//------------------------------// // Cloud Catcher/Dachuur - Chapter 14 // Story: Dawn of Crystal Empire // by TopWanted //------------------------------// Cloud Catcher tried to move his back leg. Sure enough it was broken, and pinned between a rock and a hard place. He took in a sharp gasp of air that seemed to cause him pain. He brought a hoof to his chest and drew back blood. Hole in his chest. Even better.The old stallion grinned as he winced in pain. Rookie mistake. He scanned the area. He was sure he’d had someone on his tail, someone had to have heard his scream. Memories began to surface of a dream. He knew how it ended. Cloud Catcher could feel his life slowly slipping away with every hoofbeat from the stampede above. “Anybody out there?” he cried out. A little blood trickling from his mouth. The cacophonous stampede above seemed to drown out his words. He lowered his head to the floor beginning to feel faint. “Please…” Suddenly there was movement. The boulder on top of him began to shift. He struggled to turn his head toward the movement. A red hoof filled his vision as it struggled against the rocky ground pushing and shoving at the giant boulder. He faintly heard the struggling sound of the pony trying to help. “Damn it! Damn it!” the pony seemed to cry. Cloud Catcher shook his head to clear it. Finally the scene became defined. Gladius struggled ineffectively against the large rock, his face a mixture of pain and frustration. Cloud Catcher caught sight of the cracks in the colt’s hooves, blood was beginning to pool at his feet and his forehooves trembled against the mighty mass of the boulder. Cloud Catcher furrowed his brow. This wasn’t how it went. He was supposed to do nothing. Just watch me die. A loud sound rattled through the corridor. Cloud Catcher strained to look further up at the cliff. A large overhang above where the boulder had once been nested at was beginning to crack. In a few minutes they would both be crushed. Cloud Catcher turned to the young colt whose face was now streaming tears and sweat as he frantically fought to move the rock, making no progress due to his injuries. He’s too weak. Overworked himself. Still, he actually tried… I hope he recognizes how much that matters. Cloud Catcher let out a long hurtful sigh and leaned a hoof over to Gladius and touched him. Gladius stopped and slumped to the ground next to him. He turned to the pinned Pegasus and clenched his teeth in anger and determination. “No,” Cloud Catcher whispered wearily, unsure if the colt could hear him. “You need to go.” Gladius shook his head frantically and struggled to rise to all fours again, falling to his knees in the process. “Go!” Cloud Catcher spat blood as he used the last ounce of strength he had to push the colt away. He shot Gladius a serious look. Gladius continued to grit his teeth, an expression of impotent anger etched on his face. He turned and began to flap his wings and take off. He gave one last look to Cloud Catcher, a new expression the older stallion couldn’t identify, and flew off. Cloud Catcher lay on the cold hard ground, his hooves splayed to his sides. He watched the blood beneath him pool outward as his eyelids slowly began to fall. He could no longer see anything as the world around him blurred. “Sorry,” he finally breathed out. Back in the colosseum, many gasped or screamed as the sound of a rockslide echoed through the corridors. ---------- Dachuur and Lullaby shot out the final outlet, the stands crying out. But there were no cheers. Dachuur landed on the ground and took in his surroundings. The crowd was panicking and screaming in horror. Sariel was up above working to reform the mist mirror. How did that go down? Suddenly the vibrations hit him. The sound now as clear as a bell and coming in hard. The bowl reverberated with the echoes of hooffalls, effectively shaking everyone in their seats. He shot Lullaby a concerned look. One by one the racers all followed them out of the outlet, each one surprised by the scene of chaos before them. Dachuur took to the skies and rose above the cliff line. He spotted them just up ahead where he had just been. Hundreds of yaks were stampeding down the narrow pathways of the plateaus, the force of their steps rattling everything in sight. Dachuur thought he could hear a rockslide in the distance. “Dachuur!” He heard Lullaby shout from below. He dived down and hovered before her and an out of breath red Pegasus that had collapsed in her hooves. The Pegasus was bleeding from his legs and he seemed unable to stand. “Dachuur,” Lullaby said more urgently, her face flushed with worry. “Cloud Catcher is still in there!” Dachuur nodded in affirmation. He sped toward the confused group of griffin racers and singled one out. “Soracen, you’re with me!” he shouted. The griffin nodded in reply and shot off after him. They rose above the cliff line and flew towards the stampeding yaks. The charging beasts seemed to pay them no mind as the birds above them tried to scan below for any sign of the Pegasus captain. Soracen motioned down and Dachuur followed her gaze to a plateau that had half collapsed into the canyon. Dachuur shot down and surveyed the area. Rocks were piled up everywhere. Soracen flew down to join in the search and the two started to scan the vast pile. Dachuur was just about to give up and look somewhere else when a smell caught his nose. A smell he recognized immediately, he had smelled it every day during the hunt, blood. He dropped to the ground and began to pull frantically at the rocks, tossing them to the side. Soracen began to aid him, a look of worry plastered on her face. Dachuur’s was not much brighter as he found what he was looking for. He pulled away a layer of rocks to reveal a small pool of blood stagnating on the ground. His mind went numb. No! He tore at the rocks to find what was underneath. No! Perhaps he was just injured, perhaps… Dachuur tossed a large boulder aside and stared down. The last of the yaks passed by above as the prince of griffins lost his footing and fell to the ground. Soracen walked over and looked past his shoulder, she recoiled at the sight. Cloud Catcher’s body was beyond gone, the rocks saw to that. Dachuur felt the world drain away before him as he stared into the horror. He promised them safety. He failed. Close to an hour later, the spectators had calmed down. The yaks had finished their charge and moved onward to the eastern mountain range. Dachuur had told Sariel about the casualty before he could reproduce the mirror, sparing any onlookers from the gruesome sight. This didn’t save those who looked down, however, as twenty minutes later he and Soracen returned to the colosseum grounds with a bloodied sheet covered body. All the members of the Wonderbolts turned away in recoiled at the sight, some shooting the griffin prince with venomous glares. Lullaby simply stood still, staring at the unmoving sheet expressionless. The gray unicorn captain approached the circle around the body and pushed his way through the onlookers. When he reached the center of the gathering crowd he spotted the mangled blue wing sticking out from underneath the sheet. An unreadable expression crossed his face, followed by fury. He spun on Dachuur. “You said we’d be safe!” he shouted. “Yes, and I can’t apolo-“ “You said nopony would be hurt!” “I didn’t know the yaks would come through here!” Dachuur asserted. “How could I have known?” “No,” Sariel seemed to whisper as he continued to stare at the sheet. “No, we should have known.” Dachuur shot him a glare. “What?” “Zenfon should have been here to tell me.” Sariel’s eyes widened with realization. He threw a panicked look at Dachuur. “If there was any danger heading our way he should have come.” It took Dachuur a moment to realize what the older griffin was saying. Then it hit him. His father sat on the griffin throne, he could hear and know the position of anypony for hundreds of miles. Of course he would have been here to stop it if he could. If he could… Dachuur’s heart grew cold and his face paled. “I don’t know what you two are blathering about,” Javelin continued. “But there will be Tartarus to pay for this! Do not expect us to forget your promise!” Sariel tried to listen to the conversation but his realization continued to nag at him. The older griffin took to the skies and began to fly toward the western mountain range. “Where is he going!?” Javelin shouted after him. “I’m sorry,” Dachuur said. “I truly am. But I need to go with him.” Javelin returned his glare to Dachuur. “You leave now and this is the end.” It was more than the unicorn’s eyes full of venom or his low commanding voice. Something in the way the stallion bore himself filled Dachuur to the brim with dread. As if hate had become incarnate. “I see another griffin in my home or around it and I will kill them.” Dachuur stared at the ground uncertain for a few moments. The worry and apprehension building in his eyes as he clenched his beak in frustration. “Dachuur,” Lullaby’s voice broke through the tumult of his mind. He turned to her as she approached from the side laying a hoof on his shoulder. “Please.” She stared into his eyes. Those amber eyes and for a brief moment he felt peace. Peace with everything he’d done or was responsible for. Then he saw the sheet once more and it all came crashing down on him again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Dachuur spread his wings as he took to the skies. It took everything in him not to look back. Soracen quickly followed, shooting a sorry glance back at Lullaby. Several, then many, then all the griffins began to fly off after their prince. Javelin and the other ponies watched as their hosts all left in a spectacular hurry, leaving only the ponies, their chariots and one casualty behind. Javelin stood still watching them depart, the smallest of grins creeping across his face. He turned to the captainless Pegasus squad. “I know this is quite a hard time,” his voice now taking a serious tone and an expression of pain acted across his face. “But it is getting late. We need to get these ponies home before dark. Every squad member take a chariot and round up a couple pegasi volunteers from the stands to help you pull it. We’ll probably be making two or three trips each so save your strength.” Nopony argued with him. They all simply walked away from the crowd. Only Gladius and Lullaby stayed behind. An expression of utter sadness and shock on the mare’s face, a look of angry impotence on the colt’s. --- Dachuur sped ahead by miles from the crowd behind him. He was beating his wings so fast that he began to breath heavily, seeing the vapor of his exhalation puff out before him. He reached the highest peak where his father’s tent was in less than twenty minutes. Sariel was already there sitting hunched in front of the flaps. Dachuur’s heart sank even further as landed next to the older griffin. “Father is…” Sariel did not look up from the ground. “Gone when I arrived.” He lifted the flap for Dachuur to enter. “I thought it appropriate for you to pay your respects first.” Dachuur wanted to crawl into a cave and die. His body felt numb as he entered the same tent he’d been in hundreds of times before. The air inside was warm for such cold mountain air. The sun peaked in through several flaps in the surrounding fabric and illuminated dust motes that hung suspended in the air. It gave the image before him a “trapped-in-the-moment” quality to it. His father sat as he always did on the tall trunk, his hind legs curled into the wood and his head resting on his crossed talons. His face was calm, almost as if he was sleeping. Dachuur drew closer and noticed something that made him feel slightly better. His father was smiling. He had passed into the next world happy and content. Dachuur brushed back a loose feather that hung over the massive griffin’s face. That smile that he had seen millions of times before was still just as jovial and warm as the first time he saw it as a chick. Dachuur felt his eyes begin to wet. He had lost everything he loved today. His pride, his father, Lullaby. How stupid he’d been. How could he not realize the feelings he had for her. He recalled those brilliant amber eyes. How they pleaded with him not to leave. How much he just wanted to stay there and drown in her eyes. But he turned away. Now he was a pariah. She probably hated him more than anyone. He was responsible for the death of her friend. He couldn’t save anyone. He could feel his heart grow cold as everything around him became walled off from it. Dachuur grit his beak and fell to the ground. For the first time since he was a chick, Dachuur cried. ---------- The miners of tunnel 21A had been working diligently for close to four hours now. Many grumbled about how they were going to miss the big race. Still, work was work and the Equestrian government paid miners quite well. Those that found more than coal or minerals for iron would usually get a bonus. This was the daily life of a miner. Suddenly a blackened pony came galloping down the tunnel, his face flushed with panic. “Cave in! Cave in!” he shouted. Panic spread fast through the miners who all ditched their stations to sprint toward the cave entrance. They began to feel the rumble come from behind them as they all bolted out into the open area below the mountain. “That everyone?” an ashen orange pony shouted. They did a roll call. “We’re missing one!” When the rumbling subsided everyone carefully went back inside to survey the damage. Oddly enough, nothing seemed to be out of place. The miners held their lanterns aloft as they proceeded further in. They finally caught sight of a stallion with an ashen green complexion staring into the darkness. “What are you doing her? Are you okay?” The pony made no response but simply looked back at the group and pointed to the darkness. They all trotted over and held their lanterns high. Everypony held their breath in disbelief at the sight. A new tunnel had simply appeared from nowhere. There were no rocks or debris, it simply was there like it had always been. The only thing that made everypony realize this wasn’t a tunnel they had progressed through was the overwhelming presence of crystals. The shiny minerals were everywhere covering almost every corner of the long winding tunnel. They all gulped in shock. “So do you think I get a bonus?” the ashen green pony asked dumbfounded.