They moved again.
The decision happened on the road, in motion, with two wagons still attached to the world and a third erased behind them.
Wagon Three was a hole the woods could hide inside.
The Company rider kept his horse tight to the lead team, as if closeness could drag the missing wagon back into existence. His jaw worked. His hands stayed locked on the reins until the leather complained.
Brann walked with his gaze on the ground.
The captain walked with her gaze on everything else.
Eryk held his place beside Wagon Two's rear quarter where he had been put. The strap sat in his vision like a line you could not step over. His ankle burned with a steady pressure, less a flare now than a clamp. Bone squeezed between fingers. Every uneven rut made it tighten.
He shortened his stride to hide it.
It hid poorly.
The inland cut tightened again. Not by choice, by geography. Trees pressed in and the road accepted it. What had been a path became a corridor.
Sound stayed with them in there. A hoof strike didn't fade. A wheel creak didn't drift away. The noise bounced from trunk to trunk and returned sharper, as if the woods enjoyed giving it back.
Fenn drifted close to the axle, one hand on metal, head angled as if he could hear through the housing.
Garr took the outer side, nearer the brush where undergrowth was thick enough to swallow a standing man. He moved with his shoulders loose and his hands ready, which was how men moved when they expected trouble and refused to look afraid of it.
Sella stayed unseen.
Eryk could still feel where she would be, because the spaces that mattered had begun to feel occupied even when no one stood in them.
A Company guard leaned in and murmured something to the rider. The rider's head snapped toward the trees.
"Keep going," he said, too loud.
No one answered him.
The oxen did, with breath and the wet slap of hooves in soft spots. The wagons followed with a low groan that sounded like complaint.
Eryk watched his footing for a stretch, more from necessity than instruction. The road was rutted and uneven, and a wrong step could turn his ankle into something worse than pain.
Staring down had its own reward.
He began to see details he would have missed with his eyes up and searching.
A scuff where boots had stepped off the road, then returned.
A twig bent low and snapped, not weathered, not old.
A smear of mud on a sapling at waist height, as if a shoulder had brushed past and left a mark.
He swallowed and kept his gaze steady. Slow eyes, Fenn had said. Fast eyes made you easy to read.
Voices from the front drifted back.
The Company rider had leaned down toward Brann.
"This is your fault," he said.
Brann didn't look up. "Explain."
"You were hired to keep my wagons safe."
"We were hired to keep you moving," Brann replied.
The rider's laugh came out short and ugly. "One wagon is gone."
"And you're still breathing," Brann said. "That is part of the same job."
The rider pressed his horse closer until its flank nearly brushed the lead wagon's wheel.
"If my superiors decide you were careless," he said, "your pay will not cover what you owe."
Brann finally lifted his eyes.
He looked at the rider the way he looked at ruts in the road, as something that could break a wheel if you didn't respect it.
"If your superiors decide I'm careless," Brann said, "they can try to collect."
The rider flushed.
His guard shifted, hand near his spear.
The captain's voice came from the side, low enough it almost belonged to the trees.
"You want to be owed," she said. "Then keep your wagons alive long enough to arrive."
The rider stared at her.
He held his anger like a tool, then remembered it wasn't one that worked here. Paper and rage didn't stop arrows. He looked forward again and swallowed what he wanted to say.
They walked in a silence that wasn't peace. It was restraint.
Eryk's ankle pulsed. Sweat cooled at his lower back. The air smelled of damp bark and crushed leaf, and under it that metallic hint again, faint as old coin.
The woods had a taste today.
A thin slant of light cut through the branches ahead, pale and angled. Not a clearing, only a gap where a fallen tree had opened the roof and sky leaked through. The road ran under it like it was being inspected.
Eryk's gaze lifted without meaning to.
He saw nothing.
Then he saw something that didn't belong.
A strand.
So fine it would have been spider silk if it had been higher. It lay just above the road's surface, stretched between two low roots and half buried under leaf litter. Someone had tried to hide it and done the job fast.
Eryk's breath caught.
His foot started to swing forward.
He locked his knee instead, freezing mid-step.
For a beat he stood like that with the wagon wheel still rolling beside him, and he understood how quickly a mistake became a sound. How quickly sound became attention.
His throat clicked when he swallowed.
Fenn's voice came low, close, without turning his head.
"What."
Eryk didn't point. Pointing was big. Big got seen.
He let his hand drift down as if he was checking the strap, then tapped the wagon bed twice with two fingers.
Soft.
Close.
A signal small enough to be ignored by anyone who wasn't listening for it.
Fenn's hand left the axle.
The wheel slowed as the oxen felt the change in pull.
Fenn's gaze dropped.
He saw the strand.
Something in his posture tightened in a way Eryk could read now. Not panic. Focus.
Fenn breathed out once.
"Hold," he said, quiet.
It was enough.
Garr's hand lifted and the line slowed like a rope tightening. The captain turned her head a fraction and saw the change before the wagon fully stopped.
The oxen halted with a wet shuffle.
The Company rider snapped, "What are you doing."
No one answered.
The captain moved in three quick steps and came to Eryk's side. Her eyes followed his down to the road.
The strand sat there, patient.
Her gaze narrowed.
"How," she asked, and the question wasn't about his seeing. It was about their timing. About how close they had been.
"It's there," Eryk said.
The words sounded too plain for what they meant. Childish in his own ears.
The captain's eyes flicked up to him for one heartbeat.
Then back to the line.
"Good," she said, and the word landed like a tool, not comfort.
She crouched without noise, knife in hand.
Garr stepped closer and shifted his bulk between them and the brush. Not as armor. As a wall that blocked angles.
Sella appeared on the left like she had unfolded from shadow. Bow up. Arrow nocked. Her eyes stayed on the trees, not the wire.
Brann drifted in from the front, face blank, hands loose.
The Company rider tried to push his horse forward.
Brann lifted a hand, palm out.
The horse stopped.
The rider's eyes went sharp. "Move."
Brann's voice didn't rise or soften.
"Wait."
The rider's mouth tightened. "We're behind."
The captain slid her knife under the strand.
She didn't cut.
She lifted it slowly, and Eryk saw the tension in it, the way it pulled against something hidden beyond the left root.
Not a trip meant to bruise a shin.
A trigger.
An alarm. A tug on a finger. A loop meant to spring.
She tracked it to the root and pushed leaf litter aside with the back of her knife.
A small wooden peg sat angled into the dirt with the strand tied to it.
Simple.
Cheap.
Good enough.
The captain's mouth tightened.
"This is to make us stop," she said. "To fixate. To get loud."
Harl's voice came from behind, too soft and too stubborn.
"Someone always wants us loud."
A Company guard shifted. His boot scraped.
Sella's head turned a fraction, just enough.
The guard froze.
The captain slid her knife deeper and felt under the root with two fingers.
She found the second line, thicker, tied to a bent sapling deeper in the brush.
Stored force.
If the strand snapped wrong, the sapling would whip up.
If it was tied to nothing, it was noise.
If it was tied to something sharp, it was blood.
The captain eased the strand loose with slow patience, the way you handled a temperamental animal you didn't want to startle.
She pinned the strand with the flat of her knife.
Garr stepped forward and planted his boot over the wire's midpoint, pressing it into the dirt so it couldn't spring.
The captain cut.
The strand parted with a sound so small Eryk almost imagined it.
The bent sapling eased back with a slow, disappointed creak.
No snap.
No bell.
No sudden violence.
Only the feeling of something avoided.
The captain rose.
Relief didn't touch her face. Confirmation did.
Sella's bow stayed up.
Brann's gaze swept the brush, the trees, the ground again, mapping angles the way some men mapped rooms.
The Company rider exhaled hard, offended by the pause.
"What was that," he demanded.
Brann looked at him.
"A reason to die."
The rider's eyes flicked to the cut strand lying in dirt.
"That was nothing."
The captain's gaze fixed on him.
"It was something," she said. "That's why it was there."
The rider's jaw worked.
His guard leaned close and murmured again, quicker this time. Eryk didn't hear the words, only the urgency.
The rider stared into the trees, then forward along the road. He swallowed what he wanted to say.
They started again, but the shape of the convoy changed.
Spacing widened. The line went lean. The wagons rolled with more room between them, enough that a sudden stop wouldn't turn wood and bone into a knot.
Eryk fell back into his place beside Wagon Two.
The captain's earlier "Good" sat in his chest.
It hadn't been praise.
It had been permission.
He had spoken at the right time.
That was new.
His ankle reminded him it didn't care about new.
Pain climbed again. He pushed it down with breath and habit and the small rage of refusing to fall behind.
The corridor thickened.
The trees grew closer together, trunks narrower but more numerous, like a crowd that had decided to block the road by simply existing. The light dimmed further. The metallic smell strengthened, faded, returned.
Fenn glanced up more often now. His hand still touched the axle when it could, but his eyes tracked the brush as if it might blink.
Garr moved closer to the undergrowth until his shoulder nearly brushed leaves.
Harl went quiet.
That was wrong enough that Eryk noticed it more than the muttering ever had.
Brann walked near the Company rider again, close enough to hear him if he tried to make decisions out loud.
The rider stayed silent.
The silence wasn't restraint. It was calculation.
The road bent right and dipped into a hollow. The earth darkened, softened, thick with old leaf mold. The wagon wheels sank a fraction deeper with each turn and the sound changed from roll to drag.
Eryk felt the tug in the strap as the load leaned against its lash.
His hand hovered near it, ready to pull tension if it started to sing.
For now, it stayed quiet.
A bird called overhead.
One sharp note.
Then nothing.
The captain's head tilted, listening.
Sella slid from the left side of the road to the right without stepping into full light, bow still up.
Eryk's skin prickled.
The woods began to act like a place holding its breath.
The Company rider spoke at last, voice low as if he had learned what volume cost.
"If they took the chest," he said, "they will be slowed."
Brann didn't answer right away.
"They may have hands enough to carry it," he said finally.
The rider's mouth tightened. "It can't be carried far."
The captain spoke without turning her head.
"Then they knew where to carry it to."
The rider's shoulders stiffened.
"You think this was planned."
Brann looked at him.
"You think it wasn't."
Afternoon leaned toward evening. The light turned angled and gold. Dusk wasn't here yet, but it pressed close enough to be felt.
Eryk felt the day thinning.
He also felt the road tightening.
Ahead, a bend opened into a narrow run between two rises. The slopes weren't cliffs, but they were sharp enough that a wagon couldn't climb them quickly. Roots and stones showed through the soil like ribs.
A choke.
Not perfect.
Good enough.
The captain slowed.
No command. Just her body changing pace.
The line responded.
Oxen lowered their heads as if they could smell the shape of trouble.
Brann lifted one hand.
The convoy stopped.
The Company rider made a sound of disbelief.
"We stop again."
The captain looked at the slopes.
"Yes."
The rider's voice sharpened. "We keep moving."
Harl murmured from somewhere behind the wagons, just loud enough to be heard by those who mattered.
"And we die moving."
He stopped talking before anyone could decide to punish him for being right.
Sella was already ahead, invisible again.
Garr moved to the left slope and set a hand on the dirt, feeling it like a wall for cracks.
Fenn stayed by the axle, hand on metal, eyes forward.
Eryk stood beside Wagon Two and tried to look like he belonged in stillness.
The captain walked a dozen paces up the road alone.
That wasn't bravery. It was calculation. She trusted what she could see and what she had set behind her.
She stopped where the packed earth changed. Fresh marks crossed the road at an angle.
She crouched.
Her fingers touched the dirt.
Then she rose and looked back.
Two fingers lifted.
Brann came up beside her.
He looked where she looked, then scanned the slopes.
The Company rider rode up, impatience riding his face.
"What."
Brann spoke first.
"Something was dragged across here."
The rider leaned down, stared, tried to make it smaller than it was.
"Animals."
The captain's eyes went to him.
"Too straight," she said. "And too many boot prints around it."
The rider's face tightened.
"So what."
The captain's voice stayed flat.
"So we don't send two wagons through a narrow throat in failing light when someone has been shaping the road for us since midday."
The rider opened his mouth.
Brann cut in.
"We camp," he said. "Here. Before dusk. We set the wagons into a curve. We make them a wall."
The rider's anger flared again, bright and stupid.
"We're behind. We can't waste hours."
The captain looked at him.
"You already lost a wagon," she said. "You want to lose two."
The rider's nostrils flared.
His guard leaned close and whispered.
The rider's eyes flicked to the slopes again, then the trees.
He swallowed.
He hated it.
He nodded once anyway.
"Fine," he spat. "But if your men sleep and we lose more, you will answer."
Brann's mouth twitched.
"We answer either way."
Camp went up fast. The same efficiency as the creek, only sharpened now by fear and fatigue and certainty.
Wagon One was pulled across the road first, angled, wheels locked.
Wagon Two followed, set in a shallow curve that created a pocket behind them, a place where oxen could be held and men could crouch out of sight.
Fenn checked axles and lash points with hands that moved like ritual.
Garr walked the slope edges and returned with his eyes narrowed, carrying two lengths of sharpened branch.
Sella came back last, silent, hood up, bow still in her hand as if she didn't trust the woods not to reach.
She spoke low to the captain.
The captain listened.
Then she turned to Brann.
"Two watchers," she said. "One left slope, one right. Distant. They pulled back when I moved."
Brann nodded.
No surprise.
Only confirmation.
He raised his voice just enough to carry to the band.
"Rotations. No fire high. No talk that travels. We sleep in turns. If you need to piss, you wake someone and you go with them."
Harl exhaled.
"Romantic."
Brann looked at him.
Harl lifted both hands.
"Practical," he corrected.
The Company guards gathered near their rider, whispering with their heads close. They looked at the mercenaries the way men looked at wolves hired to escort them through snow.
Useful.
Untrusted.
Eryk sat by Wagon Two's wheel where he was told. His blanket lay under him again, thin against cold. His ankle pulsed, heat trapped under wrap.
Fenn crouched beside him and held out a strip of cloth.
Eryk took it without arguing.
He wrapped again, tighter.
Fenn watched his hands.
"You found that wire," he said.
Eryk kept his eyes on the knot. "Yes."
Fenn grunted.
"Good."
This time it didn't sound like permission. It sounded like acknowledgment. Like Eryk had paid attention and spent it correctly.
Eryk swallowed.
"I didn't want to speak."
Fenn's mouth twitched.
"You spoke anyway," he said. "Because it mattered."
Eryk tightened the knot until it sat flat.
He forced his hands to stop shaking.
"That's what you do," Fenn added. "You pick your moments. You don't spend words like coin."
Eryk looked up once.
Fenn's eyes stayed on the trees.
He was listening.
Harl drifted over with the pot lash in his hands, fingers busy because stillness made him restless. He glanced at Eryk's wrap and made a soft approving sound that he tried to hide.
"You'll live," Harl said.
Eryk didn't know if it was encouragement or a warning that living was expected.
He nodded anyway.
The captain walked the curve of wagons, checking each position, each face, each hand. When she reached Eryk, she paused.
Her gaze went to his ankle.
Then to his eyes.
"You saw the wire."
"Yes."
She studied him a beat longer than comfort.
"Keep looking down," she said. "Most men stare at trees when they're afraid. The ground is where traps live."
Eryk nodded.
She moved on.
Brann took first watch with Garr. Sella vanished into the left slope's shadow without being assigned. Fenn stayed near the axles, because he trusted metal more than sleep.
Eryk sat with his back against the wheel and let the darkness deepen.
The woods changed when the light went.
It didn't become louder.
It became closer.
Sounds that had been distant in daylight now felt like they belonged just beyond the edge of sight. A twig snap could be a rabbit or a boot. A rustle could be wind or a hand.
Eryk kept his breathing quiet.
He kept his hands visible.
He listened.
Up the road, far enough that it could have been imagination, a scrape came.
Wood on dirt.
Slow.
Dragged.
Eryk's stomach tightened.
He stayed still.
He let someone older and sharper confirm what his bones already believed.
A moment later, Garr's head turned.
Brann's hand lifted, palm down.
Still.
Even the oxen seemed to feel it. Their breath softened.
The Company rider's whispering camp died.
The scrape came again.
Closer.
Then it stopped.
A pause so long it felt like the woods were thinking.
Then a voice carried through the trees from where the choke began.
Not shouted.
Pitched to travel.
"Company."
The rider's head snapped up.
The voice continued, calm as a man announcing a price.
"You lost something," it said. "We found it."
The rider made a sound like a curse he didn't dare finish.
Brann didn't move.
The voice carried again.
"If you want to keep moving," it said, "you pay."
Eryk's mouth went dry.
The captain stepped into the center of the wagon curve, visible enough to be seen.
She didn't raise her voice.
"Show yourself."
A soft laugh answered her from the dark.
"No," the voice said. "You know where we are. You know what we can do. We already took your heavy chest without you noticing."
The rider swallowed, anger trapped behind his teeth.
The voice stayed calm.
"We take one wagon," it said. "Wagon Two. The one with the crates. You give it, and you walk away alive."
The words landed on Eryk like a hand.
Wagon Two.
His wheel.
His strap.
His narrow slice of space.
Brann's voice cut through the dark, level and cold.
"No."
The laugh returned, smaller.
"Then you pay different."
Silence held.
Then, from the right slope, a stone clicked loose and rolled a short distance before stopping.
Not an accident.
A signal.
Sella's bowstring whispered.
Eryk didn't see the arrow fly.
He heard the wet thud as it struck something hidden in the dark, followed by a sharp gasp that cut off too fast.
The woods swallowed the sound.
Sella didn't move.
She'd had the line the whole time. The stone had only told her exactly where to put it.
The voice up the road didn't laugh again.
It spoke once more, quieter now.
"Good," it said. "So it will be blood."
Eryk went cold.
Brann lifted his hand and the band shifted without noise into positions chosen the moment the wagons were set.
Eryk stayed by Wagon Two's wheel, because that was where he belonged, and because moving now would make him visible.
His ankle pulsed.
His hands tightened on nothing.
The dark pressed close.
And somewhere out there, men who had taken a chest without being seen were deciding what else could be taken the same way.