Galum'nor met the Pale Lord at dawn, in a clearing where the frost was so thick that the grass beneath it had become a carpet of crystalline needles that shattered with each footstep.
His strike team had lost time during the approach. The Pale Lord's corrupted sentries, unlike the Scorcher's heat-radiating thralls, were ambush predators, hidden among the frost-covered terrain in positions that were nearly impossible to detect until the attack was already underway. Three Verakhs had been wounded before the team adapted, learning to read the frost patterns for the subtle irregularities that indicated a corrupted creature's body heat disturbing the otherwise uniform ice cover.
