Chapter 16: The Guardian in the Gloom
Nox watched the Equestrian patrol for two full days, a silent ghost in the pine-scented ridges overlooking their camp. He learned their rhythms. The young, earnest lieutenant who took his duties a little too seriously. The two veteran earth ponies who moved with a weary competence, their eyes constantly scanning the tree line. The pegasus scout who flew regular, cautious patterns overhead. They were good. Professional. And they were lambs being led towards a wolf's den.
The cold, strategic part of his mind approved. They were a perfect distraction. The wiser, more cautious part—the part that remembered Barley Brew's proud talk of his brother—screamed in protest. He wrestled with the morality of it through two long, sun-drenched days, the friendly mask of Aether Wing feeling like a lead weight.
On the morning of the third day, his decision was made for him.
The patrol began its push into the woods, following a faint game trail. Nox, moving parallel to them through the deeper shadows, felt the change immediately. The air grew cold. The birdsong died. An hour into their trek, the lead earth pony suddenly stumbled, his hoof sinking into a patch of ground that looked solid but was covered in a faint, almost invisible purple sheen. He cried out as thorny vines, glowing with the same sickly energy, erupted from the soil, wrapping around his leg.
It wasn't a lethal trap. It was a snare. An alarm.
The patrol erupted into controlled chaos, trying to free their comrade as the vines tightened. But Nox's attention was elsewhere. He felt it—a shift in the forest's corrupted magic. A response. Sombra-Shard knew they were here. And he was sending something to investigate.
Well, so much for a quiet distraction, Nox thought, the sarcasm a thin veil over a surge of adrenaline. Plan B it is.
He didn't have a Plan B. He had instincts.
He melted deeper into the shadows, circling wide around the struggling patrol. He moved not like a pony, but like the predator he was, his passage utterly silent. He found a small, stagnant stream that cut through the area, its water tainted with a faint purple film. It was a trail. A magical runoff from the heart of the corruption.
Following it upstream, the forest grew darker, the trees more twisted. He found the "investigation" party Sombra-Shard had sent: two large, brutish timberwolves. But these were not the chaotic constructs of wild magic he'd heard tales of. Their wooden forms were shot through with glowing purple veins, and their eyes burned with a malevolent, controlled intelligence. They were being directed.
They were heading straight for the patrol.
The cold calculation in Nox's mind crystallized into immediate, precise action. He could not let them reach the guards.
As the corrupted timberwolves passed beneath the thick, low-hanging bough of an ancient oak, Nox struck. Not as a pony, but as a force of nature. He dropped from the branch above, his full, immense weight coming down on the lead beast. There was no roar, no battle cry. Just the sickening, dry crack of splintering wood and the silent, efficient twist of his powerful neck that severed its glowing core. The creature dissolved into a pile of inert, purple-tinged twigs before it could even howl.
The second timberwolf turned, its glowing eyes locking onto him. It lunged. Nox didn't flinch. He met its charge, sidestepping at the last second with a fluid grace that belied his size. His hoof, guided by Umbra's brutal training, slammed into its side, not to bruise, but to disrupt. He felt the flow of corrupt magic inside it and focused his own power—not the gentle illusion, but a spike of pure, shadowy force—into the blow. The magic shattered. The timberwolf stumbled, its glow flickering and dying, collapsing into a harmless heap of dead wood.
The whole encounter lasted less than ten seconds. It was silent, brutal, and utterly efficient.
He stood there for a moment, breathing deeply the tainted air, the last of the purple energy from the shattered cores dissipating around him. He looked down at his hooves. There was no blood. Only splinters. He had just saved the lives of the ponies he was supposed to despise. The irony was not lost on him.
A shout from the direction of the patrol echoed through the trees. They had freed their comrade and were now advancing, more cautiously, following the sounds of the brief, silent struggle.
Nox melted back into the shadows, becoming one with the gloom. He watched from the darkness as the guards found the piles of dead, corrupted wood. He saw the confusion and dawning fear on their faces. They had no idea what had happened, only that something had saved them.
The lieutenant, to his credit, immediately ordered a retreat. "Fall back! Report to the Captain! This is beyond our pay grade."
As they hurriedly retreated, Nox felt a strange, unexpected sense of... satisfaction. It was not the hot joy of vengeance. It was the cold, quiet fulfillment of a job well done, of a threat neutralized. He had protected the innocent, even if they were his enemy's subjects.
But the cost was high. Sombra-Shard now knew something was in his woods that could dismantle his constructs with ease. The element of surprise was compromised. The game had changed.
He was no longer just a hunter in the dark. He had become a guardian in the gloom, and the path to the Heartstone had just become infinitely more dangerous.