The roar came again as Cal pushed deeper into the caves.

  Thunder crashed down the stone, low and rough—Cal felt it more than heard it. The sound snaked along Cal's spine.

  Too big for a normal goblin.

  Inside the roar, he caught harsh, guttural syllables.

  Great. They always get the big one. Typical. I got the job that nobody else can survive.

  Behind him, Jordan’s footsteps were careful. Paced to Cal’s breathing, the corridor had narrowed again—tight enough that Jordan’s bar occasionally ticked the wall. Every time it did, Jordan froze, like the cave might judge them for it.

  Cal didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. Jordan was there.

  The tunnel ahead finally ran straight, just wide enough for Cal’s shoulders. The ceiling brushed his hair. The floor sloped down, worn smooth by many feet.

  His shield strap chewed into his forearm. His shoulders blazed from the corridor grind. His ribs throbbed from the cut that had slipped past the shield rim.

  Jordan leaned in close enough that his breath brushed Cal’s ear.

  “Before we meet Mister Roar,” Jordan whispered, trying for light and not quite finding it, “any chance you want to do the smart thing and leave? I’m asking for both of us. Mostly for you.”

  Cal swallowed smoke and dust. “We’re here.”

  Jordan went quiet for a beat. When he spoke again, the humor thinned to a thread. “Then we do alive. I’m not letting you get stuck in hero brain.”

  Cal kept moving forward.

  The earth buzzed under his boots: slope, bulges, shallow hollows. It grounded his steps when his legs wobbled.

  A faint, flickering yellow glowed ahead.

  Firelight.

  Cal slowed. He raised a fist.

  Jordan stopped instantly behind him, shoulder tight, bar angled low. He didn’t crowd. He didn’t whisper a joke.

  Cal crept, crouched low, and slid forward until the tunnel yawned open.

  The chamber beyond was the largest space he’d seen underground so far.

  The ceiling rose into an uneven dome. The curving walls were pocked with alcoves and ledges. Rough platforms jutted out for sleeping and storage.

  A wide stone firepit burned near the middle. Logs snapped. Smoke drew through a crack overhead while light turned the cave into gold and deep shadow.

  Goblins ringed the fire.

  Half a dozen at least. Some perched on ledges, others on walls. Spears, blades, and scavenged tools turned into weapons. They hissed, eyes shining yellow.

  Between them and the fire stood something bigger.

  The goblin leader was almost Cal’s height. Twice as broad. Scrap metal and boiled leather wrapped its chest and arms—thick patchwork, nails, and bent spikes studding some plates.

  In its right hand, it held a metal shaft—axle, engine part, whatever—wrapped in cloth for a grip. The end was ground to a brutal, stained taper.

  Its eyes met Cal’s across the fire.

  Yellow, but not empty.

  Calculating.

  Cal’s mouth went dry.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “You’re the one.”

  Behind him, Jordan’s voice came soft, close. “Cal. Look at me.”

  Cal didn’t, not fully—just enough to catch Jordan’s eyes at the edge of his vision.

  Jordan’s grin tried to surface but failed. “If you go down, I don’t care about ears, chips, pride, any of it. I drag you out. Agreed?”

  Cal’s throat tightened. “Agreed.”

  “That’s my best friend,” Jordan breathed, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, “Also my favorite idiot.”

  The leader barked a command.

  Goblins shifted. Some climbed down; others edged toward the tunnel. The circle tightened. Two choices: back into the corridor and risk getting pinned, or step in and risk the swarm.

  Cal drew a breath that tasted of smoke.

  “Get it done,” he told himself.

  He raised the shield, pointed it at the leader, and stepped into the room.

  They hit him in a wave.

  Two from the left. One from the right. Spears darted. A fourth hung back, blade curved.

  Cal met them with his shield.

  One spear struck high; he tilted the shield, skidding it off. A second jabbed low; he dropped, pinning it. The third scraped his shoulder.

  He shoved forward.

  The goblin stumbled, boots sliding. A gap opened.

  Cal drove into the gap, smashed two goblins aside with the shield's edge, and snapped his baton at the nearest skull.

  The goblin dropped.

  Jordan moved in the narrow space behind Cal like he’d been built for being a shadow. He didn’t try to take Cal’s lane. He just stole angles—hooking a spear haft with his bar and yanking it down, shoulder-checking a goblin hard enough to knock its aim off. Then he retreated before Cal’s shield swing could catch him.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Hey!” Jordan shouted once, sharp and ugly, drawing two sets of eyes toward him.

  Good. He can take some of the heat. Just hold the line. Don't give them the shield.

  Pain flared along Cal’s ribs as another spear caught him. He twisted with it and kept his feet.

  The leader stepped up to meet him.

  The big goblin moved with grim practice. Armor clinked and held. Club raised, almost lazy.

  Then it swung.

  The blow hit the shield like a car crash.

  Cal staggered back three steps, boots scraping. Pain shot up his arm. His teeth clicked.

  He barely stayed upright.

  The leader barked what sounded like laughter, lunged, club arcing high. Minions surged, fanning out. Every sidestep collided with a spear. Every gap slammed shut beneath a blade.

  He’d been in bad places before: collapsed stairs, flooded basements. None tried to carve him apart.

  The club fell again.

  He caught it, braced, hammered back. Shoulder slammed the wall.

  He tried to counter, baton snaking for the leader’s knee.

  A spear stabbed at his side.

  Jordan’s bar snapped into the spear shaft from the right, not strong enough to stop it clean, but enough to drag the line wide.

  “Eyes up!” Jordan barked.

  Cal released the shield, swept his baton across, and intercepted the strike. The spear skidded past his ribs.

  Another swing. Another rattling impact.

  He was pushed from the tunnel, the center opening. Each step gave goblins more angles.

  His arms shook.

  Seconds. That's all. One slip and they're through. Don't give them the opening.

  “Move the fight,” he rasped. “Don’t let them set it.”

  He forced his left foot sideways, not back.

  Stone dipped there—a slight slope caught by his earth-sense. He let it pull him, angling for the chamber’s edge.

  A spear jabbed for his hip. He twisted, caught it on the rim, and shoved.

  The goblin stumbled, sliding on grit and slamming into another. Snarls bought him a heartbeat.

  He used it.

  He twisted toward a gap by a pillar, edging along the cramped throat beside the cave’s wall.

  The leader snarled and shouldered through its own line to keep up.

  The club came up high.

  Wall to his left, goblins to his right.

  No room to dodge.

  Cal raised the shield.

  The club hit.

  The impact ripped the air from his lungs. The shield slammed into his head and temple. Something in his left wrist went wrong—not a clean crack, but a grinding pop. A rush of hot, stabbing pain followed.

  His fingers opened.

  The shield dropped.

  No.

  “Cal!” Jordan’s voice hit like a hook.

  Cal jerked his arm down, forcing it through the inner strap. The shield dangled taut as pain surged through his wrist, and his vision flashed white.

  The club’s return swing hissed over his hair.

  Cal lurched sideways, half-blind. His left hand dangled numb, the shield dragging from elbow to shoulder.

  Jordan stepped between Cal and a spear that shot in, taking the haft on his bar and eating the shove with Jordan's injured shoulder. Jordan's face went tight and pale.

  “I said alive,” Jordan hissed, all humor gone.

  Cal clenched the baton until his knuckles ached.

  The leader laughed, an ugly, grinding sound.

  A blade traced fire across Cal’s thigh. Hot pain.

  His thoughts skidded to escape: one decision, and the Tower would rip him out—emergency teleport, broken but alive.

  Then he saw his mother’s thin face. Sammy was counting chips he didn’t have.

  Teleporting meant debt and failure.

  “No,” he rasped.

  He dragged air into his lungs and narrowed his thoughts.

  Bigger. Stronger. Armored.

  You don't win by matching its strength. Think smart. Find the break.

  Caves have bones.

  He stepped back into the narrow throat between pillar and wall. The floor turned rough, scattered with loose stone.

  His earth-sense hummed louder.

  He scuffed through the gravel, launching small rocks toward the boss and the nearest goblin.

  The smaller goblin’s foot slipped. It flailed.

  The leader widened its stance and shifted its weight.

  Cal slid deeper into the gap, turning sideways. He jammed his broken arm against the pillar, trapping the shield. It covered his torso without relying on his wrist.

  Now the leader could only come at him from one angle.

  So could the spears.

  Jordan dropped to Cal’s right, bar ready, and used his body like a brace against the goblins trying to squeeze in—jamming one back by the throat with the bar’s crosspiece, smashing another’s knuckles when it tried to reach past.

  “Not through,” Jordan snapped.

  The goblins hissed, their ability to circle stripped away. Two tried to squeeze in beside the boss; one smacked its head on a low stone, the other tangled its spear with the club.

  The next spear thrust came straight.

  Cal twisted his shoulders, let it scrape along the shield, and hammered his baton down on the goblin’s exposed wrist.

  Bone popped. The spear clattered away.

  Another goblin lunged past its comrade, blade snaking under the leader’s arm.

  Cal dropped into a shallow hollow he felt more than saw. The blade passed over him. His baton snapped up into a jaw.

  Teeth flew. The goblin reeled back.

  The leader roared and crowded close. The club smashed into the pillar beside Cal’s head, showering chips of stone.

  Cracks spiderwebbed through the rock.

  It shouldn’t have comforted him. It did.

  If you hit hard enough to hurt the cave, you can be broken too. That's the edge.

  He dragged the shield an inch, letting the blow glance into stone, not into his ribs.

  The pillar cracked deeper.

  Dust poured down.

  “Come on,” Cal croaked. “Again.”

  The leader obliged.

  The club rose, fell.

  Cal twisted at the last second, guiding the strike.

  Metal slammed into already-broken rock.

  This time, the pillar gave.

  A trunk-thick chunk sheared off with a grinding roar and crashed down.

  Cal hurled himself out of the gap, every nerve in his wrist shrieking as the shield scraped free.

  Jordan moved with him, not ahead, not behind—close enough that Cal could feel him, quick enough to shove a goblin aside before it could capitalize.

  The falling stone smashed into the leader’s shoulder and side, driving it to one knee. One of the smaller goblins vanished under the rubble with a crunch.

  The boss roared, voice gone ragged, and heaved against the rock.

  Now.

  Cal’s legs felt like wet rope. His chest burned. His left arm was pure fire.

  But he still had angles.

  He came in from the side where the armor didn’t quite meet, scrap plates leaving a strip of exposed neck.

  The leader dragged the club up, trying to bring it around.

  Cal slammed the shield rim into the shaft, knocking it off-line for a heartbeat.

  He spent that heartbeat.

  The baton drove down in a short, piston strike, hammering just above the collarbone.

  Something crunched.

  The leader gagged and clawed at him, nails raking his jacket.

  Jordan caught the clawing hand with his bar and yanked it away—only for a second, only long enough to keep Cal from getting hooked and pulled into the boss’s weight.

  “Do it,” Jordan said, voice low and brutal.

  Cal hit again.

  And again.

  On the third blow, the resistance changed. Bone gave. Something inside shifted.

  The boss’s eyes rolled.

  It toppled sideways. The club clanged to the floor. Scrap armor rattled as its body hit stone and stayed there.

  Silence rushed in.

  No commands. No harsh laughter.

  Just Cal’s ragged breathing and the quiet drip of water somewhere deeper in the caves.

  The remaining goblins froze.

  For one long second, Cal thought they’d rush him anyway.

  Jordan lifted the bar and bared his teeth. “Try it.”

  One hissed something sharp and scared.

  They broke.

  They scrambled for cracks and bolt-holes Cal hadn’t even seen. In heartbeats, they were gone, leaving their dead and the toppled pillar and the boss’s still form.

  Cal stood in the middle of it, legs shaking.

  His wrist pounded with his heartbeat. Each pulse sent fresh fire up his arm.

  He tried to breathe past it.

  Jordan was at his side instantly, hand gripping the back of Cal’s jacket like he didn’t trust Cal to stay upright.

  “Sit,” Jordan ordered.

  Cal’s knees wanted to fold anyway. He leaned against the nearest rock and slid down until he was half-sitting, shield still hooked over his forearm.

  He breathed.

  In. Out.

  Stone, not pain.

  Solid pressure on his back. Rough floor under his boots.

  Jordan crouched, eyes on Cal’s wrist. The talkative mask tried to re-form and failed halfway.

  “You’re going to hate me,” Jordan said, voice unsteady, “but we’re not looting first. We’re wrapping that. Then we leave. Chips can wait. Ears can rot.”

  Cal managed a rough exhale that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t hurt. “You’re…bossy.”

  Jordan’s mouth twitched. “Loyalty first. Medical second. Everything else can fight for third.”

  Cal’s eyes stung. He blinked it away.

  Alive, he thought.

  Somehow.