//------------------------------//
// Chapter 53 — Blood Also Freezes 
// Story: The Runaway Bodyguard 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

The javelin passed through the fleshy part of Safe's right back leg. It tore something as it passed through, dragged him back, and spun him counter-clockwise. His head hit me in the shoulder, before the rest of him crashed into me. We tumbled into a tangle of legs and cloaks and sudden sticky wetness. Rolling over the still dewy ground, we fetched up against a picnic bench. The javelin thunked into the damp ground. It buzzed loudly. 

"Uh! Uh!" he cried, shocked. He flopped like a fish that had accidentally jumped out of the water onto a bridge.

Still on my side, I spun around and pushed with my rear legs, sliding him under the table across the muddy ground underneath it. It smelled of algae and rancid nuts.

The shot had come from in the direction we'd slid. I scrambled beside the bench, trying to figure out from which direction I actually needed to take cover.

I heard a crackle. A flash hit the trees and I heard the sound of large wings flapping for all they were worth. I looked, but the sun came from that way. I blinked away blue phosphenes. 

Citron slid in behind me, scanning the skies, showing he had my back. Still in the trees, Pig Pen's colorful language told me he wasn't far behind.

I dragged Safe back onto the grass.

His rear leg looked worse than I'd hoped, but then even a little blood always spread and made things look much worse than they were. Smearing a wound with smelly mud didn't help.

I'd seen blood before. I seen plenty of mine as a prizefighter.

Still, I gulped.

"Crystal Skies's out of range," Citron said.

"I'm not." My teeth buzzed. "Nopony's near, best I can see."

I cast Levitate, stripped off the blue-dyed pony's cloak and mine, then pressed on both sides of his wound with relatively clean fabric. 

"Uhh!" He whinnied loudly, then gasped and went limp.

Pig Pen dashed over to keep watch, looking the opposite direction of Citron. He glanced and observed, "Went clean through."

Citron asked, "Cauterize the hole?"

"I'm no healer. Pressure is working, I think."

"What next?"

I looked around. It was a block to the nearest street, but while I saw ponies, some outside a grocery to the right and another pulling a pony cart, they weren't many and hadn't noticed the ruckus. If I could get us a few blocks in, I might find a good hiding spot.

I queued up Teleport.

"Citron, put on Safe's cloak. Pig Pen, put on mine. Pretend you've got the hot potato for all you're worth. Take him toward that grocery over there. Limp like you've been hit."

Pig Pen nodded. "I've had a broken leg, before."

Citron asked, "You?"

I laid Safe's limp head on my reclining haunch and said, "Improvising. Misdirect them. Get me time, then disappear. Don't get hurt."

I triggered my spell. The vectors for a two block straight-shot west ricocheted in my head. Sparkles popped from my horn like spray of sparks in a fireplace. Frowning, I took a deep breath and failed with another fizzle-pop. Gritting my teeth, heart thumping, ready any second to be dive-bombed by two javelin-wielding pegasi from the direction of the sun, I tried again.

Total darkness and total cold enveloped me. I forgot to close my mouth and clamp my nose. My breath rushed from my lungs more forcefully than a whooping cough.

I appeared, pushed upright against a hard wall. I coughed again and mucus spattered with dots of blood decorated the brick. Unicorn magic! It did anything to keep from hurting a pony, even up to rearranging your posture. Safe rolled toward the sidewalk, gasping, very much suddenly awake, trying to stop his fall. He'd at least had his mouth closed.

My throat hurt, but in the pain I knew I was alive.

I glanced back.

I saw the park: trees, dark in contrast to the daylight, were a green smudge. I spotted the picnic table and a olive-green cloaked pony rushing another cloaked pony south. The hurried pony limped outrageously.

I'd appeared within five pony lengths of my intended spot, which was plus or minus 1/2%. Pretty good for guessing. I rotated the vectors 70° and hugged Safe around the neck as he pushed himself upright.

Darkness.

Bang!

The out-teleport echoed off storefronts. Some foals playing buckball stared, letting their red ball bounce away and roll into the gutter. I saw houses and a tree-lined street with very few wagons parked outside.

"Stop that!" Safe said, trembling as frost steamed off of him, his ears flicking. I saw frost on his wound as I compensated for my vectors and pushed my luck. I could not see my target three houses away, this time behind a tall whitewashed fence.

"Sorry!"

I teleported again.

We reappeared, this time in somepony's fenced-in backyard. I saw a brick barbecue, a swing set, and a garden full of borage, cabbage, and lettuces. I lifted my rear left hoof just in time to keep from tumbling back into a swimming pool. I'd cut that one close.

The fence and wood siding on the house muffled the out-teleport.

Chilled to the bone, I started shivering. Frost had gathered on my hide. His, too. The blood on Safe's leg looked frozen, but it began trickling again as he sat hard, dizzy from what he'd experienced—being in the darkest, coldest icebox three times. Oh, and that can't-breathe thing.

"Tartarus. It's all true."

"That high-level unicorn thing? You betchya."

If anypony had heard us in the house, they'd have shown themselves by now. I sat, also, my eyes flagging just a little bit as exhaustion failed to completely creep up. I shivered from the cold, which the rising sun helped. My studies with Broomhill Dare about not pumping too many splendors into my spells was paying dividends... that or the adrenaline in my bloodstream. I applied pressure over the wound with Levitate, looking around.

I spotted a clothesline with linens.

"I'm going to need a doctor."

"Not stupid," I replied. "Carne Asada, though? Are you sure this is her doing?"

"Let me tell you about Carne Asada. A few years back she decided that she needed to bring down a bridge in Fillydelphia. To ensure nopony would trace back the job to her or her blood relatives, she tricked her sister's husband into being on that bridge when she collapsed it."

"Too much information," I said, waving a hoof.

"It was in the newspapers. The EBI couldn't prove it and she was acquitted of her part. He was a royal guard, and he'd foiled a lesson Carne Asada had planned for his charge at a stadium that same night. He ended up taking the blame for setting up the disaster. A Tartarus-level crime; husband and wife ended up going*; he came back**. Still... her sister's husband!"

"You're on her bad side? Am I?"

"Me, no. You, definitely not. You've interested her for awhile."

I compressed my lips. "Wonderful," I muttered.

"That said—"

"Even more wonderful?"

"—she tests her employee's loyalty now and again."

While he'd been talking, I ripped up some linen into long strips. I tied one on his leg and he gasped when I pulled it tight.

I'd been working on Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear for minutes when I heard an old lady come home with her grand-filly. I cast, hoping it worked, because they almost immediately opened the rear door. They headed for the root cellar. 

I walked Safe forward as we limped into the house, then out the front door, nopony the wiser.