Later that evening…
The sky had darkened and the temperature had plummeted. A thick fog had begun to creep across the grounds, swallowing the base of the trees and turning the forest into a wall of gray.
Small beads of rain kept falling to the ground, and the heavy atmosphere felt increasingly grim.
It was also really cold on this particular night, and the biting wind seemed to carry the scent of old iron and death.
Caw!
Arlo, the pied raven, hovered high above a particular shelter in the barracks area. At some point, it dived and perched on the edge of the roof of the shelter, ruffling its feathers and shrieking, "Bastard! Bastard!"
Above the same shelter, two more black ravens also kept watch. One was perched on the weird-looking tree. The other just kept flying around in a circle.
To most people, they probably just seemed like ordinary birds. There were a lot of crows, ravens, and other scavengers that usually hovered around the grove, after all.
