//------------------------------// // Chapter Three - "The Sound of Cut Air" // Story: Swordpony // by Wisdom Thumbs //------------------------------// Red Pommel had to admit, the Shadow Wood was definitely a forest. Trees and everything. It was a tad more frightening up close than he had expected. Regardless, he kept up his rapid pace. The spring in his step was gone, and his smile had turned into a thin, stiff line, but he was determined now more than ever. Hiking his saddlebags up for comfort, the swordpony hopped over a stony brook. The rest of the way to the forest’s edge was a gentle upward slope, which the brook wrapped around like a loose thread that had wiggled free of the trees. He stopped short a few yards from the forest’s edge. The fur on the back of his neck stood up straight, his entire coat bristling. Had he just seen movement? To say the forest was dark was to make a serious understatement. Red saw now how it had earned its name. An inky blackness seemed to pool around every tree, completely carpeting what he could see of the forest floor. The darkness hung in translucent curtains from each branch. Red eased forward a few feet. The grass was cool under his hooves. There was no movement, nor did he hear anything except birdsong and the gentle swaying of the branches. Birdsong is good. That means there’s nothing dangerous nearby. The trees were spaced somewhat apart this near to the forest’s edge. Red could see sky through the holes in the forest canopy, and yet... there were no splashes of sunlight on the ground beneath them. He stretched out one leg, ready to yank it back at the first sign of trouble. His own shadow was pale in the midday sun, whereas the nearby shadows of the forest were black as pitch. Their edges were so sharp as to look drawn on the ground, and they barely moved even when the branches swayed in the wind. On a hunch, he whipped out his sword and angled it to reflect the sun. The weight of it settled his guts, felt good in his jaw. It took him a moment to find the focused beam on the ground in front of him, just inches from the shadow’s edge. It was a pale ghost of light, nearly drowned out by the clouds that lurked over the forest. Turning the hilt in his mouth, he reflected the beam gradually upward until it reached the shadows. The little spot of light vanished, devoured by darkness. -- Sworn Shield’s “Shadow Wood” journal entry -- So the shadows were definitely magical, then. Red sheathed his sword and licked his lips. Well, nothing for it, he thought to himself. He could still hear the chatter of birds, so he steeled his nerves and put a hoof forward into the darkness. Nothing happened. The shadows didn’t creep up his leg, no monsters leaped out to kill him, and no weird sensations ran down his spine. It did feel unnaturally cold, almost winter temperatures, but he’d never really minded the cold. With a sigh of relief, his confidence restored, the swordpony set off into the woods. Whatever was in this forest, he could handle it. Most of all he could handle himself, and nothing was going to get the jump on him if he stayed alert. It was oddly peaceful in the forest, actually. Red didn’t feel a presence staring at him from behind, nor did he feel an oppressive silence. The birdsong was louder and richer now that he’d entered the woods. He wondered how much more powerful the forest’s magic would get as he traveled away from the edge. He decided he didn’t need to find out. After all, he’d be skirting the outside. It didn’t take Red long to stumble across the stream. Judging from the direction it was flowing, he decided that it was probably the same stream he’d hopped earlier to reach the woods. It bubbled along beneath him in a narrow ravine, one side of which rose up several feet higher than the other. Upstream, Red saw that it curved around toward the outside edge of the forest. That was convenient, because he’d rather travel next to a source of water than have to drink out of his tiny canteen. Walking steadily grew more and more difficult the deeper Red pushed into the forest. The stream turned to the right, back toward Equestria, more often than it turned left, so he figured he was staying close to the edge of the trees. But the fact remained that the shadows were deepening, the roots and underbrush grew thicker, and the rocks banged his hooves. He pushed on anyway, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any hint of danger. All he heard was the trilling of birds. Once, he saw a fox drinking from the stream, though it sprang away as soon as it saw him. After what felt like hours of walking, Red glanced up at the forest canopy. The forest was mostly pines now, many of them deep blue in the shade. Through their thick clusters of nettles he could see rare patches of sky. It was a dull grey, making it hard to tell what time of day it was. It felt like late afternoon, but he couldn’t be sure. He decided he’d walk for another hour or so, or until the darkness grew too deep to press on. He barely made it twenty more steps before he stumbled onto the road. A road? He blinked and rubbed his eyes to make certain he wasn’t seeing things. He even scraped his hoof in the dirt, wondering if this was a magical illusion. Sure enough, it was real. That, or the illusion was a convincing one. Well, he thought. I guess the tinker was wrong all along. Now, he just had to decide if he wanted to walk on the road or alongside the stream. The decision was obvious. The road seemed to follow the stream anyway, and his legs were aching from the effort of walking over the wild rocks and roots. --- When Red broke camp several days later, he awoke to find that, yet again, nothing had dragged him off in the night. Everything was in its place, the coals of his small fire were still glowing, and there were no tracks around him. The birds even sang him a pleasant wake up song. He looked around for them, but the pine nettles and tree limbs were just too thick. After a quick breakfast to wash the taste of sleep from his mouth, Red made a quick search of the area and then suffocated his fire under a mound of dirt. That taken care of, he pulled himself out of the draw in which he’d made camp, then worked his way back to the road. The slope was steeper than he remembered, but he’d been exhausted the previous night, and it still wasn’t enough to give him any trouble. The road was better traveled than the one Red had followed to reach the Shadow Wood, and wider. There were a few wagon ruts, though none were recent, and a number of hoofprints in the softer spots. The rest was packed hard, with only a few weeds and tufts of grass springing up beyond the edge. It almost seemed that the forest avoided the road, because when he looked up he usually saw long stretches of sky, like a road of clouds winding through the treetops. Walking was boring. Red found himself paying less and less attention as the days went on. Occasionally he caught himself and stopped to listen, to look. He wondered if the forest was lulling him with a false sense of security, but the birds hadn’t let up. They only stopped singing twice, and never for long. Red saw several squirrels in addition to another fox. By now he could pick out the trails cutting through the forest where various animals had walked on their way to the stream. The stream. Red stopped short. He hadn’t heard the gurgle of water all day. He’d been walking since morning and hadn’t even thought to check. Ducking into the woods, Red weaved his way through the maze of gnarled trunks, ducking under and pushing his way past clawing limbs. The stream turned out to be easily a hundred yards from the road, if not more, and by the time he even heard it he had stumbled through at least a dozen cobwebs. Pawing strings of web from his mane and face, none of which seemed to want to leave his eyelashes alone, the swordpony stepped onto the bank of the stream. Oddly enough, the stream was much wider and faster moving than when he had last seen it. Weren’t streams and rivers supposed to grow in size the further downstream they went? Red thought he remembered hearing somewhere that forks in rivers always converged eventually. The realization only made this stream seem all the more supernatural. Either way, it didn’t matter. Red was parched and hadn’t bothered to dig out his canteen for most of the day. He bent to take a refreshing drink from the cool waters. That was when he heard it—the sound of cut air. He shouldn’t have heard the sound, not by any means, not over the noise of the fast moving current. But his was a swordfighter’s mind, and, perhaps out of familiarity, his ears caught it. He reacted without thinking, his long mane cracking like a whip. He twisted his neck, tucking his chin as he spun away. The sword swept by within a centimeter of his face, close enough to trim his eyelashes. His head did not roll, wide-eyed, into the stream. His blood did not spill over the rocks. The sword flashed again, buzzing in the air like a hornet. Red ducked, body straining. He flowed like water around the deadly iron, muscles and ligaments protesting. There was a tiny snik when the edge clipped a lock from his golden mane. It flashed again, thrusting this time, and when he danced away he found himself up to all four knees in fast moving water. In an instant the vigilant part of his mind lost control. The world opened back up and he was terribly aware of the fact that he was about to die. Red’s thoughts turned to the precious scroll in his saddlebags as he lost his balance in the rushing stream. Before him, his assailant raised the battered iron blade for another swing. It was a Shetlander, he knew. It had to be a Shetlander. Red caught a glimpse of animal furs and a dark brown coat, covered in a hauberk of chainmail and boiled leather. An iron helm obscured most of the dark stallion’s face. This time there would be nowhere to run. He couldn’t dodge away in water this deep. Not even his leather lamellar could save him now. The muscles in the Shetlander’s neck bulged, his blade hacking down. Time seemed to hitch, jerking almost to a dead stop. -- Sworn Shield’s “Ambush” journal entry -- Red was balanced somewhere between blind panic and senseless reflex, leaning wildly toward one and then the other. He didn’t know what to do. He would fall and die under his assailant’s blade. Then the will to live seized his reins. Red caught his balance on the shifting rocks, bit down on the hilt of his own sword and tore it partway out of the scabbard. He pitched forward as he pulled, putting that hoof’s length of steel in between himself and the Shetlander’s sword. Steel rang against iron, reverberating in his ear. With a grunt of effort, Red pulled the rest of his sword free. Its length scraped the edge of his opponent’s blade. The Shetlander wasted no time in withdrawing and slashing again from the left, only to be parried with a flick of Red’s head. Struggling to stay upright, the auburn Equestrian twisted his neck and parried the resulting counterattack with as much deftness as the stream afforded him. Water flicked through the air where his blade skimmed the surface, spoiling the angle of what might have been a deadly riposte. Undeterred by his victim’s resilience, the Shetlander pressed his advantages, raining a flurry of hacking blows on Red Pommel from the bank. He had the higher ground, sure footing, and the lingering element of surprise. Red struggled against the current, soaked from head to hoof, his leather armor sodden, and desperately matched the stallion blow for blow. But it wasn't enough. He had lost all control. He had no maneuverability, no advantages, no options. Worse yet, the water weighed him down and sapped his strength. When the Shetland pony slashed at his throat with exacting precision, the best an exhausted Red could do was to turn his head and catch the blow. Both swords locked, the attacker's blade scraping the length of Red's own before meeting the hilt with tooth rattling force. A line of pain cut down his neck where the Shetlander’s point dragged against his exposed coat. Crying out in pain, Red held his ground for the breadth of a second before his assailant pushed down on the blades and drove him off balance. The chilling water of the stream enveloped his back half immediately, his hind legs slipping on the rocks at the bottom. From his haunches, he desperately parried one final blow with the tip of his blade, but the attack spun him around to crash, reeling, into the stream. Red inhaled a lungful of water before he could think, blind and weighed down by the crushing weight of his armor. Noise roared in his ears, burned his eyes, sucking into his nostrils. He bucked and thrashed. How did I get myself into this? The swordpony’s lungs struggled to cough. But he already knew the answer, a memory leaping to the forefront of his panicked mind, even as the iron blade came down in one last vicious arc. Careful what you ask for. Careful what you ask for. With a kick at the rocks, Red propelled himself out into the stream. Another line of pain ripped through his flank where it broke the water's surface. Struggling, he pulled his head from the current and sucked breath. His hooves scraped against mossy rocks at the bottom, scrambling for purchase that wasn’t there. Water streamed into his eyes. With a start, he realized he still had possession of his sword. It dragged in the water like a rudder, his clamped jaws aching from the effort of keeping his hold on the hilt. But he had no intention of letting go of it now. When he looked back, his assailant was following him along the bank like a beast stalking its prey, an inexplicable rage in his eyes. Red Pommel began paddling, using the momentum of the stream to carry him ahead of his pursuer. Something tore at his legs, possibly rocks or a submerged tree, but the current carried him just faster than the Shetlander could go along the bank. It was a minute before he heard a shouted curse, and when he turned again to look back, the brown stallion had disappeared. More than likely he was moving to intercept Red around the next bend, but the sense of panic receded immediately. Red kicked his way back toward the bank. His hooves dragged along rocks until he caught a submerged root and was able to haul himself to safety. It took a shocking amount of his remaining strength to tear himself free from the iron grasp of the water, though it could not have been more than knee deep. He ached to lay there in the shallows, to give up and move no more, surrounded by black pines like Tartarus’ sentinels. The strength of the water almost dragged the sword from his clenched teeth. Belly-crawling onto the slick grass along the bank, the exhausted pony spat out his weapon and began hacking up fluids of various consistencies. He'd swallowed more water than he'd inhaled, but his lungs still rasped and gurgled when he gasped. He didn't know if he'd be able to breathe, much less budge, should his pursuer find him. And find him the Shetlander did scarcely a moment later. He crashed through the bushes with that scarred sword still in his mouth. His eyes gave the impression of wild desperation. "Gotff youff!" Red Pommel gave vent to a weary sigh. "What do you want?" he groaned. He reached for his own blade. "Yer headf!" was the reply, and with lightning speed the Shetlander sprang forward to make good his threat. Red Pommel snatched up his blade just in time, pulling up a mouthful of bitter mud along with it, and rolled onto his back for the parry. The Shetlander's blade glanced away and cut deep into the soggy ground with a squelch. "You jus' donff geff uff," the attacker spat around his hilt, tugging his sword from the mud while Red Pommel lurched to his hooves. The Equestrian had no breath left for an answer. Instead he relaxed his grip on his sword, coughing up yet more water and stumbling to one side. His armor was an anvil draped around his shoulders, the leather lamellar still streaming water down his legs. He barely had the strength to stand, let alone move about. There was no way he could win this. At least, not with force. But the swordpony had one more card left in his deck... With a roar, the Shetlander surged forward and brought down a devastating blow. This time Red was ready. He stood his ground. There was no room for error. The angle of the blade needed to be exactly right. He steeled himself for the titanic effort and drew from reserves he had not called upon in years. The two swords met with a resounding clang, Red allowing his opponent to come straight to him. Then, exhausted muscles straining, he rolled his neck in a tight clockwise circle, dragging the Shetlander's blade along with his own. He took a single controlled step forward. With a strangled cry, the overcommitted stallion fell forward onto Red Pommel's outstretched steel.  The sword disappeared into the Shetlander with a sound akin to the ripping of wet cloth. In an instant it was buried to the hilt in his breast. Red stood fast, though his legs quivered beneath him. Blood welled out against his snout. His foe's body folded around him. The Shetlander didn’t even struggle, though his lips still moved. His battered iron dipped into the mud, then fell with a squelch. He gurgled weakly in Red’s left ear, windpipe shorn in half. Slowly, those wild, angry eyes went dark. Red watched them fail. They stood there for several moments, one body supporting the other. Red leaned into the dying pony with trembling relief, blood that was not his own spraying from his nose with every rasping breath. At length, the Shetlander shuddered, relaxed, and his head fell limp. Pink foam bubbled out of his throat. Red released his hold on his sword and let the Shetlander fall to the grass with it, unable to support the weight of either. He gasped for air, sinking to his haunches before he could stop himself. He swelled not with a sense of triumph, but with cold relief. The pain of his wounds caught up shortly after. The thought of cleaning himself of the Shetlander's blood pulled a weary curse from his lips. He did not relish the thought of going back into the stream. The villagers had been right to warn him of this unruly land. The tinker had been right. Shetland was no place for ponies. Leaning over, Red bit the tassel of his attacker’s iron helmet and pulled it away. The face underneath was blocky, weathered, and both ears had been cropped into squares. Tattoos covered most of his head, made up of a series of interlocking blue circles that varied in size. The eyes, forever wide in death, were a tired and pale yellow. Red closed these carefully with one hoof, then set about the task of searching the rest of the corpse. Underneath the bloody chainmail, Red discovered what he assumed to be the insignia of some local warlord. It was branded into the Shetlander’s muscled side, a swirling pattern that could have been two snakes fighting over a sword, or possibly a curved quillon. His cutie mark was a shattered shield, befitting a warrior. The dead stallion carried few possessions. Red found only a canteen, which he hung around his neck when he discovered his own to be missing, in addition to a few trinkets and what appeared to be a carven wooden doll. The wooden doll, shaped like a little pony, might have been a child’s toy or a good luck charm. It was covered in little tooth marks. Red tucked it back into the Shetlander’s saddlebag, unsure of what to make of it. Blood was beginning to pool around Red’s hooves, which squelched in the grass. He idly wondered what the Shetlander’s name might have been. “You’re quite the enigma, aren’t you?” he mused in a low, wheezing voice. He searched the body for hidden pockets and coughed up another lungful of water. Finding nothing, Red rolled over and tried to cough up the last of the crud. He cursed himself for letting somepony sneak up on him, and cursed himself all the more for letting himself be overpowered. He was the foremost swordpony in all of Equestria! He was the right hoof of the Princesses, their champion! And yet here he was in Shetland, straying off the beaten path so he could be set upon by barbarians in the woods. If he had died, who would have carried the Royal Dictum to... He sat bolt upright. The Dictum. Tearing open his saddlebags, Red pulled out a narrow tube in which he carried what was possibly the most important scroll of the century. He shook it in his hooves next to one ear, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been ruined during his impromptu swim. Nothing sloshed within, but that didn’t mean the scroll was safe. Red tasted blood from his hooves when he removed the cap. He peered down into the tube. He saw no water at the bottom, but even just a little damp could prove disastrous, couldn’t it? “No, no, no...” he moaned, unable to see enough of the royal document to ascertain its safety. He swallowed as much spit as he could, then cautiously bit down on the scroll’s handle and pulled the document out with his teeth. It was unharmed. The tube had done its job marvelously. Red was instantly flooded with relief, the pain in his wounds and tight chest fading with euphoria. He closed his eyes and murmured his thanks to whatever force had spared the Dictum. Then it occurred to him it might have been magic, and he almost took back his thanks. The container sealed with a click. Red sat on a fallen log while he stripped himself of his saddlebags and armor. He would need to dry his equipment before he could safely carry on with his journey, and he only had a short time before nightfall. Through the branches high overhead, he could see that the ceiling of clouds was hued pink. The sun was already beginning its descent. “Princess Celestia,” whispered the swordpony, speaking in the direction of Her sun. “I am a fool.” It felt half-hearted, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. And he needed a blessing. He needed something. His self-confidence had suffered a blow that he couldn’t just shake off. Red peeled off the last of his vambraces and hung it up with the rest on a branch. He checked his wounds, finding that for the most part they were but scratches. The gash on his neck merely hurt. The one on his right flank, however, was serious. The Shetlander had hacked deep into his cutie mark, and it was bleeding freely. The pink colors of Celestia were torn and soaked dark with crimson, while the blue of Luna was mud-stained. Unfortunately, Red possessed nothing with which to dress his wound. He would just have to wash it clean and dry out some cloth for bandages. With nothing left to do, Red moved to pull his sword out of the Shetlander’s breast. It came free by inches, fresh blood welling from the gaping wound. The blade was a mess of crimson that slipped in long, dribbling strands to the grass. When he shook it, it splashed red across the corpse like paint from a brush. He grimaced. It was a beautiful sword, wrought of shining steel and almost long enough to be one of his legs. Years of use had somewhat dulled its splendor, but it still remained one of the best blades in Equestria. Should the Shetlander have killed him, it probably would have ended up a fixture over the fireplace of some local lord. The Shetlander’s sword, meanwhile, was an old and hard-made thing. Where it still kept an edge it had been ground down almost to the core, and everywhere else it was comb-toothed with notches and silver scars. Red could only guess it was a sword passed down through the generations. The hilt was bound in real leather. Rawhide. Animal skin.  A terrible thought occurred to Red. He had found no provisions on the Shetland warrior, not even rations for a day. Could that mean his attacker lived somewhere close by, possibly in these very woods? Was his Lord’s castle nearby? He had planned to drag the body back to the road when morning came, but now he didn’t know if he should. What if this stallion’s Lord had ponies patrolling the road? He couldn’t risk a fire, he realized, not this close to the stream. Out of common decency he would still drag the body to the road, but now he had no way to dry his equipment. They would remain damp well into the next day, leaving Red overburdened in a dangerous land. And while his lamellar was not truly leather, per se, it could still be harmed by wet. He glared at the royal colors on the barding hanging from the tree. Inwardly kicking himself, Red limped back to the stream and, after a short survey of the area, dunked his blade in the water. The drying blood scraped off easily enough under his hoof. It swirled in the water like pink tendrils, disappearing when it reached the current. He tried not to think about the fact that he would soon be sleeping next to a corpse. Red hoped the Shetlander didn’t disappear in the night. That would just be too much for him to handle. Best to keep an eye on it. He needed to clean his wounds, he knew. He steeled himself for the icy water, making sure to set his sword and scabbard within easy reach behind a rock. Behind him, dead eyes watched his back.