Chasing Smoke

by GreyGuardPony

The Mountains of Mourn

Was it unfair to be nervous around soldiers?

It was a question that Ditzy Doo found herself chewing over while standing on the platform of yet another Naqahn train station. After everything in Kuleler Sehri they had boarded a train again, racing through the night towards the little town of Van. Now in the morning light they were waiting at the town’s train station for reinforcements, summoned by Parlak’s telegraphs the day before. So they stood. And waited.

Truthfully, Ditzy really wanted to be anywhere but here right now. A sick sensation had settled in her stomach and refused to budge, no matter how hard she tried to shake it loose. The more she thought about it though, directing her ill feelings towards soldiers that hadn’t even shown up yet wasn’t fair. Not really. The real reason for her unease brooded a few feet behind her, occasionally shooting venomous glares at the back of Cheerilee’s head.

Her friend’s actions just wouldn’t stop bothering her. Cheerilee had basically grabbed Yangin and forced her to help. Almost taking her...hostage. A shiver, that could almost have been the morning air ran right to the tip of her tail. One of her best friends had just, effectively, taken a hostage. Like Corona. Except that this was almost worse, as Cheerilee was actively forcing another creature to do labor! Weren’t they supposed to be better than her? They were the Elements of Harmony!

The rest of her friends seemed divided. Raindrops seemed, at least by her body language, to be very unconcerned with the situation. Or she had decided that this was a necessary evil to pushed through as quickly as possible. Ditzy honestly couldn’t tell from her body language and hadn’t scared up the nerve to ask yet. Trixie had seemed to shrug and just accept it, maybe because of her previous knowledge of how jinn worked.

Lyra was upset and had been so since yesterday. So, Ditzy could put good bits on her being just as annoyed with the situation as she was. Carrot Top looked...torn, nervously biting her lip every time she glanced Yangin’s way.

And Parlak….

He didn’t care. Or didn’t seem to at any rate.

Those dark thoughts were driven away by the roar of a train coming to a stop, a sound that she was becoming very familiar with. Another armored monstrosity it did have a lot more cars than the one they had been traveling in. The doors to troop carrier slid open and soldiers began to file out.

To Ditzy’s surprise it was a rather diverse looking bunch. Two groups of about twenty camels each, came first. Long spears were strapped to the sides of their full packs, the tips peacebound with thick cotton and linen covers. They dutifully filed right past Parlak, moving towards the wider town streets where they would have more room to stand.

Then came the ponies.

She knew from what random facts Cheerilee had discovered about Naqah that the country did have a minority pony population. That’s why it was somewhat surprising to see fifteen of them come out of the train. Ten pegasi, all with crossbows strapped to their sides and padded armor and then five sturdy looking earth ponies in chainmail and armored hoof covers.

Finally and from a second train car, with a larger door, three buffalo pushed their way into the platform. They were armed the strangest of the lot. A heavy canvas...well, Ditzy couldn’t call it anything but a sling, was draped over each of their backs. It had two basic holders, one on each side of the body. One held a heavy bronze cannon, while the other held a collection of canisters of small metal balls.

“This seems...a lot,” Lyra said.

“I intend to be prepared,” Parlak shrugged in response. “If we’re going the direction I suspect we’re going, we will be heading into ghul territory. We may have to fight our way through. To say nothing of Grev and Corona’s forces.”

“Well, we’ll trust your judgement on that,” Cheerilee said, smiling slightly.

Ditzy sighed but put a friendly smile on her face as she turned towards Yangin. “So, which direction do we go from here?”

The jinn motioned a hoof towards the peaks that rose beyond the edge of the small town. “First, we’ll just walk through the little town here far to the outskirts of the other side. Then I’ll use a little bit of elemental magic to help move us along.”

“Oh, that’s nice of you.”

“It’s more of a desire to get this over with.” Yangin sighed with a dramatic flair.

Trixie flared her cape, with a confident grin. “Well then, let’s get going!”

Before she could start walking, Parlak held up a hoof. “Hold on. Before we set off, I would like all of you to put armor on. No more taking chances.”

“But...have you seen how warm it is already? Today’s going to be really hot! You want us to walk around in metal armor?” Trixie said, her eyes wide.

“As are my soldiers. And I will be too. So long as you are in my country, your safety is my responsibility. So, armor on. Your enchanted sets are on the train. I had them escorted from the capital.”

Groaning, Trixie turned towards the train. Ditzy followed behind, shaking her head slightly as she went. She hoped this wasn’t a bad sign.

Van could have really been Ponyville’s sister city.

Like Ponyville, it was an agricultural town, with rolling farmland and orchards spreading out in a westerly direction from the town center, with a truly sprawling orchard; in this case dates. Where as Ponyville was hemmed in by the depths of the Everfree though, it was the soaring heights of the Abbor-Alz Mountains that was the untamed wilderness that the locals didn’t care to go into.

The locals were also reacting to the presence of a small army and a collection of foreign mares about as well as Raindrops would have expected them too. They mostly hid in their homes and shops, occasionally peeking through windows and from behind curtains decorated with geometric patterns. After marching through the town proper their column began to wind through the foothills, officially the first leg of their journey.

Lazily twisting in the air to look behind her, the army remained an intimidating sight, armor glittering in the sunlight.

“I renew my objection to wearing our armor now!.”

Flipping back aground, Raindrops could see Trixie tugging at her suit of starmetal. She had seen Trixie in many moods since they became friends and right now the unicorn was doing a rather fair impression of herself in her worst moment. Head down and jaw set in a grimace, small beads of sweat were beginning to appear on her forehead.

The sun was already approaching its noon time zenith, the morning having burnt away during the train ride to Van. Clear blue skies dominated the horizon for the most part. Sure, there were a few cumulus clouds lazily scattered through the air but not many. Focusing in on her senses for a moment, Raindrops got a feel for the moisture in the air and the light tingles at the base of her wings. Today was a dry day it seemed and while the armor Luna had gifted them with was lighter than normal, it was still metal.

“Your concern is acknowledged and noted,” Parlak said.

Walking alongside Yangin, the pair lead the way, thought Yangin didn’t look any happier than Trixie did right now.

“It’s a question of passing out. Don’t you control the weather around here?” Trixie grumbled.

“We do, but usually on a more local scale. Jinn are quite useful, but they aren’t quite as skilled at maintaining weather in the long term as pegasi.”

The swell of pride in Raindrop’s chest was something that she didn’t bother to suppress. Her personal skill as a weather pony was something that remained important to her, despite all the Element Bearer related craziness that had since entered her life. So, the fact that creatures literally made out of the natural world weren’t quite as good at making weather- or at least one aspect of it- than her tribe was…. Well, she’d allow herself a little bit of an extra smile at that.

After a walking a bit more, they were now back outside the town’s limits and in the beginning of the mountain foothills. Yangin looked around at this point, nodding to herself.

“Okay, this is a good enough place. Can everyone line up on the ground please? Nice and orderly. Maybe about...oh, lines five wide?”

Somehow she had made herself understood in both languages and with a nod from Parlak, everyone began shuffling around to take up the requested positions. Once everyone was in place, Yangin smirked, giving her hooves three sharp claps together.

A low rumbling sound rose from the ground and Raindrops almost jumped skyward again out of instinct, half expecting the soil under her hooves to sink and drag her with it. Instead, stone began to rise from their surroundings. A solid slab formed under their hooves first but was quickly joined by a stone railing, almost like what she’d remembered from the ship that took them to the isle of Tambelon.

That assumption proved to be the case as Yangin continued to build her construct. Stone continued to be called from the ground, the unmistakable shape of a sailing ship growing under their hooves. Carrot Top groaned as she recognized that shape, throwing her hooves over her eyes.

“Not again!”

“Don’t worry! Your hooves are still technically touching the earth,” Cheerilee said.

Yangin looked down at Carrot Top, with a slightly sympathetic smile. “You’re not the first sea-sick earth pony I’ve met. I actually came up with this idea after a long trip with him.”

Carrot Top slowly peeked from between her hooves. “Really?”

“Really. Believe it or not, even we jinn don’t like to clean sick out of our manes.” Yangin winked.

The carrot farmer pulled her hooves completely away from her eyes now, looking at least a little less nervous.

As the ship of earth finished forming, Raindrops took wing to take in the completed effect. It was an impressive three decked construction, that sunk into the earth like it was somehow water itself. Yet, it had no masts, instead sporting a giant wheel off the back end...the stern? That sounded right to her. A large smoke stack rose from the stern as well, directly before the wheel.

Now Yangin raised both her forelegs skyward. The earth cracked and buckled for a moment, before vomiting forth molten lava. Raindrops hunched down, preparing to grab her friends and take wing, should Yangin decide to attack them.

Instead, she wove it through the air in ribbons, lightly dragging it along the edges of the ship. The lava was looped, flowed and piped along the sides of the earthen hull in almost the exact manner Pinkie Pie would use to decorate a cake. As the decorations began to cool, Yangin deposited the rest of the magma into the smoke stack.

In the end Yangin hadn’t just made the shape of a ship. There were different colors of stone, used to make and highlight different parts of it. Brown for the main body of the ship, with black obsidian for what would be the trim and other ornate details on an actual sailing vessel. Raindrops would almost go so far as to call it a work of art. Yangin obviously cared about what she had made.

Dropping back to the deck, she couldn’t help be impressed at what Yangin had done. Most of the magic she had seen that was close to this scope were things like the Elements of Harmony themselves and the raw power of Corona. She was more convinced than ever that they needed to use her in the battle against Corona somehow. Maybe they could offer her something? Cheerilee did have the anklet so if push came to shove they could force her. Maybe. Even though she didn’t really want to.

Yangin aligned herself on the bow of the ship, facing her audience, beaming with what was obvious pride. “Presenting one full and authentically certified jinn made landship! In the event of an unlikely emergency, exits are all around you and just over the side!”

“Well, how do we make it go?” Trixie asked.

“I make it go. You all just sit back and talk amongst yourselves. We’ll shave days off trip like this.”

With that, she turned to face the mountains, dropping back into her natural jinn form. Standing tall almost like a figurehead the ship surged forward, neatly sliding through dirt and stone without any resistance. On and on it went, rapidly climbing its way into the mountain range. For a few minutes, everyone, pony and camel alike, watched the landscape literally sail by.

“Don’t suppose anypony has a deck of cards?” Cheerilee asked.

They “sailed” through the day, Yangin’s magical frigate going right up and over the hills like they were rolling waves. By late afternoon, they had left the foothills behind and were entering the higher mountain peaks. Here it pushed onwards with the same steady determination, going straight up the sides of rocky slopes, weaving between small collections of trees and shooting down winding mountain paths. Nothing seemed to actually slow the arcane construct. Any boulders that might have been able to cave in its side just passed straight through its hull.

Still at her position on the bow, Yangin had taken to humming some kind of tune, steering the ship with what Cheerilee presumed was her mind. She looked...happy. Seeing that made Cheerilee feel better about what she had been forced to do. It was just getting a guide to their destination. She’d give the anklet right back as soon as they got what they needed.

It wasn’t like she had missed the disapproving gaze of Ditzy. She just didn’t want to meet it. At all. Guessing why Ditzy had been staring at her hadn’t been hard. The parallels between what she had done and what Corona….

She let that thought trail off, staring down at the cards in her hooves, up at her friends sitting around her and then up at the fading sun. They were coming close to the end of the day now. Would they continue on through the night? Did Yangin need sleep? Did jinn in general need sleep? Just as she began to consider asking that question there was a loud splash as the ship came to a halt.

Peeking over the side, she could see that they had stopped at a high mountain lake. Long and narrow, it wound past a small group of pistachio trees, before opening back up into a wider, almost circular end. It was that end where they were currently resting, the land ship now acting much like a real ship.

“Shore leave!” Yangin called. “Ship needs to recharge on earth magic overnight.”

Stomping a hoof against the rocky deck Yangin called forth an equally rocky gangplank. Shooting from the side of the ship, it slammed into the lake shore with an almost tooth shaking impact. Parlak eyed it for a moment before shrugging and barking out a collection of orders. His soldiers dutifully took up their packs, and filed off the ship, beginning to set up their tents for the night.

“We will need to set up a watch system. My troops already have a rotation they learned from basic training, but if you would like to join-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yangin said, casually waving a hoof. “I’ll watch things tonight.”

“You’re...kidding, right?” Trixie frowned.

Yangin fixed Trixie with a very serious look. It wasn’t angry, like many of the expressions she had worn before. Rather it was full of a sturdy confidence and utter surety of her position.

“Parlak is right about one thing. While we aren’t in ghul territory yet, they sometimes wander down from the peaks to hunt and raid.” Pausing only long enough to shoot a glare at Cheerilee, she then continued. “I wouldn’t wish what ghuls do upon my worst enemy.”

“What they do?” Carrot Top asked, eyes suddenly wide.

“They eat. Flesh. Bone. Magic. They consume it all!” She whispered spreading her hooves wide, like she was telling a wild story.

The Element Bearers all looked at Parlak. He gave a simple nod.

“She does speak the truth. At least on the first two bits. Never heard of them eating magic though.”

“Well...I bet they would if they could,” Yangin actually pouted. “But my offer stands all the same. I will watch the camp tonight.”

Ditzy stepped forward with a friendly smile. “Thank you Yangin. We appreciate it.”

Parlak coughed. “That being said, I feel that it would be wise not to rely on just one creature keeping watch. More eyes on our surroundings is better.”

Yangin’s eyes narrowed for a moment but then she shrugged and waved a hoof back. “Go on.”

In about an hour a small city of tents was set up on the shore of the lake, cooking fires flickering merrily away and a multitude smells from a few dozen cooking dinners filled the air. Sitting in her tent, Cheerilee stretched and rolled her shoulders to crack and pop the stiffness from sitting all day out of her system.

“Oooof. I needed that.”

Pushing the tent flap aside, she trotted towards the edge of the lake, where her friends were relaxing. Raindrops was floating in the water on her back, legs tucked close to her body and eyes closed in an expression serenity. Trixie and Ditzy were poking at a small fire to keep it active. Carrot Top held a pan over the flames, slowly shaking it back and forth, while Lyra provided a little musical accompaniment.

“What’s in the pan?”

“Some pistachios from the trees over there, spices and just a little bit of salt. Figured we could use a small snack,” Carrot Top said.

“Nuts seem rather plain. Wish we had some cheese...or butter!” Trixie sighed.

Looking at her saddlebags, Carrot Top shrugged. “Well, it already has some red pepper flakes. There’s a lot of spices in the supplies they gave us.”

“Naqah does like their spices. I think they’re the biggest export after coffee,” Cheerilee said, pulling out a random factoid as she squeezed in next to Trixie.

“Beautiful country though. Maybe Bon Bon and I can take a vacation here someday.”

“Going all exotic on us are we?” Raindrops asked without opening her eyes.

Lyra chuckled, shrugging slightly. “Maybe? It has been something, seeing all these distant parts of the world. And we’d never have been able to do it if circumstances were just a little different.”

Leaning back against her saddlebags, Trixie idly twirled her hoof. “Oh, I don’t know. I like to think that as Princess Luna’s apprentice I would have come to wow the world as the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Is that before or after you wound up in debt to another noble?” Raindrops said, rolling over to float on her stomach.

“Just because that happened once….”

“Nuts are done!”

Tipping the roasted nuts into a square military tin, Carrot Top began to pass it around. Leaving the lake, Raindrops shook the water from her form and joined her friends, sharing the snacks while watching the sun set. As it continued to slip over the horizon, Ditzy broke the sounds of chewing and the snap of the fire with a question.

“So, are we really just going to ignore what Cheerilee did and not talk about it at all?”

Cheerilee winced. “I’m sorry Ditzy, but we needed a way to find the Army of Smoke and Fire. I didn’t think I could track down Grev and Kindle in a city that he knew. I...I did what I had to.”

“That’s not good enough,” Ditzy said. Her frown was almost a pout of disappointment. “We basically just kidnapped somepony!”

“But this is how jinn work,” Trixie huffed. “Naqah has been using them to make things and find things for centuries!”

“You’re ignoring the fact that most jinn don’t have pony intelligence. Yangin and apparently those ones like her, are basically just likes ponies. Ponies with lots of magic power, but ponies all the same.”

“Which is why I’m only doing this long enough to find the army. Then I let her go,” Cheerilee said.

She was loosely fiddling with the anklet now, perhaps out of nervousness, perhaps out of guilt. She couldn’t entirely be sure. It was like she had grabbed a timber wolf by the ears and now was stuck dealing with the consequences.

Carrot Top was dragging her hoof through the dirt, frowning all the while. “I still hate this Cheerilee. We try to make things better, not worse. Have you seen those looks Yangin gives you? She hates you!”

“Not to mention she promised that you would ‘regret’ your decision. I’m guessing this isn’t the first time its happened to her,” Raindrops frowned.

Ditzy sighed, pushing herself to her hooves. “I’m going to have a conversation with her.”

“Why?” Cheerilee blinked.

“I’m still angry that you did what you did Cheerilee. But I would like Yangin to not try and hurt you when you let her go.”

With that and a flick of her tail, Ditzy set off for the ship. Sinking a bit lower in her seat, Cheerilee reached for another hoof full of pistachios. What did you give a jinn as an apology gift anyway?

Ditzy was a little bit nervous as she approached the form of Yangin. The jinn was almost like a lighthouse on her perch at the end of ship, her flaming mane and tail flickering in the slight breezes that worked their way through the mountain pass.

“Was there something you needed?” Yangin asked.

Ditzy paused. She hadn’t turned around and was keeping her gaze firmly fixed on their surroundings. Ditzy wasn’t entirely sure what kind of jinn magic she had used to sense her presence but shrugged it off. Yangin had built the ship she was standing on. Maybe she could sense Ditzy’s hoof falls through the stone? It would fit her elemental powers. Taking a deep breath, she resolutely trotted forward again, taking a seat next to the jinn.

“I wanted to talk to you about my friend.”

“Which one?”

Ditzy gave her a deadpan stare. The best that she could manage at least. “You know which one.”

“What about her?”

What about her. Ditzy could still feel the anger over what he friend had done bubbling away in her. How did she approach Yangin about this.

“Please don’t hurt her!”

That hadn’t been the way she wanted to start this conversation off. But Yangin was now staring down at her. Her expression was frustratingly unreadable, mostly because of the solid white nature of her eyes when she was a jinn.

“So convinced I’m going to do that, are you?”

“I’m not ruling it out. Lyra said that you told her that she’d ‘regret’ doing this.”

Yangin snorted, but shrugged. “I would say that it’s all up to her.”

Ditzy frowned back. “That’s not much of an answer.”

“Because I haven’t made up my mind yet. Contrary to what you might think, I am capable of recognizing nuance when it comes to a pony’s position.”

“Then you have to know her intentions are good.”

“I know they are. I know that she’s thinking about all the ponies in Equestria that could suffer if Corona wins. But that’s exactly why I am very cynical about what Cheerilee will do in the end.”

Ditzy sighed. “She won’t try to keep you.”

Now Yangin gave a very strong shake of her head, settling back on her haunches as she did. “You don’t know that and you can’t. Fear and the threat of what might happen can drive a reasonable creature to do foolish things. I’ve watched it happen time and time again. It’s a little slip here, a compromise there, and the next thing you know you’re building extravagant cities in the middle of remote mountains.”

“I’m not going to argue that what Cheerilee did wasn’t wrong. But even if I did believe that she was going to try and keep you, which I still don’t, I wouldn’t let her.”

“You’d go against one of your fellow Elements of Harmony? One of your friends?”

“We may be friends, but we don’t always see eye to eye on everything. I really disagree with her on this, I’d oppose her if I had too….” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “And I’d have faith that our friendship is strong enough to recover from that.”

“You know, with talk like that, I’d almost call you an idealist.”

“I guess. I care about my friends, I care about my family, but no pony is perfect. But Cheerilee is a good pony. Really.”

Yangin sighed and slumped slightly. “Ugh. You sound just like your princess.”

“....You...know Luna?”

Ditzy had been completely unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice. The thought of the irreverent jinn and Equestria’s monarch in the same room, let alone having a conversation seemed completely nuts in her mind. But the expression on Yangin’s face said it all. Her sigh had turned into a deep frown and the flickering nature of her mane and tail were now quite muted.

“Know....not really. At least, not beyond her shifting reputation through the years. No, I met her once and only once. She was drunk and looking for a wish.”

“...Oh.” Ditzy gasped, having become aware of Luna’s drunken wanderings post her sister’s banishment a few months ago.

“I’ll drop my usual charming attitude and speak straight here. I hate granting wishes,” Yangin growled. “I’ve been kicking around this dustball of a planet for around fifteen hundred years now, give or take a few. I have seen every variation of short sighted goals, vanity, greed, rage, lust, pride, sloth and gluttony known to creature kind. I’ve had to conjure up fortunes, find creatures ‘true love’ and have been unlucky enough to be used in a few assassination attempts!”

As she had flowed quite naturally into her rant, her flames had roared back to the life, crackling high above her head, roaring and tearing at the air and the whims of fate. Not unlike Corona when she was in a rage, really. But as quickly as it started, it ended and Yangin slumped even lower.

“Those wishes are annoying, but expected. It’s the ones your princess asked for that hurt. The ones that try to fix the world, or repair a broken creature or who just want to desperately give a friend something they need but that I can’t give, because I can’t stretch what they want in under the definition of ‘elemental magic’...those are the wishes that stay with you.”

“She asked you to fix Corona, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. Of course she was drunk and insistent and I was growing increasingly annoyed. So, that ended in a brawl. And the destruction of my shop in Equestria.”

Ditzy found herself nodding at that, but then a question popped into her mind. “I have to ask...did you win?”

“Pffft. Of course not! Princess Luna is an alicorn and can be a mean drunk. She kicked my flank! ...Though I did manage to give her a black eye,” she finished with a grin.

Rolling her eyes, Ditzy got to her hooves again, another question popping into her mind. “If you hate granting wishes, why was your bound item on the shelves?”

Yangin quickly stared at the ship’s deck, idly tracing a hoof along one one of the grooves in the stone. To see a creature made out of brass and fire look distinctly embarrassed was going to be one of those moments in her life that Ditzy was sure she’d probably never forget.

“That...was an accident. I kept that box in my house, along with new acquisitions. There’s this little camel girl who lives in the neighborhood. I’m pretty sure she’s an orphan, so I paid her to help organize the shelves and put things out. She must have gotten it mixed up with something else. I guess that’s what I get for being generous.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Ditzy frowned.

“It’s my lot in life, apparently.”

“No, I don’t think so. You may have had some bad experiences in the past, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.”

“In my experience that’s always how it happens.”

“Will you at least think about what I asked?”

“If she doesn’t do anything stupid, fine. Now, leave me alone. I need to keep an eye open for the ghuls.” Yangin sighed.

Ditzy smiled, feeling better about the situation, if at least a little bit. “Alright. About how long do you think it’ll take from here?”

“Another half a day tops, I’d say.”

“You swear that it’s just over the next ridge?” Ditzy asked.

“Completely.”

“Because...well... that’s what you said two ridges ago.”

Stone ship stood on at the edge of a winding ravine. The jagged cut in the earth sliced directly across the planned route, save for a narrow natural stone bridge, only wide enough for one camel to cross at a time. It was easily a hundred feet wide, enough to make Yangin pause while she mulled over if her ship could handle it or not. The foot hills were far behind them at this point, the dark granite peaks of the Abbor-Alz now hemming the expedition in on most sides.

Yangin frowned, idly running a hoof through her flaming mane. “Are you saying that we’re lost? I assure you, that we’re going the right way.”

“I wasn’t saying that!” Ditzy said.

“I am!” Trixie growled.

“I am insulted! We do have an agreement and I intend to keep to it!”

“You said that it was just over the next ridge four ridges ago!” Trixie exclaimed.

The jinn chuckled slightly before shrugging. “Okay, I may have under-estimated the distance, but we are heading the right direction. It’s just...well...last time I came this way I flew,” she motioned to the other side of the ravine. “But once we cross, we’ll follow the mountain path north, then cut east again towards the capital.”

Said path was just barely visible on the other side of the ravine and seemed to wind its way much higher through the mountains, actively hugging a jagged peak. Parlak, who had been mostly quiet and stoic the past few days, now spoke up.

“Wait, what about that pass over there?”

He pointed to the wider mountain pass that was also visible from their current position. A little to the south of the path Yangin had proposed, it seemed to be on the wider side and thusly more likely to be an easier trip.

“Why take us out of the way?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to go through Blackstone Pass. It may approach the city directly but the ghuls loved to watch it for ambushes back in the day.”

“Back in the day perhaps. But no camel or pony has used that pass in centuries. How closely would they still be watching it?”

“Parlak, I thought you didn’t want to be caught by ghuls? My direction will at least let us sneak past them.”

“Idealy? Yes. But taking that direction locks us in on a far too narrow path. If we do get attacked, your ship will take up most of the space. We’ll have no room to maneuver. At least in the pass, we could get off the ship and have lines of fire and room for magic. Plus, we do still have Grev to worry about.”

“You’ll have me to deal with the ghuls if they do show up and I can fly. Trust me. It’ll be better if we can avoid them entirely.”

“But we should prepare just in case!”

A bunch of murmurs began to roll through the soldier as they began to pick up on the nature of the Equestrian conversation.

“Hold on,” Cheerilee interrupted. “Let’s not fall apart into a shouting match here. Yangin...I do understand your concern, but wouldn’t taking the most direct route get us off the mountain paths sooner and expose us to less danger?”

Yangin gave Cheerilee a cool look, but did sigh. “I...suppose. But you’re taking a gamble on the idea that the ghuls aren’t watching that pass.”

“Not to be the downer here, but aren’t you assuming just as much about your route?” Trixie asked. “You’ve been running a shop hundreds of miles from here for how long? How much do you know about the ghul tribes?”

Yangin crossed her forelegs. “Probably more than the bucket head over here.”

Parlak chuckled, a smug smirk crossing his muzzle. “And how many campaigns against ghuls have you fought in? How many field reports from scouts have you read?”

Now Yangin put her back to the military camel with a huff. “I’ve fought them! Ghul attacks were beginning to become a real problem before the rebellions! It was one of the reasons the Caliph kept asking for more and more powerful jinn. He needed us to keep the supply lines open for this stupid project of his!”

“The point still stands,” Trixie said. “Can you really say that your way will be clear from the ghuls?”

“You know what?” Clapping her hooves together, the ship vanished back into the earth from whence it came, dumping everypony to the ground in a jumble. “If you’re so damn sure you know more about what’s going on here than me, then you can just walk the rest of the way!”

While everyone scrambled back to their hooves Yangin continued her passive aggressive streak. Falling apart into crackling flames, she flowed into the depths of the anklet with another snort of derision.

“Wait! You still need to lead us the rest of the way! Cheerilee, didn’t you make a wish or something?” Lyra shouted.

“Don’t shout at her! This was a bad idea in the first place!” Raindrops said.

“Technically, she has fulfilled the literal requirements of the wish. We just head east from here. It’s just the debate about which east path.” Cheerilee muttered.

“What are everypony’s thoughts? Put it to a vote?” Trixie asked.

Ditzy peered across the ravine. “Well, it basically comes down to whether or not we think that Yangin is right about the pass.”

“Which she could be,” Carrot Top said.

“She did used to live up here. If anyone was going to know, I’d expect her to,” Lyra said.

Flaring her wings in agitation, Raindrops glared at Yangin’s anklet. “But it's been how long since she was here? Forget her lying because she’s angry at Cheerilee-”

“Hey!”

“Things really could have changed. I mean, for all we know, they’re watching both directions.”

“That is how I’d do it, if I had the camel power,” Parlak nodded.

“Then I say if we’re going to have to worry about being jumped no matter which direction we go, then charge down the most direct route and crash straight through anyone that gets in the way!” Raindrops snapped, stomping her hooves hard against the ground.

“Ha!” Parlak laughed, clapping a hoof on Raindrop’s back. “I like that attitude! Let’s get moving!”

Parlak stepped onto the thin span of stone first. Like his soldiers, he was wearing military saddlebags, stuffed with tent, sleeping bag and the rest of the full military kit. It added not an insignificant amount of weight to the bulk of an adult camel. The worst case scenario was firmly stuck in the minds of everyone present as he slowly set off, testing the sturdiness of the stone with his hoof as he went.

Raindrops flew ahead as well, staying close to Parlak, just in case. If he fell, her strength was probably the only chance he had to not be dashed against the rocks below. Still, she couldn’t help but glance back at the three cannon wielding buffalo. They were even bulkier and carried more weight.

It was at the halfway point of the bridge when Parlak was finally satisfied with the bridge’s strength. Looking up at Raindrops, he nodded once.

“Quite sturdy stone. We’d be able to cross as is....”

“But?”

“Well, with our jinn we should be able to expand the bridge. Make the crossing faster.”

Raindrops glanced at one side of the ravine, then the other. “It’s pretty big...are you sure you can do it?”

“I have about fifteen camels with bound jinn in that army. It’ll go quickly. If it’s not too much trouble, could you join the quarrellers in keeping an eye out while we work?”

Nodding back, Raindrops wheeled back towards the other side of the ravine, Parlak following behind. Under the steady gaze and command of Parlak, earth jinn were sent forth, while Raindrops rose into the air to give herself a commanding view of the ravine and its surroundings. The crossbow wielding pegasi did the same, weapons unslung and in hoof.

Slowly and steadily, two new stone bridges grew from the edge of the ravine, the jinn swirling about the growing constructs. The new bridges inched alongside the natural one a few of the jinn then moving to fuse all three together.

Raindrops thought the whole process was painfully slow. Despite her bravado, all the talk of ghuls now had her really nervous. Sure, there hadn’t been any sign of them in the two days they had been traveling so far and she didn't entirely know what she was looking for but she was going to be ready all the same.

Her ears twitched at a clacking sound on the breeze and Raindrops twirled towards it, eyes narrowed. The dark rock of the mountains dominated her vision, a loose collection of rocks sliding down one of the many slopes, the most likely source of the noise.

The individual hairs of her coat began to stand on end, the nervous sensations growing as the starkness of their surroundings took on a new and dark significance. The city they were going to had needed jinn to be supplied. Had made super jinn to stay supplied. It was only logical to assume that the high, rocky soil was completely unsuited to growing crops.

And, according to Yangin, ghuls didn’t even eat crops. They ate meat. And now they were the largest source of meat within these mountains. Glancing towards the stone bridge below she gulped. An attack on the middle of a narrow bridge would be a massacre. It was like Parlak was afraid of. No room to move for those who didn’t have wings.

She was on the verge of flying down to Cheerilee and telling her to wish Yangin back out of that anklet right now, when the army began to move across the completed bridge. Raindrops could feel her nervousness dip down a little bit. But it didn’t go away, not entirely, until every last camel and pony had their hooves safely on the ground of the far side. Landing beside her friends, she spared one last glare at their ghul free surroundings.

Here, the path through the mountains went two different directions. To the north, it stayed narrow, winding higher through the mountains towards the Barrier Peak. But breaking away from that, the group moved to the south and east, before entering into a wider mountain pass.

As the line of ponies and camels disappeared into the distance they missed a strange sight. One of the many boulders lining the mountain slopes began to unfold. Mottled greyness of stone was revealed to be coloration on the feathers of large, vulture like wings. Stretching wide, they uncovered a bipedal figure, perhaps a foot or so taller than a pony if it stood straight, rather than hunch over. The vulture like appearance was carried over into its head, with hooked beak and sharp yellow eyes, currently wide with greed. With the wings growing from its back, it had hands, tipped with sharp ripping claws as were its strong grasping talon feet. Its adornment was simple but grim; a simple green loincloth, the waistband of which was decorated with a collection of small animal bones in a macabre imitation of jewelry.

The ghul watched the remains of the marching army vanish from sight with twisted glee, a wicked grin on his hooked beak.

“Mmmmm! Meat!” He said, in a screechy voice.

Giggling to himself, the ghul took to the air with a few flaps of his wings swooping through the mountains at an angle from the traveling army. Tell the agah he would! Plunder and food had entered the kingdom of the ghuls and they would gorge themselves on both soon enough.

Powerful wings were able to easily catch the various thermals that rose from the Naqahn landscape. Taking hidden paths and passages through the mountains, only known to the ghul tribes, the scout quickly paced ahead of the lumbering army. His destination was a smaller canyon that branched off from Blackstone Pass and that, like the namesake of its parent, was carved from stone marred with black, soot like patterns upon the rock.

To those who traveled through the pass, or an outsider that might stumble across this canyon, it might have looked like an intense fire had roared through the area. Intense enough to permanently mark something as unmovable and unyielding as stone. Not that these ghuls- or any tribe of ghuls for that matter- would permit outsiders near their home. Nor did this tribe care to consider the nature of their home. For the Bonepicker tribe, the midnight hued stones had been their home from the earliest memories. An obsidian fortress from which they raided the soft low landers.

The canyon walls were a chaotic maze of caverns, decorated with what crude tapestries and scarecrow fetishes the ghuls could pull together. Death was the overwhelming theme of ghul art and culture, a morbid fascination so pervasive that the stories of their kind had had an impact much further than their race’s historical stomping grounds. In fact the Equestrian word “ghoulish” and its meaning- being morbidly interested in death and disaster- came directly from stories of the bird like creatures, though few in Equestria knew of that origin.

As such, the scout swooped through a forest of leering skull and loose bone iconography before twisting into a sharp dive, flaring his wings to come in for a landing at the lip of largest cave. Still giggling to himself, he half walked, half skipped deeper into the cave, to the home of the agah.

“Master! Master! I have great-great news!”

Agha Screech Scythe Claw’s chamber was the shape of an egg and the largest of the tribe’s, though it evened out to the same amount of space that the other members had when all was said and done.

This was mostly because of the rough hewn altar that took up the back of the room. Carved from the largest stones the tribe could find, a fist sized statue of a four legged centaur like creature stood on its surface. Scythe Claw kneeled before them, clawed hands folded towards the ground while he chanted. The death theme of the scout’s dress was carried over and magnified on Scythe. White paint traced the shape of bones on his feathers, to match the small creature bone jewelry.

“T’arek, great-powerful father of darkness-”

“Master!”

Prayers interrupted, Scythe let loose a startled squack. Spinning around, he cuffed the overeager scout on the side of his beaked head.

“Fool-fool! I am not to be bothered-disturbed when praying!”

“Forgive me exalted one! But an army of camels and ponies has entered the pass. They march-march towards the forbidden city.”

Scythe straightened up, clacking his beak excitedly. “Mmmmm! Really now? Yessss. Quick-quick! Gather the tribe! We will wait-ambush at the Talon Spire. Break-crush the camels! Bash-smash the ponies!”

Cackling again, the scout turned and rushed from the cave. Scythe looked up at the statues, his wings quivering with glee. They would bring glory to the dark father and misery upon their enemies!

Trixie was getting thoroughly sick of marching. As the sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon on the evening of their second day of travel since leaving Van, her limbs felt like they were about to fall off. Especially the one that had been previously injured. It doubly felt like it was about to fall off. In fact, she was sure that once her limbs did fall to the ground, that one would just lay there while the others flopped around, having completely given up.

Pausing, she extended and flexed the offending leg a few times. It, admittedly, felt worse than it actually was, more sore than anything else. Still, it wasn’t doing anything to help her mood, already in a low spot due to...where they were.

It was obvious to her that they were now on the right track. The signs of civilization peeked through the rough bits of nature here and there. The scattered remains of a road here, the crumbled shell of a watch post there. But the twisted scorch marks on the canyon walls made her nervous and the crude statues scattered along the pass really made her coat want to crawl right off her body.

“Uhh...do those statues look familiar to anypony else?” Lyra asked.

“Some of them do,” Carrot Top said, nervously wincing. “Those four legged ones look awfully like-”

“Tirek,” Cheerilee finished.

“Ghul’s worship many twisted powers,” Parlak said. “Though, I am surprised that you recognize the dark one.”

“We met him,” Ditzy said. “In a way, I guess.”

Parlak actually stumbled for a moment, swinging his shaggy head around to regard them for a moment. “You met him?”

“During that mess in Tambelon. It was pretty horrible,” Trixie frowned.

Shaking his head, Parlak continued his march again. “Equestria. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re one of the largest countries on the continent, ruled by one of the world’s most powerful beings with an army to match. Yet to many outside Equestria, your country is viewed as something of a paper tiger, full of dilettante nobles, who have no spine.”

“I know one or two nobles who are like that,” Lyra said.

Parlak smirked. “Yet, you’ve stood down the likes of Tirek. So, in my opinion Equestria has proven its mettle.”

Trixie puffed out her chest, which elicited a slight roll of the eyes from her friends. “Really now? Well, that’s good to know.”

Parlak chuckled for a moment, but then he suddenly stopped dead before slowly scanning the pass around them. Ahead, on a slight hill in the pass, a thin spire rose. Leaning at a precarious angle, it almost looked cobbled together from the remains of other buildings and loose stone.

“Err...Parlak? What’s wrong?”

“I saw one of the boulders off to our left move on its own. They’re trying to surround us.”

Before Trixie could ask who they were, a series of caw like shrieks rose from the surrounding slopes. Camouflage was dropped, boulders unfolding again and again to reveal ghuls that had been lying in wait. Trixie stared at the growing swarm of ghuls with wide eyes as even more came flowing out of caves and gaps in the mountains the shrieking beginning to take on a rhythmic cadence to it, almost like...singing.

Parlak was already shouting out orders, the regiments moving in response. Camel spearmen moved in lockstep, quickly forming into a square around ponies and buffalo, leveling their spears in all directions.

Trixie gaped at the waves of ghuls that closed in from all sides, some running with loping, almost hopping strides, others soaring through the air on their vulture wings. Their weapons were a motley collection of stone and wood lashed together into crude clubs and other bashing weapons.

The buffalo pushed past her and her friends now, unslinging their cannons and sliding canisters of little cannon balls into the barrels, while the pegasi crossbow wielders took steady aim at the mob approaching from the front. They were still yards off at this point, the flying flock a bit further ahead of the various swarms that closed in from every side. The skirmishing units pawed the ground, preparing to slip forward with counter charges. The discipline of the Naqahn army was on full display.

Trixie felt the tingle of magic before she saw the effect. A wave of blackness rose from somewhere in the ghul mass. The sheet of night rolled and roiled across the ground, like a demented fog.

Parlak roared out another command and across the camel lines the sparks of magic began to flow. The earth jin were unleashed again and they shot forward towards the ghuls. Throwing themselves into the various mobs, bursts of stone began to tear from the ground, in long, jagged lines. The lines tripped and tore at their clawed talons, spilling many of the ghuls to the ground.

But the original spell they cast rolled onwards. The majority of it rising up around the hocks and cannons of their defensive square. Magic creeping up her body, a dread chill settled into the roots of Trixie’s coat, a growing sense of doom building in the pit of her stomach.

The charging ghuls seemed to grow larger, taller, more twisted and exaggerated in their appearance. Grasping claws the size of tree limbs reached forward, threatening to scoop up whole groups of camels and ponies at once, while beaks as sharp as razors clacked and bit at the air. And finally, the disjointed sing song became horrifyingly clear, echoing in their native tongue, Equestrian and Naqahn all at once.