Cenric rolled quickly as the warrior brought down his makeshift club, slamming it jarringly into the earth next to his head. Too soon, he thought tauntingly as he expertly swept to the side, he's left himself completely open.
Tightening his form, he braced a hand against the frozen ground and shot his foot out and upwards, nailing the furious warrior directly in the jaw, sending a crack echoing throughout the wood. The brute stumbled backwards, his wings sending him off balance as he grunted in agony and cradled his shattered face in one hand, the other still clinging limply to his mace.
A strand of advice from Cassian snaked through Cenric's mind: Find a weak point, abuse it.
Heeding those words, he didn't allow the warrior to recover as he rose and pursued, hitting the male with blow after blow, ensuring he kept peppering that freshly snapped bone with an array of well-placed strikes. Swinging sharply, his right fist made square contact with the warrior's jaw, and it crumbled further like plaster beneath his hand.
Blood spewed.
Grinding his teeth, Cenric ducked and danced out of the way, the smell of fear finally beginning to meld with the stench of fury in the oversized brute's scent. They'd thought themselves clever for sneaking down the frozen creek that twined through the woods, easily hiding their scent and tracks as they crept up behind him in a valiant attempt to ambush him.
He'd been waiting for them when they'd burst through the heavy undergrowth, having tracked the sound of their wading as they followed after him, their bulky forms splashing loudly as they pursued, quiet curses of how damned cold the water was giving their positions away with ease. He'd nearly chuckled at it as he'd raced along the edge of the river, leaving deep prints beneath him.
He'd stopped after several grueling miles of winding into the deep, overgrown forest in the opposite direction of Ramiel, and had settled in a quiet grove amongst a cluster of saplings to await their approach, listening to the croaks of the large vultures settling in the trees high above, no doubt waiting for their next meal.
The first warrior had fallen the moment he'd come upon Cenric, thinking him vulnerable and unaware as he couched in the shade of one of the ancient pines, chewing on a shred of dried rabbit. The warrior had found that to be untrue when a spear had punctured through his chest, ripping the beating heart beneath his leathers to ribbons.
The second had been harder to kill, quick on his feet and armed with surprisingly well-crafted daggers but he too had collapsed as soon as Cenric broke through his guard, a well-placed kick to the warrior's throat swiftly crushing his trachea.
The third had struck from the back after the second had collapsed, swinging at Cenric with wide, arching blows that had enough force to crack ribs.
He'd avoided each swing more gracefully than the last.
Cenric noted that only three of the six had attacked him, sending his mind calculating as he deliberated where the rest of the group was. His suspicions told him they followed further behind in the creek, biding their time to see how their brethren fared before launching their own attack.
Based on the way the third warrior reeled back in agony, blindly swinging his weapon as he stumbled around his fallen brothers, Cenric was inclined to think not so well.
He would be lucky if he ever spoke again with his shattered jaw, fortunate even to be able to eat on his own.
Though you don't need to eat if you're dead, Cenric considered smugly.
The same realization also seemed to settle on the warrior as he stopped his wild batting and narrowed his small, dark hazel eyes at Cenric's crouched form, his nostrils flaring. His rage was near palpable as the warrior mustered a look that said he knew he wouldn't leave this field alive, but neither would Cenric.
He welcomed him to try.
A particularly loud squawk sounded from one of the vultures above, catching the attention of both combatants. The birds were no doubt eager for the meal they would receive once match ended. Their presence had unsettled Cenric from the start - scavengers picking from the carrion.
An image of a water-logged child's corpse being devoured by fish flickered to life in his mind, silky black locks floating aimlessly in a depthless and cold ocean, empty eye sockets staring endlessly where violet orbs had once burned fiercely-
His senses bled red.
Twisting his rapidly dulling spear, he noted the once thin coating of blood was now thick and gruesome, several shades darker than it had been that morning. He imagined it would only grow worse once he finished the Ironwood clan warriors tailing him, with any luck all before sundown.
The thought had him ceasing his twirling and brandishing his spear, lowering himself into a defensive crouch. He hadn't forgotten it had been their clan that had taken his sister from him and snarled, eager to finally return the favor.
One snapped jaw at a time.
He evaluated the limping warrior in front of him, still set off balance by the wings bound close to his body, his attention distant as he glanced up towards the tree tops, his lips curled at the corners.
He'd savor cutting the wings from these males the most.
Dribbling blood and spittle from his slack mouth, the fluids soaking the front his leathers, the male turned his attention back to Cenric and charged him, his footsteps thudding loudly against the snow-covered ground as he raced forward.
Cenric, seeing the impending blow, merely sidestepped the wild swing and countered with a sweeping spear-strike, sending the warrior reeling forward into the snow. All the Ironwood warriors had attacked him brashly, noisily, and without any attempts at subtlety, hacking away at him as they drove him deeper into the gnarled woods.
He had pinned their clan for being more cunning than that.
Letting out a slow breath he watched as the male tried to rise, a painful wheeze escaping him, before grunting and collapsing back into the snow, his blood bright as rubies against the ice.
He was ready to finish this.
Standing above the warrior, Cenric harshly kicked him over onto his back, his wings twisting awkwardly beneath him in their bindings as they crunched ominously, the sinew bending in places it shouldn't have.
The warriors jaw sat at a sickeningly wrong angle as he glared up at Cenric with a century's worth of rage and snarled.
"I remember your Prince being more cunning than that when he faced my father," Cenric mused, lowering his spear so it sat over the warrior's chest, the suppressed memory of his father's fight floating lazily to the surface. "Any last words, dog?"
The warrior coughed a bit on his blood before throwing his head back and laughing, his jaw tilting nauseatingly as the raw sound escaped him, broken by gurgling wheezes. Cenric pressed his spear harder into the warrior's leathers, his patience growing thin.
"Well?" he snarled, preparing to drive the spear home.
"You should have looked up," the warrior said sloppily, a bloodied, crooked grin growing wide on his face as pain, blindingly sharp like nothing he'd ever felt before, blossomed in Cenric's shoulder as an arrow buried itself into his flesh.
Valka had been closing in on the tracks when she'd noticed the extra set of prints splitting off toward the west, opposite of where the Ironwood clan had begun following the stream, tailing Cenric.
Warning bells had pealed in her mind as she noted them, light indentions that were barely detectable. Three or four lightly armored males who were taking great care to cover their footsteps, with tracks going both towards and away from the stream.
They were both old and fresh.
Kneeling she had prodded at the marks, noting the fine leather treads with patterning that was distinctive of the leather work from the Greenhill clan, one of the few truly loyal clans that served the Lord and his court.
Why were they this far out?
She would have expected them to be making their way towards Ramiel, not out in the opposite direction where the dense forest gave way to steep ravines and rocky terrain, where monsters and ghouls of every shape and size wandered freely. Not unless they too had forsaken all sense of loyalty and were out hunting the young heir as well.
The idea had seemed fishy at best to Valka.
Gnawing on her lip, she mulled through her thoughts, contemplating which trail to follow. Her mission had been only to get to the heir, but something tugged at her, urging her to follow the footprints that snaked up through the high rocky passes that had surrounded the valley.
Cenric would survive long enough for her to pin him, she'd firmly assured herself before heading up the rocky outcrops
Now she was cursing her own foolishness as she slid on a patch of loose grus, forcing her to pause and regain her footing as she made her way up the steep rock surface, entirely coated in ice. She'd consider it a miracle if she didn't slip and snap her neck on the sharp rocks below.
Hauling herself further up the cliff face, she settled on a small overhang and dragged her hands through her hair. This had to have been the most foolish error she'd ever made, she thought sourly, having lost sight of the warriors' tracks at the base of the bluff's wall.
Whatever reason they'd decided to climb up this sheer, slippery hell couldn't have indicated anything other than that the male ego was stupid. The warriors had likely challenged one another to see how high they could haul themselves upward the icy precipice for some nonsensical bragging right.
She'd been a fool to waste her time in pursuing what was proving to be a dead-end trail.
She was considering climbing back down when out of the corner of her eye she spotted the Greenhill prints descending into a small outcrop, not visible from any angle except above it. Quirking her head, Valka quickly rose to her feet and risked the small leap across the rocks before sliding down into the natural alcove.
It was the scent of wood and oil that hit her first, something entirely out of place in a location where no one was permitted outside of the Rite. Sliding in through the narrow space, she let out a whistle of surprise. In the small red stone nook sat an array of carved wooden weapons and quivers full of arrows, neatly stashed.
Someone's supply cache.
Worry bloomed in her as understanding filtered into her mind - the weapons were too finely crafted to have been assembled in the few days since the Rite had started and the sweet stench of the oil told her that it wasn't some crude, boiled down boar fat.
Somebody had left these here for the Rite, specifically to give someone the upper hand.
Someone who most definitely wasn't one of the warriors currently on the mountain, who had all been closely watched from the time they'd flown in at the beginning of the ceremony and had not been permitted out of the sight of the others until they had been dropped off near Ramiel's base.
They wouldn't have had the chance or opportunity.
Noticing the sheen from the shafts, Valka clicked her tongue: the wood had been freshly oiled, telling her the cache could not have been more than a week old. She growled in as she stepped forward, looking over the weapons. If someone had managed to find this obscure spot to hide the supplies they must have been scouting the area ahead of time too.
Sniffing tentatively, she tried to discern any scents, anything besides the overwhelming sweet waft of oil that drowned everything else out-
There, she thought, sniffing once again to confirm what she had detected, the sharp tinge of smelted iron and pine, the smell that often accompanied those who worked the forges in the Ironwood camp. It was undeniable.
So why were they wearing Greenhill boots?
Thoughts turned over and over in Valka's mind as she reached forward and snatched up one of the arrows, intending to look at the crafting of the fletching, when pain immediately shot through her hand, searing and wrong. She flung the arrow away from her, hissing as it hit the ground and rolled, its iron tip glistening with a colorless liquid.
A wave of sickness washed over her and she braced a hand against the wall, repulsion snaking through her as clarity returned, the overwhelming stench of wrongness burning her nostrils.
They were ash arrows.
Cenric couldn't help the strangled scream that escaped him as he clawed fruitlessly at his left shoulder, trying and failing to dislodge the wood that had been buried deep into his muscle and tendons. A sense of dizziness overwhelmed him as his senses dulled, the act of breathing suddenly becoming very difficult.
Something was wrong.
Another arrow rained down from the tree above him, embedding itself deeply into the chest of the warrior who he had felled with a sickening crunch. Blearily, he watched as the warrior's chest heaved then rose no longer.
Mortification drenched Cenric's senses as he pinpointed where the arrow had originated.
A chuckle sounded overhead as the three missing Ironwood warriors dropped from above him, their hair dusted with snow as they straightened themselves, bound wings held proudly behind them.
Cenric finally understood how they had snuck up on him as they brushed the snow from their shoulders. They shared an amused glance before turning toward him and mockingly mimicking the call of a vulture, the imitation near perfect.
The great hunters of the Ironwood clan, renowned for their ability to lure any beast and their flawless mimicry of such creatures. Azriel had warned Cenric they'd perfected it to nearly an art. He realized they'd used the tightly packed trees to follow him from above, climbing from tree to tree as he'd been distracted following the winding creek, playing vultures ever searching for their next meal.
He cursed his own foolishness as he scrambled away, his spear still clutched tightly in his hand. He needed to get up, needed to get out and find another place to orient himself, somewhere to remove the arrow and bandage the wound-
The tallest must have noticed his thought process as he clicked his tongue, amber eyes bright, and strode toward Cenric, his hands resting casually on his bow and loosely nocked arrow.
"A valiant effort, boy," the warrior began, chortling as his clean-shaven head glistened, "but I fear this is where this ends."
Cenric growled as he rose, trying to right himself. Another wave of blinding, searing pain shot through his shoulder, and his stomach rolled dangerously. He bit down on the nausea, focusing only on the breaths that he drew, his eyes scanning the three warriors that now flanked him, wicked smirks painted across their faces.
The arrow they had lodged in his shoulder wasn't ordinary. Glancing at the one casually nocked in the male's bow Cenric realized immediately that it hadn't been crafted in these woods either, the iron tip and smoothly sanded shaft indicative of the care that had gone into its creation.
The color of the wood and its grain sounded warning bells in his mind.
Ash.
His eyes widened as he felt the wood twist painfully in his shoulder as he sucked in a breath.
There were no groves of that wood anywhere in these Steppes, as the few that survived at these altitudes had been cut and burned millennia ago. Someone else had brought those arrows here.
From the metallic tang on his tongue and the waves of nausea beginning to rise within him, Cenric was willing to bet they'd also been coated in some type of poison, something designed to slow him. The glistening on the arrow's tip confirmed that suspicion.
He shouldn't have been surprised.
Rage consumed him as he spat the word, "Cowards."
The one slowly encroaching gave him a viper-like smile at his accusation, amusement dancing through his bright eyes.
"Perhaps," he began, beginning to slowly herd Cenric backwards as the other warriors fanned out around him, their hands on equally vicious-looking arrows, "or perhaps not. Perhaps this is the only honorable way to reclaim the honor your family has taken from the Illyrians."
Honor, pride, ego. The only thing this pathetic people had to hide behind.
Cenric couldn't stop the bitter laugh that slipped from him as he strode backwards, his eyes surreptitiously judging his surroundings, the distance. He distantly wondered how quickly he'd have to move to evade them, how to prevent any further damage to the tissue in his shoulder . . . "Or perhaps this is the only definition of honor you have, oversized bullies whose egos only serve as overcompensation for the bits you're lacking."
He needed to work them into a fury, enough of a blind rage that their shots would become erratic, poorly placed.
They remained unperturbed as they inched forward.
The tallest watched Cenric's every movement with those unnerving eyes, cataloging the way his balanced, how he favored the shoulder that still burned like fire. Cenric felt an icy sweat break out on his forehead as he maneuvered around a large boulder, willing the trembling in his hands to cease.
"Make as many insults as you like," the warrior hummed, his bowstring growing taut as he raised it, "you will never make another again."
The others raised their bows as well, nothing but amusement in their rough-hewn features.
Seeing it as his only opening, Cenric rushed to the left, narrowly avoiding the graze of the arrow the male fired as he threw himself down into the ravine behind him, sliding through thick mud and hissing as his skin tore on rough brambles as he rushed towards the bottom.
Pain rippled through his chest and shoulder as he narrowly avoided the arrows they halfheartedly fired after him.
He barely heard their pursuit as he threw himself into a sprint down the winding channel, blackness spotting his vision as he fled deep into the shadows. They followed lazily behind, their footsteps unhurried.
Shit, shit, shit.
Valka urged her legs up the steep trail as she raced through the forest, her eyes ever watchful as she flew across the rocky terrain, hoping against all hope that she would get there in time.
She would have to race if she wanted to get to the dapper prince before the damned Ironwood brutes filled him with ash arrows. The Rite had turned from a test of strength and valor to an extermination, exclusively directed at the last heir of the Night Court.
The fool should have never entered the Rite with the dissent so widespread, and his taunting had only added fuel to their flames.
She'd slap him herself for his foolishness if she found him alive.
The icy air burned her lungs as she slid down the icy terrain, following the faint trail that snaked past pines and up into the rocky crevices of the Steppes, the tread of the Greenhill boots deeper and more prominent now.
She'd found the bodies of the boots' original owners at the bottom of a steep ravine near the rocky outcropping where the cache had been placed, their broken necks and blank eyes facing the winter skies, their feet bare and frozen blue and black.
The Ironwoods had wanted to throw others off their trail and had slaughtered warriors from a loyal clan to do it, to seed more distrust between the remaining faithful clans.
A clever strategy had they not been so sloppy with its execution.
They were jeopardizing everything. Months of careful planning and maneuvering all about to be wasted if the idiots cornered Cenric and slaughtered him.
She forced her feet to move faster, willing the miles ahead of her to vanish.
She had already wasted too much time sifting through the array of weapons that had been stashed, cataloging just how many had been left there.
Enough for a dozen warriors.
Whoever had placed them had known how dangerous Cenric was and were banking on it taking numerous warriors to kill him.
Only one name came to Valka's mind as to who would have had that sort of clear foresight, who would have had the resources and knowledge to execute something so blatantly rooted in treason.
A trap within a trap.
She swallowed around the lump forming in her throat.
Cenric could barely stay upright as he raced through the thick wood, his feet like lead beneath him as the Ironwood warriors herded him. Two warriors flanked him on either side and one followed up the rear, still shooting the occasional arrow at him as they drove him deep into the forest.
His shoulder had long since become so painful that numbness had begun to slip into the immobile joint, interrupted only by the burning and clawing pain when the tissue tore further on the poison tip deeply embedded, soaking his senses in unending, grueling torture.
He refused to recognize the pain, the fuzziness that danced around the edges of his vision as he continued to rush through the thick undergrowth, thorns tearing at his leathers. To acknowledge it would only result in his collapse and his inevitable demise.
He wouldn't fall until the three warriors pursuing him where nothing but scraps for the crows.
Cenric threw himself to the left, narrowly avoiding another arrow as it whizzed past his ear and rooted itself into the muddy ground on his right, barely hearing its flight. The sudden dodge sent him stumbling but he forced balance to his feet and continued sprinting, refusing to allow them to gain even another inch on him.
He had to find a way out around them, a way to loop back behind them and separate the group so he could face them individually.
It was the only he would survive their assault.
He willed his fuzzy mind to think, to plot, but nothing came to him but the heavy lulling silence that had blotted out his mind.
He could only keep running and pray that an opening would show itself.
I had been hours into my frantic search when the familiar scent of cedar and citrus wafted to my senses, curling from a high pine I had just passed in my flight.
Wheeling back, I fluttered to the tallest branch and searched, my son's scent coating the tree from where he'd recently been perched, the flattened branches telling me he'd been positioned there for some time, watching.
Following the line of sight Cenric would have used I spied the blood-soaked ground where two warriors lay motionless, the stench of rot beginning to seep from them. Both had been felled by arrows, one whose throat had been torn through and the other with an arrow buried down to the fletching in his eye.
The same way I'd shot Andras so many years before.
Gliding down beside the bodies I glanced back and forth to ensure no eyes were watching before I allowed myself to shift back to my own form and kneeled beside them. Their blood had frozen in deep scarlet puddles beneath them, the winds already having drifted snow onto their corpses.
Cenric had been ruthless with them, hitting each with a precision that sent equal amounts of pride and horror fluttering to life in my chest.
From the bits of his trail that I'd found earlier I'd seen that he'd slaughtered numerous warriors, then cleaved off their wings before brutalizing them leaving the snapped sinew for all who passed to see.
He was faring well in the Rite, better than I could have hoped. The notion left me feeling immense guilt as I thought on Elain's prophecy, wondering if my intervention was truly needed. Wondering if perhaps my sister's symbols had meant something else entirely and if I was jeopardizing my son's attempt at the Rite.
The thought did not sit well.
Rhys had not stopped trying to reach me through the bond since I'd shut him out, his attempts more panicked each time he'd tried to get through. Each attempt to break past my wall had left me feeling sour inside, curling my soul up into a withered little ball of oiliness.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to tell my mate, couldn't bring myself to show him that I'd broken our son's trust on a whim to try and save his life in a hunt that he was blatantly doing well in.
I knew Rhys wouldn't come looking for me, knew he couldn't because all the warriors were watching his every move in the Windhaven camp, waiting for him to chase after his son and protect him. The same was being done with Cassian and Nesta.
They could not help even if they wanted to, not without risking Cenric's credibility and honor.
I only hoped he would forgive me for my blatant disregard of him - I would not let him try to talk me out of this pursuit, I couldn't risk our son. Even at the risk of my child never speaking to me again.
The thought made my heart clench painfully in my chest.
Casting my attention back to the matter at hand I quickly assessed the fallen warriors' wounds, only a few hours old - meaning my son couldn't have strayed too far from this spot. Pulling at their leathers, I saw the leaf-shaped fastenings that linked them to the Ironwood clans, the ones that had begun this rebellion so many years ago.
I bit my lip to prevent a snarl from slipping from me as I slowly rose, glancing around for my son's trail. I spotted it just ahead, his boot prints deep and clear - he'd been baiting them.
Shifting back into my hawk form I shot into the sky, flying high above and following his winding trail through the labyrinth of the underbrush in the snowy wasteland.