Garret’s voice almost pulled Harlan out of sleep.

  “Up. Coffee’s ready.”

  Harlan mumbled something indistinct without opening his eyes and rolled onto his side. No dreams. Just comfortable darkness.

  “Harlan. Up. Or we leave without you.” The voice was still gentle.

  That worked. Harlan opened his eyes almost at once.

  “What time is it?”

  “Five. An hour till dawn. We drink coffee and move.”

  Harlan crawled out from under the blanket and shivered immediately. The hut was damp in the mornings, smelling faintly of mold.

  “I see why you're hooked on this stuff,” Harlan told Garret a little later. “Warms you up in weather like this.”

  “And wakes you up,” Garret added, making the drink.

  He cranked the handle of the ancient grinder with savage determination. Once done, he dumped large, uneven chunks of beans straight into their mugs and, without letting them “breathe” for a second, poured boiling water over them from the kettle. The grounds floated up in a murky cap.

  *At it again,* Harlan thought, watching the grains whirl in the water. *Barbaric. In the city, they'd tear a barista's hands off for a "recipe" like that.*

  “Drink. While it’s hot,” Garret grunted, sliding the mug over.

  Harlan took a careful sip. Hot water and burned bitterness coated his tongue. Garret’s trademark.

  *Hell of a brew,* Harlan decided, but kept quiet. *Hard to mistake it. Kick-starts the heart in half a turn.*

  Garret drank with a perfectly neutral face, like it was the best espresso in the capital. Under that heavy stare, Harlan decided to keep his critique to himself.

  “Pack up,” Garret said when they finished, and went to top off his rucksack.

  Harlan pulled on his jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets. His face fell. He patted his sides frantically, turning the lining inside out.

  “Garret...” he whispered, turning pale. “I've been robbed. I had change, one and a half talers... Nothing. Empty.”

  “Highly doubt it,” Garret replied calmly, tightening his straps. “People don't steal here. You get a hand or foot shot off for that. Then kicked out into the snow.”

  Garret frowned, thinking back. “Besides, you had money last night. You paid for the ale yourself. The only time I didn't see you was when you said, 'I have some business.'”

  The memory hit Harlan like a slap: the letter to Elis, the bar counter, emptied pockets, a handful of coins to the bartender...

  “Damn...” He exhaled, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. “Right. I remember. It's fine.”

  He said *it's fine* out loud, but inside, his gut twisted. One and a half talers! For one letter! A postal owl from Snownorth and back would cost ten ents. Daylight robbery, even if voluntary. *Hope that robber actually sends it,* he thought miserably.

  He finished packing quickly.

  They stepped out into the pre-dawn murk. Frost pinched Harlan’s cheeks, chasing away the last of his sleep.

  The others were already waiting at the usual spot by the north gate. Mark smoked, shoulder against the wall. The brothers—Thomas and Thovas—stood aside, stretching like they were running drills.

  Thorren strode up a minute later.

  “Morning,” he rumbled.

  All present. Garret nodded at the gate guard. The doors creaked open, releasing them into the snowy emptiness.

  The expedition began.

  ?

  When the hills gave way to foothills, the weather turned. The wind stopped whistling and started howling, throwing sharp grit in their faces. Lead-gray clouds sealed the sky. Snow fell in a hard wall. In the Wildlands, that meant one thing—winter was taking over, and it didn't intend to be gentle.

  By evening the temperature dropped so low that every breath burned Harlan’s lungs.

  At the stop, a problem surfaced.

  “Garret,” Thorren said, digging through the cargo container on the sled, “you don’t believe in bad omens, do you?”

  “What is it?” Garret fed branches into the fire, fanning it with a crate lid.

  “Checked the gear. Looks like we missed the spare battery for the crystalline heaters. I tore everything apart—nothing.”

  Silence fell over the camp, broken only by the wind.

  Garret ground his teeth. He glanced back down the trail, then at the faces around him.

  “We push through,” he said after a pause. “If a heater dies, you get cold. You don't die. We’ll sleep two to a tent.”

  “Fine,” Thorren muttered, slamming the container shut. “Still a lousy start.”

  “Seen worse,” Thomas said suddenly. He sat closest to the fire. “Got caught once. Survived on fire alone. Pitched tents damn near in the coals.”

  “How’d that happen?” Thorren asked.

  “Got screwed.” Thomas spat into the flames. “Bastards swapped the crystals in our heaters before we left. Bought them offhand—some old junk. Paid a pile of money. They died on day two. We came back and the ‘craftsman’ was gone.”

  “That in Snownorth?” Garret asked, surprised. “They’d hang a man at the gate for that. What was the dealer’s name?”

  “No. Back then we ran out of Northern Town. Moved here later.”

  Thovas nodded, backing his brother.

  “And why does it always end like this?” Thovas asked, staring into the fire. “Why do we freeze here for a few ents while the outer's asses gets fat?”

  “There you go again,” Thomas grimaced.

  “What? I’m wrong?” Thovas raised his voice. “The Federation pumps crystals, pays nothing, and we’re supposed to be grateful for ‘civilization’?”

  “Thovas, shut it,” Thomas said through his teeth. “Not the place. Not the time.”

  “What’s the difference?” Thovas waved a hand. “Everyone knows it anyway. Our father busted his back in the mines for twenty years. Twenty. What did he get? The cough that killed him—and a pension that wouldn’t even buy a coffin.”

  Off to the side, Harlan, working on the tent, flinched. It was almost his story. Same mines. Same deaths. Same dead end.

  Garret listened without interrupting. Thorren looked away.

  “It’s not the Federation,” Thomas said quietly. “It’s our own animals. Governors. Officials. They take bribes and look the other way.”

  “And who put them there?” Thovas shot back. “Who gives them power? The system’s rotten from the top down, brother. And as long as we swing a pick, nothing changes.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Thomas cut in. “To earn and leave. Far from this swamp.”

  He glanced up at the sky, like he could already see another life in it.

  An awkward silence settled. Thorren cleared his throat.

  “So you’re not locals,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Two years makes us local.” Thomas rubbed his hands over the fire and looked toward Harlan, still failing to drive a tent stake into frozen ground.

  He snorted, stood, and walked over.

  “Green. Obvious. Give it here.”

  He eased Harlan aside with a shoulder—gentle, but insistent—and took the hatchet.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Watch. Don’t pound it straight. Ground’s stone.”

  Thomas set the stake at an angle and drove it in with one short, precise strike from the hatchet’s back. Down to the cap.

  “Got it?”

  “I was doing that,” Harlan said, staring at his own hand as if it betrayed him. “What’s the difference?”

  “Experience.” Thomas smirked. “You're green, kid. Got muscle, but no brains in your hands yet.”

  He turned to go, then paused. He glanced back at the fire and lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Bet you went with Garret for a share, huh?”

  “Yeah…” Harlan tensed.

  “What an idiot.” Thomas chuckled softly, without real malice. “Told you—green. You’ll walk around with empty pockets for half a year, go hungry, and the Lands will teach you fast. You’ll get smarter.”

  Grinning at his own wisdom, he went back to the fire.

  Harlan tugged the stake. It didn’t move.

  *Is he right?* The thought flashed—traitorous and quick.

  ?

  They’d been walking for a week, pushing deeper into the heart of the mountains. The land changed beyond recognition. Rounded hills became razor peaks coated in permanent ice and tough brown lichen. Trees were rare—twisted, black, as if half-burned.

  At a stop, sheltered from the wind behind a massive boulder, Garret checked a compass and a battered scrap of paper covered in notes.

  “Whatcha got there, Garret?” Thomas asked around a chew of jerky. “Treasure map?”

  “Something like that,” the veteran said without looking up, crossing something out with a pencil. “My map. Most accurate in the world. For this claim, anyway. We’re going there.”

  He pointed northwest, where a narrow gorge darkened the snow.

  “Couple more days and we’re at the spot. Been wanting to check it for a long time. Got a hunch…”

  He didn’t finish.

  A shadow—huge and fast—dropped over them, like a cloud covering the sun.

  “MOVE!” Garret roared, throwing himself into a drift.

  Something smashed into the place he’d just stood. Snow burst upward in a white explosion.

  A bird.

  Not the kind that sings in the morning.

  Its wingspan was wider than two cargo sleds laid end to end. Its beak was a bone trap lined with a double row of serrated blades. It missed, and claws that could punch through steel grabbed only air.

  The thing shrieked—high, drilling. Frost shook loose from the few trees nearby. Prospectors clapped hands to their ears. Then it beat its wings hard, whipping up a vortex of snow dust, and swung around for a second pass.

  Harlan froze.

  His knees buckled. The revolver in his hand suddenly weighed a ton. His mouth went dry. Tongue stuck to the roof of it. He couldn’t move—only watched death circle overhead.

  Movement to his right made him turn.

  Thorren, closest to the strike, didn’t run. He planted his feet wide. His face twisted with effort, veins bulging at his forehead. He thrust his hand forward.

  The air shuddered.

  An invisible ram smashed into the bird’s chest mid-flight. The massive body jerked back like a rag doll. It tumbled once, then leveled out again. The hit didn’t break it—only fed its rage.

  “FIRE!” Garret barked, already drawing his revolver. “Chest and neck!”

  Years of drill kicked in: the mage breaks the rhythm; the shooters finish. Thovas and Thomas opened up. Rifles barked in unison. Mark and Garret fired their revolvers.

  The bird dove again—this time for Thovas. He rolled aside with catlike speed. The monster’s claws passed half a meter from his cloak, ripping the crusted snow.

  Thorren struck with the Field again. The bird jolted. Feathers burst free. But it was too heavy and too fast.

  On the fourth pass, Thorren hesitated for a fraction of a second, clutching at his temples.

  That was enough.

  “MARK! LOOK OUT!” Garret’s shout drowned in the noise.

  Mark didn’t make it.

  The shadow swallowed him. A wing slammed him off his feet. Claws tore across his shoulder, ripping through thick fabric and the flesh beneath. The bird opened its beak to finish the job.

  Thorren roared—pain and effort mixed. He poured everything into the strike.

  The Field impulse didn’t just push the creature back. It hurled it dozens of meters. With a sharp crack, it smashed into a low tree, snapped the trunk, and collapsed into a drift.

  “FINISH IT! DON’T LET IT FLY!”

  Harlan snapped out of it. With shaking hands he brought up the revolver.

  *In. Out.* Mark’s lesson flashed through his head. But he couldn’t breathe. He just pulled the trigger.

  One. Two. Three.

  The gunfire was deafening. Bullets tore into the monster, throwing up fountains of red-violet blood. The bird thrashed in the snow, trying to rise, but another hit from Thorren—smaller, precise—pinned it to the ground again.

  At last, after dozens of shots, the creature jerked once more, gurgled up bloody foam, and went still.

  A ringing silence followed. The air stank of powder, iron, and ozone.

  Thorren swayed. Then, slowly—like a chopped tree—he dropped to one knee. His face was chalk-white. Thin streams of dark blood ran from his nose and left ear.

  Harlan stepped toward him.

  “Thorren…”

  “I’m fine,” the big man rasped, lifting a trembling hand. “Just… loud in my head. Mark?”

  Garret was already at the wounded man. Thovas helped hold Mark upright while he tried to sit. Snow around them was soaked red.

  “Alive,” Garret said, fast and clinical as he checked the damage. “Bone's whole. Meat's shredded. He's not fighting with that arm.”

  “We’re turning back?” Harlan asked, hope creeping into his voice as he stared at Mark’s pale face.

  Mark grimaced and shook his head.

  “No. I’ll walk.”

  “You sure?” Garret frowned, pulling out bandages and antiseptic. “It’s deep.”

  “We're close, Garret,” Mark hissed through clenched teeth when the antiseptic hit the wound. “If we turn back now, we lose time. We'll owe them penalties, and we'll end up with nothing. Came all this way for what?”

  Garret looked at Thomas. Thomas shrugged, indifferent, reloading his rifle.

  “Maybe you should go back,” he said. “Your call. But a contract’s a contract. We respect it.”

  “We keep moving,” Mark said, voice hard. “Just wrap it tight.”

  Garret stayed silent for a long moment, his expression shifting. Then he nodded.

  “Fine. But your load comes off the sled. Harlan, you take some of his gear.”

  “No problem,” Harlan said quickly.

  “Then get to work. Clean the wound. I’ll cut the bile sack out of that thing.” Garret glanced toward the carcass. “At least we get some profit off the carrion.”