Shaya’s plan worked and within seconds her lance made it to the front of the crowd. Bri and Shaya slowed their steps and moved apart, allowing the smaller members of their group to pass while the two giant-blooded women held the surging crowd back. With their height, they could see the rankings posted easily enough from behind their friends.

With a deep breath, Shaya started hunting amongst the boards’ class lists for her personal rankings within them. She found Intro to Abjuration first, and frowned as she looked at the list. Azreon was ranked number one, his name in gold lettering. The next four highest ranked people’s names were in silver lettering, Shaya just making it the silver lettering in fifth place.

Basillo shows his true colours again, she thought, there’s no way I didn’t ace the theory portion, and not a speck of magic got past my wards during the practical despite how intense it was.

Her eyes landed on Combat Foundations next and she had to suppress a cheer. At the top of the list, Shaya Heirosoth was written in gold lettering. Bri’s name followed after hers, then Lan’s and Ralus’. Galo actually took fifth place, and Shaya suspected that would earn him no end of ire from Azreon. Shaya was almost shocked given Azreon’s skill at arms, but his dour refusal to learn other weapons would have hampered him given the course’s focus on broadening their proficiencies. With another look at her name in gold, her face split into a grin, but she knew that was the one she was most confident of.

“As expected,” Bri said, smiling at her, “but you better not rest on your laurels, I’m coming for you.”

“Challenge accepted,” Shaya replied, returning the smile, “Congrats to you as well, we’re kicking ass and taking names.”

“Damn right!” Bri said, keeping her volume low, then the two of them went back to squinting at rankings.

Flinching, she found Intro to Biomancy’s list and had traumatic flashbacks to both the theoretical and practical portions of the class. Healing magic had by far the most strings to it, at least from the forms of magic she was currently practicing, and Bari insisted on including basic first aid as part of the learning process. Shaya felt bad for the summoned monsters Bari used for the practical portion, but at least the demons didn’t seem to mind the pain too much?

Shaya blinked when she saw Yllaneth ranked first, forced to reconsider her opinion of someone she may have written off too quickly as just a pretty airhead. Una came in second, followed by Shaya in third. Ren managed to sneak into fifth place, which surprised Shaya even more than Yllaneth’s top ranking given his apparent allergy to studying and working.

Maybe the two of them actually were studying together, like he claimed...

With a sigh of relief, her eyes went searching again and quickly found Mounted Combat. Her name was in gold again, followed by Una in second, Ralus in third, and Bri in fourth. Azreon snuck into fifth place, which saddened her. At least the top four empathized with their steeds and animals in general, but she had to grant that Azreon knew how to control his horse and get it to do difficult maneuvers.

Shaya was stunned when she looked at her fifth class’ rankings. Her name was in gold once more, the top of Professor Zaal’s game theory. Oraeus followed after her, and looked stunned as well when she glanced over and saw him looking at the same list. He managed to compose himself and give her a curt, congratulatory nod before continuing his search.

The rankings of her sixth and final class did not surprise her. Apricot’s name topped Intro to Conjuration in gold lettering, with Samorn in second and Shaya in third. Once again, Ren managed to sneak into fifth place on the rankings. Despite being the professor’s daughter, Shaya was confident that Apricot earned the top spot – she was incredible with all forms of conjuration and teleportation, from what she could tell. Likely only categorized as her lance’s Amethyst mage in order to fill a quota. Samorn must have given her a run for her money though, given her intelligence.

“Good work in Conjuration, Samorn,” Shaya said, “you’ve already made some really clever uses of your summons, I can’t wait to see what else you come up with.”

“Thank you,” she replied. There was a... stillness to her that Shaya had never seen before. It was gone a moment later, replaced with a demure smile, “Topping three out of five lists will have to suffice.”

“Three? Aside from Apricot, I couldn’t imagine someone being in the same league as your intellect,” Shaya replied, surprised.

“Indeed,” Samorn’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, “yet Parmenia Termedix bumped me to second place in Intro to Enchantment. Hard fought, I’m sure.”

“I think you’re all underestimating just how difficult it is to get fifth place in all of your courses,” Ren said, looking proud of himself.

Ralus snorted their amusement.

“Thank you for not dropping our lance’s average too harshly,” Oraeus replied drily, then his tone grew warmer as he continued, “it looks like we made top rankings for all of our classes, good work everyone. I think we have a firm hold on the top spot in our cohort.”

That earned them more than a few hostile looks from nearby students, though Azreon wasn’t among them. His neck muscles seemed to strain against his urge to glare at them, almost quivering visibly from the effort. With a growl, he turned on his heel and left with his lance in tow, earning a few smug looks from students that enjoyed seeing him knocked down a peg or two.

Shaya enjoyed it while she could, but sensed that it would get worse. Bottling up that kind of hostility and anger was only going to lead the noble down a darker path, as Shaya feared for herself years ago in The Blight.

“Come on,” she said to her friends, “let’s make space for others to check out their rankings. We should start planning for our next deployment anyway.”

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Bri sighed dramatically.

“I cannot wait to put into action what we’ve practiced,” Ralus said with their usual knife-thin smile.

A few of the nearby students edged away from them, making Shaya feel less guilty about finding her friend’s smile...discomfiting.

“I just hope it’s easy,” Ren yawned.

“Can’t be harder than last time, right?” Shaya said.

Her friends groaned.

+++++

“You just had to jinx us, didn’t you?” Ren asked, aghast and shivering against the wicked cold of Silanir’s steppes.

The two of them crouched at the edge of a short, grassy cliff, looking down at the river that narrowed as it ran through the crevasse below them. It served as the border between Sillanir and Vayeira, and the major trade troute in the albeit remote region they were deployed to. The river bank was just wide enough on both sides that a group of bandits had formed a temporary camp, over a dozen hide tents occupying the choke point with a variety of bows and other scavenged weapons scattered about. Shaya was surprised they made no effort to fortify the space, its narrow entrances would make it easy to set up even simple barricades.

From the briefing, they had proven elusive and fled from any sizable military force sent to engage them. A true terror to the Sillanir tribes and the Veyeiran villages which they raided routinely. Reports on them had been limited, and it wasn’t surprising as Shaya looked down on their encampment.

The raptors they rode were spawn of the Titan Fraxsil, the world tree. Larger than the average terror bird or horse, the sleek monsters looked vicious and fast. Rather than the usual feathers or scales Shaya heard they possessed, these ones were shaped from plant-life: powerful, ropey muscles composed of vines visible wherever their bark-like plates didn’t armour them. Razor sharp talons adorned their feet, but their arms were more terrible still. Rather than the stubby claws of normal raptors, these ones had giant scythe blades for forearms. Tails whipped about impatiently, the broad fan of feathers there replaced with an axe blade.

One of those blades gashed a line in the stone below them, confirming Shaya’s suspicion that the spawn’s wood was far harder than she hoped.

Shaya and Ren watched as a bandit garbed in hide armour and a fur cloak moved to a wounded comrade, inspecting the bandages wrapped around her left shoulder. They couldn’t hear what was said but the wounded woman, deathly pale, nodded with feverish intensity. Before they knew what was going on, he stabbed her through the heart and began carving her chest open.

Ren stifled a disgusted cry and Shaya felt the bile rise in her throat.

Arms covered in the blood and gore of his former comrade, the man walked over to the campfire where another dozen bandits sat and placed a heart into a large, stone mortar held by one of his comrades. As they took up a pestle and began mashing the bloody heart with reverence, the first bandit returned to the body and picked it up gingerly.

He carried it to the largest of the five Fraxraptors, kneeling before it and laying the body down. The bandit lowered his head against the cold, damp stone and remained that way as the other four raptors stopped lazing or playing to approach the body, looking to their leader for permission.

The Ur emitted something between a grating croak and squawk, the other four monsters taking a step back and stiffening. The huge creature ran a single claw across the body’s belly, opening its contents to the world, and began feasting. The four other Fraxraptors remained still, though Shaya could see tension build up in their coiled muscles. With another brief squawk, the Ur gave them permission to join in and they did so with enthusiasm, snapping at each other as they fought over the woman’s remains.

Shaya put a hand on Ren’s shoulder as she felt him tense up beside her, his stomach roiling audibly. She imagined that she heard his heart hammering in his chest with anger and frustration, but concluded it must have just been her own.

The bandit remained prone throughout the meal, despite the taloned feet clacking dangerously close to his own body and the blood splattering over him. The body disappeared in less than a minute, bones snapped and consumed as quickly as the meat. Once done, the smallest of the spawn, the runt that had been denied much of the meal, sniffed at the prostrating bandit and licked blood off him.

A rust-red vulture circled in the steel-grey sky, unleashing a rasping screech in what Shaya assumed was disappointment at the lack of leftovers for it to scavenge.

The eyes of the Fraxraptors and the bandit shot up toward the sound – right past where Shaya and Ren were spying on them.