The sun beat against Auberon’s skin as he crouched on a high rocky perch that overlooked the ritual site beneath him. As far as the eye could see in the valley below Mercer’s Mound, the forces of Embrayya waited eagerly for the ritual to be completed. Seventeen Augurs had been charged with the task of twinning the fabled Seed of Vaste’lon and opening the gate to Outworld. They were gathered at the top of the mound, surrounded by the tall, rocky outcroppings Auberon and the other Empyrean Riders watched from. The Augurs were on their knees, arranged in a circle around the Void that they had forged early that morning.

“I bet they all shagged last night,” a familiar voice commented from over his shoulder. Auberon turned his head to regard the young man just as he took a bite out of an apple. His mount yawned as it basked in the sunlight next to Auberon’s own mount.

Auberon regarded his friend with a skeptical look. “Rost, does everything revolve around sex with you?”

Rost blinked at Auberon as though he were offended he even had to ask. “I slept with an augur once the day before her communion. Rutted the girl for an entire night during a furlough. Insatiable,” he recalled wistfully, then pointed to the Augurs kneeling at the crest of the hill below them. “That lot there. They were front-to-end with each other all night long, I guarantee it.”

Auberon barked out a laugh that drew the attention of some of the men perched alongside their mounts on the nearby outcroppings. They were the Riders of Raptor Company, hailing from An’Talei, but famed across all of Embrayya and favored by the Most High, King Othniel Caradoc himself.

“Well think of it, fool,” Rost said. “You spend your whole life locked up in the Augury, taught the intricacies of the Elder Law, preparing for the day a Clan instructs you to give your very life in exchange for a miracle of some notion.”

“How is that any different from what we do?” Auberon asked as he placed a hand on the back of his mount’s neck and stroked it. The wyvern stretched and yawned, then nuzzled his snout into Auberon’s side.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Rost replied. “We come back victorious, or we come back dead. And then when we’re not fighting or flying, we’re fucking.” He pointed again to the Augurs. “But at least we have the benefit of hope. Every last one of them down there knows they’re going to die today. One’s already dead and gone. The Freia girl’s sister.”

“You mean Sizilen?” He knew of her in passing. There weren’t many women in the front lines besides Augurs, and Sizilen Freia had been in Rost’s company frequently in recent days.

“Aye, Sizilen. I’d have rutted her too, if she’d let me, but she’s too distracted by her sister dying and all.”

“Well how inconvenient for you,” Auberon commented sarcastically. “Remember who she is as of today. It doesn’t bode well for you to speak of a Clan-Mother like that.”

Rost threw a pebble at him. “She’s not a Clan-Mother yet. Besides, what I think hardly matters to her anyway. She doesn’t speak much and General Borou’s always at arm’s length. She doesn’t carry herself like his consort, but I’m not so stupid as to take that risk now.”

“But yesterday it was okay?”

“Yesterday she had a sister.” He nonchalantly took another bite of his apple.

Auberon looked to the ritual site below them. The Augurs were surrounding the Void, a construct of the Elder Law that he’d never before witnessed. It was a hole in the veil of reality, and Outworld lay beyond it.

Outworld was a myth, of course. A legend. An excuse to justify the evils of the world. A story to scare children into obedience. Or so he’d thought.

But there it was, before him. A testament to his own ignorance. Outworld was no myth. It was real. It was the source of all the ills suffered upon Ayndir, and the origin of the demons that plagued all corners of the world.

Auberon shuddered to think of it. His family, save for himself and his sister, were slaughtered by demons during the invasion of the Wasted Hordes. Their bodies used, then mutilated for their sick pleasures. Those demons were unlike those that hid among the forests, bogs and mountains of Embrayya. They were organized, fierce, and exceptionally cruel.

Watching the Empyrean Riders decimate the demon forces as a child drew him to follow in their paths. Auberon spent years in training and eventually joined Raptor Company alongside Rost.

The two of them had been among the first batch of Prospects to be granted the opportunity to choose their eggs during the conflict with the Wasted Hordes. They trained together, they hatched their wyverns together, and they passed their trials at the same time. Auberon assumed they would both die together in the Empyrean Embrace.

As the myths went, when Outworlders first came to Ayndir, they laid eyes upon its azure skies, gilded beaches and plentiful forests not with wonder and awe, but with envy. They coveted the lands, the seas and the skies for themselves and destroyed the people of Ayndir to a single man. Vaste’lon, the Great Dragon. The Father of Man.

Vaste’lon fought with every inch of his soul. He pushed the demons of Outworld back to the boundary of worlds, and then cut down the great World Tree that connected them with a sword of light. He reduced the World Tree to ash, and in its place was left only a single seed.

However, while the Outworlders were pushed away… their horrors were left behind. The demons, the demi-races. Goblins, trolls and the Dai’ani. Suffering. Fear.

Until two weeks ago, Auberon was convinced it was all a myth. That’s when he learned that the seed of the great World Tree existed-- not only existed, but sat in the hands of Othniel Caradoc himself.

And that he intended to use it.

Some would have thought the King mad. Auberon himself hadn’t been sure what to believe until he first laid eyes upon the Void. It was a mere pinprick in the veil that occupied the boundary between worlds, but it was enough to show him the truth of the King’s mission.

So while Rost was considering the pubic proclivities of the young Augurs below, Auberon could only think of his long-dead family, and stare into the Void with silent purpose.

Outworld was real. He could see into it.

If Outworld was real, then so too were Outworlders. Those who had set the demons upon his world. Those who had created the creatures that took all he had ever loved were just on the other side of that Void. He no longer had to blame some formless god. He would be granted a chance to visit the pain he’d received, tenfold, against those who had caused it.

“Ho! There goes one,” Rost said. Below them, a robed Augur had fallen face-first onto the ground. He watched as a soldier grabbed them and hauled them away, only for them to be replaced by another.

However, something else was going on. Three more Augurs approached the Void. Auberon grew tense as he watched them work.

One kneeled and placed a basket on the ground. She pulled back her hood and took something from it. It was too far for Auberon to make it out, but he assumed it had to have been the seed. The lost treasure of Vaste’lon.

The Augur held her hand aloft over the Void, and then suddenly three more lifeless bodies dropped to the ground, their robes draping over their rigid forms. Others moved in and the Void started to shimmer. It shimmered and shifted, and for the first time in his life, Auberon could see the waves of the Elder Law emanate forth from each of the remaining Augurs. It was colorless, and yet somehow vibrant. The light seemed to bend around them as though the force itself was too thick to be penetrated.

The lead Augur was twinning the seed. Making a duplicate. Auberon could see it split into two. Rather, it was the same seed that merely existed in two different places, intricately entwined with itself. The two counterparts hovered silently.

Even Rost stiffened and leaned forward, observing intently.

The two Augurs to the seed-bearer’s side closed around her, then she too fell over lifelessly. Auberon watched in wonder as the rest continued the ritual, suspending the seed in the air above the Void.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light that blinded him, followed by a thunderous sound that threatened to blow out his eardrums. His wyvern reacted swiftly, pulling away from Auberon and spreading his wings. He was near to taking flight until Auberon managed to soothe him.

“Easy Vetzsche,” he said. “Easy boy.” He looked back once his vision cleared. The Void was gone. Bodies lay where the Augurs once stood, still and lifeless. The top of the hill itself lay splayed open, dirt and clay having been strewn everywhere.

“What happened?” Rost asked, reining in his own wyvern. “It didn’t work?”

A low rumble punctuated Rost’s question. Auberon’s eyes darted to the other members of Raptor Company. They were excitedly mounting their wyverns and taking flight.

Auberon and Rost wasted no time following suit. They quickly attached their hook-latches to their saddles as they took off. The rumble could still be heard from the air, and Auberon ventured a glance below as Vetzsche flew further up. Even from the sky, he could see the first sprouts of a tree begin to claw out from the ground.

The World Tree. Auberon was witnessing the birth of a new World Tree. He hadn’t realized it would grow so quickly. He’d never seen the like before as it reached up further toward the clouds, continuing to grow atop the crest of Mercer’s Mound. He and Rost put some distance between themselves and the growing tree. They guided their wyverns down to land near Raptor Company’s rally point at the bottom of the mound. They watched from below as the tree continued to grow at the top of the hill, stretching higher even than the towering rocky outcroppings they’d just been perched on.

“Ho!” Rost exclaimed. “That’s a sight to tell the gods of!”

Auberon continued to watch in stunned silence as the World Tree filled out. From where he was standing, he could make out a depression forming in its trunk. Eventually, it ceased growing, and a shimmer appeared in its trunk. It was similar in appearance to the Void, and Auberon realized he was looking at the gateway to Outworld.

He stared at it, speechless, for several moments before the gruff voice of General Borou rose from nearby.

“This is it men!” he exclaimed. “The beasts and denizens of Outworld will soon know the name of Othniel Caradoc, and we will not rest until they bow to him! First Order, attend!”

The First Order had been called. It was to be the initial invasion force. Auberon watched as two regiments of direwolf cavalrymen began to run up the hill, followed by a company of archers. Raptor Company was part of the Second Order, meant to survey the area on the other side and eliminate threats before the Third Order, the supply clerks and officers, passed through the gateway.

Auberon turned to Vetzsche. “Okay old boy.” He placed a hand upon his snout. “You look out for me over there, and I’ll look out for you, okay? We’ll show the Outworlders what it means to be Embrayyan.”

Vetzsche responded with a snort, then nuzzled into Auberon’s shoulder.

“Don’t give me that,” he warned. “You’re made of tougher stuff.” He patted Vetzsche lovingly, then turned around. The direwolves and their riders had passed through the World Tree. The archers weren’t far behind.

“Raptor Company!” yelled Captain Edrie. “Attend!”

Auberon quickly climbed into the saddle and attached his hook-latches. A moment later, he turned Vetzsche to face their captain.

“Raptor Company! How do we get there?”

“As a column!” Raptor Company responded in unison.

“Raptor Company! How does the column break?”

“Left, right, center!”

“Raptor Company! Who do we cover?”

“We cover our center!”

“Raptor Company! For whom do we die?”

“For Embrayya!”

“Raptor Company! For whom do we kill?”

“For Caradoc!”

“Raptor Company! Attend!” Captain Edrie ordered. He turned toward General Borou and gave him a nod. The archers were now passing through the World Tree.

“Raptor Company!” General Borou exclaimed. “Talon Company! Whirlwind Company! Second Order!”

With that, Auberon and Vetzsche took to the skies, leaving the Embrayyan soil beneath them. When they next met the ground, it would be upon the soil of Outworld.