The six miles to Blackwood felt like six hundred.

  The Whispering Pine-Barrens were not merely a forest; they were an oppression. The moment the heavy timber doors of the Frost-Gate slammed shut behind them, the world changed. The biting wind of the tundra vanished, replaced by a stillness so profound it felt like the air itself had been frozen in place.

  The ancient trees grew so densely that they choked out the sky, plunging the road into a perpetual, icy twilight. These were not the friendly oaks of the south or the scrub pines of the coast. These were giants, their bark black and scaled like dragon hide, their needles weaving a canopy that trapped the cold and blocked the sun.

  But it was the sound—or the lack of it—that eroded their nerves.

  It wasn't a literal whispering. It was the absence of natural noise. There were no birds calling to one another. No squirrels chittering in the branches. No snapping twigs under the weight of passing deer. The forest was a vacuum, and into that silence, the mind began to pour its own terrors.

  It started as a low, dissonant thrum at the base of Casimir’s skull. A pressure, like the feeling of being watched by a thousand eyes. Then, it resolved into sound. Soft, sibilant hisses that seemed to come from right behind his ear, yet when he turned, there was nothing but shadow.

  …soft skin… warm blood… Kovac…

  Casimir kept his eyes forward, his hand cramping around the hilt of his sword. The leather of his gloves creaked, the sound impossibly loud in the quiet. Behind him, the men rode in a tight, defensive box around the wagon. Even the draft horses were spooked, fighting the bits, their eyes rolling white in the gloom, their hooves landing on the frozen moss with muffled thuds.

  "Don't listen to it," Kaelen growled.

  Casimir glanced back. Davin was trembling in his saddle, his face pale as milk. The boy’s eyes were darting wildly at the shadows between the trees, tracking movements that weren't there.

  "It’s just the wind through the needles," Kaelen said, though his voice was tight. "Tricks of the acoustics. The shape of the branches creates a funnel for the air."

  "Wind doesn't know my name, Sergeant," Davin whispered, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "It keeps asking me why I didn't save my sister. It knows she drowned."

  "Stow it, boy," Boras the earless rumbled, riding close enough to knee Davin’s horse. "The trees don't know shit. Keep your eyes on the road and your spear up."

  Casimir looked to his left.

  Roza rode beside him. Her ledger was closed and tucked away in her waterproof satchel. Her crossbow rested across her lap, a bolt loaded, her finger hovering over the trigger guard. She was pale, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, but her focus remained clinical. She was scanning the tree line, not with fear, but with the frustration of an auditor trying to categorize an expense that defied the tax code.

  "Have you ever encountered this phenomenon in your books, Auditor?" Casimir asked quietly, needing to hear a human voice that wasn't hallucinating.

  "There are records of acoustic anomalies in dense vegetation," Roza said, her voice steady but pitched slightly higher than usual. "Certain fungal spores can also induce mild auditory hallucinations. It is… environmental. Biological."

  "Keep telling yourself that," Casimir murmured.

  They pushed on for two agonizing hours. The path grew narrower, winding between massive root systems that buckled the frozen earth like the coils of petrified snakes. The wagon groaned and lurched, every creak sounding like a scream in the silence.

  Merrick, the archer with the twitch, had stopped shaking. In the face of a tangible threat, his body had gone rigid. He rode with an arrow nocked, the tip tracking back and forth like a metronome.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Just as the oppressive weight of the forest threatened to break their nerve, the trees suddenly thinned. The twilight lifted, replaced by the dull, flat gray of the northern sky.

  "Clearance ahead," Merrick called out, his voice cracking.

  Casimir spurred his gelding forward, breaking through the final line of sentry pines. The sudden expanse of open space felt like a physical blow. He pulled up short, the breath catching in his throat.

  He had expected a ruin.

  His father had described Blackwood as a dying hamlet—a collection of rotting shacks and mud huts waiting for the winter to finish them off. The reports Harlon had shown him listed "depreciated assets" and "minimal fortifications."

  His father had lied. Or he simply didn't know.

  Blackwood was a fortress born of desperation.

  They stood at the edge of a large, bowl-shaped basin, sculpted by the winding path of a half-frozen river—the "White-Deed River" according to the map. The water was black and sluggish, churning with chunks of ice.

  Across a narrow, sturdy wooden bridge sat the settlement.

  It was surrounded by a formidable palisade wall made of thick, raw timber logs, sharpened to lethal points at the top. The wood was new in places—yellow scars of fresh pine standing out against the weathered gray of older sections—suggesting constant, frantic repair. Watchtowers jutted out at the corners, reinforced with scrap metal and manned by dark shapes.

  Rising above the wooden walls, perched on a rocky granite outcrop in the center of the village, was a squat, brutal-looking stone keep. It wasn't the elegant architecture of Malbork with its spires and glass windows. It was a fist of rock punching up toward the sky, built solely for survival. Narrow arrow slits stared out like suspicious eyes.

  "That," Kaelen let out a low whistle, shifting in his saddle, "is not a ruin. That’s a holdfast."

  "It seems the Marquis's intelligence was... outdated," Roza noted dryly, her eyes narrowing as she assessed the defensive perimeter. "That wall is twelve feet high. Double-reinforced. It could hold against light infantry for weeks."

  "But not against a horde," Casimir said.

  He looked closer. He saw the signs of siege. The ground outside the walls was scorched black in patches—burn marks from oil or something far worse. There were craters in the frozen mud. And rising from the chimneys inside the walls, the smoke was thin and wispy.

  "They are rationing fuel," Kowalski grunted from the back of the wagon, pulling his wolf-head hood lower. "That smoke is too white. They're burning green wood. They're out of seasoned logs."

  "Let’s get inside," Casimir said, feeling the eyes of the forest still boring into his back. "Before whatever lives in these woods decides to follow us out."

  He led the column down the slope and onto the wooden bridge. The hooves thudded hollowly on the planks, the sound echoing off the canyon walls.

  As they approached the main gate—a heavy barrier of reinforced oak banded with iron—Casimir raised his hand in greeting.

  "Open the gate!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the timber palisade. "In the name of the King!"

  Silence answered him.

  Then came the sound of bowstrings tightening. A sound like a hundred crickets chirping at once.

  A dozen figures rose from cover along the top of the wall. They didn't wear the livery of the Crown, nor the mismatched armor of mercenaries. They wore thick grey furs, boiled leather aprons, and hoods pulled low against the cold.

  They drew their bows with practiced, lethal ease. Arrows tipped with broadheads were aimed squarely at Casimir’s chest, at the horses, and at the wagon.

  "Hold!" Casimir barked to his men, sensing Kaelen and Boras reaching for their weapons. "Do not draw! Hands visible!"

  He looked up at the wall, squinting against the glare of the snow. The archers were small in stature, but their stance was solid. As one shifted, a hood fell back, revealing a long braid of blonde hair and a face hardened by cold and grief.

  It was a woman.

  Casimir looked along the line. Another face revealed. Another woman.

  There were no men on the wall.

  "I am Casimir Kovac," he called out again, projecting his voice with as much authority as he could muster, ignoring the arrow pointed at his throat. "Son of Marquis Viktor Kovac. I hold the Royal Seal appointing me Steward of these lands. I demand entry."

  A figure in the center tower leaned forward over the parapet.

  It was a woman, taller than the others, wearing a chest plate made of overlapping steel scales over a heavy bearskin cloak. A jagged white scar cut diagonally across her face from her forehead to her jaw, bisecting her left eyebrow and vanishing into her collar.

  She didn't raise a bow. She held a heavy, bearded axe resting casually on her shoulder.

  "A Steward," the woman called down. Her voice was raw, deep, and rasping—like stones grinding together in a riverbed. It wasn't a question; it was an insult. "The south sends us paper when we need steel."

  "We brought steel," Casimir said, gesturing to his men. "And supplies. We are here to secure the settlement."

  The woman let out a harsh, barking laugh that held no humor. It was a sound of pure cynicism. "Secure us? Boy, look around you. We secured ourselves while your father drank wine and forgot we existed. Go back to your warm bed. There is nothing here for you but a grave."