The undead was stilled, not destroyed, but pausing as though awaiting their master's command.
The silence that fell was worse than their screams, a silence filled with certainty, with the weight of a predator who had been playing with its prey.
Vark's shadow stretched long across the cavern floor, swallowing the Crest where they stood.
His skeletal wings flared, filling the Den with green firelight. "Now," he hissed, voice both mockery and promise. "You face me."
The cavern seemed to breathe with him. As Vark descended from the altar mound, the Den itself shifted. The floor of flesh and bone quivered, veins of green fire racing through it until they converged at his feet.
His body began to warp not merely flesh upon flesh, but a grotesque fusion of master and lair. Tendrils as thick as ropes lashed from his back, sinking into the pulsating ground.
