The first crossbow bolt flew before the command had fully left Roderic Bolton's lips.
Corvyn moved instantly.
Nightfeather flashed upward and knocked the bolt aside with a sharp crack of steel. The missile spun away into the darkness, vanishing between the trees.
"Forward!" Ser Halric roared.
The Ravaryn riders surged like a breaking wave.
Steel clashed again as they crashed into the Bolton line before the crossbowmen could reload. Horses forced their way between the trees, riders cutting and striking in tight, brutal movements.
Corvyn led the charge.
A Bolton soldier rushed toward him with a spear. Corvyn twisted in the saddle and cut downward. Nightfeather sliced cleanly through the shaft before continuing into the man's shoulder.
The soldier fell into the snow with a scream.
To Corvyn's left, Halric smashed through another pair of enemies, his heavy blade knocking a shield aside before burying itself deep into a breastplate.
"Keep moving!" Halric shouted.
More Bolton soldiers rushed in from the sides, trying to close the gap.
Corvyn saw their plan.
They wanted to trap the Ravaryn riders between the trees.
He kicked his horse forward harder.
Shade surged ahead, crashing straight into the thinning edge of the Bolton formation.
Nightfeather moved again.
Once.
Twice.
Each strike precise and deadly.
A soldier lunged toward Corvyn's side, but one of the Ravaryn riders intercepted him, driving a dagger into the man's ribs.
For a moment the Bolton line wavered.
Halric saw it.
"There!" he bellowed. "Through them!"
The Ravaryn riders pushed harder, forcing their way toward the darker stretch of forest beyond the torches.
But just as the gap began to open—
A horn blasted from deeper in the woods.
Another.
And another.
Fresh soldiers began pouring through the trees ahead.
Corvyn felt the surge of hope fade instantly.
More Bolton men.
Many more.
They had not broken the line.
They had only reached the center of it.
Ser Halric pulled his horse beside Corvyn.
"Well," the knight muttered grimly, "that's unfortunate."
Corvyn's eyes scanned the forest rapidly.
Bolton soldiers now closed in from every direction.
Behind them.
Ahead of them.
On both flanks.
Roderic Bolton's voice drifted through the torchlight again.
"I admire the effort," he called calmly.
Corvyn turned slightly in the saddle.
The Bolton knight had not moved from his position.
He simply watched the battle unfold with the same thin smile.
"But you see," Roderic continued, "this hunt was never meant to end quickly."
Corvyn raised Nightfeather again.
Snow fell thicker now, swirling through the torchlight like pale ghosts.
The Ravaryn riders formed a tight circle around him.
Twenty men had ridden into the Wolfswood.
Now fewer remained.
Halric wiped blood from his blade.
"Orders, my lord?"
Corvyn looked into the closing ring of enemies.
Then he gave a small, cold smile.
"If they want a hunt," he said quietly,
"then we make them bleed for it."