The numbers on the countdown began to move.
The field broke apart almost at once.
Not everyone went the same way. A cluster of candidates near the front pulled together and started talking quickly, clearly people who had known each other before today. Others didn’t wait for anyone. A tall girl took off at a run toward the rocky slopes, and a whole line of people went straight for the forest. As they moved, armaments began to appear in their hands, a spear here, a pair of axes there, the light glinting off them.
All around Owen, people were calling to each other across the grass. Footsteps thudded past him. The tall grass hissed as bodies pushed through it.
Owen stayed where he was for a moment.
The forest would be crowded now. So would the slopes, by the look of it. He wasn’t worried about what he would find out there. He had fought monsters during the subjugation in Mowbray territory, and he had no reason to think the creatures the Academy had prepared would be any worse than those.
He just wanted to pick his ground first.
As he looked down to adjust his sleeve, he took his first proper look at the bracelet on his left wrist.
It was metal, smooth and close-fitting, with no clasp that he could see. Set into the top of it was a small panel that glowed softly. Written across it was his name, Owen Ferrers, and beneath that, Total Points: 0.
He turned his wrist over and back again. It didn’t show anything else. Nothing about his rank, nothing about his armament. Just his name and a number.
"Ferrers," someone said behind him.
Owen didn’t turn around.
"That’s him? The one who fought de Clare?"
"That’s what I heard. In front of the Princess."
"I heard he took de Clare’s arm off."
"I heard he set him on fire and then turned into smoke."
"Don’t be ridiculous."
The voices drifted away as their owners moved off toward the trees. Owen let them go. He had heard enough to know what they were talking about, and he didn’t see the point in stopping to explain any of it.
He was about to choose a direction when someone walked up to him.
"Excuse me," the young man said. "You’re Owen Ferrers, aren’t you?"
He looked about Owen’s age. He was dressed in plain travelling clothes, a brown coat that had been mended at the elbow and sturdy boots, and he had an open, friendly face.
"I am."
"Elias Ward." He held out his hand, and Owen shook it. "I’ll get straight to it, since the clock’s running. Would you want to team up for this?"
"No," Owen said.
Elias blinked. "That was quick."
"We’re scored individually," Owen said. "I don’t need a partner."
He didn’t say the rest out loud. He didn’t know this boy, and he didn’t know what he could do. There was nothing to gain from bringing a stranger along.
Elias looked disappointed for a moment, but he didn’t look offended. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Fair enough," he said.
"Why me?" Owen asked.
"Honestly?" Elias gave a small shrug. "I haven’t done much real hunting. I’ve trained with my armament for years, and I can fight. But fighting people and hitting practice dummies isn’t the same as having something with teeth come at you." He nodded at Owen. "You’re a Ferrers. I figured someone from a Great Family would have had a lot of training, and probably a lot of experience. And then I heard what people were saying about you and de Clare." He spread his hands. "So I thought, if I was going to stick close to anyone, it might as well be someone who knows what he’s doing."
It made sense. Owen could see the reasoning.
It didn’t change his answer.
He nodded to Elias, turned, and started walking toward the open grassland.
After a few steps, he realised there were footsteps behind him.
He kept walking. The footsteps kept following.
Owen stopped and looked back. "Why are you still here?"
"We’re allowed to go wherever we like," Elias said reasonably. "And I happen to like this direction."
"Following me doesn’t make us a team."
"No, of course not," Elias agreed at once. He looked perfectly happy about it.
Owen looked at him a moment longer. Then he turned and kept walking.
The footsteps followed.
* * *
The farther they went from the starting area, the taller the grass grew. Before long, it came up past Owen’s waist in places, and the voices of the other candidates faded behind them until he could barely hear them at all.
Insects buzzed and clicked in the grass. Now and then, one of the lone trees creaked as the wind moved through its branches.
Elias, it turned out, didn’t much like silence.
"Have you done real hunts before?" he asked. "Not training. Real ones."
"Some," Owen said. "In Mowbray territory."
"What was that like?"
"Busy."
Elias waited, but when nothing else came, he nodded as though that was a perfectly good answer. "I’m hoping my training holds up, then. I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose."
They walked on a little farther.
"What’s your armament?" Owen asked.
Elias looked pleased to be asked. "A shield and a short sword. They’re both part of the same armament. They come out together." He lifted his left arm slightly, as though he could feel the shield there already. "And the shield has a property. I got it from a monster core. I call it Rebound."
"What does it do?"
"If I put energy into the shield when something hits it, it pushes back. Just for a moment, but hard enough to knock whatever hit it off balance." He made a short shoving motion with his arm. "It only works if I actually activate it, and it costs me energy every time. It won’t throw back anything, no matter how strong. And if something gets around the shield, it doesn’t help me at all."
Owen thought about that. It was a simple property, but a useful one, especially for someone who fought behind a shield.
He opened his mouth to ask something else.
Then he stopped walking.
Ahead of them, the grass had moved.
Not one patch. Several, almost at the same moment, rippling against the direction of the wind.
A low scratching sound came from somewhere in front of them.
Scritch. Scritch.
Owen slowed down. Behind him, Elias saw the change and went quiet.
Something pushed out of the grass.
It was a rat. A rat the size of a large dog, with coarse grey-brown fur matted with dirt and a long, naked tail dragging behind it through the grass. When it bared its teeth, its yellow incisors were as long as Owen’s fingers.
A second one shouldered out of the grass to its left.
Then a third behind it. Then two more.
Five Giant Rats. Prowler rank, all of them.
They didn’t charge in a line. They spread out as they came, slipping apart through the grass so that they were coming at Owen and Elias from different sides. Two on Owen’s right. One straight ahead. Two angling toward Elias on the left.
Elias raised his arms.
A round metal shield formed on his left forearm, its face dull and solid, and a short sword appeared in his right hand, made of the same grey metal.
Owen summoned his sword and let Fire run down the blade.
Whoosh!
Flames spread along the steel. The heat stirred the grass at his feet and made it lean away from him, but he kept the fire tight to the blade so it wouldn’t catch.
Skreeee!
The rat directly ahead of him lunged.
Owen stepped to the side and cut down as it went past. The burning sword went through it in one stroke.
Shhk!
It hit the ground and didn’t move.
The second one was already coming at him from the other side. Owen turned and struck again, and it dropped beside the first.
The smell of scorched fur filled the air.
His wrist flashed. He caught it out of the corner of his eye, the little panel glowing brighter for a moment. Prowler defeated. Plus one. Two points.
He didn’t look at it any longer than that. There were still three left.
To his left, Elias had his own trouble.
One of the rats leaped at him. Elias got the shield in front of it, and the moment the rat hit, the shield pulsed.
Thoom!
The rat bounced off the shield as though it had run into a wall, and went tumbling back into the grass. Elias stepped after it before it could get up and drove his short sword down into it.
Sktch!
His bracelet flashed.
The second rat came at his right side, the side without the shield. Elias twisted around just in time and caught it on the shield’s edge, shoved it away, and stabbed it.
"Hngh!"
It squealed once and went still.
He wasn’t as smooth as Owen. His footwork was a little stiff, and he took a moment longer to recover after each strike. But he wasn’t panicking, and it was obvious that someone had trained him properly.
The last rat had been circling around behind Owen while he watched.
He heard it in the grass.
He turned as it came for him, cut once to stop it, and cut again to finish it.
Shhk!
And that was the end of it.
The grass stopped moving. Owen let out a breath and looked around. Five rats lay in the flattened grass around them. Three were his. Two were Elias’s.
Elias was staring at him.
He looked from the dead rats to the flames still burning along Owen’s sword, then back at the rats again.
"They went down in one hit," he said. "Every one of them. One, maybe two." He shook his head. "Do you always fight monsters like that? That easily?"
Owen shrugged. "They were Prowlers. If you know where to cut, they don’t take much."
"Right," Elias said slowly. "If you know where to cut."
He looked down at his own short sword, then over at Owen’s again.
Then he nodded to himself, very firmly, as though something had been settled.
Owen checked his bracelet properly. Total Points: 3.
Elias checked his. Owen saw the number before he lowered his arm. Two.