Naomi snorted and they set forth.
The experience was alien. Their footsteps finally echoed, and the air was cool and fresh.
“There’s a breeze,” said Scorio after they’d gone in a few hundred steps.
“And it’s not stale.” Naomi focused, sniffing. “Though I can’t smell much of anything on it. Do you think it lets out somewhere ahead?”
“We’re so deep it would have to be an exit into the Telurian Band. Maybe there’s another drop like when we descended to the Iron Weald.”
That descent had been exhilarating. Druanna had guided them into one of the Rascor Plains’ valleys, penetrating through deep forests to finally scale a weathered path up to a mountain pass. When they’d finally broken free to the far side, they’d been greeted by an astonishing sight: the Iron Weald, spread out below them and fading into the distance, its radial valleys like divots carved in sand by fingers. The descent had taken two days, their path switchbacking back and forth forever, till Scorio had been tempted to simply hurl himself over the side and fly all the way down.
“But we’re just south of the Midnight Zone,” said Naomi after they’d walked on for a time. “And we’ve been traveling mostly east. We can’t be at the Telurian Band yet.”
“Whatever it is, I prefer fresh air to stale.” Scorio carefully flexed his fingers, watching as tendons tugged at the charred flesh. The movement caused the black carapace to crack into chunks, revealing pink, healthy skin between. “And even better, there’s no sign of the Ferric Drake.”
“Yet.”
“Remind me again why I keep you around?”
Naomi hip checked him and sent him staggering off to the side.
“Hey!” He held up both charred arms in protest. “That’s cruel!”
“I thought you had a Gold-tempered body.”
To which Scorio could only shake his head in disgust.
They reached the curve and saw that it extended for another mile before turning again, and now Scorio felt sufficiently recovered that he could attempt a steady jog. They made decent time, only to slow halfway when they reached an identical side tunnel.
It hit their own at an angle.
They both paused to consider it. The same glowing red bands ran down the center of its walls, floor, and ceiling, and flowed into their own hallway to merge with those.
“Looks just the same,” said Naomi.
“The angle though.” Scorio turned to look behind them. “Remember the angled monoliths? It’s as if they’re flood tunnels. Guiding some overflow from the Rascor Plains or something into the channel.”
“The Iron Weald is almost as dry as a desert.”
“Iron mana, though?”
“The mana’s just hovering here. And it generally heads north, not south.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“Stick to our hall?”
“Don’t see why not. The other one joins this one. Makes ours feel more central.”
Naomi nodded, hitched her pack, and they resumed jogging.
The uniformity of the hallway was numbing. Curve after curve led what they thought might be north, and every so often another hallway fed into their own.
But there was never any sign of habitation. No skeletons gathering dust. No sense of fiends lurking. No webs, no hollowed out caverns, nothing.
The Bronze ebbed and flowed but was a near constant. They burned it to make themselves fleet and so on they ran, losing themselves deep within the Iron Weald.
But Scorio’s stamina was greatly depleted by his fight with the Ferric Drake, and after only a few hours he staggered to a walk. Sweat soaked his hair, and his arms and shoulders throbbed despite his ignited Heart.
“Rest?” asked Naomi.
He could only slide down the wall and lean his head back. Naomi handed him a waterskin, and he had to fight to not drain it dry.
Then Naomi was shaking his shoulder urgently. Scorio straightened, realizing that he’d fallen asleep.
“The Ferric Drake,” she hissed.
Scorio leaped to his feet. He heard nothing.
“It just let out a hunting cry.” Naomi had shouldered her pack. “We need to run.”
“Damn it.” Scorio ignited. “I hate the Iron Weald.”
He dug his chalk out of his robe and sketched a line across the center of the hallway. A shimmering curtain of force burst upward to meet the ceiling.
“Might stop him,” he said, and they took off at a sprint. Bronze gave them wings, but when the Ferric Drake’s cry sounded again, distant and echoey, Scorio knew they’d not be able to outrun it.
“I can ignite,” said Naomi. “We’ll fight it together.”
Scorio considered his arms. He was much better, but in no condition to fight as he had before. He needed another couple of days, some good meals, and plenty of sleep. Gold-tempered he might be, but he’d taken a nearly mortal blow.
He’d be of little help against their foe.
“Faster,” he gasped.
A shriek sounded from behind along with the sharp crack of breaking stone.
They raced around a corner and Scorio’s emotions sank. This stretch ran on for what looked like forever, a mile or more of straight hallway. He was staring to loathe the sight of the red bands.
But they had no choice. They ran, and only when he heard the fiend’s cry, loud and vital, did he turn.
It had come around the corner and its bulk filled the hall. Even as he ran, Scorio saw it lunge forward and leap, open its wings almost to their full extent, glide awkwardly a score of yards, then land into a run.
“We can fight it!” shouted Naomi.
“Not like this. And look - the corner ahead!”
Finally something new. A roseate glow filled the end of the hall where it turned away.
Different was good.
Different meant hope.
He leaned down to sketch a yard-wide line with the chalk and resumed sprinting.
At just the right moment, he glanced back in time to see the Ferric Drake barrel into the beam of force. Such was its propulsive momentum that it tore the column free, ripping chunks of stone from the ground and ceiling.
Doing so had to hurt it, though, so again he sketched another yard.
Naomi turned back to him. “We’re losing ground!”
She was right. What his chalk lines might gain them in battering the fiend, they lost in speed and time.
“I’ve never,” he gasped, “missed… my rod… so much.”
But the Ferric Drake had grown cautious. It slowed at the next column of force and flowed around it, sinuous and unstoppable.
The corner drew closer. The air there was indeed brightened by some hidden source. Body burning with pain, Heart wearied from constant ignition, Scorio followed Naomi around the final turn.
And into a chamber several stories high, a hive of corridors opening into it all up and down the walls, a profusion of red bands striating the pale stone.
But more: the air swirled here, baking hot, while cataracts of brightly-glowing magma fell in streams from above. These waterfalls lit the room with a rippling crimson light and dropped into a massive lava pool that dominated the base of the chamber.
Platforms ringed the walls, while others simply hovered in midair, affixed in place by who knew what ancient powers.
The Ferric Drake screeched its frustration from just around the bend.
“Come on!” Scorio grabbed Naomi’s hand and they raced forward.
“Wait, what -”
He leaped, pulling her after him, infusing his jump with as much power as his weary limbs could muster. Naomi’s eyes widened in panic as they soared out over the magma pool, but Scorio kept twisting, pulled her into his embrace, and at the last moment dropped his Shroud on the edge of their ledge and snapped out his wings.
Time and ignition had mostly healed his wings, but it hurt tremendously to beat them. His plan of soaring to the top of the chamber instantly died. Instead, he aimed for a floating platform, broad as a barn door, and landed roughly after three agonizing beats.
The fiend came sliding into view, slamming up against the far wall of the corner, and then burst forward, its shovel head rising as it tracked their assent. It slammed into Scorio’s Shroud and fell back, roaring in pain and frustration.