That was the first thing Ethan noticed.

  Not the number.

  The way they moved.

  Nine men, yes—but not marching, not scouting properly. Too close together in places, too spread in others. Talking too loud. Laughing. One of them kicked at loose stone like this was a walk and not a job.

  Hunters, Ethan thought. Or contractors.

  Not soldiers.

  He raised his hand.

  The goblins melted into position without a word.

  They’d shaped this ground over weeks. Not with walls or obvious traps—just cleared brush, broken sightlines, angles chosen so arrows would come from above and behind at the same time. The cliff face rose sharp on one side, narrow ledges swallowed by shadow. The cavern mouth yawned ahead, dark and still.

  Too still.

  The men slowed.

  One of them frowned. “You hear—”

  Big Mama burst from the cavern.

  Not charging.

  Erupting.

  Bone and spirit thundered forward, her bulk filling the entrance, jaws opening wide enough that one man simply froze—his mind failing to catch up with scale.

  Arrows fell.

  Not a volley.

  Execution.

  Two men dropped before they understood they were under attack—one with an arrow through the neck, another through the eye. They hit the ground already dead.

  Someone screamed.

  “Scatter!”

  It was the only order that made sense.

  They ran.

  In different directions.

  Into worse places.

  Big Mama hit the nearest one head-on. She didn’t bite—she bowled him over, mass slamming into flesh and armor with the sound of breaking furniture. Another vanished under her weight, ribs cracking without a sound worth calling a scream.

  Ethan moved.

  Low. Fast. No hesitation.

  A dagger took a man in the back at ten paces—clean, practiced. Another stumbled as something caught his leg and yanked him down hard enough to shatter teeth.

  One turned to fight.

  Brave.

  Stupid.

  Ethan closed the distance before the swing finished, drove into him shoulder-first, forced the knife up under the arm and kept pushing until resistance stopped.

  He didn’t linger.

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  He hunted.

  The forest swallowed sound quickly, but not panic. Broken branches. Torn leaves. The sharp stink of fear-sweat. One man sobbed as he ran, tripped, crawled.

  Ethan stepped on his calf and pinned him.

  “Please,” the man gasped. “Please—I was just paid—”

  Ethan slit his throat.

  No speech.

  No anger.

  Just finality.

  Another hid behind a fallen log, breathing too loud. Ethan waited. Let him believe.

  Then he stepped over the log and put the blade down through the collarbone.

  Big Mama finished the last one.

  The man almost reached the treeline.

  Almost.

  She caught him from the side and crushed him into the earth, jaws closing once.

  Silence followed.

  Not peace.

  The kind of silence that comes when something has been removed.

  Ethan stood where he’d stopped, chest heaving, arms heavy, hands sticky with drying blood. His legs trembled as the adrenaline drained, leaving that hollowed-out ache behind his ribs.

  The goblins emerged slowly.

  No cheers.

  No celebration.

  They counted.

  Ethan counted with them.

  Nine in.

  Nine dead.

  He closed his eyes briefly—and didn’t let himself count again.

  Silence settled in layers.

  First the absence of shouting. Then the forest remembering itself—leaves shifting, birds creeping back into sound.

  This is going to get worse before it gets better, he thought.

  The certainty landed without drama.

  They would notice. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But people noticed when groups didn’t come back. Gaps turned into rumors. Rumors turned into decisions.

  Two groups gone now.

  That wasn’t a deterrent.

  That was a question mark.

  Ethan crouched and wiped his blade clean on a patch of moss, movements automatic. His mind kept working even as his body slowed, slotting the fight into context instead of replaying it.

  Hunters. Contractors.

  Men paid enough to try—and not enough to care who they were killing.

  Which meant whoever sent them hadn’t expected resistance.

  That wouldn’t last.

  He straightened and looked toward the treeline, imagining it without bodies. Without blood. Just distance and paths and time.

  A day to reach the road, if you knew where to cut through.

  Three days from there to the nearest village.

  Longer to anything that mattered.

  Far enough that they felt safe sending disposable people.

  Not far enough to be ignored forever.

  Winter pressed in on his thoughts, uninvited but unavoidable.

  Cold didn’t stop people from killing.

  It just changed who was willing to do it.

  They probably wouldn’t come back during winter—not right away. Forests turned hostile when the ground froze. Trails vanished under snow. No one liked losing men in cold woods over goblins everyone already called worthless.

  But that wasn’t safety.

  That was time.

  And time only mattered if you used it.

  Ethan dragged a hand down his face and forced himself to think it through cleanly.

  Two outcomes.

  Either they decided this place wasn’t worth it—too hidden, too angry, too costly—and left it alone as long as nothing pushed outward.

  Or…

  Or they decided this was a problem.

  And problems didn’t get negotiated with.

  He thought of wolves—not stories, not fables. Real ones. The kind that got too close to villages, started with livestock, then pets, then something smaller and screaming.

  People didn’t debate with wolves.

  They killed them. Or the killing never stopped.

  Once people start dying, he thought, fear doesn’t make them cautious.

  It makes them cruel.

  The logic felt old. Ancient.

  It fit this world too well.

  So we plan for the second option.

  Not because it was inevitable.

  Because it was survivable.

  Food surfaced next, heavy and unavoidable.

  Hunting had carried them so far—but that was luck layered over skill. Deer moved. Fish ran. Winter didn’t care.

  Hunting wouldn’t carry them through.

  Not alone.

  Numbers lined up in his head without effort.

  How many mouths.

  How often they ate.

  How much they brought in on good weeks versus bad.

  Too close.

  Too dependent on things he couldn’t control.

  Mushrooms. Fish. Storage.

  Not plans yet.

  Categories.

  The absence inside him stirred faintly—not pulling, not pushing. Just present. A reminder that his thoughts didn’t loop the way they used to. They lined up now. One after another.

  Good.

  That meant he could act.

  Ethan turned back toward the tunnels. The goblins were already moving again—quiet, efficient. No shock. No celebration. Just accounting. Making sure everyone was still breathing.

  That mattered more to him than the bodies cooling behind him.

  They’re adapting, he realized.

  So am I.

  Almost a year here.

  Six months in that cell.

  Weeks in the wild.

  Months underground.

  He wasn’t reacting the way he would have before.

  He wasn’t drowning.

  That didn’t mean he felt less.

  It meant he moved faster.

  I should have started earlier, he thought. I should have been building instead of surviving.

  The thought flickered—and died.

  No dwelling.

  Lesson learned.

  Winter was coming.

  Men would come again.

  And pretending otherwise was no longer an option.

  Ethan rolled his shoulders, letting the ache settle into something workable.

  Okay.

  This wasn’t going to stop.

  Which meant it was time to stop pretending it might.