A plan, then. Not a miracle—an angle.
He lay flat in the damp, counting the breaths between the heavy bites below. "No shortcuts," he murmured, "only geometry." A feint for the beast, a feint for the world. If the west insisted on death first, he would oblige it with theater before tribute.
Assumptions. Always start there.
First: there's a village within reach. Smoke earlier, thin and disciplined—cookfires, not a pyre. That means watchmen, a palisade, perhaps a bell. Enough steel to matter.
Second: the feeder below is heavier than wolves and smart enough to steal their kill. Scavenger or apex, it doesn't care; weight wins the first argument. I won't win the second.
Third: participation is counted, not celebrated. If the thing dies while committed to me—and I stay breathing inside the radius—the ledger will pay what it owes. No romance in that.
So the line is simple: identify from above—spine, gait, dorsal sign—take it with a stone to the hide, let it choose me, and run it against a wall that can afford the bill. If the guards do their work, I walk away richer. If the gates close, I need a second line ready.
Feint. And behind it, a feint.
He sifted the earth beside him for what passed as weapons. Two stones, angular and mean, and one smooth weight for the pocket—a reminder that everything falls if you give it distance enough. He glanced up over the lip again.
The feeding had slowed. The shape hunched, then stretched. Not plates—no; the back rolled like a loaded beam, hide thick, bristle catching the last of the light. Tusks, likely. Shoulder taller than a man. The number wouldn't show until the head turned and the eye caught a sliver of sky. Not yet.
He let it pass through him and not into him.
"Good," he whispered. "I only needed the truth."
He backed down into the hollow and traced the route in his head: ridge line to fallen wall; wall to hedgerow; hedgerow to the shallow gully that bent east like a bow; then the long run along the gully's spine until the ground lifted toward the village fields. If the gates were open, he'd take the lane; if not, he'd swing to the cattle-chute on the north side and let the beast see him there, where the fence tightens and archers earn their bread.
And if the guards hesitated?
Then the second mask: break line-of-sight for one heartbeat at the turn, force the charge to skid on loose chalk near the troughs, and let weight do what spears might not. Stone always votes last.
He smiled, thin and without heat. "Second mask," he said, almost amused.
He waited until the beast settled back into its meal. Patience is a weapon; spend it first. When the rhythm steadied—tear, chew, drag—he slid up to the rim and let only his hand breach the grass. The first stone he kept. The second he set in his palm and measured the wind. Twenty paces down-slope, a flat face of rock leaned out of the soil like a tooth.
He threw.
The crack rang clean, stone on stone—a sharp, precise insult. The head below jerked. Bristle rose. He gave it the sight of his silhouette—only a knife of shadow—and then the second insult: the pointed stone, thrown low, meant to sting more than wound.
It struck hide with a sound like bark. The head snapped up. The eye found him. Commitment made.
Come on, then.
Silence held for the span of a heartbeat turned to iron.
Then came the answer: a grunt, heavy with direction, and the scrape of weight taking the slope. Not circling for the easy run. Not pacing for a ledge. It came straight up the face, claws—or hooves—biting chalk, loose grit hissing down the incline.
Good. Not carrion-shy, then. A climber. Anger plus weight—short sight, long charge.
He counted the rhythm: dig—heave—scrabble—heave. Close enough to feel the soil tremble. Close enough to see bristle lift above the lip if he dared.
He didn't. He used the pit the way it was written to be used.
When the drag of its breath reached the edge, he moved—one clean motion. Hands to grass, arms locked, a kick off the earthen wall; he rose out of the hollow like a strike, caught his balance on the crown, and ran the first two steps before the beast owned the rim.
Night had gathered while he waited. The fields below were charcoal and edge, the sky sewn with cold nails. He kept his line to the village he'd measured in his head—ridge to fallen wall, wall to hedge, hedge to the gully that bent east like a bow—and let the thing behind him make the one mistake he had chosen for it: climb first, think later.
He didn't run hard. Not yet. He gave it exactly what a hunter expects: prey that believes in distance. He rose into a crouch, stepped into the slope, and let gravity sign the invitation. Behind him, the feeding ended with a grunt that flattened into fury.
The first feint held—bait taken.
Now the second.
He hit the ridge line and turned his shoulders to narrow the target, feet finding the memorized stones. Breath thinned but held. He cut to the fallen wall, let it mask his hips for three strides, then peeled off into the hedge seam. The world blurred into edges and decisions: left for height, right for cover, always forward for time.
Behind him the ground shook in small promises. The beast was heavy enough to argue with the hill. Good. Let it argue until steel answers.
He reached the gully's bend and looked once, only once, south where the fields should widen. Faint geometry answered: fence-lines, a pale smear where a lane troubled the grass, a darker stripe that might be the palisade's shade. Not close. Close enough.
He tasted iron and did the calculus. If the bell rose, the gate would hold. If the bell did not, he would have to make one out of fear.
"Your move," he said to the thing that couldn't hear him. "Mine was two moves ago."
He dropped into the gully and ran its crown, feet soft where shale gave, hard where roots caught. The beast committed to the trench, as hoped; in a straight chase, weight forgets to think. Ahead, the land climbed toward the idea of a village.
He let the plan unspool to its end and kept one coil spare.
If the gate opened: through and right, force it to meet spears head-on. If it stayed shut: north to the chute, chalk underhoof, turn at the troughs, and let the west collect its tax from mass alone. Either way, he would be near enough to count when the number above its head went out.
Assumptions, he reminded himself, not certainties. But assumptions written with a hand that knew the paper.
He drew a breath, measured his pace, and gave the world what it wanted most from him: not bravery, not spectacle—only the precise shape of a mistake the beast would make on cue.
Breath ticked down in thin, exact cuts; enough left if the bell answered.
Halfway along the gully the ground pulled flat, and the ridge behind him threw the beast into a clean silhouette. For a heartbeat the eye caught sky.
The overlay chimed, cold and brief.
Razorback — Level 11.
Not plates—bristle. Not horns—tusks. Shoulder a head above a man, hide like wet bark, a dewlap matted with foam. Scars crosshatched its flanks in pale ropes; the mouth worked as it ran, chewing rage. Weight that could argue with a wall.
"Good," he said to no one. "Name the shadow; it stops lying."
The gully bent east like a bow. Ahead, the land hinted at order: a palisade's dark stripe, a prickle of stakes, a lamp guttering atop a gatehouse the size of a cart. He ran the crown of the trench and let the distance do the talking.
The first watcher didn't see him—he heard the thing that followed. The bell came late and wooden, struck by a sleepy hand. A shout followed, then another; shutters clapped; somewhere a dog found its courage.
They didn't open the gate. Good villages don't.
Shapes took their places along the wall—three men with boar-spears braced behind a waist-high rail; a crossbow hauled up like an anvil; one boy with a pitch-basket and no idea where to stand. Voices stacked, thin with sleep and thick with fear.
"Gate stays barred!"
"Hold your shafts!"
"Mind the tusks—low and forward!"
Nameless gave them exactly what they needed: time. He didn't sprint himself empty. He spent Breath in coins, not handfuls—saving the last for the wall. He held the Razorback's eye with the simple arithmetic of a straight line.
He flicked the overlay just enough to read it.
[Breath 5/23]
A knife-edge. Enough to buy the gate—nothing left for mistakes.
The boar forgot to think.
At twenty paces from the palisade he cut right, hard, into the cattle chute: two fences narrowing to a pinch point, chalk underhoof, troughs jutting like stone teeth. He let the beast taste his back for one clean instant, then broke line-of-sight around the last post.
Weight made the rest of the argument. Chalk powdered, hooves skated, tusks came too low and too fast. The Razorback slammed into the angle where fence met palisade; the whole wall gave a grunt like a wounded man.
"Now!" someone shouted. The boar-spears punched as one—shafts shivering, iron heads buried to the socket along the shoulder seam. The crossbow spoke a single hard consonant; the bolt took the eye and vanished to the fletching. Pitch hissed; the boy finally found a use and threw fire at bristle.
The Razorback tried to turn and found reality instead. It broke the fence, not the line. Blood came hot and black in the lamplight.
Nameless stayed just inside the radius, under the shadow of the wall, close enough to keep the ledger honest, far enough that a blind sweep of tusk would find wood first. He watched the numbers not with his eyes but with the way the ground decided to tremble less.
The overlay flickered again—no trumpet, no hymn.
[XP Gained: Assist — Razorback (L11)]
[Fist Weapons Proficiency +14]
[Fist Weapons Proficiency 21/10,000]
[Level Up]
Emperor — Level 3.
The bar moved. Not a windfall—just enough to tip him over. Enough to matter tomorrow; not enough to forget tonight.
The beast sagged to its knees, then to one side, ribs fighting a war they couldn't win. A last convulsion hammered the troughs flat. The men on the wall kept their spears in until the shuddering stopped, like they'd been taught by fathers who remembered worse.
Silence returned the village by inches. Dogs negotiated new agreements with their owners. The bell rang twice more, softer now, because hands that have survived always ring like that.
Nameless didn't wave, didn't call out. A watchman leaned over the parapet, squinting.
"You there! Are you hurt?"
He lifted a hand without looking up. "Not tonight."
Another voice, older, careful: "Stay where you are. Gate's shut till we clear the mess."
He nodded once. Fair. Good practice.
On the dirt beside him, the Razorback steamed and failed at breathing. Close, it was uglier than the mind allowed: cinder-colored bristle clotted with burrs; a hide seamed like old oak; tusks lacquered in wolf fat. Its mouth worked once more, on nothing.
He let Perfect Sight go dim and watched the physical world do the rest: the way blood found the chalk and wrote in it; the way bristle fell flat when fire cooled; the way the wall, which had taken the blow, kept standing anyway. That was the west's other lesson: build for impact, not for show.
From the parapet, orders began to arrange themselves. "Two men to the ditch—rope through the jaw. You, bring the hooks. You—wake the reeve. And someone fetch Father Aldric, he'll want the tusks off clean."
A younger guard peered down at Nameless again, curiosity fighting with discipline. "You ran it here," he said, half accusation, half awe.
"I ran away," Nameless answered. "You killed it."
The boy grinned despite himself. "We all did."
"Good," Nameless said. "Remember it that way."
He stepped back from the shadow of the wall, giving them their work and keeping his share of the radius until the last breath left the Razorback and the last line on the ledger closed.
Only then did he turn, eyes following the fence-lines that would make safe paths by day and invitations by night.
He had his truth: Razorback — Level 11; a village that woke fast enough; a wall that bent and did not break.
Feint within a feint. Tomorrow he would need a third.