//------------------------------// // Sparks // Story: The Devil's Details // by Carabas //------------------------------// Before Zephyr's eyes, a forest burned. Thin blue-red flames curled around and up from branches, crisped leaves, coiled around trunks like entwining serpents. Tendrils sprung and danced in the wide spaces between the sparsely-scattered trees. Each tree was black on the surface, covered by a thin layer of charred bark that came off in gently floating flakes each time one of the countless interlinked fires shifted. Zephyr stared, entranced. The smoky air above the burning forest shimmered in the heat and drew a distorting veil over it all. Past it, where the forest was nothing but a crimson sea, it was possible – no, easy - for patterns to bloom amidst the chaos of fire, waves of fiery movement, strangely purposeful surges and leaps from one tree to another. Vertigo almost made him sway right out of the sky. He hurriedly corrected his flapping, but kept on staring. It was almost as if the fire lived. He was barely aware of Chevalier stepping up to the ground at his left. A low exhalation escaped the cadet's nostrils. To his right, Skewbald trotted up and stood tremblingly still. The words that escaped the unicorn were said with the closest approximation to happy awe Zephyr had ever yet heard from him. “Oh, would you look at that.” Zephyr swallowed. “And what is that?” “Fire elementals. A whole clutch of them, more than probably exist anywhere outside the Burning Mountains.” Skewbald took another step forwards. Zephyr looked down and was taken aback by the purely, unambiguously, delighted smile Skewbald sported. “Clever things. Look at what they're doing.” Zephyr turned back to the burning forest and squinted harder at the blazing tendrils that writhed out from the trees. He now noted the purpose behind each one, as if a mind lurked in its depths. Red motes of light flickered brightly where the fires were fiercest, like little gimlet eyes. In the nearest string of trees, one tree stood untouched by one of the elementals. The fires surrounding two nearby trees flared briefly, and then both uncoiled and arced towards the tree, pulling the whole weight of their flame with them in great flapping gouts. The two different fires met in mid-air, flurried briefly and violently, and then one settled on the new tree while the other slid back to its original tree. Both subsided, and the flames engulfing their hosts settled down to a thin pall. “They're feeding,” said Skewbald. “They're being smart about it as well, chewing off a little at a time rather than eating up their whole source. See? They're ebbing low enough to only sustain themselves on the outer bark and damaging the leaves as little as possible. They keep the tree alive, damage it no more than it can keep on recovering from, and if they do need to exert themselves, they can dig that little bit deeper.” “Makes sense,” said Chevalier, his tone dubious. “When farmers buck apples down, they don't destroy the tree to get the crop. When we commission wool from sheep, we don't ask that they slash their throats to give us all they've got at once. Same principle.” “Approximately so, yes.” Skewbald sighed. “You read about this sort of thing, half-described and buried under tedious accounts of life-or-death flights and avalanches and suchlike, and when you actually see it in the waking daylight …” Silence pervaded until Chevalier coughed. “Well,” he said, “They do look nice from a distance, I'll admit. But we've got to pass through them, don't we? And our hides are regrettably flammable.” Skewbald's benign smile shifted back into a comfortably sour grimace. “Ah. Yes.” His gaze flicked from side to side, taking in the whole span of burning forest between the girding mountains. “Creator's quill, we're going to have to backtrack.” A crack sounded from behind them. Zephyr turned sharply. A thin fissure had opened in the stone, and a wooden root writhed its way clear. The stone split further to admit more roots, which wound themselves into the shape of a timber wolf paw. Green glinted up from the depths. Before Zephyr could react, before he could shout a warning, Chevalier was already moving. He cantered up to the fissure and slammed his steel-shod hoof down on the paw with a resounding crunch. A piteous yelp sounded, and the fragments of root quickly slithered away. Chevalier snorted and kicked loose dirt and pebbles down after it. Another crack sounded to his left, and he whirled to face it. In that instant, two more fissures cracked open to his left. From the way they'd came, and muffled from the ground beneath they hooves, there came a savage and continuous baying. “Run,” said Chevalier, turning to face Zephyr and Skewbald. “No backtracking now. To the forest. Put distance between us and them, as much as possible. Fight only if we're cornered.” “To the forest? To the elementals?” Zephyr forced the memories of treating burn wounds to one side. “Skirt the forest's edge if we can, go between it and the mountains. Keep close and run!” Three more distinct cracks rang out. “At the gallop!” They took the descending mountainside at a breakneck gallop, cold winds slashing across their back and growing warmer the further they ran down the slope. Zephyr flew above, and his gaze darted across the meandering alleyways of rock in search of swift routes. “Left! Sharp left!” he cried out. “Between the two boulders and down the slope! Keep galloping!” It could have been the wind's piercing cry, it could have been howls that rang upon his ears. He didn't turn around to check; his attention was fixed on the two ponies below him. Chevalier ran at a swift and steady pace, and constantly checked to make sure Skewbald was keeping up. The unicorn was managing, alternating a ferocious gallop with intermittent teleportation. Where boulders rose and slopes sharply descended, he disappeared and reappeared at the other side in a flash of green light; obstacles which Chevalier simply leapt straight over or skidded down. The flaming forest grew ever larger before them. A cacophony of what couldn't be mistaken for anything but howls broke out anew at their backs, and Zephyr glanced round. Lean, dark-bodied, green-eyed wolfish shapes pelted after them in a swarm – a dozen, two dozen, some distressing amount that seemed to flow down the mountainside like water. Pale wooden teeth gleamed like stained daggers. Zephyr's heartbeat hammered in his ears like a drum. “Straight on, straight on!” he cried. “No obstacles between us and the bottom. Keep running straight on!” “And when we reach the bottom, we veer right! Mountains on our right flank, the forest on our left!” called back Chevalier. He grunted with exertion as he burst straight into a running leap over a stretch of high rock. Ahead of him, Skewbald flashed back into step. Smoke curled faintly up from his horn, and his breaths ran ragged. Chevalier lost no time. He simply ducked underneath Skewbald as he ran and hoisted the startled unicorn up across his back once more, his pace hardly changing with the added weight. “Save your magic!” yelled Chevalier. “We'll need it if they corner us!” “Gl – gah – bu – grk!” retorted Skewbald as his belly bounced off Chevalier's saddle again and again with the cadet's furious gait, his eyes livid and staring. Onwards, onwards the hard trail ran. The constant slope downwards began to flatten, the rocks peppered with grass and heather. Only charred stumps grew up from the ground. The way down to the forest was clear. The air grew thicker, hotter, enough to coax out even more sweat to lather Zephyr's sides. They broke from the mountain's slopes at last, into the rugged stretch of grassland ringing the burning forest, blistered with strewn boulders and ridges and the charred remains of tree stumps. The iron-grey sky growled high above them, threatening thunder. Orange light spilled up into it, etching out the dark outlines of descending clouds. A thin pall of smoke gathered about the three. Where did the fire go, Zephyr thought with a mad delirium, when it rained? Did it hide beneath the branches and wait for the storm to lift? Did it blaze all the fiercer to hold its own? “Right!” yelled Chevalier, with Skewbald echoing “Rk!” They turned sharply into the rough land, skirting the first few boulders to rise before, recovering their pace. Just in time for the first two timberwolves to come pelting down and to lunge at Chevalier's side. Chevalier whirled around, not before Skewbald issued a warning cry and let fly with a violent arc of green flame. It slashed down upon one of the timberwolves and wrapped it around with fire. It fell howling to the ground, and continued to howl. Its packmate turned briefly, and Chevalier plunged on it in that instant. One hoof smashed across its jaw, bowling its entire body to one side. The other hoof slammed down upon a now-unguarded wooden leg, cracking it all but clean in half. The second one fell and Chevalier immediately whirled back upon his original course as if there'd never been a delay. “More of them coming!” Zephyr cried, and mentally smacked himself for the vagueness of the advice the moment after. More timberwolves were coming, fanning out from their original approach to try and cut off the route ahead. “Up ahead! Up ahead!” “Nightmare's teeth,” hissed Chevalier as his gaze darted towards the lean shapes pelting alongside them. He swerved away from them and nearer to the forest. The fires churned furiously, as if in welcome. Zephyr could swear he saw shapes forming amidst it, spindly shapes with grasping claws. The air blasted at him as if released from an open furnace, crisping his mane and coat. Carmine light spattered the land all around them, and the roar of the flames competed with the howl of the nearing pack for volume. He knew he should have been terrified. A strange light-headedness filled him instead, and he felt like a speck of dust carried in the breeze. The world was a wolf-filled, red-spattered morass of chaos. He looked down to where Chevalier, with Skewbald still splayed across his back, wove around boulders. He sprung past one, and a timberwolf blindsided him, flying out as if released from a coiled spring. It crashed into the side of Chevalier's armoured neck, and he stumbled with a pained shout. His face slammed side-on into the boulder with an audible crack. Skewbald cried out as he tumbled from Chevalier's back and sprawled across the ground. Chevalier slumped against the boulder's side, his exposed eye unfocused. The timberwolf advanced on him, its teeth bared and hackles raised. A low growl escaped it like the promise of a storm. It opened its jaws, and in that same instant, a line of green fire uncoiled through the air and into its gullet. An agonised squeal escaped the wolf and it fell, green and orange flame vomiting from its mouth. Zephyr, transfixed, looked to where Skewbald had staggered upwards. Magic blazed around his horn and brought the green fire back to hover his shoulder, a fine and incandescent point ready to be hurled out again. His teeth were bared in nothing like a smile. “Yes! Who's next!” he demanded, and flicked the fire back out at where the shadows of wolves circled them past the boulders and smoke. They scattered briefly and Skewbald laughed. “Come on! Why run? Come eat your prey! Come on!” Zephyr looked all around. The pack had formed a smoothly-flowing encirclement once he and the others had been stopped, weaving around the boulders and drawing constantly tighter like a noose. Closer and closer they came, their eyes blazing green points that matched the fire. “Get up onto the boulder!” yelled Zephyr. “Save your breath and get yourself and Chevalier out of harm's way!” The cadet looked as though he was getting his faculties back together from where Zephyr hovered. One part of him itched to fly down and be sure he was alright. Another part recoiled from the prospect of putting himself down where the wolves prowled ever-closer. Call yourself a farrier? he raged at himself. Call yourself a pegasus? Go down there and help him! But his breath fell heavy in his lungs, and he hung in the air. Teeth and fire reached up and tore his heroism to shreds. Skewbald took the decision out of his hooves, when green fire billowed up around Chevalier and manifested him at the flat top of the boulder. The cadet fell over with the surprise relocation, barely missing Skewbald who teleported in a split-second later. The unicorn slumped slightly, his horn producing faint smoke-trails and his breathing heavy. Zephyr released the breath he hadn't released he'd been holding, and flew down to alight on the boulder beside them. There was just enough room to hold all of them standing. He knelt down to Chevalier. “Are you -?” “I'm fine,” grunted Chevalier, shrugging himself upright and shaking himself off. “Feh. What's the situation?” Zephyr glanced to his rear. The noose had drawn tighter. The circling pack was only several metres distant from the base of the boulder. Dozens of eyes glinted up at them, countless pale teeth were bared. Yips and bays from amidst them seemed to keep them in order, impose direction and purpose. “Surrounded,” he said quietly as he turned back. “We're surrounded. There's lots of them. Maybe twenty or so.” “Right,” said Chevalier. He closed his eyes. “Skewbald, how far can you teleport us?” “Both of us? Not far enough,” said Skewbald with a bitter laugh. “A couple of boulders along, if I didn't mind exhausting myself. Half-a-dozen, if I didn't mind doing myself an injury.” Chevalier opened his eyes once more and regarded the coiling pack, as if gauging their movement. “One of us?” “Ten along at the utmost for yourself, twelve if you shed that armour. Fifteen myself. Mass cost increases exponentially if you-” “Even fifteen would be dicing it,” muttered Chevalier, before closing his eyes again and saying, “Okay. Okay, if you teleport yourself that far, and if Zephyr follows your lead, then keep going around the forest. I'll set a slower pace -” “But,” started Zephyr, uncomprehending, “But if we separate and you fall behind -” There came the scuff of paws behind him. Something closed around his tail and pulled hard; Zephyr was tugged off his hoofs and fell backwards before he could so much as cry out in alarm. The world yawned in slow-motion all around him, and all he heard was the baying of wolves from all around. His wings refused any motion out of sheer bowel-opening terror, and all he could force from his stupid, useless mind was a litany of internal weeping and cursing. His life whirled before his eyes as he skidded off the boulder's side, and he'd never see any of its familiar sights again - And from his front, two miracles the size and shapes of Chevalier and Skewbald rose. Emerald fire flew from Skewbald's horn and over Zephyr's shoulder. The pressure on his tail abruptly released with a hideous yelp and a sudden scorched smell. Chevalier descended and clamped his teeth down upon Zephyr's mane; with one heave mightier than the biting force that had been pulling him down, he pulled Zephyr clear and up onto the boulder's top. Zephyr sobbed, partly out of pure astonished relief and partly because of the pain throbbing up from his tail; clumps of hair there had been torn free. Chevalier's mouth moved as he set Zephyr down; Zephyr didn't hear the words that were spoken. All he could see were the two sets of wooden claws that had emerged on different sides of the boulder. He gesticulated at them and yelled something he hoped was a warning. Skewbald glanced around, and in the next instant, his point of fire neatly flew up and slashed down into one set. Chevalier whirled around and simply brought his two forehooves down with a bone-shattering crash upon the other set. Two more howls spilled out as the claws slipped back from the edge. Skewbald slumped further, his breathing even heavier. Chevalier still stood tall and straight-limbed. His eyes had acquired their own inner fire as he glared down at the baying pack. “Eh bien!? C’est tout?” he blazed suddenly. “Vous n’avez rien d’autre!?” Zephyr staggered back to his hooves just as another timberwolf came flying up from another side of the boulder. Chevalier spun where he stood and planted a buck right on its neck, and it fell away with a resounding and sickening crack. His gaze caught Zephyr. The fire dimmed, and the hard lines of his face softened for a second. “Get aloft, Zephyr,” he said. “Out of clawing distance seems a good place to be right now.” Zephyr mutely nodded, and his wings responded as if they'd merely been waiting for permission. He brought his wings sharply down and lifted himself sharply up and into the air. He would just be a liability down there, he told himself. Two more timberwolves sprung up at Skewbald's side of the boulder, and the green fire described a blazing arc that slapped against both of their eyes. They fell back into the horde, furious bays greeting their descent. Another wolf threw itself up into the space Zephyr had just vacated, and scrabbled to gain a foothold. Just for a moment. Chevalier's hoof flew out, and the wolf reflexively seized it with its jaws. Chevalier snorted and sharply twisted the hoof, forcing the wolf's head down at an awkward angle. He slammed down a headbutt at its exposed neck, his helmet connecting with an explosive crack. The wolf slumped, and Chevalier shrugged its lifeless form off the boulder's edge with a grunt of exertion. Red light and hot winds gusted from the direction of the forest, to Zephyr's right. He glanced around, and his jaw dropped. The forest burned all the brighter, solid sheets of furious red motion that billowed off heat growing out of the wisps of flame that had curled around the branches earlier. They roared as they grew and sucked in air. Sections burned brighter, gaps fluttered briefly, giving Zephyr the disorientating impression of a thousand shrieking faces amidst the fire. Branches blackened, shriveled, cracked and fell. Their vague skeletons faded, leaving the whole world red. Zephyr could only watch, the fires dancing in his wide eyes, before the first tendrils of flame snapped out. One flew straight at him, crossing the many metres between the forest and him in an eye's blink, and only the most desperate of reflexive lunges to one side saved him. Another snaked out across the ground and dived into the timberwolf pack; sending one pelting out and shrieking as flames hungrily devoured it. Skewbald glanced around, just in time to curse and raise a thin shield of gleaming force that knocked an incoming fire-tendril out of the sky. Chevalier could only turn one armoured flank to the flames, and growled as one glanced off the steel. “Keep the elementals off us, Skewbald!” he roared. “I'll keep the wolves busy! Venez donc vous battre, bande de caniches!” Some of the pack had already opted to flee from the flames, running back for the safety of the mountains. But far too many remained, two of which responded to Chevalier's challenge and sprung up at his side of the boulder. They met two furious hoof-strikes in quick succession, sending one of them skidding back to the ground and sending the other down on its side. With a battle-cry, Chevalier slammed down on its torso with the edges of his shoes, and splinters and ichor sprayed with a piteous yelp. Skewbald, for his part, turned to the forest. Great uncoiling tendrils of pure fire closed in around the boulder like grasping claws, several of which diverted to ignite timberwolves on the ground. Their howls mingled with the cacophony of the flames. Skewbald closed his eyes, and each incoming tendril was met at its tip with a blazing point of emerald fire. “You will not win,” said the unicorn quietly. The tendrils pressed down upon the green blockers, which blazed all the more fiercely in response to the challenge. Great streamers of fire poured forth from the forest and buckled and arced against the blockers like bunching muscles. Sweat poured down from Skewbald's forehead and smoke tricked up from the spiralling gaps in his horn. “You will not win.” Zephyr looked on, paralysed. He caught sight of another tendril that lazily cut through the air towards him, and shot up hurriedly to avoid it. Safe, his mind hammered again and again like a drumbeat, safe, safe … Searing pain ripped across his right hindleg, and he cried out as he realised the tendril had clipped him. He shoved himself further up into the air, riding the heat that gave buoyancy to his frantic wing-beat. His gaze whirled down. Skewbald's legs trembled as he stared the fire down. No words escaped him, only a pained hiss as he raised another blocker to stop a new tendril in its tracks. Chevalier was hard-pressed. Three more timberwolves had hurled themselves up at him, whether in a mad effort to escape the flames and their burning brethren on the ground or simple blood-fury. One of them joined its smashed kin on the boulder, one snarled as it clung on like grim death to his left forehoof, and one smaller one had managed to spring onto his back. It straddled his back plating, jaws tearing at the armour and mail that covered his neck. Chevalier tore off the wolf on his hoof with a furious motion that elicited pained cries from both wolf and Chevalier; sending it skidding down the face of the boulder. He flipped his head forward violently in the next instant, catapulting the wolf on his back free. Its clinging teeth tore several chainmail rings loose, glittering in an arc through the air amidst splatters of blood. Chevalier breathed heavily and looked up to meet Zephyr's gaze. His eyes were pools of exhaustion and pain. “Go, Zephyr,” he said. “No sense in risking yourself. We've got this. Go.” “But ...” Zephyr trailed off with a wince as pained roiled up from his burned leg. He looked around. A few mad wolves, the few that hadn't fled or weren't burning, were still circling. The fires showed no sign of tiring. Chevalier was weary, Skewbald probably even more so. What could he do? “Go!” screamed Chevalier, pain lancing through the exclamation and hardening its edge. “Get home to Equestria, promise us that!” Zephyr flapped slowly backwards, the world blurring around him. It was good advise, he dully recognised on some level. He'd no business here, about as much business as a duckling had in a dragon's den. All he could do, all he'd ever been able to do, was leave the actual heroes to scream and burn... His gaze rotated up. Above the screaming red wall of the forest, a great thunderhead pulsed through the sky like a fist. Thunder rolled, and lightning simmered in its depths. Like clockwork. Like pieces sliding into alignment and powerful motion. A channel of thought was thrown open, and it filled him. Terror was shouldered to one side, and his jaw tightened. There was something he could do. “Skewbald?” croaked Zephyr. He spoke again, loud enough to get the unicorn's attention. “Use as little magic as you can to hold off the fire. I'll be right back.” “What?” said Skewbald too late. Zephyr was already moving. The initial flurry of wing beats to seize hold of the rising heat beneath him and to gather momentum – that was easy. So long as he kept his gaze high and at the storm. What followed after was the longer, slower and more powerful wing beats once he had his momentum. Those were difficult. Because they took him directly over the forest. He tucked his legs in, for it was all he could do. He had to keep the arrow-straight route without thinking, without thinking, without thinking. The fire would rise no matter what. His only hope was straight ahead. Past the pounding heartbeat and the adrenaline that filled his veins like lightning, he only dully registered the first lash across a hindleg. Something gusted across his savaged tail, and the heat that built at his back drew some notice. And then one whip-thin and ferocious tendril of flame scored a black line into his left forehoof, and only then did Zephyr scream. Agony throbbed up from that leg, and tears streamed from his face as he flew. It hurt more than anything had ever done, and his flight wobbled. He pitched himself into straightening it and redoubling his effort, even though the pain only grew from there. Don't think, don't think, don't think. Like the face of the Creator Itself, the mountain-sized stormcloud rose before him, dwarfing him utterly. A speck on its surface, he tore in and grabbed at it with his one good forehoof. He sharply pivoted up, driving his aching and burned hindlegs up and around into the base of the section he'd alighted on. Moisture doused his burning tail and soothed his wounds. A large section broke free, and lightning sizzled in the gaps. Zephyr wafted it towards him with a mighty wing-beat, and hopped onto its top. He realigned himself atop it, resting his forehoof on it and catching his breath for a moment. Just a moment. He rose up, still pressing on the cloud segment with his hoof as he angled his body – and the cloud – back down to the ground. First the small wingbeats. And then the greater. Like thunder after lightning, like the storm that roared at his back. The descent was a blur, and where the rising hot air pushed against him and his light cargo, Zephyr hammered his wings all the harder. Pain was converted into anger, anger at the fire and the wolves. The boiling red rush that painted the inner cracks of his skull made it impossible to focus on anything but forwards. Fire stroked at the cloud-shield under him, and Zephyr flew through steam. He heard howls as he descended, and flew down upon them. Shouts greeted him, and he angled himself as best he could in their direction. He found the boulder, and an exhausted and baffled-looking Chevalier and Skewbald waiting for him there. “Cloud-walking!” Zephyr said, the worlds coming out in a rush. “On yourself and Chevalier now!” He didn't want to stop for too long now. Lightning filled his blood, and it demanded motion. Skewbald, his head swaying and his eyes red-rimmed, staggered forward even as magic blossomed around his smoking horn. Both he and Chevalier glowed briefly, and they hopped on top of the cloud with barely a word. Only expressions of pure astonishment, mingled with giddy relief. Zephyr braced himself against the underside of the cloud, and bore them into the sky. Fire screamed at their backs, and grew fainter as they rose into the belly of the sky. Many miles distant, a figure looked up from a burnt pile of mantaghast remains. The horizon was burning. “Curious,” he said, drawing out the word. He stepped away from the ash-pile and regarded the distant sky. “What might ye be up to, my little runaways?” His smile sharpened, and one stroke down from his vast wingspan brought him back up into the air. “And how might I become involved?” From a thousand shadowed rock-faces, from countless cracks, from the darkness under rocks and fallen leaves and bones, from the thinnest reaches of the sky and dark pits, a cloud's ascent was watched. It was a sour note amidst the churning, seething tide of the North. An intrusion. An anomaly, that failed to obey the primal rules that governed here. They were prey. All things were prey, whether devourers or the devoured. Lesser things did not set themselves against the tide and live. And these things would not. From the thousand fluttering scraps of darkness that watched from this part of the North, something twisted into existence. It set its endless sight on the little ponies far, far above, and followed. And later that evening, three weary little ponies rested upon a grassy ledge protruding from a mountainside. A stray cloud bobbed next to them in a gentle breeze. Far from them, on one side, a forest burned. On their other side, a dark green expanse of forest rested under the darkening and quiet dusk. A lake shimmered in the distance. Skewbald shifted, and gingerly rechecked the ointments that had been applied to his horn. They soothed the pain, though he'd still have to be circumspect with his magic for the next few days. Next to him, Chevalier was content to sit still and look out upon the vast world beneath them. Bandages swathed his neck and one of his legs. Beside them, Zephyr slept. His tail was a scorched stump, and all but one of his legs were bandaged. His eyelids fluttered, and in his sleep, he smiled. Skewbald looked out over the world, and found it wanting. “So if it's my turn tonight for storytelling,” he said, breaking the silence, “There was once this magical forest infested by fire elementals, which a bold group of -” “Yes, you're very clever. Shut up,” said Chevalier.