Right outside the jagged teeth of the Solania Mountains, where the air always tasted of iron and frost, the Holy Order maintained its forward camps. One such outpost was little more than a circle of weary adventurers huddled around a fire that crackled too brightly against the endless white. The flames snapped and spat as fat from a boar sizzled over the spit, sending up a greasy smoke that mixed with the thin mountain air.
Two of the younger men had locked elbows, their hands trembling as they strained in a contest of arm strength. Their companions half-watched, half-ignored, some occupied with rubbing oil into dulled blades, others feeding the fire with branches stripped bare of frost. Snow crunched under boots whenever one shifted his weight, and their laughter, thin, tired, but genuine, rose into the brittle night.
