The Mighty Ones' Fall

Chapter 12: The Dream Walker

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Damien, Darius, Hannah, and I continued to jog away from the camp, from the home we had known for so long. We tried not to let the fact that we didn't have any weapons bother us, but it was pretty much impossible. I wished those two guards hadn't been watching over the armory when we sneaked by, even though there was really no point in dwelling on it. Fortunately for us, we managed to make it safely to the bus station. It took us an hour or two, and we arrived at sometime past midnight but a few hours before dawn.

It had been raining almost the entire time we were running - lightly, but still enough to be bothersome. The little black bench we sat on together by the lone streetlamp and the edge of the dirt road was cold and wet, dampening our moods even more. And the fact that the bus was not going to come on time became very clear to us after we waited another couple hours, when the fiery yellow ball began to rise above the hills to the east.

Hannah yawned, stretching her arms out. "Should we start walking to the airport?" she wondered aloud, but neither one of the twins nor I answered her. Truthfully, not one of us wanted to walk at all - we just wanted to sleep.

Suddenly, a high-pitched shriek cut through the air, clearing the fog in all of our heads immediately. The twins, Hannah, and I stood up and started looking around wildly, not quite sure what to expect. Meanwhile, I started cursing at myself again for not waiting to leave the base camp until we had weapons.

And then - you guessed it - Layna and Brady came sprinting over the hill.

"RUN!" Layna screamed as she careened toward us at top speed, with Brady at her heels. Not needing to be told twice and not caring what we were running from, the twins, Hannah and I started running down the road toward the very distant airport. There was no time to stop and think. At that moment, Layna and Brady were actually on our side; they were just trying to survive, too.

In the lead, I picked up the pace once I heard the rapid breathing from Layna and Brady join the chorus from the twins and Hannah, and the thundering sound of feet slapping pavement echoed through my head ceaselessly. Only after I was sure that no one had fallen behind did I even look back over my shoulder to see what it was we were actually running from, and instantly regretted it. Believe me; sometimes it's just better not to know. 

At first glance, they might have appeared like normal horses, like the ones back at base camp. But these four black beasts with shiny coats had razor-sharp teeth and an appetite for humans. Yeah, humans. If they weren't the reincarnations of Diomedes's pets, they were descendants of the real ones. Either way, my friends and I were in deep, deep trouble. I mean, even if you had a head start, for how long could you outrun a horse?

"What are we going to do?" Layna shouted at no one in particular, her green eyes wide open.

"What are you even doing here?" Darius yelled back at her, and I rolled my eyes at him. Now was not the time to be arguing.

"Should we pray to Lord Poseidon?" Hannah suggested. "He is the god of horses."

Brady only scoffed. "Why the hell would Lord Poseidon help us? We're Knowing. We're the gods' and Alec's enemies right now."

"I don't know about you and Layna, but the rest of us are going to help Alec," Hannah said seriously, looking Brady right in the eye. "So praying is worth a try."

Our bickering ceased after that, at least for a few seconds. But the thundering of the horses' hooves grew ever closer and louder, and their whinnies sounded more like shrieks of evil laughter. Then, out of the blue (or rather, from somewhere behind us), an orange bus came screaming up and over the hill, passing the four carnivorous horses but slowing down slightly when it caught up with my friends and me. The skinny doors on the bus folded open, and the stout, short-haired woman in the driver's seat shouted in English, "I'm guessing you kids need a ride?"