No Stone Unturned

by Frank Morin

  "What if I'm not sure those lands would be better united again?" he dared ask.

  "Don't ever suggest that," she hissed, looking around nervously. They were alone on the rooftop, but out in the open, they were perhaps not shielded from any listening Pathfinders. They should have considered that before discussing such weighty matters.

  "It's a valid question," he whispered, leading her toward the stairs. "Obrion has been broken for centuries. Wouldn't it be better to find ways to get along with the other nations? Wouldn't that save a lot of lives?"

  Shona shook her head. "There's so much you don't understand yet, Connor. The only way for Obrion and the entire continent to reach our greatest glory is for everyone to unite under one ruler."

  "I don't think they'll serve King Turriff."

  Shona leaned close, and for a second, Connor wondered if she was just going to revert to trying to kiss him into submission again. With her face nearly touching his, she spoke so softly he could barely hear, even though her lips were close enough that he felt the air of their movement like whisper-kisses on his skin. "They won't follow the king, Connor. They will follow you."

  The implications of that statement struck like a hammer stroke to a fault line. Shona grabbed his mouth before he could speak, shaking her head vigorously and leading the way into the protection of the palace.

  "Don't ever mention that again, not even to me. Not yet." Her tone was deadly serious, but her eyes glittered with that deadly secret.

  "You're not planning a simple life in the country, I guess," Connor said as they continued strolling slowly together, arm in arm.

  Shona's rich laugh caressed his ears. "We will live life to the fullest, my Connor. We will make history and we will reshape the world."

  He'd wanted her to confide in him, but he'd never imagined she'd share so much. He glanced at her, walking in step with him, her head held high, every inch the conniving, ambitious daughter of perhaps the most powerful high lord in the kingdom. What she had shared with him could get them both executed.

  Well, he'd probably get chained in a dungeon and bred like a captive stud horse until he produced an heir with his powers. Then they'd execute him.

  Shona was guiding him into a life of warfare, conquest, and eventual reign.

  He'd prefer taking up his father's hammer in Alasdair.

  Shona drew him to a halt in the parlor where they normally met, leaned against his chest, and sighed, "Oh, Connor, how did the world become so crazy?"

  Because she and people like her ruled it.

  She thought it was crazy now? His future was finally becoming clear, as clear as a falling off a cliff, strapped to a pair of hungry nualls. The only alternative was learning the truth about patronage and the unclaimed.

  "Good night, my lady," he said after accepting another kiss from her.

  "Good night, my champion," she breathed, her eyes bright with emotion.

  Shona looked exceptionally lovely standing in that darkened doorway, but he'd rather take his chances with the nualls.

  Chapter 40

  Verena swooped down toward the rampager camp from under the early morning shadow of the mountain. Her heart beat faster than the rush of wind against her mask. She glanced to her left where Hamish soared, Kilian clinging easily to his back. Anton had supplanted him on the Swift, but Verena had gotten plenty of practice compensating for the huge Sapper's bulk during the long flight back from the army headquarters. Unlike Kilian, Anton did not like flying.

  As the tiny assault team descended on the tiny valley, like wraiths materializing from the night, Verena struggled to find that same bubble of insulating calm she usually wrapped around herself during a battle. All of her worries clamored for attention, seemed intent on convincing her the plan was fatally flawed.

  Forty men had gathered at dawn in the parade ground in the center of camp, assembling with a noted lack of military precision, looking more like a gang than an army. Their leader alone carried himself with military bearing. He was that wide-shouldered, hard-faced man with flaming red hair. The speakstone Hamish had dropped the night before had caught a hint of what he was saying, but he possessed a strong hillman accent that Verena barely understood.

  After berating the troops for the previous day's failure, he had proclaimed the day had come when they were being unleashed upon the world. The men had cheered and clustered around, eagerly snatching something he began handing out to them.

  "We should have brought the Last Word," Hamish had muttered.

  "We won't need it," Kilian had replied, his eyes glittering with points of living flame. More flames had jumped merrily across the blue-tinted tips of his dark hair. "Stick to the plan and trust in that new battle suit."

  The closer to the start of the assault, the more nervous Verena had felt. She knew nothing about elfonnel, but Anton had looked grave when he heard the plan, and anything that made the indomitable Sapper nervous terrified her. Kilian, on the other hand, seemed more energized every second.

  As they dove toward the parade ground, still unseen in the shadowed sky, Kilian leaped off of Hamish's back. The abrupt weight shift sent Hamish spinning. Anton stepped back off of the Swift at the same time, plummeting toward the ground a hundred feet below. Verena recovered from the weight shift quicker than Hamish, and they hovered near each other, watching the opening assault play out.

  As he fell, Kilian ignited the fires of his Flameweaver gift. Twin jets of white hot flame exploded out of his feet, slowing his descent and announcing him in spectacular fashion. The roaring of the flames echoed across the valley in a growing crescendo that drew every eye.

  "Today is a day of choices," Kilian bellowed as the gathered men turned to face him.

  Anton drove into the ground like a falling meteor, but landed with a gentle thud, sinking to his chest in the earth. He bounced right back up, lifted a dozen feet into the air atop a wide earthen tower and frowned down upon the gathered men.

  Kilian threw out his arms as he landed about thirty paces away from the rampagers. "Choose your fate. Surrender now and live." His expression hardened and fires danced in his eyes. "Or not. What say you?"

  The leader of the rampagers shouted, "Claw and fang, boys! We are unleashed!"

  As one, the rampagers howled, a sound of unrestrained bloodlust from throats already shifting from human to monster. The shout was part animal rage and part tortured humanity, and it echoed louder than Kilian's flames had, sending shivers of dread rippling up Verena's limbs.

  "They control when they transform," she cried. Hamish at least would hear via the speakstone in his helmet. How was it possible?

  "So be it." Kilian spoke calmly, but his voice cut through the din.

  He threw his hands out wide and the front of the command building exploded outward under a horizontal waterfall. The waters spread into a narrow sheet that flowed around the rampagers' feet as they changed into thick-clawed paws. The earth along the fringes of the parade ground erupted upward in solid waves that reared high above the transforming monsters as Anton prepared his part of the assault.

  Verena watched in awed amazement at the speed of the rampager transformation. It took only half a dozen heartbeats for the men to change into monsters that howled for blood as they tore across the narrow gap separating them from Kilian.

  He met them with sheets of flame and whipping ropes of water, swatting them out of the air and tumbling them back. His wild laughter echoed from the nearby cliffs, and his hair ignited, but didn't burn.

  Anton sent waves of earth crashing over the rampagers, sweeping them away and burying them from view, transforming the parade ground into a frothing maelstrom of wild earth. For a moment, Verena dared hope that the mighty Sapper had defeated them all and Kilian would not need to tempt the dangers of the wilder elements.

  Then the rampagers began bursting from the ground, tearing the restraining earth with steel-hard claws and fighting free of Anton's influence. They vaulted fingers of earth that snatched at them, or to
re through restraining walls, the delays only seeming to drive them to greater heights of fury.

  That level of ferocity would have wreaked terrible damage on even Petralist-enhanced armies standing in their path. They burst through Kilian's defenses and swarmed over him, first three, then seven, then dozens.

  The ground around Kilian whipped into the air, although Verena saw no wind. Heavy dust churned around him and struck the onrushing monsters like a mini sandstorm. They clawed through the winds, which obscured Verena's view, and closed on Kilian.

  Verena gasped to see Kilian leap to meet them. He moved with Wingrunner speed, like a blurring shadow in the sandstorm. He collided with the first rampager, and an explosion ripped through the storm, a burst of brilliant light and white-hot fire that catapulted the rampager away.

  More monsters swarmed around Kilian, but he met them all with explosive power, tumbling them away. So many rampagers raged around him, slashing and biting, they should have torn him apart in seconds, but he struck down every single one.

  "How is he doing that?" Hamish exclaimed. He was leaning forward, straining to see through the raging sandstorm, same as Verena.

  She didn't understand either. He was using diorite again, just as he had against the first two rampagers, but the explosions were smaller and faster. He was faster. No Wingrunner she knew could have moved that fast, fought so many at the same time. What other secrets did Kilian conceal behind that roguish smile?

  When the last rampager tumbled away, the sandstorm subsided and Kilian stood, arms thrown wide, head back in exultant victory.

  Verena tapped her long vision goggles to get a better look. His clothing wasn't even torn, and his eyes blazed with lightning-like fire. His laughter, laced with marble madness, again rang across the battlefield.

  One of his hands was encased in fire so intensely white, Verena couldn't look at it. The other was surrounded by pulsing water that looked black and turbulent, as if the waters of a flood had been somehow condensed into that little space.

  "Come on!" Kilian shouted, beckoning at the already-stirring monsters. "Come meet your doom!"

  Kilian in the grip of battle fury was a terrifying sight. He didn't need granite to look imposing. He radiated power, his entire frame glowing with the might of his tertiary affinities. She had never seen anything like it.

  It wouldn't be enough.

  The monsters recovered quickly, shaking off the effects of the explosions. Despite bloodied flanks and broken teeth, they leaped for Kilian again. Anton formed a protective sphere around Kilian, but the beasts tore at it, trying to dig through to murder him.

  Verena settled into a hover about eighty feet above Kilian's dome and opened fire with her custom speedslings. Hornets ripped the air, buzzing angrily as they tore into the rampagers, toppling them from the dome, gashing their tough hide, but only seeming to anger them more than ever.

  Rampagers leaped high, snatching in vain for her. Hamish intercepted them, shouting curses in both Obrioner and Grandurian as he dove around them like an angry sparrow, blasting their faces with fire and water from his suit. His agility was amazing, and his bravery ridiculously foolhardy.

  He passed within inches of the snatching claws of the rampagers as they fell back toward the earth. If any of them caught hold of him, they'd rip him out of the air and tear him to pieces.

  Momentarily distracted from the concealed Kilian, the rampagers proved they could still think rationally, at least some of the time. Pairs of them began throwing companions, casting them high enough that they could almost reach Verena.

  She and Hamish shot them out of the air, but couldn't seem to damage them enough to make a difference. She would run out of hornets first.

  They should have brought a diorite explosive after all.

  Hamish threw his diorite darts in several of their faces, the explosive blasts strong enough to rip the heads off normal men and severely damage even max-tapped Rumblers. He managed to crack a couple of those terrifying jaws, but the Rampagers didn't seem disabled and still howled with rage as they fell back to the earth.

  Then the rampager captain, who Hamish had dubbed Carrot Face, rose into the air on a column of fire and sprayed flames at Verena and Hamish. Some of the fire enveloped Hamish for a moment, but he activated soapstone in his suit and burst free in a cloud of steam.

  Verena rolled a complete somersault, barely avoiding the flames, and dove, slipping between a pair of grasping rampagers, trading altitude for speed. She sped away, soaring back up into the sky a couple hundred yards away, turning vertical and shooting up along one of the cliffs, so close she could have touched the stone.

  Spinning back, she hunted for the Firetongue. He was not immune to her weapons.

  The rampagers had already resumed tearing at the earthen dome, but in that moment, it erupted in a geyser of crimson flames that tumbled the rampagers back again. The flames grew, forming a man-shaped giant that reared sixty feet over the valley floor.

  Verena blinked, trying to accept the reality of the elfonnel. Kilian had described it as living elements, but she hadn't imagined it could be so huge. Kilian's elfonnel solidified, the flames forming into glittering armor across its torso, shifting in beautiful patterns from crimson to white. The giant glanced at Verena and gave her a roguish salute. It vaguely resembled the man who had given it life, with waving tongues of fire for hair and pools of boiling water for eyes.

  The heat struck like a wave, then bounced back from the cliffs. Within seconds, the entire little valley was hotter than the inside of an oven, the air filled with shimmering heat waves. Verena caught sight of Hamish soaring away from the giant's back, tossed around by the same bucking air currents that made the Swift shake and tremble under her control.

  Verena ascended to find more stable air above the surrounding cliffs. She wished Kilian hadn't chosen fire for the elfonnel. She felt the murderous rage of the living element like the heat on her face, and shivered with dread. How could Kilian control such a monster?

  The elfonnel turned upon the rampagers and tore into their ranks, beating them down with arms that extended into whiplike flames. It snapped rampagers out of the air and ripped their limbs off as easily as they had dismembered their human prey.

  The howling monsters had seemed unaffected by Verena's weapons, but they writhed in the grip of elemental fire. Their limbs blackened, their howls of bloodlust changing to screams of animal terror as white-hot blades of fire tore through their joints and poured down their wide open maws, immolating them and casting their charred ashes into the superheated wind.

  Verena felt sick. Hamish's voice came softly over the speakstone in her helmet. "By the Tallan's bad breath, do you see this?"

  She glanced at him hovering on the far side of the monstrous elfonnel. His helmet concealed his face, but his voice sounded awestruck. He was shifting back and forth in the air, as if torn between drawing closer to the inferno and retreating. He held a giant malve puff in his hand, half-raised toward the flames.

  She couldn't imagine how he had transported the delicate confection. He'd discovered the puffy treat, made from the marsh malve flowers, was delicious when lightly toasted, then mashed between two of his favorite breadsticks. Roasting a malve puff on the back of a fire elfonnel was dumb, even for Hamish.

  Howling like rabid wolves, the rampagers swarmed the fiery elfonnel. Verena watched in disbelief as the monsters tried to destroy the living element with tooth and claw. In the throes of their fury, they had lost their earlier reason, and Verena shuddered to watch them leap upon Kilian's elfonnel, trying to rip and tear and climb to its face.

  They were already dead, and just needed a few seconds for their bodies to realize it. Their brazen optimism was terrifying, though, and would have challenged even Petralist-enhanced armies.

  All they managed against the elfonnel was to enrage it. The air thrummed with energy as the elfonnel stomped and beat on the smaller monsters, consuming them with its blistering flames. They didn't burn qu
ickly or die easily, thrashing within the restricting fire, their resistance to burning only prolonging the inevitable.

  Then a pair of rampagers threw a companion high into the air. It actually bounded off the back of one of the giant's arms and leaped for the giant's face.

  The elfonnel swallowed it.

  Verena gasped as the rampager disappeared into that fiery maw. She caught glimpses of it tumbling down through the elfonnel's body, blackening, burning, shrinking back into a man. It was as if. . .

  "No, Kilian!" she shouted, but the words were whisked away by the constant hot wind.

  She lost sight of the rampager, but she'd seen enough.

  "Flee!" Anton's voice rose like distant thunder, echoing across the valley, confirming her worst fears.

  The flames forming the body of the giant took on a purplish hue, and the boiling waters of its eyes shrank to angry amethyst points. The elfonnel dropped to all fours, its arms transforming to legs, its head lengthening until it resembled a gigantic fiery wolf. It threw wide its white-hot maw and a sound bellowed forth like stones shattering under impossible heat.

  That sound held an edge of madness that filled Verena with terror. By swallowing the rampager, the elfonnel had somehow absorbed the monster's power, been infected by its madness. It seemed to be losing the little humanity Kilian had imbued it with.

  Not good.

  Every instinct screamed at Verena to ascend far beyond the raging elfonnel's reach. If Kilian was losing control, they had to flee before getting caught in its mindless rage.

  So Verena pivoted the Swift and threw wide the release rate on her thrusters.

  And swooped down toward Anton, who stood atop his earthen tower two hundred yards behind the elfonnel. The Swift rocked wildly through the unstable air, and Anton tried signaling her away. She ignored him and settled into a hover near the top of his tower. The heat blistered her, despite the protection of her mask and goggles. She couldn't imagine how Anton had withstood it for so long.