Fortress Frontier

by Myke Cole

  Off to his left, Bookbinder could hear Vasuki-Kai hissing and snapping as the other agni danav continued to push him back.

  They couldn’t sustain this. They were holding the monsters at bay, but they weren’t hurting them.

  And these were only two. A quick glance out at the sea of ash around them showed Bookbinder there were many, many more.

  Bookbinder raised the shotgun and blasted the agni danav in the face again, stunning it. He turned, and shouted to Woon, “Forget the automaton! Get the lizards in the fight!”

  Woon cursed and turned. Her ashen creation froze as the agni danav shook its head and swiped at its eyes, only to rock under another onslaught of popping rounds as Anan got behind the SAW again.

  The agni danav threw its head back and roared, then swung toward Bookbinder. It flexed its shoulders, throwing out its arms and sending out a pulse wave of shimmering heat that blew him off his feet, beating at the smoldering shotgun sling, dangerously close to his face. It lowed again, then charged, raising a giant foot over his face.

  Bookbinder struggled to get the shotgun around and fumbled it, smacking himself in the chin with the now-smoking-hot barrel.

  “Gaaaah!!!! Fuckfuckfuckyoufucker!” he shouted, squeezing his eyes shut as the agni danav’s foot hurtled toward his head.

  Gusts of chill air breezed over his face, the agni danav lowed in terror, and no blow fell.

  Bookbinder opened his eyes. Three of the blue lizards swarmed up the giant creature’s thighs, leaving gray, smoking tracks where they touched it. It screamed, flailing at them, then jerking its hands away as they smoked on contact. The other agni danav had turned from Vasuki-Kai, its eyes widening at the normally skittish creatures, suddenly organized and on the attack. Vasuki-Kai pressed the offense, his blades whirring through the flame halo and scoring a half dozen deep cuts on the agni danav’s chest. It shrieked and took off running, its companion took another halfhearted swipe at the lizards steadily climbing its chest, then its eyes rolled up to the whites, its mouth frothing, and it turned and ran, shaking the lizards off, following its partner into the distance.

  Bookbinder glanced over his shoulder to see Woon, hands outstretched, a smug smile on her broad face.

  He bent double, hands on his knees breathing hard. “You . . . are . . . getting . . . a . . . medal. If we ever . . . get out of this, that is.”

  Woon smiled, relaxing her magic as the agni danav disappeared in the distance. “I’ll be sure to remind you of that, sir.”

  As Anan joined them, Bookbinder did a quick check of the team. Everyone looked sweaty and exhausted. No one looked hurt. Some agni danav circled in the distance, and a few broke off, moving toward their fleeing foes, but none approached closer. “I think we put the fear of God into them,” Bookbinder mused. “I don’t think these guys are used to losing.”

  “His Highness says your Terramancer is a great boon to you,” Dhatri said. “He has never seen the agni danav run before.”

  Bookbinder nodded. “I’m very lucky.”

  Woon shrugged.

  “When we arrive at the Raajya, His Highness will petition the Raja to grant your Terramancer the Maha Vir Chakra. It’s quite an honor.”

  Bookbinder was too exhausted for formalities. He merely nodded thanks.

  He pulled the water bladder feed from his shoulder and gulped at it hungrily, spitting the dust from his mouth. “Everybody drink,” he commanded. A moment later he turned to Woon. “If we’re going to cross this, you’ve got your work cut out for you. You’re going to need to keep a bridge going the whole way. Can you do that?”

  Woon nodded. “I think so, but if they decide to jump us, and I have to Whisper at the same time . . . that’s going to be pushing it, sir.”

  Bookbinder nodded and thought for a moment, then turned to Sharp. “Sergeant, pass me a round?” Sharp looked askance at him and gestured to the bandolier of shotgun slugs built into his own rucksack’s shoulder strap. Bookbinder shook his head in embarrassment. “Sorry.” He eased a shell out and turned back to Woon. “Major, another lizard, if you please.”

  Woon glanced off into the distance and gestured. A moment later, one of the glowing blue reptiles came trotting toward them, stopping just short of Bookbinder’s feet. The entire group moved instinctively toward it, grateful for the chill air wafting off its skin.

  Bookbinder Drew his magic and siphoned off the magical cold from the creature’s skin, then Bound it into the shotgun slug, careful to confine the magic to the projectile, away from the powder. His fingers went numb through the gloves, and he moved quickly to slam the round into the shotgun’s magazine tube. The metal began to sweat as the cold inside it reacted against the heat around them. Bookbinder worked the pump action quickly, ejecting the normal shells to patter on the hardened ash around him. When he got to the bottom of the magazine tube, he shouldered the shotgun and aimed at the ridge side.

  He pulled the trigger and the weapon boomed, kicking fiercely into his shoulder. The slug sped from the barrel, leaving a white-blue streak in the air. It slammed into the ridge side, sending chips of rock flying. An instant later, a frozen patch of ice expanded across the surface, growing until it was a few feet in diameter.

  Anan whistled. Vasuki-Kai hissed in appreciation. “That might do it,” Sharp said.

  “Okay,” Bookbinder said. “Take another five to gather your wits, then”—he turned to Woon—“ let’s get started on a road across this mess.”

  They pushed on at a near trot. Bookbinder wanted them beyond the edge of this wasteland as quickly as possible and was willing to drive them as hard as necessary to achieve it. Woon worked the bridge, keeping the ground firming up before them as fast as they could jog. At first Bookbinder was hesitant, fearing running off the edge and drowning in the ashen depths as Fillion had, but at last he learned to trust in Woon’s magic and forged ahead with all the steam an exhausted, overburdened, middle-aged man could muster. Fillion’s death lingered at the back of his mind. Whatever the man’s experience, however hard-bitten, he was still Bookbinder’s responsibility. The thought ate at him, and Bookbinder forced himself to turn his thoughts to the task at hand. When night fell, Bookbinder refused to make camp. “We push on,” he said. “If we can get clear of this in forty-eight hours, we can sleep all we want on the far side.” If others saw a problem with his reasoning, they didn’t mention it.

  The agni danav tried to take them after another ten hours of solid marching. A cluster of them, Bookbinder guessed maybe five or six, gathered together across their path and began to move forward in a deliberate line. Woon stopped the bridge without a word and Whispered one of the blue lizards over as Bookbinder gestured for one of the SAW’s magazines. He magicked as many of the rounds as he could manage, drawing off the lizard’s freezing magic until he felt the agni danav had come close enough.

  He handed the drum back to Anan, juggling it to keep the chill from penetrating too deeply through his gloves. The Special Forces operator slammed it into his weapon and took a knee, aiming carefully.

  “Don’t miss,” Bookbinder groused.

  “I’m terrible at missing, sir,” Anan said, and pulled the trigger.

  A burst of three rounds arced blue over the distance, impacting in the distant flame columns that marked the agni danav’s approach. Some of the fires went out, wafting black smoke skyward.

  Bookbinder could hear the throaty lows of agony even from this distance. Anan kept aiming but held his fire. After a moment, the agni danav dispersed, breaking to either side and vanishing into the distance.

  Anan finally lowered his weapon and thumbed the magazine release, letting the drum drop to the ground.

  He winced, pulling a hand back from the now-freezing gun.

  “This can’t be good for the weapon, sir,” he said.

  Bookbinder chuckled. “Fortunately, it’s not good for the agni danav either.”

  Anan looked at him and smiled.

  They pushed on.

  Chapte
r XIX

  Thieves

  Magic sure as hell hasn’t changed human nature. We’re every bit as avaricious and nasty as we ever were. The only real difference is now we’ve got shiny new tools to make each other suffer.

  —Dan Steele, Lieutenant

  Seventieth Precinct, New York City Police Department

  Bookbinder ran. The whole world narrowed, coalescing into the bobbing of the horizon, the dryness in his throat, the steady crunching of his boots across Woon’s bridge. His vision wavered, drifting in darkness that might have been his eyelids fluttering in exhaustion, or the simple blackness of night. At last, he gave up on sight, relying only on the steady crunching of his boot soles and the labored rhythm of his breathing. He was grateful for the fatigue, the unending rhythm of forward movement.

  It helped keep his mind off the fact that he had just lost his first man.

  Crunch. Pant. Crunch. Pant. Crunch. Pant. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Bookbinder stopped. The sound of his footfalls had changed.

  His body screamed at him to lie down, to gulp water, to do anything but keep moving. He fended off the exhaustion and looked down. The ground was no longer an unbroken field of ash. He looked over his shoulder. Grass, albeit brown and mottled yellow, had begun to populate the ground in small clumps behind them, dawn slowly breaking beyond.

  Bookbinder wracked his tired mind and realized he had no clue how long they’d been walking, how they’d come here.

  Somewhere in the fog of their march, they’d left the vast burned landscape of the Agni Danav Raajaya and returned to a world where plants grew. He breathed deeply. The stench of brimstone was still thick, but nowhere near what it had been. He looked up and saw stars winking back at him, big and beautiful, largely unobscured by smoke.

  The entire group stopped with him, swaying on their feet, asking no questions, simply grateful to bring an end to forward movement. Sharp alone looked lucid. Bookbinder turned to him “What do you think?”

  Sharp looked behind them, then back at Bookbinder. “I’d say we’re clear, sir.”

  Forty-eight hours. We’ve been running with almost no breaks for forty-eight hours.

  Bookbinder nodded. The next moment, he was sitting in the grass with his back propped against his pack, with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. When had he taken his helmet off?

  He looked up at Vasuki-Kai, unable to read what passed for fatigue in one of his kind. “You’ve got . . . I mean you can sleep with your eyes open, right?”

  For once, the naga did not ask Dhatri to translate. He merely bent down and patted Bookbinder’s shoulder, a few of his heads nodding agreement. Then he straightened, the heads spreading in the fan posture he always adopted when standing watch, looking in all directions simultaneously, eyes glowing in the dark.

  Vasuki-Kai was so still that Bookbinder could have mistaken him for a statue of a naga rather than the real thing.

  “Thanks,” he managed. He realized that he could no longer see, and guessed his eyes had closed. He supposed that was all right. He couldn’t keep them open anyway.

  When Bookbinder blinked awake, the sun was high in the sky. He sat up abruptly, the rest of the team already up and bustling around him.

  Sharp knelt beside him. “Two problems, sir,” he said. “First is not so big, second is bigger, but pretty much expected.”

  “Okay,” Bookbinder managed. His tongue felt like a dried sock in his mouth.

  As if he could sense it, Sharp held out the feed line from his own backpack water bladder. He spoke as Bookbinder sucked on it. “First, we’ve lost a day. You slept for roughly ten hours, the rest of us slightly less.”

  A jolt of adrenaline brought Bookbinder fully awake. He struggled not to choke on the water he was drinking. We can’t afford that. The FOB can’t afford it. But he said, “I’m sure we all needed it.”

  Sharp nodded. “Second problem is that we’ve got no comms with the FOB. No more radio pulse checks.” He gestured to Archer, who was tinkering with the SINCGARS with no apparent success. At last he stowed the handset in his rucksack and shook his head at Sharp.

  “I’m no expert,” Archer said, “but I’d bet it’s something to do with the atmosphere over that burned patch we just crossed. Mucking up the signal.”

  Dhatri was pensive. “Perhaps that’s why we were having trouble getting in touch with FOB Sarpakavu before.”

  “Maybe we can radio the Indian FOB as we get closer,” Archer mused. “Although this thing is squirrelly as hell.” He slapped his rucksack and the equipment inside.

  Bookbinder shrugged. “I doubt it matters now. Has everybody eaten already?”

  Nods from everyone on the team.

  “Drank too? Packed and ready to go?”

  More nods, most of them sheepish.

  Bookbinder stood. “Why the hell didn’t anyone wake me?”

  “You looked, peaceful, sir,” Anan volunteered.

  Bookbinder looked askance at Woon, but the major only shrugged. “You did.”

  “What about him?” Bookbinder jerked his thumb at Vasuki-Kai.

  “His Highness ate before we departed FOB Frontier,” Dhatri said. “Naga can go for very long periods on a single meal. He will be sustained until we reach the Naga Raajya.”

  Bookbinder nodded and shouldered his pack, sucking at his own water feed now. “Surely you must eat, sir,” Dhatri said, his voice concerned.

  “I can eat while we walk,” Bookbinder replied. “We’ve lost enough time to my cherubic sleepy-time appearance. Let’s move.”

  The grass regained its health as they proceeded, the air gradually becoming clearer. By the time the sun began to set again, they felt refreshed by the simple act of inhaling clean air without the aid of a wet scarf. Bookbinder set his goggles up on his helmet, grateful for the lack of pressure around his eyes.

  They even came across a stream in the morning where they could restock their water supplies with the aid of Bookbinder’s “boomer.” He noticed the enchanted rebar was beginning to lose its charge. The water came clean, but not as fully as before, some of the swirling particles still visible in it. He made a mental note that the magic didn’t last forever, pleased that he had brought conventional water decontamination tablets with them as backup.

  Bookbinder spent most of the time replaying Fillion’s death.

  Why did he let that man go down the rock face? He should have done it himself. He knew that Sharp and his men had the real combat experience, but he was still in charge. It should have been him drowned in that sea of ash. That’s ridiculous, he told himself. You have to make it to FOB Sarpakavu to negotiate.

  No one else in the team has the authority you do. But he couldn’t stop replaying the scene in his mind; Fillion putting his boot on the ash, then disappearing beneath it.

  “Down to our last MREs, sir,” Sharp noted, breaking him out of his reverie. “We’re going to have to hunt from now on.”

  “That should be easy with Woon’s Whispering,” Bookbinder answered, but the thought didn’t make him any calmer. Even Whispering animals in to slaughter would take time, and they’d just spent three days crossing the ash field and sleeping off the exhaustion of the effort.

  As the edges of the sky turned molten bronze, Sharp turned toward him. “You about ready to pack it in for the night, sir?”

  “Let’s keep going,” Bookbinder said, “at least until it gets dark. I’m feeling pretty good.”

  The others nodded and pushed on as darkness gathered around them.

  After another half hour of walking, Bookbinder began to hear a creaking, clinking sound ahead of them. Sharp brought his carbine up, halted the team with a hand signal, and pushed off slowly into the gathering gloom, Anan and Archer falling wordlessly in beside him.

  They hadn’t gone ten steps when a small group of goblins came out of the half-light, surrounding a wooden cart piled high with something bulging under a burlap cover, yoked to one of the shaggy beasts Bookbinder knew they herded back i
n their villages. They were clothed in leather frocks, with only one or two carrying weapons. Sharp and his men lowered their guns.

  A few seconds later, the goblins noticed them and froze, drawing close around their cart. They stood in silence, staring.

  Bookbinder figured the situation would best be defused quickly. He waved and smiled, muttered, “Cover me,” under his breath, and walked forward. “Hello there, friends!” he said. “I bet we’re the last people you expected to see out here.”

  The goblins chattered to one another, relaxing a little.

  Bookbinder stopped beyond spear range and waved again. “I don’t suppose any of you happens to speak . . . English?”

  None of them did. They continued to stare, pressing closer to the wooden cart. One of them stepped forward. He was identical to the rest of them, save that his brown leather frock had a metal pectoral sewn into the center and he held a spear propped over one shoulder. He spoke to Bookbinder with a mild authority in his voice, gesturing to the wagon, then back the way the goblins had come. The team edged closer. At the sight of Vasuki-Kai, the goblins recoiled, the one with the spear hopping on top of the wagon.

  Vasuki-Kai halted, hissing consolation. Archer trotted forward, and said, “Sir, if you’ll permit me.” He tapped his eyelids, bowing slightly from the waist. The goblins paused, shocked, before returning the gesture.

  Archer then spoke to them in halting, broken goblin. The bigger goblin on top of the cart finally got off it, answering slowly and carefully, as if to a young child.

  Archer finally nodded and turned back to Bookbinder.

  “I didn’t know you spoke goblin,” Bookbinder said.

  “I don’t, really. I just picked up a little from the contractors we had working in our vehicle park. These guys are traders. That wagon is full of goods for sale.”