It had been many years since he'd been home. Since he'd sat down with his brother in the evenings.

But yet he walked.

So long ago was the past. So much pain it held.

And so he walked, and walked, and walked into the sunset.

He was a farmer at heart. He had loved his crops, more than he loved his brother, more than he loved his god. He loved his wheat, and his barley, and his orchard, they were all he cared for. Not anymore.

His brother was dead, and so were his crops, everything near and dear to him, gone in the blink of the eyes.

Now he roamed the paths of the world searching for a new home, or companions to aid him in his new calling, he was not sure.

He slowly became a living legend, a passing rumor. Of a man who survived a god's wrath. And now he was going to kill that god.

It had been many years since he had been home, since evenings were spent beside his brother under a quiet sky. Now there was only distance, but still, he walked. The past felt far away, yet its weight followed him, heavy and unrelenting, as he moved toward a horizon that never seemed to change.

He had once been a farmer, a man who lived for the land. He loved his wheat, his barley, his orchard more than anything else, more than blood, more than faith. But that life was gone. His brother was dead, his crops destroyed. Everything he had built, lost in a single, merciless moment.

His farm had been beside the River Clyde, upstream from the great Firth. He and his brother had cherished their croft. They worked hard, and the farm had prospered. Now, all was gone. The barn and the cottage were now ruins; all that remained was ashes and stones. The grain fields had been torched and trampled. The fruit trees of the orchard had vanished, chopped down for firewood.

As the sun rose above the horizon, he came to the banks of the River Clyde – a wide, slow-moving serpent of silver cutting through the land. Mist clung to its surface, drifting like lost spirits. He knelt at the edge of the stream and cupped water in his hands. It tasted of silt and memory.

He had crossed this river once before, many years ago. Back then, he had been younger, hopeful, carrying sacks of seed and dreaming of harvests. His brother had walked beside him, laughing at something trivial. He tried to recall the sound of that laugh now, but it slipped away like water through fingers.

A branch snapped behind him.

He rose, hand reaching for the knife at his belt.

A man stepped from the trees—broad-shouldered, scarred, carrying a spear. His clothes were patched, his eyes sharp. Not a bandit. Not a soldier. Something in between.

“You’re far from any safe road,” the stranger said.

“So are you.”

The man chuckled. “Fair enough. But I’m here for a reason. Word is, a wandering peregrine passed through the ruins last night. A man who survived the god’s fire.”

He said nothing.

The stranger studied him. “You don’t look like much.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s what they say makes you dangerous.”

A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the murmur of the river.

Finally, the stranger planted his spear in the ground. “Name’s Ralven. I’m with the ones gathering in the mountains. We’re building something—an army, a refuge, a chance. Depends who you ask.”

He waited for a response. None came.

The enigmatic stranger studied the wanderer’s face and looked deeply into his eyes; no, not his eyes but his soul. He saw intense grief and loneliness. He asked, “Do you have a name?”

“Doran.”

Ralven sighed. “Look. If you’re the man they say you are, we could use you. If you’re not… well, we could still use another pair of hands.”

The wanderer looked across the river. The mountains loomed in the distance, jagged and dark, like teeth waiting to bite.

He thought of his brother. He thought of his fields. He thought of the god who had taken everything.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said quietly.

Ralven blinked. “The god?”

“Yes.”

A slow grin spread across Ralven’s face. “Then you’ll fit right in.”

Doran the Peregrine stepped into the river. The cold stung his legs, but he did not stop. Ralven followed, splashing behind him. On the other side of the River Clyde, they entered a mixed woodland dominated by Scots pine, English oak, and silver birch. There were other trees, too – wych elm, Norway maple, sycamores. This was the Heming Way – across the river and into the trees.

Ralven spoke, “Who is to blame for the devastation of your croft? Was it the soldiers of the English King Edward Longshanks? Or perhaps, wide-ranging brigands of the Borders?”

“I don’t know who put the torch to my home. It doesn’t matter. The god whom I had long worshipped, to whom I had devoted sacrifices, the god who should have protected me, abandoned me when I most needed her. Now I will exact my vengeance upon her. I will avenge my brother’s death. I will repay her treachery. The reckoning is long overdue. I will kill her.”

“What god is this of whom you speak?”

“Ceres, ancient goddess of farming and fertility.”

“Where will you find her?”

“I know not. Yet I will search all of Scotland, indeed all of Britain.”

Ralven lapsed into silent thought. So, I have teamed up with the legendary Peregrine, the mysterious figure who wandered without direction, searching for something he could not name. This was a man who survived what should have killed him, a man touched by something greater. A man who had endured a god’s wrath.

As he walked, Doran wondered who his companion was. He seemed to have some mission which he was not ready to reveal. The Peregrine pushed these thoughts aside, as he saw he would not find any answers. Instead, he thought about his old life, of barley fields and barley beer, of wheat and fresh bread baked on his hearth, of his dairy cow and of pigs. Where was he bound now? What lay in his future?

Doran walked alongside Ralven for what seemed like an hour or so, the sun past its highest, punishing point and settled into a cool, easy dim-lit breeze. Ralven had began to slow, setting his pack beside the hardy trunk of an oak tree, motioning for Doran to join him.

”Why do we slow?” Doran asked, gesturing to the misty purple around them. “We have hours of daylight left—we can make it to your camp if we continue at a decent pace.”

Ralven unwrapped a small cloth bundle and began to eat from the collection of stale bread butts and butter within it. “My dear companion,” he said around a mouthful. “We are nearing Wolf’s Pass. It is a treacherous place—not to be traversed this close to nightfall.”

Doran leant back against the trunk and surveyed the skies: the deepest points above them had darkened into a bruised blue, clouds still visible in misty greys, sun waning beneath them, but still bright. The stars and moon had not yet come out. He said as much to his travelling companion, who simply waved his vigor away and trudged off a few metres to search for kindling. Doran watched as Ralven’s frame slinked further between the trees and began to stand restlessly, shifting weight from foot to foot. He was the Peregrine, and he had new soldiers to meet, new brothers in arms who may aid him in his quest for vengeance, camp full of supplies and weapons, new morale and safety in numbers. The knife at his hip seemed to burn with insistence as he told himself he would only venture out close to the camp, just to see why Ralven had spoken of this place with such fearful reverence.

His boots whispered cleanly over the muddied leaves and roots of the forest floor, as he moved silent and pixielike in the cover of halfdark. It was not long until the trees and flora grew sparse, patches of woody growth punctuating the new rocky ground Doran found himself upon. Beyond him lay pools of soft moss, rocky crags and patches of coarse sand, lit eerily by the rapidly thickening moonlight. He crouched low to the ground with his knife gripped tightly in a concealed fist, but his blade did little to quiet his racing mind against the ever crescendoing cacophony around him—screaming birds and singing insects, the gentle splash of a crane landing, and the deafening silence that came from the flash of fur he saw in the distance.

Wolf’s Pass was a name with a warning in it that Doran was quickly realising was not lightly given: though he had known enough villages named ‘Owl’s Point’ and ‘Bear’s Crossing’ that he would be forgiven—only that the creature he found himself staring down, a slavering, slobbering thing with bared teeth and matted fur, was not like any wolf he had seen before. Its eyes glowed a shining, ruby red, and its hot breath fogged the air from all three of its heads.

The peregrine lunged first.

Cerberus retreated from the scene of the combat with Doran. Although bloodied, bruised, and battered, it crept away as well as it could. The three-headed wolf-thing found shelter in a willow-filled cleugh. It drank deeply from the burn and chewed willow bark to ease its pain.

Doran watched as his foe padded slowly away. There was no need to pursue the evil beast; its trail was well marked with blood. The Peregrine started down the path toward his camp where Ralven awaited him. Cerberus relaxed slightly as he heard its antagonist move away.

Cerberus was in a bad way. Each of its three heads had sustained a concussion. Its thoughts were disordered and clouded. It saw things that were not there; it hallucinated. It mused about its own name. Each head had its own identity– ‘Cer’ had the color and temperament of a Doberman Pinscher; its name was derived from ‘Sergey’. ‘Ber’ had fur and a disposition like sunshine; its name came from ‘Amber’. And ‘Us’ behaved like the puppy of a domestic dog; its name came from ‘Rufus’.

After Cerberus had rested for a few hours, it set out to find a better shelter where it could recover from its injuries. The sun had set; the beast found its way by moonlight. Its wounds still dripped blood; wherever the blood fell, plants withered and died. Briars grew where the blood fell on bare rock. Cerberus intended to travel in darkness and to rest by day.

Three nights passed, and the footsore wolf-thing came across an abandoned farm. Perhaps there was a barn where he could find refuge. Alas, there was little left of the ancient barn. Ah, here’s a root cellar. Cerberus looked in. This looks like a good shelter where he can take the time to heal.

After a day’s sleep, the beast awoke hungry. It looked around the root cellar. There were baskets of potatoes and parsnips –poor food for a demonic wolf-thing. Cerberus wanted meat! Not a problem! Many fat rats lived among the vegetables. Each head of the beast caught a rat and so had a satisfactory brekkie.

Four nights and two dozen rats later, there came a knock on the cellar door. Who the hashbrowns would come calling? It was a gnome, who introduced himself as Avicenna, doctor to the forest animals. He treated the wolf-thing’s injuries –cleaned and bandaged its wounds and set its bones. He also gave Cerberus a tincture of willow bark as an analgesic.

Six weeks passed, and the beast of three heads was tired of eating rats. It was ready to hunt fora real meal. Above ground, the Rufus head spotted a squirrel; Rufus tried to chase the rodent, but the other two heads were determined to kill something more substantial, even if it were only a rabbit. Then Cer and Ber saw two deer; of course, they tripped over their feet as they each tried to pursue their choice. The deer had fled before Cerberus got to its feet again. The beast still had a decent meal – a ptarmigan.

With better food, the dreadful wolf-thing felt ready to take on any creature, no matter its size. Yes, those bears had better watch out! Now it was time to return to Wolf’s Pass and reclaim its domain.

When Doran emerged from the darkness of the woodland, the camp revealed at first as scattered points of firelight between the trees, then as a sprawling encampment that seemed to breathe with its own life. Tents of rough canvas and hide stretched across a wide valley, ringed by crude fortifications of sharpened stakes and stone. Men and women moved between the fires, their silhouettes dark against the dancing flames.

Ralven was waiting at the edge of the camp, his spear planted upright in the earth. A broad smile crossed his scarred face when he saw Doran emerge from the treeline.

"You made it," Ralven said, though his eyes noted the blood on Doran's hands and the torn fabric of his shirt. "And you met an old friend."

"There is something in that pass," Doran replied flatly. "Something that should not be."

"Cerberus. We've known about it for some time. Most who venture too far toward Wolf's Pass don't return. Yet here you stand." Ralven clapped a hand against Doran's shoulder, and there was something reverential in his grip. "Come. There are people who need to meet you."

The camp transformed as they walked deeper into it. Doran saw faces turn toward him, in shades of curious, wary, hopeful. A woman with iron-grey hair and a merchant's bearing stepped forward. Behind her came a younger man with priest's vestments, though no holy symbol hung at his neck. An old warrior with one eye fixed Doran with a penetrating stare.

"This is our council," Ralven explained. "Mage, Caelis, Alistair, and Tormond. They lead what we've built here."

Mage studied Doran with the gaze of someone appraising goods for trade. "Ralven speaks of you as though you've walked out of legend. A man who survived divine wrath. A man who will kill a god." She paused. "That is ambitious. We like ambition here, but we prefer practicality. Can you kill? Have you killed?"

"Not yet," Doran said quietly. "But I will."

Alistair, the priest, leaned forward. "And this goddess...Ceres...do you know where she hides? Do you know how one even begins to kill a god?"

"No," Doran admitted. "But I will find her. She cannot hide forever from those she has wronged."

Tormond, the one-eyed warrior, let out a rough laugh. "Boy's got fire, at least. Better than half the so-called soldiers we've gathered." He gestured broadly at the camp. "We've got near two hundred souls here now. Farmers, townsfolk, brigands, mercenaries. All running from something. All hoping to find something."

"We gather strength," Mage said, "for a reckoning of our own. The old powers have held dominion over these lands for too long. They demand worship, demand sacrifice, and what do they give in return? Nothing." Her voice hardened. "If you truly mean to strike at one of them, the Peregrine, you may find yourself with more allies than you realize."

Ralven led Doran to a large tent near the heart of the camp, where a fire burned low and steady. Here, piled against the canvas walls, were weapons, swords and spears, bows and axes. More steel than Doran had seen in his entire life.

"These are yours to train with," Ralven said. "When we learned of Cerberus, we knew someone would eventually face it. We didn't expect that someone to survive their first encounter." He picked up a sword, its blade simple but well-forged. "This was made by a craftsman in the south. It's yours now."

Doran took the sword. It was heavier than his knife, but it felt right in his grip.

"There's something else," Ralven continued, his voice dropping. "We have scouts who've brought word of Ceres. She walks among her temples in the south, in what was once the great farmlands near the English border"

Doran's fingers tightened on the sword's hilt. For months he had wandered without direction, knowing only that he sought vengeance. Now, for the first time, the path forward seemed to clarify.

"Then we will go south," he said.

"Not yet," Mage's voice came from the tent entrance. "First, you will train with us. A god cannot be slain by one man's rage alone." She stepped into the firelight, her features sharp and angular, her eyes like flint. "So the question, Peregrine, is this: Are you willing to wait? Or does your need for vengeance burn too hot to allow for patience?"

Doran looked down at the sword in his hands. Then he looked at the faces around him, and thought of his brother and the fields turned to ash. Of a goddess who had never answered his prayers, and clearly had nevr answered these people's either.

"I can wait," he said, his voice steady as stone. "As long as it takes."

Mage nodded slowly, and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips. "Then welcome, Doran the Peregrine. Welcome to the Gathering."

From across the valley, in the darkness beyond the firelight, the tripled howl of a three-headed wolf echoed through the mountains.