It was a perfect afternoon for riding. The road south of Aurus City stretched out like a ribbon draped over the rolling hills. The sun hung heavy and golden in the west, casting long, stretching shadows that raced alongside the Iron Swords.
For the first time in months, the squad felt light.
Regius led the formation, his matte-black cycle cutting through the wind with grace. Behind him, the hum of the squad's machines harmonized into a low, satisfied purr. They rode with a steady pace, neither rushing into a fight nor limping home from one.
"I'm just saying," Vera spoke over the comms, "rich people's furniture is a scam. That velvet chair in the VIP lounge? It tried to eat me. Give me a hammock any day."
"You were slouching," Kael said. "It was an ergonomic design intended for civilized posture, not for someone who sits like a sack of potatoes."
"It was soft in all the wrong places. Admitting you liked it makes you soft."
"I liked the lumbar support. And with fifty thousand credits in our account, I might buy one for my house. My lower back isn't what it used to be."
"Fiscal responsibility, people," Olin chimed in from the rear. He had engaged the autopilot on his cycle and was currently reading a book projected from his wrist. "We need to restock our supplies first. Health potions aren't cheap. And the maintenance on our collective cycles is going to cost a fortune."
"You're boring, Olin!" Vera revved her engine to drown him out. "Buy a fun hat! Live a little!"
Regius smiled behind his visor. He adjusted his grip on the handlebars, enjoying the rare peace. This was the rhythm of the squad he loved—the bickering, the camaraderie, and the mundane worries of back pain and splitting the budget for food or luxuries.
He glanced at his radar. A single green dot was swerving ahead of them.
Milo.
The scout rode his lightweight cycle about two hundred meters. Usually, Milo was the loudest voice on the comms, cracking jokes or bickering with the others. He was oddly quiet.
Regius watched the scout's riding. Milo wasn't weaving playfully around rocks like usual. He was riding a tight, efficient line, his helmet swiveling constantly toward the jagged terrain to the east.
"Milo," Regius said, keeping his voice casual. "You awake up there?"
"Yeah, Boss," Milo's voice came back. "Just watching the ridges. I have a weird feeling today."
Suddenly, the green dot on Regius's HUD veered hard to the left.
Without a signal, Milo broke formation. He banked his cycle aggressively, tires kicking up a spray of gravel as he shot off the paved highway and onto the rough gravel sidepath.
"Milo?!" Kael barked. "Where are you going?"
"I saw something. Two clicks east. Near the ridges."
"I don't have anything on scanners," Olin reported, checking his sensors. "No mana pulse. No SOS. No thermal spikes."
"Not digital," Milo said. "Smoke. Green smoke."
Kael slowed his heavy cycle, signaling the rest of the squad to reduce speed. "Green smoke? That's ancient stuff. This is bandit territory, Milo. The ravine is a known smuggler's run. They light fires to lure in tourists and strip their vehicles."
"Bandits use black smoke as lures," Milo argued. "Or red for urgency. Green is different. It's an old merchant code. They likely need help."
"We are carrying high-value loot," Kael pressed. "We are exposed out here. Risking an ambush for a cloud of colored dust isn't worth the risk."
Regius slowed his cycle, drifting alongside Kael. He looked at the jagged scar in the earth to the east; it was a ravine. A massive tectonic split that ran for miles, deep and shadowed.
"Milo," Regius spoke up. "How sure are you?"
"My gut says someone is in trouble, Boss," Milo said. "And my gut is usually right."
Regius looked at Kael. The big shield-bearer was frowning, weighing the safety of the squad against the hunch of their scout.
"Let's check it out first. If it's nothing, we'll just get back on the road. Understood?"
Kael sighed, a heavy sound of resignation. "Yes, Boss."
He heard Vera whoop over the line. "Detour!"
"Olin, eyes up. If this is an ambush, I want them snipped before they clear leather."
———
The terrain fought them. The gravel path gave way to jagged limestone teeth that jutted from the earth, forcing the heavy cycles to weave and slow. By the time they reached the lip of the canyon, the sun had dipped lower, casting the depths of the ravine in dark shadows.
Milo stood at the edge, his cycle parked behind a boulder. He waved them down frantically, a finger pressed to the faceplate of his helmet.
Silence.
Regius killed his engine further out, letting the momentum carry him the rest of the way. The squad followed suit, their machines drifting to a silent halt on the gravel.
They dismounted. The silence of the canyon was heavy, broken only by the whistle of the wind cutting through the rock formations.
Regius walked to the edge, crouching beside Milo.
"What is it?" Regius whispered.
Milo pointed down.
The ravine was a sheer drop of three hundred feet, narrowing into a choke point at the bottom filled with razor-sharp rocks and fast-moving water.
Halfway down the cliff face, a limestone shelf jutted out—a fragile, crumbling ledge no wider than a driveway. Perched precariously on that ledge was the wreckage of a transport vehicle.
It was an old model, using combustion engines rather than mana, wheel-based instead of mana propulsion. The rear axle had snapped. The vehicle hung teetering over the abyss, held in place only by a tangle of thick tree roots and sheer luck.
A thin, wispy trail of green smoke curled from a window, dissolving almost instantly in the wind.
"Civilian transport," Milo murmured. "No guild markings. Probably an individual merchant not belonging to a guild. Looks like they took the high road to avoid tolls, and the cliff gave way."
"Thermal?" Regius asked.
"Three signatures inside," Milo said.
"Why haven't they radioed?" Kael whispered, joining them. "Why use smoke?"
Milo shifted, pointing to the canyon walls surrounding the wreck.
At first glance, the stone looked textured, covered in lumpy, grey moss. Then, the texture moved.
Hundreds of shapes clung to the vertical walls and ground—more numerous than the monster tide they cleared a few days ago. These monsters were the size of large dogs, covered in skin that perfectly matched the limestone. They lacked eyes, their heads dominated by massive, serrated mandibles and sensitive, twitching antennae.
"Stalkers," Olin adjusted his sensors. "Rank 1 and 2 insect monsters. They're nasty work."
"And blind," Milo explained, his voice barely audible. "They hunt by vibration and sound. Must be why they're gathering around the crash site. That's why the merchants didn't use a radio. A mana pulse. An engine roar. Even shouting would bring that entire mass down on them."
Regius scanned the walls. There were hundreds of them. A dormant minefield of monsters waiting for a single pebble to drop.
"If that wagon shifts," Vera noted grimly, "it makes noise."
"And they get eaten before they hit the ground," Milo finished.
Kael assessed the tactical board. "We can't fly down. The repulsors displace air; the pressure wave alone would wake the hive. We can't shoot them from here; there are too many. If we miss one, the sound will wake the rest."
"We have to go down," Regius said. "On foot."
"Climbing gear clinks." Milo shook his head. "And you guys are heavy. Kael, your armor weighs as much as a small car. Vera, you breathe too loud."
"Hey!" Vera whispered indignantly.
"He's right," Regius said. "Standard extraction is impossible."
He looked at the vehicle. It groaned softly, a piece of metal flaking off and tumbling into the darkness. A nearby Stalker twitched, its antennae sweeping the air.
"I'll go," Milo said.
The squad turned to him.
Milo stood up, adjusting his tunic. He looked small next to Kael and Vera, stripped of the heavy plating they wore. But there was a confidence in his posture that Regius hadn't seen before.
"I'm the only one who can do it," Milo said. "I can use the shadows to travel down the cliff face. Get inside the transport without rocking it. Grab the survivors, and I shadow step them out."
"That's a lot of maneuvers, Milo," Olin warned. "Your mana reserves aren't infinite. Carrying three passengers? You'll burn out halfway."
"Then I'll take a break on a ledge. Look, that transport is going to fall any minute now. We have maybe ten minutes before gravity pulls them down. Boss, I'm going."
Regius looked at his scout. He saw the determination in Milo's eyes.
"Do it," Regius ordered. "Olin, set up a distortion field at the top. If they wake up, distort the sound so the horde is confused. Vera and Kael, be ready to go loud if things go south. If Milo gets caught, we kill those bastards."
"Understood," the squad chorused.
Milo stepped to the edge. He didn't look down at the drop. He looked at the wagon.
"Back in five," Milo grinned.
His shadow lynx emerged from the shadows, standing next to him. His shadow elongated, stretching over the precipice like a dark finger. He stepped into it and vanished.