The Goat Path was a lie. Kaelen decided within the first hour of the ascent that no self-respecting goat would risk its hooves on this jagged scar of rock. It was a fracture in the mountain’s skin, slick with black ice and angled steeply enough that a single misstep meant a fall into a silence that had no bottom.

  Kaelen leaned forward, burying his gloved hands in his horse’s mane, trusting the beast more than he trusted his own eyes in the shifting gloom. The air here was thin, biting at the back of his throat like swallowed glass. Every breath felt shallow, leaving his lungs aching for substance that wasn’t there.

  This was the true North. Not the sheltered valley of Blackwood, but the raw, indifferent malice of the Thunder Hoof Range.

  To his left, the mountain face was a wall of black granite, weeping frozen meltwater. To his right, the world simply ended, dropping away into abysses so deep the moonlight died before it hit the floor.

  “Keep your weight forward, my Lord,” Elias murmured from behind, his voice calm despite the gale tearing at their cloaks. “The wind hits harder past the Chimney Rock. It tries to peel you off the saddle.”

  Kaelen glanced back. The Steel-rank archer rode with a relaxed, fluid grace, his eyes scanning the scree slopes above them rather than the drop below. He looked less like a man on a perilous journey and more like a man returning to a childhood home he didn't particularly like.

  “You speak like a man who knows this rock,” Kaelen shouted over the wind.

  “I spent my youth shivering on these ridges,” Elias replied, pitching his voice to cut through the roar. “My father brought me hunting here before the wars. And then… later.”

  Elias’s gaze drifted to a distant, snow-capped peak to the west. His expression hardened.

  “Ten years ago,” Elias said, pointing. “I marched up the West Col with your father's vanguard. We were chasing a raiding party that had taken twenty girls from Oakhaven.”

  “I remember the stories,” Kaelen said. “The Campaign of the Broken Horn.”

  “Aye,” Elias nodded grimly. “We tracked them to a village of the Storm Crows. High up, where the air is so thin you bleed from the nose just standing still.” He paused, his eyes dark. “We burned it. Every hut. Every tent. I remember the smell of burning yak wool. It sticks in your throat worse than the cold.”

  Zarn, riding ahead on his massive destrier, stiffened. He turned in his saddle, his face a mask of soot and anger.

  “The Storm Crows remember that fire, archer,” Zarn growled. “They still sing dirges for the winter your torches left them to freeze in the dark.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “They shouldn't have taken the girls,” Elias shot back, his hand resting casually near his quiver.

  “And you shouldn't have burned the grain stores,” Zarn retorted. “But that is the way of the mountain. Blood for blood. Ash for ash.”

  Kaelen intervened before the history could turn into a skirmish.

  “We are not here to fight the wars of ten years ago. We are here to survive tonight.”

  Zarn grunted and turned back to the path, urging his beast forward. The ten Ash Wolf warriors flanking them remained silent, but their hands tightened on their spear shafts. They moved through the terrain as if they were part of the rock itself, their shaggy horses digging iron-hard hooves into purchase points Kaelen couldn’t even see.

  As they climbed higher, the landscape shifted from alpine forest to brutal tundra. The trees became twisted, stunted things, clinging to life in the crevices.

  Kaelen’s merchant mind, however, was not looking at the scenery. He was looking at the data.

  Since crossing the treeline, the System had been chiming softly, a constant stream of notifications in the corner of his vision.

  [Zone Entry: Thunder Hoof Range – Mid-Tier]

  Atmosphere: Hypoxic (Stamina Regen -20%)

  Resource Density: Very High

  Kaelen’s eyes were drawn to a patch of dull grey flowers growing in the lee of a boulder. To anyone else, they looked like dead weeds. To the System, they glowed.

  [Resource Detected: Iron-Root]

  Rarity: Uncommon

  Properties: Permanent Stamina Enhancement (when processed), heavy metal toxicity resistance.

  Market Value: 20 Silver marks per root (Southern Alchemists).

  Forty silver. A peasant family lived on three silver a month.

  A few hundred yards later, he saw veins of glitter in the rock face.

  [Resource Detected: Star-Silver Ore]

  Rarity: Rare

  Properties: Mana-conductive metal. Essential for Enchanted Weaponry.

  Market Value: 1 Gold Mark per ingot.

  “Zarn,” Kaelen called out, unable to help himself. “That grey flower. The one growing by the ice. Do your people use it?”

  Zarn glanced back, indifferent. “Stone-Weed? We chew it on long marches. It makes the legs tired less. But it tastes like rust.”

  “And the silver streaks in the rock?”

  “Sparkle-Stone,” Zarn shrugged. “It is too soft for axes. It bends when you hit armor. We leave it for the children to play with.”

  Kaelen nearly choked. They were chewing on alchemy ingredients worth a fortune and letting children play with mana-conductive silver because it made poor axe-heads.

  “The economics of isolation,” Kaelen muttered to himself. To the tribes, value was defined by utility in war or survival. If you couldn't eat it or kill with it, it was dirt. But to the people of the plains, where luxury and magic drove the markets, these mountains were a treasury waiting to be opened.

  He rode closer to the heir.

  “Zarn,” Kaelen said. “How many tribes live in these peaks? Truly?”

  “In the Thunder Hoof?” Zarn sighed. “Thirty. Maybe thirty-one if the White Peaks haven't starved this winter.”

  “Thirty tribes,” Kaelen mused. “That is a lot of spears.”

  “It is a lot of mouths,” Zarn corrected bitterly. “We fight over the valleys because the peaks are barren. We raid you because the elk herds are thinning. Thirty tribes… but only one matters.”

  He pointed north, toward the highest jagged spire that seemed to pierce the moon itself.

  “The Stone Eaters,” Zarn whispered. “They hold the Deep Mines. They hold the Warm Springs. They have lands enough to farm.They are the strongest. They demand tribute from the other twenty-nine. Furs, meat… sons.”

  “They act as kings,” Kaelen said.

  “They act as gods,” Zarn spat. “Gorm believes the mountain gave him the right to eat us. That is why we are meeting tonight. Because for the first time, we are realizing that if they do not hunt together, the stone will crush them all.”