The Ferula’s blast pierced the onslaught to slam into Scorio’s chest. He registered the hit distantly, so caught up was he in giving vent to his fury. There was no end to his fire. He was a portal to an endless realm of burning. Another bolt from the Ferula struck home, then a third.
Bravurn started screaming.
Scorio’s whole body bent to the task. His talons sank deeper, shredded the Shroud, opened great lacerations through which his flames poured and were trapped inside the bubble.
Bravurn, realizing that he was about to be incinerated by the trapped flames, dismissed the Shroud and leaped away as Scorio collapsed into the space where he’d stood.
But he had more weapons at his disposal than just claws and fire. Instinctively, he swiped out with his tail and slammed it across the Blood Baron’s chest, lifting the man off his feet and sending him flying.
Xandera swooped down atop her pillar of lava and blasted the Blood Baron with lava as he tumbled through the air.
Something hit Scorio’s flank, slamming into his shoulder like a sledgehammer hard enough to make him stumble. Snarling in anger, Scorio turned just in time to see Sharess bounce off in her spiked spindle form, spinning around to change back into her humanoid form and land on her feet.
The Iron Vanguard Dread Blaze gaped at him. She’d not pierced his scales. “How?”
But she was a distraction. Scorio thrust himself after Bravurn, who though his robes were torched and his skin burned, was still hale and strong. Being a Blood Baron made one resilient. Scorio fell upon him like a cat upon a mouse, and the Blood Baron barked his fury and blasted Scorio with a dozen iron cylinders, the sheer volume of metal slamming into him enough to blunt his pounce.
When he landed Bravurn was gone, having darted aside, and now an iron cylinder as wide as a cart dropped down, punishingly fast.
But Scorio summoned his spirit of fire and became living flame; the huge cylinder smashed into the floors below, and Scorio flew forward to rush through the Blood Baron, a great deluge of fire that caused Bravurn to scream in agony once more.
The ambient mana was almost all gone; no, that wasn’t quite right—Bravurn was manipulating the Iron so that it avoided Scorio, left him in a void from which he couldn’t draw anymore. But that was fine.
His reservoir felt endless.
An enhanced Titan tackled Bravurn, huge obsidian arms enveloping the man only to be foiled by his Shroud; weakened as it was, it kept the blazeborn from crushing the Blood Baron to its chest, but still it lifted him up, the Shroud tattered and barely keeping its form.
Scorio reversed direction and flowed through the Titan and Bravurn both. Felt portions of himself pour in through the cracks in the Shroud.
Bravurn screamed again, hit the Titan with a blast from his Ferula, and the blazeborn immediately collapsed as it simply fell apart.
But then Scorio reverted to his dragon form and snatched Bravurn up in his jaws. For a moment the Shroud held, then Scorio’s fangs shattered it and sank into Bravurn’s body; the Blood Baron screamed but that was nothing.
He really started screaming when Scorio breathed his fire breath through his partially parted maw.
The black flames streamed out, but most of their fury were blocked by the Blood Baron. Scorio felt the man burn, felt his flesh grow hard and blackened, and with a final chomp he threw Bravurn away.
Bravurn hit the ground, rolled, and fetched up against a mass of cooling lava. Blackened, naked but for his boots, he croaked and somehow still proved himself alive. His Shroud flickered into existence around him, and a winged horse of purest white appeared by his side, Valdun mounted without a saddle, reaching down to snatch up his master even as Xandera screamed out her fury.
Scorio leaped after the pair as the winged horse took to the air. Xandera’s arcs of lava missed, for the horse accelerated faster than seemed possible, and Scorio saw Valdun pour some elixir past Bravurn’s lips.
Gold radiance suffused the Blood Baron.
STOP! Scorio bellowed, his command causing the darkness to shudder, and, seized by impulse, he continued, focusing on Valdun: TOSS BRAVURN TO THE GROUND!
Valdun took the Blood Baron by the scruff of the neck and threw him off the horse.
Bravurn screamed in impotent fury as he fell. Xandera swooped by and hit him with a stream of lava, the incendiary rock searing him and knocking him spinning, even as Scorio dove in and snatched him up in his maw. Bravurn’s arm was thrust straight down Scorio’s throat, and he felt something appear in his hand, a stick, and realized too late what was happening.
With a snap of his neck he tossed the Blood Baron aside, but not before he loosed a blast from his Ferula straight down Scorio’s throat.
In that same second Scorio belched forth flame, and the black lethal energy met ebon fire. But it wasn’t enough. It felt as if a glowing poker had been shoved into his chest; the pain was terrific, and Scorio sagged midair, wings faltering as he fought to resist the killer energy.
He dropped, wheeled before hitting the wall, and saw Bravurn racing across the ruined ground. Scorio angled his descent to intercept. Bravurn summoned his Shroud, but an assault from Xandera caused it to burst apart just before Scorio hit.
He seized the Blood Baron with both claws and fell into a huge roll, wings over tail, slamming through debris and shattered floor, his insides burning in a way that was all death, and with the last of his focus he strained, exerted all his strength, and tore the Blood Baron’s legs off before hurling him away.
Fetching up against another bank of cooling lava, Scorio tried to rise, collapsed, then vomited up blood. The Ferula’s fell magic was eating him up from within. As before, Scorio closed his eyes and fought the potent assault. Willed it to leave him alone, contested its power with his own life force.
Dimly he heard Bravurn’s pained gasps. Opening one eye, he blearily saw the Blood Baron trying to crawl away, only for Xandera to alight beside him.
“You deserve worse,” she said, lowered to one knee, and pressed a hand to his face. It brightened as she summoned a terrible heat.
Bravurn screamed as his face melted off the front of his skull, then his skull blackened and charred away, revealing a pulsing mass of brain that shriveled and blackened and became little more than charred paper.
Xandera dropped the corpse and ran over to Scorio, who found that he couldn’t hold the dragon form and fight the Ferula at the same time. Heart still burning he shrank into his scaled form and curled up, his body shaking and trembling as he fought the death magic.
Xandera raised him so that his head and shoulders rested on her thighs. The heat she radiated was comforting, but he could only barely sense her. Everything was narrowing to a point
Xandera put her hand to his chest and he felt her heat pass into him. Saw her orange light mingle with his black flames, felt a conduit open to her essence. If his reservoir was contained within his Heart, hers went deep into the lakes of magma below, and at their core, beyond the heat, hovered a spark of Noumenon.
This she opened to him, and he took but the tiniest fraction, filtered through her essence, a strength that she’d yet to grow into, and with which he closed his spirit about Bravurn’s black might and snuffed it as one might a candle flame between your fingers.
Scorio’s whole body went limp. The relief was akin to cool waters washing over a febrile brow.
He blinked and looked up, to see Xandera bending over him, her almond-shaped eyes windows to her molten interior, her mouth pulled into a smile.
“We did it,” she whispered, and slid her hand into his. “The monster is dead.”