Lady Indili and I raced the winter southeast. Taking advantage of the chaos in Snushgud, we were able to follow the course of the river on our path toward the expansive delta region with its vast marshlands that lies to the north of the Udultu Salt Sea. This region is the homeland of the Rutar people. The landscape was mostly empty. The Kharal had ridden to war, leaving their yurts occupied by children, women, and the elderly. These kept their animals close and represented little threat to outsiders. We bypassed such clans without any great difficulty and were not pursued. Once we had passed beyond the immediate proximity of Snushgud, we moved mostly through trails along the forested floodplain of the river as this was protected from the wind and readily provided materials to build shelters each night. This journey of eighteen days saw the steppe turn cold, but it snowed only twice and lightly both times.

There were few people about. Those Nikkad who lived in the villages of this region, under the influence of Snushgud, had retreated inside their walls for the winter. Bandits had moved north, seeking to take advantage of the city’s misery or under-defended Kharal clans. Greater events in this case served to cloak the passage of two travelers without escort.

Though we did not come under attack, the journey was still a harrowing one. Our stores began to run low, and the increasing chill made everything more difficult, as it always does. Surviving the winter alone on the steppe is impossible, and it was absolutely essential that we acquire the aid of the Rutar, a people with which we had not made contact previously. I had managed to learn some words of the language at points, but my understanding barely went beyond simple greetings.

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Difficult though it was, travel across the steppe is a skill that can be learned, and Lady Indili and I had acquired the rhythm of this method most thoroughly by this point. We were able to make very good time, upwards of thirty kilometers each day, limited primarily by the need to rest our animals. The frigid nature of the nights only encouraged us to spend a greater portion of the day on the road. The land, being quiet in the winter, offered few distractions. Everything was shaded white and brown, with only the sun to supply color. While evidence of human activity could be found in many places, most had been abandoned for the season. These included the orchards and tree plantations of the Nikkad, but as we moved south more and more, we began to encounter fish weirs, trap lines, hunting stands, and other constructions that offered evidence of Rutar presence. These became common long before we found any people in the flesh. It seemed that they, and many of the resident animals of the marsh as well, for we saw hardly any boar or deer during this passage, had retreated to the southern portion of the swamplands where the reeds grow thick and hold in warmth.

Ultimately it was smoke, a rarity on the steppe as Kharal fires are constructed so as to minimize the spread of this signal, that guided us to the first of the stilt-legged villages of the Rutar, the most mysterious of the peoples of Shdustu and those who cling to the edges of its strange salty sea.