Erma loosens his rusting magic into the drill teeth and braces. Iron freckles brown, then orange, then flakes away in a choking bloom. The grinding roar turns to a shriek.

One by one, the drills seize. Shafts twist. Gears burst into red dust and brittle crumbs that spill across the chamber floor.

The silence after is brutal. Green wardglow catches the drifting rust cloud, and the buried beam of dull ore lies exposed like a cut seam in the earth.

The Newborn Dragon stares, wide-eyed and still, tracking Erma's motion as if learning what kind of guardian he is.

Far down the exposed tunnel, a fresh scrape answers the silence, faint but unmistakable, as if the legion notices its path has been broken.

Erma spreads his magic across the exposed mouth of the tunnel, and the opening seals into a rough green-black sheath of stone and light.

The barrier takes hold with a tremor through the wall. Dust pours from the seam, then stops, held fast as if the earth itself has clenched its jaw.

A hard impact thuds beyond the new seal, muffled but urgent. The ward gives a brief flare, and the silver-green scales on the knights catch its glow.

Then the drumming rush begins, boots and spears pounding in the dark beyond the blockage, too many to count.

Erma holds the seal steady, and the tunnel answers him by gathering the enemy in one place. The pounding grows denser, bodies closing in behind the blocked mouth.

The rough barrier does not crack. It drinks each impact, throws back a dull green flare, and the stone around the seam firms like a clenched fist.

For a breath, the rushing beyond the wall turns ragged, then bunches tighter, as if spears and shields are pressing into a narrowing throat.

Then the drumming stops all at once. In the sudden silence, a hundred armored feet surge forward at the same time, hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.

Erma inhales the pressure of the seal, then releases it as a shriek of green force. The sound knifes through stone and flesh alike.

Beyond the barrier, the clustered rush buckles. Armor rattles, feet skid, and the packed line breaks into a stunned, choking heap.

The ward flares hard with the blast, then steadies. Dust sifts from the ceiling, and the stone-sealed law glows brighter along the seam.

For one breath, the tunnel goes silent except for distant bodies crashing into one another.

Then the silence reveals the next charge, infantry pounding forward on foot, coming fast for the gap.

Erma throws his breath outward in a jagged chain of green-white lightning. It leaps from the sealed seam into the packed front ranks beyond, snapping from helm to shield to blade.

The infantry line convulses. Men stagger apart, their charge broken by flashing arcs and the stink of scorched metal.

Hold the seam! They cannot force it while they are scattered!

The ward answers his power, flaring bright along the stone-sealed law. The visible mark in the tunnel wall shines like fresh-cut runes.

Beyond the gap, the stunned hush snaps apart under pounding boots. The legion surges forward on foot, now close enough for steel to ring against the seal.

Erma presses his will into the earth. The floor answers with a deep groan, and the stone below the drill-scar gives way.

A slab of tunnel roof sags, then crashes inward. Dust bursts up in a choking cloud as the breach cinches shut under a fresh weight of rock.

The ward flares along the sealed seam, catching on the new collapse and knitting it into the stone-sealed law.

For one sharp instant, the pounding of boots stops, then a harsher sound answers from the other side, a rush of infantry converging on the dead drills.

The Newborn Dragon lifts its head, eyes bright on the fading dust, while the visible mark in the wall still burns green-white.

Erma presses deeper, not at the seal but through the listening stone around it. The ward’s green-white line shivers, then catches on hidden pressure points far beyond the buried drills.

One by one, the distant shafts cave in. Rock answers rock with dull thunder, and the tunnel network beyond the collapse folds shut under its own weight.

The visible mark on the wall brightens, then settles into a hard, steady glow. Dust pours from several seams at once, as if the earth is exhaling the legion out of its own mouth.

For a breath, only silence remains. Then it cracks.

From the far side of the buried paths comes a sudden stampede of boots, harsher and closer than the drills ever were, rushing for the gap by hand.

Erma holds the seam and lets the boots come. The ward stays steady, a hard green-white line in the stone, while the sound swells into the chamber mouth.

Dust shakes loose from the fresh cracks as the first figures hit the far side. Not drills now, but men on foot, packed tight and moving fast behind the buried wall.

Erma does not strike. The chamber answers with silence, and the rushing steps slam against the hidden barrier in a confused, grinding mass.

The visible mark on the wall flashes once, then steadies again. Beyond it, the infantry bunches up, their advance checked at the sealed gap.

Erma draws in the stink of iron, dust, and panicked breath, then exhales a brown, choking cloud into the seam. It spills through the stone like rot given shape.

On the far side, the packed infantry breaks. Armor freckles red-brown, mail darkens, and a wave of coughing crashes back through the wall.

The ward flickers under Erma's exhalation, then steadies. The visible mark on the wall smokes at the edges, and the first impact beyond it turns ragged and blind.

The Newborn Dragon flinches at the bitter haze, then stares through it with bright, awe-struck focus as the eggs shimmer faintly behind them.

The silence after the coughs is worse. Boots scramble, shouting gathers, and the legion surges forward again, now on foot, trying to reach the gap with hands and blades.

Erma turns the command into a pulse of force, and Thovik answers at once.

The blue dragon thrusts his jaws toward the seam and blasts a hard, cold rush through the smoke. The ward flashes green-white, catching the stream and driving it straight into the packed infantry beyond.

On the far side, the shouting breaks into panic. Armor clangs, bodies tumble, and the first ranks are forced backward from the gap.

The Newborn Dragon stares through the fading haze, eggs shimmering behind it as the sanctuary ward holds and the manual rush stalls at the sealed line.

Erma drives his next exhale into the seam, but the ward bites wrong, scattering the flame into a ragged green spray. The blast smears across the smoke and gutters on the stone, leaving only a hot hiss at the center.

The barrier flares harder instead of opening, its light thickening into a bright knot that shoves back the pressure from within. Heat ripples over the smoldering mark in the wall.

Beyond the seal, the infantry's pounding changes. The drill roar is gone, but boots and armor scrape forward in a tighter rush, pressing toward the gap on foot.

The Newborn Dragon recoils from the flare, then stares through the smoke as the eggs shimmer faintly behind the ward. The sanctuary's glow steadies, while the far side fills with the hard sound of men closing in.

Erma drives a searing primordial breath through the ward seam, and the flare catches it clean. Green fire punches into the gap, washing over the packed infantry beyond.

Men shout and reel back in the smoke, their front rank stumbling over the ones behind them. The tunnel mouth flashes white-green, then dims in angry pulses.

The ward bites hard at Erma's chest as the breath ends, and a thin crackle of pain runs through his jaws. The tunnel wall keeps smoking, but the infantry's charge collapses into a choking pile of boots and armor.

Beyond the haze, the seal suddenly goes quiet. For one breath, only coughing and shouted orders answer the silence, then new feet slam forward in a rough rush toward the gap.

The Newborn Dragon lifts its head, eyes wide at the flare, while the eggs glimmer behind the ward. The sanctuary still stands, but the manual advance is coming fast.

Erma thrusts his will into the seam, and the blackened stone answers. Wet earth boils up from the floor in three rough shapes, shoulders and claws taking form under his command.

The first elemental hits the gap like a living mound, slamming into the front rank. Another claws across boots and greaves, dragging the pressed line sideways. The third rises half from rubble, then hurls a spray of rock into the oncoming rush.

The ward flares brighter as the elementals meet steel and bodies, turning the manual charge into a broken knot of shouting and stumbling men.

Behind them, the eggs shimmer in the green-white light, and the Newborn Dragon stares at the moving earth with startled wonder. The seal still holds, but the infantry keeps pushing at the bruised opening.

Erma pours his blackness into the tunnel seam. The ward swallows the dark and holds it there, turning the opening into a deep blind mouth.

The infantry lose their footing in the gloom. Steel flashes once, then vanishes as their front ranks hunch and collide blind against the jam.

The sanctuary ward flares bright through the black, and the eggs answer with a faint shimmer. The tunnel walls keep their smoldering mark, half-lost in the new darkness.

Beyond the veil, the legion surges by sound alone, boots pounding hard toward the gap. Their charge is muted, but it does not stop.

Erma turns the black veil from a shield into a weapon. His throat draws tight, then opens on a sound that bends the air in the tunnel.

The blast hits the packed ranks beyond the gap. Dust jumps from the stone, shields jerk sideways, and the front line folds in on itself.

The ward flashes green-white through the veil, and the eggs answer with a quick, faint shimmer behind the defenders.

For one heartbeat, the tunnel goes strangely still. Then the sound of armored feet surges back, lower now, harder, rushing toward the gap on foot.

Erma swells fast, scales bending with his breath, his body taking on the long mass of a cave wyrm. He drives forward through the torn veil and into the packed infantry beyond the seal.

The front rank breaks under his weight. Shields crunch aside, armored bodies tumble back, and his jaws close over the crush of the charge as the ward flares against his flanks.

Stone grinds under Erma’s claws as he twists his bulk, forcing the legion’s rush into a choking knot. The visible mark on the tunnel wall flashes in the wardlight, and dust bursts around him.

The Newborn Dragon stares with awe-struck stillness from the rear, while the silver-green scales on the knights catch the flare. The infantry reels, but a spear tears a hot line along Erma’s shoulder as he tears through them.

For a heartbeat, the passage is theirs. Then distant feet hammer toward the gap from deeper in the legion, drawn by the noise.

Erma tears in air and sound, and the passage answers with a raw, draconic howl. The frequency ripples down the tunnel, rattling dust from the visible mark on the stone and making the ward flare hard around the breach.

The legion’s front ranks stumble in place. Helmets twitch, shields dip, and the packed charge loses its beat as the sound keeps biting through the tunnel.

The Newborn Dragon presses low near the eggs, eyes fixed on Erma while the pale shells shimmer in the wardlight.

Then the sound comes back thinner and farther off, not a charge, but a disorderly crash of feet as the infantry starts rushing forward by hand through the gap.

Erma bites into the stone above the tunnel throat, and the ceiling answers his will. Long seams split with a dry crack, then sag at once over the oncoming rush.

A sheet of rock and dust crashes down into the breach, burying the path where the infantry is funneled. The ward flares hard as the collapse catches and holds.

The Newborn Dragon flinches at the roar of falling earth, then stares through the settling dust, eyes bright on the trembling wall.

For a heartbeat, nothing moves beyond the collapse. Then a dull hammering starts behind the rubble, closer and more frantic than the drills ever were.

The ward flashes once more over the stone seal, and the buried infantry begins clawing forward by hand.

Erma lowers his head and breathes searing heat over the stone seam. The ground between the buried legion and the sanctuary reddens, then glows like banked coals.

The ward catches the heat and throws it back in a bright pulse, sealing the hot strip into a harsh, glassy barrier. Dust hisses as it settles on the line.

Behind the fused stone, the frantic hammering stops for a breath. Then it shifts, spreading sideways along the wall instead of back through the ruin.

The Newborn Dragon lifts its head, awe fixed on the shining seam, as the first sharp thuds of infantry boots strike the far side in a running charge.

Erma sinks his will into the seam, and the hot stone answers. The reddened strip thickens outward into a vented shell, hard as kiln-fired bone, layered several feet deep around the breach.

A sharp crack runs through the ward as it finishes the shape. The glassy face holds, but the effort leaves a faint tremor in Erma’s frame and a scorched pulse in the mark on the wall.

For one breath, the pounding behind the stone falters. Then it returns in a harsher rhythm, closer and lower, as if armored feet are already swarming into the gap.

Dust skitters from the ceiling. The ward flashes over the new shell in bright pulses, and the first distinct rush of infantry boots spills through the silence.

Erma shifts his focus from the shell to the dark beyond it, and the ward answers with a sharper pulse. The stone seam hums under his command as he turns the charge outward.

Thovik surges to the breach line, claws spread, shoulders braced toward the incoming rush. His breath rolls low and cold over the stone edge, meeting the first pounding feet.

Inside the shelter, Erma lowers his head and gathers the shape of a summoning. The visible mark on the wall brightens, and dust trembles loose from the ceiling.

The Elder Knight steps into the flashing light, shield up, silver-green scales catching the wardflare. The Newborn Dragon stays tucked low, eyes wide on the shaking stone.

A burst of grit snaps out from the shell as Erma spends the last of that cast. The ward holds, but the strain leaves his mark on the wall hotter and brighter, and the infantry keep coming.

Erma answers the pressure in the dark with a deeper kind of silence. A shape peels loose from the ward’s shadow, thin as smoke and clawed like a thought, and it slips through the seam toward the legion line.

The figure finds a helm in the crush of feet. Fingers made of night close around the legion leader’s throat, and the march stutters as bodies jam behind him.

The ward flashes hard over the fused shell. The visible mark on the wall burns white-green for an instant, and the ceiling sheds another fall of dust.

Beyond the barrier, the legion’s forward rush breaks into a choking scramble. Steel knocks stone, boots skid, and the manual charge surges up to meet the gap.

Inside the shelter, the Newborn Dragon lifts their head toward the flare, eyes shining. The stone-sealed law hums faintly through the walls as the leaders wait for the next move.

Erma draws in, then exhales lightning into the seal. The ward catches most of it, but a jagged green-white lash punches through the stone and scatters the front rank beyond in a flashing stumble.

The visible mark on the wall gutters under the strain. Hairline cracks of light race across the fused shell, then knit shut with a harsh, smoking hiss.

Beyond the barrier, the legion surges anyway, boots hammering closer where the drills once stood. The first line presses into the gap with shields up and spears low.

Inside the sanctuary, the Newborn Dragon flinches at the flash, then stares wide-eyed at Erma and the trembling ward.

The ward flashes again, hotter than before, and the sound beyond shifts from pounding to a harsh, urgent rush of feet.

Erma snaps his lightning again, not at the wall, but through its trembling grain. The ward takes the blow and forks it outward in a bright green-white braid.

On the far side, the first rank jerks apart in a scatter of shields and spears, their charge breaking into stumbling gaps.

The visible mark on the tunnel wall smokes hard, then steadies as the ward drinks the backlash. Dust rains from the ceiling in thin sheets.

Beyond the seal, the drill crews vanish from the noise, replaced at once by the scrape of boots and the clatter of infantry rushing up to fill the breach.

Inside the sanctuary, the hatchling lifts its head toward Erma, while the ward flashes once more and the oncoming footsteps press closer.

Erma throws his voice into the seam, a harsh shriek that rides through stone and ward alike. The ward answers with a sharp green flare, and the infantry’s nearest line falters in the dark.

For a breath, the pounding boots lose their rhythm. Shields knock together. The charge breaks into jostling ranks, packed too tight to rush cleanly through the breach.

The smoldering mark on the wall cracks with light, then dulls. A ribbon of grit slides down Erma’s muzzle from the strain, and the ward hisses like heated glass.

Beyond the seal, the legion shifts from drill and rush to bare-footed pounding, closing in on the barrier by force of bodies alone.

The first hands and spearpoints strike from the far side, and the sealed wall shudders under the pressure, demanding the defenders’ next move.

Erma turns inward, scales darkening to a deep, void-black sheen as he reaches into the fallen ranks beyond the seal. The air goes cold with grave-magic, and the nearest bodies twitch under his will.

Across the broken threshold, three legionnaires haul themselves upright in stiff, jerking motions. Their armor hangs loose with dust and impact, but their shields lift into a rough wall between the living and the press behind them.

The ward blooms green-white around the new servants, and the smoldering wall mark spits a rain of sparks. One of the raised dead locks its spearpoint through the gap and stalls the oncoming shove.

The cost lands at once, a sharp ache through Erma's chest and a thread of black residue slipping from his mouth onto the stone. Behind the shield-wall, the legion's infantry surges harder, startled into fresh noise.

The dead hold for the moment, but the living crowd behind them, hammering the seal by hand and by spearpoint, demanding a choice from the defenders.

Erma sharpens the command into the dead ranks, and the raised legionnaires lurch forward at once. Their shield wall slams out from the seal, turning from barricade to battering ram against the press behind them.

The living infantry on the far side falter as the dead drive into their front line. Spears snag, shields tilt, and the crowded push turns ragged under the sudden blow.

The ward flares brighter around the struggling bodies, and the smoldering mark on the wall spits another shower of sparks. Black residue trails from Erma's mouth to the stone, but the line ahead keeps shoving back.

For a breath, the legion's manual assault buckles under the dead's attack. Then fresh shouting rises from beyond the seal, louder and closer, as more infantry surge to reclaim the gap.

Erma’s scales drink in the dark, and the blackness settles over him like birth-deep midnight. The green sheen vanishes from edge to edge, leaving only a pitch-black hide that swallows the wardlight.

The sanctuary ward flares in answer, washing the black scales in pale green. The newborn dragon stares upward, awestruck, its head lifted toward Erma’s darker form.

Along the wall, the fresh mark from Erma’s power still smolders, while the black residue on the stone fades into the new color of him. Beyond the seal, the infantry’s pounding grows louder, but here the chamber holds its breath.

Erma pours the dark into the fallen dead. The void clings to their armor and bones, deepening them into a harder, colder wall before the seal.

The undead shield wall lurches forward in unison, driven by his will. Their linked bodies catch the first impact and do not give ground.

A cost lands at once. Black frost crawls over Erma’s foreclaws, numb and sharp, and the smoldering mark on the wall spits a brief shower of ash.

Beyond the seal, the pounding changes. The drill noise is gone. Boots strike stone in a rushing line, many feet, fast and angry.