Despite the harsh and withering onslaught of wintertide, Gràinne and Irimë set off west along the Gwathló on a sleigh drawn by “snow weasels” as the handler called them, animals Gràinne knew as wolverines.  While the beasts were difficult to manage, they were effective at gaining enough traction on the frozen river to bear the sleigh at a suitable speed.  After days of journey, however, they reached a place where the ice was unexpectedly thin, and it split dangerously asunder, nearly sinking the sleigh as thousands of water snakes, fish, tortoises and frogs surfaced from their hibernacula at once.  The icy river, with broken floes as sharp as razors, tried tenaciously to drag Gràinne and Irimë down to an watery tomb with frosty fingers, but the pair fought relentlessly to avoid such a doom, and succeeded, with great effort, to the safety of the shoreline.

 

The wriggling fauna flopping on the ice flows, however, attracted, like chum, a terrible and hungry reptilian beast of colossal proportions.  Much to Irimë’s surprise, the creature resembled a cold-drake like those in the service of Morgoth in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age.  Fearful that such a monstrous creature could have survived into the Second Age, Irimë spurred the wolverines onward, leading the monster in a break-neck pursuit across the snowy Gwathló coastline.  Using her magic to aid her, Irimë managed to pilot the sleigh deftly and speedily enough to outrun the great beast, finally bringing the sleigh to rest so that she and Gràinne could tend to their wounds.

 

While recuperating, the pair heard a nearby voice reciting a somber poem about the perdition of winter and preparing what seemed to be a burial.  Upon closer inspection, they observed the Stoor highwayman Féagol digging a snowy grave for his brother Fobbin.  Irimë’s sharp Elven eyes, however, noticed small ice crystals on Fobbin’s nose hairs, revealing that he was actually still alive!  Gràinne and Irimë helped Féagol tend to his brother, before leaving him behind to finish their journey.

 

Eventually, Gràinne and Irimë found the Ar Muin camp, where they informed Caoimhe, the clan matron, of the offer of the denizens of Tharbad to send Dunlending men, rescued from the Gond and their úvano master, to the Ar Muin to intermarry with them and help restore their numbers.  Caoimhe eagerly agreed to the arrangement, but exhorted the pair to stay the winter, lest the dangerous conditions of the Fell Winter kill them on the return journey.  Gràinne and Irimë agreed, and Caoimhe and the Ar Muin welcomed them to their bonfires, where Nilidh retrieved his stringed instrument, which he was once again able to play, thanks to the mithril hand forged for him by the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, and performed a musical ode, singing of how “Winter plays its icy keys, incessantly and clear, a sound that knells an end to things we would in vain hold near.”