The snuffling followed them like a second wind.
At first it stayed far, a low wet sound that could have been imagination. Then the claws on stone made it real. Not one set. Two. Maybe three. Moving in bursts, stopping to taste the air, then surging again.
Sun Jiao didn't let anyone speak. He led them into rockier ground where scent broke and footsteps echoed, hoping the beasts would lose the exact line.
It didn't work.
Scent resin didn't point like a finger. It smeared like grease across the world.
They climbed a narrow switchback trail cut into the slope. Pines thinned. Rock faces rose on both sides. The wind funneled through the gap, cold and sharp.
Ma Qiao whispered once, breath tight, "Not boar."
Sun Jiao didn't answer.
Wuchen smelled it now too, under pine and sweat: a sweet rot, like bruised fruit left in sun. It clung to their boots and hems. The thin man had marked them, and the mark was traveling with them like a curse.
Behind them, a growl rolled through the trees.
Low. Patient. Not a hungry yelp.
A predator that knew its meal was running.
Liang Zhi's breathing turned loud again.
Wuchen reached back and grabbed the boy's sleeve, squeezing once hard. Not comfort. Warning.
Liang Zhi clamped his mouth shut, eyes wet.
The injured runner stumbled, caught himself, and kept moving. His face was gray, breath shallow. He was dying slowly, but not fast enough to be left behind without consequences.
Sun Jiao led them toward a ridge spur where a broken stone arch rose out of the rock like a tooth. Old sect marker, maybe. Or older than the sect.
He stopped beneath it and held up a fist.
Everyone froze.
He crouched, pressed his hand to the ground, then lifted it and sniffed his own palm. His mouth tightened.
"They're close," he whispered.
A snort answered him.
Not far behind.
Qin Sui's spear tip lifted. Ma Qiao's knife came up. Liang Zhi trembled.
Wuchen's fingers tightened around a stone again.
Then the brush behind them exploded.
A beast lunged onto the trail.
Not a wolf.
A black ridge-hound, shoulder high, body lean and scarred, fur clumped with old blood. Its eyes were yellow and flat. Its jaw hung slightly open, saliva stringing, and its nose flared as it drank the sweet rot scent from the air.
Behind it, two more shapes moved in the brush, circling.
Sun Jiao hissed, "Don't run."
Liang Zhi made a small choking sound.
The ridge-hound growled and stepped forward, testing distance.
Qin Sui moved first, spear thrusting in a short, brutal jab aimed for the throat.
The hound twisted surprisingly fast and the spear tip glanced off fur and shoulder instead of sinking deep. The beast snapped at the spear shaft, teeth scraping wood.
Ma Qiao lunged in with his knife, stabbing low toward the beast's belly.
The hound kicked back, claws raking Ma Qiao's shin. Ma Qiao grunted and stumbled, blood dark on his pant leg.
Sun Jiao's saber flashed down in a tight arc, chopping at the hound's neck.
Steel met bone.
The hound screamed and recoiled, neck bleeding.
But it didn't flee.
It backed two steps, then lunged again with rage instead of fear.
The other two hounds burst from brush.
One went for Liang Zhi.
Liang Zhi screamed despite himself and fell backward, hands up like he could block teeth.
Wuchen moved without thinking.
He shoved Liang Zhi sideways hard, not gently, knocking him out of the path. The hound's jaws snapped where the boy's throat had been.
Wuchen's sleeve tore as teeth caught cloth.
The hound turned, eyes fixing on Wuchen now.
It lunged.
Wuchen threw himself backward under the stone arch, slamming his shoulder into rock. Pain flashed through old lash wounds.
He yanked his water pouch out and flung it hard into the hound's face.
The pouch hit its nose and burst.
Water splashed.
The hound flinched, shaking its head.
Wuchen grabbed a fist-sized stone and slammed it down onto the hound's forepaw as it stepped forward.
Bone cracked.
The hound shrieked and snapped blindly.
Wuchen rolled aside, narrowly avoiding teeth, and came up on his feet, chest heaving.
Sun Jiao was still fighting the first hound. Qin Sui pinned the second with her spear shaft, trying to keep it off Ma Qiao. Ma Qiao, bleeding, stabbed again, desperate.
The injured runner had fallen to his knees, hands over his head, sobbing soundlessly.
Wuchen saw the third hound, paw broken, still trying to crawl forward, dragging itself, driven by scent and hunger.
Predators with broken limbs still bit.
Wuchen's mind went cold again.
The scent resin was why they were here.
If they killed these hounds, more would come.
If they ran now, the wounded would be eaten and the rest would be chased.
They needed to cut the scent.
Or move the scent somewhere else.
Wuchen's eyes flicked to the broken stone arch.
Under it, a shallow ditch ran where rainwater pooled.
Mud.
Wet rock.
He remembered marrow paste spreading like grease. He remembered Gu Yan saying stink tells stories.
He didn't have paste now.
But he had the story's source: their boots and hems.
Wuchen shouted, loud, to Sun Jiao, "The scent is on our feet!"
Sun Jiao didn't answer, but his eyes flicked toward him for half a heartbeat.
Wuchen grabbed Liang Zhi's collar and yanked him toward the ditch under the arch. "In the water," he hissed. "Now."
Liang Zhi sobbed and stumbled into the ditch, splashing, soaking his legs.
Wuchen grabbed Ma Qiao's sleeve as Ma Qiao staggered. "Water," Wuchen said sharply.
Ma Qiao's eyes flashed anger, then fear. He limped toward the ditch.
Qin Sui backed into it too, spear still up.
Sun Jiao fought his way toward them, saber chopping, forcing the bleeding neck hound back with pain.
They splashed into the ditch under the arch, boots and hems soaking, mud coating cloth.
It wasn't washing.
But it was masking.
The hounds hesitated for a breath, confused as the sweet rot scent thinned under water and mud.
That breath mattered.
Sun Jiao seized it. "Move!" he snapped.
They surged forward along the ridge trail again, wet boots slipping but moving.
Behind them, the hounds snarled, regrouping, noses working harder now.
The broken-paw hound tried to follow and collapsed, whining.
The other two pursued, but the trail had changed. Water and mud broke the resin's clean line.
Not enough to save them forever.
Enough to buy distance.
They ran until their lungs burned, then slowed into a fast walk, because running forever was another way to die.
After a while, the snarling faded behind them.
Not gone.
Just farther.
Sun Jiao finally spoke, voice rough. "We can't keep that runner," he said quietly, eyes flicking to the injured man.
The runner stumbled, face gray, breath rattling.
Wuchen's stomach tightened.
Here it was again.
Cost.
Sun Jiao wasn't cruel. He was practical.
Practical people still killed.
Liang Zhi whispered, shaking, "If we leave him, the beasts stop following us."
Ma Qiao didn't answer. Qin Sui's eyes were hard.
Wuchen listened, then spoke softly. "If we leave him," he said, "we leave the scent too."
Sun Jiao's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Wuchen swallowed. "The resin is on all of us," he said. "But he's bleeding. Blood adds to it. If we drop him, hounds eat him and then keep tracking the resin after."
Sun Jiao's jaw clenched.
Wuchen continued, "If we cut the resin more," he said, "we need water again. Or we need to pass it to something else."
Sun Jiao stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once. "Find water," he said.
They moved toward the sound of a stream, following the slope downward.
In the dark, the mountain breathed around them, and somewhere behind, ridge-hounds continued to hunt.
The thin man had paid beasts to chase them with scent.
Now Team Twelve was paying with sweat, blood, and whatever piece of their humanity they still pretended they had.
Wuchen kept walking.
He didn't know if he could outrun hunger.
But he knew one thing.
He couldn't afford to stop.