The morning sun offered no warmth, only a harsh, white glare that made the frost-covered pines look like jagged glass. Eris's group had been moving for hours, the silence of the woods pressing in on them. The only sound was the rhythmic crunch of snow and the labored breathing of the horses.
Then, the world began to growl.
It started as a low, wet rasping, the sound of massive lungs struggling for air. Then came the splintering of ancient wood. Fifty yards ahead, a hundred-year-old pine simply tipped over, its trunk snapped like a toothpick.
From the shadows of the dense thicket, they emerged.
Four of them. Colossal ice bears, each the size of a small mountain cottage, their fur a shimmering, crystalline white that refracted the morning light into a thousand blinding shards. Ordinarily, a Drogar was a majestic, solitary creature, content to sleep through the centuries in the high caves unless provoked.
But these were not ordinary.
