The sun vanished behind the mountains, plunging the Field of Thorns into bruised twilight. That's when the tension started – a silent tightening in the air, a held breath among the scattered survivors. Heads snapped up. Bodies froze. Every eye was dragged towards the upper ridge like iron to a magnet.
A figure stepped from the deepening shadows. Not hiding. He walked into the dying light like he owned the dusk itself.
Beta Cael.
His presence slammed into the field. Blood and dust grimed his dark coat, but he stood unnervingly controlled, detached, like the gore was just inconvenient dirt. He stopped dead center, on the patch of grass trampled flat by desperation. The hush that fell wasn't silence; it was the coiled stillness of prey sensing the predator's final step.
His voice sliced the air, cold and clear, needing no shout. "Too early to celebrate."
Any flicker of relief, any whispered hope that surviving the storm was the trial, choked off instantly.
His gaze swept the field, unreadable, measuring. "The current count stands at one hundred ninety-six."
A single, shared heartbeat filled with dawning horror. More than half. Still too many.
Then the final blow, delivered with chilling indifference: "Stay as long as you wish. Camp. Wait. Pray. It won't matter." He turned without ceremony, tossing the last words over his shoulder like a scrap. "There is only one way out. Reduce the numbers."
He vanished back into the gloom as suddenly as he'd appeared.
The air shattered.
That fragile calm wasn't calm anymore. It was a question mark hanging over every breath, every pair of wide eyes. Suspicion curdled into certainty. Fear sharpened into something predatory.
Then the fighting began.
Not a single clash, but a grim symphony erupting across the darkening field. Distant cries, cut short. The heavy thud of bodies hitting earth. The metallic shriek of steel on steel. The awful silence after a killing blow. It rolled in like thunder – scattered, relentless. Groups testing others' edges. Solitary figures hunted. Hunger, raw and primal, rising with the night.
True darkness fell fast and heavy, swallowing the last bloody streaks in the west. Cold, watchful stars blinked on.
We were ready. Or as ready as we could be, huddled near the threshold boulders. Marco was a shadowed sentinel on his perch above.
When the first group came – six figures moving with wary aggression up the slope – my daggers were already cold in my hands. Zale had melted into the deeper shadow beside the largest boulder. Roan stood solid beside me, axe ready, his breathing slow and steady.
They stopped halfway up. Their leader, a broad-shouldered woman with a scar like a second mouth across her chin, scanned our defensive stance, the rocks we held. Her eyes narrowed, weighing the risk. A moment later an arrow hit the ground before their leader and her eyes tracked the source, finding Marco. She spat onto the damp grass. "Not worth it," she rasped. They melted back into the gloom as fast as they'd come.
The reprieve lasted maybe an hour, a tense freaking hour of watching over my shoulders and tracking every movement, most of them from the breeze when a flicker of movement caught my eye – a glint of silver in the starlight. Too fast.
Thwack.
Roan grunted, a low, punched-out sound. He staggered back, his axe clattering from suddenly limp fingers. A small, wicked-looking dart was lodged just below his collarbone.
"Shit! Roan!" I lunged, catching his weight before he crashed down. He was dead weight, muscles locked. His face was already alarmingly pale.
"Got you!" Marco's voice, tight with fear but sharp, rang out. An arrow hissed past my ear. From the scrub below, a choked scream cut off and A body thudded just before us. Marco let out a shaky breath. "Got you," he muttered, more to himself than us.
Roan was still conscious, barely. His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the chill. He tried to shove me off, to stand, but his legs buckled.
"Easy," I snapped, lowering him carefully against the cold stone of the boulder. "Don't be stupid." My fingers were already at his collar, yanking it open. The dart was deep, the skin around it darkening, swelling fast. Poison? Or just a bad hit? No time. "Marco! Cover!" I barked, not looking up.
"On it!"
My pack hit the dirt before I'd fully registered Roan's stumble. Fingers tore past rations and spare bindings, finding the small, wax-sealed tin. I cracked it open – the pungent green reek of the healing salve clawing through the iron stink of blood and fear. Distant clashes flared across the field, ignored. Focus. With a grimace, I wrenched the dart free. Roan sucked air through his teeth, a harsh gasp, but stayed silent. Thick, cool paste smeared deep into the wound, packing it. Not magic, but it would fight rot, blunt the agony, maybe slow poison if it was there. Cleanish linen strips bound it tight – movements honed patching scrapes, never something like this.
As I knotted the bandage, I felt the weight of eyes. Zale had ghosted from the shadows. Not looking at Roan, or the killing field. Staring at the little tin still clutched in my hand.
"That salve," he said, voice low, cutting under the night sounds. "On the climb... it worked real fast. Cleaner than anything I know." He tilted his head a little, letting genuine curiosity pierce through the dread. "What's in it?"
"Later." The lid snapped shut. The tin vanished back into the pack. I met his intense green stare, just for a heartbeat. "If we live." Botany lessons could wait for dawns we might not see.
He nodded simply, gaze snapping back to the dark slope. "I'll stay here with you. They'll come soon."
He wasn't wrong. Only a few minutes had passed before the next wave arrived, and it wasn't testing like the previous one. It was scavengers, drawn to weakness like carrion birds. Three figures first, moving with a feral, hungry lurch. Then two more peeling off from deeper gloom. Desperate teeth, sharp and dangerous.
We didn't kill them. Not outright.
Marco shot twice, his arrows protruding from two of their bodies at different places, I'm sure it was his aim that messed up a little but it was good enough to make them retreat. Better they think we're out for blood anyway.
Zale moved like shadow sharpened to a blade, his strikes fast, shallow—drawing blood but never cleaving deep. A cut across the thigh to slow, not sever the muscle. A gash along the ribs that burned with every breath but wouldn't stop a heart. He didn't hesitate, didn't overreach.
I followed his rhythm. My daggers bit, but only as much as they had to. The soft meat behind a shoulder. The curve of a calf. Pain bloomed in red ribbons, each mark a warning. They could die—if they stayed. If they pushed. If they bled too long.
Only when steel came too close to Roan did my blade flick higher—across the forearm, the side of a neck, shallow but scalding. Enough to make them think twice. Enough to make them run.
Spin. Step. Cut. My hands moved on instinct, honed by fear, steadied by purpose. We held our ground, and they fled.
Bleeding, limping, looking over their shoulders.
Four figures coalesced from the deeper shadows, their arrival silent and unnervingly precise. They moved with a cold, lethal grace, their dark armor fitted seamlessly to their bodies like a predatory second skin. The moment they stepped into the uncertain half-light, the difference was stark—these weren't desperate scavengers; they were professional hunters.
The tallest, his sand-colored hair tightly braided, moved with chilling efficiency. He barely broke stride as he bent towards one of the groaning figures I'd crippled earlier and drew his blade cleanly across the man's throat. Dark blood swiftly pooled in the dust. A second wounded fighter tried to crawl away through the trampled grass; the braided man's blade found him just as easily. The third managed a choked scream, cut abruptly short. Killing the ones we've left crippled.
I rose slowly to my feet, my daggers still slick in my hands, the metallic scent thick in the air. Zale had already shifted, placing himself protectively half a step in front of Roan's slumped form. The odds were terrible—four against our battered remnants. Outnumbered, likely outmatched.
The braided man's cold gaze swept over the grim tableau—Roan bleeding heavily against the rock, the bodies of those I'd spared now silenced by his hand. His lip curled in undisguised contempt. "Sloppy," he pronounced, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. "You let them crawl. You left them breathing. That misplaced kindness?" He paused, letting the accusation hang. "It's a death sentence for you and yours." He turned fractionally towards his three companions. "Clean it up."
The other hunters moved like shadows snapping into focus. The wounded I'd disabled were helpless before them, because these were clearly on an entirely different level.. I lunged forward, intercepting the nearest hunter before his blade could find another victim. My dagger drove hard into his ribs, grating against bone. He hissed in pain, twisting violently and driving his elbow upwards into my jaw. The impact cracked through my skull like a whip, sending stars across my vision. I staggered back, disoriented, but Zale was already a blur of motion beside me, his sword clashing against the blade of a second hunter aiming for me.
We fought desperately, a whirlwind of steel and fury. For a few heartbeats, it felt like we might hold them. I managed to sweep the legs out from under the hunter I'd stabbed, sending him crashing heavily to the ground, clearly incapacitated. But the relentless pressure was overwhelming. One of the remaining hunters feinted high at Zale and then slashed low, opening a deep gash across his thigh. Before Zale could fully react, a second blade darted in, sinking into the meat of his shoulder. He cried out, teeth bared in agony, and dropped heavily to one knee, barely managing to keep his guard up. I lost sight of him as the two uninjured hunters converged on me, their blades a relentless storm.
I managed to drop one attacker with a vicious knee driven up into his throat, the satisfying crunch echoing dully. But the last hunter, the one who hadn't been engaged initially, seized my wrist as I recovered, slamming it brutally against the unforgiving rock face. My dagger clattered away into the darkness. I kicked, twisted, punched wildly—anything to break free—until a powerful arm locked around my chest from behind, pinning my arms and hauling me backwards, completely immobilizing me.
The cold kiss of steel pressed firmly against my throat.
The braided man's voice was smooth, unnervingly calm, his breath hot against my ear. "Impressive spirit. But ultimately foolish." I froze, every muscle locked. Zale was struggling to rise, blood soaking his leg and shoulder. Roan had moved too, despite the pain he must've been in, his eyes wide with horror as he looked at me and then the braided man holding me.
The braided man's gaze lifted, sharpening on the rocks above us. "Drop it," he commanded, his voice carrying easily. "Unless you want to watch her throat open right now."
My blood ran cold.
Above, Marco stood exposed, his bow drawn taut, an arrow notched and trembling violently. He released one shot. It hissed through the air and thudded harmlessly into the dirt yards away.
The braided man didn't even blink. "If you draw another arrow," he stated with chilling calm, "she dies where she stands. Slowly."
Marco froze, the bowstring shaking visibly in his white-knuckled grip.
The blade pressed harder, a thin line of fire blooming on my skin. "You fight well," the braided man murmured, almost conversationally. "Fast. Precise. But fatally soft. You left the trash alive." His voice dropped lower, almost intimate. "That sentiment? That's the crack in your armor. Your true weakness."
He jerked his chin dismissively towards Roan. "Fix it. Kill him. Do that, and I let you walk away. Free. Stronger, for having shed the dead weight." He paused, letting the offer sink in, then added with a hint of cruel amusement, "I'll even let your little archer up there keep his head. Consider it a bonus for embracing efficiency."
I didn't move, my mind racing.
I looked at Roan. He was deathly pale, sweat beading on his forehead, barely clinging to consciousness. But he was watching. He heard every word. And in his eyes, I saw the bleak acceptance that this might be the end.
I forced my expression into a mask of cold resignation. "Fine."