The world snapped into focus with the brutal finality of a headsman’s axe. One moment they were falling through the chaos of the portal, the next they knelt on hard, cracked earth that smelled of iron and ozone. The air was hot and thick, difficult to breathe, and a perpetual, howling wind tore at their clothes and hair. Above, a blood red sky swirled with clouds the color of bruised flesh, and before them, the twisted black spire stabbed upward like a blasphemous dagger into the heavens. This was no fortress. It was a focal point, the source of the corruption bleeding into Britannia.
Marcus pushed himself to his feet, his body aching in a dozen new places. His first instinct was to check their position, to assess the terrain. His second was to look behind him, to the space where a giant
