Three creatures circled the cart.
They were low to the ground, each about the size of a large dog, though that comparison felt insulting to dogs. Their bodies looked like they had been assembled from ash, bone, and shards of black stone. Thin limbs bent in too many places, ending in hooked claws that scraped softly against the slabs. Their heads were narrow and eyeless, with vertical slits where mouths should have been. Whenever they opened those slits, Rohan saw faint orange light inside, like embers buried under ash.
A fourth creature clung to the side of a leaning slab above the basin, almost perfectly still.
Rohan nearly missed it.
'Wonderful. Ash spiders? Ash dogs? Ash nightmares? Why does everything here look like it crawled out of a furnace after dying badly?'
One of the creatures approached the trapped human.
