Three hundred time loops—perhaps slightly more—had passed through his life. He'd cleared the first as a green pup, when Chief Decurion Urgul had dragged him by the scruff of his neck and shoved his nose in every mistake. The last—already commanding a hundred, when grey had broken through black hair, and scars numbered more than he could recall.

  Some loops were short—burst in, cleared all inhabitants, emerged within half a day. Some were middling—a day, two, three. A week was considered a long clearing, after which warriors collapsed on their feet and slept for days.

  Ten days in a time loop—only a handful endured. Orgatai had participated in four such—and each had left a mark deeper than any scar.

  After the first, for three months he couldn't look at fire without trembling hands. After the second, he stopped distinguishing where reality ended and vision began. The third took half the company—those who emerged were no longer the same people. The fourth he'd led himself and swore he'd never lead another warrior there, even under threat of death.

  And now fifteen days.

  Fifteen damned days. And he'd sent the youngsters into these caves himself.

  Orgatai had lost count of how many times he'd sat before the entrance and hypnotised it with his gaze. This strange meditation helped—an old orcish technique, when the body becomes stone and the mind—an empty space above it. But even stone crumbles with time.

  Supplies melted faster than he'd calculated. The dried meat ran out on the fifth day. The flatbreads—on the eleventh. He'd had to take his bow and clamber up the slopes, searching for snow rams.

  The first time brought no luck. The ram scented him too early, forcing him to chase it across rocky ledges for half an hour. When he'd finally cornered the beast between cliffs and finished it, his hands trembled—not from fatigue, from anger at himself. Each minute away from the cave was a minute when he might miss their exit. When they might emerge and not find him. Decide he'd abandoned them.

  The second he'd brought down with a clean shot—the arrow entered the heart, the animal didn't even manage to cry out. He didn't butcher the carcass on the spot, and his kill had already attracted other predators. The hungry bear was fortunate the old man loathed their meat.

  Whilst Orgatai had grown accustomed to managing for months on nothing but meat and snow, for the horse this was absolutely impossible. Zhuldyz suffered. Each day more severely. Ribs protruded beneath her winter coat in sharp knobs. Her croup had sunken. Eyes, once lively and bright, had dulled, filled with such sorrow that the orc couldn't look at her long, turned away.

  Orgatai stroked the mare's warm muzzle each morning, long, slowly, as he'd once stroked his sons' heads. He whispered apologies in his native tongue—words she didn't understand, but seemed to sense the intonation. He promised that soon everything would end. That only a little longer to bear. That he hadn't forgotten her.

  He lied—to himself and to her. Both knew it.

  Yesterday evening he'd made his decision. When he went into the chasm—and he would go, noon or no noon—he'd pour all remaining feed before Zhuldyz. Remove the hobbles. Untie the reins. Give her a chance to return to people on her own, when the food ran out and instinct drove her down, towards grass and water.

  The mare was clever. She'd find the way. And if not—at least she'd die free, not tethered to stone awaiting a master who'd never return.

  Thoughts spun, wound on a spindle like thread. His body swayed—forwards-backwards, forwards-backwards. An ancient rhythm, to which orcs entered battle trance. To which shamans spoke with spirits. To which Orgatai now hypnotised the black maw of the cave, as though he could drag his people from there by force of gaze.

  Forwards-backwards. Forwards-backwards.

  Having brought himself to the necessary state, the orc rose.

  The sunbeam crawled slowly, as though deliberately prolonging the moment, the final finger's breadth across the rough stone surface and finally touched the upper edge of the scratch on the wall—that very mark Orgatai had left at dawn.

  The beam reached the scratch.

  Orgatai froze. Stopped breathing.

  And from the darkness came a sound. Not scraping. Not whispering. Footsteps.

  Into the light cast by sunrays that, penetrating through the opening, filled a good third of the cavern hall, slowly stepped Ayan. A heavy gait—not weariness, no. Orgatai had seen weary warriors. This was different. As though his legs had grown accustomed to different weight, different ground, and now had to relearn distributing his body in space.

  The lad stopped at the boundary of light and shadow. He turned his head—slowly, as though checking that the world had remained in place. That walls still held up the sky. That stones wouldn't shift beneath his feet.

  And his gaze.

  Orgatai had seen this gaze before. Many times. After battles, where reality's boundaries became blurred, like ink on wet paper. The reflection of steel in his eyes—no metaphor. When a person looks long into a blade and sees his own reflection in it, something in him changes. Pupils harden. Become sharp.

  Joy surged in Orgatai's chest, like a bird breaking from a branch. Alive. Returned. Endured.

  But wings folded before the bird could soar.

  Behind Ayan's back—emptiness.

  The old orc took a step forward, towards him. Then another. He peered into the dark opening behind the lad, waited for Ainur to emerge—tall, with her braid over her shoulder, with amber eyes in which sparks of stubbornness always danced. Then Yernazar—the ginger-haired giant who couldn't stay silent longer than a minute.

  Emptiness.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Alarm crept in a thin trickle of cold between his ribs. Squeezed his lungs. Orgatai stopped three paces from the lad, peering into the darkness, as though he could discern silhouettes there, if only he wanted it hard enough.

  "Kyzym?" His voice came out hoarse, unexpectedly old. "Nazar?"

  Ayan didn't answer immediately. He stood, looking through Orgatai—not past, precisely through—as though the old orc were transparent, like spring ice over a stream.

  Orgatai stepped to the side, peering behind the lad's back. Nothing. Only stone walls receding into darkness. Only silence that pressed on eardrums heavier than any cry.

  "Where are they?" He asked more harshly than he'd intended.

  Ayan blinked. Slowly, like a person who'd forgotten why one does this, then remembered. His gaze focused—not immediately, a second, two—found Orgatai's face.

  "Ata," he spoke quietly. The word sounded strange—as though his tongue had forgotten speech.

  Orgatai gripped the staff's haft. His knuckles whitened.

  "Where is Ainur?" He repeated, and steel cut into his voice, the steel with which he'd commanded hundreds, with which he'd driven people forward when they were ready to fall. "Where is Yernazar?"

  Ayan inhaled—deeply, like before diving into icy water.

  "Alive... they're just not here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "They died," Ayan exhaled the words like smoke after a long drag. "In the cave. But they resurrected at the stele in Aksu."

  Orgatai froze. The staff trembled in his hand.

  "What?"

  "Ainur and Nazar didn't reach the end, they died. But they resurrected."

  The old orc stepped closer. Peered into the lad's face—sought mockery, madness, anything that would explain this nonsense.

  "Did you lose your mind there, in the darkness?"

  Ayan shook his head.

  "No."

  "Then stop spouting nonsense!" His hand gripped the staff tighter. "They're not marked by Ether. Without the seal there's no resurrection. Every child knows that!"

  "I know."

  "Then what..."

  "I have a heritage," the lad cut him off harshly, without the respect he usually showed his elders. Simply a fact, thrown in his face. "It allows me to create groups with sentient beings without the seal. If they die—they resurrect at the nearest stele after twenty-four hours."

  Orgatai unclenched his fingers. The staff nearly slipped free. He caught it again, feeling the ground vanish from beneath his feet—not metaphorically, really, as though the stones under his soles had become unstable.

  "That's impossible."

  "It was impossible," Ayan raised his gaze and looked the instructor straight in the eye. "Until I entered the game."

  The old man remained silent. Stared at the emptiness behind the lad's back. Thoughts darted about like mice in a burning barn.

  "Show me," he rasped.

  Ayan nodded. He drew his finger through the air—the characteristic gesture with which players summoned the interface. Before Orgatai flickered symbols, assembling into lines.

  ["One Who Knew Solitude"

  Passive ability

  You know what true Solitude is, and you didn't like it. You can create groups or raids with non-player characters. In case of their death, they will resurrect at the nearest Reincarnation Stele after 24 hours.]

  Orgatai read. Reread. The words didn't change. The meaning remained the same, however absurd it seemed.

  "So they're there. In Aksu. Waiting?"

  "Should be," Ayan dismissed the interface. "More than a day's passed since their... death."

  The old man ran his palm down his face. Exhaustion crashed down all at once—fifteen days of waiting, lack of sleep, cold, hunger. All simultaneously.

  "They're alive!"

  "Yes..."

  "And you're certain this isn't some joke of the Gods?"

  Ayan shrugged.

  "Heaven doesn't err. If it's written they'll resurrect—they'll resurrect." The lad had already understood that for orcs, Ilira was written into the game as Heaven.

  Orgatai inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly, driving the tremor from his hands.

  "Then we need to move. Now."

  "Will Zhuldyz survive the journey?" The lad asked, nodding in her direction.

  The old man turned to the mare. She stood, head lowered, ribs protruding beneath her coat. A pitiful sight.

  "She'll have to. She'll make it. I'll see to it. I'll carry her myself if necessary!"

  Ayan nodded, headed towards the horse. Orgatai followed him, feeling the tension of recent days beginning to release—not completely, not immediately. But enough to make breathing easier.

  "How did they die?" Steeling himself, he asked when the lad began stowing the saddle in his inventory.

  The lad froze for a second. His hands stilled on the straps.

  "Undead," he answered on an exhale. "Lots of undead."

  Orgatai didn't press further. From the way Ayan had spoken the word, it was clear—the conversation was over.

  Orgatai finished checking the bridle and straightened, his vertebrae cracking. His hands moved automatically. All of this he'd done thousands of times before. And the old man's thoughts wandered elsewhere.

  Fifteen days. Fifteen damned days he'd sat here, convincing himself that patience would pay off. That they'd emerge. That he wasn't waiting in vain.

  And now they'd emerged. More precisely, one of them.

  And the other two... had resurrected in the aul.

  Absurdity. Impossibility. But Heaven had already spat on reality's laws so many times that adding one more gob to the collection was no trouble.

  "I need water."

  Ayan's voice pulled the old man from his reflections. The lad stood by the slope, looking at the stream that ran down the stones towards the valley. Ice had already formed at the edges—but such swift current never froze completely, despite any frosts.

  "Take as much as you need," Orgatai nodded at the flasks, which he'd dumped, having untied them from the bags slung across the croup.

  Ayan took them and descended to the stream. Crouched. Scooped water in his palms—drank long, greedily, like a person who'd forgotten the taste of anything besides his own saliva. Then filled the flasks with water and remained sitting by the water, gazing at his reflection.

  Orgatai observed him from aside. The lad looked wrong. Not like a person who'd spent two weeks in darkness. Not like a warrior after battle. Differently.

  Harder.

  As though a stone had been polished by water and time, all excess removed, leaving only the essence. Only the time this would require would be far greater than two weeks. Even if they'd passed in endless battles.

  The old man had seen the like in veterans who'd stared death in the eye for years. Beside whom friends and comrades had perished, whilst they kept going and going forward. He himself had become such. Though to reach it, he'd needed an entire life consumed by campaigns and the loss of all his family.

  People like him either became the best warriors, or broke completely. He counted himself amongst the latter.

  Ayan rose, returned to the horse. His movements were economical, without fuss. His leg knew, even before movement began, where his brain would direct it. The heavy cloak concealed his figure completely, creating the impression of shadow flowing from place to place.

  "Ready?" The old man asked.

  "Yes."

  The descent was steep. The path wound between cliffs, skirting screes and crevices. The sun warmed weakly—despite the brightness with which it hurled its rays down.

  Zhuldyz walked beside them, barely moving her legs, head lowered. Orgatai remained silent. Ayan was silent too. Silence stretched between them, like old leather—it doesn't tear, but nor does it give comfort.

  Finally the old man couldn't bear it.

  "What happened there?"

  Ayan didn't raise his head.

  "Already told you. Undead."

  "Not that," Orgatai shook his head. "You. What happened to you?"

  The lad walked in silence for another dozen paces. Then sighed.

  "Understood something."

  "And what?"

  "That pain passes. Fear too. But decisions remain."

  Orgatai digested the answer. Nodded.

  "Wise words."

  "Bought dearly."

  The old man chuckled. Patted Zhuldyz on the neck.

  "All wise words are like that. Cheap ones are good only for the bazaar."

  Ayan smirked—barely noticeable, but still. The first emotion since emerging from the cave.

  They continued on. Ahead already showed the valley—snow-white, like everything around, wide, with the icy thread of a river gleaming in places in the sun. Somewhere there, beyond the hills, awaited Aksu.

  Somewhere there waited Ainur and Yernazar.

  Orgatai urged Zhuldyz on. The mare snorted with displeasure but quickened her pace.

  Home. It was time to return home.