Queen Xandera cried out her defiance and hurled her trident at the True Fiend. It was a muscular cast, nearly bowing her over as she released, and the lava field below responded to the thrown weapon, rising up into a great plume of burning rock that hurtled toward the Blood Ox with enough power behind it to crack the canyon wall.
The Blood Ox dashed the assault aside with contempt, causing the entire causeway of elevated lava to smash apart, and then he was upon Xandera, his hand around her neck, lifting her so that her black serpentine body hung and thrashed below.
“Traitor,” he hissed, completely uncaring of her white-hot hands which she wrapped around his wrist. “Traitor!”
“No!” Scorio took three steps and leaped, wings beating powerfully as he threw himself at the True Fiend. He became his flame form a second later, intent on flying clear through the Blood Ox and incinerating him from within, but an unquestionable force seized him and Scorio’s flame body blasted apart.
His mind, his very sense of self was knocked asunder. For a moment he was a million embers of vaguely aware of motes, dispersed through the air, and then slowly he began to coalesce. Moment by moment his thoughts, emotions, his very being became concrete, until he found himself whole.
The violence had stilled. Xandera yet hung from the Blood Ox’s fist, her arms slack by her side, her eyes closed, but the True Fiend was frowning toward the west.
Hope flickered in Scorio’s chest.
The Blood Ox sneered and hurled Xandera away, an effortless flick of his arm that sent the queen spinning through the air, and without another word he sucked all the ambient mana into himself, an instantaneous effect that tore Scorio’s own reserves out of his reservoir again. Scorio fell, human once more, Heart brutally guttered, and hit the rocky plateau hard.
Turning, he looked up, dazed, to see the Blood Ox fly out of the valley so quickly that his form blurred. There was no visible magical effect; the True Fiend simply flew out and up, over the far canyon wall, and was gone.
Vision bleary, his Heart aching once more from the terrible violation, the canyon a mana desert, Scorio fought to sit up, only to freeze as two figures high up crossed the sky. They came and went so quickly that if he’d blinked he’d have missed them. It was the contrails of mana burn that they left behind that marked their passage more than anything else.
And then they were gone.
“Damn,” someone whimpered. Scorio coughed, fought a wave of vertigo, and when it passed he rose, swaying to his feet.
Half the Iron Vanguard was dead. Where they’d stood remained little more than torn ribbons of bloodless flesh and shards of bone. Some of the young queens were racing down the slope to where Queen Xandera lay still.
“Naomi?” Scorio cast about, panic rising within him until he saw her rising from just beyond the edge of the plateau, face smudged with soot. “Naomi!”
“Scorio?”
He ran to her, and she embraced him. For a moment they stood thus, holding each other tight.
“It worked,” he whispered into her hair. “It worked.”
She squeezed him as hard as she could, then drew back. “They betrayed you.”
“Like you said,” laughed Scorio hoarsely. “Wasn’t really a surprise.”
“They betrayed you.” Her fury was mounting. “I had to watch from here. I couldn’t help you. They nearly killed you!”
“A few wounds,” said Scorio, gingerly touching his bloodied side. The pain was a distant thing.
“Amity almost got his detonation off. Valdun would have finished the job.” She shook her head in horrified wonder. “Don’t you care?”
“I care that we defeated the Blood Ox, is what I care about. They’re imprisoned in stone. We’ll have someone higher ranked remove their Blood Oaths -”
“Forget them? They nearly -” She shook her head, lost for words. “Where are they? There!”
Scorio followed her gaze across the plateau to where the great hunks of black stone yet imprisoned Valdun and Amity. The queens had been careful but thorough.
“Hey!” cried Scorio as Naomi shoved him away and took off at a sprint. “Naomi! What are you - damn it!”
He ran after her, but halfway she somehow wrested just enough Iron from the environment to rise into her Nightmare Lady form.
“Naomi!” His shout was lost amidst the cracking of cooling rock and the rumble of deep stone resettling itself. “Noami, stop!”
He sought Iron mana, but there was so little, and what little there was hurt to be coerced into his reservoir. Still he labored with it, feeling faint from nausea as he swirled the fragments about his much-abused Heart.
The Nightmare Lady loped across the plateau on all fours. Scorio finally ignited and extended his wings. It wouldn’t last long. He felt like vomiting just from this effort, but he had to stop her, had to intervene -
He was too late. Valdun and Amity were shouting as she charged them, clearly bereft of power like Scorio. Their voices rose in panic and terror until the Nightmare Lady spun and cut Valdun’s head clean from his shoulders.
Scorio froze, but momentum kept him gliding forth.
The Nightmare Lady whipped about and glared at Amity, who was struggling mightily with the black stone that encased him. Something of his power still had to be in effect, because the Nightmare Lady seemed to wrestle with herself.
“Stop!” Scorio was so close, just a few moments more and he could tackle her. “Naomi! Don’t do this!”
She screamed in fury and frustration and slashed at Scorio with her tail, driving him back to land and stagger. “Don’t do this? The Blood Ox was right, we need to wipe this scum from the face of hell.”
Scorio raised his hands. “Not like this. Please. Not like this. They’re compelled by Heart Oaths. We can remove them.”
“Why should we?” The Nightmare Lady’s every line was one of burning tension. Her eyes blazed green. “Are you so stupid, Scorio? If we don’t kill them now, they’ll be released to fight in the war! This is our one chance for justice, against them, against all of them!”
“I killed Praximar,” he said, trying to keep his tone calm. “I killed Bravurn. But Valdun, Amity, they’re compelled by Heart Oaths. They barely hurt me. Let more powerful Great Souls interrogate them, see what must be done -”
The Nightmare Lady hissed, spun, and moved to strike at Amity with her tail.
“No, stop!” Alain stepped into view as if from nowhere, his hand grasping her shoulder. “Naomi, don’t!”
The Nightmare Lady cracked her tail and its triangular blade slashed through Alain’s neck so that his head went flying. Alain took one more step them fell over, blood pumping.
Everybody froze.
“Damn it, Boy,” rasped Amity, tone one of horror.
The Nightmare Lady stared at the corpse. “Alain?”
Scorio couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
The Nightmare Lady crouched by the dead Great Soul. “Alain? What did you… why…?”
Scorio heard a great tidal wave rushing through him, filling his ears with a terrible roaring.
“You… you idiot,” stammered the Nightmare Lady, and then she shrank down into her Naomi form and turned to Scorio, face stricken. “It was an accident. He surprised me.”
Scorio dropped his arm. He couldn’t think. Alain’s head lay on its side, eyes wide, dirt encrusted in the right one.
“It was a mistake!” shouted Naomi, her voice near breaking. “Scorio! You believe me, don’t you? He surprised me!”
Scorio’s shoulders sagged.
Faridian came running up, only to fetch short. “What… she did this?”
Naomi leaped to her feet and surged back into the Nightmare Lady. “Come any closer and I’ll kill you!”
Faridian raised both palms. “Calm down, please. The Imperators. If they return, they can undo all this. We can still make this right.”
But Scorio knew that the odds of both Imperators returning to this valley were small. The moment they dealt with the Blood Ox they’d return to the Twilight Cradle as quickly as they could.