CHAPTER TEN
A heavy mix of rain and wet snow made for a miserable march southward. Besides boots caked with chilly mud, their collective clothes were splattered quite a bit, as was every bit of exposed skin, seemingly. At night, they rotated guard while keeping a fire well stocked, for warmth and as an added ally should a pack of wolves happen by. The exhaustion from the encounter with the riffraff they’d fought still sapped their combined strength. Thomas’s companions argued over who their enemy had been, changing what they referred to their unwanted nemeses as “brigands”, “ruffians”, “bandits” or “thieves” on a rotating basis. The smith just considered the men dead, which was all that mattered to him. Six days and six nights passed before they spotted a town in the distance in the mid-a
