The Same Day. Afternoon.
While Aldric fell and rolled and bled on the training ground, the camp did what it always did.
It lived.
Soldiers drilled in the main field, a hundred voices shouting in unison as they moved through formations. Sergeants barked corrections. Officers observed from horseback. The rhythm was ancient, practiced, the same movements soldiers had made for thousands of years.
Supply wagons creaked through the gates, loaded with flour and salt and dried meat. Quartermasters argued over counts. Cooks stoked fires. Farriers shoed horses. Laundresses boiled water. Carpenters repaired broken cart wheels.
The camp breathed.
---
Lira sat on a supply crate near the quartermaster's tent, watching it all.
She'd finished her duties early—inventory counts, supply requests, the endless paperwork that kept an army running. Now she had time. Time to think. Time to watch.
Time to notice things.
The new faces, for example.
Three of them. Arrived this morning with a supply wagon from the south. Young. Eager. The kind of fresh recruits who hadn't learned to be careful yet. They stood near the captain's tent, waiting for assignments, eyes wide at the chaos around them.
Lira watched them.
Remembered being that young. That eager. That stupid.
Three years, she thought. Three years ago, I was them.
Now she was here. Sitting on a crate. Watching new recruits arrive while her best friend learned to fall without dying and an ancient darkness waited in the trees.
Strange, how life worked.
---
"Lira."
She looked up.
Captain Voren stood before her. Gray hair. Hard eyes. The kind of man who'd survived thirty years of border wars by being too stubborn to die.
"Sir."
"Supply report."
She handed him the slate. He scanned it quickly, nodding at the numbers.
"Good. You're efficient. I like that." He handed it back. "I'm moving you to scout rotation next month. Full time."
Lira blinked. "Scout rotation?"
"You've got the eyes for it. The patience. Most soldiers can't sit still long enough to notice anything. You can." He studied her. "Unless you'd rather stay here, counting flour?"
"No, sir. Scouts sound good."
"Thought so." He turned to leave, then paused. "The friends you came with. The barbarian and the farm boy. They any good?"
Lira considered the question.
Grog: forty-one years of battle experience in a nineteen-year-old body. Training constantly. Watching always. Carrying a stone that might be poisoning him.
Aldric: seventeen. Terrified. Determined. Learning to fall.
"They're learning," she said.
Voren nodded. "Good. We'll need them. Word from the north—Vargr are massing again. Bigger than last time." He met her eyes. "Could be war by spring."
Lira's heart stuttered.
War.
Real war. Not skirmishes. Not border raids. War.
"I'll tell them," she said.
Voren walked away.
Lira sat on her crate, watching the camp breathe around her, and thought about what was coming.
---
She found Grog at sunset.
He was at the edge of the training ground, alone, watching Aldric stumble through final exercises with Mirena. His face was unreadable.
"We need to talk," she said.
Grog looked at her. Saw something in her face. Nodded.
They walked to their usual spot behind the supply tents. Hidden. Safe. Private.
"Voren came to me today," Lira said. "Moving me to scout rotation next month."
Grog nodded slowly. "Makes sense. You're good at it."
"That's not the important part." She paused. "He said the Vargr are massing. North of here. Could be war by spring."
Grog went still.
In the old timeline, the war had come. Three years of brutal fighting. Thousands dead. Sergeant Borin dying at the Siege of Ashford. Fenris taking an arrow through the throat.
But that had been later. Years later.
This was early.
"Why now?" Grog murmured. "It shouldn't happen this soon."
Lira shook her head. "Maybe it's different. Maybe we changed something."
"Or maybe—" Grog stopped.
"Maybe what?"
He looked toward the trees. Toward the darkness where red eyes sometimes watched.
"Maybe they're pushing. Making things happen faster. Creating chaos." His voice was quiet. "War means death. Death means fear. Fear makes people desperate."
Lira understood.
Desperate people made desperate choices.
Desperate people called on things they shouldn't.
"Aldric," she breathed.
Grog nodded. "If he's in a real war—if he watches friends die, sees the horror of it—that could speed everything up. Make him more likely to accept when the moment comes."
They stood with that thought.
The camp continued around them. Unaware. Ordinary. Living their lives while the clock ticked toward something terrible.
"What do we do?" Lira asked.
Grog was quiet for a long moment.
Then: "We train harder. We keep him close. We make sure he knows—really knows—that he's not alone." He met her eyes. "And we watch. Always watch."
Lira nodded slowly.
"War by spring," she said. "That's—"
"Months away. We have months."
"And after that?"
Grog didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
---
That night, the four of them gathered at their usual spot.
Small fire. Hidden corner. The routine that had become habit over months of training and watching and waiting.
Aldric looked exhausted. Bruised. But there was something new in his eyes—a steadiness that hadn't been there before.
"Mirena said I did well today," he offered. Like a gift.
Lira smiled. "She said that? Out loud?"
"Twice."
"Liar."
"Once. But the look counts."
Mirena said nothing. But she didn't deny it.
Grog waited until the fire had settled, until the easy talk faded, before speaking.
"War's coming," he said quietly. "Spring. Maybe sooner."
Aldric went still.
Mirena's eyes sharpened.
Lira watched them process the news.
"How do you know?" Mirena asked.
"Voren. Told Lira today. Vargr are massing north of here."
Silence.
Aldric stared into the fire. His face was pale, but his hands were steady.
"How bad?" he asked.
"Don't know yet. Could be bad."
Another silence.
Then Aldric looked up. Met Grog's eyes.
"Then we train harder," he said. "Right?"
Grog felt something shift in his chest.
Pride. Worry. Hope. All tangled together.
"Right," he said.
Aldric nodded. Turned back to the fire.
No panic. No despair. Just... acceptance. Determination.
He's growing, Grog thought. Faster than I expected.
The stone pulsed against his hip.
He ignored it.
---
Later, after the others had gone to sleep, Grog sat alone.
Watching the darkness. Waiting for red eyes that didn't appear.
He thought about the war. About the deaths he remembered from the old timeline. About all the people he'd failed to save the first time.
Maybe this time would be different.
Maybe this time, with warning, with preparation, with knowledge—he could save some of them.
Sergeant Borin. Fenris. The dozens of others who'd fallen in the border wars.
Maybe.
The stone pulsed.
Warm.
Always warm.
Grog looked toward the trees.
"Come on then," he muttered. "Show yourselves. I know you're there."
Nothing moved.
But he felt them. Watching. Waiting.
Patient.
Always patient.
"Good," he said quietly. "While you're waiting, we'll be getting stronger."
He stood. Walked to his tent.
Slept.