My first shot struck the ravager above its eye.
A gray chip flew from the armored ridge. Its head jerked, but not nearly enough.
That had been a useful shot against a thornback.
Against this thing, I had apparently expressed an opinion.
"Back," I said, bringing the sights down toward its mouth. "Together."
The ravager lunged before I could fire.
Tomas's barrier appeared between us with a hard white flash. The creature hit it shoulder-first, and the impact rang through the quarry like a hammer striking an enormous bell. Tomas stumbled. A web of bright fractures spread across his shield.
I fired through the space above it, increasing the output.
The shot caught the ravager beside its jaw. This time, it recoiled.
"Move!"
Clara caught Tomas's sleeve, and we retreated toward the retaining wall. He let the barrier fall as we passed behind the stonework.
Something struck the other side hard enough to knock dust from the mortar.
I crouched, counted heads, and checked the path downhill.
Blocked.
The ravager had emerged between us and the checkpoint. Beyond the wall, its tail scraped across the route, thick enough that climbing over it would have been a remarkably stupid last decision.
Above the trees, our emergency flare still burned red.
Help was coming.
We needed to make that matter.
"What do we need to know?" I asked.
Clara stared toward the corner of the wall. Her breathing had gone shallow.
"Clara."
She looked at me.
"The creature. Tell us."
"Burrowing predator." She swallowed. "Ambushes from loose stone. The plates overlap across its back. The underside isn't armored."
"How do you know?"
"My brother hunts. He has books."
Good enough for now.
A heavy scraping sound came from the far side of the wall.
Tomas braced his feet.
"Can't hold another full charge."
"Then don't."
I peered around the corner.
The ravager stood lower than I expected, belly nearly brushing the earth. Its forelimbs were enormous, each ending in curved digging claws. Blood darkened a crease beside its mouth, but its eyes were alert.
Very alert.
It saw me and advanced.
I fired into the damaged area. The creature snapped its head aside, and the second shot struck armor.
Its answering bellow hit my chest like pressure from a passing train.
"Up there," Clara said.
A narrow maintenance cut climbed beside the quarry face, leading to a shelf above us.
"How far?" I asked.
"Twenty paces. Maybe thirty."
Tomas looked at the opening between our wall and the slope.
Too much exposed ground.
I could see him making the same calculation.
"Small barrier," I said. "Angle it. Make it turn."
He nodded once.
The ravager rounded the corner.
Tomas's shield appeared slanted across its path. Instead of meeting the creature head-on, it caught the leading shoulder and forced the head sideways.
I shot beneath the lifted jaw.
The ravager recoiled with a wet, furious hiss.
"Go!"
Clara went first. Tomas followed. I backed after them, fired once more, then turned and ran.
Veronica had spent hours correcting how I moved under pressure.
For the first time, I understood precisely how grateful I ought to be.
The maintenance cut was steep and unpleasantly narrow. We climbed in a scramble of boots and loose stone, reaching a shelf that ran along the quarry wall above the path.
I had imagined that height might discourage pursuit.
The ravager disagreed.
It struck the bottom of the incline and drove its claws into the compacted earth, hauling itself upward.
"Oh, come on," I muttered.
Clara pressed against the wall while Tomas bent over, one hand on his knee.
We had gained seconds.
I needed to do something worthwhile with them.
The launcher formed against my shoulder.
Below us, the ravager filled most of the cut. An inviting target, if I ignored the quarry wall behind it, the cracked shelf beneath us, and the fact that we were standing directly above the likely blast.
Clara looked from the weapon to my face.
"What is that?"
"A bad idea."
I dismissed it.
There was a time for enthusiasm. Firing explosives into the foundations of my own escape route seemed unlikely to qualify.
The carbine returned to my hands.
"Anything else?" I asked her.
Clara watched the climbing creature, lips pressed tight. "The plates lift when it stretches."
I followed her gaze.
There. Beneath the shoulder, where the forelimb reached upward.
A narrow dark seam.
I waited until the claw extended, then fired.
The ravager screamed.
Not annoyance this time.
Pain.
Its forelimb slipped, tearing a shallow trench down the slope.
"Good," I breathed.
Then it caught itself with the other claw.
Less good.
Tomas shifted beside me, and a thin crack ran through the stone beneath his boot.
Clara grabbed his arm.
"Not there."
We all looked down.
The shelf's outer edge had separated from the wall along an old fracture. Pebbles disappeared through it.
Tomas stepped inward and crouched. A small barrier formed beneath the cracked section, bracing it from below.
I wanted to hug him.
Later.
Definitely later.
The ravager resumed climbing. I placed another shot into the injured shoulder, but the angle had changed. Armor took most of it.
Mana drained with each attempt.
Not disastrously yet, but steadily enough to make arithmetic unpleasant.
A high-powered miss cost just as much as a high-powered hit.
I needed the next one to count.
The carbine dissolved. In its place, I formed a longer rifle and settled against the wall, supporting my elbow.
The additional length made the cramped position awkward, but the sight gave me a clearer view of the seam.
Clara crouched beside me.
"Wait."
I kept the weapon trained.
"Left forelimb," she whispered. "It's favoring the other one."
The claw dug in.
Armor shifted.
"Now."
I fired.
The shot entered beneath the plate.
The ravager bucked so violently that its head struck the slope. One forelimb folded.
For a glorious second, I thought it would fall.
Then its tail lashed against the cut, bracing its body. It dragged itself upward with a horrible grinding determination.
A whistle sounded somewhere beyond the trees.
I had never heard anything more beautiful.
"Here!" I shouted. "Above the lower route!"
A voice answered, distant but clear.
"Hold position!"
Instructor Harlowe.
The relief was so sharp it nearly ruined my concentration.
Then the ravager lowered its head and drove both claws into the slope beneath us.
It wasn't trying to climb anymore.
Stone shuddered under my boots.
Clara saw it too.
"It's digging."
The shelf dipped.
Tomas made a strained sound as his barrier brightened beneath us.
"Can't hold all of it."
"Don't try." I pointed farther along the wall, where the shelf narrowed beside an old drainage groove. "Clara, can we cross?"
She looked.
A second passed.
Too long.
"Clara."
"I can see the surface," she said tightly. "I can't promise what's underneath."
"Surface will do."
She swallowed, then nodded. "Keep against the wall. One at a time."
She moved first, testing each foothold. Tomas watched her cross, sweat running down his temple.
I waited beside him.
The ravager dug again.
A chunk of stone broke from the outer shelf and fell across its back.
It barely noticed.
"Go," I told Tomas.
"If I move—"
"I know. Go."
He shifted the barrier as carefully as he could, keeping its support beneath the section holding my weight. I edged after him, rifle disappearing so I could put both hands against the rock.
For three steps, it worked.
Then the ravager struck from below.
The shelf broke.
My right foot vanished into empty space.
I slammed against the quarry wall, fingers scraping stone. Something seized the back of my coat and tightened across my throat.
Clara.
Tomas's hand closed around my wrist.
For one humiliating moment, I dangled between the wall and an animal that would need considerably less than a full meal to finish me.
Then they dragged me onto the narrow ledge.
Below us, broken rock thundered down the cut.
I lay on my stomach, breathing dust, and discovered I had absolutely no clever remark available.
"Team Six!"
Harlowe stood across the quarry on a lower shelf, spear in hand.
Another instructor emerged behind her carrying a staff.
"We have you," she called. "Stay against the wall."
The ravager twisted toward her voice.
Then looked back at us.
Of course it did.
It had invested effort.
The creature hooked its good foreclaw over the lip of our ledge.
Tomas threw a barrier across the gap.
Too broad. Too hurried.
The claw struck it, and white fractures spread outward.
I dragged myself onto one knee and summoned the carbine.
My hands were shaking now.
No use pretending otherwise.
I braced the weapon against my shoulder, let the sight settle, and fired into the damaged joint beneath its jaw.
The ravager jerked sideways.
A pale streak crossed the quarry and struck its flank.
The instructor with the staff.
Light wound around the creature's hindquarters, tightening against the plates. It thrashed, claws gouging the ledge.
Tomas cried out.
His barrier shattered.
The ravager's head surged into the space where it had been.
I fired into its open mouth.
The sound became a wet, choking roar.
Beside me, Clara hauled Tomas backward by his collar as the creature's jaws snapped shut less than an arm's length from his leg.
"Harlowe!" I shouted, because apparently names became a complete vocabulary under sufficient stress.
She was already moving.
The instructor came down the slope behind the ravager with her spear held low.
She didn't leap onto its back. She didn't announce an attack.
She planted her foot, turned her hips, and drove the weapon into the seam behind its neck.
The force shoved the creature against the quarry wall.
Its entire body convulsed.
For a second, I thought that was it.
Then the armor shifted around the shaft, trapping it.
Harlowe released the spear and stepped clear as the tail whipped past her. Stone shattered where she had been standing.
"Lewis!" she called. "Its head. Turn it toward you!"
Wonderful.
A job I understood and hated immediately.
I raised the carbine.
"Clara. The seam."
Her gaze locked on the ravager.
"Not yet."
The creature twisted, trying to reach the instructor behind it.
Harlowe caught the spear's shaft again.
"Now," Clara said.
I fired beneath the jaw.
The ravager snapped its head toward me.
Harlowe drove forward.
The second thrust buried the spear to its crosspiece.
At the same moment, the binding around the creature's hindquarters tightened. Its foreclaw tore free of the ledge, and its weight dropped backward.
Harlowe let it fall, keeping hold of the shaft until the last possible instant.
The ravager struck the lower path hard enough to throw dust across the quarry.
Its tail battered the earth once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
I kept the carbine trained on it.
"Lewis," Harlowe said.
I didn't look away.
"Dare. It's dead."
Only then did I notice that my finger had gone numb against the trigger guard.
Getting us down took longer than killing the creature.
That seemed unfair, but I was in no mood to argue with the people bringing ropes.
By the time we reached stable ground, other instructors had closed the surrounding routes. Students were being escorted toward the wagons. A healer sat us on a blanket and began examining Tomas's wrist.
I offered Minor Healing.
She looked at me, checked my hand, and asked how much mana I had left.
I told her.
"You've done enough casting."
An infuriating answer.
Probably correct.
Without the immediate need to move, my body began presenting complaints in order of severity. Scraped palms. Bruised ribs. A burning line across my throat where my coat had caught me.
My legs wouldn't quite stop trembling.
Beside me, Clara stared at the dust on her boots.
"I saw the grooves."
I turned toward her.
"I thought they might be cart tracks."
"We turned back."
"After you said to."
"And you came with us."
Her jaw tightened. "I should have known."
I looked toward the ravager. From here, with instructors standing around it, I could appreciate how enormous it really was.
"You helped us find the way up," I said. "You told me where to shoot. And you caught me."
"Tomas caught you."
"Fairly sure my coat disagrees."
Tomas looked down at his bandaged wrist.
"I mostly grabbed what was available."
"Well, next time aim for something attached to my dignity."
Clara laughed before she could stop herself. It came out unsteadily, and she covered her mouth.
Tomas began laughing too.
I joined them, because otherwise I suspected I might do something much less enjoyable.
Harlowe questioned us separately, then together.
She listened without interrupting. When Clara described the broken marker, she asked exactly where we had found it. When Tomas explained the barrier placement, she had him demonstrate with pebbles.
By the end, the exercise route lay reconstructed on the ground between us.
"You made several good decisions," she said. "You also crowded unstable terrain, and your first retreat left you without a second exit."
I nodded. Both observations felt accurate.
"That creature should not have been inside the surveyed route," she continued. "You are not responsible for that. Your assessment is suspended pending review. Tomorrow, we will discuss what happened in detail."
Tomas hesitated.
"Are we in trouble?"
"No."
She glanced at the three of us.
"Not for needing help."
Something in my chest loosened.
I hadn't realized I was waiting to hear that.
Milo was waiting when the carriage returned.
He noticed the torn coat first, then the dust, then the bandage around my hand.
His face went still.
"It looks worse than it is," I said.
A terrible sentence. People always said that when things looked bad.
He stepped closer.
"Have you seen a healer?"
"Yes."
"And she said you could come back?"
"Yes."
Only then did he take my satchel.
In my room, he set the damaged equipment aside and brought water without asking whether I wanted it. I sat while he checked the medical pouch, replacing the bandages I had used.
Neither of us said much at first.
I had spent twelve days imagining this return. I would tell him about the creatures, the shooting, the interesting things Clara could see.
I hadn't imagined him examining the tear in my coat with both hands.
"We signaled," I said eventually. "The instructors came."
He nodded.
"Tomas and Clara helped."
Another nod, smaller this time.
I drank the water.
There was no reason to hurry the rest.
The knock came shortly before supper.
Tomas stood in the doorway with Clara beside him. His wrist was wrapped; her braid had been redone, though a streak of quarry dust remained near her ear.
Milo found two more cups.
For a while, we discussed ordinary things. Whether we still owed the academy a written reflection. Whether Harlowe would make us draw the route again. Whether the second token had survived in Tomas's pocket.
It had.
He placed it on the desk between us, a little bent around one edge.
Clara examined it.
"I refuse to believe we're getting no credit for that."
"Put it in your reflection," I suggested.
"I intend to."
Tomas looked at me, then her.
"Same team next time?"
I glanced at the bandage on his wrist and the torn coat hanging over the chair.
The answer should have required more thought.
"Same team."
Clara turned the token over once before setting it down.
"Provided," she said, "we're permitted a less interesting route."
Outside, the supper bell began to ring.
We got up together.