The Dusk Guard Saga: Beyond the Borderlands

by Viking ZX


Chapter 32 - Last-Ditch Gamble

Necropolis - Above the Turuncu Desert

The deck twisted beneath her, the Free Skies lurching to the side, and Blade spread her wings, digging her claws into the hard deckwood as gear and equipment all around her went sliding by.

“Skylark!” she called as the airship leveled out once more. The horizon had shifted now, the giant floating mass of stone that was the Necropolis now sitting off of the Free Skies’ starboard side rather than in front of it. “We need to get closer to that thing! Not further away!”

“Sorry, sh—Blade!” Skylark called back, his voice echoing above the rising wind as the Free Skies trembled. “But there’s something going about beneath that monstrosity, and the further we stay away from it before it’s over, the better we’ll all be.”

“What are you talking about?” she called, stepping up to the cabin door and bracing herself against the frame. The Free Skies jerked beneath her again, shaking as a gust of wind roared over it.

“Here,” Skylark said, twisting in his seat and passing a pair of binoculars back at her. “Look at the bottom. Something’s mucking about down there, and I don’t think we’ll like it.”

Blade took the binoculars, still bracing herself against the door as she turned to look at the bottom of the Necropolis. The world leapt towards her as she lifted the glasses, the streams of sand pouring over the side of the floating stone structure swelling in her eyes, rushing towards her as they—

She paused, adjusting the focus. It wasn’t an illusion, nor her imagination. The sand was rushing towards her, billowing out and away from the bottom of the Necropolis.

Wind, she thought as the Free Skies jerked once more beneath her, rising several meters and then dropping. Wood creaked as someone yelped in surprise, and out of the corner of her eye Blade saw the telltale glow of Frost’s magic as the mare grabbed at something that had gone airborne during the sudden descent.

That’s why we’re running into so much turbulence all of the sudden, Blade thought as she brought the glasses back up once more and studied the billowing sands. But why? That can’t be the propulsion method that thing’s using, or we’d have felt it long before now. Besides, Skylark was a pilot. Winds wouldn’t have scared him off.

So then what did? she wondered, lifting the glasses again and tightening her grip on the doorframe.

She played the glasses across the underside of the stone complex, frowning as she watched the sand swirl away. It’s only swirling away from the bottom, she thought. It’s like there’s something pushing it away from—Wait. She could see something moving, something shifting along the underside of the floating city. She lowered the glasses, stepping over to the side of the airship and giving herself a better angle. Uh-oh.

The stone protrusions along the underside of the city were opening up, unfolding like strange, tropical flowers. A faint glow was emitting from each of them, and as she twisted the binoculars, bringing her view closer, she could see the ripples in the air around each one, her view of the strange glowing growths twisting as if each was surrounded by a distorted glass dome.

“Skylark!” she called, pulling the glasses away from her eyes just long enough to call back towards their pilot. Without the binoculars, the bottom of the city was still dark, though the billow of sand rushing away from the sides of the Necropolis was visible now to the naked eye. “Can you get us lower?”

“I thought you wanted to be up?” the griffon called back.

“I do!” she said, her eyes still on the swirling vortex of sand beneath the distant city. There was a pattern now, a upwards and downwards spin to the cloud as it roiled beneath the Necropolis, glittering in the moonlight. “But I also want to see what’s going on under that thing!”

Skylark didn’t reply, but she felt the telltale lift in her gut that said they were descending, and she turned her full attention back to the distant city once more as the vortex of sand beneath it grew more and more distinct.

Hain stepped up alongside her, his wings held wide for balance against the rocking of the ship. He didn’t speak, instead wrapping his talons around the gunwale and fixing his eyes on the distant Necropolis, but she could see the way his sharp gaze darted back and forth, analyzing the cylinder of roiling sand beneath the outer edges of the city.

“That’s going to be dangerous,” he said, pointing with one talon towards something on the ground. Blade lifted the binoculars, bringing the spot Hain was pointing towards into clear view. It was the dig site that they’d planned on landing in—at least before the ancient city they’d been hunting had risen from the ground and taken to the skies. It looked abandoned, though it was hard to tell even with the glasses at the distance they were at. But even then, they were close enough that she could see the tents quiver and buckle as the raging wall of sand swept over them.

So it is moving, she thought as she watched the whirlwind of sand pick at the structures. None of them gave way, though she did see a few sheets of metal jerk and tug against their restraints. Anubis has a floating city, and it can move.

But why? She lifted the glasses skyward once more, focusing her view on the still-shifting underside of the Necropolis. A sandstorm like that isn’t going to do much more than conceal anything that’s going on underneath it, and it’s not even doing a very good job of it. Besides, unless you’re bringing the sand, there isn’t much use there. She glanced at the excavation camp as the sand swirled over more of it, watching the flapping tent cloth and trying to gauge the power of the winds beneath the city.

It’s not that powerful, she thought as she shifted her attention back upwards. Maybe it’s a by-product of the city moving? Except it had probably been moving before Skylark had noticed the swirling winds, so then what was it? The underside of the city was still now, the various protrusions having finished unfolding themselves, though with the lack of light and the shifting sand it was hard to say into what. There did seem to be a faint glow deep coming from somewhere across the underside, but it was so faint she wasn’t sure if it was coming from the city, or from somewhere else.

“Blade,” Hain said from her side. She lowered the binoculars. “We’re ready.” Frost stepped onto the deck, her bow floating beside her.

“Right,” Blade said, nodding. “Whatever that thing’s doing, we’re out of time waiting on it.” She turned back towards the cabin, ducking through the low door and coming up behind Skylark.

“Take us back up,” she said, passing him the binoculars and giving the table a quick, final glance to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. “And bring us towards the city, heading for one of those openings on the sides that the Superiority went into.”

“You sure?” Skylark asked, glancing back at her. “Whatever that thing’s about to do—”

“Whatever it is you’ll be better served by being above it than below it!” Blade said, shaking her head. “Now get us up, and get us close! With the wind like this, Hain and I are going to be working hard enough just to get inside that thing without losing the third member of our team!”

“Right,” Skylark said, though she could see on his face that he wasn’t happy about it. The nose of the Free Skies tilted upward. “Look, I know it isn’t my place and all, and if you want me to shut my gob or rack off on it, I will, but your friend Hain. He’s an exile?”

She paused in mid-turn towards the back of the cabin, her talons splayed across the side of the table. Oops. “And what if he is?”

“I … Nothing, really,” Skylark said, though the expression on his face said otherwise. “Might explain the ships coming after us, though.” For a moment Blade felt a twinge of surprise at the mention of multiples, but then she nodded.

So that did work. “Ships?” she asked, turning and stepping up near the front windows once more. “How many? What kind?”

“Big, military types,” Skylark said. “Or at least big compared to Skies, here.” He rapped the wheel with his knuckles.

“Well, relax,” Blade said, nodding. “They’re not after us because of Hain, though it might be in your best interests not to mention that part when they show up.”

“Oh?”

“They’re after us because we beat up a guard station and stole a bunch of gear,” she said, grabbing the binoculars and squinting at the distant spot Skylark had indicated. She heard a faint gulp from beside her, followed by a faintly muttered “Crikey,” so low she was fairly certain she wasn’t supposed to have heard it.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said as she scanned across the distant night sky, her eyes picking out several faint shapes, each outlined by a number of running lights.

Frigates; two of them, she thought as she squinted. And three or four corvettes. We might have stirred up more fire with Plan C than I thought.

Which hadn’t exactly been unintended. After all, Plan C stood for Charlie Foxtrot. And all that comes out of that is usually trouble … But even so. “That’s a lot of ships,” she said, dropping the glasses. Maybe they’re pinning more on us than the—The answer hit her like a flash. Of course! she thought. They probably suspect we’re behind the crypt break-ins, the death of Stoneweather, and whatever else Anubis got up to in Sheerwater.

She passed the glasses back to Skylark. Well, it looks like we’ve got that backup we needed. I don’t care what Anubis has on that floating city of his. A couple of Stal-class Frigates will pound it to rubble.

“So …” Skylark said, glancing out the windows at the no much-larger Necropolis. “Do you want me to do anything about them, then?”

“Same plan as before,” Blade said, shaking her head. “Drop us off and then get down to any survivors from that dig site. Grab as many as you can, and then run for the military. Tell them to bring that Necropolis down by any means necessary. Claim that we hijacked you, whatever you need to take the head off you, but get them to fire on that Necropolis!”

“Won’t you be on it?”

She took a deep breath. “We might,” she said, turning for the door and stepping out onto the back deck. We might. But I think we can handle that. She felt a sense of finality drift over her, a comforting blanket of familiar feelings mixed with the rush that came right before she jumped into combat. There was an undercurrent to it, a faint sense of worry that maybe Skylark was right. The military shooting at Anubis’s fortress while they were on it could be a really bad idea.

Then again, we’re about to face off against a demigod, Blade thought as she stepped up next to both Frost and Hain. The pair had their eyes fixed on the base of the Necropolis, though she noticed that intermittently each of them would take a quick glance at their surroundings. Neither wanted to be caught off-guard as the Free Skies closed in on the Necropolis.

He has to know we’re coming, Blade thought, eyeing the structure. There was a faint glow to its underside now, visible above the light offered by the moon though they could no longer see what was causing it. Are you just waiting for us to come aboard? Hoping we’ll chicken out?

It wasn’t going to happen. “We’re almost close enough,” she said, fixing her eyes on the openings on the city’s lower side. Closer to the titanic, floating construct, the wind was bucking even more than it had been minutes earlier, the Free Skies shaking underneath her feet. “We’ll aim for that large opening near the center,” she said, pointing. “That’s the target.”

“And once we’re inside?” Frost asked. There was an eager tone to her voice.

“We find Alchemy, then we find Anubis,” Blade said. “Anyone gets in our way …” Her talons tightened around the gunwale. “We break them.”

Her eyes drifted across the oncoming city, watching as more sand shifted away from its top side. Soon, she told herself, her wings shifting on her back.

We’re coming for you, Alchemy. The pale glow from beneath the Necropolis was getting brighter now, definitely coming from somewhere beneath the structure, though she couldn’t see from what or guess at why, Maybe they were running lights of some kind. Hopefully, it wouldn’t matter soon.

The Free Skies jerked beneath her, and she tightened her grip again. Soon ...

*         *        *

The blade flashed for a moment in the green light, wicked and cruel before darting down into his foreleg and making a long, jagged cut. Alchemy held back a scream, gritting his teeth as he felt the blade’s tip scrape against bone. His head began throbbing almost immediately as his potion-starved body strained to rejuvenate the damaged tissue.

“My word,” Cell said, his voice echoing through the small, makeshift lab he’d woken up in. “Edge, look at this! Marvelous! Simply marvelous!”

Alchemy shut his eyes, blocking out his view of the stone ceiling. He didn’t know where he was—he’d passed out after Cell and his assistant had pumped him full of almost lethal amounts of several poisons, a test he himself had never dared make, and when he’d awoken, he’d found himself no longer on the airship, but in a stone room someplace. He’d guessed that it was the Necropolis, but after he’d felt the telltale rumble of movement, he hadn’t been quite so sure anymore.

Wherever he was, the cult had spared no time in making it into a new base of operations. Cell had brought what looked like his entire lab along—even the “tools” that he’d already exposed Alchemy to.

His head was throbbing now, his body trembling, fighting back against his broken internal magic as it pulled life from every part of him to heal the wound. He opened his eyes, counting not one but two Cells, then three, and then two again as his vision began to blur.

“That’s long enough,” Cell said, his voice long and distorted. “We’re starting to lose him, and there’s still so many tests to do.” Alchemy couldn’t even fight back as something forced his mouth open, the familiar thick, cold feeling of the potion splattering against the back of his tongue. He was too desperate to even consider how much he was swallowing; his mouth snapped shut and he gulped the mixture down, power surging through his body, swelling to fill every part of him. His mind snapped to alertness, bringing with it crystal-clarity. His ears jerked to life, picking up almost every sound in the room, and his vision came into sharp focus, the colors of the room bright, almost unreal.

Still the power came. His leg sealed itself up, burning as the healing accelerated far faster than it was supposed to. His muscles began to lock up, his body shaking now not from withdrawals, but with an overabundance of energy that was burning him up from in the inside.

“Interesting.” He could hear every syllable, every tilt of inflection in Cell’s voice, the faint rasp of breath behind it. “We seem to have reached a point where we’ve given him too much.” The words seemed to echo off of the walls, a long, drawn out sound that was at once understandable but at the same time far too slow to be ordinary. He was twisting now, pressing himself upward against the straps that held him down. A scream burst forth from his mouth, a soundless yell of the need to move, to do something, anything to burn off the extra bit of power that was eating him from the inside.

“Look at this,” Cell was saying, though it was hard to focus on the unicorn’s voice. “The way the influx of the potion makes his internal rhythm adjust. It’s … moving the flow entirely.”

It’s killing me! He bucked again, trying to twist, but there was no give in whatever he’d been strapped to, his body staying right where it was. Cell was no stranger to keeping somepony where he wanted them. He screamed again as something seemed to give deep inside of him—and then the power moved, surging towards a pain in his rear leg he wasn’t even aware he’d had.

“How fascinating,” Cell said, lifting the bloody knife. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.” The bottle of potion floated over, hanging out of reach, and Alchemy felt a cold chill in his gut as he realized it was still more than three-quarters full. “And yet it seemed to hurt you.”

“It’ll kill me,” Alchemy said, his voice strong but feeling weak all the same as he spoke. “I’ve tried before. I almost died. You can’t give me more than a small amount or it’ll eat me up from the inside.”

“Interesting,” Cell said. “Most interesting.” The bottle floated out of view. “Well then, I have good news for you.” He bent down close, so close that Alchemy could feel the stallion’s breath on his face.

“Your death will be fascinating to watch.”

*        *        *

“Go!” The deck dropped away beneath her hooves as Frost jumped, and for a brief, all-too-terrifying moment she was dropping through the sky, falling towards the desert below. Then the cords attached to her harness snapped tight, her body jerking in the air as the lines became taunt. She bounced upwards once, weightlessness descending upon her for a moment before gravity found her again. She reached for her magic, a preparatory step should she or the rest of the team have lost anything. The magic came, but she could still feel the same strange itch she’d been feeling around her horn, a sensation she’d felt only a few times before. Raw magic. She pushed it away, bringing her attention back to the team.

Team. It still felt like an unfamiliar concept, but she was getting used to it.

A gust of wind struck her, jerking her to one side and sending her mane spinning around her face. She ignored it. Even if she pressed it away from her eyes, it was certain that the wind would draw it back before long, just as surely as it would take it away moments later. She needed her focus elsewhere.

“You good?” The call came from above, and she looked up, her eyes following the lines up to Blade and Hain, both of them struggling against the heavy winds as they flew through the air and carried her.

“Fine!” she shouted back. “Don’t worry about me unless I fall.” She didn’t want that last bit to happen. Not now. Not so close to her goal.

She was turning her head back down, the wind whipping at her mane and ears, when the first flash lit the night, illuminating the lines tying her to Blade and Hain. Her first thought was that someone was shooting at them, that someone had somehow gotten their hooves on a cannon or perhaps a newer type of gun, but the crack that echoed after it wasn’t the same pitch as the guns she’d heard before, nor was the rolling boom that followed it. She turned her eyes down, searching for the source of the flash. She found it just as another echoed after it.

A brilliant beam of light burst forth from the bottom of the Necropolis, its appearance so sudden it seemed to just exist; a bright beacon of pure energy that lit the sky like lightning. The crack that followed behind, rolling off the surrounding valley, told her everything she needed to know.

Necropolis was a weapon.

More flashes began to split the night, eruption after eruption of light lancing between ground and sky, coming faster and faster, the pillars themselves growing larger and larger.

“It’s a light storm!” Blade called from above, though Frost wasn’t sure what she meant by it. “A weaponized light storm!”

The excavation site was burning now, along with a good portion of the camp as bolt after brilliant bolt slammed into it. She could see the sand fusing into glass, reflecting back each flash of light as the attacks came faster and faster. The wind around them seemed to have died, killed by the sudden onslaught of energy, but as the cracks grew louder, almost deafening, she could feel the buffetings rolling off them, the sudden jerks of displaced air as it was superheated and shoved away by the incredible energies she was feeling.

That was the itch, she thought, her eyes fixed on the distant display of power. And what made the winds. It was charging. Or getting ready. Or … whatever it needed to do. Another, much louder crack filled the air, this one from the largest pillar yet.

A final blast of light filled the valley, so brilliant it felt like the sun itself had appeared beneath the Necropolis, the entire underside lighting up as countless beams filled the air. The wall of sound that swept over them wasn’t so much a noise as it was a tangible thing that slapped against her head, blurring the world and making her grit her teeth tight together.

Then it was gone, nothing but a faint buzzing in her ears to show that it had been there. She shook her head as the sound faded, the dull, rumbling echoes off of the distant desert so deep they could have been a palisade of cannon-fire. Even the itch in her horn was gone.

But beneath the Necropolis, what had been hit by the blast—the light storm, as Blade had called it—was a charred mix of glass, shining in the moonlight and still glowing with faint heat.

“Did you see that?” she called, tilting her head back but refusing to take her eyes off of the still-smoldering desert.

“Impossible not to,” Hain called back, his gruff voice overwhelming the rushing of the wind around her ears. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” Blade called as the glowing glass began to slip out of sight, obscured by the bulk of the oncoming city. “But now we’ve got another reason why Anubis wanted it. With the size of that blast, he could level a small city.”

“If he could get there,” Frost said. “Wouldn’t airships be able to keep him out?”

“I don’t know!” The wind tugged at them once more, picking back up now that the blast was over, but it lacked the jerking, twisting turbulence of earlier. “For all we know he can shoot that in other directions. I’m seeing a lot of structures on top that look like they could be weapon emplacements!”

“One more reason to take it down,” Hain said as they neared the Necropolis. “Even if we can’t stop Anubis, we can still break the whole operation.”

The harness jerked against Frost’s shoulder as another gust of wind slammed into them, but the shock felt weak after the display she’d just seen. She shook her head, clearing her mane from her eyes as the floating city swelled in front of them. She could see the opening they were heading for now; a vast, cavernous space lit by sickly green light. The Superiority was berthed inside, though it was using its landing skids to do so. Small figures were making their way up and down the gangplank. Horned figures.

Unicorns. And they hadn’t noticed their arrival yet. Perfect.

“Frost?”

“I see them,” she said, pulling her bow from her back with her magic and clutching it in the air in front of her. Three … four … five … six … seven. Seven cult members that she could see, and there were probably more inside the Superiority.

“Get ready,” Hain said as they rushed towards the bay. The cultists looked like children’s toys now, growing larger by the second. “The moment they see us, it’s going to get hot.”

Not if I can help it, she thought, a familiar spell leaping to mind. Beside her bow the air shimmered, a thickened shaft of ice condensing out of the air. A second followed it, and then a third, all floating alongside her and stretching the limits of her magic.

One more, she thought, focusing on a simpler, more straightforward missile for the last arrow. She was reaching the limits of her ability, juggling so many objects at once while creating more. They were only fifty feet away from the entrance to the bay now, and closing fast.

One of the unicorns looked up, her eyes going wide, and Frost fired. The cultist didn’t even have time to shout before the arrow struck, slamming into the gangplank next to her and then exploding outward in a cloud of razor-sharp ice fragments. The cultist mare fell, her face and side perforated by dozens of tiny punctures.

Frost fired the next two arrows in rapid succession. Three more cultists fell with mortal wounds as the missiles detonated, spraying the deck and gangplank of the superiority with more shards of ice.

Shouts rang through the bay, the rest of the cult finally noticing the assault. Her last arrow sprang free of her bow, burying itself in the head of a quick-thinking mage whose horn had already been lighting.

Mages, she realized as she summoned another arrow and fired again. This time it sparked off of a hastily erected shield. Almost all of them are mages! Her magic flared, summoning three arrows at once from the dry air, and she could feel the strain of her magic finding that much nearby water.

She fired again, her arrows detonating into clouds of dangerous, crystalline fragments, but her targets had already adapted their strategy, personal shields springing in front of each of them. Two of the clouds of expanding fragments splattered off of the barriers, the tiny ice shards shattering further as they collided with an unyielding wall of magic, but the third struck home, detonating past a mage’s simple barrier. The magic winked out with a scream, and she lifted her bow, readying a simpler, more traditional arrow to finish the job.

“Drop!”

The world gave way beneath her as Hain and Blade cut her free, and then she was falling towards the stone floor, her aim thrown off by the downwards motion. She hit the stone hard, pushing herself forward into a loose roll that ate up most of the impact and brought her up on all four hooves with her bow still at the ready.

A bolt of magic sizzled off the stone nearby, its virulent purple glow mixing with the green of the Necropolis as it shot past. Frost bolted, focusing on staying clear of the now incoming swarm of magic directed at her rather than lining up clear shots.

It’s all open, she thought as she ran for the closest bit of cover she could see: The rear end of the Superiority. I can’t stay out in the open or they’ll pick me apart.

A fiery beam cut across her path and she skidded to a halt, ducking as it turned towards her. It was too late. They’d seen where she was heading—or somepony had, at any rate. She ducked under the beam and then summoned another two arrows, firing straight down at the ground in front of her.

Should have fired a few of these before I landed, she thought as an icy wall grew up in front of her, a magic bolt cracking into it with a faint sizzle moments later. She took a deep breath, summoning more arrows as she took a quick look around the room.

Hain was still in the sky, ducking and juking as multiple mages sent bolt after bolt after him, but it was only a matter of time before the old griffon made a mistake or one of the mages got lucky. She could already see a burnt, charred place on his armor where an errant bolt had caught him across the chest, though he didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects. On the other side of the bay, a scream rang out from somewhere aboard the Superiority—a sure sign that Blade was already making her own presence known.

Assist Hain, she thought, tracking the source of the bolts that were flying past him as the old griffon went into a steep dive. Help him get close.

She stepped around the side of her cover, bow at the ready, and fired off barrage of quick shots—five arrows in all, a mixture of several different types. Three of them splattered harmlessly against a spherical barrier that one of the mages had thrown up. The fourth detonated, and she saw the three mages inside the dome flinch as the shards bounced off of the barrier.

Which let the fifth arrow strike right near where the beams were coming out, a thick layer of ice spreading out in all directions across the shield’s face. There was a surprised shout from inside the dome as one of the mage’s own shots splattered against the ice several feet from his face.

It was all the opening Hain needed. The mages dropped the shield, battering aside the ice with their magic … only for the lead unicorn to let out a scream as Hain descended upon them, his knife flashing. Frost loosed another arrow, catching another member of the trio in the side, and sending him stumbling back. Hain finished the job a moment later.

The enchantment she’d wrapped around herself back on the Free Skies flared as something slammed into her shoulder, a loud crack echoing through the air by her head. The impact shoved her back, and she jerked herself into the protective cover of her ice barrier as more shots rained down on her position.

Well, it works, she thought as she looked down at the shattered, broken piece of ice covering her shoulder. The enchantment had done its job, manifesting and protecting her from the full brunt of the spell before she’d even seen it coming. Her shoulder hurt, but it was only a bruise. She summoned her magic, the spell coming easier to her this time, and the broken pauldron fell away, a faint shimmer settling over her shoulder before vanishing once more.

Something splattered against the stone floor behind her, and she turned just in time to see a second ball of fire arc down from above, over the top of her barrier, and splatter against the stone, several pieces of her armor coalescing into being as the burning mixture splattered across her side.

Move! She’d waited too long, and the mages had learned. Still, it would take them time to adapt when she—

Something large and heavy slammed into the front of her cover, the ice cracking visibly under the blow, and she ran. They’d already adapted.

A wave of magic rushed out at her as she ran for the rear of the Superiority, bolts and beams of multiple varieties streaking towards her position. Most of them fell short—her attackers clearly hadn’t expected her to move quite so quickly—and she took advantage of their distraction to fire an arrow back while getting a good look at the rest of the bay.

It was chaos. Blade was still aboard the Superiority, her talons blurring as she took on a number of mages swarming up from below its decks. Hain was on the far side of the bay, dueling with three mages and a shadow at the same time. And the mages she’d been shooting at were in the process of being reinforced by more arriving via a massive doorway at the end of the bay. The entire group was currently raining magic at her from behind a series of protective coverings, and she made a quick count. Seven—no, eight. And they were steadily advancing toward her, their attention fixated.

She dropped into a slide, firing another arrow as she slid into cover behind one of the Superiority’s landing sledges. For a moment the oncoming barrage let up, the mages hesitant to open fire on their own airship, and she glanced down at herself, eyes widening as she saw the ice plating across her sides and back. Apparently several of the spells she’d thought she’d dodged had been much closer than she’d expected. She nudged a few of the pieces free, reaching out with her magic and feeling the dryness of the air as she readied a new series of armor pieces to replace the ones she’d just lost.

Wait. She could sense something at the fringes of her magic. A massive source of water that she wouldn’t have been able to feel if not for the sheer dryness of the air around her. Her eyes widened. It was one of the Superiority’s water tanks, and it was only a few dozen feet away, right near the outside of the vessel. A perfect source, but enclosed in a holding tank.

Actually, she thought as a tentative barrage of bolts edged past the side of the sledge. That might work where it is.

A distant whine filled the air, something blue and jagged cutting through the air off to her side like a sort of slow-motion lightning bolt. Then it stopped, the oily blue surface of the magic shimmering before launching itself in her direction. She dropped just in time, the bolt cutting through the space where her head had just been and digging into the wooden hull behind her with a meaty thunk. It left a ragged hole in its wake, a gaping, splintered scar that looked almost like the wood had pulled itself apart.

She didn’t want to know what it would do to her if it hit. This was high level stuff. Maybe even from Sagis.

No, she thought as another whine filled the air, another jagged, blue bolt carving its way through the air in a ragged, zig-zag pattern that made it hard to predict. Once again the bolt seemed to stop in mid-air, as if seeking her position before—

Yup, she thought as she rolled to one side, the bolt slicing into the sledge as it missed her and leaving another long, jagged scar along the side as wood splintered. Guided. That’s new. Three more shots darted around the edge of the sledge, one after another, and she threw herself back and away, two of them narrowly missing her. The third struck her flank—a light touch, to be sure, but one that still burned right through her protective armor and sent a searing pain along her upper hip. She risked it a quick glance, but it was hard to see what sort of damage it had done from the blood welling up in the bolt’s wake. All she knew was that it felt like her skin had been ripped apart, and it hurt.

She fired another arrow at the ground, ice springing up and granting her a small bit of cover. A moment later she ducked as a bolt burrowed its way through the ice, small chips flying it its wake.

This isn’t working, she thought, moving to one side as bolt after bolt zipped into her cover. She could hear shouts coming from the mages, yells questioning whether or not she was still there. I need to get to a new position, find some advantage or way to break their shields. She risked a peek around the corner of the sledge, ducking back as a flurry of bolts roared at her.

They were close, clustered together near the bow of the Superority and still protecting one another with layers of shields. It wouldn’t be long before they turned their attention elsewhere; after Hain or Blade.

I need something I can use to shock them, she thought. Something that will—She paused, not even ducking as one of the burrowing bolts shot past her, close enough to summon another few pieces worth of armor.

Bingo.

She reached out, searching for what she’d felt earlier, and found it on the fringes of her awareness. I hope this works, she thought as she began to exercise her magic slowly, trying to get a feel for how far away she was manipulating things. And I’ll need to see, which means I’ll need to leave cover.

Oh well. The whole mission was do or die anyway, right? At least she’d take a lot of them with her.

She jumped out from behind the sledge, bolts whizzing through the air around her. One of them—a dark purple, vicious-looking thing crackling with energy—slammed into her chest, her armor shattering even as the blow knocked her through the air. But it didn’t matter, she’d seen what she needed to see. She summoned her magic in one giant push, shoving out towards the distant water tank with everything she had.

The side of the Superiority burst apart, multiple spears of ice punching their way free of the ship and out into the midst of the crowd of mages. Screams echoed across the bay as the shafts of ice punched into the crowd of unicorns, knocking them aside or spearing them through outright. She pushed the ice as far as she could, outwards from the side of the airship, ugly and jagged but razor sharp pieces branching out at as many angles as she could force, stabbing at random and hoping for the best.

She hit the ground on her side, her head saved from cracking into the stone only by the formation of more ice plates, cushioned on the inside by a small packing of snow. The blow was still enough to make her head ring, but she was still conscious.

She rose mechanically, summoning her bow even as a faint burning sensation began to spread at the base of her horn. She’d pushed herself hard, and her horn was complaining. If she pushed too hard she’d suffer from burnout. She’d need to keep herself from performing any strenuous magic for the next few minutes, until the burning faded.

Which she could do … as long as the Order of the Red Horn was no more. Her arrows lashed out, finishing the few wounded and scattered mages before they could regroup or bring their defenses back up. It wasn’t a long job—only two remained that weren’t fatally wounded or injured in some way. The rest, well … Her gambit had worked. A long, serrated ridge of ice growths expanded away from the side of the airship, jagged, angry looking spears twisting in all directions.

There were bodies at the end of many of the spears. The last of the Order of the Red Horn, gone at last.

Hain. She turned, notching another arrow even as the burn grew a little more noticeable. She’d need to stop soon. As soon as I …

She lowered her bow. Two of the mages fighting Hain were already down, and as she watched the third—who was desperately trying to get away—went down, Hain’s knife flashing as he passed by. The old griffon adjusted his position, breaking his momentum and making what looked like an awkward turn. A moment later, with a purple flash, the shadow he’d been fighting appeared, her blade cutting through the empty air where she’d thought Hain’s step was going to take him.

Then she too tumbled back, dead.

“The exit!” Blade said, spreading her wings as she jumped from the deck of the Superiority. “Ship’s already clear! Go!”

Frost nodded, tugging a vial of healing potion from her combat harness as she turned towards the opening that led deeper into the structure. There was a rasping sound now coming from deep within, and echoing, rapid clicking that reminded her of thousands of ice picks tapping against a frozen surface. Except there wasn’t any ice here save that which she’d made.

Focus, she told herself as she rounded the corner of the entryway, turning onto a long hallway that ran parallel to the back wall of the hanger. The clicking sound was louder now, coming from all directions as it echoed down the hall. She could feel the potion burning in her gut as she tore down the hall following Hain, working at her wounds and clearing her head. Blade flew by overhead as they headed deeper into the Necropolis, and then the source of the clicking made itself clear.

Skeletons burst into the hallway, rushing around the corners of an upcoming intersection and sprinting for them, their long-dead talons tapping out a rhythm as they moved towards the team. Frost glanced behind them to see more coming behind them, their whitish-grey bones twisting with shades of green as they moved under the light. Anubis’s own had arrived.

Hain and Blade met the front line of the charge with a crash, colliding with the leading skeletons in an explosion of dust and bone. Both were wielding the weapons they’d taken from the guard station, their pace barely slowing as they cut and crushed through bone. The lead pack of skeletons was cut down in moments, barely even reacting before they fell to the hallway floor, lifeless once more.

But it didn’t matter. More were swarming in from every direction, bursting out of the connecting hallways in ones and twos. Frost began firing, focusing on making her arrows as dense and heavy as possible, cutting their size in half to keep the balance right. The hardened missiles punched through heads, but it wasn’t enough. Many of the skeletons kept coming, and as the team barreled into the next wave, she found herself using the blades along the outside of her bow, whipping the weapon around her body and watching as slivers of bone flew away from a skeleton with a grotesque crunch.

She whipped the bow back across—momentarily surprised by the way the skeleton kept coming for her after she’d removed its head—and severed its spine, the two halves of the creature falling apart. She didn’t stop to see if that had killed it. Another skeleton was already diving towards her from some upwards angle—she could see some of them crawling along the ceiling and walls now—and she snapped her bow in-between it and her face, feeling the crunch of bone through her magic as the skeleton resisted the impact but then broke apart, the blow too much for it.

“Where are we going?” she shouted, bringing her bow down on another diving skeleton and piercing its skull with the tip of the blade, pinning it to the stone. She twisted it, the motion breaking the thing’s head apart, and then moved on.

“Up!” Hain shouted as he cracked his mace through two outstretched arms, knocking one aside and shattering the other. “This way!” He finished the skeleton with a quick jerk of his mace and then resumed running, turning down another hallway and heading for a distant pair of stairs. There were already skeletons swarming down the steps.

She turned, firing an arrow at a group of pursuing skeletons to wrap their legs in ice, then followed.

*        *        *

“You!”

Alchemy twisted his eyes as the shout echoed through the room, the anger that burned in the word so intense he felt like shying back. There was a weight behind it, a loathsome venom that spoke of nothing but hatred. Above him Cell paused, another blade held hesitantly in his magic as the unicorn looked up. “My lord?”

“You wretch!” Something slammed into Alchemy’s stomach, a blow so intense it knocked the breath from him. Cell backed away, his eyes wide with shock as a sneering, seething, red visage filled the air over Alchemy’s muzzle.

“You …” Sagis hissed, his voice long drawn out. “You and your inferiors just won’t leave me alone, will you!?”

“My lord?” Cell ventured again. “My lord, what—”

“We’re leaving!” Sagis said, the words coming so quickly they were almost a bark. “His—” the words came out as a sneer as he gestured at Alchemy, “—friends are coming. They’re already aboard the Necropolis. The betrayer is with them.”

Alchemy felt a faint flare of hope well in his chest as Sagis turned his gaze back down in his direction. It must have shown on his face.

“Don’t look so smug,” he said, the words coming out so low they practically oozed from his mouth. “They went the other way. They’re heading away from you and towards Anubis.” His eyes narrowed. “Worse yet, I suspect that if they were to learn that you were here, they’d come back this way.”

Alchemy’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth, sucking in a breath to let out a shout when Sagis’s horn flashed. Silence came from his open mouth as the cult leader shook his head.

“No, no,” he said, a terrible look in his eyes. “We can’t have you doing that.” He turned towards somepony out of view, a sinister smile on his face. “The last thing we need is to draw your friend’s attention towards us. Or Anubis’s.”

“The immortal, my lord?” Cell asked. The doctor had a wide-eyed look on his face, like he was surprised at what was going on.

“Did you not hear me, mage? We’re leaving.” Sagis turned away once more, and Alchemy tried to shout once more, but it was like something in front of his mouth was muffling all sound. The shout echoed inside his own head, but he was the only one that heard it.

“But my lord—”

“Now,” Sagis said, glaring at the doctor, though his voice had calmed somewhat. “Our alliance with Anubis has ended. He used us to get what he wanted, and now that he has it, I have no doubts that he’s already cast us aside. His army just stood by while our people were slaughtered, did nothing while our foes killed a number of our brothers and sisters. We will take our airship and we will leave, but first …” Sagis’s gaze drifted towards Alchemy, bringing with a it a cold chill that seemed to settle somewhere deep in his gut. “First, we deal with this one.”

“Deal with?”

“Indeed,” Sagis said, nodding. “We can rebuild from this loss, given enough time. Nine of us still live, more than the founding members of the Order when they fled the Crystal Empire. We can recover from all of this, start anew. But we cannot do that as long as we do not survive.” The cult leader’s eyes drifted down towards Alchemy once more.

“Cell,” the red unicorn said. “Are you familiar with the process of balancing the equation?”

“Well—”

“It’s a principle,” Sagis continued, still staring down at Alchemy. “The idea that you need things to be in equilibrium. Right now, we are a balanced equation. The betrayer wants us dead, and her compatriots likely want to recover their ally. On the other hoof, they also know that Anubis is the greater threat, and seem dedicated to stopping him.”

“I—”

“The solution in this case is to unbalance the equation,” Sagis said, his expression growing dark. “If we remove one of the weights on our side, the other side of the equation outweighs us, and the scales tip. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I … I am not actually sure I do—”

“Kill him, Cell,” Sagis said, and Alchemy felt a burst of panic as the unicorn turned his eyes down towards his. “Any way you like, but kill him now.”

Alchemy shouted again, jerking his limbs as he tried to push back against the straps holding down. It was no use. Neither they nor the spell gave. He shouted again, putting so much force into the scream that he felt his vocal cords tear.

“But Lord Sagis … My research—”

“Kill him now, Cell,” Sagis said, his eyes still locked with Alchemy’s. “I’d do it myself, but I’ve read enough of your summaries to know that you’ll undoubtedly learn something, certainly more than if I kill him.”

“But—”

“Last warning,” Sagis said as Alchemy let out another silent shout. “Kill him. For your research. And our fallen brothers and sisters. After all,” he said, a grim smile coming across his face. “He’s only an earth pony.”

No! He wanted to scream, wanted to shout, but nothing he was doing made any difference. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t talk. All he could do was jerk his eyes back and forth as Cell nodded, said “Very well,” and lifted something in his magic.

It was the potion vial. He was going to overdose him.

No, Alchemy thought, struggling against his bonds. No! The vial came closer, vise-like magic clamped down around his jaw, forcing it open and plugging his nose. No!!!

Cell upended the entire vial into Alchemy’s mouth.

No … He could feel it burning as it slid down into his throat. Not like this. His body was burning now, burning from the inside out as more power than he’d ever imagined flooded through his body. Everything in the room jumped into sharp focus; sights, sounds, and images rushing at him in ways he’d never imagined. He could see the pores on Sagis’s skin, the blood veins in his eyes. He could hear the heartbeats of everypony in the room, four in all—not including his own, which was thundering with an intensity he’d never felt.

He screamed, his body burning within him as his soul filled with fire. It was too much. He could hear everything Cell was saying in his clinical voice, describing the way the potion was tearing his own body’s magic apart; no longer content to fill in the gaps where he’d broken himself. He could hear the breathing of the escort that Sagis had brought, could tell from the differences in the volume that one was smaller than the other, smell the scents of everyone in the room and feel the light burning against his skin and his eyes and his muscles and his body and it was too much too much too much too much too much too much—

The world exploded inside his mind as the energy in his body could no longer hold itself back, and it burned through him like a raging fire. He could feel nothing but pain, pain more intense than anything he’d ever felt before as his body gave one final titanic surge of energy, a scream ripping from his lungs that was so powerful it tore through the magic holding his voice back, drowning out whatever the doctor had been saying. He felt his insides twist and churn as every cell in his body worked itself to death, trying in vain to burn away the energy as his heart rate increased, increased, increased, until it was a crescendo of thumps beating at more than a thousand beats a minute. Everything hurt, everything was pain, pain as his body burned alive in a flood of power he’d never been meant to have. Time seemed to have stopped, the looks of the unicorns around him frozen in shock.

And then, with a final, wrenching stab of pain, he felt his heart explode, tearing itself apart inside his chest as the energy made a final leap up to his mind. The world went white, and with a calmness born partially of shock, partially of clinical detachedness, he felt his body shut down. The sounds faded, the world washed itself away, his pulse slowed. He let himself fall back, the stretched and bent table catching him as his body went limp, his muscles having torn themselves apart. A final lance of energy burned through his mind, and then all was quiet. The world was gone, he was gone, and as the last moments of consciousness began to slip from him, he knew why.

He had just died.

*        *        *

“Is it done?” Sagis asked, looking down at the wide-eyed earth pony. He waited as Cell continued his scan, his magic flowing back and forth over the table.

“It is,” Cell said, nodding without looking up at him. “The subject has expired. And in a most unusual fashion too. It almost looks like—”

“Another time,” Sagis said, feeling a small sense of satisfaction as he looked down at the dead pony. “Can you move?”

“Yes, Lord Sagis,” Cell said. “Though if I may, would it be possible to bring to corpse with us? The residual potion mixture inside of him seems to be doing—”

“Of course,” Sagis said, looking back down at the dead pony. He wanted to lash out, to pummel his hooves against the wretched creature’s face until it was a mush. But he had to keep his calm. His followers needed him to be strong, not weak. He would have to settle for the satisfaction of having killing one of the five thorns in his side. Even if it hadn’t been as satisfying as he’d hoped.

“My lord,” one of the remaining mages asked, stepping forward and bowing her head. “Should we move now?”

“Not yet,” he said, shaking his head. “Wait for the scouts to return and confirm that the way is clear. I still wouldn’t trust Anubis not to send those three back this way. Help the doctor assemble his things.” He jerked his head towards the small supply of medical equipment that Cell had brought with him.

We wait until your friends are suitably far away and indisposed, he thought as he looked down at the dead pony. What had his name been? He found he didn’t care. And then we’ll leave this place, leave your friends and Anubis to tear at each other’s throats until one or both parties fall.

And the Order would survive. He, the strongest mage of the Order of the Red Horn, would survive. They would take his ship, and they would flee. Perhaps to the Crystal Empire, to search out their Order’s master once more. Or … elsewhere … wherever he could find a convenient place to go and gather new members.

But one way or another, he would be alive. And the Order would live.

With him as its master, and no one else.