The stick was wrong.

  Teshar saw it as soon as he stepped into the fire-circle. Dawn was thin. The coals still held red under ash, and last night’s smoke sat in his hair and on his tongue.

  The watch stick lay on the flat stone beside Arulan’s staff—where they left it so nobody could pretend they hadn’t seen it.

  The moon-mark was there. Beneath it: Torek’s two cuts. Marlek’s long slash. Asha’s notch. Siramae’s cross. Varek’s deep V.

  Kelon’s mark should have sat with them.

  Instead, there was a clean strip of wood.

  Teshar stopped with one foot in ash and one foot out.

  Kelon didn’t miss watches. Kelon didn’t drift.

  He watched the gaps in the thorn ring and let his eyes move slowly. A few adults were already up—water skins, root, firewood—slow bodies working as if the morning were ordinary. Eyes slid toward the stick and away again.

  Arulan sat by the coals with his staff across his knees.

  The tree line was a grey smear behind the thorn ring. Mist hung between trunks.

  Movement came out of it.

  Kelon walked in fast, shoulders set, hair damp with fog. No torch. No spear. His hands were empty.

  He saw the stick. His eyes found the blank strip. They went tight.

  He crossed the circle and stopped short of the stone. His gaze found Teshar and held.

  “Don’t,” Kelon said.

  Teshar didn’t move his feet. “Why didn’t you carve?”

  Kelon’s hand moved to the back of his neck and rubbed once. His eyes cut toward the meat rack where Torek stood with Marlek. Torek’s posture was too upright, like he’d been nailed there.

  “Because the trees weren’t watched.”

  The pulse in Teshar’s fingers beat twice. “Say it.”

  “Torek fell asleep.”

  The fire popped once. Beyond the ring, the river kept running.

  Torek, of all men. The one who barked orders until the boys’ hands blistered. The one who spoke of distance from the fire as if it were law.

  Then the truth beneath it: how tired they all were.

  River watch. Fire watch. Trees. Gaps. Thorn repairs. Traps. Fishing. Wood. Always wood.

  “Did they come in?”

  “Not inside. I heard them close. Torek’s breathing went heavy. I shook him awake.”

  Kelon stopped there. He’d left something unsaid.

  “I stayed,” he said. “I held both.”

  Teshar looked at him. “He wanted the stick clean.”

  Kelon’s eyes didn’t move. “He said, ‘Don’t shame me.’”

  The empty strip of wood held everyone’s eyes for a moment, then they looked away.

  Arulan lifted his gaze.

  “Torek,” Arulan said.

  Torek turned like he’d been waiting for it, eyes already hard.

  Arulan didn’t raise his voice. “Come.”

  Torek hesitated long enough for everyone to notice. He stepped into the fire-circle.

  Someone stopped chewing. A water skin sloshed. Stilled.

  Teshar picked up the stick and held it steady on the stone. The flint shard lay in his palm, cold and sharp.

  Arulan pointed the tip of his staff at the blank strip of wood. “The mark.”

  Torek’s eyes dropped to the missing notch.

  "Kelon didn’t carve my mark," Torek said, as if blame lay there.

  Arulan’s gaze slid to Kelon. “Why?”

  “Because Torek slept.”

  Faces went still across the circle. One man’s breath came out in a short push. A woman stepped back from the fire as if it had grown too warm.

  Varek’s eyes moved over Torek once. “Well,” he murmured. “There it is.”

  Siramae’s face went still.

  Marlek’s eyes stayed on Torek, heavy.

  Torek’s words stumbled. "I didn’t sleep. I—was just resting my eyes. I’ve been awake since before—"

  “You slept,” Kelon said. Flat. Final.

  Torek swung toward him. “You could’ve hit me. You could’ve poured water on my face. You could’ve—”

  “I shook you,” Kelon said. “Twice.”

  Torek’s next word didn’t come. He looked at the ground, then at Kelon’s hands, then put the anger back somewhere it would keep.

  Arulan said, “How long?”

  Torek’s chin dipped. “Not long.”

  “Long enough,” Arulan said.

  Varek put a hand on his spear shaft and leaned a fraction forward. “So we let a man doze and call it nothing? No. Make an example.”

  Siramae said, “Make him useful. We need thorns tighter more than we need blood.”

  Arulan kept his eyes on Torek.

  “You stood watch,” Arulan said.

  “Yes,” Torek said.

  “And your body took sleep anyway.”

  Torek said nothing.

  Arulan tapped his staff once in the ash. “The mark stays uncut. The watch wasn’t held.”

  Torek started, “I didn’t ask Kelon to—”

  Arulan lifted the staff a fraction. Torek shut his mouth.

  “You pay with daylight,” Arulan said.

  Torek blinked. “Daylight?”

  “For three days, you don’t hunt. You cut the thorn. You tighten the ring. You haul wood. Work that drains you.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A murmur ran through the circle—some faces going flat with approval, others sharpening.

  Varek pushed his tongue into his teeth. “That’s it?”

  Siramae’s head turned. “That’s plenty.”

  Arulan went on. “For three nights, Torek doesn’t stand alone. He stands with another man. If his eyes close, he’s woken. If they close twice, he eats last.”

  Torek’s weight came forward. “Who?”

  Arulan looked once at Varek. Then back.

  “Hoden.”

  Hoden’s head came up. “Me? Why should I babysit him?”

  Arulan said, “Because you’ve said these rules slow us down. Now you help hold them.”

  Hoden’s mouth worked. He shut up.

  “No one lies to the stick,” Arulan said. “No one asks another to lie for them. This is how we keep waking up.”

  People moved back toward their tasks. Nobody spoke.

  Torek walked out of the fire-circle without looking at anyone.

  Hoden watched him go. His arms crossed. Stayed.

  Kelon stayed beside the stone. A night of double watch sat in his face—skin grey at the cheek, eyes tracking a point somewhere behind Teshar’s shoulder.

  Teshar stepped close enough for only him to hear. “You did right.”

  Kelon’s chin came down once. “It’ll cost.”

  “Yes,” Teshar said.

  Kelon’s eyes lifted. “For you too.”

  By midday, the cost showed.

  Torek worked the thorn ring with hands built for spear shafts. Thorns tore the skin of his forearms in thin lines. Blood dotted and dried. He didn’t slow.

  Siramae watched from across the camp, arms folded.

  Hoden dragged bundles at the edge of the thorn ring—each pull slow, each breath louder than it needed to be. Enough effort to answer any question about whether he was working. Not enough to pretend he’d forgotten why.

  When he passed close to anyone willing to listen, he muttered.

  “First, the marked boy makes stone laws. Now wood laws. Soon he’ll be telling us when to blink.”

  Teshar heard it. Everyone heard it.

  Teshar kept working.

  He tightened gaps without closing their own escape. He checked the deadfall outside the woodland opening and found the limb still heavy in the dirt where it had fallen at an angle.

  It had hurt a wolf. It hadn’t killed it.

  The trigger sat skewed. The cordage was frayed where damp had worked at the fibres.

  More fibre. More time. More hands.

  He ran the cord between thumb and forefinger. Strands caught under his nail.

  Kelon crouched beside him, hauling brush into place.

  “How many more nights?” Teshar asked.

  Kelon didn’t look up. “Until they go.”

  “When do they go?”

  “When they find it easier.”

  Teshar set the cord down and looked at the tree line. He turned the frayed end between his fingers twice, then set it flat across his knee and reached for a fresh length.

  That afternoon, he went to Arulan.

  The elder sat by the fire, scraping a tool handle with a flake. The motion never rushed.

  Teshar crouched. “We’re burning people.”

  Arulan didn’t look up. “Yes.”

  “The stick shows it. Same names. Too often.”

  The flake paused. “The band has few hunters. And many mouths.”

  “If we keep piling watches,” Teshar said, “someone breaks.”

  Arulan looked at him. “Someone did.”

  Teshar pressed his thumbnail into the heel of his hand. “Torek didn’t mean—”

  “Wolves don’t care,” Arulan said.

  “So we change how we watch,” Teshar said. “We stop pretending we can watch everything every night.”

  The flake scraped once. Arulan waited.

  “Bright nights, we can see to the tree line. Dark nights, we can’t. On dark nights, we double the treeline. Double the woodland gap. We pull back from the river.”

  Arulan held the handle up and looked down the length of it, checking for true. “And who chooses?”

  “You do.”

  “And if I choose wrong?”

  “Then we pay,” Teshar said. “But we pay with our eyes open.”

  Arulan set the handle across his knees. He looked out at the camp—the children at the drawing place, Torek at the thorns, Hoden hauling—then nodded once.

  “Tonight is dark. No moon. They’ll come bold.”

  “Treeline doubled,” Teshar said.

  “And the river. One man.”

  The word settled between them—one man at the river, thinner than it had been. A pull in his chest that wasn’t quite relief.

  Arulan lifted his eyes toward the band. “You tell them.”

  Air went out of Teshar’s nose. “Me.”

  “You built the stick,” Arulan said. “Now you carry the words that go with it.”

  Teshar walked into the centre of the camp. Eyes tracked him. He moved past a woman stitching hide who didn’t stop her work but followed him with her gaze, and past two men arguing over a fish basket who went quiet when he passed.

  He raised his open palm and cut it down—the stop sign he’d taught the children. A few small hands copied him before their parents did.

  Arulan tapped his staff once. The camp settled.

  Teshar kept his voice flat and even, so it carried without sounding like a warning.

  “Tonight is dark. No moon. Wolves move when we can’t see.”

  Heads turned toward the trees.

  “Two men at the treeline. Two at the woodland gap. One at the river. Fire stays watched.”

  A murmur from the river-watch men—short sounds, tight looks.

  “Keep gaps tight. No chasing. No splitting. If we see eyes, we call, and we hold.”

  Varek’s throwing-stick rolled once in his palm. “And if they take another dog?”

  A few flinched.

  “Then they take a dog,” Teshar said. “Not a child.”

  “You think you decide what wolves take.”

  “I decide what I won’t hand them,” Teshar said.

  Arulan’s voice came from behind him. “This is the plan.”

  Hands still moved.

  Night came heavy and starless.

  Cloud covered the sky. The fire’s circle was small and fierce. Beyond it, the thorn ring was mostly shape and threat—visible only when torchlight caught its points.

  Teshar stood by the fireline with Raku. Fifth night. Last.

  The scrape on the boy’s leg had closed. The fear hadn’t. It had settled deeper, lodged somewhere behind the eyes, and now he watched the woodland gap the way a man watches a door he isn’t sure is latched.

  Two torches bobbed at the gap.

  Torek held the forward place, spear angled out, shoulders squared as if holding his post by force of will alone.

  Hoden stayed a pace behind him, closer to the fire’s warmth.

  Movement slid beyond the thorns.

  Not a wolf. Too heavy. Too slow.

  A boar snuffled the edge, found the barrier unpleasant, and moved off.

  The fire snapped. Someone coughed inside a shelter and choked it down.

  A low huff came from the dark—breath driven through teeth.

  Then another.

  Wolves.

  Teshar straightened, torch in hand.

  At the gap, Torek lifted his torch higher. Hoden shifted back half a step—not deciding to, just drifting, heel catching in leaf litter.

  Eyes flashed pale between thorns. Gone. Back again. A shape darted toward the baited dip outside the gap.

  Testing.

  Teshar moved toward the gap—fast enough to matter, slow enough not to pull the camp into panic.

  He’d taken three steps when Hoden drifted back again. He was trying to put Torek between himself and the dark. His shoulder caught a thorn bundle.

  The bundle shifted.

  A gap opened—not wide, not obvious. Wide enough.

  A wolf’s head came up at the sound. It slid forward, muzzle low.

  Raku made a small, sharp noise behind Teshar.

  Torek’s spear tip dropped a fraction, then locked.

  Teshar stepped in, drove the butt of his torch down into the loosened brush, and shoved the thorn bundle back with his free hand. Thorns found his palm. Warm blood ran between his fingers.

  The wolf’s nose pressed to the thorns, working hard. Its eyes caught the firelight—flat and pale and very close.

  Teshar held the torch steady, close enough that heat built against his own face.

  The wolf pulled back an inch.

  Then another.

  It didn’t bolt. It moved back and held the line, watching.

  Hoden stood where he’d been when the bundle shifted. He hadn’t moved forward. He hadn’t moved back. He was just there, torch held at the wrong angle, as if his body had decided the moment was already over.

  The pack stayed outside for a long time. Breath, shadow, the scrape of paws. Waiting for another slip.

  It didn’t come.

  One by one, the shapes drifted back into the trees.

  Hoden spoke. “They’ll come again.”

  “Yes,” Teshar said.

  “And we stand here every night until we’re bone?”

  “Until it costs them more than it feeds them,” Teshar said.

  Hoden gave a short sound through his nose. “You talk like you’re bargaining with a beast.”

  “I’m watching a beast,” Teshar said. “Same as you.”

  Hoden looked away. His arms crossed.

  Teshar walked back to the fireline.

  Raku sat at the edge of light, hands bunched in his fur wrap. His eyes followed Teshar’s walk back.

  “They didn’t take anything,” Raku said.

  “Not tonight.”

  Raku pulled his fur wrap tighter around his hands. “Because we watched?”

  Teshar looked at the boy’s face—too thin, older than it should have been at this season.

  “Because we held,” Teshar said.

  Raku nodded once and kept his eyes on the thorn line.

  The fire cracked. Sparks lifted and went out before they reached the cloud.

  Beside Arulan’s staff, the watch stick lay on its stone, waiting for morning hands and a blade edge.