ASHWALKER

The church doesn't talk about what lives beneath the volcanoes. They don't talk about the fissures that crack open without warning, or the things that pour out of them. And they certainly don't talk about the priests they send to stop it. They call them Ashwalkers. A priest who crosses the ash boundary — the cursed perimeter surrounding every volcanic gate — can never return to holy ground. No cathedral. No communion. No burial. The church severs their name from the record and sends supplies once a month by arrow over the boundary line. No messenger will cross it.

Father Calus crossed eleven years ago. His war-rhino, a battle-scarred titan named Maw, is the only living thing that chose to stay with him. Together they patrol the burning frontier — sealing fissures, driving back demons, and protecting the living world from a hell that never stops pushing.

But the fissures are getting wider. The demons are getting smarter. And lately, they've been speaking to him — not in shrieks, but in sentences. They know his name. The name the church erased. Something beneath the volcanoes is waking up. Something that opened the first fissure on purpose. And Calus is starting to realize the church didn't send him out here to protect the world. They sent him out here so he'd be on the other side of the line when they seal it shut.