The steel shod hooves struck him full in the face with such power he was sent reeling backwards, and he screamed in agony as one eye exploded from the impact and half his face was ripped off. Despite the agony of his injuries he was acutely aware that his left foot had nothing beneath it, and his mind recoiled in horror as he teetered on the edge of the trail with a black void sucking at him. The sixteen riders and sixty four horses in the expedition are beset with cataclysmic snow storms and minus thirty degree temperatures as they travel higher into the forbidding Alps. The horses are attacked by fierce snow leopards time and again as they camp in the rugged mountains, and fearless wolf packs also prey on the horses. Unknown to the expedition, to prevent Avalon's descendants laying claim to the throne as the legitimate heirs, soldiers of the false King lay in ambush to ensure they never reach the kingdom of Nebadon alive. There are traitors everywhere ready to betray them for a handful of silver coins, and trusting anyone could come at the price of their freedom or death.