//------------------------------// // Chapter 16: Village of the Polearms // Story: At the Inn of the Prancing Pony // by McPoodle //------------------------------// At the Inn of the Prancing Pony Chapter 16: Village of the Polearms At Celestia’s request, Midnight did a careful survey of the area, and determined that the group once led by Soul Cleaver was not anywhere near the path that led out of Everhold. The pair had redistributed their holdings, bought a few more, and had picked out the safest looking path on Firebelle’s map. Hope had left apologetic messages with both the healers and the keepers of the major inns, for when the pegasus finally recovered enough to be furious at them for abandoning her. “I doubt she will care. At least about that,” Midnight mused while pulling the cart along the well trotted path. “She’s more likely to be upset about the gold that we are taking with us.” “She can take me to court afterwards,” Celestia commented with a straight face. “I always lose my civil suits.” “I think that’d be quite a spectacle. Save the world only to have a...well, an oddly determined adventurer demand that you pay up a hunk of gold.” “She’s not an adventurer yet. Fates allow, she never will be.” The path they started with doubled back to the Castle of the Two Sisters. After circling it to its western side, they set out into the woods. Midnight stuck to the cart, though several times having to ask Hope to pull it, due to fatigue and her complete lack of experience regarding manual labor. But she did her best to ensure that she did not treat Hope as “just an earth pony.” They walked through the loosely spaced trees for an hour, and then came up against a solid wall of brush. “Uh oh,” Celestia said. “I don’t think that was on the map.” “Well, how would we know we were traveling if we did not run into obstacles along the way?” Midnight asked rhetorically. She then craned her head from side to side, examining the wall as best she could from the cart hitch. “It doesn’t look like an illusion, though that is usually the point I guess. Try kicking a rock through.” Celestia’s rock went right through the bush, with about the amount of resistance that you’d expect from a large, untrimmed mass of vegetation. Midnight looked at the large hole, and then back at Celestia. “Did I kick it too hard?” Celestia asked. “Not at all, you kicked it just the right amount. So from memory let me see what it could be...assassin vines would be a bit much for us—the forest wouldn’t throw it at us so early on. Could be mundane, but I don’t think it’s that friendly. There could be a creature in there...” Midnight continued on, more providing information about various plants than trying to figure out a way through. Celestia looked around. The path they had been following turned left, quite obviously leading back to Everhold. Turning right would be heading the wrong way. The earth pony squared her shoulders and walked up to the bush. She pushed forwards, and the vegetation cleared, but not without some resistance. “Come on,” she said. “I’ve heard of earth ponies doing this, but I’ve never had the chance of trying it myself.” She smiled to herself. “I think this counts as casting a spell. Never thought I’d have the chance to get to do that while looking like this.” “That is...genuinely impressive. Bravo, Hope!” After cheering her companion along, Midnight pulled the cart through. With her side vision, she saw the bush closing slowly behind them. Slowly, the pair made their way through the thickets. “One advantage,” Celestia remarked, conserving her words. “Hard for animal attacks...here.” “Thorns,” was Midnight’s only reply, gritting her teeth as her delicate coat gained a few thin lines of red despite both ponies doing their best to keep the path wide enough for the cart. “Sorry,” said Celestia. She concentrated, and the bits of angry vegetation seemed to withdraw a little. The pair walked on, but the rough vegetation continued, on and on. Hours after hours after hours, like they had entered the holy grounds of the God of Annoying Brambles. Finally, finally, as the afternoon was nearing its end, they finally emerged from the bush and into… “A swamp,” Celestia noted flatly. “Another swamp.” With a groan, Midnight detached herself from the wagon, wedged a rock behind its wheel to keep it in place, and leaned her head against it. “Hornrot,” she muttered to herself. “We can’t fight in this state, and we can’t afford to leave all of this behind.” Celestia lowered herself down on her side, and panted a little as she tried to recover her strength. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe if we don’t make...any sudden moves, we can rest a bit.” Midnight didn’t reply, but she instead took a few gulps of water from her canteen and stood tall, looking around through the surrounding area, trying to see something, anything that she hadn’t spotted a moment ago. ...Like that thin plume of smoke that was rising from behind a suspiciously geometric circle of tall trees, a circle that blocked a five-hundred stride space from view. “Hope. Quietly, what is that?” She asked, pointing with a hoof. Hope looked. She closed her eyes, slowly took in a couple of deep breaths, and then opened them and stood up, looking refreshed. “Village,” she said. “That would be my guess.” “Do we sneak in or go in openly?” Midnight asked while hitching herself back up. “We take a peek,” said Celestia. “And decide after that.” “Okay, so...no cart?” Midnight asked, stopped in an awkward position. Celestia turned her head. “Oh right. The cart. Here, let me see if I can push it back in.” She waited until Midnight had unhitched herself, and then put her forehooves against the front of the cart, slowly pushing it backward. Just like with pegasus magic, Celestia was able to push her vegetation-parting ability through the vehicle, and smoothly pushed it until it was completely out of sight. “There,” she said. “Worst case, we can always come back for it.” “Good, now onwards to hopefully not dying!” Midnight said with a chipper tone, as they started towards the hidden area. # # # On the other side of the tree barrier, a small village lay nestled in a depression. The buildings were made of wood, with some stone. Other than the buildings looking a little repetitive, and taller than the average pony habitation, the town could have come straight out of the more peaceful parts of Equestria. But not the inhabitants. Like the lizard creatures, these too were bipeds. Onto a similar body plan, the following changes had been implemented: Instead of being mostly green, they were mostly brown. Instead of being covered with scales under their clothing, they were covered with coarse fur. And instead of having heads resembling those of lizards, these heads were clearly porcine in inspiration. A clear contrast with their last encounter came in the matter of number. Before, there had been seven lizard creatures. Here, the number was not so easily countable. Dozens, more than a hundred, two hundred? Well, less than five hundred at any rate. From facial shape and mane styles, the two hundred inhabitants could be split evenly into males, females, and children. The children in particular ran around everywhere, many of them without clothing. The adults by and large seemed to ignore them. In the center of the village was a large raised stage, big enough for fifty of the pig creatures to stand comfortably. A large crowd, consisting of most of the village, was gathered in front of this stage, clearly waiting for something to happen. With the exception of the children, every member of this crowd was armed. Armament seemed to be a way to distinguish class between these creatures, even more so than clothing. Circulating through the crowd was one group of about a dozen creatures with spears. They were shaking their weapons and chanting, rousing the crowd into greater and greater displays of excitement. Random creatures began jumping in the air, or shaking their arms above their heads. Another group of a dozen rabble-rousers were doing similar work at the other end of the crowd, these ones armed with axes. The common pig creatures, the ones that didn’t bear spears or axes, were all holding polearms. And what a variety of polearms were on display! There were pikes, spetums, ranseurs, partisans (including Boremian earspoons!), poleaxes, halberds, bardiches, pole cleavers, voulges, fauchards, glaives, guisarmes, bills, bill hooks, military forks, Moocern hammers, bec de corbins, glaive-forks, fauchard-forks...well, the point is, they had a lot of polearms. Finally, a curtain at the back of the stage was parted, and an exceptionally tall pig creature strode onto the stage, wearing a dark blue suit. In one hand he held an axe, and in the other a spear. He held the spear aloft, and the group that had been encouraged by the spear-pigs broke out in raucous hoots of approval. Behind him, eighteen pig creatures in dark suits with black sunglasses moved into position, turning their heads right and left as they silently scanned the crowd. Each of them carried smaller versions of the same armaments as their leader. From another spot in the curtain then emerged a second tall pig creature, this one in a tan suit. He was armed with an axe and a loaded crossbow, and when he raised and shook his axe, the axe-pigs roared their approval. Like the other leader, this one too was accompanied by eighteen black-suited guards with glasses and weapons matching their boss. “Ladies and gentleorcs,” the one in the blue suit said, easily addressing the crowd with an intimidating voice. “I welcome you all, to the Twenty-Eighth Presidential election for the Blood Hand Tribe!” The crowd shouted their excitement. The speaker handed his axe to an aide, and then gestured at the tan suited creature. “My challenger here thinks that he can do a better job of leading you than I can. What do you think?” Vocal pandemonium broke out in the crowd. Unprintable insults were hurled from one side to the other. Those in the middle began trying to kill each other with their polearms, which only went to demonstrate how useless polearms were in tightly packed crowds. “Under my respected opponent’s rule,” the challenger began, “the number of adventurer disembowelments dropped by nearly twenty-seven percent! Is this any way to run an orc tribe?” “NO!” shouted half the crowd. The other half attempted to shout back excuses. That never works. “Well, it appears that the electorate is evenly divided,” said the presidential orc, despite it being clear for all to see that the majority were not the ones in the middle trying to kill each other. “It appears that a reasoned debate is called for.” The aide handed back his axe. # # # “Okay, so not a nice friendly village,” said Celestia, turning to Midnight. “I suggest we get moving before this turns into a free-for-all.” “Aw, I think we should stay,” said a voice from behind them. “After all, we’re getting to the best part.” The silhouetted face of Swipe emerged from a darkness that wasn’t there a moment ago, pushing between the two of them.