He held at the edge of the light and ran the numbers, and for once they came out against him.
Caving the ground was out. Up in the shaft he'd had a hollow floor to drop the last swarm through; here the throat was his only road down, and bringing it in would bury the way to the bottom with everyone crammed inside. Funneling was just as dead; that trick paid when he could hold a chokepoint and let it thin them for him, and this time he was the one forcing it. It stood three deep in frozen muscle and pale burning eyes, wedged so tight the ones at the back couldn't have dropped if he'd cut them down.
Which left the oldest, ugliest work there was: open a hole in them and walk through it. So he went in.
The first one lunged, and he didn't break stride for it. He crossed the open ground and drove into the packed front of the passage like a wedge into green wood, and as he landed he let Maledicta wake all the way [Morgain's Requiem].
