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The road to Threeburrow had never been safe, but Maz had stopped expecting safe from it three detours ago.

She rode at the front of the wagon, watching the tree line. The pines here grew dense. She'd noted three clearings in the last hour that she would have used herself if she were setting an ambush — Old habits.

The radio had been clear enough about the draugr activity. Edda's last update, two nights back, had used words like more than we've seen before and be very careful on the northern routes if you can help it. Maz had listened and adjusted the route accordingly. She'd done it again the following morning when Rurrak came back from scouting ahead with a shake of his head and a pointed finger east.

Being warned was one thing. Five days in and still not at Threeburrow was another.

She wasn't worried about supplies — that was Marron's accounting, and he was good at it. What she was doing instead was reading the road. Every elevated choke point that could funnel numbers and buy them time if it came to that.

The wagon creaked. Tanna shifted beside her, and Maz heard the quiet sound of rifles being checked.

Rurrak had been out ahead for the better part of an hour.

He came back faster than usual and didn't waste time on preamble. Fifty, he said, give or take — he couldn't get a clean count. And there was another group behind them, closer than he'd liked.

Maz was quiet for a moment.

She'd expected many. The radio had prepared her for many.

This was more than many.

"How far?" she asked.

"Few miles ahead of us" Rurrak reported.

Maz looked ahead at the road, then left toward a rocky outcrop set back from the treeline — elevated and defensible on three sides. She'd clocked it ten minutes ago without meaning to and now she was glad she had.

"We're not meeting them out in the open," she said. "Move the wagon."

She got them into position with the experience of someone who had done this enough times it was second nature. Marron took his angle without being told. Tanna was already moving. Rurrak circled wide to watch the approach. With everything in position, they were ready.

The draugr horde came into view not long after they'd set up.

Maz saw them first as movement through the trees—pale shapes walking with the kind of single-minded purpose she'd learned to recognize. Then more. Then too many to count at a glance.

She'd fought a draugr horde before. She knew what they felt like when they moved—relentless, cold, and stupid in the way that made them dangerous. Fifty had been Rurrak's estimate.

This looked closer to seventy.

Maz hefted her warhammer and felt the runes pulse once beneath her grip. The enchantment Dulric had worked into the metal responded to her intent. She didn't need to think about it. She just moved.

"Stay sharp," she said, loud enough for the others to hear. "Don't let them bunch up."

She didn't wait for confirmation. She'd told them what to do and trusted they would do it.

The draugr reached the base of the outcrop and started climbing without slowing.

Maz activated Boarback Resilience and felt the familiar shift—her stance locked, her weight dropped, and the world narrowed to what was directly in front of her. The first draugr crested the slope and lunged. She met it with a horizontal swing that caught it mid-chest and sent it tumbling backward into the two behind it.

The sound of a rifle cracked behind her—sharp and clean. One of the draugr to her left jerked and collapsed, its chest smoking where the mana bolt had punched through.

Good.

Maz pressed forward, stepping into the line before it could form. She used her Seismic Step skill to send a shockwave through the stone as her boot came down hard, and the draugr nearest her stumbled. She followed with an upward strike that shattered the closest one's skull and sent frozen fragments scattering across the rocks.

Two more rifle shots fired in quick succession. She didn't look. She trusted Marron and Tanna to handle their angles while she handled hers.

A draugr lunged from her right. She pivoted, brought the hammer around in a tight arc, and felt the impact reverberate up through her arms as the creature's torso caved in. Another stepped over its body without pause. Maz caught it with a backswing that sent it off the ledge entirely.

They kept coming.

She worked her way through them methodically—strike, step, turn, strike again. The hammer's runes flared blue-white with each impact, amplifying the force behind every blow. Her Stonebound Endurance skill held firm when claws raked across her armored shoulder, scraping off without purchase.

Behind her, something heavy hit the ground with a meaty thud. She risked a glance and saw Snow Tusk rear up and bring his hooves down on a draugr that had gotten past her line. The creature crumpled.

Rurrak's spear flashed in her peripheral vision, catching another that had slipped through on the left. He moved fast—faster than she'd expected—and his strikes were clean.

Another rifle shot. Another draugr down.

Maz kept pressing. The horde had no coordination, no intelligence, but sheer numbers made them dangerous in the way a flood was dangerous. You couldn't reason with them. You just had to hold.

She activated Echo Breaker the moment a draugr's frozen fist slammed into her raised forearm. The impact absorbed, held, and then surged back through her hammer as she brought it down in a devastating overhead strike. The draugr shattered—literally shattered—and the shockwave knocked two more off-balance.

The rhythm steadied after that. Maz at the front, breaking their advance. Rifles picking off anything that tried to flank. Rurrak covering gaps. Snow Tusk stomping anything that got too close to the wagon.

It wasn't elegant nor was it quick.

But it worked.

The last draugr collapsed twenty minutes later, its frozen body cracking against the stone as Maz's hammer came down one final time.

She stood there for a moment, breathing hard, and scanned the slope.

Nothing moved.

Rurrak circled wide, checking the bodies. Tanna lowered her rifle. Marron exhaled and set his weapon down carefully.

Maz rolled her shoulders and felt the enchantment in her hammer settle back into dormancy.

"Anyone hurt?" she called.

Negative responses came back.

Good enough.

She looked down at the field of shattered corpses and frozen limbs scattered across the rocks, then back at the wagon.

"We're not staying here," she said. "We need to move quick."

---

---

Maz pushed them hard after the outcrop fight. She didn't bother checking the bodies for cores or salvage—they didn't have time for that and frankly, she didn't care. What mattered was distance between them and whatever else might be shambling through the pines.

Snow Tusk moved steadily despite the weight, and Tanna kept him calm with quiet murmurs and the occasional pat on his flank. Marron guided from the bench without complaint. Rurrak ranged ahead and circled back every twenty minutes with updates that amounted to nothing yet.

Maz felt the ache settling into her shoulders—a dull fatigue that came from burning through skills too fast. Her Echo Breaker was spent. Stonebound Endurance would need another hour before she trusted it to hold under real pressure. She could still fight, but the margin for error had narrowed.

She didn't like narrow margins.

They crested a ridge and Maz saw them before anyone else said a word.

Another horde. Smaller than the first—maybe forty or fifty—but moving with the same relentless gait that made her jaw tighten.

And they were heading straight toward the wagon.

Maz scanned left and right. Open ground. Sparse trees. No cover worth mentioning and nothing elevated enough to funnel them through. Fighting a draugr horde on flat terrain was stupid even at full strength, and she wasn't at full strength.

"Marron," she said quietly. "How fast can Snow Tusk move if we dump half the cargo?"

Marron hesitated. "Not faster than them."

Maz swore under her breath.

Running wouldn't work. Fighting would get them killed. She was still weighing bad options against worse ones when the first rifle shot cracked across the valley.

One of the draugr dropped.

Another shot. Another body.

Maz's head snapped toward the sound. She couldn't see the shooters yet—just the angle of fire cutting through the horde from the northeast ridge. Two rifles, firing in quick succession. The draugr stumbled and collapsed with smoking holes punched through their cores.

Then came the explosion.

A roaring blast of flame and force that sent a cluster of draugr scattering in pieces across the snow. The sound was sharp and controlled—nothing like the chaotic detonation of Carl's improvised launcher but close enough that Maz immediately thought of it.

What was happening.

The draugr horde didn't scatter. They kept advancing. But now they were being torn apart faster than they could close the distance.

Maz counted eight more shots before the last draugr fell and stayed down.

Silence.

Then movement—four figures cresting the ridge where the shots had come from.

The lead figure raised a hand.

Maz squinted and recognized the silhouette before the face.

Riona.

Maz exhaled. "Hold position," she called back to Marron and Tanna. Then, louder: "Riona! You're a damn sight for sore eyes."

Riona descended the slope with her team spread behind her. She wore reinforced dwarven plating fitted tight across her torso and shoulders, the metal etched with faint enchantment lines that caught the light. Her helmet was something else entirely—sleek bronze framework with integrated lenses

Behind Riona came three others. A gnoll with a rifle identical to the ones Marron and Tanna used, though it looked upgraded — better plating, cleaner lines. A goblin with a launcher slung across his back, compact and brutal in design. A kobold bringing up the rear, carrying packs and ammunition, moving like someone used to being the backbone of a mobile unit.

Riona stopped a few paces from the wagon and pulled her helmet off. Her expression was calm but sharp.

"Mazoga," she said. "Looks like we got here just in time."

Maz grunted. "You sure did."

Riona glanced past her at the scattered draugr corpses cooling in the snow. "How many did you encounter on you way here?"

"Seventy at the outcrop. Fifty here."

Riona nodded once. "We've been tracking increased activity for the past month. Edda and the Threeburrow Council set up patrols."

Maz felt some of the tension drain from her shoulders. Not all of it—never all of it—but enough.

"Glad they did," Maz said.

Riona gestured back toward the ridge. "We'll escort you to Threeburrow. Road's clear from here, but we're sweeping the route anyway."

Maz nodded. "Appreciated."

The combined group moved together—Riona's squad flanking wide while Rurrak maintained his forward position. Snow Tusk pulled steady, and the wagon rolled without protest. Maz walked beside Riona, close enough to talk without raising her voice.

"What's been happening?" Maz asked. "Two months we've been gone."

Riona kept her eyes on the tree line. "Things have changed. The draugr activity picked up about a week after you left for Glasshold. Started small—scouts finding tracks, occasional lone corpses wandering too close to the perimeter. Then it escalated."

"How much?"

"Enough that Edda decided our militia couldn't handle it alone." Riona paused. "She brought Threeburrow's forces into the fold."

Maz raised an eyebrow. That was a significant step. The kind that required trust and coordination beyond simple trade agreements.

The kobold behind them—Merrik, if Maz remembered correctly—spoke up without prompting. "Rurran agreed to it. Didn't take much convincing once he saw the rifles."

Rurrak's ears flicked forward. "You talked to my uncle?"

Merrik nodded. "He watched Riona put three rounds through a practice target at sixty meters. Said it was a game changer."

Rurrak made a quiet sound that might have been approval.

Riona continued. "After that, we set up squads. Four-person teams like this one." She gestured to her group. "Two riflemen, one explosives expert—" She pointed at the goblin carrying the launcher. "—and a quartermaster."

The goblin gave a short wave without looking back.

"Keeps us mobile," Riona said. "We can respond fast and hit hard."

Maz processed that. It was smart. Flexible. The kind of tactical thinking she'd expect from someone who'd spent months training under Kesh and absorbing Doc's approach to problem-solving.

"There's a lot more," Riona added. "But you can ask Ironha and Dulric once we get to Threeburrow."

Maz stopped walking for half a step. "What's Ironha doing in Threeburrow?"

Riona smiled—small, but genuine. "Teaching classes. Healing techniques, field medicine, basic anatomy. Ygrana asked for it after one of their hunters got caught in a rockslide and their healer couldn't stabilize him in time."

"Huh."

"Lots has changed," Riona said again, her tone carrying something Maz felt might be pride.

Maz resumed walking. The road ahead curved through a narrow pass between two ridges—the kind of terrain that would've made her nervous three hours ago. Now, with Riona's squad watching the flanks and rifles covering every angle, it just felt like progress.

Snow Tusk's hooves crunched steadily through the snow. Marron hummed something under his breath. Tanna murmured to Moss-ear, who sat perched on her shoulder.

Threeburrow's perimeter markers came into view—carved stones set at regular intervals, each one bearing the settlement's three-clan sigil. Maz recognized the handiwork. Kraggir's miners had placed them months ago as part of the formal trade agreement.

The northern gate stood ahead, reinforced timber and stone rising against the mountainside.

Riona raised her hand, signaling the guards.

The gate opened.

---

---

Maz walked through and stopped.

The last time she'd been here, Threeburrow had been a frontier settlement held together by cooperation and stubbornness. That was still true. But the surface of it had changed.

The first thing she noticed was the humans. More than she'd expected — scattered through the valley floor in small groups, some helping with labor, others just finding their footing. They had the look of people who'd been through something hard but were starting to breathe again. A woman sat near the outer market stalls sharing a meal with a goblin family. Two men hauled timber alongside a pair of kobolds, nobody talking much, but nobody keeping distance either.

The second thing was the gear. Enchantment lines on gate fixtures. Rune-etched barricades at the tunnel mouths. A gnoll hunter crossing the yard with a rifle slung across his back like it had always been there.

Marron pulled the wagon to a stop beside her. "Busy place," he said quietly.

"It wasn't like this when we left," Maz said.

Marron looked around. "No," he agreed. "It wasn't."

Two months. Maz shook her head slowly. A lot could happen in two months apparently.