I froze again, because the first thing I saw was Jack’s eyes staring at me, as if he were searching for an answer, asking why I had not been fast enough.

  “Fill the gaps. Move the bodies inside the inner ring.”

  While I stood there, Walter did not. I could feel my will to fight slipping, frustration boiling beneath the surface. The Tier Three alone had already been bad enough. Even after multiple exchanges, we had barely managed to harm it, the beast always lurking just beyond the formation, striking and withdrawing before we could commit. But when I thought we were finally gaining ground, I turned around and realized we had already lost three more men.

  “DO NOT FREEZE NOW!” Walter shouted, not just at me, but at the Tier Ones hesitating inside the circle as they struggled to move around the bodies of their fallen friends. “If we all die here, their deaths will be in vain. We avenge them! We kill these flimsy excuses for cats!”

  His words cut through the fog in my head.

  I forced myself to look at the formation. Colin and Owen were in the best physical condition, their movements still controlled. Varric, Kael, and Garran were injured. Kael had a deep gash across his back, blood still dripping down his armor. While their physical condition was easy to judge, their mental state was not. Colin and Owen’s expressions mirrored Walter’s, sharply focused and edged with concern, while Varric and Garran wore faint smiles that unsettled me more than the injuries.

  But I did not have time to think about that.

  Waiting for the Tier Three to finish us one by one would help no one. We still had three Tier Two Shadow Cats to deal with, and in that brief moment, I made a decision. I focused on a solution that might reduce casualties if my attention was forced away from coordinating the squad and back onto protecting myself against the Tier Three, allowing the others to hold against the Tier Twos without my direct oversight.

  “Garran, help Owen deal with the shadow cat on his side. Varric and Kael, hold the front. New recruits, support the front as best you can and follow my calls. Colin, take Jack’s place.”

  The reasoning was simple. From the fight so far, it was clear that Colin and Owen possessed danger senses similar to Walter’s, which allowed them to counter the Shadow Cats’ movements more effectively. The others were strong, but sensing was not their strength.

  I resumed calling out positions of Cats, forcing myself to ignore Colin as he vaulted over his friend’s body to take his place in the line.

  After five minutes of grinding exchanges, we finally brought down one of the Tier Two Shadow Cats, the one harassing Owen’s position. It had already been injured, its movements slower and more predictable, and when it finally fell, I felt a brief surge of relief.

  That relief lasted less than a heartbeat.

  My skill flared again, sharp and sudden, but this time I completely failed to sense the Tier Three. By the time I finally caught its approach, it was less than half a spear length behind me. When I turned, it had already materialized. For a split second, I saw death in front of me, and while I was too late to react, Walter was not.

  He was standing close, close enough that when the Shadow Cat struck, his spear came up on instinct, saving my neck by a fraction of a second. The beast’s jaws snapped shut inches from my throat as Walter’s counter carved into its mouth, tearing through flesh and drawing a spray of dark blood. I flinched and snapped my head back on instinct while raising my shield to stop the beast’s claws, the impact bouncing off and driving me a few steps backward. The Tier Three retreated immediately, vanishing after a single exchange.

  That was when it finally clicked. There had been a reason the sergeant wanted only Walter to protect him, rather than relying on conscripts he could command through a mana oath. The sergeant had died because Walter was supporting me while I dealt with a Tier Two, and it had taken him precious seconds to reach the sergeant’s side. This time was different. Walter was standing right beside me.

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  He was the most reliable private in the squad, and now he understood the beast’s pattern.

  I realized then that I did not have to fear being killed without a chance to react. I could trust my back to him. He was a wall I could rely on, and that trust steadied me, giving me the confidence I desperately needed.

  That confidence spread through the formation.

  We managed to repel the next few Tier Three feints aimed at my position, and in the process, we brought down another Tier Two Shadow Cat. The pressure eased slightly, just enough to breathe.

  Soon, we were almost surrounding the last Tier Two, closing in to finish it, when the Tier Three changed its pattern again. I sensed that familiar, faint trace of mana directly ahead, close to the Tier Two Cat's position.

  “Be on guard. Tier Three. Two steps behind the Tier Two Cat. Varric, front,” I shouted, and the front line halted instantly.

  Then both presences vanished.

  “Stay alert,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm. “They’re both outside my perception range.”

  For a moment, I hoped that was it. That the beast was retreating, pulling back after losing its pack. Or that it was trying to extract its last remaining kin.

  I was wrong.

  A flicker brushed my senses again, moving fast.

  “It’s coming. Front,” I shouted. “Aiming for the gap between Garran and Owen.”

  I fed them distance as fast as I could.

  “One spear length away.”

  Garran and Owen struck together, but the beast’s shadow twisted away, and their blows scraped the dirt and stone instead of flesh.

  “Two steps—”

  I was already bracing for it to lunge at Garran or Owen when the Tier Two burst out between them instead, slipping through the gap and slamming into Sean, one of the new recruits.

  While I sensed the Tier Three’s mana moving out of my range, the Tier Two attacked Sean. Instead of pursuing the Tier Three, we shifted focus, and Garran and Owen turned to strike the Tier Two down. By the time we brought it down, the damage was already done. Sean was down, along with another new recruit caught in the confusion.

  There was no time to process it. The Tier Three did not give us even a breath.

  The same pattern followed. The next attack came from behind me.

  I moved to intercept it with my spear, but its claw collided with the spearhead and shattered it on impact. The shock numbed my arms, but I managed to twist the broken shaft just enough to intercept its maw, forcing its jaws aside at the last moment. This time, Walter did not miss.

  His spear punched cleanly through the beast’s throat.

  The Shadow Cat collapsed, and before it could recover, Walter stepped in, dropping into a seated stance and smashing its skull with his shield again and again until the body finally went still. As he kept striking, I was already scanning the battlefield, forcing my attention outward even as the immediate threat was being finished.

  For a heartbeat, it felt like relief. Then my eyes caught the empty space to my right.

  Where Sergeant Patrick’s squad should have been, there was nothing left but torn bodies and blood-slick stone. My gaze snapped back to the Shadow Cat at Walter’s feet, and my stomach twisted as the realization hit me.

  The wounds we had inflicted in earlier exchanges were gone.

  This was a different Tier Three, not the one we had been fighting. I realized.

  “Be alert. Walter, it’s not over!” I shouted.

  Walter was still turning toward my voice when the Shadow Cat we had been fighting appeared, wounds visible along its back and neck.

  It manifested directly in front of him, claws aimed at Walter’s neck. I lunged forward and drove the broken spear into its body, forcing it back a step, but I was too late. Its claw had already torn across Walter’s throat.

  Something inside me snapped.

  I let my shield and spear fall.

  I drove every remaining scrap of mana into my right arm, veins bursting as the surge tore through me. Blood sprayed across my face as my fist connected with the beast’s lower jaw, the impact cracking bone and driving it to the ground.

  I did not give it a chance to retreat.

  My left hand seized the loose skin at the back of its head, anchoring it in place, and I slammed my blood-soaked right hand into its throat, tearing through flesh and widening the wound Walter had opened earlier.

  “AHHHHHHHH!”

  The roar ripped out of me as I tore its throat apart and wrenched free.

  The Shadow Cat went limp.

  I stood there, breathing hard, my left hand still gripping the beast’s head. When I turned, I saw Walter on the ground, his eyes open.

  He was smiling.

  The shadows surged all at once, swallowing the battlefield, and before I could even turn toward the horizon to determine the cause, my knees buckled and the world went dark.