The storm showed no mercy. Cold wind whipped across the mountain, throwing heavy waves of snow against the trees and erasing footprints almost as fast as they appeared.
Asarmose rode at the front of the small group. Barek rode right beside him, and Caelum followed just behind them. None of them spoke. The harder they rode, the heavier the silence became. Something felt completely wrong.
Suddenly, Barek lifted his hand to stop the horses. "There," he called out against the wind.
A dark shape appeared through the thick curtain of falling snow. Then another. Asarmose felt his stomach drop. A body.
The three men urged their horses forward into the small, hidden clearing. The moment they entered, everything stopped.
A civilian woman lay face-down in a deep drift. She was completely still, her brown cloak already dusting over with white. Dead.
A few yards away, another body rested half-buried in the snow. It was a soldier in iron chainmail.
