RIDING WITH THE BEAST
The rain had softened the earth all through the previous week, turning the old track behind Black Rock’s storehouses into dark, clinging mud that pulled at boots and hooves alike. A group of men had been clearing away fallen timber and overgrown brambles to widen the path for supply carts, their shirts soaked through and their shoulders glistening with sweat and rain, when one of their spades struck something hard and hollow, not rock or root, but something shaped and man‑made. They pulled away the dirt and moss to find a heavy oak chest bound with rusted iron bands, half‑buried beneath the roots of an ancient thorn bush that had stood there longer than anyone could remember. By sunset, they had uncovered three more just like it, set deep in the ground in a neat line
