The light, silky-soft fur on the membranes of his wings registered the shifting of the winds mere instants before a new scent reached his nose. Faint. Very faint. But the scent was familiar and made his hackles rise. The claiming growl vibrating in his throat became the louder, more threatening growl of a tairen preparing to attack. Tairen lips pulled hack, baring his deadly fangs, each easily as long as a man's leg. Venom gathered in the hollow tips,

"Rain? What is it?" Ellysetta took a step closer to him, unafraid of the aggression coiling within him.

«Get in the saddle,» he commanded. «Now.» He didn't wait for her to spin the weave. Instead, he spun it himself, whisking her off her feet on a gust of forceful Air and depositing her in the saddle strapped to the juncture of his neck and shoulders. «Steli-chakai ...» He started to sing his discovery in tairen song, but there was no need.

The white Tairen was growling with as much menace as he. Her fur was ruffled, her venomous tail spikes fully extended. «Steli smells the poison on the wind, Rainier-Eras.»

"What is it. Rain?" Ellysetta asked again. "What poison!"

«From Eld.» The autumn winds had shifted westward, and they carried the tang of smoke and the distinctive odor of sel'dor—the foul black metal of the Eld—being smelted in white-hot fires.

He gave a roar and spewed a jet of fire into the sky. His hind legs bent as he crouched, energy gathering in the great ropes of powerful muscle. With a scream of fury, he launched himself into the air. His wings snapped taut, extending forward and drawing back in mighty, sweeping strokes that propelled him high into the now-cloudless blue autumn sky.

Behind him, with a roar and a blast of her own fire, Steli followed. Together, they cleared the mountaintops and soared higher, speeding east, towards the borders of Eld.

As the Tairen disappeared over the mountains, still silence fell once more over the basin of Crystal Lake. In one of the narrow passes leading between the surrounding mountains, a small party cautiously rose from the cover of the rocks. Following the gestured commands of their leader, the men made their way down the narrow path to the shores of the lake.

They walked single file, each careful to place his feet in the steps of the man before him, and their boots, wrapped in thick swaths of wool, made no sound even on the loose shale and rock of the shore. They skirted the north end of the lake and continued westward into the Feyls, the formidable volcanic range that formed the Fading Lands' northern border. A gust of wind made the edges of their thick gray and brown woolen coats flutter against the dull, black sheen of sel'dor armor.

Rhakis Mountains, near Eld

Less than a hundred miles of mountainous terrain separated Crystal Lake from Eld. Rain and Steli flew it in a single bell. As they neared the final row of ragged peaks that gave way to the deep, dense, forested land of his enemies, Rain's heart sank.

All of Eld lay under a blanket of fog too thick to be the country's natural autumn cloud cover. The Mages had enhanced the mist—no doubt to prevent Fey and Celierian scouts from detecting what Rain could now see: dark haze on the northern horizon, like a shadowy veil hanging over the countryside.

He was still too far away to see the glow of the foul, ancient forges, but he didn't need to. The bubbling cauldron of black smoke that cast its sooty shadow across the sky was proof enough.

«Rain?» Ellysetta's voice sounded in his mind. «Talk to me. What do you see?»

«Koderas.» Even in Spirit, the word was all but spat from him. «The fires of Koderas are lit.»

«What does that mean?»

«It means we haven't yet faced anything close to the worst this new High Mage of Eld has to offer.» He dipped a wing and banked, circling at the edge of the Rhakis, peering east through the haze of smoke. «Koderas is the location of the great sel'dor foundries of Eld. That much smoke means all the fires are lit, and that hasn't happened since the Mage Wars. The Eld have just been buying time and testing our defenses these last weeks while they amass a much larger army.»

The news couldn't be worse. The initial attacks on Teleon and Orest had dealt the Fey and Lord Teleos's forces a brutal blow. If the Eld struck again with an army large enough to require all of Koderas to equip … well... «We must get back to Orest and send word to Dorian and the Fading Lands. We're going to need a great many more warriors.»

He roared a command to Steli. They both wheeled sharply in the sky and shot southwards, hugging the mountains as they raced back towards Celieria.

Eld ~ Koderas

Clad in the purple robes of his office, Vadim Maur, the High Mage of Eld, walked along the sel'dor-railed observation balcony that circled the perimeters of the deep, fiery pits of Koderas. His robe's deep cowl shrouded his face, and supple leather gloves, dyed purple to match his robes, covered his hands. He grasped the metal railing, and the rings of power decorating each of his fingers and thumbs glinted in the red-orange glow of the furnaces below.

Along one section of the great pit, slave-powered conveyor belts leading from the nearby mines fed raw ore and magus, the black powder that gave sel'dor its strength and enhanced its magical properties, into six great smelting furnaces. Two of the furnaces pumped out glowing rods of hot sel'dor ready for forging. A dozen workers wielding sharp pincers cut off lengths of the hot metal and passed them on to the hundreds of smiths who pounded, shaped, and forged the sel'dor into swords and armor for the High Mage's Black Guard and the other elite troops of his Elden armies. The remaining four furnaces poured continuous streams of liquid sel’dor into casting molds for mass-produced armaments. Cast sel’dor wasn't as strong as forged, but the frontline troops for whom the weaker armaments were intended wouldn't live long enough to appreciate the difference. There was no sense in wasting quality to outfit a corpse.