The Knights of Grimm - Act 3 - Shattered Memory

Chapter 15 - Consequences

Qrow

"What now?" Raven asks him as they walk through the woods of Vale, they have returned to the huge structure where they found Ozpin. It looks exactly the same, nothing has really changed on it. Taiyang crouches down, examining the area whilst Raven walks with her brother. None of them know about what Ruby did to Dew at this moment, otherwise they would have teleported themselves there.

"We figure out where she went, the Spring Maiden left us this mark." Qrow explains, planting his hand on his hip. Taiyang stands up and looks at Raven after he notices something in the stone. Something rather peculiar, and yet familiar when he sees it.

"Hey, guys. I think I've got something." Taiyang tells them.

"What've you got?" Raven asks him, she jogs over to him and stands beside him. She and Qrow both look at the print on the ground. It is a large hoof print, very similar to that of the Nuckelavee, it is massive. It managed to actually crack the stone ground that it trod across. It leads off into the woods, one hoof at a time, and it is next to the Spring Maiden's insignia on the stone. The Wreath of Flowers.

"I don't know about you, but that was not there when we got Ozpin." Taiyang points out, looking straight at it. And he is right, there was no other signs of anybody here other than the Spring Maiden's insignia on the stone brick only a couple feet away from it. This was very recent, perhaps an hour ago at the most. Raven crouches down and slides her hand across the mark to see just for certain. The ground is still soft, and warm from a hoof moving across it. She turns to them with her calculation of how old these prints must be.

"This must be forty minutes old, max." Raven estimates with a shrug.

"Those...things?" Qrow asks her, and she nods.

"The Riders." Taiyang calls them, until they know their real title, that is the one he has chosen for them. Raven stands up, looking down at the mark on the ground.

"How do you know that they can track you through the usage of your teleports?" Qrow asks her, and she holds her Odachi up as she lets the sunlight gleam across it.

"Everywhere I teleported to, they would show up there only moments later. They can sense it somehow, and they kill anything in their path." Raven explains, remembering the inhuman screeches that came from them, the burning hot eyes that stared her down as they pursued her. She seems pretty shook up from it all.

"How many of your bandits did you lose?" Taiyang asks her, crossing his arms as he leans against the stones behind him. She sighs, touching her head as she thinks back to that day.

"I opened a portal to Vale, on that clue we were following...it was fine for a while..." She explains as she remembers. "There were ten of us, I was the only one to get out alive when they appeared. The air turned cold when they arrived, and they wiped them out. Cut them all down, I could hear their screams as they were taken. They did not just kill them, they wounded them and stole them. I don't know where they are now...it's easier to think that they're dead." Raven explains, sounding more shaken when she speaks on it. Raven does not get easily shaken by things, but these things have scared her deeply.

"How did you get out?" Qrow asks her, and she looks at him.

"Our gift was my saviour. I shifted into my Raven Form and I flew away from them, leaving them to die...that was when I found that tavern and I sent the message. I knew we had to talk, after I was given that picture." She explains. Taiyang holds his hand, then caresses her cheek to calm her down, for these Riders really have her scared.

And as they should have them all scared.

"Well...it looks like they are hunting the Spring Maiden down as well. It's possible they could have thought that your portal was her." Taiyang points out and the Branwen Twins look at him with a surprised expression.