A horse kicked him in the back and Scorio staggered to the side. He wheeled about, nearly tearing Fyrona off her feet, and saw Shadow Petal standing over a dead Merideva, Ursan battered and broken and down on one knee.
Nyrix. The man stood across the oval, burning crossbow raised, a new bolt loaded in the stock.
Galvon?
Down, decapitated, blood turning the sand to burgundy mud.
Scorio ripped Fyrona around just as Nyrix loosed his bolt. It slammed into Fyrona’s back, causing her to spasm and scream in outrage again.
How was she still alive?
Merideva, Rharvyn, and Galvon were down.
Shadow Petal! Scorio forced himself to think of the assassin, and there she was, closing in on his side, running in swift and low, blades trailing behind her.
With a grunt he leaped, extending his wings to their full length, and fought for air, dragging Fyrona beneath him like an anchor.
She screamed and bucked, thrashed and tore her temple free of his claws to fall away.
The Shadow Petal was terrifying, her slender form adorned with massive ivory pauldrons, her body bound by pale linen bandages beneath a black leather corset. Her head was transformed into a death mask, her eyes crimson and sunken, her skin taut over her prominent skull, her lips painted to resemble teeth.
One moment she was below him, skull face rising to track his ascent, and then she was there, before him, midair, the thick mane of hair that grew from her temples alone flaring out like a cloud, her black blade flashing out toward his head.
Scorio backbeat his wings, thrusting himself away from her in a panic, even as he slammed his Shroud forth and into her.
The black blade cut through the Shroud as if it weren’t there, but impacted her hand and knocked it away. Combined with his convulsive evasion it was just enough; Mercy, her ebon blade, missed him by an inch.
The Shadow Petal fell away. Scorio beat his wings frantically, went to summon his flame body, only for Wesanin to come flooding into their space in his tornado form and fill the air with chaos and madness.
The hurricane of sand knocked Scorio spinning. It caught the Shadow Petal as she fell and enveloped her, but Scorio lost track of what was happening as he spun. He fought for balance, shortened his wings as much as he could for enhanced mobility, and flew away from Wesanin as the tornado of sand raged on around the oval’s perimeter—only to collapse in upon itself, the cone faltering and falling apart.
A moment later Wesanin appeared, the sand flinging itself all around him as he dropped to land face-first in the packed dirt, untouched, unwounded.
The Shadow Petal dropped beside him, both blades held out behind her, one gleaming white, the other jet.
Scorio beat his wings furiously, his wing-shoulders burning with effort, and stared in horror as the Shadow Petal raised her skull face to stare at him.
She’d killed Wesanin from within his tornado.
Fyrona was dragging herself to her feet.
Nyrix? Scorio looked over his shoulder just in time to see a bolt of burning white fly toward him. He flung up his Shroud, and this at least it could block. The bolt lodged in deep but failed to pierce, so Scorio kept it up, completely protecting his flank.
He reached out with his senses. The air was almost completely drained of mana.
He was the last member of his team still up.
The Shadow Petaclass="underline" unhurt. Fyrona? Mauled but rising. Nyrix? Opening portals. Penaela? Laid out on the oval’s far side. The detonation of her sun had knocked her out. Ursan? Battered nearly to the point of insensibility, his face and shoulders blistered and blackened.
Scorio dove toward the ogre.
ARMS DOWN!
Ursan obeyed.
Scorio angled his descent so that he flew in just over the ogre’s shoulder. He reached out, caught hold of his neck with one taloned hand, and cut through the giant’s neck even as he pulled the huge body around and between him and the Shadow Petal.
Suddenly pliant, Ursan collapsed just as a white blade slid through his shoulder and chest, cutting off the huge right arm and nearly reaching Scorio.
Who immediately embraced his flame form, the rush of power exhilarating, and flowed over the rapidly diminishing Ursan and into the Shadow Petal.
A wicked gamble. A single slash of Mercy would surely cut him apart, but perhaps the part of her that was Himiko would falter.
The Shadow Petal leaped back, a Shroud appearing before her. Scorio flowed all around it but couldn’t pierce its curvature; he flew back and resumed his scaled form.
The Shadow Petal dropped her Shroud. Perhaps she couldn’t cross through space with it in the way, but before she could disappear Scorio unleashed his flame breath, filling the world before him with ebon fire.
Pain flooded his hip and right leg.
Mercy? Kindness?
No: Fyrona, propped up on one elbow, hand to her bleeding temple, her black gaze having scorched and split the scales right off his leg and charred the flesh beneath.
Scorio screamed and leaped, eyesight flickering and growing dark, his wings beating rapidly, just as the ambient mana gave out altogether.
He searched the oval desperately with his Heart’s senses, but it was all gone. The Bronze, the hints of Iron, the faintest wisps of Silver.
They’d consumed it all in minutes.
But his vast Heart was yet full. Drawing on the Iron contained within, Scorio fought for height even as he directed a mental blast at where Fyrona had been: STOP!
Fyrona’s burning gaze faltered and then she lowered her face to the sands. Scorio’s vision returned, and even as he prepared to dive down and slay her, but her body shuddered and then a huge gout of blood burst out from her side and she lay still.
Her Heart had guttered, and with it, her preternatural toughness.
Mind reeling, leg blackened, chest heaving for breath, Scorio flew higher, casting around and trying to locate Nyrix. There—the man had transported to a spot just behind Ursan, where he crouched, bow raised.
Scorio swung his Shroud around, and Nyrix lowered his crossbow, furious.
The Shadow Petal?
Panicked, Scorio cast around. He was higher than thirteen yards. Perhaps fifteen, maybe twenty.
Safe?
Instinct caused him to whip around, wings furling as he allowed himself to fall just as the Shadow Petal appeared in the air behind him, already swinging Mercy. The black blade would have hewed him in two, but instead simply cut through his left shoulder and shoulder-wing.
Both arm and wing immediately fell limp.
With a cry Scorio fell. Attempts to beat his right wing only caused him to spin, and he smashed into the packed dirt with punishing force.
For a moment it was all he could do to keep his Heart burning, feeding it Iron, to blink and gaze up at the gray sky.
The Shadow Petal.
She had to be approaching.
Any second now he’d die.
How had she reached him? She must have leaped right before teleporting up to him.
With a groan he pushed himself over and sat up, absorbing his wings back into his body. His left arm hung numb, his right leg cindered. The pain was terrible, but his Dread Blaze form held it back. Or was that his Gold-tempering?
Gaze blurred, he cast around and saw Nyrix backing away, tongue out over his lower lip.
The Shadow Petal?
There, stalking toward him.
Could nothing stop the woman?
He had one chance. A burst of flame just as -
The Shadow Petal blurred and became Himiko.
“Damn it!” she cried, coming to a stop some ten yards from him.
Scorio grinned, became flame, then blew out a plume of hellfire just over her. She ducked, arms going over her head, and stared up in wonder as the black flames blossomed into a great sphere just beyond her, only to dissipate and fade away.
Himiko turned sharply to stare at him. “Why did you miss?”