On the plain below the hill, Si Kai and his dozens of scout cavalry stood assembled. The war horses beneath them panted heavily, clearly having just finished a long, hard ride. The biting wind whipped against their cavalry armor, making it feel as cold as ice, but every man was steaming with body heat.
If the Knights had been full of vigor when they set out, they now looked utterly dejected.
The Lord sized them up carefully and was secretly alarmed.
What was once a force of roughly seventy men had been reduced to just over forty. They had lost nearly thirty, and those who remained were all wounded to some extent.
One Knight had a strip of cloth torn from his tunic wrapped around his head, a dark, caked bloodstain marking where his right ear should have been.
The state of the Scout Squad was ghastly.
