Knowing that her stealthy position was compromised, the woman joined the dark-skinned man and cried out as she as well ran to take on the lion head-first. Now unarmed, she was able to do little more than flail feebly at the lion's face, scrabbling at it with her nails. The man next to her fared better, managing to dig his stone into the lion's shoulder, giving it another trifling wound.

Behind the lion, the other two men fared somewhat better. The clean shaven man managed to strike the lion across its rear haunch, inflicting a shallow slash. The bearded man, his accuracy dampened by his missing eye, grasped wildly, trying to seized the lion's tail and slice it off. Eventually his stone was able to meet the lion's flesh, jabbing into the taut muscle of its tail.

Yowling in pain from its various wounds, the Lion decided that it did not like being surrounded. With its strange, humanlike hands it seized the dark-skinned man. Its sharp claws hooked into his generous middle, and it pounced away, dragging the man along with it. The woman was bowled over by the lion's escape, knocking her back some distance away. Once free of the humans surround it, the lion dropped the dark-skinned man unceremoniously to the stone ground, and turned about so that he laid between it and the other humans. There it dropped onto its belly, lying prone against the stone faces. It made no motion toward them or the wounded man in front of it, but it stayed wary; red eyes flashing in the dark, claws drawn, and muscles tensed.