The cold hand of Icecrown

by Space Wizard Novablast

Chapter four: The Plague

"What are these things?"

Farwing was running, as fast as his legs could carry him, and a little beyond that. His weapon was lying somewhere in the shallow water, he'd dropped it about thirty seconds ago in pure panic.

But who could honestly blame him.

The supposedly un eventful trek over the shallow river had taken a turn for the worse as different creatures had started assaulting them. Gnolls, weird doglike creatures that bore a striking resemblance to the diamond dogs, so much that Twilight was convinced they were related somehow. Some weird rock creature that had taken minutes and a guard to finally kill it.

And now it was weird piranha-like ponies with wide maws and primitive weapons that came in hordes. Things weren't going well.

"They're Murlocs!" Twilight shouted as her purple elemental blasted away yet another of the attackers, it quickly got up and bellowed something unintelligible at her, something along the lines of; "mrglglglgl!"

"Great, now I know so much more!" Farwing shouted as he finally found his javelin, he quickly ducked his head under the water and bit onto it, placing it in front of him as the Murloc ran closer, a second after it was impaled it died out with a soft "mrglgl." Before it finally breathed its last. Farwing pulled the spear free and turned back to the battlefield. So far there had only been casualties on the enemy's side, that being mostly thanks to Twilights ability as a spell caster and Shining's leadership skills, but if the fishponies continued to assault them in this fashion then they'd be done for.

He noticed a different kind of Murloc on the field, this one held a staff with what looked to be a unicorn skull at the tip, out of said skulls horn shot a stream of light that encompassed all the other Murlocs, their previous wounds now slowly disappearing like morning dew in the sunlight. And unlike the others, it's eyes shone with a sort of primitive intelligence.

"Hey, you!" Farwing decided that maybe if this was the leader he could maybe communicate with it. It turned its ichor green eyes towards the Lietnaunt and leaned its head to the right, encouraging him to continue.

"Why are you attacking us?"

The Murloc sorcerer snarled, "ground dweller come into territory of razorfin tribe. Ground dwellers die!" He yelled as he lifted his staff into the air, so it actually could speak.

"Please, we mean no harm to your tribe." Farwing yelled. He saw yet another Murloc charge towards him, but their leader lifted the staff into the air again, this time all of the other Murlocs stopped, they didn't gradually stop, they just stopped.

"You no be with dark ground dwellers that make water cold?" It asked with surprise. So some of the Dakriders had passed through here, good to know. "Then who you with?"

This time Shining took the word, "we come here in search of the dark ground dweller," he said, making the Murlocs eyes glint with excitement, "they have stolen something precious from us, and we wish it back."

The Murloc tapped its scaly chin with the horn of the unicorn skull, "we know were ground dwellers go!" It said, and all it's tribesmen nodded their heads like they were incredibly wise.

"Will you tell us where we should search?" Shining asked, if these things truly were native to the river then they could probably lead them to the other side intact.

"We do better!" It exclaimed, the staff once again going into the air, much to the other Murlocs excitement, as they jumped into the air and started stamping the ground. "I send best scout, Mudlurker, with you to the pony city brill!" As the Murloc leader said this a small Murloc walked forward, his scales were a deep brown, which had probably earned him his name. It executed a clumsy bow in front of Farwing, wrongly believing him to be the leader, causing more than a few snickers from the guards.

"Now go friendly ground dweller," the leader said as he threw the staff into the air only to bite down on it a second after. "Razorfin tribe will harm no ground dwellers not wearing the dark clothes."

Shining saluted before turning to the brown Murloc. It promptly waved a single scaly hoof in a northwest direction.

"I guess we put our faith into a small unintelligent crossbreed." He said with an exasperated sigh.

---

Finally they were on dry land, the Murloc had been extremely cautious to not alarm any of the other horrors that lurked in the river. Shining was thankful for the sentiment, but he would have preferred if they'd arrived sooner.

"Pony city Brill that way!" The Murloc said as he pointed towards a collection of rather large towers, "me no go further or me die from sharp arrows."

Shining nodded, somehow he thought that other ponies might not be so welcoming of a small fish-like version of themselves. "Tell your chieftain that he isn't to let any Darkriders cross the border."

Mudlurker nodded before turning to face Farwing, he promptly executed the same clumsy bow he had when he'd first met them. After that he jumped into the deeper reaches of the water and started swimming off until he ducked underneath water and was out of sight.

"I wonder were these things could have come from...." Twilight said, sounding puzzled.

"Doesn't matter, they pose no threat, and therefore they aren't important!" Shining said, clenching his teeth in anger, they had wasted too much time. The Darkriders could be in Solar harbor by this point.

Suddenly a shout cut through the air and shocked the entire group. "To arms brethren, we must not fall back!" Someone further on yelled. His voice carried authority and fear, a combination most commonly found by a commander in combat.

"Hurry, someone's in danger!" Farwing shouted as he took flight, zooming on ahead as Shining, twilight, and the recruits were restricted to galloping on the ground.

Soon a pair of stone towers came into sight. They had banners attached, which bore the half moon half sun of the Equestrian empire. In between the towers was a total of three stallions. Whereas normal guards wore golden armor to show that they were the royal guards, these ones wore normal iron or copper plating, the subjects militia.

"Phalanx," one of them shouted, and soon after shields held up by magic was lifted into the air as a volley of arrows rained down upon them, plinking off on the huge metal shields.

"Milord," one whom wasn't forming the phalanx said as Shining and his group came into view, "you've arrived just in time. Eldritch horrors from the darkest stories are attacking!"

Shining thought the commander mad, he pushed him aside to get to the front lines. He was greeted with the sight of unicorn archers firing quickly, and in perfect unison.

"These are just brigands sergeant, what's the problem?" He turned to the sergeant who shook his head in disbelief and shock. "Neigh milord, they are much more." He bit into a single lens binocular and shining lifted it up to his eyes. And the unicorn archers were still unicorn archers.

But they were skeletons.

Their magic worked fine, they fired in completely perfect unison, and they shouted curses at the militia, and now the guards. But they were skeletons. Bones picked completely green as if they had only recently dug up from their grave.

"Do you see?" The sergeant almost shouted, "they've come for us." He was screaming loudly the words and making some of the soldiers turn, one of them dropped his shield in shock and was immediately picked out and Impaled by a wooden arrow.

"Control yourself sergeant!" Farwing picked up both the word and the shield, trying his best to keep it balanced against his much too small form, "your panic is killing your men!"

The sergeant nodded slowly, trying his best to control his breath. "Yes, yes of course." He turned back to the problem at hand, "everyone, when the archers aren't firing, move forward!"

The message got across, as a moment after the shield barricade moved a few hooves-lengths forward. It continued as such. "Volley incoming," and then the shields were raised, "Move forward!" And the militia took a few steps forward.

Until finally the archers were in range.

The shield wall fell, and the guards an militia jumped into the fray and started to cut down the bony horrors by the numbers. Shining aimed a shot straight for the skull, and it crumbled before him like a cracker.

But the skeletons never fled, they were getting massacred, and yet they stood stock still and just kept shooting, actually taking out a few of the militia in the process. But they were no match, and were soon reduced to what they should have been, corpses.

"I told you," Farwing said, trying his best to get his halberd out, it had unfortunately embedded itself in the ribs of a wayward archer, "who else but a necromancer could have done this?"

As much as Shining hated to admit, this wasn't the work of an ordinary sorcerer. He doubted that either Twilight or himself could even perform such a feat, and as far as he knew they were some of the best sorcerers in Equestria.

The sergeant quickly trotted over to them. His axe was placed on his back and had a few dents in it, but otherwise he was fine. Tired, sore, and sweaty, but fine.

"Thank you Captain, mi'lady, and of course you Lietnaunt," he was smiling broadly, "if you hadn't arrived right this moment I fear that our fates may not have been so fortunate." He wiped his forehead with a hoof before taking a deep breath, "now, what actually brought you here?"

Farwing looked to Shining, the Captain nodded and turned to the sergeant, "we are actually hunting the pony who's responsible for this." He said as he pointed at the skeletons whom were now getting burned.

The sergeant hissed through his teeth, "that's a bit of a pickle." He just stood still and thought for a minute, "the bastard there," he pointed towards the now lit bonfire which started to smell a lot like liquid death, "came from Brill, which is only a short walk from here."

"Thank you sergeant." Shining said as he turned around, "get ready everyone. Were heading for Brill!"

The group was soon walking towards another smalltown. It didn't take long, after about 15 minutes the first sign of life showed up in the distance. A barn.

"Gah," Twilight gasped and placed a hoof on her forehead, she kept rubbing her forehead right at the base of horn and occasionally grunting in pain.

"What's wrong mi'lady?" Farwing asked.

"Something's wrong, I can sense something....... Close to us." She eventually blinked a few times and took her hoof down, "it's coming from that barn."

Shining, whom had been listening, nodded and waved Twilight to follow him. They galloped to the barn as not to waste anymore time. As they got closer Twilight could feel the presence become more prominent.

Eventually they got there, and what had looked to be a relatively normal barn now revealed a much darker side. The grass outside was either gone, replaced by grey and lifeless dirt. Or it was just as ash-grey as the dirt beneath it.

"The land," Shining muttered, "it's....... Dying."

Twilight moved closer, the dirt beneath her feeling like stone that crumbled like sand. The thing she had detected was coming from a pretty weird source. An apple crate.

"Is this what you got me over here for Twilight?" Shining snarled, "an apple crate?"

"It's not the crate shining, it's the apples." Twilight said, she sounded distressed and scared.

"They're infected......" She said, moving back, until she felt her butt bump into something.

"They most certainly are!"

Comments

[Space Wizard Novablast]

3854498

Warcraft 3 inspired but with my own little touch.

If you know of the lore then you know why this is bad

[moonlightmare]

and so it has begun

[Space Wizard Novablast]

3856287

[Blackplague689]

Fucking Shinning turns evil, and fucking destroys Equestria I persume/