"I didn’t think monster studies would mean this much writing," Elias said.
The four of them were crossing the grounds toward the training area named on their schedules. The afternoon sun was warm on their backs, and Elias had been looking gloomily at the assignment sheet ever since they left Professor de Montfort’s classroom.
"You enrolled in a military academy," Marianne said. "Not a hunting club."
"A hunting club sounds wonderful."
"We can talk about the report later," Eveline said. "We’ve still got classes. And whatever this is."
They came around the corner of a long barracks, and Owen saw what this was.
The training ground looked like a small battlefield. Wooden barricades split the open earth into sections. Shallow trenches ran between stretches of rough, uneven ground, and here and there, low defensive positions had been built up out of timber and packed soil. Beyond the exercise area, raised platforms stood high enough for anyone on them to see across the whole field. Bundles of equipment had been laid out near the entrance, and several Academy soldiers stood among them, testing the weight of padded practice weapons.
Dust lifted around the boots of the cadets as they came in. From a training ground somewhere nearby came the sharp crack of wood hitting wood.
Owen looked it over.
He knew what some of it was for. The barricades for cover, the trenches for moving low, the raised positions for whoever wanted to see you coming. He had seen ground laid out like this before, in another life. But he had no idea what the Academy actually intended them to do on it.
Elias was looking at the soldiers. "Are we supposed to fight them?"
"I hope so," Marianne said. "I’d like to use my spear for something other than poking at a target."
An instructor strode toward them across the dust.
"Form up!"
They formed up. It went more smoothly than it had two days ago, though not by much.
"Today," the instructor said, "you’re going to learn how to work as a small unit. Under something close to battlefield conditions." He looked along the lines. "You’ll be in squads of five. Each squad will have one task. Somewhere out there is an injured soldier. You find him. You get him out. You carry him to the extraction point. And you do it while dealing with the people who are trying to stop you."
He jerked his head toward the soldiers by the equipment.
"They’re experienced. They’re going to use approved training gear. You don’t win this by beating them. You win this by getting your casualty out and getting every one of you back together."
He pointed to the side.
A large training dummy lay slumped beside a stack of equipment. It was shaped roughly like a man, made of thick canvas, and from the way it sagged, it was weighted.
Several cadets looked at each other as they realised they would be carrying that across the field.
"The soldiers will be using padded weapons and soft training projectiles," the instructor went on. "Anything that hits you in a marked target area counts as a hit. If you take a hit there, you’re a casualty yourself. You may use your armaments only where you’re told you can. No dangerous attacks. No uncontrolled abilities. Anyone who forgets that is out of the exercise." He paused. "Each squad will have an observer. They’ll be watching everything you do, and writing it down."
He took out a roster and began reading names.
Owen heard several he knew. Eveline was placed in one squad, and Marianne in another, on the far side of the line.
"Squad four. Ferrers. Ward. Harrow. Pell."
The fifth name belonged to the boy from Professor de Montfort’s classroom, the one who had steadied the loose frame.
"You," the instructor said, pointing at him. "You’re leading squad four."
The boy blinked, clearly not expecting it. Then he nodded.
"Yes, sir."
Elias glanced at Owen. Owen could see what he was thinking. He just picked up his feet and went to join the rest of the squad.
* * *
Each squad was sent to a preparation area, where a rough layout of their section of the field had been drawn out on a board. Squad four gathered around theirs.
Three marks had been drawn on it. Their starting point. The rough position of the casualty. And the extraction point.
Their leader studied the board for a while before he spoke.
"What do you all think?" he said. "Safest way in?"
"Straight through the middle," Harrow said immediately. He was a broad, square-shouldered boy, and he pointed at the line on the board. "It’s the shortest way."
Elias frowned at it. "There’s almost nothing to hide behind in the middle. If I were one of them, that’s the first place I’d be watching."
Owen leaned in and traced a longer line with his finger. It ran down the left side of the section, beside a row of barricades and along a shallow trench.
"This way," he said. "It’s longer, but there’s cover nearly the whole way." He tapped one place along it, where the trench and the barricades pinched in close together. "Though this part’s narrow. Getting through there with the casualty could be difficult."
The leader didn’t answer right away. He looked from one line to the other.
"Ward," he said. "If we have to cross open ground, can you cover us with your shield?"
"I can," Elias said. "As long as I’m allowed to use it."
"Then we go in on the long route," the leader said. "Under cover. Once we’ve got the casualty, we look again, and decide on the way out." He looked at Harrow and Pell. "You two are carrying. Ward, you cover us." Then he looked at Owen. "Ferrers, you’re on watch. Keep an eye out for them, and help wherever we need it."
Nobody argued.
* * *
Their observer was a lean woman with a notebook, who walked them to their starting point and went through the rules once more.
"Understood?"
"Yes, ma’am."
She raised her hand, then lowered it.
They set off toward the first barricade.
For the first stretch, it went well enough. They moved slowly and carefully, but they stayed together. Owen kept his eyes on the gaps between the barricades ahead. Elias walked just in front of Harrow and Pell, and their leader set the pace, every so often holding up a hand to stop them while he looked around.
They were coming up on an open stretch when Owen caught movement.
Behind a low earthwork, some distance ahead, a soldier had taken up position. Owen could see the top of his helmet, and the end of a padded weapon.
He didn’t go after him. He leaned toward the leader instead.
"There," he said quietly. "Behind that earthwork."
The leader looked.
"Can we get past without all of us being out in the open at once?"
"I’ll go first," Elias said. "With the shield. You all stay behind the barricade and follow me across."
The leader thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
Elias’s shield formed on his left arm. He didn’t bring out his sword. There was no reason to.
He stepped out into the open.
The soldier rose from behind the earthwork and threw.
Thwack!
The soft projectile struck Elias’s shield and dropped harmlessly into the dust. He didn’t need Rebound. The shield alone was enough.
He stayed where he was, the shield up toward the soldier, while the others moved across the gap behind him.
Owen went last, keeping just far enough back that he could see where the soldier was without leaving the rest of them on their own.
All five of them reached the next barricade.
* * *
They kept going toward the mark where the casualty was meant to be. And then they came to the narrow part.
It was worse than it had looked on the board. The barricade on one side and the trench on the other squeezed the ground into a passage barely wide enough for two people walking side by side.
"Keep going," the leader said. "Same order."
"We can get through it now," Owen said. "But coming back, with two of you carrying that dummy between you, it’s going to be very hard."
The leader stopped and looked at the passage properly.
"You’re right," he said. He thought about it. "We get the casualty first. Then we see if there’s another way back."
They found the dummy lying beside a low wooden platform.
Pell crouched beside it to check how it was lying, while Harrow pulled out the lifting straps that had been left beside it.
It was heavier than either of them had expected. And it was a great deal more awkward. When they tried to lift it the first time, all the weight slid down to one end, and it sagged between them so badly they had to put it back down.
"I can help," Elias said.
"No," the leader said. "We still need you covering us."
Owen stepped in.
"Here," he said to Harrow. "Move the strap down. To there, under the shoulders, not the chest. And you," to Pell, "hold it lower. Closer to the hips." He pulled the straps tight himself and checked them. "Now the weight’s more even. Try again."
They lifted it.
This time, it came up level between them, and stayed there.
"Good," the leader said. "Let’s go."