//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 - Perilous 
// Story: Sisters in All but Blood 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

The clatter increased.  Celestia had a bamboo garden that sounded like this on a windy day.  It came from the scary-looking gnarled trees, and also a jagged outcropping that marked the edge of our burn-scar meadow.  Then suddenly with an almost marimba-like patter slightly north, cutting off the route toward the bridge and castle.

Steel and wood clanked as ponies grabbed spears.  Applejack had her lasso spinning.  Lyra and the doctor jumped over fallen logs that were scattered in piles all around, trying to get to a safer position. 

Fluttershy's wings whooshed as she shot upward toward dangerous visibility.  I gabbed her moonlit silhouette in my magic.  "No!" I said as quietly as I could.

She whimpered.  "Timberwolves!"

"Yeah," I heard Bon Bon say, exasperated.  I looked as she threw a torch over the rail of a chariot, but for all the strong motion of her head, she had clipped the side.  It spun sideways, forcing Lunettes to dodge aside as Bon Bon dipped for another.

A wooden monster as tall as a house crashed through the trees into the clearing.  A sickly green magical miasma surrounded a creature composed of logs, branches, and leafy twigs.  It looked dog-like, an abstract collection of pieces that could be construed to be a tail, paws, and a flat head—with triangles of sticks for ears, sharpened pegs for teeth, and yellow-green luminescent fog for eyes.  Condensation dripped like melted metal from its jaws, causing the ground to sizzle.  It had no joints, no ligaments—nothing physical holding it together.

"Celestia on a pinhead!  What happened to my matches?" Bon-Bon cried.

The creature stalked us.   A second and a third stepped from forest.  

Archer and Crystalline loosed a force spell on the leader, but their beams passed through it with all the effectiveness of jabbing a hole through beach sand, displacing parts and little more.  Aiming for legs only changed its footing.  

"Spears!" called Archer, and they reached for them with their magic.  Even Applejack's lasso could do little more then grab a branch out of the whole beast.  

The girls backed behind a stack of burnt lumber.  Oddly, the monsters stopped and howled.

Sounding desperate, Bon-Bon said, "Fey, foonicorns!"  She had a torch in her mouth.  "F-fire spell, fleas?"

Twin Forks charged and struck the first beast, breaking apart its muzzle.  The clack echoed in the canyon.  Instead of wood crashing to the ground, the wooden parts acted like a series of magnetic bars.  The pieces clumped and formed drooping chains.  The timberwolf shook its head, and as it did, the displaced wood took on a life its own, rising, rolling or going end-over-end, climbing quickly back into the original position in its jaw or muzzle.

The MEL agent made a frustrated sound.  I suddenly connected the tar-soaked fabric of the torch with Bon Bon's request.  

In the five seconds it took me to solve the spell equations for fire, Archer and Crystalline both struck a timberwolf with similar temporaneous results.  Crystalline's adversary, however, caught her spear in a sweep of its paw, ripping it from her magic and whacking her shoulder.  She whinnied piteously as she fell over, then bucked herself away as best she could before the creature could bite her.  Saliva hit her, though.  She rolled vigorously to scrape the burning stuff off.

My equations balanced with a click; ethereal numbers spun superimposed across my field of view.  The head of Bon Bon's torch burst into spitting flames.  Hearts caught two other torches Bon Bon had flung out, then the four left in the chariot.  With ease, I skewed an axis of the equation, stretching out a thread of fire from Bon Bon's torch—even as she charged forward—connecting Heart's torches like a chain of brilliant daisies.

Bon Bon charged Crystalline's timberwolf, waving the whooshing brand.  The creature immediately backed, growling .  Cued, Hearts flung her torches outward, making them hover outside of the sweep of the paws of the other two timberwolves, and then the two more who joined the pack, creeping from the area near the bridge.   Each backed reluctantly, but only so far, and would not retreat.  Instead, they tried feinting and dodging around the flaming obstruction.   As pack hunters, of what prey I could only guess, they swiftly grouped together, coordinated, and started communicating with churrs and yips.

I readjusted my spell and focused it at the nearest timberwolf.  

I felt a return jolt as my magic backfired, singing my my muzzle.  The resultant cloud of burnt hair smell left me coughing.  I now understood the origin of the word "backfire."  I'd forgotten a basic tenant of unicorn magic; made of rainbows, my magic could not directly injure or kill a living thing.  More surprising, this told me that timberwolves were alive and not some sort of evil golem. 

As Hearts waved her torches more and more desperately, I noticed none of the timberwolves' movements looked random.  Most of it was toward the ponies who sheltered behind any scattered wood that consisted of a dozen pieces or so.

"Move away from the piles of wood!" I called. 

Retreating, Archer and Twin Forks grabbed torches from Hearts while Night Wings assisted badly limping pale-white Crystalline, who, with her burnt-off mane, had taken the brunt of the abuse.  We left behind the chariots and wagons.  And our supplies.

And the Elements of Harmony book!  

I rushed forward, grabbing the book out of the chariot.  Two timberwolves charged me.  I had snagged the leather-bound tome when Hearts chucked torches at the two.  Suddenly I felt the sickly sensation of no weight, which my inner ear insisted could only come from falling, like off a cliff.  Hearts was apparently taking no chances: she threw me hooves over hindquarters tumbling upward before the snapping jaws of the converging timberwolves could do little more than make my tail wave. 

Fluttershy caught me at the top of a parabolic trajectory as Hearts' stamina faltered.   My weight pressed the pegasus back.  Not a strong flyer, the two of us began gliding down at an alarming rate.  She kept repeating, "Oh my, goodness!  Oh my, goodness!"

The jumping timberwolves smashed together.  Timber scattered as Rainbow Dash, rocketing toward us, matched our speed with a canvas-like snap of flared wings.  Both of them flapping in unison, I came down like an autumn leaf.

Fluttershy said, "Sorry girls. I'm not used to holding anything more than a bunny or two."

Beyond the view of yellow and blue wings, clattering branches and logs bounced, rolled, and and came to an inanimate stop.  My book plopped a full pony-length behind me.

"We'd never leave a friend hanging," Rainbow said, rearing as she faced the monsters, fluffing her feathers then snugging her wings against her body.  

The rest gave a rousing, "Uh-huh!"

"Thank you.  Thank you, everypony," I said, watching as the remaining three timberwolves formed a group as we retreated toward the bridge.  I grabbed my hard won book as we retreated further, watching as the wrecked remnants of the timberwolves started creeping along the grass and began to reconnect.

I gasped.  "It's a timberwolf nursery!"

"Oh!  That might explain the varmints," Applejack said.   Her brother added, "E-yup."

The path along the canyon narrowed, forcing us together.  When I was sure the timberwolves were no longer a threat, I stopped and lay down.  I realized my legs were shaking. 

"Not used to flying?"

"No.  Nor falling.  After that, I'd never want to learn to fly, even if Celestia insisted on giving me wings."

"Ha-ha.  Won't happen, Twilight," the athletic pony said, magenta eyes looking clearly worried.

Twinkie spoke up, "And please don't go scaring us like that again."

"I won't," I answered as the girls went down beside me.  I wouldn't, not until I needed to again.  

As the doctor tended to Crystalline, the guard spread out.  I started a simple light spell and looked at the muddied book for which I'd risked my life.  

Well, it was my book and I was going to read it!  

I opened it and turned to the plates.  Even under reddish light, the drawing of the six differently colored gems, arranged in a five-point star around a sixth central gem, looked familiar.  They were set in a piece of jewelry, and each gem looked like it couldn't be larger than a cherry.  Items imbued with magic tended to be massive, like a staff, or a piece of armor, or an obelisk.  Static magic required a complex structure to compensate for not being in a living being.

I took a deep breath, feeling calmer.  I leafed to an important part of the text.  The Elements of Harmony apparently had counterparts in those aspects that formed a harmonious relationship.  The author gave them names like kindness, generosity, honesty, laughter, and loyalty.  The last element was unknown, however.  It would reputedly appear when a metaphoric spark, generated by— or able to be generated because— of the relationship between the five, summoned it.  I'd read the book twice last night; it contained no further instructions on how to use the gems, only that the mythical pony sister had used them.  The author relied on allegory to explain the magic, and I could not ferret out the hidden meaning.

It really didn't sound like any magic artifact I'd ever read about.

I sighed, closing the book and looking at the ponies around me.  In my concentration, Lunettes and Minuette had lain beside me, pressing against me.  The rest of the girls, and the others, had closed in as best as the path would allow.  I had a shadowy contrasty view of a herd of night-grayed blue, yellow, green, and beige ponies around me, all  watching me, eyes glittering in the moonlight.  

I said, "I don't know what I'd do with out you.  Any of you.  A day ago, I would have not understood, even been confused by it all.  But you've changed me."

They nodded quietly.

I levered myself up, and they followed.  "Time to find and rescue a princess."

In response, something very feline and undoubtedly huge roared.  I jumped around in one leap, facing the sound that emanated by the bridge.  The pegasi were in the air, and the guard formed a line leaping over some of us, spears again mounted.  

A leonine form, with a thick curved tail, separated from the forest and again roared.

This was clearly an animal, and the guards weren't about to take a chance with an approaching enraged beast… with the tail of a scorpion.  A manticore.  Its species became obvious as it began flicking a spike-like point forward of its body.

"Wait," cried Fluttershy barely loud enough to be considered a cry at all.  She corkscrewed out of the sky with amazing agility, across each of the spear ponies, causing them to halt or rear.  "Wait!" she said again.  "Wait!"

As Fluttershy turned, Harps trotted up beside her.   Minty green asked, "It's hurt, isn't it?"

Bon Bon stood beside me, nervously pacing in place.  She hissed, "Lyra, Lyra, don't do this."

Fluttershy alighted and answered, "He is a he.  Can you not see how he is limping?"

"Yeah, I can.  Poor thing…"  Lyra giggled.

The beast slowed as he closed, until he padded to within swiping range and sat.  He roared again, loud and strong enough to muss Fluttershy's hair.  I had begun to shake, when Fluttershy said, "Shhh... It's okay. Oh, you poor, poor little baby."

Rainbow Dash and Hearts said in unison, "Little?"

Harps said, "Oh, such a sweet little kitten."

I had a vision of that sweet little kitten taking a swipe with four claws out and cutting my friend to ribbons.  Bon Bon said under her breath, "I'm going to kill her for this."

Fluttershy stepped closer, well within stabbing range of the scorpion tail.  As she sat, the manticore raised a paw the size of my head, but turned it up for Fluttershy to see.

It was Bon Bon who had said something about Fluttershy having some power of empathy over woodland creatures.  I still shuttered when the yellow pegasus said, "This is going to hurt for just a second."

She ducked her head and tugged something with her mouth.  Again, the creature roared.  For instant I thought he was about to eat the beautiful pegasus in a single bite.

He licked her affectionately.  That he undoubtedly had a cat's sandpaper tongue, and was slicking up Fluttershy's mane, did not make it look all that enjoyable.  Harps sat and clapped her hooves together in glee.

All of it in the view of the castle—were the mist to clear just slightly more.  But with the air having cooled more than seasonable, thanks to Nightmare Moon's "nighttime eternal,"  newly formed clumps of fog rose out of the gorge and spread.

Her hair spiked with cat spit, Fluttershy sent her animal patient on his way.  She and Harps tittered with each other discussing something I couldn't hear.

Where a grand stone arch had once crossed the gorge now lay remnants of bridgeworks in a pile of stone, carved steps, and a short roadway.  Drilled into the brick surface, poles held taut a rickety rope bridge with a dodgy looking wood slat bed spanning the drop.  

I walked up, careful of the weeds growing between the ruined stone and brick.  Heedful of my footing, I looked beyond the edge of the ruined roadway down into the inky darkness .  The water rushed at the bottom, muted by our height above the turbulent flow.  I swallowed hard.

I heard hoofbeats and saw Bon Bon, and thus heard Harps say a matter of factly, "…and you're not the only one with a secret, y'know.  I'm great with animals!"

"Yan, yan, yan.  Ya think you know someone," Bon Bon muttered to herself.  To me, she said, "I'm going to scout, as we agreed."

"As am I," said Twinkie.  I was about to say no, when the fog around her thickened suddenly.  "One of my few good tricks," she said, "especially in this humidity," and promptly disappeared.

I had been looking at Bon Bon, but then I had found myself needing to look at Twinkie who I now couldn't see.  And now Bon Bon was gone; her sour drops talent in play.  I heard the light tap of her hooves on wood, then on stone beyond.

Then I heard Twinkie crossing.  She stumbled halfway, and I heard the  rope make straining noises.  Then I heard hooves on stone and tracking through mud.

The rope kept making straining noises.

I got closer and looked at the rope tied to the posts.

The posts were covered in something slimy.  No, oily!  The ropes visibly slipped under their own weight, moving like a boa uncoiling.  I moved to the left of the southernmost post get a good view of both and grabbed the ropes in my magic.

The hard surface underneath me shuddered and gave way.   A levitation spell wasn't a rope; it didn't stop my fall.