If one were to board the stagecoach at Eoforwic going towards the western mountains, they would soon leave the heartlands and thus the power of the Valoisian Empire behind. The last bastion of true civilization, marked by an Imperial garrison, was Sheaf. The town was situated on the eastern slope of the Crucible Ridge, the first and lowest of the frontier mountain ranges running north to south along the whole length of the Loegrian landmass.

The next, slightly higher ridge was the Argentum Formation, beyond which lay the sheer endless High Plains, and even further the actual Central Ranges. If one managed to cross those – and not all coaches did – they would abruptly reach the rich, fertile west coast with its mild climate.

Along the coach roads, there were settlements. The Crucible Ridge with its iron mines was still thinly populated – it had been thriving, before the Rot – and the Argentum Formation had silver deposits, which were enough to support mining towns to this day, and even as far as the eastern half of the High Plains there were a few villages. Beyond that, there were only the fortified roadhouses with their supply depots, and camps of the nomadic Plains People, all the way to the Central Ranges. At the foot of the Central Ranges sat Clyde’s Pass, named for the only safe path across the Ranges. It flourished, despite the Rot and the other monsters living in the mountains, because it had mines of that most precious of metals: Gold.

Clyde’s Pass also marked the halfway point for those who did take the stagecoach across Loegrion. As the saying went, one had to cross iron and silver to get to the gold.

Despite Clyde’s Pass’s riches, the Valoisian Armies had never even gotten close to the city, defeated not by the Loegrian resistance but by sheer distance and the unpredictable winter storms of the Argentum Formation.

Lane deLande was starting to fear that she was going to suffer the same fate. She had intended to push for Clyde’s Pass to weather the winter in comfort and safety, but the first snowfall caught her by surprise. She was still at the foothills of the Argentum Formation, had only yesterday crossed the river Abhain that separated it from the Crucible Ridge. Besides, it wasn’t even Novembre yet.

But there was no point in complaining about this early onset of winter. She’d have to make haste to the next coaching inn before the weather turned even worse. Her grey stallion stretched himself willingly, and an hour later they reached the next human settlement.

The inn and its courtyard had its own high, massive stone walls, tipped with spikes and torches, which had already been lit. On one side of those walls, a tiny settlement had formed. Calling it a town seemed overly generous, and Lane could see no fields or farms indicating that it was a village.

When Lane rode down the short main street, she found a small building with a sign that read ‘general store’. No baker, though, or butcher, so food probably had to be imported. No pub, either, probably because of the large coaching inn towering over the town.

She also couldn’t see a church, not even a shrine, which was why she was travelling in this direction. The Empire had no power here, and neither did George Louis – hopefully, by the time spring came around, someone would have given the duke what he had coming, and she could return safely.

George Louis had to have lost his mind if he really thought she would – or could – bring him a living werewolf. No matter what the duke thought he had seen of the young Feleke, there was no such thing as a sane werewolf. They were soulless monsters, the whole lot of them.

Created through some curse, some twisted magic, not unlike the Rot. This similarity was no doubt the reason why they could fight it.

And anyway, what did the duke expect her to do? She was incredibly good at killing werewolves, yes, at finding them, recognizing them, tracking them down. But how was she supposed to catch one alive? How was she supposed to bring one to Duke George Louis, without being mauled on the way? There was no way any of the monsters would come quietly.

She was no official of the Empire or the Inquisition, either, she had no right to take someone anywhere against their will. And sure, a werewolf didn’t have any more rights than a dog, but she would still have to tell people she was transporting a werewolf if challenged. Which in itself was illegal.

But if she returned empty-handed, the duke would see to it that the Inquisition stoned her to death, so she had no choice but to put herself beyond his or the Church’s influence.

Hopefully, one winter would be enough. Her people at Wardshire were used to her long absences, but being Valoise in these regions wasn’t without danger, either.

Lane sighed inwardly. She’d have to think of a name to tell people at the coaching inn, something suitably Loegrian, which would keep people off her back. Chester should do.

Lane had just checked in at the coaching inn when the snowfall got so thick that she could barely see anything moving outside the window. If this kept up, she would have to stay for a few days. If she was really unlucky, she would be trapped here until spring.

Lane sighed again and let her gaze travel through her room. It was the biggest one the inn had, with a nice fireplace, two heavy armchairs right and left of it, a large bed, and a table under the window. Also its own bath and water closet, to Lane’s surprise. The room looked clean and well kept and was not all that expensive. Probably because the inn had very few visitors this time of year.

Lane sat down in one of the comfortable armchairs and let her head fall back just as there was knock at the door.

“Come in,” Lane called.

A young girl placed a carafe of wine in front of her and a nice glass. Lane smiled when the girl poured the wine. She was pretty, seventeen or eighteen years old, with pale skin and silky brown hair, braided like a crown around her head. Her clothes were scrupulously clean, and she seemed to know a thing or two about service, too.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay for the winter here, Lane thought, and then pinched herself for the thought.

As soon as night fell, and Lane went down to the taproom, all her plans for the future collapsed because there was a poster hanging on a pillar next to the bar, a wanted poster. At first glance, it showed a woman’s face, with the light skin of native Loegrians. At second glance it became clear that it didn’t show a woman at all but a werewolf, with eyes that showed no white, like an animal’s, and hair that was mostly grey, even though the face showed no sign of old age. Haggard, yes, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, but not old. It wasn’t the eyes, though, that caught Lane’s attention, or the hair, but the large burn scar on the left side of the face, half-covered over by hair, but clearly visible where it just barely avoided the eye and then travelled down to the jaw.

She had never seen this face with her own two eyes, had never even seen such an exact likeness of it on paper, but her father had described it over and over, from the small mole on her right upper lip to the exact form of the scar.

Winter be damned, and Duke George Louis be damned, too.

“How long has this been here?” Lane asked the proprietor of the inn, who was tending bar himself.

“Not long,” the man said, shrugging. “But you don’t need to worry, Miss, werewolves are no danger to this inn.”

“I’m not worried,” Lane said. “I hunt them for a living. I would be most grateful if you’d be a little more specific?”

The bartender stared at her for a long while, but then turned around. “Mary!” he called. “Mary!”

The pretty young girl who had brought Lane the wine earlier came in, and the proprietor asked: “When was that pig farmer here, the one who hung the werewolf pictures?”

“Three days ago, father,” the girl said.

“Right, Miss. There you have it.”

“A pig farmer?” Lane asked.

“Oh yes, Miss. From over in New Market. Had half a dozen pigs stolen over the last month, or so he claims. So he put up the reward since there seems to be no end in sight.”

“Did they try dogs?”

“He said they did, but that the dogs turned tail as soon as they caught the scent. Can’t have been proper hunting dogs, if you ask me, Miss. No dog worth its feed would run from a trail.”

“No, that sounds about right,” Lane said softly and glared at the snow swirling outside of the window.

A trail. A fresh trail, after four years of chasing her own tail. Maybe something good would come out of the duke’s madness after all.

Provided the weather allowed her to journey on.

“How far from here to New Market?” she asked.

“Bout twenty miles, Miss. If the weather is fair, a decent horse can manage it in a day, the road is pretty good on that stretch.”

“Thank you,” Lane said, and finally sat down to have some dinner.

One day of travel. She glanced up from her plate over towards the window. There was nothing fair about that snowstorm. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

So she ordered another bottle of wine and sat in silence in the large, almost empty room. Maybe she would try to take this one alive, not to bring it to George Louis, but to see it burn, burn like it should have burned more than a quarter of a century ago when her father had tried.

Or was bloody David Feleke right? Had her father destroyed the monster when he set fire to the circus? But if he had, then what had he been chasing all those years? What had first murdered Lane’s mother, and then him?

Lane shook her head at herself. This was not the time to start doubting her father, a righteous man, or her own eyes. That Feleke had no idea what he was talking about. He hadn’t been there, after all, and it hadn’t been his father, either.

If it had been Bram Feleke, a treacherous voice in the back of her head pointed out, the werewolf would most certainly be dead by now. He wouldn’t have failed over and over again.

Or maybe she was giving him too much credit. Sure, he was a very good hunter – if he deigned to do his job – but the Morgulon wasn’t like other werewolves, not at all. Born a werewolf, the circus-people claimed. Born as a werewolf some thirty plus years ago, maybe thirty-five, and never caught, never even severely injured, aside from the fire. The one werewolf which no dog would trail, that broke every snare, avoided all the traps, which could not be killed by silver or fire, said the people who believed that it even existed.

Lane was pretty sure that if she cut off the head it would die just like any other beast. If she could only get close enough...

It had been eight years since she had last managed, back when she was seventeen, after her father and her husband had died and she had just started hunting alone. Twice had she gotten close, and twice had she missed. And then she had lost the bloody trail in the Crucible Ridge.

She wouldn’t miss a third time.

For two days, the snowstorm raged, and even the locals agreed that it was quite early in the year for this kind of bad weather. On the third day, the sun broke through, and on the fourth day, enough of the snow had melted that Lane could finally risk continuing her journey. The road had turned to sludge, of course, a sticky mire of mud and slush and leftover mounds of snow. The icy wind blowing through the forest from the north did not make the journey easier. No matter how much she rushed the Grey, they barely managed the eight miles to the next coaching inn that day, and Lane had to wait another night before they finally rode into New Market.

The town wasn’t much bigger than the settlement around the inn where she had seen the wanted poster. Again, a coaching inn stood in the centre, a small market place outside its gates, and a few crude wooden houses around that. There was, however, a fairly large natural clearing south of the town, which had been turned into fields. And just outside the town, enclosed in its own palisades, was the pig farm Lane had been told about.

It was surprisingly large and seemed pretty well secured.

Lane rode around the place, but couldn’t easily see where the werewolf might have gotten in. Or had it killed the pigs somewhere outside? Pigs were remarkably resilient against the Rot, pigs and goats both, and could therefore be driven into the trees for pannage.

Lane suspected that they just ate the Rot, too.

When she had a closer look at the gates, to see if they were secured with silver, a man came running outside, wearing a dirty leather apron, an ancient musket in hands, and yelled: “Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?”

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Lane raised her hands in appeasement. “I was told you’re looking for a werewolf hunter.”

The man lowered the gun, threw his head back, and started laughing.

“You’re kidding me,” he finally asked. “You’re a woman!”

Lane sighed inwardly. She’d had this argument way too many times.

“Do you want this werewolf dead or not?” she gave back. “No one else will be out this far before spring, if at all.”

The man cursed, a long string of blasphemy that made Lane wince, no matter how hard she tried not to. Eventually, the man looked back and forth between her and the Grey, muttering, “sun’s bloody ashes,” and shaking his head.

“You really a hunter?” he added, staring at the crossbow attached to the saddle.

“Yes,” Lane said.

“You from them mountains?” he asked, and pointed west.

Lane could only guess that he meant the Central Ranges.

“Only, we hear strange things about them people from them mountains.”

“I’m from Deva,” Lane said.

“Running from the bloody Church, are you? Heard the new bishop gets real riled up about cross-dressers, huh? Fucking Valoise.”

He spat on the ground.

“Something like that,” Lane said, and somehow managed to keep a bland face. She was not cross-dressing. She wore a proper skirt and all! A riding skirt, yes, but still, she was not showing her legs for all the world to see like some common harlot. She wore a skirt and a blouse, decent clothes for a woman, surely he could see that?

But it was safer to let him believe that she was running from the Church. People out here worshiped strange, barbaric gods, or even worse things, and they hated the Church of Mithras. So she ground her teeth together and tried not to show the anger seething in her veins.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Chester. Lane Chester.”

“Gale,” said the man. “Peter Gale.”

“So, can you tell me about this werewolf?” Lane got back to the business at hand. “I hear tell it’s been killing pigs.”

“Hell yes, the mad fucker,” Gale grunted. “See, it all started more’n a month ago. It’s late, there’s a knock on the door, I go and open, and I look in these huge, yellow eyes, and I think, holy shit, I’m dead. Cause it’s just another night till full moon, you know? Shouldn’t have opened the bloody door, but I figured a werewolf wouldn’t knock, old gods curse me. Bloody monster stands there and has the balls to smile at me, asking for food. I tell it to get lost, of course. Don’t like beggars, and don’t like monsters begging even less. Found the remains of the first dead pig the next morning. Had one missing every single week since then. Four in total, now, and I reckon the bitch’ll be back tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.”

Probably not tomorrow night, since that would be new moon. Also, not every single week, if he had lost four pigs in the past six, but Lane didn’t bother to point that out.

“In that case, would you mind if I stay the night here on the premises?” Lane asked.

“Not at all, Miss, not at all.”

Lane smiled grimly and looked up into the sky. Thank Mithras, the hunt was on.

“I’ll be back as soon as it gets dark,” she said. “I’ll need to buy some supplies in town. How’s this area for the Rot?”

“Oh, Miss, you don’t wanna go in between the trees without some proper protection,” the farmer said, shaking his head. “Swing by the smithy, and they’ll set you up with a decent cap or helmet if you got the coin on you.”

Lane just nodded, and rode on into the town proper, mulling over what he had told her. Four dead pigs since the full moon before last, no wonder that the man had put up a bounty. If this continued he’d be broke long before the winter ended.

People in town seemed peculiarly unconcerned about the werewolf.

“Old Piggy Gale, huh? Serves him right, the bastard,” said the woman at the little butchery where Lane bought dried meat and ham, food that would keep, in case this didn’t go as planned.

“What about the werewolf?” Lane asked.

The woman shrugged. “Never seen it. Never hurt a human, either, as far as anyone in town knows. Oh, I hope that stingy bastard chokes on his pig rinds one of these days!”

Lane left the butchery shaking her head.

“Be careful, Miss,” said the young girl in the bakery Lane entered next. She looked left and right as if to make sure no one listened, even though Lane was the only customer, and added: “Old Piggy got a bad case of them wandering hands if you catch my meaning.”

“Thanks,” Lane said.

New Market had a fairly large general store, where she rounded out her supplies with beans and matches and all the other minor things that could become major out in the wild if one didn’t have them. The well-stocked shelves and the large choice of wares made it obvious that silver miners shopped here, too. She bought some warm boots and mittens while she was there, long wool stockings as well, just in case of another snowfall.

Lane’s last stop was the smithy. The smith was a tall, wiry man, with leathery skin and deep-seated eyes. He glared at Lane as if she had talked ill about his mother, and charged an arm and a leg for a silver-lined cap made of sheep’s leather and fur. Lane seriously considered walking out again – a whole gold coin for a piece of clothing that couldn’t contain more than a couple of coins’ weight of silver? If only she had been better prepared! It wasn’t like she didn’t have a fully coated helmet at home!

But going into the forest without any protection was suicide. And she wouldn’t let the Morgulon get away a third time.

So she paid a full gold coin for a bloody ugly winter hat, decorated with some silver wire drawing heathen symbols. And then she spent the night sitting in a pigsty, a dirty, stinking pigsty. Which was probably still marginally better than spending the night in a room with Piggy Gale, who really did have wandering hands.

It was long past midnight when there was finally movement. Lane jumped a little, cursing herself for almost dozing off. The only light was the starlight coming in through the small window, but Lane could hear just fine: The pigs, which had snored peacefully a moment ago, were waking up all around her, snorting, and grunting, and moving about. Lane got to her feet as quietly as it was possible in the straw of the pigsty. A moment later, she could hear the door, a much softer sound than she had expected. It opened only a tiny, narrow inch, showing the night sky on the other side. For a second, Lane could see the tips of three pale fingers, and thought she heard someone sniffing. The next moment, somebody was running outside, no longer trying to be quiet.

Lane cursed and threw herself at the door, fumbling to get after the monster on the other side. How the hell had it known? How had it smelled her even among the pigs, even in its human form?

She brought her crossbow around as soon as she was out of the pigsty, suddenly glad that it had been so dark inside because now the night outside seemed bright and she could clearly see the lithe form that was just cresting over the top of the palisades. She aimed without even thinking about it and cursed softly when the creature let go just as she pulled the trigger. Still, she could hear a hiss of pain and a thump, when the body crashed to the ground.

Lane hurried to open the main gate and found blood, and also footprints, which turned into paw prints after a few yards.

The splatter of blood continued.

Lane had to take a deep breath to stop herself from yelling in triumph. She had hit her prey. She had hit it with silver, and now its time was up. All she had to do was follow the blood trail, and finish what her father had started more than two and a half decades ago.

She hurried back into the yard of the pig farm, where the Grey was waiting for her, packed with everything she might need on this hunt. It would be a short one, at this point. Silver was toxic for werewolves. The Morgulon would never see the moon rise again. The legend would die tonight.

Lane climbed into the saddle and charged after the monster that was hiding somewhere in the forest.

Less than fifty yards later, she had to slow the Grey down. It was dark between the conifers, and she had to light a torch or she would have lost the trail. Possibly her head, too.

“Doesn’t matter,” she whispered, trying to calm herself. The wound wasn’t closing, and it was just a matter of time till the silver or the blood loss finished the beast.

But no, that wouldn’t do. She wanted to be there, to see the light go out in its eyes. Just like the light had died in her mother’s eyes, right in her arms. It was almost new moon. She would cut the monster’s throat and watch its life bleed out into the dirt. She would cut it open slowly, watch it writhe in pain until its last breath got caught in its throat. She’d wear its pelt as a cloak, and mount its head above her fireplace, even if that meant she couldn’t collect all the bounties for it.

Dreams of revenge kept Lane awake while she followed the trail deeper and deeper into the forest. Sometimes she saw movement between the shadows, but the bloody ugly cap that had cost her a whole gold coin seemed to at least hold what its maker had promised. She never felt any of the influence of the Rot. The Grey started to prance nervously, though.

When the morning dawned, Lane finally gave in and allowed herself and her horse a short break, time to drink and eat a little. The wounded werewolf had been swifter on its feet than she had expected. Not that it really mattered. It was new moon day. Even the Morgulon couldn’t remain wolf now.

Lane climbed back into the saddle and hurried the Grey onward. There were clouds gathering on the horizon, bright, white clouds that threatened more snow. She wanted to be back at New Market before it started to fall.

It couldn’t be much further. In the soft ground next to a small creek, she found human footprints, of naked feet. They led into the water. But not out again on the other side.

Lane cursed. She had almost forgotten who she was hunting, that this was the Morgulon, the creature that had evaded her father for years, and stymied every other hunter who had come after it.

Upstream, or downstream?

She went upstream first, because downstream was a steep hillside, which would be a pain to climb if she had to turn back. She had to get out of the saddle anyway, to make things easier for the Grey. The water was icy cold, even through her boots, and it was hard to imagine that the werewolf had walked far within the creek.

Still, there was no trace of it.

Lane kept pushing on, arguing with herself. How far might the monster have gotten? Had it even walked in this direction? But if it had, and she turned too early...

Lane swore again and kept going forward.

When she reached a waterfall too high and slippery to be easily scaled, and there was still no trace of the Morgulon, Lane had to admit that she had probably picked the wrong direction.

And it was almost noon already.

“Damn it,” Lane whispered, but there was nothing to be done about it. She needed a break, maybe a couple of hours of sleep, and her stallion needed some time to graze.

The only thing that reconciled her a little with the situation was the fact that the werewolf probably needed a rest as well.

A couple of hours later, Lane rode downstream, as fast as the Grey could safely carry her, and maybe a little faster. They passed the point where the Morgulon had entered the water, and then Lane had to walk again because the slope of the hill was too steep. Where it tapered out into a wide, open meadow, she found more blood. It was damn strange that the Morgulon would leave the stream here, of all places, where a horse would move much quicker than in the forest.

It still took Lane half an hour after she lost the short trail to realize that she had been played once more.

When she finally found the real trail again, barely visible on the rocky ground, the sun was already low over the horizon. She should be turning back, Lane knew that. She should be turning back while she still knew which direction to go. It was one thing to follow a trail for days or even weeks in the safety of the heartlands. Out here, with winter approaching quickly, it was suicide.

She reined in her horse, but as she hesitated, she could hear the echoes of her father’s sermons.

“The company of saints won’t make the sinner holy,” he had used to say. Only through supreme acts of faith could someone like her find atonement.

For men, that wasn’t complicated: They could just join one of the crusades and earn absolution for all their sins, even paradise, by fighting the unbelievers. A woman like Lane wasn’t allowed to fight in the army of the faithful, though, that wasn’t her lot in life. She should be birthing sons to her god-fearing husband and raise them in the faith of Mithras.

Except that Lane knew that she could never be a good mother.

No, for her the only way to atonement was to hunt evil to the best of her abilities.

So she prompted the Grey into the trees.

The horse was noticeably exhausted by now, his footing less sure, and his breath becoming more laboured with every yard they travelled.

“Just a little bit further,” Lane said, rubbing his neck with one hand. “We’ll stop at the first half-decent campsite, I promise.”

By the time she found a place, right next to a tiny little creek, the Grey was stumbling rather than walking, even though she had gotten out of the saddle to lead him on. There was no other choice but to give him a proper rest, not just a couple of hours. When Lane lit a small fire in the clearing, she found more blood, covering a heap of old leaves, as if the Morgulon had stayed right here. It was fairly fresh, too.

For a few seconds, Lane wanted to push on, to drive the Grey onwards and after the monster, but there was no point in riding a good horse to death. On foot and in the dark, her chances of catching the beast were nil.

When Lane woke up, it had began to snow. She considered swearing some more, but it didn’t seem to help in any case, so she saved her breath. The Grey was laying on his side and didn’t get up when Lane did. When she checked his hooves, she found a small stone stuck in one of them. He kicked wildly when she pulled it out, but finally got up again.

“Damn it,” Lane muttered.

It really didn’t help.

The snow didn’t let up, either. The Grey could walk, but if Lane rushed him too much, he would start to lame. After less than a hundred yards, Lane gave up and led the horse over to the meagre shelter of a steep cliff. She left him there to find some wood. She’d been lucky so far that the Rot hadn’t shown up, but she’d need a fire if she wanted to survive another night in the wilderness.

That was when she found the place where the Morgulon had spent the night. Where the blood had pooled, it hadn’t even dried yet.

Lane raced back to the Grey, who wasn’t happy at all. But the trail was right there, fresh enough that the footsteps hadn’t filled with fresh snow yet. It led up the mountain again, and the temperature dropped with every yard they climbed. The wind was howling through the trees, whipping the snow into Lane’s face. The Grey was panting with every step, but he was soldiering on through the storm. Where ever Lane found the blood of the trail, it was still fresh. If the fir and pine trees weren’t standing quite so densely, Lane was pretty sure that they would have been able to see the werewolf.

They never got a glimpse of it, though. Night fell early, and it was still getting colder. Lane tried to get a fire going, but the best she managed was to build a makeshift shelter between two big fir trees, which caught most of the snow and at least some of the wind. The next morning, Lane could barely even see over the snowbank she had created. The world around them was white, and there wasn’t a single trace of the Morgulon. If there was any blood, it was buried under the snow.

Lane looked around, shivering, and felt her heart sink. She had a lame horse and no idea where she was, and her prey had escaped in the whiteout. And it was still snowing, so she couldn’t even see if maybe there was a settlement down in the valley.

Lane took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. A plume of white appeared when she exhaled. There was no point in panicking. There never was. And without knowing where she was, there probably wasn’t much chance to make it back to something approaching civilization.

“Do not fear death,” she whispered the first line of her father’s favourite prayer. But she couldn’t remember the rest of it.

However, she could complete the hunt. There was still a chance. The werewolf couldn’t have gotten far. It was just a matter of time for the silver to finish it – hell, it might even be already dead. But she had to be sure.

She could do this.

Soon, her hands and feet were so cold that she couldn’t feel them anymore, but she kept repeating the words in her head: “I can do this.”

Right until the Grey fell away underneath her and didn’t get up again. He had given her his everything, and she had failed anyway.

Lane climbed out of the saddle and curled up next to the stallion, cradling his head in her icy fingers. There was nothing she could do for him now, besides sparing him some pain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as she cut his throat, stroking his fur until she was sure that he was gone, and then a little longer.

She should move away. All that blood would attract the Rot, and there was most certainly a limit of how many of the creatures her ugly hat would repel. But the best she could manage was a couple of yards to where a few shrubs had formed a natural windscreen. She spent a while trying to start a fire, but the gale and the snow made it impossible. She should have been moving around, moving away, rubbing her hands together to get the blood flowing again. But she was too tired to do anything but curl into the tightest ball she could manage.

“Only a fool goes to sleep in the middle of a snowstorm,” she could hear her father gripe. But this whole hunt had been foolish. She should have turned around when the Grey started laming – no, when she saw the snow clouds, or even when she didn’t find the Morgulon by the end of the first day.

She knew that it was the cold that was dragging her under. And that was fine with her.