When does a hunter become a monster?
It is when the hunt is no longer about the kill.
It is when the hunt becomes about the suffering.
Tonight, Adrian would learn the difference.
He descended from the clifftop, not with ropes, but with the raw, animal grace of a creature born to the rock.
His fingers found holds that were not there. His boots found purchase on sheer stone.
He was a part of the mountain. The part that had just fallen.
The dust below was still settling, a thick, choking cloud that tasted of stone and blood.
Screams echoed in the enclosed space, sharp and desperate. The screams of dying men.
It was music to the void inside him.
The chaos was his hunting ground.
The disciplined soldiers of the Adamantine Order were now just terrified insects, scrambling in a broken trap. Their formations were shattered. Their command was gone.
All that remained was fear.
And Adrian.
He landed in the shadows of a massive, overturned wagon.
A soldier, his face pale with shock, stumbled past, his sword held loosely in a trembling hand. He was looking for his commander, for orders, for anything but the death that surrounded him.
He did not find it.
Adrian was a blur of motion from the shadows. One hand clamped over the soldier's mouth, stifling his surprised cry. The other hand drew a dagger across his throat.
A wet, gurgling sound. The warmth of blood splashing against his glove.
The body slumped to the ground. Adrian let it fall without a second glance.
One.
He moved again, a wraith in the dust and gloom.
He saw two soldiers trying to free a trapped comrade from under a heavy wagon wheel. An act of loyalty. An act of foolishness.
Loyalty was a weakness the Order had burned out of him.
He threw a small, sharp rock against the far canyon wall. It clattered loudly.
The two soldiers spun around, raising their swords toward the sound. "Who's there!?"
It was the only opening he needed.
He was on them in a heartbeat. His first dagger plunged into the back of one soldier's neck. The second dagger found the gap in the armor under the other's arm.
Both fell without another sound. The trapped man under the wheel could only watch, his eyes wide with horror, before a third, merciful thrust silenced his terror forever.
Four.
Panic was a contagion, and Adrian was the plague.
The remaining soldiers were no longer fighting an enemy. They were fighting ghosts. They saw shadows move and loosed arrows into the darkness. They heard a rock fall and screamed of ambush.
Their discipline, the bedrock of the Order, had crumbled into dust.
"Form up! Form up, you cowards!" a lieutenant shouted, trying to rally the few men left near him.
Adrian watched from the darkness. He let the officer gather his small, terrified flock.
He let them feel a moment of hope.
Then he extinguished it.
He did not attack the men. He attacked the ground beneath them.
A section of the road, destabilized by the landslide, gave way under his targeted stomps from above. The lieutenant and his three men cried out as the earth vanished from under them, plunging them into a newly formed crevice filled with sharp, broken rocks.
Their screams were short.
Eight.
Adrian worked his way steadily toward the center of the carnage.
Toward the ruined command carriage.
He left a trail of bodies in his wake, each death a quiet, brutal testament to his purpose.
As he drew closer, the noise of panic began to fade.
An unnatural calm had settled around the carriage. The dust had thinned, revealing the scene.
General Tiberius was waiting.
He was not panicked. He was not afraid.
He stood beside the carcass of his warhorse, his greatsword held in a two-handed grip. The blade was dark with the blood of men he had killed in his long, brutal life.
His polished armor was dented and scraped. A long gash bled freely on his forehead, but he seemed not to notice.
He was a veteran. A survivor. He had faced death a hundred times.
He looked into the shadows where Adrian stood, his eyes sharp and intelligent.
"I knew you would come, ghost," Tiberius growled, his voice a low rumble. "They said a boy was hunting us. I did not believe them. I see now they were wrong."
He spat a glob of blood onto the ground.
"You are no boy. You are a rabid dog, just like your father."
The words were meant to sting. They did.
Adrian stepped out of the shadows, his two daggers held low.
"My father is dead," Adrian said, his voice flat and cold, devoid of all emotion. "You made sure of that."
"Aye," Tiberius nodded, a grim satisfaction in his eyes. "I did. And it was a good death. He died on his knees, just as you will."
Tiberius charged.
He was not a man. He was an avalanche of iron and fury.
His greatsword whistled through the air, aimed to cleave Adrian in two.
Adrian did not meet the blow. He was not a stone to be shattered.
He was a wolf. A blur of leather and steel.
He sidestepped, the massive blade missing him by an inch, striking sparks against the rock behind him.
Adrian lunged, his dagger flashing, aiming for the gap at Tiberius's neck.
The General was faster than his size suggested. He batted the dagger away with his armored gauntlet, the clang of steel ringing through the pass.
He followed with a brutal backhand that sent Adrian stumbling.
"You have speed, whelp," Tiberius grunted, advancing. "But you have no power. No discipline. You fight with hate. Hate makes you predictable."
He swung again. A wide, horizontal arc meant to gut him.
Adrian dropped, sliding under the blade, the wind of its passage rustling his hair. He came up and drove his other dagger into the back of Tiberius's thigh.
The blade bit deep.
Tiberius roared, a sound of pure, animal rage. He spun, his sword a blur. Adrian was too slow to dodge completely.
The flat of the blade caught him in the ribs.
Pain exploded in his side. He heard a crack. He was thrown backward, landing hard on the unforgiving ground, the air knocked from his lungs.
Tiberius loomed over him, his face a mask of victory. "Predictable."
He raised his sword for the final blow.
Adrian, gasping for breath, his side screaming in agony, did the only thing he could.
He kicked a shower of dirt and gravel into the General's face.
Tiberius roared in surprise, momentarily blinded.
It was all Adrian needed.
He surged to his feet, ignoring the fire in his ribs, and charged. He did not aim for the armor. He aimed for the man.
He crashed into the General's chest, driving him backward. It was no longer a duel. It was a brawl.
They fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, mud, and blood. Tiberius was stronger, his heavy fists like hammers. He landed a blow to Adrian's jaw, and the world swam in a haze of white.
But Adrian was more desperate. More vicious.
He headbutted the General, snapping his head back. He bit. He clawed. He fought like the cornered animal Tiberius had named him.
In the struggle, his hand found the hilt of his dagger, still buried in the General's thigh.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, he ripped it upward.
The blade tore through muscle and sinew, a gruesome, wet sound.
Tiberius screamed, a high, thin sound of pure agony. His strength vanished.
Adrian was on top of him in an instant, his other dagger finding the soft spot beneath the General's chin. He drove it upward with all his might.
There was a sickening crunch.
And then, silence.
Adrian pushed himself up, his body screaming in protest. He stood over the corpse of the Iron Bull, his chest heaving.
He had won.
Tiberius's eyes stared up at the darkening sky, devoid of their former fire. But his lips were curled in a faint, bloody smirk.
As if he had won.
Adrian looked down at the dead man, confused. Then he heard it.
A whisper. The General's last, gurgling breath, forcing out a final judgment.
"You... are just like him..." the whisper rasped. "Just like your father... cursed..."
The words hit Adrian harder than the General's sword.
He stumbled back, away from the body.
He looked at the carnage around him. The dead soldiers. The broken wagons. The blood mixing with the mud.
He had done this. He was the Butcher of Blackwood Pass.
He looked at his bloody hands.
The victory was ash in his mouth.
The General was dead. The name was crossed off the list.
But the ghost of his father, and the weight of his curse, now felt heavier than ever.