Pine Bark ran through the forest for all he was worth, ducking and weaving as obstacles attempted to block his path.
He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the thundering steps of the creature chasing him.
He was still a few minutes away from the village; could he outrun it for that long? No, it was not a question of if he could or not, he had to outrun it. The death on his heels did not allow for failure.
A minute passed.
He hadn’t slowed at all, but the creature seemed to have a harder time going through the brush and low-hanging branches. He could make it.
Another minute.
He could still sense it, but his distance from it hadn’t changed.
One more mi-
In a blur of motion and pain, he crashed snout first into the roots spread out before him on the forest floor. No. No no no no. His brain could barely process what had just happened. His vision swam as he looked down at his legs. His right hoof had become tangled in a loose clump of roots, likely dug up by some small animal foraging for food. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all, but the only sound that escaped his lips was a pitiful whimper. He would never see his parents again. He would never see his sister again.
Only a handful of breaths had passed since he had fallen. Plenty of time for the creature to catch up.
He turned to look at it, mind going numb with fear. He had often been told stories of monsters like these by his parents. Fairy tales, involving gallant stallions that faced off against dark creatures in order to rescue the fair mare from her cruel fate. He knew what this was.
Timber wolf.
But this was no story and he was no gallant stallion. A young colt couldn’t hope to win against such a feral beast. Knowing that its prey was trapped and out of options, the timber wolf approached the young pony. Its maw hung open, revealing rows of disgustingly sharp, yellow teeth; saliva dripped from its tongue like blood might pour from a wound, anticipating the taste of the meat before it.
Pine Bark closed his eyes and tried to prepare for the pain.
He wasn’t prepared, however, to hear the timber wolf yelp in what sounded like…pain?
His eyes shot open, full of hope, to see who could be trying to save him. As his eyes landed upon the form of his savior, he felt both elation and absolute terror.
Maple.
Unbeknownst to Pine, his sister had suspected that he was planning something. She didn’t know what, but she was the older sibling, so she felt that it was her responsibility to help take care of her younger brother. Her father had even praised her, saying that she was capable of protecting Pine; she didn’t want to let him down, so she had followed her brother out into the forest, hoping to keep him out of trouble and get him home safely. Maple shadowed him all the way to his hideout, staying hidden on a small hill that overlooked the area in front of the root cave. It never crossed the filly’s mind that things could go so wrong. She had expected him to scuffle with the owl a bit and then to return home, either victorious or with a bruised ego. But that…
As soon as she saw Pine freeze while looking into the cave she knew something was wrong. When he ran off moments later, followed swiftly by a blur of wood, muscle and teeth, her fears were confirmed.
She raced after them as fast as she could, pure adrenaline coursing through her veins.
She had to help him. She had to.
How she could help him had not yet crossed her mind. She was still a filly, only two years older than Pine, but such a thing seemed irrelevant at the time. Her brother needed her. That was all that mattered.
When she caught up with them it looked as if Pine had tripped. He sat on the ground, breaths coming in short gasps, eyes closed in preparation for the teeth that were even now getting closer to him. A split second of panic was all it took for her to assess the situation. Scooping up a mouthful of loose dirt, she charged at the back of the timber wolf, making as much noise as possible in hopes that it would turn around and ignore her brother. Her wish was granted as the timber wolf perked its ears and spun around at her approach.
It leveled its hungry, yellow eyes at her.
At the same time, she sucked in a deep breath through her nose and spat the dirt she carried in the wolf’s eyes with as much force as she could muster.
The beast yelped as the unexpected attack made contact with its vulnerable irises. As it pawed at its face, Maple used the time to run past it and help her brother. His eyes made contact with hers and she saw both the fear and the hope there. Her eyes probably looked similar at the moment, but she didn’t even stop to consider it as she finally reached the young colt. He wasn’t stuck too badly; it took only a moment and two bitten roots to free him. However, in that precious time, the timber wolf had regained its sight and twisted around to glare at the source of its pain.
Maple positioned herself between the wolf and Pine.
“Pine, I need you to listen to me,” she said, her voice steady despite her growing fear, “I’m going to try to lead it away from you, so you have to run back home and get dad.”
But how could he leave her like that?!
He was about to protest when she cut him off.
“Pine! Please!”
The desperation in her voice made him shut his mouth. Unable to trust his voice, he simply gave a nod. He knew that she had a better chance than he did, but that knowledge did nothing to relieve the disgusting feeling of guilt welling up inside of his throat. All he could do was send a silent prayer to the Princesses that Maple would be safe.
On some unseen signal, Maple dashed quickly to the left, hoping to distract the timber wolf while her brother slowly backed away, never letting his eyes fall from the monster. The ploy worked. The wolf seemed to ignore Pine completely in favor of the meat that had caused it pain. While Maple’s eyes locked with those of the wolf, Pine took the chance to turn around and bolt home. If he was fast, his father could be out here in ten minutes. As long as Maple could hold it off…
Shaking his head, he stopped thinking.
There was no need for thought now.
If he had time to think, he wasn’t running fast enough.
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The timber wolf was the one to break the staring contest between the two as it began to advance on the small filly.
Maple knew she had to come up with something, fast, or she wouldn’t be around long enough for her dad to save her. However, with her brother gone, her courage was draining quickly. Think, think think!
Time for her to formulate a plan ran out as the beast lunged at her.
With a yelp, she managed to dive out of the way just in time to avoid instant death, but the wolf’s jaws didn’t stop; they continued snapping at her while she kicked her hind legs at the ground desperately to stay out of reach. Through sheer luck, she happened to kick a rock that ricocheted off of the wolf’s teeth, causing it to flinch backwards for a second.
That second was all Maple needed to get up and start running.
She had no idea where she was going, having lost all sense of direction in her struggle to avoid those monstrous teeth. But it didn’t matter as long as she could stay away from the wolf. She heard a frustrated growl behind her as the wolf began a new chase. Much like her brother, she twisted and wove through everything that might impede the timber wolf. Anything to slow it down.
However, it seemed that all of her efforts were for naught. Even now, she could still feel its breath getting closer to her tail, its loud panting grating away at her. She ran for what felt like hours, though it could have been minutes; exhaustion was steadily gaining on her, and if it caught her, her death would be assured just as if it was the timber wolf itself.
She stumbled for just a moment, but the filly managed to catch herself before she hit the ground.
However, her delay was plenty of time for the wolf. With a throaty growl, it closed in and bit her hard on her right leg. She cried out as its teeth sunk into her flesh, causing her to fall forward due to their momentum. She knew then that she was done, but she wanted to hold on just a second longer, so in a last ditch effort to prolong her life she kicked out with her left leg at the wolf’s head. Celestia must have been smiling upon her, because her kick connected solidly with the wolf’s left eye. She felt it crunch underneath her hoof as the wolf half yelped, half howled in pain, letting go of her right leg in the process. She got up, trying to limp away from the wolf, but she was pitifully slow.
The timber wolf was approaching a blood rage. The meat had injured its eye again. It glared up at the meat that was trying to limp away. Oh, how sweet it would be. The fear in this meat would only make it more delicious when it was finally dead.
However, fate seemed to be against the timber wolf that day, as the limping filly suddenly vanished.
The beast, unable to understand what had happened, ran forward to see where the meat had disappeared to. As it stuck its long snout through the low brush, comprehension flooded it. The meat had fallen down a cliff. The wolf scrambled for a moment, trying to get down to where the meat had fallen, but it was nearly a vertical drop. It grunted in anger before it started to circle around in an attempt to get down to where its prize waited.
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Maple Bark was floating in and out of consciousness as she lay at the bottom of the cliff she had fallen off of. It was a miracle that she had survived. The drop must have been over a hundred feet; it was the brush growing off the side of the rock that had saved her life. She had been just light enough that it slowed her fall when she crashed through it. If a fully grown mare had fallen in the same way she had, the mare would have been dead without a doubt.
In her daze, however, she realized that she needed to get to safety. The wolf would probably try to find a way to get to her. She managed to drag herself to her hooves using willpower she never thought she had.
Broken, bleeding and semi-conscious, Maple followed the only thing she could think to, which happened to be the smell of smoke from a fire.
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Duke had traveled as far as he could before darkness overtook the land. If he knew his location he might have been willing to travel by night, but as things stood he felt that he was better served by resting until the sun came up in the morning.
He had managed to gather a small supply of fruit and berries that appeared edible while traveling, so once he found a suitable clearing to camp for the night, he simply gathered enough firewood to keep him until dawn. He had only been in this place for a maximum of ten hours, but already he felt sure that this was not his Terca Lumireis. While there were a few familiar ones, he had never seen the majority of the plants he encountered that day, and he recognized little of the fruit. The biggest indicator, however, was the lack of monsters. Terca Lumireis was populated with a great variety of monster species and so far he had seen nothing in his travels aside from ordinary animals.
He was gazing at the fire while sifting through his thoughts, when a sudden rustling caught his attention on the western end of his campsite.
He did not get up, but he moved his right hand to cover the handle of Dein Nomos.
His eyes widened as the creature stepped out into the light cast by the fire.
It was something that he had never seen before. It looked almost like a very small pony, but its coloring was a far-cry from what he was used to and its facial structure was different. Its eyes were much larger than a normal pony’s, and its snout was much shorter.
However, the most striking feature of this particular creature was the fact that it was on death’s doorstep. It was covered in blood, had several clearly broken ribs, and from the way it wobbled it was likely concussed as well. It must have followed the scent of the fire, because it had clearly lost most of the function in its eyes at this point. He stood up to see if he could help the poor thing, and as he did it looked at him.
His surprise at his visitor multiplied ten-fold with what it did next.
In a small, quivering voice, it spoke just a few words to him, before it sagged to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
“Please…help me…”