From a corner of her eye, Mary saw silhouettes of the twisty buildings of the Academy flying past her as she desperately tried to remain in the saddle.

Other figures rode beside her, much more in control - seeing where one's going usually does that to people. Mary briefly considered trying to rotate mid-ride, but the desire to stay alive singlehandedly won the argument for the side of continuous holding on for dear life.

She briefly looked up and saw the fires and scorch her rescuers were leaving behind. Most of the buildings were still upright, but some would not stay that way for long. They passed the golden bull's statue, and Mary suddenly found it really hard to catch her breath. The gargantuan figure was moving its head, and its eyes were following her, burning brightly against the dark, starless sky.

A primal roar rang out, almost freezing the blood in Mary's veins, and the girl promptly looked back down on her horse's backside. Which had its own downsides, as that's how she noticed that the horses were leaving fiery trails behind them, which gave them exactly zero chance to lose any eventual pursuit. But there was clearly some idea behind all this, right? Arthur and his guys looked really professional; they would have thought about escaping? Didn't they?

And then, she passed the Academy's gate, and a wall of sand smashed into her back. Mary coughed and spat until she got rid of most objects that didn't mix with her lungs very well and slammed down her helmet's visor. It wasn't perfect, but it was something at least.

Mary glanced at the desert. Or maybe an ocean of sands would be more accurate at this point, as everywhere she looked, the dunes were flowing like waves on a raging sea. The fire trails her horse left behind didn't last a second before being blown away and causing fire hazards somewhere else. Where the flames died, she could only see darkness broken by an occasional green glow of the spectral mounts and Mossie's tiny reflectors - she was getting farther and farther from the Academy's lights.

Suddenly, Mary lost contact with the saddle, as something grabbed her from behind. She yelped, but the sound was lost in the sound of the raging sandstorm. Looking down, she saw a pair of skeletal arms lifting her off the horse. She tried to pry them away, but their grip was too strong.

And then, they turned her around and placed her in the saddle the right way. Mary's stomach lurched as she saw the arms originated from her steed and were now slowly retracting into its torso.

Now that she was a bit more stable, Mary saw Arthur riding beside her. A sickly green glow clearly distinguished him among other blurred figures galloping around.

“Get a grip on yourself,” he said in a voice that resembled the air leaving a mummified body after a reckless tourist opened a sarcophagus that should have been left intact. And somehow, Mary heard it against everything else.

She tried to ask how far they were supposed to be riding like that, but the visor turned out not to be sand-proof enough, and she ended up in another coughing fit.

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They rode on for hours.

----------------------------------------

Finally, the sun started rising above the horizon. At first, the cloud of sand still made it really hard to see anything, but it was still a big step up. And then it thinned, which was quite pleasant, especially for Mary's eyes and mouth.

Unfortunately, Mary's armour only took a couple of minutes to heat up and make the rest of the journey even less bearable. The horses hadn't slowed down even the tiniest bit through the entire night - which from the time schedule perspective looked great, but from Mary's sleep deprivation regulations department? Not so much.

“Hey, Arthur,” she called as their horses carried them within speaking distance. “How far do we have left to go?

“Three,” Arthur said with only a trace of the ancient horror in his voice.

“Three what?”

“Two...” The other horseman rode closer.

“Really?”

“One.”

A second later, the rest of the wind died down completely as if it hit an invisible barrier. The next moment, Mary found herself flailing her arms and legs before dropping into the hot sand. Her horse disappeared, and so did the other ones - although their riders managed to land far more gracefully, knowing what to expect.

“We should be safe here. For now,” Arthur's normal voice said above her.

Mary rose to her feet. “Well, where is this 'here', exactly?”

The man looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “Safe's not enough for the youth these days anymore? What world we've been forced to live in.” He spat on the ground and turned his back towards her. “Welcome to Camp Quarter-Blood.”

They stopped in a rather nondescript piece of the desert. There was sand, sand and also some more sand wherever Mary looked. That is, until she looked behind and saw an actual wall of a sandstorm guarding the camp against outsiders - which was fine by her, but did they really camp here?

The ex-riders were a mixed-up group. Some were wearing full plate armour like Mary, others did like her last party members used to, and settled for hard leather instead. She saw no trace of the extremely-minimalistic approach to female protection that was so characteristic for the Academy - it could have had something to do with the fact that trying to follow that trend would probably skin any takers alive.

There were also a few more exotic cases that caught Mary's eye more than others - one man was wearing an armour that had exactly no colour. She tried squinting, tilting her head, shading her eyes from the sun - however she looked at it, she couldn't say or even think anything about its hue. One woman had apparently sewed her armour from shadows themselves. Another had a rather tight-fitting outfit made of fine chainmail covering most of her body but left her feet exposed - only, they weren't feet, they were hooves.

All had one thing in common, though - their eyes clearly explained to anyone looking that they were not to be messed with. Only after half a minute of gaping did Mary notice a rectangular hole in the sand a few dozen feet away. Were those... stairs? Just stairs?

Arthur started walking away, and his next sentence came in that mummified voice she'd heard before. “Take care of the prisoners and resources, then come to the audience hall for the report.”

“Yes, our Pri,” the others echoed.

Was she supposed to go with him? He glanced back at her, then nodded roughly in the hole's direction, before going that way himself. Mary sighed, and followed the creepy man who rescued her into the basement.

Well, it wasn't like she had much choice at this point, was it?