Bounty On The Frontier

by MajorPaleFace

3. Desert Storm

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Day 1
I have started to write in this diary, for fear I shall not survive the coming journey. I am approximately five days travel from a trading outpost on the border. From there I can travel into Mulico and lay low for a while.

The sun had risen a few hours earlier and she needed to conserve water, luckily Ash had found an ancient overturned cart and now was laying down beneath. She had a bottle of posh Whiskey and after gulping some down, she used the glass end as a mirror. Carving a pair of thin chopsticks from the cart, Ash winced as the first thorn was pulled from below her right eye. The swelling had gone down, but it was still very tender.

There were five more arrayed under that same eye, with maybe forty others around her face. The few embedded in her fetlocks had dropped off during the trot from the canyon. She’d taken enough food and water for three days, and already used close to two days worth. Food wasn’t such an issue as it was water. Without it, she’d die. Ash knew little about the desert and so wasn’t entirely sure she could make it. The rationing would be difficult, and the sun would only worsen things.

Her wings were badly burned with welts and blisters covering every inch of the once leathery flesh, which was now charred and crispy. She would need a doctor, but for now, she would remove the thorns and then try to sleep. Not looking forward to what she had planned come sundown. Sundown, she thought with a grimace. Already she was desperately thirsty and the tiny sip she allowed herself to take barely made any difference.

Although the temperature had chilled significantly, it was still fairly warm as the very last ounces of daylight fought the ever-darkening skies. Ash picked up her gear and moved on achy legs further south. Her face was sore and any movement such as blinking or simply looking about herself caused twinges of pain. The saddlebag strap across her back rubbed into her wings and nudged them as she walked. The pain was flaring again the longer she went on. Hours seemed to go by, feeling like an eternity.

Ash stopped halfway over a small berm, catching a moment to capture her bearings and take another sip of water. She had whiskey for the pain but knew it would act as a diuretic and subsequently drain her of precious hydrating fluid. The horizon held no signs of help, she hadn’t expected to travel this far south and so her map only covered the areas of southern Equestria, yet not this part. Carrying onward despite the discomfort, she thought for the first time since her self-served departure about her family.

Her mother and father would surely be shocked by her newest life choice if indeed they even knew. They always had been stuck up old-fashioned morons as far as Ash was concerned. Too unadventurous to try and get them and their children out of their destitute life. Both had been in the home-guard, and during her mother’s multiple pregnancies she was forced to work as a cleaner in the upper districts, making a pittance for hours of cleaning. Cleaning for the Batican City elite, who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

The state of society in the Thestral and the greater Equestrian world was a botched and entirely unfair system. The one per cent held over ninety per cent of the wealth and land, with only places further into the more wild south and west offering a chance at a more self-sufficient life. Growing up her family had never had a lot of money, a fact compounded by the more children her parents kept having. She didn’t understand when she herself was a Filly, but they should have stopped at one or two. Not the twelve they had.

Two years ago, after Ash’s youngest sister Grey Bean was born, her mother had returned to active service. Barely a week later and both her parents had been killed by tribals. Ash had been fifteen, and so had her identification forged so she could get into the Territorial Guard Reserve a year early. By this stage three of her siblings had been killed, and two more had died of disease.

Grey Bean and the five others, Cinders, Dark Clod, Bitter Cloud, Bark and Cold Weather remained in their parents' tiny shack in Batican City’s slum district. She hadn’t seen any of them for her two year reserve period, but her older brother Cinders wrote to her almost every month. She didn’t reply, but the letters kept coming. She expected by now they would think her killed.

This thought hadn’t concerned her before, she’d wanted nothing more than to leave home and start a new life and live it her way. But now she felt guilt. Guilt because she hadn’t managed to fare any better than her parents, at least they had a home and managed to maintain some stability. And despite all their flaws, she knew they loved them all. She remembered when two of her brother’s had died in a tunnel collapse – as miners.

Her mother had cried for hours and Ash, as a child, didn’t know how to help – but wanted to make the pain go away. Somewhere along the way her frustration and anger had materialised and she blamed her parents for all of it. Maybe it was just her being a stupid kid, which she almost still was. She paused again to have another sip, a few hours passing since the last. Her legs were weak and she herself felt entirely out of power.

Just over the next hill, she lied to herself and continued to push on for the remainder of the night until the first strands of daylight stemmed up behind her. Mixing white and sepia with the black and grey of the previous evening.

Day 2
My first all-nighter march and even after several hours of patchy sleep I feel like a runny shit. I think my wings are a lost cause, the pain is not as bad tonight but I feel numbness and tingling. I think if I can't get the blood circulating or if I get gangrene – it could be the beginning of the end. I just need to get out of this godforsaken desert.

She didn’t dare move her wings, the once thick and beautiful bat appendages now looked as shrivelled as over-boiled cabbage. She had her head craned around and while trembling with the last half bottle of whiskey in her mouth, splashed copious amounts over the affected wings. She hissed through the bottle clenched in her teeth and shut her eyes as they teared up.

She leaned in once she’d regained her composition and sniffed her wings. The burned and charred flesh looked awful but thankfully did not smell foul. Which meant no infection hopefully, Ash only knew basic first aid. Next, she lifted them off her back and looped her saddlebags carefully underneath. She removed another fine handkerchief from her knapsack and spread it underneath her wings between the leather of her saddlebags. She sighed as the discomfort dissipated ever so slightly.

A wind had picked up tonight and the moon had finally appeared as a splinter of silver. The crescent showing signs of the banished princess across its surface. The topic of Princess Luna was a hot one amongst Thestrian rulership, some praised her and stood behind her, others sided with her solar sister and backed the decision of punishment by temporary exile.

Ash didn’t really have an opinion on the matter, she knew the tale – all Thestrals did. They had a statue of her memory in her school that they all used to touch for good luck while some Thestrals offered up prayers. But putting that aside, it had been a few hundred years since she had left. The once proud, unified and equal Thestral-kind had been reduced to squabbling nobles, disagreeing military leaders and impudent kings. It was, Ash reckoned, because of Luna’s disappearance that her life was the way it was.

There was a flash of light ahead and although too late to really process it, Ash threw herself to the ground. Then hissed and cursed herself for being lost in thought. It came from the air, she crawled over the coarse sand and wedged herself in a little recess at the edge of a patch of cacti. There it was again, now just a shimmering glint but it was there. Somepony on the ground.

She remained very still, listening and watching. Trying to catch any scent on the wind, or any sound from the horizon.
Time passed and she considered what to do, already she was beginning to shake from the cold. Not having enough food to eat the day before during her sleeping period meant she was low on calories. There was a sharp note from above her, not wanting to give herself away she remained in place.

Entering her peripheral vision there was a V formation of ponies. Probably Thestrals from their size and flight speed. They cruised above and then split off in pairs to spread out over a greater distance with the pair on the ground rising to do the same. No doubt searching for her. Had they done so only thirty seconds earlier, she probably would have been caught.

She crept along, the landscape shifting from arid rocky crevices to a more flat open sand. There were dunes. She’d officially entered the desert that spanned west from Southern Equestria to the coast near the Gryphon Port town of Aylesbury. If she pushed through the desert south enough, she’d stumble into the Mulican Peninsula and from there on to Mulico city. Equestrian Law had no jurisdiction there so she’d be relatively safe. Of course, there were yellow-maned savages and Mulican outlaws to contend with. The south was a rough place, Ash just hoped it didn't chew her up and spit her out.

There was a seventy mile stretch of barren sand between here and there, but that was fine. A thirty mile a day pace would see her there okay and hopefully in time to not have died of dehydration. The hours stretched on and the wind only became more intense. Strong gusts blasted sand clouds high into the air, occasionally sprinkling her with grains of it like a wave at a beach.

She’d gotten so much in her eyes she could feel a crust start to form. Heavy cloud cover had started to form and despite her hearing the southern sands only having rain once every few years, it was looking more and more like a good shower was on its way.

The moonlight flitted through the cloud cover, the slim rays like sunlight underwater. They painted eerie shadows across the sand. And even with her decent nocturnal vision, her mind was playing tricks on her. More than once she rounded a dune, careful to stay low so as not to silhouette herself to any pursuing law, and found herself facing ten pony-shaped shadows.

Only for the light to shift and it was revealed to be her imagination. From the moon’s subtle shift in position, she estimated it to have been three hours since entering the desert proper and paused to have a short rest in a particularly deep pit between three sandy hills. She drank some water and ate some bread. Actually, she sucked on the bland provisions since they were rock-solid. She only had enough water for a few more sips, she needed to conserve it. Afterwards, and ignoring her unquenchable thirst and insatiable appetite, Ash slogged on. Dragging her hooves through the sand as if made of concrete.

Day 3
Time is starting to blur. No sooner had I rested and eaten than the sun seemed to rise, yet it should have been several hours of darkness to go.

The wind punished me all night and I slept very little, my wings feel better and moving them slightly to promote blood flow was not too painful. The day is overcast and as it ends I shall continue moving south. I spotted law ponies last night, and again this morning. I am worried, I feel as if the noose is tightening.

Rain, it had started raining and after a gradual increase into a downpour, it was now torrential. Having never left the outskirts of Batican City and spending most of her life underground, the only rain Ash had ever really seen was in the far mountains to the north. The clouds and shadows as the rain flowed were replaced by water in places deep enough to swim in.

Ash couldn’t fly and so was relegated to sticking to the higher parts of the dune trails. Thunder rumbled and lightning forks pierced the air. She was soaked through, the rain was cold and the wind chilled her to the bone. Grumbling as she skidded over wet sand, the sand itself not absorbing the water quick enough and so the lower channels, ditches and lakebeds were filling up fast. Another lightning flash revealed that a flat plane ahead was completely submerged. The black water swelled, swirling strong and violent.

Another lightning strobe sent a long prong of electrical energy into the water not too far from her. She heard it crackle and a small amount of vapour flashed before dissipating. What she had thought of as a set of sand dunes was actually a riverbed. Even now she could see the wall of water twenty feet high rushing through its far end, engulfing everything in its path.

A panicked gargling sound shot out of her mouth and she turned back the way she’d come. Only to see a landslide of sand and mud churning away at the path she’d just used. Steering herself around, she darted down and over a mound of sand that collapsed as soon as she touched it. Struggling through the morass of water and sand she all but hauled herself along the dirt up the adjacent mound to temporary safety.

The wind howled and kicked up waves of water, the rain continued to fall in sheets as thick as glass. The veritable river of water flowed over the land and ebbed at her heels, Ash scurried and tripped over herself as the water caught up to her.
She felt the freezing and tumultuous water stream over her and suddenly she was submerged by it. She thrashed and kicked to try and surface as her lungs began to ache under the pressure. Still underwater, she was dragged by the fast-moving undercurrents along a rocky sand bed.

She hit her head on something as she was cartwheeled around. As she was flailed her rear hooves touched something solid – and with a single powerful kick, her head came bursting from the topwater. She coughed and spluttered as her body was forced back under, again and again, bobbing along she occasionally brushed against something here or there.

Deadwood sailed past and a little way off, briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning, Ash saw the outline of an uprooted tree. It turned and rocked as it was dragged along, the water around it leaving wake trails that buffeted her even further.
Thunder clapped and the vibrations shook her thoroughly. She kicked and swam, the distress making her wheeze and cry since the tree neither distanced itself nor became closer.

Her wings had unfurled unconsciously and although it should have hurt she noted no such agony, her adrenaline likely masking it. Continually she swam through the black River that swirled and eddied around her, pulling her and twisting her.
She had completely lost her sense of direction and was almost considering giving up, such was the fatigue placed on her body, when she smashed painfully into the uprooted tree.

The branches snapped as she scrabbles to find purchase, she wrapped her forehooves around the thickest part and clasped on for dear life. While she rocked and swayed with the tumbling motion of the tree, she occasionally had to reposition so as not to drown. With difficulty, she worked on pulling herself up, yet the tree only rolled as she tried. Ultimately, it seemed to level out and she was able to get most of the way out of the water.

Ash was completely exhausted, the rain continued in earnest but the thunder and lightning display started to clear off. She rested for a while with her upper body wedged uncomfortably between the spikey tree branches. Even in the darkness, she caught glimpses of movement in the water, the current pulling all sorts of debris in the form of driftwood and trees.

Considering she was in the desert she didn’t know where they’d been pulled up from but was nonetheless grateful. She uncharacteristically offered a small prayer to the goddess of the moon, Princess Luna. Ash took in several breaths and started to pull herself fully across the log. It began turning but she countered it using her weight. She needed to stabilise her new raft and dug into her saddlebags for anything of use. Finding a small length of thin rope, her good rope was dropped following her escape, she had left it tied to Colter back at the camp.

She made a loop and used her teeth to pull it tight into a short lasso. It wasn’t able to be pulled taught, but she could throw it around something and drag it her way. She moved to straddle the log, her rear legs dangled in the water as the current calmed a little, it was like being in the middle of the ocean. On the horizon, lightning flashed and coursed, like blood through veins – pulsing as if to an imaginary heartbeat.

She looked around her, hearing something solid connect with something else a few feet from her. Taking a gamble she tossed the rope out across the water. It draped over something that was floating a little ahead of her and being pulled away by the current. She reeled on the rope and it snagged on something. She pulled, slowly tugging the debris closer.

Ash reeled hard and fast. Hoof over hoof, pulling it closer. It touched the far end of her tree and seemed to tangle on the branches. She let it drift off slightly and then used her other foreleg to push against the current and gently rotate the log. And then she pulled it in again, this time it met her tree side-by-side. A little smaller, but it would do for a start.

Carefully she used her unsheathed sabre to loop the rope around the equally spiny tree and tie them together. Her issue was she now had no more rope. Although the two logs together were infinitely more stable, they were wildly uncomfortable.
She had a file in her pack and began the long process of removing some of the worst little branches between the two trees.

It took some doing, but she now had a small pocket to sit in. The trees were ropey, as they must have been alive when uprooted. Sawing the branches off was a time-consuming process and her grip began to waiver. Giving up after getting the file lodged in a thick branch, she curled up uncomfortably – being careful of her wings and promptly entered the world of unconsciousness.

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Author's Note:

Updated 05/11/2020

Comments

[MajorPaleFace]

10250359
Desert Floods can come out of nowhere supposedly. The sand doesn't absorb the water, so suddenly millions of litres can flood from a mountain along dried up riverbeds and overwhelm everything with its speed.

[Quiznak]

This is a pretty good fic, can't wait for more!