Hardly anyone slept that night, the howling of the wind sounded too much like the howls of the Brokens that were running at their heels- masked the sound of the beasts in the distance and the warriors were fearful to let their guards down. The Minecraftians and even Bluehorse herself had relaxed that first night when they'd realized that they weren't being immediately chased by the things they feared the most in that moment. Brooksfield had given them a brief sense of normalcy and a chance for all of them to rest at the same time, perhaps calming them to the point where they weren't as likely to believe that they'd run into any danger. No one had expected to find the massacre that they had the day before and it hung heavy in every last one of the warrior's minds, the silence that had fallen over them the day before as they'd left Brooksfield had evolved into an entirely different sort of quiet- broken by random snatches of nervous conversation.
The horses nickered uneasily all night long- waking their riders from the depths of slumber and into the dark, midnight world around them. It was a long night, full of waking up gasping for breath and reaching for a sword or some weapon that might prevent the death that each one felt hanging over their shoulders at the frightened noises of one another or the horses pawing at the ground. Their fire was ringed with an extra layer or two of stones- they'd made sure in the past that they formed a solid enough wall around it that the light couldn't be seen from far off- but they were less confident now with that day's discoveries and only kept the flames high enough to see the outskirts of their clearing.
Bluehorse woke early before her shift to stand guard and sat by the fire shifting through the contents of what they'd found- two or three notebooks along with the single journal she'd found in the scattered pile of supplies from that battered inventory chest and Bodil had somehow found a cell phone with a cracked screen. No telling if there had been anything else in the wreckage of the camp that they could have used, but none of the warriors had wanted to stay in that graveyard any longer than they had to. Even the humans seemed to smell the danger that hung in the air along with the awful stench of death, had felt the same awful threat of what could happen if they stayed in that place much longer. And so they'd fled- urging the horses as fast as the frightened animals would go until they were miles down the trail and their mounts were heaving for breath in the heat of the Minecraftian sun.
The first notebook contained nothing but lists of things to do, gear to pack, and supplies that the team had needed to get the next time they found a village or town. Bluehorse found out nothing interesting besides the fact that the team had likely been sent in to mine in the caves- to gather money and resources for the teams to come to this world after them, maybe they'd even planned on setting up a base. Pickaxes and ropes were on the tops of most of the supply lists- where all the minerals, gems, and money they'd collected had gone Bluehorse had no idea unless the Brokens or some bandits had taken it, that or they'd completely overlooked them. The rest of the notebook was random doodles, some hastily scribbled thoughts and reminders, and once a line or two of poetry- the rest empty pages that could tell her nothing else.
The second notebook was mostly blank, as if someone had tried to start up a journal but hadn't quite managed the time or the patience to do such a trivial thing. Instead most of the pages were taken up with doodles like the first and the majority of the time the hand writing was so awful and crushed together she could hardly understand what was written inside. There were a few excerpts near the end of the written-on pages that seemed to be from around the time that the team had been attacked- here the entries became more consistent as if whatever warrior had been writing within these pages had needed some way to ease the anxiety of the approaching attack. She learned they'd killed a few packs of Brokens before- that one or two of the team members had been injured in these fights and one had nearly bleed out from the deep gashes a Broken had placed across his ribs in the latest battle.
Unfortunately that was as far as she got before it was her turn to stand guard by the fire. This time it was Seto and herself left to watch the dark arms of the forest shift with the raging wind, and the Savior agent thanked the fact that they had finally fled far enough from that awful battleground that the scent of it no longer reached her nose. Still she was uneasy and found herself falling back into a state of mind that often crept up on her just before the many battles she'd fought over the course of her career. Any sound made her eyes immediately shift to the exact spot the noise had come from as she watched the forest around her for any sort of movement that did not belong to the tree-branches dancing in the wind.
"Be honest with me Bluehorse, do we even stand a chance if those things catch up with us?" Seto asked softly, the first words he'd spoken so far after the others had gone to sleep.
"To be honest- I have no idea…and- I've never seen them hunt this way." She replied as her eyes locked onto a patch of shadow and held it within her sight for a moment or two before catching the distinct shape of branches and leaves that had been lost to her at first glance.
"I guess that's bad?" the mage asked nervously, though his tone was calmer than she'd expected.
"Not necessarily- if they weren't being controlled by a Doppelganger I'd say it was a good thing. But you can never know exactly what's running through a Doppelganger's mind- I've seen the things convince themselves that they're actually the person they're copying. With a twisted mindset of course, but I've seen it done and the scary thing is they can really get under your skin when they do something like that- they know exactly what to say to break someone down even if that person knows it's a Broken they're talking to."
"What do you mean by that though?" Seto asked curiously, even as he shifted his sword more firmly into his hand- just for a second he would have sworn that something had darted through the shadows to his left and back farther into the woods. The firelight flickered unevenly though in the wind and made it difficult for him to tell if anything was moving or not- they'd be lucky if the wind didn't blow out their little fire before daybreak or if the coming storm didn't drown it with buckets of rain.
"Just that unlike the others- the normal Brokens- Doppelgangers…they think almost like a human would, at least a warped, dark, melted version of what a person would think. They plan Seto- they remember things from their old lives; old tactics, combat training, routes that have gone unused for years- they know. They know how we think because they were once exactly like us, at least at some point they were- and they remember that. And they're smart enough to plan and to hold the others back- to wait for the perfect moment to strike." She answered honestly, glad for a moment to have someone to share her fears with.
"So you're saying we could be living on borrowed time?"
"Exactly."
Morning couldn't come early enough and the team ate on the road, letting the horses eat as the gear was packed up yet again and simply sharing cold jerky and tough bread as they urged the horses on again. With the sun rising over their heads they'd all calmed a little- but no longer did they have the thought hanging in the backs of their minds that they would reach Gryphon King or make it back to Silverdale to round up reinforcements unscathed.
"Maybe we should have headed for Silverdale instead of Gryphon King- I doubt Captain Sparklez will be able to spare any of his warriors to ride along with us back home." Seto said as he glanced behind him for the twenty-seventh time that morning.
"Not to mention the fact that the soldiers in his armada wouldn't know a warhorse from a mule even if it bit them, and don't get me started on how well they'd fight from the saddle." Antvenom remarked from farther up the trail as he ducked beneath a low hanging branch with practiced ease.
"What is it with you and Sparklez's anyways?" Seto snorted in amusement at the rather confidently put comment, he doubted the Captain's forces wouldn't know how to ride a horse or to fight on one in a battle either- the armada was known for being well-trained and disciplined in almost every form of combat. Even if they usually fought best at sea, which had come in handy during the war.
"Just a friendly sort of competition and a difference in our views of leadership." Ant replied with a sly smirk and then glanced up to catch the bronze and golden glints of the half-dragon's wings before looking back at the trail in front of him.
Bluehorse listened with only a bit of interest as her mind was much more focused on the third notebook she had spread open across her lap, the pages stained and warped with drying blood- both red and black. Its former owner told her as much as the other two had about the world they'd all been living in before the Brokens had attacked- though whoever was writing seemed to share her unease about the nighttime howls of the beasts in the woods. She'd hoped that the first three notebooks might provide her with some sort of background to go by when she finally delved into the leather journal she'd been keeping tucked safely in Troll's saddle bag along with the busted phone and the other notebooks. Though she hadn't learned much so far.
Every now and then she'd lift her head up to scan the forest around them- drawn to the feeble shreds of information that these documents offered and the fear that a pack of Brokens could close in on them at any second. Their best chance at survival might be hidden within the doodles and frantically written words that covered the pages of the bloodstained survivors of that battle so long ago. It was hard not to read these warriors' words without having to choke back tears, they hadn't had the slightest idea of what was coming. Hadn't known the horror that they'd face at the bitter end of their hopefully happy lives. Where ever they were now she could only wish them the best- even if they had been her enemies.
The journal was much cleaner than the others, though the pages were stuck together in some places by rain and the ink smeared until some words were almost unintelligible- she knew they'd be riding until after dark again and there was no way she could make out those ink smeared syllables by the light of the moon and their small campfire. Besides that the small amount of sleep she'd managed to get in-between waking up to the frightened sound of the horses, guard duty, and the reading she'd done- she needed all the rest she could get. Her limp had only gotten a little better over the past few days- the pain was gone and she could run with the injury well enough to fight, but her body still refused to put as much weight on the limb as it normally did, creating the now hated limp that checked every step annoyingly. Rest would only help the deep gashes heal faster and hopefully help her react as fast as she needed to in the very possible chance that Brokens attacked.
So she read in the saddle, trusting Ant's and Seto's battle-trained senses to catch any threat that didn't pull her out of the stained pages in front of her.
The first quarter of the journal provided a great insight as to what the team had been doing in this dimension and their leader's expectations of what could be accomplished as well as more than a few complaints about inadequate supplies for their journey. They'd been sent in to scout out the land and do a bit of mining- gathering resources for another Minecraftian dimension they were currently planning to build a base in, which was information Bluehorse stored away for later when she got back home. The first sightings of Brokens had been dealt with easily enough and had happened maybe a month or two into their mission, though the leader had often wrote that he/she feared that the creatures were sharing this realm with them well before the first sighing. More and more battles with the beasts had been fought until the leader had requested to bring their team home- they were ordered to deal with the threat and told that teams would be sent in to help them. A few agents came to collect the ores and gems they'd plucked from the mines and went back home to their base- leaving only a few behind to add to the slim numbers of the team of X agents.
Eventually the leader had had no choice but to flee the area they'd been mining in- heading for Gryphon King the nearest city and the one with the best defenses. The howls of the creatures had remained in the distance and had only been heard during the night, just like the authors of the journals before and Bluehorse, herself- the leader of the team was convinced that something wasn't right about the whole situation. And as Bluehorse read deeper into the logbook she began to fear the worst.
And then came the last page of writing- the words rushed and slanted across the page, so obviously made by a shaking hand that the warrior immediately sensed the danger that had been approaching the leader's team at that very moment.
"Dear Lord! I can hear them coming- we've been running for days now and still the damn things haven't gotten any farther away- I've been pushing the others faster than we were going- I wanted to see if these things were planning something. But now I've gone and let them fucking know that we've realized what they're up to! It won't be long before they'll swarm us- we caught a glimpse of the pack one day and it's like nothing I've ever seen before and it was far fucking larger than those awful howls they let loose at night tell me the pack that we've heard following us is. Not to mention now that they've started after us I can hear the other pack- the rest of them that we haven't been hearing! They're right on our heels- we can't last against that many- there's no fucking way we can survive that! Not to mention that with so many of the damn things around we can't gateway- the last thing I want is to accidentally land on top of one of those monsters. The only reason I'm writing this right now is to tell anybody that finds this journal what's happening.
JUST RUN! JUST FUCKING RUN! Get onto the plains around Gryphon King or Brooksfield- the forest is their hunting ground and they don't like to leave it- we've found that much out with our battles against them over the past five months- so just RUN!
Otherwise let my body rot along with my pack's- I know we won't make it out of this, but we'll go out fighting and that's all we can hope for. Maybe someone will come along and kill those monsters, but I don't have the warriors or the knowledge to do it. Goodbye cruel worlds, goodbye everybody I ever cared about- this is the end of my story, hopefully it's not the end of yours.
Wishing you all the luck in the world, Agent Nightingale of the X Agency."
Bluehorse looked up from the journal, snapping it closed and sliding it back in the saddlebag with a small growl of fear as she looked over at the two riding beside her. Troll had obediently followed Seto and Ant's horses as they'd followed the trail that would hopefully lead them to Gryphon King in one piece.
"Seto, how far are we from Gryphon King?" Bluehorse asked as calmly as she could, trying to hide the panic and frustration at the slow pace they had to keep for the horses when Savior agents would've been able to fly over the land far faster than the warhorses could ever gallop.
"Maybe two- three more days, counting today." The sorcerer answered frowning a bit at the almost emotionless expression on the warrior's face- she had that look in her eyes like she had the night before and the day the first Brokens had attacked. A deadly calm that spoke of years of experience and a fiercely kept mindset that could keep anything from interrupting her thoughts in a battle- allowing nothing to sway her as she fought. Her expression was guarded and tensed though the tone she used to speak with was as calm and peaceful as the last time she'd spoken.
"And how long until we reach the grasslands, I've never traveled this way before- but I know it usually takes a day or two to reach the city from the edge of the forests." She replied evenly.
"Maybe a day or less." Ant answered, turning in the saddle to face her- his friendly smile falling a little when he noticed the fear in the agent's eyes. He turned back around though as she was clearly asking him not to say anything else.
His words relieved Bluehorse slightly- they weren't far away from the edge of the Brokens' territory now, it was common for the creatures to have hunting grounds as they could more easily hide and seem simply like myth or legend if they kept to a certain area and so manage to stay hidden for longer periods of time. And wide open spaces like grasslands had never been favored by their kind- just like they had stayed out of the clearing in front of the base they'd fled from, they would stay out of the open space of the grasslands. Their very instinct was to hide and to go unseen, an instinct that even many Doppelgangers could not resist obeying.
Though it didn't give her much comfort as she knew the pack would be closing in on them soon, and maybe without even the warning that the other team of warriors had gotten.
"Seto can I ask you something else?" she said and guided Troll as close to the sorcerer's warhorse as she could.
"Of course, Bluehorse- what is it?" He asked, playing along- though she could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew that something was very, very wrong.
"We're being followed- there's another, much larger pack closing in. They've been confusing us with the second pack and making us think we're safer than we actually are. My bets are they'll take us sometime tonight or tomorrow morning- their hunting ground is the forest and they won't go past it so it's now or never for them." Bluehorse spoke in a rush, whispering the words to the mage as quietly as she could, hoping that the creature's in the woods weren't nearly close enough to hear her rambled warning.
"And how do you know?" he asked worriedly, calm evaporating for a moment before he expertly masked his fear and panic and with a controlled and friendly smile.
"The journal. Tell Ant, move up to him slowly- now say to me out loud 'I don't think Sky or Bodil would have a problem with you shifting into a half-dragon.'" She instructed carefully. "And for the life of me- if you hear anything call out to us, worst case scenario we leave the horses- I doubt the Brokens would go after them if we kept low to the ground" she lied, not wanting Seto's horse to make an ill-timed outburst, though the stallion did let out an unhappy and fearful rumble at the warrior's words.
"I don't think Sky or Bodil would have a problem with you shifting into a half-dragon at all, in fact it might be better to have another scout to watch behind us and I'm sure that Sky or Bodil could stand to rest a little." The sorcerer replied.
"Alright, then- here's his reins, Seto." Bluehorse replied handing over Troll's well-worn leather reins and then somehow managed to slip off the horse and onto the ground even as Troll continued forward. "I've been wanting to stretch my wings for a while now."
"It's alright, we understand- you won't offend them though, so don't worry about it. Alright?" Seto called back as the Savior agent stood in the middle of the path and waited for the horses to get far enough ahead of her that she had room to take off.
Mist and fog swirled around her shoulders and wrists- exited her mouth in long trails like the clouds of fog that always appear on a cold winter day- only thicker and these hung in the air for a much longer period of time. Large wings stretched out on either side of her- dragon wings with gently curving talons tipping the midpoints of each new appendage- a smaller pair of wings set near the end of her tail for balance and quick turns in midflight. Long, thin spikes of bone set lower down and on the sides of that powerful tail- protecting the smaller set of wings and providing an extra weapon that would be exceptionally hard to take from her. Diamond-hard scales formed armor-like braces for her arms in-between wrist and elbow- two long spikes curving cruelly from the outward sides of each arm perfectly placed to catch enemies on the back swings of punches and to twist swords easily from any enemy's grasp.
And with a few quick steps, a flick of her tail-wings and a few powerful strokes of her blue-scaled wings she was easily up and into the air. There was nothing quite like those initial few moments after leaving the ground- the way her stomach dropped as she soared away from the land beneath her and just for a few seconds felt gravity fight to reclaim her. It was freeing- in the sky she was almost completely safe, most Brokens wouldn't be able to hold any form long enough to fly but there were Misfits and Doppelgangers that could allow for little changes over the course of time and the ones that didn't have to change at all of course that could easily catch her in the air. But she tried to push those thoughts from her mind as she climbed higher- the confused circling of Sky and Bodil above only urging her forward as she pumped her wings to slice through the air as she soared above the horses and riders getting farther and farther beneath her.
"Is something wrong?" Asked Sky, confused and worried- he flew as close as he could to her, Bodil gliding to her left so that he could hear what she had to say as well.
"Yes- remember that journal we found?" she asked and when the two shouted back their affirmatives above the sound of the wind she continued. "The last entry says that the forest is their hunting ground- they confuse their prey by sending a smaller portion of a much, much larger pack behind them to make all the noise they can while the second and bigger half follows silently behind- closing in. According to Ant, we're almost less than a day from the edge of this forest- they're going to hit soon and if we'd never have found that camp we wouldn't have seen it coming." She called to them and watched as Bodil's wings faltered in the air for a moment.
"Then where are they- we've been scouting for miles and we've seen nothing? I don't want to find out if you're right Bluehorse, but where are they? If we know where they're coming from we might stand a better chance." Sky shouted back, golden wings carrying him through the air with ease.
"I have no clue, for all I know they could be ahead of us! But we need to decide when we're going to run- the longer we wait the closer those things get- the horses are relatively fresh so we could try now or wait until the afternoon and make our break when we'd usually be finding a place to rest. We'd be closer to the border of the forest then and wouldn't have to push the horses as hard as we would if we started now. I've watched a video of the battle that those warriors we found went through- the Brokens hit them in waves. If we pick up enough speed we might be able to get them to spread out and we'd stand a better chance of outrunning the main pack. Less Brokens to deal with- more time to run!" Bluehorse suggested and Sky's eyes glinted gold at the thought- mentally preparing himself for the fight to come.
"The others know?" He asked.
"Yes, I told Seto- he's telling Ant now, one of us can go 'rest' and talk with them, while two of us stay up here to watch out for those things. We decide what we do now- tell the others and then wait for the moment when we make a run for it." She called and again Sky nodded in agreement.
"Bodil, Troll is you're horse- it'll look more natural if you're the one to ride him- and it'll look odd if Bluehorse just flies straight back down again. When the sun touches the horizon we run." Sky ordered and Bodil nodded, offered a farewell and dove down to join the others as Sky and Bluehorse called out their own 'good lucks'.
The rest of the day was spent in tense silence as the group waited for the impending attack and their race for the border of the forested hills they'd been traveling through for days. Bluehorse glided through the air after the horses far below- scanning the shadows beneath her and often making long sweeps over the area behind them in the off chance that the packs would allow themselves to fall back in order to stay hidden. It was worth a shot even if it didn't do a damn thing, she could only try to give them a little more time to reach whatever safety there was. She wasn't even sure that the packs would stop following them once they reached the grasslands, the beasts might be thrown a bit by the sudden lack of obstacles to hide behind in-between attacks and back off for a few moments that might allow them to outrun the creatures. But Bluehorse highly doubted that. They would be lucky if the pack left them alone once they slipped from the border of the forests.
With every stroke of her wings she found herself watching the way they were going- looking for where the trail would begin to slope down and the far-off point where the trees would thin and the land would flatten for miles and miles on end in front of them. She had no trouble tearing her eyes away from the forest in front of them in favor of keeping watch over her friends below and giving Sky quick glances to make sure some Broken hadn't leaped from the treetops and pulled him down into the forest. But as the day progressed there was nothing in their way- no howls, no packs rushing through the woods, no fallen trees over the road- nothing and Bluehorse began to fear that the others would start to doubt what she'd told them. There was no way they'd be stopping now- but even if they just slowed their pace a little it could mean the difference between life and death.
But fortunately the others seemed to trust her enough to trust her judgment, or at least Sky's judgment as he was the one that had decided when they'd make their charge. Which wasn't at all a troubling fact for the Savior agent, unless something came up where the two couldn't come to a compromise on something and the others didn't know which way to turn- the only case that would happen in though was if something was dangerous enough for the warrior to question the half-dragon's own ideas. She had no problem with stepping down in leadership for someone else as long as they were a good leader and had a clear head on their shoulders- in fact the team she was running with now was a lot like her own pack. They followed their own rules and just looked to someone within their group for guidance or a conscious choice- a bit looser in authority than Bluehorse's team usually was as they always saw themselves as a team among many other things like family and friends. Bluehorse's own pack was formed with the idea that they worked for the Savior Agency and had been placed in this team together- Bluehorse had been appointed as their leader and they had agreed to follow her, thus when chaos broke loose- pretty much whatever Bluehorse said went because that was her job in the team.
Though Bluehorse was much more focused on watching the land around them for any sign of the monsters that they were running from than comparing her new friends with her old friends. The friends that would hopefully decide to show up sometime soon.
Hours passed and the Minecraftians only took small breaks- fifteen minutes at the most, long enough for the horses to catch their breath and then they were back onto the road, always moving if they could. And as the sun began to slip towards the horizon the horses were slowed to a walk and allowed to rest from the long days of travelling in preparation for the race to come. The animals sensed the anxiety and fear of their riders- Bluehorse could see them tossing their heads into the air and dancing sideways as they were guided down the trail. The shadows deepened around them until the sky began to turn orange, pink, and red as that hot sun dipped closer and closer to the edge of the horizon- each warrior bracing themselves for the moment when someone would give the signal and they would make their last dash towards the grasslands.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly the sun touched the horizon and as Sky made a quick dive down towards the ground the three Minecraftians below slapped their reins down hard and sent the horse galloping down the trail at as sustainable a pace as they could. The first hour there was nothing, no howls and no flickering shapes in the dark of the coming night. But just as the horses were beginning to slow- Bluehorse's clever eyes picked something out of the darkness. Quick shapes flitting across the ground beneath them in and out of the shadows of the trees as soon as she'd seen them. A roar tore itself form her throat as she dived- the creatures weren't far off and there was no telling how many of them was in this first wave.
She saw Sky turn in mid-flight, only to see her diving down and immediately he roared out to the others as well- the horses pushed on by the howls that suddenly pierced the twilight shadows around them. More and more cries ringing out in the distance as if the whole forest was filled with the beasts, though none quite as close as the pack that was nearly on the heels of the tired horses by now- perhaps a quarter-mile down the trail and closing the distance faster than she would've liked.
The wind roared against her face as she slicked her wings close to her sides and simply dove straight down, the wind howling in her ears as she let gravity take her. World brightening around her as her eyes glowed blue in the dim light of the hour and narrowed against the wind howling in her ears, the shapes of the Brokens growing closer every second as she hurtled towards the ground. Eighty feet turned into fifty- fifty into forty- and forty into twenty-five.
Time slowed.
Her wings snapped open at the last possible second- WindDancer easily pulled from its sheath in the same motion.
The wind caught in her wide spread wings wonderfully and the aching pull of the force of slowing down so suddenly nearly ripped them from their sockets as with years of practice she threw her legs forward to stop the Broken leaping up to catch her like a cat would catch a bird. But the force snapped its neck with ease and was sent it tumbling back down to the ground in a cloud of black smog. A war cry left her lips and she swooped back into the air as if she'd been born with wings on her back, banking her wings steeply to turn quickly back towards the group. The outraged cries of the Brokens receding behind her with every powerful stroke of her wings, even as more and more of the creatures answered their calls.
She answered back with a cry of her own- a loud roar that the others ahead of her echoed as the horses thundered between the trees, ready for a fight that they knew they had no chance of completely winning. A battle- a war that they had no choice but to attempt to postpone or their lives would end that very night.