Three Prey

The paw prints appeared for only a dozen or so paces.

The cub had emerged from beneath the bushes, walked to the stream, then abruptly turned toward a patch of bare rock. The stone held no footprints, only a faint mark where a chain had dragged across the moss. The trail led east, in the same direction the Windclaw Lynx had fled.

Kelin crouched and measured the width of a print. "Not even level one."

Leien looked at Helian Yuan. "You're tracking this?"

"I'm not sure."

"A Recovery Society chain?" Ailina asked.

Helian Yuan took out the blank wooden tag. Seven knife marks scored its back, and the words on its side, "Name to be added upon live return," were clearly visible in the firelight.

None of the three reached for it immediately.

Kelin spoke first. "Did you steal it?"

"I took it from an empty cage."

"Was this cub originally in the cage?"

"I don't know," Helian Yuan said. "There was only black fur and the smell of medicine."

Ailina handed him the new spear shaft. "Then don't write down an answer just yet."

Helian Yuan glanced at her at that.

She had joined the two lengths of black wood with an iron sleeve. The spear was half a foot longer than the original short spear, but somewhat shorter than a standard long spear, just right for the woods. Its three-edged spearhead was secured with two rivets, and coarse cloth was wrapped around the butt to reduce the shock borne by his right hand.

"Seven days," Ailina reminded him. "The iron sleeve will loosen if it gets wet, and it'll crack if you force it against something hard."

Helian Yuan tested it with two thrusts. His right arm still hurt, but the spear's center of gravity was toward the rear, so he didn't have to rely entirely on his forearm. At least it was better suited than a hunting knife for facing a level-three magical beast.

The four didn't immediately pursue the cub. Leien and Kelin had come for the Windclaw Lynx, which had ambushed two herb-gathering teams. Both its tailbone and wind sac would fetch a good price. The cub might be a separate lead, and changing course rashly would mean asking them to give up their expected earnings.

Ailina laid out the choice clearly. "We hunt the lynx first. If it's headed in the same direction as the cub, we'll investigate on the way. If they split off, we go our separate ways."

Helian Yuan nodded.

Providing the route hadn't given him the authority to command the others.

That afternoon, they caught up with the Windclaw Lynx in a stretch of fallen trees. The level-three magical beast lay on a fallen trunk. Its left hind leg had an old injury, but it could still use the trunks to change direction repeatedly. It didn't flee when it saw the four of them. Instead, it circled downwind of its own accord, clearly preparing to probe them one at a time.

Leien advanced with his shield raised, Kelin retreated behind a tree to record their positions, and Ailina drew a narrow-bladed long saber. Helian Yuan stood on the outermost flank, outside the formation they were accustomed to.

"Which side are you covering?" Leien asked.

"It'll test the right side first."

"Why?"

"Your shield covers the left, Ailina's blade faces forward, and I'm the only one whose injured right arm was in a sling."

As though it understood him, the Windclaw Lynx leaped from the fallen trunk toward Helian Yuan's right side the next instant.

Helian Yuan didn't use Shadow Cover. He flicked the spear tip upward to block its eyes, without trying to land a hit. The Windclaw Lynx twisted in midair, its claws scraping along the shaft. The iron sleeve immediately gave a faint click.

The first risk to the seven-day spear appeared sooner than expected.

Leien struck from the side with his shield, forcing the Windclaw Lynx back onto the fallen trunk. Ailina didn't pursue it with her saber. Instead, she struck another hollow log with the back of the blade. The sound made the magical beast misjudge the footsteps, and as it turned its head, Helian Yuan saw its weight shift off its injured hind leg.

"Left rear," he said.

Leien immediately pressed left, but Ailina didn't follow as though obeying an order. She cut in from the right, forcing the Windclaw Lynx to land on its injured leg. The leg buckled on landing, and the corner of Leien's shield struck its shoulder.

After the first exchange, the hunting party held the initiative.

Having been thwarted, the Windclaw Lynx stopped testing a single point. It slipped beneath the fallen trees, using the branches for cover as it targeted their ankles. Leien's shield was large and he turned slowly, while the beast gradually closed in on Kelin's hiding place.

"Fall back to open ground!" Leien shouted.

"It'll run faster in the open," Helian Yuan said.

Ailina glanced upward. "Make it climb a tree."

She took two short spikes from her tool bag and drove them into a slanted trunk. Thin copper wires were tied to the ends of the spikes, with the other ends looped around the iron sleeve on Helian Yuan's new spear.

"Pull when it steps on the tree."

"The spear will come loose."

"It was only guaranteed for seven days anyway."

Sure enough, the Windclaw Lynx used the slanted tree to leap. The moment its hind legs pushed off the wood, Helian Yuan pulled the spear shaft. The copper wires went taut, and the two spikes tore away a whole sheet of bark. The magical beast lost its footing and veered sideways in midair.

Leien struck where it landed with his shield.

The Windclaw Lynx was smashed into the mud, but it still didn't die. It twisted around and bit the edge of the shield, reaching around its face to claw at the side of Leien's neck. Ailina brought her saber across to block, sparks flying as the blade scraped against the claws.

Helian Yuan could end it with one spear thrust using Shadow Cover, but his right arm hadn't healed, and all three of them were close by. If he exposed Tiger Shadow, their relationship would change immediately afterward.

He chose an ordinary thrust.

Rather than stab at its hardest point, the head, or try to kill it in one blow, he sent the spear along the edge of Leien's shield and into the Windclaw Lynx's armpit. The three-edged spearhead pierced the soft flesh, and the magical beast released its bite in pain. Ailina immediately withdrew her saber, and Leien pressed his shield down, the three of them pinning it firmly in the mud.

Leien delivered the final blow.

When the fight ended, no one cheered at first. Kelin came out from behind the tree and checked the side of Leien's neck, then Ailina's blade, before finally recording the magical beast's injuries.

"Who gets credit for the kill?" he asked.

"I landed the final blow," Leien said.

Ailina wiped her saber. "Helian Yuan dealt the first effective wound."

Helian Yuan pulled out his spear. "Without the shield pinning it down, I couldn't have driven the spear in."

Kelin thought for a moment, then marked out three shares on the damp paper. "The wind sac goes to Ailina to cover what she used repairing the bridge, the tailbone goes to Leien, and the four of us split the value of the hide and Magic Crystal Core at a reduced price. Helian Yuan gets one share less meat because he already traded the route for the spear."

He wasn't trying to divide everything equally; he was calculating each contribution separately.

Helian Yuan had no objection.

Ailina, however, tossed him a piece of meat from the Windclaw Lynx's foreleg. "This isn't a life-saving debt. Your spearhead needs sharpening again. Consider it payment for materials."

"Meat can't sharpen a spear."

"You can trade it for a whetstone."

She went to inspect the spear socket as soon as she finished speaking, giving him no chance to hand it back.

While Kelin was dealing with the carcass, he found a tuft of black fur in the Windclaw Lynx's stomach. The fur was short, with gray at the roots, almost identical to the strand on the straw mat in the empty cage.

The cub had passed through here and had been chased or bitten by the Windclaw Lynx.

Not far away, there was also a small pool of blood on the ground that had already darkened. Beside it, the mark of a thin chain extended deeper in.

Ailina put away her tools. "The prey has been divided."

She looked at Helian Yuan.

"This next lead is yours. We can leave, or we can negotiate another price."

Helian Yuan looked at the three of them without asking for their help.

"You saw the cyan iron on the chain too. The recovery team might be just ahead."

Leien asked, "What can you offer?"

"The old mountain paths in the route tube, the iron whistle's mechanism, and the numbering rules the recovery team doesn't want anyone else to know."

Kelin asked, "What risk do we take?"

"They might remember us."

Ailina fitted the sharpened spearhead back into place and secured it.

"We've made things clear this time," she said. "Then we'll go until we see the cub. Once we see it, we'll decide whether to save it."

No one called traveling together a promise.

Yet when the four set off again, Leien walked at the front, Kelin watched the ground, Ailina kept her eyes on the spear and the iron chain, and Helian Yuan listened to the wind.

A temporary formation had already formed naturally.