The mountains of the Far North seemed to be sealed behind a Barrier.
The Blue Dragons had barely followed the route the Blackwatch soldiers had taken into the mountains when they slammed into a wall of blizzard winds. Visibility plummeted.
On a dragon's back, Krian had to crouch low and cling to a Dragon Scale to keep the blizzard from sweeping him off.
"Find the bodies! Older Cousin, follow the bodies along the road!"
At Krian's shout, the Blue Dragons descended. Their powerful Dragon Wings beat back the blizzard for a moment, blowing away the snowdrifts to reveal bodies that stood out against the dark gray rock, yet were just as cold.
The frozen bodies along the road became their markers. Some still held the posture they had died in, walking or pointing ahead along the route they had taken.
After losing his family, seeing his home fall, and enduring so much else, Krian had thought little could move him anymore.
But when he saw a ladder of bodies rising beside a cliff over ten meters high, warriors stacked atop one another, goose bumps rippled across his skin. For a long time, he said nothing.
"You humans... are remarkable," said one of the Blue Dragons, whose relation to Lord Annan's Blue Dragon lover Krian could not tell. The sight had clearly shaken the dragon too.
Krian drew a deep breath. "A song of humanity is a song of courage."
The Blackwatch soldier who had accompanied them stared blankly at him.
"Lord Annan said that."
They had no time to bury the heroes. Krian looked around, trying to commit the place to memory so he could return one day to recover their remains. Then they pressed on.
Even wrapped up like a bear, he could not stop the cold from seeping