Affinity for War

by Frank Morin

  That was a really clever way to draw the attention of the Sentry.

  Connor threw himself into the air as the ground under him dropped into a spike-lined pit. Fighting with two elements had been difficult. He wasn't sure he was ready for three.

  He should have thought of that before he tempted slate.

  Connor blasted himself across the open battleground and crashed on top of a skinny Firetongue. The lad looked young enough that Connor should have known him at the Carraig. He was another Strider primary and he collapsed under Connor with a squawk of pain. Connor brained him with a gauntleted fist.

  The other tertiaries were figuring out their attack plan, and Connor could feel their influence melding tighter together. They were like hunting nualls that had the scent of their quarry and were moving in for the kill.

  Trying not to think about the growing danger, Connor mixed his three active elements together. It was tricky, but he'd walked with all three before, and failing meant dying. Getting martyred for a noble cause hadn't been much fun the last time, so he felt motivated to avoid it.

  He threw out his hands and shouted, "Last chance to surrender!"

  They didn't surrender.

  They looked determined. He scanned the circle of enemy tertiaries and tried not to feel afraid. Men and women, professional soldiers, ready to kill or be killed.

  If only he could distract them with a red flag.

  Instead, he whipped the three mixed elements around himself into a protective sphere. It crackled and hissed and growled in a way that he loved, and it smelled like springtime bonfires after a light rain.

  The Obrioners didn't appreciate it and attacked with combined fury. Great sheets of fire and water slammed into the outer edges of his sphere, while deadly spears of earth plunged up from below.

  Connor severed them all. As every element drove into his sphere, it mixed with the others, giving him a chance to snatch control away.

  He was actually doing it! He was fighting several experienced Petralists with three elements at once. It was amazing.

  It was really hard too.

  Sweat formed on his brow, and he started breathing hard. He lost track of time, completely immersed in the tricky balancing act of keeping the three elements mixed and fending off the ongoing attacks.

  The Obrioners had dealt with mud and lava recently, but trying to untangle three was a lot harder. The fact that he was doing it drew even more attention and he felt three more Petralists join the offensive against him.

  This was really getting unfair. Where were the Grandurian tertiaries? He didn't have time to scan the area and see if they had run into trouble.

  The Obrioners seemed to have decided that they needed to remove him quickly. At least two Sentries were massing for a mighty attack that he'd never manage to deflect. Maybe he could escape into the air, but that would mean admitting defeat, and he really didn't want to do that.

  Then Hamish swooped out of the sky and fired his last vial of skunk milk stench into one of the Sentry's faces. The grim-faced fellow looked competent and deadly. At first he ignored the little vial and turned after Hamish, sending grasping fingers of earth to grab for him.

  Hamish flung himself into a wild spin and roared away in a thunder of air and fire.

  Two seconds later, the Sentry gasped and pitched right off of his short tower. He screamed and clawed at his face, then started clobbering himself with shovel-sized clumps of loose dirt to try removing the stench.

  Hamish circled over the Petralists attacking Connor, throwing something at each of them. A small bomb detonated at the base of one Spitter's watery pedestal, ripping it apart and sending him tumbling away. Connor spotted Ilse circling around toward him.

  A wellstone landed beside another Sentry and immediately started gushing water, weakening the Sentry's connection with the earth. Connor felt the tug of the builded stone as it sucked at his water too. The Sentry started to slide away, but Connor yanked at the earth under him, slowing his retreat by a couple critical seconds.

  The spreading mud weakened his connection just long enough for Hamish to drop a speedcrack wallstone. The little wall plowed through two Firetongues, breaking their knees and knocking them from the fight.

  Furious Petralists threw fire and water into the air after Hamish, but he soared higher, just escaping the danger. He taunted them as he flitted out of range, keeping them distracted.

  Connor wanted to turn his mini-hub to Hamish's speakstone, but he couldn't waste the precious distraction.

  Walking with three elements was like juggling several Sogail balls while trying to snatch a sweetbread from Hamish's sisters.

  Adding a fourth was like doing that while wearing mittens soaked in grease.

  He had to try. He was Blood of the Tallan, and now was the moment to prove it. The Grandurian advance was picking up speed. He only needed to last a little longer and help would come. Probably.

  Holding the images of the gateways fixed firmly in his mind, he called upon air.

  His quartzite senses radiated into the air and he felt a fast-moving current high above the battlefield. He pulled on it. Hard.

  Energized by the heat still boiling off of the lava, the air whistled down around him, plunging into the mixture of elements.

  No sweetbread ever tasted so good.

  Connor laughed at the thrill of riding all four elements. The air seemed to respond better to his call than ever. He wasn't sure if it was because he was melding all the elements together, or if the threat of impending destruction gave him better control.

  He decided not to think about it too much. In his mind, it was like riding four powerful stallions that appeared content for once to run together. So as the enemy tertiaries returned their focus to him, he gave the elements a mental slap of the reins.

  Connor rose out of his protective sphere, and it transformed beneath him into a huge tower made up of all four mixed elements. It looked like a boiling storm cloud, split by crackling flames. It smelled like a spring rain spraying over a cook fire.

  Ten tertiaries ringed him now. A couple must have joined the party in the last minute, but now their connections to the elements seemed shaky and unsure. The masses of fighting soldiers battling all around them created a wild backdrop that drove home the desperation of the moment.

  The enemy Petralists looked nervous.

  They needed to feel terrified.

  Connor threw his hands out wide and shouted, "Welcome to the new world!"

  His tower exploded. Mixed elements erupted in every direction, covering the entire space between him and all the tertiaries in a concealing mist. Every one of his opponents recoiled. The unique blanket of elements had to be dampening their senses.

  Connor struck through it.

  He sent missiles of combined elements whipping through the mist at each of them. Some of his opponents either felt danger coming, or realized they were in trouble. One Sentry simply dropped down into the earth, wrapping herself in protective ground as she fled underground. Two of the Firetongues erupted out of the mist, feet blasting crimson flames.

  The others hesitated a critical second too long.

  The clinging, mixed mist acted like extensions of his hands, and Connor's missiles struck true. One after another, he knocked them off their feet and severed their elemental contact.

  Connor caught each of them in bubbles of mixed elements, which he set spinning around him like mad tumble tosser balls that forgot how to stop. Rolling and tumbling like that, the disoriented tertiaries could not regain connection with their elements. Two of them reached the stomach-lurch point and vomited all over themselves.

  He allowed the mist to fade out of the rest of clearing, except for those racing prison bubbles. That's when he spotted Ilse and Lukas, along with three other Crushers. The Grandurians had indeed capitalized on his distractions, and the front line of fighting had almost reached him.

  "About time," Connor told Ilse. "I was thinking I'd have to chain all these myself."


  "We've been busy."

  Lukas threw Connor a sharp salute. "Not as busy as you, though."

  The Crushers fanned out, and Connor ran each bubble to them in turn. He stopped their spinning abruptly and drained the mist away from the shaken Petralists. Before they could recover, a Crusher knocked them on the head and sent them into dreamland. It took less than half a minute to capture them all.

  Connor expected another wave of tertiaries to rush in and attack in turn and try to save the prisoners, but none did. For a moment, he and the Crushers remained in a pool of calm in the center of the battleground as Grandurian Rumblers pushed south to their position.

  Dougal's voice boomed over the battlefield. "Retreat! Battle order twenty-seven!"

  Kilian appeared, arcing over the battlefield, trailing streamers of fire and water. He landed beside Connor, glowing in his mixed elemental sight like a multi-colored beacon. He looked completely unscathed from his intense, solo attack against the Obrioner army. He watched the retreating Obrioner lines like a pedra scanning a herd of fleeing goats.

  "You're motivated today," Kilian said with an approving nod.

  "I may be starting to get the hang of it."

  "Don't pat yourself on the back yet. Don't you feel it? Dougal's trying to regroup and salvage the day. He's unleashed those two sculpted stones like he did at Harz."

  Connor had been so focused on the near battle that he hadn't noticed. As soon as he extended his senses farther, he immediately pinpointed the danger.

  Gregor was on the eastern side of the battlefield, his presence like a storm within the earth. He was moving northwest toward where the main road met the middle ground. If he could sever Grandurian access at that key point, Dougal's forces might surround and defeat the leading elements of the Grandurian forces after all.

  On the west flank of the army, Ivor rode a twined pillar of fire and water. He looked lost to the elements, arms thrown wide, twined elements striking out in a constant barrage that drove the Grandurians back on that side.

  "I feel them," Connor said.

  "We cannot allow them to continue. This area is far too unstable on a good day. Using the lava was a bold choice, but it's left the ground on the verge of a major eruption. Anton and the Sappers are working to bottle it back up, but they can't fight Gregor at the same time. You and I have to stop those two before they trigger a catastrophic elemental disaster."

  That would definitely wreck his moment of victory. "What do you have in mind?"

  "Wolfram can't risk distributing any of his sculpted stones to counter them. We need less elemental fighting, not more. You and I need to do this, and fast. Best bet is for you to help Anton block Gregor while I kill Ivor."

  "Ivor is my friend," Connor protested.

  "I know, but he's at the point of losing control. I've seen it before. If he surrenders to the elements now, with this land already on the brink of destabilizing, I don't think we could stop the disaster."

  "I can stop him," Connor promised. He couldn't bear to see a friend die without at least trying to save his life.

  Kilian fixed him with a grim look. "Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on this."

  "Just give me a chance." The magnitude of the looming disaster frightened him more than he wanted to admit, but he couldn't just throw Ivor's life away.

  "Don't risk using slate. Anton is busy enough without anyone else crashing around down there."

  Connor grimaced. Without earth to tip the balance in his favor, stopping Ivor would be a lot harder. He couldn't guarantee he could best his friend while in the grip of sculpted marble frenzy.

  "I can do it," he said confidently.

  Kilian nodded. "Very well. I'll help Anton against Gregor. Hamish should be back soon with a couple mechanicals that might help turn the tide. If you don't stop Ivor quickly, I will have no choice but to kill him."

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  "The greatest tree may fall to lightning, and the sapling may weather a storm best by bending to the wind."

  ~Evander

  Connor soared over the battlefield. The Obrioner lines were in full retreat, trying to regroup on the southern boundary of the valley. The Grandurians couldn't advance through Ivor and Gregor.

  Connor landed about thirty feet away from Ivor and pulsed his earth senses one final time. Anton and the Sappers had formed a gigantic shield just north of his position. Gregor stood motionless on his tower a mile to Connor's east, unmoving and alone on the empty plain. Underground he was assaulting that barrier like an avalanche, and Connor quickly withdrew. He didn't want either side targeting him.

  Ivor stood wreathed in flames, hovering eight feet off the ground in a billowing cloud of water and fire. As soon as Connor landed, he pivoted to face him. Ivor's eyes were filled with crimson flames, and snakelike tendrils of super-heated blue fire slithered all over him.

  "Ivor, you've got to get out of here. The army's retreating and you can't take on all of Granadure alone."

  He thought that was a very rational, well thought out argument.

  Ivor wasn't feeling rational.

  He laughed, spitting flames, and shouted, "Go away, Connor. Not even you can stop me now. I will see victory and honor for my house."

  "You think that fiance of yours will be happy to learn she's engaged to the first Dawnus prisoner of war?"

  Ivor settled to the ground and said in an almost sane voice, "Last chance, Connor. Today we can't be friends, and I don't want to hurt you."

  Connor chuckled. "That was exactly what I was about to say."

  In response, Ivor lifted his left hand, and Connor tensed to fight. He expected Ivor to unleash a firestorm.

  The ground split open beneath his feet and a geyser of boiling water erupted. He felt it half a heartbeat before it struck.

  After training with Ilse, that was plenty of time.

  Ivor wasn't actively controlling the water. He'd just triggered the geyser. Connor easily split the geyser around himself, allowing water to shoot two hundred feet into the air. It all glowed in his tertiary sight.

  He focused on the intense heat and snatched control of it, forming an invisible whip to strike at Ivor. He hoped spanking his friend with his own fire might unsettle him enough for Connor to seize those flames.

  Ivor stopped the heat.

  His control wasn't as good as Connor's, but the heat was far closer to him, and that proximity gave him an advantage. He wasn't ascended, but his influence over the heat was far stronger than anyone Connor had met besides Kilian.

  "You're a novice," Ivor growled.

  He threw out his hands, and the firestorm Connor had expected finally came. Flames rippled from crimson, to white, to blue as Ivor poured in more heat. The billowing wall of fire expanded, reaching out to consume Connor.

  He met those flames with the waters of the still-erupting geyser. The elements crashed together with a hissing eruption of steam. Ivor was so deeply immersed in the sculpted-stone-driven flames that he ignored the water and attempted to drive the flames right through.

  Connor threw his will into the firestorm and mixed the water into it as the two opposing forces met. For a second, he gained advantage and turned the tide back upon Ivor, sweeping the combined elemental attack right over his friend. For a moment, Ivor was concealed from view under a cloud of water, fire, and billowing steam.

  Connor could feel him, though.

  Ivor stood unmoved, unaffected by the crashing elements. He quickly leveraged his own will over the waters battering him, and sealed himself in a cocoon of defensive elements.

  Connor could probably pierce that shield, but he didn't want to kill Ivor, so he hesitated.

  Ivor didn't.

  The mixed elements roared out again. Although he still focused more on the flames, Ivor did include water in the attack. Connor threw out his hands and his will and met him head on, battling for control.

  Water and fire boiled around and between the two of them, hissing and crackling angrily
. It smelled like burning, rotten eggs. A foul taste crept into Connor's mouth, unlike anything he'd tasted before. If the Lower Wick caught on fire, it might taste like that.

  Connor held a distinct advantage with water, but Ivor overpowered him by a little with raw fury of fire. He had always been exceptionally strong with fire. With the aid of the sculpted stone, he might have been able to challenge even Kilian's control.

  Connor couldn't stop him.

  He dragged more water into the mix to give himself more advantage, but couldn't bottle Ivor's wild fury. Ivor began stalking toward him, arms out wide, completely encased by blue fire. The closer he drew, the stronger grew his influence.

  The air between them became charged with power as the embattled elements whirled and struck. The nearest Grandurian soldiers were already over a hundred yards away, but they withdrew even farther.

  Connor's senses merged with water, as he had done a couple of times in the past, but he also had to draw deeper from marble at the same time. He was wielding only two elements, but had to unite with them deeper than ever, and a feeling of wild exhilaration stormed through him.

  If Ivor wanted to fight, he'd get a fight to rival the legends.

  As Ivor continued to advance, the firestorm of flames mixed with a screaming tempest, forming a tornado-like funnel around the two of them.

  So Connor filled it with water.

  He hoped to block Ivor from the waters and distract him long enough to snuff out the flames, but Ivor deflected the waters away from himself and drove spears of white-hot fire at Connor's heart.

  This fight was turning deadly!

  Ivor was too swept up in the insanity of marble. Fury made him stronger, but less disciplined. Despite Connor's own close connection with the elements, he only barely severed those deadly spears and whipped them away into the mixed elemental storm.

  For the first time, Connor felt fear. Fear that he might have to kill his friend to stop him.

  No. He didn't want to kill again.

  Connor started toward Ivor, slipping through a sheet of crackling flame, then an inverted waterfall of super-heated water. He was tempted to leap into a bash fight too, but which of them would that distract more?