//------------------------------//
// The Canyon of Horror 
// Story: Perseverance of the Ancients 
// by The Bourgeoisie Bear 
//------------------------------//

    With nothing better to do, Twilight leaned against Charmer as the carriage rocked back and forth, letting sleep tempt her. The human showed similar signs of drowsiness. Spike was already asleep while the bodyguard lazily looked out the window.

    Up ahead was a mountain-pass, a canyon that stretched a mile long, maybe even two. Even from here, the frozen landscape looked intimidating. With caves like an open mouth, and icicles like jagged teeth, the path looked intimidating, but the griffin seemed to know what they were doing.

    With some effort, Twilight opened her eyes and looked outside. She couldn't shake that feeling of isolation, despite having Spike and Charmer with her; even Accordance seemed reliable.

    Twilight yawned, leaned her head against Charmer, and fell asleep. Meanwhile, the canyon swallowed the convoy up like an open grave.

    As the carriage continued to rock on the uneven ground, Accordance grew weary. His eyes were now heavy. There were caves, cliffs, giant boulders; so many places to hide. After a while it just became futile to look for danger. Threats could hide anywhere.

    Though they were tired, for the day was nearing its end, the guard's eyes noticed a few peculiar things. A few bones, a few splashes of frozen blood. He looked around. It could have been just a few animals. This place looked like the perfect hunting ground for wolves. The entrances were few, plenty of hiding spots for concealment. There were some paths that led up to the higher ground of the canyon. So it wasn't necessary to jump down to get to the migrating prey.

    It was highly unlikely that wolves or any predators would try anything with them, too many griffin out in the open. Too many unfamiliar sights, but there were much more dangerous things inhabiting these hunting ground.

    For a second, Accordance caught a glimpse of a figure way up high. A cloak blowing in the wind. A silhouette looking down below, just watching them from a difference. Scanning through the snowfall, Accordance attempted to see it again, but failed.

    Leaning back on his seat, Accordance began to question what he saw. Was it just his imagination, or a sign of something much worse?

    The carriage continued onward, taking a left, going down the path of the canyon, while the figure up high watched. His alert eyes never losing sight of his mission. He spoke through his thick platted helmet, making his voice sound more gruff. “Finally here? I was beginning to worry, Twilight.” The stallion did an instinctive shake, getting the snow off of him. The cold gale that blew through the canyon didn’t affect him. “I wonder how this story would have played out?” The stallion chuckled as he hopped down, and began trotting down the canyon, staying on a much higher elevation than the carriage. “If the prophecy is reliable, then this wouldn't of been Twilight's time. Hmmm... This would be a lot easier if I knew who she was traveling with.”

    Down below, Accordance decided that what he saw earlier was just a rock shaped like a well-built stallion with broad shoulders, and that there was nothing to worry about. Though the size and shape made him feel like it wasn't a stallion, but maybe a dangerous animal. A part of the figure had wavered in the breeze, like a ridiculously long mane, or perhaps a piece of tapestry.

    Mulling over that for a while didn't help things.

    The carriage hit a small rock, bumping the carriage up and down, causing the guards adrenaline to spike, already on edge. Accordance sighed, attempting to calm himself down. “AETTUAK!” The voice made the guard's heart skip a beat, for it was said in the most vile of tongues, it spoke three times in unison, by the same creature, each one more horrible than the last.
    
    A griffin up ahead cried out in agony. Scrambling for his weapon, Accordance managed to put his helmet on in time, for a spear penetrated their carriage and scraped his head armor. The guard cried out in pain when the Equestrian designed spear banged on his head, but he was otherwise unharmed. The others woke up in a haze of terror, before Twilight even had time to register what was going on, her human had taken hold of her, and with a quick motion, busted open the door and jumped out, landing on his side with his master in his arms.

    Instinctively, Twilight held on tight to her human's forearm. As she laid on her back, looking back at her carriage, another spear broke through the vehicle, right where Twilight was sitting a moment ago. Charmer saved my life... Before Twilight could fully contemplate this, the human held onto her tight and rolled in the snow, another spear landed where they were just one second ago.

    Getting to his feet, Charmer took the spear in one hand as he carried Twilight in the other. The scene was worse than bad, it would end in a complete annihilation in just a few minutes. Above them, imperfect humans rained spears and throwing axes, and the griffin were getting torn up before they could even draw their weapons. Suddenly there was an explosion, turning a human into a fiery, screaming mass of horror.

    “Atch he ide!” cried the monstrous voice again.

    At their level, King Viggo was just getting out of his carriage in a panic. “R-Regroup on me!” he stuttered before whipping out his claymore.

    “Take cover!” cried Alf. “They're strong on our left flank!”

    By now Accordance had forced his way out of the carriage, despite the spear that nearly boxed him inside. Landing on his belly, he took sight of Twilight. When the slave ran for a bolder, the guard took out his sword in mouth, and ran after the armed human holding his Lord's sister.

    Charmer slid into cover while dodging another spear

    Up above, three balls of magical blue flame exploded, cooking to death two unlucky humans.

    Down inside the canyon, the griffin were fighting for all their worth, taking cover from the ambush and firing some well placed arrows at the monsters.

    Accordance stopped in front of the slave. “Twilight, are you alright?” He gave the human an untrustworthy, truly hateful look.

    Twilight, put her hoof on Charmer's hand and looked at him pleadingly, and a bit reluctantly, the human released his grip on her. She looked back at her guard. “I'm fine, but we have to-”

    Before Twilight could finish that sentence, the carriage she was traveling in, exploded in a hideous mass of black smog, the very fabric of the world seemed to shake around the black sandy mist. In a second Twilight realized the signs of black magic, it was a horrifying development, but it paled in comparison to Twilight's next realization. “Spike!”

    Bolting too quickly for her slave to catch her, Twilight attempted to try to save her friend, but Accordance caught her. “Twilight, NO!” He held onto her, not letting her run through the battlefield that had dark magic raining down on it.

    Above the canyon, a lone figure could be seen exchanging fire between the humans and himself.

    The slave stood to his full height, and spoke, in near perfect Equis, “INCOMING! FROM OUR REAR!”

    All the griffin turned to Twilight's human, who was screaming in Equis. None of them actually thought of following his instructions, but when they turned around to see what he was doing, they saw anyway. Three muscle bound humans were running down the trail towards them.

    The human turned to his master for a split second - “Twilight, stay!” - and then took off.

    Meanwhile, Garth, a junior officer, who had been pulling Twilight's carriage, was tangled in his harness. Despite the dark magic explosion, Garth was very much alive, as was Spike who was right next to him. Still conscious from having been blown out of the vehicle, dragon scales had its uses after all.
    
    The griffin was struggling to free himself from his harness and the debris on top of him. He managed to push a blood soaked wheel off of himself. Looking at where the fight was worse, he cursed to himself, “Shit! I have to get up!” As he forced himself up on all fours, a human's shadow fell on him, a vicious snarl rang in his ears, and he felt claws dig into his back. Garth let out a yell as he felt his last moments dawn, but before the human could rip him to shreds, the monster grunted as he was knocked off.

    Turning to the hideous creature, he saw that it had been killed by a spear that was jammed right below it's third arm. Beyond the sound of screaming, and exploding dark magic, was the crunching sound of snow being stepped on by a large biped, right behind Garth. Turning slowly, he caught sight of Twilight's slave, looking the hurt griffin over for a moment. Not seeming to take much interest in him, the human knelt down over Spike.

    The dragon mumbled in pain, barely even awake. After checking up on him, the human went over to the other griffin that had been driving their vehicle, this griffin was very much dead, with half his lower body missing. Without showing much remorse, the human took the claymore from the corpse, took Spike in one arm, and ran back the way he came. Beyond confused, Garth watched him run away, then seeing three savage humans about to hit them from behind, went down the same path Charmer ran down. “Ah shit!”

    At this point, Accordance lost Twilight, due to her teleportation spell and was running toward the black magic engulfed carriage. “Spike!” She charged up a spell, not acting blindly, though desperate not to lose a friend, and panicking she still had a better idea of what was billowing out of the earth than anyone else here.

    “Twilight, don't!” Her guard continued chasing her.

    Casting the spell, Twilight had limited success, much of the dark magic was dissipating, but still much remained. “Spike, where are you?”

    “Twilight,” called the human slowing down to a halt, with a claymore in one hand, and her friend in the other.

    “Spike.” Twilight pulled her assistant out of her slave's grasp, after doing a quick magical scan of his body, she sighed. Twilight, with appreciation for Charmer's heroism, looked up to him with teary eyes. “Thank-”

    “Incoming!” cried an injured griffin that came from the same direction as Twilight's slave.

    Three heavily armored humans running on all fours came down the path, closing in on them. The slave took his wide stance, sword in arms, with his cloak still covering most of his body and his trousers stretching tight. The griffin went to his two back legs, with his wings balancing him. Accordance got in front of Twilight and took his sword in mouth.

    Despite looking like it would be a one on one fight for them all, they all took a few small steps back, as the monsters came charging at them. These things were huge, easily topping five hundred pounds, only Charmer recognized the legion's plated armor on them. As they neared the beast took to two feet taking out huge two handed weapons out, one massive medieval mace, the other a giant axe, the last a huge two headed flail.

    Before they met, a magical shot went over Accordance's shoulder and hit the axe wielding beast head on, shattering his helmet into many pieces. Twilight had fired a powerful blast that could have killed any normal human ten times over, and she managed a head shot with it. However, the crazed human, with fragments of steel in his face, just gave Twilight a look of pure malice, an intelligent look that said 'I'll get you back for that.'

    And with that, they closed the distance. A flurry of attacks ensued as they tried to hold their ground, but when the axe wielder swung in a wide arc, the slave held with all his strength, which was considerable, and though he blocked correctly, he didn't have enough weight to hold it, and was thrown to the side, also knocking over Accordance as he did so. “Stick up his FLANK!” Charmer screamed as he got back up to his feet, helping Accordance back up as well, feeling bad for knocking him down accidentally.

    Luckily for Twilight and her friends, the other griffin came to their rescue. Several arrows hit the axe wielder, who staggered but shrugged them off.

    Twilight fired, hitting the monster in the face again, it was a solid hit, blood ran down his face, and fell to one knee. Seeing a chance for a break, Twilight ran for cover, placing Spike down in a safe crevice in a large boulder that ran the length of the canyon.

    The battle at the front died down, the humans were retreating, but the three heavily armored monsters who flanked the rear apparently never got the message, and were still putting up a fight. Out of nowhere Viggo took flight and managed to ram his sword through the back of the blinded axe wielder, forcing and holding his victim down to the ground.

    Alf, the largest of the griffin, the one that had been helping Twilight with her luggage, came down roaring from the sky, breaking through the armor of the mace wielder. The human cried out in pain, and then again in rage, knocking Alf away with a strong backhand, while the human wielding the two headed flail got lucky, and bashed a griffin's skull through, sending fragments of his head raining down on his comrades.

    Twilight fired three shots in quick succession at the flail wielder, all three making their marks, solid body shots.

    Thane Olaf, exploiting the opening Twilight made, took off the human's head, sending it rolling down the canyon, while at the same time, the mace wielder managed to get King Viggo down to the ground, holding him there with a heavy foot, while he wound up a killing blow, raising the spiked club up above his head.

    Then in a concentrated blast of magic, his head was taken off, with nothing but dancing blue flame left on the human's shoulders. With the battle now over, everyone looked up seeing the figure above the canyon that had taken the shot. He stood there, smoke trailing off his horn, in his crusader armor, a gift from the cardinals of Broncovy.

    They all stood there, not sure who should make the introduction with the stallion that appeared out of nowhere and fired at the humans. Alf got up to his paws, still impaired from the muscle bound human's back hand, the monster had been wearing grieves after all. The crusader's cloak was billowing in the wind as he looked down upon them. As the griffin helped up their king, the stallion chuckled, then spoke, “Good to see that you are well, Twilight Sparkle.”

    Confused, she swayed a bit. Who is this guy? I don't think I've ever met him, she thought.

    “I never would never have imagined that, that human would have become so loyal to you. He seemed so dangerous and mad in his cage...”

    All the griffin turned to Twilight, checking to see if he spoke the truth. “Octavo!”

    The stallion jumped down from the steep ledge, landing in a soft pile of snow. “Yes, it is I. Glad to see that you're-”

    Twilight caught him off, nearly knocking him on his back with her hug. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to treat you so badly.” Her eyes began to water. Octavo's hooves were wide, far apart, completely speechless; his mind was scrambled. “I just thought that you were some mindless zealot that didn't care about anyone else.” A tear ran down Twilight's cheek. “I'm so sorry.”

    With Twilight pressed against him, his helmet became cumbersome, not sure what else to do, he undid a strap and tossed it aside in the snow. Revealing his confused, light blue eyes, and sapphire blue mane that had become unkempt in the headgear. “T-Twilight...”

    The griffin were checking their wounded, the human had walked off somewhere, and her bodyguard took a few steps closer, but kept his eyes averted.

    “You saved us,” she spoke in a whisper now. “They may not admit it but you did.”

    Octavo blinked. “No, Twilight. I didn't save you this time,” he spoke with such confidence, it made her look up at him, her tears now visible. “You're selling yourself short, you would have found a way to live. I promise you that. Don't ask me how I know that, but just know that I do.” Though very uncomfortably, he moved his hooves closer and held her, a nice looking smile gracing his almost middle age features.

    Twilight looked away. “B-Back at Canterlot I just stood there, like a coward.”

    “Everypony is afraid of something, during sometime when I was away, you conquered your fear of humans, and you fought very bravely today.”

    Now returning, the human walked up behind them, with a weary friend in his arms. “Spike, okay?” the human asked.

    “Yeah,” Twilight told him, backing away from Octavo, ending the hug. “Spike's going to be just fine. His dragon scales are growing harder with age.”

    The champion looked at the human, raising an eyebrow. “So... you taught him how to speak.”

    “Yes-yes-yes,” Accordance complained, with a roll of his eyes, “there's a talking, muscle bound, sword wielding human walking around, get used to it world.”

    “...I was merely-”

    Before Octavo could finish that sentence, Thane Olaf was already on him, trotting up to him. Keeping a pissed off demeanor as he did so. “All right, now that we got all the hugs and feelings out-of-the-way. You and I need to talk.” Twilight shied away, not understanding where this hostility was coming from. “Tell me before I lose my temper, what business does a stallion have here in the middle of nowhere. Don't you think it's a little convenient that you were here to kill off all the humans?”

    With a raised eyebrow, Octavo watched this angry griffin, completely unfazed. “Firstly,” he began, “I didn't kill off all the humans, most of them ran away. I saw the unholy abomination that was casting dark magic down here make a run for it, with my own eyes.” They all looked around. “Secondly, it is not a coincidence that I am here. I was ordered by my master, the God Travafe, to be here at this time. I was ordered to intervene.”

    Olaf gave the stallion a snarl. “Don't get smart with me god worshiper, or I'll send you to hell. I know that there is more to this than you are letting on.”

    Octavo let out a laugh. “Do I seem so bad to you? That I am worthy of hell? But... even if I was sent to hell, it would just spit me out, the God of Death owes me one for sending him so many fresh souls.”

    His beak dropped, his eyes narrowed, he reeled. Olaf didn't believe what he heard, he took a step back.

    Limping to them, Viggo spoke, “Olaf stop harassing the champion, he did good for us.”

    Octavo nodded. “Thank you sir.”

    “You'll be rewarded” -King Viggo took another pained step, a limp, closer to them- “if you can take me to my kingdom. I'd ask for your assistance.”

    Olaf spun around. “You can't be serious sir, this stallion comes out of nowhere and conveniently saves us from those humans, and now he's being accepted by us?! Don't you think that-”

    “Oh shove it with your damn anti-equine notions,” Viggo barked, “I am NOT in the mood right now, Olaf.”

    The thane was visibly embarrassed, having being called out for his secret advice to Viggo in front of everyone, in front of equine even worse.

    Alf dropped by his warlord's right side. “Sir, I have my report ready.”

    Viggo sighed. “Let's hear it.”

    “Well, we lost Olle, Isak, Albin, Simon, Malte, and Felix.”
    
    “Shit,” Viggo cursed.

    As Alf finished his report, a griffin, wounded, dragged himself closer to them. “Damn you, Alf. I'm still alive dammit!”
    
    “Oh shit! Sorry Felix, I didn't see you there.” Officer Alf made his way to his injured comrade, and began tending to his wounds.

    “Riiiiiiiiight...” Viggo went on, turning to the champion. “So will you be able to help us?”

    “That was my intention all along.” Octavo looked around. “The tribal humans will surely regroup and attack again if we remain here, most likely at night fall.”

    Viggo looked back at the stallion, catching his drift. “Then we better not stay here for long.”

    “That would be wise.” He looked onward. “Even by hoof, Geneva is less than an hour trot from here.” Right as he finished speaking, Travafe sent him a vision, not of the future, but of a present that could have been. On the corpses of friends and foes alike in the canyon of horror, the two strongest stood as the sole survivors of the human attack, a triumphant thane, who would soon become the elected inheritor of the Griffin Kingdom, and a weeping Twilight, completely distraught over the death of her friends. Octavo felt relief when the vision ended, knowing that fate was changing for the better, hopefully it would make a difference in the end.

    “Alright.” Viggo sat down, affirming a point the champion forgot he made due to the vision, as Garth brought his king medical equipment. “We'll leave as soon as we're able.”

    Octavo looked over to Olaf who was silently fuming, the griffin sat far apart from the others, tending to his minor wounds, then turning back to Twilight, who was casting some spell on Spike, he smiled to himself. Surely things were better now.