But Tomas, driven now by that survival instinct he’d never known he’d had until this moment, hadn’t been idle. So while the soldier was patting himself on the back for his impressive jump over certain death, Tomas had rushed toward him. Now he pushed with everything he had, obliterating the man’s balance.

As the man toppled backwards, he offered a last-ditch swipe of his blade, which carved into Tomas’s shoulder.

And then the soldier, too, fell, there and gone as swiftly as the passing of a flung stone. Tomas winced, clutching at his bloodied arm.

He turned and ran down the path, as quickly as he dared.

Along the sheer face it went, gradually descending. From somewhere high above, tiny rocks rained down, bouncing around his feet. He risked a glance up, spotting several silhouettes racing along the cliff. They sprinted ahead of him, but he didn’t try to increase his speed. The path was simply too narrow, and one false step would be the end of him. If there was an alternative route down, he could only hope he reached the chokepoint before they did.

But then he spotted the trio of ropes.

They fell well ahead of him, cascading down the wall and coiling like slumbering snakes on the path itself. He followed their length back to their origins, where dark forms slithered over the cliff’s edge, descending rapidly. “Hurry,” he breathed. For if they reached the path before he could get past, he would be trapped. Going back was out of the question, and though he’d fared well during his encounter with the pair of soldiers before, he wasn’t so arrogant as to believe his unlikely victory had been anything more than fortunate timing and an extra helping of luck.

He hurried on, teeth gritted through the pain coursing from his shoulder. He reached the first rope ahead of its climber. Something told him to stop, that even if he could breeze past all three ropes that it wouldn’t be enough—they would catch him from behind.

He grabbed the rope with his left hand and began to shake it from side to side.

Above, the soldier stopped his descent, peering down at him as he hung on for dear life.

Tomas shook harder.

The man yelped and attempted to climb back up, but Tomas only pulled the rope away from the cliff face, as far as he dared given his own precarious position, and then flung it back toward the wall. He earned himself a grunt as the soldier hit the stone, but, stubbornly, he hung on. Tomas repeated the motion, then again. Over and over, battering his foe against the rock, all the while realizing that time was against him, the other two climbers descending ahead of his current position.