Song of the Dragon

I think I can see light coming through them. They’re getting wider all the time.”

Drakis squinted at the Proxi. “What are you talking about? We’re leagues underground!”

Before Braun could answer, ChuKang and KriChan stepped back, standing on either side of the Proxi. “Braun! This is a disaster! What does the Tribune want us to do?”

“Well, he hasn’t. .” Suddenly Braun’s demeanor changed; anger and disdain showed on his face, and his voice was suddenly nasal and condescending in tone. They were used to it, for they had seen it every day of their lives: The Tribune was once again pulling the strings of his puppet Proxi. “Gather the individual Octia cells together and re-form the Centurai. Flank the dwarves in the plaza on the left and make for the rotunda. The dwarves are fanatical, but they have gambled on this charge and lost-they have extended themselves too far, and their reserves will not arrive in time. Flank them and get to the rotunda.”

“Master, should we plant a gate symbol there?” KriChan asked.

Braun turned to the second manticore, his features contemptuous. “No! There are grand halls leading away from the rotunda. Take the Centurai to the end of the right-hand hall. . then have the Proxi plant the gate symbol there and propagate it as many times as possible along the promenade you find there before the dwarven reserves arrive.”

ChuKang asked, “But how long before the dwarven reserves. .”

Braun turned back toward the captain, his face nearly purple with rage. “Just do it! We need as many gate symbols as possible established on the promenade at the end of that hall. Do that and you may yet salvage some honor from this debacle, Captain ChuKang.”

In an instant, Braun’s face changed again to a gently smiling countenance. “Did I miss something?”

“Captain!”

It was Jerakh, the manticorian warrior in charge of the Second Octian. “Second, Fourth, and what’s left of the Eighth and Ninth Octia have formed with you here. Third and Sixth are fighting off to the right. I haven’t seen the Octian Dista.”

“Let’s move!” ChuKang shouted. “Let’s push to join with the Third and Sixth-then swing the formation to the left. We’re to make for that rotunda.”

“But our casualties. .”

“We’ll count the dead later, Jerakh,” ChuKang said. “Drakis! You have the Proxi. Let’s go bleed some dwarf!”

The battle was still raging in the plaza when the Centurai from House Timuran broke around the left flank, trampling underfoot the dwarves who had not already succumbed to the Impress Warriors’ weapons. The broken dwarven line contracted, and with shocking suddenness, Drakis found himself running at full-gait through the rotunda with Braun’s shoulder armor gripped firmly in his left hand. What remained of the Timuran Centurai ran with them as well, their ordered battle lines once again dissolved by the necessity of the moment. Everyone was having trouble keeping up with Captain ChuKang, who dashed headlong from the rotunda and bolted down the grand hallway to the right.

Nine notes of stones polished, statuesque dwarf glowers. .

Seven notes of watchful guarding doom and loss. .

Five note halls of gleaming onyx. .

Five note halls of black entombing. .

The stones were polished under their feet, and they passed the thirty-foot-tall statue of a dwarven hero. The hall they entered to their right was filled with warm light from lit torches set in iron wall sconces. Ornate carved pillars of polished stone rose nearly fifty feet overhead to support the intricately carved arched ceiling.

Drakis barely noticed it. His eyes were fixed on ChuKang as he ran down the hall toward blackness darker than any night beyond the arch at the end of the five-hundred-foot-long hall.

“Keep running, Warriors!” KriChan shouted. “Don’t stop! The end is in sight.”

Come answer the call of lamenting. .

Drakis gritted his teeth as he ran.

Come answer the sky that fell. .

His feet fell into the cadence of the song.

Forgive the lament. . Forgive promise torn. .

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Drakis muttered under his breath, but the song kept revolving in his mind with every measured footfall on the stones passing beneath his feet. The great black void filling the open end of the colossal hall slid toward him, and still he ran, following ChuKang and holding fast to Braun because that was what he was told to do and the music in his mind overwhelmed all other thought.

ChuKang passed the arch at the end of the long hallway and abruptly stopped. The rest of the Centurai followed his lead, raising their weapons in caution as they approached the darkness.

“By the gods,” ChuKang said in awe as he stood looking out into the void. He called over his shoulder. “Timuran Centurai, set up a defense. Octia Two, Three, and Four protect the hall. Octian Eight to my right and Octian Nine to my left. Octian One to me! Drakis! Bring me that Proxi!”

Drakis glanced over at Braun.

“It’s going to be all right now,” Braun said to him quietly. “Sometimes it has to be truly dark before we can make out the stars in the sky.”

Drakis took in a breath to speak but then let it out again as a sigh. He stepped between the Impress Warriors even as their masters were organizing them into defensive lines. He was blind as he stepped quickly toward their manticorian captain, the darkness seeming a complete void beyond.

“Captain?” Drakis spoke as he came near.

ChuKang turned to the Proxi, pointing to the stones beneath his feet. “Gate symbols! The first one right here, and then start propagating them along both sides of this landing as long as possible! Do it now. . we may not have much time.”

Braun bowed slightly and then shrugged his shoulder out of Drakis’ grasp.

Drakis looked at him with slight embarrassment. He had simply forgotten to let go.

“As the Emperor wills,” Braun said with a crooked smile. The Proxi immediately swung the Standard around smartly, its steel point jabbing into the stone as Braun knelt next to it. The stones beneath it were cut by the strange purple glow at the staff’s tip-an unnatural color that Drakis found difficult to look at. Meticulously, Braun moved the tip across the stones, inscribing their surface with the familiar interlocking ovals of the gate symbol. Once completed, any Tribune could use them to transport their own Centurai to this same spot-the last location of their most forward progress. Many a valiant warrior had died for the honor of moving these symbols a few yards forward on the battlefield.

“KriChan,” ChuKang said quietly to his lieutenant at his side. “Have you ever seen the like?”

Drakis watched the two manticores stare into the darkness together.

Then Drakis realized that the darkness was not entirely dark. As his eyes slowly adjusted from the brilliance of the halls they had just left, he could make out fires burning in the distance, their vague reflection on still waters and in the distance. .

“The Yungskord!” Drakis breathed.

ChuKang turned at the sound. “Yes, Drakis. The Yungskord. . the last cavern of the dwarves. It’s said to be over a third of a league long.”

Drakis stepped up next to where ChuKang stood. He could see now that they were standing on a wide, stone landing that ran across the face of the dwarven city from which they had just emerged. Below the landing, the natural cavern sloped downward to the edge of the fabled underground Lake Kigga. The fires appeared to dot a rugged island in the center of the lake that rose upward toward an impossibly regular and enormous oval of stone. Drakis pointed toward it. “Is that. .?”

“The Stoneheart?” KriChan said through his fanged grin. “The last throne of the dwarves? Yes, Drakis, I believe we have found it.”

The Stoneheart, Drakis thought. Every Impress Warrior had been thoroughly instructed in it from before the battle began. It was a single, massive granite disk, polished by the dwarves to a glassy smoothness, though Drakis had wondered why dwarves would want to go to so much trouble to put a brilliant finish on something that would never be touched by light. It was nearly a hundred yards in diameter and