FanStory.com - Flight From Dangerby davisr (Rhonda)

Background
A fanciful tale of adventure. Phoebus, son of Poseidon, is a god turned Centaur by Zeus. Diantha, is a young lady in peril. Together, they must face an evil foe, and make some difficult choices.

End of last chapter:

In that same moment, Nutmeg reared and struck out with her right forehoof, catching the edge of the gun. It fired and the old mare fell to the ground with a thud, pinning Cassie's leg beneath.

Diantha looked on in horror as the scene unfolded. What should she do?

"Diantha, go!" Cassie ordered again. "We're both okay." She picked up a rock and threw it at White Lightning, who ignored her.

Nutmeg raised her head and screamed something to the filly. White Lightning bobbed her head and whinnied back.

Turning to face the woods, she ran with the speed she was bred for and according to the fire in her soul.

Beginning of new Chapter:

The menacing assailant jerked his bay around and headed after the fleeing pair. Diantha glanced over her shoulder, mostly in fear, partly out of curiosity. He was closing the distance between them rapidly. Who was this man, and why did he want her so badly?

"Leave me alone," she cried out, and then more to herself, "I couldn't be worth that much."

"Not happening," came the response. "I have instructions to bring you back."

Now he was looking at her like a wayward child.

Diantha leaned against White Lightning's neck and said, "Get me out of here." Lightning snorted and bobbed her head.

Rather than pick up speed, though, the filly turned and headed into the thick woods they had been skirting.

At first, Diantha was surprised at the change in direction, but quickly figured out why Lightning had chosen it.

On open ground, the young filly wouldn't have been a match for the powerful bay stallion. In the woods, however, the smaller horse had the advantage.

Diantha felt a surge of energy and purpose travel through the reins she held firmly. She didn't understand a lot about horses, but did know there was often a sacred bond between them and their riders.

Much was communicated by touch, the set of ears and the bobbing of heads. The nonverbals Lightning was sending out were enough to convince Diantha the horse knew what she was doing.

"You've got this, girl," Diantha said. She relaxed and let her new friend guide her where she wanted.

For quite some time, Diantha and her pursuer struggled through the thickening woods. The distance between them neither increased nor decreased for long. Fear and anger became as palpable as the scent of Red Maple and Sycamore.

The man shot at her several times, but each time, the bullet skidded harmlessly into the woods. It wasn't really the shooting that alarmed her. Diantha had a feeling that if he had really meant to hit her, he would have done so. No, he wanted her alive. The shots were just meant to intimidate.

What did alarm her, though, was his increasing anger and how it played out through his screams and countenance. His voice was loud, reverberating off the trees like the report of a cannon, and those eyes... those eyes... red as flames.

Between the jostling of her ride and the terror behind, Diantha was growing weary. Her legs ached from holding onto Lightning's sides, and her arms were bruised and stinging from fending off branches.

She had almost given up hope, when a flock of sparrows, disrupted by the equestrians, flew into the man's path. Terrified, the bay stallion reared to his feet and pawed at the offending birds. For just a moment, the man was halted as he got control of the situation.

Taking advantage, White Lightning broke away from the treacherous hunter, carrying her young rider deeper into the woods.

As Diantha heard the pursuit dropping further back, she began to have hope for the first time that morning. She no longer mused over why the man was chasing her, but was glad enough that she and Lightning were winning the race.

It wasn't much longer before all sounds of pursuit had disappeared. Diantha believed they had escaped the danger. The signals from the horse seemed to agree with her assessment.

Relieved, but tired, Diantha tried to halt her runaway mount. She pulled on the reins, patted her firmly on the neck, and even tried once to make her run in a circle as she had been taught. Nothing worked.

Though slowing from the previous gallop, White Lightning cantered on as though on a mission of her own. She appeared to be following some primordial path only she could see. She would glance at the ground from time to time, or out at the surrounding thicket as though searching for markings. Diantha wondered where the filly could possibly be heading with such determination.

Morning wore away into day, and day into evening as horse and rider swept further away from the society Diantha had known her entire life. With each mile that passed, strangely, her anxieties evaporated with them.

In the depths of a wood older, it seemed, than time itself, she could forget about her horrid fiance, Wilson, and of her lost dream of becoming a nurse. She could forget about her parents trading her life for a more promising one of their own.

Mostly, she could forget about the large man who had tried to kidnap her. Fears, deeply embedded in her subconscious mind, flowed out of her and into the protective limbs of the trees.

One worry that refused to leave, though, was the one about Nutmeg who had taken a bullet for her. She worried about Cassie, too, and wondered if she had made it back to safety and sent help her way.

She doubted anyone would be able to track them even if Cassie had been successful. For now, she would have to tuck her worries away. There was nothing she could do about her situation, and the last thing Cassie had said was that she and Nutmeg were okay. She would hold fast to that hope.

As the night grew old, the horse still continued to press forward. The air became stale and cold, and the forest dark and frightening. Strange looking trees hung mossy branches across their path, tickling Diantha's nose and face as she passed through. They looked in the dim moonlight like old men waving them forward.

As the day had before, night wore away and found horse and rider still making their way through dense foliage. Diantha was now beyond the point of reasoning. Not only had she given up hope of finding civilization, but she had quit caring whether or not they did.

Her world only involved the brutal saddle she sat in and the filly that picked her way carefully through underbrush. They were not traveling fast, anymore. They had quit doing that hours ago, but they were still making amazing speed through woods so thick a squirrel would have had trouble penetrating it.

The strange thing was, there really did appear to be a trail White Lightning was following. In the areas she trotted, limbs gave way, and bushes fell back. Where was the filly going, and how did she know the way to choose? Diantha was too tired to contemplate or reason. She could only trust.

By late morning, just as Diantha was sure she could endure no more, the forest ended at the base of an enormous mountain that seemed to stretch to the sky. The bright morning sun, shielded before by the trees, sent painful darts into eyes that already burned in their sockets. The crisp air stung her parched throat.

With what was left of her youthful energy, Diantha pulled on the reins of the equally exhausted filly. White Lightning, finally, eased to a stop.

Diantha finally let her exhausted body slip off the horse and onto the chilly leaf-covered ground. Immediately, she began to feel stronger, almost as though the earth itself was restoring resilience into her fatigued body. She stretched out flat and let the energy from the ground flow into her. She licked the dew off of emerald colored leaves and began to quench her thirst.

As soon as she could, she glanced up and saw white withers trembling in the morning light, and lather soaking snowy fur. The weary filly gazed over at her with a look of victory in her big brown eyes, and then lowered her head and sank to the ground beside her mistress. With returning strength, Diantha loosened the cinch on White Lightning's saddle and pushed it off onto the spongy earth. Tenderly, she pulled off her bridle. White Lightning whinnied weakly in response.

"Thanks, girl," Diantha said. She stroked the filly's shuddering neck. "You saved my life. You overdid it, maybe, but we got away, didn't we?"

White Lightning whinnied again and bobbed her head up and down as though in answer. She then laid it on the ground and closed her eyes. She had given all she had to give.

Diantha bowed her head in exhaustion, too, but didn't dare fall asleep. Somehow, she had to get the two of them back to her family and friends. But what could she do? She wasn't exactly the explorer type. She didn't even like to spend the night in a tent. How was she going to find the trail back home, especially as weak as they had both become?

"Great," she said, "now what are we going to do?"

White Lightning sort of grunted in reply.

"Well, I know you're not taking me home, but we have to get out of here somehow, don't we?"

A deep, resonant voice boomed out, startling both horse and rider.

"Do you, really?" it asked, and then added, "Can you?"

Diantha's first thought was that the kidnapper had managed to follow them and that their flight had been in vain.