We pushed the horses hard as we ride, thundering through the dense forest.

"Come on girl, fly," I whisper to the grey horse I ride, urging her faster.

My long hair streams behind me, looking like the sail of a ship snapping in the wind. I barely notice the small branches grasping at my face as Seron and I tear through the forest.

We soon leave behind Mirkwood, the forest becoming considerably darker and foreboding. It's not long before I sense there is something following the pair of us. When I turn to Seron, I see he's already aware of this, and we both draw our weapons without slowing.

A flash of something large and dirty brown off to the left of me scares my horse, making her shy away and stumble a bit. The slight slowing of our pace puts distance between Seron and I, and the large, brown animal lunges between us.

It's tall, its head at the same height as my waist while on a horse. Its claws are stained a muddy reddish-brown, still dripping with the blood of a recent kill. It snaps it's long, dagger-like teeth at me menacingly, its blackened eyes piercing mine.

My horse rears, her legs striking out at the beast as it lunges at us. She manages to kick the large animal right in the throat, causing a gargled whine to escape its lips.

I quickly notch an arrow and fire at the animal's throat while it's not moving, following the first arrow with another two.

Shooting three arrows into anything's throat should have killed it for sure, but it just limps back into the underbrush of the forest, seeming no more affected by my arrows than a human is of a thorn.

"I see you can handle yourself just fine in a fight." I hear Seron call from behind me, impressed.

I whip around to face him, about to question why he wasn't assisting me when I see his sword is embedded in another large animal like the one that had attacked me, only this one was more of a sandy gold color. It still twitched disturbingly underneath the sword and I grimace, looking away.

"Yes. I suppose so."

We continue, but I now constantly look back over my shoulder to see if anything is following us.

---

A light rain begins at nightfall, quickly turning into a downpour. We take the best shelter we can under the trees, but it's miserable; we're soon soaked through.

My feeble eyesight plays tricks on me. Everywhere I look in the gloom I see the shapes of monsters and evil things. There are multiple times when I'm sure I see something move in the shadows of the darkness, causing me to reach reflexively for my bow and an arrow.

Eventually both Seron and I give up on attempting to rest, and lead the horses on foot in search of a more sheltered place to wait out the rain.