Thoren's terror was absolute.
The ash tide devoured everything behind him. It did not consume and it did not destroy.
It erased.
The ground, the rocks, the craters, the scattered bones of creatures that had died in this place long before he arrived.
All of it vanished into the churning gray mass ash as though it had never existed.
The ash tide howled behind him like a ferocious beast, a sound that was not wind and not thunder but something older and hungrier.
It was the sound of oblivion given voice.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
His skin prickled.
His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged animal. He urged the undead Greater Dune Scorpion forward through their mental link, pushing the creature harder than he had ever pushed any mount.
The scorpion responded instantly, its many legs a blur of motion, its massive body low to the ground as it skittered across the ash-crusted wasteland.
The undead Greater Dune Scorpion was fast.
Terrifyingly fast.
