"Back the wagons right up to the ledge or the hounds will tear the children apart where they sit!" Marcus shouted, his voice hoarse as he turned to face the oncoming cavalry.The raptor-hounds were already bursting through the fog, their clawed feet ripping up chunks of ash-covered stone. Jorgan and Thomas fired their repeating rifles in rapid succession, the sharp cracks of black powder echoing off the narrow canyon walls. Two of the predatory beasts tumbled into the dirt, but the rest of the royal cavalry units kept advancing, their lances lowered."Are you completely insane, Marcus?" Thomas yelled, desperately hauling on the reins to spin his wagon around. "There is a five-hundred-foot drop behind us! There is nowhere to go!""We are going down," Marcus said, his eyes flashing with a desperate, dark intensity. "Lyra, hook the heavy iron chains from the prison carts together! Jorgan, cover the left flank! I need sixty seconds!"Marcus dropped to his knees at the very edge of the pre

"If his heart stops for one more second, I am cutting this chest piece off him myself!" Lyra screamed, her fingers digging frantically into the collar of Marcus’s leather vest.Marcus lay flat on the cold, yellow dusted stone of the supply depot, his eyes rolled back into his head. His skin was already turning a frightening shade of ash grey, and his breathing had completely ceased. Around him, the crimson veins of the blood infused weapons in the open crates seemed to pulse in a rhythmic, mocking taunt, but Marcus was no longer in the room. He had plummeted headfirst into the deep, suffocating dark of his own mind, entering a voluntary trance to confront the independent shadow shroud that had been eating away at his thoughts since the siege began.In the silent, black void of his consciousness, Marcus stood alone on a vast, featureless plane of dark water."You should not have come here, boy," a dry, rasping voice echoed from the fog.Marcus turned around, his boots making no sound o

"Get back before he pulls that lever and bathes us all in liquid fire!" Marcus screamed, his voice carrying a sudden, booming clarity that stunned everyone in the cavern.He stood fully upright, the last lingering fog of his deep trance completely gone. His mind was sharper than it had ever been, and the dual nature of his magic felt perfectly aligned. He could feel the cold of the amulet and the dark energy of his shadow plates working together, no longer fighting for control of his body. Ahead of him, the disgraced captain grinned as the brass nozzle of the massive siege machine hissed, spraying a thick, dark stream of volatile mining oil directly onto the stone floor."You are too late, Marcus!" the captain laughed, his hand tightening on the secondary valve. "This quarry will be your tomb!""Not today, captain," Marcus said, his voice flat and quiet.With a swift, practiced motion of both hands, Marcus drew upon his newly enhanced shadow magic. He did not build a wall this time. I

"Run for the staircase before the wagons dissolve completely and crush us under the weight of the supply crates!" Silas shouted, his voice cracking as he dragged Marcus down a flight of slick, obsidian steps.Behind them, the scene was absolute chaos. The iron-eating fungal spores were raining down in thick, grey sheets, making a horrible hissing sound as they feasted on the convoy. The heavy metal axles of the prison wagons were literally bubbling away, turning into soft, crumbling rust in a matter of seconds. Jorgan and Thomas were frantically throwing the remaining food sacks and leather water skins out of the disintegrating carts, tossing them down the stone hatchway that Jorgan had managed to pry open at the last second."Get the children down here!" Lyra screamed from the bottom of the stairs, her hands covered in grey soot as she guided the terrified refugees into the dark. "The spores cannot follow us into the stone! The air is clean down here!""The wagon is going!" Thomas ye

"Get the civilians up the western ridge because the main cultist vanguard is already descending into the crater!" Marcus shouted, his hand gripping the hilt of his short blade as he pointed toward the swirling dust storm.The robed figures above did not slide down the steep glass slopes on foot. Instead, the desert ridge erupted with the roar of heavy alchemical engines as a massive, mechanized caravan of Crimson Cultists tore through the outer perimeter. Huge, iron plated transport trucks with jagged spikes welded to their bumpers slurred across the red sand, their massive wheels crushing the glass shards into fine powder. Behind the armored vehicles came a line of open cage wagons, packed tightly with dozens of captured desert tribesmen who were bound in heavy iron chains."They are not here to fight a static battle, Marcus!" Silas yelled, his hand shielding his partially recovered eyes from the fierce glare of the sun. "They are moving a supply line! They are transporting those pri