The cave beneath the Ashen Expanse seethed like a wound in the world.
Molten veins pulsed through black rock, staining the air with heat and iron, while the smell of corrupted blood wafted inside.
Three beasts were lying dead right next to the opening, so it was pretty obvious that the ones still inside could smell it, especially when the ones dead were their own brethren.
So now, the remaining nine part-dragons crouched in the flickering glow, their eyes like molten coins, their claws carving grooves into the basalt floor.
They, who had heard their kin die in pain, were now angry, but still, they waited.
The biggest of them—a hulking brute of blackened scales and dragon-bone spikes—growled deep enough to rattle the stone.
"Charging alone is suicide," it rumbled, wings flexing with restrained rage. "They wait for us to come one at a time. Like cattle to slaughter."
