Location: Eastern Slopes, Direth Mountains – Edge of Camp Aegis
Time: 0630 Hours – One Year After the Crash
Behind him, he heard the metallic clack of claws on hull plating. Then laughter..quick, sharp, and irreverent. His head turned in time to see the great black wolf bounding up from the courtyard, vest clenched in its jaws like a trophy. The fur shimmered dark and slick beneath the rising light, a flash of iron-gray twisting through the movement like veins of ore beneath snow. The others stepped back instinctively, watching the beast draw near. Levente did not. He stood firm as the massive form trotted to a halt before him, gold eyes bright and tail curled high. It was not a display of obedience. It was a show….Levente stared for a long beat. “You're pushing it.” His voice was flat, but not without weight. He reached out..not with fear, not with softness, but with expectation..and took the vest from the wolf’s jaws. “You know better.” The wolf’s tail flicked once before it turned away, heading back to dress in the rear of the column. Levente didn’t watch him go. He adjusted the weight of the vest in his hands and secured it around the massive wolfs frame, tightening each strap carefully, ensuring it would not move. There were no lectures, no shouted discipline. There didn’t need to be. You didn’t raise a thing like Marduk by trying to make him normal. You raised him by making damn sure he understood the difference between theater and threat.
From behind, a voice rang out..accented, blunt, and carved from ice. “Leave soon. Time is enemy. Snow is enemy. Vaesen, enemy. Quick good.” Levente didn’t turn immediately. He didn’t need to. He knew the voice..Thorrfen, the Heims-blooded guide, the scarred one with the dead man’s eyes and a bow like his father’s. Levente took a final look at the treeline, then nodded once without fanfare. “Noted,” he said simply. “Just make sure you’re not behind us when the killing starts.” No insult. No threat. Just instruction. Honest. Efficient. He’d seen too many freeze or falter when the trees screamed. Thorrfen wasn’t likely to be one of them..but the mountain didn’t care how likely something was.
The cold hit hard that morning.
The sky was a bruised slate, dim and heavy with the promise of more snow. Wind bit at exposed skin and tore at the seams of old banners and sensor flags mounted to the hull. The staccato ping of ice pellets against metal was the only noise besides the shuffling of boots on frozen earth. It pushed into seams of armor, crept beneath thermals, and clung to the bones like a second skin. Sergeant Major Levente Barná stood just beyond the main service bulkhead, his visor still up, breath spilling into the air in controlled plumes. He watched the final loading process with a steady gaze, boots half-buried in drifted snow. His team, six in total, moved around him with measured urgency..experienced soldiers and hardened volunteers who knew how fast the mountain could turn against them. Nearby, one of the quartermasters sealed the last of the 72-hour ration packs, a soft hiss rising as the vacuum seal cinched tight. Each pack held the usual spread: nutrient paste tubes, hydration gels, Alyanka-style ration bars in flavors like Cocoa Crisp or Herb & Lentil, self-heating cans of stew or protein chili, and the field’s coveted treasure..Bean Tubes and spiced rum minis labeled Ishtar’s Choice.
“Everything warm’s on the top shelf,” the QM muttered as he handed the bag over. “Chili, chowder, and a lentil blend. Throw ‘em in your coat before you trigger the heaters.”
Levente gave a curt nod, taking the weight of his own pack as it was handed off. His gloves gripped the straps tightly, fingers flexing against old burns and weathered calluses. Inside the pack’s side pouch was the rest of the small comforts: caffeine patches, muscle relaxants, a pair of non-opioid painkiller strips, and a cartridge of standard med-patches. All of it standard issue now. All of it necessary.
Across the frost-blasted landing zone, the rest of the squad ran final diagnostics on their equipment. One soldier slotted a hydration cartridge into her helmet rig, the line locking with a soft click. Another ran a last sweep of his rifle’s optics, chewing absently on a piece of dried fruit leather from his morale kit. There was no shouting. No chatter. Just discipline and the sound of preparation.
They knew what this was. A push east into the forest. A meeting with the Heims outpost. A risk. Levente adjusted his shoulder rig and tapped into his HUD.
“Double formation. Tight spacing,” he said. “No trail chatter. Eyes on your zones.”Levente’s visor flickered to life as he ran his own checks: limited comms, short-range mapping, vitals. All green. the ever-present tension in his lower spine…a dull ache that never left.
Into the Eastern Forest
At 0700, they moved out.
The outer gates wheezed open with a mechanical groan, revealing the snow-swept slope that rolled down from the camp’s edge and into the forest below. Wind screamed through the gaps in the barricade walls, slamming into them as they pushed forward, one after another, boots finding purchase in the iced-over terrain. They carried light. Two filtered canteens each, high-fat arctic ration bars, and gear modified for extreme cold operations. Inside their belts or satchels, most carried a few morale rations..candy strips, a mini Victory Square of dark chocolate, or the last precious Bean Tube left over from winter stores. They also carried more…pipe tobacco pouches sealed in wax paper, and a half-liter of rum each for morale protocols, should negotiations succeed. “Keep formation. Helmet mics on low band,” Levente ordered as the last of them crossed the boundary. Behind them, Camp Aegis faded into a jagged silhouette of corrugated metal and smoke stacks. One of the troopers glanced back. Levente didn’t.
He’d done this a dozen times. He knew what waited in the woods.
They moved out fifteen minutes later.
Past the last forward sensors. Past the makeshift markers and defrosted motion lights mounted on twisted rebar and hull fragments.The eastern treeline rose like the bones of old gods, gnarled and towering, wrapped in snow and silence. Within five minutes of marching, all noise but the wind and boots on ice had vanished. The sun was a smear above, half-lost behind steel-colored clouds.the span of broken woodland ahead had devoured a third of their patrols over the past six months. Levente knew it well. Too well. He’d memorized every elevation map, every survivor report, every bloodstain returned on scavenged gear. It was the only viable path to reach the outpost in time before the real storms set in.
Ten meters into the woods, the light changed. Shadows deepened. Sounds dulled. Behind him, the team followed in practiced rhythm. One of the Marines moved with a small scanner held tight to her chest, modified to create an beeping alert tone, if any of the creatures came close.Another adjusted the slung rifle at his side, eyes roving the treeline. Levente kept his pace even. Not fast. Not slow. Eyes forward, but never inattentive. He didn’t speak much while in motion..preferred to conserve his breath and listen. The wind whispered through the canopy in shifting tones, not unlike the lull of static through a radio when no one's left on the other end. And yet… The squad froze. He scanned the woods slowly, eyes tracing irregular patterns in the drifts. The treeline looked undisturbed..but there were no birds. No falling snow from branches above. No distant groan of ice cracking. He clicked his mic twice..silent comms.
The team adjusted.No one needed to say it. Something was watching.The cold wasn’t just cold anymore. They were not alone. That much was obvious. Something lingered just beyond the reach of the eye. Not seen. Not heard. But felt…the way only a soldier long immersed in war could feel it. Not wolves. Not men. Vaesen….He didn't need to say it. Levente gave one last glance toward the treeline, where the snow had been disturbed ever so slightly by something that hadn’t left a print. Then he turned back toward the path ahead. They would move quickly, quietly…Levente’s hand hovered near the grip of his rifle as he motioned the squad onward. If the Heims were where the maps claimed, they’d reach the trade boundary within the day. With luck, they’d make contact. Exchange supplies. Secure thermal gear, fur-lined cloaks, dried rootstock, maybe even alcohol or salt blocks. But if they weren’t lucky?He reached back and tapped the pack strapped to his armor’s spine.Inside were the extras.Combat stims.Nutrient-recovery patches.A morale tube of mocha-mint Bean.Enough to keep the team alive. Long enough to finish the mission. Maybe long enough to return. His eyes scanned the forest again. The snow settled without sound. The wind had stopped. And if something followed them? It would learn, like so many had before, that Levente Barná did not lose ground lightly.
In the silence of the Direth wood, only the snow remembers the shape of passing men.
But something else remembers, too.
And it is hungry.
