“He’s gone!” Thuri yelled as he picked up the staff.
“Gone?” ChuKang shouted. “Where could he go?”
Drakis frantically scanned the battle around the foot of the stairs but could not see the Proxi anywhere among them.
“Here!” Thuri shouted, thrusting the Standard into Drakis’ free hand. “You do it! You get us out of here!”
“I can’t. .”
“You’re hoo-mani. . just like Braun!”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Drakis spat his words in anger and frustration. “You have to be trained for it. . linked to the Tribune through the House Altar. .”
“How long before the Tribune can get another Proxi to us?” ChuKang asked quickly.
“He’ll know the link was broken,” Drakis answered. “He’d have to negotiate use from another Tribune. .”
ChuKang turned to look down from the platform. “We don’t have that long.”
The battle was quickly winding down, the Centurai of other Houses were breaking free of the failing dwarves, moving up the stairs toward them.
Toward the crown.
The Imperial Army of Conquest was made up of units donated to the campaign by various Houses of the Empire. Some of the larger Houses had been known in the past to donate an entire Legion-an extravagance of maintaining over four thousand slave warriors. That was not true of the current campaign. The largest single House commitment-from House Plincian of the Paktan Guild Order-was five Cohorts of two thousand, eight hundred warriors. Several other Houses contributed full Cohorts of their own, but the majority of the Imperial Army of Conquest was made up of Legions and Cohorts that were cobbled together from donations of between one and three Centurai from many individual Houses.
Cohorts from the larger Houses were regrouping, struggling to reestablish order in their commands for their own organized assault on the crown. But the Centurai from the smaller Houses knew that their only chance at the prize was to seize it now. For the majority of the warriors in the vast throne room, the military order of Legions and Cohorts evaporated at the sight of the prized crown.
The warriors from the different smaller Houses, battle fever still raging in their blood, started up the stairs toward ChuKang and the remnants of his Octian. As one Octian pushed forward, the others grabbed at them, dragging them backward. A blade strike. A scream. Then suddenly all of the Impress Warriors of the Rhonas Empire-each vying for the glory and recognition of their own House-turned on each other. Combat erupted among the warriors of the competing Houses, each of them desperate to reach the top of the steps and claim the crown for their own.
“What do we do?” Thuri said, his large, blank eyes blinking furiously. “How do we get out of here?”
“Without the Proxi?” KriChan barked. “We have no way out!”
“But what about Jerakh? Tribune Se’Djinka. .”
“Look around us! The Tribune can’t open a fold here any better than the rest of the Tribunes!” Ethis snapped. “We were supposed to rescue Jerakh, remember! If he gets here, it would only be through a fold opening on the outside of this mob. . then there’ll be our own army between us and him. What good would that do?”
Karag drew in a sharp breath. “We’re on our own?”
“Unfortunately,” Ethis replied, raising his four swords once more as he gazed down the stairs. “Not for long. We are about to have far too much company.”
The scrambling warriors from the other Houses were coming closer. As the cone of stairs got narrower in circumference with each step, the fighting among the manticores, chimera, gnomes, and a few humans became more constricted. They stepped over the bodies of their former comrades, slew anyone who got in their way, only to be felled by those behind them intent on one thing.