Two hours later, evening came. The sun was still high in the sky, but the sky itself was a distinctly paler shade of blue. A brush of orange started to make its way up from beyond the tips of the Windhurst Mountains, which were now casting their shadows down over the Green Stretch. It wouldn’t be long before those shadows found where Whiskey and Sharp Tack were.
“How much sun do you think we have left?” Whiskey asked, relaxing as they came to a stop at the top of a hill.
“Eh, there’s enough to get past the next cluster of forests,” he said, strapped into the harness next to him. He pointed at the horizon. “I’d rather not set up camp at one of those edges.”
“Yeah, don’t want to be in that position again,” Whiskey remarked. “Remember what happened last time?”
“Do I ever,” Sharp Tack mumbled, absently massaging his leg. He passed a glance back at Sparkler, squinting his eyes at the setting sunlight reflecting off the tip of her horn cap. She was still knocked out cold and hadn’t stirred from where he tied her down. “What do you think we should do about her?”
“Hit her in the head again before we go to sleep?” Whiskey offered.
“Tempting, but I was thinking of something less... drastic.” He thought for a moment. “Remember when she first woke up? She was all worried thinking she lost her book. We can probably use that as leverage to keep her complacent. We both know we can’t just keep her knocked out for the next two days.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to try,” Whiskey said.
“I could hurt our profit margin,” Sharp Tack said. “Hurt somebody well enough and the Bureau will be sure to come, regardless of whether or not she’s still breathing.”
“If she is Bureau.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s something.” He blinked. “Hey, did you ever get a good look at whatever else was in that bag of hers?”
“Uh, yeah? She had a compass, some binoculars, and some other crap in there along with her book. And those apples.” He chuckled. “Those were good.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Sharp Tack said, and then started removing himself from his harness.
Whiskey gave him a look. “What’d I do this time?”
“We can probably figure out what nationality she is by what kind of tools those are. Like where they came from.” He released the belt holding him to the yoke and stepped away. “Where’d you stash her bag?”
“I just chucked it inside the ‘coach somewhere,” he replied.
Sharp Tack turned and cantered over to the stagecoach. He noted the thin wooden beam stopping anything from falling out was itself loose, and an overturned crate had stood in the doorway. He stuck his lips to one side and shoved the box back, worried that something might have fallen out. When he poked his head inside, the disarray supported his suspicion.
He didn’t recall themselves ever taking the stagecoach over something particularly bumpy, or even hearing anything banging around inside. And now that he considered it, the last one in here was probably Whiskey. He never even walked around to this side of the carriage since he first teleported back to it with Sparkler.
He sighed and muttered something under his breath. Sharp Tack quickly climbed inside, pushing over loose objects and trying to get things at least a little bit organized. He could see where the wood panels had separated from that earlier explosion, where orange sunlight graciously leaked through and scattered around the interior like a cobweb. Sparkler’s bag was sitting inside of a bucket, which made him pause when he went to reach for it.
That pause was prolonged when he noticed a blue spark out of the corner of his eye. He glanced its way and found himself looking out of that short little front window, which opened up right behind the driver’s box. There he saw the back of Sparkler’s head, but also a blue glimmer emanating off the tip of her horn.
He thought it was just the sunlight, at least until Whiskey started yelling.
“Sharpy!” he heard him yell. “Get out of the ‘coach! Now! Damn thing’s gonna—!”
Sharp Tack didn’t even question him. He left the bag and was already halfway out the doorway when Whiskey’s voice was cut brutally short. In an instant, that little blue glimmer grew into a brilliant spark, and then exploded in a clash of pinks and blues.
The concussive blast hit Sharp Tack like a buck to the stomach. Before his hoof even hit the ground outside, his body was sent flailing and away from the explosion. Behind him, the stagecoach buckled and broke apart, the carriage’s integrity too weak to argue against the forces thrust unto it. The front axle snapped irreparably, throwing the stagecoach first into the ground and then, as it recoiled, rolling backwards several meters before the rest of it crashed back down. Panels splintered, the roof itself peeling back, and the entire front of the stagecoach virtually disappeared.
When the world stopped spinning just enough for Sharp Tack to register what had happened, a shower of fragments rained down on him. They were mostly chip-sized bits of wood and metal, but he quickly rolled to the side to avoid a larger chunk of shrapnel.
He staggered to his hooves, reeling from having the wind knocked out of him. He missed one step and hobbled to correct himself, but a sharp pain in his back nearly took him back down. He hunched over in the grass, bewildered by the tips sizzling back at him. A thin haze of smoke and ash lingered in the air around him.
“Sharp Tack!” he heard, just as his ears started ringing. Whiskey ran up out of nowhere and grabbed him. “Sharp Tack!” he again yelled.
“I’m fine!” he wheezed, pulling a hoof tight against his chest. “I just need to... to catch my breath, is all. Yeah.”
Whiskey looked back up at the carnage. There was a sizeable chunk of exposed dirt right beneath where the carriage once was. He could practically make out the explosive bubble that had been created, with how burnt short the wild grass was. The carriage tongue was but a giant splinter, tossed nearly a dozen meters forward. He was fortunate to have removed himself from the harness in time.
His gaze then hardened on the magenta unicorn sitting upright in the grass, on the opposite side of the burned earth, and staring back at them with wild, scared eyes—she looked someone woke her up with a bucket of water. Otherwise, besides the new black and gray stains covering her fur, she looked none the worse for wear.
She proved this by scampering to her hooves and running away.
“Get back here, you bitch!” Whiskey roared, dropping his friend and charging after her. But a twinge in his leg kept him from going at a full gallop. “I don’t care who you are! I’m going to kill you!”
And then suddenly, Sparkler skidded to a stop. Whiskey closed the distance in a matter of seconds and lunged. But he grasped nothing but air as Sparkler disappeared in a dark-pink flash, and ran his face straight into the dirt.
Sparkler appeared in another flash right beside the smoldering carcass of the stagecoach. The entire front end had been blasted open, exposing its contents to open air and spilling them out on the ground. In her panic, as she quickly tossed aside broken planks of wood and miscellany, she didn’t see Sharp Tack approach her.
But she did hear the shing of his machete being drawn, and stopped cold. She twisted around just as he lunged at her, and in another flash of magic, he was gone.
Somewhere, several hundred feet away, Sharp Tack sliced at an empty field and screamed.
Sparkler briskly returned to her search and after a few more precious seconds, she finally found her satchel. Fortunately for her, a bucket had mostly protected it from the blast. A quick check showed her everything was still inside it, even if the bag itself now smelled a bit funky.
She looked up to see Whiskey a short distance away, again running at her with a furious look in his eyes. It was the last thing she saw before she slammed her eyes shut and teleported far away.