Fortress Frontier (Shadow Ops 2)

by Cole, Myke

  Chapter Eighteen

  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. Bookbinder 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 the 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 hellish flame. The ground around them sparkled as they came.

  Glass, Bookbinder thou
ght. 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.

  Bookbinder 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. 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.