A card flashed in front of the centaur reading Twinslash, depicting crossed swords. Two blades, menacingly jagged, appeared in the centaur’s hands and he charged Pan. Pan ran.

Four legs could outrun two legs, but not immediately, and only in fairly straight lines. And Pan found running wasn’t the word for what he was doing. He was bounding like a deer. It was a pitiful two-legged bounding, and he thought he must look like a kangaroo, but it was weirdly efficient for getting over the natural tripping hazards and weaving around trees.

Hoofbeats sounded in quarter time behind him, trampling whatever he was skipping over.

Then, on a downswing, Pan was caught in the intense flames of a fire trap. For a moment, the air was unbreathably hot. He stumbled in three steps, his momentum rolling him and extinguishing the fire that had caught in his fur.

There was a sound of laughter behind him.

“I dropped that when I was tailing you!” the centaur guffawed. “And you still managed to hit it!”

Pan looked up from the leaf litter, some of it clinging to the fur on his face. The centaur had his arms wrapped in front of himself, laughing and keeping his swords from cutting him while he did.

The swords glittered and vanished, evaporating into sparkles.

“What? Hey!” the centaur said, his mirth leaving him similarly, “My attack!”

There were two cards in Pan’s periphery. He’d kept Mirror and Slow, oblivious to their actual effects. He stood and tried to scramble up a nearby tree. Slow, depicting a snail with a clock for a shell, flashed in front of him as he selected it.

If I can hold him off for this turn and next, he thought. But then a funny feeling came over him as he mounted the lowest branch. It felt like he was moving through molasses.

It meant me. The Slow was for me, he thought. It wasn’t a panicked feeling, however. The effects of the card wouldn’t allow for anything as hasty as panic.

His hoof slipped on the tree branch and was only just able to right himself, moving in slow motion as he was.

“You just can’t catch a break, can you?” the centaur said from below. “You must just be some kind of idiot.” A card flashed in front of him, reading Dagger Shot, depicting three flying daggers. These appeared in his hand.

Pan held his arm out in a gesture begging him not to throw them. It took several seconds longer than normal, and his words came out elongated and low.

The centaur laughed again, but this time his weapons didn’t vanish.

“Ok, ok”, he said, “Ok ok ok. You know what? I’ll be fair. I’m gonna throw these at you, dude, but here’s what I’ll do. I’ll close my eyes. Ok?”

Pan clung to the trunk as he stood on the branch, realizing he’d be unable to respond in time.

The Whispering Horse got all three daggers in one hand and held the other over his eyes. “No cheating, dude, I promise,” he said with a wide smile.

His arm moved, and one dagger flicked out. Before Pan could even cover his own eyes, the dagger had embedded itself into the trunk, inches from his face.

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“How’d I do? That sounded like it hit wood, so I’m gonna try again.”

He repeated the effort, and just as he flicked his arm, Pan’s hoof slipped again. The dagger sailed over his head, point first, as he came down butt first on the branch. He gripped the branch as quickly as he could muster, but went over backwards. When he made a grab for the branch again, it was just out of his reach. He hit the ground back first, knocking the wind out of him.

A shadow moved across him. The centaur, bored of the game, was looking at him and holding up the last dagger.

“That was two shots I missed, dude. Not cool. I’m not gonna let you dodge this one.”

He plunged it into Pan’s chest. His grin shone from under his cowl, and it was all he could see. He couldn’t catch his breath, partly from the fall, partly from the weight of the centaur’s lunge. Partly from the dagger thrust into his chest, too, he considered. Pain blossomed from his chest.

But nothing happened. Pan felt he could move freely again, though he couldn’t imagine it was the result of being stabbed. He looked down.

There was nothing in the centaur’s hands.

“Dude, what?” the Whispering Horse said, just as shocked as Pan. “What the H? That’s some BS, dude. What gives with these cards?”

Pan took a gasping breath, the shock of the fall subsiding. “I think huff huff it was supposed huff huff to be thrown.”

The centaur let out a groan that gradually grew to a long shout of frustration, shaking his fists at the sky. Pan took advantage of the situation and scuttled away, his breath almost back.

The card Mirror danced in his peripheral. Last action for the turn, and then a new hand.

If I survive, he thought wryly.

The centaur turned angrily to him, and a card flashed in front of him. Poisoned Strike. The picture, in the moment it appeared, consisted of a blade with a green liquid dripping from the metal. A black hilted dagger formed in his hand.

Here goes nothing, Pan thought as he played his own final card. Nothing has gotten me this far, after all.

The expression on the Whispering Horse’s face flickered as he likely saw the card appear in front of Pan. And then he was beside himself.

Literally.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Pan groaned. He couldn’t stop himself.

With the flash of an ethereal mirror, there was now a second centaur opposite him, an identical reflection of the first. Horse body, four hooves, black cowl, leather straps, poisoned dagger… Everything.

“Ha hah!” they both exclaimed. As he pumped the air, his reflection duplicated the action with mirror precision. “Just what the world needed! More me!”

Pan rubbed his face. The exhaustion of the fight was catching up with him, and multiplying his own problems really took the cake.

The centaurs were high-fiving.

I’m gonna be killed by twin idiots, he thought. But then something caught his notice. The two were mirror reflections. When they high fived, one held up his left hand and the other held up its right. It looked to Pan that there was an invisible line across which the centaur was reflected.

He noticed something else. They were both looking at him.

“It’s been fun, dude,” the centaurs said, but then they looked contemplative. “Actually, no it hasn’t. It’ll be over soon, though. I’ve got that to look forward to, at least.”

And then they charged. Again, Pan turned and ran, bounding through the woods.

This time, the Whispering Horse caught up. Before he knew it, he was caught between two racing horses. They closed to attack, and he dodged mirrored slashes. Crouching, he scrabbled in the leaf litter to make a quick about-face, juking the centaurs who were unable to follow suit.

“Get back here!” they called. Pan could hear the drumming hoofbeats accelerating behind him. He had no plan. He was playing keep-away.

Maybe I can outlast the effect of the card. There’s a time limit, isn’t there? The dagger and the mirror image will vanish if I draw this out long enough, I’m sure of it.

Ahead of him were his spinning wheels, the fancy imp grinning madly from between them. Without thinking about it, he headed for them. Both were still spinning.

“I told you, dude,” the rapidly closing centaurs called, “two turns for the wheel of fate.”

His chest was burning. He couldn’t out pace a horse, not after the punishment he’d endured. Under the wheels which still hung magically in the air, he stopped and turned, panting.

The hoofbeats slowed, the two centaurs dropping into a canter and then stopping a few feet away from him.

“You’re out of time, dude,” the centaurs said, preparing to strike. Pan was breathing rapidly. He sat down to keep from falling over.

Am I having a heart attack? he wondered as the thug came ever closer.

The centaurs struck.

With the imp grinning like a madman, the first wheel stopped with a resounding click.