Snow fell heavier now, blurring the torches into wavering halos of orange light.
The Ravaryn riders formed a tight circle among the trees. Horses breathed clouds of white into the cold air, their hooves scraping nervously against frozen ground.
Bolton soldiers surrounded them.
Dozens.
Crossbows lifted again.
Spears angled forward.
Ser Halric spat into the snow.
"Well," he muttered, "this looks unpleasant."
Corvyn said nothing.
His eyes moved slowly across the ring of enemies.
He was not searching for weakness.
He was searching for timing.
Nightfeather rested loosely in his hand, its dark rippled blade catching the faint light of the torches.
Across the clearing, Ser Roderic Bolton watched with quiet amusement.
"Drop your swords," Roderic called. "And perhaps I will let a few of you crawl back to Ravenhold."
Halric laughed.
A deep, mocking sound.
"You Bolton fools truly know nothing about the North."
One of the Ravaryn riders tightened his grip on his spear.
"Orders?" he whispered.
Corvyn raised his head slightly.
The ravens had returned.
Three dark shapes circled high above the clearing, their wings beating slowly through the falling snow.
Corvyn felt something strange stir in the back of his mind.
A flicker.
A whisper.
Movement in the trees.
His eyes shifted slightly.
To the right.
There.
A narrow path between two thick pines.
Barely guarded.
Bolton soldiers stood there, but fewer than elsewhere.
The forest beyond was darker.
Deeper.
A way out.
Corvyn lowered Nightfeather slightly.
"Halric," he said quietly.
"Yes?"
"Right flank."
Halric followed Corvyn's gaze.
The knight's grin slowly returned.
"Oh," he murmured.
"That's clever."
Corvyn lifted his sword.
The Ravaryn riders tensed instantly.
Across the clearing, Roderic Bolton noticed the movement.
"Careful," the Bolton knight warned.
Corvyn did not answer.
Instead he leaned forward in the saddle.
"Break through," he said calmly.
Then he kicked Shade forward.
The stallion surged ahead like a black arrow.
Nightfeather flashed.
The first Bolton soldier barely had time to react before the Valyrian steel blade split his spear in half and cut across his chest.
Corvyn rode straight through him.
Halric roared behind him.
"Ravenhold!"
The Ravaryn riders charged.
The thin Bolton line shattered under the sudden impact.
Steel clashed.
Men shouted.
Two soldiers tried to block Corvyn's path, but Nightfeather moved faster than their blades.
One fell.
Then the other.
The gap opened.
"Through!" Halric bellowed.
Ravaryn riders burst into the deeper forest.
Behind them, Bolton horns screamed through the trees.
Roderic Bolton's calm voice echoed faintly.
"After them."
Corvyn did not look back.
He pushed Shade harder into the dark woods, snow whipping past his face as the riders fled deeper into the Wolfswood.
But even as they escaped the clearing, he knew something had changed.
This was no longer a scouting mission.
It had become something far worse.
A war had begun in the forest.