Everypony stood still, watching carefully the creatures around them. Tension was evident on everyone's faces, but no one dared to move. They all knew the creatures were faster than them, anyway. Not that running anywhere was a good option when they were surrounded. Flying was of course out of the question, as it had been since the winds had started blowing, no one of them would be able to safely move up there. But some might still have been planning to try, if things got too dire.
The creatures kept circling them. There were too many. Sunburst counted, or at least tried to get a rough estimate, and he figured there were about as many of them as there were ponies there, maybe give or take a few. Even just one would have been a lot to deal with, maybe too much. That many of them were certainly beyond the scope of what they could hope to successfully fight against. Going by sheer numbers and by what he'd seen and heard, at least.
Of course, he was there. He was far from being in peak condition though. He was tired, physically and mentally, and more importantly in whichever way exerting his coil tired him. That Starshine was still clearly doing the same, and for quite sizable things as far as he could feel, only added to the difficulty of the situation. He could try to defend the ponies present, he certainly would, but he couldn't be sure it would work. He'd never gone that far, and every new push was treading into unexplored ground. Every new step could be the one that broke him, as far as he knew.
Could he put up a shield? Was it even worth it to do something like that? But fighting back didn't strike him as a much better option. He'd never been much of a fighter, he wouldn't have known where to properly start. He'd have almost certainly wasted a lot of energy overcomplicating his requests to get them close to something he simply didn't have sufficient knowledge of. Weapons just weren't a field he was experienced in, the one he'd made for Twilight was far more akin to a highly specific piece of machinery and even then he'd created it under precise instructions as to what it needed to do.
Barriers would be easier. A lot easier. There was still a problem with those of course, that being how they presumably, sooner or later, needed to get away from there. They could wall themselves in, put up a dome the creatures couldn't break through, but they'd be trapped. If he wasn't careful they might even run out of air. And there was another problem. Again, he was tired. Maybe he was too tired. A shield that powerful around them might have cost him too much, and there was no guarantee it would stay if something happened to him as a result. There was no guarantee Starshine would stay either, and they couldn't afford to lose her. Soon he'd have to do something, but he was far from confident things would go smoothly.