The Chasm Gnoll King moved.
Not with the frantic, clawing desperation of the lesser beasts that had been dying in droves around it; but that thought alone was already wrong, because Soren caught himself slipping into the wrong register the moment the creature rose from the altar. He reset. Observed.
It moved the way something old and certain of its own dominance moves. Deliberately. Without urgency. The altar stones cracked faintly beneath its feet as it straightened to its full height, and the sheer presence of the thing pressed down on the cavern like a second ceiling had dropped.
The rhythm of the battle stuttered.
