The Scorched General didn't pause to admire the graves it had just carved. Its massive obsidian joints ground together with the sound of cracking bedrock as it swept the magma-dripping Trident into a devastating, horizontal arc. The target wasn't Will. It was the ten trapped Artificers, still encased waist-deep in the cooling volcanic rock.
Maddie didn't think. She reacted with instincts forged in the blood-soaked ruins of Los Angeles.
She dropped her center of gravity, sliding her boots through the steaming mire, and braced the thick iron haft of the Santa Mon halberd across her armored knee. It was a springboard stance. She tilted her head up into the sulfurous ash and opened her mouth, her voice tearing through the deafening hiss of the steam.
"Allison, vault!" Maddie screamed.
