dawn drills: the feeder told to put the hurt on Stice
He seems to have received instructions to put the particular hurt on Ortho Stice this time, and by his third go-around Stice is trying to weep without breath and mewing for his aunts.
Context
The discretionary drill weaponized against one body: Dunkel "seems to have received instructions to put the particular hurt on Ortho Stice," and by the third round the academy's top man is "trying to weep without breath and mewing for his aunts." Stice — the wraith's chosen instrument, the beautifully-muscled prodigy — is here just a body being deliberately run past its limit on someone's orders, reduced to childlike breathless crying. The regimen's capacity to break even its finest instrument, on command, is on display.