she had been on good terms with many of the mages and the lower-ranked knights, and now that her own safety was less in question, she had time to turn her thoughts to those who remained in Morn’s kingdom. Truthfully, it didn’t look good from where she was sitting.
Emerald was jerked from her brooding by an outburst of laughter from the campfire, where Parisa was juggling some of the leftover flatbreads over her back, skillfully catching each one in her hands before tossing them up into the air again. As they soared back down towards her, she opened her mouth and they sailed right down her throat.
Seeing her friends so cheerful lightened Emerald’s own heart and she felt a smile touch her lips. She wondered what kind of challenges awaited them in the Frozen North, and she offered a plea to Celestia that their spirits would hold for the next leg of their journey.