Chapter 407: Three Moving Parts

Chapter 407: Three Moving Parts

The problem showed up on Monday, in Yard Three, in about four seconds. Jin had set it up the way he’d been setting things up for weeks. Lucian came down the lane with the stave.

Glitch’s job was to cut him off from the right, Flicker’s was to come over the top, and Jin’s was to get out of Lucian’s first line and be somewhere useful when the beasts closed.

Lucian came. Jin ran, reached for Crosswind Turn, and cut left. It worked. He came out of the turn on his back foot, the spear came round, and he stopped where he’d meant to stop. He was quite proud of that part.

Then he looked for Glitch and couldn’t see him. Glitch was behind Jin’s own shoulder now, on the far side of the lane, and the turn had put Jin’s back to him. Flicker was somewhere above.

Lucian, who could see all three of them, simply walked into the gap between Jin and the drake and tapped Jin on the arm with the stave.

"You got away," Lucian said. "And then you couldn’t see either of them."

Jin stood there, breathing hard, and looked at where Glitch was. Then he looked at where he’d ended up.

"I picked where I’d stop," he said. "I didn’t pick what I’d be looking at."

"That’s it." Lucian leaned on the stave. "You used to stand still and watch everything. Now you move, and you’re watching your feet."

It was annoyingly accurate. They ran it again, and again. Every time Jin picked a spot for the turn, he made himself ask a second question before he moved: Can I see both of them from there?

Sometimes the answer was no, and he had to choose a worse spot, one that kept him closer to Lucian’s line but where he could still see Glitch’s flank and the air above it.

That was harder. It meant less room to escape and more need for the spear.

By the end of the afternoon, he’d done it right three times. Glitch had started looking at him before each run, as if checking where Jin meant to go. Flicker had started choosing return lines that brought her into view as he recovered. Once, when Lucian changed direction, she crossed behind Glitch instead. Jin nearly called her back before seeing the opening she’d kept for herself.

"Better," Lucian said, wiping his face. "Still slow."

"Everything’s slow."

"You’ve only had the skill a few days," Lucian said. "Give your feet a chance."

Crowe posted the pairings on Wednesday.

[Advanced Practical Group — Assessed Matches]

[Format: supervised. Controlled torso tag to the marked plate decides.]

[Schedule: Thursday and Friday, two weeks from this week.]

Below that was a list. Jin found his name halfway down.

Astor v. Teller.

He read it twice. Then he found Lucian’s.

Vale v. Saddler.

"Owen?" Lucian said, at his shoulder. "The harrier?"

"He’s quick."

"He’s very quick." Lucian rubbed his jaw. "He’s going to dangle that bird in front of me all match and see if I bite."

"Will you bite?"

"Not if I can help it." Lucian glanced at the first line. "Teller."

"Teller."

Neither of them said anything for a moment. They’d both watched Bram Teller walk after Jin’s first sidestep as if it hadn’t happened. They’d both watched him step round a Gravity Press patch he’d seen coming.

"He’s 3-Star," Lucian said. "And the bear’s 4."

"I know."

"Just checking you’d looked."

Jin had looked. He’d looked at the profiles beside the pairings and felt his stomach drop. Underneath that was an uncomfortable excitement. He wanted a proper chance at Teller, even if it meant finding out exactly how far he still had to go.

Crowe had said these weren’t selection for the realm. Nobody knew what selection would be, or when. But Teller was one of the people in that yard who’d been at Rank 2 for a year, and Jin wanted to know if he could beat him.

He went back to the Engine on Wednesday night, after dinner. The upper grotto had changed for him since the first time he’d seen it. Then, it had been a wonder: green moss, ledges like seats in an amphitheatre, small hoofed things leaping on the heights.

Now it was a route he knew. The high slot led to the higher chamber and the gallery. The sloping approach led down. The broad lower ledge where he’d first stood, with the dripping water, was where he started every run.

He’d always known there were bigger things living there. He’d seen one, the first night, moving between two boulders near the floor. Tonight, he went looking for it.

Flicker’s avatar went first, high, along the eastern side of the grotto, where the ledges rose in a rough staircase toward the fungus clusters. Glitch’s avatar followed on the ground below. Jin kept the lower ramp in view as long as he could. Both avatars were fit for the run, and he’d eaten and rested properly himself. Keeping his blood reserves healthy helped their normal recovery; it didn’t make either beast safe from a bad decision.

The ledges were the problem, and Jin could see it from the start. They were connected, mostly, by slopes and steps of broken rock that Glitch could climb. But they rose in tiers, one above the other, and the higher ones overhung the lower ones in places. Some had big boulders at their edges, solid cover that a beast could crouch behind.

From up there, anything on the ledge below was in reach.

Up was dangerous, and so was anything above you that you couldn’t see behind.

The first broad ledge had a deep overhang. Nothing could come down on top of you there. The next tier up, a long terrace thick with moss, was exposed to the ledges above, with two big boulders on the tier above it.

Flicker reached the fungus ledge and stopped. Through her eyes, Jin saw it.

[Cragclaw Lynx]

[Combat Rank: 2 — 2-Star]

It was crouched on the fungus ledge behind a boulder, grey and tawny with long legs and huge, tufted paws. When Flicker came near, it flattened, and then it was simply gone. It slid behind the boulder and out of sight.

Okay, Jin thought. It’s up there. Behind the rock.

He brought Glitch up the slope from the first broad ledge onto the moss terrace, to get closer. He did it before Flicker had looked behind the second boulder. The lynx came out from behind the other boulder, the one on the left.

It came down in one long spring off the edge of the fungus ledge, from a height and an angle Jin hadn’t watched. It landed on Glitch’s back, behind his crest, with all four sets of claws.

Glitch reared and threw himself sideways against the terrace wall. The lynx sprang off before he hit, back up onto the ledge above, and was behind the boulder again before Glitch had even turned round.

[Avatar Condition — Glitch: 78%]

Jin’s heart lurched. He sent Flicker after it, and she went over the boulder in a Gale Dash. The lynx wasn’t there anymore. It had gone along the ledge, behind another rock, somewhere she couldn’t see.

The moss terrace was open above. Glitch was standing in the middle of it, and Jin didn’t know where the lynx was.

"Back," he said aloud. "Glitch, down. First ledge. Under the overhang. Flicker, with him."

Glitch went down the slope to the broad ledge at a heavy run. Something moved on the fungus ledge above him as he went, and then he was under the overhang. Nothing could come down on top of him there, and the lynx didn’t try.

[Avatar Condition — Glitch: 74%]

Jin sat on the feed crate with his heart going, and looked at the screen for a long time. He’d put Glitch on the terrace before he knew what was above it. He’d seen one boulder and decided the lynx was behind it. There had been two.

Check the next approach before moving, he wrote. Keep watching it while Glitch crosses.

He could send Flicker around a boulder and learn what was behind it at that moment. He couldn’t expect the lynx to stay there afterward. He needed shorter advances, with somewhere to shelter at the end of each one.

He marked the slab at the terrace’s left end. From below, it had looked like another obstruction. Now he wished he’d put Glitch beneath it before trying anything else. He withdrew both avatars down the sloping approach. The real Glitch slept beside his crate, unmarked, with Flicker tucked into the warmth near his neck. Jin rested a hand on the drake’s plates before putting the phone away.

His supper and ordinary supplements could support recovery. They couldn’t give him back the position he’d thrown away. He finished his notes, checked that the avatars were resting safely, and left the next attempt for another night.