Crossing Wolf Pass took three days, and the third was the worst.
There were no wolves. There was only a cold wind that blew from the north without stopping, a thin rain that turned to ice on the rocks by dawn, and a narrow road that twisted between two walls of black stone. They slept two nights under rock overhangs. On the third, neither of them slept, because the wind kept tearing away whatever blankets they laid down.
By the time they finally climbed down the far side, Rico had nearly stopped talking, and Esteban felt like his fingers belonged to someone else.
"Is this the valley?" Rico asked.
Esteban opened the map with a thought. The blue screen flared in front of his face, showing mountain lines and rivers. Halfway to La Cora, between the pass and the Serena River, a deep basin carried a small name: Sun Valley.
"Yes."
"Is there a village?"
"I don't think so. There's one house."
"One house in a whole valley?" He frowned. "That's strange."
"Maybe someone lives there alone."
"Or maybe someone we should avoid."
Esteban didn't answer. He could feel something in the air, somewhere between a smell and a sense, and he couldn't tell what. He closed the map and started down the slope.
The smoke came first.
A thin white thread rose from a chimney among the pines, half a mile off, straight in the still air. As they drew closer they saw the house: gray stone with a roof of dark wooden planks, ringed by a low wall of stacked rocks, a small orchard behind it, and an empty barn.
But it wasn't the house that caught Esteban's eye.
It was the ground around it.
Dozens of marks scarred the black soil: dry brown stains, old, and red ones, fresh. Broken arrows. A broad sword with a snapped blade lying by the wall. Part of a burned cart. A severed rope. A scrap of red cloth hung on a branch the way banners are hung.
"A fight," he said quietly.
"A recent one." Rico crouched over a stain and tested it with a finger. "This blood isn't dry. It's from yesterday."
"Or tonight."
Before they could say more, a voice rose.
"Stop where you are."
The voice was rough and calm, and it came from behind the wall.
They stopped.
At first Esteban saw no one. Then a dark shape moved among the pine trunks, and a man stepped out, walking with deliberate ease. He was tall and broad-shouldered, in his late fifties, with short gray hair, a face full of lines and scars, and small eyes that never wavered.
He carried an ordinary longsword, its blade held low at his side. On his left forearm was a filthy bandage, stained with blood.
The screen appeared at once, red, hanging in the air between the two men:
[WARNING: Opponent far exceeds your level]
[Threat level: Extreme]
Esteban felt his throat go dry.
"Raise your hands."
"We're..." Rico began.
"Raise them."
They raised their hands.
The man approached at a steady pace until he was twenty steps away. He walked like someone who knew exactly where to put his foot, as if the ground were part of his body. His blade swayed slightly with his stride, without ever glinting or trembling.
"How many are you?"
"Two," said Rico.
"How many behind you?"
"No one."
"That's what the last ones said."
"The last ones?" Esteban asked.
The man didn't answer. He kept staring at them, then spoke in a lower voice:
"Tell your boss the house isn't for sale. I told him twice, I told his men five times, and this is six. If he comes again, I won't break an arm. I'll break something farther up."
"We don't know your boss."
"Everyone who walks this valley knows him."
"We're not walking it. We're crossing it."
"To where?"
"La Cora."
The man's eyes narrowed.
"By this road?"
"That's what the map says."
"What map?"
"A map." Rico cut in quickly. "We've got a map. It goes through the valley. Or... *I've* got a map. Listen, if we were with somebody's crew, why aren't we wearing anything red?"
"What?"
"A red cloth. A neckerchief. Anything." He tipped his head toward the scrap on the branch. "Everyone who fights here wears red, right? And we're not wearing anything."
The man looked at the branch, then at their chests, then at their wrists.
His eyes settled on Esteban's left hand first.
"Show me your palm."
Esteban looked at his palm. It was rough, split at the fingers, the skin thick and untreated. There was no trace of a tattoo on it.
"You've worked wood."
"Woodcutter."
"Since when?"
"Since I was small."
"And you?" He turned to Rico.
"I'm a thief." He said it plainly. "Was. Still am. But I don't rob haunted houses."
"An honest thief."
"I have my reasons."
"Do you carry a knife?"
"One. For bread."
"Take it out."
Rico drew it slowly and set it on the ground. The man looked at it for a moment, then brought his eyes back to Esteban.
"And your sword?"
"Wood."
"I see iron."
"It was wood."
"Are you trying to tell me you..." He stopped, then slowly shook his head. "Never mind."
He lowered his sword until its tip touched the ground.
"Sorry."
He said it dryly, like a man unused to saying it.
"I took you for one of theirs. They come in groups, pretend to be travelers, then open the doors from behind." He scratched the side of his neck with his good hand. "Nobody passes through this valley. Anyone who does wants something."
"And we don't want anything," said Esteban.
"I see that." He looked at Rico, who still had his hands up. "Put your arms down. You're shaking."
"I'm not shaking."
"Your arms are shaking."
"That's the cold."
"Sit."
The man pointed to two large stones near the wall, and they sat. He took the edge of the wall opposite, his sword between his knees, his eyes on the road they'd come from, checking it every few seconds.
"I'm Diego."
At that, Esteban froze.
It wasn't the name that stunned him. It was the face. The lines he'd never seen, the scars he didn't know, the way he sat, tilted slightly to the right, like a man who'd hurt his back long ago.
"Diego the Lion?"
The man snapped his head up, brow knotted. "And where did you hear that name?"
"My father." He didn't know how to explain it neatly, so he went with the simplest thing he had. "He used to tell us about you. I saw you once, in the Marina market, about thirty years ago. I was small. I don't remember much."
"Marina?" He frowned. "The northern village?"
"Yes."
"I passed through once or twice." He shrugged. "I was on my way somewhere else."
"You stopped three bandits without a weapon."
"Did I?" He didn't look interested. "I don't remember."
"My father did."
"And who's your father?"
"Carlos. The woodcutter."
Diego was silent a moment, then shook his head.
"I don't remember him."
"That's all right. He was an ordinary man."
"Maybe." Then, after a short while: "And how is he?"
"He died years ago."
"Sorry."
"Thank you."
No one said anything else. Diego looked at the ground, then the house, then the road, and then said, as if the earlier conversation had never happened:
"You two are hungry."
When Esteban reached for the wooden doorframe to steady himself, something faint reached him from his new skill. It wasn't words, just a trace: dozens of small scars in the wood, deep gashes from blades that had gone in and come out, some old, some not even a week old.
The door itself was a battlefield. It had absorbed what no one else could.
The inside of the house was cleaner than he'd expected.
One large room with a high beamed ceiling, a wide stone hearth, a polished wooden table, a few chairs, and shelves lined with neatly arranged pots and jars. No decoration. No flowers. No paintings. Only what was necessary, arranged the way a man arranges things after living alone a long time and learning that mess costs time he doesn't have.
On a far wall hung an old sword, covered with a cloth.
"Sit."
They sat. Diego began preparing food with calm movements, chopping onions and potatoes and dropping them into a pot over the fire, talking without turning around.
"I'll put in what I have. It's not much. Potatoes, onions, a piece of dried meat."
"That's plenty," said Rico.
"Don't expect flavor."
"We'll survive."
"How long do you plan to stay?"
"One night," said Esteban. "Or less. We'll go in the morning."
"Fine. There's a room upstairs. One bed, one blanket. One of you sleeps on the floor."
"Me," said Rico quickly.
"I'll do it," said Esteban.
"No." Rico raised a hand. "You're older, and heavier, and I'm afraid you'd crush the floor."
"I'll add a third spoon."
They ate in silence.
The stew was hot and heavy and far too salty, but it was warm, and Esteban could feel every bite returning something to his frozen limbs. He glanced at Rico and saw him eating slowly and carefully, as if relearning how to eat hot food in a safe place.
"Is this yours?" Esteban asked after a while, nodding at the house.
"Yes."
"Since when?"
"Eight years." Diego cut a piece of meat. "Before that I lived in the north, but after the Great Disappearance I didn't want to stay there. I bought this place from a man who wanted to leave."
"Why this valley?"
"Quiet."
"Was it quiet?"
Diego let out a short, hoarse laugh.
"Three years. Then the ones you've met showed up."
"Who are they?"
"A gang. I don't know their names. They call themselves the Red Mountain men, or something like that." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "They want the house. And the land under it."
"Why?"
"Because there's a gold mine under it."
Rico stopped eating.
"What?"
"A vein of gold. Not huge, but enough for a man to live in luxury for twenty years." He waved his spoon in the air. "The man who built the house before me found it and told no one. I found it by accident while digging a cellar to store food. Then word got out."
"How did it get out?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'm the one who talked, once, in an inn." He looked at the pot. "I don't remember."
"And they attack you every day?"
"Every week or so. At first they offered money. Then they made threats. Then they came with weapons."
"Why don't you sell them the house? For the money they're offering?"
"I don't want to."
"Why?"
Diego didn't answer right away. He looked at Rico, then at Esteban, then shrugged.
"I have my reasons."
There was no anger in it. It was just a man who didn't want to talk, nothing more. But Esteban noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Diego glanced quickly at the back window before going on eating.
Beyond the window, at the far end of the orchard, under a lone pine tree, something small lay in the grass.
A mound of earth, with a wooden board planted upright in it.
No one said anything.
When they finished eating, Diego got up, cleaned the plates, and pointed to the wooden stairs.
"The room's upstairs. Blankets are in the chest."
"Thank you," said Esteban.
"No thanks needed."
"All the same. Thank you."
"You're odd."
"So I've been told."
Diego nodded, then took his longsword from beside the hearth and sat in the chair facing the door, the blade across his knees.
"You're not going to sleep?" Rico asked.
"I'll sleep in a bit."
"Are you waiting for someone?"
"Maybe."
"Tonight?"
"I don't know. They don't keep appointments."
Rico had stopped at the foot of the stairs, studying him with a strange look.
"We could help you. If you want."
Diego looked at him for a long time.
"No. This is my problem."
"But you're hurt."
"I've been hurt for two weeks. I'm used to it."
"That arm needs a fresh bandage."
"I'll do it."
"No, you won't. I will." The boy stepped forward and pulled a clean strip of cloth and a small bottle from his pack. "Sit."
"I don't need..."
"Sit."
Diego stared into that small freckled face. Then, to Esteban's surprise, he sat.
While Rico carefully unwound the old bandage, Diego raised his eyes to Esteban.
"Your friend talks a lot."
"Yes."
"But he knows what he's doing."
"Yes."
"Fine." He drew a breath through clenched teeth. "I'll keep you both tonight."
Outside, rain began falling on the wooden planks of the roof, soft and steady, like the sound of something enormous going to sleep.