A Dance of Pawns
Chapter 1: The Sodden Maiden
Thunder. Lightning. A jagged bolt of electricity tore a rip in the sky, unleashing a deluge of freezing rain that had been pent up, trapped beneath the dark canvas of the sky. Far below was a massive ocean, roaring and howling its derision to the furious sky above. More lightning crackled, unleashing blasts of sound that screamed through the atmosphere. In return the waves reared their heads, frothing foam being swept into the wind as the slammed to the ground, unleashing their own explosions of sound. Light. Noise. Sky. Earth. It was a battle of might. Then there was a young filly. A small sodden bundle caught in the battle. She was no more than fourteen years old, a soaked bundle, clinging to a buoyant strip of metal and wood. She was unconscious; a strip of leather acting as the only safeguard between the lifesaver and the wet embrace of death. The elements did not care for her, though. They continued to battle, the ocean reached up with gigantic paws of water to swipe at the sky as the sky struck down with its thin, spindly hands and fingers of lightning. The filly twitched as her body automatically acted to force water out of her lungs as a load was dumped down her nostrils and slightly-agape mouth. But there was nothing she could do. She could not stop the war of the elements. The little child slumped further, unconsciously dragging her scrap of wood closer to her freezing as the waves carried her bodily wave into the darkness. Everything went black, and the storm kept raging.
…
Heat. Sand. The sound of a bird cawing harshly to the open sky above woke her up. The little filly opened up one eye and ground. She squinted as the blinding light of an unforgiving sun bore down upon her pupils with unfaltering intensity. More cawing. The sodden little bundle lifted her head to see a host of white-feather birds. Seagulls. They were staring at her curiously. No. They weren't curious. Expectancy shone in their eyes. They weren't interested in her. They were waiting expectantly for her to die, so they could pick her flesh from her bones. Something about this thought triggered her brain. Death. That wasn't for her. She spat in the face of death, didn't she? That was something she had told someone… Somewhere… Sometime ago…
The filly struggled to all fours with a growl. She was alone on a beach. The white-and-yellow sand stretched on forever in both directions, curing away into a massive bay. In the faint distance she could make out the harsh sickly greens of a jungle. Behind her was an ocean of saltwater, and before he was an ocean of sand, both with their own rises and falls. The filly raised her head to look a little farther in each direction. However, she suddenly doubled over and vomited water stained with blood all over the ground. The mixture of water and blood was immediately sucked up by the bone-dry sand, which had been suffering beneath the fiery lash of the sun for countless eons now. The child struggled up again, her throat rattling and her breathing heavy. Her stomach clenched and her vision blurred. But even this didn't stop her. She wasn't about to give up.
She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but only a harsh wheezing escaped from her throat. She coughed again, vomiting up even more seawater. She collapsed to the ground again, burying her face in the sand. The seagulls just continued to stare. Waiting for her to cough her last cough. The filly wasn't about to give them that pleasure. She shot up, trying with every centimeter of her soul to keep herself from passing out. She opened her mouth one more time.
"Go away!" she shouted. "I'm not dead yet! Go away!"
Her voice, though weak, came out loud and startling. Giving her the most baleful look that a bird could muster, one of the seagulls glanced at his compatriots and squawked. They rose as one and sailed off into the sky, disappointed. The filly shuffled after them, yelling at the group from the shore below.
"That's right, you run away! If you come back I'll break your skulls! Every last one of them!"
The filly, no totally drained of her strength, stumbled and fell hard on her face. She lay there for five full minutes, doing her best to not pass out. As she did that, she tried to remember. Nothing specific. She just tried to remember. Her nostrils flared in frustration, blowing little rivulets in the sand. She couldn't remember a thing. She had no memory. There was a storm. Flashes of lightning, roar of thunder. There was the ocean. Towering waves, doing their utmost to drag her deep into their cold, wet embrace… And now here she was. The filly slowly sat up. She wasn't as dizzy anymore, and her stomach was no longer churning. All she felt now was a great, great thirst.
"I… I need water," she said out loud. There was no one around. She could say whatever she wanted, as loud as she wanted. Slowly the child got to her feet. She began to crest the first dune that rose before her, acting as a barrier between the saltwater-soaked shore and the rest of the desert-like beach. She tumbled downward on her first try, her knobby knees too weak to support the rest of her body. She growled in anger as she came to a stop at the foot of the first dune, covered in sand particles that were glued to her sodden coat by sweat and seawater. She forced herself to get up. With grunts of exertion she forced herself over the first dune, rolling down the opposite side.
She picked herself out of the sand and looked up: Another sand dune, almost identical to its brother, stood high and mighty, waiting to be conquered. The filly spat out the mouthful of sand she had swallowed from her roll and started forward, panting. She crested that one with a passion, completely determined to not give up. These dunes could go to hell for all she cared. They couldn't stop her. Nothing could. She crested another dune, and then another, and then another.
Finally even the reserves of the reserves of her bodily energy were drained. With a choked growl she buckled and lay face down in the sand. Her throat was so parched, and the blurring of her vision had returned.
"I'm not gonna die…" she gasped to the water-drained surroundings. "I'm… I'm not gonna die. I'm just gonna lie here for a bit to take a rest. I'll be right back…"
The filly turned on her back, shifting to a belly-up position. Her right he slapped against something. She opened an eye. It was a scrap of metal. The filly held it close to her face, sifting through her distorted, blurry vision to identify the object. It looked like a hubcap. And what's more was that it was shiny. It was new. It had not been buried in the sand for long. This revelation made the little pony look around. She was in a sandy bowl, surrounded on all sides by tall sand dunes, dry and ancient. Then she saw it: Smoke pouring into the sky from over the rim of the sand dune to her right. With newfound energy giving her yet another boost, she got up and struggled to the crest of the dune. A small jeep lay in a jumbled heap at the foot of the dune. It was smoking and sparking as fire ate it from the inside out. A pony lay at the wheel. It was dead, with half of its head missing, undoubtedly blown away from a large bullet. For some strange reason this didn't shock the filly. This was death. A part of life. Something she had come to accept years ago… Years that she had forgotten. Slowly she approached the wreck, shielding herself from the onslaught of heat with a hoof. She got close enough to inspect the fire-gutted ruin. She saw it. A large bottle of water slung about the neck of the dead pony. The filly crept up to the jeep, squinted with teeth bared as the heat singed her fur and burned her flesh. She yanked the bottle away from the corpse and then stumbled back. Without a single glance back she dragged herself back up from whence she came, tumbling down the opposite side to come to rest where she had discovered the hub cap, with a water bottle in-hoof. Slowly she opened up the cap and drank half of it. It was warm and tasted brackish, but she didn't care. She kept drinking. In the back of her mind something told her she wasn't supposed to drink it so quickly, but she couldn't help it. She gagged it up and coughed up some. Slowly she screwed on the cap and rubbed her weary eyes with a grubby hoof.
"First order o' business: Survival," she muttered. "So… I'm not dead. What now?"
The filly shrugged. "Rest… I guess."
Slowly she walked over to the shade of right dunes. The sun was still in the infancy of reaching noon, and so there was still ample shade cast by dunes to the east. She lay down in the shade and drank a little more water. She lifted the water bottle in a little salute to the undying sun above. "Still not dead," she said. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
The little pony was awoken some time later by something sharp prodding her in the belly. She creaked open one eye, looking for the unwanted visitor while doing her best to appear completely asleep and harmless. The wielder of pointed stick was a dog. Dog? She didn't know how she knew that word, but she knew it nonetheless. The name seemed so right for the hideous creature before her. Its eyes were an iridescent lime green, which had slit pupils situated in the center of the green eyeballs. Its arms were long, lick a gorillas, stretching down to its back legs and feet. On the end of each arm was a large hand with long claws. It was covered in a thin fuzz colored in a light sand-color, allowing it to blend in perfectly with the desert-like environment. It grinned veraciously, continuing to prod her stomach. The filly moved like lightning. Faster than the eye could follow, she grabbed the pointed stick – wrenching it from its owners grasp – and then proceeded to use it to wind the creature and shove it over. It was over in a second, and ended with the filly standing over the downed dog, pressing the pointed end of the stick to its throat. The dog growled and snapped its teeth dangerously. The filly growled back with equal or greater vehemence. This shut the dog up, who stared at her with a mixture of shock and curiosity.
"Whatcha want?" the filly snapped, pressing the pointed stick hard into the creature's neck.
The dog choked and glared at the filly. "We're the sand dogs. Pony is in our land. Pony has water. Pony's water is ours now."
The filly threw back her head and laughed. It was wheezy, and her mane clung to her muzzle in sweaty, straggly strands, but it made for a fearsome sight nonetheless.
"Your water?" she growled. "Over your dead body!"
The sand dog actually smiled. "No, foolish pony. Over your dead body."
Out of the corner of her eye, the filly saw movement. More sand dogs. The creatures rose like long-dead specters, sand draining from their fur like water. Their eyes stared at her balefully. There were at least two hundred.
"Pony… Give us… The water…" hissed the sand dog.
The filly didn't waver. "Over… Your… Dead body…" she snarled.
Grinning, the sand dog replied. "You give us water, or you die."
She filly returned the grin, as wild and reckless as ever. "Better idea. You leave me alone or you die."
The sand dog just blinked, his eyes reflecting anything but fear. "Foolish pony. I'm no leader."
The filly shrugged. "Then you won't mind me doing this." The filly jammed the pointed stick down, running the sand dog through the throat. The sand dog jerked, his limbs flailing in the air. A spurt of blood oozed from the sand dogs mouth, running down the side of his mouth to join the rivulets of blood streaming from his tear glands. The filly withdrew her stick and turned to face the sand dogs. They had slowly surrounded her. Rank upon rank stared at her with eyes as cold as the void. There would be no mercy. The filly knew this, but she felt no fear. Only a fire that burned in her very soul. She raised the pointed stick.
"Right!" she roared. "Which one o' you lily-livered cowards is next?"
As one, the entire group rushed her, like an ocean. The filly remembered the ocean. It too had tried to drown her to death, dragging her down and battering her into submission. She smiled. The ocean had failed. These fools would too. Twirling her stick with a skill she could not recall having, she dove into the first wave. She speared one, and knocked out another in the same movement. She withdrew her spear and sidestepped the jabbing attack of another sand dog. She rammed the point so hard into the stomach of the enemy that she speared her and one of her comrades that stood right behind. Another sand dog ducked beneath her outstretched hoof and attempted to tackle her. The filly bucked him to the floor. He fell dazed. Without thinking she picked up the confused sand dog's head and twisted it, snapping the neck effortlessly. The little child hesitated for a moment. Where had she learned that move? She couldn't remember, but she had performed it flawlessly. That hesitation cost her. She gasped her a spear stuck her in the side. A splash of ice-cold pain ran up her little frame, and her blood spirted out to join the large pool of sand dog blood swirling at her feet, pouring out too fast for the dry sand to drink it up.
The filly turned on the new assailant, yanking the spear head out of the wound in her side with a single jerk. Teeth bared, she leapt upon the sand dog. Without even thinking she seized the throat of the target and bit down, hard. She heard a wet crunch, and felt the flimsy throat give way. Her mouth filled with blood. Warm, tangy and salty; intoxicating. She lifted her head and spat out the blood. Slowly she rose to all fours. Slowly she picked up the spear with one forehoof while wiping the blood that stained her muzzle with another. The sand dogs just stared in horror. They hadn't bargained from this.
"Come on!" she screamed hysterically as she clasped her free forehoof to her side, doing her best to staunch the flow of blood that rand down her side, dripping to the earth from her belly. "Who's next?!"
The sand dogs shifted uncomfortably, looking from one to the other. Finally they bunched together to make another charge. Once again they rushed her, and once again they were beaten back. The filly was like a war machine, handling the spear with perfect skill. She swept it, precisely severing the throats of the first couple that rushed her. She then vaulted over the heads of a couple more. She landed, pinning another beneath her as she jabbed at the speed of light, sticking five more in vital places. As they fell she turned to deal with the others. She grunted as another spear cut a gash in her right shoulder, but even that could not stop her. She struck the attacker in the face, breaking their nose. They died by the spear before they could even stumble. Another wave ran in. Another spear sliced a long cut in the little pony's back left leg. The leg buckled, and the filly fell to the ground. But she didn't give in. She kept wielding the spear high, beating off the attacks once more, and bringing down another dozen. Sadly the loss of blood was costing her. The blurry vision had returned, and her breathing had become labored, but she hadn't given up. That wasn't in her nature. She would fight until her last breath… And that seemed very soon. The sand dogs, still a hundred-and-fifty strong, bunched together for one final attack. Then they came.
A sand-colored jeep leapt over the sand dune facing the west. Two ponies were riding shotgun, armed to the teeth. The one driving had two long machetes strapped to his back and a glock strapped to his right shoulder. The one in the passenger's seat had a sniper rifle in-hoof with an AK-47 slung about his back.
"Coming throuuuugghhhh!" screamed the one driving. The jeep crashed down on the windward side of the dune and spun into the battle with the two ponies screaming all the way. They came to a stop with the driver's door facing the blood-soaked form of the filly. A sand dog was standing above her, victorious, with a spear raised high. He was readying himself to drive it into her skull. He looked up to find himself staring into the face of Bragurn Sorabando. He was pointing his glock at the sand dog's forehead.
"Ello mate."
Brag pulled the trigger, scattering the offending sand dog's brains to the winds.
"Get out there and grab the filly, dude," said the passenger, Franklin Montgomery. "I'll drive. Or… Pretend to drive at least. Hurry before these sand dogs figure out what's happening!"
Brag leapt out bodily. He seized the disheveled pile of skin and bones that was the filly and piled into the open backseat, shoving himself in beside large crates of ammunition, explosives, and food supplies. Franklin hurriedly shifted into the driver's seat and stepped on the gas. Sand exploded from the back wheels as they spun in a blur, looking for purchase. The jeep fishtailed for a second, and then shot forward with a roar. The sand dogs just lay there, still utterly confused by the attack of that meteorite of a jeep… And by the fact that one little filly had killed fifty of their warriors.
"This was a really dumb idea," snorted Franklin, looking is his rearview mirror fervently. "Seriously, Brag. That commotion could have attracted Tyre's soldiers. The last thing we want it them finding our base."
"A foal's life was on the life, mate," said Brag, checking the body of the filly.
Franklin thought about it for a moment. "Oh yeah. Good point. I take it back. Just remember what I said about Tyre's soldiers."
"Yeah, yeah. I did. An' don't worry. We're fine."
Brag turned his back on Franklin and grimaced as he found the outlet of blood that was pouring all over the backseat. A large hole in her side. Fumbling with a large green case labeled "First Aid", Brag pulled out strips of linen, gauze, and disinfectant. He piled it on, wrapping strip after strip after strip about her body, doing his utmost to keep the filly from losing any more blood. He pressed a hoof firmly over the dark red spot spreading in the bandages, apply as much pressure as he dared to the wound.
"Keep alive, young'un," Brag muttered fervently. "Don't you go and die on me!"
The filly murmured softly. She was unconscious, but she had been awake that would have been the only thing she would have said. She had no intention of dying. None at all.
The jeep sped away from the large desert-like beach, shooting into the thick jungle that bordered the beachfront. The jungle was massive, like a bulwark of emerald, acting like a massive humid barrier between the land of yellow and the land of green. In a flash they were gone, swallowed by the ghostly jungle trees.
Author's Notes. Hi! I'm just going to leave this here and see what people think of it. I wrote it on a whim... Mostly because I love the characters and the premise. Let me know if you liked it!
