Chapter 176: Back Above Ground

By the time they crossed back through the academy grounds, mud had dried halfway up Felix’s boots and Arthur’s torn sleeve was sticking unpleasantly to his arm. Cedric kept his wrapped forearm close to his chest, while Felix carried his shield like it had personally offended him.

Students walking the other way kept staring.

Felix glared at a pair of clean second-years as they passed. "If one more person stares at my fucking shoulder, I’m charging them."

"You look like shit," Alicia said.

"Helpful."

The dining hall was loud, packed with rotation teams coming and going. Some students were barely dirty and already laughing about their runs. A guy near the windows was loudly exaggerating a monster encounter to anyone who would listen, while another group looked like they’d barely stepped outside.

Arthur’s team got their food and found an empty table.

Felix took a stupid amount of meat and started eating immediately. Nessa barely spoke as she worked through her food. Cedric favored his wrapped arm, eating quietly. Alicia sat down, let out a long breath, and shifted around until she found a position that didn’t hurt.

Arthur was just hungry. Nobody at the table seemed interested in talking about the mine again, so for a while they simply ate.

He was halfway through his food when Emily’s group came in. Emily, Leon, Elara, and two mages Arthur didn’t recognize were carrying their trays toward the back.

Emily was sweaty and there was dirt across her armor, but nobody in her group was bleeding or wrapped in fresh bandages.

Emily spotted Arthur and walked over. Her eyes dropped to the torn sleeve as she set her tray down and took the empty chair beside him.

She pulled the ripped fabric aside without asking and looked at the dried blood around the cut. "That yours?"

"Some of it," Arthur said.

Emily let go of his sleeve and stole a piece of bread off his tray. "Who kicked your ass?"

"Felix got hit by a rock cow," Arthur said, taking his glass. "Then dogs tried to eat us."

Felix spoke around a mouthful of food from across the table. "That thing was not a fucking cow."

Emily snorted. "Sounds fun."

Arthur looked at her team. "How was yours?"

"Flooded chamber," Emily said, stealing more of his food. "Some kind of burrowing thing. Half the tunnels were collapsed."

Leon set his tray down at the table beside theirs. "We were going to walk straight into a dead end until Elara spotted another route."

Elara sat down beside him. "There was air coming through the other passage."

She said it like that was all there was to it. One of the two mages dropped into the next chair, soaked to the waist and looking like he was one bad joke away from killing someone.

Water was still dripping from the bottom of his trousers onto the floor. Emily noticed, looked at him once, and apparently decided asking what happened wasn’t worth it.

Leon looked over at Alicia. He noticed the stiff way she was sitting.

"Hip?" Leon asked.

Alicia gave him a flat look. "Don’t say it like that."

Leon didn’t argue. He just reached out with his foot, hooked the leg of the empty chair beside him, and pulled it out for her.

Alicia got up and moved to the empty chair beside Leon. Once she was there, she reached over and stole his drink without asking.

Leon just kept eating.

Emily was still picking at Arthur’s tray when Elara looked across the table at him.

"Your arms?"

"Mostly."

"You overdraw when you’re tired."

Arthur looked at her. "You sound like Selene."

"She’s right." Elara took a sip of her water. "Are you still coming to the ranges tomorrow?"

"Ask me tomorrow."

Emily glanced at the field dressing visible under Arthur’s torn sleeve. "Who cleaned that?"

"Nessa," Arthur said.

Emily looked at the wrapping. "Chloe’s going to redo that."

"Probably."

Nessa finished her food, stood up, and swung her heavy pack over her shoulder.

"I need to return this stuff and sign out," Nessa said.

"See you tomorrow," Arthur told her.

Nessa nodded. "Try not to get bitten before then."

She turned and walked out of the dining hall.

Arthur ended up at the infirmary after lunch. Anyone who came back hurt had to get checked before their next rotation.

The infirmary was busy. Several other students from different teams were sitting on the beds. A girl was getting a minor burn treated, another student had a badly sprained ankle, and Beatrice was standing near the back cabinets telling a guy to stop touching a tray of sterilized instruments.

Chloe was working. Arthur watched her finish wrapping someone’s wrist before she turned and finally spotted him.

She walked over, her eyes immediately dropping to his sleeve.

"What did you do?"

"Apparently I’m bad at tunnels," Arthur said.

Chloe pointed toward an empty chair near the wall. "Sit."

Arthur sat.

Chloe pulled up a rolling stool and carefully unwrapped Nessa’s field dressing. She checked the crawler scratch, then checked the newer scrape along his ribs where he had hit the cavern wall.

"Who cleaned this?" Chloe asked, inspecting the edges of the cut.

"Nessa."

Chloe checked it again. "She did a good job."

The cuts were shallow, so Chloe cleaned away the remaining dirt and replaced the rough field wrap with something lighter.

Emily came in while Chloe was finishing with Arthur. Her knuckles were bruised and scraped from her own practical.

She spotted them, walked over, and dropped into the chair beside Arthur.

Chloe finished Arthur’s arm and pulled Emily’s hand into her lap to check the knuckles.

Emily leaned against Arthur while Chloe worked, her free hand resting high on his thigh.

Chloe’s eyes dropped to it.

Emily caught her looking.

She turned, grabbed Arthur by the front of his shirt, and kissed him. She kept it slow and made no effort to hide what she was doing.

Chloe’s hands stopped on the bandage.

She watched.

Emily eventually pulled back and looked straight at her.

"Too distracting?"

Chloe went back to wrapping her knuckles. "Hold still."

Emily grinned and leaned against Arthur again.

Beatrice passed behind them carrying a fresh stack of charts. She didn’t stop.

"Chloe, bed four when you’re done," Beatrice said.

"Got it."

Beatrice glanced at Arthur’s arm once. "Field dressing held?"

"Yeah," Chloe answered.

Beatrice nodded and kept walking.

Chloe tightened the last bit of wrapping around Emily’s knuckles. Emily flexed her fingers once, winced, then immediately rested that hand back on Arthur’s leg like nothing had happened.

By the time Arthur got back to his room, everything hurt like shit.

He stripped off the ruined uniform and stood under the hot water in the showers for a long time, watching the thick, gray mine mud wash down the drain. The hot water felt good until every bruise from the tunnels started aching again.

His forearms were worse than he expected. They had that deep, dull ache that came after too many draws, and even lifting the towel over his head made them complain.

He dried off, set Whisperwind in its usual corner, and went straight to sleep.

By the next morning, every rotation team had handed in a short field report.

Professor Vale had them stacked on the desk when the students gathered for Dungeon Strategy. He picked up the first one and went straight into what had gone wrong.

One team had left their support student completely exposed to a flank attack. Another had panicked and burned through half their healing potions on minor scrapes before they even reached the second marker. A third group had ignored a red academy marker, walked into a collapsed dead end, and lost an hour trying to backtrack.

Vale glanced down at Arthur’s team’s report.

"Your first formation lasted until the Stoneback pushed Felix backward."

Felix opened his mouth.

"Yes, I know it hit hard. If you’re giving ground, call it before everyone behind you finds out the painful way."

Felix gave up on whatever he’d been about to say.

Vale moved on. "Cedric, you lost two casts when Felix got pushed back into you. Work on that. Vance, you spent too long waiting for a clean firing lane that wasn’t coming."

Arthur looked up.

"You’re a ranged fighter. That doesn’t mean the dungeon owes you range."

Arthur nodded.

Vale turned to the next report.

"Emily. You chased a wounded burrower down a side tunnel and lost sight of your entire team."

Emily frowned. "We killed the bastard anyway."

Vale looked at her. "Yes. Congratulations. The monster is very dead."

He moved to the next group before Emily could argue.

When the class finally ended, students started filtering out of the hall toward the dining courtyard.

Arthur was walking toward the doors when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out. The first message was from Mira.

Training room two. After lunch. Bring the bow.

Another message sat underneath it from Elena.

Come to my lab when Solenne’s done with you.

Arthur read Elena’s message again, locked the screen, and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He followed Emily out the doors and headed for lunch.