“Wake up pups!” Grimskull walked, banging loudly on the door as he barged into the longhouse, looking around at us all with a look of glee on his face. There was a resounding moan from all of us as we blearily opened our eyes, moving far too slowly for the Sergeant.
“Did you not hear me? I said up you lazy buggers! Now!” He roared.
I instantly scrabbled out of bed, standing up straight beside the rest of the Hoof as Grimskull stared down at us with an uncomfortably gleeful leer on his face. Whatever was happening today, it was going to be hard.
“Well then fillies, I hope you got some rest, because I doubt you’ll see beds again for a while,” Grimskull sneered, before turning towards the door. “Get your gear ready everything you’ll need.”
“Ready for what sir?” Summit asked, drawing a groan of exasperation from Gale and I.
“Don’t ask questions,” I hissed, waiting for Grimskull to lash out or roar at us.
Surprisingly, the Sergeant didn’t do anything, laughing as he exited the longhouse, leaving the four of us looking between each other in shock and confusion at the placidness with which Grimskull greeted the question. That was not like him.
“Whatever he has planned for us, it can’t be good,” Gale spoke softly, gathering up her weapons and slipping her cloak on.
“Agreed,” I nodded, following her lead. “Do you think this is the final test he’s always going on about?”
“Probably,” Summit nodded. “And to make Grimskull happy, it must mean it going to be harder than hiding on an ice flat.”
“Well that’s probably where we’re going then,” Grafter scowled. “I’m the oldest now that Knell’s dead, so I’m in charge.”
“Who says?” Summit scoffed.
“I do,” Grafter growled, advancing towards Summit. “Want to make something of it?”
“Yeah,” Summit growled back. “Why should we follow you? Gale or Hoarfrost would be better than you at leading.”
“The runt?” Grafter scoffed, staring at me. “Yes, because he really showed us that he was a great leader yesterday, didn’t he?”
“That wasn’t his fault Grafter,” Gale snapped. “I’m not following you.”
“You will do as I say, or I’ll beat you till you do,” Grafter snarled.
“Enough!” I roared. “Fucks sake we don’t even know what we’re doing and you’re arguing. Grimskull will allocate a leader, not us, so shut up.”
With that, I stormed from the room, my axe tapping softly against my flank and my crossbow gently swaying on the holster between my shoulder blades. I quickly checked that my headband was working, picking up a few stones before dropping them once more and following after Grimskull.
Eventually, the others joined me, and the four of us approached Grimskull and the ten other ponies who were now with him. Like the Sergeant, they were all well-armed and armoured in the same thick metal skin, covering their bodies completely, while leather face masks covered most of their heads, leaving only their eyes exposed.
“Storms whipping up pups,” Grimskull chuckled, pulling on his own face mask. “Looks like this is going to be even harder for you four. Let’s move it out!”
“Where are we going sir?” Summit tried again as we set off after Grimskull, the other Arctic Wolves forming a guard around us.
“Into the wilds Summit, that’s all you need to know,” Grimskull replied, before walking out of the sheltered area the training camp was set in and marching into the same storm that had been raging the night before.
We marched for what felt like hours in almost complete silence, the only sound that accompanied us being the howl of the wind as it whipped around us and the crunch of the snow underneath our hooves.
Suddenly, Grimskull stopped, turning to face the four of us, his eyes gleaming as they flitted across each of our faces, before finally he spoke.
“Well pups, this is it, you’re final test, the hardest trial you will have faced so far. You’re to wait here for ten minutes, then you may move off. When you do, you’ll have two goals. One, find and kill, and Arctic Wolf.”
“As a team?” Gale asked, shivering slightly, before pulling her cloak tighter around herself.
“Alone,” Grimskull said firmly. “We will know, don’t think you can cheat. Once it’s done, you must make your way to your new home, to the Aesir. You’ll walk towards the highest peak in this valley, and you’ll find the true citadel. Come back with a wolf corpse, or don’t come back at all. If you freeze, nopony will remember you. Come back, and you’ll have passed.”
With that, Grimskull and the other ponies set off at a gallop, disappearing off into the storm in mere seconds, their hoof prints quickly disappearing as the storm spread snow across them once again, leaving no sign that they were ever there.
The ten minutes seemed to take an eternity to pass as Gale softly counted out the seconds as they ticked past, marking the time, and making sure we followed Grimskull’s instructions. I didn’t know how he was supposedly going to know if we cheated, but I didn’t want to find out. I was not going to risk wasting months of training because I was impatient.
“Five hundred and ninety eight…Five hundred and ninety nine….Six hundred,” Gale finally finished, before looking at the rest of us. “That’s ten minutes.”
“I guess…I guess this is goodbye,” Summit said softly. “I hope I see you all again at the Aesir.”
“Likewise,” I nodded, before shooting Grafter a glance. “With one possible exception.”
“The feelings mutual runt,” Grafter snorted, before turning and marching off quickly, drawing his crossbow and axe as he went.
“Good luck Gale, Summit,” I nodded, drawing my own weapons.
“You too Hoarfrost,” Gale nodded. “Don’t die, all you’ve got to do is kill a wolf. Your father did it, I know you can as well.”
I nodded, letting out a shaky breath, before trotting off into the storm, losing sight of the others, and like that, I was alone.
I shivered as I looked around myself, pulling my surprisingly warm cloak tighter to my body, while keeping an eye out for anything that could help me in my trials. It was cold and it was dark and I was alone, and as I looked out across the freezing landscape and the titanic peaks that rose up in front of me, I realised just how easy it would be for me to die here. For the first time in months, I was really and truly on my own. As far as I knew, there was nopony around for a hundred leagues.
I didn’t have a specific destination or search pattern to find a lone Arctic Wolf, nor did I know properly where I was. All I knew was that the tallest mountain I could see was right in front of me, and if I kept walking, I would eventually reach the Aesir. All I had to do was find a Wolf between here and there.
Oh yeah, and kill it. That was going to be fun.
It had taken five of us to kill a baby Hydra, and even then we’d lost Knell. I knew that Arctic Wolves were just as deadly, and they were faster, especially the older ones. Grimskull was right, this was going to be the hardest trial we’d faced, but it was also our final one before training was complete, and that kept me going.
My ears suddenly stood on end as I heard the faint crunch of snow, whirling around to check behind me in the dark. The storm may have died down, and the snow had stopped falling, but it still wasn’t easy to hear over the wind, even if it was less than before.
I slowly began to circle around a snow covered rock, still listening to the crunch of snow, before the crunching stopped right behind me. I froze, ready to whirl around to face my attacker.
“Well, looks like tonight is my lucky night after all,” Grafter whispered softly, his voice sending even more shivers down my spine.
I instantly turned to face him, jumping back as I stared up at my old bully. I slowly tightened my magical grip on the haft of my axe as I aimed my crossbow in the general direction of Grafter, not quite pointing it at him, but it wouldn’t take any time at all for me to bring it up and fire, and from this distance, even I couldn’t miss. Then again, neither could Grafter.
“What are you doing Grafter?” I asked slowly, tensing up as I saw his weapons readied just like mine.
“Well, I was searching for a wolf,” he sneered softly. “But then I found a much nicer prey to go after. You made me look bad runt.”
“You made yourself look bad by being an idiot,” I shot back.
“An idiot am I?” he snarled, before diving forward, catching me off guard as he knocked me to the ground, sending my weapons spinning across the ice out of my grip, before he rested a hoof on my neck, pushing down lightly. “I may be an idiot, but I’m not the one who pissed off somepony they shouldn’t have.”
“You’re…an idiot,” I managed through gritted teeth, trying to take in as much air as I could. “Grimskull….said he’s…watching.”
“Sure he is,” Grafter smirked, looking around. “Does he look like he’s watching?”
“Go…to…Tartarus,” I spat.
“You know, I’d love to kill you myself,” Grafter pressed his loaded crossbow against my head as he spoke, grabbing hold of mine as well, slipping it into the empty holster on his back. “One flick of the trigger, and I could do it.”
He laughed, before the horn atop his head glowed brighter, and I felt my own sheaths sliding off my body, before strapping onto Grafters, sliding in next to his own. For a moment, I really though he was going to pull the trigger, and I realised that there was nothing I could do about it. I closed my eyes, before I felt him pull the crossbow away, and glanced up to see him slipping it back into its holster.
“But as fun as that sounds, I don’t think I will. I think I’ll just leave you out here and watch as you fail. You’re a fuck up Hoarfrost, you always were, and you always will be.”
“You’ll pay…for this,” I snarled, only to find his axe at my neck.
“No I won’t,” he smirked, before he slammed his axe down on the haft of my axe, splitting the wooden handle in half. “Have fun runt.”
And with that, he was gone, galloping off into the night as I coughed and wheezed, trying to get my breath back, before crawling towards my axe. Grafter had really done a number on the things, and it now lay in two pieces before me, the snapped handle and the bladed head. I could still use it, but I knew that surrounding an object completely in magic lessened its cutting power and impact strength, which is why the axe had a handle in the first place.
Snarling, I grabbed hold of the two parts of the axe, reasoning that the haft could at least be good for firewood as I headed onwards. I didn’t have any possibility of just stopping my trial, meaning the only way I could make sure Grafter got his due was to get to the Aesir, and the only way to get into the Aesir was to have a wolf corpse with me.
“I’ll make you pay for this Grafter,” I snarled, before setting off again, making sure not to follow the hoof prints Grafter had left.
I forced myself to put one hoof in front of the other as I trudged wearily onward's, knowing that soon I would have to find a place to rest for the night and hunker down. Even if I had an perfect knowledge of the land around me, travelling in darkness in these mountains would most likely prove suicidal. There was always the possibility of missing something, of stepping on a patch of gravel or ice, of stumbling into an unseen crevasse. Besides, at night the temperature would soon drop even further and I had no wish to test the heat-retaining abilities of my cloak any more than I absolutely had to.
One thing I’d learnt over the past months, alongside all the fighting and hunting skill was that survival in these circumstances was mostly a matter of doing nothing to provoke fate. Rather like playing a game of checkers, the trick was to keep as many of the odds in your favour as you could. This meant not taking risks unless you had to. Even if you were strong and capable and confident, as I now felt with the skills imparted to me by Grimskull and his harsh beatings, a slight mishap would be enough to end your life under these harsh conditions. Even a minor accident, a sprained hoof, a twisted leg, a minor ailment could be enough.
I knew from experience that such an accident would bring weariness, numbing the mind, sapping the strength, making the toughest warrior easy prey to other dangers. I had seen it time and time again back in Fitjar, some headstrong warrior who thought he was strong enough to push through an injury would push himself too far, and that was it. I’d seen warriors and hunters die of things that colts should have been able to survive, and I softly made a promise that I wouldn’t fall prey to the same hubris.
I looked around for a place to rest and saw that near one of the rocky canyon walls was a scrawny tree, its trunk protecting a small indentation with an overhanging ledge from the worst of the wind. Deciding that this was as good a shelter as I was likely to find tonight, I walked towards it, lifting my axe head up to the tree before starting to hack at some of the branches.
I quickly managed to bring down a lot of detritus from the branches, collecting twigs, needles and cones for starting a fire, as well as a few longer branches to keep it going through the night. Glancing back up, I saw another branch, longer, straighter, narrower than the ones I had collected for fuel, and I carefully cut it down, laying it in the rocky indent that would be my bed tonight, before getting to work on my fire.
It took me a long time to finally get the fire started, striking the axe head against a small rock, directing the resulting sparks into the pile of needles and cones. The needles were damp and in no condition to catch light, and the pine cones seemed to just smoulder rather than light. I did eventually manage to get the fire lit though, and slowly began to build it up, until I had a small blaze going.
Sitting close to the warmth of the fire, I pulled the long stick towards me, bending it softly to check if it was as strong as it looked, before laying it back down and straightening out my tail. Sighing, I began to cut through the course hair, making sure I had several long strands, making my tail visibly shorter as I went. Next, I began to wrap the hair together, making each individual strand part of a much stronger cord, leaving me with enough of it to properly lash the axe head to the end of the stick. It wasn’t strong, nor was it pretty, but it would do the job of allowing me to hit something with the axe head properly, even if it was just once before my hair snapped and the axe head fell off once more.
Eventually, I had to admit to myself that I was simply too tired to stay up, and began to make a thin carpet of needles and twigs that were useless for the fire across the rocky ground that would serve as my bed tonight. It didn’t help much, but it kept at least some of my body heat from leaking away into the rock, and when combined with the fire, allowed me just enough warmth to drift off to sleep. My last thoughts being of how much I missed the hay back at the longhouse, and of Gale.
I awoke in darkness to a bone-chilling cold, my entire body shivering uncontrollably as I looked at the last smouldering flames of my fire. That in itself told me that I hadn’t been asleep for as long as I hoped, but it was at least enough time for me to recuperate a little bit. Kicking some snow over the remnants of the fire, I set off once more, the makeshift axe held close to my body as I walked, before I came to a halt, my heart seizing in my chest as I recognised my surroundings.
Breaking into a full gallop, I quickly made my way to the other side of the forest, not caring about the small cuts I got on the way, finally seeing what lay on the other side.
“No,” I whispered softly, slowing down to a trot as I walked towards the burnt ruins of a tiny village that at one time had been my home.
I began to walk towards Fitjar, stepping over the ash and mounds of snow I knew were corpses, making my way through the burnt gates and heading towards the longhouse that I’d lived in since my father had disappeared. The house was remarkably well intact compared to the condition of the rest of the building, and I pushed my way inside, the door showering me with ash as it creaked open.
Memories came rushing back to me, and I was forced to steady myself against the door frame before continuing, running a hoof through the ash on the floor as I searched for something, anything, that would be useful right now. At the very least the building offered me protection from the elements. I could probably spend the rest of the night here if I wanted to.
Nodding to myself at that thought, I pulled the door closed once more, before curling up in the ash of my past, drifting back to sleep once more, trying to force my eyes closed. Just as I began to slip away from consciousness, I heard a low sound, and I opened my eyes once more, unsure whether the sound I had just heard was something from the shadow world of my dreams or from the burnt remains of what had once been my whole world. I didn’t have to wait long to find out, as the howl sounded again, bringing back uncomfortable memories of when we had faced the Hydra. This wasn’t like that howl however, this one was almost mournful, a cry of unutterable hunger and pain and weariness.
I knew the creature that made that sound though, and unlike Summit, I knew deep down that I wasn’t wrong. Snatching up my axe, I crept out of the house, sniffing the air experimentally as I once again made my way through the alleys of Fitjar, this time searching for a wolf, not running from one.
My tail, or what was left of it, began to twitch as I heard the faint scraping of talon on wood, before I peered around the corner, catching sight of the creature that had made the noise. Instantly, I began sizing up my foe, taking in the colour of its fur, the wounds it already carried, and any side of its body it seemed to favour, anything that could be of use to me when I went in for the kill.
The wolf was old and wounded badly, and it would almost be a sad sight if I didn’t have to kill it, and it wasn’t in the ruins that its kind caused. Its fur was a dark grey colour, flecks of white breaking up its mangy hide, and I could clearly make out the head of a spear embedded in its side. The wound must have been old, as the skin had actually healed around the spear, but it was clear that it was still causing the beast pain every time it moved, was limping a little and favouring its right front foot.
Even it its wounded state, the wolf looked deadlier than most of the other creatures I had seen when they had attacked Fitjar. Perhaps once, before the spear had been driven into it, it had been the pack leader, but now, thanks to its wound, it had lost its struggle against younger more fearsome wolves and had been driven out from the pack, staying in the ruins of Fitjar out of necessity. Even a beast such as this would realise that it would be easy picking out on the ice with its injuries.
Even as I took all of this in, it appeared to notice me for the first time, turning to face me as it opened its mouth and let out another long lonely howl of rage and hatred, and then it sprang, diving towards me faster than a wounded animal had the right to.
Reacting instantly, I dived to the side, years of Grafter trying the same thing in these very streets finally paying off as the creature soared over my head, slamming through a burnt wall, before getting back up and leaping at me once more.
Roaring, I brought my axe up, spinning the weapon around and ramming the metal head deep into the creature’s neck. Blood flowed where the fur parted, before the wolf turned away, my makeshift hair cord snapping as it tumbled backwards, leaving me with the branch and it with another weapon stuck in its hide.
Not wanting to give the beast any time to recover, and finding myself lacking any weapons other than a stick, I leapt at the creature, wrapping my forehooves around its neck as I used its own momentum to wrench it off balance, allowing me to begin squeezing. The wolf howled, snapping its jaws as it fought my grip, but I held on, knowing full well that if those jaws managed to find purchase on my flesh, I would be finished.
For a moment, I thought I would be able to wrestle the wolf into submission, and could almost see my victory, before I realized that my confidence was far too premature. With a strength that I didn’t think anything that size could possess, the wolf flung me aside, cable-like bundles of muscles bulging beneath its fur as it slammed me down onto the hard floor, knocking the wind out of me.
Blood erupted from the back of my head as it slammed into a rock, cuts opening up along my legs and side as my world began to spin and ring, before the beast dived at me once again, pinning me beneath its weight and snapping at my neck. Just in time, I managed to grab hold of the tree branch, smacking it into the wolfs jaw and pushing its head aside just enough for it to miss, but losing my last weapon in the blind attack.
Shoving my hooves up, I managed to catch the wolf’s head as it lunged for me again, holding it up by the neck with everything I had as it’s jaws snapped mere inches away from my muzzle, getting closer as it’s bulk began to tell on my muscles. With the weight of the beast on my chest, I felt the breath slowly being forced out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath as lights danced before in front of my eyes. I snarled, looking around for anything I could use as a weapon, before I remembered that while there may not have been a weapon to hoof that I could still pick up, there were two weaknesses I could exploit on the wolf itself.
Screaming in panic and rage, knowing that if this didn’t work I’d be finished, I took one of my hooves off the wolfs neck, before slamming it into the spear head in its side, forcing the weapon deeper and breaking open the old wound.
The wolf let out a howl, staggering back just enough to allow me to slip away from it. Blood seeped from the side of my quarry, but it wasn’t beaten yet. Once again, I dived at the wolf, slamming my hooves into the spear head again, before jumping onto its back, wrapping my forehooves around its neck as I was again tried to throttle it.
Its breaths began to come in short sharp blasts as my attacks began to take hold of it, but I wasn’t taking any chances this time, and quickly lit my headbands horn, ripping the axe head from the wolfs hide, before ramming it into the creatures snapping jaw. Blood spurted from around my weapon, before I pulled it out once more, slamming it again and again into the wolfs warm flesh, blood now covering the snow around us.
The wolf collapsed, throwing me from its back, but it was finished, howling loudly as it slowly bled to death. Pushing myself to my hooves, I looked at the stricken beast, before sighing and moving closer. No matter what it may or may not have done, both to Fitjar and so me, it didn’t deserve to have its agony drawn out any more than necessary. Bringing the blood covered axe head up, I placed it on the wolfs neck, placing a hoof on its shoulder in a final attempt to calm the creature.
The wolfs one remaining eye slowly managed to focus on me, conveying the pain the beast was in right now. Nodding once, I pushed the axe head forward into its neck, before dragging it sideways, slicing through the fur, hide, windpipe and arteries with ease. Blood sprayed out of the final cut, covering my hooves in the crimson liquid as the beast weakly thrashed.
I forced myself to stay beside the beast, watching as it finally kicked its last, its movements becoming feeble, before ceasing all together. For some reason, I felt a certain amount of respect for the creature as I sat beside its corpse, its blood slowly soaking my fur and the ground around us.
Suddenly, the magnitude of what I had just done hit me, and I staggered to my hooves, my head throbbing painfully as I moved. I had killed an Arctic Wolf, securing me a place with the legion, but more than that, I had finally proved all the neigh-sayers wrong. I wasn’t a weakling, I wasn’t pathetic, and I had finally lived up to the name of my father.
I felt a soft tingling on my flanks, and looked down, fully expecting to see another bleeding wound there that I would have to address, but was instead greeted by a much more unexpected sight. On my previously blank flank rested the image of a wolf, the black outline standing out from my orange coat as the wolf that now emblazoned my flanks howled at the moon. Looking upwards, I saw that the moon was indeed high in the sky now, shining down on me as I stood over the corpse of the wolf.
Raising up onto my rear legs, I let out my own howl, mimicking my new warrior mark as I poured everything I had left into the wordless victory cry, before finally collapsing to the floor, managing to crawl over to the corpse and forcing my way underneath it for warmth, before finally passing out, blood staining the rest of me as I slept.