A lone man strode forward through the scorched remnants of what had once been a proud settlement, the wind whispering like the voices of the dead.
Draped in the heavy pelt of a northern wolf, its grey fur matted by old blood and snow, he carried himself with the pride of a mountain lion.
Behind him, two slaves trailed in silence, bent low beneath the weight of tightly wrapped bundles.
Their feet stirred the dirt path, no longer hardened from winter's bite but cracked from the breath of early spring. Dust rose around their ankles like ghosts.
It had been five long months since the massacre at the edge of the world, the Chorsi's so-called campaign of retribution, in which their warriors had butchered kin and kinfolk of the Duskwindai.
And though the snow had sealed the lands in silence, burying blood and ash under its frozen blanket, the pain had not slept.
