The Exalting Page 4

  Fire.

  That was the solution. Simple and terrible.

  Burn the forest.

  Even if a forest fire didn’t completely destroy the bodies, it would make the area unapproachable from the south for days. And when the fire had burned through, there would be no way to find any tracks or scent in the hundreds of acres of ashes.

  If she didn’t start the fire, the Vetas-kazen would certainly find the bodies. If not them, the rangers would and the kazen would learn of it. Either end would lead them to Norr. It was the only nearby city.

  Once Vetas-ka’s enchanters were inside Norr, they could sense the thoughts of anyone trying to hide the stone. They would kill her and take it. Countless generations in Shoul Falls would live under a tyrant ka, their wills bound to sustain his whim.

  The impression Sindar had left in her mind was one she could not shake, one she could barely face. Vetas-ka was a monster.

  Even at her most irrational, Dana would not risk that.

  She swallowed, resigning herself to the task, and turned uphill, forcing her tired legs back up the slope. When she had gone a few hundred yards upwind of the meadow she stopped. In a clearing, Dana checked her orientation with the polar constellation, the yellow star of Sol at its center.

  It could work.

  Dana shuddered at the cruelty of burning the forest, and her grandfather’s cabin along with it. He was old, though strong, and soon to be homeless for a reason Dana couldn’t even explain to herself.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Tears welling in her eyes, Dana knelt and drew a bit of char cloth from her trouser pocket, placing it in a nest of dry fallen pine needles. She took her flint and a small flat of hardened iron and prepared to strike the blaze that would burn all the evidence of what had happened.

  Dana desperately wanted to be free of the traces of the kazen’s blood on her clothing and, even more, to be rid of the darkness that had clung to her after Omren’s sudden and brutal death.

  Dana clenched her fingers together and tried to suppress the shaking. She closed her eyes to block it all out, but images of the fallen kazen adept and the dark pool of blood flashed in front of her eyes. That was the trouble with having a mind like hers. She never forgot a scene, a trail, a face, a name.

  The fire could not erase the evidence in her mind of what had truly happened.

  Dana had never wanted something so badly as to be saved from that man. She tried to recall the moment when she reached out to the owl. Without even noticing the connection to the horned atter owl, her fear and hatred had hunted him from the sky.

  The owl had merely acted on Dana’s will. She was responsible.

  I killed him.

  The guilt was crippling. And the thought of killing so many more animals just to protect herself made it even worse. Dana clenched the striker and swung her hand, knocking away the tinder.

  Fighting back tears, she climbed to her feet and ran.

  She couldn’t light the fire.

  The kazen would come. The rangers would find the bodies.

  I’m no longer safe in Norr. I’ll just gather my things . . . say goodbye to mother and father and Tyrus . . . say goodbye to my friends and leave.

  What have I done?

  Chapter 4

  Kneeling in the maintenance closet near the ion engines, Jet removed the retaining clip on the Tesserian power module’s backup battery.

  While his standard-issue battery would provide enough current to run the original tactical AI software on his helmet, it wouldn’t run Angel. A standard-issue battery would overheat and explode. He knew that from experience.

  For the mission to rescue the High Council from Avalon, Jet needed all the help he could get. Even if he couldn’t get the High Council, he wasn’t going leave any of his team behind—not if he could help it anyway.

  ASP knows we’re coming. We’re gonna get ambushed.

  He pulled the small cell and waited. Nothing happened.

  They won’t even know it’s gone.

  With the other thirty-nine marines already buckled in their folded wingjet frames in the launch bay, there was nobody to watch Jet borrow the power cell. Besides, the risk of a court-martial was worth the extra insurance of a high-powered AI.

  Jet replaced the high-capacity power cell with his standard-issue model and closed the panel. He quickly plugged the high-power unit into his tactical armor and stepped carefully past the entrance to the bridge to get to the launch bay.

  The gunnery sergeant at the weapons con gave a roar of anger.

  Jet turned, expecting to see the squat, muscle-bound Wodynian headed for him and swinging his fat fist. But Wessca was still at his station.

  “That’s a thermal bloom on the surface!” Wessca called out. He was the only Wodynian on the bridge crew.

  “And I just got a massive radiation spike.” Gauss, the ship’s AI, spoke from an overhead speaker on the bridge. “That’s a confirmed nuclear strike.”

  Jet’s heart suddenly tried to claw its way out of his chest. This wasn’t just a targeted ground bombardment of a Believer enclave. Not if they were using nukes.

  How many people would ASP kill to convince Avalon to turn over the Believers?

  “I have three more confirmed detonations,” Wessca roared. “This is a full-scale orbital strike on Avalon. ASP is destroying the planet!”

  “Abort.” Captain Austin’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Too late,” Gauss said. “We’re already committed to a landing trajectory.”

  “ASP is nuking the entire planet!” Wessca stared in disbelief. “Impossible.”

  Jet had fully expected ASP to attack Believer ships and communities. But against allies like the Avalonians who were merely sympathetic, Jet had expected a show of force, some high-profile executions, perhaps a military coup.

  Why wouldn’t they just use a war with the Believers as an excuse to take over the planet’s government and key industries? Why destroy it?

  It was brutality on a scale no world had ever seen.

  Wessca’s voice burned with rage. “An entire planet. They’re killing everyone!”

  The roar of the solid-fuel retro rockets rumbled through the ship. Jet’s tactical armor’s electrostatically-locking joints kept him from slamming headlong into a panel of critical control circuits. But he still felt like he had a Rodorian giant on his back—and he actually knew what that felt like.

  “Gauss, are you insane?” the captain snapped. “That planet is in the middle of a full-scale orbital nuclear strike!”

  “We can’t just skip off the atmosphere,” Gauss said. “That would put us right in the middle of the ASP fleet.”

  “So, we take our chances on the surface,” Captain Austin muttered. “Why am I not comforted?”

  “Shall I pray?” Gauss volunteered. “My spare cores can offer the equivalent of several thousand human prayers simultaneously.”

  “Yes,” Captain Austin said. “I think you’d better do that.”

  Even the ship’s AI was praying.

  I was right about this mission.

  Jet was glad the marines locked in their wingjet frames in the launch bay couldn’t hear what the officers on the bridge were saying.

  I wish I couldn’t.

  But he still had a job to do.

  As Jet clambered awkwardly toward the launch bay, he turned on his tactical helmet and cued up his tactical AI: Angel.

  Jet had found her on the Believer AI exchange and used a fleet accountant’s access codes to authorize the purchase.

  Angel simultaneously ran defense surveillance and coordinated firing. The AI was nothing less than a tactical genius.

  “Jet,” Angel toned softly in his ear. “Did you notice your daily radiation exposure level is three times above allowance? Have you been near the ion drives?”

  “Um . . .”

  His earpiece buzzed, saving him from a highly incriminating conversation. “Corporal, are you coming on this mission or not?” It was
Monique.

  “Affirmative. Just had to grab something.” Jet clambered around the corner to the drop bay, where thirty-nine other marines were strapped into folded wingjet frames and packed like bats on a cave roof.

  Jet maneuvered to the only empty frame on the front row and began strapping in.

  The other marines on the row were the rest of the Epsilon squad. Monique reached over and toggled the power switch on his frame.

  “Thanks.”

  “About time you showed up.” Monique was smart enough to know that he had been up to something, but polite enough to keep quiet about it.

  Even so, he still decided against telling her about the ASP attack on the planet. He needed his squad focused.

  “Epsilon squad, this is an extraction mission. I doubt ASP knows where this bunker is, but keep your heads on a swivel. I don’t want any surprises. There’s always the chance of an ambush.”

  “Ambush—you literally had to say it!” Monique said. He couldn’t see her, but a distractingly attractive image of her face flashed in the corner of his heads-up display when she spoke.

  Jet checked his microjet fuel level. Full. Good. “You guys are so superstitious.”

  “Yeah? Then how come every time you mention an ambush, we end up in one?” Dormit said. “Explain that, partner.” The Wodynian spoke with an off-beat cowboy accent.

  “Dormit, haven’t I told you to lay off the Westerns?”

  “Must-a slipped my mind, amigo.”

  “The air is high in CO2, but breathable,” Yaris reminded. He was the team’s only gangly Caprian. “I highly advise you leave your mask on so your filters are running. Once you get a whiff of this place, you can’t trust your thoughts. You’ll walk right toward a man-eating fern or jump into a pool of carnivorous lily pads.”

  “Alpha squad is going to retrieve the High Councillors,” Jet added. “Beta squad is backup. Delta and Gamma are setting up a perimeter for the dropship. We are point. That means we take down anything that moves or blinks funny.”

  “During the ambush,” Monique added.

  “That’s why we’re going out first,” Yaris said. “Epsilon is the newest and most expendable of the five squads on this dropship.”

  “Do you always have to pick the most depressing thing to say?” Monique snapped.

  “Guys,” Jet said. “This isn’t about saving ourselves. This is our chance to rescue eight High Councillors trapped on that planet.” Without the seers, the Believers would be as blind as ASP to the future.

  Creator help the rest of the planet.

  The rumble of atmospheric deceleration waned.

  “Approaching drop altitude.” Wessca’s gruff voice announced over the tactical net. “May the ax of the Creator clear your path.”

  Angel displayed an overlay image of the terrain below on Jet’s targeting reticle.

  “Epsilon, you are go.”

  The doors of the dropship snapped open. Brilliant blue light flooded Jet’s eyes. The force of the dropship’s launcher hurled him like a rock from a sling, and barely three seconds later his wingjet had deployed and the mini-jets were whining like flaming twin toddlers to slow his dangerous descent.

  Seeing the flight icons of his squad mates blinking in his display, Jet called, “Epsilon, engage afterburn!”

  The blue-green waters of Avalon below beckoned as the jets kicked into high gear. His flight leveled, and the team approached the coast at minimal altitude. He wasn’t even experiencing the pheromones yet, but he could hardly resist the urge to take a plunge in the turquoise pools that formed along the tropical beach. A moment later he was soaring over the jungle.

  Angel highlighted more than thirty potential threats hidden below the canopy. A flock of birds erupted from the forest below. Jet hastily blinked authorization as Angel targeted six birds simultaneously, opting for high-explosive rounds in the hopes of clearing the debris.

  “Pull up!” Jet cried as his jet turbines sucked in the remains of several rainbow-feathered and leather-winged Avalonian bat chickens. The tiny turbojets mounted over his shoulders exploded in clouds of black smoke.

  Waste of good meat.

  The rest of the bat chicken horde was already pecking at his tactical suit.

  One managed to hit the wingjet frame emergency release, and another found the button on his wrist to open his visor.

  Oh, come on!

  Jet sucked in a breath and held it as he tore through the upper branches of the forest like a wrecking ball.

  Chapter 5

  Under the cover of the forest, Dana traced a route far from the steam-wagon road and its regularly spaced poles holding the messaging lines.

  But no amount of distance put her at ease.

  Omren was dead. Sindar was dead. She could only hope her grandfather had fled.

  But the bloodstone was still in the pouch tied at her waist, within reach. The power of the ka was so close.

  Don’t touch it.

  Dana scampered over a boulder and headed for a ridge to her right. Once over that ridge, she could follow Coward’s Creek Canyon straight to Norr.

  Where she was headed, bloodstones were forbidden, under penalty of death. She could only hope none of the rangers or civic guards found out what she had.

  Traversing the ridge, Dana dropped into Coward’s Creek Canyon and followed the trickling stream, not daring to taste its tantalizing water.

  Norr’s greatest killers were invisible, except under an inverted spyglass. The water-dwelling microbes were deadly.

  Sayathi.

  Exhausted and thirsty, her steps grew heavy as she thought of what lay ahead. Only one thing was certain.

  I have to find Forz.

  He was the only person she could trust with something like this. He was her only friend who understood what it was like to be different.

  Gifted.

  Cursed.

  Dana collapsed in a crouch against the dimly glowing white trunk of a phosphor tree. Wind from the southwest made a rushing sound each time it gusted through the round, quaking leaves of the white-bark trees.

  The only thing she could do was return the stone to Shoul Falls.

  Then what—go back to a town that doesn’t want me?

  Only a few days’ journey to the south were tens of thousands of inhabitants of Shoul Falls. Did they know the bloodstone was missing? Did they know Vetas-ka was after it?

  They certainly didn’t know she had it. And what if they did know? Would they kill her for taking it, or merely demand it back?

  What would they do if she used the stone without their permission? A ka’s power was sacred in its city. There could be no higher crime.

  Don’t touch it.

  Dana set her jaw, teeth clenched, and pushed thoughts of the bloodstone back to where dreams fed on neglected ambition.

  By morning she would be back at Norr. She had to decide what she was going to do about the bloodstone, and quickly.

  * * *

  Dana jerked awake. Heart thudding, she squinted into the morning sunlight cutting through the leaves. She pushed herself up and leaned her back against the tree.

  In the daylight, she recognized the spot. Smoke rose from a dozen workshops behind the tall city wall.

  I’m a five-minute walk from Norr.

  She was a fool to even consider going into the city. If they found the bloodstone on her, who knew what they would do—execute her for heresy?

  But she had no change of clothes, no food, no pack, no disguises, and no travel map.

  I have no choice.

  Dana folded her arms around her waist, trying to quell the gnawing worry in her stomach. Worst of all, the one person outside the city who could have helped her—her grandfather—was fleeing for his life.

  Why did I take it?

  There was a simple option. She could just throw it into the river. But that would leave her completely defenseless when the Vetas-kazen found her. If they didn’t recognize her, they could still hear her thoughts. If a kaz
en warlock could stop her at a distance, if she could easily feel animals’ pain across a stretch of forest, then powerful enchanters could likely sense thoughts from just as far.

  How long could she go without thinking about the stone while trying to keep it hidden?

  Impossible.

  There were no good options.

  Unless she became a ka. Then she could defend herself. She could defend Shoul Falls. They didn’t have a ka. That was probably why Vetas-ka was after the stone—an easy prize.

  It solved all the problems. But stealing their stone for herself was no different than what Vetas-ka was trying to do.

  I’m not like him.

  I’m not.

  She had to return it.

  Steps sounded through the underbrush.

  Dana’s heart pounded as she searched routes to escape. Please don’t be another kazen.

  “Dana, there you are.” Forz pushed through a thicket. A clever smile stretched across his pointed jaw.

  “Hi, Forz.” She hoped she didn’t look as terrible as she felt.

  Forz’s inferior sifa flared in friendship. He brushed his wavy, ash blond hair out of his eyes and looked down at her with his curious, pale blue eyes. Instead of his usual workshop smock and gloves, he wore bandeerskin trousers for hiking in brush and a gray wool shirt. “It’s not the first time I’ve said it, but I’m glad to see you’re still alive.”

  The canteen slung over his shoulder drew the interest of her parched mouth.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “At my grandfather’s.”

  Forz crouched down beside her and offered his canteen. “Didn’t you take water with you?”

  “I did.” Dana said hastily. “But it’s gone.” She had left her tin canteen beside the tree with the hanging trap.

  Dana forced a smile and drank greedily from Forz’s canteen before finding his eyes again.

  Forz had always been close. But there was more than just friendship, Dana was almost certain of it. Longer gazes. Longer pauses.

  Was it her black hair that so intrigued him? There were a least a few other girls in Norr with hints of darker Torsican heritage. But most boasted the pale features of pure North Aesican bloodlines.