The grass thinned out as they reached the edge of the woodland, and then it was gone, and the ground beneath their boots turned uneven and soft.
Tall trees rose up on every side. Their branches overlapped high above, and the sunlight came through in broken patches that lay scattered across the forest floor. Dead leaves crunched with every step. Roots twisted out of the earth between the trunks, and Owen had to watch where he put his feet. The air smelled of damp soil and green, growing things.
Now and then, a shout carried through the trees from somewhere off to one side. With the trunks all around them, it was impossible to tell how far away it was, or even which direction it had come from.
Elias was still walking beside him.
"So the subjugation," he said. "In Mowbray territory. Was that a big one?"
"Big enough," Owen said. "It was a military operation."
Elias whistled softly. "I’ve never been on anything like that. I’ve sparred plenty, and we had exercises, but they were all set up. Somebody always knew what was going to come out and when." He ducked under a low branch. "What’s it actually like? When it’s real?"
Owen thought about it for a moment.
"You don’t get to choose when it starts," he said. "And it doesn’t stop because you’re tired."
Elias nodded slowly, as though he were filing that away somewhere.
They walked on. A little while later, he started again.
"And de Clare? Is it true what people are saying? About the duel?"
Owen glanced at him. "Are you planning to ask me questions for the whole twelve hours?"
"I might be." Elias didn’t look the least bit sorry. "Walking through a forest in total silence would be very boring. Especially when there might be something waiting behind every tree to eat us."
"That sounds like a good reason to be quiet."
"Or a good reason to keep each other company."
Owen didn’t answer that. Elias seemed to take it as a win.
The trees opened out a little ahead of them into a broader space, where the canopy thinned and more light came through. Elias checked his bracelet as they crossed it.
"Three," he said. "I thought we were doing all right until I looked at the top of the board."
Owen looked up. Through a gap in the branches, he could see the edge of the projection hanging in the sky above the grassland.
The rankings had moved on.
First: Mira Calder, 24 points.
Second: Adrian Holt, 22 points.
Third: Lucien de Clare, 19 points.
Owen looked down at his own bracelet. Beneath his points, it had started showing his position as well. It hadn’t done that at the start.
Eighty-fourth. Five points.
Elias held his wrist up beside Owen’s. One hundred and nineteenth. Three points.
"Twenty-four already," Elias said. "How are they getting them that fast?"
Owen was looking at the name at the top of the list.
Mira Calder. She had been first the last time he looked, too. Either she had walked into much bigger groups of monsters than everyone else, or she was simply killing them faster. The board didn’t say. It didn’t show anything except names and numbers, so there was no telling what she fought with, or what rank she was.
"No idea," he said.
They left the clearing and went on.
* * *
The trees grew closer together after that. Low shrubs crowded in between the trunks and hid most of the ground, and the light grew dimmer.
"Has it been quiet for a while," Elias said after some time, "or is that just me?"
Owen didn’t answer straight away.
"Maybe the people who came in before us already cleared this part," Elias went on.
Owen had stopped looking at the trees. He was looking at the ground.
The leaves beside a thick root had been churned up and kicked aside. Just past it, where the earth was muddy, there were footprints. Short and irregular, with clawed toes, pressed deep into the mud. The edges were still sharp, and water was still seeping into the bottom of them.
Something had come through here recently.
Owen slowed his steps and looked ahead, to a cluster of trees where the shrubs grew thickest.
Elias saw the change in him and went quiet.
From somewhere in the undergrowth came a low, rough sound. A guttural, wet noise, like someone clearing their throat.
"Grrhh..."
A Goblin stepped out between two of the trees.
It was small and wiry, with coarse, greenish-grey skin stretched tight over its bones and long pointed ears that twitched as it looked at them. It held a crude club in one hand, a lump of wood with a jagged stone lashed to the end of it.
A second Goblin came out right behind it.
Then the bushes on their right rustled, and Owen saw more movement. And more again, farther back among the trees.
There were five of them.
Four of them were like the first, thin and twitchy, carrying clubs or chipped blades. The fifth was something else. It was noticeably bigger than the others, broader through the chest, and it carried a rusted short blade. It didn’t rush out with the rest. It moved off to one side instead, keeping a tree trunk between itself and Owen, watching.
Four Prowlers. One Stalker.
Owen summoned his sword and let Fire flow into it.
Fwoosh!
Flames ran down the blade with a soft crackle. The heat brushed against his knuckles.
Beside him, Elias’s shield and short sword appeared. He set his feet and turned the shield toward the Goblins, keeping it angled across his body.
"Gyaaak!"
The Goblins came almost all at once.
Two of them broke right, toward Elias. Another came straight at Owen from the front. The fourth slipped away toward the trees on Owen’s left, circling. The big one stayed back, still half hidden behind its trunk.
Owen moved first.
The Goblin in front of him swung its club at his head. He leaned away from it, let it pass, and cut across.
Shhk!
The burning blade went through it in one stroke. It dropped before it could even turn around.
His bracelet flashed. Three points.
The one that had been circling came at him from the left, its chipped blade raised. Owen turned to meet it. He knocked the blade aside with the flat of his sword, and before it could recover, he cut again.
Shhk!
It went down beside the first.
The smell of scorched flesh rose up between the trees.
To his right, Elias was busy.
One of his Goblins slammed its club into his shield.
Clang!
Elias took the blow, and the moment it landed, the shield pulsed.
Thoom!
The Goblin flew back as though it had been kicked, its arms flailing. Elias was already moving after it. He stepped in and drove the short sword into its chest.
"Hngh!"
The Goblin shuddered and went still. Elias’s bracelet flashed.
The second one was already on him. It came in low, swinging for his legs before he had his feet back under him. Elias twisted and dropped the shield to block it.
Clang!
He thrust back at it with the short sword, but the Goblin was already scrambling away. It ducked behind a tree before he could reach it.
Elias took half a step after it.
Then he stopped. Owen saw his eyes go past the tree, toward the big Goblin, which had finally started to move. Elias stayed where he was and kept his shield up.
The Stalker came for Owen.
It used the tree as cover until the last moment, then burst out from behind it, much faster than the others had been. Its blade came at Owen’s side.
Clang!
Owen caught it on his sword. The Goblin didn’t try to push through. It twisted away at once and came around from a different angle, trying to slip past his guard.
"Kkhhaa!"
It was quick, and it had clearly done this before. But Owen had seen the shift in its feet.
He adjusted his stance, struck the rusted blade aside, and cut across its body.
Shhk!
Flames tore across the Goblin’s chest. It screeched and stumbled back, clutching at the wound, barely keeping its feet.
Owen stepped in to finish it.
Whsst!
An arrow flashed through the gap between two trees off to his right.
It took the Goblin in the throat.
Thunk!
The Goblin crumpled to the ground.
Owen’s sword stopped a hand’s breadth above where it had been standing.
He looked down at his bracelet. The panel stayed exactly as it was.
No ten points.
Someone else had them.
Owen straightened and turned toward where the arrow had come from.
A young woman stepped out from between the trees.
She looked about eighteen. Her skin was olive-toned, and her chestnut-brown hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that swung as she walked. She was lean and athletic, dressed in fitted hunting clothes of dark green and brown, and her leather boots were marked with damp earth. A quiver of arrows hung across her back.
But it was the bow in her hand that caught Owen’s eye.
It was beautiful. Its body was polished silver-white metal, and its limbs swept back in elegant recurve curves. Delicate engravings ran along it, shaped like leaves, and between them, fine lines of emerald glowed faintly beneath the surface. The grip was wrapped in dark leather. Even the string seemed to catch the light, so that it shone a little.
It wasn’t just for show, either. Everything about it looked well used and well kept.
The young woman lowered the bow and looked at the dead Goblin with quiet satisfaction.
Owen walked over to her.
"That was mine," he said. "I’d already cut it open. I was about to finish it."
She looked at him without a trace of embarrassment. Her eyes were gray-green, and sharp.
"You were too slow," she said.
Owen felt his irritation rise.
"I was already fighting it," he said. "It was hurt because I hurt it."
"And the examination gives points to whoever kills it," she said. "Not to whoever gets the first cut in." She shrugged. "I saw an opening. So I took it."
Owen didn’t have an answer to that. She was right. The Commandant had said it plainly enough.
It didn’t make losing ten points any less annoying.
Behind him, Elias came over, glancing back once at the tree the second Goblin had disappeared behind. He looked from Owen to the young woman, then down at the dead Stalker with the arrow through its throat. Owen saw him put it together.
Elias grinned.
"Well," he said. "Looks like you’ve finally met someone who’s happy to compete with you."