Hajin crouched with the vanguard behind a fallen architrave beside the nearest column, where the avenue opened beneath the dome. Pillars forty paces high climbed toward the basilica's vault, their upper joints lost in moss and mist beyond every lantern.
Something stood inside the pulsing ward with its head above the nearest surviving wall.
The hound's shoulder rose twenty feet above paving beneath a collar whose metal fittings drove three currents into the floor. Obsidian teeth showed between parted jaws while its stone flanks stayed still, letting the ward's pulse reach Hajin through dust.
'Oh hell no, those paws could close this avenue before the horses find room to turn.'
"Good doggy," he whispered, "huge, horrifying doggy, you stay right there and keep being furniture."
Seret brought the wagons under the outer arcade while his vice captain tucked eight knights behind the column bases.
"Nobody touches the boundary," the captain warned, leveling his sword at its nearest arc.
