They sprinted, and the world caught fire. A flare arrow screamed overhead, detonating a cloud of crimson smoke, followed by the thwack-thwack-thwack of crossbow bolts sewn into the planks at their feet. Lethren ducked, moving in a perfect compact line, Seren close behind. Soren barely felt the bolt that shaved his shoulder, just the numb spreading through the fabric as blood leaked in.

At the end of the bridge, Lady Lethren dove for cover behind a cleft stone. Seren dropped next to her, blade out, already scanning the higher ground for shooters.

Soren paused, pivoted back, and with one clean motion drew the emergency blade from his boot and hacked clean through the main rope at his side. The bridge bucked, lurched, and the next wave of attackers, three, maybe four, masked in gray, crashed through the planks and tumbled into the void. The screams faded fast.

On the far side, Soren rolled behind stone. Winded, bleeding, but alive.

A cacophony of shouts erupted from the rear line. Kale's voice cut through the noise: "We're pinned. Two shooters at the ridge!" Soren peered through the smoke, saw the twins circling left, looping high, Lira gesturing for a long arc to outflank the shooters. He lost sight of Jannek, but the absence of screaming meant nothing had gotten terminal yet.

Seren crawled up to him, eyes wild, lips bloodless. She pointed at his shoulder. "You're leaking."

Soren flexed, wincing at the bite. "Not enough to matter."

Lethren watched the whole scene with an unsettling calm. "They won't risk a cross. They want us to circle up, become easy targets."

Soren knew she was right. He watched the twins inch closer to the shooter nest, then signaled Seren to follow him up the slope. "Kale, circle east, drop to the creek wash. We'll regroup at the north ridge."

"Copy," Kale spat, the word wet and furious.

Soren and Seren moved low through the underbrush, thorns slashing their arms, the air thick with powder from the spent flare. The attack zone above was already empty, standard protocol, hit and move before the counterstrike. Lethren kept up, never out of step, making less sound than an idea.

At the ridge, they found the bodies: two shooters, both down, one still twitching and trying to reload. Lira stood above them, cheek gashed open but grinning all the same. Liane was nowhere to be seen.

Soren did a quick triage, no other threats, no movement. He scanned the horizon, then motioned the team north. Lethren fixed the wound on Soren's shoulder with a strip of her own linen, hands working fast and precise. She didn't look at him as she tied it off, but her words came soft enough for only him to hear: "You adapt well for someone who doesn't believe in the mission."

He bit off a response, then settled for, "Adaptation's just failure rehearsed enough times to look deliberate."

Seren, overhearing, gave a single, brittle laugh.

They moved. The next two hours were a blur, the terrain shifting from frost-crusted pine to a blasted wasteland where the trees were charred black and the ground soft with a layer of ash. The world here had a sound to it, but it was all in the sub-audible: the swallow of boots in soot, the ragged exhale of wind through burned limbs, the muffled cough of a dying fire under the surface.

Soren set the pace, Lethren and Seren behind, Lira checking the rear every thirty meters. The plan was simple, get to the next checkpoint, regroup, and decide if the contract was still worth finishing. He doubted it was, but the alternative was sitting still and waiting for the dogs, or the mercs, or the cold.

They stopped at dusk, a shallow bowl of stone providing the only cover in the wasteland. Kale and Jannek were waiting, both pale and shuddering, but upright. Kale had torn strips from his own shirt to wrap Jannek's thigh, the wound now purple and angry but stitched tight with some kind of resin.

Soren didn't ask how. He just nodded, then checked the perimeter and built a small, smokeless fire.

They didn't talk for a long time. The distance between each of them was a buffer zone measured in hunger, fatigue, and the slow assault on their collective morale.

Finally, Seren broke the silence. "She's using us. You saw it. Let her walk and let the Academy sort the rest."

Lethren didn't even flinch. "If I die, your Academy calls it desertion. You think they'll believe your report over mine?"

Soren stared into the embers, feeling the phantom heat that never quite reached his skin. He thought about the map, the black square, the promise of being remembered if they made it out.

He said, "We finish what we started. Then we decide who gets to write the report."

Lethren raised her flask in a silent toast; Seren looked away, jaw tight. Soren watched the reflection of the fire in the Lady's eyes and saw nothing there but the next step, and maybe the step after that.

The test, he realized, was not survival. It was what you became when survival stopped being enough.

He pressed his palm to the hilt of his sword, felt the pulse of the hidden shard under his skin, and waited for dawn to see if they'd earned even a single more day. The fire had gone out hours before, but the memory of its light lingered in the bowl of Soren's eyes, a phantom glow in the ash and the night beyond. He lay flat, one hand under the jawline of his sword, waiting for the moment when the cold would force him to action. It was always a question of minutes: how long the body could endure stillness, how little sleep could pass for rest.

The wind had shifted. Soren felt, not heard, the change, a subtle vector that brought with it the stink of foreign soap, a faint metallic tang, and the raw, still-alive sweat of someone who'd been running. He woke completely, set his breathing to the shallow cadence of someone still dreaming. Waited.

A scuff at the lip of the stone bowl. Too deliberate for an animal, too soft for a soldier. Soren flexed his hand, then, at the next step, rolled up and out, blade clearing the scabbard and catching the moonlight in a quick, flat shimmer.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.