“What’s happening?” someone cried.

The mountain shivered. Celierians closest to the steep slopes screamed and ran for cover as rocks and debris tumbled down towards Upper Orest.

Then the unthinkable happened.

With one last blinding blaze of light, the magical, rainbowlit clouds that hugged the mountaintops collapsed inward upon themselves.

The great and magical barrier of the Faering Mists fell.

“The Mists are down!” someone shouted. “Gods save us, they’ve brought down the Mists!”

For the first time in one thousand years, the Fading Lands lay open and vulnerable to the outside world.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Pale ~ North Slopes of the Feyls

Garok hadn’t been certain what to expect, but the complete destruction of the Mists was more than he’d dreamed possible. Triumph filled him with exultation.

“They’re down!” one of the other Primages whispered. The whisper grew quickly to a racous, celebratory hurrah. “The Mists are down!”

Garok wasn’t a Mage to waste time on self-congratulation. Getting through the Mists was only the first step. Reaching Dharsa, the core of the hated Fey homeland, was his goal. He’d been suspicious when Maur assigned him this mission, but he intended to make the most of it. When he returned to Eld in triumph as the Mage who’d brought down the Faering Mists and conquered Dharsa, even those Primages still hesitant to turn from Maur would look at him with new eyes.

“Archers to the fore!” he commanded. He paced across the rubble-strewn ground as the archers hurried to step forward. “Take aim! Fire!”

Bowstrings twanged in unison. Mages summoned the wind as a dark rain of sel’dor arrows, each modified to hold a chemar in the shaft, soared up the mountainside and across the now unprotected peak, disappearing on the opposite side.

Before the last arrow disappeared from view, Garok opened the Well of Souls and the Eld leapt in. The portal closed quickly on the heels of the last man. Within the darkness a fresh array of glowing blue lights lit the Well—the dozens of chemar that had found their targets lay before them, mere steps away.

“Primages, you know what to do.” The Eld split into a dozen groups, each racing for a different spot of blue light inside the Well. They opened the portals using the chemar, and the instant the portals opened, archers fired more arrows through, while the Mages spun magic to carry the missiles much farther and faster than bowstring alone could have managed.

And so it went. Portals opened. Archers fired. On to the next portal. As they crossed the last line of the snowy volcanic peaks, a roar greeted one of the opening portals and a jet of flame lit up the interior of the Well, burning an entire company of Mages to ash.

The tairen had come to defend their territory. But the chemar were too many and the tairen too few. The Eld advanced with swift purpose towards the heart of the Fading Lands, the shining city on the hills.

Dharsa.

The Fading Lands ~ Dharsa

“The Mists are down! The Mages are coming.” Marissya clutched the slight swell of her unborn child as she delivered the news to the Massan. “Sybharukai says they are using the Well to move across the Plains of Corunn. She doesn’t know their numbers, but they’re moving too fast, in too many directions. There aren’t enough of the tairen to stop them. We must ward the city, quickly before it’s too late.”

“Down?” Yulan regarded her in disbelief. “The Mists can’t be down!”

To his credit, Tenn didn’t waste time doubting her word or hesitating in indecision. «Fey, to arms! Defend the city! The Eld have broken through the Mists.» To Marissya, he said, “You and Dax take the fellanas and the truemates to the Hall of Truth and Healing. Prepare to defend yourselves in case the Eld break through.”

“What about you and Venarra and the rest of the Massan?”

Tenn’s expression turned grim. “When we banished Rain, his duties fell to us. That includes the duty of defending the Fading Lands. Go. Quickly. Venarra, gather the shei’dalins. Nuri, Yulan, come with me.”

The Fading Lands ~ Pass of Revan Oreth

“They did it.” Kieran stared at the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Rhakis mountains, visible now for the first time in a millennium. “Those scorching Elden rultsharts did it, Kiel. They brought down the Mists.”

«Fey!» The cry rang out across the new Warrior’s Path. «Into the pass! Defend the Fading Lands!»

Stone-faced and fire-eyed, Fey warriors shouted, “Miora felah ti’Feyreisen! Miora felah ti’Feyreisa!” and ran into the narrow, rocky pass of Revan Oreth. Kiel and Kieran ran with them.

The pass was many miles long, but as the Fey approached the last third of the trail through the mountains they heard the sound of rocks and pebbles tumbling down the mountainside, accompanied by a strange, clattering that echoed in the canyon, like the hard mandibles of millions of stone-shell beetles clicking madly.

«Fey! Weaves at the ready! Steel is useless. Hundred-fold weaves, or straight Earth and Fire only. Cutting them in half only grows two of them, so have a care. Light be with you, my brothers!»

The clattering noise grew louder, until it was nearly deafening. The Fey rounded a sharp curve in the pass, and the sight that awaited them made Kieran’s blood freeze in his veins.

Coming towards them at an astonishing pace and in numbers the likes of which he’d never seen, were creatures. Thousands upon tens of thousands of creatures with grayish-white bodies and bald, eyeless heads. They looked vaguely and grotesquely manlike, and entirely terrifying. As they neared, he could see the wet shine of their sluglike skins, the round, needle-filled holes of their green foaming mouths, the razor-sharp spines of their grasping, clawed hands and feet.