Chapter 202 - Common ground (1)

Winter gripped the south with a biting cold that seeped through wool and leather, making the march harder with each hour. Though the skies held no snow, the bare trees lining the road shivered in the icy wind, their skeletal branches reaching out against the bleak horizon. Ahead, a procession of hundreds moved in disciplined unison, a river of men and steel marching through frostbitten fields and narrow, frozen pathways.