XV
Sins of the Father
- - -
Knock. The sound echoed from the heavy wood. Knock, knock.
Rainbow rubbed a hoof up and down her own foreleg, keeping her gaze anywhere but the solid whitewashed door.
At first, the other side was silent. Then Rainbow’s ears perked to the sound of hooves trodding slowly toward her, sounding defeated and weighed down. The pegasus bit her cheek and shut her eyes, fighting the overwhelming urge to spread her wings and flee. The only thing stopping her was the tiny, almost inconsequential weight pressing against her left wing.
The door creaked open. Silence hung for a moment. Then the little weight was lifted, and with it, the warmth against her side.
“Mom!” The colt’s squeal of joy was pure, tugging at Rainbow’s heart.
“Rocket!” The mare’s response was not so innocent, weighed down by a barely concealed pain. Rainbow had hoped that keeping her eyes closed would shield her from the look on the mare’s face when her eyes fell on the little stubs on her son’s back. The mother’s voice conveyed her shock to Rainbow’s ears, though, and the stunt-mare’s imagination took over where her sight ended. Her hooves felt numb and cold even in the San Palomino heat. Her teeth drew blood from her own cheek to avoid thinking about it further.
Hooves rushed toward her. This time, the voice was a stallion’s. “Honey, what―” His hooves stopped a dozen strides away. “Oh, Celestia…”
“He’s back,” the mare managed between sniffles. “Our little Rocket is back.”
Rainbow felt like she’d been stabbed with an icicle. On the insides of her eyelids, the world spun. Her left hoof slid out further to hold her balance, and she managed to choke down a breath of dry, arid air.
Then a warm hoof wrapped around her shoulder, and a wing after that. “Thank you,” was whispered into her ear. “Thank you so much.” From within the mare’s hug, Rainbow found her breath stolen away. Her eyes slipped open in surprise, letting out the first of the tears she’d been struggling to conceal for hours.
Rocket was wrapped around his father’s foreleg, pressing his bright blue face and his grimy rainbow bandana against the gray earth pony’s coat.
“You’re Rainbow Dash, aren’t you?” Rocket’s father’s words came in a neutral tone, only digging deeper into the pit of dread in Rainbow’s gut. She opened her mouth to respond, and found her throat unwilling to obey her will. She managed a nod, brushing her chin against the mare who still held her in a tight embrace.
“We can’t ever thank you enough,” the stallion told her, picking up Rocket and holding the little colt against his side.
Rocket’s mother, a gentle golden brown pegasus with a short but carefully tailored mane, released Rainbow and looked her in the eyes. “Why don’t you come inside, Miss Dash?
Rainbow gulped, and then shook her head. Finally, her fear gave her words. “I don’t think―”
“Please?” The single sorry word was all it took to change Rainbow’s mind. It had come from Rocket’s mouth.
“...alright.”
The young mare’s legs felt hollow as she allowed herself to be led past the whitewashed door and into the cramped little house. She was given a seat in a creaky rocking chair across a cluttered coffee table from a threadbare couch, just wide enough to hold a pegasus mare, an earth pony stallion, and their son who wasn’t quite either. The wood of her seat groaned as she struggled to get comfortable.
Rocket’s father was the first to speak up, speaking with his lips nearly closed in a true San Palomino mumble. “’m Payload. My wife’s Projectile. An’ like she said, we can’t ever thank y’ enough, Miss Dash.”
Rainbow swallowed hard, unsure of how to answer the comment. “Uh… how do you know my name?”
“Rocket’s got all this newspaper clippings and posters of you in his room,” The mare must have grown up in Cloudsdale, for how understandable her Equiish was. “He’s always wanted―” She cut herself off quickly enough to stop the words, but not the tears. Payload moved to comfort his son, but the colt leaned away to the comfort of his mother. Projectile wordlessly grabbed her son under his forelegs, held him tight, and carried him out of the room with a few quick flaps of her wings. His soft sobs were cut off by the creak of another door somewhere in the house.
Almost immediately, Payload placed his head against his hooves. “Can’t believe this… He’s never gonna forgive me.”
“You?” Rainbow sat forward. “Why would he ever blame you?”
“I was tryin’ to convince him that bein’ a stunt flier was a bad idea.” The stallion refused to meet Rainbow’s gaze. “I thought he wasn’t never gonna make it into the Wondercolts, or whatever… He ‘n his mother would always sit and talk ‘bout flyin’, and wind, and tricks. She’d take him on trips up to the in-laws in Cloudsdale, ‘n they’d get tickets. That’s what they was coming back from on the train.”
Payload shook his head slowly, barely managing a visible motion. “I ain’t got the money for some unicorn to let me walk on clouds, and even if I did, I can’t up ‘n take that much time off of my job. But ‘fore they left, Projectile ‘n I, we had a little fight. An’ I told her…” Rainbow saw a stream of tears leak down from behind the earth pony’s hoof; she couldn’t know how many he still had hidden from view. “…I told ‘er that I wish we’d had an earth pony instead.”
Rainbow stood up from the creaky rocking chair, walked over to Projectile, and placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Rocket will forgive you.”
His shoulders sagged. “I don’t deserve to be his father.”
“Sometimes, you say something you wish you hadn’t,” Rainbow told the stallion. “That doesn’t make you a bad father.” Then, with just a little hint of a smile, she added one more thought. “If it means anything to you, you couldn’t be any worse than mine.”
A long silence followed Rainbow’s comment, as Payload slowly pulled his hooves away from face and rubbed a shaggy fetlock over his eyes. Then he looked his guest in the eyes and smiled softly. “You’re ‘n amazin’ young mare, Rainbow Dash. I think maybe Rocket was right ta look up to you.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I just wish I could have… could have done something.”
“By my reckonin’, ya did. Ya saved his life.”
A hard swallow was Rainbow’s first reply. “I know, but…” Her eyes fled to the little hallway where Rocket and Projectile had disappeared. “My special talent is flying. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose that.”
Payload had no answer to Rainbow’s regrets. Standing in truly painful silence, the mare’s eyes wandered the room until they settled on a little wedge of tan paper sticking out from underneath the pile of newspapers and schoolwork on the coffee table. On its surface, Rainbow could see an oddly broad muzzle. It came out of the pile with a simple tug, and Rainbow’s eyes widened.
“Why do you have a wanted poster of Soldier On?” Rainbow asked.
The earth pony cocked a brow. “Hmm? Oh, that ol’ thing. They put ‘em up at the mine a few weeks ‘go, but then they took it down on account o’ they caught the mare there. I brought it home cause sometimes Rocket likes ta play rangers ‘n robbers. They brought in one o’ them prison train-cars last night for her.”
“You mean she’s gone?” the mare asked hurriedly.
Payload shook his head. “Nah, probably still in the Pit. Mind if I ask what’s got you so interested?”
“I… I think I need to talk to Rocket.”
- - -
Hours later, the wind howled through iron bars against the side of the stone structure. Formally, it was the San Palomino City Prison, but all the locals called it ‘the Pit’ for the huge hole in the ground that served as its common ground. Desperadoes and con ponies filled its halls and stretched in the literal pit in the center of the complex that provided its name, lamenting their lives, though even they had to be grateful that they didn’t find themselves in the darkness down the south hallway. Solid steel doors and three-inch bolts barred that path, where the condemned were held.
It was in one of these cells that an off-white mare awoke to the faint sound of a hoof tapping against the heavy stone that kept her from the outside world. Between the skysteel bars in the walls to the thin layer of lodestone contained in the walls eating away any Arcana in the air, the exposure to the outside didn’t offer any risk of escape. With that thought, the mare brushed off the sound and closed her eyes again. But then the tapping began again. Another pony would have ignored the sound twice, but the itching on the back of the criminal’s neck told her it was important.
“Hello?” a faint voice called out. The lumbering mountain of muscle barely moved from her place on the jail cell floor; she only let her ears twitch, and cast her eyes up to the barred window set high in the wall. “Miss Soldier On? Are you in there?”
The voice couldn’t have belonged to anypony more than eight or ten years old. Stoikaja rolled her eyes. Had one of the guards brought their child to work? The Commander would have had an aneurysm. “Are you here to make fun of me before I die, or ask my why I did it? Either way, you’re brave, little pony.”
“I’m not here to do any of that,” the colt told her. “My name’s Rocket.”
“Rocket?” Soldier on rose from her chest to stand upright. “You’re the colt―”
“Rainbow Dash snuck me in and asked me to talk to you,” Rocket interrupted rather bitterly. On knew better than to press the subject. “She said there wasn’t going to be a lot of time, and she wanted you to get ready to go.”
On’s mouth dropped open, and for a moment she struggled to process words as her mind raced. “You… how… this cell is lined with steel bars; even I can’t break them. What’s she planning?”
“She didn’t tell me,” Rocket’s voice called back through the bars. “Just that you needed to be awake so you could run for it. I need to go now, Miss Soldier On. I’m sorry the rangers were mean, but Rainbow Dash says they just don’t understand.”
Soldier On lunged forward, standing up on her hind hooves and balancing her forward pair against the wall. Her head could easily look out the six-foot high window, just in time to see the little colt with the stumps on his back dart around a corner. “Rocket, wait!” In the dark alleyways of San Palomino City, nopony answered. The Stalliongradian mare waited for a few moments before collapsing against the wall, thinking. “Rainbow… what are you planning?”
Crickets chirped, and the chilly night wind howled through the bars in the window. The earth pony waited, performing her morning stretches and allowing her mind to wander freely. She wondered whether Flag would try to bring her back to Canterlot, or simply kill her. The latter fit the older mare’s style more, but if that were the case, why didn’t they simply hang her here? Would Celestia have the strength to do the deed herself? If not, it would certainly be Roscherk. They might have tried to feed her to the Night Guard, but that wasn’t likely to work out between Loose Cannon and―
Her train of thoughts jumped its tracks when the clicking of a key rattled in the solid steel cell door. She barely had time to find her hooves and press herself against the wall before it was flung open.
“Uh… Soldier On?” Rainbow’s voice was unmistakable. “You in here?”
“Rainbow?” When the enormous mare stepped away from her hiding place, the pegasus jumped a good two feet in the air and stayed there. “How did you…” On’s brow rose considerably across her blocky forehead. “You got the keys?”
“I’m awesome like that,” Rainbow answered. “I just walked in; I guess they recognized me. I told them Princess Celestia wanted me to see the inside of the prison for ‘Harmony reasons’, and they totally bought it. Then I looked around until I found the keys. I grabbed them from the guards and let them chase me back outside. When we got a good way out of town, I turned around and put on the speed for real.” Through the entire explanation, Rainbow hadn’t paused for breath; the ensuing noise was like a hurricane in the smooth stone cell. “They’ll be back soon, so we’ve gotta go. Come on.”
“Hold on,” the earth pony protested. “That colt, Rocket―”
Rainbow grimaced. “I think it’s finally my turn to say ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ His dad’s an earth pony. I think he’ll be fine.” Rainbow’s eyes fell to her hooves. “I hope he’ll be fine.”
On wanted to give Rainbow a moment, but the prison wasn’t kind enough to grant the time. “Keys,” she demanded, extending a hoof. “They locked my gear in the evidence room at the other side of the building.”
“I’ll grab it,” Rainbow replied, clearly glad for something else to think about. She spun in midair and launched herself into the hall. “Get moving!”
For the second time that night, Soldier On was impressed by Rainbow Dash’s speed outside of the context of an outright race. By the time she’d made her way out the nearly-empty prison block, through the unstaffed, wide-open security checkpoint, and past the front desk, Rainbow was already waiting outside with a hat, two bandoliers of bladed shoes, and a duster coat in tow.
“I used a window,” she explained, tossing the gear to Soldier On. “I always imagined a prison would be more… prison-y, but they were keeping your stuff in an office like the weather one in Cloudsdale. Now come on; we need to find Deadeye and get out of here.”
“Find Deadeye?” On asked. “He hasn’t come back? You didn’t look for him?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t getting shipped back to Canterlot tomorrow morning.”
On knew Rainbow was right, though she didn’t have to admit it. Tightening her bandoliers and counting up her twelve remaining bucking shoes, she growled. “We can’t stay and look for him in town anymore. We should head south and get a lead on finding the Commander.” Her now-shod hooves dug into the dusty ochre dirt street, aligning herself by the moon.
Rainbow pulled forward, easily matching On’s pace by wing. “Whoa, hold on! We can’t just leave Deadeye―”
“Deadeye can take care of himself better than we can,” On interrupted. “He isn’t being chased by the Rangers, and even if he were, they couldn’t catch him. If you look up stealth in the guardspony manuals, he’s the pony in the picture.”
“Okay, so maybe he’s pretty good at hiding, but―”
On cracked a smile. “You think I’m kidding? When we get back to Canterlot after all this, I’ll show you. Royal Guard training manual, field-scout’s supplement. There’s a reason he survived alone in the Zebrica for ten years when most pegasi his age are out looking for nursing homes.” On’s expression took a turn for the sour. “There’s a reason I sent you to him when I was trying to get you out of our manes six months ago.”
“Yeah, that was a great choice,” Rainbow muttered. “Nothing dangerous happened at all.”
“I’d be glad to tell you―” On lunged forward, grabbing Rainbow’s tail and dragging her down a narrow side-road. Only a moment later, a trio of San Palomino’s distinctive guardsponies went running down the road. The itching on Stoikaja’s neck slowly settled, and she released her younger companion. “We’re clear. And yes, I admit it wasn’t the best decision in hindsight, but I was trying to solve six problems at once, and frankly, it seemed like the best solution since you refused to take no for an answer.” On sucked down a breath and ran out into the street again. “Go peek your head over the roof here, Rainbow, and get a look at the next two streets over.”
As Rainbow moved, On ran across the street to a shop whose tall red sign proudly proclaimed ‘Free Market’s General Store’. Without hesitance, she lowered her shoulder against the door knob and bashed the deadbolt free of the wooden frame. Years of practice in Stalliongrad gave her the talent to muffle the noise, to the point that she doubted even Rainbow had heard. The same practice as a rebel left her without much of a regret as she began to stuff her duster’s pockets and saddlebags with as much food as she could. Grains, cans, and anything that would survive in the desert were packed away, until finally there was no more space to spare.
Rainbow was waiting outside when Soldier On returned, wearing a disapproving frown. “Did you steal all that stuff?” she asked, gesturing to the obvious bulges in On’s outfit.
The earth pony rolled her eyes and started away at a reasonable jog. “Your father can pay it off out of the treasury once we save him. You looked at the streets, right?”
“Yeah.”
On gritted her teeth, as the itching on the back of her neck warned that she would regret her next three words. “Lead the way.”
- - -
Jad Din regarded the guest with confusion. The pony was unlike any other creature that the camel guard had ever met.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Drag.
He was strange because he insisted on walking, even though his leg was broken and Speaker Ghayth had offered him a place on one of the caravan wagons. He was strange because he carried a sword made of bone, even though he could not possibly use it. He was strange because he had asked for hosp amongst the caravan, and then the last night, shouted at the Speaker that the caravan was to leave him behind. But most of all, he was strange because he was the defender of Salwa Tibah.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Drag.
His malnourished, tormented legs struggled to keep up with the steady elegance of the camels’. His wings hung limply in the sand on either side, leaving a pair of shallow trails alongside his hoofprints. Every few hundred feet, the trail was marred by a dull crater where he had stumbled, falling onto his side or his chest. His wings and chest were thoroughly filled with grainy, itchy sand.
The Commander didn’t pay much attention when Jad Din wandered over to take up a place at his side, taking rather small strides to stay with the shorter-legged pony.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Drag.
“Leader Ghayth says that you have been in the company of Salwa Tibah.”
The pegasus sighed. “Sel-es-tee-ah.”
Jad Din cocked his head. “I do not know this word. What is a Selestia?”
“Her name,” the stallion replied with an unparalleled level of annoyance, “is Celestia.”
“I see. And what is yours?”
A silence ensued, as the pegasus who could not fly looked up longingly toward the sky. Though the sun was moving toward the horizon, the world was still hazy from its heat. “I gave up my right to my name when I became Celestia’s bodyguard. My ponies call me Commander.” Then he cracked just a little bit of a smile, and his eyes shifted to the north. “They call me the Commander.”
“I do not understand,” Jad Din wondered aloud. “Is this a name, or a title?”
“Neither,” the Commander told him. “There hasn’t been a commander of the guard in Equestria in a thousand years. My armor used to be his.”
Jad Din nodded, though in his mind, he wrote the fact off as another strange thing about the pony who had called himself Commander, yet was not. It was the way of the ponies to take the simple things in life and to make them complicated; that was what Speaker Ghayth had said, and it was proving true.
They walked in silence for a few more of the Commander’s painful steps before the pegasus broke the silence. “You’re a soldier too, aren’t you?”
“How do you mean?”
The Commander’s head tilted in the direction of the gleaming steel scimitar hanging in its sheath at the camel’s side. “You carry a weapon openly. Most of your friends don’t.”
“I know how to use it,” Jad Din replied, “but also when not to.”
Again, the Commander’s lips twitched up. “If all you have is a sword, everything looks like a throat.”
Another strange thing about this stallion was his sense of humor. Casting the thought aside, Jad Din pressed forward. “Tell me more. Are the stories true?”
A lesser stallion might have accompanied the next question with a raised eyebrow. The Commander didn’t even look up. “What stories?”
“About Salw―er, Celestia. That she stands over mountains? That those who look at her directly go blind from her beauty? That―”
“She’s about this tall,” the Commander interrupted, struggling to hold up a hoof and still keep his balance. “Five foot ten at the shoulder.” Then he smiled, just a little bit, in a different way than he had before. The word ‘wistful’ came to Jad Din’s mind. “I’d freeze to death sleeping outside if I denied her beauty.”
“But you can still see, can you not?”
The pegasus briefly considered a poetic comment about how he was blind to the beauty of other mares, and that all he could see when he closed his eyes was her smiling face. Instead of sharing those thoughts, he managed a small shrug. “It’s a story.”
“But you have seen her? What is she like? Is her mane―?”
“We aren’t having this conversation,” the Commander interrupted, before staring off toward the horizon. Endless miles of dirt, sand, scrub bush, and nothingness stretched on to the edge of the world. “If you want to know the truth, you can go visit her. She has open court three times a week.”
Jad Din’s mouth dropped wide. “You speak of the sacred journey?”
“I’m telling you that, if you want to meet Celestia, you can hop a train in San Palomino, and it’ll take you up to Canterlot in a week or two. Or bring a bit of extra gold, trade it out for bits, and catch the express. She’d be glad to meet you, as long as you don’t start groveling. It gets on her nerves. I would offer to take you…”
The Commander’s eyes dropped to the ground as his words faded off. Jad Din watched the brown irises, noting that they weren’t quite perfectly round, but instead escaped their natural circles in uneven blotches. “But?” the camel asked.
“Tomorrow, I will be dead,” the stallion replied. “Khagan is coming for me. If you want to survive, you should leave on that journey tonight.”
“But that is against the code of hosp,” Jad Din explained. “You are our guest; we cannot abandon you in a time of need.”
Broken wings rose and fell with a single heavy breath. “If you want to die for your code, camel, that’s your right.” The Commander’s head turned back to his broken, graying, scarred body, and he spoke with a bitter frown. “I’ve already died for mine.”
Step.
Step.
Step.
Drag.
- - -
The bottom of the sun had been severed by the edge of the world when heavy hooves came to a sudden stop in the red dirt. Rainbow came to an abrupt halt and turned toward her companion. “Is it time to get some sleep, On? I’m getting a little tired, and I’d like to see if I can catch Princess Luna again.”
“Again?” On didn’t shout, but the fact that she slipped into her native Stalliongradian accent betrayed her concern.
Rainbow’s brow wrinkled. “Right. You hate her. Sorry I mentioned it―”
“No,” On interrupted. “Don’t be. Whatever I think of her, we can use all of the help we can get finding your father.”
“Well, she found him,” Rainbow noted.
Rather than a mere twitch or an odd look for a show of surprise, On’s entire head whipped sideways to stare at Rainbow. “What?”
“We talked last night; I was having a bad dream…” The confident pegasus ruffled her feathers as if to brush off her own concern. “Anyway, while we were talking, she suddenly freaked out, and said that he was dreaming, and no one was blocking it. I guess some boar named Kaggun―”
“Khagan,” On corrected, visibly shivering. “I should have guessed.”
Rainbow took note of the concern on the other mare’s face as she resumed her explanation. “Well, she didn’t say why Khagan had foalnapped him, but somehow, he escaped. He’s with a caravan of camel traders on their way up here toward San Palomino, but my dad is worried that Khagan will know where he is. Something about Luna’s magic, and dreams, and stuff…”
“Stuff?” On asked, with a hint of amusement.
Rainbow’s eyes traveled in a wide circle. “Look, I don’t get this whole Arcana thing to begin with. And Luna isn’t exactly the easiest pony to understand even when she’s talking about something normal.”
Soldier On snorted once, and then released a sort of laughing noise from her nostrils; from the awkwardness of the noise, Rainbow realized why the earth pony worked so hard to keep her feelings tight to her chest. The echoes only vaguely reminded Rainbow of a dying goose.
Coughing into her hoof both to reclaim the mood and to try and excuse the noise, On nevertheless still wore a bit of a smile. “Alright, that’s pretty funny, Rainbow. But we’ve got a few problems now.” A deep breath wiped the last remnants of the smile off of On’s muzzle. “Khagan is the ruler of the boars. I think they call him the Warchief. He’s like Celestia or Luna for them. Or… you’ve met Magnus, right?”
“The Griffon Emperor?” Rainbow nodded. “He helped me save Princess Luna when I went to Grivridge.”
On’s mane fluttered just a touch in the desert wind, as if the griffon ruler had heard their words. “Magnus makes the wind the way Celestia and Luna move the sun and moon. Khagan has a similar power, though it’s not as easy to explain. The Commander calls it ‘decay’, and White Flag says it’s ‘entropy’. The point is, he makes things age.”
Rainbow grimaced. “Does he do it to ponies?”
“In the sense that we do get older,” On answered. “But he doesn’t just make ponies older. Everything decays over time; not just ponies and boars, but rocks and plants too. It all comes from him.”
Rainbow smiled, wiping a bead of very real sweat off her brow. “Phew. For a second there, I was worried he was going to be evil or something.”
“Don’t let what I said get your hopes up.” On took another slow breath, which Rainbow was beginning to suspect was her way of hiding her emotions. Her head swiveled slowly to face south. “He’s called the Warchief for a reason. Celestia claims he can’t actually age somepony to death, but I think he just prefers using his tusks.”
“You’ve met him?” Rainbow asked.
On frowned. “I’ve seen him, once, and I’m glad it was from a long ways away.” Then her gaze settled to the dust. “Going on six years ago… things were a lot different. Your father had helped us overthrow Baron Frostbite, and things were looking up in Stalliongrad. He asked me if I would help him with a mission that needed an earth pony. I guess I felt like I owed him, since he was the one who saved my foals and I. He’d found out Khagan was planning to invade Equestria.”
“No way!”
On nodded somberly. “What I found out later was that he was planning to invade on the twenty-first of June. The Summer Sun Celebration.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened. “The day Princess Luna…”
Again, On merely nodded. “Khagan knew Nightmare Moon was coming back. It shouldn’t be surprising; he was alive a thousand years ago, during the Twilight War.” Rainbow wasn’t familiar with the name, but it wasn’t difficult to guess exactly what was implied. “He was planning an invasion of Equestria; to strike at us while we were at our weakest, in the middle of a civil war.”
“What happened?”
On opened her mouth, and then stopped halfway toward a word. Her eyes swiveled south, and her lips closed slowly. “We beat him to the punch. We tried to kill him.” On swallowed slowly, as if her dry lips were what was holding back her speech. “We failed our original objective, but we stopped his invasion. I... would rather not talk about it.”
The mare’s head swiveled back over her shoulder, looking to the north where even the farms surrounding San Palomino city had disappeared behind hills and badlands. “We should be far enough out of Equestria that they won’t see us. Go fly a mile or so south, and then come back.”
“And then we can stop?”
“Then I’ll carry you,” On replied.
Rainbow made an almost pathetic face. “I’m not a little filly.”
Stoikaja took one step forward, clearing the distance separating her from the younger pegasus. When the motion was done. Rainbow had to crane her neck just to match her gaze to the other mare’s chin. Ten inches of height would have made On’s point perfectly, though she couldn’t resist a little jab to accompany the motion. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you down there.”
Magenta eyes rolled, and cyan wings spread. “Yeah, yeah, real funny. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”
Either On didn’t reply, or the rumbling gentility of her casual tone was too quiet to be heard over the rush of the wind past Rainbow’s ears. She didn’t really mind; the surge in her blood and the subtle sensation of thunder in her feathers made her feel alive. The fatigue of the night disappeared in a rush of endorphins and unbridled speed, freed from the troubles of focused thought and worry, and the politics and battles of years past.
Though the air over the desert was thick, Rainbow’s wings cut through it like blades. Spiraling into a casual glide, she let her eyes wander over the landscape of a world she had never seen before. Off to her left were the brilliant red peaks of the Macintosh Hills, covered in little trees and sparse fields that made ample use of their rich soil. To her right stretched the strange ‘no-mare’s land’ that formed the border between Suida and Equestria, reaching off toward the endless glimmering waves of the Neighdriatic Sea. She’d heard Bitaly was somewhere across those waters, though it too was a mystery to her.
Unlike those places, Suida was a land of death. It was harsh and alien, a far cry even from the desert plains of southern Equestria. The dirt was a ruddy, rocky brown, broken by abrupt fissures, cliffs and canyons in some places. In others, it was utterly flat for as far as Rainbow could see in the hazy sunset heat. Her eyes made out the rough outline of a ziggurat in the distance; the once proud pyramid had crumbled in on itself to reveal hollow innards. Idly, she wondered if it had been brought down on purpose, or if it simply couldn’t survive its own weight. Regardless, it would be a cool place to fly around in, if she ever got the chance. Maybe there was some treasure buried in there, behind a wall of death traps and secret doors.
Rainbow took a moment to slap herself. She didn’t have time to waste thinking about that sort of thing; there was a life on the line, in a very real sense. Putting on her ‘game face’, Rainbow focused on the ground more close by. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see; only the same brush and stone that dominated the more distant sights.
The stunt flier’s wings tilted as she entered a wide spiral, intending to make a final pass before returning to Soldier On. While her eyes had no more luck in locating anything even remotely resembling a camel caravan, her ears perked at the sound of a strangely familiar voice.
“Rainbow Dash! We need to talk!”
Though the rough-edged mare’s voice was unmistakable, Rainbow still found herself overtaken by shock at the fact that she was hearing it in the skies over Suida, instead of the comforts of a Cloudsdale race course. “Spitfire?”
The fiery Wonderbolt leader dove down off the top of a nearby cloud, nearly blinding Rainbow with the light of her gilded cuirass and helmet―a far cry from the blue flight suit or the formal jacket the younger pegasus was used to seeing on her idol. Spitfire pulled out of the dive with a hairpin turn that would have torn the primaries off the average pegasus. Neatly ignoring the devastating torque, she came to a hover a half-dozen feet from Rainbow with her forelegs folded over her chest. “I’m glad I caught you alone, Rainbow.”
The younger of the two pegasi took in a moment of confusion, before gritting her teeth. “Great. Another hallucination?”
Spitfire raised her brow in confusion, and then flew gently toward Rainbow. The bearer of loyalty wondered what was happening right up until the moment that Spitfire’s hoof slapped across her face. In her moment of pain and confusion, Rainbow’s first reaction was to dive down and catch her hat. By the time it was secure on her head again, Spitfire had floated down to the same level, a few hundred feet over the rough dirt.
“What was that for?” Rainbow asked, ignoring the throbbing in her cheek.
“I don’t have time for whatever ‘hallucination’ garbage you were about to get into, rookie. I’m here on behalf of the Royal Guard.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “So you want me to stop going to find my dad?”
Spitfire took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, Rainbow. Commander Lining is dead. Princess Celestia understands it might be hard to hear that he passed away just as you found out who he really was―”
“I wouldn’t exactly take Princess Celestia’s word on whether or not somepony is alive or dead," Rainbow snapped.
Doubt flickered over Spitfire’s face, where Rainbow couldn’t possibly miss it. “I…” Her jaw hardened after a moment’s silence, and her gaze grew more focused. “It isn’t my place to say which Princess is right or wrong. My mission is to keep you and your team from igniting a war with Suida.”
Rainbow answered with a cocky smile. “Well, that’ll be pretty hard, since boars can’t fly. I don’t know what everypony’s so afraid of, but this ‘Khagan’ guy doesn’t scare me, and I’m not gonna let him keep my dad. They’d have to see me to do anything―”
With each of Rainbow’s words, Spitfire’s expression had dropped deeper and deeper into a frown. At last, she cut into the middle of Rainbow’s thought. “I don’t know that much about boars, Rainbow. I know that I’ve been ordered to give you two warnings. If you keep going now, I’ve been ordered to ban you from the Wonderbolts, permanently. I have my orders, and if you’re half as loyal as you’re supposed to be, you’ll come back with me now.”
“Loyal?” Rainbow’s first expression was one of shock. She closed her eyes, and afforded herself a slow breath, before focusing on Spitfire amidst the red light of the desert sunset. “Look, Spitfire, you’re asking me to choose between letting somepony die and a title. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. It’s just like the academy, Spitfire. This proves it.”
“You’re just going to give up?” Spitfire asked.
“I already told you once: if the Wonderbolts care more about their stunts than ponies’ lives, I don’t want any part of the team. When I went to Zebrica, I had to choose between letting somepony die and leaving a friend behind. And you know what? I learned something then. Sometimes, being loyal means you have to do what’s right, even if it hurts your friends. Sometimes, you have to be loyal to yourself first. And if they won’t accept you back after you do it, they probably weren’t your friend to begin with.” The hard look on Rainbow’s face turned slowly into a subtle grin. “Besides, I’m already a better flier than you’ll ever be.”
“There’s something else,” the Wonderbolt noted, dashing forward to keep up with the younger flier. Rainbow kept flying, leaning away from the pursuing mare. “Rainbow, you need to listen to me.”
“So you can tell me to leave for some other reason?” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Get lost, Spitfire. I don’t want to hear it.”
With her back to the Wonderbolt, Rainbow didn’t see the almost sick expression that settled onto Spitfire. “Rainbow… that little orphan filly, Scootaloo―”
To say that Rainbow stopped on a bit would have done injustice to just how quickly she came to a halt. “What does Scootaloo have to do with this?”
On the defensive, Spitfire held up her forehooves, as if they would somehow placate Rainbow. “I didn’t want to do it, okay? But if you don’t come back, White Flag is going to have you declared unfit as a guardian, and move her to another Domain.”
Rainbow’s wings exploded in fire without even a conscious thought, burning over Suida like a newborn star. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I… I’m sorry, Rainbow. I didn’t think it was fair, but―”
This time, it wasn’t words which cut off Spitfire’s sentence. When Rainbow’s hoof met her cheek, it was accompanied by a crack of thunder. By the time Spitfire recovered, she’d lost two hundred feet of altitude, and her dented golden helmet had already hit the ground below.
Rainbow soared down, still burning the sky simply by force of her anger. “Where’s Scootaloo?”
“Rainbow, I can’t―” Spitfire gave up on trying to placate the other pegasus when she was forced to pin her wings against her side and drop to avoid the bearer. “Alright, we’re gonna do this?”
“Where?” Rainbow answered, her tone approaching outright hatred.
When Spitfire opened her wings, they came with a fire of their own. The Empatha offered no small resistance to Rainbow’s flames, and left the blue mare wincing back at the heat and the smoke. Though Rainbow might have been the better flier, it was clear in that second that Spitfire still held the advantage as a soldier.
Raising her hooves in front of her face like a boxer, Rainbow began to slowly circle her foe. Spitfire orbited in place, waiting for the oncoming attack. Barely three seconds later, it came. Rainbow’s speed in her two flaps put her farther to Spitfire’s left than she’d expected, but not far enough to keep the Wonderbolt from catching the thrown punch on the gilded armor of her left forehoof. Her right swung around for a cross that landed only a glancing blow on Rainbow’s shoulder. Then the pegasus pulled back and started circling again.
Again Rainbow pulled in, this time arcing overhead. It was a dangerous trick for the average pegasus, risking their exposed belly to land a blow with the greater strength of the hind legs. Spitfire saw it coming too late, and her hoof glanced off Rainbow’s flank without causing noticeable pain. Rainbow’s reprisal was an unshod hoof to Spitfire’s cheek, sending the Wonderbolt tumbling a few feet further toward the ground.
When Rainbow began to circle a third time, Spitfire realized that she couldn’t afford to continue letting the more agile mare fly free. Spreading her wings fully, she released a field of fire into the sky, blocking out all other sights.
Rainbow coughed at the sudden surge of smoke. Though the fires of her own Empatha protected her from outright burning, the heat still stung, and the acrid smoke still choked her throat and seared her eyes. By the time she’d adjusted enough to get a good view of her surroundings, Spitfire’s natural colors had faded into the fires of her own creation.
“Where’s Scootaloo?” Rainbow shouted, flying randomly forward in search of her opponent. For her choice, she received half a second’s warning before a strong hoof caught her jaw; not enough time to block, but enough time to flinch back and try to brace herself. The instinctual reaction of shielding herself left her wide open.
Spitfire’s left-hoofed body blow left Rainbow doubled over in midair. As Rainbow moved to clutch her belly, Spitfire’s right hoof came across in a backwards slap that disoriented the unfortunate blue pegasus. It was followed by an uppercut from the same hoof that filled Rainbow’s mouth with the coppery taste of her own blood, and put stars in her eyes. Spitfire’s left hoof joined her right overhead, and they came down together onto Rainbow’s hat, and the crown of her skull. The blow left Rainbow falling out of the fiery sky, with Spitfire close behind.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Rainbow; I just have to get you back alive one way or another.” In the breakneck dive, Spitfire was shouting just to be heard over the wind. “Just come back! You can have Scootaloo, you can join the Wonderbolts; whatever you want!”
Rainbow didn’t merely continue her fall; her wings tightened, and she accelerated. Spitfire’s struggled to understand what the other mare was planning; hitting the ground even at their current speed was suicide, and it was closing fast.
“I want to know where Scootaloo is!” Rainbow shouted back.
Spitfire sucked in a breath. “She’s with White Flag. Just wait for her to deal with the traitor. Then you can come back with me, and―”
The world shattered in color. Spitfire watched as Rainbow burst out of an expanding prismatic ring that stretched off toward the horizons. Despite her impossible speed, Rainbow still had enough room to pull up, no more than inches from the ground. Her wings spread out fully, and she swerved up, pulling away to the north.
- - -
The Commander woke from his slumber to an irritating rumble and a pain in his broken limbs. His makeshift bed in a pile of boarish goods tucked into a camel wagon offered him privacy, but also obscured his sight of the sky. On instinct, his teeth went to Procellarum. Rather than the legendary skysteel blade, his teeth found a would-be weapon of sharpened bone.
It would have to do.
He stumbled out of the covered pile of junk onto his bad leg, and fell down into the dirt. The feel of the grit in his wings would have disgusted him, were he not distracted by the pain of the half-fused joints twisting and cracking anew under the weight of his body. It took all his willpower not to scream, and instead he released only a quiet moan of suffering.
When his vision returned, his eyes caught the last moments of a wide rainbow arc as it spread across the sky.
“No…” was all he could manage at first. His wounded hooves failed once and twice to sustain him before he finally pulled himself upright. “Damn you, Luna, why? Why her?” His hooves dug into the ground, struggling to push him forward in a hasty limp.
“Who dares cry to the moonbringer at this―” The grim-voiced camel leader, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, recognized his pegasus guest with a look more surprised than angry. “Commander?”
“Ghayth!” The stallion sucked down a breath around the ‘handle’ of his own femur. “I need to get there, now.” The Commander winced in agony as his wing failed to indicate the source of the sonic rainboom. Bringing up a shuddering forehoof, he made his point.
“I’ve not seen such a thing before,” Ghayth noted. “Is it a sign of Salwah Tibah?”
“It’s…” A moment of hesitance marked a secret easy to spot, but hard to unearth. “…somepony precious to Celestia.”
“Oh?” Ghayth inclined his head. “I would seek to know―”
The Commander’s hoof sounded a crack of lightning, and the air that compressed beneath it drove a slash as long as his leg into the ground. “I don’t have time for this!” the pegasus snarled. “Khagan will kill her, Ghayth. And I can’t cover that distance to beat him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the camel replied, reaching out a calming hoof for the Commander’s shoulder. “Khagan and his warriors are still in Balgas Rift.”
The pegasus swatted away the aging camel’s hoof with such force that Ghayth stumbled back and gasped in pain. “No, he’s coming. Last night, he left.”
After regaining his hoofing, the camel stuck his tongue out over his curled lower lip, biting it gently in thought and confusion. “I would disagree, but first I would understand how you could come to such knowledge in the first place?”
The Commander moved to speak. “Because I ran―” There was a silence, and then a long draw of breath. “Let me make this simple, Ghayth. It shouldn’t matter to you how I know. Look me in the eye and call me a liar.” Matching the camel’s gaze, the Commander focused his Empatha, driving the force of his own willpower through his bloodshot rusty brown eyes. “You give me one of your caravaneers and an empty wagon so that I can beat Khagan to her, or I will stay here and gather his attention to spare her. He will gladly massacre you to get to me.”
“Y-you would not d-d-”
“I would,” the steel blue pony answered with harshness in his voice. “You made the mistake of assuming that because I stood at Celestia’s side, I shared her kindness.” The Commander took a half dozen strides past Ghayth toward the north, staring off at the sky. “Rainbow Dash is more important than me, and she is certainly more important than you. I’ll tell Celestia what you did for me, or I’ll tell Celestia that you died for me. Your choice.”
“I would rather she not hear of me from your lips,” the camel replied.
The Commander had no reply.
- - -
Stoikaja watched as the six equine shapes approached in the dark. White Flag was obvious, walking in the center of the formation alongside an ancient mare on a cane. Three of the other figures weren’t flesh-and blood ponies at all, judging by their stiff gaits. As ‘Soldier On’, the mare had seen first-hoof what White Flag’s stone golems were capable of. That she had brought three was a testament to the stakes of their inevitable conflict.
It was the sixth figure that worried her, though, twisting her brow into knots. It shouldn’t have been frightening, standing less than two feet tall at the shoulder, with stubby, underdeveloped wings decorating its back. The filly called out to her in a squeaky voice. “Miss Resistant?”
“Scootaloo?” Stoikaja’s gaze swiveled from the filly to White Flag. “What are you pulling, Flag?”
The middle-aged unicorn’s expression did not change in the slightest from its constant state of moderate displeasure. “I brought her to stop Rainbow,” Flag answered evenly. “The last thing I would want to do is drag up those memories for you.” In her usual tone of voice, Stoikaja had a hard time believing those words. Flag continued without much of a pause. “Where is Reckoning?”
It was the aging mare leaning on her cane that spoke up. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Flag. You might as well just get to work, and let him come out in his own time. Celestia knows he loves to be dramatic about it.” Vivid red eyes swiveled behind wrinkled lids to gaze at Stoikaja. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, too. What in Tartarus do they even feed you to get that big?”
“Potatoes,” On muttered. “Who are you, old mare?”
The mass of gaunt, wrinkled flesh and knobby joints smiled wider than Stoikaja would have considered possible. “Unending Vigil, Captain of the National Guard. And before you go buckin’ one of your fun shoes there at me, just let me say that I’m not here to get involved in your little Honor Guard vendetta.”
Scootaloo cocked her head. “What’s ‘vendetta’ mean?”
“It means White Flag is going to try to kill me,” Stoikaja explained, “because she doesn’t want us to rescue Rainbow Dash’s father.”
“No way!” Scootaloo yelled out, breaking into a run toward the unicorn. “That’s not―”
Flag’s head twitched in Scootaloo’s direction, and a single bolt of magic struck the little filly. Mid-stride, the pegasus crumpled forward. Stoikaja took three running strides toward the filly before one of Flag’s golem’s blocked her path.
“Just a sleep charm,” the unicorn explained. “She likely bruised her chin in the fall, but with the bruises she had on her knees, she’s endured worse. Now that I can be blunt, On, you have two options. You can surrender, return to Canterlot, and face whatever fate Princess Celestia decides to give you, or I can kill you here and now.”
“Give up and let Roscherk win, or fight to save a good pony?” The question was itself an answer, even before the earth pony lunged at the stone golem near Scootaloo. The mouthless muzzle of granite shattered under her skysteel hoof.
When the stone stopped its fall in midair and returned to the creature’s face, the rebel realized just how much trouble she was in.
The golem’s eyeless face lowered, as if it could see the mare standing before it, and it tensed. The warning was enough for Stoikaja to throw herself backward with both hooves with all her might. A twinge of her right shoulder gave her enough forewarning to realize the game Flag was playing. In midair, she leaned forward into the golem’s hoof, taking a jarring blow to her tingling foreshoulder. The blow came with enough force to throw the flesh and blood pony a dozen feet backward. In the space that she had only barely left, a bolt of Flag’s magic whizzed off to dissipate in the distance.
On skidded on three hooves, kicking up a cloud of dust. Without a moment to spare, she flipped a shoe from her bandolier into the air and reared up to buck it. The clang of steel heralded her attack, sent flying just in time for her see the golem hoof swinging for her neck. She couldn’t dodge the stone creature’s attack, but a better option presented itself. With her hind legs still in the air, she pumped her forehooves to jump over the oncoming fatal blow. The stone leg thrust through the open space in front of her forehooves, and she took advantage of it. Wrapping both legs tightly around the limb, she gritted her teeth to call upon the depths of her Endura. The magic lent her enough strength to twist in the air, still holding the golem’s leg, and slam all eight hundred pounds of the creature against the hard dirt.
The cost of the maneuver became clear when the cracked but unbroken statue wrapped its legs tight around her. She slammed her hooves down on its neck and pushed as hard as she could, but the tingling on her back warned her that her escape wouldn’t come fast enough. The sensation that came next could never be called a tingling. The two remaining golems slammed their hooves down on her back, one and then the other. Once, and her vision blurred until the night was a mass of red and purple splotches. Twice, and she lost feeling in her hind legs.
“Flag, stop it,” Vigil ordered.
The golems stopped their beating, though the cold stone pinning Stoikaja made no motion to release her. Her vision came back slowly, but in its absence, she heard the approaching hooves. Their perfect gait told her it wasn’t the mare with the cane. White Flag stopped a single stride out of hoof’s reach. “I’m going to make my offer again, On. You can come back with me if you want. Face Celestia’s judgement instead of Luna’s. All you need to do is give up. Whether you admit it or not, Equestria is better off without the Commander.”
Stoikaja had to shake her head to realize she had heard White Flag correctly. “What? After everything we’ve done―”
“We?” Flag snapped. “You don’t have a clue, Stoikaja. Have you ever tried to count the corpses?”
The strong-jawed earth pony glared at her former peer. “He told me exactly what I was signing up for when I joined the Honor Guard. If you’re talking about the boars―”
“I don’t give a damn about the boars, On! I’m talking about ponies!” A vein on Flag’s brow pulsed beneath her snowy mane, and her hoof ground down on the dust. “Sixteen hundred guardsponies in Treasonfang Pass. Most of them weren’t real soldiers, either. Draftees from Trottingham and Neighples.”
Still struggling with the golem, if only for show, Stoikaja replied harshly. “You’re going to let him die over Treasonfang? You lost a battle, Flag. Ponies died. Get over it.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Flag answered with a growl. Her hooves took her a stride closer, where she could look On properly in the eye. “He was the one who came up with the plan! He ordered all those ponies to their deaths, and I was to blame for trying to save them!” Panting through gritted teeth, the captain of the Royal Guard gathered magic on her horn and struggled to calm herself. “It doesn’t matter. His Honor Guard dies with you, On. Roscherk is incompetent, and he won’t hold the position long if he’s even still alive. When I’m the commander, I’ll be able to fix entire catastrophe. But for now, On, it’s time to sleep.”
“I’d rather die,” Stoikaja growled. “Flag, if this is it, give me that at least.”
White Flag raised a brow, wrinkling her brow. “You’d rather face Luna than Celestia?”
“I’d rather face Luna than Roscherk,” On answered with an even face. “But I need you to keep her from putting me on the Night Guard. I need you to destroy my body.”
White Flag looked back to Unending Vigil. The old gray mare shrugged from her place near the parked airship. “Give her what she wants, Flag. We won’t have to deal with carrying her back.”
Brilliant blue mana congealed around White Flag’s horn as she turned back to face her restrained foe. “Well, then, On, this is the end.” The spell was simple enough, but it took most of the unicorn’s concentration. Disintegrating even a small rock was tiring, and required no shortage of volatile mana. The aging mare winced as the sparks around her horn grew more and more numerous, until her face resembled a firecracker.
Behind all the light, she didn’t see Stoikaja smile.
The earth pony slammed her entire body weight against the stone arms holding her. She already knew she couldn’t break the golem’s grip, but she did have enough strength to tip it over. The unthinking automaton offered little resistance when she worked to give it a better position, and accepted a place sprawled over her back pinning her against the dust. It had no way of knowing that there would soon be an arcane blast shredding through the air. When White Flag released her magic, the golem knew nothing at all.
The blast was deafening, and the sensation was surreal. Dust settled onto Stoikaja’s coat, as she felt its hairs stand straight up toward the open space where the golem had been. She knew she didn’t have time to think, however. Her forelegs braced against the ground, and she lifted her hind legs into the air, pointing straight at White Flag’s jaw. What followed was a skill she had picked up during her autumn working in Ponyville: a perfect, glorious Apple-family applebuck.
Though the attack only barely managed to reach its target, White Flag was hurled fifty feet, bleeding from a hoof-shaped cut on her neck and another lower on her chest. They were shallow blows, but still bled and burned. The mage hit the ground with a sickening crunch, rolling four times in the dust. By the end of the motion, her white mane had turned a gnarled red and her royal blue coat was a muddy brown, caked in her own blood and the desert dust.
Shaking off wounds that would have killed the average royal guard, the unicorn stood shakily to her hooves and surveyed the scene. That one hit had turned the tide. She had to give it to Soldier On; the Stalliongradian was clever. If the spell hadn’t been so complicated and requiring of so much focus, Flag would probably have seen through the trick. Either On was incredibly lucky, or a great deal smarter than the unicorn had given her credit for.
“Are you alright?” Unending Vigil asked, hobbling over to the downed unicorn. For her attempt to lay a hoof on Flag’s back, she had the offending limb slapped away.
“We’ve fought dragons, Vigil,” Flag answered. “If one hit like that could take me down, I’d have been dead twenty years ago. Where’d she go?”
Vigil pointed to a small hole punched in the skysteel-clad hull of their airship. “She’s in her element now, Flag.”
“And I’m going to kill her in it,” White Flag answered, sending out a quick spark of her Arcana. Her two remaining golems galloped to her sides, taking up flanking positions. The blue aura around her horn built up into a solid glow, and with its light, she stepped into the darkness.
It was only a few moments later that the sky was torn apart by a ring of rainbow light. Left alone outside, the old captain took a slow breath, braced herself on her cane, and frowned.
- - -
The engine room was a mass of pipes, steam, and shadows. Flag’s eyes wandered over the steel and copper pipes, glowing only in the feeble reflection of her own horn’s light. She didn’t speak. On wasn’t going to give up, and calling out wasn’t going to earn an answer. Instead, the unicorn gathered her thoughts into another complex, trying spell. Before her, the air wove itself into a shimmering blue veil of sparking magic, fully as wide as the little walkspace that navigated its way through the maze of pipes. Where it touched the metal, it sizzled and sparked, though it would only do harm to living flesh.
She gestured with her neck, and her golems set a plodding pace through the deadly barrier and into the belly of the airship. On was somewhere nearby, and soon she would be dead. Flag’s eyes sharpened at the flick of a mental switch, and she began to scan her way through the dim light, guiding her horn around corners and into narrow spaces in search of her enemy.
A pipe groaned behind her, and she pivoted in place. Her field of searing death swept through empty air. It met nothing, leaving her on edge and tensed. The old soldier drew down a breath and turned around again.
The path wound forward, up, and right with a small set of stairs. In the depths of the massive room, she could hear her golems traversing similar paths with perfect rhythm to their steps. One, two, three, four. Her own hooves carried her up the stairs toward a dimly glowing boiler. The bars that kept its coals away from unsafe hooves looked to all the world like teeth, ready to devour her, but she was too old to believe it posed any threat. Not when there was a real monster lurking in the shadows.
Ahead, her eye caught the slightest hint of vision. A leg, covered in fur. Moving slowly, she took two strides closer. Then, with a sudden twist, she spun her spell into the mass.
It found an odd pipe, cast in an odd shadow to look as though it were covered in hair. Her magic gave it an odd color, but barely different than anything else in the room. She shrugged off her curiosities; if it had been On, the spell would have killed her. Instead, the captain walked along the path past the strange pipe and continued her search for her prey.
One, two, three, four, went the golems, trodding along in the dark.
Flag heard the groan of a pipe, and spun in place again. The strange pipe stared back at her, unmoved. A quick surge of magic swept the area, but Soldier On was still nowhere to be found. Biting her lip, Flag turned.
One, two, three… four.
It was a small pause, but it spoke volumes to White Flag. Gathering her mana for teleportation without losing her spell was hard, but Flag had couldn’t afford to go without either. A painful crack appeared in the outer layer of her horn as she focused―the cost of using more magic than her body could manage in one go. A horn crack would heal itself in a week or so, but the exposure of the horn’s core to the air was painful. Most untrained mages would lose a spell from the pain of a crack, but Flag brushed it off with no more ceremony than the brutal buck she’d taken from her opponent.
She popped out of the high catwalk, and appeared three floors lower in the bowels of the ship. There, beside her, was her golem. Without waiting, she whirled her slaying field in a quick circle. It found no prey. Momentarily safe, Flag nevertheless gathered the mana for a quick shield to stop one of On’s bladed shoes. The pain of her fresh injury cost her the second spell’s worth of magic.
The golem at her side had a huge hole in it’s chest, where On had likely punched through the solid stone. The cavity where the construct’s heart should have been explained its lack of movement, though Flag had to wonder how the attack had gone unheard… and why there was no gravel on the floor.
A crack of steel and a hiss of steam stole her thoughts again. It was high overhead, on the catwalk she’d just left behind. Flag quietly wondered if On was somehow climbing the pipes. Rather than hurting herself further, and wasting more of her waning mana, the royal blue mare cast her net in front of her, and ran along the catwalks.
Pipes, gauges, and catwalks shot past her. Whenever she passed a fork in her route, she threw her net across it. Time and time again, it failed to find its target. Soon, she found her way back to the same stretch of path she had left behind by teleporting before. A crack in a pipe cast a cloud of steam into her way, though it wasn’t what caught her eye.
The strange furry pipe was gone. Flag gritted her teeth, and hurled her net forward in a surge of mana and her own pain. It seared over the path, yet the lack of a scream told her that even in that desperate burst, it had missed its goal. In the absence of her horn’s glow, the room became nearly black, broken only by the glow of the boiler on the far side of the steam. Gritting her teeth, the mare leapt through the scalding mist.
The pain was terrible, burning away patches of her coat along her side, but it was a trade she had to make for the light that the boiler was casting. Putting her back to the iron bars and the orange glow, her eyes swiveled over the catwalk.
“Come out, On! Let’s finish this!”
There was a creak from the boiler, and then a heavy tone of metal from the far side of the room. Flag gathered magic in her horn, readying the simplest of killing spells. It would overload a pony’s nerves, requiring only a modicum of mana and the basest level of focus. Perfect for a desperate pony in a corner.
The weight slammed her down on the catwalk, burning her side.
“How―” she managed to gasp, before a blow to the ribs stole the breath from her lungs, and the magic from her horn.
The voice that answered her was too dark and too masculine even for Soldier On. “I thought we agreed you were going to let me get myself killed.” The words were accompanied by the sensation of fangs running along her left ear.
“Reckoning?” Flag wondered in awe.
The stallion answered by picking White Flag up and hurling her against the pipes on the far side of the catwalk. The force was at least what Soldier On had managed, bending the pipes and covering both her paths of escape with scalding steam.
When the old mare had finally recovered enough to see straight, she set her eyes on Dead Reckoning. The stallion spread a leathery bat wing from his left side, even as a feathered green one extended from his right. His eyes were equally mismatched―the orb which had once been glass and blind was now yellow, slitted, and all too capable of seeing through the darkness. The trio of scars surrounding the frightening orb was shallower, though still present. His bared teeth contained a full set of razor sharp fangs.
“It’s over, Flag. I fed last night. I can end you faster than you can cast.”
Flag opened her mouth, and found it filled with bloody phlegm. After coughing up the disgusting coppery glob, she found her way around to words. Every draw of breath sent a tinge of pain through her chest. “So you’ve sold your soul for him, Reckoning?”
Reckoning smiled around his fangs, shaking his head. “You’re a sad old mare, Flag. And since I used to be a sad old stallion, let me give you some advice. The point of a soul isn’t to hoard it. It’s to find something worth selling it for.” Having spoken his peace, the thestral turned to walk away.
“You’re going to start a war!” Flag gasped, laying in her own defeat. “Think about what you’re doing, Reckoning!”
Ignoring her protests, the old stallion walked through the steam and disappeared.
- - -
Rainbow pulled down to the landed airship, where she found three ponies waiting. The old mare was unfamiliar, but the off-white giant and the orange foal could never have been mistaken.
“Scootaloo!” Rainbow called out at first, very nearly landing on top of Soldier On. The giant mare made no motion to resist as Rainbow pulled the limp foal from her back. “Is she alright?”
“Just asleep,” the old gray mare answered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rainbow Dash. I―”
“Not now,” Rainbow interrupted, taking to the air with Scootaloo in her forelegs. “Scootaloo, wake up. You there, squirt?”
“White Flag stunned her,” Soldier On explained. “What happened to you?”
Rainbow growled. “Spitfire. She threatened to take Scootaloo away.” Nothing more needed to be said, and nothing was.
Soldier On ground a hoof into the ground, ripping up a huge track of the desert dirt. “Flag has a lot to answer for, Vigil.”
The old mare shook her head slowly. “White Flag was trying to do what she thought was right. We all are, in the end.” Then she smiled and turned toward Rainbow. “As I was saying, I’m Unending Vigil. The filly there’s cute. Your daughter?”
“My little sister,” Rainbow answered.
Vigil chuckled. “So the Commander had two daughters? And here I thought he was too busy with his work.”
“Are you here to stop us too?” Rainbow asked bitterly.
“In theory,” the ancient mare replied. “But honestly, I’m not feeling up to fighting all three of you.”
Rainbow tilted her head sideways, puzzling her way through the sentence. “All three of us?”
“What, forget about me already?” asked an unforgettable voice. Rainbow swiveled to the sight of the stallion walking out of the hole in the airship’s side and felt her jaw go slack.
“Deadeye?”
“Alive and… oh, well, I guess not. Dead and kicking?” The stallion shrugged with mismatched wings and smiled with harsh fangs. “You still don’t get to call me that, though.”
“You’re a Night Guard!” Rainbow observed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a Night Guard?”
Reckoning took a few steps forward, finding his way over to Rainbow’s side, before he replied. “Uh, I did. I know I didn’t say it outright in Canterlot, since Scootaloo was sitting there, but really… what were you expecting?”
“I just thought the Night Guard had a trick on their armor or something. Are they all undead?”
Reckoning wore a priceless grin as he turned to Soldier On. The earth pony only offered a shrug.
“Yes. I sort of assumed you knew, Rainbow, after what you said about talking to her and Celestia. I would have been more blunt, but it’s a bit of an uncomfortable subject. For both of us.” On frowned, and Reckoning held up a hoof by way of apology. “The Night Guard are sort of the reason why most of us Honor Guards don’t really like Princess Luna.”
“But you said you didn’t like Princess Luna because she killed Loose Cannon…” Even mid-sentence, realization dawned on Rainbow’s face.
“Eldest Sister,” Reckoning noted. “It was always weird walking past her in the halls of the palace. The Night Guard are supposed to be Luna’s way of punishing―”
“Reckoning, stop,” Soldier On interrupted.
Reckoning shook her head. “I think Rainbow should understand this. It will make meeting her father easier, for one thing.”
“Not now!” On ordered. “Look!” Unwilling to disobey the mare who was six inches and a hundred pounds his superior, Reckoning directed his gaze to the south. Against purple sky, on the verge of going black, the pillar of smoke stood out like a knife in a map.
“What do you think that is?” Reckoning wondered. “Just looks like some burning brush or a wildfire to me.”
“I think it’s Dad,” Rainbow stated firmly. Only a moment later, she found herself wondering just what had drawn out the words and their confidence.
“How could you possibly know that?” Soldier On asked.
Unending Vigil chuckled. “Earth ponies aren’t the only ones who sometimes have a gut feeling. You’d be surprised what you can feel for your family.” Showing through the guise of ‘Soldier On’, Stoikaja recoiled as if she’d been struck. The old mare passed on a comment to address Rainbow. “If you think the Commander is there, you should probably hurry.”
“It’ll take us an hour, by my guess,” Reckoning muttered. “I’m not as fast a flier as Rainbow, and On can’t fly at all…”
“Rainbow,” Soldier On began, filling her tone with steel. “Go. We’ll follow.”
“What?” The pegasus turned to the giant earth pony. “What happened to being afraid of all the boars, and―”
“We don’t have time to waste worrying about fighting them, Rainbow. Fly fast, and fly hard. Don’t stop, and don’t let them catch you. If you have to, pick him up and carry him. Whatever you do, do it quickly!”
“But―”
“Go!”
“Get out of here, Rainbow!”
Gulping in hesitance, the pegasus spread her wings. “Be back soon, guys.”
- - -
Rainbow pressed her belly against the burnt out shell of the camel wagon, and peeked her head over the edge. She’d never seen a camel before, but it wasn’t hard to identify the humped bodies from her social studies classes as a young foal. The camels’ corpses littered the rockier ground on the little plateau miles away from the Equestrian border, strewn amidst fresh blood and living boars. One of them dominated Rainbow’s attention, as he was too large to be ignored.
Khagan grinned as his tusks began to glow in some dull tone, though only a moment later, the pegasus found that she could not recall the color of his magic. Instead, she only remembered the sight of the poor camel he picked up and pulled out from beneath a toppled wagon wheel. Rainbow didn’t even have a chance to cry out on his behalf. The grown camel stallion was crying right up to the moment that Khagan ripped him in half at the waist.
Rainbow gasped. Khagan’s ears perked. The pegasus ducked back behind her cover as the gruff gray head of the warchief turned in her direction. Her heart raced at a thousand beats a minute when she heard his massive cloven hoof take a step in her direction.
“You could have made this easy, you know,” Khagan bellowed. Struggling to control her breath, Rainbow barely noted that her memory of his volume grew quieter and quieter with every second. “All you had to do was tell me where the pony went.”
She spread her wings against the splintered wood and got ready to take off. She was only given pause by a groan of agony nearby. Off to her side, an ancient camel struggled to pull himself forward on his single remaining leg. The pegasus struggled not to vomit at the way his other limbs were strewn about around him. “We had―” the old camel began, before breaking down into a coughing fit.
Rainbow turned to peek through the broken wood of the wagon. Through it, she could see Khagan chuckle as his scraggly beard bounced from side to side on his burly chin. “You’re talking about our deal, camel? You swore that you would not interfere with my battles, and I swore I would not interfere with your continuing life. You broke our deal first.” Khagan’s smashed snout, which looked like it had had been broken too many times by the way it was pressed to the left side of his face, turned away from the suffering camel to face a team of four boar warriors in formation. Rainbow reflected that they were probably around Gilda’s size, beneath the heavy stone plates covering their bodies as armor.
“Which of you did this to him?” Khagan shouted. “Why is he suffering?”
One of the boars, a little runt in the warchief’s vision, nodded his head in admittance and stepped forward. “I thought you might like him the way you had the other pony.” The thought twisted Rainbow’s gut into a knot.
Khagan smiled. Stepping toward the smaller boar, he laughed. The world seemed to shake in fear of the noise.
Then the warchief’s tusks ignited, and he ripped the young boar’s head clean off.
“Look at this!” the warchief bellowed, turning the severed head so that it was staring at the three remaining warriors. “This is the fate that befalls warriors without honor! We all know why the ancestors sent us the tusk rot!” Khagan then gestured down toward Ghayth with a look of disgust. “No creature of honor deserves what we see here. He may be weak. He may be pathetic. But you have no place to make him suffer.” And with that, the boar ruler lifted a cloven hoof above the camel’s head.
“Wait!” Rainbow shouted, lunging out of her hiding place and slamming into Khagan’s side. The giant boar felt harder than the walls of most of Ponyville’s buildings, and the force of Rainbow’s collision didn’t even phase him.
“A pony!” one of the boars shouted, rearing back and igniting his tusks in brilliant red Arcana. Two bolts of magic were sent flying in Rainbow’s direction. To her surprise, Khagan stopped them with a quick spell of his own. The magical bolts rebounded in midair, striking their creator and engulfing him in brilliant red light. He collapsed to the ground, his body steaming.
“That will be enough,” Khagan growled at his two remaining subordinates. Then, to Rainbow’s shock, his magic wrapped in a vice-like grip around her throat. Her wings flared out, and she struck at the aura, but it only grew tighter until she was spending all her meager strength simply drawing breath. “The hubris of ponies astounds me. Your ‘Commander’ at least managed to cut my flesh. He is why you’re here, isn’t he?” Rainbow continued to struggle as Khagan’s vile grin grew wider and wider. “You made that burst of light. It matches your hair. But you’ve come here searching, which means he didn’t actually make it to you.”
“You… didn’t catch… him?” Rainbow gasped.
The old camel found strength for more words. “He left when he saw your light… Rainbow Dash.”
Khagan turned to the old camel, and then his harsh red eyes swiveled back to his captive. With no apparent effort, he slammed Rainbow to the ground on her back, and pinned her wings down. “Is that your name?”
Rainbow spat up at Khagan, putting a glob of liquid on his brow. “Why should I tell you?”
“Because I can rip your limbs off one by one if you do not give me what I want,” Khagan answered. “Your friend was quite fond of his wings. Which one of yours should I take off first?”
Rainbow tried to hold a strong face, but it lasted only until the first pinch of his magic gathered around the base of her left wing. “No! Stop, please! I’m Rainbow Dash, okay? Just don't touch my wings!”
“Was that so hard?” Khagan asked with a sarcastic smirk. “Unfortunately, I still need your friend to come back.”
Then Rainbow felt the tug. It was long, and slow, and agonizing. The first surge of real pain was when the ball of her wing was pulled out of the socket. She screamed as darkness came to her eyes. Khagan stopped only for long enough to keep her from slipping into unconsciousness. Then he pulled again. This time, the sound was wet, and the pain uncontrollable.
Pain was nothing, though, compared to the hollow void she felt when the feeling had settled to a wet throbbing, and Khagan grabbed her jaw with his magic to make her look up. Blue feathers hung limply in midair, stained by fresh blood.
Rainbow’s world was already over when she felt a tug on her other side. As her mind finally gave up, it produced one final word.
“Rocket…”
- - -
“Khagan!”
The warchief shook with amusement, running a hoof over the feathery center of his newly fashioned necklace. “I see she was important enough to bring you back, Commander.”
The Commander stumbled forward, his expression indecipherable under cover of night. “I’m here, Khagan. Let her go.”
“Or what?” Khagan turned to the boars in his company, smiling with growing amusement. “You’ll fail to injure me again?”
“Celestia will come for her.”
The boar slapped a hoof to the ground with such force that Rainbow’s unconscious body bounced up from the ground an inch. “You think I’m afraid of your pathetic princess? Threaten me with Luna and I might at least consider feeling threatened. Celestia lost a fight with the bug queen.”
The Commander called back with a blade in his tone. “You can’t survive a war with Equestria, Khagan. And if you don’t let Rainbow go, that’s what you’re going to be facing.”
Rainbow’s father had finally closed to a dozen feet away, standing over Ghayth’s sorry form. His wings were folded over his back at a horrifying angle, with their trailing feathers pointing toward his head and their crests twisted back toward the steel shield and lightning bolts that made up his cutie mark. He barely managed to stand on two of his legs, using a third as an uncomfortable support while the fourth hung limp and useless. His teeth clutched his own femur tightly, as if it could be of any use against the looming mass of his enemy.
Khagan shook his head with continued amusement. “That’s where you’re wrong, pony.” The warchief glanced back to his followers, and then stepped toward his mortal foe, speaking in a grumbling whisper. “You see, while you were enjoying my company in Balgas Rift, I finally figured out the cure to your curse.” At the little secret, his voice picked up again. “I don’t care whether your armies come to meet me, or if I get the pleasure of moving up to fight on your soil. Either way, your kind will be caught unprepared. I might decide to kill your friend here early, but you’re going to live to see me break Celestia and Luna on my tusks.”
The Commander glared at Khagan for a long moment, before turning to the old camel at his hooves. “I’m sorry, Ghayth. I meant for him not to come.”
“I honored hosp,” Ghayth gasped out. “I will be with Salwah…”
“Celestia,” the Commander corrected. And then, looking into the camel’s eyes, he added three more words. “I love you.”
Khagan gasped as the Commander thrust his bone sword into the camel’s heart. The boar’s tusks flared, the world flashed, and all was overcome by silence.