Chapter 23 - Missing The Good Old Days When Thieving Was Honest

The morning broke late in the mountainous valleys of the High Passes with the sun shining across the peaks long before it was high enough to bring light into the lower reaches. Fog flowed like rivers down the crevasses of the valley sides and pooled in the bottoms. An observer looking down on the village from above would not have seen it but instead would have seen a thick, white liquid from which taller trees poked around the edges. Like a white opaque bog boarded with a light mist.

Of course, the liquid was just fog that appeared denser from a distance. A group of dirty men shivered around a campfire looking down upon the village with distaste. Their leader stood alone glaring impatiently at the spot where he should have seen a village for their inside man to arrive. Seeing the figure was alone, he gave a harrumph and turned back toward the campfire once the one he was waiting for trudged out of the obscuring fog below.