They did not move immediately.
The forest felt… wrong.
Too still.
As if something watched from just beyond sight.
Halric wiped his blade clean against the snow.
"They just… left."
No one answered him.
Because no one understood it.
Men like that—
They did not retreat without reason.
Corvyn finally lowered Nightfeather.
But he did not sheathe it.
"Check the wounded," he ordered.
The men moved quickly.
Two injured.
One badly.
But alive.
For now.
A small mercy.
Halric approached one of the fallen masked warriors.
He crouched beside the body.
Hesitated.
Then reached for the mask.
"Let's see what you are."
He pulled it free.
And froze.
"…Corvyn."
Something in his tone made everyone turn.
Corvyn stepped closer.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He looked down.
And for a moment—
Even he said nothing.
The face beneath the mask was human.
But wrong.
Skin pale.
Too pale.
Veins dark beneath the surface.
Eyes…
Open.
But empty.
No life.
No awareness.
Just a hollow stare.
"As if it was already dead," one of the men whispered.
Halric nodded slowly.
"That's exactly what it looks like."
Corvyn studied the body.
Then the mask.
The carvings were the same.
Twisted.
Ancient.
Matching those in the ruin.
"They're connected," he said.
Halric glanced toward the direction of the collapsed entrance.
"To whatever's down there."
"Yes."
Corvyn straightened.
His expression hardening.
"And it knows us now."
A chill passed through the group.
Not from the wind.
From the truth in those words.
One of the men shifted uneasily.
"My lord… what did it mean?"
Corvyn didn't answer immediately.
His gaze dropped briefly to Nightfeather.
The blade was still.
Silent.
But he could feel it.
A faint tension.
Like a drawn bowstring.
"…It calls…"
The words echoed in his mind.
"…It knows you…"
Halric watched him closely.
"You think it was talking about the sword?"
Corvyn's grip tightened slightly.
"I don't know."
But it felt like more than that.
Something deeper.
Something older.
A connection he did not yet understand.
He pushed the thought aside.
"Gather what you can. We move."
No one argued.
They did not want to remain here.
Not after what they had seen.
The bodies were searched quickly.
No insignias.
No markings beyond the masks.
Nothing that told them who these men had once been.
If they had been anything at all.
Within minutes—
They were ready.
Corvyn took one last look at the forest around them.
The silence had returned.
But it was not empty.
It was waiting.
"Back to Ravenhold," he said.
They moved.
Faster this time.
No hesitation.
No lingering.
The deeper they went, the more the forest began to feel… normal.
Sound returned.
Wind through branches.
Distant movement.
Life.
But Corvyn did not relax.
Not fully.
Because he could still feel it.
Faint.
Distant.
But there.
Beneath everything.
Watching.
Waiting.
And as Ravenhold's distant towers finally came into view through the trees—
Corvyn knew one thing with certainty.
What they had found beneath the Wolfswood…
Had not been the beginning.
It had been a warning.