Book 5: Chapter 11 — Second Tier
The Second Tier stretched out around them, a maze of ruined seating and overgrown passages that offered countless places for creatures to hide and for other hunters to observe.
No sooner had they stepped foot onto the higher platform than the group from the encampment came coincidentally meandering along in that same direction.
"Company," he murmured to Aurelia.
She followed his gaze, her hand drifting to her blade. "The Thornback Collective?"
"Probably."
The pursuers emerged from the ruins a moment later, and any doubt vanished. The leader rode a mantis twelve feet tall, its bladed forelimbs catching the light. Its rider was a scarred man in his forties, his armor covered in thorn patterns that matched the emblem Noah had seen on their tents.
[Mantis Lord - ???]
[Razorwing Mantis - ???]
Behind him came the others. A woman with close-cropped dark hair and a permanent sneer astride a serpent that flickered between visible and invisible, only its yellow eyes consistently apparent.