The Hunt at the Crossroads

The Fighter-Butcher lunges into the dark mouth, blade low, shoulders square. The Elder Knight surges after him, and the Scarred Knight follows with a grim, measured pace.

Ahead, the anhkeg's clicking scrapes through stone, then shifts left, deeper into the side tunnel. The first dragon stands in the hidden chamber, half-lit by faint seams of wet rock, reading the split in the burrows.

The Fighter-Butcher does not wait. He crashes toward the louder tunnel, trying to drive the beast into the open. Boots hammer behind him, and loose grit spits from the walls.

The first dragon answers with motion, not words, and the chamber tightens around the choice as the anhkeg clicks once more from the dark.

The first dragon snaps his power into the tunnel wall, and the dark answers with a hard green flash. Stone rings like a struck bell.

The anhkeg jerks out of the side passage, joints stuttering, claws scraping uselessly at slick rock. Its clicking turns frantic, then breaks.

The Fighter-Butcher skids to a halt, blade lifted, staring at the beast as it spasms in the open.

The Scarred Knight steps into the chamber's throat, one look at the twitching shell and the fresh scorch telling him the path is won.

A torn shell segment falls free at the tunnel mouth, and beneath it a pale feed-hole opens like a secret seam in the rock.

The green bolt lashes down the anhkeg’s open seam again and again, lighting the chamber in sharp, jagged flashes.

Its limbs hammer the stone, then falter. The clicking dies into a wet rasp, and the shell goes still.

The Fighter-Butcher lowers his blade a fraction, staring at the motionless body.

In the wall, the pale feed-hole seam yawns wider in the flicker, cold and empty beneath the shattered shell.