Cinnamon rose into a low crouch, her claws extended just enough to dig into First’s skin. The gentle touch of a hoof caused him to turn, only to be captured by Sundew’s strange, not-quite-golden eyes. They were not unlike his father’s, calm and reassuring before a battle with the Roses, or his mother’s while she taught him another prayer to say as the moon rose. Sundew was speaking with her iron gaze, and so urgent was her intent that he almost heard the words:
Get out your blades.
He nodded. Dropping his saddle bag to the ground, he worked it open, drew out the bundle of moon-kissed metal, and began slipping his legs through their twine loops. Cinnamon disappeared into the hushed, twilit mounds of moss that surrounded the base of the weeping statue as he bit into the gritty hemp that secured his muzzle shear.
“Anybody else hear that?” Bellows asked. He was facing the direction of the path they had used to cross through the forest, having guessed at the source of the sound.
“It’s what I’m not hearing that concerns me,” said Wild. “Where are the animals?”
She took a few uncertain steps toward the trail where it led into the thick copse of pine. Her ears twitched and turned. There was another sound; a phlegmy, vomitous cough followed by a second splash.
Sundew strode forward onto the trail with a quick glance behind her. Bellows and Wild made to follow, but she raised a foreleg to stop them and gestured to First to join her. When he’d trotted to her side, she led them all ahead and under the star-and-inkblot mosaic of the canopy.
The trunks of the pines passed by like a crowd of ponies frozen in place by a cockatrice’s curse. The flakes of their bark skin hid spiders, pressed flat beside motionless moths and ants. The skin of the dead, it seemed to First. Sundew walked at a brisk pace, her eyes never wandering from the trail, even when sheets of hanging moss brushed over her head and left green trailers in her knotted mane. It was then that First noticed how her ribs furrowed the coat of her barrel. She could have been a Rose, in the dim, strangled moonlight, in search of food that would never satisfy her, but for the remembrance of the warmth of her guiding hoof.
A twig snapped off the trail, deep in the press of the cowering trees. Then another, behind them, followed by an utterance that bridged a foreign middle ground between a click and a wet, stuttering croak.
“Look, the birds are coming back out,” said Bellows. “That was a woodpecker, right?” He scanned the moss-burdened boughs for darting wings.
“Shush for a second,” hissed Wild. More twigs broke, closer by than the last. All around them the bed of pine needles was rustling below the gray, scaly, tangle web of the lower branches. In the few places where the moonlight pierced the canopy, there was movement, here and gone again as something—many things—slunk in and out of the darkness.
The group quickened their pace to a trot. Ahead, the violet horizon glowed through the thinning trees. They had almost made it to the shore of the pond. First knew that Sundew was leading them there for a reason; a place to hide she had prepared for herself in emergencies, or just an open area in which to maneuver and fight.
Before they could reach the safe harbor of the meadow that edged the pond, something slouched into their path. They skidded to a halt on bunched pine needle skates.
Its deformed face broke into a moonbeam like a gargoyle totem pushed through the sheen of a waterfall. Brown, cracked skin flexed over rigid muscles, taut over a skull half bare, half clothed in patches of scalp still sprouting threads of pale, scraggly mane.
“That smell …” said Wild with an intense grimace. “It’s a bog body!”
The wind shifted. First was assaulted with the compounded odor of diseased fish and rotted vegetable matter. The thing made a noise that might have been a word, had years buried in the timeless silt of the swamp not emaciated the flesh of its cheeks and tongue.
“Pleesh …”
It opened its mouth until the tendons of its mandible snapped, and began to shuffle forward as if to ram its dull, blackened teeth into Sundew’s chest.
Just as it made its final lunge, she reared and flicked out her forelegs. Her sharp, work-hardened hooves boxed the creature’s head, shattering its depopulated jawbone and twisting its neck into a permanent bend that would have landed a living pony in a permanent hospital bed. Not waiting to make sure it was no longer a threat, she bolted for the shore. First, Bellows and Wild kicked into a gallop behind her. At the sound of their hooves pounding the earth, the forest erupted into a cacophony of marshy croaks, underpinned by exhalations of fetid air through collapsed throats.
Dodging more of the fen-born monsters as they flung their stained bodies onto the path, the four broke from the trees and onto the grasses of the meadow that skirted the shore. The green carpet was troubled, trodden down by what looked to be hundreds of hooves, scattering in as many paths. The stench of corruption weighed the night air down in filthy chains.
Bellows stooped to retrieve his glaive. “They’re just corpses, right Wild?” he said, steadying the weapon in its couch. “If these are the Roses your lore books ramble on so much about, I’m not actually all that impressed. No offense, First, I’m sure you’ve had your scrapes but—”
A multitude of skeletal forelegs shattered the calm mirror of the pond. The foremost pair plunged through the froth, dug into the earth, and propelled a slug of mud-coated flesh into the air together with another withering wave of stench. It crashed into Bellows muzzle-first, its knobby teeth piercing the skin of his shoulder. He dipped to the side but caught himself from falling, and gripping the shaft of his weapon, swiveled hard in place to bring the blade around in a scything arc.
It severed the flailing forelegs as if they were so much snakegrass. His quick pivot slung the creature to the ground, where it twitched like an upended beetle trying to flip itself back onto its feet. Before it could right itself and renew its attack, Bellows rotated the stained edge of the scimitar to point downward, raised it, and brought it down in a guillotine motion with an abbreviated leap.
The metal cleaved into the saponified skin, splitting the front half of the wriggling corpse all the way to the dirt. The inner surfaces released a wash of fluid that reeked of a gut-wrenching scent of fish forgotten in a summertime shed, revealing desiccated knots of matter that had once been organs.
“Ugh, nasty, but I mean, just use basic mechanics I guess. Nothing to—”
During the brief struggle, Sundew had taken a proud stance, her chest puffed out, her head held high and haughty. Wild saw her pose, and after a few discerning moments, called out, “To Sundew! Herd up!”
Seeing Sundew’s defiant posture in the face of the horde of dead, First and Bellows rushed to join Wild at her side. Sundew wrapped a foreleg around First’s shoulder, and pointed through the throng of bodies. There, where the trees thickened to a riverine jungle, was a stone post shaped to look like the trunk of a tree. The lichen that covered its sides in thick sheafs gave it away, but would have camouflaged it in the jades and browns of the daylight. A copper bell was fixed at the top, green and pocked with age.
First knew what she wanted. He had to clear a path to the bell.
He sat back on his haunches and crossed his blades in preparation. Sundew’s foreleg was like a warm moonbeam across his back. He was aware of Bellows watching their left flank, and that to his right, Wild had drawn her sacrificial knife. Neither of them was a match for the scores of foul-smelling Roses that were advancing on them from all sides. He would have doubted himself as well, were it not for Sundew’s calm resolve.
“Your servants are gathered in sight of the moon, o Mother of Stars!” he spoke. “With your will, none will come to harm.”
He felt Sundew’s mane shift against his neck as she nodded, and the gentle push of her hoof as she urged him forward.
The first two he met he felled with ease, letting them spring and split apart against his outstretched blades. The newly honed edges cut through their hairless hides like the bite of Old Mossy’s turf cutters sinking into the spongy peat. First gave his forelegs a whip-like snap to force the bodies downward at the end of the cuts. With their two halves splayed out and draining pus onto the grass, there was little they could do to cause further damage.
He had to sidestep as a second group fell at him. His sickle caught two at the knees, and as they dropped to the earth, he came down across their necks with his other hoof, sending the heads bumping down the slope toward the pond. Sundew pushed against a third that stumbled between her and First, corralling it to make it an easy target for the Caretaker. A sideways kick with his hind-leg shear cut through its barrel and into the spine. Its rear half tipped forward as it tried to leap free, dragging the front half backward with it.
They inched toward the bell post, step by step, cut by cut. As they approached it, a low but steady light became visible in the forest off to the side. The glow was recessed behind the outline of a door, and revealed the edges of an earthen hut built against a massive stump of a fallen tree. Behind him, First could hear Wild and Bellows hard at work dealing with their own battles. He chanced a quick look their way. Wild was ducking and weaving, darting surgical strikes at the creatures’ joints with her knife. Bellows swung his glaive in wide arcs beside her. It sliced through bodies until it lost momentum and dug into ribcages and thighbones, forcing him to yank it free and wind up another swing. Dark, rancid fluid gurgled out of an ever-growing number of stumps and gashes.
“They aren’t that tough, but there are a lot of them!” he yelled, catching sight of First’s appraisal.
“I think they’re bodies of ponies that were interred in the bog,” Wild called over the chatter. “I’ve heard it’s the practice in some parts of Equestria; a way of returning to the waters. It goes back centuries. I don’t know. I can only guess how many there are. I do know something is animating them. We need to find it and stop it before there are too many to handle!”
What once was a filly launched itself at her throat, forcing her to flatten herself to the ground. It flopped onto the grass behind her. Worm-ridden plant matter spewed out of its mouth as it hacked out a garbled mess of broken words, scrambling to rise and lunge again. Wild swung her knife up below its muzzle and pulled back. The head opened like a clam yielding to the piercing beak of an eagle, spilling the prize of its secret, tender organs. As the halves separated, a black, slippery mass slid out of the slender neck, wriggling and shedding flecks of slime.
Wild spotted fins at the tip of the monstrous tongue. “What the …?”
“Hey, I think I see a cottage or something over there!” Bellows shouted.
Wild tried to stand to get a look, but slipped on the morass of filth that the torn bodies had released onto the tortured meadow. Bellows pulled his glaive free of a fallen corpse and helped her up. “Listen, any minute we’re not going to be able to stand in all of this swamp rot,” he said. “I’m going to draw as many as I can off you three; get myself into the hut so they can’t surround me. Regroup there once you ring the bell.” Before Wild could think of an argument, he roared a battle cry and galloped toward the muted orange glow of the hut’s door. His weapon’s blade skewered a line of the milling creatures, carrying them forward with him as he charged inside.
All of the attackers behind them converged on the hut. Wild staggered her way to First and Sundew, who had been holding their ground while she conferred with Bellows. “First,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, “we have to hurry and ring that bell! Bellows is distracting them. He can’t fight that many for long!”
“Yes ma’am!” First replied. He lowered his head and began to hew left and right, throwing any that were directly in his path back and down with quick headbutts and slashes with his muzzle shear. Sundew kept pace, shoving those that made it through First’s opening attacks off balance so that the Caretaker could finish them.
Free from the danger of being encircled from behind, they gained the timeworn bell. Sundew leapt to it, leaned against its stone post, and began to strike the old copper cone with her hoof. The hinge creaked as blue flakes of corrosion crumbled loose from where the crown was fused to the yoke’s axle.
A terrified yelp came from the direction of the hut. The light from inside was blotted out by bodies squirming to get into the doorway. There was a series of thuds, and they could hear Bellows cry out again, “Help!”
Wild ran and joined Sundew at the bell, swatting it as if she wanted to break it off of its perch. Her blows rained down with Sundew’s heavy whip-strikes until the bell cracked loose and began to toll. Its voice, though damped by layers of green rust, rang out through the surrounding forest, enough to echo from the forest’s stream-cut valleys, animal dens, and whatever homes the denizens of Frogmire made in the swamp.
A second bell sounded in the distance, lower in tone, followed by silence. Another rang in the deep wilderness and was joined by others, until all around them the forest sang with chimes of every pitch and rhythm. Satisfied that the signal had been received, Sundew descended onto all fours. Wild did the same and rushed toward the throng of bodies lodged in the doorframe of the hut.
“Bellows, we’re here!” she yelled. She rammed her shoulder into the compressed clog of flesh that had become jammed in the narrow entrance. When the writhing bodies didn’t move, she grabbed a hind leg and pulled. It kicked in reply, and with a loud crack, broke off in her hooves.
She tumbled backward. “First, please!” she called. “We need to get inside!”
First arrived with Sundew and fell to the work of cutting through the wall of heads, limbs and defoliated tails. His gore-slickened blades made quick work of the trapped enemy, carving them into indistinct slabs at almost geometric angles. A few final swings and the blockage tumbled loose. Sundew helped Wild drag the larger pieces out of the way, and the three of them rushed inside.
Wild screamed. The interior of the hut was in shambles, a table overturned against one wall. The floor was scattered with paper, books and personal effects that slowly drank up the pools of black fluid that were spreading below a landscape of dismembered limbs and ruined cadavers. A line of bog bodies was nailed to the wall like a shish-kebob, still oozing and flailing to reach their prize.
Bellows lay in the center of the room. The monsters had clamped onto his legs in twos and threes, hugging them as they flexed their rounded black molars against his shoulders. He struggled under their combined weight, able only to sweep them a few inches side to side. Others had piled on top of him. Their flanks swayed in the air like bees clustered on a rose while their misshapen skulls dipped, twisted and chewed in a chorus of mealy-mouthed engorgement.
Years as a Caretaker had hardened First to violence , but the sight of a living pony in pain—a friend—had rooted him in place. The world was reduced to the unfolding carnage and a blossoming despair. Those creatures that had dug through the leaner meat around Bellows' barrel had found his ribs, and were pulling at the exposed bones as if they were dogs digging up a stubborn mole. Their dull teeth made for slow, sloppy work. After the rare, deep gulp of blood and gnawed-off muscle, they would raise their ecstatic faces upward and mutter before descending again to the stallion's prone side. “Feesht … feesht,” they croaked to each other, smiling on the smorgasbord over which they presided.
Bellows cried out at every new wound they opened. His desperate eyes rolled toward Wild. “Please, help …” he groaned.
First stepped forward and raised his shears, but Wild stopped him. “No! You might injure him more. We need to be careful!” She sunk her knife into the nearest back; the knotted spine of what in life had been a mare. It paused its foul supper and turned. All of its teeth were visible where the lips and cheeks had rotted away. Strings of brown slime, mixed with her brother’s blood, trailed from the barren, grinning muzzle.
“Feesht!” it rasped, seeming to laugh with delight, and returned to its meal.
“I can’t,” Wild cried, hammering her knife into its back again and again, “I can’t get them off of him! What do we do? What do we do?"
Sundew turned around in circles, sniffing the air, her ears pricked and swiveling. Something caught her attention. She pointed and waved them outside.
Forms and shadows were darting through the moonlit underbrush. First saw a net fly out of the gloom to snare one of the creatures still wandering among the savaged mounds of the fallen. A stallion crept up to it with a rock, and with a rough grunt splattered its head. At the other side of the lea, a spear whistled from the cover of the bushes and lanced another through its neck, pinning it to the earth.
Sundew nodded. She searched the battlefield, peering into the thin mist that blanketed the earth and filtered through the dewy branches. Finding what she had sensed, she jabbed her hoof across the pond.
Two incandescent eyes shone in the darkness above the far shore. They were not like coyotes’ eyes, which merely glowed bright with the reflective light of lanterns and lamps. These were the riotous green of swamp gas flame, bubbling and baleful. They glared back at where Sundew stood, fixed in place like pole stars amidst the chaotic assaults and brutal resolutions of the waning battle.
There was a noise like First had heard before the attack had begun; a belch, followed by a tortured, racking cough and a dunk of something into the water. Before the ripples in the pond’s surface had dissipated, another cadre of searching hooves sprouted forth toward the moonlight.
Sundew had pointed the way. He knew what needed to be done. He hurried to the sandbar they had used to cross the pond. A few quick splashes brought him face to face with a Rose more bizarre than any nightmare could have produced. What little was recognizable as its head was devoid of flesh, save the bottom half, which gaped low and wide like the mouth of a burlap sack. The neck and legs seemed to have been patched to the torso, which itself bore deep slashes that would have spilled any living pony’s innards. Every gouge in its threadbare skin was caked with dirt. A yellow ribbon, faded and soiled, fluttered from its scalped mane.
Wild galloped up from behind. “First!” she gasped, struggling to catch her breath. “Wait up, you don’t know …” She caught sight of the new abomination and took a few, tentative steps forward. “Ha … Hazel? How?”
The loose-lipped maw opened wide. Instead of a reply, it disgorged a load of imp-faced eels with a shuddering wail of pain. The air became saturated with the stench of fish.
“It’s the last Caretaker of the Lowlands,” Wild moaned, “the one the werebeast took from us, remember, First? Hazel? That’s the ribbon she was buried with. I remember seeing it when I was a filly, when the Lorekeepers buried her in secret, thinking it looked like a dandelion. That it’s wrong burying a flower.” The sorrow in her voice turned to anger. “This is the work of Baal-Kaas! He did this to Hazel; violated her eternal rest to send me a message.” She pounded the ground with a hoof. “That he knows me! That despite all my attempts at staying hidden, he found me. Those eels … I saw one inside one of the bog bodies. That’s the source of the magic that’s infecting them. Please, First, put her out of her misery!”
First gave her a quick nod. Avoiding the puckered purple sockets that had once housed the eyes of a devoted mare of the Missions, he walked forward and cut until the largest piece of the creature that remained was smaller than an apple core.
The unnatural sounds that had been defiling the sanctity of the night came to a sharp halt. The Roses climbing out of the pond fell as one, collapsing to slide backward down the slope of the shore. Wild dashed across the sandbar, bounding over the now-harmless mounds of dead matter to the hut and her stricken brother.
First paused to study the remains of the unfortunate Caretaker, and when he performed his victory salute, it was as much for her as for the moon and its Mistress. He stood and made his way across the pond, which, now free of the curse of Baal-Kaas, was content once more to keep hold of its dead.
Sundew met him at the entrance of the hut. Her face was long and tired. She gave his shoulder a gentle pat as he passed her.
When he stepped inside, he saw Wild on her knees, weeping. Bellows lay motionless in the center of the room, buried beneath a pile of smiling, rigid corpses.