‘Don’t stop now!’ yelled Ross as they felled the latest wave of monsters and paused for breath. He charged ahead, taking his turn at the front of the pack, as yet another wave of monsters reached them, coming up the ledge—a herd of supersized centipedes. Ross hewed through the first one he came to with his sword, splitting it cleanly into two across its width, then kept running and cleaved through the next one that leapt at him straight down the middle. He fought like a man possessed, his spell-blade glowing red, then blue, then yellow, then green, then back again as he bound different elemental alignments to it in conjunction with his fighting style, no doubt the desperate dream of redeeming himself and recovering the possibility of re-establishing his lost homeland driving him on.

Horatio watched, panting, for a moment as Olivia ran forwards and joined Ross, providing cover for him by calling down miniature comets out of thin air to smash into the centipedes out of Ross’s line of sight that were about to catch up to him. As ever, she seemed to know exactly where they were going to move and strike next, and headed them off. The pair were a formidable duo. But then Helen joined them too, laughing and shouting with battle-joy, and the centipedes were truly doomed. Helen set about them alongside Ross and Olivia, alternating between shooting arrows at them with her bow, then putting her bow back over her shoulder and tearing through them with her axe as they got closer, moving seamlessly between the two modes of combat, still laughing and shouting and thrilling all the while.

The last centipede of the swarm was dispatched, falling into two pieces from before it dissolved into gas in mid-air.

And then an ogre stepped forwards towards them along the ledge.

It was about four times the size of the “regular” ogres they had been fighting in Braxia so far. In other respects it was like them, green and muscled with a big paunch and an even bigger club—except this one was so big its head touched the bottom of the spiral ledge on the next level up.

Ross, Olivia and Helen stared up at the ogre, no doubt exhausted from fighting through the centipedes.

‘Ouzo’s turn!’ shouted Ouzo, and the Wolf Clanner bounded forward to the front of the party and threw a spherical object straight at the ogre, which exploded.

Everything went white, and Horatio lost a moment of consciousness.

When he came to himself he was on his back, looking up at the next level of the stone dungeon-ledge above him, and his ears were ringing.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position with a grunt, and his hearing came back. Chaos all around. Monsters screeching, Braxians shouting, his party members calling.

Ouzo was lying next to him. The Wolf-Clan shopkeeper had been knocked backwards and to the ground from the force of his own attack.

The shopkeeper lifted his head to look at his handiwork.

‘Ouzo had been saving that one,’ he said to Horatio. ‘Special recipe. Took Ouzo a very long time to brew up.’ His head flopped back down for a moment—not in death, but in exhaustion.

Horatio got shakily to his feet. A little way in front of him, a large section of the ledge they had been running down, about ten people long, had been blown away by the explosion. There was no remaining sign of the ogre at all.

‘Nice work, Ouzo,’ Horatio said to the Wolf Clanner, and took his hand, helping him up with an effort. ‘You did good. Only now we need a way to get across this gap.’

‘Easy work for a thief!’ cried Silvia, and sprang forwards. She must have been right at the back of the party, as she seemed completely unphased by the explosion.

Silvia produced a rope with a grappling hook on the end of it from somewhere within her dress and span it round in a circle above her head a few times, then threw the hook out over the gap.

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The metal hook bounced off the far edge of the gap, failing completely to catch onto anything at all, and then slid down into gap , the length of rope following behind it.

‘Ah,’ said Silvia. ‘Oh well. You win some; you lose some.’

More monsters were coming up the ledge on the far side: rats, bears, slimes, but also imps and hornets and succubuses and other wicked things with wings.

‘Give it to me!’ Horatio said to Silvia, sheathing his sword, ‘Quickly!’

He took the end of the rope from startled Silvia and turned to speak to the whole party.

‘Not across!’ he yelled quickly, gesturing. ‘Down! I’ll hold the rope while everyone climbs down to the next level below!’

‘Are you sure you can manage that?’ Ceres asked him, close by having just healed Ouzo.

‘I’ll have to! Come on!’

He beckoned for Walter to come forwards as he wanted a strong fighter to go down first, since he could already see monsters arriving underneath them on the ledge below.

Horatio knelt down, two hands clutching the rope tightly, then gritted his teeth as Walter turned and lowered himself over the ledge and began to climb down using the rope.

Horatio’s triceps flared with pain immediately as he took the weight. Walter was damned heavy. It must be all those weapons he carried. And maybe the added weight of his ego, the sellsword thought bitterly.

One by one the party members climbed down the rope to the next level of the spiral ledge about twenty feet below as Horatio held it for them with clenched teeth and straining muscles, trying not to worry about the monsters that kept almost reaching him in their maddened attempts to kill him.

Primus, Olivia, Ursula and Ceres came and stood at his side as he held the rope, hurling magical death at any monster that targeted them or flew towards them or the other descending party members, then shimmied down the rope themselves one by one too whenever there was a lull in the monsters’ assault.

When it got to Ceres’ turn, she paused for a moment, just before lowering herself over the ledge, looking into Horatio’s eyes.

‘Horatio, I….’

She began.

‘There’s no time now!’ said Horatio, mindful of an approaching caped eagle which Alex clobbered with his staff. ‘Tell me later, if we live through this!’

Ceres nodded, tight-lipped, then made her way down the rope. Horatio regretted his words immediately. What had she been about to say?

Ceres reached the ledge below, joining the battle that begun there.

That just left Alex.

Horatio inclined his head for Alex to take his turn climbing down the rope, even though by now his arms were on fire with the strain of holding it for all the other party members.

‘Don’t worry about me!’ said Alex, who had stayed last to defend Horatio. ‘I’ll jump down. How will you get down?’

Horatio peered down at his companions fighting with the monsters on the level below.

‘I’ll do the same,’ he said.

Alex nodded, then jumped down through the gap.

Horatio let go the rope and it dropped down below after Alex..

Then he drew his sword and selected a monster.

He stepped over the edge of the broken ledge.

‘Aaaarggggghhh!’ he roared, his battle cry, as he flew through the air, which whistled past his ears and riffled through his hair.

He landed on top of the monster, right in the middle of the melee, immediately plunged into a battle in which the party were surrounded.