Rammus met Cho'Gath in the thinning sandstorm.
At first, Taliyah thought he was insane.
The armored creature rolled straight toward the giant Voidborn, tucked into a spiked ball, and hit one of Cho'Gath's legs with enough force to shake the ground. The impact made the monster stumble half a step.
Then Cho'Gath looked down.
One huge claw came around and struck Rammus out of the air.
Rammus crashed through two dunes, bounced once, and dug a trench through the sand before stopping.
Taliyah almost shouted his name, but she bit it back and kept both hands on the stone beneath her.
The Weaver's Wall was still forming.
She could feel it stretching northwest, long and uneven, a road she had to make under this much pressure.
Rammus rolled again.
Cho'Gath swung down with two limbs. Rammus dodged the first, took the second on his shell, and slammed into the monster's side. A shockwave of dust rolled outward. Cho'Gath answered by stomping, and Taliyah felt the force travel through the wall like a hammer through bone.
The newly formed section cracked.
"No, no, no," she whispered.
She pressed her palms harder into the stone and sealed the fracture. The wall barely held.
Rammus was losing.
He was tough, Xer'Sai claws had barely scratched him. But Cho'Gath was not a Xer'Sai. Each hit drove him deeper into the ground. Each bite missed by less. One of the monster's bladed limbs scraped across Rammus's shell and tore sparks from it.
Rammus uncurled, staggered, and said, "Ow."
Taliyah stared for half a second.
That was all he had to say?
Cho'Gath lunged again, mouth opening wide.
Rammus did not roll away this time.
He dug his claws into the sand, lowered his head, and let the bite come close. At the last moment, he twisted under the jaws, clamped onto one of Cho'Gath's smaller limbs, and bit down.
Rammus tore the limb free.
Then he ate it.
He actually ate it.
The armored creature chewed once, twice, swallowed, and rolled his shoulders.
Taliyah forgot the storm for one full heartbeat.
"You can eat Voidborns?"
Rammus looked back at her.
"Yep."
Cho'Gath screamed.
This time, the sound was not just hunger. There was pain in it.
Rammus charged again.
Something changed after that.
Cho'Gath still hit harder, reached farther, and shook the desert with every movement. But Rammus no longer tried only to block. He attacked the limbs, the joints, the softer strips between plates of Void hide. When Cho'Gath tried to crush him, Rammus rolled around the strike and slammed into its side. When Cho'Gath opened its mouth, Rammus went for anything exposed.
And whenever he ripped something free, he ate it.
...
The storm weakened.
At first Taliyah thought it was Cho'Gath's earlier pull, still stealing sand from the air. Then she felt something beneath the ground.
A spreading change.
The sand around Cho'Gath darkened. Purple veins crept through the desert floor, thin at first, then thicker, pulsing under the surface. The earth felt wrong where they touched it, becoming something else.
Rammus slammed into Cho'Gath's chest and bounced back, landing hard. Cho'Gath was bleeding from several wounds now. Chunks of its hide were torn open. One side of its body sagged. But it was still standing.
Then the purple ground split.
Something rose from beneath the sand.
Bel'Veth emerged like the desert had opened for a queen. Vast wings unfolded behind her. A pale, false face looked forward with calm interest, while the shape beneath it moved with something deeper and stranger than any beast.
"You did well," Bel'Veth said.
Cho'Gath turned toward her.
Bel'Veth lifted her arms.
The purple ground answered.
Everything touching it began to sink.
No, not sink.
It was being drawn into her.
Sand, stone, broken Xer'Sai bodies, Void flesh, and the dark stains left by Cho'Gath's wounds all pulled toward Bel'Veth in streams. Cho'Gath roared and dug its limbs into the ground, but the purple veins climbed over it, wrapping around its legs, its torso, its throat.
Taliyah felt the pull reach her wall.
She tried to anchor it.
It was not enough.
...
Then green light spread over the stone.
A shield formed around her, around Rammus, around the shelter. It shimmered like layered glass, soft at the edges and firm at the center.
...
Karma appeared beside Taliyah.
Her face was calm, but her hands were raised and shaking slightly from the effort.
"Keep working," Karma said.
Taliyah did not waste time asking how she had arrived. She had seen Karma's shields during the battles against Xerath. They did more than protect. When Karma pushed them right, they could carry someone forward with frightening speed, even herself.
Bel'Veth's pull intensified.
Cho'Gath's roar broke into something ragged. Its huge body bent inward as streams of Void matter tore from it and flowed into Bel'Veth. The monster clawed at the ground, tried to bite the purple force, tried to drag itself away.
It failed.
The last of Cho'Gath collapsed into the consuming light.
For a moment, the desert went silent.
...
Then Bel'Veth breathed in.
Power surged into her.
The air bent. The purple veins brightened, then withdrew toward her body. Taliyah felt the force of it even through Karma's shield.
Bel'Veth looked stronger.
Much stronger.
"You did very well," she said again.
If Karma had not arrived, Bel'Veth would have consumed them too.
Bel'Veth's gaze moved to Karma.
"Did the man named Logan not tell you to attack me immediately and try to kill me on sight?"
Taliyah looked at Karma.
Karma did not lower her shield. She did not attack either.
Her eyes stayed on Bel'Veth, clear and unreadable.
Taliyah understood why.
Bel'Veth had just consumed Cho'Gath.
Whatever she had been before, now she was far beyond that. Karma was powerful, but Taliyah could feel the difference between caution and fear. This was not fear. This was knowing that one wrong move could kill everyone behind them.
"What is your intention now?" Karma asked.
The question hung in the air.
Far to the northwest, thunder rolled.
Explosions.
The sound came again, heavier this time, from the direction Rammus had pointed out.
Vekaura.
Bel'Veth turned her head slightly.
"There is no need for concern," she said, with the tone of someone who did not believe anyone else's concern mattered. "You may leave. It seems there are very serious problems in that direction."
Taliyah looked at Karma and saw it.
Concern.
Karma's shield remained around them all.
"Taliyah," Karma said. "Finish your technique."
Taliyah swallowed and forced her focus back into the stone.
The Weaver's Wall completed its last stretch. She widened the nearest section into a broad platform and raised a staircase of rock from the shelter entrance to its edge.
"Everyone up!" Taliyah shouted. "Now!"
The refugees hesitated.
They stared at Bel'Veth. At the purple ground. At the place where Cho'Gath had been. Terror rooted them harder than the storm had.
Karma moved her hand.
Small green shields formed around each refugee, one by one. The light settled over them gently. Shoulders lowered. Breathing slowed. Children stopped screaming. The fear did not vanish, but it loosened its grip enough for them to move.
They climbed.
Taliyah held the platform steady while the last of them reached it. Karma raised another shield around the entire stone surface, curving it high enough to keep anyone from falling if the platform lurched.
Taliyah climbed up after them. Karma followed, never taking her eyes off Bel'Veth.
"Rammus!" Taliyah called. "Come on!"
Rammus looked at the platform.
Then at himself.
"No."
"What?"
"I'm too heavy," he said. "Maybe heavier than all of you."
"Then how are you getting there?"
Rammus tucked into a ball.
"I roll."
Taliyah could only nod.
Karma spoke softly. "Move."
Taliyah set both feet on the platform and pushed.
The stone began sliding along the top of the Weaver's Wall, slow at first, then faster. Rammus rolled beside it on the sand below, keeping pace with surprising ease.
Bel'Veth watched them go.
"You have my thanks," she said. "Because of you, I have gained tremendous power. Whether Logan or Lissandra wishes to admit it or not, we share the same enemy. Cooperation would benefit us all."
Taliyah did not answer.
Karma did not either.
The platform moved faster.
Bel'Veth vanished behind the thinning dust, but Karma kept looking back long after Taliyah could no longer see her.
More explosions came from the northwest.
Taliyah gripped the edge of the stone.
"What's happening in Vekaura?"
Karma was silent for a moment.
Then she said, "Xerath is about to find one of his targets."
——————
Far ahead, beneath broken stone and fallen walls, a bloodied young woman lay trapped under the ruins of Vekaura.
Dust covered her dark hair. Blood ran from her temple into one eye. One hand was pinned beneath rubble. The other rested near a strange weapon half-buried beside her.
Above the ruins, the sky flashed.
Another explosion shook the city.
She opened her eye and listened to the sound of monsters fighting over her grave.