Chapter 8-2: A Welcome Distraction

“What. The. Fuck?”

“I know, right?”

I said nothing, content to let Naiara retell the story as I chugged down a cider. I needed the steadying alcohol after seeing just exactly how much I’d screwed myself over with what I’d done.

Predictably, and very understandably, Bosco hated the idea. “This is a joke! He’s not even really offering anything! Just because one particular gang of Raiders decided NOT to try to kill anypony doesn’t mean the other three will be anything close that accommodating.”

We were sat in the same tavern where I’d seen the guard lounging around outside, just after I’d escaped from Latvi. It was even more of a dump than Nightcap’s place, and the drinks were terrible, but Bosco and I were banned from drinking in Nightcap’s thanks to my crying and almost starting a fight.

Still, alcohol was alcohol, so I dug a few more caps out from my bags, which Bosco had thankfully held onto after I was taken during the fight with Wings and Cassie, and strolled over to the bar, returning with two more ciders and whatever concoction Naiara, still disguised as a female double of Bosco, had asked the barkeep pony to mix up for her. Setting the new round down, I held my cider bottle up to my horn and gave it a little chill.

I found that I could only use my ice magic on something that my horn was touching. I hoped to find a way to extend the range someday, though I had absolutely no idea how. There weren’t many unicorns around that I trusted enough to ask about this stuff.

Maybe Lexi? She’s always been a friend to me. Yeah, I think that’s my best bet. I’ll try to get a quiet few minutes with her the next time I see her.

Naiara sipped happily from a straw, satisfied at how the drink came out. The barkeep must have some talent… or some history with zebra drinks. “So are we agreed that we’re not doing this?”

Surprisingly, Bosco wasn’t sure. “I dunno. I mean, it’s a bad idea. So bad. But I just can’t stop thinking about what might happen if Snow says no.”

That was a sobering thought. I didn’t like it. “Right, right, Raiders don’t get their queen, take it out on Lethbridle.” I put my head down on the table, covered it with my hooves, and commenced groaning.

Naiara and Bosco continued the discussion over my head. “What’d Rockhaunch say?”

“He was pissed because Snow promised not to hurt the guy. Some of the guards there had lost friends to Raiders. They were itching to take the shot. The chief had his hooves full keeping them in line.”

“What else could I do?” I mumbled from the tabletop, “He wasn’t exactly asking. It was that or he kept his weapons on. You think it wouldn’t have gone to hell when he stepped towards us at the end with a freaking shotgun close to hoof?”

“Today was the only time though. Rockhaunch says Lethbridle really can’t afford to look soft on Raiders. Or soft at all. With Neighlway and Plottawa causing trouble, and Red Ice suddenly in the public eye.”

“Sorry again.” I hadn’t looked up from the table.

Bosco just continued, not interested in tossing around blame right now. “Basically if the citizens in Lethbridle get too worried they’d up and leave to head south. Not so good for the economy of the place.”

“Oh come now,” Naiara tried to put a cheery spin on things, “can’t we say it’s a tourist attraction? ‘The Amazing Red Ice and her Educated Raiders’?”

I stiffened under my hooves. Wait… educated Raiders?

“Yeah,” deadpanned Bosco, “I’m sure ponies will just flock to see the nutjobs who raped and killed half their families.”

Nobody wants to see a Raider… nobody tries to understand them anymore…

Naiara drained her drink and started on the next one I’d brought her. “Alright, fair enough. So then, how do we get out of it without a lot of ponies dying?”

…because hate is all they have left!

I lifted my head off the table, ignoring the headrush that accompanied the action. “I’m gonna do it.”

I got a face full of sticky drink for my trouble, courtesy of my zebra friend. “YOU’RE WHAT?!”

The other grey body at the table began banging his head with his bottle of cider. “No, no, no. Why? Why? Why? How many fucking times?”

My excitement levels were rising as I rounded on him. “Remember what I asked about Raiders after the first time we met them, Bosco? About why they existed? Now we can find out?”

“Remember what I responded with?” He sounded as if he was losing hope by the second, trying desperately to get out of this.

“Yeah. You said they’d kill us. But they didn’t!”

“ONE TIME! One time they didn’t kill us! That’s not a big enough sample size! Oh, don’t do this to me again, please?”

“Bosco,” I gave him a quick hug around the shoulders, “I’ve been listening, you know. Even if I’m doing this, I won’t let myself be put into a situation where I can’t get out, and I’ll cut and run if things get too crazy.”

“… you promise?”

I hugged him a little tighter. “I promise. I don’t actually want to die, even if it seems like I do. Red Ic-no, Snowflake’s honour.”

Naiara soon joined our hug, to mutters of “lucky colt” from the stallions drinking alone around us.

~~~~~~

Caber Toss was waiting outside the gate the next day, still wearing his bandolier but without any weaponry, just some papers stuffed awkwardly into the holsters.

He brightened up as the three of us emerged from the gate mid-morning, though Bosco’s guns did draw his attention for a few moments. “So? Whaddaya think, lass? Leadin’ the Raiders startin’ tae sound alreet?”

I had to take a few seconds to readjust to his accent before responding. “I’ll agree to talk to the other Raider groups, but I have thoughts of my own about the Raiders.”

This was brushed off with an utter lack of concern. “Aye, nae bother. You’ll be top mare at the end o’ the day. What you say goes, hey?”

The grey pony and grey ‘pony’ flanking me stepped forwards now. They wanted to have their say with this stallion and wouldn’t have let me through the gate if I hadn’t agreed.

Naiara went first. “What sort of guarantee do we have that the other groups won’t just shoot us on sight? You don’t have any pull outside of the Haylanders.”

“Aye, it’s a fair point,” he dug into the bandolier and removed the papers, “these’ve got mah marks on ‘em, an’ a few words tae the other leaders. Says ah’m wantin’ some banter wi’ ‘em. Ah’m already puttin’ the word out that yeh’re no’ t’be touched on the way.”

With a clenched jaw, Bosco let his frustration show at the stallion’s casual arrogance in assuming we’d say yes before we did. “Well that’s just lovely, Raider, but what happens when they ignore those flimsy papers and just gun us down, or worse?”

The younger male spat into the ground. “I don’t trust you and I don’t like your kind. We’re far more likely to be attacked for no reason than we are to get an audience with the clan leaders. If this goes badly for us, I’m gonna put a bullet in your head.”

The two boys held each other’s stare for a few moments, before Caber Toss broke off, shrugging. “Ah’m no’ makin’ any promises about safety. Yeh’re no’ wrong, there’ll be violence afore this is all over. Ah’m just tryin’ to get away from me and mah Haylanders always gettin’ those kinda reactions. ‘s no’ always nice tae have ponies runnin’ away from yeh, y’know?”

“Oh, poor you,” My colt friend scoffed, “the Raider’s upset he can’t make any friends. Please.”

Thunder flushed through Caber’s eyes, and his legs tensed up. Naiara took a step forward in response. “Try it, and I’ll kill you.”

I decided now was the time to break my silence. “Caber Toss, thank you for the papers. I’ll do my best to help everybody out, Raiders included. Just leave the marks on the ground and head back to your clan. We’ll head off soon.” My reassuring smile drew a disgusted look from Bosco, while Naiara just kept her focus on the stallion with the tartan mane.

Calming himself, Caber Toss brushed away some light snow on the ground before laying the papers down. I looked to the sky for a moment. A sparse sprinkling of my namesakes were gently swirling in the breeze, more often than not disappearing before they reach the cold ground. The weather seemed to be coming down from the northern mountains, reaching further with each passing day.

Good thing I’ll be heading south for a little while, I guess.

Stepping away from the documents, the Raider chief ignored the others and looked me straight in the eye. “Yeh got mah thanks, Red Ice. Ah’ll do whatever ah can tae help yeh out.”

Giving me a final nod, he turned and began stalking away to the northwest, perhaps returning to Whinniepeg.

~~~~~~

“Have you seen these papers? All they have on them is his cutie mark and some barely legible hoofwriting asking them to meet. This is pathetic.”

We’d barely been travelling an hour before Bosco resumed his complaining about this whole enterprise. It was getting dangerously close to whining. I wished he’d just let it go. It was happening, and that was that.

Luckily, Naiara was in a far better mood after we found a patch of snow which she’d rolled around in for a while, turning it black as her body paint was washed off. She’d had to pop a Radaway right after but maintained it was worth it. She’d donned her cloak in case we came across anybody before we found the Raiders. Having to explain away a zebra would be less than optimal. It’d take too much time and could cause us problems down the line. Still, she was revelling in having her natural coat again. Even the convenience of passing through Lethbridle without trouble, though plenty of male attention, was not an even trade off to feeling like herself.

I liked that about her. It was such a shame that even two hundred years later, such precautions were necessary for zebras in Equestria.

I’d love to introduce her to all the zebras in Stable 61. She’s friendlier than they were. Though, after what happened with the Memory Orb, they don’t want anything to do with me. I’m mua leija to them.

“Stop staring at them so much then, Bosco,” the friendly, pretty zebra was using any natural object she could find, rocks, trees, snow, etc, to change up her motion constantly. Her joy in the freedom of movement was clear for all to see, “why don’t we swap stories while we walk? I’d love to hear more about what happened to you guys while I was away.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” I took the opportunity to snatch the papers away from the colt and stuff them into my gear. If he couldn’t see them then he might let it go a little, “You first, Bosco.”

Having had his grumble-fodder stolen, the Colt sighed and collected his thoughts. “Alright, fine. Now, Snow already knows this, but I think it’s probably a good idea to tell you about Schwarzwald now, since you’ll probably meet her later.”

I burst out laughing, startling and confusing the bouncy zebra. He’s got a point. It’d be almost cruel to let Naiara meet Schwarzwald without knowing the basics.

“Fittingly enough, we first met Schwarzwald and her partner Wings…” he shot an apologetic glance in my direction at the mention of the blue-eyed griffon, “…on the way to Lethbridle the first time. Before we met you, actually. Snow and I got jumped by some Raiders and we passed them as we ran. Between the four of us, we killed them all.”

“Uh… probably best not to bring this up closer to the Raider camp.”

“That’s for sure. Anyway, Schwarz and Wings left right after that, and I caught up with Schwarzwald after we split up to look for this crazy runaway here.”

I coloured at that.

“Schwarzwald took me monster hunting. Have you ever seen a Molar Bear, Naiara?”

She thought for a second before shaking her head. “No, don’t think so.”

“Actually, you have,” I interjected, “remember when we left Grindstone with Breeze, and rolled down that hill in the forest?”

“Yeah but… oh! Those things?” Instant recognition blossomed over her face. One Molar Bear was not something you forgot, let alone the four we’d seen that day.

“Yeah, those things. Which means, technically,” I had to smile at the insanity of it, “you’ve seen more of them than Bosco has and didn’t even know it!”

“Ha! Sorry, Bosco.”

The colt crossed his front legs and sulked. “ ‘least I’ve seen more Tarantubaas.”

“Ta-what-u-whats?”

Bosco let a little smugness through as he explained. “Snowflake-sized woolly spiders.”

“Binn tusaa!”

That made my eyebrows shoot up. That was strong language for any zebra. I hadn’t expected it from Naiara.

“Riiiight. So back to Schwarzwald. Who, by the way, has expressed great interest in meeting you, Naiara.” Bosco’s face was a mix of sympathy and amusement.

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’re a zebra, and she wants to find out what kind of… tricks you’ve learned from zebra culture.”

“Tricks?” Naiara didn’t look too impressed that her culture was being reduced to something so simple.

“All kinds. Especially… private ones.”

“Oh.” I think everybody present flushed at the thoughts this generated. Naiara and I knew what zebras could do. Bosco and I knew what Schwarzwald was capable of. The combination was… intimidating.

“Veery interested in new tricks, that one. And that’s just the start…”

~~~~~~

The three of us watched from a nearby bluff as the Raiders prowled around our campsite. All three of them wore the same style of battered leather clothing, in various states of disrepair and all wielding rusty farming tools. These were the Barnstormers, it would seem.

“Told you there were ponies following us.” Naiara whispered from the other end of the line.

“We believed you!” I shot back, in equally hushed tones.

“I know, I’m just bragging.”

“…”

“So, when they get bored, we track them back to their boss?” Bosco was all business. He’d been against starting the campfire in the first place, even as a lure. He’d stopped complaining though. He wasn’t dour by nature, just a practical pony. Now that we were committed, he’d shifted from trying to talk us out of it and was focused on getting the job done and getting us out of here without trouble.

He’s really bad at saying no when asked, too. Fine when chewing a pony out after the fact, but beforehoof? Not so much.

Lying in between Naiara and I, Bosco was ignoring our conversation and watching the Raiders as they went about their rudimentary dismantling of our campsite. Well, two of them anyway. The third seemed rather out of it. He’d simply walked through the fire twice now and didn’t seem to feel it. Whatever he was putting into his body, it was strong.

The other two Barnstormers gave up the search and made to leave, pausing briefly to pat out some embers on the junkie colt’s barding, then whap him about the skull with a rake, indicating that he should follow them. All three then turned to travel back the way they came.

Naiara waited a few seconds in case they looked back, then hopped up excitedly. “We’re on! Follow me you two, and try to keep up. Don’t talk if you can help it.”

Bosco and I scrambled to our hooves with a fraction of her grace and trotted after her, trying to mimic how she moved and avoided causing unnecessary noise.

It wasn’t easy, the girl was an artist. Her pace was swift but uncertain. She didn’t travel at the same speed all the time. She’d stop and duck every time some new sound threatened to give us away, only continuing when she judged it to be safe. Her hard-hitting hooves seemed to be wrapped in silk as I couldn’t hear a sound when she took a step, even as close as I was. It made me all the more conscious of just how much noise I was making. I could train all my life and never be as good as she was.

Still, I’d be damned if I was gonna mess up her hard work, so I did what I could to reduce my own sound. We’d all synched our clothes and packs as tight as they would go so they wouldn’t shift or clatter or put us off balance. Bosco suffered with that the most. He was the only one among us who carried a firearm. All I had in my bags were a few medicines and the papers from Caber Toss. Naiara carried no bags but had stashed her jewelry somewhere in her cloak. That left Bosco as the only one to lug ammo and whatever else he’d picked up.

Has he got the rifle I was given in the Stable? I haven’t seen it in a while. Maybe he sold it? Eh, he can do what he likes with it, I’ll never use the thing. Best it gets some use, either as a weapon or sold for caps.

Despite my shortcomings and Bosco’s load, Naiara kept us from being discovered as we followed the meandering path that the Raiders took to reach their home. As we were swiftly running out of convenient high ground to observe from, which had my heartbeat on the rise, the Raiders reached their home.

Following them along the remaining ridge, we saw the two sober Barnstormers dragging and kicking the doped up colt through a bottleneck gap between some rocks. It took us a few minutes to scramble our way to a new vantage point that gave us a view of what was beyond.

Ensconced in the small clearing, with the natural protection of the bottleneck gap and the high rock walls around it, sat the Barnstormer base. It was a ramshackle collection of barely standing almost-buildings, mostly just sheet metal hastily tied or welded together to give the barest of protection against the elements. Ponies lounged under their tin roofs on filthy blankets or prepared nasty looking stews out of… whatever they could get, it looked like, dirty oil fires warmed the warped and rusted cauldrons where they cooked their meagre sustenance.

No wonder they all have that hungry look in their eyes. Bosco was right. This IS pathetic.

“How can they live like this?” We had nothing to say in response, agreeing completely with the revolted tone of his inquiry. I couldn’t vouch for Naiara, but I was revolted because I felt bad for them. If this was the harshness of Raider life that Caber Toss spoke of, maybe they did need someone to guide them to a better way. There were undoubtedly people around who’d simply argue that they should be ‘put out of their misery’, or whatever other justification they’d use to slaughter them all.

Did Raiders use their lack of resources as justification for their despicable actions? Did they bother to justify themselves at all?

Naiara ruefully shook her head, a lock of her flowing mane falling out of the opening in her hood. She tucked it in distractedly. “Such a waste.”

“I know. I kinda feel sorry for them.”

She just looked at me funny. “What? No, not that. I meant the food. I see three different ingredients lying around that’d double the amount they could make without much drop-off in quality. It’s just wasteful. Don’t they have mothers?”

“You wanna ask ‘em?” Bosco quipped, but his grey cheeks were curved up in a smile as he did.

The joke seemed to snap us out of our reverie. We withdrew from the edge and sat down for a moment, trying to determine the best way to do this. Bosco kept one eye on the camp, but it didn’t seem like there was much activity during breakfast time.

“Okay,” I began, “so now we really do have to decide how we’re doing this. Walk straight in? Try to sneak around and find Four Fields? Yell to get their attention? What’s your poison?” I hadn’t used that term since I worked in Whiskey Sour’s bar, safe in the Stable. Now I was trying to figure out how to approach some possibly homicidal strangers. An interesting before-and-after, to be sure.

“We shouldn’t make ourselves known until we see Four Fields, who I am only now realising was never described to us by that useless Caber Toss. Wonderful.”

“I’m with Bosco. There’s too many of them. Stay up here and watch until we figure out who he is. Shouldn’t be impossible, he’ll be one of the biggest, better fed than the others, and acts like he owns the place.”

I just nodded to agree with them, not trusting myself to speak and reveal that I’d never have thought up how to look for Four Fields without them.

It’s nice to have friends. Even nicer to have smart friends to patch the holes in my crazy ideas.

Creeping back to the edge, we began our survey of the village.

“Look for a nicer living space too.” Bosco provided.

“Maybe a bunch of fillies under the same roof.” Naiara’s contribution was a sad thought, though probably accurate.

During our vigil, I worked on the living space angle first, checking out all the biggest shacks to start with. Over the next hour, I saw a stallion emerge from each one, though none of them struck me as particularly leader-y. Half of them were scrawny, and the big ones didn’t seem to have any more authority than anybody else in the village.

I kept looking. There were plenty of foals around, racing between homes and fighting in the dust, occasionally being kicked out of the way by a passing mare or stallion. One chancy little filly tried to swipe some of the food from the pot, but got caught and received what I thought was an overly severe beating for her actions. Eventually she was let go to limp away, crying.

A short while later she returned, flanked by a mare who could only be her mother. Said mother cracked the cook pony who’d administered the beating around the face with a dented pistol, and the two mares went down in a tangle, biting and kicking and wrestling with each other. More Raiders flocked to the action and several other fights broke out, with the gathered foals cheering and egging them on.

“If this is anything like at Lethbridle,” I whispered to my compatriots, “the big boss’ll be along soon to break it up.”

“Mm, you could be right. Check out this guy coming now.”

We followed Naiara’s pointing hoof to a stallion emerging from one of the largest structures, with two others flanking him. At first glance, the unicorn didn’t look like anything special. He wasn’t a giant or a midget, bore no particularly lethal-looking weaponry, and seemed almost utterly bored with the proceedings. His moss-green coat and harvest-gold mane barely registered among the chaos.

I began to wonder whether he was just a bodyguard and one of the bigger stallions following was, in fact, the boss, when his horn began glowing. We watched in silence as a metal ball emerged from his barding and was casually tossed into the middle of the melee, right at the still-scrapping mares who’d started the whole thing. When the grenade rolled near them, everypony in range began yelling and scattering, desperate to get away from the explosive. The mares jostled and shoved each other to get away, but soon found themselves being dragged back, held in the golden glow of his horn.

After he dropped them, in quaking heaps before him, Four Fields began to demonstrate why he was, undoubtedly, leader of the Barnstormers. The grenade, now obviously a dud, leapt off the ground and rocketed towards the two petrified ponies. Back and forth it dashed, slamming into shoulders, knees, faces, eyes, bodies, leaving harsh welts and torn flesh as Four Fields executed as savage a beating as I’d ever seen.

“…fuck.” That was all Bosco managed to get out. Naiara and I were stunned to silence.

Four Fields was no Caber Toss, ruling through physical force. Instead, his unparalleled cruelty kept his Raiders in line. Even now, beaten and broken, the two mares prostrated themselves before him, awaiting his command. Wordlessly, he cocked his head back towards his domicile. Painfully, the two dragged themselves towards it.

I really hope he’s gonna heal them up in there. They’re not in any shape for anything else. I kinda doubt that’s what he has planned, though.

The brawl was definitely over. Four Fields and his entourage turned and followed the crawling mares. Activity in the camp returned to normal, though much more subdued than before. The three of us backed away from the edge and sat in a circle.

Nobody said anything at first, then Naiara spoke up. “Did you see his face during all that?”

Bosco shook his head, then shook it again, as if trying to dislodge the images we’d just seen. “I wasn’t really looking at him, more at the two on the receiving end. They looked like half their bones were broken.”

The zebra’s stare was harsh. “Well I was looking at him. He didn’t even care! His expression didn’t change the entire time. Just walked up, broke up a village-wide brawl, beat two mares half to death, and walked away, all the while looking like he couldn’t give a single damn about the whole thing!”

“That was… horrible. How are we supposed to get close to him without getting on the receiving end ourselves?” I looked to the other two for answers, but none came. They were just as lost as I was.

“Well, I’ve got an idea,” Bosco said, standing up, “how about we don’t go down there? We get their attention from up here, and if they start getting Raidery on us, we just get out of here. If they’re not gonna listen anyway then we wouldn’t have a chance even if we did go down there.”

“So we get to yell at Raiders and they’re too far away to do anything about it? I like that idea.” She and Bosco shared a conspiratory grin before they both turned to me with stern faces.

“What?”

“We’re waiting for you to say you still wanna go down there anyway.”

“That is the Snowflake-approach in this situation.”

“I don’t wanna go down there! He’s got telekinesis and something heavy to hit me with. I wanna stay up here too!”

Why do you two look so surprised right now?!

“What do you know? She’s learning.”

Naiara clapped her hooves together like a mother whose foal just learned something knew. “I’m so proud.”

Oh come on! Fuming, I stalked back over to the edge, taking another look down at the milling Raiders. “So how do we do this? Just yell out that we want to talk and hope they don’t kill us?”

I was joined by the others. “All together we yell out ‘Four Fields’. Better to let them know we want his attention specifically rather than just the entire village. After what just happened, they might wait for him to move first. If we can show me mean no harm, maybe he’ll come talk with us.”

The jade-eyed zebra nudged the charcoal Earth colt. “Better put your guns away then, Bosco.”

“Yeah, I guess…” he took a few seconds to holster his weaponry, then rejoined us, “On three. One… two… three!”

“FOUR FIELDS!”
“FOUR FIELDS!”
“FOUR FIELDS!”

Our voices echoed around the canyon. Raiders looked up in panic, searching for the source of the sound bouncing around them. A few fired randomly in the air, somehow hoping to hit what they couldn’t find.

Four Fields came rushing out of his home, half a dozen grenades held aloft by his glowing horn. Somehow, his face was still impassive. He cast about, this way and that, until one Raider spotted us and yelled out, pointing a hoof in our direction.

Keeping our eyes on Four Fields, Naiara and I waved jauntily, while Bosco watched in stony silence. I decided it was best to play this similar to how it was with Caber. Taking a deep breath, I hoped what I said next would get his attention. “RED ICE WANTS TO TALK!”

Even from this distance, he, and half the camp, started at the name. The grenades swirling above his head ever-so-gradually lowered to the ground. The green-and-gold Raider turned his head, speaking to his unseen guards, who soon emerged, half-dressed. Clearly, they’d been ‘enjoying’ the two near-crippled mares. That didn’t improve my opinion of the Barnstormers at all.

We stayed there until we saw that Four Fields and his guards were making their way up the incline without bringing the entire village with them. Still, we made sure to back off plenty before they reached our level, giving us room to manoeuvre, fight, or run, as the situation might dictate.

Still wearing his unconcerned expression and flanked by the pair of guards, Four Fields came to a stop 10 meters from us. While he himself looked to be in the prime of life, his guards were clearly seasoned. Toughened by years of raiding and fighting, they would put up a ferocious fight if provoked. More evidence that Four Fields was someone to watch carefully.

Raising his chin slightly, he began speaking in a short, flat intonation. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

All three of us tensed up slightly, but Red Ice couldn’t afford to show weakness. I stood tall, matching his stance with a raised chin of my own, looking at him out of half-lidded eyes. “You know why we are here?” I tried to make it sound like it wasn’t really a question.

“I do.”

“And what do you have to say for Caber Toss’ proposal?”

The barest flash of… something shot passed behind his eyes. “…I feel that there is some value to what he says. A united Raider alliance would be a formidable force indeed. Still, I cannot simply accept on the possibility. Show me what is being offered to aid the Barnstormers.”

Oh dang. What can I tell him? Something small. What would help his village? Oh, I know! I turned my head slightly, still keeping my eyes on Four Fields as I spoke to Naiara. “Tell him about the food.”

Beneath the hood she’d donned as Four Fields ascended to meet up, Naiara nodded. “Your stew is weak, which makes your bodies weak,” she pulled back the hood, drawing a gasp from one of the guards, “I can show you how to improve it, to strengthen your village and your warriors. Do you see those roots you have around your village, the yellow-orange kind? If you add those in, the brew will be more potent.”

“A zebra slave? How surprising,” Whatever surprise he felt didn’t register on his face, “and impressive.”

I couldn’t let that go, regardless of the circumstances. “She is no slave. She is my bodyguard, and you will address her as such. This is not up for debate. Do not use that word in my presence again.” The posturing was for the sake of the Red Ice mystique, but Snowflake really meant the outrage. How dare he call Naiara that? It was worse than stripe!

Four Fields gave a slight bow. “I understand, I won’t say it again. But do not for a moment think you can dictate the terms of this conversation by yourself. This is my land and I will not bow to anypony here. If you want the Barnstormers to join you, then you must prove yourself capable of leading us.”

A familiar sigh came from behind me. “What do you want?”

The question was ignored for the moment, though not the questioner. “And this one? Also a bodyguard, or is he a plaything?”

“STOP WASTING MY TIME, FOUR FIELDS!”

That did the trick. Four Fields’ mask slipped for a moment, his eyes showing danger as his head whipped back to me.

I made no attempt to placate him, simply continuing with the objective. “Tell me your terms. I am not here to have my associates insulted.”

The mask slipped back into place, and the Raider boss motioned for his followers, both crouched in ready stances, to stand down. “Very well, Red Ice, you have my attention. There is a building not far from here that I want to explore. It is filled with dangerous creatures. Clear them out, and the Barnstormers will meet with the others. I will not promise more than that.”

“And we won’t promise you full rights to what’s inside. If it is as dangerous as you say, we will take compensation for our troubles first.” Bosco was on a roll. That was exactly the kind of hard-nosed but fair stance we needed. If he conceded to that, we’d know the deal was on.

There were a tense few moments as the Barnstormer mentally weighed up the offer. Finally, Four Fields repeated his earlier bow, only deeper this time, and dug some paper out of his pocket. “Done. This map will show you the way to the facility. Return when the creatures have been dealt with. I will ensure you are not harmed within my territory.”

Without another word, he left the map on the ground, turned, and walked back down the hill, past his guards, who fell in behind him.

Once we were sure he was out of hearing range, three held breaths were let out.

~~~~~~