Corvin's forces hit outpost Seven like a wave. The attack came at midnight.
Outpost Seven was a small garrison on the eastern border—forty soldiers, a stone watchtower, and a wooden palisade that had stood for twenty years. It was not strategically important. It was not heavily defended. It was simply there, a marker on the map, a place where young soldiers cut their teeth on patrol duties before being assigned to more prestigious posts.
Fifty wolves, moving fast, striking hard. They came out of the darkness with no warning, no horns, no challenge. They overwhelmed the guards at the gate, breached the palisade, and set fire to the barracks while soldiers slept inside. The fighting lasted an hour—chaotic, brutal, desperate. When it was over, forty royal soldiers lay dead in the mud. Corvin's forces retreated before reinforcements could arrive, melting back into the eastern forests like ghosts.
The message reached the palace at dawn.
