Ciri ran. The swamp pulled at her boots with every step, and the cold kept getting worse. The water pooled between roots had started to freeze under her feet. Horses neighed in the dark beyond her sight, and the thump of hooves on soft wet ground kept getting closer.
She looked back over her shoulder and raised the pistol. She fired two shots, one after the other. A rider on the left jerked back in the saddle. The horse beside it kept galloping. She turned forward and kept running anyway.
It was then that the gun ran dry. She ejected the magazine and reached for the next one. Her fingers closed on it wrong and the magazine slipped. It hit the mud without a sound and sank halfway before she grabbed it. She shook it dry and slammed it into the gun.
A portal cracked open in front of her without warning. Blue-white light, cold air pouring out of it. Ciri flinched back and turned hard right, boots sliding. She pushed into a sprint going the other direction.
She didn't get far. A horse came out of the dark to her left, moving too fast to dodge. The rider swung low. Ciri got her sword up and caught the blow on the flat of her blade, and the impact drove up through her wrist and forearm hard enough to numb it. She kept her grip by reflex and shot the rider through the chest at close range.
Then she turned toward another horse cutting across her path. The angle was wrong. She was still turning when a second horse hit her broadside from the other direction, the animal's shoulder taking her off her feet. She hit the water hard, she could feel her breath being gone, and pushed up with her lungs refusing to intake more air just for a mere moment.
Two riders had dismounted. A third was closing on foot from the right. She took the first blow on a parry, then the second. The third came in fast enough she only half-deflected it and it struck her shoulder. Thankfully it was a cut, and her chain-mail held it off, but the force shoved her back a step into deeper water. She fired between parries. Two shots. The first went wide, the second clipped a rider's armor and did nothing useful.
Even with the pistol out, she was blocking more than fighting. Every time she raised the gun the riders held back half a meter, which kept the sword work from collapsing, but they pressed again the moment she lowered it.
Kelpie's ball burst open on its own. The Ponyta came out sideways, mane burning, and hit the nearest rider shoulder-first and put him flat. She went into a tight spinning crouch of fire, drove the second rider back, then put both back hooves through a third one's visor.
The fight kept going like that. Ciri blocked and fired in turns, and Kelpie hit from the flank whenever a rider drew too close. The Hunt was still around them on all sides, but the riders did not press in the way they could have. Ciri registered it between parries: they were waiting for her to wear down. They needed her alive. That was the only reason she was still standing.
She felt it in her legs and in the arm that had taken the first swing. She looked to the right between parries. She could see the signal shining above the treeline. She cursed Avallach under her breath. The signal was right there and she could not get to it.
It was then that gunshots came from the tree line. Three riders on the near side dropped dead in two seconds. Fast, controlled shots from a direction the Hunt had left uncovered. While the rest of them turned to find the source, a figure came out of the trees at a run and closed the distance to the nearest horseman before the rider had his weapon ready.
The lightsaber came turned on mid-swing and cut the rider down with his horse.
Finn took the next one with his fist. The gorilla arms drove the punch through the rider's midsection before the armor could slow it. The rider made no sound. Finn pulled his arm free and turned, and by then Chip was out, the Gible surfacing beneath two hounds, tearing through both before the surface closed over him again.
He put a rifle burst into a cluster of horses at the tree line to keep them from pressing in, then planted both feet in the mud and spread his arms. Ice drove up out of the wet ground in a thick ring around them, fast enough to stop two horses mid-charge and scatter three more.
Finn lowered his hands. "You okay?"
Ciri checked her sword arm and rolled her shoulder. "Y-Yeah. That was too close."
"We need to get out of here."
"Finn, we're surrounded." She looked out through the gaps in the ice at the ring of cavalry beyond. "We can't outrun horses."
"Use your powers. Try to go to Avallach."
Ciri clenched her fist. She could blink them out easily. She started to pull the power up anyway.
It was then that Kelpie made a sound. Ciri turned to her. Kelpie was on her feet, and whatever was happening to her, it was not an injury. Her eyes were brighter than the fire in her mane, and each breath she let out came with actual flame. The air inside the ice walls had gotten warmer.
"Kelpie?" Ciri said.
The light started at Kelpie's hooves and moved up. Bright enough to force a squint. It built for several seconds, and when it peaked it kept building. Kelpie's outline spread and grew. Light filled the ring and bounced off every surface until Ciri couldn't look directly at her.
Then the light dimmed, and what stood in the clearing was not a pony.
It was a horse. Fire from hoof to mane, tall enough that Ciri had to look up to see her face, steam rising from every hoofprint in the wet mud. Kelpie shook her head once and the fire along her mane flared out and settled longer and wilder than before. Two and a half times the size she had been, and she had no interest in standing still. She had become a Rapidash.
"Nice Kelpie!" Ciri grabbed the mane and swung up.
Finn looked at the horse, then at Chip, then swung himself up behind Ciri with Chip held by the stomach. "Well... that was convenient."
Chip made a grumbling sound.
Finn looked down at him. "When are you going to evolve?"
Chip made a noise back that very clearly suggested Finn might try being patient.
Ciri looked back at both of them. "Ready?"
Finn settled the lightsaber across his knees. "As I'll ever be."
Finn spread one hand and the ice walls drove outward in four directions, slabs thrown into the path of the nearest horses, pinning two and scattering the rest. Kelpie went galloping before the gap was fully clear.
The first stride put them through the Hunt's line. The second put them into open ground between the trees. Each hoof left fire behind it in the mud, and the trails burned for a few seconds after she passed, flame running along the roots and into the water.
A hound broke from cover and lunged for Kelpie's flank. Its armor met her fire, and the ice softened and peeled. The hound hit the ground shedding its icy skin. Riders pushed their horses hard on both sides and drew up fast. Finn turned around in the saddle and put two bursts into the left-side rider, swung right and fired again. Riders died and fell off their horses, yet more still closed in. The Rapidash could see the signal shining ahead through the canopy.
Kelpie ran straight for it.
The Hunt's horses were fast, but Kelpie was faster. The gap widened with every gallop. Finn worked the rifle and stripped the few that kept pace, and by the time Kelpie broke clear of the tree cover, the pursuit had thinned to nothing worth worrying about.
The signal was still ahead of them. Kelpie kept running.