With the coming of dawn young Cold Bill set off from the town of Greensville with his three new allies of questionable reliability.

It was only a night ago, he reflected, that he had happened across the weapon that forever changed the path of his life. By now his previous life seemed little but a distant dream, while the future was a mystery that he cared little to guess at.

He thought back to the guards he had felled; guards much like himself before finding this blade with a hunger for the living. He had never taken a life prior to that night, and he brooded over the thought of whether or not he was entirely responsible for the handful of deaths. He could foresee many battles in his future, and wondered uneasily at how many more of the living would fall before him.

In a small clearing within the depths of a distant forest his old sword and helm began to show the faintest signs of rust.