The thing at the far edge of the lamplight didn't resolve into anything useful.
It withdrew instead.
The pace was slow and steady, the kind that belonged to something that had been walking this corridor long before any of us had walked anywhere and didn't feel any pressure to hurry about it.
We followed it. That seemed like the reasonable next step.
Arveth said, "The behavioral pattern suggests a territorial..."
The presence turned a corner.
"...response to intrusion," Arveth finished.
He delivered the second half with the same authority as the first, as if the middle part had always been optional.
Four seconds.
"Territorial," said the heavy one.
"A response pattern," said the grey-green one.
"The territorial nature of the behavioral response," said the third one.
The fourth one's edges extended maybe half an inch and stayed there.
We kept walking.
The heavy one walked through a wall.
