January 27, 1201
Dawn had not yet broken, but the frost had. It spidered across the stones of Woodgate in fine white veins, as if the old earth itself had been cracked by the night's cold breath. Mist, pale and sluggish, wreathed the ground, curling around the gateposts and pooling in the hollowed cart ruts like thin milk left too long in the cup.
Halward stirred from sleep before the first bell. His breath rose in slow columns as he sat up, the weight of the cloak around his shoulders the only barrier between himself and the stone-deep chill. He roused the embers in the hearth with practiced motions, stirring a fragile flame to life, then donned his heavy woolen mantle, fastening it close against his throat. No words. No wasted movement. There was a ritual to the morning that asked nothing but endurance.
The gatehouse door resisted him with a low groan, reluctant as any creature roused before its time. Halward stepped out into the brittle air. The mist clung low to the earth, and each breath he took seared his lungs before turning ghostly on the exhale. Above him, the arch of the gate loomed against a sky the color of hammered lead, not yet touched by light.
The world was silent. Utterly.
It was not the silence of peace. Halward knew that well enough from Acre, from the blood-slick fields of Jaffa. This was a waiting silence, a silence weighted like a blade held just above the skin.
He moved through it without hurry. His boots crunched faintly on the hoarfrost as he walked the perimeter, his hand brushing the stone as he passed, as if to reassure the wall that it was still seen, still known. Tradition demanded the gate be walked at first light, even when no light came.
Near the outer post where the stones crumbled into the beginning of the forest road, Halward paused. Something small and dark huddled at the base of the gate. He knelt and examined it, the joints of his knees protesting in the cold.
Pine needles. A clutch of them, frozen together in a shape that, if he let his eye relax, resembled a child's hand reaching upward. Fingers splayed. Palm open.
He did not touch it. Only stood slowly and regarded it for a long moment.
The mist curled over his boots like curious fingers.
The iron latch of the gate creaked as he checked its fastening. As he moved to draw it tighter, a slow, breathless groan issued from the hinge—not the squeal of rust, but something deeper, almost reluctant, almost pained. Halward tightened the latch anyway, ignoring the small hairs rising along the nape of his neck.
He turned back toward the gatehouse, but paused.
Something unseen pressed at the edge of his awareness. Not a sound. Not a sight. A presence.
He lifted his eyes to the forest. The trees were black against the mist, their limbs like the skeletal remains of cathedral arches. No movement stirred among them. No bird called. No squirrel rustled the dead leaves. Only the mist moved, and even that seemed to do so by stealth.
Halward's hand dropped to the hilt of his sword—not to draw, but to touch, as a man touches the familiar when the strange draws near.
Nothing came.
Only the forest watched.
He held there a moment longer, until the cold bit fully through the wool at his wrists and stiffened the leather of his boots. Then, without a word, he turned and made his way back to the gatehouse. The iron door closed behind him with a final shudder, the sound lost almost immediately to the heavy air.
Today the patrols would arrive.
Tomorrow, men would tread the road where silence reigned.
But for now, the forest waited.
And Halward, as ever, kept the watch.
***
By midmorning, the frost had begun to soften, though it left its stain on every surface—white in the cracks of the gateposts, silver at the corners of the chapel windows, and pale blue across the iron latch where Halward's hand had rested hours before. The mist had thinned but not lifted, and the sun, though risen, was little more than a bright smear behind the veil of cloud.
They came from the north, as expected: four riders bearing the royal crest of Nottingham in faded stitchwork on their cloaks, their breath rising in plumes before them. The men were young, none older than twenty-two, and the wear of travel clung to them like poorly fitted armor. One spat as he rode, the sound sharp in the stillness. Another swore at his mount for stumbling, though the road was clear.
Halward waited within the gate, flanked by the low stone pillars that had once marked the toll lines in better days. His posture was still, neither formal nor lax. He did not call out, did not wave. He simply watched.
The riders slowed as they approached. The one in the lead—a wiry youth with a patchy beard and a scar splitting one brow—gave a half-hearted salute.
"Warden Halward?"
"Yes."
The boy dismounted, boots crunching on the frost-hardened earth. "We’re your new patrol. Sent from the city three days past. Roads were mucked near Alverton."
Halward gave a slight nod. He noted the way their eyes kept flicking toward the forest, even as they tried to appear bored. One of them—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a wolf-tooth talisman around his neck—whistled low as he looked at the trees.
"Not much out here, is there? Just wood and wind."
Halward's gaze fixed on him. "That would be enough."
Another rider gave a short laugh and muttered something about 'forest ghosts' under his breath. The fourth said nothing at all.
Then came the fifth arrival: the horse.
It followed behind the others, untethered, its riderless saddle marked by the burnished leather of Nottingham’s stable hands. Larger than the others, gray with age, but still strong. Its eyes were dark and steady, its mane laced with ice. Scars marked its flanks—old ones, healed but never forgotten.
Halward stepped forward. The patrol leader gestured. "A gift from Sir Bertram, from Lady Wexley's own stables. Said you’d need something worthy of your station."
The horse stopped before him. Halward studied it—then, slowly, he reached out and laid a hand against its neck. The animal did not flinch.
He recognized it.
Acre. Siege year. An older mare, trained for war. She had once carried a man Halward had known well—a nobleman whose loyalty had not survived him. The scars along her flanks were like the lines of a story he'd chosen not to reread. Bertram, no doubt, thought he was sending a relic. He did not understand the weight of what he'd given. This horse had survived the desert, the siege engines, the bloodied sand. And now it had returned, like a specter dressed in tack and bit.
"Her name was Mirelle," Halward murmured. "She was meant for the prince, but he preferred stallions."
The lead patrolman blinked. "You know her?"
Halward didn’t answer. He stepped back and nodded. "She’ll do."
The other riders began dismounting. Packs were slung down, weapons unbuckled. Idle chatter broke out among them—tales of taverns, of women, of a fight outside the Goose and Crown. But their eyes still wandered, now and then, to the forest’s edge. As though they felt something watching.
Halward did not speak again until they quieted.
"You will patrol in pairs," he said. "No man walks alone. You stay to the road. You speak little, listen more."
The one with the wolf-tooth amulet scoffed. "And if we see ghosts?"
"You’ll treat them with more respect than you treat the living."
Silence fell again, uneasy.
Halward looked over the four young faces and felt the cold settle deeper into his bones. These were not soldiers. They were boys with steel at their sides and coin in their purses. And they had been sent to keep the watch.
So be it.
Halward turned to face them fully. "There will be no patrol today. Tomorrow we walk the road. Today, we make ready. I want your gear checked, your blades clean, and your packs trimmed to weight. At midday, we gather for instruction. I’ll show you the route, on map and memory, and we will speak of what to do when the forest chooses not to be silent."
He studied their faces a moment longer—half-eager, half-lost—and nodded to himself. He had known youth like this before. Too many had died before they could become men.
Then he turned toward the stable, Mirelle following with slow, deliberate steps. The patrolmen glanced at one another, uncertain whether to speak or follow.
Halward called over his shoulder, voice low, but clear.
"The forest doesn’t care if you’re brave. Only if you’re foolish."
And then he was gone.
***
They gathered in the long room beside the gatehouse—a chamber meant for counting tolls, storing ledgers, and keeping the records of passage, now repurposed as a place of quiet instruction. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and damp stone. A brazier burned low in the corner, casting trembling shadows against the frost-rimed walls. At the center of the room stood a heavy oak table, its surface warped by time and marked with a rough, hand-carved map of the Forest Road and its surrounding paths. Halward had redrawn its lines himself, only days before, each stroke a small act of defiance against forgetfulness.
The four patrolmen entered with unsure steps, their cloaks stiff from the cold, their breath misting in the dim light. Their voices, loud and boastful in the courtyard, faltered into uneasy silence as the door thudded shut behind them. They were half boys still, their armor ill-fitting, their movements betraying more bravado than certainty. Halward said nothing at first. He watched them settle, letting the weight of the room and the history pressed into its stones do some of the work for him.
Before Halward could begin, the door creaked open once more. Wilmot entered, his cloak too large for his slender frame, his cheeks flushed with cold. Perched on his shoulder was Arrow, feathers sleek and eyes watchful. The patrolmen turned to glance at the newcomers, curiosity flickering across their faces.
Halward nodded toward Wilmot. "My apprentice, Wilmot of Woodgate."
Wilmot gave a small, respectful bow. Arrow, for his part, remained silent, though his dark eyes gleamed with uncanny intelligence.
The patrolmen shifted, awkward for a moment. Halward gestured to each of them in turn.
"Alan Wode. Simon Braye. Clement Ferren. Hob Colling."
Names exchanged, the room settled again into expectancy.
At length, Halward stepped forward and laid his hand flat upon the table, fingers splayed across the map as if anchoring it to the world.
"You are not a garrison," he said, voice low but clear. "You are a patrol. That means you are eyes, not swords. You do not hold ground. You do not win battles. You return with knowledge."
The men exchanged uncertain glances. Alan Wode, tall and sharp-featured, the wolf-tooth talisman glinting at his neck, leaned against the far wall with a half-smirk. Simon Braye fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve, his gaze darting between the tokens on the table and the shadowed corners of the room. Clement Ferren, the youngest, stood stiffly at attention, trying to mask the nervous energy that all but radiated from him. Hob Colling, broad and silent, simply watched Halward, his arms folded across his chest.
Halward tapped a section of the map where the road twisted between two marked hills.
"This is the Forest Road. It winds, it narrows, it deceives. You will patrol it in pairs. One route east. One west. You will stay to it. Always. You do not dismount. You do not stray. Not for sound. Not for sight. Not for the promise of gold."
He turned slowly, letting his gaze meet each of theirs in turn.
"If you encounter trouble—be it man, beast, or worse—you do not engage. You return. If your partner falls, you do not leave him. You do not shout into the woods. You do not run blind. You stop. You listen. You survive."
The silence pressed tighter against the stones. The brazier’s flame guttered, casting fleeting shadows that seemed to ripple like water.
From within his cloak, Halward withdrew a small pouch of rough cloth. With deliberate care, he untied its cord and spilled three wooden tokens onto the table. They landed with soft, muted clicks against the scarred wood.
One was round and broad, marked with the carved shape of an oak leaf—sturdy and wide. Another, longer and thinner, bore the delicate, twin-lobed mark of an ash—slender and fast-growing. The third, smaller and smoothed by time, showed the curling branch of a willow—bent but unbroken.
"The Oak. The Ash. The Willow," Halward said, his voice almost reverent.
He let them look. Let them wonder.
"These are tree-tokens. Crude to your eyes, perhaps, but they are coin beyond the city walls. Not minted, not taxed, but honored. They are promises made and debts remembered. Passage granted. Mercy given."
Alan Wode raised an eyebrow, smirking anew. "And we treat 'em like what? Fairy silver and forest magic?"
Halward's eyes fixed on him until the smirk withered.
"You treat them like the man who offers them," he said. "With respect. For behind each token stands a hand that can either lift you—or bury you."
From his cloak he produced a fourth token—thicker, heavier, cut from the rich, red heartwood of cedar. It bore the Warden's mark: a flame rising over a line of water, burned deep into the grain.
He laid it beside the others.
"This one is mine. The Warden's token. Each tree-token carries a specific mark—some carved by hand, others branded with fire, each unique to the issuer. Mine bears the flame over water, burned deep into cedar. It is honored at the city gates, recognized beyond these woods. But trust no copies, no clever forgeries. Be wise enough to know that false coin costs more than silver—it costs blood."
None of them spoke. Even Alan Wode now stood straighter, the easy mockery drained from his face.
Halward nodded once, slowly.
"One more law," he said, his voice dropping to a tone that seemed to sink into the stones themselves. "If you are lost: follow the river downhill. All water leads home."
Beyond the window slits, the wind rattled the shutters, and a thin veil of snow hissed against the stone. The brazier’s flame trembled, throwing long, flickering shadows across the map.
Clement Ferren glanced again at the tokens and coins on the table, his young face solemn. Simon Braye swallowed hard, shifting his weight as if feeling the burden of the forest already pressing against him. Hob Colling remained unmoving, his steady gaze fixed on the Warden.
Halward looked once more to the map, his hand brushing lightly over the charcoal lines as if sealing the pact with touch.
"Tomorrow we walk the road," he said. "Tonight, remember what I’ve said. The forest listens. The forest remembers."
Not one of them laughed.
A few heartbeats later, Wilmot returned, pushing the door open with his shoulder, balancing a heavy tray of bread, smoked fish, and a coarse round of cheese. Arrow flitted behind him, landing with a sharp flutter atop a rafter. Wilmot set the tray down on the table with care, avoiding the tokens and the map.
"You'll need your strength tomorrow," Halward said, his voice softer now, but no less commanding. "Eat. Rest. Dawn comes quick."
The patrolmen, still subdued, nodded silently. Hunger would not wait on fear, and soon the quiet tearing of bread filled the room, a small defiance against the cold that pressed ever closer beyond the stone walls.
***
The frost cracked and sang beneath their boots as they gathered at the gatehouse before first light, each breath blooming into the brittle air like fleeting ghosts. The mist had thinned but not departed, clinging low to the earth and coiling about their ankles, a reminder that even the ground beneath them was not wholly their own. Above, the sky peeled back from black to a grim ash-gray, the thin sun struggling beyond a veil of cloud it would never pierce.
Halward stood before them, motionless save for the steady rise and fall of his breath. His cloak, drawn tight, seemed almost to fuse him with the cold stones of the gate. Beside him, Mirelle stood tethered, her breath streaming like smoke from her nostrils, her ears flicking at distant sounds the men could not hear. But today there would be no riding. Today, the weight of the forest would be felt in their legs, in the soles of their feet, in the small, weary ache that would take root in their bones.
Wilmot hovered near the stable doors, adjusting the folds of his too-large cloak and checking the strap of his satchel. Arrow perched high above them on a rafter slick with frost, feathers puffed against the cold, his black eyes gleaming with an intelligence too keen to be wholly animal.
The patrolmen—Alan Wode, Simon Braye, Hob Colling, and Clement Ferren—shifted uneasily, stamping their feet and exchanging glances weighted with uncertainty. The line of the forest loomed before them, vast and still, its edges lost in the slowly stirring mist.
Halward raised a hand, and the murmurs died.
"Today, no heroics," he said, his voice cutting clean through the layered silence. "This is no full patrol. Only a taste. Enough to feel the weight of the trees, not to challenge it."
He gestured to the rough map spread across the barrel near the gate, its charcoal lines black and stark against the pale wood.
"Simon Braye and Alan Wode, you walk with me. East, to the Shrike Tree."
Simon nodded quickly, his youth showing in the eager way he stepped forward. Alan offered a crooked grin, but it faltered under Halward's steady gaze.
"Hob Colling and Clement Ferren," Halward continued, "you walk west with Oswin and Wilmot. Your road ends at the Old Well."
Wilmot gave a small nod, pulling his hood low over his brow, while Hob simply adjusted the strap across his shoulder, saying nothing.
"You are to return to Woodgate by midday," Halward said, his tone brooking no argument. "No straying. No lingering. The forest grows no kinder after noon."
He let the warning hang, heavy and real.
"This afternoon, after you have eaten and reported, we walk the main road together. All of us. We will mark the shrine stones and the waymarkers. We will walk and we will learn, while the light still favors us."
His hand dropped lightly to the pommel of his sword—not a threat, but a habit born of a life where vigilance had become as natural as breath.
"The days are short," he said, his voice low. "Winter robs the light like a thief, and night here is a border none should cross lightly."
The patrolmen nodded, some stiffly, some with the grudging acknowledgment of those who had heard wisdom they did not yet fully grasp. Their eyes turned again toward the forest, where the mist clung tighter now, shrouding the first rows of trees in a pale, secretive veil.
Halward turned to Oswin, who was tightening his belt and adjusting his cloak with slow, deliberate motions. Beside him, Wilmot checked the ties of his boots and shifted the satchel to sit more squarely across his back.
"Walk steady," Halward said. "Watch the trees. Listen more than you speak. The forest has long ears, and longer memories."
Without fanfare, without further ceremony, they moved out—Halward leading eastward with Simon and Alan , Oswin guiding Hob and Clement westward. Their figures faded quickly into the thickening mist, swallowed one by one by the living breath of the forest. Behind them, the gate creaked slowly on its hinges, the old wood and iron groaning as if reluctant to let them pass into a world that did not welcome the careless.
Mirelle watched them go with dark, knowing eyes. Arrow lifted from his perch with a single beat of his wings and circled once high overhead before vanishing into the gray.
***
The West Patrol
The path west of Woodgate narrowed quickly, hemmed in by low brambles and towering trunks that leaned together as if whispering secrets above the track. The frost underfoot remained thick and brittle, crunching with each step like dry parchment. Mist clung low to the ground, curling around roots and branches, diffusing the morning light into a dull silver that neither warmed nor brightened. Here, the forest seemed deeper, denser, more aware.
Oswin led the way with the sure-footedness of someone who had walked this trail not once or twice, but hundreds of times. His walking staff tapped a rhythm as he moved, marking pace and presence with each strike against frozen earth. Beside him, Wilmot trod in silence, his small figure nearly swallowed by the too-large cloak he wore, his eyes alert and restless. Behind them came Hob Colling, heavy-shouldered and stone-quiet, and Clement Ferren, who had begun the morning with the bright energy of youth but now held his breath like a man crossing into sacred ground.
The deeper they went, the older the forest seemed to grow—not merely in age, but in feeling. It bore the gravity of a place that remembered. The branches overhead wove together like cathedral arches, and the wind that moved through them whispered not with song, but with warning.
They passed a fallen pine, its bark raked by claws long turned to dust, and an old stone shrine tilted under the weight of ivy and years. Oswin paused before it, fingers brushing a faded etching of a boar curled around a cross. He did not speak of it, but his silence was reverent.
"The Old Well isn't far," he said softly, voice low and clear. "When you see the yew roots, you'll know."
No one answered. Even Clement, whose curiosity had worn a groove into the day before, now held his tongue. The trees listened too closely here.
The yew appeared suddenly, its black roots splayed across the path like a tangle of grasping fingers. Beyond it, the ground dipped, revealing the well—a low ring of moss-slick stone nestled into the earth like an eye half-shut. Time and weather had warped its edge, but the circle held. It watched them without blinking.
Beside the well stood a crude figure: man-shaped, assembled from bundled sticks and hollowed foxbone, tied with fraying red twine at its elbows and knees. Its face was blank, nothing more than a smooth knot of wood. A sprig of holly had been tucked into its shoulder like a token of mourning, or a badge of some unknowable office.
Arrow gave a sudden cry from above, slicing the quiet as he wheeled and vanished into the trees.
Wilmot halted, breath catching in his chest. Something about the figure pulled at him, not in fear, but in recognition. He took a step back before he realized it.
"Forest folk leave signs," Oswin said, approaching slowly. "They mean peace, mostly. Unless disturbed."
Hob squinted down at the thing and muttered, "Looks like trouble dressed for prayer."
Oswin knelt beside the well, laying a hand on its rim. The stone was cold, green with moss, slick beneath his fingers. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer, not in Latin, but in a language Wilmot had only ever heard in dreams and riddles. The forest fell utterly still as he spoke. Even the frost seemed to hold its breath.
As they turned to go, Wilmot paused. The others had begun moving, but he lingered. He had heard something—not words, not sound, but the shape of breath. A long, slow exhale from somewhere beneath the stone. It brushed the edge of his hearing, then vanished like a hand withdrawn.
He followed, the air heavier now, his steps quieter.
They had not gone far when a figure emerged from the misted trees ahead.
The man wore heavy boots caked with old mud and frost, their soles near silent on the forest floor. His clothing was a patchwork of furs and rags, layered and laced with thorns and twine. His beard was wild, streaked with white like hoarfrost, and his face narrow as a fox skull. He leaned upon a staff gnarled with carvings, the surface blackened as though scorched by fire or time. His eyes, sharp and steady, met theirs without fear.
Clement's hand flew to the hilt of his blade, but Oswin raised a hand and stepped forward.
"Peace," he said. "He’s no threat. This is Rafe o' the Hollow."
The man gave a slow nod, eyes sliding over Hob and Clement without interest. When they landed on Wilmot, he stopped.
He stepped forward and reached into the folds of his cloak. From within, he withdrew a thin disc of willow wood—cracked at the rim, worn smooth at the edges, its surface dark with age. He placed it in Wilmot's hand without a word.
"He listens," Rafe said, voice soft but unshakable. "Not many that age do."
Wilmot looked up, lips parted, but said nothing. The token sat warm against his palm.
Oswin and Rafe spoke briefly in the old tongue, their words like roots winding through the air. Hob glanced at Clement, who now kept his eyes fixed on the forest floor.
Rafe stepped back without another word. He turned and vanished between two trees, leaving no trace behind. Even the mist seemed to close around his absence like a wound healing.
They continued their walk in silence, the forest pressing closer with each step. Arrow returned overhead, silent now, wings gliding just above the canopy. He landed on a low branch as they neared Woodgate, his dark eyes locked on Wilmot.
No one asked about the token. Wilmot kept it in his palm, thumb resting lightly on its cracked edge. He did not speak of what he heard. But he carried it with him, all the way back to the gate.
And the forest, it seemed, walked a little further with him than it had with the others.
***
The East Patrol
The eastern road unfurled before them, a pale ribbon winding through frost-laced trees that stretched high and close, like bony arms pressing inward. Though wider than the westward path, it gave no sense of ease. The light here was raw, flat, without warmth, and the wind arrived in sudden, bitter gusts that stirred the branches like whispered warnings. Above, the canopy creaked with old age and unseen weight.
Halward walked ahead, his steps silent, his eyes scanning the trees not just for movement, but for meaning. Simon Braye followed closely, his breath rising in quick clouds, his gaze sharp but nervous. Alan Wode brought up the rear with a forced swagger, a cocked grin that cracked beneath the silence. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his blade more often than they should.
They walked nearly a mile without speaking. Halward gestured now and then to carved notches in the trees, to root patterns, to the bent trunk of a beech leaning unnaturally eastward.
At one point, Halward stopped near a patch where the frost did not hold to the ground. He crouched, brushing his hand across disturbed earth.
"Note the ground," he said. "The frost thins here. Boar have been rooting. It changes the sound beneath your boots. Masks what comes behind."
Alan scoffed. "All this for pig tracks?"
Halward stood and faced him without expression. "Boar don’t care if you wear steel. If they charge, you don’t get to be wrong twice."
Simon said nothing, but his eyes stayed low, his steps more cautious after that.
The Shrike Tree appeared as they crested a low ridge. It stood crooked and alone in a clearing, tall and blackened, its bark peeling in long, brittle curls like parchment set to fire. Its twisted branches jutted like spears, and from them hung the remains of offerings best left untouched.
A child’s shoe, its toe stuffed with soot. A crow skull ringed in copper wire. A jawbone strung with dull beads and broken teeth. A loop of hair, braided tight and nailed to the trunk with a rusted pin. A tiny wooden knight, its painted face scraped away, arms missing, torso split.
The earth beneath the tree was bare of snow, and a ring of flat stones lay half-buried in the frozen loam.
Simon drew up short. "What is this?"
Halward stepped into the clearing, slow and steady.
"The Shrike Tree," he said. "A place of offering. A place of warning. Forest witches leave tokens here. So do others. Hedge-bounders."
Alan’s voice cracked. "It’s treason. Defiling royal ground. Why don’t we burn it?"
Halward studied the base of the tree, his face unreadable. "Because the king’s word fades before the frost reaches here. The law ends where the forest begins."
Simon hesitated. "But it’s wrong. Isn’t it?"
Halward turned to face them both.
"The forest does not weigh right and wrong," he said. "It remembers. It balances. That’s its law. Not his."
He walked the perimeter of the tree, eyes scanning each hanging object. There was reverence in his steps, but not worship. Respect. Calculation. Memory.
"Not all who dwell here are the Warden’s friends," he said. "This is not my ground. I pass through. That is all."
Alan shook his head. "It’s madness."
Halward stopped beside him, voice cold as the wind. "Good. You should be afraid. That’s what I wanted. Better men come back shaken than not at all."
Simon knelt beside one of the stones, brushing at the ice. Beneath it was a carved spiral, worn smooth. He said nothing, but his brow furrowed.
Above, something moved—a slow creaking shift. A pale shape lifted from a branch and vanished into the canopy.
Halward looked up and then back to his men. "We have overstayed our welcome. Seen things better left unseen."
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He turned and left the clearing, and the others followed.
They walked back in silence.
A single feather, pale and long, drifted from the trees and settled on the road between them.
Halward picked it up, held it between finger and thumb.
The party pressed on.
***
After the midday meal, Halward ordered Oswin and Wilmot to remain behind at the gatehouse, watching over the road and tending the chapel fire. Oswin nodded once, unsurprised. Wilmot had opened his mouth to protest, but a look from Halward had stilled him. “Soon,” the Warden said, not unkindly. “But not yet.”
The others—Alan, Simon, Hob, and Clement—were told to saddle their horses. Their first ride as a group would not be far, but it would be far enough. Today, they would learn the road—not just its shape, but its weight, its silence, and the reach of its memory.
The afternoon light lay thin across the Forest Road, draping the frozen ruts and frost-stiffened weeds in a wash of brittle silver. Hooves beat a slow, steady rhythm along the packed earth as Halward led the patrol deeper into the woods. The road here was older, a half-forgotten trade route carved from trails that predated the king’s maps. It was wider than the narrow paths they had walked before—broad enough for a small cart, but no grander carriage. Low hedgerows and frost-choked underbrush marked its edges. Hunting trails—little more than deer tracks—branched off into the deeper green like veins from an old heart.
Halward rode alone at the front, his posture easy but alert. Behind him, the men rode two by two, their breaths rising in clouds, their mounts snorting against the cold. The woods pressed close—not threatening, but watchful. The wind sifted through the branches overhead in occasional gusts, unsettling dead leaves clinging to brittle stems.
For a time, none spoke. Even Alan had quieted. The rhythm of hoofbeats, the creak of leather, and the occasional rustle of a wind-shaken branch made up the only sound. It was not silence, but something older, more measured.
They had nearly reached the marker stream—a shallow, seasonal runlet used by Halward and the wardens before him to mark the eastern patrol boundary—when Halward raised his hand, signaling a halt.
From the shadows of a side trail, a figure stepped out.
Harlan Croft, the sheriff's hunter.
He moved with the quiet ease of one who had spent most of his life outside the company of roads. A doe, freshly killed, hung over one shoulder, bound by a rough-cut rope. Across his back, a longbow gleamed with oil and care. His cloak was patched but strong, his boots caked in the frozen muck of a morning spent in the woods.
Harlan nodded once, his sharp eyes scanning the patrol. “A lucky day,” he said, with a tilt of the doe. “A fine meal for the Sheriff’s table.”
Halward nudged his horse forward a step. “Hard meat to come by in winter.”
“Aye,” Harlan agreed, adjusting his stance. “The gods of the wood smiled. But strange smiles they were.”
He paused, his voice lowering. “Two of my snares were sprung and left empty. Nothing taken. Just a silver penny in each one.”
Simon tensed. Clement looked up sharply. Alan muttered a curse.
Halward’s eyes narrowed. “Not forest folk.”
Harlan shook his head. “No. Their coins are older. And their debts are not paid with silver.”
The wind shifted, passing between them like a whisper too quiet to catch. Far off, a bird called once, then fell silent.
From a pouch at his side, Harlan pulled a small bundle wrapped in linen. “Small catch too. Rabbit and pheasant. For your pot, Warden. Or for these boys, if they’ve earned it.”
Halward reached down and took it. The exchange was wordless, respectful. Such gifts were never refused in the forest.
“I’ll not keep you,” Harlan said, stepping back toward the thicket. “Best to ride while the light favors you.”
He paused, glancing once more down the road they had yet to ride. “Strange days in the wood,” he murmured. “But all’s well. For now.”
Then he turned, disappearing with practiced ease into the trees. His boots made no sound on the frozen earth.
Halward sat his horse for a long moment, watching the trail where Harlan had gone. The forest seemed stiller now. The road ahead felt narrower, the shadows deeper. Even the air felt held back, waiting.
He turned his mount and gestured for the others to follow. No one asked questions. They rode on toward the stream, the woods thickening around them, and none of the men spoke until they reached its bank. The sunlight had begun to lean westward, and what little warmth the day had offered was already receding.
There, Halward stopped again. The stream whispered softly beside them, little more than a trickle over rock and frost, but it marked a threshold. The hooves of the horses disturbed the silence as they halted. Halward dismounted slowly, motioning for the others to stay mounted as he stepped toward the cairn nestled at the base of a leaning birch.
“This is the end of my watch,” he said quietly. “Beyond this point, the forest does not answer to my name. The road continues for another ten miles, winding past the northern rise and down into the lowland glade near Clipstone Abbey. But that is not for today.”
He rested a hand briefly on the cairn, as if it were an old friend. Lichen covered the stones, and a small ribbon of red thread was caught between two of them—remnant of some forgotten offering.
“There may come a day when we ride the whole of it,” he added, looking down the road that curved into mist. “But not yet. Not today.”
They listened. The breeze carried no scent, no song. The trees beyond seemed to lean closer to the road’s edge, as though to overhear or to judge.
No one spoke as they turned back. Hooves clattered gently as they made their way toward Woodgate. The sun dipped behind the ridge, and with it went the warmth. A hush settled across the trail—heavier than before, not unfriendly, but final.
Not one of them looked behind more than once.