Planet of Exile

The Earth colony of Landin had been stranded on distant Eltanin for ten years. But ten of Eltanin's years were six hundred Terrestrial years, and the lonely and dwindling human settlement was beginning to feel the strain.

Every winter – a season which lasted for fifteen of our years – the Earthmen had neighbors. These were the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settled down when they burrowed in for the cruel long cold spell. Yet the hilfs feared the Earthmen, whom they thought of as witches and called the farborns. And their fear kept the lost colony lonely.

But hilfs and farborns had common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians calld Gaals and the eerie praying snowghouls. And in the terrible winter of the Tenth Year, the only hope of hilf and farborn was to join forces or be annihilated.