The first stair gave a quiet crack beneath Aric's boot.
He stopped.
The false child's crying continued above him.
"Mama… please…"
The voice was soft, frightened, and perfectly familiar.
That was what made it dangerous.
Aric looked back over his shoulder.
Garran stood at the foot of the stairs with Edren supported against him. The station keeper's husband was conscious, but only barely. His face had gone gray, and one hand was pressed tightly against the bandage around his stomach.
"Do you hear anything else?" Aric whispered.
Garran listened.
"No."
"Then it wants us to hear only that."
Garran glanced toward the upper landing. "You're saying it knows we're here."
"It already knew before we entered the cellar."
The false voice called again.
"Mama?"
Edren's eyes opened.
"No," he whispered.
Aric looked down at him. "You know that voice?"
Edren's mouth moved, but no sound came out at first.
Garran lowered him carefully against the wall.
"Take your time."
Edren swallowed.
"That's not my boy."
Aric frowned. "You have a son?"
Edren shook his head.
"My daughter. She's thirteen."
The voice above changed.
The pitch lowered.
The words remained the same.
"Mama… please…"
Edren flinched as if someone had struck him.
"That's her voice."
Aric felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten.
The creature had not copied the child outside at random.
It had copied someone Edren loved.
Someone who mattered to him.
Someone whose voice could make him forget caution.
The System appeared.
[Pattern confirmed: Vocal imitation is deliberate.]
[Emotional trigger detected.]
[Hostile entity is attempting to influence movement decisions.]
Aric stared at the landing.
"It learns from the people it attacks."
Garran's face hardened. "Then we stop giving it lessons."
He drew his sword again.
Aric raised one hand.
"Stay here."
Garran gave him an incredulous look. "You keep saying that as if I'm an old man."
"You're carrying an injured man."
"I can still fight."
"I know."
"Then stop trying to leave me behind."
Aric hesitated.
Garran's grip on the sword tightened.
"I'm not asking you to trust me blindly," he said. "I'm asking you to stop treating everyone around you like baggage."
The words landed harder than Aric expected.
He thought of the bridge.
Of the drivers obeying orders while frightened horses kicked against the wagons.
Of Lysa covering the roof without asking whether he would come back.
Of Garran letting a thirteen-year-old walk into a waystation because someone inside needed help.
Aric looked away first.
"Fine," he said. "But stay below the landing. If it comes down, you keep Edren behind you."
Garran nodded.
"That I can do."
Aric took another step.
The false voice stopped crying.
The silence that followed felt deliberate.
He continued upward.
The staircase turned halfway to the upper floor. A narrow window let in a pale bar of afternoon light. Dust drifted through it in slow, weightless spirals.
At the top of the stairs, the corridor stretched left and right.
Three doors stood along the left wall.
One door at the far end hung open.
The floor between them was marked with blood.
Aric crouched near the first stain.
The blood was fresh.
He touched one finger to the edge of it, then looked at the smear across the boards.
A body had been dragged from the open room toward the far end of the corridor.
The trail stopped beside a linen cabinet.
No body.
No footprints leading away.
Aric turned his head slightly.
"Garran."
"What?"
"Do you see the cabinet?"
"Yes."
"It's too far from the wall."
Garran looked up from the stairs.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a shadow moved beneath the cabinet.
Aric shifted the spear into both hands.
The cabinet exploded outward.
Wooden panels and folded cloth flew across the corridor as the creature lunged from behind it.
It was larger than the cellar beast.
Its limbs were longer, its shoulders broader, and its pale fur carried dark bands along the spine. One eye was clouded white. The other fixed on Aric with a disturbing steadiness.
It struck the spear shaft before he could thrust.
The impact threw him sideways into the wall.
Pain flashed across his injured ribs.
The creature snapped at his face.
Aric twisted his head away, and its teeth closed on empty air.
He drove the butt of the spear into its throat.
The blow forced it back one step.
Only one.
The creature recovered instantly and slashed.
Aric caught the claws on the wooden shaft. The impact screamed through his arms.
Behind him, Garran reached the landing.
The creature glanced toward him.
Not in fear.
In calculation.
It knew there were two opponents.
It lowered its center of gravity.
"Don't let it get past us," Aric said.
"I had no intention of inviting it downstairs."
The creature attacked again.
This time it went for Garran.
Aric moved first, striking across its side with the spear shaft. The blow failed to stop the charge, but it shifted the creature just enough for Garran's sword to cut across its upper arm.
Dark blood sprayed across the wall.
The creature recoiled and stared at the wound.
Then it smiled.
Not like a person.
Like a mouth discovering a new shape.
The false child's voice came from behind the far door.
"Help me…"
Garran's head turned.
The creature lunged.
Aric slammed the spear sideways into its chest.
"Don't listen!"
The beast's claws caught his shoulder.
The impact spun him halfway around.
He struck the floor on one knee.
[HP: 239 / 280]
The creature raised its arm.
Garran's sword drove through the gap beneath its ribs.
The blade entered deep.
The creature convulsed and tried to turn.
Garran held the sword in place with both hands.
"Aric!"
Aric looked up.
The creature's clouded eye was inches from his face.
The uninjured eye shifted toward him.
It was watching.
Waiting.
Learning.
Aric planted the spear against the floor and used it as a lever. He drove the shaft upward beneath the creature's jaw.
The beast's head snapped back.
Garran tore his sword free.
Aric thrust forward.
The spearhead entered through the creature's open mouth and drove into the skull.
The body collapsed between them.
For several seconds, neither man moved.
Then the false voice came again from the far room.
"Help me…"
Garran stared at the corpse.
"That thing was dead."
"Yes."
"Then who said that?"
Aric kept the spear leveled toward the door.
"I don't know."
The System appeared.
[Hostile entity incapacitated.]
[Voice source remains active.]
[Multiple movement traces detected beyond the far door.]
[Current threat: Unresolved.]
Aric looked down at the creature.
Its body was already beginning to change.
The long limbs tightened. The pale fur darkened. The clouded eye sank inward as the flesh around it slackened.
Not a normal death.
Not a normal body.
The System flickered again.
[Classification data recovered from repeated contact.]
[Temporary designation available: Mimic Hound.]
[Confirmed species status: Unresolved.]
[EXP award: Calculating.]
A line of text appeared beneath it.
[Estimated reward: 28 EXP]
Aric stared at the number.
It was the first definite EXP value the System had provided since the attack began.
"Twenty-eight?" he muttered.
[Estimate subject to final confirmation.]
Garran looked at him. "What?"
"Nothing."
That was not entirely true.
Twenty-eight EXP was not much.
But it was real.
And if the System was finally able to classify these creatures, the earlier kills might also be recoverable.
Aric turned toward the far door.
The voice called again.
"Please…"
This time, the words were spoken in Mara's voice.
Garran's expression changed.
"That's impossible."
"They can imitate people they hear."
"Mara is outside."
"I know."
The voice came again.
"Mara?"
A child began crying below.
The real child.
Lysa shouted from outside.
"Aric! Something is moving in the stable!"
The creature behind the far door answered with Lysa's voice.
"Aric!"
Garran swore.
The station had more than one active threat.
Possibly more than they had seen.
Aric moved toward the door.
Garran caught his arm.
"Wait."
Aric looked at him.
"You said the voice is bait," Garran said. "Then why is it calling you now?"
Aric listened.
The false Lysa voice came once more.
"Aric, help me!"
The tone was urgent.
But the rhythm was wrong.
Lysa usually clipped the first word when she shouted his name. This voice drew it out.
It had heard her.
It had not understood her.
"It's trying to split us," Aric said.
"Then we stay together."
A crash sounded from below.
Edren shouted.
Aric spun toward the stairs.
The injured man had been pulled away from the wall.
A dark shape moved at the bottom of the staircase.
Garran ran down.
Aric followed.
The creature below had emerged from beneath the stairwell, smaller than the one they had just killed but faster. It had seized Edren by the collar and was dragging him toward the cellar door.
Garran reached it first.
His sword cut across its back.
The creature released Edren and turned with a shriek.
Aric drove the spear into its shoulder.
It twisted around the shaft and climbed toward him with impossible speed.
Its claws struck his forearm.
He felt skin split.
[HP: 232 / 280]
Aric shoved it away.
The creature hit the wall, crouched, and stared at him.
For one heartbeat, he thought it would run.
Then it copied Edren's voice.
"Don't leave me."
Garran froze.
The creature sprang.
Aric stepped between them.
He could not use a full sweep in the narrow stairwell.
He shortened his grip and stabbed twice.
The first thrust missed.
The second entered beneath the creature's jaw.
It convulsed.
Aric held the spear steady until the movement stopped.
The System appeared.
[Hostile entity incapacitated.]
[Temporary designation: Mimic Hound.]
[Estimated reward: 28 EXP]
[EXP pending final confirmation.]
Garran crouched beside Edren.
"Can you stand?"
Edren tried.
His injured leg failed immediately.
Garran caught him before he hit the floor.
"Take him outside," Aric said.
Garran looked toward the upper floor.
"What about the last one?"
Aric listened.
The building had gone silent again.
No crying.
No false voices.
No scratching.
Only the distant sounds of frightened horses and Lysa shouting orders near the stable.
"It wants us to think there is one left," Aric said.
Garran looked at the two dead creatures.
"How many do you think there are?"
Aric looked toward the cellar door.
Then toward the far room upstairs.
Then toward the stable outside.
"More than three."
Garran's expression darkened.
"Then we burn the station."
Aric shook his head.
"There are people inside."
"Then we remove them first."
A sudden pounding came from the far room.
The same three blows as before.
Edren's eyes widened.
"No," he whispered.
Aric looked at him.
"What is it?"
Edren stared toward the upper floor.
"The station keeper keeps the records in that room."
"So?"
"The cellar doesn't end under the building."
Garran went still.
Edren continued, his voice barely audible.
"There's an old storage tunnel. It was sealed years ago. It leads beneath the station."
Aric felt the pieces settle into place.
The riderless horse.
The dead guards.
The creatures entering from below.
The voices from different parts of the building.
The way the pack had tested the caravan at the bridge before driving them here.
This was not a nest built inside the station.
It had a route.
A hidden route.
And the waystation was only one opening.
The pounding came again.
This time, something struck the wall from inside the records room.
Aric raised the spear.
"Get Edren outside," he said.
Garran nodded.
"And you?"
Aric looked toward the far door.
"I'm going to find the tunnel."
Behind the door, a voice whispered in Aric's own voice.
"Come in."
For the first time since entering the waystation, Aric felt something colder than fear.
The creature had not only learned their voices.
It had learned his.
He stepped toward the records room anyway.