Brekk raised his objection at the second clan gathering, which Drakk had called to present the cistern's completion and the windbreak wall's progress. He stood without ceremony and spoke without heat.
He was perhaps fifty. Lean and grey-templed, with the physical economy that decades of highland combat developed in men who had never relied on size and had therefore become excellent at everything else. He had been one of Brokk's senior lieutenants. He had fought at Harken Field, at the Threian capital engagement, and in seven further engagements since the campaign that the kingdom's northern push had produced. He had survived all of them, which in the highland tradition carried specific weight. A man who had survived that many engagements had either considerable skill or considerable luck, and in Brekk's case the warriors who had fought beside him knew which one it was.
