Morning held.

  Not warm — never that — but still. The cold had settled into itself overnight, firm and brittle rather than biting. Frost glazed the stone paths and the low timber rails, pale and unmoving. No wind worth noting. No snow falling. The kind of quiet that lets sound travel farther than it should.

  Harbek stepped out with his pack already settled on his shoulders, bow unstrung but close at hand. The weight no longer surprised him. It belonged where it sat now. Cloak closed, straps snug, belt tools riding familiar against his hips. He paused only long enough to breathe once and check the sky, then started down the marked way toward the tree line.

  Winter wasn’t pressing today.

  That, somehow, was worse.

  The forest took him in without ceremony. Snow still lay where it had fallen days before, crusted thin and pale where the sun hadn’t yet reached. His boots broke it softly, the sound swallowed almost at once. He moved at a steady pace, not hurrying, not lingering — the same rhythm he’d found himself keeping since the storm.

  The herd trail showed sooner than he expected.

  He slowed.

  The path was there, clear enough for his eye to catch even under fresh frost, but it wasn’t what it had been. The ground showed fewer cuts, fewer overlaps. Hooves pressed close together, the spacing tight. Where the animals once fanned as they moved, now they held narrow, bodies kept close, movement cautious.

  Harbek knelt and counted.

  He didn’t like the number.

  The Shepherds’ marks were there as well — boot prints alongside the trail, staff taps against stone — but they hesitated. One set turned back early. Another doubled on itself before continuing, shallow and uncertain. No lingering. No inspection marks. Just movement through, then away.

  He rose and followed.

  The trail dipped downslope, angling toward thinner trees and broken stone. Brush had been pressed down hard here, flattened rather than snapped, and the snow across it was disturbed in wide sweeps, not the scattered mess of panic. Whatever had passed through had done so with weight and purpose.

  Harbek stopped again.

  Blood.

  Not much — not a spill, not a pool — but enough to darken the frost where it had dripped and frozen. It led forward several paces, then stopped abruptly, as if the source had been lifted clear of the ground.

  No carcass.

  He scanned the area carefully, eyes moving before his feet did. A low tree near the edge of the break bore a long scar along its bark, the wood beneath exposed and pale. The mark was high — higher than his shoulder — and angled, as if something heavy had leaned or shifted against it.

  Nearby, a horn lay half-buried in snow and grit.

  Not broken clean. Twisted free.

  Harbek crouched and turned it once with his glove. Ridgeback aurochs. Old growth, thick base. It would have taken force to remove it — leverage, weight, intent.

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  He straightened slowly.

  The ground around the sign was crushed deep into the frozen soil, impressions driven down where stone should have resisted. Snow packed hard beneath them, not scattered. No drag marks beyond the blood’s end. No clear direction to follow.

  He didn’t look for tracks.

  He didn’t need to.

  Whatever had done this had moved through here the way winter moved over the mountain — not scrambling, not rushing, but pressing down until the land gave way beneath it.

  Harbek measured the distance between the broken brush, the height of the scarred bark and the spread of the churned ground. He did the math quietly, without naming the answer it led to.

  Then he stepped back, adjusted the strap across his chest, and turned his path upslope, choosing higher ground and longer sightlines as he went.

  The cold stayed still behind him.

  The ridge ahead gave him a view of the thinning valley floor. Frost clung to low branches, turning each into brittle white spears. Harbek scanned slowly, letting his eyes move across familiar landmarks, counting shadows, noting hollows where snow had collected. Movement, he reminded himself, could be subtle. Not everything stamped a warning in the snow.

  He unstrung the bow and began testing it — not aiming at anything yet, just drawing, holding, letting the string settle against his cheek. The rhythm was new. Unpracticed. His fingers ached slightly at first, then relaxed. He drew again, noticing the flex, the weight, the way the limbs bent against the strain. A dry pop of frost breaking somewhere below made him start, but he didn’t flinch.

  He strung a short shaft from his quiver and nocked it carefully. Practice first, instinct second. The arrow flew clean, hitting a distant rock — not to harm, not even to mark — just to feel it release. Then another, then another, each more precise than the last. The bow was light enough for steady use, heavy enough to teach restraint. He adjusted his stance after each, testing reach and draw, making sure his footing didn’t betray him.

  The herd’s faint sound reached him then — low calls, soft steps, far off but not far enough to ignore. He crouched, letting his pack and belt settle against the slope, fingers brushing the tools at his waist. Small things: a trowel, needle, spare cord. Not much, but enough to handle what might come if he needed them. He moved like he had been taught long ago, in silence, observing how the mountain framed sound, how snow carried it differently than stone, how the wind masked or amplified.

  By mid-morning, he was following the herd again, keeping a careful distance. He practiced drawing the bow without leaving the pack unbalanced, nocking arrows in rhythm with their movement. He didn’t fire, not yet. Hunger wasn’t pressing. No predator had revealed itself. The practice was enough — teaching him patience, teaching him how to move while carrying weight, teaching him how to sense without seeing.

  Snow hardened beneath him, ice patches making each step deliberate. Harbek paused at each break in the line of the herd, scanning for disturbance. Branches bent differently here, a hollow where an animal had landed lightly, a flattened drift where weight had pressed hard. Each mark told a story if he watched long enough. He marked them with his eyes, committing each detail to memory without thinking, fingers tightening around bow and strap alike.

  As afternoon edged closer, he found himself on higher ground again, looking down over the trees. The valley stretched pale, empty, and still — for now. Wind had shifted enough to carry sounds differently. A branch snapped somewhere far off, but nothing moved with it. Harbek breathed slowly, letting the tension settle into his shoulders, letting his fingers relax just enough to rest on his tools.

  He did not hurry home. Not yet.

  The ridge would not fail him. Neither would the pack. Neither would he.

  Harbek’s boots finally found the familiar slope down toward the village, each step sounding differently on packed snow. The herd moved ahead, scattered but unbroken, and the wind had softened enough to carry no unexpected sounds. He lowered the bow, letting it rest against his shoulder, and loosened the straps of his pack, feeling the weight shift and settle with quiet satisfaction.

  The forge smoke curled into the sky, thin and steady, and the village seemed to exhale around him. Harbek paused at the edge of the clearing, letting his eyes take in the frost-bitten roofs and the stillness of early evening. Nothing had followed. Nothing had shifted where it shouldn’t.

  Yet even in that calm, he felt it — a thread of awareness, faint, stubborn, like the echo of something watching just beyond sight. He tightened a strap, adjusted a tool on his belt, and stepped forward. For now, the day was done. But the mountain and what it held, would not be done with him.