The transport doors hissed open, and Nathan stepped into the nightmare scene before him.
Ashwick was burning. The morning sky, which should have been painted in pale dawn gold, was suffocated by oily black smoke and a blizzard of drifting embers. On the eastern horizon, the Tower of Ash loomed as it normally did but wirhna different look. Its black spire was fractured, bleeding erratic, strobing crimson light as it vomited a ceaseless tide of horrors from its base.
Packs of Ember Hounds tore through the village streets, their molten jaws leaving trails of liquid fire across thatched roofs and wooden porches. Above, Cinder Bats blackened the sky, their wings raining sparks as they primed their bodies to detonate on contact. Below, Magma Serpents breached the scorched earth, their semi-liquid bodies liquefying the soil and carving through the village foundations as easily as swimming through water.
In the center of the inferno, the villagers of Ashwick were fighting to survive.
