The stakes on the left side shuddered again.
Harder this time.
Something hit the outer brush with enough force to shake loose dirt from the trench wall.
Boru twisted on the stool by instinct.
Vincent snapped, "Don't move."
Boru went rigid again through sheer discipline.
Good.
The black line still fed from the wound into the gauntlet. The knot under the skin had shrunk to less than half its size. Six more breaths might finish the pull.
Or get them all killed in the ditch.
Outside, Serya shouted again.
"Left breach!"
No whistle now.
No signal code.
Only battle voice.
Umbrafang had stopped testing. It was pushing.
Ragan was already moving toward the trench opening when a hunter crashed through the hide screen from the outer side, half stumbling, half falling.
Blood covered one side of his face.
"West support gone," he gasped. "It broke through and turned before we could pin it."
Taliah grabbed his arm and shoved him aside so the opening stayed clear.
"Where?"
"Moving low. Cutting toward inner left."
That meant exactly what Vincent had feared.
Umbrafang had hit the visible center, forced the camp to answer, then shifted toward the real point before the lie could hold.
It had read the split.
Fast.
Too fast.
The gauntlet pulsed hard against his arm.
Hungry and awake.
The line from Boru's side thickened once.
The hand wanted him to stay.
Vincent looked at the wound.
The remaining knot trembled under the skin. Smaller. Unstable. Almost ready to break into a full pull.
The Shaman saw the same thing.
"If you stop now," he said, "it may bury again."
Taliah looked between the opening, the wound, and Vincent's hand.
"Three breaths," she said.
Not six.
Three.
Ruthless.
Correct.
Vincent counted.
One.
The line deepened.
Boru's whole back locked under the pain.
Outside the trench, arrows snapped from the left lane. A scream followed, then another. Serya shouted something too fast to make out.
Two.
The knot shrank again.
The line under the skin stayed single.
Good.
Still one route.
A heavy impact landed just beyond the rise outside. Wood cracked. Men shouted. Something large moved through brush without trying to hide.
Three.
The knot split.
Not fully.
A thin dark branch tried to peel downward from the main mass toward the ribs.
There.
Decision made.
Vincent tore the gauntlet back.
Immediately.
The black line snapped away from the scales and recoiled into Boru's side. The main knot remained far smaller than before. The new split branch barely held shape before collapsing back into the center.
Not clean.
Better than losing the route.
Boru folded over the stool and swore through his teeth, one hand clamped over his side.
The Shaman was on him at once, pressing cloth and resin over the wound while checking the flesh around the knot with fast, practiced fingers.
"Still there," the old man said. "Smaller. Agitated."
Good enough for survival. Not enough for victory.
Taliah had already turned toward the trench opening.
"Move him."
Ragan and Julia moved together. Good. They did not wait for a second order.
Boru tried to stand on his own and nearly failed. Ragan caught one side. Julia took the other. The Shaman snatched up the cloth bundle and resin jar in one sweep.
Vincent rose with the gauntlet still cold and overfull with the partial extraction.
The stabilization hit him hard and wrong.
His breathing sharpened. His limbs felt clearer. His head felt too clear. The hand had fed enough to make motion easier and stopping harder.
Bad timing.
Maybe the worst possible.
Taliah pointed with two fingers toward the inner lane.
"Back line. Move now."
They cleared the trench just as Umbrafang hit it.
Not directly.
The beast came through the left brush in a blur of dark mass, speed, and tail. The hide screen shredded before anyone fully saw the body. One support post snapped in half. The trench wall collapsed inward behind them in a spray of dirt and broken wood.
Vincent turned and got his first full look at the thing in motion.
Large.
Lean.
Fast enough to make size feel irrelevant.
Its body carried a dark sheen under the fur and hide, almost black until it moved into firelight and the deep red beneath it flashed through. The head sat low between heavy shoulders. The tail was longer than he expected and ended in a narrow, bladed ridge that moved with terrifying control.
Its eyes found him first.
Not Taliah.
Not Boru.
The hand.
Of course.
Ragan shoved Boru toward the inner lane.
"Go!"
A hunter on the rise loosed an arrow.
Umbrafang twisted mid-step. The arrow scraped flank and vanished into the dark without slowing it.
Serya appeared on the left ridge and fired twice in quick succession. One shot struck high in the shoulder. The other the rear flank.
Umbrafang moved through both hits and launched for the opening between Vincent and the retreating wounded.
Protect the route, Vincent thought at once.
It had already read the priorities.
Taliah met it first.
Her blade flashed low, not to kill, but to redirect. Steel bit the side of the muzzle. The beast's head snapped off line by inches. Its foreclaw still tore through her sleeve and scored the leather bracer underneath.
She did not give ground.
Good.
Monster at this speed had to be denied clean momentum. Anything else meant bodies.
Vincent stepped in on the opposite side and drove the gauntlet toward the same shoulder Serya had struck.
Bad choice for a normal weapon.
Correct choice for this hand.
The impact landed.
The gauntlet hit dense muscle and tainted flesh at once.
Umbrafang screamed.
The sound was shorter than he expected. More violent. Less animal.
The gem flared dark under the scales.
Vincent felt the beast's taint push back through the contact like a living current trying to climb his arm instead of simply being fed upon.
Too strong.
Far stronger than the things in the dungeon.
He broke contact before the gauntlet could choose greed over function.
Umbrafang recoiled, twisting away from the hand, and in the same motion its tail whipped across the trench mouth.
Taliah ducked.
Vincent didn't fully.
The tail struck the spear shaft in his hands and shattered it. The broken wood slammed across his ribs and threw him sideways into the dirt.
His vision flashed white.
The beast was already moving past the trench, not lingering where the gauntlet had touched it.
Smart.
It had learned that too.
Ragan got Boru farther down the lane. Julia stayed with them. Good. Keep the patient moving.
The Shaman turned once, saw Vincent still rising, and made the brutal correct choice to keep going after Boru.
Also good.
Do not save the wrong man because he is useful.
Serya dropped from the ridge and landed near Vincent with bow already abandoned for the knife at her belt.
"You still breathing?"
"Yes."
"Keep doing that."
Then she charged back in before he could answer.
Umbrafang had shifted to the inner left lane now, where two hunters tried to pin it between spear points and a low fire pit.
Bad idea.
Too slow.
The beast slipped under the first spear, ripped the shaft from the man's grip with its shoulder, then used the motion to slam the second hunter into a post hard enough to break wood and body in the same sound.
The camp had reached true breach.
No more testing.
No more feints.
Big battle, Vincent thought grimly. Here.
Taliah shouted from the lane center.
"Inner ring! Cut it off from the children!"
Everything in camp moved at once.
Older women grabbed the nearest children and drove them deeper inward. Three hunters formed a defensive wall across the central tent approach. Serya took the left side lane and fired low to herd the beast away from the tents rather than at its skull. Ragan came back from escorting Boru and struck with a heavy spear from the flank, forcing Umbrafang to choose movement over a straight rush.
Good discipline.
Excellent discipline.
It might still not be enough.
Vincent pushed himself up fully.
His ribs screamed.
His left arm felt full of ice and current.
The gauntlet wanted another hit.
He ignored that and looked instead at the shape of the lane.
Umbrafang was too mobile to box with only bodies. They needed narrow ground, layered angles, and something it would commit toward.
It still wanted the hand.
Useful.
Dangerous.
Serya cut across the lane and shouted, "It keeps looking for you!"
"I noticed!"
Good. Say it aloud. Make the pattern usable.
Taliah heard it too.
Her eyes found Vincent at once.
Then the answer formed there.
No time for debate.
"Vincent!" she barked. "Draw it south!"
There it was.
Use the hand as lure.
He hated it.
He also agreed instantly.
The south lane was narrower, rougher, and still partially lined with low stake trenches from old camp layouts. Better ground than the open inner left.
Vincent broke into a run toward the south cut.
Umbrafang saw him go.
Of course it did.
The beast tore away from Ragan's spear pressure and came after him in a dark streak.
Good.
Bad. But useful.
Serya and two hunters shot after it from the sides, not trying to kill. Trying to shape.
Taliah drove the central defenders the other direction to seal the children's approach. Correct split.
Vincent hit the south lane and nearly lost his footing on the churned earth. The stabilization from Boru's partial extraction still held him up, but only just. His body was faster than before and far less durable than the speed suggested.
Umbrafang closed the distance in seconds.
Vincent planted his boots at the narrowest point between two old stake cuts and raised the gauntlet.
The beast came low.
He met it head-on.
The impact hammered through shoulder, spine, and knees. His feet slid. Dirt tore under his heels. The gauntlet held. Barely.
Umbrafang's jaws snapped inches from his throat. The smell of blood and taint hit him hard enough to make his stomach turn.
Then Serya's arrow buried into the wounded shoulder.
Ragan's spear drove at the rear flank.
The beast tore free sideways before either follow-up could lock it down. It whipped its tail low. One of the younger hunters behind Ragan went down screaming, leg opened from knee to calf in one pass.
The big battle had now done what every real battle eventually did.
It stopped asking for clean costs.
Vincent saw the wounded hunter fall and felt the camp split again around competing priorities:
keep pressure on Umbrafang
pull back the wounded
protect the center
stop the line from folding
Taliah made the call from somewhere behind him.
"Leave the dead! Drag the living!"
One of the hunters in the left lane had not gotten up after the body-check into the post.
There.
First clear body on the ground.
Real cost.
Ragan obeyed without hesitation. He yanked the screaming younger hunter backward by the harness while still keeping his spear point between the body and the beast.
Serya moved with him, firing twice more to make Umbrafang break line instead of pursuing.
Good pair. Fast learners under pressure.
Umbrafang turned its head.
Not toward the dragged wounded.
Toward the gauntlet again.
Vincent saw the calculation in the movement and understood at once: the beast was willing to wound the camp, but it was hunting the hand.
Because it recognized competition.
Or because it recognized threat.
Either way, the result was the same.
He was the center whether Dayakan liked it or not.
Umbrafang lunged again.
This time Vincent did not try to hold.
He stepped aside at the last instant and drove the gauntlet into the beast's side as it passed the narrow lane. The contact landed along the same shoulder wound and tore a snarl from its throat. The gem flashed darkly. Too much taint pressed against the scales. He felt the hand try to bite deeper into it.
No.
He broke contact at once.
Still too much.
Still not the moment.
Umbrafang crashed into the far stake line and ripped half of it out of the ground with its weight.
Serya shouted, "It hates the hand!"
Ragan snapped back, "Then make it hate the lane too!"
Good.
They were already adapting.
Taliah entered the south approach then, blade red to the wrist and one bracer hanging in strips from the earlier strike. She took one look at the broken stake line, the wounded being dragged, the beast reorienting on Vincent, and said, "Second rank here. Funnel it."
Three hunters answered at once.
The south lane became the first true battle line.
Vincent stood in the center of that line with the gauntlet raised and Umbrafang crouched low in the darkness ahead, breathing hard, wounded now in shoulder and flank, still fast enough to kill any of them in one committed break.
The main battle had begun.
And Dayakan had already paid blood just to make the beast stop pretending this was still a test.