Lannick scratched his jaw. "And if we find raiders still in the area?" he asked. "If they're fat with stolen grain and too slow to run?"
Halvern watched him carefully. "You do not chase prey," he said. "You do not take trophies. You come back with information."
Lannick's eyes gleamed. "Information doesn't warm a bed."
"No," Halvern said. "But it keeps it from catching fire."
Lannick's smile slipped for a moment, and Halvern saw the truth beneath it: fear dressed in grin.
"Pack light," Halvern said. "Two days there, two days back if the weather doesn't take you. Take salt. Take flint. Take a spare bowstring. And if one of you comes back without the other, you better have a reason that doesn't stink."
Toren's mouth tightened. Lannick gave a small bow. "As the Commander commands."
Halvern turned away before they could say more.
He crossed to the stable.
The horses were tired. That was the first thing you learned at the Wall: everything was tired. Men were tired. Animals were tired. Even the stones felt tired under your boots.
The stablemaster, a sour man with a nose bent sideways, spat when he saw Halvern. "You're not taking my good ones," he said.
Halvern didn't argue. "I'm taking two that can walk," he said.
The stablemaster snorted. "That's the joke, isn't it? We used to have horses that could run. Now we have horses that can't die fast enough."
Halvern's gaze stayed calm. "Give me two that can walk," he repeated.
The stablemaster grumbled, then pointed at two shaggy geldings whose coats were thick and whose eyes looked resigned. They would do.
Halvern watched as Lannick and Toren were handed tack and thin feed bags. He watched them tighten girths with cold fingers, check straps, test stirrups. Toren moved with steady competence. Lannick moved with show, but his hands were sure enough.
When they were ready, Halvern walked to the gate.
Renn was there, as Halvern had known he would be. The young man's face was flushed with cold and the frustration of being left behind. "I should go," Renn said.
Halvern didn't stop walking. "No."
Renn followed anyway. "I can ride," he insisted. "I know the Gift."
"You know a map," Halvern said. "The Gift doesn't care about your map."
Renn's jaw clenched. "Then I'll go with them," he said, nodding at Lannick and Toren. "Three men is safer than two."
Halvern stopped and turned.
Renn stopped too, caught between obedience and pride.
Halvern looked at him for a long moment. The wind snapped Renn's cloak like a hand slapping cloth.
"You want to be useful," Halvern said quietly.
"Yes," Renn said.
Halvern nodded once. "Then be useful here," he said. "Count the stores. Count the arrows. Count the men who can stand duty without shaking. Find me the ones who trade food for 'protection' in the Gift."
Renn's eyes widened. "You think brothers--"
Halvern cut him off. "I think men are men," he said. "And when men are cold and hungry, they bargain with whatever they can."
Renn swallowed. "Yes, Commander."
Halvern watched him go, shoulders stiff.
He did not like making enemies. But the Watch was built out of enemies: men who hated the world, men who hated themselves, men who had been thrown away by lords and found a cold purpose at the edge of everything.
He looked at Lannick and Toren again.
"Go," he said.
They rode out beneath the Wall's shadow like two dark marks on a field of white.
The Gift was quiet when you first entered it from the Wall.
Not quiet like peace. Quiet like a mouth held shut.
Lannick rode a little ahead, because that was his nature. Toren stayed slightly behind and to the side, because that was his. Toren watched Lannick the way a man watched a dog that might bite.
They didn't speak much. Cold turned words into waste.
By midday the wind shifted and found them. It came down hard, cutting through wool and leather, pressing snow against their cheeks like thrown grit. Their horses lowered heads and kept moving, hooves crunching and slipping on crust.
Lannick spat once, then laughed softly. "This is why I don't like the Gift," he said.
Toren didn't look at him. "You don't like anything you can't steal from," he said.
Lannick's smile flashed. "Wrong. I don't like anything that steals from me first."
They rode on.
As the light began to die, they found the smoke-scar.
Not smoke. Not now.
Ash.
Hollow had been a cluster of huts in a dip, nothing worth drawing on a lord's map. Now it was a smear of black and grey on white, like a burn on a clean sheet. The wind had scattered the worst of it, but the smell remained: char, wet rot, old blood.
Toren reined up and sat still for a moment. He did not pray. He had prayed enough in his life to learn that gods did not come when called.
Lannick clicked his tongue. "Well," he said, too lightly. "That's a mess."
Toren's gaze cut to him. "Don't," he warned.
Lannick raised a hand. "I'm not making a joke," he said. "I'm stating a fact."
They dismounted and moved through the ruin on foot.
They did not step into the center at once. Rangers learned early: the center was where traps lived. The center was where survivors hid with knives. The center was where bodies waited to be found.
They circled wide.
Toren crouched near one half-burned beam and touched the wood. It crumbled under his glove. "Old," he said.
"days," Lannick guessed.
Toren nodded. "Maybe ."
They moved again.
They found bones. Not neatly laid. Not gathered. Charred scraps and pale fragments. A rib. A jaw. Hard to tell whose.
Lannick's eyes tracked everything, quick as a weasel. "No bodies lined up," he murmured. "No burial."
"They didn't have time," Toren said.
Or they didn't have the luxury, Halvern's voice echoed in his head, cold as the Wall.
Toren found a patch of disturbed snow near the edge where the ground was darker. Blood had soaked and frozen. He leaned in, sniffed once, and grimaced.
"Fight," he said.
Lannick crouched beside him and studied the ground. "Not a panic," he said slowly. "This is… controlled."
Toren's gaze sharpened. "You can read it?"
"I can read men," Lannick said. "And men leave their habits in the snow."
He stood and walked a few paces, eyes down. "Here," he said, pointing. "A drag. Something heavy. Someone moved a body."
Toren's mouth tightened. "Survivors?"
"Or raiders cleaning," Lannick said.
They followed the drag mark until it vanished under windblown snow.
Then Toren found another sign.
A broken point of iron near a collapsed hut frame. Not the same piece Halvern had been shown, but similar: rough, notched, made by a poor smith or a desperate hand.
Toren held it up.
Lannick's eyes narrowed. "That's not wildling make," he said.
Toren's gaze flicked to him. "You sure?"
Lannick shrugged. "Wildlings use bone and stone when they can. They keep iron close. They don't leave it behind unless forced. This… looks like it came from the south side of hunger."
Toren didn't like that phrase. Neither did Lannick, not truly. But it fit.
They found tracks.
Many.
Some heavy, messy, raider tracks.
Some lighter, scattered, like people running.
But then Toren saw the thing that made his neck prickle.
A set of prints that didn't run.
They moved in short, careful steps, staying near cover, turning where wind scoured snow and hid sign. Not random. Not luck.
A mind.
Toren stared at them a moment too long.
Lannick noticed. "What is it?"
Toren pointed.
Lannick crouched, studied, and his smile died.
"Led," he said quietly.
Toren nodded.
They followed.
Not fast. Fast got you killed.
They followed until the trees thickened and the land began to rise. The Gift wasn't flat; it just looked flat from the Wall's height. Up close it was all small ridges and dips, old stone bones pushing through.
As they climbed, the wind changed.
It didn't bite as hard.
And then Toren heard it.
Not a sound like water in summer. A stubborn sound. A thread of running.
He stopped and listened again.
Lannick looked at him. "You hear it."
Toren nodded once.