Drizzling rain made the ascent slow progress. Horses slipped on the wet ground. Harbend swore. Wagon wheels were the only things never slipping in the mud. Oh, no. They got stuck instead and brought the caravan to a halt.

He added a groan to the oath. He still remembered the last wagon to get mired. A groom was lying stretched out in a wagon now, a broken bone and a torn back tormenting him after a fall under the wheels when they finally managed to get the wagon moving again. Harbend sighed silently and forced his horses to drag the wagon yet another few paces forward. They were closing to the highest point and the track was becoming steeper and steeper. They weren't late, but the weather played a dirty trick on his plans and he could feel the rain slowly turning to snow.

He started to get worried. Discomfort was close to turning into real danger. Earlier, in Erkateren, he'd been concerned they'd be forced to turn back if snow caught them, but now he knew they were no longer able to do so. Too much of the track behind them was destroyed by wagons passing over it, and so they needed to push forward across the summit and down into the relative shelter beneath it. How long before they were there? Half a day, a day or maybe more?

He struggled forward with his wagon again. Stumbling and slipping in the mud he almost fell. The temperature was dropping fast now, and he was almost numb with cold before he realized the wind had caught up, beating wet snow against his already soaked clothes. He staggered on for a while and was surprised to see night falling. Far away in the distance he heard a voice. Then it was closer and he found himself face to face with a screaming Arthur.

"Get in you bloody idiot!"

"What?" Harbend tried to shake off Arthur's hands.

"Get in and change clothes! Hypothermia."

"What?" Sleep. Sleeping would be so good.

"No matter. Get the hell into your wagon! Now! You'll freeze to death. I'll handle your horses."

Harbend was too tired to argue and allowed himself to be dragged to the wagon. After a couple of failed tries he managed to climb into it. Another dark shape followed him and helped him strip. It was strange. He knew he should feel cold standing naked with only thin cloth sheltering him. He allowed himself to be helped into dry clothes and was too numb to complain when he was wrapped in more cloth. After a while warmth came, and with warmth a peculiar stinging pain, but somehow he managed to fall asleep anyway.

***

"Everyone fine?"

"Yes, M'lord. I think ... accounted for. We've sent ... to look for ... missing."

Arthur grimaced to Trindai. "Need Gring. I you fail understand."

"Yes, M'lord. I go ... her ... now."

Trindai departed. Hopefully in search for the Khraga.

The blizzard was worsening now, and Arthur appalled with their escort failing to see the danger. Only those who spoke little or no De Vhatic seemed to know how to handle the weather, and most had already taken shelter before he found himself in command of the caravan.

Harbend was asleep in his wagon. The idiot had walked on in wet clothes without any concern for his own safety. It was as if he never understood the danger.

Arthur searched his surroundings. They were still beneath the summit, and the mountain gave them some shelter at least. If they'd been halfway on the other side some of them would be dead by now. He shook his head. Primitive world apparently didn't mean everyone was an outdoors man.

Tugging his cloak tighter around his neck he changed his mind. Maybe they were simply not outdoors men used to cold winters. He wouldn't have been of much use if they'd been traversing a desert. Harbend did look as if he came from a warmer climate, so there might be a valid reason for his stupid behavior. Arthur swore. Valid or not. Nature seldom cared, and Otherworld seemed to share that aspect with Earth. Dead is dead, no matter how good an excuse you have.

Denser snowfall now, but without the rise in temperature he'd expected. Turning his horse he rode back along the column of wagons. He needed to get to Harbend's wagon and tether the horse to it before the last light vanished.

With the wagon train stretching for miles there was no way of finding out if everyone was safe. Arthur realized they'd probably spend the better part of the next day finding out what had happened to everyone. Maybe a scouting party could be sent to the other side of the summit, but he doubted they'd make much progress. Still, they had to. Setting camp here for too long would be as dangerous as climbing the trek, but without the benefit of reaching lower, more protected grounds. He spat in disgust and rode on. When he reached his wagon Gring was already waiting for him. A tingling around his temples told him he would be understood.

"How is he?"

"The magehealer is making sure he'll recover. Nothing dangerous," she answered.

"Do you know if anyone's missing?"

"No, I don't. I could search if you want me to."

"I don't know if that would be much help in the darkness."

"I can smell a halfman carcass until it's but bones. The scent of live ones is even stronger. I can search," she responded.

"What about the cold? You must be freezing."

"I'm not like you weaklings. This is nothing."

Arthur smiled. "If you would, please?"

He watched her leave into the darkness and shook his head. Hopefully all would be accounted for, but he doubted they'd all be alive. There was nothing he could do about it now, and he needed to catch some sleep.

***

Veric, thank the thousand gods for small favors, was a second language to both of them, and the only one they shared with the magehealer directing their moves.

"Escha, my love, she's cooling too fast. I need you to jump blood from her veins to her outer arteries so I can warm it before it returns to her heart."

Escha growled, concentration forcing sweat to his temples.

Trai knew he was asking a lot from his slave, the impossible from anyone else, but he trusted him fully the way he'd done since even before brotherhood grew into love.

"A little bit more." Weak throbs of power in perfect harmony with the slow heartbeats of the merchant mistress told him Escha was doing the impossible again. "And less again." Trai threw tiny strands of heat around the woman.

Not too much. Warm, not boil, or I'll kill her.

He withdrew his spell for a moment to let Escha jump more cooling blood to where he could warm it before it could reach the central organs and kill his unconscious patient. She'd live. He could see that in the eyes of the awestruck magehealer who had directed his powers with her knowledge.

"Trai, I'm losing it."

"Let go. I can't do more now. Hard work handling so little of the gift at a time, eh?"

"What would you know? You'd conjure a firestorm for a mother's stove," Escha growled in mock anger.

"I love you too," Trai responded. "Now you may flaunt all your powers at will. Memorize this location. I need you to jump all of them to Ri Nachi."

"Why of course, Master."

"And be quick to find a magehealer. I don't want you to waste your time in a tavern while they freeze to death in their own capital."

"How could you ever suspect that from me, your humble slave. Forgive me, my pillar of wisdom!"

"Go. Be on your way!"

Escha bowed to obey, but no matter how dark the interior of the wagon was Trai could still see how drained he was. Escha had used his gifts continuously for far too long, and the danger of a backlash where he was consumed by his own powers was looming closer.

"Don't stay there, you good for nothing. Away!"

There was a swirl of power as Escha gathered his gift in a nexus connecting two or more sleeping gods in a tight loop of nowhere and everywhere, and he jumped. The beds were empty and Trai was alone with the magehealer.

"Why did you do that?" she asked. "He was almost drained and you forced him to use even more of the gift with your ugly words."

Trai didn't answer. He was weary beyond recall, and already he could feel tendons in his body scar as they slowly burned, fueled by his own gift.

"Gods! You are as uncaring as arrogant. He did not need to. I could have healed them."

The searing heat wrought agony to Trai, but he forced it away. "Silent woman! I saved his life, and he knows it. He's too strong to use so little of his gift for so long. Jumping the wounded to your home allows him to release the surplus." Trai grinned." And he'll get some rest there trying to find your colleagues in that city of yours."

Understanding dawned in her eyes, and grabbing him she transferred all damage from his burning body before he lost consciousness. That gave him the time he needed, and he released his own gift in an uncontrolled burst tearing away the entire side of the wagon, melting snow and rock alike when it caught the mountainside.

I live to see tomorrow, he had time to think before convulsions forced him to empty his stomach over the side of the wrecked wagon.

"Idiot!" a voice from outside growled. Gring, the Khraga, bringing in two bodies slung over her shoulders. "If you make your vehicle skinless like yourself, how will the half dead halfmen I brought survive?"

Behind him the magehealer groaned as she healed herself. By the thousand gods, she was a skilled one if she was able to voice her pains so shortly after taking his damage into her body.

"Honored Khraga, please bring me something to cover the wagon!" Trai begged, and to his astonishment Gring only nodded and left after unceremoniously dumping the men she carried onto the beds Escha had just vacated.

Trai shrugged and began administering the frostbites of the new arrivals.

"Not that way, you clumsy oaf!" The magehealer must be fully healed then. "And I agree with the Khraga," she murmured as she started redoing Trai's inept attempt at doctoring.

"I can warm him," he offered.

She glared at the open wagon side and shivered in denial.

"There's no danger now. Not until midnight, at least. I promise to be more careful and release any built up powers well before I'm spent."

She nodded approval, and once again he let tendrils of heat envelope cold limbs wherever she pointed.

"You could have died," she said after both men were safe.

"It was rash, I admit," Trai answered.

"Yet you had the foresight to send a mere slave to safety."

"That mere slave is the love of my life. I'll die before I see him harmed."

The wagon shifted suddenly, and he looked up. It was Gring throwing a heavy tarpaulin over it. She fought the storm and fastened it to the sides of the wagon with spikes.

Trai melted the snow inside and forced the steam outside.

"Healer! Three more. Fool soldiers from Keen sleeping on the snow with nothing under them."

Trai groaned.

Gring helped lifting the bodies into the wagon, and then Escha climbed inside.

Back already? Has it been so long?

"Their ale is weak and the mutton even worse," he said before bending over their most recent patient.

"Lazy slave, didn't I tell you to stay clear of alehouses?" By the gods, he's tired! "I should sell you to the first buyer."

"Bah, you're too incompetent a trader to get a decent price, oh master of idiocy."

"A bitter chance of fortune the day evil fate forced you upon me." Trai winked at the magehealer. "Madame, could I interest you in a servant? I'll even pay you good money to get this sorry specimen off my hands."

They continued their abusive bantering while the magehealer prepared their next patient, but this time she only shook her head in wonderment and smiled.

The exchange of insults and laughs helped a little, but the never ending stream of arriving bodies promised an agonizingly long night.

***

Harbend woke late in the morning. Arthur watched him stirring and left the wagon. He was back in a moment and offered Harbend a cup of steaming tea.

"Welcome back."

Harbend groaned and shivered. "It is freezing! Where are we?"

"We're where you fell asleep yesterday, and you're happy to be freezing," Arthur answered.

"We have to get going. How late is it?"

"It's late, but we're not going anywhere today. There are a couple of funerals to be taken care of first." Arthur was surprised by the coldness in his voice.

"Funerals?"

"Yes, a soldier and a trader froze to death during the night before Gring could find them. A few others suffer frostbite but they'll recover."

"Frostbite?"

Arthur explained, still feeling strangely detached from what he was saying. Somehow he couldn't accept that Harbend, who he had trusted to know everything about this world, could have made such a dangerous mistake. Somehow, if he was honest to himself, he couldn't accept that a friend he trusted didn't know everything there was to know, and the thought shamed him. He had no right to expect Harbend to handle all dangers they encountered. After all, the man was close to twenty years his junior, and Arthur, not Harbend, was supposed to know how to travel during winter. That lack of foresight cost a man and a woman their lives.

He turned away so as not to have to meet Harbend's stare.

"Arthur, thank you."

"Thanks for what?"

"I thank you for saving my life."

Shame grew even stronger, and Arthur only nodded before leaving the wagon.

He started to untie his horse but decided against it. Instead he climbed the trek to where he knew people were making ready to mourn. He needed to see what his negligence had cost others.

He was almost at the burial when he met his two human self appointed apprentices. Both men were wearing no more than the silks they had donned several days earlier, and Arthur wondered why he didn't see any signs of frostbite. Probably some more of their strange magics. He examined the man closest to him. Trai of the Achnai family, and titled Khar, just like his companion, Escha. They looked tired.

"What are you two doing here?" No response. Arthur was about to repeat his question when he realized neither of the men would understand a single word he said if Gring wasn't present. He bowed stiffly and continued past them.

***

They crossed the summit two days later. It was slow and dangerous, but with the worst of the blizzard behind them they had to move on before the trek turned into an icy hell impossible for horses to climb.

The descent was a sombre affair. Two lives lost so soon after they left the Roadhouse was more than enough to remind them of the dangers ahead. It was no longer the tedious but safe journey between Keen and Erkateren, and their lack of respect had already cost too much. The evenings were silent, and only a few campfires saw people laughing at stories told. Arthur knew the mood was turning low, but he couldn't find a way to remedy the dangerous situation. It wasn't until Gring and the two mages from Khanati cornered him one day he was forced to acknowledge his own importance. He agreed to attend different campsites strewn out along the track. He told stories, none very long, but the prospect of listening to a taleweaver was enough to keep away complaints from all but the most angry.

Some made big eyes at his three followers, but most of the scared stares were aimed at him. The rumor of his use of a magic device of death had spread through the entire caravan, but still, he was a taleweaver, and it was apparently a thing rare enough for anyone to ever listen to one that not once did he hear a complaint or a comment of fear voiced. At the cost of much needed sleep Arthur managed to give the escort their respite. When he finally became too tired to ride during daytime and talk people into laughing after nightfall, the soldiers had managed to enforce discipline again.

Despite his earlier resolve to find anything unusual about the flora and fauna on Otherworld Arthur only managed to identify gigantic bracken he suspected grew nowhere back on Earth. Pines and firs were less common on this side of the mountain range. Of dragonlings there wasn't even a trace.

Arthur forced his horse to catch up with the vanguard one late morning. The air had something new to it, a freshness it had lacked during the descent into the woods on the eastern side of the mountains and he was eager to know what it was. He heard gasps and when he rounded a corner he was stunned as well. A mat of whiteness stretched out into infinity, almost like the surface of a moonlit sea. He sat on his horse, fully enjoying himself for the first time in days in a stillness broken only by gusts of winds running through the trees around him and bending the high grass like waves on an ocean. Yes, it was definitely amply called the Sea of Grass.