Borean Tundra, Part II
When the next day came, the right moment did not take long to appear. They had arrived at a vast stretch of open land with only distant, sloping white hills that looked endless from afar. There, the perfect spot; a dip in the ground, obscured from sight, and with a rocky natural ridge a reasonable distance from it - providing an excellent vantage point for a sniper.
Clarke snuck away from the pack as early and as discreetly as possible, and the terrain and their formation meant that no-one in the rear squads happened to spot her. Sniper rifle in hand, she picked her way over the smooth, icy ground, ascended the ridge, and laid in wait at the top. She surveyed the land through her scope, saw the Sister, Pinkie Pie, at the back with Third squad and Fluttershy the tracker off in the very distance.
She smiled. Kellas had been quite right.
Now it was up to him to play his role and draw the bulk of the lieutenant’s protection away.
If he could, she would deal with the bodyguard, and leave the lieutenant unprotected... perhaps the only chance they would get the chance they needed to get the platoon back on track.
They were, as best as Twilight could tell, extremely close to the end of the Borean Tundra. She hadn’t taken the decision to leave the comparative safety of the coastline lightly, but equally hadn’t had much choice. It had simply ended, giving way to a freezing fjord, too wide to jump to the ice on the other side of it, and the expanse of the ocean beyond.
There were bridges, however, that Fluttershy had spotted – a series of bridges that would allow them to keep going – but they were further north than the troop had dared go before.
Hence her trepidation, but also her relief. Their journey would continue on a road in the Dragonblight, one that was at least partly patrolled and much safer than the wild wasteland. Then, to Star’s Rest, and a brief bit of respite from the constant physical exertion and the mental, emotional burdens of command.
Morale was now a fast-fraying thread. First had stopped talking to her almost entirely, and now she had to balance keeping Second entertained and safe with keeping the hard-working healers of Third on their feet.
Meanwhile, her friends had had to fend themselves while her attention was so occupied by whatever myriad problems the platoon was facing at any given time. Fluttershy still hadn’t changed since leaving Valiance Keep, and between her own duties and Fluttershy’s insistence on scouting ahead, the mage hadn’t had an opportunity to engage with her.
“Anyone see a bridge yet?” Applejack shouted.
“If this is going to turn into another game of “Can you see the shore?”, then count me out.” Rainbow chuckled.
Those two were always together, often back and forth between the various squads, and Pinkie was always with Third. Only Rarity was with Twilight constantly, but for now at least she did have the warrior and paladin at her side, too.
Oh yes, she couldn’t wait for Star’s Rest.
She shivered, rubbing her staff-holding arm with her free hand. Even with her robes and warm clothing, she still couldn’t beat the cold. The temptation to use fire was always there, but…
As an alternative, the consequences were much worse, considering all it would cure was mild discomfort.
At least the smell wasn’t bothering them anymore. A non-stop journey of several weeks meant that they inevitably all ran out of a fresh change of clothes. It had played on the minds of those who were unused to it, to First's amusement, but no-one, not even Rarity, who had sustained her disdain the longest, complained anymore.
They were all a bit pre-occupied with not starving, not sleeping, and not freezing.
Twilight was trying not to push them too hard, but was equally aware that the longer they dallied in this particularly dangerous area, the more chance they would sustain losses – to the Scourge, or just the ever-creeping cold.
Up ahead, beyond First, she spied a few ridges of rock and ice pairing off with each other, and could just about see a wide-open snowfield heading over the horizon.
Excellent – this terrain had been easily identifiable on her map. It meant that they were extremely close to the border, indeed.
“Oh, girls, we’re almost there…”
“Yeah.” Applejack agreed with a smile, which then almost immediately flipped upside down. Her eyes narrowed as, still looking ahead, she said, “Looks like Kellas wants somethin’, hon.”
The Lance-Corporal, one of his squad mates and First’s attached warlock had turned back and were walking towards them.
She hadn’t said anything about the plot to Twilight. Perhaps that was a betrayal of sorts itself, but she suspected that her friend would disbelieve, or hesitate. An accusation was easy to deny, and to offer one without evidence would only serve to discredit herself.
So Rarity had to be careful.
Of the six, Twilight, Pinkie and Fluttershy had always been the most trusting, the most willing to see the good in people. Fluttershy… wasn’t, anymore, but the others, even Rainbow and Applejack, to an extent, still clung to that way of looking at life. Rarity wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were wrong, or naïve, but… it was certainly dangerous in a world like this.
The mage was blissfully unaware of the peril she was in, but that just made Rarity’s job, as her protector, of even greater importance.
They would be allowed to start their attempt on Twilight’s life, but would not be permitted to finish it.
“Ma’am!” she heard Kellas call out, as soon as he came close enough to be heard.
“Corporal,” Twilight shouted back. “Is there a problem?”
“An obstacle, ma’am – a boulder – has delayed First Squad’s passage. They’ll have it shifted soon enough. In the meantime, Corporal Bandor ordered that I bring Specialist Wheatley back here for a refuel and rest, and requested that Corporal Applejack and Private Dash be moved up temporarily to shore up First while the boulder is shifted.”
He spoke without any hesitation, without a hint of what he had planned.
Twilight nodded. “Fair enough. I trust Bandor’s assessment. Rainbow, Applejack, can you move up with Anderson to First squad?”
“Y’sure about this, Twi?” Applejack asked quietly. “Seems you’re losin’ two for one if Wheatley's too weak to fight.”
“It’s okay, Applejack – Second are just behind us now.” She pointed back at the squad of mages and other casters, a good fifty metres back, happily taking advantage of the chance for a break from walking. “Besides, I’ve still got Kellas, and Rarity, plus First is more likely to be at risk while they’re getting that boulder out of the way.”
Applejack shared an uneasy glance with Rainbow Dash, but acquiesced. That the two disliked Kellas was no secret, but if Twilight was that confident that she would be fine…
“If you say so, hon.” The two armoured women followed Anderson into the snowy field ahead.
“Tired again, Wheatley?” Twilight chirped, once the others were some distance away. She began gathering arcane energy, weaving it together to conjure up some mana rolls. “Were you up late by the fires again last night?”
The warlock mumbled something and looked guilty, for more reasons than Twilight could possibly have known.
“You should know that exhausting yourself won’t help—” Twilight began rambling on, and Rarity caught Kellas rolling his eyes, which were just about visible under his helmet. Narrowed and tensed in anticipation. His hand hovered just above the hilt of his sword as if itching to draw it.
Her daggers already at the ready, Rarity stood by, waiting for him to make his decision.
-crick- -crack-
Their little steam-screen play wouldn’t help that at all, and as good a sniper as Clarke had proven herself to be, there was no chance that she would catch Rarity out.
-Crick crack crick-
If she looked very carefully, she could just about see the glint of a gun barrel, on top of the closest hill…
- Crick crack crick crick crack crick-
-Wait… what is that sound?-
Clarke cursed. One second her target had been there... and the next, she wasn't.
There was no sign of the mage’s sneaky bodyguard anywhere around her, and the success of the plan required Kellas to have a clear window to strike. She fruitlessly took a look at the scene without her scope, but that provided no further clue as to her target’s location.
Kellas wasn’t going to wait any longer, and he took his chance. His arm went up and Wheatley recognised the signal, igniting his hand with dark magic as he dropped towards the floor in an apparent faint, ready to create a concealing cloud of steam.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Just as Wheatley's hand touched the snow and the three figures disappeared in a cloud of white, the land split open, rent from below. Here, there and everywhere, in the middle of the wide-open plain, near the bridges by the fjord some length away, and close by to her, too. At the same time, the dark storm that had been cooking to the west suddenly appeared directly over their heads, spewing out snow and ice at a phenomenal rate.
The steam screen would have been unnecessary, had they know about this change of weather. Within seconds, visibility was non-existent beyond several feet, at best.
Clarke fell to the ground, startled by the rupturing ice and buffeted by the wind that came with the storm.
Fighting to stand up, desperately grasping for her weapon, she heard a noise behind her – a clanking, shuffling noise, like the sound made by a group of soldiers in heavy boots.
Her squad? They couldn’t possibly…
She swung around.
…have— oh.
Eight skeletal warriors, clad in the ruined and tortured regalia of the fallen Fourth Company, Second Goldshire Rifles, stared up the ridge at her with lidless eyes of icy blue fire.
“Oh shit.” she managed.
Within moments, the whole landscape had turned into utter chaos. First squad, Applejack and Rainbow Dash ran back towards the others – Second and Third, urged on by Pinkie Pie at the same time, ran towards them.
The first death happened in moments, too. Fizzlezip, the trickster gnome warlock, tripped as he ran, skidded sightlessly down a natural icy ramp and landed at the feet of an undead warrior. He had no time to cast, no time to think, before its sword chopped down and severed his head from his body.
The squads merged into a throng, losing sight of one ally only to find another, seconds later. With Twilight isolated and little hope of her reconnecting with the others, confusion reigned, and screams filled the air as more and more of the platoon died.
A few miles or so south-east, in the tower they had chosen to pass by, the lich noted the initial success of his trap and waited for further developments.
Several hundred yards north, a lost soul accompanying the storm looked towards the mayhem and began to follow it to its centre.
Thick, opaque steam burst from where the warlock’s hand impacted the snow, and Twilight strained to see through it, strained to keep her eyes open through the sudden onslaught of hot stinging vapour.
Spinning to her right, she saw Kellas’s figure, a black blur, shrouded by the steam, and tried to call out to him—
CRACK
—and then several things happened in rapid succession.
For Twilight herself, she found herself hitting the ground hard, as Rarity came out of nowhere from her left and bowled her over with a painful, uncontrolled tackle.
“Oof— Rarity, wha—” she started to wheeze, but stopped as the next sight really took her breath away.
The ice split open as creaking, disgusting things clawed their way out of the ground. Skeletons, geists and zombies, a host of the weaker foot soldiers of the undead.
But “weaker” was all relative, especially when it came to an ambush by a force that, at the most immediate estimate, appeared to outnumber them five-to-one, judging by the sounds of groaning, clanking and the shifting of the tortured ice, coming from all around them.
Their first act upon reaching the surface was to tear Wheatley apart, limb-from-limb. His screams filled Twilight’s ears, a horrible dirge, but there was nothing she could do to save him.
Propping herself up with her staff, which she had somehow held onto, she stammered as the screams subsided, “Wh-wh-h-how?”
“Run, Twilight!” Rarity urged, tugging hard at her sleeve. How the seamstress still had her head in this situation…
“But – Kellas!” Wheatley was doomed, but she had neither heard nor seen the Lance-Corporal die. Perhaps he was still—
“Never mind him!” Rarity cried. One of the skeletons had realised that Wheatley was dead, and had noticed the mage and the rogue. Lumbering over to them, it swung its club to deal a crushing blow. Rarity slashed twice with her glinting steel, and it lost the arm for its trouble. Not that it seemed particularly bothered. “Move!”
If she hadn’t started to drag the mage, they wouldn’t have gone anywhere at all. Twilight was transfixed in shock, and her mind was trying to process too many things. It was a good thing they did; however; not a second later did more grasping hands punch out from right below where their feet had just been.
“Twilight, please, you must snap out of it!” Rarity begged as she continued to pull her away, towards where the platoon was putting up some measure of a fight, and where they were less likely to die to a few random undead.
“Rarity, I…” she mumbled, her feet still dragging across the ground, numb and frozen.
“You are our leader, Twilight!” The other woman turned to look her deep in the eyes, and Twilight saw her friend there, for sure – not the cold-hearted killer she’d feared Rarity had become. Generous and giving, in all things – of compliments, advice and strength. “We will survive if you are there to lead us! We have done so before, you have done so before, but for that to happen-”
“Rarity—”
“-you must— aaaaargh!”
The sword came at them from behind, slicing down at Rarity’s calf – the same place she had previously been injured, back in the Deadmines.
A glancing cut, enough to draw blood, though fortunately the weapon was only rusty in the hands of the insignificant Scourge drone, not poisoned or plagued.
The winds immediately came between them, and Rarity disappeared from the mage’s sight.
Buoyed by her friend’s words, though not by her swift departure, Twilight tried to run hurriedly through her options. There was no hope of dispelling the storm. Her magic could only make it worse, make it fiercer – not lessen its effects. Directing the storm away might have been doable – if she had any clue of the extent of its reach, and a chance to concentrate on harnessing its path. As it was, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have the opportunity – not with all the Scourge around her.
Her mastery of the arcane wouldn’t help with that either, though she could muster the strength to protect herself from the undead. As if to test that, a geist clad in black leather emerged from the haze to challenge her. She blasted it with to dust with a quick, quiet word and a sweeping wave of her staff. Killing the minions alone wouldn’t do the rest of the platoon much good, though, and would only tire her out against an endless tide in the long run.
But if I use fire… to melt the sleet… a beacon in the storm…
No, I can’t… after…
But if I don’t, will I lose… everyone? My friends… I…
With a trembling hand, she reached out and clicked her fingers. A small flame ignited above her palm, far more easily than she had expected, given how long it had been.
Burning the corpses might help the others to see, and she would be so much warmer… so warm…
Burning… the corpses… Burning…
VanCleef…
NO! Horrified, she clenched her fist, and the fire blew out like a candle.
She staggered on through the blizzard, alone, afraid and with no idea what to do.
Andrews, the ever-drinking warrior, ended up back to back with the draenei healer, Yila. They faced off against a crowd of twenty Scourge that had formed a circle and surrounded them.
Neither had spoken more than three sentences to the other since they had been assigned to the platoon, and now they were going to die together.
They had mere moments before the Scourge closed in. Mindless, but still somehow able to taunt them. Cruel, and unkind.
Andrews fished his hipflask out of his waist pack, unscrewed the cap and drank about half of the remaining contents. Not much, all told – he’d been careful to ration it without hope of replenishment. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Drink, shaman?” he asked, offering her the container.
She accepted without hesitation as the Scourge closed in, and proceeded to down the rest. “Thank you,” she replied, and let loose an arc of lightning that crumbled the three undead closest to them, as Andrews cut another down with a wide swing of his sword and a battle cry, “For Darkshire!”.
Not enough to live, but a valiant way to die.
Gearfuse had never lit a larger fire. She’d never been allowed to try, had never dared to try.
But this was her moment – her chance to save the day, and prove everyone wrong. Those who had doubted her; the Tinker’s court, the Stormwind mages, Lieutenant Sparkle.
Those who had laughed, and mocked – everyone…
Here, there was no way her powers could misfire. No-one could get in the way. She had no idea where her fellows actually were, but a lot of shouting had made it clear to her that they couldn’t be anywhere nearby.
Also, it attracted a great deal of Scourge to her, which meant she had a lot of targets.
Flames sloughed uncontrollably from her fingertips at first, but she quickly gained her focus and began directing them where they needed to go with great, sweeping hand gestures, like a maestro conducting an orchestra.
A dozen skeletons burned to ash. A group of ghouls disintegrated into gooey puddles just a few yards away. The snow that tried to fall around her instead melted, then evaporated before it even hit the ground.
She began to grow confident, even sure of her survival.
It wasn’t enough to save her.
Dark tendrils – inky black things with the horrifying appearance of grasping hands – burst from the ground and bound her tight, cutting off her motions, and with their cessation so too did the fires disappear, burning out swiftly in the open, cold air.
It could have ended things there, left her chained up to be consumed by the swarm. But no – the dark intelligence had other plans.
She was dragged away, screaming into the tundra, her mouth the only part of her body not covered over.
Unnoticed, and forgotten.
There were... so many.
Twilight had lost count of how many she had killed - no, destroyed - and they had all begun to look the same. Every leering face, with no skin or jaw that she had frozen in ice; every joint-locked body she blasted to dust with her arcane power... they just kept coming, an endless, unrelenting tide of death.
She slipped over backwards on a treacherous patch of ground, avoiding by pure chance a strike that should have killed her. Gravity took her all the way down a slight incline, and she finished on her backside at the bottom of the little hill.
She pushed herself to her feet again, numb fingers pulling her hood away from her eyes, completely unable to control her ragged breathing as she leaned on her staff for support. She looked up and around, all the way in a full circle, and confirmed for herself the fact that the undead completely surrounded her.
No... I can't die here...
Overwhelmed by fatigue and pain, she closed her eyes in resignation, even as her heart begged her not to give up.
My friends... getting home... what can I...
It can't... end like... this...
Thud.
She looked up, blinking to see through the snow.
There hadn't been someone standing next to her a moment before, but now, there was.
They had to have jumped into the circle of Scourge from somewhere, perhaps down from where Twilight herself had slipped.
The figure was heavily-clad in midnight blue plate from head to toe and wore a thick brown cape across their shoulders. They bore a grim longsword in each hand, both outwardly identical to Twilight's unfamiliar gaze.
She could determine no more of the person's identity from their appearance, veiled entirely by their armour as they were, but one other thing stood out to the mage. Something that made her start backwards in fear.
Those icy blue eyes, freezing beneath the figure's helmet.
The revenant - for what word better described a being that could provoke such a chill in her? - bent its head towards her a little, enough to make her involuntarily recoil a little further away.
"Stay down," they advised, with a voice that sounded colder than the ice all around them, and leapt into action.
The fight was over before Twilight knew it, and happened far too quickly for her to keep track. She saw her saviour raise a blade, saw up-close the glinting symbols etched deeply into it, and then suddenly the very air around them had chilled to freezing. A burst of movement, the flash of blades, and the wall of undead that had surrounded them was gone.
Even as she tried to process this, things continued to change. A hand under her arm yanked her upwards before quickly letting go, her sore, frozen legs protesting at the sudden pressure of her own bodyweight. Her head wrenched to the side as she forced herself to look at her rescuer, who now appeared to be regarding her with something akin to curiosity.
The storm overhead began to diminish, ever so slightly.
"W-wh-who are y—"
"You're a lieutenant," the figure surmised, perhaps catching sight of the markings on her robes. "You have a platoon nearby."
"Ye-"
The metal helm leaned to the side, as if listening for something, then dipped with a clang, a gesture that was clearly meant to be a nod. "Still fighting. Okay. Come with me if you want to help them, then. Or don't. It's up to you," they said, then turned and stalked away through the snow, without waiting for a reply.
Twilight followed without hesitation. What else could she do in this situation? Another time, another place, her apprehension over the spectre might have made her cautious enough to stay away from them. But they had just saved her, and besides, what good would being alone in this frozen hell do for her?
Baffled and distraught though she was, her legs still worked. And she used them, one step at a time, to follow her rescuer in search of her friends.
A major pocket of resistance in the storm took shape towards the centre of the plain, as Pinkie Pie's healers collided with the remnants of First and Second. They took far too many casualties coming together.
All it took was a misstep, one error in judgment, for someone to be separated from the group.
Once alone, they didn't survive very long.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack made it through to meet Pinkie. Of First, only Donovan accompanied them. Kellas had been with Twilight and Rarity, and no-one knew where they were now. They hadn't seen Clarke when they had first walked over to Twilight, and Bandor and the rest had vanished into the storm.
The undead recoiled from Rainbow's light, but she was just one person, and they were many.
Second, too, had been lost almost to a man - only Arin stood with the group, and it was his fire and arcane magic that was giving them enough space to fight without being swamped. Erina, Yila and the dwarf paladin from Third had disappeared, too; Erina had been snatched away right in front of her Tyrae's eyes, to her sister's great distress.
Had they all been together from the start, they might have stood a greater chance of coming out victorious, and alive. But while they still had a fair few who could heal, they hadn't the means to outlast or defeat their foe.
The question was no longer about whether they could win. It wasn't even a matter of whether they could survive, any more.
It was about how much longer it would take before each remaining member of the platoon suffered a gruesome, horrible death.
Then the storm shifted to their left, and the tide turned in an instant.
Another darkling figure leapt from the icy cloud, but the difference between this new arrival and the average undead was immediately obvious. Jet cobalt armour staining the pure-white backdrop, they set to cleaving through the Scourge with reckless abandon, two grisly blades severing limbs, lopping heads and hacking through bone.
The Scourge turned their attention, as one, away from the embattled remnants of the platoon, and battering themselves instead against the whirlwind of gore at their flank.
"What in tarnation—"
Enraptured by the display of martial prowess unfolding before them, it took a strangled, half-heard cry for them to notice the second figure appear behind the first; this one much less imposing, but more familiar to them, in lighter blue robes and carrying a tall staff...
"Twilight!"
The mage threw an arcane blast to her side and vaporised a ghoul bearing down on the mysterious knight, then beckoned her friends over to her.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Applejack hauled the exhausted Pinkie Pie to her feet, and at the top of her lungs, roared, "If yer still alive, follow me!"
Those who were - barely half their starting number - obliged, desperately pushing their way along the side of the throng that was clawing to get at their rescuer. It seemed that something had come over the throng, some single-minded purpose that now threw them to oblivion.
They were worthless foes compared to the knight, who seemed untroubled by their numbers and staunchly unafraid of their presence. As the platoon came closer, close enough to get a proper glimpse, not one of them could escape being chilled by the icy pressure glowing in the figure's eyes.
"Who are they, Twi?" Rainbow called out to the mage as she passed her. Twilight could only offer a shrug, and a shake of her head under her hood, by way of reply.
"Keep going up that hill, and you'll be safe - it's only a little further!" she cried out, and then, as the last of the group passed her, called to the mystery figure, "That's everyone!"
The full weight of their losses hit Twilight like a punch to the gut. She wanted to turn around, to try to direct their saviour to range out further and try to find their lost comrades, but she knew that staying too near the knight as the Scourge attacked them would only invite disaster.
But that meant that Fluttershy, and Rarity...
No...
Noticing her hesitation, the figure rumbled, "Go! I'll join you shortly." Its voice came clearer over the din of battle than it had been before in the centre of the storm.
Twilight obeyed, turning to follow the platoon out of the killing field, hating herself more for the loss of her friends with every step she took.
One by one they staggered up the hill and made it to safety. The more of the undead that the knight killed behind them, the more the storm dissipated. By the time they had reached the top, their visibility had improved dramatically, and they could see that the ground ahead was just snow over solid rock. There was little possibility that the ordinary Scourge drudge could burrow their way through.
The sound of battle faded as they moved further and further away, and now they could see the bridge - the one that Fluttershy had originally spotted - just up ahead.
The relative safety of their new position, some distance from the storm, afforded them the opportunity to catch their breath, and as a group they slowed to a halt in the middle of the plain, waiting for their rescuer or any further stragglers.
A wailing noise drew Twilight's attention to the back of the group. The moment's reprieve had been too much for Tyrae, who had been holding herself together against the loss of her twin in the face of immediate, mortal danger. Now that the risk had momentarily abated, she had dropped to the floor, sobbing into her hands.
The remaining three healers gathered around their grieving comrade. Vernor awkwardly put an arm around her shoulder, blinking hard to stop tears from dripping down his own face.
"Ma'am!" Twilight's head snapped around again at the urgency in Donovan's shout. He had run a little further ahead of the rest of the platoon, to check that the way was clear, and she could only just see his face poking up above a ridge formed by another dip in the ground.
"Keep them all safe!" Twilight said to Applejack, and her friend nodded, directing Rainbow to stand guard with Arin over the vulnerable healers. The mage then hurried over to join Donovan, hoping against hope that what he had discovered was not more peril, nor yet more tragedy.
He'd found Bandor, and it was here - so close to the bridge - that the corporal had made his stand.
He'd done well, all things considered. A pile of broken bodies lay in a heap nearby, at least four, or five of the Scourge. A little way from where he had crawled, his platemail chest caved in by a blow from one of the hammer-wielding skeletons. His breaths were juddering and harsh, and his face was wracked with pain.
His unfocused eyes met Twilight, and her breath caught in her throat.
"Corporal Bandor - I'll get Pinkie!" She turned to Donovan, to ask him to fetch her friend or one of the other healers, anyone who could help—
"No!" Bandor rasped, yet with such vehemence that despite the dire situation she couldn't help but pause. Donovan himself shook his head as if he had already had this conversation with Bandor moments before. "I've seen enough wounds on the battlefield to know that this one is mortal."
"But maybe if they all work together—"
"Maybe they could save me, but you don't have the luxury of carrying a crippled man through the Dragonblight. Besides..." he gestured toward the festering array of corpses he had dispatched before falling. "I am likely plagued, now... and there is no cure for that. You cannot take the risk."
She couldn't pull her gaze from his, no matter how much that which she saw there horrified her. The same dimming of the eyes, just as VanCleef, before his end. "I... don't know what to say." she stammered, her vision filling with tears.
He strained his neck to look up at her sympathetically. "Sometimes you will, but it... never gets... easier.
"I failed you, ma'am. I'm sorry."
"No!" Time was precious, and she felt she had to reassure him before his passing. "You did everything you could. Without you, on the ship, in the keep, out here... if it had just been me... we wouldn't have made it this far."
Her words seemed to have the desired effect, and his pain-filled expression eased into something approaching contentment.
"Thank you for saying that," he said. "Truth be told, I've served... under worse officers than yourself. Even if the standard of your drill still leaves very much to be desired."
It was his turn to try to be kind, and it helped, just a little. But not enough.
"If I might be so bold as to make two last requests, ma'am..." he continued, his voice now so soft that she had to strain to hear him.
"Anything."
"Burn my body. Please... don't let me become one of those things..."
She winced, but nodded.
"And second, please... look after my men. Get them through this safely."
He didn't ask who had survived, which spared her the need to lie. "I will. I promise."
One last smile found its way onto Bandor's face. He closed his eyes, and breathed his last.
The rest of the platoon, her friends aside, had come up to Twilight after Bandor's passing, and she had set them about the task of carrying out the first of his final wishes. She would have liked to have extended the same mercy to the rest of their fallen, but they could not risk backtracking into the wastes, when it had cost them so much to make it through in the first place.
Erina. Yila. Gearfuse. Wheatley. Clarke. Kellas. And all the others...
Donovan took care to give the body of his leader some dignity. Arin would light the remains. Father Stonewrought, the dwarf priest, would say the rites.
As they busied themselves, she sought out her remaining friends and found them grouped together where she had left them previously, a little distance away and out of sight from where Bandor had fallen.
The three stood gazing out in the direction of the battle, at the storm that had almost dissipated entirely. Listening carefully, Twilight realised that she could still hear the howling of the undead, the smashing of bone and the crashing of frost magic.
"We were hopin' they still might make it outta there," Applejack said, but it was clear from her expression that the hope she held was diminishing with every passing second.
"Rarity s-saved me, but we w-were s-separated in t-the s-storm." Twilight stammered.
If... I'd only used fire...
Rainbow gripped her weapon tightly. "I'm going back in to find them," she declared.
Applejack put a hand on her shoulder before she had a chance to take even a single step.
"But we can't just sit here and-"
"Please, sugarcube... I can't lose you too."
This gave Rainbow pause, and she almost swayed on the spot, but did not move.
"They've gotta be alright, right...?" Pinkie whispered. The strain of keeping the rest of the platoon alive and in the fight had taken its toll on her most out of all the healers. The possibility that she had just lost two of her closest friends was not helping and she was visibly struggling to stay on her feet. "They just gotta..."
They stood there in silence for a minute. Two.
Staring out over the snowy plain before them, only a tiny portion still hidden by the storm, Twilight was confronted by the true nature of their loss and found that had no other words. No other thoughts. There was only pain. Pain and loss.
"I wouldn't... plan the funeral just yet... darlings."
And suddenly, impossibly, there they were. Rarity was moving awkwardly, supported by Fluttershy with her arm across the hunter's shoulder, and she was placing the bulk of her weight on her good leg. Fluttershy herself appeared mostly uninjured, a few scratches and bumps aside. Both girls looked drained, a little disturbed by what they had just experienced, and their faces were coloured an odd mix of blue from the cold and red from their exertions, but they were alive.
They'd come down from the north instead of across from the west, having taken a different route out of the storm, and having been hidden from view until the last moment by the sloping terrain.
Pinkie let out a whoop of glee and almost landed on the two with a hug. Rainbow brushed away a tear. There were smiles of relief all round.
"Fluttershy saved me with her traps after we were separated, darling," Rarity explained. "Then we had to go the long way around, once we noticed that the storm was stopping, and I am not the quickest with my leg in this condition."
Pinkie - in spite of her exhaustion - and Rainbow Dash rushed to heal her, their combined light quickly cleaning and binding the wound.
With one friend receiving the proper and correct attention, Twilight instead moved to comfort the other. Fluttershy stiffened, almost flinched at her touch, but relaxed into the hug after a moment or two. Applejack joined them, her plate armour awkwardly dominating the embrace, but not at all diminishing its impact.
"I'm okay," Fluttershy whispered, though it was unclear whether that statement was for their benefit, or for her own.
She wasn't. Twilight could see now, up close, that she wasn't okay. She had a haunted look in her eyes, and she couldn't stop trembling, in a way that might have been mistaken for shivering in the cold had it not been for the way her lip had quivered as she spoke.
It still went back to what had happened in the Deadmines, and Twilight kicked herself for not having helped her friend sooner. She'd given Fluttershy the space she thought she had needed, because it had been hard to approach her, hard to reconnect after what had happened, and because of everything else that had been going on.
And that hadn't been the right approach.
Maybe Fluttershy could sense her doubt, her concern. "...I'll be okay." she amended, and buried her face in Twilight's shoulder.
For now, as awful as the last hour had been, and as much as they had lost, at least there was still hope with the six of them together.
A spark of joy in this sorry situation.
A spark of joy that was about to be extinguished.
"It's you. You."
The group all turned to the source - their saviour from before. The mysterious knight had come up to join them, and from the way they were standing and the way they were shaking, something had made them very, very angry.
"You!" they repeated, raising one of their swords towards the group as if it was a finger pointed in accusation. "YOU!"
"YOU DID THIS TO ME!"
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Holy shit, It's still alive!
2 years.....
IT'S BEEN 2 YEARS, AND YOU CHOOSE NOW TO UPDATE!?
I have 1 thing to say.... Welcome back to the land of the living!
And they still don't know it's Derpy in front of them.
Thank you for the update!
Wellcome back comrade [T]7
I thought this was dead...glad to be wrong
after 2 year all I can say is
you have bin missed
Surprise, surprise. Now to see if they survive their savior.
Wow, I thought for sure that you'd stop writing. Glad I was wrong.
Damn, welcome back to the world of the living dude. Glad to see this gem continue
Wow...
Nice chapter by the way.
It's been too long, someone remind me who the DK is
Is...is this real?!? Did...did this masterpiece update? HELL YES! MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED! WHAT A GOOD DAY IT IS TO BE ALIVE!!
That was intense, wow. I’m really glad you came back to this.