Fortress Frontier

by Myke Cole

  The smell worsened as they pressed on. At last it was so thick that Bookbinder began to cough. The air become hazy.

  “Sir”—Dhatri tugged on his elbow—“ we have to stop.”

  “Why?”

  Dhatri pointed off to his left. “We need to go in this direction.”

  Bookbinder looked at Sharp, and the sergeant shook his head.

  “That’s not the way we’re headed,” Bookbinder said.

  “I know, sir, but His Highness informs me that we are heading into very dangerous territory, and we will need to go around it.”

  Bookbinder sighed. “How far is this detour?”

  Dhatri turned to Vasuki-Kai and asked a question in Hindi.

  The naga replied with a burst of hissing. “His Highness says approximately two weeks on foot.”

  “Dhatri, you know the FOB doesn’t have that kind of time. I told Crucible a month, and we’ve already burned a quarter of that. Now, what’s the problem?”

  Vasuki-Kai gesticulated, but Dhatri put a hand on his elbow.

  “The Naga Raajya have a mortal enemy in the agni danav, whose own Raajya lies some distance from them. The agni danav are terrible monsters. I have seen them with my own eyes, sir.”

  Bookbinder shook his head. Just when he thought he was coming to grips with the Source’s strangeness, something like this came along.

  “Their territory must have expanded since we last came to the FOB,” Dhatri went on. “His Highness is very troubled by this. We had hoped to skirt the Agni Danav Raajya, but I think that is not possible now. We must go around.”

  “How can you know this?” Bookbinder asked.

  “His Highness’s senses are keener than mine,” Dhatri said, indicating the naga’s many flicking tongues. “But even a human nose can smell the damage from here. The agni danav only suffer that which does not burn to live.”

  Bookbinder turned to Woon and Sharp. “Well?”

  Sharp shrugged. “Not my call, sir.”

  Woon nodded. “Sir, two weeks could make the difference between holding on and not holding on.”

  “Sharp? I want your input here,” Bookbinder said.

  “I’m not in the habit of going around dangerous spots, sir.”

  Bookbinder turned back to Dhatri. “I need your honest, bottom-line, no–bullshit assessment, Subedar Major. What are we walking into here? Is this going to be tough? Or is it suicide?”

  Dhatri turned to Vasuki-Kai, and Bookbinder stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Um, I don’t suppose you’d mind making that question a bit more polite before you translate?”

  Dhatri smiled, then spoke to his Bandhav for a long time. At last, he turned back.

  “His Highness says he has fought the agni danav before and defeated them. He is confident in my safety because I am his Bandhav and so, his blood. But he cannot speak for you though he does not doubt your courage.”

  Bookbinder looked back at Sharp and Woon. “We’ll be fine, sir,” they said in near-perfect synchronicity, then looked at each other in surprise and laughed.

  Bookbinder turned back to Dhatri. “No detour. We press on.”

  After another few hours, the landscape began to change. The grass slowly gave up its green, ceding first to pale yellow and, finally, to withered brown. The stink of brimstone became overpowering, choking them until Sharp removed cloths from his backpack, soaked them in water, and passed them around. Tied over the nose and mouth, they made the trip bearable, but only just. They squinted through air becoming thick with gray smoke, first warm and finally hot. At last, all vegetation petered out, and they found themselves crunching across ground dusted with fine, gray ash. Within moments, it covered them from head to foot.

  What the hell did I just get us into? Bookbinder considered turning back, and again decided against it. The FOB didn’t have time. Bookbinder had told Crucible it would take them roughly a month. The loss of two weeks to a detour would leave his XO way beyond that window. They hadn’t come out here to be comfortable.

  They’d come out here to save lives, at the expense of their own, if necessary.

  A blue flash lit through the smoke before him. Bookbinder stopped, putting his hand on Sharp’s arm. The sergeant raised a fist and signaled a halt, then sighted down his carbine into the smoking haze. “What is it, sir?”

  “I thought . . . I could have sworn . . . there it is again!”

  Bookbinder pointed at another bright blue flash, then another alongside it. “You see that?”

  “I see it, sir. Wait here.” Sharp pushed into the smoke, disappearing for a few agonizing moments. Then his voice came drifting back to Bookbinder. “I think you should come take a look at this, sir.”

  Bookbinder walked into the smoke. Sharp materialized, standing beside the source of the blue glow.

  It was a lizard, its thick, mottled skin softly emanating dull blue light, mysteriously free of the ash dust that coated the rest of them. “There’s a bunch of ’em around, sir,” Sharp said. “They don’t seem scared, but they won’t let me get close either.”

  Bookbinder took a step toward the creature and leaned down, extending a hand before jerking it suddenly back. The lizard scuttled away, skittish at his closeness.

  “Jesus, Sergeant. It’s cold. The air around it is freezing.”

  “Yeah,” Sharp said. “I noticed that. Must be how they survive in this. I haven’t seen anything else alive.”

  “Well, I’m going to call that a good thing,” Bookbinder said.

  “Let’s take a rest, grab some chow before we move on.”

  They did their best, gathering around a chest-high boulder that was the sole marker on the otherwise featureless landscape.

  The ash dust got into their rapidly dwindling supply of MREs the moment they opened them, and they raced to get the food in their mouths once they’d rinsed it off with the water in the portable bladders on their backs. They sweated in the oppressive heat, tugging at the collars on their body armor. “Feels like we’re sitting too close to a campfire,” Woon said.

  Bookbinder put his MRE on his pack and stood up. “I’ve got an idea about that. Get clear of this rock.”

  “Sir?” Woon asked as the group gave the boulder a wide berth.

  “Just trust me.” He strode out to where more blue flashes indicated the presence of the ubiquitous lizards. He stood beside one and Drew his magic, Binding it to the weak but chilly current he felt washing off one of them. Once he felt his own being suffused with it, he turned and sighted the boulder, Binding it hard.

  The rock shook gently, then turned blue, the ridge tinged with white frost.

  Bookbinder trotted back over, holding his hands over it, feeling the cold air wash over him. He sighed. “That’s more like it.”

  He looked at the rest of the group, all eyeing him with wide-eyed amazement.

  “I thought you were a Latent Grenade.” Woon’s eyes narrowed.

  “The boomers . . . the things you use to clean the water. I know what . . . your magic is now.”

  Bookbinder cocked an eyebrow. “Life’s full of surprises,” he said. “Grab some cold, and we’ll get a move on.”

  Chapter XVIII

  Field of Fire

  Count on the US to do it completely wrong. The so–called “Selfer” commune the SOC shut down in Portland? They were making tomatoes the size of your head, stalks of wheat with triple the yield. They could have fed whole villages of starving Pakistanis. But that’s not acceptable. Too dangerous, the government says. Using Terramancy to build better roads to move tanks or ammunition? That’s just fine. Firming up the walls for armories and combat outposts? Good use of Terramancy. Growing superfoods to feed the world? Threat to national security.

  —Amy Rutlidge, Professor of Political Science, Harvard University

  Speaking before the Great Reawakening Commission, US Senate

  The ground rose as they marched on, the added exertion of the climb exhausting them in the choking ash dust and heat. Bookbi
nder permitted them to loosen the straps on their body armor, but it was all he would allow. They were on dangerous ground, and he wouldn’t have them caught flat-footed.

  They proceeded in silence, only the Special Forces operators giving no indicator of discomfort.

  The ground continued to rise sharply for another hour, then at long last it stopped so suddenly that Bookbinder had to catch himself, pinwheeling his arms briefly as he recovered his balance.

  The haze cleared, revealing a vista that Bookbinder could only describe as the traditional vision of hell.

  As far as the eye could see, the plain was reduced to ash. It looked like the scoured bottom of a furnace, completely featureless save for cracked and broken rocks, glowing red-hot.

  Here and there, plumes of fire belched skyward, emitting tendrils of black, noisome smoke. The heat hit them like a wall.

  Bookbinder realized that the ridge they’d been climbing had blocked the worst of it, and now they were facing the furnace’s full force. In an instant, he had soaked through his uniform, helmet liner, the padding beneath his body armor and rucksack.

  Dhatri coughed. “This is bad, sir. The agni danav burn everything. Their Terramancy is nasty stuff. They raise . . . what is the English for a mountain that shoots fire?”

  Bookbinder thought for a moment. “Volcanoes?”

  Dhatri nodded. “They raise volcanoes that shower everything with ash. There must be a new one fairly close to have done this.”

  “Holy shit,” Bookbinder breathed, then lapsed into a fit of coughing. Beside him, Sharp nodded.

  Apart from the blue flashes of the cold lizards, Bookbinder thought he could make out large pillars of flame moving about, black cores gesturing. Bookbinder glanced down the sheer wall of the ridge to where it terminated in the field of ash. Some of lizards congregated there, their splayed toes carrying them across the surface much like snowshoes, leaving soggy pools of semiliquid ash in their wake.

  “We’ve got to cross this, huh?” Bookbinder asked.

  Sharp nodded, then pointed down the ridge. “There’s a tumble there. Remnants of an avalanche, I’d guess. Should be able to scramble down.”

  “You . . . uh . . . you want to recon it first?”

  Sharp looked at him, smiling beneath the cloth covering his face. “You catch on fast, sir.” He gestured to Fillion, who nodded, slung his carbine, and began picking his way down the rock scramble, so steep that it was more of a climb. Anan took a knee along the ridge, covering his comrade with the SAW.

  Bookbinder held his breath until Fillion reached the bottom.

  The operator coughed, patting at his gloves, which smoldered from the hot surface of the ridge side. He gave a thumbs–up, then turned to the smooth surface of ash powder before him. He tested it with his boot tip, then knelt and dabbed at it with a finger.

  At last he cupped a hand over his mouth and called back up to Sharp. “It’s not hot!”

  Sharp gave him a thumbs–up and moved to the top of the scramble. Fillion turned, planted his boot on the ash, and put his weight on it.

  The ash swallowed him faster than Bookbinder could blink.

  Sharp cursed and began descending the ridge side so fast that he fell rather than climbed down, calling for Archer. Bookbinder turned to Woon. “Get him up!”

  “On it.” Woon raced to the top of the scramble. Bookbinder could feel her current Drawing fast and hard.

  Sharp paced at the edge of the ash sea, twisting his hands, muttering under his breath, “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” the first time Bookbinder ever saw the man lose his composure. Bookbinder scrambled down to stand at his side as the ash began to churn before them. A moment later, a hardened platform of the stuff, roughly ten feet across, rose in response to Woon’s magic.

  Fillion sprawled across it, his weapon, helmet, and pack missing.

  Covered in ash dust, he looked like a gray sculpture depicting a man in agony. His mouth was open, a small stream of ash pouring from it below twin trickles from his nose.

  Sharp leapt to the hardened platform. Archer scrambled down and joined him. The two men knelt at Fillion’s side for the briefest of moments before Sharp stood, his flinty demeanor returned. “He’s dead, sir.”

  You should say something to comfort them. But all Bookbinder could say was, “Are you sure?”

  Sharp nodded. He composed the corpse, laying Fillion gently on his back, crossing his arms over his chest. He ripped he American flag patch off his shoulder and pressed it into the palm of his hand, then he reached into the man’s breast pocket and removed a small package wrapped in plastic. He tucked it into his pocket and glanced up at the ridgetop, where Anan nodded to him, making his way to the scramble.

  Sharp and Archer retrieved what gear they could, then returned to the ash’s edge. The sergeant nodded to Woon. “Send him back down, ma’am.”

  Woon hesitated. Bookbinder asked, “Is there something you’d like to do for him?”

  Sharp shook his head, his voice barely a whisper. “We’ve done it, sir. We need to get moving.”

  Dhatri translated for Vasuki-Kai, who joined them at the ridge’s bottom. “His Highness says you should clean and cremate the body, so that he may join Yama Raja in paradise. His Highness will be glad to serve as a mourner for you.”

  Sharp shot the naga a dangerous look and said nothing.

  “Please thank His Highness and inform him that this man must be laid to rest in accordance with his own custom,” Bookbinder said quickly. He turned to Woon without waiting for a reply. “Send him back down, Major. Now, please.”

  Woon nodded and dropped her arms. The hardened platform went with them, and Fillion disappeared for the second time.

  Vasuki-Kai bridled at the action and looked as if he might argue, but a number of his heads suddenly jerked to the side, tongues darting. He hissed a warning to Dhatri.

  “They are coming,” the subedar major said.

  Bookbinder looked up. Two of the black, flame-wreathed shapes had ceased their roaming and angled toward them purposefully.

  Vasuki-Kai hissed again and drove his hands into his sash. They emerged with a bladed arsenal that weaved in time with his darting heads, a dancing cloud of threats.

  “His Highness says there will be battle. Your Terramancer may wish to give us suitable ground.”

  Woon nodded and the ash around them solidified. Sharp pointed to Archer, who took cover in some of the rocks. Anan scrambled back up to the ridge, popping the release on the SAW’s bipod. Feeling useless, Bookbinder racked the shotgun’s slide. If Sharp had doubts about his ability to use it, he kept them to himself.

  Dhatri took cover in the coils of Vasuki-Kai’s tail, sighting down his carbine.

  The shapes materialized as they drew closer. They were huge.

  Each one was at least eight feet tall, bigger even than Vasuki-Kai.

  Their bodies were human, cartoonishly muscular. Their hairless skin was a deep bronze, almost orange. A triangle of black hair marked their chests. Their heads were enormous, horned and fanged, a twisted parody of a buffalo. Orange eyes burned with rage, black pupils fixed on them. Their entire bodies, their black-furred heads, their wicked-looking maces, all were wreathed in wicked flame. The ground around them sparkled as they came.

  Glass, Bookbinder thought. They’re melting the ash to glass.

  These fuckers must be hotter than hell.

  “Agni danav,” Dhatri said. His carbine cracked.

  A flash of fire on one of the creatures’ torsos indicated the round’s impact. The agni danav grunted, a bovine sound, and kept coming. From the ridgeline, Anan’s SAW set up a rhythmic thumping. The ash around the agni danav exploded in dust and splintered glass. The flame cloud around the creatures exploded with white-hot pinpoints where the rounds impacted.

  Sharp and Archer added fire. A dull, thudding explosion burst just behind the creatures as one of Archer’s grenades impacted.

  The agni danav didn’t slow.

  Bookbinde
r felt Woon’s magic Bind before him and the ash slammed upward into a hard wall. The agni danav lowered their horned heads and smashed through it, only paces away now.

  Vasuki-Kai hissed a battle cry that Dhatri echoed in Hindi.

  “Har Har Mahadev!” He sprang from his coils, his forest of swords and snapping heads extending to meeting them. Bookbinder raised the shotgun and yanked on the trigger. It resisted solidly. You left the safety on, idiot.

  The first agni danav met Vasuki-Kai’s blur of attacks, parrying with its mace with blinding speed, leaning forward to snap at the naga with its fanged head. Within moments, the naga’s weapons glowed dull red. The darting snake’s heads snapped and hissed but couldn’t land a bite, yanking back from the intense heat surrounding the agni danav.

  An automaton of ash rose out of the ground, clenching its fists and delivering a double hammerblow to the side of the other agni danav, who lowed, doubling over, as it slammed its mace into the thing’s head, shattering it and sending clouds of ash scattering over them. Woon snarled and the automaton fell back, the head re–forming.

  The agni danav pressed forward, the withering fire from Sharp’s and Anan’s weapons incinerating on contact with the flames surrounding them. The first recovered from Vasuki-Kai’s onslaught and began to beat the naga back. Vasuki-Kai’s weapons glowed white-hot now as he traded blows with the creature.

  Dhatri backpedaled behind him, changing magazines and angling for a clear shot.

  The second agni danav dodged Woon’s re–formed automaton and leapt for her. Bookbinder jumped between them, finally thumbing the safety off and firing the shotgun at the creature’s face. The weapon kicked like a mule, sending him sprawling. The frangible slug shattered and burned up in the agni danav’s flame halo, the burning shards peppering its face. It blinked furiously, stumbling backward. It recovered quickly, shaking its head and raising its mace to crush Bookbinder. He backpedaled as fast as he could, racking the shotgun’s slide, knowing that he wouldn’t get out of the way of the descending ball of black iron in time.

  And then the agni danav lowed, knocked to the side by a huge boulder that had tumbled down the ridge side. Anan knelt at the crest, SAW abandoned, having guessed that rocks could succeed where bullets were failing. The agni danav grunted and threw the boulder off, forcing Bookbinder to dodge. It struggled to its feet, clutching its ribs, then swept its mace at Woon’s automaton.