Dragon Riders
Chapter 4: The Perils of Mountain Climbing
Previous Chapter Next ChapterTwilight braced her flanks against the rock wall at her back, and continued shimmying along the narrow trail spanning the cliff face.
The land a few inches to her front was hundreds if not thousands of feet directly below her, and she clung to the granite at her back for dear life. Her mane whipped back and forth in the howling wind, and inch by inch, not daring to take her hooves from the constricted trail leading across the open, sheer, smooth rock face that descended straight down mercilessly to the valley below, she dragged her hooves across the rocks, closer and closer to the relative safety of the opposite side.
It took every ounce of courage in her body just to keep moving, utterly exposed, along the worn path; if she froze, there would be nopony around to rescue her. She was on her own, and she couldn't lose heart.
At a pace slower than an inchworm's, she progressed, until she closed the distance to the trail's widening to within ten feet. She kept going until only five feet separated her from safety, or at least, from something safer than what she was on now. Then, only three feet from being off the cliff's cold, desolate, treacherous grip, the trail ended.
It simply vanished, growing so narrow that it seemed to morph into the dull grey cliff face. It continued after a gap of about a meter of exposed air; there was nothing below her to walk along anymore, and turning back was not an option. She'd come so far, and giving up would be foolish. She would have to jump.
"Oh, for Celestia's sake!"
There was no other way around bridging the gap. She would have to cross it airborne, and without a running start. She took in a deep breath, breathing determinedly as she prepared to summon her courage. She looked at her goal, then, she made the mistake of looking down, and suddenly, the space in the trail seemed much larger than before.
She grew dizzy, and nearly lost her balance, regaining it before she toppled forwards and straight down.
"Too close," she whispered to herself, determining she would not leave falling due to vertigo as an option.
She bent her knees, eyed the far part of the trail, took air in, and leaped.
Twilight outstretched her forelimbs, and they landed safely on the other side safely; the rest of her body, however, didn't. Her stomach landed short, hitting against the lip of the ledge, and she began sliding over the edge as her weight pulled her back and down.
She gritted her teeth in determination, and her brow lowered as a surge of adrenaline caused her eyes to dilate in focus. She dragged her hooves along the rock as gravity pulled her backwards, praying that she'd catch a hold of anything solid enough to delay certain death a few seconds longer. Her prayers were answered by a crack in the rock of the trail.
The tips of the hooves dug into a miniscule split in the rocks, and her rearward advance jerked to a stop. She tried to pull herself up, but she simply couldn't; now, she was really wishing she'd tried harder in gym class as a foal, as the only time in her life when she needed to do a full pull-up was nigh, and she couldn't.
She dangled there, half-way in between living and dying, and turned her head fearfully to look down. A single pebble fell from above her on the trail, which her chin was level with, and along with her compass and a loaf of bread tumbling out of her pack, fell silently down until they disappeared from view, becoming specks against the green that seemed half a mile earth-wards.
Twilight again gritted her teeth in determination, and she called the rest of her strength forwards amidst another influx of adrenaline into her bloodstream. She pulled up with all her might, no matter how little it might have been, and as she began to get her momentum going upwards, she kicked against the rock face to propel herself the rest of the way. She brought her elbow up onto the rock, and from there, traded off between pulling and pushing with each of her limbs until she managed to wriggle her way up onto the ledge. She frantically scrambled farther up the path until it widened out, and she plopped down, exhausted. She rolled onto her back, prostrate to the sky, and her breath came in heavy, sluggish gasps.
Then the panic came.
Hyperventilating and heaving, she recollected how close she'd just come to death, and after the sweats and nausea, felt amazing, as if she'd just conquered the world. She laughed and nearly kissed the ground, waited to calm down, and then rolled over onto her stomach. She regained her feet, now standing on a generous portion of solid ground along the side of the mountain she'd been slowly conquering, and looked up.
Immediately, her heart sank. She had three more mountains to cross just to get to the base of the grandest of them, the one she was headed for, and each had more open cliff faces.
The smile ran from her face, and she sighed, disheartened. She stood there a while, and just as she was preparing to begin hiking again, she saw a slight movement off to her left. It was in the rocks, a slight twitch that, in the otherwise still mountains, was blatantly obvious. She stared at where she'd seen it, but spotted nothing lively, only granite mountainside and a few alpine lichens.
Then, a white billy goat came plodding along, from somewhere above her. It walked by without a care for her, and only acknowledged her existence by stopping for a second, bleating loudly in her direction, and then going down the path she'd just come up, hopping the gap and trotting along the constricted trail without losing a step.
Twilight shook her head; frightened by a harmless mountain goat. She continued pushing upwards and onwards, but still, she thought she'd seen movement in the rocks above where the goat had emerged.
Something didn't feel right.
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The path, luckily, eased up, and Twilight came to realize that what she was following was a game trail. It began to lead over the tops of the mountains instead of around them, and to her delight, the walking became much easier. Regardless though, her hooves hurt, and her legs had grown sore from a day of walking.
The sky was overcast and concealed, and likewise, her only method of telling time as well as direction; her compass had become a victim of gravity during her cliff hanger. She guessed she'd been walking for a little over five hours, but still, she had only covered a little over half the distance to her goal, the largest mountain in the range which she'd taken to calling 'Mt. Massive,' for lack of a better name; at least it was fitting.
The first ascent had been the worst, and what had seemed like individual peaks from below had turned out to be solitary highpoints on a series of high rising ridges, which the trail she was traversing conveniently followed. The rest of the walk to Mt. Massive looked to be a straight away, with the exception of a few rugged spots here and there.
The space between two hard points, the initial climb and the climb up Mt. Massive, passed by quickly and easily; it was about three o'clock, or at least felt like it, when she reached the gargantuan mountain. Three o'clock was when the trail ended, tapering off into nothingness at the base of at the peak's base; three o'clock was when the weather eased up, the clouds above growing thinner to allow the sun's rays to penetrate down to the terrestrial world below, revealing that indeed, it was about three o'clock; three o'clock was when she heard the first howl.
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Twilight was now scrambling up the mountain; she was above the rest of the peaks already, but she was only half-way to the clouds that concealed the peak of Mt. Massive, and she was spent. Her body was tired and fatigued, and the slate and loosely packed rocks of the slope made the steep ascent nearly impossible; every step she took forward, she slid two back.
And, to top it all off, the howls of the wolves were coming closer.
She was being trailed; she could see them, canine specks in the distance, walking in her very footprints as they tracked her. The pack was large in number, and she was completely in the open. She kept trying to go higher, trying to get away, or at least, out of the chute she was in now.
The path she'd chosen seemed like a more shallow route at first, but it had evolved to become a depression, a scar in the face of the mountain. But this chute was not just a vertically travelling ditch; it was filled with boulders and slate, and the signs of a potential rock slide were everywhere.
Another howl sounded from below, and Twilight began to urgently push higher and higher, only to slide farther back down and closer to the rapidly approaching hunters. She was trying to go for a massive cave about two hundred yards above her; if she could make it there, she could more easily defend herself, because running from the agility of the pack was not an option.
She looked down; they had reached the base of the mountain, grey and black silhouettes against the ground, swiftly ascending as they stalked upwards, the wolf at point with its nose to the ground and the others following in its lead.
Twilight realized she was getting nowhere, and gave up on proceeding upwards. Flight was no longer an option, so fight became the new strategy.
Twilight galloped horizontally along the loose shale, sending rocks rolling downhill with each step. She backed herself against the earthen wall that bordered the chute, too tall to jump over and too steep to ascend. her breathing was heavy in adrenaline now, and it only grew stronger when she saw the wolves noticing the tumbling rocks she'd sent down to them, effectively telling them exactly where she was.
The wolf at point followed the trails of the stones as they descended. Patchy black fur, yellow eyes, a thin body, emaciated ribs, and the rotting teeth exposed as the creature snarled up at her gave Twilight all the clues she needed to figure out the reason for the wolves' desperation; they were famished, and she was a potential meal.
Twilight began to panic as the wolves, at least a dozen of them, came barreling up the hill at her with elegant grace and surprisingly little effort. They fanned out when they reached her, surrounding her in a semicircle, cutting off any hopes of escape.
Out of options, she sparked a glow from her horn, and prepared to defend herself.
The wolves howled and yipped excitedly as they darted in at her, then backed away, but coming closer all the time. Their shoulders were hunched and tense as they prowled forward, dashed in, and then circled back and around like a well oiled machine, each pack member taking its turn as they pressed her into a smaller and smaller space.
She fired a searing bolt of magic at one that drew a bit too close, its lavender beam striking the wolf in its shoulder. It jumped and yelped, and ran a short distance off with smoke emitting from its charred flesh, but the rest of the pack was un-phased as closer and closer they came.
They snapped at her ankles or growled at her from a few feet's distance, shepherding her into a tighter and tighter area until she simply couldn't move without running straight into the waiting jaws of one of the pack members.
Then, from mere feet away, one of them lounged for her. Twilight shot a bolt of magic at the obsidian wolf, but missed, and she turned away with closed eyes to try and avoid her inevitable demise.
But, instead of feeling pain, she felt the sun's warmth leave her as she felt herself suddenly being cast into a shadow, and she heard a grotesque, spilling sound accompanied by a violent impact and a driving wind.
Confused, Twilight looked up; the pack was scattering. They ran away from her, half the pack going one way, the other half going the other; only one stood its ground.
It stayed loyal to the hunt, and leapt for her. The wolf seemed to freeze in midair, moving in slow motion through the dry, cold atmosphere with fangs bared into a fierce snarl.
Twilight felt herself come into a shadow suddenly once more, and she heard the wet, gut-wrenching impact alongside the driving wind. Only this time, she saw the sounds' cause.
A massive trio of talons simply swooped in, being borne by something she was too surprised to see. They plunged themselves into the wolf's ribcage, stealing it from the air only feet from Twilight's nose. The creature yelped and cried as its blood spilled and colored the shale maroon, the talons plunging into both sides of its chest cavity, and pushing their way out the opposite sides.
Twilight blinked in shock; one second, she was about to die, and the next, her to be killer was dead.
She felt another shadow pass over her, as well as a driving wind, and above her, she heard a sound. Partially, it was a roar, but its deafening bass note was soon joined by a higher pitched *woof* of air. The sound continued on above her, and she saw one half of the pack suddenly engulfed by a downwards flowing column of fire and smoke. Even the rocks were ignited by the heat; the five wolves had no chance, and became an inferno of fur and flesh within seconds, barely even yelping before death claimed them.
Twilight looked up to see a massive beast, scaly and red with four legs tucked under its belly in flight, snap its mouth shut and cut off the stream of crimson fire. It pumped its expansive wings as it burrowed through the rising pillar of smoke it had birthed, and the black air spiraled in its wake.
She was awestruck by the sight of the dragon as it rose into the sky, and as she followed it, it caught up to two others in the grey, misty clouds. In a fashion akin to the Wonderbolts, the three circled back around, one banking to the left, another to the right, and the third looping around vertically.
They came in a second time, and the surviving wolves scattered again, still reluctant to abandon potential prey but not stupid enough to bunch up. The dragons dove down to within feet of the ground, and dust kicked up from the air being pushed down by their wing beats. Two more wolves were picked off by the smaller of the three again, and they rose into the sky with the lupines writhing as they were impaled on their razor like talons, while the third, the biggest, sent down another stream of fire into the remaining cluster of canines. Their second pass complete, the dragons darted directly over Twilight's head, blowing her around with the wind currents they caused.
Two of the stragglers finally gave up when the rest of their pack mates died smoldering or bleeding in the grips of the beasts and took off downhill, but one remained. It looked dazed, and it stumbled around for a bit before finally locking its eyes onto Twilight once again. It focused on her as it began to move into position to cut her off from escape again, and it tried to press her towards the steep wall of the berm behind her.
Made confident by her recently improved odds, Twilight again sparked a hum of energy from her horn, and prepared to fend off the wolf. But, as the creature was drawing nearer, its focus suddenly diverted to the sky above the unicorn, and she felt another telltale downwards rush of wind.
She heard something heavy land above and behind her, punishing the earth with a vicious impact, and something whistled over her head. The wolf suddenly fell with the nock of an arrow protruding from its throat, kicking against death as it overcame it.
Before the wolf stopped moving, another gust of wind buffeted her to the ground, literally blowing her down, and she looked up to see one of the dragons no more than ten feet above her. It dropped suddenly from the air, crushing the loose shale beneath its bulk, the size of a train engine, as it landed practically on top of her.
The dragon screamed a shrill note as it extended its snake-like neck and opened its gaping maw, hot, stinky breath invading Twilight's nostrils and parting her mane. Its obsidian scales weren't matched by the red interior of its mouth, and its wings folded backwards as it stood, its front appendages being wings and legs simultaneously. She leaned back and away from the rows of railroad spikes that the creature had for teeth, when suddenly, its head jerked backwards and its mouth snapped shut.
Twilight lowered her hoof, which she'd raised in a vain effort to protect herself, as the dragon turned perpendicular to her, and for the first time, she got a good look at one of the beasts...as well as its rider.
She'd found the Windriders, or more, they'd found her.
Her amazement for the dragon was seized by a form on its back, straddling the space between two skyward pointing spines in an exotic looking saddle, made from a leather seat and straps and metal links and stirrups. It had reigns wrapped around its hooves, reigns that connected to the wyvern's gazelle like horns through a hole bored through their bases. On its back was a quiver, filled with dozens of arrows and a bow, as well as a sheathed scimitar.
It jumped down from the space between the dragon's folded wings, and upon landing, she realized it was equine, though it didn't look the part. In the saddle, it had sat upright, almost bipedal, but now, it walked on all fours. It resembled a pony in form, but its surface was all wrong; its body and head were brown while its lower legs were a dark blue, and it had ram's horns on its head. It seemed to be neither male nor female, as there was nothing to allude to its gender that was visible.
The rider came closer to her, and when standing before her, she realized it was wearing a sheep's skin, its tanned hide making for a coat, hood and facemask. The rider was tall and built, and it carried itself with extreme pride. It circled around Twilight, moving in a way that seemed to blend the gate of a pony and a predator. It inspected her carefully, stopping when it had circumnavigated her, and looking into her eyes; the rider had fierce amber eyes, eyes with fire in them, and a small bit of navy blue fur around those eyes where the tanned ram's skin wasn't present.
Suddenly, the dragon gave an excited squawk, and in synchronization, the other two dragons landed a bit farther into the chute. Another wyvern, a sage green one and the smallest of the three, the size of a caboose instead of an engine, set down lightly and with grace, but the third, the one that had used its fire as well as being the largest, being able to rival a house in size, crashed into the earth with a braced set of limbs. The two dragons folded their wings, involuntarily exposing their riders as well.
They wore skins too; the one on the wyvern sported the hide of a stag, light tan on the body and dark brown on the hood, which was adorned with a pair of four point antlers; the other one on the big beast wore a bear's skin, eyes looking through the creature's open, hollowed out mouth. Their weapons were similar; they carried bows and arrows, and javelins instead of scimitars.
The dragons, as the first had, began to fret over Twilight, growling and squabbling when she looked at them, but again, the riders shut them up with a tug on the reigns, fixed to their heads with straps or metal ring piercings.
They were not on the ground for long when the dismounted rider yelled at the two of them, and pointed downhill.
"Thresh un kitruben!"
The two riders nodded and pulled on the reigns, and kicking their dragons in their sides, took off, and darted downhill after the fleeing members of the pack.
The first rider turned back to Twilight, staring into her eyes for a long time, sternly, but not threatening. The amber irises and unbroken stare, even though she was in not in danger, intimidated her, and she found herself shying away ever so slightly.
Then, with no indication whatsoever, the rider turned suddenly, and cantered back to the dragon. He ascended the six feet to the saddle with amazing dexterity, kicking off of the wyvern's knee, bracing against a lateral spike, and pulling up into the saddle. He straddled the dragon's spine, and taking the reigns in one hoof, he looked back to Twilight. He stared down at her for a while, before finally extending a hoof to her, gently reaching out and nodding while waving towards the dragon with a wrist.
Twilight hesitated, slowly drawing nearer; she didn't know what would come about if she accepted, but she didn't have much choice. Her entire purpose for being in the mountains in the first place was in front of her; she couldn't get cold hooves now.
She began to slowly, cautiously come closer to the dragon, and when she reached its side, she heard a slight rumble.
She withdrew, thinking that the obsidian wyvern was growling, but when rocks began falling down from above her, she knew it was something else; an earthquake.
Another rumble came, stronger this time, resounding from deep within the mountain. More rocks came tumbling down as the ground began to shake, and the dragon spooked.
It began shaking its head back and forth, and it bucked, tearing the reigns from the rider's hooves. The rider grabbed on as the dragon reared up, and was flung about on its back as it began to take to the sky, leaving Twilight behind on the ground. The rider wrestled for control with the dragon, and Twilight looked up to see boulders now beginning to come down from the mountain, larger than the shards of shale that had preceded it.
Then, with the rider still struggling to reign in his dragon, she heard the sound. It started as a rumble, but it grew larger and angrier, and she looked up to the cave she'd been making her way towards as the source of the noise became clear. It grew louder and louder until it was deafening, and the roar shook the ground as well as the heads of those who heard it.
What had started as a small rockslide had now become an avalanche of stones, and Twilight began dodging the tumbling chunks of granite and sandstone as the rider wrestled the wyvern slowly back towards the ground.
"Reta!" yelled the rider, reaching down towards Twilight as he lowered the dragon to within a few feet of the moving earth.
"Come closer!" she yelled, "I can't reach!"
"Reta! Mortisserax! Fenta!"
"I can't reach! Come closer! Help me!"
The dragon finally cooperated, but not without complaining loudly in primal fear, and descended to the ground as rocks bounced off of its thick scaly skin. Twilight jumped as high as she could, and felt her hooves touch the rider's, as well as a hard impact against her temple, and darkness took over her vision.
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