The thunder of twelve hooves rhythmically hammered against the loam of the Verdant Shallows, a sound like a heartbeat echoing through the dense canopy. Sunlight pierced the overhead foliage in jagged golden needles, illuminating swirling dust and the frantic pumping of silk-clad shoulders. At the center of the chaos was a Spirit-Dappled Buck, its antlers shimmering with faint iridescent Qi. The creature moved more like a silver needle stitching through the undergrowth, weaving between scraggly thornbushes and scattered rock formations that jutted from the earth.
Lingxi leaned low over her chestnut mare's neck, her dark hair whipping free from its bindings. Sweat darkened the collar of her jade-green riding robes but her eyes remained fixed on the prey with the focused intensity of a hawk.
"Faster, Shixiong!" she called over her shoulder, her voice bright with the thrill of the chase. "Or are the boys of the getting slow?"
Behind her, the two boys matched her pace, their blue sect robes embroidered with the silver clouds of the Cloud-Mist Pavilion snapping violently behind them like broken wings.
"Don't let it reach the Ironwood Grove!" Chen Zihan shouted, leaning so low over his stallion's neck that his forehead almost touched its mane.
To his left, Linfeng rode in terrifying, stoic silence. His grip on the reins was calculated , a deliberate choice meant to herd the Spirit-Buck toward the trap they'd planned. The deer sensed the danger closing in and veered sharply right, plunging toward a wall of twisted thornbushes.
Lingxi didn't hesitate. She urged her mare forward, closing the gap to mere yards. She could hear the buck's panicked breathing, smell the musk of its fear mixing with crushed ferns and sun-baked earth. The world became a tunnel: nothing existed except the chase and the rhythm of hoofbeats.
Then came the sound that shattered everything: a sharp whinny, the sickening thud of flesh meeting earth and a cascade of colliding bodies and startled cries. The terrain here was treacherous, a labyrinth of exposed roots and deceptive moss. Zihan's horse caught its foreleg on a protruding root hidden beneath a carpet of moss. The beast let out a harrowing cry as its front leg buckled with a snap that echoed like breaking pottery.
Horse and rider went down hard, the momentum turning them into a rolling mass of muscle and bone. Linfeng, riding too close to maneuver had no time to veer. His own mount slammed into the flank of Zihan's falling horse.
The collision sent both horses sprawling, their riders thrown clear in different directions. Dust exploded upward, obscuring everything in a choking cloud. The world became a chaotic blur of snapping branches, the heavy thud of bodies hitting earth and the smell of crushed vegetation.
Lingxi barely registered the commotion behind her. Her mare burst through the thornbushes in a terrifying leap, branches clawing at her arms and face, leaving thin trails of red across her cheeks. She disappeared into the emerald gloom, swallowed whole by the deep forest, her green cloak the last thing visible before the wilderness claimed her.
Silence rushed back into the clearing, save for the heavy pained breathing of the fallen horses and the buzzing of insects. Linfeng came up on his knees gasping, one hand pressed against his ribs where a rock had found him during the fall. Blood trickled from a cut above his eyebrow, warm and sticky against his skin. Chen Zihan lay motionless several feet away, his face smeared with mud, his fine silk robes shredded at the shoulder.
"Shixiong!" Linfeng crawled to him, ignoring the sharp protests from his own body. "Talk to me, are you whole?"
A groan. Then Zihan's eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy with pain. "What... what happened?"
"Don't move." Linfeng's voice was steady despite the tremor in his hands. He braced his shoulder against Zihan's side, helping him slide into a sitting position.
The horses! Linfeng turned, his heart sinking. Zihan's mount stood on shaking legs, sides heaving, foam flecking its mouth. The other horse lay on its side. Its breathing came in labored gasps. The right foreleg jutted out at a grotesque angle clearly broken, the bone having pierced the skin. The animal's dark eyes found Linfeng's and in them he saw pain and confusion and a terrible trusting question:
Why does it hurt?
"Merciful heavens," Zihan whispered, managing to focus despite his own injury. His face had gone pale beneath its coating of dust and sweat. "That's Shadowstep. Father will have your head for losing such a prize mount. Even with common salves... he'll never run again."
"We wait for Shijie," Linfeng said finally, though his tone carried little hope. "She'll have medicinal pastes, at least to dull the pain."
Zihan looked toward the dense wall of thornbushes where Lingxi had vanished. "Though without our help to corner it, that Spirit-Buck is probably halfway to the Cloud Peaks by now. We've failed the hunt and lost a stallion to boot."
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. The gloom of the Ironwood began to stretch long, ominous shadows across their path. Suddenly, the dense wall of ferns at the clearing's edge shuddered. Zihan's hand flew to the hilt of his training sword but it wasn't a predator that emerged.
Lingxi stepped out of the brush, leading her mare with one hand. Her appearance was transformed: thorns had shredded the lower portion of her riding robes revealing practical trousers beneath. Her hair had completely escaped its bindings, falling in wild tangles around her flushed face. And dragging behind her horse, tied with a makeshift rope harness, was the Spirit-Dappled Buck.
The massive creature scraped its shimmering antlers against rocks as she hauled it across the grass. Its body was limp in death, its tongue lolling from the side of its mouth. The fatal wound, a clean thrust through the heart, had already stopped bleeding. She stopped in front of them, wiping a smudge of blood from her cheek.
"Here," she announced, her voice carrying triumph despite her ragged breathing. She slid from her saddle with practiced grace, "I would have starved to death if I had to depend on you two."
"It doubled back toward the ravine," she said simply, then her playful tone vanished as her eyes moved to the fallen horses. "Oh, Shixiong. Are you okay?"