“Verin!” someone shouted. “They’re fast, but they can’t climb! Go up!”
Ensmeth shoved me aside, racing for the nearest net. The others were right behind him, leaping onto the ropes with impossible grace, their bodies swinging and catching hold without hesitation. I followed, slower and clumsier.
The first monster slammed into my legs. I leapt forward, trying to catch one of the ropes.
Then, with a sharp crack, one of the ropes snapped.
The entire frame shuddered. A recruit screamed as his rope tore loose, slipping through his hands as it unfurled like a serpent.
“Get to the towers!” I shouted.
No one listened. Ensmeth took up the cry instead, and suddenly everyone was swinging on the ropes toward the towers that stood at regular distances between the ropes.
I reached for the first rope I could reach, one that another shifter was scaling, but before my fingers could close around it, it snapped loose. The shifter fell, his body striking the water with a sickening splash.
I’d leaned too far, overbalanced, and when the rope whipped back, it slammed across my arm. Pain exploded up my shoulder. I clung desperately to my rope, one-handed. But I couldn’t hold it.
I was falling.
I flailed for the others, catching at ropes that burned my palms raw, until—by sheer luck—I caught one and stopped, dangling above the water.
I swung toward a narrow rope bridge and threw my leg up, heaving myself onto it. The wooden slats wobbled beneath me, the height dizzying. My arms ached.
A decade of training for this kind of thing would have been nice, I thought grimly.
“Go up!” Kiegan’s shout echoed across the chaos.
He was already on one of the towers, on the lowest level.
He jerked his chin behind me. I didn’t have to look to know what I’d see. I couldfeelthem.
All the monsters were chasing me.
“This is just like a few years ago!” a female shifter near me yelled. “The ropes are going to drop one by one, faster and faster, until the verin are dead!”
“Go up!” Kiegan bellowed. “You’re too slow!”
That was accurate, but not helpful. But Kiegan had pegged that one enemy in the arena with a rock while he was distracted by me. Maybe we could do something similar now.
I’d been bait for the wyrms; I could be bait for the venin. “I’m going to run beneath you! You take them out while they’re focused on me!”
“What?” The female’s voice was sharp with disbelief.
“I need you in the tower!” Kiegan shouted at her. “There are weapons inside!”
Her rope gave way just then. She swung to her backup, yanked hard by the momentum, but kept moving. Kiegan reached down from his platform, caught her hand, and hauled her up with one arm.
I didn’t wait to see the rest. I was already running.
A verin lunged out of nowhere, jaws snapping for my leg. I kicked, but its teeth sank into my calf. White-hot pain lanced up my body. I barely kept my balance, dragging myself forward until—thunk—an arrow whistled past me and buried itself in the creature’s eye.
Kiegan.
I stumbled, half running, half limping. The air around me whistled again with arrows. The other shifters had joined in, protecting me, whether they meant to or not, by killing each venin.
I sprinted under the nearest tower. For one brief moment, shade wrapped around me like safety. Then I burst back into sunlight, and the world was noisy and furious.
When I looked back, only one verin was still on my heels.
