Page 86 of Dead Drop

Istart reshaping his defenses. Not asking permission. Presenting assessments.

The first morning I lay out the eastern ridge problem—with the tracks I found, the sight line gaps, and three solutions ranked by resource cost. I've drawn maps in the dirt, marked sight lines with sticks, notated elevation changes with tally marks. Corvin sits across from me at the fire.

His coffee gourd in one hand. His tail draped behind him, still as stone. His expression is the one I'm learning means he's taking me seriously.

"The ridge needs a secondary position here," I say, pointing. "Elevated, but with tree cover. Angle of approach?—"

"The angle of approach is exposed," he interrupts. "I've watched it for six years. The thermals are wrong. A scout positioned there would be visible from the river approach."

"The river is two kilometers away."

"Ordained patterns." He shifts forward slightly. His wings lift a fraction. "Their scouts move in pairs. One high, one low. If the high position is exposed, the low moves in on the assumption that the high has already been compromised."

I think about that. About how his six years alone gave him the luxury of watching everything, understanding the rhythms of hunters and hunted alike. "So you'd use the high position as bait."

"Already am."

The conversation shifts. He disagrees with me on the southern approach. I've proposed relocating the primary observation point to the limestone outcrop, better sight lines, harder to flank.

He thinks the current position is defensible, says the flooding data favors the current location. We argue.

Not the careful argument of the council chamber at New Reach, where every word was political. This is a tactical argument between two people who know what they're talking about. He references six years of territorial data—the weeks when the stream becomes impassable, how the spring floods run two meters high and obliterate the lower banks, the pattern of how Stained hunting parties move differently when the water's up.

I reference four years of gate watch, breach scenarios, and the way the Ordained use feints to draw defenders out of position.

"You move the primary position to the outcrop," he says, "you abandon the natural funnel. Stained could skirt north and come down through the secondary approach."

"You have the secondary approach. It's defensible."

"It's defensible if I'm there to defend it."

"Then we cross-set patrols," I say. "I take one, you take the other. Or we both move together and trigger the markers we set as early warning."

He goes quiet. The fire crackles. Above us, the canopy rustles with night insects.

"You'd patrol alone," he says finally.

"I did it for four years on the walls."

"On the walls you had a hundred fighters within shouting distance. Here you have me, and I'm not always going to be in two places." His tail tightens on the stone floor.

"No."

"It's the best solution."

"It's the solution that gets you killed while I'm three kilometers away hunting."

The conversation stops. What he just said—the layered thing underneath it, the way his body moved when he rejected the idea—it's not tactical. It's territorial.

I incline my head slightly. A concession. "The southern approach stays as is."

His shoulders drop. His tail unclenches. "The eastern ridge though?—"

"Needs what you originally said. Two positions, natural tree cover, the lower one angled to catch flanking approaches. And you're right about the secondary markers. If the position gets breached, the markers trigger and you have auditory warning from four different points."

He nods slowly. "I can implement that."

"I'll help."