Choking down a ragged breath of the pollen-filled air, I raced through the tall grass with my trainees spread out to either side. Sweat beaded my forehead, and I could feel a cooling trickle of sweat running down the center of my back. Like a slap to my face, a cool breeze washed over my body… and I hated every moment.

In my experience, wind resistance slowing you down is one of the most annoying things that can happen on any run. It makes the whole experience so much more challenging, and what is worse is that the cool wind only seems to appear at the most unwanted moments.

To that point, why was the wind blowing into us when we ran through a field of endless grass as tall as my shoulders? Being chased by beastkin on the ground and air had something to do with it. But I liked to think fate just enjoys kicking you in the nuts when you're already struggling to crawl forward.

"Duck!" A mental shout sounded, invading my mind. Feeling that the warning was directed at me and the two trainees to my sides, I dived forward. My chest thumped into the ground, and I felt dozens of blades of grass give way beneath my weight.

A gasp escaped my lips from the impact, but before it could make its way all the way out of my mouth, a whooshing, thwacking sound passed above my head. Thrusting my arms into the grass-covered ground and assisting the effort with a tendril, I threw my body up, scrambling to get my feet under me as I ignored the distraction of the top two feet of the grass falling onto my back.

"Arugh!" I shouted, and it wasn't from the burning in my arms and legs. This was far from the first time I had thrown myself to the ground mid-run to jump to my feet the next second. I pumped my heavy limbs to get moving again, but I took a moment to angrily swipe off the pieces of cut grass that were attempting to stick to my face and slip into the collar of my leather armor.

Taking a hopping step, my head and shoulders shot a couple feet above the tops of the grass, and I had a clear view of the surroundings as I whipped my head around, trying to take in everything at once. "Blood and ashes," I gasped, putting on another burst of speed.

What had started out as an easy-going, careful stalk through the grasslands, as we wanted to try and remain unnoticed as long as possible, quickly turned into an all-out marathon. And we weren't even given the courtesy of an hour or two before being spotted and chased. No, we got detected within thirty minutes of setting out from the forest.

As good as some of us were at going unseen by anything on the ground, we were pretty obvious when a bird flew overhead. And if the flying beastkin somehow missed us at first glance, all they had to do was follow the disturbance in the grass we left in our wake, which led right to us.

At first, the beastkins seemed content to leave us alone.

It was a blissful three and a half minutes, where the only interaction the beastkins had with us was when one of the three creatures hovering overhead cast shadows across us as they slowly circled. Then, one shot off to the west, vanishing into the forest.

We were already running at that point, and our fears were proven right as the bird beastkin returned with friends. Lots of friends. It was then that the blades of condensed wind started being launched at us.

We lost a trainee on the first two passes as we failed to spot the danger fast enough. The ten of us still moving didn't feel like sharing their fate, so we were constantly looking for the signs of wind blades around the birdkin.

Which was little more than a shimmer in the air hanging around a beastkin when they swooped down like diving falcons at us. I tried using my detector to pick up the signs of their attacks for a little while, but it was like trying to hear someone flipping you off while looking in the other direction. There's little to nothing to detect until it hits you, and by then, you're headless. Not an outcome I wanted.

So it left us continually looking for the telltale signs of shimmering air every time they swung their arms or someone spotted one of the blades scything its path through the grass. Which was another weird point. They were giving us too much time to react… Dozens of birds circled above, and they were only coming down one or two at a time to fire off wind blades… They are playing with us. It's over. There is nothing but grass for as far as I can see, and they are just wearing us down…

"Circle up!" I shouted and sent into the union, "And flatten the grass!" A moment after I spoke, I felt a wave of acknowledgments in the mental network from the trainees. The grass between and around us in a twenty-foot oval was smashed to the ground in a plume of dust like some concussive blast of an explosion washed over it.

With the grass cleared, everyone in the network was now revealed to my sight. I was in the center of the formation, and my trainees were positioned in a loose spearhead formation to my sides. "Lutious!" I ordered, "Get two others and start digging! We're gonna need another bunker!"

"Yes, domine!" I heard him shout in reply before continuing, "Bellous! Kella! On me!."

I watched him take a few strides into the center of the formation, where a lengthy blond-haired female and the stocky man from Joxin's group joined him.

They stood in a circle five feet round, and in their center, the grass and dirt in a two-foot sphere were ripped from the ground and compressed into a round ball no larger than my clenched fist. The rest of the scout trainees formed a tight circle around the three workers, and I joined them in looking into the sky.

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As my head tilted up, my heart sank. Seven beastkins were already diving toward us, apparently having given up on their little game. Hand already on my leather-wrapped handle, I clenched it tightly in my fist as I drew the gladius.

"Shields!" I shouted and sent through the network. I felt the energy of all ten of us burst out from our bodies and gather into a single mass under my control. Reshaping the energy into a shell that would cover us all like a dome, I solidified it, and the ever-present wind blowing across the grasslands stopped instantly as everything outside the energy shell was cut off.

I held the casting in place, reinforcing it every moment with my willpower. Unable to do more than I already had, I watched and waited for the shimmering blurs at the beastkin's sides to be unleashed. A moment after the birds swooped up, my mind shuddered under the seven impacts of the wind blades they released.

Instead of absorbing or deflecting the blows as I had hoped, the parts of the shield impacted simply vanished. "Haaa!" I gasped, dropping to my knees as it felt like parts of me had been ripped away. With my mind reeling and the gaping holes, I could not keep the defensive casting under control, and the shell's energy started to dissipate into the world as it collapsed.

The backlash from the casting shattering was like a gong going off in my mind, and the union started to destabilize as a result. With gritted teeth and an influx of mental energy, I could have held on and maintained it. However, I never got the chance.

As the wind blades rained down around us, unstopped by the mental energy shield, the telepathic strands of the union network were severed, making it impossible to maintain the casting. Being the primary controller of the energy, I took the full force of the backlash of the union breaking, further adding to my world of mental pain and pushing me over the brink.

The world spun around me, and I found myself looking at my folded knees and a carpet of grass below them, numb hands hanging at my sides. My eyes focused on a strand of blood dripping from my head, linking me to the ground for long seconds.

Eventually, I tried to move my left arm to the earth to leverage my body to a standing position, but somehow, I missed the target and fell onto my side. Or my arm didn't move, and the attempt knocked me out of whatever precarious balance my body was in. I wasn't sure which happened, as it all occurred too fast.

Rolling onto my stomach, thanks in part to the rocking ground, I managed to climb onto all fours, feeling a pang in my right hand's knuckles as something dug into them. Ignoring the slight feeling, I lifted my head and the hundred pounds on my neck to look around.

Traig was standing with his back to me a body length from me. As I gazed between his legs, my eyes were drawn to a figure thirty feet past him, surrounded by grass. The beastkin's wings stretched out to the sides with arrogant pride as if he was showing off before a gathering. He wore leather pants, but his upper body was bare of clothing, except he had intricate tattoos covering his torso. Part of the patterns were obscured by the many necklaces he was wearing, along with bracelets on his arms that were piled on top of each other.

From one blink of the eyes to the next, the crystal clear figures of a moment before vanished as fuzzy blobs of shifting colors took their place. There were also two more lines of blurriness to either side of the beastkin, but the earth rolling made me suspicious that I might be seeing things at the moment. Work properly, you damn eyes! And get up, body!

As if it were answering my call, my vision snapped into focus, and I helplessly watched as Traig swung his arm. The spike in his hand rocketed forward at a significantly greater speed than what his arm should have been able to impart.

Shifting my vision to the clang of an impact, I saw the spike bouncing back toward Traig, flipping uselessly through the air to land near his feet. My eyes lifted from the weapon, and I could have sworn a sneer was on the bird's blotchy face. Then the beastkin flicked his wrist, and the two blurs hanging in the air on either side of him disappeared.

"Gaa—!" The grunt of anguish that Traig released ended as suddenly as it started. And before I even had time to turn my eyes, I heard a wet thump. When I finally managed to focus my eyes again, I saw Traig's body was vertically sliced in half.

My head was throbbing, and my body wasn't listening to me enough that it would get up, so I accepted the fact I would have to fight this bastard on my hands and knees. Snapping my teeth together in a snarl, I mentally prepared myself to scamper forward and chew through the bastard's ankle. But before I could manage more than a single pace forward, Lutious stepped before me.

Two rocks were hovering at his sides, and as he strode forward, they were flung toward the fancy-looking beastkin. Ya got lucky, feather-brains. I would have already gnawed your neck off. I thought while deciding which beastkin I should attack first.

Before I could select my target, I was distracted as the rocks never reached the beastkin's skin, and they shattered as if hitting a stone wall inches in front of him. I could distantly hear Lutious let out a curse as he raised his blade to charge forward, utterly unprepared for the furry mass that came hurtling in from the side, driving him to the ground.

I flung myself forward across the ground on instinct and thrust out with my right hand, amazed to find it was still clutching my gladius. The blade sunk deep into the creature's side, and as my body hit the furry mass atop Lutious, my weight pushed the beastkin over. The beastkin was whimpering, but I didn't pay attention as I leaned over Lutious, fumbling at the hilt of my sword. I gave it a few yanks, finally pulling it free as I fell onto my butt.

My head hurt, and my vision wasn't working all that great, but I had recovered well enough to raise my sword and look around again. I might not be on my feet, but sitting on your ass, sword in hand, was basically the same, right?

Dozens of wolven beastkin were stalking out of the still-standing tall grass around me, spears, clubs, and axes clasped in their hands as their lips were pulled back, showing off their fangs. I slowly glanced over my shoulder at what I hoped would be a complete bunker we could defend, but the hole was barely an arm's length into the ground. But the real shock was that, including me, only three and a half people were still on their feet.

Raising my blade in resigned determination, I turned to face the beastkin with all the necklaces. The fancy beastkin looked me in the eye, his appearance becoming more fuzzy than blobby. Even with that, the sneer I knew I saw on his face suddenly became clear as he flicked his wrist in my direction again, and I felt something struck my chest.

My next moments were taken up with flashes of movement as I rolled backward, head over ass. When I came to a stop, I was lying on the ground looking at the blue sky, gasping as I fought to make my chest work. Even breathless, I attempted to get up to fulfill my duty, but something struck me in the head, and the world turned black.

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