The air at the caldera’s lip tasted of crushed brimstone and powdered bone.
The obsidian steeds skidded to a halt on a narrow shelf of volcanic pumice, their runic brass hooves carving glowing, amber gouges into the brittle rock. Ahead yawned the crater of Mount Kar-Vash: a circular pit a league wide, its jagged basalt rim plunging vertically into a churning lake of subterranean violet magma.
Suspended above the boiling lake by four colossal chains of sky-iron hung the Sunken Crucible—a monolithic, inverted pyramid of corroded star metal, its exterior carved with thousands of weeping, serpentine glyphs that oozed black, smoking ichor.
And coiled around the four anchor-chains were the Ash-Beasts.
They were not drakes. They were leviathans of the First Dawn—quadrupedal horrors forty paces long, their hide formed from layers of overlapping, petrified obsidian scales that dripped molten slag. Their serpentine heads lacked eyes; in their place were clusters of glowing sulfur-pits that flared with blind, heat-seeking fury as the foreign scent of mortal blood drifted across the chasm.
The three beasts uncoiled simultaneously.
Their colossal claws screeched against the sky-iron links with a sound like iron galleys tearing upon a reef, sending cascades of white-hot slag splashing into the violet magma sea below.
"Stay on the shelf," Malakor growled, swinging down from his mount before the stone steed had even settled its stride.
His great sword cleared its back-scabbard with a sharp, oily rasp, the dark steel instantly igniting with hissing shadow-flame. He didn't look at the churning lake or the colossal drop; his amber eyes locked onto the central beast creeping along the western chain, calculating mass, reach, and the velocity of its lunging neck.
"We take them together, warlord," Aurelia said, dismounting with swift, fluid grace, drawing her ancestral blade.
Beneath her coat, the Seven Shards flared with an icy, defensive halo. The proximity of the Crucible was agonizing, but Malakor’s shadow-tether held the fire in check, turning the searing burn into a focused, razor-sharp edge of imperial will.
"You're saving your strength for the relic," Malakor commanded, not turning his head, his voice dropping into that absolute, lethal register that admitted no compromise. "The old ghost said the crucible's core will demand every drop of your aether to open. If you burn out your marrow killing lizards, you'll turn to glass before your fingers touch the ring."
He stepped to the very edge of the sheared basalt ledge, the wind whipping his dark hair across his scarred forehead.
"Watch the sky," he added, a savage, wolfish grin splitting his lips as he glanced back over his shoulder. "I'll clear the bridge."
Before Aurelia could argue, Malakor lunged.
He did not wait for the central beast to reach the shelf. He vaulted off the cliff face, his boots landing square on the vibrating links of the western anchor-chain sixty paces above the boiling abyss.
The central beast roared—a concussive blast of superheated air and sonic fury that shattered loose boulders from the crater walls. It lunged down the chain, its massive, gaping maw lined with triple rows of serrated obsidian fangs, striking like a striking viper.
Malakor met the charge head-on.
He didn't dodge. As the beast’s jaw snapped shut, Malakor dropped to his knees, sliding across the slick, soot-covered iron links beneath the strike. With a roar that tore from his chest, he drove his two-handed great sword upward, burying the dark blade three feet deep into the beast’s soft, unarmored throat.
The creature shrieked, thrashing violently as black, boiling ichor geysered over Malakor’s armor, but the warlord held the hilt with an iron grip, riding the thrashing monster as it dragged him toward the hanging crucible.
"Two left!" Malakor bellowed over the roar of the magma, his blade ripping free in a shower of black fire. "Aurelia, move!"