The Yomida cave attack is the crisis in which Van must defend a cavern full of people from rochai while struggling to hold on to his human awareness. The beasts’ assault becomes a pursuit when Yuna disappears from the survivors’ shelter and Van finds fresh tracks leading away from the cave. He follows them with Sae, but his injury and failing strength overtake him before he can reach Yuna.

The Alarm and the Defense

The attack begins amid the cave’s efforts to help an injured young man: Assenomi rushes in with men carrying him on a wooden door and alerts the Echo Master that a rochai has bitten him. Later, as the raven launches out of the cavern, Suohl realizes that rochai have entered the cave. Van takes up a hatchet and gives Assenomi immediate instructions: gather everyone into the inner chamber while he confronts the beasts. He judges that the creatures are approaching from the opposite end of the cavern, far from where Yuna sleeps, and hopes a narrow passage will hold them long enough for her to be brought to safety.

Even giving directions costs Van effort. As the sensations he calls being “inside out” threaten to erase speech and human thought, he forces himself to ask that Yuna be brought in. He directs the men carrying the injured youth to make a barricade in a hollow protected on three sides by rock walls and a low ceiling. He warns them not to use arrows: the rochai move too quickly for a missed shot to be followed by another before they attack. The men initially struggle to understand, but an elder recognizes the sheltered corner Van indicates, and Van runs toward the danger.

The Ambush and Van’s Loss of Control

The rochai do not charge at once. One after another, they line up before Van with lowered heads and bared fangs, snarling but holding their ground. Their restraint feels less like hesitation than coordination: Van recognizes the pattern of hunting dogs keeping prey in place until a master arrives. The danger is not only the beasts in front of him. A bowstring twangs from the darkness behind, and an arrow cuts through the cavern. Van twists aside, but it grazes his left shoulder; his thick clothing keeps the wound shallow, though the blow is enough to stagger him.

The rochai seize that instant. They rush him together, and the smell of their bodies and breath overwhelms the fragile restraint Van has been fighting to maintain. His body acts as his mind disappears. He strikes the leader’s nose with his hatchet, rolls with the force of the blow, then rises and crushes another beast against the wall with his body while kicking a third away. The attack exposes the peril of Van’s changing state: the same physical force that helps him survive can arrive with his human thought stripped away, leaving him unable to govern what his body does.

When the immediate clash is over, Van remains wary. He cannot sense beasts or enemies nearby, but he refuses to treat their absence as proof of safety. His first concern is the inner chamber and whether Yuna has reached it. Many people have crowded into the hollow he designated, and Suohl approaches to ask if Van is hurt. Van says he was only grazed and asks whether everyone is present. Suohl answers that several people are still missing and that Assenomi has taken men to search for them. Van turns and runs before Suohl can finish.

The Search for Yuna

Yuna is not in the crowded shelter. Van runs out just as Assenomi and the others return; she says Yuna is safe and was with Nakka, but Nakka is missing. Van pushes past the group and calls down the stone passages. Hearing no answer, he runs through the empty tunnels and into the night, calling again for the child’s familiar response. Snow blows across the darkness, and the pain in his head, dry throat, and blurred vision make the search harder. He wonders whether something had been smeared on the arrow that grazed him.

At the cave entrance, the snow preserves a clue even as fresh snowfall begins to bury it. Most footprints lead from the forest toward the cavern, matching the route taken by the men who carried the injured youth. One set runs the other way. Its prints are fresher and deeper than the rest, and Van concludes that Nakka must have carried Yuna away. He follows the trail into the forest, but darkness and his dulled senses soon make the tracks difficult to see; without a lantern, he can pick up only vague scents and sounds.

A burning arrow illuminates the footprints. Looking toward the sound of the bowstring, Van sees a figure on the cliff above the cave entrance, silhouetted by its flame. The figure appears to be a woman and waves her bow as if to reassure him. Van bows and resumes following the trail southwest. When a bow-bearing figure later emerges from the darkness and calls his name, he recognizes Sae, whom he had met in the bath, by the faint scent of pine resin. She confirms that she loosed the burning arrow and says they must pursue Yuna before she can explain further.

Collapse and Unresolved Pursuit

Van tries to continue, but his body will not move. Everything darkens, and he comes to with his forehead against the cold snow. Sae checks his pulse beneath his hood while he insists that she leave him and find Yuna; he is not sure whether he manages to say the words aloud. The anxious cawing of a crow is the last thing he remembers before losing consciousness. The cave’s immediate danger has passed, but Yuna remains away with Nakka, and Van’s pursuit ends in collapse rather than rescue.