The wind whispered through the trees, drawing weary sighs from the branches beneath the weight of falling snow. Nicolaus, mounted on his horse, trudged forward; his breath unfurling a veil of mist in the cold air.
As he rode out of the forest, he anticipated the view of a cabin appearing before him... with its roof draped in a thick blanket of snow, its timbers worn and weathered.
It should have matched exactly as Lazar had described.
Yet, as Nicolaus pressed closer with his horse, its hooves crunching and carving a trail of tracks on the snow behind them, he did not find what he had envisioned.
'...This was the cabin,' he said inwardly, his voice filled with growing anger.
Before him stretched a devastating wasteland of ash, littered with burned wood.
The skeletal remains of timbers warped by fire stood out strikingly against the white snow. Fresh embers still stubbornly clung to the blackened wreckage, and dirty gray ash was scattered everywhere.
