pacing it

Hi everyone, please, from The Shining by Stephen King:

Danny looked back over his shoulder and his hurried breathing caught for a moment and then hurried on even faster. The nearest lion was now only twenty feet behind, breasting through the snow like a dog paddling in a pond. The two others were to its right and left, pacing it. They were like an army platoon on patrol, the dog, still off to their left, the scout.

This are no real lions but hedge (topiary) lions. Merriam webster gives this definition:

(1)
: to go before : PRECEDE

Is that what it means or is there any other nuance here?

Thanks!

King is often idiosyncratic. I would take this to mean: "The two others were to its right and left, as if they were keeping pace with it."

It may mean they’ve set a rhythm, a pace to sync with so they’re in unison.

That's how I would read it, too. They're going the same speed. They're not trying to, or weren't able to, pass it but also they didn't fall behind either. They moved together more or less as a unit, even if they weren't side by side.

Which is all kind of hypothetical, at best, since, the last I heard, hedges really can't move in any way. Just from those couple of sentences I'm concerned for his mental health.

Gabriel Aparta said:

: to go before : PRECEDE

Is that what it means or is there any other nuance here?

It can't possibly mean that, since the other lion is described as 'the nearest'. It is natural here to understand it, as Keith said, to mean 'keep pace with'.