The scraping sound grew louder. Closer. Multiple points of contact against the canyon wall above us and to the right, where the rock face climbed thirty feet to the rim. I counted impacts. Four sets of claws. One creature moving on four legs. Not a pack this time. One animal, alone, stalking from an elevated position with the patience of something that had learned from watching its packmates die.
I activated Sensory Hijack and reached for the thermal data in the air above us. Bronze rank let me manipulate two senses simultaneously on a single target within fifteen meters.
The creature was outside my range but the ambient warmth from its body created a pattern in the humid air that my ability could read at the edges of capability. Large. Very large. The heat signature suggested something bigger than the pack leopards we'd fought earlier.
