Ryan stepped out of the pavilion of the dead and into the biting storm.
The night swallowed him. Snow fell in thick, silent sheets, instantly covering the dark blood on his stolen cloak. He stood completely still for a second, letting his violently accelerated heartbeat slow. He breathed in the freezing air, anchoring himself.
Then, the wolf took over.
He moved through the camp, his ears twitching, mapping the sounds of his enemies. Drunken singing echoing from the infantry tents. The snap and hiss of bonfires. The heavy, synchronized footsteps of patrols.
But as he slipped past a massive canvas storage pavilion, Ryan stopped.
Something was wrong. The silence here was too heavy.
Every supply depot in an Imperial camp had a guard detail. But the entrance was empty. No soldiers holding halberds. No breath pluming in the cold.
Ryan dropped low, his hand hovering over his dagger. His green eye scanned the white ground.
There. Just beneath a fresh dusting of snow.
A smear of dark, freezing blood. Beside it, two deep, parallel grooves carved into the mud, leading away into the darkness behind the tent. Drag marks. The heavy heels of steel boots scraping the earth.
Someone had silently killed the sentries and hidden their bodies. And they had done it within the last few minutes.
Who else is hunting tonight? The question sent a cold thrill down his spine. But he couldn't afford to chase ghosts. The mission came first.
Ryan slipped inside the dark supply tent. His eyes immediately pierced the gloom. Racks of dried meats, crates of hardtack, bundles of arrows. And there, stacked high in the back corner—clay jars sealed with wax.
Lamp oil. Dozens of them.
Ryan moved with terrifying efficiency. He smashed the wax seals, tipping the heavy jars and kicking them across the packed dirt floor. Thick, pungent oil spilled everywhere, soaking into the canvas walls, pooling around the wooden crates of rations. The heavy, chemical stench burned his nose. It was a giant bomb waiting for a spark.
He slipped back out and headed for the eastern perimeter.
The cavalry lines were a sea of shifting shadows. Hundreds of warhorses stood tied to thick ropes, stamping their hooves, their breath steaming in the dark. They were agitated, smelling the faint metallic tang of blood on the wind.
Ryan moved quickly down the line, his knife flashing in the dark as he slashed the thick tethering ropes.
He expected them to bolt. But they didn't. They just stamped and snorted in confusion. These beasts had been broken by the whip and the spur; they had forgotten what it meant to run without a master.
Ryan grabbed a nearby oil jar, splashing it over the hay bales and wooden troughs.
Then, he froze.
At the very end of the line, segregated from the common cavalry mounts, stood a massive, midnight-black stallion. It was scarred, powerful, and restless.
Ryan dropped his knife. His breath caught in his throat.
"Winder?"
He ran toward the horse, his boots slipping in the snow. The massive stallion tossed its head, its ears swiveling forward. As Ryan approached, the horse let out a low, rumbling whinny that tore Ryan's heart in half.
It was Winder. His father's horse. The beast Titus had ridden through every winter storm, the horse Ryan had brushed and fed since he was small enough to walk under its belly. It had survived the massacre. Captured by the men who butchered its master.
Ryan threw his arms around the stallion's massive neck, burying his face in the coarse black mane.
For one fragile, shattering second, Ryan wasn't a predator. He wasn't a vessel carrying the souls of dead men. He was just a terrified boy, clinging to the last living piece of his father.
Winder nudged Ryan's shoulder hard, smelling his hair, making small, anxious sounds. The horse was looking for Titus. He was asking why Ryan smelled of poison and death.
Tears burned Ryan's eyes, hot and bitter. He pulled back, gripping Winder's reigns.
"I have to finish this," Ryan whispered, his voice cracking. "For him. For mother. For all of them."
He couldn't leave the horse here to burn. Moving furiously, Ryan grabbed a saddle from the rack and threw it over Winder's back, pulling the straps tight. He ripped open a saddlebag and shoved in the heavy gold rings he had taken from the commanders, along with wrapped bread and dried meat from the kitchen.
Then, he ran back to the shadows and retrieved Mika.
The servant boy was still unconscious, wrapped tightly in Ryan's bloody tunic. Ryan lifted him—marveling darkly at how light the boy felt with the wolf's unnatural strength—and heaved him over Winder's saddle. He used a cut rope to tie Mika securely to the leather, ensuring the boy wouldn't fall when he woke.
Ryan grabbed Winder's bridle, pulling the horse's head down until they were eye-to-eye.
"Go, old friend," Ryan choked out, his chest tight with grief. "Take this boy as far away from the wild lands as you can. Keep him alive."
Winder stamped his hoof, refusing to move. He bumped Ryan's chest, waiting for his rider.
Ryan pressed his forehead against the star on Winder's snout.
"When the sun rises... I will be dead," Ryan whispered softly. "I am not coming with you. This is my final command. Please. Run."
Winder let out a sharp, distressed breath. The stallion stood frozen for three long heartbeats.
Then, slowly, the great beast turned. He took one step into the deep snow. Then another. With a sudden burst of power, Winder broke into a heavy gallop, vanishing into the falling snow, carrying Mika—and the last shred of Ryan's humanity—away from the slaughter.
Ryan watched until the hoofbeats faded completely.
He wiped his eyes. When he turned back to the camp, the tears were gone. Only the wolf remained.
He became a ghost of ruin.
Ryan moved silently from tent to tent, from supply pile to supply pile, splashing oil across the canvas and the wood. He linked the puddles of oil like a spider spinning a massive, invisible web of death across the sleeping army.
His heart beat with a slow, terrifying calm. His green eye cut through the dark.
Finally, he stood in the dead center of the camp, right outside the silent commanders' pavilion.
Seventeen hundred men were sleeping, drinking, and laughing in the tents around him. They thought they were the apex predators of the wild lands. They had no idea they were already trapped inside a furnace.
Ryan reached into a nearby fire pit and pulled out a burning wooden torch.
The flame hissed and snapped in the freezing wind, casting a flickering, orange light over Ryan's scarred face.
One throw.
That was all it took. One throw, and the oil would catch.
The fire would rip through the camp in seconds. Toli, waiting trembling in the dark, would blow the great brass horn of retreat. And the Dragon's army, terrified and leaderless, would flee straight into the frozen, unforgiving jaws of the deep woods.
Ryan's grip tightened on the wood. He raised the torch.