Set in the aftermath of a great war involving the Dread Empire.
"Our first glimpse of the plain was one of Heaven. The snow and treacherous passes had claimed two men and five animals.
Two days later we all wished we were back in the mountains.
The ice storm came by night. An inch covered the ground. And still it came down, stinging my face, frosting the heads and shoulders of my companions. The footing was impossible. We had to finish two broken-legged mules before noon.
Lord Hammer remained unperturbed, unvanquishable. He remained stiffly upright on that red-eyed stallion, implacably drawing us northeastward. Ice clung to his cowl, shoulders, and the tail of his robe where it lay across his beast's rump. Seldom did even Nature break the total blackness of his apparel.
The wind hurtled against us, biting and clawing like a million mocking imps. It burned sliding into the lungs.
The inalterable, horizon-to-horizon bleakness of the world gnawed the roots of our souls. Even Fetch and irrepressible Chenyth dogged Lord Hammer in a desperate silence.
"We're becoming an army of ghosts," I muttered at my brother. "Hammer is rubbing off on us. How're the Harish taking this?" I didn't glance back. My concentration was devoted to taking each next step forward.
Chenyth muttered something I didn't hear. The kid was starting to understand that adventures were more fun when you were looking back and telling tall tales."