Juna caught the leaning branch as Hajin cleared the split rock, keeping his sword wide of their narrowing shared path. The ground beneath them broke into covered holes, crushed pit traps that could no longer hold up the branches above.
"Two hundred paces," she snapped, ears flicking forward as her Wings lit the broken edge, "blood, Master, and something grinding through stone."
"Keep the wounded man on our side of it," he hissed, shoving off the firmer bank without trusting the loose gravel under her hand.
The overturned lantern showed Hans's blood before the ravine revealed the thing trying to finish him.
He braced a ten-foot spear against his hip with his right arm, while his left sleeve hung uselessly beside it. Blood soaked his injured leg as a six-Shard burrower crowded the last ground between its clacking mandibles and the cliff.
Hajin searched the lip for a way down without kicking gravel onto the old man's head.
