The next morning, Stony Creek was still drowned in pale mist. The perimeter fence, smashed by the wolves the night before, was already under repair. A few villagers hauled heavy timber, the rhythmic thud of their hammers breaking the morning quiet. Near the far sheep pen, someone was counting what was left of the flock. Harold stood at the entrance of the village, eyes fixed on the northern woods. Rane walked up beside him.
"What are you looking at?"
Harold didn't answer right away. After a long pause, he asked, "How far have you ever tracked them?"
Rane blinked, taken aback.
"What?"
"The wolves,"
Harold said.
"In the last three months, how far out have you gone?"
Rane fell silent for a moment. Then he raised a hand, pointing toward a dark streak of forest lying between the distant mountains.
"The end of the old hunting trail."
"And beyond that?"
"Nobody goes beyond that."
"Why?"
Rane offered a thin smile.
"Because there’s no reason to. No villages, no hunting grounds. Nothing worth the trip."
Harold stared at the distant canopy. A long breath passed before he spoke.
"Today, we go further."
The smile faded from Rane's face. Beside them, Kaelan looked up.
"Deeper in?"
Harold nodded.
"Deeper in."
An hour later, the three of them left Stony Creek behind. As they pushed forward, the forest turned alien. At first, there were still signs of hunters—notches cut into tree bark, small cairns of stacked stone, the cold remains of old campsites. But the deeper they went, the sparser those signs became. Until finally, there was nothing. It was as if they had crossed an invisible line out of the known world. Kaelan looked up.
The trees above were towering giants, their crowns weaving together so tightly they fractured the sunlight into jagged, scattered shards. The air grew damp. The earth beneath their boots turned soft and yielding. A sudden realization struck him: he had always thought he knew the forest. But he only knew the tiny corner surrounding Gray Valley. The world was vast. Far vaster than he had ever imagined. Around noon, Rane abruptly halted.
"We’re here."
Kaelan peered ahead. A clearing opened up before them. At its center stood a ring of moss-covered stones, flanked by a few half-rotted wooden stakes. A bit further off, the collapsed frame of a timber shed was barely visible beneath the brush.
"What is this place?"
Kaelan asked.
"An old hunting camp,"
Rane murmured. He walked over slowly, brushing his hand against the decaying wood. His face was unreadable.
"I came here once when I was a kid."
"With who?"
"My father."
Rane let out a quiet laugh.
"It wasn't abandoned back then. Hunters used to spend the night here all the time. Winter hunts, summer patrols. Sometimes you'd even run into folk from other villages."
Kaelan listened in silence. Rane stared at the collapsed shelter, quiet for a moment.
"Then, slowly, people stopped coming."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Rane shook his head.
"One day, everyone just... stopped."
A gust of wind brushed through the clearing, making the rotten timbers groan softly. It felt as if something was slowly fading away into nothingness. Kaelan felt an odd chill. This place wasn't actually that far from Stony Creek, yet it felt like an entirely different realm. Harold didn't linger. He moved forward. Leaving the old camp behind, the three plunged even deeper into the woods. Another hour passed. Kaelan noticed the tracks on the ground multiplying rapidly. Too many.
He dropped to one knee, examining the earth closely. Wolves. Pawprints everywhere. Not just one or two, and certainly not just the pack from last night. Beside them were the tracks of deer, wild boar, and strange indentations he couldn't identify at all. They crisscrossed, overlapped, and trampled over one another. It looked as though someone had gathered every trace in the forest and churned them together. Rane knelt beside him. The longer he looked, the grimmer his face became.
"This is wrong,"
Rane said. Kaelan nodded. It was completely wrong. It was chaotic. Normally, tracks had direction. They followed patterns. Here, there were none. Everything seemed to be wandering aimlessly—no targets, no routes, like a shredded map haphazardly pieced back together. Harold walked over slowly, his eyes locked onto the messy tracks. He said nothing for a long time. By afternoon, they turned back. The return journey was far quieter than the trip out. Every man was consumed by the sight of those unnatural tracks.
As Stony Creek came into view, Kaelan finally couldn't hold it in any longer.
"What do you think it is?"
Harold kept walking, his gaze fixed straight ahead. The wind rustled through the canopy. Only after a long silence did Harold speak.
"I don't know."
Kaelan lapsed into silence. It wasn't the first time he had heard that answer. But this time, he realized it didn't mean weakness, nor did it mean incompetence. It was just honest. Because he didn't know, he admitted it. Because he didn't understand, he kept searching. Harold looked at the path ahead and added softly, "But I know one thing."
"What?"
"We haven't seen enough yet."
The setting sun poured through the edge of the woods, stretching their shadows long across the earth. Ahead, Stony Creek waited. Behind them, the silent forest stood as it always had—concealing its secrets, refusing to speak.