They could not hold the rise.
The ash-serpent pack surged in an undulating wave, their wiry bodies twisting and slithering through vents, leaping up the black stone lip, their jaws unhinging into smoking gobbets. Nyxara's post seals held for less than a minute under full weight. One support beam cracked. A lantern went out in a spray of pale fire. Zeus took a serpent in the neck with a carefully controlled burst of residual force and felt the Threshold return the gesture with interest.
"Off the rise!" Nyxara yelled. "Canyon cuts! If we stay, they bury us in the den!"
They broke out and down in an uneven fighting line to open ash weather. The ground fell away beyond the post into a labyrinth of canyons, their walls a ribbed mosaic of old judgment slag and serpent trails. The pack came hard on their heels. Bigger figures loomed lower in the canyon throat - not serpents, but upright forms of fallen verdict plates and crown fragments bound together.
