The Winter kingdom

Version 2.0

As Brandon moved through the camp, he kept his head high and his gaze steady, whilst his shoulders stiffened, and his back hunched over. He stopped to speak with everyone he could, his voice calm and reassuring, despite his fatigue. Men, women, and children looked up at him, their faces lined with worry and hunger.

One woman approached him, clutching a small bundle wrapped in tattered blankets, his face pale and sunken. Before she could open her mouth, Brandon immediately took a bit of dried meat from his pouch and pressed it into the woman's hands. "It's not much," he murmured, "but I'll see that more food is brought your way. Just hold on a little longer." He smiled as he continued his way.

"Brandon, we need to start preparing the men for battle," Edric said as he chased after Brandon.

"In a bit Edric, we still have some time," Brandon said waiving Edric off.

Another family huddled by the edge of the camp, their belongings no more than a few threadbare blankets and a rusty dagger. He took off his cloak and draped it around them. "Move closer to the camp and get closer to a fire," he said softly, as the father nodded, his hand shaking as he held his family close.

He walked among the tents and makeshift shelters, finding those in the worst conditions and directing his guards to bring them food and water. When he noticed the children with vacant eyes and hollow cheeks, he motioned to one of his men. "Take my rations," he ordered. "See to it they're shared among the youngest."

Everywhere he went, he tried to lift spirits, to give what he could, even if it meant he would eat nothing that day. He helped a group of survivors build a larger tent from a spare canvas, showing them how to lash the poles together for better stability. He spoke words of comfort to a grieving man who had lost his brother to the monsters, placing a firm hand on his shoulder and listening in silence as the man sobbed.

He stopped a group of Red Men mercenaries who were trying to rip off a man, taking the last of his money to offer him 'protection'. Brandon told them nicely to leave and took the man and his family into his camp, giving them food and water.

As he moved through the camp, Brandon rubbed his chest. "Brandon, please rest for a bit," Edric said as he guided Brandon's tent. "We will be marching soon, for me, please."

Brandon smiled. "Alright, I know I can be a hard ass, Thanks Edric." He said as he sat down for the rest of the morning.

Finally, as the sun crept high into the sky and the cold receded, Edric came back to him and sat with him. "Brandon, you've given up nearly everything you have."

Brandon shook his head. "It's not much to me but means everything to them. These people have lost much more than I have," he replied quietly. "I can help them so why would I not."

He exited his tent and took one last look around the camp, ensuring everyone was as warm and fed as they could be before he turned to Edric. "It's time," he said. "Now we search for Aloe. This camp will never know peace as long as he haunts these lands."

With a final glance at the huddled families, Brandon gathered his troops. Despite the weariness etched into each of their faces, they formed up around him without hesitation.

/

The search for Aloe took on a grim aura as Brandon and the other Kings kept their forces close, to aid one group when they were inevitably attacked. They moved through vast, desolate expanses of the North, the snow crunching underfoot and icy winds sweeping through the bare, brittle trees. Following each King's party marched clusters of mercenaries often there for either scraps of leftover monsters or to help in the battles due to their force being larger than the King they marched with.

In the early dawn, they caught sight of a fresh line of tracks. As they followed they soon neared a village, the air grew thick with a tick stench of blood, a mixture of metallic tang. All the houses were shattered and torn apart, great gashes and cuts lay on all of them, torn holes in walls, roofs collapsed. Bodies lay strewn across the snow, women, and children, lay ripped to shreds in their broken homes, their doors creaking in the winds as their insides were violated.

Fresh limbs lay far from bodies, some without bodies to return to. Some bodies were partially eaten, jagged bites and ragged flesh jutted out from abandoned bodies, while others looked untouched, simply discarded after the kill had been completed.

Brandon's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword as he moved through the wreckage. The mercenaries around him muttered, faces set in a mix of disgust and fury. One of them, a grizzled man with a scar running down his face, spat on the ground. "Looks like a killing for pleasure."

Brandon kept quiet. Even when a pair of brother and sister were found by some men, huddled under a bed. Refusing to speak.

Eventually, they moved beyond the village, each king keeping within sight of each other as they scanned the landscape. As they kept following the track this horde had made after their village attack, they could see the massive footprints of trolls and larger creatures, mixed with the trails of ghouls, dire wolves, and werewolves—all moving north.

"Looks like he's keeping his forces moving together," Harmond observed, pointing out the dense tracks that packed the snow in a line of destruction. "He's gathering them, controlling them somehow."

Edwyn nodded, face pale as he took in the scope of the tracks. "We'll catch him soon enough if he keeps to this path. And when we do, may the gods torment him."

Their party trudged forward, following the tracks that stretched into the distance. The light began to fade as the sun sank behind the hills, casting long shadows over the moving party. They pressed forward, heading deeper into the shadow.