They were still above the tree line when Vane stopped.
Not because of anything he saw. Because of what he heard. Loose stone, coming down the slope behind them in a trickle rather than a slide.
He turned. James turned. Vale turned.
The creature came down the same way it had come onto the plateau — deliberate, using the terrain, taking its time. It reached the shelf below them and stood there.
The shelf. Where the hound tracks had stopped. Exposed rock, off to the side of the trail, ground they couldn't track across.
It stood and waited, favoring the rear left leg, mouth open along the front of it.
Vane had no knife.
"James," he said.
"Here."
"Trail's behind it."
"I know."
James looked at it for a moment. He'd done this before. On the plateau, two days ago. He'd walked toward it, and it had moved aside.
"I'll try the same thing," he said.
Vane didn't answer. Vale didn't either.
James walked forward.
---
He took three steps. Then three more. Slow, even, weight centered, hands loose at his sides.
The creature turned the front of its body toward him.
He kept walking.
It didn't step aside.
He stopped at ten feet. The creature stayed exactly where it was. It didn't retreat. It didn't advance. It just held the trail, favoring the leg, and stayed between him and the descent.
James stood there for a moment.
Then he took one more step.
The creature shifted its weight forward.
He stopped.
"Vale," he said.
"Here."
"Can you do anything with this?"
Vale already had the instrument away and his hands out. He was looking at the light — the low sun coming across the ridge, the way it caught the rock face, the way it fell on the creature's body.
"There's enough light," he said. "I think."
"Do it."
---
Vale moved first.
He didn't attack. He reached for the light the way someone reaches for a tool on a shelf. The sun was low and coming across the ridge face at an angle, and the creature was standing in it, and Vale took the path the light was already traveling and bent it.
The creature's front section — the low forward mass, the open mouth — appeared two feet to the left of where it actually was.
James saw it. Vane saw it. The visual line of the creature shifted without the creature moving.
The creature didn't react.
It didn't turn toward the misdirection. It didn't adjust. It just stood there, and then it stepped forward, straight through the false position, toward where it had always actually been.
Vale lowered his hands.
"It didn't react," he said.
"No," Vane said.
"The displacement didn't matter."
Vane was already moving. He didn't have a weapon, so he used what he had. He stepped in low and drove a strike into the creature's shoulder — not a blade-focused thrust this time, just his open hand, Ki condensed into a broad, blunt impact rather than a point. It was the same energy he'd used with a knife, but without a knife it landed like a hammer instead of a needle.
The strike landed.
The creature barely slowed.
Vane stepped back.
And the creature swung.
---
It was the same heavy, slow swing from the first fight. James had seen it. He knew what it did. But Vane was closer than he'd been the first time, and the swing caught him across the ribs and the right arm, and James heard the impact before he saw Vane leave his feet.
Vane hit the rock hard. He didn't get up.
James didn't move toward him. He couldn't. The creature was between them, and it was already turning.
"Vale."
"Here."
"Can you see the leg?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"Make it clearer."
---
Vale understood.
He didn't try to misdirect the creature this time. He reached for the light falling on the creature's body and adjusted it — not to change where the creature appeared to be, but to change what was visible from James's angle. The low sun was behind the creature, throwing the rear leg into shadow. Vale took that light, bent it around the obstruction of the creature's body, and redirected it onto the underside of the rear left leg.
The tendon, the wound, the shape of the joint. The knife still buried in it.
James saw all of it at once.
The leg didn't load. The tendon was damaged, and the blade was still wedged in it, and every time the creature shifted its weight, the leg did less than the other three.
He stepped in.
---
He didn't use the Nexus.
Ragnar had spent years teaching him what to do with his body. Chawng had spent the time since teaching him what to do with his weight. The creature was bigger and heavier and its swing carried force, but it was slow, and it favored one side, and it turned toward whatever was in front of it.
James walked around the turn.
He stayed on the creature's bad side. Every time it shifted to face him, he moved to where the damaged leg had to take weight, and every time it had to take that weight, it hesitated.
Not much. Half a step. But it was there, every time.
He got close enough to reach the tendon.
He didn't grab the knife. He knew the blade was the only thing keeping the wound from closing around it, and he didn't know what pulling it would do. He just struck the joint above it — heel of his palm, short, precise, the way he'd been trained to break a hold.
The creature made the low grinding sound again and dropped onto its front legs.
It didn't fall. It just couldn't get up as fast.
James stepped back.
---
"Go," he said.
Vale didn't argue. He went to Vane — dragged him up, got an arm under his shoulder, and started moving him toward the trail. Vane was conscious. He wasn't walking well. Blood on his sleeve and along his ribs, and every step was a decision.
James followed.
The creature didn't.
It stayed on the shelf, on its front legs, favoring the leg that couldn't take weight. It didn't follow them as they moved down the trail and out of the light.
When they were far enough that the shelf was out of sight, James finally slowed.
Vane was leaning on Vale and breathing badly.
"That's twice," he said.
James didn't answer.
---
They made it to the tree line before Vane had to stop.
Vale eased him down against a trunk. Vane's arm was wrong — not broken, but he couldn't lift it, and he couldn't take a full breath without stopping halfway. He was pale in a way that wasn't from the cold.
Vale crouched beside him and checked the ribs. He didn't say anything for a moment.
"Two of them are cracked," he said finally. "Maybe three. Something in the shoulder. I don't know what."
"Can he walk?"
"He walked this far."
James looked back up the ridge.
The shelf wasn't visible. Neither was the creature. The cloud was coming back down, and the light was almost gone, and they still had a mile and a half of trail before the base shelter.
He looked at Vane. Then at Vale.
"I'll take him at the halfway point," he said.
Vale looked at him. James was thirteen, and Vane was a grown man, and the last mile had already been slow.
"Can you?"
"From the halfway point. You take him until then. I'll take him after."
Vale didn't argue. He adjusted the way he was holding Vane and got him moving again.
At the halfway point, James moved under Vane's other arm without being asked. He was shorter than Vale, and Vane had to lean more than he probably wanted to, but James set his weight the way he'd been taught and kept moving.
Vane didn't say anything. Neither did James.
They made it to the base shelter a little after dark.