PROLOGUE

IT BEGAN WITH A STORM

Born of opposing forces, a powerful storm took life far out on the shallow sea of the world. Gaining in strength, it raced to make landfall. Wind howled their fury as they whipped the waves into a frothing frenzy while driving rain came down in sheets so thick it was impossible to see more than a few feet. The storm began revolving around a center only a mile wide. Wind gusts of over two hundred miles an hour swirled in the eye's wall.

It was the most destructive storm seen in thousands of years. Sea animals and birds caught in its fury were left dead in its wake. Others, feeling the coming storm fled its wake. On the land ahead, doors shut and windows were shuttered as folk raced to prepare. Whispers and fearful glances at the darkening sky complimented their movements.

Storm fall was announced with hurled boats and hundred-foot high waves. Meeting no resistance on the flat shoreline, the waves spread far inland. Hundred year old trees were snapped like twigs before the fury of the gale, the sound of their snapping lost in the whistling howl of the wind. Homes that had stood for years were blown away or damaged as roofs were ripped off as their occupants screamed inside.

The storm continued inland, meeting a tall cliff capped by a large wall. Finding no purchase on the smooth wall, the storm instead turned its anger on the space beyond the wall. It terrorized the inhabitants that ran helter-skelter over the plain. The storm chortled with glee at their expense while it chased them to a great mountainous barrier. Towering more than a mile into the sky, a giant mountain range stood eternal sentinel over the lands below. The storm found its way blocked by this inscrutable foe. In despair, it seemed, the storm turned north and plunged into the frozen wasteland that awaited it.