Action Tiem/scene music because why not.Tattered standards. Broken walls. The ground had broken around the hill, sliding back and away from the wooden posts. The forest was cleared. Hacked down for yards in all directions. Rainwashed and reclaimed by the weeds and the grass the remains of what looked like an ancient bailey stood crowning a earthy sodden hill. Vines and bushes now grew up between the posts and the palisades, bursting the former walls in two and tossing them aside as they grew.
It was for certain a ruin.
Dawn kept a mailed hand on the hilt of her sword, feeling the cold wild texture of the leather from underneath the chain. She stilled her step, approaching the ruined mount with caution. There had been ruins she has seen before, and even the most benign looking were often dangerous to some degree. Whether castle or farmhouse, they either housed wolves or maddened bandits. She was prepared that if she opened those gates to take on the collapsing structure's secrets there would be some slobbering beasts within.
For now, it was serene. Quiet. Birds flocked atop the ramparts, picking at the pointed tops of the ancient felled trees. They took to the sky and returned to their nests perched high in the wooden watcher towers precariously hung over the walls by posts and fraying rope. The chirped and sang cheerful notes as they let off between the remaining structures to the forest. Where banners may have flew now hung the twigs and grasses of large globular nests, to Dawn's fascination many looking to house perhaps fifty birds; and there were many towers filled.
But it was also hard to count, they moved fast.
Grass crunched under her hoof as she drew closer. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the grip of the sword. Her over hand held out to push aside the heavy oaken gate. Ivy grew up the axe-hewn bark in crooked and strangling patterns, almost like ruins. Field flowers grew in delicate clumps of yellow and red. And large bushes laden with bright-red fruits forced their twiggy appendages between the ancient logs, just forcing them apart ever more as the years worn.
She placed a hand to the wood as she stepped aside. Even through her armored gloves she could feel the rough texture of the old wooden. Wind swept. Rain washed. Snow frozen. If these walls had eyes and a mouth, what stories could they tell.
The door was heavy, and the thick ivy only made it worse. But with a strong will of force and throwing her weight against it she pushed it aside. It groaned on roughly forged wooden and iron hinges as it dragged through the grass and the sand. The snapping and rustling of disturbed ivy broke at its opening. The birds over head chirped excitedly as they took to a panicked sky in a thick cloud of black. She could see the foggy shadows of the milling birds race across the ground and her vision. It was as patch work as walking under the boughs of ancient oaks and elms.
With a groan she opened it about as far as she needed. A small crack she could squeeze through. Her sword made a metallic hiss as it was drawn from its scabbard. She pressed her long horse tail against her hips as she hugged the side, passing the small gap she needed to get inside.
Tents.
Torn ragged canvas tents. Many grayed. Many greened with heavy molding and mildew. All of them looked like they had not been lived in for years. That much she found as she squeezed through. Her sword remained raised as she scanned the grassy and weedy bust of the hill.
This wasn't just an ancient fort, she admired as she turned about, it was an ancient camp. Or, not so much ancient. Though the ruined scene was tattered, torn, weathered, and picked at by animals it still stood. Through snow and or rain it still persisted. A testament of strength and endurance to itself.
Though wide holes opened the sides of the many thousands of now canvas lean-to tents, it was impressive they still stood. Looking at them she imagined they had to be only a few years old. Not totally eaten by the elements, and not wholly devoured by birds. And the number of still-standing shelters gave credit to the impressive nests that now rung the encampment’s exterior wall.
Above the shelters stood a number of immaculate and proud pavilions, not much larger than a single-room home. Though they had dulled in color, the faint faded suggestion of elaborate decoration still glowed in the high-noon sun. And highest on the hill she turned to see the largest, and most proud of them all.
Standing high above, decorated in heavy purple cloth with still glimmering golden weave was the largest of the structures. A natural center and magnet of attention for the folk who once lived here. Her sword lowered a little as she looked up at it. Such a richness she surmised would have suggested that this was once to someone very wealthy, or very powerful.
Did this valley draw in people to kill in time? Could not an army or even a retinue survive the allure?
Dawn felt the tent was worth checking out. If it was at all possible it would at least have some intel on the valley as a whole. Where this host may have searched for riches, or even a way out. She wasn't intent on simply repeating the failures of someone else.
She still moved through with caution. She still did not understand this world and lowering her guard would be a violation of herself. Her sword remained draw, hanging by her hand off to the side. Her spare hand ready to a position at the hilt if need be. But running through the spindly thistle and thick lush grass of the hill side there was nothing that moved. Only more birds that rose to the air in frieght.
Looming everywhere in the grass she saw or climbed over the refuse of an army moved on. Perhaps hastily. Buried half way in the dirt cast iron pots, pans, or grinding wheels littered the soil. Buckets and dried mummified purses. But no where a corpse. No where a body. No where even a weapon or a full suit of armor. What was left behind was simply what they could not carry. Not on their backs, or into battle.
She began to suspect that perhaps this force had been scattered in the woods. Butchered by some other army. Where would she go to find the corpses then? Could they be in the tent. She suspected the army's commander.
She hope she'd find such answers. Written down maybe. A map otherwise. Visual clues and references to who they were.
But when she go to it and threw aside the heavy velvet she'd have more.
Streams of light poured down through open holes in the tent's roof. Sending golden beams that danced across the dusty floor and shone off the armor stand in the corner. A table – or what was left – lay smashed in the middle underneath a crimson banner with golden trim, an eagle and a cross adorned the head, making for an empowering tip of bright gold. Sewn into the heavy fabric of the standard were emblazoned the letters S, P, Q, and R. That much she knew from her father...
But it was not telling for her. The armor perhaps a confirmation. Ivory white, though faded like an ancient wedding dress. Horizontal straps hugged a tight form well, clearly designed for a woman's body. The chest was blazoned with faded and unpolished brass with a sun, emblazoned inside with a cross with two crooked, parallel arms. She doubted it was related to her mother, the symbol unfamiliar. She only knew it from medical ponies. But this was no surgeon's outfit. Who might wear the cross to a fight if not to heal? Why would the medic be so rich, and why would she brandish a short-sword, as hung at the armor's hip, forgotten.
It was a spectacle, and standing over the scattered parchment on the soggy carpeted ground she wondered. She felt the crunch of the papers under her hoof, and bent down to see to the parchment.
To her dismay, what was still visible in the decaying animal hide parchment was barely helpful. Scrawled in cursive across the tan backing reddening ink bore dashed lines. Flamboyant arching scrawl, dashed and dotted diacritics. Sometimes melting into letters that looked like hearts, others upside down knots. This wasn't the alphabet her father weakly taught her to identify, as was on the standard. How much use it was was beyond her telling.
Frustrated through threw aside the parchment, pulling another smaller note from the ground. In the dim light it read the same. Though large holes at been chewed through it. Again frustrated she tossed it aside. Her face hot with anger and growing frustration.
Why must things be so difficult!Each page was much the same. Some the size of pages of a book. Other note-size, the size of a hand. It had gathered in a matted pile on the floor, subject to rain water. If it wasn't in alien cursive, it was a blurred and water-washed mess of rusting ink.
But as she dug deeper, she pulled from the tangle of useless documents something more promising. Significantly larger than the rest, the sheet looked to have been literally sewn together from multiple papers. The back was a rambling mess of clearly mismatched articles of writing, no doubt useless to the master – mistress – of this tent.
Turning it around it was a map.
However irregular or sloppy as it was, with many incomplete places on the interior. Whomever was the cartographer was merely interested in the walls of the valley, shown on the chart in child-like representation of messily slopped lines with no perspective. Whichever way she turned the map it was like looking straight down at the gashed gully that scarred the landscape. And clearly no one had been outside.
Notes and indecipherable text adorned the outside of the map and inside just as well. A haphazard compass was drawn in the far corner, seemingly in relation to the sun and moon. Had they not compasses?
Irregardless, it was something. Holding the parchment to the light that was cast through the moth-eaten roof of the structure she smiled. At the far end of the valley, at where it almost looked to turn into a tail or some long tongue was struck into the tanned skins a purple X. Some sketch-work resembling the standard behind her and a number of hasty X's and I's littered the page nearby. She suspected that's where she was.
She could barely make out what looked like numbers along the valley's side. Number of days to walk to the far side perhaps? In whichever case she counted perhaps ten increments. If the map suggested the valley could be walked in length in ten days, and three across at the widest it was indeed a large arena to be in.
There were smaller markings that littered the area around the supposed camp, connected by snaking maroon lines. But not being able to read any of it she suspected she'd be forced to check them out anyways. She might have known sources of food and water, if that's what they were for.
And if they lead her to it, a lead to double check on in escaping the valley.
Standing doors or silvery pools. They were all valid. She hoped.
