They hit it eleven times before it changed its behavior.
The change was not a physical reaction. The entity did not retreat or advance in the way that damaged things retreated or advanced. What changed was the quality of its stillness: it stopped being the stillness of something resting and became the stillness of something attending. The whole mass of it oriented toward the cavalry formation in a way that had not been present in the first eleven passes.
It had been observing the pattern of the attacks.
Dhug'mhar pulled his unit out to a hundred yards and held position. He had fought enough opponents to know what it looked like when an opponent stopped reacting and started calculating.
"It is learning the rotation," Graka said.
"Yes."
"The third-pass rotation is consistent. Same interval, same angle, same handoff position. If it can anticipate the handoff position, it can be at the handoff position when the rotation occurs."
"I know," Dhug'mhar said.
