He was sure his companions were too exhausted to wake. The days of climbing and hiking through freezing temperatures and bitter windsthe glare, sunburn, crevasses, and thin icehad taken its toll on them all. Then there was the hunger and sickness, the wyrms, giants, tirichiks, colossal bears, and so many other predators indigenous to the Great. Glacier. But they were weary most of all from the gnawing feara dread spoken by none but surely felt by all. But they had survived. Drawing on all Raryn had taught them about coping with such hazardsand aided by Pavel’s ability to conjure food from thin air, cure frostbite and other ills, and cloak a man in sunny warmth in the midst of a blizzard’s chillthey’d made it off the eastern rim of the glacier into a land called Sossal, or so Dorn had heard. On first inspection, its hills, lowlands, and patches of forest white with the snows of a premature winter, Sossal appeared little more hospitable than the wasteland they were leaving behind, but he knew the appearance was deceptive.
