Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier-ARC (pdf conv.) (34 page)

Glass,
Bookbinder thought.
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.

“Don’t miss,” Bookbinder groused.

“I’m terrible at missing, sir,” Anan said, and pulled the trigger.

A burst of three rounds arced blue over the distance, impacting in the distant flame columns that marked the agni danav’s approach. Some of the fires went out, wafting black smoke skyward.

Bookbinder could hear the throaty lows of agony even from this distance. Anan kept aiming but held his fire. After a moment, the agni danav dispersed, breaking to either side and vanishing into the distance.

Anan finally lowered his weapon and thumbed the magazine release, letting the drum drop to the ground.

He winced, pulling a hand back from the now-freezing gun.

“This can’t be good for the weapon, sir,” he said.

Bookbinder chuckled. “Fortunately, it’s not good for the agni danav either.”

Anan looked at him and smiled.

They pushed on.

Bookbinder ran. The whole world narrowed, coalescing into the bobbing of the horizon, the dryness in his throat, the steady crunching of his boots across Woon’s bridge. His vision wavered, drifting in darkness that might have been his eyelids fluttering in exhaustion, or the simple blackness of night. At last, he gave up on sight, relying only on the steady crunching of his boot soles and the labored rhythm of his breathing. He was grateful for the fatigue, the unending rhythm of forward movement.

It helped keep his mind off the fact that he had just lost his first man.

Crunch. Pant. Crunch. Pant. Crunch. Pant. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bookbinder stopped. The sound of his footfalls had changed.

His body screamed at him to lie down, to gulp water, to do anything but keep moving. He fended off the exhaustion and looked down. The ground was no longer an unbroken field of ash. He looked over his shoulder. Grass, albeit brown and mottled yellow, had begun to populate the ground in small clumps behind them, dawn slowly breaking beyond.

Bookbinder wracked his tired mind and realized he had no clue how long they’d been walking, how they’d come here.

Somewhere in the fog of their march, they’d left the vast burned landscape of the Agni Danav Raajaya and returned to a world where plants grew. He breathed deeply. The stench of brimstone was still thick, but nowhere near what it had been. He looked up and saw stars winking back at him, big and beautiful, largely unobscured by smoke.

The entire group stopped with him, swaying on their feet, asking no questions, simply grateful to bring an end to forward movement. Sharp alone looked lucid. Bookbinder turned to him “What do you think?”

Sharp looked behind them, then back at Bookbinder. “I’d say we’re clear, sir.”

Forty-eight hours. We’ve been running with almost no
breaks for forty-eight hours.

Bookbinder nodded. The next moment, he was sitting in the grass with his back propped against his pack, with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. When had he taken his helmet off?

He looked up at Vasuki-Kai, unable to read what passed for fatigue in one of his kind. “You’ve got . . . I mean you can sleep with your eyes open, right?”

For once, the naga did not ask Dhatri to translate. He merely bent down and patted Bookbinder’s shoulder, a few of his heads nodding agreement. Then he straightened, the heads spreading in the fan posture he always adopted when standing watch, looking in all directions simultaneously, eyes glowing in the dark.

Vasuki-Kai was so still that Bookbinder could have mistaken him for a statue of a naga rather than the real thing.