Dev watched the screaming Mages in grim triumph. The Source-fed waters of the Heras burned Mages the way sel'dor burned Fey, which meant the rotting blue-robed rultsharts were bathing in acid. He couldn't think of a better fate for them. "Trebuchets!" he cried. "Aim for the river! Take out those barges!"

Gil grinned and gave a white-blond braid a deferential tug. «I'll leave the boats to you, Lord Teleos. We'll take care of the Mages in the city.» He leapt from the outer wall on an arc of Air, landing like a cat upon an abandoned wizard's tower on the inner wall. «Water masters! Divide the falls! Let's make it rain!» His laughter danced eerily through the smoke and sounds of war. Dense clouds of blue magic swirled over the city, and half the torrential falls of Maiden's Gate suddenly swept into the air and flooded Lower Orest.

A bell later, most of the Mage war barges had sunk, and Lower Orest was shin-deep in water. But the Eld kept coming. The trebuchets on the north banks of the Heras and the remaining Mages had made Orest's outer wall and its armaments their target. The wall went down, taking hundreds of men and Fey with it.

Dev abandoned the ruins of the outer wall and made an Air-powered leap to the crumbling walk of the inner wall. Reports were flying in from all over the city of new portals opening, delivering fresh enemy troops, demons, and darrokken, those foul, pestilential monstrosities created by the Eld.

The city's defenders were outnumbered, and even with the wild, murderous skills and magic of Fey sword masters like vel Sibboreh and his friends, the enemy was decimating them. The entire perimeter of Lower Orest was in flames, and the enemy was on the march west, towards the mountains. If the allies didn't retreat now, they risked being cut off and slaughtered.

The fight for Lower Orest was over. Aloud and in Spirit, Dev shouted, "Retreat to the mountains! Retreat to Maiden's Gate!" The series of stair-stepped walls that climbed the slopes of the Rhakis would be much harder for the Eld to conquer. The walls were thick, the armaments many, and the high ground gave the defenders the advantage. «Retreat to Maiden's Gate! Retreat!»

Wrapped in Gaelen's invisibility weave, Tajik raced after the retreating allies, slaughtering unsuspecting Eld as he went. But as he drew nearer Maiden's Gate, he began to realize the call for retreat might have come a little too late for him. The enemy was closing in, new, fresh, well-rested waves of them. Tajik began doing more running and less slaughtering.

Less than a mile from the fortified terraces of Maiden's Gate, a pack of slavering, filth-ridden darrokken burst out of an alleyway into the road in front of him. Though Tajik was still cloaked in Gaelen's undetectable weave, the beasts immediately turned and began racing towards him, red eyes gleaming, foul mouths dripping a froth of loathsome poison.

Tajik muttered a foul curse. Darrokken didn't sight their prey. They smelled them.

Though how the jaffing things could smell anything beyond the foul reek they exuded, Tajik could not begin to guess.

Red Fey'cha flew from his fingers. He spun north and took off running, his legs pumping as if his life depended on it. Which, he realized as the pounding footfalls of the beasts grew closer, it did. He dropped his invisibility weave and poured all his magic into speed and maneuverability, running faster than he ever had.

Behind him, the darrokken ran faster.

Just as the fetid breath of the foul beasts warmed the back of his neck and he felt the cold kiss of death draw near, a familiar Spirit voice cried, «Vel Sibboreh! Duck! Five-fold weave!»

He glanced up to see swooping darkness and a gaping, fang-filled maw filled with boiling flame. He dove for cover, shielding himself with magic as tairen fire enveloped the darrokken, incinerating them on contact.

The shout rose up from Maiden's Gate: "Feyreisen!"

Two black-leather-clad shapes leapt off Rain's back and landed near Tajik, blades unsheathed and magic blazing. Bel and Gaelen ran to his side, grinning like fiends.

"You're getting slow, my brother." Bel smirked. "The darrodogs almost had you."

Tajik dusted himself off and tossed back his braids. "Me? Ha! You're the ones late to the fight." His cocky grin melted to a sincere welcome as he clasped their forearms in a tight grip. "Meivelei, Fey. You're a happy sight. But come, let's hurry. Teleos has called retreat to Maiden's Gate."

"We arrived just in time, then." Gaelen brandished his steel. "I wouldn't want you to have all the fun."

The three of them ran for the western city, weaves blazing and swords flashing as they protected the flanks of the retreating allies. Behind them, Rain swooped across the ruins of Lower Orest, plowing the enemy lines with row after row of incinerating flame.

The battle of Lower Orest continued to rage. Rain's flame granted cover to the wounded and trapped allies struggling to reach the safety of Maiden's Gate. He flew as he had not flown since the Mage Wars, diving, soaring, twisting his lithe tairen's body through the sky with the sinuous ease of a sylph.

His nostrils filled with the scent and heat of his flame, the smell of roasting flesh and magic. Rage was there, pounding beneath the fury of his flame. Memories flooded him. Memories of the Wars, of Eadmond's Field. The voices of the dead grew loud once more, battering his mind with the fresh screams and bitter death of every Eld who fell to his flame.

But despite the wildness that hovered so near, a sense of peace he'd never known before anchored him to sanity. Ellysetta.

Their bond was not yet complete, yet she was there, singing across its threads. Weaving her love, her faith in him, across the distance. «I am here, beloved. I am with you. Together we are strong.» Her song was a shining light in his soul, a brilliant golden-white sun that warmed the icy grip of his ancient demons and cooled the heat of his Rage. The beacon that kept his soul from plunging towards Darkness. «Fly, shei'tan. Fly for us both.»