First light broke cold over the Talan Settlement.First light broke cold over the Talan Settlement.
Three horn blasts echoed from the watchtower—low, resonant, carrying across frozen ground. Then a shout—"Hunters returning!"
Doors opened from all quarters. North walls, central square, even the southern edge. Voices called to one another. The sound of people gathering, moving toward the gates.
The bone gates rose ahead—a massive, bleached dragon skull, its eye sockets empty. Frost gathered in the hollows like a grave mouth.
He lagged twenty paces behind the others. It had been that way since they left the clearing, the space between them widening like a crack in ice.
The baby was warm against his chest. Too warm, like fever, but the child's skin was dry. It still hadn't cried.
Varn led the hunters through the gates, still captain, still in command. Crossbow gripped tight in one hand, the other pressed flat against his thigh.
Behind him walked Ferne, then Grey-beard. Renn stumbled along, face ash-pale. The others followed, exhausted. Seven of them trudged together, empty-handed and scorched.
Torven trailed behind, alone. Burns ran from wrist to elbow where dragon fire had caught, his cloak smoke-stained and singed. Grey-beard's blanket wrapped the baby. Ferne's water skin hung at his belt.
The baby shifted beneath the blanket.
Ahead, the settlement stirred.
Bone arches formed the doorways—ribs pulled from long-dead dragons, bleached and cracked. People emerged from them, leaning from windows, clustering at corners, eyes tracking the hunters' approach.
Questions started immediately.
"They're back."
"Did they—"
The hunters passed the storage houses where dragon spines formed the walls, doors sagging on their hinges. Iron cisterns sat in the doorways, bellies dark with years of staining, and nothing in them.
The air tasted of cook smoke and old wool. Ash bread and bitter root—the same as always.
"Where are the dragons?"
More people flooded toward them now, looking for bundles of meat, for scales strapped to backs, for triumph.
The hunters offered only scorched cloaks, exhaustion, empty hands.
The voices grew louder.
"We saw the lights last night—the sky—"
In the central square, children waited, too quiet, too still.
"You tracked them, didn't you?"
"The blood—there had to be—"
Torven's boots hit stone, left then right, the cracks dark-smooth and worn to glass, his arms throbbing as cold air bit the burns.
They passed Old Kerra's workshop. The woman stood in her doorway, skin like worn leather. Her eyes met Torven's. Held.
Varn kept moving, silent and stone-faced. The rest followed in silence.
The central square opened ahead. A dragon skeleton stood at its heart, fully articulated, wings spread wide and bleached white. The skull pointed north, jaw open, screaming at nothing.
The crowd filled the square. Fifty people, a hundred, more coming. Boneholders pressed forward, scale-sewn coats with missing plates, jewelry with empty sockets where blood gems used to sit, faces gone thin. Edge-dwellers hung back, their eyes not on the hunters but on the Boneholders. Arms folded. Waiting.
Questions multiplied, voices rising and overlapping. Two hundred people now, maybe more.
"What happened?" someone shouted. "Where are they? The lights fell north—we all saw—"
"Why aren't you carrying anything?"
"Captain! Varn! What did you find?"
The voices swelled, building toward panic.
Torven waded through, hemmed by bodies, each step deliberate. A mother pulled her child closer, knuckles white, holding her breath. The crowd pressed tighter, the noise rising.
"Did you find them?"
"Answer us!"
"We need to know—the settlement—we can't—"
Someone near the front stopped mid-word. Eyes locked on Torven, on the bundle in his arms.
"What's he carrying?"
Others turned, but Torven pushed forward, didn't slow, didn't stop. The bundle stirred, the blanket shifting.
"It's... small."
"Too small for meat."
"What is that?"
People craned to see, pushed forward. The noise shifted to confusion.
A woman stepped into Torven's path. She couldn't have been more than thirty, but worn like fifty winters. Her gaze fixed on the bundle.
"That's not—" The shape stopped her. The size of it. She froze.
"It's a baby."
Her voice barely carried. But everyone heard.
The noise died, sudden as a held breath.
Torven walked, his boots on stone the only sound. Heat pulsed from the baby against his chest. His breath came ragged from the walk, the pain, the exhaustion.
The crowd stood silent.
Not one word.
Blood roared in his ears, all those eyes heavy as bone. The baby moved again—small sound, cloth rustling—and the crowd flinched.
Someone stepped back, then another, and the space around Torven widened. People pulled away, recoiling but not running.
He didn't stop.
Then movement from the crowd's edge. Someone pushing through—shouldering past people who wouldn't step aside, the only body in that square moving toward instead of away.
Moira.
She crossed the square without breaking stride, people parting for her.
Torven stopped and met her eyes. Her gaze tracked down—scorched cloak, burns, the damage written across him. Then to the bundle.
Her hands reached out—rough from tanning, cracked from the chemicals, the right one trembling like it always did. She smelled of lye and leather, of home.
Torven didn't hesitate. He gave the baby to her, gentle despite the ache. Cold rushed in where warmth had been.
Moira took the child. Unwrapped the blanket enough to see the face.
Amber eyes open, catching the grey morning light, unfocused and drifting.
Her hands stopped.
This one was breathing.
She touched the baby's cheek. Her trembling hand steady for this. "He's warm."
The silence broke.
Not loud, not chaotic—but the spell shattered. People shifted, murmured.
"Where did—"
"How is it—"
"The dragons—what about—"
"Torven, what happened out there?"
Voices rising, swelling.
"Go home," he said, quiet, just to her.
Their eyes met, and she nodded once. She turned, the baby in her arms, and pushed back through the crowd, steady and certain.
The crowd parted again. Some stepped back. Some leaned forward. Old Kerra nodded as Moira passed. A mother pulled her own child close, put her back between them.
Someone whispered, "Where did it come from?"
Moira didn't answer, didn't slow—just walked until the crowd closed behind her and Torven couldn't see her anymore.
She'd make it home. She'd close the door.
Safe.
"Council Hall." Varn's voice, cold and clipped.
Torven turned. The hunting captain stood ten paces away, facing him, crossbow in hand. Face unreadable.
"Now."
Behind him, the other hunters waited. Ferne scrutinized Torven. Renn still shook. Grey-beard stared at his boots. The crowd murmured, watching, hungry for answers no one had given yet.
Torven held Varn's gaze.
"Council Hall," Varn said again.
He turned to the crowd. "You. Sound the summons."
A young man near the front broke away, sprinted toward the watchtower. Moments later, three horn blasts echoed across the settlement, deeper than the first, measured and deliberate. The Council's call.
Torven nodded and followed.
The Council Hall squatted at the settlement's heart, the largest structure they had, a dragon skull for foundation, ribs forming the ceiling like claws reaching overhead. The scale-reinforced door was thick enough to stop arrows, built to last forever.
It showed cracks now. No materials remained to patch them. The door stood open, waiting.
Varn led them through. The other hunters followed, Torven last. The door closed behind them, heavy and final.
The crowd noise fell away—the bone walls were thick enough to swallow sound. The air hung stale, laden with old smoke and the ghost of dragon marrow.
No one spoke.