"Do you think that the Abomination did that to those people?" Augustus rubbed at his nose, red from the cold, as the two of them looked at the devastated village's broken sign.
After a night's rest and a somewhat full belly, both men were moving at a much faster pace than the day before. But their handicap now wasn't an injured Claude, but a slow-moving injured Mad Dog and his handler, who were still several paces away due to taking ages to cross the river with the broken bridge.
"No," Claude shook his head and turned away from the sign. Years in his unique industry as well as his past had taught him how low people could stoop. "No, that atrocity was dealt by a human hand. Someone wanted all these people silenced."
"What makes you say that?" Augustus asked. He kicked aside some snow to reveal the other broken half of the wooden sign, a symbol of how the village could never be put back together. The Order, once happy to operate from the shadows, was growing far too bold.
