Chapter 3: Into the Mountains and a Night Raid

Elias rested the silver wolf-head cane against the edge of the table, his gaze settling on the contract Logan had just signed. The metal cylinder still lay between them, its cold, hard casing pressed against Nora’s fingertips. Logan stood watching her, the plain band on his left ring finger chilled by the wind blowing in through the gap in the window.

“This contract has been signed, and the penalty for breach is clearly stated.” Nora pushed the cylinder back to the center of the table. “If you want to investigate the stone array, you can hire my team under the contract. Anyone who wants to take me back to the wolf pack can settle the bill first.”

Elias did not touch the cylinder. He took a neatly folded map from the inner pocket of his overcoat and placed it over the contract. “We enter the mountains tomorrow morning. Signs of the Rift wolves have already appeared around the perimeter of the stone array. You know the mountains, and you know rescue work. You’ll lead this expedition.”

“I accepted an inspection commission, not a family order from you.” Nora spread the map open and glanced over several marked points. “The route, evacuation points, medical support, and payment all have to be added to the contract. If even one is missing, I’m not going.”

“You’ll be paid double,” Logan said. “I’ll be responsible for the evacuation route. The people from the Rift have already crossed the northern tree line. If we drag this out, they’ll make the first move.”

Hank Doyle pushed open the door, the cuffs of his khaki rescue jacket stained with wet mud. He glanced at Logan’s signature, then reached out and slipped the contract into a folder. “She leads. I’ll be her second. None of your wolves may alter the route without permission, and you are not to treat her as the array’s focal point or as bait.”

Elias tapped his cane against the floor. “No one will use her as bait. The stone array needs her to verify several inscriptions. As for your conditions, I can promise medical kits and satellite communication along the route, with two vehicles standing by at the entrance to the forest road.”

“One more thing,” Nora said. “Every team member wears a tracker, and if we encounter an injured person, we evacuate them in the order I specify. Logan, if you leave the team without permission, I’ll treat you as an injured person too.”

Logan looked at her without arguing. “We’ll follow your rules. We leave at five-thirty tomorrow morning. Temperatures at the mountain pass will fall below freezing, and the road will ice over.”

Nora set the pen back on the table, its metal clip striking the surface with a crisp click. “I’ll bring crampons and ropes. You can explain why a stone array guarded for generations doesn’t have a single clear maintenance record.”

Elias flattened the corner of the map. “The records are in a stone box in the old shrine. It hasn’t been opened in three years. Several pages are also missing from the copy of the code. After the array began to weaken, the priesthood tried every ritual they knew, but none of them made it light up.”

“Rituals can’t replace an on-site inspection.” Nora fastened her coat. “We’ll first identify cracks, water seepage, and signs of human interference. As for your ancient rules, we can discuss them after they’ve managed to save someone who fell down a mountain.”

At five-thirty in the morning, the forest road outside Deerbridge Town was sealed beneath a thin layer of ice. Two four-wheel-drive vehicles stood beside a road sign, their roof-mounted emergency lights not yet switched on. Nora had tied her dark-brown hair into a high ponytail. A reflective vest covered her orange-red shell jacket, and the metal team insignia gleamed coldly in the headlights. She checked each team member’s headlamp, insulating layers, radio, and tracker one by one, then tightened the strap on the medical pack.

Hank approached carrying a coil of rope. “There’s freezing rain on the northern slope, and the vehicles can’t reach the stone array. We’ll walk from the old logging road and report our position every two hours. If anyone’s tracker goes offline, stop the team first. No one is to split off looking for them.”

“There are fresh claw marks ahead along the tree line, spaced widely apart.” Logan crouched beside the snow and shone his flashlight over several marks gouged into the earth. “They were left last night. The Rift’s scouts are testing us—and watching to see who walks the slowest.”

Nora brought her ruler close to the marks, took photographs, and recorded their direction and time. “The claws point north, and the edges haven’t frozen hard yet. After passing through here, they turned back toward the west. They may be watching the forest-road exit. We maintain formation. If we’re attacked, retreat to open ground first. Don’t chase them into the trees.”

Elias walked in the middle of the group with his cane, accompanied by two priests. The older priest held a bronze bell in his palm, its clapper wrapped with faded red thread. “The fire in the stone array went out last night. We used the ancestral prayers, but the stone surfaces remained gray and cold. Their temperature didn’t change at all.”

“The bronze bell, brazier, and prayers can’t tell us whether there’s water collecting behind the cracks.” Nora turned up the brightness of her headlamp. “We’ll record the outer ring first, then inspect the foundations. If anyone feels unwell, speak up immediately. Cold temperatures can make people misjudge their own condition.”

Logan moved ahead of her and blocked a dead branch hanging over the trail. He reached out to break it, but the tip sliced through his glove, and a bead of red blood welled up. He immediately withdrew his hand and pressed it with clean gauze. “I’m fine. Keep moving. There’s a steep slope on your right. Don’t step on that patch of frost.”

“Change your glove after stopping the bleeding, and check it again in twenty minutes.” Nora handed him a spare glove. “You can protect the team, but you also have to follow the team’s medical procedures. If the wound soaks in snowmelt, it’ll become infected by the time we get back to town.”

Logan took the gloves without looking at her. “You keep an extremely close eye on everyone. You said the same thing when you bandaged me three years ago.”

“That time, you refused to go to the emergency room and made me spend four hours freezing in the car with you.” Nora continued forward. “I remember every time you put your own safety last. Don’t treat that as something worth praising.”

Before noon, the stone circle appeared on the sheltered side of the ridge. More than a dozen ancient stones formed an arc, their surfaces darkened by freezing rain, with dead pine needles and crushed gravel gathered between their bases. Nora walked once around the outer edge, photographing the direction of each stone’s tilt with her phone, then used a geological hammer to check for hollow sounds around the bases. Fresh pine needles had been stuffed into several gaps between the stones, but the soil at the bottom showed signs of having been disturbed.

“The third stone on the north side is leaning outward. There’s a cavity beneath the base.” She crouched and put on the gloves to clear the gap. “There are shoeprints beside it, and the tread doesn’t look like a hiking boot. Someone dug this open and covered it with gravel afterward.”

Hank used a rangefinder to verify the location, the smile fading from his face. “I’ll set up the perimeter. Nobody puts a hand into the gap; there could be loose rocks inside. The members of the priesthood should move back toward the rock wall and stay clear of the direction of falling stones.”

Elias stared at the ashen stone surface. “The principal stone hasn’t fallen. It has never been this silent before. The priesthood believes the weakening originates deep beneath the base. Nora, can your findings prove that someone damaged the stone circle?”

“They can only prove that someone disturbed the soil, not who did it.” Nora placed a pine needle in an evidence bag. “Moisture is seeping into the base from the west, and the crack extends beneath the stone. We need to rule out displacement caused by freezing and thawing before deciding whether to dig it open. Moving the stones recklessly could destabilize the entire circle.”

Logan swept his gaze across the tree line, his finger pausing over the radio. “No digging today. We’ll set up camp before dark and take turns standing watch. The people from the Rift know we’re here. They may approach while visibility is obstructed.”

The camp was set up in an open, sheltered area east of the stone circle, with every tent rope secured to rock pitons. Hank arranged them into two-person shifts, while Nora placed the first-aid kit beside the tent entrance and set reflective markers at both ends of the forest path. Her phone had only forty-two percent battery left, but the satellite communicator could still connect to the duty officer in Deerbridge Town.

At eleven that night, the wind abruptly fell silent for a moment. Nora sat up in her sleeping bag and felt for the radio at her waist. Hank’s voice came through her earpiece, low and urgent. “Figures on the west side. Three of them, moving fast. Everyone out of the tents and toward the rock wall. Don’t shine your high beams directly at your teammates.”

Logan had already rushed out of the tent, his black coat abandoned on the ground. His shoulders and back suddenly tensed, and a deep wolf howl rolled up from his chest. Several dark-red shapes burst from the tree line. The foremost wolf leaped over the perimeter rope and charged straight at Nora. Logan turned to intercept it, but the ice beneath his feet shattered, costing him half a step.

“Nora, get down!” Hank held his trekking pole crosswise and slammed it into the wolf’s side, forcing it off course. “Fall back toward the stone circle. Don’t let them trap you between the tents!”

Nora snatched up the rescue ax and planted her heel on solid frozen earth. The lead wolf lunged back at her, its claws tearing through her sleeve and opening a gash in her forearm. She slammed into an ancient stone beside the base, her palm pressing into rough carvings as blood dripped down the stone’s surface. A sudden glimmer appeared across the gray-white rock, like a thin line carved by a spark across the snow.

“Get behind me!” Logan shouted. He vaulted over the perimeter rope, but another wolf slammed into his shoulder. His entire body slid down the slope until he caught himself by gripping a taut rope.

Nora’s gaze was seized by the markings on the stone. She heard her own breathing, and beneath it, a low rumble rising from deep within the cracks, as though the entire mountain were slowly turning over beneath the ice. She saw no words and heard no voice. Blood continued to run down her arm, but the stone circle’s faint glow crept outward along the base in both directions, illuminating a shallow groove that had been impossible to make out before.

“Hank, get everyone back to the rock wall on the east side! Don’t step on the groove—it’s the principal stone’s drainage channel.” Nora flung aside the rescue ax and advanced along the edge of the stone toward the charging lead wolf. “Logan, don’t pull that rope! It’s connected to a loose rock piton!”

She thrust out both hands and caught the wolf at the shoulders and neck. Cold white lines lit up across the stone beneath her feet. The lead wolf’s momentum was stopped dead, its body flipping backward into a heap of powdery snow. Nora’s knee struck the base hard, pain surging through her, but she still braced herself against the stone and forced herself upright. The alpha lunged at her throat from behind and to the side. She turned and met it with her shoulder and back, seized the fur along its neck, and used the vibration pulsing through the stone circle to hurl it into the rock wall.

The alpha did not rise again after it hit the ground. The remaining attackers retreated into the woods, the sound of their claws quickly swallowed by the wind. Strength drained from Nora’s fingers, and her body slid down along the ancient stone. Logan tore free of the rope and rushed to her side, catching her and pressing his palm against her bleeding arm.

“Don’t let stone dust get into the wound, Hank. Get me a hemostatic bandage.” Logan lifted her away from the pedestal. “Nora, can you hear me? Look at me. Don’t close your eyes. I’m taking you down the mountain. The ambulance is waiting at the forest road.”

“I can still stand.” Nora tried to lift her head, but all she could see were blurred lights. “Check whether Hank or anyone else is hurt first. The stone circle lit up just now. There may be a hollow beneath that drainage channel on the west side.”

Hank pressed down on her wound and secured the dressing. “I’ve checked the team. No one’s missing; there are only a few scrapes. You need to stay warm. You can’t walk any farther. The rescue vehicle will reach the forest road in five minutes, and the satellite communicator has already sent our coordinates.”

Elias took a leather-bound copy of the codex from inside the elder’s coat. The wind riffled the edges of its pages. His gray-white eyes settled on the ring on Logan’s left hand. “I had someone fetch this copy from the old shrine overnight. The agreement is signed, all right, but the elders’ records contain no mark dissolving the bond between mates.”

Logan held Nora tighter as he took the copy and flipped to the last page. Her signature from that time was there, but the seal space was blank. The color drained from his face. He pressed a finger against a faded line of text. “The signature only proves I agreed to the divorce. The codex says dissolving the bond also requires the moon mark and witnesses from both sides. The elders never completed the process. Nora is still my Luna.”

Nora struggled to open her eyes. “Save that for when I can read the codex for myself. None of you gets to decide where I live, or who I belong to, based on a page of old paper.”

Elias closed the codex, the tip of his staff touching the ground. “You can refuse to return to the pack, and you can keep running your company. But the mountain guardian’s blood has answered the stone circle, and the rift won’t leave us in peace. If you go, the circle may sink back into dormancy, and Deerbridge will lose its protection.”

“She’s just survived an attack. You have no right to force her into a decision right now.” Hank wrapped a blanket around Nora’s shoulders. “Get her down the mountain and treated first. If you want the truth, bring out the records and evidence. Don’t pressure her to sign anything by holding everyone’s safety over her head.”

The light in the stone circle began to fade. A line of ancient characters emerged from the deepest part of the pedestal. Nora’s blood seeped along the grooves in the stone and into the strokes. As the words came fully into view, she reached out to touch them, but Hank caught her wrist.

“Don’t let her touch the stones again!” Logan shouted.

The light narrowed to a slender beam, but the ancient words still glowed on the base of the circle.

When the mountain guardian returns, the stone circle shall awaken.