The world blurred into a tunnel of screaming friction. Ragith-kar held the Slipstream together by will alone. He was no longer flesh and bone; he was a windstorm, a spear of abrasive grit tearing through the upper atmosphere.

  Inside the vortex, Vora was fading. Her consciousness flickered against his mind, a candle guttering in a gale.

  Hold, Ragith-kar projected to his ally. We are close.

  They had pushed too hard. The flight to Ironclaw had drained them, stripping layers of mica from their forms, burning their skin to fuel the speed.

  Below, the jagged silhouette of the Ironclaw mesa rose from the flats like a tombstone.

  Ironclaw, Ragith-kar thought.

  I cannot slow down, Vora panicked, her body beginning to slip back into a physical state. We have been in this form for too long. I am scattering.

  Then we crash, Ragith-kar decided. Aim for the dunes, away from the rock.

  Ragith-kar did his best to control the course of the Slipstream, diving straight for the deep sands at the edge of the outpost.

  - - -

  "Impact!" Groll's voice screamed from the observation slot. "Something hit the flats!"

  Two figures came rumbling from a corridor near Vorzan's quarters. "Open the gate!" Thra-uk's roar echoed

  The massive Iron-Born barreled into the entryway, Vorzan right behind him with his mace drawn.

  "Secure the perimeter!" Vorzan bellowed. "On me!"

  The counterweights groaned, and the massive stone doors ground open. Blinding sunlight flooded the cavern, slicing through the gloom of the holding area.

  In the cell, Krim flinched, shielding his eyes against the sudden glare. Caldreth watched the demons scramble with the detached stare of a predator.

  Five minutes passed. Then ten.

  Thra-uk entered first. He was carrying a body in his arms, a figure with burnished, cracked skin that bled golden dust. Ragith-kar.

  Behind him, two demons supported Vora, who looked translucent and fading, her feet scraping across the stone.

  Vorzan marched in last, his face grim. He signaled for the doors to close behind him.

  "Water!" Thra-uk shouted before placing Ragith-kar down near the central fire.

  Inside the cell, Caldreth pressed his ear against the cold bars, straining to hear over the commotion of the swarming camp. Krim crouched beside him, eyes narrowed.

  They watched as Ragith-kar gasped, his chest heaving as he fought for air. He gripped Thra-uk's arm, his eyes wide with a terror that silenced the room.

  "The Ridge..." Ragith-kar wheezed. "The mountain weeps." Silence swept through the cavern.

  Vorzan's face sagged. "Gruk..." he muttered.

  "He dropped the mountain," Ragith-kar rasped, clutching his chest. "He stayed behind to cut the chain and seal the tunnel to Salt Hollow."

  Vorzan closed his eyes, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He slammed a fist against his chest, a singular, hollow thud that echoed in the silence.

  "He always said he would be the wall in the Wastes," Vorzan whispered.

  Ragith-kar coughed, golden dust spilling from his lips. "We are to gather the strength of the tribes at the citadel. Blackcrest and Salt Hollow are already on the move. We saved who we could at The Ridge."

  Ragith-kar looked at Vorzan. "Do not let Gruk's sacrifice mean nothing. You cannot stay here, warlord. Strength in numbers. That is the decree of Dagrimor."

  Vorzan stared at the Sandsworn for a long moment. Then, he looked at the walls around him and his kin.

  "To abandon Ironclaw..." Vorzan murmured. "It goes against the blood."

  "To die alone in the dark serves no one," Ragith-kar countered. "We assess the threat. If it is a skirmish, we reclaim the Wastes. If it is a war, we stand together."

  Vorzan straightened. "Sound the horn," He commanded, turning to his lieutenants. "We march for Shatterdeep within the hour."

  He turned his gaze to the iron grate where Caldreth and Krim watched from the shadows.

  "And get them out," Vorzan growled to Thra-uk. "We need the evidence they carry. They walk in the center of the column. If they lag, leave them to the Wastes. If they try to run, cut their tendons."

  Thra-uk nodded and moved to unlock the cell. The hour that followed was a blur of organized chaos. The mobilization of Ironclaw was swift and silent.

  Under Vorzan's command, the demons moved with the synchronized efficiency of a machine. It was a small force, less than a hundred demons in total. They marched northeast, away from the safety of the rock, heading toward the only pass that could take them through the mountains to Shatterdeep: The Hollow Canyons.

  Not long after, the geography of the Wastes began to shift. Basalt Flats rose into jagged, serrated walls of red stone that towered hundreds of feet high. The wind, always a constant roar in the open barrens, changed its voice as it entered the narrow ravines.

  The Canyons were a natural wind tunnel. The rock face was pitted with erosion holes, turning the canyon into a massive, dissonant flute. The constant, low-frequency vibration set teeth on edge and made the air feel heavy.

  "Keep your helms tight," Vorzan ordered, his voice echoing against the canyon walls. "The song of the stone brings madness if you listen too long."

  Caldreth walked near the center of the column, flanked by Thra-uk and Krim. The Tome in his pocket was buzzing, agitated by the acoustics.

  Behind them, the two undead thralls shuffled, the warrior's hand glowing with the violet stasis field that cradled the severed head. Vorzan had placed a ring of Ash Reavers around them, not to protect the undead, but to protect the evidence they carried.

  These were not the brute-force hammers typical of the Iron-Born. The Reavers were tall and gaunt, their frames packed with coiled, lean muscle designed for explosive speed. Vorzan had forged them into weapons of evasion; they were trained never to block a strike they could dodge. Agile and impossible to pin down, they moved with a fluid, predatory grace, looking less like soldiers and more like shadows waiting to snap.

  "This canyon is strategic suicide," Krim muttered, glancing at the rim. "Block both ends, nowhere to go."

  "That is why we move fast," Vorzan growled from the head of the column. "Double time!"

  High above the canyon floor, concealed within a fissure in the canyon wall, Velcryn watched the demons march into their trap.

  The lich was a statue of frost and bone, his tattered blue robes blended with the shadows of the rim. He waited, his skeletal fingers clasped together in anticipation.

  Below him, the demon column looked pathetic, a river of iron and fear winding through the canyon.

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  "It appears Ravik was correct. Useful, for a bag of meat," a wet voice rasped from the darkness behind him. Myrrakhael shifted in the gloom, his flames battling for dominance against Velcryn's bitter cold.

  "A reward is in order," Velcryn said, his voice as cold and brittle as ice. "He pointed to the nest; we set the fire. But the result is the same. The rats are running."

  "A reward?" Myrrakhael chuckled. "Shall we throw him a bone? Or perhaps leave him the scraps of the slaughter?"

  "No," Velcryn mused, watching the demons march toward their doom. "He fears starvation. It is a pathetic, mortal weakness. I intend to cure him of it."

  Myrrakhael's green eye-sockets flared with cruel amusement. He understood.

  "You intend to remake him," the fire lich rasped. "Fill his veins with the void. It will be agony. It will scour his mind clean."

  "Elevation is always painful," Velcryn said with cold command. "When his suffering ends, he will never starve again. He will only feed, and thank us for the power, even as he screams."

  Myrrakhael had to stifle his laughter, lest it rattle against the canyon walls. "The best gifts are always the ones they cannot return."

  Velcryn looked down at the canyon floor. To the naked eye, it was just red gravel and dust. But Velcryn saw the truth.

  Beneath the sand, buried in shallow graves every ten paces, groups of infected lay waiting. They were still, their minds linked to the liches' will. Within both sides of the canyon walls, the two Dreadmaws waited for a command to destroy the rockface and catch the demons in a pincer.

  "The trap is ready," Myrrakhael hissed. "Shall we begin? I hunger to hear them scream."

  "Patience, brother," Velcryn whispered. "Let the tail enter. We do not want them to run. We want them to die."

  Velcryn watched as the rear guard passed the threshold of the ambush zone. "Relay a message to our thralls. If the necromancer and the Sangrathi are down there, keep them alive. We decide when the fight is over."

  Myrrakhael hovered toward the ledge. "The wind will mask their screams," he complained. "The singing stone will drown out the music."

  "Then silence the stone," Velcryn said.

  Myrrakhael raised a hand and exerted his will, sucking the heat out of the air. The airflow froze. The wind died. Below, the dissonant singing of the rocks cut off, replaced by a deafening, unnatural silence.

  Velcryn watched as the demons stopped. "Let them squirm for a moment," his jaw shifted into a smile. "Fear tastes best as it lingers."

  - - -

  Caldreth froze. The sudden silence was louder than the wind had been.

  "The wind..." Ragith-kar wheezed from where he was being carried. "It stopped."

  "Ambush!" Vorzan roared, the sound exploding in the quiet canyon.

  The attack didn't come from the rim; it came from the walls themselves.

  Ten feet above the canyon floor, the red stone exploded outward on both sides. The Dreadmaws burst through the rock face like battering rams. Their impacts created gaping tunnels leading deep into the cliff.

  From these tunnels, the swarm poured out.

  Hundreds of infected creatures spilled from the tunnels, a waterfall of gnashing teeth and grey flesh. At the same time, the sand beneath the column churned and broke as the buried infected clawed their way to the surface, grabbing at ankles.

  "Formations!" Vorzan bellowed. "Lock shields! Ash-Reavers, filter!"

  The chaos should have been absolute, but panic was nowhere to be found amongst the hardened warriors. They snapped into a practiced, brutal geometry.

  The armored demons fell into rhythm, forming tight clusters of ten to fifteen warriors. They slammed their tower shields into the sand, interlocking their spiked pauldrons to form an impenetrable circle of steel.

  Between these iron islands, Ash-Reavers moved like smoke.

  These demons were distinct from their heavy cousins, taller, wire-thin, and stripped of cumbersome plate. They wore flexible leather and wielded long, serrated daggers and short swords.

  They flowed through the gaps between the heavy units, striking at the infected, trying to flank the shield walls, then retreating behind the wall of muscle and iron before the enemy could retaliate.

  "Secure the messengers!" Thra-uk shouted.

  One armored island opened its ranks, pulling the injured Ragith-kar and Vora into the center of its armored shells before locking shields again.

  "With me!" Vorzan commanded, looking at Thra-uk.

  Before they had marched out of Ironclaw, the warlord and the hunter had donned sets of heavy plate armor. Their natural slate-grey hide was tough enough to withstand a standard blade, but against the infection's biting swarm, they took the extra step of total isolation to ensure their safety.

  Vorzan wielded his massive flanged mace. Beside him, Thra-uk brandished a pair of battle gauntlets he had taken from the armory. They were dense, heavy iron, riddled with spikes and armored plating. They were weapons meant for punching through stone walls, and Thra-uk looked ready to test them on flesh.

  They welcomed the glory of brutal combat.

  Vorzan swung his mace, the impact turning an infected Stone-Gouger's chest cavity into shrapnel. In the same motion, he spun, sweeping the legs of a second attacker, crushing its skull with a stomping foot.

  Thra-uk was a blur of violence. He caught a leaping infected in mid-air, his gauntlet closing around its throat with a wet crunch, and hurled the corpse into the oncoming horde like a projectile.

  "Keep in their shadow!" Krim yelled, dragging Caldreth and his two undead thralls toward the wake of violence Vorzan and Thra-uk were carving.

  They fell into formation behind the wake of carnage. Caldreth drew his sword, parrying a claw that reached past Thra-uk's shoulder, while Krim's undead did their best to absorb the blows meant for their master.

  "They're endless!" Caldreth shouted over the din of battle, ducking as a Dreadmaw snapped its jaws inches from his head.

  The beast lunged for a second bite, but a wall of slate-grey muscle slammed into it.

  "Move, boy!" Thra-uk roared.

  The Iron-Born clamped his gauntlet around its throat. The spikes bit deep, shattering scales. With a grunt of exertion that corded the muscles in his neck, Thra-uk slammed the thousand-pound beast against the canyon wall, pinning it.

  He pulled back his right fist, the first punch caved in the Dreadmaw's snout.

  The second pulverized the jaw, sending teeth spinning into the sand.

  Thra-uk didn't stop. He unleashed a flurry of blows, a blur of steel and violence that turned the creature's head into slop. He pummeled it until the skull was gone, until he was punching wet stone, burying his fist in the canyon wall.

  He stepped back, shaking the gore and bone fragments from his knuckles. The headless body of the Dreadmaw slumped to the sand.

  "They bleed!" Thra-uk bellowed, his voice shaking the dust from the air. "They die like anything else!

  "They are uncoordinated!" Vorzan roared back, backhanding a creature with his mace. "Hold the formation!"

  For a moment, it looked like discipline might win. The iron islands were holding while the Ash-Reavers were turning the canyon floor into a slaughterhouse of infected meat.

  "Crush them!" Vorzan bellowed, smashing the other Dreadmaw's skull with a two-handed overhand swing.

  But high above, the observers on the rim had seen enough. Two figures stepped off the canyon ledge.

  Caldreth looked up, gasping as he saw shapes rushing to meet the ground.

  Velcryn fell like a shard of hail, his tattered blue robes snapping in the rush of air. Beside him, Myrrakhael descended like a drop of heavy oil.

  They impacted the canyon floor with earth-shattering force. A massive plume of red dust and pulverized rock exploded outward in a perfect ring, knocking nearby combatants, demon and infected alike, off their feet.

  For a moment, there was only the choking cloud.

  Then, two forms drifted upward through the haze. They rose just a few feet, hovering without care above the crater they had made.

  Velcryn dusted a speck of ash from his robe with a skeletal finger. Myrrakhael chuckled, the sound wet and amused.

  "Organized," Velcryn noted, his voice carrying over the din of battle like cracking ice. "They form shells. Tedious."

  "Then we will smash them," Myrrakhael gurgled.

  Velcryn raised his hand, flicking his fingers like he was brushing away a gnat. His expression was one of cold irritation; he was annoyed that the situation required his personal touch.

  The gesture was small, but the result was absolute.

  The air in front of him crystallized. A flash-freeze wave rolled over an iron island. There was no time to scream. In a heartbeat, Velcryn froze six demons, their bodies turned to blue ice, their furious expressions locked in frost.

  Velcryn lowered his hand, looking at his work with a sneer. "Messy," he muttered. "And loud."

  He flicked his wrist again. Orbs of compressed ice the size of apples materialized in the air and shot outward. They hissed through the air before finding purchase.

  One struck the center of a shield wall and detonated.

  A shockwave of frost exploded outward, shredding the metal shields. The explosion didn't push the demons back; it froze the air behind the impact. The demons bracing the line were encased, turned into statues of red gore and blue ice.

  "Flanks!" Thra-uk roared, trying to cover his face as ice shrapnel pinged off his gauntlets.

  "Too slow," Myrrakhael laughed from his hover.

  The lich extended his skeletal fingers, and the air screamed. Streams of viridian ghost-fire erupted from his palms, washing over a phalanx of warriors locked in a tight turtle formation.

  The green fire didn't behave like natural flame. It didn't splash off the shields; it stuck to them, heating the iron white-hot in seconds.

  The demons inside screamed as their armor became ovens. The disciplined formation shattered as the warriors scrambled to strip off their burning plate.

  "Look at them dance!" Myrrakhael cackled, drifting over the battlefield and throwing gouts of fire like a mad conductor.

  The ranks broke. The shield wall opened.

  "Now!" Myrrakhael hissed.

  The infected swarm wiggled through the gaps in the broken line, diving between the burning demons to snap at legs and throats.

  The Ash-Reavers, exposed without the shield walls, were cut down in the chaos.

  "No more running," Velcryn whispered.

  He gestured with both hands.

  From the shadows, chains of blue energy lashed out like vipers. They wrapped around the remaining combatants in seconds.

  Caldreth saw the blue light flaring in the shadows. Instinct screamed at him. He didn't reach for his sword; he knew steel was useless against this. He jammed his hand into his pocket, his fingers closing around the rough, warm surface of the Veinstone.

  Then, the chains hit him.

  They whipped around his chest, waist, and legs, tightening with the force of a constricting python. The chains hissed against his tunic, pinning his arms tight against his sides, immobilized. His right hand clenched around the stone hidden inside his pocket.

  "Cease," Velcryn commanded.

  The horde of infected stopped without question. The violence vanished, replaced by the heavy breathing of warriors and infected creatures.

  Silence returned to the canyon, broken only by the gurgle of the dying.

  Velcryn and Myrrakhael floated down to the ground, hovering inches above it.

  "Where is he?" Myrrakhael rasped, his voice sounding like a drowning man's.

  Velcryn's sapphire eyes swept across the battlefield.

  "Find him."