by Dan Allen
Angel suggested incendiary grenades, and Jet obliged, launching two into the tree’s highest branches.
“Is that you torching the forest, Jet?” called the Alpha squad leader. “Quit messing around and get to the rally point.”
Jet rolled free of the flaming netter tree. He didn’t have any of the necessary chemical cues to tell the tree to leave him alone.
The spritely Avalonians made homes in the netter trees and could use chemical signals to command them to attack.
Wait a minute . . .
Bat chickens assaulting armored soldiers.
Uninhabited netter trees attacking.
Jet had lived on Avalon for years and never had either of those things happen to him. Let alone both. It didn’t add up.
Unless . . . it’s an ambush.
Jet toggled his radio. “All teams, be advised. We may have Avalonian traitors in the landing zone. Repeat, traitors in the—”
Screams sounded in his earpiece, and a moment later several blasts reached him through the jungle.
“Alpha team is down,” Wessca reported. “Beta team, you are go.”
“Epsilon on the ground, engaging hostiles,” Monique reported. “Oh Earth—they have Talaksians!” Her voice cut out in a hiss of static.
“Orcs,” Jet cursed under his breath. The mountain-dwelling creatures of the larger outer world in the Talaks-Dayal system were completely bulletproof.
Monique’s team needed him now.
“Dormit, Yaris,” Jet called. “Form up and move out!”
Footsteps sounded through the trees as his other crash-landed squad mates came alongside him. As they ran toward the landing zone, various scents passed through his nostrils, causing odd sensations from numb lips to elation, but none took full hold of his mind.
“Five hundred meters to landing zone,” Angel said, speaking from Jet’s helmet speaker to the members of the squad. “Multiple enemies approaching. This appears to be an ASP strike force. Expect orcs to draw your attention and faelings to attack from the trees. The humans will likely be running attack drones.”
“What about Rodorians?” Dormit asked.
“Too big to hide,” Yaris said, gliding alongside Jet, seeming to barely make an effort. He was six foot five and weighed only about sixty kilos on a good day. “Obviously they know the High Councillors are here, but can’t find the bunker.”
“I estimate enemies will be in view in less than twenty seconds,” Angel said. “I need more eyes.”
“Deploying tactical drones.” More than a dozen tiny drones lifted off Yaris, transitioning from barely visible seams in his tactical armor into tiny flying eyes in the sky.
So far, the path was surprisingly clear.
With the added surveillance from the minidrones, suddenly Angel was highlighting foes on Jet’s helmet display, like tags on pointy shoes at a Caprian market. They were everywhere.
“Take cover,” Jet crouched behind a tree with Dormit by his side, breathing heavily. A few yards away, Yaris stood against a tree with wide strut-like roots that fanned out at the base.
Machine-gun fire strafed the forest, obliterating tree limbs with high-explosive rounds and sending curling Avalonian leaves raining to the forest floor.
“I thought the fae were on our side,” Dormit said.
“But obviously one of them sic’d those bat chickens on us,” Jet said. “Those birds weren’t trying to get away, like a flock scattering. They were attacking.”
Yaris prepped his flamethrower. “ASP money has a way of swaying loyalty.”
A moment later, a hail of high-velocity shells ran down from the class-5 dropship in twin streams. It circled the landing zone, pivoting with the shielded, tilting fan rotors in its short, armored wings.
Jet unshouldered his long-barreled high-velocity firearm. “The dropship is drawing their attention. Now’s our chance.”
Two huge explosions rocked the wood.
“Watch for booby traps!” Wessca roared over the tacnet.
“Beta team is not reporting,” a marine called. “Delta is pinned down. Any remaining forces, secure the landing zone!”
Jet peeled out from behind the tree and right into the path of a charging Talaks orc. The juggernaut didn’t even bother wearing armor. Even its glassy eyes were bulletproof.
Angel suggested an alternate target: a tree branch where a four-foot-tall fae traitor couldn’t hide from her thermal vision. Jet raised his sidearm and fired a high-explosive round that severed the branch and sent it crashing down into the path of the orc.
The eight-foot orc leapt—a typical reaction for a mountain predator accustomed to jumping from clifftop to clifftop. Jet rolled underneath and fired a blast of quick-setting hull sealant that shrink-wrapped the orc’s feet together in a sheet of polymerically-bonded nanofibers.
The Talaksian behemoth landed quite unceremoniously on top of the scrambling faeling.
Two shots, two down.
But before the epoxy could fully harden, the tusked orc managed to tear free.
“Oh boy.”
It flexed its clawed hands and turned its beady eyes on Jet.
Orcs lived in brutal mountain landscapes on Talaks, where they were the top predator. Jet was next on the menu.
Chapter 7
Dana’s plunge in the river lasted only a few minutes. A ranger downstream plucked her out. With her partially webbed hands bound, Dana wasn’t much of a swimmer. After enduring a pointless lecture about the dangers of sayathi microorganisms in open water—Dana had obviously kept her mouth shut while she swam—the rest of the day had been spent in a cold, dark cell. At least the river had washed the incriminating blood off her clothes.
Finally, she was sentenced and sent home.
It wasn’t Dana’s first time being arrested. She’d illegally rescued animals from hunter’s traps on numerous occasions. But this time, Chancellor Orrek had levied a punishment he knew she would hate worse than sitting alone in a jail: counseling from Goodman Warv.
Daily.
While not as vulnerable as being in prison, Dana would still be a sitting target if the kazen came when she was stuck in the chapel with Warv.
Orrek had been right about the punishment, though. She would rather a public flogging or something barbaric like that than a daily guilt trip.
She had to report to the chapel the following day.
In the meantime, every hour that passed could bring the Vetas-kazen closer.
Six kazen were in the forest, Omren had said. How far could the remaining five be? Were they already in the city?
I wish I could make the Norrians understand I’m not a problem that needs fixing. Dana shoved her hands into the fur-line pockets of her thick-spun bison-hair jacket. She trudged ahead along the familiar route from her family’s cottage on the steeply sloped north side of the city toward the chapel, doing her best to mimic the big-bellied chancellor in his breathy, condescending manner.
“It’s quite simple, young Dana. You must stop trying to use the Creator’s powers. Just stop feeling pain. Stop caring about innocent animals. Stop being yourself. You see it’s quite easy when you try. You just stop it! Stop it! And then we all live in peace.”
Dana imagined poking him with a needle in his rotund belly just to see if he popped.
“It’s quite easy to get rid of a belly, Mr. Chancellor. You just pop it! Pop it! And then we live in peace.”
Reaching the flat ground in the commerce district, she rounded the big black iron boiler of a trader’s steam-wagon and spotted Forz turning into Kernic Alley. She waved to him from across the street.
Forz whistled, and his gangly mechanodron stopped and set down a wheelbarrow full of unpolished sayathenite crystals. Seven feet tall, the two-legged, wooden-limbed, blind contraption was rigged with rhynoid vines controlled by electrical signals from sayathenite crystals.
Forz’s mechanodron was called “Blamer,” so named because it was trained for use in a mine, where its catalytic sensor det
ected methane leaks. It had the entertaining habit of pointing in the direction of anyone who farted.
Dana scurried across the high street to her friend, who pushed his long, wavy blond hair out of his eyes. “What’s the verdict?”
“Confinement to the city and counseling—daily,” Dana grumbled.
“At least you didn’t get prison.”
“Won’t matter if the Vetas-kazen find me. Listen, I need a favor. Can you make me a mechanodron to punch the chancellor out?”
Forz grimaced. “I’m not sure the chancellor would allow me to punch him repeatedly just to train a mechanodron on how it’s done.”
“You could always just start and see how far you get.”
The corner of Forz’s cheek turned up. Then he whistled a low note, and Blamer lifted the wheelbarrow and lumbered forward up the side street toward his workshop. The electrostrictive plant fibers that wound over its wooden frame-skeleton contracted rhythmically as they sucked down sugary syrup from two glass jars on its shoulders. “You know, Dana, I’m not entirely convinced you don’t need this counseling.”
“This city needs counseling.” Dana leaned back against the wall of a bookkeeping house. “Forz, what am I going to do? I can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
“Yeah, but they won’t let you past the gates.”
Dana shoved her hands in her pockets. “I really do want to leave. But you’re here, and Brista. And what if I ran out of money or food and had to crawl back to Norr and ask my parents for help?”
“You always find a way to get into trouble.” Forz looked her in the eyes. Then he smiled. “And you always find a way out.” He gestured to the side street where his workshop was located. “I’d . . . better get going.”
Dana waved goodbye with her fingers, as he hurried to catch up to his mechanodron.
Why did we both end up in a place like Norr?
Dana watched him until he reached the workshop. Then she turned and crossed the square, avoiding the chapel like a quarantined house.
She would have rather been stuck with Forz for the afternoon, watching him strap himself to a new mechanodron and repeat the same motions over and over, until the acoustoelectric sayathenite crystal picked up the pattern and the mechanodron could pump a forge bellows or pull taffy by itself.
As Dana trudged up to the miner’s district at the west end of town, she consoled herself with the fact that neither the rangers nor the civic guard had found the bloodstone.
It was her ticket to a new life.
Could I really become a ka?
An approaching woman crossed the street. After passing Dana, she crossed back.
Dana tried to ignore it.
Another Norrian waited in her doorway for Dana to pass, avoiding any eye contact, her sifa flat against her neck, as if Dana were a predator. Only after Dana was headed away did she step onto the street with her child.
As if what I have is a plague.
A block later, the tender at the midtown water station looked about as she approached, as if surprised there was no civic guard shepherding her.
How dare the freak walk about on her own?
Hunger and a growing sense of irritation only heightened her awareness of the way other Norrians acted around her.
Being a druid defined her. She could not change it any more than a Xahnan could change their eye color. And she wasn’t just any druid. She was the best anyone had ever heard of—and that without any proper training. At least that was what Forz had heard. Nobody said such things to her. It would only encourage her aberrant behavior.
It disgusted her. Norr was supposedly a paragon of virtue, a place where everyone was equal.
Adepts like Dana only reminded Norrians how wrong they were.
A flock of pigeons, stirred by Dana’s temper, fluttered away, straight past the startled face of an old man. He swung his cane at the harmless birds.
How dare you hit them?
Dana wondered if she could convince one of the pigeons to come back and poop on the man’s bald scalp. But this was too much for her hunger-weakened resolve. Dana’s anger bled out, and she trudged home in a mild stupor.
“Dana!” Her mother’s cheerful voice rang out through the open kitchen window, and Dana felt herself wrapped in a big hug as she came through the kitchen doorway. “You look terrible, darling.”
“They’re making me go to counseling every day!”
“Yes, we know, dear.” Her father took his boots off the small kitchen table. He avoided looking at her. It was a subtle thing, but it said everything.
He was ashamed of her, so ashamed and disappointed he didn’t even bother to lecture her about trying to free the nox. Dana hadn’t expected that. And she hadn’t expected it to hurt as much as it did. She felt like turning around and running back out.
“Have some tea.” Her mother brought her a warm cup with steaming herbal tea.
“Marit kept the cooking fire on for you,” her father finally said.
Was he saying she was costing them money? It certainly wasn’t a welcome home.
Dana mumbled a barely audible thanks as she set her cup on the wooden table, collapsed into a wobbly chair, and let her head bang down on the table.
“I don’t belong here.” Dana imagined her parents exchanging one of their looks. She stared at the floor, and her sifa trembled as if she were about to cry.
“Give me a break.”
“Go away, Tyrus.” Dana didn’t even look up to see her brother’s scoffing expression.
“You’re such a selfish brat.”
“Tyrus, mind the fire, would you?” her mother said placidly. “We’ll need another log tonight.”
Dana tilted her head to see her lanky older brother lean forward and toss a log into the fireplace of the room that served as kitchen, dining, and gathering room. “See, she doesn’t even deny that she was robbing the trappers.” His long hair dangled near the flame. Dana hoped the ends would catch fire.
No such luck. She had no control over elements like the Vetas-kazen who had attacked her.
At the thought of the episode, Dana’s stomach turned.
Blood glistening on the ground. Omren’s body lying with his head askew.
Dana shook her head, trying to rid her mind of the images.
“I saved you some mushroom and leek soup,” her mother said. She placed a bowl in front of Dana.
“Thanks.” Dana shoveled a spoonful into her mouth and swallowed, trying to keep down whatever little was already in there. Her stomach was unsettled, anxiety outweighing hunger.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Dana ignored her mother. Instead, Dana’s hand drifted to the pocket of her vest. She fingered the pouch she had hidden there and its faceted crystal that never left her side, now feeling the burden of keeping it a secret from even her family.
Then the idea of just telling them what happened willed its way to the surface of Dana’s thoughts. It suddenly seemed so logical, so simple. So right.
Dana could hardly believe that after doing everything possible to keep the bloodstone a secret, she suddenly felt like just letting it out.
What’s wrong with me?
Then it was clear, just as when she had touched Sindar. Thoughts were there that weren’t her own.
She looked over to see her mother’s hand on her shoulder.
No. She’s an enchantress!
Dana jerked away from her mother. The feeling of wanting to tell faded as quickly as the smile on her mother’s face. Both of them wore looks of shock and disbelief.
My mother is an enchanter adept.
Dana searched her memory. Had her mother manipulated her in the past?
She’s an adept, too. She should understand—and she shouldn’t try to force me to share my secrets!
Dana stared in her mother’s eyes, threatening to reveal her mother’s own secret. Her mother’s expression begged her not to.
“I don’t belong here,” Dana said finally. She broke o
ff the gaze. “None of us do.”
“And where would we go?” her father said. “Mechanodron sayathenite is abundant in caves above Norr. We supply half of the entire continent’s needs. And miners are hungry. They need warm clothing.”
“Animal skins.” Dana shuddered. She picked up the spoon and stirred the soup, the churning matching her stomach’s grumbling. “Thunder bison hair is just as warm. And it grows back. People are too lazy to train a mechanodron to run a loom.”
“It’s not that simple,” her father said. “You think you know everything. But you don’t.” She was attacking his trade. Of course he would be defensive about it. Although when it came to killing animals, she understood far more about it than he ever would.
“Romus, could you light a candle?” It was obviously her mother’s attempt to defuse the brewing argument. She turned back to the wash basin, filled from a copper pipe that came down from the roof’s rain-collecting troughs—no unbound Norrian could risk a drink of water from a river or well that might be tainted by sayathi.
Nearby, Tyrus leaned against the rough-cut wooden wall of the home and stared at the fire. And for a moment, while her father rummaged for a match, there was peace.
“Why did you go to grandpa’s?” Tyrus asked suddenly.
“Because I wanted to.”
“You wanted to be alone with grandpa because you love him so dearly? Yeah, right. You were out there raiding traps. You know the trappers only have a few weeks to get grizzled fur.”
“I had things to discuss.”
Her parents exchanged a glance.
Tyrus unwound a cord around his wrist and then rewound it. “You think you’re better than the rest us.”
“Different,” Dana said curtly. “Yes.” Tyrus knew she freed trapped animals. He had seen her do it. And he knew Dana could feel the animals’ pain—she was far more powerful a druid than him.
Perhaps he was jealous. Like her father, he prided himself on his hunting. In a way, she was his enemy. Getting her to admit what she had done would be his victory. It would make her a criminal and him the one in the right.