Ash Mirage
“Is that tree moving?” Chetch shaded her eyes from the burning sun, the heat haze rippling across the dry plain.
Qralk peered into the distance. “Don't be ridiculous. Dead trees can't move. It's not altogether right they move when they're alive, for that matter.”
“Queen Mycelia's made many trees move, dead or otherwise,” Chetch said.
“But she ain't here though, is she?” Qralk snapped back. “It's just us, the smallest detachment of Venari scouts I've ever had the miserable luck to be a part of.”
“You didn't have to come, you know. I could have led them without you.” Chetch tried not to let her annoyance show, but Qralk was undermining her every chance he got. It didn't look good in front of the others.
“Ha! And let you get all the glory? Never.”
Chetch shook her head. “I suggest we gather some of that deadwood. It'll be cold later, and I don't fancy another night of shivering.”
“Whatever you say.” Qralk grumbled and turned to the others. “Come on, you miserable mischief of rodents. There's firewood that needs cutting.”
As they neared the gnarled old tree, brandishing their hatchets, a small flicker of flame caught Chetch's eye. She slowed, dropping back from the others, remembering a warning from a villager weeks ago when they had stopped at an inn. A tale of a fire demon that lived in the dead shells of trees. She shook her head and grinned. It sounded so ridiculous, it couldn't be true.
Then a fireball exploded ahead of her, among her kin, scattering them across the ground as the burning glow of a body appeared within the tree.
The cloying stink of charred fur and flesh filled her nostrils, and Chetch turned and ran. Ash mirages are often mistaken for inanimate deadwood. In reality, they are fiery spirits that live in the husks of long-dead trees, their charred wood glowing with embers of ash as they lumber across the hot plains and deserts of the Burning Lands. If threatened, they defend themselves by flinging fireballs and flaming branches at their enemies.
When the Chaos Legion encroached upon the desolate lands of the ash mirages, they harassed the creature, taking sharp axes to their sturdy shell of wood. For a time, the ash mirages avoided the invaders, but the Riftwatchers arrived and convinced them to fight back. Thereafter, the ash mirages would sneak within range of their foes' camps and attack them with salvos of devastating infernos.