His ward burst against her axe. The blade went through the shield, opened him from hip to shoulder, and tore a molten furrow through the shattered gatepost behind him.
Blood and glowing fragments sprayed across the entrance. Magma washed over the paving drenched by Malvek's spells, and the trapped water exploded into steam with a shriek that drowned the screams of the men scrambling away.
Through the white eruption, Lucille's axe came around again. Its blazing arc drove the remaining pirates back from the landing while the cloud swallowed Unbound from the harbor's view.
Behind her, darkness opened against the surviving wall beside the stairs.
With his magma-infused Bloodmonger screening the opening, Quinlan walked into it, Soul Reaper hanging at his side with heat still rising from its black edge.
The gate closed before the steam thinned.
