Once all the prisoners had been loaded into the wagon, we set out. I tried my best to ignore their screams.

For me, the difficult part of traveling in the Yoran winter landscape wasn’t the cold. I’d long since learned to heat myself up enough to prevent frostbite. No, the difficulty was keeping that heat inside. If I allowed myself to radiate heat, I’d find myself wading through ice water, defrosting equipment designed to work best while frozen, or falling right through snowbanks and ice sheets rendered unstable. I’d found that out the hard way.

I rode out, unescorted, down the main road, not a proper road so much as a line of tall poles staked into the ground meant to rise above the worst winter snowbanks. Then I turned south, traveled several miles off the road, and stopped.

I enchanted coins as we rode. I’d have preferred to use rocks, but finding bare ground in winter was unlikely, so coins would have to do. Fortunately, the Hon hadn’t been stingy with his metal, and to my surprise, I had a spending allowance.

And thanks to Suless, I had a few other tricks up my sleeves as well.

I stopped the wagon, opened the door, then backed away and drew my sword.

“Come out,” I said, “and I’ll explain how this will work.”

They looked at me with undisguised fear.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “You may either come out and I’ll explain what you need to do to survive, or stay where you are and give me no choice but to follow through on the Hon’s orders. I leave the choice to you.”

They all stepped onto the snow and looked confused as I handed each of them a coin. More confused as they felt the warmth emanating from that metal.

“Keep those on you. Those tokens will keep you from freezing to death.” I pointed south. “Aim between those two mountains. The pass between them will lead you south. You’ll end up in Tolamer. Once you’re there, I’ll have people waiting for you. Ask for a woman named Ninavis. Understand?”

A tall, thickly built man with dark blue hair shook his head. “It’ll be weeks to make it that far. Even if we don’t freeze, what are we supposed to eat?”

I nodded. I’d prepared for this part too, although it galled me that I had Suless to thank for the method. I whistled, then made a barking, laughter-like noise.

The hyenas responded immediately. These weren’t the snow hyenas Suless had back at the palace. These were wild. I heard their barking response in the distance.

Hyenas are very hierarchical. Every animal in a clan knows exactly where they fall within that hierarchy—who is above them and who is below.

Really, not so different from Jorat.