Nonexistent (Rise of the Guardians)

10. This Is Not How I Thought This Would End

The wave of nightmares surged forwards at Pitch's command, all biting and striking at Jack, Sandy and me as we used our respective weapons to destroy the shadows around us.

Sandy had conjured up his dreamsand whips and was snapping out at the surging black mass around us with renewed fervor. Jack was destroying the nightmares with blasts of frost from the curved end of his staff, reducing the dark horses to frozen piles of black sand. I was having extreme difficulty holding on to my nightmare as it's fellows lashed out at it, biting and striking with their sharp teeth and hooves. With one hand I clutched the sandy reins, and with the other I was summoning whirlwinds and firing them into the throng of black sand, tearing apart the nightmares into black sand and clearing pathways through the teeming mass of shadows for fleeting glimpses, only for the clear spaces to be swallowed by the shadows an instant later.

For each nightmare we destroyed, two more seemed to rear up out of the shadows in its place.

They streamed in from everywhere there was a shadow: sewer grates, chimneys, alleys and the little spaces underneath parked cars. They surrounded us in a complete circle of writhing, screeching monsters of black sand.

We were losing badly.

They had closed in and corralled us in a circle barely large enough for us all to stand back to back, much less with me still mounted on the black sand horse, which was now fighting back against its brethren with its sharp teeth as I clung to its back.

Needless to say, the arrival of North's erratically driven sleigh flying overhead was very welcome.

It careened over Pitch's head, and in the split second that the inside was visible, I glimpsed North driving, head lolling over to one side as he snoozed, with Bunny and Tooth piled in the back, also asleep.

The very thought of an out-of-control sleigh was actually quite terrifying, and the sight even more so, but it provided the opportunity for those of us trapped in the ring of nightmares to fly out as it blasted overhead; Sandman grabbed Jack's arm to signal him to fly out, and at their movement, I spurred my nightmare out of the trap, riding into the air as we fled from the rolling mass of shadows.

I glanced towards the sleigh as we ascended into the moonlit sky, clinging to my nightmare with my legs like a spider and watching in fascination and concern as the sleigh clipped the edge of a building and spun wildly for a moment before regaining control. Apparently the impact jarred North awake, because the sleigh blasted back towards us with considerably more control than before.

Pitch's shadows loomed in a great wave of black sand as the nightmares took off collectively into the sky, hot on our tails. Jack frosted one of them above me, showering me with cold black sand as it fell to the ground far below. Toothiana appeared at my side, flying next to my nightmare and me as we galloped through the sky with a determined look on her face. She smiled at me before zipping through a pair of nightmares, slicing through them with her wings and making them explode into showers of black sand.

I watched Bunnymund dive off the runner of the sleigh, all fear of heights forgotten as he sliced through nightmares as he fell. He landed in a roll on a rooftop and threw his boomerangs; they obliterated every nightmare in their path.

Suddenly, my nightmare plunged downwards, dodging another black horse as it dove at us with a screech. I gripped the flanks of my mount with my legs and blew the opposing horse apart with a small tornado, blasting the sand in all different directions so it couldn't reform.

There was chaos everywhere. Each of us tried to destroy as many nightmares as we could, but they had the strength of numbers. North was riding through the airborne battlefield in his sleigh, slashing away with his scimitars and laughing as if he was having the time of his life. Jack was blasting nightmares with frost, making them explode into dust clouds as he flew through the air. Toothiana and Bunny were slashing through the nightmares with wings and boomerangs respectively, Tooth flying under her own power and Bunnymund hanging off the edge of the sleigh, gripping the side with one pawlike hand. I was riding through the ranks of nightmares, pressed onto the neck of my mount with my aviators pressed low over my eyes, aiming at different horses with blasts of wind through the crosshairs attached to my goggles. Sandy's cloud of dreamsand was obscured by a writhing tornado of blackness far above us.