“Yeah?” Kelona turned back around. “But you didn’t even react to my Queen Flare.”
“That when you flashed gold? Oh, I did. I felt it. Like a smack upside the head. But I’m a Dread Blaze. Command and aura powers just don’t have the effect they should. But when you combined it with Wesyd’s song? That was potent.”
Kelona exchanged an excited glance with Wesyd, who cheered up for a moment then looked away again.
“Hey.” Scorio went over and crouched beside the seated Tomb Spark. “You ever meet my friend Lianshi? Class of 873?”
Wesyd shook his head.
“Her power was to turn utterly invincible for a few seconds. When she made Tomb Spark, she developed the ability to create these motes of light that drifted out to attack people. Slowly.”
Wesyd frowned at Scorio. “Are you trying to cheer me up by telling me there are other terrible power sets out there?”
“No. What I’m trying to tell you is that Lianshi told me she was impatient but not disappointed, because her powers felt unimpressive at first, but were setting her up for an awesome combination at the higher ranks that would make her absurdly dangerous. So maybe you’re not satisfied as a Tomb Spark with what you can do. But wait till your Flame Vault power arrives, and then your Dread Blaze power. I’ll bet you a vial of Diamond mana you’ll become a terror on the battlefield with what your singing chains are setting up.”
Wesyd’s eyebrows rose. “You think so?”
Scorio punched the man in the shoulder. “I’m a Dread Blaze. I’m not making this stuff up. Hang in there. Train hard. Ascend. One day you’ll be the one pulling my fat out of the fire.”
“Yeah right,” laughed Wesyd huskily, but Scorio saw a renewed spark in his eyes.
“Well, we four are going to be facing our first real fight soon. Apparently, half a thousand fiends are storming toward our war camp, and Taron’s managed to make them our responsibility.”
“Yes!” Kelona clenched one fist. “Perfect.”
Nagarjuna groaned and draped an arm over his face.
“So we’ve a couple of hours to refine how we’re going to work together.” Scorio rose to his feet. “Drink some water, catch your breath, then get ready to train. I want us to cut through those fiends like a Dread Blaze tearing through a bunch of Flame Vaults and Tomb Sparks.”
The three of them glared at him.
“What?” Scorio grinned. “Want me to use a different metaphor? Get up and change my mind.”
Kelona looked at the other two. “I think I’m going to like this guy.”
“That’s because you’re a masochist,” groaned Nagarjuna, rising wearily to his feet. “But fine. Yes. More abuse.”
Wesyd threw a handful of sand away and rose. “Let’s apply some tension to our souls. I can feel Flame Vault just around the corner.”
“Good.” Scorio beamed at the three of them. “Then let’s begin.”
Chapter 36
The Telurian sun descended toward the horizon like an apocalyptic comet, endlessly burning away the clouds that never broke, never parted to let its bloody light shine through.
Taron’s company marched along the tops of the dunes, the huge boulders of the Triangle to their right. They were fascinating to study, as they didn’t seem to be an organic part of the landscape. Massive as they were, they had the appearance of river rocks that had been laid by giants to form a great wall, their edges rounded, their substance a uniform, dull gray. Some loomed hundreds of yards above the plain, others were piled atop each other to form haphazard pyramids. The shadows between them were ink-thick and jet black, and Scorio was sure there were paths through their midst. Walking them would no doubt involve traversing cavern-like spaces beneath their lowest edges, or passing along the bottom of what had to feel like cyclopean chasms, smooth-walled, indifferent, and strangely alien.
The dunes undulated before them with dull monotony, running north to south. The setting sun painted them in lurid hues, the white sand turned gory by the horizontal effulgence. They marched toward the sunset, but so diffuse was the red light that Scorio barely had to squint.
Kelona, Wesyd, and Nagarjuna—or Juna, as he’d finally insisted Scorio call him—followed at a respectful distance of a dozen yards. Naomi had laughed at Taron’s suggestion that she walk with the Shadow Petal, so the pair of them trudged along their chosen dune in silence, Naomi’s eyes near closed as she practiced her meditation technique.
Across three parallel dunes were arrayed the rest of their force, strangely insubstantial when set against the immensity of the Bone Plains and the Triangle’s wall. Few spoke, all walking single file and squinting south, trying to gain some hint of the fiends’ approach.
Every handful of minutes Kelona flung herself up into the sky, her golden form gleaming bloodily in the dismal light. Everyone would crane their heads to watch, and invariably she’d thud back down onto the sands and shake her head, signaling no sign of the fiends.
They marched on.
Eventually, Taron gauged the moment propitious. He turned and pointed to Scorio, who ignited, surged up into his scaled form, then ran along the dune’s crest to leap and extend his wings, catching the gently warm air that rose just enough to fill his wings.
He rose with each great beat, scrutinizing the horizon. Dunes ran before him like undulating lines, growing smaller as he rose, endless and serpentine. He stared south, and thought he saw the hints of a dust cloud.
Excited, he banked and carved a spiral down to pass over Taron’s head: “Dust cloud, four or five miles!”
Taron raised his fist in acknowledgement and Scorio climbed again. Up and up, till he gained a cruising altitude and soared along, naturally adjusting his wings to catch updrafts and use a minimum of effort.
The cloud was but a smudge in the distance, immobile. No, not four or five miles; farther, and bigger than he’d thought.
Scorio realized he’d pulled a half-mile ahead of the others so he looped back and only turned south once the company was before him. He studied the dust cloud, then scanned the interior of the Bone Plains, only to let out a cry of surprise and jerk away to the right, toward the distant Triangle wall, at the sight of something huge in the far, far distance.
It hung in the air like a collection of bones, an abstraction of angular shapes that hinted at a vaguely humanoid form, if a creature could stand some forty or fifty yards tall and hover several hundred feet above the desert. Scorio regained his poise, resumed cruising, and watched the distant thing with avid focus. It didn’t move, didn’t seem to be approaching, and while he couldn’t really discern a head, more of a nesting set of angular bones high on its chest that suggested a focal point, it seemed to be facing south, toward the sun, and indifferent to their group.
Scorio dove and landed behind Taron, staggering a few steps on the giving sand before regaining his balance.
“Something new?” asked the Pyre Lord.
Scorio pointed into the desert’s interior. From here the hovering shape was just a smudge against the dark clouds. “There’s a huge… fiend? A construct of bones, or…” Scorio searched for the right words. “Something fifty yards tall, might have been holding a curved spear in each hand. Really strange, but I don’t think it’s noticed us.”
Taron pursed his lips and nodded, peering in the direction Scorio was pointing. “Sounds like a Seraphix. They’re incredibly rare and enigmatic, but usually mind their own business. They don’t fight for the Blood Ox, but occasionally descend to kill everything within several square miles and absorb their mana. Nobody knows why, as they don’t speak, but… “ Taron shrugged. “Keep an eye on it. If it starts coming our way, we’re aborting the mission and heading back to camp.”