The rest of the Ridge was composed of many ridges and it wasn't much to look at.
A spine of high ground covered in skeletal trees, with a long stretch of rock and dried mud forming a bottleneck between two overgrown grassland. Not strategic in the old-world sense, but in this post-Rift era, any place with elevation and a clear line of sight mattered.
They were told to hold it. A surveillance drone spotted movement three nights back. Command wanted eyes on it and boots on it.
"Why the hell do we always get this kind of duty?" Dan muttered, trudging up the incline in full kit. His machine gun clanked against his pack with every step.
"Because we're so damn charming," Gino replied. "Wouldn't trust anyone else to babysit a bunch of rocks and bad feelings."
"You call this charming?" Foster said, pointing at the horizon. "Feels like something's watching us. Like a creep behind a curtain."
Rus didn't answer. He felt it too. That quiet itch on the back of their neck. Nothing obvious. Just... unease. Something wasn't sitting right. Even if everything around us said it was fine.
They crested the top around mid-morning, sun hanging high behind a sheet of smog. The Ridge spread out like a broken crown with jagged rocks, some old sandbags from a forgotten post, a few dead trees. The view was decent. You could see half the basin and the swamp lines to the north.
Rus broke them into fireteams.
"Dan, Foster, east point. Set up a nest. Gino, with me. We'll watch the south line. Berta, take your three westward. Amiel, you're with her. If something stinks, say it fast. I'm not in the mood for surprises."
Berta gave a thumbs-up and lazily swung her axe onto her back. "Hey boss, if you start seething again, I'm not dragging you back this time."
Rus waved her off. "Keep dreaming, Mama B."
The day passed like rust. Slow, scraping, and hard to ignore.
Nothing moved. Not a gobber. Not a mutant bird. Not even the air. They scanned, they checked sensors, they rechecked them. The reports said there was movement. What we got was a ghost town.
Still, the Ridge had that tension. Like a spring wound up just out of sight. Berta's squad played cards behind cover. Dan cleaned his gun three times. Gino tried to teach a rat to sit. Rus thought it bit him.
"We're being lulled," Rus muttered under his breath, eyes never leaving the lowland trail.
"Lulled?" Gino asked. "Into what, boredom-induced psychosis?"
"Worse. False security."
He shrugged and kept watching. "Boss, if something does jump us, at least we're not the ones on low ground."
By nightfall, the cold kicked in. Mist rolled like snakes across the basin, making the trees look like specters.
Still no contact. Still no noise. Just the hiss of wind and the quiet hum of their motion detectors ticking away with nothing to report.
Rus checked in with Berta.
"We good?" Rus asked.
"Dull as dishwater," she said. "I'd kill for a drink."
"Save it for post-op."
"Are you buying?" she asked, half-teasing.
"Only if we're still alive."
Rus switched channels. "Dan, Foster?"
"Nothing, Boss," Dan said. "I swear, if a leaf moves, we're lighting it up."
"Negative. Hold fire. We don't need another 'dead tree' incident."
"Hey! That tree looked aggressive."
It went on like that. Night passed in shifts. Rus took the graveyard, sitting behind a tangle of rusted barbed wire, watching for shadows that didn't belong.
Gino snored quietly beside him. Occasionally he'd mutter nonsense in his sleep. Something about waffles and fire.
And still nothing.
Morning broke with red skies and dead air. Rus scanned the basin again. Still no movement. But something was off. There were patterns in the mud. Tracks maybe. Not boot prints. Something dragged. Something big.
Rus zoomed in with the scope. Couldn't tell if it was fresh. Whatever it was had been there before us.
"Movement?" Berta asked, showing up with Amiel behind her. Both looked tired, but alert.
"None. But I think we're not the first to camp here."
She tilted her head. "Want me to go poke it?"
"Negative. Hold position."
Amiel simply said, "Feels off."
"That's what I'm saying."
They kept it tight. Another day passed. Quiet. Too quiet. Even birds stopped chirping. The Ridge felt like there were people then fled the second they arrived.
Which begs the question…why?
Later that evening, the wind changed. Not in temperature. In smell.
Something metallic. Burnt. Old blood maybe.
Rus checked their gear. No malfunctions. No recent wounds. But the smell lingered like smoke in a broken bunker.
"Dan, do a sensor sweep," Rus ordered.
"Already did. Nothing."
"Again."
They spent the next hour running diagnostics. Sensors came back clean. Comms were clear. Gear was functional.
So what the hell was this?
"I don't like this," Gino muttered. "Even when things go bad, they go. This? It's like waiting for a punch that never lands."
"I know."
Still, we waited. We held. And the Ridge? It just kept watching.
Berta came over again near sundown. "I think your instincts are fucked," she said, chewing on some dried meat. "No one's out there. No gobbers, no freaks, not even damn birds."
Rus shrugged. "Weird how quiet it is though."
"Sure. But maybe weird's just normal now."
"Maybe."
Amiel joined us. "Tracks are gone," she said.
"What?" I turned to her. "Define gone."
"They're not there anymore."
Rus stood, grabbed his scope, and followed her.
Where there were once marks, deep, distinct grooves in the mud. there was nothing. No drag. No scuff. Flat, clean mud. Like it was reset.
Berta frowned. "That ain't natural."
"No shit."
They stood there, the three of them, looking at that patch of nothing.
"Alright," Rus said. "Tighten formation. No wandering. We leave at dawn."
"Understood," said Amiel.
"No complaining," Berta muttered, "but this ridge creeps me the fuck out."
That night, nobody slept.
Even if there was no contact. Even if the comms were quiet. The Ridge didn't want them there. Not in a screaming, hostile way. But in the way an empty house stares at you when you're alone and the lights go out way.
Rus stayed up with Gino. They didn't talk much. Just kept eyes open.
Half past three, Dan whispered something over comms. "You guys seeing this?"
"What?"
"Check your feeds. North treeline."
They pulled up his cam. Static.
"Dan?"
"Still here. But the feed's not picking up the weird light."
"What light?"
"Just… out there. Flickering."
Then it was gone.
It was then that Rus got a new order to move the next part of the ridge. He gave the order. "We're pulling at dawn and moving to the next ridge!"
No one argued.
The Ridge gave them the silence they didn't trust.
* * *
The next Ridge looked like any other stretch of elevated terrain, patchy trees, gnarled bushes clinging to the steep angles, and soft wind brushing through the tall grass. The kind of place where you'd expect the worst, only to get bored to death while waiting for it.
Cyma Unit had rolled in with their two Humvees, one creaking with armor plates welded over the original hull, the other looking like someone gave up halfway and said, "Fuck it, it'll do." Rus sat shotgun in the lead vehicle, helmet on, visor lifted, watching the surroundings with suspicion baked into his skull.
"Boss," Dan's voice crackled through the comms, "we sure we're not walking into a shitstorm?"
"No," Rus answered, tone dry. "But I'll know the moment the swamp starts whispering again."
Gino snorted in the back. "Still on about the swamp trying to kill you?"
"Yes," Rus replied flatly. "The trees moved. It was real."
"Sure it was," Berta chimed in from the second Humvee. "Next thing you'll tell me, your rifle has a soul."
"It does. Her name is Darya."
That earned a chorus of laughs, except for Amiel, who muttered, "Not funny. Creepy."
The Humvees stopped at a flat patch surrounded by stone formations that jutted out like a row of bad teeth. Rus stepped out, boots crunching on gravel. He surveyed the terrain and saw no signs of movement, no thermal readings, not even a blip on the scanner. Still, his gut tugged at him.
"All right," he said. "Fan out. Defensive triangle. We will camp here until 0600."
"Copy," Berta said. She slung her axe over her shoulder and motioned to her fireteam. They moved like they'd done this a thousand times. Which they had.
Cyma Unit split up across the ridge, setting up portable barriers and motion sensors. Foster and Gino started unloading the gear, while Dan and Rus moved up to scout the perimeter.
"You always this tense?" Dan asked as they crept through the brush.
"Only when we're in places that feel too quiet."
Dan squatted near a rock, adjusting a sensor. "You know, not everything's out to murder us."
Rus didn't answer. He just stared at the ridge line, watching the way the clouds drifted. Something felt… crooked. Not wrong, just twisted, like the terrain was hiding a smile.
By 2200, camp was up. The makeshift fire pit glowed low, more for morale than warmth. Rations were passed around, and Foster somehow conjured up hot coffee using a field kit that should've been retired last year.
"Boss," Gino said, holding out a cup, "try not to see ghosts in the steam."
"Appreciate the concern," Rus muttered, taking a sip.
Berta sat beside the crate stack, her gear loosened, unlit cigarette between her fingers. "No movement. Even the birds are gone. That's what creeps me."
"There's not a single corpse here either," Foster added. "Usually you find at least bones or ash."
Amiel nodded, just once. That was her contribution.
"Maybe it's just a quiet zone," Gino offered.
Rus shook his head. "No. Monsters avoid places with Rift activity. But if this was Rift-tainted, we'd get readings. This is something else."
They all looked at him.
"I don't like the Ridge," he finally said.
"You don't like anything," Berta grinned.
Fair.
They ran three-hour watches. Rus took the first and last. During the night, he patrolled quietly, his steps measured, gun steady. The moon was a lazy half-globe, casting sharp shadows. For a moment, he thought he saw something just beyond the treeline. A shimmer. But the scope picked up nothing.
By the time morning rolled around, Cyma Unit was collectively cranky, mostly intact, and ready to leave.
Still, Rus made them sweep the Ridge again.
"Why?" Dan groaned.
"Because we're not amateurs. And this place is too clean."
Berta waved an arm. "You want us to clean the forest while we're at it, boss?"
He gave her a flat look. "You can start with your attitude."
"Love it when you talk dirty."
Foster nearly choked on his ration bar.
Midday sun climbed. They found signs which were barely noticeable. Carvings in tree bark, spiraled patterns that didn't match Gobber, Orcs, or any known tribal markers. The scanners were blank. No radiation, no biological residue, no mana readings. But the trees had been… marked.
"What the fuck is this?" Dan asked, frowning at one.
"Warning?" Foster offered. "Or territory."
Amiel pointed at the ground. A set of clawed prints, faint. Not fresh, but not ancient either. They led nowhere.
Rus scanned the symbols again. "We mark it. Report it. And we leave."
By the time they returned to base, everything smelled like sweat, damp gear, and frustration. But no injuries, no losses. Just fatigue and a notebook full of notes that would probably be ignored by whoever processed their report.
Rus filed it anyway, sitting at his desk in the Cyma quarters. The others were passed out, save Berta, who was doing push-ups shirtless again. He ignored her.
"This place is gonna go loud soon," he muttered to himself, typing one last entry into the field log.
"Ridges secured. No contact. Unsettling terrain. Possible anomalous markings. Recommend recon and long-term monitoring. Suggest minimal foot traffic until confirmed safe."
He hit send.
Then leaned back in his chair, exhaled, and waited for the next firestorm the world would throw at them.
* * *
Rus didn't sleep that night. He sat near the barracks where Cyma slept instead of staying in his private room trapped in the heat.
The Ridge hadn't offered so much as a whisper of conflict, but that was the problem. It was too clean. Too sterile. Places like that were never empty. They were cleared. And not by human hands.
The barracks fan hummed overhead, lazy and rhythmic. Around him, his squad slept like they had run a marathon in molasses. Dan snored. Foster muttered now and then, caught in some dream no one wanted to know about. Amiel was curled in a tight ball, hugging her gear. Berta slept with one leg kicked off her cot, sprawled in a way that showed absolutely no respect for uniformity or shame.
Rus sat at his desk, rolling a data slate between his fingers.
There were three patrols scheduled to rotate through the Ridges over the next month. Two of those squads had already been flagged as "under-experienced." Meaning, rookies. Meaning, meat. Rus flagged the report and appended a short note:
"Recommend experienced fireteam for Sector. New units not advised. Area shows indirect signs of active threat."
He knew it wouldn't stick. The chain was overstretched, and if you weren't bleeding or on fire, you didn't get priority. Still, he logged it.
Maybe someone with a conscience would read it.
The next day brought the standard rotation– morning drills, equipment checks, and the ever-present soul-draining meetings.
Rus showed up to the Officer's Hall in half-armor and a lot of irritation. The logistics coordinator, a man named Eban, looked like a dehydrated skeleton that had been reanimated by the power of spreadsheets.
"We need your team for escort duty," Eban droned. "More transports from Libertalia. Mil-grade mechs, generators, ammo pallets—"
"We just came off patrol in the ridges," Rus interrupted, voice low but cutting. "Let one of the other units handle the convoy."
"You've been marked as high-efficiency."
"No shit. Because we don't die."
"That's precisely the point."
Rus wanted to punch the man. Instead, he nodded.
Back at the mess hall, the squad was knee-deep in breakfast—if you could call it that.
Foster stared at his tray. "Why is the oatmeal green?"
"It's not oatmeal," Gino said. "It's protein slurry. Just accept the texture."
Berta dipped a protein bar into her cup of coffee, like a psychopath. "Are we going out again?"
"Maybe," Rus muttered. "Convoy escort. Depends if Reed and Muriel are dumb enough to approve it."
"They are," Amiel said.
Rus gave her a look.
She stared back, unblinking.
Fair enough.
The next three days blurred together. No missions, but plenty of prep. More Convoys began lining up near the Damasa gates like cattle before a slaughter. The Ridges hadn't been mentioned since Rus submitted the report. No one pulled him aside, no debrief, no inquiry.
Which meant the UH didn't care. Or worse they already knew something was out there.
He watched the cameras on the Ridges feed. Static mostly. A few flickers of movement the sensors couldn't verify. A dust devil. A bird. A tree shifting slightly against the wind. Nothing definitive. But every time he stared at it, a headache began to crawl behind his eyes.
"Watching the feeds again?" Kate asked, standing at the door to his office.
Rus didn't turn. "Yup."
"You want to talk about it?"
"Nope."
She walked in anyway. Pulled up a chair. Tossed a pack of gum on the table. "You look like shit."
"I feel fine."
"You never feel fine. That's your thing."
He sighed. "The Ridge is wrong. I don't know how to explain it. It's like… the calm before something massive."
She chewed slowly. "Could be nerves. Could be we're all wound tight. Been almost a year of constant ops."
"Could be." He didn't believe it. Neither did she.
That night, Rus went to the shooting range alone.
The rest of Cyma had knocked off early. They needed rest. Even Berta admitted her arms were tired. That was saying something.
He emptied a mag into the paper target at fifty meters, reloaded, and repeated. His body moved automatically, clean and efficient, but his mind kept drifting.
There had been no signs of Rift energy. No indicators. But the Ridge wasn't empty. It was cleared. He thought again of the clawed prints, the bark carvings, the silence.
He finished the last mag and leaned his rifle against the table.
It bothered him.
The next day.
Muriel stood at the front, holograms flickering behind her. Reed sat off to the side, arms crossed, clearly unimpressed with the ops board.
"Convoy escort confirmed," Muriel said. "Cyma is assigned to Route B through Ridge Pass. Two Knights will be joining as heavy support."
Rus raised a brow. "Through the Ridges?"
Muriel nodded. "Yes. It's been swept twice. No contact. No movement. You swept it too."
"It was too clean."
Muriel's look was calm, but her voice was tired. "I read your report. And the follow-up. But nothing's changed. HQ says go."
Rus didn't argue. There was no point.
As they geared up, Berta sidled up next to him.
"Back to the Ridges, huh?" she said, snapping on her bracers.
"Yeah."
"You think it's gonna pop?"
"I don't know. But I want everyone ready."
She nodded, surprisingly serious. "Copy that, Boss."
* * *
Convoy Day along the Sector of the Ridges Pass.
The morning was misty, like the world hadn't decided if it wanted to be real or not. The convoy rolled slow, engines growling like old dogs. Rus rode point, Darya in his hands, visor down.
Berta rode rear, her team scanning every tree like it was alive. Dan and Gino were inside the lead APC. Amiel was in the back of the rear Humvee, eyes blank, fingers curled around her blade.
The Knights, massive and silent, flanked the convoy like gods of war.
Each footstep they took shook the earth.
And still there were nothing.
Two hours in, the fog cleared.
The Ridges were bright and golden in the light. Peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Dan's voice cracked through comms: "Nothing yet. Maybe it's just a quiet day."
"No such thing," Rus muttered.
Another hour. Nothing. They passed the carved trees again. The symbols were still there. Unchanged.
Then—
Rus stopped the convoy.
"What?" Berta asked.
"Look at the trees."
They all did.
The carvings were deeper now.
Sharper.
Like something had retraced them with a claw.
Gino cursed.
Foster shifted his grip.
"No contact," Rus said. "Just… eyes open."
And they moved again.
Still quiet.
By the time they exited the Ridge Pass and returned to Damasa, the sun was high and the world hadn't tried to kill them.
Reed met them at the outer gate, expression unreadable.
"Smooth run?" he asked.
Rus said nothing. Just handed over the camera logs, the scanner feeds, and the photos of the altered carvings.