The barren land north of Ashmark gave men too much time to think.

There was no shade anywhere on the march route, the afternoon heat reflected off cracked earth hard enough to feel like a second sun rising from below, and nothing broke the landscape between the march column and the horizon except scattered scrub and rocks that cast stunted shadows in every direction.

A hundred soldiers crossing ground like this made a distinct kind of noise. Boots struck dry earth in steady rhythm, men muttered to themselves or to the soldiers beside them, the sounds low and tired from a march that had started before dawn and kept going long after everyone had stopped believing the destination was close.

Harr stayed at the front of the company. He kept his pace even and tracked the distance to the mine the entire way. The scrub was sparse, but some patches were thick enough to matter if something decided to use concealment against them. He noted those automatically.

His left hand rode slightly lower than the right whenever the ground turned uneven.

Osen and the two miners traveled somewhere behind the third rank, in how civilians moved differently. They understood constructions and shafts, not military spacing or discipline. The soldiers recognized that immediately and left room around them without discussion.

Behind Harr, the march had entered the stage all long marches eventually reached. Discipline was still there, but the talking had started.

"I’m saying the pension’s generous."

Beald said from the middle of the first section, his voice carrying farther than he probably intended. He still hadn’t learned how much a voice traveled in a marching column. "One full year for the family. How many lords pay that?"

Grim answered from two soldiers back in obvious animosity.

"So what? I didn’t get any damn marks."

"That’s cause you survived."

"And that means I get nothing."

Grim kicked aside a loose stone without breaking stride. "The pension’s for the dead. I bled twice in the residential district and the reward only matters after I’m buried. Fucking great."

"There’s army pay too," Beald said. "That’s not-"

"I don’t need you to lecture me about the pay."

Nobody answered immediately after that. The march advanced another several strides while wind moved through the scrub to the east, producing a dry rustling sound that filled the silence.

Eard finally spoke from somewhere behind Grim. "Folks didn’t care a ’bout the awards or whatever speech, but the pension was different."

Grim let out a short breath through his nose. "Of course it was. The awards only cost him some shitty metal and saliva."

"The speech explained the job."

Eard said with a stern voice. Harr guessed he’d had versions of this discussion before and already knew where it tended to go. "That’s more important than you think."

"Some fancy words are worth shit."

"I’m not saying it is worth anything."

Eard adjusted his stride to avoid a cracked section of stone without breaking pace. "I’m saying there’s a difference between a lord who praises soldiers to pump up their ego and one who tells them directly what they’re dying for. I’ve served under the first kind. This one’s different."

Grim didn’t answer right away. The march moved another fifty yards before Dun, who had barely spoken since dawn, cut into the conversation.

"Osen looks sick."

Harr didn’t turn around. He’d already marked the foreman’s pace by listening to the movement behind him. Osen was struggling with the march, but he was still maintaining the speed. That meant the problem hadn’t become serious yet.

"He’s a mine worker," Beald said. "Not a soldier"

"You weren’t a soldier a few months ago either," Eard replied.

Beald accepted the jab without fighting back. Exhaustion usually stripped away pointless disagreements before discipline ever needed to.

Grim returned to the earlier thread anyway. "Those awards" he said. "Only five of those were actually given, as if we are lacking the scrappy metal to make more. I had to guard the food-cart route in the residential district for twelve straight hours."

"So did plenty of other people," Dun said.

"And?"

Dun shrugged as he walked. "And they aren’t getting awards for it. That’s the point of the whole thing, you need to do something more than what’s expected from a soldier."

Grim drew breath again, preparing another response.

"Enough," Harr said.

He didn’t raise his voice. He only used command tone, the minimum force needed to cut through the conversation without escalating it.

The discussion stopped immediately. The march kept forward.

The mine site appeared all at once when they crossed a low ridge of cracked stone.

Harr spotted the mine entrance first from about fifty yards away. Stone blocks reinforced the shaft opening, and the metal mounting points from the old lift frame were still fixed around the rim.

The abandoned equipment around it remained exactly where the operation had died. A rusted pulley housing lay on its side near the drainage trench, broken cart rails protruded halfway from the dirt where shifting ground had buried them over time, a timber support frame had collapsed inward and been left there instead of dismantled.

The entire site looked frozen in the moment the crew decided to walk away.

Harr called the halt immediately and issued camp orders in sequence. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Sentries on the eastern slope.

Supply station south of the mine.

Sleeping positions outside the entrance outskirts.

The company moved at once, soldiers sliding into the tasks with the efficiency that came from repetition. Nobody needed instructions twice.

Osen approached while the camp organized around them.

"How long since you were inside?" Harr asked.

"Been years after the flooding."

Osen kept his eyes on the mine entrance while he answered. "The gallery widens after the first turn, bigger than the tunnel. You won’t understand the scale until you pass the bend."

"The reports place the tunnel at five feet wide."

"At the narrowest point."

Osen rubbed at the front of his coat unconsciously. "The ceiling rises before the turn. Six feet, maybe seven, around thirty yards in. The walls get uneven there, lots of surface area overhead."

Meaning the creatures would have room to move above them. Harr noted that away.

"Any additional turns past the gallery?"

"The main chamber splits three ways."

Osen continued. "West spur. North spur. Then a descending passage the crews never finished mapping, probably still flooded."

He pulled his coat tighter around himself, an old habit from years underground.

"The nest ought to be in the main chamber or the west spur by the sightings back then."

The mine entrance remained open in front of them. Cold air drifted up from below carrying the scent of wet mineral stone, sitting weirdly against the afternoon heat surrounding it.

Harr listened for movement below and heard nothing.

The briefing had Harr’s adjutant and the squad leaders near the outskirts of camp where they could all see the shaft clearly in the fading light. Osen remained at the far side of the group.

"The reports from the withdrawal crews," Harr said.

He’d studied them before departure until he could recite them from memory, including any irregularities. "Three confirmed encounters inside the tunnel and gallery, with multiple creatures during each encounter. Torchlight was present every time and the creatures did not avoid it."

He paused long enough to make sure they were following. "One foreman raised his torch toward the wall. He described a creature with no visible eyes, furry skin, elongated body longer than a grown man from head to tail with multiple limbs. He reported that it turned toward him before he moved."

Harr let the implication settle on its own.

"The crews started calling them Crawlers."

Mord, one of the older veterans from the early garrison rebuild, frowned. "That sounds like some sort of spider that fancied themselves to become like those abominations."

"Perhaps," Harr said. "There’s also a report they have leathery bat wings on their back."

Cete, who had earned command during the high quarter fight, nearly snorted. "Can they fly?"

"Nobody survived contact long enough to test it. I don’t know whether those support full flight."

Cete nodded once, then moved to the next problem. "How are we handling pistols inside the mine?

"Prime the pan before entry. First rank with pistols, second rank with steel." Harr explained.

He looked directly at Cete while explaining it.

"Once the first shot happens, everything underground will know our position." Mord remarked.

"Yes." Harr kept his tone flat. "Plan accordingly."

He finished the overnight orders in two short instructions.

Rotate the sentries.

No fires within fifty yards of the entrance.

Everyone in position before dawn.

The morning operation would begin with two scouts advancing only to the first bend in the tunnel. No farther. Observe and withdraw.

Nobody argued further. The briefing broke apart and the camp changed gradually into evening rhythm as squad leaders returned to their sections.

Harr remained facing the mine entrance.

Daylight was fading quickly now.

The foreman’s report repeated itself in Harr’s mind, the creature had turned toward him before he moved.

That meant one of two things. Either it had heard him in complete darkness, or it had sensed him some other way before the torchlight ever reached it.

Harr considered both possibilities and found neither a good prospect.