The hillside looked ordinary from a distance.

  Just another fold of earth along the ravine, pierced by wiry brush and a few stunted pines clutching pale, eroded soil. The kind of place you’d pass a hundred times. You wouldn't remember it.

  Up close, it was wrong.

  Cal stood at the base of the slope, boots in loose gravel, shield strapped to his left arm. The old shield, repainted twice and peeling again, felt familiar in its weight. His other hand rested on the baton’s wrapped grip, the metal cool against his palm.

  Jordan hovered a step behind, trying not to favor his shoulder. He'd wrapped it tighter this morning, the cloth darker at the edge where it bled through, but still gripped his scavenged bar like he trusted it.

  The air here felt thicker, damp with a sour animal musk clinging to Cal’s throat. Brambles tangled along the rock face, a curtain of thorns obscuring the narrow black gap behind.

  Someone—something—had painted the brambles.

  Crude red-brown symbols stained rocks and branches: crooked eyes, jagged teeth, stick-figures with spears and swollen heads. Childish lines, but many. Every few feet, a new grinning face leered.

  A totem squatted by the entrance: bones lashed with sinew and twine, topped with a bleached animal skull smeared in red-brown paint. Feathered arrows, half-burned and sooty, jutted from the dirt at its base.

  Jordan exhaled softly. “Okay. So, just to confirm. We’re walking into the mouth of something that decorates itself with bones.”

  Cal drew a slow breath and exhaled through his nose.

  “This is stupid,” he muttered.

  Jordan tried to smile, failed, then settled for a shrug. “Loyalty first. Stupidity is a close second.”

  Cal flexed his fingers around the baton, loosened, then tightened his grip, and advanced toward the thorns.

  “Get it done,” he told himself quietly. “Get in, hit them hard, get out.”

  He pushed aside the brambles with his baton, wincing as scratches appeared where the shield didn't cover. As he moved forward, thorns snagged his jacket, tore the fabric, and finally released with a dry rasp.

  Behind the brambles, the cave mouth gaped open, a narrow tunnel plunging into the hillside. Shadows devoured the entrance after a few yards. Cold air seeped out, carrying smoke, rot, and sweat.

  His stomach knotted. Pulse picking up.

  Jordan leaned in close enough that Cal could hear his breath. “I’m behind you. If you die in there, I’m haunting you.”

  Cal adjusted the shield's strap, set his shoulders, and stepped into the dark.

  The cave devoured sound.

  Even Cal’s boots on stone seemed dampened by the close-packed walls. The ceiling dipped low; he ducked, rough stone brushing his hair. The air cooled as he descended, licking at sweat on his spine.

  Jordan followed, quieter than he had any right to be for a man who never shut up. His bar made a faint, nervous click against the stone once, and he froze like the cave had noticed.

  Cal paused inside the tunnel, letting his eyes adjust.

  It was tight. The passage shrank to his shoulders, so he angled the shield to fit. If a goblin appeared ahead, it would be forced to funnel straight at him—they couldn't swarm his flanks.

  “Shield up,” Cal murmured. Saying it helped. He moved the shield until its chipped edge pressed into the packed earth, filling the tunnel's width ahead.

  “Rear’s yours,” Jordan whispered. The humor was faint, a thin layer over something else. “I’m officially the guy who yells if anything tries to bite your spine.”

  Cal assessed the tight space. He hammered the limits—no room for wide swings—so he adjusted his stance and planned only straight baton thrusts and short hooks, aiming for quick strikes around the shield.

  The tunnel twisted left, then right. Cal edged forward, shield leading, knees bent, baton low. Every blind corner waited like a question answered with teeth and steel.

  A faint drip echoed ahead—water or something worse. A draft brushed his face, carrying scrapes, mutters, and a high, ugly laugh that raised the hair on Cal’s arms.

  Cal slid his boot forward and felt the ground give a fraction more than it should have.

  His weight settled onto something that clicked.

  He stilled.

  Jordan did too.

  As Cal’s heel came down, the stone underfoot felt wrong—hollow, too even. He realized it a heartbeat after the click.

  “Damn,” Cal breathed.

  The ceiling above and behind them shuddered.

  Cal threw himself forward on instinct, shouting wordlessly. The shield swung over his head and shoulders as he dropped into a crouch, bracing.

  Jordan lunged too, shoulder first, catching Cal’s back and shoving him just that extra foot forward into the safer angle.

  Rocks crashed down where they’d just been.

  The sound slammed into them—stone on stone in a small space, deafening and brutal. Dust exploded, choking, blinding, stinging eyes and coating tongues.

  Smaller rocks thudded against the shield, glanced off Cal’s forearms, bounced away. One larger piece clipped the trailing edge of the shield hard enough to shove Cal sideways; his knee slammed into the wall and flared with pain.

  Jordan hissed something that was either a curse or a prayer.

  Cal kept the shield in place until the rumbling stopped.

  Silence seeped back in by degrees. First, the shock of crashing stone faded. Then the soft patter of dust settling. Finally, the faint drip of water ahead, steady and indifferent.

  Cal stayed crouched for two heartbeats, breathing through his teeth, tasting stone and fear.

  “Still alive,” he croaked.

  “Barely,” Jordan whispered, and the word shook. Then he cleared his throat and tried to pin a grin on it. “Great. Love that for us.”

  Cal pushed the shield up cautiously and blinked through swirling dust.

  The tunnel behind was now half-blocked by jagged rocks. Not a full cave-in, but enough to make a fast retreat ugly.

  His heel rested on a slightly raised stone disk. Not obvious, but not invisible.

  “I should’ve seen that,” Cal muttered.

  Jordan leaned around him, squinting. “I’m going to start trusting your Earth thing a lot harder.”

  Cal eased his foot off the pressure plate, feeling the pressure shift beneath his boot, half-expecting another click. Nothing.

  “Okay, lesson learned.”

  From then on, he walked by the ground, not the walls—feeling through stone with his new sense: solid, cracked, hollow.

  The tunnel widened after twenty feet into a cramped chamber, no bigger than his family’s apartment. The ceiling arched high enough for Cal to stand straight. A small fire guttered near the far wall, greasy smoke twisting toward a crack above.

  Three goblins hunched around the fire. For half a second, they stared at each other in mutual surprise.

  The goblins were just under a grown man’s size—four feet, wiry, bad posture, mottled green skin, huge yellow eyes in the dim. They wore scavenged fabric and stitched leather. Crude spears leaned on the wall behind them.

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  “Hey,” Jordan said automatically, like his mouth hadn’t gotten the memo.

  One goblin shrieked.

  They scrambled for weapons, snarling and tripping. Cal didn’t give them time.

  He surged forward, shield first.

  The first goblin barely gripped its spear when the shield slammed into its chest. A wet crunch as its body hit the wall. It slid down, gasping, air driven from its lungs.

  The second goblin jabbed clumsily, its spear scraping the shield. Cal twisted, knocked it aside, and drove the baton in a short, brutal thrust.

  The weighted end caught the goblin under the jaw.

  Bone crunched. Teeth snapped together with a dull clack. The goblin dropped its spear and crumpled, clutching its face and howling.

  The third goblin got its spear up in time, blocking the shield. The wood bent dangerously.

  Jordan didn’t try to crowd Cal in the narrow space. He just stepped to the edge of the chamber and cracked his bar against the wall, loud and sharp.

  The goblin flinched, eyes snapping toward the sound.

  Cal pressed closer and rammed the shield forward. The goblin’s feet skidded on loose gravel as Cal shoved harder, forcing it toward the chamber’s rocky brink.

  The goblin stumbled, arms pinwheeling, and toppled over.

  There was a sharp, abrupt scream, then the sound of something striking bottom far below.

  He stayed still, breath quick, echoes bouncing around.

  He edged to the lip, keeping the shield between him and the drop, and peered down. A narrow shaft plunged into darkness, maybe twenty feet deep, maybe more. The bottom was a mess of jagged rock.

  “Pit,” he said quietly. “Great.”

  Jordan swallowed. “Not a fan of pits. Or screams. Or caves. I’m learning a lot about myself.”

  Cal finished the injured goblins quickly, forcing himself not to hesitate. Alive, they might scream and alert others. The bounty didn’t specify quantity; proof would be paid for.

  The reek of blood thickened the air.

  He wiped the blade, pocketed the ears in a plastic salvage bag, and listened.

  Muffled voices drifted from deeper in the caves. More goblins. More rooms.

  Cal rolled his shoulders. His knee throbbed, but it held.

  “First room down,” he muttered. “Keep moving.”

  The next tunnels branched and twisted, forming a rough maze.

  Twice, he found pressure plates disguised as stones.

  Jordan crouched beside one, breathing steady, then looked at Cal and tried to make it light. “So if I step on this, do I die, or do we die?”

  Cal nudged him back with the shield’s rim. “Don’t.”

  Jordan nodded once, and the joke faded.

  Once, Cal spotted a crude tripwire half-hidden by debris. He cut it, then marked the corner with a scrape in the stone so they’d know where it was on the way out.

  The second room was larger, its ceiling disappearing into shadow above. Stalactites hung like stone teeth. The goblins here were different—armor made from metal scraps instead of just leather, shields fashioned from car doors and oven panels instead of wicker and hide.

  Four of them. All armed. All are already looking their way.

  They’d heard the earlier scuffle.

  The nearest goblin barked something in its own guttural language and charged, shield up. The others fanned out behind it, trying to spread and flank.

  Cal took two quick steps forward, met the lead goblin head-on, and slammed his shield into the improvised metal plate with everything he had.

  The impact rang in his bones. The goblin’s shield buckled inward, metal screeching. It staggered back, nearly dropping its weapon.

  The second goblin darted toward Cal’s right, aiming to get around his shield.

  Jordan stepped in—not to fight in Cal’s lane, but to steal the angle. He rammed his bar into the goblin’s hip hard enough to turn its stride.

  The goblin snarled and swung at Jordan.

  Jordan backstepped, fast, and Cal pivoted with the shield, driving the first goblin sideways into the second.

  They crashed together, snarling.

  A spear thrust from Cal’s left. He caught it on the rim of his shield and twisted, letting the point slide past his ribs. The shaft scraped across his jacket and bit into stone.

  Cal didn’t have room for fancy footwork. What he had was weight and leverage.

  He shifted his stance, put his shoulder behind the shield, and shoved.

  The two entangled goblins stumbled backward—directly under a cluster of heavy stalactites.

  Cal had clocked thin cracks overhead when he entered, and his earth sense had whispered that this section of ceiling was more fracture than stone.

  Now he made use of it.

  He lashed out with his baton, smashing it into the stone wall where a hairline fracture ran. The blow sent a sharp vibration through the rock.

  The pair of stalactites, already weakened by time and goblin smoke fires, snapped free and plummeted.

  They hit the clustered goblins with a wet, ugly sound.

  The creatures went down beneath a spray of dust and debris.

  Jordan stared, eyes wide. “You can do that?”

  “Apparently,” Cal grunted.

  One of the pinned goblins tried to scream.

  Cal stepped in and finished it, baton crushing skull.

  The spear from the left jabbed again. Cal felt the point glance off his hip, tearing fabric.

  Jordan caught the attacker’s wrist with his bar, not strong enough to stop the thrust outright but enough to drag it wide.

  Cal turned with the movement, reducing the force, and let the goblin overextend.

  He drove his knee up into its chest, felt ribs give, then brought the baton down across the back of its neck.

  The last goblin in the room, seeing the others fall in seconds, hesitated.

  That was all Cal needed.

  He advanced, shield high, baton low, forcing it back step by step. Its heel brushed the edge of a shallow pit Cal had seen earlier—a garbage hole packed with bones and offal.

  “Come on,” Cal said softly. “One more step.”

  The goblin snarled, throat tight with fear, and lunged.

  Cal met the spear with the shield, turned it aside, and took that one step forward himself, driving his weight into the goblin’s chest.

  They went over together.

  Cal twisted mid-fall, using the shield as a sled. The goblin hit the mess of bones first. The impact knocked the wind out of it.

  Cal rode the slide, letting slick refuse carry him. As soon as he had footing again, he sprang up, planted a boot on the goblin’s chest, and pinned it.

  Up close, its eyes were wide and very, very aware.

  He hesitated for half a heartbeat. Then he did what he’d come here to do.

  When Cal climbed back out of the pit, his arms were shaking, more from adrenaline than effort. His shoulder ached from the shield work. Sweat stung his eyes.

  Jordan offered a hand without comment.

  Cal took it, hauled himself out, and Jordan’s grip tightened for a second too long—more check than help.

  “Keep moving,” Cal told himself more than Jordan. “Stop, and you die.”

  The tunnels tightened once more as they pushed deeper, then opened into a long, low corridor.

  Here, the goblins had tried to be clever.

  A row of sharpened stakes jutted up from a knee-high trench carved into the stone floor, just wide enough that you couldn’t step across without exposing yourself. The ceiling above the trench was a few inches lower; anyone trying to leap over it would have to duck, which would throw off balance.

  On the far side, a makeshift barricade of crates and scrap metal formed a waist-high wall. Behind it, goblins waited.

  Not three or four this time. A dozen, maybe more. Some with spears. Some with short, wicked-looking blades. One with a crossbow that looked like it had been cobbled together from three different weapons and a lot of hope.

  They hissed and muttered when they saw Cal, voices joining into a low, rumbling chorus.

  Cal’s mouth went dry.

  His muscles burned. Breathing hurt on the right side, where one of the spear jabs had gotten too close. Sweat plastered his shirt to his back. His arms felt heavy from holding the shield.

  Jordan shifted beside him, bar held ready, and for once didn’t talk.

  Cal could turn back.

  Nobody would know how far he’d gotten. Except them.

  Except for the memory of his mother’s labored breaths, of Sammy pretending not to count the pills left in the bottle.

  Cal rolled his shoulder, feeling the joint protest, and adjusted his grip.

  “All right,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s see how bad you want to keep this place.”

  Jordan’s voice came soft, close. “Cal.”

  Cal didn’t look at him.

  Jordan exhaled. The humor tried to show up anyway, thin and cracked. “Just…don’t do brave. Do alive.”

  Cal nodded once.

  Then he advanced.

  The first volley came from the makeshift crossbow. The bolt streaked down the corridor with a harsh twang, wobbling slightly. Cal brought the shield up, and the bolt hit with a solid thunk, vibrating the metal.

  Spears jabbed over the barricade as he closed, forcing him to angle the shield left, then right, each impact jarring his arm.

  Jordan stayed glued to Cal’s right rear quarter, spoiling angles—yanking a spear haft down with his bar, then retreating before a blade could find him.

  Cal didn’t try to jump the trench.

  Instead, he shuffled along its edge, staying just out of easy stabbing range. The wall felt different here—less weight behind it, more give in the vibrations running up his arm.

  He gritted his teeth and hit it.

  He slammed the shield rim into the wall, hard. The corridor answered with a dull, hollow sound.

  Jordan blinked. “You heard that too?”

  Cal hit it again.

  And again.

  On the fourth blow, something above the goblin barricade gave way.

  A slab of rock the size of a refrigerator broke loose from the ceiling and crashed down onto crates and scrap.

  The barricade exploded outward under the impact, splintered wood and twisted metal flying. Goblins scattered, shrieking.

  Some weren’t fast enough.

  Dust billowed down the corridor. Cal coughed, eyes watering, and took advantage of the confusion.

  He stepped across the narrowest point of the trench, planted his boot on the edge of the fallen slab, and heaved himself up onto it like a low platform.

  A goblin lunged at him from the side, blade flashing.

  Cal caught the strike on his shield, then pivoted, driving the edge into its face.

  Another came in low, aiming for his legs.

  Jordan kicked a chunk of broken crate into its path.

  The goblin stumbled for half a heartbeat—enough.

  Cal hopped, more tired jerk than leap, and the blade skittered off his boot instead of taking his ankle.

  He brought the baton down on the attacker’s wrist. Bone snapped. The blade clattered away.

  It became a grind.

  Not a clean, heroic charge, but a series of ugly, desperate exchanges. Cal used every inch of cover the fallen rock gave him, forcing goblins to fight up at him instead of down. He knocked weapons aside, slammed bodies off-balance, and drove more than one screaming goblin backward into the trench of stakes.

  Jordan kept the pressure off Cal’s blind side. When a goblin tried to slip behind the slab, Jordan met it with the bar and a short, vicious shove that sent it stumbling into Cal’s shield.

  One got a lucky cut in, slipping a knife between Cal’s shield rim and jacket. Pain flared hot along his ribs.

  Cal grunted, twisted, and returned the favor with the baton, feeling cartilage give under the blow.

  Jordan’s voice snapped, sharp and real. “Cal!”

  “I’m fine,” Cal lied.

  He didn’t stop moving.

  When it was over, the corridor was a mess of broken crates, scattered weapons, and still bodies.

  Cal stood in the middle of it, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his jaw. His arms trembled with each heartbeat. His breath rasped, raw from dust and effort.

  He wanted to sit down. Just for a minute.

  Instead, he listened.

  The low goblin murmurs he’d been hearing since entering the caves were quieter now, fewer voices. But ahead—deeper in—there was a different sound.

  A roar, low and guttural. Not loud, but powerful. The sound of something with a chest bigger than a goblin’s and lungs to match.

  Cal swallowed.

  Jordan went still beside him. When he spoke, the joke didn’t come. “That’s not a normal goblin.”

  “Boss,” Cal whispered.

  Of course, there would be a boss. Things like this always had one. The goblin that hit harder. The one that scared the others into line.

  Cal wiped his baton on a scrap of cloth, adjusted the strap of his shield again, and pushed on.

  Jordan fell in behind him without being asked.