The tracks aren't deer.
They're too wide. Too deep. Pressed into the mud like the ground tried to swallow them and failed.
Alvis crouches and runs two fingers along the edge of one print. Fresh. The water hasn't seeped back in yet. Whatever made it came through recently—heavy enough to leave the earth bruised.
Bog ox.
He hasn't seen them this close to Two Creeks in years.
He rises slowly and follows the trail, stepping where roots hide his weight, keeping his breathing low and quiet. The swamp is loud if you let it be—buzzing insects, distant croaks, the lazy drip of wet leaves—but the real dangers come when it goes wrong. When the rhythm shifts. When the sound drops out.
A soft grunt rolls through the brush ahead.
Then another.
Then the steady, slow crush of something big moving through vegetation like it belongs there more than the trees do.
Alvis smiles despite himself and eases toward the sound, arrow already half-nocked without thinking. He reaches a thick trunk and presses close to its bark, peeking around it—
And freezes.
A bog ox grazes less than twenty feet away, and the swamp around it looks suddenly smaller—like the trees have agreed to give it room.
It's not a cow. Not even close.
It's a wall of muscle wrapped in shaggy, mud-streaked fur—dirty brown, clumped and tangled in places where the swamp never really dries. Four heavy horns curl from its head, thick and blunt like carved wood. A beard hangs under its jaw, dripping wet.
It stands nearly ten feet tall at the shoulder.
And it moves like it knows nothing here can challenge it.
Alvis can't help the way his eyes widen. He's seen bears. He's seen gators big enough to drag a man under. This is different.
This is… something that's been surviving the swamp longer than the swamp has been kind.
The ox lifts its head, chewing slowly, and looks straight at him.
Alvis doesn't move.
The ox's nostrils flare once. It studies him—calm, unreadable—then drops its head and returns to eating like Alvis is a bird on a fence post.
Dismissed.
Alvis lets out a breath through his nose and shifts his weight carefully, keeping his body behind the trunk. If one ox is here, the rest are close.
He glances up.
Tree.
He climbs with quiet hands, careful where he puts his boots. He settles onto a thick branch and peers through the foliage.
He hears them before he sees them—multiple bodies, multiple grunts, brush parting under weight.
Then shapes emerge between leaves.
Ten adults.
Two bulls. Eight cows.
And calves—small, fast, playing at the edge of the herd like they don't understand what they are.
For a few minutes Alvis just watches.
This isn't hunting. Not today. It's like spotting a legend that wandered too close to home.
He thinks, briefly, about what one of these would mean for Two Creeks.
Meat for weeks. Hides thick enough to patch roofs. Bones for tools.
Then he thinks about the horns.
The size.
The way the adults stand around the calves without fear.
And he feels the smarter part of himself answer:
Not worth it.
Not when he doesn't know their anatomy. Not when one wrong move could turn this into a stampede that flattens him into the mud.
He's about to climb down—
—and then one cow turns.
Alvis's smile fades.
A scar runs along her flank. Not a clean cut. Not a claw mark. It's a long, brutal wound that healed ugly, as if something tried to open her from shoulder to hip and didn't quite finish the job.
His stomach tightens. His skin prickles under his armor like something cold just brushed his spine.
That isn't from a fall.
That isn't from another ox.
Alvis stares at it until his eyes start to ache.
He's heard stories. Not the kind people tell for fun—whispered things the elders mutter when they think nobody's listening. Creatures that don't hunt from the trees or the reeds.
Creatures that take you from below.
He swallows hard and forces himself to look away.
If he brings that scar to the village, panic spreads like fire.
So, he keeps it.
He watches until the herd begins to shift, restless under the weight of being observed. The first ox he saw lifts its head again and stares toward Alvis's tree for a long, quiet moment.
Then the herd turns as one and disappears deeper into the swamp, brush folding behind them like they were never there.
Alvis stays still until he can't hear them anymore.
Only then does he climb down.
He has work to do.
Flint for Oliver. Mushrooms for Floris. Normal things.
He moves on, scanning the ground for sharp stones, filling his pack with flint whenever he finds a good piece. He keeps one ear tuned to the swamp while he searches—half expecting the oxen to reappear, half expecting something worse.
SPLAT.
Alvis stops mid-step.
He closes his eyes, already knowing.
He lifts his boot and stares at the thick smear clinging to the sole and packed into the cracks.
Ox dung.
"Wonderful," he mutters, deadpan.
He scrapes it off with a stick at first—easy, satisfying chunks—until it becomes tedious and personal. Then he switches to a sharp rock and works the muck out of the grooves with the kind of focus usually reserved for field dressing.
When he's done, he drags his boot through grass a few times and continues with a much more respectful relationship to the ground.
By sunset his pack is heavy.
Flint stones clack together when he walks. Mushrooms sit wrapped in cloth. He's tired, hungry, and still thinking about that scar.
Two Creeks comes into view with the familiar comfort of smoke and thatch and the sound of people surviving another day.
Oliver sits outside his house with a bowl of stew, looking far too pleased with himself.
"Alvis," Oliver calls. "Back already? Miracles do happen."
Alvis drops his pack onto Oliver's table with a thud and starts unloading flint. "I found what you needed."
Oliver whistles. "That's… actually impressive."
Alvis flashes a grin. "Told you I'm useful."
Oliver points with his spoon. "You? Useful? I'll need proof."
Alvis rolls his eyes. "I got distracted."
Oliver leans forward, delighted. "Oh? Do tell."
"Bog ox," Alvis says.
Oliver chokes on his stew.
Alvis watches, arms crossed, grin widening as Oliver coughs violently and wipes his mouth with his forearm. "You serious?"
Alvis doesn't even answer. He just keeps smiling.
"Stop that," Oliver rasps, still coughing. "Stop grinning like that."
"I told you," Alvis says, smug. "You would've been distracted too."
Oliver glares. "Get out of here before I throw this stew at you."
Alvis laughs and grabs his pack. "I've got mushrooms for Floris."
He heads for Floris's house, finds Ajenna outside, and gives her the bundle without fuss. She sends him in to drop them off.
Upstairs, in Floris's storage room, Alvis lays the mushrooms on the bed and turns to leave—
Then his eyes catch on the carving above the window.
Two figures.
One taller. One with longer hair.
Knife marks shallow but deliberate.
He stands there longer than he means to.
The village sounds fade for a moment.
He swallows and lowers his head slightly.
"He misses you," Alvis whispers, too quiet for anyone but the wood to hear. "He won't say it. But I know."
He doesn't add the rest.
There's no point.
Alvis steps out, pulling the door closed behind him.
Outside, the air feels different. Wind shifts through the canopy—cooler than it should be this late in the day. A low, distant roll of thunder grumbles somewhere far off.
Alvis looks up.
Dark clouds are building.
"Looks like rain," he mutters.
And something in him—small, instinctive—draws tight like a bowstring that doesn't know what it's aiming at yet.