By the time they reached the mountain hollow, night had fallen like a hammer.
The trail ended at a crumbling stone wall that marked the edge of an old homestead, tucked between two ridges like a secret. Smoke drifted from a low chimney. A single oil lamp burned in a window, yellow and soft against the dark.
Brann stopped just outside the gate, squinting at the house.
"Still standing," he muttered. "That's something."
He adjusted the strap of his satchel, cleared his throat, and rapped his knuckles on the gatepost.
Moments passed.
Then the door creaked open.
A woman stepped out, wrapped in furs, a crossbow in her hands. Her hair was streaked with silver, though she didn't look old — just weathered, like a tree that had seen too many winters.
She narrowed her eyes at Brann.
"You've got some nerve," she said.
Brann grinned awkwardly. "Good to see you too, Mira."
She didn't lower the weapon.
"Last time you came here, you left with my silver, my mule, and half a bottle of my father's winterwine."
Brann coughed. "And a few warm memories, I'd hope."
Mira's eyes didn't soften.
"And now you show up with some stray from the city and expect what? A bed? A meal?"
"A roof," Brann said. "For a little while. That's all."
Caelan stood silently, feeling like a shadow between ghosts.
Mira looked him over, frowning at his ragged clothes, the bruises on his face, the weariness in his eyes.
She sighed.
"Storm's coming. If you're not gone by sunrise two days from now, I'll send my hounds after you."
Brann touched his heart and bowed, mock-formal.
"Wouldn't expect any less."
She turned sharply and disappeared into the house.
Brann gave Caelan a look that said 'See? That went better than I thought.'
They followed her in.
The inside of the cottage was warm but bare. Stone walls, old rugs, a few carved tokens hanging from the beams — mountain charms against spirits and wolves.
Mira lit another lamp, then tossed a blanket at Caelan.
"You sleep by the hearth. Don't snore."
Caelan nodded quietly and settled into a corner, grateful just to be off his feet.
Brann eased onto a stool with a wince and poured himself a mug of water from a cracked jug. Mira leaned against the table, arms crossed.
"So what's got you running, Brann?" she asked.
Brann shrugged. "Same thing that always does. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people."
She snorted.
"Still lying to everyone, including yourself."
Brann said nothing.
Caelan watched the two of them in silence, feeling the weight of their shared past settle like dust.
Eventually, Mira rose, muttered something about needing sleep, and left them alone by the fire.
Brann stared into the flames for a long time.
"You know," he said quietly, "I taught her how to shoot that crossbow. She was just a kid."
He smiled faintly.
"She was better than me by the end of the week."
Caelan didn't speak.
He just pulled the blanket tighter around himself and stared into the flickering shadows.
Outside, the wind howled.
The mountains were silent.
But not still.
The pit was cold.
Not just cold — dead cold.
Caelan stood waist-deep in corpses, their slack faces turned skyward, mouths agape in silent accusations. The air was thick with the stench of rot and blood. He couldn't move his legs. The dead held him there.
"You brought us down," one whispered.
It was a boy. A soldier, maybe younger than Caelan. His face was half-crushed, lips peeling back from cracked teeth.
"You shouldn't have come," croaked another — a knight with a caved-in helm and hollow sockets where his eyes had been.
More voices joined. Whispering. Accusing.
"You led them to us…"
"Because of you…"
"You shouldn't be alive..."
The bodies shifted, pulling, grasping. Cold fingers clawed at his chest, digging into his skin. One corpse leaned in close, its breath like smoke.
"You belong here now."
Suddenly, fire—burning green eyes in the dark. A horned silhouette loomed above the pit.
The corpses screamed.
"CAELAN!"
He jolted awake, gasping, tangled in his blanket. Sweat slicked his skin despite the mountain chill.
Brann crouched beside him, a mug of water in hand, looking concerned.
"You were thrashing," Brann said. "Looked like a man drowning."
Caelan took the mug and drank deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn't speak. The dream clung to him like grave-dirt.
"Get yourself together," Brann said, standing with a grunt. "Our lovely hostess gave us chores."
Caelan blinked. "...Chores?"
Brann gave him a crooked grin. "You'll love it. I'm shoveling frozen pig crap. You're on wood duty."
The sun barely cracked through the overcast sky as Caelan trudged through the snow-dusted trees, axe in hand. His boots sank into the soft earth, the woods silent around him save for the caw of distant crows.
He found a half-fallen birch and started splitting.
The rhythm of the axe helped — clean, sharp swings that cut through the lingering dread.
He tried not to think about the dream.
The faces. The blame.
The eyes.
He stacked the logs neatly, working until the chill in his bones eased from the motion.
Then he heard it — a low crack of a branch. Not a squirrel or bird.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
He turned.
And saw it.
Across the clearing, half-hidden between the trees, it stood still as a statue.
Tall.
Thick-limbed.
Its fur was coarse, matted with old blood. Its body hulking, like a bear twisted with unnatural muscle. From its massive shoulders rose the head of a goat — long, narrow, crowned with jagged black horns. Its eyes burned green.
Not with flame.
With hunger.
With awareness.
It did not move.
But it saw him.
Watched him.
Caelan took a step back, breath caught in his throat. The axe in his hand suddenly felt very small.
The creature tilted its head slowly — the exact same motion as the figure he had seen on the ridge.
Then, without a sound, it turned and walked into the trees, disappearing like smoke.
Caelan stood frozen.
The forest was silent again.
But something had changed.
Something old had seen him.
Caelan returned to the cabin with the wood stacked high in his arms, but his eyes never stopped scanning the treeline.
He said nothing at first — just dumped the logs by the chopping block and stood there, staring into the trees long after the job was done.
Brann noticed.
"Something spooked you?" he asked, wiping his hands on his tunic, his tone more casual than his eyes.
Caelan hesitated. Then nodded.
"I saw... something."
Brann raised a brow.
"Wolf? Boar?"
Caelan shook his head slowly.
"No. It had... green eyes. Bright. Like fire. It stood upright. Tall — but with a goat's head. Horns. Its body was like a bear's, only thicker. It... watched me."
Brann's grin faded.
Behind them, Mira froze mid-step, a bucket of kindling in her hands. She set it down slowly.
"Say that again," she said.
Caelan repeated the description, more carefully this time.
When he finished, Mira crossed herself with two fingers — not a church sign, but something older. A mountain ward.
She didn't speak for a long moment.
Then she muttered, "Thorns take me…"
Brann glanced at her. "You know it?"
Mira didn't answer at first. She moved to the hearth and stirred the embers, her eyes far away.
"My grandfather spoke of it. Only once. Said it was a story even the wolves wouldn't howl. Said it came from before the kingdom, before the roads, when men still scratched shelters from stone and lived in fear of the forests."
She looked up, face pale in the firelight.
"They called it the Vjest-Hirn — the Thorned Watcher. Said it was the spirit of the woods twisted by rage. Some say it was once a god that was devoured by the land itself. Others say it was made from the bones of traitors and liars, cursed to walk until the end of days."
Caelan swallowed.
Mira's voice dropped.
"Whatever it is, it doesn't belong to this world anymore. But it remembers things. People. Faces."
Brann snorted, but it didn't have much bite. "Sounds like a story to keep kids from wandering off."
Mira's eyes flicked to him.
"My grandfather disappeared for three days in these mountains. When he came back, he was blind in one eye and never walked straight again. Said he saw the Thorned Watcher standing in the mist. It let him go."
She looked at Caelan.
"It doesn't always kill. Sometimes it just... watches. As if waiting for something."
Caelan looked down at the rat-bone necklace still tied around his wrist — Tammer's strange parting gift.
He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly felt the need to hide it in his coat.
Mira returned to her kindling.
"Keep close. Don't go out at night. And if you see it again... don't run. Just... don't move."
Brann gave a quiet whistle. "Cheerful place you've got up here."
Mira didn't smile.
"No one lives here for the cheer, Brann."
That night, the fire crackled low in the hearth.
Brann snored lightly near the window. Mira's shadow stretched from the other room, unmoving. And Caelan — sleep took him slowly, pulled him under like a rising tide.
The world he entered was not the pit.
It was a long, narrow corridor lined with hanging bodies, swaying gently as though stirred by wind that didn't exist.
Each one wore his face.
He walked, though he couldn't feel his legs.
Then came a click-clack, like bone tapping bone.
From the shadows, a figure stepped into view — hunched, draped in a ragged coat too large for him. Wild hair, lopsided grin, and eyes that sparkled with delighted madness.
"Tammer?" Caelan whispered.
Tammer beamed. "Who else, you poor sack of bones?"
He hobbled closer, barefoot, leaving no sound despite the shifting floor beneath them.
"You've been dreamin' in the wrong house, lad," he said, pointing to the ceiling. "This place's got no door, no chimney, no welcome mat. That's why it keeps finding its way in."
Before Caelan could ask what he meant, the air turned colder. The corridor darkened.
A low breath echoed down the hall — rough, wet, like something dragging its lungs across stone.
The Thorned Watcher stepped into view.
Green eyes ablaze. Its horns scraped the ceiling.
The hanging bodies twisted, all facing the beast, mouths open in silent screams.
Caelan stepped back, heart pounding.
But Tammer just smiled, stepping in front of him like a man welcoming an old drinking companion.
"Now, now," Tammer said, wagging a finger. "You don't get to root around in his head just because you've got bark on your belly and shiny eyes."
The creature tilted its goatish head.
Tammer turned to Caelan and reached into his coat. From his pocket, he pulled the rat-bone necklace.
"Funny thing about bones," he said, looping it around Caelan's neck, "they don't forget what they were part of. This little trinket — heh — it remembers the spaces between dreaming and waking. Wears like nonsense, feels like junk, works like an old truth."
Caelan clutched the necklace.
The Watcher growled — low, deep, and filled with hunger.
"Now," Tammer said cheerily, stepping aside, "if you don't want to be dream-mulch, best do exactly what I say."
Caelan nodded, heart racing.
"Close your eyes," Tammer said. "Count backward from seven. Picture fireflies, then bones, then the sound of running water."
Caelan obeyed.
Seven.
Fireflies flickered in the dark.
Six.
Bones tumbled through black soil.
Five.
A stream bubbled softly in the distance.
Four… three… two…
One.
He awoke sharply, breath catching in his throat.
The fire had died to embers. The room was silent.
Caelan's hand went to his neck.
The necklace was still there — warm against his skin.
Brann stirred in his sleep.
Caelan sat in the quiet dark, heart still thudding. Somewhere deep in the woods, a distant howl rose — not quite wolf. Not quite anything.
He didn't sleep again that night.
But the dreams did not return.