My lungs hurt as I sprinted across the desolate landscape, my muscles burning despite the temperature of the ice, each one screaming out for relief that I couldn’t give them. I wouldn’t stop though not before I got home, or before this night was done, everypony I knew would be dead. Maybe they already knew, maybe I didn’t need to run and the village wasn’t in any danger. Maybe, just maybe. I kept repeating it in my head over and over, trying to convince myself that it was true, but I couldn’t. Everypony, bar a very few exceptions, had been listening to the sagateller when I had left, the tales of the past lasting for many hours, and if the wolves had found Fitjar, then they would have been taken completely by surprise. Not that being prepared would help much. It hadn’t helped Haell after all, and they were bigger.
My heart seized in my chest as an orange glow slowly became visible on the horizon, and I pushed my screaming body even harder. I finally skidded to a halt, my feet slipping slightly on the icy ground as I crested a small hill, looking out across the ice fields at Fitjar, at my home.
The village was burning, smoke rising up over the orange glow lighting up the evening sky. Fires were raging in the south of the village, not big ones, and if that was the only problem, I wouldn’t be fearing for the longevity of the village, but the fires were lighting up the area, showing a much more insidious presence. Even from my distant vantage point, I could see that there were at least half a dozen shapes moving around, far too big to be ponies or arctic cows, and running far too fast to be moving without a singular purpose on their mind. The smell of blood was already seeping into my nose as the faint sound of screams drifted across the ice and invaded my ears. Ponies were dying, my friends, my neighbours, everypony I knew.
Something inside of me clicked as this thought went through my mind, slotting small half-truths and semi-conscious thoughts I had always had together, moulding them perfectly into the outline of a plan. It was a crazy plan, one that would almost certainly lead to me getting viciously torn apart by wolves, but whatever had just clicked inside of me no longer cared about such trivialities.
Springing forward, I quickly covered the remaining ground between me and the village, reaching the wall and sprinting for the gate. It was hanging off its hinges, looking as if it had been forced open while ponies tried to close it on the other side. If there had been more lookouts, maybe it would have been shut in time, but the fact that there was only one mangled corpse told me all I needed to know. Taking a deep breath in, I readied my spear, holding it awkwardly in my right foreleg, before heading into the charnel house that Fitjar was quickly becoming.
Ducking into one of the small side streets, I began to creep forward, trying to keep as quiet as possible as I went. I had already counted at least five wolves when I was outside the village, and there were certain to be more inside. Three small wolves had almost been the death of the village before, and unless everypony worked together, I doubted this pack would be any smaller by the nights end. This pack was bigger, they were stronger, and they had the scent of blood to drive them.
My mane suddenly stood on end as I heard a pounding coming from in front of me and I readied my spear, preparing myself for whatever came around the corner. It wouldn’t do very much really, not with me wielding the spear, but I had to try.
Readying myself for whatever came around that corner, I prepared to thrust the spear forward when…
“Hoarfrost!” Gale shouted, colliding with me and knocking me to the ground, the light Pegasus landing on top of me, panting heavily. My spear dropped from my grasp, but I quickly forgot it in favour of the mare on my chest. On any normal night, I would consider this a successful beginning, but there was no time for that now.
“Gale! What’s going on?” I coughed, rolling out from underneath her and quickly getting back to my hooves, listening to the panting that was coming from around the corner.
“No time!” She screeched, before scrambling towards the nearest longhouse, pushing the door open and darting inside.
I stared after her as she disappeared inside the house, before rushing after her, slamming the door shut and pressing my body against it, listening intently. There was something moving outside, something big. It was breathing heavily, slowly sniffing the ground, looking for its prey that seconds ago had been just in front of it. I held my breath, Gale doing the same thing in her position besides me. For five agonising seconds, neither of us made a sound, before I heard a low howling, and the wolf running past, abandoning its search for us in favour of more readily available ponies.
Letting out the breath I didn’t know I had been holding, I turned to face Gale, panting slightly as I sought to control my heart beat. For all my bravado running into the village, I now felt nothing but fear. I suddenly felt Gale wrapping her hooves around my neck, pulling me into an unexpected, but not altogether unpleasant, hug. She finally pulled back, looking at me with relief written across her face, before slamming her hoof into my chest.
“Where the hell have you been?” She hissed, glaring at me as I spluttered from the sudden blow.
“The chief…sent me on a message run,” I gasped, looking up at her. “That hurt.”
“Aw, the big strong Earth Pony getting hurt by a Pegasus,” she chided, before sighing, helping me back to my hooves. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m touched,” I smiled, coughing slightly as I stood back up. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“They came out of nowhere…”
Gale’s POV
Five Minutes Earlier
"At the door of my soul they are standing. So sweet in the gleam of their metal skins: Their hoof-fall awaken a fury, a fierceness of love and passion and loyalty that we know not. They are our sword and shield, the weapons we use to smite those who stand before us, and the armours we use to protect us, - Both now and for aye to endure,” the sagateller spoke, looking between the other ponies, his eyes settling on me for just a second, before moving on.
I had never really understood all the sagateller said when he told us of the past and future, his messages always being cryptic and hard to understand, but it passed the time nicely. Unfortunately, this time I was understanding even less, my mind filled with thoughts about where Hoarfrost had gotten to. He had never come in after the chief had stopped the pair of us, and considering the fact that Grafter was there as well, I was worried that the pair were having yet another fight somewhere. I couldn’t leave to go look for him however, the bad luck gained from leaving the telling of a saga halfway through only being eclipsed by being born on a blood-moon. The few times I had seen it, the sagateller had explained that the moon was shining through the evening lights in a different way, making it’s surface turning crimson instead of greyish white. A blood-moon could only mean one thing: the Gods were fighting, or preparing to fight each other.
“The trickster god has vanished from this mortal plain,” the sagateller continued, telling us the story of the last blood-moon, “the power of the sun and moon banishing him back to the realm of chaos he was spawned from. They will come to us, on tongues of fire and ice, to…”
The sagateller was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream, the sound echoing around the now silent hall, before being cut abruptly short. Something like that could only mean one thing had happened to the screamer. Slowly, one of the village hunters got up from his seat at the far end of the hall, grabbing hold of his spear and moving towards the door to the Longhouse. Slowly, he began to open the door, peering outside when…
A dark shape burst through the doors, tackling the warrior to the floor and howling, before diving forward once more, lunging down towards the stunned pony.
My heart seemed to stop in my chest as time slowed to a crawl, blood spurting out from the gaping wound in the hunter’s neck, the pony letting out a few gurgling cries, blood squirting from his neck, before he lay still. The wolf of top of him howled, its cry echoing around the room, before all hell broke loose.
“Spears!” Stronghoof roared, grabbing his own spear and rushing forward, followed by a pair of other hunters.
“Everypony else, out now!” The Sagateller roared, louder than I had ever heard him shout.
It took me a moment to react, still fixated upon the dead pony in front of me and the struggle the three hunters were having with the wolf, a spear already piercing its side but not slowing it down in the least. Finally I sprang into action, leaping for the door and spreading my wings, soaring out of the building, looking around at the village.
Ponies were running this way and that, brandishing spears as they sought to coordinate some sort of defence, but it was impossible. There were wolves prowling along almost every street, leaping on ponies they came across, seeming to ignore any wounds they were taking. This was the first time I’d ever seen an Arctic Wolf up close, and I was suddenly filled with a lot more respect for Hoarfrost’s father. These things, they weren’t natural, not something this size.
Diving down towards the ground, I landed by a writhing pony, Star Rider if I remembered correctly, the Earth Pony moaning weakly as he bled from a deep wound in his neck. Even with only a bit of medical knowledge, I knew that the wound would be fatal, and Rider knew that, but still the dying pony stared up at me, desperately begging me to do the impossible and to save him. I couldn’t save him, but I could ease his passing.
“Rider? Can you hear me?” I asked softly, checking around me to make sure there were no wolves in the area.
“G-Gale?” He managed, coughing slightly and splattering blood across my face. “What’s a…Pegasus, doing on the ground…in a fight? You’re not…cut out…”
“I know we’re not,” I replied, drawing a small stone dagger and holding it in my mouth. “I can’t save you,” I mumbled around it, “but I can make the pain go away.”
“You’re…not supposed…to ask me if I want it…or not,” Rider chuckled weakly, grimacing as a spasm wracked his body. “Supposed to just…do it.”
“I had to ask. I couldn’t just do it.”
As I was talking, I raised the dagger up to his neck, placing it just beside the wound that was already there.
“Cut…fast,” Rider gurgled, closing his eyes and accepting his fate.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, before bringing the knife across his windpipe.
Riders eyes went wide for a second as blood poured from his neck, before lying still, looking surprisingly peaceful. Disgusted with the necessary evil, I wiped the dagger down, before shoving it away, setting off into the village to find the Lach. Pegasus weren’t trusted as hunters in Fitjar, we were to weak and fragile according to most of the Earth Ponies, so instead, the few of us that were in the village got dumped with the elderly, those ill-suited to hunting, and were the healers of the village. That meant we saved ponies when we could, but it also meant that we offered them mercy when it was needed, no matter our age. Only in Fitjar would colts and fillies be asked to kill their friends and family in the name of ‘mercy’.
“Gale! Down!” A voice screamed from somewhere off to my side.
I sprang to the ground instantly, not even checking to see the validity of the command. The shout undoubtedly saved my life, a dark shape flying over me, crashing through the space I had been in a second before. Scrambling back to my hooves, I looked across at the pony who had shouted at me, but all I saw was the wolf, its black, unflinching eyes staring straight at me.
Fear gripped my heart as my eyes met that of the wolves, before it bared its teeth at me, growling softly and taking a step forward. The fear I had felt a second before was nothing compared to this, and my own instincts took over.
I bolted, sprinting down the street and turning down a back alley, the wolf hot on my hooves, and trying to outrun it. I knew it was getting closer, and tried to flare my wings to escape it, but the fear that was coursing through me was pinning them to my sides. This was it, I just knew it. I just wished…
“Hoarfrost!” I screamed, slamming into him and crashing to the floor.
Hoarfrost’s POV
“Fuck,” I breathed softly as Gale finished her story, her already pale coat turning even whiter as she retold her story.
I knew she didn’t like the aspect of her job as a healer when it turned to giving out mercy. I had only seen her do it once before, after a hunting party we were out with got jumped by a few warriors from another village. We drove them off, but one of the party was hurt badly. She hadn’t been the same for weeks after that, and most ponies in the village had scorned her for being weak, only serving to further solidify their belief that Pegasus as a race were weak and useless when compared to Earth Ponies. Life was precious up here in the snow, but death? Death was the certainty we lived out life by, so what use was a pony who couldn’t accept that?
“What are we going to do Hoarfrost?” She asked softly, looking up at me, fear still written across her face.
“What are you looking at me for? I don’t make plans,” I said in disbelief
“I don’t care if you make them or not, you need to make one now,” she shot back. “We need to do something.”
“Fine, just let me think,” I snapped, pacing up and down for a few seconds, before I had an idea. A simple one really, but it would at least give the pair of us some modicum of hope.
“Ok, we need to get to Stronghoof, he’ll…”
I was cut off by the sound of panting again, before hooves began to bang frantically on the door.
“Please! Let me in!” Graft cried from the other side of the door, his voice sounding frantic and higher pitched than usual.
“Grafter?” I hissed through the door, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the crack in the door.
“Hoarfrost?” Grafter asked, before throwing his bodyweight against the door.
The door shuddered, the lock looking like it would shake off at any second as Grafter continued to try and gain entrance. I exchanged a quick glance with Gale, before she nodded, and I looked back at the door. Sighing, I slowly reached over to the latch, unhooking it.
A split second later, Grafter hit the door, still expecting it to be locked. Without the lock across the door though, it offered little to no resistance, and he crashed through it, sprawling on the ground at mine and Gale’s hooves. Quickly darting back to the door, I slammed it shut, locking it once more, before looking at Grafter as he staggered upright once more.
He was covered in blood, the thick red liquid sticking to his fur and clumping his mane together into a tangled mess. He reeked of sweat and fear, the terror radiating off him with such power that I could almost see it. For a long time, the pair of us stared at each other, scowling as we looked each other over, before Gale finally broke the tension, moving over towards Grafter, beginning to look at him for any wounds, and to find the source of the blood.
“Get off me,” he growled, pushing Gale away, before walking towards me. He was grimacing, trying to look like his old self, but there was something about him that just wasn’t helping with the air of authority he usually gave off, a new smell, I just couldn’t put my hoof on it.
“Grafter, what’s going on outside?” Gale asked, not noticing the stench.
“Everypony’s dead,” Grafter spat, looking between the pair of us. “How the fuck are you two still here?”
“Luck?” I suggested sarcastically.
“Cowardice more like,” Grafter snorted, looking down at me. “I should have known that a weakling like you would have hidden whenever anything got serious, along with the Pegasus. Cowards, the both of you.”
“If we’re cowards, then you are to,” I shot back, venom lacing my voice.
“Careful Hoarfrost,” Grafter growled, taking a step towards me. “There’s nopony here to save you this time, so you better shut your mouth if you know what’s best for you.”
“Oh how careful should I be?” I asked in annoyance. “Because so far of the three of us, I think Gale is the only one to kill anything. You’re a coward Grafter, a bully, nothing more.”
Grafter snarled at me, before lunging forward, catching me in the jaw with a solid hoof strike, knocking me to the floor as he stood over me, his breath coming out as plumes of water vapour in the cold weather as he leered down at me.
“You’re pathetic Hoarfrost,” he snapped. “Nothing more than a failure. A useless…”
He never got to finish his sentence, as the door suddenly splintered into a million pieces, filling the room with tiny pieces of wood, sticking into my hide and the fur I still wore. Grafter however caught the worst of it, roaring in pain as the splinters ripped into his face, tearing at the skin and causing him to stagger back, right onto the wolf that had just crashed into the room with us.
Grafter screamed as the wolf dived on top of him, it’s jaws snapping just above his throat as he desperately tried to push it back with his forehooves. If it had been bigger, then he wouldn’t have stood a chance, and even against the pup sized one that was bearing down on him, I didn’t rate his chances very highly.
I was finally snapped out of my mesmerised gaze by Gale, the Pegasus grabbing hold of my shoulders and hauling me up, screaming something in my face. Then the reality of the situation came crashing down on me once more, and I turned tail, sprinting from the building with Gale hot on my hooves.
As I got out into the cold once more, I cast a final look back into the building, my eyes meeting Grafter’s as he screamed, the wolf tearing off a small strip of hide. If it had been Gale in his position, I wouldn’t have hesitated to go back for her, even if that meant giving up my life. But It wasn’t the sweet Pegasus I called my friend, it was Grafter, the pony who had made my life a living hell for years. The last thing I saw of my lifelong bully was a stream of his own piss flowing around him, before I sprinted off after Gale.
The pair of us charged through the village, ignoring the dead bodies we passed as we headed for the wall. There was nothing else we could do now, with this many ponies dead, the village was as good as finished anyway. Now all that was left to try and link up with any survivors. Maybe one day we could return to the ruins of Fitjar and rebuild, but it would be a long time before the omens pointed to that being a good idea, and nothing would be done if the omens were against it.
My vision was suddenly cut off by Gale thrusting her wing into my face, bringing me to a halt as she crouched down, staring at the trio of wolves that were busy gorging themselves on the corpses of the dead. Only one was still moving, his one remaining leg kicking weakly as Chief Stronghoof finally breathed his last, fighting until the very end.
“We need to draw then off,” Gale whispered, looking at me.
“Yeah, I don’t fancy trying to climb the wall at night,” I agreed. “So how should we do this?”
Gale stared at me for a few moments, before she smiled, placing a hoof on my shoulder.
“Hoarfrost, promise me you’ll get out of here. Don’t follow me,” she whispered softly, before she suddenly sprang up, darting forwards and standing in front of wolves. “Look at me! I’m a target!”
The wolves instantly looked up from the corpses, growling as they caught sight of the interloper that approached them. Slowly, the largest of the wolves took a step forward, howling loudly, the howl taken up quickly by the other wolves. Gale cast a final look back at me, tears in her eyes, before she sprinted off down a side alley, the wolves following her, leaving the gate open for me to get out. I didn’t care though, and I sprinted to the alleyway, looking down it in an attempt to see anything.
“GALE!” I screamed, tears filling my eyes.
For a moment, I thought about following after them, breaking my final promise to her. However, no matter how much I wanted to go after her, even if it meant my death, the rational part of me was telling me to just run. Gale was a Pegasus after all, whereas I was an earthbound Earth Pony. While she may not have been the biggest or the strongest pony in the village, she could fly, and if anypony would have been able to escape from three wolves, it would be a Pegasus.
Not that that thought helped my conscience at all as I turned by back on the alley, running from the village and stumbling out into the wilds once more. Tears streamed down my face as I openly sobbed, not daring to look back at Fitjar, my shame overpowering everything else I felt.
I ran for what felt like hours, before finally coming to a halt, looking around me at the surrounding ice. I realised with a sickening sinking feeling in my heart that this wasn’t anywhere near the commonly trodden paths in the ice fields. There was nothing around me that could help me navigate the tundra, the smoke of two burning villages obscuring the stars and making navigating impossible.
I slowly sunk to the floor, the reality of my situation finally crashing down onto me. I was lost in the north, I was tired from the trek to Haell and the run back to Fitjar, not to mention the running around in Fitjar itself, and to cap it all off, I had abandoned Gale, the only pony who had cared for me since my father had disappeared. She had been my only friend, and for all my pretending to be brave, I had failed her when it had mattered. I should have been the one to lure the wolves away, not Gale.
Curling up, I slowly began to close my eyes, feeling the cold beginning to set deep into my bones. The wind was howling as it blew soft snow powder into my face, some of it settling on my body already, my fur doing little to protect me from this level of freezing temperature. For the first time in my life, I realised just how hard the hunter’s life was. They could be out of the village for weeks at a time, stalking a solitary wolf or a herd of arctic cattle, trying to bring in meat for the village.
I had heard fantastical tales of ponies in the south who didn’t eat meat, but that couldn’t possibly be true. Nothing grew properly in ice, so we had to eat meat, that was all there was to it.
My vision was slowly fading to black as the cold slowly began to tear away at me, and I sighed as my mind began to drift to Gale. She had given up her life for mine, and for what? For a few more hours of life, before dying from the cold. The last few tears began to fall from my eyes, the moisture freezing o my face.
Suddenly, a hoof of something landed in front of me, startling me slightly, but not enough to wake me up. The hoof was clad in thick metal, its entire length oozing violence and strength, before I finally slipped from the world of the waking. Please let the monster in front of me be a dream, I was already likely to die from the cold, I didn’t want to be dinner for something as well.
Goddess, please just let this all be a dream.