//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight - "Storm Skies" // Story: Swordpony // by Wisdom Thumbs //------------------------------// The auld oak’s bones stood black against the first rays of dawn. For ninety nine years it had sat enthroned on its cliff, with ash trees, hazels, and white geans among its subjects. But ponies had felled those lesser trees, and even the hillfort they had built was lost. Only the oak remained, its crown broken, to scrape and bow before a dark army of pines. Pines could not—should not—grow so close together as these. They encircled the hilltop, their tips lost in clouds, and night lingered on in their clutches. At their feet huddled a pony. Yule Tide concealed himself beneath piles of black, fermented nettles, and bracken wilted over him like a hundred wet wings. The Shetlander hid his frozen breath 'neath his hooves. Still his nape prickled. He watched, and he waited, and knew he was not alone. The earth pony reached out with all his senses. His eye scanned over the road, across the hilltop clearing, to the ranks of pines on either flank of the auld oak. Daffodils whispered across the clearing. To the untrained eye, the boulders among them resembled sleeping cows. They might have even appeared serene. Yule knew better than to trust sight alone. He hugged his spear closer. A breeze moaned in the pines. The hill stank of rot, moss, and dead things long buried. Again his eye scanned past the oak—There! He saw a flash of antlers, a thousand points soaked in blood! His heart slammed, slammed, slammed!  But it was only the sun cresting the hill, westbound, trapped for but a moment in the auld oak's fingers. The sun vanished into the clouds, and again Yule saw the branches for what they were. Where was that blasted caravan, anyway? Yule could not hear the wagons. He whispered a curse, then rose from the muck as the very image of a soldier long dead, spear in his teeth, all a-bristle with twigs like snapped arrows. Nothing shot him, and nothing screamed, so he followed his spear into the cover of the next tree, then on to the next. Yule patrolled like a restless spirit. His only companions were the spear and the darkness that followed perpetually in his left eye. Bracken painted his legs with dew. Shadows clawed at his quilted cap and jacket. He threaded between them, slipping on the slope of the hill... His hoof brushed something in the dark. Something muddy. Something skin. Yule’s ears pinned back. He glanced down. Under his hoof, somepony’s saddlebag lay on a bed of pinecones. Its buckle was torn away, and its girdle cut. Huh. Yule's heart slowed to a trot. He crept on, and left the saddlebag. At least it wasn’t dead squirrels, or pony heads, or any other such ‘gift’ that the Wrothkin loved to leave. Maybe, just this once, High Hill truly was clear. Even still, Yule kept his left shoulder to the old fort’s overgrown wall. It was a wall he had helped erect. Now it was a ghost. Only a dozen posts remained in the press of pines. He imagined the rotting timbers as support beams, and his path as an ever-shifting tunnel. He longed for a torch. Yule Tide ended his patrol where the old fort’s gate once stood. Pines had replaced the gateposts. But the road remained, riven with wagon ruts, and he turned north to face the chink it carved in the woods. Through that chink he saw angry, black clouds weaving on the loom of the Crystal Mountains. That loom wove a tapestry of iron misery, even as the forge-red dawn transmuted into rust. Sleet already whorled on the wind. The threat of rain made Yule’s joints ache. He turned back to the east. Beyond the auld oak and over the next hill, Yule spied ribbons of smoke. Boardwall. The Last Broch. The sight of that smoke should have put warmth in his bones, but it never did. It smelled too much like winter on the march. Made the old wound ache. He worked his shoulder around. A red dart shot out of his blind spot. Yule jerked his spear up, but it was only a crossbill on the wing. With his spearhead he tracked the bird into nettle-thick branches. Returning home, most like. Yule felt a kindred to it. His teeth ached around the spear haft. He spat it out, and his sigh cast sleet careening. The scout sank to his haunches by the road, his back against a pine trunk. Still he trembled, unable to catch his breath. Branches cracked and scratched overhead, brushing him with nettles like wet tails. He saw no other movement on the hill. But if vision alone were trustworthy he wouldn’t wear an eyepatch. He pressed an ear—still had two of those, at least—to the tree he sat against. At last, carried uphill by wind and roots, he heard the clatter of pots, pans, wheels, and shields. Yule’s jaw relaxed. He cast his senses further afield while he waited, listening to blue pines that creaked gossip, and to grey pines that whispered not at all. He heard dead bones sigh. He heard the auld oak scream. Yule levered himself upright on his spear. He’d heard enough. A helmet crested the hill road. Then came the pony who wore it, reins in his teeth. Beneath him rose a wagon, and a pair of gasping, sweating ponies strained at the traces. They were but two of many prisoners bound for exile. The brands of their crimes were fresh scabs, chafed bloody by the harness. More wagons followed, bouncing in hard ruts. The first trundled to a halt abreast of Yule, shields clacking on the sideboards. The prisoners collapsed to the dirt. “Keep yer harnishes on. Ye willnae be gettin’ anither rest.” Yule stepped over the churls. Their driver gave him a nod, and a dusting of sleet fell like dander from the thane’s helmet. Yule nodded back. Thanes whispered “Halt,” up and down the caravan. Churls fell out into the grass, bemoaning sore hooves and empty bellies. The thanes took no part in that moaning. They fanned silently outward to fill the clearing. Yule counted them all. Then he counted them again, two by two, until every shield-brother and sister stood accounted for. All except one. He fought the urge to triple check. Lush Renvers would strap him to the sickbed if he cropped another ulcer. Besides, he knew where to find the missing pony. He trotted east across the clearing. A white breeze followed him, winding its coils through lemon daffodils. He made it out among the boulders, and the familiar company of thanes, before a voice surprised him from his blind spot. “You alright, patch-eye?” asked the darkness. Yule flinched. He turned to find a mare seated against a boulder, her dagger laid out beside a spoon and a fork on an all-purpose sheath. She was young, far too young, with freckles under eyes that were far too old. Her horn kept a whetstone scratching down a saw-toothed sword. “I’m aaricht.” Yule was hardly alright. And she was hardly an old face, but all the old faces were gone. She carried his shield now. Her smile brightened the daffodils. So, rather than admit his nerves, he pointed a hoof back at the rear wagon. “I seen a saidlebag twinny paces off the road, sowthways a bittie. Torn strap. Might’ve some snoose in it.” “Huh.” The whetstone froze on her claymore. She twisted to look at the treeline. “Thanks, Yule.” His confidence restored, Yule resumed his eastward march. Thanes knelt around him, stringing bows, counting arrows. Too many carried swords these days, and too few carried spears. But nothing gleamed under the cloud ceiling, so he let them be. The meadow sloped gradually upward as it neared the cliff. With a start, Yule realized that the old faces were not all gone after all. One yet remained, and it was only half dead. The oak’s lightning wound yawned like a long lost friend’s hug. The irony of that thought kicked Yule in the gut. He drew up short, swallowing the word ‘hello.’ The oak would have only blamed him. “Know yer up there.” Yule spoke to the wind instead. “Left hauf the clearin’ to ye.” A voice like rusty hammers fell from the boughs. “You had no need to scout around, aiver. I was well thorough. Checked the whole hill, top to bottom, whilst you was still climbing it.” “Ye dinnae check the glack, didje?” Yule’s eye probed from branch to branch. “Checked both hollows, and don’t you try to trip me up with your timber talk.” That growling voice seemed to come from within the oak itself. “Ye take the chance to forgather oniebodie at Boordwall?” This time Yule felt flakes of moss pepper his eyepatch. He resisted the urge to blink. Ahh… There. He spied one feather camouflaged at a fork in the branches. Got ye. “Nope.” Wings flapped a breeze across Yule’s back. “AHhhh…” Yule bit down a yelp and turned it into a weary sigh. His spine crimped. “Watchponies didn’t see me,” said Nail Biter, the first and foremost scout of Boardwall. His wings beat the air. The iron-grey pegasus descended just into spear range, caked in six different kinds of lichen as well as two kinds of mud. A dagger grin split his stubbly jaw. “Hmmh.” Yule’s eye watered from being so close to Nail’s voice. “Watchponies need a hiding, then.” “Yeah, s’what I’m thinking.” Nail landed in the daffodils. He slapped Yule’s shoulder. “We’re gonna need to smack some sense into those doddering old fools.” “Yer gettin’ the bettern of me more an’ more, lad.” Yule tried to muster up another smile. “You’re getting old, aiver.” Nail’s teeth might’ve flashed had they not taken on the color of all the hobnails he chewed. He had an especially rusty one in his mouth at that very moment, likely pulled straight from his horseshoe. The hobnail flicked from one side of his grin to the other. “Not auld.” Yule looked up at the oak. “Jes’ cold. And I resent that.” He turned north, toward the strings of smoke unraveling from the sky, and hurriedly brushed sleet out of his beard. “Weather isnae quite right. Feel it?” A new voice interrupted them. “Just your old bones, Yule Tide!” And a brown pegasus swooped over the treetops. The two scouts winced at the shout. Yule especially, sensitive as he was about High Hill. He made it known. “Rairie as yer name, Stormwind...” Stormwind tucked his wings and slid to a stop beside the oak. His barding reeked of smoke, all spotted with dew and mud. But somehow, despite the lack of sunlight, his helm still gleamed. “Two days later than usual, you old tree stumper. And Nail! Brother!” Stormwind greeted them with forehooves stretched wide, but he steered well clear of his half-kin. Perhaps he was afraid of scraping up against Nail’s stubble. “We wis forestalled by an escape.” Yule Tide’s grimace deepened. “That un’s lang gane.” “One less killer among us.” Stormwind shrugged. His smile had already curdled. “Must be a real sneaker to slip the likes of you two.” “Actually,” Nail’s rusty teeth made a fine showing. “The churl went missing two nights ago, whilst I was still sippin’ mead at Boardwall. He swam upstream with armor and a sword while Yule searched downstream. But I found his trail late yesterday. Show him, Yule.” “We fand it at the fower-weys, by the deer cairn. But ‘twas cold, what reck.” Yule pulled an apple core from his saddlebag. It was black and rotting, just like the sky over the Crystal Mountains. “Wasteful bugger. We rackon he ignored the carven warning and took the path less traiveled.” Stormwind scowled. “Well. You still missed someone on the road, Nail. An Equestrian.” “Is that a jest?” Nail clapped his half-brother on the shoulder. “Show me to this Equestrian, then! Or I’ll tell paw you been drowsin’ in the meadows.” “This mud is for camouflage.” The lad swayed under Nail’s clap. “Oh? You been baring your rump for an arrow? Bile, boy…” That put the furnace back in Stormwind’s eyes. He drew his head back. “Hey! Somepony’s got to check High Hill morning and evening. Father put me on it just as soon as you lef—” Yule’s ears shot up. “Wait a blenk.” He turned his head. “What was…” A mare’s scream. They spun as one, weapons out. For an instant the hill went ice-cold. Heads turned all over the hilltop to face southwest. Toward the wagons. Toward the trees. Toward the spot where Yule had found the saddlebag. --- Stormwind bit the dirk from the sheath ‘cross his chest. There was no imagining a scream like that. His heart stuttered. His teeth strained around the dagger’s hilt. The auld oak creeaaked in the wind. “Aw, nae... Nae…” Yule went slack. Stormwind glanced up. Like the hornets of hell, Wrothkin arrows fell in screaming, stinging swarms. Nail Biter tackled Stormwind into a boulder. Stone chewed up his ear, his mouth crushed into the flowers. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He heard somepony booming orders. He heard shafts scouring the rocks. He heard ponies scream to match the devils. The weight lifted from Stormwind’s ribs, and he sucked air. He hooked a hoof on the boulder to peer around it. A thane’s ear flapped with an arrow in it. The thane pulled a bow with horn magic. Arrows showered him, drove him back. Yule thundered forward into the storm, cutting a yellow streak across the meadow. Flower petals scattered after him. Stormwind tried to catch the logger’s tail. “Stay down.” Nail crushed Stormwind back into the daffodils. His voice cut through the chaos, gritty as a miller’s stone. He bit down on a red shaft stuck through his foreleg, dragged it out without batting an eye. Blood dripped on Stormwind’s shoulder. He stared with intense concentration at the red streak spilling across his chest, over his leg, and down into the dirt. Shields! Shield-sister! Wagons! Circle up! A hundred awful cries. They filled Stormwind’s ears. The dirk gleamed under his hoof. He pawed it closer. Hornets whistled, shivering in the ground, in the auld oak, in ponies. Nail spat out the arrow he’d pulled from his leg. He looked over his shoulder, shouted something, and an arrow brushed his ear. A shield wheeled through the air, a spinning coin against storm skies. It bounced through the grass and fetched up against a stone. Nail shook Stormwind by the shoulder. “—-out of here and warn the Broch,” he was shouting, teeth spotted red. He shook Stormwind harder still. “Hey! Ain’t your first scrape, be ready! Go under the oak! Under!” A stallion without armor limped past, arrows in every part of him. “Hey!” Nail slapped Stormwind back into the moment. His eyes were bloodshot. “Catch the shield.” Stormwind set his teeth. He nodded. snap SNAP two more arrows spun off their cover. Nail lunged around it, wings out, and caught air. He rolled into the next boulder with the shield in hoof, blood all down one leg. Arrow-ear beside him caught another shaft with his face. Nail shoved the twitching, kicking corpse aside. Stormwind bit down on his dirk. He breathed deep, let it out. Breathed again. An arrow like the bone of a mare’s leg quivered upright by his hoof. “Now!” Nail’s voice was a beacon. Stormwind reached into the open, ready to feel the hornet’s sting. None came. He clapped the shield between his hooves. The rim snarled in the daffodils, petals all tangled up with splinters. He hooked a foreleg through it and coiled his tail. He bunched his legs. And launched. Wind slashed at his wings. He pumped them harder, then harder still, dragging the shield with him. A hiss split a feather. He raced the arrow, up, up, up… The highest fingers of the oak brushed his belly. A twig snapped in his belt. He caught the wind, angled his wings, and dove. The cliff behind the oak was now an ant hill. But the ants had antlers, and their bows shone wicked white. Stormwind tucked a wing, heart beating at the gates of his breast, and spiraled away. Something skated the edge of his shield. He saw arrows rain upward into the sky. The Wrothkin screamed as he passed. They slashed. They missed. He punched a hole through the trees with his shield. White fire twisted through his hock. He flapped his wings in the pockets between pines, twisting sideways to slice through the nettles. He weaved over and under trunks of gnarled black. He flapped his wings. Tried. Nettles like nets flapped back at him. He was upside down, careening. The shield saved him. He smashed into a bough, tasted sap in the bark. His leg flew out behind him, shocked numb. The shattered shield caught the wind and spun him once— “Oohf!” Stormwind plowed a mud streak through the meadow. He spun on his belly, twisted up in the grass and, by accident, rolled back to his hooves at a run. Fletched shafts bristled around him. They outnumbered the grass. He gathered speed. A barb skipped off his helm, twirling past his nose. He cleared the treetops with a single bound. His mouth was empty of breath and dagger. He’d lost both in the grass. His wings pumped on. When he looked back, the auld oak was a faraway bush. And an arrow was on his tail. Quite literally, it was on his tail, keeping pace. He watched with bulged eyes as it passed him in an arc. He watched it fall until the forest swept it away. The shield steered him like a rudder. Somehow it was clean of arrows. But it was half splinters now. He shook it off. It disappeared into the current below. Just as it vanished he saw it spin face up, marked red by a horseshoe. His wings burned like lightning. I have to go back, he thought, but he stayed the course. They’re being flanked, he tried to convince himself. But Nail had eyes in the back of his head, or at least his soul mark did. Why did Yule charge? Stormwind blinked away wind-stung tears. He surged over the last hill, pines slashing at his belly, and one wing ripped strands of grey from the clouds. A lake of mud spread out below. At its center, the Broch was a molehill that trickled smoke. He could see ponies like termites inside the stakewall. The termites didn’t realize that death was at their door. They were all pointed inwards. And there, at the foot of the Broch itself, three tiny stallions fought to the death. The fighters swelled in size with each beat of Stormwind’s wings. One went down, slumped in the mud, red as blood. It was Scop. Stormwind saw the fool Equestrian heft a sword. He saw Hornwin’s magic, claymore gleaming. Thanes were already galloping, converging on the fight. They wouldn’t make it in time. No, no! No! Stormwind stretched flat out, the wind in his teeth. He pushed his wings to flap that much harder… --- -- Sworn Shield's “Reflection” journal entry -- Red tripped and slipped. He swept a hoof behind himself for a rock, a stick, anything. Through muddy strings of his mane, wide-eyed, he watched Hornwin pull his Equestrian sword from the Broch’s door. It spun in yellow magic, as a lock of Red’s hair spun on the wind. “Well,” spat the unicorn. One coal eye twitched. His own blade still hung at his side. “Give me a sword,” Red begged. Make it a fight.  “Gladly.” Red’s sword sang as it came, a note on the edge of hearing. His hoof shot out. The edge skated his horseshoe. Sparks screeched in his eye— Hornwin rammed him headlong. The point of his horn drove Red through the air. Red’s lungs collapsed. For an instant he saw a constellation of stars, then iron clouds. Something muddy struck him across the face. It was the ground. Red left a trench through the mud. Bandages unraveled from his neck in a long white line. His lungs froze with great, choking gasps. Horn magic shone in the corner of one swimmy eye. Red rolled. His sword was a blur, a whistle on the wind, a line sliced through ashen muck. It swept back for his legs. He tumbled over backward to avoid it, and the roll became an attack. “Yaah!” His hoof hurled a pat of mud. The mud shone gold and halted, mid-air, just before Hornwin’s eyes. But it was a feint. The real attack came from beneath— Red’s hoof froze inches from its target. That spiral horn shone hotter, brighter, and bent Red’s hoof back upon itself. Red grunted, felt bones grind in his hock. He threw another punch at ribs, but magic caught that one too. Hot vapor breath spilled into his face. The magic tore Red from the earth, crucified him against the clouds, stretching him taut. It enveloped his head. He kicked, too breathless to even scream. Mud and tears dribbled from his chin. He could only watch as his sword, his cutie mark, thrust point up at the sky. He watched it fall... A bell rang. Hornwin stumbled, his magic flickered, and Scop was on him. They rolled in a storm of hooves, kicking and grunting. The magic evaporated. Red fell. He watched the sword tumbling with him. Red hit the mud first. He curled tight, covering his ears… And the sword impaled a puddle. What luck! He lunged for the hilt. The sword betrayed him. Red’s teeth clacked shut on empty air. He pawed after it, scrambling and sliding. He lunged again, missed by inches, dove a third time, and spat filthy ash. His heart thundered. Hornwin and Scop rolled over and over until one lay atop the other. The mud made them twins. A bloody mouth flew open, and a hoof fell into it. Teeth cracked. They rolled again, then again and again. Red’s sword followed above trying to pick its target. Red tackled the sword out of the air. They slammed into a puddle. The sword struggled with a life of its own, fighting like a fish. The pommel caught him in the eye, the crossguard in the teeth. It cut, nicked and bit him, but he had his legs around it now. He wrestled it to his breast... Something tingled. Red blinked stinging water from his eyes, spitting and sputtering. Golden magic like a disease had spread from the sword to his leg… “Aaa-aaaAHH!” The magic yanked Red through the mud. His face plowed a rut. Muck crammed his vest. Ahead, Scop came up with blood on his teeth. One leg wrapped around Hornwin’s claymore, holding the Shetland blade tight in its scabbard. Magic sought to unravel him. But his other hoof held Hornwin in a headlock. He forced the unicorn’s snout, bubbling, into a puddle… The Equestrian slammed into Scop from behind. Ribs smacked. They flew after their breath. Both crunched into a fence made of stakes. One wooden pole split with a CRACK! The stallions disentangled from a knot of limbs, wheezing and coughing. “Sorry—” Red tried to pull himself upright on the cracked stake. Scop kicked him in the chest. Red slid backward, shocked, betrayed… And his sword decapitated the broken pole. It lodged deep in its neighbor. Scop surged forward, snatching up the broken stake. “Stay out of this,” came Hornwin, snarling. His Shetland claymore ripped from its sheath and slapped chunks out of Scop’s log. “Stay out of this!” The wiry Scop gave no ground. Splinters fell like rain. His mouth yawned wide, blood-filled, breathless, with bloodshot eyes, and still he pressed Hornwin back, and back, and back. He pressed too far. Behind him, golden magic twisted and ripped Red’s sword free. One final time, Red dove after his sword. Scop caught the claymore on his log, scraped it aside, and with perfect balance he lunged for Hornwin’s throat. Cloth ripped, fur flew. Steel sang. And two half-logs flew with it. Scop’s eyes bulged. Red’s sword swept him aside, and he fell, torn, back to the mud. Hornwin spun. One sword crossed the other. Red ended his charge on the point of his own blade. The unicorn snarled. He looked into Red’s wide eyes and twisted Red’s sword. All the Equestrian could do was gape, silent, as pain replaced the blood in his veins. He choked trying to breathe. Under the point of the claymore, Scop’s spine arched from the mud, and at last, with a sucking gasp, the storyteller screamed enough for the both of them. “Gggk-kKhHGAUAAAAAGH!” Red sagged over, still unblinking, and his breath was fire. No, it was but smoke. Already his vision dimmed as his eyes drooped down the line of the hilt, down to the crossed blades, down to his… ...Huh... The point of his longsword ground against his lamellar vest. Mud squelched from the leather like so much blood, joining Scop’s. But none of it was Red’s own. There followed an awkward moment. Both stallions gawped. “Ha!” Red brought his hooves down on his blade. The hilt whirled at his teeth. Hornwin’s magic pulled… Too late. He pulled Red with it. Swords scraped together. Too late! Hornwin’s eyes bulged from their sockets—Too late! Red’s sword bit his ribs. The magic held even still, sparkling on Red’s tongue, but the unicorn crumpled. Only chainmail saved the Shetlander, and that kind of blow hurt through any armor. Smarts, don’t it? Red kicked a leg out from under him, then whacked him again. You can feel your ribs breaking, can’t you? His next blow creased the iron helm. It feels like your brains are leaking out, doesn’t it! Hornwin rolled away, trailing blood from his nose. His helmet rolled beside him, and still his horn shone gold amidst mud and mane. His claymore lunged like a loyal dog. No you don’t! Steel scraped sparks together. Red Pommel stepped in, feeling the grind of the bind in his jaw, and crashed his namesake into that spiral horn. He felt his jaw rattle. He tasted the gold in his hilt. -- Sworn Shield’s “Vengeance!” journal entry -- Hornwin’s pupils raced in opposite directions around the outer tracks of his eyes. He crumpled with a shriveling croak. He couldn’t scream. He had no breath left. He had been kicked in the nadgers, both figuratively as well as literally. It had all been done in one fluid motion. Red came away with both swords. He dropped his own. It didn’t suit his purposes. He raised Hornwin’s instead. It gleamed sharp and awful overhead, and thunder boomed from black clouds. Kill me with my own sword, will you? Red wanted to laugh. Hornwin held out a hoof, his crimson mouth open, slurring a plea. One coal eye was shut. The other reflected a burning, grinning Beast. Red stepped forward on his hind legs, perfectly balanced, savoring pain and adrenaline alike. The Beast’s hooves swung down… ...And they were empty. “HAAAaaauh...?” The two stallions looked up. Both swords hung suspended in golden magic. But Hornwin’s horn did not shine, nor even fizzle. “OOF!” Red heard the crunch of a collision before he felt it. He disappeared in a blast of mud and feathers. Somewhere, perhaps miles away, ponies were shouting. They had been shouting for a long time, it seemed. Storm clouds rumbled above Red, full of rain and wrath. He could only stare in confusion from his back, unsure of what had happened. It was only when a hoof struck his jaw that he realized a pegasus had tackled him. “Get off me,” Red wheezed. The pegasus looked familiar. He dragged himself up Red’s chest. With one leg he pinned Red by the neck. His other hoof rose and fell to the sound of a chopping block. But if ever there had been a knight with a jaw built to last... Silly pony, he thinks he can tame the Beast. Red caught the next punch. He twisted it, hard. The pegasus twisted faster. His leg was a snake… “THAT! IS! ENOUGH!” Bardiche, the lord’s son, shoved his way through the better part of twenty thanes. And when he shouted, the thanes did not just fall silent. The whole crowd froze. Dimly, Red’s mind tracked back to the lessons of the Bloody Pasture, to the moment when Dusky Oatis had proven that battlefield commanders needed voices to halt armies. Except Red had only seen Ser Oatis from afar, across the fields of snow. This was real. This was up close. Bardiche’s voice was thunder, and lightning split the clouds behind him. “What is the meaning of this?” Again the thunder boomed. Bardiche looked to every pony present as if all were culprits. Many of the thanes were still panting after long runs. Their breaths mingled white in the whorling sleet. They shouted all at once. Great clouds of testimonies filled the air and streaked in the wind. Red’s ears rang, but he caught tatters of words. Equestrian, Hornwin, attacked, running, Scop… Scop! Red struggled free of the pegasus atop him. That much was easy; the young warrior had lost interest in him as quickly as he had appeared. Red searched the crowd. He craned his neck high and low, slinging mud from his mane. The sight of blood caught his eye. Two thanes had their hooves under Scop’s legs. A great rip bared flesh beneath furs. Red took a step forward— “ENOUGH!” Red froze with a front hoof and a back hoof still in the air. The crowd hushed around him. Only that filthy brown pegasus kept shouting. “Angharad!” Bardiche turned about. He ignored the pegasus. “What happened?” Hornwin lay slumped in the lap of a green mare. Red recognized her as the mare with the bladebow from the training square, the one Scop had claimed ‘belonged’ to Bardiche. Her bow was nowhere to be seen, but Red’s sword hovered above her in golden magic, aglow with the color of her shining horn. Gold. The same color as Hornwin’s magic. “I... I didn’t see.” Angharad looked up at Bardiche. She cradled Hornwin’s head. “I was over there, at the barrels. When I looked up, they were already fighting…” That ugly, muddy pegasus kept shouting over Angharad. Several thanes took that as their excuse to pipe up again. “I was featherin’ arrows! I saw the Equestrian attack—” “Scop jumped him from behind—” “Those two been conspiring all day!” “—came a running but Hornwin couldn’t—” “Hey!” went the brown pegasus. “Hey!” Wait. Red felt something drop into his belly. It was his heart, and it had the chill of ice. There were a great many voices, and a great many eyes, all angry, all around him. A wild-eyed thane drew iron from a scabbard of horn and wood. Red faced him, teeth bared. His hooves squelched. “I SAID ENOUGH!” Bardiche turned on the Equestrian, his stare hot and angry enough to melt steel plate. The crowd flinched. Red flinched with them. “What they say is true.” Angharad frowned. She might have been beautiful, once, but two scars criss-crossed her cheek in the shape of an ‘X.’ Red had one such scar from the Bloody Pasture, but it was smaller, cleaner, and it was on his back. The sword turned in her magic to point at him. “Scop helped the Equestrian to attack Hornwin.” “It’s not true!” Red had to shout over that fool-headed pegasus behind him. “You’ve got it all turned around, I didn’t attack anypony!” The thanes advanced on him, pawing at the mud, snorting hot breaths of winter fume. Sleet curled around helms and settled on furs, on chainmail, on shields. Red stood his ground, but those familiar post-fight shakes had sunk their claws in him. He shivered. How could the Shetlanders be so mistaken? They needed only look at the blood running from Scop’s side! Or... ...Or at the blood that gushed from Hornwin’s nose. The silver thane spat into a puddle and tried to shrug Angharad off. Muck stained his mane ashen, while clumps dotted his eyelashes, but one eye remained open and fixed on Red. The coal iris blazed anew. “Are you alright?” Angharad asked Hornwin, barely audible. Words seemed to catch in Hornwin’s throat, finally spilling out only when he turned his glare to the ground. Red couldn’t hear what he said, but the unicorn looked as though he were fighting back tears. He was the very picture of the injured victim. “Tell me what happened.” Bardiche lay a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder. “Hey!” The brown pegasus leaped over the crowd. He slid into the open, wings spread wide. “Listen to me!” Bardiche unfolded into the sky. He towered over the pegasus, a mountain of beard and chainmail with a belt of iron. If looks could kill, the pegasus would have at least sustained a grievous wound in that moment. “Stormwind,” Bardiche’s voice went strangely soft, but it cut through the crowd all the same. “What did you see from the air?” Stormwind. Red recognized him now. That was the pegasus who had spotted him on High Hill the day before. Stormwind’s throat was hoarse from all his shouting. He grabbed Bardiche by the shoulders and shook him. “Hill! High Hill! Ambush! Nail!!” Bardiche whirled around to look south, toward the gate and the hills beyond it. He stepped away from the crowd. Every set of eyes followed him. The wind fell to a whisper. Steam floated across the yard from Bardiche’s mouth. For a moment only a deaf blacksmith’s hammer had its say, ringing on a distant anvil. Clang, went the hammer.  Red’s chest wrung taut. Clang! The pines of Shetland waved like hair on the hills. And there, far away… Clang! Smoke stretched down from the sky to the peak of the tallest hill. The smoke matched the texture of the stormclouds. Clang! An oak blazed there. It seemed tiny when viewed from so far away, just a campfire, a cinder. But Red knew better. He remembered that oak. He knew that it was in truth immense, for it was there that he had first seen Stormwind. And it was there that Stormwind had first seen him. Clang. “TO ARMS!” Bardiche screamed. His knotted beard swung around, and his mouth hung wide behind it. Thanes scattered. Shouting broke out anew, only it had changed. Now there was no accusation. Now there was only panic. Thanes streamed into the Broch, and out of the Broch, across the yard, to and fro. “Scop? Scop!” Red called, but nopony listened. He cast about for the storyteller in maelstrom of ponies. Someone ran into him, knocked him stumbling to one side. His legs barely had the strength to stand. He had spent all his hot blood in the fight. A horn bellowed across the yard. It was Bardiche, who now ran among the barrels of the distant training square, and Angharad was at his side. Red’s sword still floated above her. Red pushed through the crowd, shouldering thanes aside. Bardiche slid to a halt at the farthest barrel. He turned and blew his horn again, but he needn’t have. The horn blast reverberated in ponies’ ribs. Across the yard, at one of the three forges that surrounded the training square, even the deaf blacksmith froze in his work and looked up in bewilderment. “Hearth-companions, to me! Roanblade—” Bardiche stumbled over that name. Roanblade lay dying, arrow-shot, indoors. It took a moment for Bardiche’s roar of command to return. “Gatewatch! Shields to the gate! Stack up at the ready! Hearth-companions, on the double!” A column of eyepatches and painted shields stampeded through the crowd. Red staggered out of their way. These, he surmised, were the hearth-companions, and out of all the thanes they looked the hardest. Grey and white hair spilled from many a helm. Their chainmail was the heaviest, and iron plates across their cheeks were fastened to gilded nosebands. Each hearth-companion was all rubbed in soot, even their spears, which bristled into the quickening sky. Tails swished like whips at Red as they passed. While his hearth-companions assembled before him, Bardiche blew two more trumpet calls from his horn. Warriors were even now spilling from the Broch’s doors, some still yanking helms down around their ears. At the forge kilns, ponies passed out fresh shields and spare arms. Stacks of arrows disappeared behind a line of archers. Red caught a glimpse of Hornwin in the crowd, a crease shining in the helmet he clutched under one leg. Twin rivulets of blood still ran from his nose down his neck. A hoof grabbed Red’s shoulder. He spun, the fur on his neck prickling stiff straight. It was only Scop. “Are yew alright?” The storyteller had one eye closed, the fur on that side of his face matted with clotting mud. He was even filthier than Red. And blood dripped from his stomach. “Wh-What?” Red gawped. “Sodding meadows, your ribs!” “It’s nothing. Never mind that.” The storyteller clapped a leg to his side, as if to hide the wound. With another leg he grabbed for Red. “Listen, we need to get indoors—” “Not without my sword!” The mud made Red’s leg an eel. He pulled free and shoved his way back into the crowd. As he went, he called back over his shoulder. “Go see Lush Renvers!” Red wriggled through the hearth-companions. One thane shouted and shoved back. Two more jostled the knight with knees and elbows. Red forged a trail through their shields, kicking where he had to, until Bardiche loomed overhead. The mighty earth pony stood a head taller than anypony else present. He was preoccupied shouting down at Hornwin with blood in his beard, and Hornwin shouted back up at him, spraying red globs with every word.  Red’s sword bobbed overhead. He fixed his eyes on it, pushing closer... “You need me out there!” Another mist left Hornwin’s lips. He had his own sword back, the jagged claymore. With his magic, he wiped its length clean using a scrap of the patterned cloth worn by many of the hearth-companions. To Red’s satisfaction, Hornwin’s telekinesis wavered and sputtered. “You’re still bleeding.” Angharad wagged Red’s sword in reproach, but Hornwin would not hear her. It was curious how similarly colored their magics were. In fact, her mane was almost the same shade of brown as his. “I said you’re bleeding!” “You need me!” Hornwin glared at her. “Fine. Fine!” Bardiche took his great gilded helm from another thane. He shook it in Hornwin’s face. “You want to end like Hiltstrong? Like Roanblade? You go right on ahead and—” “I want to avenge Hiltstrong!” screamed Hornwin. Tears filled his eyes. Angharad’s head jerked to Bardiche. The lord’s son jolted back as though a viper had taken him by the nose. His rump struck the barrel behind him, and it rocked about in the mud of the training square. He stared down at the blue plume of his helm. “Hey!” Red leapt atop the rocking barrel and rode it steady. “That is my sword!” “I…” Bardiche jostled aside hearth-companions while he turned. He did a double-take when he looked up at Red. He crammed his helmet down around his ears, the plume forgotten. A chin strap dangled in his beard. “Well! WELL! And do you intend to sally forth with us, Equestrian?” “Where I go and what I do is no concern of yours.” Red’s dander was up again. “That sword is mine, and here is all the proof you need!” He turned his right flank to them, the one unbandaged. He swept mud aside with his tail so that his cutie mark was plain for all to see. The sword emblazoned there was the spitting image of the one that floated above. “The steel goes where it is needed,” was all Bardiche had to say. He pushed the blade down, toward Hornwin, and for an instant the magic shone brighter where Angharad’s magic overlapped with the silver stallion’s. Then her horn dimmed and died.   Hornwin didn’t sneer at Red, but he did raise his blood-streaked chin. He now had two swords in his magic. Both sank into scabbards, one for either flank. “That sword is everything that I am!” Red’s throat swelled with each righteous word. He swayed on the barrel. “It is mine by purchase!” “Consider it gild.” Bardiche had no more time for Equestrians. He looked down his nose while Angharad fastened his chin strap’s clasp, but she worked the magic without a glance. All she had eyes for was Red. There was nothing kind about Angharad’s eyes. They didn’t glare like Hornwin’s did. But hers were grey, as his were black. And when Red looked into either set, his neck crawled. “Gild?” Now there was an old word that Red knew. He addressed Bardiche. “As in payment? For what? To whom?” “For attempted murder.” Bardiche stepped up to the barrel. His helmet’s noseband, a golden horse head, was level with Red’s chest. Red opened his mouth to correct him. “That’s not—WO-AH-AAH!” One shove was all Bardiche needed to flip the barrel. The swordpony atop it windmilled, upside down, and splashed into mud that had been churned to butter. He coughed for breath. He was dimly thankful for not having fallen on the hard-baked ground by the forges. “And that...” The lord’s son loomed against the clouds. “That was for Roanblade. And for Timber Haft. And for Hoarlock.” Red opened his mouth to speak. Spit hit him in the nose. He shook his head, blinking and sputtering. “And that was for my brother, Hiltstrong.” Angharad wiped her chin. Those same venomous words had been thrown at Red once before, up in the tower. But Hornwin had said them then. And now Hornwin stood over Red yet again… at his elder sister’s side. Red gawped. Realization dawned. “I saw you,” he said, his voice low. “Both of you, right here, by the barrels—” Strong hooves seized Red by the throat. He choked and sputtered with his tongue trapped between his teeth. Hearth-companions dragged him upright. Red’s pulse drummed in his ears. Shetland darkened. “Bardiche! Enough of this speil!” A thane bellowed in Red’s ear. He sounded far away. “Why do we tarry?” shouted another. “We’re ready!” “Right.” Bardiche turned and called, “Stormwind!” Stormwind flew in over the field of spears, struggling with the weight of Bardiche’s axe. He flung it through the air, and Bardiche snatched it one-hoofed. He spun its blade to point up at the young pegasus. “You stay here,” he commanded. “No! No arguments!” “But Bar!” Stormwind brandished a fresh shield. “I’m the best flier here! My vortexes—” “That is why I need you here!” Bardiche reached out with his weapon and pulled the pegasus closer. Their helms touched. “The Wrothkin doubtless seek to draw us out. You must hold Boardwall while I am gone. I will bring Nail home. That I promise. I won’t lose another brother. Not today.” Stormwind grimaced, but his lot was clear. There could be no argument. He took off his shield and looped its strap around his brother’s neck. “What of this one?” asked the hearth-companion who still clenched Red in a chokehold. “And Scop?” “Leave them!” Angharad commanded, strapping a bladebow over her withers. The hearth-companion let Red fall. “Justice will be done when I return!” Bardiche reared high, his weapon pointed to the sky, and with a neigh he blew his war-horn one last time. The wind whipped and thrashed, for the storm had come at last. A web of lightning shattered the clouds over High Hill. “To me, thanes of Shetland! To the gate! For Old Althing! For Ashbane! YAAHHH!” Thunder boomed. He galloped forward behind the whirl of his axe, shield clapping at his back. His thanes followed him. All other words were lost in the cacophony of hooves, in the war cries of a hundred Shetlanders, in the storm of armor, and swords, and clamoring shields. Bardiche flung up mud all the way across the yard. His helm’s blue plume was a promise of clear skies, and it flew like a banner. He charged at the fore of spears, ahead of his hearth-companions where he was most beloved. Angharad followed at his flank. None cheered him, nor her, for they cheered others. “For Old Althing!” “For Roanblade!” “For King Paramount!” “For Ashbane!” Ragged thanes stood mustered along the wall. They added cheers of their own as the column poured through the gate beneath them, raising such cries as “Remember Broch Dunhalligan!” and “Remember Coppergate!” Two score more warriors followed after the hearth-companions. These ponies were attired pitiably indeed, but they carried cries of their own from all the far corners of Shetland. Finally, last through the gate went a cart built high with sideboards and shields. From within it bristled bows and spears, and six thanes pulled it. The gates slammed shut as soon as the rear wheels passed. A team of unicorns locked them with an oaken crossbar. Pegasi swooped through the air in the skies beyond the wall. They whirled and twirled, faster and faster, until the sky itself grew fangs on either side of Bardiche’s column. The twisting vortexes sank beyond the wall like the wind’s jaws, siphoning mud into the clouds, and they did not lift again until the last of Bardiche’s thanes passed into the woods. No arrows threatened them. Back in the yard, Red awoke facedown in buttery muck. He had hoofprints stamped all down the back of his neck and vest. He pulled his head from the mud, choked, coughing, and a brown mouthful dribbled into the puddle beneath his chin. His teeth throbbed. He smacked his lips. “Wurrf amf I?” Red sputtered. His eyes were mere green chinks in a slime visor. He spat out globs like horseapples, then looked about while he scraped his gritty teeth with a swollen tongue. “Where-ff... Ffspet, SPEHH! Where...?” “Tried to stop yew.” Scop hobbled up behind him, winced, and sat down in the mud. One leg remained clasped to his side, and with shallow breath he muttered, “My, I think… I think we won the battle at the cost of the war, there.” “Who-Ff...” Red squinted at him. Then he dry-heaved. “GUUGAHHh. GHHhh.” “Hah.” Scop leaned back on one leg, sipping breaths through an invisible straw. “There… Get it all out. No… Don’t mind me. I’m fine… Hah, ha, oh. Ach.” Somepony’s wings beat overhead. “Heh. Fffhh.” Scop worked at a loose tooth with his tongue. He scarcely glanced up. “A fine tackle, Stormwind. Earlier. Hah.” Stormwind didn’t deign to land. He continued to hover over Scop and Red, watching with apparent satisfaction while the Equestrian coughed and gurgled. “Are you going to live?” asked the lad. “I’ve… had worse. Hah.” Scop raised a smile. “Wasn’t talking to you.” Purple eyes glared down at the storyteller from the visor of a shining helm. That helm still bore faint marks from long-ago battles. “Guhhh…” Red rolled over on his back. The wind howled, and thunder matched the pounding of the blood in his ears. He tried to glare at the pegasus above, but he found that he just didn’t have the energy. “Smells like that storm’s about to hit!” The wind clawed at Scop’s words. The effort of shouting left him doubled over. “Now,” said Stormwind. He flapped languidly, yet the wind did not beat him down. His stare was fixed on High Hill, where the flames of the auld oak still thrashed and billowed smoke. “Come again?” Scop twisted to look up at the pegasus. “Now. The rain is hitting now.” Stormwind voice was somehow clear as crystal. Red heard a faraway manticore’s roar over the wind. It did not fade. He turned over just in time to see the Crystal Mountains crushed beneath an avalanche of stormclouds. A black sheet draped across Shetland. Its roar built to a deafening waterfall. Red braced himself; too late. The waterfall crushed him back into the mud, as heavy as if the sky itself had caved in, as sharp as ice. One by one, the hills of Shetland vanished. Last to disappear was High Hill. Only the auld oak remained, a solitary star in a raging, screaming night. In a matter of seconds, even it winked out.