Beyond the Gap

Hamnet Thyssen is a minor nobleman in the Raumsdalian Empire, a realm that has grown quiet with age. Its capital, Nidaros, started as a camp of mammoth hunters on the edge of the vast Glacier. Centuries have passed since then, and the city now bristles with spires. The ice has receded so far that it lies over the horizon, though its chill still sweeps through the city each winter. Trasamund, chief of the Bizogots, a mammoth-herding people living just north, arrives with astonishing news. They have found a narrow opening in the wall of ice that they had always believed was unbroken. The Glacier, it seems, has an end, and beyond it lie unfamiliar lands, creatures, and perhaps other peoples. An old legend tells of the Golden Shrine, set there by the gods to protect the people of the world, and now the path to it may be open.

Hamnet and Trasamund are not the only ones drawn to see it. Ulric Skakki, once Hamnet's comrade in arms, is a loyal companion who is best kept in front of you. Eyvind Torfinn is a learned scholar, but he is also the husband of Hamnet's former wife, Gudrid, and a notorious troublemaker. Gudrid has decided to join the expedition as well. For all of them, the Glacier has always marked the limit of the known world. Now they will cross it into a land far larger than any of them imagined.