It was set apart from the others, though like them in construction: a crude affair of bent wood and roughly cured hides, playing fitfully with the pale glow of the tallow lantern that was the only illumination within the dark interior. The hut was cold and damp, and not even the furs piled around its earthen floor warmed the occupants enough that they felt comfortable. One young man fumbled a pile of twigs into a cone, striking his tinderbox to light the wood. Others passed a stone jar from hand to hand, sucking enthusiastically on the fiery contents. In the cold times, inner fire might serve in lieu of real comfort. They wore furs, the three young warriors, and small pieces of metal and chainmail, little tidbits of armour looted from dead men. They carried swords of a dark metal that were never far from their hands, but their eyes were fixed upon the face of the man seated across the growing fire. He was old, his face lined with the deep cracks of age, his skin spread taut over the fine bones of his skull.
