Lamashan 17, 4712 (evening, Iqaliat)

Our suspicions about Tunuak are all but confirmed, and though we still don’t understand exactly why we have at least been given a glimpse at the larger picture. The altar he had made for himself at the base of the chimney was decorated with a number of paintings that he, himself, had created. Not all the details are clear to us, but collectively they tell a story about storms being unleashed on the northern reaches of Avistan and Tian Xia, swallowing people, ships, cities and countries in a permanent winter that would rival even Irrisen. At the center stood a winged, blue-skinned woman that none of us recognized, but who Tunualk had named: Katiyana.

The symbol of Sithhud was everywhere. Tunuak had drawn Katiyana grasping the three fingered claw in her hand. The floor of the cavern was littered with bones, and the ones large enough to hold it had been etched with his rune. The nascent demon lord of the frozen dead, ice and storms.

The storms. The Erutaki here call them morozokus and speak of them as though they are living things. “The old gods of the wind oversee them,” Sonavut said. Maybe, maybe not, but they may not be far off the mark, here. I found a reference to them in one of the books we picked up back in Kalsgard. They were named after the druid who first saw and described them, and he wrote that they seemed to be guided by some malevolent intelligence. So, gods of old? Maybe, but Sithhud feels closer to the mark, and he was all around us down there.

How did this happen? How did Tunuak go from village shaman to all of this, whatever the gods this is? The answer, apparently, is a vision quest.

I’m not an expert on these things—it’s times like these that I really miss Etayne’s counsel—but I understand the broad strokes. I lived most of my life in Varisia, and you can’t spend that many years there without learning a thing or two about the Shoanti. Some of their tribes have rites of passage that sound like much the same thing: you spend several days in the wilderness, alone, fasting, waiting for the spirits to send enlightenment and revelation. Among the Erutaki that live here, according to the hearthmistress, those seeking vision quests seek out none other than the Nameless Spires because “that is where the wind spirits live”. The same Nameless Spires that appeared in the paintings in Tunuak’s cavern. The same Nameless Spires where Tunuak went on his vision quest.

He went out there seeking guidance from the old gods, heard voices on the wind, and came back towing hoarfrost spirits, smashing dragon eggs, bargaining with quasits, and spreading the sign of Sithhud like seeds. What in the name of the gods happened out there?

The chief has agreed to let us speak with his spirit, like we did with Kimandatsu. Obviously they want answers, too.

Lamashan 18, 4712 (morning, Iqaliat)

Kimandatsu wanted to gloat. She wanted to talk. She wanted to tell us everything, even in death. But Tunuak? His essence was evasive. He admitted to his crimes, he just wasn’t forthcoming with the details. But he told us enough: Sithhud wants to reclaim his place among the demon lords, and Tunuak intended to help him. We just don’t know how the pieces fit together.

“Why did you smash the dragon’s eggs?” Qatana asked.

“I did what must be done.”

See what I mean?

I am distinctly uneasy with the situation we’re now in. As the chief was quick to point out, “Regardless of what Tunuak has done here, the dragon is still attacking our village.” Yeah, sure. And how would you respond if someone killed your children?

Gods.

We’re going to try and bargain with her. We don’t exactly have proof, but we have enough of the story, and Tunuak’s remains to show her, so she might be willing to listen. I admit that it’s probably not going to work, but if there’s even a chance we can put a stop to all of this then we have to try. But we also have to prepare for the worst.

It’s going to be a four-day hike to her lair. That’s one way. I wanted to use the caravan to get us most or even part of the way there, but Sandru would not budge. Which, I suppose, is understandable: the caravan might prove too attractive a target should she pass overhead. And, this way, if she gets away from us and tries to seek revenge on the village, Ana and Shalelu will be there to help. But regardless of how much sense it makes? I just don’t want to walk.

It’s Lamashan, and that means the days are quickly growing shorter as the nights get longer. The sun rises (if you can call it rising) late in the morning and hangs low in the sky just above the horizon for only a couple of hours. Most of our waking time is spent in dawn and dusk light, and when the weather is sour it’s as good as dark. There is something isolating about walking across the frozen landscape in a fading sky, no matter how many people you are with.

Lamashan 22 (evening, dragon’s lair)

She’s dead. I don’t think it’s what any of us wanted, but that’s how it ended. We tried to parley. We brought her the proof that Tunuak had paid for his crime with his life. Whether or not she believed us didn’t matter, however. What he had done to her was unforgivable, and she was going to punish “all two-legs”, everywhere, in retribution. Iqaliat was almost certainly just the beginning. She would have been hunting and killing humankind for as long as she was alive and able to do it. Even when we had her bested, and she knew it, she refused to give, so deep was her anger. This. This is what he had done.

I actually stood face-to-face with her. It is a position I never want to be in ever again, but I did it. Was it foolish of me to walk into that cavern alone and call out to her? Probably. But if we were going to try to talk to her, it had to look that way, too. By appearances, I was the least threatening so I volunteered as spokesperson. I never even heard her coming, and I bore the brunt of the ice and sleet from her breath, protected from harm solely by the spells we had prepared. Fortunately, Radella was beside me in an instant. The bitter cold I could handle. Her teeth and claws would have been another matter.

Mere seconds later, most of the rest of us were on her. For a terrible moment I thought she was going to get away. We made the mistake of not holding someone back in reserve. I had images in my head of her bearing down on Iqaliat, only this time not stopping at just a few Erutaki and their goats. After what we had done to her, she would not have stopped until the village was buried in blood and ice.

I took a cue from the harriers of my youth. I went after her pride, taunting her the best I could, hoping it would be enough to turn her back at us. It was to no avail. Fortunately, Qatana was just fast enough following her up the chute and she did something—I am still not sure what—and the dragon fell, lifeless, just as she was clearing the top of the rift.

Testament to Tunuak’s sins was found in a small cavern: shattered eggs, a stone hammer, and a tribal talisman. It was, in all honesty, a clumsily staged scene, but how sophisticated did it really need to be to enrage a white dragon? That is a rhetorical question.

We’ll be taking her body back with us. In the morning, I can prepare the spell to shrink it down. I also suggested to Sparna that he make armor from her hide. This whole thing has been such a waste of life. Why compound it further by letting her body rot to no purpose?

Or maybe I am just fooling myself. Pretending to still have the ideals that I left in Avistan. I know I’ve changed since this journey began. The question is, how much?

I’ll have four days walking in the gods-be-damned snow to think about the answer.

Lamashan 23 (morning, dragon’s lair)

Skygni was actually impressed. I get the feeling that this doesn’t happen often. He kind of looked at us for a moment, then said, “You may make it across the ice after all.”

Lamashan 9, 4712 (late afternoon, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The silver dragon returned today. It flew in from the east directly overhead, and then spiraled down towards our caravan. This was another one of those tense moments that had me second-guessing myself: Are those scales silver or are they white? It got close—uncomfortably close—and then called out to us. “Ho! Caravan! Ice trolls ahead of you!” Several of us shouted gratitudes in some form or another in response, and it flew off.

Silver dragons are known for taking a protective role around humanity. Actually dealing with the ice trolls directly would have been better, but that is probably a bit too much to expect. It is not it’s job, and I think the species in general takes the same philosophy as parents when looking after children: it is important to learn to fight your own battles. A little nudging here and there is fine, but intervening directly makes you soft and dependent. I admit I have mixed feelings about this approach to pedotrophy, though, probably because mom’s definition of “a little nudging” differed significantly from the norm: she left the hen house open to the fox and the extent of her guidance was “figure it out”.

Sandru stopped the caravan so that we could work out a plan and the first thing we did was consult with Ulf. “Ice trolls are smaller and weaker than regular trolls, but they are adapted to the cold. And, they’re smarter.”

Of course that is a relative term. It’s not difficult to be smarter than a troll, but he didn’t mean for it to be a backhanded compliment: ice trolls really are cunning, or at least cunning enough, and have been known to create skillful ambushes. We could very easily have stumbled into one if the dragon hadn’t warned us. We needed to know what we were walking into.

I asked Nihali to scout ahead and see what she could learn. This earned me a number of stares. Every time I send her out or involve her in our activities I get questioned about her safety and my apparent disregard for it. I never know what to say to this.

Etayne treats Ling like he is made of glass, and I get it. Much of that is simply the reality of being a witch, but on top of that she has her reasons—very personal reasons—and I don’t question that. But it seems everyone has the same expectation of me, and that is just not how it is. I am sorry to disappoint you. My relationship with Nihali is no less important to me, but what I need from her is not the same as what Etayne needs from Ling.

Whatever their opinion, no one argued with the results. Nihali returned in short order with the rough location of the ice trolls’ camp, and we dealt with them.

Were they as smart as Ulf suggested? More or less. They attempted a respectable, albeit unoriginal, ruse that certainly caught our attention. Their only mistakes were assuming that we didn’t speak giant and wouldn’t recognize flanking maneuvers. In all fairness, I suspect few would pass the first test, and though the second was fairly obvious, if you were close enough to see it you were probably in trouble, anyway. Unless, of course, you were equipped and prepared as we were.

I would never say this to the others, but this skirmish nags at me. It was the first time we have gone out of our way to engage—to kill—creatures native to this part of the world. Logically, I understand that they are a menace, dangerous not just to us but to everyone who lives here, and we saw enough human bones in their camp to reinforce that point, but there’s this fine line between preemptive and aggressive. On which side did we just fall?

Lamashan 11, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

Snow has been falling steadily since late this morning. This would be lovely if it weren’t for the winds. By mid-afternoon heavy white flakes were blowing all around us making it difficult to even see the road much less make any progress on it. Until they died back it wasn’t possible to tell if the snow we were seeing was newly falling or merely being relocated from points north.

“Died back” is not the same as “stopped entirely”, however, and drifts have started to form on the windward side of the wagons that mark the perimeter of our camp. We’re going to have to dig out in the morning before we can get moving, and that’s assuming we’ll be able to move at all.

I’m not exactly a stranger to snow or even blizzards, but such things are rare occurrences along the Lost Coast and I’ve never been in snowstorms as intense and heavy as this. Growing up we’d get at most an inch or two here and there, and maybe one big snowfall every few years. It was fun as a kid but it’s less so when you can’t just go inside to get out of it. The campfires created from the beads are helping to keep us dry, and our spells and enchanted items are keeping everyone warm, but these things do not keep the wind from whipping the canvas of our tents and the covered wagon, nor do they keep the snow out of our face and hair. The latter in particular makes guard duty particularly unpleasant. I predict a long, damp, and restless night.

Lamashan 13, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The storm has been our faithful companion for three days now. Only a few inches of snow seems to be falling overall, but the winds have been a constant presence whipping up to blizzard and whiteout conditions for hours at a time. Yesterday it took us much of the morning to dig out and de-ice, and I doubt we traveled more than a dozen miles afterwards.

Today, we didn’t even try to move. The drifts were several feet high, nearly burying the supply wagons, and the wind was gusting heavily. We’d get one wagon cleared, but in the time it took to do another the first would be inundated with more snow and ice. It wasn’t worth wasting our energy on a pointless activity. We have opted to wait it out until morning and see if the weather improves.

I suspect this is just a taste of what is in store for us in the coming months.

Lamashan 14, 4712 (morning, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The storm finally broke over night. After days of gusting winds the air around us is eerily still and silent. We are surrounded by an ocean of snow, with drifts like waves stuck in time. We are supposed to turn off of the Path of Aganhei today and head for the village of Iqaliat but I don’t know how we will be able to see the road we are currently on, much less the next.

Skygni dropped in on us as we were de-icing the wagons in preparation for leaving camp. We asked in passing what he thought of the storm. “Get used to it,” was his reply. I thought that pretty much spoke for itself, but he had more to add. “It’s not common to see this so early in the year, but we’ll get more of it as we head north.”

So that is something to look forward to.

Lamashan 17, 4712 (morning, Hoarwell March)

We can finally see it clearly in the distance: the cliffs that form the edge of the arctic plateau. The High Ice. After two months of travel we are nearly there.

Ulf says we will make Iqaliat by noon. I asked him what we should expect.

“They are mostly a nomadic people. The main caravan route bypassed their village, and they are generally suspicious of outsiders.” He paused and then said, “They have their own ways.”

I interpreted that to mean we would not exactly become close friends during our stay. Ulf concurred. “Don’t expect them to be friendly until they get to know you, and you them.” He pulled out a strange talisman that looked like it was made of remorhaz scales. “This was a gift from their hearth mistress. It’s a token of friendship between me and their tribe.” Which meant he would do most of the talking.

Why make the stop at all, given the cold (ha!) reception we are likely to receive? Because they can tell us what the conditions are like on the Ice. If we ask the same question in Unaimo—which is the last village along the main caravan route on this side—they will in all likelihood (and rather sensibly, I might add) just tell us not to go and leave it at that. Unfortunately, this is not one of our options. We need information, not a nanny, so Iqaliat it is.

(Afternoon, Iqaliat)

There are basically two decent people in this entire village: the hearthmistress, Sonavut, and the chief. Two gods-be-damned people in a village of over one hundred, and truth be told? I think the chief is just being polite. What is wrong with these people?

That’s a rhetorical question. What’s wrong with them begins with, “what is wrong with their shaman, Tunuak?” He is an old, bitter, angry man. Every misfortune is a punishment sent by the gods for some transgression; every penance requires some form of sacrifice (the barbaric variety where you kill some hapless animal and let it go to waste). All his solutions involve returning to the “old ways” and spilling blood.

The Erutaki worship elemental spirits, and if Radella and I are right they believe these spirits control the seasons and the weather. Please the spirits and you are rewarded with sunny skies and a balmy subzero day. Anger them and they park a storm over your head. Or worse.

They are currently dealing with “worse”. In the past four months, a white dragon has raided their village three times, flying nearly 60 miles one way to do it.

Their shaman tried to use us as scapegoats. We stepped out of Sonavut’s home and into a lynching. “It is as I told you,” he cried out to the crowd of villagers that had gathered around him. “We need a grand sacrifice! One of the outsiders must be killed!”

It was almost as if we weren’t welcome here.

He was whipping the villagers into a frenzy, and was not above using a little magic to improve his delivery. Well, sir, two can play at that game. I had prepared for the possibility that we would need similar help ourselves, so when Olmas stepped up to try and reason with the people and their chief, I figured there was no better time than the present. The shaman then tried to bully us with veiled threats, but Sparna would have none of that. Finally, he resorted to the time-honored tradition of outright lies, and that’s when Qatana joined the fray.

In the end it was something of a draw. “We are not going to sacrifice anyone,” the chief said, which sounded pretty good, but then she turned to us and added, “You may stay the night, but you must leave the village in the morning.” Hardly a ringing endorsement. As for the shaman? He expected his performance to end with, I don’t know, a public beheading or something. When it didn’t, he stormed off in anger.

I wanted to leave this village to rot and its wounds to fester right then, especially given the welcoming party, but two things have turned their problems into our problems.

The first came from the hearth mistress. The usual caravan route is completely blocked by what she called the morozokus. “They are terrible storms that come down from the north, from the center of the High Ice.” It’s been an unusual year. Not only is this not their normal season, but they are traveling farther and farther south, and are fiercer than ever.

If that sounds a little like she thought of them as being alive, I had the same question. “The old gods of the wind oversee the mighty storms. Our shaman has been chastising our people for not doing the normal homage to them.” More elemental spirit mumbo-jumbo. Regardless of the reason, though, the result is the same: the caravan route is blocked by the storms, and that leaves only the alternate route—the passage north that Ulf spoke of. The problem is that this northern route will take us near the dragon’s lair.

Of course, we could just take our chances on that: three attacks in four months sounds like pretty good odds for just passing through. But there’s that second thing I mentioned.

It came from Radella, who had the wisdom (and the skill) to follow our shaman friend after he left his impromptu town hall meeting. With a little help from some invisibility, courtesy of yours truly, she was able to tail him all the way to his secret lair hidden in the cliffs above the village. No, really. That is actually a thing.

Tunuak has been a busy man, and we’re pretty sure no one else in the village knows what he’s up to. We’re certain they don’t know he’s been creating or controlling undead. This little but of news was enough to grab our full attention, and even Ulf had something to add after Radella described what she saw. “They say the souls of those who die from the freezing cold come back as frost spirits.”

Qatana and I looked at each other and I could see the look of grim resolve and determination on her face. She started in Pharasma’s church before…well, before. Unlife is the very antithesis of Pharasma’s domain. Willing souls use it to cheat death and avoid her judgement. Unwilling souls are ripped from her grasp. Qatana may no longer be part of that faith, but her views on this particular matter haven’t changed. If the shaman is using this brand of necromancy then he is up to no good, and we are getting involved.

I admit I am concerned, though. They insist on doing this today…on doing it now. I don’t have the right spells for this. I am going in unprepared.

(afternoon, cliffs above Iqaliat)

He smashed the eggs. The bastard smashed her eggs.

OK, I don’t have proof of that, but something tells me those eggshell fragments are not some  grand coincidence, and he wasn’t trying to hatch a dragon of his own. And if I am right…

Gods! What if I am right? What if this is exactly what it appears to be? She’d just be defending her nest. Can we blame her? Should we be surprised if she blamed the village for this crime? They don’t all deserve to be punished for what happened, but isn’t this her nature? If we kill her, are we any better? Are we even doing the right thing?

Gods, I feel sick.

Can we do this? Should we do this?

Arodus 18, 4712 (evening, Kalsgard)

Today we confirmed that Kimandatsu killed Silverskorr. Qatana used a spell to speak with the dead, and the ogre mage’s eyes opened and stared blankly into the distance. The whole thing was a macabre puppet show. Her eyes and mouth twitched as she spoke, and we saw unnatural flashes of her tongue as she answered Qatana’s questions in a rasping, lifeless voice.

This is what our lives have become.

I sent word to Lute in case it would help. Not that it was proof he could use, but at least he could make the claim with confidence.

On the way over, I also stopped to send a letter home, and to hire a solicitor to deliver a small package to Helva. I am sure she’ll appreciate the contents. I have had enough of Kimandatsu, Snorri Stone-Eye, and the Rimerunners Guild, and right now I just want to watch it all burn. Part of me wishes we could witness the fallout from Lute’s little meeting with the Crown, but of course it would be foolish to stay here too long. It is just a matter of time before the Five Storms figure out what happened and come looking for answers. We need to disappear long before that.

The Five Storms. Who comes up with these names? That is what Ameiko, and by extension, we, are up against. Apparently the divine right to rule is taken fairly literally over there. From what we could piece together from Kimandatsu’s answers and Suishen, they were responsible for a widespread, and highly successful, assassination campaign against the five royal families of Minkai. Ameiko’s grandfather had the foresight to see what was unfolding around him, and got his family out before the oni caught up to them.

Whatever puppet government rules there now is apparently unpopular, and more importantly, suspected to be illegitimate. The return of an Amatatsu, someone with that divine right to rule, could serve as a catalyst for a genuine uprising. We just need to get her there.

We’re going to make the crossing now, at the worst possible time. The idea is, if we wait until the right season, we’ll probably not live to see it. If we leave now, on what looks like a suicide journey across the Crown in the dead of winter, and take our time doing it, it will look like we ran off in a panic and died in the attempt. The trick will be surviving our own cleverness.

Arodus 21, 4712 (evening, Kalsgard)

Ameiko joined me at the Shrine again today. She has been playing her samisen while I practice with Shiro. Which is actually kind of amazing. Dancing to her music is very inspiriting and also kind of nostalgic. It recaptures some of the feelings I had when we were growing up.

We had a long talk on the way back to the caravan.

“You know, I never thought I’d see the day when you swung a weapon. I mean, really swung one.”

“I prefer the dance. And I know. Please don’t remind me.”

She grinned at me. “Maybe I should have tried music back then.”

When the bullying turned violent—genuinely violent—Ameiko didn’t teach me to fight: she taught me to avoid fights. How to be alert for trouble; how to get away if I was cornered. It worked most of the time. When it didn’t, she was usually there with a potion lifted from her dad’s storeroom.

“I’m glad we did it the way that we did,” I said.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

We walked in silence for a bit and I could tell she had something on her mind. She gets this faraway look when she is deep in thought. I decided not to press her on it. She’d tell me, or not. You didn’t force things with Ameiko.

After a couple of blocks like this, she finally said, “When we left Riddleport, I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know if I could do this.”

I smiled. “Tell me about it.”

“No, not the trip, Kali. The whole thing! The ‘ruler of my empire’ part. At first I didn’t even want to say the words.”

What do you say to that? There were no secrets like this in my family. No one was hiding their past from anyone. I had no idea what she was going through. Fortunately, she saved me from having to come up with some kind of a response.

“But, and this is what’s strange, as we get closer and closer to it, I actually feel like…I don’t know. Like, it’s what I am supposed to do. It’s just gradually feeling more…normal. More right.”

This actually took me aback. The first time Olmas had a conversation with her about her role and importance, I thought she was going to lose it. Like, it might actually come to blows. Even Suishen had stopped baiting her on the topic, and baiting people is all Suishen seems to do.

“This is a long way from almost punching the last person who called you ‘princess’,” I said.

She grinned at that. “Yeah. I guess I have just grown more accustomed to it. Still, it won’t be like the old days, will it?”

“That’s an understatement if ever I have heard one.”

“Do you think they’d let me sneak off for an adventure, or a night of singing in a tavern?” She gave me a wry smile, but I knew she was only half-joking. I played along, anyway.

“Oh, Gods, can you imagine? You’d put the entire country in a panic! I don’t know what would be worse, you disappearing, or them finding their empress in a common tavern.”

We had a good laugh over this, imagining the possibilities. Then the laughter stopped as abruptly as it started. I looked over to her and saw that her face had gone completely pale. She looked nauseas.

“Ameiko? Are you OK?”

“I almost ruined everything.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Genius that I am.

“I really screwed up, Kali,” she said, in a shaky, faint voice. There as a small park up ahead and I steered us over to a bench as she spoke. “I just wanted to get out to the Jade Quarter, you know? To learn some more about…” Her voice trailed off.

She sat down on the large, wooden bench. It was probably sized right for an Ulfen, but for us it was big and uncomfortable. But it was a place to sit.

“I even disguised myself, you know? I am still pretty good at that. And I thought I had done really well and could just…blend in. Not be noticed. Like I used to do. And instead…” Her voice broke then. “I am so sorry, Kali. You all are doing this for me, and I almost wrecked everything!”

She buried her face in her hands. I put an arm around her and she leaned into me. We sat there for I don’t know how long. A few minutes, I think. I knew better than to say “it’s OK” because, well, because it wasn’t OK, and she knew it, and patronizing her wasn’t going to help. But neither would lecturing.

I finally worked up the courage to say something.

“Ameiko, when we raided Ravenscraeg, we went in there without any protection against poison. None. I mean, that very morning before we left, they put that arrow into the side of the wagon, and it was coated with the most expensive, most exotic, most deadly poison known to man. You would think we would have gotten the message.”

Ameiko looked up at me, her face red and a little puffy, and said, “This is not making me feel better, Kali.”

I ignored her and went on. “The point is, we all made mistakes. Mistakes that could have gotten us killed. Ours almost got Olmas killed. No one blames you. I don’t blame you. We all ended up in over our heads.”

She thought about this and I watched a tiny smile appear at the very corner of her lips. “That was pretty stupid of you all.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Anyone who wants to give you a hard time over this needs to look in a mirror first. And, they’ll have to go through me, too.”

Her smile became a tiny snort. “Gods, Kali, I can go through you.”

“Me and Qatana, then.”

I got her to laugh, which was a good sign, I think.

Her voice was steadier now. “Let’s get back.”

Arodus 26, 4712 (night, Turvik)

We had a going away party for Etayne tonight. Is that the right word? Party? It didn’t feel like a celebration. Or rather, it did until it didn’t. I guess it just really hit me, right then and there, that she was leaving. I got up to get another drink, but instead just kept walking out the door.

Qatana found me several minutes later, sitting out front.

“Is everything OK?” she asked.

“No,” was all I could muster for an answer.

She looked at me and then, in what I can only describe as classic Qatana fashion, asked, “Does this have something to do with your hair?”

I had given it the first of what will be several growth spurts the day we left Kalsgard. I didn’t expect it to go unnoticed, of course, I just would have preferred better timing for that conversation.

“No, it’s not related to my hair. I am just growing it out. I am literally growing it out.”

This is not what I wanted to talk about, but it’s Qatana. You have to answer the question. Thoroughly.

“It’s just a spell I learned,” I added.

“Oh. So what’s wrong, then?”

“People keep leaving.”

I don’t know why it was affecting me like it did, but it was. I didn’t really expect Kelda to stay on with us, of course, but then Herlgarval announced it was time for him to move on. Then Spivey was next. And finally Etayne, who had been with us since the beginning.

“I saw some mice in the building out back. Do you want to go try and catch them?”

And, believe it or not, that actually sounded comforting. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

We returned to the party a while later with several in tow.

Rova 14, 4712 (noon, The Path of Aganhei in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere)

The last few weeks have been a grind. The days are all running together, and the landscape has barely changed since crossing the mountains, just like the routine. Each day we get up, break our fast, travel 5 hours, stop for lunch, travel again, and then stop for the night and for dinner. (Well, the others eat. Thanks to the ring, I only nibble here and there for the tastes.)

My day doesn’t end there. I work the next several hours enchanting one in a seemingly endless string of items for myself and the others: earrings that protect me from the elements, boots so Sparna can keep up with us, a huge extra-dimensional storage bag, beads to make campfires, even a halter for Kasimir. As I said: a grind.

The catch? I can’t really complain because we need all this stuff. You know, if we want to live. Gods, that sounds so trite. But it’s true.

I need a change in scenery. I am trying not to think of what it will be like on the ice.

Rova 20, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei, Rimethirst Mountains)

Skygni met up with us in the foothills of the Rimethirst Mountains. So far he seems content to simply shadow the caravan from a distance, disappearing from time to time to hunt. It’s only been a couple of days, but I have to admit I feel less trepidatious about his presence than I did back in Ravenscraeg. The few times he’s interacted with us he’s actually been polite.

What does it say when the winter wolf has better manners than the sword?

Rova 23, 4712 (night, Path of Aganhei, Urjuk)

Is this what our journey is going to be? One sad and depressing scene after another? The frost giant that attacked us wasn’t just old, he looked haggard. Worn down. One of the others, Sparna I think, inspected his axe and said it was so rusted and decrepit that it wasn’t worth repairing.

We tracked him back to the cave where had had been living with his winter wolf companions (what a tense moment that was: my fear was that Skygni was not going to take to us fighting others of his kind, but it was clearly not an issue). This was about what you would expect. Rags, bones, and not much else. He was living the dream.

Not too far from the cave entrance was a wrecked caravan wagon. Inside we found the remains of a man that, amazingly, Ulf recognized. Apparently he was another Crown guide. We asked Ulf if he would like to bury the body and he said yes, so we held a small ceremony and put him to rest.

Welcome to the Crown of the World.

Ramashan 6, 4712 (evening)

We spotted a silver dragon today. At first I was scared to death, because it was a dragon, but then once we figured out it was silver instead of white most everyone, including me, relaxed. It shadowed us for a while, doing lazy circles and loops in the sky above us.

Dragons are quite beautiful once you stop being terrified.

Ulf wants to visit a small village off the main path before hitting the ice. He has never traveled during the “off season” (as he calls it) so he wants to get some more information on the road ahead. Fair enough. We have a guide for a reason.