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missteps than to risk falling down some bottomless shaft.
    With a startling abruptness, the mists twisted, writhing in the cavern wind, shredding apart. He could see the Yungskord again, but this time Drakis was looking back to the distant promenade that the Timuran Centurai had folded away from not that long before. He had stood there and seen this place in the distance; now, thanks to the folds, he was standing here and looking back on where they had so recently been and where Braun had propagated so many copies of the gate symbol along that wide promenade. The young warrior took in a breath, for the sudden vista filled him with awe and pride; those quickly set gate symbols had borne fruit.
    Drakis stood atop a cliff face looking down onto a battle the likes of which he had never before witnessed. It raged all across the floor of the enormous Yungskord cavern. A tide of Imperial Warriors—three full Impress Legions, he was sure, over sixteen thousand strong—charged from a line of folds all along the promenade and down toward the carefully prepared positions. Imperial catapults, hastily arrayed on the promenade, launched supporting balls of flame over their heads. The dwarves waited for them, dug into a series of trenches crossing the craggy ground between the raging cascades of water that were still flooding into the enormous grotto. Long torrents of magma streamed down from the ceiling of the cavern; their brilliant yellow-orange ribbons fell crashing into the flooded cavern floor and flashing into scalding steam, boiling both the water and the Impress Warriors around it. Still, the slave-army of the elves pressed their attack, led by ranks of enraged manticores, their fangs bared in their feral faces, their roars sounding before them as they charged across the field of battle. Following on their heels were chimeras and an entire Cohort of Proxi—nearly five hundred strong—in support. They were casting sheets of electrical fire over the heads of the charging manticores and into the trenches of the dwarves. Their effectiveness was lessened, however, as the Proxi, too, had to run forward or risk death literally pouring down on them from above. Their flashes of lightning and the magma cascades illuminated ghastly scene as the manticores were suffering under the withering assault of catapult fire raining death across their ranks. The great lion-men never took their eyes off their prey, however, and in a wave leaped over the battlements and into the first line of dwarven trench works.
    â€œDrakis!” ChuKang snarled through the flat muzzle of his face.
    Drakis turned at once, unquestioningly obeying his leader’s command. “Captain! I do not yet have the count . . .”
    â€œForget that! There’s no time,” ChuKang said, pointing up along the cliff face. “Get this Octian organized and moving . . . now!”
    It was the causeway; the same causeway he had seen from the far end of the Yungskord, but now it lay open before them, rising along the side of the cavern, winding between the spires of impossibly large stalagmites straight to the gates of the Thorgreld—and Stoneheart just beyond.
    â€œYou heard the voice! TsuRag and GriChag—you’re the leads with swords bright!—Megri, you follow ChuKang and KriChan. Braun, you’re with me. Ethis—you watch our backs. Stay tight. Let’s go!”
    ChuKang was already charging up the inclined ledge, and Drakis was finding it hard to catch up. Now in the clear, Drakis could see what remained of their Centurai emerging from the steam. They were far fewer than he had hoped, perhaps not quite forty—less than half their original strength. With the song still sounding in the back of his head, Drakis yelled, and his entire Octian yelled with him as they led in the charge.
    They ran up the fitted cobblestones of the causeway as it wound its way upward following the side wall of the cavern. Their path was