And then he heard it: a deep throbbing, rising to a rasping roar. Two pinpricks of light appeared through the fog, growing steadily as they rushed towards him. The creature roared again, and its eyes blazed, the mist igniting with a white glow around it. He could hear the sound of its passage through the undergrowth now, as it crushed the heather beneath its wheels. And then it charged out of the fog towards him, its engine bellowing.

It was the biggest, most savage velocycle Nate had ever seen.

He lay frozen for a second, terrified. For that instant his nerve failed him, and all he could do was look. Its wheels must have been more than two feet in diameter, its body nearly half that again in width at the cowl. The silvery metal and black ceramic of its torso bulged with power, veined with jagged, angry markings of gold and red. It stood four feet tall at the shoulder, and must have been nearly eight feet long from nose to rump. Its cowl and horns were painted with the dried, rusty-brown blood of its most recent victims. It had raced across the clearing and screamed past him before he had time to flinch. A magnificent beast. Nate closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. He was a fool. He should have brought more men.

But the wet tearing of soil as the velocycle skidded into a turn told him he had seconds before it came back. There was still a chance that he could defeat it. It would be confused. The decoy gave the impression of a large, aggressive engimal, and the velocycle would have been expecting to be met by a rival. It probably hadn't even seen the box. The next charge would be slower, less confident.

It didn't roar this time, rushing through the grass as if hunting for prey. Its lights were hooded as it came into sight through the mist, and then Nate was up, swinging the lasso over his head. The beast swerved past him, unprepared for a charge, and Nate pivoted and, with a deft flick of his wrist, looped the lasso over the creature's horns.