The black fletching disappears into the arctic camo of the horseman's coat. The arrowhead slips between two ribs and pierces his heart. He jerks, fumbles with the safety of his assault rifle. You move laterally among the trees and put a second arrow into his neck—it goes all the way through his throat, disappears somewhere out in the woods. Then a third flies into his temple, shattering goggles and skull. The horse rears and the dead man falls into the snow with a faint crunch. Flies swirl up into the freezing air as you approach from higher up on the slope, setting a fourth barbed arrow on the string. The rider is dead.
Then the horse turns and fixes its black eyes on you.
"You guessed wrong, little wolf," it says through bloody lips. And then its incisors lengthen, and it scrambles up the incline, blood and drool spilling from its suddenly massive jaws.
Where are the others? No matter: this thing is coming for you.
So far, everything had gone according to plan, just as you had practiced a hundred times. But now you're forced to think on the fly as you confront the real threat, this mangled horse-thing. You taste blood in your mouth, hear your frightened breath…now it's for real. No mistakes