The tracks were fresh.
Lira knelt beside them, her fingers tracing the edges where the thing's weight had pressed into the frozen ground. The prints were large—too large for any animal she knew. Clawed. Deep. Whatever had made them was heavy, fast, and not long gone. The earth around them was still soft, the edges still crumbling, the morning frost just beginning to melt.
She counted three sets. Maybe four. It was hard to tell where one print ended and another began.
Grog crouched beside her.
"Bear?"
She shook her head slowly. "Too big. The claws are wrong. Look here." She pointed at the way the toes splayed, the way the heel dug deep into the soil. "Bear claws are shorter. Rounder. These are longer. Curved. And the gait—" She traced the spacing between prints. "This thing doesn't walk like a bear. It moves different. Like something that isn't meant to be on the ground."
Aldric moved up beside them. His hand was on his sword, his eyes scanning the trees that pressed close on either side of the road. The pass was narrow here, the walls steep, the shadows deep. It was the kind of place where things waited.
"The claws," he said quietly. "They look like—"
"Like the hunters," Grog finished. "But different. Older. Less controlled."
Mirena appeared behind them, her staff glowing faintly, her face intent. She knelt beside the tracks, touching the earth with her free hand, closing her eyes. A moment passed. Then another.
"There's magic here," she said, opening her eyes. "Old. Faint. But recent." She looked at the direction the tracks led—up the pass, toward the hills, toward the Duke's lands. "This thing came through somewhere close. Not the door. Something smaller. A crack, maybe. A place where the veil is thin."
Grog felt the cold settle in his chest.
"The door is still open?"
Mirena shook her head slowly. "I don't think so. Not fully. But something is happening. The old places are waking up. The thin places are getting thinner." She stood, brushing dirt from her robes. "This creature—it's not like the hunters. It's not serving anything. It's just... lost. Pushed through somewhere it shouldn't be and trying to survive."
Renshaw rode up with Voren. The Viscount looked at the tracks, his face unreadable, but his hands were tight on the reins. Voren's hand was on his sword.
"How many?" Renshaw asked.
Lira stood. "Hard to tell. Three, maybe four. They've been moving together. Sticking to the shadows. Avoiding the road."
Renshaw was quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning the pass ahead.
"We push on. Stay alert. If there's something in these hills, we need to know before we reach the Duke's lands." He looked at the soldiers behind them, at the nervous faces, the hands gripping weapons too tight. "Double the watch tonight. No one rides alone."
They mounted up and rode on.
---
The pass was narrow.
The hills rose steeply on either side, ancient rock worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. The road cut through them like a wound, barely wide enough for two horses to ride abreast. The trees pressed close, their branches twisted, their roots grasping at the stone. The light barely reached the ground.
Grog rode beside Lira, his eyes on the shadows between the trees. The berserker stirred in his blood, restless, aware. It had been quiet for weeks, sleeping while his body healed. Now it was waking up.
"You've been quiet," Lira said.
"Remembering."
She looked at him. "What?"
He scanned the pass ahead. The road curved, disappearing into a stand of ancient oaks. The kind of place where men had been ambushed for centuries. The kind of place where, in the old timeline, they'd learned to be careful.
"In the old timeline, there were things like this. Creatures that came through cracks in the world. Things that shouldn't exist." He paused, his hand drifting to his sword. "They came later. After the war. After the Spire. After everything had already gone wrong."
Lira's eyes followed his gaze. "And now?"
"Now they're coming early. Before we're ready. Before we understand what's happening." He looked at her. "Something changed."
She was quiet for a moment.
"The door moved. The explosion. Mirena said it could have gone anywhere."
Grog nodded slowly.
"Maybe it went somewhere it shouldn't have. Maybe it woke things up."
---
The attack came at midday.
The creature dropped from the trees like a stone—too fast, too silent, too wrong. It was massive, twice the size of a man, its skin gray and rough like old bark. Its limbs were too long, its joints bending in ways that shouldn't work. Its jaw was too wide, its teeth too many, its eyes red and hungry in the shadows.
It landed on the soldier at the front of the column.
The man didn't have time to scream. The creature's claws tore through his armor like paper. His horse bolted, screaming, throwing the soldiers behind him into chaos.
Lira's arrow took the creature in the shoulder before it could turn.
It roared—a sound that echoed off the rocks, that sent horses rearing, that made the soldiers shout and scatter. The arrow was buried deep, but the creature didn't fall. It turned toward her, its red eyes finding her face, its mouth opening wide.
Grog was moving before he thought.
His sword was in his hand, the blade singing, the edge finding the creature's side. It was like cutting stone—the hide was thick, tough, ancient. But the blade was older. It bit deep.
The creature screamed. Swung at him. Its claws raked the air where he'd been a moment before.
Aldric was beside him, his sword flashing—lighter, faster, finding openings Grog's blade couldn't reach. The boy moved like water, like shadow, like something that had been waiting for this moment. His sword found the creature's throat, its chest, its side.
The creature staggered, bleeding from a dozen wounds. But it didn't fall.
Mirena's staff blazed.
A bolt of light—white, blinding, terrible—struck the creature's chest. It lifted off its feet, thrown back against the rocks, its body convulsing. It lay there for a moment, twitching, its red eyes flickering.
Then it rose.
---
It was faster now. Desperate. The wounds didn't slow it—they made it faster, stronger, more dangerous. It charged through the soldiers, scattering them, ignoring their blades. It was heading for the pass, for the hills, for somewhere it could hide and heal.
Grog ran.
The berserker stirred in his blood. The red crept at the edges of his vision. His body remembered this—the speed, the strength, the thing that lived in his blood when he needed it.
Not yet, he told it. Not yet. Wait.
He caught the creature at the edge of the pass. His sword took its leg, its arm, its side. It fell, crawled, tried to rise. He stood over it.
The creature looked up.
Its red eyes weren't like the hunters'—duller, less aware, more animal. But there was something there. Something that recognized him. Something that knew his face.
It spoke. One word. Grog barely heard it over the pounding of his heart.
"Opener."
Then it died.
---
Grog stood over the body, breathing hard.
His sword was wet with blood, his hands were shaking, the red was fading from his vision. The creature lay still, its gray skin already beginning to fade, to crumble, to become something that wasn't quite solid.
Lira appeared beside him.
"What did it say?"
He looked at her. At the bow in her hands, the arrow still nocked, the fear in her eyes she was trying to hide.
"Opener."
She went still.
Aldric joined them, his sword still drawn, his face pale beneath the blood that wasn't his. He looked at the creature, at the way it was already dissolving, at the thing it had called Grog.
"What does that mean?" His voice was steady, but his hands were shaking.
Grog looked at the body. At the gray skin, the wrong limbs, the eyes that had seen something before they died.
"It means the door is open. Or opening. Or—" He stopped. Shook his head. "I don't know what it means. But it knew me. It knew what I did."
Mirena came up behind them, her staff still glowing, her face pale.
"It knew the thing that opened the door," she said quietly. "It knew what you were part of."
---
They made camp in the pass that night.
The soldiers were quiet, subdued, the attack weighing on them. They'd lost one man—the scout who'd been riding at the front, the one who never had time to scream. They'd wrapped his body and laid it in a cart to carry home.
Voren moved among them, checking wounds, offering words, doing what captains did after battle. His face was hard, his voice steady, but Grog could see the weight in his shoulders.
Grog sat apart, watching.
He thought about the creature. About what it had called him. About what it meant.
In the old timeline, the creatures had come later. After the war. After the Spire. After everything had already gone wrong. They'd been fragments, echoes, things that had slipped through cracks when the door was open.
Now they were here. Now. Before they were ready. Before they understood what was happening.
The door had moved. The explosion had sent it somewhere. And wherever it had gone, things were coming through.
Lira sat beside him.
"You're thinking."
"Always."
She was quiet for a moment.
"It called you opener. Why?"
He shook his head.
"I don't know. In the old timeline, I was there when the door opened. I was there when Aldric chose. But I didn't open anything. I just—" He stopped.
"Just what?"
"Just watched. Just died."
She looked at him.
"Grog."
He met her eyes.
"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
---
Mirena came to them as the stars came out.
She had her map spread across her knees, her notes scattered around her, her face intent. She'd been studying since the attack, tracing the creature's path, looking for where it had come from.
"The door," she said. "It's not closed."
Grog looked at her. "What?"
"The creature. The way it moved. The magic I felt in its tracks. The way it knew you." She met his eyes. "The door isn't closed. It's just... not here."
Aldric's face was pale in the firelight. "Where is it?"
"I don't know." She shook her head slowly. "But it's open. Or partly open. Enough for things to come through. Enough for them to find us."
Lira leaned forward. "Things like that creature?"
"Yes." Mirena looked at the pass, at the darkness beyond the firelight. "And things worse. The hunters were servants. They were waiting for something. This creature—it was just a fragment. Something that slipped through a crack."
Grog's jaw tightened.
"There will be more."
Mirena nodded slowly.
"More. And worse. And they'll keep coming until someone closes the door."
---
Renshaw found them at midnight.
He looked older than he had that morning. The attack had shaken him, Grog could see it—the lines in his face were deeper, his eyes were darker, his hands weren't quite steady. But his voice was steady.
"We need to talk."
They gathered around a small fire, apart from the soldiers. Renshaw sat on a rock, his hands clasped, his face unreadable.
"The Duke," he said. "I've been thinking about what he wants. Why he summoned us now."
Voren stood beside him, his arms crossed, his face hard. "You think it's connected."
"I think nothing is coincidence." Renshaw looked at Grog. "The creature called you opener. The door is open. The Duke summons the heroes who fought the last battle." He paused. "Someone knows something."
Grog's jaw tightened.
"The Duke?"
Renshaw shook his head slowly.
"The Duke knows what he's told. What he wants to know. He's not a fool, but he's not a scholar. He doesn't study old texts. He doesn't track thin places. He does what he's good at—managing people, building alliances, keeping things stable." He paused. "But he talks to the King. And the King—King Amos—he's old. He's seen things. Heard things. If there are rumors about the door, about what happened in the valley, about the things that came through—he'll have heard them."
Mirena leaned forward. "You think the King knows about the door?"
Renshaw was quiet for a moment.
"I think the King knows more than he tells. I think he's been waiting for something. For someone." He looked at Grog. "And I think he's been watching."
---
They sat with that for a while.
The fire crackled. The wind moved through the pass. Somewhere in the darkness, a creature lay dead, its body dissolving into the earth, its blood still wet on Grog's sword.
Lira spoke first.
"So we go to the Duke. We find out what he knows. We find out what the King knows."
Renshaw nodded. "And we find out what's coming."
Grog looked at the pass, at the road ahead, at the hills that hid the Duke's palace.
In the old timeline, the Duke had been distant. A name in reports, a figure at the edge of things. He'd given orders, signed papers, approved reinforcements. He'd never come to the front. Never seen the things they'd faced.
Now they were going to meet him. To be seen. To be judged.
And to find out what he knew about the door that was opening.
"We'll go," Grog said. "We'll find out what he knows."
Renshaw nodded.
"Then rest. Tomorrow we ride."