Act I: Into the Woods
At the mention of the name, of this “Lily,” the crowd began to mumble. The stallion who’d uttered it shrank in on himself, his face crumpled with grief. Even the elder winced, though his ancient, parchment visage seemed incapable of any expression other than decrepitude. Pyrite’s eyes flashed with something that might have been anger, but just as quickly she schooled her face back to its normal, expressionless frown. Vermilion had seen statues with more emotion.
The major took her time before responding. “Lily was your daughter, I assume?”
Pyrite answered for him. “This is Briarpatch, our miller. After the first snowfall his daughter, Tigerlily, went into the forest to gather frostspores, as our foals have for generations. We never thought to stop them this year.”
“Even with all that had happened?” Electrum asked.
“We are not afraid of phantoms, lord,” Pyrite said. “We could not let ghosts keep us from our own holdings. Such cowardice would be the death of this town.”
And there it was. The old earth pony mindset. Vermilion ground his teeth to keep from snapping at her.
“Did you…” Quicklime paused. “Er, I mean, did you take any precautions?”
“Of course we did. The foals traveled in pairs,” Pyrite said. “That was how we found out. Tigerlily’s cousin, Honeysuckle, ran home and told of a black monster that attacked them and carried Lily away. We searched the woods until nightfall, and again at first light. We found no sign of her, but that evening the monster attacked one of our search parties. They tried to fight it, but to no avail. We are farmers, not warriors.”
“And it was a spider, I assume?”
“Yes, larger than the biggest stallion in our village. Strong as an ox, they said, and it moved so fast. Like lightning.”
“It could have killed us all. We could not harm it,” Briarpatch said. He spoke softly, gazing at something only he could see. “We have no swords or spears. No magic.”
“We’ve rarely ventured into the forest since that day,” Pyrite said. “And then, only in large groups. We see the spiders sometimes, lurking at the edges of our vision, or sometimes scuttling through the webs. As long as enough of us are together, they don’t attack.”
The major nodded as they spoke. “I understand, and I believe you have done as much as you could, given the circumstances. At first light tomorrow my company will begin patrols, and we will eradicate these monsters. I give you my word that we will not rest until this town is secure.”
The atmosphere in the room rose with her words. The gathered crowd, which had stood in stony silence while Briarpatch and Pyrite spoke of Lily’s death, began to whisper amongst themselves. Vermilion saw a few tentative smiles appear on their faces.
Elder Pembrook was not so pleased. He frowned and whispered in Pyrite’s ear.
“The elder thanks you for your pledge,” she said. “But he worries that you have not yet encountered these beasts. How can you be so certain of your chances against them?”
“Ah, that is reasonable,” the major said. “Forgive me, I have not introduced the rest of my ponies. You know Electrum and I—” she inclined her head toward the captain, “And this young mare is Quicklime, a special agent with our intelligence service. She is an expert on monsters of all types, and of giant spiders in particular. She knows more about them than any pony alive.”
Quicklime flushed at the praise, but rather than shy from it she seemed to grow in stature, lifting her head high, ears erect. She gave the elder a tiny nod.
“And, more pertinent to your fears, this is Private Vermilion,” the major said. She reached out with a wingtip to touch his shoulder as she spoke. “He has fought and slain one of the monsters, and as you can see, he is no worse the wear for it.”
The crowd’s attention shifted instantly to Vermilion. Their faces reflected a mix of surprise, awe and skepticism. The muttering doubled and redoubled, building to a chatter that quickly filled the hall.
“Him?” Pyrite said. She stepped toward him, and it was all Vermilion could do not to shrink away. The mare was several inches taller and at least a stone heavier than him. “This… It must not have been a very large spider.”
“It was big enough,” Canopy said.
Vermilion tilted his head up at her words. Pyrite was close enough that their muzzles nearly touched, and he could smell the sweat in her coat and the scent of hay on her breath. She stared into his eyes for a moment, searching for something, then snorted and stepped back to the elder.
“We are grateful to have such experienced warriors come to our aid,” Pyrite said. The sing-song lilt of her voice carried a faint hint of mockery, or perhaps he was just hearing things. Her expression was neutral enough. “All of our resources are at your disposal. Anything your company requires, we will find or craft or grow.
“Excellent,” Canopy said. “We can start by talking about this map…”
* * *
It was dark when the major finally let him and Quicklime escape the town hall. The crowd had dwindled throughout the afternoon as most of the townsponies got over the novelty of seeing Equestrian soldiers, and discussion shifted from monstrous spiders to more mundane details like weather, feeding schedules, and quarters. The logistics of war. Truthfully, Vermilion would rather have stayed for that part – as part of the company’s earth pony corps, logistics was his specialty. He knew how to swing a sword, yes, but his real contribution was hauling supplies, planning meals, and providing whatever support the pegasi and unicorns – the real warriors – needed to do the fighting.
That was the natural order of things, and the sooner they got back to it, the better. He’d be happy if he never pulled that damn saber out again.
The company’s wagons were parked in neat rows in the center of town. A few earth ponies stood among them, pounding poles into the muddy ground and hanging lanterns from them. None of the tents were out, though; it seemed the town was making good on its promise to quarter them in actual houses. That was a nice change.
A russet mare pointed him and Quicklime toward a small cottage on the edge of town. Warm light spilled out from the windows, and when they drew closer Vermilion heard Cloud Fire’s distinctive laugh inside. He pushed the door open slowly.
“Hey, there he is!” Cloud Fire pulled Vermilion through the cottage door before it had finished opening. “Cherry, meet our hosts!”
The cottage was… cozy. Smaller on the inside than the out. Most of the ground floor was occupied by the kitchen, itself dominated by a massive hearth filled with a fire and a boiling kettle. Clean straw covered the floor except around the fire, where a stray spark might have set it alight. Drying herbs hung in bundles from the ceiling and in jars along the walls, giving the room a powerful aromatic buzz that shocked his nose. A small sitting area, opposite the fireplace, held a sturdy, scarred oak table and a few fraying, rag-stuffed cushions for seats. Narrow stairs in the back led upward to darkness.
It was also crowded. In addition to Cloud Fire, Zephyr, and now him and Quicklime, the cottage’s owners were home. A charcoal mare on the edge of sunny side of middle-age stood in the kitchen, hacking rhythmically away at some sort of tendril-covered tuber with a cleaver. A mud-brown stallion waited by her side, watching the pegasi with a wary eye while occasionally handing his wife new vegetables for chopping. And foals! Foals everywhere – riding on the pegasi, poking at the fire with sticks, hiding under the table, racing up and down the stairs, and now attempting to climb up his legs to his back as well. One older filly who looked to be about ten was trying to corral her younger siblings and not having much luck. If all these belonged to the mare in the kitchen, her womb deserved a medal.
Cloudy dragged him across the cottage to the kitchen, trailing Quicklime and a small crowd of fillies and colts who stared at her horn like it was a Celestia-begat miracle.
“Okay.” He stopped just outside of cleaver range and gestured at the couple. “Cherry, this is Cinnabar and his wife Chalcedony. His other wife is still in the fields, but she should be back soon. Sir, this is Cherry, the pony I was telling you about.”
His other wife? Celestia, it was one of those towns. The nascent humiliation he’d felt over being an earth pony ever since arriving in the village came roaring back, so bright and overwhelming he felt briefly nauseous.
“This?” The mare’s accent stretched the word nearly into incomprehension: theees? “This pony kill spider?”
“Well, uh.” He suddenly felt incredibly hot, and it wasn’t just from the fireplace. “I had some help. Zephyr helped. Didn’t you, Zephyr?”
She grinned. “Oh, barely. It was all you, Cherry.”
“Amazing!” Chalcedony slammed the cleaver into the chopping block a final time, embedding the blade a full inch into the wood. “In our house! Daffodil will be so jealous! And look, look!” Here she gestured at Quicklime, who took a hurried step back. “Look, Cinnabar! We have lady for guest as well!”
Cinnabar still hadn’t spoken. His gaze lingered briefly on Vermilion, sized him up, then promptly slid over to Quicklime. His eyes widened at the sight of her horn, and he shuffled his hooves before dropping into a shallow bow.
“My lady, welcome to our home,” he said. “Please forgive our humble lodgings.”
“Oh, wow, um.” Quicklime fidgeted. “No, thank you for having me. Thank you. You. And, um, you can stop that. Please stop bowing.”
“Isn’t this great?” Cloud Fire asked. He hadn’t stopped smiling since Chery’s arrival. “No tents tonight, ha! And a warm meal, too!”
“You always get a warm meal,” Vermilion said. “I cook it.”
Cloudy waved a hoof. “Yeah, whatever. Luna’s teats, try to look on the bright side of things. We get beds tonight!”
“No, we don’t,” Zephyr said. She pointed at Quicklime. “She does. The rest of us get the floor.”
Quicklime’s ears perked up. “They have an extra bed?”
“No, our hosts are giving you theirs. They’ll sleep on the floor with us.”
“Oh. Oh!” Quicklime grimaced. She glanced at the couple, who were back to preparing the meal, and lowered her voice to a hiss. “You can’t let them do that. I can’t kick them out of their own bed!”
“You have to,” Vermilion said. “It’s an honor for them to let you have it. They’ll be offended if you refuse.”
“But, but…” She whined. “Seriously?”
“Yes, trust me. Just be glad they aren’t kicking the foals outside to make more room for us.” He paused and frowned. “They aren’t tossing the foals out, are they, Cloudy?”
He shrugged. “Not that they’ve told me.”
“Okay, let’s try to keep it that way.” Vermilion looked down at the sea of foals swarming around them. Both pegasi had foals riding on their backs and playing with their wings, though neither seemed to mind. Only Quicklime was untouched – the foals refused to come within a body length of her, and whenever she reached toward one they shied away.
Dinner was a crowded affair. Cinnabar’s other wife, a youngish cream mare who walked with a slight limp, returned just before they set out the food, which turned out to be huge bowls of leek and mushroom stew seasoned with lemongrass. They each got a half a loaf of rich, dark bread made from some half-wild grain that imparted an exotic, nutty taste, and dripping with goat butter so thick and fatty it overwhelmed all his senses.
There was absolutely not enough space at the table – the four of them squeezed into two sides, while Cinnabar and his wives (who probably outweighed their entire team put together) filled the rest. Pine Nut, the family’s eldest filly, sat just behind her parents. The rest of the foals packed onto every solid surface and watched their guests intently while they ate.
They got quite the show. They squealed and laughed as the pegasi tore into their food, and even the three adults couldn’t help but stare. Neither pegasus noticed – they were, of course, far too occupied with their food.
But that was nothing compared with Quicklime. The moment she lifted the spoon with her magic, the room fell into shocked silence, broken only by the ravenous devouring of the pegasi. Wide eyes reflected the lanterns’ light.
Quicklime froze with spoon halfway to her mouth. “Um…”
“It’s fine,” Vermilion mumbled. “Just act natural. They’ll get used to it.”
But they didn’t. Eventually Quicklime gave up and used her spoon the earth pony way, and attention shifted back to the pegasi, who didn’t use spoons at all. They just shoved their muzzles into the bowl and inhaled.
“Don’t mind them,” he said to their hosts. “That’s, uh, how they show that they really enjoy their food.”
“Oh.” Butterscotch, the younger wife, glanced down at her bowl. “Ah, should we get them some more?”
“I’m sure they’d love that, yes.”
* * *
Quicklime didn’t just get their host’s bed; she got the entire second floor. To be fair, it was only a small bedroom with little space aside from the bed and a few rough chests, but it was kept cozy warm by a miniature pot-belly stove in the corner. After one last futile protest, followed by profuse thanks, Quicklime insisted that, at the very least, the rest of her team be allowed to sleep on the floor around her.
That turned out to be fine. When Cinnabar and his wives vanished down the stairs to sleep with the foals, Quicklime sagged with relief.
“Thank Celestia,” she whispered. “Okay, this bed’s pretty big. Do you three want up here?”
They did, and it turned out that two pegasi, a unicorn and an earth pony could fit in a bed designed for three earth ponies. It was crowded and they were jammed up against each other, but the soft pleasantness of a real mattress, even one filled with straw and smelling of unfamiliar ponies, was an unexpectedly delightful way to end their weeks-long march to the edge of the known world.
Finally, after they settled in and adapted to each other, shifting positions until limbs and rumps and muzzles and hooves all fit together like a reasonably well-constructed pony jigsaw puzzle, Vermilion closed his eyes and prepared for sleep.
“Hey, Cherry,” Cloud Fire whispered. “That thing with two wives. Is that common?”
Celestia help me. “I don’t know, Cloudy. How many wives do you have?”
A hoof poked into his back. “You know what I mean. Do earth pony families do that?”
He sighed. “Not in Everfree, or around it. In my village nopony does it anymore. Out toward the borders… it does happen. Pretty much every mare is going to get married, and if there aren’t enough stallions, she just finds a mare who doesn’t mind sharing her husband.”
“Huh,” Zephyr whispered. “Which mare is in charge, then?”
“The first one, I guess? Look, it’s not like I grew up with this kind of thing. It’s old. Ancient.”
“Yeah?” Cloudy wormed his way a bit closer. “So, do the mares… you know?”
“Do the mares what?”
“You know.”
“No, seriously, what?”
“Do they have sex?” Zephyr said.
“Zephyr!” Quicklime squealed, then fell into quiet giggles. “No! Er, do they?”
“Celestia’s teats, how would I know?” Vermilion buried his muzzle under a hay-filled pillow. It scratched at his cheeks, but it was better than letting the team see him blush so hard he practically glowed in the dark.
“I bet they do,” Zephyr said. “I would. Quicklime?”
“I dunno, maybe?” she said. “Depends how nice she was. But then, you probably wouldn’t get married to somepony who isn’t nice, would you?”
“Can we talk about something else?” Vermilion suggested. “Like, the mission? The spiders we’re supposed to be hunting tomorrow?”
“Ugh, no.” Cloud Fire said. He rolled onto his back, which was a complicated maneuver in such crowded conditions. “Anything else, please.”
“Why can’t the mares just marry each other?” Zephyr asked. “Then they wouldn’t need to marry a stallion.”
“That’s, uh…” Vermilion paused to collect his thoughts. Pegasi sometimes got prickly whenever the topic of marriage customs came up. “They might not approve of that, here. This isn’t like Derecho.”
Zephyr frowned. “So the mares can have sex, but only if they’re both married to the same stallion?”
“I didn’t say it made sense, I just said it’s not like Derecho.”
“What’s Derecho like?” Quicklime asked.
“Most marriages are arranged between clans,” Cloud Fire said. “Kinda glad my family left after the Unification, actually. I can’t imagine just being told one day that you’re going to marry some pony you’ve maybe never met.”
“And I can’t imagine having to find somepony by myself,” Zephyr said. “What if you find the wrong mate? You’re tying your clan to theirs without anypony else getting a say in the matter. Suddenly your cousins have new cousins and your parents have a new daughter and nopony knows whose side they’re on anymore!”
“I don’t, uh, think it’s about sides,” Quicklime said. “Is it? Maybe unicorns are doing it wrong.”
“The unicorns are fine,” Vermilion said. “The Derecho clans are just old fashioned.”
“Wait, I thought the earth ponies out here were old fashioned?” Cloudy said.
Zephyr snorted. “They definitely are.”
“We’re all old fashioned!” Vermilion didn’t realize how loud they’d gotten until that moment, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Look, it’s just different out here. Please please please do not say anything in front of them about how weird it is, you’ll just get them upset.”
“We’re not going to blabber, Cherry,” Zephyr grinned at him. “It’s just banter.”
“So, wait.” Quicklime managed to scooch closer to Zephyr and stuck her muzzle under the pegasus’s chin. “Is your clan going to choose who you marry?”
“They already have.” Zephyr closed her eyes and smiled. Her ears relaxed and sagged in response to whatever vision was playing out in her mind. “Her name is Chinook of the Aeolus clan, currently serving a rotation as a scout with the Derecho search and rescue corps. She has a bright green coat with spotted feathers and a blue mane and she smells like freshly fallen leaves, and when we’re both done with our stints we’ll have a big ceremony and I’ll make sure you’re all invited.”
It was hard to imagine Zephyr, the most skilled and deadly warrior among them, all decked out in ribbons and beads for a wedding. But the happiness in her voice sounded genuine enough. Who was to say she wouldn’t enjoy married life as much as she enjoyed being in the company?
“What if you want foals?” Quicklime asked. “I mean, if that’s not too personal.”
Zephyr shook her head. “We’ll contract with a stallion who has the attributes we’re looking for. Somepony from one of our clans.”
“Wow. That’s weird.”
“It’s as weird as a stallion having multiple wives,” Cloudy pointed out.
Vermilion sighed. “So, about those spiders…”
“Cherry, every waking moment for the next three months is going to be spent talking about spiders, looking for spiders, running from spiders and fighting spiders,” Zephyr said. “Times like this are the only chance we’ll get to talk about other things.”
“Fine.” He settled his head on her wing, which made for a much better pillow than the bed’s actual pillow, and closed his eyes. “You talk. I’m getting some sleep.”
“Can we talk about how everypony in the village thinks Vermilion is a hero?” Quicklime said. She sounded inexplicably chipper for a unicorn supposed to be on the verge of sleep. “I think that’s neat.”
Vermilion just groaned and pulled Zephyr’s wing over his head.
* * *
Winter struck Hollow Shades like a hammer.
In Everfree, in the vast muddy plains that surrounded Equestria’s capital, tilled by generations of earth pony farmers and guarded from the winds by legions of pegasi, winter was a pleasant, cool diversion, a short break from the sweltering, choking warmth of the long summer. The florid land drank the heat and the sun and the damp, and everything crawled with life. Fields burst with fruited vines and endless rows of corn and wheat and meadow grasses, so much that the earth ponies harvested every month. During the long summers, at the carrot farm Vermilion still occasionally called home, the fields were like jungles, overflowing with green and mud.
He’d never missed the farm. He’d never missed the oceans of mud or the swarming insects so thick they formed clouds in the twilight. He’d never missed the vegetal stench of yesterday’s leaves rotting in the hot sun.
But today, up to his knees in thick, wet snow, the coat on his belly crusted with ice, and his tail numb with cold, he thought longingly of the farm for perhaps the first time in his life.
Hollow Shades was higher than Everfree, thousands of feet higher, though the valley in which they hunted seemed flat enough. If it weren’t for the cold and the pegasi’s insistence that they’d climbed several thousand feet since leaving Gloom’s Edge, he never would have guessed at such a dramatic change in altitude.
The winter solstice was weeks behind them, now. For over a month they had fortified the town, clearing away the underbrush and smaller trees for a hundred yards around. With the timber, their engineers had constructed a short, broken palisade of sharpened stakes, angled outward, pointing at the forest. It was incomplete, covering only half the town, and the ground had frozen hard a few days past. There would be no more digging or new breastworks until spring. And spring came late in the mountains, the townsponies said.
The unicorns commandeered an empty house near the edge of town and turned it into a workshop for their weird designs. Lights flashed from its windows at all hours of the night, and by day a thin trickle of purple smoke, like a trawling of silk, wound out from its chimneys.
The other ponies gave this house a wide berth.
Their forays into the woods were slow and deliberate. The major was a patient mare. As she told the company, she intended to leave Hollow Shades in three months with every single pony who had made trek from Everfree. There was no need for any of them to be heroes – this operation would be slow, methodical and careful. The only blood spilled would be that of the spiders.
According to the (better) maps the Company had drafted, there were nearly seven thousand acres of boreal forest surrounding Hollow Shades, from the thin river that bordered the town up to the mountain ridges that defined the slope of the valley. It would take months to clear, at least; perhaps years.
They had slain dozens of spiders, none smaller than the one Vermilion and Zephyr had killed in the ravine, what felt like ages ago. The largest was the size of a wagon – a dozen of the Company’s earth ponies dragged its corpse a half-a-mile through the woods on a makeshift sledge and deposited it at the edge of town, a ruined, shattered black husk that wept dark blood into the snow. Spears bristled from its carapace like a hedgehog’s spines, so thick they could barely discern the broken remains of its original form. In life it was a terrifying, towering beast; in death it had shrunk and seemed almost pitiful in Vermilion’s eyes, like the wreck of a proud ship wasting on the shoals.
Quicklime had a field day with the corpse. She was always a little ball of lime-green joy, but something about the process of discovery really tickled her. Even if it horrified the rest of them.
He shook his head, banishing thoughts of dismembered spiders. They had no spare energy to waste on sympathy for the enemy. The freezing woods sapped them, leaving them exhausted by noon and trembling with fatigue when the early night stole over the valley. Even the pegasi, with their thick winter coats, could not escape the cold – Cloud Fire had borrowed one of his spare tunics, and Zephyr squeezed into a cloak of Quicklime’s with slits cut for her wings.
The cold would not bother them much longer, though. Vermilion glanced at the mesh bag hanging from his saddlebags. It was metal, and seemed to weigh far more than it should. It pulled at him with its own unique gravity.
The branches overhead shook, and he glanced up to see Zephyr perched in them. She had a long, glistening lance – her fourth of the operation, the other three lost or shattered or ruined by spider blood – balanced in her forelegs. She looked down, gave him a tiny smile, then leapt forward, soaring toward the line of ponies pushing into the woods ahead.
A tan shape ghosted through the woods to his left, and he turned in time to see Cloud Fire swooping between the trees. If he noticed Vermilion, he didn’t show it.
“The ravine’s about fifty meters ahead, ma’am,” Buckeye said. He spoke quietly, just over a whisper. Under other circumstances, Vermilion would have marveled that his squad leader could speak so gently.
Major Canopy nodded. She stood between Buckeye and Vermilion, and even after a month at her side as the so-called “field expert” on the spiders, Vermilion still couldn’t shake the nervous, hyper-alertness that threatened to overcome him in her presence. Earth ponies like him weren’t meant to mingle with officers. How Buckeye managed to sound so confident and assured in her presence was an ongoing mystery to Vermilion.
The ponies of Hollow Shades called the ravine “the scar,” and while it wasn’t the most imaginative name, Vermilion could see why they’d chosen it. The earth seemed to open up in the forest, into a wide, dark gash dozens of meters deep. A river ran through it, welling up from the rock at one end and vanishing a quarter of a mile later into a shadowed cave. The ravine was like an giant break into the skin, and the river an exposed vein. Standing near it, Vermilion could imagine the valley as an enormous, slumbering beast, hidden except in places like this, where it was wounded.
Coincidentally or not, the ravine was also swarming with spiders – it might even be the nexus of the infestation, the nest from which they had emerged to conquer the forest. The spiders bridged the ravine with their webs and turned the rocky cliffs into nurseries for their eggs. A thick, gray mist rose above them, a sign of the warm river below. It floated outward, mingling with the trees and muffling sounds.
The trees grew right up to the edge of the ravine, though of course no ponies were foolish enough to walk so close as that. They stayed well back, forming a line between the ravine and the distant town.
“Is everypony in position?” Canopy asked.
“Yes ma’am,” Buckeye said. “No movement from the ravine yet.”
“Good.” She licked her lips, the first time Vermilion had ever seen a sign of nerves from her. “Private, open the package.”
Vermilion nodded. He carefully unslung the metal satchel from his shoulders and brushed away a spot of ground to set it on. The frozen earth beneath it immediately thawed, melting into mud, and steam rose from the snow around them.
When Quicklime told him about the unicorns’ plans, nigh on a week ago, he hadn’t really understood what she meant by ‘fire.’ They had used fire against the spiders in the past, burning out their webs and driving the monsters back at night. Every earth pony carried five torches soaked with pitch as part of their standard kit. Fire was a useful but not extraordinary tool – Vermilion would rather have a pegasus with a spear by his side than a bonfire.
No, Quicklime had said, not this fire. This was not for bonfires. This was special fire.
The satchel she gave him was special too. It had no opening, for one. The entire bag was a single, sealed metal mesh. Where a normal set of saddlebags would have had a latch, this one bore a simple, featureless silver medallion, like an ancient coin whose surface had been obliterated by time. He touched it with the bottom of his hoof, and winced as a hidden needle darted out, jabbing his frog. He held his hoof against the medallion until he felt it grow wet and slick with his blood.
The medallion let out a quiet, bell-like chime, and the satchel opened like the petals of a flower. Inside were five simple, unmarked ceramic jars, not unlike the kind Vermilion’s family kept honey in when he was a foal.
These jars did not have honey in them.
There had been a sixth jar. The day before, Quicklime held a demonstration for the company. At her direction, their engineers dug out a wide pit in the frozen ground, hacking at it with pickaxes and hammers until it was as deep as a pony. They filled it with water up to the brim, and after a few hours ice formed a thin glaze atop it. Not enough to hold a pony’s weight, but enough for Quicklime’s purposes.
While they watched, she floated a wood log out into the center of the miniature ice rink and let it fall. It broke through the ice, bobbed back to the surface and settled there, trapped in place. Then she very, very carefully floated that sixth ceramic jar into the air and dropped it onto the log.
The jelly inside the jar was a silver color, like somepony had managed to dilute mercury with water, and from this color it derived its name: moonfire. It required both an alchemist and a unicorn (or an alchemist who was a unicorn) to manufacture and was temperamental as a red-coated mare, illegal to possess except for agents of the crown, and burst into flame on contact with the air.
Vermilion only saw it the jelly for a moment before a bright blue fire burned an afterimage into his eyes. The blaze consumed the log instantly, then slowly spread out over the surface of the pool. A wash of superheated air, hotter than any furnace Vermilion had ever approached, rushed out over them, driving everypony away. Within seconds the pit vanished behind a roaring column of steam, lit from within by a demonic blue glow.
It took nearly an hour for the flames to die out. Nothing remained in the pit – not water, not the log, not even the fragments of the jar. Only a dusting of seared minerals.
Just standing so close to the jars was enough to make Vermilion sweat, and not because of his nerves – the air was actually warm around them, like he was only a few feet from a campfire. He took a step back, then another, and another, only stopping when he felt the comforting chill of snow around his hooves.
“Alright,” the major said. Sweat glistened in her coat and turned her face bright with damp spots. “Let’s be done with this, then. Sergeant, distribute the jars.”
To five unicorns went the five jars. The other ponies gave them a wide berth as they approached the ravine. Ahead of them, webs jittered and shivered. The wind in the chasm drew out a low, mournful howl that set Vermilion’s coat on edge.
At the major’s signal, Buckeye raised a red flag and waved it briskly back and forth. Moments later, the unicorns hurled the jars upwards and out, tracing a long parabolic arc that ended when they plummeted into the ravine. And then they turned and ran.
From within the ravine came a titanic roar, like a constant thunder smashing against their ears. A furious wind exploded from the chasm, lifting with it acres of webs, rocks, trees, bones and bones, so many bones, bones of birds and boars and deer and even briefly, horribly, what looked to Vermilion’s eyes like the bones of a pony, flashing before his eyes before it was lost in the bedlam, all of it rushing upward in the superheated gale. And below them came the flames.
The fire in Quicklime’s little demonstration, the fire that had seared his eyes and left him blinking away spots, was a guttering candle. Its heat was a gentle kiss. The rising steam nothing but a thin smoky rope. It was nothing more than a glorified bonfire.
This was a conflagration. A firestorm erupted from the ravine. The trees growing along the precipice simply ceased to exist, and a dozen meters back from the edge dry branches smoked and caught fire. Vermilion felt the hairs on his face curl, and he scrunched his eyes shut against the assault.
Still the flames rose higher. The wind began to rush around them, racing toward the ravine, building into a ferocious gale. Pegasi clenched their wings to their barrels and hugged the ground to avoid being swept into the maelstrom. The whipping wind drove the fires higher, until they rose in dancing columns a hundred feet above the trees.
Quicklime would have loved to see this, he thought. He stared at the blaze as long as he could before looking down and blinking away tears.
The fire slowly spread down the ravine in both directions. The webs caught fire easily, and dozens of black, skittering shapes scrambled frantically over the lip of the chasm. None were fast enough to escape the flames, though, and every spider they saw died within a few feet of the edge. Their carapaces burst from the heat, and their insides boiled out. After a few minutes, the pegasi lowered their spears. It was clear they wouldn’t need them.
The fire raged for hours. When it was finally gone, a pall of smoke hung over the entire valley. It smelled like victory.
* * *
Quicklime wore a little smile on her lips at dinner, though Vermilion could see the way the tips of her ears drooped. He gave her a little nudge in between bites of honey-roasted barley.
“You okay?”
“Uh huh.” She took another bite. “Just kinda wish I’d been there, you know?”
“There wasn’t much to see,” Vermilion said. “Just a lot of smoke, really.”
Across from her, Zephyr loudly finished her third helping of corn chowder and slapped the bowl on the table with a heavy thud. She seemed to be racing with Cloud Fire. As always, their host family watched the pegasi eat with stunned fascination.
“Yeah, but, that was my biggest contribution to this entire mission, probably,” Quicklime said. She stared at her food, rather than the pegasi. “Dozens of spiders dead, and I didn’t even get to watch it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Zephyr said. She wiped her muzzle with her foreleg and leaned in, resting her cheek against Quicklime’s. “Everypony knows it was your potions that made it happen. That’s a lot more important than just freezing your ass off in the woods, which is all we did.”
Cloud Fire pushed his bowl away and belched. “What’d we do?”
“Besides,” Vermilion said, “we’re not done yet. We’re running clean-up patrols tomorrow, and it’s hardly like that ravine was the only place with spiders.”
“Is it wrong, though? To want to actually be out there in the woods with you?” Quicklime sighed. “I just feel like I’m hiding back here.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re back here.” Zephyr laid a wing across Quicklime’s shoulders and pulled her in close. “Trust me, you’re doing a lot more good in that little laboratory than any of us are out in the forest.”
Quicklime sighed. “I guess. I’m still going to mope about it, though.”
“That’s fine.” Zephyr gave her a chaste little kiss on the forehead, just below her horn. “But only for a day or two. Vermilion has all the frowns our squad needs.”
Vermilion frowned. “That’s not true.”
“Mhm.”
“What’d it look like? Really?” Quicklime leaned forward onto the table. Behind her, a dozen foals crept forward as well, their faces rapt.
“Like the end of the world,” Cloud Fire said. He let out a long, slow breath. “Like… everything you ever imagined about Tartarus down in that ravine. For a little bit, when the flames were at their highest, the wind was so strong I thought it was going to pick me up and carry me into the fire. I hope you don’t have any more of that stuff left, ma’am.”
“Just one jar,” she said. “It takes a while to produce. It’ll be, like, a month before we can do that again.”
“We’ll make do without it, then,” Vermilion said. “We’ve been fighting the spiders for long enough with just spears. Tomorrow won’t be any different.”
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Heh
Isn't that how it always works? Unless he's been in the TARDIS or something...
Yeah, Murphy's just been taunted. This won't end well, but then again, we knew that from the story description.
And from that description comes a larger worry. Although the spiders aren't pushovers, this whole thing has been rather straightforward so far: ponies go in expecting giant spiders, they find giant spiders, and they fight them.
I'm guessing setting fire to the ravine will be the arachnid equivalent of kicking the hornets nest, although Cold may pull a fast one on us and make it look like they won. Regardless, nopony has yet asked a more fundamental question - why have these spiders started attacking now?
Given the overall description of the story, I'm banking on the 'something worse has pushed them out of the deep forest' scenario.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I love that smell in the morning!
8144528 probs gonna turn into zambie rush.
That cave leads to Atlach-Nacha (or maybe Ungoliant) and she's gonna be pissed about someone roasting her children on her doorstep.
That moonfire sounds like it's really nasty stuff. I wonder if it's banned, or even entirely forgotten, in modern-day Equestria...
Also, I like the mix of awe and fear the Hollow Shades ponies seem to have for unicorns. And even the Everfree ponies keep a wide berth when unicorns are doing unicorn things in their laboratory. Compared to the present-day Equestria of the show, it's clear that the three tribes are nowhere near as well united or integrated. (And though I don't think it's been stated outright, I get the feeling that everypony would feel offended if someone brought up the possibility of, say, a unicorn and an earth pony as a couple.)
Princess Of All Firebombs. Or Pony Phosphorus?
Pony napalm is terrifying.
Tsk tsk, you never assume victory when you haven't seen the bodies of your foes.
Anime tropes have taught me this!
"Don't worry, we got magic moonfire ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives and sharp sticks!"
Oooo, varied marriage traditions between the different tribes, interesting.
And kinda sorta similar, considering.
Unicorns are scary.
It is kind of amazing.
Red Flag, Red Flag, Red Flag
8580847
It's like she said she's one day away from retirement, isn't it?
8581238
Not the Intensagus, nooo
NUT
This seems redundant, as he literally just said so.
Why is Zephyr... oh right, heroes; pegasi adore heroes. I guess the hero needn't be a pegasus! Such curious behavior.
This is actually fascinating. The town consists solely of earth ponies, yes? How does this custom survive? Do they treat their unicorn traders as royalty? Or perhaps their traders are all earth too (wouldn't be surprised) and they know nothing of unicorns except their old stories, so Quicklime is like a character out of legend. I am mildly wary of what these legends might be.
Oh, right. Capital L Lady. Absolutely fascinating.
initially imagines Quicklime picking it up in her mouth but realizes that couldn't possibly work
Is she curling her fetlock around the handle, perhaps? Or maybe spoons are more like open funnels! That'd be some fun/silly headcanon.
The line, "Vermilion only saw it the jelly for a moment," has a superfluous "it."
Also, I thought at first that the line, "And then they turned and ran," referred to everypony, not just the unicorns.
8581238
You're not spoiling plot points, are you?
(I'm avoiding reading too many comments since who knows who'll talk about the future but I saw "red flag" in bold and couldn't help but wonder why people were talking about Buckeye's flag. Turns out they weren't, hah~)
xD!!! jaja