Several men, just over three dozen, stood clustered in front of the largest manor in all of Graystone. Their mismatched leather armor was scratched and patched in too many places, and each carried a weapon of choice: spears, chipped swords, a few crude axes. They were a ragged crew, but their stance was defiant, their eyes hard. At their head stood a man with a red scarf tied tightly around his brow, the knot trailing down his neck like a banner of challenge.
Sand, the man with the scarf, lifted his sword and leveled its point toward the balcony of the only true stone manor in the entire town, a building of thick, grey-hewn blocks that loomed over the crooked timber structures surrounding it. There, standing with his elbows resting on the carved stone railing, was Baron Garrick.
