Chương 43: Well and Truly Alone

Loot distributed, Besson volunteered for the first watch. Probably the guy was already done with being forced into tight confines with other people. Cole doubted he'd come back to the bivouac even when his turn at watch was over—which was confirmed when Nutmeg's wet nose roused Cole for his watch a couple hours later, just in time for his check-in. He relieved himself in the woods and then did a quick recon of the local area.

He didn't see any indication of human or monster life within a half-klick in any direction, but there was a decent tree with wide, flat branches. Cole burned his ability and leapt up to the top before turning on his multiband radio.

"Moriarty, team two, radio check." He waited for a response before trying again.

"Moriarty, this is team two. Are you receiving?" Absolutely nothing. He settled back into the branches of the tree. His ability still highlighted the small patch of blue a few hundred meters west of his location where the rest of the team rested in the bivouac. The only splotches of red were at least a kilometer in the opposite direction, and headed parallel to the mountains, not towards him or his team.

He lifted his rifle and couched his elbow on his knee for balance so that he could look through the scope, scanning the trees in that direction for a glimpse of whatever his enemy tracking had picked up. In Georgia, no matter how deep in the boonies you got, you didn't go more than a couple hours without hearing a car engine, truck horn, or a souped-up sound system. Hell, even in Syria, the FOBs were always loud with diesel generators running and off-watch soldiers shooting the shit.

Out here, completely isolated from all radio traffic and on another world where cars likely didn't even exist? This was well and truly isolated. He turned his scope north. Still hidden behind a line of hills, the thick, acrid smoke lofting up from the front looked like a constant forest fire. He shivered. One particularly dry summer, he and his grandad had almost been caught in a fire that swept through the Blue Ridge Mountains while they were camping.

It had been a ten-mile hike to safety, leaving everything behind on the ridge. The view behind them had looked a lot like the Vaelian front. He'd been ten at the time and ended up carried the second half of the frantic escape. His grandfather was a Vietnam War vet, ranger regiment, and the old bastard was tough as nails, even now. He wondered what the man would say about what he was doing. Same shit, different day, probably.

Hell, his great- grandfather had been in the Triple Nickels—the 555 th parachute infantry, joining at the end of WWII and later jumping into Korea. With his late father having been in the 101 st Airborne, Cole was a fourth-generation paratrooper. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, and now? Curahee. Vael. Hell, was it any wonder his attuned ability had ended up being a miniature parachute drop? Five-point landings were in his blood.

He scanned around, seeing a stubby bit of overgrown grey stone poking up out of the canopy far to the north. With a sneaking suspicion that was their watchtower, he couldn't make out from this distance if there was a yellow cloth hanging from the battlements. Despite it being day, the scar of land between the demons and humans was caught in near-perpetual chemical twilight. Hearing several distant claps too stunted to be thunder, he pivoted his aim.

Bright flashes above the horizon illuminated the underside of the cloud deck, and white fog started to disperse high in the air—on their side of the hills. He stiffened, checking the wind, before scrambling out of the tree and running for the bivouac. He pounded his way up, barely remembering to whistle their call and response ditty before tumbling over the fallen log into the depression. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Gas gas gas!" he said, rousing the rest of the group. The rest of the group looked at him in confusion for a moment, but quickly launched into action, pulling on their masks and slotting filters. Besson had a canine mask which he had Nutmeg shrink so that her face could fit in it. She shook her head, not fond of the device. Her growls had a muffled, comical sound through the mask.

Cole got his own mask fitted, then pulled out a set of chem-test papers and tore open the covering, sticking one to the front of his plate carrier. It didn't change color immediately, which was a good sign, but there was also a chance otherworld toxins wouldn't trigger the reactive strips. Or that their gas mask filters would scrub it, for that matter.

Shaking his head to clear that particular nightmare scenario from his head, he pulled his carrier back on and scooped up his assault pack—minus the loot they'd declared too worthless to even break down with Tinker. If the gas was heavier than air, it would settle into low-altitude valleys and depressions like their little bivouac. They couldn't stay there. Their best bet was to get to higher ground and hug the hills.

As Roxie and Howie folded up the camo netting, Cole kicked dirt and leaves over the spots they'd cleared and kicked the discarded loot under the brush, leaving no immediate, obvious evidence that any of them had been in the hollow. Then, they headed northwest. With a look at the watchtower from his tree, Cole at least had a good idea of their general heading, and the tower itself was elevated. It was maybe fifteen kilometers away.

Cole hadn't intended to move during the day, but he had to imagine most everyone on this side of the hills would either be buttoning up or fleeing to avoid whatever the gas attack was. They saw two more of the massive spells as they hiked several miles up into the foothills.

"Howie, that's a spell of some sort, right? Gotta be mages making that gas for their field guns. Can you do that?"

"Yes and no," said Howie.

"My spells are elemental, but in like the conceptual air, water, ice, lightning kind of elemental. Theirs must be, like, periodic table elemental. Able to make or assemble gas molecules and the like. If they can bind together just a few different atoms, they can make some pretty nasty compounds—chlorine, ammonia, mustard gas."

"Maybe they're building real gas bombs and just launching them with magic," said Roxy. Howie nodded.

"Yeah, that would work, too."

"Contact right," said Besson, "Base of the ridge, two-hundred meters." Cole spun, angling his weapon down. Below them, dozens of what looked like unarmed peasants were making their way up the ridge. To the north and south, he spotted others, non-combatants looking to get out of the lowlands where heavy gas might collect. Some of them looked up at Cole and the others, but the Vaelians simply gave them a wide berth. Once the locals had gained a little elevation, they started heading south, away from the blasts.

Cole and his team seemed to be the only ones going toward it. Vaelians pushed past them, intent only on their own safety, completely unconcerned with the strangers in their midst. At some point during the walk, one of the strips on his chem paper turned pink. He pulled it off and checked the legend. Elevated sulfur-dioxide levels. Well, that was better than mustard gas or nerve agent. The solution was what they were already doing: moving to higher ground, as the toxic miasma was heavier than air, it would sink.

Best case, it would cause respiratory irritation. Worst case, it would displace the oxygen in valleys and low-lying areas, causing death by asphyxiation. And in fact, that looked to be exactly what had happened, as they came across bodies at the base of the ridge that hadn't made it to safety. A yellowish fog hung in the valley, promising a similar fate to anyone that descended to the valley to help them. Leading them up a ridge-line, Cole got a glimpse of the old abandoned watchtower again.

He peered through his scope and could see a little piece of yellow fluttering in the wind.

"Looks like we're in play," he said. He cleared his throat." Guall," he said. Moriarty had said to do it within a klick, but to be safe, Cole repeated it once more at 500 meters, and then again before they breached the 100 meter mark. Then, he stepped within hand-cannon range.