Recommended Reading: Stage of Discovery
Look, I’m not saying The Frozen North isn’t a good name for that place; I just think it could be way more descriptive—like ‘My Eyeballs are Frozen Solid North’ or ‘Bandits Have Stupid Hideouts Tundra.’ Oh! Or how about 'In No Universe Is It a Good Idea to Bring Trainees to This Stupid, Frigid Wasteland.' See? If it had a name like that, maybe the spontaneous field trip for the Princess Luna Knight Academy's new earth pony recruits wouldn't have ended up such a cold, anxious disaster.
The recruits behind me were coming up with some creative names for it too. My eyes stung as I searched for Icetooth and Turnpike in the white, whistling winds, but they had it better than my ears. I could hear loud hoofsteps and louder bickering from six out of my seven responsibilities—all of them putting more effort into whimpering than into finding their comrade.
I stopped walking and crouched suddenly. "Shh!" I shot back at them, and the noise stopped.
"See them?" My lieutenant, Foghorn asked. He was bent down next to me, shielding his eyes from the winds with a weak wall of magic.
"No. I wanted them to shut up."
"Ah."
"Ohhhh, wait, yep."
"What?"
"There they are."
Foghorn leaned in real close to me while I tightened the scabbard straps around my right foreleg and squinted. It was faint, but the caped unicorn and the earth pony in leather armor stuck out like food colouring stains in sugar. I even caught a glint of the metal held close to the kid's neck. That wasn't good. I mean, sure, it was a dangerous place to have a knife, but when you don't think anypony's following you and you're still holding your hostage at knifepoint, you're bordering on schizophrenic.
"Left or right?" Foghorn whispered. He was trying to put on a brave face for the recruits, but I knew he was out of his element. I mean, even more so than a pony in a snowstorm.
"There's a cliff on our right," I answered.
"Huh?" Foghorn checked the ground next to us and stepped back.
"They're following a cliff. Tell me you noticed."
"Uh..."
"Answer me later."
I signalled to the teenagers to stay put and sprinted to my left, drawing a half-circle around the targets. The wind halved my speed, and I nearly collapsed in the weak snow, but I kept running. I was grinding my teeth—the thought of what losing a recruit would do to me burned inside my head.
I finished the semicircle and stayed just out of their view, backing away every time I saw their colours in the storm. I unhooked the strap on my leather sheath and cringed as I clenched my teeth around my sword's hilt. It was like biting into an unbreakable ice cube. Plus, the pretty little ruby in its hilt poked me in the lip and drew a trickle of blood. I grumbled and drew the weapon gently and quietly, which was a challenge since I had to bite the blade a few times just to get it all the way out, but such is the life of the pony without magic.
"Now!"
My mouth opened wide and my sword fell back into place with a clang. The plan was so ridiculously simple. I would approach them – sword drawn – and when the bad guy was all shocked and angry, in came Foghorn to swipe the hostage away. At no point did I ask for a freaking cue.
I charged forward and watched the two blotches of colour resolve into ponies. At the very least, Foghorn's "signal" had turned their heads away from me, but at the same time, The World's Most Directionless Bandit was now as close to his hostage as ever. With no hope of getting between them and the assurance that Turnpike was about to become a kitchen knife block, I got low and leapt straight for the stallion in the cape.
"Augh!"
The impact rocked my cold body. I stopped almost dead against his weight, and heard a metallic scrape as my sword flew out of its sheath. We crashed into a bare face of ice and slid away from each other, but there was a lucky brush of wind that swept my light body up and let me flip back onto my hooves. It gave me a chance to search for my lost weapon, but with no luck.
The other thing I lost in the snow was where in Equestria everypony had gone. I scanned the biting blizzard quickly, swearing repeatedly in between breaths. First, I found Turnpike running wide-eyed towards his friends. From where he ran I found Foghorn, running towards me worriedly. Lastly, I found Icetooth when his hoof connected sweetly with my jaw.
It smarted, but hey, at least that was the fastest anypony's ever applied ice directly to an injury.
I spun away from the impact and leapt back, but stumbled when I landed and winced at a pressure around my leg. One of the straps had twisted and found its way over my hoof, tightening it. It dangled just above the ground as if in a sling, holding my attention for a few frustrating seconds.
Foghorn hollered and drew his sword as fast as a unicorn can, and we stood on either side of the bandit. He looked about my age – or maybe a bit younger – and he was in tremendous shape. I backed up and my hoof slid off the cliff. A few rocks fell below me but I didn't hear them land.
"I told you to let me go," Icetooth reminded us. He was switching his gaze between Foghorn and I, panting and looking ready to snarl.
"You don't know how captains work," I said proudly.
"We came because your friends requested another cellmate," Foghorn added.
I smiled and nodded to him. "Nice," I said.
He winked at me.
My smile went away.
"Canterlot's prisons have enough of my friends... Don't tell me you let them escape."
"Have you ever visited?" I asked, leaving out the fact that Canterlot's number of prisons wasn't plural. "It's actually pretty nice. Free food, shelter, books.... It's at room temperature... There's no reason to escape, y’know?"
Icetooth gulped and glanced at my hooves for half a second. "I'll pass," he blurted. He then put his head down and charged towards me, leaving Foghorn to rush after him pointlessly. He was going to return the tackle, but I was prepared. One step to the left and I had a move that would subdue him, and it only needed one good foreleg. I lifted it and focused.
"Captain, the cliff!" Foghorn shouted.
I stomped my hoof on the ground and shouted back, "I KNOW there's a cl– oof!"
Icetooth zoomed past me and held onto my neck, pulling me towards the drop. I slipped free at first, but he clasped my braid between his hooves and pulled me back into a headlock, making sure that I went down with him. We were a few meters off the cliff when I heard the second most stomach-turning scream from that night.
"MINERVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa....."
I get it. If you see your girlfriend get thrown off a cliff in the middle of a huge blizzard, you might feel the need to scream her name in some kind of epic, romantic gesture. But not when it's your ex-girlfriend. And not when she has wings.
Foghorn faded into white as we dropped out of sight. I broke out of the headlock and bucked the bandit’s stomach. After he recovered, his horn glowed with his hooves and he suddenly disappeared above me. I tried to gain balance in the air myself, but when I unfurled my wings I discovered a huge downdraft that just threw me down faster. Thankfully, pegasi like me are a lot better at direction when we’re not standing on the ground, ironically enough. I couldn't slow down, but I could at least tell where the ground was about to be—if there even was a ground.
The wind settled down and I beat my wings as hard as I could, but I still met the snow with my hooves, then my shoulder, and finally my face. I slid more than a meter before I bolted to a stance and scanned the area, planting my ass into a snow bank and finally coming to a stop. The storm was still thick down here, but the winds were calmer. There was nothing but white to my left and right, and in front of me was a face of grey, jagged rocks. You could practically see the snow crawling up its walls.
"Oh, for Celestia’s sake."
The fall gave my scabbard a chance to leave my foreleg even less room to move. I tugged on a loose strap with my teeth, but I only managed to bring my leg closer. I swore and decided not to try pulling on any of the other twenty or thirty thousand bands of leather around me. I instead unhooked the sheath and let it fall to the floor.
A gust of wind brought me to my hooves from behind me, and I swiveled to see an enormous cave winding into the stone. The entrance was at least ten times my height and twenty times my width. In fact, it was so big that the snow had fallen far enough in to cover the ground inside as far as I could see. It seemed a strange place for such a big cave, but then I remembered failing elementary school geography was one of the reasons I joined the knight's academy.
I was gaping at the cave when I heard Icetooth make a landing just as graceful as mine. After a few seconds and a loud curse, he ran out of the storm and skidded to a halt at the sight of me. We stared at each other for a few seconds, panting heavily.
"Let me go," he said, following it up with several coughs and a long groan. He lifted a dagger out of a small sheath on his shoulder and glared.
"Yeah," I said, gradually turning my head towards him, "you know I can't do that."
He took a step back. "You're not in a position to make demands."
I looked at the crumpled leg next to my chest and my complete lack of a weapon. I bit my lip and was reminded of the throbbing spot on my chin. I took a deep breath and answered, "You're gonna find this weird, but hear me out. You're... the one in a bad spot here."
He scoffed with all the self-importance of a Canterlot noblemare. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, but let's talk about something else. What's your real name, Icetooth? And your cutie mark?"
He shielded his flank beneath his cape. "What's it to you?"
"Whatever it is, I'll bet we can find something you can do in Canterlot. Something productive, y'know? I mean... after you've served some time."
"I'm not going to be one of Celestia's pawns."
"Okay, first off, ouch—second off, I don't know where you get the idea that she's some awful, dictator who treats her ponies like dirt, but she's actually probably the nicest pony in the world. Seriously, you should meet her."
We were interrupted by a vague yell from the sky. I could only make out a few vowels, but I figured out what it said when a flash of steel fell from above and slashed through the snow. The snow, that is, that was in front of Icetooth. The ruby in my sword's hilt sparkled sarcastically at me.
"Nice throw, Hawkeye," I whispered to nopony. I was disappointed that Foghorn didn’t hear me.
"Who's in trouble now?" the bandit asked.
"Still you, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yup. I'd say it's even worse now."
"What… How do you figure?"
"Well I can't tell you."
He gritted his teeth. I hadn’t lied; I wasn't about to give it away by telling him. Actually, here's a tip for any of you who are planning to fight a unicorn and don't want to get killed: Unicorns are cocky as shit. I would be too if I had the ability to grab things from several meters away. Give one a weapon and pit them against a pegasus or an earth pony and they think they're unstoppable. After all, there's no reason to get close—just let the pointy end get the job done.
You know what? I think an example will work best.
This unicorn – suddenly a fan of irony – floated my sword towards me in a position to strike. The whole thing was coated in his brown-ish magicky stuff. I don't know what the name of it is, but I do know that he should only have been holding it at the hilt. He raised the freezing blade high in the air, and from his "safe" distance just ten paces ahead of me he craned his head to make sure he was going to connect properly. He didn't smile or frown at all; he just took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes.
Suddenly, there was something terrifying behind him. I know because I shrank down, opened my mouth and eyes wide and said, "What the hay is that?!" as loud as I could.
Did I fool you? I doubt it, but thankfully you’re smarter than he was. I know, I know, it's the oldest trick in the book, but somepony wrote it down for a reason.
Before Foolish in the Frozen North could curse and turn his head back around, my teeth were already clutching my blade through his mist. It was still cold as ever. He winced in pain and immediately released it, and with a glower he shot the dagger rapidly towards me. Luckily—I mean—just as planned, I had enough time to plant my teeth on my hilt and deflect the dagger above me. I landed, and with a flap of my wings, I spun and smacked it as it came back down, sending it far out of sight.
"Air!" I said through my sword as I touched the ground again. "See wha' I mea'?"
Without skipping a beat, the bandit blew open his cape with a gust of magic and revealed two more daggers on either side of his flank.
"Fun of a witch."
The next step to not getting killed by a unicorn – presuming you completely botched step one and he's now a little more self-aware – is to wait for him to do something stupid. That's actually the same with fighting anypony, though. You see, fighting is a lot like sports: the player or team who screws up the least, wins. Comparing fighting and killing to a sport is kinda messed up and I wished I hadn't written it down now, but these things happen.
"I-i-if you don’t let me go," my opponent shivered, "I'm going to kill you."
See, that's an example of saying something stupid. That's close.
His last two daggers – at least, I hoped they were his last two – came flying at me. I chomped on my sword and blew out some air before smashing the first dagger away and jumping over the second. I spun my sword to my other side and blocked both strikes of his next attack. His knives warped out of my sight and I spun around. When I didn't see them, I jumped forward and rolled as they stabbed the ground from above me.
Sparring with Foghorn had taught me how levitation magic worked. You see, unicorns can either focus on one thing at a time, or they can move everything they're holding in a pattern. I picked up on Icetooth's fondness for patterns, meaning the daggers were always sort of mirroring each other when they flew at me. When his daggers split up and stopped on my left and right side, I knew I just had to dodge one of them.
And when I did, they deflected off each other. One was sent into the snow, and the other disappeared into the cave. I dove to grab the last dagger with my hooves but he withdrew it just before I reached it. There was a brief moment for us to pant and stare at each other.
"Last chance," I breathed.
"Stop talking!"
His final dagger started to circle me slowly. I closed my eyes and exhaled. I shifted the sword in my mouth and felt the ruby in the hilt reopen the scab on my lip. For a moment my anger grew, but I was able to let it go, because in my head, I saw a clock ticking down. Soon, it would be time for him to do something stupid.
3 O'clock.
4 O'clock.
5 O'clock...
I spat out my sword, flapped my wings and shot at him. He gasped and shot his dagger in pursuit. I was no match for its speed, but it was a race I was okay with losing. When I saw his horn brighten, I broke and took a single step to the left, closed my eyes and cringed, ready for the worst.
And then he just screamed for what seemed like an entire minute. It started with a sharp, very low tone. He then stepped back twice in the snow, and his voice sputtered once before crying in a new, much higher pitch. He was definitely younger than me. I heard his body crumple into the snow and struggle to stay still. I didn't want to look, but I didn’t like where my imagination was going.
"Oh, shit," I breathed.
He hyperventilated and slowly brought his hooves to his face.
"It’s okay! It only went in your eye. Doctors can fix that. Just try to relax and—"
The noise stopped. It was probably for the best, I thought. Maybe Foghorn could patch him up before he woke up. Either way, he wasn't getting away now.
Speaking of Foghorn, my mind finally decided to start thinking about my exit strategy. The thin line of sky above me looked like a hassle to get through, but if I stuck to the wall, I figured I could probably climb out. We even had some rope and some recruits I was eager to put to work that could help me get the Cyclops out before sunrise. I breathed in as far as I could and let it out all at once. And for some reason, I found myself drawn to the cave again. I flapped my wings and carried my aching body over to its entrance, hopelessly trying to straighten my leg.
I took a few steps into the snow-ridden cave. It had a small light source far inside in the form of a crystal poking out from the ceiling. I flew up to it and watched it carefully, gradually opening my mouth and blinking. It looked as though a drop of water had trailed down its side, and then turned into snow just as it came off. I shivered and floated back down, shaking my head. Something inside me urged me to explore, but there was a squad that needed to get home.
I looked back outside and my heart sank.
"Where… Where’s the moon?!"
The ravine outside was now darker than the cave itself, and the flurries were now whipping faster than during the fight. I bit my lip and winced, before sprinting back into the storm.
"He’ll be buried!"
I went a few meters in the air and threw my gaze everywhere. “Brown and red,” I said in a panic. “Brown fur, red hair… and blood. Uhhh… There!” A glint of red in the blizzard spurred me forward. The wind threw me into the ground, and when I regained my balance I came face to face with my reflection on a shiny plate of steel standing in the rock. I gasped and slowly turned my gaze upwards, and a bright, red gem sparkled at me once more.
"…What the—"
Icetooth roared and pounced from my right. He collided even tougher than before and shoved my face into the snow, before lifting my chin and slamming his hoof into my head. I grunted and turned onto my back, and he fell on top of me, snaring my hind legs in a vice. I threw a punch into his face that turned into a light slap, and he pushed my good foreleg into the ground, setting my shoulder on fire. He tried to do the same with the other, but he had a bit of trouble with the straps. He was yelling at me like a maniac—not bothering to form full words. His dagger was still dangling from his eye-socket, and his blood dripped into one of my eyes, forcing it closed.
"Stop! Get... OFF!"
He punched me again and fell onto my shoulder. I shrieked in pain from his weight and bared my teeth at him.
"I SAID…"
It was then that I heard a horrible snap in my constrained leg, not unlike a stalk of celery. I hollered and he raised himself up again, trying to give my face another belter but hitting my leg instead. My eyes stung with tears, my ears began to ring out of commission, and my body was electrified. It was like being struck by lightning yet somehow it was my fault.
But as I gritted my teeth in pain and anguish, I found myself loose. I let my leg crumple – now that I was numb to pain – and lunged my head forward. I found a hilt in my teeth, and yanked it loose. He howled into my face, and another drop of blood forced my other eye closed. My teeth felt like they were about to crack on the dagger’s hilt. When I tried to break free again I felt his hooves press against my neck.
The last thing he heard me do was growl. I gave him two seconds to get off me, but I’ll admit, I never quite got the chance to warn him. The pressure grew tighter and tighter, and after the two seconds finished, I found a new place to put his knife.
And that’s step three to not getting killed by a unicorn. Same as any other opponent again, though. I’ve done it before. It's a long story, and I won't get into it, but I've had the experience. Just like the first time, I felt the same, overwhelming emotions. It's a little bit of good, and a whole lot of bad. This time though, there was a lot more blood. My armor was stained with a new colour—fat load of protection it had done me that night.
The pressure on my neck went away, and I took the chance to punch him as hard as I could in the side of the head, knocking him off of me and out cold.
"We’re NOT—!" I started.
My senses slowly came back to me. My ears stopped ringing and I heard myself panting. My nerves came back and my leg reminded me how broken it was the only way it knew how. I turned over and shoved my face into the snow, rubbing it and staining it with red.
"She said we’re not supposed to do that anymore." I finished.
I shuddered and stood up in the snow, before quickly falling down into a sit. Icetooth’s body was completely still now—a small patch of red showing in the snow that was burying him. Maybe it was because it was my second time, or maybe I was still in shock, but I never shed a single tear for him. I just shook my head and lightly pat the snow with my unbroken foreleg.
"I’m okay," I reassured myself.
I shuffled over to Icetooth's body and moved his cape with my fractured leg to see his flank. My scabbard straps finally slid off of my leg and onto him.
"Anvils."
I grabbed my sword loosely and dragged it across the snow, limping the whole way. When I arrived at the cave I stabbed the blade into the ground next to the entrance and cursed in pain. I turned back to the blade—not a speck of blood on it. I thought of all the ways it had let me down that night, and I spat on the ruby. Then I looked at the body in the ravine, slowly being swallowed by the snow. His undamaged eye was slowly coming to a close. I muttered a few more words before turning inside.
"I wonder if you made swords."