"W-who are you?" The first to find her voice was the woman at the front. The hard leather of her jerkin creaked as she squared her shoulders, a travel-stained coat flapping around her legs in the knife-cold wind. Frost had webbed itself along the edge of her hood and lashes.
She drew a dagger that had seen a lifetime of quick decisions; the blade was nicked, the grip wrapped and rewrapped in darkened cord. A quiver rode her back, half full, fletchings crusted with rime, but there was no bow in sight. Mislaid in the panic, or snapped under the charge; Ludwig could guess either from the way her hand kept twitching to her shoulder as if to reach for what wasn't there.
