They ain’t men, child, not anymore.

Thems what come when the snows fall, they’re from the old war. When the old kings and princes needed men, they’d stitch ’em together, men without blood or breath, men who could march a hundred leagues without sleep. Dead men.

Never a whisper when they come, never a scrap of cloth or drop of blood. Only ever come on long winter nights, deadly cold and pitch dark. Come sunrise, you know they’ve come and gone. Children gone from their beds, husbands, wives, left alone in the middle of the night.

No telling when or where they come. But the animals know, the wilder things of the world, they can feel it in their bones. They can feel it same as they feel an earthquake, or a predator lurking in the tall grass. Live here long enough, you’ll feel it too. Kind of chill wakes you in the night. Some animal thing inside us, the old voice that saw us through the days before fire, before steel and sorcery.

You wake perfectly still, and you know they’re out there. Waiting.