Ormund Hightower did not flee far.
By the next morning, our scouts confirmed what his orderly withdrawal had already suggested. His host had not broken, nor had it begun the long road back to Oldtown. Instead, Ormund had pulled his army into a stretch of small forest south-west of Honeyholt, where the trees thickened around uneven ground and narrow lanes. From above, much of his strength vanished beneath branches. From the road, his presence could be felt but not counted.
It was well chosen.
Too small to hide an army forever, but large enough to spoil the clean sight dragons usually gave us. The canopy broke the shape of his formations. Smoke was kept low. Banners were furled. Wagons were drawn beneath cover. His men had gone from siege lines into shadow, and shadow made numbers dishonest.
I did not like it. Neither did Rhaenys.
We stood on Honeyholt’s battered wall while the morning mist burned away, looking toward the distant green smear where Ormund had made his new camp. Dravvaxx rested outside the northern gate. Meleys lay farther off, red head lifted toward the same direction, restless enough that even the Beesbury defenders avoided staring at her too long.
"He wants us to wonder what he has hidden," Rhaenys said.
"He has succeeded."
"He cannot feed twenty thousand men in that forest for long."
"No, but he does not need long if he is waiting for us to grow impatient."
She glanced at me. "You think it is a trap."
"I think Ormund was forced to abandon Honeyholt at the wall, and a proud commander does not usually retreat into trees merely to sulk."
Rhaenys gave a small, grim smile. "Some do."
"Not this one."
Below us, the queen’s army continued entering the lands around Honeyholt. The vanguard had arrived the day before, with the main strength now spreading into ordered camps beyond the castle’s immediate approaches.
Men who had marched hard for days moved with the heaviness of exhaustion, yet relief ran through them too. Honeyholt stood. The Hightower assault had failed. The sight of Beesbury banners still flying above the walls mattered more to the Reach than any speech I could give.
But Ormund remained close. That meant the battle had not ended. It had only changed shape.
Baela came to the wall not long after, helmet tucked beneath one arm, hair tied back, eyes bright from too little sleep and too much need to prove useful. Moondancer waited beyond the inner yard, quick and nervous, wings shifting whenever Meleys moved.
"You want the forest watched," Baela said.
"I want it watched from height and distance," I replied. "You are not to descend below the safe mark Rhaenys gave you. If you cannot see through the trees from there, then you report that you cannot see through the trees."
Her expression tightened. "That tells us very little."
"It tells us Ormund has chosen ground where dragons cannot count him easily. That is useful enough."
"It does not tell us whether he is moving wagons, hiding scorpions, or preparing to strike the road."
"No. It does not."
"Then someone needs a closer look."
Rhaenys turned fully toward her. "Not from low altitude. Trees hide men, but they also hide machines. If Ormund has dragged scorpions or ballistas beneath that cover, a low survey gives them exactly what they need."
Baela’s jaw set. "Moondancer is small and fast."
"Small dragons still fall when struck," Rhaenys said.
The words were not cruel. That made them harder to dismiss.
Baela looked away toward the forest. "I have followed every limit you gave me."
"You have," I said. "That is why you are still scouting."
"Then trust me to judge the air."
"I trust you to report what you see. I do not trust Ormund to leave the sky safe merely because you are clever."
That stung her pride. I saw it and chose not to soften the order.
"Baela," Rhaenys said, voice lower now, "obedience is not proof that we think you weak. It is how dragonriders survive long enough for courage to matter. You will fly the high line, return, and give your report. You will not dip into the forest. You will not chase movement. You will not prove a point to men who would kill you without knowing your name."
Baela held her gaze. For a moment, I thought she would argue further. Instead, she bowed her head, stiff but proper.
"I understand."
I wanted to believe that was enough.
We sent mounted scouts along the northern edge of the forest while Baela prepared Moondancer for flight. Landrey oversaw the riders himself, warning them not to enter the trees without clear command.
The Unsullied strengthened Honeyholt’s approaches. Dread Legion engineers began marking outer lines in case Ormund tried to lunge back toward the castle or strike our camp while we were still settling. Every order assumed Ormund wanted us to make the first foolish move.
By midday, Moondancer rose.
Baela flew cleanly at first. She kept high, circling along the forest’s edge with sunlight behind her whenever she could. From the walls, she looked small against the sky, a pale-green flash moving over darker woods. Meleys watched from the ground with her head lifted. Dravvaxx rumbled once, low and uneasy, though whether he sensed danger or my own tension, I could not tell.
Rhaenys stood beside me on the battlements, her face unreadable. "She is keeping height," I said.
"For now."
The first pass revealed little. Baela circled back, wider this time, holding to the line. No arrows rose. No scorpion bolts. No dragon. The forest remained a dark mass broken by occasional smoke and the glint of something metallic too brief to read. Men on Honeyholt’s walls watched with the nervous fascination soldiers always gave to dragonriders doing work they could not imagine surviving.
Then Moondancer dipped. Not much at first. A gentle lowering, the sort that could be excused as adjusting to wind or seeking a better angle. Rhaenys saw it immediately. Her hand closed around the stone parapet.
"Do not," she whispered.
Moondancer continued along the western edge of the forest, lower now, still high enough that some might call it safe if they did not understand what the trees could hide. Baela tilted her path, cutting toward a thinner patch where the canopy broke around an old track.
"She is going too low," I said.
Rhaenys had already turned. "Bring a horn."
A guard ran.
Moondancer slipped lower.
The horn sounded from Honeyholt’s wall, long and sharp, the recall note carrying across the open ground. Once. Then again. Baela must have heard it. She had to have heard it. Moondancer’s head shifted, and for one brief moment I thought she would climb.
Instead, she banked. A lower survey. A defiance small enough to be explained later if she returned with something useful, and large enough to kill her if Ormund had guessed her nature correctly.
From the distance, the forest seemed still. That was what made it terrible.
No sudden rush of men. No obvious trap thrown open. Only wagons beneath trees near the broken track, three of them positioned awkwardly, half-covered by branches and canvas. I saw them because Moondancer’s movement drew my eye toward them. Too late, I understood their spacing. Too regular. Too carefully angled toward a gap in the canopy.
"Baela," Rhaenys said, no longer whispering.
The forest gave no warning that the sky had become dangerous. One moment the forest seemed still. The next, Moondancer jerked sharply in the air as if Baela had pulled her into a sudden climb.
Something had been loosed from below.
I did not see the first bolt clearly. I saw its effect instead: Moondancer twisting away from the forest, wings beating hard, Baela’s small figure bent low against the saddle. The dragon climbed, and for one breath I thought she had escaped whatever trap Ormund had hidden beneath the trees.
Then the second shot found her.
At that distance, sound came late. Sight came first. Moondancer convulsed in the sky, one wing folding wrong where no wing should fold, her pale-green body thrown sideways by the impact. Baela clung to her as the dragon screamed, though the cry reached us a heartbeat after the horror of it had already entered every watching man on the wall.
Another dark line rose from the trees.
Whether it struck scale, leather, or the ruined wing, I could not tell. I only saw Moondancer’s attempt to climb break apart. Her body dipped hard toward the far ridge, one wing still fighting the air while the other dragged uselessly behind her. She did not fall like a stone. That would almost have been kinder. She struggled, dropped, caught herself for half a breath, and then lost the sky again.
The sound reached us then. A terrible crack. A thin, distant shriek. Men on Honeyholt’s wall stopped breathing as if silence could hold her up.
Moondancer fell beyond the rise.
For one impossible moment, there was still hope in the way she fought the descent, tail lashing, one wing clawing at the air, Baela still a dark shape against her back. Then the trees swallowed them both.
Rhaenys stood beside me on the wall, frozen in a way I had never seen from her. Her eyes remained fixed on the place where Moondancer had vanished.
And far in the distance, beneath the grey afternoon light, the last pale flash of Baela’s dragon disappeared behind the forest.