1 - The Fugitive

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She never used safety gear, never dreamed of it. She could scamper up and down cliff faces at speeds that would make fliers jealous. She wasn’t a unicorn, so she couldn’t use magic, and she wouldn’t if she could. She could climb near-vertical cliffs as if they were sidewalks. She could find sure footing on the smallest ledges, ledges most ponies wouldn’t even notice. She didn’t even need any hoof wrappings. She was, although nopony knew it but her, one of the best equine climbers in the world.

And yet, Polar Sun wished she were a mountain goat.

Halfway up the cliff face, she leaned against the rock, licking at a tiny outcropping, tasting the salt deposit. Mountain goats had taught her how to notice them and how many nutrients she could get from them. Mountain goats had taught her how to get to them. Mountain goats had taught her literally everything she’d learned in the past ten years, and almost everything in the five years before that. But there were some things they couldn’t teach her simply because she wasn’t a goat. Their hooves were designed differently than ponies’, with pads that could provide traction and two toes that could be moved independently for extra grip. No, no matter how good she got, Polar Sun would never be as good as a mountain goat.

“Quit complaining to yourself,” Polar said as the deposit began to run dry. “You’re not a mountain goat-” Lick. “-you’re a pony-” Lick. “-and you’re a sunblasted good climber in spite of it.” Lick lick. Polar talked to herself a lot. There wasn’t anyone else to talk to, most of the time. She didn’t always talk back, though.

Polar glanced west. Far and away, the Crystal Palace and its towering spires were silhouetted against the half of the sun still above the horizon. “Got done at exactly the wrong time, didn’t I?” Too late to go for one last bit of salt, too early to be able to turn in immediately once she got back home. Ah, well. Maybe she could get up early tomorrow to waste time.

“Or maybe I need to get some new books.” (Polar’s monologue often shifted between inner and outer.) “Stop by the Crystal Empire next moon, go to the used bookstore, hire a unicorn to get them up here…” She had the money. The mining over the past year had been good. And what else was she going to spend her bits on? “Doctors, maybe.”

She shook her head. “But this ain’t the best place to be thinking about all this.” She reached up and hooked her hoof around a tiny spur, pushing the sole onto it. The maneuver was slightly painful, but it was almost impossible for her to slip, what with the hoof hooked around the rock. “Right. Good grip. And…” She reached up with a lower leg, patting at the rock until she found a good spot, repeated, and pulled herself up. She did this all in seconds, striding up the cliff face so easily that if you rotated the world ninety degrees, she might as well have been walking down a street. The rock was cold against her bare hooves, but she didn’t notice that anymore.

By the time she reached the top and the narrow band of open earth between empty space and the forest, Polar was breathing heavily. She was spry for a mare her age, she wanted to say, but she was still a mare her age. It was only a matter of time before living up here was impossible for her. “But not yet. Five years, maybe. But not yet.”

She sat on the ledge and looked at the land below her. “So where would I move?” The Crystal Mountains sprawled around her and curved around the world, around the Crystal Empire with its supernaturally green pastures, to the horizon and beyond. The mountains, white with snow, rose into the sky like a city made of the teeth of some colossal predator. Their slopes were a mixture of steep and gentle, forbidding and welcome, barren and forested, as varied as the whole world. She’d known all those slopes, once. But half a decade of living here all by her lonesome had slowly chipped away at Polar’s memory, and now she only knew the surrounding twenty miles or so.

“Not the Empire.” That much was certain. “Too easy.” Most maps claimed the Empire was the only civilization around, but maps were some of the filthiest liars Polar had ever known. There were towns (usually centered around mining) scattered here and there, little hamlets that Canterlotian bigwigs deemed not “real” communities. Most of the landmarks Polar was familiar with simply didn’t exist, as far as maps were concerned. But Polar knew them, knew some ponies in some of them. Maybe she’d go to one of those and work until her heart gave out. “You’re real good at tempting fate, you know.”

As she was standing up and working the crinks out of her joints, Polar heard another voice, semidistant. It was a constant stream of various four-letter words. She huffed. “Ponies these days are so uncreative with their curses,” she muttered as she walked along the ledge. “The whole wide world of language before you, and you constantly use the same words over and over again? Pfft.”

She saw the pony after about half a minute of walking, still illuminated by the sunset. The other pony — a unicorn mare, but Polar couldn’t make out much else in the dimming light — paced back and forth next to the cliff a few times, looked over, cursed uncreatively again, and went back to pacing through the thin snow. She was wearing decent clothes for this weather, but Polar felt she looked lost or out of her depth.

Polar cleared her throat. “Hey.”

The unicorn yelped and scrambled into the trees, her hooves kicking gravel into space. She ducked behind a tree, paused, then leaned back out. After a second, she grinned nervously. “Um. Hey.” She walked back out from the trees and rubbed her neck. “I, uh, didn’t know anypony else was out here.” She was trying and failing to sound confident.

“Well, I am,” Polar said with a shrug. She glanced over the cliff and half-grinned at the unicorn. “You thought this pass was gonna be easier, didn’t ya?”

“U-um…” The unicorn coughed. “It’s, I… just kinda-”

“I’ll be. I barely know you and I already know you’re a terrible liar.” Polar laughed. “Don’t worry, it happens to the best of ponies.” In truth, Khuuramch Pass, as the yaks called it, wasn’t a pass at all. It was a very prominent notch in this part of the Crystal Mountains, easily visible and quite inviting from both sides. Once you approached it from the south, though, you were in for a nasty surprise: a cliff, eighty degrees steep in some cases, rising hundreds of feet from the ground and not easily recognizable as such from a distance. Coming from the north was even nastier, since you couldn’t see just how steep the cliff was until you were on top of it and almost completely through the notch, forcing you to turn back. With the exception of a few travelers a year, ponies trekking through the mountains turned around and found an easier way. Polar clicked her tongue and nodded back the way she’d come. “It’s getting dark, so let’s get inside. C’mon. My house ain’t far.” A gust of wind made her tug her coat closer to her. “And stay away from the edge, will ya?”

“Heh. No problem there.” The unicorn trotted after Polar, sticking to the trees. “So, you live out here?”

“Sure. Look at the view.” Polar gestured at the valley, drenched in sunset orange.

“But… why?”

“Why not?”

“You’re miles from everypony, you need to work hard every single day just to stay alive, you barely get any company.”

Polar grinned at the unicorn. “I said ‘why not’.”

“…Oooh. Gotcha.”

Darkness was beginning to well and truly fall by the time they reached Polar’s house. One story and one large room. It was made of rough-hewn rock and looked like a strong wind could blow it over, but Polar was proud of it. She’d built it herself, mining the stone and cutting the wood and even (when she’d still been able to do it) refining the few bits of metal in it. It’d stood for over a decade and was one of the best houses she’d ever lived in.

Polar opened the door; the room was pitch-black. She started patting down next to the door, trying to find her matches. For a second, she wished the unicorn would provide some light to help, but then she found the box. She quickly struck a match and had the oil lamps lit. Everything the light illuminated was very rough and completely functional; even the “floor” was just beaten-down ground. “Just sit anywhere,” Polar said, gesturing vaguely. Not that there were many places to sit.

“Ehm. I… Thanks.” The unicorn looked around the room, shuffled from hoof to hoof, and slipped her saddlebags off. Now that the light was better, Polar examined the unicorn more thoroughly. She was a sort of pale green, like frosted grass, with deep blue eyes. Her clothes, thick furs, looked old and worn. Her saddlebags were bulging and her mane was hidden beneath a hood. A small knife was strapped to her fetlock. At first glance, she seemed a perfectly capable adventurer. But something about the way she stood, the way she looked around, the way she held her legs a touch too closely together, made Polar think otherwise. It was like the unicorn was a yuppie who’d heard about this “mountaineering” thing, decided to give it a whirl, and researched it perfectly — but now that she was out and about and actually experiencing it, she was feeling aches and pains in places she hadn’t felt them before and was learning for the first time that, wow, mountains can be cold. Hopefully, she’d toughen up before the Frozen North took her.

The unicorn examined the room a little more, glanced at Polar, and did a double-take. “You’re, uh… You leave out here wearing that?” Indeed, Polar’s clothes were limited to thinnish leathers for mobility. Cold, but she didn’t mind.

“I don’t need much more,” Polar said with a shrug. “You hungry? I ain’t got much, but I can spare some things.”

“Ehm. Sure. Thanks.” But the unicorn glanced at the door again.

Polar opened up a flimsy-looking cabinet and began rustling through the piles of food inside. “Ain’t much food out here-” She pulled out a small salt lick and set it on a small, stained table. “-but if you know where to look-” A large bowl of lichen, scraped away from rocks beneath the snow. “-you can find-” Small chunks of willow bark. “-quite a bit.” A bundle of shrub roots. She paused, then added, “And sometimes I splurge.” A bag of apples, bought in the Crystal Empire. Even out here, you could indulge. “You hungry?”

The unicorn’s stomach growled. “No.”

“C’mon, take your coat off, stay awhile. You ain’t gonna be doing much traveling this late.” Polar pulled the table into the middle of the room and tapped it. “And your misplaced tough-mare attitude ain’t impressing anypony out here, so stop acting all self-reliant.”

The unicorn glanced at the door one last time, then muttered something under her breath. “Fine.” She pulled down her hood, revealing a short, dirty-gray mane. Tentatively, she sat down at the table. “No… no plates?”

“Nah. What’s the point?” Polar silently thanked the fates that she’d managed to keep the pony inside. Only idiots would try to travel the pass this late. She began devouring one of the roots like it’d tortured her family to death. “Name’s Polar Sun,” she said once she’d swallowed. “Yours?”

“Ehm… Amanita.” Amanita sniffed at the bowl of lichen, hesitantly tried a spoonful, then dug in vigorously.

Polar had more questions for Amanita, but they could wait. As good as salt deposits tasted, they tended to be light on actual nutrients, and she was hungry.

Bitterroot figured she knew the answer, but she held up the bounty poster for the bartender anyway. “Have you seen this pony?”

Gilina examined the poster for a long moment, then shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.” And it wasn’t a “I need something brassy to refresh my memory, if you know what I mean” type of sorry, but genuine. Bitterroot knew Gilina too well for that.

“How about this one?”

“…Nope.”

“This one?”

“…Nuh-uh.”

And they went through four or five more ponies like that. Bitterroot wasn’t surprised; just because fugitives sometimes came to this town because it was off the map didn’t mean one was here, now. She wasn’t chasing any bounties, anyway. This little village, Ironforge, was just where she went once every one or two years to get away from it all — you couldn’t get much further away than off the map entirely — and she was simply checking to be sure no big names were trying to take refuge there. So after all the negatives, she said, “Thanks, anyway. A beer, please.” She slapped a few bits on the bartop.

Gilina nodded and within seconds, a full tumbler was sitting in front of her. It was funny; Bitterroot could go to some of the most upscale bars in Canterlot, places that spent more on the flooring than she made in a year, ask for “a beer”, and get a verbal essay on the Importance of Choosing the Proper Beer, so wouldn’t you like to be more specific? (No, she didn’t, she just wanted some sunblasted alcohol, you stupid-) But here, outside Equestria, in a ramshackle building that barely qualified as a bar, she could ask for “a beer” and get a fitting drink in a moment, no questions asked, in spite of the decent selection of different beers. And it’d taste halfway good, to boot. Bitterroot took a sip and nodded her thanks to Gilina. It was all there was time for before Gilina had to move on to the next customer. The Sinopia Stein was busy that night and there was no time to talk.

Not that Bitterroot would’ve wanted to talk, anyway. Her last job had been aggravating and she just wanted some alcohol to relax. She stared into her almost-full glass and swished the beer around. “Why’d you run, you little idiot?” she muttered, half to herself, half to the little idiot. The foal had just been stupid. The heir to some medium-big-time noble title, almost but not yet of age, had committed petty theft in Canterlot and skipped town while on bail (she’d hid out in her family’s manor, as it turned out) while her family used connections and other technically legal means to stymie attempts by the Guard to find her. After all, she was an Important Pony who couldn’t go to jail. (Theft was apparently a-okay, though.) Eventually, an aggravated lieutenant had come up to Bitterroot and hired her, as somepony outside governmental channels, for a foalnapping. Using those words, too. At least you couldn’t fault him for beating around the bush.

After the longest, mane-pullingest week of her life, Bitterroot had eventually gotten the young mare back to Canterlot (in a sack), but the press had had a field day. Simply put, nopony came out of that looking remotely pretty. Not the mare, not the family, not the Guard, not the lieutenant, not Bitterroot herself. The lieutenant had given Bitterroot immunity for the abduction and an inflated bounty in exchange for absolute silence. She’d been only too happy to comply and promptly left Equestria. Whatever the Canterlot Post was saying about her, she didn’t know and she was perfectly happy not knowing.

Bitterroot stared into her half-full glass and swished the beer around again. The situation had left a bad taste in her mouth that hadn’t even dimmed slightly yet. For all the princesses’ bleating about “friendship” and “harmony”, ponies could be remarkably backstabbing. Heck, the presence of the Royal Guard proved that; if nopony ever tried to do anything wrong, the Guard would never need to serve any law-enforcement roles. And that was within Equestria, the supposed heart of friendship and harmony. Out here… “lawless” was, perhaps, a bit strong. But the land was definitely wilder. Maybe it was because Bitterroot didn’t know many ponies in the Frozen North, but the backcountry of the Crystal Empire had always seemed more of a free-for-all than Equestria. In this land, it seemed friendship would only slow one down, so ponies — people — fell into an every-mare-for-herself mentality, fighting for survival against the weather and each other, and to Tartarus with anyone else.

Of course, her living relied on that self-centered mentality to a certain extent, both within Equestria and without. She wasn’t sure she should go around pointing hooves.

Bitterroot stared into her empty glass. Did she want another? …Not yet, no. Not alcoholic, at any rate. Definitely something non-alcoholic, maybe something frui-

Behind her, the door to the bar banged open. A habit of staying out of notice made Bitterroot reflexively pull into herself. She nudged her glass into position to take a look in the reflection before she realized what she was doing. She twisted around on her stool.

Two mares, an earth pony closely followed by a pegasus. The earth pony, a dark purple specimen with cold blue eyes and a long, pale mane, was clad in furs that seemed a touch too large for her from the way they hung off her slim frame. She wasn’t carrying much; that was left to the pegasus. The pegasus was strongly built, like she’d been lifting weights all her life. Her coat was a dark yellow, her red mane trimmed very short. Her leather clothes were roughly made and looked like they’d been padded with cotton, but they fit. A silk scarf, blue, was wound around her neck and muzzle. Her every movement was taut, like she didn’t want to be there, and her green eyes were oddly flat. She bore the earth pony’s bags and weapons, with an arquebus visibly bumping at her side. A stupider setup Bitterroot had never seen in her life; why have the weaker pony as the pack person?

Lacking anything better to do and not that thirsty, Bitterroot watched the pair. The pegasus kept looking at the earth pony, who examined the room intently. She didn’t move from the doorframe, not even when a drunk attempted to leave.

“ ’Ey!” protested the drunk loudly, swaying on her hooves. “Yer, yer, yer, yer iiiiiin… m’way!” She waved a shaking hoof. “Gitaway! Git!”

The earth pony fixed the drunk with an angry glare. “You git.”

Perhaps it might’ve worked on a sober pony, but the drunkard barely noticed. “I mean it!” she yelled. Heads were turning towards her. “Git outta m’way!”

“Busy.” The earth pony didn’t move.

“Alright! Yer askin’ f’r it!” The drunkard swung haphazardly at the earth pony.

It was a feeble blow, one anypony could’ve dodged. The earth pony snapped a hoof up, deflected the punch, and on the recoil, jabbed the drunk in the throat. The drunkard gasped and bent over, wheezing. The earth pony casually strolled past her and, once the pegasus was out of the way, bucked her out of the bar and into the early evening light. A couple of ponies raced outside to make sure the drunk would be okay in this weather, but everypony else went back to however they were wasting time. Except for Bitterroot.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the earth pony and pegasus take up seats at one end of the bar. A strange pair. The pegasus seemed to be some sort of mareservant, for some reason, and her wings looked stiff. The earth pony walked with a stride that reminded Bitterroot of businessmares: “don’t mess with me” given locomotive form. And too proud to know when acquiescence could solve a lot of problems. Probably a control freak.

Gilina headed over to them to ask what they want. Bitterroot couldn’t hear what was said over the noise in the room, but the earth pony waved her down. She dropped a pile of bits on the table and they exchanged words. Gilina pointed at Bitterroot. The earth pony nodded and left her stool to sit next to Bitterroot. “Bartender says you’re a bounty ’unter.”

Well, one thing Bitterroot knew for sure: this wasn’t a fugitive. To approach a hunter that openly was flirting with disaster, something she’d taken advantage of a few times in the past. What the heck, she had nothing to lose and Gilina had thought this pony was okay. “Sure. Why?”

“I am, too. Chasin’ a perp. Wanna split a reward?”

And Bitterroot sat up just a little bit straighter. She’d been planning on a quiet week outside Equestria, but if there was a target out here anyway, she had no reason to be on the job. However- “Lemme see your commission first.” Always be sure your partner was legitimate, just in case. An urban legend in the fugitive-recollection business was a serial killer who claimed to be a bounty hunter to other hunters, captured a supposedly escaped pony with them, then murdered target and hunter both. Bitterroot didn’t believe a word of it, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

“Sure.” The mare dug a somewhat wrinkled certificate out of her saddlebags and laid it in front of Bitterroot. Bitterroot skimmed it, taking in everything she needed to know. Artemis (that was what the paper said her name was) had been licensed by the Royal Guard in Canterlot (check one), complete with wax seal (check two), and the license expired in a few years (check three). When she examined some of the finer details — the thickness of the lines in the border, the phrasing, all that jazz — it all checked out.

“Looks good,” said Bitterroot, pushing the paper back. “Smooth entrance, by the way.”

Artemis looked a bit puzzled as she tucked the paper into her bags. “Hmm?”

“Oh, it was just so quiet and subtle and unassuming. Your targets’ll never imagine you’re here.” Just because Artemis was a real bounty hunter didn’t mean she was a good one.

Artemis’s lip curled. “She ain’t ’ere,” she said contemptuously. “I been trackin’ ’er ’cross the tundra for weeks an’ she’s gone already. I need ’elp.”

Bitterroot leaned over and nodded at the pegasus. “What about her? Isn’t she with you?”

“Hmm?” Artemis looked over, then shrugged. “Yeah, but Gale ain’t the ’elp I need. We know each other too well. I need somepony to give me a kick in th’ tail when I need it. An extra set o’ hooves an’ eyes. Somepony ’oo don’t think like me. Like us. New perspective, y’get?”

Simple assistance. Easy enough, Bitterroot figured. She’d done it several times before. “Sure. I’m in. So, who-”

“What was that I hear? You need a tracker?”

Bitterroot twitched and whirled around. A unicorn had somehow snuck onto the seat on Bitterroot’s other side and was watching them with an easy smile on her face. Her colors were earthy: brown coat, messy black mane, gray eyes. Bitterroot privately wondered what it took to get a unicorn with that coloring. She was wearing a thick cloak; no bags, but she could’ve been staying in town. Something about her voice seemed strange, like she was using Trottinghamian phrasing with a Canterlotian accent.

“Leafy Trace,” said the unicorn; she preempted Bitterroot’s next question by pulling out her own neatly-folded certificate from an envelope in a pocket and displaying it to Bitterroot and Artemis. “Greatest tracker this side of Mount Aris,” Trace continued. “Special talent. I could follow an owl on the wing through a midnight blizzard while blindfolded.” She said it without a hint of boasting.

Trace’s license looked just good as Artemis’s. Better, even, since it was still clean (definitely cleaner than Bitterroot’s own). Bitterroot was inclined to believe her based on her easy confidence alone. Artemis, on the other hoof, didn’t seem impressed. “Lemme see your mark,” she scowled.

Trace rolled her eyes and pulled her cloak up, exposing her flank and her cutie mark: a set of hoofprints under a magnifying glass. “See? Pray tell, why would I lie about that? The instant my tracking was subpar, you’d abandon me in the wilderness.”

“I’m fine working with her,” said Bitterroot. “The more, the merrier, right?”

Artemis snorted and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Anyways…” She pulled out another, dirtier, much larger piece of parchment. This one was weathered, stained, a quarter unlegible, like it’d been dropped in mud during a rainstorm, but still obviously visible as a bounty poster. It showed an unassuming unicorn, one who wouldn’t look too out-of-place at a gathering of Canterlot socialites: Amanita. Bitterroot went to the charges and twitched: necromancy. She didn’t read much further; she both didn’t want to (necromancers could perform their most grotesque rituals away from prying, authoritarian eyes out here) and didn’t need to (she’d never heard of a necromancer who wasn’t up to no good).

Bitterroot did a double-take when she saw the reward. Six hundred thousand bits. She looked closer, just in case- No, it was what it appeared at first glance. Six hundred thousand bits, dead or alive, no strings attached. “Stars above,” she mumbled. That was practically more money than she’d made in her life. Even splitting the reward, she’d be walking away with a bulging bank account.

She showed the poster to Trace, who whistled. “Hoo, baby,” said Trace. “Lotta lucre, even for necromancers. Definitely going after her, for that price. What’d she do?”

“Long story, tell ya later,” said Artemis. “But if you wanna nail ’er, we need t’ leave soon, while we still got daylight.”

Trace was already off her stool. “Be back in thirty minutes, max. I require my tools of the trade, see?”

“ ’S fine,” replied Artemis. To Bitterroot, “You?”

“Same time, same reason.” Bitterroot laid a tip on the counter and galloped out the door after Trace. Already, her heart was racing. It’d been a while since she’d been on a wilderness marehunt.

2 - Collateral

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It was hard to miss how skittish Amanita was. She didn’t sit still. Her ears twitched constantly. She kept glancing at the door. And even with her magic, she kept fumbling her food.

Things probably would’ve gone more smoothly if she’d made conversation, but Polar had never been one for conversation. It was part of the reason she’d moved out here. What was there to talk about, particularly with a stranger? Inanities like, “How’s your day?” or “Wonderful weather we’re having.” They were pointless and didn’t say anything.

Well, there was one reasonable question, but it didn’t occur to Polar until late into the meal. “So what brings you out here?” Polar asked.

“Nothing,” said Amanita, too quickly.

“…You remember what I said about you being a terrible liar, right?”

“It’s nothing,” snapped Amanita, and crammed some roots into her mouth.

Polar sighed and leaned forward. “Nopony comes out here for nothing, Ammy-” (Muffled sounds of protest worked their way around the roots in Amanita’s mouth.) “-it’s too far away from…” She gestured vaguely around. “…it all. If you don’t wanna talk about it, for whatever reason, I get it. But that’s different than ‘nothing’.”

Amanita forcibly swallowed her food. “Fine. It’s personal and I don’t want to talk about it. That good?”

“You coulda said that first thing,” said Polar, squinting at Amanita. Amanita glowered at her, but otherwise didn’t respond. Polar chewed on some lichen, swallowed, and said, “This personal thing’s important, is it?”

Amanita suddenly grew incredibly interested in what little food was left.

“I heard you cussing up a storm. Don’t bother trying to deny it.”

Very interested.

“There ain’t another pass around here for miles and miles, so-”

Amanita twitched and the fork she was levitating went flying across the room. She didn’t notice. She kept staring at her food, but only because that was what she’d been looking at to begin with. Her breathing picked up.

Polar pretended to not notice. Personal. “So,” she blazed on, “I’ll be helping you down there. Got plenty of rope, you’ll do fine.”

“Oh, thank you.” Amanita heaved a huge sigh of relief and grinned at Polar. “I’m… I’m working on a time crunch. If I had to go around, I’d…” She swallowed. “It’d be bad.”

“I can imagine,” said Polar.

That was the extent of their conversation for the remainder of the meal, but Amanita had calmed down considerably. She was still and ate more leisurely. She seemed almost happy.

By the time they’d polished the food off, Polar was feeling quite full. She got to her hooves and stretched. “Aaaaaaaaaalright,” she said. “I’m heading to sleep. I made the bed and I’m old, so it’s mine. There’s some blankets in-”

“Whoa, wait, hang on,” said Amanita. Her eyes were a little wider than usual. “What about… What about the whole thing with the rope? And the cliff? Aren’t, aren’t you going to help me down?”

“Sure,” said Polar. “Tomorrow.” What was Amanita thinking? Polar guessed that the “time crunch” was some high society party Amanita wanted to go to, naturally with tales of the great outdoors. Polar loathed parties. Stuffy, forced things.

“T-tomorrow?” Amanita ran a hoof through her mane; Polar guessed she didn’t know she was doing it. “W-why tomorrow? Can’t we just- do it tonight and- get it over with? I, I told you, I don’t have much time, I- This’ll- It’ll save me a lot of- Please?”

“Not tonight, and not before sunrise,” said Polar solidly. “Look.” She walked to a window and threw the shutters open. The night outside was only a few shades away from pitch black. “It’s too dark. I just can’t see.”

“Not a problem!” said Amanita, and illuminated her horn. She was trying to sound casual, but her voice was too high-pitched for that. “See? Light! Now you can-”

“Ain’t gonna.” Polar lightly bopped Amanita on the tip of her horn, extinguishing the glow. “I don’t feel safe going out there this late, magelight or no.”

“W-well…” Amanita pawed at the ground and looked away. Definitely a newbie at this. And she couldn’t even argue convincingly. She wouldn’t last long out there, not without some kick in the rear to make things clear for her. At least Polar could be sure that the kick wouldn’t be slipping on a cliff face, breaking her bones in the fall, and slowly freezing to death while paralyzed on the bottom.

Amanita kept looking away, and Polar soon stopped waiting for a response. “G’night,” she said gruffly. She turned for her bed.

“Wait!” said Amanita. “Just- give me the rope and I’ll go down myself! You don’t-”

Polar zipped to the door in an instant and held it shut. She might not like company all that much, but she had standards. “No,” said Polar. “You ain’t leaving this house tonight. I’ll stay up all night to keep you in if need be.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Amanita’s voice was breathless. “I can handle this.” She tried to push Polar aside, but she was a unicorn trying to push an earth pony; she had no chance. “Let me through, okay? Please? Pretty please?”

“Listen,” Polar said in a hard voice she hadn’t used in ages. “I know you’re in a hurry, but I ain’t letting you out there this late at night. Climbing in the dark’s murder, plain and simple. And-” She held up a hoof as Amanita opened her mouth. “-don’t go saying anything about lighting up your horn. You need to see the path you’re climbing beyond a few yards, else you’ll find yourself in a dead end on a sheer wall. I will not let you walk out there and kill yourself.”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” said Amanita, her voice even more strained. “I need to get down there tonight. If I don’t-” She cut herself off and stared at the wall.

“Then you shoulda planned your route better, you boneheaded greenhorn. What kinda idiot runs through these mountains full tilt on a time crunch without a map or a plan?”

“It’s-” Amanita’s ears twitched and she bit her lip. Polar could almost see the gears spinning in her head. “It was- The, the- thing that came up was urgent and I was the only one available!”

“And what ‘thing’ might that be? Where’re you headed?”

“I told you, that’s personal!” Polar could see tiny beds of sweat forming on Amanita’s forehead. Something was up with her. She was lying. “Please!”

Part of Polar was tired and wanted to just let the little idiot go out and get herself killed. One less problem in the world, right? But if that happened, she’d never rest. Assuming she got to sleep tonight, she’d probably wake up tomorrow to hear Amanita’s pained gasps rasping up from the bottom of the cliff where she’d be lying, broken and crippled. Polar figured there was a difference between out-and-out murder and letting somepony dance to their death, but at the moment, she considered them one and the same. She reared and spread her legs, blocking the door completely. “You ain’t leaving,” she said. “Period.”

Amanita’s mouth twitched. “Fine.” She suddenly lunged forward, her hooves aimed at Polar’s face. Polar instinctively brought her legs up, tucked her head down, and blocked the blows. She glanced up. Amanita had one leg back — the leg with the knife attached, point now facing outward. Before Polar could react, Amanita swung the knife and sliced her throat open.

Reflexively, painfully, Polar screamed. A weird rasping came from her mouth and a nauseating gurgling came from the hole in her throat. She tried to breathe; she coughed as her own blood trickled into her windpipe. She lashed out, kicking Amanita across the room and into some shelving. Polar fell back to all four hooves, collapsed onto her stomach and immediately put a hoof to her throat. The veritable waterfall of blood told her it was a vain attempt, but still she tried. Blood began pooling on the ground, warm and sticky.

Across the room, she dimly heard wood collapse as Amanita hauled herself out of the wreckage. Hoofsteps as Amanita walked over. “Gah! Son of a… That hurt, you know.” She crouched next to Polar, looked at the damage, and nodded. “Nice and clean. Don’t worry, you won’t be here long.”

Although Polar was breathing as deeply as she could, it constantly became more and more of a labor. What blood didn’t fall to the ground slipped into her throat. She coughed weakly. When she raised her head to look at Amanita, her eyes contained one question: Why?

“I need to leave,” Amanita said defensively, “and you were in the way. You… You did say…”

Polar stared weakly at Amanita. In spite of herself, she mustered enough energy to give what would have been a barking laugh under normal conditions. It sounded like a wet, two-toned wheeze. “I…” she gasped. “I… gave you…”

“If it’s any consolation,” Amanita whispered into her ear, “I’m sorry.”

She collapsed into a puddle of her own blood, and with one last gasp, Polar Sun died.

Bitterroot had no opinion on the cold, and she had that lack of opinion very thoroughly. She didn’t mind it, she didn’t like it. It was there and although it tugged at her feathers, there was no use complaining about it. Nothing grated on her more than whinging about the weather. So she was very thankful that Artemis’s and Trace’s comments on the weather were limited to things like “No snow in hours. The tracks should still be good.” or “Might be fog t’night.” Practical concerns, thank Celestia.

They’d been following Amanita’s trail through the forest for half an hour, walking a little faster than normal, but not quite a trot. In Bitterroot’s opinion, a good speed. There wasn’t much light left, particularly with trees on all sides, but it was still enough to see by. Her supplies bumped on one flank, her weapons on the other. She hoped she wouldn’t need the latter. Artemis had said Gale, her pegasus partner could carry the former, but Bitterroot had taken one look at the overloaded Gale and declined. She could carry her own stuff, even though Gale hadn’t objected. Hadn’t said anything, really. She responded with nods and gestures and managed to convey that she was okay carrying Bitterroot’s stuff but stayed silent and expressionless the whole time.

Meanwhile, Trace was proving herself not just a good tracker, but a superb one. She never stopped walking or even slowed down much, and her muzzle stayed glued to the ground. She didn’t even use any spells (that Bitterroot could see). There were several moments where Bitterroot had wondered what, exactly, Trace was even following, but it wouldn’t be long before she could find telltale signs of passage again. The skill made Bitterroot envious.

Since Bitterroot didn’t have much pride to swallow, she solved that problem by trotting up just behind Trace and saying, “Any chance you could teach me some tracking when we’re done?”

Trace didn’t look up from the tracks, very visible at the moment. “Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve never instructed anypony before, but I can give it a shot.”

“Good enough.” Bitterroot started to fall back to give Trace her space.

“To start, would you like to know a secret? A lot of it’s the land,” said Trace. “You saw the mountains in the light of day, right?”

Bitterroot picked up her pace again with a few flaps of her wings. “Yeah.” How could she not? Here, the mountains were practically a wall. Going the long, if safe, way around to go between Ironforge and Equestria took just over a week. The only thing breaking the wall up was a natural cleft that looked inviting but was terrible for ground travel (it had some weird Yakan name).

“See, methinks this pony doesn’t know the land, because she saw that massive blockade, picked out the easiest-looking route, and now she’s heading straight for Khuuramch Pass.” (That was the name.) “Right now, following her’s not just a piece of cake, but the whole cake. And she leaves a pretty clear trail, so once we’re through that notch, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Good.” Bitterroot slowed down again, falling into line next to Artemis.

“She doin’ fine?” Artemis asked.

“Yeah,” said Bitterroot. “She says the trail’s clear and there’s only one place she can go at the moment: Cool Ranch Pass.”

“Khuuramch Pass,” Artemis said with a scowl.

“Mine’s easier to remember.”

Artemis grunted.

Bitterroot looked over her shoulder at Gale, a few yards behind them. “Did you hear that?”

Gale simply nodded, adjusted her bags slightly, and tightened her scarf around her neck; it’d started to come loose in the wind.

Her curiosity finally boiled over. Bitterroot lowered her voice and leaned close to Artemis. “I… I don’t wanna sound offensive,” she whispered, “but… is she… all there? She hasn’t said a word this whole time.”

“She ain’t all there,” Artemis said in her normal voice. “She don’t talk ’t all. Got a wing par’lyzed. Don’t seem like much, but…” She grinned crookedly. “She’s a peg’sus. She’s s’pposed to be in the clouds, not down ’ere. Went stir-crazy in weeks o’ bein’ groundbound. Stopped flyin’ years ago, stopped talkin’ months ago, went insomn’ac and stopped sleepin’ weeks ago. ’S only a matter o’ time ’fore she stops eatin’ an’ breathin’.”

Bitterroot looked at Gale, who shrugged and scowled. If she was being honest with herself, Bitterroot had a hard time sympathizing. Oh, she tried — she was a pegasus, too — but flying just wasn’t all that important to her. Missing flying would a bummer, but not much else. She couldn’t even imagine going that mad if she went blind. Still, everypony was different, and at least Gale wasn’t slowing them down.

Ahead of them, a ball of light swelled from Trace’s horn. “Hey!” she yelled back. “From the pace, it seems as if our quarry was trying to reach Khuuramch Pass before sundown! I haven’t the faintest idea if she made it, but do you want to keep following the trail until we reach the cliff? Maybe she got caught on the top and we can grab her tonight!”

Artemis glanced at Bitterroot, who nodded. “Sounds good!” hollered Artemis. “We need t’ git back some los’ time, anyway!”

“Ought to be there in half an hour, then!” And Trace kept walking.

Books and plays always portrayed bounty hunting as some kind of awesome profession, with every hunter as some kind of one-mare-army super-mercenary. In Bitterroot’s mind, it was basically being a cop without the infrastructure. (Not that she knew, having never been a cop — or a royal guard, for that matter.) Following a target’s trail — physical trails, paper trails, contact trails, whatever — made up about ninety percent of her work. Not that Bitterroot minded, but there were long stretches where nothing happened. At least now she had some company.

The forest continued to darken. After a few more minutes of walking, Bitterroot asked, “So what did Amanita do? You never told us.”

“Tomorrow mornin’,” Artemis said promptly. “You hear it now, you ain’t sleepin’ tonight.” She looked Bitterroot in the eye. “Trust me.”

Something in her voice, something in those eyes sent shivers down Bitterroot’s spine. She’d seen the handiwork of certain criminals, things that still woke her up in a cold sweat years later. And whatever opinion she had of Artemis, her reaction wasn’t something you could fake. This could wait.

They kept walking. The light kept dimming. Artemis gave Bitterroot some light gems so they had something to see by besides Trace’s horn. Bitterroot thought of what she knew about necromancers. Very little; she hadn’t met a single one in her time as a bounty, something for which she was grateful. They weren’t immortal, were they? Not by default, no. Only if they removed their soul to a phylactery and became a lich. And if happened, well, they were screwed. At least it’d explain the colossal bounty. But assuming Amanita wasn’t a lich… Had the poster said “Dead or Alive”? If it had, they’d kill her. Dead was always better when it came to bounties like that.

Trace’s light came to a halt. “Heads up!” she said. “We just came up on the cliff, so watch your step!”

Bitterroot slowed her pace. Ahead, the forest just sort of… stopped. Beyond it was only blackness, unlit even by Trace’s light. She edged forward a little more, and it was like the world dropped away. There was a sheer wall below her, then nothing. She risked a look down. Black. Vertigo combined with nyctophobia wasn’t a nice combination; BItterroot stepped away before her world began spinning.

“Could you stay away from here for the moment?” Trace asked, waving Bitterroot away. She was still looking at the ground. “She paced a lot here. I don’t think she went down, so I’m trying to figure out which way she went and I can’t do that if you trample the tracks.”

Bitterroot nodded and stepped back. Artemis was hanging back, but her ears were turned toward them. As Trace talked, Artemis started smirking.

“Huh,” Trace said eventually.

“Good ‘huh’ or bad ‘huh’?” asked Artemis.

“I’m not sure,” said Trace. “There’s another set of hooves here, see.” She pointed to a trail coming towards them along the ridge. “Observe the bulbs, they’re much closer together. And that little dip right there, in the sole? This new mare’s got herself a pretty set of calluses. A mountain climber, I presume.” Bitterroot could, with some difficulty, see the features Trace was talking about, but only once they were pointed out. Trace’s light grew a bit brighter and she paced around the few feet of cliff. “No signs of a struggle, but I doubt this was a scheduled meeting… Do you know of any allies Amanita had? Any friends in the area?”

“Necromancers don’t got friends, ’specially not out ’ere,” said Artemis. “Amanita was cold and cruel, through an’ through. ’Ooever this poor mare was, she’s dead.”

“Probably,” admitted Trace. “But the two of them went that way.” She led the group along the ridge. Bitterroot wondered if Trace ever got neck pains from keeping her nose glued to the ground.

Eventually, a hovel loomed out of the dark. A pole had been stuck in the ground near the door; a rope had been tied to it and was hanging over the cliff. Bitterroot’s heartbeat picked up, especially once Trace said, “Two sets of hoofprints in… one set out. Whoever came out went down the cliff.” Trace finally lifted her head up and her horn started flashing. After a few seconds, she said, “No magical traps from what I can tell. The remains of some spells, perhaps, but nothing we need to be worried about.” She shifted from hoof to hoof and looked nervously at the door. “Should we…?”

“Aye,” grunted Artemis. “We should. I’ll go first. Earth pony.” Without waiting for a response, she shoved the door open and walked inside. A pause, a muffled curse, and she yelled, “It’s safe. Ain’t good, though…”

Trace glanced at Bitterroot, swallowed, and entered the hovel. “Oh, Celestia,” she muttered.

“Save your breath,” said Artemis. “There ain’t no princ’sses out ’ere.”

At first, Bitterroot agreed with Artemis. But when she peeked around the pair of them into the house, she agreed with Trace.

An earth pony mare was sprawled on the floor in the middle of the room. Her throat had been sliced so deeply it looked like her head was poised to come off entirely. Blood glistened red in the lamplight, contrasting starkly with her slate gray coat and long, cold blue mane as it pooled around her body on the packed-in earth. Orange eyes stared blankly at the wall. The pony’s mouth was slightly open, as if in surprise. Her body, so strongly built, looked oddly taut from rigor mortis. One of her hooves was still bound in bloodstained climbing wrappings. Bloody hoofprints were tracked around the room.

Bitterroot wondered if it said anything about her that she didn’t have much of a reaction. She’d seen worse. She’d seen much, much worse. She’d stopped worse from happening. There was only a single pony here, after all. Yet: “only” a pony? That shouldn’t make it any less horrible. If she kept saying it was “only” a pony, she might start thinking chasing down her quarry wasn’t worth it. That happened to some jaded bounty hunters. But if she let herself feel fully, let her rage boil over, she wouldn’t be able to think rationally and her target would get away. It was a fine line to balance between pushing your emotions aside entirely and letting them rule you.

Artemis crouched down, peering at the dead pony’s eyes. “Hmm. No tache noire. She couldn’ta been ’ere more’n a few hours ago.” She hesitated, then pushed them shut, one at a time.

Bitterroot blinked a few times and looked around the room. It was surprisingly orderly, all things considered. Sure, there were some broken shelves on one wall, food was spilled around a cabinet, a chest of traveling supplies was sitting open, but all things considered, it didn’t look like the place had been ransacked much. Almost like Amanita — a necromancer and a murderer — had only wanted a few things rather than just taking everything. Bitterroot crouched next to the mare and stared at her face, trying to think.

Trace breathed out loudly. “Okay. It’s late and it’s dark and I don’t want to climb right now. I say we make camp up here for the night and rappel down the cliff first thing tomorrow. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Artemis.

“Sure,” Bitterroot said distantly.

“I’ll take first watch,” continued Trace, “since-”

“Nah, Gale’s got it,” said Artemis. “She can’t sleep much. Don’t seem to ’urt ’er.”

“…If you’re sure.” Trace looked at Bitterroot. “Something up?”

“What did Amanita do to her?” Bitterroot whispered, half to herself.

“What’s it look like?” snorted Artemis. “Killed ’er.”

“Amanita’s a necromancer,” said Bitterroot. “Kinda hard to believe that she only killed her.”

“Anything more would likely take too much time,” said Trace. She swallowed again. “She knows she’s being followed — by Artemis and Gale, if not you and me.”

“Hrrng.” Bitterroot looked at the mare one last time, then stood up. “Let’s set up camp. Long day tomorrow.”

3 - On the Prowl

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The bear’s tracks were as clear as day, so Catskill kept running through the snowbound forest, the blunderbuss bumping at her flanks in its harness, the bandolier bouncing at her chest, her breath getting forced through her balaclava and almost steaming up her goggles. The problem with rabid animals (particularly in the disease’s later stages) was that they were unpredictable. This bear, for instance, kept swerving from side to side, doubling back on itself, taking the long way around, that sort of thing. Luckily, the bear was a bear, so its tracks were clear as day.

Ahead of her, a squirrel scrambled down a tree, onto the remains of a branch, and bounced up and down, waving its little legs and chattering to get her attention. Catskill skidded to a halt right beneath it and pulled part of her balaclava down to expose her mouth. “If this is about the bear,” she said, “I’m taking care of it.”

But the squirrel pointed in another direction, chittering madly.

Catskill frowned. “You’re sure?”

Squeak-squeaken squeak squeaker-squeakity.

“Daggit. Thanks for the heads-up.” Pulling her balaclava back into position, Catskill veered in the direction of where the squirrel had pointed. What was a pony doing out here? The only one who lived out here (besides herself, obviously) was Polar Sun several hours away, and she didn’t come down from the pass much, if at all. Whoever they were, it meant she had somepony to rescue. She didn’t have much experience rescuing ponies, so she hoped it’d be easy.

Catskill ran, as she had been doing for the past hour. Her blood rushed and her heart pounded and her lungs wheezed and her earth pony constitution meant that was all negligible. She’d redouble her speed if she weren’t already running as fast as she could. The wind pushed her hood down; she pulled it back up. Branches crunched underfoot as her hooves broke through the thin layer of snow on the ground.

Although the land was rocky and uneven around here, Catskill nearly flowed over the ground and around the trees. Her hooves picked out the few level areas with ease, and whenever there weren’t any, she adjusted her posture accordingly. Most ponies would be restrained to a fast walk, not the canter she was moving at. But it was all a basic part of fieldcraft; what sort of ranger could only move over level ground?

Eventually, Catskill took a second to slow down and lean against a tree, breathing heavily. She wasn’t tired — not very, anyway — but she was warm and almost sweating beneath her furs. She unbuttoned her coat to let the wind whisk at least some of her heat away. If she sweated now, she’d be frigid when she woke up tomorrow.

Snap.

Catskill’s head shot up and she slowly pivoted her ears, listening for- Crunch. -that. That sounded like the bear. Not too far from where she was heading. Daggit. She took several forceful breaths and bolted off again, same direction.

There were cliffs not too far from here. They were relatively short, a mere thirty or so feet compared to the hundreds of Khuuramch’s, but plenty high enough to kill you if you fell from them. The squirrel hadn’t said anything about the pony falling off, or even attempting to climb them, but animals rarely knew the kind of information ponies wanted to know. This particular pony could’ve been a pegasus, perfectly capable of avoiding the bear altogether. But Catskill didn’t know, so she had a duty.

Another loud snap, closer. The bear had probably smelled the other pony by now and was chasing her. Ponies could only run a little faster than bears, and then, not for very long. That would only be aggravated on this terrain. Normally, this wouldn’t matter, since most bears were annoyed by ponies, but since some of the symptoms of rabies included heightened aggression and a disregard for natural predators…

Catskill ran, her ears peeled for sounds, either equine or ursine. Nothing except the wind, not even birdsong. Something at the back of her head told her this was going to be close.

Then she heard it, so faintly she almost missed it. “Hey! Hey! I-I mean it! Back!” Same direction she was heading in. Closer to the cliffs. Daggit. Catskill sucked in a deep breath and ran as fast as she could. Every time her hooves struck the ground, a shock ran up her bones, into her spine. But she barely noticed.

“The bear’s rabid!” she yelled. “Put it down if you can, but don’t do anything stupid!” It was probably pointless — whoever was out here didn’t sound like they could do much against a bear — but it was worth a shot.

“Who’s there?” the pony called out. Catskill could make the voice out more clearly now; it was definitely a mare’s. “I need- BACK! I need help! Please!”

“Coming!” Catskill bellowed. Trees whistled past her, blurring into each other.

She saw it in the distance, a tree too misshapen to be an actual tree. The bear looked like a grizzly bear, a male, and a big one, probably bordering on nine hundred pounds. Catskill’s heart skipped a beat; a monster of that size might take more than one shot from her blunderbuss to go down, leaving her with a predator that was furious on top of already being rabid. The bear roared and clawed at the tree; it tilted dangerously. “HOLD! TIGHT!” Catskill screamed.

But the weight of the bear uprooted the tree and it fell, shaking the ground with its impact. A vaguely pony-ish shape staggered up from the debris and began legging it. The bear roared again and charged. In a stroke of luck, the rabies had progressed enough that its movements weren’t very coordinated and it moved more slowly than it normally would.

“Hey! Urso!” Catskill hollered, hoping to divert the bear’s attention. “Over here!” No good. The bear was single-minded in its pursuit of the pony. Catskill slowed down just enough that she wasn’t constantly bouncing up and down to examine the pony. She was a unicorn and she was… She wasn’t exactly limping, but her gait wasn’t far off from it. It was like she was in pain, but a mild one rather than anything debilitating. At least she was making good time.

The trees started thinning ahead. The unicorn broke out of the forest and ran for another few moments, only to come up short and scream in frustration. The cliffs, Catskill guessed. Of all things, the unicorn’s howl sounded like, “Not again!”

“Sideways!” Catskill screamed as the bear staggered out of the forest. “Sideways!”

The unicorn promptly shot along the ridge, the bear clumsily turning to follow. Catskill turned, too, leading the target. Her blunderbuss was effective, but it had a severe drawback. It was impossible to miss anything closer than ten yards, and impossible to hit anything farther away. And ten yards seemed like a lot, right up until you had an angry mountain lion bearing down on you.

The unicorn was still running, keeping up a decent pace. The bear was following her doggedly, stumbling a little but not dropping back. Catskill was galloping, aiming for a good place to intercept. She was close, close enough to see the foam dripping from the bear’s mouth. She was already running through the sequence of actions needed to unholster her blunderbuss and fire it.

And then the unicorn tripped.

Catskill didn’t see what the unicorn had gotten caught on, but she suddenly realized the unicorn was rolling across the cliff, her legs flailing every time she went on her back. She screamed in pain. In seconds, the bear was almost on her. It pounced, but the unicorn had managed to get a shield up. She curled up on the ground, head beneath her legs, as the bear’s first blow bounced off the shield. Thanking whoever was listening for the few extra seconds, Catskill changed direction, hoping to reach the unicorn before-

Another hit. The unicorn spasmed and the shield shattered. The bear raised a paw just as Catskill reached them; with no time to ready her blunderbuss, she lunged for the bear, driving into it with all her earth pony strength. She hit hard and turned the beast from the unicorn, if only for a second. The bear reeled, staggered toward the edge of the cliff, and swiped at Catskill. She ducked beneath it, spun, and bucked the bear as hard as she could. Ribs cracked as the bear stumbled and teetered over the ridge, claws flailing.

One of those claws hooked into Catskill’s clothes and she went over the edge.

Before she knew what was happening, Catskill slammed into the cliff face. Something cracked and agony filled one of her legs. She bounced off into a spin as the wind whistled in her ears, then fell back and hit again. More things broke, more legs hurt; some of her coat was ripped off when her face hit the rock wall. She landed on her side on an upthrust rock. Her head smashed the ground hard enough for her to see stars and she screamed as she felt the stone’s point tickling her guts. She forced herself off it and to her legs even as the world reeled beneath her. But the pain was already shrinking as her body shut it down for the moment. Hopped up on her fight-or-flight instinct, Catskill spun around, looking for the bear.

She felt like Tartarus, but the bear didn’t look much better. One of its front legs was crooked, large patches of its fur had been scraped off, and it flailed its legs like it didn’t know how to work them. For a second, Catskill hoped the fall would do it in, but then it managed to stand up. Any other animal would’ve limped away to lick its wounds, but not a rabid one. It noticed her and roared mightily; flecks of foam flew from its jaws.

By some miracle, Catskill’s blunderbuss was still intact. Her legs attempted to protest as she pulled it forward to a firing position, but she wasn’t in any mood to argue. Driven by rabies, the bear was already moving on her. On one of her fetlocks was a metal clip; she swiped it across her bandolier, only to miss as she lurched to one side thanks to overbalancing and panic. Her next try snatched up a cartridge, so she pushed the cartridge into the blunderbuss’s breech and slid it shut.

The bear pounced at her. Catskill rolled to one side, oblivious to the rocks digging into her back. She spun around, facing the bear at the same time it faced it. It reared and roared in a dominance display. Catskill blinked blood out of her eyes, aimed for the upper chest, and chomped on the trigger bit.

BOOM.

The blast could be heard for miles as its echos flew between mountains. Not that Catskill could hear that; all noise in her ears cut out, displaced by the buzz of tinnitus. She staggered a foot back from the recoil; the harness dug at her chest and her sides even through her furs. The uniquely burned stench of black powder filled the air. Through the haze of smoke, though, Catskill could see the important thing: the bear, its chest reduced to a bloody pulp and worse, suddenly still. It blinked plaintively at Catskill, as if asking her a question, and toppled to the ground. It didn’t move again.

Catskill grinned. Scratch one less rabid bear.

And the second she was out of danger, the adrenaline wore off and pain hit her like a freight train. Her side felt like it’d been sawn open with a drill and every single one of her legs felt like something was out of place. Third-degree burns would’ve been less painful. That wasn’t even getting into the cuts on her frogs, on her face. She tried taking a step, but her fetlock throbbed and her legs gave out, on the verge of snapping like balsa wood.

Catskill lay on the ground, futilely attempting to replenish her oxygen. She was suddenly aware she was lying in a warm puddle. When she felt it, the gash on her trunk was hideously wide. She swore; she still couldn’t hear her own voice.

She didn’t know how long she was sprawled there, her heart twinging in her chest, but sound slowly returned. A shadow passed over her and the first thing Catskill heard was a voice. “No no no… Not again…” The unicorn hovered over Catskill, unable to keep her hooves still for a second. Funny; from this distance, she almost looked like a lost city slicker, prepared for anything except actual effort. “Don’t… Please don’t… I’m low on-”

“Burn the bear,” wheezed Catskill. “Or at least… head.” She coughed; a few specks of blood came up. “Kills virus. Can’t… survive… outside… saliva.” She tried to stand. A mixture of pain and her legs refusing to respond sent her back down again. She cursed, a few pain-induced tears falling from her eyes.

The unicorn looked at the bear, twitched, and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay.” She skittered towards the body, then back to Catskill. She hastily rummaged in her bag, muttering. “Come on come on com- Ha!” She pulled out a bundle of herbs and shoved them at Catskill. “Fast-acting painkiller,” she said. She scrambled back to the bear’s body.

In spite of her situation, Catskill rolled her eyes. That was supposed to help? Better than nothing. She reached out for the plants, groaning at each additional inch she extended her leg, and slowly scooped them into her mouth. Their bitter taste made her gag, but Catskill chewed them even as her out-of-place jaw ground against her skull. She swallowed, and immediately a dull numbness overtook her. She was only vaguely aware of the way the rough rock beneath her felt, how cold it was, the way the wind pulled her tears of pain away. Well, she didn’t feel the pain anymore. She didn’t feel much of anything. Except tired. She was so very tired.

The unicorn scuttled back over. She looked around a little. “You, you took them. Good, good.” She half-grimaced, half-grinned. “You’ll be okay. Just, just try and get some rest. I can move you alone. Magic.” She made that same strange face and went back to the bear. Why didn’t she have the fire going yet?

Catskill tried to stand up again, but her legs were even less responsive than before. She tried to think, but her head wouldn’t let her organize her thoughts. Yeah, sleeping would be nice. What the heck. Catskill closed her eyes, stopped moving, and drifted away.

Bitterroot did her best. She really, truly did. But it was hard to not get annoyed at the way everypony else took so dang long at something that she could do in ten seconds.

“There’s an outcrop right below you,” she said to Artemis. “About a foot down and a few inches to the left. To the left, that’s-”

With the rope in her mouth, Artemis couldn’t say anything, so she settled for shooting Bitterroot an angry glare. She mimed zipping her lips shut. Bitterroot sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Shutting up.”

Bitterroot was hovering some ways away from Khuuramch Pass’s cliff, slowly gnawing her tongue away in frustration. Normally, she could tolerate marehunts with groundbound ponies. In more open terrain, she was usually the scout for whoever she was working with, able to spot the fugitive from miles away. In forests, she shrugged off being confined to the speed of a trot. But nopony here seemed to be a climber and it was taking them far too long to get down.

“I could carry you,” Bitterroot said to the group, forgetting her promise of silence. “Really, I don’t mind. It’ll just take-”

But Artemis waved her off and Gale shielded her face with her good wing. Trace, however, paused in her descent, then stomped on the cliff face twice. Bitterroot hovered up to her, and before she could ask a question, Trace nodded. Bitterroot hooked her hooves around Trace’s forearms, and they descended to the foot of the cliff in seconds.

On the ground, Bitterroot couldn’t miss that Trace was shaking slightly. “Thanks,” Trace said, wiping her forehead down. “There’s nothing quite like being in the middle of climbing down a cliff to find that you’re a tad afraid of heights, right? Heh heh…” She exhaled deeply, then added defensively, “Merely a tad, mind you.”

“I’m not judging,” said Bitterroot. And she wasn’t. Height was a thing some ponies were scared of. So what? She’d known royal guards who were afraid of needles. One of them had it so bad he didn’t even like looking at sewing needles. Honestly, if you weren’t a pegasus, heights were one of the more reasonable things to be scared of.

Trace looked suspiciously at Bitterroot, but didn’t say anything. She glanced up and muttered, “Taking their sweet old time, aren’t they?” She shook her head and started examining the ground. Almost immediately, she grinned. “A-ha. Our little necromancer wasn’t so good with heights, either. Take a gander.” She pointed at a few spots on the ground; Bitterroot didn’t need to look hard to see the flecks of blood inside the hoofprints. “Tender frogs plus rough surfaces equals bleeding soles,” Trace said. “Surprisingly common. I’d put good odds on finding her camp from last night soon.” She walked alongside the tracks for a few yards, matching their spacing as much as she could. “Hmm. Her pace is a touch smaller than usual, but that might just be fatigue.”

When Artemis and Gale finally reached the bottom the cliff, Trace led them into the trees. Near a large one that provided some semblance of shelter from the wind, they found a large patch of snow that had been crushed down and the remains of a crude firepit. Trace waved them away, paced around the campsite, and frowned. “Hmm. Not a single false trail. Amanita’s either too stupid or too short on time for that, I suppose.” Her horn glowed; the logs pulsed through a rapid series of colors, which seemed to disappoint her. “Shame. She seems to be good at darkness magic, so-”

“ ’Course she’s good ’t dark magic,” snorted Artemis. “She’s a necromancer.”

“Darknessss magic, my good mare,” sniffed Trace. “Lack-of-light magic to shield the glow. We won’t be spotting her fire in the night. Sorry, Bitterroot, but you’d best stay grounded after sunset.”

Bitterroot just shrugged. She’d been expecting that. Flying through the forest at night was a suicide wish, anyway.

Trace looked the campsite over one last time, kicked a log over, and set off along the trail. “Come. We’re only a few hours behind her.”

“Full o’ ’erself, ain’t she?” Artemis muttered to Bitterroot as they walked.

Bitterroot grunted noncommittally. In her opinion, Trace had earned the right to be full of herself, but it didn’t do to disagree with your employer. She’d learned that a long time ago.

They walked. Bitterroot glanced back at Gale. In spite of keeping watch all night, Gale’s behavior wasn’t any different. Bitterroot had once heard that too little sleep could kill you. She’d also heard of a stallion (she couldn’t remember his name) who claimed to have gone without sleep for years. And she knew that certain animals — some breeds of shrew, for starters — didn’t sleep at all. Sleep was one of those weird things neither science nor magic had been able to figure out yet. Maybe there was more to the “wing paralysis” story that Artemis let on — or Gale was letting on to Artemis.

They kept walking. Bitterroot decided to broach the question from last night. She cleared her throat. “So,” she said to Artemis, “what did Amanita do for such a large bounty?”

Artemis looked like she was ready to protest for a second, but instead, she sighed. “Aye. Best if’n you know.” She took a deep breath. “Killed a ’ole village. Used ’em for… dunno what, some kinda sacrifice. Ev’ry last pony.”

Bitterroot’s throat suddenly went dry. She was very glad her usual targets were simply ponies who skipped out on their bail rather than renegade warlocks. If she needed motivation beyond money to bring her target to justice, that was it. “An… An entire village,” she said tonelessly.

Artemis nodded gravely. “Saw it, too. Ever ’eard’a Grayvale? Nice town, or so I ’eard. Got there a few days back, an’...” She sighed and shook her head. “Stars above, ain’t seen nothin’ like it. Was like a sunblasted abattoir. Bodies piled ’igh, black magic sigils paintin’ the walls, blood stainin’ the snow, busted buildin’s ev’rywhere, an’ not a single pony livin’. Never felt somethin’ so… empty.”

In spite of her pegasus constitution, Bitterroot shivered and pulled her clothes tighter around herself. “Why do ponies do things like that?” she muttered. “You take ten steps outside Equestria and suddenly it’s a-okay to treat others like animals.”

“Eh.” Artemis spat on the ground. “We’re all animals, anyways. We just got ’igher ’pinions of ourselves’n others.”

Privately, Bitterroot thought that, as an earth pony, Artemis would’ve said that calling those actions “treating others like animals” would be an insult to animals. But whatever. Even with her sometimes-low view of people, Bitterroot had never liked this sort of nihilism, so she made a token effort at argument. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Nope,” Artemis said. “Lookit Equestria: we need laws an’ al’corns movin’ the sun an’ moon t’keep us in check. Then we get out ’ere, outside society, nopony to look up to, an’ lookit our lives: nasty, brutish, an’ short. ‘Animals’ is prob’ly givin’ us too much credit.”

Bitterroot was about to respond, but then Trace raised her head and looked back at them. “Hey, Artemis?” she called out.

“Aye?”

“Shut up, you whiny philosophy undergrad.” And she went back to the tracks without another word.

Bitterroot giggled quietly, but Artemis looked like she’d been slapped in the face. After a moment, she managed to spit, “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?”

Trace cleared her throat. “Shut up. Verb phrase. Imperative. A request for you to cease your talking and remain silent. You. Pronoun used as a term of address. Indicates following noun phrase is in the vocative. Whiny. Adjective. Descri-”

“I know what y’said.”

“Then why’d you ask what I said?”

“I…” Artemis picked up her pace to stand in front of Trace. “I was a-”

Trace walked around Artemis without a pause. “Would you please mind not walking on the trail that is currently our only lead on the target? You’re the one who wanted us to come, so you would do well to not disrupt our progress.”

“D’you mind makin’ sense o’ what yo-”

“You’re blindly quoting Cobbes, a favorite of anypony who thinks themselves profound,” Trace said blandly. “And you’re only going for the famous part, since the full quote would require effort. Of a world with no government, he says,” — she cleared her throat — “‘In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building-’”

“We get the idea,” groaned Artemis.

Trace blindly plowed on. “‘-no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of ponykind, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’ All things considered, at this rate, I should probably be pleasantly surprised you actually managed to get the context half right.”

“And you… just… happen to know all that?” Bitterroot asked, half skeptical, half intrigued.

“I took a philosophy elective in college, and by Celestia was Cobbes the epitome of an angsty teenager. I memorized his main points to refute them better. Whereas you, Arty, probably don’t even know what bellum omnium contra omnes is.”

“Don’t call me ‘Arty’,” growled Artemis, her ears back.

“I shall call you whatever I please, Arty. I’m the one you need.” Trace glanced at Bitterroot. “Would you like to say something? I apologize for talking over you.”

Bitterroot twitched, not expecting to be put on the spot like that. “Well-” she mumbled as Artemis squinted at her. “I- I wasn’t really-” A brainwave. “Yes. You say life out here is nasty, brutish, and short. That’s more the environment than any lack of government, isn’t it? Barely anything grows out here, so, yeah, life’s hard. But you saw the mare up on that cliff, right?” She waved a hoof back towards Khuuramch Pass. “She was old. She was living in a shack that wasn’t much but she probably built herself. And all that without much government.”

“She ain’t most ponies, y’know. ’Ow many other ponies did we pass? None, ’cause nopony survives long out ’ere. ’Sides, the second she opened up ’er ’ouse, what ’appens? Bam! Dead.” Artemis chuckled humorlessly. “Sure, I’ll admit she was doin’ fine ’til them, but face it. She ain’t the rule, she’s th’exception.”

“She’s the exception? You found us in a town! A town that had no real government and still existed.”

“Sure, maybe,” said Artemis, “if you’re bein’ gen’rous an’ call that mess o’ stone piles a town. It ain’t like they ’ad much o’-”

BOOM.

Everypony froze. Birds flew into the air some distance away, squawking at the disturbance. Low frequencies ricocheting between mountains rattled their bones and their teeth. Trace had her head up, her ears twitching. “That way, I think,” she said, pointing in the direction they were already heading. “Yes? Less than a mile.” They started a fast trot down the trail.

“More like three or four, maybe even five,” said Bitterroot. Her wings were already twitching, but she couldn’t leave her group. “Did you hear that bass? Probably from a blunderbuss, and those things are loud. And sound carries further when it’s cold.” She flared her wings. “If you want, I can see if I can find-”

“No,” Artemis said promptly. “Y’ain’t facin’ a necromancer ’lone, ’specially not if she’s got ’er ’ooves on a firearm. Stay ’ere.”

Which was what Bitterroot had been expecting, unfortunately. Worth a shot. She briefly wondered if it would’ve been worth it to corner Amanita alone, but then she remembered what it truly meant that their target was a necromancer. If she died (which was entirely possible), then her corpse could be used to attack the others. Yeah, not a good thing.

But in spite of their speed, three miles could be quite the distance, especially on uneven terrain like this, and the minutes stretched painfully on as they passed one mile, two, three, without any indication of where the blunderbuss had been fired. Bitterroot dimly reflected that, technically, they didn’t even know the shot was associated with Amanita at all. By the time they reached the location of the shot, Amanita was probably going to be long gone.

“Still on the trail,” panted Trace. “Looking strong, but she suddenly picked up her pace. It’s like she saw something that scared her, and-”

“ ’Old up,” said Artemis. “There’s somethin’ ahead.”

The group quickly slowed. It didn’t take long for Bitterroot to see what Artemis was talking about: a big, somewhat misshapen thing loped through the forest in the distance, pacing back and forth. Almost immediately, Gale stepped up to the front of the pack, her ears back, pawing at the snow.

“That’s a bear,” whispered Bitterroot as they crept a few feet closer to it. “A big one. And it looks pretty beat up. It almost… it looks like its chest was pulped by… something.”

“Why are you whispering?” asked Trace. “It won’t-”

The bear’s head snapped toward them. Suddenly, it roared and charged them. And as it approached, Bitterroot saw the sickly blue fire burning in its eyes.

4 - Predatory Notions

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When Catskill woke up, she felt tired. Not physically; she could still run a mile in under three minutes. Very much mentally, the kind of tired where you crawled into bed not because you wanted to go to sleep, but because being in bed meant you didn’t have to do anything. Like life itself was weighing her down. With a groan, she instinctively tried to push herself up, and froze.

She didn’t hurt. Not at all. Not even a tiny bit sore.

She rolled one shoulder, then the other. A bit tight, but perfectly functional. She put weight on one leg. A mild protest, like she’d run ten miles eight hours ago. She stood up completely and felt a tightness around her trunk. She was about to wiggle a hoof beneath her furs before she realized her furs had been stripped off. She looked beneath herself; a bandage was wrapped around her body and bulged with dressings where the earth had tried to stab her. Well. Lucky the unicorn knew first aid. A thin slip of parchment was tied around her fetlock with a bandage.

Catskill looked around, deliberately turning herself with her legs rather than moving her neck to keep her legs moving. It was… about two and a half hours before noon, she guessed from the sun. She was at the bottom of a small cliff, barely seven feet tall, and the forest clustered tightly around her. A fire was crackling next to her. The snow had been swept away from the surrounding area. And next to the fire squatted the unicorn, mumbling angrily and rocking back and forth, her head in her hooves. Served her right, the way she didn’t handle that bear. When Catskill cleared her throat, the unicorn flinched and looked up.

“Hey.” The unicorn forced a smile. “You’re awake.”

“I’m awake,” Catskill said flatly. She raised a hoof-

“Wait!” yelped the unicorn, jumping up. “You’re, you’re gonna break the circle!”

Catskill slowly put her hoof back on the ground and looked down. A chalk circle had been scrawled on the dirt, runic patterns scribbled around its circumference. She moved her hoof to almost touch the chalk and the energy contained in the circle made her coat stand on end.

“You see that parchment on your ankle?” said the unicorn. “Pull that off and leave it inside when you step out. And it’s gonna be cold.”

Shooting a Look at the unicorn, Catskill carefully undid the bandage and let the parchment flutter to the ground. There was something written on it, but she didn’t look. She pushed a hoof outside the circle and sucked in a breath as the cold stabbed at her like a coat made out of needles. Gritting her teeth, she pushed her way into the cold.

“Here.” The unicorn pulled Catskill’s furs from the other side of the fire and laid them at her hooves. She smiled sheepishly. “I needed to pull them off to get to-” Her voice faltered under Catskill’s withering glare. “…to, to get to… the wound and…” She folded her ears back and looked away.

Catskill pulled on her clothes, mercifully warm from the fire. They were battered from the fall, but still good enough, and the unicorn had even been decent enough haphazardly patch up the hole in Catskill’s coat. She walked a few steps. The cold still gnawed at her bones, but she still wasn’t sore. It felt like she’d just been sleeping, actually. She did a small circuit of the campfire.

“Are you, um, feeling okay?” asked the unicorn. “I’m… pretty good with healing magic, but-”

“I’m fine,” said Catskill. “Thanks.”

And then she slugged the unicorn in the jaw.

The unicorn’s head snapped to one side and she staggered several steps. She nearly overbalanced but was able to stay upright. “Gaow!” She massaged the side of face, glaring at Catskill. “What was that for?”

“For nearly getting yourself killed, you idiot,” growled Catskill. “For nearly getting me killed!”

The unicorn opened her mouth, paused, and rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine, I get it,” she muttered. “Whatever. Please don’t hit me.”

Punch.

“Ow! Sweet Celestia, that- Ow ow ow…” The unicorn rubbed her cheek. “I saved your life, you know.”

“And if I hadn’t needed to save you, I wouldn’t have almost died in the first place!”

Catskill’s mind told her that that was enough, that the unicorn hadn’t intended to stumble in the path of a rabid bear, that she was being unfair and cruel. Catskill’s emotions told her mind to zip it. “I was following that bear, you know. I could’ve followed it and surprised it and painlessly shot it in the back of the head, but nooooooooo, you need to come along and I need to rush to save you, because it a ranger’s duty to protect people, and then everything goes so frakking south we’re past the sunblasted equator and it’s getting cold again! Mother of…” Catskill shattered a rock against the cliff face.

“You’re. Welcome,” said the unicorn tightly. “I didn’t just-” She cut herself off and looked away. “Well, goodbye. I’m heading for the Crystal Empire.”

Catskill’s nerves jerked as she whirled on the unicorn. “You? The Crystal Empire? Alone? It’s like four days’ travel away!” Just what she needed. A ranger’s obligation to escort this… idiot… through the North for half a week. As if life wasn’t hard enough out here already.

The unicorn stared at Catskill in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you want to go with me!”

“I don’t, but you couldn’t even handle a wimpy old bear!”

“Wimpy- old- That sunblasted thing was rabid!”

“And you’re a unicorn! You have range!”

For some reason, the unicorn looked especially put out by that. “I- I was surprised and- Look, you really don’t want to travel with me. I’ve…” The unicorn rubbed one leg against the other and looked away again. “There’s a- There are probably ponies chasing me,” she said. “I- made somepony mad, and- and she’s nuts. If she sees you with me, she’ll probably go after you, too. Just- keep yourself safe, don’t worry about me, g’bye.” She began smudging the chalk circle, one rune at a time.

“I’m a ranger, I can’t just leave y-” And then Catskill realized something that gave her pause. “If ponies are chasing you,” she asked in a slow voice, “why’d you stay and help me?”

The unicorn went silent at that. One of her ears twitched. She looked up at Catskill and blinked slowly. “What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“I-” Catskill realized she’d never been taken aback for as long as she could remember. Part of it was because she’d avoided ponies for so long, but she’d never tried to say something and just had nothing. “I was close to dead. I mean, how long did it take to save my life?”

“Including moving you? Abo- A little under forty-five minutes.” The unicorn went back to smudging. “The circle helped a lot.”

Catskill blinked twice. Less than an hour. “W-well, you could’ve used that time to keep running. I was a lost cause.”

“I couldn’t just leave you to die. You saved my life.”

“Like I can’t just leave you to wander through these mountains,” realized Catskill. “You saved my life.”

The unicorn froze in her smudging and tensed up, like she was bracing for some sort of impact.

Maybe they could meet halfway. “How about this,” said Catskill. “I’ll help you for the next… two days or so, and you can get some distance on whoever’s chasing you. Once we’re out of the mountains and the land levels out a bit, you can keep running for the Empire and I’ll go back to ranging out here. Deal?”

The unicorn looked over her shoulder at the snowy forest. When she turned to Catskill, she raised her hoof halfway. “Deal, on one condition. Keep the snipes to a minimum, okay? I’ll do the same.”

“Deal.” They bumped hooves and quickly went about disassembling their camp.

When Catskill pawed through the pile of her stuff, she was surprised to find that all of her things were there — or at least, the things she’d been carrying with her. Even better, most of it was still intact, even the blunderbuss and its shells. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. As she adjusted her blunderbuss’s straps, she said, “Name’s Catskill, by the way.”

“Amanita.” With the chalk circle completely smudged up, the unicorn tossed the single scrap of parchment into the fire. It exploded minutely in a puff of purple-blue smoke. A quick spell put out the fire and covered it with snow. “Um, quick question. What’ll you do if we’re caught? By the ponies chasing us, I mean. That might be chasing us, I don’t know if-”

“That,” Catskill said casually, “depends entirely on whether they’re willing to behave.” In spite of there being no shell in the breech, she clicked back the hammer on her blunderbuss. CHKT.

“W-what?” whispered Amanita, taking a shaking step back. “Y-you’d- You’d be okay with shoo-”

“Short version. Some animals in this area are protected by Equestrian law. And I have zero sympathy for poachers.”

Amanita cringed slightly. “I- Don’t you think that- that it’s, ah, a little-”

“No, I’m not some trigger-happy maniac. If they back off, I’ll back down. I just won’t think much of shooting them if it comes down to that. Seriously, what did you think? I’d kill them just ’cause they annoyed me?”

“Well…” Amanita looked away and scuffed the ground. “I, I wouldn’t… It’s not that…”

Catskill stared at Amanita. What was her problem? Ordinarily, Catskill would’ve spent a few minutes reaming her out for being so stupid. Ordinarily, Catskill wouldn’t have made a promise to keep verbal jabs to a minimum and wouldn’t have been chased (maybe) by ponies. So instead, she said, “Anyway, all set?” Amanita nodded. “Then give me a yell if I’m going too fast.” She took off into the forest.

She started out going slower than usual, slightly worried that her apparent well-being was just skin- and sensation-deep, and the second she put herself under some actual stress, she’d fall apart. But to her surprise, her legs beat at the ground in the same way they always had, like pistons, without the slightest crink. Her breathing was slightly restricted from the bandage, but that was it. She sped up to her normal rate, only to fall back to a trot when Amanita yelled out.

“I’m-” gasped Amanita, “-a- unicorn! I don’t- have your-”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Catskill, grinning a little. “How long can you hold this speed?”

“I’ll- manage.”

Catskill’s little grin was replaced with a little scowl. “That’s not what I asked. How long?”

“Don’t- know. Two hours? Three?” Amanita coughed.

“Good. We need to keep ahead of your pursuers. What’d you do, anyway?”

“About a mare,” said Amanita breathlessly. “Long story. Tell you later.”

Mares. And stallions, for that matter. What was it about significant others that so consistently brought out the worst in ponies? At times, Catskill was very glad she’d never gotten involved in that. If it made others happy, good on them, but she’d never seen the appeal. Honestly, at times, the speed with which ponies could turn on each other over the simplest of things made her practically ecstatic she lived alone.

Defying Catskill’s expectations, Amanita did manage to keep her pace up for three hours, and then a little more, even if she had to keep silent. When Amanita started wheezing, some time after noon, Catskill slowed them down to a walk, letting them rest a tiny bit and listen to the leaves crunch beneath their hooves and the snow, to the birds in the trees. Catskill considered trying to convince a bird or two dozen to do some scouting for them and to look for Amanita’s hunters, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Birds were too flighty.

One of the subtler benefits of living out in the northern wilds: since the Crystal Palace was so tall and glowy, it made a nice, convenient landmark. Once you knew the mountains a little, you could triangulate your position, wherever you were, just by checking your location relative to the Palace. And of course, if you were heading for the Empire itself, well, all the better. At the moment, the very tip of the Palace was poking up above a mountaintop. It’d disappear toward the end of the day, but would reappear once they were around the mountain.

Taking stock of their situation, Catskill looked to the north and frowned. Dark clouds were gathering just below the top of one of the mountains. Probably a blizzard, but the weather out here was too unpredictable. Still, trying to find some shelter wouldn’t be amiss, and luckily, they were heading in the right direction for said shelter.

They kept walking, but Amanita’s wheezes slowed to gasps slowed to regular, if somewhat labored, breathing. Catskill didn’t even need to look at her to know that her hooves were falling less heavily. It wasn’t long before she half-trotted up next to Catskill, staring up at the Palace. “You’re sure the Crystal Empire’s four days away? It looks a lot closer than that.”

Catskill chuckled. “Trust me, it only looks that way because the Crystal Palace is so huge. Ever seen it?”

“No. Not in person, I mean.”

“That thing’s practically a skyscraper. It’s…” Catskill gestured vaguely at the Palace. “To be honest, it almost looks like something’s wrong with the city at first. Like having just one tower means the Empire’s unfinished or something.”

“Right. Um, listen…” Amanita rubbed the back of her neck. “Thanks for, uh, sticking around and, and pushing me. I probably-”

Catskill looked forward so Amanita wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Yeah, I know. Don’t get all mushy on me, okay? I’m just doing my job.”

“…Which is more than you can say for a lot of ponies.”

She didn’t say anything, but Catskill chuckled softly.

“Scatter!” screamed Artemis. Every bounty hunter immediately shot away from the undead bear in a different direction. Bitterroot just went straight up and hovered ten feet above the canopy. She didn’t see where the others went.

The bear reached where their group had last been together and started sniffing at the ground. Bitterroot weighed her options, none of them particularly good. She didn’t have anything in the vein of ranged weaponry, always counting on her speed to close any gaps. She wasn’t much of a melee fighter and only carried a single battered sword and a knife more suited for carving. And that wasn’t even taking into account that her opponent was a zombie bear.

The bear suddenly roared, a surprisingly raspy sound, and took off down one of the trails. “The bear’s turning east-northeast!” Bitterroot yelled to whoever was out there. “I don’t know what it found, but-”

To her right, a flurry of greenish sparks soared into the air and exploded. Bitterroot shot off in that direction and dropped through the treetops, landing right at Trace’s side. Trace was pressing herself to a tree, breathing deeply. “It’s not coming towards us, is it?” Trace asked quickly.

“No, it’s headed that way.” Bitterroot pointed.

“Artemis,” said Trace. “It’s going after Artemis. Son of a…” She began pacing, staring at the ground, and muttering fervently.

“Do you know any anti-necromancy magic? Any at all?”

Trace’s head snapped up, her ears rigid. “Know any- I’ve never even seen a necromantic thrall before today! I’m not versed in the anti-dark arts!” She ran a hoof through her mane. “But if, if I had to guess, silver or fire. Silver’s related to purity on an arcane level and fire simply burns everything. That’s what I remember from college, at least.”

“Okay. Good.” Bitterroot didn’t have any silver, but fire was easy enough to come by. But before she could do that- “I’ll see if I can find Artemis and Gale,” she said. “You- I don’t know what you can do. See if you can sneak up behind the bear, maybe? Look through your pack and find silverware?” She grinned sheepishly and shrugged.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Not even even a hint of sardonicism. “And I’ll send up flares so you can find me again, yes? Green for normalcy, red for danger.”

“Sounds good.” Bitterroot zipped up over the trees again, listened for the sound of crashing wood, and followed that. A strange thought ran through her head: did thralls get tired? There was no reason they should. Which probably meant the bear was effectively a perpetual-motion monster and they’d have to completely destroy it for it to stop unless Trace pulled a miracle spell on opposing necromancy out of her butt. Why oh why was information on stopping dark magic just as hard to find as information on performing it?

The bear was smashing through trees with little to no concern for its own well-being, and protruding branches tore at its flesh. Bitterroot wondered if thralls even had any sense of self at all, much less self-preservation. She flew further in the direction the bear was charging and hollered, “Artemis! You out there?”

“Down ’ere!” And Bitterroot dropped to the ground again. Artemis was running through the forest, deliberately taking the tightest routes to give the bear as much grief as possible. “Figures it’d go after me,” she growled.

“Anti-necromancy. What do you know about it?” Bitterroot kept flying, zipping around the trees. Artemis would outpace her if she was on foot.

“Not much ’sides spells. Silver ’urts thralls, fire destroys ’em. Nothin’ else.”

“Trace said the same thing.” Good sign. Maybe-

“Glad she knows somethin’,” snorted Artemis.

Maybe Bitterroot would’ve defended their best tracker under normal circumstances, but now, all she had time for was, “Were you or Gale carrying silverware? I mean silver silverware?”

“ ’Oo carries crap like that through lands like these?” It was hard to miss the derision in Artemis’s voice.

Bitterroot jinked around a particularly large tree. “‘No’ would’ve been fine. Keep running, I’ll see if I can find Gale and we can work together.”

“Sure!” yelled Artemis. “Just leave-” But Bitterroot was already gone.

As she soared up, a green flare flew into the sky to her left and popped. She couldn’t tell if Trace had changed position at all. Was she thinking of a plan? Was she still looking for silver? Bitterroot almost flew over to ask, but first, she had to find Gale.

She was lucky; Gale’s trail was as clear as the others and a lot shorter. Gale hadn’t gone far before stopping and was rummaging through her bags, her arquebus lying on the ground beside her, when Bitterroot found her. She looked up when Bitterroot landed, her eyes wide.

“Trace and Artemis are both okay,” Bitterroot said. “The bear’s chasing Artemis. They both think silver and fire can stop it. Do you have any silver?”

Gale shook her head.

“Sun blast it. Any weapons? Swords, knives, crossbows?”

Gale nudged the arquebus and pulled a dinged sword from one of the bags. She tilted her head and frowned at Bitterroot.

“Okay. How good of a shot are you with that gun?”

The frown grew more pronounced. Gale pointed into the forest and drew a hoof across her throat.

Praying she was interpreting Gale correctly, Bitterroot said, “I know the bear’s undead-” (Gale nodded, still frowning.) “-but maybe you can, I don’t know, distract it or something if you shoot it.”

Gale shrugged helplessly and half-grinned. Her good wing flared slightly.

“I’m making this up as I go, okay?” snapped Bitterroot. “Trace is that way and she’s sending up green flares. See if you can meet up with her. We need a plan.”

Gale nodded and began pulling her bags back on with surprising speed.

“One last thing. Where’s that rope?” Just in case. Gale tossed a coil onto Bitterroot’s withers. “Thanks. Stay safe.” And the two pegasi went their separate ways.

As Bitterroot tracked the bear down again, her mind began working. She could buy Artemis some time. Get the bear chasing her, let Artemis get away, then take off into the sky. One safe earth pony, one confused zombie bear. Easy.

Artemis was still running and showed no signs of slowing. She looked at Bitterroot the second she descended, but Bitterroot was already talking. “Gale’s fine, meeting up with Trace, over there, follow the green flare, I’ll distract the bear, okay?”

“I- Okay.” Artemis promptly changed directions and took off into the forest.

Bitterroot dropped to the ground and slid through the snow, her wings flared for braking. She turned around; already the bear was close. It moved with a lolloping gait that was no less speedy for its ungainliness. Bitterroot flared her wings and yelled, “Oi! Bear! Over here!” She jumped up and down, flailing her legs for attention, and took off the second the bear was within ten yards of her.

But the bear completely ignored her. It kept following Artemis’s trail and didn’t even twitch in her direction. Bitterroot began streaking back and forth in front of the bear, yelling, screaming, cartwheeling, every attention-grabbing action she could think of short of actually hitting it, all to no avail.

Bitterroot could vaguely hear a voice ahead of her. “I think I hear- Artemis? Over here!”

Stop the bear, screamed her head. The others needed time. How? She had the rope, didn’t she? She flew above the trees, uncoiled a long length of it, and wrapped parts around each of her front hooves, making a nice, long loop almost six feet across. She plunged beneath the treetops again. The second the bear’s head passed into the loop, she flew to one side. The bear roared and slipped as its head was yanked sideways and the loop constricted like a noose; it fell, its feet sliding out from under it.

Her teeth clenched in exertion and her wings beating like a hummingbird’s, Bitterroot pulled at the rope to keep the bear distracted. The bear growled and thrashed at the rope, but its actions were too uncoordinated and the rope was too tight. Bitterroot kept tugging.

The bear slapped at the rope and suddenly Bitterroot was yanked forward and down. Her head smacked against the ground; she saw stars and didn’t know which way was up. Dazed, she let the coils around her legs loosen as she rolled over and saw the bear standing over her.

With slack available, the bear managed to get the rope from around its neck. It looked down at Bitterroot as if it was unsure of what to make of her. It tilted its head. Its eyes burned so blue, Bitterroot felt colder just by looking at them.

Then the bear continued after Artemis’s trail.

For a moment, all Bitterroot could hear was her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Was it still chasing Artemis? Only Artemis? Why? Was it just not interested in her for some reason? Had it eaten ponies in the past and decided earth tasted better than pegasus? Or-

A smack, a “Now!”, and suddenly something was burning. The sensation of heat, although slight, instantly banished all wooziness from Bitterroot’s mind. She jumped to her hooves and flared her wings, ready to be off at a moment’s notice. A big, flaming shape was thrashing around ahead of her, banging against the walls of a unicorn’s shield. The smoke coming from it writhed unnaturally through the air. Bitterroot took a few tentative steps forward.

“Hey!” Trace yelled from around the shield. “Come on, Bitterroot! It’s safe!”

By the time Bitterroot was up close, the shape — now easily recognized as the bear — had stopped moving. Trace didn’t drop the shield, though. Trace, Gale, and Artemis all looked intact and were sitting in the snow as they stared at the inferno. Bitterroot squinted through the bright fire and the heat at the bear’s charred remains. “Is it dead?” she asked. “And if you say what I know you’re going to say-”

“It ain’t gettin’ back up,” said Artemis. “Fire musta burned the spell away.”

Bitterroot looked questioningly at Trace, who nodded. “You don’t hear about it much,” she said, “but there’s much more to magic than equations and unicorn horns, particularly in the more esoteric branches. Such as, ehm, necromancy. Fire is responsible for a surprising amount of spells failing.”

Either way, a dead-not-undead bear was a dead-not-undead bear, so Bitterroot wasn’t complaining. She sat on the snow next to the others. Her wings suddenly felt a bit sore. “Hey, Artemis?”

“Yeh?”

“I got tangled up trying to distract the bear, and it ignored me, like it was aiming for you. Any idea why?”

Artemis clenched her jaw and flicked her tail. “No.” Her ears were folded back.

“No idea? None at all?”

“No,” Artemis snapped. “ ’Ow’m I s’pposed t’know ’ow a thrall works?”

Bitterroot glanced at Artemis and frowned. “Look, I just think it’s a little weird that it’d be so focused on you.”

“And I sure as ’ay dunno why!” Artemis punctuated the sentence with a stomp. “Maybe I’m jus’ the first pony it saw!”

Why was Artemis reacting so strongly to a simple question? “So it wouldn’t think to-”

“Thralls don’t think,” Artemis said flatly. “They don’t got minds ’r wills. They-”

“I know that,” snapped Bitterroot.

“Y’know, but y’don’t un’erstand! If that bear was told, ‘kill th’ firs’ pony y’see’, it couldn’t do anythin’ else ’cause it don’t know anythin’ else! I don’t-” Artemis groaned. “I don’t think you’re followin’ the facts,” she whispered loudly. “Y’say you know thralls don’t think, but y’know what that means? They can’t plan. They can’t go ’gains’ their master’s wishes. They can’t change their course ’t all!”

“And you think it’s-”

Trace awkwardly cleared her throat, ending Bitterroot’s rant prematurely. “For the record,” she said quietly, “I’m, ah, on Artemis’s side.”

Bitterroot stared at Trace.

“W-well, think about it,” said Trace. She self-consciously took a few steps back. “Artemis, Amanita knew you were on her trail, right?”

“Prob’ly.”

“But not necessarily you and me, Bitterroot. So Amanita thinks she’s only being followed by two ponies. And, and ‘kill the first pony you see’ is, well, it’s not really a complex order, is it? So-”

“But why the first pony?” asked Bitterroot, sweeping her hoof for emphasis. “Why not any pony? Is-”

“Well, I assure you,” Trace said huffily, “I do. Not. Know. What goes on inside a necromantic thrall’s head. I am simply making assumptions based on what little I have seen. Personally, I think we should ignore who’s trying to kill whom for what reason, unless one is ‘us’ and the other is ‘Amanita’. So.” She tossed her head back, getting her mane in some semblance of order. “I’m going back to where we first saw the bear in the hopes of picking up Amanita’s trail again. And if you want to find her, please shut up.” She walked off, too angry to even stomp.

Artemis walked into Bitterroot’s personal space and pressed their muzzles together. “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” she whispered, “or maybe I’ll cut you outta the reward.” She followed Trace without another word.

Bitterroot rolled her eyes and took one last look at the bear. She knew she ought to ignore it, but something kept nagging at the back of her head, asking, “Why?” Why Artemis? Why only Artemis? Was it really just a coincidence? Was she running around in circles trying to find out how a black box worked? Probably. She sighed and walked after Trace and Artemis.

She glanced at Gale, walking beside her. “Thanks for your words of support,” she said.

Gale chuckled and nodded.

5 - Biting Winds

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The sun had passed its apex, they were still trotting, and yet Catskill had never felt better. Amanita must’ve had some serious mojo for the healing to work that well. Her legs were feeling a bit numb and her stomach felt like it was going to start eating her intestines, but the former might just be the cold and she ignored the latter. Catskill felt like she could’ve kept running for days, even with the bandage around her trunk. Except-

“Can we- take- a break?” hacked Amanita from some yards behind. “I’m- I’m starving- and- my lungs- are on fire- and-”

“You’re sure you wanna risk the other ponies catching up?”

Cough cough. “Ye-es!”

Stupid not-earth-pony endurance. “Alright. Another minute, okay?”

“Fine.”

They slowed and settled to a stop beneath a huge pine. Catskill glanced up, half-hoping for a raven — they were one of the smarter birds — but didn’t see anything. Catskill leaned easily, casually against the tree, but Amanita was wheezing like a broken bellows and had to brace herself on the tree. She didn’t sit down so much as collapse. Odd that somepony out here would be in that bad of physical shape. Catskill felt the need to make a joke about it, but brushed the thought away. Trotting for miles had given her an outlet for her earlier anger.

Amanita held a hoof on her chest and she took deep, gulping breaths. In absence of making a joke about her, Catskill simply sat and waited for her to get her body under control; she could almost see Amanita’s heart beating her way out of her ribcage. But it wasn’t long before sitting up stopped being such an effort for her and she was rummaging through her saddlebags. She pulled out a flattish loaf of blackish bread and wolfed a bite down without even chewing. After a moment, Amanita tore the loaf in two and levitated half over to Catskill. “You hungry? Try it.”

Normally, Catskill would’ve eaten from her own supplies, but she was never one to pass up free food. “Sure.” She plucked the bread from the air and sniffed tentatively at it. Seemed unassuming enough. “What kind of bread is this?”

“Unleavened rye.”

“Unleavened rye? Why?”

“Well, it-” Amanita shuffled and flicked her tail. “It bakes faster and takes up less space.”

“Hmm.” Catskill tore off a chunk and chewed. And chewed. And chewed. When she was finally able to swallow, she said, “Not bad. Not something I’d want all the time, but it’s alright for traveling food.” The taste was a bit strange and the texture was flat, but she’d eaten far worse. Maybe she ought to try making regular rye bread sometime. She ripped away another chunk.

“Don’t eat too much,” cautioned Amanita. “It’s a lot more filling than it looks.”

The bread was sitting solidly in her stomach. Definitely something to look into. Catskill pulled the chunk in two pieces and started chewing on the smaller one. “Goh sumfin to drin?” she asked.

Amanita tilted her head. “Um, I don’t know what you’re- Oh, yeah, here.” She pulled a flask from her bag and tossed it over.

Catskill unscrewed the cap, took a deep swig, and promptly spat it and the bread out. That was not water. She stared at the flask. “Is this… grape juice?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” said Amanita, rubbing her face down. “I, uh, forgot to… mention that…” She wilted under Catskill’s stare. “I like grape juice, okay?!” she snapped.

“Well, so do I, it’s just- A little warning would’ve been nice.” Why take along grape juice when water was easier to come by and lasted longer? Whatever. Something to drink was something to drink. Catskill stuffed the unspat piece of bread into her mouth and washed it down with the juice. The combined taste was bizarrely pleasant. She screwed the cap back on and gave the flask back to Amanita. “Still want to rest?”

“A few more minutes,” said Amanita. She took her own drink; it was a bit sloppy, with a few drops dribbling down her chin. She wiped her mouth and continued, “I don’t have half the endurance you do.”

“Right.” Obviously. Catskill glanced the way they came. No unusual movement. Yet. “So what do you do for work? Doctor?”

Amanita twitched and coughed on a piece of bread. She managed to swallow and coughed out, “It’s- I’m a- I’m just… good at healing magic, not exactly a doctor. I’m more of a-”

“Hold up.” Some things, Catskill’s brain simply refused to accept. That was one of them. “How could you not be a doctor? You brought me back from the brink of death in less than an hour.” It was the sort of thing that got ponies turned into alicorns. If there was a Princess of Love and a Princess of Friendship, why not a Princess of Lifesaving?

“I needed a magic circle for it,” said Amanita, “and doctors don’t usually… use… magic circles.” She looked like she was ready to start squirming.

“So now you’ve invented a new type of healing magic,” said Catskill tonelessly, “and you’re still not a doctor?”

Amanita flinched slightly and looked away. “It- It wasn’t easy,” she mumbled. “I was- I was lucky I was carrying the right ingredients, and I messed up the circle a few times, but-”

“So charge lots of money for it so you don’t need to do it as often. Teach it to surgeons and charge them lots of money for the teaching. It’s still near-complete recovery after just an hour. Doctors would kill for that kind of healing magic done that easily.”

“I’m- still working out the kinks,” said Amanita, looking away.

The bottom suddenly dropped out of Catskill’s stomach and she felt a chill all the way down to her frogs. She swallowed. Her throat was dry. “The… The kinks?” she said, her ears folded back. Kinks in healing magic. Great.

“You, you’re fine!” said Amanita quickly. “It’s just- it’s a lot more magically involved than current magical surgery, and I, I had to, spend a lot of time just making sure that, uh, for example, your bone healed properly and didn’t make too much bone and, you know, stuff like that.” She looked down and ruffled her mane. “It needs a lot more skill in magic than most unicorns have.”

Catskill rolled her shoulders. As the anxiety ebbed away, she had to admit that she hadn’t felt any kinks yet… “Really? I don’t remember any bad dreams or anything between blacking out and waking up.”

“Well, how would you know how your healing went? You were unconscious for most of it.”

Catskill laughed a little. “So, what, did you get kicked out of the practice for fringe magic?”

“Yes,” said Amanita quickly. She paused. “Not really.” Pause. “Kinda. It’s…” She started talking much more quickly. “It’s complicated and I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Gotcha.” For all their preaching about open-mindedness, Catskill had noticed that scientists had an occasional stingy-conservative nature about them. If it looked weird but could be used to benefit ponies in some way, scientists seemed to accept it wholeheartedly, while if it looked weird but was just weird, they rejected it. Then again, a fine example of the latter was the belief that water could remember things that had been dissolved in it. Every now and then, the stingy conservatives proved to be right. But magic circles were in the weirder branches of magic that most ponies didn’t like to look at; Amanita had probably gotten unjustly laughed out of some university and still felt shame at the memory of it.

And even if that wasn’t the case, Catskill wasn’t going to force the pony who’d saved her life to pick at old wounds.

“So, uh, you said you on the run because of a mare?”

So much for not picking at old wounds. Catskill almost punched herself.

But Amanita just shrugged. “It’s… complicated,” she said. “Short version, flirted with a mare who was actually the mare of a very jealous pony, and now she chas- — ‘she’ being the, uh, jealous pony, not the, not the first mare — she’s chasing me for revenge. I didn’t even kiss her.” She snorted. “Some ponies, right?”

“Yeah.” Although to Catskill, it seemed a little… too easy. Too simple. Yes, of course her significant other was crazy, jealous, and clingy. Not my fault. Nope. There was probably something else somewhere in the story, even if Amanita’s story was true in broad strokes. Time for another subject change. “What brought you up here, anyway?”

Amanita cleared her throat. “‘Amanita, Freelance Arcane Specialist’,” she said dramatically. “‘Big jobs or small, rain, snow, or shine, if you’ve got the bits, then I’ve got the time! Your one-stop witch for all your magical needs!’ Or, in Normal Pony, I take temporary jobs that require a magic specialist who might not live out here. I had a cartful of instruments, but had to leave it when… Yeah.” She shuffled her hooves and looked away. “I kept the most valuable or useful things, which is why I had the right ingredients on hoof for the circle.”

Catskill took a small bite of bread. “And you came this far north because…?”

“I looked at a map and kept saying, ‘So what’s the nearest town I haven’t been to yet?’ And when I ran out of towns more to the south, I didn’t think, so…” Amanita shrugged. “I made some mistakes, yeah.”

Chew chew. “Eh. There are worse ways to wind up this far north.” Catskill swallowed. That was all she could think of at the moment, so she said, “Lemme know when you want to get going again. We shouldn’t dawdle too long.”

“Actually, I think I’m good now.” Amanita stood up and flexed her legs. “I’ve rested a little, I’ve eaten… Yeah, we can go. Same pace.”

Catskill ran a few numbers, and… yeah, keeping up the same pace was perfect. “Good.” Assuming the blizzard cooperated. What was it doing, anyway? She couldn’t see it from ground level at the moment. “Start packing, but I need to check the weather first. Be back in a minute.” She leaped up to one of the pine’s lower branches and clambered up the tree, shoving aside branches and getting coated with needles and sap. She vaguely noted that she’d managed to go the whole trip so far without sniping at Amanita, but brushed the thought away. Maybe she just had some aggressive energy in her system that the hard pace had gotten out. Definitely wouldn’t be the first time.

When she was swinging to and fro in the wind at the top of the tree, Catskill looked north. The blizzard clouds were still up on the mountains, maybe a bit bigger than the last time she’d seen them. On the one hoof, they were still there, but on the other, they hadn’t moved. Well, she could dream. No changes to the route yet.

She monkeyed her way back down the trunk. Amanita looked worried, but Catskill spoke before she could say anything. “No problems,” Catskill said reassuringly as she dropped from the lowest branches. “There’s a blizzard to the north, but it doesn’t look like it’s coming towards us at the moment.”

“Blizzard. Up here. Greaaaaaaat.” Amanita’s laugh was so forced it was hard to tell it was supposed to be a laugh at all.

“We’ll be fine,” said Catskill, surprising herself with how reassuring she sounded. “We’re heading towards some shelter anyway. If the blizzard hits, we can wait it out there.”

“Wait it out?” Amanita chewed her lip. “With, with other ponies chasing us?”

“They’ll have to wait it out, too. You don’t go out in blizzards up here. Period.” Just how long had Amanita been up here? “Don’t go out in blizzards” was something every foal knew, thanks to a mixture of parental wisdom and common sense.

“Oh.” Amanita looked in the general direction of north, although the trees hid the mountain from view. “Windigoes?”

“Worse. Just the brutal fury of unthinking nature. At least you can drive off windigoes.”

“You and me, summoning the Fire of Friendship together?” Amanita rolled her eyes. “Not likely.”

Catskill chuckled. “Let’s not stick around to find out, then.”

Eventually, Trace found Amanita’s trail again. Eventually.

“Two hours,” muttered Artemis. “Took you two sunblasted hours t’find footprints.”

“You didn’t find them at all,” said Trace, her nose to the ground. “And considering the trail had been thoroughly trampled by what appeared to be every single animal from here to the horizon, it’s a sunblasted miracle — a genuine, honest-to-Celestia miracle — it didn’t take me longer.”

“Two. Hours.”

Trace raised her head, but Bitterroot was already talking. “Will you shut up?” she snapped. “You’ve been ragging on her for the past five minutes, and she’s doing her best, so-”

“ ’Er best ain’t good ’nough!” yelled Artemis. “Are you f’rgettin’ Amanita’s a necromancer? She gets to the Crystal Empire, we’ll never find ’er! An’ she’s-” She jabbed a hoof at Trace. “-wastin’ time, lookin’ for-” She groaned and facehooved. “Sorry, sorry,” she mumbled. “ ’S jus’… Big target, big reward, an’ it’s jus’ slippin’ away.”

“Well, don’t take it out Trace! She needs to focus! Just-” Bitterroot searched for the right words for a second before blurting, “Take it out on me.”

“…You,” Artemis said, tilting her head.

“Me!” repeated Bitterroot. Why am I saying this? I don’t want her yelling at me. “As long as you keep out of Trace’s way. Because as long as you’re not distracting her, she can follow the trail. She’s the most important pony here right now, and- and what have you done?” she blurted.

The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Artemis’s face turned expressionless except for a tightening of the jaw. “Say that again,” she whispered.

Already, Bitterroot was regretting what she’d said. But she’d said it, so she plowed on. “What have you done?” she asked again. “You’ve just been following her, and-”

“I’m the one ’oo brought us all t’gether!” yelled Artemis. “Y’wouldn’t be out ’ere if I didn’t ask you!”

“A bear chased Amanita here, by the way,” said Trace.

“Oh, so that means it’s okay for you to moan and whine when things don’t go your way?” Bitterroot snorted. “Give me a break. How long have you been a bounty hunter?”

“Cliff ahead,” said Trace.

“I- I been one for long ’nough,” spluttered Artemis. “It ain’t like I start cryin’ the second I-”

“Oh, look, there’s another set of pony tracks here,” said Trace.

“You’re sure about that? Because when we burned that bear-”

“Aaaaand shield,” said Trace. BONK.

Bitterroot and Artemis both yelped as they walked headlong into a shield thrown up by Trace. Bitterroot rubbed her temple, and Artemis her muzzle, while Trace looked bemusedly at them. “You two are worse than my big sister and I were,” she said. “When I was eight. You would’ve walked right off the cliff, wouldn’t you?”

“Cliff?” asked Bitterroot. She looked ahead. They were at the top of a large cliff, maybe thirty feet tall, with a rocky shelf at the bottom. “Oh. That cliff.”

“And you missed the wrecked tree, didn’t you?”

“Tree?” Artemis looked back.

“Oh, for the love of…” Trace planted her face in her hoof and pulled down. “At some point, Amanita was chased by a bear, probably the same that chased us. It pulled down a tree to get to her. Meanwhile, I also saw the tracks of some pony while following Amanita’s trail. Where that pony is now, I don’t know. Come.” She turned and walked along the ridgeline.

Bitterroot and Artemis collectively stewed as they followed Trace, not saying a word even as Trace pointed out that several sets of tracks vanishing meant that the bear and one of the ponies had fallen off the cliff, nor as Trace led them down the ridge to the rocks below.

Blood had splattered on the ground at the cliff base and bear fur was scattered everywhere. Trace examined a hair closely, then tossed it away. “Bear was probably killed here. Magic, maybe?” Her horn started glowing and she immediately gagged, muttering, “Oh, Celestia.” She coughed and put a hoof to her mouth.

“What’s up?” asked Bitterroot, glad to have something besides Artemis to talk about. She looked around. She couldn’t see anything, but now that she was paying attention, there was something about this place — something slimy, something that felt like she was pushing through a chest-deep pool of pus.

“Black magic,” said Trace. Her voice was strained, forced. “Horrible black magic, the worst I’ve felt. Bear not just killed here, but enthralled here, I think.” Her horn winked out and she gasped. “Sweet Luna, that felt terrible.”

Artemis walked up to Trace, licking her lips nervously. “And… It’s def’nitely an enthrallment? You sure?”

“I cannot say I am sure,” admitted Trace. “But the magic here is so… utterly vile, it’s hard to say it could be anything else.”

Artemis nodded and flicked her ears. “Right, right,” she said. “Can y’track Am’nita ’erself by ’er magic? ’Cause she’s-”

“Not unless she has used extensive magic to change her very body,” Trace said, shaking her head. “See, magic-detection spells like that work by-”

Bitterroot wished she had something to add, but the only thing running through her head was speculation. “Gonna examine the area a bit,” she muttered to Gale. “If they ask, you can let them know, right?”

Gale nodded.

Bitterroot took a few steps away, trying to think. She wanted to feel useful for this hunt, but it seemed like all she was doing was acting as mediator for Trace and Artemis. And sometime punching bag. Thanks to the forest, she couldn’t even do much scouting, the one thing she was really good at. She sighed. It didn’t help that she wasn’t particularly fond of the North, even leaving aside the pervasive cold; towns were few and far between and violent, the air tasted funny, the weather was uncontrollable, and-

Bitterroot stopped breathing. The air tasted funny? That wasn’t normal. She raised her nose and sniffed.

There was something there, something on the edge of her sense of smell (olfaction?). She sniffed again. Something… burnt? One more time. Yes, the smell was sulfurous and vaguely urinous. Gunsmoke. This was where the blunderbuss had been fired. Had the shot killed the bear?

As Trace and Artemis kept discussing the bear and magic, Bitterroot followed her nose through trial and error. Another smell soon overpowered the gunsmoke and it wasn’t long before she found several smaller blood splatters on the rocks, particularly on a pointy, upward-facing one. Not too far away, a pool of blood was almost dry. Smears indicated whatever body had been there had been moved. None of it looked like the bear’s and the smear didn’t lead back to Trace and Artemis, where the bear had probably died. Examining the rock more closely, Bitterroot found a few violet hairs caught in cracks on the pointy rock. She looked up. They weren’t far from the cliff; had the fallen pony landed here?

She called the others over. Trace was particularly interested in the blood. “Bah bah bah,” she whispered. “No body, obviously. Taken for necromancy, no doubt. Shame.” She looked up the cliff and made a few awkward flailing motions that Bitterroot guessed help her imagine the fall. “No brains, so she didn’t land on her head, thank Celestia. And you mentioned gunsmoke?” She sniffed. “Ah, yes, I can smell it. You didn’t think Amanita had a firearm, right, Artemis?”

“I know she didn’t,” Artemis responded.

“The other pony was probably some sort of ranger, then, an ecosystems manager. You know the kind. After all, who else is out here? Besides that one pony in the pass,” Trace added quickly.

Bitterroot wiggled a few of the hairs from the rock. They still looked intact. “Trace, any chance you can make a tracking spell from these? If Amanita moved the body, maybe we can use the body to track her.” She’d heard stories about unicorns forming such spells from a bit of blood or hair of the pony they wanted to track. Something about the body part’s intrinsic connection to its source or some weird mumbo-jumbo.

“Not… in the manner you’re thinking,” Trace said sheepishly. She rubbed one leg against another and looked away. “My, ah, talents mostly lie in the physical domain of tracking, not along those lines.”

“Speakin’ o’ trackin’, we best be goin’,” said Artemis. “Can’t waste time wond’rin’ ’bout some other dead pony. C’mon.”

It took a bit more searching to find Amanita’s trail again, but Artemis seemed more forgiving of Trace. Trace herself said the tracks themselves were more easily visible. “They’re deeper, see?” she said to the other hunters, who didn’t. “She’s carrying something, most likely the ranger’s body. It’s slowing her down, too.”

With a clearer trail, the group could move faster, and it wasn’t long before Trace pulled them aside to the bottom of a small ridge. “A little temporary campsite,” she said. A bit unnecessarily, as there was no mistaking the ashen remains of a fire or a patch of dirt artificially cleared of snow. “Perhaps she did something here with the other pony.” Her horn started glowing and she paced around the site.

“Won’t take long, will it?” Artemis asked. Thirty minutes ago, Bitterroot would’ve supposed Artemis would’ve spat the phrase out like it was some terrible curse, but now, the question was devoid of any malice.

“A minute at most,” Trace said, waving a hoof dismissively at Artemis. “This is merely for- A-ha…” She stopped walking and pointed her hoof at the bare spot of ground; outlines of… something Bitterroot couldn’t make out glowed faintly. “Huh. Okay, this… is strange,” muttered Trace. “I am really unsure of what kind of magic was used here.”

“Necromantic magic, obviously,” scoffed Artemis.

“No,” Trace said, shaking her head. “No, it isn’t. Back at the cliff? That was necromantic magic. I felt sick to my stomach before I’d even analyzed it. But this? This is something else. Feels like…” Her horn began pulsing as she fell silent.

For several long seconds, no one said anything, and the only thing that disturbed the scene was the wind in the trees. Trace remained quiet for longer and longer; Bitterroot was soon ready to prompt Trace to continue, but Artemis beat her to the punch with a cleared throat.

“I don’t know what it feels like,” admitted Trace. “A magic circle was used here, and those are a bit outside my domain. Hard to properly scan, those are.”

“A magic circle,” Artemis muttered. “Why, why, why…”

“But… as best I can tell…” continued Trace. “I think it’s some sort of healing ritual. The little, ah, remnants of the spell feel like that. Perhaps the other pony didn’t die at the cliff.”

“But y’could be wrong,” said Artemis. Bitterroot wasn’t sure whether it was a statement or a question.

“Oh, absolutely, I could potentially be completely wrong,” confirmed Trace. “So staggeringly wrong that the other pony wasn’t healed, but ritualistically slaughtered for some necromantic spell.”

“Hmm.” Artemis began digging through the remains of the firepit. “Mebbe,” she muttered, “mebbe, mebbe, mebbe… Magic circles us’ally need stuff to help ’em work,” she added for the uncomprehending Bitterroot and Trace. “I’m lookin’ t’see if any ’scaped the fire, see if’n we can tell what she did.”

Unfortunately, after less than a minute, Artemis stood up in disgust. “Nothin’,” she spat. “Not a single scrap o’ parchment. Figures.”

Bitterroot crouched down and peered at the ground. She could see vague chalk hints of a circle, the angular shapes of erased runes, but nothing distinct. Already, this was one of the strangest bounty hunts she’d ever been on. A necromancer was one thing, but all she’d seen in the last… two days, already, was just bizarre icing on the strangeness cake.

“In all honesty,” said Trace, “I actually think she healed the pony. Why, I can’t say. Perhaps an enthrallment would have taken too long. She had already enslaved the bear, remember. But why not just let the pony die?”

“Mebbe she got tired o’ carryin’ ’er own stuff,” said Artemis. “Raise a pony, force ’er to be ’er pack animal through threats.”

Trace’s ears suddenly went up and she stood a bit taller. “And if she tied the pony’s life force to her own in some way,” she said, “then that would make an effective leash.”

“Or,” Bitterroot said, following a brainwave, “Amanita was the one the ritual was performed on and she was the one wounded back there, maybe in trying to kill and enslave the bear. Think about it: a ranger saves some poor, wounded traveler on the brink of death. The traveler somehow talks the ranger into performing a healing ritual and provides the instructions. But the ritual is some dark magic actually transfers some of the ranger’s life to Amanita, enough to get her back on her feet, and now the ranger has to stick with Amanita or she’ll die.” A bit of stretch, Bitterroot admitted, but she didn’t know anything about necromancy. And how willing would a ranger be to perform a strange ritual? One that a stranger claimed would save her life?

Silence fell. Trace and Gale nodded slowly and Artemis tapped her chin. “Not bad, not bad,” she muttered. “ ’Splains why ’t’d be done ’t all. ’Ow many sets o’ footprints are leadin’ away from ’ere?”

Trace quickly scoured the perimeter. “Ah… two, it would seem. Look, here. Nothing out of the ordinary for either, although I can’t tell which belongs to whom. No blood.”

“Hrrng. Better ’ope they stick t’gether, else we’ll ’ave t’guess which one t’follow.”

“Can’t you tell them apart?” Bitterroot asked Trace. “You could tell Amanita and that other mare apart.”

“They were far more different,” said Trace. She set off from the camp, muzzle to the ground, and the other hunters followed. “And, in any case, while the tracks here are quite distinguishable, I cannot exactly remember the kind of tracks Amanita left. I don’t know if hers are these, with the notched hoof, or these, with the scar on the frogs.”

Bitterroot tried to walk with a new spring in her step, but once she got over finding the trail again, it was hard to deny that there was still tension between Trace and Artemis. On Trace’s side, at least; Artemis walked like she was the boss, while Trace’s ears were back a little more than usual and she was flicking her tail a lot. She’d broken up their fight after the bear, so Bitterroot decided there was no harm in pushing her role as mediator a little further. She cleared her throat. “You know, I bet Trace would appreciate an apology,” Bitterroot muttered. Am I seriously doing this? This is what you say to kindergarteners.

Artemis cocked her head. “Eh?”

“For earlier. When you practically cursed her out for not working fast enough.”

“Pfah. She’ll be fine. She’s fine now. Why bother?”

Bitterroot grunted noncommittally. Artemis was one of those people, who never turned from their beliefs and felt the need to control everything. A narcissist: death before dishonor. Arguing with her would only bring up the same petty gripes she’d had with Trace. And if she couldn’t even put herself in some other pony’s hooves, then Artemis would never see the effect she was having on Trace. It was only a matter of time before the two of them started squabbling again.

If this went on for too long, their little band wouldn’t last a week.

6 - Campfire Tales

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By the time the sun was slipping below some of the taller mountains, the blizzard clouds hadn’t moved much, if at all, which Catskill took as a good sign. Of course, it was possible that they’d descend on her and Amanita during the night, which… yeah. Luckily, they weren’t far from some strong shelter.

“Watch your step,” Catskill said as she clambered down a rocky downward slope thick with trees. “It’s slipperier than it looks.”

“ ’Kay,” said Amanita. She didn’t sound that great. Tired and beaten, maybe.

Catskill surprised herself by asking, “Want some help?”

“Not yet. How much longer’re we gonna walk?” Amanita lowered herself down the slope with all the caution of an earth pony balancing a glass sculpture on an ice-skating rink.

Catskill reached the bottom of the slope and looked at the ground. She brushed away some of the snow; a grid of large, square rocks stared up at her. Good sign. She overestimated. “Twenty minutes. Thirty, max.”

“Really?” Amanita managed to stay upright as she deliberately slid the last few feet. “What’s out here?”

“See for yourself.” Catskill pushed through the trees and swept out a hoof. When Amanita arrived and looked, her jaw dropped.

They were standing on a ledge at the top of a massive, bowl-like valley. The far end was open, but all the bounding “walls” were steep and lined with twisting ridges, sparsely dotted by a few trees. On the valley floor was a town, ruined and abandoned, the houses falling apart or due to collapse at any moment. It covered most of the ground and was split in two with a river rushing through the center. Trees grew freely in the few open spaces. Decorated with snow, it looked gray and desolate, a place nopony wanted to think about again. Nothing had damaged the houses beyond erosion and time; the ponies living there had just packed up and left one day long ago.

“What…” whispered Amanita. “What did this?”

“The Crystal Empire.”

Amanita stared at Catskill, then at the ruined town, then back at Catskill. “The- Crystal Empire did-”

“Not with armies or anything. Not even deliberately. Pure economics.” Catskill set off down the remains of a wide path that clung to the valley wall, now overgrown with ferns and grasses. “Five, six years ago, this was Mystic, one of the larger mining towns in the area. Relatively speaking, anyway. It had a pretty good business in silver, iron, and copper, plus some gems. Look, you can even see one of the old mines over there.” She pointed across the valley, towards where a dark hole yawned from the wall. “It wasn’t struggling at all. Then the Crystal Empire returned and everything changed.”

The path broadened a little; cobblestones were now easily visible. “See, because it was so isolated, Mystic mostly attracted hardy ponies who knew full well how tough life out here could be. But once the Empire was back, Mystic suddenly wasn’t far from a major trading hub. And that meant a lot of stupid ponies looked at small mining towns like this and immediately saw bit signs. They swamped Mystic, so sure they’d strike it rich. Rapid expansion and bad business practices meant the mines weren’t always well-maintained, and there was a cave-in within months. Almost two dozen ponies killed.”

“Dang,” whispered Amanita. “That’s… dang.”

“And since so many ponies were mining,” continued Catskill, “metals were flooding the market and the price was dropping like crazy. Most of the ponies just got up and moved to the Empire. It was warmer there, anyway. Six months after the Empire was back, Mystic’s population had more than doubled. Another year later, and it was less than a quarter of what it had been. Now, there’s only one pony who still lives here.”

“She’s not some crazy, murderous hermit, is she?” Amanita laughed nervously.

“Only a little. You should know, you’ve spent the last several hours talking to her.”

The path down to the valley floor took Catskill and Amanita right up to the remains of a decorative gate into town, flanked by a decaying fence. A sign was hanging from the top of the gate’s arch, but one of the chains had snapped a while ago and the sign creaked as it twisted slowly in the wind. If anything, Mystic looked worse up close; distance had hid the subtler, more personal signs of decay. The cheery paint of a motel’s sign, advertising room for weary travelers, had worn away. Intricately decorated street signs had been blown over. Coarse grass pushed through the paved roads. Snow spilled from the broken front window of a toy store. One wall of the post office had caved in. And when they crossed the fast-running river in the center of Mystic, the lower half of a mill’s waterwheel had rotted away and been destroyed by the rapids. Everything that could move away had done so.

Amanita took a quick detour to glance inside a broken house and quickly trotted back, shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. “You live here?”

“‘Live’ probably isn’t the right word.” Catskill knew Mystic so well she could navigate it blindfolded and didn’t even look at the landmarks. “‘Hole up’ would probably be better. Or ‘subsist’. The Crown ships me supplies every few months, always to here. My choice.”

“But… why in a place like this?”

“It’s decent shelter,” said Catskill distantly. “Hard to come by out here.” She looked up at the mine again, lingering on it. She wrenched her gaze away. “And I’m a ranger, so I need to live out here anyway…”

“Wow. I, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

Catskill led them through the streets until she found her house. The top floor had some large holes in it, but the ground floor looked like the soundest thing in Mystic. The front door had been repaired, if crudely, sometime recently (a few weeks ago, to be precise), the walls had been reinforced, the floor was mostly clear of snow and plants, a cabinet was standing in the corner, and a pile of wood was stacked by the fireplace. But all the other furniture had been pushed aside, most of it falling apart, none of the windows had glass in them, and the walls were bare. It was shelter, but it wasn’t a home.

Neither of them spoke as Catskill unrolled their sleeping bags or Amanita got the fire working. The atmosphere of the place weighed too heavily on them. When Amanita asked if Catskill wanted rye toast and Catskill agreed, or when Catskill explained that the cabinet had food that was still good and Amanita could have what she wanted, they spoke tersely, unwilling to disrupt the silence too much. At least the toast was good.

The blizzard hadn’t started moving yet, but the wind outside picked up. It howled through the broken panes, sounding disturbingly like the echo of a wailing pony. Catskill held out her hooves to the fire. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“No,” Amanita said with surprising resolve. “They can’t exist.”

Raising an eyebrow, Catskill said, “Okay… Did I hit a nerve or something? You sound…”

“Hoo boy.” Amanita ran a hoof through her mane. “I’m probably going to sound pretentious, but whatever. Have you ever heard of the mind-body problem?”

“Yeah. Whether the mind came from the body’s physical processes, or was something separate, like a soul. Then souls were proven to exist, and… Yeah.”

“Well, some years after I graduated, I started thinking about it a bit more deeply. I… still don’t know why. And eventually I thought that body and soul are like lock and key. Technically, they can exist separately, but they only really have meaning together. It’s why most versions of the afterlife give you some form of body. Maybe.” Amanita shrugged.

“So what’s that got to do with ghosts?”

“Once somepony’s dead, their soul is gone from this world. Their souls don’t belong here, so they go to…” Amanita waved a hoof away. “Whatever the afterlife is. A soul just can’t stick around without a physical body to anchor it. It’s a weird thing to have a strong opinion on, yeah, but ”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Amanita shrugged. “Then I’m wrong, aren’t I? It’s not like this is some big worldview I’ve got. Just ghosts.”

“Yeah.”

The wind howled again. The fire crackled. Catskill chewed on her bread. Amanita said, “Any reason you’re asking that? Or just the town?”

Catskill flinched. “I-it’s nothing. Really. You’d probably be bored.”

“We’ve got nothing to do. Is it… personal, or…?”

“No, it’s… it’s silly.”

“I won’t laugh. Promise. Cross my heart, hope to die.”

“Alright. Remember how I mentioned a bunch of ponies died in a mine collapse?” Catskill took a deep breath. “My husband, Taconic, was one of them.”

“Oh, geez,” said Amanita quietly. “I, I’m sorry.” She looked down and kneaded the ground beneath her hooves. She took a deep breath, like she was going to say something, then let it out, shaking her head.

“Sometimes,” Catskill said, staring deep into the dancing fire, “I think I… I stay here just, just so I can maybe, maybe see him one last time and say goodbye. Just once.” One single time would be fine. It’d all been so sudden.

Amanita opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again, like she kept flip-flopping on what she wanted to say. Finally, she asked, “Do you… have… anything emotionally tied to him? Like a… his favorite pickaxe, or a coat of his, or something he got you?”

“Not anymore. I sold it all off years ago. We weren’t really material ponies, anyway. I’ve got all I need, right up in here.” Catskill tapped one of her temples. And although that sounded like she was trying to downplay her loss, it was true. Objects held memories, but so did her head, and her head was better at it. “Why?”

“Just… curious,” mumbled Amanita.

It didn’t take a genius to know that Amanita was hiding something. That question had been awfully specific. But as Catskill stopped by the cabinet to dig out a loaf of leavened wheat bread (she needed something fluffy that wasn’t snow), she found she didn’t really care. Everypony deserved to have a few secrets. They’d part ways in a day or so, anyway. It’d be stupid to think Amanita would just open up that much after knowing somepony for only a few hours.

Although maybe it was possible to tease the answer from her. Catskill settled back down and held out half of the loaf of wheat bread to Amanita. “Want some?”

Amanita looked at the loaf, looked at Catskill, twitched, and looked away. “No, thanks.”

Catskill shrugged and dug into the bread. “It’s a shame if ghosts don’t exist,” she said casually after the first few bites. “You could make a lot of money talking to the dead. Clarifying wills, solving murder cases, getting advice from ancestors, just having time for a last goodbye-”

“Angering religious groups, annoying historians, and Celestia knows what else,” Amanita said with a snort. “And that’s assuming you’re not executed for necromancy.”

“Ooo. Yeah.” Catskill chewed some more on her bread. For some reason, it didn’t taste as good as the rye. “Still, if I could talk to the dead — legally, at least — I would.”

“Pass,” said Amanita quickly. “Too much pressure.”

“Eh.” Catskill shrugged. She patrolled the surrounding thirty miles singlehoofedly; she was used to pressure. “I think the pros outweigh the cons, personally.”

“On, on a societal level, maybe, but in the end, it’d just be more trouble than it’s worth for you, personally. You’d still have a lot of ponies angry at you.”

“Well, I don’t know. If you have the power to change the world for the better, no strings attached, and the only reason you don’t is because you can’t make everyone happy… what’s that say about you?”

Silence from Amanita. Eventually, she said, “No offense, but all this philosophy’s wearing me out. I’m heading to sleep.” She loped over to her sleeping bag and wiggled in.

“Alright,” said Catskill, suddenly acutely aware of how much emptier the room would feel. “Night.” Maybe she’d pushed the issue a bit too hard.

“Night,” mumbled Amanita. “You can keep the fire lit.” Her horn sparked and a cocoon of darkness surrounded her.

And so Catskill was left alone, staring into the fire, lost in distant hopes of ghosts.

When the bounty hunters finally broke for camp, none of them was particularly thrilled. Between the bear and temporarily losing the trail and the whole weirdness with the (possible) healing ritual, the day had been stressful without accomplishing anything, the absolute worst kind of day. Bitterroot, at least, was looking forward to just plain eating and sleeping. She travelled light through the back of beyond, but she kept a few indulgences. One of them she brought out once camp had been set up, pawing through her saddlebags until she found a tin. She opened it and offered some of the contents to Trace.

Trace stared at the gift, then raised an eyebrow. “Homemade chocolate chip cookies?” she asked. “Why in the world would you bring those out here?”

“Because they’re homemade chocolate chip cookies,” Bitterroot explained.

Trace stared, then laughed. “Oh, right, right. You know, what the hay.” She scooped a larger one from the tin and took a bite. After a moment of chewing, she said, “Not bad. Cold’s made them a touch tough, but they taste alright.” Chew chew. “More than alright, actually.”

“Made them myself.”

“Keep it up.” Chew. “I’d love to try these in warmer climes.”

Bitterroot nodded and held the tin out to Artemis. Artemis looked at the tin, then curled her lip at Bitterroot. “Cookies? Really?” She snorted. “I ain’t a filly.”

“So?”

“I don’t eat cookies anymore. It’s so foalish.” Artemis pulled out a flattish loaf of dark bread from her bags and ripped a part off.

“A simple ‘no thanks’ would be fine,” Bitterroot said. She didn’t even consider asking Gale, so she put the lid back on the tin and tossed it into her bags. “What kinda mare’s so insecure,” she grunted, “that they can’t enjoy homemade chocolate chip cookies?”

“A foalish one,” said Trace. She licked a crumb off her hoof. “She’s obsessed with being quite growed up and mature and serious and menacing, and that’s really something only foals do.” She smacked her lips. “Mmm. Quite good cookies.”

“Y’need to take this seriously, y’know. We’re chasin’ a sunblasted necromancer.”

“What makes you think I am not taking this seriously? See, unlike you, I have an emotional range, which means I can-”

Bitterroot scooped up a rock from the ground. “Shut it or I’ll hit you. You’re creating a bad-”

“And she’s got an emotional range! She can offer me cookies one moment, then threaten to bean me with a boulder when I’m being annoying as-”

Bitterroot beaned Trace with a boulder. Right in the face, too. Trace tumbled into the snow. From her back, she poked a hoof into the air. “And then she backs up her words, to boot!” She pulled herself back into a sitting position, holding her nose and grinning broadly. “I must say, Arty, you have got to be one of the most narrowly grouchy ponies I have ever met. Lighten up, would you please?”

Artemis snorted. “Would it kill ya t’be a li’l nicer?”

“Please. Nicer?” Trace laughed. “I’m only here for the money. I said that the moment I agreed to work with you. I never said a sunblasted thing about being nice to you. Bitterroot’s given me reason to be nice to her, what with her actual conversation and general lack of being always grim and serious all the time. You most certainly have not given me reason to be nice to you, and so I fail to see why I should.”

“And I never said a sunblasted thing ’bout bein’ ‘nice’. Jus’ ‘nicer’. Y’don’t need t’fawn over me, jus’-”

“You’re right. I don’t.” Trace stood up and jabbed a hoof at Artemis. “However, you have done nothing but follow me and belittle me this entire trip. I am merely giving what I receive. You do realize that the paper-thin ‘everypony sucks’ philosophy you inherited from Cobbes includes you, yes?”

Artemis shot Trace a stinkeye and spat into the fire. The flames sizzled. Bitterroot moved a little closer to Gale. “Is Artemis always like this?” she whispered.

Gale twitched, made a face, and nodded.

“I am so sorry.”

“But I’ll tell you what, Arty,” said Trace, sitting back down. “You cool it with your adolescent bit-store nihilism, and I’ll cool it with my own jabs. Deal?”

“It ain’t ‘bit-store’, it’s the truth,” snarled Artemis. “I been a boun’y hun’er a good long time, and I’ve seen nothin’ but crap in this job. Ponies ain’t real good people.”

“Well, of course you see nothing but crap,” Trace said, rolling her eyes. “Your job is to wallow in it: you’re a bounty hunter, as you so kindly reminded us. You’re like one of culture’s plumbers. You really shouldn’t complain about the heat if you climbed into the fire in the first place.”

Bitterroot grabbed a branch and prodded the logs, stoking the fire. Embers spiraled lazily upwards, losing themselves among the stars. Heat washed over the campsite like water. Flames danced from log to log, stick to stick. And yet she still couldn’t block out Trace and Artemis.

“Y’remember Amanita’s boun’y, right?” Artemis said, pointing in their direction of travel. “Six hunnerd thousand bits. Big boun’y, y’know? That don’t ’xactly speak of a good pony.”

“Yes, and you know why her bounty’s so large? She’s the exception rather than the rule. If everypony was as much of a scumbag as her, she’d barely have a bounty to begin with. You don’t-”

“SO, HOW ’BOUT THAT WEATHER, HUH?” yelled Bitterroot.

Trace and Artemis both jumped, and a flock of birds took to the air, squawking. Artemis tumbled off of her log and Trace smacked her ear. “Smoooooooth,” whispered Trace. “Yell louder, I doubt they heard you over in Zebrabwe.”

“No, seriously,” said Bitterroot. “You both saw the blizzard to the north, right?”

Trace and Artemis looked at each other, then folded their ears back and began making similar muttered apologies.

“What about you?” Bitterroot asked Gale.

Gale shook her head, grinned nervously, and shrugged.

“Hoo boy,” Bitterroot said, facehooving. Were Trace and Artemis really so caught up in sniping that they couldn’t even look around themselves? “Alright. There was a blizzard several miles north, up on a mountain.” She pointed off into the darkness. “It didn’t look like it was moving much today, but we won’t be able to travel if it hits us. Should we get up early tomorrow for some traveling, just in case?”

“Eh. Sure,” Artemis said with a shrug.

“I say we ought to wait until morning to see what the blizzard is like,” said Trace. “I wouldn’t like to take down the tents only to have to put them back up again ten seconds later.”

“Right. Gale, wake me up early, would you please?”

Gale nodded.

“That being said,” continued Trace, “I still ought to be able to track Amanita after the blizzard passes. Ponies leave more traces than they are aware of, not just footprints.” She looked around at everypony else’s dumbstruck faces. “Trust me. It’s my talent.”

The camp lapsed into an awkward silence after that. Whenever Trace or Artemis looked like they were about to say something to the other, Bitterroot glared at them and they shut up. Still, the tension was thick enough to pluck it and call it a banjo. Artemis shared her dinner with Gale, but made no move to offer it to Bitterroot or Trace, so Trace (subtly, at least) offered Bitterroot some banana bread. Its deliciousness was slightly dimmed by the bad feelings stewing between Trace and Artemis.

When Bitterroot realized she had a relatively neutral topic of conversation, she jumped on it. “Artemis?” she asked.

Artemis didn’t even look up as she grunted.

“Do you know anything about Amanita that we don’t? Anything at all?” The last two days had left Bitterroot feeling there was something more to Amanita than the obvious. Whether or not Artemis knew that something was up in the air.

Artemis still didn’t look up. “If you’re sayin’,” she said darkly, “that I’m ’idin’ somethin’ from y-”

“Not. Intentionally,” said Bitterroot, suddenly fighting the urge to grab the rope and strangle Artemis with it. “You came to us with the bounty poster. You knew of Amanita before we did. Had you heard about Amanita before finding the poster? Do you know anything about her that just doesn’t seem important? Or did you just see the poster, get some information on her, and decide to chase her?”

Trace paused and slowly looked up at Artemis, her ears twitching. Bitterroot glared at Trace and mimed zipping her mouth shut. Trace responded with an eyeroll and a zip of her own.

It took several moments for Artemis to respond as she mulled over her memories. Finally, she flicked her tail and said, “Jus’ found ’er poster, asked around, ’vestigated Grayvale. Don’t really know anythin’ you two don’t.”

“Nothing at all?” asked Bitterroot. She suspected that was it, but sometimes drilling ponies helped their memory. “Ravens following her that could be thralls?” (Trace covered her head and looked up.) “Wards on herself? Lichdom?”

“Oh, Tartarus, she ain’t a lich!” said Artemis, laughing. “If she were, the Crown’d send a big ol’ anti-necromancer ’it squad after ’er, not some stupid boun’y ’unters! Liches’re big, mean, powerful, immortal-”

“And cowards,” interjected Trace, staring at the fire.

“Oh, boy, here we go,” whispered Bitterroot, hanging her head in her hooves.

“Liches? Cowards?” asked Artemis. She laughed again. “You’re outta your mind! Liches are some o’ the most dang’rous sorcerers in all Equestria!”

“I never said they weren’t,” said Trace. “But they are cowards, nonetheless.”

“If y’ain’t gonna-”

“HOW ARE LICHES COWARDS, TRACE?” asked Bitterroot.

“Think about it,” Trace said with a shrug. “Truth be told, immortality through lichdom is essentially the only branch of magic motivated solely by fear. Fear of death, to be precise. If nopony feared death, nopony would become a lich.”

“What about alchemy?” asked Bitterroot. “They’re looking for the elixir of life. Isn’t that the same thing?”

Trace frowned and wiggled her hoof in a noncommittal sort of way. “Well… yes and no. The fundamental motive’s the same, but one can share the elixir and it has no need of the deaths of other ponies in the creation of a phylactery. I once heard of an alchemist who wanted to share it with her family. If you become a lich, you’re knowingly screwing over a bunch of other ponies in the process. You’re scared to die, so scared that you’ll do anything to stop it. You’d rather save your life and lose your soul than vice versa when any sane pony would stick with vice versa. Plus, the philosopher’s stone also gives you gold, which in turn gives you threesomes.”

Artemis snorted. “Lissen t’yourself,” she said. “You’re takin’ one o’ the most feared kinds o’ warlocks in all o’ Equestria an’ sayin’ they’re cowards? All of ’em?”

“Ah, yes, that was implied by the way I said, ‘liches are cowards’,” Trace enunciated.

Bitterroot moaned quietly. Was over a hundred thousand bits worth all this bickering?

But Artemis surprised her by going, “Huh. Never thought o’ it like that. Jus’, lissen t’all the stories, right? Liches’re learned, powerful, ’ard to kill-”

“Of course they are!” said Trace. “They need to be very, very skilled in the dark arts, particularly since they can’t study openly. But how do they use that skill, that knowledge? They don’t devote it to the betterment of Equestria, no. They simply cower before death and try to add more centuries to their life. Centuries they probably won’t enjoy anyway, since Celestia will have them hunted down and their soul jar destroyed.”

“ ’Less, o’ course,” said Artemis, “they managed to ’ide from the Court an’ nopony knows ’bout ’em.”

“Which would make them smarter than most ponies, I admit,” said Trace. “Nevertheless, it takes a special, greedy type of coward to be so smart and yet so idiotic simultaneously.”

Artemis shrugged and got to her hooves. “Feelin’ tired,” she said, yawning. “G’night.” She stalked over to her tent.

Trace rolled her eyes. “Argumentative, isn’t she?” she asked Bitterroot, rubbing her hooves together.

“Said the pot,” Bitterroot replied. She agreed mostly with Artemis, for once, but didn’t want to bring that up and re-open the can of worms.

Trace opened her mouth and lifted a hoof, paused in thought, then slowly lowered her hoof and wordlessly nodded. She glanced at Gale. “At least you won’t argue,” she said.

Gale grimaced in a way that looked like she wasn’t sure whether to agree or be offended.

“I don’t know,” said Bitterroot. “If you two were stuck in a room for a few hours, I bet you’d come up with a sign language to argue in.”

Trace and Gale looked at each other. Gale grinned as Trace admitted, “Yeah. Probably.”

7 - Cats and Mice

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Sleep was not Catskill’s friend that night. She couldn’t remember resting at all, only tossing and turning. Amanita must not’ve slept well either; Catskill heard infrequent whimpers from her sleeping bag. And to top it all off, when the sun finally rose, Catskill felt sick to her stomach. She staggered out through the door to the street, wobbled around to the back of her house, and puked. Twice. Maybe the ritual healing wasn’t so great after all, or maybe the bandages around her trunk needed to be changed. She’d have to ask Amanita.

Once she stopped feeling like her guts had been crushed into a blender, Catskill climbed up to her roof and looked north. She didn’t like what she saw; the blizzard had started moving and was steadily advancing on Mystic. It was still several hours away, though. Catskill looked to the exit from the valley, towards the Crystal Empire. Should they walk during those few hours? She turned the thought over in her mind as she mentally examined what she knew about the area. Not too hard to traverse in decent weather, but barely any shelter. No, best not to let the storm catch them, then.

She jumped down from the roof and landed neatly on the ground. Amanita was just coming out of the house, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Hey,” she mumbled. “Heard you get up. We leaving now?”

“Best not. Look,” said Catskill, pointing. “That blizzard I mentioned? It’ll be here in two or three hours, and if we travel, we’ll be caught in the worst of it.”

“Ah.” Amanita stood up a little straighter as she blinked sleep away. “But you remember the mare who’s chasing me, right? And any ponies she has? Don’t you- think that maybe-”

“No, it’s probably best to wait here. If they see the blizzard coming, they won’t want to move, either.” Catskill glanced sidelong at Amanita. “Unless you think they’re pretty close behind us and every second counts.”

Amanita swallowed and looked away. “N-no, that’s… pretty unlikely.”

“So we’ve got several hours to kill,” said Catskill. “Might as well go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think I can sleep knowing that… a storm like that’s coming,” said Amanita. “And I, I’m not that tired, anyway.” She bit her lip and said, “This’ll… probably sound weird, but… could you, uh, show me around Mystic?”

Catskill turned very slowly to look at Amanita, who was shuffling in the snow and staring at the ground. “Show you around Mystic?” Catskill repeated.

“Y-yeah,” said Amanita. “I’ve… I’ve never been in a ghost town before and I… kinda wanted to see it. I-I mean,” she added quickly, “as long as I’m not, y’know, bringing… up… bad memories or something.” She quickly looked away and folded her ears back.

“…You know what, sure,” said Catskill, surprising herself. “Mystic’s a big place, and I wouldn’t want you to get lost in the blizzard.” She wasn’t sure what the excuse was for.

“Thanks,” said Amanita quietly. She pulled at her collar and said, “So, um, where would you start?”

“Well, uh… That house?” Catskill pointed to the next building over. “One of my best friends lived there. A mason. She helped build a lot of the houses in town, but you wouldn’t know it. She was quiet and gave away a lot of her money to ponies who needed it.”

“Sorry she left,” said Amanita.

Catskill shrugged. “She still visits, when she has the time. Why don’t I show you her favorite project? It’s just down the road…”

And so it went on, with the two of them wandering further and further into the valley, even crossing the river. “I helped build that mill downstream. That was a piece of work, let me tell you.” Catskill found herself getting lost in her memories and Amanita hung on every word. “The post still arrived on time out here, believe it or not. Those postmares were the biggest badasses in the world.” Catskill wasn’t even sure if she was talking for Amanita or herself; it’d been a long time since she’d truly thought about Mystic. “A friend lived in that house, and it had a broken window to the cellar I could climb through as a foal. I often met her down there when she was supposed to be grounded.” It was like she’d shut out most of her life, maybe to forget Taconic. “An old stallion spent almost a decade carving that statue. He died a few weeks after finishing it. Good, ain’t it?” Amanita looked more and more thoughtful with every word Catskill said.

Before Catskill knew what was happening, hours had passed. They’d crossed half of Mystic, going an inch at a time. Finally, a casual glance north made her flinch. The blizzard had moved a lot while she wasn’t watching. “We should go back,” she said. “The blizzard’s less than half an hour away. Come on.” She turned and set off for her house.

“Wait.”

Catskill stopped. Amanita hadn’t started walking, but was slowly bouncing from hoof to hoof. “Listen,” she said. Deep breath. “You… You really ought to know… I’m a ne-”

BANG-srk.

Something whizzed through the air between them and flung a few stone chips from a wall. Amanita yelped and clapped her hooves to her nose.

“Down!” yelled Catskill. She dive-tackled Amanita to the ground and pulled her around the corner of a building. The echos were dying, but the sound of the gunshot was unmistakable.

“Son of a-” squealed Amanita, pressing her hooves to her muzzle.

“You okay?” Catskill was shaking and her mind had shut down all tracks, bar one: she had to run. She’d never been shot at before.

“I’m fine,” Amanita said. She pulled her legs away; her hooves glistened with a small amount of blood, blood that was still trickling from a wound on her nose. “Missed the headshot.” Her voice didn’t even have the clogged garble of a bloody nose.

“Good, good.” Catskill thought like she’d never thought before. How to avoid getting shot? Stay out of their line of sight. Bullets could only go in a straight line. So where was the gunmare? The bullet had come from the same cliff they’d come down from, right? Probably. “Wait here.” Catskill edged for the corner, wishing she had her spyglass. She peeked around the edge of the building and looked up at the cliff. She could barely make out a cluster of ponies there. Three? Four? It was hard to tell. Something- BANG. -flashed and a bullet whistled by her ear. By the time she pulled back, snowflakes were already flying through the air from the impact.

“The jealous mare’s trying to kill you?!” said Catskill breathlessly. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought they were- gonna rough you up or- or something!” Catskill was too frightened to feel betrayed by the lack of information.

“So did- So did I!” gasped Amanita. “I- I didn’t think-”

“Whatever.” Catskill risked a second for another look. Four ponies, it seemed. At least one unicorn. No shots came her way. Hopefully, they only had the one arquebus. “Okay. If we can get to my house, we can hole up there, wait out the blizzard. I know this place, but those guys-” She jerked her head towards the cliff. “-don’t. They won’t be able to find us before the storm hits. Once the blizzard’s gone, we’ll-” What would they do? Make a break for it at the same time as the others? “-I don’t know what. We’ll see.”

“Better than nothing, right?” said Amanita, her voice stuffed with forced cheer.

“Sure. Alleyway there. Run.”

The two of them raced across Mystic, sticking behind buildings, slipping through alleys, narrowly avoiding infrequent potshots from the sniper. While the buildings were hardly close together, they made getting a clean shot awkward. The valley rang with the dying echos of gunshots. Catskill wished they could’ve taken a less roundabout route, but they’d be easy pickings on any main street.

But their escape came to a screeching halt at the river. It was too wide to jump over and too fast and too cold to swim through. They’d have to take one of the bridges. One of the wide-open bridges. Catskill and Amanita flitted from cover to cover as the former thought. “How’re you with shields?” she asked. “Or illusions?”

“Not good enough with shields to trust they’d stop a bullet,” Amanita replied. “Don’t know a thing about illusion.”

Which Catskill had expected. Worth a shot. (Ha ha.) They were at the closest building to the bridge, now. Twenty feet across. Catskill guessed the gun the sniper was using was single-shot, or else she’d fire more often. Which meant-

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Catskill. “I stick my head out, get her to shoot. While she’s reloading, we run across the bridge. Good?” No. Not good. This is stupid. Why am I doing THIS?

“Not really, but what the hay,” muttered Amanita. She swallowed. “Ready when you are.”

Catskill nodded. “Three… two… one…” She whipped her head out, looked up at the cliff, and immediately pulled back. Half an instant after she was gone, a bullet zipped by.

Amanita bolted across the bridge; Catskill followed a second later. Her legs pounded at the ground as she sprinted. Her entire body was tense, waiting for a gunshot that never came. She reached Amanita, passed her, looked for the best cover on the far shore.

She spotted an empty window frame on the closest building. She vaulted over the sill and rolled through the decaying remains of tables and chairs. Amanita jumped through and landed awkwardly on her stomach, but the gunshot that cracked through the air missed her. She rolled onto her back, away from the window. “I’m okay!” she gasped.

“Good.” Catskill stood up and brushed the dust off of herself. “There should be a door on the far side. And if there isn’t, we’ll make one.”

There wasn’t, so Catskill simply shouldered her way through a weak wall. She grinned. Not far now. They-

“NO!”

Catskill whirled at Amanita’s scream. Amanita was frozen, staring up into the sky. “Oh, no no no no no,” she whispered, and pointed a shaking hoof up. “L-look.”

A pegasus was circling above them, barely visible. She made no attempt to drop down on them and simply watched.

After cursing under her breath, Catskill said, “Can’t be helped. Let’s keep moving.” Her thoughts rushed by: now that the shooter had a spotter on them, would she keep shooting? Or would she try to get closer? Could they get the pegasus down somehow? Could they lose her?

There were no more shots as the pair kept ducking and running, but it was a cold comfort with the pegasus circling like a vulture and following them easily, almost lazily. Catskill began taking more risks, going for more direct and more vulnerable routes. Still no shots. It wasn’t long before they were back at her house. But by then, Catskill had had an idea.

“Wait here,” said Catskill. She bolted for her house and cleared the street at a sprint. She banged through door, nearly splintering it, and skidded to a halt next to her blunderbuss and bandolier. She slammed a shell into the blunderbuss’s breech and ran back outside. The pegasus was- There she was. “Alright, you spineless coward,” Catskill whispered. “Let’s see how you like some of your own medicine.” She pointed the blunderbuss straight up and fired.

BOOM.

Catskill swore she felt the earth shake. She didn’t have a chance in Prance of hitting the pegasus, but that wasn’t the point. The pegasus probably didn’t know that, and a flying pegasus was an easy target. She’d get scared and ground herself. No more aerial recon. Easy.

The pegasus’s flight suddenly turned erratic; her wings flailed and she zipped out of sight, towards the exit of the valley. Catskill smirked and brushed a few snowflakes off her muzzle.

But as she waved Amanita over, a sinking feeling dropped into her stomach. “The pegasus isn’t following us anymore,” she said as she nudged Amanita into the house, “but I bet she knows this is where we’re staying. We have to move. Yes, through the blizzard, but no, not out of town. Remember the mill? On the river?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Amanita said, nodding jitteringly.

“We’re going there.” Catskill pulled her bandolier over her head. “It’s big and solid and it’ll keep the storm out. Start packing!” She rolled up a sleeping bag and pushed it into its pouch.

“Sorry!” Horn-glow cast dim shadows throughout the room as Amanita telekinetically gathered up everything she had.

Deciding to hedge her bets, trying not to think about what this entailed, Catskill added, “And if we get separated for- for whatever reason, follow the river once the storm clears. It’s not the fastest route out of the mountains, but it is the easiest. Once you get out of the foothills, it’s a straight shot across the plains to the Crystal Empire, so just run. Got it?” Catskill left out that Amanita would be running for a day or two. No need to worry her even more.

“Okay, okay.” Amanita was shaking as she haphazardly stuffed her supplies into her bag. “I- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Not your fault,” said Catskill. She pulled down her balaclava and goggles. “Don’t worry about it. Move.” She poked her head out into the street. Left, right: nothing. Up: nothing. She squinted at the far cliff, but couldn’t make anything out through the light snowfall. Maybe the sniper had changed position by now. Maybe the blizzard would spontaneously vanish. “You done?”

Amanita hoisted her saddlebags over her back. “Yeah.”

As Catskill led them down narrow alleys, she wished she’d seen where the pegasus had gone to ground. She briefly thought she saw a tail vanish around a corner, but it was just a bush waving in the wind. She swallowed and scraped snowflakes from her goggles. She could do this.

But when she glanced up the street to the bridge, she cursed and backed up. At the very, very far end of the street, three ponies were running towards them, one of them with an arquebus. If she crossed that bridge, she’d be easy pickings. An indistinct yell from them already told her they’d spotted her.

“We’re going to have to cross another bridge,” she whispered to Amanita. “When I say go, you run across the street-”

A shadow suddenly passed over them. Catskill looked up; rushing clouds were covering the sun. The snow grew thicker. The wind picked up. And then the blizzard fell on the town like an avalanche.

Something poked Bitterroot. She waved it away. It poked harder. She smacked at it. It dumped a pile of snow on her head. The shock jarred Bitterroot to wakefulness so hard she could hear her ears ringing. She wiped some of the snow out of her eyes and squinted up at her assailant. “I’d say you could’ve just said something, but that’s not really an option for you, right, Gale?”

Gale scowled down at Bitterroot and began working on a snowball.

“I’m up, I’m up.” Bitterroot wrestled her way out of her sleeping bag, did a short lap of the miniscule campsite, and rolled her wings: left three times, right three times, left three times. “Thanks for getting me up,” she added.

Gale tossed the snowball away from the campsite and nodded.

“Be back in a few.” And Bitterroot flared her wings and was away.

Bitterroot was one of those rare pegasi who didn’t love flying. She enjoyed it, true, but flying wasn’t a joy to her any more than swimming up or down was a joy to a fish: it was just something she did. Still, after being forced to stay with groundbound ponies for even a few days, being able to stretch her wings like this felt like getting out of a carriage after an excruciatingly long trip.

The sun hadn’t risen on the ground, but Bitterroot climbed high enough that it poked above the mountain range, bathing her and the clouds in light. She took a deep breath of the air and looked north. The blizzard had unfortunately started moving and their little team had a few hours before they were caught in it.

How far could they get in a few hours? They needed every inch they could get. Bitterroot looked in the vague direction they were traveling. There seemed to be a valley ahead, which might provide a little bit of extra shelter. She squinted at the mountains around it. There was a dip near them, a small pass that led directly into the valley. It was definitely something somepony would see, and if the additional pony with Amanita was a ranger, she’d know about it. And Trace had said a large part of tracking was the land. But it would take some time to get to and from the valley, so-

You know what? Screw it. She wanted to stretch her wings. She could be back soon enough. Bitterroot pumped her wings and threw herself forward, the shadowed ground streaking by below her. Artemis would probably complain about this extra detour, but she was a whiner anyway.

She arrived at the valley in a few minutes, sunlight just beginning to creep down into it. An abandoned town sprawled below her, covering most of the valley floor. It was hard to make out details in the darkness, but many of the buildings were still technically standing. It wouldn’t make a bad place to hole up for in the blizzard, to be honest. They’d have to leave quickly, though, if they wanted to make it in time. (Assuming Amanita had gone for the town, but Bitterroot was willing to bet on that.)

Bitterroot zipped back to camp and landed on the outskirts. Trace and Artemis were already up, making toast over the fire. Artemis looked up when she heard Bitterroot, her face twisted with anger. “Where’ve y’been?” she snarled. “Y’were only s’pposed t-”

“Trace,” said Bitterroot, “we’re going that way, right?” She pointed in the direction of the valley. “And we’ve been heading that way for a while.”

Trace looked off, then trotted out of camp to examine something. She trotted back and asked, “Yes. Why?”

“There’s a valley over there, one with a ghost town that could provide us with some shelter from the blizzard. The blizzard’s moving, but won’t be here for another few hours, so we can make it if we move.”

“I say we do it,” said Trace promptly. “I’d hate to be caught out in the open.” She looked suspiciously at Artemis.

Artemis scowled at them and turned back to the fire. “Sure, sure,” she mumbled. “Jus’ lemme finish breakfast first.”

To her credit, once she was done with breakfast, Artemis was arguably the quickest packer. As soon as camp had broken, Trace set off on a swift trot — nose down, as always. Nopony spoke as they walked. Bitterroot kept glancing north whenever she could catch a snatch of the blizzard through the trees. It crept nearer and nearer, but not so quickly that it’d overtake them. They’d reach the valley in time, easily.

Finally, still following Amanita’s trail, they pushed through a dense copse and slid down a small slope to find themselves on a cliff above the valley. The village was spread out before them in all of its decaying glory. Trace whistled. “Wow,” she muttered. “Wonder what did this.”

“Betcha the land did ’em in,” said Artemis. “Get some ponies ’oo think they can strike it rich, land’s too ’ostile, drives ’em away. Trust me, you can’t last long out ’ere wi’out the princesses proppin’ things up. Why d’you think the Crystal Empire needs the Crystal ’Eart?”

“I don’t know,” said Trace. “It looks pretty big for-”

Gale’s eyes suddenly went wide and she started hopping up and down, dislodging her scarf a little. She quickly wrapped it back up and stabbed a hoof at the town like it was somepony she’d sworn revenge against.

“What?” asked Artemis. She gazed over the town, but apparently couldn’t see anything. “What d’you see?”

A flurry of movements so fast Bitterroot couldn’t follow them, then Gale went back to pointing.

“Slow down!” snapped Artemis. “I can’t unnerstand you when-”

Gale promptly turned to Bitterroot and shakily jabbed at the town again. She flared her good wing and pointed at her eye. Hoping it meant “you can see it because you’re a pegasus”, Bitterroot looked down and skimmed the buildings, trying to find something out of the ordinary, but it was hard to tell where Gale was poin-

Oh. That was what Gale was pointing at. It was hard for even a pegasus to see, but it was there. “Holy crap,” whispered Bitterroot. “That’s Amanita.”

Gale nodded energetically. Trace and Artemis both snapped to Bitterroot. At the same time, they asked, “What?”

“Look, down there.” Bitterroot pointed. “Halfway up main street, left side. Two ponies. The unicorn. Isn’t that Amanita?”

Trace suddenly had a spyglass out and peered down into the town. She grinned. “Oh, yeah. Definitely her.”

“Ha ha,” said Artemis. “Got ’er.” She walked right up to the edge of the cliff and leaned over, whispering, “Gotcha, you stupid little-”

“Gale,” said Trace, “do you think you can shoot her from here?”

Gale squinted at Trace and lowered an ear.

“I was simply thinking,” Trace said defensively, “that if we can kill her now, she won’t be able to get the drop on us with any thralls she might have.”

Gale shook her head and made some gesture at Artemis as she pulled her arquebus into position. “ ’Course she can shoot Amanita,” said Artemis. “She was wonderin’ why you think otherwise.”

Trace sucked in a breath through her nose. “Because I don’t know her skills and had to ask her.” Bitterroot sensed she was making an effort to not clench her teeth.

Rolling her eyes, Gale popped a short pole into the bottom of the arquebus. The pole itself, rather than the harness, carried the gun’s weight as Gale stared down the sights.

“Take your time,” said Bitterroot. Her heart was pounding in her chest. They were so close. “if you miss-”

Without blinking, Gale waved Bitterroot away so ferociously Bitterroot had to take a step back to avoid a broken nose. “Unless you are capable with firearms,” Trace whispered, “I suggest you let the sharpshooter handle the sharpshooting.”

Gale nodded at Trace and gripped the trigger bit in her teeth. She closed one eye. She shuffled her hooves to get a better position. She took a deep breath… and-

BANG.

She’d heard gunshots before, but Bitterroot still clapped her hooves over her ears at the sound. It was enough to get her heart racing. Gunshots didn’t always sound dangerous, but by Celestia they were loud. She blinked away her surprise just in time to see the two ponies scrambled behind a building, apparently unharmed.

“Y’missed,” Artemis said with a sneer.

As she pushed another bullet into the breech, Gale made a face at Artemis. Down below, a pony head poked out from behind the building. BANG. And withdrew unhurt.

“That didn’t look like Amanita,” Bitterroot said, frowning. “I think that was an earth pony.”

“An’ ’ow would you know?” Artemis snorted. “Could you see ’er?”

“Yes. Pegasus. Gale, why’re you shooting somepony who isn’t Amanita?”

Artemis opened her mouth, but Gale clicked her tongue, drawing the former’s attention. Gale made a few motions and pointed down into the valley. Artemis nodded and said to Bitterroot, “Warnin’ shot. Make ’er keep ’er ’ead down.”

“Don’t kill the earth pony,” said Bitterroot. “She’s a victim.”

Gale nodded and adjusted her aim as the ponies scrambled down an alley.

Maybe it was interesting for Gale, but after several minutes, the rush began to wane for Bitterroot. The two ponies stuck to cover and stayed out of Gale’s sight as much as possible. Every now and then, Gale would zing off a potshot at them that would inevitably miss. And all Bitterroot could do was sit there.

Once they ran across a bridge before Gale could reload, Bitterroot had had enough. “Think I should follow them?” she asked. “Just, you know, loom over them. Track them so if Gale loses them-”

“No,” Artemis said promptly. Of course.

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause it’s too dang’rous,” said Artemis. She didn’t even look away from the town. “She’s a necromancer. You ain’t.”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t track them,” Bitterroot said angrily. “I’m not stupid, it’s not like I’m going to land and try to take on a necromancer single-hoofedly. I’ll just-”

“Why’re you asking us?” asked Trace curiously. “If you simply flew away, we couldn’t stop you.”

Bitterroot opened her mouth, thought, and zipped away, leaving behind a swearing Artemis. She briefly considered grabbing a cloud to hide behind — it was her usual method of staying hidden during aerial reconnaissance — but gathering one would take time. Besides, it wasn’t like the ponies down there didn’t know somepony was following them. She spotted them climbing out of a building and began spiraling lazily over them.

They tried to evade her — quick changes in direction, blind alleys, taking vertical cover wherever they could — but Bitterroot knew all the tricks and followed them easily. Even if she hadn’t, the design of the town made tracking them downright trivial. Bitterroot barely needed to do a thing besides look down and flap her wings. Gale stopped firing, maybe because she was pinpointing their exact location all the time.

Suddenly, they stopped running. The earth pony broke away and ran into a decrepit house. Bitterroot smirked to herself as she stared down at Amanita through the falling snow. This was so easy, it was practically cheating. All she had to do was follow them while they had to stay on the ground and out of sight of Gale. And even if they split up (like now), Amanita was the important one, s-

BOOM.

The blast rattled Bitterroot’s bones. A pellet zipped by not a foot from her. She squawked and flailed all six limbs as she tried to get away. She hurriedly threw herself into a spiral and dove for the far end of the town. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d just heard the blunderbuss yesterday, hadn’t she? Yet she hadn’t found it. Of course the earth pony would use it.

Bitterroot landed on the collapsed roof of a building with less grace than she wanted to admit, sending out a puff of recently-fallen snow. Stupid. How would the ranger know they weren’t trying to kill her? Warning shots and missed shots looked the same. Even if she wasn’t enthralled, she was just defending herself.

Bitterroot hop-flew across the rooftops back the way she came, staying out of sight from the ground while not making much noise. She still had a general idea of where she’d been, so maybe-

There they were, flitting down a distant street. Bitterroot followed, unsure of whether she should jump the ranger and try to take or break her blunderbuss or just tail them. She settled for tailing them, at least for the moment. Praying the others were still up on the cliff, she gave a few jumps extra boosts with her wings and alternated between frantic waving at the cliff and pointing down at the street.

The wind picked up. Bitterroot pulled her cloak tighter around herself. And by the time she realized what the increased wind meant, the blizzard was upon her.

8 - Whiteout

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Visibility was close to nothing. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees. Hearing anything was virtually impossible. And even standing up took effort in the wind.

The wrath of the Frozen North had descended upon Mystic.

Even with her goggles keeping the worst out, Catskill could barely see. She looked down the street again. She couldn’t see the ponies. She couldn’t see the bridge. She could barely see halfway to the bridge. “Amanita?” she asked. Her words were nearly whipped away by the storm.

Somepony patted her on the side. “Here!” yelled Amanita. Her voice wasn’t much clearer.

“Stay close to me,” said Catskill. “We need to take a detour to avoid the ponies at the end of the street, but I know where we’re going.”

Did she? Swathed in an atmosphere of flying snow, Mystic looked downright alien. Catskill had never been outside her house in a blizzard before. She could barely see any of the usual landmarks and found herself terribly disoriented. She didn’t know east from west and the storm had blotted out the sun.

Catskill scrunched her eyes shut and forced her mind to reset. She recalled the position of the bridge, of the mill, from their alley. Okay. She recalled the position of the valley exit. Okay. She knew where they were. She knew where they were heading. She opened her eyes. “Come on.” She pushed out into the street.

Walking through Mystic, she might as well have been blind and navigating the streets from memory during an earthquake. Visibility was much too poor and the wind was so strong, buffeting them this way and that, that keeping steady footing was a struggle. They couldn’t even escape it in the alleys; the storm whipped into every little crevice like it was hunting them. But they made progress, and any tracks they might have left in the snow were erased nigh-instantaneously. At least they couldn’t be followed.

Right?

In the middle of crossing a wide street, Catskill stopped walking. Maybe it was her own paranoia, maybe it was something tied to magic, but Catskill was sure they were being followed, and not through tracks; personally. They hadn’t seen where the pegasus had gone to earth, had they? She could be out there right now, following them, just out of sight.

Catskill spun in a complete circle. Nopony.

That she could see.

“Is something wrong?” asked Amanita.

“I think somepony’s following us,” Catskill replied. She pulled Amanita across the street and into another alley. “Don’t ask me why. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Amanita nodded and started looking around.

The more they walked, the more confident Catskill was that they were on the right route to the mill, but the more nervous she felt that something was stalking them. She kept glancing upwards, waiting for that time when she’d be confronted with a pegasus staring down at her. She never went into an intersection without looking every way. She picked up her pace more than necessary even as Amanita risked floundering in the deepening snow.

Another wide street. The second-to-last before the next bridge over the river. Catskill’s anxiety was buzzing like a beehive. She wiped down her goggles and looked around. Nothing. She pulled her blunderbuss into a firing position, just in case. She looked over Amanita’s shoulder. Still nothing. Yet paranoia wouldn’t let her rest. “Do you see somepony?” she asked Amanita.

“No,” Amanita said, turning to Catskill. “I don’t-” Her eyes suddenly widened and she pointed behind Catskill and up.

Before Amanita could say a word, Catskill whirled around, blunderbuss at the ready. A pony-shaped shadow froze on a rooftop, then leapt across the street with a flap.

BOOM.

Catskill had pulled the trigger bit almost reflexively and hadn’t properly prepared. She staggered back a few feet and blinked away the muzzle flash, blinding even in these conditions, even through goggles. She also hadn’t aimed. No scream of pain. No hit. The shadow vanished over the edge of another roof

Son of a…

“Keep moving, keep moving,” hissed Catskill, pushing at Amanita. “Almost there.”

Catskill would’ve thought that seeing the pony following them would make her less tense. No, it just made everything worse. Now she knew for certain somepony was on their tail, yet she couldn’t see that pony at all. Her legs started shaking, and not from the chill. The only thing that kept her from breaking into a gallop was the knowledge that she could lose Amanita.

Almost there. Almost there.

Last street. Left: nothing. Right: nothing. “Come on,” said Catskill, and headed right. They were so close; she could almost taste the warm, calm air now.

Paranoia made her stop and spin around. There, standing behind them, nothing more than an indistinct shadow, was the pegasus. The pegasus immediately slipped into an alley and Catskill lost sight of her. She could be anywhere: in one of the alleys, in the air, maybe she’d already flown behind them. But, as terrified as she was, Catskill had had enough of looking over her shoulder.

“Go for the bridge,” Catskill said to Amanita. “It’s not far, straight. Once you’re over it, turn right, and you’ll reach the mill in no time. I’ll hold her off.” For how long? What would she lose in doing so?

“But… But you-”

“Go.”

Amanita froze, then nodded and ran off.

“And remember what I said!” Catskill yelled. “Storm ends and I’m not there, follow the river!” Amanita didn’t respond, but the sounds of her hooves vanished into the storm.

Catskill jammed another shell into the blunderbuss. She hoped it wouldn’t come to a fight. But maybe she could bluff the pegasus into hiding. “I know you’re there!” she screamed, barely keeping the quaver from her voice. “Come out and fight!”

No response. In spite of the wind, Catskill thought she could hear somepony pattering across a nearby rooftop.

“H-hiding, are you?” screamed Catskill. “Well, guess what?” She pointed the blunderbuss straight up. BOOM. “I’m coming for you!”

She wasn’t, of course. Nopony would be that stupid, to run into a blizzard to attack somepony. But if she was lucky, it’d make the pegasus keep her head down. Catskill turned and bolted for the bridge, the wind whipping at her heels.

She never knew how she heard the flap of wings over the din of the storm, but she heard them. She attempted to stop, but thanks to the snow, she slipped and tripped. The pegasus missed her by a narrow margin, only to turn on a bit and come around again. Catskill had only managed to stand up when the pegasus pounced.

They rolled through the snow, locked together, Catskill caught in a headlock. She threw out a leg and arrested their roll, managing to end up lying on top of the pegasus. The pegasus thrashed and bucked beneath her like some giant fish. All the while, she tightened her grip around Catskill’s throat and grabbed at her head. Catskill awkwardly punched to her side and hit the pegasus in the stomach. The pegasus grunted and released her.

Catskill immediately rolled onto her hooves. In spite of being winded, the pegasus was almost as fast, spinning over with a flick of her wings. Catskill blindly lashed out; the pegasus ducked under the awkward swing easily. Swing, dodge, swing, dodge.

“What are you doing?” asked the pegasus darkly. “Why are you protecting her?”

“Why do you think?” yelled Catskill. Desperate for a hit, hoping to take the pegasus by surprise, she screamed and dove. No good; the pegasus merely hopskipped back a step and Catskill missed by a mile. Before she could get up, the pegasus pounced again. This time, she went straight for the choke, leveraging her body against Catskill’s to pin her to the ground. Tears sprang to her eyes. Catskill beat at the snow, but fruitlessly; without something to push against-

And suddenly she could breathe again. After a few quick breaths, she looked up to see a dark shape escaping down an alley. Somehow, the scent of burnt fur lingered in the storm. And standing over her was Amanita, her horn still glowing.

“Hey!” said Amanita brightly. “I couldn’t forget you. Plus, I, uh, I reached the bridge and realized I don’t know where the mill is. You do.”

Catskill nodded. “Right.” She rubbed at her throat. The strangulation still tickled.

“And-” Light sprang from the tip of Amanita’s horn. Although it illuminated every single snowflake swirling around them, it also drove away some of the darkness. It was also easy to see from a distance. “So we don’t get separated again,” she said.

“Good thinking.” Catskill hauled herself out of the snow. It clung to her furs, but she barely noticed the chill.

Amanita was already galloping back the way she’d come. Had she reached the bridge? Even once she’d passed out of sight, her light kept bobbing up and down in the haze. Catskill trotted after her. “It should be on your right!” she bellowed. “Your right! And wait up!”

“Got it!” Amanita’s voice was barely audible. The light came to a halt.

Amanita had found the bridge, as Catskill learned once she reached it. It was much like she’d remembered it: narrow, with only room for three or four ponies side by side, and not much in the way of railings. Partly due to ruin, partly due to this particular bridge not being a large one to begin with. Catskill slowed her pace as she ascended the low arch; the stones were beginning to ice over.

“Hey! Hey, come on! I can see the mill!” yelled Amanita. She sounded barely out of visible range. “We’re almost there! It’s right over-”

BANG.

Amanita screamed. Her light went out.

Splash. Barely audible.

Wind.

Catskill jolted herself from her fugue and ran to where she thought Amanita had been, nearly slipping over the edge and falling into the river. “Amanita? Amanita?”

No response.

“AMANITA!”

Nothing.

Catskill felt short of breath. In spite of the situation, her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed onto the bridge. No. It couldn’t be. Not now. Not now. They’d come so far, and for her to go out through a stupid shot in the dark… It wasn’t fair. It was not fair. Catskill almost jumped into the river to look for Amanita, but she knew it was no good. It was too fast. Amanita’s body would be long gone.

She pulled up the edge of her balaclava and forced the subzero air into her lungs. The chill jarred her back to her senses. There was a chance — a slim one, admittedly, but it existed — that Amanita wasn’t dead. It could’ve been a shoulder shot and she just fell into the river. Granted, suffering from hypothermia thanks to the cold water wasn’t much better, but it was still better. Maybe she could find a space to crawl out downriver. And there was a chance she knew spells to help with her body temperature or keeping fires going. She was a unicorn, after all.

Catskill knew it was an uncomfortably large amount of maybes. But right then, she’d rather take all the “maybe so”s in the world rather than a single “definitely not”. If nothing else, she was going to follow the river anyway.

But she couldn’t yet, not while the blizzard still raged, even if it meant dooming Amanita. She could die just as easily or completely pass over Amanita (or her body) while trying to search. She had to get get up, keep moving, and get to the mill. It was only fifty feet away.

Catskill wasn’t aware of her trip to the mill, but suddenly she was pushing its door shut in a mercifully calm room. Snow wasn’t obscuring everything and she could hear normally.

She collapsed against the door, breathing heavily, and pulled off her goggles and balaclava. She wiped down her forehead, but it was hard to tell if it was wet from melted snow or sweat. How long would the blizzard run? She couldn’t say. Might only be a few more minutes, might be for days. Screw the Frozen North and its weather. But she knew one thing: the second the blizzard was done, she was running out along the river and finding Amanita. She couldn’t desert her like that, not as a ranger, nor as a… semi-friend. Or maybe just an acquaintance.

She stepped away from the door and the wind immediately blew it open. The locking mechanism had long since been destroyed. Grunting, Catskill grabbed a half-rotten board and shoved it under the crossbeam to hold it shut. She walked into the center of the room and sprawled on the millstone, her legs numb. This wasn’t different from any other time she’d waited out a blizzard in Mystic, right? Why did it feel this empty?

The waiting was always the hardest part of a blizzard, and Catskill stopped paying attention to how long she lay there. The mill was a bit drafty and the millstone was cold. There was a fireplace on one wall. Catskill picked her way through the debris, not really looking at it, but grabbing particularly intact bits of wood. She needed something warm. She needed-

Thud.

Catskill froze.

Thud.

That hadn’t been the blizzard.

Thud.

Somepony was pounding at the door.

Bitterroot did not like storms.

One of her first teenage jobs had been a weather wrangler, hauling in unruly weather and clouds so they could be better controlled. She’d almost quit when it became clearer and clearer that she’d have to tussle with particularly bad storms and she couldn’t handle the loss of control. (The foremare had been nice enough to give her tedious but low-risk jobs to ensure she still had some income.) It was part of the reason she didn’t love flying. If you screwed up while walking, you tripped, looked silly for a moment, got up, and kept walking. You risked death every single time you screwed up while flying, and storms gave you a lot of opportunities to screw up while flying.

So the instant the blizzard engulfed her, Bitterroot’s heart leapt into her throat and threatened to escape her ears. She put a hoof on her chest and forced deep breaths. In and out, in and out…

Okay. She could do this. All she had to do was track down a necromancer and her probable thrall in an unfamiliar ruin in the middle of a blizzard. No pressure.

No pressure.

At the very least, Bitterroot had an idea of which direction they were going. Even the sudden fear of having a blizzard dropped on her head couldn’t screw up her internal compass. And a little hopping from roof to roof couldn’t be that bad.

It wasn’t, once she actually got to trying it. All she had to do was keep her wings tightly shut while in the air and she wouldn’t get blown-off course. Soon, Bitterroot found herself running along broken rooftops and jumping alleys towards where she had last seen the pair of ponies. The unfamiliar territory and lack of landmarks played havoc with her internal map, but she kept moving. Maybe she’d get lucky and the storm had fallen on them before they could get far. At the very least, if she reached the river, she’d know she’d gone too far.

The roofs were flat, but not by design. Heavy snow and decaying supports meant they’d collapsed years ago. To Bitterroot, that just meant she could run across them easily. As another stroke of luck, in spite the abysmal visibility, she could still see to the other side of the roads she was jumping over, so she wasn’t taking leaps of faith all the time.

Bitterroot hit a main street at a soft angle. After a bit of thought, she turned to the right. She must’ve misjudged the angle to the old location a little.

Then, against all odds, she saw them.

She was lucky; they had the two-dimensional thinking of non-pegasi and weren’t looking up, while they were still close enough to be visible. But she could see them: a unicorn and an earth pony. Amanita and the ranger. The ranger was in the lead and still had her blunderbuss, Bitterroot noted. They were disappearing across the other side of the street, but not fast enough. Bitterroot flapped over the street to follow.

Some of Bitterroot’s anxiety slipped away. This was easy. She was just tailing a few perps. She’d done it dozens of times before. Granted, never through a ruined ghost town in the middle of a blizzard, but still. It amazing how little ponies looked up. She didn’t need to keep them in view at all times, thankfully; wherever the ranger was taking them, she was going dead straight. Bitterroot stayed some distance “sideways” from them, occasionally moving closer to check up on them. They never noticed her.

They reached a wide street. Bitterroot moved a few yards laterally to put some space between her and them. The two ponies started walking across the street when the ranger suddenly stopped. It looked like she was looking around at something, but she was far enough away to be at the edge of visibility, so it was hard to tell. Bitterroot tiptoed to the edge of the roof and leaned out for a better look. Why was she tiptoeing? She couldn’t be heard-

The ranger, prompted by some sixth sense, spun around and pointed the blunderbuss at her. Overbalanced, Bitterroot hastily flapped her wings and jumped across the street-

BOOM.

-and collapsed on the next roof, biting back a scream. Several pellets had gone through her furs and ripped through her flanks. It was unlikely to be serious, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt like Tartarus, even through the adrenaline.

She hadn’t seen much, but she’d seen enough. In the glare of the blunderbuss, the ranger’s eyes had clearly been glowing white. She’d been enthralled.

But Bitterroot couldn’t worry about that. If anything, it lifted a weight off her shoulders. Thralls were mindless, so she wouldn’t really be hurting anypony. There wasn’t anypony left to hurt.

She walked to the edge of the building, flinching every time her wounded leg hit the ground. Could she jump? She flapped across an alley, landed, and almost screamed. She could technically jump, but technically wasn’t good enough. She slid down to the ground and ran. It was painful, but she could run.

Praying the pair kept to their arrow-straight path, Bitterroot simply grit her teeth and sprinted in the same direction. Where were they headed? The ranger must’ve known the town. She’d gone for that house for her blunderbuss. So they had a goal, and weren’t just blundering into a storm hoping for shelter.

She reached another wide street and looked up it. There they were, indistinct shadows not thirty feet from her and walking away. They definitely had some destination. But every step Bitterroot took into the street was loaded with trepidation. They knew she was following them. At any moment-

One of them spun around and looked straight at her.

Panicking, Bitterroot bolted down an alley. She pinned herself against the wall, breathing deeply yet not getting any air. Who was that pony? How did she know where Bitterroot was all the time? Was she leading her into a trap? There had to be something more going on, and Bitterroot didn’t like it one bit. No tailing job had ever been anything like this. But should she expect anything less when chasing a necromancer?

She picked up a faint voice over the roaring storm. Something about a river. Following it? She almost looked out into the street, but-

“I know you’re there!” somepony bellowed. “Come out and fight!”

Bitterroot didn’t respond. In spite of the wind, she thought she could hear the snow crunching underhoof as somepony advanced on her.

“Ha! Hiding, are you?” roared the pony. “Well, guess what?” BOOM. The report of the blunderbuss rattled Bitterroot’s bones and made her clench her teeth. “I’m coming for you!”

Crap crap crap. If she stayed here, she was dead. She had to move, take the fight to the pony. Somehow. Over the roof? That was her best option. Clenching her jaw against the inevitable pain, Bitterroot flapped up to the roof and pulled herself over the edge. She jumped over a few alleys and peeked into the street.

She could only see one pony in the haze, running away from her. It was hard to tell whether it was Amanita or the ranger. Bitterroot double-checked, just to be sure it wasn’t some trick. Nopony else was immediately visible. Deep breath. Bitterroot hurled herself at the pony in a tackle.

Somehow, the pony heard her and ducked. Bitterroot was past her before she knew what was happening. She skipped through the snow, flaring her wings to slow her movement, then snapped one shut to turn herself around. The pony had already managed to get up. Desperate to keep the upper hoof, Bitterroot hastily threw herself forward. Her bad leg betrayed her, twinged and the wrong moment, and she hit too high; rather than driving the pony to the ground, the two of them rolled through drifts. Bitterroot’s front legs got wrapped around the pony’s neck.

The rolling suddenly stopped, Bitterroot on the bottom, the pony pinning her to the ground. Bitterroot beat her wings to try for some leverage, to no effect. She pulled on the pony’s neck with one leg in a desperate attempt to throw her off, but the pony was too heavy. Bitterroot was desperate for breath. With her free hoof, she scrabbled at the pony’s goggles and smooth head, trying to-

Bitterroot froze as her thoughts intruded at exactly the wrong time. Smooth head: this was the ranger. But she was wearing goggles? Her eyes had been-

The ranger drove her hoof into Bitterroot’s stomach with the force of a piledriver. The last bits of air left Bitterroot’s lungs in a gasp and she let go of the ranger’s neck. The ranger rolled off of her. Sucking in air, Bitterroot slapped the ground with a wing to roll over. The ranger was already up; Bitterroot could easily see her snow goggles, now, but no glowing eyes. She wasn’t enthralled. Her protecting Amanita was voluntary.

Suddenly, the ranger punched out at Bitterroot. Panicking, Bitterroot flared her wings in just the right way to push herself down; the punch missed her by mere inches. Bitterroot started backing up, hoping for some distance, but the ranger swung twice more in a one-two. It was only through luck and some quick reflexes that Bitterroot wasn’t knocked out cold.

She couldn’t go on like this. She would lose to the ranger. But the ranger had to know who Amanita was. Maybe- “What are you doing?!” asked Bitterroot desperately. “Why are you protecting her?”

“Why do you think?” snarled the ranger. She roared aggressively and dove. Taken by surprise, Bitterroot had to shuffle backwards through the snow and nearly tripped. In a stroke of luck, the ranger went sliding through the snow, facedown. In a stroke of inspiration, Bitterroot went for the pin and choke. She could knock the ranger out; she was just a victim. The ranger pushed at the ground and almost threw her off. But Bitterroot had a good-

Something hit her side like a firebrand. Bitterroot knew magic when she felt it. The necromancer had found her. Terrified, she sprang away, scrambling for cover, any cover. She couldn’t let Amanita get her.

She sprinted down the first alley she found and dove into a doorway, ignoring the rotten boards that collapsed onto her. Her heart kept wanting to get away. She needed to move, her instincts said. But she was still winded and her bad leg wouldn’t let run any more. This was the best she could do. She slouched out on the floor and waited.

And waited.

The necromancer didn’t come. Bitterroot wondered if Amanita had seen where she’d run to. Maybe she could-

BANG.

Bitterroot flinched, only to realize it wasn’t the blunderbuss. Even in the storm, it was too weak, too sharp. Gale? It must’ve been.

Somepony screamed not too far away. The ranger? Why would she care? After a few moments of silence, Bitterroot hauled herself to her hooves and tried to make herself small as she returned to the main street. As she walked in the direction of the scream, she kept her eyes peeled, waiting for somepony to come barrelling out of the blizzard, ready to kill her. Nopony came. Suddenly, she found herself on the shores of the river, standing at the base of a bridge. Still nopony came, and she couldn’t see anypony standing on the bridge.

Somewhere in the distance, a sputtering light soared into the air. It exploded, almost blinding Bitterroot by illuminating the snow. Amanita couldn’t’ve been stupid enough to do that; it must’ve been Trace. Bitterroot flexed her bad leg to get it ready and ran across the bridge. There were no bodies. Once she reached the other side, she did her best to memorize her route from there. Another improvised firework went off.

She found the rest of her team huddled in the shelter of a general store a short ways into the town, Trace’s horn still glowing. She waved Bitterroot over. Her teeth were chattering, and she didn’t look happy. “We might’ve gotten her,” Trace said, glum in spite of the words. “We were crossing one of the bridges when Artemis spotted some unicorn light downriver. Gale shot at it and the light went out and it didn’t come back.” She took a shuddering breath. “And we don’t know where the body is.” She glared at Gale. “‘Let her go’, I said, ‘we won’t see if you actually hit her’, I said, ‘we can’t get to her quickly’, I said. And now, because of some trigger-happy lunatic — an actual, in-need-of-psychiatric-help lunatic, mind you — we might just be out six hundred grand!”

Gale, naturally, didn’t say anything, but she folded her ears back and looked away. Artemis was glaring at a spot on the opposite wall and muttering expletives. “Sunblasted Celestia’s cavernous, cobwebbed, dusty old…”

“I crossed the bridge Amanita was on,” said Bitterroot, thankful she could give some semblance of good news, “and I didn’t see the body there.” Trace and Artemis groaned, so Bitterroot raised her voice. “So there’s three options. One: you missed and Amanita’s light went out from shock and she ran. She’s still alive, probably somewhere in town, and we’re not out of this yet. Two: you hit Amanita and knocked her into the river, but she’s still alive. Three: you killed Amanita and knocked her into the river. If she’s still alive, she’ll leave an obvious trail once she crawls out of the water, assuming she doesn’t die from exposure. If she’s dead, she’ll wash up downriver. Everypony agree on that?”

Trace tilted her head in thought and started nodding. Artemis grinned animalistically. “Oh, yeah,” said Artemis. She rubbed her hooves together. “We can still get ’er.”

“We could still look for tracks at the bridge,” said Trace. “Mmmmmaybe. Anypony else want to try?”

They all did, so back into the worst of the blizzard they went. To Bitterroot’s surprise, her own tracks were still fairly visible, if maybe not so distinct. Following them back to the bridge was easy, and they hadn’t even gotten to the bridge when-

“Hey, hey!” screamed Trace excitedly. “Look! Hoofprints!” The single indistinct set she was pointing at wasn’t Bitterroot’s. Trace put her nose to the ground, as usual, and followed them. They didn’t need to go far, and in less than a minute, they were standing outside a large, solidly-built mill.

“Good cover,” said Trace. “And you see this dip, here, near the door? Snow was piled up against it, but somepony opened it. I certainly hope-”

In trying to open it, Trace faceplanted against the door with a thud. She frowned. “What in the…?” She put her weight into it. Thud. The door didn’t budge.

“It’s blocked?” Bitterroot asked, more voicing her thoughts than asking a question.

Thud. “Yeah. Perhaps by Amanita.”

“Oh, for-” growled Artemis. “Move over. Earth pony.”

Trace rolled her eyes but backed away. Artemis planted her shoulder and shoved at the door. It budged, but only slightly. Artemis frowned. “Huh.”

“Let’s go find someplace else,” said Bitterroot. She clamped her wings tight to her body. “There’s plenty of other buildings here.”

“They ain’t as strong as this’n,” said Artemis. “Colder. Draftier. All-’round worse.” She shoved again, harder. Another tiny budge. “And they ain’t got Amanita in ’em.”

Bitterroot and Trace exchanged glances. It was inaudible in the storm, but Bitterroot could see Trace clear her throat. “I, ah, beg your pardon,” said Trace, “but perhaps I can-”

“I got this!” yelled Artemis. She took a few steps back and charged at the door. Whatever had been holding it shut was demolished; the door swung open and Artemis continued on into the mill beyond.

The pony sitting on the millstone inside put up her hooves. “I surrender,” she said, staring at the ground.

9 - Don't Rock the Boat

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She ought to fight, Catskill knew. She ought to delay them, Catskill knew. She ought to make them work tooth and nail to take her down, Catskill knew.

But what was the point? It didn’t matter anymore. Amanita was gone. They couldn’t find her. Catskill knew that if she fought, she wouldn’t be doing anything with a point. She was cold, tired, and depressed. She didn’t want to be doing anything at all. So she didn’t.

For maybe half a second, she’d looked around the room, trying to find something worth using. But it’d been falling apart for so long, there wasn’t anything there. The boards would break the first time she hit somepony. The rocks weren’t large enough to do much damage. All she could do was make it easy for both sides and surrender. So she did. Didn’t mean she had to like it.

By the time the board holding the door shut had been broken, Catskill had taken off her blunderbuss and laid it at her feet. She’d put her goggles on her forehead and pulled the mouth covering of her balaclava below her chin. Once the door was down, she’d put up her hooves and said the words.

The pony who’d barged in, an angry-looking earth mare, seemed confused. “Eh… ’scuse me?”

“I said I surrender,” repeated Catskill. “One of your ponies. Your pegasus. She’s been hunting me.”

The earth pony blinked and turned around. “Oi!” she yelled into the blizzard. “Bitterroot! Were you chasin’ somepony? She’s givin’ up!”

A pegasus — the pegasus — skipped through the door around the earth pony. She stared at Catskill, then approached her. She put a hoof under Catskill’s chin and forced her head up. Catskill stared into her eyes unblinkingly. The pegasus stared back, soon releasing her. “It’s… complicated,” the pegasus said. “See-”

“I’m freezing my HORN and TAIL off out here!” somepony screamed from outside. “Is there something in there or what?”

The pegasus pushed the earth pony aside. Two other ponies, a unicorn and another pegasus with an arquebus, rushed into the mill and slammed the door shut. Catskill wordlessly got up, grabbed a board from the debris, and forced it beneath the crossbeam. She went straight back to her position on the millstone. “Latch’s broken,” she said.

Why was she helping them? They were just tracking down Amanita, ready to kill her. Maybe they already had. And they were willing to go through her to do it. She might as well have given them the rope to hang her with and tied the noose herself.

“If you’re looking for Amanita,” said Catskill, “she shot her-” She nodded at the second pegasus, the one with the arquebus. “-and she fell into the river. If she’s not dead already, she’ll probably freeze to death. But you don’t really care, do you?”

She waited for the order that would inevitably come. “Get on the ground.” “Put out your hooves.” “Close your eyes.” Something that would precede them doing something terrible to her. Yet the order never came. Everypony just stared at her. They were thinking, but Catskill didn’t care what about. When they decided to come for her, they’d come for her. Until then, she was just fine sitting on this millstone.

A few tiny gusts of cold wind blew in through the gaps in the doorframe. Everypony shivered, some more than others. “There’s a fireplace over there,” said Catskill unprompted, pointing. “It should still be good. This place…” She looked up at the remains of the mill. “Well, the stone parts were built to last. Stone doesn’t fall apart like wood.” She was babbling, desperate to fill the silence. Anything would do, including making herself look like a complete fool. “The wood should still be burnable, at least.”

The unicorn spoke up, seemingly also eager to fill the silence. “Is that, ah, dangerous in any way? If the wood’s rotting, and we spread whatever’s rotting it-”

Catskill scoffed at that. Talk about a flimsy knowledge of wood. “It doesn’t work like that.” She slid off the millstone and walked towards the fireplace. “Wood doesn’t rot easily in these conditions. Too cold and too dry. This place has been deserted for half a decade and it’s still fine.”

“Ah.”

“Furthermore…” Catskill threw a log into the fireplace. “Even if the wood was rotting, the fire would kill anything bad inside the wood. Burn it up.” And another. “It’s not like rotting wood releases poison gas.” She looked up. “Anypony got some firestarters and something like a flint and tinder?” She had some in her own bags, but she didn’t feel like digging around in them.

“Um.” The pegasus coughed. “I, I do.” She dug around in one of her saddlebags. Soon, a ball of paper and a box of matches were sitting next to Catskill. The pegasus looked at her one more time, then quickly turned away.

“Thanks,” said Catskill. Her brain must’ve slipped into autopilot, because she certainly wasn’t caring much for politeness at the moment. Both the paper and the matches were still dry. Magic, Catskill supposed. She spread the paper throughout the log pile and tried a match. She was shaking a little from the chill, so she broke the first match, but the second caught. Soon, a fire was burning merrily in the fireplace. The wood wasn’t too smoky, thankfully, and what smoke there was went up the chimney unimpeded.

Catskill slouched next to the fireplace and pulled her hood down over her eyes. “Better make yourselves at home,” she said. “We’re all gonna be here a while.”

The rush of danger had worn off not too long ago and Catskill was crashing. She tried sleeping, but every time she came close to nodding off, she remembered that there were strange ponies willing to kill her in the room and her unconscious jolted her back awake. The ponies didn’t seem to intent on killing her, though. All of them, bar the gunmare, got wrapped up in a conversation for a while. Catskill didn’t listen. She like to be eavesdropped on, so she didn’t eavesdrop. The gunmare, after laying her arquebus beside the door, sat down in front of Catskill and stared at her. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even open her mouth. She just tightened her scarf and stared.

“If Amanita freezes to death in that river,” said Catskill, “and spends her last hours suffering, it’s your fault. You know that, right?” It was a low blow, but Catskill was feeling low.

The gunmare didn’t say anything.

Of all the things Bitterroot had expected when entering the mill, the ranger patiently sitting on the millstone, her gun lying at her hooves, wasn’t one of them. She didn’t know what she’d “really” expected, but the ranger was being so quiet it threw her for a loop.

She’d entered the moment Artemis had said somepony she’d been chasing was giving up. And, indeed, there was the ranger. Definitely the one she’d fought. Definitely the one she’d almost killed. She pushed up the ranger’s head and stared into her eyes. Not a hint of necromantic flame, nothing out of the ordinary. She wasn’t a thrall. What was up with her? And just to make things weirder, the ranger propped the door shut and started a fire without any asking. Bitterroot had given her a firestarter and some matches, barely able to look at her without confusion and guilt swamping her brain.

But when the ranger decided to simply collapse by the fire, Bitterroot couldn’t be happier. She was tired, and apparently, the ranger also was, in spite of being an earth pony. Finally, a moment to just sit and not do anything.

So, naturally, Artemis dragged her and Trace aside for a talk. “So?” Artemis asked. “What d’you reckon?” She nodded at the ranger.

“I reckon I want to take a nap,” said Bitterroot. She couldn’t hide the weariness in her voice.

“I second the motion,” said Trace, sounding even more burnt than Bitterroot. “And I do believe that’s a majority, boom, nap time.” She started walking towards the fireplace.

Artemis bit on Trace’s tail and yanked her back. Trace’s yelp bounced around the mill like a superball. “I don’t mean like that,” snapped Artemis, “an’ you dang well know that. I mean ’bout ’er.”

“And I mean I’m too tired to do much thinking,” retorted Bitterroot. “Think machine broken and no do work good.”

“You’re tired?” snorted Artemis. “You’re tired. Pfft. How d’you think I feel? I-”

“Last time I saw you,” said Bitterroot quietly, “you were sitting on a cliff away from everything making snide comments to our sniper. I scouted, got shot at, chased two ponies through unfamiliar territory, actually got shot, and had the snot beat out of me by an earth pony, all during a sunblasted blizzard. And I’m not even an earth pony! How in Celestia’s name could you be tired?”

Artemis rolled her eyes. “Stop playin’ misery poker. It don’t-”

“You started it!” Bitterroot not-quite yelled, shoving Artemis away. “I just said I was tired, and you decided to one-up me, so I one-upped your one-up, since that was the way you were going.” She planted her face in her hoof, then pulled down and stomped on the ground. “I don’t care whether or not you’re more tired than me. But I’m too tired to deal with it now. Give me fifteen fricking minutes to rest, then we can talk. Deal?”

Artemis looked between Bitterroot and the ranger, her lips moving soundlessly. “…Fine, deal,” she said after far too much hesitation. “What d’you think, Trace?”

Trace wasn’t there.

“Trace?” Bitterroot asked, looking around the mill. Then she spotted Trace, on the opposite side of the fireplace as the ranger; not asleep, but definitely not thinking.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Bitterroot. She walked over and slouched down next to Trace.

Artemis was probably saying something, but Bitterroot didn’t hear it. She just sat, breathing slowly and deeply. The pain in her leg lethargically fluctuated between “barely there” and “strong but manageable”. She almost felt like she was still in the blizzard at first. But as the warmth of the fire washed over her, her heart stopped jackhammering inside her head and she could marshal her thoughts. She didn’t come close to falling asleep; she wasn’t that tired yet.

Next to her, Trace stood up and arched her spine. “Grah,” she groaned. “Still a mite sore…”

“Why’d you come down?” Bitterroot asked. “Was something up?”

“Not really,” said Trace. She wiggled her hooves one at a time. “Around the time you stopped circling, I simply noticed that the blizzard was getting awfully close and told Artemis it’d be best if we moved down into the valley. Good thing, too, because heavens was that one a doozy. Anyhoo, we reached the town not long before the blizzard hit, as in less than a minute not long. We spotted two ponies at the other end of the street we were on, tried to reach them, but it started snowing like mad before we’d gone twenty paces. We slowed our pace as we continued down the street, even though we knew the ponies would be long gone by the time we reached them. We came to a bridge and Artemis noticed a light downriver. She figured it’d be Amanita and had Gale shoot at it-”

“Hitting Amanita and sending her body into the river, right?” said Bitterroot.

“Evidently,” said Trace glumly. “And neither of them gave any thought to the difficulty of finding a body in a snowstorm like that at the time, regardless of what I said. The light went out, they celebrated, and then I asked where she was and reality hit like a… like a blizzard. We agreed to find some kind of shelter outside and I’d send up flares, hoping you’d see them and we could regroup. We gave you, ah, fifteen minutes to find them before holing up in one of the better buildings. You took six.”

“Good thing I found them when I did, then.” Bitterroot was a bit miffed that they’d only wait fifteen minutes, but she knew it was just a knee-jerk reaction. They couldn’t stay out in the storm too long and they had no way of knowing if she’d been killed or not. Ultimately, they’d sided with pragmatism, and she found it hard to disagree with them.

Artemis stomped up to them, scowling. “Fifteen minutes’re up,” she growled. “Feelin’ better? Or d’you need more naptime?”

“I was feeling much better before you came along,” drawled Trace. She flexed her back again. “Good enough for your discussion, at any rate.”

“Same here,” said Bitterroot. Her hooves were warm again and her wings didn’t feel like they’d been encased in ice for eternity.

“So…” Artemis pulled them to the other side of the mill. “Any ideas for ’er?” She pointed at the ranger, who hadn’t even noticed them. She was sitting so still Bitterroot could barely tell she was breathing.

“I don’t think she’s enthralled,” said Bitterroot. “Did you see her eyes? They’re normal.”

Artemis snorted gruffly. “Mebbe,” she said. “Ain’t th’only sign o’ thralldom. Glowin’ eyes jus’ means the work’s sloppy.” Her ears twitched and her eyes widened a little. She examined the ranger intently. “Although…” she whispered, “mebbe…” She shook her head.

“And if she was a thrall, don’t you think Amanita would have her fighting tooth and nail until she fell apart rather than giving up when she knew she couldn’t win?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Trace, wiggling a hoof at Bitterroot. “It’d be such a waste to have a mind-controlled slave at your disposal and not make things easy for you in every conceivable manner. …Why are you looking at me like that? It’s true!”

“Changin’ the subject,” Artemis said, still staring at Trace, “let’s say she ain’t a thrall. Okay. Why’s she stickin’ with Amanita ’t all? Don’t she know-”

“I don’t think she does,” said Bitterroot. She’d been thinking this particular bit over ever since they’d entered the mill. “It’d be easy for Amanita to lie, and… Well, have you met any wilderness rangers?”

“I’ve known some small-town ecosystems managers,” Trace said thoughtfully, looking up. “But none this isolated.”

“My brother was one, and let me tell you, those ponies move to places like this because they’re driven like you wouldn’t believe.” Bitterroot stomped for emphasis. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t last long. She probably thought Amanita was a lost traveller and took it upon herself to escort her back to civilization.”

“Really?” Artemis raised an eyebrow. “Jus’ like that?”

“What kind of pony lives out here?” asked Bitterroot, spreading her front legs wide. “Not just outdoorsmares, not just the best outdoorsmares, but the best of the best of the best. And nopony gets that good alone. They learned from others, they learned about helping others, and with a job like this, they’re required by law to offer the best assistance they can. Even if that ranger hated Amanita’s guts, she’d legally have to give her some kind of help.”

“Well, ain’t that just a load o’ giggles,” said Artemis. “Hate t’be one o’ them ponies.”

“So do you think we ought to interrogate her?” asked Trace. She kept switching her attention from Bitterroot to Artemis and back again. “Or, that’s a bit strong, question her? If she realizes she’s been duped, I’d hate to have to tie her up.”

Something inside Bitterroot squirmed. She’d been trying to kill the ranger during their fight based on a simple assumption. One that proved to be wrong. Did she really deserve to be a bounty hunter, doing things like that? Or was it just an honest mistake? Did-

“Y’think we can leave ’er out an’ about?” asked Artemis, glancing at the ranger.

“For the time being, perhaps,” said Trace. “Where would she go?” She gestured at the door. “Out there, where she’d be dead within hours? No, she’s stuck with us and we with her. She’s not our target anyway.”

“Think we can question ’er? She an’ Amanita were goin’ someplace. We might be able t’get their dest’nation outta her.”

“A fine plan, so long as you’re not the one questioning.”

Artemis stared at Trace and lowered one of her ears.

“No offense, Arty,” said Trace shamelessly, “but your pony skills, ah… Let’s just say they leave a bit to be desired. After a few minutes, she’ll most likely clam up rather than speak with you.”

Bitterroot expected an explosion of some kind, but Artemis chuckled gruffly. “Heh. Ain’t arguin’ wi’ that.”

“I can do it,” Bitterroot heard herself say. She didn’t know why. Maybe this was her way of forcing penance upon herself. “I’ve interrogated uncooperative ponies before.” She had, but not after nearly killing them.

Trace shrugged. “No complaints here.”

“Me neither,” said Artemis. “Need ’ny ’elp wi’ questions, or-?”

“No, no, I’m good,” Bitterroot said quickly. “I just- need a little while to… figure out how to phrase them. Get on her good side, y’know?”

“Sounds good.” Artemis grinned and slapped Bitterroot on the shoulder. “Go get ’er.”

Bitterroot pushed Artemis’s hoof away. “And I need space.” She started thinking, walking circles around the millstone as she thought. It was convenient and a decent length.

She knew what she wanted to ask; the biggest problem was getting the ranger to open up to somepony who’d tried to kill her and she’d tried to kill. Normally, Bitterroot would carry around some bits to loosen tongues, but she didn’t have any out here, and the ranger probably didn’t want any, anyway.

As her mind kept wandering, she glanced at the other ponies every now and then. The ranger was on the verge of sleeping. Trace was writing things out on a parchment (what they were, Bitterroot neither knew nor cared). Artemis was watching the ranger closely, occasionally muttering to herself or scratching some odd shape in the ground. And Gale didn’t do much at all.

In the end, Bitterroot finally decided to go as simple and direct as possible, nearly blunt. It wasn’t going to be nice, but it wasn’t going to be cruel, either. Really, the whole thing depended on how willing the ranger was to talk, which she didn’t know just yet. Here’s hoping.

She kept walking a little while longer. It delayed the talk.

Finally, after going around the millstone for what felt like the seventieth time, Bitterroot broke off and sat down in front of the ranger. In front of her near murder victim. Time for a little talk.

Catskill sat and waited. For the storm to end, for the ponies to rough her up, for Amanita to walk through the door sopping wet. For how long, she neither knew nor cared. None of them happened. Well, maybe the blizzard’s wind died down a little, but it was hard to tell. The fire kept burning and popping. Catskill stayed close to the fire, occasionally adding a log when it needed it. At this point, the fire was the only thing she could depend on.

The other ponies stayed in their group and talked and talked and talked before finally splitting up. Catskill hadn’t caught a thing, not even their names. She didn’t feel like asking their names, either. She didn’t even watch them as they moved around the mill. She’d never felt so alone. At least with Amanita, they could talk.

Her mind kept going back to Amanita, replaying the same “she might be dead, she might not be” information over and over. It was kind of hard to believe that just a day ago, she’d thought Amanita had been an intolerable idiot and she’d been dreading spending two days with her. Funny how things could change so quickly after some semi-friendly conversation.

But, still, these ponies… All this over a mare and a jealous significant other? Catskill knew Amanita hadn’t told all of the truth, but she wanted to think that everything Amanita had said had been the truth. Yet… arquebuses, organized groups, what looked like trackers, scouts, and who knew what else? These looked like mercenaries or bounty hunters. Had Amanita done something a lot worse than she said she’d done?

Or was the pony who’d hired them just that petty?

The ponies did a lot of nervous moving about. The earth pony walked back and forth in front of the door, muttering angrily. The unicorn sketched things on a sheet of parchment on the other side of the room (spell equations?). The pegasus walked around and around the millstone, glancing at Catskill every now and then. And the gunmare… The gunmare actually didn’t move. She just stared and stared and stared, barely even blinking. If Catskill had felt less torpid, she probably would’ve stared back.

Eventually, the pegasus stopped doing a circuit of the millstone and sat down in front of Catskill, staring at her with a haunted intensity even the gunmare couldn’t rival. Something reminded Catskill that she’d almost killed this pony, and this pony had almost killed her. She didn’t care. “Hey,” she said with a wave.

The pegasus didn’t respond. She looked back at the earth pony for a moment, chewing her lip. Then she looked at Catskill again. “Why did you defend Amanita?” she asked slowly.

“Why do you think?” snorted Catskill. “And why does it matter? She’s dead by now. I told you she went into the river, didn’t I? You know how cold it is?”

“You were shooting at me.”

“You started it.”

The pegasus twitched. “They…” She folded her ears back and averted her gaze. “…were warning shots.”

Catskill stared at the pegasus. “And I was supposed to know that how? A warning shot looks the same as a missed killshot.”

No response. Catskill sighed and turned to the fire.

“We thought you were enthralled,” said the pegasus eventually.

Catskill looked up. “Enwhatted?” She vaguely remembered hearing the word before, but couldn’t place where. Probably not in the past few days.

“Enthralled. Killed and had your will enslaved on your resurrection.” The pegasus was shuffling her wings and flicking her ears and suddenly looking very uncomfortable.

“My what?” They must’ve suffered brain damage in the blizzard. Or- something. The pegasus wasn’t talking sense. “I didn’t die! Amanita saved my life!”

The earth pony turned her attention to them. “Oh, really?” she said skeptically. “ ’Ow?”

“I ran into her in the wilderness,” said Catskill, “with a rabid bear chasing her. I saved her from the bear but got wounded in the process. I nearly died, but Amanita saved me with a healing ritual.” She was feeling contrary. Anything to throw in the faces of these ponies.

The earth pony snorted. “Uh-huh. Sure. And ’ow did this ‘ritual’ work?”

“I don’t know. I was out cold for most of it. When I say I almost died, I mean I almost died, not just hurt a lot.”

Silence reigned in the mill, with only the wind howling outside. Even the unicorn, Catskill noted, had stopped jotting things down. “You don’t know,” the pegasus said quietly.

Catskill got to her feet. “Don’t know what?”

The pegasus immediately whirled on the earth pony. “Artemis, don’t just-”

“Amanita’s a necromancer,” said the earth pony. Said Artemis.

Planting her face in her hoof, the pegasus mumbled, “And there she goes. Sun blast it, Artemis.”

Catskill blinked. A necromancer? No. No way. That was too crazy. Necromancers weren’t that… awkward. They were vicious and power-hungry, not the oblivious trust-fund foal Amanita had looked like, nor the traveling magical merchant she claimed to be. She tried forcing “necromancer” into her idea of Amanita, but it just didn’t fit. She burst out laughing. “Oh, what, you expect me to believe that?”

“She sicced a zombie bear on us!” yelled the pegasus.

“Oh, give me a break,” scoffed Catskill. “She couldn’t run from a bear if her life depended on it. And I know that from experience.”

Artemis’s mouth twitched. She opened her mouth to speak. The pegasus immediately raised a hoof and growled, “Don’t. Tact like yours, she’ll disbelieve anything you say out of spite.” Artemis briefly looked insulted, but stepped to the side.

The pegasus rolled her eyes. “What did Amanita say she was?”

“That she was a traveling wizard-for-hire,” Catskill said resolutely. “She’d run afoul of some mare by flirting with her significant other and the mare wanted revenge.”

“So this other mare wanted revenge so badly,” the pegasus said skeptically, “that she was willing to kill Amanita?”

“It could happen! How do you think hitmares make money?”

“…Okay, yeah,” admitted the pegasus. “But-”

“She was lyin’ through ’er teeth,” interrupted Artemis. “Amanita. She ain’t got no problems like that, not with anypony.” She crouched in front of Catskill, looming over her like some monster. “That ritual that ’ealed you? Did no such thing. She brought you back as a slave.”

“That’s insane!” yelled Catskill, bristling. It took all her self-control to not knock out Artemis right then and there. This was ridiculous.

Artemis shrugged. “It’s the truth. Ain’t my fault if y’ignore it.”

“I’m telling you, she saved my life!”

Artemis sneered. “Really?” She put a hoof to Catskill’s neck and waited. “That why your heart ain’t beatin’?”

10 - A Change in Perspective

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Catskill stared at Artemis. She… couldn’t seriously… The world seemed to turn over. It was one thing to claim that Amanita had been a necromancer, this was something else entirely. Catskill laughed nervously. “W-what’re you talking about? M-my heart’s beating.” Right?

“No, it ain’t,” said Artemis. She wrenched one of Catskill’s hooves from the ground and forced it to her neck. Catskill waited for the lub-dub, lub-dub of her heartbeat, but she felt nothing.

Nothing at all.

She was dead.

“She was a necromancer,” said Artemis. “You’re ’er slave. Simple as that. Didn’t you notice y’ain’t been breathin’ for an hour?”

“But…” Catskill moved both hooves to her neck like she was trying to stem the blood flow from a wound. Silent as the grave. “But she… She said… I…” Her voice grew weaker and weaker. “She said she was a…”

“Pro’bly ’ad that story lined up for whatever schmuck she met,” said Artemis. “Can’t b’lieve you b’lieved ’er.”

“I… I felt okay… like I’d…” The world was swimming. Catskill’s legs gave out beneath her. “I… didn’t think…” She’d risked her life to save that unicorn, agreed to escort her through dangerous terrain, and what’d she get in return? Death. She was a zombie, a mere necromantic thrall, nothing more. Did she even have a soul anymore? Or was she just a hunk of meat that thought it was Catskill? Her life — her very being — was over. Raising the dead was illegal. The moment the Royal Guard heard about her, she’d be… purged, simply for existing. All because she’d tried to save the wrong pony.

It wasn’t fair. It was not fair.

“No. Y’didn’t think,” said Artemis scornfully. “Well, wake up! Accept the facts. Y’been duped, and-”

“Oh, for peat’s sake, Arty!” yelled the unicorn from across the room. Catskill had barely noticed her for the last ten minutes. “If you were a doctor, your bedside manner would convince ponies with a broken leg to commit suicide! Give her a moment!” Although Catskill wasn’t sure she wanted a moment. That would mean accepting what had happened to her.

“I’m jus’ convincin’ ’er o’ the facts,” snapped Artemis. “Didn’t you ’ear ’er a minute ago? She wouldn’t rec’nize real’ty if ’t tap-danced in front o’ her, wearin’ a-”

The pegasus abruptly stood up and imposed herself between Catskill and Artemis. “Artemis,” she said quietly, “I swear to Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Twilight together, if you don’t shut your sunblasted mouth in the next ten seconds, I’m going to drag you out into that blizzard, fly you a mile up, and drop you.” She started tapping her hoof on the ground. “Ten.”

“Well, it’s true!” protested Artemis. “All of it! I ain’t gonna tone it down for ’er just ’cause she’s too sens’tive for it!”

“Four,” whispered the pegasus. “Three.”

“Y’ain’t foolin’ nopony like that,” Artemis snorted. “Why don’t y’just-”

“Zero.” The pegasus sprang forward and caught Artemis in a headlock. A flap of her wings took them both to the door, where she kicked aside the board holding it shut. The wind blew it open immediately and snow swirled through the room. Without a sound, the gunmare dove for her arquebus, but the unicorn telekinetically snatched it away and hurled it into the rafters. And then the unicorn was standing between the gunmare and the Artemis-pegasus tangle, her horn projecting a shield around the latter two and glaring at Artemis like she wanted to pound the latter’s head into paste herself. Outside the shield, the gunmare pawed at the ground, her ears back.

“Alright!” screamed Artemis. She wrestled with the pegasus’s grip but couldn’t pry it apart. “I’ll be quiet! Sunblasting Sol Invictus, I get it!” It might’ve been Catskill’s imagination, but she sounded more annoyed than frightened.

The pegasus stopped, already halfway out the door. Artemis still couldn’t get free. The unicorn didn’t drop her shield. “Perhaps you ought to do it anyway, Bitterroot,” said the unicorn. “I, for one, won’t miss her.” The gunmare’s eyes narrowed; her wings twitched and she flicked her tail.

For a second, Catskill thought that the pegasus — Bitterroot — would actually follow through. But instead, she hurled Artemis back into the room and propped the door shut again. “No,” whispered Bitterroot. “Not if she can actually keep quiet. This is her second chance.” She gave Artemis a significant look. “Her only second chance.”

Sprawled on the ground, Artemis rubbed her neck and glared at Bitterroot. “I ain’t forgettin’ this,” she snarled. She switched her glare to the unicorn. “For either o’ you.”

“Oh, believe me,” said the unicorn contemptuously, “I shall not forget this, either.” She looked ready to spit on Artemis, but instead let the shield fall.

The gunmare walked forward to help Artemis up. The group split into pairs; Bitterroot and the unicorn went to one side of the mill, Artemis and the gunmare to the other. And Catskill was left alone in the middle.

Catskill had never felt so betrayed, so utterly violated before. She’d been lied to, exploited, treated like dirt. She’d almost liked Amanita, at the end. It was a salve against the loneliness she hadn’t known she’d been feeling. But it had all been a façade. Amanita was probably laughing her tail off downriver. Catskill could almost hear her thoughts: That was the most gullible ranger I’ve ever met! I didn’t think it’d be that easy! Catskill wondered if she’d be able to trust a stranger again. Assuming she met a stranger and wasn’t just put down.

Or was it all a misunderstanding, somehow? A trick by the bounty hunters, meant to turn her against Amanita. Something they’d agreed upon. The argument had all been fake. It was unlikely, Catskill knew. Laughably so. But she was willing to believe just about anything if it meant she was still alive. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.

She took a deep breath to try to calm herself and felt the tightness of the bandages around her trunk. For a second, she had hope. Had Amanita really healed her? Or was she hiding something? What had she done beneath the dressing? Catskill hadn’t thought about the bandage since the bear. She’d known she’d have to replace it, eventually, but that was always supposed to be later. Was Amanita hiding something? Clinging to one last straw, her heart said Amanita was trustworthy, that a “real” necromancer would’ve made her a slave, that Amanita would never do something like that, but what did her heart matter? It was dead. Right?

She nearly ripped her furs off before she knew what she was doing. She started clumsily tugging at the bandages, her hooves almost moving of their own accord, but Catskill didn’t try to stop herself. The end of the long strip came undone. She had to know. She started the long task of unwinding. She’d never rest if she didn’t. After what felt like hours, the bandages and dressings fell away.

Amanita hadn’t remotely healed her.

She had a hole in her body, evil and dark, almost three inches across. It was irregular and ragged. The edges hadn’t even scabbed over, and looked raw and red in the firelight. A ring of naked flesh, with only the shortest hairs of a new coat, maybe two inches thick, was between the hole and the rest of her coat. Catskill prodded at the hole. It didn’t even twinge. She thoughtlessly worked her hoof into the hole. Her insides were like eel corpses, cold and damp and unmoving, and she could feel the softness of her guts. She felt revolted, but her gag reflex never made an appearance. Maybe it, too, was dead.

She bit her tongue in stress. There was no pain.

She didn’t even have the energy to sob. Catskill simply loped to a corner of the mill and collapsed against the wall, breathing deeply. Did she need to breathe anymore? Could she just stop? She thought she knew the answer. She didn’t want to test it. Breathing gave her something to do.

Time slipped away from her and she didn’t know how long she was there. All she knew was that suddenly Bitterroot was standing over. Desperate to change what she was thinking about, Catskill stared at Bitterroot’s features like they were the last things she’d ever see. She didn’t look the slightest bit angry, Catskill noticed. “Confused” or “befuddled” were better words.

“You want something?” Catskill asked. “I’m trying to have an existential crisis over here.” She smiled so weakly she doubted the corners of her mouth moved at all.

“Hey,” said Bitterroot. “I’m… Bitterroot.”

“I heard,” Catskill said tonelessly.

“Sorry about Artemis. She can be a real… country member.”

“Heh.” The forced laugh sounded closer to a grunt. “I remember.”

Bitterroot stared at the ground for a second and swallowed. “Sorry I, um, tried to kill you.”

“It’s not like you would’ve done anything the bear didn’t,” mumbled Catskill.

“Still. Sorry.”

Catskill didn’t care. She really, really didn’t care. She was a few bad haircuts away from a complete existential meltdown beyond the turmoil of emotions she was already feeling, with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. She suspected the only reason she hadn’t had the meltdown already was because she was still processing the fact. She was dead. How was she supposed to react to that? She ran a hoof over her leg. She could still feel the hairs of her coat. Was that normal? Could the dead feel things like that? “Name’s Catskill, by the way.”

“Uh-huh.” Bitterroot leaned over to get a better look at the hole in Catskill’s side. Rather than shuddering or acting disgusted, she just frowned, as if the fact that the pony in front of her had a hole in her body was an out-of-place puzzle piece. “Can I ask you a few personal questions?” asked Bitterroot. “You can say no if you want.”

“I guess,” Catskill said with a shrug. Anything to take her mind off of… She sat up straight. “Hit me.”

“What did you think of Amanita?”

Catskill flinched in surprise. What kind of a question was that? “What… What do you mean?” she asked. “She was a necromancer, so I s-”

“Before you knew she was a necromancer,” said Bitterroot. “Yesterday.”

Could she even answer that question? Catskill was certain that those memories would be permanently tainted with the knowledge that Amanita was a necromancer, no matter how much she tried to separate her current knowledge from her past experiences. But… “I thought she was… well-meaning,” said Catskill. She was pretty sure that was the truth. “Kinda clueless, but her heart was in the right place. Like… she knew she was being chased, and she still took the time to heal me. We might’ve been friends. After being alone for so long, I didn’t even know I’d been missing the company. I liked it. Even though she was really…” Her voice trailed away.

“Right, right,” Bitterroot said, nodding. “Anything else?”

“She didn’t belong out here,” continued Catskill. Being able to talk to somepony made her feel better, just a little bit. Maybe she could hide it, she told herself. She hadn’t known she was undead, so what were the odds of somepony else knowing? But she only felt a little bit better. “She was like some… sheltered rich kid who’d only seen the wilderness in books and plays, you know, where the valiant heroine always manages to live off the land yet uses lipstick rather than chapstick.” She paused, making sure her words were getting out right. “She didn’t know just how bad the weather could get. I mean, I offered to help take her to the Crystal Empire and she tried to blow me off. She was turning down help, in this land! Can you believe that? Oh, and she-”

Bitterroot put a hoof on Catskill’s chest and frowned. “Hold up. Not only did she not rope you into helping her, she tried to push you away? And you went anyway?”

“No,” said Catskill. “I… She thought she could get to the Crystal Empire herself. I insisted on guiding her and she caved. A ranger’s obligation, you know?” She laughed bitterly. “If only…”

“So…” Bitterroot frowned again, more deeply. She was a frowny sort of pony, Catskill decided. “She… didn’t force you to go with her. In fact, she wanted you to go away.”

“Yes,” Catskill said glumly. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” She knew Bitterroot was just thinking out loud, but she didn’t care.

“Do you know anything about necromantic thralls?”

“Besides the fact that I am one?”

“See…” Bitterroot flicked her ears. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Bitterroot had never personally killed anypony before. She’d never particularly wanted to. She usually worked in Equestria, and bounties were only worth money alive in Equestria. On the rare occasions they weren’t, the Guard still frowned at civilians killing ponies, even if it was technically legal. When she worked outside Equestria and her targets died, somepony else had swung the sword or loosed the arrow or pulled the trigger. Bitterroot would’ve been willing to do the deed, but she’d simply never in position and didn’t want to force herself into that position.

That being said, Artemis was two wrong words away from Bitterroot disemboweling her and feeding her innards to ravens and crows on a silver platter with garnish.

Bitterroot was confused — really, truly confused — as to how anypony, let alone Gale, could stand being Artemis’s traveling companion for any length of time, if she acted like that. Her tact was so nonexistent it had drained tact from the other ponies in the mill. Hence the threat on Artemis’s life. Bitterroot had never seen soul-crushing despair like that which she’d seen on the ranger’s face, and then Artemis seemed to want to go out of her way to twist the knife. The ranger had attempted to kill Bitterroot, true, but rubbing her face in her betrayal and death was too far in response.

So when Artemis had protested that she’d shut up and Bitterroot was already feeling the wind on her face, it had taken a lot of self-control for her to follow what the princesses advised and give Artemis a second chance. Just because the environment would kill ponies without a second thought didn’t mean she had to. But that didn’t mean she needed to tolerate it, either. Celestia may have been polite and forgiving, but you couldn’t rule for over a millennium by forgiving unthinkingly. Bitterroot didn’t have the patience of a millennium. She barely had the patience of an hour. This was Artemis’s last chance.

After some fire-spitting, their group split into pairs and retreated to opposite corners of the room. Artemis was seething at Bitterroot, but Bitterroot was far too busy not caring to care. “Thanks for the help,” she whispered to Trace.

“Don’t mention it,” Trace said. “Anything to put Artemis in her place. And I must say, not killing her in that sort of situation? You’re a better mare than I.”

Bitterroot snorted. “Only a little.”

Her gaze eventually wandered back over to the fireplace, where the ranger was sitting, huddled, staring at nothing. A pile of bandages was sitting at her hooves, and Bitterroot cringed at the size and depth of the wound in her side. It being bloodless didn’t help at all. She thought back to the bloody, pointy rock she’d seen near the bear, and cringed even more.

Then she thought back to the rock again. It’d been an awfully big rock, bigger than that hole. And all that skin didn’t have any hair on it… Maybe-

No. Bitterroot shook her head. That didn’t matter. Amanita was a necromancer, and necromancers didn’t do things like that.

…But why shouldn’t they? Technically speaking, necromancers simply talked to and raised the dead, nothing more. Who was to say that, for once, necromancy hadn’t attracted some good-hearted pony rather than the pathological megalomaniacs it usually did?

Bitterroot looked more closely at the ranger. She certainly didn’t look mentally enslaved. She’d surrendered.

Making up her mind, Bitterroot walked over to the ranger and introduced herself. She had some questions.

The ranger — Catskill — agreed to the questioning… not exactly with resignation, but pretty close. Bitterroot hated to put her on the spot so soon after learning a life-changing revelation like… that, but she needed to know now. But Catskill’s answers only made things more confusing; by all accounts, Amanita had seemed relatively normal. Awkward or nervous, even. Yes, Bitterroot knew ponies could lie and act, but she also knew — from experience — that sheepish self-awareness was one of the harder personalities to pull off. Amanita faking being that kind of pony just didn’t add up.

Then there was the matter that Catskill hadn’t realized she was dead for… almost a day. Even then, not until it’d been pointed out to her. It was like, instead of trying to make a servant, Amanita had tried to make Catskill as close to alive as possible. And if your servant couldn’t act against you, why bother covering up the wound at all?

Then she heard about Amanita pushing Catskill away and her suspicion crystallized into conviction.

Deep breath. Time to see if Catskill agreed with her. “Do you know anything about necromantic thralls?”

“Besides the fact that I am one?” Catskill asked sarcastically. Not morosely, at least. Good sign.

“See…” Bitterroot’s ears twitched. “I don’t think that’s true. From what I’ve heard, thralls can’t disobey their masters. As in, on a- psychological level or- something, they can’t even think of it. But you went and forced Amanita to do something she didn’t want to do.”

Catskill suddenly sat up straight and flicked her tail. “I don’t see why that matters.” But Bitterroot could see the gears working behind her eyes. Slowly, but working nonetheless.

“You did what should be impossible for a thrall. Even if you’re… dead, you’ve still got your own mind. Heck, you were still able to surrender. And as far as I know-”

“What? What?” snapped Catskill. “I. Am. Dead. Don’t you get that? If Amanita didn’t want me to be her slave, why didn’t she just heal me up or let me die?” She picked up a rock and hurled it across the room. “Would’ve been easier for both of us,” she mumbled.

“Because…” Bitterroot motioned Catskill closer and leaned in, lowering her voice. Their muzzles were almost touching. “What if keeping you alive like… like… that-” (She unconsciously flicked her ear.) “-was the best she could do? I saw the rock you fell on, and I’d’ve thought it’d make a larger hole than that. But look. You’ve got a place where your coat hasn’t grown in yet. What if she couldn’t save you normally and-” Bitterroot suddenly bit her tongue and looked away.

“And zombified me,” Catskill said dully. Yet not quite as dully as before.

“Yeah, that.” Bitterroot turned back. “And did that to you so you couldn’t die while she healed you more slowly? Even the best healing magic can only go so far.”

“Well… Yeah, yeah…” Catskill clicked her tongue. Suddenly, Bitterroot wondered if necromantic magic was preventing rigor mortis from setting in and keeping her insides pliant. “I… guess that makes sense, kinda,” Catskill said in a voice suited to conceding to a conspiracy theorist. “But… necromancers don’t… do that. They’re… not… nice like that.”

“What if Amanita’s not the usual necromancer? You wouldn’t have dreamed she was one when you met her, would you?”

After a moment, Catskill nodded. “Necromancers aren’t that awkward, either. So…” Her voice sounded brighter, tinged with hope. “Maybe I’ll be able to live again?”

“Don’t bet on it,” Bitterroot said quickly. “I could be-”

“I’ve already hit rock bottom at terminal velocity,” said Catskill, somehow light and serious at the same time. “It’s not like things can get worse for me.”

“Yeah, but until we know what sort of magic’s in you-”

“Could your unicorn figure that out?” Catskill pointed at Trace. “If she can, I’d like to know.”

Bitterroot glanced at Trace, who was scribbling something down on a parchment. Yeah, that could work. “You’re sure? If you’re wrong-”

“I’m one of those ponies who prefers closure over happiness,” Catskill said resolutely. “Definitely sure.”

“Alright. Wait here.” Bitterroot stood up.

“Um, hang on a sec,” said Catskill. She swallowed. “Sorry I, uh, shot you.”

Bitterroot’s bad leg twinged. After a second, she smiled. “Don’t worry. You missed.” Catskill was going through enough already. No need to make it worse. Praying she wasn’t limping, she walked over to Trace, who was deeply immersed in whatever she was writing. “Trace?”

Trace didn’t look away from her parchment. “Yes?”

“Any chance you could take a look at any magic in Catskill? The ranger, I mean.”

Trace froze and slowly turned her gaze on Bitterroot. “You want me…” she said slowly. “…to examine the magic… inside her.” She pointed at Catskill.

“Did I say something else?”

“I thought you wanted to let her adjust,” Trace said, shocked, “and now you’re simply-”

“It was her idea,” said Bitterroot. “Look, I’ve got this theory I told her about…”

She laid out her idea as quickly as she could. With every word she said, Trace looked less and less put-out. By the time Bitterroot was done, Trace was looking thoughtful and unconsciously tapping at the ground. She glanced at Catskill and her ears twitched. “It would… certainly make sense for her,” she said, “but what of the other mare? Or the bear that attempted to kill Artemis?”

“Look, I don’t know,” said Bitterroot. “There’s a lot of things about this that make no sense. I mean, why would she enthrall Catskill and not the mare? Why would she take Catskill with her rather than having the blunderbuss-equipped zombie throw herself at us? But we can find out what’s going on in her, so… Look, she and I just wanna know, okay?”

Trace set down her quill. “Fair enough,” she said with a shrug. She strode over to Catskill and extended a hoof. “Hello,” she said. “Catskill, was it? I am Leafy Trace.”

Catskill nodded and they shook. “Bitterroot told you-”

“Everything, yes, so let’s get to it.” Trace’s horn started glowing and a faint haze surrounded Catskill. She twitched in surprise, but didn’t otherwise move. “Try to hold as still as possible,” said Trace, “and this will only take a minute.”

Bitterroot only saw the haze wibbling and wobbling, but from Trace’s reactions, she must’ve been getting something. No retching, not like the bear, at any rate. When the glow vanished, Trace simply frowned. “Hmm.”

“Good ‘hmm’ or bad ‘hmm’?” asked Bitterroot.

“That’s part of the ‘hmm’. I’m not sure. It’s… a mixture of bad and good, good and bad. Unpleasant, but nothing worse, and not entirely so.” Trace spent a few moments hmming and hahing. “Think of it this way: if magic were smells, this would be slightly spoiled milk mixed with delicious clementines. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. The bear — which was definitely a thrall, by the way, Catskill — that was rotten fruit that’s been sitting in the sun for weeks.”

“Any idea what it is?” asked Catskill.

“Not entirely, unfortunately,” said Trace. “It’s a very… odd combination of magic, nothing like I’ve ever felt before. But if I were to take a wild stab at it, yes, it would be a mixture of healing and necromancy. I can’t feel your life force, but I can feel your magic. And your magic… is… It’s like the external magic is duct tape and it’s the only thing holding your magic together. Normal healing magic is a metaphysical band-aid on physical ills, but this feels like a metaphysical band-aid on metaphysical ills.”

“You sure like your weird metaphors,” said Catskill.

“And when I’m a better wordsmith, I’ll use better descriptions!” said Trace. Her eyes narrowed a little. “Neither of you know what magic feels like, so this is the best I can do. Believe me, I wi-”

“I want to find Amanita,” said Bitterroot quietly. She almost had to, at this point. She had so many questions about… everything. As a bounty hunter, she wasn’t supposed to care that much about the specifics of her target’s crime, but this was hardly a usual hunt.

“-sh I could…” Trace blinked and gazed at Bitterroot. She lowered one of her ears. “That’s precisely what we’re doing, that,” she said in a voice that was trying so hard to not be patronizing. “We’re bounty hunters. It’s our job.”

Bitterroot held up a hoof. “No, I mean fly out as soon as the storm is over, find her before Gale gets a chance to shoot her in the head or Artemis shuts down any of her attempts to defend herself.”

“I told her to follow the river if we got separated,” mused Catskill. “If she’s still alive, she’ll do that. If she’s dead…” Her ears drooped. “Well, her body will wash downriver, anyway. But why do you want to find her so quickly?”

“Because if I’m right-” Her conviction made Bitterroot flare her wings. “-and she’s still alive, then she might be willing to come quietly. Easy job for us. Even if I’m wrong and she’s just as bad as we all thought she was, she’ll be so cold she’ll probably have trouble standing upright. Necromancer or not, I think I can take a single hypothermic unicorn long enough to stuff a suppressor ring on her horn.”

“And then you’ll what?” asked Catskill. “Kill her?”

“No. I’ll drag her back here and grill her about you.” Bitterroot looked over her shoulder at a certain corner of the mill. “Maybe then, Artemis can put her bone-headedness to some use.”

“Beg pardon,” Trace said lightly, “but I believe I’m the bonehead.” She pointed at her horn.

“I thought that was ‘pinhead’,” said Catskill, smiling a little.

“That, too,” acknowledged Trace. “Anyway, Bitterroot…” She nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me. To be honest, I’m dying to know what’s inside her.” She gestured at Catskill.

Catskill shoved Trace’s hoof to the floor. “If it helps you learn more about me, I’m fine.” She lifted her hooves up and examined them like they were treasure maps. “This is just so weird…”

“And that’s three for three,” said Bitterroot. “Once the storm dies down, I’ll tell Artemis I’m going out for some ‘scouting’. I’ll fly out, see if I can find Amanita, and bring her back ASAP. And, please: don’t tell Artemis what I’m really doing. I don’t want to give her another reason to try to stop me.”

Trace smirked. “Would never dream of it.” She mimed zipping her mouth shut.

Bitterroot smirked back, then pivoted an ear towards the door. The wind was quieter than before. The storm was passing, but it wasn’t gone yet.

11 - Truth be Told

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“I’m going to scout the river,” Bitterroot said to Artemis. It was what she’d decided: simply tell Artemis what she was doing and refuse to accept any negative responses.

“No, you ain’t,” Artemis said gruffly.

Like that one. “Look,” said Bitterroot, “we don’t have a trail except the river. We have no idea where along the river she could be. But the river’s open to the sky. I can travel faster than any of you and Amanita won’t notice me. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go out flying.” She silently prayed the list of likely responses from Artemis she’d compiled and written answers to was going to be good.

“Too dangerous,” said Artemis. “She can still sling spells at you.”

“A foal could dodge spells from that high up.”

“If’n she spots you an’ runs-”

“We’ll know where to pick up her trail again. And I’m still faster.”

“It’ll take too long.” Artemis was beginning to sound a bit nervous.

“What, less than an hour? If you think I’m gone too long, you can start moving downriver and I’ll meet up with you on the way back.”

“The- blizzard’s still-”

Bitterroot unblocked the door and pulled it open. It was still cloudy and flakes of snow were still drifting down, but it was calm. For all its intensity, the blizzard had barely lasted an hour and a half. Northern weather was weird.

Artemis laughed nervously. “Well, I- bet that-”

“I’m going to scout the river. Goodbye, Artemis.” Without waiting for a response, Bitterroot walked out the door and took to the air.

It was colder than it’d been before the storm, so the first thing Bitterroot did was climb above the cloud cover and bask in the sun for a moment. The clouds out here felt weird, like they hadn’t been stitched together properly, for lack of a better term. They were too loose; Bitterroot knew from experience that if she landed on one, a hoof in the wrong place could make the whole thing unravel. Rather than the light water of Equestrian clouds, Northern clouds felt like she was flying through a dew-encrusted spiderweb.

When she broke through, Bitterroot took in a deep, sweet breath of medium-altitude air and surveyed the cloudscape, brilliantly white. Waves the size of mountains flew and twisted through the sky and shining rivers were pulled along invisible currents of wind. Unfortunately, for all its light, ethereal beauty, it was still too thick to see through from above. She’d need to skim the lower edge when heading downriver. At least she’d be hard to see from the ground.

Bitterroot tumbled back down. Enough sunlight got through the cloud cover that the river still glinted. It carved a swath through the forest and the dark color of the water made it stand out against the snow. It wasn’t even a particularly twisty river. This would be easy.

Bitterroot swerved and weaved as she followed the river. It started out moving quickly, but as it broadened, the current slowed. Good; it’d take more time to carry Amanita… wherever. But at first, Bitterroot had a hard time finding anywhere a pony could climb out; the river rushed through steep-sided gullys, carved switchbacks into the land, and was generally a pain to ford. Whoever had built that town in the valley, they’d been lucky the river was so easily traversable there. Bitterroot kept her eyes peeled, looking for the first place the river would have normal banks or an especially slow current. Whenever she spotted such an area, she’d touch down and survey the area for tracks. It was a fool’s errand after the blizzard, her mind said, but she did it anyway. She didn’t spot anything resembling pony tracks. She glanced downriver; the forest eventually gave way to scrubland. Well, if she couldn’t spot anything in the forest, it’d be easier to see tracks when there wasn’t any-

There. Right there. The current slowed as the river swept out in a large, easy turn near a clearing on a slope. If Amanita went to ground anywhere, it’d be there. Blizzard detritus in the form of knocked-down branches was already collecting on one of the banks. Bitterroot swooped over to look for any tracks.

Only for Amanita herself to stagger out of the forest.

Bitterroot quietly yelped and backwinged to get some height, but Amanita didn’t notice her. She wasn’t wearing anything except for a small saddlebag, and her every step was slow and shaky. Bitterroot squinted and saw that Amanita was sopping wet. Blood trickled from a wound on her shoulder, maybe where she’d been shot. She began gathering sticks from the river and tossing them into the clearing.

Lowering her altitude a little, Bitterroot hovered overhead, watching Amanita closely. As she loped up the slope, she was shivering, but Bitterroot was unsure if that was from the cold or from suppressed sobs of pain. She didn’t look like a feared necromancer. She looked pitiful; Bitterroot wanted to just land and hug her. Any other pony definitely would’ve needed it.

But she was a necromancer. Catskill was undead.

But Catskill hadn’t known she was undead. She acted like she was alive. She looked like she was alive, except for the hole in her side. Unlike the bear, if you hadn’t told Bitterroot that the earth pony was undead, she never would’ve guessed. And undead or not, it was hard to claim that emotional response had been anything but genuine.

Apparently, Amanita was so cold, even her magic was shivering. The haze from her horn looked unstable, wiggling in ways Bitterroot had never seen hornlight do. After a few seconds, flame sprang up from the gathered sticks and branches. Amanita rubbed her shaking hooves together and held them out to the fire. Once her hooves were warm enough, she withdrew a knife from her bags. Still shaking, with a small scream, she jammed it into her wound and dug. Repeatedly. Every time Amanita pulled the knife back out, Bitterroot could barely make out her flicking a bloody… something… into the snow. The remains of the bullet Gale had shot her with? After a few digs, Amanita poked the knife into the wound, cringing. But whatever she felt, she was satisfied, because the laid the knife across the fire’s logs.

Bitterroot squirmed; she knew what was coming next. She forced herself to keep watching.

The knife was glowing red-hot. Amanita telekinetically plucked it from the fire. She looked at it. She turned it over. She pressed it to the wound on her shoulder. And the howl of agony she released sounded like it belonged to an animal, not a pony. After a few seconds, she tossed the knife aside. She collapsed to the ground, clutching at her wound, and Bitterroot could barely make out her whimpering in pain.

Okay. She’d been watching long enough. Bitterroot looped around and landed some distance behind Amanita. Amanita didn’t even twitch. After several moments, she shakily got to her hooves and moved closer to the fire. She was trembling so badly it sounded like something was wrong with her breathing.

Bitterroot cleared her throat. “Hello, Amanita,” she said.

Amanita tensed, then went slack. “B-bounty hunter?” she mumbled.

“Yeah.”

Amanita laughed bitterly. “Absolutely s-super… L-l-listen,” she said halfheartedly. “Please, p-please don’t kill me. I, I can e-explain.”

“I was hoping you would.”

Amanita’s ears went straight up and she spun on the spot. Her eyes were wild, but not crazed. “Really?” she whispered. “W-why?” Perhaps because of adrenaline, her shaking had slowed.

“We’ve found three bodies in the past few days,” said Bitterroot. “An earth pony in her shack, her throat slit. A bear, dead and enthralled, that only chased after a specific member of our party. Another earth pony, too wounded to be alive, yet not enthralled. You’re a necromancer. But what’s up with you?”

“I r-really wish I w-wasn’t a necrom-mancer,” said Amanita quietly. “Not a-anymore.” Her ears twitched. “C-can I b-borrow your r-r-robe? I-I’m s-so cold…”

Bitterroot almost refused to give her coat to the necromancer on reflex. But if she couldn’t do that, what was she doing out here, letting said necromancer explain herself? She couldn’t let preconceptions get the best of her. “One condition,” said Bitterroot. “You need to put on a suppressor ring.”

“O-oh, oh yeah, s-sure.” Amanita’s head bobbed up and down. “H-here.” She stuck out her horn obediently.

Suppressor rings weren’t just a traditional part of a bounty hunter’s gear, they were essential. In fact, Bitterroot had heard that they’d been invented by a bounty hunter centuries ago to replace the far more bulky suppressor yokes in use at the time. Whatever the case, Bitterroot carried around at least half a dozen of them at all times. She scooped one out of her bags and tossed it over to Amanita. She expected some wheedling, some hesitation, some resistance, but Amanita had the ring over her horn before Bitterroot could open her mouth. The base of her horn glowed as Amanita tried to use magic, but it was stopped dead by the ring. She grinned. “G-good model.”

Bitterroot unhooked her cloak. “One of the best. Here.” She walked over and threw it over Amanita’s shoulders. Amanita immediately pulled it around herself and wiggled into a ball.

“Th-thank you,” said Amanita. “D-do you think you could g-get my c-clothes? They’re u-up there.” She pointed a shaking hoof up the slope she’d come down.

Amanita had left an easy trail to follow. It took Bitterroot to a tiny alcove, barely a few yards deep. Amanita’s clothes were folded there, not just wet, but frozen. Bitterroot absently noted that, against all appearances, Amanita had to be pretty hardy to survive in the open after getting submerged in a river for that long.

When Bitterroot returned, Amanita’s shaking had gone down significantly and she was breathing easily. It didn’t look like she’d made any attempt to run. Bitterroot dropped Amanita’s clothes next to the fire, letting them thaw. “Thanks,” Amanita said, not looking up.

“So,” Bitterroot said, sitting on the opposite side of the fire. “Explain yourself.”

Amanita took a deep breath. “I l-learned necromancy,” she said, staring at the fire. “I now know just h-how bad it is. I’m going to the Crystal Empire to turn myself in. A-and a lich might be chasing me, because I’ve got her phylactery.”

Bitterroot blinked. That was… “I… I’m sorry, what?”

“I m-made a mistake in learning necromancy,” Amanita said again. “I’m trying to turn myself in. And…” She began pawing through her saddlebag. “I’ve got the phylactery of a lich, so I’m t-taking that to civilization so it can be destroyed.” She pulled out a crystal, dangling on the end of a thin chain. It glowed with a soft, cold light, almost imperceptible. It didn’t look anything other than ordinary, but something about the way it felt gave Bitterroot goosebumps, as if it’d been pulled from a wound.

There was somepony’s soul in there, completely separate from her body. That pony was now immortal, and it’d only required a ritualistic slaughter to make it. Bitterroot almost thought she could hear whispering coming from the crystal.

“It was my m-master’s,” said Amanita, staring at it. “Circe’s. She was… completely unrepentant about what she was doing. Killed an entire village of ponies to make this. I’d d-destroy it myself, but she put the best strengthening spells she could muster on it.”

A village. Artemis had said Amanita had killed a whole village. Grayvale, wasn’t it? And Amanita had mentioned it unprompted, so she was probably around when Grayvale had been destroyed. But if it was a phylactery, it definitely wasn’t Amanita’s. Liches didn’t care about the cold or bullet wounds. Bitterroot believed that this Circe, not Amanita, had been responsible and Amanita had just gotten caught up in the mess. Regarding the spells, though… “Have you tried unraveling them?” asked Bitterroot. She knew that any given unicorn didn’t know every spell, but sometimes it was ridiculous just how little they knew.

Amanita shook her head. “Too complicated. It’d b-be like trying to draw calligraphy with your tail.”

“Can I try?”

“It won’t do any g-good.”

“Still.”

“Fine.” Amanita tossed the crystal on the ground between them. “Break it.”

“Alright.” Bitterroot examined it for a moment, then retrieved two large rocks from the river. She put the crystal on one and smashed it with the other. The crystal didn’t look remotely harmed.

Amanita raised an eyebrow. “See?”

“Let’s try again,” Bitterroot muttered. She smashed the crystal with the rock, again and again and again. Nothing changed. She glanced at her rock. Bits of it were flaking off. She shrugged and tossed the rock away. “You win.” She hadn’t really expected anything to come of that, but it was always worth a shot.

Amanita snatched up the crystal and returned it to her bag. “So everything I’ve done has been to put as much space between Circe and myself as possible. I tried collapsing a mine on top of her, but I’m not taking any chances. I can’t let her get her hooves on that again. I-”

“Even murdering that old mare on the clifftop?” asked Bitterroot. “Even siccing that undead bear on us?”

“Yes, and… Hang on.” Amanita looked up, frowning. “The bear went after you?”

“Yeah.”

“It… wasn’t supposed to… Gah, I am so sorry.” Amanita cringed and curled into a ball. “It wasn’t supposed to attack you, just… Sorry.”

Bitterroot considered pushing the issue, but there was another thing. “And the mare?”

“She was nice enough to give me dinner, but I needed to get down the cliff and she wouldn’t let me leave,” said Amanita defensively. “I had to do something.”

“She wouldn’t let you leave, so you killed her?” Bitterroot was aghast beyond words. She’d never imagined something so petty. You’d never find anything like that in Equestria. Usually never.

“I’m a necromancer,” Amanita snapped. “Murder is our default method of problem-solving and it’s easy to reverse. Besides, I had to keep Circe away from her phylactery. If she got her hooves on it again-”

“Oh,” scoffed Bitterroot, “and I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the mare, lying cold and dead in her house.”

Amanita flattened her ears and chuckled nervously. “Uh, yeah…” She twisted a lock of hair around a hoof. “Funny story about that…”

To her very great surprise, Polar Sun woke up.

Hadn’t her throat been slit? Yes, she’d live with those memories for as long as she lived. Maybe that was a bad comparison and she was dead. No, her neck ached and she was colder than usual. She didn’t think pain existed in the afterlife, although she admitted she could be wrong. Something was clinging to her coat, but she ignored it for the moment. She looked around. Wherever she was, it looked like her house. She rolled onto her hooves and stood up. Definitely her house, albeit messier than usual. She braced herself for something mind-shattering or alien and looked out the window. The Crystal Mountains, as plain and beautiful as ever. If this was the afterlife, it was awfully mundane. She would’ve expected at least some sort of psychopomp.

“Something’s up,” she said, partly to test her voice. It sounded the same. Maybe a little raspier. She closed the shutters to keep out the wind and rubbed her neck, trying to-

She felt it. A scar. A big, thick scar that curled around her neck from one side to the other. Polar ran to the mirror and cringed, even ignoring the dried blood matted to one side of her. Corded and almost half an inch wide, the scar curved neatly across her throat like a perverse necklace. She placed a hoof near one of its endpoints. “Heartbeat. Carotid.” The other. “Heartbeat. Other carotid.”

Polar drummed her hoof on the ground as she looked at herself. “She cut you up real good, didn’t she, Sun?” she asked. “So, why oh why are you still alive?” She squinted at her bloodstained reflection. “You don’t know anything, do you? … I thought not.”

She rolled her head this way and that. It was a bit harder to look up, as the scar had tightened the skin, but otherwise she had full mobility. She poked at the scar. It wasn’t overly sensitive. She poked a few more times. No bleeding. The scar felt like she’d had it for months. “Maybe I’ve been asleep or dead or whatever for months.” She looked out the window again and peered at the snowline of a distant mountain. Almost unchanged from the last time she’d seen it, so the Empire hadn’t even begun its seasonal avalanche blasting. “Still before the equinox,” she said. “No more than a week.”

She closed her eyes, trying to remember what exactly had happened. Amanita had sliced her throat open, she’d seemingly died… But then came strange, distant memories, those of a half-remembered dream. The feelings were alien, something she’d never felt before and couldn’t properly describe. “River rapids? Like I was trying to swim downstream with them but couldn’t.” It was more a sensation than an actual experience.

The boom of a distant firearm (a blunderbuss?) jolted her from her memories. Yes, that particular unicorn might have killed her. Yes, she might have spontaneously been resurrected. But now, she felt fine. She was alive. Might as well keep living. “First, gotta repair the shelves.” She walked over to one of the broken items, she focused on the feeling in her hooves, making sure it felt the same. One of them felt too tight. She looked at it. “Hellooooooo…” Bandages were wrapped around her lower leg. “I know I didn’t put those there.” She didn’t need them, at least not for climbing. She unwrapped them; they felt too constricting.

But as she pulled away the last strips of bandage, a small piece of parchment fluttered away from her leg and to the floor. “Hello again.” Frowning, Polar peered at it, and immediately sucked in a breath. Scratched out in flaking ink was a bizarre… thing:

“Not a rune,” she muttered. “Too intricate.” But there had to be some sort of magic to it, right? Why else would it be bound to her? Would it do something if she touched it? “Here goes nothing.” Polar prodded the parchment. Nothing happened. She laid a hoof on it and waited. Nothing, not even a funny feeling in her foot. She carefully worked a hoof under it and flipped it over. A message was written there:

If AND ONLY IF your heart has started beating again, you can destroy this. Sorry.
—Amanita

She’d felt it barely a minute earlier, but Polar immediately put a hoof on her chest. Her heart was beating strongly. Staring at the parchment all the while, she took out flint and tinder and set it alight. The smoke from it looked strange, thick and oily, but that was it. Polar sniffed. No odd smells. She looked at the ashes left behind. Nothing strange there. She put a hoof on her chest again. Still a strong heartbeat.

“Well,” muttered Polar, “guess you’re never gonna learn what that was all about.” She shrugged and began examining the remains of her shelves. No use dwelling on the past.

Bitterroot stared at Amanita, who was attempting to smile and failing miserably. “So…” said Bitterroot incredulously, “you… killed somepony… then left a rune-based spell on her corpse to resurrect her… because all that was easier than pushing her away from a door.”

“I-in my defense, she was strong for an earth pony and I’m weak for a unicorn. And it was a stavic spell, not a runic one.”

“…Necromancers are weird.”

So. Bitterroot turned the facts over in her head: the earth pony was still alive (supposedly), the bear was… a mistake, somehow (Bitterroot still wasn’t sure how), and the ranger… “What about the ranger? Catskill.”

Amanita lowered her eyes and bit her lip. “Does she… Does she know she’s dead?” Amanita asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Crap.” Amanita held her head in her hooves. “I almost told her. I was this close to… telling her everything. It’d ease her in, and-”

“So what did you do to her?”

“She died saving me from a bear,” said Amanita. “And I… I couldn’t just let her stay dead. I’m a necromancer; pulling ponies back from beyond the veil is kinda my thing. But her injuries were far too severe to just bring her back right then and there. I mean, she had a hole in her heart. So… I…” She sighed and ruffled her mane. Her voice dropped even more. “…kinda-sorta enthralled her and did some long-term healing magic on her. Healing’s my special talent, actually.” She pulled up the cloak and displayed her flank to Bitterroot: a red cross. “Ne-”

Bitterroot couldn’t help herself. “But… your shoulder-”

“I spent over an hour continually using magic to keep my body temperature above freezing,” snapped Amanita, “so forgive me if my magic isn’t quite up to snuff at the moment.”

“Right, sorry,” said Bitterroot, putting up her hooves. “Forget I asked.”

Amanita glared at Bitterroot, then cleared her throat. “So. Catskill. Necromancy keeps her in this world while her body gets knit back together. And in seven or eight hours, her wounds will be healed and her heart will start beating again and it’ll be like she never died.” She smiled half-heartedly and shrugged.

Bitterroot blinked. Of all the things she’d expected to hear concerning a necromancer, this was not one of them. On the one hoof, the basic idea made an amazing amount of sense, but necromancers weren’t really known for protecting the sanctity of life like that. Yet it made also made sense within this context; a necromancer who didn’t want to be a necromancer using her powers to save lives rather than- Hold up. “Wait. Kinda-sorta enthralled her?”

“It’s complicated,” Amanita said wearily, “but you’re supposed to bind thralls to your own will so you — and only you — can control them. I basically just bound her to her will instead, which is pretty much the same thing as living.”

“I see,” lied Bitterroot.

“I almost told her the truth,” Amanita muttered. “Just so she’d know. But what was I supposed to say? ‘Guess what. You died and I brought you back to life. Well, technically you’re undead right now. But you’ll be alive tomorrow! Oh, and I’m a necromancer.’ Right.” She snorted.

“Yeah. Probably not the best way to talk to somepony.”

Amanita sucked in a breath through her nose. “So, that… That’s it.” The fire crackled and popped. “Now what? Are… Are you going to kill me?” The fire snapped and fizzled. “To be honest, it’s what I deserve. Just make it quick and take the phylactery to the Crystal Empire.”

Bitterroot stared into the fire. She wasn’t sure, to be honest. Amanita was a necromancer. Who’d surrendered and had her magic suppressed (voluntarily, even). Common sense said necromancers needed to die. Common sense would’ve killed a pony who went out of her way to save another’s life. Yes, Amanita could be lying. But thanks to Catskill and her continued free will, it would’ve required the stars to align in all the right ways. Killing Amanita would be easier. Keeping her alive would keep blood off Bitterroot’s hooves. Did having blood on your hooves really matter when it was the blood of a bad pony? But had Amanita turned a new leaf and become a good pony?

“Is Catskill still with you?” asked Amanita. “If you’re going to haul me back with you, I’d like to apologize to her.”

That settled things for Bitterroot. The truth about Catskill convinced her to give Amanita the benefit of the doubt. And if she wanted to see the pony she’d raised from the dead, she was willing to own up to her actions. (Also, it would prove Artemis wrong, which was a plus.) Bitterroot was even willing to bet Amanita was telling the truth about the other mare. She stood up. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going back to town. I don’t think you deserve to die. You can explain yourself and we’ll put it to a vote.” Conveniently, their bounty group plus Catskill made an odd number of ponies.

Amanita smiled resignedly. “I don’t know whether to praise you or curse you.” She shrugged off Bitterroot’s cloak and pulled her own clothes on, by now warm and dry from the fire. “We’ll see, I guess.”

“Can you walk?”

“Well enough.” Amanita walked across the clearing a few times. “Yeah, I can walk.” She frowned at one of her rear legs and flexed it.

“Good. It’ll probably be about an hour before we get to town.”

“Hoo boy,” mumbled Amanita. She took a deep breath and hiked her saddlebags up. “Let’s get going, then.”

12 - The Way Back

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The hole in her side had definitely shrunk. Previously, Catskill could fit her hoof inside it with a little pushing. Now, it took a lot of pushing and some stretching of flesh. Hmm.

Maybe Bitterroot’s out-there allegation that Amanita had tried to help her was right after all.

Catskill strode outside into the remains of the blizzard. Most of the clouds had been blown away and it wasn’t snowing anymore. She took a deep breath in, paying extra attention to her sensations. Nothing out of the ordinary. Double hmm. Her nerves seemed to be working awfully well, considering they were dead.

She looked down the street. The end was several hundred yards away. After a second’s thought, Catskill shot towards it at the fastest gallop she could muster. She expected her legs to start burning before she’d gone ten yards, but they didn’t. They didn’t feel like she was working them at all. She was absolutely tireless, able to gallop at top speed all day.

Apparently, there were some perks to being dead.

Catskill reached the end of the street and skidded to a halt, throwing up a plume of snow. She spun around and galloped straight back to the mill. No weariness. No pain. No nothing.

Trace was waiting at the door to the mill, jaw agape. As a smiling Catskill slowed from a gallop to a trot to a walk to a stop, Trace said incredulously, “By crumb, you aren’t even breathing heavily. Holy crow.”

“I guess the dead don’t need to breathe,” said Catskill. She wiggled her hooves one at a time. No problems. “To… be honest,” she admitted, “if I’d been told straight up that I was dead, this wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Ah… no?”

“No. Like, ninety percent of the time. I feel normal. But I don’t get tired. I don’t feel pain. I don’t need to breathe. I don’t think I even need to eat.” Although, hadn’t Amanita given her that bread and juice? And it’d sat fine in her stomach. Maybe, if there was magic still healing her, it used the energy of the food to work.

“Very interesting.” Trace walked over and prodded at Catskill’s wound. She slapped Trace away. Undaunted, Trace continued, “So do you think Bitterroot was right in her assumption? About Amanita?”

Catskill sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe if I knew her better, but my only interaction with her before we entered the mill was attempting to kill her and attempting to not get killed by her.” (Trace cringed and folded her ears back.) “How long have you worked with her? What do you think?”

“I’ve only worked with her a few days,” said Trace, “but I’m fairly confident in saying she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s alert, intelligent, she keeps her temper under control-”

“Like the time she threatened to kill Artemis?”

“-she usually keeps her temper under control,” amended Trace, “— and trust me,” she added in a lower voice, “a few days with Arty would put anypony at the end of their rope — and she avoids distractions. I’d’ve certainly never put all those pieces together like she did. So I’m willing to go out on a limb and say she’s mostly right.”

Mostly right. Catskill was willing to take “mostly”. But what was she going to say to Amanita, assuming Bitterroot was right? “Thanks for saving my life. Even if it meant turning me into a zombie.” “Couldn’t you have told me earlier?” “I think I deserve to know when I actually die.” “Liar.” A hundred and one emotions were swimming through her head, all jockeying for position, none of them willing to give an inch.

Of course, Bitterroot being right was the best-case scenario. Maybe it was too much to ask for out here.

Artemis walked out of the mill, glanced up at the sky, and scowled. “Bitterroot still ain’t back?” she muttered to nopony in particular.

“It hasn’t even been a quarter of an hour, Arty,” said Trace lightly. “She needs time.”

“Don’t call me ‘Arty’,” growled Artemis. She walked back into the mill. She attempted to slam the door behind her, but the broken latch meant the door bounced off the frame and swung open again.

“What stick’s up her butt?” asked Catskill. “First the… thing in the mill, now this…”

“I think she’s just one of those ponies, you know?” Trace waved a hoof airily. “They were born with the stick up their butt, through no fault of their parents, and all surgical attempts to remove it have failed. They think ‘realist’ and ‘miserable twat’ are synonyms.”

“Right.” Catskill was aware that she’d been somewhat like that in the past, but hoped it’d never been as bad as Artemis. “And you’ve been working with her for two days?”

Trace grimaced and nodded sadly.

“I am so sorry.”

The time passed slowly. Eventually, Catskill got tired of testing the limits of her deadness. There were only so many things she could find that were different from being alive. (Trace had joked that she could win any staring contest in the world, now, but Catskill was more interested in marathons.) And as the minutes dragged on with no sign of Bitterroot, Catskill couldn’t help feeling worried. Now that she thought about it, “finding a necromancer and having a friendly chat with her” was kind of a stupid plan. But she held her breath (even though that meant nothing, now).

Catskill was finishing yet another circuit of the mill when Artemis stomped outside again. She glowered up at the sky like it’d cut in front of her at the grocery store. “We gotta get movin’!” she yelled at Catskill and Trace. “Ev’ry second we sit ’ere, Amanita gets further away, an’-”

“Don’t you trust Bitterroot?” asked Trace, staring at the few clouds left in the sky. “Give her fifteen more minutes.”

“She’s been gone too long,” said Artemis. “We need t’go now. She could be dead. ’R worse.”

“Fifteen minutes, Arty, then we can go.”

“Cut it out wi’ the ‘Arty’,” growled Artemis. She stomped back into the mill.

Although Catskill couldn’t deny that she was also a bit apprehensive about Bitterroot’s continued absence, more than that, Artemis’s continued intrusions were getting on her nerves. Bitterroot had told them to keep quiet about the real reason she was gone, sure, but now Artemis couldn’t do anything about it and the truth might get her to shut up. Or at least stew in silence. It was hard to tell.

But if they were leaving in fifteen minutes and Artemis was still angry, she might channel that frustration into going downriver more quickly. Hmm.

Worth a shot. “Should we tell her about Bitterroot’s theory?” Catskill whispered to Trace.

“I say you’re welcome to if you want,” Trace muttered. “Personally, I’m not going anywhere near that, not with her temper. If you got her order wrong in a restaurant, she’d probably rip your head off.”

Not that much of an exaggeration, Catskill thought. But, still. If it’d shut up Artemis… Deep breath. Catskill walked into the mill. Artemis was mumbling something to Gale, who was nodding in response. “Artemis?” asked Catskill.

Artemis didn’t look up. “Yeh?” she grunted.

“Bitterroot thinks Amanita’s not as bad as she was made out to be.”

“She destroyed a village,” said Artemis in a low voice. “Good ’nough for me.”

Catskill blinked and flinched. She hadn’t heard that. But that didn’t seem right for Amanita. She hadn’t even been able to fend off a bear. Maybe maybe maybe there was something else involved. She plowed on, incredibly grateful Artemis wasn’t looking at her and couldn’t see her face. “But she didn’t enslave me when she had the perfect opportunity,” she said.

“So?” Artemis was a very grunty sort of pony.

“So Bitterroot thinks Amanita might be trying to turn a new leaf. She’s looking for Amanita to talk to her and convince her to-”

“WHAT?!” shrieked Artemis, almost deafening Catskill. “She- She can’t- She’ll-” She got to her feet, shoving Gale out of the way, and ran for the door.

But Catskill was already there and blocked her from leaving. They were both earth ponies, but Catskill had lived in tough lands far longer than Artemis and didn’t feel pain anymore. She pushed a flailing Artemis away from the door. “Whoa, hey!” she yelled. “It’s- It’s not that bad!”

“Not that bad? Not that bad?” Artemis giggled wildly as she tried and failed to get around Catskill. “Bitterroot’s jus’ gonna try talkin’ t’Amanita an’ y’say it ain’t that bad? You-”

Behind them, Trace poked her head in around the door. “Heavens, who stepped on the litter of chipmunks?” she asked. “My ears are still ringing.”

“It was Artemis,” grunted Catskill. Artemis caught her on the shoulder, a blow that would’ve made her reflexively release Artemis if her reflexes were still working. “I told her about Bitterroot, and-”

“Wow!” yelled Trace. “Get a load of that tree!” And she was gone.

Catskill rolled her eyes, threw Artemis to the ground, and put a hoof on her chest. Artemis’s random swinging stopped. Gale twitched, but didn’t do anything. “Will you listen to me, please?” Catskill asked calmly. “It makes sense. Trust me.”

“Fine, but this better be good,” snapped Artemis. She wiggled out from Catskill’s pin and planted her rump on the ground.

“Bitterroot thinks Amanita’s not as… cruel as other necromancers,” said Catskill. “So she’s going to Amanita, see if she’s willing to talk, and see what goes from there.”

“Well, ain’t that jus’ dandy,” sneered Artemis. “She’s gonna jus’ fly up, land riiiight nex’ to a necromancer, an’ they’ll be all sweet an’ cuddly an’ talk ’bout their feelin’s. Heh. Gimme a break. Necromancers don’t do crap like that.”

Great. Just a few sentences in and Catskill was already regretting bringing the subject up. But she was nothing if not committed. You couldn’t be a ranger otherwise. “She saved my life! Which, yes, apparently required my becoming a zombie, but I’ve still got my mind! What makes you so sure Amanita hasn’t changed at all?”

“She’s a necromancer!” yelled Artemis. “I don’t know ’ow many times I ’ave to say that, it speaks for itself!”

“And how does being a necromancer determine her personality?” asked Catskill. “Maybe she’s a different necromancer than usual.” She gestured into the distance. “It’s not like ponies are all different from one another or anything.”

“Mebbe, but she lived out ’ere,” said Artemis. “Ain’t like this’s a land that tol’rates softness. Nopony out ’ere’s decent.”

“Thanks for the glowing description,” said Catskill darkly. “I live a few streets over. What did I do to you to make you say that?”

“W-well,” said Artemis, twitching, “almost nopo-”

“Oh, no, you are not moving the goalposts on me!” snapped Catskill. “You said ‘nopony’ with no qualifiers. And suddenly, when you learn that-”

“I made a mistake!” said Artemis. “I-”

“No, you went to extremes while knowing jack squat about what you were talking about! You just threw around-”

“The princesses’re all ’bout ’armony, but y’just don’t get ponies talkin’ like that out ’ere. Nopony cares ’bout gettin’ along.”

“I don’t see why that matters. Just because the princesses are more open about harmony than ponies out here doesn’t mean nopony out here cares about it. I swear, you’re projecting so hard you could display a slideshow on the moon.”

“I ain’t projectin’ nothin’! I jus’-” Artemis cut herself off with a growl and ran a hoof through her mane. “Screw it,” she mumbled to herself. “She’ll know by now. Gotta shore up.” She glared nastily up at Catskill. “Startin’ wi’ you.”

She didn’t know why, but something about the look on Artemis’s face, the energy in her eyes, made Catskill take a step back as her breath hitched. It was like a curtain draped over her aggression had suddenly been stripped away. Something was wrong.

Artemis took a step towards Catskill.

The door to the mill opened. “Arty, the fifteen minutes I asked for are almost up,” said Trace. “I assume you want to get going now? If so…” Her eyes flicked upwards. “I’ll need to retrieve Gale’s arquebus. And I can’t believe I never said this, Gale, but I apologize for that. The situation was-”

“We ain’t goin’ nowhere yet,” mumbled Artemis.

“-a mite tense, so I… took the most immediate… Not going?”

“No.”

“I- I’m sorry, but when did this come around? Less than a quarter of an hour ago, you were acting like not moving right then and there was equivalent to sawing your own legs off!”

Catskill agreed. Nothing she’d said had apparently gotten through to Artemis, yet she still wanted to stay here all of a sudden? Catskill prayed it had nothing to do with Artemis’s sudden change in expression.

Artemis sighed. “Change o’ plans. ’T’s complicated. Gale, get your gun yourself. We got work to do.”

Gale nodded, flared her wings, and fly-jumped up to the rafters. She retrieved her gun easily. By the time she landed on the ground again, she had the harness on and was already making the finishing touches to the belts.

“Hold up,” said Trace, blinking. “What in the blazes- She just- You said her wing was paralyzed!” she exploded, pointing furiously at Gale. “Land’s sakes, do you know how much easier everything would have been if you’d only-”

“Kill ’er,” Artemis said, pointing at Trace. “She annoys me.”

And Gale immediately shot Trace in the chest.

Bitterroot was expecting it, but Amanita didn’t try to run at all as they walked back upriver. She didn’t even complain. Her pace was a bit slow, but Bitterroot brushed that off as the aftereffects of hypothermia. They marched up the rocky banks, not going very fast, but never slowing down. The pain in her leg was slowly getting worse. She wasn’t limping yet, but Bitterroot could only pray the wound wouldn’t get infected before they reached civilization again.

They also didn’t talk much. Bitterroot was content to just put the miles behind them, but Amanita hadn’t said anything, either, apparently wanting to just walk and listen to the rushing river. Bitterroot wasn’t sure if she was the talkative type at all. Maybe not. It wasn’t like there was much to talk about at the moment, so why try to force it?

Of course, there was one question that was relevant. Bitterroot decided it was best to just get it out now, before the silence got too awkward. “So what happened?” she asked.

Amanita twitched a little, missing a rock on a steep slope. “Hmm?” she said unconvincingly as she picked herself up..

“Why’d you leave Circe?” Bitterroot reached the top of the slope and turned around. “What hit you in the face to bring you back to reality?” She offered a hoof; Amanita accepted it and Bitteroot hauled her up.

“W-well, it’s…” Amanita took a deep breath. “Please remember,” she said quietly, “that… I hate what I did. I was… stupid, selfish, and so, so egocentric. What I’m going to tell you, don’t chew me out for. I’m already doing that myself.”

“…Okay,” Bitterroot said. “I’ll keep quiet.” If she could keep quiet next to Artemis for several days, she had to be able to shut up here, right?

“Fine.” Amanita ran a hoof through her mane. “I… Long story short, when I was not much younger, I had a marefriend. Let’s call her Lily. She got sick. Magic only delayed the inevitable. She died. I… wasn’t the best at accepting the consequences. And then Circe found me and took me in. She brought me up north and taught me necromancy, mostly how I could whistle up Lily’s spirit from beyond death any time I wanted. Yes, Circe was doing some… violent, depraved things, but I ignored them. They didn’t matter. Lily mattered. I had her. And I was happy.”

“Uh-huh.” Bitterroot managed to keep it at that.

Amanita looked sideways at Bitterroot, like she was daring her to say something more, but eventually continued, “Then, one day I noticed. Whenever I called her up, Lily always agreed with me, whatever I said. I actually didn’t like that. Lily had been headstrong, forceful. She’d had no problem laughing in my face if I was being stupid. It was part of the reason I’d loved her. But there she was, fawning over me like I was the only thing in the world. I took a closer look at the spells I’d been taught and noticed that there was one bit that… basically replaced her wants with mine. It’s complicated, I’ll spare you the details. The next time I summoned her, I left that bit out. And then I learned what I’d been doing to her.”

Amanita looked away and started blinking a lot. “The second she appeared,” she said quietly, “Lily started screaming at me. She wailed that she hated me, asked what I was doing, raping her mind like that. She tried to leave, but my own spells prevented her. She… basically said I was her jailer and slaver, ripping her from the afterlife for my own ego.”

Bitterroot stumbled. “What?”

“Every time I’d called her up previously,” Amanita said, her ears folded back, “I-I’d been unknowingly stripping her of her free will. She’d been ecstatic to see me was because the spell said she should be. She’d been agreeing with whatever I said because the spell said she should. A-and I’d been t-trapping her in her own mind w-without a care in the world. The only difference between enthralling somepony and what I’d been doing to Lily was that Lily didn’t have her body to live in.” Her voice was full of contempt, probably directed at herself. “I apologized as best I could, promised to never call on her again, and let her go.” She managed to smile. “That’s a promise I’ve managed to keep.”

“But I thought thralls were mindless,” said Bitterroot. She restlessly rustled her wings. “That necromancy was outlawed because of its capability for soldiers, and-”

“No, no, it’s worse than that,” said Amanita. “Using dead bodies to do your bidding is bad enough. But think about it: these bodies…” She waved up and down herself. “They’re animated and given will by souls. So what animates and gives will to dead bodies? Same thing: the souls of those bodies. But a necromancer rips them from whatever existence they have in the afterlife, traps them in a weak, fleshy body, and imposes her own will on them instead of their own. It’s… This kind of necromancy is basically mass mind control.”

“Holy Tartarus,” whispered Bitterroot. Something at the base of her neck squirmed in disgust. If there was any way to make raising an army of zombies even worse… “Does… Did Circe know?”

“Oh, she knows,” Amanita said, laughing bitterly. “She knows. She just doesn’t care. She wants power, and she doesn’t care who she has to violate to get it.”

“Stars above.” The wind howled like it was blowing through a graveyard. Screw Amanita. Circe was the one they needed to find. “Do you know where she is now?”

“With any luck, trapped at the bottom of a mineshaft.”

Bitterroot blinked and tilted her head. “Okaaaaaay…”

Amanita rolled her eyes. “Right after I… ahem, talked with Lily, I went to Circe. I… I still thought she was in the dark about what she was actually doing.”

“How long were you her apprentice?”

Folding her ears back, Amanita mumbled, “Two, three years, I think. I didn’t really keep track. I just-”

“And it didn’t occur to you that maybe she knew exactly what she was do-”

“I don’t know!” yelled Amanita, making Bitterroot jump. “Maybe, yes, I was that stupid. Maybe I was making excuses because I respected her ability to teach me. Maybe-” She groaned and shot a bolt of magic that vaporized a small snowdrift. “In the end, I don’t know why I thought that. It- Look, the ‘why’ isn’t important now, okay? And what happened to ‘I’ll keep quiet’?”

“Shutting up,” said Bitterroot tightly. She’d hardly been chewing Amanita out. It was a simple question. “Continue.”

“So I told Circe about this,” said Amanita, “and she basically said, ‘This is news to you?’ And then she went off on this… Darwhinneyan tangent about the weak serving the strong, and necromancers were obviously the strong, and it was so circular you’d think it’d been drawn with a compass. I hid my shock and managed to smile and nod along with what she said and parrot my thanks to her for making me strong and… Anyway, that was when I finally realized she was a bit, y’know…” She pointed at one of her ears and traced a small circle in the air.

“Was that when you ran?” Bitterroot asked. She wasn’t sure how she’d react to a mentor figure being nuts like that. All her teachers, even the ones she’d hated, had been… sane. At the worst, slightly loopy in an entertaining way that didn’t interfere with their teaching ability.

“Not yet. I… I was scared,” admitted Amanita. “It’s one thing for somepony to threaten to kill you and use your corpse as a puppet, it’s another to have already seen that the pony do that to others. So I waited for a good opportunity. And then Circe said she’d show me how to make a phylactery. I’d need to live long to learn every aspect of necromancy. She was already almost four hundred years old, and she needed to fix her phylactery, so-”

“Fix her phylactery?” asked Bitterroot, her ears going up. “What, with a hammer and nails?”

Amanita started scowling. “You said you’d shut up,” she mumbled.

“It’s- You’re making it sound like she’s some handymare for souls!”

“Uffh. It’s metaphysical,” Amanita said with a sigh. “What do stories about liches always say they do with their phylacteries?”

“Erm…” In all honesty, the only things Bitterroot remembered about any story involving liches were: a), soul jars, and b) liches being a bad thing for everpony around them. But after a bit of thinking, she dredged up some vague memories. “They… store them in… some secret place, right?” Or maybe she was remembering the details from cheesy fantasy schlock.

“Right,” said Amanita. “Because they need to go back and repair them from time to time. Objects like that crystal-” She patted her saddlebags. “-can’t hold souls the way bodies can. They fall apart on a metaphysical level, the soul disperses, ding-dong, the lich is dead. I mean, if phylacteries didn’t require some kind of upkeep, a lich would just stick her soul in a needle in an egg in a duck in a hare in a box beneath a tree on a phantom island or something and nopony, including her, would be able to find it and use it to kill her!”

“Fine, fine,” said Bitterroot, holding up a hoof. “So she wanted to repair her phylactery, right? And get you to make one?”

Amanita nodded. “Yeah. She took us north to a mining town. Grayvale. We took up residence in one of the mine shafts, and…” She shuddered. “Short version, she enthralled half the town within a week and cowed the rest into submission. And one night…” She walked for several moments in silence. The river bubbled over some rocks. “She killed most of them in a ritual to rejuvenate her phylactery. The rest, she killed because she could.”

Bitterroot simply swallowed. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I was supposed to also draw on the energy of the ritual,” said Amanita, “but by then I’d had enough. When she was exulting over her success, I grabbed her phylactery, used magic to collapse the mine supports on top of her, and ran. And…” she shrugged. “That’s it, really.”

“Huh.” It was a lot to take in, even with Amanita only giving the highlights. She might have to delay deciding what to do with Amanita until she had time to sleep on this. But there was still the matter of- “You’re sure Circe’s still trapped in that mineshaft? The last thing we need is a wrathful lich coming at us.”

“Not a hundred percent,” said Amanita, looking away from Bitterroot. “She was still a lich, so she couldn’t die, and… Well, I’ve just been assuming she got out somehow and I just delayed her.”

Bitterroot nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Like, the bear you mentioned that chased you down? That was a ‘just in case’ thing. It was only supposed to go after Circe and it should’ve ignored you.” She frowned. “I don’t know what I did wrong. Wish I could examine it.”

“You only got it half-wrong,” said Bitterroot. It was weird that she could come close to joking about something like zombie bears. “Really, it only chased Artemis.”

“Artemis,” mused Amanita. “Hmm. Was she important in your group?”

“Eh. I guess. Not really.” Bitterroot shrugged. “She’s the one who brought us all together to look for you, but she couldn’t actually lead if her life depended on it. Too angry.”

Amanita stumbled a bit. Bitterroot pretended not to notice. “V-very angry?” she asked, a bit quickly. “Touchy, temperamental, and tiring?”

“Heh. Yeah,” said Bitterroot. “Pretty much. I do-”

“Nihilistic about others, but outraged when you apply it to her?” Amanita had stopped walking and her eyes were wide.

Bitterroot also stopped. She turned around and looked suspiciously at Amanita. “Uh, yeah. How’d you know that?”

“Dark purple coat pale eyes gray mane skinny earth pony?” Amanita asked breathlessly. She was almost running in place, kneading the ground with her hooves.

“What’re you getting a-”

“Answer me!” screamed Amanita. She leaped forward and shook Bitterroot. “Does that describe her or not?!”

“Yes!” yelled Bitterroot. A few flaps took her out of Amanita’s reach. “Yes, it does! What’s your point?”

But once Bitterroot had confirmed that Amanita was talking about Artemis, Amanita stumbled back, gazing into the distance, apparently separated from the world. “Oh, fuck,” she whispered. “No, no, no, no, no… Sun blast it! How did she-”

“Hey! Hey!” Bitterroot slapped Amanita across the face, apparently bringing her back to the real world. “What’s up? Do you know somethi-”

“We need to go,” whispered Amanita. “We need to turn around and run for the Crystal Empire RIGHT NOW!” She immediately turned and bolted downriver.

Bitterroot caught up with her in seconds and wrestled Amanita to the ground. “What-” she grunted, “-is up- with you?”

“S-she’s dangerous,” said Amanita. She couldn’t keep her voice level. “She’s sadistic, violent, and, and she’s not a bounty hunter. If we don’t go-”

“You know her?” Bitterroot flapped her wings once and shut down an attempt by Amanita to escape.

“Know her?” Amanita laughed crazily, shrilly. “I stole her soul! She’s my master! She’s Circe!”

13 - The Massacre of Grayvale

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One week earlier…

Artemis had worked with the Royal Guard several times before. Some bounty hunters might sneer at her for taking an “easy” route, but when the Guard called on bounty hunters for help (wilderness tracking and navigation, in her case), the ponies they were tracking were more dangerous than the average. It was a simple arrangement: Artemis was placed as a tracker and guide in a squad of guardsponies. They gave her protection and she led them to their target. When the pony was captured, Artemis got a small portion, typically twenty percent or so, of the bounty (which was usually so large than twenty percent was still above average). The guards hunted down and jailed a dangerous pony down with minimal fuss, loss of life, or financial cost, while Artemis got paid well (enough). Easy. She was plenty used to guards by now.

But even after leading this particular anti-necromancy squad through the Frozen North for over a week, they made Artemis’s skin crawl and made her coat stand on end and made her shiver all the way down to the tips of her feathers. There was just something a little bit off about them. Maybe it was the odd mobile pumping machines with pilot lights two of them carried. Maybe it was the way all of their weapons were silver-plated. Maybe it was the way every single one of them had magical incendiaries built into their armor to annihilate their bodies upon death.

Maybe it was the way they kept on insisting she wear the incendiaries as well.

“Call me crazy,” Artemis had said the day before they set out, “but I don’t feel comfortable walking around with arcane firebombs strapped to my back.”

“Then maybe,” Staff Sergeant Singing Sword had said, “you shouldn’t hunt necromancers.”

Artemis had stared at Sword, but couldn’t hope to match his glare. It hadn’t been long before she’d had to turn away. “I’m not wearing them,” she’d said, painfully aware of how pathetic she’d sounded.

“I won’t force you,” Sword had said, “but these are necromancers. Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. Or even the end.”

Artemis kept turning those words over in her head as she and the squad crunched down the snowy, forested path towards the base of the mountain. They weren’t far from a town called Grayvale, which frightened whispers claimed was home (guinea pig farm, more like) to the two necromancers they were looking for, a master and an apprentice. And although it was probably just her own scared mind, the wind had a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. She fell back a few steps to the first pony behind her and cleared her throat. “Um. Sword? You know those… firebombs in your armor?”

Sword didn’t take his eyes from the path. “Having second thoughts about not wearing them?”

“H-how-”

“It’s in the way you walk. You’re nervous. More nervous than you’ve been in the past week.”

“…Yeah.” You never knew just how cold the water was until you jumped in, and Artemis had only now truly realized just what the consequences could be. A tiny bit late, maybe, but wings crossed? “I was… hoping maybe-”

“We don’t have any. They’re not worth carrying spares. And we can’t calibrate them out here, anyway.”

“Oh. Bummer?” Artemis forced a smile, which rapidly shrivelled and died under Sword’s silent gaze. It wasn’t a glare or angry, but it felt very judgmental. And Artemis found it hard to blame him for being so. The arquebus bumping at her side felt very small and very skinny.

Artemis pulled her head forward and examined the ground, looking for any tracks still around. It’d snowed heavily yesterday morning, so there was only one set, a single pony running full-tilt away from the town. Artemis frowned. One set. What could happen to let only one pony run? They’d almost reached Grayvale, so-

“Oh, that’s real nice…”

Artemis looked up, and immediately her stomach churned. In the distance, the forest expanded out into a clearing at the base of a cliff, vague shapes of houses already visible. But it was what was immediately in front of the squad that grabbed their attention. A pegasus had been strung up between trees on either side, limply dangling several yards above the path from ropes bound around her front hooves. Her eyes had been gouged out and her head hung above what remained of her chest; disgustingly, it’d been hacked open — the edges ragged and still damp with blood — and all the organs had been removed, leaving only a hollow cavity behind. Her wings were uneven and rough, most of the feathers having been forcibly ripped out.

Initially, Artemis fought to keep her reaction down, to stay professional. Behind her, a couple of the guards started retching. Well, if they could do it… Artemis doubled over and gagged. It was one of the most revolting things she’d seen in her life. It almost looked like the mare had been eaten. Images of that happening to her flashed through her mind; she vomited.

Singing Sword, however, simply squinted at the body like it was a Hearth’s Warming ornament in the wrong place. “Damn shame,” he muttered, “but we’re on the right track.” He stomped on the ground. “Squad! Form up!”

Artemis suddenly found herself as part of a ring encircling Sword. He paced back and forth, his head high. “Stallions, mares,” he said. “We’ve come a long way. We have a duty to Equestria. And we will not stop until that duty is fulfilled. Two necromancers, dead or incapacitated. And if we can’t kill them, we’ll make those snivelling scumbags wish they were dead! Am I right?”

The entire squad (sans Artemis) stomped as one. “Sir, yes, sir!”

“I should hope the good ponies of Equestria’s finest have stronger voices than that! Am I right?”

Stomp, stomp. “Sir, yes, sir!”

“Mmhmm. Alright, ponies, brea-”

“Turn back now.”

The entire squad fell silent. They spun around, looking for the source of the voice, before somepony pointed up. The dead pegasus had raised her head, fully exposing her mangled eye sockets, and was leering at them with a patchwork of bloodstained teeth. “Flee,” she rasped in a deathly cold, high-pitched voice. “Or you shall be my master’s servants for ETERNITY!”

Artemis nearly ran right then and there. Sword just clicked his tongue and waved the squad back. “Ash!” he yelled. An earth pony, one of the two with the pumps, stepped up.

And suddenly he was spraying fire like a dragon.

Artemis yelped and staggered back, throwing up a leg in a futile attempt to ward of some of the heat. Crimson flames, with shades of viridian and sapphire twisted in, engulfed the pony, so bright the body couldn’t even be seen inside them. The flames abruptly went dark; Artemis blinked blindness away to see that the pony’s body was gone, burned to ash.

“If that wasn’t a sign,” bellowed Sword, “I don’t know what is! Circe is here, maybe Amanita with her! Look sharp and don’t let your guard down!”

As before, Artemis headed to the front to lead the squad into Grayvale, but a unicorn gently pushed her back. “Before, you were tracking Circe,” the unicorn said, “but now, you’d just be taking point.”

Artemis knew enough military lingo to know what that meant, and she dropped back without complaint. As she walked, she suddenly became aware of the silence in the forest. No animals. No birds. No wind. Even the squad’s own hoofsteps seemed muted. Or maybe they’d just started stepping quietly. Artemis swallowed, adjusted her arquebus harness, and kept walking.

She’d had an idea for what to do in Grayvale that boiled down to “talk to ponies”, but if the necromancers were so blatant as to… do that, things weren’t looking good. Her apprehension built with every step and her throat turned dry. As the houses sharpened, Artemis could see that the first few weren’t much of houses. They were closer to ruins.

When they finally reached the town border, Artemis began wondering if there was anypony left in Grayvale at all. It looked like a war had happened here. Buildings had been wrecked and debris was strewn about the street. One of the closest houses looked about to collapse in on itself. In numerous places, the snow was stained red with blood, although there were disturbingly few bodies. One of those was a dead pony sitting against a wall. His hooves had been ripped off, leaving bloody remains of feet behind. His throat had been sliced open. On the wall beside him, probably painted in his blood, was a complex geometric design, filled with lines and runes that made Artemis’s head hurt. Actually, physically hurt. When she stopped looking, the pain went away. But not looking at the sigil meant looking at everything else. Even the cliff on the far side of town rippled and looked like something had tried to tear it apart.

The pain didn’t seem to bother the squad. “Ehwaz,” barked Sword. He pointed at the sigil. “What does that mean?”

A unicorn trotted up to the sigil and examined it. Artemis tried looking away and was confronted with a stallion pinned to a wall by a spear through his trunk. She shuddered and closed her eyes.

When Ehwaz turned back, one of his eyes was bloodshot and the pupil on the other seemed to be dripping down into the iris. “Bad news, sir,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “It’s an advanced focusing stave. For phylactery creation. And… it’s been used.”

“Son of a…” whispered Sword. “Don’t tell me she got the whole town…”

“She… might have.”

“Stars above… Not good. We’re going to the town square, stat.”

The squad almost moved on without Artemis before somepony gently nudged her. She followed in the others’ wake, unwilling to look at the carnage around her and unable to look away. Every building had some kind of structural damage. Bloody, disfigured bodies lay in the streets, far too few for a town of this size, yet nopony came out to meet them. Whenever they passed a body, Ash or the other flame pony would incinerate it. Remains of everyday objects — bottles, chairs, ropes, clothes, food — were scattered around. More sigils were painted on the walls; not as complex as the first, yet clearly magical in some way. The place was almost silent, without even the wind. Artemis seriously considered asking if she could just wait outside the town limits; after all, she’d gotten them here. But she had to see this through, no matter what it took.

Bodies were strewn about the town square, one at each cardinal direction. Buildings had their windows smashed and large holes punctured their front walls. In the middle of the square, a dead unicorn mare was bound to a pole, forced onto a rearing position by her mane being tied around the same pole. She’d tried to escape; a thin red line stood out against her coat where her mane connected with her scalp. Her horn had been roughly hacked away. Dried blood matted her coat beneath a hole in her chest where (Artemis heaved) her heart had probably been removed. Runes and sigils were delicately, almost artistically carved all over her legs, her body, her face. Her eyes were horrifically bloodshot.

And she was watching them.

She didn’t make a noise as the squad approached, just watched them with eyes that burned with a feeble blue fire. As they fanned out around the square, she turned her head to keep them in view. Her gaze seemed to linger on Artemis, who was glad when Sword gave the order and Ash incinerated her. For all its power, her arquebus now felt like nothing more than a metal pipe.

The squad spread out and surveyed some of the surrounding buildings. Not wanting to be alone, Artemis found herself sticking close to a unicorn (the same unicorn who’d pushed her back). She expected an objection, but never got one. After a minute or so, they reconvened. “They’re gone, aren’t they?” somepony asked. “Repaired their phylacteries and left.”

“Celestia, I hope not,” said Sword. He leaned back and groaned. “We were so close…”

Artemis raised a hoof. “Excuse me. Does anypony know how recently these ponies died?”

“Give me a sec,” said the unicorn quickly. She raced inside a building. There was a pause, then she raced back out. “Twelve to thirteen hours, I think. At least, for the bodies in there.”

“So whatever Circe and Amanita did,” said Artemis, “it probably happened sometime last night, right?”

“We’d have to get more times of death on the bodies,” said Sword thoughtfully, “but let’s say that’s the case. What then?”

“But ever since the snowfall yesterday morning,” continued Artemis, “only one pony left town by the way we came in. And that was supposed to be the only path into and out of town, right?”

“Riiiiight,” said Sword, slowly grinning. “Not great, but I’d rather take one than none.” He turned to Ehwaz. “Just to recap: Circe was an earth pony and Amanita was a unicorn, right?”

“Right,” responded Ehwaz.

“So one or the other could still be in here. Or both, if we’re lucky.” Sword banged his spear on the ground and turned to the squad. “Ponies! We’re not taking any chances! We need to search this town as quickly as possible, so I say we split up into two groups. The usual lines. My team will search the northern half of town, Anvil’s the southern half. Any objections?”

Various negatory mutters came from the squad.

“Remember: burn every body you find. If somepony looks alive, test them for thralldom. If they won’t let you, explain your mission. If they still won’t let you… Well, you know what to do.”

The ponies nodded in solemn silence. An hour ago, Artemis would’ve balked at such a hardline stance. Now she figured that was the best they could do.

The squad split up into two groups of four. Artemis froze, not sure which group to join, before the unicorn she’d been sticking to waved her over. “Hardened Anvil,” the unicorn said, clapping a leg across her chest. “Ash Cloud, Barded Courser, Altostratus.” She pointed at an earth pony with a pumping machine, a unicorn, and a pegasus in turn. “Just keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.”

If there was anything out of the ordinary in a messed-up situation like this, Artemis couldn’t see it. The ponies wandered through the snowbound apparently without any real purpose. Ash torched every single body they found. Every now and then, one of the dead ponies wasn’t staying still, but watched them. It didn’t seem to bother the squad, but Artemis felt ready to put her eyes out if it meant she wouldn’t have to see them anymore.

They zigged and zagged across town without incident, but suddenly Anvil put a hoof up and they stopped. She pointed at a building with rough symbols scrawled all over its walls. “Is it just me, or does that have more staves on it than the others?”

“No, I think so, too,” said Ash. He flipped a switch on his machine and the pumps sped up. “Should we investigate it?”

“Unfortunately,” said Anvil. “I’ll take point.” She hefted her spear and everypony immediately fell in line behind her, even Artemis. Anvil’s horn glowed briefly for a moment and she frowned, but nothing else. “No magical traps inside, I don’t think, but watch my back.”

They inched for the door. Artemis flexed her wings. They reached the door without incident. Anvil prodded it open with her spear. Nothing happened. She illuminated her horn and looked inside. “Seems clear. Advancing.” She took a few steps inside.

Snap.

A tripwire broke; a board swung down from the ceiling and hit Anvil in the neck. FfKRT. Her hooves went to her throat as her light vanished and she collapsed, wheezing. Courser raced forward and lit his horn. “Oh, stars above! I need help!” He dropped down and began wrestling with something Artemis couldn’t see. Ash crouched down and they began exchanging a panicked back-and-forth. Artemis shuffled over to get a better look and clapped a hoof to her mouth.

A bear trap was firmly crushing Anvil’s neck and lower jaw with its steel teeth. An artery must’ve been punctured, because blood was spitting out at an alarming rate.

Courser was already working feverishly. “Okay, uh, Ash, hold her steady, a-and I’ll-”

“Courser, I think sh-”

“No! I can save her! Listen, h-hold on, Anvil, you, you’re gonna be fine.”

“Courser-”

“Ash, please just let me try!”

“…What do you need me to do?”

“Alright, I’m gonna, I’m gonna push these parts down, right here, and then you pull the trap apart, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Three… two… one…”

Artemis couldn’t see what they did, but the bear trap came loose. Another torrent of blood came from Anvil’s neck. Courser tossed the trap away and lightly slapped Anvil on the cheek. “Anvil? Anvil, can you hear me? Please don’t-”

Anvil moaned weakly. Her eyes fluttered.

“Okay,” Courser said, grinning, “she’s still alive.” His horn started glowing and he held out a hoof. “Somepony get me the-”

Click-click.

Everypony froze, then suddenly Ash was dragging Artemis away from the body. Two seconds later, it was consumed with bright blue flame. The snow in a three-foot radius melted rapidly and Artemis felt parts of her coat on her face crisp. Another two seconds later, the fire was gone. So was Anvil’s body. Her armor was slightly warped and still glowing with heat.

Courser’s rear legs gave out and he collapsed onto his rump into the snow. “She…” he whispered. “I was… almost…” He blinked a few times. His eyes were wet. Then he took a deep breath and stood up again. “Remember this spot,” he said flatly. “We’ll need to retrieve Anvil’s armor later. I am-” His breath hitched. “As her second, I am taking command.”

The two remaining guards saluted. “Yes, sir.”

Courser swallowed, lit his horn, and slowly edged forward. He tapped forward with his spear, checking for more tripwires. None. After a moment, he said, “Come in. It’s… It’s safe…”

Not exactly reassured, and keeping her arquebus up just in case, Artemis followed the guards into the building. It looked like the remains of a bar, with lots of open spaces. And right in the middle of it all was a massive pile of bodies, taller than her. Ponies of every tribe and color were in the pile, their limbs spilling out awkwardly. By now, Artemis couldn’t even bring herself to be disgusted. They were chasing a necromancer. This was what necromancers did.

“Sir?” Ash hefted the flamethrower. “Should I-?”

“Wait…” Courser held up a hoof. “This… This was deliberate. Necromancers know we burn bodies on sight and we already ran into one trap. I’m not convinced there isn’t something beneath the pile. Remove them and destroy them, one by one.”

The ponies began removing the bodies from the pile and arranging them in neat rows for destruction, even Artemis. She cringed whenever she approached a body, but she swallowed her bile. And as the stack diminished, the barrels the bodies had been hiding were revealed.

“Some kind of fertilizer,” said Ash, carefully replacing a lid. “Very flammable. If we’d burned the pile, this entire building would’ve exploded.”

“Not a bad trap,” Courser said, sounding a bit reluctant to admit that. “If we’d followed SOP, then-” His eyes widened. “Oh, Celestia… If there are others- Alto, find Sword and tell her about this right now!”

“Siryessir!” yelled Altostratus, and she was gone before she’d finished the word.

“Sonuva sonuva sonuva…” mumbled Courser. He paced back and forth as Ash kept burning the bodies. “Don’t die, Sword… please…”

As Artemis watched the slowly-diminishing pile, a quiet feeling of dread came over her. The town had been too quiet. And now, she suddenly knew why it was too quiet. “Courser?” she asked. “Um… I’m sorry if this is obvious, but where are all the thralls? Somepony had to set all this up, right? And if only one pony left the town-”

“I’ve been thinking that myself,” said Courser. “They might’ve stayed off the trail, but a necromancer willing to do… this wouldn’t bother with that.” He tapped his hoof on the ground. “They’re still here, and they’re up to something. Which means-”

Altostratus zipped inside. “Sword needs help,” she said breathlessly. “Mountain. North. Thralls. Horde. Digging something up. Mine.”

“Son of a dog!” yelled Courser. “Alto, back her up. Ash, Artemis, you’re with me.”

“I’m going with Alto,” Artemis said half a second after Altostratus had gone. “Sword needs help now.” And she wanted to be able to do something. She’d been wandering through Grayvale and wanted to benefit the expedition in some way besides just being the guide.

“If you want,” said Courser. “Go!”

Soon, Artemis had caught up with Altostratus’s slipstream. It was easy to see where they were going: the cliff on the edge of town, covered with dozens of thralls. A few were working on something halfway up — removing rocks from a mine, it looked like? — but most of them were diving down a path at the four guards that made up Sword’s group, fighting at the base of the path. The guards were slicing through thralls with far more ease than the weapons should’ve given. Maybe it had something to do with their silver. But for every one they cut down, five more took its place. Even as she watched, an earth pony was pulled down and swamped.

Altostratus looked behind her, saw Artemis, and nodded. “Thanks for the help! You do a quick flyover, see the situation, take a potshot if you want, I’m going down to help the others! Good?”

“Good!”

Altostratus dropped like a stone, decapitating two thralls before she’d even landed.

Artemis swallowed and circled over the cliff, readying her arquebus. It was unreal, the way they moved. Too in sync, too samey from step to step. But she did her best to ignore that. There were… five or six thralls at the top, and-

One of them, a pegasus mare who was missing an eye, suddenly looked up and screeched. Before Artemis could react, the mare was shooting at her, a large paring knife at the ready. Artemis spun in midair, but the mare spun, too. As they passed each other, the mare stuck out her blade and sliced Artemis’s throat open through sheer momentum.

A wheezing Artemis managed to halt her spin and take aim. The mare, however, recovered quickly. She flared her wings, came to a stop, and drove at Artemis again. She was going straight. Good. Easy target. Artemis chomped on the trigger bit.

BANG.

In spite of the horrendous conditions, her aim was true. The bullet drove through the mare’s good eye and half of her head blew apart. Bits of blood-soaked bone and gray matter flew through the air, tracing some kind of appalling thread. It was the perfect shot, one in a million.

And yet the mare didn’t stop.

She tackled Artemis and then they were falling down the cliffside. The mare plunged her blade into Artemis’s side, over and over and over, gouging and digging. Artemis screamed weakly, blood gurgling up her throat.

She was dead before she hit the ground.

Wake.

Artemis’s eyes opened. Her legs gathered her hooves beneath her and stood her up.

Her mind was not her own. Her thoughts were encased in steel. Her limbs refused to move under her control. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t want to scream. Every single fiber of her being, from the largest actions to the simplest thoughts, was being puppeted by some outside force. Her memories were slowly being leached away so she would be gone. Artemis didn’t mind. It was better this way.

Her eyes saw that she was standing on top of the cliff in a ritual circle, one that’d brought her back. Numerous disfigured ponies — old thralls, weak — were lying around, discarded like the broken, useless tools they were. An earth mare was sitting on the outside, smirking up at her. Artemis immediately knew who it was: Circe, her new master. Circe was no ordinary pony. She had an indomitable strength of will that no others could hope to match. She was to be respected, obeyed, simple as that. Artemis didn’t know why that was and didn’t want to know. Circe was the center of the universe, and Artemis would be willing to kill anypony who said otherwise. Provided Circe said it was okay, at any rate.

“ ’Ello,” said Circe. It was layered with magic into a harsh, discordant sound, not like any voice Artemis’s ears had heard before. It grated on her thoughts. It twisted her very soul. Centipedes were crawling into her mind through that voice. It wore away at her free will like acid. It was the most beautiful thing Artemis’s ears had ever heard and her mind wanted to never disobey it.

“Gotta make this quick, ’fore your mem’ries’re gone. What’s your name?” Circe asked in that horrible, wonderful voice.

Artemis didn’t think about obeying. It was just something she did, something that was right with the universe. “Artemis, ma’am,” said her voice. Her breath wheezed and gurgled both from her mouth and out of the hole in her neck. It was a horrid thing, ugly and wrong. Not like Circe’s. Not like the master’s.

“We’ll ’ave t’do somethin’ ’bout that voice o’ yours, Arty,” Circe said, almost jovially. “Mebbe you can be a stupid mute in p’lite comp’ny.”

“A fine idea, ma’am,” said Artemis’s voice. Because it was. It had to be. All of Circe’s ideas were fine. More than fine; spectacular, even.

“ ’Course it is. You better be good; ’ad t’drain all the remainin’ thralls t’get ’nough energy for you.” Circe smudged the circle, allowing Artemis to walk free. But she wouldn’t walk free. She was Circe’s. She would definitely be good. “ ’Oo’re you? ’Oo were the guards?”

It took Artemis a few moments to remember it. Her old life, her fake life, already seemed so far away. Good. “I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am. I was leading an anti-necromancer squad to you and your apprentice-” Pain immediately lanced through Artemis’s mind. Discussing the apprentice was bad. Circe did not like hearing about the apprentice. For now, though, it couldn’t be helped. “-following reports of necromancy up here and the posting of a bounty. Your posters are in my bags.”

“Boun’y hun’er…” Circe smiled and nodded. “Yeah, that’ll work. Gotta get rid o’ mine, but we can keep ’ers. Is there any reason I can’t jus’ say I’m a boun’y hun’er an’ have ponies trust me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Artemis’s voice eventually. “Bounty hunters are licensed by Equestria and you need to carry a license with you. You don’t have one. A license looks like this.” Her hoof rummaged around in her saddlebags and pulled out her license parchment.

Circe frowned as she read it. That was not good. Circe was wonderful; she should never have to frown. “Dagnabbit,” she muttered. “Was hopin’…” Her eyes skimmed the parchment.

“You may notice,” Artemis’s voice said, unprompted, “that it simply identifies the bearer and the pony of that name as a bounty hunter. It does not otherwise describe appearance.” It seemed an especially important fact for Circe to know.

“It don’t?” Circe looked over the parchment again, then smirked. “Whaddya know. It don’t. Now, you ain’t Artemis anymore. I am. You… You’re Gale.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gale’s voice said. She’d liked her old name, once. But if the master wanted it, then it was no longer hers. Who was she to complain?

Artemis peered at Gale’s side and tutted. “Why can’t I ever get intact ponies? Still, you’re all I got right now. I’ll make do. You got a wing par’lyzed, Gale. Keep it down so nopony else sees.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Search the ’ouses for somethin’ for me t’wear, Gale. And bags for you. You’re gonna be carryin’ my stuff.”

Of course. It was abhorrent that Circe do labor. “What’ll we be doing, ma’am?”

“I lost my soul jar to my cur of an appren’ice.. We’re gettin’ it back.” Artemis grinned. “Jus’ two boun’y hun’ers, chasin’ a necromancer. Ain’t that swell?”

Gale’s head nodded. Her body turned and headed down the path for town. She had a most important mission to fulfill and she couldn’t let Artemis down. The apprentice would pay.

14 - Shifting Alliances

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Trace stumbled back from Gale’s gunshot, clutching at her chest. Catskill knew she should do something, but she was frozen in shock. Gale- Gale hadn’t just-

Trace coughed, hacked. Some of the spittle that sprayed onto the ground was tinged red. “You-” She gasped. “What in the-”

“Shoot ’er again,” snapped Artemis. Gale nodded and loaded another bullet.

BANG.

Trace collapsed, wheezing. Blood pooled on the ground. Weakly, desperately, she started dragging herself to the door.

Something awoke inside Catskill, and before she knew it, she was out the door, galloping into Mystic, Trace slung over her back. She heard another BANG, but if it hit her, she didn’t feel it. She didn’t know where she was running to. That didn’t matter. What was important was where she was running from.

She heard Artemis yell something. A command? Catskill glanced over her shoulder. Gale followed her out of the doorway, arquebus at her side, and took to the skies, circling.

Stalked by pegasi twice in one day. What were the odds?

Catskill ran deeper and deeper into Mystic. She knew she couldn’t evade Gale, but that wasn’t the point. She just needed to get as far from Artemis as possible. Earth pony or not, she didn’t have Catskill’s infinite well of stamina. Catskill knew she could outrun Artemis, but first they had to do something about Gale.

Somehow.

Up alleys, down roads, across streets, the pair was halfway across Mystic before Catskill knew it. She scrambled down a side street towards an old pharmacy. That ought to be enough distance from Artemis for now. Not caring about Gale, Catskill came to a halt. She gingerly removed Trace from her back and laid her in a sitting position against a wall. She cringed; Trace’s furs were stained red and close to being soaked through. “How’re you doing?” asked Catskill. She swallowed.

“Positively… horrible,” gasped Trace. She coughed, hacked. “Leave me… Leave me be, I’ll only-”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Catskill said, forcing optimism into her voice. “I died yesterday, remember, and I’m still doing-”

“Don’t… delude… yourself…” moaned Trace. “I-”

“You’re not gone until you’re gone,” said Catskill. “I think I can-”

BANG. A bullet hit a house several yards away. Catskill twitched and looked up. Gale, still circling, had aimed the arquebus down and attempted to shoot them, but without a steady surface to brace the gun against, her aim was abysmal. She was already fumbling another bullet.

“Be back in a second,” Catskill said quickly. “Don’t go anywhere.” There was a pile of rather large stones nearby from a collapsed building, and Gale was awfully low. Maybe… Catskill ran down an alley, turned, and was confronted with exactly the pile she was looking for. Excellent.

Catskill dug through the debris as fast as she dared. It needed to be a good one. Not so big that it was hard to lift, yet big enough to do some serious damage if- This one. This was the one. Catskill pulled it from the mess and gave it one last look-over. Yes, quite good, nice and heavy.

Gale was still circling, still trying to load the bullet into the arquebus. Some part of Catskill wondered just how hard reloading was while flying, but the rest of her gripped the rock as tightly as she could with hooves. She closed one eye. She drew the rock back. And she threw the rock with all of her not-inconsiderable might.

Her aim was true. The rock hit Gale in the wing. Gale’s flight turned into an immediate downward spiral and she passed below rooftop level in seconds. Thud.

Catskill froze, then giggled. They had a chance, now. Run for the river, find Amanita and Bitterroot, and… make something up from there. Giddy, she raced back up the alleyway. Trace was leaning right where she’d left her. “I got her,” Catskill said, grinning. “We can run, move downriver. I hope Bitterroot found Amanita alright.”

Trace didn’t respond.

“H-hey… Trace?”

Trace didn’t respond. Didn’t even move.

“L-look…” Catskill stammered, knowing it was already far too late. “T-trace, we… can…” She collapsed against a wall and started blinking back tears. It wasn’t fair. It was not fair. Nothing in the past few days had gone right. She’d died trying to save somepony from a bear. She’d failed in putting some distance between Amanita and the ponies who were hunting her. She hadn’t been able to protect Amanita from their attacks. She hadn’t seen Artemis’s blatant antagonism for what it was. And she hadn’t even been able to ensure Trace didn’t die alone.

“I… T-Trace, I…” Catskill broke and wept, burying her face in her hooves. “I am so, s-so s-sorry…”

“Oh, ’ow touching,” a certain somepony spat contemptuously.

Catskill whirled around. Artemis was leaning against a wall, a coil of rope around her neck, glaring at Catskill and Trace like they were some kind of disgusting scum. Catskill flattened her ears, and if her heart had been beating, she was sure it would’ve beat its way right out of her chest. Words failed her. She simply charged Artemis with no plan except to rip her to shreds.

Artemis merely sidestepped Catskill and threw out a leg, catching her in the throat. It didn’t hurt, but it threw her out of her groove long enough for Artemis to pin her on the ground. She was already looping the rope around Catskill’s legs to bind them behind her back.

Catskill turned her head as much as she could and snapped at Artemis, but she was out of reach. Once she had Catskill reasonably bound, Artemis stepped away and began rummaging through her bags. But “reasonably bound” wasn’t much more than “almost free” for earth ponies. Catskill strained, and in spite of her terrible position, the knots slipped free. The ropes came loose-

Something sharp jabbed Catskill in the side of the neck and all her strength left her. She tried to move her legs, but she could barely move her head. She could barely move her eyes.

Artemis wrenched Catskill’s head to one side. “Y’know, it’s weird,” she said. “Stuff like this?” She wiggled a knife in Catskill’s face, runes inscribed down the fuller. “Ain’t no good ’gainst the livin’, ’cept how it’s already a knife. ’Gainst the dead, like you? Prime paralytic. It’s complicated, y’wouldn’t unnerstand it.” She grinned. “Magic’s a funny thin’, ain’t it?”

She set the knife aside. “Shame you’re dead already. Ain’t as fun. But I can manage.” She began withdrawing things from her bags — bones, jars, feathers, gems, chalk. And Catskill couldn’t move a muscle.

“A-Artemis?” asked Bitterroot, dumbstruck. “She’s your master?”

“She must be!” squealed Amanita. “She’s exactly the kind of pony Circe was and looks the same!” She attempted to wriggle out from beneath Bitterroot. “We need to move! If she catches us-”

“We barely have any supplies!” yelled Bitterroot. “I left mine in town and most of yours were probably ruined by the river! This was just supposed to be a short trip, not-”

“We can reach the Crystal Empire without starving to death!”

“Not without freezing to death! There’s wide plains between here and the Empire, and if we try to sleep out in the open there, we’ll be frozen solid by morning.”

“Sun blast it…” gasped Amanita. She took great, heaving breaths. “Okay, can, can you get off me? I don’t think well with people on me. Promise I won’t run.”

Bitterroot eyed Amanita, then stepped away. Amanita sat up and shook snow off her back. More deep breaths. “Okay, you- You’re positive we can’t make it to the Crystal Empire without supplies?”

“I’d bet my life on it,” said Bitterroot. But was that really much of a bet when a necromancer could just pull you back?

“So we need to go back to town,” mumbled Amanita, voicing her thoughts. “Which has a vengeful lich. And somepony else who probably hates my guts. And- Did… Artemis- Circe have any companions who behaved strangely?”

“A pegasus,” Bitterroot said. “Gale. She carried Circe’s bags even though Circe was an earth pony, didn’t speak, and…” Bitterroot’s spine turned cold as the pieces began coming together, not the least of which was- “Oh, Celestia, she didn’t sleep. She’s a thrall, isn’t she?”

“Probably.” Amanita nodded. “Any other ponies?”

Bitterroot fought to keep her shock from her mind. “Just Trace. She’s a unicorn and definitely not with Circe, but the two of them don’t get along, so if Circe’s pushed too far-”

“They’ll all be dead by the time we get back,” Amanita said tonelessly. “I know they will. We can’t go back to Mystic without walking into a trap.”

“If we don’t get our supplies-”

“It’s too risky!”

“Everything’s risky!” yelled Bitterroot, flaring her wings. “What choice do we have?”

“Look,” groaned Amanita, “unless you can think of a way that’ll magically make it so that you can’t die, no matter what you do-”

Amanita kept talking, but Bitterroot didn’t hear her, for that was when everything crystallized in her mind. She had an idea. A crazy one, but it had been a crazy few days; anything else wouldn’t have worked. It was only fitting. “Kill me.”

Amanita’s train of thought derailed so thoroughly Bitterroot was sure she could hear the crash. Amanita blinked. Twice. “…What?!” she bellowed so loudly that nearby birds took to the air.

“Kill me and resurrect me. You can do that, right? Like you did with Catskill. I can’t die if I’m already dead.”

“But- But if something happens and I can’t bring you back after we’re done-”

“I’d rather die stopping a lich than let that lich live!”

Amanita opened her mouth, paused, and said, “I’ll need this off.” She pointed at the suppressor ring.

Bitterroot had the ring off in a second. “Now what?” she asked.

“Are you sure about this?” said Amanita, rubbing her horn.

No, said Bitterroot’s mind. “Yes,” said Bitterroot. “It’s the least bad option.”

Amanita laughed mirthlessly. “Super.” She dumped a pile of stuff from her saddlebags. “Look for a jar of clear stuff labelled ‘Raven’ and a bundle of branches marked ‘Yew’. And that’s Y-E-W, not Y-O-U.”

As Bitterroot dug through her pile, Amanita looked through her own bags. Bitterroot found the wood without much trouble, but she couldn’t find any such jar. The collection of items Amanita had was… interesting, to say the least. Bitterroot was willing to bet half of it was illegal ritual paraphernalia in Equestria, although-

“Sun blast it!” yelled Amanita. She was holding up a shard of glass with RAV printed on part of it and looked like she wanted to bite somepony’s head off. “Without this,” she muttered, “we’re screwed. I ca-”

“Do you need ravens?” said Bitterroot. “Maybe I can get some.”

“What, live ones?” Amanita tapped her chin. “I… guess that could work, but I- I’d need at least two of them-”

Bitterroot was already away, skimming trees. She didn’t really know where ravens would be, she admitted, but how hard could it be? Maybe she could find a raven or two in just five minutes.

Half an hour later, she got lucky. A wolf had died not long ago and a conspiracy of ravens was feasting on the corpse. Bitterroot managed to snag three of them at once; the rest flew away, shrieking. Holding her protesting captives tightly to her chest, Bitterroot winged her way back to the river.

Amanita was pacing back and forth; she’d been doing it long enough to melt the snow and expose grass where she was walking. She looked up when she heard Bitterroot and the ravens and nearly melted herself. “Thank Celestia,” she sighed. “I was ready to start sending out flares.”

“Sorry,” said Bitterroot. A raven’s wing hit her in the face and she tightened her grip on them. “Took a little longer than I expected. These good?”

“They’re great,” Amanita said, smiling in relief. “You know, this might be better than the jar. It’s fresher.” She took the ravens into her magic and immediately twisted their heads until their necks snapped.

Bitterroot yelped. “What- Amanita, what are you-?”

But Amanita wasn’t listening. She took a knife and gouged out the ravens’ eyes, one by one. “I’m doing necromancy,” she snapped. She crushed one of the eyes, letting the jelly drip into the jar. “They don’t need to be dead, but I do need their eyes.” She crushed another eye in the same way. “And out here, they won’t last long without eyes.” Drip drip drip. “At least now, they died quickly.”

“Is all that…” Bitterroot gagged; eye jelly smelled revolting, like nothing she’d ever smelled before. “Is it really nec-”

“Yes it’s necessary!” screamed Amanita. “This is old magic, Bitterroot! Stuff like horns, wings, a connection with the land, they’re all shortcuts to what’s really beneath reality. This?” She waved one of the dead ravens in Bitterroot’s face. “This is what you need to invoke those powers when you can’t use those shortcuts. We’ve forgotten it now, but magic used to come at a price.” She crushed another eye and met Bitterroot’s gaze. “Are you willing to pay that price?”

The ravens were already dead. It’d come quickly. They were stopping a lich. Bitterroot swallowed. “Y-yes.”

“Be thankful I’m a unicorn,” muttered Amanita, plucking a single feather from a raven, “or this would be even worse.”

After that, Amanita worked feverishly, her horn glowing all the while. She sketched out a circle in the snow with one of the yew sticks and burned herbs. She carved runes into four more sticks, dipped them into the raven eye jelly, and put one at each cardinal direction of the circle. She sketched something out on a strip of parchment and wrapped it around Bitterroot’s leg. Finally, she spat into the circle and said to Bitterroot, “Get in and lie on your back.”

Bitterroot was brimming with questions, but they needed as much time as they could get. She did as she was told, stretching out her legs and wings and breathing deeply. Amanita muttered something — it almost sounded like a chant to Bitterroot — and stood over her, holding a knife. She kept looking at it like it was ready to explode as she pressed the blade against an artery. “You know I’m sorry about this, right?”

“Yeah. But I trust you,” said Bitterroot, looking Amanita in the eye. What was strange was that she did. She felt something primal trying to claw its way out of space in the ground beneath her, was lying in the middle of a clear ritual circle, at the mercy of a pony with a knife at her throat, and she still trusted Amanita. She couldn’t afford to not trust Amanita.

Amanita didn’t look away. She smiled sheepishly. She sliced Bitterroot’s throat open. And within seconds, Bitterroot was dead.

Catskill attempted to twitch her hoof. Just an inch. It didn’t work.

Artemis was humming to herself as she arranged her items on the ground. She’d dragged Trace’s body away from the wall and was scratching runes into her skin with the point of a dagger. “Goes easier like this,” she said, winking at Catskill. “Don’t last as long as a proper raisin’, but that ain’t ’portant right now.”

Heavy hoofsteps came down the alley. For half a second, Catskill thought maybe there was somepony else out here, but it was just Gale. The skin on one side of her face had been ripped away and it looked like part of her ribcage had been crushed. Now that she wasn’t keeping her wing down, Catskill could see a dozen ragged stab wounds through her shredded furs. She was also missing her scarf, revealing a yawning gash in her throat. But aside from a limp on a dislocated leg, she moved like a normal pony.

Gale bowed deeply to Artemis. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” Her voice rasped hideously from the hole in her throat. “I did my best-”

Artemis shooed her away. “Don’t worry, I got ’em. Y’can still fly, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re gonna do some scoutin’ in a few minutes. Bitterroot was nice ’nough t’tell us where she was goin’.”

Gale bowed again, backed away, and stood as still as a statue.

Artemis shoved a herb into Trace’s mouth, and suddenly the magic in the earth beneath Catskill began crawling. She would’ve run if she could. It was a warm feeling, yet sickly, lifeless, and vomitous, like she was reaching down her throat and pulling out the food she’d eaten for dinner. The warmth of decay, of rot. It seemed to be coalescing around Artemis and Trace. Artemis muttered a few words, plucked and burned a hair from Trace’s mane, and stepped back.

Trace’s body shuddered. Her eyes rolled backwards into her head and she beat at the ground. The ill feeling beneath Catskill vanished, and Trace stood up.

But somehow, it wasn’t Trace. Forget the cold, blue fire burning in her eyes. She- It moved wrong. It was calculated and precise, not the easy, loose movements Catskill associated with Trace. “Trace” bowed to Artemis. “What do you want of me, ma’am?” she asked. Her voice didn’t sound right, either.

“I don’t like you,” Artemis said gruffly. “Go find some broken glass an’ bring it ’ere. Can’t be that ’ard t’find glass in a place like this, can it?”

Trace bowed again and walked into Mystic.

“Now,” said Artemis quietly, tilting her head so she was looking Catskill in the eyes. “You.” She smiled. “You’re gonna be easy, if’n Amanita did what I think she did. Lesse…” She laid a hoof on Catskill’s shoulder. Catskill mentally writhed as something slithered down her free will. “Yep, yep. Here we go...” Artemis lightly stabbed Catskill in the shoulder and soaked up some of the blood with a scrap of cloth.

After about a minute of Artemis doing her work, Trace returned, a clinking bag in her teeth. She dropped the bag in front of Artemis and opened it up. Light glinted off of dozens of sharp-edged pieces of glass. “As requested, ma’am,” said Trace, dipping her head in reverence.

Artemis didn’t even look at her. “Good. Eat it.”

Trace obediently scooped up a hoofful of shards, stuffed them into her mouth, and chewed. Blood dripped, trickled, poured from her mouth. Catskill prayed the pain-induced twitches she saw were her imagination.

“Now,” murmured Artemis, “we should jus’…” She struck flint, lighting a tiny fire, and tossed the blood-soaked cloth into it.

It felt like Catskill’s mind had been dunked in acid; that was the only way she could describe it. Her thoughts and desires suddenly hurt on a level she’d never felt before. Thinking of running became as reprehensible as burying somepony alive or butchering a foal. Any urge to simply do her job as a ranger became this grotesque, unthinkable thing. Her memories vanished like balloons with cut strings.

Catskill clung to her sense of self. It was all she had. It was all that remained as the fire burned everything else away like trash in an incinerator. She was Catskill, Ranger of Equestria. She was Catskill. She was Catskill. She was Catskill. She was Catskill…

“Alrighty,” said Artemis cheerfully. “Aaaand…” She nonchalantly sliced through the runes cut into Catskill’s neck. Strength flooded her body again, but her legs wouldn’t obey her. Catskill “pulled” as hard as she could, begging, pleading for her legs to move, but it was like her free will was encased in iron. Nothing worked. Even thinking of not getting up took a mental effort.

“Get up,” said Artemis.

In an almost dreamlike fashion, Catskill’s legs pulled themselves together and stood her up. Catskill tried to stay down, but she had less of a chance of disobeying than she did stopping an avalanche. She couldn’t scream in frustration or fear; her lungs didn’t work. She couldn’t even look away from Artemis; her eyes refused to budge. Her body had been hijacked and she was locked in.

“Huh,” said Artemis, squinted at Catskill’s eyes. “Y’ain’t fully down, I don’t think. …Walk two feet for’ard.”

In spite of her best efforts, Catskill’s legs walked two feet forward.

“Huh. Say ‘test’.”

Catskill tried gnawing her tongue off, but her voice said, “Test.”

“Hmm. Y’seem t’be workin’ fine. Ah, well.” Artemis shrugged and pointed at Trace. “You. Stop eatin’.”

Trace spat out the glass in her mouth and stood silently. Her lips weren’t much more than mangled hunks of bloody flesh.

Artemis paced in front of her thralls, grinning. “They’ll never know what ’it ’em,” she snickered. “We’ll get Bitterroot and Amanita both, an’...” She glanced between Trace and Gale. Her grin grew wider. “Y’know, I could use a gang o’ mercenaries. Keep guards away. Try t’keep Bitterroot intact, will ya?”

As one, Catskill’s voice, Trace, and Gale said, “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!”

“But Amanita…” Artemis’s face darkened and Catskill could almost feel the dark magic gathering beneath her hooves. “Oooh, Amanita. I’m gonna kill ’er,” Artemis snarled. “Then I’m gonna bring ’er back. Then I’m gonna kill ’er again. And again. And again. And again!” She stomped on the ground and roared, “Every day! For cent’ries! That trait’rous coward’s gonna suffer for so long she won’t know ’OW t’beg for death!”

In a blink, Artemis snapped to smiles again. “But we need t’catch ’er first. Gale, get up in th’ air. Follow th’ river. Amanita an’ Bitterroot went down it, so that’s where we’ll find ’em. Once y’see ’em, git back ’ere an’ tell us. We’ll be walkin’ downriver an’ meet up wi’ you.”

Gale saluted and took to the skies. Catskill tried to run, but her legs didn’t even quiver.

“An’ us three?” Artemis rubbed her hooves together. “We’re gettin’ all th’ weapons we can carry so we can end them. You.” She pointed at Catskill. “You got a blunderbuss, don’tcha?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Catskill’s voice. “With plenty of shells.” She had trouble even remembering what she was fighting against. But it was probably important to fight. She fought.

“Heh. I am a happy mare t’day. Come.” Artemis clicked her tongue and walked down an alley. Catskill’s body and Trace walked after her. All the while, Catskill struggled to get free of herself, even as her mind was slowly worn down.

Bitterroot woke up.

Her leg didn’t hurt anymore. That probably meant something.

Staring at the gray sky, she asked, “Did it work?” She was prepared for her voice to sound two-toned, but it sounded normal. She rubbed her throat. There was a big, thick scar around her neck. No gap. “Huh. You did a good job on this.”

There was a rasping cough.

“Amanita?” Bitterroot sat up and looked around. Amanita was hunched over next to the circle, holding her throat and gasping. Bitterroot raced over, ignoring the sudden blast of cold, and laid her hooves on her. “Amanita!”

But Amanita waved her off. “I’m fine,” she rasped. “Magic- just- took a lot- outta me. Back to normal- few minutes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Done this- before. Yes- sure.” Amanita sucked in a breath. It sounded like she was getting strangled.

Bitterroot eyed Amanita suspiciously, but at least Amanita wasn’t getting worse. “Okay, I’m… I’m gonna…” She searched for the right words. What was she supposed to say for this? “…try out… being dead.”

Amanita nodded and pulled herself over to a tree.

After giving Amanita one last look, Bitterroot walked away, not in any direction in particular. She paid attention to her body like she’d never done before. And she almost, almost felt normal. Her legs behaved the way they ought. The air was cold and tugged at her mane. Her eyes weren’t seeing any strange colors or grayscales. The only thing wrong was that the cold didn’t seem as biting as normal, like the difference between a wet heat and a dry heat. No wonder Catskill hadn’t known she was dead. Bitterroot knew she was dead and was having a hard time believing it.

Bitterroot started galloping. Then she sped up. And more. She could keep running, she knew. She could keep running forever. And if she could do that… She turned for the river, spread her wings, and climbed. And climbed and climbed. She tore through the clouds, hovering above the forest below and to the north, above the scrubland to the south, above the mountains all around. She grinned to herself. The climb was the hardest part of flying, but here she was, doing it without the least bit of strain. She never thought she’d say anything like this, but being dead wasn’t half bad.

Of course, Amanita had taken steps to ensure it wasn’t half bad. She had literally lain down and let somepony kill her. She was pushing her luck.

Bitterroot pulled a loop and rocketed back to Amanita’s location. She flared her wings at the last second and hit the ground hard. This usually sent tingling shocks of mild pain up her legs, but she felt nothing at all. Amanita was right where she’d been left, still wheezing, but breathing a little more smoothly. “Still all right?” asked Bitterroot.

“I’m fine,” grumbled Amanita. And she dissolved into a coughing fit. “I just hauled you from the afterlife on fifty percent pure will,” she gasped. “If I wasn’t a bit strained, something’d be wrong.”

“I feel fine, by the way,” said Bitterroot. She rolled all of her limbs, one by one. No issues. “We could kill everypony and make them immortal through death,” she joked.

Amanita coughed again. “You need a frequent input of magic to keep your soul in your body,” she said. “And-”

A shadow passed over them and they both looked up. A pegasus was circling them above. Bitterroot squinted, trying to make out- Her jaw dropped. That was Gale. But if she was a thrall, she couldn’t be paralyzed, right? But if she was openly flying, then… Oh, Celestia. What had Circe done to Trace and Catskill?

Bitterroot took to the skies immediately, climbing until she was level with Gale. But Gale saw her and was immediately off like a shot, heading upriver. “Hey!” Bitterroot yelled, giving chase. “You get-” But she stopped. She couldn’t leave Amanita alone. Groaning, she turned around and flew back.

“Bad news,” she said to Amanita. “You know that pegasus friend of Circe’s that didn’t sleep? Circe claimed she had a paralyzed wing, but now she’s flying freely.”

“Mother of…” Amanita rubbed her forehead, right at the base of her horn. “I… I hate to tell you this, but… Circe’s probably killed and enthralled everypony else in the village.”

“I figured,” Bitterroot said quietly. Why’d she leave them? Why’d she leave them? To talk to some necromancer? She should’ve taken everyone with her. She should’ve taken everyone but Circe and Gale. She should’ve known something was up with Circe, with her insistence that everypony sucked but her. She should’ve just picked her up and dropped her back in the mill. She should’ve she should’ve she should’ve…

But that was hindsight. Bitterroot knew that relying on hindsight could drive her mad. Plus, she wouldn’t see what was in front of her if she kept looking back. And what was in front of her was an angry lich with three thralls under her command.

So. What to do about it?

“You wouldn’t happen to know any anti-necromancy spells, would you?” Bitterroot asked. She figured she knew the answer; she was just checking off all the boxes. “I know about fire and silver.”

“You think Circe would teach me spells like those?” Amanita responded. “I could probably come up with one given a, I don’t know, a day, but now?” She snorted. “Not a chance. And, no, I don’t have enough ingredients for anything you can use. There’s also salt, but you need a lot of it and I don’t have any.”

“No salt here, so we’re stuck with fire and silver,” said Bitterroot, her mind already racing. “While we’re outnumbered and outgunned. If you have silver.”

“Nope.”

“Me neither.” Several somethings were nagging at Bitterroot’s mind. First, something about fire. She’d seen it recently. At the undead bear’s death. Second, something about the land, something she’d seen from the sky. What were they, what were they…

Amanita rubbed her temples. “Come on, Amanita,” she muttered, “you should know how to get out of this…”

Then an idea came to Bitterroot. An idea almost as crazy as “kill me so I won’t die”. A nice addition to it, then. She just needed to confirm one thing. “Amanita, shields block out fire, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Amanita said, frowning. “Why?”

Ding. Perfect. “I have a plan,” Bitterroot said, flaring her wings, “but we need to start moving now.”

“We can’t outrun them,” Amanita said in a voice that implied she’d thought it over before. “Even if you carry me and fly nonstop, you’ll be weighed down and never make it to the Crystal Empire before-”

“We don’t need to beat them to the Crystal Empire,” said Bitterroot, grinning. “We just need to beat them to some scrublands south of here. Preferably while leaving a clear trail.”

Amanita tilted her head and frowned for a long time. “…Do I want to know whatever plan you have?”

“Probably not.”

“Tell me anyway.”

15 - Fire With Fire and Fire

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Was it Artemis? Or Circe?

As Catskill’s legs trotted her after Trace, she focused on this singular item. It was the only thing she could. She couldn’t remember the name of her mas- her captor. Her slaver. She couldn’t remember the name of the pony who controlled her. Her memories kept telling her “Artemis”, but whenever she tried thinking about it, her mind spat out “Circe” from… somewhere. She wasn’t sure where, but it seemed ri- No. It wasn’t right. Her ma- Her slaver’s name was Artemis.

Her mental strength was failing. Events slipped away from her. One second, she was leaving Mystic, another, she was miles away, stumbling down a pile of rocks after Circe. She remembered the actual journey in between, but it was like it belonged in somepony else’s memories. She hadn’t done that. Holes like that peppered her experience the whole way, always growing larger and larger and larger.

Her ears heard events, but somepony else processed them. Gale reporting to Artemis that she’d spotted Amanita and Bitterroot and where. Trace telling Circe that she’d found their tracks. Artemis laughing and ordering Trace to lead on. It blurred together in a sleep-deprivation-like haze.

Catskill had given up trying to resist herself. It was too difficult, too pointless. She wanted to just roll over and die, but her own body wouldn’t let her. She let herself get dragged on, forcibly awake no matter how tired she felt. She couldn’t even think that much about resting; whenever her mind wandered, another hook was jammed into her thoughts and pulled them back.

“ ’Ey,” said Circe, and Catskill’s attention was forced on her. “Catskill, was it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Catskill’s voice said. Part of her was desperate for any sort of attention, and it revolted her.

“Y’know th’ land ’round ’ere?” Artemis asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Catskill’s voice. “There’s…” It took a while for her to recall her memories; they felt so far away. “There’s not much to talk about, except for some scrubland not too far to the south. They might be headed that way.”

“Huh.” Circe looked downriver and licked her lips. “Is it easy t’ide in there?”

“That depends,” said Catskill’s voice. “The bushes are large, taller than most ponies, and hard to see through. But they are easy to push aside. Vision is hard, navigation is trivial.”

Artemis nodded a few times. “Uh-huh. They far? Assumin’ that’s where our ponies’re goin’.”

“No, ma’am,” said Catskill’s voice. “Maybe half an hour.”

“Uh-huh,” Circe said again. “Trace! What’s up wi’ the trail?”

“Still clear, ma’am,” said Trace from up ahead. Her voice was a wet, sloppy mess after eating glass, teetering on the edge of incomprehensibility, yet Catskill’s ears heard her words just fine. “They must know that we’re following them, as their tracks are wild and indicate they’re running. They’re certainly visible, in any case.”

Artemis laughed. “Well, I ain’t complainin’. Lead on!”

They trotted. The forest began thinning, and suddenly the scrubland was spread out beneath them. Large, woody bushes with scraggly branches jockeyed for space in the foothills of the Crystal Mountains. Seen from above, they nearly blotted out the ground below them. Trees were few and far between. There were enough branches to make seeing through the brush near impossible, yet not so many that actual traversal was difficult. A decent place to hide, if not for the snow on the snow on the ground clearly marking where they’d gone.

They were about to enter the maze when Trace spoke up. “Ma’am? One of the sets of tracks disappeared.”

For a second, Circe was terrified, and Catskill’s mind with her. But then she smiled. “Bitterroot musta ’ad enough o’ Amanita an’ took off. Can’t blame ’er, really. Jus’ surprised it took ’er this long.”

Trace lead them blindly through the scrub, pushing through the bushes. Catskill’s mind didn’t know which way they were going. She hadn’t been inside the scrub for this exact reason: it was too easy to get lost. The branches tugged at the blunderbuss at her side, forcing her body to keep yanking it away. Every single collection of bushes looked exactly the same as every other collection. Catskill’s mind wondered if they were even following Amanita and Bitterroot anymore, or if they’d accidentally doubled back on themselves somehow.

They walked. The bushes clawed at them. Catskill’s mind knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t say what. It was all too easy. Right? Clear tracks going straight to the obvious hiding spot that it was easy to get lost in. It was too nice. This was a trap. Right?

No, they were just too terrified of Artemis, her mind said, and fled in here in a panic. That was the logical thing. Nopony could ever hope to outsmart Circe.

Finally, they reached a space that was relatively clear. Sitting in the center, inside a shield not much bigger than herself, was Amanita. She was shaking, badly, and not from the cold. Artems waved a hoof; Catskill’s body, Trace, and Gale spread out to three “corners” of the shield, Circe taking up the last one.

“ ’Ello, Amanita,” said Circe, smiling. Meaning she was showing an awful lot of teeth.

“Hello, Circe,” whispered Amanita.

“Y’got somethin’ o’ mine.” Circe’s smile vanished like smoke. “Give it t’me an’ mebbe I’ll let you die after a cent’ry.”

“No,” said Amanita.

Anger washed through Catskill’s mind. That wasn’t right. Circe deserved every ounce of respect in the world. She was- She was a monster and a slaver, not somepony who- not somepony who others should look at with anything less than- with anything less than disgust, hatred, abhorrence, not this forced awe or respect- awe or respect. It was only fitting. Catskill’s hooves twitched as her body wanted to take a step forward. But Circe waved her down and her anger abated. For now.

Circe chuckled. “Why did I know you’d say that?” she asked. She walked forward and rapped on the shield. “Oi. Y’little eedjit. Y’ear me? ’Ow’re y’gettin’ ’way from ’ere? We got y’s’rrounded. Gimme back my soul jar.”

Amanita was still shaking, but she raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear me? No.” Against all odds, her voice sounded calmer.

Catskill’s mind felt anger again, but that was nothing compared to the fury that Circe’s face twisted into. “You’re makin’ a big mistake,” she hissed, planting both front hooves on the shield. “We’re gettin’ through t’you. An’ I’m gonna make sure you suffer. I want. My soul!”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have removed it,” replied Amanita. “You’re breaking the law and whining about being arrested. You’re jumping into the fire and complaining about being burned. You’re going swimming and complaining about being wet. You’re-”

“You stole it!” screamed Circe. She brought both hooves down on the shield. It shimmered slightly and Amanita spasmed, but it didn’t come close to collapsing it. “I taught you ev’rythin’ I knew, y’ungrateful pissant!” Another blow. The shield shook and didn’t fall. “An’ this is ’ow y’repay me?” Again. The shield rang and didn’t vanish. “I shoulda let y’wallow in your own mis’ry!”

“You’re an idiot, then, because you should’ve!” yelled Amanita, standing up. She pointed at Circe with a steady hoof. “If you’d left me alone, then I would’ve learned to move on, and I wouldn’t have any deaths on my hooves! I wouldn’t- Catskill-” She turned to Catskill. “Catskill, if you’re still in there-”

“Death don’t matter,” said Circe, shrugging. “It’s a tool. Nothin’ more. If other ponies wanted t’use it, they could.”

“-Catskill, I’m sorry,” said Amanita. Her eyes were shining. “I should’ve told you, I- I was scared you’d-”

“You’re feelin’ sorry for a thrall?” gaped Circe. She tilted her head to look at Catskill. “She can’t answer you. She ain’t even a good one! Quit wastin’ your breath.”

“-scared you’d hate me,” continued Amanita, her voice slipping a little, “-and I- I told you I was fine traveling on my own- and-” A sob wracked her and her entire body shook. “Catskill, I’m s-sorry…”

“Ooo, lookie ’ere,” sneered Circe. “See, this’s why y’shouldn’t care ’bout ponies. It’s too easy t’get t’you.” She glanced at Catskill, nudged her, and smiled. “Well? Why don’tcha tell Amanita whatcha think?”

Catskill’s mind and voice wanted to spew bile at Amanita, but she refused to let them. The first thing she’d managed to do herself in hours. She’d run out of bile back in Mystic. She almost felt Amanita’s grief herself. It was strange, how attached she’d grown to Amanita in the past day. Maybe it was finally having some company after so long in the unforgiving North. Maybe it was the knowledge that Amanita had saved her life, if in a roundabout way. Whatever the cause was, Catskill managed to refuse to let any of the hate welling up within her out. Her real self had so many things she wanted to say.

But she couldn’t.

“Oh, Celestia… I’m so sorry…” whispered Amanita.

“Alright, ’appy fun ’motion time’s over!” Circe said suddenly. “Catskill, get ready t’shoot ’er.”

Catskill’s hoof pulled her blunderbuss forward into position and she wrapped her teeth around her trigger bit. Could a blunderbuss shot break through a shield, her mind wondered. Probably. Amanita hadn’t been the greatest at shields, as the bear had demonstrated. Maybe now, Circe could be vindicated.

“Las’ chance,” whispered Circe. “Give. Me. My. Soul. Jar. It’s your only option. Don’t, an’ you’ll beg for death. I’ll give it t’you. An’ then I’ll take it away.”

A bead of sweat ran down Amanita’s face as she eyed the blunderbuss, but she held her head high. “To be fair,” she said, almost guiltily, “it’s not my only option.”

Circe snorted. “Really. What is there? Y’can’t run. Y’can’t ’ide.”

“Well, no, I can’t,” admitted Amanita. “But there is this.” Her horn sparked. A shoot at her hooves started burning.

And the scrubland around them ignited a ring of fire.

“You want to what?!” Amanita gasped as she and Bitterroot galloped.

“Lure them into the scrub and burn them,” repeated Bitterroot. Talking while running was surprisingly easy, now that her muscles didn’t need oxygen. “It’ll take them all out at once, hurt Circe so bad it’ll be like she was dead, we’ll be safe and sound in the shield-”

“You’ll be starting a forest fire!” screamed Amanita. “Do- you just- not get what you’re doing?!”

“One of the only things I can do!” yelled Bitterroot. “You said it yourself: they’ll run us down and corner us sooner or later. At least now, we can decide where we’ll be cornered and use that to our advantage! And if worst comes to worst, I’ll kick a few clouds and douse the fire with rain.”

“You’re crazy,” panted Amanita. “You. Are. Crazy.”

“I was tricked by a lich into chasing down her apprentice to get her phylactery back. It’s been a couple of crazy days.”

Amanita snorted.

“So, got any plans for starting a big fire quickly?”

“Sure,” Amanita grunted. “Take a bunch of plants, bind them together with a spell, scatter them around the area. Ignite one and you’ll ignite them all. Instant environmental destruction.”

“If you’ve got any better ideas, I would love to hear them.”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought.”

Adrenaline meant not even Amanita faltered in her galloping, and the miles seemed to flash by as they ironed out their plan (such as it was). They were at the scrublands in no time. The massive carpet of bushes looked the same way it’d looked from above: dense and the perfect place to hide something. Bitterroot took to the air as they approached, saying, “I’ll find a good spot for us to lure them to.” A quick skim over the terrain found one of the few clearings, so Bitterroot led Amanita through the scrub.

“It’ll do,” Amanita muttered when she saw the clearing. “Get a bunch of bush clippings, preferably from the same plant, and bring them to me.”

Borrowing Amanita’s knife, Bitterroot flew a ways off, cut a bunch of branches from one of the bushes, and flew them back to Amanita. As Amanita worked her magic, Bitterroot took her saddlebags and flew them to a rock formation so they wouldn’t get caught up in any fire. As she was flying, she glanced upriver. Nothing.

She landed next to Amanita. “I didn’t see Circe yet,” she said, “so I don’t know how much longer they’ll be.”

“So we’re just gonna have to wait,” mumbled Amanita. Sparks jumped from branch to branch as they hovered around her. “Great.” A circle pulsed through each of the branches and they flashed in unison. Amanita moved them into a single bundle. “Spread these out,” she said, handing it to Bitterroot. “Just laying them on the ground or standing them up is fine. Try not to get them too close together or the magic won’t be as powerful.”

Bitterroot scattered the branches around the scrubland in a semi-haphazard circle. And really, that was all there was to it. Once the fire started, she and Amanita would huddle together under a shield until the fire burned out enough for Bitterroot to carry Amanita away. She flew back to Amanita, who was still sulking about the plan. After one last check (nopony coming yet), she plopped herself down next to Amanita and they waited.

And waited.

They didn’t know where Circe and her entourage were, and they couldn’t risk Bitterroot scouting them out and being seen, so all they had to do was wait. Amanita remained angry about the plan (“too dangerous” was her most common phrase) and Bitterroot ran out of reassuring platitudes about it. Her own confidence in the plan never wavered, though; desperate times, desperate measures and all.

When Bitterroot stopped trying to talk to Amanita, her mind started to wander. Then she realized that, if the fire took too long to kill all of the thralls, they might have a problem. “Even if her thralls ‘die’, Circe won’t be able to re-resurrect anypony, right?” she asked Amanita. “Because of the fire? Or do I have that wrong?”

“She won’t have any supplies or time for that,” said Amanita, idly drawing something in the snow. “She might be able to do it if she had those, but it’d take much longer than usual. Fire and necromancy don’t play well together. It’s…” She wiped out her drawing and started over. “It’s complicated.”

“Right.” Bitterroot popped up again. Nopony. She fell back down. “Since we’ve got the time, is there any way you can, y’know, kill yourself?”

Amanita looked incensed. Then she twitched and said, “Assuming you want me to come back, no. Not without something to guide the process. It’d be like trying to be inside a door while turning the key from the outside.”

“Bummer. I thought necromancers were supposed to come back from the dead easily.” Bitterroot chanced a nibble at one of the bushes. It was decent, but not all that great.

“The sources of those stories were all liches, who can’t die in the first place.” Amanita squinted into the bushes. “Not that I’d say no to an automated resurrection spell that didn’t harm others, mind.”

“Me neither.”

They fell into silence again. Technical silence, anyway; the wind rustled the bushes all around them. It was almost like sitting in a very quiet blender. And in spite of the lack of visibility, Bitterroot began feeling exposed. No, not in spite of it; because of it. There could be somepony just five yards away and she couldn’t see them. And here she was, just sitting in the open. She began rustling her wings, pushing at the ground- “I’m gonna go check again,” she said quickly to Amanita. She took off before she could get a response.

Only a few seconds in the air, and Bitterroot felt better. She could see all around her, see everything for miles, and it was impossible to sneak up on her. She sniffed at the air. She still had that sense, at least. Then she began rotating, looking for-

Yep, there they were. Four ponies coming down the river, aiming for the scrub. They’d be here in about… ten minutes, Bitterroot guessed. Perfect. She fell back down to earth. “Saw them,” she said to Amanita. “Ten minutes away.”

Amanita swallowed. “Get, get close to me, then.” Bitterroot scooched up next to Amanita and an iridescent shield surrounded them both.

Bitterroot pulled her head back a little. That was close. There was barely enough room in here for her and Amanita at the same time. She edged back and bumped into Amanita. With a quick “sorry”, she edged forward and bumped into the shield. “You, ehm, alright?” she asked Amanita. She was a tad surprised her breath didn’t fog up the shield.

After a moment, Amanita coughed. “Um, no offense, but I, I think you need to leave.”

Bitterroot squirmed a little, trying and failing to get into a more comfortable position. “Why?”

“I can’t hold a shield like this up for long when you’re that close. I’m… not the greatest at shields. It’s, it’s why it’s so small to begin with.”

Part of Bitterroot wanted to chew Amanita out for not mentioning that earlier, but the rest of her was chewing herself out for not asking about that earlier. “Alright. I’ll wait outside the circle. Once it goes up, I’ll hover overhead, see what happens. If you think it’s going to go bad-”

“I already think that!” Amanita protested, pushing Bitterroot away. “This is a bad idea!”

“If you think it’s going to go worse, give me a holler and I’ll swoop down and grab you.”

“Fine. That’s fine.” Amanita ran a hoof through her mane and shivered as the shield vanished. “Celestia, I hope this works.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Bitterroot, flaring her wings. “You’ve got a shield.”

“And you’ve got wings,” grumbled Amanita. “You can just-”

“Bye!” Bitterroot skimmed the upper edge of the bushes, trying to stay out of sight. She looked over her shoulder; she couldn’t see Circe or the others near the river. She risked a slight climb and spotted some of the bushes on the other side of the scrubland rustling in a way that didn’t quite match the wind. They were in. It was only a matter of time.

She remembered where she’d put the firestarters. She flew past them, flew to where she thought was a safe distance, and flew another few dozen yards out and up. Better safe than sorry. She pivoted in the air. The rustling was closer to the clearing where Amanita was waiting. Her hovering faltered a little as her wings twitched — she wanted to be there, to help Amanita — but surprise was key.

The rustling reached the clearing. Nothing happened. Bitterroot strained her hearing, but even her pegasus ears couldn’t hear anything. But they had to be talking, right? She almost moved closer, but she wanted to stay out of the range of-

The branches she’d laid out suddenly burst into enormous flame, sending out a wave of heat so intense it almost physically bowled her over. Bitterroot quickly backflapped and flew upwards, riding the sudden updraft like surfers rode waves. All around her, the bushes were catching fire and ever-thickening smoke was curling up. The bottoms of the clouds above glowed a soft orange.

Bitterroot stared down. The smoke didn’t sting her eyes, but she blinked anyway. She swallowed nervously. The fire spreading fast, faster than she’d expected. The space inside the ring was contracting like a noose, while outside, it was slowly but steadily sweeping across the scrublands, even as the melting snow dampened the bushes and made burning more difficult.

At least there were clouds, and lots of them. They were sticky and didn’t feel like Equestria’s clouds, but she could gather them if the need arose. Bitterroot darted up, gripped a particularly large one-

She heard a scream below her. Amanita’s. It didn’t sound pained or scared, just loud and attention-grabbing. Bitterroot folded her wings and dropped. “Amanita?” she called out as she circled through the smoke.

Another scream, a bit quieter. Forced? Bitterroot had to go in.

She dropped to a few yards above the flames and flew through twisting ash clouds. She felt something strange as she rode the heat wave. A burning feeling that she just wanted to pull away from. The closer she flew, the worse it got. And when she coasted into the interior of the ring, the feeling went away. It wasn’t heat, though it felt like it. What was it?

It took Bitterroot a few seconds to realize what was wrong: the fire was hurting her.

Normally, a no-brainer. But she hadn’t felt any pain once she’d died and she’d gotten used to that lack of pain. So to feel it now? Her blood would’ve run cold if it hadn’t already been cold. Her dead senses told her there was something wrong with that fire.

“Amanita?” yelled Bitterroot, skimming the tops of the bushes. She looked for that telltale rustle, but with the fire’s updraft, every bush was rustling. “Amanita?”

Somepony moaned. It was hard to tell from where.

“Hold tight, Amanita!” Bitterroot yelled. “I’m coming!” She wasn’t sure she believed herself.

She angled into a tightening spiral, starting from the fire wall and moving in. It was hard to spot anything; the air itself shimmered from the heat. She saw a few dark shapes scurrying around her and there in the bushes, but no-

All of a sudden, Gale lunged from the scrub and tackled Bitterroot. They tumbled into the bushes, getting yanked apart as they rolled; Gale vanishing into the bushes. With a twitch of her wings, Bitterroot was on her hooves in a moment. “I know you’re out there!” She spun around, looking for Gale, branches whipping at her face. “Show yourself!” Nothing.

The fire crackled. Heat washed over Bitterroot. Smoke scorched her throat. None of it hurt, but she couldn’t stick around and look for Gale. She pushed through the bushes away from the fire, yelling, “Amani-”

Something rustled behind her. She ducked, but Gale came at her from above and drove her into the ground on her stomach. Before Bitterroot could get up, Gale hit her in the head: once, twice, thrice. They were strong hits, and any one of them probably would’ve knocked Bitterroot out had she been alive.

“I found Bitterroot! She’s over here!” Gale yelled, pressing Bitterroot’s head into the ground. “She’s ov-”

Bitterroot pushed up with her rear legs and flapped downwards at the same time. It was enough to do a clumsy somersault; she landed on her back, Gale between her and the ground. An awkward one-winged flap, and she rolled onto her feet.

Gale’s wings were splayed out. “Sorry,” said Bitterroot, and stomped on the joints of one. Even over the roaring fire, the bones snapping was audible. Gale was groundbound.

Bitterroot wanted to drag Gale to the ring and throw her into the fire, but Amanita was still out there. Bitterroot took to the air again and continued her search. She heard a strangled yell quickly, not too far away. She aimed toward it, spotted Amanita, and landed next to her.

Amanita was almost dragging herself on the ground, like she was choking. Her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and her motions were slow and forced. She pulled herself to Bitterroot, wheezing, barely able to even stand.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bitterroot.

“Can’t… breathe…” gasped Amanita. “Fire… Oxygen… Carry-”

Bitterroot immediately wrapped her front legs around Amanita’s trunk and hauled her into the sky. As they moved out of the oxygen-deprived air of the fire, Amanita’s breaths became stronger, then steadier. “Thanks,” she gasped, and coughed.

“Sure,” said Bitterroot. She surveyed the scrublands and swallowed. The fire was still spreading and the smoke was inky black. It mingled with the clouds, darkening them. The crackling of flames merged together into a roar. Snow was already melting at the edges of the scrub. And the blaze showed no sign of stopping.

Had she called up something she couldn’t put down?

Amanita wiggled. “Can, can you find a space to, I don’t know, put me down?” She pulled herself further up into Bitterroot’s grip. “I like my hooves on the ground, thanks.”

“Sorry.” Bitterroot flew them over the flames, over the outside scrub. “I don’t know what-”

An arcane bolt zipped out of the smoke and singed Bitterroot’s feathers. She didn’t feel anything, but it was enough to make her twitch. Amanita slipped a foot as her grip loosened. Amanita tightened her own grip on Bitterroot’s legs. “Don’t drop me don’t drop me don’t drop me!” she squealed.

She didn’t get any further; Bitterroot dove for the ground. She was hovering just above the bushes before Amanita even had time to scream. She lowered them down and let go of Amanita, who crawled over to a bush and hugged it. “Oh Celestia oh Celestia…”

“I broke Gale’s wing, so she’s not flying out,” said Bitterroot, “but I didn’t see any of the others. Do you think they got out?”

“How should I know? It’s your plan!” said Amanita, releasing the bush.

“Yeah…” Bitterroot rustled her wings and grinned sheepishly at Amanita. “Not exactly the best plan, was it?”

Amanita pursed her lips. “That’s…” A particularly large plume of flame spiraled into the sky. A small gust of wind from the expanding air blew their manes and the bushes back. “…one way to put it.”

Bitterroot’s grin withered and died as she watched the fire. Had she gone too far? Been too quick in accepting “crazy”? Earth ponies valued the land, yet here she was, having acres burned down just to kill… what, three ponies? It already seemed laughable that this was a good idea, presence of a lich or not. If this fire got out of control, it would be her fault.

She stood up, flicking her tail to get the snow off her rump. “I’ll do a flyover, see if I can spot anypony,” she said. “And I’ll get some clouds into position to make it rain.”

Amanita also got up. “I’ll walk around the borders to see if any of them escaped. Good luck.” She pushed her way out of the bushes.

Bitterroot took a deep breath — although she wasn’t sure why — and climbed into the skies again. There was no significant change in the inferno, although the unburned circle was smaller and it looked like parts of the ring itself were burning lower as the bushes were consumed. By now, the smoke was so dense it was nearly impossible to see through. Bitterroot descended through the miasma, careful not to go too quickly.

Visibility was even worse than the blizzard. Above the fire, its own glow bounded and rebounded off the smoke to create a bright orange fog. When she wasn’t above the fire, Bitterroot had to practically skim the bushes to see them. Winds from the blaze rolled the smoke every which way and made flying tricky. The sound of burning wood made it hard to hear anything else. And to top it all off, the death of her reflexes meant she wasn’t blinking as much. Smoke got in her eyes and fogged her vision. Bitterroot forced herself to blink and get the particles away, even though it felt like hot sand was scouring her corneas.

She came to a midair stop as something grabbed her tail. She looked over her shoulder and barely had time to register before she was yanked down through the smoke.

16 - The Deathless Ones

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Bitterroot clawed at the air, but the magical grip on her tail was tight and refused to budge. She was slammed to the ground. When she got up, she was in a world of flickering orange and twisting black, fire throwing into dancing silhouette the bushes of the scrubland, seen through a thick miasma. The background noise was the steady rumbling and snapping of a large blaze. Heat and an orange glow washed over her from one side; she wasn’t far from the inside of the ring. She couldn’t see any ponies at the moment, but they were out there. They had to be.

Bitterroot slowly turned on the spot, eyes peeled for the shadows of ponies. Nothing. She could try flying for a less bad view, but guessed that if she tried to take off again, she’d just get yanked back down. Still, she spread her wings. “I know you’re out there,” she said, trying to sound brave. “Why don’t you come out and fight and we can get this over with?”

All around her came four voices speaking as one. “No. I don’t think I will.”

Latching onto one of them, Bitterroot crept through the bushes slowly. Towards the heat, incidentally. “Look, it’s only a matter of time before the fire catches up and consumes you all. I can just fly away. Not even Gale can do that, now.” Come on, come on, speak up speak up speak up… “I broke her wing myself.”

Four someponies laughed. “An’ y’really think that’s it? That I’ll jus’ roll over for you? No. Ain’t doin’ that. No way. No how.”

It sounded like there was a pony barely six feet from her, Bitterroot guessed, but she couldn’t see them. The smoke was just too thick. “Oh, I don’t know,” Bitterroot said casually. “Maybe I’ll-” She pumped her wings and dove through a bush. She slammed into a pony, hitting hard enough to throw them a few feet. She blinked away the smoke. Trace was getting to her hooves, blue fire burning in her eyes and blood dripping from her mangled mouth. Bitterroot charged again, hurled Trace to the ground, and began stomping on her horn. Maybe she could-

Somepony grappled Bitterroot from behind, pulling her off Trace. She was forced into a rearing position and her front legs were pushed outward. Thinking quickly, she pulled her rear legs from the ground, curled up, and backflapped. She did an awkward sort of backflip over the head of the pony who’d grabbed her and pulled her front legs from their grasp. After another flap to get herself a little bit higher, Bitterroot landed on the pony’s back – Gale’s back – and flapped one last time, smashing her into the dirt.

It only took a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough for Trace to get back onto her hooves. She loosed a haphazard blast at Bitterroot, not coming close to hitting her. Bitterroot lunged and forced Trace into a rearing position. She wrapped her front legs around Trace’s head and brought a hoof down on her horn just as Trace shot off another bolt.

A strange tingling ran up Bitterroot’s leg. She supposed that under ordinary circumstances, she would’ve been electrocuted and feeling every tiny little bit of pain possible. As it was, her legs twitched as the magic stimulated their muscles, but nothing more. She twisted, keeping a firm grasp on Trace’s head. Trace flipped over and landed on her back. Bitterroot pulled up her hooves and, with all her weight, fell on Trace’s head.

Trace’s skull crunched and her horn snapped clean off. Perfect. Bitterroot didn’t know if Trace could still fight with half of her skull caved in, but she didn’t plan on finding out. She grabbed Trace’s mane in her teeth and dragged her towards the fire, a scant ten yards away.

She blinked. It looked like there was a shadow right in fro- Bitterroot flapped to force herself to the ground. A pouncing Gale flew over her head and bounced across the ground toward the wall of flame, crunching branches as she did. Seizing her chance, Bitterroot released Trace, dove at Gale, and hurled her into the fire. Gale ignited almost immediately. The heat pulsed; Gale shrieked like a banshee for half a moment, then fell silent.

Bitterroot panted, trying to tell herself that it technically wasn’t murder, since Gale was already dead. It wasn’t very convincing. At least her heart wasn’t racing. She turned back to Trace, but Trace was already gone. She strode away from the fire. “One down, three to go!” she screamed into the smoke. “And your unicorn’s lost her horn!” She pivoted her ears, ready to pinpoint the next pony.

Three voices slithered out of the black. “Y’think I don’t know that?” Bitterroot was sure Circe was trying to sound intimidating, but now, she could hear the mixed anger and fear in her words. “Guess what? You’re still outnumbered.”

With impossible coordination, three ponies exploded through the smokey bushes and dogpiled her to the ground. Trace pulled at her tail while Circe and Catskill each grabbed one of her front legs and pulled. The leg Catskill had was dislocated with a sickening pop. Catskill immediately forced Bitterroot’s head into the dirt. She stared at Bitterroot and tilted her head, eyes burning blue.

“You’re gonna fly me outta ’ere,” hissed Circe. She drew out a knife. “I’ll kill you an’ resurrect you if I ’ave to. An’ we’re gonna-”

Bitterroot kicked backward. She smacked Trace the face, freeing her tail. Catskill moved to pin her again, but Bitterroot managed to roll onto her back before Catskill could get any force in. Her dislocated leg felt weak, almost limp, but she could still move it. She swatted at Catskill’s face, driving her away for a few crucial instants.

Trace was up again. She attempted to jump on top of Bitterroot, literally, but Bitterroot pulled her back legs in and caught Trace on the stomach. Trace flailed helplessly at her face for a moment before Bitterroot bucked out. Trace soared through the air, whipping through bushes, passing neatly through the wall of fire and out of sight. Bitterroot didn’t hear a scream.

Except from Circe. “STOP STANDIN’ ’ROUND AN’ KILL ’ER!”

Catskill brought her foot down, narrowly missing Bitterroot as she rolled over. Just as she was getting to her hooves, Catskill rammed into her. Bitterroot tried digging her hooves into the ground, but as a pegasus against an earth pony, she had no chance. Her bad shoulder also didn’t do her any favors. She overbalanced and tumbled across the muddy ground.

Catskill bounded over her as she rolled and landed on the other side of her. Bitterroot swiped at her legs, but Catskill’s hooves were firmly planted. She placed a hoof on Bitterroot’s neck and pressed. Even if she couldn’t suffocate, Bitterroot didn’t want to learn what happened to an undead with a broken neck. She thrashed wildly, trying to catch Catskill by surprise.

She caught Catskill’s bandoller. She hooked her hoof around it and yanked. Catskill lost her balance, briefly stumbling forward. That was all Bitterroot needed. She flapped to her feet and yanked again, to her left. Catskill toppled over onto her side. Pulling all the slack she could, Bitterroot heaved and hurled, using her wings to give her a little extra oomph. The stress was too much for the bandolier and it snapped in two, but by then, Catskill was already spinning into the fire. The broken bandolier followed her, trailing shells.

The bandolier…

Bitterroot threw herself to the ground and covered her ears.

The heat overcooked the shells in the bandolier and they went off nearly simultaneously. Even with her ears firmly covered, the sound was almost deafening. It was like the roar of some unearthly creature. The bass was so intense, Bitterroot could feel it rattle her bones. Even when she thought it had stopped, she gave it ten seconds before she stood up again.

Just as Circe came from the smoke.

She’d seen better days. Her eyes were sunken and bloodshot and her stance was limp and livid. But her eyes were still alert and she was angry. “Y’really think y’can win ’gainst me?” Circe sneered. She brandished a spear at Bitterroot. “Foal, I’m immortal. I ’ave ’unnerds o’ years o’ experience on-”

Bitterroot had never been a big fan of monologues. She charged, wrapped her legs around the neck of a shocked Circe, and climbed. Circe yelled threats and pleas, stabbing at her legs with the spear, but of course Bitterroot didn’t feel anything, and she paid no attention to whatever Circe said. She simply climbed up into the air. When she was at a good height, she flew over the fire and dropped Circe.

Circe fell, screaming, flailing at the air, completely helpless. Bitterroot watched her fall, watched the flames swallow her up, heard her hit the ground. Good riddance.

Of course, with her phylactery intact, she wasn’t dead, but that sort of fall ought to slow her down enough to restrain her. Taking a note of where she was, Bitterroot flew down to the ground to- Well, she couldn’t catch her breath right now. Or take a breather. She could take a break, though.

Bitterroot looked idly at her dislocated shoulder. It felt a bit weak and, out of place, looked incredibly ugly. But Bitterroot had a touch of experience with this sort of thing; she’d just never been lucky enough to not feel pain doing it. She planted her bad leg on the ground and threw all her weight on it. With a little pop, the joint slid back into place. She rolled it. No problems, at least as far as she could tell. Maybe if she could actually feel pain, she’d feel if something was wrong wi-

“YOU.”

Circe was a lich, and liches were deathless. She stepped from the smoke like some hateful, self-avenging spirit, smoke curling from her patchy coat, her flesh grotesquely scarred and leaking fluids, her mane aflame, one of her eyes burst from boiling jelly, a bone sticking out of her knee, murder etched onto every square inch of her face. The remains of her spear were bumping at her side. “I’ll kill you,” she rasped. “Over an’ over an’ over.”

Bitterroot’s throat ran dry, but she managed to hide it. If Circe wanted power, the best thing to do would be to deny her power, even through fear. Bitterroot smiled and waved even as she quaked down to her hooves. “Hi!” she chirped. “Long time, no see! New look, I take it? It’s so you! Your icebreakers are getting repetitive, though.”

Circe roared and flailed wildly with the spear, jabbing semi-randomly at Bitterroot. Bitterroot reflexively yelped and jumped away, shuffling backwards over the slippery ground in some strange dance as the spear whistled around her.

Hitting a bad patch of ground, Bitterroot misstepped. The spear plunged through her chest. It slipped in between her ribs and impaled her heart. She could feel it. She was skewered, barely able to move to the left or right. And since she was dead, it didn’t hurt a bit.

Circe leered in her face. “Gotcha,” she whispered. “You’re finished. An’ when I find Amanita-”

Bitterroot whipped her hooves out and hooked them around Circe’s. She yanked, pulling herself down the spear, cringing slightly as she felt splinters enter her guts. But now she was within reach of Circe. She reached out and, managing to ignore the searing pain of Circe’s burning mane, slammed Circe’s head into the spearhaft. Circe’s grip was dislodged, and Bitterroot shoved her hooves from the handles. Unbalanced, Circe fell to the ground, where her mane fizzled and died in the snow.

After flapping a short distance away, Bitterroot grasped the spear between her hooves and pulled. With a disgusting, squelching sound, she removed the spear from her body. A quick look at the wound said it wasn’t so bad that she’d have to worry about her insides being on the outside. Good enough for now. She lunged forward before Circe could get back up and slammed the spear down through her trunk, pinning her to the ground. Circe screamed in pain. Bitterroot liked the sound more than she wanted to admit.

She stomped on one of Circe’s legs, once, twice, thrice. It snapped the second time. Circe wailed and curled into a ball. Bitterroot didn’t feel a single pang of pity, not after what she’d done to… Celestia knew how many ponies. “Try running away,” Bitterroot snarled through clenched teeth, “and I will catch up to you and I will break your neck. Understand?”

Circe nodded feebly. What remained of her eyelids fluttered as she stared up at Bitterroot. “H-how- I stabbed you… Y’should be-”

“A little trick Amanita pulled,” said Bitterroot. “It’s rather useful.”

“P-please,” blubbered Circe. “M-mercy…”

“You’re a lich,” snapped Bitterroot. “This is mercy. If it wasn’t, I’d be cutting you open and removing your guts. After blinding you.”

“You-” Circe hacked. “You’d really- treat somepony- like th-”

“DO NOT! TRY THAT! WITH ME!” Bitterroot yelled, flaring her wings. “You lied to me, to Trace! You butchered ponies because you were scared of dying! You killed Trace and Catskill and trapped them in their own bodies to be your servants! And that’s just what I know about!”

“I- I’m s-sor-”

“You’re sorry you got caught,” said Bitterroot, rolling her eyes. “You’re not sorry you did any of those things. Besides, you’re a terrible actor. I’ve heard this sob story from plenty of other ponies. And not one of them was as bad as you.”

Circe immediately stopped sobbing and leered at Bitterroot. Her exploded eye had already healed itself and her fur was coming back in. “Worth a shot, though, right?”

Bitterroot twisted the spear. Circe barely even twitched. “Not really, no.” She threw back her head and bellowed, “Amanita! The thralls are dead and I’ve got Circe pinned! I could use your help!”

“Y’really she’ll be a ’elp t’you?” sneered Circe. “She’s jus’ a-“

“Shut up or I’ll cut your tongue out.”

Circe shut up.

After a few more hollers, Amanita arrived, panting. Her eyes went wide when she saw Circe. “Whoa,” she whispered. She slowly walked up to Circe, gently poking her as if to be sure she was real.

Circe’s response was a growl and spitting at Amanita. “I gave y’ev’rythin’,” she said, failing to sound hurt, “an’ this’s is ’ow-”

“Oh, for the love of Celestia, shut up,” said Amanita. “We went over this already. Several times.”

“You’re nothin’ but an ungrateful-”

Bitterroot intervened. “In your bags, at that rock tower,” she said, pointing, “there’s some rope. Until I can get my muzzle and fetters from my bags, I think Circe-”

“On it,” said Amanita, and she raced away. She was back in a few minutes with a big coil of rope. Between the two of them, they bound and knotted Circe so thorough she resembled a mummy. She didn’t try to break free.

“Think you can watch her?” Bitterroot asked, standing up. “I need to get it raining or snowing a bit… for…” She glanced at the fire as Amanita gave her a Look. “And I need to head back to the town to get my bags. I don’t think any thralls had them.”

“It… It won’t take long, will it?” asked Amanita. She fidgeted with one of her hooves, lightly kicking at a rock.

“Oh, no. Fifteen, twenty minutes, tops.”

“Then, yeah, I can handle that. Go.”

Bitterroot gathered the clouds first. They still made her cringe at how wrong they felt, but they were thick and wet. They’d do. They produced a satisfying amount of rain when she kicked them. The fire was soon under some version of control. It wasn’t gone yet, but Bitterroot decided to fly to town while letting the rain do its thing, come back, and check again.

Getting back to the town was easy and Bitterroot found her saddlebags in the mill, exactly where she’d left them, with all her stuff inside. Returning to the scrublands, she didn’t even need to follow the river; it was hard to miss the beacon that was the pillar of smoke. Bitterroot did another circle of the area and the fire was almost completely out. After a few cloud rearrangings to catch the last straggling flames, she landed at Amanita’s side (Amanita was doing just fine and patches of Circe’s coat were coming back in) and retrieved a set of fetters. They were designed to let the imprisoned move at a decent walking speed while a chain connecting the front legs to the back legs preventing them from running, bucking, or reaching too far forward.

“She can’t break out of those, can she?” asked Amanita. “Earth pony and all…”

“Nope. Enchanted,” Bitterroot said as she clasped them around Circe’s fetlocks. “You could hang a castle from them and not have them break.”

She also had a muzzle. She’d splurged a little on this version; besides the usual mouth covering, it also had built-in blinders that could be opened and closed at will (if you could reach the clasp, which Circe couldn’t). Some kinds even had mouth bits for better control, but Bitterroot had never seen the value in them. Circe took it without complaint. Of course, Bitterroot was prepared to stab her through the head if she did complain, so that might’ve had something to do with it.

With Circe properly bound, gagged, and blinded, Bitterroot turned to Amanita. “You ready to leave? I don’t see any reason to stick ar-”

“No, wait. I’ve got one last thing I want to do,” said Amanita. She nodded at the scorched lands. “I’m looking for the bodies.” She trotted into the ash.

Bitterroot looked after her, then turned to Circe. Flipping open one of the shutters on the blinders, she said, “I’m following her. If you’re not here when I get back, you will regret it. I can follow your tracks faster than you can make them. Understand?”

Circe rolled her visible eye and nodded. “Yeh,” came muffled through the muzzle.

“Good.” Bitterroot re-shuttered Circe’s eye, shoved her to the ground, and walked after Amanita.

The land was cooler than it would’ve been, thanks to the rain, but it was still surprisingly warm. It almost felt like early-to-mid spring. Of course, it was hard to stay in that state of mind when ash clung to your coat and smoke roasted your throat and everything was varying shades of black. The ground even crunched uncomfortably beneath Bitterroot’s hooves. Thanks to the burned-out remains of the bushes, it was like she was picking through the land’s corpse. Bitterroot ignored the feeling and caught up with Amanita.

Amanita heard her coming up and turned around, her ears up and quivering. “You’re helping? Great! Just… Just look for the bodies, okay?”

“Okay.” Bitterroot didn’t ask any questions. She owed Amanita that much, at least.

Finding the bodies proved to be harder than Bitterroot had anticipated. Visibility was better, since many of the bushes had been burned down, but the ground was still obscured by the shrubs and a thin film of unmelted snow. The terrain made it hard to tell what was a body and what was just a bump in the land or a rock. But Bitterroot kept looking and didn’t think about stopping. Amanita deserved something good.

Time slowly passed. Bitterroot idly wondered if she’d be feeling hungry by now if she were alive. It was easy to lose track of those sorts of things when you didn’t feel them any-

“YES!”

Bitterroot turned around. Amanita had found the mangled, burned remains of a blunderbuss in next to a pony’s charred body. She looked ready to explode with glee. “This w-was Catskill’s,” she said, stroking the gun like it was a treasured child. “I… I can talk to her!” She collapsed into the wet ash, laughing.

“What?” asked Bitterroot. She coughed in surprise. “I thought you said you couldn’t-”

“This, this is different,” said Amanita, waving a hoof dismissively at Bitterroot. She didn’t even get up. “I can’t resurrect her. But, but with something closely related to her, I can, I can call her spirit up so I-I can apologize.” She threw back her head and laughed. Somewhere along the line it turned into sobs. “I can apologize… for lying…” She rubbed her eyes. “F-for getting h-her k-killed… For-”

“Hey!” Bitterroot flapped over to Amanita and, without thinking, pulled her up and into a hug. “It’s not your fault, okay? It’s Circe’s. Don’t blame yourself.”

Amanita rubbed her face into Bitterroot’s clothes. “Easy to say, hard to do,” she mumbled. She pulled away, grinning, even though her eyes still brimmed with tears. “But I can apologize. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Circe was exactly where Bitterroot had left her when they exited the remains of the scrubland, but Amanita didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to her. She laid the blunderbuss on the ground almost delicately. “Give, just give me a minute.” She scrambled over to Circe’s bag and began pillaging it.

After a few minutes, Amanita had scratched out a circle in the dirt, lined it with rune-carved gems swiped from Circe’s bags, made an equilateral triangle with candles, and put the blunderbuss in the center. Before Bitterroot knew what she was doing, Amanita had lit the candles and her horn was glowing. She’d closed her eyes and was muttering something. Bitterroot opened her mouth to ask something, but closed it almost immediately. Not now.

The candles were smoking, but the smoke didn’t seem to follow the wind. It just drifted straight up, twisting and writhing and braiding itself. As the gems pulsed, air began being expelled out of the circle while the smoke from each candle gathered above the blunderbuss, growing thick far too quickly. Amanita’s horn stopped glowing and her eyes flew open as she panted. And the smoke coalesced into the vaguely hazy, slightly glowing shape of Catskill.

Bitterroot sucked in a breath and stepped back. Catskill was… solid, yet not, like an illusion you knew was an illusion. Yet it was the feeling that was so unexpected. Catskill hadn’t merely appeared; she’d stepped out of the darkness behind an open door, out of something Bitterroot couldn’t even imagine. Even if she’d wanted to speak, Bitterroot wasn’t sure she could.

Catskill turned around, stared at herself. It was like her body was unfamiliar to her and she couldn’t see Bitterroot or Amanita. Amanita cleared her throat. Catskill paused, then turned to look at her. Her ears twitched. “Amanita?” she said, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Amanita smiled sadly. “Hey, Catskill,” she said. “You… You probably know you died at the bear. And who… what… I am.”

After a pause, Catskill just nodded.

“I… I tried to keep you from passing,” said Amanita. “You dying didn’t seem fair. And if… they’d never caught up with us, you’d be alive by now. Really alive. I…” She wiped her eyes down. “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, I- just-”

“I understand,” said Catskill. Her voice sounded like it was echoing down a pipe. “It was probably the best thing you could do. If you’d told me the truth…” She looked away, apparently ashamed. “I don’t think I’d have given you the trust you deserved.” She turned back to Amanita and inclined her head slightly. “You’re forgiven.”

“It… It shouldn’t be that easy,” whispered Amanita, staring at her hooves. “You… You’re still dead.”

Catskill shrugged. “You get a new perspective over here.”

“Yeah, I-” Amanita swallowed and forced herself to look Catskill in the eyes. “I know. S-still, sorry.”

“Right. And, Bitterroot?”

Bitterroot flinched when Catskill looked at her, feeling like a foal being admonished by a stern teacher. It was the eyes, she decided. Those eyes had experience that could never be found in the land of the living. “Y-yes?” she asked the mare she’d killed.

“Thank you for freeing me,” Catskill said. “I know you… probably think it was murder, but I’d prefer… I…” She shuddered and her voice dropped. “Thank you. The others would say the same thing, believe me.”

“W-well, um… You’re welcome.”

Amanita hooked a hoof around one of the runes, ready to break the circle. “I hope you find your husband.”

“I’m working on it,” Catskill said with a small smile. “Bye.”

“Bye. Thanks for the help.” Amanita pulled the rune away and Catskill vanished like blown-away smoke.

The wind blew steadily and unobtrusively as neither pony moved, like they were holding a moment of silence. Eventually, Amanita cleared her throat and got up. “That, that was what necromancy was originally supposed to be, you know,” she muttered. “Just talking to the dead. Asking them about the future. It’s in the name: divination via the dead. Ancient Thessalians believed the dead knew all things.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Ancient Thessalians were way overrated.”

They sat. In spite of being dead, Bitterroot could still feel burnout. She was done with fighting thralls, tangling with liches, and burning the land down. Right now, sitting was all she wanted to do. So she sat.

But eventually, she said, “You know, we should get Circe and start dragging her to the Crystal Empire.”

“Yep,” Amanita said flatly.

“And once we get there, we can hand her over to the guards and you’re gonna… turn yourself in, right?”

“Yep.”

They got up and crunched through the ash.

“This,” mumbled Amanita, “has been a really sucky week.”

17 - Paying Your Dues

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It was a long walk to the Crystal Empire, still, but the miles passed quickly. Out of the Crystal Mountains, a vast snowy plain spread out before Bitterroot and Amanita, the only thing between them and the Empire. With every step they took, the green border grew just a little bit closer. Circe had given up straining against her fetters and seemed resigned to her fate. She didn’t even struggle. Perhaps because of her lichdom, her coat grew back at a far faster rate than was ordinary. Bitterroot carried her through the snow without complaint — she was tireless, after all.

But there was one thing Bitterroot did complain about.

“Hold still,” growled Amanita, her horn glowing.

“I’m just walking,” said Bitterroot, continuing to do so. Circe was draped over her back, conscious but limp. She nudged Amanita’s horn out of her face again. “Can’t you-”

Amanita forced her horn back at Bitterroot. “Hold still. I’m trying to heal you.”

“From what? I’m dead, nothing’s bothering me.”

“No, but when you come back to life, you’re going to be dead again in five minutes if I don’t do anything. Do you have any idea how much smoke you inhaled? Seriously, I bet your esophagus is scorched.”

Bitterroot picked up her pace. “You did a healing ritual for Catskill, right? Can’t you just do that again? Do you need to get all horn-in-facey?”

Amanita picked up her pace. “I don’t have enough ingredients for the ritual. I used them all up semi-resurrecting you and Circe didn’t have the right ones.”

Bitterroot sped up even more. “Can it wait until tomorrow? I-”

Amanita’s horn sparked; something tangled around Bitterroot’s hooves and she tripped. A broad, flat shield pinned her down as Amanita got all horn-in-facey. Bitterroot gave up trying to escape and let it happen. A tingle ran up her nose, down her nostrils, down her throat, up to the ends of her hairs. Something clotted in her windpipe, but her lack of reflexes meant she didn’t start coughing. When she finally managed to force herself to cough and get it out, she hacked up small chunks of blackened meat.

“The insides of your throat, given second-degree burns,” said Amanita once she released Bitterroot. “And I also fixed a bunch of little wounds you didn’t know you had.”

“Great,” mumbled Bitterroot.

“You’ll probably want some more healing tomorrow, once the resurrective spell finally runs its course and you’re alive again.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Bitterroot adjusted Circe’s position on her back and started walking again.

“We’ll see.”

When night fell, Bitterroot didn’t bother putting up her tent. “I’ll just stay up and watch her-” She lurched a little, tossing Circe as roughly as possible onto the ground. “-okay? I’ll be fine. Bored, but fine.” She paused. “Right?”

“Right,” said Amanita. “And I… don’t think it’ll be bad for you when you come back to life tomorrow, so go ahead.” She squinted at Bitterroot. “Don’t faint on me with ten miles to go.”

Bitterroot chuckled. “Sure. Sure.”

Sure enough, Bitterroot didn’t feel tired the whole night. She alternated between making sure Circe hadn’t moved and stargazing. Between uncontrollable clouds and the light from the Crystal Empire, the view of the stars wasn’t the greatest, but it was calm in a way she’d been missing for the past few days.

She turned an ear towards Circe, still fettered and muzzled. It sounded like she was sleeping. By now, Circe had healed enough that it looked like she’d barely been burned at all. Bitterroot considered waking her up just to annoy her.

Morning dawned, and Bitterroot still didn’t feel tired. Circe made some muffled complaint about stiffness during packing up. Neither Bitterroot nor Amanita listened to her and they were soon on their way again.

It was around mid-morning when Bitterroot felt like she’d been hit with a sledgehammer, a fire extinguisher stuffed down her lungs and fired, a lit match jammed up her nose, and a balloon popped inside her eardrums. The suddenness of it all made her stumble to a stop. She screamed raspily, doubled over, and hacked until she thought her lungs were coming out. And considering her spit looked blackened, she didn’t think that was as out-there as she wanted it to be. Her legs ached and her heart pounded in her ears and she was hungry. She figured she was alive again, and being alive stunk.

“Healing?” asked Amanita, raising an eyebrow.

Bitterroot gagged, feeling like she’d inhaled steel wool. “Healing,” she croaked. “Please.”

“Told you so.”

After over fifteen minutes of horn-poking, Bitterroot felt well enough to get back on her feet, although Amanita took up her Circe-carrying duties. She spat out a hunk of something she wasn’t sure she wanted to identify. “Why can’t I just stay undead,” she mumbled, “and not have to worry about… anything?”

“The magic powering you isn’t infinite and can start eating your soul if you don’t watch it,” said Amanita, adjusting Circe’s position. “You need extra magic to keep your body from rotting. You can only eat certain things that are metaphysically tied to death, like unleavened black bread or unfermented wine. Damage to your body can only repaired with magic. You can’t feel the damage you’re doing to yourself since you can’t feel pain. If somepony ever dispels the magic around you, you stop being undead instantly and go back to being plain old dead. You slowly grow more aware of just how disgusting your body is. Your will can easily be subverted by necromancers. You become a transmission vector for deadly diseases.” She raised an eyebrow at Bitterroot. “Would you like me to continue?”

Bitterroot blinked, then coughed again. “…No, I’m good, thanks.”

They were only a few miles from the Empire when Bitterroot asked, “You’re really going to just turn yourself in?”

“Why not?” said Amanita. She shrugged. “I had a bounty posted on my head, so I can’t just hide out in the North. If I try to make a new identity and it ever comes out that I engaged in necromancy, I’ll be locked up anyway. Might as well get it over with now.”

“But you’ve changed. You’re not a bad pony anymore.”

“So? I did wrong. I deserve to be punished. I-” Amanita looked at the Crystal Palace, but something in her eyes said to Bitterroot that she was looking past it. “All the ponies of Grayvale… I see them whenever I sleep. They need justice. And if I go to jail-”

“Grayvale wasn’t your fault!” yelled Bitterroot, flaring her wings. “It was Circe’s.” She stopped walking for a moment to smack Circe in the head. “Circe’s going to jail, probably executed, and good riddance. But you-”

“I sat by and let it happen,” said Amanita. “I could’ve stolen Circe’s phylactery earlier. I could’ve-” She sighed

“But prison sounds pretty lousy.”

“That’s the point,” said Amanita, lightly jabbing at Bitterroot. “It’s a punishment. Do you think I’d be going there if it was a spa and resort?”

“It’s a punishment you don’t deserve.”

“You might think so, but I don’t.”

“Why do you think-”

Amanita adjusted Circe’s position on her back. “We’ve been over this,” she growled. “I don’t care what you think of my past, but I think I need to do something to… I don’t know, atone for it, I guess. So, please, just- shut up about it, okay? You sound like my mother, trying to teach me some lesson about proper responsibility or something.”

“What’s so bad about that?” mumbled Bitterroot under her breath. “More ponies should’ve listened to their mothers.”

But Amanita didn’t respond. The rest of the trip passed by in an uncomfortable silence, all the way to the city limits.

Bitterroot knew the Crystal Empire well, and once she and Amanita had stepped over its boundaries, it didn’t take them long to find the nearest guard station, although carrying Circe meant they attracted quite a few stares. Bitterroot shoved the door open and walked up to the front desk, Circe over her back. “I’d like to claim a bounty,” she said to the bored clerk. “Circe. She’s a necromancer and a lich.”

The clerk blinked at Circe, but he was quick enough. It took less than thirty seconds for him to find the relevant bounty files. “Yes,” he said, looking back and forth between Circe and her picture on his clipboard. “I’m pretty sure that’s her. Bounty of six…” The clerk coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Dang, six hundred thousand?”

“Right.”

“Hoo. You’re lucky. That’s the largest bounty I’ve ever seen. If you sit tight and keep a hold of your… captive, we can have ponies be right with you for confirmation and processing.”

“Great. Thanks.” Bitterroot stepped aside and waved Amanita forward. “And my partner has a separate issue to take care of.”

Amanita looked like she’d prefer drinking drain cleaner to what she was about to do. But she swallowed, took a deep breath and stepped up to the desk. “My name is Amanita,” she said. “I’m also a necromancer. And I’d like to turn myself in. Please.” She smiled.

The clipboard fell to the ground. The clerk blinked again. He turned around and yelled, “Uh, sir?”

Circe had been taken away to somewhere secure, while Amanita and Bitterroot had been thrown in a holding cell; the former for necromancy, the latter for involvement, considering she’d said she’d been Amanita’s travelling partner. Amanita paced back and forth the same ten feet over and over and over. “You could’ve gone,” she said to Bitterroot. “Just left me alone. You didn’t need to associate yourself with me and put yourself through this.”

Bitterroot wasn’t restless at all and simply lounged on one of the cots. “If it makes things easier for you,” she said, “you bet I’m staying. I’ll be a character witness. I’m not just going to throw you to the wolves.”

“I deserve to be thrown to the wolves.”

Bitterroot shrugged. “A lot of ponies deserve a lot of things they don’t get, good and bad both. Life isn’t fair.”

“It really shouldn’t be unfair in my favor,” mumbled Amanita.

“Do you want to be miserable?” Bitterroot pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Kinda!”

“Then just feel guilty. A little guilt goes a long way. Maybe you’ll get lucky and have trouble sleeping tonight.”

“Joy,” said Amanita darkly.

“You said you wanted to be miserable!” Bitterroot protested, flaring her wings. “And then I suggested a way for you to be miserable, and-”

“I want to feel miserable as in emotionally tormented, not miserable as in sleep-deprived!”

“So now you’re saying only you get to decide how you’re miserable?”

“Don’t make me kill you again.”

“Oh, please. We both know you’d bring me right back the second you could.”

“That’s beside the point!”

The guard sitting in the cell block stared at the two of them. “This is the second-weirdest argument I’ve heard this week,” she said.

Eventually, the pair was hauled to an interrogation room. Bitterroot and Amanita sat on one side, both their hooves cuffed to the table and Amanita’s magic suppressed. Across from them sat Prince-Captain Shining Armor himself. Once Amanita had admitted to being a necromancer, his presence had been fast-tracked.

Amanita told him everything, from start to finish. Bitterroot interjected every now and then, but Amanita kept shushing her, even asking Shining to cast a silencing spell over her. She’d shut up after that. Shining’s face remained impassive throughout the whole talk and his ears were stiff. One hoof rested on the table and he didn’t even drum it. Bitterroot wondered if he’d seen worse when he was still Captain of the Guard. Either way, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“…and once we’d put out the fire,” Amanita said, “we took Circe and… came here.” She swallowed.

Shining sighed. “A village, an anti-necromancy squad, two bounty hunters, and a ranger dead. A large patch of land burned down. A lich captured, her phylactery with her. Possibly. And a necromancer turning herself in for all that.” He grinned crookedly. “Mondays, right?”

“Heh heh…” Amanita forced out.

Shining’s grin slipped away. He tapped the table once. “On the one hoof, I want to believe you… and I know it’s possible for even the worst people to change…”

“But I still did a lot of black magic,” said Amanita glumly.

“Yeah.” Shining nodded. “We’re going to let the arson on the scru-”

“That was my idea,” Bitterroot said quickly. “She had nothing to do with it.”

“Either way, we’re letting that slide,” Shining continued, waving a hoof dismissively, “because it was contained quick enough and ultimately isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Not next to a lich and her soul jar.”

Somepony knocked at the door and a guard leaned in. “Captain? The captive is definitely Circe, and that crystal is indeed her phylactery. We’re working on unraveling the enchantments on it now. Until we can destroy it, Circe has been imprisoned in one of Sombra’s old oubliettes.”

“She deserves no better,” muttered Shining. “And her guards-”

“No less than four at all times, sir.”

“Good. Keep me posted.”

The guard saluted and left.

Silence. Shining said, “I’ve looked through her files. Circe’s one of the longer-lived liches we know of, and we can’t even be sure we know when her life began. Celestia’s been trying to catch her for centuries. And suddenly, a necromancer and a bounty hunter walk through our door and drop her and her phylactery almost literally gift-wrapped on our counter.” He started tapping his hoof on the tabletop. “And that’s part of the problem. Somepony who does something like that probably isn’t the kind of pony who should go to jail. But if a necromancer gets off scot-free, the public will cry bloody murder.” He sighed and ruffled his mane. “Thank Celestia I’m not a judge.”

Bitterroot took a chance and raised a hoof as much as the cuffs would allow. “Um, excuse me, but if I can make a suggestion… All those things she did as a necromancer, she did them outside Equestria. Doesn’t that mean she’s not subject to Equestria’s laws?”

“Only if she’s also not an Equestrian citizen,” said Shining.

Amanita coughed quietly. “I am.”

“Then-”

“Listen,” said Bitterroot, “I know she’s done some bad things, but she’s not like that anymore! She-”

Amanita tried lunging for Bitterroot, but her fetters stopped her. She pulled halfheartedly at them and growled, “Stop whitewashing me. Yes, I hate that I did those things. But I still did them! Don’t act like that didn’t happen!”

“Look, I’m just trying to point out that you’ve changed!” protested Bitterroot, shying away and flaring her wings. “Why are you so touchy about all this?”

“Because as long as I remember how terrible what I did was, then Celestia forbid, it’ll never happen again! By Luna, I got pulled into black magic the first time because my marefriend died. Do you have any idea how- how- how pathetic that is? And you keep on going, ‘oh, she’s good now, it’s not so bad’, like I just went through a bad phase as a teenager.”

“Hey, don’t put words in my mouth, I’m-”

“Ma’ams, please,” said Shining stolidly. They both shut up. “We’re not going to discuss what you think is right and wrong. We’re just trying to figure out the nature of the crime.”

Bitterroot jumped off her seat as best she could. “It wasn’t a-!”

Shining glared at her. Bitterroot folded her ears back and sat down again.

“And based on Amanita’s testimony,” Shining said eventually, “you’re free to leave-” He nodded at Bitterroot. “-but you need to go back to holding. Sorry.”

“ ’S alright,” muttered Amanita, hanging her head.

Amanita and Bitterroot had their fetters unlocked. Bitterroot was nudged back to the lobby of the guard post, watching after Amanita as she was led back to the holding cells.

Although Bitterroot didn’t have to stick around the guard post as the particulars involving Circe’s bounty were sorted out, she hung out in the lobby for a few minutes. It kind of made her feel like she was supporting Amanita. Somehow.

Then a guard walked up to her. “Do you want to talk to Amanita?”

Bitterroot’s ears twitched. “Well, I-”

“You’ve been glancing at the doors to the cells every thirty seconds,” said the guard, “and I’ve heard some of the story. Look, visiting prisoners is completely legal. C’mon.”

He led Bitterroot back into the cell block. Most of them were empty, with the exception of Amanita’s. She was resting on her cot, but got up when she saw Bitterroot. She walked up to the bars. “Hey.”

“Hey,” said Bitterroot. “You… You’re really going through with this, aren’t you?”

“For the tenth time, yes,” Amanita said, sighing and rolling her eyes.

“So…” Bitterroot swallowed. “Is there… anything I can do to… I don’t know, make this easier?” She wasn’t sure why she said it; it just seemed like the right thing to say.

One of Amanita’s ears flopped down. “Really? Like how?” Her voice was half-skeptical, half-serious.

Bitterroot had a few ideas, but only a few. “I can visit you every few days.”

“I don’t know how long it’ll be until I’m prosecuted. You could be here for moons.”

“I can pay for your bail once it’s posted. I’m rich now.”

“Where would I go, even in the Crystal Empire? Tomorrow morning, it’ll be all over the papers that I’m a necromancer, which… yeah.” Amanita tapped the bars. “I think I’ll stay in here, thanks.”

“I’ll… support you at your trial?” tried Bitterroot.

“There isn’t going to be one,” said Amanita. “I’m just pleading guilty anyway.”

“Really? But-”

“I’d still be found guilty!” yelled Amanita. “There’s enough evidence-” She groaned and rubbed her head. “Please, please, stop trying to stop me. We’ve been over this, what, ten times in the past few hours? At least? This is my decision. Maybe it’ll help me get over my guilt.”

Bitterroot sighed and leaned against the bars. “Prisons ought to be more about rehabilitation than punishment, you know,” she mused, “and you’re rehabilitated already.”

“And if the law agrees, I’ll be out soon. But-” Amanita reached through the bars and lightly touched Bitterroot’s hoof. “Listen. It’s not like I… don’t appreciate the sentiment or anything, don’t get me wrong. I’m really happy that you think I’m a good pony. It’s just… I don’t.” Her hoof slipped away. “And I don’t think I should be out there until I think I am.”

“This can’t be healthy,” said Bitterroot. “You’re obsessing over what you did wrong, and I’m worried that-”

“It’s probably not healthy,” Amanita said, “but… three weeks ago, I learned that I’d been violating my dead marefriend’s mind every time I called her up. The only other pony in my life was unsympathetic. Since then, I’ve seen a village killed, raced across the Frozen North, killed several ponies, and saved somepony’s life only to have them turned into a necromantic thrall and need to be put down. It’s not like I had time to stop and go to a therapist.” She giggled shrilly. “I barely had time to stop at all. Maybe now that I can stop worrying about Circe, I can get my head back in order.”

“Do you really think that?” asked Bitterroot, looking at Amanita. “Or are you just trying to get me off your back?”

But Amanita said, “No, I really think that. I… I’m just so tired, and now I get a chance to sleep.” She smiled. For the first time since Bitterroot had met her, it wasn’t forced or nervous. “You know?”

Bitterroot smiled weakly back. “Yeah. I know.”

“But if you’d like to… I don’t know, be pen pals or something, I think I’d like that.” Amanita’s voice had grown much quieter.

“…Sure. I’ll leave you my address.” At least Amanita would have some connection to the outside world.

When Bitterroot left the cell block, most of the bureaucracy regarding Circe had already been handled. After double-checking with the clerk about some last-minute facts, the clerk said, “You know, I gotta say, not one but two necromancers? Ha. Not bad.”

“I had a lot of help,” said Bitterroot. It felt strange, saying that Amanita had helped her turn her in.

“Still. So that’s one million, two hundred thousand bits, pre-taxes, which means…”

The clerk laid out the totals after taxes, but Bitterroot wasn’t paying attention, only nodding and giving vague “uh-huh”s or “right”s. There had to be something she could do to help Amanita. Maybe not now, but after she got out of jail. If her new brand of necromancy — raising the recently dead solely to keep them alive — was legal, then she’d be a big help to Bitterroot. Or hospitals or… a huge number of places. But what if she didn’t have anywhere to go? What then? Did she have family? Would that family even want to see her? It didn’t seem fair that, in Equestria of all places, somepony could leave jail and not have anywhere to go. But Bitterroot had no idea when Amanita was going to get out, so she couldn’t really plan ahead. And bounty hunting was an unpredictable job, so it wasn’t like she could just take a vacation, even with her new wealth.

Then the clerk brought out a check and Bitterroot knew what she could do.

“Wait a minute,” said Bitterroot. The clerk’s pen stopped over the check. “I’d like to set up a bank account in Amanita’s name and put half of those bits in there. When she’s granted parole for good behavior — which will happen — she’ll need some money, and a million bits is more than I know what to do with.”

Bitterroot held her breath. There had to be plenty of reasons for this to be denied, even if she couldn’t think of any. External circumstances. She couldn’t make an account for somepony who was incarcerated. Heck, maybe she just couldn’t make an account for somepony else.

But the clerk just shrugged. “It’s your money,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do about it. If I can’t get an account set up, I’ll put some bearer bonds in her possessions so she can retrieve them when she’s released. Good?”

“Good,” said Bitterroot. She made a note to double-check it later, just in case. Paranoia told her it wouldn’t get done.

After some recalculations, the clerk scribbled down the relevant number on the check and handed it over to Bitterroot. “Interesting story, somepony getting paid for their own bounty,” he said.

“Believe me,” replied Bitterroot, “you don’t know the half of it.”

Hinterlands

by Rambling Writer

1 - The Fugitive

2 - Collateral

3 - On the Prowl

4 - Predatory Notions

5 - Biting Winds

6 - Campfire Tales

7 - Cats and Mice

8 - Whiteout

9 - Don't Rock the Boat

10 - A Change in Perspective

11 - Truth be Told

12 - The Way Back

13 - The Massacre of Grayvale

14 - Shifting Alliances

15 - Fire With Fire and Fire

16 - The Deathless Ones

17 - Paying Your Dues