The Crystal War Book I: A Spark to Light the Dark

by NatureSpark

Ch.20 Rain of Chance

~Chapter 20: Rain of Chance~

Backdraft was immobilized in a shadowy jail cell and in the distance he could hear the echoes of ponies screaming in terror and agony. Their cries fueled his own frightened struggle as he strained against the cold iron shackles that pinned him to the floor, but no matter how hard he tried to free himself he remained trapped. There must have been a leak somewhere above him, because he could hear water dripping from a crack in the stones, just out of sight. The steady dripping continued in its methodical pattern, slowly driving him crazy with its incessant tempo. Drip. Drip. Drip. Draft was awakened by the splashing of rain against his sleeping body, not the most pleasant method of being stirred from sleep, but it had saved him from the nightmare he was having so he wasn’t too displeased with it.

“Ugh, it’s raining,” he groaned. Well at least it isn’t snowing yet, he thought, as he stared up into the overcast skies. The pegasus wiped the dampness from his face and sat up in his blankets, which were completely soaked by then. A glance over to his brother revealed the bluish pegasus still asleep despite the foul weather, his tattooed face staring straight up into the oncoming drizzle. Draft briefly considered waking his brother up, but decided to light a fire first instead. After placing a blanket over their saddlebags to prevent further water damage, he wandered off a little ways in search of reasonably dry wood for the fire.

As he tromped through the sludge that the ground had become, Draft spotted a few small trees, but no branches that were even remotely dry. That idea was a bust, he thought, as he wandered back to the camp. The rain had steadily increased in his absence and by the time he had returned his brother was already awake and in a sour mood.

“Why the hay didn’t you wake me up?” Downpour asked with a scowl. There was mud dripping from his legs as he dug around in his bags in search of something.

“Well, I was going to light a fire first, so that you could dry off when I woke you up,” Draft replied as he uncovered his own bags and pulled out a damp cloak to wrap around himself. “I couldn’t find even a scrap of bark that was dry though.”

“Mhmm, way to go,” Downpour mumbled as he wiped the grime off from his hide. The mud on his tail wouldn’t come off, but eventually the rain would take care of that problem on its own.

“At least I tried,” Draft stated. “Anyway, let’s eat some breakfast and get going.”

“Alright, just let me finish trying to scrape this muck off of my blankets and bags, I can’t stand being caked in mud,” Downpour told him. The viscous dirt came off of the older stallion’s belongings in squishy clumps, but before long his gear was more or less free of the grime and the brothers sat down on a collection of damp stones to eat their breakfast.

“I wish we had some more cider, it might actually help me wake up a little more,” Draft sighed as he took a bite of soggy bread and washed it down with a few gulps of cold water from his flask. It wasn’t the greatest breakfast he had ever eaten, but it was nourishment.

“Yeah, say what you want about Cloudsdale, but those ponies sure know how to brew some delicious hard cider,” Downpour chuckled. After finishing their meal and taking a few minutes to let the food settle, the brothers collected their supplies and strapped on their saddle bags. The two of them sprang up into the air and took off northward through the cold drizzle of rain. Draft hoped that they could make most of the trip before the first snowfall, but as the large storm clouds drew closer it didn’t look like they would be that fortunate.

As the morning passed, the moderate drizzle from the sky had developed into a full blown downpour. As they flew further into the heart of his namesake, Downpour tried his best to retain a positive outlook, telling himself that it could be worse, but eventually his resolve began to deteriorate and he started to become mildly irritated with the deluge. Flying beside him, Draft didn’t appear to be having a much better time. They had given up trying to fly above the clouds, because the storm had grown to a point where they had to avoid being electrocuted by the frequent bolts of lightning that streaked around them.

At the rate that the temperature was dropping, it wouldn’t be long before they were put at risk of catching hypothermia. They needed to dry out their gear and bundle up better, but an apparent lack of burnable wood stood in the way of that goal. If Draft had been victorious in lighting a fire that morning then they may have been able to stave of freezing for awhile longer. As it was, the pegasus were both beginning to shiver as the heat was sapped from their bodies with every minute.

“Sweet Celestia, when do you think this storm will pass?” Draft asked. “I’m practically drowning over here.” Even though the brothers were only separated by a few yards, the sound of the torrential rain and the booming of thunder forced Draft to yell the question at his brother.

“I don’t know, but if it keeps up much longer than we’re going to have to find somewhere to take shelter until it lets up,” Downpour shouted in response. Draft’s mouth moved as he yelled something else to his older sibling, but the resounding crack of a lightning strike somewhere behind them drowned out the words from Downpour’s ears. Once the rumble of the thunder had died down, Downpour asked him to repeat what he had said.

“I asked where exactly you expected us to go to get out of the rain, because I don’t see any cover around here,” Draft told him. The blue eyed pegasus scanned the sprawling plains below him, but his brother was right, there wasn’t a single outcropping of cliff or a covering of trees to be seen. Off in the distance however, Downpour happened to spy what looked like somepony’s cabin. He couldn’t tell for sure from where they were flying, but it was their only option, so he motioned for his younger brother to look in its direction.

“That’s where we have to go,” Downpour said. His brother’s eyes scanned the horizon and he nodded in understanding when he caught sight of the small structure.

“Is that a cabin?” Draft asked over the roar of the rain.

“I’m pretty sure it is or maybe a watch post of some sort. We’ll know when we get closer,” Downpour replied. He saw his brother nod in agreement again and the two of them focused the last of their waning strength on arriving to the site as quickly as they could. The heavy raindrops battered the older pegasus’s tattooed face and permeated every bit of his mane and tail, but he was completely absorbed in his goals and wiped the moisture away absentmindedly. If the weather continued on the way it had been all morning, then there was a good chance of them being delayed for half a day or more; a delay that they could not afford at the moment. Every day that they failed to arrive in the capitol of the Crystal Kingdom was another day that the ponies crept closer to war.

The thoughts of war spurred the stocky pegasus to push his well developed muscles even harder and seeing his haste, Draft too picked up the pace of his flapping. A distance that normally would have taken them an hour to travel took a mere quarter of that time as they pushed themselves to their limits. The younger pegasus was the first to arrive at the small log cabin, not that it surprised Downpour. He skidded to a stop a few moments later, nearly crashing straight through the wooden front door in the process.

“Do you think anypony lives here?” Draft questioned him as they stepped farther under the small awning that protruded from the roof of the cabin.

“How am I supposed to know? Why don’t we just knock?” Downpour’s hoof was already thumping against the old wood as he spoke. The pegasus stood there for a few seconds with no response. “Well, I guess that answers your question.” Downpour tried pushing the door open, but it was held in place by a lock of some kind, so he turned his tail end to the entryway and gave it a solid kick that sent the wood splintering in its frame. “Whoops, I didn’t mean to hit it that hard,” he snickered.

“We’ll just have to find something to push in front of the opening,” Draft said as he walked into the dark building. Downpour followed behind him and the smell of dust and mold entered his mouth and nose when he took a breath. The place was obviously abandoned and there were cobwebs and moldy furniture to attest to that fact.

“Not to shabby,” Downpour exclaimed with a slight smirk as he checked out the dingy cabin. It would suit their current needs just fine anyway and that was all that really mattered to him at the moment.

“That should keep out the cold for now,” Draft said as he and his brother pushed a rickety table onto its front end and wedged it over the opening where the door had once stood. “I still wish that we had a fire or something to warm up with though.”

“I have my flint still, so we could always bust up some of this old furniture and light one,” Downpour replied as he dug the small fire starter out of his wet saddlebags and held it up.

“Yeah, but what about all the smoke, genius?” Draft asked.

“We’ll light one by a broken window,” Downpour retorted. “It should let most of the smoke out and it’ll only be long enough to warm up and dry out our gear anyway.”

“Alright, but try not to burn the place down. The last thing I want is to be stuck out in the rain again,” Draft replied, walking over to a rotting chair and kicking it apart.

“No way, I thought I might just light the walls on fire. That should keep us nice and warm,” Downpour replied, his words coming out laced with heavy sarcasm. Draft shot him a glare before resuming the task of breaking up what dry wood he could find around the room. In just a few minutes he had a nice pile made and glanced in his brother’s direction to see how the fire was going. Downpour was struggling to get a pile of semidry paper lit, but Draft had a better idea. He tore a hole in the only couch, an ugly flower patterned thing, and pulled out a chunk of the wool stuffing with his hoof. It felt drier than anything else in the cabin, so he figured it was worth trying to light on fire.

“Here, try this out,” he said as he passed the wad of material to his sibling. Downpour took it without a word and after a few attempts, got a flame going. It didn’t take long for the two of them to get a small pile of scrap wood burning and they began laying their supplies out to dry in its warmth. Eventually the heat filled the rest of the room and the brothers’ shivering abated. Now that they had light and warmth the only other need that Draft had to attend to was his hunger. It was still a little early for lunch, but if they were going to be stuck there for awhile, he figured that he might as well eat. Almost all of their food had been ruined by the rain however, even though they had wrapped it up, so he was left with nothing but fruits and vegetables.

“You’re eating again, fatty?” Downpour asked when he saw the array of foods laid out near Draft.

“Yes I am,” Draft replied. “Did you want some?”

“Yeah, I might as well,” Downpour shrugged.

“Oh, so who’s the fatty now?” Draft asked with a grin as he passed an orange over to the bluish stallion. He selected an apple for himself and they were soon chewing on them in relative contentment. The fire crackled quietly nearby as they filled their stomachs and waited out the raging storm. Every so often lightning would flash, followed shortly after by thunder, just to remind them why they were sitting in a dingy old cabin in the first place.

It didn’t take long after they had finished eating for the brothers to become restless in their confinement and they began pacing around the wooden floors in agitation. Draft regularly checked their cloaks and boots to see if they were dry enough to wear, but the small fire could only put off so much heat and building a larger blaze would only cause problems. His brother was just as impatient as he was. Seeing the black haired stallion pace around in circles and remembering what Chestnut had told them about his tattoo’s meaning, caused Draft to start chuckling hysterically. Part of it may have been the nervous energy in him, but it was still pretty funny and his brother’s quizzical look only made it worse.

“What they hay are you laughing so hard about?” Downpour asked him.

“Your face!” Draft managed to shout out between fits of coughing and giggles. Downpour’s stern expression as he responded increased his younger brother’s laughter to a point where the skinny pegasus doubled over and clutched his stomach in pain.

“And what’s wrong with my face?” Downpour questioned.

“I don’t remember, but be patient… it’ll come back to me,” Draft choked out. Even his brother cracked a smile at that one and for a few minutes the two of them just sat there laughing as the cabin around them was pelted by a seemingly endless barrage of raindrops. Eventually the pegasus caught their breath and each of them flopped down onto the ragged couch in exhaustion. Draft’s sides ached from all of the laughter, but it was worth it in his mind. Now, they were back to simply waiting again and that was no fun at all.

The storm continued well into the afternoon, before the cloud cover finally broke and small rays of sunshine graced the valley with their warmth. Downpour and his brother had done their best to find amusing ways to pass the time, but they had still grown very tired of sitting around in the cabin after only thirty minutes or so. The older stallion was the first one to notice that the steady patter of rain had slowed and just the thought of getting out of the cabin put a smile on his face.

“Hey you hear that?” he asked his brother as he walked over to the open window.

“Hear what?” Draft questioned.

“The rain is finally letting up,” his brother replied.

“Oh, thank Celestia, I was going crazy trapped in this crumby pile of sticks,” Draft said with a relieved sigh. The grey pegasus made his way over to the window and stood by his older brother. The sight before them was truly marvelous; the lush valley sprawled out in every direction and between the clouds they could see golden sunlight filtering through and slowly drying the fields of grass.

“Well, I guess we should grab our stuff and get going before the rain starts up again,” Downpour sighed as he glanced up at the sky. It looked as if the clouds were moving away and the storm was breaking apart, but you never really knew. In the big cities, pegasus controlled the weather and had a say over when it would rain and for how long, but everywhere else nature made its own decisions.

“Maybe we should look around the cabin first,” Draft suggested.

“Why?” Downpour asked.

“There could be something useful in here,” Draft replied. “You never know.” The younger pony started walking around and checking in drawers and along the few shelves he could see. After a quick look around him, Downpour didn’t think that they would find anything worth carrying, but he decided to humor his little brother and walked over to the bedroom door. The hinges were a bit rusted, but a little push was sufficient to force it open.

The bedroom was just as dirty as the rest of the cabin and because the door had been closed, the air was even mustier. Aside from a heavily molded bed, the only other furnishings in the room were an end table and a bookshelf. Downpour scanned the bindings of the books, but none of them looked very interesting to him. They were mostly history books about life before Discord’s War and although those books detailed happy carefree times gone by, he had no interest in such frivolous tales. It did make him pause momentarily to wonder about who the previous occupant might have been. Surely anypony that chose to live this far from civilization must have had a few quirks, but the small home seemed normal enough, so he shrugged his shoulders and continued searching for something more worthwhile.

Downpour spied a closet on the other side of the room and made his way over to inspect its contents. There were a few articles of time ravaged clothing hanging up as well as some worn boots on the floor, but it was a chest shoved into the back that really caught his eye. It looked very well made and much less dusty than anything else in the cabin, so he figured it was worth checking out. Grasping it with two hooves, he yanked the small trunk from its place in the closet and pulled it out into the main room, so that he could get a better look at it.

“Hey Draft, come help me open up this chest I found. There might be something valuable in it,” Downpour called out as he examined the storage box, which was crafted from hardwood and locked with a large iron padlock. Unlike every other object in the house, the chest appeared to be in good shape, almost as if I’d had been maintained recently. A few tugs on the padlock revealed that it was firmly in place and without a key the only hope would be to break the container open, but without knowing exactly what was inside, Downpour was unsure whether or not it would put the contents at risk to do so. His younger brother had the same opinion on the matter.

“Where the buck did you find that thing at?” Draft asked upon seeing the sturdy chest of untold mystery. He prodded it with his hoof, as if he thought it would open at his bidding and bestow its secrets to him.

“It was shoved in the back of the closet and I have no idea how to open it,” Downpour explained. “I thought about trying to break it apart.”

“But that might break whatever’s inside.” Draft finished his sentence and leaned in for a closer inspection. “It looks fairly new. Do you think somepony found this cottage and decided it was a good place to store their valuables?”

“The only ponies that would do something like that are either really stupid or have something to hide,” Downpour replied. He was betting on the latter option, which would mean that whatever was in it was most likely valuable to somepony and therefore worth scavenging. He had no problem stealing from criminals; it wasn’t like that was a crime after all. “I say we take it with us.”

“That’s ridiculous. Do you know how big of a pain in the flank it would be to carry this with us all the way to the Crystal Kingdom?”

“No, you featherbrain, we’d only have to carry it to a new hiding spot and then we could open it on our way back.” It wasn’t a bad plan, if he said so himself, although Draft didn’t agree with him on the matter.

“Have you even tried looking around here for the key yet?” The older pegasus facehoofed at his lack of common sense. Leave it to his brother to come up with the smart plans. “It could be lying around here somewhere.”

“You have a point,” Downpour agreed as he stood up from the chest and scratched his head. “Where would they have put the key though?”

“I don’t know, probably in the same room you found it in, most ponies are dumb like that, but I’ll check around out here, just in case they were a little smarter than your average pony.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Downpour concurred as he set off to find the missing key. The mystery of what was locked away was becoming very enticing for the bluish pegasus and he hoped that it was something worth the time they were spending on it. It would make him really upset if it wound up being old clothes or some nonsense of that sort. The most obvious place for a key was the nightstand, so he made his way over and tugged open the single drawer, hoping to be lucky enough to find the key waiting there for him. He was rewarded with nothing more than some old papers and a spider’s nest. Shuddering at the thought of arachnids crawling over his skin with their creepy little legs, he slammed the nightstand closed and decided to scour the rest of the bedroom for his prize instead.

“I was wrong. This is hopeless, Downpour. I’ve searched everywhere in this Celestia forsaken cabin and I haven’t found anything besides dust and cobwebs,” Draft huffed in irritation as he planted his flank on a chair. They had been tearing the cabin apart for a good hour looking for the key, but it was becoming apparent that it wasn’t anywhere in the small structure. The only way they were going to be able to get the chest open was to break it apart and his persistence was falling to the point that he seriously contemplated kicking the box into scrap wood right there.

“I give up!” Downpour shouted from the bathroom. It seemed that even his zebra glyph couldn’t provide the patience needed to keep up the search. “I’m pretty sure that whoever locked this chest didn’t leave the key around here, so any other bright ideas about how to get this thing open?”

“I say we drop the freaking thing,” Draft replied with a scowl. Just looking at the unopened chest now was enough to make him unhappy. The locked container sat there with its secrets sealed away, mocking him, his brother and their futile attempts to break into its mysteries. Maybe he was overdramatic, but Draft blamed it on being stuck in confinement most of the afternoon.

“You sound like me,” Downpour replied with a smirk. “Alright then, I agree. Let’s break this chest open. I want to see what’s in it already.”

“I want the first crack at it,” Draft shouted. His older brother stepped back and gestured for him to go on ahead. The large smile that was plastered across the younger stallion’s face had disappeared after his first kick. Instead of splintering apart, like he had expected it to, the box flashed with a magical light and launched his legs back with a force equal to the power of his buck. He crashed face first into the hardwood floor, smashing his lips hard enough that he tasted blood as he got back to his hooves. His brother’s cackling didn’t help any either.

“That. Was. Great!” Downpour laughed.

“It’s some sort of enchantment. I’d like to see you do any better,” Draft scowled as his brother continued his amused chuckling.

“Oh, I would love to,” Downpour answered once he regained his composure. “Step back and let big brother show you how it’s done.” His actions failed to live up to his boasts however, as he too was knocked back from the chest with a magical burst of energy. “What the buck?!”

“Yeah, you sure showed me alright,” Draft snickered. Downpour glared at him before walking over to a chair and picking it up. Crash! The magic flared again upon impact and the chair practically exploded in his hooves, sending a shower of splintered wood around the room. “Ugh, who enchants an old chest, I mean honestly? What a waste of magic.”

“Uh, I think they might,” Draft said as he spotted a group of pegasus through the front window, walking towards the cabin.

“Huh, who would?” Downpour asked in confusion.

“Them,” Draft said as he pointed his hoof in the direction of the approaching ponies and a look of surprise overcame his brother as the stallion’s gaze followed his gesture.

“Not again. How much do you want to bet that they’re the ones who enchanted this chest and that they’re willing to fight us to keep the contents a mystery?” Downpour asked.

“I’m not betting because I know our luck and there is no way in hay that they won’t pick a fight,” Draft replied. The pegasus were steadily approaching the brothers and would know something was amiss as soon as they saw the table pushed up against the doorway. “What’s our plan?”

“Since when have we ever planned before a fight?” Downpour asked with the barest hint of a grin.

“Good point,” Draft agreed as he made his way to one side of the door and motioned for his brother to take a spot on the opposite side. There were five pegasus approaching, but if they got the jump on them, then there was a shot that they might be able to make it out of there alive. Fighting indoors was not something most pegasus enjoyed, not that most enjoyed fighting anyway, but they would have to make due.

Downpour and his brother stood motionless as the unknown stallions approached the cabin. He could hear them talking about what they would each spend their cut of the bits on when the job was finished. That solved the mystery of what was inside the chest and it must have been a pretty large sum if they had such a strong enchantment in place to protect it.

“What the hay, somepony’s been in the hideout!” one of the pegasus shouted upon seeing the broken door with a table pushed up against it.

“You’re right and by the looks of it, they’re probably still in there,” another voice responded. “If they take the chest we could all wind up in Canterlot dungeon for the rest of our lives, so I want the head of whoever was stupid enough to cross our path!” Downpour’s heart rate began increasing as adrenaline was released throughout his body. A loud crack sounded out as the table was bucked in half and the first pegasus rushed through the door.

He ran right past the brothers as one of his cohorts followed in after him. Downpour launched himself onto the back of the first stallion and began pummeling the back of the pony’s head with powerful hits. Downpour tackled the second stallion below the knees and dropped him to the ground where the he began stomping on the surprised stallion. The first two went down easy, but their angry screams alerted the remaining three pegasus in the group and made them leery to enter the log cabin.

“I’ll give one chance to whoever is in there, give up our chest and surrender or I’m going to be forced to severely hurt you,” the stallion, who appeared to be the criminals’ leader, shouted the warning out to them, but neither Downpour nor his brother responded. The only advantage they had was the element of surprise and they intended to use it as long as possible. Let the attackers come to them instead of rushing out and getting their flanks kicked. “No? Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Both of the brothers had retaken their positions behind the door, but none of the remaining three stallions outside were in their limited line of sight and Downpour began to wonder exactly what they were up to. It didn’t take long for him to get an answer to his question because the sound of breaking glass let him know that somepony was coming in through the bedroom window. Another window shattering from around the corner in the kitchen told him that they had just been surrounded. So much for the element of surprise, he mused.

Downpour turned and ran for the bedroom, hoping to surprise the stallion that had broken in, before he made it out of the room. He thought he saw Draft shaking his head and trying to mouth something at him, but his mind was already set on its target. He launched through the partially opened door and slammed into the stallion. The moldy bed broke apart as the two of them crashed into it and began grappling with each other. Downpour was in pretty good shape, but so was his opponent and it seemed as if his plan wasn’t going to work out quite as he had hoped.

“There’s one in the bedroom!” the cerulean pegasus below him shouted out to his accomplices, before Downpour slammed his forehead into the stallion’s mouth. It hurt a little more than he though it would, but it had effectively silenced his foe, so Downpour wasn’t complaining. In the main room he could hear the sounds of his brother fighting with somepony else, so he slammed a hoof into the side of the dazed stallion’s head and rushed out to lend a hoof, only to nearly spear himself on the tip of a wing blade.

“Well, hello there,” the lead pegasus said with a cocky grin, “I thought that there might be more than one of you, so are you the only other pony here?” Downpour just shot him a glare and refused to answer as his eyes scanned around for someway to turn the tables on the tall, yellow pegasus in front of him. “Oh, the strong and silent type, huh?” The yellow stallion glanced over to where Downpour’s little brother was in a brawl with the last of the leader’s stallions. “You there, surrender now or I’ll kill your friend here.” Draft’s eyes made contact with the leader’s and the grey pegasus dropped his hooves in defeat. The stallion he had been fighting with punched him in the stomach and pushed a hoof against his back as he dropped to the ground.

“Damn, this one’s a scrappy little bucker. It’s a good thing you had your swords ready boss,” the tan pegasus that had sucker punched his brother smirked at Downpour before catching sight of the chest. “Hey look, the spell that you had that unicorn put on the chest seems to have held. I bet you two tried pretty hard to crack that baby open, didn’t you,” the tan pegasus asked in a nasally voice. Just the sound of that stallion talking grated on Downpour’s nerves and the fact that he had taken a cheap shot on his little brother made it even worse.

“Of course the enchantment worked, you moron. Why else would I have put it on there? No one is getting anything out of that chest with out this,” the lead pegasus replied as he pulled a small key out from his saddle bag. Downpour couldn’t believe he was dumb enough to show off the key in front of them and still have the gall to call the other stallion stupid. “Now, what to do with these two?” The criminals turned their attention away from each other and back to the brothers. Downpour didn’t even attempt to hide the pure rage in his expression as he stared into the yellow stallion’s sea green eyes.

“Aren’t we going to kill them?” the tan pegasus asked his boss.

“Yes, but we don’t know if somepony will come looking for them or not, so we need to take care of them in a way that will keep us from getting caught,” he said as an evil smile began to grace his features, “and I think I know exactly how to do it.” Downpour and Draft didn’t like the sound of that, but they didn’t get much of a chance to dwell on what the yellow pegasus had said, because his follower grabbed a piece of the broken table from the ground and swung it into the back of their heads, knocking them both out cold for the second time that week.

When Draft came to, he found himself in a cage, sitting in the back of a small wagon. Downpour was next to him, already fully awake and silently fuming in anger. As much as Draft and his brother hated being stuck in one place, it seemed as if they were constantly getting themselves captured lately. He hoped to Celestia that it wouldn’t become an everyday occurrence.

“So, did I miss anything,” Draft asked his brother, before getting onto his hooves with a groan of pain.

“The dumbasses are taking us north to the border,” Downpour replied with a slight smile, “something about nopony finding our bodies if they dump them on the Crystal Kingdom side.” Well, at least they were traveling in the right direction, Draft thought, albeit not in the most comfortable of conditions.

“What should we do?” he asked Downpour after looking himself over for any serious injuries. Aside from his throbbing head, the grey pegasus could only see a few scrapes and bruises, nothing even close to life threatening.

“Nothing, we’ll just let them tire out dragging us north and in the meantime we’ll be thinking of ways to break out when that time comes,” Downpour replied. His black maned brother appeared to have everything planned out and was waiting patiently, so Draft couldn’t help but wonder if the zebra symbol over his eye had actually done something useful. If it was in fact making Downpour patient, then it was certainly worth every bit he had paid for it.

“Wait, where’s all of our gear?” Draft asked, remembering that his new swords were still packed in his bags. He looked around, but couldn’t see into the front of the wagon and there was nothing to be seen behind them.

“They divided our things between the four of them,” Downpour answered.

“Four? I thought there were five pegasus that attacked us,” Draft replied.

“Yeah, I think I may have hit the first one a little too hard, because I haven’t seen or heard him since I woke up,” Downpour grimaced. One more strike against his brother’s ‘being a better pony’ goal, Draft thought, as he took a seat on the floor of the cart next to his brother.

“Well, I suppose that means now we only have to break out of a locked metal cage, take out three armed pegasus with our bare hooves, recover our belongings from their unconscious bodies and liberate their most likely stolen bits. Does that about cover it?” Draft couldn’t help but smile a little bit when he asked the question.

“Heh, yeah, I guess that’s about right,” Downpour replied as he scratched his head, looking as if he was trying to come up with a plan. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said after a few minutes of silence.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Draft replied.

“Alright, let’s get this done. I want to finish up here and eat some dinner.” The bosses voice sounded out the orders from somewhere in the front of the wagon. They had traveled for hours, apparently long enough for them to reach the border, and it had to have been close to midnight. The night was moonless and pitch-black, so Downpour couldn’t hear anything, besides the sounds that their captures were making. It seemed as if the time had come for the brothers to save themselves from a grim fate, but neither of the pegasus had been able to figure out a way to escape from the cage, let alone come up with a plan that wouldn’t end in them dying.

“I’m going to charge out and start attacking them when they open the door of the cage. I want you to take off as fast as possible for the Crystal Kingdom, Draft, because no matter what, we need to stop this war and I know they can catch me, but with a little head start, you can be out of their reach pretty quickly,” Downpour whispered to his younger brother as the sound of hoofsteps drew closer. Even in the dark he could see that Draft wasn’t happy with the plan, but the younger stallion nodded his head in acceptance of it none the less. As hard as it was for Downpour, he imagined it was even harder for Draft, but the life of one pony, even if that pony was your sibling, wasn’t worth the lives of an entire country full of ponies.

Downpour tensed his muscles as one of the stallions stepped into view, wearing Draft’s wing blades, and pulled out a key to unlock the door to their portable prison. As soon as he heard the lock click, the stocky pegasus kicked his back hooves against the door, sending it smashing into the pony’s face with a crunch of breaking bones.

“Draft, go now!” he shouted as he dove through the opening. His brother was a shadowy blur as he shot up into the sky and Downpour sighed with relief that at least one of them would be able to complete their mission.

Downpour dropped a hoof into the already broken face of the pegasus that had unlocked their cell, silencing him permanently. All of his goals to be better went out the door when these ponies had threatened his brother’s life and he didn’t plan on going down without a fight. The sound of their escape had alerted the other three and Downpour saw the shapes of the stallions galloping towards him in the darkness. He picked up a good sized stone from the damp ground and ran straight for them, releasing a fear inducing scream into the still night air as he galloped.

Downpour sprang for the closest stallion to him, swinging the rock into the side of the pegasus’s tan head as he landed. They collapsed in a lifeless heap immediately and Downpour could feel the splash of warm blood on his face as the nasally voiced pony fell. Before he could turn around to face his next opponent, he felt the weight of somepony crashing into his back, the force dropping him to his knees. Downpour flapped his wings wildly and squirmed around as he attempted to get the stallion off of him, but he couldn’t seem to shake his attacker loose. Then he felt the pounding of a hoof against his side and he winced in pain at each punch that connected.

Downpour managed to roll onto his back and after ramming into the ground a couple times, his attacker’s hoof finally slipped its grip. They both got to their feet and started trading blows for a few seconds before Downpour felt a stab of cold steel sink into his hide about an inch deep.

“Move another muscle and I’ll end you right here,” came a familiar voice. The criminal leader had decided to sneak up on Downpour once again it seemed, but at least he had managed to take out two of the yellow pegasus’s stallions before he had.

“Go ahead and do it you spineless piece of shit!” Downpour spat back at him.

“Ah, so you can speak after all and here I thought the two of you might be mutes,” the stallion laughed humorlessly. “No matter though, in just a few seconds nopony will ever be hearing your voice again.”

“Talk is cheap, let’s get this over with,” Downpour replied.

“First, I would like to know where your friend flew off to, because if I have to hunt him down, then I will make sure to give him the slowest, most painful death that I can possibly manage,” the yellow stallion said as he gave a slight twist of his weapon. “If you tell me now though, I may decide to kill him quickly.” The pegasus smiled, revealing teeth that were nearly as yellow as his hide.

“There are a couple problems with that,” Downpour replied. “One, he’s my brother not my friend, and two, there is no way that you could ever hope to catch up with him.” He smiled right back at his captor, staring coldly into the pony’s green eyes.

“Pity, I guess that means I’ll have to make it slow and pa-” The yellow stallion’s words were cut short as blood bloomed in the center of his throat, a second after Draft’s wing blade pierced through it. The grey pegasus yanked his sword back out and the yellow stallion slumped to the ground, letting out gurgling sounds that would have been screams as he bled out on the dirt. Downpour turned to face the remaining criminal, but the pegasus had already taken off flying west as fast as his wings could carry him.

“You bucking featherbrain, I told you to head for the Crystal Kingdom,” Downpour said, as he turned back to face his younger brother.

“Hey, I paid good money for these wing blades and I wasn’t about to let a bunch of thieves make off with them… oh, and I guess I wanted to help you out too or something,” Draft replied with a smile. “Should we take our stuff and go set up camp? I’m kind of tired after all that fighting.”

“Screw that, I’m sleeping right here in this wagon. I’m not taking another step until I get some rest, we can deal with packing in the morning,” Downpour replied as he stumbled over to the wagon and grabbed a blanket that was sitting on the front seat, wrapping it around his body before lying down on the floor. The truth was that the stocky pegasus wasn’t even that tired, but he had just come seconds away from dying and he either had to close his eyes and sleep or have an emotional breakdown and he wasn’t about to have a breakdown in front of Draft. Downpour shook with fear as he laid there, but pretended it was just the chill of the air.

“Uh, okay. Goodnight… I guess,” Draft shrugged.

“Night,” Downpour replied before closing his eyes. The emotional turmoil inside of him wouldn’t dissipate, but he kept his eyes clenched shut, trying to will his mind to rest. He could hear the sounds of Draft rummaging around for their gear, but eventually even his brother decided to climb back into the wagon and get some sleep and around the time the sun was just beginning to rise, they were both snoring contentedly.

Author's Note:

This chapter is actually better than I'd remembered. I think this is about the time when I really started to get into the flow of writing, but that's just my opinion. The descriptions might not be quite as vivid as the last part, but the middle of the book certainly has the most action, that's for sure.

Comments

[aganon6]

Alright getting back to a crystal war book and from now on I will voice everything I have to say about every chapter god or bad I seem to be getting better at it anyway time to voice.
For right now I can't give a proper opinion because I was a bit lost at first and I just got back to this after two maybe three months of waiting and I read this over a period of six hours so yeah right now all I can really say is it was good and you really caught me by surprise with the enchantment on the chest so cudos to you. I should also say whenever I really get I to it I can really really tangent.