With his posture aligned against the wind’s crossflow, the lieutenants left shoulder leading, hand brushing the sheath at his flank. Breathing through the nose with a drawn breath of readiness kept, so that even exhalation wouldn’t draw attention. ᅠᅠᅠHe didn’t know from what.

The perimeter had reduced in. Something else was inside the radius with a tightening compression. All the body could interpret trauma as is vertigo inducing blur. The Predator’s millennia honed fluidity split space horizontally tied to misdirection and blindside repositioning — a clawed uppercut

that moved in tandem with his sidestep. It exploded from the underbrush, sailing past his tentative guard. As pain detonated behind the AHJIN member’s eye, his breath fled in a strangled gasp. The hit lifted him clean off his footing, before gravity tore him back down like a discarded puppet.