“The curse of the lowborn at the academy is that no matter how talented they are, there is always some highborn fellow whose power eclipses them. It’s not about skill. It’s about money, and, more specifically, legacies. They, and not talent, are what separate the wheat from the chaff when push comes to shove. It’s just the way our world works.”

- Professor Alaric Hawthorne

I ducked the second slash of my own knife toward my face. Around me, my friends defended themselves against the uphill battle we were stuck in. The raging rapids to our backs, we slowly reclaimed the water’s bank nearest us. It was a slow, wretched climb. Mist and mud made our footing slick and uncertain, while our foes had the benefit of the high ground and steadier stones underfoot. In short, we were so very, very dead. I leaned back and nearly lost my balance as I narrowly avoided the liquid shaft of Cassius’ spear.

My gauntleted hands curled into fists, and I lunged forward, ready to strike at my opponent’s heels. He jumped back right before my left fist crushed the boulder he stood upon. The impact sent a jarring pain through my arm, but I shrugged it off. I caught a glimpse of metal flying through the air as Gwyn hurled one of her tomahawks at a lean elf who swatted it away like a bug.

He grinned lackadaisically at my friend and then shoved his bearded axe down toward her thick neck. She caught it. His smile disappeared. With a tug, she forced him to overextend. Then, with naught but a single grunt of air escaping her lips, she twisted and threw the elf headfirst over her entire body and pendulum-swung him into a boulder. His head cracked, and the grip he had on his weapon disappeared as his life and crushed form were swept away by the water.

“NO!” Cassius cried, and he threw his spear at Gwyn in rage. She easily avoided the desperate blow. I rushed in and finally reached equal footing with our enemies.

“End this, Cassius! Before anyone else has to die!” I yelled. His bloodshot eye locked onto mine, and I knew my plea landed on deaf ears.

“I—I can’t. They’ll hang my sisters if I come back empty-handed.” All the bravado fled his form, and he looked down at the brass knuckles that gave him his watery lances. “I promised them I could do this. They gave me this to make sure I did. But if I go back—”

My heart broke for the man. Suddenly, his anger and strife with me felt like his desire to stir up his own hatred enough to go through with this. To hunt and kill a fellow Orion.

“You don’t have to. Stay with us. Together, we can beat them!” I argued, my breath making the words rushed and airy. Still, the fervor with which I meant them was clear to both of us. He laughed. It was a dark, bitter sound.

“You really don’t know how this world works? Gav didn’t.” He spat on the ground. “I didn’t,” he whispered. His shoulders tensed, and his one good eye met mine. “I need you to die now.”

He raced forward, his feet eating up the ground right before he leaped at me, conjured spear at the ready. Inwardly, I groaned.

“Rule number one, my dear pugilist,” Elio had drilled into me. “Never leap at your opponent in close quarters. Once in the air, you can’t change your trajectory. If they can see the attack coming, any warrior worth their enchantments can counter with ease. Only use it when their back is turned and you want to ensure they can’t see the next blow coming.”

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Cassius’ spear shot for my neck, but I easily swerved around the blow, my fist already in place for a strike right as his feet touched the ground. My left fist tore through his chainmail like warm butter. I activated the charge it possessed, and Cassius flew back. Crystalline patterns cracked into existence across his form. He writhed and spat curses at me while my magic slowly encased him. No, not encased. Transformed. Tears stung my eyes as he thrashed and wept. Gingerly, I picked up the hunting knife he dropped and walked over to him. My friends waited, their opponents already reduced to corpses around us. I knelt and cupped my enemy’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Cassius,” I whispered right before my knife ended his misery. My hands shook as I looked down at the blank face of one of the first people I met in the Orion Division. Now he and his brother were dead, and it was all my fault. My strength, my cleverness—it all meant nothing. He was dead.

Dead.

I just killed my first human.

“Bravo,” Gavin said from somewhere within the shadows of the forest nearby. “I’m glad to see you clean up your messes, rat.”

His presence was like a slap to the face, interrupting my grief and turning this whole situation into a nightmare.

“Ready to face justice, little fang?” He inquired, and with a sneer, four other forms emerged from the darkness. One of them held the limp form of a Shardclaw over their shoulder. “You disfigured me, and so I thought it only fitting that I do the same to you,” Gavin said as a way of explanation when he saw what drew my attention. The sun glistened off his pristine armor as he strode fully onto the creek’s edge where we all caught our breath. “Kill them all, but keep her alive. I want to play with my dinner first.”

“Yes, Lord Palelake!” His allies declared. The one who carried the Shardclaw dropped her burden and drew her recurve bow. The tip glowed purple as tiny sparks of lightning began to trace the strange scale that was honed into an arrowhead.

We’re so dead.

The other three circled us, attempting to pincer us. Flashbacks to the Shardclaw pack raced through my mind at the sight of a whole new type of predator in front of me. I didn’t wait for them to get into an optimal position. Instead, I performed two actions nearly simultaneously. First, I screamed.

“RUN!” My voice ended whatever game the four warriors under Gavin were playing. The arrow shot forward. The other three raced toward me and my friends, weapons aglow with radiant power. But all of them fell short as I completed my second action. I fell to one knee and shoved my right hand into the moist soil beneath a massive slab of rock they all stood on. With a single application of pressure, I activated the kinetic energy stored in my gauntlet. My gut clenched as the blast went off. I was shoved onto my rear, but that was nothing compared to the sheer wall of stone that whipped toward our opponents. The edges of the stone were briefly highlighted in purple as the arrow collided with it. One of the men screamed.

“GO!” I yelled to my dumbstruck friends. Together we raced across the creek. I managed to glance behind and saw the stone form an impromptu shelter as it leaned heavily against a giant tree. My satisfaction was robbed from me as a familiar sword pierced the thick rock and slid down its length like it was paper. Bisected, the stone fell away to reveal an enraged Mr. Gavin Palelake.

“YOU WHORE!” The highborn worm spat at me with every morsel of hatred he could muster. As it turns out, he could muster quite a lot. The archer shot at us again, and I used one of the vaporous blasts from my gauntlet to barely knock the projectile off course. It dove into the water, and purple lightning sizzled throughout the vicinity of the creek. We reached the other side of the body of water right as Gavin recovered enough to follow us.

But right before he began his way across, one of his men pulled him back. Gavin slapped him, but the other pointed and said something. Gavin kicked the downed man, but eventually nodded. He glared back at us, but then turned away and retreated back into the forest. I let out a heavy sigh, but knew why he didn’t pursue us. We had just entered the second fold. And if we wanted to survive this Hunt, we would need to remain here until we each got our kill.

One problem.

Epics wandered here.