The sun slowly descended towards the western peaks and though it shone brightly from a cloudless sky, there was no warmth in it at that height. A brisk wind was flowing over the icy slopes to the west sending long veils of snow flying from the peaks, and we stopped barely long enough to eat and drink before Maruman bade us continue. Tired as we were, no one demurred; it was simply too cold to sit still or to lie down and sleep for hours on end. I did not think of my quest or of what I had left behind. I thought of walking. I felt as if I were on a ship, travelling and yet standing still, only this time it was my thoughts that stayed still and my body that moved.

It took us another night and day to reach the end of the ridge road and Darga kept the lead the whole time. Partway through the night he began to keep so ostentatiously to the eastern edge of the ridge that I asked if the other side was tainted. He agreed that it was and added that the high mountains running along beside us in a line were also tainted, though he could not tell how badly. He could not discern the level of taint, he explained, only that taint poisons were present. Although Darga led us, it was Maruman who had decided that we would take longer rests in the daylight hours, because our blood would freeze if we stopped for more than short periods at night.

The irascible old feline was now accepting the food I offered as eagerly as Darga, which told me he was finding nothing to hunt. Yet for all we had reached tainted ground, there was still life. I saw a few birds flying in an arrow formation very high at midday one day, and another day, a firelizard sliding into a crack, its movements sluggish in the cold. Most of all, I worried about Gahltha, for although I had seen several patches of the scabby brown lichen he had previously nibbled at, he now ignored it so that I knew it must be tainted. My own supply of food was dwindling, too, since I could not replenish it by foraging. Water might become a problem as well, for Darga had rejected the last two pools we had passed.

Wherever Maruman was taking us, we had better arrive soon.

At dusk, the ridge road came to a sudden end at the edge of a great dark pit. Darga stopped short of it, sniffing the way ahead, and finally he went down from the road and up the side of the mountain to the east some way before turning to head north. Twice that night he stopped and conferred with Maruman, and listening in to their exchange, I learned that there were patches of taint ahead that could not be avoided, but that clean ground lay beyond them. Maruman bade him lead us across it, avoiding the tainted ground as much as possible, and Gahltha insisted that Maruman and I ride. His hoofs would give him some protection. I was worried about Darga and nagged until he gave in to my insistence and allowed me to bandage his paws using the strips of linen from my healing kit.