Moss Moon and the Lunar Spring, Part 3

You are a human warrior, and you are running for your life.

Branches and brambles cut at your face as you run blindly through the dark forest.  From behind you come the shrieks and screeches of your pursuers.

Your breathing is ragged as your boots pound the forest floor.  It’s as if you can’t get enough air.  You feel like you’re going to faint at any moment.  Too much blood loss, too much exertion.  You are numb to the pain of your ruined calf.

Some small part of your brain tells you that you can still live, that you can lose them in the forest.  Your muscles scream and your lungs burn, but you refuse to simply lie down and die.  And yet the screams surround you, warping into eerie keening laughter.  The sound of death.

You stumble into a clearing.  The moon and stars bathe the wood in a relief of blue.  A hiss makes you whirl.  Stalking out from the trees, fangs bared, eyes glowing red, are three bats with silver spears.  Your hand goes to your sword.

A burst of white light floods your vision.  The war cries of the bats twist into screams of fear.  You hear a loud CRACK, and the sound of running hooves, more screams.

Whatever horror you face now, you cannot see it.  Your vision is a sea of shifting green and pink overlaid on blackness.  You stumble into a tree and collapse against it.  The woods have gone silent, save for the shrieks of the retreating bats, growing fainter and fainter.

With your back against the tree trunk, you stare up at nothing, feeling heavy.

You start with a jolt when two strong hooves plant themselves on your shoulders.  You try to stand, but the strength has left your legs.

A voice hisses.  “Calm down, it’s me.”

Who?  Yes, that mare.  The bound who helped you.  You struggle to remain focused.  Still you can see nothing.  You can hear yourself asking about the guards.  You can still fight them, you have your sword.  You can still fight them –

“Hush.”

As you finally relax, and your vision slowly fades to blackness, you are acutely aware of the scent of sweat and garlic.  Her breath is hot on your forehead.

Then sleep.

***

You awaken to darkness, and the feeling of leaves under your back.  You are being dragged through the forest.

Your head is pounding.  Your mouth is impossibly dry and your stomach roars with hunger.  It takes you a moment to remember where you are and what you were doing.  Hunter Killer… the guards… the mare, yes.  She saved you.  You let out a grunt.

She lets go.  “You’re awake?”

“Guh.”

You hear rustling.  A moment later, she presses a bottle of something to your lips.  “Drink this.”

Without hesitation, you drink down the contents.  The liquid is extremely sweet, and you feel energy spilling into you like fire.  You drain the bottle.

“What was that?” you ask, struggling to form the words.

“Just some juice,” she says.  “Can you stand?”

Wordlessly you push yourself to your feet.  You feel off-balance and dazed, but strong enough.  You nod, hoping her vision is better than yours.

To your surprise, you hear what sounds like a sigh of relief.  “Goddess.  You had me worried.”  Her shadowy form steps a few feet away.  She ducks her head.  “Come on, we have to go.”

You shakily follow her as she tramps off into the brush.  You notice that she seems to be trying to make as little noise as possible.  You do your best to follow her example.

“Where are we?” you ask.

“The Sunwood,” she says.  “It’s… very dangerous.  There are monsters here that only come out at night.  Blood-drinkers.”  She pauses.  “Some are following us right now.”

You cast a glance around the surrounding trees.  At first you see only the dim outlines of the trunks, but you shiver involuntarily when a pair of yellow eyes makes itself visible in the distance.  A moment later, two more pairs blink open nearby.

The mare notices your reaction.  “We’re okay, for now,” she says.  She lifts a hoof to her neck, and you notice that she’s wearing some kind of necklace.  “They hate the smell of garlic.  I only have one of these, so just… stay close to me.”

Silently you follow her through the forest.  The occasional glance behind you reveals still more pairs of eyes.  The number of creatures stalking you is slowly growing.  Soft whispering catches your ear, disturbing and alien.

Your guide presses on.  You can feel her fear just as easily as you can feel your own, but still she walks resolutely forward, gliding through the brush as if she has done this a hundred times.

A small, rocky cliff looms ahead of you.  The mare trots over to stand alongside it.

“You’ll be safe up there,” she tells you.  “Use me to climb up.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll go a different way.”  Even in the darkness, you see her smile up at you.  “Don’t worry about me.  Hurry up there.”

Feeling ill at ease, you climb onto her back.  She feels impressively sturdy beneath your feet.  With her as a foothold you’re able to grab the lip of the cliff.  You pull yourself up and over.

In the hurried way she moves and speaks, you sense that something is about to happen.  “Keep moving!” she shouts.  “I’ll meet you at the bottom!”

You look down to see her rifling through one of her saddlebags as she dashes off into the forest.  A moment later, there is another bright flash of white light.

And then the forest comes alive.

A deafening cacophony of roars, whistles, and screams rends the night air.  You see hundreds of dark forms stampeding off in the direction she went.  The ground shakes.  The dark treetops, turned blue by moonlight, tremble violently.

As you stand on the precipice of the cliff, a cool breeze blowing behind you, you realize that the mare is running a diversion.  She must’ve known that eventually the two of you would have needed to run.

She must’ve known that you, in your state, would never have made it.  And now she is risking her life, for you.

Swallowing hard, you turn and keep moving as she commanded.  Not every blood-drinker had followed her.  As you had looked down into the forest, you had been met by the pallid gaze of several creatures, watching silently.

You have no interest in seeing whether they can climb.  You hurry as fast as you are able down the grassy slope, limping on your injured leg.  There are trees here as well, and they thicken as the land dips lower.  Soon you are once again in darkness, and you can hear only your own heartbeat.

The slope eventually bottoms out into a copse of tall trees.  You wait here for a few tense minutes, when rustling comes from a nearby stand of bushes.  Relief washes over you when the green-maned mare emerges.

“That should hold them off for awhile,” she tells you, panting.  “I ran them into a grotto.  They hate water even more than they hate garlic.”

As you follow her westward, she looks back at you, her expression strangely guilty.  “Sorry for leaving you back there.”

You shrug.  “Not a problem.”

“You’re certainly taking this in stride.”

“It’s been a fun night.”

She laughs.  “That’s… one way to describe it.”

The two of you weave your way past trees and rocks, following a trail that she seems to know by heart.  Your eyes have adjusted to the dark, and for the first time you can actually see the mare you’re following.

She’s thicker and broader in the flank than the average bat pony, and clearly quite strong.  Her coat is a stone gray color, her messy mane and tail both dark green.  Like all bounds, she has no wings.  You can’t make out her cutie mark, but you see a livid scar – like the one running through her eye – on her leg.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“I don’t have one.”  You explain: “We only take on names as we need them.  At all other times, we are anonymous.”

“Anonymous, huh.” She seems to mull it over.  “I like it.  I’m Moss Moon.”  She stops to shake your hand with her hoof.  “Nice to meet ya.”

“Thank you for helping me tonight.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, smiling.  “You looked like you needed it.”

For a moment, you stare down at her in silence.  “I’d like to go with you, if you’ll have me.”

Her eyes widen.  “You mean, travel with me?”

“Of course.”

She looks away, as if suddenly embarrassed.  “I… wouldn’t be able to pay you.”

“Wherever you’re going, I haven’t been there,” you say.  “Seeing that place will be payment enough.”

She stares up at you with her huge golden eyes, gauging the truth of your words, as if weighing your very soul.  Slowly, her smile returns.  “I guess it’s a deal, then.”  She starts off once more.  “We have to make it to the Breaker by dawn.  The guards’ll be a lot braver when day comes, and they’ll come out looking for you again.”

Together you head off into the wood, shaded by dark trees, as the moon above holds its silent vigil over the night.