The north wind blew in from the Cold Mist River, sweeping past the row of makeshift wooden palisades outside the camp and sending a chill through anyone it touched.
Pal Calvin stood on an ice-covered rocky knoll, wearing a long silver-trimmed cloak, his expression stern.
He gazed into the distance, toward the undeveloped iron deposit buried beneath the snow. A thriving mining town should have risen there.
But reality fell far short of his original plans.
The frozen earth beneath his feet remained as hard as iron. The tents had been torn apart by gales three times, the firewood had long since been burned to nothing, and at night they even had to ration charcoal.
Two days earlier, a craftsman had frozen to death during the night because there was not enough fuel, still wearing the smile of someone who had "seen his grandmother."
Of course, the worst disaster had been the hunt a month earlier.
That night, a low roar had shattered the silence in the snowy woods along the camp's southern edge.
Several warhorses had fled, neighing in terror. The sentry on night duty had barely managed to shout, "Something's out there!" before being torn into a mist of blood.
Pal had donned his armor and personally led men out to surround and kill it. He had thought little of it at the time, assuming it was merely a snow wolf king commonly found in the Northern Frontier. But the moment he entered the woods, a dark shape wreathed in freezing air streaked across the snowy ridge.
"Quick, form up!" he shouted, but the creature was faster than the wind.
The settled snow beneath the trees was gouged into trenches. One soldier was struck by its tail and sent flying, every bone in his body shattering when he