Ser Rodry Longspear sat and breathed, each a shudder against the chill.
His bench was the mossy trunk of a fallen oak, and the damp morning dew clinging to the grass soaked right through his breeches, wetting the backs of his thighs and calves. He stared up at the featureless gray sky, wondering where the rain was when a man actually had a use for it.
He had never been a greatly religious man; most people spent their lives begging the five gods to be good, but the heavens had seldom been good to him. Right now, he would have given a week's pay, if he had one, which he did not, for a proper downpour, if only to rinse the clotted gore off his armor and his white cloak. The crimson streaks smeared across his wool were far more vivid than the pale bodies littered around the clearing.
