• Published 13th Nov 2011
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Swordpony - Wisdom Thumbs



(cancelled with a bonus chapter) It was a land where dark defeated light, where an eye cost an eye, and clouds defeated pegasi. It knew not sun nor moon, for steel ruled that land... Until dragons filled the sky, and a knight came to find out why.

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Chapter Seven - "Rope Swings, Marbles, and Everberry Pie"

Dawn unfurled over Shetland almost imperceptibly, the Broch stirring awake just before the faintness of early morning’s light. Ponies roused themselves from sleep and emerged one by one to attend to the day’s business. They moved freely throughout the compound, but they did not smile. They did not tarry. They did not leave the safety of the walls. They did not walk near the gate.

A blacksmith’s anvil rang out in the chill autumn air, sharp and clear as a bell. Steel rasped on whetstones. Armor creaked and strained as thanes slipped into it like second skins. For a people under constant siege, this was to be expected. But today was different from any other day. They were under siege, yes, but it was a quiet siege, a seasonal danger. It was not out of place for their children to come out and play despite the threat. The silence would shatter at the laughter of foals playing in the mud. It would vanish under the weight of a hundred little conversations. But there were no foals outside today. There was no play.

If one were to watch long enough, listen hard enough, they might begin to notice that something was wrong about that morning in Shetland. Something was missing, something that would have been taken for granted had it been there. It was hard to tell that anything was missing at all.

The most obvious absence was sunlight. If a pony looked closely enough, they would see that nothing cast a noticeable shadow within the clearing that surrounded the Broch. There was light, but it was dull, muted. The sun did not touch the land, nor could it. Heavy clouds blanketed the sky, as flat and featureless as a sea without wind. Beneath them the colors of the land were grey and subdued, as were the ponies living there.

And yet, somehow, the trees that hemmed them in were blanketed in shadow, casting darkness as the sun casts light. Theirs was an unnatural gloom, one that stretched in all directions over impossible distances to surround the clearing on every side.

Light was not the only thing that was lacking. There was a silence, too. Not an easy thing to notice, but vast and hollow so that once recognized it could not be ignored. No birds called from the trees. No small animals rustled in the underbrush. No laughter welled up from within the Broch as it had last night, nor did any voices soothe away the silence with idle chatter. Even the trees were quiet, their limbs still and lifeless in the dead air. Everything sat muffled, afraid to so much as twitch lest the things that dwelled in the woods chase them down.

No, this was not a normal day for the Broch. Thick smoke billowed in black columns from the thatch atop the lonely tower, twisting sinuously with the thinner smoke of smaller fires outside. Oily soot settled on the ponies as they moved tents inside the tower, to be replaced with tall fences leaning inward. Bundles of arrows began to stack up around forge fires. Warriors galloped to and fro, bent to a purpose.

All eyes were on the sky, waiting for arrows to fall without warning. Four unspoken words ran through every mind, gripping every heart. The thanes knew them well -- four words to bring hell.

The Wrothkin are coming.

---

Red Pommel knew he was dreaming. He had to wake up, but the nightmare wouldn’t end.

The taste of blood.

The sound of cut air.

Two walls of ponies lining up across a snowy plain, one ragged and outnumbered but possessed of a powerful determination, the other gleaming and well armed, yet shuffling, uncertain.

Armored ponies rolling across the plain in long rows, the thunder of their charge rattling the bones of the earth itself. In the light of the snow their armor shone like suns and stars. Their banners whipped and snapped in the wind, and ice cracked like thunder beneath hooves.

War spells arcing across the battlefield, tearing combatants limb from limb, soul from body, throwing up explosions of dirt, blood, and snow.

The resistance given by the throat of another pony to his blade, sheets of blood cascading from the wide-eyed colt, heart pumping out the last of his very life onto a white canvas.

Steel flashed on all sides. Red spun and dodged, pleading for his foes to stop, but either they could not hear him or his voice had fallen silent. He was at the center of a storm of blades, caught between armies of magic and armor. There was no way to avoid them all.

Wild with fear, he lashed out and fought back. Blood gouted from wounds, ponies piled up at his hooves. He fought and killed and stabbed and cut, a whirlwind of death. Not even armor could stop him. He screamed for them to stop fighting, that he did not want to hurt them, but they just kept coming, kept hacking and slashing. He gave up pleading. He simply killed. He kept killing until they stopped struggling.

“Stop!” they pleaded when he had laid the last of them low. “Don’t kill us!” And only then did he realize that the ponies before him were fighting only for their lives, desperation and fear burning in their dying eyes. Still he hacked and slashed at them without remorse, without mercy.

He wanted to stop. He wanted them to stop. But he couldn’t, so he didn’t, and neither did they.

A desolate battlefield, corpses strewn in every direction. Some still heaved with breath, but their time was short. No amount of healing magic could save them, no doctoring could put them back together. Red sat amidst the carnage, blood streaming down his coat to run, steaming, into the churned, muddy snow.

A spear jutted from the ground at an angle some twenty feet away. Below the spear was a face, down as if in mourning. The face turned to him, and only then did he wake up.

-- Sworn Shield’s “Thousand Yard Stare” journal entry --

The first thing Red noticed when he awoke was that he lay face down on the floor. He groaned and attempted to roll onto his side, desperate to escape the smell of moldy straw. His injured flank complained, as did every other inch of his body, but he was too exhausted to care.

The second thing he noticed was that his skull had grown painfully small during the night. It throbbed incessantly. There was even a rotten taste in his mouth, sickeningly bitter, so he’d probably vomited before morning. Even worse, the cloying stench of urine and mead clung in the air, worming its way into his nostrils.

Finally, Red noticed that he had been dumped next to the fireplace. The warmth of it provided an interesting counterpoint to his nausea and headache. The bed of coals crackled and popped by his ear. He could already feel his gorge rising with the taste of smoke, and his awareness was still in the process of spreading out to encompass the rest of the hall.

He wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew he would not manage so much as a wink. It felt like being trapped in a prison of exhaustion and pain. No, it felt like a length of iron had been wrapped around his head and somepony was hammering it into a constricting band.

Grumbling and smacking his lips, the swordpony reached for his blade. It wasn’t there, but that wasn’t entirely surprising. Red remembered now that it had been stolen... but who had taken it? He couldn’t remember.

He wondered if this was how amputees felt after the war. His sword was like an extra limb. Even with it gone he could feel the ghost of its familiar weight on his back. It left an itch, a strange sensation of needing.

“So yer awake.”

The voice rang in Red’s skull like a hammer on a bell. He winced, his eyes snapping shut.

“Good morning... Scop?” It took him a moment to remember the old stallion’s name.

“Terrible morning, actually. Woke up with a crick in my neck. Yew don’t look so well either.”

“Ugh... hangover.”

“Not surprised.”

Scop deposited himself by the fire, looking even older than he had the night before. He tossed in a few extra logs and stoked them with a long stick. The fire hung deep shadows in the wrinkles of his face.

Red sighed and closed his eyes, enjoying the tender caress of the flames. It was almost enough to relieve him of his pounding headache. Almost, but not quite. It made his hair feel warm.

“I’ve been wondering,” said the storyteller. “How exactly did yew make it all the way up here?”

“Pardon?” Red asked, throwing a hoof over his eyes to shield them from the brightness.

“The forest,” was the reply. “The forest should have killed yew long afore yew got this far.”

“Forest was pretty nice, actually,” Red muttered. His words came out in a sticky mess and he worried he might vomit again.

Both of Scop’s eyebrows jumped up to his receding hairline. “What do yew mean, nice? Yew came up the road alone, didn’t yew?”

“Yeah. Stumbled across it while I was following a stream. Can we shut up now? My brain’s in a vice.”

“I’m sure it is. Yew drank enough last night that I’m surprised it didn’t kill yeh. But the fact still stands... the forest should’ve put an end to yew.”

“Well, I was making great time until that run-in by the stream.” Red tried not to think about the pony he’d killed, but the memory was already there. What had he tried to say after Red’s sword bisected his throat? Had it been a prayer, a plea for forgiveness, or just a dying pony begging for their mother?

Maybe he’d cursed Red to a thousand headaches.

Scop’s hoof disappeared into the depths of his white beard, supporting his chin as he was chewing on his mustache. “Out of curiosity, did yew ever hear any voices? What about unusual birdsong?”

“Hmm...” the swordpony thought back, trying not to strain his aching brain. His eyes kept clamping shut when he wasn’t actively holding them up. “No, I never heard any voices. But I heard plenty of birds. They never really let up, actually. Kept me going.”

The Shetlander frowned. He blanched visibly under his coat. “What d’yew mean, kept you going?”

Red pried his eyes open and lifted the leg he’d been using for shade. “Well, if the birds were singing, I knew nothing dangerous was around.” He looked up at Scop to find the storyteller’s eyebrows hovering near the tips of his ears. “What? What’d I say?”

“Think back. When was the last time yew heard the birdsong?”

Red honestly couldn’t remember. The noise had just blurred into the background after a few days and he’d rarely noticed it afterward. “I don’t know. I know I didn’t hear it at the fork in the road.”

Scop shook his head, marveling. “Yew have no idea how lucky yew are, do yeh?”

“Umm...” Red looked down at his bloodied crupper and absent-mindedly touched one of his black eyes.

“Yew probably weren’t hearing birdsong.”

“Pardon?”

Scop held up a hoof, putting a stop to any consternation the swordpony might have expressed. “Lemme rephrase that. What yew heard probably wasn’t bird song.”

“Then what was it?”

“The Shadow Wood is full of all sorts of dangers. Some ‘r a bit more... sinister than others. Fer example... the Voice Stealer.”

“Voice Stealer?” Red echoed.

“Benign name. Terrible monster. It lures unsuspecting victims in, then kills them and takes their voice. Mimics it. So if it gets a pony -- say, by pretending to be a bunch of birds -- then it can mimic exactly the words spoken by that pony. Other ponies hear the voice, come looking... and bam! It gets them too. The last thing they hear is the Voice Stealer mimicking their friend’s dying screams.”

The swordpony swallowed, his throat going dry. He tried to think back to the road. Had he seen anything?

“It... it doesn’t look like a fox, does it?”

“What? No, more of a spider thing that swings around in the trees. Leaves cobwebs everywhere.”

Now the swordpony actually shuddered, remembering the cobwebs he’d been scrubbing from his face when that thane attacked him by the stream.

“Why didn’t it attack me?” he asked, thinking back to all the times he’d caught himself daydreaming during his long march through the woods.

Scop just shrugged. “I dunno, honestly. Maybe yew were just hearin’ birds. Maybe the Stealer never saw yew. Or maybe it was just waiting for yew to speak. I don’t suppose yew talked to yerself any while yew were on yer way here?”

Red shook his head. He wasn’t the kind of pony who carried on conversations with himself. Some small part of him wondered if he had just remained too attentive for the Stealer to catch him unawares. Deep down he knew that wasn’t the case.

Best not to worry about it, he decided. He was here in the Broch now, relatively safe for the moment. With that in mind he settled into a semi-comfortable position and tried to go back to sleep.

It was then the heavy hoof kicked him in the ribs. Red hissed through his teeth, his body wrapping around the instrument of his pain. It took him a moment to straighten himself out again. Trying to catalogue his various hurts was quickly becoming a chore.

Glowering, Red’s eyes traced up the fetlock-obscured hoof that had kicked him, up to the armored shoulder, to the enormous tangles of beard...

“Get up,” snapped Bardiche. His voice carried an unspoken threat of violence. His eyes burned with that threat.

A pulse began to beat in Red’s left temple, pounding against his brain.

‘I don't want any of the thanes tearing into him until I've had a chance to speak with him myself...’

Ashbane’s son put great stock in looking imposing. He wore heavy chainmail over a vest of moldering animal furs and well-stuffed linen, with just a hint of boiled leather to pad out his withers. All of it was marked with old bloodstains and mud. His distinctive axe hung at his side within easy reach of his mouth, its blade a crescent moon that dipped uncomfortably close to Red’s face. It was so close he could see the tiny patches of rust that pockmarked its surface. And he reeked. Not just of death, but of sweat and blood and smoke.

“I said get up,” Bardiche growled when Red didn’t move. He kicked even harder this time.

Red’s body contorted against his will, straining all the clenched muscles that Bardiche had missed with his kicks. Grimacing, he pulled himself shakily to his hooves.

“Well,” said the swordpony when the world stopped spinning. “You’re running a bit late.”

He had the urge to punch the thane in the mouth and gallop for the door, but even the irrational part of his brain knew how suicidal that would be. He was as far from the door as he could possibly be. At best he would lose a few teeth. With his knees trembling just from the effort of supporting his own weight, he wasn’t even sure he could throw a proper kick.

Bardiche’s teeth snarled yellow behind his bristling beard. Red tried not to show how intimidated he felt. The quivering in his legs wasn’t from fear, he told himself.

“What are you going to do, anyway?” asked the swordpony, swaying on his hooves. “Interrogate me for state secrets?”

A hoof cut him off. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t a punch. Instead it was Scop’s leg appearing in between the swordpony and the thane. The storyteller had a huge smile showing from beneath his white beard, visible only because of how badly stained his teeth were. It might have meant something if not for the fact that he wore it near constantly.

“Now hold on, colts,” he said, mollifying both stallions. “Bardiche, what’s this about?”

“I have questions for the Equestrian,” replied the warrior, pushing Scop’s leg down. “Questions which ‘r none of yer business.”

Scop’s eyebrow hopped up a few inches. “Well, that doesn’t sound particularly productive, nor does it sound particularly healthy.

“Three thanes died because of him,” said Bardiche. His voice trembled. “Stallions I have known my entire life, killed for an Equestrian.”

“So yer gonna… what? Beat him to a pulp? Gouge out his eyes? Hang him by his tail? Those deaths weren’t his fault, Bardiche. They weren’t yer fault either.”

“Fires and thunder, Scop!” boomed the thane. Several nearby Shetlanders stopped to stare. “How was it not his fault or mine? He never should have come here and I shouldn’t have gone out so hotly to find him. Good ponies lie rotting in the mud because of him and me.” He pointed at Red and then himself for emphasis.

Scop just shook his head and sighed, all weariness and old age. “I don’t know what to tell you, Bar. Leaning on this pony won’t bring them back. And he certainly didn’t set out to kill those thanes, now did he?”

Ashbane’s son froze, unsure. His tongue snaked out to scrape dry lips, dragging his beard into his mouth to chew.

Scop continued. “Yer a good pony, I know yew are. I’ve seen it. Don’t do this.”

Bardiche worked up a scowl that could have melted ice, chewing angrily at his bottom lip. After a moment he looked away.

“He’s an Equestrian.” He looked helpless, confused. “He shouldn’t be here. I should have left him to the Wrothkin.”

“But yew didn’t,” said Scop, prodding the thane in the center of his chest. “As soon as Stormwind flew in babbling about a lone pony on the road, yew armored up and went after him. Yew went with the intention of reinforcing him, bringing him back safe. Yew went because he’s a pony. Just like you. Just like me.”

“I thought he was a thane!” Bardiche roared, stomping the ground. “We all did! If Stormwind had flown closer and talked to him, or if I’d just stayed here, three good ponies would still be alive, and Roanblade wouldn’t be suffering at death’s door.”

“But yew saved him. Yew brought him back.”

Red was beginning to feel more and more out of sorts. He was torn between the urge to lie back down by the fire or to speak up and ask if he had a say in the matter. Unable to decide, he simply stood where he was and tried not to make a sound. His legs creaked beneath him, each muscle a knot of pain. Was it just the hangover, or were the nearby Shetlanders fading in and out of focus?

“Because I brought him back, one of my father’s oldest friends is out there rotting. Or worse.

“All thanes know the dangers of war.”

Bardiche stomped the ground again, hard enough for Red to feel it in his own hooves. Dust and hay jumped into the air. “Tear it all, listen to me! This Princess-loving Equestrian brought the Wrothkin down on us!”

“They would’ve come sooner or later anyway. Mebbe they were already on their way, eh?”

“No... I...” Bardiche shouted something incoherent and punched the floor. The fight left him with a heavy sigh. He turned to leave, eyes downcast. Only Scop stopped him, put a reassuring hoof on his shoulders.

Red blinked, trying to keep the two Shetlanders in focus. The iron band around his head was weighing down on him like a too-tight helmet, obscuring his vision and squeezing his brain. Try as he might, the ponies in front of him simply disappeared. He blinked again, forcing his eyes to focus despite the throbbing in his skull and the invisible claws raking his legs. In fact, he felt refreshingly numb, perhaps even a bit light-headed.

Was it just his hangover or was the entire room turning over onto its side? Yes, it had to be the hangover...

“It’s not yer fault,” Scop said, patting Bardiche’s shoulder. He turned to the Equestrian at his side. “And it’s not Red Pom...” the storyteller’s eyes shot open and he lunged for the falling swordpony.

He was too late. Red’s face slammed into the floor, bounced once, and came to rest.

---

Red had no way of knowing how long he was unconscious. When he finally woke his head was pounding harder than ever, the iron band now full of nails. He groaned into the hay.

Muffled voices caught his ear, letting him know of Scop’s return. The old codger was accompanied by a mare, one of Ashbane’s attendants. Looking up through bleary eyes, Red dimly recognized her as Lush Renvers, the green unicorn he had been introduced to the night before. His skewed perspective tilted her sickeningly to one side, yet did nothing to offset her beauty.

“Yew’ll watch him?” Scop asked. He was somewhere outside of Red’s field of vision.

“Yes, yes. Go get some water.” Renvers shooed him away and knelt beside the fallen swordpony. Her horn flashed, sending a sharp, stabbing pain through Red’s skull.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. The invisible iron band around his head was tightening, crushing him bit by bit, strangling the life out of his brain. He wanted to pass out, to throw up, anything to relieve the unbearable pressure.

“Open your eyes,” the unicorn demanded. When Red didn’t comply she forced one open with her hooves, prying back the bruised eyelids. The light of her horn was blinding and painful enough for the swordpony’s stomach to lurch, flaring right in the middle of his vision. He looked sluggishly to one side, groaning all the louder.

“Just as I figured,” she muttered. “Your pupils are two different sizes.”

“Concussion?” he managed to reply, the words sticky in his mouth. Lights danced in front of his eyes. “Shudda known...”

“Hold still.”

Red complied. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. The iron band was bearing down on his brow with agonizing force now. He dreaded the beating of his own heart, each pulse a hammer blow tightening the band. There were spikes set into it and they were boring straight into his skull, straight into his dying, oozing brain.

Renvers peeled back the bloody pink crupper on the swordpony’s flank, wasting no time in taking a look at his injuries. Red flinched when she pried open the cut in his cutie mark.

“This is infected,” she said with a sigh. Her nose wrinkled.

Producing a coarse, wet rag, Renvers vigorously scoured the wound. It burned like two different hells, and the unicorn was nothing if not thorough. Red tried not to show his pain, but the best he could do was clench his teeth to keep from biting his tongue. Something like a whine eked out of him.

The invisible band tightened a little more. An awful taste rose in the back of Red’s throat. He held it back, unwilling to compromise his last shreds of dignity by vomiting all over a pretty mare.

A knight was nothing if not chivalrous, after all.

When she was done with the rag, Renvers sprinkled some sort of powder over the freshly cleaned cut. It was bleeding again, streaming across his belly into the dirt. The powder burned almost as much as the cloth, but by comparison it really wasn’t all that bad. A moment later she applied what he assumed was a poultice and a stiff bandage, his pain immediately receding to a dull ache.

Renvers was an accomplished healer if he’d ever seen one. Even in his concussed stupor he recognized that much. She moved with efficiency and experience, shucking off his barding in short order. It took some work to get the lamellar vest off, as his tangle of legs were too leaden for him to move on his own, but within moments even that was piled off to one side.

“Raw?” she asked, touching one of the chapped patches under Red’s legs. He muttered an affirmative and a moment later she was rubbing some sort of new, softer powder into his coat. When she finished with one side she rolled him over with telekinesis and started on the other. He kept his eyes shut the whole time, but it still felt like his brain was sloshing around in his head.

Normally he would have protested being levitated, even in injury. But this… this was almost nice. For a moment he was weightless, and all his pains faded. Coming back to the floor was almost disappointing.

“This cut on your neck is healing nicely,” she said, lifting his head to wrap a bandage around his throat. “Looks like you got lucky. Whatever did this was close to your jugular.”

“It wasn’t luck,” the swordpony grumbled, taking offense. Any other pony would have failed to block that thrust, much less kill the assailant that delivered it.

Renvers nickered and lit her horn up again. The glow was visible even through Red’s clenched eyelids, vibrant and green as a spring morning, just like the rest of her. “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she muttered, a hint of teasing in her voice. “Hold still and let me have a look at your skull.”

While it was entirely unnecessary telling him not to move -- he really wasn’t going anywhere -- Red didn’t mind. Renvers had the kind of pleasant voice that could have ordered him to jump into a river and still earned his fullest devotion.

From behind the curtain of his eyelids he felt and saw the probing glow of her horn come closer. The iron band around his skull tightened possessively, pulling him away from the light. Then the pain was gone, replaced by cool tendrils of green that seeped into the cracks in his skull, soothing his inflamed brain like cold water on a burn. His eyes trembled open with a sigh.

Renvers had her lip in her teeth, focusing on her healing magic. In the dim light of the Broch her face was almost incandescent, illuminated as it was by both her shimmering horn and the fire in the hearth. She was beautiful. She was radiant.

“How did you get this concussion?” she asked when she was done, her breathing labored from the effort of the magic. Beads of sweat dribbled down her neck, but she ignored them. Instead, she busied her hooves with prodding around Red’s puffy eyes. It didn’t take her long to find the swollen knot underneath his ear.

Red winced. “Well,” he said, his words clearer now that much of the pain had been taken away. Light still hurt his eyes, but only slightly. “First there was the spear haft upside the head... then there was the pommel of my own sword. Twice.”

Renver’s frown was almost audible, even over the noise of the Broch.

“Hmm. Well, I have another in my care who needs tending, so take care not to remove those bandages. Some ponies might see it as a waste to use them on an Equestrian. Don’t prove them right.”

The swordpony nodded weakly, trying not to shake his mushy brain around in its cracked bowl. There was noticeably less pain, but an overwhelming exhaustion had replaced it after the initial euphoria of the healing.

Wait. “What of the other pony who rested by this fire?” he asked, reaching out a hoof to stop her. “Roanblade. The thane. Where is he?”

Renvers looked away, back to packing up her things. “He is downstairs, where he can be closer to my medicines.”

“Will he… make it?”

“That is for him to decide,” she said, turning briefly to meet Red’s eyes. She closed her bag and stood. “But I do not think he ran all that way for nothing. He’s of hardy stock.”

“Wait.”

She stopped, turned again. Her smile was full and bright. “I will tell him you are thankful. When he wakes.”

“Thank you,” said Red, his voice barely a notch above a whisper. “Thank you so very, very much.”

She simply nodded. “I’ll come back and check on you in a bit. Get some sleep.”

Red watched her walk away, taking note of the curve of her flank beneath the animal furs. He’d been wrong, he realized now. The Shetlanders did have healing magic, though where they’d gotten it was beyond him. He was thankful for it, at least.

He lifted his head a few inches and tried to work out where Scop and Bardiche had gone. Despite the healing magic, his hurts throbbed and forced his head back down.

Rest it is, then, he thought to himself, grateful that at least he wouldn’t be disturbed. He shifted slightly, ignoring the headache and nausea while he made himself comfortable. His knotted muscles began unraveling almost immediately.

At least he could see most of the great hall from his place by the fire. The Broch was a flurry of activity and noise, everything from shouting thanes to laughing foals and the crackling of fires. There was no system to the chaos, no rule with which to make sense of it all.

Mares outnumbered the stallions now that most of the warriors were outside. They prepared meals and bustled everywhere, frustration apparent on many a frown. Older thanes here and there repaired armor or dispensed equipment to their younger brethren. Red couldn’t help but notice that there were more eyepatches than children.

More eyepatches than children... what kind of trouble had he gotten himself into? What kind of world was this?

There was worry on every face. Even the children would look to the door or huddle around their mothers when no friends were around to entertain them. The carefree festivities of the previous night were all but forgotten.

But it wasn’t all bad. Red’s gaze stopped on two enterprising thanes, fathers by the look of them, carrying coils of rope in their mouths. He watched with interest, noting how thick and heavy the coils were. A rope could be a weapon, if he really needed one. Tie something heavy to one end, maybe a rock, then swing it about and make a tail of it. He’d practiced that once, years ago.

The two thanes had other uses in mind for these lengths of rope, however. As Red watched, they tossed the ropes into the rafters and fixed up a crude swing. Within minutes their foals dangled from the wooden seat in twos and threes, laughing wildly. The fathers stayed only long enough to grab weapons and armor before heading back outside.

For a minute, whoops of laughter and joy overcame the dull bustle of the Broch. One foal, a pegasus, scrambled up a rope and into the rafters, his tiny wings buzzing. At the top he threw up a little hoof and let out a victorious yell, earning cheers from his fellow children and adults alike below.

The sight took Red back to his own childhood. He had once stood on a swing much like this one, then had several colts push so he could practice his balance. But he had never actually played on one. He’d never just sat down and let himself swing.

A curious feeling built up in his chest. Was that a pang of... homesickness? He tried to remember a time when he hadn’t been training, when the idea of becoming a knight had not yet become an obsession. For some reason, he couldn’t remember anything of the sort. But when he thought back to his home, to the dirt and the fields, he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

“Maffs hyew fwish hyew pffurr a colt again, ffon’t it?”

As always, Scop’s reappearance was completely unexpected and mildly startling. His eyes twinkled with amusement, and for some reason he had a bucket of water dangling from his teeth. High-strung as he was, Red nearly jumped into the air. Even in the chaos of the Broch, he wondered why he hadn’t seen the old stallion approaching.

“Pardon?” the swordpony asked. The word was becoming a mantra.

Scop sat the bucket of water next to Red’s face, letting out an exaggerated sigh of relief before popping his neck and back. With his mouth freed, he was much easier to understand.

“The swing. Seein’ foals at play. Always makes me wish I was a colt again.”

Red shrugged, or at least tried to shrug.

Scop’s eyebrows ratcheted up to a height that seemed to mean perplexed. “Somethin’ wrong, Red?”

“Nah,” he said. He sat up and took a drink from the bucket, cold relief washing down his throat. He hadn’t realized just how thirsty he had been. “I just never played on many swings as a colt.”

“What fer? Weren’t there trees where yew came from?”

“Yeah, there were a few. There was this one really big oak out in the field that we used for shade...”

Now that was definitely a pang of homesickness. Red blinked and shook off the memory. What was with all this reminiscing lately? Was it the concussion, or had he really gone soft? This was hardly the time or the place.

Scop didn’t push the issue any further. Instead he put his cheery smile back on and nudged Red’s shoulder. “So what did fair Renvers have to say about yeh?”

The beautiful green unicorn appeared as if from thin air, draping a hoof over Scop’s withers. He froze, as if the gesture was one of enmity and not familiarity. Red didn’t blame him. Lush Renvers’ scowl toward the storyteller was positively bloodcurdling.

“Scop, did you give this pony mead last night?” Renvers’ voice was cold.

Scop pursed his lips, giving his beard the appearance of being pulled into his mouth. “Well, er, he was thirsty. Why?”

Renvers sighed and put a hoof to her horn. “You daft idiot. You know what concussed is, right?”

The storyteller looked taken aback. He raised a hoof, waving it vigorously in what seemed to be dismay. “What? Well, he was thirsty!” he repeated. “I didn’t realize he was concussed, yew know. Just thought I was being hospitable, s’all.”

“Pfft,” Renvers all but spat in his face. “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Mead is not a cure for headaches. You were just buttering him up, weren’t you? Trying to weasel a tedious story or two out of him?”

Red protested weakly from the floor. “Hey, my stories are perfectly interesting.”

“I’m sure they are, but the fact still stands that you drank yourself under the table while suffering from multiple head wounds. I swear, stallions...”

Scop tried to apologize with a smile, but Renvers just sighed and turned away.

“If he needs to take a walk,” she said, her saddlebags chasing after her on glowing sheets of magic. “Then make sure you go with him. Make sure he doesn’t take those dressings off, and by the buried gods, keep some water in him. His breath smells worse than your beard.”

Scop took a stealthy sniff of his whiskers.

“It’s not that bad...”

Red chuckled and took another drink. Sun and stars, this water was too delicious to be real. It was clear as crystal and cold as winter stone. No d’Autumne could have compared.

“Feelin’ any better?”

“Heaps better,” said the swordpony, pushing the bucket away with a stiff foreleg. If he drank any more he’ld make himself sick. “Where’s my armor?”

Scop pointed to the heap next to the fire.

“Ah. Right.”

It took effort for Red to wrestle himself back into his leathers. The brown garment he wore beneath it was the hardest part, forcing him to sit up on his rear, his tailbone an angry knot of protesting.

“So,” he asked as he tugged on his vest. “Where did Bardiche get off to?”

There was something close to worry in Scop’s eyes when he frowned. “Well, after yer well-timed faint, I managed t’convince him to leave yeh alone fer a while. He’s gone outside somewhere to organize the preparations. Which reminds me...”

Red grumbled, tossing an uncooperative bracer to the side. He’d leave those alone for now. Tying them was a pain. “Reminds you of what?”

The storyteller lowered his face to eye level. “Well, yer a long way from home, Red. And yer not familiar with our customs.”

“Yes, that’s fairly obvious. And?”

“So, this is how it’s going to be from now on.” Scop stomped once, firmly. He lowered his voice. “One. Yew will not speak unless spoken to. To most of us yer just another pony, but I don’t doubt that some of the thanes ‘r just itchin’ to beat on the girly froo-froo Equestrian. Try not to give ‘em an excuse. Yer lil’ drinkin’ contest last night won a few of ‘em over to yer side, but don’t expect that to count fer much when you start pestering the wrong sorts of ponies.”

Wait, drinking contest? Red didn’t remember any drinking contests. He hoped he hadn’t done anything outstandingly stupid. Again.

Scop stomped again. “Two. Yew will not go eyeballing any of the mares, and fer yer own sake, don’t go near the littluns. Especially don’t go striking up conversations with any of Lord Ashbane’s girls, because he can be real jealous when it comes to them. Got that?”

Red nodded.

“Three.” Another stomp. At this Scop’s voice dropped lower still, “Yew will watch yer back at all times, because I can’t watch it for yew. There are ponies here who want to kill yeh, and they will kill yeh if yew give them the chance, so try not to go drawing attention. Most ponies’ll just leave yew alone, but yew’ve already gotten on Hornwin’s bad side, and yew really don’t want to be on Hornwin’s bad side.”

“How did you know about Hornwin?” asked the swordpony, flashing back to the moment the unicorn had tried to dash his brains out with his own sword. He frowned, trying to remember if he’d said anything about that to Scop last night. It was a little detail, but being unable to recall a thing made it all the more frustrating for him.

Scop gave him a flat look. “Bardiche might hate yew because he blames yeh for the thanes he lost. He’d have already beat the snot outta yeh if he didn’t blame himself, too. But Hornwin?” He shook his head. “Hornwin’s a dangerous pony. He’s just on the edge of reckless and he’s been unstable fer years. Bardiche’ll probably fergive yew in due time, but Hornwin doesn’t have the same loyalty to Ashbane. Or sense. Or compassion. Or law, for that matter.”

He looked Red square in the eyes. “Yew let yer guard down, and Hornwin’ll run you through, damn the consequences. And I don’t have his ear like I have Bardiche’s.”

Red gulped. It was bad enough that Hornwin had his sword, but if the unicorn had no qualms of breaking his own people’s laws over vengeance... well.

“Anything else?”

“Nah, that ought to do it. Just use yer head and try to stick close to me or my apprentice, Scrip. Or Renvers. She might could keep yew safer than anypony else.”

“But I thought you said not to go after any mares?”

Scop smirked. “Lush Renvers is nobody’s mare. Yew’d have better luck chasing yer shadow.”

Red pictured the vibrant unicorn somewhere nearby, her mane spilling over one shoulder as she tended to the arrow-shot thane from the day before. And he couldn’t help but agree. She looked every inch the kind of mare that stallions would chase for a lifetime, even knowing they could never catch her.

---

The call of nature had been inevitable. For hours it was a source of dread, driving Red slowly insane. He had no intention to find out just how bad the local privy was. But, try as he might, he couldn’t hold it in forever. Eventually, he had to go out.

Conditions were every bit as terrifying as he had feared. There was one privy, just one, for all three hundred of the Broch’s inhabitants, and it was hardly a privy at all. In fact, it was nothing more than a line of shallow trenches dug just behind the tower. The smell alone nearly took Red’s nose off. He tried not to breathe.

“Ugh,” he groaned as he limped away. “This place. This place.

Scop met him at the tower’s base. “Well, it’s not as neat a ditch as other... ditches. But trust me. Some brochs have worse.” He grinned, yellow teeth shining through his beard.

Red shuddered. “I’m trying not to think about it.”

“Eh, fair ‘nuff.”

They trotted away, anxious to leave the smell behind. Red shrugged some of the tension out of his shoulders and looked up at the sky as he walked. The bandages around his neck stiffened, limiting his range of movement. Only by a faintly glowing patch of clouds could he tell that the sun was directly above.

“Never any sun here. How can you ponies stand it?”

“Stand what?” Scop frowned.

“Being so gloomy all the time.”

Outside the Broch was even bleaker than being inside. It was still summer, or at least what passed for summer in Shetland, but the weather was already as cold as any Equestrian autumn. Tiny specks of white drifted in flurries all over the compound, sticking to everything that had hair and piling up in every recess. Sleet, the Shetlanders called it. They paid it no mind.

Looking up at the sky, Red could get an idea for why an entire nation of ponies might reject the Princesses. How could they bow down to the heavenly bodies when they never even saw the sun or moon? The roiling mass of grey that was the sky had actually darkened since the beginning of Red’s stay. Inside the ring of the wooden walls, he could feel its oppressive weight, crushing down on him from above. How the Shetlanders withstood that weight was beyond him. For an Equestrian, being cut off from the sun and moon was terrifying.

“D’yew not remember the story I told last night?” asked Scop, taking his own look at the sky. “I told it fer yer benefit, y’know.”

“To be honest last night’s a painful blur. What kind of story was it?”

Scop’s eyes stayed fixed on the sky. “An origin. The tale of Ironwing and the founding of Equilonia.”

Red nodded. “Sounds interesting. Did it explain those clouds?” He pointed at the sky.

“It’s a unity thing,” was the reply. “Ever since yew Equestrians broke off and went south, it’s been an uphill fight for us to beat back another eternal winter.”

Scop set a leisurely pace around the muddy yard, weaving through earthworks, rows of stakes, and bustling ponies. Red stuck as close to him as possible, keeping an eye peeled for trouble. The thanes mostly ignored him, busy with their preparations.

“What do you mean by ‘eternal winter?’” he asked, sidestepping an earth pony hauling a bundle of timbers.

Scop nodded at the sky. “Way back when, there was a winter what lasted fer decades. It all started because ponies couldn’t live together, y’see. The pegasi lived in the clouds, the unicorns in castles, and the earth ponies just made do with dirt and hovels. They wouldn’t work together, so three terrible monsters called the Ice Kings came and blanketed the world in snow.”

The storyteller stopped and swept his hoof dramatically across the clouds. “The great pegasus city of Altostrata was ripped out of the sky by gale winds. Then the castles fell, and everypony was left fighting tooth and hoof fer food. A lot of ponies just left, migrating south to greener pastures. That’s where yer lot comes from.”

Something about this story seemed eerily familiar. Red thought back and tried to remember where he’d heard it before. For some reason, he was reminded of actors in a play...

“Anyway, the winter got worse and worse until one day the Ice Kings swept down to reap the land of life. Luckily fer us, a pegasus named Ironwing came and united everypony under one roof.” By this point Scop was talking full tilt, waving a hoof around to accentuate what he considered an exciting story. “Together they fought a long and terrible battle at Guldor Tor, and in the end they forged a sword called ‘Isos’, the pegasus word for ‘equal,’ and with their unity they struck down the Ice Kings.”

He looked wistful for a moment. “O’course, when the three races tried to go their separate ways after the great victory, winter swallowed ‘em up again. Ironwing had to all but drag them back together before the blizzard would end. The poor pegasi never could tame those clouds again...”

The Ice Kings. Three horrific beasts in the shape of ethereal horses, fashioned from the bones of winter itself...

It all came back to Red in a rush. “Hearth’s Warming Eve!” He grinned, bobbing his head. “It’s just like Hearth’s Warming Eve!”

Several nearby Shetlanders stopped what they were doing just long enough to cast a wary eye at the Equestrian. Scop just looked confused. “What do you mean, Hearth’s Warming Eve?”

Red kept smiling, his eyes fixed on some distant point to the south. “In Equestria, we celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve on the longest night of winter. Ponies dress up and put on pageants, there’s a big parade in Everfree... It’s almost as big an event as the Summer Solstice Tournament. The day after that is Hearth’s Warming. It’s a time for families to come together and give gifts.”

Scop’s eyebrows stayed aloft. The white wisps of hair were almost windows into the workings of his mind. By their positioning, Red judged him to be somewhere between confusion and curiosity.

Red elaborated. “Before Discord’s rule, ponies from the north came down to escape a land of endless blizzards. With the power of friendship and harmony, they broke the spell of winter and banished a trio of horse-like winter spirits called the Windigos. That’s how Equestria was made.”

“Hmm.” Scop stroked his beard again, leaving streaks of ashen mud. He frowned and wiped the hoof on his layers of animal furs. “Well, yer Hearth’s Warming certainly matches up with our celebration of Yuletide, but yew Equestrians never beat back any Ice Kings. We did that.”

“It’s all just stories anyhow,” said Red with a dismissive wave. “Even if it did happen, it’s in the past.”

“Just stories?” asked Scop, taking umbrage. “That’s a bit of an insult to my trade. My stories serve a purpose, yew know. And!” he held up a hoof, “While I can’t attest to the amount o’ truth in them, I can tell yew that the threat of everlasting winter is definitely real. And Isos is a real sword, too.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

Scop pulled a face.

Glancing back to the sky, Red shivered. There was a peculiar chill in the air. He was beginning to grow jealous of the pelts worn by the Shetlanders. They didn’t look particularly warm or dry, but at least they weren’t as miserably damp as he was. His golden mane was plastered down over his brow and neck.

“Any longer out here and I’ll catch a cold,” grumbled the swordpony, wishing he at least had his blanket. “I’m beginning to see why a pony would wear those furs.”

“Aye,” replied Scop. He looked into the distance, at the trees rising up above the level of the Broch’s wooden palisade. “Just another minute. There’s something I want to show yeh.”

Red followed the elder stallion’s swishing white tail, looking around the Broch’s courtyard for anything of interest. It was strange, he thought, that he had been here only a day or so and already this old pony seemed to accept him as one of his own. Perhaps Scop was overfamiliar, but it was comforting to know that at least one pony was on his side.

The yard was alive with the ringing of iron and throaty voices. Red counted three different forge fires amongst the few tents left outside. Where the rest of the ground was hock deep in mud, the ground around the forges was cracked and hard as stone, baked from the heat. Thanes huddled near them for warmth when they weren’t working to shore up the Broch’s defenses. Red let out a contented “aaaaah” when he passed by one, his ears relishing the familiar sound of hammer and anvil.

Nearby in the space between the three forges, a group of thanes had set up a makeshift sparring square, bordering it with barrels and stakes. A dozen of them lounged around the outer edges of the square as they fiddled with their weapons and armor, making up most of the fence with their own bodies. Inside their perimeter swords sang together as several warriors tested their mettle. Red pulled up short to watch.

Of the three sparring ponies, two were working together, moving as one to attack the third, who for some reason wore a headdress made of skull and antlers. Outside the ring, a single unicorn worked to cast some sort of dulling spell over the combatants’ weapons.

The thane in the wrothkin headdress was a fearsome opponent, even with a deer-skull helmet obscuring his vision. He moved fluidly, exposed horn glowing a bright yellow, as he effortlessly turned aside the battered blades of the other thanes. A rusting iron weapon spun in his magical grasp, eerily similar in appearance to a pair of metal antlers. It whirled in the damp air, singing a vicious note. Against the two earth ponies he was unstoppable.

With a thump and a cry one of the fighting thanes went sprawling into the mud. His helmet bounced to a stop with a splash a few yards away, still ringing from the blow dealt to it by the unicorn. The thane’s partner backed away, chest heaving.

The unicorn removed his skull headdress, levitating it off to one side. To Red’s surprise, the warrior was actually a mare. She looked vaguely familiar, though he was unsure where he’d seen ehr before.

“Your hoofwork is still all over the place,” said the mare, her voice barely carrying over the sound of hammers and anvils. From the ground, the fallen earth pony made a reply that failed to reach Red’s sensitive ears.

Scop interrupted the swordpony’s observations. “Wouldn’t go ogling that one too much,” he said, his mustache turning up into a smile. “She’s Bardiche’s mare.”

“Ogling? I’m not ogling. I didn’t even realize she was a mare until she took that helmet off.”

“Mmm, I suppose that’s a good enough excuse.” The storyteller chuckled. “Her name’s Angharad. She’s not our best swordpony, but she’s a helluv an archer.” He waggled his eyebrows. “She’s also one of the only ponies capable of wielding a wrothkin bladebow. Makes her the best choice for training.”

“Wait, bladebow?” Something wrenched in Red’s chest. Bows were a fearsome weapon, a mark of the nobility. Only unicorns could use them effectively, making them a staple of Equestria’s upper class. He loathed them just as he loathed magic. But adding blades to them...

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Bladebow. It looks like a pair of antlers.” The storyteller made some sort of gesture with his hooves. “She’s holding one right there, or are yew just blind?”

“I can see that now,” Red replied, “I just didn’t know what it was.”

He looked at the mare’s weapon. The blades really were shaped like antlers, forged into a series of concave crescents with multiple wicked points, especially on either end. Angharad had taken it back up and was back to sparring with the two earth ponies, putting the instrument of death to terrifying use. As Red watched, she sent it sailing toward one’s throat. He deflected it, only for it to wrap around his sword and whack him upside the head with a magically dulled edge.

The other earth pony charged her from the side, only to be repelled by her helmet’s antlers before she lunged underneath him and used the bladebow to hook his helmet from behind. The earth pony froze, three points of dulled steel pricking his neck and snout. The bow held his head firmly in place.

“She’s good.”

“Aye. O’course, she’s fighting Squirm and Quench. Those two are about the daftest idiots I’ve ever seen. Showed up a few months ago on charges of thievery.”

Red frowned. “You take criminals up here?”

Scop just shrugged. “Just about all do take. The wrothkin take a heavy toll. Gotta get thanes from somewhere.”

“But... thieves?”

“Murderers too, and… worse.” The storyteller regarded the two muddy earth ponies with an unreadable gaze. He turned back to catch Red studying him and met the swordpony’s stare with one of his own. “We’re the Last Broch, Red. We’ve got something of a reputation for... let’s call it a brutal lifestyle. Ponies don’t live long up here.”

“So the rest of Shetland sends you their dregs...” Looking around, Red wondered just how many of these rough, tattered looking thanes were running from a criminal past. Had they been sent here to die?

Not for the first time, Red found himself wishing he’d listened to that tinker.

“Sometimes they come on their own,” Scop explained. For a moment his eyes were far away. “We take all sorts, even exiles and glory-seekers. The Last Broch is aptly named. It’s often a pony’s last chance at livin’ amongst civilization. Or of findin’ any form o’ redemption.”

Red looked back to Angharad and the earth ponies, Squirm and Quench. The smaller of the two glared at her, while the other’s eyes had a starved cast to them so lecherous that Red was surprised the thief wasn’t licking his lips. The mare ignored both, leaving them in the mud while she trotted to the edge of the square and struck up a conversation with some of the onlookers.

Suddenly, a flash of brilliant ruby red caught Red’s eye. He stiffened. There, talking with Angharad, was a familiar silver unicorn. He stood tall and well-armored, and he wore two swords in a web of leather belts, one on each flank. One sword hung in an unadorned sheath, while the other, the straighter of the two, wore a distinctive gilded scabbard. A ruby glittered in its pommel. It was not a sword for unicorns. It was a stolen sword.

Hornwin.

Red bit his lip, eyes locked on his namesake, his most prized possession. There it is, he thought. So close, and yet it might as well have been on the moon. His cutie mark itched beneath its bandages.

“C’mon,” interrupted Scop, breaking Red’s daze. The storyteller had been saying something, he realized, and he’d missed it.

“Wait, what?” the swordpony asked, trotting after the old stallion.

Scop waved with his hoof and made a beeline for the wall that surrounded the Broch, trotting through puddles and half-finished palisades. Red worked to keep up, his flank twinging beneath the bandages. He looked over his shoulder, fixing his eyes one last time on his sword. If he could just grab it...

The swordpony jumped when a hoof tapped him on the shoulder. “Quit staring at her,” Scop said sharply, his voice low and dangerous, “Or Bardiche’ll make yew regret it. Now c’mon, there’s somethin’ on the wall I want to show yeh.”

Red frowned and tore his eyes away, saying nothing. His flank itched again, all the more infuriating because he knew he couldn’t scratch it.

If there was one thing that defined the Broch, it was the wall that surrounded it. It loomed on all sides, a fence that kept out the forest beyond. Ponies patrolled up and down it, unicorns all.

The big palisade was certainly built to last, Red noted from a distance. It was tall, easily twelve feet at its lowest. The earth had been built up around the base, and mud packed between each post. The thinnest of the pales was easily as big around as his leg, and most were even wider than the barrel of his chest.

“Each of these was a tree, once,” said Scop, knocking his hoof against one of the pales. It made a solid sound, too hearty for rot. “I understand it took less than a span of days to build this whole wall.”

Red marveled and stepped closer to take a better look. He didn’t know if Shetlanders used the term ‘span’ in the same manner as the Equestrian calendar, but by any measure it was quite a short time in which to build such a wall. In Everfree it was eleven days. “Just a span?”

“Aye. Desperation drives ponies to do extraordinary things.”

Red shuddered involuntarily, and not from the cold. The wall’s purpose was readily apparent in the deep scars gouged into each post. He touched his hoof to one of these, feeling the chunks taken out of its sides. Somepony had shaped it hastily with an axe, favoring function over form. Heavy rope, of the same variety he had seen the thanes make a swing out of, anchored each post to its neighbors. They were pulled so tightly that the wood had actually splintered in places from the force of the cords. Not even the sleet could pass between those pales.

A hint of bone white caught Red’s eye. Turning, he found a length of what appeared to be a curved silver branch jammed between two posts. It contrasted with the dark wood, appearing to have been thrust through from the other side. With his hoof he worked it free, until something on the other end snapped and it plopped into the mud. He knelt, turning it over on the ground.

It wasn’t a branch. It was the point of a horn, six inches of shattered antler, tines all snapped off.

It had antlers...

“Hey!”

Red jumped, looking up.

Scop was balanced overhead on a sagging wooden ramp that led onto the wall. “Come on now, lad. Let’s not be out here any longer than need be. I’m cold ‘nuff too.”

Red gave one last glance to the length of horn, then at the wall through which it had been forced. Shivering, he mashed it into the mud and trotted up the ramp.

The makeshift staircase was slippery beneath Red’s hooves, even though wooden steps had been set into it with nails. It creaked and would have turned over, dumping him into the mud, if not for the wooden posts supporting it from below. Uneasily, he worked his way up a step at a time, consoling himself with the knowledge that even if he fell it would at least be into a nice, soft puddle.

Up top, the wall was an entirely different world from that below. Platforms and a walkway had been rigged along the perimeter, supported by timbers. Crude ramparts were hewn every few yards, little more than small gaps where the tip of a pale had been cut short. Unicorns patrolled between these, bows slung over their backs.

“Here,” said Scop, waving Red over. “Come look at this.”

Red took a moment to feel the wall beneath his hooves, appraising it as only an earth pony could. He concentrated, trying to feel the strength of the wall. It felt solid, actually exuding strength, as if it were capable of pushing him away as one lodestone did to another. He knew in his bones that it could withstand any assault. His hooves could feel each log in the mud; they had been sunk deep, deep enough that nothing could undermine them. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was even a hint of magic in them, perhaps some tapestry of spells woven into the ropes to slow the process of rot.

“Are you sure it only took a span--” the swordpony froze mid-sentence, noticing the long, slender poles jammed between the sharpened ramparts. They lined the wall, jutting up into the sky. Rotting mockeries of pennants hung from them, reeking of death.

Skulls. The Shetlanders had mounted deer skulls on the walls, facing outward. Many still wore their antlers, moldering strips of flesh peeled from their stained shells. One, spinning loose from its mountings, regarded the swordpony with a dripping rictus grin. His blood ran ice cold in its veins.

Scop reached up and tapped the skull with a hoof. “Knock knock, anypony home? No?” He turned and gave Red a reassuring smile. “Wouldn’t worry if I was yew. These ‘uns won’t be hurting a thing.”

Laughing, the storyteller made a playful swipe at the banners of rotting flesh.

With a pop, the lower jaw snapped off and clattered to the platform. Scop jumped, but Red only laughed, his momentary alarm forgotten. The storyteller just frowned and shot a reprimanding glare at the jawbone before kicking it into the mud below.

“That was entirely uncalled fer,” he grumbled, not bothering to disguise the fact that he had been startled.

Red stopped laughing. He got the distinct impression that the skull’s grin had only grown wider, now stretching from the foot of the wall to the top. The idea left him uneasy.

“Sh-sh-shouldn’t mess with those,” said an unfamiliar voice, strangely serene despite its stutter.

A yellow unicorn ambled up to the two stallions, his hooves clip-clopping on the walkway’s splintering slats. He was lightly armored, wearing little more than a padded jerkin and a deerskin cloak that was damp with melting sleet. His unassuming moss-green eyes matched his beard, which came to a point just below his chin.

“How goes the watch?” asked Scop, giving the unicorn a friendly nod.

The unicorn did not stutter this time. “It goes.”

He apparently wasn’t much for speaking. Instead he stopped at the parapet which the storyteller and the swordpony were occupying, pulling his iron half-helm down over his eyebrows. Red followed the thane’s gaze out over the wide clearing. A nightmarish battlefield greeted his eyes.

If it was dreary and grey inside the perimeter of the Broch, what lay beyond was nothing but bleak. The trees sat not far outside bowshot like a surrounding army, dark and brooding. Everything between them and the palisade was a chewed up no-pony’s-land, strewn with half-exposed stumps and torn up roots. Red’s keen eyes picked out bones scattered in the mud. This was a graveyard, filled with untold numbers of the dead.

How many assaults had this Broch weathered, he wondered? The feeling of firmness beneath his hooves intensified. He looked down, craning his neck out over the rampart.

Something vicious had savaged the face of the wall. Deep scars were gouged into the pales from the outside, their exteriors shredded to the point that many of the securing ropes simply hung in fraying tatters. Bark and twigs hung like flayed strips of flesh. No, not twigs. Those were arrows. Some were nearly as long as a pony’s leg, and a few of them still displayed the remnants of their fletchings. Most had snapped off long ago, leaving stumps embedded in the wall. They pincushioned the ramparts.

“See anythin’ out there?” asked Scop, redirecting Red’s attention back to the no-pony’s-land.

A mist issued from the forest to creep across the barren clearing, just thick enough to obscure the woods beyond. Red found himself straining his ears to hear over the noise of the Shetlanders and their anvils, desperate for any sign that something lurked beyond.

“Yew won’t s-s-s-see much,” said the yellow unicorn, sounding bored. “Not till they make their m-m-muh-muh...” He frowned, crossing his eyes to scowl at his own snout.

“Their move?” asked Red.

The thane shrugged, leaving it up to Scop to answer.

The wrinkled storyteller’s eyes stayed fixed on the treeline. “The Wrothkin won’t come ‘til the weather is at its worst,” he said, and for the first time there was no trace of humor in his voice. He turned to the swordpony. “And when they do come, it’ll take the most attentive eyes and ears to get the warning out in time.”

“What if they sneak up on us in the fog?” asked Red, including himself in the Broch’s measure without thinking.

Scop’s voice lowered to a breath, his bushy eyebrows sitting low on his face. He fixed the swordpony with a cold stare. “If they do then no god, above ground or below, will be able to save us.”

Red turned to the thane on his right, but the unicorn’s eyes were fixed on the treeline. The muscles in his jaw worked, chewing thoughtfully on the lining of his cheek. One forehoof balanced on the edge of the parapet, the other on the hilt of a battered sword slung low beneath his arrows. He appeared to be the picture of calmness, a grizzled veteran who had seen it all. But in those green eyes smoldered a grim pragmatism, a hidden fear.

The swordpony shivered, casting one last glance at the trees and the mist rolling in from the enshrouded hills beyond. The shape of the Broch’s problems was quickly becoming apparent to him. He could see why the Shetlanders behaved as they did.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked. “This doesn’t have anything to do with stories, does it?”

Scop put a hoof on his shoulder. “No,” he replied. His mustache curled into an almost-smile. “But yer stuck in here with us, and our problems’r yer problems. Yew needed to see. Now c’mon, let’s get back indoors.”

Red nodded, anxious to get away from the wall. He felt exposed, even with ramparts to hide behind. Still, the idea of walking back down the slippery ramp wasn’t at all appealing, especially with the sleet drifting in as it was.

“Is there another way down from here?” he asked.

“Weellll...” mused Scop, stroking his beard. His eyes flashed like a mischievous colt.

Without a trace of hesitation, the storyteller turned and leapt from the battlements, landing with surprising grace -- and a massive splash -- in the courtyard below. Red shook his head, marveling at the stallion’s agility. For a knobbly-kneed old codger, he was certainly spry.

The swordpony looked back at his injured flank.

“On second thought, I’ll take the stairs.”

“Suit yerself,” called Scop from below. His smug grin was all too visible, and all too yellow.

The ramp wobbled beneath Red’s hooves. He inched down, cursing the bandage on his hindquarters. Had it really been so high a climb?

“By Isos,” mocked the storyteller down below, his voice so distant it might have been shouted from the bottom of a canyon. “Yew look like somepony’s arthritic grandsire.”

“Har har,” was the reply. Red struggled to ignore the height. It wasn’t that every inch of him hurt. It was just that he didn’t want to fall, that was all. He wasn’t going to make excuses. Heights and earth ponies did not mix. The squelching ash-mud of the ground was a balm on his hooves.

The headed for the tower. Hammers rang in Red’s ears, and Scop launched into some story about aching joints. The swordpony did his best to ignore him, his thoughts drawn elsewhere by what he had seen on the wall and what had been said afterward.

How long would he be trapped here, he wondered? A month? A week? Had he doomed himself to stay here in the Broch until his dying day?

No. He pushed that poisonous thought from his mind. He had a quest, and that was to deliver the Dictum before winter could spring its trap. He would see it finished. Shetland would be a distant memory in a matter of weeks. That was a promise. Stopping, Red turned and searched for the fighting square between the forge fires. It took him a moment to find it in the chaos of the courtyard, with all its muddy ups and downs, cut through by clouds of greasy smoke.

In the end he spotted it by the sparkle of blood-red, the pommel of his sword.

Sure enough the thief was still there, directing thanes in their training. Hornwin wore the sword proudly, as if it were his own. Something about that rankled Red even more than the act of theft itself, lighting a fire that burned in the bottom of his belly.

He would have his sword back, too. That was his first goal. With it he could return to his saddlebags, find the Dictum, and continue his journey. If he had to steal it back in the dead of night and make his escape by darkness, then that’s just what he would do.

As if sensing Red’s stare boring into him from afar, Hornwin looked up and scanned the air. His eyes alighted on Red, cold, and full of an anger all their own. They were a grey so dark as to be nearly black, but in their depths he could see a pinpoint of ruby red, a reflection of the pommel at his side. Those eyes promised vengeance.

Despite himself, Red looked away. The old Red would never have looked away, he told himself. There was not a unicorn alive who could fight him and win. He had proven that years ago. And yet without his sword he was just another coward. He grimaced, furious with himself, but the fire in his belly had turned to ash.

He was afraid. It was not the wild fear he had felt in the woods, nor the careful fear he always felt before a fight. This was a quiet fear, strangled and sickly, like the fear of a nursemaid wringing her hooves. It filled his mouth with a rotten taste that he wanted to spit out, and he knew that all he had to do was look up, to return that vengeful stare.

Except he couldn’t. He was a bear robbed of its teeth. Without his sword he was nothing. He could never look an enemy in the eye with such an important part of himself gone. It was as if someone had stripped him of his cutie mark, of his entire life and purpose.

“Say, Red,” interrupted Scop standing beside him, jostling the swordpony’s shoulder. He had been talking, but Red had not been listening. “What kind of work did yew get up to growin’ up?”

“Huh?” he replied, the fear shoved into the back of his mind. “Why do you ask?”

“Arthritis,” Scop explained. “I hear tell you can cause it as a foal by wearing out yer joints too early. Yew were a farmer, right? Yew worked the land?”

A peasant, you mean. Indentured to the field. “Uh, yeah. Something like that.”

“Was the work hard?” Scop nudged the swordpony to get him walking again. It wasn’t far to the Broch’s oaken doors.

“Not really.” Red shrugged. “It could be hot sometimes, or it was cold, but it was never hard. I tried to get out of it every chance I got because it was boring.

“So what kind of play did yew get up to, eh?”

A slurry of sleet blew into Red’s face on a chill wind. It cut him to the bone, chilling his teeth and lungs. He shivered. His armor was damp and his legs bare save for the mud. “I don’t know,” he said. “Nothing, really. I didn’t play, I trained.”

“Hmm.” By Scop’s eyebrows, Red judged him to be perplexed. “What did the other fillies and colts get up to, then?”

“Kid’s stuff. They played on swings, played marbles, ate everberry pies... Maybe played chase, I don’t know. I guess I did play chase a few times, though I daresay it was more about proving myself than having fun. There wasn’t a lot to do where I grew up. Nothing that interested me, anyway.”

He looked ahead to the Broch’s threshold. The thick doors were built to withstand any weather, in addition to a Wrothkin assault. They were old and beaten, but hardly the worse for wear despite it. Old scars had gouged the wood and more than one arrowhead was lodged in its timbers. They weren’t tall, not by any measure, but they were heavy.

Scop, ever nimble on his hooves, got there first. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed, heaving it open on his own. They groaned, straining on their hinges set deep in the stone walls. Red wondered when they’d last been oiled.

“Brr-rrrrr-rr,” Scop shivered despite his layers of furs and rags. He slipped inside and shook himself free of sleet and mud. The wind howled in the gap, but neither slab of oak moved an inch. “Get inside, yew, ‘tis freezing out--” He cut off, cocking his head as if trying to see around the swordpony.

Red threw himself to the side.

As a colt, Red hadn’t swung on swings. He hadn’t played marbles, or eaten everberry pies. Instead, he’d trained. It had been a sacrifice, one that had cost him his childhood, but it had been made willingly. And he had something to show in exchange for that loss: reflexes.

THUNK!

The longsword parted the door’s timbers with far too little effort. He had sharpened that blade himself, and it showed its edge.

Idiot, he thought. He should have known Hornwin would try something now. He came up from the roll with his shoulder to the stone of the tower’s base. A trace of golden hair fluttered in the wind, spinning in the corner of his eye, before it was sucked through the open doors.

Bright luster-yellow magic flared around the hilt of Red’s sword, the same color as its gold filigree. The blade twisted in the door, shaving away splinters as it slid free. A shower of mud hit Red in the face when Hornwin slid to a stop nearby, eyes wild with rage. He must have started running as soon as the swordpony turned his back.

Those charcoal eyes no longer promised vengeance. Now they shone with the delivery of the act, tinged red with murder.

“Well,” breathed Hornwin.