The scoring window closed in six hours, and Blackforge sat eleventh with a route that could have carried them to fourth. Vell had built that route across nine days out of mapped ground rather than staged targets, which was the only reason it existed at all.
It ran east along the ridge through four uncontested nodes the judges had priced generously. Nothing on it was dangerous, since the danger in Ruinwood had been arranged into the parts of the map nobody scored.
The lizard's track ran the other way entirely, north through the trees and west along the drainage. Two hours at that pace put nine feet of tagged apex predator into eleven camps holding fifty-three hunters.
"Say it," Yenna said, watching him read both lines on the same slate.
"We go west," Vell answered, closing the map, "and we finish the trial at whatever number the board decides we deserve."
