The Bahab call it the Cracking Void, the vast glacier sprawled between a dozen mountain peaks that serves as the ultimate source of the Shudulus River. It is an immense place, covering a truly wide section of the mountains in naught but ice. To attempt to make a circle about its borders, if a path existed to do so, might well take a full month’s effort on flat ground. Amid the soaring peaks and deep ravines of the mountains, such a maneuver was completely impossible. Though this was not the first encounter with the great masses of ice called glaciers by the Dragon Expedition, for they had been observed during the crossing of the Shdrast Mountains the year before, the Cracking Void was a far larger presence than any of those and rather than simply a formation of curiosity passed by, it was a place that we came to know intimately.

To those unfamiliar with them, a glacier is an immense formation of ice, such that it becomes the landscape itself. They are a feature of the deep recesses of high mountain ranges, places of vast snow fall where the ice never melts entirely in summer. Each year the new snow piles ever higher than before, and as these heaps grow in size they pack down and snow becomes ice. Over great periods of time, millennia surely, these layers build upon each other until they reach the size of mountains. The layers can be observed, lying atop each other in countless shifting shades of blue-white, at edges and cracks, rather like the layers of stone in a great canyon. The Bahab say that these ice mountains can move and spread, shifting through the valleys across the course of centuries, a great icy blob. Such claims are not easily accepted, but perhaps it is possible. The patterns of weather in the high places of the world are strange. Though the Dumum Mountains do not reach the incredible heights of the Shdrast Range, and the air remains full in the lungs throughout, the landscape within their grasp is sorely changed from that of the lowlands.

At the very least, the glacier is a place of strange properties, unlike any other form of ground. The ice, though it appeals solid as stone from a distance, is in truth riddled with cracks, caverns, and even huge boulders embedded in its frozen confines. The only comparable image I can produce is that of water left outside in a bucket, freezing and thawing over and over. The resulting terrain is stunningly hazardous, marking the name chosen by the Bahab as accurate. The ice, though deeply contoured, blinds, sending the eye nothing but visions of an endless white void. Neither sign nor signal can be followed across it. Travelers can orient only by utilizing the distant mountains and these landmarks are regularly obscured by flurries of blowing snow.

Cracks in the ice can open anywhere, almost invisible until the edge is reached, and many times the height of a human in depth. These can easily swallow a body whole. Worse, some cracks are covered with a loose mass of snow and ice that appears solid until tested by placing weight upon them and an unlucky foot plunges through. There is neither food nor fuel to be found, and it is bitterly cold. During the day, with the sun high above, it is also blindingly bright. Anyone who dares to cross into the void must wrap cloth about their eyes and peer at the world through narrow slit gaps. This spares the sight, but it reduces visibility and makes accidents all too easy even without the threat of cracks. The Bahab have adopted the heretical belief that glaciers are a phenomenon ruled by the Lord of Death rather than the Lady of Earth. It is an absurd notion, but the ice is singularly lifeless, far more desolate than even the worst expanse of desert sand.

It was here that the search for the dragon truly took shape. The reasons supporting this move were quite clear. The local peoples had been granted nearly two years to search for the dragon from the first sightings, and though they lacked the scholarly and mystical resources possessed by the empire, their knowledge of the terrain vastly outstripped our own. Kharal hunters had scoured every meadow, valley, and ridge reachable from horseback while the Bahab did the same for the dense forests. Even the hard-to-reach upper slopes and summits had surely been scouted by the Sunfire Cult and the Obsidian Order. Though any success would no doubt have been kept secret at first, but the continued sightings of the legendary creature and a distinct lack of dragon-sourced products in the local commerce made it clear that no searcher had achieved success. Only the glacier, where the Bahab would not venture and the cultists and wizards lacked the supplies to challenge properly, remained. Additionally, though sightings of the blue-white streak passing high in the sky were rare and often muddled, for at a distance the dragon’s shadow could be confused with that of a great eagle, enough had accumulated by this time to use in orientation and these indicated the dragon regularly returned to a point deep within the glacier’s expanse.

Given the vast and trackless nature of the Cracking Void, Erun Nassah determined that for the purpose of exploration the expedition should be split into teams. Livestock are of little use on the ice. Horses slip wildly and even the normally surefooted camels would stumble and can be stricken lame in only a few hours of effort. While the Bahab can use dogs and bears, supported by hard claws, we lacked this resource and had to rely upon the strength of human muscle. Heavy packs and hauled sledges with narrow runners made this possible, but difficult. With no way to acquire supplies once out on the ice, we were limited to brief lunges supported by the food we could carry with us. A most restricted search pattern. To march across the ice we wrapped ropes around our boots tied to bear claws and bits of sharp antler that supplied essential purchase. By spending a fortune in trade with the Black Spruce Bahab we acquired fur-lined hats, gloves, and robes to stay warm upon the ice. Though it was summer, and the sun shone high and bright most days, upon the surface of the glacier the ice steals heat from the air itself with brutal ease. In the night, with the sun’s warmth lost, only shivering misery remains.

Few looked upon this duty with any eagerness. Erun, perhaps, represented the only true exception. On the very first day he was blessed to observe the dragon on the wing and this vision filled his head with the belief that victory was assured. Given the triumphs associated with such an achievement for his legacy, it is little surprise that he was willing to bear any hardship in its pursuit.

Six teams were assembled for the search, each of six persons. One to lead, one each from the Imperial Guard and Snow Banes to offer protection, and three from the caravan crew to serve as porters and haulers. Erun chose as leaders the four Redbone Explorers, me in my capacity as cartographer, and insisted on controlling the final team himself. He chose the most direct route as his own, deep into the heart of the glacial realm. For my part, I requested and was granted the easternmost team, as I hoped to map out the mountain peaks bordering the edge of the glacier in that region. The method behind the search was simple. Supplies were assembled and then we surged north, in a looping pattern dictated by the limits of our supplies. Each subsequent loop narrowed, going further north but scanning less territory.

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The journeys across the ice were harrowing. Constant cold, endless wind in a land with not even grass to provide cover, and the possibility of a deadly fall at any moment do not make for a pleasant experience. With extremely little fuel available due to the need to carry everything with us meals were eaten cold and miserable. Injuries, mostly from the absolutely inevitable falls, were regular, and aches and pains from bruises became a constant companion even from those spared broken bones, ice-induced lacerations, or more serious afflictions. Deaths too, became a measurable component of these excursions. Five men, two of the Snow Banes and three from the caravaneers, perished during this exploration effort. All deaths were tied to unseen cracks in the ice, perishing from falls. I take some small solace in noting that our planning was sufficient that no one perished simply from the cold, or from hunger, but one of the porters who died served under my orders. His death was unforeseen, a pure accident determined by the Divines. He fell through an ice bridge that had successfully borne three before him, and each heavier than he. Despite this, it cracked and broke suddenly when his turn came. At least it was swift, an immense, sharp drop with a shattered skull at the bottom. One of the Snow Banes, I was told, fell into a cleft beneath a ledge and slowly bled to death over several hours while those above struggled in vain to free him from the glacier’s unyielding grasp.

Despite its hard and merciless nature, the ice is not without beauty. It offers up a primal, stark vision of a frozen world caught in moments of perfect clarity at dawn and at dusk when the sunlight reflects off the high peaks. In the rare moments when the blue streak of the dragon passed overhead, and the very air crackled with divine essence all fell to their knees in awe. Glorious such moments, but these were rare and fleeting things soon lost in the crush and grind of dragging tired bodies across the endless rippling ice.

That the mission was not merely to traverse the Cracking Void, but to search it made the task far more challenging. Every time we happened across a pillar of ice or some loose boulder, and it is a strange but persistent truth that naked stone masses should be found atop the massive layering of glacial ice that defies all my knowledge of the nature of rocks, one among us needed to climb to the top and scan the surrounding territory for any sign of the dragon’s lair. Our primary target was large holes in the ice, for it was presumed based on a combination of old tales and the dragon’s great size, surely larger than any animal encountered elsewhere on land, that if the creature laired anywhere, it must be deep within an ice cave. We searched as well for secondary signs: bones dropped from kills, claw scratches on boulders, and any other clues. Climb, search, orient, and repeat, this was the pattern of each day upon the ice.

This changed only when a large cavern entrance was at last found. These we probed as deep as we dared. It is a terrifying task, to repel down walls of ice and scuttle about beneath the weak illumination of flickering torchlight through bizarre passages broken apart by the motion of mountains and the flow of meltwater. The caves were wondrously terrible places, painted in uncountable shades of blue and white, a spectrum such as never seen elsewhere, but slick as the sea itself and capable of imparting treacherous slides to the least motion. Few were willing to proceed into such places, and it was only the Redbones and the Guardsmen who would make the attempt. I dared one such cavern, but I am a poor climber, especially upon ice, and after struggling to return to the surface left further descents to the crossbowman who traveled with me.

The caves yielded up strange treasure. Unusual bones, curious rocks of bizarre coloration, eagle feathers, and in one case fragments of a bronze blade of no style familiar to any among us were all unearthed. A sketch of this weapon, made in Lady Indili’s careful and skilled hand, lies in the great library of Crisremon. No scholar has even succeeded in determining its origins. These curiosities, fascinating though they were to the properly equipped mind, were not the dragon. In this regard the excursions turned up little, the chipped end of a single claw and two fallen scales were all that we recovered. Despite this, we had no doubt the creature laired upon the ice, for every single man who ventured forth into that expanse, from Erun Nassah to the least porter, observed the beast in flight above at least once. Its demesne, regrettably, remained hidden beyond our reach.

Three times Erun sent the missions out, three circuits spanning some sixty-three days in all, until the short mountain summer expired, and the nights began to grow in length. Success proved impossible. The dragon’s lair, we eventually concluded, was beyond the reach of any effort we possessed supplies to transport onto the glacier. The ice was more than our match.

This logistical failure sources to an error that was, it must be said, my own. Based on recorded sightings and such maps of the mountains as the Bahab could provide I had predicted the region where the lair was most likely to be. In this I erred, seriously. The mistake was ultimately a simple one. I accounted for the motions of the dragon, a winged creature, without considering the impact of the wind. As our journeys onto the ice made clear, wind has a powerful influence above glaciers. In this case it blasted down from the northwest and swirled through the valleys. This aerial current pushed the dragon eastward and led it to make its resting place in the east, at the base of the peaks called the Ice Ridges that formed the eastern wall of the Cracking Void. To reach that area from the south, at the source of the Shudulus River, was impossible. Exploration of that region required making a camp beyond the Ice Ridges, finding a pass between the peaks, and entering from that side.

Though I could not have predicted the wind currents before venturing onto the ice, had I paid proper attention to the air above I could have made this judgment after the first of the loops. Had I been fully attentive and prompt in this regard it would have taken only twenty days to make the realization that from our camp the objective could not be reached rather than the full sixty-three. The consequences of this oversight were grave.

With the exception of the Redbones, Erun, and myself, no one in the company made more than one foray onto the ice. Such rotations were intended to spare suffering and allow the others to maintain camp in the forest beside the Black Spruce’s logging operations. Those who remained gathered wood, hunted to secure provisions, repaired clothing and gear, and cared for our pack animals. In Erun’s absence, command of the camp was granted to Tomad Murad. A man much given to monetary return, his enthusiasm for the expedition had by this time reached a low ebb. At the same time, he traded with the Bahab for a supply of alcohol and acquired considerable popularity with those who remained in camp, especially the mercenaries. No one else in the camp offered a significant challenge to his authority, for he had acquired the support of Master Lam after bonding over all matters mercantile and monetary, and his voice grew to drown out that of all others not on the ice. When the third round of excursions completed the expedition faced a choice, for by this time I had recognized my error and mapped out the necessary new approach. However, broaching this requirement brought about a rupture of surpassing importance.