Sunset Breeze eyed the keyhole on the wall that operated the portcullis. It was a good ten feet high, much too high for her to reach. If only she could fly! Mentally cursing her aerial ineptitude, she panned the circular room for something she could use to reach the lock. Maybe one of those crates on the floor. Sunset trotted over to one of them and pushed against it with the top of her head. It didn't budge. She pressed her forehooves against the box and shoved with all her strength, but the crate still refused to move.
“What are you doing?” Sapphire's voice came in a whisper, so not to rouse the guard.
“I can't reach the keyhole!” Sunset explained.
“You can see it?” Spike asked.
Sunset looked up at it. “Yeah, but it's way up there.”
Sapphire rubbed the portcullis with her claws. There were no horizontal bars on it, just several thick vertical bars. Her eyes lit up at the formation of an idea. “Sunset, come here. I'll lift you up so you can reach the lock.”
Sunset did as she was told. The ice dragon's arms were just thin enough to fit between the bars and grab Sunset by the armpits. “Ready?”
“Ready!” At that word, Sunset felt herself lifted off the ground and up towards the keyhole. She giggled in childish delight. “Elevator going up!”
“Can you reach it yet?” Sapphire asked, still beating her wings.
“Almost,” Sunset replied as the keyhole grew closer. “Just a little higher.”
Sapphire lifted Sunset Breeze a few inches higher. Now it was almost in reach. “Push me to the side!” the filly ordered.
Groaning, Sapphire pushed Sunset slightly closer to the keyhole. The little filly stretched her neck for it, but still found it just out of reach. “A little more!”
“Sunset,” Sapphire's voice was strained as she stretched her arms out as far to the side as she could, which wasn't far with those bars in the way. “I hope you realize what an uncomfortable position I'm in!”
“Almost there!” Sunset squirmed a little so that her hind legs were barely in Sapphire's grasp, and reached for the keyhole. Finally, she stuck the key into the hole with her teeth, then twisted.
The gate mechanism sprung to life, emitting the rhythmical sound of gears turning and the sound of metal scraping against stone. Sunset looked over her shoulder just in time to see the portcullis rising and herself being dropped to the ground. She screamed and landed back first on the rock floor with a grunt as Spike and Sapphire ran out of their prison.
“Oh, Sunset, I'm so sorry!” Sapphire knelt by the fallen filly as she gathered her bearings. “If I hadn't dropped you, that gate would have crushed my arm! Are you okay?”
Sunset rolled over to her hooves, knocked silly but otherwise unharmed. “I think so.” She turned around, staggered a bit and looked at the guard to be sure he was still out. He was still sprawled out on the ground, eyes shut.
“Now what?” Sapphire asked. “We need to escape before the guard wakes up, but how are we going to get out of here without being spotted?”
“How else?” Spike asked. “Underground.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“I happen to be quite the digger. I'll get us out of here in no time.”
“Through solid rock?” Sapphire asked.
Spike put his finger to his lip in though. “Ok, that does present a challenge.” A few seconds later his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. “As Rarity would say, 'ideeeeaaaaaa!'”
Sapphire didn't say anything in response, but the look on her face indicated he had her attention.
“We'll apply a physics lesson I learned from Twilight a long time ago. I just hope it works. You freeze the ground with your ice and I'll blast it with my fire breath. The sudden heating should weaken it. Hopefully there's some dirt under all this rock.”
Sapphire nodded in understanding, took a deep breath and a blast of icy air spewed from her maw, covering the rocky ground with rime. Spike responded in kind, breathing fire instead of ice, which, as he'd hoped, cracked the rock and revealed a patch of dirt underneath.
“Bingo!” Spike pointed at the exposed dirt. “Ok, here I go. You two follow once I've dug a clear tunnel.”
Dropping to all fours, Spike scraped furiously at the ground, sending dirt flying as he tunneled through with such apparent ease that Sunset thought not even a Diamond Dog could outdig him. A few moments later, Sapphire hopped into the newly made hole, all but disappearing until her claw stuck up above the floor and waved, which Sunset chose to interpret as a signal to follow. Both of them crawled through the cool, damp earthen tunnel Spike had made until at last sunlight shone through the other end.
Sunset Breeze stuck her head above the hole to assure herself all was safe, and saw that they were now on the outside wall of the fortress. Satisfied, she pulled herself up out of Spike's tunnel.
“That was close,” she breathed.
“We're not out of the woods yet,” Sapphire said. She held her arms to the air now that Sunset was clear of the hole.
“What are you doing?” Spike asked. “Let's get out of here while we still can!”
“I'm gonna seal off this tunnel with my ice. It should buy us a few moments, at least.”
A frosty air surrounded the group as the tunnel filled with solid ice, then the chill vanished as suddenly as it came.
“Let's go,” Spike said. He beat his wings and took off as fast as his wings could carry him.
After affording one last look above at the sentry dragons, Sapphire flew after Spike with Sunset breeze in tow. No one looked back until they had distanced themselves from the fort by at least five miles, hidden underneath the leaves of a small forest.
As Spike planted his feet to the ground, Sapphire landed and set Sunset down so they could catch their breath. The two dragons had been flying as hard and fast as they could.
“Think we're in the clear?” Spike doubled over panting.
Almost as if in answer, a screech so tremendous it seemed to split the sky hurt Sunset's ears enough for her to cringe. Or perhaps it was the dread. A v-shaped formation of flying dragons now soared above the trees, no doubt looking for the escapees. The branches and leaves danced with the wrath of the wind that giant dragons' wings produced.
“Somehow,” Sapphire scooped Sunset back up, “I don't think so!”
Sapphire flew off in the opposite direction of the adults, but kept as low as she could. Spike followed close behind them. Above, the larger dragons turned around to make another pass over the forest, this time breathing dark clouds as they did. Sapphire gasped and turned sharply to her right to avoid the shadowy substance.
“What was that?” Spike asked.
“I don't know!” Sapphire yelled, “and I'm not stopping to look!”
From her position, however, Sunset could see what it was. It was like clouds of death that rolled across the forest, choking the life out of everything they touched. The leaves had all turned brown and wilted, the branches dangled loosely, and the grass turned to an ugly, rotten shade of brown.
“I'm scared!” she cried, “don't let it touch you!”
“Yeah, I figured that!” Sapphire bit back. She swerved around trees in an erratic pattern, hoping to lose the shadow dragons and avoid the black mist.
Tears were now flowing down Sunset's face and the dragons flew overhead, again coating the forest with their dark breath. More trees and grass rotted as Sapphire banked so tight that Sunset's head snapped to the side, causing her to cry out.
“There!” Spike yelled. He pointed to the wall of a cliff that hugged the edge of the forest. There was a small cave there, big enough for them to fit into, but not the larger dragons.
Sapphire flew faster than she'd ever flown in her life, desperate to lose the giant dragons and the clouds of death they breathed.
Certain she was living her last few seconds, a frightened Sunset clenched Sapphire tightly, not daring to look until she felt the cool air of the cave around her. Even then, her fear persisted. The cavern walls were too tight for Sapphire to fly through, so she had to set Sunset down.
“Come on, Sunset!” Sapphire shouted as she ran deeper into the long, rocky tunnel.
For once, fortune smiled upon them. A steep downgrade led deeper into the cave, one that offered them significant shelter from the dragons' breath weapons. Sapphire picked Sunset up and hopped down what was at least a ten foot drop. Spike jumped down beside them.
It was almost pitch-black for Sunset down there, but she figured Spike and Sapphire could see well enough in the dark. She cradled Sapphire closely as furious pounding came from the mouth of the cave, shaking the floor with the shadow dragons' rage. After a while, the shaking stopped and a cloud of black appeared and hung overhead.
Spike, Sapphire and Sunset all dropped to their bellies, closed their eyes and held their breaths as they prepared for the worst.
But it never came. Like steam, the dark clouds evaporated, at which point Sapphire heard one of the dragons claim, “that should take care of them.”
They waited. Waited for what Sunset thought was an eternity, just to be sure the shadow dragons had actually left. Slowly, quietly, Spike, Sapphire, and Sunset, in Sapphire's arms, flew above the downgrade and walked back down the tunnel, into daylight.
None of them could believe the scene that was now laid out for them. Minutes ago, it was a beautiful green forest teeming with life. Now, it was a dull, rotten wasteland of gray and brown. The trees were all lifeless and dead and the brittle grass crumbled under their feet.
“Un...believable,” was all Spike could make of what was now a dead forest, killed off in a matter of seconds.
“This is the scariest thing I've ever seen,” Sunset added, her voice trembling with fear.
“Shadow breath,” Sapphire said after a moment's silence. “The breath weapon of a shadow dragon. It robs the life of anything it touches. My parents told me stories about it, but I had no idea... we were very, very lucky.”
More tears rolled down Sunset's cheeks. Lucky wasn't a strong enough word. Her heart sank as she took a moment to think that her parents were still in that fortress, with all those scary, powerful dragons.