“You think I could?” asked Scorio, moving forward and aware of everybody studying him. He felt like a fox who in a moment of madness had chosen to enter a hunter’s kennel.
“Praximar thought himself inviolate inside his ivory Academy and look how he fares. I’d warrant - hold on. What the bleeding fuck?”
Scorio froze.
Plassus was glaring at him, leaning forward, one veined hand clutching the arm of his throne. “When the fuck did you become a Dread Blaze?”
The crowd murmured in consternation.
“Yesterday,” said Scorio, not sure if he should try to be humble or allow his pride to bleed through. “It kind of just happened.”
“Kind of just happened?” Plassus’ shock became a wide grin. “I’ve never heard something so damned marvelous in my life. What the hell do you mean, ‘it kind of just happened’?”
“I’ve access to a Pyre Lord technique,” said Scorio. “I can feed ambient mana directly into my Heart once I’ve ignited.”
“You what?” Plassus rose to his feet. “Prove it.”
“Prove it?”
Plassus’ wolfish grin was all jowls and yellowed teeth. “You think I’ve gotten this far by taking people at their words? Show me your Pyre Lord technique or I’ll toss you out on your ear.”
“Alright.” Scorio glanced above, inhaled deeply, and extended his senses. There was precious little mana to be had in the room; clearly everybody present had been drinking their fill. But this high up in the spire the Iron mana was just too rich; even as Scorio observed new clouds continued to coalesce.
So he willed his Heart to ignite, then drew Iron directly into it.
“Ha!” Plassus smacked his thigh. “Well I’ll be damned! Kinch, get our prodigy some wine. That’s enough, Scorio, you’ve proved your point. Get over here.”
Scorio allowed his Heart to gutter, and with his normal heart pounding strongly he cross the broad room to sit where Plassus gestured to a stool set just to his side.
“Wine’s not necessary,” said Scorio as Kinch approached, goblets in hand.
“Drink with me or I’ll break your arm,” growled Plassus, taking his goblet and raising it. “Scorio, meet Eorox, my Blood Baron and ill-fitting conscience. Now, what are we toasting to?”
Scorio took the goblet gingerly and glanced at the Blood Baron. The man was square-jowled, dark-skinned, with a look of perpetual displeasure on his pugnacious face. The Blood Baron raised his goblet with something akin to mocking irony, and Scorio raised his as well. Plassus’ dark eyes gleamed. Was this a test?
This was a test.
“To the death of our enemies,” he said. “To the death of the Blood Ox.”
The room hushed.
Plassus tongued the inside of his cheek then nodded gravely and clanked his goblet against Eorox’s then Scorio’s own. “Aye, now that’s a toast worth drinking to.”
The vintage was rich, thick like blood, and laced with Gold mana.
Plassus smacked his lips, leaned back in his throne, and eyed Scorio speculatively. “You’ve spoken with Aezryna?”
Scorio eyed Eorox. “How did you know?”
“I’m not an idiot. She tried to recruit you. Did it work?”
Scorio grinned. “You think I’d tell you if it did?”
“Depends how smart you are. Only a fool tries to manipulate a Charnel Duke, and this stinking place? It’s filled to the brim with fools, overflowing with them like an army latrine trench.” He eyed Scorio. “You haven’t thrown in with her yet. You’re too uncertain. What are you here for then, boy? Fishing? Looking to get a better offer?”
“I’m paying my respects.” Scorio couldn’t resist the Gold-laced wine, and took another sip.
“Well, nothing wrong with that.” Plassus rippled his fingers on the broad wooden arm of his throne. “Though you turned me down flat back in Bastion. There a chance you’ve changed your mind?”
“I’m not making any decisions till I’ve learned the lay of the land,” said Scorio. “And I’m neither patient nor sophisticated enough to play at this game with much skill. So here I am.”
“You want to learn the lay of the land, do you?” Plassus’ eyes glittered. “I’ll tell you. Beyond the Iron Weald’s thousand canyons lies the Telurian Band, filled with wonders and strange marvels, but only a small portion of it matters to us: the Bone Plains, so named for the endless dead whose remains have left it chalky white. Or it was white, right till we started contesting with the Blood Ox, who, true to his name, has drowned those old bones in gore. Whose gore? Our fucking gore, with Great Souls dead from the edge of the Telurian Band right to LastRock itself.”
Plassus leaned in. “You want to know how the war is going? It’s a disaster, and for one simple fact: Charnel Dukes and Blood Barons were never meant to contest the field with a True Fiend. You saw what Imogen did, right up till Sol the fucking Just showed up, didn’t you? Now imagine that going on for two years, and you’ve got yourself the lay of the land.”
“So why are you fighting?” Scorio met the Charnel Duke’s glare. “If it’s impossible?”
“Just because you can’t win doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight.” Plassus curled his hand into a fist. “And there’s always the far-fetched hope that we’ll catch the Blood Ox with his pants down just in time for our Imperators to force him into battle. Or there was. It’s not happened yet. But till it does we fight on, even if it means winning every battle right up till the Blood Ox shows up and shits all over our plans.”
“Blood Baroness Aezryna’s told you her plan?”
“Aye, and it looks good on paper. There’s one problem. They’re underestimating the Blood Ox. Their victory depends on Jova Spike reaching LastRock, doesn’t it? But how are they going to guarantee she does?” Plassus shook his head. “You think the Blood Ox won’t appear and crush her skull under his cloven hoof? Like hell he won’t. You think he doesn’t understand the concept of a diversion? That he’s not aware of his weaknesses? But that’s the problem with having greenhorns ride in to save the day. They think they’re so smart, and their plans will work like a charm right till the Blood Ox shows up with a grin on his face and crazed murder burning like black suns in his eyes. Fuck.”
Plassus took up his wine and drank it in three long pulls. He exhaled sharply and raised it to Eorox, who refilled it smoothly.
“So what should we do, you ask? Isn’t a bad plan better than no plan at all?” Plassus glared at Scorio. “Well, I’ve got a plan of my own. Nobody wants to hear it though. It’s too brutal.”
“What’s that?” asked Scorio.
“We don’t split our forces. We don’t try anything clever. We mass up, all of us, the Iron Vanguard, my army, Vermina’s idiots, Aezryna and Charoth’s people. All of us in one great lump. And we make straight for LastRock.”
“That’d draw the Blood Ox out.”
“’Course it would! It’d be a massacre. A pitched battle on the Bone Plains. Hundreds upon hundreds would die. The Blood Ox would kill me, Aezryna, Bravurn, even Charoth. Charnel Dukes and Blood Barons, Pyre Lords and Dread Blazes. We’d be slaughtered.”
Plassus grinned at Scorio, eagerly awaiting his protest.
“Doesn’t… seem like a good plan to me.”
“Because we’d not be trying to win. We can’t win. It’s a bleeding True Fiend out there, and nothing we can do will do more than amuse it. But what my plan accomplishes is to shock the fine sensibilities of the Imperators down in the Twilight Cradle. Oh, yes. They’d sense a thousand Great Souls dying and be shamed into coming. Such a brutal loss would force their hand, and instead of limp platitudes they’d finally be forced to come kill the Blood Ox.”
“At what cost? Aren’t they keeping the other True Fiends trapped in the Pit?”
“Pah.” Plassus waved his hand. “To what end? We don’t have the numbers to crush the Pit, three of our best are fallen, the Cerulean Prophecy a joke, and everyone acts like more of the same will accomplish where we’ve failed before. No.” Plassus pursed his lips and stared out at nothing.