Silk stood at the bow of the ship, his eyes on the lantern that was one of the only marker of the ship that was pursuing them. Much to his dismay the night was dark, the stars and moon cloaked by evil looking dark clouds that were the clear warning signs of a bad storm.

Footsteps behind him had him twisting on his feet, right hand going for the dagger that hung in its sheath on the left side of his belt, he relaxed when he recognized the slightly shorter woman who had started to approach him, she paid no attention to his quick reaction and he realized that she had likely let him hear her coming so he didn't stab her when she came up behind him.

"The captain said we should be docking soon" she said, her eyes looking over his shoulder to see the lantern that he had been watching.

"Did you ask him when he's planning on doing after this?" he asked, over the three week sea voyage he had come to accept that they were all fugitives from a government, admittedly not one he would ever submit to but the principal still stood and any government would be against a man helping their enemies .

"Exact words?" she questioned, "Well yes Velvet that would be nice" he retorted, hearing the smirk in his words just a few seconds to late, "wait no-" he started to see but she cut in, a mischievous light dancing in her green blue eyes.

"I figured that I'd just be waitin' 'til you folks are bring in yore new army an' then I'll be waitin' to take you back o'er to the islands." He winced at her horrible impression of the captain's strong accent, one frequently attributed to sailors.

"Velvet you know how I say that practice makes perfect right?" he said, hiding his own smile as he came up with a retort, she nodded and he allowed a small grin to cross his face "I'd suggest that you stop, bad practice is the same thing as no practice" he added.

She scowled at him for a moment then blinked as she looked at something over his shoulder, "I don't suppose that them putting out the lantern is a good sign" she said and he whipped around, his cowl falling from his head as he did so.

"Damnation" he cursed, turning around just as quickly as he had the first time and grabbing her arm, yanking her back away from the bow of the ship.

"Get all of our people and the horses to the prow" he snapped, eyes searching from the captains distinctive red hat, Velvet had already disappeared below deck by the time he spotted the man and grabbed his arm. The man turned to yell at him then paused, mouth open as he saw who had grabbed him.

The man immediately began to make hasty apologizes but Silk held up a hand, not the one on the man's arm, to stop him "we've not the time for formalities" he said briskly. "We're about to be rammed and unless you want to be one of those captains who go down with their ship then you'd best try and get most of your crew off." He ordered, looking into the man's pale gray eyes.

"And 'ow would you be knowin' this?" the man demanded "Would it be some of that 'unter magic we've all been 'earing so much about?", Silk automatically rolled his eyes at the suggest. He supposed that the general assumption was expected considering that the uHunHunters had been created to be a parody of the rangers of Arulan, a group largely assumed to be partakers in the works of dark magic .

"No! You've spent enough time with Velvet to know we don't have any magic." he replied sharply, a growl in his voice "You've fought other ships before, right?" he asked and the man nodded "Well what does it normally mean when a ship puts out it's lanterns while making a night run right behind some one?" he snapped the question and saw the realization in the man's eyes. He quickly released the man's arm and let him run off barking orders to his crew.

Rather than one of his men coming up from below deck a member of the crew came bounding up from below decks a panicked expression on his face, with some alarm of his own Silk noticed that the man was soaked straight through. He glanced around to see the captain busy giving orders and grabbed the man's arm. "What's happening?" he snapped into the man's face.

"Rear storage got scraped by a rock" the man said, stopping repeatedly to breath, something that was clearly made more difficult below decks by the abundance of water and lack of air. Silk rather quickly let go of the man and ran past him heading below deck. The rear storage was where they were keeping the horses and if they didn't get out then Silk's men would be easy pickings once they got to shore, or rather if they got to shore.

As he ran he knocked against several doors, he had memorized each room being used by someone in his group the first night they had been aboard. Each time a head popped out he would repeat the same message, "we're about to be rammed, either help me with the horses or get above deck and get ready to jump. At one point he staggered, legs twisting together to sending him sprawling as the ship jerked to the side with a creaking of reluctant timbers.

He felt some ones arm under his arm dragging him to his feet and looked to see his and Velvet's apprentice Talon standing beside him, "Velvet ordered me to help with the horses, she said she was going above deck to see how much longer we have left" the boy seemed to hesitate over some words as if being careful to make sure he was pronouncing them correctly which was normal for him. The lad had had a strong accent when he had first been apprenticed to the two of them and they had worked with him to get rid of it, it was good to see that even peril didn't break his training.

He nodded briskly, not letting his relief at his partner not being in the most immediate danger show on his face, he didn't want to give Talon any more clues to just how close his mentors really were as he would be duty bound to mention to the head hunter, providing we even have a head hunter and providing we all live through what's to come he thought wryly.

He came across his first problem with the door leading down to the storage bunk, the water was holding it shut and it required him to slam his full weight into it in order for it to open, or course that resulted in him being sent sprawling across to room to end up soaked with water and Talon being knocked over backwards by the force of the water leaving the room and running down the hall.

Silk got to his feet first and made his way through the water, having to fight the current as it made its way out the door trying to make his way towards the stalls. He could make out the dark forms of the horses as one tossed its head and another kicked out at the stable wall. Any other horses would be panicking at the frigid water invading their stalls but all the horses bred on the southern isles were painstakingly trained to be the calmest and most obedient horses.

He could make out the shape of the hole in the wall from where he stood but only as a shade of lighter black on a darker black background. He squinted at it, trying to judge if the one large battle horse would fit through the hole. He was distracted from his thoughts by the lessening current around his legs and he turned to see Talon standing by the now closed door.

"I figured that we'd get them out easier if there was less of a current." Silk nodded at his apprentices words before turning to study the gaping hole in the wall, it was bigger than the crew member had lead him to believe, he guessed it was up to his shoulders and only a little of it was below the water line. He realized that whatever moment the captain was making to avoid being rammed had moved the boat so the hole was on the more sheltered side, facing in towards the bay.

He quickly waded his way through the now knee deep water and began unfastening the gates to each horse's stall, Talon did the same on the other side of the row. Both of them were aware of the time limit they were on and the constantly rising flow of water only served to further their awareness of just how quickly they needed to move.

He couldn't help the long train of curses that he spat when he turned to see that all the horses had remained in the stalls, evident they preferred the enclosed area to stronger current outside in the main room, with another spurt of curses he turned back and grabbed the reins of the only stallion. As an unofficial rule Hunters stuck to geldings and mares as their mounts while mounted warriors went to stallions. He figured releasing the stallion would send the rest of the horses fleeing.

He was luck that they had elected to saddle the horses complete with saddle bags and water proof wrappings to protect the horses last night in order to be able to get off the ship quickly. While the saddles were loose they would stay on and dry while the horses swam to shore.

He forced the horse out of its stall and urged it towards the hole; he repeatedly had to go back and smack his hand against the rump of the stallion in order to force him out through the hole. He hated causing any horse pain and the stallion's wild eyes had him completely aware of how much he was frightening the mount. He made a mental promise to give the horse apples later.

Sure enough as soon as the stallion's hooves meant water without any resistance below on the other side of the hole he let out a loud neigh and began to swim for shore, Silk turned around to see the rest of the horses making their way very quickly towards him. He made an attempt to get out of their way but the water that was now up to his waist slowed his movements enough so the first horse pushed him out through the hole.

He twisted in the water, trying to free his limbs from the tangled cloth of his cloak; the water was bitterly cold, enough so to have his finger tips feeling somewhat numb already, giving up his efforts to free himself from his cloak he starting thrashing his way to the surface, his entangled limbs all moving at once as he tried to force himself upwards.

His head bobbed up alongside the ship, coughing water from his lungs he managed to free one arm and reached out to find the hole in the side of ship. He was in the shadow of the ship and it being so dark out meant that everything was almost pitch black.

He had to bite back a roar of pain as he was slammed into the side of the ship by a strong wave and his questing arm was snapped back, pinned by the body of a horse. Before he could pull back the horses thrashing hooves got entangled in the edge of his cloak pulling him back under water.

Unfortunately he had been in the process of drawing breath when he had been yanked under and now had a mouth full of water and an urgent need to cough. He couldn't see a thing with the water as murky as it was and he no longer had any idea which way was up.

A sudden jerk on his hood had him being pulled up backwards to the surface, he broke the top of the water with a gasp and got slapped in the face by a wave, sending him into a fit of coughing with all this going on it took him a while to realize he was still being pulled through the water. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

Still being held by his collar he awkward reached back with one arm only to have to stop to bite back a screech of pain, while he had still been struggling to get to the surface he had managed to ignore the pain but now he had become uncomfortably aware of how his arm throbbed and just how numb his fingers where becoming.

Reaching with his other arm his hand encountered soaked velvety fur and lean muscles, he couldn't help the small grin that crossed his lips as he realized that Kal, his horse, was his rescuer. "Decided not to let me drown then bud?" he murmured and he found himself jerking up and down as Kal nodded his head vigorously up and down and felt the hot air as the horse huffed out a breath. "I suppose it's just because I feed you eh?" he said quietly punctuating the phrase with a wince as his arm brushed against his horse's chest.

The sound of cracking wood brought him back to his current predicament and he realized that he rapidly being pulled away from his men. "Kal turn around" he said firmly, hunter horses were trained to understand spoken commands even if it was more of an excuse for lone hunters who regularly took to speaking to their mounts.

His horses merely nodded his head again, making Silk gasp as his injured arm smacked against the horse's neck again "No stop that and turn around" he ordered only to have the horse nod extremely vigorously again. This time he was unable to order the horse to turn around again as he was too busy trying to catching his breath and ignore the nauseating pain.

"I believe you've made your point" Silk said, keeping anger out of his voice only through supreme effort, apparently his own horse didn't think he should be permitted into a fight or even where one was likely to occur. "Now turn around!" he said firmly, the sound of a huge crash caught his attention and he twisted free of his horse's grip.

Using his uninjured arm he pulled himself Kal's back and sat backwards in the wrapped saddle, the moon had finally broken free of its cloudy shield in time for him to see the splintered halves of the ship he had spent the past month sailing on sinking under the surface. It was clear that they captain had tried something that had only resulted in him getting rammed.

He narrowed his eyes to try and search the water but the moon had once more hidden behind the clouds and the only light came from the now relit lantern on the prow of the other ship and try as a might he couldn't see any one in the water.

As his hopes of there being any other escapees from his group dropped he became aware of the fact the he was shivering and he couldn't stop himself from doing so and that Kal was still making his way towards the shore.

Suddenly Kal tossed his head and snort as he stood so the water was just brushing his chest and began to walk slowly out of the water, head drooping. Aware of what was to come Silk quickly dismounted and took a few steps as Kal stopped to shake off any excess water.

He didn't bother grabbing the gelding's reins, they were wrapped on the front of the saddle, loose enough that he had full range of movement without any restrictions plus he didn't think he would be able to hold on if the horse decided to go ahead and he wouldn't wander far from Silk anyhow.

They had come ashore close to where the ship's captain had been going to dry dock the ship and as Silk looked up his eyes were drawn to the welcoming woods. The initial plan had been to head back into the woods in groups to scout for an ideal place to camp but for now he decided it was safer to just make his own way back and hope someone else would take the same route.

"C'mon" he said to Kal, silently gagging on the foul taste of salt water that lingered across his throat, he staggered slowly across the tilting sand. He had never considered just how exhausting a near drowning could be and just how sore it would leave him.

It only took a few steps for his foot to fall on a patch of sand that shifted more so than he expected and send him sprawling across the ground. He stumbled back to his feet again and saw Kal, now laying awkwardly on the ground give him another nod, with a mumble about why horses had become so human Silk took the invitation and swung on leg awkward over his mounts back and rested his forehead against the back of the horses neck and closed his eyes.

He realized that these motions were mistakes as the slight rocking of Kal's back with his steady strides began to lull him to a half asleep state, as hard as he tried to fight it he still drifted off.