Chapter Twenty Four

Ruins and Dangerous Company

The sun rose early the morning when the boat reached its final destination. As was the way with rivers, especially large ones, the waters eventually reached the point where no boat could travel it anymore. So, getting off in a small town and charting passage with a small caravan, Spike and his wives crossed the border of Neighgypt and found themselves in Northern Sudan.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Egypt was not the only place to have large pyramids in the world. Sudan had many, many pyramids, though none quite so massive as those in Giza. The reason they were often overlooked was simply due to the fact that they had been long-ago pillaged: the golden tops of the pyramids long since carted off and melted down. As it was, they all had the distinct shape of a cone missing the last several yards of the top, almost like a tall, three-dimensional trapezoid.

As luck would have it, ponies lived in the shadows of these colossal structures, and they even offered guided tours of the monuments of the past.

It was an opportunity too good to pass up.

“Too bad we couldn’t have gone to the pyramids of Giza: I have heard they are spectacular,” Asalah said as they stood together for a group photo. The camera’s light went off, set off by Trixie’s magic.

“Well, that would have been quite the detour, don’t you think?” Spike asked as he retrieved the device.

“Well, I suppose,” the zebra said, following the others to a shaded spot. “Still, to think such great monuments were built without the use of magic is astounding, don’t you think.”

“I would certainly agree with that: such a feat of engineering is an amazing accomplishment,” Maria said, twirling her small umbrella above her head. “Magic is a most useful tool when one has it.”

“Ooh, get our picture by that small dirigible!” Meia said, rushing over to the aforementioned blimp. It was not very large: enough to seat more than a few ponies and their supplies, but nothing more. It was also rather crude when compared to the machine Trixie had said she had journeyed across the Barnlantic in, with obviously rudimentary steering elements.

“All right,” Spike said, hefting the pack on his back. The supplies they had bought after the boat trip were all they had, Spike having sent back all of the excessive clothes, valuables and souvenirs to Equestria. They each carried a large pack, though Spike’s was by far the largest: you couldn’t expect three pregnant mares to do all the heavy lifting, now could you? Asalah was not exactly a broad-shouldered mare of West Germareny either, so her pack was only slightly larger than the other mare’s.

The four mares lined up next to the dirigible and smiled, posing like they were college roommates. Spike smiled in return and brought up the camera, snapping a few quick pictures. Maybe someday he’d ask Twilight just how these were built: he knew well enough how they worked. Not too different from a regular hot-air balloon, though quite a bit faster and the more streamlined shape helped with this.

“Spike, what is that?” Maria asked, pointing to the horizon. A large cloud of dust was growing closer and closer, obscuring a good portion of the sky.

“Sandstorm!” a pony shouted, rushing past the dragon and his wives, leaping into the dirigible and beginning to crank some levers.

“What?” Spike asked, rushing over to the excited pony.

“Sandstorm, you fool! They are rare around here, but they still happen!” the pony shouted, a slightly crazed look in his eyes. It was the look of fear, of knowing something bad was going to happen.

“What do we do?” Trixie asked, a worried look in her eyes. There was no shelter around the pyramids: surely they would be buried alive.

“Get on board: I’m going over it!” the earth pony said, cutting a few ropes with a small machete. Without a word of protest Spike’s wives jumped on board, with Spike bringing up the rear.

“What about the rest of the caravan?” Spike shouted to the earth pony, who had just finished cutting the final rope. Soon enough, they were airborne, rising rapidly.

“They’ve taken shelter in that canyon!” the pony said, pointing to a small crevice off a ways. It was not far, maybe a five-minute walk, but at the rate the sandstorm was approaching, Spike’s family would never have made it.

The four mares looked out as the ground dropped from beneath them, their ascent going faster than they would have liked. Rather, more so than two would have liked: Asalah and Maria had never experienced the feeling of flight. Trixie had been on an airship such as this before, and Meia... well, a changeling had wings after all.

“We’re not gonna make it!” the earth pony shouted as the cloud of sand drew closer. He was cranking knobs and flipping levers like mad, a few errant bits of steam leaking from some pipes.

“What do you need me to do?” Spike asked, his voice a shout as they rose higher and higher.

“You’re a dragon! Fly under and try giving us a push! If anything, that will reduce the weight in the dirigible and make it easier to rise!”

Spike did as the pony said: leaping over the side, he unfurled his wings and flew upwards, placing his hands on the underside of the dirigible hull. With as much strength as he could put into his wings, he pushed upwards, feeling the speed of ascension increase in the dirigible slightly. He continued to push downwards with his wigs, each flap creating the force necessary to push more and more.

The sand came closer and closer, a seething mass of silica bids flying fast enough to smooth wood like sandpaper. Still Spike pushed and pushed, his wings flapping harder than he ever had had them move before. If he had been on the ground, anypony standing next to him would have been blown backwards, so strong were the gusts generated by his leathery extensions.

Just as he felt his wings begin to tire, Spike saw the cloud of sand pass mere inches from the tip of his tail. Errant grains of sand blasted against his scales, the feeling oddly similar to having pinpricks stuffed into his scales, like when he had served as Rarity’s pincushion all those years ago.

He looked out over the horizon and saw almost nothing but a billowing cloud of sand stretching everywhere. He turned his head to see the sand cloud continue its advance on the landscape, like a thundercloud rolling across the plains. Feeling his wings tire from all of his exertion, he let go of the dirigible and flew up and over the side, collapsing on the floor of the craft. His wings lay stretched out, too sore from the constant flapping to retreat back to his side. It was as if he had been a hummingbird for a few minutes, though his sore flight muscles told him it was more like an hour.

“That was too close,” he muttered as his wives rushed over to him, faces expressing concern for his well-being. To be perfectly honest, as Spike was wont to do, the dragon was fine: just a bit exhausted from over-exerting himself.

“Thank you, sir dragon,” the earth pony said, wiping some sweat from his brow. “I was certain we were going to be swept up in those sands.”

“What would have happened if we had?” Trixie asked.

“The gears would have been clogged by sand and the craft would have been filled in a matter of minutes: the weight would have sent us back to the ground like a stone.” Well, nopony needed to know what would have happened after that: not even Spike could survive being crushed like an ant and then smothered by hundreds of pounds of sand.

“Glad to be of service,” Spike said as Meia and Asalah began massaging his wing muscles: it felt very good, with their nimble fingers working into the crevices of every sore muscle under his flexible scales. Maria had fetched him some water as the other three mares helped him sit up. “By the way, I never caught your name, sir.”

“Wells, mister dragon. Hoofington Gallway Wells.” The earth pony held out a hand, slightly covered in grease from some leaking pipes.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Wells,” Spike said, shaking the stallion’s offered hand. “I am Spike Dragul, and these lovely mares are my brides. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Your assumption would be correct, Mr. Dragul. I hail from Equineland.”

“Ah, I thought your accent was familiar,” Spike said with a smile. “I have a good friend in Equestria who hails from Trottingham himself.”

So they talked of home, their memories of friends and family far away from their current location. Then they discussed what they were doing in Sudan: Spike’s journey, and Wells, it seemed, was on a combination of a research project and sabbatical of sorts. He was here to collect samples from some pyramids and bring them back to Equineland, who wanted to verify that the structures had indeed been made by hand and not by magic. The sands soon passed away beneath them, but they found themselves far from the pyramids of northern Sudan: in fact, they were mere speck on the northern horizon.

“Where are we now?” Trixie asked as she looked out into the distance. “Everything looks different now, more so than when we took off.”

“Ethiopia, I would guess,” Wells said, getting up from his resting spot to push some buttons. “I would set us down here, save for one problem.”

“What is that?” Meia asked, curious at the tone of fear in the pony’s voice. He didn’t sound very happy to be away from a sandstorm that would have been the death of them all.
“Because of him,” the pony said.

“Who?” Maria asked when Wells did not clarify who “him” was.

“Him,” the pony repeated, pointing out several shapes below them. Spike and his wives peeked over to see they were... growing larger. They were unmistakably dirigibles, but their color, compared to Wells’ own grayish-blue, were reddish in color. The airships themselves, as they rose, appeared to have a small symbol on them: a spear jutting through the head of what seemed to be a lion.

“Wells... who is this “him” you speak of?” Spike asked. He had a really bad feeling about all of this: they had just barely escaped a sandstorm, only now to be attacked by... what? Pirates? Bandits? Who in the world was coming up to meet them?

“Warlord Undi’s son, Bara,” Wells said. “He has his own fleet of small dirigibles, and he’s like a pirate, murderer and thug all rolled into one. He kills whomever he wants with no repercussions. He plunders, he rapes and he razes villages whenever he gets bored: he is the living persona of a madpony.”

“Sounds like quite the character,” the dragon said, blood rushing through his body when he heard the word ‘rape’. Draconic side springing into action again, but with the mostly wooden airship he was on, too much fire would set them all ablaze. “Can we outrun him?” he asked, his energy returned after his respite: nothing like knowing your family was in danger to get somedragon’s blood pumping.

“I am afraid not: he will catch us before we cross the border again in a few minutes. I do not know how he saw us, but I do know that he will not dare to cross the border into Kenya. His father has forbidden it, and Undi is the only creature in the world Bara fears.” Wow, Undi sounded even worse than Bara, if Bara was afraid of his own father.

“Wait, how exactly do you know this Bara and Undi?” Trixie asked. “Have you met them before? They sound absolutely despicable.” She was taking all of this normally distressful information rather well: all of Spike’s wives were, for some reason.
“They are the rulers of this part of Africa, ranging from northern Sudan to Somalia and Ethiopia. I have been robbed by them before: they took the only thing I had of value, besides my life.” He sounded rather sad, as if the mere memory caused him significant pain.

“What was that?” Asalah asked.

“A golden locket of my parents,” Wells said, a note of anger entering his voice. “It was all I had left of them. All that was left of my family, and Bara took it: gave it to his damned second in command as a joke.”

“Will this second in command be on one of those ships?” Spike asked. “I’d rather avoid a fight if we could.”

“You won’t avoid this, dragon,” Wells said, apparently not hearing the question. “I have seen them slaughter villages from on high in my ship. The screaming as they burned huts, usually with ponies still inside them: I could hear it from up here. They are monsters in pony’s clothing, beasts that have learned to walk and talk like us. They will rob us if we surrender, or else they will kill us and rape your wives, and THEN kill them.” He sounded very serious, so much so that his own anger fueled Spike’s like a drug.

At these words, Asalah looked around fearfully, not knowing what to do. The others seemed to mirror her actions, looking somewhere, anywhere, for a place to hide.

“Then a fight it is, then,” Spike said, rising to his feet. “They’ll think we are weak, defenseless up here all by ourselves. We’d best prepare.”

“What of us?” Asalah asked, looking at the others. “We cannot hope to repel boarders, and if you fly off, any ponies that get here will surely kill us.”

“Then they won’t get close enough to board us, Asalah,” Spike said softly. “I want you to hide behind the supplies: they’ll be thick enough to stop anything short of a ballista bolt.”

As they moved around, preparing, the dirigibles of Bara rose to their height, high above the ground. They were close enough to see the faces of each other just as Trixie, the last of Spike’s wives, hid behind the supplies. Jeers from the crew, some waving glinting machetes in the light, echoed through the air.

“Get ready,” Wells said to Spike. Wells held with him a club, crude and perfect in case the thugs got on board. “I’m not going to raise the flag.”

“What flag?”

“The flag of surrender,” Wells said as the other floating ships came closer and closer.

“Ah, Wells, I did not expect to see you here,” a voice called out in passable Equinish. Spike looked from his spot to see a zebra speaking, an odd helmet covering his mane. He was tall, lean but strong-looking, like a runner who also practiced with weights or something. Given his profession, it likely involved a lot of bloody murder.

“Yeah, well, you know me: just passing through,” Wells shouted back, making sure to not come out into view.

“You have not raised your flag: are we, your friends, not invited on board?” Bara called out, almost in what could have passed for a somber tone if his face wasn’t twisted into a malicious grin. He had a scar running along the entirety of his jaw, giving him a rather dangerous look: not like he needed one, given the murderous-looking thugs behind him.

“Not today, Bara: I can’t let you on board,” the earth pony replied.

There was silence as the ships leveled out next to each other, with the pirates looking confused. It seemed they had never been refused a request from their leader, as nopony was making a sound. The tall zebra looked out at the ship, the gears working in his head. Bara made a motion, and suddenly a dozen crossbow bolts thudded into the side of the dirigible. Not the inflatable section: anything valuable would be destroyed if the craft fell to the earth like a stone. Not to mention the passengers: he wanted to take a closer look at what Wells was hiding, and punish him for it.

“Jeez, that was quick,” Spike said as Wells ducked behind a small crate, his previous spot sporting three crossbow bolts sticking into where his shoulder had been.

“I told you they don’t mess around,” Wells said, peeking up over his crate to have a crossbow bolt whiz through his mane. He ducked back down to cheers from the thugs.

Spike looked up as they drew closer, fewer and fewer crossbow bolts thudding into the hull. Either these thugs didn’t have many bolts or were terrible shots, though the former seemed the case. Instead, they were moving all along the floating craft, the small cabin underneath the inflatable craft a seething mass of zebras.

“Now they will try and board us,” Wells said, standing on steady hooves. One of the other airships came around to the side and several grappling hooks were thrown out: their aim was straight and true.

As soon as they landed and anchored in, Spike and Wells rushed in and started cutting the ropes. No more bolts flew in their direction, though a machete did swing its way past Spike’s face, embedding itself in the wood behind him. By the time half of the hooks were gone, the airship had pulled itself close enough for some to swing across. Which they did, cackling like mad with their rope in one hand and a machete in another, glee spread across their faces.

The first one to land received a quick kick from Spike right in the chest, sending him flying backwards. He flew over the side, screaming as more hooks from another airship latched onto the other side of Well’s dirigible.

“Sonufa-“ Spike said as he caught the machete of a snarling pirate, using his tail to sweep the legs out from underneath the nasty zebra. With a swift kick of his foot, he shoved the pirate away, just in time for another boarder to land on him. The unevenness of his comrade upset his balance, causing the pirate to fall backwards, his hand still holding onto a rope. Just as he swung away, a crossbow bolt thudded into his neck, a friendly-fire incident that made the zebra let go of his rope in surprise. With luck, he’d be dead before he hit the ground. The same could not be said for the comrade he had stepped on, who rolled off and fell screaming onto the plains below.

Just as the last of the boarders from the one were repelled and the ropes cut, the boarders from the other ship ran at Spike and Wells. Wells smashed one up the side of the head with his club, sending him flying back into another’s machete. Spike dodged another machete strike as he saw a glint of gold on one of the boarder’s necks. It was the locket Wells had talked about.

Wells saw it too and went wild. With reckless abandon he rushed the zebra, smashing at anypony in his way. Just as he reached him, a machete pierced his side and he fell to the floor of the dirigible, crying out in pain.
“No!” Spike shouted, rushing forward.

“Stop, or they die!” a voice said. Spike stopped in his tracks as the three remaining zebras stood straighter, one with a crossbow bolt aiming for... his wives! They were still cowering behind the supplies, though from this angle, they were perfect targets.

“Now,” Bara the zebra said, his helmet glinting in the sunlight. “We should all just relax and have a friendly little chat now, shouldn’t we? We wouldn’t want those lovely mares of yours getting hurt now, would we sir dragon?”

“How do you know they are with me?” Spike asked, the fire inside him rising. This zebra’s smug face was alight with a madness that made him want to eat the bastard, just so there was no way he could ever hurt anypony again.

“Wells was never one for relationships, dragon. Every time I have been so generously “given” his supplies, he was alone: the last time, all he had was this locket,” he said, pointing to the gold around his second in command’s neck. “A small trinket, worthless for sure. Just like his life has been, I assure you. No pony would ever want a foal to turn out like him, I-,”

He was interrupted by a shout. Wells had leaped up off of the deck at the mention of “worthless” and now jumped on the back of the one holding the crossbow, which went off. It went straight into the head of the third zebra, straight through his eye and into his brain: the spray of blood squirted into the air as he slumped over, twitching.

With one hand holding the zebra’s crossbow arm, Wells used the other to grab the locket from around his neck and pull. It came free from the stallion’s neck, who fell backwards from the extra weight on his back. Wells shouted with triumph as he let go of the stallion, both of whom disappeared over the side of the airship.

Spike shouted in anger and rushed the last one left, obviously Bara. The zebra pulled his machete from his scabbard but had it knocked away by Spike’s tail. With a roar and rush of hot air, Spike’s mouth let loose a small torrent of flame, setting the zebra’s clothes aflame.

With a shout of surprise, the zebra stumbled backwards, his hands barely arresting his fall. Spike placed a foot on the stallion’s chest and looked him in the eyes.

“My father will have your head for this!” the zebra shouted through the pain. He was still smiling, the bastard. “He will rape your wives to death! Kill your families! Burn your lands!” The zebra had no idea just who Spike was related to, but he still made the threats. Threats he rehearsed every night before drinking and killing and slaughtering innocent folk as if it were a game. To him, it was: he lived for it, the thrill of being in power and running the show when his father wasn’t around.

“He will try,” Spike said simply, giving a good push with his foot. With a scream, a combination of pain, anger and madness, the zebra plummeted away from the airship, a trail of smoke following him. Spike looked over the side to see him go, his eyes suddenly turning to...

“Wells?” he said in disbelief, reaching down to grab the Equinish stallion. “Wells, you lucky bastard!” As luck would have it, some of the crossbow bolts in the hull had caught onto the pony’s clothing and he lay there, suspended and holding onto the tiny golden locket like a pony possessed.

With a great heave, Spike pulled the bleeding pony back on board, just in time to see one of the airships be replaced by another. “Asalah! Do you know how to stop the bleeding?”

“I... I should, I-I think,” the zebra said, rushing over to help Spike set down the stallion. Meia pushed the dead zebra with crossbow bolt through his eye socket over the side. “What of the other airships?” she asked as she tore a bit of errant cloth from Wells’ side and pressed it against the wound in his side.

“I’m the only one who can fly this thing now, so Meia and the others will have to take care of it,” Spike said as he rushed over to the controls.

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Maria asked. “Do you expect us to breathe fire and fly out to meet them? All of us are pregnant, I remind you!”

“Well, you ARE unicorns: use some magic!” Spike didn’t mean to sound snarky, but now was not the time to argue semantics.

At that moment in time, the entire fabric of the universe seemed to slow to a stop. The Earth stopped revolving, comets froze in place, and the thermonuclear reaction in the sun’s core stopped like it was a flashlight that had run out of batteries. Three of these mares had magic and could have used it at any time in the past, and only now did somepony realize it, and they weren’t even a pony?! Discord himself would have suffered an aneurysm from the sheer chaos of it all.

With a renewed look in their eyes, the three magic-wielders rushed over to the side where the newer ship was coming from, Trixie threw up a magical barrier just as another crossbow volley traveled towards them. The sharp bolts bounced harmlessly off of the magic shield as Maria and Meia pointed their horns towards the airship, taking aim not at the wood, but the dirigible itself.

“What is the weakest point? We can’t use fire spells!” Meia shouted as another volley of crossbow bolts bounced off Trixie’s shield: a slight crack showed in the magic material.

“Aim for the balloon part!” Spike said as he steered the airship away to avoid sliding up against the other airship from whence Bara had come from. The sudden motion made the ropes latched onto his own dirigible snap, letting the nearly-crewless craft float away. They were almost there, the border was so close...

As if two rapid-fire cannons were built into the dirigible’s hull, Maria and Meia fired off spells, each a simple cutting spell that formed knives in mid-air. It did the trick, with the suddenly-materializing metal piercing the sides of the gaseous containers inside the pirate airship. With hisses and tearing noises, the dirigible began to lose altitude, all the while the evil zebras inside shouting and screaming.

The last dirigible turned back, just as the marker dividing the lands of Ethiopia and Kenya came into view. It wasn’t much, but the change in the landscape was enough for them all to know they were now safe. Perhaps they also wished to live through this ordeal: their boss was dead and his father was likely to be very angry.

“Meia, Maria: please help Asalah tend to Wells’ wounds,” Spike said, slumping against the controls. He had barely remembered any of his flight training under Luna, since she had a personal hot-air balloon. Why did the controls have to be so similar and yet do so many different things? “Anypony else hurt?”

“Not a scratch,” his four brides said as Trixie lowered the magical shield. She too slumped over: to make such a strong shield last, even for a short while, was taxing.

“I must say, that was quite a defensive spell,” Wells said, coughing slightly at the pain. “Where did you learn that?”

“Equestria,” Trixie said as she crawled over to Spike’s side, her mane all tussled from the sheer amount of effort she had put into the spell. “There are a lot of libraries: one of the better ones is in Ponyville.” She smiled at Spike when she said this: perhaps she was as anxious to see Ponyville again as he was.

“I have heard the libraries of Baghdad are one of the best collections in the entire world,” Wells replied as the three attending mares helped fix his bandages. “I’ve never gone there, of course, but word gets around on the grapevine, as they say.”

“We’ll have to go there some time,” Spike said, feeling exhausted, both from the ordeal and the stress of said ordeal. He looked up to see the last of the pirate dirigibles fade away into the distance: for the time being, vast expanses of uninhabited ecosystems lay out before them. “We’ll land in a while, if that is okay with you, Mr. Wells: as soon as we find a city or town. I don’t want to land where some predator might try and snack on us in this state.”

“Of course, Mr. Dragul, of course,” the earth pony replied. “For now, let us rest: the winds won’t push us much further than this, and right now I could use some...”

He fell asleep, the exhaustion of the fight and his wound finally taking their toll. Spike closed his eyes as well, glad the airship was barely moving at all, or else who knew where they’d end up.

Author's Notes:

Well now, how will this pan out? Stay tuned, my faithful readers!

Also, if you do leave a review behind, feel free to state your opinion on this question of mine: should I or should I not label chapters that have clop in them as, well, having clop in them? Call it a vote, if you will: a poll, even.