"I'm getting the feeling the forest does not want us here." Alex said, his brown horse at the rear of the small group.

They'd left Jartol several hours before, after a short meal with the three hunters they met there. Now they were on their own, already past the border of the forest.

"Your'e not the only one." Gideon answered gravely, staring up at the trees above their heads. They loomed, the branches nearly striking their heads.

The tension in the two was clear with the way their muscles were wound tight.

Dawn rolled her eyes and shared an exasperated glance with Jacqueline. A moment later she tore her eyes away, the urge to swing a fist at her back in her.

It was more than just the enmity they'd built in the School; something deep inside her that had began roiling since the rite at the school wanted her to leap upon Jacqueline and unleash hell on her. It was an overwhelming and very unreasonable feeling.

"I'm beginning to question the judgment of sending that poor bird to find this captain. There's absolutely no way it would be able to fly in these trees." Alex added, staring mournfully at the empty cage hanging from his saddle, where the dove Akhand had provided them had been kept.

"It's just a dove, Alex." Jacqueline sighed in frustration. "The order has thousands more."

"And that is excuse to lose one?" Alex whirled on her, his face twisting in anger. "You're just on more human in the order. Does that make it okay to throw you away?"

Jacqueline flinched and her face colored slightly. Alex had obviously touched a nerve there.

She opened her mouth to say something when Gideon pulled sharply on his horse's bridle to bring it to a halt. He twisted in his seat to glare at them.

"Keep your voices down. Do you want to let every predator in the woods to know we're here?" He hissed.

Jacqueline turned on him, a snarl on her face, and suddenly her eyes were glowing orbs, aquamarine light pouring from them.

Dawn instinctively dove from her horse, hitting the ground with her eyes shut. There was a flash of light, and the temperature suddenly dropped, as though winter was upon them.

Dawn slowly opened her eyes and looked up, not knowing what she was expecting to see. Her jaw dropped in surprise at what she saw.

Jacqueline lay in the center of an explosion of ice, her horse stumbling to its knees beneath her. The frozen earth around her stretched towards Gideon, but it stopped a mere feet before the hooves of his panicking horse. Alex was fine, behind Jacqueline, but his horse threatened to buck him off in an attempt to escape.

Dawn's horse had already taken off into the darkness of the forest, wildly neighing as it galloped away.

Jacqueline stared at her hands, face stretched in an expression of awe and... fear. Her clothes had tiny icicles hanging off it and her hair had turned white, but she didn't seem to notice.

"What in the Patriarch's name was that?" Alex gasped as he finally regained control of his wild horse.

Dawn knew, and by the look in Jacqueline's eyes, she knew as well. Jacqueline had just accessed her power for the very first time.

"Quick!" Gideon barked, regaining his wits faster than the others. "We need to get out of here before every animal that saw that light comes running."

He glanced at Jacqueline's horse, which was now on its side, legs pawing the earth weakly. Jacqueline's ice must have killed it.

"Damn it." Gideon snarled, realizing Dawn's horse was gone as well. "Dawn, get behind Alex. Jacqueline, with me. Now!"

Jacqueline snapped out of her torpor, and with a hand from Gideon, swung onto the horse behind him. Dawn quickly joined Alex, who flicked the reins, pushing the horse into a gallop, leaving the ice and the dying horse behind.

They took off into the trees, Gideon and Jacqueline following closely behind.

While Dawn couldn't hear anything, she was almost sure that they were already being hunted by something hungry.

Alex glanced back when the horse suddenly began to scream. Dawn bit in a growl as she realized something must have indeed reached the horse, and realized it was edible. The screams were abruptly cut off a moment later.

"I guess the horse is expendable too." Alex muttered, his face creased in pain as he turned back to sit rightly.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

The ominous feeling Gideon and Alex had mentioned was now very clear to Dawn. It seemed to wrap around her and squeeze the air out of her lungs.

She could barely see in the dark of the forest, but what she heard was enough to give her an idea.

Something big was stalking them, and it was easily keeping up with their horses.

The two horses were neck to neck now, manes flowing in the wind as they galloped with every last ounce of speed. Dawn wondered how long they could keep up the speed.

"Two to the left. One to the right." Gideon called out, meeting Dawn's eyes. "Big ones, whatever they are."

Dawn did not bother mentioning he was telling her something she already knew. Instead she began to ask if he had any solutions to their problem. She never got that far, as the first of the things exploded out from the foliage, a shrieking blur of limbs.

The riders veered away from the hairy monstrosity, as big as any of the horses they rode on. The short glimpse Dawn got of it told her it was supposed to be a spider of some kind, only it was far too big, and had too many legs. It swung lithely from tree to tree, easily keeping up with them.

The other two on the left appeared as well, forcing the group to charge straight on, unable to turn to either side. Dawn's eyes narrowed as she realized what the creatures were doing.

"They're herding us." She yelled to the others, keeping her eyes on the beasts.

"Towards what?" Alex barked, doing his best to coax a little more speed from the overtaxed horse he and Dawn rode.

"Were about to find out." Gideon answered, eyes wide as he stared ahead. Dawn followed his gaze, and the for the first time, felt relief. A huge clearing stood ahead, a place where they could hold their own against the three creatures on either side of them.

She couldn't help but shift uncomfortably though, as a rank smell was blown towards her by a soft wind. She had no time to consider it, before the horses thundered into the clearing.

Their riders pulled the horses to a hard stop, and Dawn noticed how their eyes rolled in exhaustation and sweat covered their flanks. The horses could not do any more running.

Which left only fighting for the humans.

Dawn twisted in her seat, looking back to find the spiders hanging at the birder of the clearing, unwilling to progress further. They stared at her with at least a dozen eyes, and coming from four creatures at the same time, Dawn had to swallow nervously.

FOUR?

She blinked in surprise, counting them again. She flinched when she realized that several more were appearing at the border of the clearing, chittering eagerly.

"Well," Gideon said grimly as he pulled an axe from his side, "I guess we are in the trap now."

"God, no." Alex hissed and shuddered. Dawn's head snapped around and she searched for whatever he saw. She followed his gaze up, to the pale blue sky above.

And the giant spider hanging above them, resting leisurely in its glittering web.

It was huge, several times larger than any of the smaller ones in the trees. Each of its limbs were as large as a man's torso, and they ended in curved talons. The pedilaps dripped with black fluid, a poison most likely.

Dawn had the a few seconds to stare at it, before she hurled herself from the horse.

The spider dropped from the web a moment later, hitting the earth so hard, the ground shuddered. Ut towered above them, its eyes glittering with hunger. And then it charged.

The world was suddenly made up of screams and chitters, as the spiders in the trees all swung into the clearing, scuttling towards their prey on their hairy legs. Dawn felt a shiver run down her spine, and she had a moment to wonder whether they were going to make it out of the clearing alive, before she pulled a throwing knife out and hurled it at one of the eyes of the huge spider.

The hit had absolutely no effect, other than to anger the hungry beast. It did not stop its charge, until Gideon's axe went flying, slamming into its head.

Even then, it merely slowed, still coming directly at them. Dawn felt bile rise in her throat, and she had to hold back a whimper as she pulled her saber from its sheath.

She felt a strange, foreign heat building up along her spine, spreading quickly to the rest of her body. She realized what was happening a moment too late.

The spider was nearly upon them, when the world exploded into hot, burning flames that lit up the world.

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Word count - 8005

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- Kevin