---
The ground delivered its own opinion one heartbeat later. A rumble that started with the soil telling a story to the roots, climbed into the trunk bones, and came out through the leaves as a shiver. Then the noise resolved into individual pieces: the dull ceramic thuds of Stonecoils, the mad drum of Ridge-backs, the scrabble of claw on bark where Snaptails chose a side and committed to it.
Rhea didn't waste awe. "Pack or wave," she snapped.
"Wave," John said, already mapping angles. "Too many types. Not talking to each other. The drug is singing a song with one word: bite."
Ray went pale and then angry, which for him was the same color with a different caption. "We run?"
John looked at the brush line. He saw how the bait had been looped, how the wind carried it back on the little edge of camp like a hand pressing down a bowl.
"We won't make distance," he said. "Not all of us."
