River gasped as the trees around them shuddered and sighed, as the howls of the wolves grew deafening, coming from all directions. She heard shouting from the Captain, as he pulled them together in a defensive huddle, the unicorns trying to restart their hornlights while preparing themselves to use magic in their defense. Rusty put his side to hers as they fell into their practiced fighting position, leaning on one another and supporting each other in defense. The Captain took to the air, hovering and providing eyes.

"Wolves! Big ones! Coming from all sides!" he shouted, his voice carrying far. The unicorns at last managed to restart their horns, light spilling forth once more, just in time to reveal what had been stalking them all along.

The wolves in question were massive, easily as big as Rusty. That wasn't what made River shake with fear, however. None of her Guard training had prepared her for this. These were...wood. Wolves made of wood. They shouldn't have existed, they were just old pony's tales, like flutterponies or mermares. These were an object she had found ridiculous even as a filly, even when every other story used to drive her up the walls in fear. These were timberwolves.

"Celestia preserve us..." she whispered, as the five huddled together in a steadily contracting circle, rotating to cover all angles as the ring of impossible wolves contracted further and further, snarling and growling. The five found one another in the center, and remembering their training, began to move as a group towards one side of the ring, slowly. A wolf growled, another gave a peculiar yelp. One wolf ventured too near, and a quick bolt of magic drove it back, smoldering slightly. Warily, the pack began to gather across from them. They were too swift, River realized. They were going to rush them all, run them down, harry them until they collapsed, and then feast on the exhausted ponies. She began to panic. They were going to die here, alone in the dark. Just like Star Company.

"Hold fast" the Captain said, his voice low. "We can still make it out of this if we're smart. Get ready, so we can-"

He never was able to finish his sentence, not seeing the lone timberwolf that rushed at him from the side, hitting the Pegasus with enough force to bear him to the ground, clawing at his throat and biting him across the face, his crimson blood flying through the air in oddly elegant streams, as the wolf's packmates rushed forward to collect on the kill and to bring down the others.

"Run!" River shouted, and without waiting to see if her comrades were doing the same, sprinted into the forest, hoping to put distance between herself and the pack before they could bring her down like the captain. Hearing noise coming from behind her, she glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see her comrades running behind her. She could only see the amber glow of predator's eyes, blazing with terrible fire as they closed in. She turned to the other side, panting heavily as she ducked through a small clearing, hoping to pick up speed enough to distance herself further from the terrible wolves. An eerie howl echoed through the woods as no less than five wolves burst from the treeline, mouths slavering and dripping with drool in anticipation of their kill, teeth gleaming in the light of the pale moon above.

River pushed herself harder, refusing to die at the teeth of those creatures. She was the fastest runner in their group! She was swifter than the stream that was her namesake, and more nimble than the hulking wolves behind her. Keeping her eyes ahead, she focused on running. Faster and faster she flew, dodging trees and brambles and patches of thorns by the smallest of margins, some whipping at her coat and leaving little trails of crimson despite her armor. Another howl wafted trough the trees, far off and to her right. It had to be another pack, pursuing one of her squadmates! She turned towards the sound, gasping with exertion as she ran faster than she had at any point in her life. If she could find another member of her squad, they might be able to drive off the wolves. They could escape, find a new way out. They could come back with a greater number, with the entire damn Guard if they could. But now she needed to get away, away from the wolves behind her.

The howling around her grew fainter, both behind and in front of her. Lost, River swung her head from side to side, checking to see where her pursues had gone. There was nothing around her on any side. Not trusting the quiet of the forest, she continued running, breath coming in short, desperate gasps as she sprinted through the trees, unknowingly heading deeper into the forest. She ran for several minutes more, hoping to ensure that she would be far away from the pack of wolves. Seeing a large clearing ahead, she altered course. Reaching clear ground, she saw that this place consisted of nothing save for some short, stunted grass, a small spring, and a tree made of some strange wood, a deep red shot through with lines of black that more closely resembled veins than anything else. She wasn't really much of a climber, but if she wanted to assess her situation, she'd have to get high.

A low bough offered a starting point, and she vaulted into the low branches, scrambling up towards the top, as high as she could go. As she pulled herself up by any means necessary, she began to see the forest spread out beneath her, the lower trees around the clearing giving her time to assess her situation. She could see the amber eyes of the wolves below, as they arrived and began to circle the clearing, snarling and growling, but not entering the clearing itself. Confused, she watched them gaze at her, eyes full of blind rage that their prey had escaped them. At a yip from their leader, the group of wolves turned and began to run back into the forest, leaving her for the chance at easier, slower prey. Not daring to move, Running River watched them go, dizzy from exhaustion and the fact that she was alive, alive to fight and run and live another day.

She didn't dare come down from the tree, but now she faced another problem. Her flanks trembled from exhaustion and fear, and her head pounded painfully, a product of her desperate sprint through the woods. These could easily be ignored, after all, she had been trained to run for long distances in armor. But what truly bothered her was the thirst she now felt, an overwhelming need for water, which was right below her. She could see it, and hear it, clear and cool, almost chuckling beneath her as it flowed from its source nearby past her tree and off into the woods.

Curious, she examined the tree further. She had never seen anything remotely like it. The wood was beautiful, save for the lines along it, which reminded her on some disturbing level of veins. The leaves were a deep black, and smelled sweet, a cloying sweetness that only served to make her more thirsty. She tried to distract herself from the sensation by looking at her wooden savior more thoroughly. The trunk was gnarled and twisted, and she could see sap trickling down its length, adding more of the sickly sweet smell to the air. Her breath rasped in her throat, and again she turned her gaze to the stream...no! She couldn't risk climbing down the tree for a drink, much as she would like to. She cursed the lack of foresight they had all had, deciding to leave their packs in their camp outside of town. They hadn't counted on needing to use supplies, and they would only have encumbered them in case they had needed to move quickly, which they had. She continued looking at the tree. Its roots were different than she had expected, smooth as a whole, but she could barely discern small holes in them from which more sap flowed. They extended into the nearby water, tips waving gently in the current, drinking their fill...

She couldn't stand it any more. Looking around furtively, she checked to make sure no visible predators were nearby. Sweeping the surrounding forest, she saw nothing. The gibbous moon shed light on the ground as she checked once more. She would climb down and take a few quick mouthfuls, nothing more. Just enough to take the edge off of her thirst, and then back up the tree she would go until morning. She'd be able to find her way back to town then, get help and come back. That was it. Just a quick drink, and then she'd be fine.

The mare half climbed, half fell out of the strange tree, landing in a quiet heap on the brown, deadened grass below. She got to her hooves quickly, eyes darting from side to side, making sure that the wolves weren't there to catch her before swiftly hobbling to the water. She bent over the stream, which wasn't as clear as she had originally thought. The tips of the roots protruded into the bed of the stream slightly, and more sap, a milky white, was leaking into the water. Running River frowned. She'd never heard of tree roots producing sap, but then, she'd never studied trees.

Bending over further, she tentatively took a sip, holding it in her mouth in case she needed to spit it out. The water was a bit sweet, probably from the sap. But it was good otherwise, and almost without realizing it she had swallowed her small mouthful and had taken another, and then another, as she desperately tried to slake her thirst, which seemed only to grow, her throat burning as she took in as much as she could. Her stomach cramped painfully, and the Earth pony forced herself to stop drinking. She panted slightly, out of breath. She licked her lips, noticing an oily feeling along the roof of her mouth. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Her stomach cramped again, more harshly this time, and she grunted in pain.

Thinking that she had merely drank too much, she began to drag herself back to the tree. Suddenly, her hooves felt as if they had turned to lead, she being unable to move them. She pitched over to one side, suddenly short of breath as she tried to stand. Her stomach cramped again, and she would have gasped in pain if she wasn't suddenly short of breath. Her throat was on fire, and she coughed weakly. A chill washed over her body, and her world began to spin. Her stomach cramped again, and suddenly, River vomited, her stomach spewing out a curious white liquid that smelled sickly sweet. Her face was suddenly wet, and she smelled something that worried her. Blood. A drop leaked from one eye, running into the other, causing her world to tint red.

She tried to scream, but all that came out was a weak rasping noise, followed by another wave of vomit, this one tinged pink. She felt more blood leak from her nose and eyes, and her hearing was replaced only by the sound of her desperately laboring heart as she vomited a third time, this time a bloody red. Little chunks of...of her...were floating in it, and she found herself unable to think for the pain. An itching began all over her body, as the incredibly potent poison released by the roots of the tree did its work, blisters and boils erupting with hideous speed all over her body. Nowhere was spared, as she felt them grow under her legs, along her chest, under the skin of her neck, and she felt her face beginning to swell as she began to vomit again, and again, the color deepening from bloody red to a terrible black, as she began to liquify from the inside out, unable to help herself. She released at the other end as well, no longer able to control any part of her body. Her head throbbed in time with her failing heart as the stench of feces and blood and urine filled the air, overlaid with that horrible sweet smell. At last, she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, and found herself wishing for the merciful black. The poison obliged her, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she lost consciousness for the last time, and her soul fled the now desiccated husk lying on the forest floor.

But the tree was not done with its work. The mare's body even now began to decompose in earnest, the boils bursting and oozing pus and blood as her skin sloughed off like so much garbage, more liquid than anything else. The first of her blood seeped into the thirsty roots and the stream, as the tree greedily absorbed the nutrients the young mare had been carrying. Impassively, it drank deeply as her eyes rotted in their sockets, and her muscles began to deteriorate as well, the powerful corrosive eating through her armor at an impressive rate. The pitiful pile of bones and viscera on the ground no longer resembled a pony in any way, shape, or form. Still the tree's poison ate at the corpse, as the last of the sinew and muscle of the late Running River seeped into the ground as so much liquid. The bones yellowed and cracked. They would take longer to consume than the muscles, and were less nutritious, but they would eventually become part of the tree as well. Nothing would remain of her, not even the armor, which would return to the earth.

The tree finished its meal, and if one had the imagination, one could almost imagine a satisfied sigh emerging from the branches, though that was surely just a product of the wind, which had began to pick up once more. There was a moment of calm, as the wind stopped, and then it began once more, in far greater intensity. The tree began to vibrate a bit, and then it did a something most unusual, and normally quite impossible for a tree. It began to hum, a slow and steady tone that reverberated throughout the forest as the great monarch of the woods gathered energy to itself. Storm clouds formed overhead, and lightning crackled along the branches as the tree began to discharge all of the excess energy it had gathered over the year. Normally it took a bit longer, but the mare had been full of nutrients, and now the tree fulfilled the task it had since time eternal. A bolt of lightning shot from the tree, towards the sky, leaving its branches smoking, and the veins along its length a bone white. Its leaves fell to the grass below, and soon it was skeletal and bare. The wind picked up again, and as always, the timberwolves sent up a cry. The clouds began to move towards a sleepy hamlet on the edge of the great forest.

The Zap Apple harvest would be both good and early this year.