The trek had been a long and tedious one, made none the better by the biting cold which constantly afflicted these northern slopes of the kingdom and had me hunched against my mount’s neck like a bent-backed geriatric. Despite my choice of thick winter woollens which would have protected me throughout the harshest of winters in the South, apparently the only way to stay warm up in the North was to find yourself a bear and crawl inside.

At least the view was satisfactory, and served to be the only thing which prevented me from being entirely miserable as Heddy picked her way across the cliffs; as desolate as the North could be, and as unforgivingly freezing, I have to admit that it has some truly stunning scenery. I had been travelling for much of the afternoon, the heavy clouds had dissipated to thin smears high in the stratosphere, and although it was barely evening the sun had already waned to a tired orange glow as it hovered halfway to the horizon, casting its heatless light across the grey ocean and igniting the drifting whitecaps of the windblown waves with the first death throes of the dying sun. From far below, the churning of briny water against the base of the immense mounds of rock upon which I rode drifted to me on the wings of shrouds of seabirds, a basal rumbling and crashing of cymbals accompanied by the cacophony of nesting gulls which crammed themselves into every nook and cranny of the cliff faces.

It didn’t take long for me to manifest a deep detestation toward the flying rodents. Around ten minutes, in fact, of listening to their shrill screams had me considering what they might taste like for supper, roasting over an open fire.

Another hour or so of traipsing along the coast. The sun had almost reached the verge of the ocean’s writhing skyline. Pierced by some celestial blade, the fiery orb’s life was draining across the sky in ripples of red and pink, staining all with its luminiferous blood, a dying animal struggling against the dark in a last flood of desperate energy. Although the Master of Horse had been true to his word and Heddy was as reliable a beast as any could hope to have on such terrain, I still didn’t fancy the thought of traversing the crumbling sandstone cliffs in the dark, not when any and all small misplacement of a hoof or the soft sliding of scree already had me suffering small heart attacks.

Another fifteen minutes or so. The dark was creeping in on silent feet, and I was getting agitated. Although I had ventured out of my way despite being confident that the old woman’s words had been nothing but a ruse, I for some reason still felt a small shard of resentment, perhaps because a tiny part of me had truly hoped that it had all been true. That I might have found a way to make my life more than just one big joke piled high with steaming heaps of disappointment.

It also didn’t help that the bloody birds seemed to have taken the failing of the sun as a signal to fly into a frenzy of squabbling and incessant screeching which could have deafened the dead.

I jerked Heddy to a halt, earning myself a trumpet of disapproval from the beast and a small stumble which threatened another acute myocardial infarction. I tumbled from the horse with stiff limbs, hugging my arms about myself and glowering at the jagged black teeth of the slimy rocks protruding from the inky water far below. Damn it all. Damn that creepy old crone for leading me on that wild goose chase. Damn that severing cold for attempting to render my reproductive organs lifeless.

“Damn you bloody birds!”

Apparently, seabirds are easily insulted- or that was the impression I got when one of them decided to rain shit down upon my back moments after.

"Bastards!" I cursed, peering bitterly at the milky white speckles plastered upon my good black cloak before shooting daggers at the birds with so much ferocity that it was a surprise real blades didn't fly from the pits of my eyes and drop the dastardly rodents from the sky by sheer mental frustration and ornithophobial hatred alone. I raised a fist to the heavens, stepping forth to declare my wrath.

Crrrack!

‘…Shit.’

A sound of splitting rock erupted from beneath my feet, and all of a sudden there was nothing beneath my feet at all. The last thing I remember before night engulfed me, fingers ablaze with the pain which came from scrabbling blindly at the avalanche of sliding rock, was the unholy racket of several hundred seabirds laughing their asses off.