Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past

by LoyalLiar

XXI - Last Rites

XXI

Last Rites

Roscherk Krovyu, Commander of the Honor Guard, had no idea how to react when Twilight Sparkle threw her forelegs around him with a sigh of relief. After a moment’s consideration, he reached over her back with a wing and gave her a firm swat to her left cutie mark. At her gasp of offense, the red stallion slipped out from her grip, chuckling. “Looking good, Sparkle.”

“You… you…”

“Not the time, I know.” Ink rolled his shoulders, notably bare of his trademark jacket, and looked around the room. Though his next words came out in Stalliongradi, the quill scratching on the wall translated them quite well. “Serp, what in Tartarus happened to your leg?”

“I ran into Fenrir…” Serp shuddered, his eyes staring into the ground.

Twilight, who had finally managed to located her tongue, looked in Ink’s direction. “How did you find us?”

“It wasn’t that hard. I just followed the trail of carnage.” The stallion known to both present mares as Red Ink waved a wing in the air. “I leave Stol’nograd for six months, and when I get back, rebels take over Trotsylvania and a small team of ponies steals a train to escape. Countess Star―” Ink cut himself off to spit on the ground. “―told me you had been here, and you were looking into Onyx Ridge. When I found the train just sitting there, it was pretty obvious.” Ink chuckled to himself. “Oh, yeah, and then Molot outright told me. So, Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia, let me ask you this: what possessed you stick your muzzle in here alone?”

“We’re looking for Shining Armor!”

Ink was quiet for a surprisingly long time. His shoulders rose and fell in one smooth motion. “You don’t know?”

Twilight shook her head. “I know exactly what you said. Princess Celestia told me. But if he were really dead, she would have known. She would have sent him to the Summer Lands.”

“Serp,” the Honor Guard growled. “Take the guardsmare in the corner up top. I melted a hole in the tunnel that goes up to the castle level; get to the train and wait. We won’t be long.”

“No…” It was the first word Going Solo had managed since Ink had come to their rescue, and its lingering echoes were tinged with fear and insecurity. When she felt his eyes fall on her, her wings began to shake, rattling her armor. Despite the obvious fear, she managed to match his gaze. “I’m not leaving Twilight with you.”

Serp bared his filed fangs as he laughed. “Looks like you even have a reputation in Canterlot, Blood Stroke.”

Roscherk himself was less amused. “Look, guard, whatever you’ve heard about me is probably true. There’s no need to go wetting yourself over it, though. I’m not going to hurt Twilight. I’m not even that interested in sleeping with her. But right now, I think I can help her―”

“No. No, you can’t.” Solo stood up, though her motions were strained as if some weight was holding down each of her hooves. “Stay… stay away from…”

“You’re going to stop me?” Ink’s wings didn’t properly unfurl, but the slight stretch he allowed them was just enough emphasis to bring the little sparks he had building on the tips of his primaries into view.

Solo froze. Ink smiled. The flames on his wings grew full and tall, filling up to the ceiling of the room.

The guardsmare screamed, sprinting past him and running back into the tunnels of Onyx Ridge.

“Shit.” Ink himself turned to chase after her, the fires on his wings dying. Twilight moved to go with him, and the bulky warrior had to stop himself in order to slow her near-sprint. “Serp, go find her. Path should be clear.”

Serp, who was holding his chest with a wing as he laughed, nodded at the command. “Oh, Blood Stroke, the look on her face…” Breaking into a limping run, the buckwheat Marshal pursued the echoes of Solo’s steps.

Left alone, Ink turned back to face Twilight. When he saw the disappointment on her face, his hoof wandered to his short-cropped black mane. “Look, Twilight, I didn’t think she’d freak out like that.”

“That’s your excuse? What if she isn’t okay?”

Ink smiled at that comment, which seemed to only put Twilight in a worse mood. “I wouldn’t worry about her. The vargr decided to get out of the kitchen.”

“What?”

“I thought that was an Equiish… saying… thing. If you can’t take the heat…” He flared up the fire on his wings for just a moment, like a vainglorious pyrotechnician. Twilight’s expression remained flat. “...you know what, nevermind. I guess not. Anyway, I killed seven of the vargr, and then the rest ran away with their tails between their legs.” He glanced away. “Ahem. Twilight, I…was hoping to talk to you about Shining Armor.”

“What about?”

Ink opened his mouth, and then hesitated. His lips closed again, and then he shut his eyes and spoke. “Masquerade killed my brother too, Twilight. My little brother.”

“Shining isn’t dead,” Twilight insisted.

The new commander of the Honor Guard hung his head. “Don’t do this to yourself, Twilight. You should be at home with your family, and Candace―”

“Cadance.”

“Close enough.” Ink winced when Twilight’s expression worsened. “I’m terrible at this ‘comforting’ thing, aren’t I? I guess I’ll just be blunt and get it over with.” His deep, Stalliongradi-accented voice took a turn for the softer and more focused. “Grief and emotion make us do things we wouldn’t on better days. If I’d paid attention to what was going on around me the day Polnoch died, Stoikaja wouldn’t have gotten away. There wouldn’t be a rebellion.” Ink donned a frown of his own. “I live with the regrets of what happened that day. I don’t want you doing the same―or worse, getting yourself killed. Leave Masquerade to me.”

“I’m not here for revenge,” Twilight answered. “But Shining isn’t dead.”

Ink sighed. “Look, Sparkle, I’m not going to get your hopes up… but if Armor is alive, my older brother should be able to find him. But in return, if Predvidenie finds out he’s dead, I want your word that you’ll go back to Ponyville.”

Twilight’s irritation turned to confusion. “How would your your brother know if Shining was alive or dead? I already tried scrying him, but it didn’t work.”

“I don’t pretend to know how Predvidenie does the things he does; if you can put up with his ego and his stupid voice, you’re welcome to ask him whatever you want. For now, I’d rather talk about something nicer.” Ink’s eyes swept around the room. “Uh, who’s frosty over there?”

Twilight turned to where the soldier was gesturing. The frozen corpse of Commander Typhoon remained as still as it had been for eight millennia. The unicorn frowned. “That’s Typhoon. Commander Hurricane’s daughter, and one of the strongest ice Empaths who has ever lived.”

“She’s got a nice scar.” Ink’s eyes wandered over her frozen body, and he smiled. “Looks like a badass. It’s a shame she’s on ice. I could go for another soldier, for a change.” Looking squarely at Twilight, he continued his thought. “Does she have any descendants?”

Twilight cocked her head, not quite understanding the significance of the question. “Yeah, my friend Rainbow Dash. Why?”

“I can see where she gets it. Close enough build, same manestyle… Actually, that’s a little freaky how close they are. Think I could get Rainbow some coat dye? I was hoping I could find her in a forty-years-younger and not-dead model.”

Twilight growled, stomping toward the tunnel out of Onyx Ridge and whipping her tail from side to side. Ink chuckled, following after her with a smile on his jaw.

Twilight watched Solo shaking in the corner of the train cabin as it began its slow progress toward Stalliongrad. The sorry guardsmare hadn’t noticed the door open, nor had she looked up as her ward approached.

“How are you feeling, Solo?”

Solo’s mouth moved to answer, but the gasping whisper that escaped her lips was unintelligible. To Twilight it sounded like a mare who’d nearly drowned, sucking in a desperate gasp of breath after breaking the surface.

“Solo!” Twilight rushed forward, wrapping a hoof around the mare’s back. The second she sat down, however, she saw the problem―a half open matchbox sitting beside the pegasus’ hind legs. It didn’t take long for the scholar to notice it wasn’t full of matches. “Whispersalt?”

Literally shaking in Twilight’s hooves, Solo managed a nod before looking away in shame.

Twilight’s first reaction was to loosen her grip in irritation. Her momentary thought had been to leave Solo to her misery, and go back to Ink.. At the loss of Twilight’s touch, however, Solo curled into a ball, wrapping her wings around her body and pulling her hind legs in under her chin.

“Solo…” Hoping her motion would be interpreted as making herself comfortable, and not an attempt to abandon the suffering mare, Twilight slid closer. “I’m sorry about this. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Away…” Solo whispered, the harsh signs of the salt leaving a crackle in her voice. When Twilight moved away, the guardsmare began to shake her head in shuddering bursts.

“You don’t want me to leave?” Twilight asked, standing half a stride away.

“from… Red…”

Twilight’s ears perked high in realization. “Oh. Solo, he’s not…” Though the pegasus could barely speak, her friend was able to see exactly how the conversation would end from the sheer terror locked in Solo’s eyes. “…sorry. Let’s just…” Though a part of Twilight wanted desperately to be the mediator, she found herself too tired for the battle. “Let’s not talk about it right now, okay?” Solo nodded. “Do you want me to stay?” Another nod.

Once more, Twilight Sparkle took her place by Solo’s side, acknowledging her sore shoulders and her aching ribs. With a moment of fiddling, she managed to undo the buckle on the side of her jacket. Only a few days from its maker in Trotsylvania, it was fraying and singed, but surprisingly serviceable for what it had been through. Twilight idly amused herself imagining Rarity’s reaction. Oh, darling, what have you been through to do this to such a coat? You simply must let me repair it. The unicorn smiled wistfully, until she finally removed the weight against her flank.

The ancient book was cold to the touch, preserved by its owner’s empatha even all these thousands of years later. “Do you mind if I do some reading?”

Solo seemed to think for a moment, and then nodded her head with a small smile. “…out loud.”

“Alright!” The cover heeded Twilight’s hoof, revealing the scratchy writing of a mare long-dead. It took the modern unicorn a few moments to get used once more to the strange symbols of the Cirran alphabet, but soon, she found the words flowing.

“Cyclone got me this journal. When we were younger, Father taught us to write like he did, as a way to clear our minds. We were too young to appreciate why he did it, but now I understand it was his way of letting out the pressures of leading so many ponies.”

Twilight turned the page slowly, using her hoof to make sure her magic did not interfere with what was left of Typhoon’s in the old pages. Before she continued, she spared a glance for Solo. Despite the glassiness of her stare, the guardsmare’s ears were perked, and her attention pointed straight at Twilight. “Keep…”

“Alright. Just let me know if you need anything cleared up. I’ve read a lot of these from Typhoon and Commander Hurricane, and I―”

“Just read…”

Twilight forced her most sympathetic smile onto her face and turned her attention back to the book. “My Command is over now. I’ve let Celeste and Gale have their ‘guard’. The Legion is all but gone. Maybe half a dozen of us still call ourselves legionaries. Someday, I’ll take the time to tell that story, but for the moment, I need to clear my mind like Father did. I’ve spent three years hunting down the last survivor, if you can call it that, of Lūn’s Night Guard. I’ve tracked the monster to the ruins of Onyx Ridge.

“It’s time to finish what I started thirteen years ago.”

Typhoon’s wingblades clicked in time with the idle twitching of her wings as she stood at the foot of the huge black wall. “Onyx Ridge. Are you all equipped?”

A chorus of ‘aye’s in various languages was their response. The cluster of six sailors was a far cry from the Cirran legionaries she was used to leading, but true legionaries were getting harder to come by every day, and she wasn’t about to go to Gale for help.

She turned to face her company . It was a slow, painful motion that grated on her knees and forced her to admit she was getting old. “Soldiers, we’re hunting a monster. Not a pony like you or I, but one of Lūn’s walking corpses.”

“All o’ us?” one of the sailors asked, raising a hoof. Typhoon recognized him as Anchor, a huge earth pony carrying an axe shaped like his namesake, with half as many teeth as he ought to have and a manecut criss-crossed with scars from a sea serpent. “An’ just one monster?”

Typhoon rolled her eyes, sending a little twitch of pain through the scar on her right brow. It was a familiar pain, though it still left her with a wince. “She’s not like anything you’ve fought before, and believe me when I say that I know what you’ve fought.”

She paused to cast her icy glare across the ponies standing in the snow, calling to mind their proof of their resolve. Anchor, of course, had earned his scars from a sea serpent. Though Typhoon wasn’t sure she believed it, the unicorn filly who called herself High Seas claimed to have survived a shipwreck by taming a shark. Flounder, Trout, and Eel were newer additions to the company; all Typhoon knew of the siblings’ skill in battle came from the matched garments they wore. Flounder, the eldest, carried a kraken’s claw as a sort of shield strapped to his right foreleg. Trout wore the same creature’s teeth as makeshift blades on the crests of her wings. Eel, whose jittery eyes and jerky movements unsettled Typhoon, had one of the creature’s dried tentacles wrapped around her neck as a trophy, leaving the filly with a mild but inescapable stink of the sea.

“You don’t need to waste your breath impressing us, Typhoon.” The stallion who spoke was a tall, aging pegasus, carrying a greatsword to rival Cyclone’s between his wings. Tarnished armor carried the medals of an admiral in the newly-formed Equestrian Navy. “These sailors all served in the Battle of Everfree. I chose them because they’ve stood the test of facing down monsters. They may not be Cirrans, but they’ll fight just as hard.”

I doubt that, Typhoon thought to herself. “Fine, Admiral Winterspell. If your crew is ready, we’ll move. The target resembles a pegasus mare, with a light gray coat and wings like a bat.”

“A bat…?” High Seas whispered.

Trout claimed a tighter grip on her bill hook. “Who cares what its wings look like. Can we kill it?”

Typhoon nodded. “It’s hardier than a pony, though. You can’t expect it to stagger if you land a shallow blow. I’m not sure if they feel pain; it doesn’t seem to affect them much.”

“So you’ve fought these things before?” Winterspell asked. To accompany the motion, his wrinkled brow rose toward a blue mane with enough white to resemble a frozen sea. “Are they intelligent? Should we expect others? Are they going to want revenge?”

“There aren’t any others,” Typhoon replied calmly. “This is the last of its kind.”

“It?” Typhoon jumped a bit at the stallion’s voice, even before her mind registered it as one she recognized. “At least have the decency to call her by name, Commander.”

“Oh, is this about Miss Icecube?”

Twilight jumped at the interruption and found Red Ink peeking his head through the door of the train cabin. At her side, Solo began to shiver again. “Roscherk! It would have been nice if you had knocked. Or at least let us know you were there. Also, who’s driving the train?”

“It only really takes one leg to drive a train,” Ink replied with a shrug. “I was just checking in to see if either of you wanted anything to eat or drink. I’m headed down to the diner car to see what they’ve got.”

“You can’t just take that food! It’s not yours!” Twilight shouted, earning a chuckle from Solo, and an outright burst of laughter from Ink. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Well, you’re the one who stole a train.” Ink gestured around the car with a wing. “My older brother, Predvidenie, owns the trains, so the food is his too. Stealing from him would just be a bonus. Besides, how many days has it been since you two had a proper meal?”

As if Ink had manufactured the noise, a grumble rang out from Twilight’s stomach. “Uh… I don’t actually know how long we were down there under Onyx Ridge. The last time we ate was with Countess Star…”

Ink snorted, and then spat on the wallpaper, earning a look of disgust from his unicorn companion. “She is a complete…” The stallion let his words trail off before they reached any particularly colorful language. “Hmm…” He whispered quite audibly to himself, “How would I say this if I were a complete pussy?” A moment later, a smile broke onto his face, and he spoke up fully. “We didn’t see ‘eye to eye’. That’s a saying, right? Anyway, if you ate with her, that must have been before the rebels took control of Trotsylvania.”

“Took control?” Twilight’s eyes widened. “You mean completely?”

Ink sighed, and nodded. “That’s what happens when I join the Honor Guard, I guess. There’s a part of me that’s tempted to fly down there right now and just deal with it myself…” Again, his words slowed as he took note of the glazed eyes and shuddering form of Going Solo. “…but now that I’m Honor Guard, protecting you and catching Masquerade are far more important.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s probably for the best, Roscherk.”

“Alright.” Ink smiled, although the motion mostly came across as a baring of his teeth. “Well, I’ll go grab whatever they have from the food cart and cook something up for us. Mind if I listen in on storytime when I get back? I’d love to hear some more about sweetcheeks.”

“Uh…” Twilight turned to Solo, who was vigorously shaking her head. “I’m not sure if that’s such…”

“Great!” Ink called from around the doorway, already partway down the hall toward the dining car. “Be back soon then.”

The two mares sat in silence as the snow flew past the window, and the wheels rang and rattled on the rails. It was Twilight who first found the strength to speak up. “He won’t hurt us, Solo.”

The guardsmare said nothing, and after another minute of sheer quiet, Twilight turned back to the journal.

After the sudden shout, Typhoon rounded in place to find a stallion sitting in the rubble that had once been the main gatehouse to Onyx Ridge. She remembered a day, in her youth, when his coat and mane had once borne green and brown. Now he was a solid gray, withered and atrophied to a shuddering husk of his former self. He was eighty years old, and quite possibly the last stallion to have set hoof on the mainland of Cirra; a walking reminder that soon the Empire would be nothing more than a memory.

“Scout-Centurion Pathfinder.” Typhoon stared down the old stallion and met his look of disappointment with one of outright spite. “Did you come to make up for your mistakes? Or are you looking to save her again?”

“You don’t have to do this, Typhoon.” The eldest living legionary fell forward off the rubble, spreading his wings to slow his fall and landing in front of Typhoon. If his joints ached with age even half as much as hers did, he didn’t show it. “She’s a Cirran, just the same as us―”

“She’s a walking corpse,” Typhoon interrupted. “And even if she were living and breathing, she wouldn’t be one of us. She stopped being a Cirran the day she killed Commander Blaze. You know the law as well as I do. And if you intend to stand by her side, you should stop and remember where your loyalties lie. The legion doesn’t take kindly to traitors, living or dead.”

Pathfinder stepped forward, thrusting a hoof against Typhoon’s armor. “Then where was Cyclone’s noose? You’re brave to question my loyalty, pup. I’ve been serving the Legion longer than you’ve been drawing breath.”

Typhoon’s frown deepened. “Your service won’t bring Legacy back. Nor Legate Perfect. Get over your nostalgia; the mare you knew is gone. All that’s left is a demon to be put down.”

A sudden burst of empatha from Pathfinder’s eyes stopped Typhoon mid-sentence. It took her only a moment to conjure up enough willpower to break the Stare of the foremost earth empath in the Legion, but in that moment, he began to speak. “Don’t you dare insult her, whelp. You’ve never set hoof on Cirra. You’ve never looked a griffon in the eye.”

“And you’ve never had a monster claw your foal’s eyes out!” Typhoon felt her wings grow warm as her empatha turned anger into flame. It took a clenched jaw to prevent real flames from appearing on her feathers. “I know you’re a father, Centurion. Can you say you’d do different if it were Shimmer? Or Zephyr?”

Pathfinder, it seemed, had no qualms about letting his magic reveal his anger. The flames on his wings were small, but they steamed and smoked in the air of the Compact Lands’ perpetual blizzard. “How dare you? I lost my eldest to the Legion, Typhoon. Not in battle, or some ‘glory’ like that.” The elder soldier’s ears were pinned to his short, rough mane, and Typhoon could smell the alcohol on his breath as he shouted. “Sky died because the senate decided that legionaries needed medicine more than my daughter did. I know exactly what it feels like to watch my foal suffer without being able to help them.” His bladed wing flung out, gesturing to the ruined facade of Onyx Ridge. “And when she was shaking, and coughing, and freezing to death, it wasn’t some ‘legion hero’ who finally decided to smuggle us the medicine we needed. It was that mare in there. The one you call a ‘monster’.”

Pathfinder’s chest rose and fell as he caught his breath. A thick cloud of mist formed around his nostrils, and the fires on his wings died slowly. His tempo likewise slowed, though his words lost no intensity. “When she stood with me at Nimbus, we didn’t have fancy magic or special training, or some legendary warrior for a father standing over our shoulders. We only had each other, staring down an enemy you can’t even begin to imagine.” Pathfinder’s voice trailed off as his eyes seemed to grow glassy. With shaking hooves, he reached under his wing to retrieve a canteen. It opened with the scent of ale, which he poured into his mouth greedily.

Winterspell was the first to move, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’ve seen sailors turn to the bottle. It’s never pretty, but there’s nothing we can do. We’ll collect him when we leave.”

Typhoon nodded, walking toward the fortress. “We’re moving. Be warned, the target likely isn’t alone. There have been reports of bandits raiding trading caravans on the road nearby.”

Pathfinder growled inaudibly, dropping his flask and rising shakily to his hooves. The mass of sailors parted slightly as he forced himself forward toward Typhoon. “She spared your son, Typhoon. You know she could have killed him. There’s a good mare in there somewhere, and if you want to kill her without at least hearing her out, you’ll have to cut me down.” He glared Typhoon in the eyes again as he stepped up beside her. “Then you’ll be the mare who killed Cirra.”

Typhoon took a slow breath. “Either it ends here, Pathfinder, or we drag her back to Everfree and put her down in the square. There’s no other ending to this.”

“Forty years ago, ponies were saying that about your brother.”

Few of the gathered ponies could follow the motion when Typhoon drew Heims Osculum from its sheathe. Even in the frozen air of the Compact Land’s lingering eternal winter, the blade was cold enough to warp the air surrounding it into a cloud of frost. Everypony seemed to freeze with it, waiting for the icy blade to meet the old stallion’s neck. Instead, she turned it toward the fortress. “Arm yourselves,” she ordered. The sound of a half-dozen weapons being unsheathed and uncased echoed in the calm, snowy air behind her. “You can speak with her, Centurion, but it won’t change anything.”

“Move,” Winterspell added firmly, and at his beckoning, they marched into the narrow corridors of the black fortress.

The first chamber of the building was an enormous hall filled with wooden tables and benches from the Crystal Barbarians who had once ruled the fortress. Once more, it was filled with food and song as a half-dozen bandits and brigands enjoyed their spoils. When the trio of aging soldiers entered the room, all music quickly stopped.

“Soldiers!” one bandit cried.

Another shouted “That’s Typhoon!” as he turned tail for a door out of the chamber. Winterspell seemed amused by the attempt at escape, and placed his wing flat on the flagstone floor. A visible wave of ice shot across the stones, forming into a solid wall in the doorway mere moments before the unfortunate bandit reached it.

Typhoon wasted no time worrying about escape. Both her wingblades flicked forward, forming three icicles from the sparse water in the air. Two lodged in throats. The third found a shoulder, leaving the bleeding bandit to slide up to Typhoon’s hooves. She ended his misery before he even had time to scream.

In those mere seconds, and the few it took Typhoon to lift her head and survey the room, it was already over. Bandits were no match for the best sailors in Equestria’s newly founded navy. Only the one bandit who had tried to run still drew breath. His hooves moved to flee, but Winterspell was faster. With his wing to the floor, the Admiral once more directed his icy empatha along the flagstones, freezing the outlaw’s hooves to the ground.

“All yours,” the sailor growled through his mild accent.

“Make sure the doors are secure,” Typhoon ordered. Then she took a step forward, only to be stopped by the feeling of a warm hoof on her chest. The scent of alcohol made it altogether too clear who the hoof belonged to. Pathfinder didn’t bother speaking to her, and instead loped across the large room toward their prisoner, his gray body blending well with the shadows of the ruined fortress.

Though distraught, the young stallion’s will was solid. He looked Pathfinder square in the eyes, as if believing he could somehow negotiate his way out of his crimes. “Look, I had to do it to survive. You’ve got to understand―”

“I’m not going to hurt you, son.” Pathfinder uncapped his flask as he approached, slipping another swig into his mouth. “Hell, you tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go free.”

“Hell?”

Pathfinder rolled his eyes. “Cirran name for Tartarus. Doesn’t matter. What’s your name, son?”

The bandit gulped. “Last Gasp, sir. Please, you’ve got to understand, I didn’t want―”

The old scout seemed amused as he cut Gasp off. “I frankly don’t care what motivated you to do what you’ve done. I already told you I’d let you go free. Right now, I want to know about your boss.”

At those simple words, the bandit began to shake in his icy restraints, struggling to escape. “Look, she was great for the loot she got us, but I don’t want anything more to do with her anymore. I swear it!”

“Like I said, tell me and I’ll let you go.” Pathfinder smiled, the way only a grandfather can, though Typhoon could smell the Cirran ale on his teeth. “Let’s start at the top. Where is she?”

“In the caves under the fortress.” Last Gasp glanced back to one of the doorways out of the room, staring as if he had seen something move. “Look, you don’t want to go down there. I don’t know what she is, but she’s scarier than anything you’ve ever seen, okay?”

“Then why are you working with her?” Typhoon asked.

“She found us when we nabbed one of the wagon trains with food for Stalliongrad. All six of us couldn’t take her and her freaky magic.” Typhoon glanced around, counting five bodies and the still-breathing stallion, as he continued. “She told us she wanted to join, and she’d help us get better hauls. That’s when we started hitting the skysteel convoys.”

“Skysteel?” Winterspell noted. “That would explain a lot.”

“Yeah, we took dozens, but she never seemed interested in the weapons. Just the ponies she was killing.” The bandit shuddered again.

Pathfinder cocked his head. “What’s bothering you?”

“The way she killed them… not with magic or a sword. She wears these hooks on her wingblades, but I’ve never seen her use them. Always uses her teeth…” His eyes glossed over for a moment. “One day, Cleave found a special sword. It was really good skysteel or something, cause it had pegasus magic in it that worked all on its own. It was always on fire, glowing like a torch. He told that… that thing… that he was done. He wanted his share, so he could go back to Lubuck and live like a king.” Winterspell spat on the floor, though he did not deign to comment. “And he said if she tried to stop him, he’d stick her with the magic sword.” The bandit’s head gestured to the center of the room. “We were all watching, but nopony saw it. She was too fast. One minute he was mid-word, talking around the sword in his teeth. The next, he was gasping, choking on his own blood, and her muzzle was…” He couldn’t finish the thought, and instead moved forward, his voice still shaky and uneven. “She told us we could leave once her work was done.”

“Did she tell you what it was?” Pathfinder asked. “What she wanted?”

Typhoon snorted, her flared nostrils creating a cloud of steam near the blade of Heims. “She wants me, Pathfinder. If that wasn’t clear in Everfree City when she cut out Tempest’s eyes, it should have been obvious now that she’s hunted down every Praetorian who was with us at the Roost.” The mare glared at the bandit, and then gripped her sword more tightly between her lips. “We’re wasting time. He can’t tell us anything we don’t already know.”

Twilight lifted her head as the door to the cabin creaked, only to realize that Red Ink was closing it. “How long have you been standing there?”

Ink offered a cocky smile and lowered two silver trays to the floor of the cabin. One was covered in little wedge-cut sandwiches of various flowers and overcooked hayfries with too much ketchup. The other had three glasses, and three bottles. “Long enough to hear about a rebel and a monster pony. I brought cola if you’re feeling wimpy, but you should really try a gin and tonic.” With surprising agility, the soldier mixed one of the drinks and extended it in his wing toward Solo. The quiet mare recoiled from the red wing, leaving Ink to roll his eyes. “Fine. Cola for you then. Twilight, you want a try? It’s the good stuff. Predvidenie goes all in when he buys this, all the way from Trottingham.”

Twilight contemplated for a moment, and then took the glass in her magic. Ink smiled as she held the glass to her lips. He then broke into uproarious laughter when she began to cough. “Too much for you, Sparkle?”

“It’s…” Twilight held her tongue out of her mouth for a moment, shaking her head. “It tastes like I ate a branch off a pine tree.”

“That’s half the fun,” Ink countered, smiling even as he took the glass away. His wings worked deftly, pouring a pair of sodas in the clean glasses, and then placing them before the mares. Twilight dove into hers eagerly, while Solo stared at the soda hesitantly. “So, can you fill me in on what I missed? What’s the deal with the monster thing?”

“Well, Typhoon hasn’t really said yet. But…”

“Vam… pony…” Solo forced out through her harsh whisper.

Ink’s brow climbed the better part of his sheer brow. “Armor lets you carry whispersalt on duty?” Glaring, Solo shook her head. Ink responded with a chuckle. “Fair enough.”

Twilight coughed forcefully into her hoof. “Anyway… like I said before, Solo, there’s no such thing as a vampony. However, you might be on the right track. Given what I’ve read about Commander Typhoon, and what she said to Pathfinder, it sounds to me like they’re referring to a thestral.”

A few moments of silence followed before Ink extended a hoof. “Are you gonna tell us what a ‘thestral’ is?”

Twilight hesitated for a moment, as images of Celestia and Luna flashed to mind. “I… I guess, since you’re both guardsponies. So, you know the Night Guard?”

Ink and Solo both nodded, the former adding, “Princess Luna’s guards, with the magic armor that makes them look like they have fangs and weird wings?”

“The armor isn’t magic. Those are thestrals: undead ponies that use Princess Luna’s magic to hunt spirits and monsters, and protect Equestria.”

“If Luna…”

“I’ve got you covered,” Ink picked up, when Solo’s words failed. “Why was Frosty the Snowmare hunting one, if they work for Princess Luna?”

“Commander Typhoon,” Twilight corrected. “And they don’t all work for Luna. The magic is very illegal, and it requires alicorn magic to raise one, but beyond that, all you need is a mostly-intact corpse.”

“Is that from experience, Twilight?” Ink teased, making a ‘spooky’ motion with his forehooves.

“Of course not!” Twilight shouted, only to realize the tone of her voice. Speaking much more softly, she continued. “Do I look like I have a pair of wings? It would take me years to make that much empatha and endura, even if I had a void crystal to work with.” At Ink’s continued amused grin, she added, "Which I don’t. Back to what I was trying to say, King Sombra was a thestral, but Luna didn’t raise him. There have been a few others throughout history, but the spell is only written down in a book my brother keeps locked up in the Crystal Empire.”

Twilight followed the thought by letting her eyes drift away slowly. Ink must have guessed her thoughts, as he gestured to the book. “So… was this thestral a rogue, then?”

“Not likely. Typhoon… well, she didn’t exactly get along with the Night Guard.”

“Really, now? I couldn’t tell from all the parts where she wanted to murder it.” Ink shook his head as he continued to wear his grin. “Actually, if they’re undead, is it still called ‘killing’?”

Twilight sighed. “I’m not going to honor that with a response, Roscherk. Let’s just keep going.”

“You’re right, Typhoon. We should get moving.” Pathfinder knelt down and struck at the ice around one of Last Gasp’s forehooves, before shaking his head. “Damn, that’s cold. Can you get this stuff off him?”

“We’ll free him when we’re done. There are only eight of us.” She shot Pathfinder another look of condemnation. “And only seven willing to do the job. I can’t spare anypony to watch him, and I won’t leave an enemy behind me.”

“Six,” Winterspell corrected, gesturing to a body near the exit. Typhoon recognized Flounder almost immediately by the crab-like claw on his leg. Her mind recounted the moments after their little skirmish.

Typhoon flared her wings to extend the scales of their blades and her eyes scanned the room again. “Not a bandit,” she whispered. “It’s her.”

“Formation!” Winterspell shouted, taking up a position at Typhoon’s side, but facing the opposite direction. In a hurried mass, the lightly armored sailors shuffled together, forming a tight but disorderly circle facing out toward the room. On Typhoon’s left, Trout was shivering, and the Commander didn’t need to turn to see the sailor’s eyes locked on the body of her brother.

Blood dripped from open wounds, slowly freezing on the remnants of Winterspell’s magic. The thick air stank of cedar smoke and copper. Green wood cracked in the fireplace, covering the ceiling with a thin veil of smoke. Outside, the wind of the eternal blizzard howled against the fortress. Amidst it all, they waited.

A rock clicked, echoing in one of the hallways. Their heads turned as one, and High Seas shuddered against Typhoon’s side. For just an instant, the mother in Typhoon wondered what such a young filly was doing in so much danger.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Leave.”

The words shocked the group, and, disorganized, they spun toward the doorway they had so shortly before passed through. Typhoon had expected the thestral to be standing there, blocking their escape, though it hadn’t been her voice. Instead, as before, the only pony to be seen was the body of Flounder, bleeding from the throat.

One of the sailors spoke up. “Was that―”

“The monster,” Winterspell clarified, cutting off what was sure to be a painful question. “Not the first time I’ve heard a creature play with corpses. Don’t heed it.”

“Shouldn’t you?” Pathfinder asked. Amongst all the gathered ponies, he alone seemed at ease in the darkness, leaning against the far wall with his hoof-crafted blade Ensis still resting comfortably in its sheath. “It isn’t often that a monster tells you it doesn’t want to hurt you.”

Typhoon glared at the alcoholic scout and bit down on her cheek to control her words. “Pathfinder, Anchor, you two are up front with me. Anchor, watch behind us. Winterspell and the rest of you will make a second group, a few strides back down the hall. I don’t want us all caught if she’s got traps or something down there, but under no circumstances are you to lose line-of-sight with the other team. Is that understood?

The sailors nodded, and even Pathfinder seemed to acknowledge the command. On surprisingly light hooves, he trotted over to her side, adding nothing to her thoughts. She looked to Anchor, and then nodded back to Winterspell. “Let’s move.”

The tunnels were long, cold, and above all else, dark. At points, they grew narrow enough that the group had to shift into a single file with Pathfinder calmly striding ahead. In others, she strode shoulder to shoulder with Anchor and the ancient scout, guiding the former with a wing as he kept his eyes behind them. Somewhere in the distance, the echoes of wind filled the tunnels, and the air was fresher and crisper than it had been in the more civilized parts of the fortress. The only source of warmth was the little fire Typhoon carried on her wingtip for light―no match for her brother’s infernos, but it served her purpose.

Her hooves slowed as the tunnel widened. “Hold.” The fire on her wingtip built, and with a flap, she hurled it forward into the darkness. Her mass of fire and magic flew at least a hundred strides before fizzling against the rough-cut wall on the opposite side of the cavern. Along the way, it revealed three new tunnels, once again carved out of the very walls.

“I don’t like this,” she whispered to Pathfinder. “I can’t light the whole room at once.”

The scout shrugged, glancing back to the other team. “The old sailor seems like a passable Empath. You said his name was Winterspell?” At the Cirran commander’s silent nod, Pathfinder’s rough, weary voice picked up, every syllable echoing in the tunnels. “Winterspell, can you help us light this room up? We need more fire.”

The Admiral shook his head, responding with his firm accent. “My family can’t make flame. Even when I do find my anger, it doesn’t come for me. My strengths are ice and wind.”

Pathfinder shrugged. “Alright then. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have the tunnels here sorted out.” Before anypony could reasonably object, the spry old stallion had faded into the shadows. “Wait!” Typhoon called, altogether too late.

“She won’t hurt me, Typhoon,” Pathfinder called back.

For a moment, his hooves were audible, but they soon faded. It wasn’t of any real surprise to Typhoon; even back when there had been other Cirran scouts, he was always the best, so long as he wasn’t muzzle-deep in ale and half past being able to walk. With nothing to do but wait, Typhoon stretched her neck, and began a slow sweep back and forth over the little circle that her wing tip’s flame carved out of the shadows.

The chamber was quiet and cold. The fire on her wingtip danced in silence, and she briefly brought it nearer, letting it draw to mind her brother. Cyclone had offered to join her, but she had told him off. What business did a stallion with five foals, and a sixth on the way, have hunting monsters in a frozen cave? Still, in a sense, she found herself regretting his absence. Even after all that had happened―or perhaps because of it―she would have preferred to have him fighting by her side over a thousand sailors and mercenaries.

Something crunched. It wasn’t a visceral noise; rather, it brought to mind gravel. But all the same, it sent Typhoon’s mind racing once more toward battle readiness. It had come from behind her, back into the tunnel.

“Did you―” she whispered, only to be cut off by a confident, if worried, voice.

“Trout? Eel? Where did you go? I can barely see down here, and…” The light of a torch was the first warning that somepony was approaching, though the voice unsettled Typhoon. Only a spare few seconds later, the stallion in question appeared, smiling in the light of an improvised torch he had no doubt pulled from the fireplace upstairs. “There you are! Why did you all leave me behind?” He took a step forward, and stumbled. “Sorry. Kind of dizzy. I lost a lot of blood.”

“Flounder?” Eel’s voice was confused, staring at the brother she’d seen dead mere minutes earlier. “How are you alive?”

The earth pony took another awkward step forward. “She didn’t cut deep enough. Just… nicked a vein.” With a stilted motion, he gently set the torch on the floor and lifted it with the crook of his other hoof. The shaded side of his neck lit up in orange, revealing a rather sickening mark of burnt hair and flesh. “I had to stop the bleeding. Once I did that, I wanted to find you. And, well, here I am.” Flounder took two steps forward, stiff and unsteady even for the three legs he was walking on in order to hold his torch. On the third step toward the group, his foreleg gave way, and he collapsed against the ground. With the same loud thud and the gust from his fall, his torch went out.

“Flounder!” his younger sister called. Eel charged into the darkness, her horn igniting in teal for just a fraction of a second. There was never enough light to really see by; just enough to outline the blur of pale gray before everything returned to darkness.

Typhoon hurled a another burst of fire forward, and she let her empatha overtake her nerves. Though the world ticked on as always, in her eyes it had slowed to a crawl. A trick few other ponies could replicate, her magic gave her no advantage with her limbs, but it gave her mind the advantage of time to plan. Painfully, as if pushing through stone, her burst of flame tore away the shadows. First, she saw Eel, fallen onto her muzzle with a deep gash in her spine at the base of her neck. Next, she took in Trout, just as dead as he had been before. Though she lacked any evidence, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. After seeing her brother-in-law in action, she was no stranger to necromancy, but it still turned her stomach in knots to know the colt’s body had been desecrated that way. Her only comfort was that the thestral hadn’t strength or the time to rip away a soul the way Lūn did. A part of Typhoon wondered if her little team could survive a second thestral.

The fireball finally struck the tunnel wall, dissipating into smoke and heat. And amidst that thought, Typhoon realized the thestral was missing. Her mind still had the advantage of time, and with it, she realized what had happened. She was the first in line, and when everypony turned to look at Eel, that left her back to a massive cavern. She didn’t hesitate.

The spin came with a terrifying speed that shook Typhoon’s aching joints and blurred the darkness that filled most of her vision. Her right wing’s blades rung out when they clashed with a thick, stony surface.

“Jumpy much?” Pathfinder asked, brushing Typhoon’s bladed wing away from his neck with a hoof. Once he was no longer in danger, the scout released his grip on his own empatha, letting the stone of his neck revert to fur and flesh. “I heard talking, and a shout. What happened?”

“She got another one,” Typhoon whispered back. “She animated Flounder’s body, and brought him down here as a lure.”

“Necromancy?” Pathfinder raised a brow. “Isn’t that unicorn magic?”

Typhoon nodded, frowning. “Whatever she used to be, Pathfinder, she’s a thestral now. She has Lūn’s magic, and her hatred.”

Pathfinder shook his head, as if the motion would somehow dismiss his memories. “I found another path that’s hoof-worked, and recent. The room’s clear, so that seems like our best bet.”

“Agreed.” Typhoon turned to Winterspell, using a hoof to gesture silently into the chamber. The Admiral merely nodded before whispering inaudibly to his team. After a quick glance to Anchor, Typhoon was ready.

The first dozen strides across the room were easy, marked only by the echoes of gentle steps and the beating of Typhoon’s own heart within her breast. The air was stale despite its chill, resting there beneath the earth, and it only served to remind the Cirran how much she hated being away from the sky. A slight twitch of the wing carrying her fire was all she allowed herself, though it hardly seemed enough to dispel her worries.

She must have been halfway across the chamber when she heard it: a growl, too deep to come from any living pony, or even a thestral. When it echoed against the walls, Typhoon’s head snapped back toward Winterspell and the surviving sailors. In that split second, the admiral had already taken command. “Run!” was his only order.

Their hooves clopped a cacophonous echo into the cavern, but beneath it all, a deep bass like the pounding of drums followed, growing louder and closer with every passing moment. Ahead, Typhoon could see the wall, and the tunnel Pathfinder had alluded to. With a thrust of her wings, the aging solder landed beside the exit, her fire making the path clear for the other ponies.

Pathfinder and Anchor slipped through the door with ease. The other sailors sprinted as hard as they could, ears pinned back as they put all their strength into the run. Though fit, Admiral Winterspell was clearly falling behind. Typhoon couldn’t see what was chasing him, but her ears told her it was close. Her free wing lashed out, launching a trio of icicles just over the ponies’ backs.

In the darkness, something howled in pain. Winterspell slid into the doorway as it recoiled, and Typhoon followed as quickly as she could. In the darkness, all she could make out were a pair of vicious yellow eyes, too high off the ground to belong to a pony, and a clawed paw nearly the size of her torso, covered in rough patchy fur and scars. Before she could take a closer look, Pathfinder slammed a hoof and a wing down on the wall of the tunnel, sending a ripple that reshaped the natural stone into a makeshift door.

“What… what was that?” one of the sailors asked between pants.

“I don’t know,” Pathfinder replied, rolling his wings in a display of stiffness, and letting the loose gravel left over from his empatha drop out from between his feathers.. “Some sort of monster, from the sounds of it. Not terribly intelligent, whatever it is.”

“What makes you say that?” Winterspell asked.

Pathfinder’s hoof moved as if to rap against the stone wall his empatha had created, though he never actually touched it. “This stone’s only half an inch thick, at most. If you put your shoulder into it, you could run straight through this, no magic needed. If something that big wanted through this stone, it wouldn’t have a problem. All it would have to do was try.”

“Well, great.” High Seas rolled her eyes, collapsing onto her flanks. “So now we’re trapped down in these tunnels with a monster behind us, and some pony-thing hunting us down, and we can’t even get out the way we came in. Two of us are already dead―”

“Silence, sailor.” Winterspell’s voice wasn’t loud, or harsh, but its aged and focused tone left little room for rebuttal. “Look around you, Miss Seas. Think about the ponies you stand with. Do you know who Commander Typhoon is?”

“Well, of course, but―”

“Do you hear her complaining? Is she quivering in terror?” The Admiral flung out another wing. “What about Pathfinder? What about me? We’ve all survived situations like this before.” Briefly, Winterspell turned his attention to Anchor and Trout. “We all fought together in the Shadow War, friends. We’ve looked the Sisters in the eyes. We know exactly what awaits us the day we finally leave this world. So let me ask you: would you rather go to the Summer Lands today, panicked and wild, never seeing your families again? Or will you keep your wits about you, hold your tongues, and stand beside us to finish what we came here for?”

Rather than waste his time waiting for an answer, Winterspell gestured to Typhoon, and the team once more began to move down the tunnels. They seemed tighter now, though Typhoon and Pathfinder still led the way shoulder to shoulder. The chill of the air was gone, and she could smell the smoke from her fire over the stillness and stagnation. Every step seemed to lead downward, further and further, and it wasn’t long until Typhoon felt that the surface had been lost completely. Was she two dozen feet beneath the earth, or two hundred? She found herself idly bringing up a fire on her other wing, just for an excuse to swap their positions, and move them around in some semblance of freedom.

A growl came from ahead. Everypony froze, waiting for the next sound of a roar or stomping paws, but nothing came.

Typhoon walked forward, keeping her eyes on the shadows. She wasn’t sure how long it had been when she realized that the tunnel was slowly curving upward. A moment’s hesitation interrupted her pace. Though it passed in little more than a blink, it was enough to turn Pathfinder’s head, and the old scout offered her a raised eyebrow.

“Uphill,” she whispered, by way of explanation.

Pathfinder shrugged. “Probably following the path of least resistance when they dug it out. See here?” He tapped a hoof on the floor, and Typhoon was startled to realize they were standing not on hard, solid onyx, but a layer of dirt. “Keep your eyes ahead. I’ll worry about the walls.”

The next sound to reach Typhoon’s ear was a slow, constant roar; unmistakably that of water. It echoed from further into the cave, audibly resounding with each passing minute. She looked to Pathfinder, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. A voice from behind the mare surprised her with a whisper.

“There’s an underground river ahead,” Winterspell explained, extending a wing. “Three hundred strides, downhill a fair way. It has a waterfall, with a fairly large drop.”

Pathfinder turned back. “How could you possibly know that?”

“My magic.” The Admiral extended a wing. “Sensing water and ice is useful when you need to navigate a ship through a blizzard and the fog is too thick to see through. Though these days, I hear they’re abandoning Novigrad because it’s too hard to get in and out.” A graying blue hoof ran through a mane like the sea, and the stallion refocused his eyes. “We don’t have time to stand here.”

Typhoon didn’t feel the need to reply with words. After another hundred steps, the rise of the path began to turn downward again, steeply. Typhoon sucked in a single breath to quell her discomfort, and took the first new step deeper into the ground.

It shifted beneath her feet, and something heavy slammed into her side. She tumbled from the unexpected blow, falling onto her shoulder and rolling down the sharp, dirty tunnel. She bashed her neck against the wall and dinged her hind hooves more times than she cared to count. In the darkness, all she could go by were the sounds of vague shouting, completely unintelligible when the echoes began to conflict with each other.

Finally, she managed to catch a hoof in the dirt hard enough to slow her tumbling. Her wings extended flat, turning her roll into a slowing drag, and after another two dozen feet, she stopped. Her back ached, her coat was covered in dirt, and above all she felt tired. The shouting had stopped, and the only sound for a moment was a dull, wet squishing, as if something lightweight were approaching. After a moment, something tapped against Typhoon’s leg, and the sound stopped. Fighting back her fatigue, Typhoon’s wing sparked twice before she called up a rather pitiful flame.

The severed head of Anchor stared up at her, eyes frozen wide open, staring open in fear. Typhoon stared at it for a moment with a mixture of sympathy and fear, before turning her head to look up the steep slope of the tunnel. “What happened?”

“Some… thing came up out of the ground,” Winterspell shouted back. “It killed Anchor, and then went back down.”

“I noticed,” Typhoon replied. “Get down here, and we’ll get off this stone. Watch your step.”

Getting everypony down the slope was simply a matter of time, and though Typhoon’s ears jumped at every small noise, whatever creature had attacked the company did not return. Soon, the only noise to be heard was the roar of the water ahead. Though she guided them with her weak flame, Typhoon spared a glance toward the others in her company. Pathfinder’s expression seemed thoughtful; though his eyes were sharp, the slouching of his ears and the droop in his wings made it clear his mind was conflicted. Winterspell, in contrast, could only be called determined. He had gone so far as to wrap a row of icicles along the crest of his wing, keeping himself ready for battles in a tunnel too small for him to wield his greatsword.

High Seas seemed terrified. Typhoon could see the little shudders in her shoulders, though the unicorn hid it well. She couldn’t fault the young mare for her response; the Cirran commander knew all too well how dangerous fear could be. Flounder, the last of three siblings, lacked even that. The darkness left his eyes hollow and glassy, his expression slack, and his wings lazily folded. Though it hurt to admit it, the stallion was broken; he’d be of little use in the coming battle.

The tunnel led only a few steps further, Typhoon discovered, before it opened into a wide, natural cavern divided down its center by a waterfall and a rushing river. Gemstones glittered in the walls and out of the sides of stalactites, casting Typhoon’s little flame into a thousand different shades that reflected across the room. Ahead, a sheer cliff separated a high plateau from the room below. The cave was large enough to fly in, if one were careful to avoid the sharp edges of the stones and gems.

“Summer!” Pathfinder’s shout stole all attention.

Typhoon’s gaze shot to the aging scout, and then followed his gaze up to the clifftop. There, beside the waterfall, the thestral stood; her crimson eyes watched Pathfinder, and her relatively short red mane stirred gently from the breeze off the water. She still wore her legion armor, stained in blood alongside the cruel hook of her plain stratus sword. “What are you doing here, Pathfinder?”

Winterspell moved to step forward, but Typhoon caught him with an outstretched leg. “Let Pathfinder say his peace,” she whispered. “Keep your eyes open.” With a nod, the admiral led his sailors a few strides away, keeping his eyes focused.

Pathfinder spoke up again, stealing Typhoon’s attention once more. “Trying to stop this.” He tilted his head Typhoon’s way. “I don’t want to watch the two of you cut each other apart. I’m begging you, Summer. Let the past be past. Come back with us to Everfree. We’ll talk to the Sisters, and―”

“I’m sorry, Finder, but I can’t.” Summer’s head twitched suddenly to the side, looking Typhoon in the eye as she bared her pearly fangs in the living mare’s direction. “There’s only one way this can end.” The thestral’s voice sounded distraught, and it carried a softer tone that matched the apparent age of her body. Typhoon wasn’t about to be fooled. “I don’t want to have to hurt any of you. Please, old friend, go home. Go back to Rain.”

Pathfinder frowned, and his eyes drifted away to the shadows. “She’s gone, Summer. It… it was eight years ago.”

Silence filled the caves as Summer seemed stunned by the news. “Gods... Finder, I—how?”

Typhoon held her tongue, not for the thestral’s sake, but for the old soldier who stood at her side.

The old stallion’s lips pulled into a thin line and his ears fell flat against his grayed mane. He steeled himself with a trembling breath, a hoof absently reaching for the flask tucked under his wing. “A fever took her.” He paused for a sniffle, seeming to forget the ponies around him. “I...I begged her to stay with me. To stay strong…” A sorrowful smile grew on Finder’s lips and tears spilt from his golden eyes. “She looked up at me and smiled. She told me everything would be all right. That she was going to see Sky again…”

Clenching his eyes shut, Finder pulled his flask to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of heady Old Cirran ale. Emptying the flask, Finder wiped his foreleg across his lips and let out a heavy breath. “I held her in my wings until she passed.”

A long silence settled between the remaining pegasi before Summer spoke again. “Finder, I’m so sorry.”

“They’re all gone now, Summer,” Finder continued, his head down. “Carver, Cloudburst, Haze… You and me, we’re all that’s left.”

“Finder, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, but that isn’t true.”

Pathfinder looked up, the glimmer of hope in his wet eyes. “Summer?”

“You’re the only one left.” Summer leaned forward over the cliff. “You can’t stop this, Pathfinder.”

“Then I’ll die trying. I won’t stand and let you meet the same fate as the rest of the Night Guard. And I owe it to Hurricane’s memory to make sure you don’t kill his daughter either. If I die here, at least I’ll have died for something, instead of sitting in Legate’s Lookout until I go to see Rain again.” Pathfinder dropped his flask. The thin metal bounced twice off the solid stone floor of the cavern, ringing like a bell.

Summer spread her leathery wings, and her muzzle wrinkled up. “Forgive me...”

She dove, and on aching wings, Typhoon rose to meet her. The thestral’s hooked blade, Fortune, rang out when it clashed with Hiems, and from the sheer pain in her neck, Typhoon realized just how outmatched she was. Summer’s unnatural strength threw the aging mare down to the ground, where the collision with the cold stone forced the air from her lungs. She blinked to see Summer diving, her wingblades and her sword all ready for the killing blow, so soon after they had begun.

No more than three yards of open air away, a gray blur slammed into Summer’s side. Sparks flew when a sword and two sets of wingblades scraped along the floor. As she used her wings to roll herself back onto her hooves, Typhoon saw Summer slashing away at Pathfinder. Though his empatha had turned most of his body to moving stone, the thestral’s blows were still taking chunks out of his resilient form. Pathfinder gritted his teeth through the pain, keeping Summer pinned.

Winterspell and Typhoon charged at Summer, swords raised. Before they’d covered more than a few steps, however, Summer’s wings were wreathed in a red glow, mirrored by a ball of the same energy centered on her brow, just above her eyes. The pegasi’s blades crashed down on empty air as Summer disappeared from beneath Pathfinder.

“Wha’ was that?” Winterspell asked around his sword.

Typhoon rounded, casting her gaze to the top of the cliff, where Summer was calmly standing once more. “Unicorn magic. I doubt she’ll have much; Lūn hasn’t been feeding her.”

Summer frowned, and pursed her lips. A shrill whistle filled the chamber, ringing off the stone spears rising from the ground and dangling from the ceiling. The stone shuddered beneath their hooves.

“Is that unicorn magic?” High Seas asked, lighting her own horn.

As the shaking grew stronger, Typhoon let her magic flow through her nerves. Around her, the shaking slowed with the world. Her eyes took in Winterspell, High Seas, and Trout looking around with panicked expressions, but her mind was still. Briefly, her attention flicked to the ceiling. The stalactites were still, despite the quivering of the ground below. Summer’s wings weren’t glowing, and Typhoon knew her empatha favored fire too heavily to have mastered what only the greatest of earth empaths could manage.

The ground cracked under High Seas, and Typhoon saw the first claw break up from beneath the earth. For the aging soldier, it happened in slow motion: the massive furred paw reached up to the filly’s exposed belly. Rough nails pierced her skin, pushing aside her ribs where they were too wide to fit. Sea’s eyes went wide as the air left her open mouth, squeezed out by the grip of a beast that could fit her entire torso in its palm. When she saw its head, she recognized it by name: a warg, fully grown and hungry.

“Winterspell, Trout, kill that thing. Pathfinder, on me!” Typhoon flapped twice, flying up the cliffside and landing near the edge of the waterfall.

Summer was there as Typhoon’s hooves met the lip of the stone precipice. Fangs lunged for the living mare’s throat, and wingblades scratched at her armored legs. Rather than trying to dodge, Typhoon leaned into the attack, filling her wing with her empatha as she struck back. Summer’s mouth was wreathed in ice, holding it open and obscuring her vision. Typhoon lashed out with Hiems, putting a shallow line of frozen blood on Summer’s right brow, before the thestral flung herself backward.

Typhoon charged forward to keep up the pressure, but was forced to stop when a massive wall of flames from Summer’s wing blocked her path. “Just like Cyclone…” Typhoon concluded the thought with a deep breath, and then extended both her wings. As a wave of mist joined with the fire into smoke and steam, Typhoon flicked her second wing. The cloud heeded her, wrapping forward in search of Summer. After a few seconds of focus, Typhoon panted from the cost to her mana, and waved her wings aside. The cloud parted, vanishing into little more than dew on the stalactites, but Summer was gone.

A groan from Pathfinder caught Typhoon’s attention, and she turned in time to see the aging scout recoiling from another mass of Summer’s flames. His stone body cracked, taking on a faint red glow. For just a moment, Typhoon considered hurling more ice to counter the attack, before realizing she would likely kill the old stallion with such a change in temperature. With no better option, she broke into a run, charging straight for the wall of fire. As the heat began to singe her coat, Typhoon focused her magic yet again, and she leapt for the thestral at the source of the flames. Ice formed around her body, a magical armor to fend off the flames as she closed the distance to her target.

Summer’s unnatural speed beat Typhoon to the first blow, but her attack lacked the strength to pierce an inch of ice, and then a layer of the finest skysteel armor money could buy. Typhoon flung her wings back for force, and Hiems left a thick line of ice across the neck of Summer’s armor. The thestral finally thrust an unshod hoof into Typhoon’s chest, breaking at least one rib and tossing the soldier backward with undue force.

This time, Typhoon was ready for the pounce. She clapped her wings together as she slid along her back, forming a dome of ice, covered in razor-sharp icicles. Through it, she could see Summer lunging, and the thestral had to flare her wings to lose her momentum.

“You’re trapped, Typhoon.” Summer’s leathery wings were once more wreathed in orange flame, and she strode toward the living pegasus. Her pacing stopped suddenly when the stone around her hooves rose up to hold them. The thestral’s expression was one of irritation, and she cast her gaze sideways to face Pathfinder. “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you, Finder?”

“I’m not letting you two kill each other,” the stallion replied firmly.

Summer closed her eyes, and from beneath their lids, purple flames began to flow around her brow. “Fine, Pathfinder. If you won’t go back to your family, I’ll send you back to Nimbus.” When she opened her eyes again to glare at Pathfinder, the red irises were surrounded by a fell green glow, brighter even than the flames from her wings.

Typhoon watched as Pathfinder shuddered, and then screamed in agony. “Longbow!” he shouted, before breaking into a sprint away from Summer, stumbling on the rocks as his eyes jumped from shadow to shadow.

The sickly glow faded from Summer’s eyes, and the flames on the thestral’s wings flickered. Her tufted ears drooped, and she spread her forelegs to better balance her own weight. “Now we can finish this.”

With another flick of her wing, Typhoon shattered the icy shell surrounding her. “What did you do to him?”

“I showed him a memory he’d repressed,” Summer answered as she pinned her ears flat to her head in shame. “He’ll fly back to Everfree and drown it in Old Cirran, the way he does all his others. In the end, he’ll survive.”

Typhoon’s wings straightened, sending a series of clicks down the scales of her wingblades. “Is that what you told yourself when you cut out my son’s eyes? That he’d survive?” Fires ignited along the trailing edges of Typhoon’s wings.

“I never wanted to hurt him, Typhoon.” Summer took a step forward, and then extended her right wing. Another wave of flame flew toward Typhoon, but faded into smoke before it reached the living mare.

Typhoon’s glare stayed strong, but her voice revealed a sarcastic amusement. “Getting tired, Summer? Haven’t eaten enough pegasi?” The furious mother slung forward a wing of her own, sending icicles shooting toward Summer. The thestral leapt backward into the air to dodge, only to fall back to her hooves a moment later. “I can’t imagine you have much arcana left either, with all that teleportation you’ve been doing.”

“How do you know that?” Summer asked. “Did Lady Luna tell you―”

“The necromancer,” Typhoon answered, flatly. “He and Tempest are good friends. He told me all about you ‘thestrals’. How you don’t regain mana on your own. How you can’t disobey an order from your creator. That you still have blood in your veins, even though your bodies are cold.” With that last thought, Typhoon waved her wing, and a wall of icy mist swept over the thestral. Typhoon calmly entered the haze, casually speaking around the handle of Hiems between her teeth. “Father and I were right about you creatures.”

Summer stumbled backward, her legs and wings stiffening as ice filled her body. “Don’t pretend that any of this was my fault. I never wanted to fight in your war with Lady Luna. I hope she gets your soul when you die, so you can understand what you’ve done.”

Typhoon paced forward, tightening her grip on her blade. Summer’s defiant glare persisted as the weapon whistled through the air toward her. Hiems Osculum cut into the thestral’s throat, and to Typhoon’s surprise, the walking corpse disappeared before her in a burst of red magic―a magic that had been lacking from the other thestrals she’d returned to their eternal rest.

Below, the roaring of the warg had stopped. Typhoon rushed to the cliff’s edge and looked down on Winterspell standing over the frozen corpse, halfway submerged in a block of ice at the center of the river. Trout was likewise well, resting a stride away from the river’s edge against the spire of a stalagmite.

Typhoon’s magic returned to her veins again, slowing the world, as the surface of the river broke. “Winterspell! Look out!” The admiral was ready in a heartbeat, but his claymore swung through empty air. Summer lunged out of the water toward Trout, and in the same motion tackled the young mare, and surrounded her throat in fangs. The stalagmites blocked Typhoon’s view, but the crunch that echoed through the cave left little to the imagination.

Winterspell nodded when Typhoon leapt down toward him, gliding smoothly to his side. “I don’t have much left in me, but I’ll stand by you.”

“No, you won’t.” Typhoon turned to the admiral, and released a small pant. “I’m still strong enough to best her in a battle of magic, but I can’t risk her getting yours.”

Winterspell frowned. “This is a bad idea, Typhoon. You said yourself, a thestral is stronger than any single pony, and―”

“It’s not about strength,” Typhoon interrupted. “She’s tired, and even with what she’s taken, she can’t best my magic.”

“Should I go to Cyclone?”

A shake of Typhoon’s head spilled a few graying hairs from her tritone mane. “One way or another, this… vendetta ends here.”

Winterspell nodded slowly. “As you wish.” And then, as he walked toward the tunnel leading out of the caves, he called back a few spare words. “Good luck, Typhoon.”

The corner’s of Typhoon’s mouth rose, despite the grimness of the ancient saying. “Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem.” She watched as the old sailor plodded his way out of sight, and then turned toward the solitary stalagmite that concealed her foe. “What are you waiting for, Summer?”

“I didn’t want to kill him,” Summer answered, striding slowly out from behind the stone. Her wings extended, and she focused on Typhoon once more. Though her furrowed brow and her muzzle full of fangs painted the picture of hatred, Typhoon thought for just a moment that she saw sadness hidden in the thestral’s eyes.

They had no more need for words. Summer charged. Typhoon slammed her wings flat against the ground, creating an icy wall to intercept the attack. The thestral dodged deftly to the side, giving Typhoon more than enough room to parry her slicing wingblades with the flat of Hiems.

Summer continued past, and then flipped herself around in midair as Typhoon turned. The living soldier had only enough time to throw up her wings for another shield of ice before a massive column of fire engulfed her. The heat left Typhoon sweating, and she gritted her teeth in focus. It was obvious Summer was trying to win their battle by overpowering Typhoon with a single burst of brute force.

Typhoon lifted her forehooves from the stone, and let ice form beneath them. Then, with a single thrust of her hind legs, she sent herself sliding toward the surface of the half-frozen river. The fire followed her, at least until she slipped below the surface of the water. For a normal pony, it would have been suicide, but her empatha kept it survivable, though uncomfortably chilly. From beneath the water’s surface, she watched and waited as the flames died away.

When the last tongue of orange disappeared, Typhoon leapt out of the river with her wings, letting her empatha turn her splash into a burst of icicles that flew around the room. At least a dozen scratched Summer, drawing little dribbles of blood from the thestral’s gray coat, though none scored a solid hit.

Summer’s wings lit with a red glow, but the would-be arcana faltered, leaving the thestral vulnerable as Typhoon unleashed another cloud of freezing mist. With no way to dodge, Summer was forced to light her body on fire, forcing out the flames simply to hold back the chill. As she did so, Typhoon watched the red glow of her magic build on her wings and brow, only to stutter and start.

“Typhoon…” Summer growled through gritted teeth. Typhoon made no move to acknowledge her name, focusing her efforts on finally ending the thestral. “Please… tell Tempest I’m sorry.”

Typhoon’s eyes widened. “Sorry? You think sorry is going to heal his eyes? Are you sorry to Blaze? Or Oath?” The living pegasus focused on her magic as Summer’s wavered, keeping her mind on the ice and away from the temptation of rage and flame. “Do you know what it feels like to be a mother, and to watch your foal―”

Summer winced. “I was barren, Typhoon. I never had a family. Just Pathfinder, Carver, and a few other survivors from Nimbus. Not much for a family.”

The thestral’s arcana stuttered again, and a stony click came from Typhoon’s side. She turned, just in time to see Last Gasp thrust a dagger into her ribs, beneath the edge of her armor. Her eyes widened, and a breath wheezed over her lips. Suddenly, even without using her magic, the world around her lost its motion. Her focused magic drifted away from Summer, and toward the cowardly bandit, trying to run away from the mare he had stabbed.

“Quick, Miss Summer, get away from―” The stallion’s words ended when Typhoon’s ice caught him, encasing him in a solid block, his mouth forever frozen mid-warning.

When Typhoon returned her attention to Summer, the thestral had fled to the far side of the enormous chamber. “Get back here!” Typhoon yelled, as her wing ripped out the bandit’s dagger and froze over the bleeding hole it had left behind. Even with her ice slowing the beating of her heart, she could feel the blood leaking away inside her.

“I’m not an imbecile, Typhoon,” Summer shouted back. “You’ll die from that wound, and I still don’t have the magic to stand hoof-to-hoof with you. It’s over, for you.” The fleeing mare paused, and held a hoof to her brow. “I wish you could have won, so I could have my rest.” With those words, the thestral disappeared into the shadows.

Typhoon looked down at her side, and the blood she had frozen into her coat. For just a moment, her eyes stared at the dark path Summer had taken, further into the earth. “I’m sorry, Tempest.” Then, with a heavy heart, she limped back for the path she had followed coming in, toward the surface. “I’m not coming home this time…”

Comments

[SolidFire]

This chapter was absolutely insane. I was incredibly tense throughout the entire thing, even though I knew one part of how it was going to end. Everybody knows at least one casualty from this chapter, but not about the others. Having Summer being a thestral in this is just... insane. It made me so incredibly scared about what was going to happen in that huge fight. On thing they say though dispels one of my theories of what happens in Wind & Stone, so that kinda sucked, but it also had me sigh in relief. I knew that I could rest easy with the knowledge that this certain character made it to a certain point, otherwise they would not be how they are now. I shed a few tears even though I knew how this was gonna end... damn you for making me cry AGAIN! The conversation between Finder and Summer was one of my more favorite parts of this chapter. It gave some very nice background information that we'll hopefully read more on in Summer Lands and Wind & Stone.

On a less depressing note, the segments with Twilight and Solo in this chapter were nice. I'm certainly loving Going Solo, which means you're going to brutally kill her before too long. It's only logical for you, but I do hope you don't. She's a character that deserves to live, and I hope you don't go out of your way to kill her. Now Twi and company are safely out of the ruins and on their way to Stalliongrad. Poor Solo and her insane fear of Ink. It has quite the impact on her and I can't help but suspect that it will happen at a very bad time.

Well... I think that's all I can say at this point. I went over this chapter a while ago and some of the more obscure details are already fading from my memory. I would love to have it all fresh when I comment, but I wasn't exactly eager to read this chapter again. It's painful enough to go over this once, but a second time would be even worse. I look forward to the next chapter oh so very much. It will be an agonizing wait, but that pain will only be a prelude to the agony of the next chapter.

~SolidFire

[Zevski]

I liked the chapter, didn't think we would go back to see things from Typhoon's POV.

Though I am a bit confused by the timeline, this war with Luna has nothing to do with the one that got her locked up in the moon, right?

[LoyalLiar]

5014611
Correct. Unfortunately, you answer is "wait for more Summer Lands".

[Zennyth]

Been waiting a long while to see how Solo reacted to a face-to-face meeting with Ink again. It's understandable, but BSOD Solo isn't the most fun or enjoyable Solo...

Ink is an advocate of Gin and Tonic...that bumps him up a bit in my opinion book.

Haven't read the Typhoon parts yet, but judging by other posters, there be feels abound. Is that part by you or 24?

[LoyalLiar]

5014864
I wrote it. Both 24 and Ruirik had a heavy hand in making sure it was... uniform.

[Pega-ace]

Thoughts:
Thanks for spoiling Summer Lands for us. So now we know that 24 can't be nice to his characters because you do stuff like this.
Also, I take back whatever I said about Ty's death. That was suitably epic. Sad, but suitably epic. Still kinda worthless though.
Anyway, how does Ty get to write all this down before she dies? I call bs on that.
I just realised something: Why does Twilight's insignia have wings? She isn't an Alicorn yet right?
There has to be a sequel to FSWL now, with Red Ink trying to hit on RD. It will be epic and stupid, and completely worth reading. (Finish this one first though! )
I noted that this chapter is almost twice as long as the previous ones. Abandoning "shorter but faster"? (Please say no )
Thanks for replying in advance. Keep up the good work with the chapters!

[LoyalLiar]

5016015
I couldn't split Typhoons journal into 2 chapters, hence length.

As she described in the previous chapter, Ty froze her wound, and died semi-slowly of internal bleeding. Still, you're getting a lot more *details* than Ty actually wrote down, in the same sense that ASoS doesn't contain word-for-word accounts of all the dialogues, when Twilight is reading them.

Ruirik is still working on non-Pegasus line breaks, but I really wanted to post.

[djthomp]

Roscherk Krovyu, Commander of the Honor Guard, had no idea how to react when Twilight Sparkle threw her forelegs around him with a sigh of relief. After a moment’s consideration, he reached over her back with a wing and gave her a firm swat to her left cutie mark.

Ahh, Red Ink, you've been missed.

Incidentally, great job again with the scene break images, they even blend nicely with the non-white backgrounds. So often people use breaks like these without taking that into account, and you end up with these lovely images in a big rectangular white box in the middle of the chapter.

“I can see where she gets it. Close enough build, same manestyle… Actually, that’s a little freaky how close they are. Think I could get Rainbow some coat dye? I was hoping I could find her in a forty-years-younger and not-dead model.”

Isn't it a little late for the latter part of that request?

Onyx Ridge, three out of three trips end terribly, it's really not a good place for a snowy vacation.

Gah, this 'verse sometimes, just so damn depressing. So whatever else happened to her, Summer ends up a renegade thestral doing things in her crazied madness like cutting out Tempest's eyes and killing ponies in the exact way she watched Dawn die, and with presumably zero chance of ever making it into the Summer Lands to be with her friends and family (I'm guessing with that last bit, but I can't really imagine either Celestia or Luna sending her there after what we saw of her this chapter).

On the other hand, almost the entire chapter I was convinced that the thestral was Rain, so at least Finder doesn't loose his wife to whatever fate Summer faces.

Also, given the hints about the Shadow War and the recent blog post detailing the first conflict with Nightmare Moon, I'm starting to agree with the Honor Guard's general opinion about Luna. She really needs to needs to stop using necromancy so recklessly and slaughtering so many ponies. Even if it's never really Luna's fault, she still seems to be the source of so much suffering.

[Zennyth]

Damn, it's always so sad reading anything from the era of Typhoon. She deserved a better way to go.

WMG now...is Summer and Countess Star one and the same? Red mane, and the matter of "unfinished business" leads me to believe just maybe.

No idea who Summer is right now. I really do need to read Wind and Stone but not looking forward to the heartbreak. Will Ruirik hurt as bad as 24?

Also, I find it interesting that you mentioned that the necromancy spell is in the Grimoire Fatalis. Not terribly surprising news, considering how ominous that title sounds, but isn't that book currently in Predvidenie's possession (or maybe, was)? I bet that's significant later in this story.

Another crazy theory is maybe, just maybe, that unnamed Commander from the Storm Guard is the Commander of today we know and love. I don't have much to back up that theory, other than the fact that it seems strange such an important figure in history is forgotten when, by and large, Equestrian society does a pretty good job of remembering its past. (I sense a Princess cover-up conspiracy!) Furthermore, it could explain Steel Lining's affinity for weather combat tactics, and his intense devotion to Celestia. It would be also an interesting bait-and-switch of the current "Hurricane is the Honour Guard Commander theory" popular out there now...same idea, but a different character.

Other thoughts: I'm slowly starting to like Red Ink a bit better. He's a fantastic character, but one that really rubbed me the wrong way in Act 1. The effects of his Ponyville reformation is more noticeable this chapter.

And you're still tossing the tiniest of breadcrumbs about Shining Armour's fate. That's being evil now. I want to know so bad what happened with him!

[Ruirik]

5019241

Will Ruirik hurt as bad as 24

I wrote Fire & Rain, clearly I'm the nicest person here.

[LoyalLiar]

5037657

She couldn't possibly have been a fair lady of red hair who delighted in weaving fantastical tales of wonder and excitement to those who would care to listen? ...Nah, probably not.

Nope, she was blonde.

[Tchernobog]

How would your your brother know

Minor mistake! Also I totally forget who summer lands was supposed to be, if she's been introduced before. This fic needs a damned wiki.

[LoyalLiar]

5044949
The Summer Lands are "pony heaven" to put it in a very short sentence, though somewhere, Mortal Coil is furious that I said so.

Summer has only appeared here, and in Wind & Stone. If you haven't read that, don't worry; everything you need to know about her, at least for the purposes of understanding this story, is right there for you.

[Tchernobog]

5047961
Ah, okay! I've not really been able to keep good track of it so far. Since Summer and Summer Lands were both referred to in here, I thought there was some connection and something had been mentioned before...

[StormyVenture]

5047961
That's fine and dandy, but it's still a constructed place that keeps souls from fading according to what you've told us. And based on Luna and Krenn's conversation, one may assume that magic was also borrowed from Discord. It's hardly a place that would go on if Celestia and Luna's lives came to an end.

I would say that Luna has much to answer for and that she desperately needs to remember an awful lot of things.

[LoyalLiar]

5099113
All of your explanation is true; my point in using the extremely terse phrasing I did was to point out that the summer lands (the not-quite geographic location) and Summer (the former Cirran legionary medic) are very different.

[StormyVenture]

5099422
I see, my apologies then. I just feel like the summer lands are kind of a bad joke in some ways. Not so much "pony heaven" as 'pony "heaven"'. Not really much of an eternal resting place if Celestia dies. And it seems obvious that none of them are truly immortal unless I am deeply confused.

[LoyalLiar]

5102694

I don't know where you're getting that the Summer Lands would just "go away" if Celestia died. Even Morty didn't claim that it was going to up-and-vanish simply from her death. If she did die, one supposes whoever wound up with her "spark" (I detest the term 'divinity' for this case, but you probably get the point) could unmake the Summer Lands, but otherwise, the place is around more-or-less to stay.

I am very deliberately staying out of any argument on value judgements of the Summer Lands, at least for the moment. I prefer to let the pot simmer.

[StormyVenture]

5103543
Well, maybe I misunderstood. It seemed from what's been said in the story like it's continued existence was somewhat dependent on Celestia's will for it to exist implying that should she die it would vanish or at least begin to fade. I guess either way it depends on the nature of this "spark" you speak of. Whether it really represents an independent power or only exists as part of something else. Equestria on the other hand, so far as one knows, is not dependent on any known power's existence for it's being.

[LoyalLiar]

5171445
Yeah, that's in Trottingham.