Three days north-east of Broken Rock, the world changed.

  Dorn felt it before he saw it—a vibration in the stone beneath his paws, so low it was more sensation than sound. A rhythmic thump-thump-thump that traveled through the bedrock like a heartbeat. Industrial. Mechanical. Wrong.

  He stopped on a ridge of bare rock and listened.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The sound came from ahead, from the direction of the box canyon. Steady. Relentless. The sound of something heavy striking something harder. A winch, maybe. Or a drill. Or the Preacher's magnet, pounding against the earth.

  Dorn's Lead-Sight eye itched. He blinked, let the thermal filter slide across his vision, and scanned the terrain ahead.

  The mountains here were different from the Fingers. Jagged. Broken. The slopes were littered with debris that wasn't rock—shattered concrete, twisted rebar, chunks of asphalt that had tumbled down from somewhere higher. The Old Ones had been here, once. Built here. Lived here. Died here.

  He moved on, following the vibration.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  By midday, he was walking through the bones of the old world.

  The trail descended into a valley that had been carved not by water or wind, but by machines. The slopes on either side were terraced—ancient roads, switchbacking up toward ridges where the skeletons of buildings leaned against the sky. Skyscrapers, they'd been called. Towers of glass and steel that touched the clouds. Now they were just ribs, hollow and rusted, their windows empty eyes staring at nothing.

  But it was the air that stopped him.

  It tasted wrong. Sharp. Metallic. Each breath carried a fine grit that coated his tongue and made his nostrils burn. Silicon dust—he'd encountered it before, in smaller ruins, but never like this. Here it hung in permanent suspension, catching the light and bending it into strange prismatic shapes. Rainbows that shouldn't exist flickered at the edge of his vision, then vanished when he tried to focus on them.

  The haze gave everything a dreamlike quality. The dead towers seemed to shimmer, their edges softening, then sharpening again as the dust shifted. Dorn blinked, rubbed his eyes, but the effect didn't stop. It was in the air itself, woven into the valley like a curse.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  He pressed on.

  Dorn had seen ruins before. The Frontier was littered with them. But these were different. These were dense. Block after block of collapsed structures, the streets between them choked with debris. Cars, their bodies eaten by rust, sat in rows where they'd died. A sign, its letters long since faded, hung from a single bolt and creaked in the wind.

  The wind.

  It moved through the valley like a living thing, funneling between the dead towers, finding every broken window and rusted girder. It didn't whistle. It screamed—a high, thin wail that made Dorn's fur stand on end. And beneath the scream, always, the thump-thump-thump of the winch, drilling into his skull like a needle.

  He pressed on, keeping to the shadows, his nose working constantly. The burned-insulation smell was stronger here, layered over everything. And underneath it, something else. Something ancient. Something that made his instincts scream at him to turn back.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  He found the box canyon at dusk.

  It wasn't a canyon, not really. It was a wound in the earth, a gash where the valley floor had been excavated down to bedrock. The sides were raw and fresh, the rock still sharp where it had been blasted. At the bottom, a bunker entrance gaped like a mouth—a dark opening ringed with rusted steel, leading down into places the sun never reached.

  Above it, the Purists had built their camp.

  Tents clustered on a flat shelf of rock, their canvas stained with smoke and weather. A pen had been constructed nearby—chains and scavenged fencing, holding shapes that moved in the fading light.

  Prisoners.

  Dorn's breath caught. He'd known they'd be here. Jin had told him. But knowing and seeing were different things.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The chain-gang was a collection of broken things. Rats hunched in the dirt, their whiskers drooping. Squirrels with empty eyes, their bushy tails gone bald and patchy. A fox—Cricket, he realized, the one from Vex's group—pressed against the fence, her missing ear tipped toward the guards. And the pronghorns.

  Two of them. A doe and her yearling, their long legs folded beneath them, their bodies so thin he could count every rib. Pronghorns were built for speed, for the open plains, for running until the world blurred past. Here they sat in their own filth, staring at nothing, their great dark eyes reflecting the dying light without seeing it.

  The Preacher had taken the fastest things in the Frontier and turned them into ghosts.

  Above it all, a winch system dominated the canyon floor. Heavy beams of salvaged steel, a pulley, a cable that disappeared into the bunker's throat. Thump. Thump. Thump. Every few seconds, the winch turned, pulling something up or lowering something down. The sound he'd been following for two days resolved into the rhythm of the engine that drove it—a coughing, rattling thing that belched black smoke into the twilight.

  Thump. A thought formed. Thump. He pushed it away. Thump. Another thought. Thump. The rhythm wouldn't let him think clearly. It was a heartbeat, a countdown, a clock ticking toward something terrible.

  Dorn found a ledge on the canyon's rim, hidden by an overhang, and settled in to watch.

  The prisoners moved like ghosts.

  Shackled together, they shuffled between the pen and the bunker in a line, their chains clinking with every step. Guards accompanied them—coyotes with rifles, their ears swiveling, their gazes never still. Eight visible. More in the tents, probably. The Preacher somewhere among them. Silus, too, unless he'd been sent elsewhere.

  Thump. The winch groaned. Thump. The cable tightened. Thump. A bucket emerged from the bunker, filled with rubble, and tipped its contents onto a growing pile. Thump. More debris. Thump. More digging. Thump. More of whatever the Preacher was looking for.

  Dorn's eyes found the pen. Found the badgers.

  Vex sat near the fence, her scarred muzzle pressed against the chain-link. She was thinner than he remembered, her fur matted with dirt and something dark. But her eyes were still alive. Still watching. Still waiting. Even in chains, even broken, she was watching.

  Flint was beside her, his missing claw tucked against his chest. He wasn't watching the guards or the bunker or the sky. He was watching the box. It sat between them, still lead-lined, still sealed, its lock catching the last light.

  Thump. The box seemed to pulse with the rhythm. Thump. Dorn imagined he could see the lock trembling. Thump. How much longer before it failed?

  Dorn watched them for a long time. Watched the way Vex's gaze followed the guards, tracking their movements, cataloging their weaknesses. Watched the way Flint's paw rested on the box, protective even now. Watched the pronghorns, who didn't watch anything at all.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Then the light failed, and the Preacher emerged.

  He came from a tent at the far end of the camp, his tawny fur catching the last rays of sun. The magnet hung from his paw, its chain dragging through the dust. He moved through the camp like a king surveying his domain, and every guard he passed straightened, touched their rifles, looked away.

  Thump.

  He stopped at the pen.

  Thump.

  The prisoners shrank back. All except Vex. She stood, her barrel chest rising, and met his silver eyes through the fence.

  Thump.

  The Preacher looked at her. Looked at the box. Then he smiled—a thin, terrible expression that held no warmth.

  "Soon," he said. His voice carried in the still air, reaching Dorn's ledge despite the distance. "The lock will fail. The box will open. And you will watch as I purify what your kind should have left buried."

  Thump.

  Vex didn't answer. Didn't flinch. Just stared.

  The Preacher turned and walked away. The magnet swung at his side, and as it passed the pen, Dorn saw the prisoners' chains pull—just slightly, just enough to drag them a step before the Preacher moved on.

  Vex's harness. The metal in it. The magnet had pulled at her, just like Jin said.

  Thump.

  Dorn's claws scored the rock beneath him.

  Thump.

  He watched through the night.

  The camp settled into a rhythm. Guards changed shifts. The winch never stopped—thump, thump, thump—a mechanical heart that wouldn't quit. Prisoners were fed—thin slop, barely enough to keep them alive. The Preacher's tent stayed dark, but Dorn knew he was in there. Could feel those silver eyes somewhere behind the canvas.

  Thump. He marked the patrol routes. Thump. The blind spots. Thump. The north corner of the pen, where a rockslide had created a shadowed pocket. Thump. The winch mechanism, loud and obvious—a distraction waiting to happen.

  Thump. He counted the guards again. Nine now, with the shift change. Thump. Plus Silus, somewhere. Thump. Plus the Preacher. Thump. Plus whatever was in that bunker.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Dorn looked at the sky. The stars were beginning to fade. Dawn wasn't far.

  He had a plan forming. Loose, dangerous, full of holes. But it was something.

  He settled back against the rock and waited for the light, the winch's rhythm pounding in his skull like a countdown.

  Dawn came grey and cold.

  Dorn watched the camp stir. Watched the prisoners woken, counted, led to the bunker in chains. Watched Vex and Flint among them, their chains clinking as they walked. Watched the box carried between them, still sealed, still holding.

  Thump.

  The winch started. The rhythm resumed.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  And somewhere in the camp, the Preacher's voice rose in morning sermon—words Dorn couldn't make out, but a tone he recognized. Fanatical. Certain. The sound of something that had forgotten how to doubt.

  Dorn touched the knife at his belt. Felt the weight of the salt block in his pack. Checked the water skin—half empty, but enough for another day if he was careful.

  He looked at the canyon below. At the pen. At the bunker. At the box.

  Thump.

  At Vex, who still watched.

  Thump.

  At Flint, who still protected.

  Thump.

  At the pronghorns, who had forgotten how to run.

  Thump.

  Then he settled back to wait, because waiting was what hunters did, and the Preacher didn't know he was being hunted.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.