Chapter 249 Red river track: Zoey's POV

Chapter 249 Red river track: Zoey's POV
The trail toward the Red River bridge smelled of wet horse coat and burnt pine.

I ran low to the ground at the head of the column. Snow was falling in heavy, fat flakes now, threatening to cover the fresh tracks in the mud.
But Vane’s elite guard was moving too fast to hide their path. Fifty heavy horses had churned the narrow mountain road into a slushy trench of torn turf and broken branches.

Behind me, Klaus marched with seventy North Pack warriors. Their iron boots made a dull, rhythmic crunch against the frozen dirt.

"They're pushing hard," Lyra whispered, dropping down on one knee beside me at a bend in the trail. She pointed to a deep hoofprint filled with dark, clear water. "The mud hasn't even settled yet. They are less than twenty minutes ahead of us."

I touched the edge of the print with two gloved fingers. The displaced snow around it was fresh, soft, and uncrusted by the wind.

"Vane isn't running," I said, looking down the dark gorge. "He's falling back to his strongpoint. The Red River bridge has stone towers on both banks. If he locks those iron gates, we’ll have to cross open ice to reach him."

Through our blood bond, I felt Klaus step up behind us. His presence was a heavy, comforting warmth against the freezing wind that whipped down the canyon. He didn't say a word. He just placed one thick hand on my shoulder, looking down at the tracks.

His dark eyes were hard as flints.

"He knows we destroyed his supply camp," Klaus growled softly. "He knows his powder is ash. He's going to make his stand at the river before the rest of our pack can reinforce us."

"The river ice is thin near the middle," I warned, standing up and pulling my short bow off my shoulder. "The current under the bridge is fast. If anyone falls in with full iron mail, they don't come up."

"Then we don't cross the ice," Klaus said. "We force the bridge."

I checked the notch on my broadhead arrows. The silver signet ring on my finger was ice-cold against my leather mitten. I looked back at Jax and Dax, who were holding their bows ready in the shadows of the pine trees.

"Lyra, Jax," I commanded in a low voice. "Take the high ridge to the left. If Vane has archers posted on the stone watchtower, pick them off before Klaus reaches the gate."

"Understood, Luna," Jax said, nodding once before sliding up the steep rock wall with the speed of a mountain cat.

"Dax," I continued, turning to the youngest hunter. "Stay with the main line. Keep your eye on Klaus's flank."

We moved out again, faster now.

The mountain trail narrowed until it was just a shelf of stone cut into the face of the canyon. Two hundred feet below us, the Red River roared against the jagged black ice, black and deadly in the grey morning light.

At the final turn, the trees gave way to a wide, flat ledge of granite.

There sat the Red River bridge.

It was an ancient structure built of black stone, spanning a eighty-foot gap over the raging rapids. At our end stood two low timber archways, long abandoned and rotten. On the far side, sitting squarely on the eastern bank, was the main stone gatehouse.

Vane’s fifty elite riders were formed up directly in front of the gatehouse in three tight lines.

They were big men, bigger than the cavalrymen we had cut down in the supply camp. Their armor was black iron, overlapping like dragon scales over heavy bear furs. They held long, heavy iron lances, their tips gleaming in the dim light.

In front of them sat a man on a massive black stallion.

He wore a helmet carved like a roaring hawk, with red horsehair streaming from the crest. Across his chest hung a crimson cloak held by an iron clasp. A heavy curved broadsword rested across his saddle bow.

Lord Vane.

"Klaus!" Vane's voice boomed across the narrow stone bridge, loud and clear over the roar of the water below. "You broke my camp like a thief in the night! Come out into the open and face a real lord of the Steppes!"

Klaus stepped out from the pine tree line, his heavy boots crushing the white crust of the snow.

He didn't yell back. He didn't waste his breath on words. He simply drew his father's broadsword, its polished steel catching the pale morning light, and pointed the tip straight at Vane’s throat.

Behind us, seventy North Pack warriors stepped out of the woods, forming a wall of iron shields and heavy spears.

"Zoey," Klaus murmured, his voice so low it barely carried over the wind. "Get your bow ready."

I raised my short bow, drawing the oiled leather string back to my ear. I lined up the iron broadhead straight with the crimson horsehair on Vane’s helmet.

"I'm ready," I whispered.

The blood bond in my chest hummed, hot and sharp, binding our hearts together in the cold air.

Vane lowered his iron helmet mask and lifted his heavy broadsword into the air.

"Charge!" Vane bellowed.

The iron-shod hooves of fifty heavy chargers slammed against the stone arch of the bridge, ringing out like iron hammers on an anvil as they thundered straight toward us.