Another sunless morning brought them to a hazy snow-covered plain, crunching over lumpy fresh snow as they descended a sharp slope at its edge. Odd shapes loomed from the snow, bulges and pillars of white fluff, standing alone or in groups. The plain itself was expansive, almost perfectly flat, stretching away into the mist around them. Brecki seemed pleased at seeing it, loping without hesitation onto the plateau and into the mist.

‘Where in ancestor’s fuck are we?’ Chel heard Lemon grousing behind him, her voice clear in the freezing stillness. ‘This fucken fog is a curse.’ They trudged out onto the plain, almost snow-blind from reflected glare, the mules following with minimal protest. Hard ground thumped beneath its snowy coat.

‘Where the fuck’s this come from? There’s no fucken flat land south of the Kharin, unless a fucken mountain has prolapsed.’

The wind was picking up, a more insistent whirling, howling at the plain’s distant edges. Looking back, Chel could barely see the lumpy slope that they’d descended. Ahead, Brecki had vanished, lost from sight in the drifting grey banks.

‘Only thing that’s big and flat in this part of the south is Lake Saldirtse, and that’s, you know, water …’

Chel wondered if he’d felt the slightest slip of his boot, a glossy surface beneath a thin crust of snow. The howling of the wind was louder, making it difficult to hear Lemon’s grumbles.

‘Of course, even if it was frozen, this couldn’t be Lake Saldirtse, on account of there being a great fucken town on its banks, you know, houses and buildings and that …’ She paused, looking back at the now invisible slope behind them, at its odd lumps and pillars beneath the snow.

The howling on the wind was loud now, insistent. Discrete. Whisper put up an urgent hand.

‘Aw fucken hells!’ Lemon was turning in small circles, clenching and unclenching her fists. ‘Those Horvaun bastards couldn’t have burned the whole place, could they? Razed the whole fucken town?’

Whisper had an arrow nocked, her sharp gestures bringing the group and mules together, weapons fumbled from storage.

‘Where’s the reaver? She’s fucken stitched us!’

Chel swung around, feeling hot breath in his throat and the thump of blood in his ears. Where had Brecki got to? A new sound echoed over the frozen waste, a fierce scraping like blades on a whetstone. Something was coming.

He seized on her tracks, tried to race after her, to bring her back to them, but his foot slipped after a handful of paces and he floundered and fell, thumping against the freezing ground with enough force to drive the air from his lungs and crack his head.

Oh, yes, that’s ice all right.