There were a thousand different ways to die or suffer on the road, and Vilon was well on his way to experiencing them all.
First came the exhausting torment of keeping one eye open through the midnight watches, which soured a man's sleep until his mind turned to grey sludge. Yet, a restless sleep was always preferable to the kind that started in the dark and never ended. Then came the lingering hunger, the constant scramble for salt-pork or stale hardtack, the rancid stench of unwashed wool, the biting mountain cold, and the endless, sucking mud.
But above all else, there was the rain.
