Death Rides a Pale Mare

by totallynotabrony

Chapter 5

“So what’s the worst-case twitcher you can imagine?” Whisper asked in his high-pitched voice. He adjusted the vest that Pale wasn’t sure he hadn’t stolen from a doll and sat down at a table sized for his tiny form atop the main table in the library. He had just entered the room and the look on his face told Pale that he had news.

Pale put down the book she had been consulting. “A big guy. Alert. Fighting experience.”

“A Royal Guard?”

Pale shrugged. “Okay.”

“Because Piper found a twitcher who’s a Royal Guard.” Whisper grinned.

He wouldn’t be so happy about it if he and Shadow were the ones assigned. Whisper might enjoy a challenge, but he got where he was by being calculating.

Pale got the hint. “Am I getting any help?”

“No, probably not. Shadow and I were just about to leave on another assignment. Coin is already out. I doubt Jolly or Mirror would be of any help for this.”

“What about Hammer?”

There had been few times that Hammer had ever been sent to eliminate a twitcher. Usually only when the target was formidable and when discovery or collateral damage wasn’t a concern.

“Oh no, not him,” said Whisper. “The target lives and works in a busy city.”

He kept grinning. Pale stared at him. “How long until the bloom?”

“Not long at all.”

Pale got up and put the book away, holding back an exasperated sigh. “I suppose I should get started.”

She headed for the front of the cave and sought out Piper. He appraised her expression as she approached. “I take it Whisper found you.”

“Right.”

Piper went right into the details. “The twitcher is part of the Royal Guard unit in Trottingham. I believe he’s in the late stages of Blight. His name is Halberd. He’s quite a large unicorn.”

“Any good news?” Pale asked.

“He lives alone.”

That did make things easier, but only slightly. Pale went to prepare. She had been in Trottingham only a few weeks earlier following the twitcher from the Grand Galloping Gala. With the city still fresh in her mind, Pale decided to devote her preparation to equipment.

She rarely took more than a few knives and infiltration devices with her. But this time, it seemed appropriate to carry heavier gear.

In her room, Pale put on a mail vest. Hammer complained about doing the intricate work of making small loops of chain if Pale didn’t often use it, but for times like this she was glad to have the armor.

Her usual blades were as long as her hoof and thin, suited for precision strikes on vital areas. This time, Pale decided to carry a larger blade for her dominant side, twice as long and heavier in the spine for strength.

After strapping on her usual wing razors and equipment belt, she covered it all with her cloak and headed for the mouth of the cave.

---

Trottingham was not a bad city as far as they went. Large enough to be a destination, small enough not to be a chore. Pale slipped into town just as the sun was setting.

According to Piper’s observations, Halberd’s usual schedule, on duty with the Guard, was from noon to midnight. That should give Pale a few hours to get ready.

She’d already decided to surprise him at his apartment. Shard had given her a glass ampule of a powerful stunning potion. It would be easy to throw it from a darkened room when Halberd came home. Better not to engage with him if she could help it.

Pale surveyed his neighborhood. Once she was confident that none of the neighbors were watching, she went up the stairs to Halberd’s second floor apartment, picked the lock on the door, and slipped inside. After carefully relocking the door, she gave herself a tour.

It was a basic bachelor residence. If anything, Halberd seemed married to his job. In the front room, he had a display wall of antique Royal Guard weapons and memorabilia. The centerpiece was an intricate sabre and scabbard.

There was a small tap that Pale barely heard. She paused, turning her head, ears pointing. The noise came again and she looked at the window. One of Piper’s parasprites was headbutting the glass. It could only be a signal.

Pale heard heavy steps outside the front door. She barely had time to duck into the kitchen before Halberd came in the front door, far ahead of schedule.

He was wheezing, occasionally giving a half-cough. Could he have been sent home from his duties for appearing sick? Alarmingly, he seemed to be in a very late stage of the Blight. Pale was only going to get one chance.

Observing covertly from the kitchen, Pale noted that Halberd’s behavior seemed erratic. He would occasionally start for the door again only to pull himself back. The Blight seemed to will twitchers to seek out crowds before blooming. Perhaps his willpower kept him home, believing himself ill.

Pale readied the stunning potion, but had to retreat into another room as Halberd came into the kitchen. He shifted a few things around, apparently beginning a meal. From her position behind the doorway, Pale cocked her foreleg back and hurled the glass orb at him.

Just then, he yanked open a cabinet and the potion shattered across the door, none of it getting on Halberd. It got his attention, though, and he looked straight at Pale.

And then, quicker than she would have believed, he charged.

Erratic behavior was one thing. Mindlessly rushing an unknown trespasser was another. Pale had time to get out of the way, but she could only go so far before the onrushing stallion cut off her escape options. She couldn’t leave regardless, this was a job that had to be done immediately.

Pale drew her knife, which finally seemed to get Halberd’s attention. He pulled up from his attack and started to circle, seeming confident even when facing a weapon.

Pale lunged for his neck. Knowing who she was up against, it didn’t surprise her that her first thrust was parried. She tried again on the backswing, but was again unsuccessful.

Halberd’s horn lit up. Pale attacked again, interrupting whatever he was doing. Unicorns had a big advantage in a fight, but active magic required concentration and usually line of sight. Keeping the pressure on could negate a lot of the ability.

Trying again, Pale stabbed for Halberd’s heart, shifting targets. In an attempt to end the fight as quickly as possible, she was only trying for powerful, killing strikes.

She should have shifted tactics earlier. Halberd was learning her moves and when she slashed again, he slapped her fetlock with his large hoof, combining it with a magical tug to disarm her.

Pale tore her wings free, slashing forwards into the twitcher. The wound was not fatal, a razor cut across a sturdy ribcage, but it bought Pale time and space while Halberd recoiled.

She backed up into the kitchen, kicking a chair at him. It gave her time to draw her other, smaller knife. Halberd kept coming, blood streaming down his chest but far from finished.

Pale struck again, but had to abort the attack and duck her own knife as Halberd counterattacked. She grabbed at whatever objects were closest, trying to throw more things at him. The napkin holder from the center of the table didn’t do very much, the empty coffee pot only slightly more.

Halberd kept coming. Pale knew she couldn’t keep giving ground. Eventually she would be backed up against the front door. Gritting her teeth and putting her trust in Hammer’s work, she lunged forward.

Halberd knocked her knife off target and she only managed to bury it in his shoulder. The knife he wielded sparked across the mail covering her chest.

Pale drew back her blade for another attack, but Halberd slammed forward into a clinch, shoving Pale back against the wall and driving the breath from her. His hoof went out, holding her foreleg pinned against the wall and unable to strike.

Pale kicked forward with her hind legs, but Halberd had already twisted his lower body to protect his sensitive areas. She couldn’t get enough power from her vertical position against the wall to inflict significant damage against any other part of his body.

The knife in Halberd’s magical grasp slid down the mail on Pale’s chest, scratching across the metal links. The point dropped lower and lower until the vest came to an end. Then, the blade bit into her flesh, just below her ribcage.

Pale couldn’t stop a gasp of pain, but turned it into a convulsion of desperation. She was pinned, but her struggle got a foreleg free and she struck at Halberd’s face and whatever she could reach. The rapidfire punches had no real power, but Halberd jerked back from them. Pale aimed for his horn and he lifted his head back for protection. That left his chin open and Pale took advantage.

He raised a hoof to block the uppercut and Pale tugged her other foreleg free. She hit him once more, giving him a shove from the other hoof. Halberd stumbled back and fell. He coughed.

Pale was on him in a moment. She slapped his jaw closed and forced his head back, exposing the throat, whipping the blade across it.

Blood welled up like a fountain. Halberd’s breath wheezed out of his open trachea. His chest heaved, but because he was choking on blood, instead of blooming.

Pale took a stuttering breath and stepped back, her shoulders slumping after the exertion. She put away the knife she held and looked for the other. Her gut still hurt and she raised a hoof to touch the wound. It was only now that she realized the knife was still buried in it.

Her eyes darted around the room. There was no time to cover up evidence of the fight. Somepony might be coming after hearing the noise.

She didn’t have time, either. Pale’s blood was on the floor, a darker shade of red than the rapidly spreading gush from Halberd’s neck. If she was lucky, his would spread over the scene, concealing evidence that she had been there. Pale tore bits off her cloak to pack around her wound to absorb blood.

It would have to look like a murder. There simply wasn’t time to prepare the scene to appear as anything else. Murder needed motive. Pale’s eyes fell upon the ornate sabre in the display. She crossed the room and grabbed it up. Then, she went through the window.

Breaking the glass wasn’t necessary, but further damage was moot. Also, it got her out of the apartment quicker.

Pale fell from the second story, got her wings out the ragged holes already torn in her cloak, and managed to soften her landing. She thought she heard voices coming closer.

Pale was not a strong flier, but an aerial getaway would keep two thirds of ponies off her. She got airborne again, gritting her teeth against the pain in her abdomen as she breathed.

The last time Pale had been in Trottingham, she’d followed the twitcher named Cosmograph to her secluded residence just outside of town. It was on a hill and the remoteness helped with Cosmograph’s work in astronomy. On impulse, Pale headed in that direction. The house was still empty, as far as she knew.

Glancing back periodically, Pale didn’t notice any pursuit. She made it to the isolated house’s doorstep and went to work on the lock. It took her two tries to get the picks to work.

She stumbled in. A parasprite buzzed after her. She grabbed up a lamp and lit it, sitting down on the kitchen floor.

Pale unwound the cloth of her shredded cloak from the wound. Her dark blood had spread over her coat and the hilt of the knife protruded from her stomach obscenely.

She’d already lost a lot of blood, and pulling the knife out was only going to cost her more. There wasn’t anypony nearby to give her a transfusion, if a proper donor even existed.

Pale set her jaw and pulled. Even being ready to bandage the wound, Pale’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest at the amount of blood that poured out after the knife. She controlled her breathing and willed calmness. An elevated pulse now would not help.

After bandaging, she forced herself to get up and raid the pantry. A few things had spoiled in the weeks the house had been left alone, but Pale was concerned about fluids, energy, and electrolytes. She was no medical expert, and even more in the dark about her body’s own unique needs, but something was better than nothing.

The parasprites still hovered around. Piper would send help.

Pale settled in to wait, concentrating on her breathing. Assistance would be a long time in coming. Though, she supposed, if she wasn’t dead already, then her chances of surviving this were optimistic.

---

It might have been a nightmare if the memory wasn’t real. It had faded with time, but Pale recognized where she was.

Few outsiders had ever seen the inside of a changeling hive. Even if Pale had been born there, she had never felt as if she belonged. Even less so in retrospect.

Much like changelings themselves, the hive was dark, irregular, and riddled with holes. It took experience to navigate and Pale learned alongside the other young ones. They didn’t seem to notice she was different.

But Pale’s mother did. Every time the memories had surfaced, Pale had tried to figure out what she had done to deserve the treatment she got. Eventually, she had given up without drawing a conclusion. It could simply have been because her mother was evil.

Hate was not a word Pale encountered or used often. Her job was grim, but rarely was it cause for emotion. In fact, it was probably better without. But Pale hated her mother.

The face in her memory may have been distorted with time, but it was less about how she looked and more what that face represented. The sharp features, the cold green eyes, the jagged horn, and limp, asymmetric mane all added up to represent the looming figure that had maliciously played one of the biggest roles in shaping Pale’s current life.

As the memory always did, Pale saw their last altercation as it had happened years ago. She’d been far behind her peers in utilizing changeling magic. Her mother had always insisted she should be better at transforming into ponies.

“You are half pony, after all! You weren’t made that way to be useless!”

A dozen years of hearing that while growing up still hadn’t helped Pale become who her mother insisted she was supposed to be.

“Does that mean I get half a say in my own life?”

Her mother’s hoof slammed into her head, knocking her across the room and into the stone wall. It wasn’t the first time Pale had been hit, but this was different, a pain worse than she’d ever felt before.

“Look what you’ve done!” her mother roared. Blood ran in Pale’s eyes.

“You were useless and now you’re worthless! Get out! Never let me see you again!”

Pale left the hive in a haze. The blinding pain was part of it. The rest was uncertainty. Despite the abuse, she had until that point always known her place.

But now, with the subsequent years of experience, Pale actually considered the broken horn payment enough for getting out of there. Good riddance.

---

“Pale!”

Her eyes slid open, bringing the present world back in a spinning miasma of early morning light. The kitchen floor in Cosmograph’s house had been a terrible place to sleep, but considering her other pains that was of small consequence.

Coin bent over Pale, looking with concern at the makeshift bandages and the sticky blood spread all around her. Pale sat up, wincing but working through the pain.

“What did you do for treatment so far?” Coin asked.

“I just stopped the bleeding.”

“How deep was the cut? Did it cut into any of your organs? Do you see signs of infection?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is bad, Pale. I hate to tell you this, but we might have to open you back up just to make sure everything under the skin is going to heal. But I can’t really do that. I might have to get Shard. I don’t think you should move until we can make sure you’re okay.”

Pale grimaced, and nodded. She started to get up. Coin put out a hoof. “Hey, don’t hurt yourself.”

“I think I’m going to hurt either way. I’m going to go lie down on the bed.”

“At least let me change the sheets. This whole place smells musty.”

Pale consented and Coin quickly stripped the bed. When it was freshly made, Pale lay down while Coin fussed over her.

She had the uneasy feeling that she would be there for a while.

Comments

[bloons3]

I can't wait for the next update, this is great. You've been feeding us little tidbits of the Blight, and I really want to know the bigger picture.