CHAPTER 681: THE GOLD BEHIND THE DUST (4)

Rodion’s count strip ran like a thin river of blue across the stone. It pulsed steady, a heartbeat someone had ironed flat and taught to behave: hold, hold, bite, slide, reset. The light wasn’t bright, more like moon on wet slate, but it was enough. Each pulse touched boots, then knees, then shoulders, until bodies remembered how to agree. The room had its own breathing—the Whiteways’ slow wheeze through vents and ribs—and that wanted to pull minds off the beat. The strip gave them a spine to stand on.

Mikhailis lifted his hand only a little, two fingers high, thumb tucked. Line captains caught it and passed the meaning with their shoulders, not with their mouths. He kept the gesture small on purpose. Big signals woke big egos.

Small doors, many locks, he thought, and let his hand fall.

"Sky left, Ankles right," he said. His voice stayed low, sanded at the edges. "Archers split now."

The bows answered like trained animals. The Sky squad took a step left and raised, eyes on the floating jaws that drifted behind the Juggernaut like ugly lanterns. The Ankles squad sank a notch and angled down, searching for shins, for the soft points that turned a front into a stumble. No one asked for targets. They had lanes, not hopes.

"Silk, two chutes," he called. "Make the dogs regret our hospitality."

Silk Guards pivoted with polite efficiency. Spinnerets whispered as they cast. Two pale veils fell in long, even lines, then breathed once—just once—as the Crymber Twins stepped in. Frost’s breath traced the mesh with a thin frost-white that cracked like sugar when you looked too hard; Ember tapped along the same path with two knuckles. The veils turned sure and quiet. Their edges kissed the floor as if they had always belonged there. Between them, two clean corridors opened like hallways inside a storm.

"Slime," he said without looking back, "stop-lines on the floor. Where their spit wants to live."

Slimeweave rolled forward in low plates, a soft clatter under armor. The gel it painted didn’t shine; it dulled the floor a shade, a matte ladder that only trained eyes would spot. The smell rose—vinegar with wet stone underneath—and prickled the soft part of the nose. The lines formed a language: here you can stand, here you must not, here you will not fall.

"Scurabons, rotate. Wrists then knees. Touch and go."

Four Scurabons slid out like shadows that had agreed to wear knives. Their sickles rode low, edges kept close to the line like good manners. Heads tilted, the way blades listen in dreams. They did not carve. They tapped—the back of a sickle at a halberd wrist, a quick flick at the inside of a knee. Tap, tap. A petty insult that stayed in the joint when the body forgot to be angry. And then they were gone, already someone else’s problem.

Count intact. Recommend no deviation for eight beats.

"Eight?" Mikhailis muttered. "You spoil me."

You are easily spoiled.

His mouth twitched. He let it die. Not the time.

The first wave reached them and became something smaller. Wight Marauders marched clean, halberds at textbook angles, rank minds wearing parade memories, not fresh ideas. Ankles arrows hissed low and fast. Two found the front Wight’s shin between bone bands. The neat stride became a limp, the limp became a stagger. A spear from second rank leaned—not stabbed, just leaned—guiding the fall into the gap he wanted. The Wight went down without ceremony. Another stepped to fill and tripped on the slick Slime had already laid. Order turned to a pile in exactly three heartbeats.

Thalatha walked the front like a seamstress checking hems. Her face stayed calm, not cold; the difference mattered. She pressed a bracer up half a finger without looking at the skull it belonged to. She tapped a drifting rim twice with the edge of her glove. She settled a stance with one palm to the hip, the way you settle a chair that wobbles. "Wrists quiet," she said, low, as if telling the weather a private rule. "Knees soft."

The skeletons listened. You could see it in how the shield rims stopped arguing with each other and started touching like old friends. You could see it in how spear hafts sat easier in hollow hands. Bones didn’t nod. They didn’t have to.

Two Bone Hounds sprinted into the left chute, necks low, flanks shining with a wet sheen that stank of amber rot. Their jaws opened, threads of acid rope glittering green in the lamp swell. The ropes arced in pretty curves, perfect if you liked terrible geometry. They landed on Slime’s bands and turned sullen. The gel drank the venom and gave back nothing but a faint grey stain.

Silk let the dogs feel smart for half a breath, made the veils soften like curtains in wind. The Hounds pushed deeper, eager. Frost breathed a thin white over the fabric; Ember tapped the same line with those habitual two knuckles. The veils hardened in a snap like egg sugar cracking. Hoods locked around the skulls. Teeth froze inside their own rudeness.

"Sky," Mikhailis said, "make the talkers duck."

Bows rose and loosed. The first loft rode the lamp’s swell and fell in a soft spread over the Skullcasters. The jaws dipped to sing just as the arrows arrived. The chant hitched. The second volley landed inside that hitch, a whisper ahead of the beat. A single rune split on a jaw like glass seen from the wrong angle. It drifted down, a small, offended ash.

Hold. Hold. Bite. Slide. Reset.

The blue strip pulsed in his periphery. People breathed to it without meaning to. Even the skeletons held their weight on the right count, like old soldiers remembering drill in a dream.

The liches stood back with crowns dimmed to a dull library glow. Their hands moved neat and exact. Clean hearts got a firm set on white cloth. Sour ones—those with the faint green thread in the seam—clicked into jars of sealed silk. The sound they made, a dry tok, was not angry; it was administrative. They didn’t reach for more than their rule allowed.

"Invest on my mark only," he said. He didn’t turn, because he didn’t need to. "No names. No plates."

A Marauder tested the right chute with too much confidence and brought its halberd down like someone trying to end a conversation. A Scurabon stepped in, touched the wrist with a flat tap. The blade landed a thumb off target, scraping rim, not meat. Two Ankles arrows went into the back of the Marauder’s calf like quiet remarks. It sat down on the spot Slime had saved for it. The next Wight tried to step over pride and met the gel. Humility followed.

Thalatha passed behind him. Her elbow leather brushed his sleeve, not enough to push, enough to register. "Left rim drifting," she murmured.

He lifted his hand with the smallest motion. The left shield’s rim came up a finger and kissed its neighbor. The wall returned to being a wall. Thalatha’s chin tipped—not a nod, exactly, more like a seam pressed flat.

"No one show off," he said, tone patient like a teacher with a class that wants to be clever too early. "Do your job."

The room tried to sell fear in three flavors—sound, light, and tilt. The mandala hummed under boots, a low note you felt before you heard. The lamps swelled and dimmed with the Whiteways’ breath in a way that made timing itch. The floor wanted ankles to lie by half a finger. Rodion’s strip made these tricks into background instead of weather. It was law. The formation stopped chasing the satisfaction of a flashy kill. They chased the metronome.

Another Skullcaster floated up like a bad thought rising. Its jaw was a neat crescent full of tiny teeth-shaped glyphs. The Sky squad didn’t panic. They watched the lamp swell. They loosed on the lift. The jaw dipped to sing and caught an arrow in the hinge instead of a note in the air. The sound that came out was not a chant. It was a cough that didn’t like being heard.

A lich caught the rolling core with the same care a shopkeeper uses to catch a coin tossed by a regular. The Myco-Archivist leaned in, gills lifting to taste it without touching. Two soft taps with a delicate tool: approval. The heart rolled to the left cloth, the place he had said was for later.

Two more Hounds hit the chutes and found manners waiting. One got low, belly tight to stone, trying to creep under the veil’s bottom edge. Silk allowed it to dream for exactly one breath. Then the thread stiffened in a polite shock and locked around its shoulders like a collar. Frost and Ember didn’t bother this time. The Hound thrashed by instinct and wore itself out the way a rope burns a fool’s hands.

"Rotate Scurabons," Mikhailis said. "New wrists to ruin."

The four knives flowed to new spots as if a hand had turned the board and the pieces already knew their new squares. It wasn’t speed; it was agreement.

A spear skeleton’s grip was a half-knuckle too proud on the haft. He stepped close and set his palm over bony fingers, easing them down until the wood sat in the notch where work turns into control. The skull faced him, empty-eyed, and somehow still looked like it had understood something. "Good," he said, quiet, like signing off a receipt.

Another Skullcaster, prickled by the lack of respect, rose higher, as if height could make an argument valid. The Sky squad did not chase the idea. They walked their shots one heartbeat faster. The third volley arrived like rain that remembered it was supposed to be a storm. The jaw cracked. Runes tumbled loose. Silk slid a thimble-sized cone over them before the air could teach them to be dangerous. The cone popped with a soft bell sound as it sealed. Small, neat, final.

Cycle stable. Recommend micro-raise: three archers, two shields.

"Do it," he said. "Rim only. Keep the circle hungry."