Chapter 119: Broken
For the first time since beginning this hunt, Imnek felt the icy grip of fear on his heart. Two of his fellows were dead, one had fallen and retreated, and they’d only managed to kill one pathetic horned soldier in return. When Paulus warned him about the witch, he had dismissed her because she was cowering behind an ice shield. Now, he realized that she wasn’t cowering, she was a hunter herself, choosing her time to spring a trap.
Five years ago, he’d left the frozen islands of his homeland in search of a trophy worthy of a hunter who could bear the mantle of leadership. For too long, the Tuscans had cowered in the safety of their islands, protected by the treacherous frozen seas. But if he wanted to change any of that, he first had to prove that he was strong enough to lead.
When Paulus told him about a Frost Walker with an iridescent horn, he thought he’d finally found that trophy. Now, however, facing the human witch, he realized that he’d set his sights too low. If he could survive this deadly hunt, returning with not only the iridescent horn but the skin bearing this woman’s mark of the witch, no one would question his capabilities as a hunter!
A cold fire blazed in his eyes as Imnek twisted as much as he could with his legs frozen in place, hurling the wounded woman who had barred his path directly at the oncoming witch. Virve sank her claws deep into his trunk as he threw her, tearing long and bloody rents in his majestic trunk but Imnek had no time to care.
Ashlynn threw herself to the side as Virve came hurtling toward her like a giant furry boulder. It wasn’t chivalrous or knightly and part of her felt like she should have tried to catch Virve and break her fall but one of the many lessons Thane had drilled into her was that acts of ’valor and heroism’ on the battlefield often resulted in losing a fight you could have won. If they survived this, she would apologize to Virve afterward.
The time Ashlynn spent avoiding Virve slowed her charge just enough for Imnek to smash his maul into the ice covering his legs. He couldn’t clear all of it and his movements were slow and stiff compared to before, but he was able to turn enough to meet Ashlynn’s charge head-on.
The sound of steel colliding rang across the ice as Ashlynn’s darksteel falchion met Imnek’s heavy maul. Far from being a clumsy brute, Imnek wielded his maul much like a soldier would use a halberd or billhook, combining powerful thrusts with heavy swings and strikes from the butt end of the weapon to keep up with Ashlynn’s terrifying speed.
Their clash of weapons was echoed in a clash of sorcery. The sharpened Frost Walker horns lashed to Imnek’s tusks glowed in colors that ranged from dark blue to icy white, conjuring icicles that flew at Ashlynn like thrown daggers, shrouded in flurries of snow in an attempt to obscure her vision.
The wind swirling around Ashlynn intensified, clearing the snow from the air and deflecting the icicles enough for her to evade them without disengaging her blade from Imnek’s maul. To Heila, watching from behind Hauke’s ice barrier, it seemed like Ashlynn had completely neutralized Imnek’s sorcery.