They reached.
After a march of several long hours through the biting cold, Aric and his army now stood before a small outpost town.
It was, quite frankly, a desolate place, lying east of the settlement Aric and his men had burned to the ground only days earlier.
The outpost was little more than a cluster of wooden structures, covered in frost, their roofs sagging under the weight of the snow atop them. The town—or what was left of it—appeared abandoned.
No smoke rose from the chimneys, no signs of life stirred in the icy streets. Only silence greeted them—a silence as chilling as the air.
Aric's eyes scanned the surroundings, his breath fogging the air in front of him.
He dismounted from the Kriger with a sharp thud, his armored boots crunching through the ice-crusted ground. Raising a hand, he signaled for his soldiers to halt. None were to follow him beyond this point.
