Those aren't shadows, spreading out around the low building snugged up against the outer wall of the castle; the snow on the ground has been churned up by more than just footfalls, stained by more than just mud. A body, half obscured by kicked drifts, lies face down half in and half out of the building's front door. Wind stirs up a ragged scarf of snow, whirls it about in the barracks yard, the only thing moving there.

(For a moment you might almost think you were seeing a ghost: sundered from the living too quickly to have realized, casting about in desperate circles, searching frantically for survivors, for a way to help, for what to do next.)