Zhāo Yàn moved.
Not because he had a plan. He did not have a plan. He had a stick with two leaves and maybe four minutes of painful experience and nothing else. But his body moved anyway, throwing itself sideways into the dark before his brain had finished forming the thought run, and the Hollow Boar's first charge missed him by close enough that he felt the displaced air against his fur like a slap.
He hit the ground, scrambled, got his feet under him.
The boar wheeled.
It was faster in the dark. That was the thing no one mentioned in the stories. In daylight, apparently, the Hollow Boar was merely terrifying. At night, with its small mean eyes cutting through the black like two hot coals, it was something else entirely.
It charged again.
This time Zhāo Yàn didn't dodge fast enough.
The tusk caught him across the left side.
