For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The forest seed even quieter now.
The notebook remained in Marcus’s hand while the last words lingered in his mind.
They’re here.
Not "it."
Not "sothing."
They.
Plural.
Whoever or whatever attacked the caravan wasn’t alone.
That matched the tracks.
Hundreds of tracks.
Hundreds of signs.
Hundreds of questions.
Marcus looked toward the radio.
"Predator, send the feed to my tablet."
"Copy."
A few seconds later, a video feed appeared on the rugged military tablet carried by one of the communications personnel.
Marcus imdiately walked toward him.
The rest of the squad followed.
Tomas.
Rolf.
Several infantryn.
Everyone wanted answers.
The drone footage stabilized.
The cara looked down from several thousand feet above the forest.
At first, all Marcus saw was trees.
Endless trees.
Then the operator zood out.
The picture changed.
A visible trail cut through the forest.
Not a road.
Not a river.
A trail.
A massive trail.
The trees themselves had been crushed flat.
As though sothing large moved repeatedly through the area.
The track stretched westward.
Farther.
Farther.
And farther.
The operator continued zooming.
Eventually, the source appeared.
Nobody said anything.
Because for several seconds nobody understood what they were seeing.
The image looked wrong.
Very wrong.
Marcus narrowed his eyes.
The clearing was enormous.
Several hundred ters across.
Far larger than anything natural.
Trees had been uprooted.
The ground had been torn apart.
The area looked almost like a battlefield.
Then the cara zood further.
And the truth beca visible.
The clearing wasn’t empty.
It was filled with wagons.
Dozens of them.
Marcus froze.
Tomas froze.
Even Rolf stopped breathing for a second.
The drone cara continued zooming.
The image sharpened.
The wagons beca clearer.
Broken wagons.
Destroyed wagons.
Wagons from different rchant companies.
Different colors.
Different construction styles.
Different ages.
So looked recent.
Others appeared old.
Very old.
The clearing resembled a graveyard.
A graveyard of caravans.
"Holy shit," one infantryman whispered.
Nobody corrected him.
Because that was exactly the appropriate response.
Marcus stared at the screen.
The missing caravan hadn’t vanished.
At least not completely.
Pieces of it were there.
Among dozens of others.
How many?
Twenty?
Thirty?
Fifty?
The exact number was difficult to determine.
So wagons were buried beneath vegetation.
Others had collapsed long ago.
But one thing was obvious.
The missing caravan wasn’t the first.
And probably wasn’t the last.
Tomas folded his arms.
"Nobody found this?"
Marcus shook his head.
"No aircraft."
That was the answer.
From the ground, finding this location would have been nearly impossible.
The forest canopy hid everything.
Only a bird.
Or a drone.
Could have seen it.
The Predator operator spoke through the radio.
"That’s not all, sir."
Marcus imdiately looked up.
"What else?"
A pause followed.
Then:
"We’re detecting structures."
The cara shifted.
Several operators adjusted the image remotely.
The drone feed moved toward the center of the clearing.
At first Marcus didn’t see it.
Then he did.
Wood.
Large wooden structures.
Primitive.
Crude.
But definitely artificial.
Buildings.
Not many.
Maybe ten.
Maybe fifteen.
Constructed from timber and branches.
Half hidden beneath the forest canopy.
Marcus felt his stomach tighten.
Because this was no monster nest.
This looked organized.
Very organized.
Tomas reached the sa conclusion.
"Settlent."
"Yeah."
The word felt uncomfortable.
Settlents implied intelligence.
Planning.
Social structure.
The kind of thing that created problems.
Big problems.
The operator continued.
"Thermal scan active."
The image shifted again.
A new layer appeared.
And imdiately the clearing exploded with color.
Heat signatures.
Hundreds of them.
Marcus stared.
Then looked closer.
Then stared again.
The number kept increasing.
Red.
Orange.
Yellow.
Everywhere.
The clearing was packed.
Completely packed.
Hundreds of heat signatures moved between the structures.
So clustered together.
So wandered.
So remained stationary.
Marcus imdiately grabbed the radio.
"How many?"
The operator sounded uneasy.
"We’re still counting."
"Estimate."
A longer pause followed.
Then:
"Four hundred minimum."
The entire squad beca silent.
Four hundred.
That wasn’t a monster pack.
That wasn’t a tribe.
That wasn’t a wandering group.
That was an organized population.
And apparently it lived in the middle of nowhere.
Hidden beneath the forest.
Undetected.
Marcus zood further.
The thermal signatures varied significantly.
So appeared human-sized.
Others much larger.
Much.
Larger.
Marcus felt a knot form in his stomach.
Because one of the larger signatures stood nearly three ters tall according to scale estimates.
Another approached four.
The operator noticed the sa thing.
"We’re seeing significant size variation."
No kidding.
The giant heat signatures moved through the settlent like oversized predators among smaller creatures.
Marcus didn’t like that.
Not one bit.
Then the cara shifted again.
And everything got worse.
Much worse.
Because scattered throughout the settlent were horses.
Lots of horses.
Tied down.
Contained.
Alive.
Several infantryn exchanged looks.
The missing caravan’s horses.
Or at least so of them.
The evidence kept building.
This place was connected.
Directly.
To the disappearances.
The operator’s voice suddenly sharpened.
"Movent."
Marcus imdiately focused.
"What kind?"
The drone cara zood toward one section of the settlent.
A group of figures erged from a large wooden structure.
The image sharpened.
Then sharpened again.
Marcus felt his jaw tighten.
Because among them—
Were humans.
Not creatures.
Not monsters.
Humans.
So wore rchant clothing.
Others looked like caravan guards.
One man still wore partial chainmail armor.
The figures moved slowly.
Several appeared injured.
So looked malnourished.
One stumbled.
Another nearly collapsed.
The entire squad stared at the screen.
The missing people.
At least so of them.
Alive.
Rolf looked horrified.
"Those are prisoners."
Nobody disagreed.
The evidence was overwhelming now.
This wasn’t a random attack.
This wasn’t a monster ambush.
This was organized.
Systematic.
Sothing out there was capturing people.
Taking caravans.
And apparently collecting them.
Marcus imdiately activated his radio.
"Predator."
"Go ahead."
"Maintain surveillance."
"Copy."
"Do not lose that settlent."
"Understood."
Marcus looked toward Tomas.
Their eyes t.
Both n reached the sa conclusion imdiately.
This mission had changed.
Completely.
The objective was no longer investigation.
Now it was intelligence gathering.
Because attacking blindly would be suicide.
Four hundred heat signatures.
Unknown creatures.
Unknown capabilities.
Unknown defenses.
No.
They needed information first.
Lots of information.
Marcus looked back at the tablet.
The settlent continued moving below.
Like an ant colony.
Busy.
Organized.
Hidden.
Then the drone operator suddenly spoke again.
His voice sounded tense.
Very tense.
"Commander."
Marcus imdiately looked up.
"What?"
A pause followed.
Then:
"I think sothing just noticed the drone."
The air seed to freeze.
Marcus grabbed the radio tighter.
"What do you an noticed?"
The operator swallowed audibly.
"One of the larger heat signatures."
The cara zood.
A massive figure stood near the center of the settlent.
Even from thousands of feet above, it looked enormous.
The thing slowly raised its head.
Then stared directly upward.
Toward the sky.
Toward the Predator.
Toward sothing it should not have been able to see.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
Because every person in the squad understood exactly why that was terrifying.
The Predator flew thousands of feet above the forest.
It was tiny.
Practically invisible.
Yet sohow—
Sothing down there appeared to be looking directly at it.
The creature continued staring upward.
Motionless.
Silent.
Watching.
Then the drone feed suddenly flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Three tis.
The operator’s voice exploded through the radio.
"Signal interference!"
Marcus’s eyes widened.
"What?"
The video feed distorted briefly.
Static flashed across the screen.
Then stabilized again.
But the creature was still there.
Still looking upward.
Still watching.
And for the first ti since arriving at the wreck site, Marcus felt genuine concern.
Because whatever existed in that hidden settlent wasn’t just dangerous.
It might already know Atlas was watching.
And that changed everything.
The mission had started as a search for a missing caravan.
Now it looked like Atlas had just discovered sothing far larger.
Sothing hidden.
Sothing intelligent.
And sothing that might already be preparing for them.
The forest suddenly felt much larger.
Much darker.
Marcus looked around the silent trees surrounding the wreck.
A single wagon.
That was all they had found so far.
Yet sohow, it already pointed toward sothing far bigger than a simple caravan disappearance.
The notebook remained tucked under his arm while he stared at the endless track marks cutting through the forest floor.
Hundreds of them.
Maybe more.
Whatever made them had moved through here repeatedly.
Not once.
Not twice.
Repeatedly.
Like this wasn’t a hunting ground.
Like it was a route.
A path.
A system.
Tomas stepped beside him.
"You thinking what I’m thinking?"
Marcus nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
The forr instructor followed his gaze toward the west.
"The wagon isn’t the destination."
"No."
Marcus looked back toward the tracks.
"The wagon is just the first clue."
Above them, unseen beyond the clouds, the Predator continued following the trail from the sky.
And sowhere farther west, hidden beyond the forest, sothing was waiting at the end of it.
The deeper Marcus looked into the mystery, the more he realized they weren’t investigating a single disappearance anymore. They had stumbled onto sothing much older. Much larger. Whatever lived beyond those forests had been operating for a long ti, and until today, nobody had even known it existed.
Sothing that had taken an entire caravan without leaving a trace.
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