Basil did not recall climbing down from his horse. Perhaps he had been hauled from the saddle by Asag, or perhaps he had simply lost his grip on reality and slipped into the mud.
He stared down at the clear, rushing water of the swerves. Before him lay the small, hidden pontoon bridge, a thing of hay and lashed timber that skipped from one bank to the other like a secret kept from the world.
His father had publicly put the great wooden bridge to the torch in a display of iron-willed defiance, yet he had tucked this coward's path away for his son and his lords, should the world turn cold.
And the world had turned very cold indeed.
