For a while they breathed heavily, hands on their knees. Cade ignored the pitying, if a little derisive, looks from the legionaries and jogged to fall in line behind them.

“We stick out like flies on a wedding cake here,” Scott muttered after a few minutes of trudging through the bushes.

It was true. The legionary metal clanked with each step they took and glinted in the mottled light of the sun.

Cade wondered if the segmented lorica armor would stand up against a carnosaur’s teeth. If a hyena could munch down a steel saucepan, as he had once learned on YouTube, he bet the armor was little better than the foil wrapper around a KitKat.

Cade knew he would have to talk to Atticus about this, no matter the consequence. Without the armor, they would move faster, more quietly, and most importantly, less visibly. Best to do it now, while they could still stash the armor close to the keep.

“Hey!” Cade increased his pace and shouldered his way through the ten legionaries. “Atticus!”

The man was close to the front, directing two legionaries to hack through the vegetation with their gladiuses. Atticus turned at his name, and Cade almost staggered back at the look of pure hatred across his face. Yet it was gone as soon as it had come and replaced by a haughty sneer.

“Yes, pup,” Atticus said, the Codex translating in his ear. “What has you yapping?”

“Translate back,” Cade instructed the Codex.

There was no need to hide the Codex’s presence now, and it translated his next words in its robotic voice.

“This armor will be useless against most of the predators here. It only slows us down and draws attention.”

Atticus raised his brows, and to Cade’s surprise, considered his words.

“Do you expect us to leave it in the muck?” he asked, raising his voice for the others to hear. “Armor we have carefully maintained for so many years. Armor that has protected us from the blades of the Tritons? Armor that will protect us again when the next round begins?”

There was murmuring from the men, and Atticus spread his arms wide, then clapped his hands against his breastplate.

“The pup feels naked without armor of his own. He wants us to be equally vulnerable.”

“The noise will attract predators,” Cade said, speaking over Atticus’s final words. “I know you’ve heard of them. They’re like dragons, large enough to swallow you whole, and fast enough to catch you.”

“… leave it in the dirt to rust,” Atticus went on, talking through Cade’s speech.

Cade had already considered this conundrum. He held up his hands in peace. “We’re only a few hours away from our first camp—the prison ship.”

Cade instructed the Codex to open the map and traced their route with his finger. Its appearance closed Atticus’s mouth—it was the first time he had seen it. He had been following a copied, hand-drawn map.

“We can hide the armor there and collect it on the way back,” Cade went on, pointing to the blue dot.