Time passed. The world darkened, grew cool. Eventually Scorio sat up, stiff and hungry. Everyone was gathered small groups, either in silence or murmuring quietly to each other. Naomi lay by his side, forearm resting over her eyes. Jova sat meditating off by herself. Charoth remained standing, arms crossed, glowering west. Aezryna seemed to be making the rounds, stopping by each small group to crouch and check in. No sign of the Shadow Petal. Taron was also asleep, head resting on a small bundle. Fyrona, Merideva, and Nyrix were the only ones who remained from their company. When had they lost Galvon?
Plassus’ voice shattered the stillness with grim delight. “Ah-ha! Found them. They flee toward the Iron Weald.” Everybody stirred, sat up, and stared as the Charnel Duke pointed northwest. “That way. No sign of the Blood Ox, but he must be with them. Hundreds of his elites, tearing toward the canyons of the Iron Weald.”
“How far?” demanded Charoth.
“Hmm.” Plassus rubbed at his chin. “With my power? We’d catch them soon enough. They’re not rushing. A day of hard marching.”
“Dawn has broken.” Aezryna cracked her neck and swung her arms. “Is everyone ready?”
“They’ve no choice. Up! Up, damn your eyes. Moira tells me there’s no sign of the Imperators yet, but they can’t be far. We move!”
Everyone climbed to their feet. Scorio felt stiff, but the air was positively saturated with Bronze and the rare streak of Silver. These he drank in, replacing the contents of his reservoir, and oh, the Silver was a joy to experience. Smooth and regal, rich and fluid, it made even the bright power of Bronze pale in comparison.
Scorio hefted his pack, drank a few gulps of water from his nearly empty skin, and then fell in with the others as they set after the fiends.
The landscape was brutal, raw, metallic. Brackish lakes of still water reflected the sky like mirrors, and hills would rise up like broken teeth to cup pools or cast shadows across the shattered landscape. The air itself had a unique tang, bitter and acrid.
Plassus led their company in a brisk march, skirting small lakes till they reached the shore of a great expanse of water, all rust and amber, its surface shimmering with an eerie, unnatural sheen. The colors were vivid but somehow vile, a miasma of golds, crimsons, and sickly oranges that stretched toward the horizon.
The acrid stench deepened into one of chemical decay. Yet even as they raced along the lake’s endless edge, the toxic hues blending into each other cast a strange spell on Scorio; they betrayed a beauty that was simultaneously seductive and repellent.
The landscape slipped by them, faster and faster. It was a feverish business, hustling while under Plassus’ aegis. Scorio would blink and a bleak promontory would have fallen behind, while a series of cracked mountains would have slipped across the southern horizon. A spell of following the curvature of the huge lake, and then he’d blink and it would have pulled away, distant now as they raced across smaller lagoons and badlands.
On and on they rushed, the sun rising, rising, untold miles disappearing beneath their feet. On they strode, crossing the Telurian Band, and Scorio saw fiends shy away from their path. A massive pack of alabaster quadrupeds the size of horses banded with fibrous crimson slashes like gills leaped away, tails lashing as they fled. A solitary bull Okoz, twice as big as those they’d fought on the Bone Plains, stood proudly upon a bluff, watching them with his azure visage cast into a frown of disdain. Swarms of insectile fiends angled toward them, but were left behind by Plassus’ speed, so that they curved too late to follow and then were lost.
On and on they raced, the sun now dipping back toward the horizon, and then finally Plassus raised a fist and they slowed, his grip on their group slackening, and only then did weariness steal in, turning Scorio’s limbs leaden, his mind numb with exhaustion, his feet aching as if he’d thumbed live coals into their soles.
Many groaned and dropped into crouches, or stood panting, hands on hips. Plassus took a few more steps forward, then pointed.
“There.” He turned back to the group, his own brow sheened with sweat. “A mile hence. Can you feel them? They stream toward the Iron Weald, the bastards.”
“How many?” asked Aezryna, rebraiding her honey-colored hair with deft, dexterous fingers.
“Pah. It’s hard to tell. A hundred, perhaps. The ragged remnants of the Blood Ox’s glorious vanguard. They’ll be hollowed out with hunger, weak from deprivation. Subsisting on Bronze for them is like our only drinking water; we’ll live for a month, but after the first week we won’t be a pretty sight. Good thing, too. A hundred vital Gold-ranked fiends would be a handful.”
“The plan?” Charoth alone didn’t seem wearied by their march. “Assault them till the Blood Ox appears? And if he does, what then?”
“He must be close by.” Plassus grimaced and scanned the horizon. “Hidden deep in his Sanctum like a rotten seed poked into the material of hell. No doubt he’s tethered himself to one of his greatest fiends.”
Aezryna coiled her braid upon the crown of her head and affixed it with three curving pins. “I’ve spoken with Moira. LastRock is uncontested and in our power. Vermina’s forces are almost there, and will help hold the city. There’s no sign of the two Imperators, though it’s possible they skirted the city in favor of coming right for us.”
Plassus rubbed his lined cheek. “A gamble, it’s all a bloody wager. We antagonize the Blood Ox too soon, and he’ll emerge to kick our arses. We wait too long, and they’ll gain the Iron Weald and possibly go underground, losing themselves in the labyrinth. We’re, what, a half-day from the Dead Ridge? Beyond that, if they cut a straight path for the Iron Weald it’s little under fifty miles.”
“We could let them cross the Dead Ridge, then fall upon them as they descend the far side,” said Eorox, tone dubious. “We’d have the high ground, at any rate.”
Plassus nodded slowly. “Aye, but if they scatter and run for it, they’re but a mad dash from the Weald.”
“They won’t make straight for the Iron Weald,” said Aezryna. “If that was their goal, they’d have slid down the center of the Bone Plains. This oblique approach takes them past the Sentinel Tower and to the mouth of Bravurn’s own valley. This is the road to the Fury Spires.”
Scorio exchanged a glance with Naomi.
Aezryna continued, “Bravurn never delivered his Gold mana, did he? The fool chose to horde it despite his assurances. Now the Blood Ox has sensed his vault and leads his fiends there at all haste. They’ll plunder Bravurn’s stockpile, drink deep of his Gold, and food into the Rascor Plains to make a final drive for Bastion itself.”
“The idiot,” muttered Plassus, then raised his arm in the direction they’d been marching and sighted down its length. “But you’re not wrong. That way lies the Fury Spires. Damn it all to hell. Tell Moira to warn him. There’s still a couple of days for him to transport the Gold to LastRock or wherever else we can put it to use.”
“I will,” agreed Aezryna. “And that’s where the Imperators should go, too.”
Charoth crossed his arms. “So we tail them into the Iron Weald?”
“No, we won’t bloody follow their cold tracks like mangy curs. Bravurn’s as likely to think himself invincible in his blasted tower as he’s to do what we suggest. He might even think we lie so as to get his mana. No, we’ll continue with our plan. We’ll savage the Gold-ranked fiends from behind, bloody them, slow their flight. Then, when the Blood Ox appears, we scatter. He might kill a few of us, but he won’t waste his time hunting the rest down. We’ll harry them, weaken them, buy time for the Imperators to catch up. Clear?”
Charoth grinned. “I’ve never shied from a fight.”
“Then it’s a miracle you’re alive.” Plassus cast his dolorous gaze over the rest of the crew. “Listen up! You’re all too damned cussed to die easily if you’ve survived this long. But from here on out, you’ll need to move fast and think even quicker. The fiends we’ll fight will be a challenge, even weakened as they are, and you need to know when to retreat as well as when to engage. You’re no good to us dead, so leave your ideas of heroism here and move forward with the mindset of starving wolves. We chase a herd of bison, and it’s by isolating their weakest and bringing them down that we’ll win this day.” Plassus sighed. “That being said, I’ve no illusions that this will go smoothly. We’ll do what we can for as long as we can, and pray that it’s enough. Understood?”