The pyuika corral attack is a nighttime assault by black beasts that draws Van into a violent defense of the animals and the people around them. Its decisive turn is not simply that Van drives off the attackers: through the pyuika’s panic and the beasts’ movements, he enters a state of bodily connection that makes him fight like a herd animal. When the pack finally runs, the same pull threatens to carry him and Yuna after it, and his grip on the child becomes the last barrier between protection and surrender to that call.

The Herd and Its Vulnerability

The attack’s stakes grow out of the intimacy between pyuika and their herders. Pyuika can bond deeply with a person: once attached, they remember that friend and become lonely when separated. Tsupi’s habit of nudging Van in the back was a sign of such attachment. She had been far from home, with no other pyuika in the woods; during most seasons, she would have returned once the scent of an ossam faded. But the attack comes amid a wider precariousness in keeping pyuika. They resist restraint, and their care depends on understanding their habits rather than treating them as ordinary livestock.

Mohoki, a lichen growing on old trees, can help guide or confine pyuika because they loathe its scent and will not approach it. Herders can braid dried mohoki into ropes around a fence, and planting it along familiar routes can influence the animals’ seasonal movements. That knowledge gives the enclosure a protective edge during the assault: the black beasts approach it in a roundabout way, apparently confused by mohoki. The same barrier that helps human herders manage pyuika also interrupts the attackers’ approach, but it does not make the enclosure safe.

The Attack and Van’s Defense

Van senses the danger before the pack reaches the tent. The beasts are headed for the pyuika enclosure, where the animals’ panicked stomping sends tremors through the earth; tied hunting dogs yelp at the stakes. Van runs toward the enclosure and sees the attackers work around its defenses. Some drive the frightened pyuika toward the far side, while another black beast creeps into position as the hunter, crouching to spring. Van anticipates the pyuika’s jump over the fence and charges the hunter from the side, as a buck would confront wolves with its herd behind him.

The moment he meets the animal’s eyes, Van’s perception fractures. The connection that had let him feel the herd’s fear is severed, and the attackers’ eyes kindle with a fiendish radiance. When one male leaps, Van strikes its muzzle with the back of his hatchet, in a blow likened to a stag’s antlers. As the animal falls and rebounds to its feet, the pack attacks from all sides. Van throws away the hatchet and fights with his fists, knocking the beasts away even as each impact seems to pull at his arm.

Tohma sees the defense from close by. Van appears to glow, his eyes flashing as though flames rise from his body; he moves so quickly that the attacking beasts seem slow, and their fangs cannot reach him. When a beast climbs onto Kiya, Van tears it away by the neck and sends it tumbling. He kicks, punches, and flings the attackers, his stance and movement again compared to a stag protecting its herd. The scene makes the defense both physical and relational: Van is not only striking at predators, but responding to the animals’ fear as if it were his own.

The Flight and the Cost of Connection

The pack eventually turns toward the forest and bolts. Yuna wriggles free from her mother and races after it with impossible speed, while Van follows her into the darkness. He can see her faintly glowing figure linked to the beasts, and senses that his own light is linked to theirs as well. The attack’s danger has changed: the immediate assault is ending, but the bond that helped Van meet it now draws both him and the child after the fleeing animals.

When the beasts start running again and Yuna tries to follow, Van reaches her just in time, sweeps her into his arms, and holds her despite her squirming, growling, and flailing. Watching the pack disappear leaves him with a loneliness like that of a child abandoned by its mother; he wants to go with the beasts to the ends of the world. Yuna, pressed against his chest, is seized by the same urge and cries like a baby. The scent of ashimi gradually stills the tiny creatures within Van, and his familiar senses return. He does not release Yuna, turning the act of holding her into a deliberate refusal to let the animal pull take either of them away.

Aftermath and Significance

The attack’s aftermath remains present in Van’s winter work with the herd. Tsupi butts and nuzzles him, and he feeds her ashimi, a lichen that pyuika eat in quantity during mating season and seem to crave when carrying young. Gathering it beneath the snow is difficult, but feeding the does is part of helping them bear strong calves. Van can now find the lichen by smell; its scent attracts and repels him, and it brings back memories of the night the rochai came. The animals’ needs, the human labor of tending them, and the memory of the attack therefore remain bound together after the fighting ends.

The event also sharpens the contrast between animal knowledge and indiscriminate control. Pyuika are not simply penned stock: they bond with people, follow familiar routes, and react strongly to restraint and scent. Van’s people learn their ways through close observation, while the attack exposes how much survival depends on reading those behaviors precisely. At the same time, the fight does not resolve the larger mystery of the black beasts or the disease associated with animal bites. Hohsalle later argues that the mine victims’ rapid, near-simultaneous deaths and the absence of illness among people working at the mine afterward point away from person-to-person spread; he also doubts that fleas, ticks, or wind explain the infection. The apparent link to bites does not yield a simple solution: sheep attacked by wolves or ossam had not led to reported shepherd deaths, suggesting that identifying carriers would matter more than indiscriminately hunting wild animals. The corral attack is thus a local struggle for survival within an unresolved wider threat.