The thicker straps settled the weight differently on his shoulders. Extra rations were viable now.

  On his last excursion, he’d learned he could carry supplies for nearly a full week. Any more than that would draw from stores meant to last the winter.

  Coming back in the dark yesterday hadn’t been his first choice. After the ice rain, he hadn’t liked his chances with the mountain.

  The only option is survival.

  Replacing the small bowl with a slightly larger metal one allowed for a bigger loaf, with more dried meat packed beneath. Being compact and neatly wrapped kept it dry and out of the way. He left space for his leather flask and added a slightly larger bladder beside it. Enough water.

  Keeping all that weight down in his bottom compartment kept his tools from bouncing against the small of his back. The upper pouches held only a few items: needle and thread, a small trowel for digging.

  Removing the glass jar he had been using for boiling melt water. With the new bowl it was no longer needed.

  He hoisted the pack and judged the weight. Even with the added food and water, the closer fit sat better against his back.

  As his hands checked the leather for defects or tears, Harbek went back over yesterday’s journey.

  Leaving in the morning and quickly finding the herd trail proved easily enough. The herd moved through the same parts fairly regularly with the Shepherds checking on them regularly. The paths Harbek found himself on were well worn from use, only the snow now starting to envelope their trail.

  Harbek counted the prints quickly, before the light failed him completely.

  Only three heads in this line. Not good. Numbers are dwindling and no sign on why.

  Just before he lost the light entirely, Harbek found the carcass downslope, where the trees thinned and the ground broke unevenly toward stone.

  At first he thought the animal had simply fallen.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The body lay on its side, massive even in stillness — a ridgeback aurochs, shaggy coat darkened by melt and old blood, one horn half-buried where it had gouged the earth. The shoulder stood higher than his chest even now, muscle layered thick beneath the hide that should have turned lesser teeth. Steam still clung to it faintly, not rising so much as refusing to leave.

  He stopped several paces out.

  No scavengers.

  That alone was wrong.

  Harbek circled slowly, boots finding stone before snow, eyes already measuring weight, structure, failure points. The hide had been opened along the ribs — not torn wide, not chewed ragged. Parted. The flesh beneath was crushed deep, muscle compacted as if struck rather than bitten. Bone showed through in places, not splintered outward, but driven inward.

  Pressure, not frenzy.

  He crouched and set one gloved hand against the flank. The meat was cooling, but unevenly. Heat lingered closer to the spine, trapped beneath the ridge of horned plates that ran the beast’s back. Whatever had taken it had known where to bear its weight.

  The neck was wrong.

  Not broken — folded. Vertebrae forced down and forward, the head twisted just enough that the animal would have lost balance before it ever found pain. One eye stared glassy toward the treeline, wide and unmarked.

  It hadn’t run.

  Harbek moved to the chest cavity and paused. The heart was gone. Not eaten where it lay — removed. The surrounding organs were disturbed but largely intact, shoved aside or cracked under force rather than consumed. This was not a kill for hunger alone.

  He straightened slowly, breath fogging in front of his beard.

  Aurochs did not fall quietly. They did not go alone. And they did not fail without warning the rest of the herd.

  He scanned the ground then, really looked — the churned stone, the crushed brush, the way the snow had been driven flat in a wide arc before the body came to rest. There were no clear tracks to follow. Whatever had been here had either lifted cleanly or weighed too much for the ground to keep its shape.

  Harbek rested a hand against the aurochs’ horn, thick as his forearm, scarred from years of use.

  Something had taken this animal because it could.

  And it had taken its time.

  He stepped back, letting the forest close in around the body again. When he turned away, he did not hurry — but his hand found the strap of his pack without thinking, fingers tightening as if to test whether it would hold.

  Behind him, the carcass steamed once more as the wind shifted.

  No birds came.

  Rain did.