The journey from the salt-licked cliffs of Port Selene took them inland once more, toward the Frost-Fells. If the port was the North’s lungs and the valley its stomach, the Fells were its marrow. Here, the earth was iron-hard and the forests were thick with ancient pines that had watched empires rise and fall with indifferent stillness.
This was the home of the Great-Bear pack, a clan of stoic hunters and wood-shapers who valued silence over silver and action over oratory. They were the most difficult to reach—not because of the terrain, but because of their skepticism. They had survived the winter of Silas’s reign by retreating so far into the wilderness that the tax collectors had simply stopped coming, fearing the shadows of the trees.
"They won't be won by gold," Caspian noted as the
