The past comes biting

The concealed track descends beneath ancient trees and opens into a terraced garden. Rare healing plants fill stone beds, while bundles of herbs hang from wooden drying racks.

An elderly elf woman steps from a low stone shed, slender beneath a brown wool shawl, her silver hair braided close to a weathered face. She carries a pruning knife and wears green-stained gloves.

Mara’s gaze fixes on the black seal among Matt’s recovered belongings. Her knife lowers, though her shoulders remain guarded, and the garden’s quiet seems suddenly watchful.

Matt indicates the concealed track with the folded scrap. A gust lifts its edge, revealing the marked line continuing beneath the garden’s lowest terrace.

Mara snatches the scrap, and the color drains from her weathered face. Her pruning knife points toward the stone shed, then toward a narrow arch hidden among the herbs.

Beyond the narrow arch, darkness breathes through a half-open stone gate. Damp leaves lie undisturbed on the garden side, but fresh boot marks cross the threshold.

Mara grips the scrap until its edges crumple. From within the arch comes a faint scrape of stone, followed by the soft fall of loosened earth.

She thrusts the parchment back toward Matt and moves to the shed wall, where a row of clay jars hides an iron latch. Her guarded calm hardens into urgency.

The garden falls silent around them. Then, under the lowest terrace, something knocks once against the buried gate from the far side.

Matt motions Mara into the shed. She understands at once, slips through the doorway, and leaves the iron latch exposed beside the clay jars.

Matt melts into the terrace shadows, placing the shed doorway at his back and the narrow arch before him. From there, every stone and boot mark lies visible.

Inside the shed, Mara shifts jars with careful silence. Her fingers find the hidden latch, but she waits, listening for the gate.

The buried gate knocks again, twice this time. Dust trickles from the arch, and a thin blade of cold air enters the herb-scented garden.

A faint scrape answers from beyond the arch. The old gate shifts inward by a finger’s breadth, revealing darkness packed with damp earth and listening silence.

Matt remains motionless in the terrace shadows, keeping the narrow arch framed between hanging herbs and the shed wall. His breathing matches the garden’s restless leaves.

The buried gate grinds wider. A gloved hand appears first, testing the stone threshold, followed by a young adult man in dark boiled leather and a rain-dark cloak.

His narrow face is pale beneath cropped black hair, and a strip of red cloth circles his left wrist. He carries a short sword low and scans the garden without speaking.

The scout steps fully through, leaving damp soil on the stones. Behind him, another shadow shifts in the passage, broader and slower, while Mara’s hand closes around the hidden latch.

Matt’s first needle slips from concealment toward the second entrant’s neck. The broader figure jerks aside, and the needle catches his cloak, pinning its hem to the gate’s splintered inner frame.

The second entrant is an elderly man with a powerful build, iron-gray beard, and a mud-dark traveling coat. He tears free, exposing a bronze key tied beneath his belt.

The scout whirls at the sudden struggle. Matt’s second needle crosses the opening, missing the scout’s neck and striking the leather strap of his sword sheath.

The needle severs the strap. The short sword drops awkwardly against the stones, and the scout stumbles as he catches it, no longer ready to strike.

The gate remains wedged open by the pinned cloak, while the bronze key glints within reach of the broader entrant. The blocked threshold offers Matt a choice beyond another thrown needle.

Matt bursts from the terrace shadows, dagger leading. The Ledger scout recoils and throws up his forearm; the blade skims leather instead of finding its mark.

Matt’s reaching hand seizes the fallen shortsword. He swings its pommel toward the elderly man’s forehead, but the broad intruder twists aside at the last instant.

The pommel strikes the man’s shoulder rather than his head. He staggers against the gate, and the bronze key tears loose from its cord, clattering beside the inner threshold.

The Ledger scout lunges barehanded, but his severed sheath strap tangles around one boot. He catches himself against the gate, leaving the passage mouth briefly exposed.

The failed strike has split the intruders’ formation: the Ledger scout is off balance, the old man blocks the gate, and the bronze key lies within Matt’s immediate reach beside the inner door.

Matt crouches and snatches up the bronze key. He plants one hand, drives upward, and turns backward through the air as the gate stones blur beneath him.

At the height of the back flip, his left hand releases a dagger. The blade strikes the elderly man high in the chest, forcing him hard against the gate and leaving him stunned.

Matt lands beyond the old man’s reach, key secured in one hand and the shortsword balanced in the other. The Ledger scout’s bare boot slips again on the severed strap.

The elderly intruder sags against the gate, one hand clutching the dagger’s hilt without pulling it free. Beyond him, darkness shifts as another presence presses close.

Matt dashes across the threshold and drives the bronze key into the scout’s temple. The scout’s eyes lose focus, and he collapses hard against the stones.

Matt pivots through the narrow space and kicks the sagging elderly intruder farther into the passage. The old man slides beyond the gate, dragging his cloak from the pinned stone.

The kick echoes through the buried corridor, loud enough to shake dust from the arch. Matt’s striking hand stings, and the bronze key is bent along one edge.

The unconscious scout lies sprawled across the threshold, while the older intruder groans deeper in the passage. Cold air pours around them from the darkness beyond.

Inside the corridor, the bronze keyhole waits beneath a band of ancient runes. Behind the fallen scout, fresh movement stirs in the earth-choked dark.

Matt turns the bent bronze key in the ancient lock. The runes flare once, and the buried gate grinds shut, sealing the corridor with the scout and older intruder beyond it.

He wrenches the key free and snaps it against the stone threshold. The break rings sharply through the passage, and the jagged metal cuts his palm.

The ancient runes fade beneath the broken key. Dust settles from the arch as the sealed gate holds, though muffled pounding begins on the far side.

Matt steps back over the unconscious scout and exits the passage. Blood beads across his palm, leaving a dark mark on the bronze fragments clenched in his fingers.

Mara emerges from the shed with a linen strip and a small clay jar. Her guarded gaze moves from Matt’s bleeding hand to the locked arch.

Discover what lies beneath the garden