Garrick did not slow down.

  Two hours out from the Landing toward the mountains, Garrick maintained a fast, ground-eating pace. His boots struck the narrow trail in an unchanging rhythm. His breath was steady, as if they had just stepped off the road instead of leaving the walls behind before sunrise.

  Hale ran a step behind him and refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing it cost him.

  “Tell me,” Hale said between breaths that he kept even by force, “that this ends in something other than you proving you can outrun me.”

  Garrick didn’t look back. “All that walking you’ve been doing…we call that slacking. And you wanted better scouts. This is how you do it.”

  They crested a rise and dropped into a cut where trees had been cleared in a brutal lane.

  Hale caught the first glimpse: buildings and an obstacle course looming into view.

  Logs buried at angles for breaking stride, their acrid scent of fresh-cut wood mixing with the forest air. Ditches cut just wide enough to force a jump under pressure, the earth crunching underfoot. Rope climbs slicked with morning dew, glistening in the early light. Balance beams that dipped if the weight hit them wrong, creaking ominously. Logs secured with rope to swing into the path of any runner, shaking leaves loose that fluttered softly to the ground.

  There were tall platforms on both sides. Legionaries stood on them with captured goblin bows, quivers at their feet filled with blunted arrows.

  A scout sprinted into the first obstacle.

  The bowstrings snapped.

  Blunt shafts hit shoulder, thigh, ribs with loud, meaty thuds. From where he stood, Hale could hear each impact resonate, a quick echo of the thud vibrating inside his chest, making him feel the strike rather than just observe it.

  The runner flinched, stumbled, and an instructor hidden ahead raised a red flag.

  “Dead,” Garrick shouted.

  The scout swore, catching Hale’s eye as he bent over, then jogged to the platform to swap for the bow.

  Garrick leaned into Hale conspiratorially. "Watch this—this is gonna be funny." Hale's eyes followed as Theo stepped up to run the course. Theo wore a plain tunic and appeared to be psyching himself up. Hale noticed the bruises already forming on him, evidence that he had been thwacked a few times. It seemed that Theo had been through this ordeal before, and Hale couldn't help getting eager to watch as well.

  Theo rolled his shoulders once, then took off.

  Theo’s burst of speed surprised even Hale, who watched archers scramble to aim as two shafts missed behind him.

  “He’s been holding back; all that weight he normally carries has made him strong,” Hale muttered.

  Theo cleared the first obstacle in a long, effortless stride, barely touching the angled log before pushing off.

  “Too fast,” Garrick said, sounding delighted.

  The rope swing came up.

  Theo jumped for the rope, fingers catching wet fiber. The line twisted under his weight as he fought to hold on.

  As Theo fought to hold onto the rope, his body suddenly seemed to become more fluid, every muscle aligning perfectly, his breath syncing effortlessly with his movements.

  “Perk,” Hale said.

  Theo rode the arc cleanly, released at the peak—

  —and a blunt arrow hit him square in the chest.

  Even Hale winced as Theo folded mid-air and hit the ground hard, dust flying up around him.

  A whoop came from the far platform.

  “YES!” Mira shouted, pumping her bow overhead. “Right in the heart!”

  Theo lay there for a second, staring up at the sky, air gone.

  Then he raised one hand without looking.

  “Dead,” he croaked.

  Laughter broke across the course — the sharp, relieved kind that came when someone else got hit instead of you.

  Garrick leaned closer to Hale. “He’s made it farther than anyone this week. Every morning we do PT, then end it with this course.”

  Theo rolled up, still clutching his chest, dragging himself to his feet. The bruise rose under his tunic.

  “How are you doing that?” he called up toward Mira as he staggered toward the return lane.

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  “I aim for where I know you’re going to be. It’s easy on that rope swing,” she shouted back.

  “Next time, aim for the leg!”

  “Next time, don’t be so predictable!”

  He switched out, took a bow, and climbed up beside Mira, still breathing hard.

  “Watch his eyes now,” Garrick murmured.

  Hale tracked Theo’s gaze, noting the sudden intensity there.

  The easy humor was gone. Hale could see him concentrate— counting, timing, measuring angles, learning where the arrows had come from and when.

  “He’ll have it by the end of the month,” Hale said.

  Hale folded his arms, scanning the lane and platforms, his focus turning inward as he watched the scouts.

  “They’re starting to enjoy it,” he said.

  “You’ll have better scouts if they enjoy the work. This is a good group. I have 40 of our legionaries here, not including the two adventure teams. In the future, I’m going to suggest we always have at least one adventurer team here so our scouts can learn what to expect from adventurers.” Garrick answered.

  “I’ll talk to Mark about it,” Hale said. “Shouldn’t be an issue.”

  They moved from the shade toward the lane. Another scout took a shaft to the ribs and stumbled out to a chorus of laughs.

  “What’s next on the schedule?” Hale asked.

  Garrick’s expression shifted — the humor gone, the instructor back.

  “Survival classes until evening,” he said. “Some from Earth, based on what I know, some are from what Harold told us about his time out here.”

  Hale nodded.

  “What about this weekend?”

  Garrick glanced at him.

  “I’ve split the forest into grid squares. Each scout will get one and a flag.”

  They stopped at the edge of the course as Theo loosed another arrow and Mira swore at the miss.

  “They have to hide their own flag in their grid square.” Garrick went on, “and over the next two days, they have to find and take someone else’s.”

  Hale’s mouth tilted. “Steal the other man’s position without losing your own, hard to do when you can’t guard your own.”

  “That’s the idea. Harold gave me a lot of information about the perks available, but he didn't know how to get them. That’s what we are out here doing. Risk and reward go hand in hand. Besides, I never said they couldn't trap their flag.”

  Garrick didn’t look away from the scouts as he continued.

  “They’re not doing it alone,” he said. “Two other adventurer teams are already out there.”

  Hale’s brows rose.

  “They’re the monsters,” Garrick added. “They’ll hunt the scouts, and it's good training for them. They’re putting some surprises out there, traps and whatnot. Then I’ve got some surprises for them all this weekend.”

  Unlike the adventurers, our scouts can't use a perk to stealth, so they need to understand how to actually hide to gain a passive stealth perk," Garrick said. "We can reinforce our bodies, but we can't force mana into perks like the other roles can. Their invisibility lasts as long as they have mana; ours must last all the time. Our scouts will need to know how to use their environment."

  “And the perks?” Hale asked.

  “They'll get them or they won't,” Garrick replied. “They could get tracking, concealment, perception, and endurance. These perks are crucial for their survival and success. Without them, they won't be effective. This class is trying to give them the perks our scouts will need while teaching them to keep a level head and a good decision-making process.”

  Another runner hit the dirt hard behind them. “They have to eat what they carry,” Garrick went on. “Water’s in the streams. No fires unless they want to be found.”

  Hale’s attention flicked toward the shadowy tree line, caught on movement there.

  “How many will fail?”

  “Probably most of them,” Garrick said, chuckling. “This is the first week, though, they'll get better.” A breeze swept through the trees, rustling leaves menacingly. High above, a raven circled against the pale sky, casting a shadow on the ground, forewarning the path the scouts tread.

  “How’s Sarah doing?”

  Garrick didn’t answer immediately.

  They walked along the course's edge, boots cutting churned grass, bows and calls behind them.

  Garrick’s expression softened as he watched Theo and Jace, then Mira. “She’s a smart kid,” he said. Even Hale could see that this part suited Mira best.

  Another pause. “Sarah chafes at it, though.”

  That made Hale look over.

  Garrick’s mouth had tightened, the easy humor from earlier gone.

  “It’s not the work,” he went on. “She learns it faster than the rest and reads the ground right. She moves clean. But she burns through the drills like she’s trying to get them over with instead of trying to master them.”

  Ahead, Hale heard Theo call a correction and saw Mira loose too early, making him swear.

  Garrick lowered his voice a fraction.

  “It’s off,” he said. “I was going to bring it to Lord Harold next time I saw him. How sure are we she’s not being leaned on by one of her perks? He warned us that it could happen.”

  Hale slowed, thoughtful.

  The course noise carried on without them — the smack of blunted arrows, Garrick’s instructors calling kills, someone laughing when a runner tripped in the ditch.

  “It’s just not her,” Garrick finished. “Not that attitude.”

  Hale watched the scouts for a long moment before answering.

  “She say anything?” he asked.

  “No,” Garrick said. “That’s part of it. She’s been short but polite. Does everything right, she just doesn't want to be here.”

  Hale grunted again. “I’ll bring up your concerns.”

  Then looked over at Garrick, “Would you like a couple more monsters out there this weekend?”

  They stood in silence as another runner mistimed the ditch and caught a blunt shaft across the back. The instructor’s red flag snapped up.

  “Dead.”

  Garrick looked over at him, already suspicious.

  Hale took a step forward, then stopped, hands settling on his hips in a way that had nothing to do with the training field.

  “I was… considering,” he said, voice losing some of its usual certainty, “asking Margaret if she wanted to come out and hunt some of your students with me.”

  Garrick’s mouth spread into a slow, delighted grin.

  “Hunt your scouts,” Hale added quickly, as if that made it strictly professional. “Give them something that thinks the way they do.”

  “Of course,” Garrick said gravely. “For training.”

  “She’s better at it than most of the adventurers,” Hale went on, now committed and trying to sound like this had been his idea for purely tactical reasons from the beginning. “And the scouts need to learn how information people move.”

  “Mhm.”

  “And it would let her see what we’re building out here.”

  “Naturally.”

  Hale finally looked at him. “Stop that.”

  Garrick’s chuckle broke loose anyway, low and warm, the kind that carried pride and amusement in equal measure.

  “You’re going to ask Margaret to come hunting with you,” he said.

  “For training.”

  “For training,” Garrick echoed, still grinning. “Should I clear the grid for the two of you, or do you want a full class to witness it?”

  “Garrick.”

  “Captain.”

  They held it for a second before Garrick clapped him once on the shoulder, hard enough to be felt through armor.

  “She’ll say yes,” he said. “And the scouts will remember it for the rest of their lives.”

  Another bowstring snapped. A runner dove early, rolled clean, and came up moving.

  “Take advantage of our life here, we mostly have our youth back. Don’t let anything come between the two of you again.”

  Hale didn’t bother answering.