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Fronds parted to allow seven great wheels of silver to roll placidly after Zojja, across the jungle floor.

“A good fire would clear this place,” Rytlock snarled, stepping through the trammeled gap.

“Your solution for everything,” Logan said as he followed.

Rytlock raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t burned you down yet.”

Behind the bickering pair came Eir, her face red from the sweltering march. “We’ll be there shortly,” she said as she flung sweat away from her brow.

Garm appeared at her side, looking equally withered by the heat. He was fitted out like a warhorse in fireproof metal bardings.

Eir fondly set her hand on his helmet. “I wish it’d be cooler below ground, but that’s where the magma is.”

Garm panted miserably.

Ahead, Caithe whistled.

“Sounds like she’s found it,” Eir said to Garm. “Let’s catch up.”

In a clearing ahead, Caithe gestured toward a black rift that rankled across the jungle floor. Big Snaff stepped aside as Zojja brought the Wheels of Doom through. The seven silvery wheels rolled one by one through the group and headed for the rift. The first of the great disks dropped into the crack, wedging half-buried. A second and third wheel rolled onto the rift and fell in behind the first. Soon, all seven of the special golems were bedded in a line down the crevice. Their metal frames began to hum, energy building within.

“You’ll want to get back, Caithe!” Zojja shouted, her eyes half-lidded and fluttering.

Caithe looked up, blinked in realization, then bolted away from the disks.

A moment later, the wheels ignited with white blasts and red flames and a sound that drove the air from their lungs. The explosions tore the rift open. The ground came to pieces in blossoming fire and billowing ash. It slumped down. The floor of the jungle poured into the gap and became a great ramp of debris that descended into the cavern.

“Nice!” Rytlock said.

“If my calculations are correct, this ramp should lead to the volcanic island,” Snaff said. “It also should have crushed about a hundred destroyers.”

Eir smiled. “Time to crush more.”

“Charge!” Snaff proclaimed, and his golem bolted into the roiling dust cloud.

The others followed close behind, running into that infernal realm.

They rushed down the ramp, leaving the green of the jungle floor and passing into the gray cloud. A thousand strides on, the dust cleared, and the crimson heat of the magma chamber flooded over them.

Now they could see: The ramp led across a bloodred sea of lava and ended on a volcanic island at its center. The ropy black stone was teeming with destroyers—their insectoid figures steaming as they cooled. Every moment, more of the monsters clambered up out of the magma pool.

“Be careful where you step,” Logan advised as the group ran toward the island.

“And if you drop something,” Rytlock added, “just let it go.”

Eir laughed grimly. “The problem is, the lava isn’t just in the flows. Some of it’s walking around.”

Ahead, destroyers were pouring onto the ramp. Black-backed creatures climbed up from the boiling sea, and red-backed creatures scuttled down from the volcano.

Eir shouted to Snaff. “Clear the way to the caldera! Let’s see what steel and muscle can do against slag and stone!”

Big Snaff bounded down the ramp, unfolding the fingers of its left hand, which now were wide nozzles. Powerful jets of water erupted from them and struck the magma monsters, exploding into steam. The spray also hardened the beasts in midstep. They tumbled over, cracking, as more destroyers climbed over their backs. They, too, fell. Three rows, four rows, five—the destroyers formed a steaming henge before Big Snaff.

He arrived at a gallop, his metal feet coming down on destroyer backs and crushing them to the ground. He pounded the creatures flat and ran onward. His water cannons paved the way in destroyers, and his feet tamped down the road for the rest of the warriors.

Ahead, the ramp ended, and the slope of the volcano began. It swarmed with black-shelled destroyers.

Even as his left arm poured water on his foes, his right arm whirred