> Hunter's Path
>  by SwordTune
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Kelpie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, master Monster Hunter, what brings the likes of you 'round here?" The fisher pony tied his boat to a wood peg that erected from the ground. His village was a mile south and fishing trips further north were all familiar ground.

It was an odd place, this far north of the Far Coast. Already Fiora could feel the shift in the air's magic. Different monsters, many of them new to the world.

"Hope you don't mind m'say-so, but you're a little funny lookin', more so than other mutants I've seen." The sea brought in cold air, and with its winds followed snow from northern mountains and glaciers. The fisher pony grabbed his tent making kit and started setting up while he talked.

"But, never met a mutant who didn't like ebontail tuna, and I bet you will too," he said. "Even if you got wings and a horn."

Fiora, like most mutants who became monster hunters, had aged well with the times. Just over three hundred years old, she was used to drawing attention from locals, but not so used to that attention being friendly in any sense.

"You must've met mutant monster hunters then," she remarked. "It's the combination of our mutations, and the slow alterations of strong hunter potions, that harden our digestive tract. It's the reason why we don't taste, or care about, the bitter toxin in ebontail fins."

"Of course," muttered the pony. "The fact that it's meat is completely irrelevant."

"Normal ponies can't stand meat, but here you are, a fisher nonetheless," Fiora replied, but focusing on feeling the magic for the kelpie that plagued the villagers.

"Aye," he answered, "so our dogs can eat and our traps have bait for bears. We can't hire a hunter t'get rid of every creature wandering 'round."

In fifteen minutes wood was on the fire and Fiora had boiled a pot of water with a mixture of herbs and other ingredients. The fisher pony looked inside, trying to guess at what it held, but he couldn't point out the common leaves, let alone the various monster glands.

Mandrake sink tissues that stored sugar and nutrients for the plant-like monster, dried adrenal glands of lesser demons, and a drained venom sac from a manticore, boiled and mixed with alfalfa leaves she had brought from a plantation on the southern end of the Far Coast. Meanwhile the fisher pony covered his nose and tried to eat his baked potatoes quietly.

"Look, 'fore you go off running after some water devil, I just wanted t'say I don't begrudge the village payin' your rate, high as it is." He tossed a gnarled log onto the fire to let it eat the wood and grow, slowly. "Folks're afeared o' mutants, but I've always said you can't blame some pony for being born some way."

Fiora furrowed her brow. "You talk as if it's something I should regret. Being me isn't something bad, something that I don't have to be responsible for." 

"But, don't you miss bein' like other folk?" he asked, not quite understanding her meaning.

Fiora drained the infusion into a flask and tied it to her saddlebag, letting it steep. Even with the monster glands, which brewed faster, it would still take an hour before it became effective. She got up and headed out to where she suspected the kelpie to be.

"The kelpie will be up soon," she explained, as if it meant anything to the fisher pony who knew nothing of monsters. She marched down a short beaten path before trudging through a thin grassy valley covered in snow.

The grass up north was resilient, but winter had begun and soon even the soft shoots absorbing the snowflakes now would perish under a meter of snow.

"Water kelpie can't suffer the cold without hunting," Fiora scanned the grassland, edging closer to the thinly frozen over lake. Kelpies, she remembered from her studies as a foal, were considered water omens by many locals.

Small tribes, some of which remained unconquered by the Far Coast, revered the power of kelpies and thought them to be spirits of water who were neither evil nor good.

More superstitious villages blamed anything from drowned pets to bad rain to disease on kelpies. But with war torn lands all along the border between the Far Coast kings and High Mountain Kingdom, both governments have given little thought to the paranoia of their ponies.

Fiora rubbed her shoulder, remembering the last time she hunted a kelpie. It was old, a spirit in appearance but entirely flesh underneath its magic guise, and had drowned dozens from a small fishing village. Kelpies lived in lakes and ponds, she remembered, edging along the shoreline of the frozen lake.

The last one was an easier hunt, in the spring with no ice; kelpies could be completely invisible when floating still in their natural habitats. They were ambush hunters, and only moved when they woke at dawn. The frozen horizon blackened with snow clouds from the north, but Fiora could still see the faint grey of the rising sun.

If it were like last time, she only had to wait and watch for the kelpie's movements. All she needed to do was catch it stirring and strike before it gathered its senses. But with ice covering the entire lake, it was impossible to spot the faint distortions in the water below.

The same must not have been true for the kelpie, however, who spotted Fiora immediately. The monster cracked through the sheet of ice the moment Fiora placed her hoof in its range.

Though a shapeshifter, the monster kept its usual form of a large, spindly pony. Its legs were stretched, so thinly it looked ready to snap at any moment if it wasn't for the creature's powerful magic, and its blackish-blue body was surrounded by an arcane mist--violet and light blue in colour.

It lashed forward like an alligator, floating in its magic mist and snapping at Fiora's hooves while the bony legs wrapped around her, yanking her into the freezing water. Fiora's wing drew her sword instinctively and the monster immediately repulsed from its strength.

Infused with night silver and her own aura, the weapon's metal repelled magic stronger than any typical blade of steel and night silver, cutting deeper the monster than even the sharpest of hunter blades could.

Fiora jumped back and fired a shockwave of magic energy at the kelpie, pushing it out of the water onto the rest of the icy lake. Extremely light for its size, the thin ice only cracked slightly.

The monster rushed forward again, enhancing its speed with magic, and pummeled Fiora into the ground before sinking its teeth onto her armor. Her coat of plate bent, its hardened steel sections and Ichneumon leather absorbing the pressure. But the kelpie changed its shape, shortening its snout and growing sharp, serrated teeth.

Its head was more like a shark's, though the body stayed the same, and it ripped her coat until the steel underneath was exposed. Fiora didn't push back. Instead, she grabbed her blade with her other wing and guided its point into the monster's shoulder, angling and cutting through the trapezius muscle on its back.

It screeched, losing focus and reversing its head back to that of a pony. Fiora cut repeatedly, severing muscles on its chest and neck until the monster collapsed, unable to hold up its own weight. Even so, it was no defenceless.

The kelpie lashed its tongue out, wrapping around Fiora's neck to strangle her, pulling her into the water in the process. She shot bolts of fire spells at the kelpie, but it was wise to her magic and throttled her around and no spell could hit its mark. Fiora's heart beat harder and pushed what little breath she had to her body while she reached for a vial in her saddlebag and swallowed its contents.

Water flooded Fiora's lungs, cold and icy until her insides felt numb and solid like a glacier. But she could breathe. The potion she drank worked immediately, its viscous fluid clinging to her throat and turning water in her lungs into air with the magic of its ingredients.

The kelpie was dumbstruck by its prey's lack of drowning, a moment of weakness most water monsters had when facing a prepared monster hunter. It took just one shockwave of magic, its force carried strongly by the water, for Fiora to blast them both out of the water.

The blast flung her to the shore and the kelpie even farther, to a small gathering of tree stumps where a team of loggers had apparently passed. On land and with weakened magic, the monster struggled to move. Fiora galloped, sword raised in one wing and blasting searing arcs of flames at the flailing kelpie.

It rolled on the dirt and snow, desperate for an escape, but stopped short as Fiora's blade made two halves of its spine. Its blood, still charged with relatively high amounts of magic, sizzled against the night silver in the sword until it burst with energy, throwing blood across the snow.

"Not worth two hundred," Fiora muttered to herself, shivering as she severed the head as proof of the kill. A potion could heal her wounds or let her breath in water, but oddly enough the trivial action of warming up was still left to a campfire.

She slung the monster's head over her saddlebag, attaching its eye socket to a hook on her saddle, and headed back for the fisher pony's campfire. 


=============================================================


"You already agreed to the amount before I took the contract," Fiora snarled with a low tone that hinted at her rising frustration, but the town elder seemed steadfast. All the others, including the burliest of stallions, shied away from the angry monster hunter, but not him.

"Wood Hedge, maybe we should just let the Monster Hunter take the gold," suggested a whimpering blacksmith, who had seen first hoof Fiora's sword as she sharpened it the day before.

"Quiet, Iron Cast!" barked the old pony. "This mutant let my youngest daughter die before offering to help, and still demanded we pay her more. We've paid with dozens of lives already, freak! We shan't pay any more."

"You should have spoken before I took the contract," Fiora stomped her hoof. "I can't work for free, but I might have been willing to give a discount."

It wouldn't have been likely, though. She could feel her coin pouch, a little satchel that hung off the right of her saddle, next to her sword scabbard; she could feel the lack of any weight. There was once a time where she could charge little to nothing for a monster, falling back on her orchard for coin. But tough, when in times of war.

"How are we to pay for the rest of our expenses?" the town elder argued. "We've few sons to fish and fell trees now, and our most skilled seamstress is in that monster's belly. No pony will take pity and deal with a town with nothing to trade."

Fiora wanted to snap and snatch the coin from the stallion's hooves. She needed the money. Instead, she stepped closer and whispered to the elder.

"A mutant monster hunter with wings and a horn tends to catch ponies' attention. What would ponies think of a village that can't even pay to save its own? Will you get a lot of trade then?"

The elder's eyes widened and glared at the threat. "You dare?"

"I do," she nodded, hoof extended to accept the coin.

"May Cerberus hunt you in Tartarus," cursed the stallion, throwing the sack of coins at her hooves. She laughed inwardly at the old stallion's perception of an eternal tormentor. She knew the real one.

She picked up the sack and stuffed it next to her potion ingredients in her bag. "Pleasure doing business."

"I don't want to see you here ever again," the old stallion said through clenched teeth. Fiora nodded in agreement and left the village by the south road, eager to find work in a warmer village where professional skill took precedence over prejudice.
> A Haunting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

She sat with Sharp Tone in Warfstead, the largest port city in the Far Coast, in a tavern by the name of The Tradewinds, the most popular stop for sailors and merchants alike. Music played in the afternoon, poetry in the evening. The moon had risen, and special performances from singers flooded the building with soft melodies.

"I'm not meddling, Sharp," Fiora told her friend. "Mages and aristocrats complicate business. Common folk just want monsters killed, simple as that."

"It's good money," Sharp explained for the third time that night. "The stallion's paying four hundred to lift a curse on a town house. Plus, some mage students wants to study curse magic, and will pay another two hundred to see the after effects of the curse."

"Usually includes some sort of wraith or specter," Fiora said, eating from her bowl of berries and drinking apple cider. 

He shrugged. "Beats cleaning baykoks off the battlefields."

Fiora gave an unpleasant grunt at the mention of the beasts. New, in terms of hunter experience, but apparently present in ancient myths and folklore. Only the Dragon Arts, the first school of monster hunters, had records on them. And as far as Fiora knew, they were not eager to share.

They were similar to Corpse Eaters in some respects: attracted to corpses, and easily mistaken for undead ponies. However they were often pale grey or brown, with skin thin and translucent enough to reveal the white bones underneath.

From what she had seen, their bodies lacked most things needed for living, such as internal organs. But baykoks were always surrounded by an intense magical presence, and despite their translucent, pale appearance, their eyes shined red, bright enough to cut through even heavy morning fog. 

Given that they were easy enough to kill by cutting off their heads, as their necks were no stronger than that of a pony's, Fiora guessed its was the eyes that stored the magic that fueled the lives of baykoks. Their tendency for murder, completely disregarding the flesh of the already deceased, also prompted her to believe they fed on the magic of those they killed.

In the background, singers switched and the old stallion whose voice reverberated in a low hymn was replaced by a young, shapely mare whose voice, surprisingly, was adored more than her figure.

"I'll think about it," she told him, thinking to the fifteen baykoks she had to kill just to pay for her meal and a room at The Tradewinds. 

It was late, and though she had a bed just a few floor up, Fiora wanted to walk the streets of the city without the glares at her horn and wings. She said goodnight to her friend, who was leaving in the morning for a request from local lord, and headed for the door.

"By the way, about getting your named changed," said Sharp Tone just as she was about to leave. 

Fiora raised a brow. "Yeah?"

"Clinging to village contracts isn't just a preference," he told her. "When we say we move on, we have to act like it too."

Fiora didn't reply, only nodded.


=============================================================


Night silver's properties are useful to a monster hunter. It repels magic, but more importantly, it vibrates slightly from the force of that repulsion.

Fiora could feel the night silver in her blade trembling the sheath. Using her horn, she could feel the magic much more intimately, but with risk of exposing herself to the curse's magic.

"Just try not to break anything," the client had said, a wealthy trader who had amassed enough wealth to purchase his permanent residence in the port city, adding local tariff protections to his list of privileges. "I paid a lot from the house. Even the woodwork is antique."

Her sword was specially made by her, tempered by not only a forge but her own magic as well. Though night silver in its solid state was a natural enemy to magic, when heated to near melting point it could attune to certain magical properties. Fiora could sense her own aura in the blade, and its reaction to magic was a safe extension of her own senses.

"Before you return to your client, do allow us to survey the cleansed area." The students of Warfstead's magic school were tolerated only for their understanding of defense against curses and black magic.

In return for such tolerance, the twelve horned mutants that made up the mage college defended the city and its surrounding farms from witches and supernatural forces. A much cheaper option than monster hunters.

"You must understand, mutant to mutant, that we need data on this curse," one student had explained when Fiora resisted his professor's request. "We will pay you. Without that new data, our college risks losing funding from the governor."

She had standards as a professional and was expected not to allow strangers to access her client's property, but there was nothing she could do if they collected data once she left.

It wouldn't take more than a hour to trot over to her client, but she could stop and get her herb pouch filled up on the way. Do some other shopping too.

The curse was strong, centered at a point that seemed to move around the house. Fiora looked around. The ground floor had a dusty but nicely furnished kitchen and dining room. The stone around the fireplace was room temperature, but still warmer than the cool stone around it. 

"Something sat here," she talked to herself. "Warm bodied."

Yet there was no fresh food, or any other sign of inhabitants. The rest of the house looked abandoned, as it should have. She ascended the narrow stairway to the study and master bedroom. The curse grew stronger.

Fiora opened her saddlebag and took out a flask of night silver dust -finely ground, powdery shards. Alone, they wouldn't have reacted to the latent magic of the curse, just as night silver never reacted to trace amounts of magic within regular ponies. But her aura inside her sword shook slightly, and she could feel the subtle reactions to the magic around her.

Her vision, enhanced by training and mutant magic, picked out every detail on the second floor, but there was nothing in sight around where the night silver reacted the strongest. She tried going upstairs, but could already feel the energy draining. 

She looked around again, harder this time. There was a chest that had shifted; she could see that the floor was dusty save for the a little sliver of wood floor that was once covered by the chest. She also saw the wear on the floor by one of the bedroom doors.

The door was poorly built and scraped against the floor slightly, but if it had been abandoned for some time, the scratches would be covered in dust just like the rest of the floor. Instead they were fresh.

Fiora walked slowly over to the night silver on the floor that made her sword hum. The low drumming of the steel blade gave away where the source of the curse was. If she couldn't see anything, then there was only one option.

Her wing flashed for her sword and hacked through the wooden walls, sending splinters flying.

"Geiss!" shouted a young voice.

She stopped and sprung back. Looking into the hole she had made, there was a young filly curled up inside. Her coat was a light grey, her ragged mane a silver-blue shade. On her right shoulder was a glowing mark resembling the silhouette of a humming bird.

"Strange," she said to herself. "Only the source of a curse gives off magic. Unless, this girl cursed herself?"

"Geiss," repeated the filly, pointing to the room behind Fiora. She turned the handle, but the door was barred by something behind it. 

The little filly crawled out of the hole and stood close to Fiora, pointing at the symbol carved into the door frame. Fiora looked and it was the same as the hummingbird on the girl's shoulder.

"Did you curse this door?" Fiora asked, unsure of what she meant. She shook her head, pointed to the whole Fiora had made, and then back to the door.

"I suppose that's one way of knocking," she retorted, aiming her strike at the center of the door. "Stand back." 

She raised her sword, but the strike that landed wasn't the edge of her blade. The pommel at the end that balanced the weapon was etched with the same glyphs on monster hunter horseshoes. As most hunters weren't mutants, they relied on glyphs for basic magic attacks. 

The pommel crackled with a bright yellow energy and burst through the door. Fiora suffered the only drawback as her weapon shook in her wing's grip. The night silver in her blade would tolerate her magic, but not the magic of another spell. She waited a few seconds before the reverberations died down enough to return the blade to its sheath.

"Okay, let's see what's-"

Fiora tensed as she saw the room packed with bodies. Some mummified like they were drained of all fluid. Others just skeletons stripped of flesh. But most were regular corpses, chopped up and piled into the back of the room until they flooded the whole floor.

"Geiss!" exclaimed the filly, running in like a child eager to show its parent a drawing. 

"You?" Fiora asked in disbelief. "You killed all these ponies?"

She nodded. The filly hopped to a small table filled with framed pictures and balanced them all on her back surprisingly well. She ran out of the room and hung up the first picture she had on the wall by the door.

Fiora didn't know what else to do but look at what she was doing. She certainly was hesitant about killing a cursed filly. If that really was all she was. All the pictures seemed to be in the same spot, but the ponies changed. They were all families, some with two parents and a foal, one with one father and three colts. There were others as well, and they all sat at the fireplace while they were painted.

In total there were seven family portraits. Fiora started to notice that the clothes in the pictures looked exactly the same as some of the clothes the corpses were wearing. Some kind of possession curse, she figured, one that compelled the victim to protect the area that the caster felt attached to. But why a child?

The filly walked back into the room, wrapping her hoof around Fiora's and dragging her in. She resisted, pulling back, but the filly jerked her in with a phenomenal show of strength. There, above the table, was a charcoal sketch of a filly sitting at the the fireplace.

Crudely drawn, the fireplace was only recognizable because Fiora had seen its shape in all the other paintings. Equally obscure was the filly, which she guessed was the cursed victim before her, but it was impossible to tell from the misshapen circles and crooked lines that made up the sketch.

The only clearly defined thing was the symbol of the hummingbird. It was drawn behind the filly, just as the parents in the frames who were painted with their child in front of them. The hummingbird, drawn dark red with a mix of charcoal and blood, was triple the size of the filly. Multiple hummingbirds were drawn inside the main outline as well, each smaller and nesting inside of the larger one.

"What is this?" Fiora asked. More than anything else in the room she was horrified of the fact that she had never heard of or encountered such a curse. But there was one thing she recognized. The drawing was on velum, old velum made from the hide of a vurm. 

Vurms, large unwieldy beasts. Cousins of dragons, but far bigger and deadlier, vurms were long since dead, their kind completely extinguished by teams of monster hunters eager to split the pay. The only surviving vurm to her knowledge was killed by her own hoof, nearly a century ago. This velum couldn't have been made recently, Fiora thought. A dead vurm stirred noise among hunters. It had to have been hundreds of years old.

"You're some kind of ancient curse?" she asked the filly. "Are you even a pony?"

The filly shrugged and just replied, "Geiss."

"Alright, Geiss, how would you like to go on a trip with me?" Fiora suggested, kneeling down to talk to her. "There's a place I know of for... peculiar ponies. It's called Bach Kha'mohrgen, but mutants call it home."

There, in her eyes, was a flicker of recognition. "Home," repeated the filly. "Geiss, home."

"Sure," she said, taking the filly's hoof. "We can leave and start going today."

"Leave?" asked the filly. "Geiss!" 

She tore her hoof away and bashed her head into Fiora's chest. Even with armor, the blow knocked her back with such force she struggled to keep her footing, stumbling out of the room of corpses in the process. She was up against the stairs the next instant, not even realizing the next hit.

Fiora ran up the stairs into the attic; bare and stale, the featureless top floor had nothing that could help against the child. 

"I would've thought she'd have a doll or something," she wistfully mumbled. Fiora turned to parry the filly's charge up the stairs, but she was a gust of wind, blurring by her and appearing behind her in the attic.

"Moving like a humming bird," Fiora grunted in realization that she'd have no chance to match the filly's speed. She raised her horn and blazed the room with streaks of fire, devouring wood as a ravenous wolf would devour a corpse. But again, the cursed child bore another surprise.

She circled the room, stomping dead the fires with her swift hooves at such a speed that the blast of wind she generated struggled to keep up. Fiora backed away down the stairs, her sword extended in front of her. The point of the blade acted as her shield, but Fiora knew that if the filly chose to, she could move so fast around her that the sword was just an afterthought.

Two hits knocked her down to the ground floor, throwing her with such force that the hard wood floor shattered. Fiora used her wing to pull a flask from her saddlebag, but the filly appeared before her, and in a flicker, pushed her into the fireplace.

But she had to drink the potion for any chance to survive this encounter. Fiora wanted to throw up at the pain of her ribs contorting and bending and snapping inside her chest, but she forced herself to swallow the liquid before the cursed filly could land a second blow, which didn't take long.

The potion, brewed from wight and specter essence extract and laced with night silver, shielded the user from magic. A useful thing, considering her plan. The filly stopped her assault and stood watching Fiora as like nothing was happening. 

"Geiss, leave, home," she said, and then pointed to the hummingbird mark on her shoulder. "Geiss."

Fiora took the opportunity to scorch the house once again, but not with a rampant blaze. She ejected glyphs and wards of fire that burned themselves into the wood. The burns took shape even as the filly put out the flames.

Fiora drew magic to her horn, her body threatening to rip itself apart as the night silver reacted to the spell, but she pressed on and focused her magic into the symbols. Glyphs and wards powered up, crackling lightning and thunder around the room. Wood splintered and shot from all sides.

Fiora covered herself with her wings, but could hear the filly get hit by an arc of magic and get flung into the dining table. In seconds the glyphs and wards lost their charge. Fiora doubled over in pain and spewed the potion back out before it destroyed the magic in her body.

In the center of the room was the filly, her neck a gash cut open by a stray piece of splintered wood and her spine sticking out of her back. Fiora sighed, accepting the fact she had killed the filly. 

But her body twitched. As if willed by another force, her corpse repaired itself, closing the wounds and repairing the spine. Fiora stared the entire time--two minutes of watching a dead body pull itself back together. The filly went limp after that.

Fiora rushed to her side and checked her body. There were signs of internal bleeding and rips throughout the muscles, but she could see the healing process taking place already.

"Every pony at Kha'mohrgen has to see this," she muttered, carrying the filly on her saddlebag. She winced, her own internal injuries crying out, but drank a pot of a viscous healing concoction and continued out the house.

Outside were four scholars, horned mutants all of them, standing in eager waiting.

"We were on our way when we saw the commotion you caused," their professor explained, seemingly indifferent to the pony Fiora was carrying. "I assume the curse is dealt with?"

He rolled the sac of coins around in his hoof, waiting for an answer. Fiora snatched the coin and stuffed it in a saddle pocket. 

"Just be quick," she told them, leaving quickly before ponies saw her carrying a body. The mark was unknown, so all it would look like was a mutant carrying the corpse of a dead filly.

She collected the pay from her client, emphasizing the hazardous nature of the curse and that damage was inevitable, while leaving out the part where the cursed victim was a filly, changing the story with a rare specter instead. She collected the coin, feeling the weight of the total six hundred coins.

Enough to repair her armor and weapons, buy herbs and equipment for potion brewing, and a hot bowl of oats. She said farewell to the client bluntly and left the city, retrieving the cursed girl from the bushes she had hid her in, and made for the road as soon as possible. Hot oats and working equipment would have to wait until she could make it to the castle of mutant monster hunters.
> Kings and Peasants
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The road to Bach Kha'mohrgen passed through the front lines of the war between the kingdoms of the Far Coast and the armies of the High Mountain Kingdom. But, given that amidst the High Mountain King's agenda to become an emperor the Far Coast kingdoms still fought each other, no pony expected them to remain unconquered for long.

Still, with all the monsters that prowled the wilderness, sending armies was still slow, and Fiora was surprised to see remains of a High Mountain encampment on the Far Coast's side of the war.

"They've advanced pretty far," she considered, looking to the road ahead. Trees were burned or cut down, leaving a clear path until the water channel ahead. There were buildings, small huts hastily built with logs, broken boards, and tarps, where refugees lived as they waited to get across the channel to flee the war.

The soldiers, Fiora spotted their insignia on a flag as she approached the refugee camp, were of the southern king of the Far Coast. Clearly, he wasn't eager to have Midshore refugees flood his lands. 

Ponies stared; among peasant ponies, even they knew mutants only ever had wing or a horn, never both. But, perhaps this time it wasn't her unique appearance. A lot of the refugees, she noted, had wounds that could only have been made by monsters. Claw marks, bite marks, magic scorches.

A monster hunter would be something to look to, though from experience Fiora knew it could be either good or bad. Then there was the filly on her saddle. She was fully healed on the outside, but still badly injured within. At least, badly injured for any other pony. Over the two days Fiora carried her, checking on her. Every hour her mortal wounds grew better, with no sign of slowing down.

She truly wondered what this filly was. 

She stopped in her tracks as she approached the guards at the bridge across the channel. Two soldiers in layers of chainmail approached. 

"What's this?" demanded one of the soldiers, who wore a gold insignia instead of the standard black. "A fucking mutant trying to cross? Get in line, mongrel, can't you see there are ponies waiting for their passes?"

"Bugger off!" agreed the other soldier.

"Who issues these passes?" Fiora didn’t budge.

The gold insignia soldier hacked a disgusting chuckle, his breath comprised of cheap wine and a local narcotic herb. 

"There a problem?" Fiora pressed her inquiry, leaning slightly aback to distance herself from the soldier’s boorish, though not unexpected, scent.

"You bet," he answered coarsely. "Only the general gives out passes, and he's not about to give one to a mutant before peasants eager to farm for the army."

"How about a monster hunter?" Fiora asked. "A lot of monsters attracted to war. Got to be a contract on something."

The two soldiers traded glances, unsure of how to respond. The soldier with the gold insignia ran back to the tower posted by the bridge for a few minutes, leaving his partner standing uncomfortably with the hunter.

He returned with another stallion. He was adorned in polished chest plate painted green with gold trims, and wore a dress sword on the side of his saddle.

"You're a monster hunter?" He asked, continuing before Fiora could answer. "Good. There's a nest of creatures, I don't know what you call them, who've been attacking my soldiers on both sides of the channel."

"Might not know the name, but I could do with a bit more detail," Fiora replied.

The general nodded. "Of course. They're massive, flying monsters, of that we are sure. And it leaves hoof prints and claw marks around its nest."

"Any bodies I could examine?" Fiora suggested. The general's description of the monster was lacking, and she needed more information.

"We've had to dispose of many bodies in the channel," explained the general, "but we haven't collected bodies from the recent attack two days ago. It's about three miles north west."

Accepting the contract would be a lot easier than trying to trick her way through. Besides, once the war was over and there were no more soldiers to hunt, a monster nest would cause problems for the innocent ponies trying to return to their lives.

"I'll look into it," she told the general.

He nodded. "And I'll see to it that you are compensated properly. Including a pass across the channel."


=============================================================


Fiora left the filly in one of the tents around the site of the attack. The scent of the monsters that came was enough to drive off even hungry corpse eaters, so she reasoned it was as safe as any place for the cursed pony while she completed the contract.

"Multiple monsters attacked from all directions," she noted. The soldiers were all facing different directions with no sign of a scuffle. The camp was a just a massacre. 

Fiora inspected two bodies lying side by side. One had his stomach and intestines ripped open by powerful claws. Only scraps of the liver remained, the majority consumed. The other was entirely different. 

Large holes were punched through the chest, killing the soldier with a crushing force strong enough to bypass steel plate. Not a single scratch or bite mark seen.

"Different monsters attacked together, that must be the case," Fiora spoke to herself, thinking it out. "Incredibly rare. Leader must be powerful. A fae of the Aos Si, maybe. Or even a Moroii."

Fiora sniffed the air. The scent of blood and monster salivation was rich in the ground, their appetites dripping their scent all over the ground. She followed the smell farther north, noticing broken branches up in the trees. Definitely tried flying, she thought to herself. Too large to be any kind of fae, however.

After a couple more miles she got her answer. Screeching came from above, two distinct voices, while two more around the ground came from up ahead. The base of a hillock was up ahead with a few snapped trees and torn bushes, sure signs that the monsters had made their nest in the area.

She'd never be able to see them coming if she stayed in the trees, and thanks to monster hunter training her wings were useless for flying. Fiora ran for the edge of the woods to where armies had fell and burned trees into an ashy grassland, but the moment she showed herself, two massive talons swooped for her.

Fiora ducked to the side, projecting a magic shield around herself to deflect the next blow. It was fortunate, for the following strike lashed out behind her, sending a shockwave through the shield from the impact. In the sky, two griffins circled while the manticore prowled from the trees.

Following it, another monster that was rarely seen, even among monster hunters. Its front half resembled pony, though it was far larger, and its back half was that of a chicken. It was a female hippalektryon.

The manticore's scorpion tail rose to strike her shield again, but a roaring command pierced the air from above.

"Save your strength, Ryammus," called out one of the griffins. To Fiora's astonishment, the manticore obliged immediately. The griffon and his follower landed on the ground with such force Fiora's shield tremored.

She could immediately see why, once the dust settled. The griffin that approached her was not of common breed. He was a royal griffin sporting an appearance similar to a great horned owl, with four imposing horns that grew like trees from its head.

Common griffins like the one who trailed behind the royal was not much larger than ponies. But this royal stood at least twice the size of its brethren. Fiora felt the magic in its sound as a deep reverberation emanated from his chest. All three of the monsters laid their heads low, bowing to the royal griffin.

"Seems we have become a problem for those soldiers," mused the royal. "I take it you are their solution?"

Fiora nodded.

"Plan to fight us still?" he asked.

Fiora looked around, judging in a second which gaps she could dart through before a monster tore her apart. "If I have no choice, then yes."

"A good answer," chuckled the royal, "but we are not here to fight."

"Then why are you here?" Fiora wondered, nodding her head towards the manticore and hippalektryon. "Those aren't exactly a royal entourage."

"Fellow monsters, though lacking sentience, are still fellow monsters," answered the royal. "The manticore, Ryammus, is named after the late Ryammus, head of House Stormbreed until he passed and his son, my father, took over. I plan to make the manticore part of my family, just as ponies do with guard hounds."

"And the hippalektryon?"

"Sentiment," he responded quickly. "The war has taken her grasslands away, so I intend to bring her back to the griffin lands so she may live in peace."

"How nice of you," she marveled sarcastically. "But you've still eaten your fair share of ponies. There are much better hunting grounds, so why here?"

"I suppose explaining myself could save a little bloodshed for both parties," he decided. "What do you know about griffins?"

Fiora spoke comfortably, but kept her shield up and senses sharp. "Same as any monster hunter. Your kind, along with hippogriffs and cynogriffons, hail from a continent beyond the Far Coast. Royal griffins rule over groups called houses, using their own hordes of wealth to buy loyalty. Unlike your followers, you can ignore your natural greed."

"A well read hunter," the royal nodded his head. "And that last fact is what brings me to your continent. The times are changing. I'm sure you've noticed the new monsters lurking around. Areizals, or baykoks as you call them, flood these lands. We've found merchant pony ships washed along our coasts with unusual golden artifacts that first appeared about the same time as the areizals, and I want to find more. So, I’m starting here."

"So much for ignoring greed," mumbled Fiora.

"It's more than that," growled the royal, and as he did so the other griffin's feathers bristled slightly. "House Stormbreed has always been the reigning house among our kind. But a recent artifact has granted a rival house the power to subvert control and expand. They've doubled in size and are threatening the other houses."

"So instead of waiting for an artifact to show up, you decided to look for one yourself?" Fiora asked, not sure if she understood his reasoning. "If your willing to come all the way here, stealing the artifact must be pretty hard."

"Incredibly," the royal said in agreement, but he didn't explain that any further. Instead, he turned to his follower and uttered something with the sound of a bird. The griffin raised his head and walked up to his master, regurgitating a gold amulet onto the ground.

"This is one of many trinkets we've found," the royal said. "But its powers have limits. As does that of my rival house. I do not want their artifact, as powerful as it may be. I want one even stronger, something that will command all griffins to swear fealty to house Stormbreed."

"If it exists," said Fiora.

"I believe it does," the royal defended himself. "If I can't find it while I live, I will set my family on the path to its power. So, now you know my purpose here, and why I'm followed by your prey. Do you still intend on carrying out your contract?"

"As a professional, I have standards," Fiora admitted, "but I'm not about to fight all of you at once, at least not without preparation. And I don't think you'd like to take unnecessary risks on your journey."

"A safe assumption," affirmed the royal. He was clever, and quick to offer an alternative. "I've exhausted my search here. Scouts had confused a castle nearby to be a mage college, but it only housed a few horned mutants useful to Midshore's king. If you let us go, the problem will be solved and you will have completed your contract, even if only on a technicality."

"One problem," added Fiora. "It's customary to bring proof of accomplishment when hunting monsters. I'll be discredited if I don't return with something of the sort."

The royal said nothing, but raised a claw to stop Fiora from explaining further. He reached to his head where his horns were adorned and clasped the end of the largest one. In a single motion he snapped it, wincing greatly even though he only gave a meek grunt. The hippalektryon and manticore didn't react, unaware of the importance of the act, but his follower spouted protest at the act instantly.

"But my lord, you horns are-"

The royal cut him off. "They are for grandiose posturing and empty shows of strength. Should any monster question House Stormbreed for a petty ornament, I will remind them why my family flies over half of the griffin lands."

Fiora looked at the horn the royal tossed to the ground at the edge of her shield. She lowered her shield and picked up the horn, examining the point where it broke. 

"Five centimeters from the base, just enough so it'll grow back," she mentioned.

The royal nodded. "I don't intend on crippling myself for a hunter."

"I must admit," Fiora confided, "I try not to kill sentient monsters when they want to live in peace. What happens between your houses is none of my concern. Just promise you'll hunt something other than ponies."

"Plenty of other game further west," the royal agreed, reverberating his chest and commanding his beasts. His griffin took to the sky, scouting their path ahead, followed by the two others.

"I hope you are paid handsomely for my horn," the royal squawked at Fiora as it began to flap and take off with its entourage. "It's a cut above the usual beasts on this continent."


=============================================================


The cursed filly twitched her leg on her saddle as she returned to collect the reward from the general. It was the first movement she had since Fiora encountered her in Warfstead. She hoped recovering from her injuries would be enough to tire whatever magic powered the curse on the filly. If not, she could be bringing trouble to Bach Kha'mohrgen.

"A nest of griffins?" the general asked, incredulous, as if it weren't possible despite what he already knew. "I must admit, I expected it to be... less expensive hunt than that."

"You still plan on letting me pass though, right?" pressed Fiora. 

"Yes of course." He beckoned to a soldier who handed a scroll of velum to her, signed by the general, permitting her to pass the channel.

The general also untied a pouch of coins from his armor. "And this for you as well. The army can afford to pay hunters properly."

Fiora felt the coin in her hoof. About four hundred, she guessed, and put it in her saddlebag. "So long then."

The general gave a slight nod and returned to his tower. The guards moved aside, somewhat begrudgingly, and returned to their posts by the bridge.

Fiora turned and walked back into the refugee camp, looking around at the ponies trying to build makeshift shelters. None looked terribly welcoming, but travelling was tiring, and even more so with the filly on her back. So she wandered looking for a comfortable spot to rest for tomorrow, before the night caught up.

Around the camp, refugees picked plants in desperation for food. Most found useless weeds and shrubs, though she spotted a few good herbs and roots she could use in her potions. Then she spotted a pile of well picked flora.

Those herbs and roots were amassed by a single tent, one twice the size of any other in the camp. Light, and smoke, rose from it. In the setting sun it became the centerpiece of the camp, the darkening sky shrouding the tent. The sounds inside were not as pleasant, however.

Fiora guessed what it was, and when the sharp scent of alcohol, oils, and herbs hit her nose she knew she was right. Two herbalists tended to patients laying in pain on fur blankets. It was likely unnoticeable for normal ponies, given that the strong ingredients for tinctures and infusions masked the air, but Fiora could smell the lingering presence of vomit, faint enough to have been five days old.

"A lot of sick have been here," she said to herself. The young mare who assisted the elder herbalist turned her head quickly to Fiora then looked back to the stallion she was stitching up.

"I don't know what you want, but if you help this'll go quicker," she blurted, pointing to a mortar on the table full of flowers and leaves. "Grab that poultice, my mother's too busy to do it."

"And the dressings beside it too," added the mother, focused on another stallion that was probably the other patient's brother. It wasn't their coat, one was grey and the other orange, but their eyes. Wracked with pain, their green irises seemed nearly identical.

Fiora rushed over to the desk and grabbed both. The dressings she gave to the mother's eager hooves, and the poultice she applied immediately to most painful spot.

"Easy!" exclaimed the daughter. "This part of the leg has a massive artery under the cut. Too rough and we'll intensify the bleeding. Fiora wasn't an expert on treating ponies, but she looked harder through the stitching and saw a few strained fibers of muscle stretched over a throbbing artery, already stressed by the inflamed tissue around it.

Fiora softened her application, using her wing to gingerly apply the poultice just before the daughter calmly wrapped up the sewn muscle with a bolt of cloth. She saw her flick her eyes toward her wings, though the mare had a lot more courtesy than most ponies and only glanced for a second.

Finally, she calmed her patient down with a long, relieving draw from a wine skin. "Get sleep, you'll be fine," she assured him, looking at her mother's finished work. "And so will you brother."

The mare stood strait, stretching after what must have been an hour at least of back-breaking work. "You seem to have some experience," she acknowledged.

"Girl, what are you doing?" sputtered her mother. "Making small talk? We still haven't the whisper wort for these two if they get infected. Chat all you want after." A potato sac flew across the tent and landed on the daughter's head.

"Whispering wort," Fiora pondered, recognizing the local name for a small mushroom that grew at the roots of imposing, shady trees. "Saw huge patches of them in the forest not too far from here. Could take you to them."

"That'll make things faster," she breathed with relief. The daughter then squinted at Fiora's eyes. "After all, I don't have mutant eyes."

Fiora left the filly resting at one end of the tent where she'd be out of the way of the herbalist's activities and hurried with the young mare to the edge of the forest. They galloped for little more than two miles to reach the edge.

"Call me Silver Drop," the daughter beamed as they ran. "My mother's Lemon Grass."

"Fiora," she replied."It’s refreshing, meeting ponies doing some good in the world."

"Have to," agreed Silver Drop. "Couldn't sleep otherwise. Besides, my father's somewhere fighting a war with raiders from the Frost Coast, so we have to earn coin somehow."

"You see war injuries often?" Fiora asked out of curiosity.

"Occasionally, but not nearly enough," lamented Silver Drop. "Hundreds of dead, I've seen, because I've never traveled with the war, only after it."

"War's no place to want to be," cautioned Fiora.

"But I can't help any pony if I get there too late," was her answer, and the last word spoken before they stopped at the edge of the forest.

Neither needed to speak to harvest the mushroom they were looking for. Under the light of Fiora's horn, they both knew what to look for and pulled what they needed. Fiora plucked mushrooms up deftly, crushing only a few of the small fungi as she picked. But Silver Drop had a better hoof at it, using nothing but a stick to sweep up the mushrooms she was willing to take, leaving behind the ones less attractive.

In just a few minutes the whole potato sac was stuffed with mushrooms, and even in the dead of the night, Silver Drop still managed to collect more than Fiora.

"Seems I've got more to learn," chuckled Fiora as they took for the camp.

Silver Drop smiled. "I might not know as much about hunter potions as you might, but I've learned everything my mother has to teach about being a herbalist, and she's better than any army surgeon in the Midshore forces."

"Really, she seems like she might treat you like a-" Fiora started almost finished.

"-child?" Silver Drop completed. "Sadly she does. She always thinks she's the one with the key to making me better, but I've always wanted to study at a medical college in a big city like Warfstead. I'd even go back north to study in Chantumbury. I heard they got a mage who can heal magical injuries."

“Ever try going on your own?”

Silver Drop chuckled. “I don’t know. I mean, I want to help ponies, but I’ve never been in a city before, let alone an actual school. Being a good herbalist probably doesn’t count for anything in places like that.”

"You should try your best to do the best," was all Fiora could say. "I don't see war ending any time soon, and skilled, good-natured doctors will be few and far between."

“You don’t even know me,” Silver Drop replied. “How can you sound so sure I’ll make a difference?”

“Because monster hunters live a long time,” she answered. “I’ve seen more than I ever thought possible, and I’ve seen the ponies who can make a stand in this world. The ones who fail are the ones who envision success before trying to succeed. You have the opposite. You’ve been trying, now just keep going until you reach the goal.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Silver Drop laughed confidently with some pony else’s support.

“It’s true, a lot of ponies only imagine themselves at the finish line,” Fiora asserted. “They forget how hard it is to get there. Besides, you said being a good herbalist might not count for much in a city. I’ve been to Warfstead; being a good anything will get you far in a place like that.”

The two of them returned to a camp gripped by fervor. A bonfire at the center of the hundreds that were fleeing the war torn Far Coast. Ponies danced in a circle, holding hooves and moving around the fire in a craze. Even soldiers moved among the rabble, though only a few. Even from a distance Fiora could smell the cheap mead passed around the fire.

"Today's supposed to be a festival for some of the local villages," Silver Drop explained to Fiora as they slowed to a trot and made their way back to the tent. "I was told it'd be a fun party instead of usual festivities. You know, with the war and all."

Fiora nodded. Silver Drop looked at her and raised a brow. "Mother'll probably insist on brewing the mushroom infusion herself. After we give them to her, wanna show me how monster hunters party?"


=============================================================


Music flung the ponies around their fire and compelled young reckless stallions to challenge each other to see who could leap farthest over the bonfire. A merchant, whose wares were lost to an occupying army, had only mead to sell.

Ponies paid in eggs, spoons, peppers, grain, and just about anything else they could find to trade. Much to Fiora's surprise, the merchant was generous with his prices.

Silver Drop spun in a circle, trying to balance on her hind legs and follow the crowd around the bonfire, but she constantly stumbled -as did many others- from commanding power of eight cups of mead.

Fiora listened to the chanting. Half the camp seemed to sing in common tongue, but the other half responded in a dialect she didn’t know, though she guessed it was what the locals spoke.


I saw the wolf by the Weeping Willow,


I saw the bear, she stood by me.


I saw the owl waiting in the forest,


I saw the jackalope circle the tree.



---



Ei vist lo loup pard Pluerer Urbre,


Ei vist la uors, elle sorgi par ma.


Ei vist lo chott aten aen lo forret,


Ei vist la mottan tourn l’urbre.



---



All year ‘round, we work like beasts.


I saw those animals, looking at me.


With hooves of a master but life of a pauper,


The animals come, and little we eat



---



Throun l’anna, nos prud bette gahgne.


Ei vist lus creatins, regard ut ma.


Vec sapets aissent mais viva dein puvra


Lus creatins ses montras, quau nos madge.



---



They leave nothing, we look like fools,


They may be animals, but we’re just tools.


Yet the more they fight, the less they live,


And after that, the less I give.



---



Lya reina, nos e prud por vra,


Luis eck creatins, mais luis nos utell.


Mais vec plus quarat, luir cin wen tom


Co aen pais apres, moiv ei don.



And on and on the ponies sang. Reed flutes and drums made from hollowed logs and stumps rattled. Even colts and fillies batted sticks against each other, clacking the night away to the happy, upbeat tune of their woes. More soldiers joined, and less mead was available.

Late in the night, dozens of stallions were sound asleep, passed out from brawls or simply being too drunk. Fiora herself had two barrels of mead, though compared to hunter potions, the mead might as well have stayed as honey.

Fiora listened to the mumbling of the ponies while she walked back to the herbalists’ tent. Hopefully they had space for her to spend the night. She didn’t intend to sleep on the floor with the other dozen or so drunken ponies. She heard Silver Drop’s voice, singing away by the tent flap.

“There once was a doctor.... no other was smarter... her looks unmatched....”

Fiora paused, deciding to sit by Silver Drop. She waved a hoof in front of her face, even flicking her nose, but she barely noticed.

“Maybe go inside,” Fiora tried lifting her up, but her slouched position was too awkward. “You’ll embarrass yourself less.”

“And they say monster hunters are heartless,” slurred Silver Drop. She tried getting up, but the tent was no replacement for a wall to lean on, and ended up rolling into the tent instead. 

Even though she was sober, Fiora was still tired and realized she still had to cross half a swamp to reach Bach  Kha'mohrgen. She followed Silver Drop inside the tent and flopped onto a fur mat at one end of the tent. The scent of whisper wort gave away that the two brothers had gotten an infection from their injuries, though Fiora didn’t care deeply.

In any case, the mother had more sense than her daughter, and with her wits still about, tended to the two brothers. Fiora slept, knowing two ponies could be taken care of without her intervening.


=============================================================


Fiora was kicked awake. Her instincts shocked her up, even though she could already smell that it was just the mother.

“Explain yourself, miscreant,” snapped the old herbalist, pointing a hoof at the filly Fiora had carried with her.

“She’s been asleep far too long and I can’t wake her up with anything,” she continued. “What trouble are you planning to cause?”

Dim grey light crawled under the tent flaps. The sun was about to rise, which meant Fiora still had a few precious minutes more to sleep.

“Found her during a contract,” Fiora groaned. “Don’t bother, the cause is magic. A curse.”

She tried to turn away, back to sleep, but the Lemon Grass was stronger than she let on. The vile old mare rapped Fiora’s head with the handle of her broom until she stumbled out of the tent. 

“I bet you talked to my daughter about how great it is to go to a college in some smelly, corrupted city,” Lemon Grass scowled, bringing out the cursed filly and shoving her into Fiora’s hooves. “Last night may have seemed fun, but it proves she’s still a child. I can teach her how to save lives, without your ideas of magic.”

“Listen, she can help a lot more as a surgeon than a herbalist,” defended Fiora, setting the filly onto her saddle. “And in any case, she’s no younger than the king of High Mountain. She can make her own decisions.”

“Take that cursed wretch and leave,” spat the mother. “She’s already made her decision.”

Lemon Grass unfolded a piece of parchment from her apron pocket and threw the wrinkled thing at Fiora’s hooves. She levitated it and read Silver Drop’s words. She told her mother she loved her, but gained nothing more by listening to her by-gone ways. She had fled back north, to find any city with a medical school that would take her.

Fiora folded the parchment and kept it in her saddlebag. She couldn’t believe that some simple words of encouragement could compel a daughter to leave. But, the seeds of her desires was already planted, that much was clear even to Fiora.

“Well, no helping it now,” Fiora sighed. “Hope she finds what she’s looking for.”
> Bach Kha'mohrgen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tower of the mutant hunter fortress stretched high, taller than even the many mage colleges that were growing throughout the kingdoms. Even here, deep in swamped land, change affected the hunters.

The hunters resting at the fortress had taken to naming the filly after her favorite word--Geiss--just as Fiora had. She learned other words fast enough, but was much keener to take up the martial training. Her fumbles were, at first, an amusement to the hunters. Then, a week after she had healed herself completely, she blurred into a rending gale and tore a wooden target into shreds.

Fiora sat with her mentor, Argent Ploja, on a crumbled stone wall beside the central tower. It was a storehouse for weapons, until a deathworm broke into the keep two decades ago. Though mutants and monster hunters, the residents of Bach Kha'mohrgen cared little for their fortress, which was little more than a supply cache for most.

"Are you sure this is a curse? She could be a monster using polymorphism," Ploja suggested.

Fiora shook her head, handing him a sample of krakenweed. "I had her eat this when she woke. It's a common enough plant in the rivers around Bach Tor'al. It alters potions of revelation by changing the shape of the garou enzymes. The new enzymes don't just interfere with polymorphism, it completely denies the ability."

Argent Ploja took the dried purplish plant and put it in the pocket on his gambeson. "You said you came across a royal griffon on the way here?"

"With an entourage of monsters too," she confirmed. "Wanted artifacts of control. Otherworldly in nature, according to him."

"I'm starting to think this 'curse' might be from a similar source," Ploja reasoned, looking at Geiss practicing with flame-glyph horseshoes. "Though the vurm velum you mentioned means the magic crossed over hundreds of years before the first portal started dumping monsters here."

Fiora looked across the courtyard to a small training yard against one of those monsters. A baykok, chains around its neck, struggled against the wall that bound it.

This one was like most of its kind, vicious but unimaginably stupid. Young hunters-to-be trained against the thin beast with spears extended, letting it charge itself onto their point.

"Speaking of which, anything in the swamps I should know about?" It was a peaceful ride through to the fortress, but there were clear signs of monster activity. Trails made by heavy creatures, Corpse Eater prints, loose scales dropped by another type of otherworldly monster, a Qirin.

Ploja waved his hoof. "Forget about it, you've been on the path long enough, and your young filly there only just recovered. You could use a break."

"Hunting is a break," Fiora insisted. "Besides, I haven't had a good, clean contract for a while."

"Alright," he conceded. "I can think of one you might be interested in. The lord Northwest of this swamp sent a messenger with a list of monster contracts. The messenger never made it."

"Ironic. I bet one of the things on those contracts killed him." Fiora adjusted her sword belt, moving it to a more comfortable position.

Argent Ploja cautioned her with a hoof. "Swamps aren't the same since you were here. More monsters, more danger."

"More danger needs more training," she added, pointing to a pile of training swords by the sparring grounds. "Care to see if I still deserve my reputation?"


=============================================================


Argent Ploja weaved through Fiora's opening flourishes, catching Fiora's wing and disarming her, or at least he planned to. 

Fiora stepped around Ploja, levitating her sword with magic instead, and threw a cut at his head. His silver hair, the same color as the raindrop mark on his rear, brushed against the training sword as he ducked. He turned and threw his own strike, but Fiora had stepped out of his reach.

"Your masters at Bach Tor'al taught you well," Ploja chuckled, levitating his sword behind him in a high striking guard. It was reckless, exposing the entire body, but good timing always placed a cut in the path of the opponent's attack.

Fiora switched her blade back to her wing and stood in a hanging ox guard. "Learned more from monsters who threatened to kill me."

Her attention shifted to another horned mare walking out of the main tower into the sparring arena. She had a prominent horn and walked with incredible control of her magic, but her slender frame did not look like a fighter's body. That, and she didn't have a single scar on her body.

Without looking Fiora interrupted Ploja's wild cut, letting his sword slide off the parry and turning her pommel to his face.

"Who's that?" she asked, stopping the strike.

Argent Ploja looked over to the mare and they dropped their guards. "That's Cyana Blueberry. Figures you wouldn't know her, the last time you stopped by she had left for her hunter trials."

Fiora gave him a doubtful look. "She a hunter?" She had seen ponies like her before, but only as nobles and poets and actresses.

Cyana's eyes perked up, and she stormed over to Fiora in an instant. Argent Ploja turned away immediately, paying no attention.

"No, Miss Battaille, I did not pass those barbaric tests of brute strength," she snapped. "I much prefer the unparalleled power of the arcane arts, if you don't mind."

"Figured as much," Fiora replied. Her aura was weak, but Fiora could tell there was a difference to it. She could feel with her horn how her magic danced along her skin. Most horned mutants let their magic flow, letting a lot of it go to waste, and even though Fiora had trained to concentrate her magic, Cyana had clearly mastered it far better.

"So, what could interest you in our 'brutish' sparring arena?" Fiora asked.

Cyana turned and pointed, her hoof landing on Geiss. "It so happens the other masters can't wrap their head around your little filly's curse. So, they asked me to look into it."

It was an interesting thought. The hunters of the keep had all tried to make sense of the curse, but to no avail. That included using all the books in the keep's tower. "Glimpsed upon some arcane knowledge we should know about?"

"None that I'm willing to share," Cyana smiled. "But I can assure you, she is in safe hooves."

"Not the hooves I'm worried about," Fiora said sternly. "Magic can be volatile."

Nodded in agreement. "Only when done wrongly. And since my office is on the top floor, while all the night silver is kept down here, there shouldn't be a problem."

"Good then, because I'll be watching." Fiora tossed her sword onto the weapons rack, but Cyana tisked.

"No, that won't do, hunter," she informed, levitating the sword back up and the grip back into Fiora's wing. "Your magic causes far too much interference. I can only work with mine and hers."

Ploja eased the tension on Fiora's shoulder. "Listen, we all trust Cyana. Just let her try."

Fiora shrugged off his caution. "Like hell I'm going to let her-"

Without a hint of emotion, like a child squishing a bug, Cyana flicked her horn and threw Fiora back into the weapon rack, scattering spears and maces and swords onto the ground. There were glances for sure, but none of the other hunters training dared to look directly at the sorceress.

The spell didn't hit like normal. She started the spell inside Fiora's chest, blasting it through her body like a steel bullet from a ballista.

"I don't meddle with your nokkens and wraiths," said Cyana, walking away toward Geiss where she was practicing her balance on a steel beam. "So don't interfere with my business."

Argent Ploja helped Fiora up, who was still reeling from the blow. "Want to take a break before we resume the sword? You look like you could use a drink."

"Got any Devil's Tongue?" she coughed. It was a popular vodka among mutant hunters, flavored with spices grown by certain dryads. 

Ploja nodded."Alright. Let's have a few bottles," she said, catching her breath.


=============================================================


Even before she spoke up, Fiora knew who had just entered the tower. The first floor was a massive dining hall and kitchen, with a kingdom's worth of alcohol in the cellar below. It was always the first stop for hunters taking a break from their path.

"Why is the first thing I see when I return my grandmare getting drunk?" The young mare took a seat on her left, since Argent Ploja was busy mixing ale with potions on her right.

Once upon a time, Fiora was centered around a stable family. A nice farm, a friendly yet unfortunately mortal husband, and many children. Mutants, all of them.

She looked at the hunter who sat by her, trying to guess her name. She had had three bottles of Devil's Tongue, but her mutant body certainly wasn't drunk enough to get confused. The sad truth was that she had driven her children away by raising them like hunters. Now, she could only guess at her grandchildren's names.

"That blank stare isn't from the drink, is it?" her granddaughter finally said after a few awkward seconds. Like her cousins, she understood that her mother and her grandmare were not on the best terms.

Fiora sighed. "Your grandfather was a better parent than I was. All I knew how to do was train them like hunters."

"Well you taught Sterling Shard what not to do." She reached over the counter for a bottle of water. "Never saw mom touch a bottle of wine."

"Growing up on an orchard makes wine seem, common place," Fiora said and emptied her mug of spiced cider. "But I'm glad to see you've been raised better... um-"

"-Silver Pearl," her granddaughter supplied. "But I go by Sylva, instead. Ran into another hunter from the Murder of Crows that used the same name."

"Changing names must run in the family," Fiora said, turning away. She gazed forward in a lost memory, tossing her mug into a basket over the counter for the cleaners.

Sylva recognized her look. It was the same look her mother had whenever the topic of her father came up. "Mom took me there, once. It was a nice place."

"Yes, it was." It was a family farm, fertile land with grapes and apples and peace, and now half of it was in smoldering ashes. "Where is she now?"

"A couple years ago, mom left me a note about a contract she took in the far north, beyond what any map has covered," Sylva said. "She mentioned having to help some mutants, an ultra rare breed, find a new home. Haven't heard since."

Fiora sighed. "You staying around for long?"

Sylva finished her water and shook her head. She wanted to talk to her grandmare more, it was the first time they had really met, but the life of a monster hunter was on the road, always walking away on a path.

"I came to grab some night silver for a couple contracts," she said sadly. "Wish I could talk more, but I might not have much time left."

"You do what you need to," Fiora said, letting her granddaughter leave for the weapons cache in the cellar, where the sensitive night silver was kept away from the equally sensitive magic.

Ploja, who had been silent the whole time, broke his concentration away from his experimentation with alcohol and volatile hunter potions. 

"Not many of us have families, or even love," he told her. "Yours might not be the best, but its better than most."

"Thanks," Fiora replied, but it wasn't much consolation.

He grabbed her by the hoof and dragged her weakly away from the table. "Now, I think I've mixed two things I shouldn't have, and I need to work it out of my system before I pass out."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Fiora cautioned, balancing her mentor before he teetered off his seat and onto the floor.

"Nonsense!" he garbled. "Mutants have... resistance against these things. I just need some time."

Fiora groaned. "'Some time' usually means a few hours when it comes to you. Come on, we can spend those hours where we left off."


=============================================================


"That's no Cynogriffon technique," Ploja laughed, jumping backwards from Fiora's tricks.

Fiora kept herself planted, flapping her wings to blow the noxious dust around Ploja. It was a common poison substitute for sparring, but nevertheless the powder made from nightstealer glands caused terrible motion sickness that could incapacitate even the sturdiest of hunters.

Ploja surrounded himself with a bubble, drawing the toxin into his magic to remove it. He shattered it and launched shards of poisoned magic at Fiora in return. She side stepped and lunged forward with her sword, turning around and striking Ploja's side while he shielded himself from the feint. He took the hit, using it for a chance to unleash a shockwave of magic.

Fiora leaned back in anticipation, throwing up a magic barrier and deflecting the spell.

Her mentor grunted in approval, rubbing his side where the training sword had landed a blow. "Three hundred years, and you fight like you're no more than a hundred."

Fiora laughed, but was cut short by the gates of the fortress opening for two hunters. One had wings, and was dressed in a gambeson with runes stitched onto it. The other a horned mutant with sections of chainmail on top of wyvern leather.

"Oh no," Argent Ploja murmured.

"What' the matter?" They were badly hurt and covered in blood and mud. Both of their armor looked torn up by a powerful monster, but it wasn't anything a blacksmith and a few potions couldn't fix.

Ploja hung his head. "Three hunters went to track an Inchneumon that made its home atop a hill south of here."

Fiora knew from personal experience how strong Ichneumons were. The monsters resembled giant mongooses, and often nested in places rich in mud which they used to cover themselves for armor. As natural hunters of dragons, they were one of the fastest and most vicious creatures known to hunters.

Three hunters would never have been enough to take one down.

She spotted a horned huntress galloping from the main tower and noticed the grimace that came over Ploja's face.

"What happened? Is Lebre alright?" The huntress ran up to the hunter in broken chainmail. "Where is he?"

"Jalla," he replied, unable to look her in the eyes. "He didn't make it."

The huntress, Jalla, stepped back speechless. She looked at the other hunter, but he didn't have anything to say either, only sad eyes. The other hunters and hunters in training stopped one by one to look. The sound of weapons clashing and beating wood dummies was replaced by silence.

Jalla used her magic and swung her mace across the hunter's helmet, knocking the dented piece of metal onto the floor. "You son-of-a-bitch. You knew how dangerous the contract was, but you still took my husband without me!"

The other horned hunters, including Fiora, could hear the chainmailed hunter's voice. Their hearing was enhanced by magic, and the silent choking in his throat was as clear as spoken words.

"I could have kept him safe," she continued. "The four of us agreed we'd kill it together. Was a larger cut of the reward that important to you?"

"No!" he exclaimed through gritted teeth. "For Equestria's sake, no. Lebre wanted to protect you, and I agreed. He didn't want to risk you."

"I've finished as many contracts as you, Mezzer," she said.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Not an ichneumon! The last time you took on a High Fiend it nearly killed you. This monster was ten times worse. Lebre's my best friend, was my best friend. And I wanted to protect you too, for his sake."

She shook him off. "Thank you. I feel so safe, now that my love is dead. Did you even try to bring him back?"

Mezzer reeled back, unsure of what to tell her. The other hunter didn't have the same doubts. "The ichneumon found Lebre first. None of us could react when it ambushed us and-"

His voice broke for a moment. "By the time my eyes focused, Lebre was ripped to shreds by that monster's jaws. There was hardly anything left to bring back to bury."

All the other hunters, embarrassed to look at such a scene, turned away to resume some other, quieter task. Most distracted themselves with gathering potion ingredients and alchemy tools. Fiora watched, her eyes following Jalla as she ran away from the two hunters to console herself.

"Every year it's one or two of us," Ploja lamented and put his training weapon back in the pile. "With so much war, monsters are around every corner. It's good work, but deadlier too. Like I said, your family's better than most."

Fiora tossed her training sword back too and buckled her sword belt back on. "That messenger has to be somewhere between here and the swamp's edge. I'll see if I can find the list of contracts."

Without another word, she broke into a gallop through the open gates and into the pathless swamp.


=============================================================


Any telltale sign of a corpse was the trail of corpse eaters. If the messenger died on the way to the fortress, then his body was certainly in their claws. Fiora scanned the swampy ground for any sign of where the pack went. The were being led by a grave maker, a big and powerful one at that.

It was the middle of the day, but whether down south was cloudy. The sun's light glowed orange through the clouds that blew in from the warm lands south. Few had ever explored down into dragon territory, but it was no secret that they lived in harsh, cracked deserts.

Dust infused clouds left the sky with a light orange-yellow hue, and down in the swamps everything was a shade of brown or greenish brown.

Grave makers were good at concealing their tracks when they wanted. Usually they didn't unless they knew a hunter was on their trail, but with the pack so close to Bach Kha'mohrgen, this one was wise to hunters tracking it. But there was nothing it could do to mask the scent of its last kill.

The scent of blood was strong, and even if its tracks were intentionally muddle, Fiora knew where they were headed. There were little mistakes on the way, claw marks on fallen trees and skin peeling off one of the corpse eaters who must had been shedding.

The pack must have been large if the grave maker couldn't control all of its followers.

Fiora's pace slowed to a creeping crawl, crouched in the wet mudflats, covered by the few trees and bushes that grew from the land. The pack of corpse eaters fought over scraps while the alpha devoured the liver of a stallion by itself. Somewhere in the mess of blood and torn clothes, was the list of contracts.

Fiora uncorked a flask from her saddlebag and swallowed its contents. The potion's solvent was not water, but acid from a kumo demon--a spider-like relative to imps and djinn.

It burned its way through her throat and into her blood. Though resilient to most potions, this decoction of monkshood roots and daphne berries was far more lethal than typical brews. She only had a few minutes to eliminate the pack and administer the antidote.

She leaped out and decapitated two corpse eaters before they caught wind of her, twisting her body out of the way as the rest of the pack lunged onto her. She moved through them, weaving in a fury to kill as many as she could in the initial chaos.

But one low, guttural cry pulled back the reckless beasts. They circled her. It was a fitting tactic, since corpse eaters resembled mangy wolves. Hairless, their skin was coated in a sweaty fluid infamous for the deadly diseases that festered in their skin.

It was made worse with rotting flesh strewn across stronger members of the pack. Very few corpse eaters killed on their initial attack; they struck their prey and waited for infection to sit in. Their deformed fangs and jaws forced large serrated fangs to jut out, and even a single bite exposed their victims to more than enough diseases to kill.

But the grave maker was worse by far. Bigger, stronger, and more intelligent, it was often described by peasants as "a timberwolf made of flesh and bone." This one was old and smarter than most of its kind, a likely reason for why it dared to live so close to a fortress of monster hunters.

Bones of all types were tied to its body with intestines and stringy plants, like armor. It clattered as it burst forward, giving Fiora no time to create a magic barrier. It jaws tore her armor apart, exposing her shoulder the most.

She rolled away, but was met by two corpse eaters digging into her foreleg and neck. Fiora grunted, letting the pain wash over her, and slashed at the monsters. They retreated, but the alpha timed its attack perfectly and slashed its claws across her back.

More corpse eaters descended onto Fiora, who had no choice but to stumble in the mud and slash at whatever came her way.

It was all she could do to keep the whole pack from devouring her at once. As they fought, however, the corpse eaters grew slower.

One by one, the monsters coughed and wretched at the blood they consumed. They turned to their alpha, confused. Fiora raised her sword to taunt it to attack, knowing that if the grave maker could take a single bite of her poisoned body, it'd be dead within the day.

But it had survived too long to fall for such simple tricks. The grave maker barked orders at its pack, taking the strong remaining monsters while the other corpse eaters choked on their meal, shaking on the ground as the decoction's poisons coursed through their system.

As soon as they were out of sight Fiora collapsed onto the ground. She took off her saddlebag and fumbled through its contents for the antidote. The pack was larger than she thought, and getting through her opening strikes took longer than anticipated. She tore through the contents until she found a vial of a white, watery liquid.

Its soapy, bitter taste was a welcomed sensation if it meant the toxins in her body were flushed out. She slipped her saddlebag back on, but fell back down when she tried to stand up and search the messenger's remains.

The decoction had worked long enough. The damage wouldn't be permanent, but without any potion to heal the internal damage on her nerves and organs, there was no telling how many hours it'd take for her body to recover.

Before she hit the ground, Fiora just hoped she sent the grave maker a strong enough message. There in the runny mud, she laid herself to rest.
> The Spoils of War
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fiora shook herself awake at the sound of clinking chains. The memory of sticky swamp mud was now gone, substituted with the sensation of cold stone brick and steel chains. Her first thought was the messenger. She obviously did not retrieve the list, but her thoughts was on where she was now.

A local lord, northwest of Bach Kha'mohrgen, sent the messenger. She was close to the edge of the swamp when she found the messenger. She must have been found by some pony from the lord's lands. But her prison didn't make any sense.

The bed--if it could be called that--was a pile of damp hay that poked her skin. Her armor, sword, and saddlebag had been stripped and replaced with a simple rags made from rough plant fibers. She could look around clearly through the bars, but knew darkness when she saw it.

Without her magic-enhanced vision, in all likelihood the prison would have been pitch-black. The only thing outside her cell was more cells, and a candle.

The lord was well acquainted with the mutant monster hunters and, if one of his soldiers had come across a hunter in need, would have provided whatever help he could. Favors were valuable, and often exchangeable for services. She wondered why she was in a cell instead.

"Is any pony there?" Fiora called out, listening to her voice echo. Her cell was part of a small square room, with four other cages around the room. A small metal door led to a hallway where she heard the clink of chains.

"Shut you facking mouths yous!" The guard slammed his hoof against the doors, silencing the prisoners. Fiora wondered how many others were imprisoned with her.

There was no doubt she could escape; magic was a weapon no pony could take. But casting a spell strong enough to break steel bars would take time and attract attention from the guards for sure. But time was in abundance in the cell.

She began by simply releasing her magic in weak blasts, like a river eroding a rough stone into a smooth pebble. Magic trickled from her horn and gently picked away at the steel bars. An hour passed until the first bar was whittled down at two points, top and bottom.

Then came the screams. The sound of a mare echoed through the whole prison, stretched and coarse cries like metal grating against stone in Fiora's ears. Some voices spoke underneath the pained screams, but even with her enhanced hearing, Fiora could only make out a few words.

She clenched her teeth at the sound of the abuse. A freak and mutant she was often called, but ponies were willing to overlook a lot of crimes if they were committed by their own kind. Torture was one of them.

The mare's agony would drift in and out of different kinds of sounds. She'd be silent, then whimper, then cry her lungs out, and then be silent again. The torture went on and off the following hours, long enough for Fiora to weaken three more steel bars.

Just barely enough to squeeze out. She pressed herself against the bars and gradually pushed with magic, adding the force to her own trained strength. All at once, the bars snapped out of place, and Fiora caught them immediately with her magic.

She sent them gently on the stone floor and crouched up beside the door. She listened carefully to the voices speaking during the silence between the torture.

"Facking whore spat in muh face," came a young stallion's voice. "Still says she don't know nathin."

A rougher voice spoke in response. "You tried the brand yet?"

"Only good thing left behind from the days of slavery," muttered the younger voice. "Burned it on her face and gat. Like ah said, nathin."

"Wish the gen'ral hadn't killed the rest of the lord's kin." Fiora heard the rougher stallion spit into a metal bowl. "Black magic practitioners ought to face punishment on the Rack before the pyre."

"You know the gen'ral don't give a damn 'bout all that." The younger seemed to try to follow the rougher, but his spitting lacked the sound of hitting metal. He scoffed.

"You buy that 'leader of the ponies' shite?" He laughed deeply, and Fiora could hear the strain on his lungs. His smoking included many impurities. It was a small conciliation to know that he would one day die drowning in his own phlegm.

He coughed after, but continued. "A warlord's still a lord. Sure, today he leads the peasants to take over the lord's keep. But give 'im time, we'll be putting the weak ones back to toiling in the fields."

"Ay!" exclaimed the younger. "Ah was born ta farmers."

Fiora heard a loud crack, and the younger let out a yelp of pain. "And my mother was a whore," growled the rougher voice. "A bloody whore who sold herself to a bloody sack of shite. If you want to do your family some good, get yer'ead strait and keep a knife at your side."

"Right," the younger said.

He grunted as the older stallion planted a forceful pat on his back. "Now you sit tight and find that damn clamp for that witch's teeth. I've got... a problem a sinful girl like her could fix."

Fiora shuddered at the stallion's gurgling cackle as he strutted down the hallway. The younger stallion paced around talking to himself.

"Where the hell is that clamp?" He paused. "Maybe ah put it by the freak's cell."

Fiora considered taking him strait on and chasing after the other guard, but just because she heard two didn't mean there weren't more guards. She backed away from the door and slunk into the shadowed corner of the room. 

The guard walked in, clad in a steel breastplate. Chainmail underneath draped over his front. His gambeson and breastplate wore cloth patches. The stitched shield was green, with purple axes crossed at the center. Yet, however armored he was, it didn't matter.

Ponies feared magic for good reason. Fiora reached out with her horn and grabbed the young guard by his hooves, pulling him off balance. She pounced on him before he could give a shout, putting her forelegs around his neck like a vice and crushing his windpipe.

She grabbed his ax--the weapon was poorly weighted for combat, and seemed more like a repurposed logging ax. But it would be enough. She slunk through the cells silently, all the while thanking her friend Night Eye, a hunter from the Murder of Crows who taught her a lot about quiet hunting. And the older guard was not hard to hunt down.

Fiora burst into the cell where the mare had been whimpering to find the guard having trouble removing his armor. The prisoner was chained up to the wall, her limbs stretched in an 'X.' She wasn't moving, but breathed heavily.

The guard turned, and his eyes widened at Fiora. "Wha-"

She wasted no time winding up the ax with her magic, launching it at the guard. He wore the same armor as the other guard, but it didn't matter as the ax head easily flexed through his chainmail, crushing his neck.

Fiora knelt by the mare to examine her injuries. At first glance, it was already atrocious. Like the guard had said, they had branded her abdomen with the crossed-ax insignia on their armor. The same was on her face, but smaller. Her face was cut on the cheeks and her eyes were bloody and bruised.

If she ever woke up, leaving the prison would be nearly impossible. Fiora considered this as she looked at what the guards had done to the rest of her body. Her hooves were cracked, one completely smashed, by a heavy object, a hammer most likely. She felt her skin. It showed signs of dehydration.

The mare gasped awake at Fiora's touch. Her eyes squinted at the candlelight flickering through the door, wide and staring in fear.

"No, no, please! I told you I'm not a witch just let me go. Please, I beg of you!" She struggled weakly against the shackles.

Fiora wasted no words. She waved her horn over the mare's head and cast waves of magic into her mind, easing some of her pain and calming her down.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she said. "Start from the beginning, what's your name, and can you tell me what happened?"

"My father's the lord-" she caught her in a realization, "-no, he was the lord. Until the commander of his guard let the gates open to the peasants. Then he stabbed him in the chest."

"A revolt?" Upset farmers were common, as were revolts. But rarely did they succeed. Fiora took the guard's key and unlocked her shackles while she spoke.

"More like a coup," she said. "Commander Crosscut has the fort now, flying High Mountain banners along side his own."

It was perfectly clear to Fiora what had happened. The wars between kingdoms was always marked as just, except for the ones who have to die in it. The peasants clearly disapproved, and the High Mountain Kingdom took the opportunity to use a pawn and overthrow an enemy lord.

The mare looked pleadingly into Fiora's eyes. "I know I can't walk. My hooves..." she trailed off for a moment with distant sadness.

"You're a hunter, aren't you? My aunt lives in Bovinus. It's a small city in the northern most part of Midshore, but she's wealthy and can pay for my safety."

Fiora cursed her luck. She hoped the young noble would want to stay in her homeland and fight for her birthright. Fiora would have been happy to lend a hoof in the conflict too. But she was asking for safe passage. A young, wealthy, noblemare who had to first escape her prison and former home, and then trek across the war torn Far Coast to find her family.

Could she say no? Fiora doubted her conscience would let it rest if she rejected the offer, but accepting meant fighting through a fortified army, likely with crank bows and spears ready to rain down from towering stone walls. Even if she could make it out alive, there was no telling what luck the young mare had left.

"You'll have to wait until I clear the way," Fiora blurted out, still not sure what she intended to do. Her training made her a lethal weapon, that much was undisputed, but nothing was certain with tactics and warfare. Nevertheless, if seemed as if the verbal contract had been made.

The mare smiled with relief, bending to the floor in prayer to whichever god or gods she chose. In the moment, Fiora saw the other scars of her torture. Ridges of raised flesh from endless bloody whipping crisscrossed her back, making it almost unrecognizable. It was worse than what some monsters did to their prey.

Fiora turned to exist the prison cells, but the mare grabbed her tail. "The keep's design is uneven. All the archer towers are in range of each other, save for the one farthest from here. No pony can hit it, even from the towers."

A design flaw obviously not intended. Should the tower be taken, no others could offer it cover. Which is why it just became a valuable point of interest.

Fiora nodded and snuck quickly out of the prison, horn ready to silence any other guard in her way. She was fortunate that the peasants the commander had enlisted were undisciplined. She saw many posts abandoned by drunk stallions, reveling in other rooms, and trotted right by them without a single one batting an eye.


=============================================================


The guard at the top of the tower gasped hopelessly for breath. He tried raising his crank bow, but Fiora wrenched him around with her superior strength and the weapon clattered on the floor, becoming as useful as a plank of wood.

Below, guards were calling their friends to swarm the intruder. Fiora felt the grip of the sword from the guard she had just taken out. Its handle locked assuredly with her horseshoes. But the guards had taken her hunter equipment, replacing her glyph covered shoes with plain iron.

The sword felt loose, its swings harder to control. Good weaponry has made me sloppy, she scolded herself. She trained from young with hunters who had to use their hooves, and even if she preferred her wings, her blade work had been perfect no matter what she held.

Now she tested her swings in anticipation for the guards and heard her late master barking corrections at her. Her mistakes were minute, important only to hunters, but they were still mistakes.

She kept the guards focused on her while she scanned the keep from the tower. Most times she only needed a light parry to deflect a heavy over swing. More than one fell to their death, either by their own doing to gentle tripping from Fiora. She checked the gates and towers until she found what she needed.

Pressing hard her with attacks, Fiora pushed the guards back on the stairwell. She could hear the clang of metal as some seemed to fall over themselves in retreat. Driven back, none was able to land a blow before she glided off the edge of the tower and fired a series of bolts over the sky of the keep.

The flames screeched their way back down, igniting the tar barrels on the top of the walls, along with a few barrels of liquid bravery for the soldiers. Seeing their alcohol taken by the fires of witchcraft, many ran for their lives. Those who hadn't joined the fighting scattered into the courtyard with pales of water, panicking over the growing flames.

The sight itself was enough to throw the keep and its guards into disarray. But to cover her bases she cleaved through any guard she passed, violently thrashing a weapon into the gaps in their armor, just to pick up another.

Fiora spotted, marching across the walls, a lanky stallion in polished, gold plated armor. Commander Crosscut, no doubt. But her fight was in taking the lady of the keep away to her aunt.

She impaled a guard with his friend's spear as she galloped into the prison cells. "You better be ready to move," she murmured, retracing her steps back to the young lady's cell. 

Fiora eventually found her and hoisted the mare onto her back. There was no time to find where the guards had taken her weapons. Soon, groups would be tasked to putting out the fires, and others would be ordered to find their intruder.

"The kitchen's above us," the mare said. "A hole was busted in the cellar when the peasants got in. I doubt they've fixed it yet."

Fiora nodded and galloped back up the entrance of the dungeon. She took a hard left into the corridor leading to the kitchen. Behind them, some guards had clearly spotted her and were shouting as they chased, but her strength and speed greatly unmatched theirs.

The chefs had all been tied up or slaughtered, but the blood trail led neatly into the cellar where the attackers seemed to have broken in. 

"Where's the hole?" The cellar was large and packed with barrels and shelves of wine. Even with her enhanced sight, the guards would be on them before she could look over the whole place.

The mare looked around but in the dark her eyes were completely useless. "I don't know. I only heard the explosion."

An explosion? If they used some kind of explosive, any kind, it would leave a residue she could smell. Fiora lifted her nose, letting magic flow through her body and enhance her senses. There was a hint of bulbous fibrick, a local mushroom that stored methane gas in its balloon-like body to deter hungry animals.

"There," Fiora caught the scent. With the noble on her back she ran for the pile of broken barrels and wine shelves that covered the entrance. A hastily made repair, and one that a spell could break in an instant, and, if her guess was good, stop the guards pursuing.

A blast of energy could break the barricade, but Fiora could smell fragments of the mushroom remains in the tunnel behind it. Her horn crackled with energy, spraying flames over the wood. For a moment it didn't seem like anything would happen, but as the guards entered the cellar, the mushroom remains erupted in a blinding flame.

Burning wood shrapnel caught onto the wine barrels the invaders had not opened for themselves, spreading fire throughout the entire room. Fiora blasted a wave of magic through the fire, opening a safe passage into tunnel, and galloped away before the burning wine closed the passage up again.


=============================================================


Bovinus, a small city on a northern peninsula of Midshore. While technically beholden to the king of Midshore, its defensible position and strong trading partners gave the city and its council a considerable amount of autonomy. 

It was originally founded by cattle and bison, but had long since been populated by ponies. Now, all non-ponies were second class citizens, even if the law stated otherwise. The smell of dusted cobblestone and waste pots being transported to the city sewers revolted Fiora, but her client seemed relieved to be in the safety of the walls.

"My name's Thesa Ruse," she had told Fiora at one point when they were north.

She had wanted to go back to tell Argent Ploja and Geiss that she'd be away again, but the monsters of the swamp around Bach Kha'mohrgen made it too dangerous. She ended up leaving a note at one of the many popular supply caches hunters put all around the swamp.

Despite the ruling class of ponies, there were still many more cows and bulls roaming the streets, as beggars and beasts of burden. They carried heavy loads of lumber into the city's warehouses, and were couriers for nobles too contemptuous to step onto the streets themselves.

Thesa managed to look upon them as any pony of noble blood would, despite her own scars and burns. She limped slightly, and flinched when her rough dress tugged on her most severe wounds. But time on the road had given her plenty of time to come to terms with her new situation, and though she still frowned at her reflection, it clearly hadn't taught her any sympathy for others who suffered with her.

They took a turn and entered a cramped section of the city. Its streets grew narrow and the buildings on either side were so close that two ponies could reach out of the windows and link hooves.

Fiora had seen places like this in every city she worked in. Rows of streets where houses were give to the suffering poor so they wouldn't crowd the markets with begging and crime. Nobility hated their kind, while merchants and craftsmen feared dropping to their class if they ever lost work.

"You said your aunt was a wealthy mare," Fiora whispered to avoid the attention of leering eyes. "Why are we headed this way?"

"My aunt, for whatever reason, favored life among common folk" Thesa explained. "But she still had a mind for business. My father told me she ran away from an arranged marriage when she was young not because of love, but because she said she could find a better deal. Guess where that took her?"

Fiora followed, but the look on her face said she wasn't so sure. Deeper into the streets were bags of bodies, dumped from public executions of criminals. They turned on a few streets until they came onto a tavern at the corner of an intersection.

The Weeping Whale Tavern and Inn Fiora read as they trotted up to it. This place? She knew Thesa couldn't have noticed, but the scent of the beer inside told everything. It was cheap and watered down until it was barely bearable, and yet it was probably the best place for a drink in this neighborhood.

Thesa saw the look on Fiora's face but managed a smile. "Relax, and trust me."

She almost wanted to wretch at the scents inside the Weeping Whale. Beer permeated the air along side pipe smoke and sweat from the unwashed customers. There were other things too, that she smelled, but Fiora didn't want to think about those.

"I'm looking for my aunt," Thesa told the stallion at the bar. 

He chuckled and waved to the mares wrapping their legs around stallions willing to spend a few stolen coins. "Lady, if your aunt's in a place like this, trust me when I tell you that you don't want to find her."

"Tell Lavender Stranglethorn that her niece is here to see her." Thesa said, firmly placing a silver coin on the counter. "She's had a death in the family. A few, actually."

The barkeep's mouth drooped slightly, his eyes bulging at the coin. "Right away, ma'am."

He turned to some pony behind him and shouted. "Oi, boy! I've an errand to run, you've got the bar 'till I'm back."

The barkeep bid her farewell sheepishly and headed out the back door immediately. Confused and hesitant, a colt who looked like the barkeep's son took control at the counter.

Fiora decided to talk to the colt, give him some work to take his mind off the sudden responsibility. That, and she was thirsty, despite the horrid quality of the beer. She order a bottle, paid in a few copper coins, and warmed herself by the candles.

"Do hunters drink as much as you do?" Thesa asked. "Because, on the way here we've stopped at every tavern we came across so you could have a drink."

"I have things on my mind," Fiora grumbled. "And I don't feel like sharing."

She stopped and turned to the door at a sound not often heard in neighborhoods like this. Though, given the building she was in, she wasn't surprised.

The city guard entered with suits of chainmail and gambesons, stopping in heavy steel boots like they owned the place. Most every pony silenced as they entered, save for a few too drunk to notice anything.

"The best establishment on this side of the city," mocked one the guard, pointing his spear around. It was fastened to a brace on his hoof and a loop on his saddle, pivoting with more control than a raw spear.

Another spat on the wood flooring. "Bet they're all here to spend the coin they picked off of good working folk."

"Hey!" cried the colt over the counter, before he realized how little his voice sounded. "Th-this is, I mean--We don't want any trouble here. Nothing wrong's happened."

"Nothing wrong indeed," chuckled the first guard that spoke. In total, four stepped inside the tavern and sat at the counter. "We're just here on duty. Y'see, these streets are filled with dangerous folk. We just want to keep you all safe."

Fiora grabbed Thesa by the foreleg and moved away from the counter as the guards talked. "Stay outside until your aunt gets here."

But nothing could have stood out more than a mutant monster hunter escorting a noble mare out of a tavern. One of the guards laughed and got out of his seat, followed by the others.

"If my eyes don't deceive. Brothers, I think this beasts tryin' to take this fair maiden away." He eyed her as stallion with the facade of power always eyed vulnerable mares.

"Oh my eyes!" retorted another. "A monster with wings and horn. We'd better call a hunter to off this one."

Fiora only knew two words that worked with their kind, two words that had half a chance of working. Still, it was better than an absolute chance of getting in a fight.

"Piss. Off." She kept Thesa close and tried to maneuver around them, but none of the guards recognized the threat.

One angrily reached out and tore Thesa from Fiora's grip, throwing her aside. He looked at her, and then back at Fiora.

"Maybe," he growled, "we should deal with you ourselves. Mutant or no, sometimes a mare's got to learn to hold her tongue around stallions."

Before she could draw her sword, Thesa rushed at the offending guard. "Don't you dare-"

He swung his hoof and smacked her jaw so hard she tumbled to the ground like a doll. "Your scarred, but a scarred bitch is no different from a mutant one. So shut it!"

Fiora didn't let them make the first move. By attacking her client, she had every right to make the first strike. She spun her horn in the air and the explosive force surrounded her. All four guards were thrown back, one all the way over the counter and into the bottles behind it. The colt cried out in fear.

The guard with the spear thrust at Fiora, but he overextended himself and all she needed to do was sidestep, making him miss and trip over himself. His friend charged to deliver his own cut with his sword, only finding two wings wrapping around his foreleg and twisting the weapon from his horseshoe.

She locked the sword onto her own horseshoe and threw a cut at the last guard's shield. He raised to block and swung his ax from the side. It struck air. He lowered his shield to find his opponent but Fiora had already danced around behind him and ran the blade in his back, breaking the links of the chainmail one by one.

He collapsed onto the ground, one hoof trying to clutch the wound on his back, the other raised in defense against Fiora. "Mercy! Mercy!" he cried.

Amidst the fighting, no one noticed the barkeep return with a violet-clad mare in a feathered hat. They entered from the back door, and was witness to the cowering guard.

"What in the hells is this?" the mare demanded.

The colt, quivering behind the counter, mumbled to her. "They came in and started harassing that mare and her guardian." He pointed to Thesa.

"Is that so?" She looked at Fiora, then Thesa, and then the guard. She beamed at the stallion on the ground and walked up to him.

She extended a hoof to help him up. "Well, it's so nice to see an honored member of the city guard at our humble establishment." He sighed with relief and stood up.

"Just, y'know, doing our rounds. Weren't trying to cause trouble, Lady Stranglethorn," the guard spoke, his voice shaky.

"No, of course not," she smiled at him. "And you won't cause trouble ever again." A mass of black, prickly vines shot out of her violet silk sleeve and constricted his throat. He tried crying out but the effort only made it easier for the terrifying plant to crumple his neck, splattering red as his skin burst through his chainmail.

She wiped the droplets of blood off her hooves and turned to her niece. "Now that that's taken care of, come give your Aunt Lavender a hug!"
> Contracts in Bovinus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The place Lavender took them to was not what Fiora or Thesa expected. "It is so good to be safely away from the outside rabble!" Thesa called out, collapsing onto a soft couch in her aunt's living room.

The building was not in the dying neighborhoods of the city's edges, but rather a beautiful manse in its protected center. It had its own walls and guards, wards and runes set by trained magicians. Fiora looked outside the living room window. Even the front gardens was tended by six laboring bulls, watering and fertilizing carrots and grain.

Her house wasn't really a house. Fiora was trained in two monster hunter castles. She knew what a fortress looked like.

"Glad to see your suffering's made you more understanding," Fiora mumbled at Thesa.

The young mare's face soured and looked up from the couch. "I said you'd be paid for my safety, not to judge me, hunter. I doubt any peasant knows what its like to lose their home and be tortured under false accusations."

Fiora gave no response. Her father raised a sheltered child protected by walls, and instead of seeing the world outside, she just ran to new walls.

"Now, now," her aunt said sweetly, returning from her bedchambers with a fresh change of clothes for Thesa. She leaned in closer to whisper. "Never let any pony see they can irk you. If you make them doubt, then you've already won."

"Not that I don't appreciate the stay, Lady Stranglethorn," Fiora interjected, pretending her mutant ears didn't hear the advice, "but your niece said I'd be paid."

"Oh, well I have influence all over the city," she said bluntly as if that were all that was needed. When she saw Fiora wasn't pleased, she relaxed her position. Her sharp, piercing face turned, however, to a frown of slight annoyance.

She beckoned a servant standing at the door to bring a chest. "But hunters don't accept favors as payment. Gold, then."

The young stallion opened the chest and declared its contents. "Six golden plates, Master Hunter."

Bovinus plates were rarely used in countryside towns, who only traded with nearby cities. But it was a currency for Masters of Coin, bankers, and nobles. A single plate could replace nearly all of the equipment that Commander Crosscut's soldiers had stolen. The servant shut the box and placed it in Stranglethorn's hooves. 

"But however much I love my niece," she said, locking the box, "she's yet to learn that she can't manage money that isn't hers. I did not agree to your contract with her."

Fiora frowned but kept herself restrained. Stranglethorn was not nobility of the city, that much was clear with how she handled the guards, along with the fact that she owned an establishment in the poorest boroughs. Regardless of how she came to money, however, she clearly used it to make herself a merchant elite. One not only very deadly, but probably dealing in illegal businesses. One accustomed to using leverage to her benefit.

"You will be paid, of course, provided that you can complete the contracts I have for you." She opened the locked sliding door to her personal study, a room adjacent to the spacious foyer, and retrieved a list from her desk. Fiora glared at Thesa for pulling her into her aunt's business, but the young mare paid more attention to the maid talking about how she'd have her mane styled.

"My associates value the safety of those who aid us," Stranglethorn said, running her hoof down the list. "And a few of these monsters threaten the ponies and bovines who work so hard for our business."

"Love to help," Fiora told her without any effort of concealing sarcasm. "But hunter's can't rely on magic alone, and I don't have the equipment to hunt anything more than a couple of corpse eaters."

She waved the problem away. "My personal blacksmiths are at your disposal, as is my private doctor. He's sure to have whatever ingredients needed for your potions and whatnot."

It was awfully generous for a mare withholding payment for her niece's safety. Money was never the problem, just Fiora's compliance. Hunters were in high demand and could refuse contracts too dangerous, or not worth their time. But she had nothing now, and Lavender Stranglethorn was not a mare to miss such an opportunity.

"Fine," Fiora sighed begrudgingly. "I'll look into your monster problems." 

Stranglethorn gave her the contracts that threatened her business so immediately. "One gold plate per contract. The names of my associates who issued them are on the paper, if you have any questions it shouldn't be hard to find such notorious individuals."

She turned and looped her hoof around her niece's, taking her upstairs followed by maid. Fiora sat for a moment looking through the contracts while the two chatted over what makeup could cover her scars. It never ceased to amaze Fiora, how ponies could so easily run from their problems if they had enough money to cover the scars. But there's never makeup for the blemishes ponies don't see.

"A vampire problem?" she said to herself at the last contract. The others had suspected monsters, but this was the only one that was certain of what monster was causing problems. It was unfortunate that knowing about a vampire didn't help much to deal with it.

"Let's hope this smith knows how to work with night silver."


=============================================================


Despite her resources, the best Stranglethorn's tailor could produce was a black gambeson covered by a dark blue wyvern hide jacket. The wyvern hide was durable, but as a single thin layer it would not protect much from a knife or spear thrust. But what the tailor lacked in inventory was well made up by Stranglethorn's spectacular blacksmiths.

Fiora felt a certain comfort working by the forge again. She was by no means a master, but despite the experience of the blacksmiths employed by Stranglethorn, neither husband nor wife of the "Bloody Iron Workshop" knew how to incorporate night silver into their weapons. Few did, in fact, since it was one of the many closely guarded secrets of the hunters. Only renowned weapon smiths were ever taught the secret, and those masters were sworn to equal scrutiny of whom they passed their knowledge to.

Because Fiora did not need a horseshoe attachment on her grip, it left a lot of room for detailing. The husband polished the carved pommel. The steel and night silver mix took the form of two heads facing away from each other, a hawk and a wolf, and symbolized the cynogriffon discipline of monster hunting.

The wife worked on the wire-wrapped handle, twisting twelve individual golden wires together to form a thicker cord to go around the grip. The piece of wood, hollowed to fit around the tang, took the wire in its grooves, carved out to hold the wire in place until it was tightly bound.

Fiora watched the blade rest in an oil bath as they worked. They may not have known the secrets of night silver without Fiora's help, however, their craftsponyship of steel was marvelous. She wasn't keen to judge on looks alone, but given their skill with metal and their black manes with a grey, coal-spotted coat, she guessed they were from farther north. 

Iron and coal mines were rich in the northern coast, a good thing since it lacked many farms, and dozens of clans were raised on money made from mastery over metal.

After seeing them twist and hammer steel, and as she kept an eye on the temperature of the oil the blade rested in, she couldn't help but imagine the blade that would come out. And in a day's time, she fantasies were realized.

"Zlotamesser," the husband said as he presented the sheathed weapon. "Ts'an old name from bovine legends, a hero's tale about killing giants. But you have equally dangerous monster, aye?"

Their heavy accents were rare, but not unknown in the north. Many ponies still hailed from tribes in unconquered lands, where languages and cultures mixed with that of yaks and goats.

"What do you know about the vampire?" Fiora asked as she took the weapon, feeling its balance. 

"Stranglethorn and her partners say he is big threat," the wife spoke, her accent slightly less but still distinguishable. "He is known as Island Hopper--he sails to his privately owned islands routinely."

Her husband waved his hoof in disapproval. "They found ma friend, known 'im my whole life, drained on the coast outside the walls. Naught but a messenger, and he's still dead." He scoffed in disgust. "Terrible zchist."

Fiora practiced her strikes while they talked, testing how well she could change the direction of her strikes. Zlotamesser did not disappoint. "This Island Hopper, he have a place to stay in the city?"

The two looked at each other for a moment, and the wife took a deep breath as if to steel herself. "We take risk to tell you, but for my husband's friend, we want you to know. Island Hopper owns a big inn by market. Uses poetry meetings as front to mark new prey."

"A vampire poet," Fiora mused, sheathing her new sword. "This guy keeps getting better. The bodies?"

"All buried," said the husband. "Except the ones he killed last night."


=============================================================


The Golden Hills Song and Dance Inn was situated beside the market square. Fiora sniffed the air and listened to the sounds of merchants and craftsponies selling their wares. The description of the vampire's pony form was clear, black mane with a light orange coat and a lute cutie mark, however if he could hold another form in daylight then he was a strong vampire indeed, and capable of taking other forms as a disguise.

But first she needed to track the scent of the victims, and to do that, she needed to find them. The blacksmiths, Mr. and Mrs. Bellow, said Island Hopper had killed two workers at one of Stranglethorn's warehouses, one containing certain goods she did not want the city guard to find. So the bodies were left there, untouched by the authorities.

The building was close, an easy target for a concealed killer, but completely sealed off. No pony outside the walls of the warehouse could hear the dripping inside. Fiora followed the sound through a small crack in the back, forcing her way through a wood panel that had come loose.

Inside, she saw the two victims hanging by their hindlegs, necks ripped open and dripping red into porcelain bowls. She uncorked a vial, one of many medicines given to her by Stranglethorn's personal herbalist, and drank the brown fluid. She gnawed on a drukivac fang, swallowing the powder she ground off it.

The combination with the medicine sharpened her eyes, and in the darkness she could see better than a cat. Her eyes trained on the bodies, and with her magic assisting the potion's effect, no detail escaped her. Their necks were crushed by a powerful force, then gashed open with a bite.

They still dripped slightly, but the blood pooling in the bowl was shallow. The vampire had already drunk the rest. One of the workers had fractures in his back, all throughout the thick parts of the ribs; the damage was mostly internal, but left minor damage in the skin where blood had tried to clot in the capillaries. Fiora looked at the plank she squeezed through to enter. He must have been thrown with deadly force against the wall. 

Even if they had died quickly, blood should still have pooled and clotted in parts of their body from the thrashing the vampire inflicted on them. He must have used a blood thinner, one he could hide in the wines that was served at his inn.

"It's been too long since they died," she said, sniffing around them. "No trace of the blood thinner."

She circled around the warehouse, examining the damage caused by the vampire's attack. A chest's lock was cracked open, and a few shelves had dropped their canisters, with the contents spilled on the floor. Bottles of various acids, hydrogen peroxide, and other elements Fiora couldn't make sense of. Despite her knowledge of potions, the detail of the components in both the chest and on the shelves were chemicals produced by mages, likely also in Stranglethorn's employ. 

Fiora picked up one of the dropped canisters and checked the label. She thought she recognized the smell; it had held pure sulfur, and the stench of that element wasn't hard to miss.

"Now I know what I'm looking for," she said, leaving through the way she came.

She entered the Golden Hills Song and Dance Inn with her senses extended, but it was nothing like the Weeping Whale. Drinks were served all around, but the air was completely dominated by a single scent. Incense burned at every table like candles, calming the air and the ponies enjoying their evening. Hoofs clapped as one poet stepped off stage and more took the spotlight.

Fiora honed her senses with magic, focusing on sulfur and trying to block out everything else, but the incense smoke was simply too powerful for her to detect it from such a distance. She'd have to search around the crowd to find where the vampire had hid himself. He had to have been in the audience, if he was tracking another victim. Unfortunately, with the night performances beginning, the vampire would surely spot a hunter snooping around in the middle of a song.

She ordered a bottle of Bovinus Spiced Spirit, a popular drink exported from the city, and took a table in the middle of the audience, keeping her senses on a swivel around her.

A small band of a few drummers and vocalists accompanied the two poets on the stage, who sat upon a stool at the edge, facing away from the crowd. They were in full view, all except their faces. Fiora had known performers before, all with a gimmick of their own. She had never met performers humble enough to hide their faces for mysterious effect. The audience, too, was drawn in by this entrance. Silence fell upon the crowd as one poet, a stallion, sang the first note.


S'ae mo laehk mo gihla mar,


S'ae mo stat'esair, gihla mar,


Ni fhar-sefein ne tiuahn aon faine,


Yh cueihg-i-gaen, mo gihla mar.


The drummers began beating and all together the accompanying chorus broke into a perfect unison. Their voices were raised a few notes more than the first poet, matching the uptick in the rhythm of the song.


S'ae mo laehk mo gihla mar,


S'ae mo stat'esair, gihla mar,


Ni fhar-sefein ne tiuahn aon f'aine,


Yh cueihg-i-gaen, mo gihla mar.


Dying down, the chorus and drums gave room to the audience's ears as the stallion returned his voice to the air. Now, even Fiora had her attention grasped, though she hardly noticed.


Gimse aon bua biur'd gach li, 


Ach cueihgs ocua s'a tiuoir na-nir


Mha scueihaedh uaim nu buerchaihl bih


Ueis-A-riom'tar tueirsc uerdh, mo laehk.


The switch repeated itself as the chorus and drums took over once more, repeating a few times the pained words of a pony letter his lover sail away. Fiora wasn't literate in the Northern Yak-Bovine creole. But what she did know, the words "S'ae mo laehk mo gihla mar," spoke to her. Sail my love, my gallant star. After a few repeats, the stallion's warm voice of bittersweet pain returned for the final stanza.


Ni heobun couhk A suaer garn m'iorn 


Thahd feorchorn ueis laer uthe vort


Taed sehait suaite i muaerb ids miuorn 


Yh scueihaedh uaim nu buerchaihl bih


The closing voices was the whole group, repeating the chorus a few more times to the captivated faces of the crowd. But, as their voices quieted, away, Fiora's senses returned to her. She still sensed nothing of the sulfur, but the voices of the singers held something more in their voices. Honing her magic on the sound, it was like listening through water, a thickened hum of magic that ponies couldn't hear. 

Their voices were talented, she wasn't disputing that, but a weak effect added an enchanting effect on any listener. The magic was too weak and uncontrolled to be any kind of hypnosis or illusion spell, but the sheer presence of magic put her on edge.

Finally, with a standing ovation from the audience, the two poets rose and bowed to the crowd. It surprised Fiora that one was a mare, when the dominant voice of the song was a male's. She must have been the prevalent female voice in the chorus, though why she didn't stand with them was a mystery to Fiora.

Something in the mare's look caught Fiora for a second. Masked by her stunning beauty, Fiora could feel the resonance of powerful magic. The mare was looking, she realized, straight at her. No, it felt more like straight through her. Drawing attention was expected as a hunter, a mutant, and a pony wearing a sword among common folk. But this not a fleeting glance, but a knowing look, and it has always been said that knowledge is power.

Fiora remained in her seat but watched as the poets and other vocalists joined the audience. Her training kept her calm outside, but inside fear stirred. It wasn't fright, but rather the anticipation of coming to blows with something powerful. Would the vampire disguise himself as a mare? Fiora shook that pointless question out of her head. What mattered was if he would threaten her in public.

But she only walked by, passing a whisper. "Second floor, room six." Fiora turned to grab the mare to ask more, but even though it was immediately after, the mare was no where to be seen. No other pony seemed to be bothered, or even notice, her vanishing.


=============================================================


Fiora kept her senses sharp as she approached the room. There were two distinct voices speaking inside, whispering, but her ears could still pick them up. She guessed it was both poets from the stage.

"There she is," the mare pointed with her hoof as Fiora entered. Her wing was tensed and wrapped around her sword, but the two didn't seem to be bothered.

The stallion stepped forward, putting himself between his partner and Fiora. "You must be the other hunter they sent. Yes, I am the vampire you seek."

Finding a clue to her target was expected, but the blunt revelation that Island Hopper performed at his own inn disguised as a poet jarred Fiora. Vampires were notorious masters of deception. So why was this one, who could so easily evade her, presenting himself before a monster hunter? He had no safety in public. If killed by her blade, the magic sustaining his pony form would fade away, and no pony would complain about a dead vampire.

Fiora's eyes darted to the mare. She considered the possibility of high hypnosis, a spell vampires often used to surround themselves with loyal followers. But simple servants did not have the magic she let out.

"The other hunter?" Fiora asked, realizing what the vampire had said. "What are you talking about?"

The vampire turned to his partner. "A member of the Dragon Arts came after my Loralae, hired by a very close associate of your employer, Miss Stranglethorn."

"How did you guess she hired me?" Fiora asked, wary of the vampire's knowledge. Simply by hunting him he had gathered information about her, a small task given the experience he had from immortality.

"I know she has a bounty for my head," he answered. "But there is one on my partner's as well."

"From her husband," the mare, Loralae apparently, continued. "They enjoy dividing tasks to conquer this city's businesses so that no pony realizes that their circle of friends owns nearly everything but the council palace. And I doubt that will stay so for long."

Island Hopper moved to his desk on Fiora's left and took a thick book down from his bookshelf that made the desk croak in agony trying to support it. "We are the one loose end that Stranglethorn cannot get her enchanted vines around. She covets the six inns I own across this city, which take in more than half the merchants and traders and travelers. My business lies at the heart of this city's economic power."

Loralae looked Fiora in the eyes. This time her magic didn't stare daggers through her. It was pleading and caring, almost charming Fiora to listen to her just to keep looking into her eyes. She would have succumbed, too, if she wasn't protected by her own magic and mental fortitude.

"You must know something of the mare Lavender Stranglethorn is. Her husband Karam Bit is known as the King of Thieves for a reason. Their marriage puts the city's criminal and manufacturing businesses in their hooves, and their ambition nearly got me killed by a hunter like you."

"Is he dead?" she asked Loralae. She received lowered heads.

"I-" the vampire's voice was caught in his throat.

"Hopper killed him to protect me," Loralae answered for her partner. "He's lying dead at the bottom of the Divide, where he attacked me."

The Divide was a narrow river that cut through the peninsula that Bovinus sat on. It wasn't far from the city, but there was still a couple miles of farmland to get to the nearest bend of the river. "What were you doing there?"

"It's my-" Loralae began.

Island Hopper reached out and held her shoulder. "Lora, she doesn't need to know."

Loralae smiled but her eyes looked firmly back at her partner. "She came here for you. If we want her to help us, she has to know that we trust her before she trusts us."

Fiora wasn't about to help them do anything, especially not a vampire who still had to answer for two dead warehouse workers. They already admitted to killing another hunter.

"I know you can sense the aura I put out," Loralae continued. "I was visiting the Divide because it is my home, though when I was young I knew it as S'noa Ghila, The River that Shines."

Fiora tilted her head at Loralae. Her mind raced through tomes of river monsters capable of polymorphism. Then her thoughts fell onto the sound of the singing. A powerful river monster similar to nymphs and sirens, and almost godlike in magical ability, that was her.

"You- you're a Nixe?"

She nodded. "Chorus was my voice. Our singers are good folk, but without my blessing they couldn't hum an army tune together."

"Enough," Island Hopper said, his soft voice belying his true power. He pointed to the book on his desk. "This ledger contains notes on all of Stranglethorn's business, and that of her associates. She wants me dead because I have leverage against her. I will pay you the agree amount for my head if you simply walk away."

"You murdered two workers at the warehouse beside the market," Fiora retorted. "I found their bodies battered and drained, not to mention a fellow hunter. You can't expect me to forgive that, regardless of her intentions."

Island Hopper scanned Fiora's face for any sign of deceit or jest, but found neither. "You're serious? I never leave the Golden Hills, we perform here every night. When would I find time to traipse around committing murder?"

Fiora began to grow furious. "Then how do you explain two grown ponies being thrown around like dolls, then drained of blood?" At the very least, sentient monsters had the decency to admit to a crime when a hunter had found them out. Ignoring the ponies he had killed simply vexed her further.

"Only with my word, however much that's worth." he admitted, walking up only a couple inches away from Fiora, speaking into her face.

She smelled him, but there was nothing except the strawberry scented soap he must have used. "So if you want to kill me, fine. Call me old fashioned, but there was once a law in this land that forbade stallions to take up arms against guests. I will give no struggle, just leave Loralae alone."

It'd probably be her easiest contract. But she couldn't do it. Something seemed off. Vampires had varying personalities like ponies, and some have been discovered receiving donations of blood from friends or partners rather than drinking from the source. But, Fiora pondered whether a vampire violent enough to attack two stallions go through the trouble of drinking them from a bowl?

For that matter, there was not trace of the chemicals anywhere in the inn. Even if Island Hopper had cleaned himself, there should have been a trail from the warehouse to his inn. If not sulfur, then some other chemical. But there was nothing.

"Let's say I gave you a chance," Fiora looked him in the eye. A liar might have a moment of relief that their deceit worked, but his eyes were a tired hope, not one of success but a look of a cornered animal spared by the wolves. "There are two murders that need to be answered for."

Island Hopper hung his head, pacing the floor in thought. "Unprovoked murder isn't really her husband's scene, but Stranglethorn has used the benefits of killing to frightening efficiency. Simply sparing some pony's life sometimes grants her their favor. Two deaths made to look like a vampire's doing frames me perfectly if I was exposed. At the very least it puts my streets on surveillance from the guard, damaging business for a few days."

"Assuming you're telling the truth," Fiora reminded him.

Loralae stepped forward to challenge the hunter's accusations. "He's not lying, he'd never hurt an innocent pony. He swore to me."

Fiora raised a brow. "To you?"

Island Hopper, hearing Fiora's tone, gave her an incredulous look. "I know mutants are different, even more so than regular hunters, but don't tell me you haven't figured out we're more than stage partners. I'd give my life for Lora."

It's the kind of thing felt, not seen or heard or touched. A feeling of love Fiora had not felt for a long time, not since she lost her home and every memory of her family with it. Perhaps that spiral began when Ripe Apple died. Her husband gone, and now she didn't know love when it hit her in the face.

Finally, she relaxed her muscles. "Alright fine. Believe it or not I know something about love still. Vaguely."

"Thank you," he said as if he had been holding onto those words, lifting them like sacks of grain on a saddle. "I promise, I won't forget this."

He said something to Loralae in their tongue, the one sung in their poem. She moved to the drawer by the bedside and pulled out a small box barely bigger than her hoof from the beneath the folded towels.

"Tiuahn, treasure," she opened it.

Inside was a silver key, but looking with her enhanced eyes, Fiora noticed that the tip was a different colored metal.

"Perceptive," the vampire saw her looking at the end of the key. "It has a magnetic tip. I had it custom made by a locksmith who frequents my inn down by the docks. It's the key to a chest I keep on my boat."

"Thanks, but the city still has a killer loose and even if you suspect Stranglethorn had a hoof in it, there's no evidence." Fiora removed the key, tying its string onto a loop on her jacket.

"I never thought a hunter would be interested in law enforcement," Island Hopper mused. 

Fiora fired back with an annoyed scowl. "I have my morals too, vampire. I won't go out of my way, but I won't do nothing if I see any evidence of who's responsible."

"I suggest going to a friend of mine, if you have the time," Loralae interrupted their discourse. "I healed a fisherman's daughter who works at the warehouse you mentioned. She gathers information on Stranglethorn and her associates, so she might know something about the killings."

"And if you need an incentive to 'go out of your way,'" Island Hopper hinted, signalling to a heavy coin purse at his side. "Clearing my name for good would be something I'd pay for. Guards are bound to find that body if they haven't already. Best to catch the culprit first."

"Bodies, hun, there were two." corrected Loralae. "You said 'that body.' One."

"Luv, you know my memory's not perfect anymore," he smiled back, happy that some pony was there to catch his mistake. He pecked a light kiss on her forehead.

"I'll be watching the performances if I find anything you could clarify," Fiora turned, leaving their suite. She took the path further upwards to the balcony, spreading her wings and diving off onto the street. She walked down the street, crossing the market but ignoring the cries of the nighttime merchants, who were no better than the daytime ones.

Going through the list of contracts mentally, she picked something that seemed, compared to the rest, fairly straightforward and simple. Angry Ankho In My Granary! the contract read. It was signed by Grain Rye, a tycoon of Bovinus' farms and granaries.

An Ankho was a deadly specter, and despite her new sword and filled herb pouch, she was poorly equipped to handle it. Fiora looked down at the key dangling from her jacket. Hopefully, whatever treasure Island Hopper wished to share could buy her proper armor for a hunter and some rarer monster organs from the city's mage stores.


=============================================================


Click. She inserted the key.

Island Hopper's personal quarters on his ship was better equipped than Bach Kha'mohrgen's armory. Glass cabinets with etched runes, wards, and glyphs displayed perfectly crafted weapons. Fiora examined some of the swords and daggers. The edges of the blades were made from a metal similar to night silver but far harder to produce: black platinum. 

Runes storing magic ran along the hardened edge of the blade. Normally even minor runes could warp or ruin the geometry of the edge, dulling its cut, but the black platinum held its shape, strengthened by the magic stored in the runes. The other weapons, axes and arming swords, crank bows too, they were all made from high carbon steel and decorated with patterns of gold. Some were flowery like articles of high fashion, while others were symbols of power but still very deadly, like a general's weapon.

Fiora tested the key on all the glass cases, but finally came to a locked dresser. It was made of lacquered elm,standing before it still gave an impression of awe. The black cabinet was magically protected like the rest, but its wards and runes were not etched or made from gold leaf. Black diamonds studded the cabinet, forming a net of magic powerfully charged by the gemstone's own enchanted properties.

Click. Fiora turned the key slowly, peeking inside as if not to disturb the masterpiece inside. But when she caught a glimpse of the armor, she couldn't help but open it up for the full view.

The peytral, the section covering the shoulders and chest, had dragon scales studded onto wyvern and manticore leather. The material was similar to what she wore now, but thicker and definitely better hemmed. The tail guard, too, was made of dragon scale plate instead of steel.

Dragons were hoarders of metal, for their scales were made of the stuff. But their bodies not only refined impure ores and ingots, they also formed the metal differently. With a laminated structure, dragon scale was more than a match for tempered steel, but far lighter and easier to move in.

Underneath were two layers of interlocked chainmail. Holding it to the light of her horn, it looked darker than typical chain. Each was made from black platinum, and then coated with night silver dust using high heat and pressure. The result was a sparkling grey finish that was as protective as it was dazzling.

Fiora smiled to herself, tearing off her jacket and wearing the armor over her gambeson. It was loose around the legs, but fit firmly around where it needed too. A tailor could change the dimensions to give a better fit, but it would only make a minor improvement. For the first time, Fiora found herself thankful for having a body type similar to a vampire's disguised form. It wasn't a thought that really ever had to come to mind.
> He Who Reaps
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The granary smelled like dried corn and wheat, even after all shipments had been made. Grain Rye was keen to get his products out of Bovinus' harbors before rumors of his haunted property began to ruin the price of his grain.

But among the smell of preserved foodstuff was the scent of bile. Fiora shuddered at what kind of health violations Grain Rye was guilty of, rethinking her plan to have a bowl of oats later at the Golden Hills.

Fiora found the source of the scent in the corner of the granary. With crooked teeth and scrawny limbs, the mare looked like a worker hired to move the grain. Dark circles around the eyes and pale complexion gave away signs of sickness. Such was the plight of ponies who couldn't afford not to work. Even in poor health, no work meant no coin, meaning no food for her and her family.

Fiora reached into her saddlebag and unscrewed a bottle of night silver dust. She sprinkled the dust over the head of the corpse and watched as it scattered away from the head. She was sick, but died from something magical. The night silver wouldn't even touch the bile she had wretched onto the flattened dirt ground. Fiora didn't have to look too closely to see specter residue mixed in her bile--nor did she want to.

The client was right to guess an Ankho. It was a specter that stole away the memories and personality of the last to die in winter, just to continue killing those destined to die throughout the rest of the year. But why in the city? They enjoyed rural villages with manageable populations. Bovinus was a small city, but excellent commerce packed it with ponies and bovines alike.

She searched the rest of the mare's body for a pure sample of the Ankho's essence. Something traceable by nose, and not overpowered by bile. She didn't find any, but there was a note.

If you're reading this, that means that peasant actually followed orders for once. I swear, she can't sweep the floors right even if you showed her. Anyways, the equipment you ordered should be coming with the grain. I know we agreed to regular shipments before the war hits hard, but the King has us in a bind. I'll update you when the next shipment arrives, whenever that is.

It wasn't signed, but marked by the wax seal of Bovinus. "Might be something," Fiora whispered, tucking it away in a pocket of her new dragon scale armor. 

The sun was about to set. It would be dark within the hour, and if the granary really was haunted by an Ankho, it was bound to appear tonight to take the lives of the sick and dying.

Fiora sensed it forming on the other end of the granary. Magic in the air felt like static, coalescing into a gaseous, and then solid form. It was like staring at the full moon. The Ankho's pale white visage shimmered as it stared, looking like a mummified pony with elongated legs.

Neither could be sure who twitched first, but some signal triggered their instincts to fight. Though a specter, it swung a solid heavy chain that wrapped around his hooves. The chain wrapped around Fiora's sword, and she was forced to blast it with magic to regain control.

She rolled away from another swing. Even with her armor, the force of the chain would be enough to knock her down. She realized as they traded a few more blows that she had grown too reliant on her old sword. She forged it with high amounts of night silver, and it had always acted like a shield against magic.

Her blade screeched as she threw a cut to interrupt the Ankho's chain. She could tell by how it flashed when it struck her sword that the chain had magic. But her new weapon only had night silver forged into the edges. She had grown used to night silver running through her entire blade, denying magic with explosive force. She could have shattered the chain with her old sword, but it also made her relaxed in her technique.

She tossed a clay pot filled with night silver shards, and they exploded upward against the Ankho's magical body. With nowhere to go, the monster's magic was forced inward and condensed. Fiora cut. With its essence thickened the spectral monster was as corporeal as flesh and blood.

It howled at the gash, but there was little it could do, surrounded by night silver. Its essence tore apart in an attempt to heal the wound, bursting specter essence across the entire granary. She exhaled, sheathing her sword and looking at her work. The confines of the granary had slowed the Ankho's chains, and forced it to stay inside the range of the night silver. She doubted the contract would've been so easy if they had clashed in the open field of a farm. Fiora stepped outside, taking a breath of fresh air that wasn't covered in corn or magical residue.

"Hope there isn't a clean up fee." She returned to the monster and swept up its essence, proof of the monster's death and a handy ingredient for potions.


=============================================================


"Who's this?" Fiora dropped the note she found on the worker's corpse on the counter. Island Hopper had changed his form to a plumper, round-faced bartender. She only found him because he let some of his magic slip, vibrating her sword when he was near. Otherwise, his polymorphism was perfect, invisible even to pure night silver.

"Where'd you get this?" He set wiped a glass clean and scrutinized the paper.

"Picked it off a mare who worked for Grain Rye," she answered, "but since most working ponies can't read, I figure someone else wrote it."

"You figure right." He pointed to the seal. "The city council uses purple wax, not black. This is the mark of Karam Bit's organization. I didn't know Grain Rye was in league with them."

"Know him well?" Fiora took back the paper and folded it up into her saddlebag, now one gold plate heavier for completing one the contracts. Fiora knew Island Hopper had his personal conflict with Stranglethorn, but the bottom line was that she was paying good money, and the other contracts involved monsters who could still harm innocents.

Island Hopper grabbed a used mug and tossed it in a bucket of water behind him. "Yeah, but my opinion of him just went, like that mug. We've talked a few times since sailors who export his grain rest at my inns. I give his employees a discount on bed and wine, which makes his company the one with better benefits. In return, I get first pick from his fruit farms for my breweries."

"Didn't ask about your business decisions, just wanted to know what you knew about him," Fiora said. She didn't understand why ponies, or vampires in this case, had to boast about their work. She didn't go around spouting facts on demons and athahcks.

"I was getting to that," he grumbled. "The King of Thieves, as the name suggests, is not a stallion of honest means. Grain Rye might not own the most farmland or trade with the biggest cities, but folk work for him because he was born a farm colt too. Honest work is all he knows."

"Ever heard the joke 'why'd the cockatrice cross the road?'" She had more gold than she had ever carried and steady work in a wealthy city. There was plenty of time for a joke.

"I've heard variations going back centuries," Island Hopper asked, his face looking at Fiora confused. "What of it?"

"Hunter's version's a bit different. 'Why'd the cockatrice cross the road? Because the side it was on was fucking shit."' She waited for him to figure out what she was getting at, but he still looked at her like a madmare.

"What I'm saying is that Grain Rye could have gone to work with Karam out of necessity," she told him, pointing to a bruise on her neck where the Ankho had hit her with its chain. "Had a monster in his granary. Business might have been going down, and he needed a way to keep it up. In any case, you shouldn't turn on a pony as good as you say. There's few of them in this world."

Island Hopper let his anger go. "Fine, but I'll keep an eye on some of his holdings. Whatever he's shipping with his grain, if the King of Thieves is involved it has to be no good."

"Not my business. Not going to get in your way." Fiora finally decided to give in and led herself to a few bottles of Northern Winter Vodka. 

Tonight had a song performed by Loralae alone, not that she needed anyone else. Nixes were revolted by violence, preferring to let their magic voices misdirect aggressors. But on the stage, Loralae could cast her voice any which way and hit every audible note.

She couldn't make out a word of this song, but Loralae's rhythm and tone reminded Fiora the life she once led, the peaceful one. She had met Ripe Apple after saving his family from a dragon, and after some time, he grew attached. It wasn't his family's successful farm or his looks that made life great, even if there was nothing to complain about in those departments.

He had kindness in spades, and it was no wonder why their children loved him more than her. She was raised by monster hunters, caretaker and trainer were the same to her. He was raised by farmers who understood the plight of never having enough to be happy, but he also sympathized with the stresses of the wealthy after orchards became a renowned winery. 

Some sound outside caught her ear. Island Hopper must have noticed too, but he was so enthralled in his lover's voice he barely noticed.

"Eight heavy hooves are racing this way," she snapped him out of his staring.

He smirked. "City kids are always racing. Must be some noble brats trying to prove something."

"Doubt it." She honed her ears and this time and so did Island Hopper. Young nobles didn't race in clanking armor.

Three clamored into the inn, covered in scratched armor and worn leather straps. Blood stained the crinket of one pony, the steel plates that shielded the back of the neck. Another's peytral was ripped, exposing his chest. Fiora almost couldn't recognize her friend and her master under their damaged armor, or that one of their saddles held a little filly with a hummingbird mark on her shoulder.

"Sharp Tone, Ploja, what are you two doing here?"


=============================================================


They sat quietly, tending to their wounds first and eating before talking. Island Hopper took them to the back of the inn where he stored some of the stronger alcohols to help with the pain. Geiss sat quietly, watching Fiora stitch up a gash in Sharp Tone's shoulder.

"Are days always this boring for hunters?" Island Hopper asked while they recovered. "Just sitting around, all solemn. I get it, things look bad, but not a word? Come on."

"Where'd you find this one?" Sharp Tone scowled as the needle and thread prodded at his sensitive wound. 

Fiora steadied her magic, trying hard to ignore the inevitable banter between a talkative hunter and a vampire poet. "I agreed to help him, to an extent," was all she would give.

But Island Hopper filled the gaps quickly. "I was framed for murder because I'm a vampire and a rival to a very vindictive circle of criminals. Your friend has a good heart and chose to help me," he explained and then added, "to an extent of course."

Sharp Tone looked at Fiora with disbelief written all over his face. "You really trust a vampire?"

"Her judgement has never been wrong, for the most part," Ploja said, muttering that last half. "Besides, he welcomed us into his inn when he could have easily denied two mutants. I'll take his word for now."

"All I want to do is know why all three of you are here." Fiora finished stitching Sharp Tone's gash and fed him a sip of a healing potion. It was mostly medicine from Stranglethorn's associates, enhanced with liver and egg yolk of a monstrous bird, a roc.

"I had just got to Bach Kha'mohrgen when Ploja demanded I go out and search for you," Sharp Tone began. "Your trail wasn't hard to find once I found the corpse eaters you killed. I followed, and found a lord's fortress devoid of anything but bodies. Thought it was you for a moment until I saw the trampled ground where an army had marched."

Ploja continued. "That's probably around the time the army that left behind their tracks reached out walls. The commander demanded we surrender the hunter who torched his fortress. We didn't know if it was you or Sharp Tone then, but either way we refused."

"And then boom!" added Geiss, eager to be a part of the story. "Big fire balls were everywhere and destroyed everything."

Shocked, Fiora turned her head to Ploja for clarification. But he just nodded. "That's pretty much the gist of it. We held them off for a good time, reinforcing the damaged walls with magic, but they surrounded us with siege weapons. Catapults, trebuchets, and fire barrels. You can be sure Cyana had a lot to say about her research being damaged. Put up one hell of a fight before she and her library went through a portal."

"But," Sharp Tone said sadly, taking Fiora's attention. "When I got back there the walls had been burned by oil barrels. Not even magic could put it out. Holes were blown into the walls, the troops had stormed in, and most of the hunters had ran. Bastards barely even called the castle a home, and they wouldn't die for it like we would have."

"It's a damn good thing I'm one of those bastards then," Ploja snapped at Sharp Tone. "I ran like a behemoth was after me and got your hide out of there. You and Geiss both."

He turned looked back to Fiora, and beckoned her to pass him a bottle of Bovinus Spice Spirit. He emptied half of it before continuing. "With Bach Kha'mohrgen gone the only thing we knew to look was for you. We figured you escaped the fort, so we stuck to the countryside and followed the rumors of a purple monster hunter."

Fiora took a step back, soaking it all in. She had lost one home to war, and now Bach Kha'morhgen was occupied too. She wondered if it was true what ponies said, that hunters were meant to walk on a path, never settling. She had to turn her thoughts inward.


=============================================================


The intentions we have and the wars we fight are often never the same. Long ago, when ponies first began to build walls and name lords, safety justified violence. The need to be right soon made every lord, king and soldier believe their war was just.

When I chose to rescue Thesa Ruse, I never could have imagined that the commander turned warlord would take up arms against the mutants of Bach Kha'morhgen. Nor could I have known that he would succeed in taking the hunter stronghold. But in times like these, good or bad intentions don't matter. War always comes.


=============================================================


"What do you plan on doing now?" Fiora asked them both.

Sharp Tone stood up, wincing at his sprained leg. "Work, get some gold, then round up as many mercenaries as I can to take back the castle."

"Now hold on a minute kid," Ploja pulled and seated him back down. "We lost our stronghold, true, but hunters never stay at their fortresses longer than they need to. Cyana took the library with her when she left, and I plan on finding that firebrand before she does something stupid like you plan too."

Fiora lifted her heavy head and noticed how quiet Island Hopper was. "Got any ancient vampire wisdom to share?"

He shrugged. "I've ran from homes too. Lost loved ones, sometimes even had to kill them myself. But you can't just run and hide as I do, or go on the road of revenge. War between the kingdoms is spreading, and the High Mountain King seems to be on a path to make himself an emperor, so you can be sure there'll be work for your kind. Monsters are always drawn to blood."

"Good choice of words, vampire," mocked Sharp Tone. "But if you haven't noticed, we're not really in the mood to help any pony right now."

And then Fiora remembered something Thesa had told her. "The commander belonged to a minor lord. They didn't have the money or craftsponies to make good siege weapons."

"Well obviously that changed," said Island Hopper.

She stood up straight and took her turn to give her side of the story to Sharp Tone and Ploja. "I saved the daughter of the lord, that's why I had to torch their keep, to escape in the distraction. She told me that the High Mountain Kingdom was funding Commander Crosscut to lead his coup."

Sharp Tone scowled and slammed his hoof on a barrel of wine, and Island Hopper stared hoping the barrel wouldn't break. Sharp stared at the cracked wood where his hoof struck and eased his anger. "This is fucked. The High Mountain Kingdom? They're not going to let go of a fortress like Bach Kha'morhgen." 

"It wasn't made to resist a siege from an army," added Ploja. "Though I doubt that'd be hard to change for a kingdom like the High Mountain."

"Well, I know this place isn't a castle," Island Hopper offered, "but Fiora's an acquaintance, and one who spared my life for justice. I'll have a room made available for you all, for as long as you need."

Geiss beamed at him. "So you own this whole place? You're really rich."

He smiled and knelt down to her. "It's not always a good burden to bear. But helping gives me strength to carry it."

He combed her mane out of her face and noticed her neck. There was black leather collar with night silver studs across it. He touched it, and both of then flinched at its painful touch.

"Careful," cautioned Ploja. "She doesn't look it, but one of our hunters, Cyana, found something weird with her magic. It's something of a curse, we think, and it's been getting more and more out of control lately."

"More?" Fiora asked.

Ploja nodded. "Damn near broke Cyana's horn with how much magic she's carrying."

"Looks painful," Island Hopper commented grimly.

Geiss tugged at the collar so it rested comfortably on her neck. "Sometimes it gets tight or weird and the metal burns. But only a little."

"Black platinum can absorb the magic instead of repelling it," he told her, but was clearly advising every pony else in the room.

Both Ploja and Sharp Tone looked at each other, and then were shocked to see Fiora didn't share the same perplexed look.

"No pony remembers how to create black platinum anymore," Ploja told him.

Island Hopper shrugged. "I'm not a pony. It'll take time, but I can make something that'll keep her magic in better control. Doesn't that sound nice?"

Geiss smiled and nodded at him while the others weren't so sure. Fiora had seen the weapons he had made from black platinum, but she still wasn't sure if storing that much magic was a good idea. But the other option meant keeping the night silver collar and keeping Geiss in pain. She missed in the past few weeks of leaving Bach Kha'mohrgen to escort Thesa. She owed some good to the filly she took from that haunted house.


=============================================================


Fiora brought Geiss with her to meet with Thesa. A bull stopped by the morning after they arrived with a letter from the young noblemare, asking to see her outside of the city, in a house overlooking a series of watermills owned by her aunt. The watermills powered workshops that spun cotton and ground wheat into flour.

Geiss balanced on the fence that bordered both sides of the cobblestone road. Fiora took some pride in seeing the hoof work, knowing she had shown her the series of movements she was performing. A lot of the hunters at Bach Kha'mohrgen showed Geiss tricks with the blade, but the fundamentals were all from Fiora.

The house Thesa mentioned came up along the horizon with the river. It was big, painted white with two stories and ample floor space. Surrounding it a row of buildings, some large and some small, all powered by watermills. Among the workers were a few ponies, but the majority seemed to be cows and bulls tasks with harvesting and hauling produce.

The house inside was surprisingly cramped with boxes of produce--food, bolts of cloth, crank bows and arrows, herbs and medicine, and so on. It was a shop centered in the series of watermills.

"It's about time you showed," Thesa cried out from her living room as Fiora and Geiss entered the house. She looked different. Her long, noble mane was cut short and she wore an apron like a housekeeper. The scar on her cheek where she had been branded was covered up in heavy makeup.

"Trying out a new look?" Fiora asked. She whispered to Geiss to continue practicing on the porch while the two of them spoke.

"Spare me the small talk hunter, I'm not in the mood." Thesa stood up from her couch and pushed a couple crates of produce out of the way for Fiora to enter. 

Fiora looked at her and gestured around the house. "A bit homely for a store."

The noblemare rolled her eyes and opened a door that lead down a short hallway. "The shop's on the other side, separate from my private life."

"Sounds like you hate the outside world," Fiora noted, striking a nerve with her.

Thesa stomped her hoof. "What do you expect? Do you think I'll turn the other cheek and forgive what they did to my family, what they did to me?"

"No, but I think you're taking it out on the wrong ponies," Fiora rebutted. "Since you got here, you've hated being surrounded by laborers."

Thesa's face soured. "You know what's it's like, to be hated and spat on everywhere you go. Should I have sympathy for folk with no love in their hearts just because they value hard work? True, they are tools of society, but that's what we need them to be. No farmer or stonemason will fund the construction of a city, or forge alliances. And because they cannot understand how to run a society, they cannot understand those who run it."

"Maybe because nobles don't starve every winter or die in every war," Fiora tried reminding Thesa, but she wouldn't have any of it.

"No, lords simply worry about assassins, resources, and keeping uprisings controlled. Perhaps with time I can pity the masses. But never, so long as I live, will I agree to the mob rule that has has my home now."

Fiora pulled herself out of the argument. There was no winning when both stood in a grey area, and it was at least true that she understood hatred from ponies around her. 

"Fine," she relented, "I'm guessing you didn't ask me to come here to debate class division."

"No." Thesa confirmed.

"I can handle supervising my aunt's businesses here," she said. "The river has a nice view and profits are constant year-round from what I hear." Fiora waited some time for her to continue speaking, but the young mare took a moment to collect herself.

"But there's something I need you to do," Thesa broke her tone into a quicker pace. "I know you have contracts to take care of, but my aunt wants me to hire extra security for a grain shipment to the Tundra. Times are hard with the wars, so she wants extra protection."

"I'm not a mercenary or a guard," answered Fiora.

Thesa rubbed her temple. "I know, but I don't have time weigh the costs of the mercenary companies in the city. You brought me here on a promise of gold and I'm sorry my aunt has been less cooperative than we both expected. But now she's given me that gold to hire security, and I can promise that you'll be paid if you protect the shipment."

Fiora waited to think before responding. It would, in all likelihood, be an easy job. With so many ships trading, the chances of being raided were slim.

"Fine," she said. "Just give me the name of the ship and when it sails."

Thesa sighed, almost with relief, and gave her a rolled parchment. "The Sunken Sow leaves port in two days. It's on the north ports where iron and coal are imported."

She took the parchment and put it in her saddlebag. She bade Thesa farewell and turned to leave the house before being stopped.

"My aunt knows, by the way," Thesa stated quite matter of factly. "I overheard when I stayed in her home. She owns half the city, of course she knows you won't finish the contract on her rival."

"She should be happy then, she can save her gold," Fiora replied.

"You should by now that gold is never the concern, especially when one is willing to pay." Thesa's young voice sounded different with a serious tone. Fiora understood the subtlety of tones. Hers was a warning. "There's little I can do beyond payment to thank you for saving my life. But there is one other thing: search the cargo once you leave port to make sure everything is safe."

Fiora nodded, and left the house without another word. The image of Stranglethorn and her constricting vine flashed in her mind, and it reminded her of why she loved monster hunting. Monsters never scheme or plot or hide secrets. Like hunger and common colds, they were easy to understand. Fiora took a deep breath, feeling the mist in the air from the splashing river nearby.

Geiss practiced her hoof work with three legs, holding one up like she was using a sword. Fiora could tell her hooves were moving in place well, but on the landing they shifted or slid on the uneven and moist topsoil. She smiled and picked up Geiss from behind while she was distracted.

"I was making it right," she protested squeakily. 

"There's a berry farm not far from here where any pony can go in and pick as much as they want to buy." Fiora hopped a bit on the stone path away from the workshops, clinking her gold plate around in her saddlebag. "We're going to pick all we can eat, and then I'll show you how to use hoof work on loose dirt."
> Sail North
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fiora didn't like leaving Geiss with Ploja and Loralae. Ploja was busy tracking down materials needed to detect magic from long range, and Lora had to sing most nights at the Golden Hills. But, seeing the ship she and Sharp Tone were about to guard, she was reminded that a storm could sweep a little filly like her off the ship. Her magic wasn't under control, and there was no telling if she could use it to save herself.

The Sunken Sow was like everything else Stranglethorn owned. Massively extravagant and intimidating with its defenses. A steel prow made it a deadly ramming ship, and the deck was loaded with giant versions of crank bows. Fiora walked past the bolts meant for one of the weapons, and it was longer than she was.

"You think we can buy a couple of those for when we take back Bach Kha'morhgen?" Sharp Tone asked. As soon as she told the other hunters about this job, he was quick to insist on joining. Fiora just shot him a quick look. "Whatever Ploja wants to do, we're going to take it back eventually. Better to start planning now."

A young stallion called out to them from across the ship before approaching. "I see we have two new guests! What are you here for?"

"Stranglethorn wants more security on her ship," Fiora said, gesturing to herself and Sharp Tone. "Here we are."

He looked over them both. "Not one to judge, but you're both monster hunters, right?"

They nodded. "Fiora de Battaille and Sharp Tone, Discipline of Mutants, if you couldn't tell."

He sucked wind through his teeth and extended a hoof to Fiora. "I was sorry to hear about your fortress. High Mountain's thrown us into the deep end, taking away the only hunter stronghold on this side of Equestria."

Sharp Tone's feathers ruffled at the mention of Bach Kha'morhgen. Fiora raised a brow. "Ponies don't care about hunter castles. Where did you hear about our fortress being taken?"

"Well for one thing, I work for Stranglethorn, and that mare knows how to find every speck of sand on the Far Coast," he chuckled. "That, and the Sunken Sow travels all across the Far Coast. Some pony, somewhere, is going to whisper that kind of news."

"Well, thank you for reminding us," Sharp Tone said impatiently, "but we were told to report to the captain of the ship as soon as possible."

The stallion laughed, grabbing Sharp Tone's hoof and shaking it. "Ain't a cabin boy, I'll tell you that."

He turned and bowed dramatically to Fiora. "Navier Duvent, your spectacular and amazingly humble captain."

"Oh great," Sharp Tone bemoaned. "I love these kind of guys." He immediately headed for the crew quarters below deck to unpack his bags.

"Excuse his manners," Fiora covered. "Young, egotistical hunters are usually the ones to die. He prefers not to know those kinds of ponies to spare himself the effort."

Navier huffed. "Well I hope he thinks better of me by the end of this trip." Fiora noticed that he didn't even try to refute Sharp Tone's perception.

His gaze wandered from Fiora's eyes to two stallions about to topple a barrel of Bovine Spice Spirit into the water. Like a parent racing after a child, he broke their conversation and rushed to save the shipment.

Fiora found herself managing a laugh as Navier's hardy sailor appearance, complete with a windswept golden mane and cotton shirt torn at the sleeves, fell apart as he struggled with the other stallions to pull a heavy load of alcohol from the edge of the port.


=============================================================


Fiora kept her armor locked in the private chest at the foot of her bed. As additional security, she and Sharp Tone had the larger guest rooms, as opposed to the regular rooms for the crew. A small desk with just enough space for a letter stood by her bed with a candle holder, though the light coming in through the small windows near the top of the room provided plenty of light for the moment.

The Sunken Sow had just left port, and as Thesa advised, Fiora went to check on the cargo with Sharp Tone. They got the manifest from the Quartermaster and checked every barrel, crate, and bushel. On the surface, there was nothing, and Sharp Tone's mood didn't help with his patience.

"I don't know what you're looking for but she's wasting our time," he said, tossing aside the copy of the manifest. "I didn't come for accounting work."

"Sharp, I get that you're pissed and you have every right," Fiora replied while she took a closer look at a crate. "But you won't retake Bach Kha'mohrgen if you're too hotheaded to do any work." 

She was reminded of the note as she looked. Additional goods sent with grain seemed innocent, but if that was the case it'd be out in the open to see. She didn't know what kind of work Grain Rye was doing to make ends meet, but Stranglethorn was another matter. Vampire or not, Island Hopper's life was threatened simply because he controlled a business that she didn't. Fiora decided to take a risk and look further, wrapping her magic around the top of the crate and prying it off to expose the bags of corn meal inside.

Sharp Tone pulled her away from the crate. "Are you crazy? I've been in Bovinus for a couple days and I've already heard six bad things about Stranglethorn. You really want to mess with her stuff?"

Fiora levitated the bags up while he protested. At first the bottom was well concealed, low enough to almost look like it was the bottom, but her senses were too keen to be tricked. Sharp Tone stopped his objections once he noticed it too.

"It's too tough for me to pull with my magic," Fiora said, pointing to Sharp's sword. "Could you make it a little looser?"

He jammed the tip of his blade very reluctantly--he wanted to preserve the edge--until he forced open a small gap and began to pry it. Working alongside Fiora's magic, the managed to remove the false bottom quickly and quietly. 

Swords and horseshoes were wrapped up in cloth underneath. Fiora and Sharp Tone traded perplexed looks. They replaced everything the way it was and checked another crate. Below it, there were polished spear heads. Under another there were bags of sugar and pot-ash.

"Hold on," Sharp Tone said. "The Dragon Arts used pot-ash to make potassium nitrate for their explosives."

Fiora nodded. "If I recall, they mixed it with sulfur, but under the right conditions sugar is good substitute."

"Weapons shipment. Not liking Stranglethorn even more." Sharp Tone sheathed his sword. "Put everything back, I think we've seen enough."

"You'll hear no argument from me." Fiora gently set the bags of meal back where why belonged and sealed the top of the crates. It took some effort to force the nails back in, but she could do it if she focused on each one. But that took time, and they both lost focus when some pony started coming down the stairs.

"Just make it look untouched," Sharp Tone hissed, grabbing up the ship manifest and pretending to count the number of wine bottles fastened to a shelf. 

Fiora planted the the crate covers back on and hid the nails underneath just as the boatswain entered the hold. His head bobbed around the shelves by the entrance before he spotted the two hunters.

"Wad'ya two don' down'ere?" he asked them in a heavy Inland Tundra accent. "Gon'  kep luking a' me, or tell me wad'ah asked?"

"We're the extra security Stranglethorn hired for the cargo," Sharp supplied an answered, waving the manifest around. "We wanted to know exactly what should be here."

The boatswain peered at both of them with squinted eyes. "And wad got'ya lukin a' those crates? Ah got eyes an' ah see those nails down dere."

Sharp Tone leaned over the shelves and gave a nod at Fiora's direction. She saw him and walked closer to the boatswain. Before he could back up and question them further, she waved her horn around his head, casting magic over his mind. 

"We're just making a security check, to be safe. Do you want to take a risk with Stranglethorn's goods?" Fiora cut of the spell, letting the magic linger over the stallion. Magic glamoured her words to be more suggestive, but it did not work wonders. She had to be reasonable enough to make the boatswain agree.

He nodded with his choice. "Not gon' take a risk." His glazed over eyes looked around, grabbed some rope, and returned to the upper deck.

Fiora waited for his hoof steps to go silent before putting the nails back on the crates and leaving for their cabins. They had spent a good hour in the cargo hold, and if they didn't want Stranglethorn to catch wind of what they did, they needed to make it look like they had spent the day in their cabins.


=============================================================


Fiora relaxed by the candlelight with the rum and plate of steamed vegetables that the ship's chef served for dinner. There were books left around the cabin by previous residents, and over time a small stack of fifteen or so books formed in the corner of the room.

She flipped through Candid Trails by Voltine Grim. It was a satirical work about a stallion oblivious to the cruel world, travelling from one place to another in search of some kind of peaceful paradise. Above, sailors were drinking and chanting together. She ignored them at first, until a voice bellowed out the lyrics of a shanty.

She leered up at the ceiling of her cabin. Navier couldn't see her, but she was staring daggers at him for interrupting her reading time. She realized from the chanting of the crew how Loralae's voice had set the bar too high. A Nixe's voice was unmatched, often compared to a goddess for good reason.

But there was some other quality to the shanty. Fiora found herself compelled to join them on the deck to feel it for herself. She could hear it in the ship, through the salty air and wooden planks. The voice of an imperfect unison of stallions strengthened the emotion in the chant, for it was only the muddling of voices that could sound like a bond of a crew. Good or bad, thick or thin, they sounded like they'd fight and die together. 

Navier's voice, who led the shanty, was strangely organic. Loralae's voice was a crystal, clearer than the sun. But Navier sung deep, drawing on a primal joy of being joined by his crew. He was smiling all throughout the song, but as Fiora joined the crew around their brazier, Navier's movements and dance grew livelier.


We'll be alright, when the sirens sing their song!


We'll be alright, for it's cotton that we've brung!


We'll be alright, for these sailors won't go wrong!


So we can all rest and be fine!


---


And we'll sail away, from leviathans 'till morn,


And we'll sail away, from the monsters at the dawn,


And sail away, from the ashrays from the north,


So we can all rest and be fine!


---


Oh! Well a night dance with a naiad, wouldn't do me any harm,


I can waltz and she can sing, and we'll gaze up at the stars,


Then I'll take her to by the hoof, and she'll sail me very far,


So we can all rest and be fine!


---


And we'll sail away, from leviathans 'till morn,


And we'll sail away, from the monsters at the dawn,


And we'll sail away, from the ashrays from the north,


So we can all rest and be fine!


---


Another leave at shore, that could do the crew some good,


Before they take the sails apart and then leave me alone, marooned.


It can be stressful when we're sailing, we could sink to Death Lagoon,


Where we will all rest and be fine!


---


Some pony at some point found their way around a flute and started playing along to the rhythm of the crew. Through no willing but the song's Fiora found herself dancing and singing alongside the sailors. The ponies didn't mind a mutant beside them. In fact, they were thrilled to dance with her wings, grabbing on and swaying around on the deck like the mad drunkards they were.

Fiora felt alive with the crew. In truth they were strangers brought together by coin, but the vast sea had its way of bringing together those trapped on its tides. Never in her life had a job brought her joy of companionship. Monsters, forests, swamps, and scowling ponies, that was her world. But, if she ever realized she was ready to retire again, she swore to herself she'd try a life out at sea.


=============================================================


Her cabin felt smaller compared to the cold ocean breeze. Snowflakes blown from the northern glaciers peppered the deck of the ship. But below deck was warmer, insulated from the nature above. Even the candlelight seemed small compared to the brazier they danced around.

She stared at the pile of books in the cabin. She loved reading, escaping into stories where the character was certain to succeed. Some were quite like her own experiences, but in a book she always felt certain of the outcome. Yet now that safety felt small. On a ship at the mercy of the tides and wind she couldn't be absolutely sure what came next, and that excited her. The world was big and open and changing. She'd need a library of books to even come close to that sensation.

There came a knock knock from her door. Fiora whirled her head to find Navier standing with a small wooden box and a bottle.

"Hope I'm not intruding," he smiled. "I figured we could wind down together after all the craziness above deck."

"Wind down with more rum?" she raised a brow at the bottle.

He followed her gaze. "This? No, it's more of a medicine. You might be familiar with it, since the doctor who gave it to me based it on a hunter potion."

"Oh? Which one?"

He scratched his head trying to remember. "A weird language, something something Tog."

"I can think of five off the top of my head that fits that name," she said. "What does it do?"

"That, my good madam, has a story. May I sit down?" He gestured to the chair by the desk. Fiora took a seat on her bed and waved him in.

"By all means, not much else to do but learn stories." She pointed to the books left in the corner. "And hearing is sometimes better than reading."

Navier sat and carefully uncorked the bottle, pouring the pinkish clear water into a glass. He filled the second, handing it to Fiora. 

"It's clears the body of toxins," he said, sipping. "It's supposed to be for poisons and venom, but it's not potent enough to stop lethal doses, so it's useless in that regard. Great for sobering up though."

"Sedispe Sang Tog," Fiora supplied a name, instinctively drawing on her knowledge of potions. "The words have no grammar, they just translate to Clear, Blood, and Fog. It means 'to clear the body of interfering substances' but that doesn't roll off the tongue."

"Neither does the other name," Navier muttered under his breath as he drank. He continued his explanation of having the medicine. "You have to understand the kind of stallion my father was. In the South Coast, the system of gaining 'Lordship by Merit' meant my father could be lord for the favors he did for the king. Naturally, as his only son, he told me I'd inherit his title."

Navier opened the box he brought with them. Inside were crunchy oatmeal cookie balls stuffed with raisins and raspberry jam. He offered one to Fiora and chewed on one as well.

He ate it thoughtfully, then broke into the next part of the story with no warning. "But, though I was his only son, I wasn't his only child. One day he changed his mind, almost on a whim, and wrote in his will that my sister would inherit the title. Since it was a Lordship by Merit, I couldn't hold any status through blood ties. But I didn't care."

Navier took two more from the box. "I bought these for my sister to celebrate when she got her ship. I was happy for her, despite losing my inheritance. But she had to go on a trade route with our father to Warfstead. First it was trade routes, then guild meetings, and after a year they attended balls and dances together with other nobles."

Fiora watched him. His eyes stared, but they weren't glazed over in a dead look into the past like most ponies had. Wrapped in his memory, his eyes were focused. 

"I wasn't a noble," he said, as if he was making the realization all over again. "I could have handled my father shunning me; he didn't become a lord by being a soft stallion. But he had turned my sister against me."

"My older sister, whom I looked up to, wouldn't even speak to me because of him. I was low-born scum to them. I turned to heavy drinking to forget the pain until my doctor said my liver couldn't take it anymore." He waved the bottle of medicine around. "Now I need this unless I want to drink myself into the dirt."

Navier put the bottle down and sighed. "I know the drinking sounds like my problem, and it is, but everything else I blame on my family, my father especially."

"My father is dead," Fiora blurted. 

Her bluntness shoved Navier out of his own pit of sorrowful memories. "Oh wow-- I mean, I'm terribly sorry to make you remember that."

She reached her wing out and took another cookie ball. "It's fine, he wasn't technically my father. I never called him that, at least. But he was the stallion who found me and trained me at Bach Tor'al. The news just showed up like any other fact of the world."

Fiora paused, coughed, and mimicked reading from a letter. "To the hunters of Bach Tor'al, due to the death Monster Hunter Guerrier, the payment for both High Fiends will go to the castle in his stead. The High Mountain cordially thanks you for your contribution to the kingdom."

She sighed. "He died in a forest killing High Fiends for a bag of coin from a lumber mill owner." Admitting that loss was something that weighed her more than she realized. She focused on one tragedy to blame for her pointless wandering, but she had many breaking points.

"Never said I loved him," she said. "Never called him father."

"Did he call you his daughter?" Navier asked, and Fiora shook her head. "Then I'm sure he felt the same. All hate can be described with words, which is why we're so expressive with it. But love unspoken is stronger than anything else. You two didn't need to say you were a family to be one."

They both looked at the box, now emptied of sweet cookies. "I can't tell if I feel better after all that," Navier closed it. "I share my story with my crew, but I always feel like I'm just reminding myself of my own motives."

"And now?" Fiora asked. 

He looked at her piercing eyes. "I feel light, a little empty, and," he paused to phrase his words, "now I hope you're feeling what I'm feeling."

Fiora looked back. She knew what she looked like, a mutant with eyes that saw death every day. Monsters, ponies, it didn't matter who bled anymore. And when they said that one's eyes can look like stars, she was certain hers was the fading ones that shone dimly in the black night.

Navier's eyes had warmth, like the first star to strike the heavens. Bright and glorious, Fiora wanted those eyes. She wanted all of it and the life behind it. Without a word she reached out with her magic and locked the cabin door, and they pounced on each other like wild animals.


=============================================================


Fiora questioned herself, whether or not she'd be okay with what they did. She didn't regret it, not yet at least, but hunter training never included how to deal with lifelong feelings. 

Was her love for her late husband exclusive? For a long time it felt so. She clung to the home they had in his memory, and her children reminded her of his kindness and decency that so many others lacked. Hunters always lived on the road, but life with a family made her forget how to leave her memories behind. She couldn't run away from the past.

But wasn't that what she had been trying to do? Soldiers burned her home. Every city she visited, and every contract she had taken, kept her moving from place to place. She was already running away, so why not let her feelings do the same? For so long she felt obligated to love only Ripe Apple. Did the dead have the right to make demands of the living?

Navier Duvent. The name didn't sit on her tongue with love as she mouthed it silently, but he did offer comfort. Her eyes shifted to her shoulder, where his hoof met a scar she had gotten from a chimera. With fascination he traced the scar to her shoulder blade and down her back.

She wanted to say something, but didn't know where to place her words. Was it just a night for them both? She couldn't be sure if she wanted more from him. Though, she didn't have the chance to say anything.

Shouts came from above deck as the ship teetered. Navier's box and glass bottle clattered on the floor as everything was thrown off balance. In an instant, she stripped herself of feelings and became the relentless monster hunter she was raised to be.

Levitating her armor from its chest, she slipped into it like a second skin and wrapped her wings tightly around her sword. She burst through the door, following Sharp Tone, who was already racing up to see what had happened.

They met fire on the deck and ropes dangling from the masts. It was an hour before sunlight would break the horizon, but the other ships that surrounded them cast red light across the whole deck. Fiora's eyes shot around, counting the ships. Five had surrounded them, trapping them in the water, but there were more further back. They launched spears from massive crank bows and lobbed pots of burning oil from catapults. 

The attackers were not dressed like the crew of the Sunken Sow. They had black gambesons over chainmail, some even had scaled peytrals and cruppers that covered their front and back legs. They fought with boarding axes strapped their legs. Others had horseshoes that stretched out into two daggers. And they flooded the deck. The sailors who fought back were brutally slaughtered. Many of them had axes too, but no armor to speak of.

Sharp Tone and Fiora cut down the first few that rushed them before the ship teetered forward. The front was taking on water from the ram that cut through the side of the hull. 

A sailor, one with the scaled uniforms, rushed for Sharp Tone, tacking him into a mast. Two more jumped on him, pinning his wings down as they took his sword from his belt. Fiora rushed to his side but back dragged back by another just like them.

He rammed his daggers at her face, missing by a hair as she ducked. Fiora's sword was slashing in an instant, but the blade was long and tangled with the rigging dangling above the fighting. She had to sidestep to avoid the sailor. She twisted her sword out of the rope and thrust into his armor as he came in to stab her chest.

Her blade could puncture chainmail and a gambeson with enough force, but it never reached the inner layers of his armor. She felt it stick in, and knew what they were wearing. The sailors had scales made from lacquered wood. The armor was penetrated by her sword, but it never got any deeper than the tip. The wood gripped the sword, immobilizing it in Fiora's wings.

The sailor looked at her with a wide grin and howled with his tongue out, slashing Fiora's face with the daggers on his horseshoe. A second ship turned and crashed into the Sunken Sow, throwing every pony around on the ship. Fiora lost track of the sailor who had her sword in his chest, but didn't have time to look for him. She widened her stance to keep balance on the crumpling ship, but was helpless to stop the countless stallions tumbling over and knocking her down.

She felt her hoof slip first, then her body. The deck had given way and she was plummeting into the icy northern sea. Her first instinct was to rejoin the fight, but sheathed her sword before her impulses got her killed. She swam deeper under the ship to avoid the falling debris. Toppling masts and splintering wood fell above her, but she was safe.

Her saddlebag was still in her room, with the potions she needed to breath underwater. She hoped for a moment she could find it, but her bag wasn't any different from the ones the other sailors used. Her hunter training did help to hold her breath longer, but even then she didn't have the time to look through the dozens of bags scattered in the water.

She swam to the surface once she was clear of the Sunken Sow. In the chaos, whoever ambushed them didn't notice the numerous sailors dropping in the water. They probably assumed whoever fell was dead, or would be soon. Gently, to avoid drawing attention, Fiora forced herself to swim further through the cold water and latch onto one of the ships the surrounded them.

She clung to its back, where hopefully no pony would care to look, and waited. She held, forced to listen to screaming stallions dying with blood in their throats but unable to help. There wasn't a battle to be one, just a slaughter that she had to wait out so she could be taken back to whoever was responsible. She didn't know if Navier was alive in the mess. The only thing she focused on was hanging onto the back of the ship.


=============================================================


Fiora was exhausted by the time she found herself on the coast. The ship was not an easy thing to cling to, and the water this far north chilled her to the bone. She dove off before the fleet met the docks, swimming to shore away from the small port. 

She splayed herself on the rocks, catching her breath. She considered ditching her armor the entire time, but now she was glad she didn't. Hanging with the chainmail and dragon scale wasn't easy, but she made it, and now she would need her armor if she came to blows with any pony. After a few minutes, sat up and cast her eyes onto the port.

Plain blue flags fluttered over the warehouses but some crates being moved around were marked with hte symbol of a mountain with the coming dawn behind it. It was the sigil of the High Mountain Kingdom. She kept to the protruding rocks that covered the beach, spying on the docks as she moved closer. She could see the soldiers unloading crates and barrels marked by Bovinus. She should have guessed that a shipment of weapons would interest an invading force.

She clamored up the coast to a higher point. Land deeper in was elevated above the beach. It was covered in sparse grass covered in snow, but she was just high enough over the port to avoid being spotted by wandering eyes. Higher, she could see the prisoners on the ship--the crew of the Sunken Sow as well as Sharp Tone. They were moving them along a road that led away from the port. 

A wide dirt path cut up through the land to a small village on a hill, overlooking the shores. Tall tree trunks formed a wall around the town, with archer towers encircling the village. It wasn't a strong or large fortification, but Fiora looked around and saw no signs of battle. Evidently, the villagers took the chance to surrender before High Mountain troops burned their homes. It was an easy victory for the kingdom, and meant they now had access to the sea.

Fiora pulled herself back and headed for the tree line further inland. She was a monster hunter, and would not hide in the shadows. Her whole life the only thing that fed her was being able to fight smart, so that's what she needed now. She'd wait for her armor to dry off. If she showed up drenched, they'd know she was on the Sunken Sow. But if she showed up as just another hunter, she'd at least get a chance to ask for a contract.

She was lucky the High Mountain troops could only occupy a small seaside village. The land was still dominated by the wilderness, and signs of monster activity were scattered across the forest. Wide claw marks on the trees and old blood stains deep in the dirt, they all whispered secrets into Fiora's senses. She had enough of Stranglethorn's schemes. Whatever was going on, it messed with her friend, and some pony was going to see the edge of her blade.
> Fire, Terror, and Strength
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fiora walked confidently toward the gate of the village. Her armor was still damp in some places, but on the outside no pony could tell she had been involved with the Sunken Sow. The guards at took one glance at her--wings, horns, and all--and let her pass into the village. They needed a monster hunter, that much was certain.

The main road of the village followed its wall, circling the houses with a single road running to the center where a small stone fortress stood, surrounded by an additional wooden compound. Most houses were short and built from sod, stone, and branches. The only thing keeping each thing warm enough to brace the snowfall were the fireplaces. Each denizen was hard at work; mares and children weaved carpets of plant fibers and clothes from cotton, and stallions chopped firewood, hammered nails, and hauled hay into the barns.

Leering eyes followed Fiora all the way to the inner keep of the village. She suspected they were wondering if she had anything to do with Sharp Tone, who was likely imprisoned by now. Outsiders thought monster hunters were all part of the same group, working with each other like soldiers in an army or doctors in a hospital. It was true of course in this case, but that still didn't change the fact that she only knew a few hunters by name.

"Hold!" shouted the guard at the entrance of the keep. Fiora noted that his armor was marked blue, like the flags flying over the warehouses by the docks. "Where'd you come from?"

"Had some trouble south. Been working my way north." A hunter fleeing Bach Kha'morhgen wouldn't be a hard story to sell, nor would it be entirely false. She did face some trouble from the commander, after all. 

The guard nodded and pointed to her saddle. "First you'll have to surrender your sword. You'll have it back once Admiral Windred finds you a contract."

"And if I find my choices unsuitable?" she asked.

"Then you'll have them when you leave," answered the guard.

Fiora knew his accent. His vowels was close to something of a northern accent, but his other letters were not, particularly his "d's" which sounded like "t's". He waved to one of the guards inside, gesturing to Fiora to be taken to the Admiral.

It was clear to Fiora they were taking measures to make their presence in the village unnoticed, and though the banners waving inside the keep were blue, the equipment was not of the grade expected from a village blacksmith. Dozens of apprentices inside polished plates of armor and sharpened ax heads. Further away she heard the twang of crank bows firing their bolts into hay targets.

Other signs of the occupying force became noticeable as she was guided to the Admiral's quarters in the center of the keep. Furs were piled up and being made into cloaks and lining chest plates. Northern garrisons knew the pattern of the seasons, and would have had winter armor prepared by this point. 

The guard escorting her held up a hoof. "Wait here while I tell the Admiral." 

He hurried into the stone building. Small and only slightly higher than the wooden walls of the keep, the Admiral's quarters included a large rectangular ground floor. Two floors were stacked above, on one side, making it look like a misshapen "L." 

The guard returned, and Fiora was slightly surprised by the Admiral's appearance. He wore chain armor that draped over his body, reinforced with leather squares on the tail guard, peytral, and crupper. His helmet was painted black and accented with gold while its crinet was leather covered in more chainmail. Looking around, the solid chest plates of his soldiers and their full plated peytrals--looking like steel curtains covering their chest and forelegs--were better equipment. Why was he armored in just leather and chainmail, then?

"My soldiers tell me you're from the South Coast?" he approached, extending his hoof.

"I am," she told him bluntly, accepting the hoof shake.

"Enjoying our lovely weather?" He laughed, but Fiora's purple eyes narrowed in judgement. He said our like he was a native, but he pronounced his "v's" as they did in the High Mountain Kingdom, like "f's". It confirmed her suspicions that they didn't want neighboring lands to catch wind of their occupation.

"You'd be surprised," she replied easily, "there aren't any swamps around here. Can't say the same for the South Coast."

The Admiral huffed, pleased with the response. "I'll admit, you've come at a busy time for us." He gestured around to the armorers hastily lining their armor with fur.

"I'm shocked, really," remarked Fiora, looking up at the snow falling. "Winter comes months early this far up north. Though you'd be prepared by now."

She listened for betraying signs of stress in his voice, but the Admiral spoke confidently. "It has been difficult hunting for pelts, and trade rarely comes from Tundra poachers. Their ports have been frozen for two months now."

"Monsters in the forest?" she asked. That was the only reason poachers ever turned away from rich pelts of fattened hibernating animals.

"One, specifically," he answered, unrolling a paper from a pouch that hung off the side of his chainmail, describing the contract and its problem. "We've yet to identify the monster. The survivors are still shaken by whatever they saw, but if you think you should question them, they are in the infirmary."

He pointed to his right to a longhouse built from sturdy pine wood. Nurses and doctors moved in an out swiftly, wiping clean saws and scalpels and removing those not in immediate danger. The Admiral turned to the guard that brought Fiora in and ordered her to accompany her to the infirmary if she asked. Then, he looked back at her.

"I know it's typical to haggle with a Monster Hunter, but I hope you understand the village has been short on hooves lately. War has choked us of many essential resources."

"Of course. I think I'd like to speak to the survivors of the monster's attacks."

She followed the guard but kept her eye out for anywhere big enough to hold prisoners. No matter what the Admiral said, she saw his ships at the port unloading an army's worth of foodstuff into the warehouses. Perhaps if some travelers or  an independent merchant wandered through the village they would not notice, but Fiora would not be fooled by the High Mountain's officers.

She marked most of the places with her mind. One hut cooked meat for hounds and boiled vegetables for the troops. Another held a forge with glowing unsharpened blades. There were the barracks and arrow stores, and tailoring workshops. But one building, behind the Admiral's quarters, saw no traffic. No ponies went in or out with supplies, yet two guards stood at its door tirelessly. 

Sharp Tone and Navier were in there, as well as the rest of the surviving crew. There was no chance she'd be able to stage a rescue for them in such a crowded keep. She'd need a distraction if she hoped to reach them.

The guard waited at the door of the infirmary while she checked on the survivors herself. She asked one of the nurses, but they saw her and just pointed to three stallions lying on beds in the far most corner of the room. She walked around the center table where bloody rags, whiskey, and knives were all laid out for the doctors.

She passed and approached the three. One was deeply asleep, recovering from a large bloody gash in his chest. The doctors had worked hard, but even though his bandages stopped the bleeding it was unlikely he'd live long. The the other two were shaken and in a better condition, but barely. One's arm was tied to makeshift stint, while the other had poultices over his entire left side to soothe his burns.

She couldn't help but ask. "What happened to you three?"

The burned one looked her in the eyes. "Red demons dancing eyes, in his eyes, red dancing always. The beast, the beast, prancing forest beast always."

"He saw it first hoof," interpreted the crippled soldier. "Whatever it was, it burned him before he could run away. I followed the sound of his voice, but it was fast. All I saw was a red eye before it crushed my damn foreleg."

"What were you doing in the woods?" Fiora continued to inquire. 

"We weren't the first victims of the beast," he answered. "A couple farmers, loggers, and children. We were sent to track it down, but we only knew it fled deep into the forest after each attack."

"Dances in red flames!" the burned one hissed, like a horrible secret not to be mentioned. "To run, to die, all same. All same. Care not want not the beast want want."

"Uh," Fiora looked to the other soldier for a clue.

He simply shrugged. "The gist of it is that the monster's one bad bastard. But you already guessed that."

"Where were you attacked?"

Again, to Fiora's frustration, he shrugged. "I'm not a hunter, and I don't know the woods well." He pointed to the burned pony and the one asleep. "They knew, but the monster did something to both their minds. My friend here has been out for two days, and the other..."

The burned pony jumped at his shadow flickering in the candlelight.

"I could calm his mind with a simple charm," Fiora offered. "He'd be docile for an hour or two, and hopefully answer more coherently."

The cripple's lips curled back into a snarl. "For the love of--he's had enough of your monsters and magics and curses, and you want to play witchcraft on him?" He barked at one of the nurses. "This mutant doesn't belong in the infirmary! If you ask me, she ought to go in the kennels."

Fiora tried to explain what the spell would do, but her sentences were cut off before they could start by two insistent nurses who tried to push her away. Fiora decided it was hopeless to get them to understand, and showed herself out of the infirmary and let the staff return to carrying for the other soldiers.

She though back to the houses outside the keep. Most were just peasants, but they still must have had some herbs for medicine. With any luck, she could purchase enough to brew some potions. With the gold from Bovinus, that was very likely at the bottom of the sea.

Now it was her turn to scowl. "I want my sword back," she told the guard, walking toward the keep's gate with him trailing behind. "I'll need to find where they were attacked. Could give clues on what I'm hunting."

"Absolutely," answered the soldier, either eager to be free of escorting a mutant, or to be free of whatever monster terrorized the village.


=============================================================


Fiora scanned for signs of her suspect. Fire, terror, and immense power were the tools of the monster. It could have been an athahck, but fire ruled out that possibility. Basilisks too, since none of their species lived this far north. A hadyhosh fit the description better, save for the aggressive nature.

However, the burned survivor made mention of a demon, which was remotely possible. Flame demons preferred warm weather, but it wasn't a requirement for living. She was stuck with a decision, whether to assume one or the other. A hadyhosh was a bull-like monster and behaved like an animal, albeit a very deadly one. It was more predictable than any kind of flame demon.

Demons did not make nests or dens, nor did some need to hunt. The pit of Tartarus was a nation of demons itself. Higher demons commanded armies of their lesser kin, and those that were sent to terrorize ponies could be well-provisioned with magical energy and dried meats.

They used tactics, adapting to the monster hunters they faced, while a hadyhosh did not. She checked the branches of the trees. A flame demon's body heat would have left charred marks on the branches it moved on, but there were no such marks. 

Droppings helped clear the possibilities. They were large, or used to be anyways, before being flattened by wide, heavy hooves. But near the scat were deep gashes into the tree trunks. They were scorched at the edges, and while the hadyhosh was capable of generating fire, it did not have claws.

"Deeper in, then," Fiora muttered. She was already in the thick of it, where poachers all turned back, but saw more of the same confusing evidence. It was possible a higher demon could have used magic to alter its droppings, to throw off pursuers. But it was unlikely it'd make monster dung to confuse regular ponies, even if they were High Mountain soldiers.

There was also sign of vegetation being eaten as she closed in on the center of the woods. After a mile, more bushes and mosses looked half-eaten. Like a bull or cow, a hadyhosh was an herbivore, and spent most of its days grazing.

Finally Fiora got her answer. It hit her like a gust of frozen wind. The stench of the beast, thick with sweat and musk, choked the air. Fiora pulled a wet root from the small pouch on the side of her armor and chewed on it. It was just a common root, ulderkstem the locals called it. Plenty grew on the forest floor, and its bitter taste clogged up Fiora's nose from the worse-smelling odor of the hadyhosh.

Though an herbivore, hadyhoshes were extremely defensive after generations of being hunted for their magical horns. Their bodies were of blackish-brown fur, with burning red eyes that radiated a latent spell of intimidation. That, combined with being triple the size of a typical stallion, meant it eliminated most of its enemies by charging over them while they stood paralyzed with fear.

As if that weren't enough, it emitted fire using magic, spewing it from its horns and all over its flame retardant coat. Going near a hadyhosh was just as risky as running away from its petrifying charge.

Her steps were measure with care. If unprovoked, she could find its den and land a critical first strike on its neck and have a better chance at killing it. She'd also have time to think about how she was going to rescue her friends come nightfall.

A raging cry from about a hundred meters away took away her optimism. The monster was fast, and covered a hundred meters in seconds, but Fiora's reaction speed was faster. She spread her wings and jumped, just reaching high enough to hang from a branch while the hadyhosh barreled below her. 

She dropped, slashing down at the hindquarters of the monster. Its hide wasn't any more protective than that of a typical bull's, but this one was old and may times her size. She charged a ball of energy in her horn and ejected it at the hadyhosh as it turned to face her, knocking it back before it could gain strong footing. Fiora's only chance to end the fight quickly was to panic it with unrelenting pressure from her own attacks.

She slashed at its head, forelegs, and neck, tearing apart muscle and sinew but hitting nothing vital. She was forced to retreat a few steps when the hadyhosh teetered back and erupted into flames. Its horns were fiery red from its magic, coating the flames all over its body. It leveled its horns and charged, tearing across the trees in its way. Fiora crouched, surrounding herself in a barrier of magic and tripping the beast as it shattered her shield.

She sent another spell to its head, blurring its vision with a confusion charm. It streamed to spouts of fire from its horns, but missed wildly. Fiora danced around its thrashing, throwing a cut at its tendons when she could. It kicked once she stepped too close to its rear, sending her meters across the forest until she hit a tree. Her dragon scale armor was strong but flexible, and did little to soften the impact.

But the hadyhosh was charging and she had no choice but to roll on the ground out of its way. Fiora clenched her teeth, feeling a broken rib moving around at her side, but the pain would be nothing if the hadyhosh landed its horns on her. It went for her again, but she blast three shock waves from her horn, throwing the monster off its path and into a tree. It's head went wild, shaking off the broken branches in search of its target.

Fiora crawled back slowly. She couldn't swing her sword right. Landing on the tree damaged her wing, so she resorted to levitating it. The monster turned, but before it could bear its horns at Fiora again, she lunched her sword forward through the air, penetrating its exposed neck.

The beast reared and howled with pain, shaking itself around to throw off the biting blade. Its night silver edges cut into the fire magic that covered its skin, denying the magic any hold and reducing the flames. Snow trickled into water where the beast trampled, ensuring no fires spread. But the hadyhosh showed no sign of slowing down. Instead, it made for the deepest parts of the forest, leaving a trail of slushy snow in its wake.

Fiora groaned and quickly sat down on a tree the monster had snapped. She felt inside herself, moving the broken rib around with magic until it felt like it was in the right place. Fighting had turned it the wrong way, and she needed to fix it before it punctured any organs.

Even with magic in her system speeding up her healing, it'd be days before her wings and rib showed signs of recovery. Her magic helped, but it couldn't work miracles like Geiss. Still, staying would mean certain death. The hadyhosh wasn't the only monster in the woods, that was for sure, and she needed her sword back. She had hoped her sword would sever a major blood vessel and kill it quickly, not let it run off to the center of the forest.

Fiora forced herself to walk, keeping her focus on her rib. She levitated some snow up to her side, alleviating some pain, but she also held the cracked bone in place when she needed to maneuver through the forest's uneven ground. Blood and wide hoof prints were easy to track. Even as snow fell over the monster's trail, the heat it left behind melted the snow, and would continue to do so for the hour.

She eventually came across a camp. The campfire was extinguished but still warm. It was small, and in the poor weather the smoke it would have made when it was burning would have been unnoticeable. There was food lying around as well, abandoned mid-meal by the looks of it. Butter spread over cold cornbread sat on plates made from woven tree bark, and carrot stored in baskets.

"Who could be living out here?" Fiora looked around for tracks. Snow was thrown around to cover hoof tracks, but she could still see the bends and cracks in the tree branches where they had climbed to disappear. She could still hear them, even as they tried to ambush her.

Should she threaten them? She could still use magic but she wasn't in any condition to fight, even it they were just ponies. No, she looked around, keeping the guise of a confused hunter. She had the element of surprise. 

Twang! And then her magic was flaring, forming a barrier in the air that burst the crank bow bolt into tiny pieces. More shots came from the trees, but though she couldn't see them through the leaves, her hearing was enhanced with her magic. She honed in on the sound and fired a series of energy bolts to meet them mid-air. Soldiers around her yelled out a battle cry.

"And so the plot thickens," she complained to herself. High Mountain troops were notorious for their discipline, and often attacked by sneaking on the enemy in the night. No pony has ever heard a High Mountain battle cry because there wasn't one. So, she wondered, who were these fighters?

She forced herself to turn and face the first stallion to reach her, blasting him back with a ball of force from her horn. He tumbled back, crashing into his comrades. Another leaped off a tree, but she shot him back with the same spell. Now the attackers began to soften their voices. The shriek of bloodthirsty warriors chilled ponies to the bone. Every soldier, even the most disciplined High Mountain commander, dreaded the sound of suicidal fighters.

But monster hunters were not soldiers. What sound could curdle blood more than a snarl from a High Fiend, or the taunt of an amull? Injured and missing a sword, Fiora treated their shouts like the blowing of a breeze, and the attackers considered their movements carefully.

Three marched forward with a spear aimed at her chest. She winced at her ribs, but stepped forward before they thrust. She levitated a dagger from one of them and stabbed him in the throat, slashing the shoulder of another. The third readied his spear again. The dagger met his eye.

The click of a reloading crank bow was followed by a bolt's whistling. A young stallion with a heavy ax ran at Fiora. She curved a blast of energy from her horn, directing the bolt on a new path into the stallion's chest. She side stepped, avoiding a sword swing behind her. Whoever he was, she had him turned into a smoldering corpse the next second.

"You idiots, stop fighting!" Fiora turned her head at the mare's voice that rang through the trees. She recognized it. But one fighter, young and fueled by adrenaline, kept his attack. His mace swung, striking a barrier of magic throwing him back.

"I said stop fighting!" shouted the voice one more time. Fiora was certain her voice was familiar, but only when the commander revealed himself did she realize who had spoken.

Their leader, or who she assumed was their leader, wore a coat of plate with a single bear pelt draped over it, making up his flanchard, peytral, and crupper. Though he didn't possess the same muscular bulk as his fighters, his muscles were sharply defined, the result of rigorous training. Following him was a medic, wearing an apron with herbs and powders and bandages. She had spoken.

"I can't believe this is where you found yourself," Fiora marveled. 

Silver Drop smiled. "Stole the words out of my mouth, Monster Hunter."

It had been nearly two months since they met at that crossing between Midshore and the South Coast. Silver Drop was an excellent herbalist and had the makings of an excellent surgeon. Fiora wondered what could have brought her here, far from any medical college.

"It seems this Monster Hunter is acquainted with one of our own," said the leader, interrupting their Fiora's exchange with Silver Drop. "Forgive me, hunter, if I was skeptical at first. It was your blade that injured our secret weapon, after all."

Fiora's brows nearly touched as she tried to comprehend what he had just said. Their weapon? The hadyhosh she fought was maddened attacking before provoked. How could they of all ponies control a monster like that?

"Didn't seem much like a weapon," she replied, keeping her gaze on Silver Drop. "Controlled chaos at most."

"Either way, it suits our purpose," he insisted, waving his fighters to pull back into the forest. "It seems we have a lot to discuss. I don't suppose the name Stranglethorn means anything to you?"

Fiora's purple glare widened. "How do you-"

"She mentioned a special hunter," he supplied. "One I 'could not miss,' to quote her words. Please follow, I'm sure you'd want some answers for a change. And I need your help." 

He waved to Silver Drop. "No doubt our weapon has left its mark. You'll want to tend to her injuries, I'm sure."

"That's understating it," Silver Drop muttered. She rushed to the camp and put her hoof around Fiora. "You shouldn't be moving with your wings like that. And your rib, is it broken?"

Fiora's grunting as they walked was an answer enough. She shook her head at her fool hardiness. "You'll be relieved once we reach our camp."


=============================================================


The camp was situated at the base of a mountain range, where the pressing of the mountains on each other opened a small cave system to hide the guerrilla fighters. Silver Drop pulled Fiora to the side of the cave entrance where a pot of water boiled over a fire with knives, tongs, and other medical tools were being cleaned.

The fighters that had attacked Fiora shuffled quietly into the hideout. Fiora followed them with her eyes. Deeper in the cave, she saw what the leader meant when he said the hadyhosh was their weapon. A massive steel cage surrounded by scorched bowls and plates lay in full view of the camp. 

"That could never work," Fiora commented while Silver Drop ground up a mixture of herbs with a mortar and pestle. "How do you calm it?"

Silver looked at the cage and chuckled. "Amazing right? Everseeds, they're called. It's actually why I came out here."

Fiora looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it wasn't easy finding a college that would take me," she explained as she mixed the herbs in a flask of alcohol. "I went further inland to Neighagra City, by the falls. Have you been?"

"Once," Fiora said, "to clear a wyvern nest."

"Well, there certainly aren't any wyverns there now," Silver continued, "But thanks to the falls there are a lot of medicinal plants there, and the city has some of the finest schools of medicine. But the none of the surgeons there would teach me, at least not without certain favors in exchange. Only one asked for something reasonable."

She reached into her apron and produced a bag of black seeds. "They're called everseeds because they never grow unless near powerful magic. They can be made into a magic-absorbing powder when crushed and is useful at keeping the monster docile. They're only found in these woods, and Doctor Viventi asked me to bring him samples of it to prove my dedication."

"How'd that turn out?" Fiora asked. 

She threw the bag of seeds on the ground. "Those soldiers garrisoned in Faersbaerc was how it turned out. I arrived a month ago, and they immediately ordered me to work for them as a nurse as soon as one of their soldiers heard me say I was trying to get into a medical college."

She turned to the leader. "Aeduard can give you the whole story. All I know is that he defected with the rest of his fighters, and took me along to treat the wounded."

"Not going back?" She didn't see any reason for her to stay in the north.

Silver Drop laughed. "I'm finally at the edge of the war. I know you know that those troops in Faersbaerc aren't locals. The High Mountain's here, somehow, and I'm doing my part to help."

They both turned. Aeduard had finished speaking to his fighters, and by the look on his face, Fiora guessed it wasn't a good talk. He sat by the fire, drawing a long sip from a flask of vodka. "Couldn't help but overhear. Miss Drop's helped us greatly. Some of my stallions are still alive because of her."

"Don't doubt it," Fiora told him. "But what are you trying to accomplish?"

He tilted his head and waved a hoof at all the things around him. "Is it not obvious? We're fighting for our land back. Our homes, our families, those mean something to us."

"You don't sound native." Fiora noted his accent back at the camp. His some consonants and vowels held some sense of a northern accent, but for the most part he sounded just like one of the soldiers garrisoned at the village. "Silver Drop said you defected, meaning you're from the High Mountain."

"Trained by them, hence the accent" he corrected her. "A year ago the lord of our land was at war with another further north. We didn't know for what reason, we just kept fighting and dying. Then officers from the High Mountain arrived and promised to train and provision our stallions if we promised to overthrow the lord. So we did. Look forward a few months later and we were all wearing High Mountain armor and trading with their merchants."

"Sounds lucrative," Fiora added.

Aeduard's brown eyes narrowed, but his pause was short. "We didn't know the merchants were secretly buying up our food. The officers they sent oversaw the trade and sold more than we would ever allow. When winter came last year, we only had enough grain for two thirds of the village. When we threatened to warn the rest of the far coast, that's when a division of their infantry marched in and took our land."

Fiora understood now what the High Mountain's war strategy was. Fighting on the river border between their kingdom and the Far Coast was a distraction. The High Mountain king wanted to annex the lords one by one, colonizing the Far Coast so it would fight for him. It happened with the lord near Bach Kha'mohrgen. But that revolt was spoken of throughout the Far Coast, according to Navier.

"Didn't know the lord of these parts was gone," Fiora said. "Strange that I didn't hear about it."

"You think I'm lying?" Aeduard remarked, though he didn't seem surprised. "I suppose down south you don't hear much. But there's a good reason you haven't heard from us: the lord's not gone. He's very much alive, and equally as much a puppet for the High Mountain king. In return for his life he poses as a lord while High Mountain generals make all the decisions."

"Decisions like over-taxing on food?" Fiora replied. "I see why you're so motivated now. But I still don't know what Stranglethorn has to do with all this."

He looked to somewhere inside the cave, then turned to Silver Drop. "Can she walk?"

"I'd prefer if she didn't, but she's been doing more than walking lately." Silver Drop swirled her tonic mixture around. "Anyways, it'll be a while before the herbs infuse with the vodka, so she has time."

Aeduard nodded and rose up, beckoning Fiora to follow. They paced slowly to a makeshift armory deeper in the cave, where a stallion was hard at work repairing some leather straps. His part of the cave was marked by boxes of furs, chestpieces, and steel plates. A fire lit the center of all the equipment, neighbored by two tanning racks for the furs.

"Where is the package from our supporter?" he asked him. The armorer broke his attention from his worktable and and walked across the armory, rummaging through his tools and supplied until he found a saddlebag. Tied to it was an envelope with a black wax seal of Bovinus.

"This arrived a week ago, with a letter from Stranglethorn," explained Aeduard. "She told us she found some pony who could get us what we needed to take back out village and spread the insurgency."

Fiora opened the saddlebag. Inside were satchels filled with ingredients for hunter potions and bombs, including organs harvested from monsters. There were two glass canisters filled with night silver dust, and small coin pouch of a hundred or so gold coins.

"So you were expecting me, but still attacked?" Fiora asked, looking over to the fighters she had injured, and the bodies of the ones she killed.

"My apologies, but not every fighter knows how we plan to free our village, nor how we plan to keep the Far Coast safe." Aeduard sighed. "The patrol was surprised to find our beast injured, and thought you were a High Mountain soldier. They didn't know."

Fiora gently reached for the bag and slung it on the back of her armor. 

"Please, allow me," said the armorer, moving for the straps of the bag and adjusting them so it firmly on her back.

"Easy, a broken rib needs space," she told him, and almost immediately he corrected the straps and the pressure washed away.

"So, why me? Hunters are skilled, sure, but I'm no insurgent." She shifted her wait, making sure the saddlebag was properly in place.

"We received the monster from Stranglethorn some six months ago." He pointed to the cage. "It came in that. I don't know how she got it to us, and frankly I do not care. We've been keeping it drowsy in the cave and provoking it with polished copper mirrors, but we can't direct it at the village walls."

Fiora's eyes widened. "The hadyhosh is going to be a siege weapon?

"A distraction." Aeduard beckoned Fiora over to the weapon racks, away from the armorer's workstation. Pikes and swords were piled up, but many had snapped shafts and chipped edges. It didn't matter how many they rallied to fight. They didn't have the equipment to mount a counter-offensive. Why Stranglethorn would spend so much to support an insurgent group was beyond Fiora's guesses, and she bet Aeduard knew the same. She'd have to ask the mare face to face for an answer to that curiosity.

But it didn't matter why she did it. The fact was Stranglethorn had tasked her niece with securing her cargo, a job she knew the young mare was too inexperienced to do. Thesa would never admit to being inept, but she turned to Fiora because she didn't have the experience to haggle with mercenaries. And it was all just to force Fiora into a conflict with the High Mountain.

"We need more equipment from the south," he said. "What we had was enough to flee the Admiral's troops, but no more."

"But Stranglethorn's been shipping weapons for months, hasn't she?" Fiora thought back to the message she found when she cleared out a warehouse in Bovinus. The Sunken Sow wasn't the only ship bearing weapons, and Fiora knew that a single ship couldn't smuggle enough to equip an army. "Where's the rest?"

"With the cargo of the Sunken Sow." He marched across to a candlelit table on the other side of the cave, where a ledger sat listing a number of shipments. Fiora spied what was written. The ledger counted how many fighters did not have proper weapons, how many bolts could be used a day to last a winter of fighting, and so on. But it all hinged on having the weapons that were shipped.

"Stranglethorn sent us the hadosh when the first shipment was raided by the Admiral's ships," Aeduard said while flipping through the list of everything that was lost. "Now we need it more than ever. Any longer and the High Mountain's general can just march their armies over us."

"Hadyhosh," Fiora corrected him.

"Whatever you call it, we need it to be our weapon," Aeduard replied. "Will you help us or not?"

Fiora touched her ribs. That, and her wings, wouldn't be a problem in a day once she brewed a healing potion with the supplies that were prepared for her. Quite honestly, she didn't care for the High Mountain, but she wasn't about to go to war with them over past grievances. Still, the hadyhosh could certainly demolish the walls surrounding both the village and its keep. Even with a battalion ready to fight, she doubted they could take down the beast. 

"Why not just release it near the village?" she asked.

Aeduard answered with his shoulder, pulling back his armor and revealing a scar where a crank bow bolt had penetrated. "Scouts and archers have spotted us when whenever we near. We struggle just to fight them. There's no chance we can provoke the monster before we're all killed."

Fiora raised a brow, feeling a plan in her mind hatching. "But I'm not one of you. And, they did pay me to bring it back." It could save the crew and Sharp Tone.
> Give Me Liberty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fiora and Silver Drop sipped tea while the rest of the fighters wrestled with the drugged hadyhosh. Last night it returned after rampaging through the forest, and only now the fighters were able to get it near its cage. It was an injured, wild monster, but apparently the cave had become its home. Though by no means tame, even monster couldn't refuse safety and food, especially after it had been attacked by a hunter.

Fiora sympathized with it. She had badly needed the supplies sent by employer, even if she didn't like being manipulated to fight for some pony. Contracts on monsters were simple; if a pony had a problem, they'd pay a hunter and the problem would be gone. Monster hunters exterminated Equestria's ultimate infestation, and never took murdered for coin.

Stranglethorn clearly understood that no hunter would willing be used as a weapon of war, nor would they take a contract on a pony, and thus had her niece hire her to "escort" the Sunken Sow. Fiora was reluctant to use what was given to her by that mare, but there was little choice. Her injuries had healed over night thanks to the potion ingredients and Silver Drop's herbs.

Now she was free to drink fragrant tea without worrying about bones healing crookedly. Her tea needed a strong scent to mask her from the hadyhosh's nose. If it recognized her, the entire camp would certainly be reduced to ruins.

"You plan on going back to Neighagra once we get the ships?" Fiora asked Silver as they watched it eat hay sprinkled with everseed powder. Her answer was cut by the hadyhosh's long, single-note moan as it rolled around in the alluring substance. 

Silver continued once the beast was relaxed in its cage. "We'll have to see. I might study when the war is over." She looked inside the cave, where fighters were exhausted on the ground from handling the massive creature. "The fighting here has shown me what I want to do. I want be there and help people when they need me. I could become a field surgeon after a few years of study and training, but the war's bound to be over by then."

Fiora finished her tea, its sweet aroma masking her own scent. "I wouldn't count on it. Doubt the High Mountain Kingdom can take over the whole Far Coast anytime soon, and if the coasts win, then they're sure to fight among each other."

"Maybe you're right," Silver Drop said. She rose from her seat and picked up a variety of vials, decoctions, and herbalist tools. "Everything I have is so familiar. It's easy to think I can stay as I am. I think that's what makes me feel like I have to learn more, because things shouldn't be easy."

"Won't try to influence your decision," Fiora said, standing up as well and stretching out her side. She had brewed some  infusions and decoctions from the ingredients provided, using vodka from Silver Drop's stash to concentrate the potion further. It wasn't a common practice for hunters, since the components extracted from monster organs were already potent, but injured wings and a broken rib were not easy things for the body to mend.

Aeduard climbed up the slope to the mouth of the cave to join Fiora. "You two ladies look ready."

"Ladies?" Silver Drop raised a brow. "Please, we're not some village fillies to dote on, Aed."

He chuckled. "Of course not. Just passing words while my fighters sharpen whatever weapons we have."

"What'll you do once I get the hadyhosh close enough?" Fiora asked, shifting the topic to the battle ahead. It wouldn't be much a fight with the beast working for them, but a plan was still necessary.

"Assuming it draws enough attention," he answered, "we'll raid the storehouses for all the supplies we can find. Weapons is the first priority, but we'll need food too."

"Meanwhile I'll be taking my friend and the crew of the Sunken Sow to the port to meet you," Fiora added. She had brought up the subject over dinner last night around the campfire, and Aeduard agreed that it wouldn't hinder the plan in any way. In fact, able-bodied sailors could help commandeer the ships faster.

"After that, then what?" Fiora would have to go back to Bovinus, but she still wondered what a small insurgent group planned to do against a secret occupation by the largest kingdom in Equestria.

"We'll sail up north and meet with other resistance groups from the neighboring villages," Aeduard supplied. "Me and the my lieutenants agreed that it'd be foolish to try and free the village immediately. We'll need time to equip each stallion and figure out how to stop their reinforcements from trampling us."

"Good plan. Like to make sure the terrain's clear when I hunt monsters, especially if they travel in numbers." Fiora was only half surprised they chose caution over pride. The fighters all discussed both sides to no end last night. The hadyhosh would give an opportunity to rush the keep and take the village, and a lot of the fighters were eager to go home, but Aeduard was right to make his decision.

"Speaking of good plans," Aeduard untied a long wrapped object from his saddlebag. "I had your sword cleaned and sharpened once we were able to get it back. I'm guessing you might need it."

"Oh she'll need it alright, and this," Silver Drop said, producing a half-filled waterskin, though it didn't feel like one.

Fiora felt it. The waterskin was slightly firm, its contents a pasty mixture of water and herbs. "What is it?"

"A paste made from ground everseeds and slow acting stimulant," Silver Drop answered. "The stimulant's in a more concentrated form me and my mother used when we needed to treat patients throughout the night. I prepared quite a bit of it before I came north, but haven't had the need to use much of it."

"Won't that just cancel the effects of the everseed?" Fiora could sense the ingredients. There was certainly a minute pull on her magic, even from inside the waterskin.

"The stimulant works slowly. It'll only show it's effects once the everseed's begins to wear off," reassured Silver Drop. "You should apply the paste on the monster's tongue before you leave the forest. It should burst into action once it's brought inside to be examined."

"Doubtless the Admiral would want to study what plagued his troops for months," Aeduard added. "Let him see it up close."

"In that case, he'd be thrilled to get the hadyhosh in prime condition." Fiora unfolded the cloth protecting her sword and returned it to its sheath, adjusting her belt with the weight. "Any reason to wait?"


=============================================================


The creature's weight was lighter when carried by magic, but considering its size and dense bones and muscles, dragging it through the village was not easy nor enjoyable. The guards outside village walls let her in without question. They knew the contract on the monster, and simple minded soldiers were easily in awe of such beasts.

It wasn't dead, but no pony bothered to question the prfoessional. Still, the dose of everseed kept the hadyhosh calm and docile. The drain of magic from the seeds kept the monster's skin cold, whereas it should have hot to the touch. Fiora was lucky the monster was rich in magic, or levitating it with Silver Drop's concoction would be impossible.

"Monster Hunter! Why have you brought the beast here?" The Admiral met her at the gates, most likely as an answer to the panicked reactions of his soldiers.

"It's no ordinary monster. Need to perform a ritual to drive it away from the village." A lie. The hadyhosh was formidable but no less mortal than a corpse eater or basilisk. But she needed it in the heart of the village to create the largest distraction, and that was where the keep stood.

"You're serious?" The Admiral exclaimed in his false accent.

Fiora nodded, avoiding the urge to twist her face at his speech. "Its magic is linked to this land, and it must be purged or it cannot die."

The Admiral looked around at his troops. Many were friends of those who were attacked, Fiora could see it on their faces. Twisted snarls of anger and fear and relief swirled around their heads. If Fiora said she had a way to kill it, the soldiers would jump to have it be done, regardless of the petrified Admiral's reservations.

"If any damage comes to the keep, we will discuss it over your payment, Monster Hunter." He collected himself, shielding himself with his dignity, and beckoned to a whole troupe of soldiers to help Fiora haul the monster inside.

It was a perfect arrival. The Admiral's presence with Fiora drew looks, and once they set their eyes on the hadyhosh, soldiers came to watch. Archers, smiths, trainees, even some doctors and nurses, they all cheered for Fiora's success.

The draw on her magic that she sensed from the hadyhosh was gone. The seeds had worn off, which mean the stimulant would kick in. Already, she could hear its heart beat getting stronger, faster.

The soldiers drew their weapons the moment they saw its chest expand and heave with air, but they were too slow to react. Fiora leaped out of the way, propelling herself farther with a blast of magic. The glint of blades and armor stirred the monster awake, and fire erupted around it.

"The hunter fooled us!" shouted the Admiral, dropping his false accent entirely and barking orders at his troops. He turned to flee, but the hadyhosh kicked him and flung him into a barrel of provisions.

The other troops found little luck. Fire spouted from the beast's horns, enraged by whatever drug Silver Drop put in it and the sounds of the terrified stallions. It rooted its hooves and charged forward, a streak of fire across the camp, tearing and burning all sections of the keep's wall.

As storehouses burned and the forges were burned, Fiora galloped for the prison behind the Admiral's quarters. She was met by two guards at the gate, but quickly stabbed her sword through gaps in their armor before they could even draw their weapons.

The key on one of the guards opened the gate. Unlike the structured keep outside, the prison looked haphazard. The guard room was above, with a table and a couple chairs, presiding over a trap door. The prison was below, carved out of rough bedrock, and barely lit by smoldering torches.

"What's going on out there?" whispered a voice.

"Don't know. Whatever it is, it's loud." Fiora recognized  Navier's voice.

Another replied, and she knew it was Sharp Tone. "Sounds like a monster. Dragon, maybe, some do fly this far north."

"Hadyhosh," she called out to them, following the carved tunnel until she reached their cell. "And it can only buy us so much time." 

Their cell was a simple metal door that locked a cramped cavern area for mining. In the dark, it was impossible for them to tell what they were mining, but Fiora could pick out chunks of iron ore at their feet. The more they mined, the more space they had to move around. That was how the Admiral would have forced them to work if they were never rescued.

"Holy shit." Sharp Tone stood up. "When they didn't lock you up, I thought you drowned."

Fiora grabbed the cage door with her magic, forcing it against the brittle stone until it started to shake. The others joined it, hammering at the stone until a gap opened up, enough to slide out the entire door.

Navier clasped his hooves around Fiora's. "Glad to see you're safe."

"Won't be if we stay long," she added, pointing upward. "Hadyhosh won't stay in the village. Soon at it finds its way out, so do we."

"And we'll just going to run from a battalion of soldiers?" Sharp Tone asked.

"Met up with some locals, the ones these High Mountain troops pushed out," Fiora told them. "They're taking the ships at the harbor. More than enough for us to grab one and sail back south."

"It'll take time to load supplies and ready the ships." Navier looked out to the orange light pouring into the prison from above. "But it looks like we'll have the time."


=============================================================


Fiora pushed back a couple soldiers in chainmail into the path of the raging hadyhosh. Sharp Tone followed her, picking up the weapons and passing it to the rest of the crew. 

Fire spread to nearly every part of the keep, and was pushing to the houses of the surrounding villagers. Nothing could stand before its weight, and so the hadyhosh tore down every structure. Traps were laid; it demolished houses filled with wooden spikes and oil barrels. But fire could not harm it and the spikes were barely splinters. The traps only worsened the village's condition. 

They met little resistance as expected. Most of the soldiers were focused on finding any rope or chains to restrain the monster, while archers had spent their crankbow bolts firing at it. They would kill it, eventually, but that moment wasn't coming anytime soon. Nevertheless, escaping didn't look easy.

Soldiers ran from the walls to the buildings carrying buckets of water, while lines formed at the wells as families and communities tried to save their homes. Some danced in front of the monster, taunting it away from the mares and their children, drawing it into circles of soldiers armed with spears. Their efforts slowed the relentless assault, but every pony that engaged it was either trampled or burned.

The smell distracted Fiora the most. She couldn't risk bringing her senses in and getting caught off guard, but letting her magic extend her scent wasn't much better. Burning flesh and manure filled the air around the village, slow to escape thanks to the encircling walls. 

As she twisted some pony's hoof and threw him aside, she spotted the Admiral rallying his soldiers. The were not charging for the hadyhosh--a fight any commander could see was a lost cause--but were hunting down the escaped prisoners instead.

"Forget fighting," Fiora warned, picking up her pace and clearing the road of scorched soldiers. "Just run."

Snow was useless in the face of the flaming beast's rampage. Despite the cold and the ice, fires had spread to the edges of the village. Even the guards at the door had left their post. Outside, they all could see the fighting at the harbor. With no reinforcements, the guards at the warehouse were losing, badly, but Aeduard's fighters weren't well equipped either.

"We need to help them take those ships as fast as possible," Navier commanded his crew once every stallion caught up and was outside the scorched wall. When he was sure no pony was left behind, they followed the path down to the harbor. Fiora and Sharp trailed behind, making sure no soldiers, or the hadyhosh itself, followed them. Sharp Tone was eager to join the fighting, while Fiora put herself to more use by firing spouts of fire onto the harbor.

Streaks of red flames snaked through the sky and struck guards. Armor didn't matter against magic. All of them were quick to remove their blazing plate armor and dive for the safety of the cold tides. Yet with the remaining soldiers galloping for her, the fight devolved to clashing steel.

Navier and his crew split to every ship Aeduard and his fighters had begun boarding. Fiora and Sharp Tone kept their weapons in motion, and no soldier could get past them with their speed. Fiora struck them through their armor, and before a soldier could clutch his neck and collapse she was already winding her weapon around another opponent's blade. Before the skirmish subsided three ships were loaded and prepared to sail. 

"How long do you think we have?" Sharp Tone asked, wiping his blade on a dead stallion's gambeson.

Fiora could see the smoke column rising from the village. Even if the Admiral's troops had managed to kill the hadyhosh, the fires were too big to stop.

"Not long," Aeduard interjected. "Our home is useless to them if they can't save it. I know how their officers are trained. They'll abandon the village and its ponies just to catch us and make sure we don't tell ponies about their actions here."

"If they don't all burn first," added Sharp Tone.

"Will you be alright?" Fiora asked Aeduard. He had accepted that fighting the High Mountain could have lasting damages on his village and its land, but absolute ruin was beyond both their expectations.

The sound of screaming was distant for every pony, save for Fiora and Sharp Tone. Their trained ears caught every pained, strained, and choked cry. Soldiers melted in their armor. It was a necessary evil. But mares and their young ones suffered worse, trapped in houses or trampled by the frightened. To distract a whole army, the innocent were condemned. Another necessary evil.

"They had this village under an iron hoof," Aeduard said, not bothering to hide his solemnity. "I don't know if any less force could have lifted it."

"Without a home, what will you fight for?" Sharp Tone asked. 

Aeduard turned to the ships, watching his stallions load weapons into the hold. Silver Drop was with them, making sure they brought enough herbs to treat the wounded. 

"Kith and kin," he answered, his tone lowering as he mouthed the last word and turned back to his village. "And liberation."

The sound of liberation, of unfurling sails and wide, sleepy tides, was cut by the cries. War cries, the sound of oppression. The High Mountain was known as a place of culture and refinement, but its soldiers knew war as well as any other. Theirs was a blood-curdling scream from the earth, shaking and wrenching safety from all quarters into the light. A cavalry charge.

Lances and spears mounted onto saddles glistened as the remaining soldiers trampled the world under their hooves. Fiora reacted first, throwing up barriers of magic that would break their point of impact.

"Get on the ships now!" Aeduard sprinted for the nearest one, grabbing his fighters and shoving them along.

"We need a couple more minutes on the sails!" shouted Navier from the last ship.

"Then we'll only be alive for a couple more minutes," snapped Sharp Tone, his wings nervously fluttering as he boarded the ship.

But there were too many to make it onto the ships. Aeduard's fighters and Navier's crew stumbled over their crates, making for the ships as fast as they could, but Fiora knew it was no use.

She levitated everything she could, piling up a wall of barrels and boxes behind magical barriers. Barriers that glistened with unnatural powers, but still would never hold against the fury of a charge. 

Then there was shouting from behind. "Shields and spears! Help the hunter slow them down!" Aeduard was tossing spears to any fighter near him. Dozens took up arms, running back to the front and standing their ground behind the wall Fiora had built. There was hardly any at the line, but it was a chance. A chance for a few to buy time so the rest of the fighters could board the ship. They ran from across the harbor, scurrying like rats to safety.

It was seconds away. No eyes met the charge, their helmets piercing black slits. What was fear to a soldier with blinders, who could only feel the rush of his fellows beside him? They were not a collection of troops, but a single will to win. Magic and metal and bone and crates shattered. Bodies raging against the spears pushed themselves.

How many clamored over? Fiora just killed them. Like wave-splashed drops on the beach they were soaked up fast. Some burned. Others tumbled back. Bolts magic littered the battlefield with the backdrop of red-stained grass. There was no knowing. One could never know their place in a charge. Not attacker, not defender.

Fiora didn't know how she found herself on the ground. She choked on and spat out grass, tasting blood on the green blades. There was another force. Turned around, she saw the crankbows at the edge of the ships. More fired. The earth erupted with fury. The line was broken, but she still had to reach the ship.

Fiora pushed and cleaved. Soldiers clawing at the ground reached up to Fiora, to any pony, just to find a savior. They were crushed underneath. 

A bolt exploded in front of her. Bodies tumbled her way and there was no where to move so she went under, falling for what was an eternity in seconds.

It had only been seconds. It seemed hellfire erupted from the harbor. Explosive bolts fired by Aeduard's fighters scattered the charge. Wood splintered up and dozens plummeted down into the water. Fiora clamored over countless bodies as the cavalry charge withered against the desperate defense of her comrades.

None of the other fighters were found. They had been swallowed up by the charge. Fiora moved over the panicked soldiers, their confidence broken by the overbearing explosions, and found herself on the deck of Aeduard's ship.

"Any pony else out there?" He shoved a crankbow to a young fighter's grasp to reload. Another was picked up immediately and fired.

Fiora turned to a strained, drawn-out cry. Her sword flashed and split the stallion's knee.

"I didn't see," she said. As the brave soldier fell off the edge of the ship she looked over to Navier's deck, spotting Sharp Tone lending his wings to helping the crew.

"Silver Drop?" She couldn't help but account for her own friends, even as Aeduard's own were fighting.

"Below, tending to wounded," he answered.

The rest of the ships were meters from the shore now. Soldiers fired their crankbows from the remains of the harbor and threw spears when they ran out of bolts. Fighters on deck were hit, but the High Mountain could not keep up. The exhausted troops couldn't catch the prepared insurgents.

"Draw them on us!" yelled Aeduard. He fired another bolt into a crowd of soldiers and ducked when they returned spears and arrows. 

He didn't strike Fiora as a "victory-or-death" type, despite his courage and determination. Drawing their attention was more than just a diversion to save his fighters. And as quickly as she noticed it, Aeduard let loose his plan. The supporting beams of the docks, holding walkways meters above the solid seafloor, rattled under the clamoring of a hundred armored soldiers. 

Some jumped and taunted at the insurgents, firing bolts and flinging their spears. Some pushed each other to flee the explosions. All together they shook the harbor and its once-sturdy docks.

"Take out the beams," he told his archers. Dozens of crankbows fired at once, and the pillars holding up the docks vanished in a violent smoke. Half of the army crumbled into the ocean.

Their deaths was followed by a volley of bolts from the remaining archers. Crankbows twanged and launched their projectiles, but there were too few to cover the whole deck. Yet they weren't aiming for the whole deck. Fiora sheathed her sword and started to move for the wounded when Aeduard collapsed. Two bolts stuck from his chest, leaking blood into his lungs.


=============================================================


"Bite down." Silver Drop stuffed Aeduard's mouth with a rolled cloth and set to work on removing the bolts.

Fiora assessed the damage quicker than she could, however. Mutant eyes, keener than a cat's, could pick out the stress on the muscles and infer the damage inside. The internal bleeding was heavy, and there was no way they could cauterize a wound that deep.

"Then we'll have to stop it," Silver Drop answered when Fiora voiced his condition. "The partner, Stranglethorn, she prepare you a hunter's saddlebag. There must be some potion that can heal his internal wounds."

She worked through his pain as he clenched his teeth and flinched with each bolt pulled. Fiora glowed her sword with magic and the blistering red point sizzled and cooks the skin. Aeduard's throat croaked a disgusting chord as the blade dug deeper.

"That'll slow things, but he's just as injured inside." Fiora quenched her sword in a bucket of water and sheathed it. 

Silver Drop was already measuring her herbs and preparing a pot of boiling water. "I can make a decoction that that thicken blood and help clotting, but it'll work to slow." She turned to Fiora, waiting for an answer.

"If I had anything that could help we wouldn't have needed all this," she pointed to the deformed flesh on Aeduard's chest. "It takes years to build tolerance to hunter potions. That's why we train so long before even being considered ready."

"Tolerance or not, they still work," Silver Drop replied. "Why even help if you think he's going to die?"

"Honor." Fiora gave Aeduard a light hoof shake for comfort. "You gave everything for this. Take time to say final farewells."

"Are you mad?" Silver didn't take her eyes off the medicine. "We can't just give up like that. I didn't come all this way to quit on a patient."

Aeduard pushed the cloth with his tongue and spat it out. "Silver, the hunter may--"

"The hunter may keep her opinions to herself if she refuses to help," Silver snapped, "and so can the idiot who got himself shot." She poured the blend of herbs into a flask of strong alcohol, letting the solvent take the essence of the roots and herbs. Pouring it into a clean wood bowl, Silver brought it over to Aeduard and commanded him to drink.

There were only a few fighters below deck watching. Most were wounded or watching over them. Fiora backed away from the table Aeduard had been resting on and leaned against the doorway of the cargo hold. The others rooms were taken.

She could brew a restorative potion with the ingredients in her saddlebag. In fact, there was enough to make a few different types. None could help him recover, not without ravaging his body as well. Shock alone could kill him, even if it healed his body. On the off chance he did survive, he could have permanent nerve damage, or muscle paralysis.

Silver was doing her best without alchemy, looking for anything she could use to perform a blood transfusion. More blood would give Aeduard's body more time to clot the wound, but by the time the herbs started working he would've drowned in blood. Any real chance required a potion.

Was it worth the risk? He was commander who led by example, who fired at the enemy and expected soldiers to follow.  What would he live for if he couldn't fight? Aeduard wasn't a general. Fiora couldn't see him sitting in a tent, planning and scheming while others did the fighting and dying.

But he was going to die anyway. A potion would give him a chance, even if it was just a chance to be forced into the role of a general. It was still a chance to serve his cause.

"Get him some rum or whiskey," Fiora blurted out, interrupting Silver Drop's desperate attempts to turn a diving pump into something to transfer blood.

Silver whipped her head to Fiora. "Alcohol's a blood thinner, Fiora. It'll make things worse."

"Alone it will," Fiora unloaded her saddlebag and unfurled a tool belt across some crates. There were measuring spoons, pincers, glass vials, and all the ingredients for a variety of potions. "But it'll help with the pain while the potion heals him."

Fiora measured the ingredients carefully, reducing the concentration of the potion but keeping everything proportional. With strong alcohol from Silver Drop's medicine pouch, it took little time to create the infusion. As soon as Fiora was certain the potion was ready, Silver Drop grasped it in her hooves and showed it to Aeduard. Other fighters watched carefully. They may not have known much about medicine, but they were all fighters and had been on the receiving end of a doctor's touch. 

"I'm pretty sure this'll taste like the worst thing in the world, but it can heal you," Silver Drop told him. She was about to put the flask to his mouth when his hoof stopped her.

"Fiora's warning still stand." His voice was quiet, nevertheless he still spoke with a leader's conviction. "I'm not afraid of dying. But I don't want this to fail and have it be on your conscience."

"Well it won't," Silver insisted. "Just drink."

He took the flask from her. "Whatever happens from now on, go back to where you came. No army needs a doctor who never went to a medical school, and it's only a matter of time before your talent isn't enough." 

He looked down the neck of the flask, raising it slowly to his mouth. His eyelids slammed shut as his whole face grimaced at the taste, but he drank it all until the flask ran dry. He showed the empty glass to Silver. "Neither a choice nor a life can be taken back. Go to school and learn what choices are the right ones."

Silver Drop nodded. "Fine. But right now I'm still your doctor, and I say you need to rest. No point proving your masculinity anymore, you've been injured just like the rest of your stallions."

There were chuckles all around from the bystanders. Even Aeduard managed a smile and whispered back to Silver. "Battle scars are badges for stallions. I might live to show off the best ones." He closed his eyes and smiled while he rested, taking the last word with him.

Silver Drop and Fiora packed up their equipment and went to the upper deck to catch a breath of air. The smoldering corpse of a harbor burned away as they sailed. Even if the Admiral wanted to send his remaining ships after them, no pony could get to them.

The other ships were ahead, signaling each other with flags, communicating where to go to regroup and switch over ponies who were on the wrong ship. Some of Aeduard's fighters were on Navier's ship, and Fiora spotted at least one of Navier's sailors on the ship she was on now.

"You can't let your feelings get in the way of judgement," Fiora told Silver Drop after a calm moment of the ocean breeze.

"What's that?" Silver turned her head.

"Best case scenario, Aeduard recovers completely with no side effects," Fiora explained. "But that won't change the fact that you acted on the impulse of your emotions."

Silver tilted her head and gaped at Fiora. "I'm sorry if I challenged your professional opinion about potions, but I have a duty to any pony who needs help."

"And that includes weighing the costs." Fiora stood her ground.

Silver Drop gawked at Fiora, unable to believe what she was hearing. "He was going to die. Where's the harm in giving him a chance to live?"

"And what about when it's not such a simple decision?" Fiora tilted her head, showing a mostly healed scar left by one of her early contracts. "This, on a pony, could kill them if treated wrongly. The world isn't filled with clear decisions, and our emotions muddle it further."

Silver Drop scoffed at Fiora, refusing to take it. "Like you know so much about feelings. Maybe I didn't want him to die, but what doctor does? If I didn't give my best here, how could I go back to Neighagra and become a doctor knowing I didn't fulfill my duty?"

Fiora felt Silver Drop seething, much angrier than the gentle herbalist she seemed to be on the outside. "And if you want to talk about being rash, maybe take a look in the mirror the next time you assume. There's nothing between us."

Fiora found that a little hard to believe. "You're miles from any semblance of home, and he's the pony you choose to focus on. What am I supposed to think of that?"

"I prefer my side of the field. I just admire Aeduard because, unlike Monster Hunters, I have the freedom to take sides. The Far Coast is my home, and he's fighting for a piece of it." She stormed off the deck and went back to the bunks where the other fighters were recovering.

Fiora took herself to the front of the ship. Silver Drop had a youthful fire to her, that much was certain. And she was right in this case--Aeduard was a dead pony anyway. But Fiora still worried. Young doctors too eager to please were bad enough. They followed their mentors to the letter and found it hard to be independent. But those too eager to prove? They always tried to reach independence too quickly.

Fiora looked over to Navier's ship and saw Sharp Tone waving at her. She spread her wings and waved back. Sharp Tone yelled something, but the ocean wind carried the sound away, and Fiora could only laugh while Sharp Tone kept shouting harder and harder.

From below deck, another voice shouted in pain. It was a clear sign that the potion had begun to work.


=============================================================


"What in Equestria is happening to him?" One of his lieutenants barked at Silver Drop to hurry back, all the while restraining Aeduard's shaking body.

"The potion uses the magic from specter essence to heal," Fiora explained, pushing aside the lieutenant and casting some simple mental magic on Aeduard to quell the pain. "But the essence only works on ponies after it's been exposed to a specific enzyme that binds the magic to the body."

"So why is he in pain if it's healing?" worried the lieutenant.

"The enzyme is toxic to ponies," she replied.

The pony stormed at Fiora, his enraged breath nearly at her face. "You poisoned our leader?" 

She waved his concern away and focused on maintaining mental spell on Aeduard. "I warned you all this would happen."

"Warned us what would happen?" Silver Drop entered, wiping her hooves clean with a dish towel and tossing away a bloody bolt head. "What's happening to Aeduard?"

"His body wasn't trained to take in the infusion effectively," Fiora lectured Silver. "It's fighting inside him, killing and healing him at the same time."

"How do we stop it?" Silver asked.

"Drug him," she answered. "Anything to reduce the pain."

"Will everseed work?" Silver offered, but the look on Fiora's face gave her an answer.

"Everseed makes creatures drowsy by sapping the latent magic from their bodies. It'll only take away the potion's magic, killing Aeduard in the process." Fiora loosened her magic, straddling the line between hallucination and relaxation spells, so that it was just enough to take Aeduard's mind off the enzymes devouring his insides.

Keeping a gentle stream of magic on Aeduard, Fiora reached into Silver Drop's saddlebag and produced her satchel of herbs. "You must have collected some Pixie's bark rose from the woods."

Fiora rummaged through the satchel until she produced a small bundle of flowers. The parasitic flower, which burrowed into the sides of trees, were common in the denser forests of Equestria and made effective narcotics. Fiora took the flower petals and ground them into four little piles, placing two at each side of Aeduard's head. With a spark of magic, and a little bit of alcohol drizzled in, the petals started to slowly burn.

"What did that do?" Aeduard's lieutenant wiped the sweat from his commander's brow, feeling the heat on his skin.

"Bark rose has strong effects on the mind," Silver Drop jumped in before Fiora could reply. "It's used by sages and druids to enter a relaxed, almost trance-like state."

"Change the flowers when the smoke starts to thin out," Fiora added. "Other than that, enjoy the ride and wait to see how his body handles the infusion."

Fiora heard sailors on the main deck calling out to each other, signalling toward a cove where they could trade their passengers. Fiora needed to get back to Bovinus, return and see how Geiss was dealing with her magic. Hopefully Island Hopper managed to get her a new, more comfortable, necklace. 

She stepped into the sea air once more, now in hearing range of Sharp Tone, who was cracking jokes with Navier and a couple other sailors. The other stolen ships had already dropped anchor and were lowering rowboats to transport ponies to their right ship.

"Master Monster Hunter!" called out one of Navier's sailors, getting ready to untie their own rowboat. "Mind lending a hoof? A spear cracked one of the wheels on the pulley, but your magic could fix it in no time. Already got the new pieces." He pointed to a circular piece of metal at his hooves.

Fiora obliged and lifted the metal piece, switching it out for the pieces of metal that once operated the pulley. It was thick and heavy, but definitely too brittle to take more than a few hits. After the clash at the harbor, no pony should have been surprised that it broke.

"Ready to head home?" As soon as she said it she caught herself. Where was home? The Golden Hills certainly wasn't it. Geiss and Argent came close, but Fiora had never thought of Bach Kha'morhgen as a home before, and Argent Ploja was almost always there. Wherever it was, it certainly didn't include Stranglethorn or Thesa.

The sailor chuckled. "Been to every port in Midshore and the South Coast. It all starts to feel like home."

"Make sense," Fiora shrugged, agreeing only that it was a valid view. For her, there had to be an anchor. Every place she went to couldn't be a home. Something, Fiora realized, was drawing her to Bovinus. She helped the sailors lower the boat and watched as Navier's ship did the same. A little hop between ships and she was on her way back, though to what, Fiora couldn't be sure.
> The First Art
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The northern port of Bovinus was unlike how she left it. Fiora leaned off the edge of the ship as it docked, watching cows and bulls, and even a goat, salt the walkway planks so the winter cold didn't turn any rain into ice and frost. She listened as Navier bickered with the dock master over his right to enter the port. They had sent a message by bird ahead of time, but clearly the he was hoping for some extra verification of the golden variety.

On the outside, Navier looked like he hadn't been crammed into an underground prison. She thought on the trip back from the north, however, and remembered how he had devoured bowls of oats. She rubbed her neck. He also had an appetite for other things.

Once the dock master gave up on Navier, the rest of the crew began unloading the ship, with some help from the harbor's workers. Fiora shrugged off two bulls trying to help her carry her sword and saddlebag. They were paid by the hour, not by amount lifted, so they gladly passed her and tended to the other crates.

Aeduard's lieutenants took most of the weapons and explosives with them after every pony had returned to their ship, but there was still plenty they couldn't stuff onto their own. Navier, and thus his employer Stranglethorn, was left to deal with storing no less than a dozen crates carry polished steel blades and jars filled with potassium nitrate. The thought of Stranglethorn having so much at her disposal was disturbing, to say the least. But equally shocking was who had chosen to welcome her back to Bovinus.

Thesa Ruse, accompanied by four heavily armed guards and two cows as servants, beamed as she approached and tossed Fiora a heavy satchel of gold. "I came as fast as I could when my messenger told me Navier had docked with a ship he didn't leave with. I hope the shipment made it through."

Fiora levitated the satchel and stowed it in her saddlebag, but gold was the farthest thing from her mind. She wanted to grab the pompous brat by her fancy dress, but the guards would undoubtedly make it a struggle. "I'm not in a good mood, Thesa, so I'll give you one chance to tell me exactly what you and your aunt had planned when you put me in a ship to a war zone."

Thesa chuckled, somewhat confused. "I'd hardly call some northern barbarians enemy soldiers. And my aunt's away in South Coast. She had business deals she had to uphold."

Fiora reached her wing into her saddlebag and rummaged out the letter that came with Stranglethorn's gift. She showed it to Thesa, letting it explain everything just as it explained it to Aeduard.

"I don't understand, why would she expect you to need 'emergency equipment?'" Thesa remarked, flipping the letter over to see if there was anything else. "This is her writing, but this doesn't sound like a business partner."

"Not unless you count the business of war," Fiora stared at Thesa's scanning, intrigued eyes. "She never told you, did she?"

"My aunt didn't get to where she is by trusting ponies," was her answer. Thesa didn't sound surprised in the least that she was kept uninformed about the what was happening in the north.

"Where is she now? I have some questions for-" Fiora turned to a sound she could never forget, the voice of Loralae, the Nixe she had met at the Golden Hills. Her magic cast her words across the harbor so that only Fiora could hear her words.

"Stranglethorn sent a hunter while you were away," she whispered. "He took Island Hopper."

Thesa sensed something was off, but couldn't tell what. "Is everything alright? I'm afraid my aunt's away on business in the south. She'll be away for at least two fortnights."

That bitch. Sending her to help insurgents in the north wasn't her only plan. It left Island Hopper exposed. He helped Geiss and her friends after Bach Kha'morghen was taken. The least she could do was save his life.

"I'll talk to her later I guess." Fiora let her training become a mask, covering up any sign of trouble. It wasn't hard, considering hunters were expected to be monotone freaks anyway. 

She bade farewell and trotted immediately for where she heard Loralae. It was pointless asking Thesa. Her response to what happened north proved that she either supported her aunt's plans to the fullest, or was kept in the dark to keep those plans secret. She'd have to get answers herself.

"It's not safe in the streets," Loralae whispered in her ear again. "I'm on one of Island Hopper's ships, the black one with a bright orange stripe. Come to the captain's cabin."

The frigate wasn't anything spectacular, but Fiora guessed that was the whole point. Everything about the ship, even the captain's cabin, was crafted sturdily, but lacked any extravagance. Lora was stood over the table at the center of the room with a map of Bovinus over it.

"Glad you came," she spoke with a normal voice.

"I owe you and him this much," Fiora replied. "I take it you're still looking for the hunter who took him?"

She nodded. "We thought we had killed him before, but I'm sure it's the same one that was after me before you came to the city."

"You said you killed him," Fiora remembered. "What makes you so sure now?"

"I saw him fighting Island Hopper in the street behind the Golden Hills," she said. "He had golden dragon emblems on his pauldrons. The same as before."

"Could be the same, or just another hunter from the Dragon Arts." Fiora leaned over the table to take a look for herself. "Either way, we should find them soon, Island Hopper doesn't have much time."

"Do you have an idea of where he may have taken him?"

There were three possible places in the city, according to the map. Lora didn't know them, but thinking like a hunter, they were the only spots Fiora could imagine killing a higher vampire like Island Hopper. There were plenty of storehouses large enough to do the job, but only three had no owners with reservations against bringing a vampire onto their property.

One of them was in the middle of the city, and too close to ponies to work. If he was willing, Island Hopper could manipulate the mind of a bull or cow nearby to charge through and make an opening for him to escape. If she were killing him, she'd do it in one of the storehouses near the edge of the city.

"These two buildings are the only places I can imagine killing Island Hopper," Fiora said, simultaneously realizing how strange it sounded aloud. But the information was too important for the diction to bother Lora.

"Argent took Geiss out of town to see about a contract in the countryside, so we'll have to search them ourselves." Lora grabbed the harpoon from the display cabinet at the back of the cabin. "You take the one by the masonry district, I'll go to-"

"Better let me do both," Fiora interjected, pulling the harpoon back to its cabinet. "We're not near any bodies of water, and I don't mean to offend, but the Dragon Arts have boiled killing your kind down to a science. There's a lot they know that they still keep secret from other schools of hunters." 

"I won't do nothing while he's captured," Lora said firmly, pulling herself away from Fiora. 

"And he wouldn't want you running into a hunter's trap." She drew her sword, exposing the night silver impurities in the steel. Magic could not abide the touch of night silver, and Nixes had more magic than most creatures. Loralae flinched immediately from the sight of the blade.

Fiora sheathed her blade. "I'll check both places out, don't worry. Even for a Monster Hunter, killing a higher vampire is still in the realm of miracles."


 ============================================================= 


The most likely spot was the storehouse in the poor sections of the city. Bulls, bison, and unfortunate ponies with nothing to their name, they would not raise any problem for a hunter.

Fiora wondered why a public execution wasn't in order. It'd make finding this hunter much easier. It wasn't as if the city had some fondness for monsters. Owner of some successful inns or not, they still would have called for his head. The merchant elite would have liked it the most. If Island Hopper died, that left his inns open to purchase. Then again, no pony but Stranglethorn would control it in the end. That was her plan, most likely.

Fiora drew her senses in until it was they functioned almost naturally. The roads to the storehouse grew narrower, while the inhabitants were crammed closer and closer together. She stepped to the side of the street as she passed a bull with his head hung low. She didn't need to look at the cart he was pulling to know he was a waste collector, gathering trash and waste pots. His stomach looked too thin to be healthy.

She moved on quickly to escape the scent. The storehouse was close now, somewhere on the street she turned onto if she remembered correctly. Though it was supposed to be abandoned, not guarded at the gate by two thugs.

"You there," said the one with a scar across his nose. "What're you doing, comin' over here?"

"Me? Nothing," she answered. "Just window shopping."

"Ha ha," the other mocked a laugh. "Where'd you come up with that?" He was a bovine, like over half of the city's working population, and though he wasn't the picture of health, he certainly wasn't as scrawny as the other underpaid laborers in Bovinus.

"Same place where your mother thought of you," Fiora insulted. If there was any place Island Hopper would be kept, it'd be here. Stranglethorn's husband was a big name in the criminal elites, from what she had heard. These thugs weren't in any uniform to distinguish them, but they owned sharpened steel, something no ordinary worker could afford.

The scarred thug laughed at his companion's expense. The bull grunted under his teeth. "You should just turn back and trot away. A pony like you doesn't belong here."

Fiora raised a brow at that comment, fluffing out her wings a little. "Can't you tell? I'm no pony, I'm a freak. And right now I'm guessing you have some freaks of your own inside that storeroom."

The both of them looked at each other and rhe scarred thug pointed his hoof at her. "You stupid or deaf? You're not getting in."

Fiora sighed and lit her horn. "Fine, but you look like you could use a drink."

A simple stream of magic jammed her suggestions into the scarred thug's mind before he knew that his thoughts weren't his own.

"Damn, you're right, I'm thirsty." He looked the other way. "I think there's a bar 'round here."

"Wha-" the bull reached for his coworker, but his confusion gave Fiora another chance to implant more magic.

"Leave, and tell any pony you talk to not to come here," she commanded him, and he obliged. He shook his head and saw the scarred thug trotting off. 

"Hold on, I think I want to come too," he called out, catching up.

"Same old story," she shook her head as she tested the door to the storehouse. It was unlocked, but only led to a small room where workers and visitors could leave their personal effects before going into the main section. Chairs and lockers lined the walls of the cramped space, and on her right was another door.

Her hoof jerked when she tried the second door. Locked, of course, but it didn't matter. She could burn it down, or just blast it apart with a shockwave. But she didn't want to give everything away, if the hunter really was inside. She focused on the lock, feeling the weight of the pins until she controlled them all and unlocked the door.

The inside was something she never expected to see. The storehouse had been converted into some kind of indoor garden. A few cows walked between the planters, watering the soil and checking the fruit. On the far end, a stallion armed with a whistle around his neck was checking on the work of one of the cows.

Poppy weed, river maid, bark rose, Fiora smelled them all until it almost made her sick. It was a different kind of disgusting compared to potions, a kind that ponies savored to escape the mundane. She was almost certain whoever owned the place planned to make narcotics. But it didn't matter to Fiora.

"Damn, wrong one," she muttered, turning to leave.

"Hey!" the manager whistled as he marched across the garden. "Who the hell let you in?"

Fiora sighed,"I don't have time for this." As it stood, talking to the two outside had wasted precious moments to save Island Hopper.

Without anymore words she drew her weapon and slashed the stallion across the chest. He panicked, fumbling at his whistle while he searched for the dagger at his side. Fiora guessed he rarely, if ever, had to use it. A bolt of magic followed, throwing the stallion back into a row of potted plants. Fiora walked up to his battered body and finished him off with a point to the gut.

"Now I know where you are." The cows were shrieking but she was already out the door.


 ============================================================= 


There was a crowd filling the street before the storehouse. Ponies railed against a dozen of the city guard who blocked the entrance. If the hunter wanted to kill Island Hopper quickly, he'd need not just time but privacy too. Fiora kept far back, expanding her magic until her hearing could pick out the conversation between one of the guards and a salespony.

"-won't accept this!" the pony said.

"Stand back, the city orders that no pony can enter," the guard replied. 

"How much sacrilege are we going to suffer?" the salespony stomped around. "We tolerate the bovines already. What ever is happening in that building is black magic!" 

Fiora strode up as she heard those words. It was easy enough to build on the fears of citizens and provide a simpler solution to those in control.

"Couldn't help but overhear," she intervened. "Did you mention black magic?" She doubted there was a witch or a highly intelligent grave maker, but the work hunters did and the monsters they tracked down often seemed mystical to ponies.

"Wait, are you a Monster Hunter?" the guard asked.

Fiora nodded. "And looking for work. What's in the storehouse?"

The guard turned to some of the other guards and told them that a hunter had finally arrived. One seemed awfully relieved when he heard that they'd be done soon.

"I cannot give you details here," the guard leered at the salespony seething at him, "but the city guard can assure the payment. Three hundred gold pieces."

"Not particularly in a mood to haggle," Fiora said. "Fine."

The guard, who by now Fiora figured was some kind of captain, barked orders at three others who were not essential to keeping the crowd at bay. They motioned Fiora to follow and trotted around to the back entrance, a doorway that had been locked up with chains.

"Chains?" she noted. "If I'm going to hunt whatever this is, I'll need some details."

The three guards stood grimly and drew their swords. "Only thing you need to know is this: Stranglethorn sends her regards."

They moved on Fiora in formation, attacking so that she couldn't parry all three blades at once. If she were any regular fighter, their ambush would have worked. But as it stood, she had already turned the odds against them. She sent a shock wave of magic into the ground, where it dispersed and toppled back the three.

She immediately severed a leg of one of the guards. Fiora moved quickly on another, and in his panicked swings and retreat, he tripped and plowed his face into the ground. The third tried attacking from behind, but he had to raise his hoof high to aim the point of his sword into the back of her neck, and it made his three-legged gait even more noticeable. Fiora turned and caught the blade in her cross guard and flung the guard into the locked door of the storehouse.

She picked him up by the collar of his gambeson and pressed it against the chained door. "I'm done with your boss. I'm going to tell you what I want, and you're going to make sure I get it."

The guard responded only with a whimpering nod.

"Get your key and unchain this door," she told him, taking her weight off to let the stallion breathe.

He fumbled for his key and grabbed at the two locks holding the chains in place. As soon as the chains were loose Fiora pushed the guard aside and ripped off the chains with magic. 

Inside looked abandoned for sure. A small brazier, barely larger than a bucket, was the only source of light. Fiora produced a vial from her bag and downed its contents. She felt her eyes change, the irises expanding to let in more light, while her magic honed every detail until the darkness was no different than a day under the sun's zenith.

But there was no hunter, nor was there a captured Island Hopper. Just outside the brazier's circle of light was a pony tied to a chair, beaten bloody. A bowl below the chair gathered the blood trickling from the limp body. Fiora looked over the injuries.

A cracked jaw, fractures in the skull and ribs, deep cuts along the limbs, and twisted joints. Whoever did this was ruthless. She turned and dragged in the guard, holding him tight in a magic grip. 

"He was here," Fiora said, showing him the battered pony. "Where did the hunter take Island Hopper?"

"I don't know!" he struggled. "You don't know what he's like. It was like I was staring at a monster. I didn't dare ask anything."

Outside, the crowd continued to call for righteous justice. They grew louder as the wall of guards shrank back slightly. Fiora turned her eyes to the front door, and then back to the guard. 

"Let's make a deal," she said. "I'll tell the crowd that I wiped away the black magic, after you tell me where I can find the hunter and Island Hopper. Keep quiet, and I won't be your only problem. Those ponies are going to demand action."

The guard thought for a moment. His eyes looked over the pony, wondering how long the pony suffered.

"All I heard was something he mumbled to himself," he explained as he stared at the limbs that were turned the wrong way. "About leaving the body intact enough."

Fiora let the guard go and kneelt by the body, taking a closer look. She pulled a knife from her herb pouch and with the handle, prodded at the injuries. He had been recently killed, by the viscosity of the blood. She smelled the corpse. When creatures died, their muscles relaxed and both bowels and bladder lost their usefulness. But on this corpse. It smelled of blood and only blood.

Fiora freed the body from its sluggish position on the chair and looked further. The pony's flank was scalded in a struggle, irregular lines of raised flesh around the rear gave away what the hunter had done. Any path that waste could have taken was burned closed.

Something to hide? Fiora couldn't be sure, and as unpleasant as it seemed, she needed to look further. She cut into the abdomen, pulling open the upper flesh and muscle until she reached the moist, bloated innards sticking together.

The guard was repulsed, collapsing backward at the smell. But beneath the scents was something unusual. Fiora forgot the blood, bile, and shit-filled intestines. She produced another flask, similar to the previous one, and drank from it. A light burning sensation shot up her nose as the potion drew in all the smells.

She made an incision at the small intestine and caught the scent of arsenic in the mix. Torture alone was bizarre practice for a monster hunter, and it was even stranger now. The Dragon Arts rarely relied on poisons; hunters from the Murder of Crows mastered the use of arsenic on the other hoof. Was she dealing with multiple hunters, or one who made a habit of borrowing from other teachings?

Either way, she got the message. Arsenic wasn't easy to come by. It was found in the ground and water, but in small amounts that needed to be processed to be used by any killer.

"Is there a place in Bovinus that makes arsenic?" she asked the guard, but he just returned a blank stare. She rephrased the question. "I need to know the biggest ore refinery in the city."

"Stranglethorn bought most the major smelteries in the city and transfered them," he told her. "Nearest place is a two hour hard gallop west from the city. Close to a coal deposit, I think."

Fiora hoisted the corpse and leaned it back on the chair. Without any acknowledgement to the guard, she walked out the back and returned to the main street. She instantly received gasps, and the familiar eyes of fear and relief. Blood covered her hooves and wings, and though the ponies assumed she had removed the problem, none were brave enough to even ask.

"Is it dead?" cried out a child before her father covered the filly's mouth. 

Fiora nodded. "It was a tough fight that needed to be kept off the streets, but you're safe now. Go back to your homes." As she told her tale, she noticed the looks of confusion and relief from the other guards. Some turned with concern back to the storehouse. They were bought off by Stranglethorn as well. It must have been surprising for them to see her not only alive, but helping.

"You weren't supposed to come back out," the lead guard said to her, but his stance said he was unsure of what to do.

She counted the rest of the guards, who were simply waiting for the crowd to leave before they drew swords. "The nine of you against me? How brave."

"We don't have a choice. No pony refuses Stranglethorn's orders." The leader rushed with his pointed forward, followed quickly by his comrades. 

Fiora simply took a low stance and tripped them over with a shockwave of magic. She drew on more magic and blasted them back again, and their bodies tumbled against the storeroom.

One guard, an older stallion, propped himself up spat a tooth on the ground. "You're a nutter!" he shouted at the leader. "I'm not fighting a fuckin' mutant Monster Hunter!" He turned and ran. The others saw their senior flee and took his wisdom to heart. They too fled the scene.

The lead guard stood, leaning himself against the storehouse wall. "There'll be hell to pay when Stranglethorn finds out you escaped."

"Good," Fiora said. "Never seem to have enough gold, but if she'll collecting hell, I can give it."

"Funny," the guard snarled. "But I wasn't talking about you. You're a Monster Hunter, not many who can trifle with you. Us on the other hand, we'll be running the rest of our lives."

"Well then," Fiora looked down at his hoof. He leaned against the wall because a joint had been sprained by the blast of her magic. "You better hope that heals up fast."

The ironworks was close, but she had wasted enough time already. This hunter wasn't just doing a job. The body, the guards, Fiora felt like she was being goaded into a trap. She'd have to keep her senses sharp, there just wasn't any other way. She wasn't going to let Island Hopper die, he was owed that much after helping Geiss.


 ============================================================= 


A coal mine ate into the mountainside behind the compound. Karam Ironworks, the sign outside the smelting compound read. Island Hopper talked about him all the time. The King of Thieves, a contradiction to itself. Who could be a king among backstabbers and cutthroats?

She felt the ground. Even this far away, she could feel the intricate flow of magic. Island Hopper's was in the mix, fluctuating from waves of strength to a suddenly meek aura. There was night silver for sure, but something else. Magic all garbled together. It was like looking at a tent made from animal hides; different shapes and colours cut up and woven together into a single structure.

"Lora, what the hell are you doing here?" Fiora galloped up behind her. "How did you find out that this was the place?"

"Mutant magic is very unique," she explained. "I tracked you once I felt you leave the city, and once you passed the limits of the farmland, it wasn't hard to guess where you were headed."

"You shouldn't have come," Fiora said grimly. "You're going to get hurt."

"I can sense Island Hopper in there, and something's not right with his magic." 

Fiora wasn't going to let Loralae add to the problem. "Island Hopper's a higher vampire, and his magic is ancient. The Dragon Arts developed the method all hunters use now to kill vampires like him. He's being tortured while enraged with blood; he's not in pain, but his magic will be drained quickly."

"You tell me this and still expect me to stand by?" Loralae cast her eyes on the ironworks. The spikes and drops in magic made sense now.

"I'm telling you so you realize that power had nothing to do with this," Fiora asserted. "The hunter we're dealing with is prepared to handle magic at the highest level, including yours. This needs to end the old fashioned way." Fiora patted her sword.

"If you can't save him soon," Lora warned, "I won't wait any longer. You have 'till the end of the hour."

Fiora nodded. There was no more time to spend passing words.

The whole compound had been emptied, likely so the hunter could work unmolested by curious laborers. Doubtless the hunter already considered every entrance Fiora could make. Save for, of course, an entrance from above. Though their wings were crippled in a specific way to disable flight, mutant monster hunters with wings were still able to glide, and found climbing to be much easier.

She recalled her days at Bach Tor'al, doing physical training with Master Guerrier. She remembered the crumbling rocks that opened holes in the walls, just large enough for a hoof to latch on. The look on Guerrier's face after she spread her wings and glided for the first time, reaching a beam of wood that would have been impossible for any pony.

What Stranglethorn had built in place of all the smaller smelters in Bovinus was nothing short of a spectacle. Instead of one or two brick houses with a furnace in each, bulk amounts of iron and coal were brought into the main building, where multiple furnaces blasted away, creating steel.

Fiora hoisted herself to the top of the central building. The top two floors were bunkhouses for the workers, while the furnaces and raw materials sat on the ground floor. She could see what surrounded the furnaces as well. Smaller houses and cabins, some big enough for a few tables, some with just a bed and a campfire outside. It was almost its own village, and all the property of Stranglethorn and the King of Thieves.

The clay tiled roof clinked quietly. Fiora watched her step, almost gliding across the top until she found the one window from the overseer's suite. Always reliable, architecture was. Ponies placed so much importance on where they slept, and it always linked to who they were. Any pony tasked with managing Karam Ironworks would've expected proper lodgings to accompany the title. 

She slipped through the window and landed deftly on the bed. The sun had just set behind the mountains now, and the only sunlight was a pinkish orange that painted the ceiling as the sun crept away. As soon as she stepped out of the room, the air became heavy, like she was wadding through knee-high water.

"What the-" she coughed, and the metallic smell gave it away. The air was filled with an incredibly fine night silver dust. She felt its force coming up from the floor where some had settled, trickling her magic out of her body. A screech echoed from the ground floor, overlapping the sound of rattling chains and sizzling magic.

It had to be Island Hopper. She passed the cluttered beds and made her way downstairs, quickly but carefully. It was hard to hear anything other than Island Hopper's voice, but her trained hearing picked up the faint humming of another pony, a deep voiced stallion.

"Sounds like company's finally arrived, vampire." Fiora paused. Had Loralae rushed in, or did he really hear her through Island Hopper's enraged thrashing?

"Don't bother waiting." There was a clank as something metal was dropped. "Love drives creatures mad. Hurry up so I can see you. I'd rather not spend time on a Nixe."

Fiora stepped out, wing firmly grasped around her sword. Though, for a moment, she questioned if it would even make a difference. The hunter was clad in plate and chain, as usual, but this suit of armor was nothing like its kin. It looked like a scroll of ancient texts, with runes, glyphs, and wards arranged in a perfect geometry with each other. He was a pony, through and through, but with the suit he must have carried more magic than any other hunter.

"Went through a lot of trouble to find you," Fiora said. Her voice was monotone, giving no tells for the other hunter to go on. Yet his voice was strangely optimistic for a hunter.

He brushed off blood from his armor. "Went through a lot of trouble to set this up."

One of the furnaces for turning iron into steel ingots was not like the others. It was filled in with concrete, and surrounded in a cage of night silver. Island Hopper was inside, his limbs sealed in the dried stone. But there was nothing of the pony Fiora knew.

His hind legs remained pony, but his upper torso had become leathery black, his forelegs had spread and expanded into massive wings that crumpled and folded. He could have been as big as a wyvern, but the cage held him in a bind.

"Hunt's going well," the hunter chuckled.

"Hunt's over." Fiora tried to draw on her magic, prepare a blast of magic to topple him first, but the night silver dust was even thicker on the bottom floor. 

"And if I continue?" He turned to her and raised a shaven brow. He looked as much a monster as Fiora did. His face was scarred on almost every inch of skin, and one eye had clearly suffered damage even potions couldn't repair.

"You won't." Fiora moved sideways, away from the stairs. She let herself get closer, even if by only a few steps, to Island Hopper. All it took was a few extra seconds.

The hunter laughed. "The Flower of Battle," he called Fiora. "Come, show me how you got that name."

Fiora instincts made her roll out of the way. A second later the bomb he thrown detonated, throwing a cloud of purple in the air. Fiora covered her nose immediately with a wing, not daring to even catch a whiff of it. She knew the recipe, a bomb of Houndpaw petals, whose poison slowed and stopped the heart.

"If we're going to dance, mind telling me your name first?" she asked, moving away from the poisonous powder. 

"Holpein," he thrust his hooves wide open, taunting. "Hunter of the Dragon Arts, affectionately coined-"

"The Red Reaver." Fiora turned her head to the cage at the end of the room. Island Hopper's guttural voice spat out the name with hatred. He hissed, saliva spraying over the bars of his cage as his mouth watered at the scent of blood. Bowls of it were set out in front of him, just out of reach.

"You were the one who killed those other workers," Fiora finally confirmed. How the message was sent, the beaten pony's blood pooling in a bowl, made her suspect. Now, this confirmed it.

"Stranglethorn wanted some motivation to speed you along," Holpein said, not even trying to deny his actions. "I figured the blood would be enough, but obviously this vampire's got a silver tongue."

"Spoken word has nothing to do with it. Stranglethorn pulls the strings, and I'm guessing you're the enforcer."

He shook his head. "I would never take a husband's role. The King of Thieves is very protective of his wife's ventures, you know. To start, he was the one that hired me. Understood that sometimes a professional is needed when the vermin grow too big."

"But you left a body, must've suspected I could track you down," Fiora said. "Why?"

"No better bait." With his answer, Holpein swung a hoof, and a chain erupted from the joint of the armor. 

Fiora rolled backward, but didn't expected the chain to be able to give chase. It reached her and she saw the glyphs activating. They were similar to the ones on hunter horseshoes, the kind that blasted magic as a force, however these were arranged in different angles and sizes. Their spell manipulated the chain, pushing it to wrap around Fiora's leg.

She slashed it with her blade, knocking the chain aside, and lunged forward with swift strikes of her own. They were aimed for the weak spots of the armor, but whoever made Holpein's armor was a master, and the gaps were barely accessible. Even with her precision, she couldn't draw blood.

He came around with his other hoof, slashing with a curved blade whose spine linked to the two ends of his horseshoe. The cleaver scratched the dragonscale armor, but little else.

Fiora turned her blade as she sidestepped and brought a cutting blow to the head. Holpein twisted, removing himself from the sword's path and bucking Fiora into a cart of iron ore. Fiora shook the ringing from her ears. Holpein swung his chain at her, its glyphs constricting the metal around her leg.

"Shit," she muttered, gripping her sword before flying across the building. 

Her back slammed into a table of ingot casts. She needed to risk using magic. As the chain came around for a second pass, Fiora pulled on all her magic, sending a gout of fire at Holpein. Night silver dispersed the magic halfway through the air. 

Fiora's eyes widened as the wards across Holpein's armor glowed, drawing on the magic and storing it in the runes. The night silver in the air should have rejected the magic, sending the energy out of the building.

Holpein noticed her stare and laughed. "Black platinum impurities. Useful for helping runes hold down magic."

"Listen," Fiora cautioned. "However you think this is going to end, you won't come out on top. Stranglethorn won't let you go free, not without manipulating you into her agenda. I know."

"Is that what you think this is, a thought-out plan to get rid of you?" He raised his bladed hoof and pointed at Island Hopper. "That's a contract paid for by every noble and merchant under Stranglethorn's hoof."

He aimed his point to Fiora. "But the only pony out to hunt you, is me."

"I don't know you," she replied, but as she studied his burning eyes it seemed that may not have been true. 

"One of many problems," Holpein grimaced. "Do you know how many of my school are left?"

He waited for an answer but Fiora was lost; the Dragon Arts worked west of the High Mountain, so it had been decades since she thought about them.

Holpein nodded, the silence was a good enough answer. "Five. No pony talks about us now, not when mutants traipse around Equestria with their reputation. A monster killing a monster."

He seemed so sickened that he spat on the floor. "Ponies always have a soft spot for poetic justice, and no one's better sung than you."

Fiora picked up on what he meant, but that was back when her family was still a family. "I left the High Mountain Kingdom. That reputation can't be same."

"Perhaps not, but it's still enough," he lamented. "I took this job because Island Hopper's bounty is enough to buy a holding in the High Mountain Kingdom, land big enough to finally bring back the Dragon Arts. But the lord won't invest in a new fortress."

"Lemme guess, the housing market crashed," Fiora mocked.

"Mutant hunters passing through." He barely paid any mind to her comment. "He said the Dragon school was dead, and that mutants were a much better investment."

She could smell the rage he had worked up to now. But his brute strength couldn't phase her. Every monster hunter needed to have confidence in their skills. Any hesitation or doubt in the heat of battle meant death at the hand of some monster. A hunter or not, he wasn't any different. Stronger, tougher, and filled with magic--she knew how to handle that.

He lashed out with his chain, its magic too concentrated for the night silver to disrupt it. Fiora changed her stance, letting the weapon glide by. She cut, her hooves reaching forward, but changed at the last moment. When Holpein realized the feint had passed his cleaver, he felt the sting of steel in a gap of his armor.

Fiora thrust herself back, rolling out of even the chain's range. Bloody and pissed off, Holpein slammed his hoof onto the ground. The glyphs on his horseshoe fizzled, the magic suppressed by the night silver, but slowly it grew. It suddenly resurged, arcs of magic pooling at his hooves. 

The spell shot out, chasing Fiora down. Surprised, she tumbled out of the way, but the spell of lightning ran her down like a snake. It took over her body, arresting all motion, and blasted her into a furnace. She could hear Island Hopper hissing as she regained focus on the fight.

She tried moving but her limbs still felt numb, and she could only watch as Holpein fired up a furnace and stuck in a clay pot of night silver. He saw her starring. With cold uncaring, he whirled his chain around and snapped it at her head.

Fiora leaned out of the way, but the glyphs of force exploded near her ear. The ringing in her ear shot through her head and began to blur her vision. It was impossible to see when the chain had constricted around her neck, but she was thankful that the glyphs gave up power for control. They gripped tight, but couldn't crush her neck.

Fiora mustered up the magic to launched a bolt of fire, but he just yanked the chain and her aim went awry. Holpein turned and grabbed a pair of tongs, dragging Fiora as he removed the molten night silver from the furnace, saying nothing.

He trotted up to Island Hopper's cell, his eyes glaring straight through the bars into Island Hopper's hulking form. Bones protruding from his wings were cracked and scratched from his endless attempt to batter open the night silver cage. Nevertheless, he still raged against it, even when the bars bit back and denied his magic.

Holpein tossed the clay crucible at Island Hopper, molten night silver splattering over the cage, and his skin. The monstrous roar that followed wrenched at something in Fiora's gut. It wasn't some involuntary reaction of disgust, she realized. Despite all of Holpein's measures, Island Hopper could still flex his magic out. If the night silver surrounding him hadn't spread his magic out, the scream would have, without a doubt, killed both of them.

Fiora erected herself, planting her hooves firmly. Night silver dust shimmered on the ground and air, all except for a few part of the floor. A path was untouched by night silver, like a path wiped clean, following where Fiora had moved to avoid Holpein's weapon.

His spells followed her because she made the path, stepping and rolling and clearing away the night silver dust. Fiora focused her magic now, aiming along the trail Holpein's hooves left behind. Arcing through the path and concentrated by the push of night silver, a river of fire flooded the ground, bounding after Holpein.

Fire licked the edges of his armor, but the black platinum and wards drew on the magic, taking in what it could. The rest of the magic swirled around him, scalding Island Hopper's skin as well as the spell searched for a path of escape.

"Damn," Fiora muttered to herself as she closed in. Holpein slammed his hoof on the ground, but she was wise to the trick. She flapped her wings, throwing up a cloud of night silver dust that worked like a shield. Holpein turned away, letting the spell be drawn to his armor.

Blow for blow, Fiora couldn't tell who was the better fighter. She saw now why he was so confident in proving himself. The Dragon Arts was nearly dead, though most ponies ignored the history of internal politics and assumed their hunters were less skilled than modern hunters.

Fiora jumped back to avoid the cracking strike of his chain. He had a reason to believe he could bring back his school. Gone or not, Fiora spent most of her time as a hunter around the High Mountain. Doubtless he'd become a legend for bringing proof that he beat her.

But, they both heard, that wouldn't be the case. Fiora was only surprised that it took Lora so long. Her voice grew louder as she charged for the iron works. Even from such a long range, the ground began to shine like waves under the sun, rippling with magic as she projected her wail.

"You can't fight both of us," Fiora warned him.

He scowled, and twitched his head at Island Hopper. He turned back to Fiora. "As long as you live, they'll leave the Dragon Arts to die."

"But when pressed for time..." Holpein reached into Island Hopper's cage. Runes flared with magic, and he ripped the vampire out from the night silver cage with a single motion.

Fiora moved in an instant. Island Hopper couldn't die so quickly, but coming back from what Holpein was going to do would not be a quick process. Her blade struck forward, but a gap that was once in the armor shifted with his motion, covering up the exposure.

With all the magic stored in his armor, Holpein's horshoe crackled with energy. Arcs of force took the form of lightning. He struck down once at Island Hopper's fanged, bloody face, and splattered it across the floor.

Night silver did little to stop the surge. Loralae burst down the building, bricks and iron crumbling, convulsing, under the weight of her fury. She was a nixe, a being of rivers and water. Every stream and pond wretched their water from their bowels. That was the meaning of her scream. Hers was the fury of nature.

Fiora saw the flood circle Island Hopper, not a drop touching his corpse. It made for Holpein like a ravenous hound, baring down on him until the walls and metal beams of the building bent and caved in. She wasn't going to sit around and wonder if his armor could withstand weight of the rubble.

With holes opening everywhere, Fiora made for open land, away from the ironworks. She galloped. On and on she galloped. Earth sped below her hooves as fast as her heart was pumping. Behind was the roof of the building, consumed by the mud below. Nothing else remained.
> Cry Softly, and Carry A Big Sword
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


=============================================================


Politics and espionage will never leave civilization, and any good civilization will never be founded by being good. Filling a power vacuum--that's the path. And targeting those on the outskirts of society, that has always been the way to get away with it.

In trusting Thesa Ruse, and giving Aeduard's cause a chance, I left a power vacuum that brought another hunter into Bovinus. And with his contract completed, whether or not he can collect it, will leave a bigger gap of power within the city, and--as it has for ages--the chaos will give rise to a stronger order.


=============================================================


"What are you still doing out here then?"

Fiora sighed over the campfire. Somewhere, about a mile off, Loralae's havoc remained. A disaster so large, Argent and Geiss saw in on their way back from their business.

Geiss played with her new collar. Island Hopper's making, a thin chain of pure black platinum with runes and wards inscribed into its links. It was designed specifically to hold back whatever curse was inside her. And Fiora couldn't stop Holpein from splitting his skull.

"Can't look Lora in the face right now." She didn't know if she could do it, ever. 

Argent nodded. "Understandable. You did let that hunter kill him, or at least the vampire equivalent."

Fiora closed her eyes and rewound what happened. Lora had pulled Island Hopper's remains up from the mud and rubble. Even in his state, the night silver that scattered throughout the water still glowed softly, reacting to the magic leaking from his body.

"Enchanted vial, now," she had demanded from Fiora. Her saddlebag had gotten drenched from the flood, but sure enough she had a vial for enchanted potions. 

Loralae had taken the vial, her water, and she had taken Island Hopper's magic. Whatever was left inside his body was drawn out by a whispered song. Even with her mutant hearing, there wasn't a chance for Fiora to hear past the veil Lora had put around her words. Whatever the song, it had sentiment and emotion, some unquantifiable ingredient to the spell.

"Hey." Argent nudged Fiora out her thoughts. "Whatever you blame yourself for, you'll be fixing it by going back."

"What do I say?" She stared into the fire. At this rate, the flames had a better chance of showing her an answer.

Geiss took her attention off her chain and tumbled playfully over to Fiora's side. "You don't talk a lot, but I always know what you are thinking."

Fiora smiled at the filly. Her curse was a mystery, but not her mind. She was clever, learned fast from the other hunters, and was by far a better pony than she.

"What did you find on the path?" Fiora asked Argent. He wouldn't have taken Geiss on a contract if unless it was something curiously important.

"Traces of Cyana's warpath," he answered, his tone a mixture of impressed and worried. "Knew it had to be her when I saw the contract on a golheim infestation."

"Infestation?" That caught Fiora's interest. "She managed to make more than one so quickly?"

Argent gave a knowing nod. "Far more than one. Animation magic's her specialty," he said.

"And what did you find?"

"She's getting closer to the High Mountain, that's for certain." He produced a piece of parchment from a pocket on his armor and gave it to Fiora.

Father's fern, jeremejevite crystal, timberwolf's bane, it read, among a slew of other incoherent writing, marred by damage from magic. They were all ingredients found only in the High Mountain Kingdom, right at its capital. Whatever spell she was planning to do with those ingredients was meant for exactly one target.

"You going to track her?" Fiora guessed at Argent's next action. All hunters felt some semblance of community with their own schools, but being outcast mutants made the hunters of Bach Kha'morghen a lot closer together, and none promoted their family more than Argent.

"Soon," he answered, casually picking Geiss up and entertaining her with a back-ride. "She's not very subtle when she wants to act, but she'll take her time planning it. It'll be a while before she does something else."

Fiora got up, the damp spots on her armor now gone. "And Geiss?"

Argent chuckled. "I can play babysitter, Fiora, but you picked this filly up. I don't know how long it'll take to meet up with Cyana, and I can't watch a kid for that long. You on the other hoof, are a different story."

"Right, because my kids had an outstanding childhood," she replied flatly.

"Think of it as another chance," he suggested to her. "I'm sure Geiss would prefer it over being in a stuffy house for who knows how long."

"Well then," she looked at Geiss and levitated her off his back. "I believe we have somewhere to be right now."


 ============================================================= 


Fiora didn't know how she would react to seeing the Golden Hills. Much of the city, in fact, felt dead. As Fiora and Geiss walked the streets, they only saw bulls sweeping the streets, cows with baskets of cloth on their backs, and poor colts running from corner to corner, looking to polish horseshoes.

And it was just a day, Fiora realized. She had returned from the north just this morning, and tore through the city throughout the afternoon. It was late. Moon high and stars spanned wide across the sky, whispers on the wind were the opening and closing of shutters and the echoes of wind chimes, but those whispers sounded like music.

No. That wasn't the music. She realized as they turned past a glassblower's shop that the whispers on the wind were just whispers, and the music was the Golden Hills. Loralae's voice flew through the windows and out into the night, and lights and sounds of revelry turned the inn into the brightest star in the night.

"I've been going to the wrong funerals," Fiora told herself as she brought Geiss in.

Nothing seemed out of place. Every stallion, mare, and singer moved through the inn like a tapestry. Lora stood, her magic in full force, gripping at the minds of all the ponies. A dozen singers kept up with her, switching languages on command, but Fiora could feel her sword humming gently in its sheath. The others were singing, but it was with Lora's voice.


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


S'acu gilha mar, entan t'inn y tog


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


Entan t'inn y tog


----


Come my dear, our worlds are torn,


Cross with me, where the stars are born,


Join with me, you'll be whole my love,


This battle will be won.


From the land beyond, through the ancient fog,


You bear these lips as my Aes mark,


Here's my goal: to bring you home


With eternal song


----


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


S'acu gilha mar, entan t'inn y tog


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


Entan t'inn y tog


T'inn y tog, hold on beyond the fog.


T'inn y tog, I'll bring you back from beyond the fog.


Fiora knew Loralae had spotted her. Some stranger, a bull, was the tender at the bar. She looked at Geiss, then at the bottles behind the counter. Geiss's collar held her magic, it didn't take it away. Fiora figured any effect alcohol had on her would be healed away instantly by her curse.

Besides, she was thirsty.

"A bottle of something sweet, and nothing dry," she told the bull. He nodded, slipped a couple glasses onto a tray, and set it on the counter for her.

"I thought you said he needed magic to heal," Geiss looked around, wondering how Island Hopper was going to come back. "Will my curse magic work?"

"Careful, not every pony understands magic," Fiora cautioned Geiss. "You shouldn't mention it around others. Besides, right now there's no one who can heal him but her. These things aren't exactly well documented." They both turned back to the music, this time sung by different voice. Or rather, a different voice Lora chose.


Far away from where you grew,


A voice so pained reaches out to you,


Though it seems like a fallen tale,


Your body, I'll renew.


Stay with me on this distant hill,


We built this life on my sacred field,


Don't run away, but be mine my love


Just be safe and you shall heal.


----


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


S'acu gilha mar, entan t'inn y tog


S'acu gilha mar, scuien ah criva,


Entan t'inn y tog


T'inn y tog, hold on beyond the fog.


T'inn y tog, I'll bring you back from beyond the fog.


"How long will it take?" Geiss asked. She meant the healing for Island Hopper.

Fiora wanted to tell the truth. "I don't know, but it'll feel a lot longer for us than him," she said instead. Even with a Nixe, a few decades was a generous estimation. Fiora couldn't be sure beyond that, but in any case it wouldn't be soon. From the movements of the revelers, the ceremony had just begun.

Wine passed from table to table, and haughty critics were finally swaying their bodies with the compelling force of the music. Fair maidens danced along between the tables, giving plenty to please the eyes as song and music pleased the ears. The time to talk wasn't now. Fiora poured a cup of wine for Geiss.

Her face soured at the taste. "Blech, why do you drink that all the time?"

"Alcohol cleans water, killing the harmful substances inside," she answered, topping up her glass. "Besides, you get used to the taste. And then you might start to like it."

Geiss looked down at the cup, and sipped again. Her face twisted, the wine feeling sharp on her tongue. The only consolation was its sweet, fruity taste, not unlike the candy Argent refused to let her have. Still, Fiora seemed to love it more than candy.

Geiss simply tipped the glass and licked off the wine that touched her lips. "I hope Lora doesn't sing for too long."


 ============================================================= 


They waited up in Lora's room. Downstairs, her magic still made a captivated audience out of the ponies, and upstairs her room still had Island Hopper's scent. Her songs now slowed, calming the crowd as much as it had excited them earlier in the night. Until finally a silence so loud it made Fiora's ears ring.

Applause and hoof-beating on the floor met the end of the performance as glasses clinked to finish off the night. Geiss moved back and forth around the room, practicing her hoof-work and balance for a new sword flourish Argent had shown her. She moved awkwardly, Fiora noticed. The technique was meant for a winged-mutant, who could find extra balance with their wings. Nevertheless, she slowly made improvements.

Fiora could hear Lora walking up the stairs, but in an instant she was through the door, locking it behind her.

"No reason beating around the bush," she sated bluntly as she reached for a stack of papers from her bedside drawer. "I want you to kill Stranglethorn. I have details on he businesses that can help you find her."

Fiora reeled back from the proposition. She expected to be blamed for failing to save Island Hopper. Was she not partly responsible, for leaving, for letting him die? Though, she supposed Stranglethorn deserved the most blame in the end. Still, Fiora shook her head.

"Can't take a contract on a pony."

"Can't, or won't?" Loralae hissed. "The reason we met was thanks to the bounty on Island Hopper's head. It's the reason he died. This isn't any different. Even her name says it all; the way she kills her victims makes her more of a monster than Island Hopper ever was." 

"Anger won't bring him back," Fiora told her. "I came to see what I could do to help in the restoration process, but right now I'm not understanding any of it. Tonight didn't really seem like a funeral ceremony."

Lora scowled. "What would you know about restoring a higher vampire?" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter, I can handle it myself. Every vampire needs magic to regenerate their bodies, but how they get it is crucial. Island Hopper didn't want his own memory celebrated, he wanted the Golden Hills to be. Every performance I sing a spell that draws on the magic of every listener, and as the Golden Hills prospers, Island Hopper will heal."

Fiora tilted her head, thinking on the songs she heard. "Didn't hear any spell or incantation in all that singing."

"Good," she replied. "No pony's meant to hear it. It's magic more ancient than the dirt this city was built on, summoning power from the vampire's homeland."

"Which is?" Fiora dug deeper, her curiosity growing.

Lora's eyes shot dagger so sharp it almost seemed like she was about to flood the entire city. "Did you just come here for a lesson on monsters? I don't know where they came from, just the spell that Island Hopper taught me. If you're not going to help, at least keep quiet so I can think of something else you can do."

She tossed aside her papers, scattering them over the desk. Her turned to a page that had fallen on the floor, a copy of a monster contract signed by one of Stranglethorn's underlings.

"I don't just want her dead," Lora muttered. "Her network of evil, her stifling control on this city, I want it gone. I want her destroyed."

She snatched up the page and a dozen others and showed them to Fiora. "Stranglethorn thinks she can take our business by getting rid of Island Hopper. I'll show her different. But if I'm going to own her businesses, their problems have to go away first."

Fiora took the contracts. They weren't big ones, not like the ones Stranglethorn gave personally, but there were a lot of them. Corpse eaters defiling a cemetery, a puca destroying crops, and rumors about a pack of drukivacs wandering along caravan roads.

"And what will you do?" She asked Lora.

"Begin by ordering shipments of steel," she answered. "Island Hopper chose his name as a pony thanks to the many places he enjoys to visit offshore. I know for a fact at least one of those have steel I can import at a competitively low price."

"Without her ironworks outside of the city," Fiora prodded at her plan, "I suppose you'll be the only supplier for the city's blacksmiths?"

"Exactly so," Lora nodded, then turned to a ledger on the desk. She looked at its pages as if she could envision her success. "Once I control the city's steel, it won't be hard to manipulate the manufacturing sector; textile and smithing trades will be under my control."

"Alright, easy there," Fiora slowed her down. "No point telling us. Geiss doesn't get it, at least I don't think, and I always find myself short on gold."

Lora gather up the papers she scattered across the floor, picking out the other contracts and giving them to Fiora. "You have to take care of these contracts. Stranglethorn won't be away forever, and from what you've told me, her niece seemed prepared to carry out every order blindly. I can't manage the businesses and deal with monsters the way she does, not yet at least."

Before Fiora could say anything, Geiss jumped between them and grabbed the pages. "Yes!" she cheered. "Argent wouldn't let me anywhere near Cyana's monsters. But you'll let me hunt with you, right?"

Fiora caught Lora staring at her, eyes wide and perplexed. "Hey," she said. "what did you expect? I don't know how else to raise a child, alright?"

Loralae shrugged. "As long as she's happy, and the contracts are finished, I won't judge."

Fiora picked Geiss and planted the filly her her back, levitating the contracts from her grasp. There were many more, but none too dangerous. All simple, straightforward for the most part. Some were a little farther off, in the countryside. Sleeping bags, starry nights, they were aplenty now, and Geiss would be there for all of it.

"Alright," Fiora said. "High time we got back on the path."


 ============================================================= 


"Speed up," Fiora cautioned Geiss. "You're not supposed to react to it, you need to anticipate it. Move before it does."

If anything wrong happened, they were on a major road that connected Bovinus to all the villages and towns on the northern half of Midshore. Herbalists and a safe inn was less than an hour away. And in any case, there wasn't anything this monster could do that Geiss couldn't heal from.

Geiss ducked down, tumbling on the ground as the drukivac sailed over her in a vicious, fang-ridden lunge. It was similar in size and shape to a medium dog, only with an arched back. Its fur was black all over, and so were its eyes. Only the fangs it barred were white, and glistened with a hallucinogenic venom. It hissed, and Geiss side stepped.

Endless farmsteads with pigs in mud fields and tall grasses for hay stretched on both sides of the road, giving Geiss all the space she needed to move, and more.

She swung her sword, a gift from Argent when he heard Fiora would be taking her on more contracts. It was an old one, his first one, in fact. It seemed fitting to make it Geiss's first too.

"Moved to soon," commented Fiora. She pointed to her eyes. "They can see you too, and won't let you get away so easily."

"Was it this hard for you?" Geiss grunted as she jumped back, keeping out of the monster's reach.

"Worse," Fiora smirked. "I had Master Stonewood and Guerrier to train me. They would remind me to space my hooves evenly if they saw hoof-work like that."

Geiss laughed, but only for a moment. Geiss raised her sword level with the ground as the drukivac lunged, cutting it across the jaw before it got anywhere near her. It flinched from the wound, scrambling on the ground to find its footing. It only needed a moment to get up, but Geiss needed less than that to drive her blade through its back.

She wrapped her foreleg around the handle and pulled. It was a mutant's sword, with a long handle for horn or wing to use, not a piece to lock tightly with a horseshoe. For any other pony, it would have been too short to grab like a spear, but she was smaller.

"Could use improvement, right?" she breathed heavily as Fiora came around to inspect it.

Fiora nodded approvingly. "Not bad, actually. Reaction time's slower, and judging by the shearing on the jaw, you could practice your edge alignment for a cleaner cut, but it's good considering your experience."

"So what's next?" asked Geiss, eager to read the next contract.

"Now we collect the gold," Fiora replied bluntly. "You did it. Killed one of every monster on these contracts. Only thing left to do is get paid and head out."

"Head out? You mean leave?" Geiss suddenly seemed to question her desire to hunt monsters. "But Loralae, and Island Hopper?"

"Lora has every blacksmith in Bovinus eating out her hoof right now," Fiora replied. "And it only took a week and a half. And from the comments I've heard from all the merchants, Stranglethorn is on her way back as we speak. She'll probably arrive tomorrow evening, at the latest. And when she gets here, I don't want us getting caught in a war between Loralae and Stranglethorn."

"But she killed Island Hopper" Geiss said sternly. She pointed down the road, back the way they came. "They're still in Bovinus."

"The other hunter carried it out," Fiora tried to explain, already knew it would fall on deaf ears. "Besides, it's not just her fault. She's the head of an organization, with her husband as the criminal-in-chief. On top of that, it's likely that dozens of merchant lords, council ponies, and guild masters were, and still are, in support of Stranglethorn's agenda. We can't fight them all." 

"Lora thinks she can," Geiss countered.

"She's a Nixe. That alone is more than what we can do," Fiora added. "Not to mention all of Island Hopper's assets that she has access to. Inns are the perfect place to tap into business networks. At least, for a hunter, they're the most reliable place for a contract."

"But we can stay and do more," Geiss insisted.

Fiora sighed. "Being on the path means knowing when to leave and when to stick around, Geiss. Most of the monsters around here are cleared out. There won't be much to do for a while. So we'll go, but that doesn't mean we can't come back."

Geiss cleaned her sword and returned it to its sheath. "Fine. But only on one condition."

"Oh really?" Fiora raised a brow. "What is it?"

"I get to choose the next contract."


 ============================================================= 


Everything in Bovinus moved so fast. To take the place of her aunt while she was away, Thesa had moved back from the mills outside the city walls and into a manse in the center of the city, becoming a neighbor to powerful members of its council.

Thesa's was the last of the contracts Fiora wanted to complete, but Loralae insisted. She wanted to strike at the heart of Stranglethorn's business, and at the moment that was controlled by her niece. Though it was at the heart of the city and smaller than Stranglethorn's own home, there were still servants moving in and out of the house, bulls and cows carrying crates of apples, oranges, and linens.

"Must be nice," Fiora commented as she passed neatly trimmed hedges and maids sweeping the cobbled walkway into the manse. She half wished she had agreed to let Geiss tag along, but Sharp Tone and Argent insisted the filly had some time away from hunter work. For as reluctant as Argent was about taking her as a hunter in training, he was surprisingly eager to pamper her like her was an uncle.

Fiora trotted to the door and knocked, and was greeted by the manse's majordomo, a middle-aged stallion dressed in white with blue leaves and flowers hemmed into his cloth.

"Ah, the hunter, I presume?" His speech was nobly accented. Fiora recognized it from the numerous court messengers that the Southern king would send to Bach Kha'morghen to request aid against a monster. 

He stepped aside and beckoned her in. "Lady Thesa has been expecting you. She insisted I welcome you her estate with a tour, as she's currently away at a dinner party."

Fiora looked up at the sky. It had only just begin to turn to a pinkish orange. "A little early for that, don't you think?" She entered the manse.

"Perhaps," the majordomo acknowledged, "but such things to tend to take up a great deal of time. But, we shouldn't tarry long. Her lady's estate still has much to see."

"Look, uh, what's you're name?"

"Sauffos, Master Hunter," he answered.

"Alright Sauffos, I'm not an aristocrat, and I'm definitely not used to all," Fiora waved her hooves at the carved  and lacquered wood railing on the stairs, "this."

"What are you suggesting?" he inquired.

"Maybe we can just skip the tour?"

The majordomo shook his head in vigorous refusal. "Absolutely not! Apart from disobeying the wishes of Lady Thesa, which would be highly irregular, it would be an affront on the artwork behind organizing and furnishing this masterpiece of a manse. Surely you can appreciate good crafts, and the effort ponies put into it."

"When it's a sword, or maybe a piece of armor," Fiora replied.

Before she could say anything else, Sauffos was already guiding her through the next door. "Then you will have your breath taken when you see the dining decorum."


 ============================================================= 


"...in 896 A.O., this very piece of furniture was commissioned by the Regent of the Tundra as a gift to the prime council member of Bovinus. It has now fallen into obscurity, unfortunately."

Fiora sat in the exorbitantly cushioned chair Sauffos couldn't stop talking about, sipping wine made at the start of the first war between the Far Coast and High Mountain Kingdom, wearing an orchid robe over her armor that was tailored by the first cow to become a fashion designer.

"We finally made it to the study," Fiora groaned. "You can stop the tour now, Sauffos."

"But the wall adornments-"

"-will just have to wait for the next guest," Fiora finished his sentence.

"Sauffos," Thesa's voice ringed as they both heard her hooves tapping up the stairs. "The chef has a question about tomorrow night's dishes." She turned through the door of the study just then.

"Oh, you did come," she said when she saw Fiora, and then turned to her majordomo. "There seems to be a problem involving the cauliflower. Could you see what it is?"

Sauffos bowed his head. "Of course." He gave a smaller bow to Fiora and then left for his next task.

Thesa took her seat across from Fiora, picking up the bottle of wine Sauffos had opened to accompany the tour. She poured half a glass without speaking, wafted the scent, and smiled as she drank.

"I always did like studying the wars we ponies get ourselves into," she said in a gentle, matter-of-fact voice. "Father protested every lesson of course, thought it unbecoming of a lady, but my mother believed a good wife was one who was informed, so she made me study."

Thesa gestured around the room. The rest of the manse was spacious, but the study felt stuffy and cramped. Every book, quill, and parchment was no more than two steps away from the desk, and to Fiora it looked more like the libraries from her first fortress, Bach Tor'al, where hunters would spend days reading old manuscripts on blade work.

"The countryside didn't suit me," Thesa said. "This place is a lot more like home. I picked out as many copies of my favorites as a filly as I could find."

She reached to her left and pulled a thin, leather-bound journal from a bookshelf on the wall. "The scribe made some interpretations on Dopar's writing that I don't agree with, but this copy is more or less true to his writing on the second war with the High Mountain."

"Read about it myself," Fiora commented, "though mostly on how battalions of soldiers would encounter dens of demons while they scouted the South Coast."

Thesa opened the journal, barely registering what Fiora said. "When I was young, I loved reading everything Dopar heard and noticed about espionage. Commanding spies, paying off leaders and military officers," she stopped halfway through and smiled, "and manipulating businesses."

She slid the book across the desk and showed it to Fiora, pointing to a specific line of text. Circled in dark black ink, the journal read: ...assassins made company of fortune, using the meeting of generals for them to kill.

She eyed Thesa. "I'm guessing you didn't carry my pay all by yourself. That's a lot gold."

"Certainly so," she nodded back. "Servants should be bringing it this very moment."

Fiora honed her hearing in on the hallways outside. The manse was filled with bulls and cows cleaning and sweeping, but of the four servants outside the study, only two swept a path strait to the door. Fiora could listen closer still, hearing daggers being drawn from false brooms.

She stood and rushed at the door. One assassin jumped back from the eruption of movement, but the other was committed to his attack. He rushed Fiora and yelled, "The King of Thieves sends-" before Fiora grabbed his head with her wing and slammed him to the ground.

The other assassin regained his stance as quickly as Fiora drew her sword. She thrust her sword, he parried with the dagger. She gripped his shoulder with her wing and spun him around with the flow of his motion, slashing his back before he could recover.

"King of Thieves sounded like a stallion with better assassins." Fiora sheathed her sword and turned to Thesa. "Thanks for the heads up, but isn't that taking a risk?"

"Well I owe you still," she said, leaving the study room with a key around her neck. "I have your pay for all those contracts locked up in a safe below the manse. No pony knows about it. I paid the bulls who carried the safe for me to move out of Bovinus."

"Don't want Stranglethorn to find out?"

"Karam Bit, more like," Thesa corrected. "You destroyed his ironwork, and now your friend's on a crusade to take everything they've worked to acquire."

"Which begs the question: why help me?" The two of them walked pass a couple maids dusting the walls. Fiora could hear Sauffos in the kitchen, shouting something about wrong shipments. And even though she had seen nearly every corner of the manse, Thesa was right about how well hidden her safe was.

The living room was empty, already swept clean by the staff, but the safe was still perfectly hidden. Thesa kicked the wood out of the fireplace and reached into a compartment Fiora could barely see. She heard the click, however, and watched as Thesa opened the false back of the fireplace. Inside were diamonds and books and, as promised, a sack of gold coins.

"Aunt Stranglethorn said to manage her businesses, not defend it from a hostile takeover." Thesa grabbed the sack, put everything back in its place, and tossed the hefty bag of coins to Fiora. "Besides, I wouldn't be here without you."

Fiora levitated the gold into a satchel on her saddle. "Those assassins, they weren't the only ones, were they?"

"I don't know the details beyond this manse," Thesa said, "but I know what he's like. The King of Thieves loves to surround his targets, pressure them by giving them no way out. If he hasn't prepared a back up already, he will the moment he realizes those two haven't returned."

"Which means I need to leave," Fiora said. More specifically, she had to track down Sharp Tone and Argent to get Geiss. She needed to be far away from Bovinus before a war for the city broke out completely. Loralae and Stranglethorn would were likely to tear the city apart before either of them gave up.

"I don't think I can make up a lie good enough to buy you time," Thesa admitted sadly. "You'd best hurry."


 ============================================================= 


The three stood just a few miles away on a stumpy hill. They could still see the walls of Bovinus, and all the watermills and farmland around it.

"I was sure you wouldn't find us," Geiss pouted as Fiora clambered up the hill to catch up to Argent and Sharp Tone.

"Almost lost me," Fiora rubbed her mane. "Almost."

Argent laughed. "Fastest learner I've ever seen. I would be surprised, but I honestly have no idea what to expect from her."

"As far as curses go, she lucked out," Sharp Tone added in agreement.

"It's a good thing too," Fiora replied, hoisting the filly up on top of her saddle. "We need to leave the area, start looking for new places."

"Didn't go so well?" Sharp Tone asked. "No gold?"

"Thesa kept her side, and more." She opened her pouch and flashed the gleaming coins. "She gave a warning when some assassins sent by the King of Thieves approached. Risked her standing with them just to make sure I knew they were there."

"They caught on so soon?" Argent scratched his head in amazement. "Lora's barely made a dent in their businesses from what I've heard around the city."

"Well, neither Stranglethorn nor her husband seem the kind of ponies to let little changes slip by," Fiora reasoned, while Geiss tried braiding her mane. "Which means bad news for us."

"And more work for me," Sharp Tone grumbled.

Fiora raised a brow. "You're hanging around? For how long? I thought you still had a plan to take back our fortress."

"I do," he replied firmly, strutting across the hill top to get a wider view of the city. "A revenge like that takes money. I've already heard talk from southern traders. Open fighting broke out after Bach Kha'morghen was taken, and now the southern most end of the Far Coast is completely taken by the High Mountain Kingdom."

"Working with Lora? Smart choice, stable income," Fiora said.

"More importantly Bovinus is a major city, with plenty of ways to find, or buy, friends to help take back our fortress." Sharp Tone added. He sat down and laid back on the grass, watching the orange sea rolling in the sky, the clouds sea foam in the expansive oceanic sky. "Nice scenery too, once you get away from the city."

"I'm glad you're staying," Argent sat by Sharp. "I got word from an old friend in the High Mountain Kingdom that he saw some magic anomalies, the kind that only Cyana could create."

"Guess you have your own adventure, then," Sharp said. They both turned to Fiora, watching her play with Geiss. "Sounds easier than that adventure though. Got no idea what'll come next."

Argent chuckled. "For Fiora's sake, I hope she doesn't grow up to be like Cyana when she joined Bach Kha'morghen. Her adolescence was some tough years for all of us."

"Very funny," Fiora responded while spitting grass from her mouth. She had let Geiss wrestle her to the ground. "But at least I've been a parent before, and since she can't be trained in Bovinus, and certainly not in Bach Kha'morghen, I'll take her to somewhere I know she'll be happy."

"Care to give the address?" Argent asked. "If I find Cyana perhaps we'll teleport there together."

"Somewhere northwest, beyond anything in Equestria," Fiora answered.

Argent furrowed his brow, pulling a memory from what was only a few months ago. "You mean that place your grandchild mentioned? You have no idea where it could be."

Fiora shrugged. "I've tracked harder things. In any case, it'll be away from Equestria, safe from the war and the chaos between kings and lords. That's where she can be raised without her curse drawing attention."

"Sounds fun, as long as we get to come back and visit," Geiss said, reminding Fiora that she still enjoyed her time in Bovinus.

"First thing's first Geiss," Fiora said, turning off the ground and picking up Geiss to watch the winking sun behind the horizon. "We have a long walk ahead of us."
> Fiora's Bestiary
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A monster hunter is only ever as good as the monsters he or she can slay. Therefore, vast and changing tomes of knowledge must be the founding principle for all hunters, no matter what school of thought they hail from." 

--Grandmaster Mountain Gale of the Dragon Arts, 26 E.I.C., in response to the Mass Rising


Monsters:

Aes Sedha and Aos Si: 
"They are beautiful and powerful, and should any king or lord believe--through madness of power--himself to be a god, any hunter can tell them that the Aes Sedha have beaten him to that title." --Master Blacknight Oldenfeather of the Parliament of Owls, 32 E.I.C., after the only recorded contract on an Aes Sedha.

Aes Sedha, and their more earthly cousins the Aos Si, are often referred to in folklore as faeries, angels, minor gods, and benevolent spirits. Aes Sedha are powerfully attuned to magic in ways still unknown, even after the increase in horned mutant births. They are able to seemingly fade away, and many hunters have speculated that the Aes Sidhe simply observe us from their own reality, a world referred to as Andoinne Silde, by using magic to enter ours. 

As a result, almost everything known about the Aes Sedha is speculation. Only masters of legendary skill have ever reported seeing an Aes Sedha, and all have been fleeting glimpses. However, these sightings have been thought to be linked to natural phenomena, including plague, crop blight, and hurricanes.

Countless folklores also tell of minor gods with the exact same appearance as the Aes Sedha. These stories often tell of blessing from the gods: fields filled with crops in the middle of winter, diseases suddenly cured, and violent monsters becoming docile. 

Aes Sedha resemble ponies greatly, aside from their slender frames and radiant glowing skin. They posses two small bony growths on their head, like the stumps of antlers, that glow brighter than any other part of their body. Consequently, it's thought that this is some storage or source of magic for the Aes Sedha.

Aos Si are more common, though stories surrounding them are equally fantastical as the Aes Sedha. Usually green in complexion, most hunters confuse their long, wavy manes for shrubbery. This is because the Aos Si covet nature, and defend their forests and its monsters fervently (see dryads, lop grou, and balams) and wear crowns of branches and flowers for stealth.

Because they are not as powerful as their cousins, Aos Si do not demonstrate the same fading phenomenon that renders the Aes Sidhe so mysterious. They still are, however, revered as minor gods and spirits in many folktales for good reason. Hunters have reported Aos Si being able to change into trees and bushes and command flocks of birds in their forest. They have been seen to cause natural phenomena--storms, droughts, plagues-- as punishment to those who wrong them.

Ponies are fortunate, however, that they demand very little from those who live near them. Respect for their privacy and care for their lands are usually the only requests. In return, Aos Si have been known to happily grant rich harvests to farmers living near their territory, even allowing some to gather and hunt in their woods in times of understandable peril.

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Affanc:
"To hunt such a creature one must have a shapely maiden prepared as bait, for whatever reason the entire species of Affanc shares the same weakness as the species of stallions."-- Mordri Mottan Volume 6, by Shalecrest Fogbow of the Murder of Crows, 606 E.I.C.

Affancs are lake monsters resembling something of a crocodile body with the head and tail of a beaver. As ridiculous as the description sounds to common ponies, hunters will know that the monster is not to be threatened without protection. Its magic lets it eject streams of boiling water from its mouth. They live in small families of six or seven in small ponds, growing to large clans of over thirty for larger lakes. Though extremely cooperative within their families, affancs are not partial to sharing with other families.

Their diet consists of fish, mostly, though young affancs will often hunt pets and large game to practice their hunting. In adulthood, they develop a bizarre love for female ponies, not unlike a dog or cat who loves its owner. Sadly, the territorial nature of affancs also drives them to hunt any pony who is close to their bonded mare, killing even her own family.

A hunter should take great care when using a mare to lure out an affanc. In its vicious attacks to defend its female, the affanc can cause a great deal of harm to both the hunter and, as collateral damage, the bait.


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Afrites: 
"I didn't train for two decades to be killed by a bloody lesser demon!"--the alleged last words of Nickol the Stubborn of the Dragon Arts, 102 E.I.C.

A member of the demon family, an afrite--also called yffrit--is considered a lesser fire demon. It has a frame that resembles an ape or gorilla. Born in the upper levels of Tartarus, afrites have thick, leathery hides like that of a rhino, with natural bony armor on its shoulders that partially cover its neck. It has glands in its shoulders that store a sulfur-oil mixture, and can eject this out of the pits in its wrists. Their magic then ignites the substance, producing a sizable flame that even burns underwater.

Many hunters have trouble combating afrites if they are not prepared. Afrites are immune to nearly all fires, even those produced by powerful magic, so a hunter who has not prepared alternate glyphed horseshoes must rely on other means. Luckily, an afrite's magic only pertains to fire. Unlike demons and high demons, their magic cannot heal them against poisons or injuries.

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Amulls:
"If a hunter hears the sounds he or she can distinctly recognize, yet knows it has no place being there, then drink two doses of the Fortitude Decoction and run away from it."--Killing the Dead by Blacknight Oldenfeather of the Parliament of Owls, 54 E.I.C.

There are many folktales of monsters and mysterious sounds working together. In many cases, villagers and peasant chalk this up to a single species of monster, the baens'e (see baens'e and Lesser Aos). Yet it is the experience of the hunter that shows that the baens'e is a rare occurrence. Far more common is the distant, and far deadlier, cousin of the Grave Maker, the Amull.

They are bizarre creatures of constantly shedding flesh. Ponies often mistake them for being dead, since layers of their shedding skin accumulate and form a fleshy armor around its body. Appearing like a ox-sized frog, its long, bony arms are for ambushing and trapping prey and can grow up to twice the length of the rest of its body.

An amull is able to use its cavernous mouth and massive vocal chords to manipulate existing sound around it. Thus, it prefers habitats filled with loud and musical insects. It uses these sounds, coupled with mild illusion and mental magic, to produce voices or songs that ponies recognize, like a lullaby or the voice of a dead family member.

However, it can only manipulate sound, and thus cannot create noises that are too different from what is around it. Drinking a Fortitude Decoction should shield the hunter from the magic of the amull, revealing the distorted pitches of the mimicked sounds.

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Ankhos:
"I am not mistaken. The Reaper is after me. The cold, the sickness, I feel death at my doorstep."--Act 3, scene 2, line 104 of A Night Under the Burning Moon, by Inkel Scribe, 1110 A.O.

An Ankho is both a title and a particular type of spectre. Portrayed as the grim reaper in many written works, the Ankho is a spectre attracted to the dying. They are solitary spectres, meaning no curse or curses involving Ankhos can overlap, who haunt most villages and hamlets.

They reside around graveyards or shrines, rarely showing themselves in the day. But, at night, the sick or starving claim to see the specter waiting silently at their doorstep. It presents itself as a long-legged pony, standing tall enough to look over most peasant homes. Its face its withered and dry, with nothing but empty eye sockets. Its body is moon-white, while some about to die have described it as looking grey.

It mainly kills those sick and suffering a slow death. But, come the end of winter, it changes its behavior. It will leave the ponies it haunts to die, watching and waiting for the last pony to pass. It's not known how, but the Ankho can sense when a pony will be the last to die in winter, and before they pass naturally it will killed them by draining their aura and memories.

It does so because its weak life force cannot last more than a year. It must replace its previous memories and magic with the energy from another pony. Because of this, every year there comes a "new" Ankho, with noticeable changes in personality. For a hunter, that means a second encounter with this specter may not be the same as the first. 

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Athahcks, Lesser and Greater: 
"I once saw a huge, muscular stallion wearing a pile of yak pelts on my way back from patrol. A monster hunter came to my house the next day claiming I had seen where his prey went. I told him my day, and he said the stallion was called an Ath... something."--anecdote of an Orendrea City Guardspony, 1126 E.I.C.

To understand lesser athahcks, one must understand their greater masters. Greater athahcks are mountainous monsters who prefer to hide in solitude deep within forests. Few hunters are able to kill them simply due to their superb skill at concealing their whereabouts.

Old folktales have detailed the activity of athahcks, though often stories described them as wise druids or maddened witch doctors. Neither accounts would be true, despite the accuracy of the physical description. Greater athahcks are usually three times the size of an average stallion, covered in brown or black moss-like fur. Their heads boast pony and canine qualities--fangs and pointed ears, but with a long pony's muzzle as well-- while their bodies closely resemble grizzly bears in shape.

It is said their eyes glow red or orange in the night, but that is a simplification. Their eyes "glow" by reflecting the light of the moon, light that is typically white.

For centuries hunters have reported seeing orange-eyed athahcks while feeling vibrations from their night silver--the only reliable way to track them. Magical studies have proven the generally accepted theory that greater athahcks possess latent illusion magic, forcing their victims to see their white eyes as red or orange. 

Lesser athahcks are the products of this magic. Occasionally, a greater athahck's magic can damage the mind of the pony who sees them. Some point to overwhelming fear as the cause, others say there are particular psychic traits of the magic that are responsible for insanity.

Regardless of the how, victims of greater athahcks slowly crave the need to live in isolation, eventually exiling themselves to the nearest mountain or forest to hide. Madness drives them to emulate the beast that cursed them, and over time these ponies become lesser athahcks by wearing animal furs and moss, some even growing and cutting their mane to braid their hair onto their coats.

Driven to madness by magic, lesser athahcks often possess a certain level of unnatural strength, born out of their insanity and years of living in isolation. Surviving off the wilderness they chose to inhabit also means they have a great deal of knowledge on the terrain of their territory.

Some hunters have said that deep down lesser athahcks are still just ponies, but those hunters are probably dead. No hunter should take a lesser athahck lightly, because whoever they were, they have long since been gone. Deep down, they've lost what makes them ponies and are nothing but monsters.

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Baens'e
"Concentrate a Fortitude Decoction with a strong liquor before engaging a baens'e. And remember, the only sense you should trust is your sense of touch." -- Master Guerrier of the School of the Cynogriffon, 1094 A.O.

Baens'e are lesser members of the Aos classification. Though lesser, they are more dangerous than most other Aos and Aes, largely because their "weaker" magic entices them to be involved in mortal affairs. Baens'e cannot live solely on magic, having to hunt once every few weeks to restore the magic they have.

Nevertheless, their powers far exceed anything achievable by natural means. The baens'e are able to produce mental spells through their voice, creating illusions and causing madness at will. Their magic arrests both sight and hearing by producing visual copies of themselves or projecting their voice in multiple directions.

Many baens'e eventually learn to sing songs of deception, masking their gaunt, pale appearance and presenting themselves as shapely young mares. The only sign of this illusion is the song they must constantly sing in order to maintain the magic veil. Thus, baens'e cannot hide themselves in cities and villages. They enter, hunt, and leave as quickly as possible, returning to their homes in the surrounding wilderness before a wandering eye spots their true form.

When fighting, a hunter has to be aware of the spells a baens'e can produce. As neither sight nor hearing can be relied on, only the intensity of a weapon's night silver vibration can distinguish the illusions from the real thing.

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Balams:
"Aw, come here little kitty." --The last words of a Warfstead patrol guard, approx. 1106 A.O.

Balams are magical cats who prowl and serve the jungles and forests of Equestria. They resemble tigers and jaguars, though their eyes glow green and their hide protects better than hardened leather. If a village near a balam's territory is respectful, the balam will also take them under its protection. However, this protection has gone awry in many cases when villagers begin expanding their homes into woods and forests.

Powerful balams are also kept as pets and partners of Aos Si, a combination that is strangely passive and powerful at the same time. Aos Si grant magic to their pets to defend their homeland, producing balams of greater strength and keener senses. Hunters should be wary when hunting a balam, whether or not it has an Aos Si master. It is most susceptible to fire, yet at the same time burning a balam's forest is a good way to attempt suicide.

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Barbglazes:
"Woe is to the Barbglazes who believes this is still their lands. I claim it in the name of my father's bloodline, and I claim it for my sons and daughters. All hail the Orendreans!"--Yion Malgre Vois the First Orendrean Emperor, 320 E.I.C.

The gnomes of the High Mountain were once considered a non-pony race, standing equal with bovines, yaks, sheep, and donkeys. They have long since declined into burrowing creatures spiteful of whoever inhabits their ancestral home. Among these underground gnomes, there are three subspecies, two of which has become vastly different from their early ancestors (see clauricorns and dunters).

Barbglazes are closest in appearance to the Hobgoblins, a race of gnomish farmers living in Equestria's central mountain. During that time, Hobgoblins were known for making deals with cows, trading work in the house for the right to borrow milk. Barbglazes are the remnants of these stumpy, bipedal creatures. After ponies began to colonize their mountain, they were forced underground.

Growing a hatred for ponies on their mountain, but retaining their playful good nature from their Hobgoblin ancestors, they play tricks on farmers: stealing food and uprooting crops. Escape is an essential skill, and thus they are masters of digging complex escape tunnels and burying themselves in dirt and rock.

They stand no more than three feet in height, with short hairy legs and a square torso. On their arms are three strong but short fingers, excellent for gripping and digging but poor at manipulation. Nevertheless, their wide variety of tools and ingenuity to use them is what makes hunting them such a difficult task for a hunter of any experience.

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Basilisks:
"'I don't care if it's a dragon or wyvern, I want it gone,' the High Mountain king said to me. I told him it was neither, and that he might not have to worry about the cost. It was mostly likely I wouldn't return to collect it."--Slip Fin, of the Hydra Philosophy, 1210 A.O.

Death to the hunter who thinks the term "cousin of the dragon" makes it any less dangerous. In truth, basilisks are far more deadlier thanks to their tenacity in a fight. While dragons have wings and are able to fly from any fight, a basilisk is grounded. If any threat presents itself it will assume that threat has the intent to kill, and will not hold back.

Armed with rows of serrated teeth and feathered limbs, its presence alone can terrify. Some basilisks favor their horrifying screech to paralyze foes. Thought to be magical by ancient hunters, a basilisk's cry simply rings at such a frequency that its prey and predators are crippled by its sound. 

In addition, basilisks come in two varieties: venomous and fire-breathing. They are easily identified by looking under their necks. Fire-breathing basilisks have organs under their jaws that hang like the wattles of roosters. There, it stores fat and processes it into a highly flammable oil. It's unknown exactly how the basilisk ignites the oil, except that it must be through a catalyzed oxidation of the oil. No organ is found to facilitate this, so the prominent theory stands that the process happens at the level of cells.

Venomous basilisks, on the other hand, have no wattles, only slightly wider heads to accommodate their massive venom glands. It can fire the venom from its mouth against a stronger opponent, but often times it simply coats its teeth in the venom for a deadlier bite. 

One should always be wary of a bite from any basilisk, however. Venom or fire, their saliva is a cesspool for diseases. Food rotting away between their fangs feed diseases that it uses to infect and slowly kill its prey. "Immediately treat any wound inflicted by a basilisk" was one of the first lessons taught by the founders of the Dragon Arts, and has proven good for thousands of years since.

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Baykoks:
"Villagers spoke of an army of the dead that passed by. Corpse eaters, I told them, for peasant ponies always mistake corpse eaters as undead ponies--I don't see how, but that's beside the point. But then I found rotting weapons in the fields where they had passed, where no battle has ever been fought. For once, I doubted myself." -- Sharp Tone of the Discipline of Mutants, 1410 A.O.

Baykoks are one of many monsters appearing in Equestria after an unknown magical event, named as the Day of Revelation. Portals appearing in every kingdom are producing new monsters that hunters have no experience with. It is fortunate that one such monster is the baykok--they are dull, stupid creatures despite their ability to use weapons.

Appearing as pale brown or grey ponies, with translucent skin so the glowing white bones reveal themselves, baykoks travel in packs of at least fifty. It is guessed that their weapons originated from whatever world they came from, but over time some carry weapons of soldiers their packs have killed.

Equally strange is that baykoks are never seen feeding. They kill only armed ponies, and leave the dead untouched. For this reason, small weapons like that used by the Murder of Crows are effective at getting close to a baykok, for it will ignore a pony so long as it thinks it is unarmed. Conversely, long pole weapons are also advantageous due to its lack of wit. In its fervor to attack, a baykok will, in all likelihood, forget about the spear point in its way.

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Behemoths:
"The South Coast Kingdom would not exist today were it not for the unanimous decision of all its lords to come together and elect a king. However, they gave up power with selfish intent, for it was the king who had to decide how to deal with the behemoths who inhabited the swamp."--On South Coast History by Oakrend Taletell, 890 A.O.

Even monsters hunters fear certain animals. Bears and ferocious wild boars are hardy creatures to have survived in the wild alongside monsters. It stands to reason a monster with any resemblance to such animals be treated with double the respect. Such is the case when facing a behemoth.

An adult behemoth stands at about the height of a single-story townhouse. Most of its body is comparable to a wild boar, but there are many differences to consider. It has specialized hairs along the back of its neck and upper back that are hardened into points. They can be fired for defense, or remain in place to stop attackers from getting close.

In the front it has four tusks, two on either side, capable of raking through entire trees as it charges. It grinds its tusks against rocks and stone to keep it from growing too large and sharpen them at the same time. If that is not enough, a behemoth's front legs can act as lethal weapons. Boasting sharp claws on its forelegs as a method of marking territory, its size lets it tear through muscle and armor, even chainmail and joints of plate, without effort.

It eats mostly plants fibers, though is omnivorous and very territorial. Behemoths do not actively hunt, but consider any animal in their sight as trespassing in its territory, no matter where it is. As a warning, they partially devour the bodies of the offending creature to ward off others of its species. 

There have been dozens of recorded killings of behemoths by hunters. All of them with no less then five hunters, and usually out of pure necessity. Advice taken from survivors of those encounters suggest fire and illusion spells are key in slowing a behemoth, however all also admit their success to be the result of pure luck as well. Therefore it is hard to say if there is any definitive way for a hunter to kill a behemoth.

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Blackbirds:
"And so for the wedding her sisters, despite hating her, volunteered themselves as Little Ashes' bridesmaids. They were overjoyed to be in the royal wedding, so much so they did not notice when blackbirds emptied their sockets of eyes."--Follies of Greed, by the Grin Twins, 1697 E.I.C.

Part of the family of avian monsters, blackbirds are smaller relatives of the rocs (see Rocs). Their black bodies are foreboding in the day, while invisible in the night. Like most birds, they feed their young through regurgitation. However, their bile are a lot more purposeful than any normal bird's.

To protect their young, adult blackbirds regurgitate highly concentrated amounts of stomach acid at predators. As a result, the hide and organs of Blackbirds are highly resistant to acids, and highly sought after ingredients for health fortification tonics and acidity resistance potions.

Despite the demand for blackbirds, there is no shortage of their kind. Blackbirds mate once every season, and it is these seasons that determine many of the individual attributes.

The ones born in the spring keep some of their fluffier feathers from their youth. This allows them to disguise themselves as small distant trees by puffing up their feathers and wrapping themselves in their wings, tracking and watching animals come out of hibernation without ever being noticed. They are calm and analytical hunters, often seeming to plan every hunt days in advance by spying on its prey's activity.

Summer blackbirds are a stark contrast to their spring brothers and sisters. Prey becomes grown, fed, and strong in the summer, and thus so too must the blackbirds born in this season. They are grow up to twice the size of their spring relatives, with talons that are, proportional to their body, twice in length. Few other monsters can match the grip strength of a summer blackbird.

Autumn blackbirds are a peculiar bunch, to say the least. Of the four seasons, they are the only ones to possess low amounts of magic ability. They're the only ones to fly in flocks, combining their magic and creating illusions of food for animals preparing for hibernation. Their eyes are red and their bodies taller, more slender. It is unknown whether fear of an autumn blackbird is a result of its magic or common sense, but either way the smartest thing to do is to turn tail and run. When there is one, there is bound to be dozens more.

In the winter, blackbirds are born with impressive wingspans and excellent sense of smell. Only the most well-hidden animals can hope to cover their scent from a hungry winter blackbird. With wings that can carry them for miles on cold winds, these monsters seek out unsuspecting animals in deep hibernation, snatching them up before they have the chance to escape. Only when there is little prey left to hunt to winter blackbirds make long trips to pony settlements. There, they may take a few scraps when offered. But when ignored on an empty stomach, it has been said they will snatch a child.

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Boncacones:
"I don't want to hunt a boncacone, Highsight. I really don't want to."--Fiora de Battaille of the School of the Cynogriffon, 1367 A.O.

A boncacone looks like a bull, regardless of the monster's sex. Its tail is noticeably longer and behaves as a whip-like appendage to swat offending insects. However, it possesses a unique trait: highly toxic dung. Its fecal matter is not only unbearable to the nose, but also burns the eyes and skin with the venom that the boncacone drenches it in. The venom remains effective even as it evaporates from the dung's warmth, poisoning the skin and eyes of those who stray too close to it. It can even reach a lethal dose if one is unable to escape its effects after long periods.

It produces this dung only as a defensive measure, however, beyond that there is nothing physically threatening about a boncacone. Little else about the boncacone is notable. It is a herbivore like cows and rarely threatens ponies. In fact, once its dung is left to decay and the venom as been broken down, what remains is a very rich fertilizer for farmers.

--------------------------

Buk'ta:
"Imbibe an antidote of basilisk blood and peppermint, then a Tundra's Breath decoction, and approach the monster's lair slowly. Be wary of the clear scale atop its head, which will blind you with its bright magic. It would be prudent to practice one's listening techniques."-- Grandmaster Stonewood of the School of the Cynogriffon, 1298 A.O.

Living in swamps, rivers, and wetlands across Equestria, the semi-aquatic Buk'ta is a common plague in regions west of the High Mountain. It is a serpent as around as a tree trunk with the antlers or either a moose or a stag. Between those horns is a large, specialized scale. Hunters and victims alike describe it as a gemstone that shines radiant light as bright as the sun, a result of the monster focusing its natural magic through its lens-like scale.

If blinding brightness wasn't challenging enough, once they reach adulthood, Buk'ta have fully developed venom glands, and a pit below the tongue to eject it as a mist, which has led to the myth that their toxic breath is a harbinger of death. Its venom is peculiar, however, in that it acts more like a plant poison with the ability to be absorbed through the pores.

Effects of Buk'ta venom include paranoia, varying degrees of hallucinations, and hysteria. It is fortunate that there are a few monsters naturally immune to similar toxins, among them include basilisks and dunters (see basilisks and dunters). In addition to defense against the monster's natural weapons, Buk'ta are as fast and ruthless of a killer as any normal snake, and have the ability to sense changes in temperature. It is almost impossible to catch a Buk'ta by surprise; it almost always finds its hunter before the hunter finds it.

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Charyb:
"Train to clear your soul of feeling. That is a must for a hunter, for monsters like the charyb can manipulate the hearts of lesser creatures."--Greater Fae by Grandmaster Mountain Gale of the Dragon Arts, 9 E.I.C.

Charybs are one of many monsters thought to have been hunted to extinction during the height of the Orendrean Empire. Famously, hunters from the Dragon Arts and Murder of Crows were hired by the Orendrean emperor to eliminate all charybs after his own wife was stolen away by a trickster charyb, who was sometimes referred to in literature as Corten and treated as a god of love in many stories.

Few monsters boast mental and illusionary magic as strong as charybs, which they use to--at the very least--manipulate the emotions and relationships of ponies for entertainment. At the very worse, they use their illusions to turn their grey, stork-like bodies, into beautiful stallions and mares to lure unsuspecting ponies to their dens, where they consume their victims in an ecstasy of ravenous hunger and lust.

In recent times, charybs have been one of many monster species appearing out of bizarre magical rifts across Equestria. While most of those are new, unseen species, it's widely accepted among masters and grandmasters that charybs prove that Equestria has, at some point, encountered an event similar, or even exactly the same, as the sudden appearance of the rifts.


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Chenoh
"The pony who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. And then gets killed by a Chenoh."--a popular saying among Western Equestrian miners.

Though some scholars still hold the belief that chenoh is a larger subspecies of magical constructs known as golheim (see golheim), the stone giants of Northwestern Equestria are widely accepted to be the result of demons that had been separated from Tartarus and slowly evolved into hardy creatures of rock.

Though vestigial organs are still present, these take the form of fossilized bones and fangs, giving the chenoh a frightening appearance for those untrained to hunt them.

They can stand at almost three times the size of a stallion. Fortunately, most don't hunt ponies, or any animal for that matter. Chenoh are thought to subsist solely off magic, explaining why they inhabit only a few mountainous regions known for having deposits of crystals susceptible to magic properties and enchantments.

Still, whenever ponies, either by greed or necessity, decide to tunnel and mine through their homeland, the chenoh can retaliate viciously. Hunting in groups of two to five, escape is nearly impossible. Once they choose to attack, they will always begin by finding a way to ensnare their prey before brutally killing them.

Even for monster hunters, chenoh are deadly. Few ever take contracts on them, as it usually requires the hunter to venture into the chenoh territory. Blades will have no effect on a chenoh's stone body, and they have the ability to absorb magic from spells and glyphed horseshoes. In the history of monster hunting, only powerful explosives have ever completed a chenoh contract.


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Chimaera
"One of the oldest known monster species, chimaera are more than the sum of their parts. They are patient, relentless, and powerful, and it takes a level-headed hunter to kill. Even then, my students, bring a friend."-- Krokadilla of the Dragon Arts 20 E.I.C., Chapter 3 of "The First Year on the Path."

The head and body of a big cat. A tail made of a snake. A goat head with hardened, bone-crushing horns. A chimaera's snake venom can be quickly negated by healing infusions that have been treated with snake venom. It is essential, for the combination of its feline speed and venom turns this mess of a monster into a disciplined killer, capable of killing multiple hunters at once.

It sharpens its goat horns on rocks and other hard surfaces, often attacking villages that build too close to its forests. To track one in the wild, or to know where to avoid, a hunter should keep an eye open for horn scrapings along large, flat stone surfaces. After that, move very, very quietly.