Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Four - Our Little Ponies

The hunting party spent the rest of the pre-afternoon moving along at a decent pace. My friends and I had to jog to keep up at times, but not too often. There was only so fast a group of its size could move through the tall grasses.

Once Calamity introduced us as a group of wandering explorers, they welcomed us with open arms. I think our jobs were similar enough without overlapping that the hunters didn’t mind our company, though there wasn’t much time to talk and make friends since they all had to work.

About an hour after we joined the group, Calamity and a bunch of others conferred together, then charged off into the distance. No one else panicked, so I assumed that was pretty normal.

Half an hour later, we came onto the group who were working on tying the legs of what looked like a particularly orange lion together. The poor thing was clearly dead, with a few hook-tipped spears poking through its hide.

“That looks a little like a sandcat,” Awen said. “They’re big stealthy cats that hunt in the deserts close to my home.”

The hunters loaded the lion onto one of the carts then tied it down so that it wouldn’t bounce around too much. They didn’t seem particularly proud of their catch, or disappointed. I had the impression that this was just work as usual for them.

That didn’t change the fact that the lion was longer than I was tall and weighed enough to make the cart groan a bit.

The caravan continued, following some twists and turns in the landscape that seemed entirely random to me. By the time the sun was near its zenith, the group had only paused a few times, either to load up a few more animals onto the carts (they caught something which looked like a tiny buffalo, smaller than a pony but with thick hair) or to collect herbs and cuttings from some bushes and flowers we found as we moved.

Finally, the caravan stopped within a copse of trees next to a large oasis formed downwind of a slight rise. The hunters warned us that there were monsters in the water and that we should only approach it once it was safe.

The animals pulling the carts were unhitched and given water pulled from the pond by some hunters who had water magic, and then someone started a small fire and the hunters started to cook up some lunch.

Calamity approached us then. “I’ve gotten two more ponies,” he said. “With Blinky that makes three. The hunters will be heading back early today. Our mereomagist sensed a rainstorm coming this evening and we can’t be caught out in the grasslands when the ground gets wet.”

“So we can go?” I asked.

The catboy cowboy nodded. “That’s right. We can leave right meow if nya want.”

I held back a snort. “Sure thing!” I said. I wasn’t going to laugh. My friends were treating Calamity’s verbal tic as if it was entirely normal, so maybe it was just me who found it weird.

The ponies Calamity secured were waiting for us on the edge of the camp. They’d been fed and watered already, and had little sachels on their backs with some grain and water bags in them. “This is Tassels, and that’s Shanks,” Calamity said. He turned towards us. “You understand that I had to rent their services, yes?”

Amaryllis sighed. “We do. Do you accept sylph gold?”

Calamity grinned. “I accept all gold, my lady.”

That started a quick round of haggling between Amaryllis and Calamity. “Fine,” Amaryllis said before she fished out some coins from a purse hidden in her coat. “Now, how much for your services as a guide?”

Calamity took the coins, bit into one, then slid it away. “That’ll depend. Quite honestly, I’ve been meaning to look into it myself, but I couldn’t quite justify leaving the caravan on my own for an evening. Still, having to guide nya might slow me down a whole lot.”

“We’re not slow,” I said. “Although I’m not sure exactly how riding a pony works.” All I had to do was hang on and scream ‘hyah!’ right?

Calamity gave me a look, then shrugged. “Fine. Then how about this. I’ll charge nya half of what I usually would, but I get finder’s rights on whatever we run across once we reach the crash site. If there is one.”

Amaryllis hummed. “That seems far more profitable for you than for us. We’d essentially just be bankrolling your own venture at that point. Besides, the ships are already someone’s property. We’ve already covered the cost of the ponies and their feed.”

The catboy shrugged. “Do you have the means to grab whatever valuables are left at the wreck if we do find something?” he asked. “If it's really there, I can ask the caravan to make the trip, my word’s worth enough that if I promised that it's worth it, they’d come. I don’t know if you can manage that. Or if nya could, then it would take some time. You’d need to head to the fort and hire teamsters and guides and a whole troop of folk.”

“You might be correct, but I won’t give up so easily. We’ll give you the right to exploit the crash site, but we can leave with anything we can carry. Papers, maps, the ship’s manifest, even including things like tools or any gold aboard the vessel.”

“But only what you can carry?” Calamity asked.

“We can hardly carry off an entire ship with three ponies,” Amaryllis said.

Calamity thought about it for a moment, then nodded his head and extended a hand to shake. All three of us shook, then he nodded to the ponies. “Two of nya will have to ride double. I’ll let nya sort yourselves out.”

In the end, Amaryllis and I climbed onto Tassels, the biggest of the three ponies. We were both pretty light, so it wasn’t a big deal. Amaryllis had a hard time with the reins since they weren’t designed for talons.

I sat in the front, which meant that Amaryllis had to wrap her arms around me to hold on. “Why are you grinning so much?” Amaryllis asked. “We just rode wyverns, why are you so happy about being on a pony?”

“It’s less the pony and more the hour-long hugs I’m gonna get.”

Amaryllis squeezed me, then huffed a very ‘you’re silly, Broccoli’ kind of huff. “Figures you’d get excited for something so juvenile.”

I pulled her wings forward so that she was hugging me even tighter, and Amaryllis laughed for a whole two seconds before she remembered that she was supposed to be all serious and unfunny all the time.

“Alright,” Calamity said. “Tassels and Shanks should be used to following along. We’ll try to make good time without tiring the ponies out.”

With that, we took off out of the shady copse and into the warm day. The sun shone above, bathing everything in bright warmth while a few puffy clouds lingered above in a blue-blue sky.

Calamity set a strong pace, not quite a trot but faster than normal walking. We pushed through where the grass was shortest, with the occasional turn as Calamity guided us around obstacles that we didn’t see until we were right on top of them.

At one point, we crossed a bridge that just showed up suddenly as we pushed through the grass. The bridge crossed a long cut in the hillside. It was only a few metres deep, but it would have been a heck of a surprise to anyone running through the grass who didn’t see the fall coming.

“So, Calamity,” I asked once I got bored. It took a whole ten minutes after leaving the camp, so I was pretty proud of myself. “Where are you from?”

“Me? Right around here. My family’s all from Fort Middlesfaire. Or at least, that’s where we’ve lived for a while. My grandpa was from the Endless Swells. He was a mariner.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s that?”

Calamity laughed. “A sailor, but for one of them ships that’s on water instead of in the air. He used to tell me all sorts of stories when I was just a wee kitten. Always wanted to head out that way and see what was what.”

“That’s cool!” I said. “Is that why you’re so interested in airships?”

Calamity grinned. “Nya! I want to ride one, one day.”

“They are really neat,” I agreed.

The catboy cowboy half-turned in his saddle. “You’ve been on one?” he asked.

Awen giggled. “Broccoli is a captain,” she said.

I nodded as Calamity’s eyes locked onto me. My chest puffed out with pride and my ears straightened up. “Yup! It’s true. I’m Captain Broccoli Bunch, of the Beaver Cleaver, the nicest ship in all the skies.”

“What kind of ship?” Calamity asked. He was clearly excited, as he should be when the topic of airships came up.

“An owl-built ship, a special commission by some fancy harpy lord who didn’t want it in the end. I don’t even know if it had a class name,” I said.

“A one-off,” Calamity said. “That’s properly fancy. What sort of ship is she?”

“He!” I said.

“Aren’t ships usually shes?” he asked.

I shook my head. “The Beaver’s a boy, I think.”

“Don’t argue with her, she’ll just confuse you,” Amaryllis said.

“Oh, don’t worry, I understand,” he said with a nod.

Amaryllis sniffed. “The ship’s a modified full-body catamaran. Single balloon, two hulls.”

Awen nodded along from her spot atop Shanks. “It has a type two-sixteen Albatross engine, with a three metre prop-span and custom cam-work. The original engine was an Owl-wright model seven, I think. Some of the parts were left over, including a lot of the transmission and gearing, which is probably for the best. They are better than the Albatross models.”

“Pardon me?” Amaryllis asked.

“Wait,” Calamity said. “You’re an Albatross from the airship makers Albatross?” he asked Amaryllis.

Amaryllis nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m the family’s youngest.”

“So, you think maybe an aspiring young man could get his hands on a ship? Like, a small one?” Calamity asked.

Amaryllis laughed. “Oh no, you sound like Broccoli when I met her. She asked the same question. Well, it was worded differently, I suppose, but the idea’s the same. I’ll tell you the same thing I told her, if you have the gold, you can have a ship.”

“If you become Amaryllis’ best friend forever you get a cool discount too,” I pointed out.

“What? No you don’t,” Amaryllis said.

“I got the Beaver with a one-hundred-percent-off friend-discount,” I pointed out.

Amaryllis was quiet for a moment, then she squeezed me tighter. “Alright. I’ll give you that one. But don’t you ever tell our competitors.”

“What could they do? Convince you they’re your best friend just to steal a ship?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m sure they wouldn’t blink at the idea of planting a false friend next to me or one of my sisters just to steal a ship or two.”

I gasped. That... that was horrible! What kind of sad person would pretend to be someone’s friend? Worse, who would pretend to be someone’s friend just to steal from them? That was... it was despicable!It was beyond the pale! Unforgivable!

... Ah, so this is hatred.

That sobered me right up. “I don’t like that. Let’s talk about something more fun.” I scrambled for an idea before latching onto the first that came to mind. “Hey, Calamity, how’d you become a hunter?”

“Well, it was something of a natural evolution,” he said. “I was the best shot with a bow in the world, so naturally all I needed to do was turn those skills towards hunting. Then, as it turns out, I’m a great leader. So, obviously, I was quickly promoted up the ranks. Not that we have any sort of formal ranking, really.”

“And your incredible humility makes you the humblest person in the world too,” Amaryllis snarked.

Calamity laughed. “Humility? Nya, I don’t have any of that!”

***