At times the fog banks parted for a single heartbeat, revealing fallen trunks with twisted limbs, moss-choked ruins, and dark water holes that devoured all movement. But in the next instant, the veil closed again, denser than before.
Yet Mist Elf eyes were made for such twilight. Where others would long since have been lost in the haze, Prince Sylvian perceived a familiar, shadow-laden grey in which no detail escaped him. This inborn gift guided him safely through the moor for two days. Time and again he encountered scouts of his own people, exchanged brief reports of movements in the South, and lingered at their hidden campfires.
By the evening of the second day, the marshland gradually rose and grew firmer beneath the spider's stride; yielding ground gave way to gravel and rock. That night he made camp upon a dry rise. From there, in the last dim light of dusk, he could already discern the first foothills at the edge of the moor.
With the first light of the third day, he pressed on. As the morning wore on, the fog slowly thinned, revealing ever more clearly the jagged rock formations bordering his path.
By midday, he reached the narrow ravine. Slowing his spider, he straightened upon its back, fixing his intent gaze upon the slender valley framed by sheer stone walls. Beyond it rose the thick, sharpened wooden stakes of the great border wall—a vast bulwark raised twenty years earlier to halt the advance of Fallgar into Wetherid.
In several places along the wall, the banners of the realms of Wetherid still hung. Frayed by wind and marked by rain and sun, they were nevertheless unmistakable. They marked the border between the two realms—silent and absolute. Four tall watchtowers rose at strategic points along the fortification, black and menacing against the pale sky.