Pride Goeth

by Zurock

Chapter 7: For the Hardest Victory

More and more the stones in the earth changed as the road went on. What had long been the natural bricks and endless droppings of clay which commonly littered such hills became, bit by bit, something different. They aged; they grew larger. Joining them came broken protrusions of rock which burst from the ground like insidious weeds of stone running rampant. The earth fortified itself, road and hill alike hardened, and the slow transformation began to strangle all signs of green: grass, flower, bush, tree. The foothills now were verdant with stone; the true roots of the Pearl Peaks. Yes, the old quarry wasn't far.

But as the lushness was traded away for coarse rocks, danger equally seeped into the air; at least to Prideheart's senses. 'An adventure,' his sprightly filly companion had called their outing, but that was only the disguise her presence had created; the deception he had allowed even himself to have temporarily believed. For every ounce of softness the world lost, a foreboding encroached further upon him, and the unhappy truth reasserted itself only more clearly: this was no jolly romp alongside an inspiring foal. This had started as a hunt, and he still now pursued an insidious monster to the forsaken source which had spawned it. All this way he had been on the trail of fire and darkness... and he, old stallion fool that he was, had duped himself into towing along a defenseless foal.

The dreadful corners of the deep journey closed menacingly in, choking off all escapes. If he were to have commanded her away then could she have made it back to Stony Nook safely on her own? She had astounding wit for her young age but also tremendously vulnerable inexperience. Would a lonely order to return have been no different than callous abandonment to the wild? It was so far a trek for a foal, and passage would last into the dark hours of Nightmare Moon's rise. Was the monster ahead truly the greater danger to her? Perhaps, as the filly herself had insisted, the heckhound had retained his weak form even after drying off. If so then any peril ahead may have been blunt enough to permit her company.

Please, make it so.

He couldn't release her to wilderness. He couldn't, physically. Not another foal. He would not survive that again.

"Quit the road here," Prideheart suddenly ordered.

Because a long period of desolate silence had been camping between the two ponies his sudden words surprised Bookworm.

"Huh? Okay, mister," she said, following him as he slowed down and veered off the long-worn path. "Why?"

"The quarry nears, yes?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then now we dress our approach with utmost caution," he instructed her.

"Oooh," the filly at last grasped the situation.

Fresh excitement fast paved over any weariness or worry in her, and she tried hard to control her bouncy energy so that she might be able to treat their fun circumstances with the same seriousness he now evoked. But it was a monumental, even impossible, task for her. She would move with gleeful quickness, charging along to the horn of her own enthusiasm, before she would catch her speedy errors and grind herself down to stealthy slowness. Yet her silent stalking was always overdone, owing to concentration so fiercely fixed on perfect movements. She would lag behind Prideheart and, so trailing, would have to race to catch up again. Thus the cycle repeated.

Her back-and-forth chase did nothing to diminish her thrill for the adventure though. She was the long tail of the dog wagging wildly behind the head. Her thin but sunny voice rambled the whole time.

"Quiet as we can now! Hoof flat, then down, right? Focus on your weight... one leg at a time... and always mind the cover. It's as much about not being seen as not being heard. Isn't that right, mister? We don't want that heckhound to even suspect that we might be here. Of course, he's not dangerous if his fire's still out, but this is more fun anyway!"

Leading her, Prideheart was able to keep his small smile hidden. He had to allow her bubbling to run free a few minutes more, even despite how easily it shattered the secrecy of her movements. Only after he had gotten his final taste of her joy did he bring out the parent in him and request her complete silence.

Their weaving path across the rocky terrain was a significant change of pace from the relatively smooth and straight climb along the road. Everything as far back as the forest had always had a casual tilt uphill, with the Pearl Peaks forever crawling closer in the distance. But the nearer they dared to the quarry the more rigid steepness the land gained; a shift which occurred belatedly but quickly. Things never became impassible but, between the extra strength required to make the climb and their new efforts to minimize their profiles, a cumbersome load had been placed on their progress. The last inches of the journey were to stretch the longest.

As they further penetrated the hilly depths the air became crisp with dust. The hard ground, and the endless stones dressing it, broadly radiated back in dry heat the warmth they had absorbed long-baking in the day's sun. Their bumpy surfaces spread the open sunlight about freely. The land burned without fire.

It made Prideheart feel vulnerable.

The regular road had stayed low and close to the river after their departure from it, and it had vanished from their immediate sight as they had wandered up and on. But the infinite gurgling of the river itself had never been far enough to fade. When a completely new sound finally rose above it and reached the ears of the stallion he snapped to a stop, giving Bookworm a hoarse command to do the same.

Faint, ongoing, but decidedly not far, the noise was born not at all from the chattering of the natural world. The ponies held and listened to the indiscernible rattling, rumbling, drumming, and chirping which, being so distantly near, blurred together into a droning soup. Nothing about it changed as they waited with attentive ears; it only rang on and on without pattern or crystal distinction.

In his mind Prideheart still felt pinned by a trap of his own making, unable to release the filly to the road back but dreadfully wary of his bothered suspicions for what lay ahead. He gave the order to continue onwards, but he slowed even more and made certain to always keep his little companion only a step behind.

In short time they reached a sudden ledge where the land dropped vertical before them. It was the first drop into the old quarry. However, before both ponies even dared to take so much as a peek over the edge they ducked behind a stationary boulder which rested there.

The sound they had followed hadn't abated at any point; it had only grown stronger with each approaching step. Now on the threshold of the quarry they could tell without mistake that the sound rose from within. Distinction chiseled out individual shapes from the wall of noise, giving it more diverse form and color, but the greater clarity also revealed that the cacophony wasn't the toilsome churning of a reopened quarry. They heard no sharp chipping of picks, or heavy grinding of stones, or loud crumbles of broken rocks. What climbed out of the quarry were growls, and endless scrappings which gnawed their way through dust, and angry tumbles like soft bodies being flung back and forth.

The stallion stood up on his hind legs, leaning his weight carefully onto the boulder so that he could twist his good eye around it. Bookworm did her best to wiggle under him and take a gander of her own. From their height on the top level the two intruders gained a view over the entire quarry.

The old quarry was hardly the vastest expanse. It was no inverted mountain hollowed from the earth, nor a gaping pit grand enough to have swallowed all of Canterlot. Instead it was a perfect fit for Stony Nook: quaint, country, remote, and just sizable enough to have served the small population of ponies who lived their free lives out on the frontier. Even in its heyday it had probably never hosted more than four or five dozen industrious ponies.

Terraced like many quarries, there were three drops and therefore a total of four levels. Each drop didn't fall tremendously far, but were far enough to be a nasty, painful, disabling spill for anypony careless enough to take blind steps. Through its many years the old quarry had yielded great volumes of fine stone, and it was at this point fairly well dug out. The lowest level was easily the largest in raw area, with each successive terrace up resembling mostly a thin outline of the basin's wobbly, curvy, but roughly circular shape.

The rising land surrounded the pit on all sides except the north. On that side the tall walls of the quarry opened up to the river. Water powered immediately by the site, surging southeast. But rather than giving the quarry a harsh slap as it passed, instead a gentler part of the river reached out and twisted up against the open side of the pit, and there it formed a tiny bay of sorts. The water of the alcove was restless but not nearly as hungry as the river itself, and that was by design. Years ago the ponies of Stony Nook had carved out that bay and built a dock there; one simple enough to host sturdy barges. In fact an abandoned flatboat was even now still moored there. Though the old quarry was distant from the town itself, it had been quite a boon to have been able to have floated its stone bounty straight down the river to Stony Nook.

Around the quarry were further signs of the labor which had once made the economy of Stony Nook sing. Scuttled piles of waste stone sat here and there about the place: overburdens, tailings, rejected rocks; from bits as small as pebbles to bulks peeled right off shattered rock faces. Wooden sheds still stood dispersed among the quarry's terraces. Their decaying signs were held in place by less than a full complement of nails, and they read out their former purposes with all the health of a sickly cough. On the far side from where the two ponies hid, a few rudimentary buildings also had remained standing through the years. Built with the same quality as the structures in Stony Nook, they were places where workers had once bunked, washed, and ate. Lastly there were several metal tracks inhabiting the quarry. All the separate lines were nearly straight shots which rolled from the higher levels down into the basin, stopping near the dock. Each track had somewhere on it a trolley which was now only a bin for spider webs; in the old days all that had been needed to ferry out good stone was a single strong push towards the dock.

Time alone hadn't done terribly much damage to the quarry. Were any quality stone still to be found there it almost seemed like it could have opened again.

Yet it was so busy, and the sight of the bustling activity was unsettling.

"Look at'em!" Bookworm gasped.

Two heckhounds, bright in colors which were burning and quite unsoaked, tussled with each other in an aggressive match near one side of the basin. Another heckhound laid on the ground and gnawed angrily upon a broken and overly-nibbled bone, envious of yet another heckhound who nearby was touting up the fact that he chewed on a bigger prize. Out in the open center of the pit were nine heckhounds who wandered intently up and down two conspicuously parallel lines of small stones and another bending line of specifically-placed rocks which curved around two sides of the strange setup. Even more heckhounds were to be found elsewhere in the quarry: some racing and some stalking, some sleeping and some sitting; most in the basin, some on the second level, a rare few on the third; and virtually all hissing, growling, or barking at their fellows in a noisy show.

"... A cringeworthy count...," Prideheart leaked out a dreadful breath. Pictures came back to his head: the ravenous devastation of the traveler's wagon; the waste site in the forest...

"... Eighteen... twenty-three...," the diligent Bookworm enumerated, "... twenty-six... Almost thirty, I think! It's a whole litter!"

"Cerberus has litters of this size?" the overwhelmed stallion questioned.

The little filly hardly seemed fazed by the frightfully dire situation, though she wasn't unserious. Proud that her knowledge could be of continued assistance she answered him, "Well, he's got three heads."

Prideheart tore his stare away from the quarry to counter her nonsense reply with a senseless stare of his own.

"Three times the kissies!" she helpfully spelled it out for him.

"... Indeed," he blinked before returning his eye and mind to the trouble before them.

Each heckhound in the small army seemed just as aggressive and hostile as the lone beast who had stormed into Stony Nook. They hardly even showed courtesy towards each other! Likewise all were at least as large and as brutishly dangerous as the first. And just the way in which they bided their time down in that pit... They were antsy; restless in bloodthirsty waiting...

"What grave misjudgments we have made...," Prideheart warned himself, dark in his voice.

Bookworm suddenly squeezed out an inch more, throwing her hoof down towards the basin.

"Mister, look! There he is, down there! The one from Stony Nook!"

Following her direction the stallion caught sight of the specific heckhound which they had been hunting all this way. The beast was still shrunken in size and dull in color, washed out despite the water which had defeated him having long since dried away. He also still shivered terribly as if he were drenched, suffering from a freezing cold without his inner fire to provide any furious heat. Unlike the other heckhounds who were busy with their meatheaded roughhousing he sat upright and at attention, or rather he did so as best as his shaky, frozen body could manage.

Before him paced a unique heckhound who stood out by how commanding and fearsome his presence was. This heckhound was larger than all the others in raw size, though he was also leaner and more trim. To a pony cowering before him he would have towered to twice their height. His searing eyes burned darker than the other hounds, a fire just a little bit more unforgiving and sinister. And all the boiling intensity of his gaze was fixed upon the beaten heckhound. In front of that miserable wretch the goliath strode back and forth, and whatever harshness the bigger dog was spitting out of his muzzle was accompanied by wisps of angry flame.

"Oh, and that one...," Bookworm pointed out the unique heckhound, "... that big one must be the leader! See his horns?"

Prideheart scrutinized the awful hound again, this time noticing the two horns that grew from his skull. Curved and thick, they twisted up and forwards like a bull's and whittled down to piercing points. Spears lodged in his head, trained upon whatever he chose to look at.

"See, he has those horns to show that he's the big dog," the filly continued, "and he doesn't let any of the other heckhounds grow their horns at all. If any of them were to ever break his horns then that'd show how much tougher they are and he'd have to step down."

"An alpha?" the stallion asked for confirmation.

"Yeah," she replied. Again she studied the huge heckhound and watched how he marched about in a fury. Jittering with some amount of glee she said, "I bet he's really laying into that poor heckhound that we beat. Taking away his dessert, or grounding him, or something. He's probably a real villain." Her own words snuck a grin onto her face and she pulsed with excitement. "Oh, this is just like Star Swirl's stories and everything!"

Prideheart shrunk down behind the boulder, and he snatched Bookworm's belly with a hoof, drawing her back with him.

"Calm yourself. We-... we are ill fit for this encounter. We withdraw. Come-"

"Oh, look!"

The filly slipped effortlessly from his grasp and pointed down into the quarry again, leaning out further than before.

Below, the alpha heckhound finished whatever business he had with his shriveled subordinate. He snorted into the beaten hound's face and then delivered a demeaning slap to the muzzle before he finally stood aside. The other heckhound, head slung down and tail hidden between his legs, hobbled away.

Bookworm followed him intently, stretching along the cliff edge as far as her neck could take her. She encouraged the older pony, "Now watch this, mister!"

To the far edge of the quarry basin the beaten and tired heckhound limped. Nestled up against a tight bend in the terrace cliff there sat a great crack in the ground. The earth was split wide apart by one thick and sharp cut, and the wound had many smaller splinters springing from it. Aside from some gnarled stones which jutted up from the edge it appeared that the ground had collapsed inwards. Yet out of the hole came gaunt strips of crimson light which were baleful and faint. From some unseen source under the world they splashed up like the rare sparks escaping a half-buried fire.

The exhausted heckhound crawled up to the edge of the crack and very carefully tread his paws in, climbing down whatever rocks served as the best path inside. There he vanished below the ghastly light.

"Aha! I knew it!" the filly rattled her elated hooves upon the earth, kicking pebbles down into the quarry. "That crack must eventually lead down to Tartarus! That's how they got out without having to go through the official gate and alerting Cerberus!"

The stallion's mind was so busy being invaded by unpleasant things that he wasn't sure he understood why the discovery was apparently significant. He again secured his grip on the young pony and tried to haul her back, but while he did so he idly asked, "And thus the quarry is their source?"

"Yeah, see? That soggy doggy just went down inside that hole in the ground cause he needs to get his fire back!" She finally allowed Prideheart to pull her away from the edge, and she turned to face him while still bearing such runaway, happy pride for how easily the facts came to her. "Only the fires of Tartarus can light him up again, and then he'll be back to being the snarling heckhound who attacked us. A heckhound can't work up their meanness without their fire."

Prideheart released her and glanced again at the break in the earth from which had poured all this trouble, and finally he understood.

"... This is their weakness."

"Yup!" beamed Bookworm. "If we can seal the crack then any heckhounds who get wet are washed out for good!"

"Hmm," his hum was thankful but grim. "Important news to carry back to Stony Nook."

"Back to-?" the little filly started to gasp with disappointment. But she recognized his point immediately, and her head folded down heavy like a book shutting too soon. "I guess we should...," she moaned.

He offered an approving nod, and then one final leer over her head at the threat which inhabited the quarry.

This danger was horrifyingly real. One heckhound alone had been vicious enough to have confidently attacked Stony Nook; thirty of them was a frightening force of disastrous potential. The ponies of the village may have had the laudable strength and will to have succeeded in driving one back, but they were still ordinary ponyfolk in the end. A true battle for their lives was a tall order; a task it would be unwise of them to face in any circumstance except for the utterest end of final desperation.

They had to be protected.

He had to protect them.

Him? Him, the old fool?

What use were his victories of the far past in this beaten present? What use were his songs and shining ideals against this? What use was his decrepit, tired, burnt body, hardly capable of scaling a mountain now? What use was a failure of a pony who hadn't stood and protected those innocents – the most innocent of innocents – who had so needed it?

The idiot pony who, after all his failures, hadn't learned and had now dragged a filly to the very threshold of ultimate danger; had carelessly brought such youth to a place where, again, he could wind up being responsible for another unforgivable tragedy? And for what reason had he been so slack in his greatest duty? Why? To have selfishly pleased his aching heart?

Worthless 'hero.'

All he could do was carry warning back to Stony Nook; warning timely enough that they might still have available good options to save themselves...

"Make ready," he quietly commanded. "Our long march back must be swift."

"You know," Bookworm spoke speculatively, straightening the knapsack about her neck to ensure it was ready for travel, "we should get my Dad."

Preoccupied, his watching eye still on the dire activity below, Prideheart was hardly able to conjure a mental picture of said stallion.

"Is that so?" he paid the filly little attention.

"Yeah. He could bury the crack like that. I mean, he's super good with earthmoving magic."

"... Magic?"

All of Prideheart's attention sprung in alert, though he at first showed none of it to his companion except for a dark glare from his mismatched eyes. Underneath his dragon-wound a fire spread, bubbling with painful anger.

Yet the unannounced change in him didn't evade the filly.

"Mister...?" Bookworm called.

At last he brought his face fully around to her, boiling without any noticeable simmer. When he touched his hoof to her shoulder, leaning into her, she could feel the intense heat flowing off of him. She saw swirls of sickly colors pulsing under his wound and the diseased light wedged inside his shattered horn. That putrid, beamless luminescence moved about chaotically inside of him, its storm visible behind the marred glass of his dead eye.

"Earth magic...," he growled.

A hind hoof beat itself once against the stony earth, landing with enough fury to chip the ground. Then he launched a detesting sideglance down into the quarry, pulling the filly's face with him. The burning dogs still roamed and busied themselves, hiding inside each of them an evil flame stoked in the underworld.

"Fire magic..."

Even the sun falling westward towards the mountain peaks seized his ire. He watched the odious orb drift for several sore moments, its sinking light such a reviled reminder of evil.

"What good ends does any magic arrive at? Huh? What end save ultimately harm?"

"I... don't know?" Bookworm spoke quietly back at him. It was so much easier to follow him when he lead the way by walking.

"It is a weakness," the unhappy word squeezed through the gaps of his clenched teeth, carrying flecks of spit with it. His face swarmed around the filly's, laying siege to her. "It is a weakness as much as any fissure in the earth is to creatures who need passage to wicked fires." As he pressed in on her his cloak shuffled and rolled, the hood swinging about loosely. His hoof snatched it and he stood up stiff. "Never solve with magic what should be solved with one's own strength!"

Turning again towards the ledge and the quarry below he threw the hood up over his head.

"Strength alone is the answer that endures!" the stranger hissed.

Careful to still keep most of his body hidden he snaked his nose around the boulder and scanned the whole quarry once more, thoroughly. His filly companion, not quite in tune with his rash change in judgment, crept closer to the cliff edge as well. She did her absolute best to follow his jumping, sweeping gaze in the hope of cluing herself in to his thoughts.

But she never gleamed anything from his wordless search. The empty moments passed by sourly until he finished and, snorting, he finally shared his mind.

"There...," he said.

His hoof drew a short line over the scene which Bookworm eagerly followed. It began at the crack to Tartarus, climbed up the rock wall behind it, and stopped on a large and messy heap of rejected stones sitting just above. The weight of the heavy mound kept it at rest, safe from spilling despite how precariously close to the edge it was.

"... an avalanche awaits..."

The stranger shot his hoof aside, guiding it along the thin track which made the second level until it came to one of the dusty storage sheds. He tapped the air, highlighting specifically a sign that still hung on the building, bright enough to be seen at that distance. The painted triangle had plenty of red and yellow stripes entwined in warning, and it prominently featured a shape bursting in silhouette.

"... and the trigger," he heaved in an unpronounced snarl, deadly serious as any vow pledged in reckless vengeance. "This threat I will end now."

The filly took her eyes back and retraced the cloaked pony's plan again, from the fissure to the rubble to the explosives shed, and she lit up in understanding once she had reviewed everything.

"Oh! You're going to use a blasting charge to bury it! Good thinking, mister!" All the energy of a puppy pooled into her, accompanied by the bouncing of the springiest goat. She gushed, "Yeah, that'll definitely work! And I know how to use those charges, too! Mister, if we get one of them then I can-"

Reality cut deep enough into the stranger that he flinched, and the jolt rustled his hood such that it slid back and revealed a sliver of his face.

"No!"

Around her he hooked a leg and he dragged her fully behind the boulder with him. She wheeled herself around and faced him only to find his commanding hoof buried into her chest.

"This task I will handle unaided. There is no safe part for you."

"Mister!" Bookworm exploded with her young, anxious anguish, coming on hardly any different than in the daily struggles against her father. "Crumble Pie really did teach me how to use the charges right! I can do it! I can! Just let-"

The stallion pulled her even closer and pressed his pointed hoof up into her chin to seal her mouth, trying to control her outburst.

But she moved to swat him away, still protesting.

"Mister, I can be a hero too! An ordinary pony hero, just like you said!"

"Now is not your time for that!"

If only he had somewhere safe to put her away! Somewhere she might be removed from harm while he alone shouldered the danger until the work was finished... or he was. Even-... even if such an action was solely to placate himself with the knowledge that he would have to be burned first before she was at risk... But there was no place of safety out here where he had stupidly dragged her.

In still trying to render her silent he pulled her about in struggle, and it was then that he spied the rocky hill they had first ascended and arrived from. Looking back, the earth rolled away from them and so provided a vista over the landscape: the retreating hills, the forest many miles back, and somewhere beyond was Stony Nook.

"There-... there is a useful task which... I have need of you to do," he forced himself to speak through the tangled webs of his many regrets. His gaze never left the long return road through the wilderness; never ceased dreading the lonely path back.

"What is it?" the filly nearly sniffled.

He hesitated badly, and even when he finally opened his mouth he dawdled, as if he could stuff so many words into what he said that it might keep his inevitable suggestion pushed away. He hated every single thought of it. He hated himself for thinking it. For saying it. He hated; hated with his most sorrowful hate.

"... As your wisdom well knows, these beasts threaten still even after the fissure is sealed. Stony Nook will not yet be safe until their fires are quenched. So-... so as I act here to close them off from Tartarus, you-... you-... you-..."

Idiot. Fool. 'Hero.'

"... you must yourself bear news of this place back to Stony Nook. I... desert you here. Navigate your own road back home, and apprise them of this danger. This-... this is your task."

Only for a moment did she peek at the hill passage back. She then threw her face at the boulder, for a longer time looking through the solid rock and perceiving all the heckhounds whose nasty business she could still hear below. Worry flooded into her.

"And leave you alone?" she pleaded to him.

"... Yes." The stranger swallowed hard, ashamed at how she was nobler than him. "Waste no time. Slip away now."

"But mister-"

Yet whatever wise objections he wished she would have voiced he could not have allowed. No matter how unhappy and uncertain he felt at this outcome, no matter how utterly he had to gut himself in order to believe in her safety down such a long road alone, no matter how much past agony drove itself through his ribs and into his heart again and again and again... he thrust his miserable will upon her. It was less evil, if only barely, to repeat this wretched mistake than to bring about a worse one.

"No!" he countered her, "We each serve our own part, and your task now is to endure a lonesome return!" Not significantly overcoming the hollowest of his wishes he attempted his best effort at encouragement, telling her, "This tough road is not outside your power to traverse, even through the dark of night which will overtake you. Focus, move with haste, veer not off the road except if you fear you are followed, and do not stop. I need you to-... Your home needs you."

But again she squirmed with reluctance, and deeper still with sadness.

"Mister..."

"Make good your promise to me: follow my order," he reminded the filly, but rather than stand before her with tall authority his face and body instead had fallen almost prostrate in begging. To hide, he turned himself about and again peeked out at the quarry, only in pretense. Unfocused on sight or sound in front, he concerned himself only with listening behind and with pulling forward his loose hood. "Now go."

Behind him disconsolate clops finally started to retreat backwards, but they came like a change of seasons, taking weeks. The stranger, with an ancient movement of his own, cut a glance over his turned shoulder and past the lining of his hood. Bookworm was indeed crawling away one sad step at a time. But she walked backwards, never turning a misty eye away from him, and she was saved from blind stumbles only by her enormous slowness.

It was enough.

Please let it be enough.

He gave his eye to the quarry one more time, storing a map with marked targets in his mind, and then he dashed out from behind the boulder.

Fast, mashing soft hooves against hard stone, he crept silent around the quarry's edge. He also pushed himself wide, fading from the cliffside. The distance his path took from the lip was more than great enough to block his cloaked image from being sighted by any wary heckhounds below, yet he still bothered to sneak from cover to cover, slipping behind rocks and between shadows, traveling low. Every drop of concentration he spent on the mission spared him from himself, and he chose not to glance back even a single time.

When he reached his best estimate he stopped and approached the ledge once more. As there was no boulder for cover there he threw himself onto the ground a crawled up to the edge, peeking his hooded head over.

He was close enough to where he had intended. Though the shed storing the blasting charges was his first target it was two levels down from his current position, so he had to have a concealed place to descend first. Unfortunately none of the ramps plowed into the quarry's terraces offered suitable cover for a convert entry. That was why he had come here: just below him was another wide wooden shed. The slim space between shed and cliff was ideal for cover.

Down in the basin the stallion observed that the heckhounds remained a rowdy company. No two of them could seem to get along in any amount of amiable camaraderie. Their wrestling was not some form of fun-filled play or sparring for practice, and nor was it even fair or sportsponylike in the least. They delighted in interfering with each others' matches, and victories no matter how unethical won them the right to claim prizes from the losers; usually the best specimen from their lot of bones. Not that the treasures changing paws mattered much in the long run: the faithless monsters weren't above stealing from each other either.

The closest feeling to respect which they knew of was fear; something they all showed towards the leader of their pack. The alpha heckhound stalked the pit, his mere presence disrupting any activity he passed close to. Hounds paused mid-claw and mid-bite just to tremble in anticipation of any harsh growls he might have flung at them, and he was rather liberal and reckless with who he did choose to heave fire at. The old quarry now lived once again, but the new forepony in charge favored the cracking of whips to the cracking of stone.

To the best of the stranger's surveillance there were no dedicated patrols who walked about. Here and there a heckhound wandered away from the group and around wider portions of the quarry, probably to temporarily escape the coarse company of their fellows, but they weren't guards enough to build a secure fence. They would only catch an intruder by incidental, misfortunate glances.

Seizing the moment the cloaked pony fast secured his forehooves onto the ledge and swung his bottom half around and off. His hind hooves landed softly on the rock face and slid, scraping down until they finally caught a grip. Yet their hold was icy, and when he tested giving more of his balance to them they slipped. All his weight fell upon his unprepared front legs still latched onto the ledge top, and instantly the heavy strain of catching himself surged through them, stretching his bones.

He held, but he had to swallow a hurt groan and grit his teeth. Quick and light he kicked his lower hooves in a silent attempt to find a fresh hoofhold, to no avail. Any strikes failed to cling, slipping off before he could relieve an ounce weight from his poor forelimbs. Moment after moment of continuing failure found the stress on his forehooves pinching ever tighter, and his grip started to unwind. Recognizing he had no more chance for a slower descent he gave up on fixing his hold and instead let his body hang as low as it could go. Tensing every muscle in preparation, he sucked in a breath and then unlocked his forehooves.

The ground hammered his hind legs, and as he crashed he twisted to his side in the hope of using his other legs to spread the blow. But his first forehoof to come down missed its mark and folded inwards, smashing his knee forcefully against the carved earth. The stunning pain caused the stallion to nearly flop over, his body shocked stiff as gravity pulled on his uncentered weight. Yet his blunted strength mustered just enough resistance to halt him from crumbling, rolling his body against the direction of his potential fall.

His lips locked tight, a vault within which any audible agony was banished. It was worse than just a fresh sting; the hits to his legs and knee called out to sharp memories of pain. Echoes of his many tumbles suffered during his navigation of the Pearl Peaks only days ago resounded in his tired and sore muscles. His nerves screamed at him for having repeated the same falls that had torn up his body once already; for having only secured meager, unfulfilling rest after that impossible trek; for having now allowed wounds to be inflicted on top of unhealed wounds. But he still didn't permit a whisper of his pain to escape to the air.

He hefted himself up and shot out his legs, forcing himself to stand despite the twisting daggers it buried deeper into his bones, and he hobbled up against the wall of the shed he had landed behind. Sliding to one edge of the structure he tipped his good eye out.

From his lower position he had no view of the whole quarry, but of what he could see there were no signs of investigating enemies. The pit below produced no unusual or different noises; only yips and thuds and snaps of the same heckhound horseplay.

Turning, the stranger moved to the other side of the shed and peeked from there as well. Nothing.

Since for the moment the coast was clear he loosened the bite on his lip and pressed out a quiet moan of pain, shifting his weight about and bending his legs to find whatever tiny comforts he could. Yet how dare he spare time for recovery! The limits of the body could not impede the power of the soul! He needed to show Stony Nook why they should have no want of magic. He needed to show them what a spirited pony could do with only themselves. What they could do despite their old... worn down... failing body.

Again his eye looked out from his cover, this time to inspect his path ahead. Mounds of discarded stone, small and large, littered the area; useful for stealthy navigation. And he only needed to reach the trolley tracks; they lead right over the edge and descended down to the next level. It was a better place for him to climb down, as the trestles supporting the inclined track were dense and concealing. Further, the landing wasn't far from the explosives shed.

A little more the stranger stretched his neck out, and seeing no hostile eyes he bolted. Swift, though limping, he maneuvered through whatever cover he could while trying to keep back from the visible edge of the terrace, and without noticeable trouble he reached the tall, broad wooden stop which marked the end of the tracks on the third level. He passed behind it, lowered himself to the ground once more (the stretching of his legs again flaring his pain,) and crawled alongside the wrought iron tracks until he reached the ledge.

Still the heckhounds busied themselves in the same unfriendly way, unaware of any schemes going on about the quarry. The alpha had joined with the biggest group them, collected together at the odd arrangement of stones on the basin floor. He was in a fever, stomping down the line between the two parallel rows of stone, snorting and snarling instructions or information of some sort at his cohorts. Every now and again he'd flick his horns at one of them specifically and growl, drawing cowardly and deferential flinches from each dog.

At one point the alpha heckhound make a swift vault over the northern row of stones and came to the line of rocks which curved around the model setup. He very furiously barked something about it, then snarled some more while launching his horns towards the crack to Tartarus just a short jaunt away. One of the other heckhounds, ears down and tail curled, came forward and raised some sort a question. But in answer he received only claws raked across the side of his muzzle.

Strenuously unhappy, the alpha heckhound let loose a bellow which brought the fights in the pit to a halt. His howling command seemed to summon almost all of the beasts, and they lugged their unlucky selves over to their master under the leery watch of the few remaining heckhounds who knew enough to sit back and stay silent. The alpha meanwhile stood himself tall, casting his head high to scan the whole quarry and ensure that all were coming who should have.

At this the stranger faded from the edge, surrendering some very long moments to hiding back before he pulled himself forward and stole another glance.

Nothing.

The alpha continued to fume and lecture at his heckhounds both old and new while he stormed about the stones and otherwise showed no awareness of intrusion. His pack of scantly loyal monsters had no choice but to abide him and suffer listening.

It was the opening the stranger needed. Still burying every sign of pain he stepped out onto the inclined track and swiftly lowered himself off the side, safely out of view of the heckhounds in the pit. He scaled down the woodwork trestle as best as his banged-up legs were able, and ultimately he arrived softly on the second level floor with no extra damage; only his existing pains had been aggravated by his haste.

There was little leftover waste rock to use as cover there so he instead stuck close to the inside wall of the quarry as he snuck along. Fortunately the target shed was not far from the tracks he had lowered himself from, and after only a minute's quiet traversal he was there.

He threw himself against the side wall of the building, too eager to jump across the vulnerable gap from quarry wall to shed where he might have been spotted, and the careless blow rattled the unexpectedly loose wood. The whole wall wobbled and flexed with a wave centered on where he had struck, babbling as it bended. Much more cautiously the stranger leveled his full body against it, hoping to absorb the shock and calm the agitated wood, and meanwhile he leveled upon himself only unspoken curses.

Yet the clacking of the pulsing wall didn't sound terribly loud to his hooded ears and it fast eased into a simmer; almost perhaps too quickly. He brought his bulk off of it and soothed it the rest of the way with only a single tender hoof, scrutinizing it closely. Rot was very evident – unsurprising for something abandoned – but the whole section of wall he had struck in particular seemed on the verge of breaking. Weakness infected it, robbing it of the stiff sturdiness that might have otherwise turned the accidental rattle into a wooden earthquake.

With the wall settled the stranger crept up to the front corner of the shed. Looking out he saw no signs that his mistake had been caught and, lower in elevation once again, he only vaguely now could make out some of the heckhounds below. They were still in assembly. He peeked further to verify that no guards or wanderers could be found nearby on his level and then he wasted no time. He ducked out and crawled to the shed door.

Security obviously hadn't been a pressing concern during the quarry's glory days: there was no space for a strong lock, and the swinging door was barred only by a heavy wood bolt that sat free in its hooks. The stranger lifted the obstruction out silently and then turned his back to the door in order to keep a lookout while he entered. One tiny push with his rear brought the door a crack open and then he reversed into the gap slowly, barely stretching the opening as he slipped backwards inside. Once in he immediately creaked the door shut again and set the bolt down on the ground behind it; a measure to prevent any revealing drift.

He sighed a breath loaded with as many poor measures of empty content as he could muster. Only half the task was complete. He still had to sneak a charge into position and bury the crack down to Tartarus under an avalanche of rubble. After that... well... after that was of no immediate concern.

He pivoted about on the less achy of his forelimbs, turning to see what his hard approach had earned him.

Dim light flooded up from under the walls of the shed, the boards' longest splinters only licking the ground. The leaking sunlight washed clean across the dirt floor; one big, wide, shallow, unobstructed puddle of warm gold pooling at the bottom of a font. Each stray beam which came up from it was a spotlight for one of the endless particles of dust that danced gingerly through the enclosed space, and the troupe's united performance was unhindered by any obstruction thin or thick. Their whole stage laid free of setting or scenery. No box, no crate, no tin, no bag; nothing at all save the rusty pegs jutting unburdened from the walls and the shelves lined with corpulent layers of dust.

The shed was barren.

Of course.

Of course.

It was an abandoned quarry. Why have left behind any still useful charges? Why had he ever thought he would have found any here?

Idiot.

Mistaken idiot.

These are the simple, common errors that destroy the works of singular 'saviors,' as he should have well known. A selfish reliance on one, paying the costs unto others...

In the under-glow of that dark little prison the stranger stood motionless in long, cursed silence. The air was musty from too few permitted breaths of freshness allowed in over the years, the outer world having been some time ago locked behind an unlocked door, and the stale starvation saturating each inch of that place's hampered atmosphere bit at the wounds on his face. It oppressively shoved a thick hoof down his throat. He was suffocating, but the empty gagging could never kill him of course; it was only air. The eternal pain of his dragon-wound prickled and popped again and again and again, piercing hot as it ever was, and each suffering sensation from it he experienced so loudly—so incredibly tortuously!—in the distractionless face of his small, confined, sealed, gloomy, quiet, empty, meaningless, unlocked cage.

And moment after moment, time upon time, he simply stood there in it.

Eventually his bitter sarcasm awoke to berate him. Perhaps if he stood there long enough an explosive charge would materialize from the dirt? Maybe he was waiting for one of the shelves, dangling on its last decayed legs, to suddenly fall in this perfect moment and drop the sole forgotten charge? The successive stabs of bitterness only sharpened, every thought whetting the blade, yet equally the protective sarcasm which served to lighten the thrusts withered away.

Maybe he was trash who failed everypony time and again because he chose to be cowardly and idle when his mistakes left him with only impossible actions to pursue; after all, the only time he had actually ever saved anypony – and not disgustingly and monstrously abandoned them to brutally undeserved fates – was when he had stepped up to the confront the impossible; when far, far back in Canterlot his better self had done right to resist a dragon at any cost; at every cost.

Do something, fool!

He breathed, coughing up a block of dust. He had to find a way to trigger an avalanche without an explosive.

Quickly he began to wander the small room, using little steps that still found him limping from his earlier fall. He took stock. There was nothing of any use, except for perhaps the wood of the shed itself which he might utilize as a lever. It was a poor hope with his failing strength, yes, but just maybe he could slink over there and find the right rocks to loosen for such an effect. At the very least he had to try, even to such an end as burning fangs being buried into his body.

His good eye halted suddenly, the search interrupted by movement below. Shadows danced in the pool of light which flooded the floor. The lines of darkness were many, rolling along like a marching column of soldiers. They passing from the back of the shed... towards the front. Accompanying them was the matching sounds of claws patting dirt.

The stranger turned about and held stiff in his legs as a scrap ran along the shed door.

A soft press made the wood tremble, and then with simple ease a stronger push came. The wooden bolt he had left on the ground skittered and kicked about as it was helpless to block the creaking sweep of the door. Smoothly it swung inwards, opened near its hinge by the push of a powerful paw. Red light saturated the small room as the sun slipped its rays through the fiery fur of the three glowing shadows which occupied the doorway.

At the center of them was the alpha heckhound, his horns lowered and ready. But once he saw the shed's lone occupant his head raised, and the dark features his face slithered away in favor of an expression that was far more pleasantly menacing. His demon eyes cooled their flames in deceptive invitation to draw closer to the fire, and the blades of his big grin were as polished and professional as any polite executioner.

"Hello," he said, in a formal voice baked smooth and deep.