Amity’s eyes opened wide.
DON’T KILL YOURSELF.
His ability to command had grown more nuanced, more insidious. He felt his words latch on to Amity’s spirit, felt the other man’s resistance melt away.
But Valdun’s warriors shouted their defiance and hurled their spears. Scorio veered away, several bouncing off his Shroud, and then fell upon the winged horses, his wings buffeting them and his tail slamming into another. The steeds went flying, their shrill screams unearthly, spilling the warriors into the air so that they fell, clutching at nothing.
Valdun guided his mount around with his knees, raised a burning spear, and hurled it directly at Scorio’s breast.
Again Scorio moved his Shroud between them, and again the spear pierced it, to fly at diminished speed straight into Scorio’s flame form and incinerate midair.
Scorio willed himself forward, dropping his Shroud as he fell upon the Pyre Lords like a burning cloud. Amity screamed, broke free of Scorio’s compulsion, but too late - Scorio became scaled flesh at the last moment, and slapped his tail across the Pyre Lords to knock them free of their steed.
Except that Valdun was gone, having taken the place of a final warrior upon the sole remaining pegasus. Amity took the tail straight to the chest and was knocked free, to fall with a cry toward the plateau below.
“I cry for your mercy!” shouted Valdun, bringing his panicked horse under control as another burning spear appeared in his fist. “Scorio! I did not want this!”
Scorio didn’t waste time trying to talk. The inferno within his chest desired nothing more than to release, to turn Valdun into char and ash. But instead he blew his plume just over the horse’s head, scalding the air and causing it to buck and rear up, wings beating furiously.
Valdun’s throw was ruined; his spear flew wide as he clutched at the horse’s neck, and then Scorio flew past and tore the white stallion’s head clear off with a great sweep of his claws.
Valdun roared as he fell, tumbling free as the horse disappeared, but there were no more riders for him to cast himself into. Down he fell, toward the plateau, to crash down hard beside Amity.
Scorio swooped down, ready to ensure they were both out of this battle, when a soft black rock welled up around them like burning mud. Both Pyre Lords cried out in dazed pain, but it was rapidly became clear that Xandera wasn’t intent on killing them; the rock hardened about their bodies, locking their arms and limbs in place, clicking and ticking as it turned to solid stone.
Scorio glanced back over the plateau, but none of the Flame Vaults or Dread Blazes were rebelling; if anything they were cowed by the blazeborn queens, hanging back and staring, wide-eyed, as the Blood Ox’s army was decimated.
Scorio could feel the spear wounds digging into his muscles as he flew back out over the ruined slope. Painful, but he could put them out of his mind. But it was his rancor that truly affected him; he’d not been surprised by their betrayal, just bitterly disappointed. Bravurn’s doing? It didn’t really matter.
Seeking another Symmetron to attack, Scorio saw that the last of Gold-ranked fiends was succumbing to the lava. The air shimmered with smoky heat, and everything was painted in hues of livid orange and red. The entire valley seemed to have melted and become a lake of molten crimson. Only the plateau rose above it, like a miniature version of the Fiery Shoals.
They’d done it. They’d not only defeated the Blood Ox’s elites, they’d done it without taking any casualties.
Incredulous, Scorio glided over the site of the massacre.
The battle was over.
Which was why he felt not a flicker of surprise when a fleck of crimson light appeared high above the burning waste. Were it not for the fearsome mana signature he’d never have spotted it, one mote of fire amongst thousands of sparks, but its appearance was heralded by a great detonation of power, and when it tore itself open into a burning portal a second or so later, Scorio was already fleeing back to the plateau.
The Blood Ox emerged to gaze upon the inferno that had claimed his hundreds of fiends.
Scorio came around, fighting to remain calm, but the sight of the ragged figure set his heart to pounding, his instinct to screaming. He came in low over the queens and Great Souls and then arrested his forward flight, beating his wings powerful as he hovered, tail lashing below him, the presence of his flames burning brightly within his chest.
The Blood Ox’s eyes were wide, his gaze darting from side to side as he took in the cindered husks of his fiends. Slowly, as if incredulous, awakening from a dream, he lifted his eyes and stared at Scorio and the twenty blazeborn queens arrayed along the plateau.
“What have you done?” There was genuine anguish in his voice. “They were infinitely more worthy than you, a million times more deserving.”
It was Queen Xandera who spoke, the butt of her trident planted in the rock beside her, expression fearless, regal beyond measure. “They sought to assault my domain! So shall I deal with all that threaten my home!”
“But this…” The Blood Ox gestured with a long-fingered hand, then paused. “Bravurn is dead?” Understanding flickered across his features, and he blinked and raised his gaze to Scorio. “You.”
Scorio fought mightily to remain in place; this draconian form was meant for ceaseless forward movement, such that he was forced to powerfully beat his wings without pause so as to hover.
The Blood Ox tilted his head to one side. “You. I severed you from the… ah.” A quick flick of a glance at Xandera, a narrowing of his gaze, then fresh understanding. “So you both rushed here to strangle that which was struggling to be born.”
Scorio’s dragon form would not defend him, so he shrank into his scaled humanoid one. At any moment he could die. He had no defense against this being. None. “I lament your dead. We fought in self-defense. I don’t wish to fight you. What is it you want?”
“What is it I want?” The Blood Ox’s expression curdled into one of such overwhelming hatred and loathing that he suddenly looked as inhuman as any fiend. “Your complete and utter destruction, and then to tear open your portal to Eterra and pass through, me and mine, like a wave of destruction long delayed, and wrap my fingers around Archmagus’ neck and throttle that bastard until my fingers close to fists and his head sails free, trailing blood! Nothing less! Nothing more!”
The air pulsated with his power, wave after wave of such terrible might that Scorio fell back, his gorge rising, his body breaking out into a thick sweat, his head blooming with pain. The mana in the air was orienting around the Blood Ox in great concentric spheres, and pulsing out and shrinking back in like a lung, a field of power that Scorio wasn’t even sure the Blood Ox was aware of.
“Why do you hate the Archmagus -” But Scorio’s cry was drowned out by the rising hum of power, the shriek of wind that was building, flowing from the south to the north with ever greater ferocity by the second. Buffeted, Scorio tumbled back, only to pitch himself down roughly and fall to the plateau.
“Death!” screamed the Blood Ox, and spires of lava were now rising from the field below him, twisting and twining themselves into abstract patterns. For a second Scorio hoped that was an assault planned by all the queens, but a quick glance at their horrified expressions showed that they had no control over what was happening.
The Blood Ox pointed one finger, and a young Xandera exploded into a welter of flesh and molten blood. The Blood Ox swept his hand to the side, and half their number ruptured and died, bursting into a spray of glowing blood and atomized flesh.
“Run!” screamed the Nightmare Lady, lifting Scorio to his feet.
The Blood Ox made a cutting motion, and some fifteen Great Souls beyond them simply exploded as their blood tore itself free and flew in filaments toward the Blood Ox.