The courtyard of Frosthold had never seemed so vast nor so full.
Warriors poured from every doorway, every corridor, and every hidden passage I had never known existed. They came in waves—soldiers in the fur-lined armor of the Mountain Watch, their faces weathered by years of northern winters. Hunters in leathers that blended with the snow, their bows slung across their backs and their quivers full. Farmers who had left their fields to take up swords passed down through generations. Even the smiths and the tanners and the masons, men and women who spent their lives shaping stone and metal and leather, had set aside their tools and picked up weapons.
The sea of fur and steel stretched from the great hall doors to the main gate, a living tide of northern defiance. I stood at the edge of it, pressed against the stone wall, and watched them gather.
