14. The Killing Floor #2
The snoutbacks came out of the tunnel like nightmares given muscle and bone.
War beasts built like battering rams, each one massing more than a draft horse.
Muscle wrapped around bone, tusks curved for gutting.
Their eyes held the dull intelligence of creatures bred for violence.
Six of them, spread across the killing ground with the measured pace of animals who knew their prey couldn’t run.
“Scatter pattern!” I shouted, but it was too late for some.
The first snoutback hit the twins’ position. The two of them had been fighting in perfect synchronization since the trial began. Their coordination was their strength. It became their weakness.
The snoutback charged the gap between them, forcing them to dodge in opposite directions.
For the first time all day, they separated by more than a sword’s length.
The brother screamed for his sister. He tried to reach her, abandoning his defensive position to close the distance.
A grubsnout took his legs out from under him.
He fell, still reaching for her, and the pack descended on him before he could rise.
His sister fought toward him, screaming for him. She made it maybe ten feet before a snoutback caught her from behind. The impact sounded like breaking furniture, and she went down in a tangle of limbs that didn’t bend the right way anymore.
They died within seconds of each other, still reaching toward hands they’d never hold again.
◇ ◆ ◇
Ygritte used the chaos well. While everyone watched the snoutbacks, she moved. A wounded girl from Terra’s team had crawled behind a fallen pillar, clutching a gash across her stomach. Easy prey. Dying anyway.
Ygritte didn’t slow down. Her blade opened the girl’s throat as she passed, claiming the better cover and the girl’s spare knife in one motion. All human kills. All from behind.
From the tower, I caught movement at one of the windows.
Someone was watching Ygritte, tracking her movements through the chaos.
One of the men standing at the back of the observer group, behind Henrik and Morrigan.
Older, scarred, wearing armor that had seen real use.
His eyes followed Ygritte with something that looked like professional appreciation.
He’d seen something in her that interested him.
◇ ◆ ◇
A snoutback fixed on our position, hooves churning earth as it built speed. The ground shook with each stride.
“Scatter and reform!” I barked. “Don’t try to block it!”
My team moved with the coordination of years training together. Maise rolled clear with Bethany in tow. Perrin dove toward his flanking position. Grit was never where the charge was aimed anyway. I sidestepped at the last second.
The snoutback’s mass thundered past close enough to feel heat from its body.
Our barricade exploded under the impact.
But I wasn’t in front of it anymore. I was beside it.
My blade opened the beast’s shoulder to bone as it passed.
The cut wasn’t fatal, but it was deep, and the creature stumbled as damaged muscles failed to respond.
Before it could turn, Perrin’s knife found its throat. Before it could fall, Grit appeared from nowhere to drive his blade through its eye.
The snoutback dropped with ground-shaking finality.
「Knight of Swords responds. Heat spreads.」
More warmth flooded my system, stronger this time. The Brand pulsed between my shoulders, feeding on the violence.
◇ ◆ ◇
Across the killing ground, other snoutbacks found other targets. One hit Kasimir’s armory position. Marcus got caught between beast and barrier. The sound of his ribs breaking carried across the chaos.
Another snoutback targeted Terra’s storehouse. The beast’s momentum carried it into their position regardless. Bren got clipped by a tusk and went spinning into debris.
But Terra kept her team together. Commands flowed smooth and clear. The creature died thrashing in their kill zone.
Wain’s team fought smart, using mobility instead of fortification. They let their snoutback chase them in circles until the scarred-jaw girl found an opening to hamstring it.
Erik’s team held their position and watched others die. Henrik was watching. He saw Erik’s cowardice. His expression didn’t change, but I knew that look. I’d worn it myself when soldiers failed to meet what was expected of them.
Erik would answer for this. Maybe not today, but soon.
◇ ◆ ◇
The last snoutback charged the desperate cluster near the center. What was left of them, anyway. Maybe fifteen children merged into a single mass of terror and steel.
The snoutback hit them like a boulder rolling through wheat. Bodies flew. Children who survived the swarm got trampled under hooves that cracked skulls and shattered spines.
But they didn’t break. Not completely.
Bethany, still bleeding from her earlier wound, rallied the survivors. “Get up! GET UP! It’s turning around!”
“Form on me!” Maise shouted, running toward them. “Blades front, cover the flanks!”
The desperate survivors scrambled to obey. They formed a ragged line with Maise at its center.
The snoutback charged.
Maise didn’t flinch. She planted her feet, raised her blade, and waited.
At the last second, she dropped. The beast’s momentum carried it over her prone form, tusks slashing empty air.
As it passed, she drove her sword up into its belly, letting its own speed open a wound that spilled intestines across stone.
The creature screamed, stumbled, fell. The desperate survivors fell on it with the fury of people who’d watched friends die and decided they were finished being prey.
The first wave was over.
◇ ◆ ◇
Silence fell across the killing ground. I took stock of what remained.
Maybe fifty children still standing. Fifteen dead in the first wave, maybe more among the wounded. Kasimir’s team had lost Marcus, maybe permanently. Terra’s team took wounds but held together. The twins were dead. Erik’s team hadn’t lost anyone, but they hadn’t contributed either.
My team was intact. Wounded, tired, but alive.
“Everyone breathing?” I called out.
“Still here,” Maise responded, limping back toward our position with Bethany in tow. “Bethany saved my life. Gave me time to finish that last one.”
The girl whose name she’d earned through tears and cowardice looked up with eyes that had changed since this morning. “I’m not crying anymore.”
“No,” I agreed. “You’re not.”
Perrin emerged from somewhere, knives bloody. “That was worse than I expected.”
“That was nothing.” Grit’s voice drifted from the shadows. “The cage is still open. More coming.”
I looked toward the southern gate, where darkness swirled with shapes that walked upright on cloven hooves.
Ygritte had relocated again. She’d found a position near the collapsed granary, between two teams that would draw attention before anything reached her. Four kills now, all of them human, and she hadn’t taken a scratch.
The first wave was over.
The second wave was coming .
「Hel’s Ledger」
Vessel: Danarre de Blaise | Year 824 | Age 9
House de Blaise | Status: Bastard (Unacknowledged)
Location: Proving Grounds, Killing Ground
「Knight of Swords」 — Flickering
「Emperor」 — Sleeping
「Magician」 — Sleeping
Active Charge: Find the one who broke Hel’s claim.
Blood and squealing and sixty-five lambs sent to slaughter. The vessel sorted the living from the dead before the killing started. Old eyes in young flesh fool no one who knows where to look.