Affinity for War

by Frank Morin

  Connor decided to just get it over with. He could find a way to make it up to Verena, and he probably had enough healing power left in the sculpted sandstone pendant to survive until she finally forgave him.

  Ivor interrupted before he could. "Bash fight! Form ranks and prepare to move out."

  Shona glanced over her shoulder, breaking the moment and glaring. "Can't the world wait just a minute?"

  "Not today, Shona," Ivor called, beckoning her to join him. "Get over here and take command of your company."

  The prisoner exchange had erupted into an enthusiastic bash fight. Connor easily spotted Anika and Rory in the center, wrestling in a tiny calm space amid the other bashing soldiers. Rory was trying to look serious, but Anika didn't even pretend she wasn't enjoying herself. Her bright smile shone with a purity that Mattias could never match.

  The others were fighting with furious intensity, as if understanding they probably wouldn't get enough time. Hamish began to rise above the crowd, then plunged back down, and Connor lost sight of him in the press. He hoped Hamish didn't get distracted. He had work to do.

  The rocky ground on the north side of the fight began to buckle, with earth fountaining high into the air. The earth movers were committed too.

  Shona broke away, growling, "I'll kill every last one of them."

  Connor barely believed his luck. Shona whirled back to face him and pressed a finger to his chest. "You owe me, and everyone here stands as witness. I will collect that kiss, and you cannot deny me."

  "Well you did actually kiss me," Connor pointed out.

  "Oh no. That was just a tease. The deal was you kiss me so that I know it. When I collect that kiss you better leave me blushing and about to pass out from lack of air."

  Then she spun away and raced after the company that was already retreating toward the Obrioner army, which was advancing north to engage. Connor looked after her, wishing now that he had gotten it over with when he had the chance.

  She was so worked up about it now, he might have to spend half a month kissing her to make her feel like she got what she deserved.

  Chapter Sixty

  "A pebble cast upon the mountain may yet unleash the avalanche."

  ~Evander

  Verena dove out of the high, puffy cloud she'd been concealed in since just before dawn and plummeted in a vertical dive, straight toward Carbrey's central command area. Roaring wind tore at her as she accelerated faster than she ever had before, driven by every thruster and a towering rage.

  "You're diving too fast," Hamish cautioned, his voice issuing through one of the speakstones attached to the inside of her helmet. She caught sight of him soaring up to meet her. "We want to surprise attack them, not surprise splatter ourselves all over them."

  "You're late," Verena growled. The rational part of her mind recognized that she was taking a foolish risk, but the rest of her told that part to shut up.

  A moment ago, while scanning the valley, she'd again focused her long-vision goggles on Connor and his meeting with the students from the Carraig.

  "You idiot," she cursed at the memory of Connor standing close to Shona, her arms around his neck, his hands on her waist, while she leaned in to kiss him.

  She'd tried to warn him that Shona could not be trusted, but he'd gone anyway. Had he known she'd try to seduce him again? Had he honestly thought he could withstand her manipulations? Or had he secretly looked forward to another chance to kiss the beautiful Shona?

  "What did I do now?" Hamish asked.

  "I wasn't speaking to you," Verena snapped, trying to control her seething rage as she plunged toward the camp. Carbrey's Pathfinders had surely spotted Hamish's approach, but she doubted anyone was ready for her insane dive.

  The first of the Altkalen secret defensive measures was about to be released. Even she didn't know exactly what they had planned, but at the moment she didn't care.

  She hoped whatever it was killed Shona. Slowly.

  Elements of the Obrioner army were already advancing, with Boulder companies in the center, Striders ranging along the flanks, and auxiliary troops marching east and west. It looked like they planned to circle the valley and attack Altkalen from the sides.

  Hamish asked, "Did you give Connor the new speakstone mechanical? Did you hear how the meeting went? Did he get anything good from Shona?"

  "He didn't have it turned on," Verena said. From what she'd seen, Shona was the one who got what she wanted, not Connor.

  "By the way, you'd better pull up," Hamish said, worry growing in his voice.

  Verena was plunging toward the cloth-protected central command area of the Obrioner camp fast enough to outrace a diving hawk. She'd fallen below a thousand feet, and at her rate of descent, she'd plow into the ground in a matter of seconds. She had planned to dive at a steep angle and swoop over the camp to launch her strike, but a new idea fit her mood better.

  Snapping closed the rear thrusters, Verena threw wide the forward thrusters, and the Swift decelerated rapidly, her protective front panel driving into her chest as her weight dragged against her safety harnesses.

  The Swift was nimble, with thrusters on every plane, but the biggest were in the rear. The much smaller thrusters on the front would never stop her before she crashed.

  "Pull up!" Hamish shouted.

  Verena was too focused on the fast-approaching ground to respond, calculating her timing, and trying to ignore a rush of fear that maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

  At one hundred feet, still dropping like a diving pedra, Verena snapped close the forward thrusters while triggering directional thrusters that pivoted the Swift back to an upright position. At the same time, she threw wide the release rate on all of the marble blocks lining the underside of the Swift.

  The Puking Dooms erupted with white-hot flame that roared like lions and boiled down through the air, vaporizing the protective covering over most of the command area. The up-force of the flames drove against the downward momentum of the Swift, and the force change felt like someone had dropped a wagonload of stone on her shoulders.

  Verena groaned from the strain, and her fear spiked higher as she realized that although the Swift was rapidly slowing, she had triggered the Puking Dooms a second too late. She was barely fifty feet above the tents, which were erupting into flames while officers were fleeing the sudden firestorm, and she was still falling far too fast.

  So Verena tilted the Swift up just a bit and ignited the full force of the rear thrusters. The Swift leaped forward, its downward momentum shifting in two terrifying heartbeats to horizontal speed.

  She remembered to toss over the side the tiny vial that Gisela had given to her, containing a dozen drops of the murky mega-stench. Then all she could do was hold on and scream with fear and defiance while the Swift roared away, barely clearing the tops of the tall tents. She flashed over them for more than a hundred yards before she managed to pull higher and bank back around.

  Hamish had slowed to a hover about three hundred feet above the scorched central command area. The fires had already been seized by a Firetongue and were whipping into the air behind Verena. If she hadn't changed direction and fled so quickly, she might have been consumed before she could escape.

  Then the fires, which had been compressed into well-formed spears, dissolved into a shower of flame. She didn't need Connor's enhanced hearing to tell that the mega-stench was already working.

  As she rose and banked to join Hamish, she enjoyed a perfect view of the chaos she'd unleashed upon the camp. Gisela had described the mega-stench as the most horrific smell imaginable.

  It looked like she'd underestimated it.

  Men and women were screaming, clawing at their eyes and noses and vomiting with explosive force all over each other. They rushed blindly about, seeking escape from the unparalleled assault on their senses that seemed to make them wish they had simply died. People trampled over each other in their desperate attempt to escape the stench.

  The high walls of
cloth surrounding the center of camp billowed as they fell to the ground, cast aside as their bearers fled. Within seconds the area cleared, except for a few people lying prone and unmoving.

  Verena couldn't tell if they'd only fainted. She feared they might be Pathfinders who had been using their enhanced sense of smell when the mega-stench struck. The shock might have killed them.

  Hamish breathed, "That's amazing. And by the way, you're officially insane."

  "Look what it's doing to them," Verena said, barely believing it. That tiny bit of liquid had excised the heart of Carbrey's army in seconds. The chaos was still expanding.

  If only they had more. With a gallon of the stuff, they could send the entire army fleeing. Of course, if the wind blew the wrong way, it could depopulate Altkalen too.

  Although the mega-stench had definitely disrupted the central command area, the bulk of the army was unaffected and probably didn't even realize what had happened. Thousands of soldiers were marching north to meet the Grandurians, led by the bulk of the Petralists. They would reach the stripped area of naked rock in seconds, and then the battle would really begin.

  Many people had fled toward a row of cook tents a couple hundred yards away. They were splashing water on their faces, or rubbing spices across their skin to try masking the stench. At least one Firetongue had surrounded herself with flames, but she was vomiting so profusely, it didn't seem to be helping.

  They should have run a different way.

  Without warning, the central cook tent erupted from within. A strange, gray foamy mass exploded from under it. That foamy material grew with astonishing speed, like an inverted waterfall, smashing aside cook fires and tents and piles of food stores. It completely surprised the distracted soldiers, engulfing everything like a twelve-foot, sticky tidal wave.

  It rolled over scores of soldiers, but slowed after about a hundred feet and quickly hardened into a lumpy, gray hill where once the cooking area had stood. Verena spotted several Boulders breaking free, but even with their enhanced strength, it would take them long seconds to escape the clingy mess. It looked like there was enough air in the foam that no one would suffocate, but it would take hours of heavy labor to free everyone.

  They wouldn't get hours.

  Within seconds, two other eruptions of the strange foam exploded through other cook areas. Then another amazing eruption of the same material rippled down through the long lines of latrines along the edge of camp. It flung debris and excrement into the air and no doubt added another layer of stench over the already unbearable smell.

  The Assassins had done their work perfectly.

  Hamish laughed and rolled completely over backward. "I really need to learn what that stuff is!"

  Verena could think of little more dangerous than that stench in Hamish's hands. "Be happy with that skunk stink you milked."

  "Hey, I got to try it out. It was spectacular."

  She'd take his word for it. She hated skunks. She would like to study that sticky foam, though. Gisela had called it Pedra's Spittle. That soft-spoken Althin had shattered the center of the camp with her chemical weapons, and Verena wondered what else her countrymen had developed to deal with Petralist incursions.

  Verena said, "Let's get down there while we can."

  She descended in a more controlled dive this time and settled the Swift into a hover inches above the ground outside the charred remnants of General Carbrey's command tent. She kept the nozzles of her speedslings pointed at the ruined tent, but no one remained to challenge them. She hadn't seen Carbrey, but hoped he'd gotten a whiff of the mega-stench. It would serve him right.

  Hamish landed nearby in a rush of thrusters, but almost immediately pitched forward onto his hands and knees, vomiting explosively into the inside of his helmet.

  "What's wrong?" Verena exclaimed, pivoting the Swift, ready to unleash a storm of hornets, but saw no threat.

  She flew to his side and landed, leaping out of the Swift and dropping to one knee beside him. It seemed the entire ground was covered in vomit from those caught in the mega-stench. The sight was disgusting, but she didn't smell any of it. She had activated enough quartzite inside of her helmet to force a positive pressure that prevented the stench from entering.

  Hamish laughed, then vomited again. He peeled his helmet back and scraped the inside covering. His eyes were red and watering, and he looked absolutely green.

  "I can't believe your helmet failed," Verena said.

  Hamish shook his head and staggered to his feet. "The helmet's fine."

  He gave her a lopsided grin, then clutched at his nose and twisted away to throw up one more time. Obviously holding his breath, he splashed water across the inside of his helmet to clean it off, then reattached it.

  His voice came through the speakstone in her helmet a few seconds later. "I had to know. I've experienced some wonderful smells in my life, but I've never seen anything that could clear a camp. I couldn't live with myself without knowing how it felt."

  "You've got to be kidding." Verena sighed, tempted to slap him on the side of the head. She should have known.

  Instead, she took his arm and led him into the command tent to complete their mission. He wobbled, but managed to stay on his feet.

  Hamish looked around and muttered, "No Carbrey. Wish he'd gotten a whiff of that stuff."

  "You saw what it did to those men and women, and you exposed yourself to that on purpose?" Verena asked, still barely believing it.

  "Of course. We're researchers. It's what we do. Can you honestly say you're not the least bit interested in understanding how it works?"

  Verena explored the tent, a throwing dagger in one hand and a piece of marble in the other. She was tensed and ready to fight, but the tent was completely empty.

  She gave Hamish an incredulous look. "It was abundantly clear how it works. A stench that vicious is worse than a skunk family reunion. Why would I want to experience that for myself?"

  "You don't get it at all," Hamish said, then made a gagging sound and clutched at his face. He didn't throw up that time, but breathed fast and shallow for a moment. "It's more like a skunk family reunion, condensed a thousand times, then shoved directly into your brain. And even that's not bad enough. It's like the Tallan's own. . .I don't even know."

  "Which is why you should've kept your helmet on."

  Verena explored farther, passing the command table cluttered with blackened charts and maps. She stepping into the back room that held Carbrey's personal effects.

  "It was a life-altering experience," Hamish said in a tone of wonder.

  His voice still sounded unsteady, and he bumped into a few chairs as he followed her, but that wasn't exactly unusual for him.

  Under Carbrey's own bunk she found what she was looking for and dragged out a heavy, wooden strongbox, banded with iron.

  In his suit, Hamish easily ripped the lock off, and Verena had to admit he was a handy guy to have around when he wasn't puking on the floor. She eased open the lid and breathed a sigh of relief. Inside, nestled into padded individual slots, were eight beautifully sculpted stones, most smaller than her fist.

  "Whoa!" Hamish exclaimed.

  Verena reverently touched an exquisite pink marble carving, shaped like the head of a pedra. Its strange, overlapping outer jaws were gaping wide, with fire pouring out its inner jaws.

  She touched it with her Builder senses and gasped at the vast power contained in that tiny stone. It felt like the heart of a raging forest fire, condensed and magnified almost beyond comprehension. She didn't dare try releasing even a fraction of its power. That would incinerate her, Hamish, and everything within fifty yards.

  Hamish reached out to touch it, but Verena slapped his fingers away. "Don't. This thing is too dangerous. I wish I hadn't touched it."

  "Really?" He eagerly reached out again.

  She slapped his hand away again, harder. "Don't. Now's not the time."

  "We were looking for seven, but there's eight."

>   "Maybe one of the ones that had been loaned out to Ivor or Gregor was returned," Verena suggested. "Whatever the reason, it looks like they're all here. Let's go."

  Hamish hefted the crate and brought it with them. While he carried it to the Swift and placed it in the supply box in the back, Verena paused to gather up all the maps and documents she could. Many were singed, and some so badly burned they looked unreadable, but she stuffed them all together into a canvas sack she'd brought along for that purpose.

  Before she left, she applied a thin layer of special adhesive to the underside of the table, then pressed a thinly cut piece of quartzite to it. Wedged in the junction of two of the supports, it would be very hard to notice.

  She activated it. The stone was already paired with another she carried in her satchel, but not like a full speakstone. This was only a listening stone that would allow her to hear everything around the table without the risk of transmitting anything back the other way.

  Feeling very satisfied, she tucked the sack of papers into the supply box on top of the crate of sculpted stones. It was amazing to think that so much treasure, so much vital intelligence, and such an unrivaled threat to her country could fit in that single, small space.

  "No one'll wreck the continent today," Hamish said proudly.

  Then the ground shook and they shared a worried look. The fighting was about to begin. The two of them rocketed into the air, not slowing until they returned to the clouds that would shield their flight back to the Grandurian lines.

  That high up, they should be safe, but Verena didn't plan to take any chances. If Carbrey realized what they'd taken, he'd try everything to strike them down and retrieve those stones.

  She glanced down at the battlefield as they flew north. Both armies had reached the edges of the stripped, rocky ground, and the Obrioners were pushing north, up the road. Their Sentries were expanding the road so a hundred soldiers could advance abreast.

  The Grandurian army had stopped, although twin mountains of earth were growing on the flanks of the front lines. Verena couldn't tell where they were pulling all that earth from, but it was obvious they were preparing for a major strike.