Chapter 6 - The Sieged Ridge
"We have to move! NOW!" Silas screamed, grabbing Lily’s arm and dragging her out of the truck.
"The truck is too slow!" Lily yelled back over the deafening chop of the approaching helicopter blades. "They have thermal imaging! They'll blow the truck up before we reach the highway!"
Silas looked at the dense, steep mountain terrain ahead. The thick pine forest was impassable for vehicles, but full of deadly drop-offs and ravines.
He looked at the black stallion. The horse stood firm in the pouring rain, its muscles quivering, waiting.
"Can you ride him?" Silas asked, his voice shaking. "Without a saddle? In the dark?"
Lily looked at the massive black beast. She didn't flinch. "He carried me through the fire the night my father died. He can carry us through this."
Silas didn't argue. He swung his leg over the stallion’s broad back, then reached down and pulled Lily up in front of him.
"Run, Ares!" Lily cried out in the ancient tongue. "Run!"
The stallion leapt forward with explosive power, plunging directly into the pitch-black forest just as the first helicopter opened fire with a heavy caliber machine gun. Tracers lit up the night sky, tearing through the tree canopy and ripping pine trunks to shreds behind them.
Dirt and tree bark exploded around them. Silas held onto Lily with one arm and wrapped his other hand tightly around the horse’s thick mane. The speed was terrifying—trees blurred past in the dark, steep drops appeared out of nowhere, but Ares moved with unnatural, miraculous precision, leaping over fallen logs and navigating treacherous mountain cliffs in the blinding rain.
Above them, a tactical voice roared through a helicopter loudspeaker:
"Target locked! Deploy the wire traps across the northern canyon exit! Do not let the horse cross the bridge!"
Silas looked ahead through the tree line. Two hundred yards out lay the Old Ravine Bridge—a rotting, wooden suspension bridge crossing a 300-foot drop over a raging mountain river.
May you like
Standing on the near side of the bridge were four armored mercenaries, holding heavy steel wire nets designed to slice through a horse’s legs at full speed.
They were boxed in. Behind them were machine guns. Ahead of them was an ambush and a deadly abyss.
