Once upon a dreadful time

Warnings

After Laurent and Edouard galloped away, the Ice Sprite they had enlisted flashed from his icicle to the frozen mere where many of his kindred played, and he relayed the message to all. They in turn spread throughout the Winterwood, alerting their kindred as to the dreadful news. And as they went from icicle to frozen stream to ice-clad trees and boulders, unlike their winged kindred, they did not seem to cross through the intervening space at all; instead they were here, and then they were there. Hence, the word spread much more swiftly throughout this realm than through the other Forests of the Season, for it seemed as if an Ice Sprite could cross enormous distances in the blink of an eye.

And winged Sprites briefly came from the Springwood and Autumnwood and Summerwood, and they paused just long enough to tell of the plans for dealing with the crows ere fleeing back to their more hospitable domains.

And as in the other realms, the Ice Sprites spread the word from hamlet to hunter, from cottage to fortress, from snowy vale to icy mountaintop, and to all beings wherever they found them, as long as ice was at hand.

And they, too, alerted the Root Dwellers, and they spied upon the crows massed along a section of the starwise border, waiting for winged Sprites to come flying through.

And the Root Dwellers harvested long, slender thorns, and they plotted and planned among themselves.

And while that was in progress, Ice Sprites went through the twilight borders along particular sectors of the Winterwood, to cross into other frozen realms, and they alerted their kindred, and the reindeer herders, and the seal hunters, and the woodsmen hewing trees, and other such hardy beings, and these folk, too, were dismayed to hear of the appalling news. Yet they clenched their jaws and straightened their backs and promised they would be ready.

And as the Ice Sprites bore the warning onward they also sought Raseri the Dragon and Rondalo the Elf, but this day it was in vain.