The creature was on the ridge above them before Taric fully understood what he was looking at. It was roughly humanoid — or had been, once — but the proportions had been pushed past the human frame in ways that made it something else: longer in the limbs, denser in the core, with a quality to its skin that wasn't quite skin anymore. Its surface was faintly luminescent in a way that had nothing to do with light — an internal glow, blue-grey, that pulsed irregularly. It moved with the economy of something that had stopped caring about looking natural.

  Dave saw it a half-second after Taric. He went very still.

  "Emitter-type," he said, very quietly. "Mid-development. Don't—"

  The creature raised one arm and something left it — not quite a projectile, not quite a beam. A concentrated pulse of biological energy that struck the rock face two meters to Taric's left and left a scorched circle in the stone.

  They moved. There was no discussion — the terrain of the bowl resolved instantly into cover and liability, and they split without agreeing to: Dave going left toward a cluster of boulders and Taric going right toward the crevice line. The second shot came between them, close enough that Taric felt the heat on his cheek.

  "It's testing," Dave called from behind his boulder. "Ranging. It'll—"

  Third shot. Closer.

  Taric pressed against the rock and took stock. The creature was above them and had the angle — any direct route toward Dave's position meant crossing open ground it could range. Any route up and toward the creature meant closing against something faster than it looked and capable of hitting at distance.

  "Can we wait it out?" Taric called.

  "No. It's territorial. It'll move into the bowl to press us." A pause. "The only safe exit is down the ascent route. If we can get past it—"

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  "It's above the ascent route."

  Silence. Which answered the question.

  The creature moved into the bowl — measured steps, aware of the cover available. More controlled than Taric had expected. Not frenzied. Strategic, in a way that suggested something was still operating behind its biology.

  He looked at the terrain between him and it. Twenty meters of broken rock — bad footing, multiple angles where a shot would have a clear window. He looked at the creature's movement pattern. It was advancing toward Dave's position, not his. Dave was more exposed.

  He didn't think about it further. He moved.

  The first ten meters were behind cover — the crevice line gave him concealment if not protection. The creature tracked him immediately, and the shot came — closer this time — but it was moving as it fired, and moving creatures fire less accurately than still ones. He knew this without knowing how he knew it.

  He got to within five meters of the creature's flank before it adjusted. Close enough that the next shot would have to be aimed, not ranged. Close enough that he was inside the angle it had optimized for.

  It turned to face him, and for a moment they looked at each other — Taric with his bone club in both hands, the creature with something building in its raised arm that he could feel before he could see.

  He didn't wait.

  He hit it. The bone club connected with the raised arm — not enough force to stop what it was building, but enough to redirect it. The pulse went wide and high. He was already moving, driving his shoulder into its center mass, getting underneath its angle of attack.

  The creature was significantly stronger than him. That was immediately apparent. He was buying seconds, not winning.

  "Dave!" he called. "Exit — now!"

  He heard Dave moving. The creature focused on Taric — the closer threat, the one making contact. It grabbed at him, and its grip was wrong in the way its proportions were wrong — too strong, too complete. He took the grip rather than fighting it, using it to stay close, inside the distance where its long-range capability was disadvantaged.

  He drove it back. One step, two, toward the north edge of the bowl.

  The creature pushed back harder. He felt his footing go.

  The edge of the bowl, he registered, was not a gentle slope. It was a ledge, and beyond the ledge was a long, vertical fall.

  Dave had cleared the bowl's exit. The crunch of footsteps on the descent path. Clear.

  The creature surged forward.

  Taric made a decision.

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