Chapter 7 - The Thirty-Billion-Dollar Leap
"They locked the bridge!" Silas yelled, pulling back on the mane, trying to stop the horse. "We're dead end!"
"Don't stop!" Lily screamed, her eyes wide with fierce determination. "If we stop, Julian wins!"
"Lily, it's a three-hundred-foot drop! The bridge is blocked!"
"Ares knows what to do!" Lily yelled. She leaned forward, pressing her cheek against the stallion’s wet neck, whispering a second command code: "Aethelgard!"
At the sound of that word, something extraordinary happened. The stallion let out a terrifying, triumphant roar that shook the very valley. Instead of slowing down, the horse accelerated.
"Fire!" the mercenary leader at the bridge screamed.
A hail of bullets sprayed through the air. Silas tucked his head down, taking a hit in his upper shoulder. Pain flared through his body like liquid fire, but he held on with everything he had left.
Ten yards from the wire trap, Ares didn't head for the wooden planks of the bridge.
The horse veered sharply to the left, galloping straight toward the edge of a razor-sharp rock cliff overlooking the raging ravine—a gap thirty feet wide.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Silas screamed.
Ares launched off the edge of the cliff into open air.
For three agonizing seconds, time seemed to freeze. Gravity lost its grip. Below them, the roaring river churned white foam against jagged rocks. Above them, searchlights caught the majestic, terrifying silhouette of the massive black stallion suspended in mid-air against the stormy night sky.
CRASH!
The stallion’s front hooves hit the muddy bank on the far side of the ravine. The violent impact threw Silas and Lily forward, but they scrambled to hold on as the horse slid through six feet of mud, its powerful legs digging deep, fighting gravity, before finally pulling itself up onto solid ground.
They had crossed the uncrossable gap.
Behind them, on the opposite side of the ravine, the mercenaries stood frozen in utter shock, their guns lowered, staring across the abyss at the impossible sight.
"He... he made it..." Silas gasped, blood seeping through his shirt as he clutched his wounded shoulder.
Lily turned back, looking across the river. But her face fell.
Landing heavily on the far bank behind them, having bypassed the bridge via a lower trail, was a single black armored vehicle.
The door opened.
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Julian Thorne stepped out into the rain, holding an assault rifle, surrounded by his personal bodyguard contingent. He raised his weapon, aiming directly at Silas and Lily.
"Impressive show, little niece," Julian said over a radio loudspeaker, his voice cold and devoid of human warmth. "But a horse can't outrun a bullet forever."
