Chapter 19The snow-covered landscape was yellowed by a low, watery sun as it peered fitfully through the wintry haze. Vague patches of grey shadow picked their way over the fields uncertainly as, high above, unseen clouds formed and changed and drifted slowly by.
‘Thaw coming soon,’ Eldric said, feeling the cold dampness in the air.
A few heads nodded indifferently. No one relished the raw, blustering interregnum between the paternal tyranny of winter with its white, biting certainty, and the usurping anarchy of spring with its irreverent, unassuageable energy.
Eldric did not pursue his foretelling. It had only been a nervous twitch to break the silence which had enfolded the waiting group as they watched the distant Orthlundyn army winding its way through the brightening morning toward
