It hadn't been an hour since I left the palace when I realized that something was amiss. The plan went awfully awry and there wasn't much I could do about it then to wait. The horse that I was riding on to the witch's hut somewhere in the forest was laying beside me in the snow that was piling up around our bodies. I was close to where the witch was supposed to be, or so I thought because I traveled for about an hour, and we came across an unforeseen problem.
The snow had piled up a couple of feet on the ground and I failed to notice a ditch in the middle of the road because of the darkness. The horse rode straight into it and landed badly on its left hind leg. When it cried out in pain in endless neighs, I knew that it couldn't continue on the journey. I immediately hopped off and led it
