"Keep your head down, and your mouth shut," his father warned, the words clipped and cold as he spurred his horse into the biting wind.
Behind them, the meager guard they had managed to scrape together trailed in a somber line, the emblems of their House etched into the steel of their breastplates, remining him of a pride that had seen better days. But above them all, the banners that had flown over their lands for seventy years flapped in the gale, the twin hounds of their sigil mimicking a frantic run as if trying to flee the very poles that held them.
Trailing at the rear was the heavy cart his father had fought so bitterly to provision. Lothar looked at the groaning wooden frame and thought they might as well have wiped their backsides with what was inside for all the good it would truly do. But one did not say such things to Lord Cregan.
