//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Shadow Claw // Story: The Sword of the Helpless // by albedoequals1 //------------------------------// Brownie Sundae sat on her bed in the Deepcrag General Hospital, staring into space, until she heard a knock. “Come in?” She refocused her eyes and looked toward the door. The door opened to admit Shadow Claw. “Hi, Blondie! Doc says you can leave today.” Brownie frowned, “Shtop calling me Blondie; it’sh not my name.” After a few days of practice, she had mostly adjusted to talking with the new teeth, but she still had a mild speech impediment that made her ‘s’ sound a little off. “Sure thing Death Grip, you’re the boss.” Something clicked in Brownie’s head. “Your name isn’t actually Shadow Claw, is it?” she guessed. Shadow’s smile faded. “No, not really, but I wish it was.” “What is it, really?” she pressed. He looked at his front claws. “Short Beak, if you must know. I have the smallest beak in my family, and almost the shortest in my village.” “It looks plenty long to me.” “Thanks, but you’re no expert on griffons.” “That’s true.” “Anyway, it’s not a scary and impressive merc name, so I decided to call myself Shadow Claw. You know, because of my dark plumage and terrifying talons.” “Ah.” He looked at her seriously. “Please don’t ever call me Short Beak, especially not in front of other mercenaries.” “Don’t call me Blondie.” “Okay, you’re right. That’s fair,” he conceded. “I found out some things you might like to know,” he added, “such as, we’re rich!” Brownie raised an eyebrow. “When did we get rich?” “When we killed or captured four notorious criminals that call themselves ‘The Stampede’. There was a reward for each of them.” Shadow frowned and added, “It’s a good thing too; the bank doesn’t want us anymore. Apparently they just hired us because they heard about that gang. They have a reputation for killing all the guards everywhere they rob, so the bank hired a bunch of non-dwarf guards because they expected us to be killed.” Brownie considered this news for a moment, and then shrugged. “It makes sense, I suppose. I have to admit it upsets me less when non-ponies die.” “It still seems pretty cold to me,” Shadow grumbled. “In any case, they certainly didn’t expect us to beat the baddies and claim the reward. Well, I suppose I should say, didn’t expect you to beat the baddies. Most of the reward is rightfully yours.” The pony waved a hoof dismissively. “You saved my life, let’s split it evenly.” Shadow beamed. “I am completely okay with that plan.” After a moment, he added, “So, what’s next?” “What? Why are you asking me?” Brownie asked incredulously, “I don’t have a plan for myself, much less for you. My plan when I came to Deepcrag was ‘get a job’. That’s it. I was this close to starving.” She held her forehooves an inch apart. “Don’t you have any ideas?” “Well, we could form a mercenary band. Kind of like our own little guild.” Brownie stared in confusion for a moment and then narrowed her eyes. “When did you and I become ‘we’?” she asked suspiciously. “Oh come on, Brown, you saved my life! I saved your life! We make a perfect team; it’s destiny!” “I hardly know you, Shadow. In this business, you live longer if you trust nopony.” “Where did you hear that?” “It’s a saying in my family.” “Oh, I see,” Shadow said in an exaggerated tone, “is your family a bunch of rich and powerful mercenaries?” There was a long pause. “They’re all dead,” Brownie said finally. Shadow winced. “I’m sorry, I spoke hastily.” The pony just nodded. “What I meant to say is that no one can stand alone. The toughest fighter or the most feared mercenary still needs friends. You don’t know me, but that just means we need to get better acquainted.” Brownie’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you asking me out?” “No! I meant we should, uh, spar or discuss our backgrounds or something! I mean, I guess you’re kind of cute – for a pony, that is – but I wasn’t…I didn’t…” Shadow noticed Brownie’s expression. “Are you pranking me?” Brownie held her serious face for a moment longer, then snorted involuntarily and started laughing. Shadow soon joined her. Once they both regained their composure, Shadow said, “It’s not really all that funny. We should go practice together, for real. You have to get used to your new mouth, and I could clearly learn a few things from you; you killed two bandits while I was busy seeing stars.” “I started learning to fight before I was old enough to remember,” Brownie explained, “I don’t know a lot of fancy tricks, but I’m pretty comfortable with my equipment.” She looked towards the corner of the room where her mangled armor had been piled. “Do you know what happened to my sword?” “I grabbed it when they carried you off to the hospital. I can’t believe you swing that thing with your mouth; I can hardly carry it.” “Like I said, I started working those muscles when I was young.” Brownie jumped down from the bed and started collecting her things. “Come on then. Let’s go practice.” * * * After stopping to thank doctor Coldhands on the way out, Brownie and Shadow went to the inn that was Shadow’s temporary residence to collect the rest of their gear and then made their way to an open area that would be a safe place to spar. Brownie’s armor was so badly dented she couldn’t get it on, even with Shadow’s help. “Why don’t we start with some unarmed maneuvers,” Shadow suggested. He stood on his hind legs and struck a dramatic pose with his talons held forward. Brownie casually walked up to him and kicked him in a kneecap. “Argh, what!?” he protested as he went down in a graceless heap. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ugh. How did you do that?” “Do what, kick you?” “How did you get past my defensive martial stance? Never mind, this time I’m ready.” Brownie kicked him in the wrist. After several more attempts to anticipate Brownie’s attacks, Shadow realized that his defensive moves were all based on the assumption that he was fighting someone who was also classically schooled. Brownie wasn’t ‘using moves’, she was just kicking him in sensitive areas, and he was quickly losing interest in finding out just how many of those he had. “Okay, enough,” he said at last, “I’ve lost the feeling in all of my extremities. You hit hard.” “Just be glad you’re not fighting that giant that attacked the bank.” “Sorry. On that topic, though, maybe it’s time to see what your new teeth can do.” Brownie clamped her adamantine jaws on the hilt of her sword and drew it awkwardly. “I can’d dell how hard I’m biding id,” she complained. The griffon set up a few sticks tied to rocks as targets. Brownie swung at the first, but the sword slid out of her grip and went clattering along the stone floor. She ran to retrieve it and tried again, this time biting down as hard as she could. The sword cut through the stick easily. “Looks like you’ve still got it,” Shadow encouraged. Brownie set the sword down to talk. “I couldn’t feel what I was doing; it felt like I was telling somepony else what to do rather than doing it myself.” She looked at her sword and frowned. “And there’s also this problem.” Shadow followed Brownie’s gaze and saw that there were deep tooth marks in the hilt of the sword. “Wow,” he agreed, “you bit right through the grip and left bite marks in the tang.” “This isn’t going to work; I’ll bite the hilt right off if I can’t be more precise.” “Maybe we just need to get a good pad so it isn’t metal on metal,” the griffon suggested. “Yeah, maybe. What’s that thing?” Brownie pointed a hoof at Shadow’s back. “This? It’s a longbow. I actually prefer it over the sword, but it wouldn’t have been much good as a bank guard.” “How does it work? I don’t see a trigger or anything.” Shadow pulled out the bow and drew the string with a talon. “I just pull the string like this,” he explained. “Hm. I guess that’s why I never see ponies using those.” “Talons are the greatest.” Brownie kicked him in the knee. “Argh!” He fell down again. “Why would you do that? We weren’t even fighting!” “That’s how my father taught me to fight,” the pony explained with no hint of malice, “He would just walk up to me and kick me. At first, he would say something like, ‘think fast’ but after a while he just kicked. It didn’t take long for me to start anticipating his attacks.” “That’s horrible,” the fallen griffon groaned. “How did you learn…what you learned?” “I took classes from martial arts masters. They told me to memorize the basic forms and practice combining moves.” He gestured at the longbow. “I took a class to learn the longbow too. That felt more natural to me, so I learned it faster.” “That must have been expensive.” “I guess it was.” Shadow noticed Brownie’s questioning look and quickly amended, “I mean, yes, it was. Obviously, I had to do whatever it took to prepare myself for the life of an adventurer. No non-adventurer truly understands us, am I right?” Brownie looked at him for a moment, “I’m not an adventurer, I’m just a mercenary. I do what I’m told, and I hopefully get paid. Did you expect the bank guard job to be an adventure?” “You have to start somewhere. Now we’re famous, so we can get really cool quests and stuff.” He grinned for a moment, and then sagged. “You’re famous, I mean. That’s why I want you to go adventuring with me: all the dwarves respect you now. We could just walk into a tavern and say, ‘make way for Death Grip,’ and they’d be fawning all over us to give us jobs to do.” The pony furrowed her brow. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating my fame. All I did was choke an antean and get my face kicked in.” She carefully picked up her sword and sheathed it. “What about that reward, how do we claim it?” “They said they could authorize payment later today,” Shadow said, “and it’s later, so we could go check that out, if you want?” Brownie nodded. * * * The reward turned out to be more than Brownie was expecting, but less than Shadow hoped. Brownie used some of her money to have her sword and armor repaired. Shadow immediately spent most of his share on a few magical items that he claimed would make him unstoppable. After checking at several taverns, Shadow found a notice offering what amounted to a treasure hunt. A mine near Deepcrag had been unused for decades and was probably inhabited by monsters. The previous owner had recently died and his heir wanted some objects of sentimental value retrieved. The notice Shadow had found explained that the client would allow the adventuring team to keep anything else they found in the mine, so long as all of the listed items were recovered. Brownie was dubious about the value of “anything else” but eventually Shadow persuaded her to participate. Brownie promised to meet him at the inn in the morning and spent the remainder of the day buying provisions. The next day, Shadow came down from his room to find Brownie sleeping on top of her saddlebags in the common area. He poked her with a talon. “Brown?” “Hmm? Oh, hi Shadow.” “How long have you been here?” “Since about sundown, I think. It’s hard to estimate time in this city.” Shadow recoiled. “Why didn’t you get a room? You could have even shared mine.” “It’s no big deal, I always sleep in the common room, it’s much cheaper.” Brownie stood up and stretched her legs. “Are you ready to go?” Shadow opened his beak to protest, but as he looked around the room, he realized that many other people were staying in the common room, and most of them were dwarves. Apparently it was normal for other races. “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.” As they walked out of the inn he said, “Do most people, um, worry so much about money?” Brownie laughed humorlessly. “They either worry or starve. How is it you’re so relaxed? You didn’t seem all that plush when we were working at the bank.” “I guess I had a privileged upbringing,” Shadow conceded. “Well, good for you. If you’re so rich you don’t have to worry about money, what are you doing wandering around Everglow trying to get yourself killed?” “That’s just the point,” the griffon said defensively, “I wanted to prove that I could take care of myself without my parent’s money. I am my own griffon.” Brownie stopped walking and glared at him. “So this is all just a stunt? You play mercenary for a little while, then you go back to your money and tell everypony how brave you are?” “No, I’m in this for real!” Shadow protested. “I broke with my family when I left. I either live as a mercenary or die as a failure.” Brownie’s expression changed quickly to one of horror, then anger, before finally settling on depression. She started to speak twice, but changed her mind. Finally, she muttered, “You’re an idiot. Just don’t get me killed,” and started walking again. Shadow nodded slowly. “I’ll pull my weight, you’ll see. I—“ Brownie cut him off with an upraised hoof, but didn’t look in his direction. “Later.”