//------------------------------//
// 21 - To Adventure, Past Danger// Story: Ponyfinder: Roots of Stone// by David Silver//------------------------------//

Being supplied had a noticeable effect on the morale of the party. Being down two horses did little to damper their uplifted spirits. They rode swift and fast, at least as fast as the forest they navigated allowed. For the first day, they avoided roads entirely, which slowed their travel, but they didn't have to spend time foraging that night, and enjoyed covering against the chill of the air, and soft cushioning against the chill and discomfort of the earth below.

The dawn of the next day saw them packing up their new belongings and chatting softly. The tension they didn't realize had been building had been broken in some small way. They weren't just throwing their lives away to misery.

Paul slung his backpack firmly into place. "Funny thing. The bedding's better than we had back at the village."

Flint laughed. "I shouldn't be laughin' at that, 'cause it's true. Y'see, blankets like this, y'gotta take care of. Straw you just replace, and it's cheap."

Fast hopped up onto her horse and pet its neck gently. "Adventuring can offer you a very comfortable life, provided you can keep living. We're a team, don't forget that. Working together, we'll keep our lives longer. Separate, we all get to die in equally lonely graves."

"That metaphor's' kind of gnarly, sister." She slid into place behind Maud. "We know we're together in this. We'll all make it alright, together."

Flint agreed as he urged his horse forward. "Together. You remember that, Paul? Even if you don't think you have a lot to contribute, you will, and you could be what separates us from that whole grave thin' she was goin' on about."

Paul shrugged without as much conviction. "I'll try, I promise, but I'm a damn farmer, not a warrior, or a wizard." He wriggled the fingers of one of his hands. "Now that'd be somethin', just slingin' magic around n' such. I ain't a holy warrior. You remember that paladin that came through that one time? He was so..."

"He was something." Flint glanced back at his companion. "Don't envy them. Paladins get eaten up inside. Living by impossible standards they can barely keep up with themselves, let alone the people around 'em. They never die old."

 Fast took a slight turn, angling onto a forest path that took them at an angel past the village they had fled. "Unfortunate, but often true. I have a good friend, Steel Prism. A pony with a braver heart I don't know. He would throw his life away if it meant fulfilling his goal, and he's come damn close on more than one occasion."

Tree tilted her head. "Why didn't he come with you, Fast Shadow? It sounds like your groovy endeavor is totally up his alley."

Fast let out a long sigh. "Yes, it does... He was loyal to the queen, may the Sun Queen shine warmly on her soul. With her parting, he'd rather protect her rest than seek out a new queen. He's going down with the ship, as they say. He devoted himself to her and her cause long ago, and a little thing like dying won't turn him away from  her." She looked over at the two other ponies. "He loves her. True love, the kind they write about in sappy romances. They never touched, so far as I have ever known, and they never will, but he'll sooner die than let a grave robber disturb her, just as he shielded her body in life. He won't surrender until he has to. If the gods have any mercy at all, any shred, he'll find her there, in the sunny plains of the Sun Queen. He'll find her, and they'll marry there. There won't be anything keeping them apart. No duty, no--" She pulled up short as another horse stampeded across her in a bolt, bearing its rider into the forest as they had done. "What in Blaze's name?"

Maud looked towards where the man had fled. "He's gone now. We should go ahead."

Flint nodded. "Sure enough. No point wonderin' about other travelers if they ain't causin' us no trouble."

Fast held up a hoof with a frown. "No, where there's someone being chased, there's often someone doing the chasing."

Her words didn't wait long to be shown true. Thundering down the same dim trail were two riders, pale and cloaked, but little else. The skeletal figures laughed shrilly as they seemed to focus on the party, veering from their original destination and making motions as if drawing weapons. Though no sword came free of their empty scabbards, lengths of wicked red energy erupted from their clenched fists.

Paul pointed with a shaking finger. "R-r-revenants! Gods above and below!"

Flint reared his horse away. "When th'hell did ya learn one abomination from another?"

Fast pushed her lance down, clicking it to face forward while she was mounted on her horse, ready to battle. "Too late to complain, we battle, unless you know something useful." She goaded her horse into a full gallop, charging at the undead beast directly.

Maud pointed down. "Get off. You'll be safer." Tree hopped down to the side, allowing Maud to charge behind Fast. "I have the one on the right."

Fast barked out a laugh. "One on the right? We'll be lucky if we put one of them down, from the look of them." She crashed against the first, driving her lance satisfyingly into its ribs until its red sword cleaved, knocking it aside and cutting into her own shoulder as they passed one another.

Maud jumped high from her horse, leaping over the deadly attack of her chosen prey and coming down on its horse. She brought her forehooves down together on its back, rocking it forward as it laughed cruelly. "Is that all you have? A battering won't trouble me." He brought up his sword to parry the next hoof strike, only to catch another across his rotting face. It all seemed to spur on his laughter.

Tree circled in place in worry as Fast clashed against her combatant, faring poorly as well. "Oh man. I'm... I'll help, promise." She put up a hoof. "Trees! I need your help! I need your help so totally right now. Send me something, anything, just something righteous." Green swirled violently around her before a wolf sprang from the earth itself and grabbed at the legs of Fast's revenant, sending it and its mount tumbling to the ground suddenly.

Bright Feathers suddenly cawed and launched off of Tree as the undead fell. Before the creature could rise, he drove his beak into its cloudy eye-socket and plucked the eye free to toss aside. The revenant howled with fury and rose to the embrace of the two angry animals, clawed and tearing at it.

Fast wheeled around and came charging down on the rotting figure while it was distracted, driving her lance deep into its fetid belly. "Good show, Tree Hugger."

Maud suddenly hit the ground, tossed there cruelly by her combatant. Freed, the other undead rode on without its companion, pursuing the man that had crossed their paths. "Ow." She looked savaged. Where the sword hadn't left vicious cuts, it looked like it ran its dirty claws across her hide in ragged wounds.

Paul nudged Flint. "Shouldn't we help?"

"With what? I don't have something to hit them with."

With a roar of fury, the revenant grabbed up the wolf and crushed it in its hand. It exploded in a mist of red and green magic as it ceased to be.

Maud was already climbing to her hooves and moving to charge the beast despite her wounds. Tree looked horrified and charged Maud instead, entreating the kindness of nature and slapping her on the way past. The worst of her wounds looked a bit less urgent, not that Maud checked for them.

Despite the urging to stay back, Paul slid off his horse and grabbed the longest stick he could put his hands on and came ambling up across from the others, face pale with fright despite his approach.

Just as Fast lunged for it, it gave out a shriek of loathing and pure hatred. Bright Feathers flew higher and away, suddenly cowed from approaching. Fast's lance glanced off of it, driven off target as she grimaced against the supernatural force trying to subdue her.

Maud showed no reaction, as was her way, and came sliding in to knock its feet out from under it and send it crashing back to the earth. Paul brought down his pole of a stick, driving it roughly against the creature until it broke in a sudden splintering, little more than kindling in his arms and several uneven pieces that fell to the ground.

The creature grabbed Paul as he staggered in and drew him to the ground. "Pathetic whelp. Get out of the way of justice," rasped the unliving creature. Paul barely got time to yelp before he was slammed to the ground, slipping from consciousness on impact. Green swirled beside them as a hyena appeared with the green swirl of Tree's power and bit savagely at its leg, pulling and tearing. 

Fast withdrew, putting some distance. "If it grabs you, you're done for."

Maud didn't seem to take the advice to heart as she pummeled against the zombie-like figure, getting thick blood to splatter against the ground and her own clothing as she struck in quick successive strikes, but even she could tell the creature's claims hadn't been bravado. She wasn't crushing its bones and organs as she might a living thing. She bruised the flesh, and it seemed to not care about that so much.

Flint was on it out of nowhere. His face was a mask of fury, and he tackled it, wrestling with it on the ground with a sudden intensity. Fast's eyes went wide. "Mad men, both of them! Maud, can you pin it?"

Maud dove into the fray as it swung out its claws, catching her across the face in several bloody lines. She grabbed the same arm at the wrist in her jaw even as she swayed, dizzy from pain and blood loss. The hyena bit and grabbed, seeming to be trying to help hold it down, but it wouldn't give up easily.

With the melee devolving into a frantic wrestling match, Fast jumped off her horse. "Stay." She didn't stay to check on the animal, moving to bring up her hooves and swing out the claws she wore on them.

Tree reached out from out of the thing's wild swings and gently banished some of Maud's hurts. "That's all I have, sister of stone, please, be careful."

Flint tried to hold one hand down, grunting. "I... think she's... trying her best..."

Maud nodded before she flexed her arms in a sudden takedown, pressing the beast to the ground and trying to hold it immobile, but it was too powerful, shrugging out of her grip in time to catch a hoof-driven claw. "Die already! Die!" Fast brought down her other hoof, piercing its decaying flesh.

Flint grabbed its discarded red blade and drove it into the beast under the chest. It suddenly howled and writhed in pain. The red quickly faded out, becoming little more than a hilt that itself fell to shreds of metal, then ash. The revenant went still. "T-tree, quickly, please, Paul!"

Tree circled with a worried expression as she put a hoof on her downed companion. "I know death is a part of life, but not like this. Not here. Don't let him go." A green spark jumped from her, but little seemed to happen.

Still, he breathed. He was alive. It would have to be enough.