Dawn came grey and calm to the High Moor.
The storm had spent itself in the night. Water still ran in thin channels between the peat mounds, catching the weak light. The cottage smelled of smoke and sleep and people. Thom left before first light work never ends on the Moor.
Farewells on the moor are quiet things.
Ellyn pressed bread into their hands. Jory and Milia watched wide-eyed, solemn in the way of children who understand something important is happening even if they cannot name it.
Then the door closed, and the moor opened ahead of them.
⸻
They were not alone on it.
Four figures waited beside a narrow track — cloaks patched, boots split, weapons mismatched and poorly kept. Hunger had hollowed their faces. Desperation had sharpened their eyes.
The fight was brief and terribly one-sided.
Two fell before they understood what was happening. A third dropped his weapon and ran. The last lay bleeding in the peat, breath coming in gasps.
Up close, they were not monsters.
Just cold. Afraid. Men who had chosen a bad path because there were few others left.
Healing came from a distance — magic knitting torn flesh without a face to go with it. When the man woke, they were already gone.
Some things are harder to carry than a weapon.
⸻
By midday, the hamlet came into view.
Smaller than the smoke had suggested. A handful of turf-roofed cottages crouched against the wind. Fields clawed from stubborn soil. And at its heart — too large for the place, too solid, stone walls built for a road that once mattered — the inn.
Inside: warmth. Stew. A fire that burned brighter than it had any right to.
Garm behind the bar — broad-shouldered, grey at the temples, eyes that weighed carefully even when his smile came easy.
And in the corner, wrapped in a cracked leather coat, one ear cupped toward the room: Berric Thorne. Old Kip. A man who missed as much as he heard, and understood more than he let on.
The talk came in pieces. A merchant three fortnights overdue. Supplies running thin. Something circling the western sky — a shadow too large for a bird, too patient for weather.
A goat taken from the hillside not three days past.
No tracks. No blood. Just absence.
“It’s gettin’ bold,” Old Kip said, tapping his ear-horn.
Garm did not argue.
⸻
The agreement came easily: bed, board, what provisions could be spared. Safety for as long as they remained.
Evening. Ale. Bread. The fire doing its best against the vast dark outside.
The kitten investigated each room with grave seriousness and found everything insufficient. It settled at last in a patch of firelight, purring steadily, tail wrapped around its nose.
Below, the inn grew quiet.
Outside, the High Moor waited.
Somewhere above the clouds, something vast moved on silent wings — patient, circling, hungry.
The horns had not sounded in two days.
But the moor remembers everything.