In the pale dunes beyond Dravos, the lone shadow lifted its head and roared.
It was not sound alone. Beneath the deafening noise rode something far more sinister—a psychic pulse that rolled outward across the desert and sank into every corrupted creature within dozens of kilometers. Every last one of them answered.
The desert began to shake.
From atop Dravos' towering walls, the first scouts mistook the tremor for the distant advance of the parasite army. Then realization spread through the ranks like ice water.
The ground was not trembling beneath approaching feet.
The ground itself was moving.
Entire dunes heaved and rippled as though the desert had awakened and begun to crawl.
Then they appeared.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Hundreds of thousands.
Infected hounds surged over the horizon in a single black tide.
