The Age of Wings and Steel

by DSNesmith

22. Wandering the Wastes

“I need to rest.” Cranberry slumped to the frost-covered ground, her chest heaving. Rye looked back at her and nodded wearily, his breath puffing out in a cloud. Inger sat down, and Rye followed suit with a grateful moan.

Flakes of snow drifted gently down. The tundra was wide and empty. The only visible feature anywhere was the mountain range behind them. Though the three been walking for hours, the Joturs still loomed above them, their peaks lost in the clouds. Rye couldn’t even see the sun through the thick weather, but the bright white snow was nearly blinding. When they left the mountains, the ground had been mostly dirt, but the further north they plodded the more the ground vanished under a thin blanket of ice.

“Where are we, Cranberry?” Rye suppressed a shiver as a cold wind swept past them all, leeching the warmth from his skin. Few of their belongings had escaped the caves. Inger had been wearing his armor, and Rye still had the bags with the treaties, but their heavy cloaks and all of Cranberry’s things were lost. Rye had not been carrying any supplies in his saddlebags. They had no food, and no water. It would probably have frozen anyway, he reflected. His stomach growled.

“I’m not sure.” The earth pony’s face was haggard and dull. “We’ve obviously passed into Sleipnord, but I have no idea where that passage let out. We could be a hundred miles west of the pass, for all I know.”

Rye yawned. Inger’s eyes sharpened. “If you’re tired, perhaps we should sleep now. Before we travel any further north.”

“I’m fine, Inger.”

“We need to be careful up here. Falling asleep in this weather can be the last thing you ever do.” Inger focused his eyes on some distant memory. “I’ve been to Sleipnord before, a long time ago. The Princess sent some of the Firewings to broker a trade agreement with the Thane of Aenir.”

Cranberry, eager for a distraction from her rumbling belly, took the bait. “What about?”

“Steel shipments, if I remember correctly. But our flight got caught in a storm. We were forced down shortly after passing over the Jotur mountains. We landed in a pinewood forest.”

Cranberry whistled. “Sounds like the Eastern Ghostwood. How did you end up there? That’s a long way away from Aenir.”

“I don’t know what it was called. I just remember how cold…” Inger blinked. “You two are both from Canterlot, yes?” They nodded. “You remember the winter four years ago?”

Cranberry’s face went very blank. Rye looked at her and cringed. Tentatively, he said “I was only two, then, but I remember. Mother wouldn’t let me leave the house for days. Said I’d... freeze to death.” He glanced uncertainly over at Cranberry, who was still imitating a statue.

Inger continued, missing the small exchange. “Crops died. The castle’s waterways froze up. The streets were buried with snow. We had to call in help from Weatherforge to get the weather under control, but…”

Cranberry, her voice oddly tight, said “But it was too late.” Rye winced, no longer able to look her in the eye. He began pawing the ground awkwardly with a hoof. “Many of the townsponies didn’t survive the winter. Dozens of little fillies were left without their parents.” Her voice caught, but then she looked at Rye with a brief, grateful smile. “Some were fortunate enough to have siblings and friends to look after them, while they tried to scrape by.” Her smile faded. “Others… weren’t so lucky.”

“It was horrible.” Inger was still lost in time. “But it was nothing—nothing, compared to those nights we spent in that forest. Low temperature doesn’t normally bother pegasi. Our blood gives us some protection from it, that’s how we can fly high enough to forge the weather. But in Sleipnord, the greatest danger isn’t the wolves, or the monsters, or the unfriendly locals. It’s the cold. Your breath freezes as you exhale, little icicles form on your skin. Wings, freezing over; the air in your lungs turning to ice… Three of our company died after the first night. Two more followed them the next. By the time we finally made it to Aenir, only myself and three others remained.”

Outraged, Rye broke in, saying “The pegasi up here must be insane! How can anypony survive in that kind of weather?”

“There aren’t any pegasi in Sleipnord,” said Cranberry suddenly. “This is all runoff weather from Equestria.”

Rye was stunned. “No pegasi? So how do they control the weather? Magic?”

“No unicorns, either. Everypony in Sleipnord is one hundred percent earth pony.”

“Well…” he said, discouraged. “At least we’re not going in the middle of winter. It’s just barely starting to get chilly. It’s still late fall down in Canterlot. The weather shouldn’t be that bad.”

Inger grimaced. “That mission took place five years ago. In June.” They were all silent for a while after that. Cranberry shivered.

“Well!” she said suddenly, standing. “If we don’t want history to repeat itself, we’d better get on our hooves and start moving. I lost all my maps back under the mountains, but I still remember the general lay of the land. I think the closest hall should be Saddlestead. We need to keep moving north.” Without waiting for them to follow, she galloped off.

Inger stared after the earth pony in surprise. “What’s gotten into Miss Cranberry?” His eyes widened as he finally caught on to the buried subtext of their earlier conversation. He cringed. “Oh, no… don’t tell me that she—”

“Yes,” said Rye, somber.

“I didn’t realize…”

“A lot of fillies lost their parents,” Rye echoed. “After that winter, she and her sister Inkpot stayed with my family for a few years, until Inkpot managed to get a job working in the city library.” He smiled sadly. “That’s when Cranberry started reading about the old civilizations. She’d bring books over for me to look at, every now and then…”

“Do… do you think I should apologize?”

"Give her some time, first. She doesn’t like to talk about her parents much.” Rye took off after Cranberry. Inger followed, still berating himself under his breath.

* * *

They marched endlessly through the frozen plains, leaving no hoofprints on the hard ground. The light snow left only a thin blanket, crunching underhoof as they walked. Gray skies looked down drearily on the three, letting no warmth through from the sun above. Icy wind would blow up intermittently, chilling to the bone. Rye discovered that moisture in the air had a tendency to freeze, pelting them with tiny shards of ice. The land seemed to stretch on endlessly around them, without any trees or hills to break the flatness. The mountains were still visible, but the weather behind them was beginning to thicken and obscure them from sight. They had left the foothills behind long ago, and were now deep in the tundra.

Cranberry pressed on ahead. “I th-th-think we’re getting cl-closer, now,” she said through chattering teeth. “Keep an eye out for a b-big, wooden st-st-structure.”

Inger’s brow bent in concern. He quickened his pace to pull equal with Cranberry, extending a wing to shield her from the wind. Rye followed suit, though his little wing was a sad counterpart to Inger’s. Cranberry looked gratefully at them both, but she kept shuddering.

“I think we need to stop soon,” said Rye. “It’s getting dark.”

“It c-c-can’t be more than s-six ‘o-clock!” stammered Cranberry.

Inger nodded. “We’re far north of Canterlot,” he said. “And we’re on the cusp of winter. There won’t be a lot of daylight to go around for the next few months up here. For every twenty-hour day, we’ll be lucky to get five hours of sunlight.”

She gave a violent shake. “W-well we c-c-can’t stop here. There’s no p-protection from the w-wind.”

“We’re not going to find any before nightfall. We’ll have to dig a pit.” Inger looked at Rye. “Keep moving around, Miss Cranberry. Try to stay warm. Rye and I can do the digging.” Rye nodded. The two scraped their hooves across the frosty ground, scoring gashes in the ice. Luckily for them, it was still thin at this time of year, and the ice soon yielded to hard dirt. They worked for an hour and a half, excavating a small pit to shield them from the worst of the wind while they slept. The sunlight was long gone by the time they finished, but when they stepped back at last they had dug a pit large and deep enough to fit all of them inside.

The sweat from the exertion had frozen on Rye’s brow. He quashed a shiver, grateful for his mother’s gift of pegasus blood. Even with his natural resistance to the cold, he was still freezing to the bone. He could only imagine what it was like for Cranberry.

The pink pony was shaking like a leaf by now. She fell gratefully into the small ditch, curling up to try to hold some warmth to herself. Inger and Rye slid down next to her on either side, by unspoken agreement. The three were wedged in tightly. Cranberry flinched at the touch of Inger’s icy armor, but it soon warmed from the heat of the three bodies. The ponies lay motionless, except for her involuntary shudders.

The wind howled around them, like the shrieks of griffons thirsty for blood. The snow was falling harder now, beginning to cover them with a thin layer of white. Inger looked at Rye, his face as worried as Rye felt. Slowly, Cranberry’s shivers calmed, and she finally began to snore softly. The two others breathed silent sighs of relief. Neither would be getting much sleep that night.

As the hours passed, the wind began to die down. The snow fell quietly. Neither the song of birds nor the howl of wolves pierced the silent tundra air. At length, Inger broke the quiet.

“Rye.”

“Mm?”

“I felt I should thank you again.” Inger’s breath puffed out slowly. “For saving our lives.”

Rye shook his head, smiling. “Don’t mention it.” What do you really want, Inger?

“I confess, I… have a question for you.”

Aha. “Ask away.” Rye looked down to make sure Cranberry was still sleeping soundly. Her chest rose and fell in steady rhythm.

“Remember two weeks ago, when all of this started?”

“Of course.” Had it really been just two weeks?

“That night in the forest… I’ve been wondering. Why were you there, when you ran into the Princess’s courier?”

Rye sighed. He looked ahead at the edge of their small shelter. “I was… hiding.”

“From what?”

“Myself, I suppose.” Best to get it over with quickly. “The day before, I’d washed out of the Celestial Army's officer exams. I went out into the woods to be alone for a while, when I ran into Dawn. You know the rest.”

Inger looked surprised. “Officer exams? Why were you trying to join the army?”

“I’m… not sure, anymore.” Rye looked up at the dark sky. “I thought I wanted to be like my mother. I wanted to see her face light up with pride when I got those officer's bars… but I never really had a shot, anyway.”

“Why not?” Inger looked genuinely curious.

“What, besides the obvious?” Rye raised an eyebrow and gave his wings a flap, then sighed again. “I don’t think I’d be a very good soldier.”

“You’ve proven yourself sturdier than you look.”

“It's not that. It's just... in the tales, being a warrior is all about defending the weak, and protecting Equestria. They don't talk about the blood, or the sweat, or the fear. They barely mention the killing. I don't know if I would have the stomach to kill another pony, when the cards were down.”

“Ah.” Inger’s eyes were all-too understanding. “Yes.” He looked off into the distance. "It takes a certain... detachment, to kill and stay sane. Especially if your enemy is a pony, rather than a monster. It changes you, after a while."

“Have you ever…?”

“Yes.” They were quiet for a moment. “If you didn’t want to be a soldier, then why were you trying to join the army?”

Rye studied the dirt, drawing circles with his hoof. “I just wanted to… succeed. No. I wanted to be seen to succeed. I’ve been hidden in my parents’ shadow for my whole life. I want to cast my own.”

“So you want to be famous?” Inger said, skeptical.

“Not famous…” Rye lifted a wing, pointing at it. “All my life, I’ve been called a cripple. I used to hate how unfair it was. But just complaining about it isn’t going to change anything.” He gritted his teeth. “I need to prove them wrong. All of them. I need to show them that I can do great things, pegacorn or no.”

Inger nodded slowly. “I can understand that.” He wrestled with himself for a moment, but honesty won out. “I… know what it’s like to be looked down upon for your birth. My mother died when I was young. I never knew my father. Life isn’t easy for a bastard on the streets, but I survived. Until the Firewings found and recruited me. Your mother, in fact.” He looked over at Rye. “I owe everything to her.”

“Ha!” Rye gave a black laugh. “The cripple, the orphan, and the bastard. A fine group of heroes we are.”

“We’re not heroes, Rye. We’re not fighting great battles or slaying giants. We’re just trying to help our country the best way we can.”

“My mother’s a hero,” said Rye wistfully.

“Yes. But wars are rarely won by heroes.” Inger gave him a rare smile. “That usually falls to the grunts like us.”

“Do… do you think she’s still alive? The fighting must have started by now.”

“Don’t worry about her, Rye. I’ve flown with your mother through more battles than I can count. I doubt even a dragon could kill Windstreak Firemane.”

Rye smiled nervously. “I hope you’re right.” He closed his eyes and laid down his head. “We’d better get some sleep, and move on early tomorrow. We have to find this Saddlestead place soon. I don’t think Cranberry will last another night.”

Inger looked down at the earth pony between them with concern. Her soft blonde mane was coated with tiny fragments of ice. “We’ll find it. We have to.”

* * *

In the morning, long before the sun rose, they roused Cranberry with great difficulty and continued their trek. The snow had stopped sometime during the night, but the wind was picking up the slack. It bit fiercely into their skin, and the little flecks of ice flew through the air like stinging bees.

Cranberry was hardly talking at all, now. She occasionally stopped to try to remember some detail of the map, before adjusting their path. Without Inger’s head-compass they would have been completely lost, but they were slowly and steadily heading north.

“Inger, I th-th-think you should t-t-take a look at the area from the sky. S-s-see if you c-can spot Saddlest-t-tead.” Cranberry shivered violently. The tips of her ears were turning white. Inger, alarmed, gave Rye a look and jerked his head at Cranberry, and took off into the air.

Rye tried his best to shield Cranberry from the wind, but his little wings made a poor barrier. She sat down, head hunched against the cold, and stared dully upward at Inger, who was just a faint golden dot in the sky. A few minutes passed before he returned to the ground, shaking the ice out of his feathers.

“I saw something! It couldn’t have been more than two miles north of here.” Inger’s face was lit with the first enthusiasm Rye had seen since leaving the caves. “It looked like the sun reflecting off of metal, or something. We’re close.”

Cranberry stood, but lost her balance and fell to the ground. Before Rye or Inger could help her, she was once again climbing to her hooves, shivering. “Let’s g-g-g-go, then.” She plodded onward. The two stallions shot each other helpless glances and followed.

The skies finally began to clear. The sun rose, but it seemed to be far southeast of its normal position. Everything about Sleipnord seemed slightly off-kilter. Rye felt like he was walking toward the roof of the world. Home seemed very far away in this alien landscape of ice and snow.

They made slow progress. Cranberry’s pace had grown more and more unsteady, and she was beginning to falter. She said no word of complaint, but her failing strength weighed heavily on all their minds. They pressed on, determined and desperate. The pain in Rye’s lungs was almost as bad as the pain in his stomach, each breath like a knife in the cold air. It had been at least three days since any of them had eaten.

Rye paused. Up ahead, he saw a bright flash of gold. “Did you two see that?”

“See what?” Inger sounded half-asleep, his voice sluggish. His hooves had started to drag through the frost.

“I saw something up ahead.” Rye’s heart beat faster. “I think it was a pony.” He galloped on ahead, ignoring Inger’s noise of protest.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! Anypony there?” Ahead, he saw a blue pegasus clad in golden armor. He raced up to her, panting in the harsh cold. “Mom! What are you doing here?” He blinked and rubbed his eyes. His mother was gone. Rye stared blankly ahead. His stomach growled.

When the others caught up to him, he rejoined them wordlessly.

“Wh-wh-what was that ab-b-bout?” Cranberry stammered.

“I thought I saw my mother.” He shook his head to clear it.

Inger looked grim, as usual. Rye was beginning to think that was his default expression. “That’s a bad sign. Be careful, Rye. Don’t go haring off like that again. You might end up chasing hallucinations to your death.”

“What’s that, up ahead?”

“Rye…”

“No, really. Look.”

“I s-s-see it t-too! Come on!” Cranberry galloped ahead. Rye and Inger both followed, running as fast as they could manage.

The three reached the top of a small hill to find a magnificent vista before them. They stood on the shore of a massive body of water. It had to be at least the size of Lake Alazure down in Equestria. Rye couldn’t see the other shore. The sun shone down on the sparkling water, reflecting up off the ice floes and casting golden glows all around. It was heartbreakingly beautiful.

Rye sank to the ground in despair. “We passed it. We must have missed it in the storm. Or we came out farther west than we thought.” He couldn’t even summon the energy to swear. Inger just stared out over the water. Cranberry shivered violently.

“Th-th-this is the Dragon Lake. We’re too f-f-far north. We need to t-turn around.”

They were going to die out here. He’d never get the help Princess Celestia needed, Equestria was going to fall to the griffons… No. They might not be great heroes, but the fate of their homeland rested on their weary shoulders. Rye stood again, determined.

“Come on. We’re still going to Saddlestead. Cranberry, lead on.”

The earth pony looked around, trying to get her bearings. “I th-think it’s this way.” She started off south, back down the hill. They all marched alongside each other, the pegasus and pegacorn sheltering Cranberry from the wind. The sun’s pale light did little to warm them. They kept walking for hours.

A sudden gust of wind whipped past, and Rye’s ears perked up. “Did you two hear that?”

Inger groaned quietly. “Rye, it’s just another-”

“N-n-no, I heard it t-t-too.” Cranberry was in bad shape. Her normally bright pink coat was pale, and covered in flecks of ice. Even Inger looked worn down. Rye felt his strength slipping away by the minute. They had to keep moving, or they would surely die.

“Let’s go. Just one more hill.”

"Y-you said that t-two hills ago."

They drudged through the snow. Faint sounds echoed on the air. “There it was again. Sounded like a horn.” He lifted his head, hopeful. “Maybe there are ponies over this ridge.” If it’s not just another hallucination. They crested the hill.

It was no hallucination. Before them lay hundreds of ponies, fully armed and armored. They were falling upon one another in battle, with blades and hoof-maces and all manner of other weaponry. The sounds of the battle flew up to the three on the wind, carrying with them the stench of blood.

Inger looked out at the carnage. He exhaled slowly. “Welcome to Sleipnord.”

Comments

[Zervziel]

Wait Rye is 6 freaking years old?

[DSNesmith]

They're horses, lol. Average life span is 30ish. Maturity-wise he's about 23-25. Inger is about 8, so he's closer to 26-28. Cranberry's pretty close to the same age as Rye.

Maybe I should write up an appendix for the ages, provinces, and background lore when this is done.

[Steben]

645013 Gotta love inconsistencies between stories. Chatoyance's converison bureau fics say ponies have an average lifespan of 150 years. (I like to think of it as canon, but that's just me) Though they mature by their twenties or so, the signs of aging generally don't show up until their final years. One pony lived as long as 300 years. (If you're wondering what fic, The Taste of Grass, chapter 29)

Not bl

[PaulAsaran]

You see this, this scene where we learn about Cranberry's parents? That is how you reveal details of a character's past, not extensive elaboration in a telly, extrapolating wall of text.

Oh, look at this, giving us a small smidgeon about Inger growing up homeless. Too bad you already totally ruined this revelation several chapters ago with a long and tiring description of his childhood, otherwise this might have meant something to me.

Well. Let's hope the battle ends before our non-heroes freeze to death.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

Well, they’ made it to their destination...let’s see what happens from here.

[MajorBrons]

4880467
kind of an ass, ain't ya?