Horses are fast.

David knew this, or so he thought. But somehow he must have forgotten exactly how fast they really were. This was bugs-in-your-teeth and wind-under-your-eyelids kind of fast. Before they even reached the gate, which took less than two seconds, David already understood why Samantha had been so adamant about them wearing full-coverage sunglasses, even though the red and orange sunrise wasn't overly bright. David wouldn't have been able to keep his eyes open without them.

Within three seconds they had passed the house, in only five seconds they were out on the dirt road. They had already reached the suspected "bear territory" before David had even gathered his bearings.

While David had done plenty of riding both in his childhood and during his search and rescue days, it was nearly always about either long distance travel or tracking down some person or animal. They let the horses run sometimes, but it was always for fun and to let the animals enjoy themselves, never a matter of life and death. This was likely the first time he'd experienced an all-out sprint on horseback, and he hadn't realized just how different it felt.

He looked closer at Samantha's riding posture and tried to understand how she made it look so natural. She was leaning forward with her head up, her back low, and her butt high, more like a jockey on a racehorse. It suddenly made a lot more sense that she'd gone around shortening all the stirrups while saddling the horses; clearly she knew her business. When David matched her posture a bit more closely, he found that the ride became a lot more smooth and fluid. Socks appreciated the shift as well, and started moving noticeably faster once David's center of weight stabilized and he began moving even more in sync with her rapid gait.

He began to tune out the "whump, whump, whump" of the running hoofbeats and started listening for the telltale crashing chaos of a bear on the move. As Samantha had observed a couple of days ago, bears generally move through the woods with all the grace and stealth of a lawnmower. He thought he heard a branch breaking somewhere probably to the right, but he could tell neither distance nor direction beyond just a guess, and anyway the first turn was coming up.

They were a quarter mile from the house now, and little more than twenty seconds had elapsed since they first bolted from the yard. Evelyn probably didn't even have the gate closed yet. The upcoming turn would be about a forty five degree jog to the left, followed by a reversal of over a ninety degree turn back to the right just a short distance later. David gathered the reins a little tighter in his hand, preparing to give directions to keep Socks in position behind Apollo.

Up ahead, Samantha's posture shifted. She moved a bit further back, not quite sitting down, and preparing to lean slightly into the upcoming turn. Apollo took the hint and slowed just barely enough to take the turn safely, with David and Socks close behind.

Two seconds later they came to the next turn and had to slow enough that the wind noise momentarily died down. There was definitely something out there, stomping through the brush and branches like a localized natural disaster. A bit like a rampaging Kaiju for squirrels.

David caught Samantha's eye just as he reached the hairpin turn that she was exiting. He motioned with a tilt of his head toward the noises, and she responded with a rapid nod and a steely, determined expression. She'd apparently heard it too, and agreed about the severity.

Rather than using a traditional command like a tap of her heels to tell Apollo to run again, Samantha did something David didn't expect. With another shift of her weight, she switched back into her go-fast posture, leaning forward and braced for acceleration. Then she shouted a verbal command, a sound a bit like "hee-YAP!" but it had packed into it everything you needed to know. All the emotion, all the urgency, all the expectation behind her intent was made plain as a painted picture in the volume and pitch and force and trembling determination of that one sound, to the point that even David could immediately tell what she had communicated. "We are literally running for our lives, so move your ass if you intend to keep it," is what that sound said, and Apollo understood it exactly.

With a spray of rocks and mud, he launched forward at eye-watering speed and was already three strides gone before David registered what had happened. Seeing her companion take off like that, Socks didn't even wait till she was pointed in the right direction. She just accelerated into the turn and tore into the road like it owed her something.

Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds in, they were now a quarter of the way to the next turn. This was a long stretch, but everything was moving so fast it was hard to keep track.

Up ahead, Samantha held up her right hand, waving it slightly to get David's attention. Then she held up a single finger.

"One."

One what?

Then she pointed with the same hand, ahead and to the right.

"One ...something... at our two o'clock."

Focusing more closely, David saw what she had pointed at. About a hundred feet into the forest, trees lurched and shook as something fast and huge tore its ways between and over them. It was running mostly parallel to the road and almost keeping pace with them. Still, even though it was fast, it collided with several small trees and bushes every second while the horses were on the open road. It didn't stand a chance.

Fifteen seconds later they were almost halfway to the next turn. The tree-obliterator-3000 or whatever it was had fallen back to their 3 o'clock position, no longer ahead but nevertheless getting closer to the road. It was maybe forty feet off to their right, close enough that David caught intermittent flashes of black fur and blood.

Two seconds later they heard a roar. It wasn't a sound that David recognized, a bit like a bear but lower and more gurgly. It sounded furious.

Boom.

Off to their right and just a little behind them, maybe fifteen feet into the forest, the beast hit something. Perhaps a dead tree or a stump or a fence post. Whatever it was, the animal splintered it in a single blow. Several chunks of wood no bigger than a soccer ball flew onto the road in front of Samantha. No bigger than a human head? That was an unnerving thought. Apollo leapt over the pinwheeling chunks without breaking stride, while Socks just avoided them.

Another roar, this own more gurgly and pained than before and quite a bit more angry. That tree trunk must have tasted awful. The glimpses of this beast grew more frequent as it crashed through bushes and sapling like it was swimming. It was behind them now, but not by a lot.

And then, a "crunch" of rocks and branches underfoot as the beast came up to one of those older giant cedar trees with the 20 foot wide trunk, and it wisely decided to dodge this one. It sent up a spray of rocks as it cut left to avoid a looney-tunes ending, and instead it chose to take this opportunity to veer into the road. The sharp detour cost the animal - yeah, it was definitely a bear - more than a second of time and put it about 100 feet behind the two horses. It could cover that distance in less than 2 seconds at this speed, But then again, so could the horses. It wasn't catching up just yet.

Samantha looked back at the bear for the briefest moment before snapping her gaze forward again to the road. Once, twice, three times she looked back, and she came to her decision. She gestured with her right hand for David to see, an urgent forward motion.

So... "Go forward" or maybe "quickly"? "Faster"? Ah, that would have to have been it:

"Outrun the bear."

Yeah, good plan. Glad we meticulously strategized that one through, Samantha. David glanced back a couple of times, just like Samantha had done. He didn't like it, not one bit. He swore quietly to himself. He glanced again. He swore again. Yep, he was definitely not thrilled to see what was following them.

That was a big, big bear. It was, eh, probably not a grizzly? Maybe? It hardly mattered, because whatever species it had been a few days ago it wasn't one of those anymore.

It was a mess. Muscles bulged in weird ways all over the thing's shoulders, chest and legs. The proportions were all wrong, but everything was oversized, from its head to its scimitar claws. Its fur glistened with blood mixed and matted with dirt and mud, and it was missing its left eye. The spot had scabbed over and looked nasty, so then a recent injury but not from today. Sacrifices presumably had been required in the deathmatch area that nature had become. It looked like this bear had spent the last 3 days in nonstop combat.

All hail Teddy the Conqueror, then, apparently.

One thing was certain though: they needed to go faster. Because damn, that b-grade horror movie monster back there could run. And it was slowly gaining on them.

David urged his horse faster with the tap of his heels and the click of his tongue. He focused on his own motion and reducing the drag he was imposing on his mount. It helped, but not enough, and Apollo was pulling further and further ahead.

"Come on, Soxy, you were born for this. Faster now, faster." David said to his horse. She wouldn't understand him, but it was the positive vibes he was after. He thought maybe it helped. It's not like he could do anything more.

Samantha took another peek back at the pursuit and noticed Socks not keeping up with the faster pace. With a second glance back she... wait... She whistled?

It was the oddest thing. Two toned, like a train whistle. She did it with her mouth open like a big wide smile and her tongue sort of curled up. And it was LOUD. So, again, like a train whistle. Two short blasts and then an upward note.

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David didn't understand what that whistle meant, but Socks definitely did. The pace of her strides immediately quickened to a much more rapid beat, and then slowly the distance of each stride increased as well. Within two seconds David was parallel with Samantha and moving ahead.

Not to be outdone, Apollo poured on some speed of his own, and the pair started to pull away from the pursuing bear. For another twenty seconds this continued, another quarter mile or so, and the pair gained a bit more of a lead.

It wasn't a lot though. The moment the horses would have to slow for the next turn, it would take just a couple of seconds for the bear to reach them at speed.

And they were, in fact, going to have to slow down really, really soon.

The next turn, this time a sharp one to the left, lay only about 300 feet ahead, the length of one football field away. That might otherwise have seemed like a long distance, say, if he were playing football. But the horses would reach the turn in only 5 seconds, tops. David glanced back again at the pursuit in the vain hope that he'd see something different this time. This was rapidly getting far more dangerous than what he thought they were signing up for when they set out this morning. There were 200 feet remaining to the turn now. This was going to be close.

Samantha had apparently been thinking about it too, and she once again went for the hand signals. She made that same "outrun the bear" gesture a second time, but then added another signal. A forward-right gesture followed by hard-left.

So... run fast... and a bit to the right, and finally all the way left. Which... Hmm.

Ah! Okay, that's got to mean something like, "Take this turn wide and fast."

Yikes. This is going to be a bit dicey.

The turn followed the terrain. More specifically, the road turned because there was no more terrain if you kept going straight. Taking a purely hypothetical example: if a horse were to somehow go too fast and not turn sharply enough, for example, then both the horse and the rider would soon find themselves with the ground no longer beneath their feet. This hypothetical rider would then have some extra time to think about his mistake before he and his horse rediscovered the terrain... eventually. Call it "bonus airborne reflection time," awarded to those who unwisely cast themselves out over a mountainside dropoff toward a river some fifteen stories below. It was a long way down.

I hope you know what you're doing, Samantha.

At about 150 feet remaining to the turn, Samantha moved over to the far right side of the road. Three seconds left. David moved in right behind her. At 100 feet she started to slow for the turn. Two seconds left.

The Bear Of Improbable Nightmares back there had noticed the turn, noticed that the horses were slowing, and rather than slowing as well, had instead chosen to pick up the pace. This was his one big chance to catch them and he was dumping all of his energy into forcing a collision.

One second left. That remaining 50 feet, the width of David's entire house in the city, was maybe three stride lengths at the most for all three of these animals, the bear included. Only a few steps remained.

David had Socks right on Apollo's tail, so close that he could see the clenching of Samantha's jaw muscles in concentration, so close that he could smell the lavender soap she had used this morning. The bear, in turn, was barely 50 feet behind them, if even that, and catching up fast. Literally two steps behind.

They turned hard left, both horses leaning deep into the turn like motorcycles on a track. David could simply stick out his foot and touch the ground if he wanted to. The movements of the horse beneath him taking the sharp corner alternated feelings of acceleration and falling weightlessness, making it hard to stay on his feet in the stirrups and keep his balance. The horses threw dirt, mud, and gravel into the bushes with each step, and in a fraction of a second they had already changed direction.

Not watching the road - that was Sock's job - David had looked down at the ground near his foot for a second, and when he looked up, he saw the bear. Not behind him. It was to his left; it was directly to his left. And it had started to leap.

That sneaky... huge ball of insomnia fuel had no intention of navigating the turn and was going kill-or-bust on this curve. Instead of continuing to chase, it had turned early to cut the corner and hit him from the side. David had been so distracted with getting away that he hadn't even seen the furry monstrosity until it was soaring through the air at him, mouth wide and claws out. Damn, those teeth were big.

The bear was practically the size of a truck and certainly as heavy as one. It was now flying towards him at the speed of... actually, also a truck. It was still 20 feet away, but at highway speed that wasn't very far at all.

There wasn't a lot of reaction time left. A quarter second, perhaps. Maybe 300 milliseconds until its claws would sink into flesh, about the time it takes to blink twice. Pretty much every action that was going to be taken had already been locked in.

The bear... Well, it might miss him?

Actually, it definitely would miss him. No "maybe" about it. It had come close, but as the scene played out in front of his stunned, frozen eyes, it became clear that the bear had misjudged the leap or perhaps been forced to act sooner than it had wanted to. It would come close to catching him with one of those paws, but not quite.

Unfortunately, "close" counts not only in horseshoes and hand grenades: you can also add "horseback mauling" to the list of cases where a near miss is no escape. Because, if that Flying Fiend of Furry Feral Fury missed him but managed to land a hit on his horse, then David would still be destined for bear poop. While David had avoided a direct hit, Socks was a much bigger target, and it seemed pretty certain that she wouldn't be so lucky.

Not unless, well, maybe there was still hope after all. He'd gotten this far with the odds seemingly stacked against him. So maybe there was still something they could figure out at the last moment, with only a fraction of a second left to react.

The bear was going for her left flank, but Socks was only inches from escaping entirely. The bear's head and body had already missed; it was on its way to the tip of her tail at best. Its left paw would just barely miss as well; it would nearly touch, but not quite. But those claws -- it had those foot-long claws, extended like grappling hooks which definitely wouldn't miss at all.

Foot-long claws. What the hell was even up with that? Not even dinosaurs had claws that size. This mana-driven body modification nonsense was such a load of horseshit. This whole new world could go stuff itself. Nothing should be allowed to have claws like that. Those stupidly oversized claws were going to dig into the horse's flank like a bloody anchor, and that bear was going to pull her right off her feet with all that momentum.

That was, unless Socks managed to find that little bit of extra oomph and push herself just a bit further forward and out of the bear's reach in that last fraction of a second. She could do it. He believed in her. The horse just needed to believe in herself, too. A little more than half a foot would do it. Just six.. maybe eight little inches. Let's call it ten inches to be on the safe side. All she would have to do was push a little extra hard with those back legs and she'd be home free. It was totally possible. Almost inevitable when you think about it.

And she slipped.

Socks didn't slip far. Not enough to lose her balance or anything. Hell, she didn't even have time to slip more than an inch or two before the bear had already reached her. A quarter second isn't that much time after all, it turns out. It was just enough of a stumble to throw off her stride and ensure that there would be no miraculous last moment triumphs. The bear had won.

That reality stung a bit. David had been hoping for the predictably obvious last minute improbable miracle. It was the perfect moment for that impossible escape that wasn't impossible after all. This has been those seemingly hopeless circumstances to bring out the little extra something that it turns out they had inside them all along. Which... given the existence of magic and whatnot, it seemed... Well? Why the hell shouldn't he have expected that to work?

It was almost insulting that he would narrowly escape being mauled by the stupidly overpowered monster, only to narrowly fail to narrowly escape at the last moment. That felt exactly wrong, like the universe knew precisely what he expected and dangled it enticingly in front of him before punching him in the nuts.

As its head passed behind the horse, the bear hauled back and really gave that paw swipe some extra fizz just to drive those claws home and make sure David knew it. Probably mentally snickering at David's metaphorical nut-punch misery the whole time. David was turned halfway around in his saddle watching the scene play out, and his hand was literally right there, inches away. Close enough that he might have actually changed something. Close enough, perhaps, to still do some good after all.

Maybe he'd just have to make his own damn luck, then. All by himself. And the universe with its dumb setups and its bloody stupid irony could go lick a sack of nuts. It clearly knew where to find a pair.

He knew he could create Evelyn's red barriers even if he didn't know how, but that has never realistically been an option here anyway. That bear could hit with dozens, maybe hundreds of times more force than his barriers could endure. That swipe wasn't going to miss, and there was no way he was going to block it. But maybe he didn't have to?

He didn't plan. He didn't have time to plan. This was milliseconds before impact; without the enhancing effects mana had imparted on his brain over the past few days, he wouldn't have even been able to act at all in the time he had left. But he anticipated the scene playing out a certain way in his head, a vaguely realistic option that was only ever so slightly different from the impending reality. As the events unfolded around him, David gently nudged his surrounding reality to match the expectation in his head. He didn't know how, he still didn't really understand how this magic stuff worked anyway. He just needed a few of the tiniest things to be just a little bit different, and with that need, with his expectation of how the world was going to be, an odd trickle of mana flowed out through his hand, influencing the world around it at nearly the speed of light.

The paw swipe connected, the claws pressing into Sock's flank, but not quite breaking the skin. The needle-sharp points had become slightly reinforced all around with little barriers rounding the tips enough so that they weren't quite so needle-sharp anymore. They weren't exactly the same sparkling red barriers that Evelyn had produced, but they weren't far off either. They were darker and duller; giving up some hardness in exchange for toughness, like iron instead of ruby. At the same time, a thin film of a mana barrier formed across Socks's skin, not just to make it stronger but to fill in all the microscopic bumps and smooth it out. This barrier flowed more like oil, not only shining with the traditional ruby red crystalline hardness, but also sparkling with flecks of something that made it slippery, something amber or even yellow. The result was firm but also incredibly slick to the touch, almost completely frictionless.

The bear hadn't been trying to impart a whole lot of blunt force with this swipe as it just didn't have the leverage at that angle. Instead, it had intended to dig its claws into muscle and pull, using its momentum to yank the horse off balance. However, the further it got into its swipe without the skin breaking, the more the force became distributed across the length of its claws instead of just the tips, making it progressively even less likely to succeed. Furthermore, without any friction on the skin, the swipe skated across the moving horse's backside like a duck on ice.

Socks instinctively moved with the blow, dodging through it to soften the impact as the claws slid harmlessly over her flank. Ultimately, even though the swipe managed to hit its target, it didn't end up doing any damage. Negating a single blow normally wouldn't win a whole battle, but you fight the fight in front of you, and the bear had created some unusual win conditions.

As the bear passed out of view behind him, David turned around to continue watching over his other shoulder, and he caught the bear's eye in a sort of slow motion stare-down. It was furious without a doubt, but also calculating. The bear didn't scream or roar or pout or glower. It just watched him with that one good eye, tracking his face as it sailed up and over the road. It squirmed in an impotent attempt to grab hold of anything at all as it wiggled its way through the air, over the bushes and out into open space far above the river, on its way to claim that "bonus airborne reflection time" it had rightfully earned. Graceful as a jiggling water balloon.