The scrape of loose stones outside the cave cut off at the canyon's edge, as if someone were testing the air with a foot held over empty space.
Alan tightened his grip on the dagger. He neither looked into the smothering fog nor guessed at who waited outside; he watched only the salt line. The line was thin, barely enough to last a night. Shadow slept lightly; when she turned, she pressed her wound and her breathing faltered at once. The fireseed tucked against his chest stuttered half a beat with her heartbeat. Alan clamped his palm hard over it and forced that heat back down. He counted in his head, four beats to a set—he could not let the rhythm break.
Footsteps shifted again—two steps, a pause, two more—deliberately slowed.
It was neither a patrol's tread nor the drag of the wounded. Alan sank the dagger's tip slowly into the ground, set the back of his hand to the chest pouch to feel the heat. The fire held steady—whoever it was carried no strong flame. He spoke low: "Awake." Shadow opened her eyes without a word, groped for the pry bar and took hold. Alan raised two fingers—she was to hold the left corner; he would take the gap at the door. There was only one rule—do not cross the line, do not answer.
The fog at the mouth of the cave parted—half a palm's width.
A man's silhouette pressed close outside the door, halted, and said nothing. After half a minute, he tapped twice on a rock—"tang, tang." Alan didn't answer; he watched the man's fingers. He wore finger sleeves, the leather new; the pads were thick and callused—the hands of one long used to a staff or a gun. He tapped twice more, waited, then stepped back as if the door might open of its own accord.
Shadow whispered, "There are two of them outside."
"Even if they're human, they don't come in," Alan murmured back. "Until daylight, no one crosses the defense."
Realizing he would get no reply, the man changed tactics. He began to move along the cave mouth, toes skimming the ground, testing the thickness of the ward. Shadow laid the pry bar across the floor, leaving a three-finger gap; any beast that tried to worm in would catch its foot first. Alan added another layer of bagged salt along the sill and skewered bone needles through the salt to harden the edge. They moved slowly, both of them, making as little sound as possible—night makes every sound louder.
Another noise rose outside, like cloth dragging over stone.
Alan raised a finger at once. Not human—that was something scraping at the boundary. He scented a damp chill unlike the day's, edged with sour rot. Shadow knew that smell; her fingers trembled at the memory. Alan caught her wrist, stilled the tremor, and signaled that the bone needles must not slip.
The first shadow-beast slid its tongue out.
The tip touched salt; it snapped back, hissing short and sharp. The second beast didn't test—it slammed straight into the door's edge and punched a half-inch gap. Alan "stitched" the gap shut with a bone needle, sinking salt through the punctures into the wet earth until the line seemed to grip the ground. He never looked up, watching only the force in his fingertips. A third beast came in low from the side; its forepaw worked in about three fingers' breadth. Shadow flicked the pry bar up without hesitation; the shaft jammed between its claws. The beast yanked back with a snarl and, in pulling, drew the salt band tighter.
The man outside didn't leave, only fell farther back and leaned on a rock.
Alan heard a clipped metallic click, like a small device being armed. His heart dropped—an igniter. Subtle, made to draw fire-breath. He pressed the pouch half an inch deeper under his sternum, cinched the chest strap, crushed the heat into bone. The fire writhed once in the bag as if a throat had been pinched; Alan didn't ease his hand, even when breath grew thin.
Wind sheared in from the canyon's far side and swept the fog from the door, and beyond it a darker seam of shadow showed clear.
The beasts stopped charging and began to queue, probing the gap an inch at a time. They'd learned "slow-pressing the line." Alan lifted the salt bag just enough to pinch the driest grains, and pushed a thin "inner edge" along the floor. Shadow understood at once, dotting three points at either end to make barbs. When the beasts stepped again, they'd hit the barbs first, their pads caught fast in salt—able to move only half a step.
The first round of testing lasted three minutes.
Seven impacts rattled the door's brim; Shadow braced three with the pry bar; Alan mended four seams with the needle. Shadow's breath ran faster; her wound bled anew. Alan dragged her two feet deeper into the cave and stepped half a pace forward himself. His blade stayed planted, his hand on the hilt, ready to cut crosswise in an instant. But he knew: drawing steel meant crossing—if a single drop of blood fell outside the line, the cave was lost.
At last the "man" spoke,
his voice unhurried: "I won't come in. You don't come out. Lend me some fire." Alan ignored him.
"Trade," the man said. "A bundle of flame for a bag of your salt."
Shadow glanced at Alan. Salt saves lives, and the fire is only this one bundle. Alan's answer was brief: "Leave."
A dry chuckle. "Not Fire-Chasers, and yet such a tone. Then another offer—when you leave, tell me your direction. I won't follow. I just want to know 'north or south.'"
Alan kept his eyes on the salt line and said low, "If you're a man, you wait for dawn. If you're a thing, three steps more and the wind will kill you."
Silence outside, a beat. Then something skittered over the line and rolled to a stop—a small sack of salt. The man's voice followed: "Collateral. At first light I'll split you half your way back. You don't live on salt anyway."
Alan looked to Shadow; she gave a slight shake of her head. She didn't believe in alms. Neither did Alan—Fire-Chasers are best at pretending to be "the same kind." He kicked the sack away and said, mild as ice, "Leave."
The quiet didn't last.
Stone grated. A slender metal rod slid into the fog, its tip wrapped in gauze. Alan knew it at a glance—a cold-flame head. It wasn't bright, but it could draw fire-breath to the tip. He didn't stop to think—he lunged, braced his left elbow, and clamped the pouch tight under his sternum with his right. Shadow dropped the bar across the rod, twisted, and knocked the tip three inches off-line; the pull on the fire shifted with it.
The cold-flame failed to catch the fire and instead drank the beasts' "heat."
The first beast, angered at the stolen warmth, crashed straight into the rod's base. A curse outside—the man yanked the rod back and stumbled two steps by the sound. Alan thickened the inner edge at once, pushing the white arc up to kiss the gap. "Set two," he breathed. Shadow swapped grip for the bone needle and changed her strikes to vertical thrusts—angles to wound beasts, not people.
The third wave hit harder.
Two beasts came together—one feeling with a raised paw, the other ramming the inner edge. Alan stood at the "two" mark and nudged the salt band forward half a palm; the second beast planted dead on the grains and the skin at its pads sloughed at once. Shadow took the opening, prying at an angle—wood thumped bone with a dull "dong." The beast fell back half a pace. The first beast wheeled into Shadow; Alan drew and swept low along the inner edge, steel screeching against packed earth. The first beast lost its stance—the pad split; blood fell within the line and the salt drank it at once. No scent leaked. The cave held.
After the brief flurry, stillness pooled outside.
Alan reset the blade in the ground, breath even. The foe would shift tactics—he knew.
As if on cue, the rod probed in again—this time with a hooked tip, angling to snag the inner straps. Shadow set the pry bar flat; the hook clicked against wood. Alan flicked the needle underhand and raised a low ridge of salt, blocking the hook. The rod retreated; the curses came closer now, laughter braided in—he was enjoying the torment.
The wind dropped flat, as if the sky had been driven down an inch.
Alan knew the crux—the night's pressure line. At a certain hour the wind drags the fog like water, and if the ward isn't stout, the salt "melts" and the line breaks. He pushed the driest layer to the inner edge; Shadow pinned three points at either end, her fingers shaking to the verge of cramps. The beasts, roused as if by a goad, hit in a mass—seven blows in a row—the doorway thrummed to numbness. Alan clenched his jaw and held the fire steady. He heard a faint hum in his chest—the flame trying to force a breath. He crushed it down until the hum died.
The pounding stopped at once, as if someone had whistled.
Cold climbed his spine. No beast understood such a call—someone was commanding. The man outside stepped back again; the wind carried the drag of gear. Two minutes later, a sweet coppery stench seeped over the ground, like rotting fruit—blood bags. They meant to break the salt with the stink. Alan slit the pouch a hair and let a thread of light through; in that glint he caught the last handful of dry salt and slapped it into the wind. The grains hit the wet sweetness and popped—snowy spray bursting wide. The sickly scent stalled outside, never crossing the threshold.
The beasts came again, a fourth time—more chaotic now.
Riled by the sweetness, they jostled each other and bared their formation for free. Alan saw the opening and set Shadow on the right while he locked the left, leaving a clean gap in the middle.
They worked in counter-beats—left holds as right yields, right holds as left yields—bleeding the charge through empty space. Five alternations later, the door had crept back barely an inch; the line was whole.
The foe hadn't expected such feel for rhythm.
He stowed the blood and stopped dragging beasts. The space went hollow, danger sharper for it. Alan heard a far-off breath of blue fire—the intake before a bone-staff flares. He didn't wait for the light; he crushed the pouch as deep as it would go—strap biting until breath failed. Shadow saw his face go white. "You'll die," she whispered.
"After you," Alan said, same as the first day—ice-cold.
As the blue rose, he wrenched the blade free and canted it toward the door.
The beam didn't spear straight in—it skated off the spine of his blade and slashed the sill. Salt charred to a black seam; air cracked. Shadow needled the seam shut, stitching salt to salt even as blisters rose on her knuckles. A second beam came on; Alan didn't meet it. He gave ground half a step and let it "slide" off his steel to the floor and into the sidewall. He split the rebound and shot it into the outer stone; blue struck rock and threw sparks; the beasts flinched by instinct and their ranks tore.
When the staff flared a third time, the wind swung.
A backwash churned through the gorge; the beam drifted high above the door. Alan took the chance and drew a false line outside with the last of the salt. The pack followed the sweetness and planted their feet on the fake ward—trapped at once—snarls tangling. "Back," Alan ordered. Shadow didn't ask why; they both stepped inward together, opening a three-yard killing lane before the door. The fourth beam swept in and found nothing living—only bare ground. The earth scorched; the beasts, singed by the wash, shrank away.
Silence fell after the fourth light—clean as a rope cut through.
The man outside stilled his staff. His breath stretched in the wind, thoughtful, as if recording. Alan neither shook nor panted; he drove the blade deeper into the earth. The plan had failed—he knew the next choice was retreat or reinvention. Shadow's fingers finally steadied; she set the last stitch just right. The salt line lay like a white tendon, knitting the door shut.
The last wind before dawn was killing cold, as if it shaved skin thinner by the inch.
The shadow-beasts broke first, fleeing the chill. The man outside stopped coaxing. He tossed a final remark, light as wind: "No road north." Alan didn't answer. Then, "Your fire talks." Shadow glanced back on reflex; Alan only clenched the pouch tighter and said nothing. He would not let strange words take root in this night.
At first light, the mist began to thin.
Alan added another finger's thickness of salt to the thinnest part of the inner edge, then sheathed his knife and said to Shadow, "Move." They neither cleaned the threshold nor went looking for the "deposit" outside. Any action not strictly necessary was just courting death. Shadow pushed herself upright, teeth clenched, her movements markedly slower. Alan tightened the wrap at her side again to make sure the bleeding wouldn't start anew. They backed along the cave wall until the second bend before showing themselves, then climbed the escarpment and hugged the shadows north.
They had not gone even two hundred steps when Alan glanced back at the canyon mouth.
The wind had scoured the ground beyond the door clean; the sack of salt was gone, leaving only a line of very faint, evenly spaced footprints. He understood at once—the man was in no hurry, had strength to spare; the gait was that of someone used to "studying his prey."
Alan pressed a small lump of salt into a crack in the rock, pushing with his fingertips to set it deep in the dirt. He said to Shadow, "One more rule for today—watch the sky, not the men. Even if blue fire flares again, you do not look back."
Shadow dipped her head. Her face looked awful, but her eyes were harder than they'd been last night.The sun edged up, and the gray haze peeled as if shaved by a blade.
They followed the ridge to the third broken drop. The wind arrived with a reek of iron and scorched hide. Alan stopped and listened. A low hum rose below, like old ducts groaning in a dead tower. He remembered the ruined stack from the first chapter; the scent was the same. He guessed there were remnants of military piping to the north not far off. There might be salt there—or a furnace.
"Do we go?" Shadow asked softly.
"We go. We look by day, never close by night." Decision made, Alan quickened half a beat.
Near the brink they halted behind a low slope.
Alan lifted the fire pouch a finger's width, checked that the light stayed within bounds, then sketched a map in salt on the ground. "We circle from the west. Check the ducts first, then the tower base. If we find a furnace, we observe from distance only. Salt and water signs take priority." Shadow repeated the points back to him and fixed them in mind. He swept up the salt and looked to the sky; the cloud was heavy but slow-moving—good weather to push on.
They had just started up when two distant taps sounded behind them—"tang, tang."
Clean rhythm, the same spacing as last night. Alan didn't turn, but his hand had already found the dagger. "He's on us," he said. Shadow clenched the pry bar and took the rear. "Keep to the rules," was all Alan added. They ignored whatever played out behind and moved west along the plan.
Half a breath at the stone gate, Alan paused.
On the ground was a string of child-sized prints heading north—short stride, toes turned out. Every third step, two white grains dotted the earth. Shadow looked at the pair of grains; her eyes flashed red for an instant. "Two knocks," she said. Alan didn't slow. He rewrote the day's last rule in his head:
Four—when you meet "two knocks," do not call out; leave a passage.
They went on. Wind cut in from the flank, sharper still with cold. Ahead, the outline of an old camp took shape—towers broken, ducts rigid in the light. Alan cinched the fire pouch tighter, making sure no heat bled out. He said nothing, only wrote the night into three bare lines in his mind:
I. Do not step over the line at night.II. The fire does not speak.III. Men are worse than beasts.
He fixed his gaze on the base of the tower and walked on, steady. New rules were in force. A new night was already on its way.