The Shadow

Chapter 5

Although hesitant, she nodded, pulling her stallion around before racing down the rocky path. Despite the terror that clouded his brain, making it hard to focus on what approached, Kai knew that hope was not lost. He had trained most of his life for a fight, although his opponents had been men. That was little matter; if his life had taught him anything, it was that men and beasts were one and the same.

Kai jumped off of his mare, watching as Harper galloped away, riding toward another danger, but possibly a lesser one. He could only hope that she made it past the wraith looming within the shadows of the wood, however impossible it might seem to escape from an invisible assassin.

Drawing his sword, he watched as the hounds broke into a run toward him, unfazed by the blade he balanced in his left hand, a knife readied in the other. The beast's tongues lolled against their snouts, saliva dripping from their maws. Kai hurtled the knife towards the nearest hound, relief washing over him as it found its mark in the beast's throat. The creature went down, choking on its own blood as it collapsed on the stony path—blue blood, by the looks of it. Kai would think about that later.

The beasts were not completely invincible to attack, then. Kai threw another knife at the second creature's throat—only for it to be deflected off its skull. These hounds aren't as dumb as they look, he thought as another knife sang toward the beast, this one finding its mark in one of those depthless eyes. The hound crashed to the ground, blue blood spilling mere feet from Kai's worn shoes.

That left one more of the beasts, now only feet away. Kai waited a precious second before jumping to the side, feeling the hound's panting breaths reverberate through the stones beneath his feet as he plunged his sword through the creature's massive chest, the hound's bones and muscles snapping from the force of barreling into his outstretched blade.

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Kai rode slowly along the stony path. It seemed that animals and humans were not so different. They both bled and died, and that was enough. But then, he wasn't so sure that the hounds were animals... He had never seen a creature with such strange features, let alone blue blood. He had analyzed one of the beasts for a few minutes, but had failed to find any answers. Once killed, the darkness in their eyes had faded into nothing, snuffed out by death itself. Only empty eye sockets remained.

Kai rubbed his mare's neck, inspecting his surroundings. On his left, massive trees shielded him from the warm day, stretching farther than Kai could see. On his right, a thin grove of trees gave way to rolling hills wrapped in green grasses and peppered with small boulders. Squished between the two sides lay the path on which he stood. Small gray pebbles held in place by larger stones and boulders made for a path.

"Kai!"

Kai's thoughts were cast from his surroundings as a clear, familiar voice rang out from the trees to his right. He pushed Lunar into a canter when he saw her.

Kai threw himself off of the mare's back once he reached Harper, studying her for any signs of harm or conflict. She had stopped beside a stream, barely off the stone path.

"You shouldn't be here. The hounds were hardly a quarter mile away, if I hadn't dealt with them..." He tried not to think of what would have become of his newfound companion and their horses, had he failed to kill the hounds.