The drop was eight yards. Scorio landed lightly on thick, spongy moss, then grasped the chain and set to hauling The Sloop even lower. He fed Iron into his Heart, rising into his scaled form, and sought to clear the air of as much mana as possible as he leaned back.
The muscles along his arms writhed; his back bunched, his heels dug deep into the moss, and slowly The Sloop descended, one aching yard at a time. When Scorio thought he could draw it down no more, he looped the chain around a large tree and slammed the anchor deep into the earth.
One deep breath and he climbed the chain back into the hold. Set about furling the sails and taking care of the rigging, locking the steering wheel, and otherwise preparing The Sloop for its stay.
That done, he leaped lightly down to the mossy forest floor once more, and looked around.
He was perhaps a couple of miles from the Chasm. Flocks of birds flew overhead. The world beneath the canopy was emerald green and ethereal, with strange mushrooms glowing softly amongst grasping roots, shelfs of fungi growing in spirals up trees, and rotting trunks half smothered by vines and ferns lying crosswise here and there.
No sign of fiends, though he felt himself watched.
Scorio took off at a run, keeping to his scaled form. The ground was springy, endlessly covered in deep, yielding moss, and occasionally Scorio saw creatures fleeing before him, leaping from branch to branch or diving into thicker areas of undergrowth.
As long as they didn’t bother him he couldn’t care less.
Come night, however, it would be a different equation.
All too soon he reached the edge of the forest. He’d veered too far to the side and emerged nearly at the Chasm’s lip; the huge hole yawned open massively before him, big enough to swallow all of Bastion. He’d forgotten just how damn big it was.
The Manticore settlement was visible a mile or so along the rim. Scorio sank back into the forest and loped toward it, taking care now to be silent. He made his way carefully through the thinner trunks until at last he saw light ahead. Cautiously, almost holding his breath, he crept forward and peered out.
The sight of it was like a hammer blow to the chest. So familiar, yet somehow dingier, the buildings patched up and barely cared for, the crane wheel’s apex rising into view in the distant center, the boulder pile where he and Naomi had labored for so long visible to the far side.
Scorio shuddered with an excess of emotion. Memories cascaded through him. He heard voices, saw a patrol of two Great Souls walking leisurely along the tree line. Smoke rose from chimneys. He could smell grilling meat.
Overcome, Scorio stepped back and fell into a crouch, eyes closed, and focused on controlling his breath.
The sight of the boulder pile alone had driven home how time had passed like nothing else. When last he’d seen it the pile had been a livid mass of raw claw and gaping holes where they’d pried out rocks. Now it was completely overgrown once more, diminished, luxurious ferns thick upon its top.
Scorio couldn’t catch his breath. His hatred and self-loathing choked him. For long, blind moments he remained thus, brow pressed to his knees, and then he rose once more, mind blank, and peered back out.
The tiny graveyard was set beyond the clearing behind the main hall.
Scorio sank back into the forest a hundred yards and worked his way around. Moved slowly, silently, as if in a dream. Returned to the tree line once more and found himself nearly atop the tombstones.
They leaned as drunkenly as before, moss-covered and ill-kempt, the fence around them rotted and more symbolic than anything else.
Beyond, the clearing in which he and Naomi had endlessly wrestled with Crush. The back of the hall.
Nobody was back here, so he scanned the tombstones, and then all went still and silent, the world fading away when he spotted the three new stones at the graveyard’s front.
He shuddered, his chest convulsing. A wave of dizziness washed over him and nearly spilled. Not thinking, not even breathing, he crawled forward, between the older stones, until he reached the front and could turn to see what was carved in each stone.
LEONIS
873 - 873
LIANSHI
873 - 873
NAOMI
873
Moss had begun to grow on the stones. The ground before them was flat, unremarkable.
Hot tears filled Scorio’s eyes. He gasped, looked back over his shoulder, then bowed his head and fought sobs.
It hadn’t felt real till this moment.
He’d failed his friends. Not been smart enough, wise enough, good enough to see the noose around their necks.
Brutal instinct bade him return to the forest. He wandered into its depths, not looking, not caring where his feet took him, and eventually tripped and fell into a fern-choked hollow, flanked on one side by a huge rotting trunk and on the other by a lichen-covered boulder.
Scorio curled into a ball and pressed his fists into his eyes. He shuddered in silence, teeth clenched, tears scalding his cheeks. The sight of those three stones were seared into his mind’s eye.
Dead.
Leonis’s booming laugh. Lianshi’s bright eyes. Naomi’s wry smile.
Two years gone.
Dusk was falling when he finally unclenched his body and lay still. He felt exhausted, febrile, worn out by his endless stint navigating The Sloop and this violent grief. For a long spell he simply lay there, staring up at the branches above him.
It grew dark.
He heard distant barks, then snuffling sounds. Shapes moved to surround his hollow. A dozen fiends, each the size of a pony, shaggy haired and with burning white eyes.
They stared down at him. He made no move to defend himself, but his baleful stare must have dissuaded the fiends for they retreated and didn’t return.
The fleeting sun rose. Scorio passed his arm over his cheeks. He didn’t have time for grief. All too soon Azurith would sail past the entrance to the Chasm’s valley.
He had Dread Blazes to kill.
Chapter 53
Scorio shifted his weight, his three-toed feet clutching the slender branch. His talons were sunken deep into the charred trunk. Even the slightest breeze set the tree to swaying wildly. Around him the canopy was alive with the sounds of the night. His aura kept the mildly curious fiends at bay, but they were around him, watching him as intently as he was watching the camp.
Three hundred yards away and below, the sprawl of the ramshackle Manticore base was a collection of shadows and lanterns. The Chasm a gulf just beyond it. Two days had passed. They’d felt nearly as long as the entire time he’d spent in the Crucible. Two days of watching, waiting, learning, planning.
The first time he’d seen Evelyn he’d snarled uncontrollably. She’d been laughing, carefree, her caramel hair braided, a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Moving to the main hall, surrounded by those who’d emerged from the shaft with her.
She was rarely alone. She seemed to crave company, to be surrounded by younger Great Souls. He thought she was sleeping with this handsome new Great Soul, a youth with a haunted expression and luxuriant black curls. They’d sneak away from camp to make love in the shadowed depressions that rimmed the Chasm. Why they didn’t use the hall was beyond Scorio; they ignored each other during the day. An illicit relationship of some kind?
Didn’t matter.
Scorio had settled on a plan.
This was the first night cycle of the series in which the camp slumbered. Patrols were out, of course. Scorio recognized half the faces below. He waited. Dark vision sharpened, he watched as the young man slipped out of his dormitory and ghosted through the camp to the rear.
Evelyn was more practiced; for all Scorio’s efforts he’d failed to see her leave the main hall until she emerged from deep shadows to pull the man’s face down toward her own, her hair stealing out to coil around his body possessively.