He wants to say sur­ren­der to the hoplites, but then he notices a more imme­di­ate prob­lem: the lamashu, star­ing at them with its lam­p­like eyes, has low­ered its head. Its good horn points at them like a spear. It snorts and stamps its paw on the ground.

The beast stamp-snorts again, this time beat­ing its huge wings at the same time. Sand and dust blast every­where.

Gil real­izes he’s hold­ing a flame­craft in one hand and a flicker in the other.

Sur­pris­ing him­self with deci­sive­ness, he clicks the flicker’s wheel, draws a spark, and ignites the flame­craft.

The beast growls at this new light.

And with that, he lobs the flame­craft. The beast traces its flight through the air with its big head. It lands halfway between.

Then it explodes, a white-orange flash. The force knocks them back flat against the wall. It knocks the lamashu back­wards too, but it beats its wings, using the blast to lift itself back­wards and up into the air. It ends up perched pre­car­i­ously atop one of the big wooden gates, which begins to swing open and sag off its hinges.

The lamashu, eyes wide, beats its huge wings again and pushes off from the gate. This time, the gate tears away com­pletely from its hinges and slams to the ground in a volcano-explosion of dust. More wing­beats blast from above, each one bat­ting against thick clouds of dust and bil­low­ing smoke.

Gil just barely hears the gravitic door slide open.

She drags his dazed body into a steady run, down the pas­sage, over the col­lapsed wooden gate, and into the sand­pit arena.