Leonis’s eyes glittered. He was breathing deeply, powerfully. “Lianshi?”
“Enough!” Praximar’s form shimmered and separated into five identical copies, each moving as if truly independent of the others. “In all my days I have never been subjected to such indignity. Dameon! On the… what by the ten hells?”
“Rampage into spawning pools!” croaked Nox as he appeared in the archway, the Nightmare Lady astride his back. The Imperial Ghost Toad was battered and cut, but his throat worked powerfully and the Nightmare Lady gripped his armored back, her eyes burning deep green.
“Favorite friends Leonis and Lianshi.”
“What is even happening?” Lianshi cried, half laughing, half sobbing.
Leonis extended his arm and Nezzar appeared within his grasp, black and burning with power. “A moment of madness,” he said. “Time to make a decision, my love.”
“Oh, enough of this foolery!” barked the Pyre Lord. “I’ll end this now!”
And he attacked.
Chapter 66
A forcefield appeared around Dameon even as one of the Praximars flew up and back as if yanked away by a rope, disappearing through the sparse canopy and into Bastion’s sky.
The other four raised their palms and unleashed bolts of glowing gold force.
Scorio raised his Shroud, stepping sideways to interpose himself before Nox and the Pyre Lord so that three of the bolts slammed into him.
His Shroud cracked but held.
The fourth bolt flew at Jova, but she stomped her foot into the ground so that a paving stone flew up just in time, exploding into fragments that bounced off her Shroud harmlessly.
Shadows began to wreathe the courtyard, inky black and spawning the Nightmare Lady’s segmented tails.
“Leonis?” cried Lianshi in panic.
“Defy me and you are both done,” snapped one of the Praximars.
“Screw that guy,” said Leonis.
Nox’s tongue slammed into Dameon’s forcefield as the other man approached Scorio, his cocked fist growing ever brighter. The tongue’s corrosive effect immediately began to distend the forcefield, causing it to bulge and warp.
Scorio darted forward, dodging Dameon and racing toward the Praximars, who spread out and flew up into the air, each moving to a different corner of the courtyard.
Jova gestured and rocks tore themselves free of the floor and walls.
Butterflies flew forth from Zala’s hands, pastel-hued and brilliant, streaming far faster toward the closest Praximar than they had ever done before.
Scorio’s wings burst forth as he leaped to assault the closest Praximar, whose blue eyes widened as he flew back and behind a tree; three bolts of golden light flew at Scorio from the sides, and he only managed to block two with his Shroud as the third hit home.
It felt like being kicked by a horse; Scorio was knocked sideways in mid-air, but the bolt didn’t burn through his scales; pain radiated across his ribs and for a moment he couldn’t breathe, but then he flapped his wings, regained his lost altitude, and speared toward Praximar.
Jova was flinging stones toward two of the Praximar images, each of whom had raised a Shroud with which they deflected the attacks. Dameon, earthbound, was making his way toward Nox, his fist now shining as brightly as the sun-wire at Amber.
“Don’t let him hit you!” Scorio yelled to Naomi, whose tails whipped at Dameon’s weakened forcefield, lashing at them again and again.
Nezzar appeared in Scorio’s line of sight, floating vertically and coruscating with green fire. A line of which led back to where Leonis stood, holding a second copy—or was it the original? Aloft, six more spokes spearing outward.
Six Nezzars now hung around the perimeter of the courtyard, each burning brightly, revolving around the central hub that was Leonis.
Strength flowed into Scorio, not from his Heart but from outside; he felt the pain in his ribs fade, felt his resolve burn even more brightly, and realized with a flash of utter joy that Leonis had thrown in with him.
Despite whatever lies he’d been told.
Despite everything he couldn’t know.
The knowledge that his friend had chosen to defy Praximar and stand by his side made Scorio’s heart sing, and he laughed as he swerved around the tree to fall upon one of the Pyre Lord’s figures.
Whose Shroud appeared before him. Scorio snarled and lashed at it even as he battered at the figure with his aura of command; the Shroud was surprisingly weak, and after four or five blows it shattered into glittering fragments.
“How—?” demanded Praximar, flying backward in panic and hitting the courtyard wall.
Scorio roared and dove forward, white-hot talons reaching and finding the Pyre Lord’s chest.
In a matter of seconds he tore the image apart, hot blood flying until abruptly the duplicate disappeared.
“That’s better,” said one of the other Praximars. “See how well you shrug this off.”
Nox leaped through the air in a huge spring that took him and Naomi clear across the courtyard and into one of the flying Praximars, who yelled in surprise and revolved just in time to bring his Shroud to bear; Nox bounced off it and fell, but his tongue remained affixed to the Shroud and grew taut as that Praximar sought to wrest it around to block Jova’s attack.
He failed.
A river of rocks pounded into that Praximar, battering him and knocking him back, breaking bones and pulverizing the man till he disappeared, leaving only two behind.
Who raised their palms at Scorio and unleashed twin bolts of gold.
Scorio grunted and raised his Shroud, massive and broad. Both bolts slammed home at the same time, and his Shroud burst apart, the loss shocking like a slap to the face—but the bolts didn’t get through.
“How?” yelled Praximar, his fury towering. “You’re just a measly Flame Vault, this is pathetic—”
But Jova was directing twin streams of rocks at them, an endless assault that recycled its ammunition so that each Praximar was faced with a revolving wheel of stone fragments that hammered home without surcease.
The power flowing into Scorio from the slowly revolving Nezzars was intoxicating.
“Dameon!” Praximar’s shout was stark with disbelief. “You coward! Where are you going?!”
The Dread Blaze had darted into the corridor leading back to the feasting hall and was gone.
For a terrible second, Scorio felt torn; he wished to hie after the fleeing Dread Blaze, to carve the flesh from his bones and tear screams from his gullet. To avenge—but no.
Praximar was his true target and their greatest threat.
Zala’s pastel butterflies now flew toward one of the Praximars, settling on his Shroud even as Lianshi directed great motes of gentle white light toward the other. Dozens were forming around the Praximar and filling the air within their grouping with white fire.
One of the Praximars snarled and unleashed a bolt at Zala, hitting her square in the chest, but the Tomb Spark simply dissolved into a mass of butterflies that set to reforming.
The second bolt flew at Scorio, who sought to dodge but the attack was too quick; it hit him in the chest and dug in deep like a glowing poker thrust into his muscle, slamming him back.
Jova changed tactics, drawing her second stream of rocks to join the first and attack Praximar from all directions even as Lianshi’s white prism of radiant light roasted his Shroud and caused the Pyre Lord within to burn. The concentrated assault shattered the man’s defenses and killed him outright.
The sole remaining Praximar laughed. “It’s been too long since I have had a good fight on my hands! Too long that I’ve sat behind a desk. Oh, but this is rich. I feel like a schoolyard bully, but what can you do? Scorio, do you want to know the truth? The real reason I’ve hated you all along?”
Scorio rose from the ground. The golden bolt had cauterized his flesh, leaving a painful fist sized wound over his body. Praximar was buying time. Why?