Chapter 50: Signal
The creature’s smell still lingered in the air when Ash finally noticed it.
Five signatures were approached through the brush. Four registers returned clean data, marked by dense, steady pulses. The fifth signal clipped, sparking briefly before dropping into static.
Ash tried a second pass. The fifth feed remained a broken line.
"I know you two are just recovering," Ash said. "But we have five people coming our way."
"People are more welcome than whatever that creature was," Alina said, standing up.
Alexis did not stand. She pulled her woolen cloak tight against her chin. "Are we certain of their mortality?"
"They have heartbeats," Ash said.
Alexis shivered, her teeth clicking once. "These visitors arrive with poor timing. What is the strategy?"
"Stay behind us," Alina said.
The brush parted. Four figures stepped into the clearing, moving with practiced spacing to clear each other’s lines of sight. Davos followed from the center of the line.
Ash refreshed the pulse-read. The four outer signatures held their shape. He focused entirely on Davos’s Shade and found that it no longer matched the anxiety-over-performance reading he had held since registration.
Davos stopped where the grass met the bare rock of the campsite. He looked at the ground between them, then at Alexis’s shaking shoulders.
"You guys seem to have had a rough night so far," Davos said. "Seems like the locals left an impression."
"What do you want?" Ash said.
"Relax, relax," he said, raising two arms to his shoulder height. "How is your read coming?"
Ash tried to get a sense of his Shade. But before the attempt could even start, it was already gone. Davos didn’t respond.
Davos chuckled. "I’ll take that as an answer." He dropped his left hand in a sharp arc.
The left flank moved.
The first attacker lunged, driving a straight left toward Alina’s throat. Alina stepped inside the line, catching the wrist with her palm and turning her hips to throw the momentum wide. The second attacker stepped in instantly, firing a low kick at her exposed knee. Alina dropped her weight, blocking the shin with her boot heel, but the impact forced her back a step. The first attacker recovered, swinging a heavy elbow aimed at her jaw. Alina caught the forearm, her boots sliding through the dirt.
The first threw a jab to force her guard up; the second instantly dug a hook into her ribs. Alina caught the ribs with her elbow, but the bone cracked against the strike. The impact radiated through her chest like a white-hot spike, stealing the air from her lungs. She didn’t gasp. Instead, she tightened her core, grinding her boots into the loose scree to anchor her weight. She waited for the millisecond the attacker’s balance shifted from the front foot to the back, her knuckles white with the effort of holding the line.
"They know our angles," Alina spat, resetting her guard.
"They bought the information the academy has on us," Ash said, tracking the right flank’s launch.
The two on the right charged Alexis.
"Alexis, lock them down," Ash said.
Alexis hit the ground with both palms. The ground ahead of them warped, tilting to the left. The lead attacker did not trip; he shifted his weight mid-stride, dropping his shoulder to absorb the tilt without losing forward drive.
Alexis grit her teeth, her fingers digging into the mud until the skin split. Holding the field required a draining, constant calibration of the surrounding pressure. When the attackers skirted the edges, the strain flared as a sharp pulse behind her eyes. She pushed through it, layering the spatial tilt like a heavy door swinging shut, forcing the ground to ripple at a dissonant frequency that turned the earth liquid and treacherous beneath their boots.
"They mapped the variance," Alexis hissed.
The remaining three stood fast.
Davos watched from the treeline, hands tucked into his belt, eyes shifting between the two fierce skirmishes like a spectator checking betting lines.
Ash turned his focus back to the left. The two assailants pressed Alina with short, choppy sequences, never extending far enough for a full counter-throw. She did not yell, but her left hand hesitated on the reset.
The two students beside Davos broke into a sprint. They did not target Ash. They aimed straight into the heart of the fighting, intent on causing further disruption.
Alina lunged into the gap. She took the lead runner’s collar, absorbing a hard forearm to her collarbone, and swung the weight past her into a boulder. The runner hit the stone and skidded into the dark brush.
Ash stepped in front of the second guard. He focused on the patch of soil beneath the student’s advancing shoes, pulling the localized mass downward. The guard’s knee popped under the unexpected load, his posture folding forward. Ash drove his palm upward into the chin, teeth snapping together as he hit the dirt. The student rolled over, clutching his jaw, yelling in pain, and stayed down.
The first runner scrambled out of the brush. Alina met her at the tree line, palm raised, her heels dug deep into the mud. The runner froze, chest heaving, then stepped back.
To the right, Alexis retreated two paces. The spatial distortion she maintained across the clearing grew thin without walls to anchor the tension. The two attackers moved along the outer perimeter of the field, threading the exact line where the pressure dropped.
Ash extended his own field, driving a localized gravity pulse beneath Alexis’s warping floor. The sudden counterweight disrupted their attack. The lead student’s next step landed on ground that felt twice as heavy; his ankle rolled, and his momentum slammed him chest-first into the grass.
Alexis drove her arm forward. The air snapped like a broken whip. The falling attacker flew sideways, his shoulder hitting the soil with a wet thud. The remaining student stopped by a pine tree, looking at his partner, then at the shifting air between them. He did not advance.
"They are adjusting," Ash said.
"Good," Alina said, wiping away blood that had gotten on her mouth. "Let them."
Without a second thought, she bit directly into her palm, causing it to bleed. Immediately it began to congeal, thickening into a jagged, three-sided spike that extended six inches past her knuckles. It carried the dull luster of old iron.
The remaining left-flank attacker backed away, keeping their eyes on the iron shard.
Alina broke into a sprint. She did not parry; she drove the flat of the iron spike directly into the attacker’s collarbone. Bone splintered under the impact. The student hit the earth hard, her breath leaving her in a sharp wheeze.
The other student watched from the perimeter, then slowly lowered her hands.
Ash faced the center.
Davos had shifted three paces west, finding the exact blind spot caused by the corrupted signal his Shade was emitting.
Davos smiled, his voice perfectly smooth despite the three groaning bodies on the grass. "Slower than the academy advertised, Ash. I thought Shade reading was your entire thing."
"Check their bodies for any tokens," Ash said, ignoring Davos.
They did just that to find them all empty-handed.
"Did you really think I would come here with my token?" Davos mocked. "But for the two of you," he said, addressing Alexis and Alina. "If you ever want to know the truth about him, I will tell you without payment."
He turned without waiting for a reply. The remaining conscious students gathered their fallen, hoisting the injured by their belts. They retreated into the forest without a backward glance.
The silence returned, cold and empty. It lacked the heavy, territorial weight the previous creature had left behind; this was merely the natural quiet of a frozen forest.
"Alexis, Alina, I’m—"
"We don’t care," Alina said, looking at Alexis, who was nodding in agreement. "You’re our teammate and also our friend. That’s the only truth that matters to us."
"If thou hast a secret to keep, it is thine to hold unto."
Alina struck the iron spike against a granite boulder. The metal shattered back into wet, dark drops that soaked into the moss. She bent her fingers, testing the knuckles.
"We need tokens if we want to advance," she said.
"We do," Ash replied.
Alexis gathered her cloak, wrapping it twice around her chest. The theatrical lilt was entirely gone from her posture. She looked small against the dark trees.
"Understood," Alexis said.
Alina looked at her, then turned back to look at the interior of the island.
Ash sat on a frost-slicked stone. The five students they just fought were already moving inland at a steady pace, leaving the clearing behind.
"Wait!" Ash yelled like he was trying to tell someone to stop.
"What is it?" Alina asked.
"The creature we fought," Ash began.
Alexis looked like she was too tired to deal with another one of them. "I’m going to sleep," she said normally.
Alina shook her head. "Is one coming for us?"
"No," Ash said. "I think they’re about to find the camp of the person who bought way too many items."
He cradled his stomach, dropping to his knees in agony.
"What’s wrong? Did you get injured in that fight?" Alina asked, dropping to check on Ash.
"No, I’m fine," he said, getting back up.
His hunger had finally stirred itself awake, and the metronomic warm Shade on the island was telling Ash exactly where he needed to be.
