Tales of an Equestrian Mare

by Durandal

Chapter 24

“PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS! YOU’RE ALL UNDER ARREST!”

The night went instantly white, as hoods were tugged from chemical torches, then black as Hearthfire’s eyes responded to the intense brightness with a partial shutdown. She felt talons slide around her throat, and haul her backwards, inside the building once more. The tip of the crossbow bolt was a pinprick presence against the nape of her neck that seemed to fill the entirety of her half-blind world.

“I have a hostage! If you want your wretched spy back, I suggest you clear a path!”

There was silence from outside, until the speaking horn boomed again.

“THE BUILDING IS SURROUNDED. IF THE HOSTAGE DIES, YOU STILL WON’T GET AWAY! GIVE UP!”

Hearthfire swallowed, made difficult by the way her head was being pulled back. She was forced to balance on her hind legs, her front hooves dangling uselessly in front of her. Her vision was clearing down to a swarm of purple dots, giving her a view of the ceiling of the warehouse; she carefully turned her head, trying to get more of an idea of what was going on. The harsh chemical light from outside was casting a long oblong on the floor, and the other two griffons were nowhere to be seen, no doubt already in custody.

“I saw the identification papers! It’s not going to look so good for you, if you let an Equestrian unicorn take a crossbow bolt through the head! Maybe the Mayor will send you along to the embassy to explain what went wrong?”

Her captor tugged harder, forcing her gaze painfully back up to the ceiling. To where Cas’ pale green eyes peered down at her from the rafters.

The cat dropped silently, tensing and leaping in one fluid motion. It had to be a twenty meter drop from beneath the high ceiling, at least, but she was dead on target. The griffon didn’t even see it coming, too busy watching the door, but Hearthfire was ready as Cas sailed straight at the side of his head; she raised her front legs and shoved the menacing claws away from her throat, and hurled herself flat as the crossbow fired reflexively.

For the second time in half an hour, she felt the heart-stopping whistle of a steel-tipped shaft ghosting past her skull. Time caught up as she hit the ground, her legs folding badly underneath her and her jaw clipping the stone with a disorienting clack of teeth knocking together.

Cas was still clinging gamely to the griffon’s head, hissing and spitting and driving home swipes of her claws wherever she could, all while keeping out of range of her opponent’s talons and snapping beak. Even so, it was clear that with one wrong move it would all be over. Hearthfire tackled the griffon; he was bigger than her, but he couldn’t see properly past the furious cat attached to his face, and he only had his hind paws on the ground.

She landed on top of him, as Cas untangled claws and jumped away, and swung a hoof as hard as she could. It wasn’t exactly a blow that would go down in the annals of fighting history, but it connected with the griffon’s skull hard enough to send tingles running down her leg. He was still moving feebly until she hit him again, and he fell back, stunned.

She stood up, as the pins-and-needles numbness in her leg spread outward through her body. It’s just shock, she told herself, you’re not hurt anywhere. She left the griffon lying there, and wobbled over to the door, barely remembering to shield her eyes with a hoof as she stepped into the light.

* * *

“Honestly? If you were a Spire citizen, I’d have thrown you in the cells overnight and dealt with you in the morning. You acted like a stupid chick, put my investigation in jeopardy, and almost got yourself killed in the process.”

The Spire city guards had access to some of the most competent medical staff in the city. There had been a dozen or so injuries during the action, as the Bronze fought to restrain suspects. All but one of the injuries - aside from Hearthfire’s own scrapes and bruises - had been sustained by the criminals, and Hearthfire had to wonder if there might have been a little bit of putting the hoof in by the shining defenders of the city’s laws. Hearthfire had rated last place for receiving medical attention, and for a visit from Gloria. The latter now seemed like it had been a blessing in disguise as the furious sergeant paced back and forth, berating her.

“I told you to stay away. In fact, I threatened to arrest you if you didn’t, and I have half a mind to follow through on that threat.”

“Maybe if you’d told me anything that was going on, I would’ve been able to leave it alone,” Hearthfire complained, “and besides, it was thanks to Cas causing such a commotion that someone tipped you off to where they were hiding, right?”

“Oh yes, your cat, the hero of the hour! Never mind that I now have several hundred stray cats wandering around the city, that you two let loose!”

“Cas didn’t want to just leave them there.” Cas meowed confirmation, giving Gloria a dirty look from Hearthfire’s lap.

“Oh good, that makes it all right then.” Gloria’s words were honey sweet with insincerity. “Right. I don’t want to have to arrest you, nor do I want to have to revoke your permission to be in Spire; either of which I am well within my rights to do at this moment, might I add. At the end of the day, we did get what we wanted, and regardless of the fact that we could have managed fine on our own, you and your blasted cat were instrumental in that process.

“So, I might be able to convince my superiors to leave you alone. Normally, a foreigner even being involved in something this big would be grounds to revoke their visa, but I should be able to wing it. Consider that the complete extent of my gratitude towards you, Ms. Hearthfire. The doctor will tell you when you are, in her judgement, permitted to leave, and I, for my part, am done dealing with you. I expect to not hear your name again for the rest of your stay in Spire. Understood?”

Hearthfire bit down the complaints about how it wasn’t her fault, that she never intended to get into trouble, it just seemed to happen...

“Understood. And, thank you.”

* * *

Comments

[Durandal]

Well, yesterday I got caught up on word count (not by FiM's word counter, but by Gdoc's slightly more conservative word counter). So obviously that successful state of affairs couldn't be allowed to continue. I might have had a little too much of the ol' Apple family cider.

Guess I'm writing extra words again to catch up starting tomorrow. So much for doing a big final push and finishing today, eh? At least I got part three of the story finished today.