"Open the gates!" The guard's voice came down from atop the wall of the outpost with the roughness of someone who had spent far too long in the cold during that watch.
The place was exactly as they said. Much smaller than any city, smaller even than Liv had imagined when she first heard of it. The walls were thick and high enough to face the night, but built only to last long enough and withstand only what was necessary.
"Come on," said the group's leader, guiding them forward. "Settle it fast and come back fast."
The heavy gates began to open with a metallic groan. Liv tightened the reins, and the horse snorted beneath her. The air inside smelled of coal, iron and people who worked too much. When they crossed the entrance she saw that the post was even more different from what she was used to. The houses had the same charred wood as always, dark and rough, but they were not ordinary houses. There were workshops everywhere, the ground was black in many places, covered in crushed coal, dust and the remains of some process she did not know well.
It was a place made to survive close enough to the woods to hate them.
"Good to see someone finally came," grumbled a bearded fellow just ahead, as soon as they passed through the gate.
He did not even wait for them to dismount before opening his mouth. "So the little lady remembers us after all. I thought that—"
"Watch your words," interrupted another voice, older and much firmer.
An elderly woman came right behind him, accompanied by a man even older. The old man had a bent back, a worn cane, and eyes that had lost nothing with age except speed. He tapped the bearded man lightly on the leg with the cane, pushing him a little farther back with the authority of someone who does not need to shout to be obeyed.
"We are grateful that you came, brave warriors," said the old man, bowing with the care his body still allowed him.
Liv was already about to say that none of that was necessary, but then she remembered who stood at her side.
The young voroir merely nodded and then he began to climb down from the great warhorse. There was a dull thud when his boots hit the ground, and the bearded man stepped back another pace without meaning to. Liv saw that and almost felt ashamed for him.
"Forgive him," said the old man, pointing at the fellow with the tip of the cane, while the man now kept his head lowered. "We did not know the Lady would send an elevated one."
"It is no problem," replied the voroir. His voice came out calm, without the arrogant weight Liv had expected from someone like him. The butler hurried to help him remove the helmet, revealing a face far too young to sit so comfortably inside that armor. His medium brown hair stirred a little in the cold wind.
"Let us go inside," he said. "It's cold." The words came out in white breath in the air, it was the end of the first month of winter. There was no snow yet, but the cold had settled in enough to bother in silence, slipping through sleeves, biting at ears.
"Yes, of course. Forgive my lack of courtesy," answered the old man, making a small gesture with the cane. "This way."
Crossing the outpost did not take so long because of the distance, but because of the old man's pace. He walked slowly, measuring the ground before each step and no one wanted to hurry him. The people of the post watched the small group as they passed. There were tired faces in the doorways, hands blackened with coal, children hidden behind skirts or barrels, they seemed a little relived to see them. .
At the end of the main yard, the old man stopped before a building larger than the others. The bearded man hurried ahead to open the door, as if he wanted to redeem himself entirely with that gesture. Warmth came out from inside and touched Liv's face gently.
"It is simple," the man announced, without looking directly at anyone. "But welcome."
The leader nudged Liv with a short movement of her head, telling her to follow. One more of the warriors came in too along with the voroir and his butler. The others remained outside, spreading out near the entrance and the yard. The interior really was simple, a large table, crooked shelves, an old map pinned to the wall with knives and nails. The hearth took up a good part of one side of the hall and the fire inside had been burning long enough to make the place smell of smoke, wet leather and drying clothes.
"Make tea for the guests," said the old man, taking his place before the voroir. "I am sorry not to have coffee."
"It is no problem," the young man answered. "We have some."
The butler was already moving before he had even finished speaking, opening one of the bags fastened to the saddle they had brought inside.
"We brought some provisions Alva sent," the voroir continued. "To help in these difficult times."
"That is good," said the old man, with a gentle smile that seemed to age him even more when it appeared. "Lady Alva has been good to us." As he said it, he cast a stern and instructive glance in the bearded man's direction, which the man pretended not to notice.
"Even in these times of preparation, she still shows concern. A good girl." He spoke more to himself than to the others.
Liv remained standing near one of the corners, rubbing her fingers together to bring them back to life while she watched, it was the first time she had seen a voroir from so close for so long. She had expected a hard man, impatient, someone who would step on common folk without even noticing and ask quick questions only so he could leave soon after, the type who carried glory like permission for contempt.
Instead she saw a young man, polite and steady. A real hero, she thought, and immediately felt ashamed of the phrase in her own head. It sounded childish but the idea did not go away.
"What did you see?" the voroir asked, leaning back. "What all of you managed to see," he added. "From what was passed on to me, the signs are few and there have been no victims so far."
Liv paid even closer attention then. That was the part she wanted to hear as well.
The old man nodded slowly, as if arranging the memories in order of gravity before delivering them. "I have lived many years," he began. The fire crackled in the wood, as if agreeing. "Long enough to see signs. And long enough to know when it is only fear of strange coincidence."
"The trees, sir," the bearded man cut in, unable to hold back his own urgency. "They change, day by day." The old man did not rebuke him this time.
"Last week," the man went on, now speaking lower than before, "one of them was fine. An old pine east of here, when I took two lads to scout the land two days ago..."
He stopped there, as if the conclusion itself might invite bad luck into the room.
"It was dry and dead," the old man finished for him. "I took my old bones there to see for myself. It was as dry as meat cured for the winter."
"That could be many things, grandpa," said the leader of the group. She was standing near the door with her arms crossed and the face of someone who had already had little patience when she came in and now had even less. "A beast of the night. A small fire caused by the Star that you only noticed afterward." She nearly spat on the floor as she finished, but stopped herself at the last moment.
"Yes, child," he replied, using the word with exactly enough weight to answer her tone. "If only it were just that, then I would sleep well."
The leader let air out through her nose, but did not interrupt.
"But that was only one of many coincidences," the old man went on. "Trees changing size. Earth dragged away, great holes in the ground where there had been nothing before. The forest seems alive sometimes, some branches sway without wind and then stop."
As he spoke, Liv felt her own imagination begin to work against her. She knew the woods well enough to know they were already bad even when they behaved as they should.
"Grandpa," the leader said again, her voice now a little rougher, "many things happen at night. Enough things to change entire forests, sometimes." She uncrossed her arms."Did you call us here to see that? What evil does to itself in the dark and the traces it leaves behind? Or do you expect us to wander around out there in the Star's absence to find the cause? Foolishness."
This time she spat on the floor without holding back, and the bearded man took half a step forward.
"No, child—" the old man began.
"Then let us show her!" the man cut in. "I want to see her call it foolishness after seeing it with her own eyes."
The leader opened her mouth, probably ready to throw back another answer, but the voroir raised a hand. "Show me," he said.
"Now?" the man asked.
"Now," the voroir replied. "We still have light. If something is wrong, I would rather see it before the Star withdraws further."
The old man nodded slowly, as if that were the only sensible answer since the group had passed through the gates. Liv felt a brief tightness in her stomach, the leader looked at her from the side as she passed, already heading back toward the door.
"No trembling," she muttered. Liv straightened her posture at once, hating that the woman had noticed, then Dagny called two of hers with a gesture. The voroir put his helmet back on with the butler's help, who adjusted the straps calmly. When the ram's horns framed the hidden face again, he stopped seeming merely young, he became something else. Taller, holier.
Then the group began to move again, crossing the post toward the eastern side, where the palisades gave way to work trails and the forest began.