//------------------------------// // Wherein Our Heroine Has a Great Fall // Story: Treasures // by Carabas //------------------------------// Daring needed a moment to simply take in the library’s scale. And shape. And everything else about it, really. The whole shape of the place brought to mind pictures she’d seen of old amphitheatres, with a rising circle of tiers surrounding a central area. But instead of tiers of seats overlooking a sandy arena, each tier was a ring of bookshelves, joined to one another by randomly-placed ladders and spiralling ramps. Each tier rose at least six metres off the ground, and the top of each ring’s bookshelves formed the floor for the next one up. The floorspace that jutted out from where the shelves began was dotted with scattered wooden couches, short tables, and the odd mouldering pile of dust that might have once been a pile of cushions. As she took it all in, Daring saw that book-lined paths cut into and through the bookshelves at irregular intervals, with tunnels running under the tiers above. Each tunnel twisted around and receded into shadow, escaping the soft red light that filled the rest of the library. That light came from a huge descending chandelier that filled the open space at the centre of the room — a chandelier set with countless crystals in place of candles, each sporting a red glow at their centre that gradually increased in brightness as the seconds ticked by. Daring looked up towards the ceiling to where its light might end, and up past more tiers than she could count, its light was swallowed by shadows to leave the uppermost tiers shrouded in darkness. Daring found herself on the first tier of the shelves, with a descending walkway leading down to the lowest tier just before her. On the lowest tier of the library, the floor ran for a short while out into empty space, over a chasm with no bottom that she could see. Several walkways extended out from the floor’s side and over the chasm from multiple directions, leaving to a wide circle of white stone at the centre of it all, directly under the light of the chandelier hanging just overhead. An upraised slab sat at the circle’s centre, putting Daring in mind of an operating table. Dark grooves radiated out from the heart of the slab and off the sides, running all the way to the edges of the circle and out into the abyss below. Past the circle, and on the other side of the great library from Daring, another door sat, presumably leading on to Fallow’s private study. Daring took a step forwards, her head turning slowly from side to side as she tried to drink in all the details. Even past the same thick, unmarred layer of dust covering most of the place, some things were still able to stick out. The curling bronze detail on the ladders and walkways, the dark and musty-smelling wood of the shelves, the flowing floral patterns described by the crystals in the chandelier … ...And the books! The thousands upon thousands of books! Daring thought she could have lived in here for a year and still struggle to get past so much as the tier she was currently on, even without daring to dive into the tier’s book-tunnels. All the covers of those around her were dark and covered in dust, but they still dazzled in their variety. Large and small books squatted side by side in the haphazard (or maybe non-existent) ordering system; runes glittered on their spines, and some seemed to be bound with chainmail or tightly-woven plants or rainbow-coloured silks or solid steel, or even all at once. And those were just those on the shelf nearest to her, on her right side as she entered the door. As she stared at their spines, the Antlertean letters on them uncoiled and re-arranged themselves, and their titles spun into existence across her vision. First Principles of Applied Geomancy ran across the spine of a relatively staid-looking thick green tome. Next to it, another tome which seemed to have been pieced together from stiffened butterfly wings sported The Epic of Gilgamoose. Next to that, Observations on and Dissections of the Known Chattel Species, Volumes I Through XX, running across the spines of twenty thin volumes bound with different-coloured kinds of … what even Daring’s cheerfully morbid imagination didn’t want to conclude was leather and griffon-sized feathers and dragon-sized scales. The one after all those had a cover seemingly made out of pure iron, was wrapped around with thin chains, and simply had Caution written up its spine. Daring swallowed. She wanted in that moment to just yank down the nearest lot and start reading them, presuming they were slightly easier to read than the one in the cavernium, and hang whatever else she had to do here. She didn’t have to confront Lord Fallow right away, did she? She could maybe afford to curl up in one of the seats with a pile of books, and if Dad found her, well, he’d probably forget to be angry in this sort of place. Heck, he’d probably join her. There came a sharp clatter from the door handle at her back, evicting the happy daydream that had taken up a temporary hold in Daring’s mind and making her pull herself together. Adventure first, she thought to herself, read about other adventures later. She glanced around at the door handle, which had Steelhart’s dark red aura enveloping it, and which rattled once again in the aura’s grasp. Her recent terror of the guard was fading fast now that doors had turned out to be a challenge for it. Another tentative rattle, and then an interval of uncertain silence. Then there was a strange, metallic scratching noise, followed immediately by a hearty thunk as something slammed physically into the door. Daring jumped back, and shook her head to try and knock her thoughts back into order. Make tracks away from the big scary guard with a weapon even larger than the princess, she told herself. Common sense wasn’t always wrong. She adjusted her hat on her head and prepared to move. But her gaze couldn’t help but steal back to the shelves. Just one book for the road and for her saddlebags couldn’t hurt. And The Epic of Gilgamoose had the prettiest cover, besides. She tentatively reached out for it on the shelf, pulling it down with one hoof. As soon as she touched it, a deep rumble came from throughout the library, seemingly shuddering up from the floor itself. The light shed by the chandelier guttered, acquiring a darker and more carmine hue, and there was a far-off clatter. Daring quickly slid the book back into place. “Look, fine, it’s back!” she called out to whatever unseen library-spirit might be about to descend in wrath. “Keep it! I was just looking!” The rumble ceased after a few seconds, but the light remained dark and flickering, and more clattering noises came from further on in the library. After them, there came a soft padding from high above, as if hooves were treading on a floor far above. Daring held her breath. Cervile had mentioned they couldn’t access the library … but that didn’t mean there weren’t other servants who could, that there weren’t servants already here. She edged forward, making as little noise as she could, and peeked around the corner, looking up towards the higher tiers. There — half-hidden by the chandelier, roughly half-a-dozen tiers above her, something moved. She squinted at them, and as they came entirely into view, she recognised them as another guard. They didn’t seem as large as Steelhart, at least from where Daring looked up at them. They probably came to about Dad’s height, their armoured frame seemed lighter and leaner, and they even had an intact lower jaw. Dust and old cobwebs all but covered them, but it was still possible to make out a light purple cloak hanging over their back, short enough to leave their armoured legs clear and their gait unencumbered. A plaque hung at their front, too far away to make out. Their antlers shone with purple light, holding a wickedly-pointed spear upright at their side, and when their helmeted head glanced from side-to-side, Daring saw two pinpricks of purple light shining behind their visor rather than utter blackness. They padded along their tier, seemingly intent on making a complete circuit, glancing down at the lower levels every so often. Daring breathed out and planned. She couldn’t just run out in the open without being seen, but if she dived out and made it into one of the tunnels before being spotted, then she might be able to make it without the guard being any the wiser. Nothing gambled, nothing gained. She tensed herself, and then bolted out as if released from a crossbow, turning to her left as she ran for the nearest tunnel — From above, from the other side, there was an all-but-unheard creak. Daring ran, and then stopped herself sharply to tumble back with a yelp as something crashed to the floor just in front of her, just before the tunnel entrance. Clouds of dust rose around it, and Daring coughed and waved the dust away as she picked herself up. Before her, a figure loomed out from the clouds of dust. It was the hulking frame of a different guard, built and armoured similarly to the one up above, who by now had turned around to regard proceedings from their high viewpoint. This new guard was similarly coated in dust and cobwebs, and a short green cloak tumbled down from their withers, Bright green light flashed behind their visor and around their antlers, and a long, thin, hiltless blade hovered in the air next to them. There was a plaque at their front. ONCE WHITETAIL, A FRAUD REFORGED NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING “Good day!” said Whitetail, in an incongruously cheery and upbeat tone, and with a voice that was distinctly male to Daring’s ears. “You appear to be an intruder, Miss. Please hold still while I dispatch you!” “Wha — Aah!” The blade blurred down through the air, and Daring frantically jumped back as it bit down into the carpet where she’d been standing. She wheeled around and began running the other way, counter-clockwise around the extent of the tier she was on. “Wait! Miss, I said ‘hold still’, not ‘flee’!” The guard’s hooves began to clatter across the floor at her back, and she ran all the harder. “She may not have heard you!” called the guard up above, whose tone was low and feminine. “Reiterate!” Daring paid the calls at her back no heed. All that could exist for her right now was running, and run she did, with shelves and ladders blurring past her on one side and the abyss on her other. There was another creak from high above, and some alert part of Daring’s hindbrain prepared her to jump away this time. The high-up guard came crashing down in front of Daring with one great leap, their spear already thrusting out to miss her by merest inches. She glanced up at the purple-clad guard, their plaque glinting before her eyes. ONCE BELLADAMMA, A FAILURE REFORGED NOW I SERVE LORD FALLOW TILL TIME’S ENDING “Miss,” Belladamma said, slowly and firmly as if talking to a toddler, “My associate asked you to hold still.” Daring backed off from her, step by trepid step. The spear had drawn back to hover back by Belladamma’s side, its sharp point and honed edges glinting wickedly as it angled right towards Daring’s throat. One step back, and then another, play for time, move further away from the lethal sharp thing, common sense was having a gala day here… But the world wasn’t quite so convenient as to let Daring get away with that, and the clatter of hooves at her back brought her up short. She glanced around to her rear and saw Whitetail rushing in, his hovering blade held at the ready. “Shoot,” she whispered. “Excellent! You’ve halted!” Whitetail chirped. “Gosh, this is exciting. I’ve never actually had to deal with an intruder before.” “It’s a day of firsts for everyone,” said Belladamma, drawing Daring’s attention back to her. The library guard drew her spear to one side as if preparing to slash out with it. “Close your eyes, Miss.” “Gah!” Daring retorted in place of something breathlessly witty and suitably defiant as the spear came whirring in from her right side towards her throat. She ducked with seconds to spare, and only when the instant after ticked across her senses did she realise she hadn’t been slain. It was more than could be said for other things, though. She ducked, but with mere inches to spare, and the helmet atop her head was swiped right off by the force of Belladamma’s blow. It whirled out through the air to Daring’s left, and fell before her horrified eyes down over the bottom tier, past a walkway, and into the darkness. “T — That ...” Daring stuttered out, something white-hot building in the back of her head even as her vision blurred. “That was …” That was a piece of history more real to her than anything Antlertis could hope to conjure, a piece of where she’d come from. It had hung in their livingroom since she could remember, and Dad had told her a hundred stories under its shadow about the mare who’d worn that helmet (a mare Daring had only ever seen a few pictures of) and the adventures she’d had, bringing out Daring’s cutie mark with words alone. When they’d prepared to come out here, Dad had brought it along as a good-luck charm. And whenever he’d trusted it to Daring, he’d trusted her to keep it safe. And now it vanished into blackness, beyond all hope of recovery, and it was all Daring could do to tear her gaze from it and up towards Belladamma’s impassive purple eye-lights. Red fog filled Daring’s head, adding a crimson hint to the water in her eyes, and her feathers fluffed with fury. “That was my Mom’s helmet, you flying feathering bastarding tabula rasa double bastard!” “Er,” came the voice of Whitetail at her back, “Were those curses? Or at least attempts? Because I recognise ‘bastard’, but I’m not sure why you’re using ‘tabu —’’” “Shut up!” The ghosts of Hurricane and Thunderstorm and Firefly and others like them filled her head, baying for battle. Teach these soulforged freaks why other tribes used to run when pegasi wings darkened the sky, they called. But the red impulse met a cold and rapidly-rising tide of grim clarity. She was too small. She couldn’t hope to fight either of them, let alone both here. With a breathless snarl, Daring twisted to her right, and there, just a little further along, there was a tunnel opening. Somewhere dark. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere to plan. She swept right up into the air towards the opening with one great burst from her wings, fury’s heat lifting her wings, and screeched, “Come get me!” as she flew. Belladamma’s spear lashed up into the air at her back, the library guard slow to react to the move. “Miss, you’re not co-operating with the exercise! Do you actually know what ‘halting’ is?” implored Whitetail. Daring ignored him, her heartbeat drumming in her skull and her vision as yet red at the edges. She sprung right into the darkness of the tunnel within the shelves, her headlantern once more jerking a thin beam of light to and fro across the walls. She hit the ground running, swerved wildly to avoid a pile of books, and found the path split before her, running out to either shadowy side. She chose the left side without thought, aiming only to put distance between her and the guards. The shadow enveloped her away from the library’s main light, and her headlantern flashed across the long and curving outline of the tunnel before her. “Follow her!” she heard Belladamma cry from the outside. “I’ll cut her off ahead!” Two sets of hooves thundered across the floor, and one of those sets, presumably Whitetail’s, seemed to be following directly after Daring. She pelted down the tunnel as quickly as her legs could carry her, with the thunder of Whitetail’s hooves and Whitetail’s own increasingly hopeless imploring filling the world at her back. Obstacles rose up from the ground before her: piles of fallen books, rusted ladders, bundles of rolled-up scrolls and tapestries, each forcing her to jump and glide over them to avoid getting stuck. Overflowing shelves of books rose all around her like monsters in the gloom, shrouded behind shadows and dust, some sporting faded tapestries and ragged banners and charts across their lengths. High above, some books glittered with age-old enchantments, and some of those enchantments seemed to be bleeding, leaking tendrils of midnight-blue light into the darkness above. Trapdoors dotted the ceiling. “Mi — oof!” Whitetail seemed to be having more trouble avoiding the obstacles than she was, if the crashing of books and ladders at her back was anything to go by. “Could you please halt so I may — ow! Why would someone put a ladder there?” Daring glanced around for any sneaky alcove, any hiding spot, as she threw herself around another corner and out of Whitetail’s sight. There — a pile of books, higher and even more ramshackle than the others, blocking off half the tunnel in this confined space. She knocked her headlantern off, leapt up to glide right over the pile, and once on its other side, slammed herself backwards into it. A minor bookalanche ensued, and as she pressed her back against the bulk of the pile to avoid the worst of any potential concussions, dusty tomes came cascading down past Daring’s eyes, covering much of her visible body. A gap or two remained for her to see the tunnel through. Daring hid there, trying to be as still as she possibly could in the darkness of the tunnel, trying not to tremble and shift the books around her any further, trying to not even breath loudly as hooves sounded at her back, entering this stretch proper. A faint film of green light fell over everything in her sight. Whitetail. “Hello? Miss?” His run slowed right down, the library guard seemingly unaware of where she was. “Are you there?” Daring held her breath as his trotting came yet closer. Whitetail’s oncoming green light grew brighter and brighter, and eventually there was a gentle bump against the books covering Daring as his armoured frame brushed against them. Not enough to dislodge them, thankfully, and his motions were careful and gentle now that he had slowed down. The source of his green light revealed itself as his backside came into proper view, a little indistinct glowing-green shape flickering between his antlers. Red-hot bands seemed to be pressing against Daring’s lungs, and she let herself all-but-silently breathe out. “Miss?” Whitetail called out, turning his ironclad skull left and right. “I do promise it’d be a quick dispatching. You’d never know it’d happened.” His back was exposed to Daring. The white-hot fire that had filled her had simmered down to something cold and steady and detached, though the red edge lingered around her vision. Some grim part of her considered that the odds might be sufficiently leveled now for her to have a fair shot at the hulking guard, and her hoof crept down to the flap of her saddlebag. She had the multitools, the ones with the blowtorches built in, her memory reminded her. What damage could one of those do to him, even when directed for just a second? Fuse his leg armour to his bones. Fuse him to the floor. Make him helpless. No. Better. Fly up, while he wasn’t expecting anything. Get at the back of his head. And if he was quick enough to turn round, go for his eyes. Or if that didn’t work — Daring’s gaze swept up to the high shelves, and to the enchanted books bleeding their blue magic out into the air — maybe there’d be some way to topple a shelf, if she could go for whatever kept them upright or secured. They’d crush him, and if not, well, she’d once heard that fraying enchantments had a tendency to get explosive when handled sans care. And she wasn’t feeling even slightly careful with regards to the library guards. Cold fire filled Daring’s heart. She was the great adventurer here in the dark, and he was fair game, mere cannon fodder who’d helped her lose her Mom’s hat, and she could take him apart any way she pleased. It was just a matter of ingenuity, that and nothing else … Her gaze crept to the back of Whitetail’s head once more, and stole up to the green light flickering between his antlers. She realised with a surprise that ‘fluttering’ would be a better word for it; the green light Whitetail had summoned took the form of a large butterfly. It kept pace with the confused movements of his head, its antenna and wings as carefully sculpted as any pony illusionist could manage. She stared at it, puzzled by the intricacy of the shape, and the longer she stared, the more the cold fire petered down. It faded altogether, and she was left just feeling faintly sick and angry with herself over the ashes. She couldn’t do it. Whitetail might be trying to kill her, but she couldn’t do the same back. Why a butterfly? Why that lovingly-crafted a shape, when a simple orb would have done the same job? And could Whitetail even tell her if she could ask that? Maybe he’d been an illusionist once, and this was all the memory he had of how he’d used to be. Maybe it was just a small thing that made him happy, here where’d he’d been in the dusty darkness for three thousand years with only Belladamma for company. He’d been soulforged. He had no other choice now but to try and kill Daring, but she didn’t. She wasn’t soulforged, and she had no right to hurt a being that couldn’t help itself, not if there was any other way to deal with them. Heroes didn’t kill things just because they were angry over a hat. And she wouldn’t either. Dad wouldn’t have wanted her to think the way she just did. Mom surely wouldn’t either. All she had to do was get away from here, and get to Lord Fallow’s study. He was the real evil one here, and she had to deal with him, not his victims. She glanced up towards the ceiling. It was possible to make out a trapdoor there, with a stubby wooden handle. If she could reach that before Whitetail caught her, then that could be her way out. If only there was some other distraction, just to give her an extra few seconds … Her forehoof, which had rested in her saddlebag, brushed against the bag of ball-bearings. Daring smiled a fierce, wolfish smile. Most adventurers had to trust to luck and make stuff up as they went along at one point or another, it was unavoidable. But if you were among the best adventurers, you could make your own luck. She drew out the bag of ball-bearings, carefully extricated it from the pile of books without knocking any over, lowered it close to the floor, and tipped them out to send them trundling across the several metres of floor towards Whitetail. The library guard seemed to perk up as the soft noise of their movement hit his ears (earbones?), and he began to turn around. And it was that moment Daring chose with expert precision to flap wildly up out of the bookpile, literature exploding around her and flying in all directions as she clawed her way up through the air towards the trapdoor. She might not be able to fly yet, she thought as she sweated and cursed and violently flapped her way upwards, but just maybe enough angry effort would fool the universe for that crucial moment. “Ah-ha!” Whitetail’s attention focused immediately on her, his eye-lights brightening as he raised the blade in his magical grasp back up into a proper ward. He stepped boldly forwards. “There you are! I found her, Bella! Now, Miss, please hold still for a moment while I dispaAAA—” His forehoof skidded on something, and Whitetail realised the trap he’d charged into entirely too late. One forehoof skidded off a ball-bearing, a rear hoof bounced off another, and the attempts of his other two legs to correct his gait sent his whole form crashing down to the floor in a pandemonium of flailing limbs and flying ball-bearings. “Aargh! Skullduggery!” he wailed from his confused position, and Daring gloatingly congratulated herself on the smoothest plan ever put into motion. She lurched up to the trapdoor with one final burst of effort, latched her teeth around its handle, and yanked down with all her might. The trapdoor didn’t budge. Daring yanked harder. The trapdoor continued to not budge. She let loose a muffled yowl of purest frustration and yanked like a pony possessed, and for all her efforts, the trapdoor retained a certain unbudged quality. “Mvv, y’ bsshkrd!” she screeched past a mouthful of handle, her wings flapping like clappers in order that she wasn’t left hanging by her teeth alone. Below her, there was the sound of long legs getting a solid purchase on the floor, and of Whitetail ponderously rising upright once more. “Now then,” he said, his chipperness diminished in favour of mild discombobulation. His blade rose up. “If you could just stay in your approximate position for the next moment or so, Miss, that would be a great help.” “Nngh!” Daring offered up by way of a cutting retort, one half of her vision caught up with the glinting metal of Whitetail’s blade. She thrashed mid-air and yanked harder and harder, a cold weight gathering in her gut as the certainty stole across her that the door simply wasn’t going to move. Whitetail’s blade slashed up at her in a graceful arc, and Daring twisted and swivelled around the handle, her limbs randomly thrashing out in every direction to try and bat the blade away before it hit her. There was a moment of wild terror, and then a hard clang and a stinging sensation in her left rearhoof, and she belatedly realised she’d managed to twist around and kick the blade right on its flat. It spun down in another arc, down towards one of the shelves. To where a magical book sat between its ordinary neighbours, peacefully bleeding away blue streams of gossamer enchantment to itself. The blade hit it. And the world below exploded in a spectrum of unreal colour and howling noise, the force of it buffeting upwards. Daring’s bite was painfully knocked loose from the handle and she was thrown into a nearby set of shelves. Below her, Whitetail yelped as he was violently thrown into the same shelves, making the whole section wobble. Another bookalanche ensued, burying the stunned Whitetail under a fresh weight of literature. Exploded papers and bindings fluttered in the air like leaves. Daring groaned and probed her aching teeth with her tongue, checking that she still had all of them even as she clung onto the upper shelves with her legs. She glanced round at the trapdoor and saw that it was rattling from the force of the explosion. There was something strange about its rattle, and she peered harder at it and try and figure out what it was. Then she realised. “It opens up the way,” she groaned. That solved that, then. With another flurry of flapping from her tired wings, she flew at the trapdoor and pushed up with all her might. It was hard work, pushing up against its sheer weight, but she persisted, sweating and straining and hissing with sheer exertion, and eventually, the door yielded. It opened a few inches up, and that was all Daring needed to throw herself at the gap, to shove her forelegs in and to wriggle and barge her way through until she tumbled up and out onto its other side, up into a new stretch of dark and book-strewn tunnel. Tiredness made her pant, had built up a solid lather of sweat across her form, but she couldn’t stop now. The bookpile over Whitetail was already shifting, albeit with a great deal of dazed moaning, and she let the trapdoor slam shut. That wouldn’t be enough, though, and she glanced around for its hinges, found them, and lurched over as she fumbled a multitool out of her saddlebags. She yanked out the blowtorch attachment, making her much-abused teeth ache anew, and laid it down upon the hinges before pressed down on the button that made the little magical flame shoot out from the side. It was dicey work, quickly passing it over the hinges to get them properly melted and beyond any hope of raising, without also setting the wooden door or floor around her on fire. Even apart from the threat to her own life a fire in close-quarters posed, Daring felt that setting a library on fire, accidentally or otherwise, was the sort of thing that got you rightly sent to the bad sort of afterlife. But she finished the job without any unintentional arson, and a hopeless thumping from below coupled with Whitetail’s muffled grumbles told her it had worked. Daring spent the next few minutes breathing heavily and sitting on top of the trapdoor, just to be sure, while she considered her next move. Ground tier, first tier, second tier … she’d be on the second by now, unless this was one of those ruins with eldritch geometry that you got from time to time. If she crept along this level of the labyrinth in a counter-clockwise direction, got out at the room’s end, and flew down to the first tier, then she’d be able to avoid the attentions of Belladamma and Whitetail and get into Lord Fallow’s study without them being any the wiser. Perfect. It couldn’t fail. Daring heaved herself back to her hooves and made off in what felt like counter-clockwise. She picked her way through the dark and silent tunnels, weaving her way between yet more bookpiles and other library detritus. Cervile really needed to be let in here to get this whole place in order. There was the odd patter of hooves beyond, as well as the occasional creak from directions Daring couldn’t quite place. She hurried on; the guards were still moving as well, and she hadn’t the slightest clue where Belladamma was. Finally, after what seemed like an age, she guessed she’d gone far enough, and took any left-heading paths that the labyrinth offered. There was the suggestion of fresh air — or at least, relatively fresh compared to the mustiness of the surrounding shelves — and Daring found herself trotting back out into the open library proper. She crept out onto the open floor past the tunnel entrance, and found that she was indeed on the second tier, the first and ground tiers yawning open before her before giving way to the abyss. There was no sign of the library guards. There was the distant tramp of hooves, though, and Daring looked back to where she’d come in. The far-off door was ajar and slightly squint, as if something had finally prised it open with sheer force — and there, circling around the first tier on Daring’s right side, a familiar black shape moved forwards with the steady inevitability of a stormcloud. Even from this distance, Steelhart looked huge. Their vast head turned casually from side to side as they walked, their hooffall unnaturally graceful and silent. They must still be hunting her down, though they mercifully hadn’t seen Daring yet. They’d be at her side of the room in less than a couple of minutes, though, and she had to move. She glanced down and found to her relief that she’d judged the distances well. The door to Lord Fallow’s study was practically just below, and all she’d have to do would be to jump down and bolt for it. She braced herself to leap down over the side, prepared her aching wings to glide her gently down, and made the plunge. It wasn’t as smooth a landing as she’d been hoping. Her wings felt stiff and sore and refused to glide her down gently, and she ended up slamming into the floor with her forelegs at a speed which jarred her legs. The noise of impact echoed around the library, and Daring jumped up with a cry of “Shoot!” She thought she could see Steelhart’s head turning in her direction, and she spun around towards the door to Lord Fallow’s study. No time to think, just run forwards and escape, escape — There was a soft whoosh in the air behind her, and some dormant instinct of Daring’s told her to duck. Duck she did, and the instant after, a long spear came flying through the air and slammed forcibly into the wood of the door. Daring stared up at the spear — Belladamma’s spear — and glanced behind her. From the side of the tier on Daring’s left, the purple-clad guard came striding. She’d emerged from a nearby tunnel, and her cloak had picked up an extra layer of dust and cobwebs. A distance behind her, Daring could also see Whitetail come tottering out of a further-down tunnel. He seemed somewhat battered. “You are being exceedingly disruptive to the functioning of the library,” hissed Belladamma, making the words seem like a mortal curse. Her antlers blazed with purple magic, and an aura began groping around her embedded spear, trying to prise it free. Daring glanced from side to side, her eyes wide and panic beating a tattoo within her chest. The door onwards was stuck fast by the spear, and the library guards had the left side covered while Steelhart was coming in from the right. She doubted her wings were strong enough to handle a flight up to the next level, and even if they could, she’d already seen the power with which the guards could leap. She could try jumping down to the ground tier, but the guards could follow her there too and she didn’t know how fast Steelhart could really move. And even if she succeeded and escaped, she’d be right back where she started, only with all of them looking for her from the start and with the scariest of the guards an active part of the mix. She needed something brilliant, and she racked her all-but-frozen brain for it as the soulforged guards marched ever closer — There was a far-off bang from the door she’d come in from, and Daring whirled to face it. Someone had kicked it right off its hinges, and that someone took shape with a swirl of their coat as they charged into the room. Daring stared. And then she called out. “Dad!” Dad’s gaze shot right to her from across the other side of the wide room. His tricorn sat askew on his head, his ten-foot pole was couched under one foreleg, his coat seemed to be slightly on fire, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of her. “Daring?!” Daring would have called out again, but the spear wrenched free of the door in that moment and came whirling overhead. She cried out and threw herself to the floor to avoid it, and the clatter of hooves came ever-closer. “Daring, I’m coming! Hold on!” Dad’s shout echoed off the furthest walls; his hooves were already bringing him forward in a breakneck charge. Daring thought he was going to try and run straight through the laboratory and the walkways, but that would surely take him too long. But he wrenched a coil of rope off from around his back with his teeth as he ran and was already twisting and looping it around itself with quick, clever movements of his head. The spear came jabbing down at where Daring lay, and she scrabbled backwards to avoid it. Belladamma bore down upon her with every moment that passed, her antlers blazing and the spear alive in her grasp. “Stop trying to thwart library regulations, you little nuisance. Halt or be halted!” she hissed. There was a blur from Dad’s direction, and Daring glanced there. He had thrown the rope out as a lasso up towards the bottom of the dangling chandelier. It caught around one spur of crystal and tightened just as Dad came charging off the edge, making the light and shadows of the whole room jerk and dance. His momentum carried onto his swing, cutting a swift and wide arc across the whole length of the room, his hooves passing inches over the top of the laboratory slab. He kept the ten-foot pole in his grasp, leveling it like a lance. The spear rose high above Daring once more, and the guard that held it stood framed like an avenging goddess. Daring twisted frantically to avoid it as it bit down into the wooden floor, and kept edging back as it was wrenched free and hovered up for another stab. But before that stab could come, a Dad-shaped blur crashed into Belladamma’s armoured frame, and the mixed screech of yells and twisting metal and cracking wood that erupted before Daring as the two slammed into the bookshelves to Belladamma’s side beggared description. There was a pained rasp from Belladamma, the crashing of another bookalanche, and finally a release of breath from Dad as he staggered back from the sundered shelf, giving Daring a view of the aftermath. The pole had smashed through Belladamma side-on, punching through her armour and ribcage and out the other side and deep into the shelves, pinning her there like a thrashing, trapped insect. The sheer damage didn’t seem much more than an inconvenience for her, and she wildly tried to wrench herself free, magic erupting into life around her antlers. Dad bent, seized her fallen spear in his mouth, and swiftly jammed it through her antler-branches and right into the shelves. Every struggle from her brought her antlers into contact with the spear shaft, disrupting the magical energies there and preventing Belladamma from doing much of anything at all. Dad didn’t stop for breath. He wheeled immediately upon Whitetail and stamped his forehooves upon the floor. Steel spurs clacked out, and he stood still and perfectly poised, his stance low and his withers hunched. Under the shadow of his tricorn, his eyes were burning coals. “Get him!” hissed Belladamma to Whitetail, helplessly swivelling to and fro in an attempt to free herself, one millimetre at a time. “Hold him while I get loose!” Whitetail dutifully lunged forward, his blade a silver blur descending through the air towards Dad’s head. But Dad twisted his stance slightly, enough that the blade came down on his left wither. It bit into the fabric of his justacorps but was caught by the barding beneath, and in the crucial second Whitetail tried to pull it free, Dad erupted. He shifted his weight to his forehooves and pivoted violently to one side, ripping the blade right out from Whitetail’s grasp and sending it clattering across the floor. His whole body swung around, and he threw his legs up, thunderously bucking Whitetail right in his face and sending him staggering back in a briefly-boneless heap. Part of Whitetail’s helmet was cracked at the front, an addition to his existing injuries at the hooves of the Do clan. Despite it, the guard tried to recover and draw himself back up into a better position. The magic around his antlers scrabbled for his blade. But Dad came crashing down upon him, denying him the space to recover. A forwards kick to the throat, a sideways swipe from a spur across the visor of Whitetail’s helmet that made the metal scream, blow upon blow, each one battering Whitetail further into the ground and leaving him more exposed to the stallion-shaped storm of violence at his front. Finally, he was on the ground, one foreleg spread flat, and that was all Dad needed. One steel-shod hoof stamped down on Whitetail’s bony knee, and the sounds of the hard crack and Whitetail’s yelp echoed throughout the library. The library guard seemed uninterested in rising again after that, and Dad stepped back, breathing heavily. “You had one job,” groaned the pinned Belladamma as Whitetail softly meeped to himself. Daring looked up at Dad with no small amount of surprise, fear, shock, awe, admiration, and other variants on the spectrum competing for the forefront in her head and playing across her features. She’d heard about the thrilling hoof-fights, often from Dad’s very mouth, but actually seeing one in the flesh — The main emotion that made its way to the forefront, however, was simple relief. “Daring!” Dad wheeled around after only a couple of breaths. He cantered over to Daring, and she could read all manner of emotions playing across a face that she was so used to seeing smile. Horror, relief as well, confusion, worry-born anger, and others yet passing under the shadow of flinty determination. “Get on my back. We’re getting out of here. Now.” Daring opened her mouth, and the leftover panic from being pinned and attacked from all sides made her briefly consider not arguing. It didn’t last. There was still a door to get through. “But I —” “Don’t argue! Do as you’re told and get on —!” Past Dad’s wither, Daring saw a great antlered shadow rise. A glaive gleamed in a blood-red grasp and angled down at Dad’s back. She screamed the warning as fast as breath allowed. “Behind you!” Too late. Dad glanced round mid-stride, just as the glaive’s point slammed right into the back of his left rear leg. He gasped with pain and lurched forward with the force of the blow, his forehooves scrabbling to keep him standing. Daring jumped back as well, and past Dad’s buckled frame, she saw Steelhart standing tall and dark against the crimson light of the chandelier. Steelhart's red grasp flamed around the glaive’s great shaft, and with a slow, steady relish, they twisted the weapon. Things cracked and made soft, awful noises where the glaive twisted in Dad’s leg, and both he and Daring screamed. Dad’s expression was a picture of purest pain, but with one mighty effort, he gritted his teeth and wrenched himself right off the glaive, all but collapsing forward as he wobbled on his forehooves. Daring looked right up at him, their faces close, and she saw his eyes were shut tight, When he opened them again, they were watering and filled with agony, and when he met Daring’s gaze directly, there was a wretched uncertainty and helplessness in their depths for a few seconds. A smile was forced onto his face then. It was twisted and creased with pain and didn’t reach his eyes at all, but he’d forced it there regardless, and she guessed it was meant to reassure. He slowly rose to his hooves again, inch by wincing inch, and kept his weight planted on his right rear leg. “Stay back, poppet,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “If there’s any opening, run to the door leading out. I’ll catch up.” “But —” He turned away from Daring and faced Steelhart directly. His spurs clacked on the stone floor. By way of answer, Steelhart raised the glaive and ostentatiously wiped the glistening tip dry against the floor. Each held still and ready in the moment after. Then they charged. Dad lurched across the ground and tried to present his armoured sides, while Steelhart swept onwards in motions that were too swift and silent to belong to anything that large. There was the blur and screech and clash of collision, with the glaive whirling in the air and Dad’s armoured forehoof weaving a tight circle in the air about him to ward it off. It snuck in and swept up and across his side, slashing his coat’s fabric and sending Dad stumbling. The barding kept him safe, though, and the glaive drew back into a high ward. They broke apart and circled each other, Dad hobbling and panting and Steelhart as silent as ever. A second’s circling, and then Dad lunged in, trying to throw himself within spurring reach of Steelhart and rip up into the guard’s defense. But Steelhart slid backwards across the floor in an eye’s blink, and the whirling motions of their glaive forced Dad back, sweeping out a vast expanse of room for Steelhart to move freely in. Another slash hammered into Dad’s other side, driving the breath from him with the blunt force of it. Daring watched, desperate and feeling helpless. She had to help somehow, but how? She could try and get close enough with one of the little blowtorches, or fly into the tunnels and get another fraying book to throw at Steelhart. But the first one would be almost impossible with Steelhart’s huge reach and speed, and the second would be as likely to hurt Dad. She had to help, though. Dad wasn’t winning against Steelhart, and as he lunged in for another pass, the colossal guard was easily able to keep him too far away to even try and land a blow. Meanwhile, Steelhart could freely slam blow after blow into Dad’s armoured sides, while it was all Dad could do to keep his unarmoured head and legs shielded with his spurred shoes. And each blow might not pierce the metal barding, but they landed as hard as sledgehammers. Dad would get bruised and hurt and tired, and his leg would keep bleeding, and eventually his defence of his head would slip, and when that happened ... No. It wasn’t going to happen. There was a rustle at her side. Daring quickly turned and saw Whitetail, still on the ground and wisely keeping out of proceedings. A dark blue light simmered around the edges of where his leg had been snapped, slowly pulling in the bones and knitting them back together. They could heal, then. This’d have to be finished, and quickly. Daring saw Whitetail’s fallen blade on the floor near her as well, and felt a rush of inspiration. It was edged all around, like unicorn swords, so she couldn’t just wield it in her mouth. But if she had some thick cloth or other material to wrap around one part, making a makeshift hilt, then that might just cut it. She didn’t even waste time mentally congratulating herself on the unintended pun, and immediately swept off her saddlebags and emptied out whatever was left in them onto the floor. Her birthday saddlebags might get a little cut up in the process, but even the best adventuring heroes had to make sad sacrifices from time to time. She folded their fabric around one end of the blade as quickly as she could, her heart hammering. She would make this work. She had to. The screeching skirl of metal meeting metal broke her attention, and she looked abruptly up to see a shift in the fight. Dad had plunged in under the sweep of the glaive, coming up from under Steelhart’s defenses, and he now clawed at Steelhart’s front with the spurs. One, two, three swipes in rapid succession left a deep rent in the guard’s torso plates, ripped away a piece of cloth, and tore their visor clean off with a scream of metal, sending the sundered bit of armour clattering to the floor. Steelhart backed off as quickly as Daring had ever seen anything back off, their glaive whirling in protective circles about them to force Dad back. Their visor removed, Daring could see that where the steel of their helmet ended at their eye sockets, something black and cracked receded into impenetrable shadow. Steelhart recovered quickly to resume a poised stance, but elation filled Daring’s heart. They could win this, and she bit into her newly-fashioned hilt and heaved the blade off the ground. It tilted her head to one side with the weight and dragged along the stone, but she charged regardless. Dad, now on the left side of Daring’s vision, turned on her, his fleetingly triumphant expression turning stern again. “Poppet, I told you to run!” Steelhart lashed out then, the motion of it wild and uncontrolled to Daring’s eyes, as if they were trying to exploit the momentary distraction and make up for lost dignity. The glaive came in a horizontal sweep at Dad’s head, and he tore his gaze away from Daring and ducked right under it, his head bobbing back up the moment it was clear. A pained grin flickered on his features once more. The glaive flamed within Steelhart’s grasp, and stopped abruptly mid-air. And it smoothly spun back the way it’d came. The blunt, hammer-hard edge smashed into the side of Dad’s head with a sickening crack. Before Daring’s breathless, paralysed gaze, the impact sent Dad tumbling off the edge of the tier. His form was boneless, lifeless, and it vanished from her sight altogether. Steelhart straightened. Even from their black blankness, vicious self-satisfaction radiated. They glanced briefly in Daring’s direction, turned away the instant after, and hopped nimbly off the tier after Dad’s body. Words returned to Daring. She spat out the makeshift sword, all plans gone. “DAD!” she screamed. She all but hurled herself forwards, legs going helter-skelter across the floor, and craned over the edge of the tier. There, on the ground tier’s floor below, right by the edge of the abyss, there lay Dad. He was crumpled upon the ground, struck-side-down, his eyes closed and the floor red underneath his head. His tricorn lay upside-down on the ground a distance away. Daring thought she saw him faintly breathing, told herself he was still breathing, screamed out again to get him to just wake up. “DAD!” Steelhart strode into Daring’s view on the tier below, making their way towards Dad’s still form. The glaive glinted in their grasp. They stood right over Dad and raised the weapon high to bring it down for one last swipe, its steel red under the light. No plans. No forethought. Nothing but the urge to stop Steelhart, nothing but the fire that filled her and threw Daring forwards with scarcely any conscious thought on her part. No ache in her wings, no pains or doubts or anything but forwards. She screamed a desperate war-cry as she flew right at Steelhart’s head and blindsided them with an almighty crash that jarred their whole form. She was tiny atop Steelhart, but the impact wobbled the whole of the giant guard’s form. They teetered on the edge and stumbled back, their huge legs shifting desperately. Their vast antlers blazed crimson, the magic close enough to Daring’s face for her to feel its heat, and she kept on attacking, slamming kick after kick into Steelhart’s head and lunging forwards to bite one of their antlers, disrupting their magic with an almighty flash and making her taste ozone and iron. The whole world whirled around her as she shook atop Steelhart’s form, and there was a lurch in her perspective, a sense that gravity had tilted somehow, and a clatter against the floor was registered belatedly by her ears as a last attempt by Steelhart’s hooves to secure a footing. Instead, the world lurched, and darkness began to fill the front of Daring’s world, and it was only after a few moments and after her grip slipped off Steelhart’s tilting head that she realised, Oh, I’m falling. Her wings began to flap with the strength born of desperation, but it was too little, too late. Daring fell into the darkness below the library along with Steelhart. There was a blind rush of air all around her, screams that might have been coming from her own throat, and then impact. Stars spun across Daring’s world, followed by only blackness.