Hait shook his head, shivers subsiding. “No way I can do something as complicated as a ladder. Besides, I can’t hold up anything bigger than Tawny. Heck, I can’t even do that.” A dark emotion crossed his gaze for a moment as he remembered what happened with his sister. Even after seeing his sister safe, he must still be torn up about it.

“Yeah, but your powers don’t need to.” I clacked my claws together, and little flakes of snow fell from them. “If you can make stairs, maybe I can freeze them in place.” It wasn’t a great plan, but it was something.

Hait brought his fingers to his chin, looking down the hole, now a solid foot from the edge, wary of another tremor.

“That’s a long way down. I can maybe—maybe— make something going halfway down. And even then I don’t know, won’t the ice break under people’s weight?”

“Only one way to find out.” I turned to Fennel, who was currently rounding up members of his squad to the edges, getting them away from the center. Lukkans, the tarsier eyed archer waved up at us.

But it was more than just Fennel’s squad. Like another 15+ people rounded the edge of the hole. Another squad. Crap. My ice stairs plan is thin already. But maybe they have somebody that can help.

“Fennel, can anyone down there use water or ice powers?!” I yelled down to him.

He shrugged “Not in our squad. Give me a sec.” He walked over to someone with cloven feet currently being bandaged up. The other squad’s leader I presumed.

While Fennel worked on that, Hait and I started our frozen stairs plan. I had him make solid blocks of water, as big as he could make them. He made a cube of water about two feet in each size.

I stuck my claws into it, then tried to focus my ice powers, which I’m not sure had any real effect. But finally, the water began to chill and thin layers of ice formed along each face of the cube. I willed my claws to get colder, trying to remember how it felt when I fused them to the ice sheet. But it wasn't working. The outer sides of the block froze, but the water inside only chilled. It may have eventually frozen completely, the only issue was Hait couldn’t hold the water in that shape for very long.

A roar filled the air, coming from the battle raging several hundred feet away. A monster, a large black salamander looking thing with bright orange splotches, nearly broke through the line. Orange globs fell from its jaw, sizzling on the grass and an unlucky soldier’s armor. But the brave men and women fighting pushed it back. Several bladed weapons worked in unison to sunder its head from its body.

Damn, that was cool. I looked over at the fighter whose armor was covered. The acidic saliva ate through a portion of his pauldron and down the side of his armor. He was being dragged away from the battle, unmoving. The sight lit a fire inside me; we needed to get these guys out of there now.

But a fire was the exact opposite thing I should be imagining. Glaciers, North Pole, Snow Cones, Ice cream. Then my thoughts just degenerated back a couple of decades. Blizzard, Icy Wind, Aurora Beam, Sheer Cold!

Yet before I could grasp the right chilling thought, Hait’s powers waned and he released his hold. The weight and pressure of the water inside shattered the thin ice layer.

“Crap, sorry Liam, let me try again,” Hait said through labored breath.

Rashith stood behind the panting water mage, casting the stamina regen ability, and decided to give his two cents on the matter. “This plan will never work. We’d be better off helping in the raid. You know, our designation. Not to mention there’s more glory in battle than saving the unfortunate.”

“Nope. Just gonna slide over that egregious comment. Thanks for the vote of confidence by the way.” I shook my head, then turned to Hait.

“It’s not on you. I can’t freeze it quickly enough. That shield from earlier was already frozen, so my powers didn’t need to do much heavy lifting. Give me a second, there’s got to be a better way.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I got up and paced around, but the sounds and roars of the battle nearby kept interrupting my thoughts. I watched. The line didn’t seem to move, thankfully. This wave of monsters almost seemed as tame as the last was. Small blessings.

“Liam!” Fennel shouted.

I walked to the edge.

“All we’ve got is a very tired Stone Mage. Says he can make something going up about 10 feet!”

“Do it!”

“He’s already on it!”

I turned back to Hait. “Okay, back to it! You heard him. We don’t need to make as many blocks so let's make them smaller. We only need to give them a few extra feet.”

Rashith pompously scoffed at the notion. I’m gonna slap him.

Burying that thought down, I answered him. “Better plan, Rashith?”

We all looked down the hole and saw that the stone mage made a simple block staircase. Each step was like three feet high, but any soldier could make that jump. Rashith then looked back at us. “Have you tried a ladder?” He said with a noncommittal shrug.

Ignoring the ever growing urge to hurt our only Support, I went to answer him as diplomatically as I could. But Hait beat me to it, his eyes lighting up with inspiration.

“Actually, maybe he has a point. If we only have to make a few feet then a ladder might just work.”

“But you said you couldn’t make one.”

“What if our master mage here made just one rung at a time? You use those barbaric claws to freeze it, then he makes another connection to it, and so on.” Rashith answered.

“That’s… a decent plan actually.”

After some quick testing, Hait was able to keep together a small hollow square of water. It looked like a square made out of pipes. I froze it over relatively quickly. We then made a few more rungs of the ladder, freezing each to the last until we completed it.

The ladder started melting as soon as my claws left it, meaning I was going to have to hold on to them the entire time. With my claws fused to the four foot ladder, I laid down on my stomach and brought the ladder over the edge. Looks like the earth mage overestimated his skills, there was still about a three foot gap between the ladder and his stone blocks. Either that or the hole grew deeper again.

One by one, the trapped soldiers hopped up the stone blocks and climbed up the frozen ladder. There were a few slips here and there, and ice made for a terrible climbing surface(who knew), but nothing injury worthy. My arms, on the other hand, were burning like crazy. Holding the ladder up was quite possibly the hardest task I’ve asked of Ursa form, even contending with the damned burpees. Especially when the larger specimens made their way up. Most had to jump to get up to the ladder, each new weight tearing a different ligament in my arms. Plenty ended up falling back to the stone blocks. Lukkans was the latest one.

He rubbed his back as he got up, then Zaner shoved him aside. I got super nervous when Zaner walked up to the ladder. Part of me felt that his weight would actually rip the muscles clean off my bones. I braced myself for the immense weight, but instead, the ladder got lighter.

Zaner held the bottom of the ladder while he knelt down, instructing the remaining people to use his knee as a step stool. The ladder was not only far lighter but there were no other falls or slips. Me and the recently single horned fighter shared a single look, then a nod.

Fennel and Zaner were the last ones out. Fennel helped me lift the ladder up while Zaner held on.

Fennel lifted his helmet, taking a look around at the squad, shaking his head.

“Thanks for getting us out of there. And for taking out the archers. We…I owe you one.” Then his gaze rested on the raid. “I know we already fought in one wave, but I’m pretty sure the squad has some fight left. WE CAN HELP OUT, RIGHT A5!” Fennel shouted out to his squad.

An affirmative call from the squad answered him.

“Aye! You’ll have D19 as well, we have to send back some of our wounded but the bulk can stay and fight.” The cloven footed captain walked up to the two of us.

Fennel nodded . “I’m sure Command won’t have any problems with it.”

DING!

A notification popped up again. Both Fennel and the D19 Captain’s eyes glazed over, a sign I wasn’t the only one who got a message.

I opened it up.

New Directive:

Separate from Squad A5 and D19 immediately. Return to your post. GET MORE KILLS!

-Len

Fennel and the other Captain shared a strange look.

“D19 return to base! Sorry, orders are orders.” He said with a shrug.

Fennel stared back at what I believed were his retreat orders. He balled his fist and grimaced. “A5 return to base! Double Time!”

Fennel mouthed sorry to me and left. Each member of the squad looked around at each other but made their way away from the frontline. Eventually leaving my small four-man squad alone at the hole.