The Eastern Mountains. Afternoon.
Grog rode alone into the mountains.
The terrain was brutal—steep slopes, loose rock, narrow passes that wound between peaks still capped with snow. His horse struggled, its breath coming in great gasps, its hooves slipping on the loose stone. He pushed it as far as he could, then left it at the base of a cliff, tied to a stunted tree, with water and feed enough for three days.
He continued on foot.
His chest ached—the wound was healed, the infection gone, but the muscles beneath were still weak, still tender. His arm was no better, the shoulder stiff, the grip uncertain. He ignored it. He had work to do.
The mountains were wrong.
He felt it as soon as he left the tree line—the same wrongness he had felt in the Grove, in the pass, in the clearing where the beast had died. The air was thin, cold, pressing against his skin. The rocks were dark, sharp, covered in lichen that looked like something else. The silence was absolute.
He found the first sign of the portal an hour into the climb.
Scorched earth. Not a clearing—just a patch of blackened ground, the grass dead, the rocks cracked. He knelt beside it, touched the earth. It was cold. But the residue was there. Faint. Fading.
He stood, looked at the peaks above. The portal had been here. It had moved. It was moving still.
He climbed.
---
The trail was hard to follow.
The scorched patches appeared at irregular intervals—sometimes close together, sometimes miles apart. The portal had moved erratically, jumping from place to place, leaving traces of its passage like breadcrumbs in a forest. Grog followed them, his eyes on the ground, his hand on his sword.
The sun moved across the sky. The shadows lengthened. The air grew colder.
He didn't stop.
---
He found the dead animals at dusk.
A deer, its body torn open, its legs twisted. A fox, its fur singed, its eyes gone. A bird, its wings spread, its body frozen in mid-flight. They lay in a small clearing, arranged in a pattern that meant nothing to him.
He knelt beside the deer. The wounds were not from claws or teeth. They were from something else. Something that had burned.
The portal had been here. Recently. Hours, maybe. Not days.
He stood. Looked at the peaks above. The sun was setting, the light fading, the shadows deepening. He needed to find shelter. He needed to rest.
He found a cave.
---
It was small, dry, sheltered from the wind. The entrance was narrow, the interior dark. He stepped inside, his hand on his sword, his eyes adjusting to the dim light.
The cave was empty.
He built a fire. Ate cold rations. Drank water from his flask. His chest ached. His arm was stiff. He was tired.
He didn't sleep.
---
In the middle of the night, he heard something.
Not a sound—a feeling. A presence. The same wrongness he had felt in the Grove, in the pass, in the clearing where the beast had died. It was close. Very close.
He stood, his sword in his hand, his eyes on the entrance of the cave.
Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. But the feeling didn't fade.
He waited.
---
At dawn, he found the body.
It was lying at the back of the cave, hidden in the shadows, half-covered by rubble. He had missed it in the darkness—hadn't seen it, hadn't felt it. Now the light was creeping through the entrance, touching the walls, illuminating the horror.
It was not human.
It was not creature.
It was something in between.
Its skin was gray, mottled, stretched tight over bones that were too sharp, too angular. Its limbs were too long, its torso too short, its head too large. Its face was almost human—two eyes, a nose, a mouth—but the eyes were too large and solid black, the nose was two slits, the mouth was a thin line that didn't move. Its hands had five fingers, but the fingers were too long, too jointed, ending in small, hard nails that clicked against the stone when he moved it.
It had been killed by a blade.
Not claws. Not teeth. A blade. Clean cuts, precise angles, the kind of wounds that came from someone who knew what they were doing.
Grog knelt beside it. Examined the wounds.
Someone else was hunting these things. Someone who had gotten here first.
He stood. Looked at the peaks above. The portal was still out there. Still moving. Still waiting.
He had to find it before someone else did.