RIDING WITH THE BEAST
CHAPTER 67: THE FIRST SPRING OF THE NEW WAY
The snow did not melt all at once, vanishing overnight as if it had never been. It receded slowly, yielding first to the sun‑facing slopes, turning to heavy slush that ran down the rutted tracks in dark brown streams, revealing patches of dead grass, snapped branches, and the faint pale green spears of new growth pushing stubbornly through the cold earth. The roads turned soft and deep with mud, almost as hard to travel as the frozen drifts had been, but people moved along them anyway — walking slowly, leading pack animals by the halter, stopping to speak to anyone they passed, no longer hurrying to bar their gates and bolt their doors before dark. For the first time in living memory, no one watched strangers with suspicio
