Purge of the Riders

Chapter I - Fleeing

She breathed heavily, hugging a brown satchel to her chest and sprinting further into the mountainous forests outside of the flaming cottage. A sword, tucked haphazardly into a sheath that wasn't its own, tapped against her leg in time with her panicked steps. The massive blaze burning behind her cast a dull orange light over the woods and ignited half of a volley of arrows that whistled dangerously past her head. With a dozen dull thuds, nearly all of the arrowheads lodged themselves into trees and stuck out distinctly. Except for one, aimed accidentally lower than the rest. Acacia curled her body over her treasure again, grimacing as her calf screamed in pain, the burning sensation due, in no small part, to the flame-coated arrow that grazed the lower part of her left leg. The leg faltered, giving out and sending the half-elf tumbling down a muddy slope and towards an ominously snarling river. Still protecting the bundle of cloth with one arm, she reached out with the other and snagged the flimsy trunk of a sapling. It groaned and shook, startled by the shoulder-wrenching effort to stop the girl's momentum, but ultimately held steadfast. Digging her feet into the mud and decaying leaves, she scrambled back to her feet and took off again, wobbly and slow because of the pain that coursed through her bleeding leg. Above her, a graceful shadow soared overhead and dove towards the girl, snatching Acacia up in its midnight-black beak. Its feet, two owl-like and two cheetah-like, planted themselves for a moment in a clearing before quickly bunching up and thrusting the creature and the girl back into the air together.

The gryphon's wings, which had been pressed firmly against her feather-furred torso as she dove, unfurled completely and beat once again against the air as it crested the forest canopy. Mid-flight, it turned its head and deposited Acacia and the bundle safely between its wings, facing forward again to watch the sky in front of it. Turning sorrowfully towards the blaze raging behind them, the woman watched the home she'd grown up in become fully engulfed by flames. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, mixing with the sweat dripping from her dark jaw. What was once a house disappeared from view as the gryphon, now cruising on the air comfortably, banked slowly around a mountain. Acacia straddled the gryphon's neck, having covered the wound on her calf with a scrap of her shirt, and turned the satchel around in her hands.

Her father, towering over the 18-year-old, had fear painted all across his sharp features that was obvious no matter how much he attempted to mask it. He pushed a brown satchel into her arms and opened his mouth to say something. He exhaled instead and lay a long-fingered hand on his daughter's cheek, lovingly rubbing his thumb over the skin before steeling his nerves in a snap of seriousness. "Take care of it," he said, speaking deeply over the crescendo of metal-on-metal combat that erupted just outside of the door. The clanging of swords was echoed by the enraged grunts of Acacia's mother, straining to call her husband over the effort of combat. Pine stood up quickly, curling clouds of ice and frost coiling around his olive fingers as he hurried towards the doorway. As he did so, his hands balled up and expelled a sharp icicle towards an unseen opponent, cutting off one of the many voices. Snatching up the satchel in her arms and placing it on her body, Acacia reached for her sword but was cut off by a woman that appeared in her doorway, blood oozing from a cut on her cheek. The dreadlocks that surrounded her dark brown face with an inky black mane were caked in blood as well, some of it presumably not her own. "Acacia!," she roared, tossing her daughter the glimmering sword in her hand and snatching a pair of daggers from her belt, "I've already let Sky-Blessed out — no time to get the others — they'd be killed anyway." She threw herself into the other room before even finishing her thoughts, snarling as she swung toward yet another invisible opponent.

Acacia, shaking yet still gripping the handle of sword she had been thrown, followed her mother out into the chaos, her eyes darting to the fight unraveling just inside of the main room. A flash of silver threw the girl's arm instinctually upward to block the blow, metal clanging rhythmically against metal. The soldier, dressed in navy blue and gold, drew his wicked mouth into an animalistic grin and arced his sword back up, the tip swiping past his much-younger opponent's face as she backed up quickly. Heaving with the effort, Acacia lunged forward again and swung the blade against the man's side. He staggered sideways, his free hand clutching his side. Bringing her arm back, she thrust the blade into the soldier's stomach and ripped it back out again, twisting it as she did so. The man's sword dropped from his powerless hands and he feebly grasped at the wound in his stomach before slumping against the cottage wall. She picked up his sword, slipping it into her sheath, before making her way quickly out towards the woods.

And now, inspecting the item in the satchel with great confusion and gliding expertly towards the dawn with the help of her mother's gryphon, Sky-Blessed, Acacia prepared for the journey ahead and wondered if she would survive the purge of the Riders.