Swordpony

by Wisdom Thumbs

Chapter Four - "Crossroads"

Three days had passed since the fight by the stream. Three days of no fires at night, no stream with which to refill his canteen, and the worst chafing he had ever imagined. They were three of the most miserable days of Red Pommel’s life. It wasn’t quite enough to drive a pony mad, but sodding meadows, it was trying.

The swordpony winced with every step. He had worn his armor the day after the attack, not even realizing his folly until well after the first sores cropped up. The pseudo-leather lamellar had dried now, but the dampness of Shetland seemed to seep into Red’s bones. He never felt dry, never felt warm.

He regretted not keeping the makeshift litter with which he had hauled the Shetlander's corpse to the road. Had he thought to drag it along with him, he might have been able to remove his armor all the sooner. As it was, he had been forced to waste the better part of a frustrating evening building another. It was nothing fancy, just two trimmed poles with boughs strung between them, but it made a good drag.

He walked now with legs spread wide apart, trying to keep his thoughts focused on the road. The litter scraped along behind him, piled high with armor and saddlebags. He’d tethered it to his tail so that his protesting flesh need not suffer further agony. He wore his sword slung across his back out of necessity, over a loose brown garment that had been white as snow when he’d started his journey. Every few miles he stopped to check the drag, fearing that he would lose some precious piece of armor or, even worse, the irreplaceable saddlebags.

Red was making terrible time, he knew, and his itching wounds weren’t helping. His ‘shortcut’ had turned out to be the worst mistake he had made since his days as a hedge knight. Even the long trip through the Counties now seemed preferable to meandering through this accursed forest. That was the last time he would ever doubt a tinker’s advice.

“An acceptable risk,” grumbled Red, mocking his own voice. “A week off the journey! Feh! The Princesses should have trusted a pony with some brains for this task.”

Stopping for what seemed the thousandth time that day, Red limped back to the litter and re-tied one of the branches that kept threatening to come undone. Lashing the thing together with green twigs had seemed a good idea at the time, but the twigs dried out quickly, and they frayed just as fast. He’d already needed to replace a number of them. The chore was quickly becoming a serious headache. He cast about for more suitable candidates as he worked.

There were no seemly replacements in sight. Though the trees were so thick that they crowded out the sky overhead, all were gnarled with age and hadn’t grown near the ground in decades. Dead wood was no use. He would have been tempted to use the bushes, but he’d already found that they made poor substitutes for saplings. They also had itchy thorns.

Worse yet, there were no birds. Not for days. The forest was silent as the grave, save for the moans of a weak headwind. It seemed the Shadow Wood had finally revealed its darker side. Now the Equestrian felt its eye wherever he went, boring into his back.

A bend in the road ahead promised greener pastures, so Red continued on with a weary sigh. He’d have to rest soon for dinner anyway, and the bend provided a convenient stopping point.

It was with great surprise that he fetched up short upon rounding the turn. He drew in a sharp breath.

Ahead, there towered a pillar of stone almost eight ponies tall, though it was but child in the shadows of towering conifers. The road split around it, shooting off in two different directions to disappear into the forest. Wisps of fog curled around the base of the pillar, lapping gently at the stone.

“Well, I’ll be...” Red whispered.

It was a marker of some sort, that much was clear. Perhaps it was a road sign, or possibly an old border-marker between territories?

Pains forgotten for the moment, Red trotted to the base of the pillar and tried to interpret its purpose. The old thing sat in place on a stone dais that was almost completely obscured by ferns, and it was wide enough that five ponies could have wrapped their forelegs about its base without their hooves touching.

Tall symbols were etched into the white, weathered stones. He didn’t recognize the language, though it seemed similar to some ancient deerish script he’d seen in Celestia’s personal library. Basic geometrical shapes comprised most of the symbols, each interlocked with more complex figures of smaller size, starting at the top of the pillar and working their way down on all sides. Red even checked the back, dragging his litter through prickly bramble and cobwebs to do so. He found that it was covered in moss, as well as hardy vines.

The sensation of being watched intensified. He took a cautious look around, but saw nothing except shadows and creepers weaving amongst the trees. He felt as if he were standing in the middle of some ancient crossroads, and quickly dragged his litter back out of the bushes before paranoia could set in.

-- Sworn Shield’s “Roadmarker” journal entry --

At the base of the pillar were more recent carvings, perhaps only a few decades old if judged by the lichen. Somepony had chiseled words among the bottom-most glyphs. The words wrapped around the front third of the dome-topped marker, facing the road at eye level. Red could just begin to make sense of them if he forgot everything that his Everfree tutors had taught him about proper spelling.

“Ware - tu Wrothkin laneds” read the first of the carvings, which faced toward the left fork in the road. Since the track was eaten up with weeds, and didn’t seem to have felt the touch of hooves in quite some time, Red decided that the “Wrothkin,” whatever they were, meant bad news.

The swordpony stepped forward and studied this waning fork in the road. The natural gloominess of the forest was amplified here, intensified by a preponderance of dead trees, their boughs sweeping low over the path. In point of fact, it wasn’t just gloomy, it was nearly pitch black. Just twenty yards in, all visibility was reduced to zero. Red could only make out dim shapes swaying in the breeze.

That was when he realized there was no breeze. Everything around him hung motionless, even the sickly blades of grass. The headwind must have stopped. But then, what was moving back there?

He looked closer, but he might as well have been staring into a cave. One of the shadows had the distinct shape of a horned skull, though it swayed in time with the other branches. Another had the outline of a pony, only to gradually morph into something thorny and twisted before it shifted back again.

Red backed away, only to feel claws grasp at his legs. He jerked backward, nearly tripped over his litter. But nothing was there, only shadows. Shadows that were already worming their way back up his legs...

The swordpony froze, the tendrils of sticky black worming their way into his coat. It felt like slugs or leeches were crawling all over him him where they touched his exposed hocks. If not for his leather vambraces, he might have noticed them sooner.

Red shuddered and stepped back. The unnatural shadows peeled away and retreated, leaving a cold sensation in his bones that lingered for several long moments.

Well, at least he knew which path he wouldn’t take.

When he looked up, the skull-shaped shadow was nowhere to be seen. Whether it had taken on another shape, as shadows were wont to do, or simply vanished, he had no idea. Was it just him, or had the darkness deepened further down the path?

Red’s heart hammered in his chest, his breath coming in short gasps. He shuddered again, then kicked himself for being so jumpy. As loathsome as they were, the deep shadows here appeared to be harmless. They were merely an extension of the forest’s natural, powerful magic, and he’d wandered deep enough in for it to manifest itself. So long as he stayed away, he’d be fine.

The carvings on the right read, “Tu Broch uv Norethmose Lored.” As near as Red could tell after reading it out loud, it had nothing to do with moose and instead meant something about “this way to the Northernmost Lord.” He had no idea what a “Broch” might be, but he doubted it meant anything about hospitality.

This second fork was well traveled, at least by comparison to the first. It appeared to be a continuation of the main road, if anything.

Red scratched his chin. While he’d seen nothing more than old ruts in the road on his journey, with a scattering of equally old hoofprints here and there, he had long suspected this to be some form of trade route. The fact that a Lord resided at the end of the road only served to confirm that suspicion.

And that made his heart sink.

He was at a crossroads, and neither choice seemed particularly appealing. Down one fork lay Shetlanders, and down another lay some unspeakable horror that even the Shetlanders feared. Either way, he had the feeling his head would be on a spike before he made it very far down either path. One killer pony had already proven enough.

Red dumped himself in the cold shade. In the Shadow Wood, that meant the middle of the road. He dug the last apple out of his saddlebags and nibbled at it, pensive. He needed to make a decision, and soon. The Dictum was to be delivered before the end of Summer, and that was scarcely a month away. There was no time to sit indecisively.

The Dictum. Red cast an irritable eye on the saddlebag in which it hid, cursing the day it had been entrusted to him. Could the Princesses have not found a more suitable envoy? He may have been their Master Swordpony, but he’d never once set hoof beyond Equestria’s borders, nor spent more than a few weeks at a time in the wilderness. Some knight he turned out to be.

Well, he mused, getting sidetracked, there was the Campaign... But he’d been with an army then, and army camps were far different than roughing it in alone out in the woods. Difficult, yes, but the challenges were not comparable. And yet here he was taking a shortcut through Shetland, and out of provisions already!

Red kicked his saddlebags off the litter. Accursed Dictum! How many nights had he spent staring at it, wishing all the world for a fire, but wishing all the more that he could open that damned scroll? Nothing was stopping him. The Princesses had never explicitly stated that the scroll was not for his eyes. But he had his honor, and it was bad conduct on any messenger’s behalf to break the seal on the documents in their charge.

Besides, it was probably written in whatever language the griffons spoke. Red wouldn’t be able to read that anyway.

Casting aside the spent apple core, which he detested, Red struggled to his hooves and placed his saddlebags back on the litter. As reluctant as he was, the crossroads would not keep him, not when the choice was so clear. He would have to risk the road of the Northernmost Lord. Better the enemy he knew, after all. The unsettling left path could go to Tartarus, and the Wrothkin too.

Red secured his sword and made tracks down the Broch road, swigging his canteen as he went.

---

The first pegasus swooped overhead at noon the next day. Red had been traveling uphill, zig-zagging on the slope to keep the litter from spilling its burden. By the time he saw the grey wings it was too late to hide. He ducked into the trees anyway, pulling his litter with him.

When Red chanced to peer out from the bushes, the flyer was already gone. They had passed out of sight over the forest canopy. There was no way to be sure whether or not the pegasus had seen him.

After a minute of anxious deliberation, Red pulled the litter back to the road and continued up the hill. He had no doubt the Shetlanders would kill him as soon as clap eyes on him, but some irrational part of him decided that he must make it as far as possible before he was discovered. He'd hide in the forest should any patrols happen upon him, or so he promised himself as he neared the top.

And if the situation called for it, maybe he’d win a fight through sheer desperation. One never knew.

The top of the hill proved a magnificent vantage point, coniferous trees falling away around Red in a wide clearing that was scattered with boulders and carpeted with yellow flowers. At the far end of the clearing, westward, sat a dead oak on a clifftop. The oak and the clearing would have taken Red’s breath away, had he any breath left to give. His sweat burned like acid in his sores.

Between the arms of pines flanking the road ahead, Red could make out the Crystal Mountains far in the distance, sharp cut against the sky, tall and grim. They rose into the boiling grey of clouds and disappeared. He knew that above those clouds towered white peaks, the frost of endless winter. That was his destination, shrouded in mist and… Could he reach it?

The view beyond the great, dead oak caught Red’s attention. His hill was not alone. Dozens of others rose and fell in the near distance, rolling off into a misty horizon, all blanketed in towering firs that bristled with nettles of black and blue. Fog rolled between the hills, bleak and dismal like all the rest of accursed Shetland, masking whatever lay in the land’s low places.

Black smoke rose just over the nearest of those hills. A dozen palls twisted up into the dark evening sky. Red chewed his lip. That smoke, he assumed, was where the road would eventually lead. It couldn’t have been more than a few miles away. The word ‘Broch’ flashed in his mind, suddenly terrible and menacing.

It was then that the second pegasus appeared, this one brown instead of grey.

A helm gleamed briefly in the muted sunlight. He flew abruptly into the Red’s line of sight and stopped midair. Red ducked low behind a boulder, but it was too late. The Shetlander saw him.

For an agonizing second they stared at each other, the earth pony frozen in place beside a stone, the pegasus hovering just above the tops of the conifers. Then the scout was gone, swooping back down into the fog beyond the oak.

Red didn’t stay to see which way the pony flew. He ran, litter bouncing crazily behind him on the rocks in the path, his heart pounding in his chest.

His sores were forgotten in his reckless descent. Toward the Broch. A desperate idea seized in his mind. The Shetlanders would expect him to run away. He would instead slip by them; he had to try. He slowed only to check the litter, stopping just once to throw his lamellar vest over the saddlebags. The thought to stop and don the armor never entered his mind.

Darkness and fog descended on all sides, steadily pressing in the further Red ran. Shapes flashed on either side of him in the woods, bounding down the hill like horned equines shrouded in black, real or imaginary, he couldn’t tell. He heard sharp things scrape pine trunks.

He bolted. All thought of preserving the litter fled his mind. Foam flecked from his lips, smeared down his neck, his eyes wild with blind panic. His sword slapped at his flank.

The road became a narrow ribbon of safety. The silhouettes of the shadows weaved in and out of the trees in the corners of his eyes. Everything ran together in his mind—the Shetlanders that were doubtless pursuing him, the feeling of something running at his back, the thought of being captured and killed.

The Shadow Wood had finally caught up to him. Branches whipped at his face, invisible until they lashed out of the darkness to slap at his eyes and ears. He was the prey, and the Shetlanders his hunters. He could almost hear their horns rattling against the branches in the woods, their hooves pounding in time with his own. Mocking, sibilant laughter flew in the wind, chasing after him.

Just as Red began to falter, when only panic remained, he caught sight of a break in the trees just fifty meters ahead. It materialized out of the fog like a door from night to day, and he surged forward, hooves kicking up dust, lungs ragged. He could feel breath at the back of his neck as the break loomed nearer. The litter became something clawing at his tail.

The road slanted steeper and steeper, Red’s muscles straining, lungs tearing in his chest. He put on one final turn of speed and powered on despite the pain. Two branches hung low between twin trees at the end of the road. He soared over them, pulling the litter through the air behind, and crashed on all four hooves to the dirt beyond.

He slid to a stop on level ground, sucking air, and turned to look back the way he’d came. Fog had already enveloped the woods, and darkness spilled out of the tunnel he’d left behind. He almost felt relief at having escaped through the break, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet, not by any measure.

Turning, the swordpony found himself in a dell. It was not quite a clearing—he couldn’t see the sky—but the gaps between the tree trunks were wider here than the rest of the wood. Mist churned in those gaps, lapping at roots, and shrouded the dense vegetation that lay at the edges of the dell. Beyond that the trees pressed in again, too dark to see.

Well, Red decided, at least it’s not trying to kill me. It was no Equestrian glade, to be sure, but it was far less claustrophobic than the rest of Shetland had proven.

It occurred to Red that he had dragged the litter all the way down the hill at a full run. His heart, hammering up to that point, now seized in his chest.

He whipped around, breathing hard. The litter’s tattered form attempted to follow him, trailing along in the dirt, with one pole dragging askew.

Miraculously, the litter had only came apart only after his leap through the boughs. One of the poles had torn free against the branches. His armor was scattered about where he’d made his landing. One of the vambraces had rolled to a stop against the gnarled roots of an ancient, stooping oak.

A noise from further up the road caught Red’s ear. He whipped back around, chest heaving from his panicked flight.

Hoofbeats. A small group, if he guessed correctly. A bend in the road ahead still hid them, but they’d be on him in seconds.

Hastily, the fear burning in his breast, Red gathered up his scattered armor and piled it back on the litter. He still entertained the thought that maybe, just maybe, he could pull his things off the road and hide in the mist. But the litter refused to cooperate. It was beyond repair, and when he tried to pull it off the road it tore completely in half. Frustrated, he dragged out his sword and severed the leather strap holding his tail. He would have to make his stand here, or run and abandon everything he owned.

That, or take the saddlebags and flee. But the Shetlanders would know where to look for him.

The hoofbeats grew louder, accompanied by voices. Red hunched down, rolling the sword in his teeth, and felt the hair prickle on his withers. The sores between his legs seared with sudden pain, reminding him of their presence, and he winced. Every place where his armor had rubbed him burned anew, redoubled by his flight. How could he possibly fight like this?

He grit his teeth down on the hilt to stop the pain. Armor or not, he reckoned he could take out two, maybe three of the Shetlanders before he was overwhelmed. If he could lead them into the trees, perhaps string them out so they couldn’t come at him all at once...

The Shetlanders rounded the bend, half a dozen of them cantering in a short column arranged two abreast. The brown pegasus from earlier flew above the lead warriors, chattering away like a madpony and pointing his hoof up the hill. They froze when they spotted the lone Equestrian in their path.

“There!” the pegasus neighed.

The Shetlanders leapt out of formation in a storm of blades and round shields. One of the stallions at the front pawed at the dirt with a hoof that was almost completely hidden behind brown fetlocks. A weapon like a long axe swung on his saddle.

Suddenly Red wasn’t sure if he could take even one of these ponies. They wore furs and boiled leather, some arrayed in mail hauberks, and all wore iron helms. Only the pegasus went lightly armored, but his helmet gleamed even in the dark, and he wore a quilted jerkin smeared in mud.

Red had no doubt that all of these ponies had taken lives. He could see it in the age of their arms and armor. He could see it in their faces.

The Shetlanders looked at him like hungry wolves sizing up a cornered doe. Seven hardened warriors, armed to the teeth. And one of them, Red realized, was a blue unicorn wielding two swords.

Two swords? The swordpony groaned inwardly. He was reminded of why he hated unicorns.

The biggest stallion, the one with the huge axe, now stepped forward. A sky-blue plume of hair swung from his gilded helmet, but as his beard and tail were black, that plume was likely scalped from some unfortunate mare. He hadn't yet drawn his weapon. Instead he held out a foreleg.

"Are you Kingsguard?" the stallion asked in a low rumble.

What?

The other Shetlanders fanned out. The pegasus zipped through the air to land behind Red. One of the warriors prowled between the trees on Red’s right, chewing on a spear. Another snarled around a battered sword, with an equally battered wooden shield slung over one flank. Red heard the pegasus stealing up behind him, a blade rasping against leather as it was carefully drawn from its sheath. Any hope of escaping into the woods was dashed to the ground.

Except they weren't focused on Red. They moved to surround him, sure, but why were their eyes elsewhere? It was as if they considered the trees more dangerous than the armed Equestrian.

"Isn’t it awfully cold out here without furs?" asked somepony out of sight. Red turned to see a one-eyed stallion with a spear couched in one leg. The other socket hid behind crushed eyelids, twisted with a scar.

Red backed up to the stooping oak beside the road and pressed his rump firmly against its bark. His hoof sent a forgotten vambrace rolling. Pain shot through his right flank, and he could feel the blood streaming from where he’d reopened his wound. He pointed his sword at the nearest Shetlander, daring them to come closer and feel its edge.

“Woah now, point that sword elsewhere.” The earth pony with the huge axe took another step forward. He stretched his hoof out. "We're here now, you're safe."

“Whatff?” Red nearly lowered his guard. But he’d seen dirty tricks before.

"We need to go, Bar," said the unicorn with two swords. Why was he looking over his shoulder at the hill road?

Looking at the Shetlanders, Red felt despair well in his heart. The Dictum would go undelivered and nopony would ever know why, save for the seven ponies here in this clearing.

Well, he thought to himself, eyes darting from one encroaching barbarian to another, I’ll subtract from that number before I go...

Another option wormed its way into Red’s mind, a final, desperate recourse that he never in his life thought he would have considered. The Shetlanders circled closer, gnawing at the hilts of their weapons, looking him up and down for any weakness they could exploit. They had no intention of underestimating his reach, it seemed. So why were they so keen to look past him into the woods?

"He's not Kingsguard, Bar!" Their unicorn rasped his swords together and bared a set of yellow teeth. Sun’s sakes, Red hated fighting unicorns.

One of the warriors ducked behind a tree, staring out at the fog that pressed in on all sides. "Yeahff," he said around a mouthful of spear. "No ffrs? Whaff kindffa Kiffgards fdonff fwear ffrs?"

"Would a thane have gold like that, then?" Asked the pegasus from behind Red’s oak.

“Well, maybe.” The unicorn’s eyes darted. “But that’s hardly…”

"Give him a chance to speak!" Roared the brown warrior with the enormous axe. He slammed his hoof down, sending damp leaves into the air. "Where are you from? Be you a thane or a housecarl?"

“Equefftria!” Red answered around a mouthful of sword. “Nopffony has to geff hurff, nowf! Leff’s jusff ffhink abouff bffis...”

The blue unicorn cast a glance at axepony, who seemed to be the leader of the band. The brute shrugged, then pinned Red to the tree with a murderous stare. The rest of the Shetlanders froze, at least for the moment.

“What do you mean, Equestria?”

The stallion dragged his axe from his saddle with one dinnerplate-sized hoof, only to slam it to the ground. He set his hoof atop the upraised haft. The stallion’s fetlocks, black with mud, perfectly matched the tangles of his beard. Red had never seen such a beard in all his life. It completely disguised a neck the size of Red’s chest.

A moment of silence hung over the dell. Red gulped. All eyes were on him now.

After a second’s deliberation, Red followed the barbarian’s example. He stabbed his sword into the ground. He kept a hoof over the hilts to steady it. He didn’t know how long he had to speak, but he intended to make his case as fast as possible.

“I’m an envoy,” he said, the words spilling over his lips in a rushed jumble, years of proper schooling forgotten. “On a mission for the Princesses. To the griffon kingdom! I’ve got to deliver a scroll, you see, and it’s very important. And if I’m not there by the end of summer, it’ll be too late, and that’s... well, that’s bad. That’s very bad.”

One of the Shetlanders shook his head and started laughing. It was not a happy laugh. His single eye was wild, strained. Desperate. Almost as if he didn’t want to believe what he was hearing. Red fought back the urge to snatch up his sword and take a defensive swing at the barbarian’s head.

“Now wait!” he protested, holding out a hoof. “I’m just passing through! I know your land isn’t exactly friendly to Equestrians, but I don’t intend to stay. And I mean no harm to anypony, I swear it.”

He left out the part where he’d slain a Shetlander three days before. Better not to let anypony know that he might have murdered one of their kin. But, his parley finished, Red kicked his sword up into the air and caught it between his teeth.

He didn’t feel particularly ready to die. Part of him wondered how many pieces they’d hack him into.

If anything gets the jump on you in that forest, they’ll kill you, and they won’t even need to bury your body...

The ragged band looked to their leader, who raised an eyebrow under his soot-blackened helmet.

“A messenger. From Equestria. Equestria.” His bass voice somehow grew even deeper. “Show us your message then, Equestrian. I wanna see you’re not lying!”

A flood of relief nearly dropped Red to the ground. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, praised the heavenly bodies, and stuffed his sword back into the scabbard. None of the Shetlanders made a move to put their own weapons away, but they didn't seem to be pointing in his direction anyway.

"Bardiche!" shouted the blue unicorn, his throat strained. "We don't have time for this. We need to go!" His twin swords wavered in the air, sweeping left and right in time with his eyes.

“It’s just over here,” Red said, “I was carrying everything on my litter, and...”

He froze.

The shattered litter was strewn with armor, but his saddlebags were nowhere to be seen. His eyes snapped to the dark stretch of forest through which he’d bolted minutes before. It stretched into the woods like the mouth of a serpent, an inky black tunnel that wound its way back up the hill into deep fog. His mouth went instantly dry.

He’d lost his saddlebags.

He’d lost the Dictum.

Red choked. A terrible weight dropped into his gut. His legs trembled at the knees. Somewhere back up that tunnel, lost in the clawing dark, was everything he had required to complete his journey.

“No, no, no! No!”

The drums of fate pounded in his ears.

He was going to die, he knew. Instinct screamed at him to go for his sword, but he knew that the instant he bit down on steel would be the instant he found out what his guts tasted like. Instead, he cast his eyes to the pine canopy.

It was sometime around midday, and somewhere in the murky soup above the trees would be the bright stain of Celestia’s sun. But Red couldn’t see it. A hole formed in the knight’s chest at the thought that not even the Princess would not be with him in his moment of death.

“Equestrian!” snapped the leader of the Shetlanders. “What’s the problem? Don’t dither with me now...”

Red turned back to the band of barbarians, his face drawn. “I’m afraid I’ve lost it,” he mumbled lamely. “Back up the road, as I was running...” he made a weak gesture toward the broken litter, unable to find the words.

The forest held its collective breath. One of the Shetlanders snorted.

The leader nodded and lifted his axe. He took a deep breath, turning away to look into the woods. “Bile,” he muttered, before turning to his comrades. “Alright, we need to go. Everypony saddle up. Now.”

Red’s teeth paused, open, just over his sword hilt. What was going on here?

Red put the question out of his mind. Now was not the time. The Shetlanders didn't seem to be hostile, at least, and he wasn't about to look a gift-bearing horse in the mouth. Something out here had them spooked, and every fiber of his being told him to start running, preferably alongside the nice armored warriors.

"Argh. Enuff of ffthis." The one-eyed Shetlander stepped forward with his spear in his teeth. Red stood still and allowed himself to be captured, feeling like a rotten coward. Every muscle, every nerve of his being demanded he fight back, resist. But for once he would have to ignore those instincts. It was time to resign himself to fate.

Without warning the warrior whipped his head to the side and struck his spear upside Red’s temple.

CRACK!

Stars exploded in Red’s head. He stumbled away, pain ringing in his ears. For a moment he reeled, confused, unable to comprehend. Then, as the pain set in, he realized that the blow was meant to knock him out. He desperately wished it had.

“Ow,” he groaned. Not very articulate, but it got the point across. He blinked away the colors combusting behind his eyes.

“Hey, lice coat!” snapped one of the other Shetlanders, punching the spearpony in the side. “What’re you thinkin’?"

The spearpony spat his weapon into the crook of his leg. “I’m capturing him."

"And who’s gonna carry all this armor of his if he’s out cold, huh? Who's gonna carry him?”

The spearpony blinked. Red, meanwhile, felt concussed when he regained his balance. The dell swam before him. He put a hoof to his temple. He could hear his own pulse. The noise in his head reverberated endlessly, bouncing around against the insides of his skull.

“Ow...” he said again.

The dell was a jumble of commotion as the Shetlanders broke into a shouting match. If he hadn’t just been struck in the head, Red might have been able to slip away into the woods and make an escape. As it was, he just wanted to lie down for a few minutes until the invisible bells stopped ringing.

“Enough!” boomed the leader of the warriors. He kicked a vambrace over to Red. “Equestrian, put on your armor! Now!”

Unable to find it in himself to explain that he was too chafed to wear armor, Red limped back to the litter and dropped his sword-belt to the ground. The effects of the blow to his head were already fading, but the pain lingered. He stuff himself into his leathers, usually a simple affair, but one that required monumental effort when the forest kept tilting, and two thirds of his body were protesting in agonizing pain.

One of the Shetlanders stiffened and raised an ear. The others went silent, sensing something that was beyond Red’s ken. He looked around, tried to puzzle out what was going on.

The forest had fallen dead silent. Not even the chatter of forest bugs remained.

Somewhere, a blackbird fled its perch with a panicked caw. The sound of flapping wings receded into the trees. It was cut short a split second later by a nearly imperceptible zip. Then silence. It was as if the unseen bird had never existed at all.

Red listened to the sound of breathing. He tried to calm his own.

“They’re here,” whispered one pony.

“I hear ‘em too,” their leader whispered without turning, eyes fixed unblinking into the woods. The intensity of his gaze made its direction all the more frightening when Red realized it was at his back. He turned, but saw only more mist and trees.

“Equestrian... hurry.”

The words carried the weight of alarm with them, frightened and full of dread. Red bent back to his task, racing to lace up the vambraces with his teeth. His tongue was fumbling with the last knot when something on the wind caught his ear.

Lilting cries, tumultuous and distant, like broken wind chimes.

His stomach churned. His heart pounded. A single word tugged at the back of his consciousness, something half-remembered, something he’d heard or seen somewhere before.

“What... What is that?” he whispered to the nearest Shetlander.

The pony turned to fix him to the spot with an expression of pure dread. Red saw unrestrained fear in the Shetlander’s single eye. He understood then, looking at the shredded socket of the other eye, that no mere pony had stricken him half-blind.

Terrible things dwell in the Shadow Wood. Ancient things.

“Wrothkin,” said the warrior, trembling. “The Wrothkin are coming.”

Red’s throat clenched shut. The stone roadmarker, he remembered. That’s where he had seen the word before.

Wrothkin.

“I can fly for help,” said the brown pegasus, who now huddled against the roadside oak.

“We don’t have enough shields!”

“Can we still make it back to the Broch?” asked the blue unicorn, his swords held at crossed angles. The twin hilts sparkled faintly in the murkiness of the forest. "Bar? Bardiche!”

Their leader, Bardiche, looked back up the road, at the bend from which his band had appeared.

“We might could make it,” he whispered. “It’s just a mile...”

A foul scent drifted on the breeze, rank and musty. Red almost gagged at the stench. He knew that scent. He had never wanted to smell it again.

It was the smell of death.

The Shetlanders exchanged glances. Then, without another word, they turned and ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

Suddenly it all made sense. Now Red knew why the Shetlanders had kept their backs to him, why they'd taken cover among the trees and shivered with fear. He wanted to hit himself for being so blind as to not see it earlier. He wasn't the threat. He had never been the threat.

The Shetlanders were here to save him.

“Better be a fast Equestrian,” urged the pegasus. He bounded into the air and shot through the canopy with a few strong beats of his wings.

Panic seized Red like claws. He threw the sword-belt over his unsecured lamellar and cinched it tight. He had no time to lace up the vest. At least this way it wouldn’t chafe so much.

The sick, lilting cries were already horrifyingly close when the swordpony sprinted after the Shetlanders. The last of them disappeared around the bend ahead. Behind, the cries reverberated in the woods like sickly warbling. It almost seemed to emit from the trees themselves. Red’s skin crawled beneath his auburn coat, his four legs churning.

Then, hesitating at the bend, he slid to a halt and looked back the way he’d came. The Dictum. He couldn’t leave the Dictum. Did he have time to run back and find it? He wavered?

Then the sound of rustling and crashing reached his ears from deep within the forest, as if a massive beast with a hundred legs was plunging through the underbrush. Something unseen rattled the boughs just beyond his sight, snapping branches.

A harsh shriek ripped through the trees, coming from every direction at once. It cut into Red’s ears like knives, needling fear straight into his brain.

He bolted, galloping faster than he had ever galloped before.

He looked back just as he was rounding the bend, just for a second and without slowing his pace. For just an instant he could have sworn he saw a four-legged form bounding out of the fog, black as the trees. Then he rounded the bend and it was gone, hidden by the forest.

But he'd seen the many prongs crowning its skeletal head. It had antlers.

And it was coming.

Comments

[Capt_Dec]

I wanted to make a sarcastic comment but I couldn't think of anything. As such I'll just say this really is quite excellent. sure the fight scenes and they way the ponies do some things require you to suspend your disbelief but other than that there is nothing wrong with this. The dialogue's good, the descriptions are brilliant without being too drawn out and as the others have said your action scenes are brilliant. The chase scenes in it are particularly good, they're white knuckled all out dashes for safety and you really convey that in the way they're written.

[Wisdom Thumbs]

524944

Thanks!

I'm actually just about to post revised versions of all the chapters (as well as a new chapter 2). It's weird how I got so little traffic over the last couple months, and as soon as I'm ready to post a new draft a bunch of people start liking the old draft...

Anyway, I hope you'll read the new stuff. I promise it's better than this old draft.