"Not gonna happen," I said. "Just stick close and - "
A rider charged from the unnatural fog. I barely had time to shove Hawke one way while I jumped back the other. The rider missed both of us, but turned his horse around, proving we hadn't gone unnoticed. In the paleness blanketing us, everything felt wrong: the sound, the lack of seeing anything more than fifteen feet away, and even the flashes of magic in the distance could've been coming from anywhere. I couldn't point to the school or Rain if I tried - and I was trying as hard as possible to find my girlfriend!
"Pull him off the horse!" Hawke said when the rider charged again. "The horses aren't a threat."
"Worth a shot," I agreed, bracing as the hunter came closer.
Waiting until the last second, Hawke and I moved in unison. We split, reaching up, and grabbed the hunter. The horse kept moving. The riderslid, jerked hard when he refused to let go of the reins, and then slammed down on the ground between us.
I quickly punched him in the face, and then kept punching. Pain burst in my knuckles, but now was not the time to worry about that. These things couldn't be killed, but they could be incapacitated for a few seconds, and I had to hit him until anything else would be pulverized!
"Keir!" Hawke hissed, yanking me back. "Time to move, he's out!"
I rocked, fell onto my ass, and then scrambled to follow as Hawke continued to pull. "Where are we going?" I demanded. "They're back there!"
"They're this way," he insisted. "Trust me."
So we ran. Up ahead, I could hear a ruckus of birds cawing and screeching, but one thing came through clearly.
"Court!"
Damn, that was a call to arms if I'd ever heard one, but the flare of colors in this overly-thick fog distorted everything. Still, Hawke and I ran, pushing with everything we had, but the ground before us felt like it had expanded. I didn't remember the trees being that far away. I couldn't tell how much distance we'd already covered.
The shadows of trees loomed in the mists around us. Evergreens shaped like triangles and bare trunks of trees still trying to grow the buds of new leaves all felt like potential monsters out here, obscured just enough that they resembled hunters and horses lurking on the other side of the fog.
Until they moved!
Mists drifted, solidified, and riders began to form right in front of my eyes. I grabbed Hawke, pulling him back and around so he didn't run face first into one, and the pair of us froze. The first snap of a branch made it clear these were real. They also looked lost, or maybe confused?
The rider before us checked her left, then her right. Wait, her? The band of the Hunt with the Huntsman were typically men! I checked another rider to find the same thing. This woman's hair was dark grey, nearly black. A third had skin that reminded me of what Wilder might look like if he'd lost all color. He was a guy, but most of the others weren't.
Beside me, Hawke glanced over. I turned, meeting his eyes - and felt my heart slam to a halt. His pupils had constricted, turning into almost horizontal ovals. I tensed, but he looked back into the forest before I was sure of what I'd seen - and I couldn’t ask without making the hunters around us aware we were right in the fucking middle of them.
The dark-haired woman began gesturing. The riders moved, followingher silent directions, and more poured from the mists. Three, four, five, six more appeared, in addition to whatever number had been here before.
Shit, we were so fucked.
Grabbing Hawke's arm, I waited until he turned to me again and mouthed, "Rain."
He nodded and started moving, trusting I would follow. Well, if he knew where the fuck we were supposed to be going, then great. I just had a bad feeling about this. No line of sight, no weapons, and my magic was pretty fucking shitty to begin with. But hey, at least we both had shadow armor, right?
Then light flared. It was white and shined like the sun had been pulled down into this mess. It didn't last long, but the fading steps of horses stopped, shifted, and then came racing back, heading towards it the same way we were - and putting us right in their path.
"Again," Hawke breathed, crouching down.
I nodded, braced, and listened as the sound of six horses got closer so much faster than I liked. The animals were the same color as the fog, so the first appeared almost right on top of us. I roared, pushing up and grabbing at the rider, but something hit me in the back. Pain flared. My feet tripped. Leaves slammed into my face and I rolled, feeling a fucking hoof rake across my leg in the process.
Then Hawke cried out. I didn't bother thinking. I just thrust, encasing him in a shield even as I hurried to get back up. Five feet away, I saw my friend grappling with the rider we'd evidently managed to pull down, but the rider wasn't stunned. She was fighting back with all she had.
I glanced back and another rider was there, swinging at me from atop her horse. I yelped, ducked, and kicked the animal in the belly. Bracken said the horses were just horses. Immortal ones, but still animals - and would react like such. When the horse surged forward - away from me - I realized he was right. The rider simply turned it back and pointed right at me.
"Keir!" Hawke yelled.
"Run!" I told him, knowing I was so fucked.
Without a word, with clouds all around us, the other riders still obeyed the hunter's command. Between one breath and the next, they charged, and it looked like the fog itself was coming at me. I shoved a shield at one. The horse crashed into it, stumbled, and fell, rolling over its rider in the process.
Green flashed at another, igniting her clothing on fire. She veered off, slapping at the flames even as she forgot all about me. That left threemore, since Hawke's seemed to be out of commission, and I didn't get the chance to throw any more magic before they hit.
