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"How many?"
Virrak didn't look up from the ridge. Blood soaked through the makeshift bandage on his shoulder, dark against the snow. "Forty. Maybe fifty if they pulled the northern patrol back."
"And we're two."
"Two and a half," he said. "I can still hold a blade."
I crouched beside him, scanning the valley below. The camp sat in a natural basin, tents clustered around a central fire pit. Smoke rose thin and gray into the morning sky. Supply crates stacked near the command tent. Horses picketed on the east side. Guards walking lazy loops around the perimeter.
Numbers flickered into view above each guard's head. Morale: 62%. Alertness: 41%. Cold resistance: failing.
I'd stopped questioning the numbers three days ago. They were there. They were right. And right now they were the only edge we had.
"They're cold," I said. "Tired. Been out here two weeks from the supply count."
Virrak finally looked at me. "You can tell that from here?"
"I can tell." I pointed at the ice sheet stretching across the narrow end of the basin. "That's the Frostmere. Runs all the way to the eastern camps. They use it to move supplies."
"Frozen solid this time of year."
"Should be." I watched the numbers shift and recalculate as wind patterns changed. "But it's been warm. Three degrees above seasonal average. The ice is thin on the north side where the current runs fast."
Virrak's jaw tightened. "You want to crack it."
"I want them to crack it." I traced the route in my mind, watching probability calculations cascade through my vision. "We hit them from the ridge. They panic, run for the ice bridge. We cut it behind them."
"That's murder."
"That's war." I met his eyes. "You taught me that."
He was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up, carrying the smell of woodsmoke and horses. Finally he shifted, testing his wounded shoulder. "The council sent them. They're not going to stop."
"I know."
"If we take this camp, we take their supplies. Their horses. Their weapons."
"And their fear," I said. "Word gets back that two exiles broke a full garrison, the other clans start wondering what else the council got wrong about me."
Virrak almost smiled. Almost. "When?"
"Noon. When they're eating and the sun's in their eyes."
We spent the next hour working our way down the ridge. My legs burned. My hands were numb inside my gloves. Virrak moved slower than yesterday, favoring his shoulder, but he didn't complain. Didn't ask to rest.
Old soldier. Old oath.
I still didn't know why he'd followed me into exile. Everyone else had scattered the moment the council stripped my name. But Virrak had packed a rucksack, checked his blade, and walked out behind me without a word.
Maybe old oaths were enough. Maybe he just hated the council more than he feared the cold.
We stopped fifty yards from the perimeter. Close enough to hear the guards talking. One of them was complaining about the food. Another was betting on how long until they got rotated back to the main garrison.
None of them were watching the ridge.
I pulled the crude firebomb from my pack. Virrak had made it from stolen lamp oil and a strip of his undershirt. It wouldn't burn long, but it didn't need to.
"Supply crates first," I whispered. "Then the command tent. Don't wait for me to catch up."
"Where are you going?"
"The bridge." I checked the angle one more time. "Someone has to cut it."
Virrak caught my wrist. His grip was cold and iron-hard. "You step on that ice, you might not step off."
"Then I'll be fast."
"Lynn—"
"We don't have another play." I pulled free, gentler than I needed to. "You want them to stop hunting us, we make them afraid to try."
He looked like he wanted to argue. Instead he just checked his blade one more time and nodded.
I lit the firebomb and threw.
It arced high and pretty, trailing black smoke, and came down right on top of the supply crates. The oil caught with a soft whump. Flames spread fast, licking up the sides of the crates, jumping to the nearest tent.
Someone shouted. Then everyone was shouting.
Virrak went in low and fast, blade out, moving for the command tent before they could organize. I broke right, sprinting for the basin's edge. A guard saw me and yelled. I didn't slow down.
The camp dissolved into chaos behind me. Men scrambling for weapons. The fire spreading. Horses screaming and pulling at their lines.
I hit the ice at full speed.
It groaned under my boots. A deep, grinding sound that I felt in my chest. Cracks spiderwebbed out from each step. I didn't look down. Didn't think about the black water underneath.
Just ran.
The bridge was fifty feet of lashed timber spanning the narrowest part of the Frostmere. It groaned and shifted as men poured onto it from the far side, fleeing the fire, trying to regroup on solid ground.
I pulled the hatchet from my belt.
The first support rope was thick as my wrist, frozen stiff. I swung hard. The blade bit deep but didn't cut through. I swung again. Again. Splinters flew. The rope frayed.
Someone on the bridge saw me and shouted a warning.
I switched to the second rope. Swung until my shoulders burned. The ice under my feet cracked louder. Water seeped up through the fissures, black and ice-cold.
The second rope snapped.
The bridge sagged. Men screamed. Someone tried to run back to the camp side. The ice buckled under the weight.
I ran.
Behind me the bridge gave way with a sound like the world breaking. Men and timber and rope crashed into the Frostmere. The ice shattered. Black water swallowed everything.
I didn't look back. Just ran until I hit solid ground and collapsed, gasping, shaking so hard I couldn't stand.
Virrak found me five minutes later. His blade was red. His face was pale.
"How many?" I asked.
"Enough." He pulled me to my feet. "The rest scattered. We've got maybe an hour before they regroup or call for reinforcements."
I nodded and stumbled back toward the camp. The fire had died down. Most of the tents were intact. The supply crates were half-burned but salvageable. The horses were still there, wild-eyed and stamping but alive.
We'd won.
It didn't feel like winning. It felt like survival.
Virrak started pulling bodies away from the command tent. I checked the supply crates. Rations. Blankets. Three crates of arrows. Two swords in decent condition.
Enough to keep us alive another week.
I stepped into the command tent. It was sparse. A folding table. A camp chair. Maps pinned to a board, showing the western territories and our projected route.
They'd known exactly where we were going.
I flipped through the maps, looking for anything useful. Troop movements. Supply lines. Weak points in the clan network.
My hand hit something under the table.
A wooden dispatch case, hidden in the shadows. I pulled it out and cracked it open.
Inside was a single folded letter, sealed with red wax.
The seal was broken. Someone had already read it.
I unfolded the letter and felt the ground drop out from under me.
The handwriting was formal. Clan script. The kind used for official orders.
*From the Council of Korde to Captain Halven, Northern Garrison:*
*The exile known as Lynn Korde is not to reach the eastern clans. Pursue and eliminate. No witnesses. No mercy. Payment on confirmation.*
I read it twice. Three times.
Not capture. Eliminate.
They hadn't exiled me to teach me a lesson. They'd exiled me to kill me.
Footsteps crunched in the snow outside. Virrak's voice, low and urgent. "Lynn. We need to move."
I looked down at the letter again. At the signature at the bottom.
*Signed by order of High Councilor Korde.*
My father's name.
My father's seal.
"Lynn!" Virrak's voice was sharper now. "Someone's coming. We're out of time."
I folded the letter, shoved it inside my coat, and stepped out into the cold.
Virrak was already mounted, leading a second horse toward me. His face was grim. "Riders. Two miles out and closing."
I swung into the saddle. My hands were still shaking.
"Did you find anything?" he asked.
I looked at him. At the blood on his blade. At the bodies we'd left behind.
"Yeah," I said. "I found something."
I didn't tell him what.
Not yet.
Not until I figured out who I could trust.
We rode hard into the frozen north, and behind us, the camp burned.