“I’m sorry,” Scorio whispered. “I came as soon as I could.”
“I know. It’s just that since then…” She rested her cheek on his chest, gazing up past his shoulder at some hidden memory. “Acherzua is made a hell by the Great Souls, not the fiends. There are times when I’m filled with such rage, such fear, such horror… I lie awake at night, and think I’m back in the Chasm. I know I’m not, but the Nightmare Lady, she tells me this is all a dream, that I’ll wake up again alone in my burrow, fiend blood sticky on my lips…”
Naomi trailed off and fell silent.
Scorio squeezed her close. “This isn’t a dream.”
“I know,” Naomi said hurriedly, focusing on him once more. “I’m just… it’s hard for me. To be around others. To trust anyone. After Daemon, after Jova. Don’t you see? Great Souls exist only for power. Jova’s celebrated because of her obsession. Our kind worships the strong, the ruthless, the great.” She propped herself up again to stare intently into his eyes. “And that makes me feel crazy, sometimes. Like we’re a bunch of murderous monsters pretending to have a tea party. And I know that makes me… hard to keep around. My constant negativity.”
Scorio reached up and cupped Naomi’s cheek. She leaned her face into his touch as her eyes filled with tears.
“All I’m trying to say,” she whispered, voice husky. “Is thank you. For putting up with me.”
“Oh, Naomi.” Scorio felt something tearing within his chest. “Never say that again. You’re my best friend.” I love you, he wanted to say, the words right there on his lips, but something, fear, hesitation, uncertainty, kept them back. “I care for you more than you know.”
“I care for you, too,” said Naomi, and smiled brokenly as her tears brimmed and ran down her cheek. She abruptly lowered her head to his chest again and curled up against him. “Can I stay here? Like this? For a little while longer?”
Scorio didn’t answer. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. They lay thus in the dark, and he listened to her breathing. He couldn’t tell if she’d fallen asleep, but it took him hours to do so.
And as he lay there, one line that she’d spoken emerged to echo again and again in his mind. He did his best to ignore it, to focus on her body beside him, to remember anything else, but the words replayed themselves again and again in her broken whisper: The Nightmare Lady tells me this is all a dream.
Chapter 35
Tension in camp was growing. Great Souls strode around with their hackles up, daring each other to meet their stares. Illegal duels were fought just out of sight beyond the first few dunes, and after the third Flame Vault was killed an edict was passed by Plassus threatening ruptured Hearts for any caught taking part.
Scorio and Naomi focused on meditation, on physical exercise, on keeping out of sight and out of trouble. Scorio forced himself to sit with Taron’s advice, and consider his set of powers, to try and understand what they said about his essence. That he was a creature of violence? That he looked like a fiend? That he was durable and fast? He tried different thoughts, tried to match the powers together into a cohesive whole, but it all felt theoretical and he usually ended each session frustrated and feeling as if he’d wasted his time.
Word filtered to them through the other Dread Blazes, however: battle was imminent. The Seamstress had communicated a deadline: LastRock had to be assaulted in six days’ time. It would take the Blood Barons and their elite squad a single day to teleport into position, which meant the support companies had to leave three days before the assault so that they’d strike their targets on time.
That left three days in camp.
The blistering sun behind its endlessly unfurling clouds rose and fell. The heavens burned, darkened to coals, lit up to roaring. Meals were served. Hours were spent in meditation, and slowly Naomi wrestled the Delightful Secret Marinating technique into submission.
Nyrix stopped by their tent one morning, parting the flap to grin apologetically at where Scorio and Naomi sat meditating. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve been ordered to take you to the zoo.”
“The zoo?” asked Naomi, her tone immediately suspicious.
“That’s what some people call it.” Nyrix shrugged. “Other’s call it the morgue, but, well. You’ll see.”
Scorio emerged into the ruddy morning light and stretched. “Mandatory social activities?”
“Think of it as a class.” Nyrix started leading them to the edge of the war camp. “We’re going to be fighting some pretty dangerous fiends out there, right? So. Good for you to know what we’re up against.”
Naomi’s interest piqued. “They’ve got live fiends on display?”
Nyrix winced. “Yeah, maybe they should just call it the morgue.”
Three massive stone spikes jutted from the sand just outside the camp’s perimeter, upon which three fiends were impaled. They were weeks old, but the dry air had preserved them better than Scorio might have expected.
“Best cover up,” said Nyrix, raising the collar of his robe over his nose. “Trust me. The Okoz has definitely gone bad.”
The fiend in question was in the center, and easily the largest. Three times the height of a man, and weighing perhaps as much as twenty times, it was a huge gorilla-like beast that looked to move about on all fours. Its forelegs—or arms—were thicker than Scorio and ended in fists as large as rain barrels. Its hide had once been beautiful, a colorful patterning of orange, rust, black stripes, and white splotches. The slack features of its face were blue, and its spine seemed to grow up over its head from its huge shoulders to jut out over its brow in a great bone crest.
“Damn,” said Scorio, taking in the massive fiend. “We’re going to be fighting these guys?”
“They move in groups of at least twenty,” said Nyrix. “And they move fast. They like to leap, and can jump, I don’t know, like thirty yards in a bound.” Nyrix sounded almost apologetic. “They’re strong but not too bright. Also, no ranged attacks.”
“Still.” Scorio studied the huge fiend with a frown. Its thick hide crawled with insects, and its slumped form spoke less of terrible power and more to something abject and pathetic.
“These look more dangerous,” said Naomi, who’d wrapped her loose scarf across her face and approached the second pillar. “These look really fast.”
“They are.” Nyrix stayed back. “And they’re smarter than the Okozs, though that’s not saying much. Angraths. They also move in packs. I’ve never fought them, but I’m not looking forward to it, either.”
Scorio drew closer. The Angrath was all whipcord muscle and lean, leathery hide. Even dead its every line spoke of speed and wiry strength, from its tail that was as long again as its body to the spiny fin that ran from the nape of its neck down to its haunches. Its back was covered in a thick, black layer of heavy leather that gradated to a tobacco hide on its flanks, but the underside was pebbled skin, pale beige and alien. A dozen quills swept back from its head, which was a nightmare: all russet bone, almost insectile, with no eyes and a surprisingly small maw filled with clustered fangs.
“And then, just as bad as the others, we have the Tokalauths.” Nyrix gestured with his elbow at the remaining fiend. “The worst part about this one is that it burrows. And can move underground nearly as fast as we can run. Which means, on a bad day, that a hundred of them can erupt from beneath your feet with little warning.”