“There’s one way to find out.” Plassus’ grin was half-mad. “We cross the wall and drive north. I’ll see if I can sense them. That many Gold-ranked fiends together will register. If I’m wrong? We’ll have run ourselves ragged for naught. But if I’m right?”
“If you’re right we’ll provoke the Blood Ox and be slaughtered,” snapped Eorox.
“Why, old friend, do you want to live forever?” Plassus placed a hand on the Blood Baron’s shoulder. “Any moment we slow the beast is a second for the Imperators to catch up. We do what we can, not because we must, but because there’s nobody bloody else left to help. And -”
The air to the side shimmered and yawned open wide into a portal. Scorio and the rest of the company turned, alarmed, only to see a handful of Great Souls step through.
Aezryna in her cerulean armor, helm under her arm. Charoth in his mighty ceremonial cloak, his chin lowered, eyes burning with fell intent. Jova just a step behind them, lips pursed, and a half-dozen others, none ranked below Pyre Lord.
Plassus let out a cry of satisfaction and threw open his arms. “It seems I was premature in declaring ourselves abandoned!”
Charoth stepped up and clasped hands with the Charnel Duke, the smack of palm and palm loud enough to hint at the excess force used in the greeting. “LastRock was dull! If you thought we’d sit this out and await Moira’s updates, you have failed to gain the measure of me.”
“Let’s aid in clearing this space,” said Aezryna, tone clipped, and she stretched a hand toward the skies. The air grew frigid, Scorio’s breath ghosting before his lips as a storm of ice shards flew from her palm to spiral and swirl up into the heavens. The tentacled fiends shrieked as she summoned a lethal blizzard in the air, driving spikes of ice to and fro in great shifting curtains that sliced and sheared the fiends apart.
“By the ten hells,” whispered someone close by.
The display of power lasted but perhaps ten seconds, but in that time Aezryna cleared the skies of some fifty wheeling fiends, and when she dropped her hand nothing remained in the heavens above them but glittering frozen motes that slowly descended toward them, the arid air rendered pristine and sharp as Scorio breathed deeply of its coolness.
“I’m glad you came,” laughed Plassus. “But there’s more where those came from.”
“Let them come,” said Aezryna, tone taut, words precise. “But tell us what you know.”
“Take this to your brother,” said Plassus, tossing Fyrona a metal vial, then he stepped aside with the two newly arrived Blood Barons to confer.
Kelona had been hanging back, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, but her distress was clear. Scorio gestured for her to approach, and she fairly ran across the mesa to join them. “Wesyd, I lost track of him back there—”
“He didn’t make it.” Scorio wanted to lie, but couldn’t make himself. “Juna?”
Kelona shook her head mutely.
For a moment they could only stare at each other in shared anguish, and then Scorio placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s a miracle any of us are still alive. They fought hard, they fought well, and they died warriors’ deaths.” He didn’t know if he believed a word of that, but Kelona nodded fiercely, drinking it in. Needing it. “When the time comes to move, you stay close to me and Naomi. We’ll get through this together. You can do this.”
Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes, brimming but not overflowing.
He squeezed her shoulder. “You can do this, Kelona.”
Her nod was sharp, but she still looked terrified, looked young and completely out of her depth.
Scorio cast about for something, anything he could say to help. “Don’t forget. We’re immortal. If we die here, we’ll be reborn in the next class to rise and fight again. You’ve done this a—well, how many times have you been reborn?”
“Two hundred and three.”
“You’ve done this two hundred and three times before. You’ve fought in the Bone Plains, the Iron Weald, you’ve fought here in the Telurian Band. What’s the highest rank you reached?”
“Crimson Countess.”
Scorio hesitated. He’d not expected that. “Crimson Countess? By the gods, Kelona, you’re nobody to mess with. But if you fall here as a Flame Vault? You’ll come roaring back, ready for vengeance. So when we go down there, you give the fiends everything you’ve got. You fight them in Wesyd’s name, in Juna’s. And together, we’ll carve a bloody furrow through their ranks till we break free and find either the peace of death or the bright burning fire of victory. But regardless, we’ll find it together. You hear me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Are you an immortal?”
“Yes,” she said again, more powerfully, and stood a little straighter.
“Damn straight you are,” he said, cuffing her shoulder lightly. “Now go find some water. Once we get started, there’ll be no stopping.”
Kelona inhaled raggedly, gave a sharp nod, and strode away to where a measly collection of packs had been gathered.
Jova stood close by; she’d been listening in. Only now did she step up, her expression closed, her gaze flicking up and down Scorio’s length. “Inspiring words. I think she bought it.”
“How was LastRock?”
“I expected it to be familiar, but it was almost as if I’d never been there before.”
Scorio smirked. “Funny, that.”
“It’s big. Empty. Once, maybe, it might have been grand, but the war hasn’t been kind. What happened?”
Naomi joined them, her expression suspicious, but made no comment as Scorio quickly recounted how the Tokalauths had boiled up from the sands, bogging them down, only for the fiends to wash over them like an endless tide.
Jova nodded, taking it in, then glanced up. A flock of flying fiends were diving toward them in corkscrews. Her Heart ignited, she clenched her fist, and the rock to their side fractured, fragmented, then rose into a cloud of shards which she hurled up into the air. The fiends screeched, dove aside, but half the volley hit them regardless. The fragments that missed curved back around and hunted the fiends down, smashing into their heads and knocking them from the sky.
“It’s good to be back on stone,” said Jova quietly. “The sand was driving me mad.”
“Show off,” said Scorio, relieved despite himself to have her there. Plassus’ plan had smacked of suicidal folly, but the sight of Charoth, confident and strong, Aezryna in her immaculate armor, and now Jova with her preternatural control over stone filled him with a wild and desperate sense of hope.
Not to mention the four other Great Souls that had followed them through, and who had to be heavy hitters themselves.
Naomi crossed her arms. “Are others going to teleport in?”
“No.” Jova’s tone was firm. “What Shengtong has in range and precision she lacks in frequency. Opening this portal to you so soon after sending us to LastRock nearly broke her. The soonest we can expect reinforcements is twelve hours, maybe more.”
“So we’re on our own,” said Naomi bitterly.
“One way or another, we always are,” said Jova with a dark smile. “You’re still a Flame Vault?”
“Fuck you,” snapped Naomi.
“You’re welcome to try. I’ve a feeling you’d not have much luck. Scorio.” Jova gave him an upnod and strode away to join the other four.
“We’re not friends with her,” said Naomi.
“No,” agreed Scorio. “But I’m still glad she’s here.”
“Hmmph.” Naomi raked her hair back and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Still a Flame Vault. What’s her problem? She’s the backstabbing monster who let Daemon dupe her for two years. That’s what I should have bloody said to her. Damn it.”
“Let’s focus on staying alive.” Scorio scanned the skies. Flocks of the tentacled fiends were streaming north, some miles away, most indifferent to the Great Souls gathered atop the boulder, but those closest curving away from their trajectories to begin approaching. “We’re not going to remain unmolested here for long.”