Sanctuary felt different the moment Shane and Freya stepped back through the light.
Not weaker.
Busier.
The courtyard beneath the Great Tree was thick with motion even before the teleport glow fully faded. Wagons rolled between supply sheds. Soldiers crossed the inner yard carrying crates of ammunition and coils of rope. Tribal hunters moved beside them with bows, hide quivers, and bundles of wrapped provisions. The whole place had the atmosphere of a town trying very hard not to look like it was preparing for war.
Shane noticed the change immediately.
The settlement had tightened.
Not panicked.
Aligned.
Freya followed his gaze across the compound.
"They've been using the time."
"Yes."
The redbone pup found him before anyone else did.
The little hound barreled out from beneath a wagon with ears flying and paws too big for its body, hit Shane's boot, bounced off, and then tried again with total commitment. A second later, a lean Native man in a weathered coat came jogging after him.
"Sorry," the man said, though he was smiling. "He saw you."
Shane crouched and scooped the pup up before it could launch itself a third time.
The little hound twisted in his hands and tried to lick his chin.
"You're getting bigger."
The man nodded toward the dog.
"He's learning quick."
This was Daniel Red Elk's cousin, Aaron, one of the men Billy Jack trusted with hounds and trail work. Shane had left the pup in his hands for that exact reason.
"How's he doing?"
Aaron's expression grew a little more serious.
"Nose is good."
"Drive is good."
"Still too young to do real work."
Shane nodded.
"That's fine."
Aaron glanced toward the eastern gate, where armed teams were moving gear.
"He knows when people are leaving, though."
The pup twisted in Shane's arms and let out one sharp, unhappy bark toward the activity.
Freya smiled faintly.
"Already opinionated."
"That's the line," Aaron said dryly. "Good hounds and bad politicians."
That got a laugh out of Shane.
Penelope and Marie crossed the yard then, with the female pup trotting between them in a way that suggested she was trying very hard to behave properly and failing at regular intervals. The two young women stopped when they saw Shane back.
Marie lit up first.
"You made it."
Penelope looked relieved in a quieter way.
"How bad?"
Shane set his pup down and stood.
"Bad enough."
The girls exchanged a glance.
The female pup bounced at Shane's male hound, and both of them immediately forgot all dignity.
Freya looked after them.
"At least someone here still has uncomplicated priorities."
"Temporary condition," Shane said.
Then Saul's voice carried from the operations building.
"Briefing room. Everyone involved."
The yard shifted around that sentence.
Not frantically.
Just decisively.
People started moving in one direction.
⸻
Inside the operations hall, the central table had been cleared and replaced with a full terrain spread.
Paper maps.
Hand-drawn gorge sketches.
Ridge profiles.
Water flow notes.
Saul stood at the head of it with Emma beside him. Gary was already there with Amanda. Billy Jack leaned against the wall near a locked case on the side table. Sgt. Vargas stood with Sue and two squads of soldiers. Vali and Vidar had arrived only minutes earlier, by the look of the road grime still on their gear. Roberts stood near the far corner, speaking quietly to Ivar.
Olaf looked up when Shane entered.
"You're back."
"Yes."
Shane glanced at Roberts.
"You made good time."
Roberts nodded.
"Faster once we decided not to pretend the roads were safe."
Vali's eyes moved to Shane immediately.
"The rivers are waking wrong."
"Yeah," Shane said. "We've confirmed the source."
That got everyone's attention.
Not the full details.
Just enough.
Saul stepped in before the room could fragment into ten questions.
"We have three immediate priorities."
He pointed to the map.
"Letchworth Gorge."
"Mount Morris Dam."
"Niagara Escarpment."
He tapped each in turn.
"These are our corks in the bottle."
Billy Jack folded his arms.
"And if one of those corks fails?"
"The next one takes pressure," Saul said.
"Which is why we reinforce all of them."
"The military is going to hold the rivers and bodies of water to the west. These are our responsibility."
He looked toward Shane.
"Walk them through it."
Shane stepped to the map and put one hand flat on the paper.
"The falls at Niagara stop upstream movement through the rough water, but not a land bypass."
He pointed with two fingers.
"The mutants come ashore below the falls and try to skirt around the escarpment."
"The water flows here between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. If they get past Niagara, they're inside the eastern system. From there they can spread east through the St. Lawrence and south through New York's connected waterways."
"Letchworth works differently. The gorge narrows movement. Steep walls. Limited trails. Bad footing. If they try to leave the river there, they funnel."
He moved south on the map.
"Mt. Morris Dam is the final hard stop in that line."
Dave's valley.
Clint's ground.
The dam itself sat across the water like a plug driven into the region.
"If they get through that," Shane said quietly, "the interior opens."
The room went still.
Nobody needed the rest explained.
Shane reached down and lifted a coil of rappelling rope onto the table, followed by harnesses, carabiners, pitons, and gloves.
"We're not fighting this only from the ground."
Vali's attention sharpened immediately.
"Explain."
Shane pointed at the gorge sketches.
"These outcrops here, here, and here. They give us overhead positions if we tie off above them."
He clipped one carabiner into a harness as he spoke.
"Teams of four. Two hold the anchor point up top and protect the line. Two rappel down with bows and stay suspended over likely exit points."
Billy Jack nodded slowly.
"Vertical ambush."
"Exactly."
Shane set the harness down and moved to the trail routes marked in red.
"Other teams work the trails in sixes. They catch anything that gets past the drop teams and force the movement into kill zones."
Vargas glanced at Sue.
"That's manageable."
Sue nodded once.
"Provided they don't panic."
"Then don't recruit people who panic," Vali said flatly.
That earned him a look from Gary that was half amused and half measuring.
Shane continued before the room could drift.
"One wildcard team."
He tapped the lower gorge line.
"Stealth. Recon. Ambush. No fixed position."
Saul looked up.
"You, at first."
"Yes."
Shane nodded toward Gary, Vali, and Vidar.
"Them with me."
Vidar said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Everyone in the room understood what he brought.
Silence.
Not just the absence of sound, but the deeper kind—the one that seemed to deaden motion and intention around him when he chose.
Shane looked at him.
"We'll need your silence down there."
Vidar inclined his head once.
Vali rested one hand on the curve of his war bow.
"And I assume I'm not being brought for my conversational skills."
"That too," Gary muttered.
Vali actually smiled.
Small.
Dangerous.
"Good."
⸻
Then Shane turned toward the side workbench.
His old tactical crossbow was already there.
He had pulled it from storage on the way in.
Heavy limbs.
Crank-drive system.
Thermal optic mounted along the rail.
Laser module still intact.
Under-barrel quiver mount.
It looked exactly like what it was.
A survivor's weapon.
A machine built before gods had stepped openly into his life.
Gary noticed it first.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"That yours?"
"Used to be."
Shane picked it up and carried it across the room, then set it down on the table in front of Gary with a heavy wooden thud.
People nearby stopped talking.
Gary looked from the weapon to Shane.
"Crank drive?"
"Yeah."
Gary lifted it carefully.
Even unloaded, it had weight.
Real weight.
He sighted down the rail.
"Thermal still works?"
"Yes."
"Laser?"
"Yes."
Gary turned it in his hands, testing the balance.
"Why give this to me?"
Shane leaned one hip against the table.
"Because you shoot straight."
Gary smirked.
"That's your technical analysis?"
"Also because I don't need it anymore."
Gary's eyes flicked to the mythic crossbow slung across Shane's back.
Different weapon.
Different age.
Heavier in a way that had nothing to do with materials.
Gary looked back at the tactical crossbow.
"Range?"
"Two hundred easy."
Billy Jack pushed off the wall then and crossed to the table carrying the locked case.
He opened it carefully.
Inside lay a cloth bundle and several glass vials.
The broadheads inside the cloth bundle glistened faintly green.
Gary's smirk faded.
"The frog."
Billy Jack nodded.
"Extracted carefully."
Olaf spoke from near the window.
"And only with consent remembered."
That made several people turn.
Olaf's voice remained calm.
"The forest guardians permitted transfer once."
"They may not again."
Billy Jack picked up one of the prepared bolts.
"This venom is not for waste."
He set it back down.
"Tactical suppression only."
"Buy time, disrupt regeneration, kill if needed."
Gary looked at the green sheen along the metal.
"When do I start?"
Shane's expression didn't change much.
But his voice carried exactly enough weight.
"When the river starts moving."
Amanda had been quiet until then.
Too quiet.
She stepped closer, looking at the crossbow in Gary's hands.
"You're actually going."
Gary glanced at her.
"I volunteered."
"I noticed."
Her tone wasn't angry.
That made it more dangerous.
Gary lowered the weapon carefully.
Amanda crossed her arms.
"We have soldiers."
"We have hunters."
"We have literal Norse gods."
"And you still volunteered first."
Gary met her eyes.
"Yeah."
She stared at him for a second.
Then looked at the crossbow.
"Because you think this means you're supposed to."
Gary let out a slow breath.
"Amanda—"
"No. Answer."
He did.
"Yes."
A long silence followed.
Then Amanda nodded once.
Not agreement.
Acceptance.
"You come back."
Gary's expression softened.
"That's the plan."
She looked at him another second, then reached out and touched the side of the crossbow.
"Then learn the damn thing properly."
He smiled faintly.
"Yes, ma'am."
That got a few quiet laughs, and the room needed them.
⸻
Near the far wall, Sue was checking medical packs while Vargas adjusted the straps on a field vest.
They moved around each other with the kind of practical familiarity people only got after surviving too much together.
Sue glanced at her kit.
"You're overpacking."
Sgt. Elana Vargas didn't look up.
"No."
"You are."
"This isn't overpacking. This is anticipating stupidity."
Sue smiled despite herself.
"That's still overpacking."
Vargas finally looked at her.
"You volunteering to carry half of it?"
Sue snorted.
"Absolutely not."
Their shoulders bumped as she passed her another bandage roll anyway.
No one looking at them would have called the moment romantic.
That was what made it real.
⸻
Saul cleared his throat softly and drew the room back.
"We still need more venom."
Olaf looked toward Shane.
"Yes."
Shane nodded once.
"Then we go."
Roberts frowned slightly.
"Now?"
"Now," Olaf said. "Before the demand outruns the supply."
There wasn't much debate after that.
The decision felt too clean.
Shane could teleport.
Olaf had Sleipnir.
But they both knew the answer before either spoke it aloud.
"Spirits first," Olaf said.
Shane nodded.
"We go the old way."
⸻
The ride south on Sleipnir was not like travel.
It was more like agreeing to be carried by a force that considered geography optional.
The eight-legged horse crossed sky and storm with impossible grace, the world below changing from forest to plain to jungle in stretches of green and river silver.
By the time they descended beneath the Amazon canopy, the air itself felt alive.
Wet.
Breathing.
Watching.
Curupira appeared first.
Red hair bright as fresh blood beneath the leaves, feet turned backward as always, expression unreadable and amused all at once.
Caipora followed from the other side of the glade, mounted on a pale peccary, spear resting across one shoulder.
Neither spirit looked surprised.
That was never comforting.
"You return," Curupira said.
Olaf dismounted first.
"We ask again."
Caipora's gaze shifted to Shane.
"The Roofer comes himself this time."
"Yes," Shane said.
"We need more frogs."
The forest went quiet around that sentence.
Not silent.
Listening.
Caipora tilted his head.
"For weapon?"
"For restraint first," Shane said.
"For survival."
Olaf stepped beside him.
"No harm to the frogs."
"Venom extraction only."
"And all returned alive."
Curupira smiled faintly.
"You remember the law."
"Yes," Olaf said.
Caipora's eyes sharpened.
"Then hear ours."
He pointed north, as if the whole continent lay one finger-width away.
"This sickness will not come here."
Shane nodded once.
"That's the plan."
"No," Curupira said softly. "That is the vow."
The weight of the forest seemed to press inward.
Olaf answered first.
"Then we vow it."
Shane held the spirits' gaze.
"It does not reach the Amazon."
Only then did Caipora lower the spear.
The transfer happened much like before.
No force.
No capture.
Only consent.
Several poison dart frogs were coaxed from moss and leaf with soft whistles, offered temporary shelter in carved traveling containers lined with damp bark and leaves.
Alive.
Unharmed.
Witnesses, not tools.
When Shane and Olaf returned to Sanctuary, Billy Jack was waiting in the stable yard.
He took the containers with both hands and listened carefully as Olaf explained.
"They are to be extracted and later returned."
Billy Jack nodded.
"Understood."
"No harm."
"None."
⸻
Night had fully settled by the time the deployment teams were ready.
Shane stood near the kennels one last moment before departure.
His redbone pup wriggled against Aaron's grip, determined to come.
"Not yet," Shane said quietly.
The hound whined once, deeply offended.
Penelope's and Marie's female pup was nearby too, sitting in a kind of forced obedience while Marie scratched her chest and Penelope tried to keep her from launching at every moving person in the yard.
"They'll be ready in a few months," Aaron said.
Shane nodded.
"Yeah."
"Then I train him proper."
The pup finally settled when Shane scratched behind his ears.
"I don't know what they have been calling you, but your name is Vigor."
For the first time that day, the knot in Shane's chest loosened slightly.
Just slightly.
Then he straightened and turned back toward the gate.
War was waiting in the gorge.
⸻
The first jump took them to Mt. Morris.
Dave and Clint were waiting near the outer yard when the light folded open and dropped armed men directly into their world.
Vali stepped out first with his bow.
Vidar followed like a moving absence.
Gary came through with the tactical crossbow slung over one shoulder and a pack of venom bolts locked under his hand.
Shane followed with two hard rifle cases and several crates that clanked with old hoarded ammunition.
Dave's eyebrows rose.
"Well."
"You don't travel light."
Shane set the cases down on the tailgate of a truck and opened them.
The AR-10 lay inside with the thermal scope mounted clean and solid.
The AR-15 beside it held dedicated night vision.
Battery packs followed.
Spare magazines.
Ammunition.
Clint stared.
"You've been saving the good stuff."
"Yeah," Shane said.
"I have."
He closed one case and looked at Dave.
"Thanks for the pup."
Dave's expression shifted just enough to matter.
"Duke's line deserved to keep going."
"Yeah."
"It did."
Then strategy took over.
Teams were split.
The kill-zone group, including Hugo, Mike, and Jason, stayed at the dam with Dave, Clint, soldiers, and local riflemen.
Vali walked the ridges once and adjusted three positions by less than ten feet each before nodding in approval.
Vidar stood near the lower slope and let silence settle there until even the hounds stopped barking.
Then Shane opened the path again.
Corrine and the Letchworth community waited on the other side.
The next phase of the defense was about to begin.
And down in the dark between cliff walls and river roar, four figures—Shane, Gary, Vali, and Vidar—would soon become the thing the mutants did not expect to find in the gorge.
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"