A few seconds later, Nathan was face-to-face with a bear-like beast.
It stood on all fours at the edge of a clearing, its shoulders level with his chest, its hide covered in dull, overlapping scales that gleamed wetly in the filtered light.
Foam clung to its jaws. 'A mutated beast,' he thought to himself, the lowest of its kind.
He let out a slow breath of relief. There's no way the examiners would throw something stronger at a bunch of rookie cadets.
His hands moved on instinct and tapped the small compartments at his hips.
Light rippled through the fibers, and a pair of slender daggers assembled themselves in his grip, forming out of thin air with a faint whisper.
Their weight settled into his palms with a strange sense of familiarity.
The rapier-like handles fit perfectly, and fine micro-scale lines along the blades hummed with a faint, steady power.
He sank into a low stance and fixed his eyes on the beast.
'I can do this.' He thought, though it wasn't quite a certainty.
'At least, I hope I can.'
The creature let out a roar that rolled through the trees and slapped him in the chest like a physical blow.
His knees tried to buckle, but he locked them.
The forest seemed to press in closer, branches knitting overhead, shadows pooling between the trunks so thickly that he could hardly see.
But he didn't need to see to know the thing was huge, and fast.
It charged.
Nathan threw himself sideways, and the jaws snapped shut on empty air so close to his face that he heard the clack of the teeth and felt the heat of its breath on his cheek.
A shiver crawled down his spine.
He swung back, a quick, clean slash at the exposed flank.
The beast twisted away, far too nimble for something that size, and the blade cut nothing but air a hair's breadth from its scales.
Then a massive paw lashed out. Nathan leapt backward, but his boots hit the damp earth at the wrong angle, and he went down hard, his daggers scrabbling for purchase as the beast pounced.
Its weight landed on his chest like a collapsing wall.
The world went dim at the edges. Hot, rank breath washed over his face, and the claws pinned his arms against the soil.
He bucked, thrashed, shoved at the creature's chin with both forearms, and for a few awful seconds none of it mattered.
Then a gap opened, just a few inches, and he wriggled out through it and rolled free as the jaws snapped on the spot where his head had been.
He staggered upright, gasping, the daggers still clutched in his grip.
The beast whirled and charged again, a freight train made of fur and teeth.
This time, his hands moved before his mind could catch up.
A flick of his wrist, and the daggers' built-in grappling hooks shot out from the pommels, hissing as they unspooled.
The barbed tips punched into the creature's scaly hide, and the cables snapped taut.
The beast's momentum nearly tore his arms out of their sockets.
He held on, dug in his heels, and let the lines swing him in a wide arc around the creature's flank.
The thing thrashed and bucked, roaring in fury, but Nathan clung to it like a burr.
He drove one dagger into its side.
The beast screamed. Nathan twisted the blade, hunting for something vital, but the hide was thicker than he'd expected, and the steel barely sank in past the hilt.
A shock of dismay went through him.
The paw came around.
It caught him across the ribs and sent him flying. He crashed into the trunk of a tree with a force that drove the air from his lungs, and his fingers went numb.
The daggers jolted in his grasp. For a heartbeat he thought they would slip free, but he scrabbled them back against his palms, hands trembling.
Through the haze, he saw the beast already thundering toward him, jaws wide.
'Think. Think!'
His eyes darted across the clearing and landed on a thicket to his left, a dense tangle of branches and thorns.
He ran.
Adrenaline lit his legs like a fuse. Each stride jolted through his bruised ribs, and the sound of the beast's pounding feet grew louder behind him, only a few steps back.
He dove into the thicket as teeth snapped shut inches from his heels.
Thorns clawed at his suit.
He dragged himself forward on his elbows through the narrow gap, heart slamming against his ribs, while the beast's enraged roars boomed through the branches behind him until it sounded as if the creature were right on top of him.
A glimmer of light appeared ahead. He lunged for it and burst out the other side, gasping.
The beast was nowhere in sight.
He didn't believe for a second that it was gone. It was only a matter of time before the thing found a way around.
He used the reprieve to drag in air, pressing a hand against his side.
The beast was bigger and faster than he'd planned for, and his daggers looked woefully inadequate against that hide.
But quitting wasn't really an option he had. He closed his eyes for a moment and ran through everything he had seen: the speed of the lunges, the way it twisted before it struck, the soft spot just behind the foreleg where the scales overlapped.
It's stronger than me. But it isn't smarter.
Branches cracked somewhere in the dark, a heavy, crashing rhythm that grew louder with every second.
His fingers tightened on the daggers.
'It's coming. And this time, I'm ready.'
He took one deep breath, and let it out.
The beast exploded into the clearing, jaws gaping.
Nathan slid to one side, and the bite closed on empty air by a hair's breadth.
He answered with a swift slash to the exposed flank, exactly where he'd aimed before, but this time, the blade went deep.
It parted the scales at the join and sank into the muscle beneath.
The beast roared. Nathan twisted the dagger, feeling the steel grind against something vital.
The creature bucked and thrashed, trying to throw him off, and he locked his grip and held on with every ounce of strength he had left.
Slowly, the thrashing weakened.
Its roar thinned into a wet, rasping groan. Its legs buckled. Nathan twisted the blade one last time, and the huge body shuddered, then went limp.
It collapsed onto the forest floor with a heavy thump that shook the leaves from the nearest branches.
Nathan stumbled backward. His chest heaved. His arms were shaking so badly that the daggers rattled against each other as he lowered them.
He'd done it. He'd survived his first fight.
But as he stared down at the beast's lifeless bulk, a cold weight settled in his stomach.
'This was the weakest rank. And it nearly killed me.'
He lifted his gaze to the trees, and to the shadows that stretched beyond them, and wondered whether he was truly prepared for what lay ahead.