There weren’t that many passengers. Glancing up and down the deck, Scorio guessed some fifty or so Great Souls were settling in, though there was room for more than double that.
Everyone was ordered to stay put and stay quiet til the ship launched, and after what felt like forever Scorio felt the Dread Majesty bob free of the deck. He reached out with his senses again and felt the pilot up top direct huge amounts of Iron into the sails. The ship’s hull creaked, the masts strained, and they were off.
Naomi sat meditating, Alain disappeared, and everywhere else people were talking in quiet, excited tones. Everyone else that Scorio knew was riding on the Bone Harpoon, the ship commanded by Vermina, Charoth, and Aezryna.
At loose ends, Scorio picked his way to the stairwell and climbed to the deck. The railing was lined with Great Souls, all of them clipped into the security bar that ran along the deck’s perimeter.
Scorio found himself a space, clipped in, then leaned forward to watch the Fury Spires fall behind. Already they were but a mess of shadowy towers in the foggy air. The Dread Majesty sailed just below the top of the cliffs, its passage slow and stately.
To the south the Telurian Band’s roseate glow invited them on, while to the far north the Rascor Plains’ small sun was barely discernible.
It’d be good to leave this twilight realm.
The Fury Spires fell away and disappeared. Along the rocky crenellations and spikes that topped the cliffs Scorio occasionally saw Ferric Drakes stir and watch them pass; most were small, only a six or seven yards long, but once they passed a massive fiend, easily twice the length of the others. It lifted its shovel head to watch them sail by, and the deck fell silent as everyone wondered if it might take wing.
“It’ll be a boring trip, I’m afraid.” Taron stepped up beside Scorio and clipped in. The ivory-hued man gazed at the passing cliffs with a frown. “We reek of danger and power. Nothing will bother us.”
Scorio considered the man. “Plenty of excitement awaiting us in the Telurian Band. What’s it like?”
“The Telurian Band?” Taron smiled. “Bronze mana everywhere. I remember being overwhelmed the first time I arrived. I’d never felt so casually powerful. It’s distinct. I suppose every layer of hell is. Just as the Iron Weald is almost double the size of the Rascor Plains, the Telurian Band is nearly double that of the Iron Weald.”
“It’s got to be more welcoming than the Iron Weald.” Scorio stared at the bleak cliff face, took in the dim and desultory air. “Right?”
“It’s… different.” Taron crossed his arms. “It’s oppressive in its own right. Endless lakes that shimmer with an eerie, unnatural sheen. Amber and gold, crimson and sickly orange. The sky’s always storm-tossed. The Telurian Band’s sun almost never breaks free, but always it shines, burning fitfully through the most massive clouds. And everywhere lie broken mountains and sharp-fanged hills. At first the burning light and vivid, metallic colors are a welcome change after the Iron Weald’s somber dreariness, but… well. You’ll see.”
“Sounds great.” Scorio forced a smile. “No wonder so many people stay behind to guard the Rascor Plains.”
Taron smirked. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s a beauty to it. You just have to see it with the right eye. But it’s the first level of hell with serious fiend activity. The Bronze gives them the capacity to organize and act intelligently that you just don’t see in the Iron Weald or Rascor Plains.”
“What about the blazeborn?”
Taron shrugged. “An anomaly, to be sure. But there’s a reason they’re famous for sending expeditions into the Telurian Band and beyond. Not from the Fury Spires anymore, obviously, but the others still send large missions to capture mana and bring it back.”
“Really?” Scorio tried to hide his fascination. “Capture mana?”
“Oh, yes.” Taron’s amusement was obvious. “They escort these huge repository blazeborns the size of caravans that act like sponges, soaking up the target mana. Getting them back to the Iron Weald becomes an ongoing war as every other fiend tries to pillage them.”
Scorio thought of Xandera’s imperative that he soak the queen egg in the highest quality mana and nodded, thoughtful.
“In the Telurian Band there are countless fiendish tribes. Historically they’ve been engrossed in their own faction and inter-tribal politics. Raids, fighting for territory and mana, who knows what else. The Telurian Band is crawling with them.”
“Till Jova united them all.”
“Them all?” Taron grinned. “Is that what you think? Don’t get me wrong, Jova was a formidable presence in the Telurian Band before, ruling over the Bone Plains and uniting four or so of the tribes, but…” Taron shook his head in wonder. “You do know that the Bone Plains is but a tiny fraction of the Telurian Band?”
“Sure,” said Scorio, trying not to sound defensive. “But it’s all everyone talks about.”
“I suppose that would depend on your company. Of late, yes, LastRock and the war with the Blood Ox has been the main topic of conversation, but that entire field of war covers perhaps a thirtieth of the Telurian Band.”
“A thirtieth?”
“It’s a big hell out there,” said Taron, looking out once more to the cliffs. “And the Telurian Band is but two-thirds the size of the Silver Unfathom, which in turn is about two-thirds the size of the Lustrous Maria.”
“Have you been? To the Lustrous Maria?”
“I have.” Taron’s smile was once again amused, almost patronizing. “It’s unlike anything you can imagine, and endlessly vast. If you were able to march, all day, every day, without stop, without interference, and find yourself a perfect path through the coral valleys, it would still take you about three months to cross into the Emerald Reach.”
Scorio tried to digest this. It had taken them a little over three weeks to cross the Rascor Plains with Druanna, though they’d marched at a more leisurely pace.
“Big,” he said.
“Big,” agreed Taron. “You could spend half your life exploring the Telurian Band alone. The hundreds of miles of the Petrified Forest which run right up to the Desolate Tower and its Telurian Band-spanning wall of permanent Emerald mana. The Endless Woods on the far side with the cloud-tearing Green Giant. The Serenity Spiral that tests your enlightenment. Lu Zhi’s Last Watch. The Vermillion Facet Expanse. The permanent portal at the end of the Titan’s Causeway that stretches out into the center of the Sanguine Sea.” Taron sighed and shook his head. “That’s if the endless tribes that dot the Telurian Band don’t tear you apart first, or force you to act as their god.”
Scorio tried not to feel overwhelmed. “But we’re just focusing on the Blood Ox.”
“Fortunately. At the beginning of the war we wondered why he bothered with armies and taking cities. If he wanted to he could slip through the Telurian Band unnoticed, cross the Iron Weald by any other quarter, and enter the Rascor Plains undetected. With the White Queen gone, there’s no reason for him to be shy, but even she would have been broken by his might. You can’t understand just how powerful he is until you see him unleash his strength.”
“So why doesn’t he?”
Taron shrugged. “The going theory is that he’s partial to the elites he brought north with him. Cares about them and won’t abandon them. But with the Gold mana quake receding, they’ve grown weak, starved of power. He’s in a bind.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Once,” said Taron, but his tone grew clipped. “With any luck, I’ll never see him again. But you never know. We’ll be trying to hold his attention, after all.”
“We?”
Taron grinned. “Did you think I was chatting with you for the fun of it? You and Naomi have been assigned to me. I’ll be leading a company of some fifty Great Souls. We’ve learned the hard way that any group larger than that becomes too unwieldy. I’ll have some ten Dread Blazes, of which you’ll be a member. Fifteen Flame Vaults, and twenty-five Tomb Sparks.”