A HENRY STORY 2: Trials Of The Fallen Prince

Prologue

The air was thick with dust, stirred up by countless claws. Yet, beneath the haze, a putrid stench of blood and death lingered, keeping alive the spirit of the battle that had been lost not long ago.

But the blood was not the scent he followed. Longclaw watched neither the ground beneath him nor the writhing, dying shapes of the gnawers he had fought with. He had no mind for them in his pursuit of the scent. The scent . . .

Only when he discerned that the scent led away from the battlefield did Longclaw stop. He stared at the shape of a coiling tunnel. For a moment, he lingered and contemplated what could have driven him in there, then he shook himself so that dust rained from his brown coat and vaulted forward. The "why" mattered little. What mattered was that the scent grew fresher and stronger with every yard.

"You shall not escape, filth!"

Longclaw's every muscle tensed at the yelling voice, somewhere ahead.

"You shall not escape!" cried the voice again. "Cowards!"

Longclaw gnashed his teeth; the enormous talons on his hind legs produced an unnerving scrape when he dashed around a corner and out into a vast cave. He nearly stumbled into the wall when a bright light blinded him momentarily. But when he found his senses again, a high-pitched screech speared his ears . . . his heart. The ground beneath him swayed as he locked eyes with . . . "Ashpaw!"

Blood glistened on stone and on the blade of a drawn sword that was swung tauntingly. But Longclaw looked only at Ashpaw. He was seeing him, he thought. Ashpaw made a feeble attempt to take a step forward and call out, but all that came out of his throat was a strained gurgle. A thin trickle of blood dripped out of his mouth. Then Longclaw watched the body of his son fall lifelessly at his feet.

An indeterminable stretch of time later, his body sprung into action again, and he reeled backward into the wall so as not to stand in his son's blood that had created a red, glittering pond. So much blood.

I shall show you that I am not weak like my siblings! He should have never allowed it. Never . . . I shall not only not die immediately after birth like they did. I shall not die, period. The foolish humans will not kill me! I'll swat the high and haughty from the air like mites!

Longclaw had stared at his talons for seconds before he properly registered that they glistened with red. His gaze followed his own trail of bloody footsteps and found the body of . . . of . . .

"Halt!"

His head jerked up.

"Will you surrender willingly, or must we chase you like we did your friend?"

The human female who called out to him in such a condescending tone that it made his hair stand on end waved the light source—a torch—in one hand. In the other, she swung the bloodied sword as her flier circled above Longclaw's head.

"Make your choice now!"

It was then that something within Longclaw snapped. Letting out an ear-splitting howl, he tore his mouth wide open and lunged toward the girl to do as Ashpaw had promised—to swat her from the air like a mite. Her flier narrowly dodged and dove into a wide tunnel opening.

"Catch us if you can!" The words reverberated in Longclaw's ears, echoing and distorting from the stone that surrounded them.

And so he allowed the blinding rage to take him over. Every fiber of his burned with bloodlust as he vaulted after them. Images of Ashpaw's eyes, overflowing with fear upon his own death, clustered in his mind, and he anticipated nothing more than for his killer to gaze at him with the same expression.

Only when they entered another grand cave did his eyes find the female and her flier again. They gained altitude, and on the edge of his consciousness, Longclaw registered that he was heading for a steep canyon spanning some twenty yards. Yet instead of slowing, he picked up speed.

The killer would not escape.

And when the flier soared over the canyon, Longclaw did not hesitate. His talons scraped the edge as he leaped further than he had ever leaped, stretching to his full impressive size so as to dig his claws into the flier's leg. Got you; he triumphed. And then, just when he was about to have him, the flier twisted up, and the killer lashed at his face with her torch.

Longclaw screeched and lost balance. He twined and clawed the air, but he plummeted. His last glimpse was at her spiteful face, then he spun in the air so as to at least break his fall.

It is I now, Longclaw thought, who has fear of death in his eyes.

Then his body smashed into the ground, and ferocious pain surged through him. But he did not remain lying. Despite the pain, he was on his legs again moments later. At the bottom of the canyon, he staggered forward, and when he turned his head up, he could see his enemy circling above him.

"Look, he still has life!" yelled the human. Her laugh irritated his ears like nails on chalk. Her flier landed at the edge of the canyon, beating his wings tauntingly.

Longclaw heaved. "Do you mock me because they mock you?" he yelled with a hoarse voice. "For that face?"

"Silence!" his human yelled back, dismounting.

But Longclaw would not be silent. "What do they call you?" he taunted. "Is it Skullface?" He disregarded his aching body and leaped toward the canyon's wall. "The Skullface and the Loudmouth!" They both winced at the scrape of his talon on the stone.

"The great Longclaw caught in a mousetrap," laughed the human. "Is petty insults all you have left? Did they not call you Gorger's greatest general? Did you not call yourself his elected successor?" She kicked a few loose pebbles down, and Longclaw twitched when they rained down on his face. "It seems as though your lofty ambitions end here!"

Emitting a furious scream, Longclaw leaped as high as he could. But the canyon was more than sixty feet high, and he could barely jump halfway in his debilitated state. His claws scrabbled frantically at the sheer wall before he tumbled back down with a cry of agony.

"Look! Look! What pinnacle of grace!" The human laughed, turning to her flier. "Shall we finish him off?"

Longclaw stared up at them, fighting the rising despair. If he could not scale the wall, he could not get out. He could not . . . escape. Especially not battered as he was.

"And what if we do not?" Longclaw stared at the flier viciously when he spoke for the first time. He spread his wings and flew a lazy loop over the canyon, then landed beside his human again. "There is no escape. Not unless he grows wings." He nudged her. "Come, Arya, let us check back on him in a few weeks. If he is not dead by then, we can soil ourselves with his blood. It's hardly worth the effort now."

The human threw a last skeptical look down, then shrugged, mounting up. "You are right," she said. "This is a far better death for one who once sought to spread rumors that he was invincible. Is it not so?" she called. "Is it not so that you keep an exact count of how many you have slaughtered?"

Longclaw muttered a string of curses. He pawed at the stone but could do nothing in his weakened state. His body gave way, and he sank against the wall. He could do nothing but watch the flier with the odd white stain on his face and the human named Arya perform a last twist above his head before they disappeared back the way they had come.

For a moment, he saw Ashpaw's dead eyes and wondered if it was worth the effort to struggle when he had no one to return to, should he actually make it out. Silkspin was dead, and so were all their young. All of them now.

But Longclaw was not, not even as he found himself utterly alone in the dark abyss of the canyon. Consumed by seething rage, he emitted a petrifying scream and relentlessly hurled himself against the wall, repeatedly digging his claws into the unyielding stone.

It was not over; he told it to himself over and over. He paid no mind to the pain that surged through his paws with every thrust into the rock because he thought only one thing: he thought of his list. Two hundred and four, it counted. And to himself, he vowed that come what may, it would only be a matter of time before it added up to two hundred and six.