"The best swordsmen are the ones who make their enemies focus on the wrong blade."
***
A hairline fracture shot up the pillar's base. Spread like lightning frozen in stone.
The crack widened as it climbed. Split into smaller tributaries that raced across the pillar's surface.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The stone groaned. A deep, ominous sound that seemed to come from the earth itself.
Then gravity remembered how to do its job.
The pillar crumbled. Not slowly. Not dramatically. Just suddenly wasn't there anymore.
The section of ceiling it had been supporting, a chunk of rock the size of a dinner table, crashed down between us and the goblins with a thunderous impact that shook the tunnel floor. Dust and debris exploded outward. Filled the passage with a cloud of grey-brown fog that made my eyes water and my lungs burn.
When the dust began to settle, I saw what I'd hoped to see.
