The time spent travelling to the griffon kingdom of Cloudedge was uneventful and, in Marwolaeth’s opinion, rather peaceful.
Beaker and Spearhaft, however, would have described the journey as a string of racist remarks broken up by bouts of hunting.
Ponies in every town between Canterlot and Shell Beach gave Marwolaeth and his entourage a wide berth, whispering scathing remarks about the griffons’ thoughtless love of violence and how unfair they were being to Equestria and its new resident. At the same time, rumours wove their way through the rank and file of the grape vine, bringing hushed murmurs of Marwolaeth’s cruel and efficient brutality.
Some adventurous ponies attempted to accost Marwolaeth, Beaker and Spearhaft based solely around the face that they were, in fact, not ponies. These dissenters were swiftly put down by the local authorities and interred in the nearest jail cell.
In Shell Beach itself, the speciesm was much less prevalent, as it was a port city and trading hub. Marwolaeth noted a few griffons wheeling about above the town, and spotted a few new creatures to add to his references. He saw sea ponies, minotaurs, naga, sheep, and even a marsupial biped known as the Fauxline due to its feline features. The boat scheduled to take Marwolaeth to Cloudedge was waiting for them at the docks, and soon they were off at sea.
The time at sea was sedate, to say the least. Marwolaeth sat at the bow of the ship for the length of the journey, turning away from the horizon only to eat and defecate. Thus, it was no surprise that Marwolaeth was the first to disembark the ship when it finally docked.
In Marked Hearth, Marwolaeth’s guard count tripled. Six griffons, four of which refused to give their names to the armoured warrior, escorted him through the mountains and crags of Cloudedge, keeping their prisoner well away from the public eye up in the floating eyries of the griffons. The airship that had been chartered had been released of its bonds earlier and gone its merry way. Marwolaeth could hear the guards grumbling about the ‘stupid groundpunder’ and how much easier it would have been to merely throw him to the mercy of the public.
When the caravan finally arrived at the griffon capital of The Lonely City, Marwolaeth finally got his first glimpse of griffon architecture. He observed their walls and structures, nodding at the sturdy stone constructions and cleverly disguised clouds holding the stone in the air. The observant pact servant also noticed the casually lounging military personnel discreetly keeping their eyes on the streets and air space.
As Marwolaeth walked, jeers were thrown at him, along with various rotten fruits and meats. Some especially unruly citizens leapt for Marwolaeth, but were restrained by the guards surrounding him. Crowds of squawking hecklers followed the condemned soldier all the way to the Castle Stoic before they were shut out. Marwolaeth could hear the swelling roars of the crowd still, muted to a dull throb.
After almost an hour of being led through twisting corridors and locked gates, Marwolaeth found himself stripped of weapons and thrust into a dank, cold, damp cell. He wished that he’d been summoned by the griffons instead of the ponies, there would have been much less work for him to do.
The guardsgriffons had attempted to remove Marwolaeth’s armour, but were deterred by the lack of straps and buckles necessary to don and remove such barding, and were hesitant to try and cut the armour away.
For three days and two nights, Marwolaeth sat bereft of food, water and company. The guards stood beside a door outside of the dungeon itself, and no griffon entered the dungeon in the time that the imprisoned warrior lay against the wall of his cell.
Spearhaft and Beaker arrived expecting to find a gaunt, weakened and breaking prisoner, but were met with shined armour, steady voice and a spry eagerness to begin fighting. The eager Marwolaeth was led to the court of King Longrule.
In attendance at Marwolaeth’s hearing were Princess Ironclaw, the guards that the pact servant had crippled, Marwolaeth himself, Spearhaft and Beaker, five bearded griffons, a young male griffon who stood next to Ironclaw, identified as Prince Vanni Newvessel, and King Vanni Longrule himself, a grey and thoroughly well kept cadaver animated by the spirit of a long dead king.
“Ma’volaeth Pydredd.” Longrule rasped through the previous prince’s mouth. “You ‘ave been accuzed of ze assault and crippling of a flight of royal guards and ze princess of ze throne, daughter of my ‘ost.” Marwolaeth briefly wondered how a corpse could produce the growling and gargling sounds required by griffon speech if it didn’t produce saliva. “‘Ow do you plead?”
“Guilty.” Marwolaeth replied with no hesitation.
“Very well.” Longrule held out one claw, which was filled by a scroll handed to the griffon king by one of the bearded old griffons. “Ze penalty for such affronts iz death. You ‘ave sent vord forvard zat you wish to die by ze varrior’s execution. Bring ‘im to ze coliseum.”
Marwolaeth was once again lead through corridors and halls until he emerged on the tamped dirt floor of a rather large coliseum. The convict was directed to stand in the center of the pit while the stands filled with chattering spectators. Some adventurous griffons tossed peanuts and tomatoes at Marwolaeth.
After a short wait, and when the coliseum was filled to the brim, King Longrule ascended to his throne away from home.
“Ma’volaeth Pydredd.” Longrule roared over the crowd. “You ‘ave been sentenced to die ‘ere by ze paws of ze beasts, prisoners and gladiators of zis land! Zhould you survive until zhere are no more foes to face, you zhall be pardoned and acquitted of your crimes, and will be zet free.” The king said this last sentence with the bored monotone of the rote memorization who had never fulfilled this promise of freedom, and never expected to fulfill it. “Chooze you vun veapon.”
A young cub approached Marwolaeth with a large chest. The courier unlatched the clasp and extended the trays and racks from within. Multitudes of rusty, dull and rotted weapons littered the chest, scabbed together by old bloodstains. Marwolaeth picked out and lifted the least worn, indeed nearly untouched, weapon.
A long staff, as tall as Marwolaeth’s shoulder.
The griffon onlookers hooted and cawed in laughter as Marwolaeth gave his staff a few experimental swings while the griffon squire retreated with the chest of weapons.
“Let ze games…” Longrule smirked, baleful fire flickering in his eyes. “Begin.”
Marwolaeth let the magic in his bones suffuse his being, causing the shimmering green lines and runes to burst to life on his limbs as the gates surrounding the wall of the arena lifted.
Rabid, starved dogs lunged at Marwolaeth’s shins. Their teeth splintered and their heads cracked.
Dogs of war, bred and maintained leaped for Marwolaeth’s throat. Their necks snapped with ease.
Large cats circled warily before pouncing through the air. Marwolaeth found that dead cats don’t ever land on their feet.
Manticores hissed and growled. They also twitched and whimpered as their own stingers were turned against them.
Chimeras driven to madness drove forward with reckless abandon. Three heads turned to two, and then there was one, before none at all.
Even a fearsome hydra, shaking the ground as it walked. All the heads in the world couldn’t save it.
Eventually, the assembled griffons grew bored of animal slaughter and cried for the real blood sport to begin. King Longrule made a motion to his courier, who scurried off to begin escorting the prisoners to the ring.
A diamond dog with broken paws limped into the arena. “Rusty is so close!” It whimpered. “So close to freedom! You cannot stop him!” Indeed, Rusty did not stop until he splattered against the arena wall.
A griffon with clipped wings. “Please… I can’t… Not anymore…” His suffering was ended before his sudden but inevitable betrayal had time to come to fruition.
A sheep, sheared of wool and pale of skin. “It- It was either this or becoming food.” His body fed the crows and vultures.
A fauxline covered in scars, standing tall and proud. “Yocasta will come for me soon. I will be here for her, and you won’t leave here alive.” Her broken, battered body lay drowning in a pool of its own lifeblood.
A unicorn with his horn snapped off. “You- You’re from Equestria, right? Celestia sent you to rescue me, didn’t she? Quickly, we must ma-” He was freed from his bonds of life.
A satyr, one very familiar to Marwoaleth. “M-Marwolaeth?”
“Tade.”
“N-not gonna demand to be called Pydredd, eh?”
“No. I do not hold that station for the moment.”
“Dammit.”
Tade was sent back to his clerk work for his master with a split hoof and broken horn.
A naga, strong and stoic. An entire pack of armoured diamond dogs. A human, one of the last of its kind. A kobold, tricky and supplied with gadgets. A goblin, swift and devious. A large spider, fresh out of web.
None of them could do more than scratch and dent Marwolaeth’s armour.
“Chicks and gentlegriffs.” Longrule bellowed as Marwolaeth slid the remains of his last victim off of his staff. “Ze varrior’s execution iz drawing to a cloze. It is time to bring out ze crowd favourite!” Loud stamping echoed from the stands, nearly drowning out the cheers of the audience. “Presenting ze undefeated gladiator!”
A second set of stomping drowned out the audience. Emerging from the shadows was a minotaur, bulky and imposing. His fur was shaved from his torso, and metal plates had been grafted onto his skin in strategically critical places. Over his shoulder, he heaved a heavy battle axe.
“Sure Swing as arrived!” The beast roared in a deep, throaty baritone. “Cower in fear, criminal, for I will be your end!”
Marwolaeth grunted and twirled his staff, unimpressed.
One classic tactic later using the fine vest that Rarity had made, Sure Swing laid with his horns embedded in the wall of the coliseum, his body slumped limply from his broken neck, where Marwolaeth had taken a routine from a satyr not too different from the one he had dispatched earlier, and river danced on his back, albeit in full armour.
The stands were silent, the griffons staring in shock at the implacable man.
King Vanni Longrule muttered to his aide before clearing his throat, coughing out a lump of damp dust. “Vhile zis an unprecedented zituation, ve ‘ave a failzafe for criminals zuch az zis.”
The onlooking griffons muttered to themselves.
A shadow appeared on the arena floor.
“Chicks and gentlegriffs, ve present to you all…”
A soft whistling could be heard from above.
“Ze long fabled pride of ze griffon military and final opponent in ze varrior’s execution…”
A large, purple blur slammed into the arena floor, kicking up all of the loose dirt into a dark cloud. Two glowing, black, reptilian eyes could be seen within the cloud in front of a shadowed mass the size of a house.
“Zteelzcale the Just!”
Steelscale flapped his wings, dissipating the lingering dust screen.
Marwolaeth felt giddy for the first time since he had faced Luna in single combat.
“And just to give ze victim a fair chance…” Longrule chuckled. “Ze fatality law of ze arena is lifted for Ma’volaeth Pydredd! If ‘e can extract a surrender from Zteelzcale, ‘e will be freed!” The griffons all erupted in laughter.
“Marwolaeth… Pydredd…” Steelscale rumbled, his voice as deep and rough as a mountain slide. “Finally we meet.”
Marwolaeth snickered. “A dragon old enough to remember my name, eh? Or is the fear of The Hoard Killer no longer prevalent in dragon lore?”
Steelscale growled. “I will enjoy slowly tearing your limbs off for the insult you have paid dragon kind!”
“I have defeated Matron Skiika. How much better do you think you will fare?”
“Bah. Skiika was a fluke. I have heard the stories. You attacked her while her back was turned! And here, I hold the advantage. Your puny stick will not harm me!”
Marwolaeth glanced down at his dented, bent and broken staff. “Hmm. You have a point.” He poured magic into the remains of the staff. “I suppose that I will just have to…” The knight plunged the end of the staff into the ground. “Upgrade.”
Marwolaeth’s magic curled through the staff and twisted into the earth, reshaping the packed dirt. When he was satisfied, the mighty warrior heaved upwards, tearing a large chunk of compressed earth out of the ground, leaving a gaping hole in the floor of the coliseum. The boulder was shaped like the head of an intricate maul, covered in the same vines and runes that splayed over Marwolaeth himself.
Steelscale growled with the sound of grinding boulders and bolted forward, snapping at Marwoaeth, who ducked under his jaw and slammed his maul into the mass of scales and flesh, sending the dragon into the air.
And so it went. Steelscale swiped and bit at Marwolaeth, scoring his armour and nicking his skin, while the eldritch knight shattered scales and cracked bones while tenderizing the mountains of muscle just below the purple scales.
The griffons cheered for Steelscale and became louder and rowdier with each blow exchanged.
Finally, Marwolaeth grabbed a wing as it flapped downwards to propel a devastating tackle and tossed himself onto Steelscale’s back. The dragon attempted to roll over and crush the pest on his back, but Marwolaeth jumped, propelled high into the air by his magic.
Time seemed to still for a moment as Steelscale and the crowd realized what was to come.
Steelscale’s belly was exposed.
The hammer dropped.
Ribs broke.
Steelscale went limp.
The crowds were silent.
Steelscale heaved a hoarse, shuddering sigh as he muttered a phrase never before heard on the floor of the coliseum.
“I yield.”
“Unacceptable!” Princess Ironclaw, who had been silent up to this moment, screamed. “Kill ‘im! Make ‘im suffer, I order you!”
“He has won.” Steelscale croaked as Marwolaeth jumped off of the dragon’s chest. “He has earned his pardon.”
“Pah. Useless dragon. Guards! Kill zem!” Ironclaw screeched. King Longrule sat silent, the flames in his eyes flickering low.
“Steelscale.” Marwolaeth murmured as the dragon righted himself. “Might I have the honour of knowing your real name?”
“Dirvaka.” The dragon coughed, spitting blood from his mouth.
“A pleasure. Dirvaka, I propose an exchange. Aid me, and I shall ensure that you live.”
Griffons swarmed in the air over the coliseum, covered in ornate yet practical armour and armed to the beak.
“Deal.”
Marwolaeth laid a hand against Dirvaka’s hide and allowed the magic from within his stomach flow. The dragon felt his bones set and heal, and his internal wounds knitting together.
“Unfortunately, I can do little for your less serious injuries, but you will not die, nor be hindered in battle.”
“Many thanks.”
“You cannot ztop uz, Ma’volaeth!” Princess Ironclaw crowed as the legion of griffons swarmed over the coliseum.
“Hold, griffons!” Marwolaeth bellowed, his voice carrying across the city. “With my trial and punishment complete, I am bound by Celestia to kill no being that attacks me!” The griffons began to raise a cheer. “But that merely means that you will receive no mercy!
“You will be left as I left your princess and your elite guards! Crippled, dishonoured, humiliated! What will your chicks and mates do then, when your entire military becomes disabled, and your country becomes easy prey? For make no mistake, strike at me now, and it will be considered an act of war on Equestria, and I will make it my personal mission to hunt down and disable every single soldier in Cloudedge and beyond!
“Your entire kingdom will fall, merely because of the self-entitled brat you call a princess!”
The flocking griffons took pause, something Princess Ironclaw did not like. She cackled madly. “You can’t do anything to my army! Ve’ll kill you and move on to that pathetic little princess who ‘olds your leash! And maybe I’ll pay a personal visit to zose whores who you love so dearly!”
“Eat her.” Marwolaeth ordered.
“With pleasure.” Dirvaka licked his chops.
Ironclaw’s mad laughter was silenced with a swoop and a snap.
“If you fear death…” Marwolaeth addressed the assembled griffons. “Approach me and learn suffering. For if you do not, you will swiftly find that the one you know as Steelscale holds no such oaths as I!”
“Living flesh…” Dirvaka crooned. “It has been so long… I can feel my fire alighting once more!”
“Ah, I was wondering why you hadn’t used your breath against me.”
“They fed me carrion. They’re lucky that my stipend for retaining my position was so lucrative.”
“Stand down!” King Vanni Longrule roared at his soldiers. The griffons snapped their attention to their king before settling on the ground.
“Wise decision.” Marwolaeth smirked. “Know this! Equestria is under my protection! Attacks against it will bring the full brunt of my wrath upon your armies and your people! If that were to happen, I would not handicap myself with inferior weaponry nor dampers on my efficiency!”
A shiver ran through the crowd.
Slowly, the citizens and guards trickled out of the stadium as Dirvaka and Marwolaeth conversed.
“Ah, that was more fun than I’ve had in centuries!” Dirvaka snorted a plume of smoke from his nostrils. “Though I feel that my end of our exchange remains unfulfilled.”
“I agree.”
“Call me, Marwolaeth Pydredd, The Hoard Killer, and I will be at your side to assist you.”
“I would be honoured to have you with me in battle. I thank you for your assistance here as well. What will you do now?”
Dirvaka chuckled. “I will move my hoard to a new home. The griffons will no longer tolerate me here.”
“Yes, about that.” King Vanni Longrule strode up to the pair, trailed by a courier loaded with Marwolaeth’s armoury, which he promptly began to strap on.
“King Longrule.” Marwolaeth inclined his head.
“Vanni.” Dirvaka nodded.
“Pydredd. Dirvaka.” Longrule nodded to them both. “I feel as though I should apologize for my host’s daughter’s behaviour. As the firstborn, she would have been my next vessel had she been male. Alas, the comforts of being the eldest of the royal family with a real promise of life for her future went to her head.”
“I understand, and accept your apology. At least you know better than to tolerate war talk.”
Longrule chuckled. “Indeed, though if only I had summoned Tade earlier, things would be different.”
“And somewhat more exciting.”
“Nevertheless, you are right, Dirvaka, old friend. My subjects will not tolerate you here, anymore. Luckily, we have our old cave still intact.”
“Mm, yes, the one that holds your original body. That will work.”
“Additionally, I would appreciate keeping you on retainer, albeit with a somewhat reduced stipend.”
Dirvaka nodded. “That is acceptable. Let us hope that none of these griffons are still alive the next time I am called upon.”
Longrule chuckled. “Two or three generations should do it.”
The three ancient beings shared a collective chuckle before Marwolaeth turned to leave.
“I appreciate your people and you, Longrule. I truly hope that I will not be obliged to tear this kingdom down and, perhaps when Celestia releases me of my contract, you can charter my aid.”
“One can dream, Pydredd.”
The trip to Canterlot was just as uneventful as the trip away from it.
Marwolaeth realized, upon walking into the castle and being greeted with a party of heroic proportions that he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
Somehow, a mouthful of cake found itself in Marwolaeth’s jaw without the visor being lifted. He looked for potential culprits in the surrounding crush of ponies, passing up Twilight and Rarity as potential suspects, until his gaze landed on Pinkie.
Pinkie Pie just winked at Marwolaeth, giggling.