Rising Damp Bridge
“Get up now!” shouted the guard that had been positioned outside of the tent.
Ashmead heard the flap thrown open as he groggily lifted himself up from where he had been left the night before. He hissed in pain as the bruises from the previous night’s beating objected to his sudden movements. He looked up at the midnight blue guard that was clad in black armor with distain in his deep blue eyes.
“Come on get up you pathetic excuse for a pony.” The guard looked down on him.
Ashmead was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. He was a common farm pony with a straight nose, firm chin, and had a broad forehead from which his peach colored mane was combed back. His eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin.
The guard walked over to him and grabbed hold of the chain that bound him to the center pole and undid it. With a sharp pull Ashmead was lead out of the tent and into the dark of night. The campsite twinkled with lights and there were midnight blue soldiers everywhere. With another sharp pull he was lead through the camp by his guard. He could feel everypony’s eyes on him as he was pulled to the place where he was to receive punishment.
He was lead out of the camp and down a road and the more the camp disappeared the more that accursed bridge appeared where his executioners were awaiting his arrival. There were two sentinels positioned at each end of the bridge, each holding long spears that reflected the pale white glow of her moon. In the center of the bridge were two unicorns, each with a cross bow notched and ready for use, and a priest who stood tall and held his head up high. The guards snapped to attention when they saw the guard and Ashmead approaching.
A chill ran down Ashmead’s back as the cold night air ran through his light orange mane. The muscles in the back of his neck knotted up as his hoof hit the damp wood of the bridge making it creak loudly. His breath was shaky as he looked at the stout post that shot up next to the priest and out over the edge of the water. His eyes then fell on the object of his demise, a rope that dangled at its end.
The other bank of the river was open ground. A gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loop holed for crossbows, with a single embrasure through which protruded two catapults made of wood and iron. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators, a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of their cross bows on the ground. The ends inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder of each soldier.
He was lead out to where the priest was standing and the two unicorns saluted the captain that was escorting Ashmead. At a wave of his hoof, the captain signaled the nearest to prepare for the hanging. He pulled out a long plank and placed it out over the water and right after stood on the end that was still on the bridge. Ashmead felt the metal clasp around his neck come undone, only to have it replaced by a line of twine that bound his fore-hooves. The remaining unicorn guard pushed him with his crossbow forcing him out onto the plank. The noose glowed blue and made its way around his neck, tightening itself to the point where he could feel every inch of its ruff exterior. At a signal from the captain the soldier would step aside and Ashmead would fall to meet his maker.
Ashmead wished that they would have put a bag over his face or at least tied a cloth around his head to obscure his vision. But they didn’t and it made his waiting all the worse. He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his hooves. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current.
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to silver by the accursed moon, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance.
Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby. It seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death bell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and he knew not why. Maybe it was apprehension or something more. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He opened his eyes once more and looked back at the water. “If only I could free my hooves,” he thought, “I could take off this noose and jump into the water. By diving I could evade the arrows and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank Celestia, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts flashed through his brain the captain looked to the soldier standing on the plank and gave him a nod. The soldier slowly sidestepped off the plank.
Ashmead wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the starry night sky with a look of longing in his eyes. It had been nearly four weeks since the princess of the night had refused to lower her moon. Even though it may have been night, he still had a duty to tend to his fields and prepare for when the sun would rise again, that is if it would rise again. Ashmead was no soldier but would always be eager to keep up with the latest news about the war between the two goddesses. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of Celestia’s troops, no adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.
Ashmead shrugged off the yoke that connected him to the plow behind him and walked up to the small one story house. He sat himself down next to his wife who was sitting on the porch sipping at a small cup of tea. They had gotten into a conversation about there previously lost harvest when a gold-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Ashmead was only too happy to serve him with her own white hooves. While she was fetching the water her
Ashmead approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
"The Night Guards are getting ready for another advance.” Said the stallion. “They have reached the Rising Damp bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the its roads, its bridges, or tunnels will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."
"How far is it to the bridge?" Fahrquhar asked.
“A good fifteen miles from here I’d say”
“Do the Night Guards have any forces on this side of the bridge?”
“There is a small picket post a mile out, on the road, and a single sentinel at this end.”
“Say that perhaps a stallion, a civilian managed to evade the picket post and got the better of the sentinel,” Ashmead had a smile on his face, “what could he accomplish?”
The guard took off his helmet and scratched at the back of his head. “Well that flood that we had during the spring had lodged a great quantity of driftwood in this end of its pier. It is now dry and should easily take to a flame.”
Ashmeads wife had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and galoped away. An hour later The same stallion repassed the plantation. He was a Lunar scout.
As Ashmead fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened for what seemed to be ages later by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness, of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum.
Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! The idea seemed ludicrous to him. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface. He knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought, "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hooves. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort, what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hooves dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hooves, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hooves gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge, his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
Ashmead was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf -- he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat. All these made audible like music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the priest, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing their hooves at him.
Suddenly he heard a sharp twang and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second twang, and saw one of the sentinels with his crossbow enveloped in a dark blue aura. The stallion in the water saw the eye of the stallion on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the crossbow. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Ashmead and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the captain on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly -- with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the soldiers -- with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
"Company! . . . Attention! . . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!"
Ashmead dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of the royal Canterlot voice, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal followed by the wooden shafts, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hooves, then fell away, continuing their descent.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream, nearer to safety.
The hunted pony saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.
"The captain," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. Goddess help me, I cannot dodge them all!"
An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud. A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The catapults had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and Lunar guards, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color, that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream, the southern bank, and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies.
The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hooves on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his hooves into the sand, threw it over himself in hooffuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape -- he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of arrows among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. He sprang to his hooves, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.
All throughout the night he traveled, laying his course by the still moon hanging in the sky. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
Many hours later he was fatigued, hoofsore, and famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested pony habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance.
His neck was in pain and lifting his hoof to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue -- he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his hooves!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene, perhaps he had merely recovered from a delirium. He stood at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the moon lights glow. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms.
As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon. Then all is darkness and silence!
Ashemead was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Rising Damp bridge.
Authors Notes: If any of you were wondering yes this is a ponified vertion of Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge. It is one of my favorite childhood stories I really wanted to try and help revive it and bring it to the bronie comunity. With that being said I also admit I did copy some parts from the story but I hope you dont give me a dislike because of it. All i wanted to do was bring a classic story back.
I hope you like it and I will enjoy any and all comments as long as they aren't negative.