For a long heartbeat, no one moved.
Charred ash drifted where the tree had been, glittering faintly as it spiraled through canopy light. The air stank of sap and burned wood. The Chimeraan's last gout of breath hadn't burned the trunk so much as erased it, turning thick timber into drifting grey.
The knights stared, faces tight behind their visors.
Ezra watched the fading plume while AMP ran numbers in the back of his mind.
Roughly twelve hundred degrees, he estimated. Hot enough to soften steel.
Fun.
The Chimeraan shook scorched embers from its horn as if it had merely sneezed. The blood-red crystal around the base pulsed with slow, greedy light, brightening and dimming in a rhythm that reminded Ezra of a heart.
The Quintils edged backward on their own. The knights let them. They gave ground—deeper into the Grove—without turning their backs.
Another charge waited on a hair-trigger.
Ezra had their attention now. Numbers and results had bought him that much.
Targeting the face just got a lot harder, he thought, watching the beast's jaws flex. And its main artillery comes from its mouth. If we go head-on, we get cooked.
"Sir Phobos," Ezra said, eyes locked on the Chimeraan. "Do Preacantae ever cast from anywhere besides their mouths? Like an [Earth Wall], or something that doesn't leave their body?"
Phobos's grip tightened on his whip. His hair, usually a silver curtain, clung in damp strands to his temples. He looked like old stone left in the rain, and the Grove had never been kind to stone.
"I'm… not sure, Milord," he admitted—rare uncertainty in a man who spoke in rules and absolutes. "The Order hasn't had the luxury to study them. I've never seen a Preacantae condense mana away from its core. All breath, beams, or aura. If they can form spells off-body, it's rare."
Ezra's mind ticked.
High odds: the big tricks came out of its face.
Good.
Terrifying.
The Chimeraan's attention slid sideways, pupils narrowing like a cat's. It chose a target.
Evan.
Ezra didn't need AMP to explain it. Evan had thrown the last javelin. In whatever passed for skull logic, that made him the threat.
"Evered," Ezra called, "we're changing tactics. Split for now—I'll explain the next move as we run."
Evered gave a quick nod, knuckles white on his mace, already setting his feet for a retreat through brush.
Ezra twisted in the saddle, cloak snapping against Evan's arm.
"Evan," he said, clipped. "Ditch the horse. I'll run beside you for a bit. I need to see how it reacts."
Evan slid off the Quintil in one smooth motion and set Ezra down as gently as if he were placing a blade on velvet. The toddler hit the dirt, knees flexing, then shot forward in a sprint—bare feet pattering fast, cloak flaring behind him.
The Chimeraan roared and lunged.
Ezra ran. "Can anyone here make a depression?" he shouted. "A hole in the ground—fast."
"You mean [Sink Hole]?" Rycharde called back, retreating alongside them.
"Yes," Ezra snapped. "Anything that reshapes the ground down instead of up."
Rycharde hissed through his teeth. "No one here can cast [Sink Hole]."
Ezra's eyes cut to him. "You can cast [Earth Wall]."
Rycharde blinked once. "That raises stone."
"Then shape it down," Ezra said. "Direction is intent."
For half a heartbeat, Rycharde looked ready to argue. Then his brow creased—not doubt, but a new tool clicking into place.
"I… never thought of trying," he admitted. "But—yes. In principle."
"Good." Ezra jabbed a finger toward a stretch of ground ahead and to the right. "Peel off that way. Make me a depression—two meters long. Tell me when it's ready."
Rycharde didn't waste breath on questions.
"Yes, Lord Ezra."
He broke away at a diagonal, Quintil and warhammer turning toward a stand of trees. The Chimeraan kept its eyes on Ezra and Evan.
They ran.
"Evan," Ezra said between breaths, "we don't know the range on that breath weapon. Or if it can spam it. So far, it prefers its body first. That means a limited mana pool—or a dangerous cast window. Until we know which, we keep speed unless I say so."
Evan nodded and fell into a long, efficient stride, matching Ezra's pace without advertising he was matching a toddler.
Ezra glanced back.
The Chimeraan thundered after them, claws tearing furrows into the soil. AMP tagged the closing distance in blinking numerals—fifty meters, forty-eight, forty-five.
The hair on Ezra's arms prickled.
"Steel yourself," he said quietly. "It's condensing mana."
"How far?" Evan asked, voice steady.
"Far enough that it's more than a swipe," Ezra said. "Push harder."
Evan lengthened his stride.
Behind them, the Chimeraan's throat pulsed. The crystals brightened; faint runes along the horn flared like heat shimmer. Ezra braced for the familiar wash of white-orange death.
The beast opened its jaws.
Water exploded out—pressurized, thick, dense as a city fire hose. It smashed through brush and snapped branches like paper.
The aim lagged a hair behind.
"Left!" Ezra barked.
Evan cut hard, boots skidding on damp loam. The water slammed into where they'd been, carving a gouge and pelting their backs with cold spray.
Ezra's eyes widened for a blink.
"That's new," he said, disbelief laughing at the edge of his throat. "Fire and water? Humans struggle with that specific dual affinity."
His mind replayed the last few seconds. AMP highlighted timings like a lab report.
"Interesting," Ezra muttered. "Fire was instant. One second, maybe less from charge to release. That spray took three."
The monster snarled at the miss and gathered mana again.
Ezra weighed his options and, for once, kept his curiosity on a leash.
Too risky to bait another shot.
A shout cut across the clearing.
"Lord Ezra!" Rycharde called from the right. "The trap is ready!"
Ezra spotted him through the trees—beside a narrow, dark depression cut into the path, the earth around it freshly turned. Spearpoints bristled at the bottom in a clustered bed, shafts braced tight together like a bundle of stakes waiting to be driven.
"Good," Ezra said. "Evan—javelin. Once we spring it, we go for the head. The scales are ridiculous, but the skull still has entry points."
Evan grunted assent, already reaching for his gear.
They angled toward Rycharde's position, weaving between trunks. The Chimeraan followed, forced to bend its path around thicker trees, losing ground each time it chose restraint over smashing straight through.
"Knights!" Ezra shouted. "Gather near the trap. Spears ready. We get one clean window—don't waste it!"
Oswyn, Dynham, Galwell, and Evered moved, tightening formation near the depression. Deimos and Phobos set themselves just outside, ready to intercept if the beast tried to break off at the last instant.
Evan reached the trap first.
He leapt, clearing the dark cut in the earth in a smooth bound. Ezra tucked in close, letting Evan's momentum carry them to safe ground on the far side.
The Chimeraan came on, claws shredding the path, head low—committed.
"Now, Rycharde," Ezra said, voice sharp as a snapped lash.
Rycharde slammed his palm to the ground beside the depression and whispered the trigger.
Stone answered from below.
[Earth Wall] rose inside the depression like a piston—not a barricade ahead, but a hidden hammer. It drove up under the braced spear-bundle in one violent lift, hurling the clustered points straight into the Chimeraan's exposed underside as it crossed the lip.
The beast's eyes went wide.
The sound of steel punching into soft tissue came out as a strangled, wet scream.
It stumbled, momentum slamming it down onto the rising stone and embedded shafts. Blood sheeted under its belly—dark and hot—steaming faintly in the cool forest air.
Softer than the scales, Ezra thought, grim satisfaction sparking through his exhaustion. Good. I guessed right.
The wound wouldn't kill a creature that size.
It did make it falter.
That two-second hitch was all Ezra needed.
"Now, Evan," he said. "Temple. Don't aim to scratch it. Aim to staple it to the world."
Evan's hand closed on a javelin.
He planted his feet, shoulders squaring, the world narrowing to a single point—just above the Chimeraan's right eye ridge. Mana flooded his arm and shoulder; muscles coiled.
AMP lit the angle for Ezra in a thin golden line.
[Release vector: 14° upward. Distance: 23 m. Target: Right temple.]
"Two fingers higher," Ezra murmured. "Wind negligible. Throw."
Evan threw.
The javelin left his hand like an angry comet.
AMP tagged the speed: [216 m/s | 778 km/h]. Not quite a rifle. More than enough.
The Chimeraan reeled, muscles spasming around the embedded belly shafts. Its head turned a fraction, as if to glare at them.
The javelin hit the right temple.
For a brief, obscene moment, scale, bone, and metal argued over physics.
Metal won.
The spear punched through the skull, burst out the opposite side, and drove into the ground beneath, pinning the monstrous head in place like a grotesque insect on a scholar's board.
The Chimeraan convulsed.
Wings flared, then crashed down. Claws tore trenches in the earth as the body tried to obey commands that never arrived. The tail lashed, stinger carving deep grooves into nearby trees.
The knights took a collective step back.
Seconds passed. Thrashing slowed.
Then it stopped.
Harsh breathing filled the space—men and horses—along with the faint drip of blood from spears and wounds.
Rycharde approached first, warhammer raised.
He didn't rush. He did what marchers did: assumed the world lied until it proved otherwise.
Staying outside the reach of a twitching claw, he watched.
Still.
He let out his breath.
"Dead," he said.
Rycharde's mouth twitched, like the world had offended him by being true.
"Gods help me," he rasped, then barked it out, "that was Lord Ezra."
The others laughed—one sharp burst here, another there—then voices rose.
"Lord Ezra!"
"Well called!"
The cheers of several of the knights rang throughout the forest.
Deimos stared at the skewered monster, then at the small boy on the ground—chest heaving, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and spray.
Phobos shook his head once, like a man clearing water from his ears. "Gods. Bren's raising a monster of a marcher lord."
"Aye. That one's got a current to him. Bren won't know what hit it," Dynham responded, nodding.
Evan stood a little apart, breath heavy from the run and the throw. He looked down at Ezra—at the tiny, grimy, two-year-old who had turned a nightmare beast into a manageable problem.
Pride. Fear. Relief. Hope.
I chose well, he thought, something like relief loosening in his chest. May I have the years to see him come into his strength—and the steel to follow him when he does.
Ezra didn't bask in the cheers.
He stared at the Chimeraan, eyes bright, AMP dimming slowly behind them.
I wonder what its brain looks like, he thought, already planning the dissection in his head.