Affinity for War

by Frank Morin

  Venting all of his rage into a single massive strike, Connor plunged dozens of spikes of fire deep into the ground. The earth around each hole charred as the blue-white fire perforated Gregor's shield.

  Connor slammed a fist into the rippling ground and unleashed the water he'd taken a moment ago, whipping it down the underground conduit Gregor had formed.

  He found Carbrey twenty feet away.

  One spike of fire had punched through Gregor's wall scant inches from Carbrey's head.

  Gregor responded with remarkable speed, trying to wrap Carbrey in a protective blanket of earth. In three seconds, he could have broken Connor's attack.

  That was two seconds too long.

  Connor threw every ounce of water at Carbrey, hardening it into a thick spear of ice. It ripped through the general, and his entire body convulsed. He probably tried to scream, but Connor didn't give him time.

  A porphyry-like rage swept through him, coloring his vision red, and Connor roared with battle fury. He drove a blistering inferno up the track the ice had just used. Riding the wave of fire-induced berserker fury, Connor threw his hands wide and howled, pouring every bit of fire power into the breach.

  Carbrey disintegrated.

  His leather armor melted under the fervent heat as Connor tore the life out of him, then cremated him on the spot.

  Gregor sealed off the ground a second later, blocking Connor's connection, and he let the Sentry drag Carbrey's remains away.

  He remained crouched, one hand pressed against the earth as super-heated fire circled him like a tempest. He hoped Gregor attacked him because he would eagerly do battle with even the mighty Sentry in that moment.

  "Connor!" Hamish circled nearby, one hand raised to shield his face from the heat.

  His fury was like a living thing, and for a second he saw Hamish only as a new potential outlet for his rage. He felt a terrifying urge to boil Hamish right out of the sky. The thought shocked him so much it snapped him back to reason.

  He shuttered the fire and his surroundings seemed to rush back in. He stood in a scorched ring of earth, the air heavy with smoke. The scent was a mixture of the rotten-egg stench of sulfur and the harsh smell of charred earth. The air was stiflingly hot, and felt thin, as if he'd burned most of it away.

  Connor felt a bit light-headed and staggered when he tried to walk.

  Hamish landed beside him and offered a hand of support, his expression worried. "What happened?"

  "Carbrey is dead." Connor's voice was harsh and cold. He pointed into the ground.

  "Good," Hamish said, scowling at the area. "Serves him right."

  Connor nodded, but saying the words somehow made what he'd just done more real, and a new emotion chilled him.

  He'd just killed a man.

  Carbrey deserved it, more than almost anyone Connor knew, but the abrupt, violent fight left him shaken. He was no stranger to death, but this was different.

  He took a deep breath and thought about Martys and his mother. His uncle would laugh and congratulate him. Part of him wished he could savor the victory with as much relish, but what would that make him?

  Would his mother accept that he'd needed to kill Carbrey, or would she feel ashamed of him?

  He whispered, "He can't hurt you any more."

  "What was that?" Hamish asked.

  "Nothing. It is done."

  He glanced around. Carbrey's death was so momentous for him. It felt wrong that no one else seemed to have noticed yet. The tertiary Petralists were still fighting Kilian in a spectacular display of elemental savagery. Other soldiers had circled the fighting and were again moving toward the road, about fifty yards to his right.

  That one path across the dangerous middle ground was the critical link, and the Grandurian army was pressing south along it as well. Controlling the road would be critical.

  Connor wanted to go find Verena and just breathe in the scent of her while they held each other, but the battle was far from over. "I'm going to slow them down and give the Grandurians time to break into this side."

  "Then I'd better go get some bigger bombs. Be right back." Hamish took off with a rush of thrusters.

  Connor again tapped marble and focused on the searing heat radiating off of the mass of stalled lava. The Flameweavers and Firetongues were fighting over the fire, but not the heat. They weren't ascended, so couldn't manipulate it well.

  Seizing some of that heat, he cast it out over the roadway, forming a shimmering wall to block the advancing Obrioner soldiers. There was so much heat that he extended the wall, pressing it south into an enormous half-circle, three hundred yards long. It completely blocked the Obrioner advance.

  The blistering heat reddened exposed skin and appeared as a shimmering, translucent wall. Connor allowed himself a satisfied smile. Maybe they could break the fighting before too many more people had to get hurt.

  Then Aifric placed her dagger against his throat and spoke with the same icy tone she'd used the day she'd tried to kill him at the Carraig.

  "I helped you save your family, Connor, but I have new orders now."

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  "Names are cloaks sometimes chosen for warmth and sometimes for concealment."

  ~Evander

  Connor tensed at the feel of the cold steel of Student Eighteen's dagger touching his throat. She could slash his life away in the blink of an eye.

  "Aifric, you swore an oath to me," he said softly and dared turn very slowly to face her.

  Her eyes were cold, her face hard. He had thought they'd moved beyond that almost-murder awkwardness stage of their relationship.

  If he tapped granite to try to harden his skin, she'd notice and slash through it before it offered nearly enough protection. He could knock her aside with earth or fire, but would that catch her by surprise, or would her blade snick that one inch deeper?

  Besides, Aifric was his friend. At least she had been until two seconds ago.

  "I have new orders," Aifric said again in that same cold tone.

  "So Sir was lying when he said he wanted to help?"

  "He does not lie."

  "Well if this is what he thinks the word help means, will you tell him that I prefer he help Dougal?"

  "Sir has new orders too. Mister Five arrived yesterday."

  Connor frowned. "Can I be honest with you? Mhortair names are ridiculous."

  Aifric's mouth twitched, but he couldn't tell if she'd almost smiled, or if that was just a sign that she was about to kill him.

  "Mister Five is a member of the ruling council of Jagdish, a senior kill instructor, and his word is law."

  "But you've broken laws before," Connor pointed out. Just being an Assassin had to break a ton of laws he didn't even know about.

  "Not his."

  "Why didn't you warn us about him then?"

  "I didn't know he was coming." He dared to hope he caught a glimpse of doubt in her resolve. "He allowed us to complete the mission to deliver the pedra's spittle so he could witness its effectiveness, but issued new orders after that."

  Connor hadn't really trusted Sir, but he decided Mister Five ranked on his need-to-kill list right after Dougal.

  He still dared to trust Aifric, though. Was she about to prove that his trust was fatally misguided? That would be a rotten thing for a friend to do.

  "Aifric--" he started, using the name that he trusted most. It also happened to be the least lethal of all the personalities he'd met so far.

  "Don't make this any harder for me than it is already, Connor," Aifric warned.

  "Um, do you really think it's my duty as a friend to make your experience of double-crossing and murdering me as easy on your conscience as possible?"

  "Stop talking," Aifric growled, her brow furrowing.

  She hadn't killed him yet, so he reminded her again, "You swore an oath. I'm one of those old-fashioned sort of guys who actually believes an oath means something."

  She glared, and he prepared to seize that shimmeri
ng wall of heat still holding the Obrioner army back. She might kill him, but he'd take her with him. In the few seconds it would take him to bleed out, he'd melt her into the ground. He didn't want to. It was actually a really gross mental image. But he would.

  "I know my duty," Aifric snapped, but she still looked like she was struggling to decide what to do. Usually he liked decisive women, but in the moment he was glad she hesitated.

  "You will bleed out in three seconds when the carotid artery is cut." She spoke with clinical coolness, and in that moment her doubt faded and her eyes cleared.

  With a graceful movement, Aifric lifted the blade away from his throat, twisted it, and pressed the flat of the steel back again. He felt the beating of his blood against the pressure. If she had used the edge, he'd already be dead.

  He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but her glare turned fierce. "Will you just shut up for a minute, Connor? Let me work through this."

  "Take your time," he told her as calmly as he could, even though time was one thing they were about to run out of. Then again, if she slashed his throat, he'd run out of blood a lot faster.

  The leading edges of the Grandurian army were nearing the Obrioner end of the middle ground. The Obrioners were desperate to get through his wall of heat. Firetongues were trying to pull against it, although he could hold them off for a time.

  The real threat was from a couple of Sentries who had pulled away from the invisible wrestling match over the lava and raised a tunnel of earth, wide enough for fifty men to march through. They were extending it toward the heat wall to form a safe passage through.

  If not for Aifric's dagger distracting him, he could redirect the heat to drive the soldiers back, or shove the heat into the tunnel and turn it into a giant oven.

  Aifric pulled the blade away from his neck, and he sighed with relief. He'd known trusting her was the right choice. When he opened his mouth to thank her, she held up a hand. "I said be quiet, Connor."

  He should back away, should tap granite and punch her over the middle ground, but that look of doubt and almost fear in her eyes made him wait. This was important to her, maybe as important as living was to him. He'd give her a few more seconds to figure it out.

  Aifric moved the blade down to his bicep and placed the edge against his arm. "Eight seconds to bleed out when the brachial artery is cut."

  Again she twisted the blade and pressed the flat against the critical point. Then she shifted the blade to his thigh. "Twenty seconds to bleed out from the femoral artery."

  Teaching time with Aifric was kind of unnerving, but Connor held his tongue.

  Once more she twisted the blade, pressing the flat against his leg. Then she reversed the blade and gently placed the pommel against his right eye before drawing the dagger back and saluting with it.

  She sighed and gave him an exhausted smile, as if she'd just run all the way from Harz. She wiped her brow and blew out a breath. "Well, Connor, I've touched steel to flesh in every major kill location, but you're still alive. I don't see what else I could have done to obey orders. I guess it's just not that easy to kill the Blood of the Tallan."

  Connor gave her a hug, which she enthusiastically returned. She trembled against him, and when he released her, he noticed her hand shaking as she returned her dagger to its concealed sheath.

  Girls could be so complicated sometimes, and Aifric was in a league of her own.

  "Thank you for making the right choice."

  "Thank me later," Aifric said, her expression turning serious again.

  "I know, we're sort of standing right in the middle of the battle zone," Connor said.

  "Forget the battle. We have to save Verena from Mister Five!"

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  "The fledgling wanders often from the safety of the nest, but cannot learn to fly without leaping from the tall branches."

  ~Evander

  "Your kill instructor is targeting Verena?" The thought terrified Connor.

  Aifric nodded. "She is considered one of the most dangerous people to the stability of the current world order."

  "Don't worry. She's safe."

  Verena was flying concealed up in the clouds. Not even a secret Mhortair assassin could reach her there.

  Just then, the Obrioner Sentries plowed through his heat wall with their protected earthen corridor. Obrioner Boulders rushed through. They charged up the road toward the Grandurian Rumblers, who had almost reached the southern end of the middle ground. The two groups would clash barely fifty yards to Connor's right.

  At the same time, Spitters flung sheets of water into the air against his heat wall, trying to weaken its intensity. Connor snatched the heat away to preserve it, and the shimmering wall collapsed. The Obrioners cheered and charged en masse toward the advancing Grandurians.

  He wasn't finished.

  With that much heat, he could strike down those soldiers like he had Carbrey, or suffocate them with superheated air. But Aifric had just made a hard choice, and she'd chosen loyalty and friendship when she could have chosen murder. For a second he hesitated, not sure what to do.

  The hot, sulfur-laden air was making him feel queasy. The clanking of armor and weapons from thousands of soldiers created a constant din. The noise was punctuated by shouting officers, their voices enhanced by Pathfinders, urging the men to kill all Grandurians.

  The thought sickened him. He didn't want to see hundreds or thousands more slain. He didn't want their blood on his hands.

  They weren't giving him much choice.

  Connor struck the advancing Obrioner lines with the vast pool of heat. He swept it across their lines, but targeted the metal of their helmets, armor, and weapons instead of their vulnerable skin and faces. Within seconds, the metal heated to painful levels.

  The charge slowed as soldiers cringed and cried out as the hot metal singed them through their padded undergarments. Some dropped weapons or yanked helmets off their heads, and they all panted in the searingly hot air. The delay gave the Grandurians time to reach the middle ground and begin establishing fortified lines.

  Spitters reacted quickly, casting a cooling mist over the Obrioner soldiers. Connor switched to soapstone and fought them for control. The Spitters didn't work together as a solid unit, but each concentrated over separate sections. Thankfully they hadn't yet taken Kilian's advice to heart. Connor was stronger than any one of them, and he wrested away individual sections of the mist.

  Snatching that water, Connor condensed it into fist-sized balls that he used to trip soldiers or knock weapons out of their hands. Then he drained away the heat from the water, forming snowballs, which he shoved down the fronts of their armored trousers.

  The charge faltered as soldiers staggered, many starting to hop and dance about, trying to shake out the snow. Even with that distraction, he still wasn't doing enough to stop the advance.

  He needed more affinities.

  Verena's voice came over his mini-hub. "Connor, I'm right behind you. Get on and we'll have a better vantage to fight from up here."

  "Oh, no," Aifric gasped.

  Verena swooped in over the still-glowing middle ground, the Swift bucking in the hot, unstable air.

  "She has to get away!" Aifric lunged for Connor's mini-hub, but screamed and pitched sideways, clutching at her side.

  A charred hole had appeared in her white Healer's robe, and blood was already beginning to spread in a crimson stain.

  Connor helped settle her to the ground. She screamed again as he pried her trembling hands away from the wound and ripped the cloth back enough to see. Something had pierced her side, but he could not see the weapon. Maybe it was a projectile, something cast from a sling?

  The wound was barely half an inch long, and the skin around the edges looked charred. As blood oozed out, it steamed, as if on the verge of boiling.

  The sight sickened him, and Connor reached into the wound with soapstone senses to quench whatever fiery dart had stabbed her. He was startled to se
nse water in the wound, not fire.

  The weapon that had struck Aifric was a small dart made of ice, but ice that somehow burned with unbelievable heat. As soon as he touched it, the ice transformed into water, and liquid geysered from the wound.

  Aifric screamed again, writhing on the ground, but she grabbed his hand with desperate strength. Sweat beaded her skin, and her eyes were wide with agony, but she gasped, "It's Mister Five. He's here! Get Verena away!"

  Then she sagged back, again clutching the wound with one hand. With her other she pulled a piece of sandstone from a pocket of her robe. Immediately the lines of pain marring her features eased as she applied her healing gift.

  Connor rose and looked around for Mister Five. He'd struck down Aifric in a way Connor still didn't understand, but if he didn't find the Assassin quickly, Verena would be next.

  "What happened?" Verena spoke again through the mini-hub. She was barely thirty feet away, slowing the Swift as she came in for a landing.

  Connor ran toward her, waving mightily and shouted, "Go! You have to get away."

  Verena looked surprised and confused. "I'm sorry I got mad at you earlier, Connor, but I can help."

  "You don't understand." She was barely six feet off the ground, the thruster blast washing over him as he ran toward her. "You're in danger."

  The little craft dropped suddenly in the turbulent air, nearly falling all the way to the ground, and Verena screamed. For a second he thought she was just worried about crashing, but then she clutched at her shoulder where a red stain had just blossomed.

  Mister Five.

  Connor wanted to jump to the Swift and help her deal with that wound. He could only imagine the searing agony of that strange burning ice, but if he delayed, the next dart might kill her.

  He spun, and spotted Mister Five.

  Most of the Obrioners were charging up the road toward the Grandurians spreading onto the solid ground, about fifty yards to Connor's right. One man had broken free of the others and was walking straight toward Connor. He was slender and rather short, dressed in Strider running leathers. He had no visible weapon.

  His hands were raised though, and even as Connor locked gazes with him across the distance, Mister Five threw his hands out toward Connor. A flash of light erupted from him, shooting across the distance with unbelievable speed.