Gareth Ashford had six copper coins and a curse to break. The curse lived three hundred miles east, in the village where he was born. Every winter solstice it turned one newborn to stone. He had sworn to end it. But a quest costs money, and Gareth had none. His father had died in debt, and Gareth owned only cheap leather armor and a sword. So he took the only honest coin he could find. The work was clearing bandits from the forest road. A merchant guild paid in advance. Gareth almost refused, the way he refused the slaver who once hired him. But these outlaws had gutted a caravan and left the drivers dead. He had walked past the wreck that morning. Broken wheels, torn supply sacks, dark stains on the wood. Honest work, for once. He took it. He made camp at dusk under a leaning canvas shelter. He banked a small fire and chewed cold bread. He did not sleep. He had learned long ago to read trouble before it struck. A guard captain once cornered him in an alley, and only watching the man's shoulders had saved him. Now Gareth watched the dark between the trees. They came fast. Not bandits. Goblins. Six of them, lean and grinning, spilling from the brush with blades out. They wanted his supplies and his horse. Gareth kicked the fire into their faces and rolled clear. He took one across the knee, dropped another with his pommel. The rest scattered into the dark, shrieking. One did not run. She circled him, light on her feet, a curved knife in each hand. She wore scraps of leather and a red sash, and she moved better than all the others combined. Gareth did not lunge. He waited. He let her come to him, feint after feint, until her patience broke first. She overreached. He stepped inside her swing, caught her wrist, and put her face-down in the dirt. He had her bound before she stopped cursing. She went still under his knee. "You waited," she said. "Nobody waits." "Gets me more goblins that way." "Snikka," she said, like it was a warning. "Razortooth. Traders pay to not see me. You'll want to let me go." "No," Gareth said. He sat her against a tree and studied her in the firelight. Her yellow eyes measured him right back, searching for the place his patience ran out. The bandits were still out there. The merchants paid for the whole band, dead. But this one worked alone, she said, and alone she knew these woods. She knew where the outlaws slept. Gareth checked her chains and fed the fire. His clean job had just become a captive he did not plan for and a camp of bandits still breathing. He had come for coin to save a village. Now he had a prisoner who might lead him to it, if she did not open his throat first.

Morning light leaked through the leaning canvas. Gareth sat across the fire from his prisoner. Snikka Razortooth watched him with yellow eyes, her wrists still chained. She had fought him better than her whole crew and lost only to patience. Now she waited to see what he wanted. Gareth had no coin, a curse to break, and a camp of bandits still breathing in the woods. He could not kill them alone. He needed her. "The outlaws who gutted that caravan," Gareth said. "You know where they sleep." "I know." She tipped her head toward his chains. "Knowing's cheap. Walking free costs more." "Then we trade." He leaned forward. "You take me to them. We clear the camp together. The guild pays for the whole band. We split it." Snikka laughed once, short and hard. "You caught me to hand me a job. Why share coin with the goblin you chained?" "Because I can't take six men alone. And you can't fight them in irons." Her eyes narrowed. She studied his hands, his shoulders, the place his patience might break. She had trusted the wrong person once. It had burned her, and she had ridden alone since. "You'll cut me loose, and I'll vanish," she said. "That's what you fear." "I fear going home empty." He held her gaze. "My village has a problem that money fixes. That's all this is." She was quiet a long moment. The fire popped. "Half," she said. "And you unchain my hands before we fight, not after." "When we're in sight of them. Not before." Snikka bared her teeth. It was not quite a smile. "You bargain like a trader. I hate traders." She spat into the dirt. "Deal." They moved out when the sun cleared the trees. She led, chained at the wrists, picking a path Gareth would never have found. Thorns clawed his armor. The ground softened to black mud. Snikka stopped at the edge of a clearing and nodded ahead. The bandits' camp sat in a hollow. But between it and them grew a wall of plants Gareth had never seen. Huge red jaws snapped at the air. Curling vines dragged a dead crow into a maw lined with white teeth. The whole cluster leaned toward the warmth of their bodies, hungry. "That's the back way," Snikka said. "The only way they don't watch." "Because of those." "Because of those." She lifted her chained wrists. "Cut me loose. I know how they feed. You don't." Gareth looked at the snapping jaws, then at her yellow eyes. His whole plan rested on trusting the one person who had every reason to run. He drew his knife. He cut the chain. Snikka rolled her freed wrists and grinned. She did not run. "Now," she said, "let me show you where they bite." The deal was struck. The chains were off. And the only path to his coin ran straight through teeth that ate men whole.

Snikka crouched at the edge of the plants and waved Gareth down. The huge red jaws leaned toward them. She pointed at the vines curling along the ground. "Step where I step," she said. "Nowhere else." Gareth nodded. His coin, and his cure, waited past the teeth. He had no choice but to follow the goblin he had chained the day before. She moved first. She pulled a dead rat from her belt and tossed it left. A maw snapped it from the air. While the plant chewed, Snikka darted right through the gap. Gareth copied her. A jaw lunged for his leg. He froze. Her hand shot back and gripped his wrist, yanking him clear. "Watch me," she hissed. "Not your boots." They crossed one careful step at a time. Snikka read the vines the way Gareth read a man before a fight. She was fast and sure, and she did not run. Halfway through, she turned to check him, and Gareth caught himself looking at her, not the plants. The curve of her, the bare green skin, the way she moved. A jaw clapped shut inches from his face. He jerked back, heart slamming. "You looking at the teeth or at me?" Snikka said flat. Heat climbed Gareth's neck. "The teeth." "Liar." She gave a slight smile. "Keep your eyes on the ground. It won't eat me for you." She faced forward again and kept moving. He fixed his gaze on her boots and nothing else. One slip now would kill them both. They reached the far side and dropped behind a fallen log. The carnivorous wall hissed behind them. Ahead sat the bandit camp in its hollow. Rough tents leaned against a wooden fence. Smoke rose from a fire. Men moved among crates and spears. Gareth counted them twice. More than six. Many more. "You said a camp," Gareth whispered. "That's an army." "Didn't count them for you." Snikka watched the fire. "Twenty, maybe." A tall man stepped from the largest tent. He wore a green cloak and a heavy belt. He barked something short, and three men jumped to obey. The rest went quiet when he passed. Gareth knew a leader when he saw one. The tall man stopped at the fence. He looked straight at the log. "Tracks in the mud," he called, loud and plain. "Two sets. Come out or burn out." Bandits grabbed bows. Spears lowered toward the log. Gareth and Snikka pressed flat against each other. They were close enough to feel one another's breath. For once neither pulled away. They had crossed the plants together, and it bought them nothing but a worse fight. "That's Erik Thornwood," Snikka breathed. "He counts better than I do." Gareth drew his sword. The safe path was behind them, full of teeth. The deadly path was ahead, full of men. He had trusted the goblin to get here. Now he had to trust her to get out.

The bandits closed on the log, bows drawn, spears low. Erik Thornwood stood at the fence and watched his men work. Twenty against one sword and a goblin. Gareth knew those odds killed him. But he also knew what waited behind the log. The wall of teeth had almost eaten him an hour ago. Now it could eat the men coming for him instead. "The plants," Gareth breathed. "We run them into the plants." Snikka's yellow eyes flicked to the carnivorous wall, then back. She knew the safe path through it. The bandits did not. "They won't follow," she whispered. "They will if they're angry." Gareth grabbed her wrist and pulled her up. Snikka blushed at the sudden and unexpected grab from Gareth. Then he did the one thing no bandit expected. He charged the camp, Snikka at his side, straight at Erik Thornwood. The leader's hand dropped to his belt. Gareth didn't swing. He shoved past two spearmen, snatched a burning stick from the fire, and hurled it at the largest tent. Cloth caught fast. Smoke rolled up. The bandits turned to the flames, shouting. "Run," Gareth said. They bolted for the plant field. Erik's voice cut the chaos. "After them. Two sets of tracks. Take them." His men obeyed without question. A dozen bandits broke from the camp and gave chase, boots pounding the mud. Snikka hit the field first. She read the vines the way she'd taught him, each step landing in the gaps. Gareth copied her exactly. A jaw snapped at his ankle and missed. Behind them the bandits crashed in blind, chasing the two shapes ahead, watching the goblin and the man instead of the ground. The field woke up. The first bandit screamed as a red maw clamped his leg and dragged him down. A second lunged sideways to dodge and stepped into another set of jaws. The plants snapped and chewed, one man after another. Their yells pulled the rest in deeper, each trying to help, each finding teeth. Gareth did not look back. He matched Snikka's steps and kept his eyes on her boots. They reached the far side and dropped behind cover. The field thrashed and fed. Only three bandits staggered back out, bleeding, and fled toward the camp. The chase was over. Erik Thornwood stood at the fence, watching his tent burn and his men die in the flowers. He did not shout again. He counted what was left. Gareth's chest heaved. Half of Erik's force was gone in a single rush. He had come to clear this camp for coin, coin to break the curse on his village. Now the bandits had seen his face and knew his trick. They would not be lured twice. "That bought us nothing but his hate," Snikka said. "No." Gareth watched Erik turn and bark orders at the survivors. "It bought us half his army. But he knows us now. Next time he comes hunting."

The camp still smoked at dawn. Gareth crouched at the tree line and watched the ruined tents. The guild would not pay him until Thornwood was dead or gone. Thornwood still lived, with half his men around him. Gareth knew the truth plain. If he waited, the bandits would scatter into the woods and vanish, and the bounty with them. He had to end it now, today, or lose the coin he needed to break his village's curse. "He expects us from the field," Snikka said. The goblin crouched beside him, yellow eyes fixed on the fence. She had guided him through the carnivorous plants twice and saved his life once. He trusted her reading of this place more than his own. "He set guards there. Spears pointed at the flowers." "Then we don't come from the field." Gareth studied the camp's far side. Barricades of rough logs. Supply crates stacked loose. One narrow gap where the fence met a wagon they'd dragged in from some ambush. "He watches the one way in. He left his back open." Snikka showed her teeth. "You're learning." They circled wide through the brush. Gareth climbed the broken wagon and dropped inside the fence. Five bandits turned. He took the first before the man raised his spear. Snikka hit the second low, fast, a blade in his gut. The rest shouted and rushed. Erik Thornwood came from the large tent with a sword already drawn. He did not shout orders now. He had too few men left for orders. He came straight at Gareth, swinging hard. Gareth caught the blow on his cheap leather and felt it to the bone. "You burned my camp," Thornwood said. "You fed my men to flowers." "Walk away," Gareth said. "Take what's left and go." "No." Thornwood swung again. "This is all they have." They traded blows across the muddy ground. Thornwood was bigger, stronger. But he was tired and down to five men, and those five had Snikka in their midst, cutting them down one by one. Gareth saw the leader's eyes flick to his dying crew. In that flick, Gareth read him, the way he'd once read a guard captain in an alley. He stepped inside the next swing and drove his sword home. Thornwood dropped to his knees, wounded and unable to continue fighting. The last two bandits saw their leader fall and fled into the trees. Gareth let them run. The camp was his. Snikka wiped her blade clean. "Not bad for a cute little farm boy."

Thornwood knelt in the mud, one hand pressed to his side. Blood seeped between his fingers. Gareth stood over him, sword ready, but the man could not fight anymore. The ruined tents smoked around them. Scattered crates and broken barricades filled the clearing. Gareth lowered his blade. He thought of the coin he needed, the curse on his village, the newborn who would turn to stone this winter if he came home empty-handed. Dead men paid less than live ones. "The guild wants you gone," Gareth said. "They'll pay more if I bring you in breathing." Thornwood looked up. His face was gray, but his eyes held steady. "Then take me. My men are dead or run. The woods are empty now." "Why'd you stay? You could've scattered." "Nowhere to scatter to." Thornwood coughed. "They had no home but this. Neither did I." Gareth said nothing. He knew that kind of want. His father had worked one patch of dirt until it buried him. He pulled rope from a fallen supply crate and bound Thornwood's wrists behind him. He tied them tight, then checked the knot twice. The bandit leader did not resist. Snikka crouched by a dead man, wiping her blade on his cloak. She watched Gareth work the rope. Her yellow eyes followed his hands, the careful way he tied, the way he left the knot loose enough that Thornwood could still breathe through the pain. "You could kill him," she said. "Faster. Cleaner." "Guild pays double for live." Gareth hauled Thornwood to his feet. "That's not why." Snikka stood. She came close and studied his face. "You don't want him dead. You keep finding reasons to be soft. First me. Now him." Gareth met her look. "Softness got you out of my chains." She showed her teeth, but the grin was smaller now, almost warm. "Yeah. It did." She stepped back and slid her blade home. For a moment she just looked at him, the farm boy who caught her by waiting, who freed her instead of selling her, who tied a beaten man's hands gentle enough to spare his wound. Something in her chest she did not name pulled tight. She looked away first. "The road's half a day," she said. "He'll slow us." "Then he slows us." Gareth gathered what coin and food the camp still held. He pressed a share into Snikka's hands without being asked. She took it, surprised, and said nothing. They left the camp at midday, Thornwood walking ahead, bound and silent. Gareth kept one hand near his sword and one eye on the trees. The bounty was his now, alive and walking. The guild would pay. The coin for his village was close enough to touch. But the two bandits who fled had seen his face. And the lord who wanted these woods cleared would want to know who cleared them. Gareth did not yet know that collecting this bounty meant walking straight into the lord's reach.

By midafternoon Thornwood could barely walk. The wound in his side bled through the cloth Gareth had bound. He stumbled on a root and went down to one knee. His breath came ragged. Gareth saw the gray in his face and knew the man would die on his feet before he complained. They were still a half day from the guild. Gareth made the call. His own camp was close, a lean-to of weathered timber near a cold fire ring. He hauled Thornwood toward it. Snikka walked ahead and scouted the trees. "You stop, you lose time," she said. "He stops now or he dies on the road," Gareth said. "Dead men pay less." They settled Thornwood on the worn bedroll under the shelter. Gareth built the fire back up and set water to boil. He peeled the old binding away and packed the wound clean. Thornwood watched him work with flat, steady eyes. "Why bother," Thornwood said. "You sell me either way." "Guild wants you breathing." Gareth tied the fresh cloth. "So you breathe." Thornwood was quiet a while. The fire popped. Then he spoke, low and plain. "You should know who you're walking toward. The lord who hired your guild. Harlow Grimwold." Gareth stilled. "Tell me." "He owns the forest. Every tree, every road." Thornwood coughed. "Poachers caught on his ground pay a fine. He works them till they've paid three times the timber's worth. None finish. When they die, the debt goes to their family." He met Gareth's eyes. "My men poached his deer to eat. That's why we hid in these woods. That's why we had nowhere else." Snikka crouched by the fire. "Forty guards," she said. "I've seen them on the eastern road. They don't take prisoners for ransom. They take them for work." Thornwood nodded. "The guild didn't tell you his name. They never do. You clear the road, you walk to his manor to collect. He pays you, or he finds a reason you owe him instead." He leaned back. "He hanged his own guard once for grumbling. Sent the man's family the bill." Gareth sat back on his heels. The coin for his village had felt close enough to touch. Now he saw the hand that held it. A lord who turned every debt into a chain. Gareth knew that kind of debt. It had buried his father under rent he could never outrun. "The bandits who ran," Gareth said slowly. "They saw my face." "Then Grimwold knows your name by now," Thornwood said. "He knows who cleared his road. He'll want to meet you." Gareth looked at the bound man he had meant to simply hand over. The bounty was no longer a clean trade. Walking to the manor meant walking into Grimwold's reach, where a payment could become a debt and a man could vanish into the woods to cut trees until he died. "Damn…That complicates things now." Gareth said. "I really need to save my village, but I can’t do it at the cost of another. Shoot!" Snikka watches Gareth’s emotional conflict and finds herself developing romantic feelings for him.

The fire burned low. Thornwood slept under the lean-to, his breath steady now. Gareth sat outside, turning a problem he could not cut with a sword. Grimwold's manor meant debt or death. The guild bounty waited behind that gate. He needed another road home. Snikka crouched across the fire, watching him. She knew the forest better than any map. She had not offered to help him pass. "You know the back trails," Gareth said. "The ones Grimwold's guards don't walk." "I know all of them." Snikka picked at the dirt with one of her daggers. The blade caught the firelight, red runes glowing along the steel. "Why would I lead you through them?" "Because I'm asking." She shook her head. "Not enough. You keep your mouth shut about everything that matters. I don't guide a man I don't know." She pointed the dagger at him. "Why do you fight, Gareth? Not for coin. I've watched you give coin back." Gareth stared at the flames. He had told no one. The words had lived in his chest for a year. But Snikka had saved his life in the plant field. She had killed bandits at his side. He let it out. "My village is cursed," he said. "Every winter solstice, one newborn turns to stone. A baby. Every year." His voice went rough. "My father died in debt and couldn't help them. I left to find coin and a cure. That's the whole of it. That's why I take the jobs no one else will." The fire popped. Snikka set her dagger down. She did not speak right away. When she did, her voice had lost its edge. "A child," she said. "Every year." "Every year." She looked at him for a long moment. Something shifted in her yellow eyes. She had ridden with crews who left her bleeding in the road. She had trusted men who sold her. This one had waited her out instead of grabbing, had cut her chains, had bound an enemy's wound with gentle hands. Now she knew why. "You should have told me that at the start," she said quietly. She rose and came around the fire. She sat beside him, close, her shoulder against his. "I'll take you past Grimwold. There's a deer trail north of the manor. His guards never use it. We can reach the eastern road from there." "You're sure?" "I'm sure." She held his gaze. "I don't help many people, Gareth. I'm helping you." Her hand found his. "A man who fights to save babies he'll never meet. I didn't think men like you were real." Gareth felt the knot in his chest ease. He had a road now. And he was not walking it alone. Then Snikka stiffened. Her ears twitched. Boots crunched the brush beyond the firelight. A heavy axe scraped a tree. Armor creaked in the dark. Someone had found the camp.

Gareth kicked dirt over the fire. The light died. In the dark, he counted the sounds. Four sets of boots. Maybe five. Steel scraped leather all around the camp. These were not soldiers in clean armor. These were hired killers, the kind Grimwold paid to make problems vanish. "Thornwood," Gareth hissed. "Wake up." The bandit leader rolled from the lean-to, wound and all. He read the dark fast. "Five," he said. "Two left. Two right. One behind the shelter." He had set scatter points his whole life. He knew an ambush by sound. Snikka pressed her back to Gareth's. Her daggers came out, red runes glowing faint in her hands. "They want us pinned," she whispered. "Don't let them." A man stepped into the clearing. Thick leather armor, spikes on the shoulder, a bearded axe held low. Old blood crusted the steel. He grinned at them. "Lord Grimwold sends his thanks," he said. "For the bandit work. Now he wants the loose ends tied." "Loose ends," Gareth said. "You. The goblin. All of it." The thug raised his axe. "Nothing personal." They came at once. Gareth had no sword drawn, only the weapon he had taken from the old camp cache that morning. He pulled it now. An old blade and a round wooden shield, bound together, green vines carved into the face. The wood hummed warm against his arm. He raised the shield as the axe fell. The blow should have split the wood. It did not. The shield held like stone. The impact jarred Gareth's teeth but not his footing. He shoved back and drove the old sword into the gap below the thug's spiked shoulder. The man grunted and dropped. Snikka moved like water. She slipped under a swing, opened a man's leg, then his throat. Thornwood took a third by the wrist and broke it over his knee, then crushed the man's skull with a rock. Two thugs left. They saw their leader down and faltered. Gareth did not wait. He charged. The green shield turned a wild cut. His blade found the next man's chest. The last thug ran for the trees. Thornwood threw a dagger. The runner fell and did not rise. Silence came back. Gareth stood over the thug leader, breathing hard. The man was still alive, blood at his lips. "How many does Grimwold have?" Gareth asked. "More," the thug rasped. "He knows your face. He'll send them to your village next. He knows where you're from." He laughed wet, then stopped breathing. Gareth went cold. His village. The curse. Grimwold would reach the babies before the solstice did. Snikka wiped her blades clean. "Then we don't go east to hide," she said. "We go to him first." Gareth looked at the glowing shield on his arm. He nodded. The deer trail would not take him home now. It would take him to Grimwold.