“Flooded? Wha–oh…” Sir Maxwell muttered as he turned and saw the water, already at a disturbing waist-height, rushing towards the stable doors. For one second, the knight stared dumbfounded, before he regained feeling in his legs and ran inside the poo-carpeted stables after the mysterious masked man.

Two steps in, and Maxwell started sliding down a hallway, desperately trying to keep his balance. With the knowledge that the water was right on his heels, and that falling would mean certain drowning, the only good thing Maxwell could find in his predicament was that he was rapidly nearing Brom, as his noise-making was getting louder.

Suddenly, he saw a wooden pillar approaching in the middle of a four-way intersection of hallways. Without thinking, Maxwell stuck out his right hand, received the pillar in his arm, and managed to swiftly turn down the hallway to his right before the automatic metal doors slammed shut on both branching hallways, blocking the rushing water from going down those passages.

That rather clever move, however, wasn’t the intent of the knight; he was trying to stop his increasingly dangerous sliding about on the dung-covered floor, and his move actually made him increase in speed. Desperately, he groped for a handhold of some sort on the rapidly passing wooden doors to his left, but with little success. He was going too fast to anticipate where a potential handhold would be.

Without warning, his hand finally found a handle, and he gripped it tightly, coming to an abrupt stop that almost dislocated his arm, but fortunately just provoked a burst of blinding pain. Still Maxwell hung on, now with his right hand, to keep himself from falling into the brown sludge below, as he tried to recover.

Then, he heard Brom’s neighing again, but this time it was coming from behind the door he held onto. “Brom?! Brom, is that you?!” he asked, relieved to hear an affirmative snort from his steed on the other side. “Thank the gods… I’m going to get you out of here, the stables are being flooded, and we have little time!” Finally regaining his balance, Maxwell spied a large, single bolt latch. ’Perfect…’ he thought as he made his way to the latch to set Brom free, and pulled up.

The latch didn’t budge. A confused Maxwell more closely inspected the latch, and found it crusted with dung. “Oh come on!” he screamed as he began fiercely tugging at the latch, to little success.

Loudly cursing his luck as he pulled, he heard the very faint, but notable, creak of iron doors opening and water rushing through them. The sound was coming from the intersection behind Max, clearly indicating he had very little time left. Seized with a newfound determination, fueled by utter desperation, the knight made one final tug; grunting with effort as the latch finally budged, wiggled, and then broke free from the crusted poo. Without missing a beat, Maxwell slid the latch open, and made for the handle to open the door.

The doors flew wide open before the knight’s hand could touch the handle, and he struggled to keep his balance as Brom charged through the doors he kicked open, pausing long enough for Maxwell to clumsily mount his steed before galloping away down the hallway, the water only seconds behind the reunited pair.

Not daring to look back, Maxwell grabbed the reins of his horse and attempted to reassert control, but Brom made no response to his master’s tugs and verbal commands as he made a left turn at the junction ahead. The horse seemed to know exactly where he was going, and that was fine and all, considering what was behind the pair, but the knight couldn’t help but be annoyed. He was the one supposed to be in control here…

Then, after another turn down a hallway, there was the mysterious man and his steed up ahead, increasing in visibility as the distance between them decreased. The man turned and regarded Maxwell and Brom, then turned back to the path up ahead, his horse beginning to pull further and further ahead.

“What the… what the devil is he doing-gah!” the knight cried in surprise as Brom, instead of following Monroe down the path, took a sudden right turn. “Where are you going?! He went that way!”

Max’s protests were either drowned out by the rushing air, and water behind them, or ignored by Brom as he concentrated on the path ahead, unyielding to Maxwell’s renewed determination to retake control of this nonsense through pulling of the reins, orders, and even curses.

The path then began to curve left, back onto the main path, and there was no masked man ahead. For a second Maxwell thought he had pulled much farther ahead, but a glance behind him told the knight that, in fact, his horse had found a shortcut, and they were now ahead. While masked man’s face couldn’t be seen, Max could tell that Monroe was annoyed, and began urging his horse to catch up.

’He thinks it’s a race…’ was the incredulous thought that popped into the knight’s head before another abrupt turn by Brom jerked him back into reality. Down one path, back onto another, Monroe soon caught up and was now neck and neck with Maxwell, the water behind both men and their steeds a handful of seconds behind them.

Back on the main path, Brom was beginning to tire, the horse’s breathing was becoming more labored and irregular, and now Maxwell could feel droplets of the torrent behind him. Looking to his right, Maxwell was stunned that Monroe had no trace of fear in his eyes. Matter of fact, it looked as though he was having the time of his life.

The path suddenly sloped downward, almost bringing an exhausted Brom off balance, but still the steed galloped on, oblivious to his own failing strength. Maxwell leaned forward, gripped the reins tightly, and prayed for divine intervention, as it seemed nothing could bring salvation to the duo of pairs now…

A leveling out of the path prompted him to open his eyes, and for the briefest of moments, Maxwell saw a simple doorway, barely big enough for the two horses and their riders to dart through, the rushing water now only inches behind consuming his hearing, before the darkness beyond took his sight as well.