“You toss well for a
Braun was shivering, curled up in a stone niche at the back of the outcropping. Ethis was looking intently over the edge. KriChan was helping pull ChuKang up to the ledge.
There were two younger manticores on the ledge who were almost identical, as well as another chimerian.
“Belag! Karag! What are you doing here?” Drakis asked. “I thought you were in the Sixth Octian with S’Kagh.”
“We were, Drakis,” Belag answered at once. “But we’re both just as glad to be with you, considering the alternative.”
“And you, warrior!” Drakis tried to stop his hands from shaking as he turned toward the chimerian. There was something familiar about him, but the memory would not push past the music. “What’s your name?”
“Thuri,” the chimerian said evenly. “Fourth Octian under Ophas.”
“Well, you’re all First Octian now,” Drakis said and turned toward the captain.
“Should have foreseen this,” ChuKang said with a rumble in his voice as he gazed toward the gate. “A waste of warrior-flesh.”
The ledge shook. A great slab of stone sheered away from the rock face under the ledge, crashing down into the magma with a shower of molten rock. The heat rolling up the face toward them was blistering. “We can’t stay here,” KriChan roared.
“Captain!”
Drakis turned toward the sound, faint over the roaring of the magma flowing below their ledge.
“Look!” Karag shouted as he pointed across the glowing flow below. “On that rock pillar!”
Drakis saw them.
It was Jerakh, the manticorian leader of Timuran’s Second Octian. Half a dozen other warriors from their Centurai had joined Jerakh in climbing to their own cramped haven atop a broken stalactite on the far side of the causeway.
“They’re trapped like we are,” Ethis yelled over the din. “If the molten river on the causeway does not kill them, then it must be at least three hundred feet to the floor of the cavern.”
Drakis was finding it hard to breathe.
“Well, Drakis, trapped at last,” Braun said with a sick smile. “I guess no one is going to know why you fought after all.”
“We’re not trapped!” Drakis shouted as he picked up Braun with both hands, dragging the Proxi to his feet. “Can you propagate a symbol far enough to reach that pillar?”
Braun shook violently in his hands, his eyes refusing to focus.
“
“Of course,” Braun drooled slightly, his words slurred. “I’ll have to draw a gate symbol here first.”
“Do it!” Drakis spat, releasing the Proxi with a slight but emphatic shove.
The ledge shook again. KriChan leaped back just as a section of ledge gave way under his foot.
ChuKang grabbed the human warrior’s shoulder. “What are you doing, Drakis?”
Drakis turned. “Those warriors don’t have a Proxi. They cannot fold off that stone pillar without one.”
“Then they’re lost. .”
“No!” Drakis shouted perhaps too emphatically. “We have our Proxi make a gate symbol here on our ledge then propagate it across to
“There isn’t much room over there,” KriChan added, his heavy brow furrowed.
“They’ll
ChuKang nodded and turned to the Proxi. “Make it happen, Braun.”
But the Proxi was already finishing the inscription of three interlinking rings in the stone of the ledge. Sweat was pouring from his brow and he looked up with unfocused eyes, but the arc of bright light flew from his staff and fell with precision exactly in the center of the stone pillar on the far side of the molten causeway.
“Now, Braun! Call on the Tribune!” Drakis shouted in his face.
Braun’s eyes suddenly focused. He shoved Drakis away, knelt down, and jammed the end of his staff into the stone of the ledge, sweat pouring down his face. The terrible cries of the dying on the ledge below him receded farther from his mind as he connected with other thoughts. . other powers.
“So we rescue our brother warriors. . then where do we go?” Thuri gripped his four blades in his hands once more.
“Does it matter?” Drakis shouted, drawing his own short sword. “We’ve come this far. . how can the day get any worse?”
The air twisted in on itself, then suddenly tore apart. ChuKang did not wait to see what was on the other side. He shouted, and everyone jumped through the opening just as the outcropping crumbled beneath their feet, eaten from under them by the continuing stream of lava.
CHAPTER 5
They emerged in chaos.
The fold collapsus behind them, but the sound was swallowed in the cacophony of battle that raged before them.
“By the gods!” ChuKang roared. “Where are we now?”
KriChan turned on Braun, grabbing the edges of his breastplate with both fists. “Where have you taken us? Where are Jerakh and the rest of the Centurai?”
“I. . I don’t. .”
“Why did you bring us here?” KriChan shouted in the Proxi’s face.
“Not me!” Braun yelled back at the manticore. “
KriChan shoved Braun to the ground, his lips curling up around his fangs in disgust.
“Wait!” Drakis shouted above the noise. “I know where we are! This is it. . the Ninth Throne of the Dwarves!”
Every available Cohort from almost two full Legions-perhaps six thousand warriors in all-had folded into the room just ahead of them, a charging army of warriors who could smell impending victory in the air and taste the final fall of the dwarven kingdoms. Their influx gushed into the vast space as though they were a torrent from a swollen river, flooding into the rotunda and the last stand of dwarven might.
The elite Warriors of the Ninth Throne were there to meet them, their axes already wet with the blood of their enemies. This was the last throne, where all of the dwarven kings came to council with one another. It was the most honored place in all the Nine Kingdoms under the mountain and home of the greatest of the dwarven kings-whose name was not known.
“What about Jerakh and the rest of our Centurai?” KriChan swore. “Damn the Tribune!”
“Or may the gods bless him,” ChuKang replied. “Braun?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You say the Tribune knew about Jerakh and the rest of our warriors?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Then he’ll bargain for another Proxi to get to them and bring them here,” ChuKang said. “The Tribune wants us in on the end-wants a prize that will bring honor to our House.
