One merchant thrust a spear downward, but the shaft bounced off a shoulder plate. Another Jursen slammed into the side of the wagon, making the vehicle lurch.
"Help!" someone shouted.
Shion had already drawn her greatsword. "Eren."
"I know."
They separated without another word. One of the beasts noticed them, its head swinging toward the newcomers. A low rumble escaped its throat before it charged.
The distance disappeared fast. Eren stepped into its path at the last possible instant. Just before impact, she pivoted aside as she had been taught on practice fields years ago. The charge carried the beast past her shoulder, its momentum opening its flank. Her sword came down in a diagonal cut, steel meeting hide.
The impact jarred her arm. The blade skipped across the overlapping plates with a shrill scrape that sent vibrations through her hands. The Jursen barely acknowledged the strike. It thundered several more paces before digging its forelegs into the road and turning.
Eren checked her blade. The edge remained intact, but it simply hadn't been enough. "So much for new equipment," she muttered.
A roar answered from behind her. Shion met the next charge herself. Unlike Eren, she made no attempt to stop it. She retreated a few measured steps, drawing the beast farther from the wagon until it committed. Only then did her greatsword move.
The blade swept in a broad arc that forced the animal to recoil rather than continue forward. Before it could recover, she reversed the motion into a thrust beneath the jaw. The point slipped between two plates. Not deep, but enough. The beast recoiled with an angry squeal and stumbled sideways, bleeding a little.
There were openings, though they were smaller than either of them liked.
Another Jursen entered from Shion's left. She abandoned the wounded one, turning the flat of her blade into the newcomer's snout. The impact changed the direction of the charge just enough for the beast to pass her shoulder instead of crushing straight through. Behind her, Eren ducked beneath a sweeping tusk.
The merchants had stopped shouting and simply watched. There was nothing else they could do.
For a couple minutes the fight settled into a rhythm of charges, dodges, strikes, and retreats, avoiding death on each charge of those massive foes. The beasts rarely attacked together at first. One committed while another watched, circling with patience before choosing its moment. Each successful strike found soft flesh beneath the jaw, inside a foreleg, or behind a shoulder where the hide overlapped. But each strike was also too shallow. The wounds accumulated and the animals slowed, but none fell.
Eren slipped aside from another charge and drove her sword toward the creature's ribs. The point entered barely an inch. When she pulled it free, the Jursen swung its head sideways.
Eren threw her off-hand against the spine of her blade, bracing for the impact.
The tusk met the steel with a deafening clang. The force slammed her own hilt back into her chest, denting the fresh leather of her new breastplate and throwing her three paces backward into the dirt. The breath left her in a sharp gasp.
Shion saw it. She drove her own opponent backward with a sweep before closing the distance between them. Their backs met for a heartbeat.
"They're learning," Shion said.
Eren's breathing was ragged, her wrists trembling from the shockwave of the parry. "I noticed."
For a couple of minutes, the fight became a desperate scramble. The remaining two beasts had begun circling wider, drifting toward whichever flank looked weakest. Shion watched them reposition. If they continued like this, one mistake would become two, and two would be enough to end it. She stepped forward, forcing her nearest opponent away with another cutting sweep. The movement bought only a few breaths.
Her eyes searched the road. Packed earth, loose stones, and wheel ruts left by wagons. Nothing prepared or marked. By instinct, her left hand brushed the runes carved into the spine of her greatsword. Fire was too dangerous here, and water had nowhere to go except into Eren or the merchants. Earth remained. She could raise a stone gauntlet, which was useful against a single opponent but worthless against four.
There wasn't time to draw a proper rune, and the road offered nothing that would hold its shape long enough to build one. Every earthworking matrix she knew required a static foundation. These beasts were moving too fast. She would have to force the raw mana into shape herself—a crude, wasteful process that resisted her every anchor.
Behind her, another Jursen lowered its head.
"Distract them."
"I've got them." Eren responded.
Shion didn't argue, trusting Eren to understand. Eren planted herself between the wagon and the circling beasts, sword low. The defensive posture felt familiar, honed from years of standing shoulder to shoulder along city walls. Her job was to hold and buy time.
The first Jursen charged, and she turned it aside. The second followed before she had recovered. Steel rang against tusk, her boots sliding through the dirt. A third beast edged closer, searching for an opening she could no longer cover.
Shion had already stepped clear of the melee. She crouched, one hand touching the road. The packed earth resisted, and mana answered reluctantly. Dust stirred first, and pebbles quivered around her fingers, but nothing else. The shape resisted her, threatening to spread beyond what she intended. She forced more. The pressure spread through her arm until her shoulder protested beneath the strain. The road answered with a dry crack.
Another surge, and the fractures widened. It was messy and inefficient, but it would have to be enough.
A thunder of hooves became a thunder of tusks as one of the Jursens committed toward Eren. Shion drove the spell forward. The earth did not rise gracefully; it lurched. A section of the road heaved upward a foot beneath the charging beast.
The Jursen's forelegs struck the sudden ridge. Momentum did the rest. The animal pitched forward, its weight carrying it into the dirt with enough force to shake the road.
Shion caught herself with her free hand as the spell collapsed, her breath escaping harder than she intended. It had taken too much mana and offered far less control than she wanted, but the opening was there.
"Eren!"
The opportunity belonged to her now.