The fire was little more than a circle of red embers when Ari stiffened. Her hand brushed the bow at her side, and her head turned just slightly, listening. Rowan followed her eyes into the dark, though he saw nothing but the black lines of trees.
"Two," she whispered. Her voice carried like stone, sharp and certain. "Heavy. Left of the birch."
Brennar sat up with a grunt, his sling tugging against his shoulder. "Tell me where you want me."
"Nowhere." Ari was already rising, drawing her bowstring smooth. "You're half-healed. Heal."
Shapes broke loose from the dark, hulking and wrong. At first Rowan thought they were men, but their arms hung too long and their necks hunched like beasts. When they stepped into the pale light, his stomach dropped.
Ogres.
The first sniffed the air, tusks jutting like pale hooks from its jaw. Its skin was gray and coarse, shoulders like stacked stone. The second followed close, eyes glinting dull in the firelight.
Brennar spat to the side. "Haven't seen one this far south in years."
Rowan's hands shook as he lifted the harpoon. He set the shaft across his palms, rope looped through his fingers like Ari had shown him, and tried to breathe steady.
The first ogre gave a low grunt, a sound that seemed to press against his chest. It took one more step.
Ari's arrow hissed.
The shaft buried itself deep in the ogre's throat. The beast clawed at the wood, blood pouring black and heavy, and collapsed sideways in a crash of branches and dust.
The second bellowed, rage booming through the trees, and charged.
"Trees!" Ari snapped.
Rowan stumbled behind a trunk, heart thundering. He felt the ground shake as the ogre barreled closer. At the last instant, he stepped out and thrust.
The harpoon struck low, glancing across the beast's thigh. Not enough. He yanked the rope hard, the line burning his palm, and the head tore free with a wet pop. The ogre staggered, blinking at him.
Rowan's hand shot to the pouch at his belt. He yanked the stopper with his teeth and splashed water over the iron head of the harpoon. For a heartbeat the liquid didn't drip away. It clung, coating the prongs in a glassy sheen.
He thrust again. This time the weapon bit deeper, punching into the thick meat of the ogre's shoulder as if the hide had softened. The beast roared, pawing at him, but before it could grab him, Ari's second arrow punched through its eye. The body crashed into the dirt with a ground-shaking thud.
Silence fell. Rowan stood gasping, hands trembling, rope slack in his fingers. The air smelled of smoke, sweat, and blood. His blood? No. Their blood.
Brennar whistled low. "Well, look at you. First a boar, now an ogre. A fisherman no longer."
Rowan couldn't answer. His arms felt numb. The harpoon was heavy, slick, and when he pulled it free, blood smeared across his palms. He tried to wipe it on the grass, but it only streaked darker. Deer blood had smelled of iron and grass. This smelled thicker, fouler, like tar mixed with rot.
He wanted to drop the weapon. He wanted to scrub his hands until the skin was raw.
Ari crouched beside the first body and wrenched her arrow loose with a sharp twist. She wiped it clean on the hide without flinching. "Tusks will fetch coin in Stoneford," she said. "Plenty of fools pay good silver for a necklace that says they killed an ogre when they didn't."
Brennar chuckled, stepping closer. "Aye, and bones too. Break them down for charms or tools. Armorers'll take the hide for padding. Even the blood—" he nodded at the dark pool soaking into the dirt—"alchemists love the stuff. Brew it into powders, salves, gods know what else. Thickens the veins, they say. Or curdles the guts."
Rowan stared at the dark stain spreading over the earth. The smell caught in his throat. Blood was dripping from his knuckles, down the shaft of his weapon, onto his boots. And they were talking about selling it.
His voice broke when he found it. "It's just… blood."
"Coin," Ari corrected, standing. Her face was unreadable. "In Stoneford, nothing goes to waste."
Rowan gripped the harpoon tighter, fighting the urge to throw it aside. The thought that this stink on his skin was something people would bottle and trade made his stomach turn.
Brennar clapped his good hand on Rowan's shoulder. "Don't overthink it, boy. Beasts fall, we live. That's the only trade that matters."
But Rowan couldn't shake the weight in his chest. He had killed before, yes—the deer in the woods, with Ari watching—but that had been food, clean and necessary. This was different. The ogre's eyes had seen him. Its roar had been more than noise. And now its body was already being measured in tusks and coin.
When the campfire was lit again, Brennar stretched out with a satisfied groan, the meat of their earlier hunt sizzling in the pan. Ari sat with her bow, retying her string, efficient and silent. Rowan sat apart, turning the harpoon across his knees. The rope burned against his palm where it had torn skin, but he hardly noticed. The blood had dried black in the grooves of the wood.
He thought of the Elder's words: The Flicker is fragile. It burns bright, but it fades quick if not guided. Was this guidance? Killing things with tusks and calling it profit?
Brennar broke his silence. "Don't brood, Rowan. You stood your ground. That's the only measure worth taking."
Rowan looked up, mouth dry. "I don't know if I can keep… doing this."
Brennar grinned through the firelight. "You can. Or you wouldn't be here."
Ari didn't lift her eyes. She tied off the knot on her bowstring and spoke flatly. "Better. But don't think they'll all fall so easily."
The word "better" cut sharp and plain. No comfort. No warmth. Just expectation.
Rowan clenched the harpoon tighter, and in the quiet of the night, something shifted inside him. He had stood, struck, and survived. It hadn't been luck. It had been choice. And maybe that was what scared him most.
The fire snapped. Brennar turned on his side, already drifting toward snores. Ari sat against a tree, eyes half-closed but listening. Rowan watched the flames crackle down, the smell of ogre blood still thick in his nose. Pride and sickness twisted together in his chest until he couldn't tell one from the other.
When the silence had stretched long enough to feel like stone pressing on his shoulders, Ari's voice broke it. "Tomorrow," she said, "we move for Stoneford."
Rowan lifted his head. "Why?"
"Supplies. Tools. Coin." She adjusted the bow in her lap, her voice calm as if she were listing chores. "And answers, if anyone there dares to give them."
Brennar cracked one eye open, a lazy grin pulling at his mouth. "And ale. Don't forget ale."
Ari ignored him.
Rowan looked down at his harpoon, streaked dark, and then at his hands. His fingers curled tight. Tomorrow they would head for Stoneford, to a place where blood and bone were worth silver. To a place where perhaps someone would explain why he was changing, why water listened to him, why the river pulled at his chest every time he neared it.
For now, all he could do was breathe, tighten the rope on his harpoon, and wait for dawn.