The Bait
Aric sat on the Kriger, its massive form snorting icy breaths into the frigid northern air as he watched the battle take place below.
His gaze glided through the field, taking in the clash of metal and the roaring war cries of his soldiers. In total, they had a hundred and ten men left.
Fifty of them were Northrender legionaries, the other sixty were the remnants of his own forces—what was once a proud Byzeth army of a hundred and fifty, now whittled down by the ruthless north.
More than half had perished, not in battle, but at the hands of a more relentless killer—the cold.
After their first engagement with the settlers, some had fallen to arrows and blades, but many more to the biting freeze. Men from the warm south, unaccustomed to the unforgiving northern climate, had quickly found death.