Drakis could feel the heat growing on his neck. He turned and drew in a sharp breath.
The front Cohorts had engaged the Thorgreld Gate; an upside-down tower suspended from the cavern ceiling down to meet the rising causeway, but the dwarves once more were anticipating them. A cascade of molten lava, held in check for uncounted centuries against this day, was loosed by the dwarven defenders from above the gate. Its brilliant, blinding stream arced out from the inverted tower’s spouts and poured down on the ledge below. Flashes of blue could be seen near its base-evidence of the desperate attempts of the Tribunes to hold back the incinerating river of liquid rock through their Proxis while keeping the lead Centurai still battling for the gate and the throne beyond.
The lava, however, continued to pour from above, rolling in a devastating torrent over the remaining warriors and into the entire Cohort behind it. The warriors of the Second Cohort broke ranks, running back down the causeway directly toward Drakis and his comrades, but the river of lava was rapidly overtaking them.
Drakis glanced at his feet. The fitted cobblestones of the causeway had been formed with a slight trough in the middle-the perfect channel for a river of molten rock.
“Back!” ChuKang shouted. “Back down! Now!” His commands were pointless as those behind him were already trying to move. But the causeway was packed now with other Centurai from the Imperial Army who had appeared behind them. Those closest to the front started shouting and pushing at those behind. Panic rose like a tide among the warriors. Drakis plunged into the fray, trying desperately to get away from the onrushing death. He heard the screams of several warriors as they were pushed over the edge by their terrified companions.
The deadly tide hissed menacingly behind him as the mass of warriors compressed around him. The air was being pressed out of his lungs.
A massive hand grabbed the back of his breastplate and pulled him back. He felt himself swinging wildly, his head banging against his own shoulder plate, and then suddenly he was spinning through the air. His scream was cut short as his back slammed against stone and he tumbled down a rock face.
His fall was only a few feet down from where he impacted, but it felt as though he had fallen much farther. Still panicked, he scrambled backward, clawing at the ground until he reached the wall. Only then did he take in his surroundings.
He was sitting on a rock outcropping above the causeway. The other members of his Octian were there as well, a few of them a little bruised but otherwise intact. ChuKang was pulling himself up the cavern wall to join them.
“You toss well for a hoo-mani,” Ethis chuckled.
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!”