We left Southport in Rebert's wagon. Somehow, he had found each of us a kit of supplies and we left the small city quickly. Two huge horses pulled our cart with muscled backs and huge hooves. The horses seemed to know where they were going and were eager to be rid of us.

Leaving SouthPort, we entered grassy valleys with small towns every few miles. The land was flat, covered in dry grass, and the towns were populated by not much more than a few cows and horses. The air grew hot and dry as we left the pleasant sea breeze behind us.

I sat in the back with Shay and Clidale while Rebert sat up front, guiding the horses. It was not a comfortable wagon, and the only thing we could sit on was a hard wooden bench that did nothing to protect against the bumps in the road. After a few hours, my rear had grown sore.

I wondered if I would ever see the sea again, and I already missed the cool breeze and the salty scent of the sea. My daydreaming was interrupted by a giggle. Clidale and Shay had been talking about something, but I hadn't been paying attention.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

Clidale looked at Shay, and Shay looked at Clidale. Then they both looked at me and shrugged.

"Nothing of note," Shay said.

Something she said must have been funny then, and they both burst out laughing again. I laughed with them, but they returned to their conversation. I couldn't hear them well due to the bumping of the wagon wheels. Trying to suppress a burgeoning feeling of jealousy, I climbed up to the front of the wagon and sat by Rebert. He glanced at me and nodded.

"Got a way to go, lad," he nodded ahead, as if he could see the end of our journey. But all I could see was white grass and hills. I grunted but didn't feel like making conversation with the man. Nevertheless, I could feel his eyes on me when they weren’t on the road.

"You like the girl, don't you?" He grinned, and it was one of the few times I could remember the man smiling. I stared at him, wondering if he was trying to get a rise out of me. But as I looked at him, I realized I didn't know much about the man at all.

"Believe me, lad, she's a bit beyond us common folk," he grunted and looked once more ahead to the road. I wondered what he could mean by that, but when I turned back to look at Shay and Clidale, they were sitting closer together now. I quickly turned away, trying to convince myself it was no concern of mine.

One day, I awoke to a slight pressure on my neck. My first reaction was to bolt upright, but my instincts told me to be still. I tried to determine what it was by the feel of it, but I couldn't. It was cold and poked into my neck, and fear gripped my stomach as some primal part of my mind reached the conclusion before I could. Rebert had finally decided to kill me.

I decided it was time to open my eyes. The short, thick blade digging into my soft neck was curved, and I felt the wicked, thick point edging slowly into my skin. Strangely, I didn't feel any pain. Perhaps the blade was too sharp to cause much pain. I had heard that the sharper blades were that way. After a moment, when I didn't react, he smiled at me and pulled back the blade. The pressure released on my neck. "You have seen what few men have," he said.

I put a hand to my neck, feeling wet. And when I drew my hand up to my face, I saw a small smear of blood. For a moment, I wondered if I could have killed myself on his sword had I risen quicker.

"Few men have felt the bite of my steel and lived to see the sword that made their death." Rebert sheathed his sword and grinned with all his teeth. I didn't like that smile; it was too wide and not friendly, as smiles are supposed to be. His dark eyes seemed to slant with some sort of satisfied menace at my vulnerability. "Let that be your first lesson. Never let another man catch you sleeping."

I looked down at my hands to find them shaking as adrenaline coursed through my body. It was too early for it, and I could hear the beat of my heart in my head. But I was glad that I didn’t piss myself. Rebert scratched his bearded face. His curly hair stretched past his ears now, and his dark gray eyes scrutinized me with a critical gleam.

Clidale stood up behind him and rubbed at his eyes. I looked at him, worried that he had heard us talking, but he gave no sign of it. Then Clidale pointed at my neck. "You're bleeding," he said sleepily.

Rebert grunted. "So then, your father. How'd he learn the sword?"

At that, Clidale perked up and looked at me pointedly. "You didn't tell me your pop was a swordsman."

"As far as I knew, he wasn't," I said. "We were just simple folk." The freshness of the memories made my tongue taste sour, and I glared at Rebert, still holding my hand to the tiny slice to my neck.

"Aye," Rebert said, without much sympathy. Then, without saying anything, he tossed me a wooden sword. He stood up and stepped back a good distance away. But then he closed the distance even quicker. I didn't expect him to move so quickly. I twisted to get away, but his own wooden sword hit my hip. The pain was hot and searing, and I fell onto my rear.

Clidale yawned, then walked over and offered me a hand up. I took it, wincing as the pain set in. There would be a huge bruise the next morning.

"Let me try," he said, then he took the sword from my hand. He looked it up and down and hefted it in his hand for a moment, then tossed it in the air and caught it again. Then, just as Rebert had done, Clidale lunged forward to stab him in the stomach.

But Rebert was faster than me despite his years, and he stepped back out of range of the blade. Rebert eyed Clidale for a moment and then nodded. Then he turned to me.

"He shows promise." It stung that he said that. I wasn't aware that I sought the man's approval until I saw him give it to someone else, but I didn't bear any ill will towards my friend.

We went on like this for days, practicing with the sword after traveling in the wagon all day. Soon we left the quiet, dry plains behind the coast, and the forest began to creep up on us.

First, it was just a small tree or two, and then before long, we were surrounded by trees taller than any I had ever seen. They made the small trees of my family's farm look tiny, and this forest felt darker and quieter. It had been quite some time since we had seen another traveler. The bustle of rabbits and the song of birds were absent, and the traveling road had long since deteriorated to a path—if it even could be considered as such.

And it had begun to grow cold. The trees seemed to grow taller still, stretching up further and further, so I could not see the tops of them. Snow covered everything, and sunlight was forgotten as our days continued. The bite in the air was almost tangible, and to this day, I can't recall a time being so cold. Rebert had brought thick coats sewn with fur--as if he had expected the temperature change, but they no longer felt warm at all.

At night, we'd huddle by the cart, trying to build as big of a fire as possible, and during the day, we'd huddle in the back as Rebert sat in the front, with the large horses pulling us along. The horses seemed fine, as if they were built for the weather with huge shaggy coats, and knowing Rebert, I suspected he had picked the beasts with knowledge of the climates we would face.

Rebert also didn't seem too bothered by the cold at first. He often became so encrusted with small icicles and sat so still on the cart that we wondered if he was frozen. But as we moved forward through the forest, lost to a road long covered in snow, it began to grow colder still. One day, as we stopped the cart, Rebert looked around, as if looking for something. Then he grunted, looking back at us. "It's too cold."

My nose was so cold it felt like I could barely breathe, and my eyes stung with the cold as I tried to look around. But there was nothing but snow, branches, and tall trees. Shay, Clidale, and I were lost among the stiff, furry blankets, but the bite of the frost was cold and sharp. Icicles froze to our eyes, and it had begun to get hard to breathe.

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"Aye, it's been cold," I mumbled. Despite Rebert's knowledge of the roads, I had long suspected that we might lose our way. The forest was thick, and the snow was inches deep by then. I knew that eventually, the cold and the dark would become too much for us, if it had not already.

"Not what I meant. The world doesn't get this cold, at least not this part," Rebert looked around again, but this time his eyes widened. He stiffened, then tilted his head. Then suddenly, he drew his curved sword. I hadn't seen the sword for a while. I had forgotten how thick it was. It was a deadly blade, nicked and scarred from use. At the sight of his blade, we all tensed and looked around for danger.

Rebert yelped and threw his sword away as if it had bitten him. The sword clattered on the ground, and it shattered into icy fragments. For a moment, he just stared at his hand and back at the ground where his sword lay in pieces. Rebert whispered in his native tongue, and I could tell from his expression that he was dumbstruck.

"It's quite alright. I can't blame you. I can imagine that it was quite cold, wasn't it?" A high-pitched voice came out of nowhere, and I looked to the tree to the right of us. From behind the tree came a tall, slender man clad in simple brown garments.

He didn't seem to have much hair, but his beard was white and long and stretched down past his skinny neck. In fact, he didn't have much fat on him at all. His biceps were corded and lean, and his stomach carved. Despite the white beard and lack of hair, the man didn't seem old. His movements were quick, energetic, and strangely graceful. He seemed to glide over to us as we all stared at him in stunned silence. Or maybe we were just too cold.

But then as he got closer, Rebert reached into his robe. The man looked at Rebert and shook his head, bringing a finger up and pointing it at him. "I wouldn't do that," the man cautioned with a sudden harshness in his voice that hadn't been there before. Slowly, Rebert withdrew his hands and put both up to the man.

"Ah, good good!" The man smiled now, his former demeanor returning. The man looked to Rebert and then us three, but none of us replied. We were too shocked to see the man before us. I still hadn't managed to convince myself that it was not a dream. I had long suspected that one night I would go to sleep in the cold, and it would take me, and I would never wake up.

"What did you do to my sword?" asked Rebert.

"I froze it," the man said matter-of-factly, as if freezing steel and shattering it into ice were a normal occurrence in the world. It was then that I looked more carefully at the man, and I couldn’t help but notice how much skin he was revealing to the elements. It was as if he was dressed for a warm day, not one covered in ice and frost.

Something about the man seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. There hadn’t been many old men on the ship, and we had hardly seen anyone in our travels. The south and southeast were desolate places.

The old man put a finger into his ear, wiggled it around, and sniffed it as he waited for us to reply. But after several minutes of silence, he seemed to grow impatient. "Not a talkative group, are we?" Then he looked up suddenly, as if realizing something for the first time.

"Oh my, you do look cold, don’t you? Quite cold!" The man shuddered, gripped his sides, and began to shake furiously, as if suddenly struck by the cold. I could tell he was mocking us, as after a moment, he looked at us with expectant eyes to see our reaction.

We all just stared, still dumbstruck by the sudden occurrence of the man. Then he sighed, as if we were the most unappreciative audience he had ever had, and he reached out his hand as if wanting someone to shake it. For a moment, I thought about humoring the man, but the cold had become so intense that my bones seemed to resist movement, and I worried that my rear might be frozen to the wooden seat of the cart.

“You can’t really blame me can you? I had to make sure you slowed down enough for these old legs to catch up. You sneaked off early in the morning.” It was then that I remembered.

“You’re that old man!” I said.

He smiled and then he winked at me. He closed his eyes and then he began to mumble strange words that I had never heard before. It was as if the air caught his words and hung onto them before they reached us. They were heavy words, and as he said them, the words hung there, echoing around us impossibly quiet but also strangely loud. It was as if we had ascended a mountain, and my ears felt as if they were about to pop.

The man's forehead began to sweat, and then he clenched his fist. The pressure built even more in my ear, and I cried out and clasped my hands to them. The hairs on my arms began to stand up, and my neck prickled.

Then he turned his closed fist and opened it. Atop his palm, something began to manifest. It was as if some sort of force came alive in the air just above his palm - a twirling ball of something, and nearby flakes of snow and debris began to move through the air.

The ball of power moved up out of his hand, further up into the air. It began to churn faster and faster, and the frost peeled back from branches, and the snow melted into water, and the very deep cold that made the air so cutting seemed to stretch and retreat into the growing mass in the center. The cold began to retreat from the air so suddenly that my skin tingled and burned. I heard Shay gasp next to me, and Clidale fell to his knees. He looked at his hands, turned them over, and I could see that they were still ice white with cold.

After only a small moment, the air was as warm as a spring day. But while the cold had retreated, the wind and force in the air had picked up. The ground was simply brown dirt now, but large specks of dirt continued to fly to the center of the strange center of mass. A huge branch fell from a nearby tree, and Rebert threw himself to the side out of the way, and it narrowly missed hitting him in the head.

I covered my eyes with my arm and shielded myself as best I could amidst the chaos. It felt as if I was being pulled to the center as well, and I braced myself against the edge of the cart with my foot. But then the pressure and wind seized as soon as it had started.

I crawled out from the bottom of the cart and saw the strangest thing I had ever seen up until then. The ball was now snow, and ice, and dirt, and it twisted and turned in the center. The old man went up to the large ball of toiling detritus and simply flicked it.

The ball twirled away, shifting and wrenching, and coiling, and then it spun away into the sky. After a few seconds, it picked up speed, and it couldn’t be seen anymore. The strange man watched the orb float away into the sky, and he waved goodbye. He looked at us sadly, as if he had just said farewell to a fond friend.

Rebert fell to his knees, covered in dampness from melted snow and ice. He put his wet face to the ground and bowed - staying there, and he began to whisper foreign words in his home tongue.

The man looked at him for a moment, kneeling there, and then he smiled as if he was intensely satisfied with himself.

"Ah yes, a Shinarin. I thought as much. You can always tell by their blade." The man gestured vaguely around, as if the sword were still there somewhere - in pieces.

The man turned away from Rebert and began to mumble to himself, then abruptly turned around. He retreated back into the forest. Several minutes passed, but Rebert still seemed to be deep in his prayers. "What's got into him?" Clidale asked me, gesturing towards Rebert.

Shay, on the other hand, still managed to look cold, even though the air was now hot and muggy. "What just happened?" she asked. Then she looked around us, as if she could find the answer.

I shrugged. I still couldn't believe what I had seen was nothing more than a dream. But if it was a dream, it was the strangest I had ever had.I was about to say something when a rustling in the bushes behind drew my attention.

The man was back and carrying a hefty amount of sticks. He huffed and glared at us - as if implying that we should have helped him. Then he dropped them in a pile and began to meticulously layer them in a cone-like shape. I saw Shay glance down at his member, which now hung loose despite the formidable white bush of hair hiding most of it. Somehow, in the brush and foliage of the forest, it looked as if he had lost his loincloth.

After a small moment, the man was done with his small makeshift arrangement. He whispered something into his palms. He shuddered, swore, and threw something on the ground, recoiling in disgust.

"Hate fire." He pointed, then spat, and I heard a hiss. The bundle started to smoke slowly, and then it burst into a sudden blaze.

The sudden heat of the flames scared me, and I fumbled back, covering my eyes with my elbow in a vain attempt to protect against the heat. But then the heat lessened, and when I dropped my arm, there was only a small fire, much more controlled and no longer an inferno.

The warmth drew me to it, even if the day was no longer cold and frozen. The deep cold had sunk into my bones for weeks. I was sure that if the man had not shown up, we would have gone to sleep and never awoken. But then I also realized that he had created the cold--somehow with his power. I feared the man then. Not because of his power--which is strange to think, but because I didn’t know why he was there and why he had chased us.

After a while, we had all settled around the fire, and it grew dark. I could tell none of us were at ease, but the man didn't seem to pose any immediate danger to us despite his manic energy.

Clidale stared at the strange old man with wonder in his eyes - and Rebert still seemed to be in some kind of stupor. He was clearly struck by the man and the events we had witnessed. I couldn't blame him, but I was tired. The journey had been long, spent jostling around in the wagon in the hot valleys following the sea, and then frozen in the forest soon after.

I looked at Shay, and she too had her hands by the fire, looking into the flames. She felt my gaze somehow and looked at me. I smiled, and she smiled back. I then remembered that I felt a warmth from her smile that I didn't feel from the flames or the strange man's magic surrounding us and keeping us warm.