Mazoga woke to cold stone against her back and the soft sound of Calen's snoring from across the small chamber. Bran's breathing came steady and even from his pallet near the door—already awake, probably, just waiting for first light to start moving.

  She sat up slowly, rolling her shoulders. The soreness from yesterday work had faded overnight. Good. Plenty of work left to do.

  Mazoga dressed in silence, strapping on her Ravageboar armor and checking the straps. She lifted her enchanted warhammer from where it rested against the wall, the runes dark but ready, and slung it across her back. Didn’t need it for repairs—but she kept it anyway.

  Outside, the settlement, repairs moved faster than expected.

  Most of the damage was already gone. Patched walls. Cleared paths. New support beams fitted into place where the old ones had cracked.

  It Reminded her of the early days at the temple, when everyone knew what needed doing and just did it.

  Mazoga walked toward the northern gate, boots crunching in the snow. Ahead, Rurran stood near the entrance, speaking with another gnoll—taller, leaner, ears notched from close encounters.

  She approached without hurry.

  Rurran glanced up and nodded. "Mazoga."

  "Morning," Mazoga said, stopping a few paces away. "What's the plan?"

  Rurran gestured to the gnoll beside him. "This is Jorik. One of our scouts. He's the one who found the horde."

  Jorik dipped his head slightly. "Ma'am."

  Mazoga studied him. Lean muscle. Steady hands. The kind of scout who survived by being smart, not fast.

  "Jorik," she repeated. "You're the one who ran back with the warning."

  "Yes."

  "Good instincts." Mazoga crossed her arms. "What did you see?"

  Jorik's ears flicked once, then settled. "Tracked the draugr northeast through the ridges. Expected twenty, maybe thirty. Found a hundred filling a frozen ravine. The Greater stood at the center, coordinating them."

  "Do you remember where?" she asked.

  "Three hours northeast," Jorik said. "Past the second ridge, down into the ravine where the old watchtower used to stand. Snow's deep there. Hard terrain."

  Rurran turned to Mazoga. "I want to take a team back. See if there's anything left. Tracks. Signs of more horde movement. Maybe find out where they came from."

  Mazoga nodded slowly. You didn't ignore a threat like that just because you'd killed the first wave.

  "Safe to do that?" she asked.

  Rurran's lip curled slightly—close to a smile. "Most of our fighters are rested now. And it'll just be the three of us. Quiet. Quick. In and out before anything else stirs."

  Mazoga glanced at Jorik. "You good with that?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She exhaled through her nose, considering. Doc and the others were still at the settlement. Bran and Calen were here, helping with repairs. If something went wrong, they'd need backup.

  But Rurran wouldn't ask if he thought it was suicide.

  "All right," Mazoga said. "I'm in."

  Rurran's posture relaxed slightly. "Good. We'll leave soon. Need to gather the pack first."

  Mazoga pulled the radio from her belt and pressed the transmit button. "Calen. Bran. You there?"

  A pause. Static crackled.

  Then Calen's voice came through, thick with sleep. "...yeah. What's up?"

  "Heading out with Rurran and another gnoll," Mazoga said. "Scouting northeast. Be back in a few hours. You two keep helping around here. Radio if something comes up."

  Another pause. "Got it. Be careful."

  "Always am." Mazoga clipped the radio back to her belt.

  Rurran stared at the device, ears tilted forward. "That's useful."

  Mazoga smirked. "It is."

  "Kraggir mentioned those," Rurran said. "Said your people were trading them."

  "Calen and Kraggir already worked out a deal," Mazoga said. "You'll have some soon."

  Rurran smiled—genuinely this time. "Good. We need them."

  He turned toward the interior of the settlement. "I'll gather the pack. Meet you back here in ten."

  Mazoga nodded and watched him go.

  Jorik stayed behind, adjusting the straps on his gear. His movements were methodical. Calm.

  Mazoga respected that.

  "You ready for this?" she asked.

  Jorik glanced up and smirked. "I ran from them once. Can do it again if needed."

  "Good answer." Maz said with amusement

  She turned her gaze northeast, toward the ridgeline where the draugr had come from.

  Whatever was out there, they'd find it.

  And if it needed killing, they'd handle that too.

  Jorik moved ahead with the confidence of someone who'd traveled this path before. Mazoga followed a few paces behind, with Rurran bringing up the rear. The snow came up past her ankles—deeper here than near the settlement.

  The frozen landscape stretched endlessly in every direction. Bare stone ridges jutted through the snow. Wind howled across the open spaces, carrying ice crystals that stung exposed skin.

  Mazoga adjusted her grip on her warhammer's strap and kept moving.

  They climbed the first ridge in silence. The slope wasn't steep, but the snow made every step uncertain. Mazoga's boots found purchase through instinct more than sight—the white powder hid rocks, roots, anything that could turn an ankle.

  At the top, Jorik paused and pointed northeast.

  "Second ridge," he said. "Then down into the ravine."

  Mazoga nodded.

  They descended the far side, moving carefully. The wind picked up as they entered the valley between ridges, funneling through the narrow space with enough force to make conversation difficult.

  Mazoga didn't mind. Talking wasted breath.

  The second ridge came into view—taller, steeper, crowned with jagged stone formations that looked like teeth against the pale sky.

  Jorik led them around the base rather than over the top. Smart. Less exposure, harder to spot from above.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Twenty minutes later, they crested a low rise and stopped.

  The ravine opened below them.

  Mazoga had seen battlefields before. Plenty of them. But this felt different.

  The snow lay trampled flat across the entire depression, packed down by hundreds of feet. Dark stains marred the white—necrotic residue from shattered cores, frozen blood from whatever the draugr had killed before reaching the settlement. The cold here felt wrong—sharper, heavier, like the air itself had been tainted.

  Jorik gestured toward the center. "That's where the Greater stood."

  Mazoga followed his gaze.

  A wide crater scarred the ravine floor, ringed with shattered ice and blackened stone. The epicenter of whatever had gathered the horde. "Unnatural. Necrotic energy didn't pool like that without a source to anchor it."

  Or someone.

  She scanned the area slowly, methodical. It seems all the draugr had been destroyed at the settlement—none remained here. Just the marks of their gathering.

  Rurran moved past her, ears forward, nose working. He crouched near the crater's edge and studied the ground.

  Mazoga gave him space. Gnolls could read terrain better than most.

  She turned her attention to the ravine's edges. Stone cliffs rose on three sides, creating a natural amphitheater. Good place to hide. Good place to gather without being seen.

  "Mazoga."

  She looked toward Rurran.

  He stood twenty paces away, still crouched, one hand pressed flat against the snow. His posture had shifted—tense, focused.

  Mazoga walked over. "What'd you find?"

  Rurran didn't look up. His fingers traced something in the packed snow—barely visible, already half-buried by fresh powder.

  "Tracks," he said quietly. "Barely there. Few days old."

  Mazoga crouched beside him and looked closer.

  There. Faint impressions in the compressed snow. Boot prints. Human-sized, maybe slightly smaller. Leading away from the crater toward the northern cliff face.

  "One person," Rurran said. "Light step. Careful placement."

  Mazoga studied the direction. The tracks led straight toward the cliffs, disappearing into the shadows where stone met snow.

  "Could be a survivor," Jorik offered from behind them.

  Rurran's ears flicked once. "Could be."

  But his tone said he didn't believe it.

  Mazoga straightened and looked at the tracks again. Someone had been here. Standing at the center of a draugr gathering. Walking away calmly, deliberately, while a hundred corpses marched toward Threeburrow.

  "We follow it," Rurran said, rising to his full height.

  Mazoga nodded.

  They moved in single file—Jorik leading, Mazoga in the middle, Rurran watching their rear. The tracks grew clearer as they approached the cliff, protected from the wind by the stone overhang.

  The trail led to a cave.

  Mazoga stopped at the entrance and stared into the darkness.

  The opening wasn't large—maybe eight feet high, slightly wider. Natural formation, worn smooth by centuries of wind and water. But the cold radiating from inside felt wrong.

  She could feel it in her chest—a weight pressing against her ribs, the same sensation she'd felt facing the Greater Draugr before it attacked.

  Mazoga unslung her warhammer and let it rest in both hands. The runes along its surface pulsed faintly, responding to the ambient cold.

  "I'll go first," she said quietly.

  Rurran stepped beside her, gaze fixed on the cave mouth. "Agreed."

  Mazoga took a breath, tightened her grip, and moved toward the entrance.

  The darkness swallowed her.

  Rurran followed Mazoga into the darkness, keeping his footfalls silent. Years of patrol had taught him how to move without sound—weight distributed evenly, each step deliberate. Behind him, Jorik matched the rhythm without needing instruction.

  The cave swallowed the daylight within ten paces.

  Stone pressed close on either side, ceiling low enough that Mazoga's shoulders nearly brushed the walls. The passage sloped downward gradually, curving left, then right, guiding them deeper into the mountain.

  The wrongness intensified with each step.

  Rurran had felt this before—standing watch over battlefields where too many had died without proper rites. The air grew heavy, thick, like breathing through wet cloth. His fur prickled along his spine, instinct warning him to turn back.

  He kept moving.

  Twenty paces in, the scent hit him.

  Death. Old and fresh. Layered. The sharp bite of exposed bone mixed with something sweeter, rot that had frozen and thawed repeatedly. And beneath it all, the acrid tang of necrotic energy—magic twisted inward, feeding on absence rather than presence.

  Rurran stopped and raised one hand.

  Mazoga halted immediately, hammer ready.

  "What is it?" she whispered.

  "Undead," Rurran said quietly. "Strong scent. Old death."

  Jorik moved closer, ears flat. "Active?"

  Rurran tested the air again, sorting through the layers. No fresh movement or warmth. Nothing living—or recently animated—moved in the cave ahead.

  "No," he said after a moment. "Just residue."

  Mazoga nodded once. "Keep moving."

  They advanced slowly.

  The passage widened ahead, the walls pulling back, ceiling rising. Faint echoes suggested a larger space beyond the tunnel mouth.

  Rurran's claws flexed instinctively. Open chambers meant vulnerabilities—multiple angles of attack, places to hide, room for ambush.

  They reached the opening.

  The tunnel spilled into a natural cavern—maybe forty feet across, irregular stone walls rising into shadow above them. The floor sloped unevenly, scattered with debris Rurran couldn't identify in the darkness.

  He crouched low, breathing through his nose, searching for threats.

  Nothing.

  Just the smell of death and the oppressive weight of necrotic energy pressing against his chest like a hand.

  "Clear," he said quietly.

  Mazoga stepped into the chamber, hammer lowered slightly but still ready. Jorik moved left, covering the perimeter.

  Rurran stood and pulled his torch from his belt. Flint scraped once, twice. Sparks caught.

  Flame bloomed.

  The light pushed back the darkness, revealing the cavern in pieces.

  Bones.

  Everywhere.

  They littered the floor—scattered femurs, cracked ribs, shattered skulls. Human, mostly. Some animal. All old, bleached white by time and cold. They lay in uneven piles, clustered near the walls, spread across the center in patterns that suggested deliberate placement.

  Rurran lifted the torch higher.

  The walls bore marks.

  Scratches. Deep gouges carved into stone. Symbols he didn't recognize, angular and harsh, etched in overlapping layers like someone had worked and reworked the same surface repeatedly.

  His gaze moved to the center of the chamber.

  A circle.

  Carved into the stone floor, perfectly round, maybe twelve feet across. Runes lined its perimeter—similar to the wall markings but more precise, deliberate. Inside the circle, ash and bone dust formed concentric rings, each layer darker than the last. At the very center, a pile of shattered cores glittered faintly in the torchlight.

  Monster cores.

  "Someone was here," Mazoga said quietly. "Recently."

  Rurran nodded. The ash hadn't been disturbed by wind or time. The cores still held faint traces of energy—not enough to animate anything, but enough to register.

  He moved closer, studying the circle without crossing its boundary.

  The residue clung to the stone like grease. Necrotic energy, thick and deliberate, shaped into something functional.

  Jorik spoke from the far side of the chamber. "Rurran."

  His tone carried weight.

  Rurran turned.

  Jorik stood near the eastern wall, torch raised, staring at something growing between the stones.

  Rurran crossed the chamber and looked.

  Graveblossoms.

  Small gray-violet flowers clustered in the cracks, their petals brittle and frost-touched. A dozen of them, maybe more, all concentrated in one section of wall.

  Rurran's ears flattened.

  Graveblossoms only grew where necrotic energy saturated the ground. They absorbed it naturally, thriving on death the way other plants thrived on sunlight. Healers used them carefully—boiled properly, they could purge necrotic corruption from wounds.

  But this many, growing this densely, meant the energy here wasn't residual.

  It was concentrated.

  Mazoga stepped beside him, staring at the flowers. Her jaw tightened.

  "I've seen these before," she said quietly. "After the Rust wars. Battlefields where the dead outnumbered the living ten to one."

  He turned back to the chamber, taking it all in—the bones, the circle, the shattered cores, the flowers feeding on lingering corruption.

  Someone had stood here. Gathered necrotic energy deliberately and used it to raise the draugr horde and then bind them to the Greater.

  Rurran exhaled slowly.

  "We need to tell Ygrana," he said.

  Mazoga nodded.

  They stood in the silence for another moment, surrounded by bones and ash and flowers that fed on death.

  Then they turned and walked back toward the light.

  Rurran climbed out of the cave into daylight that felt too bright, too clean. The wrongness still clung to his fur.

  He stood at the entrance while Mazoga and Jorik emerged behind him, all three silent.

  The boot prints led away from the cave, fading into harder ground beyond the ridge. Whoever had been here was long gone, their trail lost.

  Rurran stared at the tracks one last time, committing the pattern to memory.

  Heavy soles. Imperial make, maybe — someone with resources and the knowledge to use them.

  He turned northeast, scanning the ridgeline.

  The ridgeline gave him nothing — no tracks, no scent beyond snow and stone

  Mazoga secured her hammer across her back, breath misting in the cold air. "We heading back?"

  "Yes," Rurran said.

  They walked in silence for the first hour.

  The terrain sloped downward gradually, snow crunching beneath their boots. Jorik moved ahead, scouting the path, while Mazoga kept pace beside Rurran without speaking.

  Rurran's mind circled the chamber.

  "Glasshold needs to know," he said quietly.

  Mazoga glanced at him. "About the cave?"

  "About all of it." Rurran gestured vaguely toward the ridge behind them. "The Greater. The horde. The ritual circle. Someone raised those draugr deliberately and sent them toward Threeburrow."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes."

  Mazoga was quiet for several steps. "You think they're coming back?"

  Rurran didn't answer immediately.

  The graveblossoms had been fresh. The ash undisturbed.

  Whoever had been there hadn't finished.

  "I think this was a test," Rurran said finally.

  Mazoga's expression darkened. "A test."

  "To see if it worked. How many draugr they could control. How coordinated the horde would be. How far they could push before something broke."

  He paused, watching Jorik ahead.

  "And now they know."

  Mazoga swore quietly.

  Rurran agreed with the sentiment.

  They walked in silence again, descending through pine and stone. The settlement would be visible soon, smoke from the hearth rising into the cold air.

  Rurran thought about the seven wounded still recovering in the eastern shelters. The families huddled together, mourning the three who hadn't survived.

  Threeburrow had endured—barely.

  Another horde, larger and better coordinated, would finish what this one started.

  Rurran's claws flexed.

  This wasn't just about Threeburrow anymore.

  Glasshold needed to know. The clans. The empire. Everyone within a hundred miles needed to know that someone was raising the dead deliberately, testing their limits, preparing for something Rurran couldn't yet see clearly.

  But he could feel it.

  Something was coming.

  And Threeburrow—isolated, outcast, barely holding together—stood directly in its path.

  Thanks for reading!

  Chapter 76 drops friday!