//------------------------------// // An Icy Grave // Story: A Guardsman in Equestria // by Guardsman_Sparky //------------------------------// Alexander came to, opening his eye to white nothingness. Caked and frozen blood sealed his left eye shut, icy cold seeping through the cracked visor. Alexander hauled himself upright stiffly, snow falling off of him in sheets. Groaning, he staggered to his feet, gathering his camo-cloak tightly around him. The wound in his right side had stopped bleeding, more from freezing over than scabbing. Grimacing, Alexander began trudging down the mountain away from the burning ruins behind him, arms wrapped tightly around a small bundle. The howling night winds and driving snows soon covered up any sign he had been there. TEN HOURS EARLIER... Alexander wallowed through the waist high snow, practically swimming through the larger snowdrifts as he ascended Foal Mountain at a glacial pace. He was wearing thick insulated winter survival clothes, a gift from Rarity when she had heard where he was going. A camo-cloak streamed behind him, snapping in the icy gale. Heavy snow this low on the mountain was highly unusual, considering it was early autumn. Even stranger was that the clouds seemed to resist the best efforts of pegasus weather teams to clear them away. Combine that with the fact that the disappearances of several foals had been occurring in the surrounding areas and Alexander could definitely see why the mountain was worth investigating. A detachment of royal guards vanishing as well was enough for the princesses to send in their new Sentinel. Alexander shielded his face from the howling wind as he crested a short ridge, squinting into the unnatural darkness caused by the massive blizzard pounding the slopes. He grimaced as he took in the grisly scene before him. The valley below was a charnel house. Broken spears rose forlornly from the stained snow, shredded tents flapping weakly in the wind. The snow was shallower here, the valley protected from the raging storm by the mountain, the winds merely an unpleasant breeze as apposed to a thundering gale. Alexander carefully made his way to the mass grave. He pulled a shattered lance from the snow, a cold, stiff body rising with it momentarily until the weapon's haft slid free of the frozen hoof. Alexander examined the spear head. The steel barb was corroded and pitted, as if it had been dipped in acid. The Sentinel tossed aside the spear, crouching to examine the exhumed corpse. He lifted the exposed leg, only to find that the leg was merely attached to a chunk of meat trailing a length of spinal cord. A quick search revealed that the limb was in fact the largest intact portion of the body. The rest was just so much blood and bits of bone. The body had not been dismembered so much as it had been obliderated. Alexander moved on to the next body. This one was more or less intact, frozen in a block of ice, horror forever written on his face. Another body, everything between the shoulder blades dust, a cavity in the ice showing that the corpse had once been a unicorn. The next corpse was just as disturbing. It had been completely desiccated, every ounce of liquid frozen or drained away. Alexander turned away from it with a shiver unrelated to the biting cold. Alexander prodded another frozen corpse, this one intact save for a massive hole where the face should have been, deep in thought as he tried to discern what could have done this. It was not the work of anything Alexander had seen before. What cuts were there were too clean for orks, but the corpses were too messy to be the work of ponies, humans or even astartes. It wasn't tyranids, or even anything that consumed biomass, for bodies had been left where they fell. And though smooze could have produced some of the acidic effects he had witnessed, Iron Cog's experiments on the remaining glob of smooze had shown that the slimy things froze solid at zero degrees celsius. No way any of them had done this, not in this weather. An orange glow drew Alexander's attention, flickering in the depths of a nearby rock formation. Awkwardly drawing his laspistol in his mittened hand, the Sentinel crept through the snow towards the rocks. A terrified voice shouted out a challenge as he drew near. "H-halt! W-w-who's there?" Alexander looked up to see a unicorn pointing a spear at him, battered armor glinting in the light of the torch held in his magic. "Don't come any closer!" Holstering his laspistol, Alexander held up his hands, palms out. "Easy, soldier. I'm not here to hurt you." "What's going on out there?" A charcoal grey pegasus with a black mane came out of the rocks behind the nervous unicorn. Seeing Alexander in his olive armor, hands held palm out, he turned to the unicorn. "Care to explain what a hornless minotaur is doing out here, Sure Shot?" Sure Shot swallowed. "I don't know Sarge. He-he said he wasn't here to hurt us." "Did he now?" The pegasus sergeant studied Alexander cooley. His head snapped up at a distant, unearthly howling. "Ponyfeathers, they're back! Hey you!" The grey pegasus gestured quickly to Alexander. "Get in here if you want to live." Alexander struggled through the deepening snow as the eerie howling crescendoed. He dived into a cleft in the rocks, turning in time to catch a glimpse of an icy blue apparition. Alexander backed away from the opening as ice began to creep across the ground and rock. The unicorn known as Sure Shot cautiously approached Alexander. "F-follow me." Sure Shot led Alexander into a hollow in the center of the rock formation, several ponies sitting wearily by a roaring fire. The black maned pegasus from before dismissed the sentry before turning to the Sentinel. Looking Alexander up and down, he snorted. "Well, you ain't no minotaur, so what are you?" "I'm a human. Not that far off from a minotaur, I suppose, as where I come from minotaurs are supposedly part bull, part human." Steel Rain eyed Alexander quizzically. "I'd tell you that humans are just a myth, but you don't look like no myth." He tilted his head as he examined Alexander's armor. "So, what in Celestia's name possessed you to come here? For that matter, how'd you get through the quarantine set up around the mountain?" Alexander crossed his arms. "As the new Sentinel, it's my job to do what the guard can't." One of the ponies by the fire, a dark blue unicorn mare with a fiery mane nickered in amusement. "Yeah, and I'm Princess Luna, nice ta meetcha!" A sharp glare from Steel Rain made her blush with embarrassment as she turned back to the fire. Steel rain turned back to Alexander. "Not that I don't agree with Flame Dancer, but I find it hard to believe that the first Sentinel in over five hundred years is not a pony. What makes you think you've got what it takes to be a Sentinel?" A bone-chilling moan reverberated through the rocky hollow, causing the human and ponies present to cry out in pain, the fire guttering before dying under the assault from the subsonic pulse. Clutching his ears, Alexander straightened up, fishing his laspistol from its holster. The ringing in his ears subsided just in time to catch the terrified scream of one of the ponies by the dead fire. "They're coming!" Alexander looked up the open-topped hollow to behold several ethereal blue equines spiraling down the rocky shaft, ice trailing down the walls in their wake. "Daemons!" Alexander ran to take cover in one of the tunnels leading out, only to find the exit blocked by a rapidly forming wall of ice. He spun around, quickly assessing the situation with practised ease as ice began encasing the royal guards trying to fend off the otherworldly beings. Alexander dropped to one knee, aiming the laspistol with both hands as the spectral daemons began wheeling around the top of the now frozen cave. Biting cold caused Alexander to gasp in pain. He looked down to find ice crawling up his legs. Alexander snarled at the icy apparitions. "Oh, no you don't!" He snapped off a shot from his laspistol as one of the spectral figures became solid. With a soul rending screech, the daemon dissipated into a blackish-blue fog that quickly vanished. Another daemon met its end when it tried to attack Alexander directly. Wailing in anger and surprise, the remaining daemons fled into the blizzard raging overhead. Flame Dancer unleashed a quick burst of heat, quickly melting the ice that had partially entombed those present. Steel Rain approached Alexander. "Alright, Sentinel, you got me convinced. Wadda ya need?" Alexander raised a brow. "Oh, so now you believe me." Rain shrugged. "Considering you just took on Wendigos and sent 'em packing, yes." "Wendigos?" "Winter spirits that feed on negative energies and emotions." "I just call 'em Daemons." Alexander frowned. "What negative emotions would they have to..." Alexander trailed off as he looked at the survivors of the massacred guard detachment. Most of the ponies had huddled around the rekindled fire, the signs of depression and loss visible on their faces. A light blue pegasus with a black mane was curled up in a corner, quietly rocking back and forth as he sucked on his hoof. Of the dozen survivors, only the fiery unicorn Flame Dancer, the nervous Sure Shot, and the hard-as-nails sergeant were the only one's not ready to fly apart at a moment's notice. "Oh." Steel Rain gave a humorless chuckle. "So you see, plenty of negative emotions to go around." The grey pegasus sighed. "This isn't easy for me to say, but...thank you." "What for?" "If you hadn't come when you did...shit. I'm getting too old for this crap." The aging pegasus walked away, wings drooping. Alexander made to follow him, but recognized the signs that he needed to come to grips with what had happened. Instead, he climbed up the rocks to join Sure Shot, sitting next to the jumpy sentry. They sat there for a few minutes before Alexander cleared his throat to end the awkward silence. "So, why they call you Sure Shot?" The green unicorn scratched at his cropped yellow mane. "It's, well, I never miss what I'm aiming at. Doesn't matter what I use, I-I never miss." "Really?" Shot nodded nervously. Alexander eyed him for a moment, noting the red crosshairs of his cutie mark. Well, that would certainly suit him. I wonder... He pulled his longlas from its sling on his back. For a moment, Alexander considered the technical heresy of providing weapons to xenos he was about to commit, before he recalled that two of his comrades were now technically xenos. Still don't know why I brought this. "Here." He passed it to the green unicorn, Sure Shot gingerly taking the weapon from the human. "W-what is it?" "That is a Kestrel pattern MKII Long-barreled Lasrifle, or Longlas for short." Alexander explained to the baffled guardspony about the workings and properties of a Lasgun, the unicorn's already large eyes getting bigger and bigger with each passing sentence. When Alexander finished, Sure Shot's eyes were glazed over before he shook his head clear. "Can-can I try it?" "Sure, why not? Just a moment." Alexander leaned over the edge of the overhang. "Taking target practice, stay cool." He nodded to Shot, then pointed at a small rock across the pseudo-cave. "There. Hit that." A blaze of red jumped across the chasm, shattering the rock. Alexander whistled. "Not bad, not bad." He took the longlas from the gapejawed unicorn. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Alexander looked over his shoulder into the white nothing of the raging blizzard. "So, what happened out there?" Sure Shot shuddered. "I-it was horrible. We were making o-our way up the mountain. We had just made camp wh-when some...thing began attacking us. It-it killed a bunch of us, then just...left." He swallowed. "That's when th-the Wendigos came. We tried fighting them off, but they just froze a bunch of us and..." Shot's voice hitched for a moment. "Twenty of us managed to get to the rocks. We tried to make a break for it once i-it was morning, but th-they were waiting for us. We didn't stand a chance." Alexander hesitantly patted the despondent unicorn on the shoulder. Getting to his feet, he scrabbled down from the overlook. Pausing, Alexander looked up at the green pony. You know what, screw the Imperium and their rules. They tried to kill me anyways. "Hey Sure Shot!" Alexander pulled the longlas from his back. "Catch!" A red aura caught the sniper rifle. "Take care of this fer me. I want it back when this is done." Alexander turned from the awed Sure Shot, walking towards the fire. 'Sides, it's just a loaner. I'll have to talk to Cog and Syrette about this later. For now, though... Alexander approached sergeant Rain. I need intel.