Kael rubbed a hand over his face and let out a slow breath. If he went down there and tried to tear its throat out, he'd last maybe three... four exchanges at best. One good hit from that thing and his spine would snap. No heroic comeback. Nothing.
He needed it off-balance.
He needed it tired.
And he needed it angry enough to forget itself.
He climbed down from the ridge and started walking around the valley.
The northern edge of the valley opened a little too wide. The thing could charge there without slowing.
The western side was cluttered with broken rock, but the ground was uneven in a way that would be just as likely to trip him as it would the monster.
The southeast side held a narrow cut in the earth, like a scar. A ravine carved by water long gone. The sides were steep and glazed with ice. The bottom twisted slightly and narrowed halfway through before widening again near the exit.
Kael climbed down into it carefully.
His boots slid at once. He caught himself against the wall, his fingers scraping against frozen stone. The surface was slick with thin meltwater frozen into glass.
He walked the length of it, counting his steps without meaning to.
At the narrow bend, the ground dipped just enough to pool ice beneath a layer of snow. He scuffed at it with his heel and watched the white crust collapse, revealing smooth blue beneath.
He looked up.
The cliff walls above the bend were fractured. Several rocks rested against one another at awkward angles, held in place more by luck than stability.
He put both hands on one and pushed.
It shifted just enough that he felt the promise of it falling.
Kael stood there for a while, staring at the bend in the ravine.
"If you come through here fast," he murmured, "you don't get to slow down."
He left the ravine and began collecting what the valley offered.
Bones were everywhere once he started looking for them. Huge ribs, long femurs snapped cleanly in half, skull fragments split by overwhelming force. He chose the thickest pieces and carried them one by one to the bend.
Breaking them took effort. He wedged a femur between two stones and stamped until it cracked, then ground the jagged end against rock until it came to a rough point. It wasn't elegant work. His hands split open more than once, skin sticking briefly to frozen bone.
He drove the sharpened ends into the snow at the narrowest part of the ravine, angling them upward. High enough to punish anything that lost its footing without being too obvious.
Then he kicked loose snow back over them.
From a distance, it looked untouched.
He climbed the ravine walls again and loosened the rocks above the bend. He didn't dislodge them, just shifted their balance so that a hard impact against the wall might do the rest.
By the time he was finished, his shoulders burned and his ribs felt like they'd been cracked all over again.
He stood at the ravine entrance and looked back toward the valley.
The creature was on the move.
Dusk again.
It rose when the light faded, making a slow circuit around the basin, like a king inspecting its borders. And it moved unhurriedly and thoroughly.
Kael watched its path carefully.
It favored the eastern edge before cutting across the center. Passed closest to the ravine during its turn.
Close enough.
He climbed to higher ground and waited until full dark swallowed the valley.
The timer ticked somewhere at the edge of his vision. He ignored it.
Throughout the next day, he hunted the beasts around the nearby forests to thaw the feeling of hunger and regenerate some energy before the it was time for the next phase of his plan.
Near midday, it was finally time to test his theory. He tracked down another one of the lean predators that lurked near the valley's outskirts. It had been shadowing him since morning, keeping its distance probably due to the aura of blood surrounding him
He turned suddenly and charged it.
It bolted.
Kael didn't chase to kill. He drove it instead, angling his pursuit until the animal panicked and sprinted straight into the valley's invisible boundary.
The reaction was instant.
The ground shook with the force of something massive launching forward.
Kael scrambled up a ridge as the boss descended on the intruder. There was no drawn-out fight. Just a blur of dark mass and a sickening crunch.
The smaller beast didn't even get to scream twice.
The boss stood over the body for a moment, head raised, scanning the ridges.
Kael held still.
After a few tense seconds, it dragged the carcass back toward the center of the valley.
Territory.
It would answer a challenge.
That was enough. That was all he needed to know.